Gabby

Today was my sister Gabby’s 10th birthday and I was fortunate enough to be able to share the day with my growing little sister and the rest of my family. It is hard to believe how much my kid sister has grown up. I remember when Gabby first joined our family as a skinny, 8-month-old baby with eyes that gave the impression that she was incessantly surprised and a head that bobbled as if she were mocking the miniature hula dancer attached to a surfer’s dashboard. Now, as she is halfway through the fifth grade (but still skinny as a twig), Gabby continues to grow into such a wonderful young lady. Gabby is such loving and happy kid and has replaced that surprised look with a beautiful smile that seldom leaves her face. I am proud to be the brother of such a great kid and I am excited to continue to witness her growth and maturity.

What a wonderful time this part of the year is. To sit amongst family and friends and feast in the name of gratefulness. To take a short break from all that allows one to forget the blessings of life and dwell amongst those we are to be most thankful for. To partake in rituals drenched in the traditions of our fathers and mothers and to be so daring as to try something new due to the subtle, avant-garde nature in every person, allowing one to maintain a sense of humanness. This is the time of year where we recognize our deepest loves and examine where we hold our greatest allegiances.

This past weekend I was incredibly blessed to go to the place where I spent most of my growing years and visit my wonderful family. I was able to bring my good friend Jordan Nakamura to my crazy home and let him see the workings of my family for a few short (but incredibly dense) days.

At home, the time was spent playing word games with Scrabble pieces, eating baked goods prepared by my wonderful sister, Krista, marveling at the turkey my dad cooked in the smoker (my mouth watered thinking about it even after I had filled myself to the verge of regurgitation), eating more turkey that my mom prepared (we had three turkeys), reading the works of Eliot, Salinger and McCarthy, participating in the nonsensical games of my younger siblings, talking to my beautiful little sister, Rosie, on the phone, decorating the Christmas tree post-Thanksgiving, having deep, intentional discussions with my parents, telling my little brother, Luke, that Black Friday is a day to celebrate him, visiting the Mission Inn’s Festival of Lights downtown and much, much more. The days were, indeed, filled with laughter and love, all for the sake of giving thanks.

Now, as I look back on these past couple days, I can not help but think about how blessed I am. I feel blessed to have such a wonderful family and I feel blessed to call such a place home. I feel blessed to have such loving, Kingdom-minded parents and such earnest and fantastic siblings. I feel blessed to have a good friend who can put up with such a crazy family and I feel blessed to have such a good family that allows me to bring home crazy friends (I suppose our family’s motto is “What’s one more?”). And as I look at these blessings and think about this time, I find that there is, yet, one more thing to be truly thankful for. I find that I am thankful for this time itself; I am thankful for this weekend.

Evan and Kristen Eliason

This past week I had the great honor and privilege of being a part of the wedding of who will from now on be known as Evan and Kristen Eliason. 

I flew to Minnesota and stayed with Evan’s family and some of the other groom’s men as we prepared for and celebrated this special time.

I felt blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful people as we saw God’s providence unfold in the lives of this couple.

I could not be more happy for and proud of my dear friends. Their relationship is such a testimony of patience and persistence in what is good and how God’s blessings are manifested through faithfulness and an earnest desire for His callings. I am excited to see what comes for Evan and Kristen as they now seek first the Kingdom of God as one.

Praise be to God for all that is good!

The wilderness has a unique way of humbling a person. When one leaves the so called “civilization” of the city (as if man can indeed be presumed to live civilly) to spend time in a forest of trees, rocks and other various forms of wildlife, he learns quite a bit about the reality of his own temporal state and minute nature. He discovers a bit more about what it means to be human (but I say human in the more lowly and raw sense of the term).

Just the other day I had the privilege of backpacking through San Gorgonio Mountain with my long time friend Dane Sommers. We left our homes in Riverside and headed north towards San Bernadino, where we found ourselves turning off of 38 to take a less-than-maintained dirt road that lead to our trail head. Arriving at the end of the road, we stepped out of our tortured car, fastened our hiking shoes and slipped on our packs to begin our trek through the vegetation. We were turtles for the next couple of days, carrying our homes and everything we would need upon our backs.

As we hiked across the trail, we were exposed to the most beautiful arrangement of twisted trees, shallow creeks and odd colored flowers. We passed a meadow to the right of us that stood untouched and came across a small patch of what looked like small corn stocks (but we knew they weren’t real corn stocks because we unanimously concluded that real corn stocks would not grow in the San Bernadino mountains. And besides, there wasn’t any real corn peaking out of the top of these impostors). A cliff side hosting medium-sized boulders allowed us a nice rest half way through our hike and a view of the mountainside and valley that surpassed incredible. We hiked on and our shorter, deeper breaths acquainted us with the higher altitude and thinner air.

At eight and a half miles in, we made it to the space where we would stay the night. We removed our packs (a practice that makes you feel as if you’re floating as you walk for the next five minutes) and spread out our tent. There was not another person in sight. We cooked up two cans of chili and ate quietly and graciously against the setting sun. We washed our bowls with the crystals from a patch of snow nearby then went to bed dead tired yet surprisingly restless.

Night came with a violent wind that kept the trees and us from slumber. We laid inside the tent, passively fighting the crashing noises with light and broken sleep. At twelve I woke up incredibly thirsty and drank a ton of water from the bottle we stashed in the tent. At one I woke up nauseous then went outside to vomit up that water and small remnants of dinner. I felt better after that, then went back inside and slept through the remaining hours of the night.

We awoke in the morning to a peaceful earth where the sun crept behind the trees to light the land. We explored the nearby spaces, taking pictures of the terrain, then ate breakfast and told simple jokes about our struggles to find sleep. We cleaned up the camp, packing everything back into our packs, then headed back towards the trail.

Walking on out, we began to look again in admiration at all that surrounded us. Dane stopped and said to me, “You know, this whole time we’ve been out here I’ve been thinking about all this and how God created it all. Like all of it, and it’s all so beautiful. So, I keep praying and just saying thanks to him for doing that, for creating all of this and allowing us to enjoy it.” We continued to hike and I said, “Yeah, it’s really great.” I was humbled by this thought. All of it, God created, and I was there, a small and tiny piece of life, being allowed to experience it all. All of it, in its majestic nature, and here I was, small and unimportant, breathing the thin air, feeling the sun on my face, tasting the dirt we kicked up with every step and looking out at the vast stretch of trees and land. I was humbled. 

I was humbled, so I quietly thanked God, too.

Reading Dharma Bums tonight makes me want to go back packing.

Real bad.

The Things That Are Good and True

Summer met me with a quiet surprise this year. May had found a way to clothe the sun with clouds that made me feel as if summer was further than the horizon. My semester closed with an anticlimactic ending and all that had been talked about and planned began to unfold into reality.

In the past, the season seems to have always meant for me time spent at home with my family, and time spent at home with my family has always meant time spent with my brother Stevie. Stevie and I are roughly a year and a half apart in age (Stevie was born in October of 1987, and I in February of 1989), but in spirit, humor and love we find ourselves forsaking any sort of gap and clinging to a friendship that has provided great comfort and support throughout our lives. In our years, we have shared laughter, times of mourning, our deepest thoughts and feelings, our greatest concerns, and a bedroom (in which caused much conflict as children when it was time to clean up our toys). We have been there to see each other through our roughest times and to celebrate in our most joyful moments. Stevie is my best friend.

This summer, however, has begun to take on a new role. As we grow older, our lives begin to change and our responsibilities and callings begin to take shape. Two months ago Stevie asked a wonderful girl named Ashley if she would marry him. She said yes and they will be wedding this coming winter. I cannot be more happy for my brother. Two weeks ago Stevie got on a plane to go to Tibet. He will be living there for the next couple months to work with local churches in spreading the good news that God’s son came to bring hope and salvation to a desperate world. I cannot be more inspired by my brother. Two days ago Stevie sent me an e-mail about the work he is doing. He has made many friends and is greatly enjoying his time and efforts spent with the people of Tibet. I cannot be more proud of my brother.

Stevie has a faith in God that is so earnest and a love for people that is so vast that he could not live his life merely seeking to please himself; he has to share with humanity the hope he has found and the love he has received. He is so deeply rooted in the word of God that he has dedicated his life to service in whatever manner that may be and whatever form that may take. Stevie is a man that yearns to see what it means to die to himself so that he may truly live. 

So this summer I find myself without my brother Stevie, as he serves on the other side of the world, and I have come to the conclusion that there will never be another summer where we find ourselves in the same home, but I suppose this is the way that life unfolds. We learn to live and love each other and then we learn to say goodbye to our past traditions as we take hold of the new experiences that life has to offer. We grow with each other then we part from each other, but we always pay homage to the notion that who we are today is because of each other. The quiet surprises meet us as we move into what we call the present and we cherish the past for all that was good and true.

O, Praise be to God for the quiet surprises and praise be to God for the things that are good and true!

Blessings.

1. Let Us Look Back

The idle night will soon turn to morning,
Listen:
The sound of silence
Please come, do come,
I’ve something
Something to show you
Something to tell you.
Yes, the morning is coming, but you must know,
Yes, I have stood there before, but you must know.

Come,
Let us look back,
I’ve questions, and so too do you,
I can see them deep in that turquoise-green hue,
That sits 
Where jade fades to olive,
And the olive into blue.

You see, 
I walked in a garden today,
So I couldn’t help but wonder
What it was like.

You see?
Of course you can’t,
For it is night.

Well let us look back,
Ask questions of our faults,
Maybe we’ll get answers,
Or maybe turn to salt.

In the Beginning was the Word

A widely accepted notion within the realm of literary criticism is the idea that language constitutes and constructs reality. It is the idea that the way one understands the world is based off of the words he knows in direct connection to the concepts he understands. For example, we understand the six primary and secondary colors not because there are merely six colors, for there is a vast and endless amount of shades and hues displayed in the world, but we understand these six colors because language has assigned words, or signifiers, to the concepts of these colors. (Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet) We convey concepts through words and the hope is that the receiver of these words can not only receive the words, but through the words construct in their own mind and understand correctly the conveyed concept. (Whether an accurate and correct construction of a conveyed concept is possible is a whole other conversation that can be left to the theorists of deconstruction.) Nonetheless, our understanding of reality is based upon language. Language constructs our reality and our world.

This being said, I have found the significance of words in the creation story holding a different type of weight. 

In the beginning, God spoke. In the first chapter of Genesis there is a repetition of the words, “And God said,” being proceeded by what he speaks into creation. He spoke the word of the world and into reality came the concept of the world, coupled with the object, the world. The world was constructed upon the word, or rather, the language of God. 

“And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” (Gen. 1:3) The very speaking of the concept of light brought it into reality and into the world. He did not create through tangible shaping, mending and building, but He created through words and language. The world was constructed through words; all of reality shaped through language. And God said that it was good, and it was indeed good, for His very speaking of the word “good” created “good,” and therefore epitomized and exhausted “good.” “Good” came through God speaking it into creation.

And this is what I find awe, wonder and rest in: God as the most magnificent of authors and linguists; God as the speaker of the world.