How I am

Well, the summer craziness is definitely here, and I'm sick.

It seems like this would be the worst timing, with all that I am working on and still have yet to finish. It won't do at all for me to be under the weather at the beginning of Hume SD - I'll have way too much to do that simply cannot be left undone. So, I took today off. I decided yesterday morning while I was working at 2am that I wasn't going to work anymore until I had some decent rest. And, I went home. "Home" currently being a small trailer with six other guys. Not ideal, but at least my roommates are good. (Two from Rwanda, a little brother of a friend from Dinuba, two from Joshua last year, and one who has worked here since last year and may be going to Joshua in the fall.) I was woken at 10am by my boss telling me that he had gotten a room in one of the Lodges for me; it would be ready in an hour. Then I fell back asleep. Not sure if I had been dreaming, I found him after lunch and, true to his word, he got me the keys and told me to get some sleep.

Some how, as I walked around camp in the business of the first day of Summer Staff Orientation, everyone who knew me already knew that I was sick and politely asked how I was feeling. I spent most of the time answering honestly, and sometimes making up stories about the new, odd looking scar around the side of my neck. (The story either goes that I got jumped while I was down in Fresno the other night, but was able to escape with only a failed attempt at slitting my neck, or that I was jumping from a burning building while saving a small child and caught my neck on the edge of the window.) The truth is I was sitting down on the lawn after running around the lake when a six month old schnauzer named Dudley darted around me, catching my neck with his retractable cable leash and pulled me over onto my side until the fast moving cable slid off of my neck leaving behind a wicked looking cut/cable burn. Truth or fiction, either way the story is hard to believe. But, that has nothing to do with me being sick.

I slept all day except for Lunch, Dinner, and the Staff Orientation chapel meeting. Now, it's nearly 2am again: I can't sleep, I feel about the same- stuffy head, headache, slight fever, achy all over, and now I'm hungry. But, at least I'm in a nice hotel room not sleeping, and feeling crumby, and being hungry. My plan is to be better by tomorrow so I can get back to work. However, I strongly suspect that to not be God's plan. Still, I'm drinking Airborne as often as recommended, drinking lots of water, not drinking coffee, and sleeping as much as possible.

I kind of want to sneak out and get some food.

Sneak out? I write that like I've been imprisoned. I guess I do feel like I have been. Oh, and I'm bored, can you tell? I've been wanting to blog more, but it hasn't really been a priority in the little time that I do have. My only free time I've spent getting exercise or catching up with friends. I like to do both of those together whenever possible. The last time I went running by myself didn't work out so well. I nearly got strangled. So I opted for a game of ultimate frisbee on Tuesday night. My team lost terribly. It could well have been my fault; I got bored half-way through the game. I didn't mean to get bored, but it's been happening a lot lately. Really, I'm becoming concerned about it. I've dealt with this before. Lack of passion, and trying to figure out what I'm passionate about might be a recurring theme in my life.

I've been missing family and friends, desiring to have "home". Wondering about meaning and purpose, what I'm supposed to be doing with my life besides just doing "the next thing", as my great grandma used to say. (Or, so I've heard from my mom on numerous occasions. Thanks Mom, it is good advice... just, sometimes I think I can hear something bigger and farther away calling.) Maybe this is the part of the faerie tale where the hero does hard labour for seven years. But, I want it to be the part where he leaves the dog, Sam, behind and sets off across Murdoch's pasture, goes kitty-corner from something, through Worzbisksby's swamp and in through the deep woods. (I'm ashamed I can't remember it word for word.) I want it to be the part where he finds something meaningful that he was made for. ...It's spring time, too. (Okay, so it's not technically spring, but there's still snow on the mountain tops, it's freezing at night sometimes, and the flowers and animals haven't finished starting to bloom.) I was running around the lake the other day, watching the beautiful things that God has made, when I saw a duck chasing another duck and I wondered if things would be better if I had somebody that I was chasing.

I was homeless for a day two weeks ago. Things haven't quite been the same since. I was reminded of other transient times in the last ten years. (Has it been that long since I graduate from High School? My goodness, I had to stop and count. I almost wrote six years, but then I remembered saying that several years ago.) I'm sleeping in my sleeping bag again. Well, not right now since I'm in a hotel room, but in the trailer I was; it's just easier and warmer than sheets and a blanket. I bought that 15° bag before I left for Africa in 2005 and spent way to much time in it after I got back. It's familiar and more constant than wherever I happen to be laying at the moment. Oh, that reminds me, I spent a while looking at the stars last night. They are constant, or at least more constant than all of us, and they remind me of the unchanging God who made them. They remind me that I am small and intimately cared about by the biggest, most important being who exists. Plus, they're just really pretty to look at at, and they are exceptionally... exceptional in their clarity and number during the crisp cool nights here at Hume. For that I am glad. ...and, thankful.