antarctica

My youngest sister and I have been wanting to go to Antarctica together for a while. This is largely inspired by the book Troubling a Star by Madeline L'Engle. We're realistic about it, we realise it will take a few years to save up the money for a trip of this nature. This week the first concrete step of planning was accomplished. Lacy found this expedition. Now, all we have to do is save up about $25,000 each. (And we will definitely be doing the optional extension trip to Easter Island. I mean if you're going to take a month and spend a year's salary you might as well make the most of it. Right?)

a long awaited update (perhaps I flatter myself too much!)

So, I guess the last significant update into my day to day life was written way back in the beginning of July. (Was that only a month and a half ago???) So, I figured it was about time for another!

I was in Florida for just under six weeks. I went down to be a summer nanny for the wonderful girls I used to care for before I left to do Transit and their wonderful baby sister who was born while I was gone and their wonderful cousins who live in Jacksonville. I think I can safely say that everyone involved had a great summer.

We were right on the beach, as you can see from this picture. This is the spot where I did quite a lot of reading when I was "off duty," not bad, huh? The summer was full of sand and water and sun and origami and reading time and ice cream and the dynamics of little girl relationships and naps and trips to the park and trips to the girls' Papa's tree farm and good food and all kinds of other fun things like getting caught in the rain almost every time I went out for a walk in the evenings. And big, beautiful rainbows.

No summer would be complete without a trip to the zoo and this one included petting and feeding sting rays. (Their "stinger" had been trimmed, apparently much like you would trim your fingernails.)

We drove back to Charlotte on the 29th of July, I think. It was definitely a Wednesday. And that evening I booked my flight to Ireland. I fly into Dublin on the 12th of September and will make my way north to Belfast where I will be living until I find a job or run out of money which I project will be sometime in December! No, seriously, I'm heading to Belfast to job hunt and make connections and do some volunteering and have committed to stay through December, which hopefully will give me enough time to find a job so I can stay forever, or at least two years which is how long my visa will be issued for.

So, naturally, I'm excited and nervous and thinking about packing way more than I'm actually doing the packing. And I'm sure to run out of time to do several of the many things I have projected to finish before I leave. So it's all rather exhilarating and tiring.

On a sort of side note I saw movies 24 and 25 of the summer this week. Time Traveler's Wife with my sisters, Laura and Emily, and Nights in Rodanthe with my mom.

I feel a bit like Clare in the Time Traveler's Wife. (If you haven't seen the movie or read the book I'm going to be giving away plot here...) In the scene where Henry travels to and from the bathroom. She's very pregnant, but has tried to keep herself from hoping about this baby because she has lost so many before. Henry comes back from travelling to the future where he meets their daughter, Alba. He tells Clare all about her and she says, "You mean it's all going to be all right?" It was such a moving scene and I feel like her. There's this thing that I've been dreaming about and hoping for and working towards for so long, but because it's been so long it's so very hard to understand that it's really happening. That the dream is becoming reality. I think it can't be true.

But in three weeks from today I'll be sitting (well, sleeping actually) in Belfast. And I'll never again have to cry when I leave Ireland because I don't know when I'll be coming back. It's all rather overwhelming.

So anyway, that's my update.

job hunt

I've been waiting a while to get my CV (resume) back from the dear lady who has been making it for me. The waiting paid off this weekend with a CV and basic cover letter much more strongly built than I could have ever hoped to make myself.

So now, I am ready to begin looking for a job in Ireland. I am SO excited and a bit nervous about this. When something that has been a dream or a hope for so long suddenly becomes a reality it takes a bit of getting used to. At least for me. I remember how I felt when I was accepted to Transit. This is a very similar feeling, on a smaller scale. (I still have to find that job after all!)

If you know of any churches or ministries in/around Dublin or Belfast or anywhere else in Ireland who are looking for someone to fill a position involving outreach to small children (and their families) let me know!

praise song for the day

On Easter Sunday my church, a non-denominational church planted by an Anglican church in London, shared a service with the congregation with whom we share a building. This church is Greater Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church, an African-American church. The theme of the morning was Reconciliation. It was a powerful and emotional experience. Our band combined with the full gospel choir to lead worship. The pastors tag-teamed the sermon. Much was said about the racial issues in the south of America. All I could think of was the sectarian issues in Belfast.

Truly, reconciliation is a universal theme. Each and every human being stands in need of reconciliation. First with God. This is what Easter is all about. "God was in Christ reconciling us to himself." Then with each other. This is the good news of Christianity. That God wants to restore our relationships, all of our relationships.

I was moved during President Obama's inauguration by the poem written and read by Elizabeth Alexander, Praise Song for the Day. I purchased a copy of it recently. Now seems a fitting time to share it:

Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other's
eye or not, about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors upon our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

We encounter each other with words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see what's on the other side.

I know there's something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.

weird dreams and good books

I have really weird dreams. When we were growing up all I had to do was say that phrase and my siblings would start groaning. Sometimes the Lord speaks to me through my dreams. Sometimes I can just see how I'm processing the day's events while I'm sleeping. Sometimes my subconscious imagination just runs away with me. I think Thursday evening's dream would fall under that classification.

I was running late to the meet kids and their parents at the drop off point for a kid's camp I was helping to run. I had half an hour to get there and I had forgotten my bag. My mom was supposed to bring it to meet me and she had not left the house and there was no way that she was going to make it before we had to leave. So I had to go to "Target" and just buy clothes and toiletries for the week.

I was in "Target" (which seemed like Wal-Mart meets Tescos meets Sam's Club) searching through the clearance section for enough clothes to put together mix and match outfits for a week of camp. (The prices were in pounds and the other girls in shopping in the section were British.) I wasn't doing too bad having found a 1 pound rack when my cell phone rang. It was Billy Connolly. I was surprised that he had my number but we apparently knew each other.

The conversation went something like this: "Hello?" "Hi Rebekah, this is Billy." "Billy, hey!" He asked me when I was heading to Ireland and I replied with my standard answer, trying to find a job... etc. He said I needed to hurry up and get over there because he was opening a new comedy club in Dublin and he wanted my help managing it. I was only half listening because I was still shopping so the details are fuzzy. He was telling me about how he was going to use the club as an outreach tool, I was murmuring along as if I was listening in spite of the fact I was really trying to decide if this skirt would go with that top or not.

So when he paused I said, "That really sounds exciting. I can't wait to hear more but..." Then explained what was going on and we made arrangements to speak later in the week. And that was pretty much it.

Now I can see where some of this came from my subconscious working through things I've been thinking about... working with kids, getting to Dublin, even the shopping. But Billy Connolly! That was completely random. To prove how rarely I think about him I had to google his name to make sure it matched the person I was thinking of.

In other news I just finished Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. It was a beautiful collection of short stories. I really enjoy short stories, but one thing I've noticed is that they are much more likely to be without hope than a fully developed novel. I wonder why that is? My favorite story in this collection was The Third and Final Continent, the finale of the book. The familiarity of feeling left me in tears. I loved this closing quote:

"I am not the only man to seek his fortune far from home, and certainly I am not the first. Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination."

I guess my thoughts have been caught in this tension of leaving and staying for a while.