Day 348

everyone's coming back to the apartment and i've got a couple seconds to dump a couple things out before concentration slides away. i'll come back before tomorrow's post to edit and put some links in for the organizations and musicians mentioned below.

we rode road bikes today all around seattle. everywhere. our adventure started near the seattle pacific university campus where we met indie musician noah gundersen for lunch. he had a show tonight on campus with david bazan (pedro the lion, headphones, etc) that we'd all be back for.

as is usual, i later split off from the group and locked my borrowed bike in front of a borders. finally an american bookstore. i would like nothing more than to one day have a chill place where i can have my own library of books and music and instruments. anyways, while wandering the sunny streets of the pike place market i ran into a new friend, chris, who i'd met a few hours earlier and who was a friend of parkers. he works for the charity children international and we got to know each other a bit on the street corner of pine and first. chris looks just like one of my baseball teammates from rock valley college except he has piercings of bone particles in his ear. i asked him why he does what he does and why he walks downtown and asks people to sponsor children for twenty dollars a month. he'd already tried to get me and i changed subjects.

his reasons were non spiritual and elementally human: contentment and the feeling of helping. the explanation was cut short by a homeless girl. "man, she would be so beautiful if she could kick her habit and get a shower. i can just see her walking the streets in a sundress and maybe a little bit of make up and enjoying her day instead of sitting and begging on the corner to aid her fix." chris and i walked across the street and he bought her a piece of pizza. after handing it over and him saying that he knows and wants to identify with these 'bum' friends, we saw the girl tearing her pizza in half to share with another bum across the street. a beautiful moment. i saw another homeless man drinking the last sips from a drink he scooped from the garbage. ten feet away from him were the shopping middle class husbands and wives and families. on the other side of this were luxury cars and shiny rims roaring over the downtown cobblestone. and nobody seemed to notice either of the others within their thirty foot radius. all these things connected in my mind and i agreed to sponsor a child and picked a boy in mexico because i'd been there a couple times before.

there was an awesome three piece bluegrass band outside the original starbucks and i leaned against a light pole for fifteen minutes. i was glad i had no backpack and didn't feel like a tourist during my wandering laps through the crowds of families and foreigners and shoppers. pike place market.

i rode along with traffic to meet back up with the other guys and we headed back to campus for the show. we chilled with noah backstage and the group of us took a walk around campus. we didn't even have to worry about seats cause we were all given reserved 4th row seats with him. awesome. before noah went up he asked four of us if we wanted to come on stage for part of the singalong for the last song. yes, that would be sweet.

the room was two hundred plus packed and when we got our cue we ran onto the stage to sing the melody. it was great. then the lights dimmed and david bazan clawed his acoustic guitar and thanked us for coming to see an 'old guy singing old songs.' his tone was milk and honey and the whole room was motionless for every tune. in between songs he'd interact and would answer any questions. at the end he told everyone to ''be sweet to each other if they really believe what the Bible says.''

dick's is a fast food, outdoor burger joint that hasn't changed prices in fifty-five years of business. that's incredible on so many levels and the high school kids in orange uniforms that work on the other side of the glass move so quick that it's almost unsettling to think that they're doing it for me. but the food is good and incredibly cheap and is also tonight's last reason to love seattle.

that's a quick summary. bikes, seattle, coffee, books, musicians, friends, homeless, charities, good people, food, and a somehow privileged life and journey. i'm so happy and so thankful to be alive.

Day 162

this morning, as far behind as it now seems, started unsurely. we checked out of the best western before eleven a.m.
that stay in itself was a massive blessing made possible by a friend's parents' frequent flyer miles.

adam and i soon realized halfway through the parking lot that we were not going to get far with all our luggage. we spotted a stray shopping cart across the way (it was the only one that didn't require a deposit to unlock) and like the two bums that we really hadn't tried to become, we loaded our luggage into this cart and headed to church.

that's right. church. during earlier stays in vancouver with kirk from camp, i met his dad kent anderson, a professor at trinity western, and he'd told me that one of his former students was now the pastor of fernie fellowship baptist church. he also said that i could drop his name if it meant establishing connection. we were now headed to this church, pushing the cart and pulling rolling bags across the highway.

the pastor was out of town, unfortunately, but i immediately liked the vibe and 'being' of this church. unlike portland's imago dei, which was cool and inspiring in an equally spiritual and trendy way, this atmosphere didn't hold any pretenses of guest vs stranger cool point deficiencies and seeing that we were bringing all our belongings to church we were kindly greeted, accepted, and allowed to put our stuff with the coats. young guys led the music for the service and we ended up sitting in the crowd of younger people in the front right. the sermon by a guest speaker was solid and i knew i'd found a place i loved when one of the introduction men, probably one of the pastors, told stories about his recent hitchhiking adventures to different churches and places and shared the amazing ways that God had been hooking him up through relationships of his past. he hitches to meet people and pays them for gas instead of driving by himself. sweet.

the church needed a part time janitor. i talked to the lady who'd made the announcement after the service and ended up getting the job. this comes at a huge time because i still need to find some work.

we met a bunch of the people sitting around us and became familiarized and accepted. among these people was jeremy, who'd played guitar on stage for worship, and he invited us to stay at his house until we moved into ours. this is huge. after leaving the hotel earlier with no real place to stay, we were homeless no more. from there everything fell together. i talked to the guy who'd led worship and he said they needed someone to play piano. i'm going to practice with them on wednesday.

some of the other guys at this house are amazing musicians. jeremy, who plays mandolin and fiddle as well as guitar, sat around with me and another stellar guitarist ian and we played blues and jammed bluegrass for part of the afternoon and evening. we really bonded and we reckon we'll start pulling gigs soon in town. a group totaling eleven met up in jeremy's driveway and we walked through the neighborhood to the park and played eighteen holes of frisbee golf.


large gold leaves were thick on the ground and crisp air flowed down from the huge mountains that surround every horizon of this town. even from inside the church the peaks reached and split the skyline. as we rode longboards to the supermarket to create some sort of cheap menu to cook for dinner i noticed that the air keeps getting noticeably cooler. dusk is sudden and the cold dark is deep once the sun disappears behind the towering peaks.

i read a book once, through painted deserts, and experienced a mix of inspiration and jealously at the exciting path that unfolded for don miller. i wanted that. as i turned pages and fed imagination and perspective, i knew that i couldn't settle for the average life, but i had no way of positively pursuing any of this. i don't have any control.

still, day by day, plans and people and blessings and opportunities are being presented and humbly received and i'm starting to see that this story isn't like what i'd thought i'd read about before.

this story is real, it's happening this moment. life is now. be.

and the best part is that i fully believe that if any of it should not never have happened, it already wouldn't have.

Day 121

today was weird, in a way. a friend from back home, in rockford, came through washington on his way to where i'd just come from on vancouver island. the most surreal moment in all this happened as i stood in a parking lot and gave eric final directions over the phone to the spot where we were meeting for lunch. soon, i could see the first familiar car that wasn't from here come into the lot and i was genuinely excited as worlds united.

i've been gone from 'home' for four months now, i think, but after this reuniting, i couldn't have been convinced either way that i was away from home or, had i been home, that this encounter and reuniting could have made me feel any different about where i was in life and time. comfortable in my own skin.

every detail of this summer and post summer arrangements and work have been fulfilled in such unique and inspiring ways. everything. the last week of camp, i had trouble sleeping at night because i didn't know where i was going for sure. i didn't know about temp work. i didn't know if i was brave enough to take this risk.

i'm starting to find that money is an issue for everyone. this moreso than the big picture of man and society and culture and obvious knowledge. i mean this in a way that makes me think differently about how criminals become criminals and how some very average people might make a choice in fear or desperation. not just crime, and i'm no where near this place if you're wondering, but since everything seems to so heavily revolve around money, i see these reactions and lives as similar- no matter what place in life they are.

i was stressed about money earlier this week because after camp, they would only give me travel reimbursement since the canadian government hadn't given me a work permit upon entrance and, as i tried to go back and get one, they wouldn't give me one because i was working for a non-salary, religious organization. i told camp to donate what else they wouldn't legally give to me to a specific homeless ministry in vancouver and also to supporting aids children in africa. either way, any donation was well appointed. thank you.

i've met many people living lives where, no matter their socioeconomic status, their lifestyle always seems to fall just short of the amount of money they have or think they need or whatever.

i've stood in the driveway of massive mansions and i've met and eaten with bums on the street this summer. there is more to this life for both people.

i'm finding that one big decision isn't going to make or break me. one big decision probably shouldn't do that, really, except for maybe salvation. steps matter, for sure, and so far each one has seemed to be guided and successful and i'm very grateful for this, and in this stressing to continue without money ruling the relationship of life and living it. simplify. if you don't have enough something, you have too much something else.


six months ago, i created two lists. 'i am' and 'i would' each respectively summed up the evaluations of my current perspective and life and also visualized hopes of what life would be like when it was lived properly. here are a couple examples, and i share these in encouragement to create your own.


'i am'

i am tired
i am happy to be alive
i am clipped-winged
i am not at ease

i am looking to take a risk
i am willing to start over
i am looking for a permanent perspective. vision.
i am scared to death that it all will fall apart for good (and maybe that i would decide that that would be okay)


'i would'

i would take advantage of the knowledge of those around me
invest more in those around me
build a new kind of life
make more music
make more, new friends
i would risk

all this is changing and moving for the better.