August 5, 2011

It’s already my last weekend here in Rochester and I can’t believe it. This summer has absolutely flown by. Drew will be here in four days!!! I’m so excited…I wish it was Tuesday already, except that I don’t want to be that much closer to leaving.  

This past week was wonderful. Kyleen, her friend Justin, and I spent a day down in Lanesboro, Minnesota—this beautiful tiny town with a population of 800 people. We spent the day tubing in the river, exploring all the little Amish shops, and—on the ride home—wandering through a cemetery. Actually, a pretty crazy story came out of that last adventure:

We were driving down some one-lane roads through rural Minnesota, past corn fields and farms, when we came across a beautiful cemetery overlooked by a row of tall crosses. The sun was setting and the lighting was perfect for pictures so I asked if we could stop. There’s something otherworldly about cemeteries; wandering through them is a reminder that I, too, will return to dust, and that each headstone represents a lifetime of stories, though I am still in the middle of mine. My eye was caught by an interesting headstone: Bacon, it read. On it was a picture of a man fishing. I was struck by the pure humanity of this and took a photo just as a van pulled into the empty cemetery. An old man stepped out to a nearby group of graves and began cleaning them, watering their flowers, and lovingly wiping away any dirt that would disguise a name. “Do you know anyone here?” he asked me suddenly. I confessed that I didn’t, that I had simply been drawn by the crosses and the beauty of the place. “This is my family,” he began. Pointing down the hill he said, “My wife’s brothers are over there. These are my aunts and uncles. My whole family is here…we’re the Bacons. I have my plot here for when my time comes. I had a heart attack in March.” As the sun set, I heard stories from this man’s life, stories about how the people resting around us had died, and heard about his recent health struggles. At that moment I knew I was supposed to ask to pray for him—his loneliness was tangible. One of my greatest weaknesses, my lack of courage, got the best of me and I never asked to pray for him; I only listened. Kyleen called me over, it was time to go, and we pulled away from the cemetery. I felt defeated, knowing that I had missed a big moment, that I could have shown more love to this man. I never got his name. I began looking back through the photos I had taken; at the photo of the Bacon tombstone my heart stopped and I realized what had just happened. This headstone had no death date on it. As the old man had told me stories about his life, he mentioned his love for fishing and that he had his own plot waiting for him next to his family. The tombstone was his, and I had just met a man while standing on his grave. Gerald L. Bacon—I knew his name after all. Today I’m mailing him a letter simply to tell him that he’s loved, that we only met in a cemetery but I am praying for him and his health, and to tell him about a Father who loves him. God, in His incredible wisdom, works every single detail together. Always.

August 3, 2011
Now that my time here in Rochester is coming to a close, I want this to be my next big adventure: La Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain. It’s a huge, beautiful cathedral originally designed by an architect/artist named Antoni Gaudí. Construction of the cathedral started in 1882 and it’s still not finished. Gaudí died in 1926, before La Sagrada Família was even 25% completed, but that didn’t seem to bother him; when people asked him why construction was taking so long, he would reply, “My client is not in a hurry.” Last year, 2010, marked the midpoint of construction. It’s currently scheduled to be finished in 2026. The reason it’s taking so long? 1) La Sagrada Família is entirely funded by private donations. I think that’s beautiful. 2) This cathedral is incredibly detailed. Gaudí’s theory was that since God is the Creator, the best way to honor him in art is by using his Creation, nature, as inspiration. So towers and pillars are designed to look like trees and a forest; animals, plants, seashells adorn literally everything. Not a single inch of this cathedral is either plain or accidental. Everything is symbolic. Everything speaks about Jesus and the creator God. I love it.

Now that my time here in Rochester is coming to a close, I want this to be my next big adventure: La Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain. It’s a huge, beautiful cathedral originally designed by an architect/artist named Antoni Gaudí. Construction of the cathedral started in 1882 and it’s still not finished. Gaudí died in 1926, before La Sagrada Família was even 25% completed, but that didn’t seem to bother him; when people asked him why construction was taking so long, he would reply, “My client is not in a hurry.” Last year, 2010, marked the midpoint of construction. It’s currently scheduled to be finished in 2026. The reason it’s taking so long?

1) La Sagrada Família is entirely funded by private donations. I think that’s beautiful.

2) This cathedral is incredibly detailed. Gaudí’s theory was that since God is the Creator, the best way to honor him in art is by using his Creation, nature, as inspiration. So towers and pillars are designed to look like trees and a forest; animals, plants, seashells adorn literally everything. Not a single inch of this cathedral is either plain or accidental. Everything is symbolic. Everything speaks about Jesus and the creator God. I love it.

July 29, 2011

Drew is still adventuring away in Uganda, but in one week and four days he’ll finally be here with me in Rochester. I know no one wants to hear about this, but just for the record, I’ve missed him tremendously this summer. Apparently absence does make the heart grow fonder because these past two weeks that we’ve been unable to talk have been painful for me. This summer I’ve realized more and more how much he means to me, how much I treasure and value his company and conversation, and just how blessed and undeserving I am of this relationship.

July 28, 2011
Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
July 26, 2011 • 1 note
30 minutes of daily exercise has the same emotional and psychological benefit as taking an antidepressant.
Feeling depressed? Here’s something I learned at work the other day.
July 25, 2011

A few thoughts I love:

From the book “Quirkology” by Richard Wiseman, Ph.D.:

Why should higher-population densities lead to less helping? According to one theory, developed by Milgram, people in high-population cities tend to experience a greater amount of “sensory overload.” They are constantly being bombarded with information from other people, their cell phones, traffic, and advertising. As a result, they do what all systems tend to do when receiving too much information—they set priorities, and they spend less time dealing with the sources competing for their attention. Milgram believed that situations are created in which people will walk past those in need of help, thus diverting onto others the responsibility to assist such individuals. All this creates a paradox: The greater the number of people occupying a space, the greater the sense of loneliness and isolation.

On introverts and extroverts and the types of greeting cards people prefer, also from the same book:

Research suggests that each person’s brain has a different preset level of arousal, much as a television set has a preset volume when you switch it on. Introverts have a high preset level of arousal, and, as a result, tend to avoid situations that further arouse their already stimulated brains. Because of this, they prefer a quiet evening in with a good book to a night out on the town; they find themselves drawn to Christmas cards showing relaxing traditional scenes because these cards are not overstimulating. The opposite is true of extroverts. Since their brains have a much lower preset level of arousal, they need the continuous stimulation that being with other people gives them; their preferences in Christmas card designs are likely to be the bright and the modern as well as those that make them laugh.

And one final thought from an interesting article I read called “Romantic Pornography”:

One of the marvels of marriage is that God gives us someone so different from ourselves to love. It’s easy to love someone just like me. It’s hard to love someone so fundamentally “other.” What a gift it is to be able to stretch in such different ways as we seek to love, serve, and appreciate at the deepest level an “other” who is also an image bearer.


July 22, 2011

Lately I’ve been getting a lot of the question, “What have you learned this summer?”

What have I learned? Well, yesterday Sue and I spent the day making and canning peach-raspberry jam, mango-jalepeño salsa, garlic green beans, and fresh peaches, all from the garden. There’s something really rewarding about spending an entire day working in the kitchen so you can go to bed at night exhausted but proud because now you have enough food stored up to last through the apocalypse. Before I go back to Abilene I’m going to have enough fresh homemade soups, sauces, fruits, and vegetables—all with healthy, homegrown ingredients—that I probably won’t have to go grocery shopping for the entire semester. What am I learning this summer? I’m learning how to do the things my grandmother has always done but no one my age knows how to do anymore. Somehow it makes me feel connected, rooted to the past, productive, and so much more alive than any amount of time spent with any of today’s technology. As much as I love my job and am incredibly grateful for the fact that women today are free to work outside the home, I’m rarely happier than when I’m doing the kinds of things that women have done to take care of the people they love for hundreds of years.

I’ve started learning how to quilt. Drew’s mom mailed me a package with all of his favorite old t-shirts, and every day it’s getting closer to looking like a real quilt. I love being able to do this. I love putting love into every single stitch and I love the quiet, methodical restfulness of being free to think while my hands are occupied for hours. I love whiling away the time with music and thoughts and the peaceful back-and-forth of making something beautiful for someone I love. 

What have I learned this summer? I’m learning to face up to the fact that, in spite of the love in my heart, there is also a lot of ugliness in me. As Amanda so lovingly once put it, “You have a strong personality.” The truth is, I know what I want most of the time and can’t handle people getting in the way of it. I can be so passive-aggressive, manipulative, and moody at times and I hate it. It’s not the way I want to be but I think it’s how I’ve always been. The amazing thing is that as I’m learning this about myself, I’m also learning that even my ugliest flaws come as no surprise to God. I find he’s looking at me with a big smile and saying, “I’ve always known that about you, and I don’t care. It’s temporary. I love you.” These revelations came to me last week in the form of a song as I was playing my guitar. I began to be struck by my propensity for jealousy in nearly every relationship or friendship I’ve ever had. Just thinking of this, I grew disgusted and ashamed and cried out, “God, fix me! Fix my jealous heart!” and felt him reply gently, “I love your heart. I love your jealous and broken heart.” And so the beginnings of a new song came to me:

I’m mesmerized by gold and lesser things
I’m jealous of the things I lack and scorn the things you give
But curse you if you take them all away
I’ll fight you in a death match then beg for you to stay
Oh, this jealous heart that beats inside of me
I fight to have the things I want but don’t know what I need

As soon as I get a good recording, I’ll be posting the whole song so you can hear it.

Until then I’ll be spending today like yesterday, quilting and making jam and learning so much more about life than I ever thought I would in just one summer.

July 14, 2011

For a more informative and less thoughtful account of my last week couple of weeks here:

  • Kyleen and I traveled down to Missouri to visit Chaille, Aaron, baby Tristan, and my grandmas over the Fourth of July weekend. Tristan got plenty spoiled (it’s my job), we had a bonfire and shot off fireworks, we took Tristan to the waterpark in Independence, and we got to see my Uncle Jim and new Aunt Alisha. It was a beautiful time, and so fun to road trip with Kyleen!
  • The next weekend, Kyleen and I went up to Minneapolis to visit the Mall of America. This place is incredible: there is actually an amusement park in the center of the mall with roller coasters and everything! We shopped the entire day and still didn’t see every single store…you’d need a few days to get through it. It’s that big.
  • After the Mall of America I met up with my dear friend from Abilene, Melissa Mason. Her dad is on the Antiques Roadshow and they were going to be filming in Minneapolis so we decided to meet up. I spent the night with Melissa, her parents, and the rest of the cast at the Hilton Hotel downtown. We were invited over for dinner at the home of the curator of the Minneapolis Museum of Art so it was a great evening filled with champagne, fancy cheeses, delicious food, fun conversations, and catching up with Melissa. The next morning we had to be up very early to start filming for the show, and then Melissa and I hung out on the set for most of the day before I had to head back to Rochester to start my night shifts. 
  • This Tuesday Kyleen, Alex, Kristina, and I went back up to St. Paul to visit the Science Museum of Minnesota, where there is currently a huge exhibit on King Tutankhamen and ancient Egypt (which is absolutely fascinating to me). We spent most of the day up there and had a great time. Awesome fact I learned? Queen Hatshepsut was a female who actually became Pharaoh over Egypt, one of the most powerful nations in the world for nearly 3,000 years, back in 1508 BC! She is generally considered one of the most successful pharaohs—and this was long before our modern concept of women’s rights. I just think it’s interesting that ancient Egyptians had a female pharaoh over 3,500 years ago, and yet our “very modern” United States has yet to have a female president. Cultures are so interesting.

So now it’s Thursday and I have a three-day weekend ahead of me. We don’t have any plans yet, aside from going to see the new Harry Potter movie when it comes out tonight at midnight! I’ll also be starting a quilting class next week with Sue, which I’m really looking forward to. 

I’m going to try to be better about updating this blog regularly…we’ll see how that goes! ;)

July 14, 2011
This morning I went for a walk and got caught in a summer rainstorm; long walks in the rain are good for the soul, or so I’ve decided. There is so much to catch you up on, but I’ll start with this: being here in Minnesota for the summer feels like a perpetual walk in the rain. It is refreshing and invigorating for my soul and a sweet reminder that my God delights in giving beautiful gifts. I feel alive and healthy here, not just in body but in heart and mind and spirit as well. This summer is a complete counterpoint to my last one and I couldn’t be more thankful.  As for physical health, I’ve recently taken to eating almost exclusively foods that are pure and raw and the way God made them: fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, milk, whole grains, whole leaf teas and fresh-ground coffees (and of course some occasional chocolate, even though it’s not “healthy” per-se; but it’s all about balance). I get some exercise in every day, whether it’s a walk in the rain, a dance class at the gym, or some weight-lifting—really just whatever I feel like doing and enjoying that day. I sleep well at night and have more energy than I think I ever have. Who would’ve guessed that simply taking care of your body and enjoying all of the truly good things that our Father made could be so refreshing? I’m also realizing something that I always suspected to be true but then dismissed: I do have a gift for understanding and reading people. Listening to them and hearing their stories and figuring out how they think brings me so much joy; I can’t think of a better place for me to be able to use this gift than in a psychiatric hospital. There hasn’t been a day yet that I’ve come home from work without a heart filled with thankfulness for these opportunities. The only thing that is missing here is my incredible best friends. Currently most of them are back in Abilene, though some are scattered around the country and doing mission work in Africa. The Abilene group has recently taken in a homeless man with a fractured ankle. They’ve been paying for him to stay in a hotel, even though they’re just broke college kids themselves, and have been caring for his heart and spirit and giving him dignity—simply because that’s what Jesus did. They’re helping him work towards independence and find a place where he can stay long-term. Their love for people gives me courage to keep persevering here, even though I miss their fellowship and community so much. Really my only complaint is my own lack of courage. Every day I’m working with children and fellow nurses who don’t know Jesus yet, and all I want to do is yell, “I know of a better way! I know where you can find the abundant and joyful life that you’re looking for! I know you’re burnt out on religion, but this isn’t about religion, it’s about a person; please just listen! He will change your life!” My heart is breaking constantly because I just want to say these things but I don’t have the courage. I want to tell my own story of how Jesus rescued me out of the same darkness, but that’s considered “unprofessional,” so thus far I’ve kept my mouth shut.  If you’re the praying type, please pray for me to find the boldness to speak life to these people and not care so much about what they think of me. I just want them to find the same gloriously joyful life that I have.

This morning I went for a walk and got caught in a summer rainstorm; long walks in the rain are good for the soul, or so I’ve decided.

There is so much to catch you up on, but I’ll start with this: being here in Minnesota for the summer feels like a perpetual walk in the rain. It is refreshing and invigorating for my soul and a sweet reminder that my God delights in giving beautiful gifts. I feel alive and healthy here, not just in body but in heart and mind and spirit as well. This summer is a complete counterpoint to my last one and I couldn’t be more thankful. 

As for physical health, I’ve recently taken to eating almost exclusively foods that are pure and raw and the way God made them: fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, milk, whole grains, whole leaf teas and fresh-ground coffees (and of course some occasional chocolate, even though it’s not “healthy” per-se; but it’s all about balance). I get some exercise in every day, whether it’s a walk in the rain, a dance class at the gym, or some weight-lifting—really just whatever I feel like doing and enjoying that day. I sleep well at night and have more energy than I think I ever have. Who would’ve guessed that simply taking care of your body and enjoying all of the truly good things that our Father made could be so refreshing?

I’m also realizing something that I always suspected to be true but then dismissed: I do have a gift for understanding and reading people. Listening to them and hearing their stories and figuring out how they think brings me so much joy; I can’t think of a better place for me to be able to use this gift than in a psychiatric hospital. There hasn’t been a day yet that I’ve come home from work without a heart filled with thankfulness for these opportunities.

The only thing that is missing here is my incredible best friends. Currently most of them are back in Abilene, though some are scattered around the country and doing mission work in Africa. The Abilene group has recently taken in a homeless man with a fractured ankle. They’ve been paying for him to stay in a hotel, even though they’re just broke college kids themselves, and have been caring for his heart and spirit and giving him dignity—simply because that’s what Jesus did. They’re helping him work towards independence and find a place where he can stay long-term. Their love for people gives me courage to keep persevering here, even though I miss their fellowship and community so much.

Really my only complaint is my own lack of courage. Every day I’m working with children and fellow nurses who don’t know Jesus yet, and all I want to do is yell, “I know of a better way! I know where you can find the abundant and joyful life that you’re looking for! I know you’re burnt out on religion, but this isn’t about religion, it’s about a person; please just listen! He will change your life!” My heart is breaking constantly because I just want to say these things but I don’t have the courage. I want to tell my own story of how Jesus rescued me out of the same darkness, but that’s considered “unprofessional,” so thus far I’ve kept my mouth shut. 

If you’re the praying type, please pray for me to find the boldness to speak life to these people and not care so much about what they think of me. I just want them to find the same gloriously joyful life that I have.

July 11, 2011
Happiness can be found in the darkest of places, if one only remembers to turn on the light.
Dumbledore