i’m not who I was

He stands at the front of the class
dressed in all black and cunningly demands
    Our souls should shine gold
    like Hesoid’s most precious metal:
            To read not just to finish our reading
            or just skim over pages before class
            or use sparknotes
                    But to read in order to dive into
                    the ideas and the consequences
                    of those ideas and understand how those ideas
                    have flowed into all of western culture
and today flood our everyday lives.
So after reading Hesiod’s Theogony –
                    Dr. Biermann comes like a god himself
                    Hovering in front of the class… voice trailing a little at the end of each sentence
                    And slaps down the idea that Hesoid’s story of creation begins
                    with a Chasm.
            “What does that remind you of?” he probes
            With his beady eyes searching our souls –
            detecting the metals of which they are formed –
    The silence – stiff silence – following Dr. Biermann’s demanding question
    echos back that we are made of brutish Bronze.
He walks back to his laptop,
looks at the time, and changes the slide.

“I love packing my mind full of knowledge,” I said optimistically to Faith after explaining to her about my 3 English classes this semester, as well as one of Jeff Lewis’s class, and my ISP training, and my Honors seminar class.
Today has been one of those days. After the first few class sessions and the first full week and our first day off, the feelings of I have so much to do! are beginning to nag at me. But I push them away, refusing to allow myself to become falsely overwhelmed by the blessing of my education.

From applying the Greek letter Chi and computer-generated factorials to literary analysis of the Bible, to use of Beauty in God’s plan to proclaim his glory to the nations, to the French transcription under a painting of a pipe reading “This is not a pipe” and the Eifel tower as a symbol of rapid change, cubism as a “way of seeing over time” and still not being able to make sense of Picasso’s 100-year-old paintings, to symbols used in visual literacy and the connection of art and beauty in graphic novels — my head is packed with knowledge.

All this. In one day.
Then I sit down, take 20 minutes reading a short story and I cry. Because I am not only ‘packing my mind with knowledge’ but in doing so I am caring for my soul. Art that spans cultural boundaries and touches the universal longings and beatings of the moral human soul — that is what I am spending thousands of dollars for. Not a degree. Not an “experience” or a short time of no responsibility. But a lesson and journey for my soul.

The soul, packed full of knowledge the mind could never comprehend.

Driving west, I look accorss the pink and purple smered sky at the last sunset of 2009. Yet as the sun sets, the full moon rises. Now driving east I see the big bright moon illuminating the sky behind the clouds. 2009 beings to slip away. “What happened in 2009?” Alisa asks, sitting the passenger seat beside me. I have to think hard to come up with an answer.

Later, alone in the silence as I drive to my friends home in Temecula for a New Years Eve party, I realize that the last time I went to a New Years Eve party was Sophomore year in Cambodia. Has it really been that long since I’ve had friends? But look at me now… this Christmas break has been filled with memories of friends and hanging out and boys and dates. It’s exciting.

I’m filled with happy feelings. This new year brings with it joyful anticipation… of weddings and new family, of Rwanda and 20th birthdays, my brother graduating, my sister driving, and me earning a free Mary Kay car.
Welcome to Two-thousand ten.

I love my mom.

“You are a lot like your mom,” my dad told me today during lunch at the cafeteria. “When she was 19 she was the manager of a drapery store, she knocked on people’s doors and took measurments for drapes, and she did drapery sales. She was top notch.” I smile when I think about it - what are the chances, three years after her death that here I am a 19 year old in mid-level mangament, leading a team of women and running my own business, selling skin care with a personal touch.
Later today when I saw Alisa I told her what dad had said. “Oh yeah, and her boss was kind of stupid and he had an annorexic daughter!” she added. I laugh, “Yeah, and all she ate was carrots!! Haha, I totally remember mom telling us about that!” I think of the joy it will be to tell my children of my work adventures as a 19 year old in an adult’s world.
As our family drives home in my dad’s truck, Travis begins talking about how he wants to have his own company. “We come from a very euntrepenure famliy!” I mention… and remember watching my grandpa’s memorial video - he was QUITE the enturpenure. Everything he learned how to do, he did to the hight of excellence, then blazed the trail to teach others to do the same. Sod farms, real estate, epraisal. Grandpa did it all. My mom always enjoyed selling too. She was always selling something - longeburger baskets, lolo dolls, and even as I write this I remember how when she was a teenager she would have a booth at the craft fair. She sold an afgan to a jewler once and as payment he allowed her to come into her shop and buy any gold ring she wished. She chose a ring that was shaped to look like a ring of ivy leaves. She wore that ring so much that it is worn down so much that she had to stop wearing it for fear that it would break. Today it’s mine. I wish I could wear it… Now I realize why she treasured it so much.

It encourages me that I am not much different than the rest of my family - that although my aspirations seem foriegn to my peers and other adults who are watching me grow - I really am simply carrying on our family legacy and continuing the modle that my mom and grandma and dad have set for me.

Tomorrow it will all begin - everyone will be moving in and the buzz of school will start. I’ve enjoyed this in-between time, being able to make my new apartment a home and ease back into college life.

The anticipation of the start of this new school year is much different than the excitement of begining college last year. Last year it was the excitement of the unknown, something new and independence. But it turned out that all of that new and change proved to be harder than I had thought. Today, as Alisa and I contemplated over the 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle I said outloud, “Last year was a hard year.” But this year - this year I have things figured out, I’ve tested the waters and I’ve grown a lot. I’ve graduated from counseling and I feel confident that I can face my problems and take control of my own life.

On Saturday I had lunch with Dad and Alisa … I could have spent the night but I realized that would have been too much work - so I went back to my appartment and showed up at home at church on Sunday. When I left on Sunday it didn’t feel like I stayed longer than I wanted to or that my leaving was abrupt. I then went back to my appartment, planned my day, woke up on Monday and had the most productive day yet.

One thing that I am excited about this year is I have learned to FOCUS on what I need to focus on 100%. When I’m with friends, be a friend 100%; when it is Mary Kay time, do Mary Kay 100%; when I’m with my family, be a family member 100%; when I am in the Admissions office, be an Admin host 100%! Mary Kay wore many different hats - I have to too! As long as I can keep the boundaries clear in my mind and enforce them in my weekly schedule, there should be no anxiety this year.

God, make my focus clear. Give me a goal and a plan to reach it in each facet of my life. Thank you for the skills that you have helped me learn and develope and for all of the people involved in helping me grow into the person I am today. I’m no longer allowing silly obstacles and excuses hold me back. Thank you for always making my way clear. Thank you for everything that you have planed for me and my team and my friends and everyone I come in contact with that I can’t even imagine or comprehend. You are so great and big. Thank you for all the precious thoughts that you have of me!! Let me be a part of your work so that I can share this growth and the blessing of a relationship with you with OTHERS! Amen. <3 CARA

“Cease striving and know that I am God.”

There is so much beauty and abundance all around us - I am just beginning to realize that again. In the midst of adversity I feel the need to keep going and then after that keep going then I ask myself “what’s next?”. But today as I prayed, kneeling facedown on the back seat of Laurie’s van parked in the parking lot of Food 4 Less in San Manuel (don’t ask me how I got there because I don’t know - I was lost :)) I was pouring my heart out to God and thinking of all that I had ahead of me and all that I had to do. And he told me - Cease striving. Cease striving. I am working out of fear and working so franticly that I haven’t taken the time to just STOP and appriciate God. Not just thank him on the run — but really just STOP and soak in all of his greatness and praise him for it. Today I did that. In the midst of my praying I stoped and listening to “Revelation Song” by Phillips Craig and Dean I “knew that God was GOD.”

Then later as I washed dishes, thinking about what I was going to do next, I happened to see the sky through the window (imgain that!! haha). It was washed with the most beautiful bright pinks and oranges and purples. And right then I decided to go out into the backyard, pull up a chair and just “be still.”

Life is a lot more interesting when you are not boxing yourself up in your room, or even glued to the TV. As I sit here writing this on my laptop outside, I can hear the neighbor’s TV - they are watching a movie. How thankful am I that instead of inside the hot house rotting my brain, I am outside enjoying God’s glory!