trunk monkey. episode 4.

trunk monkey. episode 3.

#3. this one is pretty fantastic.

trunk monkey. episode 2.

episode 2. enjoy.

trunk monkey. episode 1.

so in an attempt to add some stellar humor to your day, we will commence with the trunk monkey series - an ad concept by the Suburban Auto Group. amazing.

episode 1.

wise words.

For the world and time are the dance of the Lord in emptiness. The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity, and despair. But it doesn't matter much, because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed, we are in the midst of it, and it is in the midst of us, for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it to or not. Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance.

- Thomas Merton

community.

greetings folks. i warned you my posts would be less often, and now you have proof. base camp life is one that can be busy, with few opportunities to steal away on one's own. hence, i have been here near-3 weeks and am only really getting to sit down at my computer today.

i want to give a short update on the ministry, and on myself. we are a ministry that lives and works in community. if i had to choose ONE aspect of why i love LaVida, it would be the community aspect. if i had to choose what the hardest thing about LaVida is, it would be the community aspect. i have come to believe that this is a healthy dichotomy.

this year we have 21 people living and working together, with 21 unique personalities and character-types attempting to allow Christ to knit us together into a community of ministers. this is one of the hardest things in the world - to allow enough humility to invade oneself for the betterment of the whole. personally, this is something i was super-nervous about coming back to LaVida. i have a tendency to be insecure, and in reaction to that i often will conjure in my mind the need to be noticed and appreciated. so far this summer, i have been B L E S S E D by God that humility and servanthood have taken me over (most of the time anyways), and i have been able to perform my job and be present relationally in a relatively-selfless way.

one of the things that we do at LaVida as a staff is to make a covenant with each other. it is an agreement of sorts where we as a staff enter into a commitment with and to each other, in order that we may best function together in order to do the best ministry we can do. as part of this covenant, each of us personally submits two statements: what they need in order to be part of this covenant community; and what they have to offer as part of this covenant community. i have been thinking a lot about this - particularly the need(s) part. i have had this slightly-strange conviction that i am not to consider my needs, and only consider my offerings. i have been looking to scripture and noticing that whenever jesus or paul or whomever talks about what is required of us in christian life or community, it nearly ALways only talks about what we should offer, and almost never about what we should expect out of it. and this kinda scares me - because i feel like i'm being called to REALLY lose myself this summer.

i think of eustace who turns into a dragon in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader - when he tries to peel his own scales off and doesn't go deep enough. aslan the lion dives in and tears the scales off eustace down to the depths - and reveals eustace's true self. i'm a bit leary as i can sense God leading me toward this sort of deep and potentially-painful peeling. but as much as i know it will hurt, i want it to happen - for my own good, and for the good of the community.

gone-gone-gone

i'm off tomorrow for my fourth summer in the adirondacks with LaVida. i am excited to be back at a place and back with people that i fit with. it is THE place that i have felt most in sync with in my life. i will be serving this summer as property and equipment manager, taking care of all things property and gear, while helping to provide all the behind-the-scenes support for our trips. i can't wait.

one of the things i love most, is the wonderful community of people that i will live and work with. even after my first summer there, i realized that there is so much to learn about yourself and others by intimately living and working together every minute of every day. it is HARD and it can often be a little ugly, but is so RAW and so REAL - and i'm not talking about the bullsh*% of The Real World. you are forced to allow your true self to come out and be accepted by others (and by yourself). it's one of the hardest, most beautiful things. and i think it's what God calls us to. so wherever you are, whatever situation you're in right now, i encourage you to discover and reveal your true self to those around you - even that stuff you've crammed into the dark corner of your inner closet.

so all that to say, my posts may be sporadic over the summer, as i'll only be able to get internet in town once in a while. but i will be writing, because amazing things happen with LaVida - the stuff of God.