my mysterious blog

you were the gift that i had always wanted, how did you know?

2007-11-07T22:42:00.000-08:00

the other day, while cleaning my room (which hadn't been touched in over a week, and i was running out of matching socks), i happened to actually listen to the lyrics of a certain denison witmer song that i had heard over and over again without grasping what it was about.
i have been listening to christmas music for three weeks now, because i fear that i am not going to be able to wallow in the season as i normally do. i am in love with christmas time, because it is the only time that stores combine the colors red and teal, and eggnog smells so good, and because songs about christ actually play on the radio and i can't help but think that subconsciously the world starts to get an idea of the liberation that is found in him.

anyways, the song talked about how jesus was the gift that he (the singer) had always wanted. and it physically stopped me for, and i had to sit on the floor for half and hour, because it was so true. i always think i want so many things, all the time. ask anyone, especially krispin. i want food, or coffee, or sleep, or danielle time or avocados or assertiveness or a better shaped nose or shoes that help define my arch or. . . .

but when i stopped to think about it, christ really is the gift that i have always wanted. and he is already here.

how did he know?

earthquakes and snakes and killer bees

2007-10-20T16:59:00.000-07:00

what a week.
my cat died, in front of my own eyes on my bed. it was extremely traumatic and i starting sobbing right away. clifford was my wonderful cat for 12 years, the longest we strannigans have ever kept a pet around. i hear him meowing at night now. he wasn't even sick, and i didn't see it coming.
and then there is the weather, so monsoon-y and crazy. a tree got knocked into our yard. and then, last night, there was a waterfall inside of our house.
my parents had to redo our roof (it was ancient) but the roofers didn't cover up well enough during a rainstorm and as a result ruined a bunch of the ceilings in our house. they tore down a bunch of dry wall the other day and inbetween our living room and the kitchen you can see right into the attic, wood beams and everything. well, i guess they didn't put the roof on so well again because last night, while krispin, candyce and i were watching monsoon wedding and eating chinese food, we heard the sound of rushing water inside our house. we looked over and there was a huge stream of water pouring onto the floor. we desperately grabbed pots and towels, and eventually the water stopped. this happened twice last night. my poor parents. they are on a cruise right now, and i had to call and tell them the bad news.
i think i found a hobo spider in our house.
and then there was work today, full of early hours and new people to train and mean mean ladies who yelled at me on the phone for things that were not my fault.
thanks for reading this. i just sortof needed to complain for a little bit.

socialista

2007-09-10T08:20:00.001-07:00

so i got this eye crud and it randomly makes different parts of my eyelid swell up and hurt really bad and itch like crazy and i look like a deranged pirate, especially when i put the medicine on, which causes krispin to call me "ol' greazy eye".
school started and i am busy busy busy not yet actually doing schoolwork but realizing the enormity of my bible and theology classes, and how little i understand social life at multnomah. i realized the other day that i am not a socialite, and that is ok.
because there are bigger things in my life right now, co-workers going through crisis and moving away, a fiance with a new house with walls to paint, a mom who i already missed although i've not moved out yet, sisters just back from africa with insane stories to tell (i love new sudan!), and last but not least, my somali family is learning to grieve in america.
hassan died a week ago today, in his sleep at the hospital. i am grateful to god because he allowed me one last great interaction with hassan, which involved him sitting on the bed in his hospital gown, reading me the first story he had ever written (he was learning to read and write in somali for the first time at age 50), gesturing wildly and peering intently at the large, childlike letters that he himself had written.
the story was about jenny and i, and how we asked hassan questions about his life. the questions were simple, like: "what is africa?" and "how you come [to america]?". and the rest of the story was him answering us.
i was so honored to be a part of his first story. and honored that i got to have that experience with him
now majuma has to find a job in the next couple of weeks because they lived off of hassan's ssi checks, which they were forced to return for the month of september.
the girls started school two days after their father had died.
i am now so busy between school and working full time that i now have to schedule in my visits with the somali's, which makes them feel sad.

no wonder i don't have time to be a socialite.

but today i have a real day off, and i think i am going to go to the zoo. oh, and run a lot of errands.
and be grateful for the time that we have.

a bit of silliness, really.

2007-08-21T08:48:00.000-07:00

and the world keeps turnin' round and round

2007-08-04T09:16:00.000-07:00

well, it has been over two months since i've blogged, and there are many reasons for that:
1. this blog is no longer mysterious
2. i haven't had a lot of free time available
3. i haven't felt emotionally isolated in a long time.

so, that's that.
and then i woke up today in a large, nicely furnished house in the suburbs, cold and all alone. the air is thick with moisture, and makes you feel groggy when you wake up. it reminds me of being on family vacations in seattle when i was a kid. the fog of the northwest was amazing to me, something special to look forward to. now, it just makes me feel wistful, and reminds me when i had long blonde braids and i was so utterly self-confident in who i was. i knew that i was a child of god, just like i knew that there was nothing better then reading a good story or sitting quietly and getting lost in the conversation of the adults.

august is here, with school bills and pressing deadlines (oh man, i am getting married, which requires a wedding to take place).

the summer went by like juneandjuly, all close together and seamless, one day after the next. busy, rewarding, strangely relaxing. last summer was the pirate summer, me and my younger sister at war with ourselves and the comfortableness of clackamas. this summer is the mayfield summer, where i learned that when you love somebody, you get a whole second family in the bargain. i told krispin yesterday that i felt like i had grown leaps and bounds. i used to be that little braided blonde girl, so content to be alone, happy and undisturbed. and then i met krispin, and my world expanded into the 30 plus mayfield relatives and the whole town of roseburg, and i realized that i am not alone any more. its highly uncomfortable, but worth every awkward encounter.

today part of me wishes that i was eleven again, and that i really had woken up at my cousins house in seattle, where i would drink orange juice, go wherever my family went, and be content to stare out the window, listening to my sisters chatter. but i know that i here now, and i will be heading downtown soon, ready to engage and keep my eyes wide open. i have had to learn to that the world is so much bigger than myself.

huckleberry merriweather strannigan-mayfield, aged 6 weeks and 1 day.

2007-05-27T13:07:00.000-07:00

tell me more, tell me more

2007-05-26T13:44:00.000-07:00

well, i did it.
i think i was prophetic in my last post. i had planned on rescuing a kitten from a garage sale when my parents went to alaska for 3 weeks this summer, but the plan was put into place much earlier. two nights ago i had a dream that i got two kittens and a mother cat who was white with black and brown spots and who turned into a sailboat and sailed away. when i woke up, my mom called me and told me that she was at a garage sale and that there was one kitten left that needed a good home. i woke up krispin and we went and got our new gray-striped love kitten, Huckleberry.
she is my new favorite.

in other news, summer is here, complete with too many hours spent at starbucks and the ability to read and devour literature.

here are some lists.

books i have read thus far (summer 2007)
Persuasion --Jane Austen
O Pioneers!--Willa Cather

books i am in the midst of (and aim to finish)
One Hundred Years of Solitude--Gabriel Garcia Marquez
East of Eden--John Steinbeck
The Fortress of Solitude--Jonatham Lethem
Everything is Illuminated--Jonathon Safron Foer
The Book of Exodus

books i have every intention of reading
The Heavenly Man--Brother Yun
Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossions
Something by somebody russian.

that's it. it's summer time, i am in a brightly lit room with a bundle of fuzz and my sister is on her way over. we are going to see pirates of the caribbean. booyah.

please come shine on me

2007-05-16T08:55:00.000-07:00

some developments. recent ones.

school ended without much fanfare and with the usual melancholy feeling in the pit of my stomach. i turned in papers in which i didn't fully digest anything and yet will still get an A. i took some finals, and for the first time discovered what it is like to look at a page full of questions and not know an answer to any of them (Revelation and Botany). i talked to people in both the student ministries department and financial aid, and was reduced to tears by the end of it all.

i was angry, exhausted, disappointed, and yet relieved. it was over. and luckily i know that i am always taken care of in the long run.

so yesterday i celebrated the end of everything. my co-workers have long complained that i am never around to hang out with, which is quite true. i haven't been anywhere but everywhere for the past several months, and my spirit has suffered for it. i feel an emptiness at the thought of hours to myself, of free time not consumed with work--good strong work, that makes me feel as if i am doing something worthwhile. it always takes me awhile to transition back into stillness with christ. right now i still feel slightly anxious. but we have been reading exodus together, just for fun, at night when it is still warm enough for me to leave the window open right by my bed. and he is there. in my room, in the book of exodus, in my life.

hanging out with co-workers was frightening for me and my social anxiety, but i got through. one vodka tonic, one order of potato pancakes, 5 formerly work acquaintances only, and one amazing haircut later, i realized that summer truly is an organic thing. you wait around long enough, and you make things happen. i look forward to seeing what is going to happen.

my love is not leaving for china, there are kittens to be rescued from garage sales, there are possessions to be gotten rid of, there are days to sleep in past 9, there are cut-offs to be made, there are people to pour into, people to question and challenge and hear and love.

also, there are folk bands to be formed.

they'll be shouting on the hills of glory, shouting on the hills of god

2007-05-05T09:55:00.000-07:00

so i lost my car, my phone, and my financial aid from multnomah in the space of ten days.
it was a rough week.
but, here are the good news:

1. my parents are giving me a car! yeah, it is a lovely and comfortable camry, very suburban and work casual, complete with several scratches that i put on it several years ago. i am so excited and overwhelmed.

2. somebody found my phone! i lost it at mt. tabor, and although it has taken a week, i talked to a girl yesterday who found it. so i should be getting it today. what a weird world.

3. tearing up in the financial aid office does a little bit of good, evidently. when they told me they had cut my aid by over 2/3's, i was at a loss. i refuse to go into debt. i refuse to believe that they did this on purpose knowing that this was my last semester at multnomah.
frankly, i was just upset at the entire institution.
but i got an e-mail yesterday saying that they were just going to go ahead and give me some more money. it's not as much as i was getting, but still . . . it's something.

there you go. i've been taken care of again.

other things:
i got my little promotion at work, krispin bought me roses, i don't have to work or go to school today, there is folk music on right now (thank you KBOO on saturday mornings! i love you!), and this semester will soon be something i laugh about as:
"well, that was a rough time, wasn't it? man, i'm sure glad that's over. mmmm, yeah.
life lessons learned."

a moment of silence

2007-04-19T20:50:00.000-07:00

these are times of extremes, times of remorse and ruination. let me explain.

i destroyed gladys, my faithful car. she was named after the wonderful, life-giving missionary in china who rescuded thousands of orphans from the hands of japanese soldiers. like her namesake, gladys the car was frugal and plain to look at, with an engine of gold. i loved that car. two of my friends got into accidents in that car, and i myself got in one. i loved not worrying about it; gladys was ugly to begin with, and nothing could destroy her.
nothing, i guess, but me.
i forgot to put oil in her. i wish i was kidding, but i thought the orange flashing sign meant that i should go to jiffy lube soon to get oil. a simple mistake killed the one car who treated me right.
last night me and krispin felt gladys a shutterin' and a shakin' on the I-84. i prayed over her, but gladys only made it to the foster road exit. she died right outside the new copper penny at 11:03 on a wednesday night. it was the first time i ever had to call my dad in the middle of the night to come pick me up, and he was gracious as usual. i was extremely grateful for krispin and his being male, because no girl ever wants to be stranded on foster and 82 at night.
today, i realized what life is like without a car: stressful. i drove my mom to work, took krispin back to school, met with my professor to make sure i wasn't failing my ethics class, got some coffee to calm my nerves, and drove to gladys to meet the tow truck driver.
he was very nice, with shorts and white socks and black tennis shoes. he had on a large oversized shirt that said "Sith happens", complete with a picture of the dark lord.
i followed him to the auto shop, paid up, and went to pick up my dad at his office. on the way, the shop called me and told me that gladys was gone for good.
i walked into my dad's office feeling like i was 16 years old, and as soon as i saw him i burst into tears. i sobbed out my story and he reacted as he always does when confronted with one of the extremely emotional strannigan women: he took me out to lunch and we discussed my new plan of action. i forget that my dad never, ever gets mad in situations like these. and it always reminds me of how poorly i understand grace.
krispin commondered a car and came out to clackamas for moral support. and we proceeded to have the best afternoon. i took care of everything with the auto shop and got my car ready to be taken by the wrecking company. we ripped up the dashboard, which was fun, and then went back to my house for 3 episodes of the office, tacos, and sitting in my room in the friscallating dusklight.

i feel strangely taken care of. i don't know why it feels so strange. maybe i am just realizing after all how not in control of my life i am. it feels good.
well, pretty good. i still am poor as it is possible to be in my demographic.

love, actually

2007-04-17T20:59:00.000-07:00

tomorrow is wednesday, my somali day, and i am dreading it.
things are happening, change is in the air, and i don't like the way it makes me feel. i am beginning to become a little bit afraid of everything.
it is that fear that is more like a nag, a quiet little thought that is firm and gray as cement and that lodges itself it for the long haul. luckily, i am busy all of the time and rarely have to confront my cement thoughts, but they have started to pile up and i can't escape it any longer.
i fear comittment, i fear dissapointing people, i fear i have no traits of character, i fear that i talk to much, i fear that people are bored with me, i fear not being taken care of, i fear money in all of it's forms, i fear pointless responsibility, i fear not being nice, i fear people not liking me, i fear not listening to christ ever.
i think the last one is the one i need to worry about the most, judging by my list.
last week halima didn't want to hang out with me. she went and did homework with other kids and volunteers instead. i was crushed. the other two girls hung out with me in the apartment and told me all of the nasty things that other kids had been saying about me.
this too, was crushing. before, i had been untouchable, "danielle the volunteer" a friend and somewhat minimal presence in the lives of most of the kids at kateri. but now, it is okay to say that they hate me, that i am mean, that i am a christian (in a nasty way), that my morals are not pure. it felt like a little death. my reputation had been killed.
"well," i said, sighing when the girls told me, "what did you say to these kids that were talking about me?"
"oh," said nadifa, "we say, 'danielle is not like that, she is not that way'".
"thanks," i said. "thanks for saying that. because it is not true. i am not that way."

i know that this is spiritual battle, hands down. i stumbled upon a shady koran school at the complex and shared the easter story in the space of a few weeks. i'm not stupid. i knew there would be some recompense.

and here it is, i guess. i am here, living in my fear, befriending people who increasingly don't want to be my friend. i love them so much that it feels like i am losing some of my closest friends, and it's true. i see those girls more often than i see many of my friends.
but i can't shut down. i can't be cemented like this, in these thoughts. i will cling to this love that i have, the love that is somewhat poorly mirrored on what i have recieved from christ.

i'm crying right now, but i am taking it as a good sign.

thursday is my birthday, i hope that they will show

2007-03-14T14:14:00.000-07:00

well, my birthday was a couple of days ago. usually it is a time of reflection for me, a time of thinking about where i have been and where i am going. this birthday, however, i did none of that. i was busy all morning, alone in a swirl of traffic, homework, class, and working at the library. and then there were friends and davids bridal (bridesmaid) dresses to deal with. and more driving. and then there was a very fun birthday party with chuck e cheese and i felt alternately extremely young (i rocked the ddr) and extremely old (i am now 23 and engaged to some one 3 years my junior). thankfully, my family prayed over me, which was wonderful.
but i never once sat down with christ to talk to him.
today i woke up more stressed than ever about school and my procrastinatin' ways. but in spite of all of that, i knew knew knew that i had to be alone with the lord.
so i did. it didn't fix all of my problems; in fact, i still have loads of stuff to do. i'm still selfish and i eat too much food and i let resentment gnaw at my bones and if left to my own devices i would sleep all the day long . . . but that's ok. i am more than the sum of my flaws.
i am a believer, and i have been asked to persevere to the end.

sorry if this all sounds so preachy. this is what happens when you mix real life with bible college. i feel so conflicted but there is the river of truth that runs underneath everything.
and for that, i am grateful.

af maay maay interpretation

2007-03-07T21:07:00.000-08:00

we were driving along, three beautiful brown girls and one pasty white 20-something, enjoying the mid-afternoon early spring sun.
halima and nadifa were chattering away in their gorgeous yet intelligible language when i interrupted to make them share with me what they were saying. "oh", said halima. "i was just telling her, remember when we lived at 122nd? and we didn't know danielle?" "oh yeah," i said. "i remember when i met you.""yeah," she said. "now we friends." and she turned and stared dreamily out the window.
that pretty much made my day.

ransom

2007-02-19T21:36:00.000-08:00

here are a couple of things i have been thinking about tonight, as i sit bored out of my mind in the john g. mitchell library during missions conference week. 4 hours down, and 1 to go:

1. beware of taking somali children to see a movie in a movie theater. jenni and i took our families (along with her sister and krispin) and it was a bust. we saw charlotte's web (great book, terrible movie), which the kids hated. abdulihi fell asleep. everybody got grossed out by charlotte the spider. and the kids were . . . bored. come to find out that their brother/uncle/cousin (i never quite know) had gotten an illegal copy of the movie from the asian market and they had seen it already. i also forget that these kids aren't exactly children either; at one point during the movie maryan pointed at the two crows onscreen and informed me that "those are the birds that eat the dead people", referencing her life in africa.

2. beware of american weddings. i know, i know, i have 10 months. but the way people have been treating me, it's like i have 10 days. here is what i don't want:
a. no stuffy wedding-ness.
b. no monogrammed napkins.
c. no extravagant waste of money.

here is what i do want:
a. missionary wedding!
this means the color scheme is that of a globe (brown, green, and blue), i want to buy everything second hand (from the dress to the decorations), i don't want to register anywhere for gifts, and i think it should be held in an old church with orange pews with a potluck reception containing deviled eggs, cocktail weiners, jello-salad (green, natch), and cupcakes instead of the traditional stuff.
give me suggestions, people.

3. beware of literal interpretations of books of prophecy. the book of revelation is crazy. i feel like i am in a bad sci-fi movie when i try and envision all of the things it is talking about. so i try not to, because i don't think that's what the original author intended. but still. what the heck does it all mean? i'm reading matthew as a counter-balance, and i am finding comfort in the sermon on the mount.
actually, i am just trying to find comfort in christ. period.

you remind me of home.

2007-02-07T15:48:00.000-08:00

the engagement story.

two weeks ago, as we were casually hanging out, krispin announced that he had been doing some thinking. "there are two things," he said. "one, i think we should be in a band together." i agreed. "and two, i think we should get married. in december." i agreed to that as well. it was all very low-key and danielle and krispin-like. the next day he asked my parents, and they were thrilled to the bone.
now, both krispin and i are the epitome of poor bible college students, and i have never been a traditionalist. i absolutely did not want krispin breaking his back to get me a diamond ring that i would most likely lose on the mission field. and so, we talked to my mom and she produced my great-grandmother's engagement ring, a beautifully simple gold band with single pearl.
then, all krispin had to do was figure out a way to surprise me.
last week was extremely busy for both krispin and i, in fact, i hardly saw him. on saturday, we had made plans to hang out after i got off of work. krispin had told me that his friend jacob was coming in from out of town, and that we were going to go hang out in downtown portland with him. i was a little bummed that my one afternoon with krispin was going to be shared with jacob, but i was excited about seeing him regardless.
after i got off work and drove home, i noticed a note taped to the back door that showed a boy holding hands with a girl who had a house for a head. i was extremely confused. the only person who wrote me strange little notes was krispin, and i was supposed to pick him up at multnomah in an hour. i walked inside my house to find a table set with ornate chinese place settings, complete with a heart made out of red chili peppers. krispin was in the process of cooking a gourmet chinese meal (from scratch, using authentic ingredients from the local asian grocery store). as soon as he saw me, he proposed. he was extremely nervous, which i thought was cute.
basically, he explained the note like this:
"i've lived in a lot of places, and i'm going to live in a lot more places, but you are home to me."
and, if you can't already tell, i said yes.

my three favorite things right now:
dark chocolate
matthew chapters 5-7
being engaged to krispin.

goodbye mom hair

2007-01-31T08:46:00.000-08:00

hello danielle hair.

i ate it, and i loved every bite.

2007-01-24T20:42:00.000-08:00

i had a couple of firsts today: my first p.e. class ever, and my first middle school science fair ever.
i know, both of these would logically be experienced in middle school, but i was homeschooled.
so here i am now, taking woman's weight training at multnomah, and acting like i am the surrogate mom to halima, an 8th grader.
the science fair especially was so weird. first of all, all of the exhibits were horrendously ugly, but not as ugly as the ones the esl kids made. i felt so bad for them. they obviously had no idea what they were doing. all of the esl kids (around 20) were placed into groups of three and did experiments with "exercise and heart rate". the kids were supposed to stand in front of their booth and explain their project to the passing judges. it was painful to watch halima and osman struggle their way through a simple explanation. i don't think they had a clue what they were doing.
halima introduced me to her teacher, a very nice woman (the kind of person who dedicates their life to children and who doesn't color her hair or wear make-up and who drape shawls around her shoulders instead of wearing a coat) and she told me that it was mandatory by state law that all of the kids enter a science project, and so the esl kids were told that they just had to struggle their way through.

there were jr. highers running around everywhere, and the gym was hot and sweaty. i stood next to halima and osman's project and tried not to look too out of place. it must have worked, for one judge asked me to tell him about my project. i politely deferred to the real middle schooler and snuck off to stand by the bleachers and observe kids. it was terrifying. all of the girls are mature physically, with breasts and hips and blow-dried hair and eye-liner and sassy tight t-shirts, but the boys all look like they are ten years old and incapable of any real conversation. thus, the attempts at flirting are somewhat painful to watch. girls at this age seem to be starting to realize the full grasp of their physical powers, and the boys are doing everything they can not to care. my favorites were the 6th grade boys, who actually don't care yet, and who are still consumed with things like science and dirt bikes and anything that makes weird noises.
some girls, make-up applied and t-shirts snug, walked past halima, who was strikingly beautiful with her head covering and her wide, perfect brown face. "hi", she called out loudly and abruptly, as she is want to do. the girls turned and stared. they were silent for a couple of seconds. "oh. hi." and then they walked off. halima turned to me. "they my friends," she said, still blissfully unaware of the crueler realities of american jr. high.
i was both incredibly sad and happy for halima, and for all of the somali bantu.
but i know she will make it. and i am so glad i get to have these experiences every week. tonight i ate a banana for the first time since i was 8. i hate banana's. but when an earnest african child gives you one of her favorite foods to eat, what else are you going to do?
i ate it, and i loved every bite.
a good metaphor for my life right now.

i love my sister

2007-01-12T15:12:00.000-08:00

hey hey i made a cake for my sister's 21st birthday. laura helped. she is the one who drew the picture. she can't stop writing the word "love".
i started school today, i don't think i will be a stress case this time around, however. the bible is the living word.

the obligatory january blog

2007-01-02T16:49:00.000-08:00

well, it's 2007. i had the lamest new year's eve. i don't think that 2007 is going to be lame, however.
it's the year of living missionally, of a gospel-centered life, of purposeful walking, yellow clothes, crocheted mittens, remembering guitar chords, of not letting fear crawl inside and live.

happy new year.

did you know you would be my savior?

2006-12-30T09:38:00.000-08:00

well, i know i've been lame. don't remind me. enough with your snarky little comments, krispin, i haven't seen you blogging very much either. the days are too full, literally and figuratively, and i just want to nap with all of my family surrounding me.
christmas was wonderful this year.
my family are fantastic, and i loved all of the strays that came our way this year. krispin has been staying at my house, which is fun for all of us and a bit overwhelming for him (he described me and my two sisters as "vain". he just doesn't understand the joys of talking about one's appearence). and then dave came over for christmas day and it was like he was an honorary strannigan. and then we went to the somali's apartment and majuma looked happy, really happy, for maybe two seconds. and i was thrilled to my bones, and it was as every christmas should be. i was blessed unbelievably by my parents, and then we were all able to bless others.
my sisters are leaving soon and the sadness is starting to come.
but life moves on, christmas the day came and went, and i still know why the day means so much to me.
i am free, i am redeemed.
merry christmas ya'll.

the way i feel inside.

2006-12-12T13:06:00.000-08:00

this has been one of the worst weeks in my life.
i hope that in retrospect it turns out to be the beginning of some of the best.

"i" said the sheep, with curly wool.

2006-12-06T22:23:00.000-08:00

i changed my blog for christmas because i'm so excited the season is here but i'm too busy to celebrate it in any other way right now. i have to come up with the philosophy of philemon, read I and II kings, I and II chronicles, ezra, nehemiah, and esther by friday, write a 25 page paper over the weekend, study for 4 different finals, and manage not to disappoint any friends/family/signifigant others in the process.
but my life's not that bad.
today i studied, got frustrated in class, went for a lovely walk in the lovely air with a lovely boy, studied more, got less frustrated in class, and then i went to little somalia. hassan was in the hospital again, so i took majuma, mohammed, and jama to visit him. we wandered around providence, me leading a group of elderly african muslims through a very catholic hospital. finally, we found him, crumpled up in a little bed. majuma had cooked and brought hassan food and she held his skinny wrist in her hand and didn't say anything. jama and hassan had a very long conversation, and i didn't catch a word of it. when i pressed, they just told me that he was "good".

it was one of the highlights of my week. don't ask me to put words to it.
the hospital was all decorated for christmas, and was very beautiful. i felt wonderful looking at all of the lights, and very fragile.

it's christmas! that means sisters and muppets and hot chocolate and time to read books but it also means being clear-eyed and purposeful, remembering to live each day in the light that this is all a shadow. this sounds much more imposing than i want it to. i can't help it. i feel free.

are you a sleeper?

2006-11-15T21:35:00.000-08:00

its so windy that little gladys shakes and shudders and i can't help but get a thrill when i see the yellow leaves in a brown whirlwind whipping by my face but i hate my hair and when will it be long enough so that little pieces won't fly and hit me in my mouth and why is it the only time i stop to be grateful these days is when nature hits me hard enough to stumble, and i have to say thanks to christ.
it's been a glorious fall.
the charlie brown thanksgiving special was lame, and i think all little kids know it. the book of first peter is amazing and convicting. people are extremely troubled and hopeful, usually at the same time. i don't know what to say anymore. i'm trying to change the way i think these days.
bring on thankfulness! bring on christmas music! bring on family! bring on well-written 20 page papers, somali day at chuck e' cheese, boyfriends who write poetry, clean bedroom floors, and real communion with god!

i just got tired all of the sudden. in a good way.

break it down

2006-11-08T10:09:00.000-08:00

i'm having a slight breakdown today . . . i called in sick to school and instead i slept in and i am reading in john and later on i am going to read the books of psalms/job/proverbs and i am going to pray a lot and look out the window and drink coffee and miss my sisters and i am also going to enjoy not going to school. i have been doing so good all semester . . . barely even a hint of cynicism at the institution known as multnomah school of the bible. but then yesterday happened, which is a long, boring story, and i wanted to quit. that instant. i hated the school, the required classes, the lack of professors who i learn from, the amount it costs me (financially and emotionally) to go there, the countless non-credit commitments i have to make (chapel 3 days a week, student ministries lab), and the fact that i have to go for 2 more semesters.
most of all, i hate feeling trapped.

i think i must be part gypsy. yesterday somebody asked me why i so badly wanted to be a missionary. he said: "are you running away from something? how do you know that you won't get overseas and discover that you can't run away from yourself?"
this only made me think for a couple of seconds. i know i can't run away from myself, just like i can't run away from my fundamentalist evangelical consumerist charismatic conservative form of christianity. but that's ok.
every time i go to another country, my view of christ and who he is broadens. the american church doesn't have it nailed down. neither does the indian church, or the croatian, or the turkish. we need each other to make sure we are not coming imbalanced. i guess maybe i need to see my time at multnomah as a chance to confront my own imbalances while i have the opportunity.

people are wrong. everybody told me that multnomah can suck you dry, take away your passion for christ and for the bible.

but i've never been more hungry for the bible in my life. it feels like a new book all over again. it is fantastic literature, what hemingway and steinbeck and salinger tried to write but failed miserable. it makes me think for hours. it puts my life into perspective. it is confusing, terrible, and beautiful. it reminds me of how dim my view of christ is. and i get happy, because i know he is so much brighter.

i need good friends and free time and family, and i need to not worry about the future or money or cars breaking down.

most of all, i just needed a morning off.

"mordecai".

2006-10-26T23:26:00.000-07:00

i am sitting on my bed, looking at a picture of a hawk named mordecai, feeling ecstatic at several things:
1. i evangelized tonight. in a non-smary, totally holy-spirited initiated and implemented way.
2. i just aced a test i was pretty nervous about.
3. i really, really like krispin.
4. i am going out to breakfast with my mom tomorow!
5. and it's liturgical chapel tomorrow as well!
6. AND FALL! OH MY GOSH IT REALLY IS FALL, ISN'T IT? I COULD JUST HUG SOMEBODY EVERY TIME I COME IN MY BACKYARD AND SEE THIS ONE TREE THAT LOOKS LIKE IT IS ON FIRE BECAUSE HALF OF IT IS BRIGHT YELLOW AND HALF OF IT IS BRIGHT RED, WHICH IS HOW I ALWAYS COLORED FIRE WHEN I WAS A LITTLE KID.
ah.
i decided to be crazy tonight.
i decided to blog on a thursday night, and i decided to blog when i was in a good mood.

blame puberty.

2006-10-11T20:16:00.000-07:00

wednesdays are the new blog days.

not only because i have the evening free, but because i am unusually reflective on wednesday afternoons.

today i had a meltdown of sorts. well, it really just entailed me lying on my bedroom floor in a patch of sunlight with my dog circling my head and me begging christ to take away my stress. but the more i thought about it, the more i realized i wasn't stressed. instead, i was afraid.

i'm afraid that i don't have the money i need to pay the lady i hit on saturday. i'm afraid that i will never have a job that i like and that pays well enough. i am afraid of an absolutely empty bank account. i am afraid that i am being half-assed in all of my classes. i am afraid of every assignment, because i know i need to be better. i am afraid of relationships. i am afraid of being dependent on people. i am afraid that god is mad at me, or at least annoyed. i am afraid that i am dissapointing everybody.

but, today was another day with the somali's. we went to the park, and the only thing i taught today was the mechanics behind swinging. once the girls figured out how to do it themselves, they were ecstatic. and then we played on the merry-go-round, the monkey bars, the slide, and the teeter-totter. i was in awe, as usual, at their boundless joy and enthusiasm. i know how horrible their lives can be, but they bounce back so quickly. little kids are resiliant things. and then i was envious. they tried to teach me how to do flips on the bars, but i couldn't do it. have you ever noticed how amazingly agile little kids are? ever since i turned 13 i have progressively felt heavier, sturdier, and thicker.

i curse puberty.

anyways, i need to get back to my mounds of schoolwork. but it is fall, the most romantic time of the year, and i have a four day weekend. what glory!

i shall be grateful.

the others

2006-10-04T21:37:00.000-07:00

i'm tired, but i see the light at the end of the tunnel. today i prayed with an old friend, sprawled out on the carpet. i couldn't get up. i feel hopelessly inadequte, and guilt is a constant plague.

but then today i went and sat in majuma and hassan's apartment, i helped cook food for the ramadan feast, and then i sat on the couch to help the girls with their homework. hassan lay curled on the bed, sick and dying, with only a sheet to cover him. majuma was lying on the mattress next to my couch, sick with a headache, and hungry from the fasting. halima crawled up into my lap and promptly fell asleep herself. i laid my head back and soaked in the stillness for 15 minutes.

right now i am watching lost by myself, something i swore i would never do again, and i am working on a grammatical analysis of ephesians chapters 1-3. basically, it's all about the will of God in Christ.

i cry with people, i miss my family, i miss people i see everyday but only in shallow contexts, i hate my job and might actually quit this time, i feel like doing pilates on a more consistent basis, i'm experiencing the ups and downs of being in love, i'm falling asleep ever earlier, and my cat let me cuddle with it today.

thats about it, really.

september. in two sentences.

2006-09-27T21:27:00.000-07:00

i'm too busy to blog, too tired to answer my phone, i pee flourescent yellow and take naps on the slide as somalian children swing.
i need some grace, here.

this summer just wasn't my summer

2006-08-31T21:32:00.000-07:00

i just watched a documentary called "the boys of baraka." i encourage everyone to watch it, but only if you want to be both inspired and devestated at the same time. it is about a couple of 12 year old boys from baltimore that get sent to school in kenya for a year, and what ultimately happens to them. one of the boys, richard, describes coming home for the summer as this:
"this summer just wasn't my summer. it ran like water."

i started school today, and it made me realize how i am confused as to what happened with my summer. i feel like nothing was accomplished, no ends tied up, no moral or spiritual lessons discovered and applied. it just meandered on, and i tried to live each day as it came. in fact, i think i was constantly trying to make it seem or feel or be better than it actually was.

well, it was a lame summer.

i'm really excited for the fall, and not only because i get to wear a scarf and drink even more coffee and read interesting books, but because i am excited for change. school, in a way, inspires a sense of change for me. it helps me to think, and it helps me to second guess my own thought processes.

i don't live in baltimore. i don't have drug dealers or an abusive mom or cops or a dad who is in prison to deal with.

i just have clackamas.

how does it feel?

2006-08-23T09:37:00.000-07:00

summer is winding down, and with it comes a sense of apprehension. an august sense of anticipation, muggy and thick.

last week both of my sisters were home and krispin got back from china. it was a great week, but only emphasized the troubles with loving people. people, especially those in my life, are never stationary. i have to start preparing for a perpetual state of missing people. i know, i know, i should be used to this by now. but i guess i'm not.

i am sick and tired of trying to balance everything in my life and then guiltily comeing to the throne of god to make sure that it is okay with him. something is dreadfully off in my life, because i hardly ever feel content, despite my wonderful life. so i'm scrapping it. my life plans, i mean. from here on out, i'll just do whatever the father says. i'm awfully glad he talks to me and has given me fantastic people in my life and he has also given me christ who intercedes on my behalf.

the other day in church i was having one epiphany after the other, and i decided that i sort of want to be a charismatic again. i had a bad taste of it in my mouth thanks to a former bible college that was a bit too severe in its theology but that taste is beginning to fade. i want to flow, to feel, to discern, to let go of me and mine more often.

i remember as a kid, my mom would take me to all of these tiny little charismatic vineyard churches in square concrete rooms. i remember watching in awe as people sang loudly and full of joy, as overweight women danced around waving flags, as children like myself sat quietly and absorbed the excitement of church.

i feel like that scrawny, blonde-haired kid again. i'm just sitting here, waiting quietly, absorbing the excitement of a life that i am not in charge of.

this one goes out to lindsay.

2006-08-05T12:57:00.000-07:00

because she is the only one who reads this, evidently.
well, i've had some adventures recently, which have been great. they involved driving east, awkward conversations, interesting donoughts, police activity, and mysterious youth groups at midnight.

now, i'm off to an even bigger adventure: i am going to los angeles for a week with the abundant life youth group. i haven't been a youth leader in about 3 years. we'll see how i do.
right now i am trying to muster up enthusiasm for the 3 bands that will be playing at the conference we are going to:
superchick. jeremy camp. hawk nelson.

i don't know if i can do it. but i have to try, because i remember what highschool was like. christian pop punk got me through a lot, man. the last thing i want to do is crush the spirit of these kids, and so i need some genuine enthusiasm for the giant marketing ploy that is contemporary christian music.

scratch that cynical last paragraph. i am excited to hang out with both my sisters, to be surrounded by people with boundless energy and enthusiasm, and i am excited to be an example of what it looks like to love jesus at age 22.

22? has it really been 9 years since i first fell in love with mxpx? i feel pretty old right now.

the restless summer.

2006-07-22T10:34:00.000-07:00

i am sitting at my garage sale right now. there is not a soul to be seen. it's been like this all morning. it's so hot and muggy i feel slightly insane right now. i was up until 2 in the morning dancing at a club last night. who am i? i had so much fun, it was ridiculous. the summer is halfway over, and i have yet to have any answers. who knew that this would be the restless summer, the summer of not being able to escape yourself? i'm grateful for the growth, or at least i know that i will be at some point in the future. christ is so patient. i can't journal anymore. all i can write down are people that i want to pray for. i guess that's the only thing to do when you love so many people who are so far away both in body and spirit.
i don't blog much anymore because it doesn't seem like this one is quite as mysterious as it used to be.
ah, well.

the pirate summer

2006-07-05T09:42:00.000-07:00

today when i woke up the sky was gray and the air felt like we were all at sea, humid and full and slighty cold. it was still and peaceful and it felt different. i felt like i had woken up in homer alaska, that i was back in my most favorite summer. it took me a minute or two to realize that no, that was three years ago and i am here in clackamas, halfway through a confusing and hard summer. i'm cheerful these days, but i miss everything.
i miss my alaska summer.
i miss traveling with my older sister.
i miss croatian bathrooms and coffee and pastries and streets.
i miss going on adventures with krispin.
i miss sacramento, anchorage, mexico, wyoming, auburn, sisters, montana, india, los angelas, croatia.
how does one not live in the past yet let it help shape the future?
seriously. all i want to do right now is drink coffee and look at old photo albums, remembering the grand adventures of the strannigan family. i want to remember, and i want to be assured of the future--that we will continue on in our haphazard life, never fully becoming comfortable where we are.

me and candyce decided last week that this is officially the pirate summer.

rich mullins makes me cry.

2006-06-28T18:42:00.000-07:00

my latest adventure:
hassan is dying, and all he wants is to wash in the ocean before he dies. jenni and i decided that it has to be this week or never, seeing as jenni is getting married in 10 days and hassan really is dying (we tried to take him on monday but he was in the hospital). what is he dying from? a multitude of problems: tuberculosis, african parasites, diabetes, and the parasite medicine that made his internal organs start to liquify. he looks like an african that you would see in the pictures of national geographic: emaciated, with hollow cheeks and clouded eyes. the tip of his right index finger is missing, and i have always been too scared to ask why.
me and jenni showed up at 7 this morning to pick up hassan. majuma, his wife, and mohammed, his friend, decided that they are both coming along. luckily for us, mohammed can speak a decent amount of english. we went to camp wi-ne-ma for the day, to kill two birds with one stone: jenni is going to be teaching a session at a jr. high church camp, and i will be taking hassan to go for a swim.
we got in the car. hassan curled up in the front seat, and jenni drove. i was squished in the middle seat between two somali's, and i found that i strangely enjoyed the smell of their sweat. it smells like i imagine africa would, with a hint of ginger. it was very hot in the car, and it was a two hour drive. we listened to somali praise music, which is made with very cheap electronic devices. it was our covert way of trying to convert these dear people.
i spent the entire way down praying, praying that hassan would come to know christ before he dies. i am awash in a love for these amazing people. i wanted to hug bith majuma and mohammed, but i was too snug to even think about moving my arms.
we got to the beach, with barely a minute to spare . . . jenni is supposed to start teaching in 2 minutes. majuma, hassan, and mohammed all used the restroom, and we sat around eating corn on the cob and waiting for hassan to regain his strength.
i kept on telling them that it was going to be cold ("gawowp" in the maay maay language) but they didn't believe me. the only ocean they had been to before was in kenya. they thought it would be exactly the same.
majuma had brought along about 10 different plastic containers (milk cartons, detergent bottles, ect.), and we lugged those to the beach with us. we all stopped and stared once we had a full view. we all agreed that it was very beautiful.
once we got to where the water started, we all dipped our feet in. majuma and mohammed squealed with how cold it was. they handed me some cartons and we started filling them up with ocean water. i turned around to see hassan, standing at the water's edge, stripped down to his boxer shorts.
he looked so sad and so frail, leaning on his cane for support, staring grimly into the ocean preparing to cleanse himself for death. i held my breath. he couldn't possibly go in the ocean. it would kill him for sure.
he stood there for a couple of minutes before he turned and said something to majuma and mohammed. and then he turned around and started putting his clothes on. majuma and mohammed started laughing hysterically.
"what's so funny?" i demanded. "what did he say?"
mohammed looked at me, still laughing. "he say, 'it too cold out here.'"
and that was that.
we hung around at the camp for a oouple more hours, and i had fun showing mohammed and majuma around (hassan had to sit in the car because he was too cold). we were all getting hungry, so i went to the dining hall to see if we could eat there before all the campers came and overwhelmed the refugees. sure, said the kitchen staff. for lunch today we are having ham and hot dogs. hmmm . . . i said, well, my friends are muslim and can't eat either of those things.
one woman, who looked to be in her late 70's, took me by the shoulder and steered me into the kitchen. "dearie," she said, "we'll find something for them to eat." and then to the rest of the kitchen staff: "we have moslems here!"
we were treated like kings. i was so proud of the over-worked jr. high kitchen staff. they were angels in aprons.
finally, jenni was done teaching. we got in the car to go home, pleased with our day. majuma, mohammed, and i all three fell asleep in the back seat. when i woke up, we were listening to rich mullins. he was singing about god being the deliverer of his people, from ancient israel to present day africa. now, i can't get that song out of my head. who better needs deliverance than refugees?
sometimes i think that i feel like a refugee in my own country. but through all my stateless wanderings, i do know one thing: my deliverer is coming, my deliverer is standing by.

people we met in the last five years

2006-06-14T13:51:00.000-07:00

here are a couple of firsts for danielle (note: they have all taken place in the past week):

1. i just used the boys bathroom at the bi-partisan cafe. it was exhilerating.

2. i went to a sports bar and watched half a game of the world cup (germany versus poland). not only was it my first time at a sports bar, it was only my second time ever walking into a bar by myself. i felt empowered as i sat in the bar, drinking my coke and cheering for the underdog (as usual).

3. i became a nanny. for rich american kids. who don't watch tv and who order me to play pretend games with them while using a british accent and to cook them gourmet food. this one is a stretch for me.

4. i went bowling in milwaukie with co-workers on $1.25 shoe rental night. enough said.

5. i smoked my first hookah. it made my clothes smell weird, and i felt very middle eastern.

6. i was yelled at today by one of my former volunteers for being judgemental and told that i was going to be written up to the head of catholic charities for my poor job and character. side note: this is not the first time i have been yelled at by a crazy person, but it is the first time i have been yelled at by a crazy person in front of a group of impressionable kids.

i guess there is a first time for everything.

slow and steady wins the race.

2006-06-02T17:52:00.000-07:00

have you ever wondered if you were going crazy? not in the poetic, beautiful, loud and crazy sense . . . but more in the quite, small, nobody else ever thinks-like-this sense? i did all the time when i was a teenager.
today i was reminded of that when faced with a gray afternoon all to myself. i had a coupon for a free movie rental from blockbuster but it seemed like the most insurmountble hurdle to actually get in the car and drive to the store and walk in and be greeted with a cheery and indifferent "hello!" and imagine all those people getting ready for their fridays nights when i just want to curl up and be alone and yet i feel pathetic for feeling the way i do because according to popular culture these days i should be living it up, enjoying the best years of my life. these had better not be the best years of my life. in fact, i know that they are not. these years are a shadow of the years to come, just like this life is a shadow of my real life, my life in christ. these thoughts emboldended me enough to grab my little dog, toss her in the car, and brave the forces of blockbuster. in highschool, one of my greatest fears was returning videos to the video store. don't ask me why. it terrified me in ways that i could never articulate. today was another big step.
when i got home i tore up the stairs and put on my gym shorts so i could do some pilates. i was thinking about how maybe i really am a crazy old woman after all when the doorbell rang. the doorbell never rings at this house. my little dog freaked out. i opened the front door, which is creaky from its lack of usage, and found myself face to face with juanita long, the official grandmother of abundant life megachurch, affectionately nicknamed "oma" to everyone who has ever had a conversation with her. she gave me a huge hug (i haven't seen her in a couple of months) and thrust a plastic bag into my hands. it was warm and squishy.
"it's for your mom," she giggled. "it's play-doh for the little kids in alaska. freshly made!" she clapped her hands in delight. i awkwardly thanked her and told her i would give it to my mom when she got home the next day. oma looked at me, looked at the plastic bag full of homemade green play-doh and gave it a little squeeze herself. "doesn't it just feel like babies?" she asked. i just stared at her and wildly tried to think of a response. she didn't really expect one. "just like babies," she said, walking down the steps of our porch. "freshly made babies."
i went inside and realized that maybe i am a little bit saner than i ever thought.

a quote from a book that i loved, grew indifferent to, lost, found, and loved again.

2006-05-27T15:34:00.000-07:00

" i cried, i think, because i was coming to understand in a new way just how much was required of me, how much god was going to strip away all my everything, like silver polish taking the tarnish off old forks. i cried because i know more and more how chekov was right, how we are running around desperate to make connections but mostly we are all just estranged. because i know more and more that this glass here is so very dark, that this really is a long loneliness, that it is both lonely and long. sometimes i feel god has taken a paring knife to me. i know the way an apple feels."
--lauren winner, girl meets god.

is it strange that this passage makes me so happy?

my pie, my pie.

2006-05-25T14:53:00.000-07:00

this is the pie me and catherine baked this afternoon. we did it from scratch, and i am so, so proud. i was going to name him, but it is always weird when you name something you are about to eat.

here is an update on me:
i have been sad for the past couple of days, but there are a lot of good reasons for that sadness. however, it is not here to stay.
a story:
last night i went out to jenni's parents house and crashed the girls bible study that i used to go to last year. i just really, really needed the tangible body of christ. and it was there, in the form of 6 girls.
my favorite part was when we went outside to make s'mores and we tried to build a fire even though all the wood was wet becuase it had been raining all day and there were baby spiders everywhere and we couldn't really get the wood to catch on fire so we just kept shoving newspaper into the pit and roasting our mallows on the false flames that sprung up and died out quickly and there was ash everywhere in the wind like cheap confetti and i dared jenny to eat a baby spider and she did becuase i said "i double dog dare you" and that phrase is irresistable to jenni douglas and then the skies opened up and it began to pour and all our graham crackers got wet and i shook my stick to the sky and we declared defeat, huddling inside the barn, dripping with water and smelling like wet chickens.

welcome to summer in portland.

when i was a boy i could hear symphonies in seashells.

2006-05-20T10:46:00.000-07:00

i just got done with school and now i wake up in the morning thinking about what i should be stressed out about. i just got done with one of my jobs and now i wake up in the morning thinking about what i should be doing that is of worth and value. i just realized all of my bestest friends don't live in portland, and i dread being with people all summer that make me feel stiff and phony. i just realized that i am terrified of being alone, and i think it's because i have forgotten how to enjoy solitude. i just realized that i have been going, going, gone all semester and i feel so tired. not just physically, but tired in my spirit. i keep on rubbing my eyes, waiting for an epiphany about how my summer is going to be one of adventures, or grace, or polish dogs at costco, or happy hour at applebee's . . . but try as i might, i can't conjure up a magical theme. my summer is one of blankness.
now, i suppose i could look at this two ways:
one, i could be super depressed and decide to invest in sleeping all the time and stalking people via myspace.
or two, i could look at this sumemr as an oppurtunity to become more comfortable with myself, with christ, and with myself and christ.
i'd really, really like to go with the latter.

happiness is a warm african baby.

2006-05-10T22:45:00.000-07:00

this is baby omar. i love him. i am one of the least maternal people i know but i slung this kid around for almost two hours today. he was such a doll. the small of my back got really sweaty and so i flipped him around to the front and he fell asleep on my stomache. it was great. i ran around, yelled at kids, and colored pictures--all with omar attatched to my side. all the somali men came out to talk to me and told me i was beautiful, and all the somali women clucked and said i looked like a bantu.
i was terribly, terribly happy.
you all should be glad that i didn't blog on monday night, the night i really wanted to. because i was in an awful, stressed-out mood. at work that night, everybody kept asking me what was wrong, which of course made it worse. i couldn't put a finger on any one specific thing that was troubling me--my own apathy, my procrastination, the two papers i had to turn in the next day that i hadn't even started--none of that really got down to the business of what was going on in my heart.
luckily for me, i figured it out once i got into my car and drove home.
i was incredibly lonely for christ.
once i got that figured out, i started to feel like danielle again. i have now had some more danille and jesus time, and i feel more at peace with the world. he (christ) hasn't really said much, but we always enjoy being silent together. tonight we had the best time in the car, with the windows rolled down and our hair blowing in the wind.

one legit, and five non-legit, secrets.

2006-05-07T13:17:00.000-07:00

yeah.

sometimes i also feel like sitting in my room and staring out at the gray day when in all actuality there are three papers that i need to be writing at this exact moment.
sometimes i also feel like shaving my head.
sometimes i also feel like walking in to the john g. mitchell library and singing my favorite song really loud and then taking a nap right in the middle of the stacks, on the third floor, right next to the cheesy christian romantic paperbacks.
sometimes i also feel like i have social anxiety disorder, but i have just recently realized that my personal fears are nowhere near as insane (sorry, but it's true) as other peoples. this makes me feel a bit better.
sometimes i still wish i was in a rockabilly band.

this is not a secret: my life is wonderful.

"people are dying. is that an argument in favor of sitting on cats?"--emma thompson, fortunes of war.

2006-04-29T19:34:00.000-07:00

i canceled the bridesmaid dress fitting/bride-to-be bonding that was to be had tonight. i am sick of working, sick of of studying, sick of slacking. i'm tired but i sleep all the time. don't get me wrong, this is one of the happiest phases of my life thus far. it's a gorgeous pink spring and i get to live in portland oregon. i have a beautiful gray cat who is starting to ignore me less. i get out of school in 3 weeks. i have a boyfriend and i am not freaking out about it (in fact, i like it very much).
what do you do with an unexpected free night? if you are danielle, this is what you do:
1.take a bath.
2.make some ravioli.
3.read some of donald miller's writing.
a. laugh your face off.
b. soberly question your concept of god.
4. watch a random old movie you found at the library (fortune's of war).
bonus! kenneth branaugh is adorable when he is young. a visionary!
double bonus! the movie is set in the balkans! the balkans!
5.sit and think about your life, and the blessings therein.
6. pray for your sisters (and the kittens they find in azerbaijan that have broken paws).
7. go to sleep early, because it all starts again tomorrow.

that's it.
cheerio, darlings!

a t.v. script ending

2006-04-22T22:40:00.000-07:00

there are lots of things i could write about, lot's of little episodes that i have seen played before my eyes that are filled with either beauty or tragedy or sometimes both, depending which way you look at it. but for some reason, i don't want to write about any of those things, instead i want to write about anthony.

anthony is my new manager at starbucks. well, assistant manager anyway. if anyone has ever seen the british t.v. show the office, then they can skip the following descriptive passage. anthony is a thinner, younger, ricky gervais. i thought my first impression ahd been wrong, that nobody could be that spot-on, but it was all too true.

whenever i start work he gets all excited and says "hey hey hey, danielle, do you know what is the number one objective for today?" and without waiting for me to respond, he thrusts his fist into the air and says: "to have FUN!". and then he tries to get me to do this weird hang loose wiggledy handshake with him, but i usually just lamely give him a little tap with my knuckles. i don't know what to do in the face of his boundless enthusiasm for starbucks.
what makes it worse is that he is pretty bad at his job and extremely insecure about it. sometimes when he makes drinks people bring them back and i have to remake them without his realizing because if he does realize it he follows me around for the next half an hour analyzing out loud why the customer didn't like his drink. or take tonight, for instance. he thought the till counting machine had gone berserk, and he was freaking out about having to call tech support and how we weren't ever going to get out of here and geez i don't know what to do and could you come look at it danielle? so i went in the back and he explained how he had unplugged it and plugged it back in and nothing. nothing happened. i looked at the machine, and pressed the "on" button. gentle readers, he expressed amazement at my technical prowress for the rest of the evening.

as much as i can hardly stand to work with him (he literally follows me around and reads out loud from the starbucks corperate policy manual. literally.), i can't help but feel that there is some sort of purpose behind me and him working together so often.

anythony has this habit of spilling his guts to me. we've talked about it before, and he brought it up again tonight: he hates christianity. he used to be a hardcore christian: he was a youth intern, he attended a charismatic mega-church, he even went downtown regularly to witness to homeless people. and then he just stopped. he couldn't stomache it anymore.

the man obviously needs to talk about his past life as a christian, and i don't know why he chose me. i always pray to the holy spirit in times like these to give me wisdom, and he always pulls through. i usually end up asking a lot of questions, and saying fewer profound statements that i would like. but, you have to work with what you have been given. one of my gifts is the ability to feign interest and ask pointed questions.

anyways, the point is, i finally got anthony to tell me why he was so bitter at the church, and it all boiled down to one thing: he thought god had lied to him. he told me his sad story (growing up and wanting to be a medical missionary, having his fiance break up with him, getting horrible grades his senior year of college and not being able to make it into medical school) and i told him mine. except i ended mine with where it is at: i still love christ with everything within me. i don't have a rational explanation, i just do. i love him because he first loved me, and i know that someday soon i will understand all the twists, turns, and disappointments that seem to be a prerequisite of the honest christian life.

to make a long blog semi-shorter, anthony said he had a lot to think about tonight. so do i. mainly, why does comfort always have to be preceded by suffering?
i guess i'll let everyone know when i figure out the answer.
then you'll be happy.

little luda

2006-04-15T22:18:00.000-07:00

today i went and hung out with some of my favorite people in the world who happen to be somali bantu refugees. i went with my friend jenny, and it was good to be with her again. we used to call ourselves paul (jenny) and barnabas (me). 6 months ago, when i was still living with her, we envisioned planting churches together, moving into low-income houseing together, and being single women missionaries together for the rest of our lives (or at least the next 3 years). 5 months ago she told me that she gave her heart to joel and she was easing out of the somali ministry. today was the first time i have gone to the apartment complex with her in 4 months.
well, it was great. instead of me being the homework club nazi, i sat on a couch in a strange smelling apartment and watched life being lived in front of me.
maybe it was because i had already worked 8 hours today at starbucks, or maybe it was because i was passive aggressively wanting to get back at jenny, but i seriously just sat on the couch in seynab's apartment for four hours while jenny cooked a meal, led songs, and organized games for about 20 people.
strangely enough, i didn't feel guilty.
i was, as jenny later called it, a "human mosh pit". there was a rotating cast of kids who would sidle up to me, lay their heads on my knee, slip thier hand into mine and sort of sidle on up into my lap. at one point i had five 3 year old boys trying to cuddle with me simultaneously. at another point i had 4 different girls, their hands full of chicken grease, trying to braid my hair but giving up quickly due to the fact that they had never tried braiding a white girl's hair before. we watched wallace and gromit. we tried (and failed miserably) to put together a little mermaid puzzle. we listened to somalian music, and danced our ever-loving little hearts out. but mostly, we just on the couch. we sat there and basked in the collective glow of the shared company.

i could have lived my whole life there but unfortunately i had to make an appearence at a certain birthday party because jenny had already promised that we would be there. we went to flying pie and met up with a group of about 25 kids from our church, and we wished our friend the happiest of birthdays. i sat down at a table and listened to the conversations going on around me: worship music, shoes, chocolate, shitty scream-o bands (sorry mom, but it's true), and various other topics. i sat with my elbow on the table, propping my head up in order to look interested. but i wasn't interested in the slightest. not in any of those subjects.

i am slowly, slowly, coming to the realization that i will always feel more comfortable on a sour-smelling couch in a stuffy african apartment than i will ever feel at a crowded, lively pizza joint on a saturday night.
i know. that realization is shocking.
absolutely shocking.

spring is getting to me.

2006-04-06T23:05:00.000-07:00

i love mid-afternoon thunderstorms that remind me of summer in wyoming.
i love waking up in the middle of the night and wanting to pray for people that i care about.
i love cats that ignore me completely.
i love travelers, and i love going to the airport and looking at travelers.
i love remembering.
i love how the air seems to be alive these days, electric with the posibilities between us.

multnomah girls gone wild

2006-03-28T22:40:00.000-08:00

our spring break road trip 2006 (or rt'06 for short) is going fabulous, save for some minor setbacks.
first, the good news:
i have spent over 20 hours in the car with two of the greatest girls ever. we sing, we laugh, we sit in pleasant silence. . . it has just been golden.
i met up with my first college roomate and had a splendid time. i was a bit nervous to see her, seeing as it's been a year and she is now married, but it was as if time never passed at all. i loved her husband. he made us chocolate chip pancakes in animal shapes (mine was a great white shark).
i went back to my old bible college and was overwhelmed with a feeling of goodwill (not what i was expecting at all) and i saw old friends and everywhere i looked i remembered people and they remembered me. i am always positive that i am the most forgettable person in the world, but it didn't play out like that today.
i saw an old friend that i had been needing to see and reconcile with. it went great. christ was there.
i bought a pair of over-sized glasses at target and both mari and michelle have taken turns commadeering them. we have decided that they are magic. everyone who wears them feels ridiculously good about themselves and can't help taking pictures that they secretly want to post on myspace. we have decided to call ourselves the sisterhood of the magical glasses.

now for the not-so-good.

mari got a speeding ticket. well, she was driving 21 miles over.
it is monsooning here in long beach. seriously. there are absolutely inches of water everywhere. i do believe it is colder here than in portland. so, i gues i won't be coming back sun-kissed.
i met up with another old friend today and he is decidedly unwell. i listened to his monologues for an hour and i got sick to my stomache. he wants to come live with me and my family in portland. i felt awful because i felt like my ration of compassion had run out today.

ah well. i hope everyone else's spring break is going well, and i hope we all learn to love each other. i don't know why i just typed that.

does anybody know where a body could get away

2006-03-22T21:27:00.000-08:00

i promise my next blog will be happy. it will be a spring break one, so it will have to be wild and crazy. it just has to be.
this one, however, won't be. just so you know.
well, there was homework club today, and lots to write about as a result. i show up at 3:30 to find melissa, a little white girl, crying because abduli had kicked her in the back. melissa's mom was really upset, so i promised to go find abduli and make him apologize. jorge, who works with catholic charities, decided to come along and mediate the conflict between the two kids. big. mistake.
i take jorge to abduli's house, but melissa and her mom and her aunt follow us. we knock on the apartment door and it opens to show us no less than 20 somalians crammed into one apartment. most of them are kids. i see abduli and tell him to come forward so we can talk to him. he bolts. jorge steps inside the apartment only to be pushed back by a very large and unfamiliar somali women. he explains that he just wants to talk to abduli, and goes on to explain the whole situation. she doesn't understand a word. melissa's mom and aunt are standing right behind me, and they keep interjecting comments (sample: "next time the cops come to my door and tell me to stop beating my child, i'm gonna tell them that the bruises are from you!"). finally, the somali women shakes her head, says she is sorry, and starts to push jorge out of her house, putting her hand to his chin. i am standing awkwardly in the hallway, watching this all take place. melissa's mom starts screaming: "next time, i'm gonna tell my daughter to kick your fucking kid's ass!".
i didn't know what to do. the somali's were defensive, jorge was humiliated, and the two white ladies behind me were clearly incapable of reasoning. but i tried anyway.
"they can't understand what you are saying," i said. "it doesn't help at all."
melissa's mom looked at me, and shook her hand at my face. her nails were painted lime green. "well, fuck you. i know they can't understand. that's the problem with those people." with that she glared at all of us and took off down the hallway, screaming for melissa to join her.

i was a bit shaken up, but there was still homework club to be had.
everything was going fine for awhile . . . there were plenty of volunteers and it seemed like kids were actually accomplishing homework. i was pleased as punch.
and then . . .

i turned around to see hassan and shemsa fighting. like punching each other as hard as they could in an i-legitemetly-want-to-kill-you kind of fighting. i missed out on the whole public school thing, so i had never really seen this before. i tried to pull hassan off, but he is a wiry 13 year old, and i couldn't do it. finally, his older brother ali stepped in to help. we forced hassan out of the room and he stood in front of the glass door. his face was so full of rage, and he was shaking. he refused to leave. he was crying, and he was furious at himself for crying. his older brother had to pick him and and throw him over his shoulder and take him home. i stood outside and cried as i watched hassan being carried away.

he had always been my favorite, and i didn't understand what had happened.
i went and looked at shemsa, and hassan had cut her cheek with his fist. i knew i had to go talk to him. i gave it 20 minutes, and then went up to his apartment. his mother had to drag him out of his room. he didn't talk to me, would barely look at me. i explained that we couldn't handle any fighting at the homework club. i asked him to tell me why he did it, but he just looked away. i didn't know what to say. so i stood there for a minute with my hand on his shoulder. i had known him now for over a year, and i always felt like god told me that this boy would grow up to be a leader.
hassan looked up at me, and there were tears streaming down his face.
"i'm never coming to homework club again", he said.

i went back downstairs, devestated, and there were fights breaking out all over the place. homework club was done early. it was too much for all of us.

my friend melissa knew i was hurting and so she suggested we go to burgerville and debrief. i sat with her and sara and nicki and we talked about the evils of this world and about old testament prophecies and how vengeance has to be the lord's. i can't stop people from fighting. i can't diffuse their hate. i can't cure a kid of years of pent up rage, frustration, and anger in one homework club. in fact, i really can't do anything of lasting worth at all. but i have to believe that christ can. i just have to, and i do.

well, as i was sitting at burgerville, giving my ministry back to god, i got a call from halima (one of my somali girls).
"hello?" i said (you always have to talk loud on the phone with them. everyone in burgerville turned and stared).
"danielle? you know tall boy?"
"um . . . ." there were several tall boys there today, "do you mean weston?"
"yeah! weston." halima breathed heavily into the reciever.
"what about weston?"
"he, he walking around saying 'where danielle? where danielle?'"
oh my gosh.
i had forgotten weston.

i ran back to the complex and tried to find him, but halima told me that he had taken the bus home.

i guess, looking back, i just wanted to say this to everyone today:

i am so, so sorry. for everything.

an ode to trippe's car.

2006-03-17T18:43:00.000-08:00

most of you who read this probably don't know trippe but i do and i love his car. this afternoon i was riding in it, and it was a messed-up portland march day. black rainclouds, sunshine, rainbows--the works. we drove past the industrial part of town and swerved through traffic. trippe likes his dylan and cash loud, and he was smoking a sweet-smelling something or other. i was quiet, and it felt so good. i don't even really know why, but i felt like myself. to be quiet. to enjoy without neccessarily making the half-hearted remarks.
so there it is. my ode to trippe's car.

as soon as i got out of the car i was immedietly bothered. why should it feel so delicous and freeing to be myself? i guess it's because i rarely am. i asked god what he wanted me to focus on for this year, my 22nd, and he told me this: dependency. he wants me to depend on people, in the best sense possible.

well, i don't want to depend on any of you. you are always letting me down. i don't know how to depend with expecting too much, to love without putting myself first.

thank goodness it's the weekend and i can get some semblence of rest. i'm off to go try on bridesmaid dresses and eat pasta. while watching a romantic comedy, natch.

alphonse is going to be so disapointed in me. but i just couldn't sit there today.

2006-03-09T15:12:00.000-08:00

when did i get to this point? i decided at 12:00 today to skip my last class, mainly because it was snowing gigantic flakes onto my cheeks and it just felt like the most logical decision to make. i went into the prayer chapel at my school where i got melted water everywhere and it was so, so cold as i huddled on the strangely comfortable wooden pew and prayed to christ jesus. i didn't really cry, but man i sure felt like it. those are the worst.
i absolutely love and hate portland. yes, i realize that those two words contradict themselves. if you knew me, you would understand perfectly.

i've been everywhere, man.

2006-03-05T22:41:00.000-08:00

mmmm. . . i like this picture more than i can say right now.
life is good. i turn 22 in a week. i don't feel ready.
i love my classes, so why can't i write the papers?
there are so many people that i appreciate right now that it is hard to keep track.
i'm happy, but just not comfortable.
and i don't really think that's a bad thing.

minor prophets sort-of help.

2006-03-01T09:30:00.000-08:00

i just realized that christ probably already knows what i struggle with. i feel like no matter where i go or what i do, there is a small cat that follows me around. it is a black cat, much like anne lamott's christ figure, but mine is the personification of loneliness. i am tired of pretending to not be lonely. i have given up the game. also, i realized that it is entirely possible to be happy, fulfilled, busy, peaceful, and hopeful and still be lonely at the same time. i don't understand any of this. but days like today, the cat just sits on my bed and won't stop staring.
i think maybe it has something to do with the fact that i don't feel good.

"my independence is only skin deep."--Seymour Glass.

2006-02-25T22:30:00.000-08:00

well, i am sick. i never used to get sick when i was a little kid. i only remember getting the flu once, and that was when my mom and older sister were away for a week at a worship conference and it was just me, my little sister, and my dad. we lived in wyoming, and it was very windy. my dad fed us a straight-up diet of tv. dinners and matinee movies. we loved it, until we got the flu. the poor man didn't know what to do, and brought in a succession of older, matronly "baby-sitters". i only remember the sprite that they made us drink. they never rubbed my back when i was throwing up. i think i got better just as my mom got back.
well, i have a fever for the first time since i can remember. my eyes feel yellow, and liquidy, and the exact same temperature as my face. which is pretty hot.
so, i can't sleep. my nose is dripping, my mouth has to stay open in order to breath, and i feel like my cheeks are on fire (although my toes feel very chilled). but, who wants to read a blog about sick danielle?
i think it is time for me to count my blessings.
things i am thankful for. here we go:
1. lost salinger short-stories that are found by new friends who feel older.
2. co-workers who are delightfully pagan.
3. married friends who fight and make-up in front of me in wonderful ways.
4. married friends who cook me lentil soup and discuss how to reverse the degenerative effect that christian missionaries brought to millions of people worldwide.
5. the book of hosea.
5. cake. a good piece of yellow cake. i haven't had any yet (nor do i feel like eating at the exact moment), but god is teaching me to thank him in advance for things that i don't even really believe are going to happen. so i thank him for the cake.

that's all. thanks for listening.

a stream of conciousness blog.

2006-02-22T21:31:00.000-08:00

i just looked in a mirror and noticed that my face turns red very easily. like when i am stressed, or excited, or passionate, or when i laugh at funny people. which seems to happen all the time these days. and you know what? i hate being in charge of things--anything, really--and this seems to bring no end of amusement to god the father. i have gotten back into the habit of watching movies by myself again, and i always laugh out loud and then look around for someone to nudge with my elbow, but no one is ever there. i am usually only mildly dissapointed. i really like the concept and practice of missions in general. however, i don't really like the missions conference at my school, because the speakers are disjointed and don't know who they are speaking to or what they are supposed to be saying. they rely a little too much on emotional manipulation. thank you, i've had my fill. somali refugee children are mysteries to me, and i don't understand what makes them sit quietly and do homework and what makes them act like children of satan himself. this week, they erred on the angelic side. i count my blessings one day at a time, just like my momma taught me. i never knew that any of this would happen. i realized today that i am not a patient person at all. i want to rush everything, including this life.

the antithesis of the american dream

2006-02-15T22:43:00.000-08:00

i know it's bad form to post this many blogs so close together but hang the etiquette, i feel a rant forming within me.
i had my 3rd somali bantu homework club today and it was awful. there were like 50 kids running around like banshees . . . and supposedly i am in charge. i hate being put in positions like this. if i had my way, i would sit on a porch and fan myself lazily while i laughed with the fellow women folk as we weaved straw baskets together. or talked theology. or something like that.
instead, i have to become bad cop danielle . . . and i hate it. all the kids who actually want to do their homework and who are good and quiet and who get all the one on one attention are the kids who come from relatively good families. the kids i love are the brats, the scallywags, the incorrigibles, the hellions. they are the kids who are beaten with sticks at home, who are screamed at constantly, and who are generally expected to fail in every aspect of life. these are the kids i want to smother in love, to hold and protect and cherish. but i can't. they are the disruptive ones and i have to send them out into the cold. they stand at the glass doors and shiver and look at me with disbelieving eyes. how do you love someone who has had so little of it in their lives?
these are refugees. these are children of refugees. they are scared, angry, spiteful, disrespectful, and abusive. they are lonely, loving, warm, amusing, and hopeful in spite of it all. most of all, they are all homesick as hell.
i love these kids so much that i physically feel ill right now. i hold it all in my shoulders.
but it shouldn't be on my shoulders, and i know that. how to i give it to christ? this is where i need help.
i never wanted to do this. i just wanted to be like christ, and this is the path it has taken. i think it will get better. honestly, it has to.

please disregard everything you just read.
actually, could you do me a favor and pray for me? don't say you will unless you will actually do it. i don't like liars.

my bloody you-know-what.

2006-02-13T22:28:00.000-08:00

i am tired of being the poor man's valentine.
meaning, that i tired of being the reliably single friend who is a girl that boys turn to when they feel emotionally needy. bleah. i can't stomache it anymore. i had two calls today from such boys. it makes me feel sadder than ever.
but then i remembered this:
there is much more to love than all these pink and gray thoughts floating around.
i just finished the book "the great divorce" by c.s. lewis, and one of the passages said everything that i had been trying to say for a long time. it has to do with a girl who is in heaven trying to explain the way love works to her lover. she is in heaven, and he has the choice to join her or not. here it is:

"You mean, said the Tragedian, "you mean--you did not love me truly in the old days?"
"Only in a poor sort of way," she answered. "I have asked you to forgive me. There was a little real love in it. But what we called love down there was mostly the craving to be loved. In the main I loved you for my own sake: because I needed you."

"And now!" said the Tragedian with a hackneyed gesture of dispair. "Now, you need me no more?"
"But of course not!" said the Lady; and her smile made me wonder how both the phantoms could refrain from crying out with joy.
"What needs could I have," she said, "now that I have all? I am full now, not empty. I am in Love Himself, not lonely. Strong, not weak. You shall be the same. Come and see. We shall have no need for one another now: we can begin to love truly."

i just find that all so shockingly beautiful.
well, my skittish cat vladimir has decided to sleep on my bed with me tonight, and i just finished painting my nails a fiery red.
i think i am just about ready to face the day tomorrow.

you can waste countless hours in the day just by clicking this title.

2006-02-08T22:10:00.000-08:00

sometimes i am like an excitable little cloud.

superbowl xxxx

2006-02-05T22:06:00.000-08:00

tonight i went to imago by myself and i didn't want to. everything i have done lately has been by myself, and not voluntarily so. i don't understand this, and i feel terrified that god wants to teach me some sort of lesson. i feel like telling him that i don't think i will ever get it.
tonight i went to imago by myself and christ ministered to me. the pastor read and spoke from romans 7-8, and i was like a person dying of thirst, drinking in the words and the message. usually, my heart is too callused to respond in this way. i felt the love of god, and it wasn't emotional at all.
tonight i went to a movie by myself, and i made it an adventure. it was at this little house off of division and 43 called the artistry and i walked inside and there was nobody there and i wandered through all these corridors and finally stumbled apon the room where they were showing the (free) movie. there was a man in a squeaky yellow recliner and he had really big, curly hair. i could barely read the subtitles of the film. the film was called "turtles can fly" and it was from iran/iraq (yes, both places). it wrecked me. in the best sense possible.
tonight i was grateful to experience the love of christ for myself and for people halfway around the world.

tis so sweet

2006-01-30T00:19:00.000-08:00

i can't get this phrase out of my head: o, for grace to trust him more.
this is very applicable to my life right now.
i don't really have anything to blog about today. except for maybe my co-workers. i am always in for a nice dose of reality after working with non-bible college-y people for 8 hours straight.
jonathan is my gay co-worker. i have always had an affinity for gay co-workers. jonathan is no exception. he is 23, and from medford (also commonly known as "methford") oregon. up until yesterday morning he lived in an apartment with his boyfriend.
i guess his boyfriend spent the night with another guy. i was sitting in the back room calmly eating my chonga bagel when johnny started to spill it all out.
i also seem to have an affinity with people who need to vent. or maybe just people who need professional help. this comes with being a librarian. but that is a whole other blog in of itself. back to business:
jonathan (or "johnny boy", as i like to call him) told me of his heartbreak, and that he was over jeff (the said boyfriend). he was genuinly sad, as only a person can be after they have decided to break up with their signifigant other. jonathan looked at me, sighed morosely, and then said:
"man, i have to find somebody to sleep with today."
this is what they don't prepare you for in bible college. but honestly, i gave him advice like i would give anyone advice. i cautioned him to look at the long-term consequences of his actions (i feel like i have said this exact same thing to 11 people in this last week alone).
i know i write about loneliness alot, but bear with me.
there is a sickness going around. it is rooted in isolation from god, but it shows up in our minds and hearts as the seemingly mundane ache of loneliness. don't buy into it.
jesus, jesus, precious jesus. o for grace to trust you more.

if i had a soapbox, i would climb onto it and scream at the top of my lungs:
can we all just hold out?
can we turn back to the one for whom we are all so lonesome for?

well, to wrap up this here story, me and melissa went to college group with jonathan tonight. he was scared out of his mind.
christ was, and is, and will continue to be talking to him. i feel it in my bones.
i am priveleged to see god in action in this boy's life.

thank you, postsecret.

2006-01-22T22:14:00.000-08:00

i don't ever think it is going to happen.

missions.

2006-01-22T21:49:00.000-08:00

i should be doing so many other things right now but i think i need to type for awhile. the room will organize itself, and that c.s. lewis biography was terribly written anyway.
this weekend something very strange happened. i was lonely, which is the new norm. i discovered that there was a conference called the "northwest missions fest" going on right by my house. i went by myself. there were maybe three thousand people there.
i wandered around the shoddily made booths and talked to people who had already talked to hundreds of people like myself. i met up with my mom. i saw the usual missions crowd:
1.awkward teenagers who are beautiful and frightening in their furor,
2.old missionary couples who never look too pleased at the state of american christendom,
3.people from the dregs of society who don't fit in anywhere but who are so isolated and lonely that they will corner anyone who happens to be nearby to explain their latest idea to advance the great commission.
i tell you what, kids. i belong with these people. there is something about it all that thrills my heart. if i had to put my finger on the reasoning, i think it might have to do with how very unglamorous it all is. missions is simply people being obedient to god, in ways that involve long distances. i very badly want to be obedient to god, because god is the one who gave me (well, actually everyone) christ. christ is by far the best thing i've got going for me.

a quick story:
i went to a seminar at the conference about working with refugees. they had real live refugees stand up in front of us and tell their life stories. they were very fragmented when they spoke. i had a hard time following, but i loved their faces. one of them was a preacher named achmed, and he said he was from somalia. i just about died. i went to talk to him after the seminar was over, and i couldn't stop shaking his hand. very culturally inappropriate of me, but i don't think he cared. i asked him how i could best share christ with the somali bantu refugees. i told him all about it. i told him that i wanted to see them come to christ. what should i do, i asked. he smiled at me, and his teeth stuck out very prominently. one tooth was very yellow. he told me to stop worrying about it. just be there, he said, smiling his prominent smile. i was frustrated at his african answer, and somewhat hysterically started explaining that majuma's husband was in the hospital and that i thought he was going to die without ever hearing about christ and i couldn't speak somali and i couldn't find a bible and--
and then he stopped me. oh, hassan? he asked. i just about died again. yeah, i said. do you know him? oh, i visited him yesterday in the hospital, said achmed. and you know majuma, i aksed? of course, he said. i visit with them all the time. i work for irco, and we work on english together.
my look of shock was so great that achmed laughed at me.
you see, he said
god cares for the somali's more than you do.

christ is by far the best thing i have going for me.

m.l.k. day blog

2006-01-16T21:43:00.000-08:00

i have been feeling very depressed, and this is not me being dramatic. when i say depressed, i don't mean that i feel a little blue. i mean that i feel like everything i do is a mistake and that it would be for the best if i never got out of bed. i never want to do anything.
but, i went to the oregon coast this weekend and nobody can be depressed long when there are waves and sunshine (!) and rainbows about. on the way to the beach, me and tiffany and linda had some random adventures at the spirit mountain casino. we got stopped by a security card who checked our i.d.'s, but i'm pretty sure he was just checking us out becuase we were the only people under the age of 50.
the next morning, we went exploring on the beach. i love scrambing up rocks and out running waves and letting the wind spray on my face as i pretend that i am kate from lost. it was pretty surreal. at one point we found this section of beach that was entirely covered in foam. weird, yellow, quivering mounds of foam. it looked like a japanese art project. i took a stick and poked at the foam for a very long time.
i have to go back to school tomorrow and i think i will make it. hopefully.
i just read through some really old e-mails, and i am reminded again of how i can't keep friends for the life of me.
if i didn't have family, i don't know what i would do.

the man.

2006-01-09T20:40:00.000-08:00

i work for the man. the starbucks man.
there are a lot of things that bug me about working for the man.
usually, though, the thing that bugs me the most are the people that i serve coffee to.
i live in clackamas, and serve coffee to 40 year old men.
i am not very cute, and so i don't get hit on very much. that's the good news.
the bad news is that these men treat me in two very different ways.
way number one: they ignore me. (i rather like this one).
way number two: they talk about themselves. (this one makes my heart curdle and immediately strengthens my resolve to live and work in africa. because, and i'm just spitballing here, but i think that people in africa probably don't spend 4 dollars on a drink and wear expensive suits and then still feel the need to impress the uneducated barista who served them the said drink)
a disturbing trend that i have noticed this christmas break is the need for these men to talk to me about their wives. sometimes, they get their wives a drink. if it's a complicated drink, they always mess it up when they are ordering and get embarrassed when i say it back to them in the "correct" starbucks order. or they ask for a straw for the venti extra hot nonfat whatever that i just made. or they take the wrong drink that i just place on the bar with a clear explanation of what was inside.
these men never apologize.
they just shrug their shoulders, roll their eyes slightly and smile at me. some shake their head in soft besument, and every single one says this:
"i don't know, it's for the wife."
and then i swear that each and every one winks at me.

what did it for me was this businessman who came in two days ago. he ordered a venti nonfat peppermint mocha ("i don't know, it's for the wife!") and then i dutifully asked if he wanted whip cream on it. he looked extremely puzzled for 2 seconds, and then said: "oh, what the hell. put a little whip cream on it. she's already got a lot of junk in her trunk!"
and then he winked.

my only defense against these kind of interactions is that i have taken up the habit of never looking people in the eye.

trying too hard

2006-01-07T10:49:00.000-08:00

first part of blog: how i feel (physically)
i never get sick but here i am now and there is nothing to do about it. i woke up this morning and there was snot in the back of my hair. i was pretty grossed out. also, it feels like there are a couple of cars parked behind my eyes. it hurts very much.

second part of blog: how i feel (emotionally)
something i don't understand is this:
just because i tell people that i am i the intercultural studies program and want to be a missionary, they assume that i can't like anybody who doesn't have those same career/life goals in mind. who else thinks like this? if i wanted to be a dentist, people wouldn't limit me in my relationships to only those people who wanted to work in the oral care business. right? i mean, am i right?
sometimes i feel like telling everybody that i really don't know what i want to do with my life. isn't that the point of being 21? today, i want to live in ukraine for a good fifteen years and become a widly popular university professor. yesterday, i was all set to work with african refugees in portland the rest of my life and wear old fuzzy brown sweaters and socks with sandals. tomorrow, (i can already tell), i am going to want to be living in serbia, working with house churches and writing the next great coming of age novel.

third part of blog: the meat of the story

i fall in love everyday.
sometimes i worry that it is never going to happen for reals.

things i got for new year's eve:

2006-01-01T23:52:00.000-08:00

1. quality time with quality people (chris, catherine, laura, kevin, and candyce).
2. a mug of wassail (a spiced apple drink that hails from the czech republic).
3. three text messages (generic).
4. two phone calls from far away friends.
5. three phone calls from friends "pretending" to be drunk.
bonus! one apology call from one of the aforementioned friends
for calling me a "motherfucker".
6. a burnt thumb (after one of the sparklers that i was playing with spewed a chunk of fire onto my pants and i tried to put it out with my bare hand).

7. a sense of relief that a new year was starting.

cousins.

2005-12-27T23:13:00.000-08:00

me and kids have the oddest relationship.
i used to think that i hated them . . . well, at least all american kids. i thought they were all spoiled brats who had watched entirely too many television commercials.
and then i started to think that some of them were ok, but only if their moms didn't let them eat sugar cereals and if they had imaginary friends named "giant".
now, i think little kids are the best.
my cousin claire is staying at my house right now, and she is a riot. she is like 8 or 9 . . . i can never tell these things. she is really into the game "dance, dance revolution" and she will sit on my lap and get right in my face and demand that we go play "ddr", as she calls it.
it kills me.
tonight, she got baptized in our hot tub. she waited until i got home from work and then she had my dad ("uncle pastor greg") baptize her and my sister read from psalm 1 and then she had us all sing "hark the herald angels sing".
i sang so loud that my lungs hurt.
claire was smiling her picture smile, and i loved it.
she just got a retainer that looks like a watermelon, and she is so proud of it.
i think the reason i like little kids these days is because they are honestly the least complicated people you will ever meet.

fear is the heart of love

2005-12-26T23:07:00.000-08:00

my problems are so . . . how do i say this? um, first world. and by that i mean they mainly revolve around things like social anxiety and loneliness and the fact that i can' afford an ipod because i refuse to go into debt.
man, i annoy myself everytime i stop to think about the fact that i am not crazily happy. but i'm not and that's the truth of it, folks.
i have been more emotional than usual lately (i kind of remind myself of that lady from tbn . . . the one with the purple hair who cries about the children . . . i am well-intentioned but misguided). it's rather exhausting.
and then i will be doing something mundane, like changing the garbage bag liners at starbucks, and i will have a thought that makes everything feel better, like the one i had this afternoon:
"well, i guess the fall (of genesis origin) is partly to blame for my messed-up thinking".

i know it's crazy, but man that made me feel better.
i think a lot of the reason that i want to live overseas so badly is because i think i will have more justification for being unhappy.
i think this is faulty reasoning.
i think that no matter where i am at, i am never going to be truly happy.
i am always, always going to be homesick. until christ leads me home.
this thought also makes me feel happy.

also a random thought i had today:
"christ is the only one who loves me like i want to be loved"
it was nine o clock in the morning and i was staring at my face in the mirror.
and i immediatly started crying.

merry christmas eve eve.

2005-12-23T22:31:00.000-08:00

there is a difference between being irritable and being inexplicably, achingly sad.

oh the weather outside is frightful

2005-12-18T14:29:00.000-08:00

it is snowing/sleeting outside. i absolutely love it.
yesterday morning, i woke up with a strange feeling. i wasn't feeling sorry for myself.
for the past month, i have had a chip on my shoulder--i kind of felt like i wasn't getting everything that i deserved out of life. i felt like i was lonely, that people were shallow, and that the right people didn't like me in the right ways. i was moderately miserable, and quite surprised to find myself that way. i dreaded talking to people, especially on the phone, because i never felt like it was me talking. i walked around sure of the fact that my emotions were as transparent to everyone else as they were to me. most of all, i felt guilty for feeling all of these things.
and then yesterday morning, when i was half awake, i had an epiphany.

i am blessed.

that's how it started. simply: i am blessed.
and then it went on from there.
i have traveled around the world.
i have gone to three different colleges.
i have worked upwards of 8 different jobs.
i have a family who loves me very much.
i have met the most random people in the most awkward situations, and i have been able to laugh about it not to long after the fact.
i have traveled america in a motor home.
i have owned cats since the age of 11.
i have returned movies to the movie store without hyperventilating.

and through it all, i have never been alone. the very presence of christ is with me. i think i am a much more resilient person than i give myself credit. how can i possibly feel sorry for myself when there is nothing to feel sorry for?
i think i am going to have a ramshackle life.
and i think that i am very excited about it.

retrospect is priceless

2005-12-14T23:41:00.000-08:00

earlier today, i thought about writing down these words and then posting them:

my eyes were watering. i don't know if it was from the cold wind or from the fact that i miss you and you aren't even gone.

ha! this strikes me as hilarious when i read it to myself now. i did cry alot today, however.

sniper.

2005-12-12T20:42:00.000-08:00

so one of my old best friends is getting married this weekend--shotgun style. i kind of hate to even think about it, really. i really loved this boy in high school. he was so down to earth and funny, and his new zealand accent fascinated me. i was there for him when he started hearing voices in his head, when his girlfriend left him for a 52 year old convicted felon, and when he joined the army in order to "shoot people in the head".
and now he is getting married.
i think the thing that scares me the most is the realization that lonliness causes people to act crazy. i remember two summers ago, when this boy and i went on a road trip to canada. we had some good times, some crazy times, but mostly we had awful times. he was trying to use me to fill the hollowness that was in his heart. and i wouldn't let him. we argued about war (i took a get-out-of-iraq stance just to piss him off), about directions (he wouldn't let me drive), and about his feelings for me (i refused to validate them).
he was, i remember thinking, the walking wounded.
he dropped me off after that fateful road trip and left without saying goodbye. i knew that he was going downtown in order to meet up with two different girls, to see if they "would work out". i guess every guy in the army needs a picture to hold at night.
one of the girls did work out.
he is marrying her on saturday.
they will be living apart for at least 3 months, and then he might be going to ranger school.
i heard about the marriage from my dad, who is performing the ceromony.
my old friend keeps calling my phone and i can't bring myself to answer.
i don't know what he is going to say.
and i can't trust myself to open my mouth.

and we all try to fight it

2005-12-07T22:11:00.000-08:00

i am so blessedly lonely that i find myself crying at books that are about old toys who don't get played with anymore. I am so lonely that it is hard for me to register the feelings of other people around me. I am so lonely that I take every single reaction aimed my way and turn it into a personal rejection.
damn it. the feelings came back.
i was doing so good for awhile . . . in the loneliness factor. recently, i erred on the side of being semi-popular, and that wasn't any fun either. in fact, having a lot of people want to hang out with me made me realize just how much i desire to use other people for my own gain.
i have never thought of myself as attractive, but just recently i have begun to understand the power of a females attention. and you know what? i love boys. i really, really do. and it annoys me to no end that i care so much what they think of me.
and so, last week, i decided to knock it off. i stopped responding to witty comments, veiled suggestions, and pleas for attention. i stopped (for the most part) calling people. i spent a couple of nights at home. i hung out with my heart-numbingly normal roomates, and watched all 6 hours of Pride and Predjudice. i felt pathetic, i felt empowered, and i felt obedient.
but most of all, i felt lonely.

tonight, i helped my family set up the house for christmas. my dad was crabby, my sister hilarious, my mom all warmth and interest. it was exactly what i needed.

but we all sleep alone. and i am sure that i will get over this soon.

i don't want to grow up

2005-12-03T10:29:00.000-08:00

yesterday was a pretty interesting day. i was at school all morning and worked at the library for an hour. i wandered around campus, trying to be sociable without feeling cheap. i got a free meal in the cafeteria, and read a book by a christian indian mystic. generally, i just tried to kill time, because i was dreading going to help my refugees move into their new house. finally, i went over at 2 . . . and it was pouring rain. as a complete side note, the jacket that i had just gotten for free (and forgotten to wash) smelled like an old hamster cage as soon as the rain hit it. and i had to wear it all day.
anyways, when i got to majuma's house, everything was all packed up, but there was no moving van. a somalian man, alisheck, was supposed to have gotten them a uhaul . . . but i found out very quickly that he had changed his mind that day, saying he was "too busy". i started loading up my teeny little car with an increasing sense of futility. just then, an emplyee from the refugee resource center showed up. her name is jennifer, and she was completly stressed out. we quickly figured out that neither of us had money for a uhaul, but that there was no way we could move the bed frames without one.
i didn't really know why jennifer was so stressed out . . . i figured that we could get the uhaul the next day and it would all work out. and then i remembered hassan.
hassan was in the hospital, and needed to come home that day. i didn't exactly know what was wrong with him, but jennifer told me that if he stayed an extra night in the hospital it wold cost hundreds of dollars. and the hospital had just told her that they would not release hassan unless there was a clean bed set up for him at the new apartment.
jennifer also told me what was wrong with hassan: the medication that he had been on for treating his tape worm was causing his internal organs to liquify. that explained to me why his eyes were turning gray and why he had seemingly aged 10 years in two months. basically, he is dying. not today, and probably not tomorrow, but sooner than later.
so. i found all this out, and we still needed a uhaul. jennifer ended up having majuma write her a check, and she went off to go get the truck. and then i had to start doing grown-up things.
i called the hospital and convinced them to discharge hassan at 4pm, and told them where to find the new apartment.
i took one of the somali ladies (suleka), filled my little car to the brim with trashbags full of pots and pans and went to the new apartment complex to start getting a bed ready.
i picked up my friend weston so he could help load/unload.
i helped finish cleaning majuma's apartment, and took her and her three daughters to their new place.
i talked to social workers on the phone.
i went back to the hospital in order to pick up the medication that they had forgotten to give hassan (don't even get me started on this one).
i went back to the apartment complex and tried to explain to hassan how to take 13 different kinds of pills.

and then . . . . i was done. i was so tired. and happy-sad. the somalis are the most amazing people you will ever meet in your life. there must have been 25 people in the new apartment (half of them little kids) all yelling and shouting in somalian, helping out out majuma simply because she was one of them.
i remembered the hundreds of times my family has moved, and i can't remember ever having that many people help us out. africans teach me so much.
its hard to grow up, especially in one day. but the stretching makes me stronger, and it makes me feel like i am alive. i have a suspician that days like this will be the kind of days that i remember when i am old and gray.
if i ever make it to that stage.

a new blog is born.

2005-12-01T22:45:00.000-08:00

some people think i am mysterious. some people think i am really emotional. some people think i am okay at writing. some people are really nosy and i want to write about them without fear of them ever reading it. hence, this here blog. do with it what you will.