Dishes: Gus Stevens

Photo by Gus Stevens

"I have a scraper."

"A scraper?"

"Yeah, like a little plastic thing you use to scrape off the food."

He nodded his agreement and extended his hand to receive the flat palm-sized piece of plastic. With the tool in his left hand, he balanced the small pile of cooking utensils and pans they'd used to prepare their dinner and walked away from the camp.

His feet were bare and the sand fleas bounced brainlessly against his ankles as he walked down the shore. Adjacent to the water, he squatted next to a large rock behind which the tide had carved a slightly deeper pool as it retreated for the night. He didn't have any soap.

He passed the scrapper over the pasta burnt to the bottom of the pan with a useless vigor. His toes grew numb. His arms couldn't remove the oil and waste no matter how hard he scrubbed with the petroleum by-product.

After several minutes however he scooped a handful of sand from between his feet and plastered it onto the edge of the pan. With a minutes scrubbing, the pasta was lifted from the surface of the pan along with years of careless stains. He couldn't have imagined before that the accumulated mess of broken shells and grains of glass would be so effective at restoring the pan to its storeroom brilliance. But it rested in his hand all shining and new-born, exfoliated and clean.

He sat for a moment longer than necessary, toes now covered by the sand, and he felt scoured and sterile and ready. Such, perhaps, is the result of sand and salt.

Work (washing dishes-- also, can you tell who I've been reading? heh)

I had been willing to wash dishes.  In the end that's what set me, like jello sets awhile in a mold in the fridge,-- set the shape of me in this cold world over the long time of it all.  And what was the shape?  Perhaps, like jell-o, an ordinary mound of angel-food-cake-shape; orange; chunks of could-it-be-peach hovering suspended in the ripples; whip cream to fancy it up.  The shape of me, just a dated household dessert. Cheap.  Good for the nails.  Easy for kids and the old folks.

Despite my common ways I never did have to wash dishes.  Not for pay.  I wash up for friends.  After I myself cook.,  Boyfriends' kitchens, Id' clean them when I got to waiting for him.  Didn't bother if the filth was too far gone.  But while the dish washers are most certainly in my realm with their sad eyes and sodden hands and scarred arms, lurching toward me and swinging away like broken ballerinas set to dance on the trapeze wire, somewhere behind me I came to perceive a something a light a thing bespoke a little word such that they'd put me on the floor if there wasn't anyone prettier.  Is it breeding.  Manners.  Money.  A nameless lace of overlapping bones, a bone tree.  Brittle as dried grass.  Those bone tree branches sown of something and the weather making them something else, too.
My bone tree has some ivory, I guess.  But my weather had so buffeted and smoothed and down right blown me til there weren't no china left, just the scrub juniper of my ordinary orange-jello self whipped on a sea cliff and clinging every branch to the thin soil of life.  Kinda pretty if you like that sort of thing.

Here at the flats Chala washes the dishes.  Washerwoman of Albion.  But paid.  She come up to California from Mexico-- seen times so hard you think the liberals gave birth to her to tell the story for their cause.  The coyote meant to bring her son to the states twice paid, twice lost.  The drugs.  The beaten diabetic husband,  The new boyfriend.  She's got raccoon eyes on account she has been up since two a.m. by time she comes here.  Works in the refrigerated abalone plant.  The make-up seeps into the crinkles around her eyes and rings them in a charcoal halo.  She freshens her lipstick between scrubbings.  Red.  Matte.  A ghoul.  A ghoul's face.  Maybe she'd be harmless but for that.  A busy body maybe, but a kind heart.  Ever since my first day with Chala on my shoulder weeping and telling me in helpless skipping-stone syllables the long story of her long lost life her youngest lost twice back to mexico and now a third time to drugs and miscreants I have yes I am truly partial to the makeup.  Don't mean busy-body.  I can't be sure of anything yet.  Ever?  Blame the dam that broke apart when she heard my low sweet Spanish.  Blame the mutual feeling of helplessness in the world.  Like she came a cross a friend in a deep fog.  And in deep fog gave a shout to find another, an other, rejoicing as all do, in even the paltry saline light of an orange streetlamp on a fogged street, and in that orange glow the roar of words coming out of her like vapor but heavier, and so numerous they gathered to a roar like fat drops in a cataract.  Gotas, they say.  Tears.  Lagrimas if they sneak up on you.

Now it has been seven years to the day since I have seen my home.  Possessed it is of a flinty look.  Grey skies and half-closed lids I see them still, moving in pairs in faces overcast, into buildings and along sidewalks like travelers on an escalator.  Then there is a pause and a meeting and you look and can't find where the eyes are looking but looking they are to something that is not-you ordinary-you.  Looking to something just beyond the reach of you.  No it was a home of sorts but no real hearth no inglenook no warming fire.

Here now the sun shining on this wood makes another small sun in the varnish.  My mother in faces.  The fathers and brothers.  The one's I'd rescue like a long lost seal pup I'd rescue my father I'd rescue me.  Blind of sleep and tethered naught I foreglimpsed him in the truck he will drive when he comes.  The next trip he will take may he not blow yet from the tree of his good youth may it not.  His is nostalgia so furious its little piranha teeth always coming for him ever he turns; turns.  He will best it yet for I see he tries and as he tries he makes a tiller's progress.  After all it is commonness we share though it chafes him worse than I.  Ours is a desert thing and what heaven we dream of is what heaven a laborer can dream of.

I know this as I too have helled my way pursued by hours years desire welted  by the bare flame of itself.  What if not more wretched than the nakedness itself.  The hurt of a burn and the filth of it to want to be other than you.  To seem someone.The heat of that cools slowly but it does indeed cool broke from the engine whence it lit.  What twitches yet in me of these does wear and make coarse in those exposed places but with my common sturdy eye I mark the shadow of this foolishness as a sailor marks the shore, its lie a fine filigree of coast sharp as razor fields of lava beneath the waves and no more harbors but the last one.

A laborer's heaven is my heaven so I say god of labor help me work I am willing to wash dishes.

QUITTING AT ALBION: Marilee Clement

Ye pillars

Ye delectable heights

Ye pleasure of suspense, ye push of time

Ye best mimic, whereby I am sparrow, gull;

Is thy offered thrill- of falling-and of flight-

within my heavenly
right?

Can Be Measured, Not Understood: Marilee Clement

Noah--

There was this rainy night the drops were huge and cold and the car was all fogged up it was the car before you will remember the white Subaru your dad had cracked the windshield with a ladder and shake from the Junipers was always on the seats you were crying it was hot in the car it was winter I think it was December Chase parking lot Capitol Hill I was waiting for your dad I got out to talk to you hunched in the hatchback I held your hands tiny hands you gripped my fingers I wanted you to say hand it's so beautiful such a beautiful word but you didn't say it you couldn't say it yet you just stopped crying you were so beautiful and so funny your dad came I climbed out to my side then a lady said whats his name I said his name is Noah she said that's Nuaccchhhhh in Arabic kind of spitting on me and I smiled and I felt like a smashed plate at a wedding so happy and proud of that one harsh syllable and of you who didn't say hand yet because you were just born and of the orange street light and the rain and the chortling engine choking fog steaming night and our breath sweet in the juniper beat up car and the way we held each others hands because we were measuring the distance between us and measuring the wait measuring the way it feels to be in time but not sure how long we might stay---

Bridges: Ben Keeney

Bridges are an unsafe thing. Every time that I walk or drive over them I am afraid. Afraid that it will collapse. It may be helpful to point out that I am scared of heights. Yep I have been and, apparently, always will be scared of being above things where if I fell from them, there would be pain and or death. I want to talk more about how I think that I am more afraid of the anticipation, more scared of the falling and not the collision. But I'm to talk about bridges and not the ins and outs of being afraid of heights. Now then, though it would be good to know that I think bridges a dangerous thing because I don't like being on them because I am scared of heights, but I am also uneasy when sitting under a bridge. I always imagine bridges collapsing in a fantastic Michael Bay type spectacle of destruction and and unnecessary explosions. I am always ready and have a plan of what to do in case the bridge falls, in the same way that everybody claims to have detailed plans of how to survive when the zombies finally come. I can admit, unlike my zombie apocalypse surviving friends, that my plan would most definitely not work. Regardless of my irrational fears of bridges, there is a single principle I want to think about. ** All bridges are not meant to be homes**

To transition to being abstract for a bit, I think that just as physical bridges that hold people and cars are dangerous and bound to collapse, I believe that this life is a bridge. I realize that's not profound or unique. Many people think that. For the Christian this life is a bridge. It is not safe to dwell on. It is not practical to dream about its destruction (or right several books about it). Every time I cross a bridge I feel a little bit of relief in the stability of the ground, the stability of home. I think that this life is dangerous so that the Christian can feel the gratitude and relief of coming home, that I wouldn't have if I had never left home.

520 floating bridge: Amy Doran

Never thought much of
bridges being remarkable.

Roads over water,
suspension of bodies

flying fast or slow
as gravity permits.

One day the bridge crossed
every day, familiar road--

became a wall
I could not pass through.

Nothing to do but wait
and watch it lower itself

so I could manage to
keep going over it.

I sensed finally myself
suspended in air

somehow able to take
a very great leap of faith
that this has indeed been
engineered to hold me.

Love can build a bridge: Jen Hirschman

I knew he was right. I needed to forgive her. I wanted to forgive her, but I didn't know how. How does one forgive their offender when they've never really said they're sorry?

"She doesn't deserve it, after what she did. I'll think about forgiving her, once I hear a sincere apology. True repentance." I don't remember how many times I told my husband this.

"It doesn't matter what she's done, she's still your mom. Nothing will change that. You don't want to go through the rest of life hating her. Not only will it hurt her, but it will destroy you."

"But she's not even sorry. She's never apologized." She doesn't deserve it, I thought.

"And what if she never does?" he asked. The question lingered for minutes, days, months. "You can be the one to take that first step, scary as it may be. Reach out in love. If you do, God will give you the strength to take the next steps."

I knew he was right. I needed to forgive her.

Love can build a bridge, between your heart and mine
Love can build a bridge, don't you think it's time, don't you think it's time

Wynnona and Naomi Judd recorded this song. I always thought the lyrics were a little bit cheesy, but the chorus kept playing in my mind. Don't you think it's time, don't you think it's time. How long would I wait? I was going on three years of this anger toward the woman who at one time would have given up anything for me.

It wasn't one giant step, but many small ones. A phone call. Introducing my new baby boy to her. A card thanking her for the many ways she loved me while growing up. Each one, another plank added to cross the chasm that had formed between us. Eventually, the bridge was built, not only from my side, but hers as well, and somewhere along that bridge, we met.

An Afternoon on the Deception Pass Bridge: Gus Stevens

Photo by Gus Stevens

He knew the irrationality of the thought almost instantly but that couldn't erase his desire to run into the middle of the road. Somehow he thought he'd feel safer standing between the yellow lines than here next to the railing. He immediately rebuked himself, called himself a child, and straightened his spine against his cowardice. It was a long drop, but he was sure of foot, and there was only a gentle wind that afternoon. Still, when the cane-wielding grandmother plodded up to him, he bent his legs into a quarter squat in order to lower his center of gravity and squeezed the railing with a fresh and fanatical grip. He managed only a weak smile as she passed.

As the wave of adrenaline swept through him, his knees began to quiver which only invigorated his self-hatred. His body was a traitor; in the very act of steeling itself for combat with the geriatric, it weakened his footing. If there'd not been a crowd of camera-toting sightseers he probably would have crumpled to the ground and crawled the rest of the way across the bridge.

Again, he considered walking in the center lanes with the cars but his reason knew better; he was much more likely to be struck by a driver distracted by the beautiful view than he was likely to tip over the pedestrian railing. Still he trusted his ability to dodge the oncoming vehicles more than he currently trusted the small flock of nine year-olds who approached from the opposite direction. He despised them for swinging their arms so recklessly, for their disregard of his clear mortal danger, and for their intolerably happy and fearless grins. If push had come to shove, he would not have spared them because of their youth. He was relieved when they passed as harmlessly as grandma had before.

It took several moments for him to muster the courage necessary to complete his walk across the bridge. He'd been pretending to enjoy the view so as not to look so conspicuously paralyzed but now he was even more conscious of the distance to the water's surface below. After a final round of self-ridicule, "You are a grown man for God's sake," he finally stepped out toward the opposite landing. Unfortunately, his exaggerated step only half concealed his terror under a thin veil of bravado; his left hand never lifted from the railing. This created the odd impression among several onlookers that this young man might, in fact, be a veteran acclimating himself to a new prosthetic leg, but no, he was just a coward.

Everything: Ben Keeney

What can be measured but not understood?
This was almost what my friend, affectionately named British Mark, would call a 'cheeky' response.
But I almost was going to write about how everything in the world that has ever existed is not fully understood. I will explain a little bit about what I mean so that I don't sound like some kind of an agnostic towards everything. It's really not a complicated thought. Basically everything, as far as I know, is made up of atoms. Atoms are made up of particles that have opposite charges and shouldn't be in the same proximity, but they are still held together for some reason. That reason as far as I know scientists haven't been able to understand yet. Therefore we don't fully understand anything.
That is probably just lazy thought, so here is what is mind blowing to me, thoughts. Is it in the realm of the soul (which is a whole other topic)? We can track thoughts, we understand a little bit, like they are synapse firing and seem to be biological and electrical, and we can highlight part of the brain that is active. However to my simple mind that doesn't understand how all of that becomes a silent voice.
People advised me a lot that I need to, "get out of my head."   I understand what they are saying, that I will get lost in endless debate and scheming before I act. I agree with people, I should get out of my head. I am trying, but I don't understand how. I don't think it would too simplistic to say that my thoughts rule me. Perhaps I will never understand how to act without the inner dialogue. Perhaps its more of an acting in faith in spite of being in my head. I definitely need to figure out what is ruling my thoughts, and hopefully I will understand that more, but honestly I don't think I will.

Fathoming the Measure: Gus Stevens

Photo by Derek Rubino, used with permission.

For I could estimate the grains of sand
carried by this colored river year by year
as it carves from the stone this canyon grand

But such reckoning is but a cashier's
math yielding a number I cannot know
for in my mind the zeros disappear.

Nor can I figure a new fallen snow
except through means and volume, heights and weight
I name the number, but the value, no.

I understand that some can calculate
the distance between stars but the pleasure
of that endless sky no mortal tongue can state.

We play at sums but fathom not the measure;
let me not count the coin and lose the treasure.

Jesus, I Am Resting, Resting: Adapted by Jessica Chavez Inspired byPsalm 23

Jesus, I am resting, resting,
In the joy of what Thou art;
I am finding out the greatness
Of Thy loving heart.
Thou hast bid me gaze upon Thee,
And Thy beauty fills my soul,
For by Thy transforming power,
Thou hast made me whole.

Oh the joy of new life promise, 

Bestowing help in time of need. 

Through a valley dark and lethal

The shepherd's rod shall comfort me.

Thou mercy everlasting!

Thou goodness overflowing!

May I stay with Thee Lord Jesus, 

Even through eternity. 

Jesus, I am resting, resting,
In the joy of what Thou art;
I am finding out the greatness
Of Thy loving heart.

Beauty: Jessica Chavez

When I think of Beauty two things come to mind: 

The first is a memory from when I was ten years old and on the fringes of insecurity. I was ushered into the dreaded preteen years by this scarring experience. My best friend and I had a devised a plan where she would call the boy I liked and see if he liked me back. Well she called alright and then called me back to tell me that he in fact did not like me and said I was “the ugly one”. She then proceeded to tell me about how he actually liked her and she liked him. In complete ten year old despair I ran to my mom and said “he said I was uglyyyyyyyy!!!!?”. My mom replied by saying “Beauty is relative. He thought she was prettier but someday someone will think you are pretty. Everyone is beautiful to someone so you are never really ugly…. Just to him.” At the time her honesty was anything but comforting but as I’ve grown up I wholeheartedly agree. I think I would put it more like this- in everyone there is beauty whether you realize it or not. When you accept that fact you find that there is a lot more beauty in your life.

The second is the movie Life is Beautiful. It’s a movie about an Italian Jew who is taken to a concentration camp with his young son. All along he convinces his son that they are in a game and for every time he listens to the soldiers he’s earning points. If he makes it through the whole game he’ll be rewarded with a real live army tank.  I know it’s just a movie but it taught me some major life lessons. Like that life in the midst of terrible circumstances has the ability to be beautiful. If you’ve never seen it watch it and if you don’t get to at least take this quote from it.

 

“Nothing is more necessary than the unnecessary."

Be Thou My Vision, sub-version by Marilee

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart
Naught be all else to me save that thou art
Thou my best thought by day or by night
Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

Be my obsession, my soul's only jewel
Framed by thy facets, and faceted, too
Thou every rainbow, and color therein
Thy beauty resplendent among common men

Be thou my frisson, in terminals grey
Spark passion's flame in my present decay
Thine to disquiet, while all mine are larks;
Make constant the theme of this fool's stops and starts

Be thou my garland, of flowers, of thorns
Likewise in linen clothe me as newborn
Cradle my body as I drink from your cup
Lead me to table where alone we may sup

Be thou my captain in life's ragging war
Grey are the battlefields, grayer my heart
Forget not mere soldiers though thou art a King,
Lead as triumphant each last, broken reed

Be thou my language, and my native tongue
Translate the world that I might understand
Thy name and thine only the governing constraint
Each sign of thy grammar, a symptom of grace

How Great Thou Art: adapted by Jen Hirschman

Oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder

Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made

I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder

Thy power throughout the universe displayed

My soul rejoice, in Whom created me

In You alone, in You alone

My soul rejoice, in Whom created me

In You alone, in You alone

When doubt and fear, crash down like waves around me

And death awaits to swallow once for all

I raise my head to light forever shining

And see the hope of glory in His song

My soul rejoice, in Whom created me

In You alone, in You alone

My soul rejoice, in Whom created me

In You alone, in You alone

O Love that wilt not let me go: adapted by Amy Doran

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine oceans depths its flow
May richer, fuller be

O Grace that saves me from my sin
I cannot earn aught all of thee
Who heals my ways from deep within,
A calm amidst the wind
That often carries me

O day that follows all my nights
Remind me of your constancy
Thou end to all my hardest fights
Who bringest up sunlight
To wake me from my darkest sleep

All to Jesus I surrender: adapted by Gus Stevens

Detail of stained glass window depicting Judas Iscariot turning away from the Last Supper, Moulins Cathedral, France.

All to Jesus I surrender;
all to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
in His presence daily live.

All to Jesus I surrender;
Lord, those words sound hollow here;
I, like Judas drawn to silver,
am not as I first appear.

All to Jesus I surrender;
even as I'm failing still
for my eyes still dark with sinning
cannot seem to find your will.

All to Jesus I surrender,
though with hesitating hands
I still cling to what I've offered
to appease your law's demands.

All to Jesus I surrender,
I who could not pay my bill.
Though I've offered only sewage,
praise Him; He receives me still.

Compare with the original here.

Hymn: Remixed - Come Ye Sinners: Ben Keeney

Come ye thirsty, come and welcome
God's free bounty, glorify
True belief and true repentance,
Every grace that brings you nigh!

Hear His herald, Hear Him calling,
Let the gospel take its root,
Fix your eyes on, Set your heart in,
The King of Spirit, Lord of Truth!

Be there troubled dark surrounding,
Overcasted with bitter loss,
Taste His grace and know His comfort,
Full displayed on His bloody cross!

Behold the Man, behold Him bending,
Sinful thorns pierce his lowered brow,
Bring His Love in sovereign favor,
Oh the riches of that wrathful crown!

Of the seas with all their water,
Of the skies with their stars,
Could they cover, or account for,
The endless mercies of His scars?

Beauty: Ben Keeney

You grew exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through splendor that I had bestowed on you, declares the Lord God.
But you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your unfaithfulness on any passerby;
your beauty became his.
Ezekiel 16

There is a sad tale about beauty. It seems to me that there are so many stories of beauty ending in tragedy. I cannot be so shallow when talking about beauty as to merely limit such a weighty thing to physical thing to that which is seen. Beauty is defined as giving "intense deep satisfaction". We long for beauty. Life is empty without beauty. Life violently waits, groans and joyously celebrates in proclamation the experience of that which is beautiful. Have you ever met a person you didn't like sunsets? Who has gazed into the endless universe and see the countless stars outside our own atmosphere and not marveled at its splendor.

The passage above made me think of a connection I had not before (but I absolutely should have). Beauty and holiness. More specifically our beauty is holy to God. Just like holiness beauty is craved and feared. Just like holiness it strikes awe in our hearts. Just like holiness, beauty is given.

All world is not beautiful. We are not completely filled with only that which is deeply satisfying. We have venom in our lips and open graves for throats. We have malice in our hearts and envy for eyes. Yet when God, who is holy, gives to us meaning, weight and value, something new is happening. We are being filled with beauty, the pure reflection of the nature of a holy God rich in mercy and power. Surely, we all bear his likeness and his image on our souls. The ability to become one with someone, the ability to worship and give of ones self.  There is beauty and weight and a certain amount of glory in every person, and it is given. All beauty in us is from without. Beauty is given. Beauty is given, but it is not to be owned.

When that which was given is then attributed as earned it is robbed from the giver. Beauty is a gift. It is God's, it belongs to nobody else. When is taken and denied as a gift it is lost. If beauty gives deep meaning and satisfaction, then when it is taken as our own it's full meaning cannot be known, it's deep purpose cannot be achieved. Guard your beauty. Do not try and hide it or keep it silent. It is not in the nature of beauty to ever be anonymous. But do no pretend that you have made yourself beautiful or that you can improve that beauty. It is a gift. Do not let it become his.

Beauty: Marilee Clement

You Russian Doll

You tawny flank 

You grey dunes 

You valleys in the dunes 

      where rosy succulents prod molecular

      the packed embankments writ with salt lines

      with what glad ignorance
      do they deny the force above, below?

      as if they could build another redwood forest

      from their hidden sand floor, 

You crevasse hiding the garden, you windbreak 

You bent Junipers

       our made art from what bonsai the wind is always doing

       oh hider of best secrets, doing your work in patterns we are ever hunting

You seed pod,

You ovary

You bloom

You ornate carriage

      inside of which is our dainty czarina

      and inside of her painted mouth, space

      inside her lungs, breath

                which is a kind of waiting 

                to become words

                    then worlds

      inside her ringlet curls, "nothing"
You the waiting emptiness, the nothing around which our double-helixes wrap,

You evidence 

You fecund,
You delighted wife
of truth

giving form to all things

Beauty: Amy Doran

(Found photo from a google image search since I left my camera on a bus on the way back from this trip)

Let me tell you about one of the most beautiful days I've ever had. I was swimming in the Mediterranean Ocean--how's that for a start?

I was swimming in the Mediterranean Ocean off a beach in a little town in Italy called Sperlonga. It was the day before my 23rd birthday. I had been in Italy for almost a month studying with nearly 20 other students and 3 professors from UW.

One of the assignments in the UW program I had gone to Italy with was to memorize and recite from memory John Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn.

I have never been particularly good about intentional memorizing, and so I, along with a good number of my classmates, had been putting off this task for the entire trip. As the trip was nearing to an end, we took more relaxed, fun days where we all just got to hang out together rather than write intensively or give lectures on Italian history or mythology.

We had taken a bus to Sperlonga. I remember disembarking and being shocked at how idyllic the scene was--blue waters, white sands, and gelato shops as far as the eye could see.

My classmates and professors and I all got in the water, and we swam around each other. We were all almost giddy.

Eventually one of the trip leaders, Rebecca, asked a group of us who were all swimming in close proximity to one another who hadn't yet recited the poem. Half a dozen of us chimed in that we hadn't.

"Okay," she said. "If you can ALL recite it TOGETHER right now while swimming in the ocean, I'll give you all credit. But you all have to get it right."

And so we did it. Everyone around chimed in, including Rebecca, and we recited the entire five stanza poem with salt water splashing into our faces and bobbing up and down in the waves. The last few lines are as follows:

When old age shall this generation waste
Thou shall remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

--John Keats,
"Ode on a Grecian Urn"


I'm still not entirely sure what Keats meant by "beauty is truth, truth beauty." But I feel to some degree that he is right. We think of beauty as being something external or visual alone--but it's more than that. I think prettiness is something we get confused with beauty.

That day in Sperlonga was one of the few moments in my life where I knew at the time it was happening that it would be a treasured memory for the rest of my life. And when I got out of the ocean, bedraggled and salty and messy, I felt the most beautiful I'd ever felt.

Maybe when you encounter beautiful truth, it makes things seem more beautiful. Maybe beauty is something as hard to pin down as light--sometimes it's this particle, sometimes it's that wave. Sometimes it's this or that part of the spectrum.

What can't be pinpointed is always worth appreciating.

Beauty: Jen Hirschman

"Never date a guy that's prettier than you."

These were the words of wisdom my grandma gave to me as I poured out my complicated story about the good-looking guy who broke my heart not once, but twice. I laughed when she said it, not completely understanding what she meant. She continued...

"You will meet men who are very handsome and they know it. They are more concerned with appearances than the heart. If looking good is the most important thing to him, what happens when you don't look good? What happens when you've given birth and your body is left with the marks to show it? Or, God forbid, you have an accident or get cancer? Or how about just plain getting old? You want a man who will look at you every day and see your beauty. He will see it through your stretch marks, through the lines on your face, He will see beauty in the things you do and the way you love people. That's the man you want to love you."

I listened to her speak, knowing she was wise, but I didn't truly grasp the depth of her words until I gave birth to my first son. My husband saw me in my awful state and told me I was beautiful. I understood it when I heard the word cancer from the doctor and I saw the worried look on my husband's face. I understood it when I struggled to put on support hose, while hugely pregnant  because after kid #3 my varicose veins were bad enough to keep me from walking. He asked how he could help me and even said I looked beautiful when I had never felt more unattractive in my life.

I never forgot that statement. I passed it on to my sister, my friends, and one day, I will say it to my daughter. I will explain it's meaning, just like my grandma did, and pray that she will chose a guy that isn't prettier than her.

Beauty Lies: Gus Stevens

Peeling Petals by Andrew Colgan on Flickr

• "It is the failing of a certain literature to believe that life is tragic because it is wretched. Life can be magnificent and overwhelming — that is its whole tragedy. Without beauty, love, or danger it would be almost easy to live." 
• "Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time." 
• "We all have a weakness for beauty."

- Albert Camus

It is not blood nor pain that shakes the ground
oh no, it's beauty that disturbs our days.
That mere life might evoke a beggar's praise,
ay, that is where the tragedy is found.
For earth's dear hopes spin meaningless around
and manage but to conjure dull malaise?
Our joy is weak; she has but numbered days;
she sickens when the petals all are browned.
Can there exist a charm that will not break?
Some great thing whose promise is not so cruel
as those dreams that wither when you wake.
Some great hand that might work the broken tool
of beauty, end all ends, and quench our ache:
to love one's life and yet not play the fool.

Food Trucks: Amy Doran

Okay, so. Here's the deal with food trucks.

They're a huge deal.

People talk about food trucks the way that kids at my middle school used to talk about Pokémon cards and kids in my elementary school used to talk about POGs.

"Have you been to WaffleFriedFish? We waited in line for four hours and it was SO WORTH IT."
"Oh yeah I went to that one when it was over in Ballard. Sooooo great. Xavier and I hit up TheAngrySkilletDotCom on Friday. I follow them on twitter so we always know where they're at."
"Whoah I need to follow them!"

Yes, food trucks are cool. There's a whole neighborhood in Portland full of food trucks and rumor has it the chefs within those tiny enclosed culinary micro-kitchens on wheels used to be really famous at that one restaurant. They, being purists, hated cooking for rich fat cats and decided they wanted to get back among the people and went down to Portland and started an unassuming food truck that serves the perfect, small-menu, precisely-flavored, perfectly-culturally-fused... food.

And I freaking love them.

That's what I've got to say about Food Trucks.

Food Trucks: Ben Keeney

I am would in no way consider myself a "foodie". Case in point, I had to look up how to actually spell foodie. It's not something that I am proud of or look to others who are super interested and maybe even picky as being pretentious. I really do respect foodies. I am interested in how much flavor they can decipher with their smell and taste buds. The more that I think about it I would say that I am also a little bit jealous and wish I could only like things that other foodies liked and not be totally content with Taco Bell or Lotaburger (Jess knows).
In recent months I was obsessed with Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmare on Netflix. I was super intrigued how Gordon could detect immediately the quality of how they cooked it, if the food had been frozen or wasn't local and fresh. I loved how he explained to the watching audience, in so many colorful words and British expressions, what was wrong. You see I am very analytically inclined by nature and foodies when they just say, "this sucks" without any explanation as to why leaves me thinking, "Now what the hell am I supposed to do with that?" (Amy and Jess know) But Ramsey explains it and I tend to agree with him about how restaurants are supposed to look, sound and taste.
You might be asking what this has to do with food trucks. You might not be asking that at all, either way it really doesn't matter because I'm going to talk about it now. Food trucks make everyone a foodie. First of all it's cool. It's like a secret restaurant that magically appears in around you. That's one thing that makes it cool, but also it seems like it just doesn't take a lot to start one, which may or may not be true. But because it seems that way, I feel more comfortable to be critical and gracious. Another really cool thing is that they are obviously local. Lastly, and probably the best thing about Food Trucks is that they are simple. There aren't a lot of choices. All the options are (or should be) the best they can offer.
Here in Albuquerque, the food trucks are like doughnut shops in the NW. If they aren't amazing they just aren't going to last very long. There are 2 that I really like. The Supper Truck is the best one. Here they serve Shrimp and Grits...amazing and BBQ pork soft tacos with southern style coleslaw. They are so good. I will say that one time they served waffle chicken tacos, that was super gross. Mostly because the waffles were mini Eggo. I don't know if they ran out that night or something, but it really sucked. I was truly sad because Chicken and Waffles are evidence of God common grace on all his creation that truly loves everyone. Regardless of that sin, Supper Truck is amazing. The other I think is called Europa, he parks in my church parking lot around lunch time on Sunday. "He" is a french dude name Joffrey. Joffrey makes really long hot dogs with melted cheese on top and with a certain amazing spicy mustard.
I do like food trucks. They are usually good quality because of the low overhead, the down-to-earthness that cultivates loyalty and the uniqueness that is plain fun.

Food Trucks: Gus Stevens

Taquerias Latinas Dos, the name lacks the strained creative pretension of Anglo-food eateries. White urbanites are compelled by something to give their establishments a cryptic one to three syllable name that is, at best, tangentially connected to the thing being sold. "Burn: a gastro-vegan barbecue truck."

Taquerias Latinas Dos seems so bald and descriptive. What do you sell here? Tacos. Who are you? Latinos. Is this your only location? Actually this is our second. I never asked where Taquerias Latinas Uno was. Then again, it might be the Taco truck owned by two Latinos, or maybe they are just Latino style tacos (perhaps there's some other kind), I really should have paid more attention in second year Spanish.

Whatever the name, if you're crossing the Jose Rizal bridge headed to Beacon Hill, stop at the truck across from the Asian grocery, bring cash, order the sopes.

Object: The Stapler: Amy Doran

I was given this stapler when I started my first day of work at Microsoft.

When I started I took over the workspace of another person who had left. This person had not only left, but had left behind a vast array of things in the file cabinets, bookshelves and drawers of this workspace, which my boss informed me was "mine now." It included a cup filled with change for the vending machine. It took me a good three months before I felt okay about using that change for snacks.

This stapler isn't inherently meaningful, but what I find meaningful about it is that it exists, and it's in my office every day, and I have absolutely no idea how long it's been in use at Microsoft. When we moved buildings I took it with me. It has the old logo on the top, which means it's at the very least from the era of the previous CEO. And judging from the length of time the person I replaced worked there, it might even be from the CEO before that.

I can't remember using this stapler a single time. I could probably count the moments when I've had to print something out on one hand. I tried very hard to remember using this stapler, but I came up blank. I think it's entirely possible that this stapler and all the staples inside it have been waiting patiently for use for years.

Sometimes when I'm on a conference call in my office I'll pick it up idly while I'm trying to listen. I'll expand and contract the thing but not cause any staples to come out. I remember being scolded in elementary school for wasting staples, and I think I've carried that with me into adulthood. Staples are, in my mind, a precious commodity.

I'm not sure why I picked this stapler for my object (the movie Office Space might have something to do with it) but I suppose I do have a degree of feeling for it. I feel sort of sorry that it never really gets to do its job, and I feel interested to know how many eras of company history its been sitting on someone's desk through.

It's protocol that you have a stapler, a pair of scissors, and a tape dispenser supplied to your office. And in some strange way, probably in another carried-over sense from elementary school, having all those things of my own makes me feel taken care of and a little bit more ready for anything.

Gas Works Park: Ben Keeney

Gas Works Park

I am pretty sure that this counts. So here it is, my favorite place on earth, or at least of all the earth that I have been to, which admittedly isn't much, but that is neither here nor there (hahahaha).

I don't know what it is that I like about Gas Works above all other places. There is obviously an amazing skyline view of Seattle. There is nice grass which to a New Mexican is a luxury. There is a cool solstice thing at the top of the hill. I think I like it so much because it goes right to the water, and at night, for some reason nobody is there. It is peaceful. The sometimes overwhelming activity of a city is dulled and water and the air are allowed to speak. It's amazing to look around and see all of Seattle, or all that matters of Seattle anyway. See so many houses and landmarks and imagining so many people's lives and what they are doing where they are going and what they are about. 

Gas Works is amazing! It is a calm in the middle of a crazy city. I honestly don't understand how there aren't hundreds of people all the time. 

Object: Jennifer Hirschman

It’s funny how some little things in our lives can have so much meaning. My keychain is one of my favorite things in the world and I would be devastated if I lost it. It sounds ridiculous.

I found this little gem in a small town in Colorado named Manitou Springs, not far from my hometown. Manitou Springs is known for its scenic setting and natural mineral springs, but all I knew it for was witchcraft and weirdoes; at least that’s what my parents had told me.

I don’t know how we ended up visiting this town since my parents strongly disapproved of the stories that came from such a place. But in some small souvenir shop I saw it; a keychain with a piece of leather attached. I wanted it. I needed it, really. I don’t remember what it was about it, but I felt as if it were made for me and I quickly snatched it up and made it mine.

I attached it to my keys the first chance I got and it’s been there ever since. The keys have changed, as well as the houses and cars that those keys opened, but 24 years later, the piece of leather attached remains the same. It has no sentimental value, wasn't passed down from generation to generation, but it means everything to me. I blame it on the witches and weirdoes. 

The Door Lock: Jessica Chavez

Being walked in on while using the bathroom has always been a fear of mine. When at other people's houses I routinely put something else in front of the door just in case... Most of the time this will do nothing but alert me that someone is coming but I like to think it's helpful.

You can imagine my look of terror when I was once at a Park n Ride and the lady who had the keys to the bathrooms informed me that the lock was broken. I had been "holding it" through a 6 hour shift at work because the bathrooms were out of order that day and still had an hour long bus ride home. 

"Go ahead and go. I'll keep watch on the door." she assured me. I was reluctant and terrified but a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do. I trusted a total stranger and questioned it the entire time.

I proceeded into the bathroom and placed the garbage can in front of the door. "How could she possibly warn someone in time? She has a job to do... Someone could walk in while she's not paying attention..." These were all the thoughts running through my head.

 I washed my hands removed the trash can and walked away. Suddenly it occurred to me that I had left my bag in the bathroom. I immediately turned around and walked into the bathroom to find that in that split second while walking away someone else had gone into the bathroom. 

"Noooooo!!!" In a high pitched voice was yelled followed by laughter. All I saw when I walked in was the look of a terrified woman who's face was begging for me to leave as soon as humanly possible. So I turned around and left. 

She brought my purse out with her and handed it to me laughing. "I never wished for a working door lock as much as I did just now." I laughed and apologized and thanked God for the lesson I learned that day - that even when you've worked a six hour shift needing to use the bathroom, you should probably just "hold it" anyways...

Patina, Rust, Knife, Pretention: Gus Stevens

Patina is a more favourable term than rust. One implies sophistication, the other neglect. Both are simply the accumulation of oxides on the surface.

It's a simple folding knife, one carbon steel blade on one hinge fitted snugly into a rosewood handle. It's handsome, and masculine, and seems at home in an old leather satchel. If it had a smell, it'd be salt water and hardwoods. It's the Robert Redford of pocket knives. Along one end, there is an embossed brass anchor and thus it looks like some kind of heirloom for a lineage of sailors.

I received the knife from my father a number of years ago as a birthday present. My father made his living in the Navy and so I sometimes consider inventing a history for the knife, assigning it a noble career helping my father cut lengths of rope, but in truth he purchased it online because I'd added it to a digital wish list. It has no history; I am it's first owner, and I use it to cut sausages.

Water: Jessica Chavez

Ferry

A rippled moonlit path of salty air and broken waves.
It entices me to stop my mundane ways of thinking and fall into hypnosis.
My eyes are stuck, glued looking through a window with dirty handprints from all the others who fell prey to this very song.
Gazing at patterned waves
in hopes that some mysterious beast will emerge or a whirlwind will carry us into the unknown.
Terrifying but beautiful, unknown but all knowing.

Edmonds Beach on a Rainy Day: Ben Keeney

Simple, yet cannot be fully known

Identified but cannot be conformed

Untold potential beset with borders

Dangerous, but diligently studied

Constant faithfulness in unceasing change

Formless beauty in timeless frame

No words yet there is truth

No tongues but I hear its voice,

No will, but I am compelled,

No spirit, but I am moved,

No arms yet it I am pulled,

No eyes yet I am perceived,

No feet yet it stands in defiance

No thoughts yet I am found foolish

Chaos yet diligently purposeful,

Free but always giving,

Eclipsed with shadows, yet filled with light

Nostalgia: Jessica Chavez

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…” Ecclesiastes 3:1

This verse has taught me how to deal with nostalgia. I’m not really sure why but I find nostalgia to be somewhat of a crutch for me. We all have our forms of escapism (unfortunately) and mine are sleep and nostalgia. I can get really caught up in reminiscing a good season of my life and begin to hate the present because of it. I’m not sure what drives that but it could be that I hate looking at the future. The future is full of unknowns and scary possibilities. Especially as a Christian who’s trying to be open to the Lord’s leading.

When I was in high school my friend’s dad Tom was a great encouragement to me at a particularly hard time in my life when I (your typical church kid) began to hate church. I remember him pulling me aside after church on Wednesdays and checking in with me. He answered a lot of my stupid questions and was always so kind about answering them.

Tom was diagnosed with throat cancer two years ago. It was unknown how long he would make it and after two years of different treatments, ups and downs, and a lot of pain he is home for his last days. I was reading through the updates his wife sends out and this one in particular stuck out to me:

“I always thought that death just ‘happens’, and probably does for most people. What we are discovering is that sometimes death is a process. While all the physical and medical signs are clearly in front of our eyes that Tom’s journey here is coming to a close, we know that he will be here until the exact moment in time that God chose for Tom, and not one second sooner…….

…… Tom and I were visiting in the middle of the night just before he was placed in the hospital, and it struck me that all along this battle, we have been asking God for a miracle, and that maybe in looking for the ‘big one’ we actually missed all the little ones…. The lives touched, the families reunited because of, the reunion of old friends, the list is I’m sure endless… So tonight we say what we said on day one…. Glory to God. Thank you for walking the road with us. We continue to battle, and victory is on the Horizon….”

People who can face the future especially death, with such surety and trust have always been an amazing source of encouragement to me. I look back on all the talks and time Tom invested in me with extreme gratefulness and while at present my heart hurts for the pain him and his family are in, I can honestly say I am excited for him to meet the God he’s faithfully served his whole life.

Nostalgia isn’t all bad but it can be if you allow it to steal your hope. I’m thankful for all the seasons I’ve had and I’m beginning to look forward to the ones to come even more.

Nostalgia: Amy Doran

Once I told my pastor that I was feeling nostalgic and he said, “You? Feeling and remembering things? No way.”

Similarly, once I was talking about my writing with one of my favorite professors and I said “I tend to get really hung up on specific feelings and trying to explicate them… like nostalgia, or an inexplicable sense of meaningfulness.” He responded, “We’ve met.”

So, I have a reputation for being what some would call “sentimental” and most people would probably call “emotional.”

It’s funny, though. As I’ve gotten older my emotions have changed, and my sense of looking back has changed too.

Last weekend I saw some people from high school I don’t get to see very often any longer—some of whom I hadn’t seen in 7 or 8 or 9 years.

In high school, senior year, I was in yearbook class. I was in lots of other classes too—and with lots of the same people that were in yearbook. We were in AP classes and had to write essays and study chemistry and calculus and history and government. We were also applying to colleges, worrying about our SAT scores, and hoping that we would make it once we were out of the community we were in. Yearbook was a different environment—we had things to do, but it was all about telling the story of our last year of high school, and we could goof around and walk around the school and maybe sneak off campus to make a Starbucks run.

Somehow in that class, I became friends with some of the most intelligent and remarkable people I’d met before or since. We all scattered after we graduated, but I remember hanging out with them and all of us feeling how important that time was. It was borrowed time.

Seeing them again made me remember that time, and it made me realize how it wasn’t just the fear of the future that made that time feel special with them senior year. They really are special people, and we really have a genuine fondness and affection for each other—one that somehow hasn’t faded away.

Nostalgia is all about time, I think. Time and meaning put together. Our lives are meaningful, and I think that God finds ways to speak to us about that. Sometimes the way that happens is through nostalgia. I think it’s a reminder, too, that “right now” isn’t all there is.

Nostalgia can be bittersweet, but I think when accepted with the right heart, it can fill you up. Your life and your story and the depths of what goes on in your heart are a special gift only for you from God—and sometimes that can be overwhelming. But, I think it should be.