Words from Beyond...

Finding time to blog, to write letters, to read, to hang out...all this great stuff that’s so hard to fit in. For every free space of time I have there are any number of things that I’d like to do and only time for one! Making time can be difficult--especially with so many great people around and wanting to fully live into and experience the community around me--so my apologies if you haven’t heard from me very much or if you’ve been checking back here for updates and finding none.

Sometimes the words of others speak more powerfully than those I can put together myself, so here are a few quotes and passages that have been speaking to me over the last several weeks with some explanation!

“The thief comes only to steal & kill & destroy; I have come that they may have LIFE and have it to the full.” -John 10:10

I have always loved this verse--a reminder that there is more going on than meets the eye, that Jesus doesn’t just offer eternal life, he offers a more full life NOW! I have for so long taken that for granted and not really accepted this truth. I’ve been thinking a lot about the ways that I kind of just slide through life without experiencing the fullness and joy that life does have to offer...and I don’t want that complacency any longer.

Every Saturday morning we have Celebration Breakfast...called so because it’s the one morning that everyone is in camp together. All the guides are in camp together. So we have a long, large breakfast and do trip reports, updates & worship all together over breakfast. Afterwards we do Gender Time. It sounds corny. Sometimes it is--and many times the female gender time is stereotypically laced with lots of emotion and tears. But I’ve found it to be one time in the week that forces me to come face to face with what’s in my head and be honest and vulnerable in a safe space. Almost every week during this time I’ve realized something I’ve been holding onto that has caused a lot more reflection, prayer or praise throughout the rest of the week. A couple weeks ago we had an especially great time as women and I found myself just jotting down some single words and phrases that were spoken throughout the time. Underneath is a poem that I discovered a few days prior and read at the beginning of that particular gender time. An aside...at the end of every gender time we close by singing “You Have Redeemed My Soul”...beautiful!

Risk

Authenticity

Be Still.

Known

Taking up the amount of space I deserve is okay

Space

I deserve love

Don’t hold back

Purpose

Being Me

People as a strength rather than a barrier

Needing help

Please Hear What I’m Saying (Charles C. Finn)

Don’t be fooled by me.

Don’t be fooled by the face I wear.

For I wear a mask, a thousand masks,

Masks that I’m afraid to take off,

And none of them are me.

Pretending is an art that’s second nature with me,

But don’t be fooled,

For God’s sake, don’t be fooled.

I give you the impression that I’m secure,

That all is sunny and unruffled with me,

Within as well as without,

That confidence is my name

And coolness is my game,

That the water’s calm,

And I’m in command,

And that I need no one.

But don’t believe me.

Please.

My surface may seem smooth,

But my surface is my mask,

My ever-varying and ever-concealing mask.

Beneath lies no smugness, no complacence.

Beneath dwells the real me, in confusion, in fear, in aloneness.

That’s why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,

A nonchalant, sophisticated facade, to help me pretend,

To shield me from the glance that knows.

But such a glance is precisely my salvation.

And I know it.

That if it’s followed by acceptance,

If it’s followed by love,

It’s the only thing that can liberate me,

From myself, from my own self-built prison walls,

From the barriers that I so painstakingly erect.

It’s the only thing that will assure me of what I can’t assure myself,

That I’m really worth something.

But I don’t tell you this.

I don’t care.

I’m afraid to.

I’m afraid your glance won’t be followed by acceptance and love.

I’m afraid that deep down I’m nothing,

That I’m just no good,

And that you will see this and reject me.

But you’ve got to help me.

You’ve got to hold out your hand

Even when that’s the last thing I seem to want,

or need.

Only you can call me to aliveness.

Only you can wipe away from my eyes the blank stare of the breathing dead.

Each time you’re kind,

And gentle and encouraging,

Each time you try to understand because you really care,

My heart begins to grow wings,

Very small wings,

Very feeble wings,

But wings.

I want you to know how important you are to me,

How you can be a creator of the person that is me if you choose to.

Please choose to.

It will not be easy for you.

A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.

The nearer you approach me,

the blinder I may strike back.

It’s irrational, but despite what the books say about man,

I am irrational.

I fight against the very thing that I cry out for.

But I am told that love is stronger than walls,

And in this lies my hope.

My only hope.

Who am I, you wonder?

I am someone you know very well.

For I am every man you meet and I am every woman you meet.

A prayer. A plea. A confession. An example of what we can offer to each other. A reminder of what God can bring us out of. I love this! It sparked such deep and honest conversation and was really tragic how many of the women, including myself, in the group...amazing, beautiful, stunning women...related to the emotions expressed within this poem. It gives me a sense that working with young women in some capacity is part of what I want my life’s work to be.

Prayer of St. Francis Drake

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves,

When our dreams have come true

Because we have dreamed too little,

When we arrived safely

Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when

with the abundance of things we possess

We have lost our thirst

For the waters of life,

We have ceased to dream of eternity

and in our efforts to build a new earth

We have allowed our vision

Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,

To venture on wider seas

Where storms will show your mastery;

Where losing sight of land,

We shall find the stars.

We ask you to push back

The horizons of our hopes;

And to push into the future

In strength, courage, hope, & love.

My dreams for the last many years have been safe, attainable, responsible...the challenge to “dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas”, to lose sigh of land in order to find the stars causes me to dream for something more and have courage, strength and hope to be able to fully lean into the Lord’s provision. I have no idea what’s next for me. In many ways I’ve learned to shed the singular lens of career that I’ve seen myself through these last several years and would love to just have fun when I come home. For the first time in many many years, I would love NOT to work. Not because I want to be lazy but because I can recognize so much more in life that I want to grab hold of. Of course, I’ll have to pay the bills some way, so prayers for direction would be appreciated...but I want to be disturbed, as this poem says, to dare more boldly, to thirst for truth and to push into the future with courage!

All base camp staff get to go on a free trip during the summer. I requested to be able to go on a recon trip with guides--a route-learning trip for first year guides when there aren’t enough trips in one week. I had the opportunity this past Sunday-Wednesday to go up Zion, one of the longest Beyond routes, with 4 other amazing women! It was intense. We did a trip that campers would normally do in 6 days in only 4...2 9-hour days, 1 12-hour day and a 7-hour day. My feet killed because my boots (the ones that I wore last year with absolutely no problems) gave me awful blisters on the first day. The next 2 days I walked in chacos (helped with the blisters but my nerve-endings were shot when I returned!) However, those complaints pale in comparison to the fun we had. It was so empowering to be in a group of 5 women climbing up a mountain on our own strength. We had so much fun, laughed a ton, and had great “mountain-top” conversations. I came face to face with some insecurities that I’ve still been holding onto, and felt constantly reminded of the worth that God provides me with...that doesn’t come from anyone else.

Wow! If you have made it this far, I feel very loved and bless you for taking such a chunk out of your day! I don’t know when the next update will be...so you’ll just have to keep checking back to see when I get my next urge and time-frame to carve out a chunk of time to reflect on what’s happening in my life this summer!!