shouts of joy

Don't you know we want to laugh We want to laugh from our bellies till we cry. We also want to cry, Cry so hard together that our tears become a single stream. Do you know that we want to ask questions Asking questions to understand the words that were never said. Did you know our dreams make a braid of bright, bold, and daring Tightly woven into a contagious flu? We want to embrace for no reason and every reason.  We want to talk about anything and nothing. Didn't you know we want to ache, We want to know loss and emptiness Because we want to also know joy in full. Did you know we want to make noise, go out with a bang, But we want to be still and hear the beating of our own drum. What we need and what we want we don't know,  But we know we are creatures craving contradiction. 

It's an overcast day in the Inland Empire. I'm drinking coffee at a local shop and beginning my work on finals for my last quarter. I'll be graduating in June as Kristina R. Rhuman M.A. As I use this weather to do what it calls me to do - contemplate - my arms are sore as I type from the spin class I went to this morning, strange it's my arms and not my legs. I excepted to see my friends, but saw no familiar faces. But it didn't bother me much, because I know those faces aren't far away. If I call they will come. And that is more than enough. I've lived here in the IE for 9 months now. My skin is sun-tinted and my freckles are loud. My hair is longer and sun bleached from the days spent at the beach. When I think about turning 26 next month I feel determined and scared. Even worse is my thoughts on June, where will I go when my student loans are no longer deferred and Cambodia calls me to come home.The past 9 months have gone by too fast. I'd like 10 ...

I forget things. Some things I wish I could forget, but can't. Then there are the things I wish I could always remember, like dreams and answers to prayer. Lately I've been remembering the pain that comes from loving and losing. I've forgotten how my prayers have been answered and that my dreams are coming true. I've forgotten about the times I've vowed to risk it all for whatever the case: adventure, service, passions, devotion and even love. I've forgotten how I've loved and been hurt, loved and been hurt, loved and been hurt and healed every time. I've forgotten how the impossibles become possible. I've forgotten the ones I admire and their stories of heartache, loss, rejection, brokenness and failures that lead them to their love, commitment, perseverance, strength and successes. Wow, how I've forgotten. Today I spent several hours over lunch with my friends Troy and Nick, good buddies from high school. We caught up at a small Lebanese jo...

I appreciate the act of acceptance. Just makes you feel bigger than before, brighter than before, like you have something to give. When you encounter a funny tattoo on a girls leg, and soon enough her smile relates to yours and the tattoo is part of a unique story that becomes your own and acceptance happens. When the truth of his story is revealed and before you can say another word you know by the depth in his eyes that his past is another life which he hardly recognizes and acceptance happens. When you sit down and focus on the eccentric young woman across from you and learn that her heart is more eccentric than her funky dress and layers of jewelry and that she speaks 4 languages to teach mothers in Africa about health and survival and somehow acceptance happens. Somehow the stories behind the frames can mold our perspectives. So often I feel that our outward appearances are overlooked and sadly what is stirring in our hearts is masked by the makeup, jewelry, colorful dresses, shap...

Here we are at #teachersummercamp. Two of my teacher friends, Sonya and Chelsea, also took summer classes this summer. Sonya is a teaching principal at a small school in Oakhurst, CA and Chelsea is a teacher/chaplain at a school in Sacramento, CA. They are some of the best teachers I know with huge hearts and a passion for teaching about Jesus. I have enjoyed our #teachersummercamp adventures even though Sonya was at another campus several hours away, we've kept in touch. And every Monday we share/exchange articles, YouTube videos, or stories that we found entertaining or intriguing. These two women have been lifesavers over the past year. We started #teachersummercamp 6 weeks ago and have finally finished. They will start school again in just a couple of weeks. I'm glad that they are allowing me to stay a member in the teaching club even though I will be taking classes this year and substituting instead of teaching full-time. They bring sunshine to a cloudy day. Bes...

She said, "I was too afraid to change." And he answered, " We are afraid to change because we think that, after so much effort and sacrifice, we know our present world. We see that the mountains always stay in the same place. We see that fully grown trees, when transplanted usually die. So we say: "We want to be like the mountains and the trees. Solid and respectable." Even though, during the night, we wake up thinking: "I wish I was like the birds, who can visit Damascus and Baghdad and come back whenever they want to." Or: "I wish I was like the wind, for no one knows where it comes from nor where it goes, and it can change direction without ever having to explain why." It's nice to have dreams that we will have plenty of time in the future to do our traveling, and that, one day, we will travel. It cheers us up because we know that we are capable of doing more than we do. Dreaming carries no risks. The dangerous thing is trying...

I am loving teaching girls PE this final semester. Mostly because I always wished I'd had a safe place to experiment with and practice being kind to my body. I wished I had a safe place where I hadn't felt stared at and compared to. I love our girl conversations about femininity and modesty. I wish someone had told me in high school about modesty, how modesty doesn't limit your wardrobe, but gives a girl a beautiful backbone to stand tall instead of lowering herself to the desires of others. I wish we'd sat down in a circle where peers and teachers identified and encouraged our strengths, and told us that we might be tempted to seek our strengths from the love of boys, when we deserve to believe in and trust ourselves. I wished we'd had a place where it was safe to talk about our weaknesses. Where it was cool to be yourself, because after all it is in our weaknesses that the Water of Life runs deep. I wished someone sat me down and told me what heartbreak was like, ...

It is unearned love -- the love that goes before, that greets us on the way. It's the help you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking and most charming charm have failed you. Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there.  Sometimes grace is like a ribbon of mountain air that gets in through the cracks. -Anne Lammott

The weeks add up so quickly, still I can still taste the faint molasses stick of others. I can't believe it's been 6 months since I moved to Oregon to teach. I can't believe it's been a month since my last blog post. It's been less than a month since I had breakfast with my girl friends. But I can't believe it's only been a week since I kissed my sister, my best friend, goodbye. It's only been a handful of days since I dropped the man of my dreams off at the airport and had to drive myself home. It's only a been a nights sleep since I felt together we could conquer the world. When I woke up this morning, just two hours ago, there was a very heavy thing sitting inside of me, pinning me to the mattress. A giant bolder, covered in molasses. And I'd like to offer myself a bit of self-pity, since I have nobody else to pull it from at this moment from where I sit here at my tiny desk in this dark corner. I am alone in this dark corner. Nobody else fe...

Rarely do I ponder how little my friends and family know me since I have begun teaching in this Northwestern rain forest. But today as I drove myself home after school I reflected on my poor blogging tendencies and I wondered if anyone misses the going-ons from this side. I can say that many days seem very similar.  And I wouldn't be the least bit offended if nobody took an interest. Class, lunch, class, gym, dinner, grade, bed. The scenes are in slow motion and repeat, yet somehow 5 months have been thrown into my lap. I'm learning so much. How grateful I am. Really. It's always fun to learn. The more I learn the more I can teach. And believe me I love having things to teach. You can never have enough. I'm learning a lot about teaching. Freshmen love stories, especially when they're personalized. But they must pretend it's a waste of their time so they can be swaggy. (But not secretly gay). Freshmen and Seniors (and faculty) all want the same thing. They wa...

The space in between two peaks lies a distance that seems dream-shattering. We look for the trail, the bridge, some kind of escape, but there isn't one. Our human eye can only measure a mean distance. The space is so far, the trek is so long, the goal seems out of any man's reach. But with time it won't matter, because it's the time that will bridge the distance, providing us a season to climb down from our peak, into the valley, through the abode and back up the next peak. It was just yesterday I sat in church. As I sat there I fought to hold in the bursts of laughter that wanted to escape during the reverence of the song service. How ironic that I, a lone high school teacher from Salem, would be sitting in a sanctuary in Portland in a row of seven of my own classmates from college. The boy on my left: a fond, old memory of camping trips, rock climbing, long weekends spent at Priest Lake, and a cousin of my best friend. There on my right: another kind of fond memor...

There are many days that go by that I wish my awkward teenage students would just sit down on the edge of their seats and selfishly drink in the words that I have to say. But not just take the words for what they are, but read in between the lines that will give a glimpse of my story. No,  our story. I wish they would read between the lines of a young 20-something girl who wakes up every day before the sun with a passion that she doesn't quite have figured out and goes to bed every night seemingly a failure, still unsure. But one thing she knows is that she wants to love consistently and be loved just the same, to have a family of 5 or 6, a devoted husband and a warm community to raise her children with, and most of all to understand the love and patience of the Savior. I wish they'd read in between about the girl who fights their same battles of accepting and loving herself before others, trusting the power of prayer, standing up for what is truth, living out grace, ...

when did the sun fade? and these clouds that have settled, from where do they stretch? when once the life was green and vibrant trees tall and strong now they droop and weep closing in on this frozen ground filtering through a scale of gray if I could box this up and send it off i would send it to the north pole where I believe it belongs the only thing I can box are a few personal items my thoughts are not those they aren't my own but if I could box them I would categorize and organize alphabetize and synchronize I would box them and send them to the north pole far away I would send them so the riddles wouldn't rattle at night and rock my body to wake stealing such sweet dreams without asking stealing what's mine and replacing with fear oh, how I wish I could box them I would label and address them and send them to the north pole oh, how I'd like to transport this grief and vexation pack it and ship it bury what is rotten and pluc...

I  believe  that in this very fragmented world we live exists goodness, peace and love. I  believe  that there isn't a more secure companion than the broken heart, but there is no better counteract-ant than a trusty side-kick with widespread arms. I  believe  in a single ray's undeclared revelation through sunrise.  And that even the dullest roses and lilies will turn any frown into a smile.  I  believe  the mountain top is the drawbridge to heaven. And geese are more reliable than any GPS. I  believe  sleep and water are the best cure for any ailment. I believe muscle exhibits larger numbers on the scale than body fat, therefore I am strong. I believe I am fearfully and wonderfully made, great are His plans. An open door to a closet whispers secrets, and any bathroom countertop can be read like a textbook.  True love doesn't draw lines, it erases them.  Emotions are the col...

As of late, the Walla Walla skies have been a brilliant blue. School is out and substitute teaching is in. The grass is growing in thick and green, trees are blooming and the wheat rolls with grace through the valley. Swimming, running, tennis and decision-making are more time consuming than I predicted. Friends are too far, bike rides and camping trips are too few or none. A month long spring vacation was just what I needed. Southern California was a lovely sight, lush with wonderful people, laughing and hugs, so many hugs - much different and distant than the dust in New Mexico. North Idaho was chilly and relaxing with beautiful lake views, visits with friends, and a dash of snow. Now, it seems that Oregon will cradle my 24th year as I teach at the high school level. Somehow exhaustion has clung through the speed chase and finally burrows deep. Like a season of hibernation. My body has yearned for this Sabbath. And there's much still to come. I cannot wait to see what...

Thus begins the search ... The middle, such an undefined locale. With no beginning and certainly no end. And in all reality, neither two exist. Just as a ship sets sail, the vision of it's departure remains a collection. For a goodbye, what a perplexing scramble of words; never quite tangible and never really gone. Yet, how lucky we are to have something that makes saying goodbye so painful. Changing what is left, without knowing what might become, then calling it good. So we continue searching, as was our first intentions. Love these faces.

My 6th graders are work quite diligently right now, which I'm very impressed with, on research papers on a possible future career they've so willingly chosen. The career research paper idea was generated from a conversation I had at the gym one morning with a former principal. That meeting in and of itself would produce quite a lengthy report. There's a lot on my mind right now as I watch them write quietly. They're good writers. They're deep thinkers, many of them. They're overflowing with revolutionary ideas. They have so much potential and I sit here in silence dreaming of what they will do one day that will make the world a super place. It's already week 9 of my student teaching. Sometimes, it seems like these 9 weeks have felt more like the slow defrosting of a wintery wonderland, but on bright days like today I don't mind the wintery wonderland and I'm not ready for the next season. This morning I felt inspired to show my kids this video. A...

Letters, blocks, and colors whirl around in intense chaos with an anorexic chance of any order. My vision is distorted in a dark place as the clutter continues to swarm and buzz. The buzzing gets louder and the swarming much faster, until the small of my mind urges the rest of it to escape the dream that seems to indulge on my weak and fatigued state. I can't remember when this dream first began to take over my peaceful nights of sleep causing my heart to race, my forehead to perspire and severe anxiety to settle in and hunker down until morning. In this too familiar and exhausting mirage of numbers, letters, shapes and colors I exhaust myself more in a running attempt to solve this puzzle and make order of its zooming pieces. Re-occuring dreams have meaning, I hear, but this dream has crossed over from engulfing my peaceful night sleep to shading me from the days warm sunshine. I'm not convinced of its meaning, but I am certain of the fatigue of failing to reach the pieces...

I watched a documentary on the misrepresentation of women through media just the other night. There's so much I want to teach the girls in my classroom. And when I look into the future, so much I want to teach my daughters. I want to teach them to chase their dreams and never, ever stop. And that it takes bravery and courage to always be kind and loving. It's not easy, but no good thing comes easy. And that there is only One who is faithful to the end and will carry us through, and for Him and with Him we can bust out of the mold and carve a new path. As I read through my blogger dashboard of recent blog posts I came across this inspiring entry from Emily T. Weirenga: A Woman's Manifesto (and launching A Dare to Love Yourself) As a woman living in the 21st century  I will live as though I have a thousand daughters,  even though I have none, because every girl is my daughter and when she sees me, or engages with me, she's looking to me for how to live.  S...