weekend read.

it is funny how things in life connect. here's the story: basically i have been having a hard time in recent weeks academically, spiritually, relationaling and emotionally. i am surviving in though. just trying to get by. make it to the end. you see, i don't like this way of life. it is not healthy. it is not fun. it is not what we are purposed for. so much of life is living in the moment. in the present. in the here and now. i am not good at the kind of living. i always find myself in survival mode-just make it to graduation, to next week, to the end of the day. what about the means? what about the process? what about the life in between? and then, i find myself doing all this doing for the sake of impressing other people rather than for the sake of doing, or for their sake, God's sake or my own. i forget to write because, simply to write. to go for a run, simply to go for a run. so photograph, simply to photograph.

so this past weekend, after a afternoon conversation over blenders, a co-worker and good friend of mine, Benji Brunell, challenged me to do three thing for myself this weekend. so i vowed to stop, slow down, and just do something i enjoyed doing. not to meet an assignment or fulfill some responsibility, but just to DO something for me.

then, i was telling my friend, mentor, boss, life-planner, Michele Mollkoy, about this conversation with Benji and about where i was at in life. so i told her i was trying to understand what self-forgetfulness and other-centeredness looked like in my life right now. "Jeff, i have a book for you to read." sure enough, it was entitled "forgetting ourselves on purpose." ironic. you see michele is just like that. she just knows something about timing. she knows when to encourage me when i need encouragment, and how to challenge me when i need to be challenged. she knows when to pray for me and when to kick me in the butt. ah, i am so gratful for her. so she gave me the book to read over the weekend. but the deal was that i had to actually read it. and to prove that i did, i had to make a post about it. so, alas, here we are.

so i read Brian Mahan's "Forgetting Ourselves on Purpose: Vocation and the Ethics of Ambition." there is so much richness and goodness in this book, but what struck me most wass a simple question: "what are you looking for?" he goes on to quote Thomas Merton. "if you want to identify me, ask me not where i live, or what i like to eat, or how i comb my hair, but ask me what i think it is that is keeping me from living fully for the thing i want to live for." isn't that powerful? a tough question, but profound.

here are a few other quotes for the book:

"to study the self is to forget the self and to forget the self is to be enlightened by 10,000 things" - Dogen

"if you wish to be compassionate, study wht it is that you are not compassionate" - Walker Percy

"the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet" - Fredrich Buechner

so, thanks for the book michele. good times. i learned a few things...and now, i am off to see if i can figure out how to forget myself...hmmm.

home.

home. love it. crowley lake, california. ah, yes. most people have no idea where that is and that is what is so great about it. it is so po-dunk. haha. i spent the past five days there and it was wonderful. i hung with my family, read, studied, watched my sister and ma's volleyball games (they are both coaches), and watched half of the PLANET EARTH serious. it was such a fun weekend. i am addicted to planet earth. have you all seen it? it is incredible. this world we live on is so complex and beautiful. we are so blessed.

en route.

well, i am en route to my home in crowley lake, but had to stop off in bishop and get a frozen chai latte from the looney bean and pic up my dog lydia from the doctor. so here i am waiting for her to get done and thought i would post.

the drive today was good. for the first four hours i just drove and thought. and at times, talked to myself. haha. no music. just me, my jetta, and 395. then i listened to a sermon from my pastor Britt Merrick. and then i rocked out to some rob thomas and rich price. and before i knew it, i was in bishop. i usually hate the drive but it was not too bad this time.

so bishop is a funny place. for those of you who have been here, or grew up in the area, you know just what i am talking about. quirky indeed. so i have been here for a few hours in the local hot spot, the looney bean, and have been amused and compelled to laugh-out-loud several times. let's see here...I had the junior high girl practicing her dance rountine in the line. I had a table of dred-locked, mountain folk at the table in front of me. and had the high school girls gossiping about the latest break-up at school. i found myself eaves-dropping and chuckling a bit inside. high school is a funny thang. oh and i almost forgot about the conversation about "interior landscaping" at the table next to me. haha. i didn't know such thing existed. i mean i we have plants inside sometimes. but i didn't know that we could hire interior landscapers to adorn our interiors with foliage. good to know i suppose if i am ever compelled to have some plants in my house or dorm room and think i can't pick them out and place them on my own...

so i am off to get my lydia. poor thing. don't fret! she is okay but had to have her infected ears cleaned out. gross, i know, but it had to be done. it is hereditary, which is a totaly bumber cuz she always has it and sometimes it gets super bad. we call her munge-eared baby. haha. it happens i guess.

alright...until next time...blessings.

reality check.

i had the privilage a few weeks ago to head up to camp whittier in the santa ynez mountains with a bunch of westmont's first year students. it was such a sweet time. we laughed. we climbed, zip-lined, hiked and play with trantulas. we prayed, listened, and talked. we learned. and we came together to worship our creator together. we got a reality check. it was so encouraging to be around all that spunk and zeal (as if i am old and decripet at the age of 21). i was so blessed by the weekend. click here for a slideshow of my favorite photographs from the weekend.

i hope to get some pics up soon, but i don't have a solid internet connection right now. so in the meantime, here is a little antecdote about something the Lord showed me during my quiet time on sunday morning...

I wrestled my way through the underbrush, as fallen oak leaves cracked and crunched beneath my sneakers in pursuit of a place to be alone and to be in nature. I sat for a few moments perched on a small rock on the banks of a waterless creek. I noticed a faint breath of wind as the leaves in the tree tops quivered. One detached itself from the life-giving tree branch and swirled its deadly way to the ground whose surface was coated with the corpses of many a fallen leaf. I picked it up. I explored it with eye and hand and nose and then sat perplexed by its simplicity and by its complexity all at the same time. So I thought about the leaf and journaled a bit and distracted myself with thoughts of mind.

“Stop writing. Get in the creek bed. Being on the banks is not enough. Lay down on the rocks. Be quiet. Listen. Be still and close your eyes.”

I said, “but Lord, there is no water. It’s dry.”

So attention was thus promptly turned to the creek bed. It was small, and it was dry. It seems as if no water had filled to its banks in several weeks if not several months. I was compelled to climb down into it. Then I sprawled myself out in the middle of the creek bed on the cobbled stone and piles of fallen leaves. It was awfully uncomfortable, though the interspersed pillows of leaves provided some comfort. I laid there a while and gazed at the leaf-laden branches of tree and the deep blue sky above. I heard the birds chattering with each other and frolicking about the playground above.

“The water will come my son. Wait and be patient. It will come and then you will be ready. Just wait and be still. It will come.”

I do not like to wait. I want to know now. I want the water to come now. What good is a creek without water? How sad is that? So lifeless. So boring. So dry and barren. Well, that is what I thought initially. But now is see it differently. The creek bed as waiting—waiting to be filled with the life-giving waters. Waiting for its purpose to be fulfilled, to be carried out and realized. It just waited. It had no choice really, yet it "knows" that water will come eventually. It does every year. The waters come and bring life to the valleys. Something that is dry and still for a season is literally swimming with life in another. I thought more about the stillness of the creek. Although life was abundant in the forest around it, there was nonetheless as overwhelming and holistic sense of stillness. This was intriguing. How can there be life, movement and growth in the stillness? Is not that contrary to the very definition of the word? Perhaps it is more than just a physical lack of movement, but it is a state of spiritual, mental or internal being. It is a choice, an action. It takes the work of the mind, the heart, the body and the soul. It is a state of being. Oh, there is so much to learn about stillness from nature; I am full of awe and amazement right now.

liane.

liane koh is one of my favorite people in the world. seriously! i have the honor of seeing her every day because we have three classes together. and everytime i see her my heart smiles. you see, li is one of the sweetest people i know. she is tender and loving at every moment and knows what encouraging words to say and when to say them.

the other day we had dinner. and i learned so much about who she is and i was even more blown away. she is such a rich person and she has taught me so much and i am so blessed by our friendship.

so the other day, she taught me how to play this fun and challenging (for me anyways) game that she played as a kid in Singapore. it was a cultural and humorous experience. it requires lots of hand eye coordination. i was terrible at it. but she was gracious and paitient with my and by the end of the hour long sesh i was getting much better and made it to the last round. it was a blast. i loved it. one of the best moments of my senior year.

i wish that everyone could meet this woman because she is so incredible. she has changed my life and i am SO grateful for her. just thought you all should know about her.