Wanderlust

I got back from Costa Rica on Sunday. I left for camp on Monday. I had to get out of Portland, I really did. It was starting to get to me, it really was. The only reason I wanted to stay was this girl, but even that wasn’t quite enough. You stay in one place long enough and you start to feel pretty bored, at least I do—and depressed and you get those twinkling’s that life is meaningless and not really worth it. I’m not sure why. Some call it wanderlust.
It was a funny thing though, when I arrived at camp. I like camp, I really do. But after the first day, I couldn’t wait to leave. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. It probably has something to do with being content. Wherever I am, I always want to be somewhere else. Not that I don’t like the present, I do, usually. But when I’m here I fell like being there. And when I get there, I want to be back here. I’m getting better, I think. But it’s still there. I swear to God I’m crazy, I really do. A madman. Not really sure what I want in life really, or where I’m going. And sometimes I’m okay with that. And other times I feel that it’s probably all right around me, inside me.
But I feel content now, I really do. Sitting on this bench, with the tall pine trees—like skyscrapers—reaching towards the sky, towering. And these log cabins, and my friend Todd (or Holland at camp.) And it’s good to be in the woods, away from nice things. Normal things. Busy things. Where I can read words on processed trees, turned to yellow pages. And listen—to earthly things. Nature things.

Costa Rica

I am in Costa Rica! Well, actually, not right now. Right now I am back in the U.S. But, when I wrote this in my journal, I was in Costa Rica, right then. My friend Robert and I went down there last week and stayed for about ten days. Robert is still down there, I hope he’s all right and hasn’t been sucked out by the gnarly rip tides or been bitten by a colorful frog. We flew into San Jose last Saturday and spent the next two days with my friend Joe who is a kayak guide for Outward Bound. He’s been down there for a whole year, kayaking and surfing—such a hard life. We literally had no idea what we were doing when we got there but I think that’s the best way to do it sometimes. We were planning on having Joe take us around but he had to go on a trip so Robert and I were forced to backpack around the country by ourselves. So we just did that and backpacked around and took long, uncomfortable bus rides. We hung out at the beach in Montezuma—an organic, bohemian town filled with dreadlocks, European budget travelers and hippie expatriates. We drank forties of Imperial(the cerveza of Costa Rica) and watched the sunset.

Heres a poem I wrote:
Rip-tide foamy white
Shell white crash and bright
A fitting metaphor (for You)
To give and take
To habitate and break
A fitting Calm a fitting Fear
And moisture in the air, those
Clouds, flash and illuminate
Bright inkling to bright inkling
Yellow yellow fluttering height.

Pure Vida! (Which means everything is good)

Wild Hope

On Wednesday night sullen skies stretched over the dreary, orange colored bricks of Pioneer Square. We walk—bags on shoulders, past the Max tracks down Yamhill St, looking, searching, and then stopping next to the Pioneer courthouse. Lounging by the eight by four pools of concrete animals are four teenagers. Wearing spiked leather and rolling cigarettes, they lean up against their heavy, worn backpacks. They tell us they have just got in from Seattle. Next they are going to San Diego. Then To New Orleans. Then back to Portland. We ask if they need anything. Sometimes they say yes. “Yes we do,” they say. “Money or booze?”

“Sorry,” we reply. “We do not have these things to offer.”

What we do have to offer though, is socks. Socks and sewing kits. Socks and cigarettes. Socks and q tips. Socks and band-aids. Socks and friendship. Friendship and relationship.
Sometimes they say no. They are happy the way they are.
What we do on Wednesday nights at Wild Hope is classified as outreach. We stick our hands in bags, we pull them out, we pass them goods. We listen to them. We talk with them. We reach out to them. But as we are reaching out, they are reaching in. Reaching into our hearts and giving them a good pump or two. Reminding us that life is about more than 9-5 jobs and conforming to rules society has deemed supreme. They are known by some as the dregs of society, the outcasts, the cracked out scum, the alcoholic rabble. Bums. Hobo’s. Punks. We say they are our brothers, fellow humanity. We no better and they no worse. But if they ask, we tell them. Yes, we tell them. About this Wild Hope that we have. This Wild Hope that there is more beyond this life. That all the struggle, the writhing, the hurting is “just for now.” We tell them that we hope in what is not seen. That it is wild. That it is freedom. That it is peace. We do not pass out tracts. We pass out relationship. Bits and pieces of us.

Some nights are darker than others. Sometimes people die. Sometimes people overdose. Sometimes people get arrested. But other nights are filled with laughter. With the sharing of stories, the exchange of ideas. Sometimes we are humbled when we offer help and they reply that they love their life-hopping trains around the country, playing guitar, peddling for quarters. They have chosen this lifestyle because normal life is way too boring, there is no adventure, no danger. Sometimes we offer to help them get a job and they just shake their head silently, as if we have no idea what we are talking about.

Between the hours of six and nine on Wednesday nights you can find us. Walking. Conversing. We end each night with some prayer and community time because we have come to realize that we are not only valuable because of the things we do for God’s kingdom but because we are God’s children. So we end each night of outreach, reaching into each other’s lives. Reminding ourselves that we are not machines, that we have value simply because God says we do. We pray for each other and then exit. Exit in body, but not in mind. There is simply too much breath on Wednesday nights to forget about.

To Be Free or Happy?

Fyodor Dostoevsky says in his book The Brothers Karamazov that God created man to be free, when all he really wants is to be happy. The other day I sat down and asked myself some hard questions about living in Empire. The first being, is Darth Vader really that great of a leader? Or, is he respected from a purely aesthetic level due to his whole dark, “my voice sounds like a machine and you can’t see my eyes,” façade? And, also can the Death Star really do all that we think it can? Seriously, think about it.

Really I think it comes down to this question: “Do I really want to follow Jesus? Or do I want to kind of follow Jesus and kind of live in the empire?” Sort of like a half in-half out scenario where I hover between these two different worlds, like a Now, there are many ways in which I believe in a Consumer King, that is, a God who will give me what I want, when I want it, American style. I want a god who promises me certain things such as fame, success, and happiness, who will be my tiny little genie, granting me my every wish. I decompose into the mode of the this, then statements. I say God if you don’t do this, then… then I’m not going to do this. God if you don’t make me happy or take away my whatever, or give me blank, then I’m leaving.

What is the this? What are the things in the empire that I think if I just had this…then. Then I would be happy. Then I would have no more problems. Then I would follow you. If everything just made sense. If you were just more like this sort of god. If you would just give me security. Peace. If you would just give me these answers. If you would only stop me from sinning. If you would only take this brown thorn out my pale skin.

Then there are still the things I lust for in the Empire. The areas of life I seek abundance through. A lust to be noticed, to be known. To buy this or that, to make myself feel better. To search for recognition. Identity. A sensual greed—to feel good, to feel happy, to feel intimacy, to feel all right. There is this Faustian desire for knowledge within me leading to a gospel based on rationality, science and the so called wisdom of the world. My failure to really believe that God is the abundance. Trading a gospel of self-sacrifice for feel good spirituality. My failure to abide in that which is the very being of the cosmos, and trusting in the trinkets of the empire.

Maggies Farm (Subverting Empire, Part Deux)

Maggies Farm (Subverting the Empire)
Parte Deux

I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.No, I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more. Well, I try my bestTo be just like I am,But everybody wants youTo be just like them.They sing while you slave and I just get bored.I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.

-Bob Dylan

“I aint gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more.” So sings Bob Dylan and also Rage Against the Machine, depending on your version. But, what would it mean if we really did refuse to work on Maggie’s farm? Kind of like the bumper sticker that says “What if the Hokey pokey is what it’s all about?” What if we refused to take part in the economies, systems and rules of the empire? First we would have to decide what parts of the empire go in direct contrast to the teachings of Jesus. Those could be war, nationalism, greed, lust—for power, fame, sexuality. It could be the worship of Mammon, even in the name of our “financial” security.

However, once I started to think of what ways I am controlled by empire mentality, I realized the lists were endless and to such a drastic level, that I had to eat a whole gallon of ice cream before my head felt well (I also went on a shopping spree.) Even in so called “spiritual aspirations” I can see the empire mentality and the evil within my own heart seethe out. For instance, I want to live a radical lifestyle of following Jesus that includes communal living, activist demonstrations, subversive love and that hopefully, will get me killed one day. But, and there is a big but, at the beginning of this sentence. But, one day I realized that I don’t want to do those things in isolation and out of pure obedience so much as I want people to see me doing all these things. I want people to notice me doing all these great things.
I honestly don’t know if I would do all the things I do if no one was watching. I mean I hope I would. I want to. But I don’t know.

Can it be?

It is May 26th and the clouds have broken. We are starting to feel, smell the air of summer. And it is glorious. It has been dark and dreary for so long, too long. And we are starting to think that we can’t make it any longer. But now, now we just might be able to. Now we are starting to think that life may just work out after all. We are drinking Ice Tea and listening to People under the Stairs. We are going to summer BBQ’s and playing basketball in the park. We are going for bike rides on the East bank Esplanade. We are trading in our dark, drab clothes for brighter ones. We are tilting the corners of our upside down lips. Tilting them up towards joy. We soak it up, the sun, the hope. We tilt up our necks and open our mouths.

Summer evenings make it good. Life, that is. It makes it feasible that I could survive 70 years on this green sphere called earth. It makes it more than feasible. It makes it livable. It makes it full, luminous, shining.

Hey Everyone,

Mewithoutyou's new cd just came out about a week ago. It's awesome, you should go buy it, right now, go put on your shoes, oh and grab your coat, it could rain.

Also, there is a sweet interview with Aaron Weiss and he tells an amazing story about a horse.

Heres the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZJJtw2DHfY