musical medicine

i can't tell you how many times in the past few years i have listened to a song and thought, wow! this is the song of my life right now. it perfectly fits whatever situation i am in at the time. sometimes it is a song that i have listened to a thousand times but all of a sudden i get it, i really understand what it means. other times it is a new song from a favorite artist. and other times it is a song being played by someone else that i happen to hear. i have always found such comfort in these songs. i no longer feel alone in whatever i am going through. someone else gets it. someone else understands and has been able to put it into beautiful words.


a favorite memory from bolivia was meeting for staff devotions before school every morning for the first three years. it was a time to stop and be still before the craziness of the school day took over. it was a time for fellowship and reflection. it was during this time that i was introduced to the music of david wilcox.  he writes songs about life and introduces each song with his thoughts and reflections on the many things life throws our way . i remember always connecting to these songs in a deep way.


tonight, sitting around, reminiscing and sharing with friends from those days in bolivia, david wilcox was pulled out yet again, to share his insights on what we were thinking and feeling. and yet again, there was a song that could be on the soundtrack of my life:


It's the choice of a lifetime - I'm almost sure
I will not live my life in between any more
If I can't be certain of all that's in store
This far it feels so right
I will hold it up - hold it up to the light
Hold it up to the light, hold it up to the light

The search for my future has brought me here
This is more than I'd hoped for, but sometimes I fear
That the choice I was made for will someday appear
And I'll be too late for that flight

It's too late - to be stopped at the crossroads
Each life here - each a possible way
But wait - and they all will be lost roads
Each road's getting shorter the longer I stay

Now as soon as I'm moving - my choice is good
This way comes through right where I prayed that it would
If I keep my eyes open and look where I should
Somehow all of the signs are in sight
If I hold it up to the light

I said God, will you bless this decision
I'm so scared.  Is my life at stake
But I see if you gave me a vision
Would I ever have reason to use my faith?

I was dead with deciding - I was afraid to choose
I was mourning the loss of the choices I'd lose
But there's no choice at all if I don't make my move
And trust that the timing is right
Yes and hold it up to the light


and the best part: his website has a section called musical medicine, where he takes his songs and divides them according to topic. if you feel this way, listen to this song.  it makes finding the perfect "song of my life (at least for this week)" just a little bit easier. :)
http://davidwilcox.com/index.php?page=cds&category=01--MUSICAL_MEDICINE

waiting...

i've now been home over a month. i've spent time with my adorable little niece. i've cherished the last week with sarah, my friend and roommate from bolivia. i've seen almost every single member of my family, both sides (all 50-some of them). i've attended two weddings. i've watched 21 movies and countless episodes of gilmore girls. i've read 10 books. and i've applied to schools in denver, cincinnati, virginia, and north carolina. and i still don't have a job. i still haven't heard anything at all back from anyone i have contacted or applied to. and while i could easily panic...and often come close...i also continue to rest in that peace that passes understanding.

it's hard to think of much to write. i am just waiting. yet while i wait, i plan to continue to live and enjoy each moment, no matter how small.

Wait for the LORD; 

       be strong and take heart 

       and wait for the LORD.

Psalm 27:14 

          

let's go fly a kite

after perhaps the longest week of my life, full of goodbyes and tears, it was so wonderful to spend time with the river kids this afternoon. after being up until the wee hours of the morning saying one of the hardest goodbyes thus far, i climbed the mountain to the small brick church apprehensive of yet another gut-wrenching, heartbreaking goodbye. last week when i announced my leaving, the room turned quiet, the children prayed the sweetest prayers i have ever heard, calling me their second mom, and tears streamed down their faces. how could i face another afternoon like that? especially after this week of a new goodbye every day?

thankfully, i didn't have to. it was just like any other sunday, except more peaceful and calm than usual. the kids slowly trickled in. we had some time to sit and catch our breath. then we went outside to where the boys stood at the highest points flying their homemade kites. using only a plastic bag, sticks, and string, these ingenious little boys had fashioned amazingly successful little kites.

after a while, tatiana got bored with the kite watching and we went back inside. we sat for a while bouncing a small ball back and forth, and then i taught her how to play jacks, using the little broken crayons in her pocket.  others wandered in and out, trying their hand at the game, making new kites, and coloring in the new coloring books we had brought. at one point, while i was helping tatiana color a picture, i looked up and just soaked in the sights and sounds of small groups of children coloring around the room, others outside playing soccer, and others just sitting playing with little army men. my heart, which had broken a thousand times over in the last week, filled with love for these beautiful children. and once again, i asked myself what i was doing, why was i leaving.

the day ended with the children enjoying the first donuts they had ever had...most didn't even know what a donut was! after one final group picture, three year old carolina  dragged me down the mountain for the last time.  and as heartbreaking as it was to pull away from the little shanty town for the last time, it had really been the perfect way to say goodbye.

You keep track of all my sorrows.
      You have collected all my tears in your bottle. Psalm 56:8

little things

as i lay in bed last night, so cold my insides were shaking and my teeth were chattering, i started to realize there are a few little things that i am excited for when i move back to the states.

*central heat! no longer will i have to wear my winter coat until at least noon everyday or shiver under 30lbs of blankets at night!
*a dryer....my pants might actually fit and my socks won't feel like cardboard!
*flushing toilet paper
*chic-fil-a....sad, but really the only food that i miss :)
*good milkshakes
*efficiency
*seeing my friends and family more often :)

and i know there will be so many more! the trick is focusing on these positives, rather than the many negatives....

a goodbye with no future

tomorrow begins the long journey of goodbye. it is the first of the lasts. tomorrow is my last dance class with some of the most beautiful girls on the planet. as one of my students mused today, "how quickly the time passes."

and the goodbyes are made harder by having nothing yet to look forward to. when people ask the dreaded question, "so what are you going to do now?" i have to answer that i have no idea. talk about a lesson in humility. saying goodbye is hard. saying goodbye when there is not even a glimpse of the future is excruciating. others wonder why you are leaving if there is nothing you are going to. i begin to wonder as well. but then i think of abraham, called to leave his home to go this unknown promise land. he did not have a vision for his future. he just left, and God was faithful and guided him.

so i begin the leaving, and i know God will do the guiding.

"The Lord said to Abram, 'Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I WILL show you." Genesis 12:1 (emphasis added)

dream a little dream

as the day i leave bolivia continues to draw nearer and nearer, and as i continue to have no idea where i will be or what i will be doing come next august, i have decided to focus on dreaming for the more distant future. last weekend, my roommate and i spent a morning planning and dreaming over a lovely pancake breakfast. here is our dream:

the year i turn 30 we will embark on a 5 continent adventure. we will spend 11 months in 11 different orphanages on 4 different continents. in the middle, we will take a month off to rest, visit dear friends in new zealand, and to explore that amazing place. our rough itinerary would be to begin in romania, then to russia, turkey, india, thailand, indonesia, new zealand, uganda, south africa, bolivia, ecuador, and ending in haiti.

now, obviously, many things could come up in the next four years that could change these plans. but i am okay with that, because i know ultimately god is in charge of my steps and his plans are higher than mine. however, having this little dream to hold on to somehow makes the fact i have no immediate plans a little easier. i still have something to look forward to. honestly, i would drop everything and begin this adventure this summer, yet little things like money and actual plans stand in the way of that. but god calls us to dream big, and he will answer with even bigger realities.

so this is my dream. and i can't wait to see my reality!

one month.

one month.

that is all i have left in this amazing city that i love so much. last saturday my roommate and i ventured up to the city to enjoy breakfast at my favorite place in the world, followed by shopping for material for costumes for my little dance girls. while riding in the bus between the cafe and the cloth market, i just gazed out the window, soaking in the sights of the cholitas selling their goods, the children running around, and just the daily doings of people. walking around the market, i realized that i won't be able to shop like this much longer. soon i will be stuck indoors in a store with the wares all nicely arranged on shelves. ugh. the thought makes me sick to my stomach. how can i trade my simple, adventurous life for life in the states?

then this week i was offered a chance to stay. it is tempting. staying means i can quit the horrid job search process. staying means i don't have to say goodbye. staying means i don't have to worry about the details of living in the states that i have avoided for the last four years. staying means i would have a plan. staying would be so easy.

but would i be happy? would i be in the lord's will? would i be able to live life to the fullest? staying also means dealing with people that i would rather not deal with. staying means trading in my classroom for an office. staying means another year of feeling stuck and bored. staying means dealing with more changes that are not always positive. staying means i might be missing out on a whole new adventure.

choosing the harder of two paths is definitely not easy. but i trust that it will be rewarding. and i know god will use me wherever he puts me. the only place i want to be is the place where he wants me. and someday, i will know where that is.

good news

 “To the gals in clear heels, to the guys in clear heels, to the drunks, the addicts, the perverts, the victims, the porn stars, the prostitutes, the adulterers, the thieves, the obese gluttons who think that a waist is a terrible thing to mind, the Twilight fans, the murderers, the mama’s boys, the losers, the freaks, the geeks, people who think wrestling is real, red necks, guys who own action figures, chain smokers, everyone who does not use a turn signal while texting and talking on the phone in their car, men who live with their mother, women who get paid in $1 bills, dudes in dresses, Democrats, Republicans, the guys at the gym who walk around the locker room naked singing Bon Jovi’s Living on a Prayer, Mormons and anyone else who wears sacred underbritches, whoever is responsible for the creation and ongoing sale of men’s Lycra biking shorts, guild leaders, yoga instructors, witches, pot heads, meat heads, crack heads, deadheads and meth heads, Trekkies, people who don’t recycle, the rainbow-loving, tree-hugging, Prius-driving leftists, and religious people who do not know what I am talking about because these subjects were not on Little House on the Prairie or covered in their home school co-op, I have good news for you:  Jesus loves you. You’ll fit right in and because he died for all your sins, you get to repent."
~mark driscoll

"always do the thing that scares you"

~bandslam

in my four years in bolivia i have had many adventures...i have seen the salt flats, macchu pichu, iguazu falls, the perrito moreno glacier, lake titicaca and many other amazing things. however, there has always been one bolivian adventure that i never felt ready to attempt. rurrenabaque....the bolivian amazon. a three day tour of the pampas, full of animals.....monkeys, alligators, weird birds, anacondas, piranhas, and lots and lots of bugs. the only animal that came close to appealing to me was the pink dolphin. but was swimming with pink dolphins worth having to come in close contact with all those other animals? i wasn't so sure. i am by no means an animal lover....i only tolerate dogs! but since i am now in the midst of my last few months in bolivia, i decided to face my fears and tackle this final adventure. and what an absolutely incredible, perfect final adventure it turned out to be!

sunday morning began early, as we woke up at 4:00am to get to the airport to catch our plane to rurrenabaque. the plane was a double propeller plane, the smallest i have ever been in. but we made it safely, landing in a grassy field surrounded by green mountains. we quickly headed into the city to our tour agency's office, eager to begin. and soon we headed out for a three hour drive across the beni. the landscapes and small villages were beautiful, reminding me a lot of the dominican republic, making me long to go back to that amazing country. after our dusty jeep ride, and one flat tire, we made it to the river, where several dugout canoes were lined up ready to take the many tourists into the pampas.

we climbed aboard and began our three hour tour. we saw several amazing birds, lots of turtles, a caiman, and an alligator. we were very impressed with our guide's ability to differentiate a log from an alligator...they all looked the same to us! the highlight of this boat trip was a brief stop under a tree full of cappuccino monkeys. our guide took out a banana, and we each took turns letting the monkeys crawl up our arms to get to the banana. the idea of monkeys crawling on me had NEVER been appealing. but i decided that on this trip i would push myself to do those things i never would have imagined i could do. and it really wasn't that bad....i actually kind of enjoyed it! eventually we pulled up to our camp, which would be our home for the next two nights. nothing fancy....a bunch of shacks connected by wooden walkways, everything on stilts so the water wouldn't flood the buildings. our camp was also home to several howler monkeys (they make great alarm clocks!), an alligator named princess, and a very large, very frightening black caiman.

the next morning we awoke to the howler monkeys screeching above us and after a delicious breakfast we headed out on the most feared part of the trip: the anaconda hunt. we donned big black rubber boots, and started the hot, sticky walk through a large, grassy field. soon the dry path turned into a wet, marshy, nasty swamp. one step into the black, rancid water soon alerted me to the fact that one of my boots had a hole in it. my boot was soon full of water, yet i walked on....praying i wouldn't be the one to find the anaconda! after an hour of walking through the field in the blazing sun, we came upon a little forest and took a minute to relax in the shade. our guide began hunting in earnest for an anaconda. soon cries from another group brought us running to a tree...only to see a tiny green snake peeking out from a hole in a branch. definitely not an anaconda. a few of the others and i soon grew weary of searching for this large snake we weren't even sure we really wanted to meet and found a shady spot to sit and wait for the others. we did find several lizards, and my favorite, a huge wild amazon ostrich! but no anaconda. i really can't say if i am sorry...though it might have made the walk through the swampy field worth it!

after lunch we headed back out in our boat, this time to fish for piranhas. the first three piranhas were caught by our guide. they were much smaller than we had imagined, but their teeth were quite vicious looking. we were beginning to get frustrated with our ability as fisherwomen, but soon we began to get little nibbles. for a long time, the piranhas were faster than us, stealing the bait off our hooks before we could pull them in. then jenny caught a catfish, and steph and ali caught piranhas. i had a piranha out of the water but it jumped off the hook before i could swing him into the boat. oh well. the time spent fishing was relaxing and a great time for good conversation with good friends! after piranha fishing we headed to another place to watch a beautiful sunset, stopping to see a sloth on the way!

then after sunset, and after dinner, we headed out again....this time armed with flashlights to look for the red eyes of caimans and alligators in the dark. we set off and soon our guide pulled into a grassy part of the river. we thought we were stuck and were trying not to be too scared. he started telling us to look at the alligator next to the boat and hesitantly we shone our flashlights where he directed. when we still didn't see anything he came up behind us and pointed....holding a baby alligator about a foot from my face! i will admit, i think i screamed! the other girls began asking if they could hold it and he directed them in how to safely hold the little guy. i sat there thinking, no way, there is absolutely no way i am even touching him, much less holding him. this is where i drew the line on trying everything on this trip. but then i realized, there was very little chance of anything happening....and really what a great story to tell later. so i gave in, washed my hands, and held the alligator. i can't say i loved it, i can't even say i enjoyed it all, but i did it. and i lived to tell about it! we then let him go and went on through the river, shining our flashlights, looking for the glowing red eyes in the bushes and weeds. i actually got pretty good at spotting them....and while it was eery to realize how close these frightening creatures were, we all felt very safe in the boat.

the final morning was the morning i had been waiting for the whole trip. we were going to swim with the pink river dolphins! we had already spotted several on our many boat rides, but today we would go to places where several lived and actually get in the water and swim! and of course, it was cloudy, cold and rainy. but that didn't stop us. we jumped in and waited. the dolphins were shy, and while we could see them swimming and playing, they would never get close enough to let us touch them. after the initial swim, we got back in the boat and went to several other places to watch them play. we also saw capybaras, huge rodents that look like giant hamsters. they were perhaps the strangest creatures we saw on the trip. at the very end we went back to one more place with the dolphins and spent a long time playing with them and watching them play.  it was the absolutely perfect ending to this great adventure.

in the end, i am glad i saved this trip for my last big south american adventure (for a while, anyway). it pushed me and stretched me more than any other trip. i have grown a lot in my time in bolivia, in many ways. but perhaps the most noticeable way is my new sense of adventure and love for the outdoors. and this trip was the perfect way to prove to myself that i really can do anything, no matter how scary it may seem. and the result is an amazing story to share!

travel on...

"Sometimes we have to 'step over' our anger, our jealousy, or our feelings of rejection and move on. The temptation is to get stuck in our negative emotions, poking around in them as if we belong there. Then we become the 'offended one', the 'forgotten one', or the 'discarded one.' Yes, we can get attached to these negative identities and even take morbid pleasure in them. It might be good to have a look at these dark feelings and explore where they come from, but there comes a moment to step over them, leave them behind, and travel on." ~Henri Nouwen

conviction.

quotations

i love when things i read or hear speak to me right where i am. it reminds me that i am not alone on this big blue planet. my pains and joys are not unique. and reflecting on this is an exercise in becoming less self-centered. so today i thought i would share some of these quotations and lyrics. and rather than draw the attention back to myself by giving my own thoughts and feelings, i will just let them speak for themselves. 


"The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark." ~Henri Nouwen


"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." ~Alice's Adventures in Wonderland


"We are so fragile and our cracking bones make noise. We are just breakable, breakable girls and boys." ~Ingrid Michaelson


"Dancing through life, Skimming the surface, Gliding where turf is smooth, Life's more painless, For the brainless, Why think too hard? When it's so soothing, Dancing through life... " ~Wicked


"A life that is not reflected upon eventually loses its meaning and becomes boring." ~Henri Nouwen


"The reward you get from a story is always less than you thought it would be, and the work is harder than you imagined. The point of a story is never about the ending, remember. It's about your character getting molded in the hard work of the middle." ~Donald Miller


"Choose the harder of the two ways. If you have eliminated all other possibilities and there still seem to be two that might please God, choose the more difficult one." ~Elizabeth Elliot


"And if I was stronger then I would tell you no. And if I was stronger then I will leave this show. And if I was stronger then I would up and go. But here I am and here we go again." ~Ingrid Michaelson


"Sometimes, though, we are in a quandary because we have already been shown what we ought to do and we are not satisfied with it. We are saying, 'Lord when are you going to tell me?' and the truth is that he has told us." ~Elizabeth Elliot


"For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything." ~1 John 3:20

poshlust

"Poshlust, Nabokov explains, 'is not only the obviously trashy but mainly the falsely important, the falsely beautiful, the falsely clever, the falsely attractive.'"

I am reading a fascinating book called Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books. It is the account of an Iranian woman and a small group of female students who gather in her small apartment to unveil themselves and dive into the world of literature. I have only read a few chapters and I am entranced by these brave women and the lessons they are learning and the trials they face. The whole first section is based around the novels of Nabokov, especially Lolita. I have never read Lolita, or any Nabakov, but I am finding his themes and characters quite intriguing. As someone who has never experienced life under a totalitarian society, these stories seem so removed, yet so real. I can see the truth in the midst of his fiction. And it applies not only to totalitarian societies, but to all.

The above quote is perhaps the one that has stood out the most to me so far. When I look at myself, and at many other Americans, I can't help but see how much of our lives we have filled with "the falsely important, the falsely beautiful, the falsely clever, the falsely attractive." And it is a reality check.

"Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world-the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does-comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of the God lives forever." 1 John 2:15-17

"in the end, all we own is our story...

...i'm just trying to live a good one." ~australia

as a lover of stories, i've often imagined what life would be like if i were a part of one of my favorites. an orphan alongside anne of green gables, a friend of elizabeth bennet, one of the march sisters, one of the railway children, a heroine.

however, as we get dragged down in the day to day, it is so easy to forget that we are part of a story. our own unique story. and every choice we make decides what kind of story we are living. over the last four years, i have found myself a part of many adventures that make great stories: white-water rafting through the andes mountains, a 60 hour bus ride across the hellish chaco of paraguay, sitting among the ancient ruins of machu picchu, backpacking an ancient incan trail, sailing across the lake titicaca, driving across the awe inspiring salt flats, riding a boat under the iguazu falls, watching the calving of the perrito moreno glacier, and many, many more.

even this past weekend, a simple camping trip turned into an adventure when the 1978 land cruiser we were driving in decided that it had had enough of the altitude and just stopped running. we ended up just pushing it to the side of the road and hiking down into the valley below to set up camp for the night. it wasn't how we had planned our weekend, but it still turned into a wonderful adventure. and really, in bolivia, there doesn't seem to be any lack of amazing campsites. the random valley was gorgeous and that night we sat under one of the most amazing star-studded skies i have ever seen.

an exciting story seems easy to live when you live overseas. but as i prepare to leave this life of easy adventures, i am trying to remember that i can live an exciting story anywhere. it just takes living life with open eyes and a ready spirit, the willingness to choose the harder path and the desire to make your story count. and the result will be a story that is far better than any found in literature.

the inciting incident

"'The inciting incident is how you get them [the characters] to do something,' Ben said, ' It's the doorway through which they can't return, you know. The story takes care of the rest.' "


"Robert Mckee says humans naturally seek comfort and stability. Without an inciting incident that disrupts their comfort, they won't enter into a story...The character has to jump into the story, into the discomfort and the fear, otherwise the story will never happen."

"Before I realized we were supposed to fight fear, I thought of fear as a subtle suggestion in our subconscious designed to keep us safe...And I guess it serves that purpose. But fear isn't only a guide to keep us safe; it's also a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life."

~Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

My Inciting Incident of 2010: Leaving Bolivia

My Ambition: To live life embracing "whimsy"..."that nagging idea that life could be magical; it could be special if we were only willing to take a few risks."