Thanksgiving

I had the worst day yesterday. So glad I have a little family formed in Baltimore that helps me through days like that. Community, and I mean real hard formed community which takes time, love, and a lot of grace and talking... that is what got me through yesterday. I'm so glad I am blessed with such community.

My journey to become a disney princess

I had to move room the other day as my ceiling was leaking from all the rain and its been leaking for awhile now. Even after rerubberizing the roof, so they will have to cut into the roof and with jonathan moving and getting married it was decided that i would move into his room.

So after a long day of me and dan moving my bed and everything else into my room and setting it up a bit, I was feeling great. This room set up feels more peaceful and comfortable than my last even though its smaller. I was loving the set up, and dan and i finished the evening with yummy rice and veg while watching the collector on my laptop in my room. (finishing the meal off with tea and berries and cream!)

I went off to bed that night feeling great and ready for a full nine hours night of sleep! When I heard a little scratching noise, and I knew it was a mouse. I decided to write it off because its on my floor and will just run around like those little creatures do in my house sometimes. But the sound was getting closer and closer, and i looked over to the wall side of my bed and a little furry creature was running down my bed!

I jumped up and went downstairs because dan was sleeping on the couch. He set a trap and offered to switch bed arrangements like a true gentleman, but i knew if i didn't sleep in my bed that night i would be more fearful the next night. And this is it. Its either move out or name the mice and talk to them while they are in bed. This is where I'm living.... I don't have any other options. (i mean its not totally true but anyother option would be extremely inconvienant and i believe you make it in life by buying oneway tickets and sticking through the hard shit. ) Anyway I went back to bed. Didn't sleep well at all that night, couldn't sleep for hours but finally drifted off to find the mouse dead in the trap the next evening and finding myself more and more comfortable in my room. Stilling praying each night and trusting that God is bigger than the little mice that might crawl into my bed.

Healing through giving.

So I found myself again on one of my favorite websites, www.postsecret.com. A community mail project that was started many years ago by a man named Frank Warren. He provided for people an address to send in decorated postcards with their secrets, deep and dark or funny and light alike and select ones are posted on the website. The project took off, it has made rounds as an exhibition in art museums, the cards have been released in a series of books, and it has been a movement which has given many hope.

Anyways I was on the website and one of the cards really touched me it read, " Working with cancer patients has helped me stop having suicidal thoughts." and i thought how brilliant is this? thats it really it isn't it. So often we are told that our lives happiness lies in self-fufillment or even in therapy in finding "our wounds." Which I will say working through our wounds is important but its really through serving others we take the focus off of us and we are happier and we get healed in the process. I'm not saying go do and push your problems under the rug; I'm saying we find fufillment not in focusing on ourself as our culture tells us, but in doing as Jesus did and serving others. Ironic, countercultural, and anti-self help at times it is what it is.

Nothing quite like a good push out of the nest

i gave my first pecha kucha presentation in class the other day and i did great! i'm not saying this to brag but i'm quite proud of myself... i've never thought of myself as good at public speaking but as I'm an education major I find myself having to do it more and more and I'm getting quite good. Which is just a shock to me! I'm always a little nervous but it usually clears up and with a pecha kucha i had to give a presentation with pre-timed slides without notes. And everyone remarked on how well i did... they all told me i was the most natural, just chatting in front of the class, informative and funny and timed quite well. I'm so excited and pleased with myself.

The moon controls the movements of the tide

I feel the tide turning. The pull between two gravities, the oscillation of the waters and the floor beneath me. Cold under currents being drawn to the warm surface, there is a shock but life prospers in cool waters. Everything will change.

How small the world really is...

So yesterday I'm sitting in my Advanced Writing class, which I may add is an amazing class. After the first fifteen minute free write we're all sharing our mini essays and the guy next to me, Dan, shares with the class that his brother will be coming home from Eastern University this weekend. To which I'm surprised and squeal, " My brother goes there too!" Shocked that I'm sitting next to the one person at Towson, a University that has over 20,000 students, has a brother who attends the same small college my brother attends.

Well we exchange brother's names and i text Jon-Michael, my brother. He replies saying "Oh yeah, Raphael is one of my best friends. How do you know him?"
I'm awed now... and so I ask Dan what his brother is doing at Eastern and how he chose to go there. And his reply is he is majoring in Anthropology and minoring in Missions. At this point I just laugh and squeak one more time... so is my brother!

At this point my whole class is just bubbling with laughter and telling us we have the same brother. How funny is this. Needless to say the rest of the class, Dan and I talk and giggle, by this time there is no stopping my laughter. I can hardly believe this but it was such a nice surprise. I just forget how related we all are sometimes and then a moment like this comes along.

A realization

Lately I have been loving living in the city. I love my neighbors and I love my neighborhood. I don't wish I was back in Severna Park. I like the feel of the houses and the community. I love Khaleek and how he visits me and we paint on my stoop. But today I am feeling the heaviness of the city.

I was listening to my roommate tell stories about what he had seen that day and days before. Stories of violence and rage. And I felt a heaviness of the city. The cycles which are so hard to break out of but lead to death. And I realized the things we are asking these people to do are really radical. Of course we've always said that but the things Jesus asked us to do are so hard. Like how do you explain forgiveness to someone who has had their brother killed and they still see his murderer everyday and how do tell someone to respond in love when violence is the cycle they live in. Thats hard. I still believe it is the best way, but I realize how radical the Gospel really is.

Also if anyone has ideas of were to find these items cheap could you please let me know:

-A large mirror to hang on the wall of my living room
-a drying rack
- sharp knives
-cool artwork
-a doormat
-light figures