getting older

I suppose the best part of a birthday is not double snowshoeing,

breakfasts out,

two delicious cakes made by my roommate (in a sugarless month),

getting tipsy,

or a room-full of good and new friends,

just as the best part of being 23 wasn't singing karaoke,

finally liking tomatoes,

obtaining a new car

(and supporting myself),

or making it through a hell of a year.

In the end, I think, I am so happy to be 24 because I am learning to let go

to receive others

to draw boundaries

to find my identity and value only in Christ

and to walk in freedom and honor like the daughter I am

Yes, all her paths are peace.

23 on the 23rd / de besinos y estrellas

Yesterday, like dear Ms. Kong, a long bus ride invited space to look better at what hovers at my edges and under the surface. To breathe and allow gratitude and longing to eclipse the sorrow and unfurl where they may.

I am 23. I live in Honduras. I speak Spanish, or daily try to. Somehow I became friends with the brightest and most beautiful and strong women in the world. And a mountain-man, a mountain of a man, wants to share this story. Yes, even with the hardness, this is a good year.

winter celebrations

Am I really 22 now? That used to sound so old.

01.23.09 [on the occasion of the author's 21st birthday]

okay, so, truth be told, i have not felt this young for many, many years

We Cannot Turn Back

"Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force."

two decades old am i, 1.23

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.

I circle around G-d, around the primordial tower.
I've been circling around for thousands of years
and I still don't know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?
--Rilke

may the dream live on

"No; no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream."
-MLK

"I must have justice, or I will destroy myself. And not justice in some remote and infinite time and space, but here on Earth... I want to see with my own eyes the lamb lie down with the lion and the victim rise up and embrace his murderer. I want to be there when everyone suddenly understands what it has all been about. All the religions of the world are built on this longing, and I am a believer."
-Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamozov

"The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the yearling together. And the little child shall lead them."
-Isaiah 11:6