sunsets and sunrises.

As I write this post, I'm currently sitting on the couch of my house in Michigan, over a week away from Cape Town, South Africa.  In case you haven't heard, I made it home safely!  I flew out of Cape Town Thursday early afternoon after saying goodbyes to friends, family, and co-workers.  After six months, goodbyes felt quite surreal.  The community at the Warehouse has become family, and Cape Town has become home.  As the plane took off over the city, and as Table Mountain and the ocean faded from sight, I felt struck by the uncertainty surrounding the ending of my internship.  Why did the time here fly so quickly?  How could I possibly leave my family and my home?  And would I be able to return?  When?  How?  Why?

As the plane approached Joburg, the sun was setting on the far horizon.  As the sky changed from blue to orange, from pink to purple, and finally faded to black, I tried to hold onto the beauty of my final glimpse of South African sky, land, and life.

The plane from Joburg took off in the darkness, and I journeyed sixteen hours through the night, trying to prepare myself for the cold winter of the States, and everything else that went along with it.  As we drew close to JFK, the morning light was breaking over the horizon, illuminating the city below us.  We landed at the break of day, and I made a further transition, into America, out into the cold, and on to another airport.  I had seen the sun set in South Africa, and then rise the next morning in America.  Fear, anticipation, and excitement all rose with the sun as I considered the next season in the morning dawn.  What would it be like to be home?  What would this final semester at Wheaton hold?  And where is God calling next?  In many ways, I still felt submerged in darkness, surrounded by the unknown, and stuck in eternal overnight transit.

On the final leg of the journey from New York to Detroit, a thick blanket of clouds laid below us, blocking any view of the floor below.  As the plane began to descend, we drew close to the layer of clouds.  The anticipation, fear, excitement, and uncertainty grew as the plane entered the layers of clouds, and, for a few moments, we flew blind.  After what felt like an eternity, we broke through the clouds and I could finally see the land below clearly.  Though it's no Cape Town, seeing wintery cold Detroit for the first time in six months felt like home too.

I write all this to share with you mainly because the physical transition played a significant role in how my heart and my soul and mind have been attempting to follow suit since I've been home.  There's a reason it's taken me a week and a half to write my "final" blog post about my time in South Africa.  Though I've flown over  7000 miles, I still feel like I have one foot in Michigan and one foot in Cape Town.  I keep putting off processing, reflecting, and writing because I'm stubbornly sitting in denial, still unwilling and unable to share with myself and with others what my experience in Cape Town meant and will continue to mean in my life.  I'm not ready for the sun to either set or rise.  (as you can tell, I'm not a very willing transition-er.)

So with that in mind, I'm going to bust out one of my favorite Warehouse phrases– watch this space.

Though my internship is over, and though I'm comfortably glued to the couch in my house in small town Michigan, there is much still to come.  I have thoughts to think, memories to remember, reflections to write, and hopes and dreams to plant and declare.

And who knows what next steps are coming.

I need to finish this post, mostly for my sanity, but want to leave you with the verse that's been floating in the background throughout my time in Cape Town.  I have a feeling that, as much as its been important these past six months, it will continue to be vital in the next season of my life.  And like I said, watch this space.  There is definitely more to come.


May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. -Romans 15:13


Amen.

there and back again.

The adventures did abound, both great and small.  I got back last week from a lovely week and some of road-tripping from Cape Town to the Eastern Cape and back with two friends.  Though there were some stressful bits, like sending one friend back early on a plane for some teaching position interviews, the time overall was amazing, both as a chance to see more of the beautiful country of South Africa, from cities to oceans to rural homesteads, and as a time to rest and reflect.  

I could try to describe all the lovely things we saw while adventuring, but I figured you'd like even more to see some pictures! (I know how excited you are, mom...)

Our last glimpse of Table Mountain and company as we headed out on our adventure Eastern Cape-ward.

Ana (left), Kate (right), and I as we set out with the Getz fully loaded.

The drive = incredible.  

The sunset on the first night was one of the best. 

Kate and I standing in the Indian Ocean (my first time ever!) at Plettenberg Bay, clearly excited.  

Chintsa Beach the next morning (I promise we weren't always at the beach...). This is where we sent Kate back to Cape Town to be a responsible (and hopefully soon to be employed!) adult.

Rondavels (traditional Xhosa homes) in the Transkei.  Just a few hours further down the highway, around the cows, sheep, and goats standing in our way, our home for the next five days was waiting.

We stayed with a lovely family in their guest rondavel.  They live in one of the most beautiful places in the world, on a hill just a short walk from the Indian Ocean in the middle of the Wild Coast.  The weather all the way up was wonderful, and we were excited to hike around, and explore in Lubanzi.  Unfortunately, the good weather didn't last, and we got to know the view from the inside of our rondavel very well.  

We did get the chance to walk down to the beach there, though, and it was deserted and beautiful.   

Our home stay family was incredibly hospitable, sharing their meals with us and allowing us to enter their lives for a short time.  I was so inspired by these women and how hard they work for their families.   

After all the rains, our view the last evening was stunning.  This was the best sunset of the trip.    

It made an already beautiful place... 

magical.  (Middle-Earth, perhaps?) 

Our final morning, we hike to Hole in the Wall, a famous natural landmark.  See the hole?  (It's very impressive in person.)  After leaving, we began the long drive home, which was also very interesting...

We saw an elephant!!...jks, we drove through Addo Elephant National Park on the way back and
saw lots of elephants and other wildlife.  

On the drive back, we took a different route through the little Karoo (semi-desert area), which is totally different from but just as beautiful as the route we took there.  Pretty much, the entirety of South Africa is beautiful.  I might be slightly biased though...

There are about a million and one other stories from our adventure there and back again.  If I were to speak the stories, the meanings, that the pictures cannot illuminate, I would fill pages and pages.  But let me give you just a few glimpses (so you can ask about the full stories when I return the rest of the way back again).

• Watching the change in landscape with every passing hour.
• Walking uphill in the rain in the early morning to sit in an ARV clinic and hear stories of courage, sickness, despair, and hope.  
• Being offered magic mushrooms and dagga (pot) multiple times in one afternoon.
• Listening by the light of a kerosene lamp with Ana about the future.
• Watching the home stay family catch and carry away a chicken, and then eating him an hour later...
• Hiking to Hole in the Wall, wet and bedraggled, and unknowingly asking the area's chief for directions along the way.
• Re-learning to sit in the silence.
• Sitting with the manager of the Grahamstown backpackers as he told us much of his life story.
• Accepting hospitality from a couple desperate to open up their home as a place of rest.
• Seeing once again the infinite beauty of God's unfolding creation, from the dung beetle to the warthog to the elephant.  
• Watching God guide our every step on the adventure.

And so He continues to guide.  Less than three weeks left, folks.  Please keep me in your prayers as transition time hits, and as I attempt to live well in every day left.  Until next time.  

Hambani kakuhle (stay well).

adventures abound, both great and small!

I feel like that should be the title to a Sufjan Stevens album.  I would attempt to come up with some creative song titles, but I have approximately five minutes to write this post.  Why, you ask?  Because adventure abound, both great and small!  The great adventure about to commence in five minutes is a week long trip to the Eastern Cape. Two friends and I are going to stay at a rural home stay for five days, which should be an incredible experience. 

So, a real update will arrive when I return.  But in the meantime, please continue to hold me in your prayers for the last month of my internship.  Four weeks left....

Much love to you all!!

stories.

For as long as I can remember, I have loved stories.  The first story I can remember falling in love with was The Velveteen Rabbit.  My earliest memory of story time at night is of my mom sitting on my bed reading me the tale of the velveteen rabbit as I sat entranced by the words she read and the beautiful pictures that accompanied them on every page.  Every single night for a few years of my early childhood (seriously, ask my mom), I listened to and eventually read along with my mom as she read me the story of the velveteen rabbit.  I could quote half the book by age four, which is impressive for a book that begins by saying, "There once was a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning, he was really splendid."  For real, I did this.  And I have to be honest, the story still gets me.  I mean, the boy loved the rabbit so much that the little bunny became Real, and then because he loved the boy in return, the fairy came to save him and make him truly Real.  I get a little teary just thinking about it.

Maybe The Velveteen Rabbit doesn't get you like it gets me.  But I know that the power of story resonates with you in one way or another.  Stories captivate our hearts, our minds, and our imaginations. They help us to see the world from another perspective.

This past week I had the incredible opportunity that came up sort of spontaneously to go canoeing for four days down the Orange River (which is the border between South Africa and Namibia) with a group of high schoolers.  Most of them were from the youth group one of the churches connected to the Warehouse, but they then invited and paid for six boys from the Superstars, which is the soccer team / discipleship program run in Sweet Home Farm.  There was a last minute empty seat on the bus up, so I got to fill it with the assignment of helping to look out for the Superstars and hopefully help the two groups cross big divides together into friendship.  Kind of a big task for a last-minute add on, but hey, I wasn't complaining.  Five days in the midst of incredible beauty with space and time to think and reflect?  Absolutely worth being called Mommy for the duration of the trip (it was honestly pretty endearing, and a lovely flashback to Fischer staff team...)

As we paddled over the four days, I spent a lot of time thinking about the beauty of this river I somehow found myself journeying down.  There were mountains all around us as the current drew us along the winding path.  It wasn't until the second evening, when we climbed one of the mountains that I realized: the river has a story to tell.

I stood and stared at the incredible beauty in front of me.  The nuances of the river that had been invisible as I canoed down were now perfectly clear.  The river was going somewhere, and coming from somewhere constantly and simultaneously.  The story of the river from this perspective changed seemingly pointless bends in the river into vital chapters and twists in the narrative.  The story of the river is both timeless and ever-changing.  Water constantly moving downstream, carving a path between the mountains and through the valleys.  Not only does the river tell one big story, it tells countless small-scale stories.  Every place the water moves affects the shape of the landscape, even carving away the rock itself.

 The river has a story, and the river tells a story.

Places have stories.  Though the river is a beautiful example of story in motion, it is just one picture of thousands.  From mountains to houses to cities, every place has its own distinct and valuable story.  Places gain value when we know their stories.  The restaurant where dad proposed, the house with secret passageways for runaway slaves to hide, the bench that Wheaton students spray-paint and claim as their own every few weeks.  Places that are seen as dispensable, unlovely, and unimportant are transformed in the light of story.  A church bathroom is transformed from a standard functional facility into a sacred space chosen by a young child to meet with God. (True story, ask me about it some time...)  But knowing the story of that place allows me to see the space with different eyes.

It's easy to look at the sun setting over a river from the top of a mountain and see the beauty of that story.  It's much more difficult to stand in the midst of a physically broken space and see, beyond outer appearances into the beauty within the story.  A few weeks ago I walked around Sweet Home Farm with the girls' youth group and took pictures to go with letters they wrote to government, complaining about the broken and unfit municipal facilities in their community.  This is what we saw.

Most people would look at this photo and only see a place unfit for anyone to live.  But knowing the story of Sweet Home Farm gives me different eyes to see the beauty hidden under a thin veneer of poverty.  Stories of hope in the midst of seeming hopelessness do not negate the pain and injustice that exist in this place, but reveal beauty in spite of the pain.  These stories of hope are the stories of people. Knowing the girls' youth group, and the team in the Warehouse, and the six boys that went on the canoe trip changes how I see Sweet Home Farm.  In place of shacks and overflowing sewage drains, I see faces and stories that fill me with joy, rather than hopelessness.  In Sweet Home and across the world, people are the stories that transform places of suffering and despair into places of joy and hope.

One of my absolute favorite books that I've read since coming to South Africa is Denise Ackermann's After the Locusts.  In it, she writes letters to friends and family remembering the stories of God in the midst of a broken and disease-ridden world.  She slams home the power of story when she says, 

“I have heard stories that speak of triumph, of resistance, and of hope.  Imagine a kaleidoscope with thousands of different-coloured fragments.  As it moves, it forms patterns.  The myriads of stories of suffering and joy make up the big story of AIDS, in which each fragment is unique.  My life has been changed by knowing the stories of people living with the HIV virus.  Hearing and telling stories challenges stigmas and prejudices.” 

Denise isn't just talking about AIDS.  She's calling on humanity to see the brokenness in every individual story and every meta-story, recognize it for what it is, and then see the hope in the midst of those stories. We are called to live in a deep tension that comes from being the Church with AIDS.  Our stories must tell of the brokenness of the world and yet of the hope and triumph that is found in Christ.  The human story holds both together.  It is only in this tension that we can see true beauty if we allow one another's stories to capture our hearts, minds, and imaginations.  Through this kaleidoscope our view of the world is transformed.

People are stories.  When we listen to one another, our sight is transformed.  Life can be seen in the midst of death.  Abundance in the midst of poverty.  Unity in the midst of division.  And hope in the midst of despair.  That is the power of story.

living on a prayer.

I have a confession to make: there are moments in my life when all I want to do is blast some Bon Jovi at full volume and sing along at the top of my lungs.  Though some (Alex Recker) might judge my poor musical taste, I no longer live in shame of my fondness for obnoxious rock music, particularly Bon Jovi.  Because, one, who doesn't have a little soft spot for Bon Jovi somewhere in their heart, and two, his music (ok, one sentence of one song...) pretty perfectly describes where I am sitting currently.

Woah. We're halfway there.  (JBJ sounds a little more excited when he says it...)  But last week marked the halfway point for my internship at The Warehouse!  Three months down, three months to go...  It's pretty incredible to think that my time has flown by so quickly so far.  In some ways I feel like I've only been here for a day, but then it also feels like I've been here for forever.  The thought of halfway brings up a myriad of emotions: terror of being already and only half-done, yet excitement about three more months, which will probably fly even faster than the first; joy over what I've been able to experience here so far and what I will continue to be a part of, yet sorrow over the painful stories and situations that I've heard and seen in my time so far and will continue to hear and see.  All those feelings and more tend to run through my head about 17 times a day at the speed of sound.  Though this has been somewhat constant throughout my internship (and my life...), the halfway point has given me a good excuse to sit a while and reflect on life.  And in that reflecting, I've realized that the second half of Bon Jovi's song is equally appropriate in my life, both right now and in general.


Whoa.  Living on a prayer.  If I've grown in any way since I've been here, it's been in how I see and value prayer.  Prayer is an integral part of life in the Warehouse, and their passion for communally seeking God and justice together has reminded me and further revealed to me the absolute power of prayer in our lives.  Not only have I been challenged in how I pray, I have been challenged in how I then live as a result of the power of prayer.  I am so incredibly blessed to have such amazing friends and family across the world praying for me in my time here.  I wanted to take time at this halfway point to both thank you for your prayers and for your love.  I'm reminded anew how vital they are to my time here.  And I'd also love to update you in how you can continue to be praying for me.  More than ever I'm seeing that I really am living on your prayers throughout my time here.

So in terms of specific things for you to be praying for, here are a few random but predominant ones: pray that I would continue to strive to be fully present in every moment here, and not hold people or experiences, both beautiful and painful, at an arm's length, but really let everything affect my heart and mind and life; pray that out of communally seeking God together as an organization so passionately, I would be more persistent and consistent in seeking God in His word and in prayer on my own; pray that I would continue to listen deeply and be courageous enough to speak when God calls me to speak; and please pray that I would live in faith, trust, and hope even more deeply in the second half of my HNGR journey.

We're halfway there, folks.  Thanks for your prayers.

shalom.

So I'm not really into sharing my papers with everyone, but my Global Christian Perspectives paper for August really speaks well of the things I've been thinking about this past month, and has a few stories from life lately in the mix. That, along with my woeful lack of updates lately, has convinced me to share my paper with you.  That said, I hope you like it.

We live in a world that often appears to be the antithesis of shalom.  As I sat in a movie theatre last week, I was reminded of the acute and all-encompassing brokenness present in our world.  The film, The Bang Bang Club, exposed the hatred of man toward humanity for me as it followed the lives of four South African photographers as they captured images of the violence among South Africans in the early 1990’s.  They witnessed senseless and horrifying acts of violence between Xhosa and Zulu South Africans, yet did nothing to stop the violence, developing a growing numbness toward the inhumanity of the brutality.  I left the movie that night, overwhelmed by the nature of man and the lack of peace in the world still today.  For though the tribal warfare of the early 1990’s is a thing of the past in South Africa, inequality, indignity, and violence continue.  Peace is still all too clearly absent in every aspect of life.  

Augustine names human nature as incurvatus in se, that is, continually curving inward on itself.  I have been constantly struck by this image since I’ve been here is South Africa.  Not because there is any greater amount or prevalence of sinfulness here, but simply because in comparing the paths of South Africa and the United States toward transformation, I’ve been able to see more clearly how far both still have to go.  Humans, regardless of race, gender, or class, are bent inward on themselves.  As our walls grow thicker and enclose us more tightly, we become isolated, and soon can see nothing but ourselves.  As a vessel on a pottery wheel, our walls naturally curve in, and we revert to a crumpled mass of clay.  We are constantly curving further and further in on ourselves, with eyes blinded to see, ears deadened to hear, and hearts numbed to feel any experiences outside of ourselves.  Yet this is obviously not what God intended for humanity.  

God’s intention is peace.  Not just peace, as in the lack of violence.  God’s vision of peace is shalom, the holistic peace.  Wolsterstorff speaks of the nature of whole peace and justice, writing, "To guide our feet into the path of peace, of shalom: that is what the presence of Jesus in our midst means, that is the significance of this declaration in the synagogue and to John’s disciples– that in him the word of the prophet Isaiah is being fulfilled.  For Isaiah was speaking of the day of shalom.  In shalom there are no blind; all see.  That is the significance of Jesus’ healing of the blind.  In shalom there are no lame; all walk.  There are no lepers; all are well.  There are no deaf; all hear.  There are no dead; all are alive.  And there are no poor; all have plenty.  To limp is to fall short of shalom.  To be impoverished is to fall short of shalom.  That is what is wrong with poverty.  God is committed to shalom.  Jesus came to bring shalom.  In shalom there is no poverty" (77).

The world in which I live has obviously not reached this shalom.  There is greater physical impoverishment present in Cape Town than I believed possible in the world.  The lack of shalom is made more clear in the disparity between rich and poor; townships and informal settlements are rife with violence, disease, hunger, and littered with garbage, while suburbs next to the mountain are spacious, safe, well sanitized, and never hungry.  The depth of poverty is perpetuated in part by the immensity of wealth.  Township-dwellers travel to rich neighborhoods to work as cleaners, caretakers, car guards, gas pumpers, or taxi drivers, earn minimum wage serving the wealthy, and then return home with just enough money to survive.  This poverty is more than just monetary; it is a social poverty.  It is an impoverishment of dignity and an impoverishment of power for people to live physically as neighbors, yet socially and spiritually as strangers, isolated by human nature.  These types of poverty, just as much as economic poverty, reveal the absence of shalom.  Holistic poverty exists; therefore, shalom cannot.  

In the midst of a wholly broken world, then, where is the hope for change?  The possibility of shalom is birthed in the created nature of man.  For though every person is perpetually curving further inward on him or herself, the seed of God’s original creation still exists within.  Wolsterstorff quotes Calvin in speaking about the imago Dei, the image of God present in all of humanity (78).  Just as much as human nature is recognizably broken and sinful, it just as clearly bears the image of God.  According to Calvin, the seed of the imago Dei hidden within our incurvated nature is the foundation for relationship that leads toward compassion and love.  Since the image of God gives every person worth in the eyes of God, it must also give every person worth in the eyes of the rest of humanity. Christ’s call to love your neighbor is then a call to recognize the imago Dei within one another.  But how do we, with natures that are continually curving inward on ourselves, see outside ourselves to recognize the image of God in one another?  The imago Dei is present within every person, yet is veiled, hidden, and marred.  The continual inward curvature of self encloses and buries the image of God and blinds humanity to the image of God in the Other. 

Human nature must be restored.  The vessel that has fallen inward on itself must be reshaped and moulded to become curved outward, revealing the imago Dei within.  Not only does this unveil the intended nature of an individual, but it also then shifts that person’s focus from looking inward to looking outward, to others and to the world.  Both aspects of the reshaping of the vessel are necessary in the move away from brokenness and toward peace.  By ourselves, we are unable to change our nature and our shape.  It is only through Christ that we are able to be remoulded in this world.  In Christ, what was once broken is being restored.  His incarnation into the world demonstrated the perfect example of a life created in the image of God and focused outward.  The Word became flesh and dwelt among men, and walked with them in His life.  His pace was three miles an hour, not only living alongside people, but seeing them, hearing them, living with them, and loving them (Bonk 81).  Christ’s life was our example, and His death and resurrection made it possible for us to be transformed by the Potter into vessels looking outward, following the example of His life.   

God transforms us to live like Christ, yet this is meaningless as individuals.  For centuries, Christians have tried to preach and live solely in salvation for the individual.  This is not the Gospel Jesus preached and lived, nor is it not the Gospel that brings shalom.  The church of the individual pietist has done nothing but create more strife, violence, and separation in the past.  God desires shalom in this world, and shalom is a state, not of an individual, but of a community.  Shalom will only begin to break through in this world by the transformation of community.  Wolsterstorff  declared that the coming of shalom is only possible through a change in communities, stating, “Only if we once again see society not as a heap of souls on a piece of ground, but as a God-willed community, as a living human organism, can there be a cure to the misery of poverty” (81).  Becoming fully human, or returning to the original shape in which God created man, is a communal activity of deep redemption.  

Imagine God reshaping a community, revealing the imago Dei within every person and shifting their gazes from themselves to the image of God in one another.  In seeing one another’s humanity, we can see the hope for shalom.  Yet it also becomes clear what stands in the way in society.  Suddenly, it becomes impossible to ignore the spaces where shalom is absent, where race, class, and gender remain unreconciled.  The oppression, injustice, and inequality created in the past and perpetuated in the present is made clear to both the oppressed and the oppressor.  As a community founded in Christ and focused on the Other, this oppression is no longer acceptable, and the community stands together against injustice and inequality and for shalom.  In her reflection on James, Tamez recognizes the power of this pursuit of peace in a community, stating, "In his eagerness to encourage the Christian communities James asks them to reflect on the positive side of experience of oppression.  He does not perceive the recompense for this unjust suffering at the end of time; rather it occurs now, in the heart of praxis, in the life of the communities; they experience wholeness and integrity within themselves.  Paradoxically this is a humanizing process.  In the very process of resisting dehumanizing forces, the communities and their members are humanized" (Tamez 47).  In seeing oppression and standing together against it, we are turned inside out more and more, living for one another rather than for ourselves.  And as we live for one another, we live for shalom.  We aim to see the end to every form of poverty that prevents and opposes shalom.  As we do so within community, we act as true bearers of the imago Dei in a world that needs to see the presence of God more than ever.

A few weeks ago, I stood with a few of my co-workers in midst of the charred remains of a woefully small shack in Sweet Home Farm, an informal settlement the Warehouse works with closely.  The shack had burned down around the the mother and her small child in minutes, and all that remained were the corrugated tin walls and a few pieces of garbage and nails on the dirt floor.  We stood in this sorrowful space, overwhelmingly aware of the pain, loss, and structural brokenness it represented, and prayed, asking God to speak, to comfort, and to bring peace.  As I looked out the gaping hole that was the roof, I could literally see shalom coming and shalom yet to come.  With one glance, I could see both a landscape of shacks in the immediate foreground, as well as the mountain with all its associated wealth in the background.  At the same time, though, I could see God’s peace breaking through as we prayed for healing and wholeness in the community.  The sun broke through the clouds and shone down into the broken ruins, hitting us with rays of light and hope.  Suddenly I imagined a small plant springing from the floor of the shack, a small but tangible piece of life growing out of death.  This is the nature of God’s shalom.  Out of a scarred and broken shell, the seeds of God in the world are slowly but surely giving birth to shalom within communities.

Shalom is not an easy aim in a world that exists in opposition to peace by nature of fallen humanity.  Yet in the words of Wolsterstorff, “Shalom is both God’s cause in the world and our human calling” (72).  Jesus calls us out of our inwardly curved natures into transformed community, where the image of God within individuals draws the body of Christ together toward holistic peace.   This is God’s calling for us in the world.  Though we live in a place where shalom is still so visibly absent, there are seeds being sown and springing to life in communities all around Cape Town, and all around the world.  So we live in community, standing together against poverty and injustice, and standing together in hope as we seek God’s holistic peace. 

just now....

which is not the same as now, or even now now.  And here is South Africa, none of them mean NOW the way people in the States would mean now.  Now here and now in the States, I've realized, are two entirely different things.

In the US, now is exactly this instant, without delay.  Time is of the essence; once you say now, you're on the move.

In South Africa, now is sometime in the vaguely near future.  Now now is very soon-ish, now is probably coming, and just now is eventually, at some point, maybe.

The moment in time of Now in the States is focused, narrow, and singular.

In South Africa, Now represents something broader, less rigidly defined and more fluid and free.

At first, the difference drove me mad.  I felt there was a lessened importance of Now.  But I'm beginning to realize that it's not less, but more.  Slowly but surely, it's changing how I see Now, and how I live in Now (Now now, now, and just now).

So all those thoughts to say, I've been living in the now.  But that makes writing posts a little difficult.  However, expect a more coherent, eloquent, and comprehensive blog post just now...