here

Dear friends, it's been awhile! I thought it was time for a post because a few significant things have happened in my life in the past few weeks, and I wanted to share.

First off. I went to the doctor for an annual checkup recently. When I walked in the nurse asked me to take off my shoes and step on the scale, then ushered me over to measure my height. Just like any start to a checkup right? WRONG. When she measured my height I asked her what she got, not really caring because everyone knows I'm 5'5". "You're five feet four inches," she said. After questioning her for a couple seconds she graciously offered to measure again, so naturally I took her up on her offer, taking special care to stand up straight (maybe cheating just a little). "Nope, still five feet four inches. Sorry?".

I've been saying I'm 5'5" for at least 9 years, maybe 10. Stupid big hair.

Secondly, and less significantly, I got a new job. It's still at World Vision, but is on a team that aligns a little better to my passions and gifts. As of July 29 (at the latest) I'll be a member of the World Vision Experience team. We're the ones who set up events for groups and churches who want to experience what poverty and injustice looks like. We get to tell the story, they get to be changed by their experience. My specific role will be helping develop marketing materials for our various experiences, developing a web strategy, and reporting on how our events are doing, and other random things. My first order of business, though, is to go to Creationfest and help run our Step into Africa exhibit. Did you get that? It's my JOB to go to a big gathering of Christian artists, with a bunch of people, and talk to them about World Vision's work. Guys, I'm grinning from ear to ear.

This means a couple things. It means life looks a little brighter and I'm staying in Seattle. It means I am hunkering down and investing, because I am here. Like, mind, body and soul - here. Seattle is my home for awhile longer. Maybe it's time to look into those Seahawks season tickets...

and the world spins madly on

I have the day off today. One of the many beautiful things about working for a Christian organization? Their respect for Good Friday.

I'm currently sitting in Starbucks...on the 40th floor of the Columbia tower.

I've been wanting to do this since I found out it existed. You're going to let me explore a tall building without sneaking, and then you're going to let me sit and look around? Yes please. So here I sit, in the very corner, smashed up against the windows. Happy as a clam (whatever that means).

my view, currently.

There's something really powerful about heights to me. It stirs up the adventure section of my heart, and the reflective place in my soul, two of my favorite spaces to occupy.

I rode public transportation for the first time today. I will be doing that more often. Few places can you get a group of people from literally all different walks of life, sitting in one space with nothing to do but think or talk. The opportunities to connect, listen and find common ground are right there, because for these few minutes our lives, experiences, and baggage are smashed into this noisy connection capsule.

Melissa just moved here from San Diego because her partner got a job. She was a restaurant manager at home, but hasn't found a job yet, so it's been hard. Glamma in her 60s chimes in from behind her sunglasses, she just moved here from Arizona for her daughter. The rain has been hard. Mr. Huge Football Ring is going to visit his nephews in West Seattle. He loves pets and his heart just breaks when he sees those commercials of abused animals. I can relate.

When I got off there was a woman sitting alone and yelling on the bench at the bus stop. As I passed by I considered stopping and talking to her, stopping to see her, but I didn't. And as I walked up the hill with her screams bouncing off the buildings I regretted every step.

I'm reading this book called "Becoming Human" by Jean Vanier. I'm not far into it, but I can tell you that Jean is an amazing man who leads a life full of stopping when he should. In his chapter about loneliness he writes:

I once visited a psychiatric hospital that was kind of a warehouse of human misery. Hundreds of children with severe disabilities were lying, neglected, on their cots. There was a deadly silence. Not one of them was crying. When they realize that nobody cares, that nobody will answer them, children no longer cry. It takes too much energy. We cry out only when there is hope that someone may hear us.

I bet that woman hasn't been heard in a long time.

out of 365

I've got these days. These days when I'm untouchable and I don't need to prove I'm smart - because it's not about that. These days when I know I'm in the right place, at the right time, with the right heart.

Then there are these other days. These days I'd like to fold corner-to-corner and sit on, perched happily on a problem that keeps kicking my ass.

As sure as it rains in Seattle, I will have these days. I will think deeply and I will listen to Bon Iver. I will breathe in the introspect and be reminded that I am human, that my heart can feel my head, reminding me I'm alive.

cardboard testimonies.

"There are three kinds of people" she said in between bites. "The kind that smile and wave at you, acknowledging your existence, the kind that ignore you and suddenly have something interesting on their phone to look at, and the ones who give you money without even thinking."

"And what would you rather have?"

"I want them to acknowledge that I exist. That I'm a person too."

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing

and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”

-Rumi

like tomato soup on a rainy day.

There are days when I MISS THIS.

the big two five

It's my birthday tomorrow. Twenty-five years. Last year on my birthday I listened to Switchfoot's song "Twenty Four" over and over again. I'd been waiting to do that for a long time so I had to make it count. If you know of a song for twenty-five, you just let me know, it would be a shame to miss it.

A lot has happened in a year. I've graduated from college, lived with my parents for 2 months (parents are patient), gotten a full time job, moved to Seattle, learned to budget, and learned to run meetings. I've evaluated, pushed, prodded, and agonized over my faith and who God is to me, who God is at all, really. I've put Adventism, alcohol, Sabbath, friendships, expectations, and priorities under the microscope, trying to figure out what I think. It turns out I think a lot of things, but nothing really solid to report--yet.

I'm figuring it out though, I think. It's actually been quite the year, this year of twenty-fourdom. Letting go of a community you love and trying to introduce yourself into a new one is tough stuff. But you know, it's working out okay. I'm flexing and molding and recognizing that this process of growing up and figuring things out is exactly that--a process. And when I write my introspective, over-sharing blog on my 26th birthday I'll probably have wrapped a few thoughts up tight, and unravelled a whole new set of things to digest. I'll be wiser, hopefully, solider, hopefully, and skinnier, hopefully.

So here's to you, 25 years. Way to mix my life with just enough total crap and inexplicable joy to make me excited about the future, and yet wise enough to know it will never turn out the way I think.