So, at some point during my time on the island, a certain friend of mine asked me how I might gauge our topic of discussion on the scale of one to apple. It’s a little game we play sometimes always with a different form of scale, but this one got me thinking (always a bad thing). With the amount of time that I had on my hands, I created a form of measurement based on my love of any and all fruit that I could think of. Here is that list…
1. grapefruit
.5. pear
2. orange
.5. blueberry
3. banana
.5. peach
4. mango
.5. watermelon
5. plum
.5. tangerine
6. cantaloupe
.5. cherry
7. pomegranate
.5. avocado
8. grape
.5. kiwi
9. strawberry
.5. pineapple
10. appleI don’t know why it’s taken me so long to realize this specific area of my persona, but it has come into my understanding that I am quite the klutz. I always knew I wasn’t quite on the “graceful” side of things, but I think the dim light bulb started to flicker a bit brighter when I fell down my stairs a couple months ago leaving me with a wonderfully baseball sized bruise. Now, working in the kitchen has had its share of spills… quite literally. Usually I’m pretty good at being careful with only a few minor cuts and burns, but because I wasn’t careful enough with our industrial sized mixer during the summer I spilled about three gallons of boiling water on my feet. So now, here I am and I thought I’ve been doing better.. can’t even remember the last burn I got. I guess that means something big had to happen sooner or later. Enter my wonderful determination to wear my flip flops (sandals, slippers, thongs, whatever you want to call them) whenever possible.. translation: whenever I’m not working in the kitchen. I was helping some friends move all of their stuff from their storage unit into a U-haul van to drive up to Santa Cruz and of course, like the genius I am, had no problem or worries about wearing my flip flops on this occasion. I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone then when I say that their washing machine and I got into a little “skirmish” resulting in the loss of a very tiny, but very real portion of skin on one of my toes. :( And finally, the icing on the cake is that on my first day back to work when I got back to the island I was scooping ice from our ice machine and I cut my finger on a piece of ice. That’s right, a piece of ice. Of course it would be me to figure out how I could injure myself with ice. It was a pretty good slice, drawing out a nice amount of blood. Don’t worry though, everything stayed sanitary.
So that’s my little story.. don’t worry, there’s plenty more where that came from. Hopefully, I’ll make this an ongoing thing. Not the lack of coordination, but the blogs about some of the wonderful quirks that make me me. Hope ya’ll enjoy.
p.s. How has it taken me so long to realize the amazingness that is 21 Jumpstreet?
Sometimes I’m really sad by how amazed I am at what God does and how He constantly speaks into my life. Let me see if I can use the right words to give justice to how amazed I am currently…
One big thing seems to be the books that are coming into my life out of all kinds of different places but all seemingly connected in themes. A week before coming out to Catalina in January I went to three different thrift stores looking for jeans and wound up in the book section of one looking for random books to take with me since this place is so conducive for me to sit back and read. There I found “Piercing The Darkness” and “This Present Darkness” by Frank Peretti. Both have heavy themes of prayer and spiritual warfare. I’ve been working on consistent and continual prayer in my life more deliberately in the past year and these books have been a perfect timing to open my understanding and questions about prayer. Then I have this amazing friend named Eric. He has this heart for prayer and justice that is infectious and inspiring. He brought a few books with him while he’s out here for the summer and lends them to me. Reading “Red Moon Rising” and soon “Punk Monk” have just continued to spur me on in pursuing this thing we call prayer. Also this past year I’ve been put in more than a few situations that have seriously forced me to go to God in prayer because I had nowhere else to turn. They were/are some pretty powerful things that make me fall to the floor seeking for God’s hand and will in the situations.
So that’s one area where God is just amazing me by how many things he’s coordinating in my life to make sure I don’t miss out on what he’s trying to tell me. Another thing was just in this last week and mostly today. Last week I listened to a sermon from Kansas City’s Boiler Room’s podcasts. They have at least three podcasted series, yet another thing that Eric has turned me on to. This one is called The God Story and breaks down the Bible into 33 sermons. The one we listened to last week spoke partially about Hosea, one of the “minor prophets”. What they talked about piqued my interest in a couple ways. First, I realized that I was unfamiliar with the person Hosea which doesn’t happen very much for me having grown up in the church and hearing most of the Bible in kid-friendly stories. And God called upon Hosea to marry an “adulterous wife” so he could understand God’s relationship with the Israelites. That’s just crazy for me, and having never heard it before I wanted to actually read the whole book after listening to the commentary to it. Then there’s the fact that I really identify with where Israel was at this time, being close to God then turning away to worshipping idols, warnings to come back followed by judgment until they come back to God and then restarting the cycle so many times. So today, my day off, I decided to actually read the book, the first time in a while that I’ve read the Bible just to read it. I mean I read it and discuss it for church and our small groups and different devotionals we do here, all constructed by someone else, but never like this. Anyway, so my Bible is a study Bible and the top half of every page is actual scripture, then the bottom of every page goes deeper into everything on the top half of that page. So it explains important words and concepts, interprets “difficult verses”, draws parallels between specific people and events, describes historical and textual contexts of passages, and demonstrates how one passage sheds light on another, to name a few things. There are introductions to each book and cross references.
So I’m reading Hosea, finding so many parallels to my own life and to the other topics we’ve been talking about this summer in our small groups and themes for the weeks. Like Hosea 2:19-20… “I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the LORD.” Justice and faithfulness being two key traits and actions that have spent a lot of time in my brain getting tossed around for the past couple of weeks figuring out what they mean in my life and in God’s will for my life and the world. Then I was reading Hosea 2:23… “I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’ I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people’; and they will say, ‘You are my God.’” which by itself in this context is pretty powerful stuff and then I look at some of the cross references it lists 1 Peter 2:10, the verse after the verse that just happens to be our verse for the entire summer that we recite at every meal every day. 1 Peter 2:9… “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” v.10… “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” I had to step back for a second and be amazed at how everything always ties together and that this can’t be just coincidence.
Oh yeah, and about two months ago I borrowed a couple of books from this family that’s living here. The one I’ve been reading for the last couple weeks is called “Prophet” and is another one written by Frank Peretti. It’s about this guy who starts to see visions and becomes a present time prophet no matter how he tries to resist it and the importance of paying heed to God’s warnings to turn away from our evil and return to him. I have no idea what God has for me in the coming years or even the next few months but I can’t help but to make sure I’ve got my eyes open to what’s coming next in my life
So the last couple of weeks have been more than a little, let’s say… difficult. It all accumulated two days ago in a pretty emotional and late night. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still right where I’m supposed to be, but a lot of circumstances have been taking a hard toll on my health. I talked some of it out Saturday night, but I think it barely scratched the surface. I haven’t even processed a lot of it myself. I felt crappy just talking about as much as I did cuz I didn’t want to spend more time dwelling on a lot of it and it made me not want to go to bed cuz that meant getting up the next day that much sooner. But I did go to bed and I did wake up the next day. Blah, I don’t even know what to write about this.
One thing I got out of talking about it though was that on Sunday when I went to work I remembered, oh yeah, there’s good stuff here that I can focus on instead. Like we had a really good small group study that night. But I think the biggest thing of all for me was when I was leaving the house we had the small group in there was a dragonfly. My first one of the summer. It was great. For those who don’t know, dragonflies are kind of a big deal for me. It’s not really summer yet until I see one. And my life has kinda always been marked by my summers, so yeah, dragonflies are a big deal. It reminded me of last summer on my birthday when there were, like, twenty of them that just stayed around the lighthouse the entire day.
Sorry this blog is not really coherent or complete. I wanted to get something out about how I’ve been doing recently and I didn’t explain any of it very well.
Sometimes life on the island can get pretty surreal for me. Like, seriously? Is this my life? I mean, I get to do stuff I love every day. I found something that I love to do every day and actually get to do it! On my last day off I got to sit out in the sun with my roommate and read for hours. Then we took a boat in to town to go grocery shopping for stuff for the house that we share. We rode in on the front of our boat, the… bow? That was so awesome. We went in with two other staff who were trawling at the same time cuz the fish activity was crazy that day. So Emily and I just chilled in the front. It was a cruise ship day, which is always funny for me to go to town on cruise ship days, cuz I live here. So, I kinda just laugh at them, like, “Ha, I live here, I’m not a tourist”. There’s this place in Avalon, by the mole, with this fenced in volleyball net. Everytime I pass it, I can’t help thinking about the first time I was here, being Catalina, at the end of my senior year in high school. I never could have imagined this life that I’m leading now, and that was only five years ago. I can’t wait to see where I go in the next five years and the crazy adventures that’ll get me there.
So, I know I said I’d be writing in this intermittently but unforeseen problems came up and I was without my computer for about five weeks. I know, I know.. “How did I possibly survive?” but it wasn’t too bad. I don’t have it back completely yet but there’ll be a little upsurge of activity at least this week. Yay!
This blog marks the longest I’ve been away from Sacramento in my entire life… 83 days, or a little over 11 weeks. It’s been a crazy ride so far. I came here expecting to be leading OTS (opportunity to serve) by now but it’s been like so many other areas in my life teaching me to be flexible and patient and I’m so glad for where I am now. Most of you know that I’m working in the kitchen. Pretty hard core working in the kitchen. Most days I’m relied upon to make all the breads and desserts for the day, in other words, I’m the baker of the kitchen. And I absolutely love it. I love the experience I’m getting just for life in general.
A couple months ago, when I first got to Catalina island, one of my really good friends asked me why I was doing this. Why was I leaving everything and everyone I knew. I thought I’d share with everyone else that e-mail about my motivation for being here and where I am now in those respects…
So, what has led me to working on an island away from family and friends and everything I know... There are a couple different reasons, not sure really where to start. I guess I'll start at the fact that I'm completely burnt out at school. I was a fairly good student. Up until I declared math (halfway through juniour year) I had around a 3.75 gpa from mostly A's and a few B's. My last 3 semesters I've failed 2 classes each semester. I've learned in a classroom setting too long and I feel like I can't do that anymore for a while. Don't get me wrong, I'm going back to school soon and getting a degree, just not right now. And I've decided to change my major so that means I won't be graduating any time soon enough to stick with it. But then I'm not completely sure yet that I want to change it to Accounting cuz the last time I picked something it was completely wrong so I wanna be more sure this next time. So, a break from school is the first reason or circumstance that put me here.
Secondly, most people that know me know I'm pretty introverted. I mean, I can be exciting and energetic and hang out with lots of people, but that drains me so much. IV has been great for me but a lot of times I crash afterward. Like if I hit one extreme I soon hit the other one going into a sulking/depression-like state. Sometimes it's really hard for me to get away and recharge enough to be social. The few people that know about it call them my "quiet days" and they were fairly frequent especially 2 semesters ago. I realized after the summer that I couldn't remember a single time where me hitting that low was as drastic and noticeable here as it had been in Sacramento. Then I recognized that it was because of my environment. When I was here, within a couple of hours of feeling like I needed space from people and stuff, I could get away and recharge, whether it was to drag a chair onto the little patch of sand by the water and watch the waves crash while listening to music/writing to someone and letting the water wash up onto my feet.. or walking up to the top of the hill by this cross that's up there and looking out at the expanse of ocean and talking to God.. or just taking a nap. I really missed that this past semester. Cuz I'd be at a small group or at a bus stop and start feeling really antsy. Like really bad, like I needed to get away and out of my skin, but I couldn't. That was really hard cuz I knew there was a place that I left that if I were there I'd be able to get away. That's part of the reason I feel like CBS is more home than Sacramento ever was to me. That's just speaking of the actual place. CBS was the first time I ever in my life have felt attached to a place. Part of my heart is here and I think it always will be. That's not to say that I didn't leave some parts of my heart in Sacramento with so many people. That's why I was so overwhelmed at my goodbye party. Cuz I feel so attached to the people that were there and it was so great to see that it is reciprocated. And in that night I did doubt if it was worth it to leave.
The third reason might be a little selfish and mean but I really think that I need to be honest about it. I need space from my family. Every moment I was spending with them, which was kind of a lot considering I lived with them, I was irritable and not fun to be around. I was annoyed by everything my parents would say to me and felt like they couldn't treat me like an adult as long as I was still living with them. Like, if my mom didn't tell me to do something it wouldn't get done or that I wasn't responsible enough to take the consequences of not doing it, if that makes sense. It was anything from reminding me to call the jury commission to move my date (something that I was the one who told them I was going to do in the first place), to choosing to wear flip-flops when it's 65 degrees out. Or they'd tell me to do something that I was going to do or in the process of doing but as soon as they told me to do it I didn't want to do it any more cuz then their mindset would be that I only did it because they told me to which just perpetuates the problem. So I felt, and feel, that the only way to have a healthy relationship with my parents right now is to have some space from them, 400 miles of space to be exact. That way they can start to realize that I am an adult that can live and survive independently from them, and I can start acting like more of an adult and be more mature in my reactions to them and other people that might not always agree with my methods of doing things.
Another thing that I've been dealing with is my feelings of loneliness. Me struggling with being alone and what God wants with me in that state. To be completely honest, part of it is the idea of being on this island with a limited number of prospects in boyfriends, which gives me something else to blame for my singleness other than myself. Cuz that's where I was. I was in a self-destructive mode because I knew the only common denominator in every failed attempt at some relationship was me, so I must be the problem. I know it's untrue and completely unfair to me but that's the lie I was feeding myself and I'm believing it. So I wanted to go to a place where that wouldn't be as much of an issue. I mean, people have been known to get into relationships here, I can think of 3 just off the top of my head of people I know personally that it happened, but it's not nearly as high as, say, IV.
Lastly and probably the most significant thing is that I need to reconnect with God. I've been stagnant at best with my relationship with him and I'm really suffering for it. And I'm hoping that this will be the jumpstart I need to get back on track and grow up spiritually.
So, I'd say those are the main reasons and circumstances that have led me to where I am now. So where am I now? Still burnt out from school, but I have a feeling that’s gonna take a bit longer to get over since I was in school for 17.5 years and I’ve only been “out of it” for 4 months. The introvert is getting plenty of recharge time and it’s so amazing. Having my InterVarsity out here was so amazing, cuz it was like the best of both worlds and I’ve missed them sorely since they’ve left. I like that our house (the girl’s cottage) is a second staff lounge where people come to play Monopoly or Twister or watch movies/Friends. Most of the time I’m up for hanging out with people, but if I need to, I can just go upstairs and read or sleep and that’s great. I think my relationship with my parents is getting better too. I actually find myself wanting to call them and tell them what’s going on with me almost every week. I mean, our relationship is still far from perfect and there’s stuff I’m dealing with working through, but I think we’re at least in a healthier place. The loneliness.. still an issue, but again, I think I’m getting better slowly. I just fear attaching myself to any guy close enough to my age that might come along for a week or as permanent staff. But so far, so good. And I do think I’m reconnecting with God since I’ve been here. Definitely not as much as I’d hoped at this point, but I’ve had more time for reflection and processing what God has been telling me. I think it’s easier for me to hear Him out here too. There’s still tons of distractions, but I’ve opened myself up more to hear Him and He’s showing me so many people that He’s working through and giving me so much hope for my life. Also, having so many Sacramento people out here in the last month has been such a blessing and affirmation that I really am where I’m supposed to be. My parents came out for a weekend and I’ve just gotten this overwhelming amount of support from them and everybody that they know I’m in the right place and that’s the best thing I could ask for from any of them.
Wow, well there’s a huge blog for everybody to make up for the months of silence. Hopefully, it’ll even out now with shorter blogs but shorter times between them.
p.s. Don’t forget that I am on an island and therefore, the news I get is very delayed in getting here, so keep me in the loop please!
