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

Philosophy and Photographs, Nicotine and Surf Wax

A bagpipe musician on a cliff at Big Sur, CA

I see wax in the hands of a culture with salted eyelashes and calloused feet. They surround themselves with the breath of adventure and experience philosophy by becoming a part of the deepest thoughts there are, the thoughts beyond words. The thoughts you think when you are eye level with the ocean, cheek pressed against the sand, watching the water glisten, your heartbeat corresponding to the lull of the waves.

I see nicotine filling mouths with words, uncovering the soul that humanity is so comfortable masking with superficiality. My own lungs will never inhale this decay and my mind will never justify its destruction, but my senses are inspired by the gratifying emanation it gives. The smoke is is the smell of speculation and contemplation, ideation and deliberation, opening unfolding minds which are burdened with concepts that are too complex for human words to communicate, but demonstrated perfectly by a cappuccino and a well worn pipe.

I breath in the alluring incense of surf wax and nicotine. They are showcased by the grandeur of places that photographs can never capture, but also by the camera that has captured things that can never be images. What can put a face on joy more than the wrinkling creases of an old man's smiling eyes? What can depict happiness beyond a bagpipe player's wizened fingers dancing to the music of the ocean's uncivilized waves? It is this unconstrained freedom which creates the delicate foam boundaries that kiss sandy toes where reminiscence meets reality.

Heavenly Valley, Tahoe

My life tends to leave a trail of adventures... Which can either overwhelm and exasperate or excite and motivate a person, depending on whether or not they choose to embrace my life whirlwind. So, I thought I would make a blog to verbalize them (the adventures, not the exasperated people). How clique and adorable of me to start it on January 1st, 2014 ♡

Right now, I am sitting in a thin-sheeted, queen sized bed at Heavenly Valley, Lake Tahoe. It's weird to have an entire queen to myself. My brother got the couch. I almost feel bad about that. We can see the gondola from our window. This is my first boarding trip of the season, and it's truly indescribable. I could be a whimsical, sappy writer and type something like this:

Snowboarding at Heavenly Valley, Lake Tahoe

   I heard the crunch of the first snow under my well worn, glued-together snowboarding boot. My eyes danced as I looked up at the mountain. My eyes are never the same color, because I don't think they can decide whether to emulate the piercing blue of the crisp sky or the dark mint of the deep evergreen trees... It is all just too beautiful. The trees are old and gnarled, like the wise fingers of a smiling grandmother. If only they could talk.. I would sit at their intricate roots and be whisked away into the stories their old branches would weave. But what is arguably the most breathtaking is the the glassy, sheer blue lake behind me. I'm afraid to utter even a whisper in fear that the soft motion will mar the perfection of its surface. The sky blends into the water effortlessly, like all along they were destined to be together. The only thing separating them is the jagged mountains, more majestic than anything I have ever seen. The dramatic shadows of the spun gold sunset and the deep blue of the shadowed snow is almost too much for my eyes to take in at once. But the miracle of it all is how my snowboard can take these elements and transform them to be relatable to me. I feel like I am a part of the mountain as I bend and swirl my body to dance with the snow pressed beneath my board. Faster, the wind bites my ears as it whistles past my face. Faster, my surroundings turn to a blur as my body crouches lower to the ground. Faster, and suddenly...

Blah, blah, blah. Please don't misread this, I don't see anything wrong with this idealistic, love-struck writing... But the fact is, that being here, snowboarding on this mountain, is indescribable. Trying to put words in place of the experience of snowboarding is impossible. It's like trying to describe the flavor of bubblegum or what colors look like. Being able to be a part of the dense beauty around me is like living in another dimension or having a 6th sense. Pictures can't do it justice. Words fall short. Recordings could never capture the sound of silence the mountain snow murmurs.

God cannot be described. We can see His attributes, like love, peace, joy, etc, etc. And what incredible attributes they are! But this place is oozing out and overflowing with the God who created it. Yes, God is omnipresent, but where else can you be swept away by His pure, untouched beauty? I want to be so deep with God that my life is that pure, original beauty. People think that God is a plethora of rules, and if that were the case, I would have ditched this idea long ago. But when I can become closer to that bubbling adventure, that purity that wraps around your heart and makes your throat tighten with unspeakable joy by the mere contact of it... when that can become a part of who I am? That's what I want, it's what I need, what I desperately long for. Or my life seems empty and pointless without it.

Okay, so there's my God rant. I just wanted to thank you, oh dear reader, if you stuck with this till the end. Here's to new beginnings.