The life I'm leaving or the life I'm keeping?It can't be all that bad.
Dec 12, 2007
Nov 29, 2007
To heal
"Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure”
Henri Nouwen
Nov 22, 2007
Happy Thanksgiving 2007
Grateful. (that I don't have to use 1,000 words...)
(a year later)
The McCarty Clan
My sister and bros
The sibs "Take 2 Deja Vu"
Handsome McCarty Boys
Forced love - my schmakinwacker
My schnu
My mother
The post-turkey daze...
(a year later)
The McCarty Clan
My sister and bros
The sibs "Take 2 Deja Vu"
Handsome McCarty Boys
Forced love - my schmakinwacker
My schnu
My motherThe post-turkey daze...
I'm so grateful.
Nov 4, 2007
tumble
The most apt word I can employ to describe my life of late is, "tumble."
I feel like I'm playing a game of musical chairs... perhaps as a 6 year old. There is that terrified feeling, the hyper-tuned senses, the feigned ambivalence, the conscious cheating, the relief of losing... I'm not unhappy I'm simply tense. I am slowly beginning to unravel (in a good way).
One of my 3rd graders wrote this, and I wanted it to be true of me:
(we were doing a poetry-writing exercise in which they had to use the same two adjectives at the start of each stanza)
Ayla wrote,
"I Am Crazy and Funny"
I am crazy and funny
I like to climb trees
I can flip in the air in my bouncy house
I can swing a real vine
I almost killed myself by jumping off a tree.
I am crazy and funny
I love gymnastics
I will jump off a cliff
I can jump off my house and fly
I will fly off my bouncy house
I am crazy and funny
I will do a double jump in the air possibly
I will walk up a tree
I can head bash a tree and knock myself in the head
Okay, I don't want *all* of it to be true of me.... But being crazy and funny would be nice. For now, I'm just tumbled.
Oct 3, 2007
Home
I dressed up for the first time... happy tears.
I have 0 regrets about leaving WR and am exhilerated beyond all reason to be home. My life is full of coffee and hugs and cute clothes and high heels and good smells.
Without seeming duplicitous I do want to insert an aside here: I feel it confirmed more than ever that I don't *need* these amenities of life... the hot water or cold ice or available bathrooms or hair dryers... these are luxuries but I really don't feel they add any significant fulfillment to my life. The relief of being home really is confined to the company of my family. I'm happy to discover this about myself.
Thanks for everyone's love and support!!!
p.s. I am currently watching Muppets From Space and drinking a Diet Coke after my long bath.
Sep 30, 2007
Searching and Settling
"Round Here" by Counting Crows:
Step out the front door like a ghost into the fog
where no one notices the contrast of white on white
In between the moon and you angels get a better view
of the crumbling difference between wrong and right
I walk in the air, between the rain, through myself and back again
Where... I don't know
Well Maria says she's dying, through the door I hear her crying, 'why?'
I don't know.
Round here
We always stand up straight
Round here
Something radiates
...
She's more than just a little, you know, misunderstood
She has trouble acting normal when she's nervous
Round here
We're carving out our names
Round here
We all look the same
Round here we talk just like lions
But we sacrifice like lambs
Round here
She's slipping through my hands
Sleeping children better run like the wind
Out of the lightning dream
Mama's little baby better get herself in
Out of the lightning
She says, 'it's only in my head'
She says, 'sshh, I know, it's only in my head.'
There's a girl on the car in the parking lot
She says, 'man you should try to take a shot; can't you see my walls are crumbling?'
And she looks up at the building says she's thinking of jumping
She says she's tired of life; everyone's tired of something
Round here
She's always on my mind
Round here
I've got lots of time
Round here we're never sent to bed early
Nobody makes us wait
Round here we stay up very very very very late
I can't see nothing, nothing round here
Would you catch me if I'm falling?
Would you kiss me if I was leaving?
Would you hold me 'cause I'm lonely... without you...
I said I'm under the gun
Round here.
-------------------------------------------------------------
The journey of seeking truth has been a defining element of the past couple of years of my life. I've deconstructed and feebly began to hang hats of absolutes on my very exclusive hat stand. My pockets are full of propositions - little scraps of paper suggesting thoughts that I can easily peruse and discard, but they don't yet define me or possess me. Sometimes I really only want them there for comfort of jamming my hands deep down and coming up with ideas. I am a thinking person!
And that is the gypsy spirit in me that walks barefoot and naked: risking and running.
But it is not all of me.
The last two pages of "Franny and Zooey" by the J.D. Salinger
(there is profanity in this excerpt but I am not editing to maintain the integrity of the original)
"The voice on the other end came through again. 'I remember about the fifth time I ever went on "Wise Child." I subbed for Walt a few times when he was in a cast--remember when he was in that cast? Anyway, I started bitching one night before broadcast. Seymour'd told me to shine my shoes just as I was going out the door with Waker. I was furious. The studio audience were all morons, the announcer was a moron, the sponsors were morons, and I just damn well wasn't going to shine my shoes for them, I told Seymour. I said they couldn't see them anyway, where we sat. He said to shine them anyway. He said to shine them for the Fat Lady. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, but he had a very Seymour look on his face, and so I did it. He never did tell me who the Fat Lady was, but I shined my shoes for the Fat Lady every time I ever went on the air again--all the years you and I were on the program together, if you remember. I don't think I missed more than just a couple of times. This terribly clear, clear picture of the Fat Lady formed in my mind. I had her sitting on this porch all day, swatting flies, with her radio going full-blast from morning till night. I figured the heat was terrible, and she probably had cancer, and--I don't know. Anyway, it seemed goddam clear why SEymour wanted me to shine my shoes when I went on the air. It made sense.'
"Franny was standing. She had taken her hand away from her face to hold the phone with two hands. 'He told me, too,' she said into the phone. 'He told me to be funny for the Fat Lady, once.' She released one hand from the phone and placed it, very briefly, on the crown of her head, then went back to holding the phone with both hands. 'I didn't ever picture her on a porch, but with very-you know-very thick legs, very veiny. I had her in an awful wicker chair. She had cancer, too, though, and she had the radio going full blast all day! Mine did, too!'
'Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. Let me tell you something now, buddy....Are you listening?'
Franny, extremely tense, nodded.
"'I don't care where an actor acts. It can be summer stock, it can be over the radio, it can be over television, it can be in a goddam Broadway theatre, complete with the most fashionable, most well-fed, most sunburned-looking audience you can imagine. But I'll tell you a terrible secret--Are you listening to me? There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. That includes your Professor Tupper, buddy. And all his goddam cousins by the dozens. There isn't anyone anywhere that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know--listen to me, now--don't you know who that Fat Lady really is?...Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.'
"For joy, apparently, it was all Franny could do to hold the phone, even with both hands. For a fullish minute or so, there were no other words, no further speech. Then: 'I can't talk anymore buddy.' The sound of a phone being replaced in its catch followed.
"Franny took in her breath slightly but continued to hold the phone to her ear. A dial tone, of course, followed the formal break in the connection. She appeared to find it extraordinarily beautiful to listen to, rather as if it were the best possible substitute for the primordial silence itself. but she seemed to know, too, when to stop listening to it, as if all of what little or much wisdom there is in the world were suddenly hers. When she replaced the phone, she seemed to know just what to do next, too. She cleared away the smoking things, then drew back the cotton bedspread from the bed she had been sitting on, took off her slippers, and got into the bed. For some minutes, before she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, she just lay quiet, smiling at the ceiling."
---------------------------------------------------------------
I "settle" on very little in life but my call as a mission and my heart for ministry ("my call and gifts" so to speak) are irrevocable. I am entranced by filmy and whimsical metaphors of the Fat Lady, The Island, a Prince, Chesterton's Sunday, but what's more, I am found in the Person of Christ. I am His. I am not many things in my life, but I can be surer of no alternate reality or truth than I am of that:
I am His.
Everywhere I've gone this year, every man, woman and child, has staged a unique presentation of who God is... and I feel like I'm watching for the first time each time. Organically, I laugh and smile and applaud.
"In the rustling grass, I hear him pass/
He speaks to me everywhere."
And so the top spins, but never above the floor.
I'm home.
Step out the front door like a ghost into the fog
where no one notices the contrast of white on white
In between the moon and you angels get a better view
of the crumbling difference between wrong and right
I walk in the air, between the rain, through myself and back again
Where... I don't know
Well Maria says she's dying, through the door I hear her crying, 'why?'
I don't know.
Round here
We always stand up straight
Round here
Something radiates
...
She's more than just a little, you know, misunderstood
She has trouble acting normal when she's nervous
Round here
We're carving out our names
Round here
We all look the same
Round here we talk just like lions
But we sacrifice like lambs
Round here
She's slipping through my hands
Sleeping children better run like the wind
Out of the lightning dream
Mama's little baby better get herself in
Out of the lightning
She says, 'it's only in my head'
She says, 'sshh, I know, it's only in my head.'
There's a girl on the car in the parking lot
She says, 'man you should try to take a shot; can't you see my walls are crumbling?'
And she looks up at the building says she's thinking of jumping
She says she's tired of life; everyone's tired of something
Round here
She's always on my mind
Round here
I've got lots of time
Round here we're never sent to bed early
Nobody makes us wait
Round here we stay up very very very very late
I can't see nothing, nothing round here
Would you catch me if I'm falling?
Would you kiss me if I was leaving?
Would you hold me 'cause I'm lonely... without you...
I said I'm under the gun
Round here.
-------------------------------------------------------------
The journey of seeking truth has been a defining element of the past couple of years of my life. I've deconstructed and feebly began to hang hats of absolutes on my very exclusive hat stand. My pockets are full of propositions - little scraps of paper suggesting thoughts that I can easily peruse and discard, but they don't yet define me or possess me. Sometimes I really only want them there for comfort of jamming my hands deep down and coming up with ideas. I am a thinking person!
And that is the gypsy spirit in me that walks barefoot and naked: risking and running.
But it is not all of me.
The last two pages of "Franny and Zooey" by the J.D. Salinger
(there is profanity in this excerpt but I am not editing to maintain the integrity of the original)
"The voice on the other end came through again. 'I remember about the fifth time I ever went on "Wise Child." I subbed for Walt a few times when he was in a cast--remember when he was in that cast? Anyway, I started bitching one night before broadcast. Seymour'd told me to shine my shoes just as I was going out the door with Waker. I was furious. The studio audience were all morons, the announcer was a moron, the sponsors were morons, and I just damn well wasn't going to shine my shoes for them, I told Seymour. I said they couldn't see them anyway, where we sat. He said to shine them anyway. He said to shine them for the Fat Lady. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, but he had a very Seymour look on his face, and so I did it. He never did tell me who the Fat Lady was, but I shined my shoes for the Fat Lady every time I ever went on the air again--all the years you and I were on the program together, if you remember. I don't think I missed more than just a couple of times. This terribly clear, clear picture of the Fat Lady formed in my mind. I had her sitting on this porch all day, swatting flies, with her radio going full-blast from morning till night. I figured the heat was terrible, and she probably had cancer, and--I don't know. Anyway, it seemed goddam clear why SEymour wanted me to shine my shoes when I went on the air. It made sense.'
"Franny was standing. She had taken her hand away from her face to hold the phone with two hands. 'He told me, too,' she said into the phone. 'He told me to be funny for the Fat Lady, once.' She released one hand from the phone and placed it, very briefly, on the crown of her head, then went back to holding the phone with both hands. 'I didn't ever picture her on a porch, but with very-you know-very thick legs, very veiny. I had her in an awful wicker chair. She had cancer, too, though, and she had the radio going full blast all day! Mine did, too!'
'Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. Let me tell you something now, buddy....Are you listening?'
Franny, extremely tense, nodded.
"'I don't care where an actor acts. It can be summer stock, it can be over the radio, it can be over television, it can be in a goddam Broadway theatre, complete with the most fashionable, most well-fed, most sunburned-looking audience you can imagine. But I'll tell you a terrible secret--Are you listening to me? There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. That includes your Professor Tupper, buddy. And all his goddam cousins by the dozens. There isn't anyone anywhere that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know--listen to me, now--don't you know who that Fat Lady really is?...Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.'
"For joy, apparently, it was all Franny could do to hold the phone, even with both hands. For a fullish minute or so, there were no other words, no further speech. Then: 'I can't talk anymore buddy.' The sound of a phone being replaced in its catch followed.
"Franny took in her breath slightly but continued to hold the phone to her ear. A dial tone, of course, followed the formal break in the connection. She appeared to find it extraordinarily beautiful to listen to, rather as if it were the best possible substitute for the primordial silence itself. but she seemed to know, too, when to stop listening to it, as if all of what little or much wisdom there is in the world were suddenly hers. When she replaced the phone, she seemed to know just what to do next, too. She cleared away the smoking things, then drew back the cotton bedspread from the bed she had been sitting on, took off her slippers, and got into the bed. For some minutes, before she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, she just lay quiet, smiling at the ceiling."
---------------------------------------------------------------
I "settle" on very little in life but my call as a mission and my heart for ministry ("my call and gifts" so to speak) are irrevocable. I am entranced by filmy and whimsical metaphors of the Fat Lady, The Island, a Prince, Chesterton's Sunday, but what's more, I am found in the Person of Christ. I am His. I am not many things in my life, but I can be surer of no alternate reality or truth than I am of that:
I am His.
Everywhere I've gone this year, every man, woman and child, has staged a unique presentation of who God is... and I feel like I'm watching for the first time each time. Organically, I laugh and smile and applaud.
"In the rustling grass, I hear him pass/
He speaks to me everywhere."
And so the top spins, but never above the floor.
I'm home.
Sep 18, 2007
Aug 24, 2007
I'm beginning to hope this is an "hasta luego" kind of goodbye
I have, to date, not become so emotionally attached to a place and people as I have here Patong, Thailand. Tonight is our last night of outreach and then tomorrow night we fly back to Bangkok. I just... don't know.
Aug 19, 2007
Aug 13, 2007
Congratulations, Aunt Patty!
After all of the hurt and harm inflicted on this gracious and lovely woman, she has found her Hankey. No, really, that's his name. I'm so happy for you guys!!! May your conflict be small and your love full of joy - I pray God's favor on your new marriage!
I can tell the family had fun!!!
Aug 12, 2007
Where's the designated driver, here?
Friday night at the Joy Bar-(that's it's name). Halfway along the strip, the brazen girls yell at the passers by and join the frivolities...drinks, games, bright lights... so much fun!
A thick girl with pouty lips grasps our hands and hugs and kisses us for coming back to see her. I pull her aside and she cries in my shoulder.
A slight girl with a black and white dress finishes off the bottle of whiskey. We laugh raucously as a replacement bottle is brought. She dances at the pole and knocks another shot back. Then she collapses in my arms and says, "I have to drink so much because I am so sad on the inside but I have to be happy on the outside." I pass her a tissue and she goes and sits on his lap.
The one with the angular facial features pulls out a game and tells me about her son, pausing only to make eye contact with the old Aussie man at the other bar. The short, fat one comes by and kisses her breast. Oh, this is such a fun, sexy place... no rules... just fun!
But then the slight girl is back to throw up in the sink. She pulls my head close: "why doesn't he want to sleep with me?" Her out of place tears keep falling.
He has been a woman since s/he was little... I can barely have a good conversation because she keeps catching her reflection in the mirror. We laugh as she compares our chest sizes. She thinks I'm fat and that's funny too. It's all funny. Then she whips around, grabs my face in her two large hands and asks earnestly, "am I pretty?"
She's too sick to go on. I chase her unsteady,weaving steps down the road. "Will you be okay? Let me get you a motorbike. No, don't drive. Be safe. You are beautiful. You are special."
So, are we having fun yet?
Come on.
A thick girl with pouty lips grasps our hands and hugs and kisses us for coming back to see her. I pull her aside and she cries in my shoulder.
A slight girl with a black and white dress finishes off the bottle of whiskey. We laugh raucously as a replacement bottle is brought. She dances at the pole and knocks another shot back. Then she collapses in my arms and says, "I have to drink so much because I am so sad on the inside but I have to be happy on the outside." I pass her a tissue and she goes and sits on his lap.
The one with the angular facial features pulls out a game and tells me about her son, pausing only to make eye contact with the old Aussie man at the other bar. The short, fat one comes by and kisses her breast. Oh, this is such a fun, sexy place... no rules... just fun!
But then the slight girl is back to throw up in the sink. She pulls my head close: "why doesn't he want to sleep with me?" Her out of place tears keep falling.
He has been a woman since s/he was little... I can barely have a good conversation because she keeps catching her reflection in the mirror. We laugh as she compares our chest sizes. She thinks I'm fat and that's funny too. It's all funny. Then she whips around, grabs my face in her two large hands and asks earnestly, "am I pretty?"
She's too sick to go on. I chase her unsteady,weaving steps down the road. "Will you be okay? Let me get you a motorbike. No, don't drive. Be safe. You are beautiful. You are special."
So, are we having fun yet?
Come on.
Aug 10, 2007
Girls
I'm working in Patong, Phuket (Thailand) - a southern vacation destination. There're tons of tourists and foreigners lolling around, beautiful beaches, and bright & colorful strips of bars.S.H.E. (Self Help Empowerment) is a micro-enterprise organization started by Mark and Sharon Biddell from England. They work primarily with bar girls or prostitutes by providing them with friendship, mentoring, Biblical education, and a job (jewelry-making).
I just like the girls. The ministry is my element and I actually feel useful and excited... it's such fun meeting new girls and guys in the industry and thinking of God's lovely heart for broken people.
The indomitable nature of the feminine spirit is truly awe-inspiring. God did a wonderful thing when he created the amazing paradox of woman - no wonder Adam was so smitten. I wonder if there's anything a woman can't heal from... or hurt from. But God is such an ever-present help to women. And our instinctive humility and gentleness WILL out in the end to turn our hearts to the cross.
We work with 4 girls who have left the bars for good and now work full-time at S.H.E. - Glong, Gae, Gung and Wan. They are so much fun - it's a joy.
More pics to come (this place really isn't "suffering for Jesus" unless you count the oppressive heat & humidity - it's so gorgeous here).
Love you all.
I Chose This
I know I talk about her a rather lot... but here she is... kayaking... without me.I chose this.
I talked to them on the phone... they're so happy and having such fun... mixed with the angst-ridden drama that is so rife in my family...
But I did choose this.
Then I read Leah's e-mails... and wrote her back... pages and pages... everyday this week, I think... I'm missing so much. Lizzy grows.
But this is what I decided to do.
I feel a little foolish and little displaced... more than a little confused and quite frustrated....
Because I chose this.
And I daily wonder what "this" is...
This... journey... discovery... challenge... "race"... mission...
All somewhat empty words.
And then somehow I find peace in knowing this:
I may not be completely happy here but I did choose this for one overarching reason: for God.
I feel like I've made a lot of decisions in my life "for God" that just didn't pan out somehow - that were dissatisfying or disastrous... but if motives count for anything, God knows mine are good.
So my time won't just be salvaged, it will be satisfying... right?
Because I chose God above family and friends...
And as much as I love them, he must always be first.
Bangkok pics
"You worship the sun/Now can you fall for the rain?"
("London Skies" by Jamie Cullem)
Jul 26, 2007
Unsure, sleepless, and inane
Manila, Philippines -
-Predominantly catholic
-Currency is the peso
-Crammed with people!
-More Filipinos live and work outside the Philippines than any other ethnic group - if they came back, not only would there not be room but the economy would collapse
-Slum ministry seems to be the biggest need
-Has the biggest mall in Asia ;)
Personal thoughts-
It's hard to know what to call things these days. I sit in a soot-streaked, strangely proportioned and wildly expensive hotel in Manila with Jimmy. We have to walk by piles of refuse and cart ladies to catch a cab to the mall. I hate this socioeconomic gap in cultures. It's so foul and demeaning to people.
(note: I'm not going to say I haven't thought of socialism a lot lately).
I have so many impressions- so much novelty. It's hard to put my finger on what I feel when I see all of these things. I want to aptly describe my experience; there aren't enough adjectives within my grasp.
But these are the ones I came up with.
I'd Call It You
If it were a taste
I'd call it lingering
If it were a book
I'd call it suspenseful
If it were a beat
I'd call it syncopated
If it were a position
I'd call it precarious
A hesitant word
A high-risk investment
An outdated map
A questionable expiration
A classic look
A strange choice
An acquired taste
A biting satire
If it were a shoe
I'd call it a 1/2 size too small
A B-flat
Sepia toned
Metaphor
I'd call it you.
Cambodia and Thailand with Jimmy
Temple in Cambodia
Beach on the island of Koh Samet - crazy fish & fire dancers!So this month has been fab... traveling with Jimmy is fun! I get free Coke Lite, he carries my bags all of the time and, in general, I am just taken care of
Asia has been nice so far. I looove Cambodia and hope hope hope we land on my team going there for Sept.
Ok, I'm too emotionally tired to write more so here are pics.
YWAM base at Katchanaburi
Bridge over the River Kwae!
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