ready, set, go.

For the last two Fridays, I've been taking care of two little boys in San Antonio.  It's actually been a while since I had a babysitting gig, which is funny, because I can remember a time when it's literally all I ever did.  I'm pretty sure I was making more money at it than I do now, too, but that's another story.

The boys and I decided the only thing possible to do on a near-fatal, triple-digit high, summer day like today was to hit the pool.  So, I took them to their grandfather's house where they could take turns doing cannonballs off the diving board.  My only rules: no running, and don't kill each other.  When the boys had their fill of breath-holding competitions and seeing who could touch the bottom, we sat in pool chairs beneath large shade trees.  Their grandfather's house is near the airport, so every few minutes a giant jetliner roared over our heads and off to some unknown destination.

"Where is that plane going?" I would ask, to which Nick replied, "Mexico!"
"And that one?"  "Australia!!"
Our game continued, and as we listed off exotic and not-so-exotic (such as Nebraska?) destinations, that little cauldron of restlessness began to stir within me.  I found myself wishing I was onboard one of these great, silver birds, off to start a new adventure in a place I've never been.  I imagined a different existence for myself, that I was some illustrious jet-setter, skipping wildly from continent to continent like some giant game of hopscotch.  A citizen of the world, the edges of my passport frayed with use, its pages giving clues to the scenery of my life.  I allowed myself to get lost in this dream for a while.

But like all dreams worth having, I faded slowly back into reality.  The boys had grown bored sitting in chairs and were now begging me for the ice cream that had been promised to them.  "Now can we have ice cream, Taylor?  Now??"  Their dream was so much different than mine, and so much more attainable!  If only world travel were as easy as reaching into the freezer, scooping up a foreign language here, a new culture there, with all the sights and sounds and smells sprinkled wonderfully on top...

Yes, I feel ready for some kind of journey.  Though I feel mine will traverse the human spirit rather than the globe.  The miles I travel will not take me overseas but into new territories of the heart.  There will still be customs to go through, and I will surely get lost, frustrated with myself, even overwhelmed at times.  But every voyage worth taking is difficult (thank God!) or else we'd return with pretty pictures yet no stories,  with suntanned skin but an unchanged heart.  I want to discover real beauty, the kind that pierces you, disables you, then transforms you from the inside out.  I've already left, you see, and I'm on a plane of a different kind.  I'm taking off into a hot summer day, my engines roaring loudly to remind restless citizens below that we were all born to fly.

P.S.  Check out this song by Andrew Peterson called "World Traveler."  He says it much more beautifully than I do :)

breaking news

I shall take a break from my usual fare to announce that I have already decided what I'm going to be for Halloween 2010 and it's going to be EPIC.

Well, I don't know if EPIC is the right word, but certainly sensational.  Google Images is an incredible costume-planning tool.

Carry on,
Taylor

take off your shoes

Sanctuary (n): a consecrated place; a center of refuge and protection.  Derived from the Latin word "sanctus" which means holy (sanctus is the word that the angels, upon seeing the very glory of God, call to one another in Isaiah's vision.)  A sanctuary, then, is literally holy ground, a place belonging to the Divine, a spot where heaven and earth kiss one another.

I'm remembering now a handful of places I've had the pleasure of visiting in my lifetime - places, which seemed to me then and even now, to be holy ground.  One is a small summer camp off River Road, where as a kid I spent one week every July that I dreamed about for the other fifty-one.  A rock on the coast of British Columbia where you can watch real bald eagles swoop down to catch salmon out of the inlet.  A sprawling, lush green field beneath the red brick clock tower.  A café in Paris where I spent hours and hours with three friends I will cherish for a lifetime.  One is a house that's always full of children, teenagers, college students, and a lot of other people who come in and out on a regular basis.  And one is a simple room with hardwood floors, the windows open like kind eyes to the river and town below.  

These places are not sacred to me for aesthetic reasons, though some possess beauty beyond description.  It seems to be much more about what happened within.  They are the setting for my story and the context of my growing up.   If life is a play, then the script gives meaning to the scene, and not the other way around.  And so my sanctuaries are bowls full of rain that hold the things important enough to remember, to cherish, to cling to.  Without the water, all that remains is an empty piece of clay. 

I like to come back to these places sometimes when I'm lying in my bed or driving my car or waiting in line.  I like the power of remembering that I have felt real Glory and Wonder, whether in the deep blue of staggering mountains or a warm conversation with a beautiful soul.  I have called out, like Isaiah's angels, to the world around me - holy, holy, holy!  I have stood in awe.  And while I am sometimes saddened that I will never physically return to some of my old "sanctuaries", there is also the sure promise that my feet will again tread on holy ground.  I'm not done taking off my shoes, not even close.

a rude awakening

Today I opened my door to the rising sun, my legs ready to carry me down to the park, but my plans were soon interrupted (and most violently.)

The very thing that took the sleepy smile from my face was so small, it's laughable now.  A wasp, a wicked yellow jacket bent to ruin my first waking hours...he was just a few inches long, easily crushed with a deft maneuver of a tightly rolled newspaper.  But I did not have a newspaper.

Nor did I even see him coming, me emerging from my house, and he from his - a sand-dollar sized nest hanging from the door frame.  I am convinced the act may have even been premeditated, so swift his nose-dive to where I stood below, so calculating his attack just below my right eyeball.

My first thoughts:  I am now blind.  My eye is gone and only pain is left where it used to sit so nicely in my head.  Cue obscenities.

My next, less dramatic thoughts:  "How rude!"  And I do feel it was quite inconsiderate.  After all, I had noticed his nest before, but having heard that wasps are the natural predators of other annoying insects, I left it well alone.  I resolved to live in my house and let he and his friends live in theirs.  It was very progressive of me.  Despite my compassion and open-mindedness, that little stinker still stung me.

And that's when it hit me.  Sometimes I am sweet as can be, and I still get stung.  I might sow kind words, good deeds, positive thoughts but reap a rude gesture from a stranger, a painful wound from a friend, or a harsh "no" to a simple request.  I don't always get what I deserve.  Thank goodness for that, because it goes both ways.  Most often if I look hard enough, it turns out I'm usually the yellow jacket...stinging when I shouldn't, becoming aggressive and defensive toward people who aren't a threat to me at all.  But I wake up every morning and the sun is still shining and I still have friends who choose to be near me and a family who somehow still claims me (though they are most often my victims).  There is still the life-changing, heart-breaking truth of knowing that even though I'm a wasp, I'm surrounded on all sides by love.  I float in an ocean of it - a deep sea of grace in which my poison is powerless.

I don't know what happened to the yellow jacket who stung me.  If I could talk to him now, I'd tell him that I get it.  I, too, have wounded without reason.  I'd tell him to be thankful that we don't get always get what we want, or what we deserve.  For though we say we want a world of justice, what we both want more than anything, is mercy.

into other houses

I am often overwhelmed at the great privilege it is to really know another human being.  It's to hear someone's stories, to look through a person's eyes as if they were windows into other houses.  When I listen to the hearts of my friends, it's as if I get to see the way they've arranged the furniture there inside.  At first, I notice how distinct it is from my own -- the differing colors, styles and uses of rooms.  Some homes are far finer and more lovely than mine.  But then, I catch a glimpse of something shared.  It could be, perhaps, a book which resides in both our libraries,  a dress hanging in both our closets,  a smell from the kitchen of my favorite food cooking or a familiar song playing in the background- a tune I thought that only I loved.

This is the place where real friendship is ignited.  We discover at first a mutual love of some thing, some hobby, some place.  And before much time has passed, we realize that what we have really come to love is not just a person's intersecting interests but the very person herself.  

I have much to be joyful about tonight.

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one."

C.S. Lewis

elephant tales

This morning, my friend Ray told me a story about elephants.

He said that when an elephant is very young, its trainer tethers him to the ground. Small and weak, he is unable to break the hold of even a simple rope.  He struggles and struggles against it to no avail.

Spending his entire youth pulling and fighting a rope that won't give, the elephant becomes adjusted to his life in captivity.  As the years pass, he grows much bigger and stronger.  He towers over his trainer.  He is a fierce and mighty creature.

But though the elephant now weighs several tons, though he possesses the power to trample everything around him, he remains tethered to the ground.  He remembers the years of struggling against his rope, knows too well the feeling of failure that accompanied his every attempt to break from captivity.  He will never run free.  He will never exercise the sheer power he was born to display.  He could be a force to be reckoned with.  Sadly, the elephant looks to his feet and sees a rope that is stronger than he is.

By now it should be fairly obvious that we have much in common with our elephant friend.  If we look to the ground, we will see the fears that keep us "tethered" in place, incapable of moving forward, blindly unaware of the great strength and purpose for which we were designed.  We are wild animals!  We want to play in rivers, run through plains, and let out our savage trumpet calls for the world to hear.  But with powerless chains around our ankles, we settle for the peanuts thrown at us when we perform our cheap circus tricks.

It seems the only answer is to never stop struggling against the rope.  There will be times when it will seem to defeat us, or moments when the memories of our failings weaken our resolve.  But I know in my soul the victory that awaits us when we believe more in our futures than our histories.  We will feel the strength in our legs and the grit in our hearts.  Here's to the struggle my friends, and here's to that place we will meet together one day, where elephants go to do all of the things elephants should.  Where we will run and shout and holler and be free and wild.

morning mantras

The clock sounds at 6:15 AM...the infrared blinking brightly into my vision.  The harsh tone of my alarm is unforgiving, and the only thing in my life that is never running late.  I splash water in my face and throw on track shorts and a T-shirt.  I've done well if I've laid these things out the night before.  Otherwise, I stare at my dresser for a solid 3 minutes before my brain connects to my hands to tell them where my clothes are.  I lace up my shoes, throw my hair blindly into a messy ponytail and I am out the door.  By now, it's 6:30.  The soft, natural light of the new morning makes everything right.  There is a a pink sun in the sky spreading warmth into the night's dark blue that coaxes my sleepy eyes to attention.  There is a song floating above the trees, a symphony of bird calls and cicada rhythms falls softly on my ears.  My once-aching legs quickly fall into step.  As the sun climbs higher to its perch overhead, my heart lifts upward.  I look forward to the sight of my neighbor who will be out walking her three dogs and the gentle roar of the springs feeding the river as I descend down the hill.  Any notion that I am the only one sweating it out this early disappears as the park is already full of cyclists, joggers, swimmers, and walkers that have all gathered here for the same purpose.  We are all singing the same morning song.  We are celebrating that mysterious wonder of these early hours when all seems possible.  The day is open to a thousand destinations.  We have put yesterday's hurts behind us to embrace a refreshed heart and a renewed spirit.  With every stride, every stroke, every leap forward on the path, we are shouting in unison that Yes! Today, we will be different.  We will listen more.  We will love better.  We will raise our voices in song instead of anger.  We will lose ourselves in true Beauty instead of vanity.  We will read the books waiting on our shelves, plan the trips postponed for several years and call the old friends whose familiar hellos can soothe our souls.  This evening, with our televisions turned off, we will eat our suppers to the sound of stories from our family.  And yes, we might leave our dishes in the sink.  We might realize an errand we've forgotten to run.  We might not avoid every annoyance, every pain, every wound that the world can inflict.  But as the moon hangs in the nighttime sky, long after we have returned from the path that brings us together this morning in the park, we will rest in the knowing that yes! Today, we were different.

love on yourself a little

A few weeks ago, I took a trip to Naples, Florida.  I've flown so much that I hardly pay any attention to the pre-flight safety schpeel from the attendant, but I always find myself pondering the oxygen mask part.  Should the air situation in the cabin become a bit dodgy, and should I find myself seated next to a small child or some other being needing assistance, I must ensure that I attach my own mask first.  Then I can go ahead and help my little buddy next to me.  Now, wait a second, this doesn't seem to fit my idea of an act of selflessness, heroism, even.  I'm confused.  Shouldn't I think of others before myself?

Last month I posted about a particularly wonderful day that I had...one in which I got to do nearly all of my favorite things.  Today I find myself in a similar posture.  Today I've enjoyed a jog with a great friend, my favorite drink from Starbucks (Americano with a splash of half & half, please!), and the purchase of a few new additions to the wardrobe.  Now, I find myself resting with a magazine on a ridiculously comfortable couch, and feeling above all things, thankful.  I've noticed on these days when I'm a little kinder to myself, I seem to have more kindness left to give to the people living life around me.  Rather than scraping the bottom of the jar for sweet words to say, it feels as though they come spilling over the top.  The more I love on myself a bit, the more inclined I am to love on my family, my friends, my neighbors, even strangers.

It seems that the same rule that applies in the cabin of an airplane applies in the little town in whose streets I jog around, go to work, do my shopping, etc.  While I can't get a pedicure every week, or always have time to take a long stroll to the coffee shop, it helps to nurture myself every once in a while. Even if it's just a moment in the busy day to stop.  And breathe.  I've got to remember, like I do in mid-flight, that if I have any hope of bringing life to the people around me, I've got to let it come inside my own lungs first.