Reflections On: Returning to Flagstaff

Well hello, lots of catching up to do in this post!  Actually, so much time has passed that I don’t really feel like writing everything that I might have if I had written as things happened.  You might be in luck with a short post?  Haha.  Who am I kidding?  Ok, a shortER post.  ;-)

Anyway, I returned to Flagstaff in December after that climbing trip in Joshua Tree (What trip? See “Reflections on... Life in SouthCarolina (Part 1)”), and moved into an apartment with a handful of other 20-somethings.  For a couple of weeks I didn’t have much to do besides settle into my new room, read books, do creative projects like beading, and check out whatever entertainment the roommates were providing in the living room (like having the TV on while someone is playing a video game, someone else is painting nails, and at least two separate text conversations are happening).  Oh, and try not to dwell on my recent turn of events (If you missed it, read “Reflections on... Life in South Carolina (Part 2)”).  Eventually, though, the spring semester started.  Fortunately, the way my classes were scheduled, I was able to just focus on two at a time, which meant they moved at a quick pace, but I didn’t have my attention divided in too many directions. 

I also picked up shifts now & then at Starbucks, and then later in the semester officially transferred into the Flagstaff store & got put on the schedule.  I also applied, was hired & trained as a Rescue Guide for the brand new FlagstaffExtreme Adventure Course!  We trained in February & then spent March, April & part of May getting comfortable with the course, practicing our skills, getting all the little detail things settled out, and training our Safety Patrollers.  Now, finally, at the time of my writing this, we ARE open!  J  It’s pretty awesome, and now that summer has arrived and we’re running 7 days a week, I’ll be working lots of hours there.  I expect that between the two jobs, my summer is going to be packed with work.  My only break will be the Sabbath & some buffer time on either side of it.  (Insert: Thank you, God, for giving us the Sabbath, because otherwise I’d probably work straight through that, too!)

Ok, so you knew it was coming…  The rest of the story about difficult goodbyes and all that. 

After Ethan & I parted ways in December, he headed to his Wilderness EMT course, and I came to Flagstaff.  At first we didn’t communicate much, but then after a couple of weeks we started just checking in with each other, seeing how things were going.  He successfully completed & certified (congratulations!!) in early February.  He and a guy he met at the course decided to do a mountaineering trip before leaving CA, & then hit the road for a cross-country drive to get home.  On the way, they stopped in Flagstaff so I could take them to the Grand Canyon.  This was something like 6 weeks after our J-Tree “goodbye,” and we had been trying to move on, but being around each other again, even on a short visit, brought all kinds of thoughts & feelings back to the surface.  With his new friend there we didn’t really talk much about it at the time or in person, but it was apparent we needed to talk.  Enter “difficult goodbye #2,” in about-to-fly-to-Chile-for-3-months style.  Since Ethan wasn’t moving to Flagstaff, he was completely open on what he could do after the WEMT course, and took an awesome opportunity to go work on a farm in Chile with his best friend.  I was honestly 200% excited for him/them, but the hard part was the matter of timing.  Right when his recent visit caused us to acknowledge that we really needed to talk about some things, he was leaving to be in South America, with no cell phone, limited internet, and who-knows-what-to-expect mail service.  We emailed some before he left, but I was hoping for a good, open, productive phone conversation.  The closest to that we got, though, was a pick-&-choose-what-to-say conversation while he was in the airport between flights.  L  Thus, my intro to the last post.  As it turned out, internet access was a little more available than we initially anticipated, so that helped ease the after-effects of “difficult goodbye #2,” because we got to continue discussing things that I had felt were left unfinished before. 

Fast-forward summary of things since then: We’ve stayed in touch, although at varying levels from time to time.  He’s back in the States & about to hit the road again for his summer job in California (something about that place is a magnet for him, haha).  I’ve tried to be ok with letting go of the relationship and settle into a friendship, but my heart’s not there yet.  Six months after breaking up, I still wonder what God’s will is in this aspect of my life.

Lest I leave this post on a down note…  In the spirit of trying to dance wherever this brook flows (see my very first post), I have recently taken advantage of some fun opportunities.  My Couch-Surfer-turned-real-life-friend from New Zealand had a chance to fly to the States, & wanted to go to Mexico.  It worked out that I was going to California to see some friends of mine anyway, so we combined trips!  I got to see old friends again, got to have my first Mexico adventure (short as it was, only being able to go for a day because I had to get back to Flagstaff to work), drove many miles & much of it at night, slept in a tent on the side of a desert road, went dancing downtown til 2am (I know, if you know me, you’re shocked!), & simply enjoyed all-around good company & conversation with a great friend.  J  (We’ll just overlook how often Ethan came up in conversation or memory, haha.)

The guys at the Grand Canyon (the non-cardiac-arrest version).

“Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.”

Bernice Johnson Reagon

Reflections on... Life in South Carolina (Part 2)

~*~

02/19/12

I’ve just said the most difficult goodbye I can recall in recent events.  Maybe it ties with one other.  Both have been since you’ve last read anything from me, and both have been with the same person.  Let’s back up & fill in some more about the past year in South Carolina, first.

I previously mentioned that my move was “for the purpose of finding out if a guy (Ethan) who had entered my life in seemingly Providentially-orchestrated fashion would end up being the man I share a lifetime of future adventures with.”  While I lived with his Mom (Dad was/is on an extended work assignment) and later also his sister, he continued classes in Clemson two hours away and I worked my two jobs closer to home.  We traded off visiting each other on the weekends.  I have put off writing about this topic because, as much as I have wanted to, I haven’t really known how best to do so.  There is so much to consider and process when reflecting on how a relationship develops, and all the ups and downs and growth along the way.  I think it would be safe to say that we both learned a lot about ourselves through the time together.  By November, though, we both felt that while we very much cared about each other and were deeply attached to each other, some serious concerns were demanding our acknowledgment.  He did the courageous thing and took the initiative in our conversation, of which I was very grateful.  We spent a tearful evening together trying to accept the reality of our situation as we had now openly discussed the things that had been privately nagging each of us separately.

One of his reflection spots that he shared with me; where we would read and talk, learn more about each other and enjoy each other's company.

02/26/12

A week has passed since I started writing this “Part 2.”  The pain from last week’s goodbye has subsided some, partly due purely to time, and partly due to the knowledge that out-of-the-country doesn’t necessarily mean unable-to-contact.  “Wait, where?” you ask.  Oh, yes, you need more details.  So picking up the story where we left off…

After that conversation in November, we tried to adjust to not being a couple.  There were moments of relief as the pressures we had been placing on ourselves now no longer needed to be there.  And there were moments of sorrow as we mourned the undesired outcome of the past year.  We had planned on me being in South Carolina until the end of the year, when he would graduate and we would both move west, so at this point, the remainder of my time in South Carolina was to be four or five weeks.  Since he was going to take a month-long Wilderness EMT course in California in January, we figured four weeks was a short enough time that it didn’t make sense for me to leave early, and we could stick to the plan of moving west together.  The difference, now, though, was that while I would still be moving to Flagstaff, AZ to finish a semester of school and graduate, he would not be joining me after his month in CA. 

We joined a group of friends in Joshua Tree, CA for a week of rock climbing, and the last day of that trip was the scene for “difficult goodbye #1.”  After a group lunch everyone said their “this was fun”s and “see you again soon”s with joy for the time we had spent together and cheerful anticipation of the next time we might see each other.  Ethan and I, though, were saying a different goodbye.  One that had been dreadfully looming in the distance.  One that while we were still in South Carolina had been a thing of thought but not reality.  One that we knew was inevitable and necessary, but that neither of us wanted to accept.  Especially after having just spent time with friends doing something we loved and experiencing a week that would have been great bonding time for the two of us if we were still dating.  Our goodbye was pierced with the reality that this now meant physical separation from each other’s company, and had uncertainty on the other side of it.  We were now beginning new chapters of our lives, and due to the recent plot-change, we now had to walk ahead without each other.  We were sad.  We tried to be encouraging and reassuring to each other.  I broke down into full-out sobbing before the car I was riding in got halfway out of the parking lot.

Brought together by climbing, we spent the last week before "goodbye" climbing, too.

Well, further chronological filling-in will take us away from life in South Carolina to now life back in Arizona, so I’ll pause here and wrap up the SC reflections first.  When I think about how that year has affected me personally, I see a mixture of ways I’ve grown and ways I haven’t, things about myself that have become more apparent and things that got lost. 

·         My awareness of types of people and their backgrounds has been expanded.

·         I gained work experience in a different corner of the Parks & Rec field than I previously had been familiar with.

·         My interest in national history was stirred.

·         I had lots of opportunities to practice not being in charge of everything.

·         My self-will follow-through was tested, and failed more often than I’d like.

·         I developed a more realistic understanding (through experience and through study-reading) of relationships and healthy expectations.

·         My often black-and-white views on things have acquired much more grey (sometimes a good thing, sometimes not).

·         I have been able to open up more deeply in close relationships, and have been able to feel less like I need to always answer “how are you?” with a smile and “I’m good!”  (It’s ok to be honest & say “I’m hanging in there,” or “well, kinda struggling today,” or “been better, but the sun is shining” because your willingness to be gently genuine opens an opportunity for the other person to practice their empathy and to connect with you on a personal level.)

·         I learned that when I’m in my efficiency or productivity mode I can unintentionally lack sensitivity towards others, and I need to improve my thick-skin / thin-skin radar.

·         I’ve gotten to practice greater and longer patience.

·         I’ve also discovered how short I can be when that patience is gone.

·         My desire to be tactful or respectful or trusting and thus bite my tongue sometimes results in losing confidence in myself.

·         I’ve come out of this with a lot more questions than answers.

One of our dates included walking the gardens and monuments of the South Carolina State House at night.

Storyline to be continued with “Reflections: On Returning to Flagstaff.”  Yet unwritten, but coming…

~*~

Reflections On... My Life in South Carolina (Part 1)

~*~
There’s much more that I wanted to write about than I have so far, but I thought I’d at least provide some reading material to start with. More to come.

Sunday, 12-18-2011

Night has fallen, and I’m riding in the Red Dragon heading west. Ethan is beside me, in his “road trip zone;” steadily focused, with no stops besides gas until we reach the destination, and accompanied by an enthusiastically selected playlist streaming from the iPod. Trailing behind us is my car, packed like a 3-D Tetris challenge. We’ve been on the road for six hours now, so I’ve settled into reflection mode.

Ten months ago I was traveling alone, heading east, striking out on a new adventure into the unknown. That drive took me four days on the road, one rest day, and four nights of sleeping in beds. On my first day driving, my reflections bounced around between the topics of sojourning, gratitude, and various ways I’ve surprised myself in the course of my life. The second day was filled with observations of billboards I found humorous (whether they intended to be or not). The third day was a chance to catch up with friends of mine & my family, so of course lots of telling people what I’d been up to lately and what I was doing next. The fourth day I started freaking out. I had finally reached a part of the country I didn’t already have a level of familiarity with, and it really sank in that I was moving all the way across the country without any guarantee of a job to move in to a house where my primary companion would be someone I’d only met once (Ethan’s Mom), all for the purpose of finding out if a guy (Ethan) who had entered my life in seemingly Providentially-orchestrated fashion would end up being the man I share a lifetime of future adventures with. All the conversations from the day before must have settled in deep overnight, because when I say I freaked out, I mean I stopped at a rest stop & took some time on the phone to process it more and relax a bit. Thankfully, by the fifth day, I was finishing the drive with excitement.

When I’m not writing about things, my other form of documentation is photos. So, as I look back to the first set of pictures I took, I laugh. The day after my arrival, Niki left on a business trip and Ethan returned to classes. I was all by myself in an unfamiliar place and I recall going through more nervousness as I unpacked & settled into my new room. So a day or two passes, and then what did I photograph? The huge bug I found on the laundry room floor. It was a case of “Ew, what is this? Maybe if I take a picture of it, I can look it up,” but I think I was able to just ask later. The answer: a tick. Now, having spent time in the backcountry of California, I had pulled a tiny black tick off me a time or two before, but this thing had clung to one of the dogs & feasted before turning into a bulbous grey and brown-dusted alien and falling off. Future “welcome to South Carolina” encounters weren’t always photographed, but were frequently given notable consideration. Coming from the rugged west I had learned to be cautious with the vegetation and wildlife, but this humid south was a whole new world to learn. In Arizona, when I went out to work in the garden, I had to wear sunscreen. In South Carolina, I had to bathe in bug repellant. In Arizona, if the trail was free of vegetation, it was clear to pass. In South Carolina, if the trail was free of vegetation I still had to make sure I wasn’t about to walk into a spider web (the largest I encountered in this fashion was occupying a height from waist-level to above head-level and spanning a distance that I’m sure a golf cart could fit through). In Arizona, enough of the plants are shouting “I’m pokey!” that I got used to just avoiding contact with them. In South Carolina, the lush attractiveness of the beautiful greenery was sometimes deceptively distracting from little bristles. In California, I had occasionally gotten a couple rash spots from poison oak, which I nearly expected because I was constantly brushing past it. In South Carolina, I broke out in a poison ivy rash and have no idea how I came in contact with it. In Arizona and California I was alert for deer on the mountain roads. In South Carolina, the deer were prolific right in our woodsy neighborhood.

Back to the current drive, the shuffle has resorted to cycling through these songs now on their, oh, I don’t know, 5th or 6th time, so I’ve got to take a break from the stationary state of staring at my screen. I’m not sure if the link between those two things makes sense to anyone else, but for me, right now, it seems to.

Monday, 12-19-2011

Monday morning. Dawn seemed to last forever before sunrise finally broke behind us. It was an uneventful but still rough night, so we were both glad for the daylight. I have the luxury of sleeping whenever I feel like, but it isn’t comfortable, and I’m hoping the stretch & coffee break I just got helps this headache. Ethan has taken a couple rest stops for short naps, and is feeling alright for now. Last night we passed the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, and it seems smaller than what I had imagined it would have been for functioning as the initial center for Hurricane Katrina relief. Ethan reminded me that they did rapidly overflow. We just crossed into Texas a few minutes ago, and will be spending the rest of the day traversing these 900 miles on I-10. Ethan’s mood has shifted to match the “bigness” of Texas. It’s rather entertaining for now. He has commentary on everything, good or bad. He’s really enjoying the billboards we pass, & is especially drawn to anything food related.

So, back to South Carolina. Having moved to the state only knowing two people, it was comforting to be so warmly welcomed by folks I met in daily routine. Anytime I mentioned being new to the area, there followed questions and conversation and well wishes, even at the grocery store. I quickly got a part-time job at Crooked Creek Park in Chapin with the afterschool program, and was integrated right in. I eventually secured a second part-time job in the mornings with Starbucks, and during my training at a downtown store most of the regular customers were patient and encouraging. When I settled into my “home” store, the regular customers were genuinely interested in who I was, and we’d have conversations as time allowed. By late summer, I reached a point where, between the kids at CCP and the regulars at SBux, I had quite a network of familiarity and would run into people I knew outside of those two settings. As luck would have it, it turned out that I also already knew several of the young adults in my local church congregation! And the folks who composed Ethan’s local congregation (in Georgia) during the school year were so glad to meet me, that we comfortably bounced back & forth between them. Finally, Ethan’s family, both immediate and extended, and his friends, all did their part to make me feel a part of them. The sum of all these social experiences was a sense of community, a feeling that the world isn’t too big, and a refreshed view of people genuinely caring about others, even if they just met.

 ~*~

The second sunset of this trip has long passed, and we’re still in Texas. Just over 200 miles to go before we’re out. At one point this afternoon I tried entertaining myself with an alphabet game, but by halfway through the alphabet we were out in the middle of nothingness and my self-imposed rules restricted qualifying sightings to the letter being the first in a word (or standing alone) and not on vehicles, so my patience was tried with “Q” and I finally gave up after an hour of waiting for a valid “X.” I think I’m a fan of this writing-in-the-car-after-dark thing. It’s a good time of day for thinking, and I don’t get carsick from things in my peripheral vision whipping past. Having a power inverter powerful enough to keep my computer running is a treat, too.


Saturday, 12-24-2011

It’s my first Sabbath morning since leaving South Carolina, and I just got to watch the sun rise over a desert landscape. No, I’m not in Arizona right now, but rather California, just outside of Joshua Tree National Park. A group of friends arrived here yesterday evening for an annual week of wintertime rock climbing. Some years we camp in tents, some years people are in hotel rooms, this year we rented a house. It’s now 7am, so in a couple hours I’ll be helping the other early risers get breakfast going, and I’ll have to have showered & dressed before then, but right now it’s relatively quiet.

The last stretch of the “moving” portion of our drive was a little rougher than the first three quarters of it. There was rejoicing when we got out of Texas, but through New Mexico & the couple hours of Arizona until Tucson, Ethan’s sleep deprivation was calling for more frequent nap-stops and we just wanted to be done. We finally pulled up to the house shortly after sunrise on Tuesday the 20th. The day was instantly filled with greetings, breakfast, errands, and such. We got a decent night’s sleep & then Wednesday morning packed more of my stuff into Ethan’s truck & drove my car and his truck separately up to Flagstaff.

Tuesday, 12-27-2011

Over the past several days there have now been over a dozen witnesses to my consistent crash-at-8pm-but-be-the-first-one-up routine. I believe the surprise of it has passed now, and they just appreciate that there’s already coffee made by the time they’re up. :-)

~*~

Changing it up!

~*~
So last year I started blogging about things in terms of “leaves of change.” And by May I was so busy I dropped the posts. Not to say I didn’t think about things, I just never sat down & wrote about them. I guess when I decided to approach 2010 as a year of “turning over new leaves,” I didn’t realize just how much change I was in for! So, here is a summary of things that changed in the second part of the year:

My last leaf, #5, was about deepening relationships. While living in Kings Canyon, this took a very conscious effort. It meant socially-crammed Sabbaths as I took advantage of my only opportunity for cell service each week. And it meant that after services, I stayed & fellowshipped, regardless of when sundown would be & how much of my drive from Bakersfield to Kings Canyon would be after dark. Often, I drove partway home Saturday night & finished the drive early Sunday morning. My church family really cared about & for each other, and I could share all the ups & downs of life with them. Snacks/potluck would often include sitting down with one of my “adopted Dads” & really opening up about whatever was on my heart that week. There were also surprise visits from friends & a Yosemite camping trip.

Apparently, this focus of mine also indicated (or produced? not sure which came first) a readiness to build the type of relationship that led to dating again (the first time in 6 years that I’ve been seriously on board with the possibility of sharing a future). Ironically, it was in the isolation of the Canyon {insert cries of: “my social life is on hold until I get out of here!”} that this relationship started. God sure does have a sense of humor & reminds us that He can orchestrate anything.

I also put some action to my previously expressed desire to be closer to family, and after the Labor Day holiday I left my job in California to move back to Tucson with my parents & little brother. This also put me closer to my sister & brother-in-law in Phoenix. It has been interesting living at home again, but I think it has been helpful.

Well, leaving that job meant finding a new one, so that was yet another change in 2010. I got a position at a local outdoor gear retailer as an assistant store manager. New coworkers, new company, new products, new atmosphere, lots for me to learn!

It’s looking like this theme of change has carried over into the new year of 2011, also:

That new job and I ended up not being the best fit for each other, and I was let go. That’s the first time I’ve not left a job by choice, so it was a new experience to process. And, again, means looking for a new job. More change. I’m also considering that perhaps my time at home has been momentarily fulfilled and my new job will be in a new state. I’ll let you know what comes of that. Also, most of you know about things that have been going on in UCG through 2010 and now the formation of CoGWA in 2011. All the changes in leadership & the new organization have had an impact on me, but I’ll save elaboration for another time. It’s enough for now just to list it as another change in life.

And to wrap up all this talk about changes, I’m announcing a new blog theme! It seems in the past several months I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what I think of things, and the theme of “reflections” kind of hit me. So while I may still throw in here posts about turning over new leaves, I’ll also start writing pieces that are more pensive or reflective.

~Michal Lisa~



The Philosopher
By Sara Teasdale

I saw him sitting in his door,
Trembling as old men do;
His house was old; his barn was old,
And yet his eyes seemed new.

His eyes had seen three times my years
And kept a twinkle still,
Though they had looked at birth and death
And three graves on a hill.

“I will sit down with you,” I said,
“And you will make me wise;
Tell me how you have kept the joy
Still burning in your eyes.”

Then like an old-time orator
Impressively he rose;
“I make the most of all that comes,
The least of all that goes.”

The jingling rhythm of his words
Echoes as old songs do,
Yet this had kept his eyes alight
Till he was ninety-two.

~*~

Leaf 5 – Seeking Greater Depth in Relationships

~

Intro:

This was actually the first “Leaf” I thought of writing about, and had been thinking about this topic since November or so. But it isn’t the easiest to just whip up a quick couple of paragraphs about.

I like to think I’m a nice balance of extrovert & introvert, but if I had to pick one, I would undoubtedly have to say that I am truly an extrovert. As much as I relish my “me time,” I definitely draw energy from being with people. I meet new people with relative ease, and tend to be viewed as a well-rounded, fun & amiable young woman. But, that says nothing about my friendships. A person can be generally well-liked by everyone they meet, but not have true, deep, valuable friendships.

One quotation about friendship says,

“A friend is one with whom you are comfortable, to whom you are loyal, throughwhom you are blessed, and for whom you are grateful.” (William Arthur Ward)

It’s a memorable sort of saying that holds truth. But to take it a little further, consider the personal choice and intentional action indicated by this quotation;

“Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth,and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.” (George Washington)

Finally, to dig a little deeper, the substance and fullness of the relationship is that,

“A true friend unbosoms (confides) freely, advises justly, assists readily,adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably.” (William Penn)

These are the kinds of friendships I want to develop & focus on; the kind that take time and effort, but as a result run deep and strong with immeasurable value.

Love is Priority

I truly feel that the relationships we build in this life are more important than any of the jobs we hold, places we go, or accomplishments we attain. Too often, I hear those stories about people who’ve reached the end of their lives with the regret that they didn’t invest more in their meaningful relationships, and I don’t want to be one of them. To add weight to the seriousness with which I regard this, consider the Christian teaching that God is, and is building, a Family (a great commentary of key scriptures is at: http://www.gnmagazine.org/booklets/WG/familyofgod.htm). His goal is the unity and harmony of His creation, and for us to become like Him. 1 John 4:8 says that “God is love,” it’s the first of the fruits of the Spirit listed in Gal 5:22, Christ said His disciples would be known by their love for one another (John 13:35), and Paul spends a whole chapter (1 Cor 13) talking about this “greatest gift.” Love is defined and described in many ways, but the common thread is that it cannot be developed apart from relationships. When we become spirit beings in God’s Family, the two things we carry with us from this life are the character we develop and the relationships we build. True, our character and relationships are affected by the experiences we go through in this life, so our jobs and travels and accomplishments are important, but rather than allowing them to control our lives, we should be using them as tools to develop and enhance the more important aspects of our lives.

“Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.” (Sydney Smith)

All that being said, lately I’ve been feeling like I’ve gotten pretty good at being independent. Too good, actually. The past few years have supposedly been the time for me to “take advantage of opportunities” and “enjoy the freedom to focus on myself” (my education, my personal direction, etc), so ties to other people have been sacrificed. And, since I’ve spent those same years living with people who don’t fit into my closest family & friends circles, I’ve gotten pretty used to sharing living space without sharing life. In fact, sometimes I nearly feel that I’ve forgotten what it’s like being part of a deeply-meaningful unit like family or a close circle of friends. Oh, I have my family, and I have my friends, but they come second to everything else; to work, to school, to me. Taking time to call gets pushed off “until I can get ‘xyz’ done,” but then there’s always another “abc” on its heels that gets in the way. Oh, and that “freedom” thing? Not so cool as it’s cracked up to be. Yes, it’s nice that I don’t have to worry about leaving my responsibilities to a husband & children & pets & house for long periods of time to go on some adventure, but often adventures lack a certain meaningfulness when they’re not shared with friends. It’s so much more fun to have “oh, remember when…” dialogues than to provide monologues on “it was so cool, I guess you had to be there” moments.

“No matter what you've done for yourself or for humanity, if you can't look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished?” (Elbert Hubbard)

Christian Fellowship

Now, lest you think I’ve gone and fallen into a hole that I’m complaining I can’t get out of, let me reassure you that, in fact, one of the reasons this post has taken me so long to write is that I’ve been taking advantage of the many recent opportunities I’ve had to spend Sabbaths with brethren, both friends and “adopted” families. So, of course I’ve spent that time fellowshipping instead of writing! These visits have been wonderful, and are probably what keep me sane these days.

On the weekend I went north to see Talitha & Andrea, my 2-scriptures-per-week calendar coincidently quoted Mat 18:20,

“For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there I am in their midst.”

Being with people who are brought together by God’s Holy Spirit is a wonderful, beneficial, and important part of a Christian’s life. According to Strong’s, the word used for “fellowship” in the Greek means “partnership, participation, or social intercourse,” and comes from one meaning “a sharer, associate, companion, partaker, or partner.”

For an online sermon about fellowship, listen to: http://members.ucg.org/sermon/why-fellowship
For more reading, see Jeremy’s posts “On Friendship,” & “On Fellowship” found on his “Sabbath Thoughts” Facebook page.

When time is taken for fellowship with brethren and special moments with family & friends, I want that time to be deep, significant, meaningful and edifying. In December I went to both the UCG-sponsored Winter Family Weekend in Louisville,KY and the UCG Challenger II Rock Climbing program at Mt. Lemmon in Arizona. They were back-to-back, and gave me a jam-packed two weeks of fellowship to soak in & process.

At WFW I got to see many people I haven’t seen in a very long time; ABC classmates, camp friends, and brethren from previous congregations I’ve attended. I also met new people; friends of friends, faces I recognized from photos online, names I recall being included in stories, and a few I had talked to without ever previously meeting. It was an invigorating whirlwind of activity and socializing, full of hugs & laughter, smiles & photos, good food & late nights. When it was all over, though, I was a little sad that while trying to make the most of seeing as many people as I could, it also meant that the time I did have with people was short & in some ways superficial. Not “superficial” as in “fake,” but as in “surface-y.” Now, months after WFW, the moments I remember & treasure are those times when I had one-on-one time with dear friends, sharing heart-to-heart conversation.

I flew straight from WFW to CII and jumped into a week of camping & rock climbing with a much smaller group of people. There, everyone spends the entire day together as one group, tasks are accomplished as teams, activities and goals are shared, and evenings are spent sitting around the camp fire talking. The focus of the week is developing ourselves for leadership with an emphasis on “the 3 Cs of Character;” Conviction, Commitment, and Courage. Most of the participants also had deep personal goals. Many of these were shared with each other in a heart-to-heart group discussion, and it opened the door for continued one-on-one & small-group talks.

With all the available fellowship time during the week, one of our discussions was about the difference between frivolous conversation and edifying conversation. So often it’s too easy to allow day-to-day idle chatter to clutter our thoughts & conversation, even amongst brethren. But we’re called to think on virtuous things (see Philippians 4:8) and our speech should be seasoned with grace (Colossians 3:6) and edifying to others (Ephesians 4:29). With that reminder freshly in our minds, I noticed a positive shift in casual “down time” talks.

Authenticity

One of my personal highlights of CII was having incredibly open, honest, & trusting conversations with a brother I’d only just met there. We were genuine with each other, shared struggles we’ve been facing, and were able to just talk things out with someone we quickly identified as worthy of the title “friend.” Sadly, it’s been very difficult to stay in regular contact, but we each know that the other would be there for an ear if needed, our respect for each other means there’s a trust & type of protection, and the camaraderie we’ve established means that whenever the opportunity presents itself, we’d totally be up for hanging out.

These two socially-packed weeks reminded me that regardless of how long I’ve known them, my best friends are the ones I’m open with. I think back over all my closest friends currently & in the past, and the people I’d name first are not necessarily the ones I’ve seen the most, but the ones I’ve shared significant quality time, experiences, and conversation with. Some of those friendships might have taken something difficult to work through before we got to that kind of openness, others might have been like that right from the start, but all of them are dear brothers & sisters, friends with whom I’ve shared my heart & mind, friends who know who I am and what I value.

I work with the general public on a regular basis. I also, as previously mentioned, share living space with people I’m not really deep friends with. I’ve come to see that for many it’s simple to create a public persona; to say what you want to display yourself as the person you want others to think you are. But then you can feel like a fraud if you don’t live up to your proclamations, even if that public claim is that you’re “genuine.” The beauty of the deeply authentic friendships is that those people see through all that. It’s OK for truly trusted friends to see your unedited version, the deeper “you.” You don’t have to fear judgment because there’s a confidence that they know your flaws and love you anyway, and even if you totally mess up, they’ll still love and support you. And if you’re just plain silly, well, chances are they’ll be silly with you.

“It is one of the blessings of old friends is that you can afford to be stupid with them.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

So What This All Means…

1. I want to make sure that my most important relationship, with God, is always top priority. Without it, nothing else will work right, and nothing else is really ultimately worth it.

"You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage - pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically - to say 'no' to other things. And the way to do that is by having a bigger 'yes' burning inside. The enemy of the 'best' is often the 'good.' " (Stephen Covey)

2. I want to put in the effort it takes to stay better connected to my family while I’m physically separated from them, and want reasonably-near-future plans to include being closer again.

“There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human society, are created, strengthened and maintained” (Winston Churchill)

3. I want to make sure that my current self-preservationist-independence doesn’t prevent me from being involved in my friends’ lives & vice versa. I sense in myself a possibility of becoming so used to operating in an “only the essentials to get to the goal” approach, & so set in my ways & my life that I lose touch with the true compassion for others & healthy willingness to yield to others’ wills that I’ve worked so hard to develop. God designed us to need each other, and I must constantly be aware of how I relate to others. Gotta keep watering those friendship gardens. ;-)

“Love must be learned, and learned again; there is no end to it.” (Katherine Anne Porter)

Wrapping It Up

I think that about covers everything on this topic that I’ve been mulling over for the past, oh, 5 months! Some of the quotations I included came from my thinkexist.com collection and some came from other friends’ collections (with much credit to one brother’s Facebook page). There were a few others that I felt were related & worth sharing but didn’t quite fit into the flow, so for your further pondering, I’ll include them here:

"Passion is the quickest to develop, and the quickest to fade. Intimacy develops more slowly, and commitment more gradually still." (Robert Sternberg)

"You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you do not trust enough." (Frank Crane)

"Trouble is part of your life, and if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough." (Dinah Shore)

My apologies for such a long post (this is 4 ½ pages in Word), and for leaving so much time since the last post, but now that this is done, hopefully my future writings will return to the shorter & more frequent schedule. :-)

“May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.” (2Co 13:14)

~Michal Lisa~

Leaf 4 – A Newfound Admiration for Buried Treasure

I’ve missed posting the past two weeks, but I’ve got a great excuse!

I was shopping.

Yeah, right, me? Shopping? And then trying to use it as an excuse for missing two blog posts? But it’s true! See, this wasn’t just a few too many trips to the mall. This was serious business. The company I work for buys a significant amount of gift shop inventory from the Tucson Gem, Mineral & Fossil Showcase, so, being the general manager, I got to go! It meant a lot of preparation beforehand, figuring out how much of which items we needed to get and doing preorders when possible, and then when we got there it meant days of walking up & down rows of tents looking at seemingly endless tables of products & keeping track of everything as we compared prices & discussed trying new items. It was tiring work, but, ok, yes, it was fun, too! I didn’t take any photos that really do any justice to the incredible variety of gems, jewelry, beads, minerals, fossils and other stuff, nor the sheer size of the showcase, but I did try to take a few worth sharing...

I was reading a book about geodes & nodules on my way to Tucson, so then seeing these impressively huge amethyst nodules was even more cool for me because I had just been learning about how they’re formed, where they’re found, the process of extraction, etc. and now I was up close with the real deal.

Looking at all the different minerals and ways things can form, the only articulation I could manage beyond “wow” was “God is so creative.”

This is a feeble attempt at showing how abundant the fossils were. This is a small, small fraction of it, and they’re almost all from Morocco. There were entire tables and water fountains and place settings carved out of rock littered with fossils. There were fossils overlapping other fossils. There were different kinds of fossils in the same piece of rock. They made me want to go to Morocco.

Just one of the many vendors there, this one caught my attention because it reminded me of a dear friend from New Zealand.

At first, I didn’t think this trip was really a “turning a new leaf” kind of blog topic, but upon thinking about it more, I think it works. I climb rocks, I enjoy beading jewelry, I work in a cave, I’ve gone through the standard issue earth science classes, I’ve been to the Grand Canyon countless times; I am exposed to and interact with geology on a somewhat regular basis. But going to the gem show reignited a level of awe & wonder of God’s creation that I had somewhere in the mix started taking for granted.

So, my challenge to you, my friends, is this: Go outside. Find a rock (or several rocks!). Examine it, and if you feel so inclined, try to identify it (rockhounds.com has an easy-to-follow flowchart). Think about how many different minerals compose that rock. If you did identify the rock type & can look up the different minerals, do a Google image search to see photos of the minerals in their raw/rough forms and in their cut/polished forms. If you’re really science-minded, look at the elemental composition of those minerals. If I lost you back at “examine it,” simply look at the texture, color, and perhaps design, considering that this one rock you’re looking at is just one sample of a world of variety. Now, remember that this is just a rock. A non-living rock. How much more wonderful is the miracle of life!

“I will praise You; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are marvelous and my soul knows it very well.”

- Psa 139:14

“What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.”

- Albert Einstein

P.S. The toilet is fixed.

Leaf 3 – Refreshed Appreciation of My Surroundings

Part 1:

Before moving to California last year, I came out for a weekend in April. The mountains still had snow on their peaks but beneath them the slopes were full of brilliantly green grass, yellow and white wildflowers, purple tree blossoms, and rock outcroppings that added their own variety of colors to the pallet. It was beautiful & exciting! I had been down the same road in years past when the heat of summer had melted those colors into shades of brown, so I made a conscious effort to imprint the colorful landscape in my mind (and in my camera!) & carry it with me through the summer.

When I moved here in May, things were already starting to fade, and I was glad I had visited in April. As the summer went on I continued to admire and photograph the beauty I discovered as I explored the area, and was happy to find that even as the grasses turned brown and wildflowers withered, the rocks never got boring (have you ever really stopped to look at metamorphic rock?). Then autumn came with its colors and haphazardly scattered leaves on the ground. Finally it started to get cold, and I started to spend more time indoors, and I started to get a mild case of the “stuck-inside blahs.”

Luckily, this was also right around the time I was heading back to Arizona! Amazing what some time away does… having lived in southern AZ for 6 years & northern AZ for 2 years, going “home” was both comfortably familiar and refreshingly new. Pusch Ridge, Mt. Lemmon, Cochise Stronghold, Humphrey’s Peak, the Grand Canyon… all are places I used to see (& photograph, of course) on a very regular basis, but upon returning I found myself admiring them anew.

And when I came back to California a week and a half ago, winter had some surprises for me…

First it was fog: I drove from LA over the Grapevine into the Central Valley on a Sabbath afternoon, and was instantly transplanted from sunny blue skies to a cold dreary world completely socked in under a thick heavy layer of dark fog (it’s hard to imagine this sudden change unless you’ve experienced it, it’s crazy!). Honestly, it was slightly depressing. The next day was still foggy in the Valley, but as I drove up into the foothills I was stricken with the awesomeness of the transition from being under the fog to in it & then above it. The other cool thing was that despite having driven this road countless times before, I now felt like I was somewhere in Europe (those of you who have actually traveled around Europe are welcome to tell me how right/wrong this impression is).

Then it was clear skies: After a week of rainy days I was fully expecting my drive to services the next Sabbath to be much like the one the week before. But it wasn’t. At all. Instead, the air was super-clear & I could see blue sky! If you haven’t been to the Valley, this might be hard to appreciate, but usually there’s so much stuff in the air that on a “normal” day you can only see the Sierra Nevada Mountains distantly through a haze. On this day, however, they were in sharp relief, and what’s better, with snowy-white tops! The one disappointment was that I didn’t have a safe opportunity to pull over & photograph the scene of cows grazing in a green field with the mountains behind & no industrial clutter. Hopefully, I’ll get the chance again…

Finally, it was snow: Wanting to be sure that I took the time to have fun outside so I don’t wear myself out on office-work, my boss decided we were going to take advantage of the break between the storms & check out the snow in Kings Canyon. I had never gone snowshoeing before, so that alone was an entertaining new experience, but a good one. Once I got used to walking with the snowshoes, I turned my attention to the scenery. The road that goes down into the canyon is closed so that they don’t have to plow it, which meant we had an easy “trail” for a short trip (2 hrs). Again, I’ve driven this road countless times, but it’s different when you’re walking & everything’s covered in snow. Pretty soon after we started it began snowing on us, so keeping the camera lens spot-free was a challenge at times, but I still enjoyed playing with it. (If you’re a Facebook friend, you can see two videos on my page.)

Alright, so I didn’t go writing all this just to make you wish you were here (although, if that’s been accomplished, I’m always up for visitors!). The point is that between the changing seasons and my travels I have had opportunities to look at things around me from a fresh perspective. I think this has helped me develop a little more contentment with where I am (I always seem to want to be off somewhere having adventures, but there’s so much opportunity for adventure in my own “backyard”!). It has also reminded me to maintain a continual thankfulness for God’s blessings (including appreciation of His creation). Sometimes when we’re constantly exposed to something, we get so used to it that we forget how we first responded. This can happen with things we see, knowledge we posses, people in our lives… I want to make sure I stop to notice & soak it in.

Part 2:

My sister & brother-in-law had the opportunity to go to Kenya in December on a United Youth Corps trip. When they returned, they shared with us their photos & stories. It brought back some memories of my trip to Ghana several years ago (also with Youth Corps), stirring up thoughts of how that affected my perspective on various issues. We talked about a variety of things, and I left home glad for the time we had together after their trip. When I got back to work here, I was greeted with a humorous inconvenience: there is something wrong with the toilet. Before each flush, the tank has to be refilled. As long as I fill it enough, it flushes fine. Fixing it will be a rather involved project, so while it will eventually get done, in the meantime I’m just putting up with filling the tank every time I need to flush. This inconvenience reminded me of some of the restroom options while I was in Ghana, and you know what? If I had to fill that tank every time for the whole next year, I would quite honestly be ok with that, because at least it still flushes and is clean and in a bathroom with privacy (please don’t think that all of Ghana is lacking such things; I used many fully-functional nice restrooms there, it’s just that I also used restrooms where the odor of clogged toilets made me physically sick and in one case the “restroom” was a roofless concrete room with a trough on one side). Of course, this got me thinking about other things that I have or use and the blessings they are. In a society & generation that values “new” & “impressive” I’ve at times struggled not to look down on something simply because it seemed “old,” and as a perfectionist, tiny flaws can really bug me sometimes. But who am I to be critical of the blessings God has allowed in my life?

So there it is. Refreshed Appreciation of My Surroundings; both my geographic surroundings & the stuff that surrounds me.

I hope this helps to stimulate thought about appreciation, and recognition of the day-to-day things around you that bring a smile to your face.

What do you appreciate?

What brings a smile to your face?

Stop & soak it in.

“If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy,

if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you,

if the simple things in nature have a message you understand,

Rejoice, for your soul is alive.”

- Eleanora Duse -

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.

Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.

The winds will blow their own freshness into you,

and the storms their energy,

while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”

- John Muir -