small, but obvious things.

i bowed my head and closed my eyes, and then my life changed.

it was as if someone were hugging me.

as if someone were telling me, i was home.

that these people are good, and that i needed to be with them.

that god was there, and that he knew me by name,

and that he loved me.

god promises to illuminate the way before us, 

no matter how long it takes.

twenty years later, i still don't know everything.

but i now know who i am.

i know who god is.

and i know that god's light is real.

my solnichka's wisdom.

i realize i'm a very inconsistent writer or chronicler of life anymore. especially since my mission.

but i want to share something my solnichka sister said this week. a story she told.

because it speaks for itself.

"Last night, we had an experience that taught me something I really want to share with all of you. Every Sunday night, we let our direct leader know how our week went. It keeps us accountable and is a nice way to get feedback. Well, last night we were both so tired, we got home, planned, and just went to bed early; we totally forgot to text our district leader. At about 1am, I'm woken up by someone saying "Sisters! Sisters!" I was so shocked when I realized it was President in our apartment! When we hadn't texted in, the district leader had tried calling us, but our phone had been on silent. When we didn't respond, he called the zone leaders, who then came to our apartment to knock and see if we were ok; we didn't hear anything. When we didn't answer the door, they called President. At this point, all our leaders thought that something really terrible had happened to us. President had gone to the office, gotten the spare key to our apartment, and let himself in. When he called for us, and we responded, he was so relieved to know that we were ok and nothing bad had happened. After he was reassured that everything was alright, he and the assistants left. By this point, we were awake, so we went out to the living room to see what time it was and check our phone. Then, President came back and said that he just had to make sure again that no one was in our apartment, that everything was ok. We reassured him again that it was alright and we apologized profusely for making him and everyone else so worried. When he was talking to us, I had this realization hit me: he wasn't mad. Despite all that we had put him through, despite how worried he had been about us, there was not one ounce of anger in him. He was sad. He was worried. When we listened to the voicemail he had left us on his way to our apartment, he was crying because he was so worried.

I realized that this experience with President is exactly like our experience with Christ. Christ never gets angry at us for making mistakes. He is never angry when we do the wrong thing. He is sad. He is worried. He mourns for us. But He is never upset with or angry at us. Instead, He hopes that we are ok. He hopes we will be alright. He does all that He can to make sure we are ok. And when we are ok, when we come back to Him, He hugs us. He tells us how happy He is that we are safe. We feel nothing but love radiating from every fiber of His being. It is ok that we made a mistake. He loves us anyway. And because of His Atonement, we can be forgiven and start over. We are imperfect. We make mistakes. We do the wrong things. Heavenly Father knew that this would be a part of our experience here. He wanted it to be that way because it is how we grow and learn. But He also wanted us to be able to live with Him again. He wanted us to have the opportunity to change. And that's why He foreordained Christ to be our Savior, to make up the difference we cannot do alone. Heavenly Father loves us all so much. Christ loves us all so much. They know us personally and They are so excited to see us again one day, to hug us, and tell us They love us. They anxiously wait for us to reach out to Them, ask them for help, ask Them for strength, ask Them to forgive us. They are real. I am so thankful to have had my testimony of this strengthened yesterday.

I love you all so much and I know that Heavenly Father and Christ love you all so much. Please believe that and please don't forget that."

(sister renae louise andrade.)

a children's tale.

the past few days, i've had an extra amount of tender mercy moments.

which is to say, an extra number of things that have god's signature in them as a note to me.

personal reminders, if you will.

a note of his goodness, a note of his love.

but most of all, a note of his awareness of my life and its intricacies.

over a week ago, i lost my keychain. my little украинская матрёшка.^^

i was a little bit saddish like a radish, but it was the end of the day when i noticed, so it could be anywhere.

yesterday when i came home for lunch, i parked in a random spot in my complex.

there at the end, poised just as photographed, stood my украинская матрёшка.

there she was, a whole lot worse for wear.

but there she was.

it seemed a metaphor.

yesterday one of my ukraine daughters told me that i'm like her little void.

where she can keep all her thoughts and feelings and worries and dreams.

( like in you've got mail the way joe fox serves as a void for kathleen kelly. "goodnight, dear void." )

another sent me a beautiful message about the value of choosing to feel.

the value in continuing to ponder and explore--the way i always do.

imploring that i never let the sappy hippie inside me die.

i don't believe in coincidence--in chance encounters.

logistically, maybe it seems small and inevitable, but i still don't believe they are chance.

there have been several in the last little while.

nothing earth-shattering. just little things at significant moments.

little things that mean something.

because. life is allowed to be significant.

god finds himself in the details--even, or perhaps more especially, within the temporal.

his awareness and care covers every aspect, not only our faith or spiritual welfare.

ask, and ye shall receive.

there's a dream i keep having.

let's just take a moment and talk about this.

or maybe this.

miss you, brothers.

wewerethecutestontheblock. // nowonderlittlemissnaomisunshineissodarling.

that is all.

carry on.

two. // два.

two.
today makes two years since the official beginning of my ukrainian adventure.
two years since i became sister nevers/сестра нэвэрс.
two years since i began meeting people and having experiences i never would have otherwise known.
two years since a new life began.
two years since i discovered how truly incomplete my life could have been.

there's a lot i could say about this past two years of my life, but this is dedicated solely to those three months spent in the mtc--there where it all began. dedicated to the people i shared it with. dedicated it to the moments that prepared us, though maybe not the way we expected. dedicated to that time so different from anything else. here's to them.

elder ostler&elder bingham // мы со всем округом // elder harrison&elder gelwix
sister holmes&sister pace // elder ogden&elder egbert // sister coulson&sister nevers

here's the thing about the mtc. once you've been there long enough, you kind of start to feel like the mtc is your mission. like you're never actually going anywhere else. (three months in confinement is reallllyyyy looong.) and for me, it was such a special little time, because so many of the people around me never even went to ukraine, for they were called to russia. a testimony of the divinity of mission calls, but also of the timing of god. therefore, we were reserved to be a part of one another's mission stories only during mtc time. which. the mtc just really isn't the mission. and yet, it's fulfilling a mission in different ways than you ever could in-field.
i'm certain i was in the mtc when i was so that i could have sister coulson as a companion. and be with my district. because. my companion didn't get to come to donetsk with me. which, that would have been really really great. and i wished she was there with me sometimes when i was in ukraine, and wondered what that would be like to be able to see your mtc companion throughout your mission--or maybe even serve with them again in-field. but at the same time. there's something that made things extra special about having connections spread far and wide. not only sister coulson, but the other sisters and elders from our district.
because. i was in the mtc at that exact time for these darling dweebles that i'm sharing a few million photos of.

i have a confession to make. when first setting out on a mission, one of my greatest concerns was this: elders. (okay, maybe not greatest. but. it was a concern.) i was scared they would drive me insane. that they'd be absolutely and completely ridiculous and that i'd want to wring their necks a few thousand times. while that did end up true, turns out those snot-nosed dweebly elders aren't dweebles at all, but instead some of the most heartfelt, sincere, kind, hilarious, and loving people you'll ever know. innocent and pure caring and kindness. never any frills or faces. boys are much simpler than girls, really.
and turns out. i came to adore every last one of them in all their nineteen-year-old glory. because at the start of my misson, turns out i was a sap. because i am a sap, though it's dramatically diminished over the course of the past two years.

and now, for my sisters. the beginning we spent together, though all three of them served in rostov while i was on my own as the only sister headed to donetsk. but oh, how glad i am that i was put with them. these are three incredible women, you know. it would have been a delight to serve with them. because they care. because they give their whole soul. and they know in every moment why they were there and whom they are ultimately serving. our companionships were divinely inspired, though i adored our sisters too. it was all just right. just as it needed to be. and. from all that time we spent together and the mountains we climbed. there's no one like them. and rostov, russia must be counting its lucky stars that it was blessed with the presence of these sisters of mine instead of them coming to ukraine with me. here's to the flashcards, the staying with sister holmes after her surgery. the long talks, and the lessons-taught and received. to say nothing of all the laughs and the sharing of pieces of our lives.

elder gelwix//elder harrison//sister nevers//elder holowka//elder johnson

these are my donetskers. the few, the proud. we look ridiculous (which is then again true of every photo in the mtc. i looked like a real bleener while there.), but i also can't say the photo we took in ukraine when all together for the first time since the mtc in october of 2013 looked much better. (mission office lighting after mlc is rough on everyone.) i guess in some ways, though. this photo is telling. a description of each of us that can be read in our faces several days before arriving in ukraine. unfortunately for me, in the mtc i wasn't around elders johnson or holowka much. i only really got to know elder gelwix and harrison because they were in my district. and even then. elder johnson and i shared the beginning of our ukrainian time (mastersatreadingpeopleclub), and elder holowka i encountered for a short time in the middleish, but that was it. and elders gelwix and harrison? hardly saw them one bit while in ukraine. but. i heard of their goodness from afar and of all the good they did. (and members loooove them. with good reason.) here's to our donetsk, the place we called home that no longer exists as a mission. that now-war-torn land that we love.

there were a lot of moments that tapped on my heart and soul, telling me that sister coulson and i were mfeo (made for each other). but i think we can all agree the most telling is the fact that we had matching mission shoes. welcome to the mtc. 'hi, i'm em--sister? nevers. we're wearing the same shoes.' or maybe the time that we became such friends with one another and with our district. the elders we loved slash loved to be annoyed by. the talks we had, the laughs we shared, and the way we threw around phrases like 'theory of mind' with neither of us blinking. and i think the most important, is our bench by the tree of life, as we called it. the evenings we spent there before going in for the night. the talks we had, the lessons we learned, the problems we solved, and the people we loved and cared for and shared our bench with. do you need a thinking place? we highly recommend the bench right off of the big tree of life in the midst of everything. i'll never forget the last sunday before she flew out monday morning. we sat on this bench for our final opportunity to really talk and process and analyze, just with each other. i'll never forget that early monday morning as the russians all rushed away in the dark of the morning, and as i stood there in the hall alone after they walked away - and throughout the day after they had gone - wanting to cry. i'm not a crying person. i don't cry. but there i stood alone in that hall around four in the morning and almost did. #sistercoulsonwithdrawals. because there just aren't words to fully express how much i adore her fiery soul and how much i learned from her while we were together. god is a master of logistics, an expert at timing. and even if it is a computer that puts together companionships, there's no doubt that we were meant to be together. there's no doubt that we were supposed to be the companionship being sent to different missions. our feistiness has to be spread around.

i forget sometimes. i forget that the mtc really happened. i forget all those moments that gathered up and the way my pile of good things grew. i forget how much i loved these souls so deeply and came to know them so well--the benefits of being blessed with people-reading.

so here's to these people i love. to the moments we shared alldayeverydaythreemonthsinonesmallroom. because spending that long with people means that you become family. it means you laugh, you cry. you get annoyed, and you rejoice as you watch them learn and grow right along with you. because they're not going anywhere and neither are you, so you might as well figure it out or get over it.

which also includes letting go of the fact that you're never going to get a photo with everyone smiling. (most common offenders that i restrained sister coulson from strangling: elder gelwix, elder ogden, or elder bingham--see below. good thing we chose to loooove all of you.)

the mtc can't be discussed without also mentioning that i had my violin with me and played during mealtimes, pdays, in church, and at our roleplaymockbaptism. my sanity was saved within that confined space, and another mfeo moment with sister coulson was made the last few weeks when she suggested that we wake up early so that i could play even more before breakfast before having to take quite the hiatus whilst in ukraine. (i played a couple times in ukraine on ghetto violins, but not really.) i played, sister pace sang. elder harrison plays the piano like a wizard. good on all our souls.

so, yeah. there were antics--how else can you survive? and we all lost our minds a few hundred (or thousand) times. we learned russian and how to be missionaries, only so far as to realize how much we didn't know russian or how to be missionaries. we lived in a very confined space for a whole lot of endless days and questioned our sanity a time or two. but despite all that, and all the trials we climbed through, i wouldn't trade it for the world. the mtc, or my mission. why? because. because of the people. because of the experiences. because of the growth. because of the becoming that came from it. because. missions are miracles. missions are transformative. and. if you let them, they'll change your life forever.
even if you don't want to let them, they probably still will. that's the magic of missions. because by the end of my time as сестра нэвэрс, that person created in the name of sister nevers was pretty great, i must say. because in the process, i became more me than ever. in the process, i left all fear behind. because fear can never hold me back. because. after ukraine. i can do anything.

and. in the end. after all that time and all those attempts,

the closest we ever came to getting a photo with everyone synchronized

was in our soviet serious family photo.

because getting everyone on board with taking a good photo, turns out. is. impossible.

(or maybe that was just our experience as hooligans?)

there's something in that, i think.

that discovering of the soviet family awaiting us and within us--here is where it all began.

in the family we made as one.

all the love, first mission family. to you.

(and to the elders both already home and soon-to-be: welcome hoommmeeee!)

 с любовью,

сестра нэвэрс.

dots on a page.

(a flashback to a forgotten memory.)

when president malm came to visit our mission in early july of 2013, i was at the time serving down south in one of donetsk's branches--obedinyoni. for some reason, my companionship was chosen to have personal interviews with him, though we at first thought it was only sister hassard, my companion.

july 5 was the date. friday, 5 july 2013.

i was incredibly sick, starting this day and into the next week.
the sickest week of my mission, the sickest i'd been in a long time before that. or since, for that matter.
and i didn't tell anyone.
no one really knew, except for sister hassard, though our district leader was somewhat aware.

10 july i only told the recentlyreturnedhome sister armknecht.
since the fourth of july i've eaten hardly anything. and haven't wanted to or been hungry. i got real sick. my body hates me. so i pray. fevers. chills. intestines. vomit. sensitivity to horrible scents. but it's getting better. pray it goes away? i'm not going to tell anyone. i'm scared it's not going away. i just feel weird and terrible and queasy and nauseous all the time.

and i never told anyone.

because why talk about being sick in the week in which a huge transition takes place--
the week a new mission president came and changed everyone's lives?


president malm. i wasn't even expecting to talk to him.
when elder claypool (ap at the time) called, we thought it was just for sister hassard.

the thing is, i never have much to say in interviews. it's not a thing for me and often either i leave indifferent or frustrated, though i do respect that many find it very useful.

however.

we talked about missions. and how sister hassard and i felt like we had done absolutely everything in our area. we'd tried everything, and we didn't know what to do because a whole new transfer was about to begin. and we were trapped. and nothing was working. and we'd been working our tails off for six weeks. i was used to this and knew already of the ebb and flow. but sister hassard was still new. and. this transfer was particularly dry, due to starting over in an area where missionaries hadn't been for several months. and we were about to have another newbie. so we talked about this a little and other things, though he'd talked more with her. and then he said.

"Sometimes we scrounge and scramble through the area book

because we're trying to be obedient, of course.

But then, it's really time to sit back.

To plead with the Lord to lead you and guide you

in being an instrument in His hands--in helping us know how.

Because it's His work. We're only the instruments.

And all these tools are meant to help and guide us, yes. An infrastructure of sorts.

But more important is that we are His hands."

and then at the end i asked him about letting go.
about letting go in order for the lord to lead and guide.
i asked what he personally found to be of the most help in figuring out how to do so.

"the scriptures.

study the scriptures.

they're all just dots on a page.

and yet--it's something very special."

something very special indeed. dots on a page forming a bigger picture. because what really matters is that we are his hands, and this is how we learn. these are our tools, though only a guidebook of stories to be remolded for each new circumstance.

and at this turning point in time--a time of such inspiration, warmth, and enlightenment, being sick as can be. not being able to eat regularly for literally months after that - and even then. feeling weak, beyond the typical missionary exhaustion. (when our new companion sis andrade came the week after this, she noticed i never really ate much while they ate. i did other things--because there are a million things to take care of. she wondered how i survived when she was always hungry because missionary work on its own is fatiguing. she mentioned it a couple times. we just said i had been sick. and moved on.)

i played face that week. because i don't know how to be sick, especially as a missionary.
and i couldn't do myself what i once had been capable of doing, though i pushed myself anyway.
so i prayed.

these dots on a page // the warmth of a new president // a body that hated me in a time of chaos.
this is just one snapshot of learning how to let go.
a lesson i learned multiple times, out of necessity.
but every time, it always came comes back to those dots on a page.

(and in case you were wondering. this is why i still don't eat watermelon anymore.)

the world offers itself, calls to you, announcing.

(for a piece so moving that you have no words, but only a need to share it. to keep it.)

wild geese

you do not have to be good.

you do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

you only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

tell me about your despair, yours, and i will tell you mine.

meanwhile the world goes on.

meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

mary oliver.

print found here.

poem found here.

on sentimentality.

i've been struggling lately with this concept of sentimentality. in seeing the value of it. on striking a balance between it and practicality. just when i think i've found peace with it, there always seems to be something that completely discredits it and makes any idea of being sentimental seem futile. but in the same moment, here's the thing about our generation. i think there's something detrimental in a devaluation of sentimentality.

people talking without speaking,

people hearing without listening,

people writing songs that voices never share

and no one dared disturb the sound of silence.

the sound of silence, simon & garfunkel

this song is from 1964. literally fifty years ago. and i think this plague, this vision softly creeping has only intensified. there's this intensely pervasive inability to communicate. an inability to connect. a trend i see that, quite frankly, concerns me. people remain in their isolation by choice, while screaming from the inside for connection and understanding. all while also being unwilling to open themselves to that. last week megan beth wrote a beautiful little ditty on vulnerability, which i highly recommend to everyone everywhere. and through all that, no one dares disturb the sound of silence and therefore so much so regularly remains unsaid. too much, i'd say.

i have a cousin leaving on a mission next month. i haven't seen much of him and their family growing up. they're much younger, and have always lived out of state. they were in town last week and after sunday dinner, we sat and had the most delightful conversation. i pried out of him hopes, dreams, plans. (just when my cousins are getting to be the most interesting humans, they leave on missions. terrible timing.) and here's the thing. it was really great. i love watching people talk about what they think and love. why don't people dig to the root of things and really discuss it more?

this past week i went to see an incredibly well done production of Man of la Mancha with my grandparents, a major theme of which is discovering the place for this idealism amidst sanity and practicality.

"I come in a world of iron to make a world of gold....

I have lived nearly fifty years, and I have seen life as it is.

Pain, misery, hunger, cruelty beyond belief.

I have heard the singing from taverns and the moans from bundles of filth on the streets.

I have been a soldier and seen my comrades fall in battle or die more slowly under the lash in Africa.

I have held them in my arms at the final moment.

These were men who saw life as it is, yet they died despairing.

No glory, no gallant last words. Only their eyes filled with confusion, whimpering the question, 'Why?'

I do not think they asked why they were dying, but why they had lived.

When life seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies?

Perhaps to be too practical is madness.

To surrender dreams--this may be madness.

To seek treasure where there is only trash.

Too much sanity may be madness--and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!"

(cervantes, man of la mancha)

they died despairing, mired too stiffly in the present reality. but where is the place for dreams when dreams so often go disappointed? i think maybe we lose sight of the value of the process of dreaming itself. the process of looking ahead and seeing life as it could be and not being limited by practicality rather than being satisfied only with the attainment of that dream.
but if you take a look around, this is a major theme of a very large amount of all the artistic works that have ever been produced: who really knows the place for both reason and emotion? over and over again, people struggle to find the balance or a place to define one and the other in their different spheres. in my russian literature course the topic was covered at least somewhat in every single work we read. the world would say there's no place for emotion, but instead it serves best to always begin with being logical. but then life teaches otherwise, that people are always more important -- and on our deathbeds, it is to people that we think. people are connected to emotions, and there's a place for that. but what is that place? what does that place look like where reason and emotion are combined in perfect harmony?

the sun, it rises slowly as you walk

away from all the fears

and all the faults you've left behind.

...

cause i need freedom now

and i need to know how

to live my life as it's meant to be.

the cave, mumford&sons

here's the thing. i'm capable of being quite a sappy person. as in, even more than the average joe. one of my mission daughters used to call me a sappy hippie, with simultaneously rolling eyes and adoration. she had brought a mini english dictionary with her, and one long dragging summer day while walking to or from the branch on an empty street for a meeting of some sort, she found this word at random: maudlin, defined as being effusively sentimental; showing or expressing too much emotion. effusively sentimental. and of all she knew of me from the short time we'd been together up to that point, we all joked that it was me.
i say i'm capable of being such, because sometimes i shut off that portion of myself. i become more stoic and have a hard time finding the value within the formation of attachments or the choice to care for people. where does it lead if always to disappointment? because maybe i'm too sentimental when others aren't at all. i can love so deeply, though generally i'm not much of a feeler. i'm sappy in that i love people. not always, of course. sometimes i hate humanity. but. i love individuals. i refuse to ever be anything but real and genuine, despite being so in an incredibly fake and superficial world.
so i guess all this is me saying, that maybe my sappiness is obnoxious. maybe it is weird how deeply i become attached or love or how well i'm able to read people. and maybe that means that my life will forever be a continuous cycle of facing disappointments in the pursuit of dreams. but it's who i am. my reading is a gift that must have been given for a reason. and because of that, i am bound to act on what i see, even if others don't. i must live my life as it's meant to be. i'm bound to love when i see a heart in pain, though others may walk by in ignorance.
in a world so harsh and overly practical, there's always a place for dreaming.
there's always a place for loving and caring about the heart of a soul.

how's your heart? i'll keep asking.
because i'm sappy. that's what i am.
and that's the story of how i got to where i am.

my people.

the thing i miss most about ukraine. is. her people.

the members of the church, yes, of course.

but also.

the people on her streets. the people on her tramvais. the people on her marshrutkas, busses, and metros.

the people that open their heart, though you speak with them for only a glimmer of a moment.

those moments that bring magic to missions as people open their souls to you in a way they never otherwise would.

these are my people. this is where i come from.

a people that so easily and fully opens their hearts with love.

in such sincerity offering pieces of their souls.

them. that is what i miss most.

i miss them so much it hurts sometimes.

i miss talking to them. listening to their stories and souls.

my people.

last summer around this time, we had an evening when two lessons fell through.

we were riding on a tramvai and met a woman named svetlana on the way to visit her daughter.

because her husband had died, and her son-in-law died before her daughter had children.

and so she was going to see her daughter.

« без неё не могу. »

"without her, i can't."

a very kind woman who shared so many pieces of her heart.

and then her stop came and she got off with a kind farewell.

the people that don't fit in any numbers, they are those whom i miss the most.

(ukrainian law prevents me from posting any photos of my loves.

so i guess this is just me--taken september of 2013. the night before i left this area.

to my right and cut out of the photo is a woman (lessactivemember) who shared her poems with us.

because they would just 'come to her, 'like morning light coming in.'

that's how she described the writing process. the words just come.

and they were life-changingly poignant and beautiful.

three prayers was my favorite.

her name is valentina.)

here's to ukrainians young and old.

in honor of them: all with whom i was given the pleasure to become acquainted.

(even the snottypants young men, a little too eager to propose on the street.)

because these are my people.

let's get lost until we're found. again and again.

options for celebrating the fourth of july:

(because it is, in fact, my favorite day of the year, right behind christmas.)

red, white, blue. everywhere.

and flags. allll the flags.

here's the thing.

some people do that whole pretend-like-they-like-people and stir something up.

but sometimes i don't have the energy in my heart anymore to be the hoster that stirs things up.

so instead, you can stick with a few days of cathartic, though sometimes insanity-inducing, solitude.

and decide on a whim to sew a dress from randomly found old collections of fabric.

i suggest the latter.

weird? maybe. over it.

yes, sew a dress without a pattern.

it's called the 'follow-your-heart-and-make-it-up-as-you-go' method.

my ma says it's good for practicing creativity.

just go ahead and call me martha.

(martha stewart would be proud.)

so i sewed a dress. a little jank, yeah.

but considering all the heart-following and lack of thorough sewing knowledge, not too shabby i say.

 

and to really top a celebration of independence off?

drive to the top of the world with your soul shrub.

laursy mclaursykins.

comes highly recommended on the soul.

also, we maybe just have an obsession with east canyon.

(because this really is what it looks like from the top!

i told laurs if i go to grad school at the U and end up living in salt lake,

i will probably drive up there at least every other day for a sanity break.)

and mountains in general.

and each other.

cool?

(also. it was reaaaaaal windy. so. the photo thing. yeah.)

 

nothing quite so good on the soul

as listening to the wind on your soul from the top of a mountain,

looking out across the world in peace.

so at least i got my friendssss.

happy fourth, world.

let freedom ring.

a free act of love.

"Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust,

a free act of love-but sometimes it was so hard to love."
yann martel, life of pi
  

i like to claim eastern europe as my own.

because there's something about her, that i just know.

about the way her heart seems to tick. her people living and breathing,

with so much goodness in their hearts, it almost seems impossible to believe.

there's something about her that is just so easily understood to me.

i'm not done. i don't know exactly what that means.

i just know: my work is not done there.

it neither began in romania nor ended in ukraine.

there is a reason for everything,

but also a time and season for everything.

he knows all the times.

i love eastern europeans with a fiery kind of love--

sometimes it burns, sometimes it flickers, but it still never goes out,

despite its opposing anger or joy, hurt or comfort.

and that burning and fire itself is a refining one.

a sanctification that makes any burns worth it.

a fire that gives scars and heals them simultaneously.

there's something special about different cultures.

the different humor, even the character found within the language itself.

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i don't talk about romania much anymore.

maybe because i got to know ukraine in a way so much more her own than i did romania.

and yet, romania is my love too.

they are alike, yet different.

i forget sometimes how much she means to me.

and then it comes back with waves and waves of memories.

my babies there. my experiences there.

the simplicity of sunshine and sweat.

the work of salvation in a different way.

both romania and ukraine taught me everything i know about faith.

everything i ever need to know about faith, can be pulled in some way from one or the other.

because that's what eastern europe teaches me above all: faith.

the kind of faith described by pi in life of pi.

that's what romania and ukraine are to me, if put into a phrase:

'an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love.'

including, almost most importantly, the end: 'but sometimes it [is] so hard to love.'

if you look to the right, there's a link to my blog from while i was in romania.

i went to romania and learned of love.

i learned there what love really means, though love never came hard in romania.

it came easily and processed from general love to personalized love. 

but then i went to ukraine.

i was all filled up with love and light,

ready to ignite every heart and soul with that love.

but as experience progressed,

that light of love flickered.

that fire either burnt towards ashes, or raged in violent fury.

violent and harmful flames, sparked by love.

and then.

sometimes it was so hard to love. a very real struggle to love.

however, by this means i learned of love again.

i learned what love means in a different way.

learned that there are many kinds of love.

learned that charity is meant to be so much more all-encompassing than we readily acknowledge.

faith is love. love builds faith.

by this means comes about that opening up, that letting go, that deep trust.

all of such lessons, which are best learned through interactions with people.

relationships with people of all kinds, both fleeting and lasting.

because that is how i learned when to open up, when to let go, and how to trust.

and that. that is what eastern europe taught me.

of people. of hearts. of souls.

to learn of people, is to learn of love.

therefore. above all. in the end.

romania and ukraine taught me this.

that which matters most is that which i knew from the beginning:

everybody wants to love, everybody wants to be loved, and everybody heals with love.

because it's about people. it's always about people.

the sun goes down, the stars come out.

together we glide through the blue-velvet dark and stars.

all it takes is a little faith, and a lot of heart, sweetheart.

stars, the weepies

звёзды. (zvyozdi.)
i guess i never really talk about it much, but stars. stars were my thing. in the darkness of a ukrainian night, especially in areas that were rarely well-lit. the stars would shine. on the noncloudy nights, i looked to the stars. walking along the streets, i'd take a moment sometimes to stop in wonder and say audibly to my companion, 'look at the stars.' always. but especially throughout my mission. especially in the wintertime when darkness spends more time with the day than light. because the stars shine around the world, and seemed even brighter in ukraine.

(ukrainian night snow stars. some nights in lieu of stars. it's a thing.)

orion. he's my favorite. the wintertime constellation. he puts everything into alignment. because at least there's orion. at least there's that consistency between all the homeland and the foreign. you could be anyone, anywhere. because nothing ever stops happening. that's the thing about stars: they're always there. sometimes hiding, yes. but always there in everlasting number. wherever you are in the world, the stars remain. so many nights i'd look to the stars. sometimes filled with hope, sometimes filled with despair. i always say that god is the sun. (because, he just is.) but the stars? i think they're angels. in all those darkest places (literally and figuratively), i could so clearly and vividly see the stars. the darker the night, the brighter the stars. i think there's something in that. sometimes life necessitates a little darkness in order to see the light.

so, despite my love and need for bigger cities that i've discovered in myself throughout the course of the past five years, there's something to be said for those little towns outside of the city. because from there, you see all the stars. in dense wonder they fill the night with light.

and the way i see it, every kind of night could always use more light.

so if you need me, i'll be basking beneath the stars.

(and probably listening to the weepies while i'm at it.)