Tag Archives: hope

In my Life, I’m going to Carolina…Moving for a Boy. A Series. Part 3.

Posted in boys, growing older., life, love, travel by

first mission trip as a couple

first mission trip as a couple

If you asked us how BF and I met, we would each have different stories. Both stories are funny, but what matters is that almost a year ago today, we decided we wanted to be together. A year later, we’ve decided we don’t want to be apart.

That doesn’t mean a proposal or marriage or living together (things we agree we’re not ready for), it means that when my boyfriend moves to North Carolina at the end of this summer, I have decided I’m going with him.

!!!!!!!

I’m excited. I’m scared. I’m SO scared. But. I’m ready for a change. I feel like if I drive down the same road to work, pick the same food at the same Safeway, or park in the same spot and sit in the same seat at the same church service just ONE MORE TIME….I will go bananas.

Blue-dot-01

I want to go to there.

I want out. Out out out. I want to get rid of everything that I own except what fits in a car and drive across the country. I want to roll down the windows and stop only when I need to sleep or pee or buy some Cheetos. Or when I see a sign for something I can’t pass up, like “World’s Largest Bottle of Ketchup.”

I want to see small towns and smaller towns and then live in one. I want the smell of corn fields and wheat fields and the complete lack of mountains to fill my senses and numb my senses and propel me into the unknown.

I’ve quit the best grown up job I’ve ever had, a job I love, to pursue something else, or nothing at all. I have no plan for North Carolina except to be near someone I can’t imagine being without. I might teach, but what I really want is to pursue writing and getting a book published, come hell or high water. Because writing makes me happy and I want to run full force towards it.

riddle me an adventure...

riddle me an adventure…

And I want to know a culture outside of California. I want to know what it feels like when the seasons change. And to hear a different accent, and different perspectives, and to make an adventure out of everything that has become so mundane to me – the restaurants, drugstores, bars, live music, fastest way to get to Target, where an ATM is, the parks, the libraries, the movie theater…

Having been here all my life, I feel like I explore less and less as time goes by. We go hiking somewhere new every Saturday, and I love a good road trip, but my life is one big routine of things I’ve been doing since I was a little girl. Same people, same places, same feeling.

I want adventure in the great wide somewhere. I want it more than I can stand. :)

And so we will go. Well, he will go, and almost as crazy (for independent, strong-willed, stubborn, “I do what I want!” me) as moving across the country is, is the fact that I’m doing it to follow a boy. Which makes it only more perfect because it’s even more nuts for the likes of me. So. Here we go! Stay tuned. :)

BookReview: A Year of Biblical Womanhood – an Unexpected LOL.

Posted in education, Jesus, life, love, writing by

biblical womanMy boyfriend went to Canada a few weeks ago, and told me over the phone he had bought me a present that he couldn’t wait to give to me upon his return. I have visions of cute little maple-leaf things, weird Canadian chips (I love international chips!), or some Mountie Christmas ornament. I am very easy to please when it comes to gifts.

But instead, he told me that he had knew I loved God, and blogs, and sarcasm, and so he had bought me a book that combined all three. And the author’s name was Rachel. Brilliant.

A Year of Biblical Womanhood.

This woman, Rachel Held Evans, who might just be my long-lost twin, embarks on a year-long journey that explores every single thing the Bible says about women. She is mostly doing this to procrastinate against the childbearing her well-intentioned Christian friends think it’s time she get down to business about. And because her mother thought it was a crazy idea. I resonate SO much with that! haha.

She compiles a list of all the sometimes lovely and sometimes strange commands the Bible has about women, divides them by theme and attempts a certain group of them each month. Things like:

  • calling her husband “master”
  • rising before dawn and working well into the night
  • investing in real estate
  • observing specific holidays
  • praise her husband at the city gate
  • care for widows and orphans
  • long periods of silence
  • considering herself “unclean” while menstruating…ie sleeping in a tent outside her home while on her period
  • spending time on the roof in reflection over sins she commits
  • not cutting her hair, as it is her jewel
  • covering her head during prayer
  • making all food from scratch
  • and much, much more.
A Quiverfull family

A Quiverfull family

She connects with randoms on her blog, rabbis, Benedictine monks, the Amish, Quiverfull families, sisterwives, etc., to learn more about how they feel they follow what’s outlined as “Biblical Womanhood.” She retells the stories of the women in the Bible, who are often nameless, who are often overlooked and forgotten in our whole church bible studies, relegated to “Women’s Retreat material,” and helps us to see how radical Jesus was, not just for including women in the religious dialogue for the first time, but for raising their status in a time and place and culture where they were separated at the temple, uneducated, property of men, nameless in most documents, and considered unreliable witnesses.

Did you know that the first person to whom Jesus reveals he is the Messiah is a woman? Remember how the first people to see him after he rose from the dead were women? How he allowed women to sit at his feet and learn from the ultimate rabbi, even when dinner was not yet prepared? How he healed so many women from diseases that had kept them from society and normal lives? How he called the Christians to care for the widows, who in many cases were cast in the streets, forced into prostitution to survive, left forgotten to die?

I have never heard a sermon about any of these things. All my sermons have been from men. It’s not their fault I’ve never heard it, but it is wild to me that as a 29 year old, educated, lifelong Christian, this was a complete revelation to me.

The way that Christianity changed the treatment of and attitude towards women beginning in the 1st century is staggering, but because we read the Bible through the lens of the 20th+ century, it sounds sexist and oppressive, and we don’t look at the verses within the historical context and cultural context in which they were written. We try to interpret the Word of God literally, black and white, legalizing the words that Paul was writing in a personal letter, and pick and choose which verses to make the law.

I love this guy.

I love this guy.

I laughed out loud more than I have at a book in a long time. I teared up. I learned. And I thought deeply about what it means to truly be a woman in the church we have today. I marveled at the women of the Bible in a completely new way.

I really resonated with what seemed to be her overall lesson in her experience – as Christians, we can’t get bogged down in these details of interpretations of things. We have to just run after Jesus. She admitted that she had looked down upon people who interpreted parts of the Bible in different ways than she did. As Christians, we often take this to a far, far extreme, and we alienate not only each other, but everyone on the outside looking in. We look like angry, hypocritical, unloving people no one is going to be interested in getting to know.

Anyway. Go read it. You can actually head to her blog, sign up for an email subscription, and receive a free electronic download of the first bit of the book. Love it or hate it, I guarantee you won’t be able to put it down.

http://rachelheldevans.com/biblical-womanhood

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TeacherDiaries: Racism.

Posted in children, education, growing older., life, teaching by

Today in Spanish class, one of the activities asked where one could learn Spanish in our community, and what were some reasons why one would want to study Spanish. One student, who is definitely smart, funny, and mature, answered “well, all the gardeners and cleaners are Mexican, so I can talk to them.”

The classroom erupted with laughter. Which the look on my face quickly destroyed. Within 10 seconds, you could have heard a pin drop.

I am very sensitive to issues of race…I’m not sure why, other than I think it’s the right thing to be. I’m just your average white girl with enough hint of Hawaiian blood to have been pegged for just about every ethnic group on the planet. To my delight, I am most frequently mistaken for Hispanic. Growing up, I always wanted to be Mexican and speak Spanish. When I was traveling Central America, I was told by a Spanish couple I had a Mexican accent and that it was sexy. I could have flown to the moon.

So when I hear my students in my Spanish elective (as in, they chose to take an extra year-long academically rigorous course, on top of their regular Language Arts and Latin class, which I teach) say something to this effect about wanting to know enough Spanish to communicate with the hired help, it makes me nauseous.

In that moment, with all the things I wanted to say, I felt my body go completely still and cold, and God delivered me these powerful words;

“I don’t like that at all. That’s a wrong thing to say.”

In many situations, with different people, these words will have minimal effect. But in a room full of junior highers that (mostly) adore me, these were efficient and devastating.

I asked that anyone in the room who would work hard to support their family to raise their hands. “Would you clean toilets, mop floors, rake lawns, sell oranges on street corners, make me french fries, if it meant your family would live?” Yes, yes we would.

I asked that anyone in the room whose families had been living on the continent of North America continuously and without interracial marriage for the last 1,000 years to raise their hands. No hands. “So you mean that your families are immigrant families?” Yes, yes they are. “Oh but they came here and already spoke English and had jobs lined up and were welcomed with open arms?” Silence.

A few weeks ago, I had to pull my set of “Apples to Apples” from the classroom, because I found a blank card that someone had labeled “Obama.” They described him as “racist, gun-hating, communist, lying, crying, Pinnochio, terrorist, anti-American Muslim, etc. etc.”

From the mouths of babes.

I remember being in junior high, and discovering all the words and terms that I had never known. I felt their power, but we used them casually. I remember very clearly (and oddly) learning the word “fag” and using it ALL THE TIME, with no idea what it really meant. We called things “gay” and “retarded” without thinking of the power of those words. We swore and we gossiped. We told dirty jokes. But racist ones? Maybe it’s because my best friend was black and I dreamed of being Mexican, but I could never stomach them.

I know they are young, and don’t know boundaries, or what’s appropriate, and mostly repeating what they’ve heard their parents say (shame on you, parents) or what they’ve heard on TV, movies, the internet. But it breaks my heart, and I don’t know how to explain it to them. I teach at a private school, with some very, very sheltered kids, who would get their behinds handed to them in public school for saying some of these things!

After I talked about some of that with my class. I explained how I hear them say things like “I know a joke, but it’s a little racist,” but that’s like saying someone’s “a little dead” or “a little pregnant.” It is racist, and I don’t want that poison around.

The bell rang, and the student stayed behind with tears in their eyes to apologize. I expressed my disapproval, my disappointment and sadness in the words used. This student in particular is a first generation who is fiercely proud of their heritage. So I tried to explain, “you know how proud you are of where you are from? The culture, the language, the music, the people? That’s universal. And I know you have heard stereotypes about your people, and the words hurt you. Do you see that’s the same thing that you did here? If you don’t want those things to be said about you and your family that worked their butt off to get you to this country and bless you with this life, the change has to start with people like you.”

Sometimes as teachers, the most powerful lessons we teach aren’t the Latin grammar, or the Spanish reflexive verbs, or the pre-algebra formulas, but the ones that just spring up on you and you realize you’re holding so much opportunity for young people in the words you say and the actions you model. I can only hope I handled this situation well enough to have made the impact I want.

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Cupid’s Arrow

Posted in life by

The Daily Post Challenge for Valentine’s Day was a good one – Write an ode to someone or something that you love. I love a good ode. I know I’m a few days late on this one, but I’ve been having such a fantastic weekend, it’s just now I can sit to write my ode. Ode ode ode.

This *was* me

This *was* me

I was somewhat excited about this Valentine’s Day. I’ve spent the past several years “celebrating” in a someone macabre way – usually wearing all black, shouting for “Singles Awareness,” practicing voodoo on all my exes with other chronically single girlfriends, and documenting it to the high heavens on this blog. (See here)

But this is the first in a long time that I was actually going to “share” with a someone special. My boyfriend is pretty romantic, and I’m easy to please, so I had good feelings about it. Not high expectations, because he’s also a guy who hates commercialization and hype and forced feelings, but I was excited. However when we talked about what we might do, we discovered that I was working all day and then coaching volleyball until 8:30pm, and he was going to work all day and then had been invited to dinner, so we weren’t going to see each other until Friday. I was disappointed, but thought he might send me flowers at work and that would be special, and Friday we were going on a hike to the beach.

But then, 6:15am on Thursday, as my alarm went off to go on my morning workout, I rose to turn it to snooze for another 45 minutes (and not work out), when my door slowly opened and a familiar figure walked in.

“What are you doing here?!”

“Happy Valentine’s Day!”

“Oh my gosh. Where are my glasses.”

Keep in mind that when I wake up in the morning, I am a laughable sight – mouthguard, hair in seven different directions, fumbling for my glasses, eyes squinting open like a mole coming out of the ground, etc. And on this particular morning, I had slept dressed in head to toe workout clothes, including socks and headband, all the more to motivate me to get out of bed and work out.

ImageSo when someone wants to surprise you and actually see you like that in the morning, when he gets up at 5am and drives to Safeway, waits in the frigid cold for it to open so he can buy you flowers, breakfast, your favorite candy (conversation hearts!), a puzzle with animals on it, and had coordinated with your roommates to come into your house before the sun’s even up, and endures your morning breath, and goes on your morning workout with you…..you’re pretty sure you have a winner.

He was a little concerned that I didn’t react more violently to someone unexpectedly walking into my room in the wee hours of the morning…wondering where my baseball bat and scream and rape whistle were….but I guess I just knew it was him. :)

I’ve spent a lot of years bitter and lonely and wanting and waiting. It’s nice to finally feel so happy, and so loved, and special enough for someone to do something special for me. And I know this will embarrass him, but he will tolerate it because writing is something I have to do. And after so many years whining  documenting the ups and downs of singleness, I feel obligated and excited to share these happy experiences, too.

So my ode is actually going to be a tiny haiku.

 

Valentine’s Day

I used to hate you.

But I love your candy and

I have a boyfriend.

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Hear Here in the New Year (308)

Posted in baseball, family, friends, Giants, growing older., Holidays, life, love by

It’s funny to think that man made up time. The way we organize it makes no sense – 60 seconds in a minute, 60 of those in an hour, 24 of those in a day, 7 of those in a week, 52 of those in a year, 365.25 days in a year…

ancient_Roman_CalendarNone of those numbers are related.

The history of our holidays and their formations can be even more interesting. Usually related to harvests, solstice, fertility, etc., before being tied with big moments in the church (clever Romans!).

When we come to the “new year,” we tend to make a big deal about resolutions, the idea of change and somehow convinced that on this particular day, we have more self-control and power over our actions. Enough to effect permanent change.

I’m tired of resolutions. I hate failing, and I’ve yet to keep a resolution, so it seems better to not have a go at it. This last year, in fact, I resolutely gained back the weight I’d lost, and ate less vegetables. So 2012 was a bit of “resolution fail.”

For 2013, I tossed around different ideas – each month I can try something new or give something up that seems to have been a stronghold. How about one month of no texting? One with no dairy? One with no TV (as long as it’s not during baseball season)?

But I didn’t really get organized in time.

we look just like this. all the time.

we look just like this. all the time.

My boyfriend and I (he against his will) made couple’s resolutions of things we’d like to do this year. We want to hike more, challenge each other in specific ways, and go wine-tasting and on other little adventures. I think it will be fun to cross that off.

Or lose the paper somewhere and never think of it again.

This year had it’s highs. I finished my credential program, coached a historical winning volleyball team, learned how to snowshoe, sang in weddings, helped people give birth, traveled around the US, began my fourth year of teaching, and fell in love with a best friend, in what could be the relationship of our lifetimes.

There was lots of struggles, too. Three deaths in the family, two of which were completely life-altering. Many personal struggles with my place of employment and my vocation. The ubiquitous family and friends and roommates drama that controls the life of the 20-something. Feeling led away from the church I’ve attended since I was a toddler.

IMG_4692This year I found Pinterest, and myfitnesspal, and reunited with Bejeweled Blitz. I climbed a volcano, led a mission trip, finally got paid to lead worship, and remembered how fun it was to date someone and make out. I brewed my own beer and my own kombucha, lived through the Mayan end of the world, learned I was allergic to mango, and made my first omelet.

I don’t know if we can judge what makes a year better or more valuable than another. But I do know that this year I will remember…

  • my dad’s phone call that my uncle jim had suddenly died
  • when on july 4th, i first heard “hi, I’m rachel’s boyfriend” as he introduced himself to my new roommate
  • teaching special ed in a title one school in pittsburg
  • meeting my favorite band of all time – better than ezra
  • holding my grandma’s hand as she died
  • teaching my little brothers camp songs on the drive from georgia to florida
  • my family’s “photo booth” on christmas eve
  • seeing three of my favorite people get married this year and getting to be a part of two of the weddings/engagements
  • taking my best friends to a giants game
  • the giants winning the world series again!
  • how the song “call me maybe” has ruled my life
  • the year I got two bouquets of anonymous roses on Valentine’s Day
  • boyfriend teaching me how to build a fire
  • finishing my credential program at the top of my class
  • my sister and i taking a sweet trip to yosemite
  • my last mission trip to mexico

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