missions, metaphors, and mångata

"Did you know that a nuclear power plant saved the North American crocodile from extinction?"

Well, did you? In fact, I learned all about it today from a very enthusiastic tourist from south Florida. You see, on a typical work day, I ride out to the cabin I am stationed at for work, change into my 1930's era clothing, open all the nail pierced shutters (a story for a different day), and await the bus loads of tourists. Once they get there, I give a roughly 10 minute presentation on the history of the cabin and the people who have worked there. Afterwards, several things happen. The porch is rushed by a wall of people wanting to peek inside the cabin. Sometimes there is applause. I get smiles, thank you's and compliments from several of the visitors. And then, I answer questions. 

Believe me when I say that these questions run the gamut. I have been asked how much the typical sled dogs weigh (hell if I know), do the mosquitoes up here actually bite(umm...), do they carry West Nile virus (wait, what?), if I live in the cabin year round (that would be a no) and if the outhouse out back is functional (that would be a yes.) 

Today after my second round of presentations, I met a very jovial older man from south Florida. He had an enormous smile on his face. He told me that he could tell I enjoyed talking about the sled dogs. And then he asked me the question that begin this post.

I stood, dumbfounded. Was this a real question? How did we get here? We are in Alaska...right?

But this kind and eager man shared with me all he knew about the recovery process of the American crocodile population in Florida. (For more information check this article from 2011 and another from 2012) As he concluded his saga, the man looked into my eyes and saw the question lurking there...

Where did this come from?

He smiled at me and said "You gave me so much information about something that you love - I just wanted to return the favor."

In that moment, I shook my head and smiled. In the almost 12 hours since that happened, I have not been able to stop smiling that someone found so much joy in an exchange of pleasantries and stories.

All day long I have been searching for the optimal metaphor, the most perfect picture to paint in order to explain effort that I am starting via this blog and my social media feed. 

What I found was mångata. Mångata is a Swedish term meaning "moon-road." More contextually, it is a word that describes the road-like reflection that moonlight creates on water.

Let me explain.

Over the past several months, even years. It feels as though the world has been knocked off it's moral axis. Perhaps it is actually a worsening of the global human condition. It could be that media is increasingly covering and/or exposing appalling, bizarre human behavior. It could be that I am noticing it more the older I get. More than likely, it is a combination of all three. I don't think there is any way to know for sure.

A few days ago, upon logging into social media and seeing everything from the conflicting points of outrage over the Duggar family scandal, to the continued hate speech from all sides of the "black vs blue lives" argument. And I hit a wall.

Is anyone else tired of breathing in and absorbing this toxic human righteousness everyday?

Is anyone else hurting, laboring from the weight of hateful exchanges that we are constantly exposed to via almost every form of online communication?

Am I the only one?

I can't be. I just know that I can't be. There has got to be someone else out there who attempts to stay informed in these things and ends up feeling like the have bricks on their chest. Odds are there is at least one other person out there who sees all the lines that get drawn to separate ourselves from others and just weeps. I know that I am not alone. I don't know if you, whoever you are reading this right now, understands. Maybe you just drew another line to stand on the other side of - I don't know.

Honestly, I don't much care. And so instead of lines, I will put forth hope. I will attempt to help with the reflection of the good. I hope to amplify positivity in the face of darkness. Find joy. Find hope. Find a way to illuminate a path towards the slightly less heavy space where we feel faith in humanity can possibly be restored. 

I seek to create a moon-road.

Mission of the month: Attempt to post at least one thing every day via social media that is intended to bring joy to people regardless of where they have drawn their lines in the sand.

My first share is this article about how high school students in Wasilla, AK have worked to help raise money for a local organization that seeks to prevent, evaluate, and treat child abuse. If we could all put forth such an amazing effort!

on stubbing your toes and the idea of reciprocity

Picture this: 

You wake up. It's a wonderful day off. You have slept in to your time of preference You roll out of bed and the weather is beautiful. Padding to the kitchen, you pour yourself a bowl of your favorite sugar-coated, childhood-memory-inducing cereal. There is just enough milk left in the fridge for one giant bowl. On the way to the living room to catch your favorite late morning reruns, you stub your toe.

The several things happen simultaneously. You spill your cereal and the last of your milk. Not only do you spill it, but the spill lands on the carpet, the upholstery of the couch, AND your pajamas. Your phone also starts ringing from a number that you don't know, but you suspect may be an employer calling to schedule an interview you have been dying to get. You miss the call. They don't leave a voicemail. You need to get milk out of everything before it sours.

And your toe hurts bad enough to merit a growling recitation of any and every swear word you know.

If you are me (on certain days, at least), you spend at least the hour or two being mad enough at yourself and your stupid toe that you become perpetually biting and rude to any and everyone who dares to impede on your wallowing.

Sometimes it feels like one stubbed toe ruins an entirely beautiful day.

Now this chain of events has never actually happened to me. Or at least not all at once.

Days like this have happened though. Sometimes even consecutively. There has been more than once in this life where I react irrationally and treat others far worse than they deserve to be treated because I have been having a toe-stubbed, cereal-spilled kind of day.

Lately, I have started asking myself why.

Why do we yell at people from behind our steering wheels when we are late for something? Why do we push back when someone pushes us? Why do we pinch kids who call us names in grade school?

What is it about these situations that incite aggressive reactions?

Think about it.

Maybe you came to the same conclusion I did at first - it's human nature. But what about human nature could possibly lead to that? Not everyone reacts that way - so is it truly human nature?

Think some more...

And here's where I ended up. I believe this desire to cause pain in others when we feel pain is actually a way of seeking sympathy and understanding. When we reach out in a state of pain, be it physical or psychological, and try to incite feelings of pain in others, it is actually our way of wanting someone to understand.

Think about that for a second. Often, this reaction is so subconscious that when you read the statements above, you may have gotten defensive. "I don't try to incite pain in others - I am better than that. I love and value people. I would never TRY to hurt some." I'm not suggesting that everyone is malicious, rage-filled, or revenge addicts. Not at all. What I am suggesting is that when we have bad days, our impatience and frustration with others is actually a manifestation of our need to be understood. But instead of reaching out to gain sympathy and understanding, we use our actions as stimuli to create in others the frustration, pain,and/or anger we feel.

It makes much more sense to me that we do what we do to make people understand us. Whether those actions are good or bad.

Lately, with the insane amount and frequency of escalating violent crime in our country, I have heard much talk about reciprocity. The conversations that I have heard it included in essentially equate it to "an eye for an eye" sort of philosophy. If someone hits me, they deserve to be hit. If someone kills, they deserve to be killed. As the death penalty and police brutality become more in focus issues in social lenses, this is a philosophy that continues to be debated. 

Before I touch on my personal perspective, here is something we need to understand first.

That is, in fact, NOT reciprocity. 

Rec-i-proc-i-ty: (noun) the practice of exchanging things with others for mutual benefit.

Reciprocity, as a social principle, is the rewarding of a positive action with another positive action. Seeking negative reciprocity is more often known as retaliatory action. When we hurt others or seek to cause pain because we have been hurt, we are retaliating. We are trying to return our pain. 

Because we are so desperate for understanding. And that is human nature.

As for me, I believe in love. It all goes back to being barefoot. When we are being retaliatory, we are not being vulnerable. We are being defensive, fighting others to remind ourselves that we can cause pain and not just feel it. I have been there. Just ask my parents. My brother. Anyone who knew my all through middle and high school. I was very, very into retaliation. I didn't always know it, and I certainly did not (always) seek it intentionally... but the goal was there. I felt alone, hurt, trampled on - and I sought to make others feel the same. I picked words with punch. I found ways to remind people that I was not worth caring about since that was the message I felt was so specially constructed for me.

And then I changed. Perhaps I will go more into depth one day. But there was a summer where I realized that I was wasting my energy being mad and hurt. Sure, I had a right to those feelings. But why was I acting like a toddler? When children get hit, sometimes they cry. Often, they hit back. They don't have words or social constructs put in their head to help them express the pain and fear they are experiencing. What do they do? They seek to make someone else feel the pain they feel - it is a way of ensuring they don't have to experience it alone. And, if you have ever been around a toddler in this situation, hopefully you have heard an adult say "Let's try to use our words."

This analogy is so vivid for me because I just spent a year and a half being a nanny for three small boys. This conversation, for a solid three months, was almost a 3x/day routine. But it is worth saying every time because it is so important.

An eye for an eye doesn't fix anything. When we make people hurt to understand our pain, it doesn't fix our pain because it isolates the people we are ultimately trying to gain understanding from. Instead we are acting as conductors of electricity - we are passing on a charge that has to go somewhere. it funnels through chain reactions, leaving some form of pain and destruction in its path. 

I can't agree with retaliatory action. Not on principle, and especially not on faith. I think that is where a large part of my struggle comes in. I watch dozens of people in my life, some Christians, some not, who constantly advocate for pain. They advocate for isolating consequences as a result of negative behavior, many times through government action. And I question it. As do many non-Christians.

Because where is the love in retaliatory action? Where is the forgiveness and the vulnerability? Where is the willingness to sit in the pain of sin long enough for healing to begin if we are just passing on anger and hatred because we somehow believe that we are better than others? That's just not a faith I can stand on. Luckily, it isn't one I have to.

If you are a Christian friend reading this, know that you are being watched. Every move that you make is being held to a standard. It may not be right or fair, but it's what is happening. Please put down your need to pass along pain for understanding and instead sit in vulnerability. To say it will be hard and painful is an understatement. But if you are certain of your faith, know that you can rely on someone who has already been through it.

If you are a non-Christian friend reading this, I am sorry. I am sorry for any moment where I have acted in pain and caused to question my beliefs and my principles. There are no major world religions that I know of that advocate for the causing of pain to benefit one's own ego. I don't believe retaliatory behavior is justifiable. But we are all human. We will all fail. The only thing we can do is try, the next time around to sit with one another better in our moments of need - where the desire for empathy tempts us down a path to cause more pain. Please be patient with people because they are imperfect.

Today, I was watching an episode of Grey's Anatomy. Before you pick apart my taste in television shows, please listen to this anecdote. It's Christmas at the hospital. Most of the doctors and interns, skeptical about the holidays and faith in general, have been immersing themselves cases, avoiding acknowledgment or celebration of anything. An intern, Alex, is stressed and trying to study in between rounds to retake his boards, which he failed the first time. The stakes are high - if he does not pass, his internship is revoked and he does not become a surgeon. Systematically, the other interns have been helping Alex study by simulating undiagnosed patients. They one by one get called to cases. The last intern to come and help is Izzy, whom Alex has cheated on and lied to. Here's what happens:

This can be what it feels like - as a Christ-follower or not - to put a stop to retaliatory action. Even when we are mad and hurt, we choose helpfulness and forgiveness and vulnerability with those we care about.

Let's stop being eye-gougers.

what would you do if you weren't afraid?

And so it begins. In less than 12 hours I will get on a shuttle to Denali National Park where, for better or worse, I will spend the next four months of my life.

Living.

Loving.

...

Learning.

LEARNING.

I am so very excited about this opportunity but it seems that someone has forgotten to tell my anxiety that. I keep getting that feeling where my heart falls into my stomach and my stomach jumps into my throat.

 Which is exactly why I take the next steps. It is uncomfortable to leave behind everything and everyone I know for four months. It is petrifying to travel all this way for a job that I am only partially convinced I can do.

And it is breathtaking to do something that I am scared of anyway.

The past few weeks have been full of adventures, hellos, goodbyes, and a plethora of thoughts about how insane this is.

While I am scared out of my mind, I am even more ecstatic for the learning and possibilities that lie ahead. I am positive that when I come out on the other end of this journey, I will be a different person an a different track than if I had stayed complacently put in my life. Whether that track varies only marginally or is fully divergent from where I sat before, only God knows.

But I, for one, will be grateful that I did not let fear of the unknown keep me rooted comfortably in hectic routine.

Stay tuned for lessons to follow.