The pain never felt so good.

It is strangely satisfying to wear your first holes in a pair of climbing shoes. For the past two weeks I have been expanding the wear spots and stretching the seams. Practically climbing on my big toe has caused me to look for more heel-hooking opportunities. You'll soon be getting a review on Chris Sharma's Pontas made by Evolve.

Traveling the Road to Emmaus

After projecting consistently for a month, Neil and I finally have red-pointed "The Road to Emmaus," a thirty foot length traverse in which you travel half way around the boulder and then up "Elmer Gantry" to sit on the peak, and enjoy the feeling of well earned accomplishment. Neil breezed cleanly through on his first attempt today, redeeming his five failed attempts yesterday. After he busted the mental barrier I jumped up and walked right down the same path with less suave but more drama. The moves were easy after we had rehearsed it into an intuitive state. It was awkwardly satisfying; there wasn't one of those moments where I pushed through pain and held on beyond previous conceived possibility, but at the end sitting up top I thought about how long we had worked to get to that moment, how much I had learned, and then the weight was felt. That's what this climb was, the weight of hard work, perseverance, pain, and obvious growth resulting in satisfied accomplishment - oh, and it's fun!

What a wonderful day! Strength and vigor was amply bestowed upon us, enough to start projecting a new traverse the back side, which I hope ends up including a reaching heal-hook. Give it a shot, first one over and up is non-rotten egg, and gets to name it.

Emerson you will stand, I will surmount

Well, this past Sunday I surpassed my expectations and completed the second half of the current project: The lengthy traverse of the Emerson boulder. At this point I can't say that tomorrow's planned attempt with Neil Roessler will be successful, but the chances are good for the ol' chap and me. I am not one for excuses, but the holes in my shoes have added excruciation to slipping foot holds at the bottom of face traverse. There appear to be only a few options: 1) Wait till the REI opens up and I have enough money to buy a new pair of shoes; 2) Get my shoes resoled; 3) Keep climbing anyway until 1 or 2 is affordable. 3 it is! I am excited, I just need to start bearing more weight on my left foot, and get an even ware.

Emerson shall be surmounted soon enough my friends, I improve with every attempt. If there is one thing that I appreciate in climbing, its the noticeable progress. Contrasted with grunting frustrating two three weeks ago, the previous crux is now passable with little emotional strain.

Project: Westmont Boulder Traverse

Well today at my lunch break from work I got to continue hitting Westmont's Emerson Boulder. I have almost finished every part of the traverse, the face is tough but I have found a couple of up, side, down, side moves that are making it more plausible with every attempt. Soon I hope to get a fresh attack and connect all the pieces. Where is Neil Roessler to show me how its done when I need him and then move the crash pad for me? Oh yeah, climbing the brickyard...

Forewarning: Climbing hormones present

My stellar roommate Jay has bought be a crash-pad, this combined with the diverse and sporadic lifestyle that the next four months is going to consist of, has led me to tune into the measure of climbing hormones my body is producing. The boulder gland is located near the cerebellum and share many neurological pathways - the two are almost distinctly linked together so that the boulder gland will cease to produce if the cerebellum is not stimulated in activities such as long slope holds, overhang, and a series of dynos. I recently have been taking a high dose of rocky supplements and have had strong excretions of crimp, heal hook, and reach. Chalk is almost permanently ground into my pores, I hope to rid myself of the weighty burden that a chalk bag can be. So, all that to say, look out because I think this blog my soon transform and contain many graphic photographs and descriptions of the aforementioned bodily productions. If you want to climb, lets go.

You should be warned of the significant side effects due to extreme boulder hormonal production: Bulging and sore forearms, rippling deltoids, biceps lined with veiny streets, blistered and screaming toes, calloused hands, abnormal and insatiable gaze upon rocks of all shapes and sizes, and high risk of falling.

The greatest question

When she was falling to what was to be her death, and I when I chose to fall to what was to be my death - my first thought was, "I am not going to let her fall, at least not alone." I didn't.

We are both alive. I pose this question to you: What is the greatest question?

The greatest question that will ever be asked for me - Will God allow me to be alone?

If God will not have me be alone, then there is not hell. If God will leave me alone, then there is. If we can be alone from God, then the person, a young kid who I sacrifice my life for, who rejects Jesus, that person I will have be left alone. If God has us alone, then the Halocaust was a symbol of reality that is greater than the reality we can feel in this life. If God has us alone, then pornography is a more twisted image of togetherness than we will ever come into contact with before bodily death.

The second greatest question for me: Does God choose to leave us alone? Or, does God allow us to be left alone?

The third greatest question for me: From how I have lived, what are my answers?

The fourth greatest questions for me: Does Jesus' existence and his recorded life change my previous two answers?

The Agenda

Do I believe in an agenda? Is this different than having a particular will? Can they be separated? When I have heard the phrase "God's will" I have always understood it to mean, what God wants to be done. But it seems to me, that what fits with the way this world works is that its God's agenda? Does God's agenda get carried through every time in every situation? I have no clue! I have seen it and believed that his agenda has obviously been carried through and implemented, setting the course and guiding certain events. Other times, I strongly doubt it, and tend to err on the side of "No it hasn't been implemented." Well you know what? I'm done with erring in doubt on the side of "No."
So, does God have an agenda? Yes. Everyone does. Trust this. Jesus had an agenda.
Do I have agenda? Yeah. Does that agenda mean that I want things to happen, and that may not make everyone happy? Yeah. I want a good, righteous, giving, agenda of love that shuns darkness, shuns immorality, that HATES EVIL, that does not want a child to starve to death, that rejoices when a good decision is made rather than a bad one, when someone holds onto their innocence and their joyful smile rather than giving into anger and beating their fists in rage for something over nothing. I want a righteousness that is sorrowful for those who don't see it, that is joyful for those that do, that wants and likes to have fun, that does not want people to be hurt, nor wants people hurting themselves, but loves their freedom repeatedly until it hurts, and also longs for their healing. I want opportunity for all, but I just as equally want those who are given that opportunity to do their best with it. And on some level, I DO want that opportunity to match up with what I want.

I have never been asked to not have a want or desire, I have only been asked to change what I want. I should not change and live apathetically, and I cannot - doing so is killing me, and I refuse to die in this way. Shoot me, because I love you - but I seek to have a pure love. A love that would rather die pure than live impurely.
I will have the strength to call you out, for not calling me out on this. I will have the gentleness to speak softly but the firmness to be direct. I will sit with you until truth that is necessary is revealed and a decision about that is made. I will lose sleep, I will not eat, I will cry, I will smile, I will bleed, I will laugh, and I will lay prostrated for all my life. All the aforementioned is my agenda.

I am sorry if you are offending because I want these things, but I am going to start saying with honesty and open conviction something I have been afraid to say in a long time :
you are wrong,
God is right,
and I wish you to join me.

I am not afraid of being wrong, not anymore. I am only afraid of not living with a pure heart, not having truth. I am not afraid of hurting people anymore. I am only afraid of not living in the righteousness that I have.

I am not afraid of being stupid. I have been called stupid before, I have been stupid before. I am afraid of not accepting it, and not repenting.

I have been wrong most of my life, and I have been wrong about mostly the wrong things, and it sucks. But the right things are becoming clear. You are the right thing. Your life is very important. My life is very important. I am the right thing.

I have learned hard way, and guess what? Its hard. Now, I am probably going to learn the hard way, how to stop learning the hard way, and someday I will learn an easier way.

The battle began, it begins today, it begins tomorrow.

PhazeBook

It's been three days shy of a month since I deactivated my Facebook account. It was hard at first, I found myself out of senseless habit moving my mouse to click on the bookmark as I wait the quarter second for a website to load, then abruptly realizing that it was now an empty urge that would no longer be satisfied. Five minutes later I found myself doing it again. Two hours later, returning to my email, I found myself again trying to shake the impulse.

Slavery comes in many forms. Habits are their indicators. Freedom is the power to leave the jail and return when it chooses, its not to never live in a cell.

Last year Facebook was a canal for friends to import and I to export news and relational cargo. Since then, with much empty unemployed time I have morphed into a homebody that uses Facebook like a twitch of nervous habit. I wouldn't consider my usage of Facebook overbearing on anyone, not even myself. This culture has a funny way of slipping under our skin and requiring the slightest interaction and stimulation every instance. Our brains are living organisms, they have the ability to function differently from year to year. Its scary.

Have you ever tried to have an out-of-body experience? Or how about just imagining yourself siting next to yourself, a mere ghostly observer? I gazed and found myself in a fit of incoherent A.D.D. who had thoughts skipping like a five year-old on hot, sticky asphalt jumping around the purple chalked hopscotch grid. I rose from my kitchen table, five unconnected thoughts a second, aimlessly pacing to fill the gaps, and then somehow five or ten minutes later one of the former thoughts would find the next rational step, and then five minutes later I might conclude the thought or forget about it completely, moving on to something else that wasn't concluded. I reached for the cupboard and fumbled a Cheeze-It box and shagged a few in my mouth, not really realizing why, or what they even tasted like. With nothing to fill the gaps created by Facebook and the English language songs and ads, nothing except aimlessness, I realized I have surely adapted back to America. A place where if I am not under stress and doing something, a different task or thought every five minutes or a next thing, I don't know who I am or have no control and have forgotten about the inner stimulus and how to be inspired to from that and to be self-initiating.

Since my brain is used to taking in ten different stimuli a second it only allowed for one congruent and complete train of thought every ten minutes. Then when the gap filler, the nervous twitch, the outlet of all that - Facebook - was gone, my brain skipped the gaps, but didn't squish the thoughts together. If my thoughts were water and they flowed that would be enough. They wouldn't even have to be a smooth river or stream, just a waterfall, anything but the puddles they've been. As simple and fanciful as I would like, I must admit, I am not the five year old running through the street sloshing up muddy water in his glistening yellow galoshes as he tromps from one puddle to the next.

Clear the mud, let my thoughts flow and be conscious and strong in memory. Maybe I need the stimulus of stress? Maybe I should write more. Although I am slow, and typing this took me about 40 minutes, it does help. Now I push myself, to think faster, to stream like a 4G network. No, to stream like a human brain that is creating the 5G network.

To Be Chased

The left side of the couch didn't feel soft, and his leg itched more when leaning that way; moving to the right side made the kink in his neck sting; lying down just felt like he was flat out lazy. The screen-door slammed behind and his steps thudded on off the porch and onto the pavement. Pacing like a flee bitten dog as he wandered tracing the dirt road around his neighboring, vacant home and back again to his porch.

There is foliage of 17 different bushes and trees, and just as many insects and animals. His house is hugged on the back the shade of a big live oak and kept safe by a slope too steep to allow anything but roots to build upon. After fifty feet the creek trickles and when the birds have their afternoon tea break from singing, you can hear it from the porch. It’s strange how living in a beautiful place can, at moments, feel like its squeezing you out like a wet-fish.

When he was about 15 minutes away, he thought that talking might stop what caused him to start driving in the first place. No friend was available at the moment. The grey suede of the bucket seat held him like a royal throne the day before, but today started to gnaw his thighs. The streets and turning down Barry Rd. was all instinct, so was turning left and then right after that when Regal St. ended. Everything was too familiar to appreciate. Reaching back into his memory he headed towards a beloved cafe shop, Stone and Larry's. Catching a glimpse from the storefront from a hundred yards, he let out a breathless and unsatisfying sigh of relief. Waiting for a blue Toyota Ranger to fill with the driver and three passengers and back out, a thought slipped in mind like a spatula in chocolate pudding.

He was running, and the only way out. So he thought of her, mystique and voluptuous with a full-bodied smile. He fixed his gaze, stern with a strong brow on the tip of anger, and said, "No."

He stepped out the car, dropped the keys in his pockets, grabbed some coffee and started to type: "The left side of the couch didn't feel soft, and his ...."

Old and Sick

I wonder if this is how I will feel when I'm old? A fever crept up on me last night and hit a summit of 102.9 degrees, leaving my body achy, flashing back and forth between the Sahara and Alaska. Not preferable over the typical health of a 20 something. But am I living in luxury now? And when I hit my 80's I'll wake up to reality? Is this is the kind of pain I'll have to put away daily to just enjoy the simple pleasures. I have seen old people groan when they sit on couches, and struggle to get up from them after they have sunk down deep. My grandmother was old, but I don't remember her groaning.

Idaho wasn't the friendliest of places in the depression, nor were many others for that matter. A vision my grandmother shared with me once was her mother feeding those who came to their front door to beg for food. When there was work, so that they would be dignified in their request they would do it, when their wasn't, they ate just the same. I don't know how many people she fed when she was small, nor how often, but she grew up dignified, working right along with those men. Feeding chickens in the blistering cold, tending to soil writhing with weeds and 4am milking appointments is bound to make you tough. So it is no surprise to me that Grandma would get up from any chair without a sound, and it is no surprise to me that she walked a few miles everyday until she was diagnosed with cancer, and passed two weeks later. And it is no surprise to me that her sick body went unmentioned by her, because she minded not her own aches but the aches of others, whom she continued to serve and feed since the farm.

Awaken my mind to words and stories.

Reprise

My fellow bloggers, I return to you. Expect me to read what you write as often as I used to check Facebook, since I have deactivated my profile.


Flesh me out
Would people know
if you were sitting next to me?
The eyes surrounding me at this coffee shop,
would all eyes string to you and weave
a quilt, pitched like a tent, draping
from your very presence, art
greater than anything my grandmother has made.

Or,
would people know
nothing of what we speak.
Our cairn stacked word by word.

Experience

"The religion Jesus gave the world is an experience, not a body of ideas or principles. It is in being lived that it lives, as it is in loving that the love which it discloses at the heart of all creation becomes manifest." - Malcolm Muggeridge

"Does my presence do any good here?"

I want this to be a constant thought in 2011.

"Does my presence do any good here?

Contact with the natives helps to lessen the feelings of strangeness, tames them, and slowly makes taboos and prejudices disappear.

It is very slow, a very little thing.

It is painful to see the reign of evil all around,

the lack of good,

the enemies of the lord so very enterprising,

the faltering of friends,

to see oneself so miserable even after so many blessings.

However, one should not be sad

but should look above it all to our beloved Lord.

For it is Him we love not ourselves, and it is His good that concerns us.

Hope is a duty -

charity hopes for all -

hope is but faith in the goodness of God.

He is good and all-powerful.

Unquestionably, he leaves us free,

and often we use our freedom,

lamentably, but while leaving us free,

he still remains master

and can at his will send a grace

so powerful that is overwhelms everything,

transform everything.

He has already done enough for us to make us believe in his love...

There are difficulties on all sides at all times."

November 18th, 1907

-Charles de Foucauld

(spacing by me)

Rocks of Santa Barbara beware!

I have really love climbing this break.



A rock is glanced at,
a nick becomes a landing platform
for the anterior of the toe;
a bulge the antithesis for the weary forearm.

A challenge is born,
not in the summit,
but in the assent.
Body contortions become a brush,
and the physic a pallete,
to smooth across
a nick here
a bulge there.

Nothing is as it seems,
flesh turns to rock
and rock again.

We cried King

"We cried King"

by Ayinde Russell

Listen to him read it (#7)

the music is awesome too.

On a night so humble that stars kneeled at the pew of our atmosphere

Like wearied knights fallen prostrate in the court of their lord

As though the throne room of heaven had somehow settled into a lowly stable

in a desert

leaving only the most common of creatures to serve attendance of the coming messiah

And we cried King

The ground did not tremble

Continents did no quake at our savior’s arrival

Only the convulsing womb of a virgin girl

And the technonics of the plays building invisibly behind the veil of our natural realm

An opus resonating through the hallways of the ever-after proclaiming

Christ’s arrival

And we cried King

And for a moment an atlas appeared in the sky,

A heavenly compass

A breach in the firmament between eternity and us

A torch over the horizon given to help seekers navigate the distance

And winged messengers to chaperone the light

Pointing out the direction for the weary and crying “This is the way!”

And we cried King

Followed by a procession of unlikely celebrants

As mortals and immortals stood star-struck

As creator takes his firsts breaths

Clothed in rib cage and skin

Muscle and bone

Flesh and blood

Delivered to us

To deliver us

Breathing with us

To give us breath for us

And we cried King

And so I fly

Dec. 9th 2010

I feel like a bird
Lighter in flight than on a branch.
If I beat my wings, make decisions and move
then I think not of myself.
The weight of my own existence confounds me.
However, its a flightless discomfit.
And so I fly.

Today I landed - inevitable.
I return, but with no olive branch
To warm Noah and brighten the future.

Who am I?
And so I fly.

A happy new year

What do I write about when I have no incredible inspiration? Do I mention my revelations and meditations, my moments of enlightenment as I lay in the library somewhere between sleeping and reading? They were profound, and I baked in the single thought, "God loves me."

Maybe instead I'll write about the frivolities of being a college grad, having more freedom than I ever had in my life. Possibly I'll write about the look the two old ladies who just walked by gave me and my propped-up bare feet.

A frequent thing I do in my head, and when conversation slows with friends is people watch and write their possible stories. Is it the time for one?

Ahhhh inspiration finally comes... it came through the stereo, singing and giving commemoration to the grandfather of many, Father Christmas.
I am excited for Christmas. Nothing warms my heart like a peaceful rendition of a classic tune that has remained unchanged since my birth; Britney Spears doesn't fit into that category, Sufjan and his hipster favored album comes close but its too much creative liberty for me at traditional moments. Dim lights and a corner placed pine, bricks surrounding a brewing fire to match my cup of joe or cocoa, a warm voice embodying familiar lyrics, a chill to bring out the blessing of heat, a serenity rooted in knowing my Savior has been born, and a nearby well known souls to full up the room - and so this is Christmas.

Thank you for sparing my life everyday.

Paper

Springing from my bed this morning, the glow silhouetting the leaves out my window brought me a spark of excitement rather than the usual weariness of another jobless day. I reached for a fresh set of black boot-fitting jeans, unworn for weeks. Slipping them on, I filled my pockets with the necessities of the West: wallet, cell phone, keys - check. The I flung my arms in the air and leaned back for a long, inverted-cat stretch, thrusting my belly forward.

My hands nestled into my back pockets and I stood, thinking not of the past, nor the day ahead of me, not even the present - just blank. My fingers felt something - a fold of loose paper pressed in my pockets and their wrap on my back-side.

A glimmer of hope, an expectation of something great! Could it be the twenty-dollars I always hear about people finding randomly in their old clothes? Could it be an old note from a friend I had stuck close as a keepsake? Maybe an old to-do list? A supernaturally endowed note with a picture of the girl I am to marry some-day? Possibly some-sort of guide that reveals who I am and what job to pursue. Maybe it is an old treasure map of my childhood, waiting for years to once again throw me into it's mystery, and seeking after lost adventures?
It was a receipt, bland and nearly dissolved, completely white and starchy from at least two terms with my washer and drier.

I long, seek, and expect the prodigious, but keep finding the mundane.

Coping with a Miracle

Written May 17^th, 2010 (a week after the fall)

I feel like it's my fault. I sensed she was scared and uncomfortable, but neglected it and allowed us to push forward. I knew it was dangerous, but I didn't seriously think and consider the risk of our falling and the result, a result which is now a reality. I made so many mistakes - we should not have been climbing that high in that position, I should have been climbing first, I should have turned us back.

There is immense guilt. Guilt which is not affirmed or encouraged by anyone but me. I don't want to let go of this guilt, for fear that I will fail to learn from this experience, from this miracle. For fear that I won't understand the consequences and the seriousness of the reality of our dangerous position, our critically injured condition, and our miraculously preserved livelihood. I know that guilt can give the devil power to damage and destroy, in which case I hope that there I have contrition - the difference being whom one brings there thoughts and prayers to, either themselves or God.

I have been labeled a hero. I am no hero. I don't know what it means to be a hero. If a hero is someone that does what needs to be done when it is necessary, then I am not a hero. I salvaged my mistake of failing to be a hero and turn us back earlier. If a hero is someone acts on what God has naturally gifted them with, and what that person has pushed and grown to be, then there isn't much more heroism to me than many others. I don't think I particularly saved Nadine's life, I did what I thought needed to be done when it was done - I fought the black, sleepy dimness that sought to take over my consciousness, I pushed through pain of what felt like a broken leg, I stayed calm, I kept Nadine awake and talking, I problem solved amongst people with no emergency awareness or common sense, and some other details. Maybe that makes a hero, maybe it doesn't, I'm not to judge. Only the things which align with Christ make a hero.

I am a little thankful for that incident because now, when I hear tragic stories where great feats are accomplished and I ask myself, "Would I be able to do that? Am I strong enough? I wish I possessed that strength." Now, I can confidently say that I can, and I did. But would I trade this recently gifted confidence for Nadine's health and the memories of the fall and her painful cries? Yes.

But the fact is that we did fall, we are both alive, I helped, but God saved us. We are living miracles by man's standards. What does that mean for me? A large part of me says that nothing about this incident is any more miraculous than the breath of a poor man, or the flutter of a butterfly, or the growth of a tree and the falling of it's fruit. Nevertheless, the only way to describe the tragic reality of the incident so that others understand, is to label it as a "miracle."

Have I forgotten what a miracle is? Or has humanity forgotten what a miracle is? Which one is the perspective of Christ? He said he would preform signs and wonders and miracles; but he also said faith like a mustard seed could uproot a tree and replant it in a sea. Divine intervention is real; does it happen all around in every single moment? Or is it only when the physically, statistically, and expected effects are altered by God should a miracle be proclaimed?

Maybe there is something miraculous in the constant, seemingly mundane events like the sun's rising, but I also can't deny that there is something extra miraculous, spectacular, and significant - deserving of a specific label such as 'miracle' - when the laws that we humans study, live, and believe in are stretched by the divine. God must have designed to think and recognized the difference. Or maybe sin has skewed our true vision, skewed us and so we form labels and boxes which don't ultimately exist to God, but currently controls we humans. Can I now say: Therefore, part of joining in His personhood, His divinity, is realizing that those boxes and labels are not eternal realities, only temporaries. Jesus knew and understood the definition of human 'miracles', but lived in the true reality and knowledge that a tree has no real rule about where it can be planted and uprooted.

What should my perspective be? What should my action then be?

I feel like I "should" be more grateful for everyday. I think it makes sense that the air would seem fresher, and I would be more thankful for every waking moment, even more than I was before. But right now I don't. Is there something wrong? What am I missing? I have justified that it is fine and true for me, as a human, to understand that I have experienced a miracle. But I also think that a "miracle" in our terms doesn't quite match up with the eternal reality of God, but only with his finite creation of humanities reality. So where am I? Stuck in the middle?

Do I think my/our survival means that we are destined for great things? Yes. Do I think that before, we were destined great things? Yes. What do I do? How is the "why am I still alive" connected with the "what do I now do?"

The Monkey, Part II

There I sat, crunched up, legs squeezed so tight in angst that I was almost sitting on my feet, despite the lay-z-boy underneath. Guilt was heavier than ever, but he had nothing to say. When I needed a friend, this monkey seemed to care more about his own fur. As I prayed I thought about this load, how dreary all his ideas seemed, and how self entrapped I felt. Then the epiphenomenal moment came.
If I am made free in Christ, and this is true, from where does this enmeshing trap come from? It must be foreign, for I believe my heart and desires come from pure motives, a broken and contrite heart.

I swatted a flea off my fore-arm, and then smooshed another on my knee. A little certitude flickered inside, and I reared my head back with a countenance of disgust and loath.
"Guilt!!! Guilt, you have embodied your name, and emboldened yourself upon my back." Reaching backwards I took a fierce grip and held him straight armed. His attack and squeeks were nothing to the name of Jesus resting on my tongue, heart and mind. I opened the back door, and with a swift boot sent him flying. The door was locked I was resting back in my chair, cross legged and relieved. There I remained pondering, praying, and gracefully ready and free to make some decisions.

I haven't learned as many lessons as I should have by this age, but if nothing else I know I am not Jesus. I have burdens, responsibilities, desires, and convictions, but they do not match that of my Lords. I am not all encompassing, I have a role. That role is contained within the perimeters of time and space, as is my body.

The simplicity of life is reflected in my humanity.
The complexities arise amidst interaction and fronts to that humanity.
To remain simple and focused amidst complexity is an intricate process, and I need not the burden of Guilt, but of divine weights.