What I currently understand about differences; I am sure I have a lot to learn.

I found this picture online claiming that it was the border between the Baltic and North seas, but with a little more research, I think it was taken in Alaska. Some of the water is fresh water that has been created from glacier melt. Because of the differing densities, the bodies of water are mixing much slower, so much that is appears as if they are not mixing at all. I don't know how valid this argument is, but this picture really got me thinking.

America is all about borders - that law in this state and this law in that state, moving west and pushing forward the frontier, this race/color verses that race/color. Why can't these boarders mix?

This is apparently the border between Belgium and The Netherlands, right along side a cafe. Can you imagine eating your lunch in The Netherlands and then stepping over to Belgium to take a stroll? What if it were like this between California and Mexico? Maybe you are thinking: that is not the same thing - Americans and Mexicans are just different. How different? (2 Cor 4:18) Seriously, let's think about what really matters. (Weightier Matters, Dallin H Oaks)

I am an English major emphasizing in teaching and therefore, American literature. The more I read, the more I feel sick when people talk nonchalantly about slavery or color. The more I read, the more frustrated I get with causal descriptions of what race is. Do you know what race is? Seriously, think about it. In my multicultural education class we learned that Race is a social construction that categorizes people based on physical appearance. Ethnicity explains where each individual comes from. So what race am I?

When I was little, I always thought I was White. Actually, I thought everyone whose skin wasn't really dark was White. Then my Asian and Mexican and Middle Eastern friends told me they weren't White. I came to find out that at one time in American history, people who came from Ireland were not considered white, or people who came from Bohemia or Italy - anyone who came in as an outsider, an "other." The definition of white has changed over time, and it really isn't just about the lightness of ones skin. What a racist term. I don't want to be white.

But then, am I Caucasian? Someone told me Caucasians came from the Caucus Mountains. I didn't come from there. A quick skim over the Wikipedia page confirmed my opinion that Caucasian is about as racist a term as White. So what race am I?

Who cares what race I am; that is not what it is all about anyway.

This is a picture of the class divide somewhere in Brazil. How could you seriously sit in one of those balcony swimming pools, look down on all that poverty and seriously enjoy yourself? Things like this, interactions between people who are different from one another, don't have to be like oil and water.

Now I am not saying we are all the same. We are not. We are all very different from one another. But I have come to the conclusion that engaging with "the other" is the only way to truly express one's self. A community of people function like a body (1 Cor 12:12-26). If you begin to draw a stick figure and only draw the circle, the drawing does not reach its full meaning until the body is attached. Each of us with our differences makes up a part of a beautiful whole (for more, look into relationality).

So regardless of what race society says you are or what race your neighbor is, I want to always remember that society made up these classifications, and God made up people who look different, talk different, act different - all in different beautiful ways - but all with the same amount of worth as children of God with divine potential. There doesn't have to be borders between us unless we create them.

For more: No More Strangers  by Alexander B. Morrison and Concern for the One  by Joseph B. Wirthlin

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Everyone shares love differently, but no matter what, love heals.

I saw this last night with a group of friends. It was beautifully done, intensely sad, but expressed so much love in such a broken way - very postmodern (accepting that life is broken fragments and enjoying what is there). Although parts of it did break my heart, I would recommend it with a little bit of reservation.

Sarah Sample

Went to a little local concert. Love her music. Sweet personality too. Check it out.

Retro Perspecto

My mom keeps this Rubbermaid of old fabric that she might want to use for sewing. I was looking through it this Christmas break and came across this gem. All I am saying is that my mom used to wear these! I only wish you could try them on yourselves.

But, ya know, this got me thinking...who can pull these off? Could I pull these off? Maybe without the running tights underneath :), but really. I am not going to lie, I was tempted to wear them to school. Maybe I could even bring a typewriter or some quills with ink or parchment or ya whatever else is out there. Maybe tomorrow, ya know?

The Rise of the Pocket Watch

Let's rewind a three months ago. Routine checking of my email. Subject line: Christmas wish lists. Click. Scrolling down...Sophie - baking supplies, games, a pocket watch...wait, a pocket watch? With a nutrition quiz due at five that evening I moved on forgetting about the strange or not so strange things my little sister might be asking for for Christmas.

Three days ago. Christmas morning. Michael Bublé on in the background. We were all sitting around in our pajamas. Sophie pulls the ribbon off a little box to reveal her treasured pocket watch. Check this out:

Now she wears this everyday. It is like she straight out of a movie, only I have never seen anything like my little sister in a movie. Trend setter or individualist? I am curious to find out.

Photo Challenge

On the last day of June of this year, I issued a photo challenge on my creativity blog. Day three: clouds.

I was looking at some old pictures of my attempt at the challenge, and I found, clouds.

There are two important purposes to this blog post. One: to share this awesome picture, (okay maybe only I think it is awesome) because to me it is a piece of the sublime.
                    Sublime: terrifying and awe inspiring at the same time.


It reminds me that an almighty God created all things. What is even more amazing is his person love for each individual. (Check out this same idea here.)

Reason Two: To reissue this photo challenge. January first is all about coming up with goals anyway, isn't it? To be totally honest, come January fourth, I will be busy with winter semester credits, indoor track season, and whatever else I can fit into my day, but that doesn't mean some of you can come up with some awesome photos while enhancing your own creativity and inspiring others'. You can find the challenge by following this link.

I used to think everyone was just trying to understand the world  -  however each person can, in his own unique way. Now, I am not so sure.


Maybe some people are just enjoying the world.


Well, I am trying to understand the world. I guess, it is kind of cool when the rug is pulled out from under you. Sweep under the rug. . . or make designs in the dust. either way, is fine.

What I have been reading...

When I was nine years old, I was in fifth grade. I woke up one morning to get ready for school. The phone rang and being the little kid that I was, I ran to answer it. My mom beat me too it. I picked up the receiver and listened in: "I just don't want the kids to be scared at school today. . .just turn on the TV it is all over the news." I didn't know what my grandma was talking about. I wasn't scared. I followed my mom downstairs and we turned on the TV. I saw the president frantically running in the wind, microphones to his face. I saw two large buildings on fire. I saw people jump off those buildings. I saw a replay of a plane fly straight into a building. I saw the buildings begin to collapse. This is what I saw, but I did not understand.

My mom started to explain. I can't remember what she told me. I remember being scared. Before school that morning I knelt behind the couch, childish tears in my eyes, and prayed that everything would be okay. After that, I wasn't scared.

Two years later. I was eleven. Seventh grade reading class required us to do a book report. I read Let's Roll, a story of Todd Beamer. He stood up to the hijackers and tried to regain Flight 93. He risked everything. He died. But that plane landed in a field in Pennsylvania, not wherever it was intended. That kind of courage, is the courage you read about. At eleven years old, I put him into my bank of heroes. I still think about him today.

Now, I am twenty-one. I am taking an American literary history class. I am proud to be American, not because it is any better than anywhere else, but because it is my own. The last day of class we started reading post 9/11 literature. My professor asked us: "How do you see these pieces responding to the event?" How do I answer that question? What do I understand of such a tragic thing? What do any of us understand?

In Cirum by Elena Alexander, I see a numbness of emotion in this vast universe of space. Where are we? Where am I? When it comes down to it, all that matters is people, other people. (The message of the Gospel can answer so many questions and bring so much happiness.) Life has pain, it has wasp stings: "Love and no love." "Please speak with your mouth full. I would love to hear; anything. You have to say." If we think of life as space, a sting will "crease the space we never see, but know is there." Maybe it will bring people together.

In How I Read since September 11th by Vivan Gornick, I see a shake of interpretation. Why does tragedy demand that we question all that we once held firm? Maybe it strips down all the glamour and shows us truth. (Like the truths of the Gospel. We can see those we lost again in the next life.) We all "stand at the end of history" as we create it. The future moves forward and with it, it brings the past.

In Travel Log by John Kelly I come closer than I ever have before to understanding what really happened that day. It was not just the twin towers that fell apart, but after tragedy, we can build back up to stronger and greater things.

I was only nine. Now I am only twenty-one. All I know is what I see, what I read, and what I am able to understand. After a tragedy, we have two choices: make the best or make the worse. There is still so much I do not understand about September Eleventh, but what I do know, is that that event contributed to the picture of America and because of people like Todd Beamer, America is a better place today.

notre arbre de Noël

Well my roommate Charity, loves Christmas, or maybe Christmas loves charity...Either way, a week or two ago we ended up with a little Christmas tree in our apartment, but no Christmas ornaments. So yesterday after getting home from a great Christmas Devotional (that you should really check out) we decorated our very own homemade tree. Christmas music in the background, popcorn pieces all over the floor, sour cranberries in our mouths  -  this is the way to go. Did I mention the smell of gingerbread? Okay maybe I am flaunting my sweet little Christmas night. Anyway, check out our tree, humble yes, but Christmas all the same :)

My Family

What I love about each of my family members:

My mom is so talented and she gives of all her love and talent so freely to us and to everyone she knows.

My dad is very intelligent and works hard at every thing he does, but what I admire even more is that he loves very deeply.

My brother Chris (CJ) cares about people a lot too. He is a deep thinker and I admire how much he is able to learn by observation.

My brother Zander is very intelligent, but he also never lets anyone feel left out.

My sister Sophie is a great example of service to me.

A note about nationals

So I was running in the national NCAA cross country meet. It was cold and wet. I was trained for this kind of thing. I was ready. Everyone was fast. I was fast. (I had to remember that one.) The course was hard. I was almost 3K into my 6K race. This was where I planned to serge. My heart was willing. My legs were trying. But I was falling behind. I could hear someone coming up behind me. "Right here, Mike." I heard my teammate Rachel say. All I had to do was stay with her. Here comes the hill. "This is my favorite part." She reminded me. Draw from her strength, I thought. I remembered why I was doing this crazy thing: it was for them. The six other runners our there battling with this race. They who put their whole heart into this sport that we love. It was because there is something so real, so raw, so...well right now it was so painful. I finished that race, turned around because I thought I was in dead last. I wasn't. I kept walking because that was all I could do to keep from falling over. Sure I have raced better, but I wasn't disappointed. That race had created me - like every race does. And I had crossed the finish line while giving everything I had left. That is racing.

Spilling Thoughts

I think it is important to pull truth out of literature. So, what if I know more truth, understand something, have more insight than the author? I am not to try and assume what the author did and didn’t understand, how he did or didn’t see the world. I have eyes. I see the world. However wrong I am, it is the only way I know and no one can prove anything otherwise. So I am to understand literature, and through my eyes, see truth — out of something written from the pen and through the mind of someone else. . . But can every human recognize truth? From my experience, it speaks to the soul. We can all recognize love. . . and love is truth (how different are they anyway?). So the beauty is that there is a piece of something shared in literature. That piece of truth. Which may be the only untainted line of communication between two different eyes on paper. . . But if this not true — for I admit, at least right now in this train of thought, it is speculation — then I must still seek the truth out of literature — and raw human to human communication continues, a little occluded, but as close as I know for this time now.

Do you ever feel like this?

"Once I ordered a sirloin steak and a chocolate sundae, but everything was so cunningly disguised on the table that I mistook the chocolate sauce for gravy and poured it over the sirloin steak."
-Tennesse Williams "A Streetcar named Success"


Such is life

Is this chocolate or a rose? Neither. It is a picture on this blog.
Is it real? What is the definition of real anyway?

A Streetcar

I don't know if you have ever read "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennesse Williams. I am not recommending it. It is a horribly tragic and depressing play. I didn't enjoy reading it at all. But, I could not put it down. I was so intrigued by everything that was going on between these characters - what they were thinking and feeling and why and how they were living. After finishing the play, I read an essay by Williams called, "A Streetcar to Success." I must say it was equally intriguing, but after reading it a few times, I cannot say I agree completely. But I can relate and understand his crisis of identity. (Sometimes I wish some of these authors just had the Gospel because I think it would make them so much happier) Anyway, Williams does have a few things right:

"That time is short and it doesn't return again. It is slipping away while I write this and while you read it, and the monosyllable of the clock is Loss, Loss, Loss, unless you devote your heart to its opposition."

Life is hard. But is that way for a reason.

I think Williams and I would agree, we don't want it any other way.

Our Kitchen

I absolutely love pita bread, and after this weekend, I found out how much fun it is to make. It is quite exciting when they pop open. Each one is hand rolled and each is a little bit different, but they are all loved and all delicious.

How do you eat them? Just like a sandwich - turkey, cheese, lettuce, cucumber - whatever floats your ferry. You can also put chicken (or lamb or steak), olives, fetta cheese, and cucumber sauce inside to make a Greek lunch. Or try it with peanut butter and jelly.

Why am I blogging about this? Basically because I love pitas and think you all should too.