Some old pictures of the good times. I can’t even think of what to say about the times or the pictures, so like it ought to be they’ve gotta do their own talking. I love good black and white photos. Life lesson: good times are all about the people.
From a book: Israel and a little book
The land of Israel is a small country. You can walk its length, north to south, in a few days, and from its central mountains you can see its lateral boundaries, the sea to the west and the river to the east. But it has had an importance out of all proportion to its size. Empires have fought over it. Every forty-four years out of the last four thousand, on average, an army has marched through it, whether to conquer it, to rescue it from someone else, to use it as a neutral battleground on which to fight a different enemy, or to take advantage of it as the natural route for getting somewhere else to fight there instead. There are many places which, once beautiful, are now battered and mangled with the legacies of war. And yet it has remained a beautiful land, still producing grapes and figs, milk and honey.
The New Testament has not been around as long as the land of Israel, but in other ways there are remarkable parallels. […] There are many places whose fragile beauty has been trampled on by heavy-footed exegetes in search of a Greek root, a quick sermon, or a political slogan. And yet it has remained a powerful and evocative book, full of delicacy and majesty, tears and laughter.
-N.T. Wright in The New Testament and the People of God
N.T. Wright’s series about the origins of Christianity are the easiest to read hard-to-read books I’ve read. This is the first of the series and the third one for me to read (..yeah). It’s work getting through these books, but the only good beer is beer won, not conceded; good things are earned, thankfully. He says that in writing this book he’s a fascinated amateur not an explaining expert..not sure I completely buy it, but I see where he’s coming from. I think that’ll actually help, make the book more readable. His “expert” work, the tome about the life of Jesus, definitely has a clearly expert tone. It is very dense, takes a lot of time to read, the bibliography is enormous, and at the end one is left awestruck.
This one time
This one time mom and I drove up to Alaska, and the guy in town who develops c-41 had old chemicals, the shots turned out bluer than the blues, and I even had to pull the big lever to put the jeep in 4wd a few times (so, soooooo satisfying)
Going again
Two weeks at home in Seattle and now off to live and work in Alaska. I don’t think my head’s around it, maybe only just a tiny bit, and that’s enough for now.
Road trip, 1990 Jeep, mom and me doing driving shifts, loaded up with clothing and food and camping gear and books, my pair of boots I got in 9th grade ($25, they still fit great), one camera and lens and lots of bw film and a bit of color film and dark room chemicals.
Steve Jobs
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
The man who lived like he was dying died, RIP Steve-o.
Friday
Friday I left Barillas, Monday at midnight I was in Seattle for the first time in a year.
Nothing really else to say, or, so much to say and no idea how to say it that it’s better to have nothing to say.
Mudslide
A mudslide just outside of town that completely buries a handful of houses with the families in them is terrible and horrible and when I got back to the house after trying to help I cried.
And I just now found out that a fellow I knew and his dad and his mom and his brother and his sister-in-law and his nephews were one of the families in one of the houses.
God, why?
http://www.santacruzbarillas.org/tragedia-en-la-carretera-hacia-el-manantial/
Pictures worth words: part 2
Chapters
I’m signed up for a Substitute Teacher orientation session in Soldotna, AK on October 20th; before one chapter’s really over the next one starts, that’s the way in the world today, and it doesn’t help my mind and heart to not be completely revuelto. Or maybe I’m wrong and it means that one chapter is really over.
Plane ticket
It’s weird when clicking a button is the turning of the final page in a chapter of life.
Strange feeling
It’s weird to be in a place where 9/11 and all it means doesn’t mean anything at all.
:/
Roller coaster
The last few days are all so much that I don’t know how to write anything at all, but for the same reason I’ve gotta write something, so it’ll be the game of hell and earth and life and god in as few words as possible. Here’s what happened; what I feel and need to say will come later.
She was jumped and raped monday morning. For 72 hours she was in hell. When she slept she relived it over and over again until she woke up, then it’s this batshit scared broken semi-concious state where she thrashes and cries out until she realizes that it’s not all happening again, and she begs to not be alone and her friend would ask her if she needs anything, food or water, then she falls asleep back into reliving what’s far worse than death until she wakes up again. I’ve never seen something so terrifying and horrible, when I finally let it all out and cried and cried, I’ve never cried like that before in my life. Something change deep in my heart, the type of change that doesn’t happen but a few times in a lifetime.
She was completely disabled. To go to the bathroom, Jorge and I had to stand her up, at which point she’d pass out and we’d have to carry her fireman style (the two of us barely held up, she’s not a small girl) to the bathroom, where we’d leave her with a few of her friends and she’d wake up on the toilet and panic and cry again. She hadn’t eaten a meal since Sunday.
And yesterday morning 72 hours later she woke up and said she needed to walk. She bathed with a little bit of help from Julia and asked for breakfast. She ate, and we went to the Catholic Church. She got into and out of the car on her own. So here I am sitting a few spots down the pew from her. She’s forgiven the four men, she’s sobbing but there’s no more pain nor fear, she’s sobbing because she’s giving thanks to God and she looks at me with a smile and says David, I need to look for the people who are most needy in this world and help them, Jesus came to me in my dream and told me he didn’t want to see me like I was, he told me to get up and walk because there’s work to do, and she says this with a smile. I need to find the most needy people in this world and help them, she said. You arrived was all I could say, and she smiled and nodded.
And yesterday morning something else changed deep in my heart, the same type of change that doesn’t happen but a few times in a lifetime. She left Barillas yesterday after going to church, she left with two of her friends in a little old plane piloted by a content old gringo who doesn’t really have any home at all and in half an hour she was in her hometown Quetzaltenango for medical tests and then went to be with her family.
You can’t make this stuff up, man.
Hell
I didn’t know, but there is a hell on earth and she’s in it. After a day and a half of holding it in the tears came yesterday and I’ve never wept like that before, I never knew what bitter tears really meant.
It’s so damn horrible.
Pictures worth words
It’s funny how very often the more words a picture’s worth the less the quality matters. By the way, that’s a motorcycle designed for agricultural use in the Australian outback. I love the sound of that exactly as much as I have no idea what it really means. And I have absolutely no idea.
