¡Caminantes!

Caminantes started back up today!

So good to be with that family again. 

I've been terrible at blogging for the last year or so, but I think Caminantes will be a good subject to blog about this year. I enjoy blogging every once in a while, but have felt lost and as though I have everything and nothing to talk about. 

So here's to a fresh start with this wonderful group [and whatever other blog posts sneak their way in...like my brother's wedding coming up!]

This picture is from last year, but I love these people and I can't wait to get to know our new first years!!

Mexico

This trip happened months ago, but I still haven't blogged about it and I would like to share what I can remember as well as re-reflect on my first trip to the Border.

We left on an early morning flight, hence the competition between sleepiness and excitement in this picture. Landed in LAX long enough to record hilarious music videos around the airport and then made our way to SAN.

The next morning in San Diego we joined a Dreamer rally. I was struck by the incredible courage and love we witnessed.

El pueblo unido jamás será vencido

Seeing the border itself for the first time was overwhelming. Watching the water flow freely back and forth from "Mexico" to the "U.S." caused me to mourn the ugly, imposing and divisive structure.

"We believe in God who defends the rights of widows, orphans and the stranger, who breaks down borders, differences and arrogances. 

Who walks with the laborers gathered on street corners, with domestic workers, with street vendors, with farmworkers and with refugees; a God with an anguished face because he lives among us as an undocumented person, unemployed, without a home, rejected and despised.

We believe and trust in the power of the same God in whom Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Isaiah, Mary and Jesus of Nazareth trusted.

The same God who crossed the Red Sea with his people and today still crosses the borders which separate us." --Creed of the Immigrant People

So thankful for this brave lady here and all that the Samaritans are doing to provide food and water and medical supplies to those in the desert. Also for the Borderlinks people and their willingness to educate, and those at Neighborhood Ministries in Phoenix. 

Such an amazing trip with so many wonderful people.

Dear Mr. Man on the Bus,

Thank you.

Thank you for bringing up those beautiful blossoming flowers outside our bus window.

Thank you for not letting me slip into the oppressive and isolating silence of the daily bus ride. Thank you for being a human being and pulling me out of the robotic liturgy of swiping my thumb across my phone screen over and over and over again. 

I wish I had asked your name before getting off at my stop.

I wish I had skipped my class so we could chat all afternoon. 

Thank you for your bruising honesty about the state of our world. I have so much to learn from you and your years of accumulated wisdom. I'm sorry for the loved ones you've lost to the oppressive injustice around us. 

Thank you for believing we could be on the same team in ideas and beliefs even though my skin is the color of oppression. 

I wish I knew better how to fix things.

I wish I had more hope in humanity than I do today.

Thank you for waking me up.

Thank you for reminding me of the world I'm inheriting and for motivating me to do something about it.

Thank you for your company…I hope we meet again.

First Day of School

The rhythm of the academic year has an interesting set of thoughts and emotions which accompany it. I'll most likely continue experiencing this rhythm for many many years to come with my teacher husband and potential future (hopefully quite a way into the future) children, even after I finish my own formal schooling. But the grad school experience adds something new to the familiar feelings. In a strange and largely inexplicable way, I simultaneously feel too old and too young to be doing what I'm doing. [Maybe I'll explore this more if my thoughts/feelings become more explicable.]

{Speaking of which, learning the bus system was quite the adventure today for this little old Greenville-ite. I'm way too old to not know how to ride the bus yet.}

Regardless of the crazy mix of emotions and exhausting pace of orientation, from which I've not yet fully recovered, I'm thrilled to be starting this program and so grateful for the opportunities set before me here. Not least of which includes learning from Lauren Winner this semester, and so many other wonderful human beings here at Duke. 

I'm looking forward to Convocation Chapel tomorrow with Dean Hays and a chance to re-center, breathe, and be refreshed as this wonderful and full school year gets under way.

For those who face new beginnings, because as my grandpa reminds me, all beginnings are hard,
Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer. 

Spring Break

Spring break was simply beautiful. That family time and breathing and relaxing and fun was exactly what we needed to recover from the busyness that consumes too many of our days.

This is one of the many beauties of break. Reading Jayber Crow, wrapped up in my quilt, in the big comfy recliner. Can't beat it.

Another beautiful thing, only made possible by break, was getting time for craftiness. After struggling to find Kindle covers online cheaper than around 30 dollars, I was pumped to make my own for less than 3 dollars. I'm just going to post the link to the tutorial I used rather than reexplain everything here:

http://whipstitchfabrics.com/blog/kindle-cover-tutorial/

I just love sewing projects with my Grandma. She's the best.

Also, it doesn't get much better than big, beautiful, colorful breakfasts with the fam. Yum.

And most importantly, I got to hang out with some of my favorite people in the world.

We listened to Jace serenade us with the Piano Man, played games, watched Psych, chatted, relaxed, Schwondered (our verb for playing 7 Wonders), and ate all kinds of delicious food. 

The only word that I feel sufficiently describes our spring break is wonderfulness.

Spring Break Part 2 with the Hohms coming soon! Just need to get some pictures from my father-in-law.

Sleepy Saturday

I got a package, I got a package...I got a package from Megs today hey hey!

Our little birdie must have some strong little legs after carrying this all that way! And, I am most definitely not looking forward to going into work tonight, so thank you for brightening my Saturday afternoon :)

And thank you Darlene, for having me over for a delicious lunch while my husband worked this afternoon!

..........

Though I am not looking forward to the closing shifts I have the next couple nights, there are some events coming up for which I am thoroughly excited:

- I start an independent study on FM History and Polity with Pastor Gerry on Thursday. (And no, this one is not sarcastic, I'm a nerd and I miss school :)

- We have dinner club next Saturday night with friends from church.

- Michael has a few more basketball games, which we're pumped to see.

- I think my family is coming to visit us in the next couple weeks sometime.

- And this is a ways out, but I think we get to fly to Texas in April to see my broski in Footloose! AND I CAN'T WAIT!

"I want to see mountains again. Mountains, Gandalf!"

"On what grounds did I fast from the daily bread of birdsong and starlight?"

                                                              -- Barbara Brown Taylor 

                                                                 Leaving Church

It has been far too long since I've been outside. And even far too longer since I've seen the world from my hammock. There's a lot I love about winter, but due to my ridiculous intolerance to the cold, I definitely start to feel cooped up before spring arrives. 

I suppose I should save up a little, invest in some good warm layers, and go back outside to explore. 

But, for this morning, while I'm wrapped up in a blanket with my coffee mug beside me, I suppose I'll just reminisce about the view of the mountains from my hammock in the Dominican. I have to go back someday. Until then, I am so thoroughly excited that next year in North Carolina we will reside much closer to awe-inspiring mountains. I'm convinced that there exists a particular sliver of Divine Presence which can only be experienced by climbing a mountain.