Clipă de Lumină

Folks, here’s the solution to the blogging problem–I have a new blog at http://bemis.wordpress.com (same name, but different site). Please change your links if you need to. This blog will be up for awhile still, but I won’t be posting anything new here. Sorry about all of the confusion, but I hope this makes it easier to post more regularly!

You’ve probably noticed that my blog name has changed already. Rest assured—it hasn’t really changed, it’s just become Romanian. “Clipă de Lumină” means “Moment of Light;” but it also means more than that. “Clipă” is a moment, but it’s also an instant; from this word come the Romanian words for twinkle and blink. This moment of light is just for an instant, a twinkling that is gone in the blink of an eye. Blink at the wrong time and you miss it entirely. This doesn’t sound terribly encouraging, but if God is the one guiding even our blinking, then we won’t miss the light. And again, life is light an instant, just a twinkle in the eye of God. But I’d rather be a twinkle in the eye of God, than a star on earth.

I have a title!! It’s not written in fancy script or anything like that, but I thought I would explain. I have a book of meditations written by Frederick Buechner–someone whom I respect very much–and his entry for September 1 (my birthday!) is fabulous. Here’s the complete entry:

“It is a moment of light surrounded on all sides by darkness and oblivion. In the entire history of the universe, let alone in your own history, there has never been another just like it and there will never be another just like it again. It is the point to which all your yesterdays have been leading since the hour of your birth. It is the point from which all your tomorrows will proceed until the hour of your death. If you were aware of how precious it is, you could hardly live through it. Unless you are aware of how precious it is, you can hardly be said to be living at all.

“All other days have either disappeared into darkness and oblivion or not yet emerged from them. Today is the only day there is.”
(Listening to Your Life, pg. 234)

I think it’s appropriate. I also hope that a moment of light is what my life is in this world–a light shining in the darkness for a moment in time. And I pray that my light (the light of the one I love shining through me) challenges other lights to shine brighter still.

Once again I’m posting this a week late, but here it is!

I’m in Romania!! I arrived three days ago and I’m currently living with the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC) Romania Team Leader’s family. My time with their family has been wonderful; the Team Leader and his wife have three kids and I have really enjoyed living with them. Sometime next week I’ll be moving into an apartment at a church across the street from the office. It will be nice to have an apartment, but I’ll also miss living with a family.

I start language lessons next week, which will be good. I was so proud to announce that I could order a chicken salad on day 2, but yesterday—day 3—I tried to order a salad and the man behind the counter immediately switched to English! But my self-esteem returned slightly this morning when I took the Metro all by myself to the office and made it just fine. I only had to say three words in Romanian the entire time, though, “Zece, mulţumesc,” (ze-che, multz-oo-mesk) “Ten, thank you.” Not that I fooled anyone anyway—the blond hair gives me away before I even attempt to open my mouth.

I received a Romanian Bible yesterday and it’s so exciting to find passages that I have memorized in English, because I can pick out what a lot of the Romanian words mean. That’s one nice thing about the Bible—the same words appear over and over again so it’s actually not that hard to figure out.

For those of you in Arkansas (I love you), here’s an interesting bit of information: the population of Bucharest is not much smaller than the entire population of Arkansas! I was reminded of this when I was leaving the Metro station today and I felt like almost all of Bucharest was going up the escalator at the same time. Two million Romanians who know exactly what they’re doing and one pasty blond ignorant American!

Hey folks,
Some of you know my family and some of you don’t (but we’re all somewhat similar in a different sort of way). A few nights before we left, my siblings and I were laughing at how high my sister has to wear her pilot uniform pants. So we showed her some support by joining the sky high club! I’m not in the picture (someone had to take it), but rest assured that my pants were just as high as the rest.

L to R: Wes (brother-in-law), Nathan, Andru, Rachel, Jeremy (my twin)

(I’m posting this a week later than I wrote it–sorry). By the way, I have added a picture of the moldy table to that post below!

I went sailing the other night for the first time this summer—I used to go at least once a week during the summer. My friend Megan (a senior deckhand on a tall ship), Sam (another deckhand), and I decided to go out on Sam’s 24-foot boat, Watermelon, instead. We went out at eight when it was raining and starting to get dark. The wind was strong but not overpowering and Lake Michigan was the most beautiful dark blue-green color because of the impending storm. God seems to be more present on the water and especially so when sailing. If God were a big human and we were little kids, motor boating would be like pulling God’s leg hairs for fun to see his reaction, while sailing is like being tossed in the air by God, filled with anticipation, complete trust, and just a tiny bit of healthy fear. I have a feeling of intense peace and a feeling of power when sailing, not in myself but at the world—like no one can hurt me because God is on my side. I love sailing because it makes me feel so close to God and so close, yet so far away, from heaven. Does this make sense? I was thinking about God’s grace (thanks, Melody) being evident on the water. God’s grace is the only thing holding you up in the water; not only that, but water, even at its stormiest, is like grace objectified. I can’t even walk without tripping, yet the waves trip gracefully. Maybe I just need to learn to trip gracefully also.

Speaking of grace and feeling like a small human, I was wearing a very large man’s foul weather gear that made me look like a ragtag four-year-old!

I distinctly remember spending the night at a best friend’s house and waking up in the morning to the news that her little sister had been born. That little sister is now fifteen and has a driver’s permit. I’ve decided that no one that I remember being born should ever be allowed to drive. That is why when I have kids, they’ll never be able to drive. I’ll let them be like their Uncle Andru and ride a broken-down, one-speed bike wherever they go. Of course, banjo-playing “Uncle Andru” might not be the best example for my darling children—he hitchhikes and sings about smoking a corncob pipe in bed at age thirteen.

In another three years—just after I come back from Romania—this little sister will be starting college. I think it should be illegal. By all standards (except those of my third-graders in Little Rock), twenty-three is not old. But why do I feel so ancient then? Half of my friends already show off their grey hairs; luckily, the only grey hairs I have so far are on my cat, Peter Pog (also old at eleven). Sweet Peter Pog just stepped on the keyboard and somehow switched it to large print; might he be hinting something?! Peter actually might be furry example of how we should greet the elderly years (anything after twenty-one in human terms). He just gets friendlier and spends more time sleeping and drooling in peoples’ laps. Sounds good to me. Romania, here I come!

CRWRC gave me a laptop earlier this week and I couldn’t get the sound to work. CDs would look like they were playing, but nothing played sound! I spent about an hour and a half one night troubleshooting to try to make it work, and it still wouldn’t work. Swallowing my pride at not being able to fix it, I brought it up to the IT Center at CRWRC. The computer guy looked at it, listened to me patiently, and then proceeded to turn on the computer, turning up the volume as he turned it on! Reddening, I said, “I think you found the problem!” He graciously answered that there might actually be something else wrong, but of course there wasn’t. The whole thing, besides putting a dent in my pride, also made me think about how we often completely miss the problem (something so simple, a lot of times) when we think we can fix ourselves. We can troubleshoot all we want, but if we’d just actually just focus on one thing, in this case, the volume control, in life God, then our problems might work themselves out a little easier. . . and without looking like such an idiot!

Even aside of that, I’ve had an interesting last few days. My birthday was yesterday, and I got to spend various parts of the days with various friends in different places (I even got to see Lindsay and Eric–thanks for the amazing ice cream at midnight!). I came home to my parents house yesterday afternoon. They aren’t around because they’re temporarily living in Nebraska, so their house has been empty of people, but not furniture. I never knew that dining room tables could mold! Apparently their house has been a little humid. The table had blue fuzz growing on it! So did the dictionary. And several other things. I’ve spent most of today trying to buy a dehumidifier (not an easy task), and bleaching mold off of things. Once more, I am humbled, and once more, I want fewer things. Less stuff=less mold! Spiders seem to like empty houses as well. Good thing I’m not afraid of spiders (not daddy-long-legs anyway–the one that looked like a brown recluse was a different story).

But it’s been fun–I can crank up the music and laugh at the thought of my first reaction on seeing the mold (astonished disbelief with a side of laughter). Have a wonderful day filled with blessings, peace, and hopefully no fuzzy blueness.

Look–MOLD!! Guess which half of the table I had already washed?

Here I am eating my sardines (yes, I like sardines) in my hotel room in Grand Rapids, MI. I’ve been contemplating my aloneness, the aloneness that happens everytime I leave. At the moment, it’s probably good that I’m alone since the sardine smell has left the room a little fishy. I’m back from training in Colorado and I miss being there. When I talked to my mom as I was leaving and said that I didn’t want to leave, she commented that I never want to leave where I am. This is only partially true. I love going new places and starting new adventures, but the sadness in leaving the people that I love (even if I have only known them for three weeks) is almost enough to make me never want to leave anyplace again. And I’ve made a habit of leaving for the last couple of years. So I guess that means I’m a sad person. I am sad, but in the midst of the sadness there is still the joy of what comes next and the memories of the people I’m leaving. It wouldn’t be so bad if the people just came with me wherever I go. Places are hard to leave, but they don’t love you back like people. I’m self-centered enough to think that life should revolve around me. My friends should follow me wherever I go and if they can’t do that, they should at least quit having fun when I’m not around.

On the flipside, I’m leaving for Romania in TWO WEEKS!! I am so excited! So here is the paradox: I am in deep sadness when leaving, while at the same time I can barely contain my joy in FINALLY leaving. MTI (Mission Training International) would be proud; they continually talked about the paradoxes in the life of a missionary. I’ve decided that I should no longer be called a “missionary”–it just brings negative stereotypes with it–call me a walking paradox instead.

This is the last week of training at Mission Training International (MTI), and I don’t want to leave. This place has been more of a home to me than anywhere else since the end of June. I’ve lived here longer, have made wonderful friends, and have gotten to live in a real Christian Community once again. And in many ways this community has been more rewarding than college even because of the more diverse nature of the participants (not just 18-22 years old). Probably the most important part of this community is that we are one in our purpose and understand each other. I have some family and friends that understand some of my life right now, but unless you are also raising support, preparing to leave the country for the indefinite future, moving more times in the past year than you can count, and are trying to explain the calling on your life, it is difficult to comprehend why I’m doing the things I do. It would be like me trying to understand someone taking the vows of a monk. It just doesn’t make sense to me, and I will never understand it fully unless I become a monk myself (which obviously won’t happen)!