the more you see

the less you know.
the less you find out as you go.
i knew much more then, than i do now.

i sat in a class today, one that i sat in precisely two years ago.
theology, culture, and u2.

one of the first classes that allowed me to realize the beautiful complexity and connectedness and enigma and challenge of the world around us… and gently asked me to take ownership and embrace of my small piece of the world that i have been given.

i am certainly not the same girl who first sat in that class two years ago.
i realize how different i am from that timid, unsure, apologetic girl.

i have learned, i am learning, to embrace my small piece of the world… i am learning to refrain from apologizing when my piece does not seem to fit flush with others’… i am learning to balance discontent in the big things and content in the small things… i am learning to look ugly in a photgraph.

everyone.
oh, you look so beautiful tonight.
thank you for being my friends in the journey.

the end of summer.

vietnam, for three and a half weeks.
humidity… motorbikes… war… accents… ho chi minh… across the universe… architecture… communism… chicken claws… lots of tofu… water bottles… xin loi… restlessness that lasts for a long time to come… coming to a deeper understanding of why i am a pacifist and who i am created to be.

mcc in ontario, for three days.
layovers layovers layovers… new wineskins… wisdom from my elders… pleasant surprise to be listened to… hungry in uptown waterloo without a cent… mcc not as smooth and harmonious and idealistic… mcc as rough, and messy, and imperfect, but wholly realistic… getting in on a movement that goes far beyond saving souls and into transforming our world.

the streets, for a long day and a long night.
ivan and andy and delilah and kenny and god and don… hot… cold… downtown… eyeballers… learning that there is still so much to discover about my own town.

jesus for president, for one glorious evening.
weeks and weeks and weeks of planning… downward mobility… psalters… fruition… shane and chris and cassie and all… subverting the empire… downtown… words of the revolutionary… music of the refugee… in-n-out in the early morning… veggie oil and the black bus… realizing that our community goes so much deeper than we give it credit for. and once we start loving one another we can make some good, good changes in this broken world.

camp keola, for three weeks.
john the baptist… children… trees… inspiration point… ping pong… HUAGH… discipleship… the threat of bears… solemn and thoughtful campfire… shooting stars… huntington lake at night… josiah!… the best dance party ever… learning that true service can look like anything. anything at all.

as the summer closes, i have learned this.

john the baptist is more MAN than your boyfriend.
he is a prophet, nomad, monastic, humble, wandering, messenger, legendary, empire-subverting, society-renouncing, honey-eating, camel-haired, summer sweater, crazy man who desperately believes that the kingdom of god is here and now.

i would very much like to get to know him.