A deep breath

I've been wanting to add to my blog, but didn't know where to start writing at first. There's the obvious: the awesome weekend I spent with Trevor, Andy, Lulu and Alyssa. The latter three watched me play saxophone at Jilly Beans Coffee House in Hillsdale where for an hour I tried to translate my thoughts into music as I watched Alyssa translate hers into writing. Andy and Lulu had less chance of losing anything to translation, since they simply let their thoughts be thoughts.

Then we went to my mom's house and prayed together before eating together and sharing all of our thoughts in the form of meaningful, funny, and sincere conversation together. We taught my mom how to play "Settlers of Catan" and smiled when her naive strategy of building primarily on "3's" paid off as threes were rolled on almost every turn.

Trevor arrived, more conversation occurred, and one am crept up amidst our stories and laughter. Most everyone was ready for bed, but Alyssa said she was ready for exploring the town on foot. I thought she was joking, but when I realized that she was actually being that ridiculous, I decided that I would be that ridiculous as well. Such everyday ridiculousness is not something I have partaken in enough of lately, and our explorations reminded me of why that needs to change. A single degree stubbornly declared its presence from the bank's display board as we sauntered down the middle of windswept and deserted streets. Our conversation was like our breath in the cold air, exhaled into the night to drift, disperse, dissolve, disappear, and be recycled invisibly in the dark, once again to be breathed in and out -- so natural we hardly think about it, so cosmic we hardly can.

But you know what I'm talking about. At least I hope so. If not, go find out. Find your roommate, your best friend, your new friend, your spouse, your parents, your neighbor. Go do something one or both of you has never done; look at the world, and each other, from a new perspective. Talk about something you never talk about, ask questions, let your conversation be like breath on a cold night, a testament to life; when it drifts and disappears have faith that it will return, let it be natural yet mysterious, sometimes scary but often beautiful.

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The following day the group of us out for a while longer at my mom's; we joked and prayed and ate together again, then went out to my dad's. We put on skis and took the dog, Zorro, out with us. Some classic winter scenes ensued: crashing on hills, climbing on hay bales, laughing and taking pictures. Once everyone was good and cold we trudged back to my dad's double-wide rental trailer. Cheap trim clung precariously to the walls and stains accented the carpet. An ancient military-issue down sleeping bag was hung as insulation at the end of a hallway, obscuring the entryway to half of the house. So we gathered into the remaining area, sitting on mismatched furniture or slouching against the walls. This was the first time Andy had hung out with Lulu and Alyssa and the first time my dad had met any of those three. Yet the run-down rental felt like a home and the hastily formed group felt like family. My dad (Papa) pulled chocolate soy milk from amidst the modest contents of his fridge and heated it over the open flame of a gas stove. We listened to an eclectic selection of music and leafed through a book of Albert Bierstadt's incredible western art as my dad chopped a simple mix of veggies and spices into a frying pan. Given the meager supply of dishes, we put the meal on a single plate on top of a stack of books and sat in a circle on the ground. Again we prayed together and ate together, and the fanciest restaurants I've eaten at never cooked up anything as good as that stir-fry. For dessert we sampled handfuls of Ghirardelli's chocolate chips.

The evening continued and I loved how new friendships played out in a way that was so cordial, yet casual, comfortable, close. The conversation once again meandered naturally, inclusively, fluid enough to take the shape of each personality while retaining its original substance.

But you know all about that, I hope. Hence the conundrum concerning blogging about the weekend. Everything that is good when written or read or viewed is even better when lived. The details, the specifics, the topics of conversation of the weekend, were hardly important. They could have taken place in a thousand right ways. The thing that I suppose is worth mentioning is that we got out there into the unknown of new people and places and experiences and allowed things to happen in just one of those right ways. This entry is not an accurate account so much as a reminder -- a reminder to me that this is the stuff of life I find worth inhaling deeper than oxygen -- and if you agree, a reminder to us both to keep breathing deeply!

Church on Sunday

Last Sunday Alyssa, Lulu and I went to a church that was conducted in both Spanish and English. There was a nice little sermon, spoken by a woman in English and translated on the spot into Spanish by a former Spring Arbor student. Yet the sermon's message didn't affect me nearly as much as the messages sent in a few other ways.

First of all, the church (which so many Christians passionately define as a worldwide body of people in their rhetoric yet still refer to as a specific congregation or building in their day-to-day speech) met in a nondescript community building somewhere in the vicinity of downtown Jackson. We had arrived early for a 10:00 service, but the service really started at 10:15, which in Spanish is roughly translated as "10:20 or so." Two Spring Arbor students holding battered guitar cases and a young hispanic guy had already arrived, and we had to wait with them for someone to show up with the keys to the building. Once I stepped inside, I felt like there must have been some mistake and I was wandering through some outdated inner-city school instead. The primary room was bland and square and filled with the kind of chairs I remember sitting in during the 5th grade. It took me a moment to realize that I did not have to keep searching for the sanctuary: this was it. Lulu and I had just been talking about this kind of thing the day before, but I'm rather embarrassed to have been so surprised to see it actually done. While the issue at so many churches is "is a 50/50 split between God's work and building upkeep good enough?" or "do we really need to spend $50,000 to renovate the church building," the issue here was more of "do we really need a church building at all?" And come to think of it, that really didn't even seem to be an issue.

As it turned out, one of the members of the small congregation had just lost her younger brother to a heart attack, so at one point in the service she came forward so that the rest of the congregation could gather around and offer prayers. But first she asked to say a few words about her brother. She looked to be about seventy, and as she stepped forward I immediately noticed that she radiated a complete confidence that was softened with a perfect grandmotherly gentleness. In English colored with a light accent she explained that her and her younger brother were great "pals" as they grew up together. Briefly she recounted how he turned from God but she kept loving him just as much, until he again followed the Lord and did many good works throughout his life. So much joy, faith and thankfulness beamed from her that I felt like I could absorb it like sunlight and walk around for at least a couple of days with a summery spiritual complexion. When she was done talking we gathered around and several people prayed for her. I'm sure she wasn't the person in the room most in need of prayer.

Of all days, that Sunday happened to be the 18th anniversary of a peace pact signed in el Salvador to end 12 years of civil war. And of all things, one of the members of the congregation used to be an el Salvadorian soldier. As the final portion of the service, he shared his testimony.

"When you say thousands were killed," he began in Spanish, looking at the Spring Arbor guitarist who had introduced him and summarized the conflict, "it really was thousands.

It is very different to be able to say this in some theoretical sense than to have actually lived through it." I looked at the guitarist and noticed that he nodded with respect to that truth. The statement, I felt, was not directed towards him and he rightfully did not appear to take it personally. The ex-soldier continued, saying explaining that he felt he could identify with Paul's conversion from violence in the new testament. His accent was very strong and I had a much harder time understanding his Spanish than the Spanish of the native-English speaking translator. The word "guerra" (war) and a few others stuck out frequently, and I waited for the translator to piece them all together.

My busy thought process was interrupted when the man became silent. Finally I stopped considering reactions, Spanish phrases, and his biblical understanding, and caught on to the only thing worth considering. This story was worth being told because it was so powerful that silence explained it better than words. He had stopped talking because he was about to cry. Only then did I realize that this was not a man with a Sunday-school lesson or an interesting perspective. This was a hardened soldier who was so moved by a conversion that happened as long ago as I've been alive that he couldn't speak of it without being brought to tears.

He spoke a short sentence, and the translator had to lean in to make out the words.

"I gave up my M-16." He said, "And took up the bible."

"All thanks to God." He left the stage, and the service was over.

J TERM at Spring Arbor, Part III

Monday came around quickly, and I had told Lulu that Trevor and I would make her and Alyssa dinner at 6:00. At 5:30, Trevor was in the common area working on a project with a classmate and I was setting up in the kitchen. Alyssa came in and handed me a batch of their homemade tofu-like wheat substance called "seitan."

"Is there anything I can do to help?" she asked.

"Maybe just finish cutting up the orange pepper," I replied as I tossed the seitan into one frying pan and our chicken into the other.

"So I guess I know basically nothing about you," Alyssa said by way of opening up a conversation. "Like, what your major is or anything."

"Yeah, haha. Oh, right. Well my major is actually Spanish," I responded, afraid that she might know it and start speaking it.

"Oh, that was originally my minor," she said. Shoot.

"What did you change to?"

"English writing and education," she said. "It's not really what I want to do. But it'll get me through college. Are you going to study abroad soon? I'm doing the Guatemala semester next fall."

"Oh man! I almost did that one but I was too late!"

Alyssa finished with the peppers and turned to make eye contact. I wished that I didn't have to look up to make eye contact with so many girls.

"Darn! I wish you were on it.. because.. there aren't many guys in the group. Are you going to go in the spring then?"

"Well, I don't know. I actually need to find out..well.. how much is it?"

"It's only $2,000 on top of regular costs."

"Yeah.. but I mean, do those costs include the cost of housing and the meal plan? Cause that would actually end up being a lot more money that I thought." With a little pride I added, "I actually pay month by month, so I'd have to save up for that."

"How do you do that?! Do you have a regular job.. or.. what?"

"Well, I mean I admit I don't have nearly as much expense as most people." I usually don't like to brag about scholarship offers, but I also hate steering entirely clear and saying that I get to go to school for free because my mom works at Hillsdale College. So I explained both that I was offered full rides to several colleges due to my PSAT scores, but choose to attend Butler first, then transferred to Spring Arbor through the an exchange program.

"Why didn't you like Butler?"

"Well.. it was just a very secular school. I mean, that's not so bad, but just overall a lot of little things really got on my nerves. Like people smoking right outside my dorm window all the time. And everyone just wanting to party every weekend. I mean, I shouldn't say everyone; there were a lot of good people there and good aspects to the college, but it's just hard to jump in and I felt like it was even harder when only 10% of people were really onboard with the type of lifestyle I was looking for."

"Oh, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Do you like Spring Arbor? I mean, of course you're not going to like any place perfectly." She thought for a minute and changed the question altogether. "What don't you like here?"

I decided for once to just jump right in and be totally transparent. Usually I tone down my opinions because so many people just seem to be confused or critical.

"I guess, I just don't like the whole college thing in general."

"Why not?"

"Well, I've always just.. been rather adventurous and I don't see myself ever doing anything with my life that will actually require a diploma. Like right now - I'm paying for all of my college expenses by myself, and everything in my life has always worked out like that. I just like to travel and live simply and the way I want to, and not be stuck at college."

"Oh, well of course, I just want to travel and help people… and stuff, with my life," she offered.

Lulu and Trevor arrived in the kitchen. "Oh my, this looks amazing!" exclaimed Lulu.

I laughed, looking at the vegetarian creation simmering in a preliminary saute of soy sauce, brown sugar, and various spices. I decided to steer the conversation further down the road less travelled. "Reminds me of the time Trevor and I were in Canada and someone we stayed with cooked us a delicious vegetarian stir fry."

"You guys were just in Canada… like.. hanging out?" asked Alyssa.

"Yeah," said Trevor. "You know, just staying at random people's houses--" he began as I wondered if I should explain the concept of couchsurfing in more concrete terms.

"Do you couchsurf?!" exclaimed Lulu, breaking out of her quiet character.

"Oh my word!" I responded with a good deal of surprise. "You guys have heard of that? Have you couchsurfed??"

Lulu and Alyssa explained that they had couchsurfed in Toronto with a group of ten, and somewhere else with a host who had had as many as thirty people at his place at once. The conversation continued enthusiastically as the food bubbled into two fantastically aromatic dishes that we dished generously for ourselves.

At Alyssa's invitation I offered a prayer of thanks for food and fellowship, then we continued talking of adventures. "That reminds me," I said at one point, "of the time Tyler and I were hitchhiking in Canada--"

"What, you hitchhike too?!" interjected Alyssa.

"No way.. you've hitchhiked?"

"No, you just… do everything. You know what? I know of something you should really invest in. A --"

"a Hammock."

"hamm-- HOW DID YOU KNOW?!"

This was turning into a spectacularly fun conversation. I grinned widely. "You don't think I've thought of this already??"

"Well, you should think about getting one. Tell me more stories about hitchhiking."

I continued.

"Did you ever have to wait a long time?"

"Oh, yes." I said. "Definitely."

"Well, then you need one of these along with you," she suggested, waving her finger between herself and Lulu.

"Haha -- a girl?"

"A girl and a guy is the best combination for hitchhiking."

"You've researched this."

"Um.. yeah, well no offense, Lulu, but I'd rather go with a guy."

"Yes, definitely" I said. "I couldn't possibly recommend any girl to go hitchhiking. It is something to think seriously about. I don't know what the proper combination of faith and caution is."

"Oh, well I just always throw caution to the wind and it always works out fine!"

"Oh, of course! That's what I do; I just can't feel good about advocating it to other people."

"Alright. Well let me explain why we should go hitchhiking." She expounded upon the importance of doing so.

"I am trying to figure out what I want to do this summer," I mused. "But what I was really wanting to do was go down to Mexico or Central America."

Alyssa dealt me a forceful blow to the shoulder. "SHUT UP!"

I recovered with a grin.

"Would you hitchhike down there?" she asked.

"I don't know about that, considering that I've never been down there before. And busses are really cheap."

"And you could take an American bus to... a border town or something."

"Brownsville, Texas."

"No way! How do you know these things??"

"Same as you -- Google."

When we finally parted ways with the agreement that Trevor and I would meet them the next day for their turn at making dinner, everyone seemed to have been filled with more than just good food. I thought back three days previous, when I wondered how the heck one goes about meeting like-minded people. It's funny how these things work out.

J TERM at Spring Arbor, Part II

Saturday ended up being packed with fun. Madelyn, Jen, Andy and I went sledding on Mt. Beebe, and since my back was still messed up from the last time I sledded over a jump on Mt. Beebe, I went down the hill and hit the jump on my mountain bike instead. Later that day my friend my friends Nick and Renee Nestorak also invited me to come sledding at their house in our hometown of Hillsdale.

"I would really love to," I responded to Renee on Facebook, "but I promised someone I would jam with him tonight."

That someone was named Joe, a fellow Spanish major who commuted and was in my "cell" group as a fellow incoming transfer student. We hadn't been in touch much, but earlier in the week he had invited me to jam and I had hesitantly agreed. I also invited our friend Brittany, also a transfer and cell group member, and co-sufferer with me for three hours of history each morning, to join us. We were going to meet at 7:00 in my room, which was the time when open hours started -- those elusive time frames on a Christian campus when girls can be in a guy's dorm room so long as the door is open and no one so much as thinks about sitting on a bed.

At 5:15 I met Andy Hinz for a round of ping pong, which didn't end until 5:45 when I rallied from 16-20 to win the tie-breaker 22-20. Since I didn't have a meal plan, Andy, Madelyn, and Jen wanted to sneak me into the Dining Commons. Since students are allowed to take their plates of food out of the DC to eat in the cozier Cougar Den, Trevor gave me a half-finished plate so that I could walk in looking as if I had already been in once. I felt very uncomfortable with it, since I don't mind sliding one by the system but I do feel badly about sliding one by any of the very nice ladies who's job it is to swipe cards and admit students. Long story short, it didn't work, and I returned to the Cougar Den. Andy and Madelyn were already in the DC, but Jen politely sat with me in the Cougar Den as I finished Trevor's almond chicken, then went in to get me some more. I wanted to find some wonderfully pleasant thing to start a great conversation about, but my attempts continued to flop because the only thing that was really on my mind was my uncertainty of direction in life. Finally I just brought that topic up. Jen listened thoughtfully and asked a few questions where appropriate, until the conversation meandered into topics that she wanted to talk about as well. By the time we were done talking, I realized that it was five after seven and I raced back to U-hall, hoping that the clocks were five minutes fast and I would be able to meet Joe on time for our 7:00 jam session.

Joe was in the lobby studying, and when I came in we both texted Brittany and headed to my room. He was rather awed by Tyler's Marshall half-stack that was "just chillin'" in the corner, so I invited him to try it out as I plugged my Fender Strat into my 15 watt Peavey. Once Brittany walked in I was working out a lead part for a moderate pop-rock tune with Christian lyrics that were hard to hear over the amplifiers. So far I was pleasantly surprised. Just because someone has recorded music doesn't mean they are any good, but I assumed that this was an original and as such it was as good as most. I anticipated the next couple changes and brought the melody back to the root before jumping up and pulling up a chair for Brittany. Joe turned back the distortion and strummed out a pretty little progression, so I sat back down and did my best to add an expressive melodic line. We built the song from thoughtful to triumphant, then brought it back around for a unified resolution.

"Hey hey," I said, meeting Joe's grin. "That's my new favorite." Joe cranked the Marshall back up and the room was drenched with heavy distortion. I turned the dials on the little Peavey until each note I played seared with electricity.

"IS THIS TOO LOUD?!?" I yelled to Brittany.

"WHAT?!?"

"IS IT TOO LOUD?!?!?"

"YOU'RE FINE!!"

With the amp maxed out I could manipulate any given note until it melted into turbulent stream of scorching overtones, or run my fingers over the frets like an adrenaline-laden tourist sprinting across a bed of coals. I searched unfamiliar territory on the guitar neck, finding some surprises and meeting them with enthusiastic intuitions as Joe raced through an exciting barre chord progression in C major. For the grand finale I shredded out 64th notes as Joe grabbed a chord form at the bottom of the neck and brought it upward across every single fret, then pulled his pick across the guitar strings like a thousand nails hitting an amplified chalkboard.

"That's my new favorite," I said, quickly turning back the distortion and looking sheepishly at Brittany, who laughed heartily.

Joe and I continued to play for another hour. At the height of our creativity, I spontaneously emulated his rhythm guitar with a simpler double-time riff, and he took the opportunity to improvise a new, complimentary rhythm part with barre chords sliding and shifting but somehow always resolving.

"I LOVE THAT RIGHT NOW YOU'RE IMPROVISING OVER HIS IMPROVISATION," Brittany yelled. Joe once again slid a barre chord slowly up the entire neck and slashed his pick obnoxiously across the strings.

"IT'S THE ONLY WORTHWHILE WAY OF ENDING A SONG!!!" I yelled to Brittany, and Joe launched into another song filled with hammer-ons and pull-offs.

There are only so many strings on the guitar, but somehow Joe managed to grab extraneous notes on top of his barre chords that encouraged and directed my surprisingly successful forays into unknown scale structures.

"Ok, one more song," Joe finally said.

"Let's make it another pretty one," I said. My heightened musical intuition had been dwindling and I felt more like a tourist who had lost his adrenaline rush and continued to stumble painfully through the remainder of coals.

The last song came to a close quite literally on a good note, and Brittany insisted that we should play at an open mic night. I really wanted to -- not only because I like girls and girls like guitarists, but because this was exactly the kind of thing I wasn't doing to make my college experience worthwhile. Thank goodness Joe was persistent in getting ahold of me.

"Joe, I really enjoyed this, and I would love to get together again soon to do some more jamming."

"Thank you, good sir. I'll be in touch."

J-TERM at Spring Arbor, Part I

Friday, January 7th, 2011. A massive time warp had just occurred, causing the first hour of my American History class to last nearly 18 months. I wasn't sure exactly what had caused the time warp in the first place, but I felt certain it was likely to occur again in the second and third hours of the class, and I wouldn't leave the building until sometime in mid-summer of 2015. My course of action was clear. As soon as we were released for a ten minute break I strode towards the stairs, kicking my way through a cluster of obligations that lingered obnoxiously en-route. I arrived on the second floor and sucker punched several cultural expectations before shouldering through a window with my course schedule hot on my tail. Shards of glass exploded on the sidewalk as I aimed for a small patch of grass, landing in a clean shoulder roll, seizing the course schedule and using it to deflect heavy verbal fire from the Establishment. By the time the smoke cleared, the schedule lie broken on the ground in a pool of ink and I was sprinting through the distant freshman parking lot, my blood coursing hot through my veins even as each deep breath crystalized in the winter air and was left behind me as vaporous evidence of my passing. My feet carried me as if they possessed the wings of Mercury, and-

"Jimmy."

"..I… what's up?" My friend Brittany had arrived and clearly wanted to share some urgent information.

"I think everyone is heading back into class now."

"Cla… oh! Right. Class." I summoned my cheesiest grin. "Just two more hours, right?"

The remaining two hours of class did indeed last approximately three years, but no one else seemed to notice and the clocks around campus neglected to record the discrepancy. Remarkably, my iPod touch had enough battery power to survive the elongated class period. "Humans were not intended to endure three hours of lecture about history. Back in the good ol' days before history, all we had to do was battle Mastodons and discover fire," I posted to my Facebook status.

When I left class, my iPod had also failed to account for the time warp and stated that it was still only 11:30 am on the same Friday. I got back to my room and struggled with the idea of sleeping for the remainder of J-term. Finally I managed to take off my socks and shoes, replace my t-shirt with a different one, and wander into the weight room downstairs. I placed a 25 pound dumbbell under the chin-up bar and stood motionless. After a few minutes of mental struggle, I grabbed the bar with my hands and the dumbbell with my feet and spent a few seconds in the physical struggle of actually doing chin-ups. That process was repeated three times, and after about ten minutes in the weight room I racked up and walked out the door feeling much more in touch with my neanderthal roots.

"Good work out today," I complimented myself. For the final portion of my morning routine, I got into the shower, letting the hot water envelop me and entering into a state of comatose.

By the time I got out of the shower, 1:00 pm felt like the dawn of a new day. I set about making myself breakfast and attempting to fill my day with things that seemed worthwhile. I played some guitar and studied some Spanish notecards; hung out with Trevor and helped him run lines for his play. All the while, some of my time was spent studying the perennial problem that always arises at every transition to a new semester -- is this really what I should be doing?

"man, nearly $2,000…" I thought. That's what I would have if I dropped out of college, took the money, and ran. "Wait, wait, I've gotta consider," I cautioned myself, "if I use that to pay off the second semester right now… I could probably save up nearly as much again by summer. And then I wouldn't be burning any bridges."

Another, fainter but truer voice added, "No matter where you go, you have the opportunity to make the best or worst of it. Of course you're not going to enjoy college if you always spend it daydreaming about being somewhere else."

"But it's so hard! I need some people who can be on the same page with me. Of course there's gotta be likeminded people at this college, but how the heck am I supposed to to find them?"

"The only time I tend to get to know new people is through having class together," I noted, deciding to be optimistic about the second semester of classes coming up once I survived the accelerated J-term. I looked back on past experiences in life, noting that whenever I stuck something out for long enough, things tended to fall into place just when it seemed most unlikely.

Alright, let's do this. I texted my friend Jazmine, who had taken my old macbook home over break so that her brother could instal Snow Leopard on it for a $30 fee. I figured that, with the new OS X installed, I could sell it on eBay for close to $400 and be that much closer to paying off the second semester.

"Can I come trade you $30 for my computer sometime soon?" I texted Jazmine.

"Of course! Lemme know when and where."

"How about that common area where I met you last time in about 5 minutes?"

"The basement lounge?"

"Yeah -- that's the one."

"K!"

In five minutes I arrived in the girl's dorm, Muffit, and tramped downstairs.

"Hey, you're cooking your own food!" I exclaimed to a girl named Lulu who had been in my World Views class, and another girl who was with her.

"Yeah," said Lulu.

"I know, no one does - right?" added her friend as if jumping back into a conversation with her own brother.

"Actually, my friends and I are famous for it over in Mainey," I replied with a grin.

"Really? Well we should totally cook together!"

"Alright, definitely. Is this tofu you're using?"

"It's similar," said Lulu.

"It's mostly wheat," her friend added. "I just made it. We're going vegan for J-term."

"Oh, so basically as a sort of fast??" I asked with interest.

"Yeah! Well, kinda. It's just something we decided to do and it worked out like that."

Jazmine appeared with the computer and I wrapped up the conversation.

"I.. don't have either of you on Facebook, right?" They responded in the negatory.

"Lulu, I'm sorry, but I don't even remember your real name since I always call you Lulu."

"That's alright; I like when people call me Lulu," she replied. "That's even how I have it on Facebook."

"I'm so glad you admitted that!" said her friend, "cause it happens to everyone and they pretend they remember her name. By the way I don't think we know each other."

"Oh thank goodness! I was afraid I was supposed to know you from somewhere!"

"Oh - yeah, I thought you two must have known each other too," Lulu added.

"No. My name's Alyssa. So add Lulu on Facebook and then find me, and we'll make dinner together! This is going to be so fun!"