Wow, every new adventure I’ve done has left me with this feeling. On the first day of classes every school year I get home in the afternoon and take a very deep nap. I had to do the same with Seattle. Boston’s first day was also as taxing. I’m not feeling like it’s impossible, thankfully, but I am noticing that the energy I spent on the first day was mainly through absorbing. I’m not sure how much they know about me yet. I haven’t talked and shared a lot. They do know that I’m good with technology. It’s kind of sad that when I was showing Matt my laptop’s internet connection through my cell phone we realized that it was faster than the church’s connection. Hopefully with the new building the service will improve! Today I got most of the VBS stuff set up on my computer and I’ll transfer it to their server tomorrow morning. I think we may have over 100 kids this summer for the combined VBS we do with the Catholic, Lutheran and Methodist churches.
I am learning people’s names pretty well, though, and am incredibly excited about the new building project. The energy and fellowship that I saw with the team working on the new building was great! Rodger (who I’m living with) and Matt (the Associate Minister at Keokuk) were telling me that the volunteers are retired people who spend four hours each day building the inside of the new building. And I’ll tell you: they have skills! Everyone there gets involved and has a great time talking and sharing in the different projects. I’m still working on names, but the women (Carolyn, Phyllis, Shirley, Mary and Patty) who were working on cutting and installing the ceiling tiles were hilarious. It was obvious they loved the group they were in and the project they were doing.
To say I’m spoiled by the congregation so far is a complete understatement. Bill (the Senior Minister at the church) is gone this week at Week of Compassion meetings and Peter and Annaliese’s Wedding in TX, so they’re having me use his office until next week. When I came in this morning, there was a gift basket that just plain made me giddy! In it was bottled water, Cheerios, trail mix (how perfect!), a Wal-Mart gift card, and something that completely shocked me but was exactly what I needed: a YMCA membership card for the summer!!!! It’s already off to a fun start.
Keokuk Internship: Spoiled
Keokuk Internship: So good? SO GREAT!!!
OK, so I’m now in Keokuk. What a place. I’ve only driven by the church, but I start work tomorrow morning, so it’ll all be good. Tonight was a great start to my summer here, though. Rodger and Lucille Whitaker are the first couple that I’m staying with. When I first drove to the house, I accidentally passed it (I used the excuse that I needed to see the house numbers first). After I drove around the block (one-way street), Rodger greeted me when I pulled into the driveway. We put some of my stuff in my room and then I parked my car in the street and we sat on the front porch and talked for about half an hour before he and Lucille started making dinner.
Here are some of the reason I miss Iowa so much:
- When I drove up from Ft. Worth a week ago, it was 102 when I left and it was an 11.5 hour drive.
- When I drove down to Keokuk today, it was in the mid-70s and it took about 4 hours, but that’s because I stopped and visited with my grandmother along the way in Fairfield.
- Iowans know how to eat. Sure, Texans can do some things great; but, my dinner tonight with Rodger and Lucille was t-bone steaks, potatoes, bread and butter and salads. What a meal. They were complaining too, because they said that they have steaks a lot but they’re usually bigger. WOW!
- On my way through all of the small towns, including when I was getting lost trying to find Hwy 34 again in Fairfield, people would wave at you even though they had no idea who you were. It was great. I actually enjoyed getting lost. I knew I wasn’t near the right road, but it didn’t matter.
- Tonight when I was talking to my parents and Ariane, I walked down the Main Street to the HyVee (the big grocery chain in the Midwest) which was 2 miles away from the house, got a pop (yes, they call it pop up here still — hehe), and then walked back. It was a relaxing time and while there was a lot of traffic, it was still calming. Lucille told me that 8 blocks the other way is the river — I’m definitely going to need to walk to that too!
Work starts tomorrow morning and I’m incredibly anxious to start. I only have a vague idea of what to expect. Expect to hear more about it as the summer progresses though. So when my mom asked me how it is so far, the only way I could respond was “so good … no … so great!” 
Revenge of the Sith
OK, I’ll admit it. When I was in middle school, I craved Star Wars. I bought all of the books that were out at that time and read them (most of them twice). I made my own legos into characters before Lego actually came out with the Star Wars themed ones. One summer I watched the first trilogy at least once a week. I was hooked.
Now that I’ve “matured” (catch the tongue-in-cheek I’m doing), I thought that I wouldn’t be able to fall into such a deep obsession as that one. I thought I’d be able to enjoy the prequel trilogy as movies and not be obsessed with the deeper meaning some of the characters try to convey. I should have known better. With the first movie, The Phantom Menace, I was able to dismiss a bunch of it because of one character who annoyed me: Jar Jar. It was a movie I thought was more for kids than adults. The second movie gave some great insight into the roles of mentorship and had some great fight scenes, but other than that, it didn’t have a deep insight that left me saying, “yes, totally right” or “no, they missed it there.” The Attack of the Clones was a transition movie that was about filling the necessary elements of the plot.
I expected Revenge of the Sith to be exactly another version of that. It had to show the evolution of Anakin to Vader and tie up a lot of different loose-ends such as Luke and Leia (yeah, I know, it’s almost a travesty to call two of the heros in the original trilogy loose-ends). It did that and more. Wow, I’m still realing (or I guess reeling) from all of the content it got through. More than any of the other prequels, however, this movie had the richest plot. It was full of material!
So what deep meaning did you all find in it (if you’ve seen it)? Part of me loved that they showed all of the paths to the dark side. They showed why Anakin was attracted to it and why it was tempting. A couple of things bugged me about it, though. The “good” position portrayed was the light side of the force, which maintained a close-minded perspective to learning. Anakin was discouraged from learning about the dark side because it would cloud his ability to discern. This position made sense; I’m hoping that others don’t take it in respect to real-life learning. As a Religion major I’ve known several people who are convinced that learning about other religions or even other perspectives within their own religion brings as much of a danger as the movie posed with Anakin. Learning about these things and even going through the process of discerning is, for them, evil. How am I supposed to appreciate this attitude since it’s so contrary to what I think?
Even more than appreciating the Jedi’s attitude, I have to reconcile that with one of the comments they said: “Only the Sith make absolutes.” The comment struck me because their attitude seems like the one full of the most absolutes. The dark side is “bad.” Don’t venture into any of the things that lead to it. Palpatine was the relativist if anyone was. He was the one who appealed to Anakin by arguing that everyone tries to keep power once they have it, both himself and the Jedi. The thing that bothers me the most, which means George Lucas and the others have done their job well, is that I could see myself being convinced by Palpatine’s arguments. His argument was persuasive and it made sense to me why Anakin chose it. Is that the final revenge? Besides almost annihilating the Jedi is the real revenge that the Sith argument fools the senators and the audience as well?
I absolutely loved this movie. The plot development was great. The characters were great. The connections were phenomenal (when you have five other movies to link, though, it doesn’t take a miracle to link them somehow). If I would watch the entire six-part series in a weekend, this movie would be my favorite. Am I going to see it again in theaters? Probably not. I’m going to wait for it to come out on DVD. Wow … what a movie!
Serenity
My hike that I did on the Appalachian Trail was difficult. None of those who went on it with me would argue that.
We ended up finishing the 41.1 miles in 72 hours. Little did we know as we were going along that the trail was expanded and relocated on one of our hardest days. Some of the moments were wonderful. The views from the tops of the mountains were great. Here’s a picture I took of the valley our campsite from the first night overlooked:
The next morning we had our quick trips up two mountains that knocked us around. The first one was a 1000 ft rise and the second one was 700 ft from that. They got up there. Let’s just say I was tired!
I titled this entry “Serenity” because of my favorite moment of the entire trip. No, it wasn’t when I got to put my pack off my back for good (although that’s a close second). After the first full day of hiking when we had the added sections, we camped beside a river. Have you ever seen the movie version of Norman Mailer’s A River Runs Through It (directed by Robert Redford I think)? In it, the closing scene is an old man fly fishing in a river with dark tints from the gorgeous sunset overhead. I had a moment where I could only say Thank You to God. I was filtering water (I ended up doing almost 8 liters at that stop) and I’d climbed over some rocks and was sitting about three feet into the river on a flat rock that was level with the water surface. It was gorgeous to just look down the river. Then something truly serene happened. I only wish I’d have had my camera with me at the moment (then again, I probably would have completely missed the point). Two Canadian geese flew overhead and landed about 50 yards upstream. They then paddled down the river until they were within 10 feet of me. They stopped and looked at me as I kept filtering the water. Not only could I not believe it, but then I couldn’t believe how long they stayed. It had to have been around 20 minutes with them that close to me. The only thing that kept going through my head was a line from the Joni Mitchell song “Both Sides Now”: I look at life from both sides now … it’s life’s illusions I recall / I really don’t know life at all. The amount of times this is true will be uncountable as I go through life. What’s clear is that this is one of them.
I made Bill promise me when he was planning this that there’d be some great views. The previous year we’d hiked to the top of one or two big mountains that didn’t have any views; they were just clumps of trees with no outlooks. This hike was hard, but the views were great. We topped mountains and could see 360 degrees around us. We went through valleys with luscious green ravines. We went by a great waterfall on the last day. The one view Bill couldn’t have planned for was two Canadian geese on a gorgeous river at sunset that made the entire trip worth it. Serenity. It’s something which we can rarely create. We passively fall into it and actively enjoy its benefits.
