Striving: I have been thinking a lot about climbing…

"I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all of my heart." - Van Gogh

Here is the story of my life: 

I am ten months old. I have just learned to walk. I am climbing out of my crib. My mother is sleeping outside of my bedroom door. The door is closed. There is a Christmas tree with twinkle lights on it next to my bed. 

I am two years old. I am climbing trees. I am fond of eating rocks. There are no pictures. I have two brothers I boss around the living room. 

I am five years old. I am holding a rake. I am raking leaves on a forest path. My parents find me and ask what I'm doing to which I respond: "I'm raking all the leaves in the forest."

I am seven years old. I am constructing the perfect tree-house. I am planning to make a bridge between the two olive trees and the fig tree, or at least a zip-line. 

I am nine years old. I live in a villa with a view of a volcano. Every morning I am out on this deck to feed my pet rabbit and smell the ashes that have fallen overnight. 

I am twelve years old. I have won the Naval Base Talent Show. I played and sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic. I am also first chair trumpet in my band. I have read every Nancy Drew book there ever was. 

I am thirteen years old. I am in Costa Rica with three-hundred teenage girls I have never met. A group of girls who are older than me have covered my room in toilet paper. 

I am sixteen years old. I am kissed for the first time. I go to Prom. I cry in corners so much. I get up early to do my hair every morning. 

I am twenty years old. I am in Oxford. I am sprinting through Christ Church Gardens before sunrise to the Rowing Houses on the Isis. I don't buy anything I don't need for a year. 

I am twenty-two years old. I decide that hospitals are cold and dark places. I start a gym with a friend. I make a lot of mistakes. I make a home for a lot of people. Eventually, it's just me. 

I was born to hope. I was born to claw at meaning. I was born to ambition. I was born to seek a summit state of being.

Shortly before leaving for this journey (I am now nearing the "end" of) I had a conversation with a friend. In our general community (world?!) it is unheard of that a person would not have an objective on any given day, no plan, no great imminent hope for the near future, no mountain to aim at on the horizon. 

"You always want us to be learning and improving - there is always some point we should be working toward," she said.

And I actually felt her declaration thud into the air between us. Was she right? Had I been saying this? Wanting this? Did I give this to others? 

Another time I was right in the middle of teaching a class to do pull-ups when a question was blurted out: "How is a pull-up functional for life?" I realized after thinking about this that this too was something I had never thought of as being foundational to everyday life.

As an infant my mother had to sleep outside my crib for a while because I loved to climb. I walked at ten months old, and set my sights on something higher than this thereafter. 

I was obsessed with tree-houses in grade school: making them, being in them, learning about them, and imagining how I might coddle together the scraps of that time to make something beyond my dreams. 

Things went much the same as I got older. There has always been something to win, something to better, something to feel, something to do to my utmost… before walking to something higher to achieve. I have filled my days with the sound of steps. 

To climb is human. 

To pull ourselves up is human. 

To seek higher ground is human. 

But we can also live so entrenched in our own lives and the story of our bound selves that we may ask one day, offhandedly, "How is a pull-up functional?" 

Have we forgot that we were made for higher places? 

Here is the rub though: where - exactly - is the end? What - exactly - is to be found at the heights? What - really - is it like to be in the place where we are aiming? Who - exactly - are we leaving behind? Taking with us? 

Is my ladder leaning against the right wall? 

The other day I had the pleasure of tackling one of the most mentally-challenging hikes of my life. Risk-wise, elevation-wise, time-wise, this hike was an exercise in ambition and striving. Dents-du-Midi ("teeth of noon") is a many-summited mountain located in the Chablais Alps of Switzerland. The highest peak is Le Haute Cime ("the high summit") which beckons from 10,696ft. or 3,257m.  It was first ascended in 1784 by one Jean-Maurice Clement, a man who may well have completed the climb just as I did, i.e. with little to no idea of what he was getting into at all. 

Upon reaching the view that I *thought* was the top, the rest of the crew wanted to climb to the final peak a couple 100ft. up. I wanted to take a nap - so I did. So why do I still feel that I missed out on something great even after telling myself that that first summit was more than "sufficient"? 

There is a confusing paradox at work here. In mindfulness practice there is generally this idea that anytime you are reaching or striving towards a mode of being in meditation this takes you out of the allotted time to being in the present. However the future is what pushes us to appreciate the present. We look ahead to death - to the death of anything and anytime - and we are driven to grasp at the present. We even look behind us at the past and remorsefully burden ourselves by those memories to appreciate what is "now". So - this is the interplay: we sit between two poles, trying to balance on an axis of being. 

But - as I have heard in my travels, "Balance is bull-shit. There is only integration." We are never done with the climb. The moment can never really stand alone. Our lives are less like lines and more like circles. This is the way of the world. This is a way of being. Around and around we go. The summit is only ever a stop along the way. How much of what we believe is kept high on the summit, has been with us all along? 

I live my life in widening circles

that reach out across the world

I am may not complete this one

but I give myself to it. 

I circle around God, around the ancient* tower. 

I've been circling for thousands of years

and I still don't know: 

am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song? 

-Rainier Marie Rilke

*translation here my own from Arrus, who has been reading Rilke with me in German. 

40 Days.

From an email I received:
Friends, I am deeply saddened to write with the news of Landy and Jevenal's tragic accident. I don't have emails for everyone who may remember the wonderful experiences at Proyecto Amistad with this faithful couple, especially the times that Landy would drive from Monclova to Acuna just to visit us when we were there. When more details are forthcoming, I will forward them. Please keep their son and daughter and their families in your prayers.



Imagine this, dear friends: the smell of the dust of Mexico, the broken grass, the morning's rusty dew, and the sheen of the midday sun just beginning to rise. You are climbing into a van - the 15 passenger kind, where all the best stories begin. You are going on a picnic you hear. VBS (Vacation Bible School) is complete, a week's worth of mixing cement on a slab floor, of sawing away at rebar, of breaking your back with a shovel and a wheelbarrow, is about to be rewarded.

You are just 16. And the world, is a stage. Your young heart breaks for meaning, it stumbles to understand the story - Why are we here? What should we do? Why am I living in comfort?

But for now, she grips your hand with hers, and assures you, "This is going to be beautiful day." These, the hands that knead the dough - the bread you break - the hands that lay the stones, that make the walls that house the songs of joy, the tears of sorrow, and oh, all the battles of the mind. These hands with one ring, and wrinkles to match the eyes. These hands, which have grasped together in prayer, which have been kissed by children, by a faithful husband.

It is all so simple out here.

You gaze outside the windows and smile wide, "Alabare, alabare, alabare... alabare a mi Senor!" and sing to the God of Creation, hiccuping with the bumps, nudging your friends at the ribs. Along the dirt road a cloud of dust follows you into the desert and you are convinced you are an Israelite today.

The grill is fired and dozens of little foil pockets sit ready for the taking: potatoes, whole onions, meat, and fruits - this is Eden. With the smell of work on your body and redemption in the air, you take to the waterfall nearby. You are skipping stones, surveying cliffs, and guessing at how deep you might fall if you took the plunge.

You are happy. You are in wonder. You are grateful.

In one day, there are so many emotions, and so many places to feel that the heart has been tugged. I feel taken back to this time - a version of myself that is now so far away from who I am, but still, so exactly the same.

We are all aware of the unpredictability of life - we teeter on it's edge, and in a way, we are all daredevils of a sort. We are sure that what is in front of us matters, that it will be there, that it is worth our lives. When will we take stock of the whole of life if we are busy doing laundry, making money, being on hold, and pencilling in the next thing? I'm not sure when I will. I believe it will be too late.

Life: the one thing you've been given and your most prized possession - it is not guaranteed and does not come with a warranty.

It is the season of Lent, and as Rowan Williams has said, this is the season of simplicity, of being reminded of mortality, of stripping the self - not to deny oneself pleasure - but instead, to make way for the new.

It has been one of my goals for the new year to allow for this contemplative part of myself to resurface and breathe life into my days. I miss it. Like, more than I miss dairy, or coffee, or chocolate when I take time away from them... and here I am having years without a journal entry.

Strange.

It's been a long time since I've observed Lent, but it's also been a long time since I've given myself the time to think about doing so - sometimes, the time to think needs only to be taken. This Lent, starting with tonight, I'd like to complete 40 days of devotion, where devotion is defined at best in writing. Every day, I will read and/or write about how this theme of "devotion" plays out. Second to music, writing is my best medium, and a much easier way to look back and continue to wonder.

I love this piece of music.