a weekend in the woods

So this weekend as Kristi visited her friend Jill in Cincinnati, I kindly asked her if she would drop me off in Smoky Mountain National Park. At the park I met up with my friend Nick and his dad from Michigan. Being first time back country hikers, we got a little over excited and bit off a hike which was almost bigger than we could chew. We started at Clingman's Dome (at 6670 feet it is the highest point on the Appalachian Trail), which had just opened that day after being closed all winter. Over the next 3 days we followed a 31 mile loop back to where we started. Each night after we set up camp we frolicked in the mountain streams. Here are some pics of our adventure.

Peace Corps Update

there is no update...
i am floating in limbo somewhere between medically approved for service or "sorry the body God granted you is not fit for Peace Corps." Post my medical application submission, I have experienced some strange new symptoms such as being easily excitable, which led to insomnia, followed by anxiety of "I'm not getting any sleep and i start work in 4 hours" and finally paranoia as i run through my mental checklist of things to do over and over and over.... well you get the point. I think it's been classified as pctsd- peace corps traumatic stress disorder. (just in case my peace corps medical officer is reading this, I'm just kidding about everything i said). Well as my future lays on the desk of a medical officer thousands of miles away, pray that i will have patience in this process. It is comforting to know that God has already picked out the perfect spot for Kristi and myself. He knows where we will be, what we will do, and how He will use us. well my insomnia is wearing off so i better go to bed while i still can.

t'was the day after christmas

The Layers by Stanley Kunitz

Read a great poem today and thought you might enjoy it. (whoever the ambigious you might be)
The Layers by Stanley Kunitz

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being abides,
from which I struggle not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice directed me:
"Live in the layers, not on the litter."
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

“We are healed from suffering only by experiencing it to the full.” - marcel proust / Peace Corps.. five months and counting

After about a gallon of drawn blood, a change in nationalities and soon to be missing 3 wisdom teeth (I'm hoping it won't affect my intellect), Kristi and I are eagerly awaiting for peace corps to pick a town in Southern Africa and say " hey why don't you come live here for 2 years?" It has been an experience in itself just to get this far. Lately I have been reading about other individuals experiences and it has ranged from the worst experience of their lives, to a two year government paid vacation. I remember during our initial interview I was asked why do I want to join peace corps and I have been thinking about that a lot lately. What is it that makes me want to leave the US and dedicate two years of my life laboring for free in a less fortunate country? Is it a self righteous altruistic mission..? No I am not that naive. Is it to soothe the guilt of us raping the third world for the last century..? perhaps a little. More than anything it is the fact that poverty, disease, warfare and aids rubs the comforted soul the wrong way, and I like that. There is this scene at the end of Little Miss Sunshine where Frank and Dwayne are standing out on a dock discussing suffering. Frank brings up the great french writer Marcel Proust and states " he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a thing." So if I get anything out of the experience, it is to learn. To learn more about the world God has created, the people that live here and how exactly i fit into that. I've often heard that to those who much has been given, much is expected. I feel this is but a small sacrifice compared to the blessings that have been bestowed on me. It is so easy living in the US to be lulled to sleep by the temporary self satisfaction of this material world. I hope this trip shakes me to my core that i may once again realize the reality in which most of the world lives.

Often I wonder what will i think when I am 70 and look back over my life. Will my highlights be that nice car I bought, or a house i got at the beach. I hope not. We are the few, the lucky, the ones living under a regime that strives for freedom. However for most of us, this was not our choice but rather handed to us on a silver platter. Others don't have that privilege.