Ben's Adventures

Character as Clothing

2012-01-03T07:52:00.000-08:00

While flipping through channels in a motel room I stopped to watch Project Runway, though I admit that if others were in the room I would have kept flipping channels… A few years ago I had watched some episodes of Project Runway with a friend. My normal disclaimer was “it gives us something to do together and talk about” but honestly I was intrigued. It may sound weird coming from a guy who has clothes that are 10yrs old, who sews on patches and rarely goes shopping but I like fashion. There, I said it.

Why? What is it about fashion that I like? I am one of the first to mock the cyclical repetition of past trends and the eccentric, abstract side of high fashion, the irony of millions buying the same “unique” image, and humor of desiring beat-up, low quality clothing. Yet perhaps those extremes are just lazy ideas of what fashion is…I don’t know. Project Runway is a reality tv show on fashion design and I like that no matter how much the judges encourage bold, radical concepts they also want technical and concrete execution of those concepts to ground the clothing in reality, in something people would actually wear-something marketable. I think what draws me is the artistic side of making an idea come to fruition with the ultimate goal (I assume) to complement to wearer.

There is a balance between highlighting the person and the clothing. They must work together instead of compensating for each other-like when my sister said my good looks compensated for my old, tattered clothes- (I was just happy to find a compliment in that statement). With a person and the clothing, one might stand out before the other but together they draw you in. Aligning the two is not essential but doing so denote honor or shame (a joyful friend in rags becomes stylish compared to a well-dress jerk becomes disheveled). This is why we adorn those we honor and generally agree with the proverb “As a ring of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a beautiful woman with no discretion” (Proverbs 11:22). As character and clothing align, character must lead. But whichever one leads, following requires an investment and sacrifice (either for yourself or for others).

Thus, a good dresser in my view is one who has found a way to bring out their unique features subtly, almost creating an intrigue making others wonder “what is so attractive about them?” Like great art, you are left searching for the significance beyond the sensory, the meaning beyond the medium, pondering the beauty that is not immediately perceived. In this way I hope that good fashion guides us to see people as subjects, not objects, as dynamic instead of static, pulling us into relationship instead of away.

Perhaps the reason we are the only creature to blush is because we realize how our thoughts of a person and their thoughts towards us are an intrusion at worst (base attractions) and acknowledgement at best (compliment of value). In a real sense a blush hints towards an innate code to honor who that person is, to acknowledge something substantial and weighty. We want to know the person because we have glimpsed something glorious and in this sense character becomes the most authentic and durable clothing.

Character is worn daily with or without thought. Ideally integrity becomes your style for without it, you become a chameleon-rebelling against consistency, as if for survival. You adapt to others perceptions of beauty. Your goal to be noticed only makes you invisible for people are not seeing you, only what their ideal “you” would be. Instead what captivates me is someone who knows who they are; they have discovered what in their character is beautiful in and of itself-rooted in a classic style yet creatively expressed beyond it alluding to a universal sense of beauty. Their strengths are the first to be seen and their weaknesses are like accents-perhaps pointing to or outlining a striking feature yet content to stay in the background. The combination becomes their style, their “look” plus attitude… and like any character trait its expression organically responds to the seasons of life.

Each season brings a context to adapt to, each a challenge and opportunity. Did you have enough layers in your clothing, and in your character, to not only survive harsh winters but actually warm others around you? Did the summer heat surprise you? Was its warmth enough to entice you to bare some skin? The sun’s rays will bear witness of your “look’s”, and your character’s, ability to discern the proper limit in shedding those layers. In each season, and I suppose each day, our fashion and our character is revealed. And with both we may or may not feel equipped to face what lies ahead yet risk is the required seed for their expression.

…I like this metaphor. I suppose it reminds me of the freedom I am feeling to be known as I am. Yes I admit that in both character and clothing it is easier to be a chameleon, changing to match others’ perceptions of “what I should be.” It takes courage to express your character and be known by it, like discovering your style. In establishing any style it is hard to establish what pieces to build around: do I want to wear this shirt with this tie? What belt? Shoes? Wait…is this clean? Sometimes when I would help one of my sisters think through an entire outfit I’d realize at the end “This isn’t you, let’s start again” Likewise with my character: do I want to be funny right now? With who? Why? When should I ask how they are? Only to realize later “Ben, this isn’t you, honestly answer my question.”

I have shed my borrowed clothing, my chameleon’s skin and am moving into the foreground. I am growing confident in my character as others observe, compliment and encourage me, like friends confirming a new look. Though many say I am thoughtful, caring, and genuine there are others who notice that I am also humorous, joyful, and creative. I believe this is probably the difference between noticing the features and noticing the accents. Like any look, people sees its flaws as well: hyper-analytical, verbose, and nosy. A surprise picture and a spontaneous conversation can often reveal one’s day-to-day character and look, judging their integrity. The surprise picture for me would probably be in is my long sleeve green shirt, knit sweater, dark jeans, and brown shoes/ beige loafers. The look is comfortable, intentional, and distinguishable, combining my creative and rational (thrifty) characteristics. Most of my friends can name this exact outfit because it is my default. Yet the spontaneous conversation would not be so balanced. Odds are that I would go deeper in the conversation than desired. Good friends have noticed the imbalance at times and said I “am thoughtful, sometimes too thoughtful” as if to ask for another look but really wanting a different attitude/character-akin to asking Zoolander for something besides Blue Steel (yet in my case nowhere near as comical or adventurous). I am beginning to believe it is safe to bring out those accents, the eclectic quirks I assumed no one was intrigued by.

I have periodically stopped to smile and laugh at myself even writing this yet as I think of character as clothing I realize it is very human, simple yet profound. If style is character/attitude combined with clothing/”look” and culture is what we make of the world (ideas and stuff) than my style is a slice of culture, so much for being subtle…

Christmas in the cabin

2012-01-01T23:54:00.000-08:00

My break had a rough start-due to snow and ice I landed at 1am in Denver, made it my friend's house at 2:30am and found out later in the morning I had dropped my phone in the snow. But thankfully everything improved from there! The phone was found, the skies cleared and soon I was snowshoeing into our family cabin on Casper Mountain to celebrate Christmas. Sadly none of my other siblings could make it-my sisters were with their in-laws and my brother had to work. Nonetheless, my parents and I kept our family traditions-Fondue Christmas Eve dinner, stockings Christmas morning, and Red and Green Breakfast.

Maintaining our traditions requires new efforts when celebrating inside a log cabin lacking the normal amenities of a house.

1-Supplies

whatever you want at the cabin, you need to be willing to carry in for a mile through the snow. Typically we load up a few sleds and pull them behind us while snowshoeing.

2-Water

This requires puring fresh gas into our generator and filling up cartons with ice cold water as fast as possible to keep your hands from freezing. The ground is cold enough that the water that spills gathers at your feet instead of soaking into the earth. We have plumbing inside but the pipes are too cold to pump water through in the winter. This is our water for drinking, cooking, cleaning, etc.

3. Heat

It was 10 degrees outside when we arrived, and 12 degrees inside the cabin. Our wood burning stove was our indoor heating and also used to heat up water occasionally. It was idyllic to curl up on the couch with a good book and warm up after a good hike through the woods. The fire and candles also provided our lighting during our fondue dinner.

4. Bathroom

after we shoveled a clearing into the cabin and packed down a path to the outhouse all you needed were slippers and a warm jacket on your way back and forth

5. Baking

Our family loves bread, preferably homemade. At such a high elevation though rising takes a long time, and a few prayers.

6. Generators

we set up a wind generator and solar panel to power an electric outlet for our light (singular) inside and to charge our phones (otherwise we might have to use flares to communicate)

7. Whipping Cream

It took a while but eventually I made whipping cream from scratch for our crepes. thankfully the other red and green elements of our breakfast were prepared more easily.

Was it worth this extra effort? Yes!

Christmas was wonderful. It has snowed 30in in less than a day on the mountain so we had fun sledding, snowshoeing, and cross country skiing the next few days. I got to sleep in, read books, watch movies, and play games. It was nice to go into "kid" mode around my parents-they helped pay for me to come out, made me meals, asked what I wanted to do, bought me treats (cheesecake), my mom even cut my hair despite doing it outside the cabin in the cold! It was also refreshing to not think about school-studying or teaching-for a few days. I met several of my parents' friends and one couple actually served each of us a roasted hen for one meal. Many of their friends are my age, which i think is there way of compensating for us kids being so far away. Christmas is always full of memories and i am grateful I could add a few more this time around.

Teaching social justice-why questions must be asked

2011-11-18T10:08:00.001-08:00

Over a month ago I spent a Saturday from 8am until 4:30pm at theNorthwest Conference on Teaching for Social JusticeI was excited about it for two reasons: learning tools and strategies to apply to my teaching and learning how teachers in the NW define and practice “social justice”. I was glad to see several workshops highlighting issues and approaches for math and science, instead of just language arts and social studies. It was interesting to be part of a workshop on anthropology with college professors and high school teachers. When given the task of defining “culture” as a group, family and faith were the last elements to be mentioned and though all agreed that we need to teach kids how to see the world around them, they also said no one can ever critique or judge another person and students needed to decide for themselves what was right and wrong. No one pointed out the discrepancy between wanting students to decide their identity while also telling them what it should be.

Overall I was surprised by the fluid definition and unstructured practice of “social justice” around me. No one ever defined “social justice” and no one expressed its impact beyond the classroom. Though I admit that both were assumed implicitly, it is revealing that neither was addressed explicitly. It is hard to find anyone who is against social justice and even fewer who say that education has no social context. Much of our society blames education for its problems, whether academic or moral, and educators are quick to blame others, yet all call out for “social justice.” And even beyond education this cry of “social justice” (much like “local” “free-trade” and “organic”) has become a marketable slogan for everyone from international chain stores to your local stationary shop. Given its popularity and wide application, why is there so little clarity on what social justice is and what it does?

I came in with this question and left with it still unanswered making me rather solemn as I left the conference, while my friends and other fellow educators left the conference much more elated. I wanted space to identify what it was that bothered me yet the responsibilities and commitments of the “now” has enveloped me like a fog since then. And even weeks later my nascent thoughts were still striving for air-until today. I believe we should not throw the word “social justice” around without asking clarifying questions since it can almost mean anything to anyone. Here are some reflections on why those questions must be asked and in another post I’ll share answers I’ve been wrestling with.

Admittedly I walked into the conference with my own baggage around the word “social justice.” In various jobs around the country and world I have met many well intended people who develop a messiah complex trying to establish their own definition of social justice for a community. I have worked alongside people who define social justice as “justice for me.” As a Seattle resident I have seen over and over again advocates of social justice and friends seek to abolish structures around them and once successful become frustrated realizing the necessity of structure to take any action. “Social justice” that was so pure and simple in theory becomes messy and complex in practice.

While studying teaching at UW it has been hard to distinguish social justice from simply good teaching-lending itself to a culture of comparison. Thus, as a citizen and an educator, what I feared going to the conference was a spirit of competition (us vs. them) rather than one of collaboration (us with/for them). The former leads us to mainly focus on identifying shared enemies while the latter leads us to mainly focus on identifying shared problems. I saw the former at the conference with a simplifying of the issues and a tendency to demonize the “other.” The necessity of humility seen in this famous quote by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn was not written to promote inaction but perspective, not to quench passion for healing and restoration but to deepen it:

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were only necessary to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
-One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Human experience led him, has led me, and I believe should lead us to desire a deeper grounding for “social justice” and clearer vision for what it does.

But why are people often content with not having it defined or its purpose or goal stated? I suppose the short answer is that it is easier to mobilize people around an abstract idea than a concrete one. Many activists get frustrated by this reality. Many elements of our modern world let us be associated with something or someone without commitment, and even asking to clarify expectations seems “offensive”. We want to promote things without cost, similar to clicking “like” on Facebook.

The longer answer requires us to admit the gap between our words and actions. Some of my friends started a coalition to address human trafficking in Seattle (SeattleAgainstSlavery) and though people claim to support equality and human rights it is a struggle to get people to carve out 1 hour/month for a meeting or a 5min phone call to their representatives. We hear the words “equality”, “diversity”, and “dignity” and the actions “inform” and “ally” yet there rarely is talk of how to engage the conflict or reveal the cost or sacrifice required.

Again, I admit that most would assume conflict arises with social justice but what I wanted to know, and what would be most beneficial to those at the conference, was how to prepare, address and move past those conflicts. When you see a need to change the curriculum and you have no support at your school to do so, what do you do? When you have colleagues and parents get angry at you for advocating for LGBTQ students how do you react professionally? Personally? Even when you have the letter of the law promote social justice, the hostile culture of your school often still breaks the “spirit” of it- what can you do? Should we distinguish shaping our students’ minds from shaping their character? When I go to the store to buy paper for my students and another teacher distributes laptops to theirs, how do I begin to address the disparity? Information alone does not change people’s minds because change comes at a cost. Simply asking “who will act, who will pay?” makes the attractive call for “social justice” a threat.

In education, like every other area of society, we have conflicting visions for democracy: upholding individual rights and universal equality. Though Foucault would remind us it is all about power Mandela would remind us to not be bitter empowered people but forgiving empowered people. For social justice to be concrete, it must engage these two conflicting values. We must wrestle with asking “Justice for who? According to what? Toward what end? At what cost?” I was frustrated that Saturday because these questions were either ignored or answered with vague platitudes. Addressing something as deeply personal and cultural as “social justice” not only deserves but requires discernment.

Given the gravity and complexity of life, I know it takes courage to ask those deeper questions. It takes even more courage to engage the controversial issues both in and out of the classroom. I am caught balancing hesitant humility and hasty passion in aiming for effective action. Some people know neither the structures they live within nor why they act within them as they do. A crucial part of educating students is making them aware of these power relations, teaching them to identify their role within them, and guide them in taking agency within them as responsible citizens. I want education to give them both the content and context necessary to engage the world-tools to practice that engagement and power to develop them in meaningful ways. That is a high goal, one that I came to the conference hoping to be equipped for. Like Antaeus, the mythical giant in Greek mythology who lost his power when his feet were not on the earth, I can only understand and apply social justice when it has been grounded, when it has something to stand on and stand for. It only has power for me when given this traction and direction in the real world. I think I left frustrated because I was still seeking to give weight, gravity and grounding to those “legs” while others seemed content leaving them in the air.

7 weeks in...

2011-10-16T21:03:00.001-07:00

Thursday I dropped by the Boys and Girls Club I used to work at and visited familiar staff, kids and parents. One of the parents asked what I liked most about student teaching. I paused and then replied, “All the things that I used to talk about hypothetically are real now.” I had more to say but that conversation and some dialogue with colleagues later that day made me realize that though I have made notes and observations about my teaching thus far, it has been primarily geared toward developing lessons, reacting to situations, juggling responsibilities, and preparing ways to implement my grad courses. I have not been good about making written reflections about my teaching experience as a whole.

I spent the first week setting up the classroom before school started. Some tasks were the same as moving into a new house: decorations, supplies, storage, syncing technology, getting keys, figuring out parking. Other tasks were like moving into a new office: procedures (handbook), HR (paperwork and policies), PR (writing a syllabus), IT support (email, logins, grades, attendance, discipline flow chart), connecting with clientele (contacting parents, making a survey, determining my title and role), establishing and posting norms (expectations), looking for outside funding (grant writing), and meetings. The unusual thing about teaching is discerning how to shape this space to accommodate learning (acquisition and practice) for people you have not met and know very little about-a new batch of students.

My mentor teacher is great about letting me take things at my own pace as far as teaching. He addresses me as his “fellow teacher” so since Day 1 the kids see both us as having the same authority even though they know I am a teacher in training. Much can be learned about teaching through trial and error. Trying to equitably grade 100 assignments forces you to set a clear standard. Trying to teach four different classes the same material though each class has a different composition of students forces you to know your students. Trying to answer five questions at once makes you realize the importance of making a procedure. Trying to build student learning day by day forces you to develop a clear scope and sequence for the course. With my freshmen I learned very quickly that I cannot make assumptions about their skills or behavior. When my seniors come in, I am grateful to see more self-regulation. Identifying, evaluating and reacting to patterns and exceptions in each class, with each student, with each day prevents this job from ever being mundane.

Kids often want to humanize you as a teacher-my students actually want to know who I am. Most of the time they want a 5-10 second answer so it has been helpful for me to defer their questions to another context and/or have short answers prepared. I share who I am bit by bit-alluding to an experience in a lecture, referencing an interest 1-1, answering their questions directly and succinctly at times (“No I am not married”). The timing of their questions often makes it a distraction (independent work time) but acknowledging their interest validates their question while shutting them up snuffs out their interest. It has been fun building some playful intrigue into our conversations.

Much more could be said but back to my comment about hypothetical things made real. The hypothetical silent but smart student has a name and sits in the second row of our class “meeting area.” The hypothetical unproductive meeting now has a time slot on my calendar. The hypothetical gap between content demands and student ability now looms large as I plan the next unit, the next lesson, the next activity. “Keeping up” is a good day. “Busy” becomes normal. “Stressed” is a red flag. “Despair” is when you’ve already failed. My sister aptly once distinguished the last two by saying “Stress is when you think you can still do something about it” and I’d have to agree. As I consider my schedule and responsibilities this way, most days are between “keeping up” and “busy”. I have not had time to truly soak in what I’m learning so I said “no grading this weekend” and made no commitments on Saturday. When I have a classroom to myself I will not have that luxury. Friday night I went to our high school football game, saw friends and Sat I soaked in the extra sleep and went for a walk in Lincoln Park.

A recurring phrase I keep using in this experience is “glimpses of grace” to remember the positive things that have happened in my day or week. I’ve been sharing it with a few colleagues since we so often focus on the negative.

1. having a student tell me what class was like while I was gone one afternoon at my UW class: “It was weird not having you there. Mr. ____ did okay but it was like having Batman without Robin-we really need both of you.”
2. the look of astonishment on a kid’s face when he finally realized that I actually designed lessons to help him learn how to meet the objectives.
3. After days of working one on one with someone to learn to put their thoughts into writing sentence by sentence, I saw them enter my room with a smirk and put a full, detailed paragraph on my desk.
4. Having a student walk directly up to me during lunch and ask me which class I planned on teaching next year hoping that they’d be in it.

Climbing Mt. Rainier

2011-08-21T23:36:00.000-07:00

Climbing Mt. Rainier had been a dream of mine for several years. Having grown up in the NW, it was always something I felt I needed to at least attempt in my life. Being out of state for college, not having sufficient gear, lacking a guide or not having time are some of the reasons/excuses that came up but when a friend invited me back in May to join him this summer in climbing it, I realized the main thing I needed was accountability. I needed people to train with, to help remind me to set aside time to be prepared technically and physically.

After walking up to Camp Muir July4th, many of my fears of the dangers of alpine climbing (crossing glaciers, crevasses, building ice anchors, etc) were lessened. We had basically walked up to 10,000ft, camped and skied down a blue-level glacier field. Other than that trip and snowshoeing, I had never really done any hiking or climbing in the snow. We spent one day reviewing our knots and setting some anchors in various places. Due to my school schedule I wasn't able to get altitude training on the weekends like Baker or Adams. I was able to run with some grad school friends and do stair repeats with a loaded backpack. When we left Friday night for Mt. Rainier I was not sure if I was in enough shape to climb.

We took the Kautz Route which is more technical than the normal route. Loaded with our skis, boards, food, tents, ice tools and gear, we hiked a few hours Friday night across the Nisqually Glacier Valley and camped on Wilson Glacier. The sun greeted us in the morning bringing enough heat that I was able to climb up to Camp Hazard on Saturday with just a shirt, shorts and my gaiters. After refilling our water bottles, eating a nice warm dinner and settling into our tents around 5:30pm, we all attempted to sleep until 11:30pm. I had been pushing myself finishing grad school projects and yet was unable to sleep more than an hour that night.

We left our skis and camping gear and went on with two packs to share between four of us. The moon and stars were bright as we walked through the impossible traverse and began climbing with our ice axes and ice tools. Soon we came upon an ice section at about 65 degrees. I swung my ice tools into the ice wall and tediously my crampon-ed feet followed. Fear of something unknown is usually stronger than a known fear-i could not see the bottom of the incline, it seemed to just drop off into the darkness. The ice my ice tool was driven into broke once and instinctively I swung my ice ax into the ice wall. It caught me but the jagged ice cut into my hand in the process-which I did not notice until a few minutes later when I noticed the gushing blood as I set an ice screw and began to setup to belay my friend. it was a good reminder of the ability of my body to prioritize sensory reactions-It had hurt but my instinct to hang on outweighed my instinct to let go. After roping in, I ice climbed 50 meters and then proceeded to free climb a slightly easier section with pointy ice mounds that made me think of it as the dark side of a Dr. Seuss story. We were all glad to have that steep section behind us.

After this we had to cross several crevasses and the final push from 12,500-13,500ft was one steep hill that required for us to switchback. My ankles got a workout with the crampons digging in with each step. About half way up we could see the sun beginning to rise. it was close to 5am. We pressed on after a few breaks and were relieved when we passed the false summit and leisurely walked to the summit and signed the record book. It was a clear day except for the clouds covering anything under 5000ft. When we looked south we could see Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood, and Mt. St. Helens. Looking north you could not see the Puget Sound so there was just a cloudy gap between the Cascades and Olympics.

After celebrating our victory, one of us reminded us that were half way done-that we still needed to get back. It was around 8:30am and our plan was to ski or snowboard most of the way down after 10,000ft. It ended up taking almost 12hrs to get back to Paradise. The main reason for this was the snow condition which made it dangerous for us to use our skis or boards. This at least bothered me since I felt rather foolish carrying 195 skis and their boots up and never got to use them! Another reason for the long descent was the increasing danger of crevasse. Bridges we walked across on the way up were not safe on our way back. Having only slept 9hrs in 3 days, I was surprised to feel pretty energized on the way up but at around 2pm I slowed down.

Thankfully the weather was clear and we were in the shade so we could afford to be more spaced out on our descent. It is amazing how much your mind wanders when you are tired while doing a repetitive motion yet it can also be fixated on one thought or cycle of thoughts in a sometimes annoying, sometimes trance-like pattern. I won't bore you with all those thoughts, except for one. I thought of having a nice hearty burger and beer. We arrived at Paradise around 7:30 having hiked almost 20hrs.

God answered our prayers and many others' prayers no doubt. We had no injuries and were glad to be on our way home.

As for my burger and beer, those would have to wait since restaurants were closed. (I had an amazing meatloaf sandwich with a stout the following night). I got home at 11:30pm, unpacked, showered, and did my homework before sleeeping until 7am when I was off to help with a summer school program on the Eastside. It was a joy to finally greet people the next day saying "I climbed Rainier this weekend!" thanks to many friends who helped make it all possible.

Perspective Gained in the Mundane

2011-07-10T19:54:00.000-07:00

During my week break between quarters, a man on my flight asked me, “So what do you do? How do you make a living?” Like most people, in the silence before answering I contemplated: do I really want to talk right now? How long might this take? Then I’ll need to politely ask what his profession is… should I tell him what work I do (some random part time jobs) or that I am studying to be a teacher? Wait, if I mention the word “teacher” will I simply open the floodgates for his commentary on American society, globalization, the failures of education, etc.? I chose to be honest: “I am a graduate student completing a Masters in Teaching.” He did unleash a host of thoughts as I had feared but his typical, mundane question brought perspective to the highly academic, micro-level discussions on “education” I participated in the quarter before.

Due to always being placed at a school while also taking classes, I benefit from simultaneously being a student and teacher during graduate school. These two contexts provide a good reality check since many people like to talk about teaching until they actually attempt doing it, then they are terrified.

Why? Why do we expect teaching to be easier?

Our society is full of people who like to tell people what to do and how to do it, with or without any experience or knowledge to offer. We like to appear strong, to give answers, to help people, but we also like to see change take place, preferably ASAP. I have found that many cultures use botanical imagery to illustrate teaching because it is more complicated than it looks and there is always a bit of a mystery to it. But pop culture and typical conversations promote the notion that teaching is a last resort, or at least a Plan B career. The idea that someone actually would feel a need to go to graduate school to learn how to teach is laughable to many-after all, how hard could it be to input new information into a somewhat empty mind (a hunt for the infamous “Matrix”)? At best, we think teaching requires high motivation, good motivation and minimal expertise. At worst, it requires ordinary skills and language on par with babysitting. In most of my conversations with strangers about teachers, two emotions come up: mockery of their profession and frustration with them not changing the world.

Why?

Teaching is admittedly complex, just ask anyone outside of a classroom setting or anyone involved in any relationship and they will tell you that people are not simple. To see them as such is to discredit them. So why do we tend to think of teaching in school differently? There are a host of reasons but the ones I most often hear are that student learning requires student involvement (they cannot be passive), students are forced to be in school (until they are 16), and that all of us have spent thousands of hours watching teachers teach (K-12 at least) thereby becoming “experts” on “how it works.” Whether it is adults walking into their workplace or kids into their classroom, some close the door to learning before even opening the door to the room; especially if they have to be there. It can be a blessing and a curse but the more you are in a certain context, the more that environment seems simple to you. By having some of these reflections before I started the teacher education program, I am grateful for the years and diverse contexts in which I was very aware of the difficulty of both teaching and learning. Random experiences come to mind: teaching a kid to ride a bike, learning to speak enough Hindi to catch the right train, and training my replacement at work. Developing knowledge is always exciting and scary because you know it must not only be thought but practiced. When I teach, I see students as people and people are affected by multiple layers of character, context and expectations. Students come with a host of questions: why should I even be here? What will we learn today? How will we learn it? Why are we learning it this way? When will I get to participate? What is expected of me? I need to not only know my discipline but also my students. Before words are even spoken, I have to think before acting: remembering who I am and what I am called to do, determining how I uniquely can share both, considering alternatives, organizing a plan, identifying an aim, and choosing a path towards that goal…yet always being willing to adapt and learn from my students. That is what is difficult about teaching, and that is what makes me thankful to be in a teacher ed program.

Though classwork can be wearying and the task of teaching overwhelming, I have enjoyed it all. I have enjoyed it because years ago I began to ask three questions:

1. Who am I?

2. What are my passions?

3. How can I use and develop both of those answers in the world around me?

Different word pairings have come to mind: responsible stewardship, professional humility, relationally inquisitive, bold engagement. Last quarter we were given questions to ask during our placements in various middle schools: who are our students? How do people learn? What is the school context? What are the risks I need to face? From day one at my middle school I dove in head first and it was refreshing to take familiar strokes in new waters and rewarding to learn strokes on the way. At the school and in my courses it has been affirming to see the value of incorporating my three questions into other questions. Our class knows each other better now and this quarter we are asking bigger questions about the role of education and the teacher in society, in a multicultural area, and in a multi-lingual classroom. Like all students, answering those questions gives flesh to the structure of education. Our discussions thus become both messy and beautiful since our stories, values, passions and fears are being revealed, both implicitly and explicitly. I am encouraged by the risks people are taking and the relationships that are being formed. I will be student teaching most of next school year at HS 3 (Health Sciences and Human Services High School) on the Evergreen Campus in the Highline School District, two miles from where I grew up. As I continue to ask my three questions among many other questions, I am grateful for space to contemplate an answer to that simple, mundane question from the man on my flight: what do you do?

the 4th on Rainier

2011-07-06T06:28:00.000-07:00

Sunday after church, two friends and I left to climb up Mt Rainier. The weather was amazing and I had a four day weekend so I was looking forward to getting out of town. Right after we unloaded our bags at the parking lot we realized that we only had a small bottle of sunscreen between the three of us. This was ironic since we were over prepared with all the rest of our gear! Thankfully none of us got too burnt. Packing in our gear to stay overnight plus my skis, my pack was pretty heavy and I quickly realized I am not in very good shape for alpine climbing.

There is nothing like a long hike to allow questions to fester in your mind over and over: Why don't I do this more often? Am I really this out of shape? How much further are we going? Why didn't I train more? Working out can be pretty simple and yet there are many profound parallels in life to applying a host of skills and a lot of energy to a given task. Being in grad school now, my thoughts quickly latch onto teaching and I recognize my own need to prepare and exercise in many ways. Like my students, living life outside of a class reminds me of the value of an education.

We had left late, so with the sun slipping away we decided to camp out on the snowfield below Camp Muir. We were pretty cosy and slept well for the most part. While having coffee and breakfast the next morning, we identified some different mountain ranges and contemplated future hikes. After hiking further to up to Muir we went skiing down the mountain, basically a long blue run. The snow conditions were excellent. Before packing up and heading home we shared a growler (Boundary Bay IPA) in the parking lot. It seems I was spoiled on my first time climbing Rainier!

Out of the Tunnel and into the Light

2011-03-27T21:53:00.000-07:00

The last time I posted here I had just started 25 credits while working three part time jobs. I was entering a deep, dark tunnel and knew this would be one of the toughest seasons of my life so far. Thankfully my family and several of my friends knew this as well, and I am grateful for their encouragement when I was tired, patience as I learned to say no to several commitments, and care as I felt stretched in many ways. As with any hard journey, I shifted my priorities and there was a strange mix of sadness and freedom in shedding previous roles and responsibilities along the way. I found a replacement for my administrative job at my church, stopped substitute teaching and moved to a substitute role as a counselor at the Boys and Girls Club. Though it was hard to see some projects left undone, to say goodbye to students I had coached and taught, and lead one more day of activities for my 2-3rd graders, I was glad to have some time to focus on my coursework and tests-prereqs for grad school. Yesterday I completed two more final papers, attended a wedding, cooked dinner, read for fun, watched a movie and slept for eleven hours. I am out of the tunnel and into the light. Now I am drinking a Dragonstooth Stout, a birthday gift from a friend, listening to Muse and getting excited for grad school.

Many have said I am going from one tunnel into another, perhaps they are right. Yet even as I fight a cough and complete my required reading for tomorrow, I cannot help reflecting back on all God has brought me through and wonder at the timing, the context and the manner of his faithfulness. Having come this far, I feel as though I had received Frodo's light of earendil to guide me further on. That light is ancient yet vibrant. It beckons me to remember where I have been, to call out where I am, to dream where I will be. Specifically, I am moved to remember who God is and what He has done, to call out to Him daily, and to freely dream of what he will do and who he will make me to be. As I look towards a career in teaching high schoolers, it is freeing to know that my worth does not lie in lesson plans, in test results, or even in relationships. Seeds are sown yet I cannot control the seasons.

I have walked onto the UW campus three times: in middle school doing research for a science project, in college considering a MA in Urban History and last fall to interview for the Masters in Teaching program. Tomorrow morning I will walk on campus as a graduate student with much to offer and much more to learn. Though I have cleared my schedule and made space on my bookshelves I plan on learning as I always have-by living out and exercising what I learn in the context of real life, in real time and real relationships with all of the inherent mystery, complexity and risk. My light still shines and the journey is not done.

Picasso at the SAM

2011-01-19T00:44:00.001-08:00

Though I saw signs for months and months about the Picasso Exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum, I didn’t go until just before it closed! And I already had been looking forward to it since the Picasso Museum in Paris was closed due to renovations when I went in August. It has the largest and most important repository of his work in the world 150+pieces of sculptures, drawings, prints and photographs. A friend called me the day before with an extra ticket and I went from 10pm-midnight!

A few years ago I visited a Picasso exhibit in London called “Challenging the Past”and made a post about it on my blog while I was in London. What immediately struck me about the collection at SAM was the sheer amount and variety of mediums displayed. There was no written material given but SAM provided audio lectures on over 20 pieces and their website had a massive download on the collection. It was interesting to see what pieces people passed by and which ones they gathered around. Many of the pieces I recognized: The Kiss, Goat Skull, Bottle and Candle, Le Couvent, 3 Figures under a Tree, Seated Woman, Man with a Straw Hat and Ice Cream, and others. There were many sculptures had not seen before. A few pieces stood out to me:

The first, Le Sacre-Coeur, I immediately recognized as the cathedral in Monmarte in Paris. I was there this summer with my brother and loved the neighborhood, the steep winding streets, the small shops, the green pathways nearby, the absence of tourists! In looking at Picasso’s painting, I felt spoiled at the thought of having seen what he saw and having been where he lived for so long. Le Sacre-Coeur has many angles to it, demonstrating Picasso’s constant pushing of the limits of art as a medium to convey reality. He was never abstract. Here he captures attempts to capture how we view things from different angles all at once, why not a painting? It leaves much to the imagination, without much color, clarity or even finish as if it is still forming, taking shape before being fully expressed as the artist community we knew it was.

After seeing lots of seated women, his Massacre in Korea 1951 struck me. It is decades after his famous Guernica on the Spanish Civil War but still has similar drastic imagery with a very clear declaration about the effects of war. It has a cold, colorless appearance. The expressionless, rigid, robotic-like characters on the right contrast with the naked, emotional, womb-filled figures on the left. Some sometimes Picasso can be stark with his simplicity, sometimes it hits home nonetheless having succeeded at captivated us with more than our sight.

I had previously seen very few photographs of Picasso and it helped me place him in a more contemporary context that I typically remember-a lot of international conflict in the midst of his artistic breakthroughs. It was interesting to see pictures of his son, wife(s), and friends and see how they compared to his depictions of them.

Though it is not entirely fair to compare them, the exhibit in London was more informative about the full development of and specific influences on Picasso; in printed material, visual outlines, and audio summaries. Granted, they were specifically relating the whole exhibit to how Picasso challenged the past, but having a broader discussion of art history allowed for a greater appreciation of how he interacted with past artists like Money and Valasquez. SAM did have more art, especially photographs, and laid it out well with good lighting.

I hit a mental break, I could not process it all. I met one acquaintance who was there from 7-12! It was all good to see but I faced my limit. It left me thinking and contemplating, the imprint of great art. I also left being grateful , grateful for being able to see so many places in the world and so many different works of art, far more than I would have even dreamed of ten years ago. I felt like I bore a responsibility to not forfeit, flaunt or forget that privilege but somehow enjoy it, share it, use it again and again…

Christmas-the Blessing of Family

2011-01-03T12:33:00.000-08:00

It had been a full week already, I felt a cough coming on and I was tired but as I settled into my seat on the train to Redding, CA Christmas Eve morning I was relieved and excited to think of being with my family that night.The last few years our family has been through many transitions and Christmas is the one time we all gather together. We exchange very few, if any, gifts but what we

all love and treasure is that we each carve out finances, time and energy to live under one roof and enjoy life together for a week. Travel takes up a big cost each year since we live in Seattle, N. Cali, S. Cali, Tennessee, and Wyoming. Normally a week flies by for me, but itwas a rare gift to have a whole week that was full but not rushed, relaxed but not boring. Here are some highlights from our time together last week:

Playing-having time to actual recreate is rare for me. It snowed and rained a lot so we were inside more than outside playing video games, cards, table tennis, pool, and basketball. But we were able to go skiing, snowboarding and snow shoeing. I had not been skiing in five years so I was very excited about hitting the slopes. Two days later I returned with a snowboard and really enjoyed it though it was my first time-thankfully it was a clear day with lots of powder.

Eating-to hear our family talk about food you'd assume we were morbidly obese. Thankfully we are not but we do love good food. Two meals are family Xmas traditions: Fondu dinner and Red and Green breakfast. Especially after doing cooking projects with 2nd-3rd graders this last year I can understand why my parents chose these meals-they involve a lot of prep that keeps little kids hands busy:)

Fondu Dinner

we made two different cheese options and had bread, small potatoes, ham, cauliflower, apples, brussel sprouts, etc. to dip. The normal rule is that whoever is first to lose their food in the cheese while dipping has to do dishes! After dinner we have the chocolate fondu with strawberries, bananas, and raspberries were a new addition this year. I sadly forgot to pull out my camera for this.

Red and Green Breakfast

we are the only family I know yet who has made up this tradition: all the food served has to be red or green, assisted by food coloring if necessary. We had crepes, sausage, jams and jellies, whipped cream, powdered sugar, juice, applesauce-all red or green (though white was allowed too). It might not look appetizing but trust me it tastes amazing!

Prayer time

Every Christmas gathering at some point, near the beginning or end of a day, we update each other on how we are doing and take time to pray for each other. Especially the last few years I've seen how much of a blessing this is, to know that despite the distance between us, we are still family. It allows us to know how we are doing, which is hard to gage from a phone call or letter sometimes.

Surprise Meal

One of my sisters made me a celebratory meal for getting into a grad school: my ideal winter meal of homemade soup, bread, with cheese and a salad. I really need to get better vocab to describe it all. I felt so spoiled to walk in a see it all made! I ended up taking a loaf with me on the train and just eating it plain-it was that good...

On the Train

I really enjoyed my train ride though the arrival and departure times were unfortunate in Redding (2:30am and 3:30am). It was spacious, quiet, scenic. I could spend days completely alone and be pretty content. I was able to read for fun! no homework or assignments or lessons to plan. I watched a few episodes of a show my brother in law gave me a year earlier...I made slow progress over a year. Compared to the cost of flying and attention demand of driving, the train was perfect

Thanksgiving-risks resulting in gratitude

2010-11-25T10:24:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning and was delighted to see snow falling, again. Kids in my youth group had prayed for snow Sunday night, I wonder how long they’ve played in it. Most of us after a few hours recognize the downside to a snow: icy roads, cold fingers, and our world becomes momentarily harder, smaller. The little kid in each of us often asks for things without considering what it will cost. We respond by believing some things are better to look at than enjoy. We’d rather watch from the window than go out to build a snow fort, or observe an attractive person instead of engaging with them, or talk about our desires and dreams rather than pursuing them. For me, I do this because I hate risks, the unknown, the lack of control. I’m flexible and adaptive but that is just because I quickly analyze, reason and access a situation and make a Plan B, C, D…actually executing ideas though risks remain is hard, trusting others is even harder. This past year I am thankful for all the ways I have been blessed by leaning on God and other people, reminding me to let go and enjoy life instead of managing it.

A year ago, I was with family in Colorado after a funeral (a hard reality check on not having control) and over our Thanksgiving preparations and meal I shared my dream of being a teacher with different family members. I hesitated to because it was still a dream, a thought, a desire-I was not in fact a teacher. But I invited them into the journey, the long road between hope and reality. Though I have pursued dreams before, this was a rare time that I felt the support of God and others to be free to admit both the joys and trials that would come. I looked at grad schools last spring and was immediately struck by all the letters, prerequisite classes, and exams I’d need to complete before even applying. I walked away from the UW campus in late May overwhelmed as I tried thinking through how I was going to take 6 classes, have a 60hr high school observation, take 2 exams and complete the application paperwork by October while I was currently juggling work as a youth leader, church administrator and after school counselor. I did what most people would have done much earlier-I prayed. Like a child, I shared my dream with God my Father, surrendering control while committing to trust Him and do my best to take the steps as he led.

There were many obstacles that God cleared away and some that he didn’t. I had to stay close to him as my faith was stretched. I had to learn to say no, to deal with not giving 100% in everything, to not being understood; I stumbled and leaned on others. My dream was not my own, others chose to enter in. Six months later I have applied to the UW Masters in Teaching program and await my final interview next week. Even in making plans based on acceptance or rejection I have to trust God-taking 25 credits from 3 colleges in the Winter Quarter while working or looking elsewhere for grad work. The door could have closed earlier, but as long as it is open I’ll keep walking.

Rather than simply stretching my faith, God is stretching me to enjoy who he has made me, to enjoy relationships and the world around me. He wants me to lift my head occasionally and reflect on how far he has brought me, on his many blessings: a place to live, a car, friends, a church, a loving family, a job. What I love about snow days in Seattle is that everything slows down, I can’t be as efficient and others encourage me to enjoy the God-given break from routines.

In doing homework, finding classes, going to work, and making plans, days like today remind me that running in the snow to a coffee shop, watching a movie, and cooking with friends, was a good idea, and just as important to being human. In fact, they are better because they drive me to community, provide space to enjoy the humanity of myself and others, and force me to evaluate who I am, what I am doing/being and why. Thanksgiving reminds me of the expulsive power of joy, courage and humility that comes from taking risks to be more human by not managing or simply dreaming but living together: to pursue and receive, to share and invite, to believe order comes through freedom, to get lost in the wonder of the gift and Giver of life.

A few short days in Paris

2010-11-13T04:19:00.000-08:00

Just when my dream of returning to London for a holiday was becoming a reality, my brother Nate's hope of going to Europe came true. He was asked to come out to work in Germany for the month of June, which was convenient due to that being the end of his work contract at Cal-State Fullerton and also due to having a German girlfriend. He didn't know how long he'd be in Germany but we thought it'd be nice to meet up somewhere midway. Paris was the place!

He had been traveling for a few weeks around Sweden, Finland, Italy and Greece and was more than a little maxed out on seeing things. Neither of us had been to Paris. It was his last stop before going home and a few hours from London by train for me.

I arrived before him and settled in at the Hotel Petit de Louvre near the Eiffel Tower. I cleaned up, bought some fresh bread and cheese and met some college friends beneath the Tower. They had been to Paris before and gave great suggestions on places to go. I walked down the Champ

de Mars, through the Hotel des Invalides, past the Grand Palais, down the Champs E'yses, around the Arc de Triomphe, to Victor hugo's house and finally to Rafael's Hotel to meet Nate. He, his friend and I walked to the Latin Quarter for dinner and ate in the square of St. Germain. I had mozzarella cheese with basil leaves and tomato, a tender piece of lamb, along with champagne and wine. It was a beautiful place but I was a disappointed to hear American music being played while eating-I would have preferred a more French ambiance. It was an amazing dinner, I feel horrible for not having the vocabulary to describe it.

I joined Nate and his friend for breakfast but the rest of the time it was just Nate and I. After moving his luggage to my place, we went to the Basilque de Sacre Caeur on a steep hill overlooking Paris. There were pathways 180 degrees around it, with shops and parks and crowds of couples-reminding us that Paris isn't a normal place for brothers to meet up. We walked to Notre Dame, dropped in the Shakespeare Book Company, and ate dinner off Mabillon in the Latin Quarter, which was almost completely empty! Evidently most citizens of Paris were on vacation.

We walked to Rue Cler and had crepes for breakfast, banana & nutella:) The market was actually anticlimactic after all that I had heard and read about it from chefs-wrong season I guess. From there we went to the Louvre, to which Nate responded, "What? a museum Ben, seriously?" When he walked in, he began to realize its significance but still declared "Going to a museum with you is like going shopping with Stephanie" (his girlfriend). The Louvre was immense and overwhelming but lacked the diversity and clarity of the Vatican Museums in Rome. After 2.5hrs, my senses had hit "overload" and we went down to the Jardin du Luxembourg, which was larger than I expected. I told Nate he could choose a place for lunch since I had taken so long at the museum, assuming he'd soak up the opportunity to have good French food. Instead, the moment he saw someone eating McDonalds, he rushed over and found out where the store was. So in my final hours in Paris I sat at a window with a McFlurry and Spicy Chicken Burger, not what I expected but definitely memorable!

random highlights:

-observing the high commitment to fashion everywhere, even a 60+yr old woman wearing 5in. wedges down the street

-making faces with children in the park or train, seeing the light in their eyes, speaking an intl language of humor

-preferring the steep, narrow, winding streets of Montmartre over the busy streets of central Paris

-soaking up the freedom of a holiday, being able to ask "what do I want to do today?"

-getting time with someone who knows me well

Holiday in London!

2010-11-07T17:09:00.000-08:00

It had been a dream ever since I returned last year from London go back to visit, and I was able to go for eighteen days at the end of August! I wasn't sure how I'd feel going back: would people remember me? what is the neighborhood like? What would I do for fun? Who would I get to see? Life was full enough before going that these thoughts didn't plague me too much:)
While spending an extra day in Philly due to a mishap with the airlines, i studied for a test and got to know a football (soccer) coach from N. England-which helped the time pass. From the moment I saw my friends greet me at the Heathrow until I left, I felt warmly received and had an amazing time reconnecting with a place that had become home. I didn't miss the big city or tourist places, I missed relationships, so my highlights might seem small unless you know their depth:

1. the normalcy of seeing your old neighborhood
having my old CC, travel card (oyster), mobile and knowing the area made getting around much easier. I was dropped off for lunch at someone's house from the airport, walked into the charity shop I used to work at, ASHA and surprised the family working there, saw familiar faces, and was greeted on the street I used to live on with the shouts of boys calling out for me to play football with them. I stayed around Kenton with a neighboring Indian family, sharing meals and getting time with their son. I had several long conversations over tea, late nights with friends and dinners with families. The time flew by. After being gone almost a year it was comforting to know that the community that had become family to me was still there and still family in many ways despite the distance.
2.enjoying London with friends
I was able to take two boys to a Chelsea match. They had way more gear than me and their relentless chattering exhibited their enthusiasm. though Seattle has their own team now, their matches don't compare to those in the Premier League. I met a friend from high school who is working at a theatre in downtown London and she showed me around the backstage and introduced me to her coworkers. It is sweet to see someone pursue their dreams and trace how God opens up doors. Two high school students involved in the church plant New Life Suwarta Sangat were great as I played show and tell showing some of my favorite spots around the city. The Nottinghill Carnival was colorful, in more ways than one, and crowded but after hearing so much about it I am glad I went. After several full days of seeing people, it was nice to spend a few hours alone in Kew Gardens on an "Indian summer" day with rain pouring between sun breaks.

3. revisiting the ministries I was involved with
The building we were able to use rent free, Glebe Fellowship Hall, had been completely remodeled and our lease we had negotiated was finalized-which meant that I was visiting just before they were fully able to execute all their amazing ideas for using to host events and activities for the community. I was able to visit a few apprentices who were just starting program I had been a part of. It is exciting to keep up with them and hear how everything has developed since I was in their shoes.

4. an afternoon with the Irvines

Though my time with them was very short, it was sweet. The Irvine family with two kids and new baby in tow has just arrived a few days before I left and were the main family I got to know during my time in London. I got to wrestle, read, eat, and play with the kids and heard their stories and told my own of the past year. Reconnecting with kids does not happen easily and I was glad to find them so receptive to letting me back into their lives. The parents and I reflected on how easy and natural it felt for me to be there.

Overall I realized that despite the time and distance, I still have a community of friends in London that I can return to if/when a door opens in the future. But for now I remain in Seattle and begin my pursuit of a Masters in Teaching...another journey begins.

Men on the Mountain

2010-08-07T22:20:00.000-07:00

I was finally heading to the mountains yet unlike most trips, I had barely anything to do. Someone else reserved the campground, organized who was coming, bought and brought all the food, and had all the gear for cooking. All I had to do was pack a sleeping bag and tent! After finishing work Thursday evening and picking three people up, we were off toward Leavenworth for "Men on the Mountain", our church's annual retreat for men and their sons.

We arrived late at night to around 20 people sitting around a campfire, having snacks, drinks and cigars, playing games, cooking marshmallows, etc. The sky was crisp and clear, revealing

countless stars. You could hear the river running over the rocks 100ft away. It was all very inviting. Most of the guys had been there before. I joined in for a while and went to bed around 12:30. I tried sleeping in, but my body automatically woke up at 7am. I rolled over and slept longer:)

I was excited to go on a hike and the weather was nice-sunny but not hot. The group has been going to the same place near Icicle Creek for over a decade, so they have gotten to know all the surrounding trails very well. After a hearty breakfast and packing a lunch, 15 of us left to hike to Stuart Lake. Most of it was in the shade, but it was pretty. The bugs bothered us and my legs were covered in bites. It was all worth it when we broke out of the woods and we saw this:

Though the smoke from BC still hovered over the bowl, it was gorgeous and kept us hiking on eager for more. It took 2 hrs to get to Stuart Lake. It was fed by a glacier yet the water wasn't as cold as I expected. A few of us even swam!

Six of us chose to hike up a boulder field to Axis Peak, which gained 2000ft in less than a mile. It was doable, but definitely precarious.Though we had a few bumps and bruises, no one was hurt excessively. When we finally reached the top, this was our view:

We signed our names at the top, rested a bit,took pics and then camedown. I was glad that we didn't stray off our path and that everyone made it back in good time. I wasn't as out of shape as I thought I was. I think we all were motivated by the thought of fresh, fire-roasted chicken awaiting us for dinner! We were all pretty hungry and lounged around the fire pit for a few hours before heading to bed.

As much as I tried sleeping in, I still woke up at 7:30. The pancake, eggs and bacon breakfast was amazing! Some of us went down by the river but most were cleaning and packing up. Thankfully it didn't start raining until we all were on the road. It was a great time, but went by quickly. I need to get up to the mts more.

Youth Camp

2010-07-25T09:12:00.000-07:00

Last Monday, I took 10 excited teenagers up near Mt. Baker for a Reformed Youth Ministries summer camp http://rymonline.org/. It was a beautiful drive on some back-country highways that reminded me how much I had missed the outdoors while living in London. Each day we had breakfast-morning assembly-class electives-Mega Rec (organized recreation)-FREE TIME!-dinner-evening assembly-small groups-FREE TIME! There were a variety of options for free time-two different hikes, swimming at a lake, a car tour, walking to nearby lakes and rivers, frisbee and other sports around the camp...or a nap, which would have been nice.

The conference theme was the Sovereignty of God and three classes were offered for both senior and junior high addressing specific questions that corresponded to that theme. i was asked to answer: "Why do the opinions of others matter so much to me?" for the junior high. I ended up having two groups each day, 20-25 kid in each. It is a heavy question but it was fun to get them engaged and instruct them in how the gospel makes a difference in tangible ways with relationships.

My group of kids mostly stuck together or with another, though there were a few who ventured further out relationally. I was proud of them in many ways as their leader. Most of the questions discussed in the classes and evening assembly they've already wrestled through with me in youth group. They are, as we all are, still wrestling with them, but they understand the framework. I also couldn't be in four places at once so it was freeing to know that they wouldn't do something foolish, or at least not before I would return! Risk was definitely involved in attempting to cross the freezing river, but that occurs with any adventure.

Thursday we went into Bellingham for an elaborate scavenger hunt-the quest for the granite gargoyle and golden cherub! The director of our camp and written up an entire story along with poetry and "deep parchments" instructing and giving clues to the campers. We didn't have the special effects and dire consequences of Indiana Jones, National Treasurer, or The Da Vinci Code and our prize was not humanity's salvation from imminent death or redemption from tampered history but free ice cream instead. Afterwards, some of my group went to some local thrift stores and found some stellar outfits, which gave me some thoughts for a future game...

After doing an 8 mile hike Friday afternoon, I quickly said goodbye to the kids, entrusted another leader to keep an eye on them, packed up, drove home, cleaned up and slept. I had a 5 hr exam starting at 8am and though I didn't have much time to study, I believe it went well. The kids told me they were up until 4am and had some fun stories to tell so I'd say camp finished well!

A week on the Rez

2010-07-18T23:54:00.000-07:00

It had reached the mid-90s in Seattle Friday and I was on my way to south central Washington. Like any Seattlite who heads over the mts to an area which technically is a desert, I prepared myself for the heat with two things I rarely have around: sunscreen and sunglasses. I was on my way to Yakima with the youth from my church. When it passed 100 degrees Sunday we were glad to have a day to acclimate to the weather.

We also were getting oriented to a culture that is largely overlooked, its language almost forgotten, its way of life almost eradicated-the Yakima Indian culture. It is a marginalized people group, a community in need. Rather than traveling thousands of miles to engage with some exotic, well publicized country in crisis, we chose to go right in our backyard. I have friends living there who helped establish Sacred Road Ministries http://sacredroadministries.com/www They have intentionally slowed down, observed and planted roots in the community-sharing both their pains and their dreams. I have looked forward to joining them for several years so it was a joy to learn from them and work alongside them even for a short time

My group joined a group from Jackson, MS and a family from GA in doing work projects each morning followed by a kids club at two different sites in the afternoons. It was fun to hear the various Southern accents and work together. Being associated with the "church people" helped immensely in being accepted where we went since Sacred Road has a positive reputation in the community, not simply for doing good things but for having faithful, patient yet persistent hope and joy in loving others. It was a privilege to be part of that while reroofing and repainting 2 homes, playing with children, building a shed and deck, giving rides on our backs, telling stories, teaching crafts and sharing our hearts. It is amazing how powerful it can be to take an interest in someone's life, to hear their story and enter in.

Each of us had stories to tell of our week there and it can be hard to summarize. One quick one from me: i had just set down our box of crafts underneath a tree when I heard running steps just in front of me. A small boy lunged through the air toward me with a huge smile on his face as I caught him and swung him around and around. He was so eager to be noticed. He had an appetite for attention that was satiated for a brief moment in that hug. Others came wanting to be held, thrown high into the air, each saying "again, again!" It was a joy to give something so simple that was so treasured. All of us had similar moments where it was clear that we are blessed in order to be a blessing to others, giving and sharing stories within stories.

It was a challenging but affirming experience, as most memorable and meaningful experiences are.

Part 3: Role of the Church, Community and “Calling”: Where do we go from here?

2010-06-14T22:35:00.000-07:00

I was chopping up veggies for a monster soup tonight when I realized I never got back to summarizing the final part of my paper!

Image Bearing, Culture-Making Part 1 explored the framework and concepts of culture, defined as "what we make of the world in both senses" (what we physically make and how we understand our world). I identified ways we normally think of engaging with culture and offered an alternative. Part 2 examined the way Christians in power positions in recent years live out and apply their faith, specifically in politics, entertainment, academia and business. I concluded that there are two main groups: one focuses on the Christian community, largely removes itself from its community in carrying out their vision of change and acts through mass mobilization while the other focuses on the community around them, largely removes itself from church and the Christian subculture and acts through small, intentional gatherings meant to equip more than mobilize. The reality of this divide among Christians forced me to ask questions that led to Part 3: do they need the Church? Do I? Can we really change the world? Are we blending the self-reliant, skeptical American hero with our idea of Christ as exemplar? How do we determine or discover our sense of vocation or "calling"?

While preparing the lecture for Part 3 I realized that there was a ton of ground to cover: ecclesiology, ethics, Christology, community and discernment. Any one of those areas could distract us from the questions at hand, though extremely important to understand. I realized the typical reaction from Christians when they feel pressured to be part of a Church is: “All men are called to the Kingdom; not all men are called to the church.” When we think of engaging the world around us, I believe the church has become an option, and a small, fragile one in our minds. The Bible defines the church as the people of God, the body of Christ and fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The gravitas has been lost for most.

The Church

There is much that can be said to refute this statement but the worth of the church to Christ and the clear purpose of the church come immediately to mind. God sent His only Son to die for the Church, the community of believers, those God has called to Himself. The Church was worth Jesus' life, and it is therefore worth more than our "consideration". The Church has been integral to God's plan of redemption since the beginning: we are blessed to be a blessing, and in doing so God’s name is glorified. Israel is God’s cultural project-to create a people defined by faith. God’s blessings impact not simply our souls, but our entire existence. Our love for him is to affect everything (Dt. 6). This mission is not meant to be a blueprint, for then we would never need God. Our mission, our goal individually and communally is to worship God, to know Him and all else flows from that.

Ethics and theology

But how do we bless others? How do we connect our theology (study of God) to our ethics (way of life)? Unlike human relationships, we often limit knowing God to knowing who He is, not what He does. Before we ask “How do we..? we must ask “how does He...?”As we go to God’s Word we see that He engages with the cultures of the world by penetrating and preserving, wrecking and redeeming. He curses Adam and Eve yet gives them leather instead of fig leaves to cover their shame. He destroys Sodom yet saves Lot. He sends a flood, but saves a family. His bride, the church, is called to penetrate and preserve the cultures of this world. Jesus made disciples and called us likewise to invest relationally and all else would flow from that. Paul exemplified this through church planting and the epistles emphasize that it is among the community of believers (the church) that we discern what needs to be torn down and built up around us.

Reality Check: Calling

I know it sounds very un-American, but there are things we cannot do. God changes people, which is the core of culture. In most of the discussion of culture making I grant too much human agency as sociologists would call it. It is helpful again to look at how God works through people in scripture and how they are identified: patient, grateful and generous, daring, humble responsible. They are reliant on God to guide them-incredibly humbling yet empowering.

They learn in community by asking questions. Where have you successfully proposed a new cultural good? What is something specific that you have fixed or redeemed in some way? In what ways do you currently have cultural power or influence? With whom are you sharing your power? The act of making an idea or something material starts small, with just a few people. Out of that circle is often a circle of 10-15 people and after that might be a circle of 100. This is a normal pattern for how artifacts or ideas of culture are made and multiplied, be it a scientific theory or organic produce. Who are your 3? These are the few people who you trust enough to risk attempting something together. In considering the characteristics above, are you more excited about discovering more of the world or more of God? Where do you experience grace-divine growth that far exceeds your efforts? To put it another way, what is your story? What has God done most powerfully in your life?

I have found it helpful to include others in discerning “the next step” by asking them:
What are three specific weaknesses and strengths you see in me?
What do you think is my motive and goal in this decision?
Do you think I have trusted God in this whole process?
Does this fit at all with what God has been doing in my life?
Do I feel the freedom to fail? Do I have the joyful assurance that all could be taken away, all that people know of me yet if I have Christ, I have a worth, peace, hope and future?

What are questions you have asked?

Final reflection:
Though it would be nice to focus on what we do as transformed, re-cultured people with God’s guidance in the redemptive art of culture making, it is challenging to consider Paul’s words in I Cor. 1:18 reminding us that the most consequential moment in history is “not an action but a passion-not a doing but a suffering”.[1] He was the most capable person ever to shape the world with his own power and talents yet when he faced sin and death and Satan head on, it was on a cross, representing the dead end of culture. The resurrection thus represents the pattern for culture making in the image of God-not power but trust. Not independence, but dependence. Boasting in the cross is radical and admittedly weird. Jesus died not merely as our friend but as our Lord. God is not merely Creator but Ruler of all. Jesus as King puts teeth to his title of Redeemer. We need to follow who we serve, which means loving those he has loved even when they hurt us.
[1] Andy Crouch. Culture Making. 142

Part 2: Current Place of Christians in Power

2010-05-29T23:01:00.000-07:00

Last week I wrote about the definition and structure of culture in order to frame future discussion. But as with most structures, they are hard to understand until you see them built upon and applied (like the skeletal system supporting the other systems). Anyways, this week I decided to summarize the rise of evangelicals to “power” positions in culture: media, business, politics and academics. They certainly do not represent all of American Christianity but they represent a culturally powerful group that represents Christianity outside of the subculture to a large degree. This will only be a cursory review of the areas in order for us to get to Part 3 for discussion of the role of the church, of community, and “calling” in engaging with those areas. Here are some quotes:

Martin Luther: “The very ablest of youth should be reserved and educated not for the office of preaching, but for government, because in preaching the Holy Spirit does it all, whereas, in government one must exercise reason in the shadowy realms where ambiguity and uncertainty are the order of the day.”

Mark Knoll wrote The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind in 1994 with a disparaging tone for the incredible lack of evangelical academic achievement. But today he says he would have written it with “a different tone—more hopeful than despairing, more attuned to possibilities than to problems, more concerned with theological resources than theological problems.”

The 2005 host for Inside Edition gave this response to a Christian's surprise at being invited on the show: “Didn't you know? Christian is the new gay”.

I utilized much of the research done by Michael Lindsay in Faith in the Halls of Power where he summarized his personal interviews of over 300 Christians in power positions-well written and thorough but long and academic so be prepared.

Summary: Despite Christians losing many of their positions of influence by the mid-21^st c, we have been active in higher education, remembered the importance of the arts and entertainment, and utilized religious expression in the workplace. Expressive language, symbolic action and creativity have brought faith into the public consciousness through networking naturally yet intentionally. Christian leaders in business, academia, media, and politics do not have much individual power, but they have “convening power”: the power to bring disparate people together, which is potent for a rising movement. Their orthodoxy has flexibility or elasticity that allows them to hold to their convictions while cooperating with those that don't.
But what do they want to do with this cultural power? Who do they want to serve? Answering this reveals a divide: one group directs their efforts inwardly, what some have called “Populist Evangelicalism” while another group directs their efforts outward, what some call “Cosmopolitan Evangelicalism”. The Populist group depends on mass mobilization and large-scale democratic action by creating a dichotomy between traditional and secular activists and promoting theological simplicity and pragmatism. Focus on the Family's Washington for Jesus Rally and Moral Majority, Jerry Falwell, Joel Olsteen are key leaders in this group. The Cosmopolitan group tries to distance itself from the Populist group, come from various backgrounds, have greater access to powerful institutions; most came to faith after high school. They travel constantly and are involved in the arts and live affluently. Both are zealous in living out their faith, but they act on their convictions differently. Cosmopolitan evangelicals have small, invitation-only gatherings of elite social and professional peers, and slowly affect politics through equipping leaders. Populist evangelicals aim for mass rallies like stadium events, and mobilize and push for immediate legislation. Cosmopolitan evangelical efforts take more time to succeed than the Populist ones, but theirs will have a more lasting impact. Populist evangelicals' primary aim is to convert their opponent religiously, politically, socially, etc. whereas the Cosmopolitan ones focus on establishing “legitimacy” with their opponents. Despite their differences, these two groups do not divide over political lines as much. My hunch is that this is because they both are largely removed from the world of economic inequality.

Remaining questions for Part 3
Do these cultural elite Christians need the church? Do I? If poverty is being cut off from cultural power then who will use their influence instead of further impoverishing people through willful ignorance?Do we need God's guidance or the church's support? Only 20% of evangelicals nationally recall talking with their pastor about their job in the past year. It is tempting to speak and live as if the onus was completely on us as individuals to change the world and transform culture- a clear loss of a communitarian ethic. How do we exercise our cultural power? What does it mean to have communal discernment? What should characterize our lives as culture makers? Can we really change anything? How we discern our calling? Who is involved?

Being Human-Image Bearers, Culture Makers

2010-05-22T18:54:00.000-07:00

About 10-12 random Christians, those I know and don't know, come together for a dinner and discussion every Sunday evening. We each volunteer to share about something that we are passionate about that engages our faith. Below is part of introduction and conclusion of my lecture for tomorrow night covering the last 100yrs of Christian involvement with/reaction to culture. Part 2 will cover the current place of Christians in positions of power: politics, media, academia and business. Part 3 will discuss the role of the church and community in living out one's faith.

Introduction:
"Culture is what we make of the world, in both senses”-Ken Myers.

Culture is not the arts or the sense of being “cultured” or the “fish bowl” metaphor. It is how we see the world, similar to someone asking “what do you make of that book?” It is also making in the physical sense just like someone asking you “what are you making?” Defining culture in this way allows for greater depth, creativity and breadth.
God created all out of nothing, bringing order out of chaos. God is not only Creator but Ruler (which sounds bad to us Americans due to our history). God is also the first culture maker, he made a garden, he brought further order and beauty to what was already good. He made us to reflect His image and participate in that work, order accompanies creativity. He gave us a perception or a way to see the world. He modelled both senses of making culture. We are called to be priests, to be culture makers by uniting what has been broken by both receiving the world from God and offering it to God.

The world and what is in the world is not stagnant, it was not created to be that way and thus it is futile and dangerous to address culture in either sense as an abstract, ethereal concept. Adam's first task, and one that Eve was a helper in, was naming and cultivating creation. Culture is the activity of making meaning, otherwise Adam and Eve would have had a boring task, a boring life. Thankfully God is more creative and calls us to be. Seeing culture this way we realize the complexity of what occurs at the Fall. Besides the broken relationship with God, with paradise, with shalom, we now have a warped culture. To be culture makers we have enemies in our flesh, in our world and in Satan as we try to model God’s culture making.

Jesus is the ultimate and perfect priest. He does not throw out the old and bring in the new, he restores and redeems. Modeling his Father, he knows he is dealing with shattered ruins with glimpses of their former glory; mankind still bears some semblance of God’s image. Jesus identifies what is good and bad in our culture, in both senses, and his restoration heals and restores the good, bringing something new, fresh into existence (a new life, a healthy leg, a challenging principle “love your enemy”) while tearing down the bad bringing conflict, liberation, and freedom (turning the tables in the temple, casting out demons, conquering Satan and death, condemning “religion”, calling us brothers). Hebrews reminds how Jesus fulfilled all the expectations of being the perfect man, which included the roles of prophet, priest and king. He spent most of his life in the world behind the scenes before dramatically reshaping culture on every level. How did he engage with culture? How do we?

Conclusion:

The patterns of the last century were to condemn, critique, copy or consume culture. Which of these did Jesus adopt? He did none of these and all of these for he adopted them as gestures not postures. A posture is your adopted, habitual stance to the world around you. It affects how you see and how you engage with the world. Bad postures inhibit movement and limit perspective. Good posture frees our movement and opens our perspective. Gestures are movements and actions adopted for specific occasions, circumstances and people. I can gesture rejection by a hand raised or a clenched fist, or pondering by a hand on my chin, mimicking by careful observation or greed by reaching out with both hands. There are all kinds of gestures we make to communicate what we think of something that is displayed in action. Gestures change whereas a posture does not, cannot. Jesus’ posture was one of creating, of making culture by healing what is broken and building up and bringing out the good that was held captive, hidden or maimed by the bad. Again what is good or bad is a result of what we make of the world in both senses of “make”-a physical artifact (slice of culture) and accepted perspective (belief of culture). Jesus doesn’t give us the option of making any gesture into a posture. Just looking at his life proves that he had no consistent gesture. What he does do is model perfectly how one interacts with culture in specific ways (the gestures). The only way to change culture is to create new culture; we need to offer an alternative. For our own joy and benefit (and others), and for God’s glory, we need to be better culture makers.

Preview of Part 2 and 3:

Are Christians in positions of cultural power? How do they view their faith and their work? Do they function independently or corporately? How do they interact with non-Christians? The earliest record of man, Genesis 1-2 reminds us that we need God, and were designed dependent on each other as human. It is interesting that the only longing present before the Fall is for community, the only thing God saw as “not good” was for man to be alone. (This normally is referenced in marriage but the more immediate reference should be friendship/community). For man to fully reflect God's image (trinity), community needed to be reflected as well. Life and culture is actually made more beautiful because of that dependency. There is development expected rather than an idealization of a garden paradise-the final vision given in the Bible is of a city with nations bringing forth their glory to be seen through the light of God's glory (Rev. 21:24) But how does sin impact all of this? What is the role of the church?

*if you want a link to the paper itself let me know

Dad's visit and a wedding

2010-05-10T12:29:00.000-07:00

It has been almost a month since my last post, April seemed to fly by. Even with three part time jobs, my life can seem to fall into a routine. Routines give me the structure necessary for me to accomplish things but they also get repetitive. It was nice to have some refreshing trips away.

My dad came from Wyoming to visit me for a few days. Being one of four kids, this was the first time I ever had multiple days with just him-not having to share attention. It was fun to play show and tell in a sense-where I am living, where I am working, who my friends are, favorite places, etc. He had not been back since moving in the fall of 2007. Wyoming was definitely a culture shock coming from Seattle, and there was some shock in returning to "the big city". It was nice to not have plans but to decide things as the days progressed. We went up to the mts for a few days and he enjoyed seeing so much green! It was refreshing to share my life with him without being rushed.

The next weekend I left to a friend's wedding in Chattanooga, TN. The ceremony and reception was next to a lake/pond and despite the clouds and a brief shower, they held it outside. Weddings are about the only time I wear a suit, so my sister snagged the opportunity to get a picture with me, she was one of the bridesmaids. Besides getting to see the bride and groom, it was great to catch up with friends I had not seen in a while. Some of them I have known over seven years! Though each of us have had significant changes in our lives, we have enough in common to maintain our friendships. Serving as bartender allowed me to see more people than I otherwise would have. Despite all the prep and clean up, it actually was a relaxing day. And as with most weddings, it wasn't until the end that it sunk in "huh, I don't know when I'll see these friends again...". I soaked in the cool evening and smiled as i thought of my friends who were just married.
Sunday I visited Rock Creek Fellowship, the church I attended in college. It was the first place I saw the church as a welcoming but also broken and vulnerable family. I could be real with them, I could rest. I am grateful for that gift and for the now 7 yrs of their prayers and support. My favorite and most vivid memory is of having communion with them and singing together.
I stayed a few extra days to see my sister and brother in-law before they moved to North Carolina. They've been married almost 2 yrs and in the same area 7+ yrs. My sister finished up a paralegal program and he is ready for a change in work, so thankfully they have a summer to contemplate what the future might look like. It was sweet to have lazy mornings, to be around people who've known me longer than 6 months, to read in a hammock, to slow down.

It was weird to walk around my old college campus, to see renovations, new buildings, new fields, new faces. The students seemed so young. I had some friends who were graduating the next week who were freshmen when I had graduated. I enjoyed hearing their future plans while I reflected back on my final week in college three years ago. All transitions involve risk and create a mix of excitement and nervousness. It is a comfort to realize you are not alone in that tension.

It was refreshing to get away but responsibilities awaited me, and the Noise of life greeted me at the terminal. Vacations are committed, extended breaks from that Noise but they make me realize the need to create space in my daily routine for silence, for fellowship, for rest.

The Seattle Sounders...our loudest "wannabe European" outlet

2010-04-19T20:42:00.000-07:00

The passion of Seattle Sounders' fans is still mind-boggling. Yes we finally have a generation of Seattlites with a love of, and money to support, football (soccer) but the earnestness to dialogue about it, to claim our very own football culture, the eagerness to say "football" and wave our scarves made me see that there is something much deeper motivating these fans than "love of the game"-it was the freedom, nay, the liberation of being able to loudly exclaim our love of something European. And through it, have a gateway to mention our love of everything European.
Even though I grew up in Seattle, it wasn't until the last few years that I realized how European Seattlites try to be. (I must admit though that the cultural diversity of White Center in the southern part of West Seattle where I lived age 5-17 didn't, and does not, exemplify this "wannabe European" trait). My story is a common Seattlite story: a love for culture and travel led me to explore and live in cities both nationally and internationally, even earning me the nickname "the nomad", only to find myself returning unexpectedly and finally coming to call Seattle and the Northwest "home". Like other Seattlites, my love for culture and travel remains, but if there is any city in the US that I feel good about being identified with and can boast about, Seattle is it. (Seattle's geography was the first thing I missed yet I admit that I am prone to highlight the amount of rain and overall dreary, depressing environment in the hope that its beauty remain a secret to deter the hoards of people flocking in.) There are many, many traits I could talk about that draw people to Seattle, but I merely want to highlight one: our "wannabe European" vibe.
I am not bashing this trait, but I find it curious considering how cosmopolitan we try to present ourselves, how unaware we are of any problems with this trait, and how pervasive it is. Only recently did Seattle lose its place as the whitest major city in America, replaced by Portland. The Washington Post wrote an interesting article about this development and what it means for both cities. I think most of Seattle does not recognize how white we are, and especially how culturally dominant the "white culture" is.
Seattle is the most European city I have been to in the States and we idealize Europe more than anyone, making it almost sound like a fairytale place. I hear this frequently from people who travel more than I do yet in returning from living in the UK for a year and traveling in Europe, I believe it more. Europe can do very little wrong in our eyes: clothing, art, cars, sports, food, drinks, music, politics, religion (lack thereof), education, economics, etc. Chief among the problems in this trait is that few of us recognize how difficult it is even for Europeans to agree on defining what "European" is. One need only look at issues within the European Union the last few years to see this. Yes there are some key similarities, but the differences bring mess and conflict- realities that mar this fairytale place.
This "wannabe European" trait is pervasive. I walked downtown Saturday morning and noticed a few things (I didn't go out searching): the accents we choose to use in our advertisements, 4 Italian pizza chains claiming to be THE authentic Italian pizza place and I could not find any place fighting to be have the authentic Chicago-style pizza, European-style clothing and American apparel but little else, domestic or abroad, the pride and glory in being the birthplace of transplanting coffee culture to America, and FINALLY...our Seattle Sounders.

When the MLS began, Europe was the model and no city embraced this more whole-heartedly than Seattle-proved by our record breaking attendance, season ticket holders, and frankly, zeal. Rain or shine, we'll have seats filled with happy fans. In addition to what we own, drink, wear and say, we now can SHOUT about something European and somehow feel more hip, more cultured, more sophisticated, more internationally justified and aware. Whether we are at the match striving to be the hooligan we always hear about, or pounding back a pint at an Irish pub downtown, we feel connected to the world in a way that baseball, basketball, football, etc. can't provide.
As a student of history and culture, I believe there is much to be praised in widening our focus to include the world around us, but that world is bigger than simply Europe. Yes I admit that this trait is not exhaustive: Honda's are still popular, we proudly know the difference btwn food from Japan, China, Thailand, Korea, and we are of one of few cities that has retained a hippie community (not just the wannabe type).
This "wannabe European" trait makes me wonder: why do we strive for this so much? What does it offer us? What do we forfeit by losing it?

Sat game: frustrating to watch but not boring. Freddy M. seemed lazy, again, and we only had 2 shots on goal but I joined in the exhuberance when Mike Fucito came off the reserve the final 5 minutes and scored in stoppage time! It happened so quick on the throw-in that few actually saw or expected it. I was glad to see it, relieved mostly. Fucito's story is a good read. We need to be playing better.

Fun at the Club

2010-04-07T22:32:00.000-07:00

I have been working at the Ballard Boys and Girls Club for almost four months and have loved it. There are two other counselors with me leading the "Fish", 30 2-3rd graders, and I am only there in the afternoons. After working at an office in the morning, it is a nice shift to being around the kids, organizing activities, playing games, cooking dishes, teaching crafts, etc. Of course with kids there is also the occasional mess, whining, disobedience, but by in large they are a great group and I've had fun getting to know them all.
Entering the world of an 8yr is interesting. Their world can be shattered if someone takes the last yellow lincoln log or completely restored if the gym is suddenly open to play in. Social interaction brings all sorts of conflict-potential into the room when you have such a large mix of kids. Some are the oldest, some the youngest, others in the middle, and some have no siblings at all. Friendships are defended and displayed in unusual ways. By giving them optional activities and reminding them of the resposibility each entails, they are learning that the world doesn't revolve around them, that they don't always get their way, that their actions have consequences, and also that they have more fun when things are structured, that having friends who encourage is better than ones who make fun of you, that it is safer to take risks when you have the freedom to fail. Their world may seem simple to adults, but to them it is overwhelming complex at times.

Our room and club is equipped for structured, fun activity. In our room we have a shelf of books and board games, boxes of legos, cards, lincoln logs, blocks, paper, pens, colored pencils, and more. Each month we change the decorations together and think of the "Question of the Month". Every day we have group time to share stories from the day and hear our activity options. They get to go outside, use the gym, work on the computers, study with other students. There is a routine for what we do and when and where it is done. BUT when the kids are on school break, like last week-it all changes. We have field trips to parks, the zoo, go bowling, mini-golf, swimming...with a ton more time to do it! I just wanted to highlight two things from last week.
1. Ballard Boys and Girls Club-lego editionFor my entire time at the club, all the kids have been obssessed with lincoln logs. They would have lincoln log wars, forts, competitions endlessly. I was curious how long this would last! I was surprised last week when I came in and saw three boxes of legos and eight kids building anything that came to their mind. A few of them started building a structure and came up with the idea of making the BBGC out of legos! Each day they added new parts to it. I had not picked up legos in years and felt like a little kid again helping them find pieces and brainstorm where each should go. The final result looked like this, though no camera angle could do justice. We are all pretty proud of it, though it is incomplete.
2. Ironman Fan
One of the boys in my group loves robots, and anything associated with them. So he pretty much adores Ironman and he and his friend decided to build an Ironman suit over the break. To motivate them to finish, I told them that if they did complete it all, then I'd grow and shave my facial hair like the real Ironman! Their eyes got big and they immediately started drawing out plans. They were limited on materials and not allowed to weld yet, so cardboard had to suffice. He couldn't bring it into the club from his house so I needed a detailed description and his mom's testimony before I committed to the goatee but they did it. I continue to enjoy being at the club because it is always an adventure and growing place for both kids and counselors.

Lock-in

2010-04-03T14:19:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I led my first lock-in with the youth group of CrossPoint Churches. I honestly wasn't sure how it would go, especially since I was the only chaperone who would be there the whole time! What do you do in a lock-in? I reflected back on ones I went to when I was a teenager, and hoped that this night wouldn't be as crazy. The kids came around 8pm. After an icebreaker and setting the rules for the night, I had them put their cell phones on a bin and we kept them there the whole night-surprisingly most the kids actually thought it was a great idea! I planned on staying up all night, and they were welcome to but I gave them the speech about discerning whether to do so considering their commitments the next day, health, etc. The last time I remember boasting about how late I stayed up I was in middle school. Somewhere in high school I became overcommitted enough to treasure every minute of sleep I could get and was content to let people win the “game” of staying up the longest.
When you aren't doing assignments or preparing for exams, all-nighters can be fun so I made sure I had plenty of activities planned and was curious to try them out with the group. We didn't have time for them all. After a few hours of games, snacks and sundaes, “Follow the Guard” was the chosen favorite activity. Probably the funniest moment for me that night was around 1am when I asked if they wanted to watch a movie and they quickly yelled “No! We'll fall asleep!” I liked the honesty.
I had been up since 6:30am Friday and around 3am Saturday I was glad to see that most of the kids had fallen asleep already. I had chosen not to have any caffeine so I wasn't sure how I'd last. Apples to Apples and other small games kept the few remaining kids entertained and I was entertained watching them. They fought off “long blinks” and claimed they were merely “resting their eyes” for minutes at a time:) The night had been cold and clear, which made for a wondeful sunrise at Green Lake, so I brought them down around 7am. They started making pancakes when they returned, which was hilarious to watch. I made some scrambled eggs and prepared fruit and drinks. We ate around 8:00, or rather grazed. After so much sugar from junk food the night prior, some people had upset stomachs. We had way too many pancakes. People were just awake enough to help me clean, but not awake enough to argue about it-which was perfect. Everything was cleaned and put away by 9:30, leaving time for some to flop back on the floor and sleep. We had survived our first lock-in, but unlike when I was a teenager, I couldn't go home and sleep the rest of the day...
I had some other work to do that day, errands to run and a party to prepare for at my place-probably not the smartest decision after an all-nighter. Around 4pm I was fading quickly and crashed for about 2 hours before preparing the barbeque. I didn't have a lot of social energy, so I was relieved that only 10 were in our house at one time through the night. The party was over at 1am, I went to sleep at 1:30 and was up at 9:00, so thankfully I had Monday morning free to finally catch up on sleep. Was the lock-in worth it? Yes, but I won't make a habit of it-I love sleep too much.

A Birthday Vacation in LA

2010-03-22T13:28:00.000-07:00

My birthday, March 9th, was an intense, chaotic and hectic day. It was an emotional rollercoaster: calls from friends in London, transitions and drama with my 3 part time jobs, friend's emergencies, car problems, planning events, making decisions and having little flexibility to get things done. I rarely get stressed out, largely because I manage things and adapt well but that whole week, all the way up to walking on the plane Thursday night to LA I was admittedly stressed. It was a foreign feeling, and it took a while to name it but when I let out a sigh on the plane, I realized I was ready for a holiday. And there is no one better I know to help me enjoy life than my brother Nate.

He has been in LA for four years now and calls it home. We had a loose schedule. I mainly wanted to relax, see his friends, explore the city a little and go surfing at least once. After arriving, I spent the next 2.5 hrs in LA traffic; not the best start. He works at a college supervising students, which he does well at but at 25 he is ready to move out of the college scene. After being a nomad myself, it was nice to be around someone who has known me so long-he is my triplet after all! We went to his friend's house in Beverly Hills and I had a few glasses of the best wine I've ever tasted:) His friend greeted me with a sentence I would hear often that week"So you're Ben, Nate has told me so much about you". I wasn't sure whether to feel honored or worried by that introduction...thankfully I have a good brother who doesn't make me look bad in order to make himself look better.

We went to Six Flags! It had been over a decade since I had been at a theme park and I felt like a little kid again excited to go on rollercoasters and feel a strange attraction to testing my fears. Exchange students joined us from the university who were from Germany and Hungary, so their stories kept us entertained while waiting in the lines. The rollercoasters made me feel like a child's toy-i remember as a kid making all sorts of rides and courses for my lego men and spinning them around and around different directions. I definitely felt a rush at times!

The next morning we woke up early, walked out the door, grabbed our boards and walked down to the water. As I strapped my leash and ran into the water I realized it had been years since I was surfing. I call myself a paddler, not a surfer because I am a beginner and spend more time paddling than actually riding the waves. I'd rather be honest about my inexperience-at least it decreases the humiliation of missing a wave. The breaks were only 2-3 ft but it was enough to get up on my longboard. It was a joy to see dolphins only 15 feet from me. They are large animals and I felt kind of helpless on my little board floating waiting for a wave. It was a perfect day, and I was soaking in the morning sunshine. I stayed out in the water until I literally could not paddle anymore because my hands were too cold to close my fingers together.

My last night there we went to West Hollywood and ate at Dan Tana's Restaurant on Santa Monica Blvd. I quickly saw that it was a Hollywood hangout and when I heard it opened in the 60s, I knew the food must be amazing. I savoured their mozzarella marinara and linguini clams over the next hour with glasses of wine. I felt spoiled!

My last day I enjoyed having a slow morning, making coffee and going for a walk in the sunshine. I had to fight off the thoughts of all that i'd need to do when I returned that night. I was slipping away from the "holiday zone"! Jumping in the pool, playing basketball and lifting weights the next few hours kept those thoughts at bay. On my flight home, I was grateful for the silence, to soak in the final hours of my holiday. My birthday vacation was over, and it could not have come at a better time.

The Impact of Cross-Cultural Experience (Part 2)

2010-03-21T23:49:00.000-07:00

Sorry to delay the continued thought on this. I had finished by talking about the power of the gospel to unite different people and culture and tranform them into unique, strong, and honest communities. I believe this happens because this "good news", that Jesus died to save sinners, challenges and affirms aspects of every person and every culture. The fact that God claims that the fullest display of his power and glory is shown at the cross, what is meant to show utter shame and defeat-God restores what is broken by paying the cost himself. Since Adam's rebellion, no one is utterly evil but are marred, we all are like shattered ruins which hint towards a former glory, giving us a glimpse at what was and a peak into what will be. The power and wonder of the cross, that "God so loved that world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life", reveals God's commitment to his creation, those made in his image. That story of a covenant, a faithful passion for His people, captures us in such a way that others are drawn not to simply a system of beliefs and moral codes but drawn to feel more human, not less, more whole and complete, not disillusioned and fragile. When considering the diversity of cultures and beliefs, the gospel becomes more beautiful and meaningful, not less. We all have faith in something, somewhere to find worth, guidance, peace, and joy. We long to be known yet fear full disclosure. It is intimidating yet freeing to be welcome as humans-frail, tattered yet hopeful-in his presence. I am so glad that we did not have to earn our way to Him or go find Him but rather he came to us and defying all rationality he chose to come in such a common way that some people missed him completely. His normalcy, his humanness was as staggering as His glory. He valued relationships becoming subject to time and space for our sake. Living and learning cross-culturally has shown me the weight given by God accomodating us in such a drastic way and the joy in seeing myself and others transformed and shaped slowly as a result into the "true adam" as restored image-bearers of God.

The Impact of Cross-Cultural Experience (Part 1)

2010-03-08T23:30:00.000-08:00

As I met with parents of the youth group at my church for an informal “get to know you” night, I was asked a particular question that caught me off guard: “how has your interest and pursuit of understanding and engaging cross-culturally shaped you?” I was not sure how to answer. It was seven years ago that I first decided to study religion and history in order to do community development, to “understand” culture instead of having a goal to simply “appreciate” it as anthropology or many religion programs would. But what kind of journey have I had since that decision? Where has that path led? What have I learned and am still learning?
I was tongue tied for a minute, mulling the question over in my head searching for an answer-an answer that was concise, believable, yet authentic. I had none b/c like culture, my answer had to have a context, a framework, color and nuance. Yes I have changed the last seven years and have learned much but I also see how much I have yet to learn. These are all very general areas but they are what came to mind:
1. Culture is complex
You don't need to go to another country to be confronted with a different culture. Surfers are sometimes described in Nebraska like some of us describe a third-world culture! Seeing, recognizing and learning to love the differences in your community is hard. Going from White Center in West Seattle (almost everything but white racially to those who know it) to a largely white Christian high school was cross-cultural, with all the vocabulary, behavioral mores, tensions, questions, risks, acclamation and critique of going to another country. Going from that school to Lookout Mountain, GA (the south) for college was another cross-cultural experience. I worked one summer in St. Louis, with one of the highest home owning immigrant communities in the country, for an inner city youth development program,. I also helped with a youth group 20 min away in white suburbia. It was two different worlds separated by a highway (sort of like Fitzgerald's portrayal of the area between New York and West Egg in The Great Gatsby). In some ways it was easier for me to go to Uganda and relate with the village community there than it would have been to engage with the deaf community outside my own house in the US. Living in and visiting cities around the country made me realize how quickly we create cultures and subcultures, largely to define ourselves better in light of others. Even in a world class city like London where you'd imagine a melting pot experience to be common, living with the Indian community 30 min outside London and riding my cycle to central London was immensely cross-cultural! And now, living in/near the Central District and working primarily in Green Lake and further west in Ballard I see and feel like I pass through markedly different communities.
2. We connect as humans not by avoiding hard questions but by asking them
Avoiding the hard questions is a disfavor to others, in fact it is quite lazy though it seems “kind”. Asking my host family in Mexico why I got to sleep on the only bed in the house taught me much about their culture, hospitality and contentment. Asking the finance minister of Uganda how he handles the weight of civil war and economic disaster was hard, but it revealed his heart-as he spoke of Jesus' love for him even as tears came down his cheek recounting the struggles of living out that faith in a broken world. Asking a suburban youth what he wants for his birthday but knows he can't receive -parents who work less and love him more-revealed how poverty is not simply economic. Asking a second generation Indian immigrant in London how he felt about his future-fearful, weary and anxious-revealed a man caught between two cultures struggling to love one while paving his way in another. Asking hard questions connects us because at our core we are amazingly similar. How someone asks those questions matters because only when you feel cherished do you trust someone fully and see grace and hope as a gift can. And then they, despite their circumstances, are both challenged and comforted by being part of something bigger, more complex and beautiful than they fully know. Friendship, humble yet intentional fellowship, breaks past systems and structures to our deepest hopes and fears, doubts and dreams, which is both scary and remarkably comforting.
Food for thought: Christians were first called that name by the Romans in Antioch b/c they could not be categorized. For their own safety, the Romans had to segregate those they ruled from each other but since Christians came from all sorts of racial, economic and cultural backgrounds, they didn't know what unified them other than believing Christ, hence “Christians”. Read any history of Rome or any portion of the Bible and you'll see that combining people with differences into one group is messy and dangerous yet despite culture's complexity and life's hard questions, the group that emerges is stronger, not weaker. More on how that happens in the next post...

The Weight of Words

2010-02-24T21:45:00.000-08:00

For most of my life I have hesitated to express myself, to put words to how I feel, what I want and what I am doing. Though I often doubt that anyone is actually interested, the main reason is that I fear rejection. I think it is only "safe" when I have the right diction, imagery, tone, proper syntax and iambic pentameter, etc.--basically if I am a natural Walt Whitman or RobertFrost. Thus, I am intimidated and have rarely ever ventured to write this way unless forced in school, which was only occasional. What I lack is courage to write, to feebly attempt articulation of what is vague but pressing on my mind. The simple advise in Finding Forrester that "the first step to writing is to write" challenges me but has also freed me to make mistakes and wonder at the weight of words. I wrote this last spring while having coffee in London reflecting on how arduous making a simple blog post felt:)

New Birth
My writing emerges from a pregnant mind and heart
Slowly, painfully with both fear and excitement
Anxiety of what might be-too soon? Too late?
How will it be received? How will it resemble me?
What trials might it face?
YET
The wonder always wins out
It’s finally here! What will it look like?
What life will it lead? Who will it meet on the way?
Whose lives will be impacted?
Oh, what a treasure! This is mine, my gift to the world.
No matter how it is received by others
I will always claim, value and love it
I wonder, truly wonder at one thought made real…

My words arrive so vulnerable, weak, dependent,
The letters are naked and messy
The phrases so full of erratic emotion, fearful of
This new world, being constrained to pen and paper
Yet bursting with potential barely contained in its new form
They are so feeble, foreign yet formidable with each stroke
Simultaneously taking a life of its own and giving to the lives around it

New writing, new birth
Filled with the same expectations, hopes and dreams
Met with the same scrutiny, overwhelmed expressions
Though small, it seems to shake the world
A product of a couple, familiar with a few, yet distinct from all
The sounds form tone, the words structure, the phrases meaning
As they crawl, and walk and run into being
And oh how they run!
So bold, so free, so full of unadulterated wonder
Not completely understood but monumental in every way

AND the writing grows like any child I suppose…

Editing would be the rough adolescent stage (identity formation, acceptance)
Publication would be the hard earned, but sweet adult stage (satisfied, validated and valued)
And then parenting! -how words meet, bond and amazingly create new words, new birth…again
Hmmm, I wonder…(and so I write!)

A Morning with SAM

2010-02-15T12:42:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I went to the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) with some friends. I had not been inside since the remodeling began years ago and like so many places in Seattle, I was never intentional about "playing tourist." Thankfully my friends were interested AND also had an inside connection for free entry, so I went. Once I walked up the staircase while looking at the floating cars speared with shards of light, I realized "remodel" was the wrong word to use-it really was a new museum from the ground up, a "reconstruction." They had permanent galleries: Modern and Contemporary, Native American, NW artists, African, American, Australian and Oceanic, Asian, Ancient Mediterranean and Islamic, and Textiles yet we first went to the Special Exhibits-"Alexander Calder: A Balancing Act" and "Michelango Public and Private."

Calder was a master sculptor in the mid 20th c. creating an array of work as small as jewelry to as large as room-size mobiles. There were trinkets and toys and abstract designs. Mobiles were hanging all over the ceiling, perfectly balanced yet seemingly unstructured, without pattern or consistency though any fraction of weight difference in any direction would ruin the whole. It was interesting to see the process of his work, his ingenuity and inspiration but it did not capture me. There was almost too much left to interpret. Yes I can get lazy and want a full explanation of the artist's intention but like so much modern art, depth and wonder are often replaced with shallow "appreciation" in light of plain or simplistic or even elementary elements.

A contrast would be the next exhibit I saw on Michelango. We often think of Da Vinci being the Renaissance man who was plagued by ambition from overwhelming ability and imagination. Yet Michelango had his struggles as well, to a deeper level in some ways. This exhibit focused on his preliminary work for the Sistine Chapel. SAM was able to get a very rare collection of his sketches and drawings, his trial and error so to speak. There are only 12 in the US total and SAM acquired 12 more from the Cada Buonarroti in Florence. There are so few because he habitually burnt his preliminary work. I felt privileged in some way to be able to compare the drafts with the final product, having seen the Sistine Chapel in August last year (in the Vatican Museums, entrance shown in the picture).

Unlike Calder's exhibit, Michelangelo's left me with a sense of weight, of depth, of real substance. The intensity with which he worked and the excitement and turmoil revealed in his letters are evidence of his responsibility as an artist and the weight of the themes he was seeking to contain and display through art. He was not merely trying to master a certain medium or style of art, but trying to use it to point to something greater, someone greater. Art has become an end in itself for many, yet for Michelango it served as a tool, a window, a gateway to understand the world.

As I walked through the other exhibits of SAM, I had to stop because I couldn't take it all in anymore. I have a limit on how much I can soak in at a museum, it is wearying to have a Matrix-like download of such a concise, processed collection of culture. You pay to get in so you want your money's worth I suppose. Though you have museums stocked full of artifacts and exhibits around the world so little is seen, so little is preseved of cultures long ago. Small fragments remain and few are valued appropiately. So much is lost and even more forgotten: A name, a village, a story, a culture. Which memories are kept and treasured and which do we choose to ignore, to degrade, to kill? Why?
Would I be satisfied with one room with one raw artifact without commentary, without dates or facts instead of a museum full of ones known and itemized? Would I be content wondering, pondering the mystery of that one piece? Would I be comforted yet challenged by the sheer weight and power of time, culture, history-humanity and my small yet significant existence as I reflect its place and my place woven and connected somehow in the fabric of creation? I hope so.

Of all artifacts of history, all slices of culture, art is the most insightful and deceptive, and like any power it can build and destroy, be used for good and for evil. Interpreting art requires wisdom and creating it demands responsibility and discernment. I fear both interpreting and creating art today demands too little of us. You must grasp something in order to bend it, otherwise you may break it and something broken has no value but to learn what to do next time. Even Picasso understood this: "Art is a lie which helps us see the truth." We forget the goal of seeing the truth when we treasure the lie more, when we prefer to be blind than to see.

My stomach rumbled, someone suggested lunch at Pike Place and the day moved on and less heavy thoughts filled my head but I am glad I had that morning with SAM.

Reconnecting

2010-02-09T21:39:00.000-08:00

Though I lived in Seattle from age 6 to 18 and then for 10 months before going to London in 2008, I did not return having many friends in Seattle. I mentioned in my last post how the culture shock impacted that but there was also the necessity to find work, a place to live, and a community. Having fewer friends in some ways made it an easier transition. Rather than feeling the need to reconnect with tons of people and bare my soul, it was relieving to only be that intentional with a few people who had asked "how are you?" as opposed to the majority who only wanted the 5 minute answer to "how was London?". Yet I quickly became numb to the emotional stretching and tension of adjusting to a new home. When I did try to reconnect with people, to listen to their stories, to enter into where they were it came across as too intentional, too personal. I am thankful for those who did sit down, press questions into me and made me feel free to express the joys and struggles of that experience and also admit the present confusion, awkwardness and fears. My initial months back were filled with transitions, risks but most of all-blessings.

A family graciously opened up their home to me for almost two months. I was able to see my sister and brother in-law, supporting church and friends in mid Oct and started a part time job when I returned at CrossPoint Churches as their Pastoral Support Coordinator. My aunt died suddenly a few weeks later and I was able to see my dad's side of the family again during that grieving period but also have Thanksgiving with them for the first time I can remember. I returned from that trip to start a part time job with The Ballard Boys and Girls Club. A week later I was able to buy a used Honda Civic for a great deal after saving for years which helped me get around the city. One of my pastors connected me with a guy at church who wanted a housemate and by mid-Dec I was able to move into an amazing place with affordable rent. I was able to see old friends from high school, attend a wedding, settle into a new room, set up Xmas decor and cook my first turkey before leaving to see my family Christmas Day. My immediate family had not been together in 1.5 yrs and since we live in 5 different states, it was a joy to have a week to reconnect. My brother and I slept in the barn in the back and kept a fire going. We had a small Christmas, went on hikes, read, had wonderful meals and enjoyed sleeping in. It is amazing to realize that within three months of my return to the States, I had two part time jobs, housing, a new car, a new church and was able to see 40+ family members and friends-what a praise!

One of the first things I missed about London was actually the solitude, the time to myself to explore the city, to reflect on the week's activities, to zone out while cooking a meal. It was nice to walk around Seattle, to find a coffee shop and sit down and people watch, to observe language and body language and learn of my new community. I walked down 1st ave and looked through some used book stores and searched for a new map for our wall. I got to play a tourist in my hometown, which was more natural than I thought it would be. It was a huge gift to join some friends for the last regular season Sounders game and see the football craze that had swept in while I was away. It didn't compare to football matches in the UK but it still made me smile to find something here that was shared with where I had been.

One of the hardest things about reconnecting was the normalcy of life-the realization that people had not changed much while I was away and the expectation that I had not either. The desire to be understood, to find sympathy, to find acceptance was and is very strong. It was and is hard to schedule something as simple as dinner with friends. Now, even four month later, there are many people in Seattle I have not yet reconnected or connected with. Time is precious and one of the hardest things to share with, or sacrifice for, another and I feel blessed to have had time to see old friends, meet new people, and form new friendships as I settle in my home.

Culture Shock

2010-02-02T22:49:00.000-08:00

The reality of leaving hit me in waves, periodically rising suddenly out of seemingly mundane circumstances-taking my last bus ride, walking past certain streets, hearing Indian music, working at our charity shop, or simply having dinner with my Indian family. During my last Sunday night in Sept, these waves came in abundance and the "tide" rose leaving me overwhelmed. I didn't fight or ride the waves, I was knocked over-such was the loving affirmation of having 80 Indian friends gather to say goodbye, shower me with gifts, and tell me what I mean to them. I came not knowing anyone, and left with a community of friends; it was not easy to leave, I miss them. पास इन जेसुस' नामे

(i kept a blog during my year there: www.ben-inlondon.blogspot.com)

My first few weeks back I felt like I was in a fog, knowing I was somewhere familiar but not sure what lay ahead. It honestly seemed like a holiday at first. Whenever you travel, you take some comfort in knowing that the cultural tensions do not need to be completely resolved since you'll be returning home. I was not going to return to London and once again I was in transition with lots of questions: where would I live? where will I work? who will be my friends? Plus the culture seemed very different. We have a new president, new policies. I am surrounded largely by white people instead of immigrants. Everything seems big-a group of Americans each the width of the escalator, a huge red Mustang roars down the streets in Philly, a mansion is off a main drive in Chattanooga, the roads, shopping carts, lanes, rooms. Though I lived in London, most of the culture shock came from living among the Indian community and their emphasis on relationships, hospitality, service, an uncompromising unity between their faith and their whole life. I had become accustomed to an Eastern mindset and perspective on things which added some confusion in returning to the States. It was hard not to be critical as I walked around and observed my country which would need to become home again.

I was more fragile than I realized as I coped in returning. It was easy enough to answer "Hey man what did you do over there?" It was harder to answer "how was your time? how are you now? what is next?" I had to pause and emotions bubbled up-both joy and sorrow. The demands of life kept me on the move as I tried to find work, a place to live and reconnect with people who had supported me to go. When I was still, when I went to bed, when I sat in the airport terminals reality's tide swept over me and I admitted I was not as strong as I thought-that I still had questions about the future, was afraid of new risks and decisions, and felt very alone. Yes I spoke English still and though whatever accent I had faded, my aspirated "t"s and British vocabulary still stood out as I struggled to remember basic words. I felt like an immigrant in my own country.

I had attended a church before leaving to London which would have been the most natural place to connect. But after spending most of my time in London largely isolated from the Christian community, especially any peers, I felt awkward, a little out of place-like a long lost sibling having to relearn how to be part of the family. Like anyone in transition, it was and is hard to start over again, to find and build a new community of friends and learn to call a place home.

As soon as I could, I went to the mountains. I definitely missed those while I was away. It was refreshing to hike in the sun, see God's creation and be alone again and pray and unload my thoughts and fears. The shock wasn't over and questions, risks and fears were still there but I felt more courage as I went back knowing that friendships would come, that a job would open, that I would find joy and rest soon and that Seattle would slowly become home again.