Sometimes... I just don't know what to say.

A novel idea

I have to say thank you to Allison for commenting here recently. I always enjoy meeting new commenters, so I clicked over to her blog to check it out. I'm glad I did; otherwise I might never have learned about National Novel Writing Month.

Maybe this is just the impetus I need. It really would do a world of good for me to have something to do in my spare time. And I've always wanted to write a novel--make no mistake. So I decided on a whim to take part in the challenge.

The rules? Starting November 1, and ending before midnight on November 30, participants have a month of time in which to write a novel of 50,000 words. Yes, the focus is primarily on the quantity rather than the quality of the work. But here's why I think it's a great thing: There are people like me out there who know they've always wanted to write a novel, and are just waiting for the right moment in their lives. The right inspiration, the perfect allotment of time, the right amount of knowledge or experience. Whatever. But with that kind of outlook on it, they will never write that novel--something will always stop them. Something will always get in the way. Throughout my life, possibly my greatest fear has been that I would not live my dream--I would not be a writer--because I would let "life" stand between me and the goal.

As I thought about all the thousands of people out there in the world who will be writing this month, doing what always sounded like such a vast undertaking, I realized that this was my chance to go for it--to really step out in the deep water, leaving the tide pools behind. Just write it, now, when I have nothing to lose. Will it be quality work? I don't know. Maybe it will be something I can continue to refine; I hope so. But that's not the point, right now. The point is, I'm writing a novel, just like so many other amateurs out there. And I'm going to finish it. And then next time, it will be easier to start writing a novel. I'll know I can do it, because I will have already done it before.

I'll keep you updated on the process. I'm having a great time with it so far--already it's coming along much better than I expected.

Anyone else out there doing this?

Of life, truth, and Robert Plant

Led Zeppelin, in case you didn't know, is my favorite band, hands down... and long has been. Though not currently my favorite of their albums, my first Zeppelin album, and the one that led me to fall in love with their music, was their "untitled" album--commonly referred to as Zoso, or simply IV. Everyone knows the classic "Stairway to Heaven"... but the song I want to mention here is slightly less known. Track 7, "Going to California." It's a beautiful acoustic ballad about a girl "...with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair." It's music. It's art. It's lovely. But what makes the song for me are not the lyrics, not Robert Plant's enchanting vocals, no. It's right there in the intro, about five seconds into the song, when you hear Plant take a little breath. There is something haunting in that breath. Isn't there?

Bob says it must be because I have a crush on Robert Plant. Well... Maybe I do--but that's beside the point. What that small breath does for me is hit me with the realization that these are people, real, living people, who created this song. People who express themselves gloriously through lyric and melody... but people who also need to breathe, and sleep, and be loved, just like I do. People who were born, people who will die, people whose lives are quite different than mine but whose needs and feelings are probably much the same.

The things that are most important to me--indeed, the things that keep me going--are those that allow me to feel connected to another human being. I've never been great at small talk; I have no patience for surfacy relationships; I passionately despise falseness. Such phenomena only make it easier for us to put up barriers between ourselves and our fellows, when what we should do is let others experience who we really are... and experience who they are in turn.

Why do I love to write so much? Because writing is the best way I know how to let others see what makes me me, and the best way I can hope to move other people in a way that really, really matters. What kept me going through tax season at work? I'm not a workaholic. But working for several weeks under great pressure around others who were doing the same allowed me to see the parts of my colleagues that are not so fastidiously put together. I saw them stressed, I saw them exhausted, I saw them lose their poise as that last-minute demand from a client caused the warped bough to break and the cradle to come toppling down. It has nothing to do with sadism; it has everything to do with the fact that humanity inevitably includes imperfection in our character, as well as a full spectrum of emotion. Seeing that side of the people with whom I share my life means more to me than every smile that has ever been faked and every cheery greeting that has ever been BSed. Because every single one of us is human, and I think we all sometimes need to feel like we're not the only one. And because honesty and transparency are the only way that any of us can ever hope to lighten the burden of someone else's life.

I'm not selfless, though I deeply wish I could say that I am. Sometimes I find myself trying to be the center of my own universe, marginalizing the desires and struggles of those whose paths cross mine. Usually, though, it does not take long for me to realize that I have become miserable, shutting people out, living inside of myself when I really should be living--for better or for worse--in an honest, uniquely human way. I believe that we all cross one another's paths for some reason--that we're all pilgrims who must help each other make this strange, painful, wonderful, fleeting journey. And that means that we have to learn to trust each other with our deepest selves, not fearing if we are caught in our shortcomings or in our basest weakness.

So I hope I get to cry at movies with you. I hope I get to walk with you through your deepest fears. I hope I get to feed you when you're hungry, dance with you when you're happy, hold you close when you're sad, and hurt for you when you're so broken you don't think you know how to hurt anymore.

...and I hope you will do the same for me.

Painted

A smile sits stark upon her cheeks,
ghastly-cold
as the beam of the moon--
smile-in-a-can,
a bastard, conniving,
masking and mocking
the true tale told
by the ice on her brow
and the sigh in her eyes;
chaos is her face,
a lie finely penned--
contentment, poise--
but the discerning eye
perceives the lie
in an un-beautiful smile,
her painted hiding place.

Learning to be alone

It's a strange thing... As much as I have considered myself sort of a loner throughout my life, I really hate to be alone. I bore quite easily, that's for certain; but even more than that, I just want a companion with whom I can share all the moments of my life. It's normal, after all, to want someone else beside you.

The problem is, I've never really learned how to be content with solitude. In college it was usually pretty easy--all of my friends lived, worked, and went to school within a five-mile radius; Bob worked within walking distance from both school and home, the two places where I spent all of my time; most of my classes were group-oriented, meaning most of the time when I wasn't in a classroom I was probably at a meeting or in my bed asleep.

Moving has really made it difficult, though. You know, most stress assessment analyses proclaim that the experience of moving is just about as stressful as having a death in the family... and now I'm learning why. Suddenly nearly all of my friends are more than an hour's drive away, and when I go to work I'm surrounded by people with whom I have not yet learned to be comfortable. Who knows if and when I will ever be fully comfortable with my colleagues at work--we share an interest in accounting, but sometimes I think that is about all that we share. Bob works a different schedule than I do and when he gets home, he really values time to himself. And that's something I have been reluctant to give him. I am beginning to realize how selfish it is for me to demand his every spare minute, when he needs time to be alone. It places an undue burden on him to entertain me, and in turn creates stress in our marriage.

One solution for me is to make other friends. I really need friends here in Atlanta, but it's hard, coming straight from a college town that was teeming with people with whom I could usually find some common ground. The world I'm in right now is not set up the same as the world I'm used to, and I'm having a hard time pursuing friendships. I've met a few people whom I really enjoy, but it's still in that awkward state where I'm afraid to make the first move toward spending real quality time together. So that's one thing I am aiming to work on, so that Bob is not the only person I go to when I need company.

But the other solution, which I think is equally important, is to learn how to be alone. Everyone should have time to themselves, and I need to learn what to do with that time when I have it. Most of my favorite activities are not multiple-person activities anyway--writing, cooking, singing, reading, praying and meditating. Often when I'm alone I'm too depressed at the prospect of being alone to actually engage myself in something I would really enjoy. That's the other thing I'm going to focus on doing for myself... and for Bob. And for us.

A brief history

...of me and writing.

I began this blog in January of 2006, but I had been writing for ages before that. Now, as this blog approaches its second birthday (wow, I never thought I would keep a blog going for so long), it occurs to me that I have never given an account of why I write--of what it means to me. Believe it or not, it's actually quite an interesting story.

I can still remember the first time it occurred to me to write a story. I was in the first grade, and I had a sheet of stationery that was decorated with a drawing of a fairy hovering over a strawberry patch. One day while I was at school, my imagination started brimming with ideas as I pictured a story centered around that simple drawing. So I wrote it, my first story. It was called "The Strawberry Princess," and its length was enough only to fill my one sheet of that stationery with my loopy first-grade penmanship. But I showed it to my teacher, and she seemed very impressed. So impressed, in fact, that when I got home from school that day my parents asked if they could read my story too. My teacher had called them to alert them of my budding talent.

Through elementary school I was always scribbling poetry about any topic imaginable, from friends to flowers to food. And frequently I would write outlandish stories about haunted lighthouses and talking animals and closet-monsters. Several times I was published in the local paper, and in third grade one of my poems was printed in The Anthology of Poetry by Young Americans. I loved having something I was good at--because I was never a great athlete or dancer or singer, but people recognized me as a good writer. In that was I was able to leave a lasting impression on people, and being noticed and remembered was always very important to me.

Once I started sixth grade, I began to feel dissatisfied with my place among my peers--and suddenly I began caring about shopping at the right stores, signing up for the right activities, sitting with the right people at lunch, and all sorts of junk that really had no value at all. I became a cheerleader (a terrible one, at that), I insisted on growing my bangs out, and I even neglected my homework from time to time just so I would not be the nerdy kid who always turned everything in on time and aced it. But none of those things seemed to change my image much among the other kids--I was still the one who got picked on at the school dances and the one who people would whisper about as soon as they thought I was out of earshot. I developed few close friendships, and sometimes I even hated my own friends because they were not "cool," and I could never be cool as long as I claimed their friendship. On top of repeated blows to my self-esteem, I also had to deal with death for the first time around the age of eleven--and it struck my family and even one of my own peers. I developed an intense anger towards people, and at the same time a fear of being alone.

As I withdrew from the world around me, my love of writing became a need for writing. I purchased a journal, and as an emulation of one of my role models, Anne Frank, I gave it a name. And for five or six years, life was about nothing except crying out to pen and paper, because there was not a person in the world whom I trusted... but I knew I could trust my journal, the only true friend I had. My poetry took a dark and lonesome turn; when I wrote stories, they were stories about tortured people doing maniacal things. But mostly I just wrote long discourses, trying to accurately convey my emotions onto paper so that for the rest of my life I could look back and remember how angry and hurt I was, and maybe even feel those things again if the world had so numbed me by then that I had forgotten how to feel.

Several years passed like this, and my need to write intensified and grew into an obsession. It was my ecstasy, my opium, the only way to ease the depression that gnawed away so ruthlessly at me. Then when I was fifteen, something changed. After months of attending church with one of my friends, I realized that there was someone who did love me, and whom I could trust as I had learned to trust no one--his name was Jesus, and I knew I needed him.

When Jesus walked the earth he told his followers that the cost of following him was great, and I soon learned the truth in this. For me, the cost was writing. I knew that my addiction to writing was unhealthy, that it had mastered me. Now I had a new master, and I knew I couldn't serve both. The day I packed my journal away and stowed it in the attic was a very sad day for me--I cried as I put up volume after volume of the best friend I had had for the past six years. But even as I cried, I felt right about it in my heart... I knew that a book could not be my best friend. I needed to learn how to live in the world around me.

During the last two years of high school and the first year or so of college, I wrote very little. I stopped keeping a journal of any kind, save a prayer journal. Occasionally I would write poems or short essays, but they didn't mean very much to me, and I eventually abandoned or misplaced them all. But I made friends, and I learned how to love life and to love myself. And I didn't miss writing, though in my heart I always knew I would come back to it someday. When the time was right.

Sophomore year of college, something else happened. I heard about a lecture that was to take place on campus--a lecture by one of our own professors, who was an accomplished author. He was to talk about his journey as a writer, and about overcoming struggles in his own life to finally publish his first novel. I knew that I had to go and hear him speak.

This was my time. As this writer spoke, I felt every ounce of myself start burning to write again--not in the needy, desperate way I had experienced before, but in such a way that it just felt right that I should be a writer again. I'm not sure if I slept at all that night after the lecture--I was full of ideas and excitement. I was strong and confident. I was a writer.

The next semester I had the opportunity to take a creative writing class. I enjoyed it but I struggled with it too, because it dared me to take my writing places I had never considered before. I dabbled in some microfiction; I tried my hand at science fiction; I explored the theme of dystopia; I warmed up to modern free-form poetry, which to that point I had always poo-pooed as not "real" poetry. That class proved to be very experimental for me, and an experience I appreciated... though ultimately my purpose lay elsewhere.

I soon found that purpose. My senior year, I had the chance to take another creative writing class--this time, taught by the same professor whose lecture had so inspired me two years earlier. In that class I discovered the nature writing genre, which I maintain still today is where my calling lies. As far as my own personal development, there can be no doubt that my nature writing class was the most rewarding, enriching, life-changing class I ever took. In fact, it was during that class that I began this blog.

Each of us has a special ability, I believe, which we are meant to share with the world. For years I've known that writing was mine, but it's been a long, strange journey. I am confident, though, that my history with writing has enabled me to appreciate these things all the more. I write not because I can, but because I must. There is something every person must say in their lives, and I have to say mine by putting pen to paper. What a privilege--what a joy.

Unremembered

As I wrote this, I was thinking of a homeless woman I met in Whiteclay, Nebraska. May God be with her...

She spoke; I leapt with a start. Her soft-spoken plea shattered the lonesome night. "M-my coat… l-lost my coat… cold t-tonight..."

Why did I turn to face her, this night? Every other evening I passed her by, where she stood in the shadows only blocks from my apartment. And I never heeded her prayers, never even looked back. But this night, that thin voice crept into my soul, and I turned.

And met despair. As her searching eyes bore into mine, I glimpsed the shadow of misery too keen and monstrous to grasp, housed within her twisted body. In that gaze she shared with me a lifetime of pain--it tore my gut, and yet it locked onto my mind, and I had no will to turn away. I saw no shame, no fear--those feelings were mine alone, and my cheeks flushed as my awareness of her hopelessness deepened. As she gripped my mind she seized my hand (or did I take hers?) and placed it against her scarlet neck; she burned with fever.

Feeling suddenly as if an iron block had descended upon me, I reeled and backed away. I shook my coat off and thrust it into her arms, and fled toward home. I lingered not even long enough to know if she thanked me.

I never saw her again, after that excruciating night. Days later, over breakfast, a small blurb in the newspaper caught my eye: Homeless woman found dead last night, corner of 33rd and Young.

A human life begins and ends, and its vastness is encapsulated in a sentence fragment buried in the daily news. I cried. The despair was captivating.

The show so far...

I've been working a little over a month now; I've settled into my daily routines; I've survived my first tax season; I've got a couple of paychecks under my belt. So how do I feel about it all so far?

I don't know why this still comes as such a surprise to me, but I can say with complete confidence that I really love my job. Really. I mean, it is a job, not my life's passion--but in the context of it being a job, I love it. Shouldn't I? Isn't it wonderful to finally know, after all the hard work and all the doubt, after the frustration and tears, that I really did make the right decision--indeed, that I really did hear God correctly when I believed He was leading me this way?

Yes. It is wonderful. For the first time since I can remember, I feel very little stress--because I can leave work at work. During my final two years of college, I was always Laura the student--I rarely had time to play any other role. Now, while I am at work I can be Laura the accountant... and then when I come home, I can be whatever Laura I'd like: The writer? The cook? The trivia night aficionado? Sure, why not?

Best of all, I can be Laura the joyful again. Over the past eighteen months or so, up until we moved from Athens into our new place, I feared that I was slipping back into old habits--the cycle of depression that I struggled with for about a decade and then, finally, broke free from when I was nineteen. Long hours of grinding away at the Tax Code, at mergers and acquisitions, at risk management and effective interest amortization, made me withdraw from my friends and spend many, many hours feeling unhappy and lonely. I came out of college with a master's degree, a husband, and some lifelong friends... but I also came out shouldering a burden that I should have left forever buried after I finally cast it off six years ago. In a new city, at a new juncture along the path of my life, I think I have finally let those days go once and for all, and learned how to be secure and content with myself.

I will never know if all the gruelling work I put into my college days will have been worth it in the end. For in trying to excel, I lost sight of some important things--my faith, my security, my joy, my passions--at the risk of losing them forever. I could have done something else, and perhaps breathed a little easier during my college days; and perhaps I'd be just as content as I am now... or perhaps not. Like the pondering traveller in Frost's poem, I could not travel both paths at once; so I chose one, knowing that travelling one way meant forfeiting the chance to ever see what lay down the other road. And now, I tell it with a sigh--for I'll always wonder, somewhere deep inside, what would have happened if I'd chosen differently... But it serves no real purpose to look back and regret. The fact is, I am where I am now, and all that I can do from here is go forward from where I have already come.

My baby sister

Ashton... My little sister and one of the best friends I have ever had. I guess since she's almost 21 she's not a baby anymore.

Still, I could not believe my ears when she called to tell me that she's ENGAGED!!! I was not prepared for this to happen for another several years--after all, she and Trey have only been dating for six years now!


Ashton and Trey. I love these two kids and I'm sure they'll have a beautiful life together. I just hope we can still be best friends!

But what about fish?

As a vegan, this is a question people commonly ask me concerning my diet. It's true, the issues surrounding the consumption of sea creatures are slightly different from those surrounding traditional farm animals like cows, pigs, and chickens. Admittedly, sea"food" was the last animal product that I removed from my diet, even after turning from eggs and dairy milk. But there are important issues, and once I became aware of the truth about fish consumption, I could not justify consuming it anymore. The seafood industry may very well be the most environmentally devastating aspect of modern-day animal consumption.

The following information is taken directly from a pamphlet published by Farm Sanctuary, and it covers the topic of fish consumption so well that I thought it would be best to share their words with you rather than try and phrase it myself.

For millennia, fish have been taken from the world's oceans, lakes and rivers and consumed as food. Long gone, however, are the days of individual fishers seeking out a catch. Today, global fish production exceeds that of cattle, sheep, poultry, or eggs, and consumer demand for seafood is driving ocean life to extinction.

Over the latter half of the 20th century, new technologies have enhanced the ability to locate and entrap fish, and wild catches have increased to nearly 90 million tons of fish per year. High-tech fishing fleets use props, such as airplanes, radios, seafloor maps, and video sonar, to track down fish schools. Large nets are used to drag up coral and every living creature on the sea floor. As a result, wild fish and sea life populations have been decimated.

In addition to profitable fish sought by factory trawlers, "economically useless" sea life, including nearly 1,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises, drown in fishing nets each day. The dead and dying "bycatch," comprised of marine mammals, seabirds, sea turtles, and invertebrates, are thrown back into the water. Worldwide, 30 million tons, or one in every four caught sea life, are unwanted and discarded each year. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences states that fishing--not global warming or pollution--is the greatest single threat to the diversity of ocean life in the world's oceans.

The Problem of Overfishing

Many people have the impression that fish are a renewable or inexhaustible resource, but the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization reports that 70 percent of the world's commercially important marine fish stocks are fully fished, overexploited or depleted. In addition, the ocean habitat is being destroyed. Once-common fish are now approaching endangered levels, including tuna, salmon, haddock, halibut, and cod.

During the 19th century, codfish weighing up to 200 pounds were routinely caught. Nowadays, a 40-pound cod is considered a giant. The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization estimates that merely to maintain existing rates of fish consumption would require an extra 15.5 to 20 million tons of fish by 2010.

Fish Farms--The Nasty Reality

Farm-raised fish account for one-third of the world's seafood, including nearly all the catfish and trout, and almost half of the shrimp and salmon, consumed in the U.S. Fish farmers commonly feed wild fish to farmed fish and destroy fish habitats by collecting wild fish to stock fish farms. It takes about three pounds of wild-caught fish to grow only one pound of shrimp or salmon.

Raised fin-to-fin in excrement-laden saltwater feedlots, the penned fish are fed ground up fishmeal and oil pellets engineered for fast growth, treated with antibiotics to fight disease, and commonly stimulated with growth hormones. The overcrowded fish are susceptible to disease and suffocation. The FDA Veterinarian Newsletter reports that fish farmers "...use chemicals as disinfectants and to kill bacteria; herbicides to prevent the overgrowth of vegetation in ponds; vaccines to fight certain diseases; and drugs--usually combined in the feed--to treat diseases and parasites."

Densely packed salmon farms in British Columbia, Canada operate in coastal estuaries and produce massive quantities of waste each year, including manure, fertilizer and fishmeal, equivalent to the levels of waste generated by half a million people, destroying fragile estuaries.

Hatchery-raised fish spell trouble for their wild-born cousins by spreading genetic traits that impede survival. Science magazine reveals that, compared to wild salmon, farm-raised salmon laid significantly smaller eggs within just four generations, and these eggs were less likely to survive. Farm-raised fish typically escape or are released and breed with wild-born fish.

And Yes, Fish Are Animals Too

Though commonly assumed that fish do not feel pain, the Roslin Institute and the University of Edinburgh report that fish respond to damaging stimuli and chemicals, and that injured fish experience "profound behavioural and psychological changes" comparable to those seen in mammals.

Anatomical, pharmalogical and behavioral data suggest that affective states of pain, fear and stress are likely to be experienced by fish in similar ways as in tetrapods, or land-living vertebrates. This indicates that fish have the capacity to suffer and that their welfare should be taken into account.

A few other things to note: When we go into a restaurant and order wild-caught fish, chances are that fish was caught in far-distant waters. Overfishing and bycatch aside, just imagine the resources consumed in moving that fish from its native waters to your plate. On the other hand, your fish may be farm-raised--in which case, as we've already seen, raising that fish likely increased pollution of marine waters and even groundwater, endangered the survival of its wild-born populations by spreading diseases and genetic mutations, and imposed horribly cramped, painful conditions on other living beings (which, of course, are capable of suffering just like any other creature).

I grew up on the coast, dining on fresh flounder and shrimp and crab, and sea creatures were my favorite food for most of my life. When I began considering becoming vegan, I thought I would never be able to give up fish. But I did give them up, and I know that it was the right choice--knowing the consequences of consuming sea"food" products, my excuse of I like it too much to give it up held no relevance. And trust me, life goes on--your tastes change, you begin to love foods that you never gave a chance before, and you come to enjoy a diet which is more peaceful and more sustainable... and you realize that you do not need to put flesh in your mouth to be happy.

A friend's a friend forever

Mary Ann is one of the best friends I've ever had. We've known each other for five years, but I can't remember not having her beside me... she truly feels like a sister. She was there with me on my wedding day, nearly two years ago




...and today, I was able to do the same for her.


I was surprised at what an emotional day it was for me, to stand with her as she took her vows. I guess when you love someone so much, it's difficult to let them go--to look at someone else and say, You be her best friend now; sweep her away... because then things change. I move to a new city, she moves to a new city... and then every time we see each other we are "catching up." But you know, that's okay, because for some reason that is the way life is supposed to be. We can't live in college forever.


Look at these two. Mary Ann and Jacob are truly a match made by the Lord Himself, and I couldn't love them more.

Though it's hard to let you go,
In the Father's hands we know
That a lifetime's not too long to live as friends.

Just a mood

I think that for every mood, for every situation, for every thought and feeling and problem and question, there has been a rock song written about it. And sometimes when I'm sitting and thinking about the world around me, some familiar voice will intrude into my thoughts and perform the appropriate lyrics... belting, crooning, wailing, or whatever.

Tonight it was David Bowie and Freddie Mercury. Thanks, guys.

Pressure, pushing down on me
Pressing down on you, no man ask for
Under pressure
That burns a building down
Splits a family in two
Puts people on streets

It's the terror of knowing
What this world is about
Watching some good friends
Screaming, 'Let me out!'
Pray tomorrow gets me higher...
Pressure on people
People on streets

Chippin' around
Kickin' my brains 'round on the floor
These are the days
It never rains but it pours

People on streets

People on streets

It's the terror of knowing
What this world is about
Watching some good friends
Screaming, 'Let me out!'
Pray tomorrow gets me higher, higher, high...
Pressure on people
People on streets

Turned away from it all
Like a blind man
Sat on a fence, but it don't work
Keep coming up with love
But it's so slashed and torn
Why, why, why?
Love love love love

Insanity laughs
Under pressure we're cracking

Can't we give ourselves one more chance?
Why can't we give love that one more chance?
Why can't we give love, give love, give love, give love
Give love, give love, give love, give love, give love

'Cause love's such an old-fashioned word
And love dares you to care
For the people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way
Of caring about ourselves
This is our last dance

This is our last dance
This is ourselves
Under pressure
Under pressure
Pressure

A moment of enlightenment

It's been nearly a year since I last went for a run. I used to be a decent runner... Not fast, but consistent. I would run about a nine-minute mile--barely more than a jog, really--but I could keep it up for 90 minutes at a time or more, on my better days. I enjoyed running after work from time to time last summer, as a way to unwind from the monotony of cubicle life. But even then my running was starting to wane. I was out of practice; I could barely run three miles before I was huffing and panting and had to call it quits for the day. Then school resumed in August, and I became busier than ever with my master's degree--and when January rolled around, I had my degree to finish plus the CPA exam looming before me. I had no time to exercise as frequently as I used to, and I knew I could never keep up running with my infrequent training schedule... so I stopped. And I enjoyed life without running, for months and months.

Tonight as I was walking down Lumpkin Street, in the last half hour or so before dark, I turned down one of those side roads that cuts through one of the sleepy Five Points neighborhoods and joins with Milledge Avenue. I used to run down these roads quite often, and just soak up all the Athens-exclusive sights that make this such a special part of town. As I walked tonight I could feel the air temperature dropping every moment, and the humidity beginning to relent for the evening... and something came over me. I started to run--not gradually, not after deliberation, but just in an instant. And I fell back into my old rhythm within seconds--counting my breaths and the slapping of my shoes against the sidewalk, in, two, three, four, out, two, three, four.

Why haven't I taken up running again over this past year? Because I have been afraid. I've been afraid that, being out of practice, I would have no stamina and I would have to work and scrape my way back to where I used to be. The training, the overcoming of that obstacle that makes you have to stop and catch your breath--that is not the fun part of running. And I never wanted it to be all hard work. I wanted it to be something rewarding, and I feared that it could never be that anymore.

So tonight, when I began to run and suddenly something about it just seemed right, I made a deal with myself. If I can run all the way home without stopping, I thought, then I will start running again. I suppose I was approximately a mile from home--a distance that would never have intimidated me in bygone days. But tonight I was intimidated. I focused on my breathing, on the way I swung my arms so as to waste as little energy as possible... and I ran. Like Forrest Gump, I just ran. I even took a detour to get home, to ensure that I would have to run up one of those gradual, low-grade hills that I used to despise so much because it felt like you would never reach the peak.

I must admit that I reached a point while I ran tonight when I felt like I could not go on. But there must be a part of me that wants very much to run again, because I did not use that as an excuse to give up. If there was one thing I learned as a runner, it was that most any physical task you set yourself to is in large part psychological. If you have the physical stamina to run one mile, then you have the ability to run two--you just have to convince yourself that you can. I convinced myself that I could make it home, even up that darn hill... And make it home I did. Ice water never tastes sweeter than after a run, and it perhaps has still never been as refreshing as it was tonight.

I'm a runner again. At least for now.

Just beachy

Tybee Island is not my favorite of beaches, but this weekend it sufficed to make a relaxing, exhilarating time. May I suggest the sunrise?

Flesh Like Grass

First light trespasses
upon your eyelids
and you grouch
and pummel the SNOOZE
and banish the sun
for nine moments more...

Ah, but
no day lives long
before twilight breaks
and it seems still early
when the sun is subdued
beneath sweaty dewfall,
an anemic glow and
bullfrogs' and crickets' laments,
which choke
on the pale dust of morning
and are never re-sung.

Love vs.

The unexpected
sundering howl
of a silly girl whose
hair ignites with
fireflies. Light brings
terror, a bit, to
every darkness.

Part 4: Whiteclay

... a tiny unincorporated town given to alcoholism and to poverty, to crime and tragedy and filth. This is where we spent the majority of our time during our trip, in a tiny Nebraska border town with a population of about 20. The southern gate to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of South Dakota, only yards away from the state line.


What is the significance of this town? I did not realize much until I returned home and began doing some research on my own. But this is the town where 555 Whiteclay, the ministry that we worked with under Bruce Bonfleur, is located. I have mentioned this before, but there is not much beauty in Whiteclay. You drive up state highway 87 until you think you are almost in South Dakota... then you pass by four liquor stores, two convenience groceries, and 555 Whiteclay. Half a mile later, you are on the reservation.


The sides of the road are littered with broken glass and all manner of trash. Even the grass along the highway is sparse and brown along this small stretch of road. You can see a couple of houses as you pass through--I do not know if they are inhabited, but with broken windows and rotting siding, they appear as if they should be condemned and bulldozed to the ground.

Why does a town of 20 people need four liquor stores? Well, Pine Ridge is a dry reservation, but its people have been known for alcohol abuse. The location of Whiteclay, just inside the state of Nebraska and outside the reservation, makes it a prime location to sell liquor to the people on the reservation. I don't know what current statistics are, but in 2003 the four stores were selling a cumulative 11,000 cans of beer a day to Indians on the reservation--about $4.5 million dollars' worth of beer. The reservation is home to about 15,000 Lakota... These are staggering numbers to me. In talking with Bruce and some of the Lakota in town, I got the sense that these people truly hate the hold that alcohol has over some of their own--but what are they to do? They feel hopeless, and I have to admit that when I was there I experienced moments of hopelessness myself. I had to remind myself that God loves these people so much, and aches for them... and that God is a refuge and strength, and an ever-present help in trouble. I believe He will fight for these people, as more and more begin calling out to Him on their behalf.

Alcoholism was never part of His purpose for them, but it ensnares so many. I had the opportunity to talk to several Lakota men, one of them in jail for a DUI sentence, and their words left such an impact on me because of their hopelessness. They do not love alcohol; they love their homes and their children and their people, and they long to change but see no way out of their situation. The man in jail said that he wanted to clean up, but he doesn't think he ever will. He says he is not strong enough. We were able to tell him that he isn't strong enough, but that God is. A Lakota woman who was with us, a woman who used to be an alcoholic but sobered up and surrendered her life to God, was able to share her story of hope with him. We were able to pray for him... and we are able to continue praying.

There is an old prophecy of the Lakota which states that the Black Hills would be taken, and for seven generations they would be without their sacred land. The people of the seventh generation are the ones who, according to prophecy, will rise up as leaders, and mend the sacred hoop which represents the continuity of the Lakota people. Then would the Black Hills be restored to the Lakota.

The Black Hills were taken from the Lakota nation in 1877. According to the way that the Lakota count their generations, today's generation is the seventh. Now is the time for people of strength and integrity to rise up from within the tribe, and restore the hope and the unity of their people. As we were there, I really sensed that God wants to move in a powerful way in Whiteclay and in Pine Ridge... and He is just waiting for people to cry out for it.


Despite all the trash and the barrenness of Whiteclay, the town does have one place where beauty is invited to exist--the Green Tipi Gardens, a tract of land held by the ministry and given back to God. There will be vegetable gardens, and flower gardens, and running water... it will be a place of serenity. We were fortunate enough to help start that, and I know that God will develop it into a place where He can dwell, at the southern gate to the reservation. May it help bring the light of hope and truth to the Lakota people, and may this generation rise up and overcome for their people, and begin to lead them to a better existence. May the Lakota become who they were intended to be!

Part 3: My land, not your land

The Black Hills of western South Dakota have always been a sacred place to the Lakota people. Their Lakota name, Paha Sapa, means "the heart of everything that is." In 1868, the U.S. signed the Treaty of Fort Laramie which guaranteed that the Black Hills would remain Sioux land. However, less than a decade passed before rumors of gold in the Black Hills led our country to revoke that promise. In 1877, after several land disputes had led to battles between the U.S. government and the Sioux nation, Congress signed a bill that forced the Lakota to sell the Black Hills, their sacred lands, and return to their reservations.

One of those mountains, known to the Lakota as "The Six Grandfathers," was renamed in 1885 after a New York lawyer, Charles E. Rushmore, during a gold expedition. According to Wikipedia, Rushmore saw this mountain and asked its name; his companion said "Never had any but it has now--we'll call the damn thing Rushmore." In 1927, to increase tourism in the Black Hills, the carving of the Four Faces began.


Our trip took us unexpectedly to Mount Rushmore, which is a celebrated monument of our nation's government that should never have been carved. Our government broke its promise to these people by taking this land from them, land that they knew as sacred. Then we defiled that land by carving faces that represent our government which had so wronged the Lakota people. As I stood and looked at this monument, faces carved in stone of people that our country reveres so highly, I could not justify it in any way. Is it offensive to God? I am in no position to judge, but my gut tells me yes--it does not revere Him in any way, and the story behind it is a tale of gross injustice committed against a people that He loves. And from a purely aesthetical standpoint, who are we to think that we can add value to the natural world by carving up these beautiful hills? Sad, on so many levels. And I am thankful that I was able to see it, if only to rouse this sense of injustice inside of me.

Part 2: Brothers and sisters

A theme that arose from our mission trip was that of unity. In many ways, the Lakota are disunified--those who live in poverty, sadly, do what they can to keep others from overcoming. They would rather see everyone remain stuck in the same miry condition than to allow talented and ingenuitive individuals rise up to something better. If a few could overcome the poverty and the addiction, then it could really be a springboard for change within the whole tribe--and there are many talented artists, storytellers, and entrepreneurial minds among the Lakota. But the masses put great effort into keeping these individuals out of work, and they scorn one another for their successes... and it makes me sad not only for those who are being oppressed, but for their oppressors as well, who are indirectly perpetuating their own oppression.

These are the words that we shared with the Lakota community in Whiteclay. I may have been the messenger, but the message was the Lord's.

All of us on this earth are God's people... and though we are many and varied, God designed us all, and desires for us to live in peace and to be unified through Him. Psalm 133 declares, "How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!" We are the brothers and sisters, and it is God's Spirit that can bring us--each family, the whole of the Lakota people, and every tribe and nation of the world--together in Him.

The tradition of the Three Sisters--corn, beans, and squash, grown together in a single plot of land--began out of the understanding the Indians had of a need for unity between the crops. Corn stalks grow strong and tall, providing a support for the beans, which need something sturdy to climb. The beans, in return, support the corn stalks, and they add their nitrogen to the soil so that future generations of corn might have the nutrients they need to prosper. Spiny squash vines run along the ground, defending the entire garden from predators. Their shallow roots keep the soil moist so that nothing dries out.

The Three Sisters portray a beautiful picture of the unity that God intended for all His creation--most importantly for us, His people.

But what if the corn, towering over the squash and beans, blocked them from receiving the sunlight? What if the beans climbed the corn stalks to pull the corn down? What if the squash vines tangled and choked the corn and the beans? If the crops lived in competition and strife, they would destroy each other. And they would ultimately destroy themselves too, since none of the Three Sisters can prosper without the help of the others. If each tried to pull its sisters down, then none would thrive.

So it is with God's people. We are all brothers and sisters through Him, and He says that it is good and pleasant for us to live in unity. Envy, strife, anger, jealousy, are seeds that our enemy sows to try and bring division among us in our homes and our communities, to choke out our love and concern for each other.

But our Lord Jesus commanded us to love one another, just as He loves us. He demonstrated that love in His life on earth, and in His sacrifice on the cross for each of us. When we love each other as Jesus taught, then we do not pull each other down--instead, we lift each other up and help each other grow.

This is unity that God declares good and pleasant--and our unity as brothers and sisters in God our Father brings greater abundance of life to all of us.

While we were there, God used us to turn this:


Into this:


What began as a solidly packed hill of dry, flaked earth, permeated with weeds and lifeless, rotting tangles of grass roots will become a Three Sisters garden, at the southern border of Whiteclay. As we dug weeds which were anchored deep into the fallow ground, as we tilled the soil and broke up the rocky hunks and made it arable again, as we planted and watered the corn seeds which will shoot up within days, we prayed that God would do this very same work in the hearts of His beloved, the Lakota. There is much dry, packed soil to till, and I believe that we were used to begin that process. Only God knows when the harvest will be ready... but I have faith that there will be a harvest, that beauty will come once again to Whiteclay--in the physical land that has been reclaimed for God, and in the people who are now so content with their filthy rags because they cannot imagine anything better. When this garden begins to flourish, when God transforms the southern gate to the reservation into a place of great physical beauty, may the Lakota begin to see their Creator's beauty and harmony reflected in the land itself. May they begin to conceive of God's plans to prosper them, to give them a hope and a future... and may they unify themselves as a people, under God their Father, to let go of the old and take hold of the new! The missionaries who live with these people are Bruce and Marsha Bonfleur, and their name is French for "good flower." Thank You, God, for sending Good Flowers to such a desolate land and a hopeless people, to bring them hope for new life!

Part 1: Lord, can You heal this land?

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14

The picture above is a photo of the Badlands, a region of South Dakota which French settlers said were bad lands to travel across, and whose Lakota name mako sika literally means "bad lands." There are remnants of life holding on to this landscape--here or there you will see a puff of rugged flowers fixed to a slope or a dwarf tree shooting up out of the rocky ground, and there are dry stream beds that run along the valley floors which indicate that in days gone by, the Badlands were indeed alive. In their barrenness there is beauty... but this dry, dusty chasm is not what they were meant to be.

I just returned from a mission trip to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Our purpose in this trip was not to Americanize the Lakota people or to bring them a "white man's religion." Our ancestors in this country did enough of that, and committed many horrors against the indigenous people of this land in the name of God. In many ways these people are forgotten, and the wounds that we left them with have never healed. As one Lakota man whom we met told us, his people are not angry with ours, and they don't want vengeance. They simply want us to listen to them and remember them, and love them. And that was the purpose of our mission.

There are so many things I could say about what I saw and learned in South Dakota... I will have to cover them in a series of posts. For now, I will say that I learned so much about God's heart of reconciliation. Not only does He want to reconcile His people and His creation to Himself, but He wants to reconcile them to each other as well. There is power in asking brothers and sisters for forgiveness for the sins of our ancestors, and we did this. We asked the Lakota to forgive us, and we gave ear to their stories and learned how deeply connected they remain to their history--a history we as Americans are not generally taught in the light of truth.

We worshiped and prayed at the hill of Wounded Knee--where the American government committed a massacre against men, women, and children of the Lakota tribe on December 29, 1890. More than 300 Lakota, unarmed, were killed that day, including many innocents. The U.S. government subsequently issued 20 Medals of Honor to American soldiers in connection with the event... and the Lakota, even today, still remember this tragic event and mourn, and ache to understand why it had to happen.



This memorial marks the mass grave into which the bodies of the Lakota were thrown, days after their death, having been left to freeze in the blizzard. The inscriptions honoring the brave and innocent Lakota victims made my heart ache.

Horn Cloud: The peace maker died here innocent.

Big Foot was a great chief of the Sioux Indians. He often said "I will stand in peace till my last day comes."

Many innocent women and children who knew no wrong died here.


As we prayed at Wounded Knee, and we watched the sun set over the hill, I knew that God's purpose is to bring healing to this people and to their land, which has been bitterly contested for hundreds of years and has been host to tragedies and abominations beyond number. As the Lakota have remembered and ached over their past, they have lost hope for their future... and much of the life that God has intended for them has dried up. But as God breathed life into the valley of dry bones, I believe He will breathe life into these people again, and I believe that He will literally heal their land as He heals their spirits... and that the "bad lands" will be called "good lands" as streams flow and birds sing and flowers grow once again.

As I continue to remember and pray for the Lakota people, I pray that reconciliation will come--that the relationship between whites and Indians can be healed, and that we may finally treat each other with love and respect, as brothers and sisters. Then will God be able to move in a powerful way to bring the healing that should have happened long ago. Black Elk, a Lakota Medicine Man who survived the Wounded Knee massacre as a youth, reflected on the incident as he approached the end of his life, nearly sixty years after that day.

I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream . . . . the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.


Sunset at the hill of Wounded Knee.

This is pretty cool...

A painting on the wall of a vegan restaurant near Atlanta, Georgia... Inspiring.

La terre rit en fleurs

[Earth laughs in flowers.]

~Emerson

The price of a cup of coffee

What does a cup of coffee cost? Maybe around $1.19 at a convenience store... and even less than that when we brew it at home. Coffee is cheap, and pretty much any of us can drink it any time we like. But, as with most agricultural production, coffee production entails many more costs than consumers in industrialized countries are compelled to consider when we lay out our cash. What is the real price for a cup of coffee? This is what I have been trying to figure out for quite some time now. Here is what I know.

Coffee has traditionally been grown, at least in the Western Hempsphere, in tropical forests under the shade of a diverse understory. These areas by nature are centers of extreme biodiversity, and they provide critical wintering habitat to many species of North American migratory birds. These forests, in addition, are powerhouses where carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and converted back into oxygen--a process our planet depends on to keep levels of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere down to a safe level.

As the demand for coffee has grown, coffee producers have turned to new farming methods to achieve a more large-scale crop. More coffee can be produced in the open sun than beneath the understory cover of these tropical forests, so forests have been clearcut to make way for agricultural land that can be cultivated to meet the growing demand for coffee. Farming this way increases the need for fertilizers to artificially enhance the soil and for pesticides to protect the crop from new threats. The implications are severe: Crucial habitat for exotic and migratory birds, as well as other species, has been lost, leading to rapid extinction--very often killing off species that humans had not yet even discovered. The loss of the flora which naturally enriches the soil with minerals has led to the dumping of chemicals all over the land. Basically, these lands that were once forests with rich and healthy soil are now barren, dry, and on life support. These chemical fertilizers cannot keep the land arable forever; one day that land will become useless, unable to support any green life. The chemicals from the fertilizers and the pesticides have to go somewhere--so they eventually end up poisoning the water supply. Not to mention that every lost acre of forest is a loss for the atmosphere; carbon dioxide builds up, as fewer trees are around to convert it.

The human labor cost is dire as well. When people of industrialized nations demand lower prices on coffee, the true cost of producing that coffee does not change. Since we, the consumers, are no longer bearing that cost, then we know that someone else must be--the laborers on these large-scale coffee farms. They work long hours in the hot tropics, receiving an inequitable wage for their labor. They have no choice--somehow they must earn a living for themselves and their families. We in America thought that slavery had been abolished long ago. Yet we consume products like coffee, whose artificially deflated prices make it easily accessible in large quantities to everyone (coffee was considered a luxury not so long ago), and we do so without any regard for the labor conditions under which it was produced for us. That sounds a lot like slavery to me.

When consumers make ethically sound decisions in their purchases, that action speaks very loudly to those who operate in the production of commodities. If we choose coffee that is organic, fair trade certified, and shade grown, we are supporting a return to environmentally sound agricultural practices as well as a fair wage to those whose livelihoods are linked to our coffee consumption. Sure, you pay a higher price for coffee when you make these decisions--but the price you pay is much closer to the "real" cost of coffee than the artificially deflated prices that we see on most mainstream brands. Just as meat would be far more expensive to consumers if it were not subsidized by the government (another reason to go vegan), other luxury items like coffee, and even chocolate and cane sugar, wear attractive price tags today that do not reflect their true cost.


I have made a switch to buying only organic coffee that is fair trade certified. It can be difficult to find coffee that is explicitly guaranteed to be organic, fair trade certified, and shade grown. What is the interplay between these three elements? I have been doing some research to find out, and I came across this excellent site called Coffee and Conservation. Take a look at this link for some practical guidelines on how to ensure that your coffee is truly produced in an ethically sound and sustainable manner, from an environmental and a social viewpoint. I encourage you to explore this site some, as it is packed with valuable information about what is sustainable and what is not, and what we as consumers and concerned citizens of this planet can do about it. The cost of producing a cup of coffee may be far removed from us, but we will all inevitably bear the cost of our choices in the end.

It's easy eating green

Many people who are disgusted by the world climate crisis do not realize that one of the top contributors to greenhouse gas emissions is connected with their diet. Eating vegan or vegetarian does more to reduce emissions than does driving a fuel-efficient, hybrid car. Unbelievable? Check out the following articles:

Vegetarian is the New Prius

Kathy Freston, in this article dated 18 January 2007, cites the findings of a recent report released by the UN, which points to livestock production as "one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global." She also reports on the results of research conducted at the University of Chicago, in the following statement:

[Researchers] noted that feeding animals for meat, dairy, and egg production requires growing some ten times as much crops as we'd need if we just ate pasta primavera, faux chicken nuggets, and other plant foods. On top of that, we have to transport the animals to slaughterhouses, slaughter them, refrigerate their carcasses, and distribute their flesh all across the country. Producing a calorie of meat protein means burning more than ten times as much fossil fuels--and spewing more than ten times as much heat-trapping carbon dioxide--as does a calorie of plant protein. The researchers found that, when it's all added up, the average American does more to reduce global warming emissions by going vegetarian than by switching to a Prius.

You can read more about the UN report in the following article on the website of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations:

Livestock a Major Threat to Environment

How about this article by investigative journalist Jeffrey St. Clair, which points to cattle production as a top threat to the health of the Western U.S.'s public lands?

Till the Cows Come Home

The following article, written by Dan Brook, points out that the two gases that comprise 90 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are carbon dioxide and methane--both of which are emitted by large-scale cattle farms at the rate of millions of tons each year. The article also addresses livestock cultivation's role in the destruction of the world's rainforests, which are absolutely crucial to the removal of harmful carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Another Inconvenient Truth: Meat is a Global Warming Issue

There is so much evidence out there that it is difficult to deny, once you begin studying the issue, that the current state of the planet is inextricably linked to the human population's unsustainable diet. Consider the following quotation from the Kathy Freston article:

The United States alone slaughters more than 10 billion land animals every year, all to sustain a meat-ravenous culture that can barely conceive of a time not long ago when "a chicken in every pot" was considered a luxury. Land animals raised for food make up a staggering 20% of the entire land animal biomass of the earth. We are eating our planet to death.

And yet, it is so easy to eat a vegan or vegetarian diet. Sites like Vegan Outreach and GoVeg.com are designed to show how simple it can be to eat a healthy, delicious plant-based diet, and how such a lifestyle benefits the quality of life on this planet for so many creatures in so many different ways. There are vegan and vegetarian cooking sites all over the Web--you can even check out my vegan food blog and from there, explore the many vegan cooking resources that it links to.

I could not consider myself an environmentalist and justify eating an animal products-based diet--the global harm caused by animal agriculture is just too evident. Many people would feel the same way, I believe, if only they knew the facts.

This Sunday, 22 April, is Earth Day--and I believe it is one of the most critical Earth Day celebrations in the history of our country, as more people are aware this year than ever before of the dire climate crisis which our world faces. Please, do not ignore the facts surrounding animal agriculture. Take a look at these articles, and if you are still not satisfied, do some more research. If we truly hope to reverse the destruction of our global environment, one of the crucial steps we must take is turning away from animal-based diets and toward a safer, healthier, greener alternative.

Mad world...

I live in a world that seems, every day, to be more and more racked with madness and pain. Genocide in Africa, war in Iraq, hurricanes and tsunamis and tidal waves more devastating than we have ever seen, corporate control of the world's food supply, suffering everywhere you turn... and most recently, yesterday's senseless massacre on the Virginia Tech campus. Millions of children are raised in broken homes... millions more have no homes at all. Across the planet from me, young women and girls are daily being taken from their homes and sold as sex slaves; across town from me, the homeless population of this city walks the streets, in need of food and shelter and medical care--basic rights that ever elude them as they beg and plead passers-by for tonight's dinner.

As I reflect on this world which spins sickeningly, like a Tilt-a-Whirl, two thoughts scroll continually through my mind--thoughts not on my own behalf, but on behalf of this insane world. One is in the voice of Darius Rucker, whose repeated chant sounds hauntingly near.

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child

My generation has grown up in a world that is more lost and broken than ever before; we as a whole have seen more rejection, more addiction, more senseless violence than our parents did in their formative years, and it only worsens as time goes by. We are faithless and godless; we are the iPod generation, increasingly detaching ourselves from reality. To deal with the pain of our rejection? To build a reflective shell and hide our hearts from the slings and arrows?

The other voice I hear is that of the messiah, whose desperate cry two thousand years ago rings poignantly true in this day.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

These words cut to my very bones. Don't we feel forsaken? Are we not a world in despair, at the mercy of a society gone mad? So much death. Rape. Murder. Sickness. Starvation. War. Addiction. Rejection. Hate. Fear.

But the man who cried out those words was not forsaken by God--he was a part of God's ultimate plan. He was God's ultimate plan. A plan for redemption... a plan for hope.

Hope? That's difficult. Sometimes, don't circumstances just seem hopeless? Yes. I let myself ache and fear and despair, sometimes. But then I search God--I cry out, God, why have you forsaken your world? And I am reminded... When Jesus conquered death, the whole world trembled at the power of God. The God of today is no different--he is still powerful, and he still holds victory over death and fear. I wish that living was easy, and I wish I had answers to all the many questions that one could ask of a God who allows such things to come into a world as we see day after day. But I don't understand--I just have to trust, and believe that the heart of God is love and redemption. We, even amid the madness, are not motherless children, for we have a God who aches for us and longs for us to come home.

The blustery day

Days like today are days that make me feel the most alive--the sky is thick and dark and the wind is unhindered. The windows are open and I am curled up on my futon wrapped in my fleece jacket with a book and a glass of red wine, pausing from my reading every few moments to listen to the wind play the trees like pan pipes. There is no rain, only the expectation of rain--but when will it come? And when it does come, will it be announced by great peals of thunder, or will it steal in gradually, patient and taut with all the energy of a sweet symphony?

Spring and summer in Georgia are hot and mellow, a fever that dulls first the mind and then, eventually, the heart and soul. All is heavy, and the air just becomes thicker and denser, until you feel you are swimming in a yellow delirium as thick as molasses.

Then one day, you awake to the whisper of the air to the trees, the grasses, the clouds and birds and all the world. And you go out, and it whispers to you too, and cuts sharply into your mind as acid through oil. Suddenly the world is alive with energy and purpose, and it intends to whirl you along. You stand, spread-eagle, and your hair flies away and your eyes well up from the air-blasts, and all around you and within you is electrified--the earth, the sky, the water, and all life driven by the same energy, all connected by the bonds of shared excitement.

When I go out tomorrow, the earth will be strewn with life--petals and blossoms that gave themselves up to the fury of the storm. All will be calm, all will be quiet like glass, like the grave. The air will be a little thinner and the earth a little lighter, and my mind a little freer, a little more awake and aware. Every breath, every nerve, every pump of my heart are an exhilarating gift that I cannot, in that moment, take for granted--a life so simple, yet too extraordinary to comprehend.

Wild at heart?

"Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest."

(Thoreau)

I remember a time in eighth grade when I was on a field trip to Cumberland Island, and one of the counselors at the nature center there took us on a walk through a salt marsh. It was a hot, stinking, South Georgia kind of day. At one point my classmates and I were all sitting along the edge of the boardwalk, and our guide was standing ankle-deep in the thick, pungent-smelling mud. She picked up a handful of mud and began to explain to us how clean and pure it was, and how indigenous people would use it on their faces to cleanse their pores, just like a modern Swiss facial.

Then, holding out her hand toward our big group of prissy fourteen-year-old girls, she asked us if anyone wanted a salt-marsh facial. Every one of us shrunk back, shrieking. I thought she was joking, but she persisted in her offer, just waiting for one of us to seize the moment. After a deliberating moment I, without a doubt the shyest and most reserved one of the class, volunteered.

The mud squished softly through my fingers as she put a dollop into my palm. The crude odor, far from a luxurious spa scent, wafted into my nostrils as I raised my hand to my face. I hesitantly painted the first streak across my cheekbone; the mud was so cold and wet on my skin that my arms and legs prickled, but it was soft and relaxing. After that first stroke, I wildly smeared the entire fistful over every patch of skin, even down my neck halfway to my collar. I remember the exhilaration I felt, as if layers of worry and artificiality were being unraveled around me. I knew that everyone else was laughing at me because my behavior was so unprecedented, but I laughed because I felt life pulsing up and down my body, and because I was breathing in the smells of the real world, right under my nose, and a part of me for the first time in ages.

The healing power of violets

I love wildflowers. I love them for their special, unique beauty that a neatly trimmed flower-bed can never duplicate. I love the way that each flower has its own season in which to bloom and flourish, whether it is the summer sunflower or the winter gentian. I love the way they sing, raw and unrefined, like the folklorists of the earth.

The season of violets is just coming to a close--they first began appearing in February and lasted through the chilly season, and now are yielding to the spring bloomers--dandelions, wisteria, and others. But violets have a special meaning to me...

Here, I will share with you an excerpt from a narrative I wrote about a time in my life when I was truly depressed, and how God used the world around me to lift me out of the pit I was in. I hope you enjoy it.

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True friends walk with you through the low places in your life. Friends I didn’t know I had were the friends who saw me through depression, encouraged me to continue holding onto what I had, faithfully believing that everything would take a turn for me if I allowed it to happen. And so I held on and on, and learned to lean on them for strength.

Sharon knew I loved wildflowers. Their beauty sometimes gave me peace, their fragility sometimes made me feel not so alone. I was at her house one Saturday afternoon early that spring; I sat on the swing in her backyard, staring at the ground beneath me where various feet skidding against the ground to halt the swing had worn a bare spot in the earth. The dirt was black and spongy.


“Laura, look! Wild violets!” I looked up and saw Sharon kneeling in the grass across the yard. I dropped from the swing and walked over. She knelt before a deep green patch that had looked like grass from farther away, but as I knelt down beside her I saw the deep violet-blue flowers whose tiny heads emerged from the greenery. I smiled as I studied their form—they were like newborns, with soft and pliable faces. The markings on the petals looked like eyes squeezed shut, too sensitive to the sunlight; they turned away to face the soft green below them.

I stretched out my body and lay flat on my stomach, my face next to the violet patch. Resting my cheek on the ground beside them I could feel the feathery leaves tickle my skin. I saw the flowers eye-to-eye now, the firstborn of spring, and for several minutes I lay there with them.

Sharon stood up to leave me alone with the flowers. As she did, I propped up on my elbows and turned to her, smiling. “I’ve never seen violets before…” Then I got to my feet and walked away with her, leaving the young flowers to nap placidly in the gentle afternoon light.

From "Time to Weep, Time to Heal"
March 2006