Zombie, Shirt, Tie, Road, Turtle

This morning I was driving on Loch Raven Drive; a road that cut the misty woods in two and slithered next to a lake that bounced off the early morning light beams tenderly onto the retina of my eyes. My windows were down and the morning country air swept over my face like a spoiler on the back of car. I always enjoy this drive into work. As a rule, regardless to the conditions of the weather; rain, sun, hot, cold, I keep the windows down and the radio off. The changing scenery: tree's towering over head, the thick deep forest, the green lawns, and rolling farmland beckon me away into a different world. A world away from the suburbs, from the starbucks, the Mcdonalds, the Wal-Marts, the congestion and the parking lots.
This is the drive I take each morning to work.
This morning as I hugged a curve, with the deep thick woods on my left and the glimmering lake on my right, I came across a man in a shirt and tie walking in the middle of the road. His car was on the side of the road with the hazards on. At first glance this man was walking strange. He was walking with an arched back, as if he was falling backwards, his hands and arms were straight out in front of him.
Initially I thought I had seen my first zombie.
A split second thought crossed my mind.
I needed to smash this walking undead through the grill of my SUV.
I would be a hero for saving humanity.
As it turns out, this awkward walking man in a shirt and tie was simply being careful not to get a very large, squirming and dirty turtle on his work clothes.

Rather than me saving humanity this man had helped save a party of turtleanity.
The zombie pose, the business man in a shirt and tie, and the large turtle.
Quite the amusing combo.

"It puzzles me how humans never seem to allow room for change and growth."

Hey everyone.
It feels like its been a while. Here is an email I recovered from a long lost friend. Her name is Shannon Shibata. She was a part of my close circle of friends while I was in Jerusalem and this is her email to me written after she had returned to the States.
I had kept this email because it was so powerful to me and I know it will be for you too.

I have never had a hard time articulating my thoughts and feelings. It has always been something I could do with ease. But lately I find it harder to express what is going on inside. Because I'm not sure what IS going on inside. But here are some thoughts that have crossed my mind concerning people here in the States and the Christianity that has been thrown back upon me like cold water since my return:

It puzzles me how humans never seem to allow room for growth and change. They desire to keep those around them always in a place in the past where they can keep expectation carefully framed and boxed in simplistic egotism. All of us are guilty of being blind to the endless possibility of change and growth. We are more comfortable with the static, unable to wrap our minds around the work of God which is dynamic, always morphing, always changing. Only God himself remains unchanging, in the midst of a world that is shifting as the shadows becoming second by second more like or unlike Him at any given moment. He is the only constant. And part of the beauty of life is releasing fear of the dynamic, allowing people, circumstance and emotion to stretch, ebb and twist, knowing that change is okay because we have a grand and steady iron thread which holds the madness together always; just as the sun rises, His truth is our constancy . Thus goes the adventure.

We who dive deep are the "unknown" of endless possibility in the lives of those in the suburbs of America, where people covet stability and sameness. Every time people encounter us, we are different somehow, full of life, emotion, learning, thoughts, views, expression. They don't understand the catalyst for this spring of gushing waters that swell and flow without a patterned tide. And this makes the world uncomfortable. Because we live and die by our catergorizations. It used to suffocate me, and now, it makes me feel sad and sorry for those who try to rope me into their tidy corners. Its a bondage I dont desire anyone to have to live by.

The last few months have been marked by so much enjoyment of life and change and growth and the endless depths of God I forgot to care about what others thought about it or perceived it. His opion, countenance and confidence became my counter, my measure, my expectation. And suddenly, I woke up able to breathe again. Human measurements dont have a long enough standard to meausure the depths of God. For God has no ceiling, no end to His length. He is the most perfect diamond with infinite faces. And if we are with Him, there is no way our finite ways of measurement could count how far we have the possibility to grow and become more like Him. Every time people encounter those who are truly walking with God, they see a new face of the diamond that is God reflected back in our countenance and it is frightening. And if we try to measure God and put Him in a box when we talk to others would be cheating those aspiring for the full gusto the ability to dream for more than they are living at that very given moment.

True believers are already off the charts of human measurement. They aren't on the radar, they're the ones that have gone beyond the maps to a place yet uncharted. Because "no eye has seen, no ear has heard and no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him." And the place where God resides and allows us to access to is a place where charts and measurements and maps cannot reach. It is an eden that is shrouded to our naked eye. It is the place that most humans and Christians have heard of in mythlike stories but never had courage to believe in the genuine existence of. And the few that have the "nutzo" tendencies for God, (the inborn fire that drives us to believe in the myth of a deeper God, knowing intuitively that which we live is only a fraction of what exists), dive in and realize somehwere in the journey that HIS eden isn't a myth. It is more real than anything in life. And we bring back stories of our journeys to that place where no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has conceived. And we try with words to capture the essence of something that even illudes us because it overloads the senses beyond that which can be captured with words. For THAT is the nature of God.

We look up in the midst of our stories and look into the eyes of those who look back with blank expression, and in one hand they hold a finite measuring stick they grip white knuckled and we begin to realize the obstacle that keeps understanding from dawning. It is the finite meeting the endless and some refuse to take a step into the unknown threshold. Because the closer we get to that threshold we begin to feel ourselves being overwhelmed with that feeling of being annihilated and healed in one swift movement of the current. Its this magnetic draw that feels as though we are being put together and pulled apart in some paradoxical dichotomy. You've felt it haven't you? Tasted it? I know you have. I've seen it waging it's holy war in your face. As the author Calvin Miller said, "the agony and ecstasy together abiding at once in your frame." The walk of a God lover is not an easy or neat and button downed thing. We all want to package it that way, and feel comfort in it, yet the more I live and experience , the more I realize that God turns our worlds in a way that we cannot predict. He will quite literally rock our worlds and he will not be harnessed by our human desire for sameness and stability.

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your thoughts?

Impression Reports from Trip to Jordan

We had to write impression reports each day for our field trips for our class, Physical Settings of the Bible. These reports were handed in for grading by the professor. It was nothing formal, just making sure we paid attention on our trip.
What follows are my impression reports for the three day field trip to the country of Jordan, and for southern Israel. This post will only cover day one.
(Parenthesis remarks are current day informative comments)

(Written some time in October of 2000)

We woke up bright and early this morning. I actually had to get up at 5:30 because I hadn't done any of my packing! I know I always procrastinate. I bet I won't have my tux on for my wedding until the music is playing. Perhaps one day I will learn and not pull a rabbit out of my hat every time. I was lucky because I got to sit by myself on the long journey to the Jordanian border way up north. I guess it would have been luckier to have been able to sit by a sweet cute looking girl but I don't seem to have attained that kind of luck in my life. (Note: I have now!) We eventually arrived at the border crossing, and I remember we were the last bus to leave because Mark K. forgot his passport but we were the the first bus to cross the border because our bus driver pulled several Dale Earnhardt maneuvers by passing our companion buses, one right at the finish line to capture the checkered flag. This caused a wave of cheering I had never heard for a bus driver before; he smiled.

When we got there I was the first in line to get my passport checked and I took two pictures there and plan on selling them to terrorists who plan on making an illegal transport of dangerous explosives. Wink yelled at me (Another classes field professor) but I didn't care because I was getting a pretty penny for my labor. My Japanese blooded friend, Ryan Ikeda, actually took a picture of me standing by a Jordanian sign with an arrow. I stood in front of it in such a way that the arrow pointed at me. I am sure the terrorists will love that picture and will probably frame it and put it up in their secret lair. (This is definately insensitive pre-911 commentary but eerily clairvoyant)

After the wonderful border crossing it was the consensus of the class that we enjoyed the best bus for Physical Settings. It actually had head rests on the side of your head so you didnt have to lean to one side completely and break your neck.
Our first stop that day was Jerash.
This was a really cool stop and said by some to be the best preserved Roman city in the Middle East and maybe the world.




Hadrian had an influence there because he was known as the traveling Emperor who visited most of his empire. To be honest with you I would have probably stayed in my royal abode and enjoyed the comforts of home, hit up a couple gladiator games, a chariot race and for sure would have relaxed in those hot baths. I would be known as Jordanias the Comfortable. Anyway, Jerash was pretty spectacular. The ruins were magnificent and you could only imagine what the city would have looked like in its day. This was also my first exposure to the Jordanian people. I was already enjoying my view from my lofty bus during the drive because this was a country that was completely Middle Eastern and had less of that westernized look to it. I thoroughly enjoyed talking to a handful of Jordanians, including a couple of policemen. I could already tell they surpassed the Israeli's in terms of friendliness. At the top of the ampitheater I heard some music lofting my way. A group of teenie-boppers Jordanian girls had a radio going and I could hear American pop and I was initially comforted by the sounds of home until I realized it was Brittany Spears. It was also at this time that I decided to go by middle name rather than my first. It seemed to cause some confusion in the ability to start up a conversation, either that or amusement that I was named after their country.
We made a couple more stops that day, including Mt. Nebo, where Moses looked into the Promise land before he died. Mt. Nebo is a huge hill/ridge overlooking the Dead Sea and we were there during a purple and orange sunset which made it feel otherwordly as it reflected on the desert floor. We then made it to our hotel. The next day was our amazing visit to one of the wonders of the world. The ancient city of Petra.