The Sun Sets on a Chapter of Our Lives

We have all known each other for many years, and now, it is time to say goodbye. Our small class of 79 at San Antonio Christian Schools has gathered for the last time as a class before our graduation in a few days. The ceremony that is now taking place is not fancy. Most of the class wears plain shorts and shirts, some of which bear the symbol or name of the school they will attend, bearing witness to the change that will soon become a reality. As the wind blows upon my face, I wonder where this wind will take each of us. Most people in the class know where they will attend college, but what happens there can certainly take anyone in a completely new direction. We sing a few worship songs and ask God to bless us as we each set out our separate ways. We plan to leave Branson, MO at 1:00 a.m. after five days of fun on our senior trip. Since this is our last night, I hurry back to my room after the prayer, hoping to catch a glimpse of the sun setting on the lake over which my balcony looks. I make it just in time. The sun is barely visible, but it is just enough to catch a couple of photos.

My only comfort of leaving this paradise is knowing that I will return to Missouri in a very short time since I will be attending the University of Missouri-Columbia in the fall. Still, knowing that the next morning I will not be able to wake up and have breakfast on the balcony, looking out on the water as smooth as glass and hearing the peaceful call of the geese, is painful. As the sun sets behind the hills overlooking the lake, so does this chapter in our lives. We know that our friendships will end, even though the memories will last, and our lives will dramatically change. Fortunately, we also know that, soon, the sun will rise again. New memories will be made, and a new day will dawn.

Restaurant Focuses on Reducing Disease

The outside of the restaurant looks like a typical Mexican restaurant in downtown San Antonio. Painted a pale pink, the small square building made of stucco was not a place I would ever choose to go to for lunch. In the small parking lot were only three cars at one o'clock in the afternoon. However, the little restaurant called La Sol caught me off guard. I went to La Sol to meet San Antonio Express News Travel Editor, Tracy Barnett for lunch. She informed me that the restaurant made Mexican food in a healthy manner, using whole wheat and low fat ingredients.
When the owner came to greet us, it was clear that he and Barnett were good friends. They quickly started up a conversation in Spanish. After a while, he presented us with our menus and left to bring us back teas to drink. During this interim, Barnett explained their conversation to me. The owner, who spoke English as well as Barnett spoke Spanish, had opened this restaurant because he saw a need in his community. Many of the Hispanic population who live downtown cook with unhealthy ingredients. The owner wanted to show them that they could cook food that was just a good without the food that eventually leads to diabetes, heart disease, and other ailments. It amazed me how this man was doing so much good for his community.
The only problem is the lack of exposure--the only people eating at the restaurant while I was there were Barnett, myself, and another young white woman. Hopefully, with time, La Sol will become an even greater success in the Hispanic community. One thing I learned- you can't judge a restaurant by its color.

I Am Still Learning

A while back, National Public Radio aired a story discussing how difficult it could be at times for journalists to get people to tell their full names. As a journalist myself, I have come across the same problem. I cannot help but wonder why people are so afraid to let people know what they believe. I find it interesting how people always want to speak their views, but if someone wants to right them down on record, people all of a sudden retreat into self defense mode. Should people not take care to speak only what they would be willing to have someone write down?
I have found that many people are so unsure of their own beliefs that they are terrified that someone else might challenge them. Clearly, this is not a beneficial attitude. I, myself, have been hesitant to speak about my political and social opinions, not because I fear someone will reprimand me, but because I do not wish to deliver false or faulty information to those who hear.
This past weekend, two people I know spoke ignorantly, and I must say that this perturbs me more than most other actions. I do not mention these two individuals to call them into rebuke but rather to use them as examples of what I have witnessed over my lifetime. First of all, the one girl, about my own age, began to speak about the Invisible Children fund, which gives money to assist the children in Uganda who are often forced into the military. When she was explaining the topic to some of her relatives, she said the money went to children in Uwanda. Having heard of this organization before, I quickly listened to see if I had heard correctly. Again she repeated, the children were from Uwanda. I realized that she was quite mistaken, as she combined the countries of Uganda and Rwanda, the country directly south of Uganda, into one word. Later on, the country was straightened out, and the girl understood her mistake. In the same day, I was talking politics with someone, and he said he could not support Barack Obama because of Reverend Wright. As most people had, I had also heard this often over the past month, but what suprised me was what he said next. He said he did not like Rev. Wright because he said, "God 'f ' America." I quickly corrected him, telling him that, in fact, Rev. Wright said, "God d**** America." In no way was I attempting to defend Rev. Wright for his comments or Obama for his spiritual affiliation, yet I could not bear to hear someone so distort the facts.
Lest one believe these two individuals to be uncommon examples, I want to clarify that they are two intelligent individuals. Although the first girl is not the most intellectual person I have met, she does attend a fairly elite private school and excels in the environment. The man most likely is one of the most intellectual men I have ever met. He is likely more informed on most every topic than most legislators are, and his only downfall is his extremely conservative bias. Still, what I have seen is that overall, most people make many mistakes when they are relaying information. The only action I can take is to inform others when they speak wrongly and encourage everyone to research and become extremely familiar with your information before publicizing it. On everything you say, you should be willing to put your name. I have had my share of downfalls. Speaking uninformed is one I have committed many times. The best we can do is learn. Maybe all of our mottoes should be this quote by Michelangelo, "Ancora imparo." "I am still learning."

Beating Heart

Just a little bit of my poetic side.

The Beat, Beat, Beat of Your heart
I rest my head and close my eyes,
To the terrors of the world,
How I long to silence their cries,
This empty life is like a mural,
Here, in Your arms, I lose all ties,
My old life soon is furled,
By the Beat, Beat, Beat of Your heart.

My mind is perplexed by Your ways,
I cannot understand these pains,
The non-complexities of childhood days,
Now leave me naked and lame,
The questions of life I attempt to delay,
But the answers I quickly gain
In the Beat, Beat, Beat of Your heart.

A storm approaches on both sides,
I stand to choose between them,
One brings death and one life with their tides,
I cannot avoid; they hedge me in,
I close my eyes- no open- I run full stride,
To the one that echoes above the sin,
With the Beat, Beat, Beat of Your heart.

Hold me close, to me sweet words impart,
Sing me to sweet peace, a lullaby start,
And never cease, lest You depart
And I lose me guide, my navigation chart,
The Beat, Beat, Beat of Your heart.

Architects

This Easter weekend, I am spending my time at the Lakeway Resort and Spa in Lakeway, TX near Austin. The money in this area is, to put it simply, overflowing. Because my family is not particularly wealthy, I still find the abounding wealth staggering. Multi-million dollar houses line Lake Travis on all sides with towering columns and magnificent fountains atop perfectly landscaped and manicured lawns.
Call me legalistic, but I am not fond of such flaunted wealth. Nevertheless, the architecture of such homes astounds me. The creativeness and ingenuity put into these designs are incredible. I do not wonder at the amount of money that it takes to build the house but at the intellect it takes to create it.
However, on my first night at the resort, after a completely overpriced dinner, my brother, father and myself went outside on a balcony to view the landscape of the lake. Under the light of the stars, the lake reflected the white and red lights of houses against the dark blue water in a pure and surreal melody of color. As my brother and father were once again admiring the architecture and design of the homes and the resort, I noticed a small spider upon the railing. This small creature made me begin to think.
It appeared to me ironic that everyone around me in all of their wealth were wondering at the man-made architecture, but this small invertebrate was spinning a web that rivaled, if not completely surpassed, the greatest of all architects with its intricate designs.
Not long after noticing this one little spider, I realized that an entire colony of spiders inhabited the balcony rails. I stopped counting after thirty spiders, fearing that I would soon come to the point of subjecting myself to nightmares of spider attacks that night. The manner in which their individual webs lined the balcony reminded me of the houses that lined the lake, each with its own unique characteristics, but all a masterpiece of design. Perhaps I am personifying the small creatures too much, but I could not help but think how similar our lives are to theirs, just on different levels.
When I returned to my room, my brother informed me that our personal balcony was also "infested" with more than ten spiders. It appears that no matter how much we believe ourselves to be alone in the world, we are not. We find ourselves to be subject to the ways of society and of nature. Fortunately, we are provided with intellect to choose our way of life, not based solely on instinct. One truth we must remember, however, is that we are not alone. I am not one to promote a "united nations" mindset or any stereotypical international community, but everything we do affects others.
Maybe the best thing we can do is follow the spiders examples and adapt to our surroundings. When someone builds a wall on top of your home, take the wall and make it a masterpiece, full of our individual, unique webs—our contributions to the world. Although a global community may be an idealistic concept, it could become a bit more of a reality, not through governments or laws, but through each person's love and concern for others. Each trial we receive in life is a piece of lumber, a strand of silk, which we can either toss to the wind or use to create our homes, our webs, our community.

The Nightmare Continues

This short entry is in response to Theresa Flores' book The Sacred Bath: An American Teen Girl's Story of Modern Day Slavery.

I sit, my heart racing, my hands shaking, hardly able to hold the book, which reveals such torturous events, yet not able to put it down. I feel as though tears want to well up from within my, but the anger of such cruelty holds them down. How could anyone be so evil! My heart cries. What have they done? Unfortunately, this is not the right question to ask. Truly I should be asking, “What are they doing?” For the horrors have not stopped. The injustices continue day in and day out. Every moment, every secret she tells, seems to be the pinnacle of evil. But the horrors keep unfolding. At the end of each event, she reminds you…there is more. It seems impossible, but it is true. More and more, days and days of torture that is too hard to bare, much less to think about someone actually experiencing. What is this? I ask. The story seems like something out of a horror novel. People taking advantage of an innocent soul! Ripping away her very innocence! I am enraged, and yet, because the story is of the past, I can do nothing to stop it. I long let the book drop from my hands, but I cannot! No, I must endure this, so I may share in her pain! Share in her grief! In her utter misery! So I do, until the very end. And the end is no less comforting than the beginning because the end reminds that the nightmare lives on for 27 million people around the world. It is the nightmare of modern day Slavery. It is the nightmare of Human Trafficking. The nightmare continues; to stop it, America must wake up.

If you want to know more about Human Trafficking, please look into different Web sites including humantrafficking.org, http://usinfo.state.gov/gi/global_issues/human_trafficking.html, and traffickfree.com

Simple Complexities

Have you ever thought about what it would be like to have someone else's life? In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens says, "A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other." In the book, as the main character looks upon a city at night, he ponders that "every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it."
Yesterday, I drove with my mom and brother from my home in San Antonio, TX to Graham, TX, a city with a population of about 8,700 and a drive of approximately five hours. Fortunately, I'm used to these sorts of drives. When I was younger, my family and I would drive three days every year to visit family in North Dakota. During these journeys, I've learned to entertain myself with music and books. But nothing compares to the time that I have to sit and reflect on the lives of others. Perhaps the most mind-stretching concept for me is the thought of farmers' way of life: every morning, rising before the sun to perform their daily tasks of feeding the animals and preparing their tractors.
Such simplicity, and yet, I wonder what they think of me.For I hold in my heart as many secrets as they. Both of us are doing what we must for survival. Both look at the same moon every night and keep time by the same sun. Maybe we are not so different after all. But who would ever really be able to tell because neither of us are willing to completely open up our hearts. Even the most honest person fails to expose himself to being completely transparent. No, the human heart is one thing that can never be taken apart. It cannot be fully simplified. It is interesting- the desire of man to simplify life. Man can never just allow things to be complex. We never want anything to be larger than ourselves.
An article in the March issue of National Geographic discusses a research project attempting to find a "God particle," which would provide a more simple explanation to life than the current theories. However, I find that knowing there is something greater than myself is the very fact that comforts me. Few things please me more than standing beneath the towering trees in North Dakota and looking up at their branches reaching toward the heavens.
So, with this digression, I resolve that Charles Dickens was correct: the secrets of hearts are "a wonderful fact." We must not mourn that we do not know all things, but, instead, rejoice that we do not. For with knowledge comes a responsibility to correct wrongs. And although we should help fix those we can, it is clearly impossible to cure all the wrongs of the world. Therefore, personally, I would care to leave this task in the hands of the same One who made the intricacies of the human heart and the branches of the magnificent firs. I rejoice that I can be simple and the world can be complex, and all the while, Someone is watching over us both.