Maybe You Can Feel It On Earth

"Ford was very kind - he gave the barman another five-pound note and told him to keep the change. The barman looked at it and then looked at Ford. He suddenly shivered: he experienced a momentary sensation that he didn't understand because no one on Earth had ever experienced before. In moments of great stress, every life form that exists gives out a tiny subliminal signal. This signal simply communicates an exact and almost pathetic sense of how far that being is from its place of birth. On Earth it is never possible to be farther than sixteen thousand miles from your birthplace, which really isn't very far, so such signals are too minute to be noticed. Ford Prefect was at this moment under great stress and he was born six hundred light-years away in the near vicinity of Betelgeuse."
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

A Prayer

My heartstrings are trying to tie themselves to the things which are passing. I find peace only when they are tied to you. Cut them free from the entanglement into which I've let them fall and hold them tightly in your hand.

Escaping the Leash

In just two hours, I will be turning in my Congressional ID and my BlackBerry. The freedom is going to make me dizzy.

Poverty

In Walking With the Poor, Bryant Myers discusses the varieties of poverty we find in our world. He writes that we are all poor and need others to address our poverty whether it's financial, spiritual, emotional, etc. I may be able to assist someone who is financially disadvantaged compared to myself, but there are many ways that same person can speak to my particular form of poverty. I thought this was an excellent idea when I first encountered it, but living in Washington, DC, has caused me to experience it.

One day not long after moving to DC, my roommate Christie and I were approached by a woman asking for money as we walked out of church. I was usually pretty good at just shrugging off such requests, but Christie couldn't do so as easily. Neither of us wanted to just hand over cash and we fumbled for words. To this day, I don't really know what happened, but somehow the words "dinner" escaped our mouths and the next things we knew, Gloria was walking us down the street to buy her dinner. I was grumpy and felt pushed into the situation, but as the evening went on, I started to realize just how much my heart needed such pushing. During the past months since our first encounter, my heart has been challenged again and again to love this woman.

Today, though, I realized how much Gloria has not just been a challenge for me, but a tool from God to address my own poverty. Since I am moving, I decided to give Gloria my bed rather than try to sell it or store it for the next two years. It seemed like a rather simple thing to do. But as the time grew closer to actually give it away, I started to cling to this possession. My heart came up with so many excuses such as Christie having a matching bed, the sheets and comforters were my favorite all through college, maybe I would need it after returning from Asia, etc.

But I forced myself to give it away. A friend graciously helped me move and set up my bed for Gloria and as we left her apartment waving goodbye, he asked me, "Are you going to miss Gloria?" "Yes," I responded. Thoughts raced through my mind and I came up with many things I will miss about her, but I will especially miss the way having her in my life forces me to hold my possessions more loosely. Knowing Gloria has shown me my spiritual poverty, the way I cling to things, unable to acknowledge that everything truly is God's. I may have given Gloria a bed, but she has given me a new sense of security in the Lord.

Keeper Of The Door, by Twila Paris

"The One who was no less than God
Took on the flesh on lowly man
And came to wash the feet of clay
Because it was your holy plan

And I, no greater than my King
Would ever seek a place
Of humble service in Your house
To gaze into the light that is Your face

Oh, let me be a servant, a keeper of the door
My heart is only longing to see forever more
The glory of your presence, the dwelling of the Lord
Oh, let me be a servant, a keeper of the door"

Banjo Pickin' Girl, by Abigail Washburn and The Sparrow Quartet

(Just gotta learn to play the banjo and go to Cuba and this song is mine ;-)

"Goin' around this world baby mine
Goin' around this world baby mine
Goin' around this world, I'm a banjo pickin' girl
I'm goin' around this world baby mine

Goin' to Tennessee baby mine
Goin' to Tennessee baby mine
Goin' to Tennessee don't you try and follow me
Goin' to Tennessee baby mine

Goin' around this world baby mine
Goin' around this world baby mine
Goin' around this world, I'm a banjo pickin' girl
I'm goin' around this world baby mine

Goin' to Chattanooga baby mine
Goin' to Chattanooga baby mine
Goin' to Chattanooga and from there on to Cuba
Goin' to Chattanooga baby mine

Goin' to North Carolina baby mine
Goin' to North Carolina baby mine
Goin' to North Carolina and from there off to China
I'm goin' off to China baby mine

I'm goin' across the ocean baby mine
I'm goin' across the ocean baby mine
I'm goin' across the ocean no, now don't you change my notion
I'm goin' across the ocean baby mine"

To Do List Before I Die

-Crowd surfing
-Visit every continent (except Antartica because it is too cold and expensive)
-Live somewhere where I could own a cow with big brown eyes
-Recognize the stars and constellations
-Speak German, Mandarin, and Spanish
-Ride an elephant for real and not at some zoo or circus type thing
-See Puccini's Turandot!!!
-Find that someone to be quiet with
-Learn to play the piano
-See the Northern Lights
-Adopt internationally
-Live with my sister for a year

A Prayer

Please be the all to my soul.
Let me love not out of my need,
but rather from your plenty.

Thoughts On Time And Upcoming Goodbyes

I have never been one for goodbyes. Tending to have a semi-tragic attitude when it comes to saying farewell, I melodramatically forget that more likely than not, I will actually see my friends and family again this side of heaven. And even if I don't, the plethora of communication options available via internet make it almost impossible to actually ever forget a person. My penchant for the dramatic has quieted in recent years, but some people dear to my heart will never stop laughing about the night I cried in a sleeping bag on the living room floor at the thought of saying goodbye to Pittsburgh. ;-)

Just this week, though, my perspective may have started to truly change. My dear, sweet, friend and neighbor, Estelle, took me to an Asian teahouse (www.chingchingcha.com) before parting ways since she heads home to France for the rest of the summer and I set my face towards the East before she returns. While sitting on the floor, slowly sipping my rosebud brew, we discussed the passing of time and our hope to be reunited one day. I started to explain my attitude towards goodbyes, but something she said stopped me. "I like time." What? You like time? What could that mean? Time has always been my enemy. It is what causes us and our surroundings to change in between the goodbyes and hellos. There is never enough of it between the hellos and goodbyes. Time forces us to comply with its speed, when I so often want it to stop and let me be. Stop poking me in the back, Time. I want to stay where I am just little bit longer, ok?

But Estelle likes time. It heals, it teaches, it promises, it hopes. I started to think about my upcoming goodbyes. I thought about the goodbye I would soon say with Estelle, and in a couple weeks, the goodbyes to DC, and after that, goodbyes for my family. And I thought about my biggest fear concerning all of those goodbyes - what would the passage of time do to us? My automatic assumption was that time would not be nice. But what if it was? What if time didn't have it out for me? Estelle liked the passage of time; could I like it, too? "I will have to think about this," I told her.

I look back on my life and see that time's passing has only ever been a good thing. Sure there are pain and difficulties, but what does that have to do with time? Those come at any point, when we expect them or when we don't, when we are young or when we are old. Maybe, just maybe, I can starting seeing time as a gentle friend. I can leave behind the fear of something prodding me onwards and get to know the uncertain, but steady embrace of this thing that never lets us go. I struggle against it and loose. Why not hold its hand and enjoy the story time tells? The goodbyes won't be so painful and the hellos will hold more promise.

Hello, Time, my name is Hannah. Will you be my friend today?