This has been one hard year but even in the midst of my worrying and anxiety hope often still wells up in my heart. In my wrestling with self-absorption, self-pity and inertia, the certainty that I'm learning something, that I'm being trained shines quite beautifully in my mind. It's this idea that has really served as a turning point for me.

Life is challenging. Ministry that transforms people also transforms you in the process and as we've seen in many cheesy sci-fi movies transformation can be painful. When I've chosen to see this year with its various difficult circumstances through the lens of training, everything seems clearer. I feel tougher and more resilient.

I've cried a lot but I've also prayed my brains out. I've fought spiritually and won but also lost. But that is what the spiritual life is really about anyway. I've often felt like a failure this year but ironically these pressures have produced a brokenness that has reaped more earnest and consistent prayer than I've prayed in a long time. And then there's the hope that I'm walking out into new territory. When something dies in you, even though it's painful there is the excitement of the resurrection.

"I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." John 12:24

This chick is sooo funny... How she personifies her animals reminds me of Ro. It just seems like a very Ro-ish thing to do.

DC baby! In front of Washington monument....

more random thoughts..

I think I'm getting sick. Even at 7:30pm I seriously considered going to bed because I was so tired.

It seems I often unwittingly live in places with activist/socialist leanings. Even though I don't see myself as fitting that mold entirely at all, it seems that I must be one deep down as I always end up in areas like that. (ex. Portland, Vermont)

I was reading some of my poems online tonight and realized that I haven't posted any since 2004. It's not that I haven't written any poems in the last year because I have. It's just that...it seems I've hit a wall with my poetry.

Most of my poetry over the last couple years seems like a broken record to me. It's always the same thing. It's like I'm trying to get past something but instead I just keep repeating the same theme. And for my journal that's okay because that's the way I deal with my raw emotions. But I haven't posted any of it because most of it annoys me. hmmmmm....

Check this movie out....

Weird. Right now blogger isn't showing the comments I made under my pictures. Anyway, the snowmanless house is where I live right now. It's my Vermonter house. :-)

Right now I'm actually staying with Sandy in Baltimore for my break. Trying to do stuff that I don't normally do like email and load pics while she's at work. Her growing bump is SO amazing. Makes me want to have babies right now. hehe

If you look at my "more pics" link you'll see some new pics I've recently uploaded. (sorry no pics of sandy's bump yet)

You know one thing the West coast has down? Clean bathrooms. And something amazing and oh so novel here on the East coast-paper seat covers. Apparently this beautiful invention has not occurred to the East coast because they don't have them in any bathroom (except for maybe the airport)! So the result is lovely pee covered toilets everywhere. Even the nicer places.

Vonderful.

So that's one pleasant surprise whenever I go home to CA-wow, the bathrooms aren't landmines of grossness that I have to navigate with utmost care lest I catch some disease!

This is my Vermont house.

Winter in VT.

Sorry I've fallen off the face of the planet. I just finished Spring 1 at my school which is like a mini semester. So the last couple weeks I was trying to finish papers and projects. Now I'm on break and will be going back for Spring 2 next week. This week I'm going to catch up on emails.

yeah!

you gotta love, Bono!