leaving tomorrow

I think this feeling is akin to moving out to go to college for the first time. I have that feeling that I have to savor everything I know and recognize--the food, the people, the weather, the places-- knowing that everything where I'm going will be different. Not bad, I know, but different and probably, at times, really uncomfortable. The food will be incredible, but I know that at some point I'll just want a sandwich. It will be great to get to know Indian people, but I know I'll be homesick for my family and friends here-- even to see people who look like me or talk like me.

BUT. I'm going there to be uncomfortable, right? to get WAY out of my comfort zone. to have the world as I know it messed up.

so. bring on the culture shock!

The World is Round

When I place my hands
on the ground, side-by-side
(here, like so)
and if I sit very quietly
and hush all the music in
my head I begin to feel
the earth in its bulk.
Below this grass is soil.
below that rock, and water,
and magma, tectonic plates,
a giant, shifting world moving
in its own idea of forever.
And below that is china,
or India where there are people
walking and loving and touching
the ground with two hands,
like-so.
And all of us--the
spider crawling on my leg,
the jack pine and its shy seeds,
the Chinese lovers and me
are turning constantly
away from the light and then
towards it, like a dance.
like so.

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I'm leaving for India on Saturday. Wow.

To Guide a Canoe Trip...

I realize that in my last post I briefly alluded to my time at camp but didn't flesh it out very well. Here's kind of a quick overview of my life and work at Amnicon this summer...

I had the extreme privelege and intense challenge of ushering up to 12 youth through the wilderness for a week at a time. My job included everything from teaching kids how to paddle (most had never been in a canoe before, and we were hitting some class 3 rapids on some trips!) to cooking their meals over an open fire to doing first aid (I had one or two really scary first aid scenarios this year, including a surprise allergic reaction...) to hearing their life stories and managing group dynamics and keeping them entertained with bad jokes and minute mysteries.
I had a couple of groups of what we call 'high functioning' campers-- that is, groups that are able to work together to get what needs done, done in an effecient way so that we can hang out and enjoy ourselves. A pretty good measure for how high-functioning a group is is how they handle 'the woodpile'. For every campsite, as part of our set-up, we drag in a huge pile of sticks from the woods and then break them, meticulously, to about the length of your forearm. Then we stack them (again, if I have my way, meticulously) arranged by diameter so that when I'm cooking I can always find the right kind of stick to control things like the heat of the fire and it's size. I had one group of campers who, when we said "we need more wood", ran into the forest cheering. This is NOT typical. Most groups you have to poke and prod and explain over and over and over again why we need sticks-- so we can have a fire so we can cook dinner so we can eat so we can go to bed so we can wake up and do it again...
I also had a couple of really challenging weeks. Actually, some of my fondest memories from the summer come from those weeks that were really tough and took a lot of my energy. I had a group from inner-city Chicago that managed to have 2 love triangles going on between 6 campers, that avoided breaking wood like the plague, where one camper refused to paddle with me because I'm a woman. By the end of the week, the same camper was hugging me goodbye and promising to come back next year. He said "Long paddles and breaking wood-piles make you realize who you really are." Yup. That's what we're about.

The Interim

I'm home from camp, and leaving for India on August 29th-- in 12 days.  Today I'm headed up to the cabin with my family.  This is exciting-- I haven't been there in something like two years.  I'm anticipating a paddle around somewhere-- my arms are already starting to twitch, missing canoeing every day-- and making a huge batch of soup to can with my mother, and swimming in the lake every time of day and sleeping out on the lawn-- I still have a hard time with four walls around me.  The cabin--actually, two cabins and a bunkhouse, and a garage that we eat in sometimes-- is a haven of memories.  It makes me feel young to be there.  I imagine fairies everywhere I turn.  Picking crab-apples for applesauce, fishing off the dock with Grandpa with purple lures, making muffins, playing demon in the garage, sewing on the treadle machine, doodling around with my cousins.  The bead shop, Granny's pantry, Larry's grocery.  Listening to old records, when we can make the record player work-- Simon and Garfunkle, records full of hymns.  Grandma watching 'As the World Turns' on a tiny, fuzzy t.v.  Cheesebuttons and Strudel.  Burnt toast with strawberry jam.  Always something that needs fixing.  A book on the cracked patio.  

Yes, I'm glad to be going there.  I need to soak up the love and laughter and banter and food that comes along with my family.  I need to re-assimilate into the world beyond Amnicon.  I need to prepare myself mentally for another adventure--this time across the world.  

Going up to Camp, We're Leaving Right Away...

Sorry I haven't posted in a while--I haven't forgotten you, but don't get your hopes up for many posts in the near future. I'm headed up to camp!

I'll have pretty limited e-mailing capacity, but I LOVE getting letters. Please drop me a note, and I'll try to write you back. I'll write your letter sitting in some idyllic location, and may even (upon request) include some samples of the local flora, so you can pretend you're at camp too.

My address (and Brendan's too--he also likes letters!) is as follows:

8450 E. Camp Amnicon Rd.
South Range, WI 54874

I'll be back at the end of the summer for about 10 days, and then I'm headed to India. If I'm lucky, I'll get to see you then!

The Narrow Road

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it."
~Matthew 7:13

I used to think this verse was some kind of trick God's playing on us--an indication that only a few people would win the God-lottery. It looked to me like predestination (the idea that when you're born you're already destined for salvation or damnation) which was scary. Or else it looked like we could be saved by works, which (without even being really Lutheran) I was always thought was a terrible heresy.

Reading this verse this morning, it has a very different meaning. I'm much less concerned about "heaven" in the traditional sense these days. It seems to me that my own personal salvation from the guilt of sin so that I can go to heaven when I die is just not that important. I mean it's nice and all (I'm glad that I don't have to wallow in that guilt!) but I'm convinced that that's not all that Jesus was about.

I think that Jesus is talking about a way of life--a "road--that "lead's to life" in this world. Not just for me, but for all my neighbors--for everyone. I mean real, joyful life together, where we can bring each other joy, ease each other's pain, laugh and dance and sing and make beautiful things happen together. Thing is though, that's a hard road. If I'm going to really follow Jesus in loving my neighbor, I can't hang on to all my extra stuff when there are people without clothes or food or beds. It'll require me to face pain that I'd rather ignore. It requires--if I'm really following Jesus here-- bieng ready to die, just as he did, for a love that breaks the rules.

whoa.

That's a hard road. That's why grace is so great-- I'm bound to screw up. It's a narrow road, but not so narrow, I think, that we couldn't fit a couple of friends alongside.

Spring

I love that it is warm enough now to be outside. to talk, to eat, to read, to walk leisurely to class, to take a nap on the lawn... I am so thoroughly fulfilled by real things like grass and sunshine and little flowers poking up everywhere.

I met someone this week who told me that they "used to camp, but decided it was too much work." This is a bizarre concept for me. For one thing, the hard work is part of what makes living in the wilderness worthwhile for me--I like to earn my pesto-pasta. and for another thing, I feel at my most real when I'm outside. I just can't get that buzzing feeling in my veins from anything I can do in a building. How could it be that you can prefer watching a movie to paddling a canoe?

Of course, I know that such people exist and are in no way less 'right' about life than me. Something I'm trying to come to terms with: it is possible to live a fulfilled and generous life with an approach entirely different from my own!

When I think about it, that's really beautiful. The only limits to the good that can exist in this world are the limits that we put there.

What if we don't?