Through the Silence

Spring is so dynamically sensory. After months of dead silence, bland white snow, dead trees, dark and dreary clouds - Spring creeps up on us and suddenly everything is alive. Green grass, budding trees, a palette of colorful flowers replaces the never ending piles of sludge and snow. Spring peepers, frogs, birds, crickets, cars splashing through puddles, rain and thunder replace the eerie stillness of winter. The sun pokes out, white puffy clouds that look like cars, dragons, and other miscellaneous things left to the imagination take the place of a monotonous gray sky.

Spring makes you smell, touch, feel, see, create - it refreshes you, rejuvenates you. Spring makes things anew. 

For me, Nature has always been a way for me to connect and reconnect with God. Growing up in a small town, with not much to do for entertainment, the outdoors became my movie theater, my classroom, my playground. I explored the woods, I climbed trees, I hunted and dug for frogs, tadpoles, worms, and turtles. I biked through wildflower lined back roads. I walked through cornfields and sunflower fields. I swam in rivers and lakes until sundown. 

G.K. Chesterton equated Nature and the world as the stage, life as the play, and humans as the actors. The stage is beautiful and perfect, but the actors move things, wreck things, say things out of line, or create props that shouldn't be there - we ruin this perfect thing that was created for us. 

However, I believe that as "actors" it is perfectly acceptable for us to explore this great big stage. Comedian and actor Louis C.K. once said, "'I'm bored' is a useless thing to say. I mean you live in a great, big, vast world that you've seen none percent of. Even the inside of your own mind is endless, it goes on forever inwardly. Do you understand? The fact that you're alive is amazing, so you don't get to say 'I'm bored.'"

As spring has sprung here finally, this quote was a sobering thought for me. "I'm bored" is something that slips out of my mouth so frequently. But if we just take a moment to get out there and do something, even if we're alone in doing it, it's amazing what we can discover. 

With the birds chirping and the grass greening, and nobody to play with on a beautiful Saturday, I just couldn't let myself waste the warm, sunny day away even if I was alone in doing it. So I did something that I've never done in my life: I took a long walk... all by myself. For some reason, I hate taking walks by myself because I feel like people look at me and think I'm either A. a loner B. a loser or C. somebody who has no friends. 

But I pushed those thoughts aside and went anyway. I was becoming the exploring "actor" in the newly propped Spring stage. I explored a quiet little neighborhood where no cars passed me. A large black dog lied lazily on a front lawn; he peeked up at me as I passed by, too lazy to say hi or get up and bark. I looked at beautiful homes, secretly wishing I could own such a home someday. I walked to a park, sat on a bench and looked at the lake still covered in ice, like God's giant cup full of ice cubes and water. I walked by swamps, trees, a lazy brook, a pond. I whistled back to the Chickadees when no one was around me. The sun beat down and warmed my skin to the touch. 

I was utterly alone. But not once was I bored. Stuck going to school in a "city" for four years (anything over 10,000 is a city to me) I sometimes felt that that part of me who had such a relationship with the land and nature has slowly stripped away. I was becoming desensitized to the beauty of nature. In the city, the sound of waves or birds are muted by the never ending stream of cars. Stars are dim, hardly seen at all, or obstructed by buildings. "Lakes" in the city are barely clean enough to swim in and are surrounded by more cars, more buildings, and plenty of public beaches. You are never alone. You are constantly surrounded by the buzz of busy people and sound. sound. sound. 

Spring, a bit of silence, and my ability to push through being alone on a walk helped recreate and rebuild that relationship I once had with nature. I urge you, reader, to step out and explore what God has created - not man - even for a little while. See what you can hear, even through the silence. 

Flirting with God

The Midwest, particularly Minnesota and Wisconsin, has recently received a large dumping of snow. A blizzard. A whopping foot of damp, depressing, dismal snow.... and May is only a short 11 days away. 

Needless to say, like all the thousands of other Minnesotans and Wisconsinites, I am shaking my fists of rage at the blankets of white and the snow-laden trees screaming, "Where is spring!!?!?" 

Also needless to say, I have a poor, pessimistic attitude about all of this. I'm the type of person that is utterly romantic for white Christmases and snowy New Year's Eves, but then loathes and wishes the snow away as soon as January 2nd comes around. 

I hate snow. I hate how cold it is. I hate how I have to spend an extra 10 minutes scraping and wiping and sweeping the snow off my car. I hate that it takes me an hour to drive somewhere that should have taken me 20 minutes. I hate that I can't take a walk outside without loading on the boots, snow pants, coat, scarf, etc. etc. until you look like you are about to embark on an Antarctic expedition. 

So, 8 a.m. comes, my alarm wakes me up on a Friday morning, I take one look outside and I instantly want to go back to bed. I quick check my email in case my professor decided to have a heart and cancel class. He didn't. I begrudgingly brush my teeth, wash my face, put my clothes on and go about my usual morning routine. 

Let me interrupt my own story right here. I promise, it has something to do with the whole theme of this post, just keep reading. 

We hear so often, especially from the mouths of Christians, that "God loves you!" And they say it with a fake smile on their face and an annoyingly cheery attitude. When I'm in a bad mood or having a crappy time in my life, honestly that's the last thing I want to hear. I know God loves me, but what good does that do me for my bad mood right now? Go shine your sunshine attitude to someone who has rainbows coming out of their butt right now, and they'll gladly agree. 

Don't get me wrong, I wholeheartedly agree that God loves me and everyone very, very much. So much, in fact, that the human mind literally cannot comprehend it. But, c'mon! Give me some advice I can actually apply and use overly cheery Christian person! 

When a person loves another person, whether it's puppy love or the real thing, they flirt with them in different ways. I believe that God flirts with us. Not in a romantic, sexual way of course (who do you think I am!?), but more like a friendly smile, or a wink, or a nudge, or a joke to make you laugh. You can laugh, but I'm dead serious. God flirts with us! It might be to make us smile, or to make us laugh, or to just show us how much he loves us, or to soften that icy heart or attitude with a little harmless lovin'. 

So, God flirted with me today. I must say, I wasn't particularly flattered at first. It was like the type of flirting you receive from an unwanted specimen, so you roll your eyes and pretend like they didn't say or do those flirty gestures. I had such a sour attitude that I didn't want to receive it, therefore I denied the subtle "kiss" or "wink" from God. I put God in the friend zone today. 

As I am trudging through the Alaskan-like snow with my boots that I never want to see again for the next 6 months, I was just ticked. And I mean, ticked. I wanted spring, and I wanted it now! 

For some reason, right then, God decided to flirt with me. It started to snow... again. But this time, it was this fluffy, dreamy-like, soft snow. It fell on my cheeks like soft, little kisses. I literally said out loud (don't worry, nobody was around me) "Stop flirting with me God, I'm not in the mood." Then the clouds parted and the sun shone like a spotlight right on me. The sun made the snowflakes sparkle like a dazzling sunlit ocean, like dancing diamonds in the sky. It was like the parting of the clouds and the beam of sunlight, which lasted a whole 10 minutes this morning, was a giant radiant smile from God. 

Despite the unwanted snow and my horrible attitude, God's pestering flirting made me smile. It made me see the beauty in the snow instead of what should be in its place right now (green grass, budding trees, flowers). I cracked a smile right then and there, on my way to class, and I even looked up and gave God a subtle wink. Who says we can't flirt back? 

Shoe Boxes

               

 There is a song by my favorite singer and songwriter, Jack Johnson, with a line that describes the nostalgia of physically kept memories perfectly: “Our dreams… are made out of real things, like a shoe box of memories with sepia-toned lovin’.” Shoe boxes are made for more than a pair of brand new shoes.

Inspiration can come in many forms. For me, my inspiration to write seems to come from memories – whether they happened yesterday or ten years ago, or they are physical things like shoelaces, ticket stubs, and picture frames, or whether they live as a moment frozen in time within my mind.  I love to collect things. Things like a green pen, a broken piece of guitar, or an eraser with little notes written in pen all over the surface would mean nothing to the average person; but to me, they are pieces, fragments of memories long gone.

I have at least five different shoe boxes, each with their own purpose. One contains letters, pictures, and scraps from my year in New Zealand. One contains memories from grade school all the way up until high school. Another contains a few dried roses, letters, cards, and more, collected over a period of two and a half years with my boyfriend. A bigger shoe box contains most of my snow globes I have carefully collected over a span of ten years. And my fifth one is a miscellaneous collection from places, events, pictures from various people, scraps of paper with written notes; an arbitrary assortment of things.

I’d like to believe I inherited my habit of collecting and saving little things from both my mother and my grandmother. In this way, it has become somewhat of a tradition that keeps on spreading from generation to generation. When I think of tradition, Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof comes to my mind. Swaying his hips as his tassels swish at his sides, his arms raised up at his sides snapping to the beat, "Traditionnn! Tradition!" In many cases, tradition was and is like a fiddler on the roof in my life as well. It follows me wherever I go, its song reminds me of who I am, and even though there are days I want to bang on my roof and tell him to be quiet and go away, it is still there - through silence, through sad songs and songs of celebration.

My mom has saved cards from my five year old birthday, newspaper clippings from my fourth grade science fair, my sister’s cast from when she broke her ankle at one year old, even snippets of hair from her children’s first haircuts. My grandma Bonny, my mom’s mom, went so far as to reuse plastic Ziploc baggies, and she saved toys, blankets, and bonnets from her children’s childhood. 

My grandma clung to traditions. Big or small, she loved them. Things like making popcorn balls every autumn, watching Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman with Fresca and popcorn, wearing your best lipstick no matter how the day goes, and making oyster stew every Christmas are now woven with nostalgia into my life. Even during stretches of months where the patchwork quilt of my life was fraying at the seams, those threads of memories and tradition held the separate patches together. My grandma rubbed off on me in that way. If she were still alive, I could picture us watching re-runs of Touched by an Angel eating popcorn and sliced green apples, crying with a box of tissues in front of each of us.

I suppose I have a sixth shoe box, a metaphorical one where those memories that can’t be held or touched in the physical sense are packed carefully away. They are evoked by a song, a smell, a comment from a friend, and soon I am unpacking that shoe box once more to play over the memories in my head like a slow moving feature film.

Shoe boxes are indeed made for more than a brand new pair of shoes. They hold things, they cherish things, and they somehow keep memories alive despite the mismatched conglomeration of things strewn together in one, tiny, cardboard box. To the beholder, they are not just boxes of stuff or junk but rather, boxes full of people dear to them. And those things, those bits and pieces of memories are really just bits and pieces of dreams and people. 

Through the Thunder: Part II

For those that missed Part I: Through the Thunder: Part I

There is something so therapeutic about food sometimes. After a long process of cooking, baking, and stirring, you can finally sit down surrounded by those you love and enjoy wonderful, flavorful food. It warms you, it leaves a sweet or savory aftertaste, it makes you smile, it sustains you.

While Elijah waited for an answer from God, he ate, drank and slept. So I tried it out. Two days ago, I decided I was hungry. I ordered a warm fresh bagel with honey walnut cream cheese, a giant cup of hot black coffee and a small bag of carrots. Unusual combination, I know, but I craved those foods so I gave into them. Sometimes I believe cravings are God's doing, they come from somewhere inside of you and they say, "Eat me! You know you want to enjoy me!" So why deny God? God said eat a bagel. So I did.

I brought it back to my room, savoring every warm therapeutic bite and sip of my whole wheat bagel and coffee. I stood up to look out the window, chewing every bite slowly. I was thinking that the sleeping process of my Elijah experiment should come up next, as a nap sounded really nice about then, when I turned around and found something on my desk.

On Easter Sunday, my grandma handed out little wooden crosses with a pin on it, so I could pin it to my clothes as a brooch or my bag as a reminder I guess. We thanked her politely and I thought nothing of it. I chucked the wooden cross, disinterested, into my sister's purse next to me. I forgot about it 5 minutes later.

My sister, without me noticing, must have taken the cross out and put it on the desk in my room at some point - and here it was, small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, suddenly lying before me as I chewed my God-given bagel.

And a miraculous thing happened. I heard a small, faint, voice, like an inkling. From somewhere - within me? from outside of me? But it was distinct. "Carry your cross and follow me."

I looked around, skeptical. I exhaled out of my nose in a sort of laugh. Am I going crazy? I didn't dare touch the little wooden cross. I ignored the request for the rest of the day and night. I think I wanted to make sure that voice was still there in the back of my mind by the end of the day. And it was.

So the next morning, before I walked out the door for class, I eyed up that little wooden cross once more and put it in my pocket. "Okay God, I'm listening, even if it is weird or crazy. I am carrying my cross. Show me what's next." I said, and walked out the door.

I'd like to say that God did miraculous things and I saw visions. But that's not what happened. I will tell you this though; I am now on day two of carrying the cross. At first I actually, seriously, felt self-conscious, like I had a tattoo on my forehead and everybody could see. Now I feel weird if I go out the door without it. 

This is also what happened. I finally know the meaning of, "You will seek me and find me if you seek me with all your heart." Because the entire day, I could not stop looking for God. It was as if I expected to bump into him around a corner, or see him suddenly at lunch time. When you are actively seeking out God - you will find Him. I found him in a lot of little things, and a few big things too. It was almost creepy, seriously it was. It was like I was having mini conversations with God through other people or situations throughout the day. 

In my night class, my professor opened the class by saying this, "I never, ever do devotions before class. But something is telling me to share these verses with you today." And he shared Matthew 6:25-34. 

I got an email reply from someone in the publishing industry who said she would love to meet up with me to connect and talk about getting into the publishing industry as a career. 

I got another email from a job I applied to months ago, saying I made it to the next process. 

I had a stranger smile at me, and I smiled back. 

I somehow finished my homework, blogged, and published a children's chapter book all in a matter of two days. While taking care of my very sick boyfriend, might I add. 

God is in the details. I truly believe that. I'd like to think that this part of my Elijah Experiment is the journey or walking part. So I'll continue to carry my cross, and see where else God takes me. 

(Stay tuned for Part III) 

Through the Thunder: Part I

"I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship." 

-Louisa May Alcott 

When my sister and I were little, we played in the woods behind our house. We dreamed up these great adventures beneath the trees. A fallen tree over a pond suddenly became a bridge over hot lava; a fort made of sticks became our tee-pee. We were pirates, gypsies, sailors, lumberjacks and damsels in distress. Out in our woods, we could be anything.  

Billie and I wanted a tree house more than anything. Our grandpa, who lived next door at the time, is a woodworker and he helped us gather scraps and boards and we set out to build a tree house. It turned out to be more like a tiny platform with a small ladder built between some small birch trees, but it was the best tree house we ever had. 

While building it, board by board, I found this triangular scrap of wood and we nailed it to one of the trees. It swiveled and turned which ever way you'd like, and soon it became a helm, and the tree house became a pirate ship. 

We would spend hours in our pirate ship, steering and searching for land, anchoring ashore to find gold and jewels, shooting off canons into the water. We lived within our imagination as soon as we stepped aboard our ship. Nothing could touch us; we were invincible. 

As we grew older, our tree house became like a fortress to me. I would run out there to think, to talk to God, to cry or scream or jump for joy at something that had happened in my life. I would go to be utterly alone, to separate myself from the world and everybody in it for just a little while. 

Recently, something happened at home that made me run. I don't know why, but my first instinct was to run, to get away, to stop the people and voices shouting at me, questioning me, pressuring me. So I did, I just ran. I ran in a T-shirt and boots. I trudged through snow. Twigs slashed at my tear- stained cheeks. I ran until I reached my ship, grown over with lichen and moss, parts of wood chipping off at the edges.

I climbed aboard. I sat on a stump made into a stool, sized for a 6-year-old. And as the storms and waves crashed around me, I screamed into the thunder up at God. I kicked at the starboard, I threw sticks and fistfuls of dirt and snow at the port. "What do you want from me God!?" I screamed aloud, my voice heard only by the trees. "Why can't you just tell me!? Why can't you just tell me what to do?! What do you want from me!?" Over and over, I screamed these questions into the allusive sky.

And I heard nothing. Though my heart longed for and wished for something, anything, I heard nothing but the sound of my echo and my heavy breathing. God was not in the storm. His voice did not break through the thunder or the waves of turmoil crashing around me. God was silent.

I stopped screaming. I was angry that God didn't answer me. After weeks and months of praying for something, he still did not answer me. I calmed my breath, I tied my boots, I wiped my tears, and I waited.

And I'm still waiting.

Today I was reminded of the story of Elijah in the Old Testament. He was afraid, so afraid in fact that he wanted to die. He gave up, fell asleep, and God sent an angel to wake him up. "Wake up and eat and drink something!" So Elijah did. He ate, drank, slept, and waited. Finally he got up and traveled, tired of waiting I presume. He walked for 40 days and nights until he reached a mountain and he went into a cave. While he was sleeping he thought he heard a voice, "What are you doing here Elijah?" So he told Him, "These people want to kill me." God said, "Go outside and wait, for God is about to pass by.

A great and powerful wind passed by - but God was not in the storm.
An enormous earthquake passed by - but God was not in the earthquake.
After the earthquake came a great fire - but God was not in the fire.

But after the fire..... came but a still, small voice. A whisper, which said again, "What are you doing here Elijah?" And Elijah answered. And this time, God told him what to do.

So, because I have no other answers, and because I am afraid and terrified like Elijah was, am doing what Elijah did. I will eat and drink and sleep and go about my usual day. I will walk and go places and learn things until I find my cave. And there I will wait for the storms, and earthquakes, and other voices, to pass, until I can hear that still, small, whisper. 

Down the Rabbit Hole

“So she sat on with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality.” 

― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass 




A professor once told me about a student he had in class only a few years ago. The student suddenly looked up over the top of his laptop and said, "You know? I believe our culture and generation today has lost their ability to wonder." And I believe that to be true. 

I have a bit of a confession to make: I am borderline obsessed with Alice in Wonderland. I bought an antique Alice in Wonderland book for $20 at an antique store and I am in love with everything about it. If you take the protective sleeve off, the cover is this rich green with beautifully etched designs on the front and the spine of the hardcover. The pages smell like a spice cupboard mixed with wood chips, and are filled with beautiful original illustrations. 

I bought the complete collection of Lewis Carroll at Barnes & Noble for only $7 and it sits on my nightstand next to my Alice in Wonderland mug. The old paperback book I have of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass has pages falling out and the cover ripping off. 

But what I love most about Alice and her absurd adventures is her ability to wonder, imagine, and to be curious. 

I feel so lost in a world where people go through their day and life without stopping to look, or ask, or wonder in awe about something. With all this amazing, profound technology surrounding us we use it and never stop to think - how did this happen? How did we get to a place where we can talk to our phones and this thing called Siri talks back to us!?

We are becoming like the man in the story and short film, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. It takes place during the Civil War and he is about to be hanged. It isn't until he stands at the edge of the bridge about to have his life ended, that he suddenly notices the little things. The beautiful day, the sun rising, the birds chirping, the leaves, the sand, the way the water moved in the river below, the way the trees danced in the breeze. It isn't until something threatening happens to us, or something is about to be taken away from us, when we stand in wonder at the beauty around us. 

Alice began her big adventure by following something completely out of the ordinary: A talking white rabbit wearing a waist coat and a pocket watch. What would have happened if Alice saw that and thought to herself, "Hm, that's strange!" but then went on with her studies and didn't follow her sense of curiosity. Or what would have happened if Alice was too busy texting and and scrolling through her Facebook news feed to even notice this marvelous, extraordinary sight? She would have never gone to Wonderland, there never would have been this big adventure, and the rest of the book would have been about her boring book with no pictures and her mute cat Dinah. 


Take my nieces, or kids in general. They ask questions. Lots of them. You answer one question and you think, "Great, that's done with!" but no, they have to ask, "But, why?" One time my niece asked after driving by a cemetery what all those stones were out there. "They're graves, it's where people's bodies get buried after they die," her mother said.

"But why do we bury people after they die?"

"Well, we've been doing that for a very long time and we need to get rid of the body after they die somehow."

"But... why?"

And the conversation went on like this for quite sometime. I'm not sure if it got anywhere, but she asks some very great questions. Kids also are not afraid to dream and imagine great, big, absurd, silly things. My niece believes that when she gets to heaven her skin will be indigo, because that's her favorite color. Who knows, maybe she's right. She also thinks the other side of the lake is a whole other country with people who dress differently and speak a different language than us.

We have lost our ability to wonder. We have become desensitized and numbed to every day miracles happening all around us.

Have you ever wondered, I mean truly wondered about why we get hiccups? Or why we have to close our eyes when we sneeze? Or how the birds just know when to come back or go away during the change of seasons and where to go? Or why we started in the first place to color our cheese orange, because it sure as heck isn't naturally that way!

I believe we need to step out of our go-go-go reality for a little bit each day, and step into Wonderland. Because if we lose our ability to wonder... that will truly be a terrifying and awful reality.