Black and Beauty

Well, today I saw this stuff. I love my camera.






And then I was taking a shower when the power went out. No windows, door closed, pitch black. I pride myself on the fact that I did NOT panic. And I did NOT drop the soap.

So I was reading John today, the part where Jesus feeds the 5,000. Pretty amazing stuff. But the part that I like best? The fact that Jesus keeps going up on a moutain. I knew it was in scripture somewhere. God likes mountains. And then I read Psalm 87... "He has set his foundation on the holy mountain; the Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are said of you, O city of God: Selah..."

Loster Lake

THIS is what we're driving all over the place. Yeah, SO not us.






View from Red Sandstone Road. That's why they're called the Rockies.







Me at Lost Lake. I wanted to make sure to keep the location a secret, thus no real all-encompassing shots. Nice clouds reflected in the water though, don't you think?





Just another nice wild flower for Christina, Queen of Properly Labeling All Plant Life.








"I like feet. I do not know why." (Go watch Mr. Deeds. You'll laugh.)






Mount Holy Cross, from the Lost Lake Trail. Spectacular. The cross is not visible from this angle, but the left face does have a crevace that fills up with snow in the shape of a cross which you can see from, say, the top of Vail Mountain. Gorgeous and majestic.



Another shot of mountains. Sorry if it's getting boring, but this stuff is so insanely beautiful. Behold, people.

Lost Lake

Trees!



Mom and Dad
















More Trees.



















Dad








Thing with wings














Wild flower...this one's for you, Christina

















Very weird tree

Painfully obvious.

Mount Whitney, I think. One can never be sure.










Nice aspen. :o















Dad and Mom behind me on Whitney Lake Trail. Most of it was steeper than this...







Whitney Creek. Crazy cold, and totally refreshing.

The 23rd of never.

Hi, friends. Sick of pics? Well, you're NOT GETTING ANY! Just kidding. No, I'm not - I'm experiencing technical difficulties, and refuse to power through them tonight. I'm beat. It was a great day...

We tried a hike we've never done in our 10+ years of Vail...up a trail called Whitney Lake something-or-other. (Weird, I've never actually seen that phrase written down.) It's a bit past Minturn, and pretty nice. It took a lot out of us, though, since we three (Mom, Dad and I) haven't exactly been training for this stuff. Anyway, it was a good first trek out for us - we managed to stay hydrated and stuff, which is no small feat in our experience. Our family has a knack for overestimating what we are physically capable of. Anyway, there we were, hiking our little hearts out, climbing and resting, climbing and resting. It felt so good. I love the journey of it all. I like it even better when we reach our destination - so fulfilling. Today it was only as far as Whitney Creek, a bit over halfway if you're measuring all the way to the actual lake. I would have loved to have seen it - and probably will go back sometime - but for today, we were happy to dunk our feet in the excruciatingly cold water and then hike down. I read Numbers and Don Miller by the pool, journaled a bit, swam, had dinner, talked serious with my parents, and now I'm here. It was a full day. Perfect.

So here's what else - I was way ahead of my parents for most of the hike, because my standard anywhere pace is like four clicks above theirs, especially when it comes to a mountain. This created little pockets of time for me on the hike...I was able to find a good rock to stop at, unclip my mountainsmith (that baby rocks), and stare out over it all. (No, you can't see the pics.) I took out a pen and wrote some stuff down, at one point - just some things God was reminding me of. It was good. Later, I transferred that info to my journal, and sort of started to unpack it. Like I said, I love a journey, and a destination. God started speaking to me that morning on the hike (which turned out to take about 4 hours by the end of it) and continued to flesh it out throughout the day. Healthy, I think. Communication.

Stuff I'm praying about that he's talking me through? Finances. Time management/priorities. Ministry focus/vision. And yes, boys. We made some progress with the first area today, so perhaps he's got an agenda for the others in the course of the next few days. I just love that he wants to make use of this time too - that he totally IS waiting for me to come to him and receive on this trip. I told you so. Expectation ----> Joy. My God is so good.

...part four...

I hope you appreciate the fact that it took four posts to get these pics up - apparently blogger has a limit to the size of each post. Anyway, it's a good sampling of day 1 in Colorado. I think I may have a future as a wildlife photographer. What do you think?

...Part three...

Live from Colorado, Part Deux

Big Rocks.

Live from Colorado

Ok, well, this is the first installment in what will probably end up being many in the next few weeks - pics from my beautiful trip to Colorado. Did I mention I'm in Colorado? Did I say anything about how stoked I am about that??

Yesterday my parents and I woke up in Denver, rented a car, and took an awesome detour and ended up in Vail by 10pm. It was an amazing drive, for which I provided a soundtrack consisting of Rich Mullins, Bruce Hornsby, Regina Carter, Watermark, Delirious, and Iona. Good day. Take a look:





First stop was Fort Collins, about an hour north of Denver. We checked out New Belgium, which was very cool. Here's one portion of the huge and intricate tile art you'll find there - I like that she's on a boat, and playing a guitar, and that there's a boy next to her. :) (Other pictures and information about New Belgium available upon request...yum.)

We drove through Loveland (southwest of Ft. Collins) and stopped at a Runza (I heard angels singing when I saw that green and yellow sign... www.runza.com) where we enjoyed a meal like no other. I grew up a block from a Runza, and I miss it. :( Anyway, we decided at that point to head to Estes Park, since I don't ever remember being there. Nice little two lane all the way...we drove behind a red PT Cruiser with Nebraska plates. GO HUSKERS!!




Estes Park is on the Northeast side of Rocky Mountain National Park. We decided that since we had no time constraints, we'd go ahead and pay the $20 to drive along Trail Ridge Road through the park, and down the west side of the park. I was thinking that was a lot for a drive across the park, but I didn't realize what Trail Ridge Road is. Gorgeous. Winding, long, full of photo ops!

Talk about expectation.

One addition to the previous post:

Check out John 1. Here's the guy who is spending his life proclaiming the coming Messiah. He's doing his thing, baptizing, and fielding questions/accusations about his mental health, his own ideas... "I'm not the guy - I'm not even worthy to untie his sandals." And then in verse 29: "The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, 'Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!' " Can you imagine the kind of joy this must have awakened in John? To think that his whole life had been pointing to this moment, and then there it was - the revelation of the Messiah. Jesus. His Jesus. Incredible. I would love to have seen his face.

I really like the idea of Jesus walking towards me.

Where I woke up

After a couple long flights, I got here. I'm in Colorado. I haven't even left my hotel room yet - I'm just enjoying the thought of complete lack of obligation for the next week and a half. I can already feel my brain slowing down, my body relaxing, my heart expanding with anticipation of what my God has on the agenda for the two of us. I have so many questions - stuff I have to actually wait for answers about, and He always seems to speak up while I'm here. Yeah, maybe it's just that I'm listening differently.

Expectation is an interesting thing - vital to our relationships. Without maintaining hope in someone - hope that they'll want to hear our thoughts, hope that they'll stay close - it's pretty hard to find any joy in that connection. "[Love] believes all things, hopes all things..." (I Corinthians 13:7) It's true. We call hope "faith" sometimes, but it's not the same thing. Hope is looking for something in someone, that thing you deeply desire to find, and when it is revealed joy is the firework reaction in your heart. If you never hoped, that joy is incomplete. Hope is the precursor to joy.

Faith, on the other hand, is being SURE of what you HOPE for, certain of what you cannot see. (Hebrews 11:1) So hope is a piece of faith, but not all of it. Faith takes it one step further - you aren't just looking for it, you are SURE it's there, and act accordingly, with no question. We are to pray with faith, and are told that without faith it is impossible to please God. Check it out:

"But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." Hebrews 11:6

Most people hope in God the way we hope in our friends. We've met them, considered what we know about them, and proportionately bestow a certain measure of belief in them. They earn our hope. We decide how much we can trust them and what we're willing to put out there - how much of our heart, most often. And everyone's been burned, so it gets worse all the time. Convincing yourself to hope after you've gotten your heart smashed takes an insane amount of convincing. You've got to talk to your soul and say, "Dude, get up. Get up, get up."

We can't deal with God that way. He won't have it. We have to have actual faith - meaning we can't hope we know him well enough to trust Him (basing His merit on our own knowledge), we have to have faith that He is exactly who He says He is, and that His intentions are way beyond anything we could wrap our brains around. I think if we really got a glimpse of how He feels about us, we'd act differently. Knowing someone loves you like that changes everything.

I think the deepest joy comes with faith. Expectation that someone absolutely will. On one level, we start out hoping that maybe God exists. He responds with a rush of blessing - giving, among other things, the gift of faith. This enables us to start seeing with our spiritual eyes, moving differently - who He is affects your entire world. At first it's just fascination...and that should never really go away. Surprises are good. But later there's this beautiful, seasoned expectant waiting - the kind that you see on old Christian women, quiet with a slight smile at the mention of the name Jesus. It's sweet on their lips, in their ears...they know something. It's deep, real, intimate, profound, secure. It's hope turned to faith turned to love and that journey of maturity in a relationship brings much joy.

I want that. I'm seeing pieces of that even now - just that I am coming to Colorado differently this year...just quiet with joyful expectation - I will meet with God here. He already has the plan - all I have to do is show up and enjoy it. It's pretty cool, actually.

I Love CO

In exactly 24 hours, I will leave my house to drive to the airport where I will pass through layers of security, board a plane and sigh.

I am going to Colorado. I might not come back.

For the better part of 12 years, my family has taken this trip. It began as a convenient way to get out of town (Lincoln, NE at the time) and visit my sister (who's orchestra was having its summer season in Vail, CO as part of the Bravo! Colorado Music Festival). Turns out, it's an annual family event, often involving branches that would never have spent time together otherwise. It's a load of fun for me, but causes a little relational stress for the family generally...however, it is ultimately an overall a good time. What's not to like? Mountains, stars, hot in the day, cool at night. Cobalt blue skies, glory everywhere. Mmm....

Sometimes I think I want everything all at once. I want to just give up and give in to what I know is in my heart - where the wild things are? Heh heh...I just mean that I have stuff in there that is waiting. Always aching a little, oozing out when I talk to my people, always leaking when I am trying to stay steady. One piece of that pain is in Colorado. I feel different there. And I don't think it's just my conditioned response as a result of being on vacation whenever I'm there - it's something bigger. It's about beauty, and the song that is in me to be let out. That place looks like the sound I feel in me. I don't know how else to say it. I want to play, write, sing what I see and hear there. It makes sense to me. I make sense there.

Rochester doesn't make me want to sing. I have written less here than anywhere. Yes, there are times when I am writing again, but less than I would say is normal for me. I can't explain it, except that the sound in me is made for somewhere else, is louder somewhere else.

I don't know. Is it possible to be made for somewhere? Or are we just meant to be who we are wherever we are? Why did God bother to move his people out and around like he did with Israel? They were a totally different bunch once they went over and through the wilderness and I have to think milk and honey made someone sing a new song. Maybe that's it - it's more that I am responding to the sound of Colorado (MAN that sounds sappy) than that proximity to it is affecting my sound. ?

Maybe I'd just better go pack...

Dark and Mysterious

A shocking lack of postage.

Ok, people. This stuff is here to be read, and responded to. What, no one has anything to say? Yeah, well, spit it out. Y'all have brains. And a keyboard. And besides, how will I know that you like me if you don't?

Just kidding. I just like to know what you think of what I think. It makes it so much nicer. :)

Jeanette's lips and camera tricks

I need a raise.

Certain people get paid better than I do. Many of these people are willing to make their living doing things I would rather not think about. Some of these people have to deal with other people's feces. This is why I got a job at Barnes and Noble. No crap.

Until yesterday. A certain young lad around 3.5 years in age stood on the storytime stage in my section, right there with Pooh's Hundred Acre Wood as a backdrop, and peed on the floor. And then he decided to hide behind one of the "trees" and as he walked, a turd dropped out of his shorts.

I looked at the kid. I looked at the poop. I looked back at the kid. I looked for the adult he might belong to, and spotted an elderly gentleman monitoring two little girls at the picnic tables across the room. They were eating Taco Bell, and flipping through books. I can't even begin to tell you how many things are wrong with this scenario. When the man finally came over and realized what had happened, he looked at the kid, and in a mild tone said, "You didn't go to the bathroom?" And that was it. He led the kid back to the picnic tables, where the child sat his soggy little butt down on the floor in front of the picture book wall. I looked back at the running puddle on my stage and tried not to look at the turd.

This was not part of the job description. I received no training on how to provide customer service in this situation. And believe me, I am NOT getting paid enough to deal with excrement.

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