One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began.
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Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Quote for a Tuesday!
And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. --Abraham Lincoln
Monday, June 29, 2009
Quote!
Your soul doesn't care what you do for a living - and when your life is over, neither will you. Your soul cares only about what you are being while you are doing whatever you are doing.
Neale Donald Walsch
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Quote
Speak when you're angry, and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret.
- Lawrence J. Peter
- Lawrence J. Peter
Thursday, June 18, 2009
March 21-29, Santa Cruz to San Francisco
We spent a night up in the redwoods above Santa Cruz, so we could spend some time getting to know Jenna's old college haunt. She always raved about the beauty of Santa Cruz! And it's true. My goodness, the campus of UC Santa Cruz is like a walking through a dreamy forest. I would never have made it to class. I would have been found gaping for hours up at the redwoods. And then the ocean! In one day we stumbled across a surfing competition, folks playing volleyball on the beach, picnickers, kayakers and hikers. A gem of a town.
Seals, as seen from the Santa Cruz Pier.
View across the Santa Cruz shoreline.
San Francisco! The Golden Gate! She has beckoned to us from the very beginning, as if she knew she was calling us home.
We found a ridiculously affordable city park perched east of Oakland and Castro Valley. It was down a long and squirrely road, and if we could have turned around we may have. But it was so worth it! We ended up living here for 2 weeks as we explored the Bay Area.
View, a short hike from our camp site. And imagine, we're actually 6 miles from Castro Valley, where we can easily visit Jenna and her family. This is one of the first things I loved about the Bay, how much nature remains as the fabric of the city.
First things first! We unhitched and drove over to see the Pacific School of Religion. At this point in our journey, Deb had been researching seminaries across the nation, and PSR had always remained a front runner. She wanted the opportunity to see the campus and meet the people there before applying for Fall '10. It turned out that PSR was hosting a weekend shindig for prospective and accepted students while we were in town. I grudgingly agreed to go, imagining myself as a shy and awkward third wheel, pushed into an unwilling group of other shy and awkward significant others who had absolutely nothing in common except for the fact that we weren't the ones actually planning on going to school at PSR. I'm not sure when the turning point happened. Maybe when the Admissions Director raved about the PSR Quidditch team and let us know that anyone could join. Maybe when I found out that I could take a free class every semester. Maybe it was when I got over the shock of how effortlessly safe and accepted I felt in that company. But pretty soon I found a family that I longed to join, and the Admissions Director had Deb feeling the same way. Deb gunned it, wrote all her essays, got in all her letters of recommendation, applied for financial aid, and just shy of a month ago she heard that she was accepted to begin grad school at PSR THIS FALL. That's what I mean when I say that San Francsico seemed to know she was calling us home. We're moving to Berkeley in August. Doesn't that just seem right? Deb gets PSR. I get the town famed for its local food movement. We both get instant community with Jenna, Kelly, Dalynn & Dan. The more I think about it, the more I realize how right this is for us. There are hundreds of reasons.
But we miss our Richmonders. We'll find subtle and not-so-subtle ways to convince you to move to the Bay. :)
Berkeley. We assumed that we would live in the Airstream, but as it turns out, every single trailer park is miles and miles away from campus and more expensive than school housing. So with great sadness we will be putting our beloved Airstream up for sale. Every day I try to commit the experience of living in it to my memory. I don't know where it will go from here, and as a sentimentalist, a part of me will go with it. It symbolizes this journey, this incredible, important journey. Someday, I'll evoke the memory by finding an old antique of an Airstream, perch it in my garden, and convert it into a craft shed.
Idgie, as seen through the Airstream's screen door.
She always takes her bone on her walk. Then, odd bird, she drops it along the way and completely forgets about it.
We had a ball visiting Dalynn! She and Damien took us on a tour of their neighborhood, which includes famed City Lights Books, Coit Tower (pictured above), this gorgeous church (pictured below) and Italian restaurants galore.
Later in the week we met up with Dalynn again and explored the neighborhood around her workplace. This is a shot of San Fran's Chinatown.
Afterward we tried out an Indonesian restaurant. Yum! Can't beat Oma's home cookin' though.
More explorations. A shot of the Golden Gate bridge, which spectacularly rears up into view as you pass through the tunnel south, from Marin.
Famed Grace Cathedral and her labyrinth.
Another labyrinth inside the cathedral.
Visiting Kelly, a fella Hollins alumna, at her apartment in Alameda. The neighborhood is full of gorgeous houses like this one.
Finn! Kelly & Zac's son. He loves, loves, loves to eat. I think this is an avocado. We quickly fell in love with Finn. I took a hundred pictures. Here is my small selection:
Ubiquitous poppies. And now, the promised Calla Lily photos! All of these were taken in Kelly's backyard.
Obviously not a Calla Lily. But I was in a photo mood! I think these two photos capture a cat's personality. Cuddly on the outside, kinda unpredictably crazy on the inside.
Finn says goodnight.
Riley! It was children galore in San Fran. Riley is Jenna & Ryan's daughter, and I ADORE her. Here she is helping Deb prep dinner.
New addition to the family. Jenna's dad bid on him in a charity auction, so he was kinda a surprise. But I think he won everyone over fairly immediately!
Dinner with some of my absolute favorite people.
Making faces, cuteness!
Parting shot.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
St. Francis Prayer
The prayer of St. Francis summarizes it quite well.
O, Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
O, Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Cry Freedom
I wrote the below "essay" before leaving Richmond, Virginia. I wanted to find a way to capture our thoughts and feelings as we prepared to flip our lives upside down. I am posting it now as a way to bring it back to life for us as well as to feel the incredible awe of seeing how God works. We are preparing to head to the home of the local food movement -- Berkeley, CA -- to attend seminary. If it wasn't for the thirst we felt in Richmond, VA, I know we wouldn't be considering questions about financial aid and surviving the cost of California! I love how this world works!
******
Last week, I said good-bye to our 1600 sq ft home in Richmond, Virginia. It took three-yard sales including an Everything Must Go Sale. I learned to specify that everything does not include the refrigerator, the dogs, or other house fixtures such as our front door.
As the economy dips into people’s discomfort zone and real estate prices line the pockets of financial consultants in the face of foreclosure, my partner, Lauren, and I have chosen to sell off all our belongings, quit our 401k careers and put everything (well almost everything) on the line. We are doing this because our need to create our own modern myths far outweighs the fear of remaining mute.
Cry Freedom is Dave Matthew’s freedom call for my generation’s conscious and unconscious yearnings -- a generation that grew up listening to Dave’s sermons kindled during rock revivals across his home state of Virginia. Little did we know as teenagers that our membership into the Its Cool to like Dave included spiritual guidance through unshakable lyrics:
Cry freedom cry, from deep inside,
where we all are confined.
My generation -- confined as Gen Y -- is an age sprouted from the notorious hippy era now known for their booming independence, 60-hour workweeks, skyrocketing divorce rates, and social security. Despite our parents’ rock n roll –turned-oldies evolution, Gen Y has come under as much, if not more, scrutiny.
A part of me believes that generational analysis comforts some people about the inevitability of the apocalypse. If we can determine a pattern demonstrating how each new generation is more damaged then the previous one, then our world will implode right on schedule.
I believe the souls of my generation are in question.
There is doubt whether my generation is capable of translating sacred rituals into the Age of the Iphone. Is Gen Y sober enough to take up its rite of passage? Do we have the grace and fluidity to perform rain dances around our tribes’ ceremonial rings of fire?
Do we even know what tribe we belong to?
In search of our modern day labyrinth, Lauren and I moved from Bellevue neighborhood into a 230 sq ft. silver palace, otherwise known as the iconic Airstream. The Airstream has been a part of America’s fabric for over 70 years with the majority of them still in use. It is reassuring to know how uncommon it is to see the Silver Bullet at the county landfill next to the other recreational vehicles being mass produced under the same expectations put on my own generation:
Cheap. Expedient. Unsustainable.
Lauren’s dream is to work on WWOOF Farms – Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms. She was born into a grassroots congregation of gardeners who experience God through plants, vegetables, and worm-rich soil. Lauren’s congregation sings the truths about worms. Basically, the more worms a wigglin’, the better the veggie eatin’.
Although I rarely converse with God over the stench of homegrown manure, I have gleefully agreed to hop on board the Airstream with Lauren to tour America while working on WWOOF farms. After all, my one-person congregation is cheap and won’t take up space in the Airstream.
When you only have 230 sq ft. of space, every aspect of your life is taken under serious consideration.
Airstream’s slogan is, " “Let's not make any changes — let's make only improvements!" Hence the exterior of a 1936 Airstream looks pretty similar to a 2008 model. Lauren and I are borrowing this slogan for our travels. We made a decision to take a journey for an indefinite period of time in hopes of making our own improvements. We are relying on faith that our core structure already meets its standards without need for change.
We have labeled our trip a journey, or rather a pilgrimage. Pilgrims, according to Richard Niebuhr, “are persons in motion passing through territories not their own, seeking…completion or clarity; a goal to which only the spirit’s compass points the way”. We will certainly pass through territories not our own as we figure out how to work our compass in the land of GPSs and OnStar.
We have lived in Richmond for five years. We moved from Oregon – land of hippy dwellings and organic everything -- because we knew that Virginia’s job market would better help us to fulfill (what we thought) was our duty after college: to do “the oughtas”.
We oughta make money. We oughta find recognition. We oughta fit in. We oughta get an IRA. We oughta not think too much.
Lauren found her dream job as a graphic designer and I broke the seal of the nonprofit sector. Together we moved from a 700 sq ft. apartment to owning our first house at 24 years old, purchasing life insurance, starting a web and graphic design business as a third income stream, and discovering that it is possible to “earn” a decent income early on in life. We have been able eat out a lot, attend a dozen weddings that spanned the globe, and spend money on unnecessary items that has lead us to three gargantuan yard sales.
Ironically, compared to some professionals climbing Corporate America’s ladder, some might view us as poor. Or as people remind me when I tell them I work in the nonprofit sector, nonprofit is code for:
NO PROFIT.
Predisposed to a lifetime of oughtas, I believe we have suffered with poverty. This depleted feeling despite our financial success proves that poverty is more then just money. Poverty is the distance felt between a person and God. Money can certainly act as a wedge between humanity and the Divine. Gandhi highlights this abominable reality when he writes, “There are people in the world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”
Despite a world where poverty is the result of soul rotting, we have proven our ability to identify heroes. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for decades. While there, he accrued a fortune that would humble anyone to their knees to cry freedom rather then serve another 27 years of oughtas.
History reassures me that at least poverty wasn’t created by my generation. Poverty crosses generational picket lines across all nations, ages, and socioeconomic statuses. Bono, a poverty fighter in Africa and modern day heretic with an insatiable appetite for The Sacred, wrote in The End of Poverty that poverty is mentioned 2003 times in the Bible, second to personal salvation.
Working on organic farms throughout the United States is our attempt to break free from a 28-year life sentence. We want to learn how to fish for a lifetime of purpose. We are choosing to risk our careers to overcome poverty rather then find a quick fix in a world where global warming hinders a person’s ability to walk through the pollution of hatred, consumerism, and poverty.
Lauren and I have started this pilgrimage singing our own generation’s crusade hymn. Perhaps on the road we will discover a nation of anthems formed in light of We Shall Overcome pilgrimages and We’re Not Going to Take It psalms. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll help mend the wounds of the Collective Soul – wounds caused through galactic wars, religious duress, and soul starvation -- in order to hear the communal freedom cry that transcends a nation in fear of its own capacity for greatness.
Who are we kidding? This is a tall order for a couple of idealists. It is just that our need to hear our own cries is far too great.
The future is no place to place your better days
– Dave Matthews
– Dave Matthews
Last week, I said good-bye to our 1600 sq ft home in Richmond, Virginia. It took three-yard sales including an Everything Must Go Sale. I learned to specify that everything does not include the refrigerator, the dogs, or other house fixtures such as our front door.
As the economy dips into people’s discomfort zone and real estate prices line the pockets of financial consultants in the face of foreclosure, my partner, Lauren, and I have chosen to sell off all our belongings, quit our 401k careers and put everything (well almost everything) on the line. We are doing this because our need to create our own modern myths far outweighs the fear of remaining mute.
Cry Freedom is Dave Matthew’s freedom call for my generation’s conscious and unconscious yearnings -- a generation that grew up listening to Dave’s sermons kindled during rock revivals across his home state of Virginia. Little did we know as teenagers that our membership into the Its Cool to like Dave included spiritual guidance through unshakable lyrics:
Cry freedom cry, from deep inside,
where we all are confined.
My generation -- confined as Gen Y -- is an age sprouted from the notorious hippy era now known for their booming independence, 60-hour workweeks, skyrocketing divorce rates, and social security. Despite our parents’ rock n roll –turned-oldies evolution, Gen Y has come under as much, if not more, scrutiny.
A part of me believes that generational analysis comforts some people about the inevitability of the apocalypse. If we can determine a pattern demonstrating how each new generation is more damaged then the previous one, then our world will implode right on schedule.
I believe the souls of my generation are in question.
There is doubt whether my generation is capable of translating sacred rituals into the Age of the Iphone. Is Gen Y sober enough to take up its rite of passage? Do we have the grace and fluidity to perform rain dances around our tribes’ ceremonial rings of fire?
Do we even know what tribe we belong to?
In search of our modern day labyrinth, Lauren and I moved from Bellevue neighborhood into a 230 sq ft. silver palace, otherwise known as the iconic Airstream. The Airstream has been a part of America’s fabric for over 70 years with the majority of them still in use. It is reassuring to know how uncommon it is to see the Silver Bullet at the county landfill next to the other recreational vehicles being mass produced under the same expectations put on my own generation:
Cheap. Expedient. Unsustainable.
Lauren’s dream is to work on WWOOF Farms – Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms. She was born into a grassroots congregation of gardeners who experience God through plants, vegetables, and worm-rich soil. Lauren’s congregation sings the truths about worms. Basically, the more worms a wigglin’, the better the veggie eatin’.
Although I rarely converse with God over the stench of homegrown manure, I have gleefully agreed to hop on board the Airstream with Lauren to tour America while working on WWOOF farms. After all, my one-person congregation is cheap and won’t take up space in the Airstream.
When you only have 230 sq ft. of space, every aspect of your life is taken under serious consideration.
Airstream’s slogan is, " “Let's not make any changes — let's make only improvements!" Hence the exterior of a 1936 Airstream looks pretty similar to a 2008 model. Lauren and I are borrowing this slogan for our travels. We made a decision to take a journey for an indefinite period of time in hopes of making our own improvements. We are relying on faith that our core structure already meets its standards without need for change.
We have labeled our trip a journey, or rather a pilgrimage. Pilgrims, according to Richard Niebuhr, “are persons in motion passing through territories not their own, seeking…completion or clarity; a goal to which only the spirit’s compass points the way”. We will certainly pass through territories not our own as we figure out how to work our compass in the land of GPSs and OnStar.
We have lived in Richmond for five years. We moved from Oregon – land of hippy dwellings and organic everything -- because we knew that Virginia’s job market would better help us to fulfill (what we thought) was our duty after college: to do “the oughtas”.
We oughta make money. We oughta find recognition. We oughta fit in. We oughta get an IRA. We oughta not think too much.
Lauren found her dream job as a graphic designer and I broke the seal of the nonprofit sector. Together we moved from a 700 sq ft. apartment to owning our first house at 24 years old, purchasing life insurance, starting a web and graphic design business as a third income stream, and discovering that it is possible to “earn” a decent income early on in life. We have been able eat out a lot, attend a dozen weddings that spanned the globe, and spend money on unnecessary items that has lead us to three gargantuan yard sales.
Ironically, compared to some professionals climbing Corporate America’s ladder, some might view us as poor. Or as people remind me when I tell them I work in the nonprofit sector, nonprofit is code for:
NO PROFIT.
Predisposed to a lifetime of oughtas, I believe we have suffered with poverty. This depleted feeling despite our financial success proves that poverty is more then just money. Poverty is the distance felt between a person and God. Money can certainly act as a wedge between humanity and the Divine. Gandhi highlights this abominable reality when he writes, “There are people in the world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”
Despite a world where poverty is the result of soul rotting, we have proven our ability to identify heroes. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for decades. While there, he accrued a fortune that would humble anyone to their knees to cry freedom rather then serve another 27 years of oughtas.
History reassures me that at least poverty wasn’t created by my generation. Poverty crosses generational picket lines across all nations, ages, and socioeconomic statuses. Bono, a poverty fighter in Africa and modern day heretic with an insatiable appetite for The Sacred, wrote in The End of Poverty that poverty is mentioned 2003 times in the Bible, second to personal salvation.
Working on organic farms throughout the United States is our attempt to break free from a 28-year life sentence. We want to learn how to fish for a lifetime of purpose. We are choosing to risk our careers to overcome poverty rather then find a quick fix in a world where global warming hinders a person’s ability to walk through the pollution of hatred, consumerism, and poverty.
Lauren and I have started this pilgrimage singing our own generation’s crusade hymn. Perhaps on the road we will discover a nation of anthems formed in light of We Shall Overcome pilgrimages and We’re Not Going to Take It psalms. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll help mend the wounds of the Collective Soul – wounds caused through galactic wars, religious duress, and soul starvation -- in order to hear the communal freedom cry that transcends a nation in fear of its own capacity for greatness.
Who are we kidding? This is a tall order for a couple of idealists. It is just that our need to hear our own cries is far too great.
“We’re seeking an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plan, will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. – Joseph Campbell
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Quote (provided by the beautiful Ms. Taylor)
"To laugh much; to win respect of intelligent persons and the affections of children; to earn the approbation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give one's self; to leave the world a little better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition.; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm, and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived--this is to have succeeded.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Angelou Quote
The ship of my life may or may not be sailing on calm and amiable seas. The challenging days of my existence may or may not be bright and promising. Stormy or sunny days, glorious or lonely nights, I maintain an attitude of gratitude. If I insist on being pessimistic, there is always a tomorrow. Today I am blessed.
Maya Angelou
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Quote!
True generosity requires more of us than kindly impulse. Above all it requires imagination -- the capacity to see people in all their perplexities and needs, and to know how to expend ourselves effectively for them. --I.A.R Wylie
Friday, June 5, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Emerson Quote
Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not. --Ralph Waldo Emerson
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