Truth

Mario. There are some people you know you will remember the moment you meet them. Listening to him talk was fun... like playing Mario Brothers on Nintendo 64. Not fun like a Saturday morning cartoon, but the blowing up marshmallow Peeps in the microwave kind of fun. We met in Saint Jean. His colorful rimmed glasses complimented his triangle gages as he gently pushed my hammock while joking with the other pilgrims, effortlessly chattering between Spanish, English, French and some other language. He told us about how he slept on the floor of a castle because an elderly lady gave him the key last night. He told me not to eat all of the cherry plums off the trees. He teased us for being Californian. He made me want to be like him. To connect with people in a way that digs deeper than forcing depth. I believe if we seek authenticity, the depth will come in time.

My mindset of the Camino is slowly changing from "getting up in the morning to walk" to the walking actually becoming a lifestyle. I used to think that "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6) was choosing to walk on the right path, but I am starting to understand that the "way" isn't just a path we take, but the lifestyle we adopt. The "truth" isn't just a moral to develop, but an all-encompassing life change. One of my favorite things about the Camino is the yellow arrows that mark the path. Sometimes they are etched into concrete or spray painted on the back of street signs. But they are always visible. They are easy to follow in the country, but as soon as the path approaches a town, there are countless other distractions of other colored arrows marking different paths and false yellow arrows advertising directions to a hostel or tourist shops. If I only followed someone else's description of the arrow, I would be lost, but I'm so familiar with the right arrow because I have been following it closely and relying on it to guide me that anything false just falls away. That's how I want to translate living IN "the way, the truth, and the life..." to have the truth so engrained in me that it leaks out into all my conscious and unconscious thoughts and decisions. I believe that's the true life Jesus was talking about, because "then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32).

My friend encouraged me to pick a word to represent where I want to be by the end of the trip. My word was "solidity." I wanted to work on solidifying my faith in Christ, being solid in what I believe, in health and life and relationships. But this morning I was reading in Matthew about how Jesus walked more humbly than I ever have... and ever could. Every day on this trip I walk to a secure hostel with an assured meal and safety when there was no room for Jesus to even be born in a building. As much as I love and completely support the idea of meditating on a word for five weeks, I've realized that it is impossible for me to ever be solid. I cannot work hard enough to find solidity in Christ or what I believe. Christ gives it. It's not about me at all. It is not about a deep concept or an epiphany I could get while walking. It's not about some spiritual experience or a sudden realization. It's about His grace filling my frailness, and I will just continue to live incomplete and unforgiven if I continue to think I can do anything to gain my security. It's about dying to myself because Christ died in my place and it's about living life as best as I can to reciprocate a fraction of my thankfulness for second chances. It's the fact that I will continually be flawed without His grace. His amazing grace. His mind blowing astoundingly beautiful grace. It's like seeing the dirt in the bottom of the shower after hiking 18 miles and two bars of soap. So, if I could choose a word, it wouldn't be "solidity," but "I-only-live-in-the-grace-through-Jesus-that-I-need-more-than-oxygen," or it wouldn't even be a word at all. It would be falling face flat on the dirt road overwhelmed by how much my perfect, holy God suffered for someone as flawed as me.

Blisters

I stood in LAX, my backpack clingling to my shoulders, my hair grabbing my neck while I watched a man with a handlebar mustache graze a boy cuddling a lap dog. Millions of footsteps pattered into the air and walls, the clicks of heels and taps of sandles meshing with the sweat beading its way to the travellers´white knuckles grasping a bit too havy suite cases. The owner of the stroller beside me meekly walked from the bathroom with a Bambi eyed boy plotting along behind her. ¨Tank you.¨ Her broken English seemed to leap from her eyes. Eyes that know pain. Eyes I will remmeber. Eyes I will probably never see again. But eyes that connected with mine for a brief moment in time. I am now at my fourth hostle on the Camino de Santiago. Last night there was a thunderstorm. I lost at spoons with the other pilgrims... six times. A trilingual elderly lady at the last hostle dressed my eight blisters while juggling paperwork and stamps and while giving in french. I ate fish in the same diner as Hemmingway. My skin is darker. My knees are scraped. I ate white asparagas for the first time. I lost my walking stick. My heart is full. My God is good. 

My hat has a logo that says ¨live simply.¨ I think living simply can be one of the most complex concepts to grasp. I walked and talked with a middle aged pilgrim named Maurizio on the first day when we were crossing the Pyranees mountains. He smiled when I bought sheep cheese from a vendor. We explored an old shepherd´s hut. We talked about God and brothers. About ¨sheeps¨ and shoes and hard boiled eggs. I spoke the limited Spanish I knew. He spoke the limited English he knew. It was simple. But it was some of the most memorable communication I have ever had.

I asked Maurizio what life advice he would give. He laughed. ¨Take it easy¨ he breathed through fainted laughs and calculated breaths from climbing with a pack. ¨Follow Me.¨ Christ´s words are simple. We are the one´s who make it complicated. It´s taken me flying to Spain and carrying my life on my back to even start to grasp what it means. It´s taken eating apple cores and packaged almond butter instead of home cooked meals. It´s taken living with a nail clipper as a luxury. It´s taken washing the clothes on my back with the shampoo from my hair, the smiles and nods of a language barrier and the card games and the feeling of fat rain drops to see what matters in life. When everything is stripped away, the things your beaded, sweaty fingers are desperately clinging to, that´s when you know what your life is founded on. That´s why this trek is already life changing after only four days. My foundation is Christ, and when everything is brushed away, a dirt path and blistered feet can be the most powerful direction a person can take to realize it.

El Camino: Pre-Trip

The International Program seminar was one of those moments... the redeeming ones. The lights dimmed. My heart started to flutter as images of France and Africa and Switzerland and Fiji flew across the screen. Then El Camino de Santiago slid discreetly through the room, its presence like a favorite ornament on the Christmas tree only noticed by those who deem it the favorite. It screamed in my ears, but it was beautiful because it sang to my heart.

I am choosing to trek El Camino de Santiago because I know I am supposed to. I don't expect everyone to understand, but I know that my life has been directed to this pinnacle point by a force bigger than I. The Camino de Santiago is a 500-mile trek averaging 20 miles per day. Applying was an act of faith and a belief in the hope God promises. It's different to read God's promises and actually believe they can happen than to stand back from yourself and watch them pilot your life.

I equate the name "The Way of Saint James" to my thoughts of the Camino. It gives me goosebumps every time I think about the name and the origin and history it seeps into whoever listens to its wizened story. El Camino de Santiago. The nine syllables rool off the tongue like hot honey.

A little over a year ago, I could barely get out of bed. I read through my diary from that time the other day. It's like the pages are lined with pain that can still knock the breath out of me when I read my own scratched writing. I didn't know if I would be able to finish high school, let alone start at a university. I finally went to a hormone specialist and was told that my adrenal glands had been burned out. Used up. They had crashed. There was no more adrenaline left in my body for me to function properly.

I started taking Hydrocortisone, a medication that gives support ot the adrenals and the natural adrenaline time to rebuild and to replenish itself. It's the reason I have been able to survive Pepperdine. It is a slow process. I have needed to eat healthy foods and listen to my body. I have had to be patient. It's been hard. This is why it was such an act of faith for me to apply for the Camino. My parents allowed me to apply, but with the understanding that they wouldn't let me go if I hadn't healed by June 11th. My circumstances told me no, but although it felt impossible, I felt a force beyond myself guiding my path For some reason, I knew I would go.

Why my adrenal glands failed, I could barely walk one mile around my neighborhood. I remember physically not being able to finish Gaviota Peak. Now I walk my neighborhood two or three times on my "off" days. I have hiked up Gaviota in 80 minutes with a weighted pack. I have done things physically that I could never have imagined doing even just a year ago. I am grateful for this in my life, because it has taught me how to rely on God's strength when things seem impossible.

I have lived Matthew 19:26, "But with God everything is possible." He has smiled at my "mustard seed faith" and cradled me in His arms. I am now only taking a quarter of a Hydrocortisone tablet every other day. I have my doctor's and parents' encouragement and blassing to trek the Camino. God has provided. THat's why I like to think of it as the Way of Saint James. I am following in the footsteps of the people that have loved God so dearly. I will be walking where people whose faith meant so much to them that they were willing to walk 500 miles to pursue it. I imagine each of their steps as a glimpse of what their hearts treasured so much. I want my steps to align with theirs. I want to give the love and grace I have been shown back to Him with every step of my life. That is why I am going. Although it is by faith alone that I am able to trek the Camino, I feel that my relationship with God is not as strong as I would like it to be. I need to put Him above everything else in my life.

This is the thing... I have absolutely no idea of what to expect. I don't know what it will be like. I don't know who I'll meet. I don't know what I'll experience. I don't know what I don't want to experience. I could say the standard things like that I don't want blisters, but honestly, I want to experience what God has for me on the trail whether it's good or bad by my standards because I know that His perspective is so much bigger than mine. I am nervous about all the unknowns. But I don't think there can be excitement without nervousness. I don't htink there can be growth without being uncomfortable. There can't be faith without unknowns. I am prepared that it might be one of the hardest things I have done, but I want it all. I want it to grow me closer to God, whatever it takes. I want to meet God in the midst of His creation.  I want to let go of myself. I will know I have accomplished this when Christ is clearly the priority of my life. This isn't something that is stopping at the end of the Camino. I plan for the Camino to be the start of the rest of my life. At the end of the road, I don't want to be thinking about how I am different I don't want to be thinking about myself at all. I want to be thinking about Christ in me. I don't want to "take away" anything from this experience, but I want to leave everything on the Camino. I want to leave my pride and leave my self-absorption. I want to leave everything I am and replace it with the plans God has for my life, because I know that His plans are good, whatever they might be.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares The Lord, "plans to prosper you and not ot harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. THen you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."
~ Jeremiah 29:11-13

Decaf Green Tea

My wanderlust led me to a little coffee shop. The vision I had for myself was a hybrid between a lumberjack sipping black coffee and a surf rat with my bare feet propped up on the mismatched material of the chair across the table. But I ordered a decaf green tea. I wonder if lumberjacks ever order decaf green tea.

This place breathes familiarity. The the man in a poser name-brand sweatshirt cussing in the manliest of forms about a lost kitty. The hipster concerts. The tentative touches my fingers made as they encircled the wind-chime magic of a chipped, twelve string guitar. In my stupor of nostalgia, the friendly smile behind the counter reminded me that my frequent flyer card only counts toward espressos, not decaf green teas. When have I ever ordered a decaf green tea? After carefully climbing the squeaking, narrow, old-man-groaning, rickety stairs, I sat catacombed in the loft like a nesting pigion, pinning my beady eyes at a tree outside the window encased by concrete and cigarette ash.

Wild. What does it mean? My dictionary.com tab is legioned with definitions. Not tamed or domesticated. Uncivilized. Of unrestrained intensity. It's the title of a book I'm reading about a meth addict who backpacked the Pacific Crest Trail with no training. It seems there are more definitions of what it is not than what it actually is. Is it's ferocity something to run from? Or is it's whispering something to draw close to?

All I know is I would rather have my life be free then domesticated. Fierce than tamed. I'd rather fill my lungs with the breath of adventure than be constrained by safety. God is wild. In the Narnia series, Aslan is a lion, the essence of wild. Fierceness in it's purest form can not be captivated by the restraints of a cultured mind. It's a risk to believe in the wilderness of God. Just as Mr. Beaver said about Aslan, Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you. 

By risk, I don't mean that believing in God is stupid. His freedom is balanced by love. What good is something that is not tamed or domesticated if it isn't doing something? God's love for us is what hung Jesus on the cross. ‘Course he isn’t safe. But His love is what makes it possible to draw close to the heart of God, and I believe the essence of God is the definition of wild. But he’s good. I am thankful that the heart of God is wild. His love for me is not tamed or domesticated. Uncivilized. Of unrestrained intensity. I think believing in something wild means that you won't ever be able to understand it, because it's very definition cannot be tamed. But I'd rather believe in that than something I can understand, but does not have that same all powerful strength that I can trust in. He’s the King, I tell you.

When we run from God, we run from the essence of wild. We run from freedom. Take a risk. His love can hold us and comfort us in a way that something we can understand and constrain could never do. Take it from a girl with sand between her toes drinking decaf green tea in an little coffee shop who has only gotten through life by clinging to the wings of the wilderness of God and the unrestrained love He bled for us.

He is the playfulness of creation, scandal and utter goodness, the generosity of the ocean and the ferocity of a thunderstorm; he is cunning as a snake and gentle as a whisper; the gladness of sunshine and the humility of a thirty-mile walk by foot on a dirt road.
~ John Eldredge

Poems & Pointe

So, I wrote a poem. It's only a sentence long... just a really long sentence.

Ballet

Because I have not been long asking your forgiveness, you 
swirl in a thin neon ballerina skirt, chafed toes grasping dust
disturbed by your turning's mesmerizing flickers
on pointed feet, because you choose to not understand my wrongs; you
tear open your heart, spilling it on the floor as your hair
cascades like a misted river dripping dew down
your back, making the bones above your eyes glisten with pearls
of sweat, because sweat is the only thing that can whisper comfort to
your blistered heart festering from your toes; my mistakes pour
from your outstretched fingers, because your fingers are
the only vessels with which you can still create beauty
from the gnawing, teething tiger ripping your organs into
pirouettes and tondues that point and pivot around
the problem, which at the same time address it directly
in ways that words mockingly dance around,
because verbalizing my sins only
wrangles your heart further.

I have no author's note, just a ballet final this Wednesday. I've also been thinking about pain lately. Probably because I stapled my finger a few days ago, but mainly because a girl in my class gave a speech thanking pain, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head. Kathrine Kuhlmann, here's a shout out. It really affected me. I don't believe pain and beauty are things mixed together that we should try to separate, but rather that pain produces beautiful things. There's countless songs about it. Whether or not we realize it, I believe society recognizes the importance of pain, we just approach it with our selfish motives and find-strength-within-yourself mentality. It's fascinating really. Sit down with some hot tea sometime and try to read the lyrics without the catchy, four-chord progression playing menacingly in the back of your head:
Woke up late today and I still feel the sting of the pain, but I brushed my teeth anyway. 
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. 
Ba de ya, dancin' in September.

I typed that last one because it's what the dorm next to me is blasting. But seriously, what would the flowing form and breathtaking movements of ballet be without the blisters and torn muscles behind them? And where would we be if Christ didn't suffer through our pain? That's the one that gets me. Christ wants me to hand him the pain I am clinging to, the very thing that's hurting me, in order to make it into something beautiful. It's like I'm hanging onto a thread dangling over a lake of piranhas when He wants to embrace my quivering body, delicately hold my lone, feeble thread and fuse it into tapestry He is weaving. I just have to let it go.

This is why I feel so close to God every time I slip on my worn, canvas ballet shoes. Every tear in them represents a thread of pain I have given to Christ. My heart is mended through His gentle fingers weaving them into the plan that He is creating for me when I let go of my puny thoughts of what my life should be. And when I apply the grace I learn through dance to everyday life, every movement throughout the day becomes a piece of gratitude I can hand back to the one who created the capacity for the plans He has beyond what I can imagine.

But it’s been no bed of roses. No pleasure cruise – I consider it a challenge before the whole human race. And I ain’t gonna lose. - See more at: http://www.thebridgemaker.com/10-motivational-songs-to-keep-you-moving/#sthash.shj9IXID.dpuf

Sequoia National Park

Beyond the humming of the broken bathroom facilities on the opposite side of my dorm wall and the rising screeches of Don't Stop Believing from the boys next door, I'm left alone waiting for a large load of laundry to dry to bask in remembering my camping trip at Sequoia National Park last weekend. It's a wonderful combination, really.

I like the broken bathroom melodies because they remind me of learning to conserve water in Puerto Rico. I like listening to the boys profanely sing one of my favorite songs because it makes me smile and reminisce to high school. I like the brawling war for the lone washing machine because I have the opportunity to talk to people I would never normally see. I like that I have an over-sized pile of laundry to fold because I love the smell of dryer sheets. And I like that I am here at this exact place and time on a Friday night because I get to write about it.

I've found that when I choose to see through the lens of loving people, life becomes exciting. And the only way I can choose to love people is by letting God love me, because God is love (1 John 4:8). It's the concept of a Greek word for "love" called agápē. It refers to love that is unmotivated, that is not necessarily dependent on the loveliness of its object and that, in fact, confers goodness on that object: the beloved becomes lovely by virtue of being loved. I am only able to show love because I am loved by God.

I don't know how I got on a tangent about laundry and love when I was originally talking about Sequoia. But the thing is, I've found that excitement can be found in doing laundry just as much as on a mountain in Sequoia. We were talking about what makes good description in creative writing class the other day. I believe good description is composed of minute, abstract details, such as the several shades of grey (heh heh) in the threads composing a shirt. However, if the description of the threads does not point back to the grey shirt, it has not done its purpose. And further, if the shirt does not point back to the deeper message the description is trying to convey, no matter how beautiful the detail might be, it is useless. In the same way, both the smell of dryer sheets and the roughness of a Sequoia tree's red bark are details that point to the same God. You just have to read them in context of their deeper meaning to see the excitement they offer to the world.

On a different note, my roommate and I wrote a poem while falling asleep in the car while camping. There was snow outside, and we didn't feel like being encrusted in a hammock ice cocoon like the night before. This trip transformed my roommate from saying, "Whenever I write poems, I have to put on an alter ego of foo-foo" to this:

Fridged
by Julie Keck and Ashley E.

Numb. I feel nothing at all.
The sinister hum. Shallow, visible
Only on a moonless night.
They're on the outside
We trapped ourselves within
Bundled, calm.

Steam on the panes
Oh, how it pains to see the streaks
Of those lacking everything
Gaining nothing from the shadows 
They fail to see.

It was actually a spoof on a legit assignment I had due that Tuesday, but when we read it dramatically to a music gem such as this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGeXU2GBuxg
It's actually not bad.

All that to say, I want to be a detail like a George Winston instrumental...the smell of laundry...the glinting feather on a bird's wing soaring over the Sequoia forest. All I want is for people to see those details proclaiming the reflected love of Christ, because He is the only beautiful detail in me.

The view from Morro Rock in Sequoia National Park, CA

She

Yes, I sneakily took a picture. You can judge me.

There is a lady that sometimes comes up to me at church when I visit home. Wary eyes look away, trying not to make contact with hers so she won't see an invitation to come tell her stories. She is avoided, ignored, shunned. She knows my name and details about me, but I have no idea where I could have met her before. It's like she appeared out of no where. She stepped into my life one day. And she is beautiful.

Maybe she is avoided because of the large hump on her back. Maybe it's because she dresses in a crossing guard outfit with a matted, fax fur ski jacket every single day for no apparent reason. Maybe it's because once she starts talking to you, she will not stop. I will be talking in a group of friends and she will just stand, waiting. You think she will walk away after a bit. She won't.

Last week I went to church in my hometown, and she was there. As usual, she found me in a moment when I wasn't with anyone. As usual, she bombarded me with words. As usual I stood there, politely listening, smiling and nodding, looking for a way to escape. But then I did something different. I listened. And it was beautiful.

She talked about how Christ was the reason she lived. She talked about a dream she had of Jesus being taller then a high rise building, rising out of the ocean with shingles falling off his skin. She talked about a book she had been reading about a little boy who had seen Heaven, and how I would like it too. She talked about how Jesus was so much better than the Statue of Liberty. She talked about how God had spoken to her, about how her life was changed, and asked if that had ever happened to me. She talked about how she wanted to visit the Mediterranean Sea and be baptized like Jesus was. She talked about living life alive instead of living life a lie. She talked, I listened.

Her eyes came alive and sparkled brighter every time she said the name "Jesus." Mine filled with tears. Her words came from her heart and touched mine. Her throat moved up and down with the vibration of sound pouring from her lips. My throat choked up at how no one took the time to notice how beautiful she is. People were literally walking around her, going through the motions of "church" and "Christianity," but passing by the purest form of Christ that was standing right in front of them.

I wish I could take her to lunch. Buy her a puppy or a Ferrari. But frankly, she would probably be no happier then she is now, because she gets it. Her life is more fulfilled then the people who travel the world, win the Nobel Prize or get sponsored by Quicksilver. She gets the depth of life that is available through Christ. She knows the choice of untouched, unexplainable joy. And that is all she needs.

There are so many shes around us. She is the grandmother with the outdated puns who is always dragging you to brunch. The one that mentions the "good taste in your clothes" every time you spill something on your shirt. She is the lady with oxygen tubes up her nose waiting for someone to come visit her so she can tell them the common sense that she calls "life advice." She is the five-year-old wanting to tell you about the idea she has for an invention. Listen. She is Beautiful.

I can guarantee this truth: Whatever you did for one of my brothers or sisters, 

no matter how unimportant [they seemed], you did for Me.
Matthew 25:40