Today or Tomorrow

          Today, I came to the end of another season of my life. High school - or as close as I ever got to high school. I wrote my last exam at the community college, spent my last half hour out in the sun in the middle of campus, and took my last regular bus ride - here, anyway. There will be plenty of exams in university, plenty of hours spent sitting in the sun, plenty of time spent on the public bus. Unless the system changes drastically in the next three months, which I don't expect it will.
          My strange high school/running start/grade status combined with my distance from the school has meant that I hold almost no loyalty to the school that I've now attended for 6 quarters. I'm normally pretty ready to be loyal, so it was strange not caring about sports or campus life at all. I certainly did not expect to miss it at all (okay, I still don't). But I walked out of building 7 today and headed for the grass and was hit with a feeling of nostalgia. As much as it has been merely a stepping stone to my next stage of life, I have lived here. I have many good memories and met people who have influenced my life significantly. It's because of Char and CeCe that I have developed a love for biology and am choosing to minor in it so as to provide some interest amidst my chemistry major. I met Blake in my first quarter and have attended school and walked through life with him since then; he is a part of many of my sunlit memories spent out on the grass. I made new friends: Sofia, Kellan, Chloe, Alyssa, Dung, and many others. I fought with microbiology, laughed over calculus, and debated which 8 out of 40 people should survive the alien invasion (thanks to MFC-J, an inspiring English teacher). I have learned and grown and laughed and fought and loved and lived in the last two years. I won't miss the bus smell, the noise of the commons, or inadequate "microbiology" lab, but I will miss the sunrises over the mountain, the study room in building 15, the web cafe, the random pieces of art, and our building 13.
          I know that countless memories are yet to be made. I have a host of new experiences waiting for me: big city, dorm life, AFROTC, lots of chemistry classes, some biology and art classes, new friends, new opportunities. Right now, I'm working through financial paperwork, placement tests, possible class schedules. I should hear back about my dorm and roommate assignment in a couple of months. The realization that I'll be moving out soon is always at the back of my mind. I'm ready for it. I know where God's leading me - for now.
          It's really easy to give an answer when people ask what I'm doing next year. "I'm going here to study chemistry and then into the Air Force." Those are my plans and I tell them so. But it's been on my mind that the Bible pretty specifically say NOT to do that.

"13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” 14 Yet you do not know [b]what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” " James 4:13-15, NASB

 I have plans and I have been seeking the Lord's guidance the whole way, and He has directed my steps. All the same, I am still a vapor, or a mist as the ESV says (it's mentally challenging to put a verse in a version other than I've memorized). I don't know what tomorrow will bring. I have plans, but God may yet direct my steps another direction. Wherever He leads me, I am excited to follow. And If the Lord wills, I will go here to study chemistry and then into the Air Force, and I will live and make memories along the way.

Anne & Joe

          These last few weeks, I have been interviewing residents at the retirement home where I work, seeking to know their stories. It has been a privilege to hear each story, and a few residents have given me written permission to share their stories with all of you. This is an exercise in writing for me - if you have any questions, comments, or critiques, please let me know!

            1930. Life was difficult in Brooklyn, New York in the depth of the depression, but his mother made ends meet. She worked hard to support her young son after his father left her for other women. They never experienced the hardest parts of the depression, certainly not to the extent that the folks in Oklahoma and other places did, but they knew hardship all the same.

            As Joe got older, opportunities opened up for him. He attended a military school in West Virginia for a few years in the late 30s-early 40s. Joe’s mother remarried, and she, Warren, and Joe moved to Montreal before Joe graduated high school. While they were living there, WWII broke out. Joe returned to the states, to Burlington, Vermont, to complete school before enlisting in the Army. He went through basic training in Florida in 1944 and then was shipped overseas where he served in Europe for 6 months, in the 10^th Armored Division right after the Battle of the Bulge. “Boy, was I lucky to miss that,” he says, looking back.

            Soon after he finished his service in the military, Joe’s mother died. He returned for her funeral and then sought an education. Although he had been considering becoming a doctor or dentist, he instead began college in Vermont, studying agriculture and economics, and ended up in the insurance business, a job that took him around the country. He met a girl and got married, had two boys and one girl. 25 years later, he and his wife divorced, and he subsequently began night school at Fort Steilacoom Community College. It was at night school that he met Anne.

            1936. She was grateful for the bed and food the nuns offered her. Goodness knows she was better off here in the convent than she had been at her aunt’s house where she was just another mouth to feed.  She remembers with a grimace the clothing lines and the fact that they could never afford new shoes, although the soles were loose on her old ones, and all that just a year ago. At the age of 12, one year prior, she had run away to her 6^th grade teacher at the Chicago, Illinois convent, where she would be taken care of for the remainder of the depression era. Although her cousins, who also attended school at the convent, told her that her aunt wanted her to return, her aunt held no legal authority over her, so she remained at the convent.

            Anne’s parents had immigrated to the US from Croatia in the early-mid 1900s, just before the depression struck. When Anne was 6, her mother passed away. Although she was young, Anne holds on to memories of her loving mother, especially her beautiful blue dress with the gold fleur-de-lis design, which she wore to church ever morning. Her father, unable to care for her, gave Anne to his sister in Chicago, Illinois. Anne attended school at the local convent, where she lived in her later schooling years. When she started high school, she decided she wanted to become a nun and was sent to the motherhouse in Colorado for two years. During her sophomore year, she changed her mind and came back to Chicago. In high school, she met her future husband. She wasn’t everything he hoped she would be, so she changed for him and compromised herself, something she regrets to this day.  He didn’t believe in the education of women, so she finished high school and stopped attending school. She had dreamed of a man of high ideals, with a love of his faith, and a positive outlook, but settled for what she had instead. Anne helped put him through med school and moved to Tacoma for his internship. During their marriage, he had affairs, and, after 8 children, they were divorced.

            After the divorce, she went back to school at Fort Steilacoom Community College to pursue her dream of becoming educated and here she met Joe.

      It was in a Human Potential Class that Anne and Joe met. This was a class that impacted both of them deeply, focusing on Personal Responsibility and Emotional Development, a phrase they both still remember 40 years later. Outside of Human Potential, however, it was their shared loved for the Lord that brought and kept them together. The Lord has never abandoned them, and, in Anne’s words, the last 39 years have been a fairytale. They traveled together, to Europe twice and to other places. Anne went to Europe twice more on her own, to discover her family’s roots in Croatia. She was searching for herself and she found it in the town where she was immediately recognized as her mother’s daughter. Walking along a street in Kaštela, a woman called out “You’re Maria’s daughter!” and Anne knew she had found something special. Her self-esteem had been knocked down to zero after her divorce, and between Human Potential, Joe, Kaštela, and the Lord’s grace, she began to be built back up. Joe and Anne continued their education, Anne continuing on to Evergreen Community College. Anne focused on the three children she still had at home, co-owned a bookstore, and then got into real estate. Joe can be described as a poet, painter, and romantic.

      Now, they sit across from me, both in their rocking chairs, both smiling brightly. For the last several months, they have never failed to inform me that they are praying for me. They ask after my schooling and my plans for the future, and I am honored that they have taken such an interest in me.

      Joe’s words to me: “You’re doing okay. You have your life figured out and the smarts to pursue it. Not many have that.”

      Anne’s words to me: “Don’t ever compromise yourself; remain true to you. Retain your individuality.”

Paula

          These last few weeks, I have been interviewing residents at the retirement home where I work, seeking to know their stories. It has been a privilege to hear each story, and a few residents have given me written permission to share their stories with all of you. This is an exercise in writing for me - if you have any questions or comments, please let me know!

           1927. In Illinois, a half mile from Wisconsin, a soon to be mother lay in a farmhouse, too stubborn to go to the nearby hospital. The birth was long and hard, and once Paula was born, there would be no more children. Her husband put his foot down; his wife would not risk that again. That farm was Paula’s grandparents’ farm, a place she fondly remembers visiting every summer, spending 3 months in the backcountry of Illinois each year until she reached age of 10. 

            Soon after Paula was born, her parents moved off the farm and into the nearby town, Freeport. Her dad worked for Montgomery Wards, a department store, as a salesman, and that move was the first of many. His job required him to move every two years, and up until high school she never spent more than 3 years in one place. She began school in the 1^st grade, walking to school by herself down a busy road every day. That same year, Paula’s muscular dystrophy showed up, but in 1933, no one could diagnose it. She remembers clearly that it was her muscular dystrophy that caused her to hate her first grade teacher. When the kids started to get antsy, the teacher would get them down on the ground and have them waddle around the classroom. Try as she might, and try as the teacher might to teach her, Paula simply could not waddle, and so she hated her teacher.

            After 1^st grade, she moved to Chicago Heights for a couple years, and then moved again, switching schools each time. She recalls, laughing, the time her PE class was taught to line dance and the boys knocked her down fighting for her hand. It was hard to move schools so often. Frequently, she was either behind or ahead the class she entered, having to either study hard to catch up or stuck being bored in class. Imagine having to teach yourself how to subtract because the rest of the class has already been taught!

            Through all her family’s moves, her music was the one thing that remained with her. Early in elementary school, she was handed a violin, and she took to it “as a duck takes to water,” in her own words. Not 6 months after she began playing, the local high school orchestra teacher invited her to play with them at the upcoming world fair. She went and played her three songs at the Chicago World Fair: Century of Progress (1933-1934) but at the age of 7 she wasn’t impressed by the grand setting. Once her songs were finished, Paula looked at the conductor as if to say, “Can I go now?” and stepped right off that stage, to both laughter and applause. From 3^rd grade to 6^th grade, her family was in Kenosha, Illinois, the longest she ever spent in one town, and she played 1^st violin in a string quartet. From there they moved to Jainesville for her 7^th and 8^th grade years, and music remained a constant.

            When she was in 8^th grade, Paula’s parents decided they wanted stop moving and find a store of their own. The family settled in Port Washington, Wisconsin. Finally, Paula spent not just two years in one place but also all of high school with the same people, as well as part of 8^th grade. Her high school was too small to have an orchestra, so she learned to play the oboe and joined band. She actually joined in 8^th grade, before she became a high school student, because the band so needed an oboe player. She didn’t abandon her violin, however, and participated in contests often. She had a different boyfriend every year – one year was enough with each guy – and so was able to go to all four proms. She graduated from high school placed at #2 in her grade, just missing #1 by the smallest amount (“But it doesn’t matter,” she says).

After high school, Paula began her studies at Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music in Ohio, a college her parents picked for her with the influence of her violin teacher. College was a very different experience. At home, Paula had never done more on her own than travel to her violin lessons in Milwaukee. At the age of 19, though, off she went by herself to college; her parents never even saw the campus. She boarded a train and began her next phase of life. She was in her sophomore year when she met Jerry, her future husband. He had been an oboe player in the Navy band in Hawaii and was a year older than her, although a year behind in school. The summer between sophomore and junior year of college, he came home with her to meet her parents, and Paula and Jerry were married that September. After one more semester at Oberlin, both decided to quit school. He got a job at a hardware store, she at a dime store. They rented a small bedroom and sitting room for a while, but soon they went home to her parents, who hired him. A year later, Sue was born, the first of two daughters. 15 years passed by gently and then another 8 after they moved down to Chilton, Wisconsin to own their own hardware store.

By this time Sue and Polly, her daughters, were grown and out of the house. After 25 years working in a hardware store, Jerry thought he wanted to be a preacher/missionary, but that fell through. Paula and Jerry moved to Humansville, Missouri for 4 years, and, while there, Jerry became interested in some less-than-Christian things. He had always wanted to make a lot of money, and things got worse between the two of them. After 30 years, he divorced her. That was June. Paula, in her own words, was a basket case after the divorce. But, looking back, she credits the Lord. She had been a Christian before then, going to church, teaching Sunday school, but she was only halfway there. It wasn’t until she hit rock bottom in the middle of the divorce, however, that she looked up and surrendered. She was born again into new life with Jesus. She praises Him, too, for saving her from the difficult man that Jerry became in the years following. He turned mean towards his family, hard to cope with, but she missed all of that.

In September, on her 51^st birthday, at a meeting of Parents without Partners, Paula met George. He was a good man, a good person. The two of them spent the next 29 years traveling the country in an RV. They traveled up through New England, went through Canada, went to Big Ben country in Texas. She liked most of where they went, could see herself settling in any of the places they visited, but didn’t have one specific favorite place. In the years where they were settled, she became a teacher of music teachers. Education had always been her dream, and so she followed it. She oversaw the music programs in 11 schools in Risain, Missouri for 3 or 4 years and also taught 6^th and 7^th grade music until she was 65. By the end of those years, they had moved to Salem, Oregon to be closer to family. When George died in 2006, Paula then followed her family up to Washington, which is where I have had the privilege of meeting her.

Her advice to me: Trust in the Lord. If He brings these things to you, they’re from Him, and He has good purpose.

(Temporarily) Satiated Wanderlust

     Just over a month ago, I was itching to go, to travel, to explore. I've had that desire fulfilled now and I'm at least temporarily satisfied to remain at home. In the last month, I've spent time in Canada, South Africa, and Zambia, as well as the US (of course) and stopovers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Rome, Italy. I don't know if stopovers count, especially when they occur from 3am-4am, as the Rome stopover did, but I was still in those countries for a short time.
     I drove into Canada (7 hours of travel), camped in very wet conditions, explored Vancouver, drove home (3 hours of travel), drove to La Conner (2 hours of travel), experienced the Tulip Festival with my wonderful mother, drove home (2 hours of travel), flew to South Africa (28 hours of travel), spent a fantastic week with friends, flew to Zambia (6 hours of travel), spent a weekend with my other family, the Taylors (http://robandjennifer.wordpress.com/ go follow them!), and flew home (36 hours of travel). That last part of was especially taxing. I had an amazing time... but, yea, I'm liking my bed, my mom's food, and a more relaxed schedule. I didn't ever think I'd call calculus relaxed.
     Until I moved to South Africa, I was never a wanderer. Short trips, sure, that's fine. But I intended to grow up and live right where I'd always lived, maybe even in the same house. Now...the whole world is open to me. I've spent time in different lifestyles, and the term culture shock isn't foreign. It would be hard to live elsewhere, but I could do it. I might even want to... More than anything, though, I want to live where God puts me. The opportunities He's given me at such a young age have broadened my horizons and made me consider differed places. What is He preparing me for, I wonder? I can't wait to find out.
     While these last few weeks haven't resulted in culture shock since they were short term, they have been full of experiences. International travel on my own, especially, was new. I had to navigate airports, luggage, visas, customs, and vaccinations (or lack thereof), all on my own. There were times when I was nervous, but now I've done it, I can do it again. I hope to, in the future.
     Each trip has been different and each has been good.

It was good to make new friends while camping in thunderstorms, good to explore the gorgeous forest around Golden Ears provincial park, good to laugh at crazy circumstances.

It was good to spend time with my mom, good to have my camera out and take as many pictures of tulips as I wanted, good to have a schedule that allowed me to wander La Conner, read by lamplight on the porch with the stars above me, and sing hymns in the morning.

It was good to be surprised by special girls with a special birthday dinner, good to have a busy schedule of seeing everyone, mini golfing, watching movies, playing board games, eating good food, good to work on relationships that I want to keep for years to come.

It was good to be part of the Taylor family, good to spend a little time in a second world country, good to talk to Mr Taylor, Mrs Taylor, and Matt.

It was good. And now it's good to be home with those I love.

The Average American

According to the New Strategist, the Average American...

• makes $735/week
• has a landline telephone
• says he/she is in very good or excellent health
• is overweight
• believes the effects of global warming have already begun or soon will 
• is currently married
• lives in one of the top 50 metropolitan areas
• lives in a house built before 1975
• watches 2 hours and 49 minutes of television a day
• drinks alcohol regularly
• pays his/her credit card bill in full each month
• has been to college, but does not have a college degree
• believes in God without a doubt 
• favors the death penalty
• believes in evolution
• wants the government to spend more on education, health care, and the environment
• does not know which political party controls the House of Representatives

• The Average American Household contains 2.6 people, owns 2.28 vehicles, 1.6 dogs, 2.1 cats, and 2.3 birds, and is $75,600 in debt (including the mortgage).
• The Average American Man, between the ages of 30-39, has black hair and a BMI of 29 at 5'9".
• The Average American Woman, between the ages of 30 and 39, has brown hair and a BMI of 26.4 at 5'4".

     Right. Enough statistics.  You don't even have to read all of those to see where I might be going with this post. I fit... let me count... 3.5 of those. That's 17.5% if you want another statistic. No, I didn't just choose statistics that don't match me. I guess I'm not an Average American. In fact, I don't think I know a single Average American. That's interesting, given those facts are based on us.  Where are all the Average Americans described above? I daresay nowhere.

     Each person is an individual.  Each person has passions and hobbies, history and personality.  That is something that no statistic can capture.  Yes, 52% of the population might enjoy scrapbooking (I'm making that up), and that means the enjoyment of scrapbooking is a trait of the Average American, but even that number means very little. One person's scrapbook looks completely different from another person's because each scrapbook reflects the individual who spent time creating it. 

     The Average American is a bunch of numbers that eliminate our uniqueness. Whatever it is that makes me, me, can't be captured in the Average American because it's me, and I'm not Average.  I'm more than Average.  Yet... we still seem to be chasing after this American Dream of keeping up with the Average American (commonly named Jones).  We want to fit in, to be like everyone else. Everyone else, in my opinion, is boring, impossible, and even contradictory. 

     God created each and every one of us. We simply have to look around at creation to see that He has an abundance of creativity, and He applied that creativity to us as well. Psalm 139:13-14 is an oft-quoted passage, but it comes from one of my favorite Psalms and is beautiful each and every time it is used: 

For You formed my inward parts; 

You knitted me together in my mother's womb.

I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are Your works;

my soul knows it very well. 

     You are not average. You are uniquely, wonderfully you, and you are loved by the One who created you as an individual. 

     Now, I do want to note that I wrote this Average American post from an American point of view mostly because it was easiest to find American statistics. The same message applies, though, to South Africans to Germans to Venezuelans to Malaysians and to any person anywhere.

References:

https://www.avma.org/KB/Resources/Statistics/Pages/Market-research-statistics-US-pet-ownership.aspx

http://press.experian.com/United-States/Press-Release/new-study-shows-multiple-cars-are-king-in-american-households.aspx

http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p20-570.pdf

http://www.newstrategist.com/store/index.cfm/feature/57_15/50-facts-about-the-average-american.cfm

No, I'm not going to write them up in MLA format. 

Nostalgic Christmas Cheer

     As school ends (last exam was today!), I have more room in my head to focus on the more enjoyable things... like Christmas! And reading, and music, and photography, and crocheting, and selling Christmas trees, and family... all those things, too.  Christmas... it's been in stores since October, and in full swing for a couple weeks now.  Normally, by the time December 25 rolls around, I'm really kind of ready for the whole Christmas season to be done, especially the commercialized part of it. This year... not so much. I found myself singing carols before Thanksgiving (something I make a rule of not doing) and I haven't stopped yet. I'm enjoying the lights and the cheer and everything. We still haven't put up our tree, but I think that's happening this weekend. The Christmas concert is this weekend, the culmination of months of handbell practice. I decided a while ago what my presents would be, so I don't have to worry about that. I still don't like the whole presents vibe... gift giving is not my love language.  What to get, will they like it, what if they don't, what should I ask for, what if there's nothing I want, pretending I like it when I really don't... ugh. And that's self-centered in a way, but it's also not. I still give gifts. I would simply be okay if Christmas were less about boxes under the tree and more about family and Christ.  But! Back on topic! Christmas will be here before I know it!
     Before I know it... part of the reason I'm enjoying this season so much is because it's my kind of last. In nine months, I'll be in college. Sure, I'll come back to visit for the holidays, but there will be a different feel in the house.  This is my last year for really belonging to the traditions.  Childhood... is slipping away. Hence the hesitation in my thoughts. I've been mulling over memories the past couple weeks, pulling out old journals and family photo books, remembering the years and experiences I've gone through. I have not had a perfect life - far from it, with adoption and moving halfway around the world - but I have a had a good life, full of wonderful memories. I slowly turn the pages of the picture books, watching my documented years slip before my eyes. Even amidst pain, I have had a life of laughter and love. I have been given a perspective on life where I can know that struggles pass and contentment is possible as we suffer. And a lot of those memories are coming, not to the end, but to an end. To a beginning as well, but to an end, where my past shifts further into my past.
     I have just a few more months living in this household. A few more months of late night conversations with Teresa, a few more more months of building deep relationships with my siblings, a few more months of being part of this family's day-to-day life. I have to make the most of it. When Jonathon asks for help finding a tree or putting up lights, I need to drop what I'm doing and participate. Even when I should be studying for chemistry. What is an hour of chemistry to an hour of relationship? I want my siblings to look to me as their big sister, ready to talk to when needed, who loves them always. I want to build relationships that will last through years of both pleasant and tough times.
     So I participate whole-heartedly. I take them shopping when they need to buy gifts. I help blow tinsel on the tree. I bake chocolate peppermint cookies. I join them in singing random Christmas carols. When school starts again, I'll again be occupied by other things, but I hope I can do enough now and then to last through my leaving for college. I'll be back next year, but it'll be different. None of my siblings want me to leave.  They're all excited for me, but sorrowful, too. When I come home for any holiday, I'm going to brace myself before I knock on the door. It will be necessary.

 






  Life. Memories. Cheer. Happiness. Sorrow. Christmas. 

     Joyful Nostalgia.

The Choice of Love

        This post took a long time to write and a really long time to start writing.  It’s a long post dealing with a large topic, one of which I can only barely brush the surface.  It’s such a big topic that even with the little part I’m trying to touch on, I’m not sure I represented in the most organized manner.  It’s controversial, in many ways, and open to much discussion.  Love is such a huge part of the Christian life, yet we tend to shy away from in depth talks about it.  I really don’t know why.  Maybe it’s just me and that’s an inaccurate reflection.
        Over the last year and a half, one of my main topics of meditation has been love. As a child, I knew love more as others loving me.  I grew up knowing the Bible verses: God is love, 1 Cor 13, love your neighbor as yourself.  While I would say I loved my parents, my siblings, my friends, it was never a truly deep love.  Love is unselfish, caring only and fully for the other person, and I’ve never lived up to that.  I still haven't (how could I, an imperfect person, experience perfect love towards others?) but I've gotten closer through practice and God's grace.
I want to start with a definition of love that has influenced a lot of my thought processes these last months.  Love: intentionally and intelligently choosing what is best for the other person.  This is the definition given at Oasis last year, and it stuck with me a lot more than I expected it would.  It’s a definition that can be applied to all relationships: friends, enemies, romances, and family.  It crosses great distances, differences, and divides.

First I want to go through some of the qualities of love that have stuck out to me the most, either by example or by study.  By demonstration, a good friend has taught me that love is unconditional – it is caring and understanding, it listens without judging, without thinking less, without disapproving, and it is so because it is full of God.  Love is patient, and, often, that patience is only possible with God’s help.  Love is also not always spilling-over-joyous love, the gooey love our culture associates with romance; it is often a deep-seated honoring love.  As Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, we love by being patient, kind, not envious, not boastful, not prideful.  By honouring and looking to the other’s good before our own.  We try not to be angry and irritable, and we keep no record of wrongs.  We forgive and forget.  We always protect, always trust, always hope, and always persevere.  These qualities we choose to try by God’s grace.  But love isn't always easy.  Just because you hold knowledge of what it's supposed to look like in your head doesn't necessarily mean your actions will always reflect that.

Now I’m going to expand on something I’ve touched on a couple of times in the past two paragraphs: love isn’t a feeling, it’s a choice.  Josh McDowell defines love this way: to nurture (bring maturity to) and to cherish (care for and protect).  His definition is probably the result of many years of study and reflection – it’s certainly much more developed than mine is.  Maybe 50 years down the road I’ll get around to defining love.  For now, I’m starting with the idea that love is a choice. Society today has really tried to alter love to only include the feeling part of it, and that definition is probably a cause of many of our problems.  How can we love our coworker if we really don’t like him?  Well, my parents always told my siblings and me that we always had to love each other, even when we didn’t like each other.  In fact, I’m going to paraphrase C.S. Lewis here.  I’ve just been reading his book Mere Christianity, and I think he explains this much better than I ever have.  I am told to love my neighbor as I love myself.  Well, how do I love myself?  I certainly don’t love myself because I’m always nice, always good.  In fact, I love myself in spite of being a rather awful person at times.  So love isn’t based on liking a person.  C.S. Lewis says love is wishing your neighbor good – I say love is a choice.   Choose it or not.

What does this choice look like?  Because love is a choice, it applies to those whom we don't want to love as well. Even when we carry hurt against someone, we cannot abandon him or her in favor of a grudge.  Love is about the other person.  What is best for him?  How can you best serve her?  What does the other person want and need?  It is with the Lord's help that it can be all about the other person, from our hearts to our heads to our actions.  Even through hurt and distance and separation, we can and should still make the choice to love.
Love, in many ways, is simply deciding to put the other person first.  This journey of love started for me first by observing love in others, then by deciding to choose to love one person, then by gradually applying the concept of love as a choice to more and more people.  Some people have been harder to love than others; some people I haven’t gotten there yet.  I ask God to change my heart, show me how to best love a person, and a couple of times He has done so in bigger ways than I was expecting.  In other instances, He’s still working on my stubborn, sinful heart.  I imagine, though, that He has great works of love in my future, in one way or another.

It Doesn't Take Too Much to Get Me Talking Photography

      It's been 5 weeks since I've written anything.  It's not as though I'm lacking ideas, I just haven't gotten around to actually writing them out beyond a couple descriptive sentences (I've made a habit of doing that because too often I don't have any ideas). Why haven't I written?  I don't know. But I keep up with this blog because I enjoy it, not because I feel obligated to. When I feel obligated without enjoyment, then it's time to move on.  As of starting this post, I'm not even 100% sure what topic I'm writing on today.  Maybe I'll just bounce around; that would pretty accurately reflect the status of my mind at the moment.  But... I think I would confuse everyone, so I won't do that.
     I think I'll talk about photography.  It's a topic that (you should have noticed) I love and will very readily talk about.  I'm still learning, and sometimes other photographers introduce topics that are completely, genuinely, honestly, truly NEW to me.  Best learning experiences ever... or at least, they have the steepest learning curve. 

Heidi, sunrisephotogh.com

      I've been truly blessed this summer by Heidi Stephens at Sunrise Photography (sunrisephotogh.com) allowing me to follow her and teaching me some of her trade.  Connections with other photographers are really important, even if those connections only started because I used to babysit her boys!  Because of some of her mentoring, I've really found a desire to improve my photography further; one of my goals is to do one portrait photo shoot each week (I have enough siblings to do so) because portraits are one of my weak points and one of the most commonly requested shoots. I may, even, in the future, throw out an offer of portraits if someone will come be my model for a little while... when my siblings start rolling their eyes at my picture taking requests. 

Watching Grandpa

     That being said, someday I want to work without posing. One of my strengths is detail work, capturing the details of a place or event, and I prefer event shoots to portrait shoots; it's always good to challenge oneself, but it's also good to work within one's strengths. So, eventually, I want to capture life as it is (see my blog post: Now and Then) - especially the hardships that society, with its short attention span, often forgets.  One of the photographers who most inspires me is John Warren, the World Vision photographer (http://blog.worldvision.org/author/jon-warren).  His photos are not only beautiful, they're meaningful!   

Another's Life

     Overall, to improve, I'm working on portraiture, on different composition and editing techniques, and on keeping my eyes open for those real life, hard, easier-to-ignore situations that must not be ignored.  Anyway, I can see photography being a huge part of my life, no matter where God leads me (I still don't know where that is, but so many people ask me that I'll probably devote a single blog post to it).  I ended up bouncing around a bit anyway (seriously, between college now, college future, job now, job future, church, photography, home life, free will vs the sovereignty of God, Anne of Green Gables, and all the other parts of my life, I'm surprised I was able to be cohesive at all), but not nearly as much as I could have been; I stayed on one topic!  And I didn't address every aspect of that topic that has occupied my mind the last couple of weeks.
     I should stick some pictures in here and publish this and be done.  It's not going to get any more cohesive through more editing.  Oh!  I've definitely appreciated all of the praise for the photos that I've posted on Facebook.  This is a collective thank you, too - I intend to go somewhere with my photography.  Okay.  Enough said.  Stop typing.