Ending well

So grateful to have done, seen, and known: blessed to be graduating with the Gordon class of 2011 this weekend!

a good word

The space you don't fill anymore:
your chair, placed so you would always get
just enough sun in the mornings--
your favorite time of day--
Bible on your lap, and that 
look, the one that always meant you
were in love with the sky.
It's captured, slightly, in photos
on the wall, but only your slight smile.
Not the way your eyes would close,
slowly, as you swallowed a thought.
Not the way your nose would
slightly crinkle when your concentration
was particularly keen.
Not the way you would slowly rock,
back and forth and back and forth.

Well wishers say you are
whole, now, in ways that you
never could have been here.
And yet you were loved in
all your frail bits. The body is
much more than the sum of its parts,
yes. But those parts are what
you were. Wrinkled hands, slight
smell of woods and the eyes
of a child with the forever insatiable
thirst that shouted always at the universe:
this-is-a-marvel! Now,
the space you don't fill anymore
still smells like your cologne,
still looks like your head-shape
forever imprinted on
your pillow, still feels like the
cotton of the shirts that fit you
perfectly, and there are truths
that will never be understood as
you might have understood them.
The space you don't fill anymore
yet bears your shape, and your
name will ever and only be
yours.

the space you don't fill anymore

Grief, and words that are utterly inadequate: all my prayers, thoughts and love to Calvary Church and the McIntyre family this weekend.

Apples and Oranges

This video is phenomenal.  It was the winner of my college's student-submitted short film festival--made me laugh, cry, and think.  So proud to say I voted for it!

Half marathon!!

En route to accomplishing one of my life goals (qualifying for the Boston Marathon) lies a smaller, but no less significant, hurdle: my first half marathon.  My dear friend Bethany and I will be competing in the Oleksak Lumber Half Marathon this coming April, and while I've always "been" a "runner," it's great to have something tangible and so very very soon to actively train toward.  So here's to early mornings at the gym, eight mile Sunday runs and lots and lots of chicken-based dinners!  Will try to keep this endeavor somewhat updated, as it might lend itself to more reflection on the far end.

Here's the route:

This isn't a topographical map, but you can tell by the shorter distances between miles 1 and 2, 3 and 4, and 9 and 10 that there are some significant inclines.  But, as anyone who knows my running preferences can affirm--I do love me some hills.  SO PUMPED.

Shame map

Thanks to my apartmentmates and Alyssa Maine for this.  All I can say is: sucks to be from North Dakota.  Click to zoom!

China and human rights

I've been reading about human rights lately, in large part because my senior thesis has found itself very much a commentary on forgiveness, sin and mourning.  As communities of all shapes and sizes, we are confronted with joys and tragedies (e.g. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords), and political leaders are sought to stand as mediators and interpreters of the pain and uncertainty that is "the next step forward."  President Obama's address regarding the Tuscon shootings was lauded not for its political fervor nor any intense call for partisanship to reign supreme--as if the Democrats respond to pain any better than the Republicans, or vice versa--but for its optimism and belief that the American spirit is one of resilience.  In a remarkably humble return to a large part of his campaign rhetoric, Obama moved for peace and shared story.  The strength of the American Constitution and constitution seems to be this desire for shared story, and then the U.S.'s human rights ethic follows the same lines: how do we write an ethic that does justice to the community?  This goes beyond "majority rules," and instead focuses with surprise sophistication a philosophy of memoir and the cultivation of a graceful aesthetic: what, and how, will we remember and be remembered?

So when in this article we read that the human rights issue in China has been sorely overlooked--even blatantly ignored--I am convinced that recent American events should make us think differently.  What stories will we be willing to take the blame for, and how will we allow ourselves, as powerful Americans on an international stage, to have our lines recorded in playbooks? 

StoryPeople, January 18

It's hard to say the right words without practice, I said & she whispered in my ear, Say them as many times as you like & we practiced late into the night.