brandonweaver.com

Graduation!!!

2009-06-25T14:07:00.000-07:00

In August 2006 we got married, moved to California, and I started grad school all in about a matter of a week. Most people thought we were insane, but we knew we were called to this program. It has been an incredible three years. I am sure I will reflect on in it more in the coming weeks. But for now I will say that if felt so good to graduate. I was thrilled to have Dr. John Coe (the head of my program) call my name. It was my turn to walk across the stage to shake President Corey's waiting hand and receive my diploma. He said, "Congratulations Desiree." I walked off the stage to see Brandon's beaming face. He was so proud of me. I could feel it and revel in it for the moment. I'm not sure if I knew how to live in a moment before I came to ISF.

Yahoo!! I have my Masters in Spiritual Formation and Soul Care!!!

You can read more about Biola's commencement proceedings at:

http://www.biola.edu/news/articles/2009/090526_spring09_charge.cfm

Baccalaureate

2009-06-16T12:32:00.001-07:00

The second graduation event was Baccalaureate held at the Knotts Berry Farm Resort & Hotel. We invited Don & Connie to be our guests. We were served fried chicken and mash potatoes, apparently a Knotts Berry Farm's specialty and possibly one of my least favorite meals ever. Oh well! After the dinner one of the Talbot professors gave an address to the students. Then it was time for the hooding. I appreciated that spouses were invited to walk with their students in this ceremony. While I was hooded by one of my professors, Brandon was given a certificate of appreciation by the Talbot Wives Club (yes, you can giggle at that.) Talbot Wives hasn't caught up with the times, as there are now quite a lot of women in seminary and their husbands are supporting them. (Where's their club?)

Left: B & me at dinner

Right: Connie, Don, me, & B

Lower L: Dr. Betsy Barber & me

Lower R: Brandon & me

Last L: Lauren & us

Last R: Me & Shelley

While I was being hooded this note of

appreciation that I wrote was read:

I would like to thank my husband Brandon for truly being my partner in this program. I love that you learned and grew along side of me. I am blessed by your love and support. Thank you for all the sacrifices you have made to make this possible.

And to Betsy & Judy (professors in my program) and all my dear friends at ISF, thanks for journeying with me. You have loved and challenged me, and I am the better for it.

They also published my Post Graduation Plan in the program:

I am delighted to have the opportunity to stay around ISF and continue to give spiritual direction this coming year. Beyond that we are waiting to seeing what the Lord has for us.

Lots of Adventures

2009-05-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

After being in kind of an adventure slump over the fall and winter, we've been out exploring again.

Marriage Retreat in Costa Mesa (April 3-5)
Our very last Talbot marriage retreat. They are held at the Ayres Hotel in Costa Mesa (ayreshotel.com). If you visit the website, you can see these are some pretty upscale accomdations. Obviously these retreats are heavily subsidized for which we are incredibly grateful. These have made for fabulous weekend getaways.

Disney Hall (April 10)
Our dear California relation, Don & Connie gave me tickets to see Esa-Pekka Salonen conduct the LA Philharmonic at Disney Hall for my graduation present. Of course, I invited Brandon to go with me. It was an outstanding experience all the way around. The building itself is an architectural gem and the music was captivating (well except for the super modern opening piece, which was a bit hard to engage with). It was also a celebration of Esa-Pekka and his career with the LA Phil as he was soon retiring to compose full time. After the concert, we enjoyed strolling through downtown, had lunch, and returned home on the commuter train. It was a lovely day!

San Diego (April 11)

Our friends Tim and Ali are both University of California, San Diego alumni, so they were happy to show us around their old stomping grounds. We started with breakfast at Pipes (www.pipescafe.com) where you can get a heap of tasty breakfast delight for cheap. The portions are so big that we had to share and were still full. We also had our first mexican mochas, which are mochas with some bonus spices in them--tasty! Then we hiked around on the cliffs that afforded some of the best views in San Diego. Somebody had apparently written me a message. They also showed us around to several other sites/sights including Balboa Park, a wall that need climbing, and this place where the seals like to sun themselves:

Santa Barbara (April 25)
We had big plans for this trip. We thought we would start off at the Botanical Gardens then go to the Mission and finish up at the Art Museum. Oh yeah, and have a nice seafood dinner on the pier. Well we got to the Botanical Garden and decided we wanted to spend the day there. It was beautiful. It had a small redwood grove that smelled heavenly, a stream, meadows of wildflowers, strange and interesting cacti, among many other natural, flowery type treasures. Living in the dense city this kind of place seems so mythical and far away, so different than our daily reality. We eventually made it down to the pier and enjoyed a cornicopia of seafood while enjoying our oceanview.

Dana Point: Capistrano Surfside Inn May 1-3
Don and Connie blessed us again with the opportunity to spend the weekend in their timeshare since they were only staying during the week. We were right across the street from the ocean. There happened to be a convenient walk over right in front of our place, so we didn't even have to fight traffic to get to the beach. On saturday we borrowed the Inn's bikes and tooled around the wharf in Dana Point. I'm pretty sure that was Brandon's favorite part. I enjoyed it too, but I also loved reading beachside. It was so good to relax together before the end of school craziness began. Sunday we took PCH up the coast and had lunch at one of our favorite places the Beachcomber. After that it was on to our friend Ali's birthday party at Huntington Beach. I don't know if you were counting, but that was three beaches in one day: Capistrano, Crystal Cove, and Huntington. This is one of the really cool part about living in SoCal.

I just bought my cap and gown!!!!

2009-03-30T13:33:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how close graduation is! May 22 will mark the close of this season of our lives.

Having the opportunity to come to ISF has been an incredible gift for Brandon and myself. I have had the time, space, and help to heal some of the young, lonely, and broken places in my heart. Consequently, I am more honest with myself, God, and others. I am more able to give and receive love because I have been able to experience something of God's love for me.

I have been doing the Ignatian exercises this year. It has been an invitation for me to open to God's love for me, to let it come close, and to internalize it. These two verses have become so important to me in this:

The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, and abounding in love. Ps 103:8

His banner over me is love. SS 2:4

Ignatian has also been an invitation to trust God. And this has been the rub for me lately as it intersected with my class on vocation where I learned that vocation is actually more about discerning and doing God's will for me today and not worrying about tomorrow than it is about an occupation. I so want to worry about tomorrow and carve out a future for myself. Instead God is asking me to trust Him that He has my best interest at heart and will take care of me. He has called me into relationship with Him, to love Brandon, to be faithful to my training at ISF, and to care for the souls He puts in my path. Beyond that, no career or obvious success is promised. The good news is that my increasing experience of His love helps me know that His heart is good toward me and that He can be trusted to care for me. This being said, I still worry. I still forget His goodness and faithfulness. I'm still trying to walk this out.

All of that being said, I'm sure that many of you are wondering what is next for us. At this point we are trying to walk in trust and openness to the Lord as we approach post-graduation life. It is entirely likely that we will find another apartment near here, so Brandon can continue to work his job, we can maintain the friendships we have with some of our neighbors in grad housing, and I could possibly continue giving spiritual direction at Biola.

I'm applying for a couple of jobs here in LA, but the possibility we are really excited about it is the Director of Spiritual Formation position at George Fox University. It really seems to align with my gifts, talents, and passion, and we are excited about a new adventure in Oregon. However I have been told that they have received a great many applications for this position. Would you please join us in praying about this? I would love the opportunity to interview for this job, but most importantly I want to abide in God's love and care (and that is easier said than done!). Please pray that God would grant us much wisdom and discernment as we make decisions and that His care and provision for us as a couple would be evident and abundant.

Postcards for Desiree's Birthday

2009-01-18T15:59:00.001-08:00

Postcards for Desiree's Birthday, originally uploaded by brweaver.

At the beginning of December I secretly asked everyone I could think of to send Desiree a postcard on her birthday. I was aiming both for personal cards from friends and family, and geographic distribution (postcards from around the world). We got both.

Now, it's true I just about ruined the whole thing with a TYPO in our address, but some quick eyes on the account of a friend had it corrected.

But what will happen to the cards sent to the wrong address? I'm not sure yet. Some have said they will be re-routed to the correct zip code, which is what I've been hoping for, but to date I've not seen any arrive with the wrong zip code.

Still, thanks to everyone who sent a postcard!

A Big Thanks to my Adoring Fans

2008-12-21T21:24:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to thank all of you out there who sent me a postcard for my birthday. Thank you for helping Brandon out with his big birthday surprise for me. One of Brandon's friends even sent me a map of the world and some pins to mark where the postcards have been coming from. It has been a treat to hear from so many of you and they're still coming in! Who will I hear from next? We'll see if we can't post a few of them, so you can enjoy them as well.

Thanks again for thinking of me on my Birthday!!

dez

Thanksgiving in Seattle

2008-12-06T20:27:00.001-08:00

Found some cheap tickets and flew up Seattle to celebrate Thanksgiving with some friends of ours. We had never flown Virgin America before, and were pleasantly surprised by how interesting they made the flight with mood lighting and music. We'd fly them again if they went where we needed to go.

We spent a lot of time wandering through the downtown area, popping our heads into various shops, checking out their central library (which is enormous), exploring Pike's Place Market, and just enjoying being outside in the rain.

Was amused by the auto rickshaw's the police used to give out parking tickets. In college, a friend of mine wanted me to make a movie about guys cruising around Wisconsin in an imported auto rickshaw. With some money and an ounce more gumption it might have happened.

On Thanksgiving day we volunteered with our friends and their church at a downtown mission, helping serve a Thanksgiving meal to the homeless. Afterwards we had our Thanksgiving dinner with their church friends, in a lovely evening of good food and company.

It was a fun to see such lush mountains. I never realized how important trees were to me until I moved away from them. Yes, they have trees in Los Angeles, but not like they do in the Wisconsin countryside where I grew up. Seattle has trees like that though, and it was interesting to learn how important logging was to Seattle's founding. My ancestors were lumberjacks, so I felt connected to my surroundings while we visited.

"Ghost Town" is a movie you should all see.

2008-11-22T21:26:00.000-08:00

Seriously. I just got back. It's the most hilarious heartwarming film I've seen in a long time. Imagine "The 6th Sense" only funny and pleasant and really not like "The 6th Sense" at all. Which is to say, [1] It was very well written, [2] The performances were delightfully stellar, [3] It got an 84% on rottentomatoes.com--I'm not the only one who thinks it keen, [4] I laughed throughout this movie more than any other I've seen this year (perhaps even, the last decade, but I go to far), [5] It's really quite classy, as far as comedy's go these days (Mr. Apatow, I'm looking at you.) [6] It's humor depends almost entirely on witty banter, less silly than Monty Python, less precocious than Juno, just wonderfully dry cantankerous fun, and just when you think that's all it is, [7] It will make you cry, then laugh again, then, holding the cheese thank you very much, you'll cry once more. I don't cry at many movies, but rarely are movies this smart. My highest praise, my highest recommendation. Seriously. Why haven't you bought tickets yet?

Now, my word of warning: I feel slightly bad to have gotten your hopes all up for some cathartic experience you may or may not have. So think of it this way, I guarantee you'll be able to watch this film and say, "Ah, yes, I can see exactly why Brandon likes this film so very much."

Annual Apocalypse

2008-11-16T10:31:00.001-08:00

Annual Apocalypse
Originally uploaded by brweaver

Once a year the apocalypse comes to Los Angeles. This year it's less then 10 miles from our apartment. Typically at 9:30am it's sunny with blue skies, but not on apocalypse day. Soon the horsemen will be here to ask for treats. They're demanding like that, those horseman.

It smells like a dying campfire outside, and the L.A. Times has warned everyone to stay inside as much as possible. But so far we're OK. It's somber to think of how many people are losing their homes though.

The L.A. Times reported one man as saying "This is what really scares me, it's not earthquakes, it's these fires that will kill people around here."

Bathroom Trouble

2008-11-16T10:23:00.001-08:00

Bathroom Trouble
Originally uploaded by brweaver

Oh no! Peeling paint lead to the discover of water damage. Apparently our upstairs neighbors bathtub has been less than kind to us. A week of dust and plaster and fresh paint has led to a very dirty apartment full of noxious fumes, but everything looks really nice now.

Grandma Comes to Visit

2008-11-16T10:21:00.001-08:00

My Grandma came to visit us. She is the first person to come and visit us from my side of the family. Hopefully she is not the last. We had a good time at the beach, staring at the ocean.

An Historic Election

2008-11-04T21:29:00.000-08:00

About 2 minutes after the race was called (8:02 our time) we heard fireworks. It's all a little surreal. We both found McCain's concession speech to be very gracious. I remember seeing Randall Wallace once at an Arts Conference at Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago, he quoted someone else as saying "People don't remember what you say, they don't even remember so much of what you do, but what they remember is how you made them feel." While this may disappoint some to hear me say this, Obama makes me feel hopeful, which is something no other politician has done.

Dez' School Update

2008-07-03T15:11:00.000-07:00

It is not hard to see that we've been a little behind on the blogging. We have several posts in the works and hope to get them finished soon including our trip to the Mission at San Juan Capistrano, our log cabin getaway, and our latest visit home. For now I will take a few minutes to update you all on where I am at in my program.

This fall I will start my third and final year studying spiritual formation and soul care at the Institute for Spiritual Formation. In January the focus of my program shifted from theoretical knowledge of how God grows souls to more practical, hands on training in the art of spiritual direction. I had the opportunity to give spiritual direction to two Biola undergrads this semester. I can't tell you how this encouraged my own soul. It was incredible to watch God work through me. As I spiritual director I am there to help facilitate the conversation between the directee and the Lord. So I have to be fully present and able to listen to both parties at the same time. I am learning about listening to the Holy Spirit and trusting in His work in each person. This has been a growing experience for me. It seems in my experience that Evangelicals (including me) aren't sure what to do with the Holy Spirit. He is the odd man out in the Trinity replaced by the much more tangible and easier to grasp Bible. Don't get me wrong, it is critical as Christians to know the Bible and to hide God's Word in our hearts, but I think we have long been remiss in getting acquainted with the Holy Spirit who is alive and working in each of us right this very minute.

As a requirement in for my program, I have been in therapy since November and am in the process of finishing up this month. It has been an incredible gift. It has been an opportunity for me to explore some painful places in my history in a safe space. It has given me the chance to get more honest with myself and Brandon, to grieve for things lost, and to come to terms with my own humanity. This has opened up much more space in my heart: to love others with their foibles, to deal more kindly with myself, to forgive those who have hurt me, to ask forgiveness of those whom I have hurt, to trust others with more of myself, and to get acquainted with myself apart from other's expectations of me. Now, don't let me give you the wrong impression, therapy is hard work. I cried for weeks and months on end, I had angry days and very sad days, I had to look at things about myself and others that I'd tried so long and so hard to ignore. It takes real courage to be honest and to choose to feel the feelings that I'd long suppressed. It takes support from those closest to you to encourage you on. They have to carry the faith for you that you will come out the other side, a healthier, more whole, and more fully alive person. I can't express how much Brandon was this support to me. Even when experiencing the fallout of my emotional distress, he stayed by me and loved me. This too was an incredible gift.

In the fall I will be a full-time student again. In addition to classes I will also have 10 directees. This feels like quite a jump from just two! We see directees every other week for an hour, but it also takes quite a bit of prep time to prepare oneself to open to the Lord and another person. You have to clean up your own internal house in order to be able to offer hospitality to another. I also receive supervision as a spiritual director in training. We tape all of our sessions and listen to the parts we struggled in our supervision groups every week, so we can get help and grow in our skills.

It is hard to even speculate what will happen beyond graduation in May. We are waiting for the Lord to begin to speak to us about what He has next for us. We would love for you to join in praying for the Lord's guidance for us as we begin to wonder about what will come next.

Dez' Parents Visit 1/08

2008-04-20T19:30:00.000-07:00

In January, my parents left below zero temperatures to brave it sunny Southern California for a whole week. Our 65 degree winter weather felt glorious to them and was the talk of the trip--Minnesotans can't help themselves, they must always comment on the weather.

We introduced them to two of our beloved cheap dinner date places, Chipotle and In & Out. This might have been my dad's favorite part of the trip. Both establishments are very good at what they do: big, big burritos with the best guacamole around at one and oh-so-tasty burgers at the other.

I would say my mom's favorite part was probably the beach. We took them down to Crystal Cove, our favored beach and the Lord blessed us with an incredible sunset. The sunsets are one of the greatest things about living here. How I enjoy watching that brilliant ball of fire take it's evening dip in the great ocean.

We visited the Autry Museum of the American West, which by the way, had an exhibit about Walker Texas Ranger. You can never go wrong with Chuck Norris in my family! My dad is a big fan of "the West" and likely sees himself as a modern day John Wayne. You can find him wearing his cowboy cut Wranglers, boots, western shirt, leather vest, and cowboy hat. His duster and black Stetson are for special occasions.
http://www.autry-museum.org/

Brandon and I had been curious about what it would be like to visit Saddleback Church where Purpose Driven Rick Warren is a pastor, so we asked my parents if they were up for an adventure. The four of us knew it would be big but we were totally unprepared for the MEGAchurch. I think you could put all of my hometown of Spring Grove, MN on their campus and still have room left over. It was like a small city. The worship service was well polished and well attended. Rick Warren even happened to be preaching that night. Interestingly enough, he spoke about his views on spiritual formation and how he thinks we mature in Christ. It made for lively conversation on the way home as Brandon and I had several points of contention with his ideas, since I am studying spiritual formation and the care of souls. I won't go into all that here, but my mom called me after their return home to tell me what she learned from that experience: just because you write lots of books and pastor a huge church doesn't mean you've got it all figured out.
http://saddleback.com/flash/

Rose Parade

2008-03-26T19:16:00.000-07:00

Now, the Rose Parade was back on January 1st. Some of you probably watched it on TV. You probably had better seats then we did. But what you probably didn't have was the experience of getting up early to catch the Metro up to Pasadena, fighting through crowds and climbing buildings to find a spot where you could see at least something, hearing all the Illinois people drunkenly shout at all of the USC people, and vice-versa, and seeing the sheer dedication so many people have to spending the night on the street to get the best seats around.

***

The floats were, from what we could tell, transformers. (Well, this particular float was, I guess I don't know about the others.) Here is the car state. The robot transformation took place as soon as it passed out of view. (We could see the steam and smoke and flashing redish lights.)

***

The Olympics will be in Bejing this year, and they are being promoted everywhere, even in the Rose Parade, which turns out to be just a big advertisement for all kinds of stuff we can't actually remember at this point.

***

Balloons. Floating. Into the sky.

Our Honeymoon Slideshow

2008-03-01T17:38:00.001-08:00

Here at last are our honeymoon pictures. We've added little captions to them all to walk you through our adventures. Enjoy.

Here's a link to the pictures themselves:

Honeymoon Cruise Winter 2007

Painting at the Artists' Retreat

2007-12-31T22:00:00.000-08:00

The artist retreat was a wonderful time to sit down and paint. Though I was sketching what I saw in the outdoors, I find I often use my sketches (in combination with journaling) as a sort of interactive prayer, and this weekend was particularly inspiring, for a number of reasons.

First, I had to go through all my art supplies. I've done some loose sketching outdoors before, but I've (and I'm somewhat surprised to say this) never really painted outdoors. I was inspired by a few blog posts I found, including this outdoor painting tutorial and this entry by James Gurney. (I highly recommend his blog by the way.)

So I distilled my art supplies into a surprisingly small bag, and started my first endeavor into outdoor painting/drawing. (I actually chose to use a mixture of ink pens, ink wash, and watercolor, so I'm not sure if it's better described as painting or drawing. I'll use the two terms interchangeably until further advised.)

[My drawings.]

[Photo's of what I was painting from.]

I'll quote from my journal here to explain what I was thinking about as I drew these:

In the morning I felt the need to climb something. Somehow my drawing required something more, something difficult. I ascended a steep hill. I walked past many things worthy of being drawn. I asked myself "at what point is it time to stop? Which scene will I paint?"

I kept moving. Something drove me on. A destination perhaps? Would fatigue stop me? I am not sure. It's as if I needed to earn or prove something. At last I settled upon a spot, a downward spiraling path. The painting went better than i would have hoped.

On the way back I thought it strange to walk uphill so much to paint a downhill scene. I thought how hard it was to ascend, but how easy it is to descend....I began thinking about how normally we think it hard to ascend up to God, how much work it is to "get to heaven", or "see God", or "be good", etc. I'm reminded of the painting "The Heavenly Ladder of Saint John Climacus" with pious souls climbing the ladder to God and flying demons knocking them off.

[The Heavenly Ladder of Saint John Climacus, 12th Century]

Even Christian from the Pilgrim's Progress is reminiscent of this mountain climbing theme. But ascension is not where I am at. Like Dante, I am descending. And descent is hard. It's hard to see myself as I am, and it's hard to receive love as I am. Perhaps this mirror's Christ's pattern, his "descent" from Gethsemane to the Cross to the Belly of the Earth was hard. Clearly. But his ascent to glory at the Father's side was, in a sense, easy. Descent and death are hard. Ascent and glory are easy. I tried to paint these things, but instead only struggled with ascending. As if work ascending might make descending easier, or more meaningful, or less painful.

What I'm saying is I found this amusing flip: ascending is difficult if it's a physical mountain, but easy if it is spiritual glory. Descending is easy while hiking, but descending into the soul is perhaps the hardest work we could ever do. It amazes me how often I try to ascend on my own under my own power to try and earn acceptance and love. Or how often I sit around and pray and wait for God to raise me up with his power so I can be accepted and loved by others. But the reality is, I need to go down. I need to descend.

The funny thing is, I don't see God at the top of a ladder. I don't see God in the heavens or standing upon a mountain. I see Him in my heart, in the deep waters, and it is to these deep waters that I hear Him inviting me. It is while I descend that I have my closest most meaningful moments with God. It is as I descend that I am most terrified. I've been throwing things into the basement of my soul for a long time, and it's become somewhat of a garbage pit. I really don't know what I'm going to find down there anymore. Except, as I mentioned, a God who is waiting for me.

(A proviso: when I say "deep waters" I am referring to the more hidden portions of our hearts, as described in Proverbs 20:5, not some sort of "deep thinking" or intellectual high-ground. I say this rather sloppily, but the strict rational mind has proven to me to be quite perilous when dealing with the deep waters, which are filled with emotions and feelings and beliefs and desires and a great many things that do not necessarily follow rhyme or reason.)

Birthday Extravaganza 12/18-19/07

2007-12-31T15:25:00.000-08:00

Wow did I ever have a great birthday! Definitely in my top three of all time. Although it didn't start out very promising:
We got back from our honeymoon cruise on the 18th. Unfortunately we came home to a bit of a disaster. Facility Services was in our apartment replacing the kitchen sink and doing some work in the bathroom while we were gone. They weren't terribly considerate of the mess they made as there was an impressive layer of industrial strength dust on EVERYTHING we have--even in the cupboards. We had to leave for a while and regroup before returning to begin the massive clean-up effort. We even had some neighbors stop by to clean our rather large book shelves while Brandon and I scrubbed out the kitchen. It was an extremely disheartening day, but it was also an excellent distraction for me.

As it turns out Brandon had been conspiring with our neighbors to throw a surprise party for me. At the last minute the party was moved to our upstairs neighbors' place instead of the original off-site plan. So they were scrambling around trying get things ready without me seeing. We had our door and windows all open, so they were so worried that I would see them sneaking around. However, I was so engrossed with the in-depth cleaning that I had absolutely no clue. So I thought nothing of it when our upstairs neighbors stopped by and asked us to come over and tell them about our trip. When it was time to go I was wearing my dirty t-shirt and track pants from cleaning and had every intention of going that way. Brandon talked me into jeans and a sweater saying that it would make me feel better. I'm glad he did. Imagine my surprise when after we started visiting with the couple upstairs all of these people jumped out and yelled, "SURPRISE!!" and it was a surprise. They had me. It was fun to hear them tell stories about all of their sneaky business in arranging this party and working hard to keep me clueless. We had pizza and played Pit. Good times! I felt blessed and loved.

The next day was my actual birthday. There was lots of talking on the phone as friends and family called to wish me a happy birthday and to hear about our cruise. I got to go shopping with my neighbor Melissa to spend my birthday money while Brandon was at work. Brandon's present to me was tickets to see Wicked at the Pantages Theatre that night. I love getting dressed up and going out to enjoy performing arts of many kinds, but this was an especially enjoyable evening. Check out the link to find out more about this musical production. http://wickedthemusical.com/#AboutWicked

Artists' Retreat 11/16-18/07

2007-12-31T14:17:00.000-08:00

Through a series of somewhat random events I found myself googling around about Catalina Island. Catalina is an island off the coast of Southern California, and through the course of my web surfing came across an InterVarsity Camp that was hosting an Artists' Retreat. We made arrangements to attend, and became very excited about it.

Arriving at the island required no small effort, and the camp itself is only accessible by boat. We drove to the docks, parked, and then boarded a ferry that transported us to the island's main city Avalon. From there we switched from the larger ferry to a smaller motorboat, which took us to the camp. It was night by the time we approached, the boat bouncing rather strongly in the waves as we traveled around the island. The darkness, the cold salty air, the turbulent boat ride, this last leg of the journey served to strip away the city from which we came and reset our senses for the duration of our stay. It was, perhaps, the best part. When we arrived, we had already been transformed.

[On the ferry, waiting to travel to Catalina Island.]

[On the motorboat.]

[Long Beach, where we parked our car.]

[The island, as seen in the sunlight, the next day.]

This "transformation" is perhaps best described by the fact that each morning we got up to watch the sunrise. This really surprised me, and for all you who know me, this should surprise you too. I am not known for being a morning person, but I couldn't keep myself away. Before I knew what had happened I was up watching the waves and the sunrise and these crazy birds dive into the water.

[Despite getting up early both mornings, the sunrises were actually pretty gray and foggy.]

We were placed in a lovely cabin beside the ocean. We had an ocean-view window. We could hear the waves at night. It was marvelous.

[We stayed on the beach.]

The retreat itself was beautifully structured. We arrived Friday evening. We met for a while on Friday so we could all introduce ourselves to each other. There were about 20 or so of us in total. Saturday we met after breakfast for a short while, then had the entire day to paint or draw. In the evening we met to share what we had created. Sunday morning we met after breakfast to conclude the retreat. The free-time-to-meeting-time ratio was not something I've ever experience on any Christian retreat before. It was a wonderful way to have an artists' retreat. I'll post my sketches separately.

[Normally around this time of year I would be deer hunting with my Dad and brothers. They did quite well this year without me, and as I was hiking around I saw this guy a few times.]

Tiff's Visit 11/3-5/07

2007-12-26T18:37:00.000-08:00

Tiffany hails from La Crosse, WI and was a part of that great group of friends that Brandon and I came together in, so we were so thrilled to have another close friend from home come to see us in our corner of the world.

[At one point she had three birds sitting on her. Just like one of those princesses in one of those Disney movies. --Brandon]

It was an action packed weekend as we wanted to show Tiffany a good time in this great big city of ours. Saturday we went to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. Tiff wowed us with her encyclopedic knowledge of the marine world. We went to the sea lion/seal show, pet sting rays, and were introduced to some of her all time favorite fish.

Ironically, after a long day of fish watching, we decided to go out for sushi at Kabuki's, one of our favorite places out here. Brandon likes to treat our out of town guests to this experience. Tiffany was a great sport. We had an eel roll, california roll, alaska roll, scallop roll, and rainbow roll. We also tried some sake cocktails, which were much tastier than straight sake. Brandon really wishes he liked straight sake either hot or cold. He hopes every time that he tries it that it will become more palatable to him, but it never does. Bless his heart.

[This is Dez saying "Bless his heart..." -- Brandon]

Sunday was the Disneyland extravaganza. One of my friends from school works at Disneyland and blessed us with some free passes to both Disneyland and California Adventure. Tickets are normally about $90 to get into both parks, so this was a real treat.

[I'm the guy in the middle. --Brandon]

Tiffany and Brandon stayed up late the night before mapping out their attack plan to get the most possible out of this trip. It was cute to watch them strategizing and prioritizing (this is serious business!!), but their work payed off as we had a full and fun day--12 hours. I still love California Screaming--who thought I would like rollercoasters? I would also like to announce to the world that I beat Brandon on the Astroblasters (Buzz Lightyear) ride. Of course, he did demand a rematch and beat me soundly. All was right in his world again. Captain Jack Sparrow was entertaining crowds on Tom Sawyer's Island. He was a captivating performer. I think Tiffany has a little crush on him!

[I won't try to explain this picture, other than to say that I won. -- Brandon]

Monday, Tiffany I had some time to catch up. She also came to one of my classes with me. It was fun to show her my life out here. She said she even enjoyed the lecture and meeting my classmates. She was amazed at the level of relational intimacy we enjoy as a cohort in this program--we don't waste time with small talk, we spill our guts with each other.

When Brandon got home that night we went to In & Out for supper. This is a California Institution--an absolute must do. They keep it simple and make it great. You can choose from a hamburger, cheeseburger. or a double cheeseburger and that's it. They also serve fries and tasty shakes. Everything is fresh, even the french fries (they cut the potatoes right there). So good! After supper, Tiffany's friend from Encino came to pick her up. She's a new mom and Tiff was gonna give her a hand and some company for the rest of the week.

As it turns out she returned to Minneapolis on the same flight with the entire LA Galaxy soccer team. If you know what a huge a soccer fan Tiff is, you know this was a big deal! Even David Beckham gave her a little smile. The Galaxy were traveling to play the Minnesota Thunder in an exhibition game the next day, which Tiff attended with her family.

[ This is not a picture of David Beckham. -- Brandon]

Christmas Day

2007-12-26T00:34:00.000-08:00

I got up bright and early this morning. Not so much to check my stocking but to do the dishes from Brandon's extravagant meal last night. Our deal is that Brandon does most of the cooking and I do all of the dishes. [That, I must add, is an awesome deal. For me. -- Brandon] Chefs spare no dishes when they are cooking, so there is always quite a pile when he's done. Though it is really hard to complain when he makes such good meals. After I had cleaned off some counter space, I put together a big pot of chili in the crock pot. I used serrano chilies and did my hands ever burn all day long. Clearly I am a novice at handling them. If anyone has any suggestions for avoiding the chemical burn from the chilies I'd love to hear about it.

Then we snuggled up to watch Flash Gordon, one of Brandon's childhood favorite films.

[This film is great. The music is by Queen. It's really just about the best imaginative crazy little film a sci-fi loving lad could have. It's got Hawkmen! Queen did the music! Max von Sydow outside of a depressing Ingmar-Bergman-film! and Queen! Yeah! -- Brandon]

You are not alone if you never heard of it, I hadn't either, but it was probably one of Brandon's favorite Christmas presents. [My two other favorites were: The Arcade Fire album "Neon Bible" from my friend Micah, and a wireless remote controlled helicopter from my parents. -- Brandon] The soundtrack is done entirely by Queen [Yeah! -- Brandon] causing some to classify it as a rock opera. It is a campy superhero story without the superpowers. Maybe that was it's point that you don't have to have superpowers to be a superhero. Flash Gordon is the hero for the common man apparently, for those of us who can't relate to extraordinary powers [Yet can relate Hawkmen. -- Brandon] .

Next, it was off to the beach. We went to Crystal Cove, our favorite beach out here, and wandered about until it was time to watch the sunset. Beautiful!! Watching the sun set behind Catalina Island as it sent it's sparkling rays over the waters is definitely not something we could do back in the Midwest.

[Really, the only thing that would make this scene better would be a soundtrack by Queen. And Hawkmen. Spelling out words as they fly in formation across the sky. Words like the lyrics from a great Queen soundtrack. Yeah! -- Brandon]

[Dez had fun writing things in the sand, since we had no Hawkmen to write things in the sky. -- Brandon]

[And after I stopped talking about Flash Gordon, Dez came back and cuddled up for this picture. But look at that smirk on my face. I'm totally going to say "Queen" again. Yeah! -- Brandon]

Lastly, we had our neighbors Raphael and Melissa over for supper. They like us, were among the very few in grad housing who didn't disperse to their various homelands for Christmas. I served up the chili that had been simmering all day. The smell alone made your mouth water. Brandon made some excellent guacamole. He must have chosen some perfectly ripe avocados as it was so flavorful. We use the recipe we found on Chipotlefan.com. We like to add more lime for extra zing in case your were wondering what our secret is. And of course there was good conversation and lots of laughter to complete this wonderful meal.

I am truly grateful for this time of life: to be married to Brandon, making it on our own in LA, the challenge and gift of my grad program, our wonderful neighbors with whom we delight in sharing life, faithful friends, that Brandon has a good job through which he's able to provide for us, and the opportunity to go on the deeper journey with the Lord both separately and together. My heart is full.

Can this be Christmas time?

2007-12-24T17:07:00.000-08:00

I have to admit that it is more than a little strange to have sunny and 75 degree weather for Christmas. We are more familiar with the single digit temperature, gray, and snowy type Christmases back home. It's more like a gorgeous fall day here. The leaves are turned (well as much as they can in this temperate climate) and are slowly descending from their perches above. Today we decided to go to the park to celebrate this beautiful strangeness. Of course, we did stop at Starbucks for a special holiday coffee treat. Brandon had the eggnog latte and I had the peppermint mocha--delightful!!

Here are a few pics we took at the La Mirada Regional Park this afternoon:

[Dez has started taking artistic photographs. It's very exciting to see her express herself in this way. -- Brandon]

[Another of Dez's subjects. Leaves make her giddy. -- Brandon]

[If you're wondering how we get all these photo's of us, once again, it is Dez taking them. She's become quite adept at reaching forwards and pointing the camera back at us. -- Brandon]

[What is Christmas without ducks? (that is a setup...all you funny people out there can add the punchline.) -- Brandon]

It is also strange not to be with our families today. Our friends and family have faithfully and lovingly sent us Christmas cards and packages filled with treasures, but it's not at all the same as being with them. We miss you guys and will be thinking of you tonight when we open up those packages. At the same time, it's also been good for us to think about what it means to celebrate Christmas in our own way. What things did we do with our families that we would like to continue? What are some new things we would like to try? One thing we will keep the same is opening presents on Christmas eve night. That was always a very big deal in my house growing up because I don't think my dad could wait till Christmas morning. Something new for us will be a picnic on the beach on Christmas day.

Brandon is busy in the kitchen. He is making scallops and stuffed mushrooms for dinner tonight. He is quite the chef!

[Ah...she brags. Then again, I did create a photomontage of myself cooking... -- Brandon]

[End result: The scallops, though tasty, were slightly overcooked. I must have spent too much time posing for the camera. The veggies were good. The mushrooms had too much cream cheese, which made them an unfortunate blend of too rich and too disgusting. The snickerdoodles were as I remembered them from my childhood...chock full of the goodness. -- Brandon]

Peace and blessing to you dear family and friends in the name of our Lord Jesus.

The LORD bless you and keep you;
The LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you;
The LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.
Deuteronomy 8:24-26

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.
Luke 2:13-14

Costume Party -10/28/07

2007-11-12T10:53:00.000-08:00

We got invited to a little costume party with some of our friends from my program. It was so fun to see everyone get into it. I went shopping a few days before with Grace, Lauren, and Charity at Savers (a thrift store). We had so much fun trying on the most obnoxious ensembles we could come up with. Charity and Grace ended up with 80's prom dresses. Brandon and I ended up with more of a 60's flower child thing. I would like to say that 100% of Brandon's costume came from his closet with a few of my accessories. Perhaps Brandon was born in the wrong decade. He seemed very at home in this attire and attitude.

Update on the Fire

2007-10-24T23:30:00.000-07:00

I was writing a note to family about the fires in Southern California, and I thought I'd post it here as well:

The nearest fire (a small one; 160 acres burned) was about 25 miles to the East. It is now 100% contained. The larger ones in San Diego with all the evacuations are about 80 miles to the South. There are also some large fires 50 miles to the Northwest, and still more to the Northeast. It looks like a lot of progress was made towards containment on these today. We are not currently in any danger from the fires or evacuations. (At home, work, or school.) We've smelled a lot of smoke in the air (at one point it was quite powerful) and there is snow-like ash floating everywhere, but we are quite safe. Considering all the flooding that plagued our homeland (Wisconsin & Minnesota), it's been an ironic and foreboding reminder of how fragile our world is, wherever that world may be.

The LA Times has been covering this very well, you can see it online at: http://www.latimes.com

A nice graphic from the LA Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-102407-me-fire-g,0,1346215.graphic?coll=la-home-center

Google Map of the Fires (We live in La Mirada, a few blocks from Biola University if you want to compare our location to that of the fires.)

Fire!

2007-10-22T20:09:00.000-07:00

The news has been faithful to report that large portions of Southern California are aflame. The odor currently infultrating our apartment and overiding our senses is akin to that of a campfire that some bozo threw a bunch of styrofoam plates upon. Smokey, and chemicalish. The city I would say is anxious, but experienced. We're not that worried, though it is a shame to lose so much forest.

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

2007-09-26T21:37:00.000-07:00

We went to the taping of "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" this afternoon. It was fun. Tickets are free, you just have to sign up for them. Seating is on a first come first serve basis. We got their early and got really good seats. We ended up sitting in the second row. (There were also some floor seats up a little closer.) We were about 20 feet from the stage. There were these crazy girls sitting two rows behind us, desperately trying to attract attention. They were very loud.

The studio was very small. It sat roughly 200-300 people. It was very cold. (We wore jackets.) I was really surprised just how small it was. I was expecting something much larger. Jay Leno walked out about 15-20minutes before taping began, and he told some jokes and explained how the show was going to work. He took pictures with some of the audience.

Afterwards, this other comedian came out and told some jokes, warming up the audience. He made fun of a lot of people, so at times it was hard to watch. He was jestful, but perhaps also mean. He threw some stuff out into the audience, and I ended up catching a small "bag" of some sort. It has some travel stuff in it.

Then the show started.

Steve Carell was the first guest, followed by a little 9-year old girl.

The musical guest was the band Bright Eyes.

Overall, it was really interesting (and at times quite funny) to be there. My world is now a little smaller though. The "bigness" of a national TV show is actually produced in a small studio by relatively normal looking people. Magic seems to dissipate with observation.

Stay Away from the Dumpster

2007-09-04T11:31:00.000-07:00

No joke; it is super stinky!

You see we have had a major heatwave here in Southern California for a full week now (think triple digits). This weekend it culminated in a power outage on our block. It went out at 4:45 pm on Sunday and stayed off until about 8:15 am Tuesday. Groceries don't fair well in the sweltering heat especially with no power, so our collective dumpster is filled with spoiled food, is any racoon's dream, and by the end of the day I suspect we will be able to smell it from our apartment.

Two nights without so much as a fan and certainly not air conditioning was definitely an insult to our pampered life. Sleep just doesn't happen for me when I can feel the sweat pooling up on my body as I lay there wide awake. It was even worse for Brandon who needs to use his CPAP machine at night, which requires power. Thankfully, one of my classmates offered us accommodations on the second night. Thank You, Thank You, Thank You Abbie!!

There were some great things that came out of the power outage, in particular, quality time with our neighbors. We have been able to spend a great deal of time with some of our neighbors as we've tried to make the best of the situation. Sunday night we sat outside and visited until our hungry stomachs cried out for satisfaction, so off we all went to the Soupplantation. We closed it down as we were not in any hurry to return to the dark furnace of our apartment building. Monday, it was no surprise to find everyone camped out at Panera for the day (it's the perfect spot for that kind of thing: good food, coffee, and free WiFi). Monday night we decided to grill out some our defrosting food with some other neighbors. It was quite a feast: salmon and cheesecake!

Dan & Chelsea live next to us on one side. He's in the Philosophy program at Talbot and she is working on her Masters in Social Work at USC. They are Orange County natives and a lot of fun!

John & Erica live next to us on the other side. He's also in the Philosophy program and she is a substitute teacher. They hail from South Carolina.

Danny & Kara live across from us. He is in the Philosophy program as well and she is a middle school science teacher. They just moved here from La Crosse, WI of all places. We swam in the pool and BBQed with them as we reminisced about favorite places back home.

We are so glad to be able to live here in grad housing with all of these great people. These are just some of the friends we have here. The Lord has provided the communities of grad housing and ISF (my program) and though nobody has very much money being in this phase of life, we find ourselves to be rich indeed.

Reflections: Year One

2007-07-22T21:12:00.000-07:00

Here's a snapshot of the last year: getting married, moving across the country while simultaneously separating from my family for the first time (with parents who were not yet prepared to release me); a desperate job search and it's subsequent victory; adjusting to a new and foriegn culture; emotionally supporting a wife in a very intensive grad program; trying to connect with a whole new set of friends and find a support network while trying to maintain at least some ties from the old; dealing with some health issues that are fairly intrusive into not only my quality of life but now also my wife's...Here's a cartoon I found that pretty much sums up a lot of life over the past year.

Things are starting to settle down though.

I'm currently working at the Doheny Eye Institute. I'm currently helping to develop algorithms to help interpret retinal images. The job can be pretty fun, and if we're successful, we will end up helping to save quite a lot of people from losing their vision.

Married life can also be pretty fun. We've gone on a number of adventures around LA. There is so much to do here. This weekend we went to see "The Taming of the Shrew" in park. We had a picnic while we watched the performance. It was peaceful and grand. We are starting to have a lot of fun at the beach. We've tried surfing on longboards, and bodysurfing--both of which are a blast. We have a lot of fun together. I like being married to Desiree. We are a good match, and life is so promising together. I am a better person for it.

When we were dating we took a "pre-marriage" class our church offered. We had extensive pre-marriage counseling. We read books and talked to others so we were not unprepared when our marriage was strained with our rather intense number of substantial transitions. Calling marriage hard seems cliche and not exactly accurate. More to the point, transitions are hard. Poor health is hard. Actually seeing someone, and being in a state to see them when they need to be seen, is hard. Asking for what you want is hard. Confrontation is hard. Being present to someone is hard. The articulation of feelings and the "deep waters" of my heart is hard. Looking at the painful things I am so much better at hiding and ignoring is hard. Looking at the painful things in my wife's life is hard. But in the end, it was our ability to see and connect with one another on such a deep level that led us together, so there is a certain joy in all this hardness, which makes married life so good.

Dez's program has really helped make sense of a lot of the messy stuff that has been in our lives for quite some time. Her program is "Spiritual Formation & Soul Care", which, on the outset, sounds perhaps a little fluffy. The program was developed by a guy named John Coe, who spent 18 some years in graduate education, and earned numerous degrees in philosophy and theology, and then spent a number of years teaching at a school of psychology. All this is to say, he's created a very fascinating program that seems very historically and theologically grounded in a topic all but forgotten by the evangelical world I was birthed from.

This idea of spiritual formation, then, is taking a closer look at how exactly a believer grows and develops over time. At First Free, my old church, this was a very simple model...You are saved...you learn the staples of reading your bible, worship and prayer...you learn a lot of theology...you serve the church. And that, really, is the end of the line. Anything after is either more service or more theology. The "deer panting for water" and the subsequent "living streams" are just sort of circumstantially magical feelings we are to embrace when present and stoically endure when absent. The result of such--what I'll call isolated spirituality--is the unfortunate stereotypical Christian that has so much knowledge yet remains so immature--not only in a spiritual sense but in a holistic sense. One of the talks I've heard Coe give is entitled "Why do we sin when we know so much?", and it is a fascinating look at the mechanisms that cause us to behave in certain ways despite our best efforts. These mechanisms live in what Coe calls the "hidden heart", and his basic premise is that the extent to which we don't know our hidden hearts is the extent to which we have no control over our undesired behaviors.

Spiritual formation, then, looks more carefully at this process, with the aim of helping people open up to the way the Spirit would grow and mature us--not in theology or service alone, but as whole people--as messy as we can be. And, not unlike many things in nature, there are certain growth patterns that can be observed and studied. But perhaps the most fundamental concept is a very old idea summed up by John Calvin..."There is no knowledge of God without knowledge of self...there is no knowledge of self without knowledge of God". The basic journey then is the Holy Spirit leading us into the parts of ourselves we'd rather not see--and yet when we are able to look, God is there, waiting for us.

We talk a lot about having "a relationship with Jesus", but I feel I am only now discovering just what exactly relationship is. Marriage is a good teacher. Having found safety in my wife, it is easier to accept the safety offered by God. Having begun to accept the truths about myself reflected back to me by my wife (who serves so often as a mirror), I have allowed God to enter parts of my soul previously dormant. The program has given us both language to describe some of the process, which has been especially helpful for me since I am so fearful of it.

The largest realization I have had since moving out here is perhaps the awe of how dreadfully small my world has been, at every edge and corner. There is a certain directionless though substantial anger at this felt imprisonment, along with a certain lostness at the size of my new world. But there is life, too, as the long oppressed explorer is unshackled. Like the Israelites upon their release from Egypt, a part of me wishes to return to the old world I know so well--it is perhaps easier than standing straight when my back is so used to my defeated slouch. One of the larger questions on my mind is how to relate to that old world. Then, perhaps it was never the world that changed at all...only me. And perhaps when I say world I mean the old shoes I used to wear, as opposed to the new shoes I wear as man, husband, and lover. Maybe I mean both. I do not know yet.

Another big development in life lately is my health. Some of you may recall my difficulties sleeping. It has put a large burden on our marriage. My wife was a very good sleeper till I came around. Once we had health insurance I went to see a doctor about it, who referred me to a specialist. The saga has gone on all summer, but at last it seems to have come to a point--I have been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea. The current solution is very effective I'm told, and involves sleeping with a mask over my face connected to a CPAP machine. Like, perhaps, Darth Vader. I'm not terribly excited about that. Then again--the thought of sleeping through the night is profoundly joyous.

The time I have to myself I spend writing and drawing in my sketchbook. I journal. I am designing and building a somewhat elaborate board game to humor projectless hands. Poetry visits from time to time as I try to articulate various irrationalities and feelings. (Sample my latest below.) But it is difficult to think I have something to offer at this junction in the way of art or writing. When one's world is small it is easy to become master of it, and once a master it is easy enough to write about it. But now...I feel as if I know nothing. And if I wrote about anything it would surely be obsolete in a months time. Rest assured the urge is there and ever present for large grandious projects, but currently such fruit is awaiting thicker branches to grow upon. My immediate plan is to write and create as needed to grow into this new and larger world.

Voyage's Dawn
by Brandon Weaver
7.7.07

Songs and tales and gestured faces
Ships and swords and preparations

Sails and seas and unseen shores
Sun and stars and sturdy oars

Storms and waves and splintered wood
Snakes and squids and siren's 'hood

Spears and knives and wounded breast
Sweat and blood and hunger's test

Gold and gems and journey's quest
Life and death and questions wrest

Seed and hull and shedding skin
Soul and sprout and to begin

Surfing.

2007-07-10T22:42:00.000-07:00

We got the opportunity to go surfing a weekend or two ago. It was pretty much the coolest thing ever. I couldn't help but giggle at all the people that have since asked "did you get up?" Yes, I "got it up."

If I haven't scared you off with innuendo's, I have a picture.

Now, the story goes something like this. After some initial attempts, I realized that just sitting out there in the water on the board is harder than it looks. Balancing on water is very different. After learning to balance (well enough that is) one has to learn how to catch waves. I have a lot to learn about this yet. After you catch a wave, you must learn to ride it. To stand up and walk. This, I thought, was simultaneously the easiest and most fun aspect of surfing. Once you have some balance and have caught a good wave, standing up is just sort of standing up.

In the above picture, a friend and classmate of Dez's was surfing next to me, and she fell off and her board collided into mine. If you look closely at the picture, you can see her board on top of my own.

I look like I'm going to fall in the picture, but I didn't. I rode the wave out. It was at that moment, for the first time that day, that I allowed myself to believe I was actually surfing. Now I'm pretty much sold on the idea, and hope to surf more before the summer is through.

Dez had fun too--she rode some waves in. We had fun swimming together. It's the first time we've been swimming in the ocean since we've been out here. Unfortunately, our sunscreen didn't hold itself up to the task, and we both get burnt, despite reapplications and such. We've since done some research and switched to another brand.

A Wedding and John Wayne

2007-06-12T16:20:00.000-07:00

This weekend, Brandon and I went the wedding of Melissa, one of my friends from school, to Raphael, one of our neighbors here in grad housing. I am excited to have Melissa be my neighbor, but that means we're not the newest newlyweds on the block anymore. Oh well!

It feels good to have some time and distance between us and all the drama proceeding our own wedding back in August. As I watched Melissa get ready for her big day this last week, I couldn't help but relive the days prior to my own stint as a bride. Those days are so full of people and preparations and parties. And that is the perfect recipe for drama of all kinds--I know all you once-brides are nodding your head in agreement right now.

It feels good to be down to the business of living our lives together. Don't get me wrong, we enjoyed our wedding, especially the ceremony, but it is so nice to settle into couplehood. We've had a unique opportunity to do that out here in LA, away from the pressures and expectations of family and friends (not that we don't miss them terribly). Here we are free to discover our own path, to figure out what it means for us to be one. It reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from the movie McClintock, a John Wayne classic and a Wohlert family favorite. In the scene John Wayne's character is sharing a fatherly moment with his daughter trying to explain one of life's beautiful mysteries:

"There's something I ought to tell you, I guess now's as good a time
as any. You're gonna have every young buck West of the Missouri around
here trying to marry you. Mostly because you're a handsome filly, but
partly cause I own everything in this country from here to there. And
they'll think your gonna inherit it. Well, your not. I'm going to
leave most of it, well, to the nation, really, for a park, where no
lumber mill, can cut down all the trees for houses with leaky roofs.
Nobody will kill all the beaver for hats for dudes. Or murder the
buffalo for robes.

"What I'm gonna give you is a 500 cow spread on the upper Green River.
While that might not seem like much, that's more than we had, your
mother and I. Some folks are gonna say I'm doing all this so I can sit
up in the hereafter and look down on a park named after me. Or that I
was disappointed in you, didn't want you to get all that money. But
the real reason, Becky, is because I love you, and I want you and some
young man to have what I had. Because all the gold in the United
States Treasury and all the harp music in heaven can't equal what
happens between a man and a woman, with all that growing together. I
can't explain it any better than that."

Star Wars Celebration IV: The Fun We Had

2007-06-03T22:54:00.000-07:00

Star Wars Celebration IV: A lot of fun was had on our Friday visit to the celebration. It was billed as the "largest Star Wars party", celebrating 30 years of Star Wars (to the day).

The first thing we did was spend a lot of time marveling and, well, gawking. It was quite a sight. There were so many stormtroopers, jedi, boba fett's, clone troopers, princess leia's, queen amadala's in any of her assorted dresses, rebel pilots, rebel soldiers, aliens, sith, a gamorrean guard, a life-size Jabba the Hutt....The list went on and on.

After gawking for a while we found ourselves watching "Star Wars in 30min" a play with a cast of about a dozen running through the original trilogy at break-neak speed. It was quite hilarious, but best described in person.

I've always enjoyed playing Star Wars video games. Running out into a digital world shooting a bunch of stormtroopers has always lifted my spirits. However, I may have found a new passion...Star Wars Lasertag. That was perhaps the highlight of my day. Running around shooting live stormtroopers--that was great. My team won all three of our rounds. The best moment of the game was round three...both teams were in our respective corners of the playing field. The command was given to attack...I ran to the other side of the field then slid the last ten feet into my position behind an abondoned tank, flanking three stormtroopers. I didn't last long in so forward a position, but drawing their fire did provide the needed distraction for the rest of the team to advance. I got many complements for my slide move. Memories I won't soon forget.

From Star Wars Cel...

There is this group of droid builders we visited, who had built some truely amazing droids. Throughout the conference we saw many R2 units (along with many other droids) zooming around flirting (more or less) with many onlookers. These guys are spending thousands of dollars (literally) to design and construct these droids. Me and Dez picked out a few favorites. I'd just like to give a little shout out to all my Mysty Homies! Hey oh! (Because, ah, everyone knows that Mysties shout "hey oh" all time. Right. Ah-hem.)

From Star Wars Cel...

Next, we went to the much anticipated Costume Pagent. The room was packed. The costumes ranged from halirous, to cute (they had a kids catagory) to literally 1000's of hours of work. Some of the girls who had sown and embroidered their Amadala dresses produced some truely amazing gowns. My favorite costumes where: this cute little (5-year old-ish) kid in a pretty fuzzy ewok costume; A man dressed as "The George Lucas Jedi" with flannel jedi robes; the gamorrean guard--who won best in show--his costume could have come straight from the movie it was so good.

From Star Wars Cel...

Frome here we went to stand in line for the opening ceremonies. It had been a fun day.

From Star Wars Cel...

View more of our pictures here.

View some other conference photos.

Read the "official" Star Wars Celebration blog.

How Star Wars Celebration IV Blew Up

2007-05-25T22:26:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: How it ends + links to news reports...(see bottom of post)

Star Wars Celebration IV. Friday. Evening.

I had a good time. Judging by the looks on everyone elses faces this seemed to be predominant attitude. A lot of fun things happened. I'll share them.

But first, let me write about how it all went sour in the end.

We were standing in line for the opening ceremonies. We were really excited. Everyone was. The line was really long, stretching outside for blocks, but we were assured we would get in by the nice man holding the "end of the line" sign. We waited. We played sudoku. We listened to the rather excited group of guys in front of us. The line started moving. Slowly, in spurts.

This line walking process took 15-20mins, but we got in the building. We hurriedly followed the line of people up to the auditorium. Some people get stopped. Bags over a certain size weren't allowed, so they had to be checked. This mostly consisted of shopping bags, with recently purchased wares. Toys for kids. Fun stuff.

We didn't have any bags, so we were able to press through. We got the auditorium. We were ten feet away, and suddenly the line stopped. Halted. Everyone was confused. The staff assured us that there was some problem, they didn't know what, and that they were going to sort it all out right away. Okay. Whatever. We were practically there.

Several minutes pass. They seem much longer. No one knows why we've stopped. Men in blue security jackets start pushing people away from the doors. They have walkie-talkies. The staff member closest to us is confused, tries to ask questions, but gets no answers. Meanwhile, the program finally starts. It started late. But we could see it. We could see the USC marching band through the closed glass doors of the auditorium. We could see 501st Stormtrooper brigade following them behind. I think I saw an Ewok on stage. And Indiana Jones. I was ten feet from the door!

People were coming out of the auditorium, staff, and others, who were questioning why no more were allowed in. One woman said it was only 60% full. I can't confirm if that was in fact true or not, but I did see empty seats. A newslady and cameraman exited the auditorium. They were from KCAL 9 I think. (Update: This was actually Amy Murphy and cameraman from Fox 11) The newslady talked to her cameraman as they walked past--"I don't understand why they aren't letting other people inside" she said. I couldn't make out anymore.

The crowd was growing restless. We all felt 10 feet away from the door I think. We were all so close. We could here it, taste it, smell it, see it...but we were not allowed to touch it. There were so many still behind us. My estimate was 1000-1500 people, based on the width and length of the line.

Finally, a man with a tan shirt and highlighted hair came out and told us all to move against the far wall. We were all upset. In our new position we could no longer see through the glass doors. The last two doors were finally shut closed, and we could no longer hear anything. The smell changed from hope to frustration and defeat. The crowd grew angry. Several people started shouting at the man who had come out. "Poor planning!" One shouted. "What's going on?" shouted another.

A new man showed up with a stack of envelopes and began distributing them. They were meant to appease us. Instead it ticked a lot of people off. I told my wife that if things got ugly we'll have to make a run for it. She replied things were already ugly. I've never been in a riot, but began to expect one.

The man with the highlights told us, "as far as I know, this is not a done deal". Dare we hope? Suddenly a new man walked in, a big athletic man with a buzz cut and authoritative voice. He told us we needed to leave the building immediately. This didn't sink in. "Why?" someone asked. "I don't know, but you all have to leave the way you came in. I have been told to clear the building." This didn't sink in either. Some people left immediately. Most of us just stood there. He repeated himself a number of times. Many went back to the check-in table, to reclaim the goods. The large man told them no. He shut down the table and forced everyone to leave without their bags. It was so confusing. "Why are we leaving? Why can't we get our stuff?" People said as they walked past.

I walked slowly. Then quickly. Then slowly. I was just as confused as everyone else. When everyone finally got outside of the building...we all just stood there. My wife and I sat down on the curb. A man with a blue shirt had a walkie-talkie. A crowd gathered around him. I moved over to see if I could hear any news. "When I know something, you'll know something." The man said. I woman barraged him. He repeated himself "When I know something, you'll know something." The woman didn't quit. "When this woman knows something, you'll know something." People laughed. A little. The joke was welcome.

Princess Leia, however, was crying. She was probably six years old, dressed in the white robe-dress, hair in the classic buns. She was very upset. Another man pleaded with the man in the blue shirt "You have to let us go back and get our stuff...I promised my son he could play with his toys tonight." The man in the blue shirt said no. The story got worse. The child was autistic. The father was desperate. The child was sobbing. Anakin Skywalker, from Episode II, with full jedi robes and a gloved left hand sat on the ground sobbing at his fathers feet. No one felt very good. The answer was no. The man in the blue shirt got that message across fairly harshly, perhaps even meanly. I couldn't watch anymore.

I gathered from overheard conversations that the parking garages, like the building, had been evacuated, and no one was allowed to their cars. The man in the blue shirt confirmed this. People were not allowed into the building, or to the parking garages. It was all being taped off by police. The LAPD was to blame. Not the Star Wars Celebration Staff. Still, no one knew why.

Another staff person approached. She declared that shuttles were on their way. This was not very reassuring. Shuttles to where? After a few minutes I was able to ask...they were shuttles back to the hotels.

A little while later we were pushed away from the conference center and told we had to cross the street. Once we crossed the street we were told to move onwards. We couldn't wait there. People grumbled "what am I supposed to do? My car's in there--I'm not at a hotel--I have nowhere to go!". I was in their camp. I grumbled too.

We waited. The building was taped off. Firetrucks and Police cars were everywhere. Flares where on the road, blocking all traffic. A man from San Francisco sat with me and my wife for a while. We grumbled a together a little. Then moved on. We moved down the sidewalk, not knowing what else to do. No one was telling us anything. Bomb squad SUV's started showing up. I personally saw two, people claimed there was four. The "bomb threat" theory floated through the crowd. One man theorized the bomb threat was called in from a "bent Trekkie".

News vans were also everywhere. We were waiting in a crowd of people for warmth when a newsman showed up with a cameraman. (Update: This was Patrick Healy from KNBC 4) He started interviewing people. We all listened in, hoping for more information. There was nothing new. We chatted with a young girl dressed as a Dark Jedi. She was dressed in black and had long fleshy tentacles flowing from her head. A Twi'lek, I believe, and possibly a Sith, but she seemed nice enough. She was hoping for more information too. But it was just the same old.

We finally decided it would be worth trying to get at least closer to our car. We crossed a couple of streets, passed a Han Solo and a very cold looking slave costume Leia, and found a couple of policeman taking pictures with a stormtrooper and a little Jengo Fett, maybe two and a half feet tall. It was cute, and odd, and surreal. Like the LAPD had descended upon us like the Empire.

We went up to a policeman and asked if he knew anything. He said curtly "I'm not allowed to tell you." Oh. Okay. We asked if we could get back into the building. He thought so, and let us partially in. But no, he was wrong, no one was allowed back into the building. We asked about getting to our car, and the particular garage our car was parked within was now open. Finally, and quite unexpectedly, he told us there was a "package", and the police wanted to investigate it. He pointed to another gentleman walking past, "it's about 3 times bigger than the pack he's wearing. Do you know how much C4 you could put into that? 60-70lbs worth. They've been hosing it down with water and know the bomb squad is here."

Great. This made me angry. We walked to our car, and drove home. Some clown plants some thing and our celebration blows up. Or maybe it's not a plant...maybe just some box of toy figures. Maybe it's real, maybe it's not. I guess you can't be to careful, but no such thought made me less angry.

We proceeded to our car, and drove home, rather dejected.

UPDATE--------------------------------------

So the "package" turns out to be a bag of clothes. The people that made it into the opening ceremonies were not evacuated. The mayor of Los Angeles, apparently, was at the opening ceremonies, and he was not evacuated.

The next day I called the Conference Show Office, asked them what was going on and if anything was going to be done about it. The volunteer I talked with said the "higher-ups" were putting together a compensation package. Nice. He said he'll call me back when more details had been gathered. Two hours later, he called me back. He was nice and apologetic, but said the "higher-ups" had made it "abundantly clear" there was to be no compensation for anyone. The conference staff was complying with LAPD orders, and the LAPD was acting in the interest of public safety. So with those two invincible untrumpable unarguable cards played, along with the pre-existing policy of absolutely no refunds for any reason whatsoever, that was that.

News links:

http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_146031629.html

Amy Murphy Fox 11
http://www.myfoxla.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=3318501&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1

Patrick Healy KNBC 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8vvOTJgcOY

Disneyland

2007-02-20T23:24:00.001-08:00

One day, Dez got an email from one of her classmates. Through a chain of human generosity this classmate of Dez’s was able to offer us free passes to Disneyland. We have been meaning to go there for a while, but have not yet had the means to do so. Suddenly, however, that changed. But, the passes were for a weekday--could I get off of work to join Dez? As it happens, yes, my employers are also quite generous, and I was allowed to work on Saturday in place of the Thursday we would travel to Disneyland. With our sunglasses, camera, good spirits and friends we set off on a journey into the emotionally engineered, fabricated experience that comprises the realized imagination of Disneyland!

Dun na naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Gong!

So, we arrive early. We are in a good position in line. We are allowed to enter into the narrow gates of admission and proceed into the great lobby of the land, Main St. USA. But there is more to this park then the lobby, and we wish to proceed further. We press ourselves forwards and find that no one is allowed further into the park! There is a crowd gathered, and we all press and inch our way forwards, awaiting the opening of the rest of the park.

Finally, the judge steps forth and says “Welcome, all you sheep! The goats have been sent to their hellish work, but you, my sheep, are welcome! Come further in and further up!” With that (I took some poetic liberty on that last part by the way) the last boundary was removed and we were released into our man-made heaven for a day.

We split up almost immediately. The four of us went to go jump in line at the Matterhorn, and the fifth of our quintet ran for Space Mountain, to get these clever little things called FastPasses. As we waited in line for the Matterhorn, there was a guy standing a ways behind us that looked strikingly like Billy Boyd (who played Pippen from the Lord of the Rings.) But that happens a lot out here in the desert of Los Angeles—you think you see all sorts of things. Mirages I tell you! Mirages! And yet…. Anyways, after the group was reunited we rode, and were, more or less, disappointed. The Matterhorn is a very bumpy (and not a pleasant sort of bumpy) ride through some somewhat uninteresting terrain, especially compared to many of the other rides we experienced that day. The Matterhorn is much more pleasant to look upon than ride I’m afraid. We moved on.

Next we did Star Tours. Now this is a ride I remember from some childhood adventures in Disneyworld. I was less impressed by the ride than I remembered, but the flood of fond memories it brought back made me somewhat gooey inside.

This goo, however, was promptly removed with centrifugal force. The line for Space Mountain was nil. We rode it twice. This ride was re-done from what I remembered, with a new soundtrack that really worked stunningly well. I was not just sufficiently but rather quite over-abundantly entertained. In no small part because Dez liked it so much, which really stunned us both. She is not known for her Roller-Coastering, but this ride took her by surprise. I have since used this ride as an excuse to rent more Sci-Fi movies. However, this is not entirely easy nor satisfying because nobody seems to be making any movies with Samurai and Robots. This boggles me, but I digress.

We ate lunch at a pizza/cafe type place. I have much to say and opinions galore on this particular event, however, at this juncture I’ll keep them all rather painfully to myself.

The Buzz Lightyear ride was very extremely excitingly fun. So great, that it should really have a few more adjectives, like “tremendously”, and “enormously”, and maybe I’ll throw in “vastly” and “a great deal” just for good measure. The ride is simple, your sit in a little car, with a Space Ray in your hand, and you shoot things. They take your picture, and they let you email it to yourself. We rode this twice. Our trigger fingers bled.

Life was a bit of a blur for me after that funness, until I found myself outside the door of the Indiana Jones ride. This was great. Pretty much all the fun coolness of the rides before, only, it spoke deeply to my childhood picture of manhood. I was raised on Star Wars, Robin Hood (1938), Captain Blood (1935), and of course, Indiana Jones. Harrison Ford and Errol Flynn were my pictures of what it meant to be a man. Now that I’m older, I realize those characters I so admired are perhaps better pictures of what it means to be a boy. But that is really too deep a statement to be making at a juncture like this, and too new a thought for me to discuss intellegently anyway. On top of all that, I'd hate to get all the John Eldredge fans of the world mad at me for calling all their manly hero's "boys". (Not, at least, withouth proper justifaction that is.) Still, the point is, even mention Indiana Jones and that marvelous goo promptly returns to my insides.

The Indiana Jones ride was indescribably great. You feel, just for a few moments, the adventure you love so much in the film. I really can’t do a written description of this ride in justice, you’ll just have to ask my about it. I can get very excited. Beware of flailing arms.

I was pretty content at this point, and took what would be in effect a gluttons nap; meaning, I walked around in even more of a daze than I was in before. We went on a few other “lesser” rides that I don’t remember all that well, and eventually wandered over to Disneyland’s other land, “California Adventure”. Personally, I think “California Adventure” is a really unexciting less-than-inspired name, but I didn’t let that ruin anybodies day.

Moving right along, we found ourselves in line for the rollercoaster “California Screamin”. Dez had to be talked into going on this ride. But she trusts me, and it paid of well for her. Because, as it turns out, she really enjoyed it; even, perhaps, more than I. It is a really exciting rollercoaster that blasts music that matches the curves you travel along as it shoots you through the air at very high speeds. It really plays around with acceleration. You start at the bottom at a dead stop. Then, before you can blink, you realize you have been pushed to the back of your seat as the car is rocketed straight to the top. Then, you go down. And down, and back up, and loop around and music is blasting and running and after all the adrenaline is pumped out of wherever adrenaline comes from, the ride slams on the brakes and your body crashes forwards and it’s over. Just like that. Dez loved it. I loved it. We ended up riding this one twice as well.

We went to a few other things, Muppets 3D, Tower of Terror (which was a lot more fun than I remembered it being), and some other exhibit type things. By the way, it turns out my personality is most like the Disney character “Jiminy Cricket,” according to the little Disney computer that is. Just a little nod to all you Myers-Briggs fans out there.

We ate dinner somewhere in Adventureland, and upon leaving the park we stopped in Downtown Disney, a free admission shopping mall just outside of the park. We stopped in at the LEGO store. This is a bad metaphor, of course, but if one could die in heaven and proceed to another heaven after that, such a thing would sum up my experience that day in the LEGO store. I bought some more LEGO’s to use at work (as a visualization tool—I seriously have pretty much the greatest job a guy like me could have), and just had a grand ole time looking over everything. The store wasn’t as cool as the LEGO store in the Mall of America, however, so if you can only go to one, of those two, I’d recommend Minnesota.

Our friends car was parked the largest parking structure I’ve ever seen. Rightly so, as I was told it was the second (or so) largest parking structure in the world. It had a 5-story escalator. We decided it would be fun to travel up and then back down the 5-story escalator. That was a ride. I’d title it “The Escalator to Heaven”, not that there was anything up there at the top, but it took so long getting there that it promoted an akin experience. If nothing else, it was fun to be zany. There’s not enough zaniness in the world these days. Gosh, I talk like I’m old enough to have seen the world and then see it change. How zany an assumption is that? (Speaking of zany...why didn't I take a picture of a 5-story escalator? The view was interesting, but getting vertigo on an escalator was something else entirely. You could fall forever and keep going up.)

Well, I guess that about sums up the adventure. I suppose some of you may be still wondering about some of my allusions--about just what exactly a Christian can and can't say, or what my true feelings on Disney really are. If you remain unclear, I guess I expressed my own befuddlement on such subjects well enough. So to both conclude and change the subject, if you would be so kind as to hum the Indiana Jones theme to yourself, I'm going to go relish in some more boyhood memories of manhood.

I'm a real handful

2007-01-26T14:37:00.000-08:00

This week I was emailing a dear friend of mine about how my break was going. I thought I might also share it here:

The Lord doesn't have an easy time with me. Over the course of this break, I became painfully aware of how my vice of productivity often stands diametrically opposed to the rest the Lord wants to bring my soul. He wants me to rest from my works (heb 4) but I keep looking for things to keep myself busy. I can't give up on fixing myself. Help me Lord!!!! My spiritual director sat me down last week. I came into our meeting anxious. I felt like I was squandering my break--not being spiritual enough. She asked me, "who exactly is in charge of this process?" Sting--like everything else in life, I want to be able to charge through a beautiful but slow, irregular, and painful process. I want to "help" the Lord help me. It is a ridiculous as the clay on wheel growing hands and assisting the potter in its own formation. Would I rather live in a world where I was perfect and didn't need God's help in that department than to live in surrender and honesty about my own brokenness as a person, as a soul? My behavior and its motivations are telling.

Classes start again on Monday. I am looking forward to it. This week I found out that I didn't get a job that I had interviewed for at Biola. I was so relieved! I thought that my interviews had gone well, but in the space of two weeks between the interview and finding out, the Lord reminded me of the journey we're on together and the fact is, it just takes time. Sure reading twenty books this semester will take time, so will writing papers, going to class, prayer projects, and retreats, but these things are not an end in themselves. They are each an opportunity to open to God and learn about Him or me or, ideally, both. God doesn't work on a timeline (at least one that I'm familiar with), so I am learning, very slowly, about simply being available to Him. Thankfully, I have such a kind and generous husband who insists that I give myself fully to school and not be bothered by working. And yet I am even more blessed than that, I have a husband who wants to go on this journey with me.
Thank you, Love!
dez

Shakespeare and San Clemente

2007-01-16T16:03:00.000-08:00

We were pleasantly surprised this last weekend to find that it consisted of not just two but three days. Now when one is given three days as a opposed to just two there seems to be some added pressure to have some experience, some adventure, some story to show for oneself. Admittedly, I am also more than a little excited for any opportunities to get out of the apartment and interact with the outside world as I have been spending a lot of quality time with myself since the end of last semester.

Saturday was largely spent resting. Brandon is still recovering from our big venture back to the Midwest over Christmas break. He doesn't have the luxury of mid-day naps that I have right now nor lots of extra time to process everything that went on. So we slept in and later watched a movie in bed. How I love to cuddle with my husband! I love snuggling up to him and resting my head on his chest in that perfect space between his shoulder and neck. And ladies, contain yourselves, he might actually enjoy it even more than I do.

After getting all rested up we got all dolled up to go to see The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged at the ARK Theatre. I was a little skeptical when we showed up to the place as it was obviously a small, low budget type theatre. The place only seated about 50-60 so it was a very intimate setting which ended up being perfect for the show we were going to see. The cast was a grand total of three people doing 37 plays in 90 minutes. I know it is hard to imagine how that is even possible, but we promise you it is and it is hilarious. This troupe of three was energetic and engaging. It has been said that "all the world is a stage." It certainly felt that way during the performance as they physically interacted with the audience and used the seating space as part of the stage. Included in the dialogue of the play was a particularly amusing banter between the actors. This play is fascinating, we left there wondering how the script worked exactly. Does it require a lot of improv or does it require the crew to insert current cultural references kind of like a mad libs approach to play writing? Either way, we were entertained and recommend it to you.

Sunday was off to a lazy start. I was reading the paper and Brandon was researching for his latest painting project. I was wondering what would become of the day when we got a call from Brandon's great uncle Don and his wife Connie. We had been hoping to get together for another adventure with them and here was our opportunity. They took us to San Clemente a beautiful ocean town. We walked out on the pier as we waited for a table at the Fisherman (the restaurant on the pier). What a treat!!! It was a beautiful day. The waters were serene and the sun warmed our faces as we took our meal on the deck. It was mealsharing of the best kind. The four of us do have lively conversations of love, life, and faith and the time slips by imperceptibly. After dinner we walked about the park adjacent to the beach and from our vantage point we could see dolphins playing around what someone told us was a reef.

By this time the parking meter had gobbled up our quarters. So we hopped in the car to chase down the sunset. Sunset over the ocean is a sight to behold. And you will find as that magical moment approaches, people gather, some with picnics and friends and others going solo to quietly take in the beauty. Everyone wonders, "will this be a good one? Will I get to see the sun dip into the ocean?" And its really something when you can.

dez

ps--pictures to come!

The Reading List

2007-01-03T13:31:00.000-08:00

While we were home for Christmas break several people requested my reading list for school. Since I am not in class right now, I have the time to oblige you. Happy reading! My annotations are in red.

Fall Semester

Intro to Spiritual Formation

Invitation to a Journey: A Road Map for Spiritual Formation by M. Robert Mulholland Jr. (InterVarsity Press) This is a great introduction to the subject. A good place to start.

The Deeper Journey: The Spirituality of Discovering Your True Self by M. Robert Mulholland Jr. (InterVarsity Press) His follow up book to further discuss the importance of the dual knowledge in Spiritual Formation, which is to say that it is equally important to increase in knowledge of one's self along with the knowledge of God and vice versa. John Calvin said, "True and sound wisdom consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and ourselves."

Opening to God by Thomas Green (Ave Marie Press) A primer on opening our hearts to God in prayer and offers techniques that ready the soul to encounter God.

Weeds Among the Wheat by Thomas Green (Ave Maria Press) A fantastic book on the practice of discernment. I don't think I have begun to apprehend the richness here. It is a discussion on Ignatius' formula for discerning. I plan to read it again.

The Way of the Heart by Henri Nouwen (Ballantine Press) His discussion on the practices of Solitude, Silence, and Prayer and their importance for us today.

Neurosis and Human Growth by Karen Horney (Norton) Not an easy read. Written by a well-respected researcher and therapist to her fellow therapists. If I might oversimplify, she is discussing the dual nature of a person, how we all have our own Dr. Jekel and Mr. Hyde inside of ourselves. The book focuses mostly on treatment concerns.

History and Theory of SoulCare

The Study of Spirituality by Cheslyn Jones et al (Oxford Press) Honestly, this book was drudgery to read but it does give a thorough survey of the history of spirituality.

Spiritual Direction and the Care of Souls ed by Gary Moon & David Benner (InterVarsity Press) This presents you with a survey of how Spiritual Direction is used in the major denominations. It also provides you with a helpful discussion on the similarities and differences of the Spiritual Director, the Counselor/Therapist, and the Pastoral Counselor, which was very helpful to me.

Spiritual Direction: Beyond the Beginnings by Janet Ruffing (Paulist Press) Probably written more for the Spiritual Director with instruction on things to watch for in doing direction with others.

Praying With Martin Luther by Peter Bastien (St. Mary’s Press) This book as well as the next three were the choice presented to us for use in a prayer project. I heard from my classmates that they enjoyed this book but thought that it tried to pack too much in at a time, so if you choose to go through this book feel free to break up the exercises into more manageable pieces.

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle (Doubleday) One of a three book series encompassing all of the seasons. I chose this book for my prayer project. It is designed to echo the monastic practice of praying at certain times of the day every day and using prewritten prayers. As a newlywed, I was a little naive about my new living situation and the time and discipline this practice takes. I learned the importance of doing disciplines that fit in your life at the time.

Celtic Daily Prayer by the Northumbria Community (Harper Collins) This book is also designed to help you engage in praying the hours as it is called. There is also a cd that accompanies the book that really blessed some of my classmates.

A Do-It-At-Home Retreat by Adre Ravier (Ignatius Press) My classmates said this one was intense. If you are familiar with the four week Ignatian Retreat, you know what I am talking about. The author is trying to give the experience of the Ignatian Retreat in more manageable pieces to fit into daily life as most people can't take four weeks off to receive this retreat at a monastery.

Personal Foundations of Spirituality & Retreat

Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ by Dallas Willard (NavPress) You can't get far in any modern reading on Spiritual Formation without running into references to this book. So if you are interested in the subject, this is an important one to read. Willard promotes his model of the whole person and how it's different parts interact with each other, e.g. how does the mind interact with the spirit? He addresses how he conceptualizes transformation happening in each of a person's parts.

For our 48 hour retreat we had the option of using any of the following books:

A Seven Day Journey with Thomas Merton by Esther De Waal (Servant Publications)

Practicing Your Path: A book of Retreats for an Intentional Life by Holly Whitcomb (Innisfree Press Inc)

A Vacation with the Lord by Thomas Green (Ave Maria Press)

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius trans by Louis Puhl (Vintage Books/Random House)

Wilderness Time by Emelie Griffin (Harper Collins)

Spring Semester

Developmental Spirituality/ Contemplative Prayer

Collected Works of St. John of the Cross (rev) trans by Kavanaugh & Rodriguez (ICS Publishing)

When the Well Runs Dry by Thomas Green (Ave Maria Press)

Fire Within by Thomas Dubay (Ignatius Press)

Ascent to Truth by Thomas Merton (Harcourt Brace)

St. John of the Cross: Doctor of Light and Love by Kieran Kavanaugh (Crossroad)

Drinking from a Dry Well by Thomas Green (Ave Maria Press)

Intensive Journey Inward & Retreat

Wilderness Time by Emelie Griffin (Harper Collins)

Going on Retreat by Margaret Silf (Loyola Press)

Letting God Come Close by William Barry (Loyola Press)

Weeds Among the Wheat by Thomas Green (Ave Maria Press)

Personality Development and Psychopathology

Reclaiming Your Story by Merle Jordan (Knox Press)

Object Relations Theories & Psychopathology by Frank Summers (Analytic Press)

Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology by Ronald Comer (Worth)

Thanksgiving

2006-12-16T22:25:00.000-08:00

It's high time I sat down and wrote our Thanksgiving adventure. It's been high time for a while, and I'm glad to finally be writing it. Some pretty fantastic things happened, and I have pictures to prove it.

This year was the first year that both Dez and I were away from our families on Thanksgiving. We were together though, and as we start a new family, I think it was good to experience alternative ways of celebration before we settle in on particular traditions.

Now, on with the adventure....Desiree has a professor who has a husband who operates a retreat center up in the mountains. This professor, along with her husband, invited all the students that were unable to return home for the holiday to the retreat center to celebrate Thanksgiving together.

We were quite excited about this invitation; and, along with a car full of new student-type friends, (who, I might add, were quite entertaining on the 2+ hour trip) traveled high into the mountains. We traveled up from sea level to over 6000 feet if the road signs were to be trusted. Our ears played games with us, but our lungs leaped at the presence of the fresh air.

It was dark upon our arrival Wednesday night. We ate a late dinner of fantastic gourmet pizza, and proceeded to have a very encouraging conversation with the other students. To be more accurate, there was one man, the husband of one of the students, who was telling his story, and the rest of us were listening. There were maybe a dozen of us or so. Though I shan't do his story justice attempting it's retelling, I will try to summarize it:

His story was about how God called him to become honest with his life, and to go on a deeper journey with God using that honesty as a starting point, and his heart as a destination. I shall write about two things that stood out to me, though there were more. 1) How much faith we can have that God will finish his work in us, and how this faith overrules all our fruitless efforts at self-improvement. 2) How often (and how much) the church (specifically, the evangelical church) gets in the way of our growth process. With it's spiritually guised message of self-improvement and it's confusion and lack of experience with the actions of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, the church cannot help but hinder our spiritual formation. Of these two things, the first I found very encouraging, and the second very validating.

After the large group discussion broke for the night, we sat in the hot tub for a while. The water was a little too cold and the seats were a little too high, such that your chest was well above water. The mountain air was clear and clean, but chilled, and the effect of the hot tub was a blend of relaxation gone askew into frustration. What indeed is worse than a good thing gone slightly afoul? But I digress with exaggeration, perhaps, for it was not so unpleasant that we boycotted its pleasures.

Our room for the night contained two twin-sized beds. Me and Dez tried sleeping together in the same bed cuddled very closely together, but it was not working as well as we would have liked. We switched to separate beds, but after an hour or two we missed each other such that we couldn't sleep and we climbed back together in the same bed again. Then once more we would grow crowded, and separate, but then come together again, and so on and so on throughout the night. We didn't sleep as soundly as we had hoped for, but our antics amused us such that it didn't bother us as much as one would think.

The next morning we ate a marvelous breakfast, and then proceeded to hike about out in the woods. We had forgotten the elevation we were at, with the air thinner and such, but our excitement was great being atop mountains and surrounded by trees and rocks and other such things. We saw a deer. We saw a little lizard. We saw many songbirds that, though similar to those in the Midwest, were still quite different. I won't tell of all our adventures in the woods, but one discovery simply cannot be silenced! The pine cones were enormous! As big as our heads! It was perhaps the most surprising thing I have seen in California thus far.

Upon our return from the hike we ate the Thanksgiving meal, and then proceeded to have a little service. We packed our things and said our goodbyes and began the journey home. It was our first Thanksgiving together, and it was a good one.

Opening to God

2006-12-15T14:47:00.000-08:00

Never have I had a class that has been such an integrated part of my life. The subject matter given in my Introduction to Spiritual Formation class is part of the ongoing dialogue with my husband. We cannot have a conversation without it in someway coming back to the course material, in particular this concept of opening to God. I am so grateful for the opportunity we have had to learn about this as a couple, especially now as we are just learning about oneness.

Opening to God was a practice we were experimenting with even in our courtship, but we did not understand exactly what it was we were doing. All we knew was that we wanted the Lord to be a welcome and active member of our life together. We didn’t understand about our hidden hearts and their need to be peeled. We didn’t yet understand how the Lord would use us to help each other in the process. The lectures I have been hearing on how God changes the heart have served to validate our experience.

Brandon is certainly my soul friend as I am his. God has changed us through our experience of finding each other a safe and secure place. I first modeled to Brandon the concepts of active listening and extending unconditional positive regard to the speaker. He was quick to pick up on these skills. Through that process of reflecting back what is heard, you give the speaker the gift of mirroring what appears to be going on in the heart. Brandon was the one to teach me about being loved in my mess. He took it beyond non-judgment to love, even in my dark, ugly, broken places. Prior to this I had no concept of God’s ability or desire to love me in those places. Brandon has been reparenting me in a sense, which is opening up my ability to attach more securely to him and to the Lord.

What is it to open to God?
I know that this may sound ridiculously elementary, but I promise that it is profoundly deep:

The idea is that we are disconnected from our hearts and how the Spirit is ALWAYS working in us. As the master soul surgeon, He knows the inner weavings of our heart and will carefully use circumstances, situations, other people to open our hearts. We want to begin to pay attention to what is bubbling up in our hearts, so that we can better cooperate with Him. We want to consciously and increasingly more often ask, "Lord what are You doing in this." What are You trying to show me about my hidden heart. What is going on in my heart that has me so, e.g., angry right now? Lord what are You doing here? In this ongoing exercise one begins to learn how to attend to the Spirit.

dez

The Vice of Curiositas

2006-12-14T18:32:00.000-08:00

This semester I have become more aware of my motivations for studying. The Lord has used some of my coursework to bubble up things in my heart that He wants me to look at with Him. The following is another excerpt from my aforementioned final (see my previous post):

My experience of the midterm in one of my classes was a real trip. I have pages and pages written in my journal about all of the fear and anxiety it caused to boil up in me. Admittedly I had to revisit the prayer project nearly every time I studied because I would just freak out. From the beginning of the semester, the Lord was very clear about what my priorities were to be: open in relationship to Him and my new husband and the homework would fall into place after that. I have been rather easy going about my homework throughout the course of this semester until this test popped up. I was blindsided by the feelings it raised. Just looking at the study guide would cause anxiety to begin to boil up in me. The temptation to shift into the “just get it done” gear was very powerful and yet there was a sense that I should not be relying on my own fortitude to plow through it. So I had to let it sit for several days.

A few days before the test was due, I asked the Lord to help me look at my paralysis surrounding this issue. I didn’t know how to approach this test without employing my old neurotic faculties. My only experience of motivating myself was to tap into the fear of facing the wrath of imperfection (which includes loss of identity, loss of esteem in other’s eyes, and perhaps loss of love). In college, this fear would inspire incredible amounts of fortitude, which always produced the results of neurotic perfection. But in a very real sense I am not that person anymore, as the Lord has been addressing those deep needs and beliefs in my heart over the years since college. Just because that drive was being lessened, did not mean I automatically knew how to study rightly.

Thankfully Dr. Coe had addressed this issue in some of his lectures. The right and true end in study should be the love of God and greater transformation into Christlikeness. Failure to study without the proper attitude is to engage in the vice of curiositas (seeking to know something for the wrong reasons, e.g. pride or seeking to know something that should not be known,e.g. pornography). Wow—have I ever spent my entire education in the execution of that vice! Anyway, back to that conversation with the Lord. What came out of that was a glimmer of understanding about loving God in my studies. It was like something switched on inside of me and studying made sense. Of course it is an opportunity to open to God. I am studying Him and His things. Why should attention to His presence in me be left out of the equation?

dez

The Hidden Heart

2006-12-14T17:53:00.000-08:00

Well, I've finished my first semester at the Institute for Spiritual Formation. I have such a mixture of feelings. On one hand there is the relief from the work involved with school, but on the other hand, there is sadness because I really enjoy my classes and my classmates. Some of them have become very dear to me already. During my last final on Monday, I had the opportunity to write for 2 1/2 hours about how this semester has impacted me. I have decided that I will post some of those thoughts in an attempt to share more of my, and sometime our, movement into the deeper life:

God has been actively working in us through the trials we have faced over the last year and even the circumstances we have been dealing with over the last several months. Our situation of unemployment since being here has done wonders for stirring up my hidden heart. The desire to control the situation and hurry up and move through it was extremely powerful in me. Since I had spent my whole life living in the power of my self (often in the name of the Holy Spirit), my mind was going crazy trying to figure out ways to fix the situation including how to manipulate Brandon to that end.

Fear and anxiety ruled me, but then we began to discuss the nature of the heart in my classes. It’s fallen, self-deceiving, layered ad infinitem, immense, and there is no amount of fortitude in the world that can fix it. Dr. Coe said we had to despair of fixing ourselves that our first move should be opening to God. That was a paradigm shift to be sure, one that is still in process. But as I began to take in the material and internalize it, it resonated within me. The Holy Spirit is always working in me and my job is to simply open to what He is doing. I began to pay more attention to what was bubbling up in my heart with regard to our circumstance and I began dialoguing with Brandon about it and he too joined me in the process.

As we began to share the hell boiling up in our souls with each other, I noticed the fingers that I was clenching onto Brandon with began to relax. The Lord began to show us how He was taking us on another path than what we had laid out for ourselves. Though it was more painful, it lacked nothing in terms of the Lord’s care and concern for us. Had Brandon landed a great job right away, it would have only served to confirm our beliefs in the sufficiency of the flesh and the power of our autonomy. Instead, the Lord cracked our hearts wide open and we had to get honest with ourselves. I came face to face with my need to control and to provide for myself and the underlying mistrust I was harboring against my husband and the Lord. And even as I was up to my eyeballs in this mess and expecting all the condemnation that hell could muster, the Lord treated me so kindly. He looked at me with such compassion and love. It is a wondrous thing to experience yourself as loved by God even when you're bad.

dez

Happiness by an Unexpected Path

2006-12-10T23:01:00.000-08:00

This is the face of a happy man. He is off to start his first day at work. Brandon can hardly contain his excitement at getting a job at the Doheny Eye Institute. You will have to get him to give you the details of his work there. Believe me, he will be more than happy to share it with you. Be sure to ask about the slide.

As excited as were are about this unbelievable opportunity for him. We have found ourselves filled with overwhelming gratitude for the Lord’s kindness to us over the last many months. We had something of a naïve idea coming out here that Brandon would get a job right away, and we thought we would be the generous ones with our neighbors and friends out here. But the Lord chose to take us by another path. If we hadn’t experienced the lack and the struggle of the last months we would not have experienced the Lord’s physical provision. Please don’t take this for a superficial “God is so good” though He is. Something has changed deep within us from these experiences. One of the most heartrending provisions was the anonymous payment of our rent for the month of November. We were blown away by God’s care for us. Someone saw us and our need and took it upon themselves to meet our need. We were utterly stunned. It changed how we look at our possessions and money. We have also been blessed by cards and letters from home that have happened to include money at just the right times. The fact that Brandon got any freelance work at all in this great big city is a miracle in of itself and another display of the Lord's great kindness.

We are also learning that God’s care and provision extend far beyond our physical bodies. God is working in us ALL OF THE TIME to open us to the truth ourselves in relationship with Him. He uses everyday circumstances to bring up the stuff in our hearts that we have tried hard to keep down. We are learning to open to the Lord in all things. This practice is teaching us how to attend to the Holy Spirit.

I, in particular, have a lot to learn about this. The prayer project I was given in one of my classes last week was to pray Psalm 139:23-24 every day, preferably in the morning, and ask the Lord to peel back the layers of my heart throughout the course of the day. By the end of the week, I realized how completely inattentive I can be to the Lord because I have not even invited Him into my conscious awareness. I believe Dr. Coe (one of my professors) when he says that you have to develop this habit of heart to pray without ceasing. It does not come naturally. I have been made very aware of that this week. I can go whole chunks of the day without even thinking about the Lord or attempting to connect with Him. I believe that He is working all of the time at showing me my heart, but I can be pretty oblivious and, at times, altogether uninterested. Another layer of my hidden heart exposed… my ambivalence toward the Lord. There are parts of me that this awareness pains deeply and other parts that say, “yep, that’s about right.”

dez

Psalm 139:23-24 (NASB)
Search me, O God, and know my heart; 
Try me and know my anxious thoughts;
And see if there be any hurtful (literally “painful”) way in me, 
And lead me in the everlasting way.

The Deeper Journey

2006-12-07T07:49:00.000-08:00

Well, here it is, my big blogging début. Whatever shall I write about? It occurs to me that there is a big part our of journey out here in LA that has not gotten much blog space. We are not just exploring a new city, but we are exploring a new life, i.e., the deeper life in Christ. This is coming about mostly through my classes at the Institute for Spiritual Formation but also through relationship with Brandon. We are very much together on this journey into the deeper life, and it has been incredible not only to open up to greater intimacy with each other but with the Lord as well.

I was recently emailing a friend about what I have been learning, so I thought I would share it here too:

I am realizing that I have been operating to some degree out of my unconscious theology of God regardless of the systematic theology that I hold in my conscious. For example I believe in my head that God loves me. What plays out in my life is that I act and think that God is my judge, that he is somehow linked to the voice of condemnation in my head. Furthermore there are parts of me that don't believe I can trust God to take care of me or meet my inmost needs or my physical ones for that matter. Rather, I have a deep belief that I must take care of myself even to the extent of manipulating circumstances and people to that end. I've got lots more examples if you are interested.

Each of us has a well of deep beliefs and desires, in large part due to our experiences in life, especially early ones. We learn early that people can't deal with our mess so we hide it. This gets impacted over the years and we eventually get disconnect from conscious awareness of this rather oceanic part of ourselves.

This is especially problematic for the Christian who feels this pressure to be perfect. The machine of the church has convinced them that they have to hide their badness. This causes for some people a double life, as in the case of Ted Haggard. In my churh experience there is ongoing teaching toward three ends: 1) developing systematic theology and gaining Bible knowledge, and 2) using fortitude in the name of the Holy Spirit to manage one’s behaviors, and 3) frenetic participation and service in church ministries. With these factors serving as the measuring stick for Christian growth and maturity, there is little time for matters of the inward life.

What I am learning is that God could care less about me living a perfect life. He is not interested in me fixing myself. He is interested in relationship with me. If Christianity were only a program of moral improvement, it would require neither God nor a Christ. It could exist on the basis of personal effort toward perfection. Jesus attacked this notion of self-achieving-perfectionism on many occasions, especially when the Pharisees were around (e.g., Matt 23). A poignant example would be Luke 10. In this story, Jesus is at the home of Martha and Mary. Martha is scurrying around doing good work and gets frustrated when Jesus lets Mary just sit as His feet. Jesus makes clear that Mary has chosen the better thing here, i.e. relationship over work.

This week I have been pondering Hebrews 4 and Matthew 11:28-30. They are both invitations to enter into God's rest. We are invited to enter this Sabbath rest and rest from our works. That is so contrary to my unconscious theology of having to fix myself and earn his love. Why is it that I have not seen this up until now? The freedom that is being offered here threatens to completely rock my world. What would it mean to really live with the pressure off?

I realize that this is starting to look like a sermon, so I am going to stop myself. Perhaps, I will close this line of thinking by saying that I have been completely blown away by what I have been learning. My evangelical faith tradition had lost the many of these treasures of mystical spirituality during the Reformation in their zeal to pursue sola scriptura. In a very real sense, I am compelled to grieve for that loss. There is richness in the Christian experience and tradition that I had no idea about.

Dez

Happy Ninja Day!!! NinjaDay2006

2006-12-05T22:27:00.000-08:00

Today is Ninja Day. I didn't end up killing anybody, but I did (although accidentally) cut a guy off on the freeway today. What is Ninja Day you ask? Read about it here, or better yet, watch the video.

Check out these instructions on making an uber ninja mask! Where were these when I was a kid?

The California Flag

2006-12-02T21:09:00.000-08:00

We were shopping in Walmart the other day. On the wall at the end of the checkouts was a list of all the best cashiers, with their pictures and a huge banner underneath with their numbers posted for how fast they could check people out. The kind lady that was checking us out did not have her picture on the board. She didn't make the top ten list of cashiers. She wasn't like "Brittney", the number one cashier who was checking out 570 items per minute. No, shopping at Walmart here in La Mirada is a bit like trying to drive on the 5--long lines, and not enough lanes. (For all those back home who are used to refering to interstates as "I90", out here it is pretty much just "the" followed by the number. "The 5." "The 405." The "110." And of course, the great "The 1," aka "The Pacific Coast Highway."

Anyways, as I drifted about while waiting (not unlike the beginning to this blog entry) I took a good look around. Just above the big Walmart scoreboard was the American flag, and next to it, the California flag. This was the first time I'd really looked at the California flag. Let me describe it. It has a bear in the middle. A red star in the corner, and a red stripe along it's base. A bear, a red star...why is the California flag...so...communist? I thought at the time that all it needed was a hammer and sickle to complete it's U.S.S.R. symbology.

I was so perplexed by the flag that when I returned home I looked around online to find out just exactly why the flag used the symbols that it used. What I discovered was that California flag is not actually that communist. My conspiracy theory was shot to pieces when I learned that the "Communist Manifesto", was published in 1848, two years after the emergence of the "bear" flag. I got confused by this site for a little while (a hoax on snopes.com--who would have thought it? Click on the "more information about this page" link to learn their motive), but eventually learned my lesson about checking my sources and have written the little summery below.

***

In 1821 Mexico won its independence from Spain. At this time, Mexico included what is now California, Texas, and many of the other western states. (See Map)

For reasons outside of this discussion, Texas ceded from Mexico in 1836. They won their independence later that year, after battles at "The Alamo" and the great victory at San Jacinto. Mexico considered Texas a "rebel province", and Texas wanted to join the United States. When Texas was admitted into the United States in 1845, the Mexican-American war began.

War was officially declared between the U.S. and Mexico on May 13, 1846. However, news of this did not reach California until later in July. Meanwhile, thirty-three men intent on a revolution knocked on the door of the Mexican Commandante of Northern California, who apparently invited them in for breakfast. Believing in their cause, the Commandate surrendered. Surprised, the Americans declared California independent, and raised a flag with crudely drawn grizzly bear (common in California at the time, but extinct since 1922) and a lone star, an ode to Texas. On the flag was written "California Republic".

On June 23, 1846, American forces arrived, the "republic" was dissolved, and the revolutionaries joined with the Americans in the war against Mexico.

The Mexican-American War ended in 1848. California was admitted to the United States in 1850. The "bear" flag was adopted in 1911 as the official flag by the State Legislature.

Here are some interesting quotes I found:

"At a company meeting it was determined that we should raise a flag, and that it should be a bear en passant [French: 'in passing'], with one star. One of the ladies at the garrison gave us a piece of brown domestic, and Mrs. Captain John Sears gave us some strips of red flannel about 4 inches wide. The domestic was new, but the flannel was said to have been part of a petticoat worn by Mrs. Sears across the mountains...I took a pen, and with ink drew the outline of the bear and star upon the white cloth. Linseed oil and Venetian red were found in the garrison, and I painted the bear and star...Underneath the bear and star were printed with a pen the words 'California Republic' in Roman letters. In painting the words I first lined out the letters with a pen, leaving out the letter 'i' and putting 'c' where 'i' should have been, and afterwards the 'i' over the 'c.' It was made with ink, and we had nothing to remove the marks." -William L. "Bill" Todd, artist of original Bear Flag.

"Another man left at Sonoma was William L. Todd who painted, on a piece of brown cotton, a yard and a half or so in length, with old red or brown paint that he happened to find, what he intended to be a representation of a grizzly bear. This was raised to the top of the staff, some seventy feet from the ground. Native Californians looking up at it were heard to say 'Coche,' the common name among them for pig or shoat." -John Bidwell

***

In conclusion, history yet again amazes me at its fractal-like complexity. The deeper you look, the more there is to see. The humble beginnings, misspelled words and crudly drawn characters, that later became the symbols for the 6th-10th largest economy in the world. My next question is why is it exactly that the 1911 State Legislature chose the "bear flag" to become the Official State Flag? What about the short-lived ill-organized "California Republic" is worth immortalizing?

***

References:
http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist6/toddflag.html
http://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/73...%201836%20to%201850%20statehood.pdf
http://www.calguard.ca.gov/docs/Flags_Over_CA.pdf
http://www.dfg.ca.gov/oceo/projectwild/bear/33.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_state_flag
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Republic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican-American_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas#War_for_Independence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_War_of_Independence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican-American_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_California

The Pier (With Iraq Tributes and a Stormtrooper)

2006-11-14T16:35:00.000-08:00

We wanted to get out of the house last Sunday. We wanted to see something. We wanted to have fun. But what? Nothing really came to mind. Well, actually, lots of things came to mind, but nothing so great that we were able to take action upon it. Finally, throwing the proverbial dart at the proverbial globe, we hop in the car and take off towards the sun. It was about 3:30pm. The sun was going to set at 4:52pm, so we made haste in our pursuit and chased the sun as far as we could before it disappeared.

We ended up at Santa Monica State Beach. We could go no further, there was an ocean in our path, and there was no crossing it. As we began to explore the beach we came across a temporary monument to the U.S. soldiers who had fallen in the Iraq War. The beach was full of crosses, all in rows like Arlington National Cemetery. There were 2,845 of them that day, one for each of the soldiers lost. The crosses covered the full depth of the beach, marching straight into the ocean, chasing the setting sun, but never moving forwards, for their stillness robbed them of their journey. It was a moving sight.

Santa Monica State Beach has a large pier that stretches far out into the ocean. It had restaurants and shops and even a carnival on it. We walked to its end and watched the sun set. On our way, we saw many musicians setup on the pier, singing and playing away. Next to them were many merchants, selling their wares. Fisherman were everywhere, throwing their hooks and bait into the ocean and hoping for a catch. The Musicians and Merchants and Fisherman all had that in common. It was crowded, and as we walked along the wooden planks beneath our feet neither creaked nor moaned. They were used to it all.

The sunset was clear and glorious.

We went for a walk next, looking for someplace to eat. We ended up walking quite a bit, but didn't find anything. We were both surprised by this. It was getting late, and we decided to head back to our car. However, as we were pulling out of the parking lot we met a stormtrooper. He almost didn't let us pass, but after waving my hand around long enough I finally got the force to work well enough to get him to say "I don't need to see your identification, these aren't the droids we're looking for, move along". (Though Dez thinks he just got annoyed with me and my waving hand.)

In the end, we made it out without any more obnoxious fines from the Empire (that is, California). We ate at a Quizno's, which took quite a bit of exploring to find, then proceeded to church.

Currently, we attend Mosiac, which is held at multiple sites. The site we attend is in the Mayan, a nightclub in downtown Los Angeles. Erwin McManus, the lead pastor and "cultural architect" of Mosaic, has been very refreshing to us both with his talks (or sermons).

A fairly happenstance adventure, all-in-all, that turned out all right and most of all performed its greatest task--it got us both out of the house to see something beautiful. A surreal sort of beautiful, however; with the blending of the Iraq monument and the stormtrooper revealing an internal disconnect between imagined fantasy and brutal reality that I'm not entirely sure what to do about. It just strikes me odd in a way how quickly we can go from one to another.

From the Beach to the Mountains to the Getty

2006-10-29T09:34:00.000-08:00

Yesturday we got up and decided to have an adventure. We drove through city and traffic and heavier traffic until we got to even worse traffic, but finally we got to the pacific coast highway. We drove down that for a while and were quite amazed by the five or six story extreamly steep hill to our right, and the ocean to our left. On the thin strip of land that contained the highway was a number of beach homes and resturants. The houses were so narrow and shallow, but many of them looked as if they had three or four floors. As interesting as they were, they pretty much just annoyed us because they blocked our view of the ocean from the highway. It was so crowded there with such buildings.

Later we took a canyon road into the mountains. On our way up we were able to see the ocean from a much better viewpoint. We stopped to look at it for a while. I'm not sure either of us knows quite what to do with the ocean yet. We stare at it as awed visitors, not as close friends. We continued into the mountains.

The mountains are a different story. We know them. They offer life to us, and we know how to accept their gift. The freshness of the air was amazing, and it awakened something in our souls.

We stopped and looked around. We took some pictures. We took a picture of ourselves. It was fun. We pressed on and began driving through some beautiful mountain country. The city was gone. The crowded, compressed, sardine-packaged beach culture gave way to a wide open vastness of foliage and stone. This visit was just a teaser though, an exploration to see just what exists out here in California. Our next visit will be longer, and more personal.

The mountains did not last forever. They soon gave way to ranches, farms, small communities, and then, before we knew it, we had descended back into city. We ate at Chipotle, Dez's favorite, and then proceeded towards our next destination: The Getty Center.

The Getty Center is a beautiful complex placed on the top of a mountain. You park at the bottom and take a tram to the top. At the top we were amazed with it's stone archetecture, it's artistic beauty not only as a container for art but as a peice of art in and of itself. The first hour we were there we spent admiring the building and it's gardens. We decided we could easily spend the day just resting in it's echoing comfort.

From it's mountain perch the Getty overlooks Los Angeles as heaven does the world. It felt like Mt. Olympus or an ancient monestary. We felt as pilgrims. I'm coming to realize that the expansion of the mind is fruitless and meaningless without the restoration of the soul. The Getty aims at both.

Soaking in the beauty of our surroundings we proceeded to look at many of their exihibits. The one that stood out to me the strongest was a collection of drawings by Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, Italian, 1591-1666). Mostly pen ink drawings with ink washes, I was moved by the energetic fast-moving lines that were still able to capture such accuracy and detail. Like an explosion that created instead of destroyed. From choatic fury emerged intentionality and purpose. I love it.

Many of his drawings can be seen here, and for more information on Guercino look here.

Overall, an amazing day at the Getty, an amazing day overall. We left happy. Here's one last picture we took of ourselves in the Garden of the Getty at Night.

GoPets is NoGoPets!

2006-10-29T09:24:00.000-08:00

As mentioned, I accepted a job in October. The job was working for a computer game company called GoPets. (You can see their website at gopetslive.com). I was very excited about this position, as the man I would be working for was a very smart, educated person that firmly believed in a work/life balance. He was trying to implement many of the ideas found in the Jim Collins books, and had this genuine desire to take care of his employees. Unfortunately, last Wednesday I received an email that said:

Well, I have bad news. The rug was pulled out from underneath me; as a result promises that I made in good faith are going to be broken. I’m not going to have a job for you until January at the earliest and possibly not at all....while I hope to get the chance to work with you, your life would be better if you found something else before then.

Sad. So I'm back on the market for now. Though I still hope it works out somehow at GoPets.

Our Story: Summery

2006-10-24T11:24:00.000-07:00

For those of you who know either myself (Brandon Weaver) or Desiree (formally Desiree Wohlert), let me begin by saying that this has been a very busy year for us. We have been running the gauntlet since January.

In summery, we realized we had a rare friendship, the soul level kind—the kind that great marriages are based on. So this past January we started "officially" dating. Neither of us is the type to take things lightly so about March we took the premarriage class at our church and began the counseling to really consider if we should take the next step toward marriage. In June Dez received a letter saying she had been accepted to the Masters of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care program at the Institute for Spiritual Formation at Biola University in Los Angeles.

We were faced with some very big decisions. We weighed our options and got a lot of counsel from many different people, and after much prayer and seeking of God we decided to get married and move to Los Angeles. Even harder than the decision was the execution, however, as we faced many trials along the way, not the least of which was the short amount of time between our decision and our wedding and the immediate cross-country move afterwards.

August was "crunch" month: we got married on the 13th, left for L.A. on the 17th, arrived on the 20th, and Dez started classes on the 24th. September was pretty much "crash" month. I accepted a job in October, and will start in November. In the meantime, I've been working on some freelance gigs I've picked up from Craig's List and else where.

We've spent a lot of time connecting with each other, with ourselves, and with God. We've spent some time exploring this massive city we now live in, and a lot of time just recovering from a very busy year.