04/27/15 Music-What is in my head.

This is for me in the future so I can look and see what music I like on this day, in no particular order:

Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly [explicit] - Rap

Being As An Ocean - Dear G-D - Heavy

As Cities Burn - SILYAYD - Hardcore Rock

Brandi Carlile - The Firewatcher's Daughter - Folk Rock'y

Rotting Out - Street Prowl [explicit] - Hardcore

London Grammar - If You Wait - Pop/Rock

Brand New - The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me - Alternative Rock

I haven't really been listening to too much lately. But this is what I have been listening to.

This post is about gardens and the lack of gardens and the building of gardens and gardens.

So I have been wanting to grow some foodstuffs for me and my future wife, because we will be married by the time anything planted now is ripe for the picking.  However, we will be moving at the beginning of May, which is after the time some of these things should be planted.  To solve this problem I have decided to build a garden, kind of.  I found some old cabinet speakers

at Gift and Thrift that I am re-purposing (or 'upcycling,' if you will) into planters.  Well, one of them will be a planter, the other is just going to sit around until I do something with it.  I have it gutted and ready for some plastic and some dirt and then some seed, and I took a couple pictures so I thought I would share it with the world.

I have wanted to grow things myself quite a bit because I have started trusting supermarket grocery store produce stuff less and less, you just don't know what is in it.  I'm afraid of becoming an organic crazed person.  But I will still eat most anything purchased from a supermarket, I would just prefer other, more homegrown things.  Hopefully it saves a little money as well.  This is my life.

This is the inside of it after I disengaged the speaker in there (I used the speaker magnet to hold all the screws, it was very convenient).  It was full of insulation stuff.

So I gutted it out.

And took of the front cover.

And added some nails for extra corner support because it was poorly made.

Then I put the back on again and drilled some drainage holes in the bottom with a screw driver, screws, and hammer since I don't have a drill.  My forearm is sore today.

And now here it sits, waiting for waiting for the dirt which will come next week some time.  Yay.

UPDATE:
Got some dirt and some plastic to line it with.

So I lined it with stuff.

 

Then I filled it with dirt and some seeds!  I planted onions in the middle, radishes on the left, and carrots on the right.  We will see what happens.  And I put my finger in front of the camera.  If stuff grows I will take pictures of the growth and keep updating this.

This Post Is About Mountains And Sunsets And Injustice And Hope.

Wrote this a while ago while trying to do homework on our porch and watching a sunset in the gorgeous Shenandoah Valley.

Take it for what it is.

I feel so small right now.  I think now of that movie with Tom Cruise, I think that it was Oblivion, where he and his “wife” live in a pod seemingly miles above earths surface.  Tom flew his ship around the earth from way above and you could see just how big the world is and how small and infinitesimal humans are on its surface, yet how much we can change the earth.  That jet stream up there must be going so fast, and how is it such a deep, pure, blue over to the north and such a dark and menacing blue to the east? It is the same color and the same sky, but it evokes such different emotions in me.  When I look to the north I see hope, I see pureness, I see freedom from bondage and freedom from sin.  When I look to the east I see a menacing storm on the horizon trying to break forth from the mountains yet the strength and height of those mountains is holding it back.  The blue above signifies the rain and torrents and storms that wish to break over us, but the mountains are able to hold it back as the clouds pile higher and higher on top of each other, seemingly insurmountable.  I can see the pureness of the sunset and the pureness of the innocence of the world to the north.  I can see the looming darkness and storms of life closing in from the east, and now the south.  I see the trees changing around me, light yellows mixed with dark brown and vibrant reds, interlaid with the lush green of conifers and the trees that have not yet started turning.  I’m not sure how to approach it, there is so much out there that I don’t know, and my life lies to the east.  I can run from the storm to the north, where there is freedom and everyone is happy, or I can turn south and east and face what is coming head on, to choose to dive into a world that is corrupt and a world that is changing so fast it leaves you blind to what is going on.  The clouds obstruct your view of the blue sky, but they show the blue of the storm.  There is sin there that needs to be fought, there is corruption that needs to be overcome, there are needy people who are crying out for help and people quietly turn their backs.  We all get so comfortable in our beautiful skies of the north that we ignore the looming storms and we ignore what God can have in store for us if we stand up and face the evil in the world.  When we extend our love I can see the all too cliché light breaking through the clouds.  I see the sun on the factory across town and I know there is hope there.  I see the beauty on the mountains that can so easily be obscured by the dangers of the clouds that we can simply look right past it, but it is there.  We cannot deny that.  To deny the glory of God on the mountains under the storm is to deny God and deny why we are here.  As the sun breaks on Massanutten I am reminded that there is hope over there, I am reminded that in the midst of political turmoil and in the midst of injustice so ripe it makes me sick, there is hope.  Yes, evil will come, wars will be fought, injustice will run rampant in this world, people will be killed, families will be divided against each other, sickness and disaster will come and claim those that we love.  But we already knew all that.  We read all that in Sunday School.  It is just so much easier to accept something we read in Sunday School compared to actually seeing it and realizing how hard it can be.  How unjust it can be.  And how difficult it can be to stand up for what we believe and be willing to risk the ridicule that is sure to come from it.  The sun breaks on the top of the mountain, showing the color of the trees, the deep reds at the top, the greens underneath, and the shadows in the valley.  The storm is still there, but it is in the background now, it isn’t the focal point of the horizon, I realize how much more is there that I can’t see.  And I also realize how much more I can see of the mountain from here than if I was actually there.  From here I can see the entire western face of the mountain, I can see the different valleys, the different peaks, the different ridges that branch down.  If I was on that mountain hiking, all that I would be able to see of the mountain is where I was standing at the moment.  I would miss so much; I would miss being able to see the difference in the leaves from the top to the bottom.  My view would be obstructed by the trees, and the clouds breaking and the impending rain, and the rocks, and the mountain itself, but from here I can see it all. I can see how much hope lies over there.  From here I can see how much hope lies elsewhere in the world.  I can see those that are doing good all around the planet, those that are sacrificing their health, their wealth, their relationships, and their lives to help those in need.  But when you are there your view can become so obstructed from the storms and the individual pieces of the world that we can easily miss what hope we could see from afar.  I can see now that that dark blue that was the storm has now turned into a deep orange as the sun is setting behind me and reflecting off of the clouds.  Things change.  Just because there is injustice in parts of the world doesn’t mean that there will be injustice there forever.  Just as hope has come into the storm on the horizon, hope will come in the parts of the world that need hope.  But it won’t happen just by sitting there.  Just as the sun setting in the west caused a change in the east, we need to make a change if we want to see change further than our local communities.  We need to see that there is beauty further than the Shenandoah Valley, there is beauty further than the mountains of Colorado, there is beauty further than the lakes of Michigan, there is beauty further than the United States of America, there is beauty in each and every person here on this earth.  Why can’t we see that?  Why do we focus on the storms and try to fix the problem with another storm?  Ask any meteorologist, two storms that collide cause a bigger storm, a worse storm.  We need to combat the storms by a different means.  But in order to do that we have to see the hope there.  We have to see the hope in the Middle East.  We need to see the hope in Washington D.C. as politicians bring the government to a standstill.  We need to see the hope in Iraq and Afghanistan and Iran.  We need to see the hope in Syria.  We need to see the hope in Egypt.  We need to see the hope in Africa.  We need to see the hope in South America.  We need to see the hope in Europe and Asia.  Until we can see the hope that is there, we have nothing.  Until we see the hope that is there, all we have is the comfortable blue skies of the north.  Our tiny little bubble of America that seems to be so safe from anything outside its borders.  But there is beauty further than the borders of America, and there is hope further than the borders of America, and we need to see that and do something about it.  As the sun sets in the west, the clouds change in the east.  As we move from our homes and from our comfort we can bring hope where there was no hope because we saw the hope that could be.  It’s just so stinking hard.

End.

This Post Is A Day-By-Day Synopsis Of My Summer

 This summer I spent working at Rocky Mountain Mennonite Camp in Divide, Colorado.  I made it a goal to take at least 5 seconds of video every day that I was out there and I almost succeeded in doing that.  I did forget a few days, but I got most every day.  The video below is the compilation of all of those videos, approximately 5 min 43.5 seconds long.  If you have a question about what a certain video is I have outlined what I did each day below, the date is in the bottom right of each clip and you can search for the corresponding date further below the video and read the sentence or short paragraph there.  Sometimes I accompanied the sentence or short paragraph of the day with a picture from that day as well.  I hope you enjoy my life.  I do apologize because after June 23 my camera broke and then I had to use my poopy phone camera for everything.

 May 25  - Set out for Colorado and Rocky Mountain Mennonite Camp (RMMC).  Drove from Harrisonburg, VA to Hopedale, IL and slept at my deary's house.

May 26  - Drove from Hopedale, IL to Hesston, KS and slept in an old professor's basement, visited some friends.

Drinking coffee and listening to Anabaptist History on a pit stop of this day.

May 27  - Drove from Hesston, KS to RMMC, about 35 minutes west of Colorado Springs along 24, near the town of Divide.

May 28  - Met a couple co-workers and re-acquainted myself with others and the camp and started Wilderness First Aid training (busy with this, forgot a video).

May 29  - Started Wilderness First-Aid training.

May 30  - Finished Wilderness First-Aid training, did some planning for orientation week.

May 31  - Started rock climbing & repelling certification training.

June 1  - Finished rock climbing & repelling certification and did a couple projects around camp.

June 2  - The rest of the staff arrived and we started orientation (video is at a campfire going through Mennonite Confession of Faith).

June 3  - Staff hike to Solution Pools to begin our acclimation to the altitude, along with some orientation at the top.

June 4  - Did the challenge course with the staff to get familiar with it and more comfortable with other staff members.

June 5  - Staff hike to Old Baldy to finish some acclimation to altitude and more orientation at the top.

Regal S. M. surveying his kingdom.

June 6  - Staff rock climbing & repelling, put my new certification into practice.

June 7  - Free day on Friday, five of us hiked to Eyebrow, across Sheep's Ridge above treeline, to Sentinel then back to camp.  First big hike of the summer.  We played nice frisbee up at 13,000 feet.

June 8  - Last free day before campers, staff outing to Woodland Park to play some ultimate frisbee.

June 9  - First day of Campers!  Senior High week.

June 10  - Senior High hike to Sun Rock.

June 11  - Mountain biking (and almost dying) with Senior High.

June 12  - Senior High hike to Old Baldy.

June 13  - "Tournament Day."  Supervision and music and planning.  Good stuff.

June 14  - Senior High all-day hike to Pinnacle.

June 15  - Few hours off between camps leaves enough time for a solo round of disc golf.

June 16  - Planning and late nights in the office with A. N...

June 17  - 8th & 9th grade hike to Pig Rock.  Go Red Wings.

June 18  - Deer at camp, I like wildlife. :)

June 19  - 8th & 9th grade hike to Old Baldy.

June 20  - Mountain Mayhem and old man scary masks...

June 21  - 8th & 9th grade all-day hike to Horsethief Falls.

June 22  - Story time with B. G.  Learning about German Anabaptists.  Day out to Colorado Springs to staff member's home.

June 23  - Super Moon!  And last time my camera ever turned on...  Also, 6th & 7th grade campers arrived.

June 24  - Planning and babies.  Yay!

June 25  - Camera was broken and no chance to whip out the phone without repercussion, played Mountain Mayhem this day.

June 26  - Repelling with 6th & 7th graders.

June 27  -More broken camera, but we played Animal Survival this day, I think...

June 28  - 6th & 7th grade all-day hike to Pinnacle.

June 29  - Relaxing and reading letters on Monkey Rock before big adventures.

June 30  - I flew to Phoenix for Mennonite Convention where I was able to help lead worship for the Junior High Youth.

Preppin' for the week

July 1  - After practicing all day we went to a pizza joint and I accidentally spilled a whole lot of red pepper on one piece of pizza.

July 2  - Took Junior Youth on a scavenger hunt through Phoenix, in 113 degree weather.  Dang, dat is hott.

July 3  - Got to join the Senior High youth convention for a time of worship in the morning.  Big room, lots of people.

July 4  - Visited the science center in Phoenix and got to celebrate Independence Day with Will Smith.  Actually, we celebrated by exploding watermelons with liquid nitrogen and something else.

July 5  - Last day of convention, we played four-square a lot.

July 6  - Before my flight left I got to go to L. R.'s grandparents and swim in their pool.  That is a very nice thing when it is over 110 degrees...

July 7  - I got to go on a solitude hike my first morning back to camp because the rest of the staff was on staff retreat.  It was a glorious time to be alone and with God.  Unfortunately, this evening was the evening that I blew a head-gasket in my car.

July 8  - A group from Texas was at the camp and we played Capture the Flag against them in Elk Meadows, stinking awesome.

July 9  - When you aren't in charge of campers or planning you get time to relax, watch people practice fly-fishing technique, and play guitar.  It is a good thing.

July 10  - Hiked Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln, and part of Bross this day with four other guys.  My first 14er's besides Pike's Peak and it was glorious.  Hung out with some mountain goats at the Lincoln summit while storms gathered around us.  A thrilling time.

July 11  - Went for a really nice run on my second day off in a row through some cool valley's.

July 12  - Playing Settler's of Catan with homies after a nice day of work.

July 13  - I forgot to take a video this day, I think I did maintenance and worked on shingling the roof of a cabin.

July 14  - Setting up for some repelling for the Texas group.  Did that three days in a row.

July 15  - Went to Crystola, CO for some burgers at the bar there.  Sang I'm a Believer on the way there really loudly.

July 16  - Forgot video again... I think I did more shingling this day.

July 17  - Dug holes for a fence, they don't call it the Rocky Mountains for nothing.  Later on in this day we had the annual Meat Fest where I had the privilege to indulge in Bison, Antelope, and Beef.  Indulge is making light of it.  I am certain I ate more than my body weight.  After the meal we did sawing competitions of logs and log-throwing competitions and then had ice cream.  Directly after ice cream (about 10-o-clock), 3 other guys and I hiked to Pinnacle in our boxers to spend the night.

July 18  - We got the privilege of watching the sunrise from the top of Pinnacle this day.  Something everybody should be required to do in their lifetime, it is a glorious thing.  A few of us then hiked over some ridges to Eyebrow and did some free-solo climbing along the way.  I almost died this day.  It was stinking sweet.

July 19  - 3rd grade camp started this day for the weekend.  I got to do some things in the way of planning some worship things, including reading stories about Wemmik's from Max Lucado.

July 20  - Read the stories in the midst of a big thunderstorm and hail storm.  We then made s'mores and had to wait for suburbans to come up and pick us up to stay out of the storm.  Kids are awesome in thunderstorms, by the way.

July 21  - Grade 3 ended this day, brother flew in from Philadelphia and father from Michigan.  I showed them camp and we went on a short hike to Solution Pools.  It was a glorious time.

July 22  - Took father and brother on a hike to Pinnacle.  Another glorious day.  Got the news that my car was finally done, so we went and picked it up from the shop on this day.  It was an incredible blessing to have family out at camp.  They flew out at 3am the next day.

July 23  - Led a hike for Family Camp to Solution Pools.  It was a lot of fun with the wide range of ages, from grandparents to 3rd graders. 

July 24  - Day off so I went for a run.  It is hard to record a video while running.  Nor does it make a good video.  Oh well.

July 25  - Was supposed to lead an all-day hike to Prehistoric Valley, which I had never been to, for Family Camp.  Found Prehistoric Valley very easily, but only one family came along.  It was a glorious time, God did good on this day.

July 26  - I got up at 4am this day to drive close to Salida, CO to pick up the wilderness campers and drop them off for whitewater rafting.  We also went for pizza and it was delicious.  This video is from driving Skyline Drive in Cañon City, CO, something everybody who enjoys driving and glorious views should be required to do in their life.  Also ended up getting lost in a gravel pit mine in the mountains due to faulty directions, almost ran over two families of wild turkey's, and almost ran into a big herd of bighorn sheep in the most excellent Bighorn Gorge on the Arkansas River, another drive that should be required.

July 27  - We repelled down freaking Baldy this day, 350 ft.  A most gloriously excellent time.

The view from the top of Baldy.  You can see the ropes a bit to the right.

July 28  - Spent my last day working at RMMC on maintenance where I pulled some weeds and made some name tags, among other random tasks.  A bitter sweet day.  Filled with goodbyes and tears.  Most definitely the best summer of my 21 odd years of life.  The relationships I made were incredible, and this camp will always be a special thing to me.

July 29  - I left for home.  Was planning on leaving at 4am but the car wouldn't start due to bad glow plugs.  Got the car started and headed out around 9am and drove to Illinois with A. M., then spent the night back in Hopedale, IL since it was a little bit too late to keep driving to Little Eden in Onekema, MI.

July 30  - This day I drove from Hopedale, IL, to Little Eden and got in my first wakeboard run of the year.  Little Eden is a most excellent spot for my family to vacation, because I love water.

July 31  - It was a little too choppy/I was too sore/it was too cold to do much on the water except kayak this day, so I did so with brother and sister-in-law.  A good time, to be sure.

August 1  - Another glorious day on the boat, some wakeboarding and watching brother shred the slalom skis.  More relaxing and reading on shore was to be had, for sure.  And eating, we ate about 1,000 lbs of food this week. 

August 2  - Went golfing in the morning with brother and cousins.  A good time, and the one time I golf in a year.

August 3  - Ran a 5k this morning and got first in my age division for my first time.  I also achieved my time goal for the first time during a race.  Then we drove home and that is the end of this video.


All in stinking all, this summer was amazingly incredibly gloriously excellent.  Adjectives cannot describe the way I feel about RMMC and the people that I got to work with out there.  Adjectives can also not describe the way that God created that part of the world.  I don't know how it was done, and frankly I don't care because I know that God made it and that is enough for me to fear and adore.  God showed up in many different ways; through the devotion others had to the kids, through me learning what delegation of responsibilities is, to learning to trust others, to kids blowing me out of the water with their attitudes and minds, to families fighting back tears to thank me for the amazing day, to the stupid times I shared with so many stupid people (when I say stupid people, I say it completely out of love of course.  Maybe I should say stupidly amazing people.  Or maybe just people that I can be stupid with.  Whatever, they really aren't stupid, we just did stupid things and I loved it).  This summer made me emotional to leave a place for the first time in my life.  It was the first time I actually wanted to/felt comfortable giving everybody hugs and saying goodbye to them.  I don't tend to get very attached to things, and I love change, and maybe it is a sign of me growing up and becoming older, but it was a beautiful thing.  I thank God so much for allowing me to be there, and for giving me the connections that I made, and the relationships made.  And I thank everyone who prayed for me and for the camp in general, because we couldn't have done it without you. 

So that's what I got and stuff.  I had something else that I could have said, but I forget, so it must not have been important.


Here is a happy dog.

This Post Is About My First Four Weeks At RMMC

They say sleep is something you need to have in order to live.  I would agree with that.  You see, I haven’t slept very much lately.  The last three weeks have been something that one could reasonably call insane.  Four weeks ago (about the time of my first post) I learned how to be safe while rock climbing and rappelling and also how to fix broken people while out on hikes and too far for emergency services to be readily available, otherwise known as Wilderness First Aid.  So if your intestines fall out of your stomach when you are on a hike, you can give me a call and I will know not to touch them with my hands and try to push them back in.  Anyways, the next week was staff orientation, which involved quite a bit of planning and leading orientation shtuff.  Also during this week we made plans for the first senior high camp, which was last week.  That orientation week was pretty much crazy with all sorts of getting to know other staffers and learning what happens with all the kids coming and stuff.  So then the kids camps started and sleep decided it wasn’t as important.  I did a lot of planning, a lot of facilitating, a lot of music-ing, and a lot of announcement-ing.  The same happened this past week, and it was awesome.  I also had the opportunity to put into action a game that I sort of came up with myself, which was both an extremely stressful and loss of confidence time as well an amazing time of growth in both my confidence and pride in my abilities to be able to pull something off like that.  Sounds confusing, but it isn’t.  We did it twice and I thought the first day went horrible, but it actually went decent, and the next time we played was much better and I felt much better about it.  And we will play it once more.  Then, after this week, I am off to Phoenix to help lead some worship there for the Jr. High Mennonite Youth Convention, about 100 kids.  It should be a good time, but we have to do some planning for it that needs time to do.  After I get back from that I will probably be out on maintenance or something strenuous like that, which I am excited for.  Mainly because I will get to sleep and hike.  I must admit, I have been selfish in coming here because so much of me wants to hike and do things for myself.  I do know that it wasn’t just out of selfish ambition that I came here, though, because God has shown up in ways that I can’t even imagine.  However, I don’t have to imagine it, I just have to believe it, because I know that He is here and guiding me as I run this race, and I am not running it in vain.  Hymns are rich, yo. 

In other news, I have become homesick for the first time that I can remember.  Which is sad, but it is a refreshing thing.  I know how much I care about my family and have always known that, but now that I have this feeling I know that I am where God wants me to be.  It isn’t because I am uncomfortable sometimes, but I know that if I would have just come out here because I am selfish then I probably would have only worked half the summer so I could get back home and also not been program director.  It’s all complicated, but makes perfect sense to me.  Now, I definitely miss people, especially my family and loved ones, but I stick to some lyrics a decent group of people sing; “We’re far from home but we’re far from alone and the people we meet are the friends that we’ll keep.” So here I am, living a piece of my dream and hopefully helping people see the love of Christ, and not just the love of Christ but also the awesome and terrible might that is God.  Not because of who I am or what I do but because of where we are.

Which brings me to a rabbit trail, or whatever it is called when you go off topic on a little rant.  So there is this awesome song called As The Deer.  I don’t know where the lyrics come from, maybe I should check it out, but one of the verses goes as follows; “You’re my friend and You are my brother even though You are a King.  I love You more than any other so much more than anything.” So the I looked it up and it was written by a dude in Seattle in 1981 named Martin Nystrom and based off of Psalm 42:1.  Anyway, this verse bothers me whenever I sing it, so I have decided that when I lead this song I will not sing this verse.  Why is that, you ask?  Because God is our Father, our Creator, the Creator of all the earth and all upon the earth and the universe and everything in the universe.  He is not my brother.  Friend?  Maybe, but even that is a stretch I believe.  I completely believe that He loves us unconditionally and Jesus came to die for us because of all the crap that we do, but I can’t feel comfortable calling God my brother and friend.  He is so much more powerful than that, so much more powerful than I am, and deserves  (and demands) so much more respect than to be called the friend or brother of a mere human.  I understand the sort of imagery that Nystrom was going for in penning that verse, but I don’t agree with it.  The love of God doesn’t seem like a lovey-dovey relationship, it is the relationship between a Creator and the created, the powerful and the meek, and our God should not be reduced to something less than what He is because is so much more powerful than us.  We need to respect the awesome and terrible might of God, not reduce it to something less than that just so that we can feel comforted or be able to “understand” what kind of love it is that He has for us.  I could keep going, but it is midnight and I am exhausted, and don’t want write too much past what I have thought.

TL;DR I have had long and stressful days, I have grown a lot, I love hiking but sometimes feel like my desire to do that gets in the way of the ministry I am here for, and God is way too powerful and awesome to be called my brother.

Here are some of my favorite pictures thus far:

Pike's Peak

Eyebrow

 

Running from a storm on Sheep's Ridge

Baldy Cave w/ Campers

Mountain Biking Excursion

Pinnacle

Pig Rock, Go Red Wings!