The Crack in the Atlas

On 94, I thoughtOh, the states are two planes, and I am driving up the shape of the border. (We are only colors on the map.) Did you know city lights sink loudly and pulse because I leave the house? Well, they do. Now I am in the flat part where the buildings are cold and look like a semi-truck should be parked out front.

In this hollow car, I am waiting to be chipped into a batch of ice, so I can be the bright puddle of home that I was in the month of the bells.

At the top of the world is the face of the lake where the water looks at a dark sky and remembers.

© Lauren Bernhagen 2012

A Noble Effort.

I don't have enough brain power to put together a well thought-out post, so this is my noble effort to just list what life has looked like lately. 1. Allergies. If I take Singulair at night and Allegra-D in the morning, I can successfully pare down on sneezing eight times in a row every ten minutes. Although yesterday I read that one of the side effects of Allegra-D is impaired thinking and reaction time. I tried looking up why it impairs thinking and reactions, but I couldn't find anything. Elsie said this was because my thinking was impaired.

2. I journal now. I've always been too impatient to journal because my thoughts generally come faster than I can write them out (ironic, since I have a blog). But lately I've had a lot to sort through, and it's been a good outlet.

3. Apartment. It looks like I'm staying in Minneapolis for the summer. Got a job at the Student Center desk, and I'm waiting to hear back about a few writing internships this week. Really excited to stay in this community but sad that I won't be able to be at home for an extended period of time.

4. Capstone. Working hard on my senior creative writing project which includes six poems and an autobiographical piece on youth, the elderly, and the merging of the two. The essay also mulls over things on earth that can be lovely but that people often dislike at the same time (example: winter or growing old). If you have any ideas of other illustrations of this, I would love to hear them.

5. Easter Week. At small group last night, we read through the story of Jesus' death on the cross and then just sat and pondered it. I've heard this story a hundred times growing up and have always known that Jesus' death was horrible and torturous. But then I would think about how many other people in the world have died awful, painful deaths that may have even been physically worse than Jesus'. I realize, though, that there was a lot more going on than just a physical pain. I know that the weight of His death was so terrible because the presence of God the Father completely left Jesus and he took on ALL of the sin of the world, past, present, and future, upon Himself as He died. Has given me a lot to think about. Just dwelling on what this actually means this week. Trying to understand more.

6. April. This will be a busy month. But also a beautiful month. Amy is getting married, my Student Activities staff has two big events (Race Around the Cities and Spring Variety Show), and I'm going on a five-day trip with the English department to a writing festival in Michigan. Looking forward to all of this but also mentally preparing myself.

7. People. Been discovering that people go so deep. I always knew that before, but it's different experiencing it. Also seeing that sometimes, wounds make walls via fear and hold others back. Trying to understand this in my friends and myself and climb over them.

8. Vegetables. Attempting to eat more of them.

9. Music. Need some new stuff? Drew found this awesome site that has compiled an assortment of well-designed mixes. Check it out: http://designers.mx/

10. Class. Five more weeks of it and then it's summer. Also, I have to go to it now because it's 11:15, and I have Senior Seminar for Psychology in five minutes. Bye!

The Cure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0KRj3TH1oA

Terra Firma.

These vents of ocean that I seal up, often, are what’s made this room inside me dark and folded over.

Smut steeps, clamped into shapes from my fist, and the light hue in the corner only catches at the golden cow when I watch carelessly.

If I flip the latch and the metal inlet swings open, this room                       changes. You said you loved me with many doors, and I asked how that was possible since I’ve ripped all the frames into slips of paper and lodged them in crags and under the geologic fault lines.

But I see now that the earth is simmering joy and you love widely. This night is only gauze we can carefully sling back and wind around our wrists before it aches.

The tallest trees have roots in the sky.

© Lauren Bernhagen 2012

Navy SEALs.

At the moment, I am staring out the car window at the north shore in Duluth and mindlessly eating kettle corn out of a bag that I haphazardly opened in a rush before we left for our trip. Now the bag is torn vertically down the middle, and pieces of pocorn are popping out of the crack and onto the seat of the car. This bothers me. Sometimes I do this to chip bags accidentally; it annoys both me and my mother. My dad usually doesn't care. He also doesn't mind eating the banana flavored popsicles or grape Laffy Taffy's or any other food that our family doesn't particularly love and won't finish. Chip bags don't phase him. Now we're flying out of Duluth (on the freeway), and blizzard fog is rolling in, and the pine trees look especially plastered with clumped snow. We only think it's a blizzard because it's hazy and whitish-gold up ahead. It could just be low-hanging clouds, I suppose. We still have two hours to go.

Blogging gives an illusion of time. For instance, none of you would know that in between the last sentence and this one, we stopped at a gas station, and my dad went inside and bought peanut M&Ms which is one of our typical road trip snacks, and I stretched my legs outside and my mom sipped water and waited. Tricky.

I'm going to jar you again. Hang on. It's been two days now.

I'm now by a wood-burning fire which is nice and toasting my left side comfortably. I can see Lake Superior from a big picture window in the living room, and it might as well be the sea as I can't see land in either direction. The water is flat and clear-blue as a jewel, and by the shore, the freezing surface looks like lava as it swells and falls, slower than the other waves because of the accumulating ice.

I asked God to teach me how to hear him this week. This is something that is pretty difficult for me, knowing His voice. I'm also asking to learn how to better receive grace as I am generally too proud to accept it or have trouble actually understanding a relationship where nobody owes anybody else anything. Last night, though, I read this in Blue Like Jazz. It's a memoir of sorts by Donald Miller (movie is coming out soon - watch the trailer here), and it's helping me know grace and love a bit better. In this portion, Don is exploring what God is and questioning everything that has to do with Jesus:

"A long time ago I went to a concert with my friend Rebecca. Rebecca can sing better than anybody I've ever heard sing. I heard this folksinger was coming to town, and I thought she might like to see him because she was a singer too. The tickets were twenty bucks, which is a lot to pay if you're not on a date. Between songs, though, he told a story that helped me resolve some things about God. The story was about his friend who is a Navy SEAL. He told it like it was true, so I guess it was true, although it could have been a lie.

The folksinger said his friend was performing a covert operation, freeing hostages from a building in some dark part of the world. His friend's team flew in by helicopter, made their way to the compound and stormed into the room where the hostages had been imprisoned for months. The room, the folksinger said, was filthy and dark. The hostages were curled up in a corner, terrified. When the SEALs entered the room, they heard the gasps of the hostages. They stood at the door and called to the prisoners, telling them they were Americans. The SEALs asked the hostages to follow them, but the hostages wouldn't. They sat there on the floor and hid their eyes in fear. They were not of healthy mind and didn't believe their rescuers were really Americans.

The SEALs stood there, not knowing what to do. They couldn't possibly carry everybody out. One of the SEALs, the folksinger's friend, got an idea. He put down his weapon, took off his helmet, and curled up tightly next to the other hostages, getting so close his body was touching some of theirs. He softened the look on his face and put his arms around them. He was trying to show them he was one of them. None of the prison guards would have done this. He stayed there for a little while until some of the hostages started to look at him, finally meeting his eyes. The Navy SEAL whispered that they were Americans and were there to rescue them. Will you follow us? he said. The hero stood to his feet and one of the hostages did the same, then another, until all of them were willing to go. The story ends with all the hostages safe on an American aircraft carrier.

I never liked it when the preachers said we had to follow Jesus. Sometimes they would make Him sound angry. But I liked the story the folksinger told. I liked the idea of Jesus becoming man, so that we would be able to trust Him, and I like that He healed people and loved them and cared deeply about how people were feeling.

When I understood that the decision to follow Jesus was very much like the decision the hostages had to make to follow their rescuer, I knew then that I needed to decide whether or not I would follow Him...The magical proposition of the gospel, once free from the clasps of fairy tale, was very adult to me, very gritty like something from Hemingway or Steinbeck, like something with copious amounts of sex and blood. Christian spirituality was not a children's story. It wasn't cute or neat. It was mystical and odd and clean, and it was reaching into dirty."

Jobs/Dates.

Job searching takes bravery. It's a lot like asking someone on a date (And I say that in the very general, societal form of "date" - dinner or something). I haven't ever asked someone on a date before, but this is how I imagine it would go.

Just like Facebook, you'd probably put your best foot forward. I don't think this is what dating should look like in its entirety - the deepness of the heart is far more important. Often, however, this is how the world tags it. First, time is spent searching, sifting through the options. Or maybe you'd just wait, and opportunity would knock. After that, you pose a question - make sure your clothes fit nicely, be sincere and true, actually do your hair in the morning (I suppose this is different depending on if you're a man or a woman - culture has all sorts of requirements). This is where a lot of the courage building happens. Breathe a lot, try to push the adrenaline down, eye contact. What if I walk into a wall or trip while we're talking? There's lint in my pocket. I can feel it. I like your hair? No, too much.

And then the question's out - hovering on the air, buoying around the room like smoke, and you're trying desperately to grab on to it or fasten yourself to something. Stay charming.

And then, no one says anything. Just blinking. There's awkward silence - what does this mean? Now I have a bunch of sweaty, lint balls rolled up in my pocket. Real brave. Cooool. I'm doing greaaat. 

This is what submitting resumes is like.

A real writer is a writer who is critiqued. This major is all about constructive criticism. Depending on the type of writing you do, it requires a good deal of vulnerability and honesty, and a writer needs to be open to straightforward evaluation, even if it's scary. Last night I "dated" an internship, began the process, and started submitting my credentials, references, writing samples, etc. All of my best foot is forward right now, and I'm just hanging in the air, waiting for a response. Even so, I want to be an honest applicant just as I'd want a company to be honest with me about a position. Both corporations and people have flaws. I'm trying to rework some pieces I've written, edit, check grammar. I have some friends and professors who are a sweet relief to me and help me pick and choose and redraft papers and articles. All of this is like I just asked someone out or something.

I like thinking about the future - I'm a dreamer, and sometimes it's hard for me to stay grounded in the present and think about logistics. I get excited pretty easily, and frankly, all of these internship and job possibilities are thrilling. It's especially nice to think about going grocery shopping more than once every two months - lately it's been all about peanut butter, cheese, and coffee.

So I guess we'll see what doors open up. Waiting and hoping for now.

Yours just dated,

Lo

Pain, Fear, Love.

This is an excerpt from the book, Hinds Feet on High Places - the story of the deformed and emotionally abused girl called Much-Afraid, and her encounter with the Shepherd who promises to take her away from her bondage to the high places in the mountains and heal her deformities– if she will only trust him. Trust him and persevere when it is hard. Her journey starts like this: “Then will you let me plant the seed of true Love there now?” asked the Shepherd. “It will take you some time to develop hinds’ feet and to climb to the High Places, and if I put the seed in your heart now it will be ready to bloom by the time you get there.”

Much-Afraid shrank back. “I am afraid,” she said. “I have been told that if you really love someone you give that loved one the power to hurt and pain you in a way nothing else can.”

“That is true,” agreed the Shepherd. “To love does mean to put yourself into the power of the loved one and to become very vulnerable to pain, and you are very Much-Afraid of pain, are you not?”

She nodded miserably and then said shamefacedly, “Yes, very much afraid of it.” “But it is so happy to love,” said the Shepherd quietly. “It is happy to love even if you are not loved in return. There is pain too, certainly, but Love does not think that very significant.”

Much-Afraid thought suddenly that he had the most patient eyes she had ever seen. At the same time there was something in them that hurt her to the heart, though she could not have said why, but she still shrank back in fear and said (bringing the words out very quickly because somehow she was ashamed to say them), “I would never dare to love unless I were sure of being loved in return. If I let you plant the seed of Love in my heart will you give me the promise that I shall be loved in return? I couldn’t bear it otherwise.”

The smile he turned on her then was the gentlest and kindest she had ever seen, yet once again, and for the same indefinable reason as before, it cut her to the quick.

“Yes,” he said, without hesitation, “I promise you, Much-Afraid, that when the plant of Love is ready to bloom in your heart and when you are ready to change your name, then you will be loved in return.”

A thrill of joy went through her from head to foot. It seemed too wonderful to be believed, but the Shepherd himself was making the promise, and of one thing she was quite sure. He could not lie.

“Please plant Love in my heart now,” she said faintly. Poor little soul, she was still Much-Afraid even when promised the greatest thing in the world.The Shepherd put his hand in his bosom, drew something forth, and laid it in the palm of his hand. Then he held his hand out toward Much-Afraid.

“Here is the seed of Love,” he said. She bent forward to look, then gave a startled little cry and drew back. There was indeed a seed lying in the palm of his hand, but it was shaped exactly like a long, sharply-pointed thorn. Much-Afraid had often noticed that the Shepherd’s hands were scarred and wounded, but now she saw that the scar in the palm of the hand held out to her was the exact shape and size of the seed of Love lying beside it.

“The seed looks very sharp,” she said shrinkingly. “Won’t it hurt if you put it into my heart?”

He answered gently, “It is so sharp that it slips in very quickly. But, Much-Afraid, I have already warned you that Love and Pain go together, for a time at least. If you would know Love, you must know pain too.”

Much-Afraid looked at the thorn and shrank from it. Then she looked at the Shepherd’s face and repeated his words to herself. “When the seed of Love in your heart is ready to bloom, you will be loved in return,” and a strange new courage entered into her. She suddenly stepped forward, bared her heart, and said, “Please plant the seed here in my heart.”

His face lit up with a glad smile and he said with a note of joy in his voice, “Now you will be able to go with me to the High Places and be a citizen in the Kingdom of my Father.” Then he pressed the thorn into her heart. It was true, just as he had said, it did cause a piercing pain, but it slipped in quickly and then, suddenly, a sweetness she had never felt or imagined before tingled through her. It was bittersweet, but the sweetness was the stronger. She thought of the Shepherd’s words, “It is so happy to love,” and her pale, sallow cheeks suddenly glowed pink and her eyes shone. For a moment Much-Afraid did not look afraid at all. The twisted mouth had relaxed into a happy curve, and the shining eyes and pink cheeks made her almost beautiful.

“Thank you, thank you,” she cried, and knelt at the Shepherd’s feet. “How good you are. How patient you are. There is no one in the whole world as good and kind as you. I will go with you to the mountains. I will trust you to make my feet like hinds’ feet, and to set me, even me, upon the High Places.”

Sheep.

I was told the other night to not waste time dreaming about living other people's lives.

This is something that is easy for me to do. I was at Ashley's apartment downtown a few days ago, and she gave me tea and shared wisely about how this type of thinking can shadow how you experience life each day. Perusing Facebook, comparing myself to other people, analyzing how people act. A lot of the time, I'm looking at others or way out in the future, trying to decide where I'll live and what I'll do, how I'll spend my time once graduated. In this way, I miss the glorious things right in front of me and build up foolish plans and, often, anxiety over unnecessary thoughts.

This week, Kempton Turner told our school, "If Jesus has taken my hell, how much more will he care for my lesser provisions?" (Clothes, money, house, friends, everything else). So this is where I'm at. I need a Shepherd.

I feel pretty vulnerable explaining all of this. I'm always trying to protect myself or find my own way when that's something He's been waiting to do. Really I am just a blank mess of limbs and stress, walking around like a balloon on a string, without God.

I need what a shepherd would do for his sheep: guidance, calm, safety. Stressing out is way too easy. I need a constantly restored soul (Psalm 23:3). I know it's right there, available to me, and it's up to my willingness/unwillingness to accept it.

In his poem, "A Community of Spirit," Rumi says, "Open your hands if you want to be held."

This is what I'm praying for now.

A Monday Aubade.

aubade |ōˈbäd|: noun. a poem or piece of music appropriate to the dawn or early morning. While this is neither a poem or a piece of music, I thought the title was suitable given the fact that on Mondays, especially those which I have tests on, I wake up at 6am or before. It is very much morning at this time. This happens because class starts at 7:50am, and generally, I want to have the proper amount of time to leisurely stroll through my apartment getting ready before I have to leave. I feel cloudy, but I make my morning thermos of coffee (a couple tablespoons of Bailey's brand Hazelnut cream is the current, favorite add-in flavoring), make my bed in a very casual way, pack my bag, and get to the Billy by 7am. The Billy is what everyone here affectionately calls the Billy Graham Community Life Center. By managing my morning this way, I ordinarily have ample time to sit still for at least a half hour to re-study my notes in preparation for the coming exam.

During such mornings as these, I typically feel unusually awake which makes me feel even more so as if I am walking around in a dream (It is rare that I am up and chipper at an hour of the morning when people still have to use their headlights or the moon is huge and white in a light-blue/pinkish sky). When I do see the moon like this, as I did earlier today in all its lunar glory, it looks very much like a real, live planet to me. Most days it's just a flat, two-dimensional circle that I barely notice, so this makes everything seem otherworldly and like we're all actually floating around in part of the solar system.

The air is always cool and seems to buzz, but I think that's just my imagination. It feels a little lonely this early, so it's comforting to see people at the bus stops on the street and in their cars commuting right along with me to work and school. I eat a banana for breakfast and walk around feeling strange with my backpack loaded and with caffeinated vision/knowledge that my test time has almost arrived.

Afterwards feels like coming down from a run. Endorphins? Maybe. It's a bit warmer out, and I'm beginning to feel more normal. De-stressing or re-stressing? Also maybe. I have just exerted an exorbitant amount of brain activity so that can't be too unusual.

This is where I'm at right now. All of this to say, this post is not really about anything except me realizing that I need to go home after work and spend some time with the Lord and figure out what I'm feeling today, where my identity stands, and all the reasons why I can have joy on a Monday of all days. Test days, early-morning days, Mondays. Can be rough but could be beautiful too. Hoping for this and making an effort to change my attitude.

Thanks for listening.

Lo

Above Us, the Thaw.

With two days in my palm, I’m starting again in the blurry heat of a cold winter night on the back porch.

Pull back the shade from the sky so I can see the status of the atmosphere unrolling.

© Lauren Bernhagen 2011

The Photograph.

Last night, my Dad told me that, while I was at school, he held Grandma's hand as she lay in the hospital bed and said, "Mom, Lauren put that picture of you up on Facebook."

"My Lauren?" she asked with her eyes still closed.

"Yes. She put that picture of you and Dad by the car online and blew it up big so everyone can see. You're a celebrity Mom. You're famous!"

He said that then, she smiled this little smile where she scrunches the two corners of her lip up so you can just barely see her upper teeth.

A real smile is hard right now.

So I'll put the picture here too, so everyone can see.

Hospital Thoughts.

So when I'm stressed out about something, sometimes I start thinking in fragments and need to write. Here's an attempt to string it all together. Last night, the thin doctor with a ponytail leaned over my grandma in her hospital bed, with all of us watching, and asked her a hundred questions. Pain, comfort, kidneys, and then, life support. She asked her about death and then asked us about death as easily as if we were all out in the backyard flipping burgers together at a barbecue.

Now we are waiting.

There's about ten of us here, in Room 6626, some making phone calls, others walking up and down the hallway to stretch their legs, a couple of them just sit and talk about the possibilities. Everyone keeps trying to turn the heat up or get a nurse to change the thermostat but nothing really happens. We're sitting in our coats. I stand up to hold Grandma's hand, and we just stay like that for awhile. I rub the back of hers with my thumb and then she does it back. Talking is difficult right now.

My mother gets here and the aunts fill her in.

In a rush, Grandma suddenly stirs and tries to sit up and wonders what is going on. We steady her and recap what happened until she's caught up. She turns to a nurse in teal scrubs who is changing the liquids dripping in and out of her veins and asks if they gave her something to knock her out.

"Yes, last night, we gave you a relaxer." She pronounces "relaxer" slowly, as if speaking to a child.

"Well...no wonder I feel so out of it!" Grandma laughs weakly. We all laugh too. This is good if she's making jokes.

I'm out in the waiting room now, writing a blog post of all things and trying to do some homework. I can hear Uncle Jim on the phone, and there are a couple of patients with their nurses shuffling up and down the hall together slowly. I might write some more later.

As of now, we're worried about her heart and kidneys. If you could pray, my fam and I would be blessed by it.

This Saturday Morning.

We all have at least three layers on right now. Kirsten and I decided that when the curtains on the windows are pulled back, it gets colder in the apartment. We think the fabric traps the chilly air between it and the window, but this could just be something psychological we made up in our heads. There's a thermostat in the hallway, but we all doubt that it actually affects the temperature when we set it at certain degrees. Someone else controls the heat here.

I have on three shirts, pants and wool socks, and I'm under my covers. Kirsten is dressed similarly, but she is cleaning things in her room. It's quiet right now. The warmest place here is in the bathroom after someone showers since the fan doesn't work quite properly, and it gets incredibly steamy. I like to stay in there for awhile after a shower because it's just so balmy, and I can almost imagine summer but not quite.

This morning was nice. We slept until we woke up - which happened to be ten o'clock - exactly what was predicted. Kirsten made homemade buttermilk pancakes, and I cut up bananas and strawberries to add to the mix. We lit candles because we can and then had a leisurely breakfast with pats of butter, syrup, water, the cakes, and the newest addition: globs of peanut butter. It had suspicious beginnings. PB and strawberries don't really seem to connect, but then it was decided that it was basically the same as eating a sandwich with jam, so we had some.

After scrubbing dishes together, Kirsten and I decided to take a brisk, wintry walk to Bou and back. It was windy cold, but the fresh air was nice, and we got the Redbox movie returned on time. Our legs itched and were painful as they unthawed back inside the building, though.

All four of us have to work soon. There's about an hour and a half of free time left, so I'm trying to make the most of it. I'm thinking lunch is next on the docket. I can hear kitchen sounds right now, clanks and the microwave, so someone else must have the same idea as me. First, I'm going to finish this chapter in my book though, and then I might consider getting up.

This is not lackadaisical, just relaxing.

Have a happy Saturday, Lo

You Should Listen to This.

It's an hour long, but so worth it. Jennifer Toledo ladies and gentlemen. This is from heburnsforme.com...check it out.

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Fiddle Faddle.

This year seems extra filled with transition. Maybe it's the living in an apartment. Although I really enjoy that. Maybe it's because two of my closest friends just came back from studying abroad in Europe and are transitioning in major ways themselves. Their hearts are back in London and Seville. Maybe it's just because the seasons seem off, and my habitual knowledge of January is disoriented. Formerly, there used to be snow here.

Everyone is together again, and we are all in and out, quiet and loud in our rooms together as we get used to living in community once more. But more than anything, we are full of a great deal of liking for each other as we unpack and try and fit all the tea that everyone brought back in the tea cupboard. There were some significant reunions in the state of Minnesota this year, I can tell you that. I have missed this family.

I am grateful for the little, regular things in life. The small shapes of time I get to spend with people. Today I'm going grocery shopping with Amy for a bit, and it will just be normal as we still shop in the usual way we've always shopped. I think this is nice.

Going to head back to school now - student leader training is in full go mode at the moment. We are welcoming in all of the new transfers. Later, I will have a list for you, cyberspace, but it's still cooking. It will not be resolutions, but disciplines I've been wanting to implement in my life for some time now. Life goals?

For now, I'm going to finish my roasted red pepper hummus - this is the best kind - and my raspberries. Peace.

But For Strength.

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Northerly.

This week has been full. Holiday hours at Gap, applications for publishing internships, large get-togethers with high school friends. It's been full in a good, relaxing, I-have-time-for-all-of-this-in-my-life kind of way. Currently I am up north staying with my extended family. And it is wonderful. We are tucked away in my aunt and uncle's cozy home miles from town and smack dab in the center of a thousand pine trees. Here, there is quiet reading time, bonfires, much pottery, and lots of paths in the trees for walks. Also, Grandma lives here too, just down the road. We are going to Denny's with her in the morning.

I sit on the white couch in the living room with my cousin Katie and my Aunt Molly while Uncle Ron and Alex throw wood on the fire outside. Katie, who is twelve, teaches me to knit. I have grand plans for a scarf. Alex, who just started high school, throws a large piece of plywood on the firepile outside and the sparks swell up and out in a torrent and blink off into the dark. We can hear wolves howling in the distance. Before I came inside, we stuck long sticks in the embers and made our branches into torches to poke other logs and draw pictures in the air. They smoldered and produced curling strings of smoke which we used to write our names, cleverly, in the sky and gather up any flaming kindling that fell out onto the grass.

Now, I am in the living room with carrot sticks, tortilla chips, and guacamole. There is a fly, to remind us that we are out somewhere between acres of forest, flying around in the inside of the lampshade while we knit and read. I don't mind this because it sounds like the tapping of rain, and even though this is December (although a brown, snowless one so far), I can imagine a drizzle outside.

I love to be with family. It is so nice to be somewhere stowed away in the countryside with all the time in the world and a lot of people I care about. Tomorrow is still in the works - we don't like to plan too far ahead. But I am sensing a walk (must see the wild turkeys), board games by candlelight - this is a tradition - and possibly some art-making or baking.

Now I'm going to finish The Boys of My Youth and read through some of James. I keep coming across wisdom verses lately - I always wonder if God is trying to help me understand me something when this happens consecutively (See James 3:17).

Also, the bed I am in here is cozy.

Peace, Lo

I Thought About This While I Was Cooking Pasta Today.

"Holy wisdom is not clear and thin like water, but thick and dark like blood." C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces My hands were cold so I stuck them in the steam of a pot to warm them.

This was how I began to think that reading a living book, or being in wisdom as thick and dark as blood is like the hot dew collecting between the ridges of my fingers.

This element is a texture I can finally see.

There's Chocolate Everywhere.

There are peppermint extra-dark truffles on my nightstand. Regarding the candy dish in the living room, it's safe to say that this household could empty the bowl in less than a day if we really wanted. In fact, this happens often.

The Ghiradelli chip cookies and ginger snaps are comfortably tucked away in the beige cookie container in the pantry. (*TIP: to keep cookies fresh longer, place a piece of bread in the jar or bag. The bread ends up drying out instead of the cookies. It really works!)

When there's processed candy everywhere in the house like this (which is rare as my parents are rather organic), it only means one thing: winter break. I turned my last final in Thursday evening when it was dark and drizzling rain at about forty degrees. All the streetlights were on, my shoes were wet, and it was the same feeling you always get when everything is finally submitted. Done. Done done done.

I love catching up on things that can get pushed to the side during all the studying: bedside-drawer cleaning, quilt sewing, coffee dates with people, Elisabeth Elliot, laundry, some much delayed quality time with Jesus, and of course, blogging.

Haven't forgotten you:)

Where the Lost Things Go (Part 2).

(Continued from previous post.)

In June, I sit in my car on the side of the freeway and wonder if this happens to people too. The air is filling with field-fog in the late evening slant of dusk; only the cars traveling long distance are on the road now since we are so far out in pastureland. Bright shafts of headlights are swinging over my windshield intermittently. A couple hours out from Alden, I realized that the paper with the directions I am supposed to follow has either blown out the window or has somehow dissolved into the grey interior of the silver Buick. Not only is the paper gone, but I am gone too.

I picture the sheet of directions, now crossed over the great divide, half of it here on earth and the other half in Neverland or wherever the lost things go. My body is in the same situation, really, because I am lost or someone has lost me or I have lost myself.

This is mostly how I think life is: everything separated between two existences – the supernatural and the earthly. In the morning yesterday, as I was warming hot water in the Keurig for coffee, I thought how this earth couldn’t be all there is in life. In the world I am used to, things become misplaced. But in the world that was made in truth, heaven or Eden, that fully lit place that vibrates with life source, things are found. Despite all of the striving and searching, this worrying about being lost, I have actually been found all of this time. Not on this blank, dry earth where there is still death – but in the light, where all things are new. But I haven’t fully discovered this yet.

It is three years earlier when I stand in the cold at that bus stop in Milwaukee, swaying with the raw wind and feeling insecure about traveling alone. I think of how everyone else seems right at home in their bodies and bundled coats. The serrated branches of a neatly trimmed tree downtown are suddenly blocked out by the elevated bus that pulls around the corner. The vehicle leans dangerously to the right, and then drags to a stop with an expulsion of steam and exhaust. I file on after a short African American woman with a cap pulled low over her calm eyes. Behind, I am boxed in by a group of four college-age guys who are tromping the snow slush off of their Carhartt construction boots in the bus aisle. The light, musty remains of cigarette smoke settling on the bitter air is acutely present. Feeling terribly unassertive and afraid I will be mugged at any moment, I pull the strap of my small, leather purse to the front of my body as I shuffle to the back, so I can handle it with both hands instead of one.

I feel intimidated on this double-decker bus and a bit out of control. Locating my identity here is slippery, and my hands feel numb and like blocks of wood as I try to handle the thermos of coffee along with the bag I brought on board. I suck my breath in quickly - this self-searching is becoming tiring. Spotting an empty seat next to a younger woman on the left side of the walkway, I toss my carry-on into the overhead compartment and gingerly sit down on the seat. She plugs in red headphones and turns to stare out the streaked bus window.

We really don’t talk at all the six hours we shoot through the pastureland of Wisconsin. I watch the city lights fade behind me as the tall Milwaukee buildings disappear over the rolling green of the gradients and ditches. Now the skyscrapers are lost too. It isn’t until I am back home, separating my clothes into piles of clean and dirty that I realize all of those passengers were probably just as lost as me. After all, weren’t they all traveling somewhere? Suspended in the air on a coach bus that was shooting through air and wind toward another destination? To be in between, in the midst of decision or journey, is anywhere from a moment to days of disorientation. It is something that each of us has to take a turn at. Some losing and searching and stumbling upon must take place for people to live like humans.

I am there again, fishing the raisins around in my oatmeal and trying to decide on Ukraine or Seattle for the summer. Pulled in both directions, taught like a string, I feel ready to break, unlike my roommate, who seems to know exactly what she wants out of life. Last week I lost a pair of important keys and just about faded into the carpet with anxiety. It wasn’t until I stopped looking for them under the piles of dried leaves in the parking lot and between the couch cushions that they suddenly appeared on a desk. In plain sight.

Sitting in the living room, my Malt ‘O Meal balanced on my knee and one finger tapping the plaid armrest of the couch, I stare at the phone to think about the decision I need to make. I am in both worlds right now, one foot straddling each line, a side of me is beautifully lit and a side of me is penciled in, shadowed. I am lost and found, a place where everything is gathering.