unload time

snow comes, then it melts... then it comes back again! then it melts again! what an emotional rollercoaster.

why are some things important to people and not to others? where does this come from? like eating dinner together. incredibly important to my mother, not really at all to me. family in general is important to some of my siblings and not so much to others. what?

there are certain people in my life that i really enjoy. i like to be around them, spend time with them, talk to them. then there are people who i don't enjoy. the difference? the people i enjoy at least give me the idea that they understand me. the others? don't care. 

man, when broken down like that it seems kind of selfish. that's me i guess. is everyone else that much different?

i need to figure out how to use these boots so i don't have to buy new ones. that would suck. i probably need to get some new ones anyway. oh well. show me the money.

i can't wait to go skiing tomorrow.

i've gotta get out of here. i'm dying inside

i'm beginning to hate tv on some level. it sucks your soul up. 

life. oh boy.

this little kitten is awesome. mini-cat!

how am i supposed to afford school? even after all that financial aid? community college looking more appealing all the time.

family oriented movies depress me. like marley and me. 

dodgeball?

there was a dodgeball tournament here this last weekend. it was much, much different than playing with a bunch of 1st-3rd graders. a little more difficult. I kind of wished that i had mark and anil and brian on my team again. my team didn't do so well, we tired out and lost our last match like it was my keys! on Sunday i woke up and my entire right side of my upper body was sore. everything was. my back was a little more than sore, i actually injured it playing dodgeball. that's the coolest thing i've done since falling from my roof on the rope swing!

it's 5 o'clock

it's five in the morning and i just finished about 1/4 of my homework for the day.

it's a good thing most of my teachers take late work.

i should probably note that i don't actually have as much homework as it might seem, i just procrastinated all of it until now, but too bad, i'm going to go sleep for 2.5 hours.

urine vs. dishwater

two events:

last night at about 3:45 am i heard an unsettling sound. it was the sound of our dog, a big german shepherd, whimpering and pacing in the downstairs, indicating that he had to pee... bad! i stayed where i was hoping that someone else would hear and take care of the problem. no such luck. no one came for what seemed like twenty minutes. i finally figured i wasn't going to fall back to sleep while he was carrying on, so i got up and headed for the door almost being knocked down by the big dolt in his mad dash to answer natures call. somehow, i managed to get the door open and let bruno escape, so i figured i'd head for the bathroom myself. 'couldn't hurt' i figured. then, about halfway through the kitchen my foot landed upon a slippery substance. urine!! dog urine. bruno pulled a, "i'm so excited, i can't control my bladder!" when he saw me up to let him free. so, there i was, half awake, pee soaked foot, in the middle of the night. not too complicated. i hopped to the paper towels, wiped off my foot, found some kind of cleaning agent, cleaned my foot, wiped up the pee with more paper towels, then cleaned the floor with a couple of clorox bleach wipe things. problem solved. 

after this, i used the bathroom myself, let the dog back in, and went back to bed. 'good thing that was on the linoleum' i thought.

this evening, i had to wash the dishes after the after-thanksgiving dinner. this meant that i had to wash some of the dishes that contained the main courses. some big dishes, lots of silverware and a few plates and cups... with lots of food residue coating every surface. chunks! this is not a simple situation. i had to strategically get all the dishes clean without a dishwasher while using as little water as possible. you can probably imagine the details, the nasty dishwater, etc.

somehow, the dishes were more gross than the urine. this strikes me as odd. it's a mystery of life. why is doing the dishes so disgusting?

break...

i'm home now, sure took me long enough.

mom hooked me up with microsoft office! YES! now i can finally write stuff 'from the comfort'. and print it.

bruno (the dog) got all worried when i walked in again. he always barks at me and raises his hackles. whatevs. my padres are actually trying to train him to do that. the first time i met him, he wanted my blood to be spilled. oh well. i think he's over that by now. he's sleeping near my feet dreaming about something, apparently totally unworriedified about my presence.

my room is no longer my room... officially. i still will sleep in there if and when i come home for a weekend or something, but it's totally re-arranged to be a "sitting room". my mom is a nut... so is my dad... i wonder why i turned out to be completely and utterly normal.

when i walked in the door, i got the usual response... nothing. my parents responded to me as if i just went out to get something from the car really quick. i opened the door, the dog freaked a little bit. my parents smiled at me, congratulated the dog and went on with their conversation. however odd, it's actually kind of nice. i don't like it when people make a big deal of me returning or leaving. i don't see the point most times.

i think i'm going to go to bed. it's not even eleven. cool.

thanksgiving break

my life is made up of irony. sometimes it's good, sometimes it's annoying. over all, though, it's just funny. 

from the comfort

i finally have internet from the comfort of my own home.

thanks to the friendlies upstairs.

now i can do all things internet from my house. i used to need the computer lab.

you know what i used to be able to do from the comfort of my house?

homework.

dang it's cold up here!

i'm on the roof of my house right now. i can see the blue mountains from here barely... there's snow on them! amazing! i love the fact that winter's coming, except i can't really feel my fingers right now. that makes it kind of hard to type. The roof is the only place at my house i can get wireless from the college right now. it's kind of cool/cold. all in all it's a pretty cool place, the top of my house. i wish it was a bit warmer.

drop-out

it's only the fourth week and i already feel like dropping out. 

why must we go through these stages?

i hate homework. most of it i see as pointless. except to teach me about some abstract life lesson, "sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do."

i want to be asleep right now.

i don't sleep that consistently anymore. 

can't really see the light at the end of the tunnel

it's there though.

it's there.

breathe every breath

You've been living life like it's a sequel
and your already bored with the plot
as if the cast and the score
are more money than before
But the script and the backdrop are stock

We've got the rest of our lives to regret
All the words that were said here tonight
but i bet that the morning, in the morning
You'll find us in bloom

So C'mon C'mon C'mon
Let's not be our parents
Oh C'mon C'mon C'mon
Let's follow this trough
Oh C'mon C'mon C'mon
Everything's waiting


Ever size up with summer sun?
Let these songs awaken the dawn
Let us breathe every breath
like a breath to be kept
Let us breathe it all in till it's gone

We've got the rest of our lives to live out
All these dreams we stay up tonight talking about
In the morning, start hoping, to not be too soon

Switchfoot - C'mon C'mon

flip-flop

i feel like it used to be that when a young person graduated from highschool they either married off (female) and became a wife, or they started working full time at the farm or whatever they'd been doing on the side while they learned to 'read and write'. only very rarely did a young person come home and say, "i'm going to college!". boy, but when they did! it was quite the big deal. especially when they succeeded! they sure made the family proud! heck, the whole town was proud! i'm sure that many more wanted to than actually did go to college, however, it just wasn't for every one. those that never went probably assumed that they'd fail if they tried, so they stayed home where they were expected. eventually they took over father's farm and were burried next to their parents out by the barn... of course leaving the farm to their own kids...

i could be wrong about that, but that is my perception.

it seems now that a bit of a flip-flop has occured.

now college has become the thing that is expected and for everyone and succeeding at the alternative has become something for the adventurous. is it just me or is college not really challenging? i mean everyone does it! people just mindlessly go because it's what's expected. after second grade, there's fourth grade, and after high school, there's college. when i used to bravely say, "i don't want to go to college!" i had many many people tell me, "well it's possible. look at so and so. and so and so else doesn't have a degree either... but those people are extremely gifted and talented people, jacob."

so for the rest of us... there's college. we'll pay our dues because it's what's expected. we'll put thousands upon thousands of dollars and years and years into something we'll only use a percentage of. not that we don't dream of other things. but we'll settle for the safe route. the guarantee. why should we take a risk when there's an easy standard to kind of fall into? right?


(i guess i like to re-check my motives everyonce in a while... make myself think)

there go the olympics...

and there goes everything that keeps me occupied all day right along with it.

...now what am i gonna do?

bright horizon

looks like the sun is rising over there.

i have (almost) nothing but excitement for the future. there's some good things coming up here. i think i always get this way around this time of year. new things are happening, i love new things.

my birthday is next month on the 22nd... and i'll be 22. this means that this upcoming year is my golden year. pretty cool!

all this cool stuff is just out of reach into the future. what about the present jacob? what about right now? don't miss the moments!

weather predictions?

plans change just like the weather! surprised? no. it seems like every time i make plans they get changed at least once, most of the time more than that.

of course i'm referring to my backpacking trip. it was initially made up of two separate legs, both along the pacific crest trail. as it turned out most of that trail was still snow covered so we went to plan b for the first leg, which went through a dozen changes all it's own. we ended up doing plan n which involved two separate trips. the first a three night four day in out trip and a two night three day trip which started the day we got out, all in the olympic mountains.

it was beautiful.

the second part has gone through change after change due to more trail condition problems like trees blown down making passage almost impossible. it looks like we're going to do about 5 nights six days in the okanogan national forest, just me and my brother. i'm fairly excited. not as much as i'd expect myself to be though. i think i'm just tired.

the beckoning

the mountains are calling my name again. and while they're calling for me using something other than words, i've come up with a new set of words for them: "my heavenly" (i got that from a jars of clay song)

i'm about to embark on the longest hike i've ever done. 17 days, 170 miles of trail. from snoqualmie pass to the north side of lake chelan. my mother will resupply us at stevens pass which is seventy miles into it.

i have weird feelings at this point in time. there is a great sense of anticipation in a positive way combined with a negative.

my dad commented, "you won't be the same people when you come out!"  as crazy as this sounds, it's true to a degree. after all, i have been referring to this trip as epic in all my descriptions of it, and in a weird way i hope this trip will be monumental in my life. i have these dreams of shrinking! i think the truth is that deep down i hope that the comment by my dad turns out to be truer than he or i had imagined.

something eerie beckons me from those mountains. i can't quite grasp it.

jehovah jireh

so there i was, 6 a.m. wednesday morning, loading my car up quickly but quietly, in a moderate hurry to leave on time. finally i got everything loaded up and i drove to pick up ricky. when he was all loaded up we took off for campmeeting. as soon as we entered the freeway, we both heard a disturbing clunking sound coming from what sounded like the top of my car. we looked at each other, then in the rearview mirror and discovered that my laptop was flying through the air like a piece of cardboard. we immediately stopped the car, and ran back to the computer like excited children running towards a soccer ball. we discovered that the thing still worked except for a little less than half of the lcd. so i kept it. who wouldn't?

then we arrived here at campmeeting and within hours i found out that there were a bunch of old computer monitors sitting by the main auditorium with 'free' signs on them.

so here i sit with my laptop and a huge bulky monitor typing away, taking care of business. so my laptop still works perfectly, it just got a bit bigger.

this story inspires this phrase:

JEHOVAH JIREH! - the lord will provide!

worn (out?)

worn: adj. - 1. diminished in value or usefulness through wear, use, handling, etc. 2. wearied; exhausted.

i am worn.

from swimming just to stay afloat.

running hard to end up where i was.

from fighting this losing battle.

worn from fighting to be something i'm not.

i am worn. yes. worn out? not yet.

"the sun was rising as jacob left peniel, and he was limping because of the injury to his hip."
Genesis 32:31

"there's still fire in you yet, yeah, there's still fire in you."

summer!

summer has come, bringing with it glorious longer days, cool comfortable 9:00pm evenings, holidays and time off, and of course tasks beyond my capabilities designed to stretch and bend me.

yes, TBA is here! clearly the best part of my whole year. the only thing between me and complete joy in anticipation is this class i'm supposed to teach. to put it plainly, i am not capable of teaching this class on my own. the subject is "strange stories of the bible". the objective, a very good one, is basically to teach the kids that they can open the bible to any section, no matter how random or obscure, and have it be alive to them! cool! the only problem is this subject and objective challenges me. i would like to take a class on this, not teach it. on top of that i have about 4 days to prepare for five "class periods".

overwhelmed? yep. and what's worse, when i feel overwhelmed, my motivation goes out the window and down three stories, then three miles down the road to a gun shop where it purchases a gun (using my money) and shoots itself in the proverbial head.

on the positive side, (1)this class will be over in about three weeks, and (2)this will be a good opportunity for me to learn and grow.

at the same time i'm trying to get to the point where i can go to walla walla university in the fall and i am slapped in the face by the seemingly endless "things to do" in order for this to happen.

AND, i'm planning to go backpacking with my brother for SEVENTEEN days in july and august! 17 days!!!!!! i'm super excited. but, of course, there is lots of stuff to organize for that. more learning and growing opportunities.

i'm learning that life is just one learning and growing opportunity after another...

bring it on!!!

when you realize you're not who you thought

"then i realized that my heart was bitter,
and i was all torn up inside.
i was so foolish and ignorant,
i must have seemed like a senseless animal to you.
yet, i still belong to you;
you hold my right hand.
you guide me with your counsel,
leading me to a glorious destiny!"

"whom have i in heaven but you?
i desire you more than anything on earth.
my health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak,
but god remains the strength of my heart.
he is mine forever!"

"asaph"
psalm 73:21-26

homemade! is the bestmade!

this one i made for a cool background on my laptop. JACOb!!

this is my dream car.

someone made this for me.

this is my alter ego/superhero motto: save the world... fitting

look at the stars!

two men looked through prison bars;

one saw mud, the other saw stars.

"not all who wander are lost"

here are some portions of my journaling and a few choice pictures. it ended up longer than is most pleasant so, feel free to read some and skip the rest. whatevs

5-9-08 dinner time:
today started off confusing, the map showed only one trail for at least three miles, and i came upon 2 forks in the trail within the first mile! needless to say, i got lost. i found out later why. the map i have, the only one i could find is from 1980! that's before i was even born! i can't believe they sold that thing to me for $9.00!
another reason i got lost today was snow. which is ironic because at the trailhead there was virtually no snow. i smirked to myself thinking about how wrong the naysaying forest service people had been. they were saying i would need crampons, ice axe, snowshoes. i was walking on snow probably 3-7ft deep at least 75% of the time. snow shoes? i don't even have goretex shoes!
...so my feet were wet and i didn't know which trail i was on, but it didn't matter much, it wasn't very cold and i knew i wanted to go east. i soon lost the trial because of the snow so i just traveled due east according to my gps. i figured it didn't matter if i didn't make it to my destination, all i needed was water and a dry spot to pitch my tent...
...soon i saw two things, ominous clouds from the south [blowing north-northeast] and what appeared to be red mountain (the only prominent mountain in the immediate vicinity) to the northeast
...and so began a race to see who could make it to the lake first, me or the weather. it was imperative that i win.
the clouds dissipated, but not before i found myself on the north face of the mountain i was on
...i quickly learned that the north face of anything was not where i wanted to be this time of year during this time of day, at this elevation. i was basically on the top of a giant ski hill without skis.
...my feet were sufficiently wet at the bottom of this adventure. as a matter of fact they are still wet at this moment.

5-10-08 - morning:
this morning brought an interesting discovery, my shoes, which i set outside to dry, did not dry, rather they froze solid into two frosty blocks. fortunately the sun has certain thawing qualities, but who knows how long that will take.
...it appears as though i came to this area at the right time of year, i keep seeing signs that say "no vehicles beyond this point" "motorized vehicles allowed here". apparently in the summer this area is very accessible and not very secluded, in the winter this place is frequented by snowmobiles, in early may, i almost guarantee i'm the only person for miles. ain't no vehicle making it to where i am.

i formed a new plan this morning, as soon as my rain fly is dry, i will pack up and head for coyote lake, about a mile east of here and for sure in the john muir wilderness. then, tomorrow i'll come back this direction, then on monday i'll head back toward the car. tuesday leave. this of course is tentative.

midday:
climbed to the top of some unnamed mountain
"i want to live above the world,
thought satan's darts at me are hurled,
for faith has caught the joyful sound,
the song of saints on higher ground!"

"i want to scale the utmost height,
and catch a gleam of glory bright.
but still i pray 'till heaven i've found,
Lord plant my feet on higher ground"

it's been said that trips like this one are not an escape from reality, but an escape to reality. i believe this to be true! THIS! this is real! the man made hustle and bustle of schedules, appointments, gas prices, hum drum routines, that stuff is fake. this is life! this is reality!

dinner time:
it hit me today, while traveling down the river just how awesome this trip really is! here i am wandering around in this practically winter wonderland without any deadlines besides sundown. despite my wet feet and sunburn i am having a spectacular time. i don't know if i could be having a better time anywhere else right now (except other wilderness areas) in the world.


5-11-08 - sunrise
as i sit here in my sleeping bag watching the sun rise, feeling it's warmth, listening to the river flow...the birds sing their individual tunes, watching a squirrel run accross the frozen snow, and just taking it all in, i'm struck with how grand this is. this life, this world. and yet a second thought hits me even harder. this, even this, is empty and meaningless without connecting it to it's creator. i realize in a real way that my heart yearns not just for the peaceful solitude of nature, but also the connection with my father and creator that it facilitates. somehow, surrounded by creation, that connection has potential to be stronger, fuller, more real than in other places.
my God is not the kind of god to create all this like a giant amusement park to keep us occupied, like a father that gives a child a pacifier because he knows they will enjoy it and stop crying. rather he wants to experience it with us, in connection with us. he wants to be there to discover our discoveries with us, to experience it all right by our side, like a father that takes his son fishing, or that dances with his daughter.
if i had walked out of here, gotten back in my car and driven away without this experience, i would have gained nothing. more than that, i would have left my father standing alone, like a person stood up by a careless date, with a twinge of pain that comes from missed opportunity, a certain emptiness that can only be filled by connection with his children.

"for what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world,
but loses his own soul?"

5-11-08 - sometime:
"in july or august," i thought, "it's too cold now." "too cold?" i responded, "that's something my sister would say!" so, i found a really good looking spot and made my decision, i needed to cross anyway, i would just swim across. so i took off everything i was wearing, stuffed it in my camelbak and chucked it across a narrow spot. suddenly i recalled not two hours earlier sitting next to this same river shivering while pumping water. now i stood in the buff about to jump into the waters that probably just melted yesterday! i stood there for probably twenty minutes arguing with myself, then, finally, i took the plunge! that could be the coldest water i've ever swam in. either that or that time in feb. or mar. at camp mivoden. it was cold. i jumped out the other side panting and gasping and immediately tried to warm myself. 5 minutes later i thought, "worth it!"

once i made it back to red lake area i discovered that one of my trusty walking sticks that i

picked up on friday doubles as a life saving device. who knew? i saw a summer outhouse and decided, for some reason, to take a closer look. upon looking closer i saw that the lower 1/3 of the makeshift bathroom was wrapped in a wire fencing material, and wedged between this and the outer wall was a marmot! "poor guy." i thought. i've gotten myself into some pretty sticky situations, but this one? how did he manage to get stuck in there? i was wondering how long he'd been dead when i could have sworn i saw him blink. sure enough, he blinked again, and closer inspection revealed that he was indeed breathing. i bent over, looked him square in the eye and said, "don't give up little buddy, you're gonna make it." using the bigger of my two sticks i began prying some of the nails off and pulling the fencing away, my little marmot friend watching all the while. soon enough i had made a way of escape for the little bugger, but for some reason or another, he wasn't taking it. i made like i was going to poke him a couple of times to prod him out, and he clicked at me threateningly, as if to say, "you touch me with that thing, and i'll scratch your sunburn!" so i backed away and he wriggled free. "that's the thanks i get?" i wondered, "i don't know if you realize this, but if i were starving and had a gun, you could have been my meal."
so maybe i saved his life, maybe i didn't. one thing's for sure either way, i damaged usfs property at red lake on may 11, 2008.
wandered westward toward the car about a mile and here i sit. very sunburned, and very tired. i hope i sleep well tonight.

5-12-08 9:58 a.m.:
i'm headed out now. my poor nose can't take it any more. i'm only four miles, as the crow flies, from my car, but it's all down hill from here (mostly). it shouldn't take long. i have mixed emotions about leaving, but i think i'm ready to go. one day early for the sake of a shower before we meet tomorrow. it's not over till the engine starts on the doob though. 4 more miles...
1:45 p.m.
i made it out alive! i guess i can dispose of that if-you-read-this-i'm-dead note.

"the one thing better than solitude,
the only thing better than solitude,

is society."

edward abbey

I'm going!

first of all, snails are gross. i accidentally stepped on one that was trekking across the sidewalk at mark's house, and the next morning there was another one, eating the remains. gross! i didn't stop him though. i just let nature do it's thing... it's nasty thing.

anyway, i finally heard opportunity knocking and i flung the door wide open! i'm going backpacking this weekend and i can barely stand waiting. they say that the average male thinks about sex like a large number of times a day, and if that's true, it's because of the culture/society he lives in. everywhere a person goes they are bombarded by provocative garbage. it's on people's bumbers, it's in the gas stations, it's in the mall, in book stores, it's on the billboards, it's even in some restaurants, it's everywhere!

as for me, the topic that consumes my thoughts at every idle moment (at least 60-70 times a day) is my trip to the wilderness this weekend. i can't stop thinking about it, planning for it, packing and re-packing. it's borderline obsession. i'm finding it incredibly difficult to live in the here and now. it's possible, it's just sometimes difficult.

my plan is to leave friday morning at some point (as early as possible), drive to the trailhead and start hiking in. i don't plan to come back out till monday night or tuesday morning early.

luckily for all my blog fans (thanks mom) i plan to keep a journal and post it on this very blog when i get back.

I'M SO EXCITED!!!

p.s. i'm planning to go into the inyo national forest and the sequoia national park. that could change though. and the picture was taken from abernathy peak in washington state(Northwest!!!) by me or sam gage.

Shin Splints

when i was in tonasket high school my sophomore year in high school, there was a skinny little girl in my class. i don't remember her name, i just remember she ran cross country and she was apparently pretty good. i also remember that when it was cross country season, she always had this mysterious tape on her lower legs. i never fully understood why...

the ball game

my sister, my brother and i went to a los angeles dodgers game on saturday night. it was quite the event.

we arrived a full two hours (or close to it) before the game started so we watched batting practice from the seats really close to the field! it was super cool... until we had to go to our real seats. then we wished we never sat in those seats. something about tasting something really good then having to settle for less really sucks (that's deep).

in short this is what happened:

-ate over 1000 calories of shelled peanuts in 45 min. (containing huge amounts of sodium[good for the heart])
-had a messy competition with my brother using the shells from our peanuts and our laps/shirts.
-stood up abruptly when a dodger hit a grand slam! spilling all the shells and whatnot onto the backs of the innocent folks in front of me. all in their hair and everything!
-paid eight full dollars for a bottle of water!
-watched an ambulance come on the field and take the umpire off after he'd been hit in the face with a fastball! amazing!
-left early after four almost completely uneventful innings. (seriously, there was like two hits total the entire time!)

yes, it was a lark. good bonding time with my sibs. most of that time is irreplaceable and invaluable. not to mention we went to a baseball game! that's gotta be in the top 20 things to do of all time! at least.

Once In a Lifetime

last night as i was laying in bed falling asleep, i thought it would be cool to wake up just barely before the sunrise and go jogging in that seldom experienced time they call twilight. i asked mark what time he thought the sun came up these days, seeing how every time i wake up these days the sun is already up and on its way across the sky, and he said probably around 6 or 6:10. so, i set my alarm for 6:00 am and tried my best to fall asleep.

falling asleep was one thing, but staying asleep was quite another. you see, at around nine or so last night i ate a brownie cake thing with rich chocolate icing and crumbled up peanut butter cups. it was super yummy! that little piece of junk kept me tossing and turning into the wee hours of the morning. i kept looking at my clock wondering if it was time to wake up yet. 2 am.... 4 am... finally i fell asleep, and the next thing i knew, the alarm clock went off. mysteriously, i was tired. i rolled over and looked out the window, it was super bright outside! "oh no!" i thought, the sun was already up. a second look made me notice that there were no shadows, meaning the day was still in the last few moments of twilight. i rolled over again thinking, "i missed it. i'll just wake up earlier tomorrow."

as i lay there, the birds were "composing" like there was no tomorrow! i mean they were chirping their little hearts out! i was amazed! what in the world could they possibly have to chirp about so much. as i listened i realized, the birdies have figured out this little secret that take us small lifetimes to figure out! there really IS no tomorrow! there's only RIGHT NOW! in that moment, i decided to wake up and go jogging anyway, because everything is a once in a lifetime experience!

as i began on this little bike path thing behind marks house, i headed out of the neighborhoods and out into the open desert called bakersfield. i noticed that the reason it was so bright and yet there were still no shadows was because a layer of dense clouds were hugging the horizon way off in the distance and effectively postponing the sunrise about 30 minutes (just for me?)!

the sun finally came up as i crested a little hill on the way back, so at the end of my mini route, i climbed up a little hill nearby, found a rock, and sat down and watched the sun rise all the way. it was exceptional! i sat there praying and thinking, and i realized that all kinds of life rely on that sun for life, and yet, the trees, the flowers, the birds, they all don't stress out trying to make the sun come up! they probably don't even worry or even think about it!

"look at the birds. they don't plant or harvest or store food in barns,
because your heavenly father feeds them.
and you are far more valuable to him than any birds!
can all your worries add a single moment to your life?
and if worry can't accomplish a little thing like that,
what's the use of worrying over bigger things?"
Luke 12:24-26

those little birdies don't stress out about life. they don't think, "man where am i going to get my next meal?" life just comes to them, they are sustained by God. in lots of ways, God wants my life to be like this, physically and spiritually. i just have to learn to let go! surrender! give up on trying to control my life.

"So don't worry about tomorrow,
for tomorrow will bring it's own worries.
Today's trouble is enough for today."
Matthew 6:34

in other words, live like there is no tomorrow! because there is no tomorrow! only right now! this is my new motto: everything is a once in a lifetime experience!

thanks for the reminder little birdies! and thanks for the truth Father.

Foiled!... In A Good Way.

i went solo backpacking the other day, like six months ago or something like that, and i wanted to blog about it. so sue me!

it was only over one night because i don't get much time off these days, but i was really craving some wild-nature-ness. there is something about the wilderness that draws me! i can't quite identify it. perhaps it's the way it reduces life to very understandable basic-ness. or maybe it's how nature reminds us of what's real and what's fake, what's truly important and what is insignificant or irrelevant. it could be the way that the wilderness removes a lot of distractions and enables us to think clearly, or it could simply be that God is revealed in a very noticeable, magnificent way through nature. maybe it's all of these. but still there's some mysterious, unidentifiable quality about the wild that persistently lures and entices me. i wish i could articulate it, because it really is a passionate thing within me. alas, i cannot. at least not right now. however, this "force" is what brought me to yosemite national park on this occasion.

i started out with a grand plan! it was to drive to destination A, the trailhead, then sleep in the car in the parking lot (everything was packed in my backpack and too inconvenient to unpack for an early start), wake up the next morning and obtain a wilderness pass from the forest service as soon as the office opened, then hike to destination B, vogelsang high sierra camp or vogelsang pass whichever i could reach by nightfall or by exhaustion. i thought i could probably make it to the pass which was further, because it didn't seem like that strenuous of a hike according to the map.

after that the plan was to cross country (no trail) across to destination C, the base of mt. lyell, which is the highest mountain in yosemite, and stare up at it, listening to it call out my name in the language of the mountains, a beckoning that fills me with insatiable yearning to join the lofty peaks in their heavenward aspirations!... after spacing off for a good chunk of time, i would then catch the john muir trail all the way back to destination D, my car, and wait for a better time when i could actually climb old lyell! after all it was october and it was snowing pretty hard on my way to the trailhead. which would imply that mt. lyell would be far too covered in snow to climb. especially with the clothes i brought.

all in all it was an excellent plan. and a plan is all it would end up being. i got really confused when i went farther than i planned and missed the first trail i was supposed to turn on. i thought i was on the right track the whole time until the trail started doing things not on the map, then i was really lost! i ended up backtracking and burning about two or three trail hours, and wandering around staring at the map and trying to match it with my surroundings, which were totally different, although i had no idea.

thoroughly lost, i finally ended up camping at a nearby lake because i couldn't walk any farther. my feet were blistering and sore, my back was aching because my pack was not fitting right, and i was really hungry for some warm food. so i called it a day and cooked some curry stuff with peas and ate dinner in complete solitude sitting upon a rock watching the sun set peacefully over some unnamed vista in yosemite. "good enough!" i thought.

the next morning i woke up before the sun and sat outside my tent in my sleeping bag in utter quietude waiting for the sun to rise. i ate breakfast and figured out exactly where i was. it turned out i had been really confused. i was in a very different place than i had thought the night before. so, i quickly formulated a plan B. i decided to climb the nearest/tallest peak and play around for an hour then come back and head back the way i was supposed to have come in the first place. so, that's what i did. i had lots of fun rolling huge rocks off the edges of 500 foot cliffs and watching them smash into the rocks below (i could actually feel it when the rock was big enough!). much of my time up there was spent imagining leaping off one of the peaks and soaring like an eagle to one of the other peaks miles off in the distance, effortlessly riding the thermals without a thought to the anxieties of the life below. somehow in my imaginations i took part in the experience of these majestic birds, floating above every aspect of earthly life.

all things considered, it was awesome! and strangely, a lot like life. after all, life is seldom what you plan. our feeble plans are always getting thwarted in some way. our limited vision is constantly leading us astray. and yet somehow, God helps us make lemonade out of all our lemons. and boy is it good lemonade! our lives are "bruised and broken masterpieces" that we "did not paint ourselves".

at the end of my trip i was able to put my "worth it!" stamp on that adventure, and i hope that at the end of my life i will be able to look back and say the same on a much larger scale.

Moments Are What I Live for!

we are currently doing two weeks of prayer for the same school. from 8:20 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. we do a week of prayer for the 5th-10th graders at Mother Lode Adventist Junior Academy, and from 9:30 a.m. to 10:10 a.m. we do another week of prayer for K-4th grade. It's pretty fun so far, although, i have to say that by far my favorite part has been RECESS!!! yep, i still love recess with all my heart. there's part of me that still wishes i were in grade school just for the recess twice a day.

unfortunately recess is only with the first through fourth graders, but it's still fun. i just wish it could be with all the kids! to be honest though, it seems like the little tykes have more heart. they don't hold back. i admire that. but...

they don't stand a chance against team y.e.t. when it comes to dodgeball! me, mark, and anil, we dominate every time! we just wreak havoc! there's balls flying, people screaming, kids falling, girls crying, and us having fun! i think it's only fair to treat them as equals. they don't hold back, neither do we.

yesterday, i chucked a ball at a third grader with the rally cry, "take that you vegetarian!" it hit him square in the back of the neck/head. he didn't even see it coming! it was a perfect throw! he turned around with tears in his eyes and wandered off and cried behind a tree for a couple of minutes, leaving me with a grin of satisfaction. "you're out!". he came back and gave me a high five later. anil threw a ball at a kid, knocking the kid flat on the pavement with a big ol' smile! BAM! "you can't handle this!" these kids love us! another time, one of the fourth graders threw a ball at one of his classmates really hard. the other kid tried to jump over it only to have it sweep his feet out from under him leaving him all sprawled out sliding across the blacktop! another one bites the dust!

out of all these moments, there was one today that takes the cake... and really makes me wish i had my camera out! right in the heat of the battle, at the climax of the whole thing, anil hurled a ball at a boy named noah. before he could blink twice, the ball smacked him right in the face/neck throwing his head back in a whiplash like manner, his face all contorted in a 'i just got hit in the face' look. "right in the kisser!" i thought. noah's head came back to a normal position and he stood stunned for about two seconds. then, with all he could muster out of his 7 year old body, he clenched both of his fists, locked his arms straight down at the ground, and screamed bloody murder at the top of his lungs... took a big breath, and let it rip one more time, as if to say, "everybody stop! i just got hit in the face!" everyone paused for a moment until he was carried off the field, blood trickling down his lip from his nose. then, as quickly as it had stopped, it started up again. yep. it's a good ministry i think. dodgeball ministry.

i just wish i could have had my camera to get a shot of that kid half bent over screaming with the force of a spud-gun! what a classic moment in time. i also wish i could have captured him with his bloody tissue from the teacher crammed up to his nose grinning just as big as before with his fresh battle wound. later i told him he was awesome for sustaining such a serious injury at recess. he gave me a big high five telling me the tales of the time he got mr. soandso out who is "one of the tuffest guys..." what a champ! it was fun, yes, but let's face it, the poor guy didn't stand a chance against team y.e.t.! he should have seen it coming from the get-go and been watching out for us. if you're a 1st-4th grader at recess, you can know that we're coming for you! so watch your back!

ah yes. it's these moments that i live for, and i truly believe that these are what the kids at MLAJA are living for too! we love them, they love us. "life is still worth living."

the yeo spot

i think there's a special space near my left ventricle. it's called the yeo spot.

look closely, you can see it. (tee hee)

Sit Loose!

"He who loves father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me... He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it." (matthew 10:37,39)

"Those are best prepared for the life to come, that sit most loose to this present life." (matthew henry)

i love 'em

Ryan and Phil.
Two of the greatest.

knuckle down, buckle down, do it, do it, do it.

so i drove all the way across the country, to tennessee and back again! it was amazing. lot's of people have done that, but very few have done that in the space of ten days.

this is how i started the trip off. with a big ol' bee sting. it was the coolest part of the whole trip. just kidding.

Tracy, the hitch-hiker! this is the guy that rode with us from barstow, CA to Albequerque, NM. 12 hours or something like that. It was awesome to see him open up to us. By the time he left the car, he was genuinely our friend

I slept on top of my car two nights out of three. it was a dirty/cold/uncomfortable job, but someone had to do it. what if a bad guy came? someone had to be outside to hear him coming and fight him off right?

i think this pretty much sums it up for emily wilkens...

the Cadillac Ranch? what in the world? ten cadillacs just buried in the desert.
This is the largest cross in the western hemisphere! who knew? right there in Oklahoma or something like that.

yeah, we had to stop a lot in order to maintain sanity. it was super fun though

another random stop on the side of the road. i'm pretty sure i got cow poop on my foot from this stop!
This is my personal favorite! we're singing with a guitar in front of the tennessee sign! ah the irony!
on the way back we stopped at union college in nebraska. Emily finally washed her hair... i didn't though. cool!

we stopped once and did the world a favor and removed this tire scarf from the middle of the road where everyone had to change lanes to miss. the look on my face and silly posture can be explained by the next picture:

yep.

this is me and em (palindrome) waving goodbye to the sun for the last time on this trip.


and this is the coolest picture of the whole trip (maybe). some mountain in colorado in the dead of night. p.s. my camera is super-rad


Tell me that's not cool! if you did, you'd be lying. this is somewhere in utah i think.


This picture is really cool from some view point. i couldn't resist stopping!


Emily Wilkens at her finest. i'll tell you this much, the only dull moments were when she was asleep. except the time i almost fell asleep at the wheel and killed us both. that was not dull.


and we made it to nevada the final stop for this nameless roadtrip. we were tired.


That's supposed to say "las vegas or bust", not just "vegas bust". (emily's idea).


so that concludes the pictures and comments for now of this trip which was the coolest thing in the month of march for me. i hope you enjoyed it as much as i did.

"for which of you,
intending to build a tower,
does not sit down first and count the cost,
whether he has enough to finish it..."

Ah! Life.

i'm back at mba now.

with a little inspiration from a few good "men" and the joy of the Lord, i'm back with full force. I've been thinking lately, life is often missed out on.

life is more or less made up of relationships and moments. and relationships within the moments. all we have is this moment and the people around us. i'll tell you what i mean. there was a time a couple of years ago when i looked back at life and said, "agh! i'm almost an adult and i don't know where my life went!" i'm not sure what the stimuli was, but i realized i'd missed out large portions of my life wishing i was somewhere else or in some other time. for example, the whole time i was homeschooled, i constantly wished i was in school with my friends. so i spent all my time and my mind attempting to live somewhere else which is impossible, and as a result, i missed out on what was happening in the "here and now". case and case kept coming to mind of times when i wished i was older or younger, or in another state, or hanging out with different people, and so on. it all added up to a staggering amount of life that i more or less missed out on. i determined at that point to live right now! but still i found myself this year wishing i was somewhere else with different people a lot of the time. you know how it goes, constantly surrounded with people that get on your nerves for this reason or that reason. last weekend i discovered what i was missing and up came that resolve again! i realized, these people are who God has given me for this part of my life! they're what i've got. why not make the most of it? i don't want to get to the end of this year and think to myself, "what a waste!". I WANT TO LIVE! i don't want to come to the end of the road and realized i never truly lived. there's so much waiting for me in every moment, and in every interaction with the people around me. for me, this is how to truly live.

now, life pretty much rocks! god is teaching me more and more to experience life to the fullest to his glory. from what i can tell this comes from living here and living now! as of february 24th, my new life's resolution is to live life, and love it! there's a song i want to sing but i can't sing through type, so i'll write the lyrics, it's by one of my all time favorite artists chris rice and it goes like this (except with a tune and stuff):

Everyday is a journal page
Every man holds a quill and ink
And there’s plenty of room for writing in
All we do and believe and think
So will you compose a curse
Or will today bring the blessings
Fill the page with rhyming verse
Or some random sketchings

Teach us to count the days
Teach us to make the days count
Lead us in better ways
Somehow our souls forgot
Life means so much

Everyday is a bank account
And time is our currency
So no one’s rich, nobody’s poor
We get twenty-four hours each
So how are you gonna spend
Will you invest or squander
Try to get ahead
Or help someone who’s under

Teach us to count the days
Teach us to make the days count
Lead us in better ways
Somehow our souls forgot
Life means so much

Has anybody lived who knew the value of a life?
And don’t you think giving his own
Would prove the worth of yours and mine?

Teach us to count the days
Teach us to make the days count
Lead us in better ways
Somehow our souls forgot
Life means so much!

staples. "that was easy!"

i totally stapled my finger on wednesday! i mean i fully jammed a staple completely into my finger! here's what happened:

i was talking with "the team" and, me being me, found something to fiddle with while talking. it was a stapler. not just any stapler though, it was a stapler from the STAPLES, and i found out in a slightly painful way that their catch phrase thing, "that was easy!" is all too true.

i was squeezing the thing trying to figure out exactly how it worked, because it obviously wasn't a normal stapler. it had two little protrusions on the underside, just in front of where the staple would hypothetically come out. i figured that these things must be like some kind of "safety" (what's that?) device, kind of like the sleeve thing on a nail gun that has to be depressed before the gun can fire. so i was holding these down while gently squeezing the stapler waiting to feel if the staple was going to come out. i kept squeezing and squeezing, slowly but surely, when suddenly, SNAP!! the thing exploded like a nail gun. i jerked my had out violently, only to see a staple lodged in my index finger, completely flush with the surface of the skin.
amazed and sufficiently surprised/startled, i pulled that puppy out, threw it in the trash, squeezed some blood out, walked to the bathroom clutching my pierced finger, washed it off, then stopped the bleeding with a paper towel. now, three days later, it's almost completely better. amazing!

i learned two things from this experience.
1. there's still some 6th grader in me.
2. stapling one's self is a good way to end a conversation politely.