Belonging

There is much in my head this morning. Much that needs not be littered over the net. My time in Alaska has been formative to say the least. Ones first impression is of course of the mountains, glaciers, and other such natural phenomena that leaves the observer with feelings of awe and frailty. But of course visitors have expounded on these things to such a level of saturation I don't care to rehash it here.

An Italian gentleman told me once. "Nicolas, you remember always remember, the meeting is the art of life." And it is meetings and conversations that brings me to this rugged geography. In the course of life I felt very much like the outsider, the unknowable member of the family (perhaps this was merely the angst of living in a large family) but in the course of two years I've met nearly every member of a family I never thought I had. Despite my own trepidation and fear they have integrated me into their own with compassion, joy, and acceptance. I marvel at the similarities the subtle subconscious mannerisms. Taking photos with my two aunts yesterday I was shocked that I looked truly looked like them...there was a continuity to our physical features previously held only by my twin whom I now i have little more than physicality to show our biological closeness.

Belonging is a strange feeling. It was interesting to experience it with my father...but to experience it with others is astounding. Feelings of cautiousness still follow and that faint expectation of the other shoe falling is still lingering....but fading.

yet I feel honored and grateful and over joyed that when I go I can return to a family whom i love and who loves me. Who places no expectation on me other than to live life fully.

I'm still waiting for the email...ambiguity still persists...

...the seas are raging...

Last night, once again unable to find sleep in the confines of trusses and support beams, my mind allowed a much needed self examination. I would be remiss not to mention the unavoidable fact that I have been an insufferable ass. Fatigue often softens rage stemming from uncertainty and tension born of ambiguity. Reliving the conversations of the day, for days are nothing but conversations and narratives, my conversation with a dear older lady replayed. Now this particular lady worked medivac during the Vietnam war, fought for the V.A. for better medical care, and amongst other things had a successful career in Hollywood. Usually our conversations cover history, literature, poetry, philosophy, and horsemanship but yesterday called for a more personal and intimate dialogue. Being a woman of experience any cover up would be noticed so when asked how I was holding up I was forced to say "..terrible...a bit like T.S. Eliot." We traversed the conceptual forms of simplicity, greatness, love, action, movement, and most importantly not being the 21st century Vasco de Gama caught in perpetual circumnavigation.

As we spoke and absorbed she related the best moments of her life...strangely some mirrored mine...bare back riding through snow covered mountains in cougar territory...feeling the 1,200 pounds coming off the ground in rhythmic patterns...flowing seamlessly into one entity...in spirit becoming for a brief moment the mythological centaur...

The purpose of experience and action should lead one to these moments...oneness unity...contentment. My trepidation concerning Africa is that it holds the possibility of all the goals and dreams held since childhood...it holds the road to the continued moments stated previously. My traveling days are far from over...my boots will always have holes...i just hope these travels lead to those moments...not lost in perpetual circumnavigation.

...a hope delayed...

Anger. An old feeling I thought I'd done pretty much away with. Contemplation has all but been pushed out and silence is all but whisper. I feel myself all too tender and sensitive. The meeting between the Tanzanian government, the investors, and the company I will be working for has been pushed back till the sixth of August. The lease will be signed with little delay and we will be on the ground doing the surveying and making the ground ready for rice. But in the interim I wait with thin jeans and worn boots...biding my time and losing my soul.

all in

Restless. My fingers are burnt and stained with tobacco. The consistency of my blood is probably more akin to something found in a French Press rather than anything human. Weeks away, merely weeks, the tentative departure to Africa and still where is the plane ticket where is the certainty? Living with ambiguity is dandy as long there is nothing on the line. I'm all in, no aces in the hole nor up my sleeve and I've got nothing left to lose if this falls through. Sacrifice after sacrifice relationship after relationship has suffered and my alleged "selfishness" has been the cause of many arguments and controversy. A friend asked me what if this doesn't pan out...I couldn't answer. Even the possibility of this not working out petrifies me. The only response was simply that "i'm all in" to which was asked where will you go. Silence again, although my thoughts spoke loud and clear...the ground...but you can't say that to people...

The depth of this need to get across the ocean is non rational....completely and utterly non rational. I need this.

Perhaps I'm struggling to convince myself of my own validity and worth. That I have some fucking reason to be sucking air and taking up space....that if i go and do this...i've validated my existence. Maybe I won't be worthless...

I'm not trying to prove anything to anyone other than myself...

questions

Is it morally right to bring a child into an overpopulated decaying degenerating world rife with violence against nature and humanity? Is it correct to bring a child into a fragmented family? Why should we continue to procreate when between 1950 - 2000 the global population doubled and will double by 2025? Why have biological children when domestically and internationally multitudes of children are orphaned and homeless? I recall a gentleman i worked with whose idea of birth control was relying on "the Lord" to stop he and his wife from conceiving. They have four children and have been married 5 or 6 years, more are soon to follow. This form of family planning is closer to the 'pull and pray' method. Sexual irresponsibility is not simply a reality for hormone dripping teens and college students but for all people, especially life partners.

While i'm happy for Justin and his girlfriend, happy for my father who will share a birthday with his first grandson, pleased with the notion that perhaps Justin can reject instilling fear and feelings of inadequacy that were placed upon us. But those questions are still ever present.

a morning listening

After making a cup of tea and a bowl of oats this morning I found the little patch of sunlight making its way through the canopy and sat down to listen. Not only did I hear the breeze through the firs and the oaks, the sparrows and the rooster letting us all know that the morning had arrived (since 4:25 in the morning), but whispers of words I finally began to understand:

"I do not consider myself less ignorant than most people. I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me. My story is not a pleasant one; it is neither sweet nor harmonious, as invented stories are; it has the taste of nonsense and chaos, of madness and dreams-like the lives of men who stop deceiving themselves."

Having flown down to Little Rock to borrow a truck to get down to New Orleans with hopes of boarding an oil barge bound for the heart of the gulf of Mexico with nothing but my banjo, a few books, and an old army backpack I found myself in the middle of a tornado, dead cattle, and fallen trees. The next day I heard from the company the job that would surely get me back into university or at least out of the country was but a good idea nothing more. Before flying back to Oregon my father and brother asked and reasoned with me to stay due to having sold my car and having nothing but a banjo, an old army pack, a hundred dollars, and a poncho. The night before I flew out my father and I shared a class of whiskey in room 213 while I shared the few true reasons for my departure and that my biggest fear was that I would simply become a portrait of fragility amidst ruin.

Now I'm back in Oregon working three jobs with the my outstanding balance to Ozark Christian College within a few months of being paid and either homelessness in Europe, hiking the Pacific Rim trail, or Evergreen University within the year. Having traveled abroad and seen most of the U.S. in the last five years my desire is still the same...work in orphanages and refugee camps. I now can honestly say that it's closer than it was yesterday...

always leaving

Always leaving. Leaving has become my staying while hellos, introductions, hugs, and handshakes have all the unspoken spirit of a quiet goodbye. If there was ever a place for me to stay would I know it? Or would I simply strap up my boots and get to walking? Perhaps I find excuses to leave always looking for something to cover the tracks of my restlessness. If I found what it is my heart so desperately seeks would I know it or simply pass it up like so many other beautiful moments I only tasted ever so tentatively? Am I ever to know? Will I ever find peace?

The true reality of sin

"The sense of sin is something deeper and more existential. It is not merely a sense of guilt referred to the authority of God. It is a sense of evil in myself. Not because I have violated a law outside myself, but because I have violated the inmost laws of my own being, which are, at the same time, the laws of God Who dwells within me. The sense of sin is the sense of having been deeply and deliberately false to my own inmost reality, my likeness to God....The sens of sin is, then, something ontological and immediate which does not spring from reflection on my actions and comparison with a moral code. It springs directly from the evil that is present in me: it tells me not merely that I have done nothing wrong, but that I am wrong, through and through. That I am a false being. That I have destroyed myself."

~ Thomas Merton - The Inner Experience

....Something that captured my attention this morning over breakfast....

Jasmine and Lavender

All I seem capable of writing about is the culmination of my selfishness, the death of purity and innocence. Even in the paper and ink journals there has been scarcely any words written not dealing with that travesty. It lingers in the air like pipe tobacco smoke, but this is simply suffocating. There is hollowness in my words of the divine, shallowness in my songs of praise.

The simple joys of my life have been reduced to the taste of Jasmine and the aroma of Lavender on my pillow case. No longer do I pine for the company of a woman, those soft precious touches hold no sway. Perhaps, finally, I'm arriving bit by bit at a place of inner solitude one in which there are no soft kisses, gentle words, five dollar pitchers of Amber Bock, or Turkish coffee on the corner.

We learn don't we...perhaps the road ends somewhere we never imagined existed...but its there and we have little choice but walk the wilderness for a spell. Hopefully I can shed this exterior while in these elements...emerge new.

Redemption

When one experiences redemption is it merely for the purpose of salvation or does it heal the wounds of a selfish life? Does redemption take away guilt? I was asked a playful question at work this afternoon. A question whose very presence in conversation is simply a means to illicit laughs, smiles, and jokes all around. For a brief moment I contemplated uttering a falsehood but for some reason I said "as a matter of fact, I have, unfortunately, done that." I said the word unfortunately as if the action had taken place by a series of chance events. Yet it was, at the time, a desired and thought about action, one in which I had planned in order to be seen as the victim, not as the architect.

A little under two years ago I was given the opportunity to do such a thing as I did else where, but I didn't. It was not nobility and moral fortitude that stayed my feet but time. There was simply no time. But later on, given a chance to reclaim a bit of fractured dignity, I proceeded to crush whatever manner of moral guidance and spiritual mindfulness beyond recognition. As the weeks wore wearily on, no amount of pipe smoking, solitude by the lake, strumming John Denver songs, or attending Evening Prayer healed the wound I so readily inflicted upon the spiritual self.

Depravity knows no bounds, I know that I have not reached the depth of depravity that human kind is regrettably capable of reaching. But is there any need of knowing how deep it truly goes? I care not to know. I know how deep I have descended and care not about sinking further down.

So does redemption heal these selfish wounds? Does it restore one back from brokenness?

have mercy

Miserere Mei, Deus. Have mercy upon me, oh God.

I recently(November) made some prayer beads in the Anglican fashion. The smallest of the beads, which number 28, has the prayer "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner." The prayer has allowed me to see the depth of my own depravity. Often we can scarcely see the real vileness of our actions over the seemingly harmless activity in which we find ourselves engaged. Growing up debating the tenants of Calvinism vs Arminianism was a useless debate at the time, it had more to do with being able to win the argument than actually understand the value of either perspective. The first part of Calvinism states that man is totally depraved, incapable of doing any good on his own, including turn to the father. As I watch people, myself with the most depth, I've seen the true depth of depravity we are capable of reaching. Yet I'm not ready to say we're totally depraved, I am also uninterested in debating the topic internally or with others.

We are so far removed from the holiness we were created in. Looking back on my actions since August in some situations I have been so despicable I can scarcely bring myself to even whisper "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner." Can scarcely acknowledge what is plainly seen, my explicit need for redemption. As I walk down the cobblestone streets of Old Towne where I work, completely alone, no one to come home and call, no distraction I see the need for a sacrifice, the need for redemptive love.

One day the waters goin to wash it away

Knowing the divine is foolish to the man seeking the external life. I seek not the external but the divine within, above, and beyond. Nothing exists outside, below, or above the divine. All action is movement towards or away from unity with God, every second is a choice to know God or the self. We exist not as ourselves but creations, extensions of the divine within the physical. We are not ourselves, our life is not ours to live. It is for the divine. I'll be a fool to know God.