"And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God." -- Philippians 1:9-11
Here in Alaska the signs of summer aren’t always obvious. It doesn’t get up to 85, it rarely passes 70, and sometimes it rains for 32 days straight (last summer). So here’s a list of 15 ways you know it’s here.
1) You’re outside playing and don’t realize it’s 11:00 at night because the sun’s still up.
2) Cars become obsolete, you go everywhere on a bike.
3) When you take your socks off there’s a line – from the sun or dirt, take your pick.
4) When you can run in shorts and a tee shirt (sometimes long sleeve).
5) You wash your hands and the water turns a different color.
6) Everywhere you go people are outside planting gardens and watering the grass.
7) The sounds of children’s voices can be heard way past when they should be in bed.
8) Construction begins.
9) The ice cream truck goes by – this never happened here when I was growing up, but lately it’s come by everyday with circus music blaring through the loudspeaker that can be heard over a mile away.
10) Everyone starts to talk about fish.
11) You go to camp – (I leave in a week to be a counselor!!!)
12) You don’t have to go to school.
13) The snow finally melts.
14) The dog starts to shed.
15) Your clothes always smell like smoke from campfires every other day – my personal favorite.
People tell me I write my essays wrong, I say not wrong, just backwards, always starting in the middle and writing the introduction last. I figure then I have a better idea of what I actually am writing about (since I already wrote it) so it makes the introduction not only easier but also more accurate. For this post I wrote an introduction first, wrote the remainder of the post, then realized my introduction in no way related to what was actually written. This post is about why I love coming home. It’s about the things I missed while away. It’s about me letting out my feelings in the written word. So I apologize right off for the rambling, not fully processed thoughts that make up the majority of what is written here. Like I said, this is cliché.
This last year was the first significant amount of time I’ve spent away from home. Away from family, away from friends, away from the community I’ve lived and grown in for 19 years. And I missed it. Sure, I had a fantastic time in Boston, but I truly missed my family, my friends, my church, my community… my state.
Family
I am grateful to say that my family is, for the most part, semi-partly-maybe-a-little-bit-normal. Ok not really at all. But that just makes it all the more fun. Who defines “normal” anyway? I love evening walks around the loop with my mom, delicious dinners prepared by my dad, and just everyday conversations with my brother. When I’m home, I belong.
Friends
You know you have a good friend when it doesn’t take but a second to strike up a conversation and be laughing, joking, crying, or whatever like no time at all has passed since you last saw them. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t talk hardly at all during that period apart, it doesn’t matter if you talked to them daily about each and every thing in your life, when you are reunited at last it’s like no time was spent apart. That’s how I’ve felt in the last couple of weeks; each time I have the opportunity to add to the repertoire of memories I hold with each of my very best friends. Coming back and retaining such a great friendship doesn’t make it any easier to say goodbye. It’s as hard as ever to give a hug and walk out the door, knowing it’ll be quite some time until reunion. It’s a struggle. To each of my friends, near and far:
May the road rise up to meet you,
May the wind be ever at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
And rain fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.
Church
I am the Church, you are the Church, we are the Church together. All who follow Jesus, all around the world, yes we’re the Church together.
For the most part I went to church most Sunday’s while in Boston, but I could never seem to find what I was looking for. I’m not sure if that was because I was looking for Christ First United Methodist Church of Wasilla… in Boston, which I didn’t find, or if I actually just didn’t find somewhere where I fit. I did find a group at Northeastern that I attended regularly, and I made some very good friends with others in the group. Coming home though, to church, is one of the best parts of returning to Alaska for me. That might sound kind of weird, but it’s true. I love the glass cross window, the way the pews are always arranged differently, the new carpet, the weight of the hymnal in my hand. I love singing in the choir, watching children’s time, hearing Robert and Tori preach. I love the people. And when I’m at church, I know I’m home.
Community
I have lived the entirety of my life in a circle with a quarter mile radius. I’ve literally moved across the street twice (and then once to Boston, but let’s not count that). Wasilla is my home. Some might say we’ve gotten a bad rap, either through meth or Sarah Palin, but I think we’ve got more to offer here in this little town nestled between the Talkeetna and Chugach Mountain Ranges, more hidden at the bases of those towering peaks.
State
I love Alaska. Everything about it, except maybe flash hail storms in the middle of my run, though those do make for a faster mile as I turn it up a notch to get home, so I guess I do pretty much love everything then. I honestly can’t imagine living anywhere else, which is posing a problem for my ideal career prospects at present, but I’m not going to get into that now. Anywho, even though it’s just getting to what can be called summer, and there’s still snow covering all the peaks I want to hike, and I have to work most days, I still wouldn’t rather be anywhere else in the whole world.
This time of year usually constitutes dirty snowmelt, puddles, muddy fields, and brown grass. There rarely is anything nice about break-up, other than looking forward to summer. My favorite part however, and the one awesome thing about this time of year, is ice breaking. There’s like a two to three day window when the lake has just opened up but before all the ice is gone when you can go kayaking and feel like Shackleton on the Endurance maneuvering through the Antarctic ice pack. So here are some pictures of our Alaska version of that great voyage.
4) Hike Matanuska Peak (and Lazy, just for the fun of it)
5) Hike Bird Creek Ridge
6) Hike Twin Peaks
7) Run a marathon (June 18th)
8) Learn to play the guitar (for real this time)
9) Make a quilt (I'll need help!)
10) Volunteer at Birchwood (Middle School and Music and Drama Camp!)
If you’re around this summer and want to join in on any of these (especially the quilt… I have no idea how to sew!) or have an idea of some other adventure give me a call!
"Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble; or else the LORD will see it and be displeased, and turn his anger away from them.”
~PROVERBS 24:17-18
I try not to stick my head in the political bullfight too often for fear of it being chopped off, but in light of the Osama Bin Laden murder…
This is not ok:
I understand the patriotism, what I don’t understand is how we can celebrate so extensively the death of another human. Celebrating advancement towards peace is one thing, which is supposedly what this war is trying to accomplish, but celebrating this murder? Where are the morals in that?
I don’t want to come off as ungrateful for the sacrifices of so many of our troops who risk their lives to protect our country. I don’t want to offend anyone who has worked so hard to fight for democracy. I don't want to seem insensitive to the families of those who lost loved ones in 9/11. I pray for you all. I want to call to attention the unreasonable and outright wrong response the American people as a whole have had to this event.
A couple weeks before school got out a couple friends and I went to the Curry Student Center where we normally go to study some or do homework before chemistry on Tuesdays. When we got there, there was a mural project underway to promote peace, so instead of studying we helped paint. The mural had the word “peace” 70 times in English, Arabic, and Hebrew each, with the word “love” highlighted in Hebrew.
There has been a seemingly impenetrable wall erected between science and religion. Religious affiliates feel threatened when science tries to explain an occurrence, while scientists feel frustrated that religion “gets in the way” of scientific progress. As a Christian and a biology major, I’ve already felt the pressures associated with both sides of the debate and no doubt will continue to as I progress farther and farther into my field. This unfortunate moral deliberation probably afflicts thousands whose passions for science and God intertwine. What is the truth? Don’t we all wish we had the answers? Instead of this guess work associated with finding our way through life…
Last semester I took an inquiries course in animal behavior and ecological evolution. It focused on how behaviors evolved and linked why animals (and even sometimes humans) do certain things, and evolution. Why continue a behavior that is not evolutionarily advantageous? And more importantly, the behaviors exhibited today must be around because they are evolutionarily advantageous. Take humans and sweet foods for example. Why do we like them so much? There must be some kind of evolutionary reason for such a strong affinity to a certain taste of food. The idea is that everything we do today should be able to be related to a behavior necessary for survival during the hunter-gatherer days. So fruits are sweet, full of nutrients, and healthy. Today we’ve kept the sweetness but taken out all the nutrients, kind of an evolutionary step backwards but that’s not the point. This is not a perfect example, there are many, many factors that come into play, but the general idea is still there. We behave in certain ways so that we survive, and according to Darwin’s “survival of the fittest,” the individuals that survive and reproduce are the driving forces of evolution that allows populations to adapt to changing environments.
This course challenged me to think in an entirely new fashion. Everything relating to biology should be able to be explained in terms evolution, including the anatomy, physiology, psychology, and behavior of organisms. Now this poses some problems if you believe in God.
For me, evolution and life in general is a testament to the awesome power and might of God. It’s amazing that life can function at all! When you get down to the nitty gritty details, when you study how each interaction between the tiniest molecules have such a large effect on an organism, it’s incredible that life has come to persist. Life is so fragile, and so complex. Which is where God comes in. Take humans. Sure you can say that each function in the body is a result of a simpler function that has evolved to fit where we are now. You can reduce each process and feature it its bare minimum, and even then some to organic molecules, to argue that we have evolved to what we have become. And maybe it’s true! But can’t God be there still? Can’t God still be guiding life, forming life, holding life, saving life, even as it evolves? Why does there have to be an ultimatum choose one or the other?
There doesn’t. Science and religion can coincide. Part of it is not being afraid to say, “I don’t know.” Because, well, I don’t know. And I have no way of finding all the answers. I can’t tell you if humans evolved from monkeys or if God formed Adam from sand. I wasn’t there. But I can tell you that I believe in God, and I believe in evolution, and that’s ok.
So now I’m coming home. It seems strange to be going home, but I suppose it’s time. I finished off my freshmen year last week with a chemistry final and am currently somewhere over Canada heading back to AK. Overall the semester went well I’d say. I enjoyed my classes for the most part, except for math, and even math possibly had its moments. Genetics of course was my favorite class, which is good considering I’m a biology major and will potentially be working in the field as my career. Despite some frustrations chemistry worked out well, though I won’t go so far as to say I’m looking forward to organic next year.
One of the most meaningful parts of my first year here has been through my community service. I volunteered 150 hours this year. This service got me out into the community, where I experienced Boston on a whole new level. Through my community partner I interacted with people I would have otherwise never had connected with, and hopefully influenced their lives in a positive way. I taught a class of 12 first graders at the Fletcher Maynard Academy each week. Our curriculum was Engineering Around the World, and though I’m a biology person and not an engineer, it was still fun to teach about famous engineering feats such as the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids, and the Eiffel Tower, and to help the girls attempt to construct these items as well. One of the most valuable lessons I learned through this experience was how to be teacher. It is way more difficult than I thought it would be, and left me completely drained most days. I now have a new found appreciation for the teachers I have had in the past and will have in the future.
I have always enjoyed serving, and community service is not a new concept for me, but this experience has still made me appreciate more the people who dedicate their lives to helping others. I know that I want a career where I can help people. I used to think I wanted to do research in biotechnology, but now after having served more consistently for an entire year I think I may want to go field of biology more focused on the humanity side. Apart from helping me grow individually as a person, my service has also influenced what I may end up doing for the rest of my life. I am very thankful for this opportunity, and look forward to serving through Northeastern for the next four years.
I don’t know what I want to do with my life, and this first year in college has done more to open possibilities than to concrete my life plan. As is obvious, I love biology, and I’ve known that for quite some time now. As everyone has told me however, plans are bound to change as you progress through college and life in general. I don’t know what I want to do with my life. I don’t know if I want to go into biotechnology and focus on genetics and molecular biology, I don’t know if I want to go into conservation biology and focus on the environment, and I don’t know if I want to be a doctor. I’m still figuring it out, and as I take more and more classes I discover that I have even less of an idea of what I want to do. I suppose this is a good thing, Northeastern is opening thousands of doors and allowing me to explore and find what truly interests me. I am headed into biology, and while that may seem like a concrete direction, with how vast the subject is it’s like saying I’m in Alaska and am headed south, which could take me anywhere, and only time will tell.
