Play Hard

Life’s kind of been a blur. I’ve been applying and interviewing for jobs (here and there). I’m glad to have opportunities to find work. Most of them have come through connections so far, and I’ve already had one strike out.

I’m not too disappointed about not getting one of the jobs. I really wasn’t ready to make any big decisions, like possibly moving away from the East Bay, and if not, commuting to the South Bay. The funny thing is, nobody’s replied to any of my job applications I’ve sent out, except for a woman that sent me an email that the graphic design job’s been filled already. The job finding game’s a tough one without connections.

It’s been hot here in the Bay Area. I guess it’s been hot all over the USA, so I can’t really complain. I helped Dad put up a screen door today, along with interviewing for a job with Alameda County Behavioral Health Care Services, and I also played pick-up Ultimate over in North Oakland. I think the heat really added to my crankiness. I have to appologize to mom and dad for being a bit snappy today. Yikes.

I really love playing Ultimate, and I’m glad that I’m healthy enough to play sports and be active. I’m actually having a harder time keeping up with some of the dudes at the pick up game. It’s weird because I’m used to running guys all over the place, and this time around, I’m chasing after these other guys. Maybe I’m out of shape, or maybe I’m just losing a step. I hope not!

This entry’s a little scattered, but sometimes it’s fun to just write about what I did. I think my writing can get a little too heavy sometimes, and it’s good to just write to write, regardless of how interesting or deep life may (seem) to be.

One thing stood out this week for me. At church, things were running kind of long, but Cameron shared something that really clicked with me. He just mentioned how he’s learning that life… is short. He mentioned that his contractor got into an accident, and also about how he’s been thinking about things after his Dad died back in January. Being close to death has made him realize that life, simply, is short and you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, and say what you’ve got to say, because you never know when things will end.

It didn’t crush me to hear him say that, but it was actually an encourgement to me. I’ve felt super lost with my life during this transition. So far, it’s just felt like this horrible middle ground that I want to just finish quickly. Like standing in a long line at the grocery store: I just want to get it over with. I heard a reasonable voice inside telling me that it is OK to feel how I feel, and to keep looking for life in the midst of drastic change, because life is short.

I’ve been thinking more about Julie, too. Her death was a big part of my summer, and I it really spurred me to push really hard into pursuing community (in spite of my frustrations with it), and exploring life. Her stories of her time in the Philippines were a big part of me applying with Word Made Flesh to go to Africa. Her death, though it was really hard and confusing for me, helped me to see my life differently. Something about life as a big exploration.

I wrote this in my application for going to Sierra Leone with WMF:

I have all these doubts, but a recent experience is forcing me to cling to faith despite them. A friend I was close with died recently. She was my age, and we went to UCSD together. She was really a beautiful gal who loved God dearly, and her friends as family. She was always on my side, reminding me to dream big because our God is really big. She had just begun life as a missionary in the Philippines, something she longed and waited to be for years.

I can’t tell you how much I miss her. I’ve been learning a lot through this. I haven’t tasted death before, and this seems to make salvation more real, more pressing, and more beautiful. It’s been challenging to consider heaven and where Julie is. If I am ever to see her again, I have to believe in this salvation for her and also for myself. I do believe in God, and that Jesus’ death has allowed me to reconcile my relationship with God towards eternity. Yet, I think my faith is small and my understanding of things is very incomplete. Heaven and eternity seem to be so far beyond my imagination.

I miss her still, and like my trip to Sierra Leone, I don’t want to forget her.

Who Cares

Well, there’s war in the middle east, haven’t you been following?

I was ashamed by my lack of knowledge to what’s going on between Israel and Lebanon. I didn’t really answer my friend, just kind of BS’ed about how I was trying to figure out what’s happening. I went home and searched for some news. I seemed to get some of the story about conflict: attacks, bombs, and oil prices rising.

Let’s be honest, the closest connection I have to feeling the conflict comes at the gas pump. $3.23 a gallon, are you kidding me? Then the next day it goes up to $3.54. I don’t remember what it was when I left for Africa four months ago, but I swear it was under three dollars.

And then I realized that this is America.

I’m living in this place that is really sheltered from the happenings of the rest of the world. In West Africa I would look towards the west, grateful to see the sun coming down, in beautiful orange and red. It reminded me of the California Coast, something I could at least connect with in terms of home. But I also looked to the West in disdain. I mean, the West doesn’t give a rip about anything unless if it affects the daily comforts of life. So if gas goes up, people sure care, but if people are dying and people are suffering, it’s really hard to care. I sure get mad when I have to pay 30 more cents per gallon for gasoline.

And this is where I live.

I feel sad that people are suffering in Lebanon. I feel sad that folks in Israel are suffering too. I think about our friend Raymond, a Lebanese friend who’s in Sierra Leone. In a strange way, Sierra Leone has become a safer place than his once peaceful home. How crazy is that? No one would ever think that they’d say that in comparison to Sierra Leone. I think about my friend Steph who’s in Israel, emailing that she’s safe but she’s felt and heard the missles crashing into the city. I know it’s more than what’s said on the news and on the papers. I have to try so hard just to get some sort of story about what it all means. Or I could just not care, and my life would be affected by inconvenient prices at the gas station.

I’m still in denial here. I don’t like a lot of things still, and I hope there comes a point where I’m a little less indignant. At the same time, I don’t lose this sense that a lot of what we call life looks like a human sized rat-race.

I hate driving. If I had it my way, we’d all walk, skateboard, bike or take the subway. I never really drove until Avery and Mao-Mei lent me their car(s). It wasn’t too hard to learn to like the convenience of a car. I think I got used to my life with a car, and since leaving for Africa and coming back, I’ve learned to dislike it. I’m not being ungrateful for personal transportation, it just doesn’t seem to fit me. (I think it has to do with the loneliness of driving alone in a time where I feel kind of alone in my adjustment) Nice: more angst in my life. Just what I need. I see things differently, but it doesn’t mean it all matches up with the reality of life here.

I have to confess that I really have been a mess with all of this. On one hand, I have this view of life through my time in Africa. I haven’t yet commited to my life here yet. I’m denying that this is my place, and I have had such a hard time trusting people’s listening, and investing in anything or anyone here. On the other hand, to live here is to take on life here as it is. I need to find work. I need to find people to (re)connect with. I need to settle the score with my own demons: loneliness / purpose / debt / pursuing vocation. I have this job offer that is probably (maybe!?) right for the time, but my soul is weary to take on the nine-to-five-with-benefits so soon.

I think it reminds me of Albert’s thesis paper on Nouwen’s “struggle with and embrace of paradox” (A.Olson.Hong, 1). Life definitely feels like it’s in between the lines. I don’t mean to get too existential, but I feel like I’m in two places at once, strangely trying to hold on to the past while denying the present. I think that’s why a month’s gone by, and I’m still stuck in the parking lot looking for my keys.

That’s what I’m looking for, and kind of who I’m looking for. I’m looking for a way to live life that’s closer to redemption and compassion, and less about consumption and carelessness. I’m looking for people who consider their lives to be so precious that they don’t want to waste it. I’m looking for folks who consider this to be a process for life and not just a goal to get to. It’s kind of messy, but that’s life: I think.

Restart

It’s been a month since I left Freetown. I haven’t figured a lot of things out yet.

I’m going to keep writing in this blog, mostly to keep my sanity levels up (sometimes they get low – you have to watch the levels) and to also keep in touch with some of yall who read this crazy thing.

You’ll have to forgive me if the fire comes out of my mouth. I’m not talking about bad breath either. I think I’m at this weird place of being really unsure and frustrated with life here. It feels like I can’t really share all of what 4 months in Sierra Leone was I don’t think folks can really understand the stuff I talk about either. I don’t think it’s either’s fault, it’s just what it is. It can be frustrating, and almost make me not want to talk to anyone at all about Sierra Leone. My words may be kind of spicy or just down right depressing. Who knows.

I’m wondering what will become of this blog. I think it was pretty easy to write interesting stuff in this blog because it seemed like adventure and interesting was things I was trying to avoid every day. Obviously, this blog won’t be about life in Sierra Leone, but I think a lot of who I am will be tied to my time there, and also to the community that I’ve become part of in West Africa.

I’d like this space to be a place where I sort out those ideas of beauty and brokenness, art as vocation, truth, poverty and hope. Fun(ny) stuff too, like the Golden State Warriors winning the NBA championships next year, the Oakland A’s winning the World Series this Fall and crazy pictures of skateboarders in gorilla suits. It’ll might look different because I’ve got my computer back and I can play around more with graphics stuff now. The infamous Buknocka introduced me to this song about skateboarding by Lupe Fiasco. I used to skateboard everywhere in college. I love it.

Kick. Push. Coast.