speccy perspectives

The love of bare November days

2008-11-25T10:50:00.003-05:00

I love this scene. The fleeting days when leaves like flames and gold dust scatter along the ground, where breathing in the Georgia air does not feel like a tourniquette clamped around your chest, where everything seems just a little more free and a little more alive.

There is something in these days which captivates the mind and allures the spirit; I cannot exactly explain what work these November days does in people, but I can say that I see it everywhere. I cannot recall ever meeting a person who would not admit to having some sort of love for the fall--even though the daylight hours grow shorter, even though the temperature is dropping, even though the falling leaves create a mess that many people insist on trying to "clean up" (not seeing, I suppose, the futility that I see in trying to counteract nature's instinctive and inevitable cycles). How many people get out during the autumn months, to go for a jog early in the morning, to attend fall festivals and corn mazes, to go for hikes, to do yard work, or just to get a breath of the fresh crisp air?

So many artists find the need to express their feelings about this time of the year--particularly writers, as I have observed. I cannot begin to enumerate the poems I have read which center around fall, the stories whose autumn settings do so much more than merely showcase the physical wonders of the season but connect them to the depths of the human soul. And even though it has been written about to the point of triteness, I still find this magnetic pull toward writing about autumn, and the things that it makes me think and feel. I have talked to countless other writers who have said the same thing; one girl said it best when she was explaining to me how she had come to write a poem about autumn and said, "I just couldn't not write about it."

Why is that? Why are we unable to not write about this season? Even though so much of it has been expressed before, why do we still feel compelled to express it again, in our own way?

I think that autumn presents a challenge to writers, because it does evoke something deep within us that we have a difficult time expressing. As someone who continually strives for mastery of verbal expression, I find myself constantly drawn to attempt to express the things which are so challenging to express, the things which are inexpressible. The things which are so beautiful and so complex because they are so simple and so natural, yet at the same time so inextricably tied to my heart that my mind has a difficult time sorting out those ties and composing a verbal arrangement of the sway they have over every detail of my life. I think that visually, metaphorically, spiritually, and on any other level you can imagine, autumn brings out a heightened sense of awareness and contemplation. It always represents a challenge to me, because I feel there is still so much that has been unsaid about the profound and symbolic beauty of the fall.

I know there is much that will never be said, can never be said. The most precious thoughts and feelings to me are the ones that are inexpressible, incomprehensible. I think that is something which is very dear to a writer; it means that there is something that I cannot master, something which I must be content to hold in humble reverence. It means there is a place in the human spirit to which I cannot lead others--to experience it, to know it, one must search and find it for oneself. I always say that I feel more alive during the fall than during any other time of the year. This, I think, gets at the heart of why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
the love of bare November days...
(Robert Frost, "My November Guest")

4 November 2008

2008-11-05T18:05:00.003-05:00

I was sitting on my living room couch last night, my television set tuned in but muted, as the poll results were coming in. I knew the next president of the United States would be decided soon, and I was ready for the answer... though I knew that the results would not be solidified until late into the night, even perhaps during the early hours of the morning.

I was writing my novel. It was about eleven o'clock at night, and I was deeply involved in some serious character development--when I happened to glance up at my silent television set. I was not ready for what I saw. It was too early in the evening for the results to be definitive; more than that, though, I was not mentally prepared to process the gravity of what had occurred. But there, as plain and authoritative as anything, was a smiling picture of Barack Obama against a blue backdrop, and underneath in regal white letters: "44th President Of The United States."

Of course, I had voted for Obama. In my mind, he was the only choice. Given the national and global state of affairs--a devastating economic crisis, a war nearly as unpopular as Vietnam being waged for all the wrong reasons, a climate undergoing utter destruction, low morale at home and little esteem abroad--I could not have considered voting otherwise. I don't love Obama and I never have, but when all was laid out on the table, I felt very strongly that Obama was the one who had the ability to bring about the hope that America so desperately needs.

I truly felt that Obama would win this election. Nothing could have prepared me, however, for the landslide victory with which he swept across the country. I was sure that it would be a close race, and that people all across the nation would be hovering around their televisions for hours, awaiting the poll results from every precinct, every state, which would be the deciding voices in this race. But when Florida was called in his favor, the race was over--and yet the results still kept coming, until he reached some 338 electoral votes, far more than the 270 he needed to seal his victory.

But what ended up hitting me even harder than his decisive win was the realization that history was made that night. For this man to be elected to the highest office in the land--this black man, this Barack Obama--something must have truly shifted in the minds of the American people. I think the reason his candidacy and ultimately his election did not strike me as inherently historical at first was that, in my mind, it was never about race. It was about the hope that he offered for a more peaceful future, for great social leaps, restored relationships with other nations (whether free or still entwined in systems of oppressive government). It was not about electing the first black president. The question of whether America was ready to elect a black president never registered to me; the only question in my mind was whether America was ready for change.

And America is ready for that change. That, to me, is the beauty of what happened on 4 November 2008. America judged this man not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character--and it was so seamless that I very nearly missed the historical significance. Yet the significance is obvious. Americans came together and accomplished something that many people never would have thought possible only a handful of decades ago. They came together in record numbers from every background, every socioeconomic status, every faith, the elderly and the young generations and everyone in between, and they said that they had had enough. Just when I was becoming disillusioned with who we are and what we as a nation stand for, America stood up and declared that it is strong, it is eager, and it is ready to overcome a divided history and look toward a united future.

I have much more to say, but I will have to say it another time. Let me just wrap up my initial thoughts on the election by saying that the struggle America is facing is far from over. One man cannot bring about the changes that we need to see, nor can an entire body of elected officials. Only a nation can change a nation--only we, the American people, can effect the change. I am so thankful that our next president will be a man who can inspire hope for this country, because hope is the first step. But once we grasp the hope and the possibility of all that is opened up to us, it is our decision. My decision. Your decision. I have been so hesitant throughout this election season to rally behind one candidate or the other, because I feel so strongly that it would be a very easy trap to fall into, that we would elect our next president, our next Congress, and then become complacent once again. My hope and my prayer is that this will not happen--because if it does, then we will have very little to show for a moment in our nation's life which could have been a great opportunity to really change the course of history. America needs us now, more than ever. I hope we are ready to respond.

All I Really Want...

2008-11-04T15:27:00.002-05:00

I've been listening to a lot of Bob Dylan these days. Something about his lyrics really resonates with me--in his prime, he had a way of cutting right to the heart of all the things that were (and still are) wrong with the world.

Take the following lyrics. This song appeared on his 1964 album, Another Side of Bob Dylan. It speaks deeply to me, showing me that the same problems I run into with interpersonal relationships have existed for quite some time... and also helping me realize that I am not the only person who has been frustrated or disgusted by all the meaningless undercurrents that lead us down dead-end streets along the roads that could lead to truly great personal connections. We miss out on so much because we cannot just let go of our differences and give one another the benefit of the doubt.

Take it away, Bob.

All I Really Want To Do

I ain't looking to compete with you,
beat or cheat or mistreat you,
simplify you, classify you,
deny, defy, or crucify you.
All I really want to do
is, baby, be friends with you.

No, and I ain't looking to fight with you,
frighten you or uptighten you,
drag you down or drain you down,
chain you down or bring you down.
All I really want to do
is, baby, be friends with you.

I ain't looking to block you up,
shock or knock or lock you up,
analyze you, categorize you,
finalize you, or advertise you.
All I really want to do
is, baby, be friends with you.

I don't want to straight-face you,
race or chase you, track or trace you,
or disgrace you or displace you
or define you or confine you.
All I really want to do
is, baby, be friends with you.

I don't want to meet your kin,
make you spin, or do you in,
or select you or dissect you,
or inspect you or reject you.
All I really want to do
is, baby, be friends with you.

I don't want to fake you out,
take or shake or forsake you out.
I ain't looking for you to feel like me,
see like me, or be like me.
All I really want to do
is, baby, be friends with you.

Breaking point

2008-11-02T13:22:00.006-05:00

Right outside of my apartment there is this tall, skinny, awkward tree that grows up right in the little nook where the two adjoining buildings opposite mine meet at a right angle. It is an unobtrusive corner, walled in by spiny hedges all around. There are strings of ivy creeping up the building, even right over the window-shutters. And standing only inches away from those tucked-away walls is this tree--perhaps a birch, though it is hard to tell from where I sit and observe her. But her scrawny limbs sag just slightly, as if the leaves which are her lot in life are just a bit too heavy. She strains, not wishing for anyone to learn of her secret weakness, to lift those limbs with a sort of dignified grace. But at the very ends her limbs droop, only just--discrete but unmistakable.

I like to sit out upon my porch in the evenings and look on while she stands there, quiet and proud, even in her odd place in the world. On still, tranquil summer nights she would stand motionless, statuesque. As the thin ribbon of light in the blue-gray sky would descend lower and lower, her limbs would become entangled deeper and deeper with the darkness. Yet she always remains unmoving, watchful, attentive.

Her name is Eleanor, this tree, and she and I are kindred spirits in some ways. Both of us know something of isolation, of not really fitting into the hole that has been made for us. Both of us are strong, strong enough to stand against many storms and face the aftermath with some reservoir of grace that we are able to find within ourselves. Both of us, Eleanor and I, stand before the world proud of who we are, even when the winds of adversity threaten to tear us from the ground. And the world doesn't see what goes on inside.

But all creatures have a breaking point. Eleanor and I are no different, though our breaking points have not been identified yet. I have come dangerously close to breaking, but I have not broken. Some days the world seems heavier than other days; some days I droop a little more, betray a little more of the screaming, trembling little child who lives inside of me--the side of me that I don't let anyone see, the side that stings my heart knowingly whenever someone tells me how strong, how resilient I am. The weakness in my heart knows that the strength is just a front I put up for the benefit of the world, the world where I am supposed to be strong, because people would rather not have to deal with the weakness of their fellow human creatures.

We're going to be alright, Eleanor and me. Life is a hell of a thing to be charged with, day in and day out, and it is a wonder that any of us on this earth can make it. But somehow we do. And we come out alright. If we don't break first.

A Boy's Will

2008-11-01T12:08:00.001-05:00

I think, once all is taken into account, my favorite poet is Robert Frost. His connection to nature, and the metaphors which he so eloquently draws, are familiar to me. Few people understand my take on the world, but when I read his poems that are so richly laden with beautiful language and imagery, I feel assured that someone, somewhere, has understood the things that I see all around me. His words remind me that everything is lovely in some way--even sorrow, even grief--and that is a comforting thing, because the world is filled with sorrow and grief, yet its loveliness remains.

One of my favorite poems was published in Frost's first published book of poetry, A Boy's Will. Here on the first of November, I find this poem quite appropriate in so many ways.

My November Guest

My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walked the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted gray
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.

Atlas Fallen

2008-10-17T13:05:00.002-05:00

I watched you hoist the world above your head
and make them all retreat in holy dread.
Hero in a world fallen far from grace,
martyr for those who've been frozen in place
and handed to the whims of great unrest--
a savior's role you played, and played your best.
But 'neath such weight you were bound to crumble--
never too infallible to stumble.
And as the fateful wind sliced cleanly through
and whispered of the pains reserved for you
your body buckled 'neath a timeless dread;
as I looked on, the world crashed 'round your head.

Rain

2008-09-07T13:53:00.003-05:00

I wrote the following several weeks ago, as I lay in my bed late one night, listening to the rain. Times have been up and down lately for me. I guess that could probably be said for most everyone, most of the time. Still, it's comforting to remember that some things in this life are constant. Amid all this madness, we all need to find our safe haven... like rain on a summer night.

The rain is sort of peaceful and lonely tonight. Peaceful, because it is steady and soft and life-giving. Lonely, I think, because it haunts me--because it brings to mind traces of other days, days that were happier, more carefree... and some days that were uneventful or lonesome or painful. Other days. Days which are not this day. Days which are not this day are days that are already behind me, or else they are days which have yet to unfold beneath my feet. One way or another, I am not in the midst of living them and suffering them today.

But the rain also tells me that I am strong. Because the rain comes and goes... and to experience anything coming and going as the rain comes and goes, one must be alive for a span of time. To be old enough to recollect many of those comings and goings means that one must have been alive long enough to grow that old. One must have opened one's eyes to many, many new days. And to continue day after day to open one's eyes and blink into the harsh, punishing daylight, to stumble through each hour perhaps without direction, perhaps even wondering if all paths do not lead to nowhere--to survive this means surely that one is equipped to survive. Though one may feel insignificant, ill, the weakest being on earth, one may and ought to take solace in the mere condition of continuing to live, because it means that one is inherently strong enough to live. None of us are very strong, it is true... but neither is any of us condemned to be prohibitively weak. All humanity is strong enough, barring physical disease or deformity or deprivation, to get up out of the bed another day and move and breathe within the circles of fire and earth and life. We are created with the mechanism to stand and bear living's pain and oppression--not always with dignity, but to bear it nonetheless... to continue to draw breath though it crushes our chest and rips through us like a thin red flame, to cry out for help even when our throat is cracked and raw from the heaving, choking sobs that we have cried in our loneliness and fear... and to lie down to sleep at night in anticipation or dread of what tomorrow's sunlight will illuminate before us and within us. That is real strength. That is the unfettered and untainted beauty of the human spirit.

When the rain comes, it washes everything and sets all it touches back upon the road to health and growth. It soothes a feverish earth and brings comfort to a troubled spirit. Tonight it works these effects in my own heart. And even now, as my eyelids droop and my consciousness rolls in and out like the ocean tide, I know that I will wake up in the morning and have the wherewithal to exist tomorrow--and exist well. Exist as I am meant to.

Sometimes every spirit needs to feel the rainstorm.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

2008-08-30T10:22:00.002-05:00

I recently read a novel written by Georgia author Terry Kay, entitled To Dance With The White Dog. It was a fascinating read for me on several levels--on the very surface because it was set in the lovely rural landscape of northeast Georgia of which I am so fond. But deeper than that, it was a lovely story which was at once moving, charming, simple, and universally relevant. I think the primary reason this story has stuck with me is that it spoke heavily to perhaps my deepest fear... aging.

I do not really fear my own death. In fact, I try to live in such a way that every moment becomes vital and sacred--so that if any given beat of my heart became the last one, then I could leave this world having lived a life that was not wasted, that was significant and lived to its fullest capacity. I need no reminder of my own mortality; I am well aware that life is immensely fragile, hanging from a silky strand of spider-thread. A life lived in fear of death is lived in futility, and I refuse to let my limited allotment of moments succumb to such fruitlessness.

What I do fear, however, is almost equally as inevitable as death--and that is growing older. Losing capacities I once had; the dulling of my senses; the slow degeneration of my physical being or, worse, of my mind; watching the world changing all around me and knowing that my time has come and gone; continuing to hold onto that fragile thread that suspends me in a state of vitality as it grows more and more ragged, as all around me I watch those threads snapping and my family and friends, one by one, falling into that which lies beyond life on earth. Being left alone here in the world, alone with the ghosts of my youth and my familiar world, which will have long since passed on. These are the thoughts that I cannot stand. These scenarios represent the reality I see in my elderly family members and acquaintances, who through the years have lost their mental faculties to an astonishing degree, who physically cannot get out and do the things that they once loved to do. These fears are called to the front of my mind when I imagine a collection of haggard old men sitting in rocking chairs on funeral home porches, being winnowed out through years and months until two, one, none remain.

As futile as it is to fear death, I am certain that it is equally as futile to fear aging--for unless death comes early, aging is just as inevitable a fact, just as unstoppable. Yet the knowledge that death could come at any moment is oddly comforting... whereas aging is a gradual process, striking constantly and unobtrusively, until one day you realize that you are not what you used to be. I cannot imagine being alive and yet being unable to do the things I do today--from going on a weekend mountain-hiking expedition, to driving my car two hours up the road, to having a conversation where I am fully cognizant of who I am, where I am, and with whom I am speaking. Someday I may not have those abilities, and yet my heart will still be pumping life through my rapidly degenerating body. Ça, c'est la vie? I wonder.

But for all my fretting, To Dance With The White Dog did not depress me. It reminded me of the fragility of life and challenged me to look at the world through the eyes of an elderly man who knows he is not long for this world, yet still fights to life deliberately until his last breath. And that is an encouraging thought. I guess we can only expect to make the most of what he have right at this moment. So right now I am young and I have an entire lifetime ahead of me, and I have all the strength and sharpness and freedom that I can ask for. So now is my time to make the most of those things. And then perhaps when I am much, much older, I will be content with what I still have remaining, not mournful of the things that have gradually slipped away. At any rate, it is worthless to worry about such things now--because my life could end tomorrow, and I will not want to have spent my last day on earth fretting over a day and age that would never come.

How beautiful the world can be...

2008-07-26T12:49:00.002-05:00

Blackberries

2008-07-04T01:47:00.001-05:00

Protruding from the wiry, spindly brush
with skin pulled tight like the head of a drum
encasing sweet, warm droplets of sun-ripe
ruddy juice--delicate and plump, teasing,
drawing a covetous gaze as velvet
tempts you to graze it with your hand or cheek.
Dark with soft, placating sheen collecting
all energy and light like small black holes
of deep summer, they ensnare and transfix
and you salivate and long for a taste
and the event horizon is traversed.
What could approach perfection so nearly
as a warm burst of tartness on your tongue
that stains your mouth, seeps into the creases
of your hands like hairline cracks in your skin
and just beneath, a reservoir of blood?
Oh, I remember blackberry-picking
and how the sting of nettles scrawling bloody
scratches on your arms was worth the reward--
pain for sweetness on your tongue, an exchange
some will never choose to make. But I hope
in my life to always pick blackberries.

Another fire has been put out

2008-06-12T18:29:00.004-05:00

I think I know this person....

That looks kind of like a girl I knew once, not that long ago. I knew her five years ago; I think I even knew her one year ago. But I don't know where she is now--or if I will ever see her again. The woman in this photo looks... different. Weary, as if from a long voyage. Eroded, perhaps. A bit more polished, a bit more dull along the edges.

But there's something else. Look at her eyes. The girl I once knew had deep, dark eyes that sparked and crackled like dried leaves scattered over a campfire. They were electric and fully alive. And not only alive, but nearly able to bring the world to life all around her.

These eyes are missing that energy. These eyes look old. Beaten. A veil stands between them and the outside; can you see that veil? Whoever this woman is, I cannot see into her heart. I cannot see past the resignation behind which her heart hides itself.

I spent an evening with a friend of mine recently, visiting a college campus where he had been a student ten years earlier. There were not many students around, being summertime; but as a small group of students walked past us my friend remarked, looking at them, "They have that look in their eyes..."

"What look?" I asked him.

He turned to me. "Innocence. Excitement. They believe anything is possible... The world hasn't gotten to them yet." He sighed. "I wonder when I lost that spark. You never know when you lost it or how you lost it. You just look in the mirror one day and you realize that it's gone. Once you realize it's gone, it's too late. You'll never get it back."

The woman in the photo above--has she lost that spark? Does she still believe that anything is possible, or has the world twisted her so much that it has strangled her spirit? Has she ever looked in the mirror and realized that she is no longer the girl she used to be--and she never will be again?

I hope that doesn't happen to me.

Order/Chaos

2008-05-29T07:18:00.003-05:00

Somehow I can find the poetry hidden in everything. I guess it's how I experience order and beauty in this chaotic world. From the mediocre to the extreme--the dreadful, the painful, the wholly uneventful--there's got to be something there to make it all make sense. In it all, something must make it worth all the while. And art is how I uncover it. Somehow, everyone has got to deal. Right?

The Road Not Taken

2008-04-16T19:58:00.003-05:00

One of the most misinterpreted poems I can think of is Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken." People seem to want to read it as a poem about individualism, not following the crowd, making your own way in life even if it's not the culturally acceptable way. But I think this poem means something altogether different. Something which every single one of us can relate to. It is a poem about making a choice, and the doubt that inevitably follows; it is a poem about forever wondering what might have been. You notice that the poem's title does not emphasize the choice the narrator did make. Rather, it alludes to the foregone alternative, which is still a lingering thought in the narrator's mind. It is a poem about all the things that may have happened, all the happiness and all the tribulations that may have befallen the narrator, which now can only be guessed at--for the time to walk that path is gone forever.

I have certainly seen times where I had to make a life-changing decision, and I always torture myself with the question of whether I did the right thing... particularly when the choice I made seems to go awry. I find my head spinning with thoughts like, What if I had done it this way? What if I had chosen that instead? Would I have gotten hurt like this? Would my life have been better? Have I screwed everything up? I have had my share of those thoughts recently. And I feel the heaviness that overcomes the narrator of this poem when he says, "I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence..." It's a deep, regretful sigh, in the face of having made what he (what I) may always fear was the wrong decision.

One of the wonderful things about poetry is that it tells me things about myself that I could never have put into words. I understand that this narrator feels a lingering pang of sadness at having left this crossroads behind, because I have felt that too. Why? I think it's partly because I fear the unknown. And I think I am not unique in that regard; I am sure that many of us step with trepidation when we find ourselves in a position of not knowing where we are headed. But I also think the sorrow stems in part from the knowledge that, for that one moment as I stood and looked down both paths, I held a piece of my fate in my own hands. And that is a grave matter, for if I chose wrongly, who is there to blame but myself?

Thoughts like that can drive you mad; or at least, they could certainly drive me mad. I don't want the responsibility of having to make a blind choice whose consequences will affect me forever. I don't want to stand here in the wake of the storm and know that it was nobody's fault but mine. That would surely defeat me. And in the end, who's to say that one path was better than another? The old adage says that hindsight is 20/20. But even hindsight only provides a one-angled view of anything, for I am simply looking back up the road I just traveled. I can never, never go back to that point in the road where I had to make the choice, and so I can never be sure what would have befallen me had I chosen differently. So I have to conclude, for my own sake, that there was no fault on my part or anyone else's. I am where I am today because of the choices I have made, and the only difference I can make now is choosing which way to go from here. It is very, very tempting to stand here in limbo and dwell on the road not taken. I do it all the time. But as long as I am doing that, then I am not making the most of my journey for what it is today.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by--
and that has made all the difference.

Yes. It has made all the difference, because it has shaped who I am. For better or worse, it is what it is. And I am alive and young and strong, and I still have miles to go before I sleep. And that is something for which I can be grateful.

Rest

2008-04-15T23:04:00.008-05:00

Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions nor conflicts.

~Sigmund Freud

It's not my fault.

2008-04-07T00:11:00.006-05:00

This realization finally hit me this weekend. What's happened to me, what's turned my life into a nightmare... it's not my fault. I've tried to place the blame upon myself, just to have someone or something to blame--because if I could find an object of blame, then I had somewhere to direct my anger. Something to take it all out upon. I was happy to take it out upon myself. At least that way, I could get the anger out into the light. But I did not spare myself any harm by blaming myself. I didn't see it then, but now I do. For months now, I have torn myself to pieces over this situation--because I turned him away; I drove him mad enough to leave. And suddenly, I felt like my life was not worth the unbearable effort of being.

When I saw him last weekend, though, I began to understand that there must be something much deeper going on than him being simply unhappy with me. His discontent must be a product of his own demons, and I just happened to be standing on the bridge that he decided to burn. I have realized that I am not the only one he has decided to reject; rather, our marriage existed within an epoch of his life, the entirety of which he decided to reject. What else exists there with me? His whole life up to this point. His family... his faith... his entire past. What trauma can cause someone like him to reject everything he's ever known and fling himself headlong into one passion--himself?

That's what I see now when I look at him. I see an obscene fascination with himself. I see a gross disregard for any other human being. What I do not see, now, is the man I love. That person, I am afraid, does not exist anymore. What I fear even more is that he never existed--that this stranger, whom I loathe in so many ways, was always the "real" him. That his brief stint with me was something fabricated or imagined.

But at least, now, I can breathe a little easier, because I can see now that all along it was some madness within him that drove him to this. I did not drive him to this. I have to believe that. And I have to move on from there.

I am moving on. I have accepted this as simply the way things are. There is still sadness, but I know it will not linger forever. One of my friends told me, in an attempt to encourage me in the wake of all of this, that whatever doesn't kill us makes us stronger. I told my friend in response, feeling utterly barren, that I did not know which of those alternatives would prove to be the case for me.

Now I know. Perhaps it was silly and weak of me to despair so deeply over this, to the point where I detested myself. But today, I can say definitively that I am going to be OK. I finally believe that. I am still leaning upon those around me for support; I know the next couple of months are not going to be easy, as I am in the process of putting this all behind me. I don't know how to put it behind me. But I know I must... and so I will.

Implosion

2008-03-25T07:22:00.003-05:00

Like a parade
my beating heart before me marched
with meticulous measured meter
and the pregnant palpitationis ruptured
the membrane of my heart
like an overripe tomato
made sick by too much sun.

And like buckets
dangling in the fabric of everything
I saw the sloshing stars
brimming with everything
my heart could not contain
and splashing it across unending lifetimes.

And a sigh
like a sword slit across my throat
and it slid across my lips
where the wind whirled it away
an ocean and a world away
to strike an unfurling tendril
where perched a crystal dew-drop
which slipped silently away

like a tear-drop
sliding cool across my skin
weightless, unladen with encumbrances
of sighs and pounding hearts which
(faced with wind and trembling leaves)
escapes empty and shatters
soundless, while the drumbeats inward turn
and slow to fainter rhythms
whose painful, poignant peals
could never spill a star.

Out of control

2008-02-22T20:31:00.001-05:00

That's the way I feel right now, about everything. Everything in my life, everything in the world, seems to be spinning madly… and I am powerless against the forces of the world. There is so much I want to change, so much that is breaking me and tearing my insides apart. So many turns my life has taken in recent months. I feel like my soul has become a wasteland, a dumping ground for the refuse of my life and the lives of those around me. And every day, every moment is too much. It's all too heavy. Sometimes it all seems surreal, and I think the days and weeks have been nothing more than an elaborate daydream. But then, the tears really are moist upon my face; the burning in my gut really does make me ill with sadness and disgust; and the desolate expressions in the eyes all around me reminds me that they are in on it too. They know—they share in the familiar uncertainty and in the hunger for better days. But somehow, these burdens and these particular pains are uniquely mine. I am evermore dragging around the weight of the world like sandbags tied to my arms and legs. And it's so hard, so hard, because I can see how much better it all could be—and I want to fix it, so badly. Fix my own troubles, fix the troubles of the people whose burdens I am bound to help shoulder… But as I said, there is no fixing it, no changing it. All I can do is stand and watch as things turn inside out—stand and watch, and live within the sea of sadness and injustice rising all around me… and wish to God it wasn't so.

That's all I can say.

The complexity of nature

2008-01-31T23:44:00.000-05:00

2007-12-07T19:18:00.000-05:00

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

A novel idea

2007-11-03T19:45:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-30T19:09:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-28T10:42:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-26T17:45:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-13T21:44:00.000-05:00

...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

2007-10-06T23:02:00.000-05:00

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...

2007-09-26T20:40:00.000-05:00

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

2007-08-11T16:51:00.000-05:00

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?

2007-07-29T19:11:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-14T18:04:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-10T04:42:00.000-05:00

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

2007-06-30T19:30:00.000-05:00

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

2007-06-12T22:08:00.000-05:00

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

2007-06-06T22:17:00.000-05:00

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.

2007-06-06T21:37:00.000-05:00

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

Part 4: Whiteclay

2007-05-30T23:01:00.000-05:00

... 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

2007-05-27T14:20:00.001-05:00

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

2007-05-26T10:41:00.000-05:00

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?

2007-05-25T18:24:00.000-05:00

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...

2007-05-13T23:06:00.000-05:00

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

La terre rit en fleurs

2007-05-05T20:53:00.000-05:00

[Earth laughs in flowers.]

~Emerson

The price of a cup of coffee

2007-04-26T12:29:00.000-05:00

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

2007-04-20T12:00:00.000-05:00

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...

2007-04-17T20:14:00.000-05:00

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

2007-04-15T13:25:00.000-05:00

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?

2007-04-10T22:31:00.000-05:00

"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

2007-04-05T19:14:00.000-05:00

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.

* * * * * * *

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

Dilemma

2007-04-04T08:20:00.000-05:00

This morning's Accounting Policy class session was one of the most difficult hour-and-a-half lectures that I have ever had to endure. To give you an idea of what happened, I must first explain that my professor is on the corporate board of Kimberly-Clark Corporation, a company whose products I refuse to purchase because of its disregard for conservation ethics: More than 80% of the pulp that Kimberly-Clark uses to produce its Kleenex brand tissues is virgin pulp, straight from Canada's ancient Boreal forest. The company is actively engaged in the destruction of one of the last remaining intact biomes in the world, a rich ecosystem which is home to myriad diverse species and is a carbon storehouse whose survival is essential to the fight against global warming. In short, I find that Kimberly-Clark has no environmental ethic whatsoever.

This morning in class we had a guest speaker--the Chief Financial Officer of Kimberly-Clark was there to share with us some of the business practices of the corporation and give us some insight into what makes the company so profitable. I found his talk to be utterly disappointing. He made no mention of Kimberly-Clark's environmental position, even though we are standing in a day and age in which we must take action to curb global warming and otherwise protect our planet which we have ravaged and raped to near-barenness in many locations. Furthermore, he shared with us that Kimberly-Clark is looking at outsourcing much of their human labor to India, where labor is cheap and few investments must be made in the workers to keep them happy since they need the jobs so badly that they will work under nearly any conditions. I was enraged on the inside as I listened to this presentation.

What did I do? Well... I refused the giveaways that our speaker offered. I could not explain why. If my professor were not so linked with Kimberly-Clark, I would have considered confronting the CFO about the company's policies regarding the environment. As it was, however, I felt like I could say nothing without putting my grade in jeopardy. Am I a coward? What would you have done?

If you click on the banner above, you can read about the destruction that Kimberly-Clark is wreaking upon the Boreal forest, and you can send an e-mail to the CEO of Kimberly-Clark, Thomas Falk, as well as to the company's VP of environment, Ken Strassner. You can urge the company to make changes in the way it obtains its pulp for the production of its popular paper products, and you can explain that you will not purchase any Kimberly-Clark products as long as they refuse to change. Please, take this step. We are losing a treasure than can never be replaced, and it disappears a little more each day. It makes a difference. Let them know that we as consumers will not settle for complacency when it comes to our planet.

...

2007-04-03T20:27:00.000-05:00

What We Need is Here

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

--Wendell Berry

A change of scenery

2007-04-03T17:07:00.000-05:00

As my fifth year in Athens begins to wind down, I have to say that I am looking forward to a change. I've always been a somewhat restless individual--after being in one place for a while (both in a literal and a mental sense), I feel like it's time to move on. I don't like feeling as if I have built up a "history" somewhere. I know that I should be comfortable with who I am, and indeed I am comfortable with that... I guess it is just that I become less comfortable with the people around me, either because they seem to have not changed much, or their changes have taken them down an entirely different road than the one I am traveling.

In the town where I lived for the first eighteen years of my life, a place where everyone knew your name AND your GPA AND your criminal record (not that I had one), I felt like I built up a history and that after awhile, it was just expected that I would follow the precedent I had already set. People, as we well know, are dynamic creatures; nevertheless, others are surprised when they find that you have changed--and not only surprised, but also disappointed, skeptical, and sometimes plain disrespectful. By the time I was about thirteen, I no longer felt I could be true to myself, as I was becoming someone altogether different from the girl I had been all my life. I was stuck in a mold, and it took an exodus for me to finally express myself freely again.

Now I'm twenty-three years old, and I have to say that I am a much different person than I was when I was eighteen and a newcomer to Athens. Athens is without a doubt a much larger town than my hometown, but still I have found my way into tight-knit circles where I have projected a particular image of myself, and now that the image is somewhat inaccurate I feel (to make use of a trite yet apt expression) like a round peg in a square hole. So though I love the Athens atmosphere, I do truly look forward to the time when I can shut the door on this era of my life and start over in a new city.

Does this cycle ever end? As you get older, do you change less--or do you just care less about the pressure you feel from the people around you? I don't want to feel like my life is all about things starting and ending; I want it to just go on, and to be comfortable within whatever shape the notch happens to be that gets carved for me.

I think I still have a lot to learn...

Blood Mountain

2007-04-02T17:55:00.000-05:00

I was ever so thankful this weekend for a chance to get away--from Athens and my computer and life as I know it right now. My backpacking class drew to a close with a class trip to Blood Mountain, Georgia's fifth highest peak, in Blairsville. I am sure I have said this before, but when I am hiking, I feel closer to God than in any other moments of my life, because I feel like I can really worship Him in a pristine corner of His creation, somewhere special and holy and undefiled by human touch. Even among people who do not believe in the God I love, there is a sense of awesome wonder when one is out in nature... looking out at a distant mountain peak, or down into a hazy valley, or through the ground cover of dead leaves at the first wildflowers of spring that are beginning to push their small, shy heads up out of the rich earth. In this place, it is hard to deny the existence of some power that is greater than yourself.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord...

Small things

2007-03-27T15:07:00.000-05:00

My life has picked up speed ever since January rolled around, and I started studying frantically for the CPA exam, which I will be thrilled to complete by mid-July. I have not written much; I have had little to write. I find I have little creative energy at the end of the day. I cook less, I walk less, I read less, I go out less (unless it be to a cafe to knock back a latte and immerse myself in accounting for postretirement benefits or some equally abstract concept). Do I laugh less? Smile less? Find less joy? Turn my thoughts less toward God? I honestly try not to, but sometimes I end up throwing myself facedown on my bed and asking, When will I be happy?

The problem is not a lack of happiness or joy, though. I try to walk through my life believing that my time on earth is a gift--but sometimes holding onto your joy in the midst of a trying time has to involve looking in places you never thought to look before. What are the daily things that bring me satisfaction, the things I overlook when I am in the brightest seasons of my life? Perhaps if I sit and think, and try to compile a list of things that really make my life worth living right now, then I will be able to turn my mind to such things more easily in the moments when my daily ritual of pushing up against this granite wall begins to feel fruitless and impossible.

What makes me happy?

1. The smell of fresh basil, harvested from my windowsill.

2. Floods of small petals, too pale to be pink and too ruddy to be white, riding the air currents and blanketing the ground like snowfall.

3. A cup of fresh black coffee, with two gingersnaps for dunking.

4. Briefly catching the sound of a favorite song as cars drive by with their windows down and their radios up.

5. Closing my eyes and softening all the muscles in my face, just when the tension starts to build up.

6. Magnificent evening skies that remind me that all the world is in the hands of a being much greater than myself.

7. Observing the daily progress of the sweetgum tree outside my window, whose tender week-old leaves become larger and greener and sturdier daily--indeed, almost constantly.

8. Waking up the day after a long Pilates workout, to feel every muscle in my core aching as they regenerate themselves, stronger and more defined than before.

9. The intermediate stage of consciousness, right after I wake up in the morning, when every limb on my body still feels limp and heavy, and I feel like I am being swallowed into my bed.

10. The ability to love someone, which comes solely because I have been loved before I ever understood what it meant to love.

11. Dreaming about friends whom I have not yet met--promises for the future.

Like an impressionist painting, which is made up of millions of tiny brush strokes which you will not see until you take a closer, more discerning look at the big picture, our daily life is made up of millions of tiny experiences. Those experiences can be observed, embraced, treasured only when we are willing to ignore the large-scale view of life and scrutinize its components. But the components are what give life substance and depth and significance, and we miss out on so much when we blind ourselves to them. I hope never to miss another tiny experience... but instead, every day, to be able to make this list grow longer and longer with all the joy I find.

Save a tree or two

2007-03-01T08:38:00.000-05:00

I received the following e-mail from the Natural Resources Defense Council regarding the preservation of Canada's boreal forest. I've blogged a couple of times now in reference to this ancient wilderness (look here and here). Why, as a native of the southeastern United States, am I so passionate about this particular part of the world?

The boreal forest of Canada is one of the largest remaining intact natural regions in the world. It is home to a variety of wildlife including caribou, bears, wolves, and lynx. It is the summer range for about 1/3 of North American songbirds and 3/4 of North American waterfowl. Its ecology is complex and varied, with forests, mountains, lakes, wetlands, and rivers. Such a place needs to be protected, lest it be lost. There are programs and initiatives in place to protect and preserve large portions of the region, and still others aimed at developing eco-friendly practices within its neighboring communities. The boreal forest is a valuable North American biome, and the more people who become aware and empassioned about its need for preservation, the more positive progression we will see in the efforts to save this forest.

Anyway, on to the e-mail. If you click the link, you can sign your name to a letter to the Manitoba government, urging them to take action. It only takes five seconds, and I have to believe that it makes a difference.

*********

The Manitoba government still has not honored its pledge to
permanently protect the Poplar-Nanowin Rivers traditional lands
in our Heart of the Boreal Forest BioGem.

Your urgent action is needed to ensure that Manitoba makes good
on its repeated promises. Mounting proposals for clearcut
logging, roadbuilding and industrial hydropower development loom
over this irreplaceable habitat for threatened woodland caribou,
moose and millions of songbirds.

Please go to http://www.savebiogems.org/boreal/takeaction
and urge Manitoba's premier to grant permanent protection to
these First Nation lands.

For thousands of years, the Poplar River First Nation has relied
on the trees, plants and wildlife of this expanse of rugged
granite cliffs, dense evergreen woods and tranquil marshlands
for food, medicine and the survival of its beliefs and
traditions. In 2004, the Canadian government recognized the
outstanding cultural and natural values of this wildland by
including it as part of a potential U.N. World Heritage Site.

Under pressure from BioGems Defenders like you, the Manitoba
government renewed interim protection of the Poplar-Nanowin
Rivers Park Reserve to allow for the completion of a land
management plan. Yet more than a year has passed now since the
plan was finalized -- and the Manitoba government has failed to
legislate permanent protection.

Please go to http://www.savebiogems.org/boreal/takeaction
and tell Manitoba's premier to take this long overdue next step
toward creating a World Heritage Site in this region.

Thank you for all of your efforts to protect the wildest reaches
of Canada's vast boreal forest.

Sincerely,

Frances Beinecke
President
Natural Resources Defense Council

Just words...

2007-02-28T13:37:00.000-05:00

Words make great art sometimes, even when they're just thrown together--as long as something ties them together, it doesn't have to appeal to reason to make a beautiful mosaic.

I made this word cloud here. Try it out!

Every species has its niche

2007-02-01T09:50:00.000-05:00

Truly the quince flower has found a special niche, to reach the peak of its blooming season right in the harshest stretch of winter, whilst nearly all other flora lies dormant in anticipation of spring.

Death Knell of the Ancients

2007-01-13T11:04:00.000-05:00

Another tree falls, and the taiga mourns with groaning—not the sound of groaning, but the deep and silent rumble of the soul whose tremors make tremble even the deepest parts of the earth. For the thud of one more tree against the pock-marked ground is the fearsome, chaotic clanging of one more thick, cold iron bell, another alarum ringing out the imminent fate of all life that once found its haven here.

For these trees have never seen war, never been brushed by plague or pandemic. Peaceful existence, nurturing coexistence has reigned here for centuries as the trees, fir and spruce, elm and oak alike, have offered their raised limbs to the native grouse for nesting, and to the visiting thrushes who stay only until the first gray of winter touches the sky and sends these fair-weather birds to a more tropical locale for the cooler season. These trees have been proud to wear, year after year, the pure and powdery snow from which raptors flee and grizzlies hide themselves, fat with nourishment to last them for months as they sleep in their deep dens until ground thaw.

These old-growth trees have seen light and shadow, each wonderful and terrible in its very special way. Nothing is as jarring as a full neon sun throwing itself against a tinny, white wilderness; nothing is as spectacular as colored hues that glow and dance across the backdrop of space every vernal and autumnal equinox. The forest has seen it all. It has also seen the nightfall, accompanied by the paralyzing beating of owls’ wings and the death squeals of the small rodents, fallen prey to the hunters of the night. The trees have played the part of protector against harsh daylight, weaving their stretching limbs together as a barrier so that the mosses and lichen could thrive gratefully along the shaded ground beneath.

The forest remembers stories of the first appearance of man, coming in on foot from the west, building their settlements nearby, hunting the animals, treading lightly on the land. Even the last of the trees who had known these respectful men, had lived in harmony with them, have long since fallen and returned to the earth, adding their matter back to the soil to the propagation of forest life. But the legacy of these gentle hunters remains, giving strength to the trees and the delicate fibers of life in this harsh, beautiful wilderness.

Nothing like that legacy are these newly arrived men, who come in droves with their clamorous machines to cripple the forest, their hearses to drag the victims away to the nearby paper mill. They upset the balance and the peace of the long-time dwellers here, giving it no thought as they ravage and scar the land. Another tree falls, its once proud limbs crunching against the snow-packed ground. An alarm sounds to the raptors that had nested in those branches, to the fox and the squirrel whose once secret dwellings are now hopelessly destroyed. And a chill pulses through the forest—a chill that the cold, damp summers and thoroughly severe winters have, in thousands of years, never managed to elicit from the proud and brawny trees. For the trees know they can survive the wind and snow and the days upon days of darkness, a barren climate which has caused virtually all other life to shrink away. But against the calloused greed within the hearts of short-sighted man even the stout-willed trees cannot fight. And in each buzz of a saw, each turning of an engine, each loud and brazen guffaw of a hardened, senseless clearcutter preparing to wrap up another day of hard work, the forest can hear the heralding of its own bleak doom. And so it remains, in jarring silence.

Milk is gross

2007-01-12T15:00:00.000-05:00

There are a lot of myths surrounding the healthfulness and ethics of human consumption of dairy products. I have been doing some reading and research, and my goal with this post is to dispel some of those myths. To the best of my ability, I will document all the sources for my information; however, as I have done a lot of reading about these issues in recent months, the list is likely not comprehensive. Research on the subject abounds--do some reading yourself!

Myth 1: Milk does a body good.

Cows are herbivores, and thrive on a diet of grasses. The pastoral dairies we often picture in our minds include black-and-white spotted cows, dotting the rolling green hillsides, lazily grazing on the pastureland and ruminating. The farmer comes out with a tin bucket and a little wooden stool and lovingly milks his cows each day, stroking them and talking to them all the while.

This is not a true reflection of the life and diet of a modern-day, factory-farmed cow. Cows in factory farming operations are confined to stalls and hard cement floors, never given the freedom to graze. They are deprived of a natural diet and instead fed a feed mix consisting heavily of corn (most of it genetically modified), heavy doses of antibiotics, and occasionally the ground-up remains of their fallen comrades (the practice of turning dead cattle back into cattle feed is illegal, but the industry is poorly monitored and this practice still occurs). We all know that animal milk nutrition is based of the nutrients in the diet of the animal that produces it. So what is going into your milk? Genetically modified corn that was farmed with heavy doses of chemical fertilizers; antibiotics; any contaminants that may have remained in the bodies of the dead cows that were ground up for feed.

It gets worse, though. Dairy cows are pumped full of rBGH, a bovine growth hormone designed to increase their milk yield. The increased milk yield resulting from the rBGH causes increased rates of mastitis--the udders of these unfortunate cows swell and become infected with the unnatural volume of milk that they produce. Yet, in the interest of precious time and profit, cows with infected udders are not treated properly for their infection--they are still milked continually. The antibiotics pumped into the cattle feed are intended to deal with such diseases and infection, the intent being that these maladies will get cleared up through the feed and the cow loses no milking time. As a result of not treating mastitis immediately and properly, pus which develops inside the udder ends up in the milk. This pus-infused milk is not discarded; rather, it is mixed with "healthy" milk, packaged, and sold.

Myth 2: Cows need to be milked.

It is true that when cows produce milk, it is healthy for them to be milked and relieved of the pressure that builds up in their udders under the weight of the milk. However, what is not good for cows in these factory farm operations is the extent of their milk production and their milking. These cows are constantly being impregnated, giving birth and then immediately having their calves taken from them, and milked extensively. This ensures that not a moment of precious time escapes when the cow could have been giving profitable milk.

A dairy cow which is allowed to live its natural life, grazing in the outdoors and lactating in natural cycles, should live for 20 years or more. Cows using modern farming methods, however, are often slaughtered once their milk production slows, in as few as three lactation cycles. Modern milking practices, then, scarcely bode well for these animals.

Myth 3: Milk is a good source of calcium and protein.

Our bodies need calcium. Calcium is extremely important in our bone development; without proper levels of calcium intake, we are at risk for the ever more widespread bone disease known as osteoporosis, which makes bones brittle and fragile. America is well aware of these risks, and in fact recommended daily intakes of calcium in the U.S. are some of the highest in the world, at 1,000-1,400 milligrams each day. Yet Americans still are at high risk for osteoporosis. Why?

Calcium is a mineral that neutralizes acid. Our blood has a certain pH level that it must maintain, which is a fairly neutral level that slightly leans to the alkaline end of the spectrum. But certain foods are known to raise the acidity level of the blood--namely, animal proteins and highly processed "junk" foods. Our bodies must produce increased amounts of acid to digest such foods, and once the digestion has occurred, the acid enters our blood supply and makes it more acidic. Thus, our bodies actually leach calcium from our bones to neutralize the acid content in our blood.

So, yes. Milk is a substantive source of both calcium and protein. But when we rely on the protein in milk and other animal products, we actually lose much of the calcium that we take in.

Consider that many peoples have survived for hundreds of years without dairy products, such as the Chinese, and have had little instance of osteoporosis. People in these places take in far less calcium than most Americans do today, but they get their calcium and their protein vastly from plant-based sources. Consider also that vegetarian women, at age 65, average 18% bone loss, while their omnivorous peers average 35% bone loss.

Myth 4: Beef production is cruel, but dairy production is not.

I have already addressed this to some extent above, but there is room for elaboration.

Dairy cows, as I mentioned, are not allowed to graze in conventional farming operations; they are confined, fed meal that is far from their natural diet, and often never see the outdoors. They live but a fraction of their natural lives before being sent to slaughter, once their productivity has declined due to the exhausting methods of milk production that factory farmers implement. During the time when they are alive, disease is rampant among milk-producing cattle because they are confined in such closed, tight living areas where disease can spread easily from one animal to the next, and are fed such enormous levels of antibiotics that antibiotic-resistant strains of the bacteria are constantly evolving--thus increasing the need for more antibiotics, thus perpetuating the cycle.

When a dairy cow gives birth, the calf is immediately separated from the mother, often never even allowed to nurse. Female calves are raised to produce milk, but male calves are considered useless by-products of the dairy industry. They are often sold cheaply into veal production--one of the most horrifying aspects of animal agriculture. Veal calves are confined to crates where they have no room to move, and they are often chained by the neck to further restrict their movement. This is what gives veal meat its characteristic tenderness. The calves are fed an iron-deficient diet so that their meat is pale and desirable; often they become so weak that their legs break beneath their own weight. Then, after 16 weeks of this kind of life, the calves are slaughtered.

"Certified organic" milk, to an extent, helps to alleviate some of these problems, but by no means solves them. Cows whose milk is certified organic must not be fed antibiotics or injected with hormones, and they must be given access to pasture for a part of the year. For large-scale organic dairy producers, this means giving the animals a minimal amount of time in the pasture, and using more conventional methods as much as they can to keep costs low. And even in the organic industry, cows may be sent to slaughter prematurely when they slow down their production. Even in the organic industry, male calves may be sold into the horrible veal industry. For most corporate producers, the animal is still a commodity rather than a living being, and they will do as little as they can to get the lucrative "organic" label slapped onto their products. So unless you personally know your dairy farmer and his commitment to earth- and animal-friendly, sustainable production, unless you know he is concerned for the well-being of his animals, then you cannot be certain that the industry you are supporting is not guilty of the mistreatment of millions of animals each year.

For more reading, follow these links:

Dangers of Milk.
rBGH on Wikipedia.
The Welfare of Cattle in Dairy Production.
Veal Production.
Issues: Organic.

Night Rending

2006-12-21T00:11:00.001-05:00

She believes he is asleep
at her side – but he silent lies
to watch a moonbeam paint her hair
and to eavesdrop as she weeps.

A single crystalline tear
he spies, perched atop her raised cheek
like a secret cast in quicksilver.
Then a sniffle, never meant to reach his ear.

Shadows ooze along the wall
like molasses. He smells the brine
of meekness under brazen sun –
deciphers her heart’s encrypted call.

Two souls the thick night somehow cleaves,
one with back turned to hoard its sundry
wounds, one helpless to breach the divide.
Death claps at the window in dry oak leaves.

A tortured mind begs wordlessly for grace
to right what it never knew was wrong
with love. He turns to sleep, dreams stained
by a moonlit tear upon a stranger’s face.

Victory for the forest?

2006-12-08T14:37:00.000-05:00

The environmental group ForestEthics (forestethics.org) has been engaged in active protest against the clearcutting of Canada's boreal forest (one of the last remaining forest wildernesses on the planet, it turns out)--and met with recent success against Victoria's Secret, according to yesterday's article. The article explains that after weeks of peaceful but very prominent protesting against Victoria's Secret--which sends out about 365 million catalogs each year, printed on 90% virgin paper coming from the ancient and endangered boreal forest of Canada--the company has agreed to stop buying from the pulp mill that logs in this Canadian wilderness.

Did you get that? They have agreed to stop buying. To stop supporting the destruction of this invaluable terrestrial biome which is the unique habitat of many plant and animal species. A major multinational corporation, swayed by the insistent and unrelenting voices of a meager handful who care enough about preserving the Earth's remaining natural environments. I don't know about you, but for me, this is an encouraging thought.

Granted, I have no idea why it is even legal to clearcut such an old-growth forest inn the first place. It is possible to produce paper in a more environmentally sound manner--by logging forests that are young and managed, forests that are re-planted and allowed to grow until they are cut again for more timber. Better yet, recycled paper--isn't there enough paper thrown away each year in America to meet the catalog-printing needs of a company like Victoria's Secret? Why attack one of the last surviving wilderness areas on the planet, just so that we can enjoy the "glossy paper"?

Nevertheless, it happens, and not just because of one company. Will other clients snap up the boreal timber that Victoria's Secret will forgo? Probably so. But I believe that we can speak loud enough to make a difference. We just have to decide what is more important to us:

This?

Or this?

Morning light

2006-11-26T19:15:00.000-05:00

My bedroom window faces northeast, and if you look out you see a bald spot in the horizon (owing to the parking lot to our apartment complex and, further along that vector which starts at my window, the campus of the University of Georgia) which cradles the morning's first sun. When that sun makes its daily appearance there, pushing its way even through my mini-blinds, even through my heavy eyelids, I am hopelessly aroused from my night's sleep, regardless of whether I tumbled into bed eight hours earlier or three.

I don't entirely mind. I see beauty during that first hour of sunlight that many people only read about or view in photographs. I can hear daylight take its first breaths; I can observe the sky blooming with light that only becomes harsher, hotter, heavier as the day ages.

A part of me loves my mornings, though there is another sluggish side that revels in letting my eyelids droop shut for another hour that, in that snoozing reverie, feels like only a few blissful minutes. I am reading a book (an early Christmas gift from my dear and doting Bob) called In the Morning: Reflections From First Light by Philip Lee Williams, and it contains some of the most beautiful language about morning that I have ever had the occasion to read. I recommend it to anyone who wants a deep and many-faceted account of morning--what it means aesthetically, biologically, spiritually... simply. It is novel and lovely, prose wrought with the poetic. It has caused me to think much on morning's place in my ever-evolving life.

How I have always longed to be a morning person... But when you are in high school and college, your social world is constructed around night--theatre and midnight movies, 24-hour coffee shops and bars that close up shop at 2 AM, nightclubs and formal dances, rock concerts and winds symphonies. You stay up later and later out of necessity, until you find yourself on your nights off, sitting at the computer in the middle of the night, idly surfing the web and waiting until "bedtime." That is how, as young people, we are obliged to fashion our lives.

But for me, those who keep going until those early-late hours are missing something quite enchanting contained only in the quietude of morning. Early mornings were the preferred time for Jesus to commune with God the Father, when he "withdrew to lonely places and prayed." It is difficult to find lonely places in the bare and brazen light of day, and it is difficult to pray in the night watches when our biology tells us to be on guard against the dangers of the darkness. But in the morning there is peace and there is solitude. It is a time of day I often missed until I moved here to my beloved east-facing window, which never fails to alert me at the first shard of sunlight that a new day has arisen. I hope only that as I get older and more seasoned, I become more able to leave aside the folly of night life and rise to greet the new day with a growing eagerness.

Giving...

2006-11-23T08:27:00.000-05:00

Today is Thanksgiving day here in America, so, well, what do we have to be thankful for? If I am being real and honest, I have quite a lot. Quite a lot, when I look at the poor, the huddled and weary masses that inhabit the streets of this city. Those who bundle up in a long flannel shirt on a night when I have dressed myself in my heavy woollen pea coat that keeps me stylishly warm from my neck to the tops of my knees. Those who gather in a lump at the front door of the winter shelter, carrying around their chronic sickness and their drug addictions and their earthly possessions which hang loosely from their slumped shoulders, waiting humbly for a plate of warm food and a comfortable place to lay down to sleep before the day repeats itself again in the morning.

I almost spent yesterday afternoon at home, curled up on the futon with my favorite blanket and a cup of hot tea. But Bob and I knew that Food Not Bombs gathered at 4:00 every Wednesday to cook food to hand out, and since we are normally busy on Wednesday evenings, we felt this tug at our hearts to be there this week for the very first time. The tug was so forceful that, within moments, we found ourselves pulling up to the door of Common Ground Athens, where we were greeted by the aroma of stewing tomatoes in a heavy-duty stockpot, and herbed potatoes roasting in the oven.

I was nervous that Bob and I would be entirely out of place at Common Ground (an ironic fear, I know)--we don't look like hippies or yuppies; we dress very conventionally and drive a 2004 Honda and go to church. What was I afraid of, exactly? That we would be sneered and scoffed at, looked down upon, because we showed up one afternoon to help create a nutritious, vegan meal out of donated food so that the hungry could be fed? People--well some people (these people at least)--are much more open minded than that.

So for two and a half hours we chopped fruits and vegetables, much of it bruised and soft and ready to be consumed or composted, the refuse of local groceries. All the while we chatted with the regular Food Not Bombs volunteers--there were Ed and Sarah, community social workers who are truly compassionate toward those on the cusp of capitalistic society; there was Joy, an ESOL teacher out in Oconee who enjoys just being able to do what she can when she can for a cause that is dear to her; there were Kelly and Dave and Alex, the ones whose wardrobe is your mother's worst nightmare, but who are there at Common Ground on their own time fighting to right the social wrongs of the community. Among such people, how could Bob and I not belong?

We stayed until the end. Once the vast quantities of food were cooked, we helped transport it all down to the shelter at the corner of Hancock and Hull, where a group of about ten people were already gathered, awaiting their hot meal. Everyone served themselves buffet-style and ate all that they wanted, standing around in the dark and cold on the eve of Thanksgiving. Tomorrow, when Bob and I went to share an afternoon and feasting with our family, would these people have a warm meal? Or was this their Thanksgiving feast, this food that may otherwise be rotting in a dumpster or atop a compost heap at that very moment? Struck with that realization, it would take a very callous person to not be thankful--thankful for the chance to be here, shivering and tired, serving a feast of unwanted produce to the unwanted of this city, the ones whose poor and marginal existence many of us choose to be blind to, day by day. But are these not the people that Jesus came for? And if my Lord came and had compassion upon them and went among them and ministered to them, then am I not called to do the same?

Food Not Bombs volunteers get arrested, even beaten in other cities for their activism. I do not know a whole lot about the movement, and I don't know what their other activities may be aside from merely serving food to the hungry. But I felt my body tense up when a police car pulled up and parked perhaps twenty feet from our makeshift banquet table. Well, I thought, better men than me have engaged in civil disobedience, and impacted perhaps more people than if they had not stepped outside the realm of the law. And my mind turned to Henry David Thoreau, Martin Luther King, Jr... But when the police officer got out of the car, he walked around to the back door and helped a brittle old lady out into the cold night. He was dropping her off at the winter shelter. He saw her inside, and then with a nod he got back into the car and pulled away.

We got home at about 9:30 at night, and set about making a vegan pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. And I was thankful to be in a warm apartment with our oven all fired up and my heavy coat hung back in the closet, making a pie with my husband. In fact, I have perhaps never been more thankful in my whole life.

Learning to be silent

2006-11-13T10:04:00.000-05:00

Be still, and know that I am God...

In repentance and rest is your salvation; in quietness and trust is your strength...

I hear my heart screaming, even as my voice falls silent. It doesn't take much to upset my world. I pride myself on my sense of responsibility, my dedication to the task at hand, my perseverance through all my worldly busyness--dedication and perseverance to the point, perhaps, of forgetting to rest and trust in the Father? Do I strive to do well because it is the godly thing to do, or does it come from a sense of urgency because if I do not provide for myself I may not be provided for at all?

One of my favorite stories is the story of the manna the Lord provided to the Israelites. Lost and weary in the desert, unable to rely on themselves, the people of Israel awoke every morning for nearly forty years and found this supernatural substance on the ground. It sustained them through their wanderings, but they could never store up more than they needed in a day, for if they tried to secure a stockpile of this mysterious what is it?, it would be no good the next morning. The only exception was on the day before the Sabbath, when they were to gather enough to carry them through the Sabbath--they were instructed not to work on the Sabbath, of course.

The verses in Matthew which document the prayer of Jesus which we commonly call The Lord's Prayer refer to this time in the history of God's people. The verse Give us this day our daily bread... may be better translated as Give us our bread day by day... Rely on God to give you your bread, your sustenance, every day. Don't try to store it up for yourself; your effort will be in vain. As much as you strive for comfort and security, you are surely at the mercy of God. And that is nothing to be afraid of, for God offers abundant mercy...

There is a line between being faithful with what you have been given, and striving to do for yourself what only God can do for you. I spend my life dancing along that line, trying so hard to keep myself in equilibrium so that I will not totter to one side or the other. For I never want to be someone who did not try hard enough in this life...

But it's not about me, is it? It's not about how hard I try. The truth is, whether I try a lot or a little, I still ultimately have to rely on the one who gives me my sustenance day by day. So while I do believe that God wants us to be faithful, diligent stewards in this life, I know in my heart that he does not want us to constantly be concerned about toeing that line. Our concern should be trusting him--that is the heart of faith. If I truly come to a place in my life where I can stand and close my eyes and cross my arms over my chest and let myself fall, knowing and believing that his arms are wide enough to catch me wherever I go--if I can get to that point of faith, then I know that everything else in my life will align to the purpose that I strive so hard to attain.

Let me not strive to let go. Instead, let me pray, day by day, for the grace to be a child of reckless abandon.

Amazing sky...

2006-11-07T23:37:00.000-05:00

The sky really takes my breath away... especially on days like this.

portrait (in flavors)

2006-11-01T10:09:00.000-05:00

eyes like marbles of
boldest chocolate--71 percent cacao
(with fine espresso flecks)
garnish a face of
smooth simplicity--
framed by dark-roast tresses,
mild and subtly nutty

and a steeping bouquet garni--a mouth of
fruit and spice (orange-ginger essence)
conceals a cayenne tongue

and a mind like jonagold,
sharp and sweet, permeates aroma
that strikes like a serpent
and adorns concealed complexity

a mélange of marvels,
forbidden flavors enticing
to savor sweet fire

and forever sedate sense and reason.

Art and redemption

2006-10-25T08:19:00.000-05:00

As a writer and a lover of nature and of all things beautiful, I have spend a decent amount of time thinking about the place of the arts in the Church, and the role of artists from a spiritual perspective.

If God is the Creator, then His creation is the greatest art ever made. But if He made us in His image--if we are the pinnacle of His creation--then He made us with the ability to create things ourselves. I feel like it's our place to "add to" creation. Art, I believe, is one of our highest forms of worship. The first role God played in our documented knowledge of His was the role of a Creator. If we create things and try to make them beautiful and meaningful, then we're imitating God in the very first capacity in which He revealed Himself to us.

Last year I was involved in leading a ministry called Artspeak, which sought to unite artists (writers, painters, dancers, actors, musicians...) on campus and encourage them, in their artistic expressions, to seek and express the very heart of God. If all of our talents and abilities are breathed into us by our Creator, then they are inherently good and intended for good purposes. The arts are in need of redemption, and I have seen God moving in those artists who have given themselves to Him, all around the world. All art is a chance to explore the natural world, human nature, and even God. Exploring God and His creation is something that, I believe, is very lovely to Him.

There have been great human minds that have contributed so much to the marvels of this world. While I tend to look at mountains and oceans and leaves and feathers and think that there is no created thing more beautiful than creation, there is still much beauty in the creations of mankind. Some of the most amazing art is in the form of architecture. The pyramids of ancient Egypt, old castle ruins scattered across northern and western Europe, the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, Aztec ruins, the Great Wall of China. The list goes on forever. It is perfectly acceptable, even wonderful, to build and invent for our convenience and our progression and our expression--as long as we are good stewards of God's original creation. Do we always remain good stewards? Certainly not. But that is a tangent to be exploerd in other posts.

I do not try to bring undeserved glory to human art. I try, like the apostle Paul, to "count all things as loss for the sake of knowing Christ..." But our God is a creative God. And He has made us as reflections of Him. So every human characteristic that is not inherently bad can be redeemed to reflect an aspect of God's personality--to express in fresh ways His heart of love and beauty.

Why have I felt compelled to explore this topic today? Two and a half years ago I went on a mission trip to Paris, France, where we worked directly with an arts ministry. Imagine a group of 70-100 artists, all coming together in an effort to bring glory to God through their creations... It was beautifully moving. Here is a website that tells about the event we worked with.

This morning, I had an unexpected contact with one of the artists I met while on the trip. His art is incredibly beautiful and expressive of the Lord. His blog features some of his work, and it's truly worth checking out. After two and a half years, a comment from him pops up in my e-mail box and sets my mind in motion again. Such incidents do not happen without meaning; I have always known that my purpose on this earth was connected with art, and each time I forget that, a reminder is sent my way.

Amazing, yes?

My progression

2006-10-23T23:41:00.000-05:00

Early on this semester, I made a promise to myself. Live for the things that truly matter. Well, here I am to document my success and failure over the past eight weeks--my progression from an anxious perfectionist to... whatever you may call me now, I suppose.

I told myself I would walk to Earth Fare once a week. That I've held to very well. The walk from Bloomfield to Five Points has become a truly special time--a time for me, along with my husband, to enjoy the outdoors, the exercise, and the unique character of an Athens that I have not even opened my eyes to until now. It has been a time for us to talk about issues that are important to us--about veganism, about the environment--the things that naturally come to our mind on a grocery shopping excursion.

I promised I would spend more time with Abby and Jessica, not doing accounting but really cultivating friendship. We have done things together as the time has been afforded to us, and now I truly do feel like I can call them close friends, not merely friends by default.

I vowed to keep some kind of creative outlet in place in my life, so that the life of accounting and business would not swallow me up as it so often threatens to do. Well, I've been cooking and blogging, and blogging about cooking. And writing--always writing. And only recently, I have developed an interest in beading and jewelry-making. In fact, Abby and Jessica and I are planning a little trip to a beading store over in Watkinsville later this week. These sorts of things help me stay balanced and maintain a positive outlook, even when the thoughts of being an accountant gather in and suffocate my mind.

I intended to exercise more frequently. Well... I have not exercised so much per se, but I have come to enjoy Pilates as a calming and solitary pastime. Bob and I have picked up tennis again. And, with the environmental enlightenment that we have experienced in recent months, I have been walking as much as I can stand. Walking has always been truly enjoyable, but even more so of late, as I have used those times to reflect on God and nature and beauty... and breathing.

Where, exactly, is God in all of this? I'm afraid He is not in the place He should be. I still struggle to put Him at the top, even when I feel like I am living a life that more closely reflects godliness. And that is evident in my persistent impatience, my frequent snaps of anger and depression. But I have earnestly tried to keep God and His word foremost in my heart; I have sought to draw near to Him, knowing that He, in return, would draw near to me. There have been challenges to my faith, to my trust, to my love, and I have met some and cowered at some. But I have definitely felt a turning in my heart, and it has been toward better things.

And still better things to come...

Who woulda thought?

2006-10-22T19:28:00.001-05:00

You Belong in Fall

Intelligent, introspective, and quite expressive at times...
You appreciate the changes in color, climate, and mood that fall brings
Whether you're carving wacky pumpkins or taking long drives, autumn is a favorite time of year for you

What Season Are You?

Images of autumn

2006-10-21T08:16:00.000-05:00

I Love Your Smile

2006-10-06T06:45:00.000-05:00

This was the text on the sticker that came to me yesterday, and I do not doubt that it was from the Lord.

Studying with a friend on a bench outside of the business school, suddenly we heard a man's voice trying to get our attention. I looked up, and there was a smiling older man standing over me, trying to give me something. I took it--it was a sticker, a bright yellow one that looked like a road sign, but the words were "Are we having fun yet?" Cute. He gave one to Jessica too. I smiled politely at him. He then proceeded to confront me about his true purpose. Could I donate a dollar to the Athens area food bank? Well, of course I could, if I had a dollar... I just gave him all my spare change. He thanked us warmly, and just before he turned to walk on, he gave each of us another sticker--"Because you're so nice."

This sticker was white with black text, and it simply said in block-style letters, "I Love Your Smile." The "o" in "love" was replaced by a red heart. I kind of chuckled about the whole, slightly strange incident as I slid the latter sticker into the clear plastic covering on the front of my accounting notebook.

My professor flew through class. I wrote feverishly for an hour and fifteen minutes, trying to document every single word that escaped his mouth, because I knew it would manifest itself on the test next week. But the faster I scribbled down his words, the faster he spit them out, and Jessica and I were frantically looking at each other's notebooks--and the notebooks of the students around us--trying to catch what we missed. Then, at the end of class, my professor moved the test back one week. What? I'd been planning all semester for the test to be the twelfth, and now, a week away, it is suddenly on the nineteenth? I was very inconvenienced. I was already irritated by the breakneck pace of class, and now to move a test that I had been planning around for two months now... As I got up to leave, I clapped my notebook closed in a flurry of frustration--and there, drawing my attention like an aptly sent, unexpected greeting card, was the sticker.

"I Love Your Smile."

Something in my spirit melted a little, and I suddenly felt the peace of God around me for an instant, just as strong as if I had been standing amid a cloud of angels. Then I just smiled--I smiled in my spirit, that is, a much deeper warmth than an outward smile that doesn't truly reflect the heart.

My father in heaven loves it when I smile, when I experience the unshakable joy that He intends for me. And amid all my recent frustration and busyness and failing to stay centered on the most important things in my life, He sent me an October valentine to let me know. If I can't smile because of God's unfailing love for me, even despite difficult and exhausting circumstances, then something in my heart is out of place. Nothing in life is so hopeless that it can cast a shadow over the everlasting light of God.

Let me remember, then, to live in a way that speaks of this light. Let me remember to live every day with that purpose at the forefront of my mind. Let me remember to smile--and bring delight to my father's heart.

A new meditation

2006-09-25T09:32:00.000-05:00

I have been really frustrated lately. Frustrated, because I get so caught up in everything I'm doing and forget to stop and take time to enjoy the little things that really matter. Like being with my husband. Like being with God. Like clouds that look raised and textured, like blots of white oil paintspread across a canvas that is as blue as nothing but the sky can be.

Yesterday at church we sang a song, written by one of the members of the congregation. The words were something I needed to be reminded of, and still need to be reminded of every day. Here they are--my prayer each day (I hope).

Today I Choose

There is a life I am meant to live
There is a hope I am meant to give
There is a freedom I am meant to choose

There is a joy I am meant to share
There is a load I am meant to bear
There is a freedom I am meant to choose

And even though I've walked this path many times before
Today I'll say it all again and choose this life once more

Today I choose to walk with You
I choose to show the love that I receive from You
And not just say some empty words
Today I make the choice to live like You

There is a person I am called to love
There is a family I am now part of
There is a freedom I am meant to choose

There is a power in the words I say
There's life or death from my mouth today
There is a freedom I am meant to choose

There is a conflict that I am called to see
There is an armor that I can put on me
There is forgiveness that I can choose to give
And in repentance I am free to live

And even though I've walked this path many times before
Today I'll say it all again and choose this life once more

Today I choose to walk with You
I choose to show the love that I receive from You
And not just say some empty words
Today I make the choice to live like you

To live like God... I wish I knew what that really meant. But despite my failings, I know that He is pleased with my efforts, and He helps me grow more and more like Him every day. And that gives me hope--to know that tomorrow I will live more like Him than I do right now. SO now, let me store up my treasures in heaven. Where my heart belongs...

Something wonderful

2006-09-19T20:41:00.000-05:00

Over the past week or so, something marvelous has been happening here in Athens, Georgia. I've bee pulling out long-sleeved shirts, closed-toed shoes. We've turned off our air conditioner and opened the windows. Pumpkins and locally-grown apples have begun showing up in the grocery stores. And I feel more alive, in this new air.

My basil plant seems to share my feelings about the season. It lives on a small table beside a window in our bedroom, and all summer I was concerned about it because it was surviving, but did not seem to really be thriving. But when the window opened up, the basil took in a deep breath and stretched out through all its limbs (maybe it's been watching me do Pilates!) and started really putting on leaves. All it needed was fresh, crisp, almost electric air. That's what I've needed too...

Now I will be able to run in the mornings again without the pressure of 16 tons of humidity pressing into my chest. Now I will be able to walk to class and to the grocery store without my hairline dripping sweat when I arrive. Now we can go hiking! And I can make pumpkins! And I can take pictures of all the colors I see out my window!

I love the fall leaves. I love the goldenrod. I love the way my creativity starts to pour out when it is this lovely in the world. Journaling outside, taking long walks in the evenings--these are the things I love to do in the "-ember" months. Just wanted to share... I will share much, much more as the weeks unfold.

An Inconvenient Truth

2006-09-10T16:26:00.000-05:00

This weekend the movie An Inconvenient Truth was playing here on campus. I never did manage to see the movie when it was first released over the summer, but last night Bob and I went. This movie was more terrifying than I thought it would be, and sadly, I had no trouble believing every figure, every statistic, every prediction. Since seeing it, I have been wondering what I can do--what more I can do.

I have been truly contemplating the state of the world and its people, and wondering if there is yet any way to hope that nations will pull together in an unprecedented effort to change the statistics--particularly this nation. It makes me angry to see the opposition to the environmental movement that seems to be so prevalent. Growing the economy? We will grow our economy up until the day we kiss our planet goodbye. There has to be a better way. Jesus is coming back soon, so none of this even matters? We Christians cannot use that as a cop out. When I look at the church in America, I have to ask myself if we're ready for the second coming. And we're defacing the world climate so quickly that in my lifetime, terrible things could happen. No, I'm not willing to be complacent and put millions of lives around the globe on the line, for the mere thought that Jesus will return before anything terrible--and preventable--occurs.

So what do I do? Well, as a Christian, I pray. I pray without ceasing. I pray in faith that my God will rouse the empathy and the responsibility in His people's hearts that they may become warriors against the destruction of our climate, of our earthly home. As a citizen, I reduce my greenhouse gas emissions. I walk. I use less power. I recycle. I eat a vegan diet... I put thought into my choices every day. Do I really need that tomato in November? Can I live with it just a couple of degrees warmer in my apartment? And as a writer, I cry out daily. I cry out in the most eloquent way I know how. And I cry with a sense of urgency. And I hope that people will read, reflect, respond.

How does one person make a difference? It feels so hopeless sometimes--but if I gave up, that would only make the problem worse. So I will do what I can, and day by day I will learn what I can do. And as the future unfolds, day by day, I will see what kind of difference all the "one persons" out there can make.

www.climatecrisis.net

Disclaimer

2006-08-24T14:47:00.000-05:00

Please, read my previous post. I strongly believe in adopting more eco-friendly attitudes and habits. It's urgent, really. But in regard to what I have written, I feel compelled to point out a few things concerning God and nature.

First: Each of us exists within the rhythm of the planet.

This is not an atheistic or pantheistic statement. I do not suggest that everything is not ultimately governed by God. God created the heavens and the earth--we know this all the way from Genesis 1:1--but He also designed them to work in a very specific way. Thousands of years have told us that the earth tilts in predictable patterns to bring us further from and closer to the sun, creating the seasons. They have also told us that the tide changes every six hours, that hurricanes come in September, that rainfall is abundant in some climates and haphazard in others. Obviously, the planet has fallen into a rhythm. And while God could rock the entire world in a fraction of a second, history dictates that He has more or less allowed the world to persist according to His original design.

Second: To my brothers and sisters in Christ out there, environmentalism is not something to be wary of. In fact, I believe that the commission to cultivate the land and to oversee all the creatures of the earth, which God gave to Adam in the beginning, still stands for us today. God created this world, and He created it for us to enjoy. The world is fallen, but we still live here, right? I cannot believe that God's desire would be for us to simply drop the ball when it comes to being stewards of His creation.

Puffins are pretty funny looking birds, right? Did you know that puffins are nearly extinct? They have been protected over the past several decades, and at last count 52 puffin pairs were inhabiting their natural home near Eastern Egg Rock, off the coast of Maine. Puffins were once a thought in the mind of God, and He put them in this world, with their funny faces and comically enormous bills, for a reason. I don't think He wants puffins to die from the face of the planet due to our lack of sight or concern. Everything God put here was a creative thought that He made a living, breathing, beautiful organism--and every natural thing on this earth, in some way, gives us a glimpse into the mind of God Himself. I know that conservation is not a traditional Christian value, especially in today's world. After all, one day Jesus will come back and this earth will perish. But none of us know the hour of His return, so let's not bank on it being before we've wrecked His creation completely. We're still responsible for caring for what He's given us.

Third: Someone told me once to avoid "falling more in love with the works of the Lord than with the Lord of the works." This is a genuine struggle for me, because I see awe and beauty in all of nature, and I enjoy this relationship. But this beauty and this awe are of the Lord Himself, and none other. So for those of you who know me, this is not only to remind you but to remind myself as well, that in the end, all of my heart is for God. I relate to God very intimately through nature, but nonetheless nature is not the end--God is the end. I am thankful for His creation and I do want to protect it and be always aware of it, but that must come after my relationship with God Himself. After all, "the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever." (Isaiah 40:8)

A Malignant Attitude

2006-08-24T13:31:00.000-05:00

Each of us exists within the rhythm of the planet.

Whether we like it or not, I believe that all actions must be governed by the design of nature... or our earth will die. The thought of our world becoming virtually uninhabitable can seem a very distant and surreal concept, but it rings with a greater imminence than we realize. I see the quality of life on earth becoming poorer and poorer, notwithstanding what conventional statistics suggest. Perhaps I can look forward to a lifespan of 90, 100, even more. But do I want to exist on a planet where polar ice caps have melted away, remaining forestlands have been leveled, and the balance of the seasons has been dramatically realigned toward unbearable heat? Can I really enjoy a place where I know that animals are being tremendously abused and once fertile soil is being irrevocably stripped of all its nutrients to put a mass-produced and genetically modified dinner on my plate?

It is time for all of us to step into a role of greater awareness and sensibility toward the plight of the dramatically underrepresented natural environment. I applaud my friends who abstain from using their ovens in the summertime, instead focusing their meals around chilled salads and soups and exotic, sweet summer fruits and vegetables. I respect those who can live without tomatoes in the winter--for how many pounds of carbon dioxide were released into the atmosphere to transport that tomato from the tropics all the way to your grocery bag? I support the health food store that encourages the use of canvas shopping bags, and facilitates the recycling of those horribly inefficient plastic grocery bags that many supermarkets plow through at nauseating speeds. I thank the driver who makes a concerted effort to stay within the speed limit, knowing that the fuel economy of his car drops of drastically at speeds above 55 mph.

Over thousands of years, human beings have attempted to create their own rhythms by which to live. The problem is, there is no rhythm to how we choose to live our lives today. We live however we wish, whenever we wish. We pay no attention to the dictates of the seasons, nor to the beautifully orchestrated patterns of native plants and animals within each particular region. And so we strain the earth by consuming more energy, we strain the soil and the water supply and the local ecosystem by introducing nonnative species. And we do it without hesitation, without consideration as to the repercussions of our supposed benign actions.

I walked outside this morning into a world immersed in gray. From somewhere far beyond the low quilt of clouds overlying my world, I heard a muffled rumbling of the heavens. And I was reminded that mankind does not have the final dictate as to the condition of the world. There is always something far greater than us at work, and our meddling with the design of nature can only cause ruin. Too often we follow our own designs and desires, and close our eyes and ears to the blatant signals that beg attention toward the mess we are making. But we cannot live this way with impunity forever. Instead we must hear the rolling thunder and respond, all the while respecting that we are not sovereign in this world.

One of the simplest and greatest books ever written, The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, commissions us succintly and eloquently to look further ahead with the following poignant declaration:

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
Nothing is going to get better. It's not."

As I walked to class this morning, I was glad to have brought my umbrella.

A rough but good beginning

2006-08-15T14:25:00.000-05:00

School starts tomorrow, which I am not excited about. It's not the worst thing, but certainly not as good as doing all the things I love to do--writing, reading, Pilates, cooking, even working in a real accounting job. But it will be okay, as soon as I get back into the proper mindset.

When school starts, Wesley starts too. And that's a nicer thing to look forward too. We went on the leadership retreat this weekend, and I really didn't want to go at first. But as I got back into worshiping God and praying with the undivided heart that I should have had all summer, I realized that I'm just letting my personal fears get in the way of what I love--communion with God. Bob is working at Wesley this year, and I really am excited about the year. I grow so much when my heart is in it, and I have so much joy when I don't let it slip away from me.

I realized that much of the depression that I went through this past year was rooted in my being afraid to be different. But the fact is, I am different from a lot of college kids--I'm married, I study a lot, I am a vegan, I don't really wear make-up or fix my hair or anything that even my best friends spend their time on. I am comfortable with who I am, but I often feel estranged, no matter what group I am with at the moment. I feel understood very little--perhaps only by my husband sometimes. And since I am a person who values very close connections with people, it is scary to feel alone.

But I understand now that I let myself assume the worst about other people's thoughts of me. While I know that my close friends love who I am and will never judge me or condemn me, I let thoughts sneak in that tell me my friends aren't interested in me anymore, or that they think I'm making bad choices. And in the Christian community I am a part of at Wesley, though many of my values are different, I have to remind myself that they don't think I'm not good enough to be a part of them. These are the very same things that have haunted me my entire life, and I have to get over them.

I have to get over my need for validation from others. It's nice to receive encouragement, but I should not need it to feel worthy of love and friendship and acceptance. And I should not have to feel constant pressure to please my friends, please my parents (I don't even know why this is an issue anymore), please anyone. And I know that I shouldn't be under this pressure. Why do I let myself sway to it, like a feeble pine tree in a gale storm? Am I not a stronger person than that? Was I not created for more?

I was created for more than that. I was created to live in complete freedom, to have joy, to love and be loved, to be always enfolded in the arms of God. And these are the things I long for and pray for. I have a long way to go, but I am optimistic. Because every day I draw my strength from the God who knows my inmost being... the same God who knows every grain of sand on the beach... the same God who died in my stead and was powerful enough to defeat death forever. And I know He is on my side. And I know He longs to be closer to me.

There is a song that changed my life when I was in high school. It is by Michael W. Smith.

This is your time, this is your dance
Live every moment, leave nothing to chance
Swim in the sea, drink of the deep
Embrace the mystery of all you can be
This is your time

What can I be? I can be more than a broken, sad, inward-focused woman who cannot get past her own shortcomings. I can be more than a fearful girl who feels condemned by all the world. And I denounce these things in my life. And I refuse to live under their oppressive power. And I draw near to God, and I know that He will draw near to me.

I continue on... I fight the good fight. And I know that I am never alone.

Descent At Dawn

2006-08-09T02:12:00.000-05:00

When the mind is pried open,
nothing is real or false
and all else smears into sepia.

The long, heavy sighs of the ignorant
in flux with the waves
behind the shutters--
deeply rooted in time-circles
and phantasmal places made up
(or forgotten?)
and colors
that stream like chalk in the storm
that was sure to come.

And then...
Rays upon the eyes
and cold feet on the hard old floor,
a knick and a shave...
and rubber oatmeal with stale, steamy coffee.

Genius
effaced like the star that blazed
ten million miles through heaven
and flickered and sank silent beneath the margin of sky.

Goodbye, K-man

2006-08-08T20:47:00.000-05:00

Our good friend, Kevin, is gone. Not forever--thank goodness. For a year. In Mexico. Teaching English with the Marist Volunteers. He's a wholehearted Catholic. I think that's awesome.

Bob and I visited him on Friday night, the day before he flew out. Kevin is one of those rare friends with whom all the time you spend is quality; he never lets a moment filter through the sieve of idleness. That is perhaps one of the qualities I, and Bob, admire in him the most. That, and his tolerance and open-minded spirit towards new thoughts. I know with all my heart that he loves Jesus, but he is so unlike other conservative Christians that it is refreshing just to be around him. When we told him that we had gone vegan, I was at first taken aback that he didn't react with surprise. But then he commented later: "I just assumed you were vegan in the first place."

That night we watched with him Diarios de motocicleta, or The Motorcycle Diaries. What a good film. I knew nothing about Che Guevara before I watched it, but it made me really interested in him. Kevin, he has such a strong heart for Latin America--like Bob and I do for France. After the movie we took a long walk, and it was so fun to just hear him talk about the political situation in Cuba, as if he was an authority. I just drunk it all in. The night was warm and comfortable and dark, and it is always refreshing to share such times with friends. We got lost among the neighborhood streets, and followed our instincts eventually back to the right road home.

We stayed up talking so late. Bob had to leave early in the morning, but we ignored that fact as long as possible, just talking about all the world with our friend. He wants to start a commune in North Carolina, where his girlfriend has several acres of good fertile land. How much would Bob and I love that kind of life! We said we would join them, if they ever were able to get it in motion. As it is, I am stuck in a stuffy city with no room for a garden. Making my life and raising my kids in a rural place with good earth and friends would be an utopia for me... But Kevin is idealistic. Perhaps the commune will pan out one day.

Once we got back to his basement we talked about God and Cuba and mangos and everything in between. Finally it got really late, and I said we should probably go. I looked up at Kevin, who was sitting across the room, and said "We're going to miss you, Kevin." My voice broke. Then an amazing thing happened: Kevin came over to the couch where Bob and I were sitting, and the three of us just prayed and sat in silence and hugged and cried (well, maybe the crying was mostly me) and shared our hearts for several long, peaceful moments. We prayed blessings over one another. Praise God for friends like that.

Our hearts were so full when we left Kevin's house that night. It's so hard to say goodbye to someone with whom you have shared so many special times in your life. As we drove home, I thanked God that wherever Bob and I go in our lives, we will go side by side.

Being home

2006-08-07T13:08:00.000-05:00

I got back to Athens on Saturday. The last few days have been weird, frustrating, exhausting, and fun all at the same time. For one thing, I have still not finished unpacking--there was a lot of work to do at home, and I've been trying to clean up what's here before dumping a whole lot of new stuff into the mix. For another, Bob is working all week, in addition to this past weekend and this coming weekend. Seven days a week. So it's kind of lonely around here. In addition, I have not been sleeping regularly. I could not sleep last night because I was so exhausted yesterday afternoon that I took a three and a half hour nap.

On a brighter note, one of my close friends came over yesterday and we got to spend some time together. It's so good to spend quality time with people you really know and trust. We talked for so long that I forgot to make lunch for us (as was the original plan). She'll be working with Bob at the Wesley Foundation this year. Several of my friends will be there. I wish I could be doing that too...

Well, since this is my last year in Athens, I really want to have a good time here while I still can. I've spent so much of the past two years locking myself inside and studying, and I really want to take it a little bit easier. I'm usually not one for making to-do lists, but this is different. Here are just some things I'd like to make a point of doing this year, before it's too late:

1. Hang out with my accounting friends and not do accounting
2. Go see live music more often
3. Go to more literary events (poetry readings? I'm so there...)
4. Enter the Honors Program art show this fall
5. Submit my writing to Stillpoint Literary Magazine here on campus
6. Go on more dates with Bob downtown
7. Go to Krush Girls with my friends
8. See Michael Stipe downtown (okay, maybe this one is just wishful thinking)
9. Study at the Botanical Gardens
10. Walk to Earth Fare once a week
11. Work out at the Ramsey Center regularly

That's a pretty good start, I think. There is so much to see and do here, and I want to see it and do it while I can. Not that I think I've wasted my time in Athens--I've done lots of fun things. But after May, I'll never be a college student again. I really want this to be a good, memorable year.

I am reading The Heart of a Distant Forest now by Philip Lee Williams. It's really enthralling--it's hard to put down. His writing is so beautiful... I can't wait to finish it. In fact, I'm going to go read it for a while now--at least until I fall asleep (I'm feeling a little drowsy again).

Stop global warming

2006-07-31T23:42:00.000-05:00

Join the march to stop global warming. All it takes is a few minutes... and a willingness to accept responsibility for the welfare of this planet we call home. Awareness is key--please think about this.

Why don't I read anymore??

2006-07-31T21:16:00.000-05:00

When I was a kid I read all the time. I felt like such a dork, but it really was what I usually wanted to be doing. Even during spare moments in the car, on the school bus, in between classes, I always spent my time reading.

Now that I'm an adult, I don't understand why I do not enjoy reading as much as I used to. I still like books and I still read them, but not the way I wish I would. Perhaps I have read one too many dry textbooks and spoiled the thought of reading. I really hope I can get myself interested in reading again--and more than just fiction.

I came across a book yesterday called Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green To Me: The Politics of Nature by Jeffrey St. Clair, an investigative journalist. Of course, being in the store I didn't have much time to thoroughly leaf through it and get a good sense of what type of book it is, but it definitely struck me as one worth looking into a bit more. Perhaps I can find it at the library when I get back to school. What I want is comprehensive coverage of the environment, fair, well-rounded (i.e., not just bashing W. for pushing to open ANWR for drilling), and provocative. Not that I need to be provoked into believing that the environmental state is deplorable at the moment, but I do want to read something that is not just propaganda. I don't know who Jeffrey St. Clair is, but it intrigues me that he is titled an "investigative journalist." Who knew that such reporters even existed anymore? So, perhaps I will give this book a try soon.

One book I started reading early in the summer is The Heart of a Distant Forest by Philip Lee Williams--my nature writing professor! It was unique, written in the style of a journal rather than a narrative, but unfortunately I didn't get very far into it before I moved to Atlanta, forgetting to bring the book with me. It's not a very long book, so I hope to be able to pick it up when I get home and read it from start to finish before school gets back in. (With Bob at intern training all week and working on the weekends, I should have plenty of time to myself...)

My professor is publishing another book, which is to be released this fall, called In the Morning: Reflections From First Light, which I certainly plan to buy. I love the mornings, and this man is a freaking authority on mornings, since he gets up at about 4:30 every day! Seriously, his engagement with nature is deep (his class helped to change my whole perspective on the world) and his writing is beautiful, and I will be thrilled to read his essays on morning.

I did not intend this post to be a rave about Dr. Williams, but while I am on the subject I am going to recommend one of his other books: The Silent Stars Go By, a nonfiction narrative of Christmas memoirs from his childhood. I read this book my sophomore year of college, and it was the catalyst that made me decide to pursue my love of writing again (as I took a long hiatus from any serious writing during my latter years in high school). Anyway, it is a short book and it is something different, and if you are ever struck with the desire to read it I give it my highest praise.

See? I told you I really do love books. I love them so much that while I was writing all of that, I completely forgot that I have been in a no-reading rut lately. So maybe that's all about to change... Maybe all I need to do is remind myself that I really am passionate about reading.

Good news! And more

2006-07-29T08:30:00.000-05:00

The accounting firm where I've been interning offered me a job last week! I'm very happy--this means I can go back to school, finish my master's, and know that there is something ready for me in Atlanta when I am finished. And I absolutely love this firm--what a fun group of people to work with every day.

That said, now let me make my official announcement: Bob and Laura Jesser are vegans. Of course, I still have one week left of my internship, and I think that will be a good week for me to practice eating vegan when I do not have the opportunity to cook for myself. It makes me nervous, but I have to believe it will end up being okay. Now that my beliefs and values are directing me toward a vegan lifestyle, I see no reason to pretend in front of everyone at work that this is not the case. I am averse to awkward situations, but my feelings about stewardship of the earth and of my own body are more important to me. I know it will be a good experience, even this week (maybe especially this week), and I'm looking forward to my new adventure!

I think a new adventure merits a new blog, don't you? When I created this blog, my main purpose was to talk about nature and writing and God, to share my writing, to talk about issues that have been on my mind, and so forth. I would like to preserve that original purpose for this blog. However, I would also like to chronicle my new adventures as a vegan, post recipes, talk about challenges I am facing. So click on my profile and check it out!

Something else I've been meaning to post

2006-07-26T21:13:00.000-05:00

Several months ago, I made this really, really great vegan red beans and rice recipe. One of my accounting professors is a Louisiana man and loves to cook traditional cajun food. I asked him for some advice on making authentic red beans and rice. Of course, I didn't use the andouille or the ham hocks like he suggested; I substituted some other flavors and it came out so well! I wanted to put the recipe out there, in case anyone else is interested.

1 package of red beans, cleaned and soaked overnight (I had a package of light red kidney beans that I wanted to use up, but I would probably use some other variety of red bean next time)
1 tablespoon "chicken" boullion (check the ingredients)
2 tablespoons cajun/creole seasoning blend (if you purchase a blend, be aware that it has a great deal of salt in it, and adjust the salt in your beans to account for this)
As many dashes of Louisiana Hot Sauce that your palate can handle
Salt
2 bay leaves
2 cloves garlic, pressed or crushed and finely minced
1 sweet onion, finely chopped
1 green bell pepper, finely chopped
6 stalks celery, finely chopped

Bring all of these things to a boil in a large pot with the lid on, in enough water to cover the beans plus about a half an inch. Let simmer for an hour or so, until the beans are very tender and all the flavors have married. The onion, green pepper, and celery will almost become invisible if you have chopped them finely enough, but they will still pack a lot of flavor. Monitor the seasonings along and along--I ended up adding lots of hot sauce, since I like to breathe fire when I eat cajun food.

Once the beans are tender, scoop out about 1/2 to 1 cup of the beans and place in a bowl. Using a fork, mash the beans until they form a thick paste. When smooth and thick, stir the paste back into the pot. This step will give the finished product a saucy texture, and I think it helps bind the rice to the beans so that your meal is truly one dish, rather than red beans served over rice.

Speaking of rice, I used brown rice and cooked it using some of the same seasonings that I used in the beans so that the addition of the rice would not make the entire dish bland. The first time we ate it we served the bean mixture over the rice, but when I put it up for leftovers I just stirred the rice into the pot--it worked great both ways.

Long overdue, I know

2006-07-26T20:08:00.000-05:00

I promised this photo a long time ago. This is the salmon Bob and I made for our aunt and uncle. Yes, there is salmon in that picture, but it's buried underneath so many other wonderful things--strawberries, oranges, red and green peppers, honey, fresh baby dill... But believe it or not, all those different flavors did not steal the show in this meal. The salmon tasted very much like salmon, with just a hint of sweetness and zest. It was very tender and baked to just the perfect degree of doneness.

We got the recipe from The Food Network, one of Paula Deen's recipes. I don't ever cook Paula Deen's creamy, rich, thick southern food, but this was a recipe that she actually borrowed from a friend of hers. Light and sweet and healthy, this and some wild rice and a small green salad made a wonderful meal. All the ingredients were fresh, too--straight from the Dekalb Farmer's Market.

Happy anniversary to us...

2006-07-26T19:10:00.000-05:00

Yay! We went down to Charleston for our anniversary this past weekend, and we had the loveliest time. We saw a bit of the city, including the very beautiful harbor and the historic downtown area. We had a nice lunch on Saturday at "The second-best restaurant in South Carolina," which was a crab shack downtown. It really was delicious food...

Our campsite was adorable! We cooked some of our own food there, and it was nice and quiet. Hot in the tent, but we were in a very shady spot so it was bearable.

The beach was amazing--the waves were enormous on Saturday afternoon, I think mostly because it was a breezy day and the tide was coming in. But we body-surfed ourselves silly--and red. Poor Bob had quite a nasty sunburn on his shoulders, although we took the obvious sunscreen precaution, and were not really out all that long.

We went back to the beach later that night (after getting a quick coffee fix at Starbucks), and it was just beautiful. I tried to take some pictures, but it was too dark out to see anything. But the sky was half clouded and half clear. Some stars were twinkling down so brightly, dispersed between the intermittent clouds, and then there were patches of sky that looked completely black. As always, I was amazed by the ocean after dark, which sounded so enormous even though most of it was invisible, black and melting into the black sky. We walked up and down the beach for about an hour and a half on Saturday night, just enjoying the quiet, the coolness, the breeze, and the amazing display in the sky. Every few moments or so a distant lightning would strike behind the clouds, so that they were lit up in the foreground of the sky. When this happened and the clouds were outlined in the silver-gray lightning light, the night sky behind them looked blacker and the stars appeared far more distant. You could really see the layers of heaven shining out in those brief, dazzling moments. We left the beach around ten o'clock, at the time when the mandatory lights-out goes into effect for the benefit of the nesting sea turtles.

Sunday morning I woke up at the crack of dawn and shortly realized that I was awake for the day. So to amuse myself, I decided to walk around the campground and take pictures. As I approached the lake, I saw a large white blot out on the greenish water. As I crept closer, I realized that a white crane was standing out in the middle of the lake. He was keeping perfectly still. As quietly and gently as I could, I began inching closer, trying to see if I could get close enough to take a really good picture. In the end, the picture below was the closest I was able to get to him; he kept taking flight and moving across the lake. I spent nearly an hour stalking him that morning, but he was going about his business and had no mind to keep still for my amusement. So I crouched from a distance and just watched him for awhile. I watched him catch his breakfast from the middle of the lake, using his comic-looking neck thrust to dart his head swiftly down into the water. I watched him walk around the opposite bank for awhile, pacing among the trees as if he could not decide what to do with the rest of his Sunday morning. Finally, he crept off into the trees and I never saw him again. On my way back to my campsite, some wild turkeys crossed my path. I stopped for a minute to see if they would scramble away from me, but they seemed altogether undaunted by my presence. When I got back to the tent, I woke Bob up with the irresistible smell of peanut butter and banana oatmeal (which I didn't eat--I made myself some blueberry oatmeal earlier when I woke up). He ate, we packed up the tent, and headed back home.

It was so sad to leave. We had such a lovely time down there, and I wish we could have stayed an entire week. But I cannot be sad, because the time we did have was absolutely wonderful.

Sunday, July 23, was our actual anniversary. We cracked open a bottle of champagne when we got home and celebrated. Then we made ourselves a completely vegan pizza, complete with homemade yeast-risen whole wheat dough. Bob is a pro at handling pizza dough, being the pizza man for seven hours a day at the dining hall. He crimped the edges of the crust and the pizza just looked so delicious! It tasted great too. It's so good to know that when we become vegan we can still enjoy pizza--it had so many delightful veggies on it that I did not miss the cheese in the least.

After pizza and bubbly, we walked to Vision Video (the best rental store ever, at $1.61 for a five-day rental) and rented Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Both of us grew up on the old Gene Wilder movie and have been reluctant to see the new Johnny Depp take on our beloved Willy Wonka. But I'll give any Johnny Depp movie a chance. It actually turned out to be a very good movie--not freaky and dark like I had anticipated. Now it's hard for me to say whether I like the original movie or the new, completely different film better. Both have some very strong points, and both have very unique styles that almost cannot be compared.

So that was our first anniversary. I guess we're not newlyweds anymore, though after several months you could hardly be connsidered newlyweds anyway. Our first year has been the most wonderful time of my life--I can't wait for the rest of eternity!

Why does the weekend dawdle?

2006-07-19T19:17:00.000-05:00

I'm having quite a decent week, I would say. But I want Friday to be here more than anything...

Sunday, 23 July, is our first wedding anniversary! I now understand what grown-ups would always say when I was a kid, about how time whips by so much more quickly as you get older. I don't feel like it's been a year since that day. I remember everything I did, every person who was with me, every butterfly, every tear. How could I ever forget those moments?

Bob and I are going camping near Charleston, South Carolina, and we're as excited as little children on Christmas Eve. Bob wanted to go to the beach, I wanted to see Charleston, we both have wanted to go camping for quite awhile now... It is all going to happen. Soon.

But not soon enough. I miss him still, so much. Yes, I have gotten used to him being there while I'm here. But it doesn't make me not long for him to be here with me. Every week so far he's made it down here once or twice to visit in the middle of the week, but this week it's not happening. I can't blame him for being tired of making the hour-and-a-half drive, and getting up at 5:30 to make it to work. But we're so close to the end of the summer now, and I wish he could find himself able to do it just a few more times. It makes the week easier to know that, at least once, I'll be able to come home and have his arms around me. But like he tells me, a married couple should be able to spend time apart like this. And I can--I just don't want to, and I resist it as stubbornly as a child.

No matter. Tomorrow's Thursday. Day after that, we're together for the weekend to celebrate our anniversary and have a beautiful time together. Just Bob and Laura.

A runner's chronicle

2006-07-18T22:54:00.000-05:00

Plink…plink…plink… Every fourth step, the house key that I laced to my left sneaker is jostled so that it hits against the eye of the shoe, creating a tiny metallic sound that no one could possibly hear except for me. It’s not loud, but knowing and expecting it as sure as the downbeats of a piece of music written in common time—my body’s metronome—makes it pop out like the resonating beat of a tympani drum. An annoying sound, to be sure, but more than that a comforting sound. Comforting because as long as I can hear its tiny clang, I know that I will be able to get inside the empty house after my evening run.

I had to untie my left shoe so I could thread the key on securely. I don’t know that my shoe has ever been untied before, since the very first time I laced it up. That’s the kind of person I am, I guess. Silly, really, to think I’m saving myself so many precious minutes by tugging pre-tied sneakers on and off my feet rather than taking the time to tie and untie them properly with each use. But when it comes down to the moment that the shoes must come off, I never find it a habit worth trying to break.

Now, as I run, I can feel the tongue of my left shoe rubbing awkwardly against the top of my foot—I’m not used to this precise position. I could let that drive me crazy, bring a premature end to my run. But instead, I try to focus on something else. Not much else to think about though, that would be any better. Nothing but the green, thick heat makes any impression upon me from mother earth. That—and these hills…

What an awkward summer it has been. Some of the highest peaks of my life I have seen in these recent weeks, and at the same time some of the worst frustrations. It all goes along with being in a new place, at another elbow in the road. Believe me, I would know. My life has taken so many one-eighties over the past several years, and each time I feel like I’m getting off at yet another unfamiliar station. So here am I again, standing amid an alien set of circumstances and just plodding along, new kid at a looming new job, wishing with all my heart that my husband weren’t so far away from me. “Your internship’s only X more weeks,” he tells me again and again. Should I be delighted? Depressed? Because right now I feel both—or maybe neither. Maybe this uphill climb has just deadened me through and through.

My legs muscles are burning. Lactic acid just coursing through them. Clearly I don’t practice on hills often enough—but I truly dread them. I can see the top of the hill about a quarter of a mile in front of me. Car after car drives up the hill, teeters at the crest for a moment, and then slips into a hidden descent down the other side. My body is really pushing to turn around once I reach the top. Just think how nice the downhill cruise will be, going in the opposite direction! But the cars slide so effortlessly down the other side of that hill—I want to see where they’re going. I want to see what’s at the bottom.

This is how I get into these cycles. While I’m running furiously uphill, I hate it. But I don’t hate it enough to forgo the chance to run down the other side. In Savannah I was never faced with such choices—flat, soft land, as far as my feet could take me. Wasn’t until Athens that I developed this love-hate relationship with running. A classic catch-22: When I’m in great shape, I love it. But when I slip out of my habits and lose some stamina, then I begin to despise it as I puff my way, red-faced, up these hills like the little engine that just barely could. Soon, I run out of steam. No more running, no more hills. My endurance deteriorates a little more. Then it’s just that much harder to get up and put rubber to pavement.

So many runners out tonight. It’s good, at least, to know that I’m not the only one who was eager to endure the stifling, torturous heat. I wonder, as I look into each splotchy, shimmering face, how each of them will deal with this heat once they end their evening jog. Me, I’ll probably lie in the floor of my shower and let the cool water pelt me like my own personal thunderstorm. The thought of that, at least, is enough to keep me going, though I hug the right side of the road where all the trees drape nicely over the sidewalk. I run beneath a nicely box-shaped magnolia tree, which had apparently thought it would claim the air space over the sidewalk, though someone with powerful pruning shears must have thought differently. On the one hand, it makes me sad to see the tamed magnolia cowering alongside the walkway. But because of the pruner’s hand those thick leathery branches are not there to whack me in the face. So I feel a twinge of gratitude, followed swiftly by a twinge of guilt.

Another runner, this one a woman about my age, red-headed with a shirt to match. As usual I glance up at her face as I pass by. She didn’t look into my face, but I saw her sneak a glance at my thighs. Checking them out, no doubt, to see if they are firmer or flabbier than hers. All women do it—it’s inherent. I wish I knew how to cure that urge to compare myself to other women, but after I passed her all I could think was, So maybe your thighs are more toned than mine, but boy, are they pasty! But gosh, I would love to have your hair…

These are the kinds of thoughts I want to escape from when I run. But sometimes it’s just useless. I remember when my family thought I was anorexic; I was under constant pressure to gain weight, even though I knew that I was in great shape. But every time I ran, I would have to wonder, Is this bad for me? If I went home and ate a few spoonfuls of ice cream I would ask myself, Is this bad for me? So driven by pressure… When all I really want is to know my own body.

And I do. I know my metabolism, my breathing cycles. I know how my left foot hits the ground harder every fourth step, jostling my house key. I had to learn these things, so I could sustain a run for longer than a whim would carry me. I love listening to the meter of my breath, the metronome of my feet, taking cues from my body as I run. But why must I pack along all the junk that I take with me everywhere else? For once, I want to leave it at home.

Home. Now that I’ve stopped running, my face is pounding—in fact, I can almost see my pulse hovering inches in front of my eyes. I lean against the column on the porch; yes, that’s joy. That’s satisfaction. It’s all flooding back now. This is how living should really feel.

Rather than untie my shoe to retrieve the key, I opt to yank my entire left sneaker off my foot to unlock the front door. That’s just the kind of person I am, I guess.

Can I be vegan?

2006-07-13T22:35:00.000-05:00

It's not a question to me of whether I have the desire to be vegan, or even the willpower. I much prefer plant-based foods. My only holdback is, Will I ever be able to have a vegan business lunch? Will I ever be able to visit my parents without fasting? What about retreats? What about those times when you're just in a pinch and need to grab a bite to eat, and nothing seems to suit? I read about the daily adventures of so many vegans, but most of them involved home-cooked food. I love to cook, but the reality of my life right now is that I cannot cook every meal for myself. What about all you on-the-go vegans? You wacky-schedule vegans? You accountant vegans whose managers and clients take you out to lunch weekly to restaurants that feature nothing but eighteen different cuts of beef?

It was not in anticipation of this summer that I chose to become pescovegetarian rather than true vegetarian or vegan, although it has been a difficult feat just to stick to such a diet. The office has been very willing to work with me, but not always very considerate about my diet. I don't blame them at all; I am sure that vegetarianism is very far from most of them, and they don't realize how someone can be so committed to that kind of lifestyle. I have found that, in any given group that I am a part of, it takes one or two times of not eating anything when I'm with them because there's nothing suitable for me to eat, before they realize that I am very serious. But had I cut fish out of my diet before this summer, let alone animal products altogether, there would have been several occasions when I was just entirely up the creek. How do you take two very different lifestlyes and fuse them, and live it well and happily, and not stick out in a very bad way to everyone around you?

I love explaining to people why I have chosen to be vegetarian. In fact, tonight I was able to tell someone the reasons why I want to become vegan. It means a lot to me when people actually ask my reasons, and don't just sit back and think, Okay, whatever... It challenges me to remember my own convictions, and I always hope that it strikes a chord with my audience.

Of course, the main reason Bob and I made our decision was because we felt like the Lord wanted that for us--not necessarily for everyone, but certainly for the two of us. And that is something a lot of people don't understand, making it difficult to share that aspect of our reasoning. When you tell someone you have made a particular decision "because the Lord told us to," the first assumption is often that you are about to start preaching some lifestyle that you believe to be the absolute truth. Of course, I believe Jesus is the absolute Truth, though I don't go around preaching Him without some sort of opening. But veg*nism? No, I don't think everyone is called to that. I don't think there's anything morally wrong with eating meat until it becomes a personal conviction. In fact, most of the people who closely share my spiritual beliefs do not understand the moral and ethical aspects of abstaining from animal-based foods. It's been a great decision for us, but not one that very many people around us, in any circle, understand or are sympathetic to. When your family scoffs at your choice and takes the attitude of You can come visit but if you get hungry you're on your own; when your friends think that the Lord calling you to become vegetarian is something straight out of the book of Ezekiel; when all the world around you is built for something entirely different from you, and it's just you and your husband standing in the middle of it all, it makes it hard to stand up for what you believe in. Not because you waver in your conviction, but because no one gives you the chance to stand up and say the things that are on your heart. Everywhere people think I'm something I'm not, and they don't give me the opportunity to answer to their assumptions about me. What do I do?

Just keep living, and understand that my choice is a good choice, and no one but God has to think so.

Life goes on

2006-07-06T21:31:00.000-05:00

It's so weird that all of my friends from high school are getting married! One of my very closest school friends, with whom I unfortunately lost touch in college, contacted me today--with a new last name. Her life's goal was always to get married as soon as possible. I guess she has achieved it now. I wonder if people felt that way when I got married... I was pretty much the first person in my graduating class to tie the knot, and the first of my peers in college as well. Now, everyone's jumping on the bandwagon. I think it's great, and I hope every one of them has a marriage as blessed as mine is. But it's bittersweet--it's hard to comprehend how much life has changed for me, for all of us, since high school. That time of my life seems worlds ago, I am so different; and yet I think of my friends from high school as still being exactly the same now as they were before we lost touch. It's an odd feeling. I wonder if getting older and changing will ever seem normal to me, or if it will always be so surreal.

Speaking of being married, I was really missing my husband the other night. So as a way to release my feelings, I put together an ad hoc playlist on iTunes that encompasses a wide range of emotions that I often feel. People often think I'm not happy--but that's not true. I spend more time being happy, or content at least, than being sad or upset. But my happiness is not always giddiness, is not always manifest in laughter and big toothy grins. It often comes in a more mellow form, and is mixed with other emotions as well, such as relief or wonder or thoughtfulness. Does that make sense? Anyway, here's the list of songs on my playlist (which is playing right now)--but don't assume that I'm depressed. I'm not.

Ralph McTell, "Streets of London"
Queen, "'39"
The Beatles, "Fool On the Hill"
Enya, "May It Be"
Rufus Wainwright, "Hallelujah"
Sarah McLachlan, "Adia"
Simon & Garfunkel, "He Was My Brother"
The Pogues, "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda"
Rod Stewart, "Waltzing Matilda"
Queen, "Bohemian Rhapsody"
R.E.M., "Everybody Hurts"
Led Zeppelin, "Stairway to Heaven"
The Monkees, "Shades of Gray"
Annie Lennox, "Into the West"
Nobuo Uematsu, "Aerith's Theme"
Simon & Garfunkel, "The Boxer"
Bob Dylan, "Blowin' In the Wind"
Queen, "The Prophet's Song"
Billy Joel, "Piano Man"
The Beatles, "Let It Be"

Something about it makes me feel more complex... I guess it lets me feel sad sometimes, and hopeful sometimes, and just sentimental sometimes. That way I don't just feel lonely and sad, sitting here without Bob or anyone else, yet I don't feel like I'm artificially masking my sadness--I'm just expanding. Sounds like a strange way to deal with emotions, but it works for me. I'm sure it works for many people.

So though things are changing all over, and my situation is not always ideal, life goes on. And I know that everything is temporary. I know that nothing lasts forever--except God, and His love for me, and my relationship to Him. So sometimes I listen to my music, lay my head down and close my eyes, take deep breaths, and just imagine that He is here with me, or I am with Him, and all the heaviness is gone. All the complexity is gone. Nothing except love, and trust, and the ultimate contentment.

I have been Diet Coke free for almost a week now. In fact, perhaps make that caffeine free. I don't think it's a realistic goal for me, at least right now, to give up caffeine--I adore coffee. But I'm controlling it better, and my body is thanking me already. However, I wish I could say the same about my eating habits. They're usually pretty good, but I go through phases when I just crave all kinds of sweets. I don't eat tons of sweets, but when it's all I can think of I sometimes cave in a little too much. I caved in today, and I was kind of upset with myself so I just caved in even more. Now I wish none of that had to happen, but hey... one day of giving in is not going to ruin my healthy lifestyle forever. I really love eating healthy and working out, and I love it when my body asks me for healthy food and those little sugar-craving centers of my brain are completely drowned out. I feel so good about myself. Tomorrow, I will think of that--how good I feel when I eat healthy. And that will drive me.

It's too late to start writing poetry or anything like that, even though my creative longing is beginning to stir. Perhaps I will go to bed now and have splendid, colorful dreams. And when I get home tomorrow, Bob will be here!

A favorite that never fails...

2006-07-02T23:07:00.000-05:00

So this weekend my husband came to Atlanta to visit me, and in our limited and shared kitchen space we didn't feel like making an elaborate mess to clean up. So today I made a lunch of something that always satisfies me--black beans. This time I took a Tex-Mex approach and made a spicy, delicious soup. A very economical meal, healthy and nutritious, and VEGAN! Bob and I classify ourselves as vegan-curious these days, and perhaps a permanent switch is coming soon.

2 cups dried black beans
1/2 minced red onion
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 stalks minced celery
1/2 minced green bell pepper
1/2 to 1 jalapeño, minced (I had to go easy, since spiciness is not something my 10-year-old cousin's palate will tolerate)
2 tsp. dried oregano
1 & 1/2 cups cooked corn
1 & 1/2 cups diced tomatoes
1/2 cup salsa (I used a cilantro-lime salsa)
Salt, to taste
Cayenne pepper, to taste

After soaking the beans overnight and rinsing them, I put them in a pot to boil with water to cover plus about 2 inches over the top. I added the onion, garlic, celery, peppers, oregano, salt, and cayenne and let it boil gently with the lid on for about an hour, until the beans were tender. I then added the corn, tomatoes, and salsa, and I let it simmer for another half hour, again with the lid on, until all the flavors were married. This was not as spicy as I would have liked it personally, but it pleased the palates of the family so I was satisfied with it.

The salmon we made on Tuesday night came out so well--it was beautiful. I took pictures but tonight it is too late to upload them. I will do that soon. It was the best salmon I have probably ever had, rivaled perhaps only by seared rare salmon atop a mixed greens salad. This salmon was topped with so many different fruits and vegetables that I cannot even think of them all here, then sealed in foil and baked. It was tender and juicy and full of aroma and flavor... Bob said that he could go vegan right then and never miss fish, because his final fish experience would have been so memorable. We got our fish and produce at the Dekalb Farmer's Market, which is enormous and absolutely wonderful. A pint of organic strawberries for $2??? Incredible.

I found out on Friday that I get to run in the Peachtree Road Race on 4 July--the world's largest 10K race. Of course I won't be racing. I'll be amazed if I manage to run the whole thing, with the shape I'm in lately. But I'm excited just to be a part of it, just to get to challenge myself, just to experience something that 55,000 people a year get to experience. I'll be on the train at 5:30 am on Tuesday morning, to get to the race which starts at 7:30. Perhaps at that time of morning the heat won't be absolutely unbearable. I imagine myself taking a nice long nap before lunch.

Here's a new challenge for myself: I am striving to give up soft drinks. Completely. I am so addicted to Diet Coke, it's unbelievable. It's got to stop. I know it will be difficult, especially with the free sodas at the office that come in so handy during that time of day between lunch and 5:30 when it's so difficult to focus sometimes. But I've got to stop dumping that nasty stuff into my body. Maybe if I just remind myself that I'm poisoning my body and suppressing my respiratory system... Then perhaps it will seem worth it, at 3:00 in the afternoon, to just have another glass of water. Hmm, maybe I need to find a more natural solution for a mid-afternoon energy boost. Any ideas?

My last couple of posts were born of an intense creative streak that hit me a few nights ago. The poem was actually written a month or so ago, during my training week in North Carolina. I was napping out on the golf course before dinner, and every time I looked up I noticed the weeping willow to my left, its limbs trembling even in the near-still air. Suddenly hit with the urge to write, and having nothing on me except my purse, in desperation I canceled a check from my checkbook and penned that poem on the back. This past Wednesday, I finally pulled the check out and revised the verses. The other piece I posted was inspired by a game I recently played (Bob knew what game the moment he read the piece). I am enthralled by characters who are complex and emotional and not much different than myself, really. Those are the types of characters I strive to write. The story that Bob and I are writing is full of characters, some very profound and interesting, others largely one-sided and in desperate need of fleshing out. My favorite part of writing is creating the characters, learning their backgrounds. Yes, learning--for the characters are the ones who tell me about themselves, and I simply make a record of what they have to say. There is so much more to each character than what the reader finds on the page. But even though the life story is not delved into, the reader should be able to detect the dimensions that make up the character. The reader should know, just by reading, that this character is alive and full of history.

It's getting so late, and I'm getting carried away. I do actually have to go to work in the morning. Therefore, I will have to cut this off now. But there is much, much more to say...

Love and Strife

2006-06-28T21:38:00.000-05:00

It's not my fault--it's not my fault.

That was what they all told me, as I released her to the planet.

But somehow, wasn't I responsible? In some way, I played a small part. I know it. I know it in my heart.

I knew that look, just as his sword glided through her flower of a body. The look on her face was unmistakable--a look I had longed for her to give me, deeply, without even knowing so until the moment of her death. Pure love.

Everything within her was pure. Her resolve, her deep connection to the planet, her deep commitment to all that is just. But her love was the most pure. And not simply the love she held for me--it would be a blemish upon her memory for me to believe so. Still, her love for me was special. It was sweet and innocent and... and... trusting. I have come to treasure that love in my soul, in the days since her death. It is one tiny grain of purity within me.

But therein lies my blame. Had she not loved me so deeply, so purely, then she would not have died for me. That's right--she died for me, along with everything else that she gave her life for. Had our relationship been different--cordial, distant--it would not have saved her life. It simply would have released me from the sphere of responsibility... To ache. To grieve. And to continue on.

It sears like lightning in my heart. Every thought of her brings pain; every memory causes me disdain at my own weakness in which I was helpless to protect her from his twisted anger. But it brings resolve as well, and more than ever. My resolve on its own is feeble... But resolve bound to her love, which she perished to prove, that is a force altogether unstoppable. From that small bit of purity which she has shed for me, I draw a strength I have never known before.

She did not fail in her purpose, though death railed through her body. I watched her being absorbed by the planet, all her youth and tenderness streaming away. But she's still here, stronger than before. She's all around me, every moment. She floods my heart. And it's left to me to see that the calling of her life is fulfilled. Could I let her death become a vain sacrifice? I could not bear it.

My strength was a joke, and still I leaned upon it. In my strength I nearly saw my own ruin. But she died to give me a greater strength--a strength to find myself buried within the lies in my soul. A strength to love. And a strength to finish what she had the courage to begin.

This responsibility is mine, but I will never bear it alone. Even now, she is here. Even now, she gives me the strength to fight further.

To Love a Willow

2006-06-28T18:51:00.000-05:00

For sturdier affections
some cage their hearts--
for limbs that are thicker,
to sand that's not so quick

for fear of a whim,
a pain, a tear
when sadness scars
like thin-skinned grapes
burst with new hurt.

The weepy, wispy willow cries
each time the reckless wind sighs
and the daytime is too hard on the eyes.

A risk, a chance...

Some are willing
to love a willow.
Others... are hollow.

Happier days

2006-06-26T20:44:00.000-05:00

Tonight was a great night for running. The thunderstorms scattered just long enough, the sun broke the clouds apart so mildly, and the humidity waned and cooled so refreshingly that there was no way that I could not run this evening. Even the hills did not daunt me.

The neighborhood I am staying in this summer is a fairly old development, and the sidewalks are periodically mounded up by victorious tree-roots pressing through. The houses do not swallow the surrounding ecosystem; people have made their mark here, but it is not a destructive, desecrating one. Merely seven miles from downtown Atlanta, such harmony can exist. At times like this, as I was running tonight and ducking beneath limbs and breathing air that smelled fresh at least, I am encouraged that the planet has a fighting chance.

Bob and I have found an activity to be engaged in together this summer, even though we're apart. We're writing a story together. "Writing" is a bit of a misnomer, because we're still early in the planning phases and have not actually written any of the story's text yet. We have been profiling the characters and working out the kinks of the plot. It's actually an idea he had that we've been stewing over for awhile, and now we're both getting excited about it. We have been chatting online about it, often in character to get a sense of their voices; and while such a medium is far from an intimate way to spend time with one's spouse, we have found that it actually works really well for this purpose because we can record a transcript of all that's been said, which we can build on later. And being excited about the story helps to soothe the pain of being apart so much.

We're actually not separated as much as we could be. We had a wonderful weekend together, and Bob has promised to come visit me in Atlanta once or twice a week. It's just difficult to spend days at a time apart when I have grown to love his presence so much. But as he keeps telling me, and as I well know, in times like this I have to turn to God and allow Him to comfort me when my husband is not there. And I have to rely on His strength to carry me every day. When Bob and I got married, one of the scriptures we had read at our wedding was Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, which talks about the goodness of being bound to another person. The last phrase of that passage is, A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Bob and I are each a strand, but the third strand in our cord is the Lord. And as long as we stay bound faithfully to each other and to Him, then I believe He will bring us through every trial we face. And at the end of this summer, our marriage will be stronger because we will have learned to rely on God first.

So my life has gotten more and more bearable over the past week, as I've become more comfortable with my job and grown stronger about being away from Bob. Tomorrow Bob is coming to town, and we will be cooking a yummy-looking baked salmon dish for the family. More to come on that!

Not what I had in mind...

2006-06-22T19:27:00.000-05:00

I've been so busy and tired with work and getting adjusted to new surroundings that I have been unable to get my creative juice flowing. So far the summer has been... well, rough in many ways. My husband had to move to ANOTHER CITY to find a job, and I've been living in Atlanta with his aunt and uncle and young, young cousins. And work has been a little on the stressful side. It's hard to be a newbie, and especially when I know that everyone else around me at least has a college degree. And at the same time, I have not found my current tasks to be entirely challenging or stimulating. But after next week it's on to better things.

I just hope I can shake the nervous feeling I'm constantly having. I feel sick in the mornings, nauseous and dizzy, and then in the afternoons I feel shaky. I have a sinking feeling that no one in the office likes me, even though I'm trying so hard. It's probably just silly paranoia; still, I can't help but think that I've screwed up somehow already.

I've enjoyed cooking when I have the time. My husband and I recently discovered that we can go to Whole Foods and get frozen edamame for nearly half what we've paid for it elsewhere, so I see myself experimenting with that as much as possible. It's been interesting living with non-vegetarians--we're constantly having to explain things to them. On top of that, Bob's aunt is a celiac and cannot eat gluten. So I've been mulling over some vegetarian, wheat-free ideas. I'm sure I'll be back with more on that later.

NC escape

2006-05-25T20:12:00.000-05:00

I know it's been several weeks since my last entry--I've been at different times pretty sick, pretty busy, or pretty lazy. I've been doing a lot of cooking, a bit of visiting, and more staying up playing video games with Bob than I ever thought I was capable of. But tonight, it's time for a little bit of writing.

The internship that I have been looking forward to for six months now has finally begun. I started training this past Monday in Greensboro, North Carolina. Our days have been so full of learning and presentations and case studies that I have been mentally exhausted at the close of each day--once all the computers have been closed down, all the dinner courses finished and all the drink glasses drained, all the socializing wound down and all the people finally turning in for the night, I have been so taxed (excuse the pun) that the best I can do is to flop down on my queen-size bed and let my brain swim for just a few minutes. Not that I'm saying at all that I have not liked it--quite the contrary, I have enjoyed nearly every moment--but it's a different sort of exertion than I'm accustomed to. It's wonderful to see the concepts I've studied and memorized and been examined on over the past two years finally being put to practical use right in front of me, like someone opening up my rusty mind and pulling out tools I forgot I had amassed, and saying, "See this? Let's lube it up, you're going to need it."

But most importantly, I had a moment yesterday when I knew, I knew, that I would not lose sight of who I am (or, more appropriately, who my God is and what He makes me to be in Him), as I have, to some extent, feared would happen. Staying rooted to my values--not letting anyone tell me that I must work as hard as I can and become a millionaire in my old age, when I know that I should be storing up my treasures elsewhere--not becoming self-focused when I have been commanded to love God first and my neighbors second, and to trust that He will always be faithful to meet all my needs--these are the things that I have to hold on to. There's nothing inherently wrong with the accounting profession; the problem is with the mindset that so many people in this profession have adopted, a set of values that could easily seduce someone away from the more rewarding and important things. Jesus promised, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." I believe that with all my heart.

I love the other interns from my office. They're going to be such a fun crowd, and I'm really looking forward to the time we'll spend together over the summer. In fact, there have only been a couple of down sides to the whole week. The first: I miss Bob. Since we got married, we've only ever spent one night apart at once. But he dropped me off at 9:00 on Monday morning, and will pick me up around 8:00 tomorrow night. That's five days, four nights. No Bob. We've talked on the phone each day, but that's a poor substitute. He hates talking on the phone, and so I always feel kind of estranged from him when he's on the line. Still, I look forward to those conversations with him. During the day, it makes me happy just to think about him and pray for him, and know that he misses me. The second problem this week has been the food. You know, I'm used to eating very low-fat, vegetarian-friendly meals. I'm used to eating a big breakfast and a small dinner. Don't misunderstand me--the quality of the food the resort has served this week has just been wonderful. Most people would love to spend a week eating the things they have set in front of. But picky me, I have had a hard time getting the foods I know I need to keep my body from going south very quickly. It's difficult for me to start my day with nothing but a plate of fruit and six ounces of yogurt. But of course, I won't eat the bacon and sausage, nor do I need the muffins and pastries. I cannot wait to have a simple bowl of Kashi with skim milk (or maybe soy milk?). Actually, the vegetarian thing has been very easy to work around--until today. At dinner tonight, for the main course, they set a plate of steak and grilled chicken down in front of me, alongside a tower of mashed potatoes (which I don't eat) and a stalk of broccoli. I felt terrible about asking them to bring me a vegetarian meal. I should have told someone earlier in the week that I was vegetarian, and the entire situation would have been avoided. But when I saw that every meal offered plenty of vegetarian-friendly options, I decided not to trouble anyone. It was a little embarrassing, but they were so nice about it. They made me a lovely pasta dish--and of course I didn't eat much of the linguine itself, but I ate all the vegetables out of it, and it was fine. Still, I will be glad to get home and have a meal that doesn't involve buckets of butter and heavy cream and oil and white starches. My lunch on Saturday, a bowl of homemade vegetarian black bean chili, will be one of the most refreshing meals I've ever had.

When your mind is exhausted, your body thinks it's exhausted too. Until yesterday, I was unable to work up the discipline to exercise, even though I desperately needed it. Last night I ran on the treadmill, about 3.5 miles. It felt great, and it stimulated me and made me realize that, in fact, I had plenty of energy to expend. Running involves your mind a lot too, so it wasn't entirely a veg-out session. Still, it felt good to breathe rapidly and have aching muscles, and to feel perspiration on the back of my neck. My run tonight was even better. About 8:30, when it was still barely light outside, I went out to run on the golf cart trails (the resort boasts two golf courses). The weather was just wonderful, and the terrain was gorgeous. I ran up hills and down, working out my pace all the way so that I could maximize my energy. I ran by greens and lakes, alongside small streams, through woods, and even inside a tunnel below the road. There was so much silence--just the slapping of my shoes against the path. It seemed like there was so much going on, both around me and within me. Once it got fairly dark and I was mostly spent, I turned around and ran back. This time, I ploughed straight through the night--it was as if the greens and the water all disappeared, and it was just me in a tunnel of night. I knew when I was in the woods because it became pitch black, and the flora that had looked so beautiful when I passed it the first time appeared this time as caves of nothing, exuding darkness. I ran up a steep hill, and when I got to the top there was the resort, glowing like a sand castle. It was beautiful.

Family, friends, sushi, & Edward Norton

2006-05-07T12:22:00.000-05:00

This is my favorite kind of weekend--when you have nothing pressing to do, and you can just see all the people and do all the things that you've missed out on lately. Almost all my friends--including my husband--are graduating next weekend from UGA (I feel kind of strange to be staying a fifth year), and one of my friends' parents had a party for her yesterday, out in farm country where they live. It was like a fairy tale, sitting at white-clothed tables outside, warm spring day, a lake in the background, drinking champagne with close friends. We stayed late, then all gathered to watch 25th Hour until almost two in the morning. What a lovely time--I wish life could always be like that. But the sublime moments, when everything is right and fun and easy, are the little gems that I look forward to among everything else... The moments that make it all worth living in the end.

I went for a nice run this morning, though it was cut short by the rain. It was a gradual rain; I felt stray drops on my head when I first came outside, but the sky was black and I knew it would open up any time. And slowly it did, refreshing at first, but by the time I had run about two miles it was coming down so hard that I had to go home. But it was refreshing and energizing just the same, a habit I hope to continue this summer. Running has been hard for me lately because I've been so tired after schoolwork was done that I needed to nap or to veg. So I've enjoyed getting back into the rhythm. We went to church, and now it's off to farm country again, where Bob's family lives. Then sushi tonight with friends--again, my kind of day.

A grand finale

2006-05-04T21:55:00.000-05:00

It's amazing that I've spent the entire academic year with the same two girls, who have been in all my accounting classes with me and stayed up until one in the morning with me, who have pulled eight- or ten-hour tax research marathons with me, studied with me, researched with me, completed projects and PowerPoints with me, and only just in the past few days am I getting the chance to see who they really are. Doing relaxing things together, having dinner together, talking about literature (not PCAOB literature, or FASB statements, or SOX, or *ahem* the Tax Code). How does that happen? How do you spend such a significant portion of your life with people, and never get to know the other sides of them? How do you manage to call someone a friend when you've never had a discussion with them that doesn't involve consolidating balance sheets or deducting passive losses? How does your life get that out-of-balance?

Anyway, I feel like that stage is over now. I put down my pencil at 10:30 this morning, and it was over--all the cramming, all the stress, all the neglect of Laura as a well-rounded person. Because next year, it won't be this way. When I come back to school in the fall, it will be to finish the last year of my MAcc, but it will also be with a new consciousness of caring for myself and living my life on more than one level. It will be to enjoy the last semester of school with my friends, my last year in Athens...

I needed a break last night, and I went to the Wesley Foundation. Bob and I have been really active there for several years now, but this past semester has made it difficult to be active in anything beyond classwork. As I tried to worship God I just found my head spinning and my heart sick; as I took communion I found myself unable to control the sobs that broke forth from my chest. And I realized that, however hard I've worked this semester, and whatever I've been able to achieve (All A's? I'm not so sure...), it's not been worth losing touch with myself, with my body, with my God. These past few months have been a constant ebb and flow, sometimes being very rewarding and exciting but often waning into frustration and worry and depression. It's time to gain my sense of self again.

My nature writing class helped keep me balanced, helped to remind me that there are aesthetic and artistic facets to my nature--helped remind me that I'm good at something, indeed even called to something, greater than crunching numbers. I'm called to reflect God and to serve Him and to serve His people. I'm called to use the gifts He has given me--the many gifts, the gifts that should be blessings and not burdens. Accounting was not a mistake for me; in fact I am quite certain that it was God's plan for me. But not the only plan. Not the ultimate goal. I'm only twenty-two, and I know there's much more than what I've seen and lived. And I know that each moment, though stressful and impossible, will flee like the dawn and just be a puff of smoke in my memory. I know that my self-attained glory will wither and fade like the grass of the field, and when that happens I better hope I have stored up some treasures in heaven, because we all reap what we sow in the end.

Barbara Kingsolver wrote, in her essay "High Tide in Tucson," that sometimes when she wakes up in the morning she thinks simply, "Let me be a good animal today." It's comforting to know, amid all our creation and striving and bustle, that we humans are really just animals. We're not some great beings over all the earth, and the only greatness we have to achieve is the greatness we burden ourselves with by seeking it. I don't always want to achieve greatness. Sometimes I just want to achieve my calling and my purpose. Sometimes I just want to wake up and breathe in and out and feel the sun on my skin and the wind in my hair. Sometimes I just want to fade among the other inhabitants of this world all around me. Sometimes I just want to be a good animal.

I think that's why I hike, and why I enjoy the earth in general. It refreshes my spiritual self and my physical body; it lets me melt away into the deep woods of Appalachia, until I am just another creature meandering along by the creek at the foot of the millennia-old mountain. I think that's why I run, because it forces me to connect with every part of my body--my respiratory and circulatory system, my ability to endure, my love for outdoors, even my need to find my way back home when I don't know where I am. And I think that's why I write, because it gives me a medium to put these things down in history, make them permanent and real. It gives me something to look back at later, when my life is out of whack again, and say, "Remember the girl I was? What happened to her? How have I come this far--and how can I get back to that place again?" And it gives me a way to share with others, and reaffirm my belonging to a greater humanity, not as someone made great by power or position but, simply, by God and through Him.

Bob is concerned for me. I don't blame him; I would be too, if I saw someone pulling her hair out at two AM every night, consumed by stress and anxiety. But that's not me anymore. That's no way to live, and it's certainly not what was intended for my life all along. With God's help, I will finally put these silly worries behind me, step into my calling and my purpose--I will become a good animal again.

Yummy yummy tofu (etc.)

2006-04-29T23:04:00.000-05:00

Hah! I've learned so much about cooking tofu since becoming a vegetarian--it can be tricky stuff. Yesterday, I made some great tofu burrito filling--just crumbled extra-firm tofu, sauteed with tomato paste and spices. That was a very-fun project, and it has inspired me. I've been cooking all day today, mostly baking breads. My nature writing class went out to Big City Bread for lunch today, and the restaurant was very quaint and the food delicious. Grilled vegetable wrap, including eggplant, zucchini, portabellas, red peppers, spinach, feta, and tzatziki sauce. Yum! But the thing that really got to me at the restaurant today was the bread selection--never, except in a Parisian boulangerie have I seen more wonderful things. So I immediately came home and made whole wheat oatmeal bread. Later tonight, I made cherry-walnut banana bread from the Fatfree Vegan Blog, of which I am a frequenter. One thing I've always wanted to do is bring the taste of French bread to the U.S.--something that has never, that I am aware, been successfully done. French bread in the U.S. tastes not even remotely like the French bread in *gasp* France--even at such gourmet locations as Panera Bread and the Atlanta Bread Company. Somehow, I have to learn the secret to making authentic French bread. I start with handcrafting and kneading my own loaves--I know that makes a difference. One day, I will produce a baguette reminiscent of French breakfasts (and lunches, and dinners, and all in between...) and that may very well be the happiest day of my life.

It was so cool out today! The wind was very strong and chilling--I had to break out the long sleeves again. It was overcast most of the day but never rained, so on the whole today was my favorite kind of day. I remember watching storms approach when I was a kid--playing outside in the summertime, when suddenly you notice the sky growing dark and a wind coming in (usually from the east, sweeping off the ocean). Breathing in that pre-thunderstorm air is always envigorating, as if you are inhaling the very electricity and excitement of the storm itself. Those electrons brush your nerve endings and then... The storm is inside you, in all its grace and wonder. That's what today reminded me of--sitting at the table outside Big City Bread, the tiny white lights in the trees overhead were the brightest visible light source. The leaves rustled in the wind and let go of their branches, and suddenly we would look down to find our salads replenished with new leaves. I held my coffee mug tightly between the palms of my hands as the chill bumps formed up my arms to the opening of my three-quarter sleeves. But the rain never came. Not today.

It would have been a glorious day for a run, and indeed I planned on it, but this afternoon I came down with a headache/stomachache/sore throat. So I decided not to push my body too far. Perhaps this weather will linger into tomorrow.

Could it be...?

2006-04-27T23:31:00.001-05:00

After all the hard work of the last two or three weeks, all the numbness and the foggy-mindedness and the general unpleasantness that accompanies being a master's accounting student in the last weeks of the semester... After all that wrapped up today at 5:00 PM, with the exception of two final exams, it is hard to know how to react to a moment of rest. I have oscillated so much recently on my opinion of accounting, of school, even of my very life--but now, now that it is all a memory, I am reminded that there is nothing that lasts forever in this lifetime. Nothing hard will endure for very long, because life is not very long anyway. And I feel silly for having worried so much.

But sometimes, you have to worry. Not worry as in feel anxious, but worry as in give a care. I can't not care about school, about my grades or just my general performance. I can't sleep well at night with things hanging over my head that must be done and done well. These past weeks, I've had to worry. I've had to care, had to work harder than I ever thought I could work. And now I know it's all okay. Two finals, and then some exam grading. That's all that's left for me, until I begin my internship in late May.

The rain last night really cooled the weather. I think the earth was parched, dehydrated, overheated. Sometimes I think I can hear the earth panting, here in Georgia in the summertime. And the rain refreshes it like a cold sip of water on a sticky, swollen tongue. The rain refreshed me last night--Bob and I walked through it on the way to the Wesley Foundation, and the misty spray in my hair and over the lenses of my glasses helped me feel alive to the world again. I mean really alive, life that pierces through you. I've really felt numb, dead, like my spirit was a vegetable and I've just been dragging it behind me to all my classes and meetings. But wind and rain on your face--that will wake you up, sure enough. It did for me, at least.

To write, to write... I'll write this weekend. I have things to say. Thoughts like bats, flying haphazardly around, fill my mind right now and bang on the inside of my skull, asking to be let out. Open up, they say, admit to us. I've not been trying to hide my thoughts--I've not even had writer's block. I've simply had other things on my mind that were more pressing.

More pressing than my ultimate calling in this life--amazing thought. Distressing thought. I don't strive for much, but I should really learn to strive for less.

Vote with your fork?

2006-04-20T14:06:00.000-05:00

When we go grocery shopping we have to make a choice--either we may buy the cheap, pesticide-laden produce that comes to us at the expense of farmland, the environment in general, and our own health--or we may vote against it. Buy organic. In other countries people pay very dear prices for their food, up to 1/3 of their annual incomes. In America? We spend less than 10% of our incomes on food, when we're the nation in all the world with the best chance to do something better.

I came across a blog entry today based on a speech, "The Cornification of America," delivered by a well-respected and talented nature writer/journalist named Michael Pollan. I read the blog, and was reminded of how strongly I feel about these things. I would say more, but that would be taking away from the power of his message. Read it for yourself.

Prioritizing...

2006-04-11T20:26:00.000-05:00

I decided today that I'm not going to let my body and my sense of self to take backseat to my school responsibilities. This may seem like a rather obvious conclusion to have come to, but truthfully, I have struggled nearly all my life with putting too much importance on grades and on excelling in school. When I know that no one cares about your GPA in graduate school, why am I so fixated on As, trembling at the very thought of staining my track record with a B in an accounting class? Long after I have graduated and gotten a job and probably moved on to something else, when my grades are long forgotten and many of the technical skills I had once mastered have become dull and rusted, my body and my self-worth, and yes, my God, these things will remain. And while I know that God will have grace with me even in all the time that I do not give to Him (not that this justifies living in a way that less than glorifies Him), my body will constantly remind me how it was neglected and forgotten during my college years. I'm 22--at the peak of my physical shape. I don't want to spend my twenties overwhelmed to the point that I cannot physically exert myself and enjoy breathing so hard my lungs want to burst, or my eyes stinging with perspiration that rolls down my forehead.

I went on a run this evening, a beautiful spring (though practically summer) twilight. I hadn't run in about a week and a half, but before that it had been at least six weeks. Though my run tonight was short--only about 2 miles--it felt so wonderful to get moving and out in the fresh air. Lately I have had it in my head that I was developing a vitamin D deficiency (completely fabricated in my own mind--it would be really hard to shut yourself away from the sun to that degree), and it was a healing experience to be out in the fading light of day, running beneath the honeysuckle that creeps over the sidewalks, through sprinklers and past dads sitting on their front porches with their young daughters playing in the front yard. And I decided that nothing, nothing, not even an A in my advanced accounting class, is worth forgetting and forsaking the exhilaration of working your body. I know that the dividends will be much greater... and I know that I am preserving not only my health and well-being for myself, but am also preserving my body as a temple, a sanctuary to honor the Lord.

As I was walking home from class today, I saw something intriguing--a bright red Jeep Grand Cherokee, pollen-dipped, and on the back of the Jeep a spider web, the most prototypical concentric, undamaged, possibly, that I have ever seen. I think about the times when I have taken note of spider webs in nature... Beneath my mom's climbing jasmine, along infrequently traveled trails through the woods, places serene and inviting to a spider seeking to set its wily trap. But never, in all my experience, on the back of a Jeep. The golden-brown grains of white oak blossoms, which litter the sidewalks all over campus, lay suspended in the adhesive fibers of the web, alongside the salmon-colored, teardrop-shaped wings of maple seeds. The most prominent symbols of the birth and growth embodied in spring, but not a single insect. Nor did I see the spider. Perhaps she built another web elsewhere, not putting much faith in the power of one built upon a brightly painted hunk of metal sitting in a parking lot. I hope she did.

Breathless

2006-04-10T17:53:00.000-05:00

I've been so busy and my energy so sapped with all the things I have to do, I don't know how to make it through the next few weeks until the end of school. It's so close, but I can't even think of how close it is because all I can think of is what I have to get done this minute... and that minute...

I wish I could take care of my body better. I want to run. I want to walk. I want to be in the sun. I want to eat more fresh vegetables. But I can't do any of those things like I should, because I cannot invest the time. I feel like I'm losing these days and months of my life. It makes me so sad. I wish I could spend more time with my friends... Especially those who are graduating soon and moving away. I'll look around one day and they'll be gone, and I will have missed their departure, trapped in the cloud of my own breathless life. I wish I would write more, and on my time. Deadlines are sneaking up faster than I can crank out even mildly acceptable junk to turn in, and I cannot do anything that I feel enhances me as a person. I wish I could spend more time in prayer and meditation. When I sit down to seek God intensely, my mind will not leave behind all the things of the day, and all the things coming up for tomorrow. It will not let go of the wishes and dreams that I am constantly having to put on hold, and it will not let go of my sadness and my overwhelmedness.

Excuse me, but I have to go to yet another meeting... Maybe you'll hear from me again sometime in the next month.