I could be nothing without you
So this time around, Mt. St. Helens decided to wear the lenticular cloud. I desperately wanted it to look like she too was wearing a hat - but it just looked like some kind of lopsided horizontal explosion. Which actually is more fitting for this week.
My Iraqi family is becoming more beautiful. Every time, I find out a little more about them - and have yet to leave an English session without crying. Last night...they told me how they made their decision to leave Iraq and come to America. Not that they had much say in the matter after....what they went through. Due to their privacy, this probably isn't the best venue to discuss their experiences. But by the end of the conversation, I was left undoubtedly believing in a God with a plan and a God who protects. And the thing is - they're the ones who credited their lives to Him. I think back through my recent conversations with friends, and I cannot think of one single instance where God came up. But with this family, it was almost immediate. Being with them is cathartic - and I'm rapidly losing sympathy for the client who didn't receive her $5,000 leather lounge chair in time for her open house.
Perhaps that stayed with me through the day and on towards tonight. Through upstairs conversations that stem from such different viewpoints that we simply cannot agree on even one statement without somehow insulting the other. What one sees as strength, the other sees as weakness. Quite an entry right back into the world of apologetics, which I must have left somewhere around eight years ago. Not that I necessarily intended to return to it quite the way that I did (that old Southern Baptist guilt permeates everything I touch).
Discovered new music that is simultaneously providing the soundtrack for all of this. For undoubtedly believing in God's protection in allowing my Iraqi students to live and for trying to figure out how to show a post-doctoral candidate that faith in God does not equal fragility.
live fire
This happens each year. The days become longer and we lose track of time and end up going to bed way too late, and therefore miss the alarm in the morning and start the day in a frantic rush to get to work on time. But somehow - the sunshine makes it all okay. It makes me remember that there's more to life than work (which ebbs and flows in its threat to take over all of my spare time. Likewise does my commitment to work/life balance). But I'm seeing that I need to make an effort to be sure that my employment does not define me. Therefore....
We went camping last weekend - to a secret area high up on the
Washougal River in Southwest Washington. We found this place several years ago after Peter bribed a few
Americorps volunteers with bags of free produce. The Northwest never disappoints, and it always has a fair share of adventures to throw our way. After a peaceful night, when we'd slowly woken up and just started in on breakfast - when the sun was starting to break through and we thought we were completely secluded - gunfire started to ring out. Figuring it was just a few guys out for a good time and some target practice, we ignored it....but after a while, the shots came closer to our camp and started hitting the trees around us. We started to yell - and at one point, had to dive behind a log before they stopped shooting. That's really the end of the story - the shooting stopped, and we all made it back to Portland in one piece. It wasn't all that dramatic, to be honest - but we did jump behind a log to avoid being shot.
Related to this, I've started to teach English again. Drove out to Gresham on Wednesday, expecting to be teaching a gentle 60-year old Iraqi woman. Instead, I was received by two 30-year old Iraqi men and an absolutely charming ten year old boy. They were so eager to learn, and wanted to know when they would be fluent....it's such a responsibility to feel that I have to provide them with the information they need in order to function here in Portland. And I wonder - why did they choose to come here, of all places? To the very country that forced them to leave Baghdad? Beyond the language portion, I also feel this obligation to apologize for everything that America has done to them - and to their home. To compensate for what my country has destroyed, I feel like I need to give them the best shot at life here as possible. I don't feel like this is necessarily bad - but it's a hell of a responsibility to give oneself.
I remember this one day very specifically - it was in mid-March of 2003, and Bush was making one of his initial speeches on the shock and awe portion of the Iraq invasion. Because this was a fairly important speech, there were several students in the lower level of the student center at my college gathered around the television. After Bush finished stating that Hussein had 48 hours to give himself up or America would begin the bombing campaign (which incidentally would occur on my 22
nd birthday), the entire area erupted into cheers. Yes. What was this? Why were they cheering the destruction of a city, a country? And these were Christian college students, nonetheless. I don't understand the connection between conservatism and war.
I knew what I was signing up for ...
it's...let's see, JUNE 7TH, and we have a fire in the fireplace. yes, for ambiance - but also because we need it. because it's cold outside and the sky is a monochramatic grey. because i'm still wearing sweaters and show no signs of stopping anytime soon. because there's an extra blanket on the bed. because we live in breathtakingly beautiful oregon, but oh do we pay for it. and the thing is - last summer took away any trust we had in reliable northwest summers. remember that august when the thermostat bearly made it over 65 and the sun never came around? yeah. peter just told me that we have had exactly ten clear days during all of 2008. we're into the second half of the year, and only 5.3% of our days have been without clouds.
