An 11-hour flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

A 3.5-hour flight to Ushuaia.

A 2.5-day ship expedition across the Drake Passage.

A 7am wake up call came over the intercom system from the hotel manager aboard our ship, “Good morning and welcome to Antarctica!” The ship was finally protected by land and moving slowly. The engine murmured instead of roared. The harsh beating of the waves against the ship was now just a slosh. The rhythmic motion of the cabin bed curtains opening and closing stopped. Personal items were silent in the drawers. Best of all, we crawled out of bed, stood up, and walked around the cabin as we got ready for breakfast. We stood. We walked. It had been two days since we were able to accomplish these tasks without risking injury. After so many long days of travel, we had finally arrived at one of the most remote places in the world. Why hello, Antarctica.

By 10am we had dressed in three layers of clothing, put on our waterproof boots and our self-inflatable life jackets, and stepped onto the ship’s gangway in order to board a zodiac for our first landing on Antarctica.

Antarctica is another planet, except that it’s not. I inhale its air for the first time. It reminds me of fresh, crisp mountain air that I have tasted before, but there is a purity and flavor here that is set apart. A wall of snow hundreds of feet high hides the base of the mountains in front of me. There are no rolling foothills, just peaks that dramatically burst into the sky. Nothing is gradual or subtle here. The peaks of the mountains come in and out of view as the clouds and fog shift. The weather was quite the story-teller throughout the trip, creating complex, unpredictable, mysterious stories with the sun and clouds and rain. Nothing is simple or plain here.

About ten of us load onto a zodiac. Sitting in our inflatable boat, I look up. We are a blip next to the ship. We are a speck of dirt next to Antarctica. This scale, this vastness, this incomprehensible beauty cannot possibly exist on Earth, but it does. I literally feel unworthy in its presence, insignificant and blemished by comparison. Why am I allowed to experience this?

As we head to land, my autonomic nervous system shuts down. Every breath, every swallow, every action that would otherwise occur involuntarily now needs to be cued. No words can pass my lips even if I try. Blood rushes to every capillary, drawn to Antarctica like a magnet. Not one part of my body wants to be internal in this moment. Every cell and every organ put their jobs on hold to help me process this moment, this place. This? This is what it means to be arrested. This is Antarctica.

Of course my organs resumed normal function after this first encounter with the continent, but the awe never waned throughout the trip. I never felt like I could fully absorb the grandeur of the mountains, the snow, the sky, the wildlife, and the ice.

In the past eight or so years, only thirty to forty thousand people from around the world have visited Antarctica each year. That’s about six ten-thousandths of a percent of the world’s population per year. It’s too expensive, too remote, and too harsh to draw more visitors. Our reaction to this was, “What a waste.” What a waste for such an indescribable, arresting creation to be hidden from so many.

Then I remembered the purpose of creation. Ultimately, it was made to bring glory to God. It doesn’t matter if forty million, forty thousand, or four people experience this grandeur. The mountains proclaim, the ice sculptures reveal the glory of God. “Shout for joy to God, all the earth! Sing the glory of his name; make his praise glorious” (Psalm 66: 1-2).

I am his creation, too. I was made to bring him glory. It doesn’t matter if my sphere of influence includes millions, thousands, or no one, my purpose is to be sold out for him. To love him and to praise him when everyone is watching and when no one is watching. “Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (I Corinthians 10:31). When people live for God with reckless abandon, it is the most beautiful, the most mysterious, the most arresting of all creation.

Because most things in life can be analogized to triathlons, I think about the finish trusses that some races have for each triathlon leg.

At this point in the race, there is no medal for your neck and no formal finisher’s ceremony. But there is celebration. Family and friends congregate at these finishes. Triathletes smile as they pass through (you don’t always see the smile through pain-filled grimaces or tears, but it’s there). Whatever fear that was associated with that leg has been overcome and, whether the greatest challenge lies ahead or not, there is an unmistakable opportunity to celebrate.

Similar instances occur in life, so take them. Take those opportunities to celebrate the smaller victories along the journey, especially if the greatest challenge lies ahead. Even if it is an ever so brief moment allotted to pause, put hands on knees, take a few recovery breaths, and say “Wow, I did it!” before turning full stride again, soaking in the victory helps to fuel us for the legs that lie ahead.

My PhD program is a pentathlon. The dissertation proposal was the 4th leg. There was no blue inflatable finish truss for this stage (though one would be a welcome addition to the department), but seeing my committee’s signatures on the doctoral candidate form was a rite of passage in itself. So I celebrated, albeit briefly, and am already full stride in the final leg of the program.

The April masthead — what I really wanted to write about in the first place — is an example of nature doing its own celebrating as it survived the winter leg and welcomes spring. The trees with these blooms line the streets of our neighborhood and they humbly proclaim, “Wow, we did it!” Because this kind of celebration is so inspirational and contagious, every time I step outside of my house I briefly pause to join them in the celebration. Yes, we did do it. We survived a rough season, a challenging leg of the race.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Aaahh.

Okay, now back to work.

Yesterday I found myself commenting on another blog (something I don’t do often), offering a sliver of my perspective on the latest controversy with the Arizona shooting. The dialogue got me involved enough to conjure up my own post. The claim in the news is that violent, divisive rhetoric from the Republican political party is to blame for the shooting. Just a few (of many) thoughts I have on this…

First, if you search for assassinations and attempted assassinations of U.S. Presidents, it is clear that both Republicans and Democrats have been victims to this heinous act. This is not a partisan issue.

Second, many of these acts occurred long before Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney, and Glenn Beck even existed. This is not a current issue.

Zeal on this matter is warranted, however I believe the current attention in the media is misdirected. We all believe something wrong has occurred and we want justice, but to blame things like violent rhetoric is a distraction from a more central dilemma. There is a conflict within us all — we want to see fairness and justice and “good,” but we have the incapability (neither as a race nor as individuals) to perfectly uphold this standard. This want for good yet inability to be perfectly good, if not dealt with, becomes restless within us.

For many people, it is an unresolved conflict, and it’s much easier to blame some surfacey problem than to address the crux of the issue. If politicians will just speak more kindly about each other than this wouldn’tve happened. If we banned violent movies and video games then there would be no crime. If we were more educated about mental illnesses (which the shooter was believed to have) then all will be well. Stricter gun laws will bring world peace.

No, no, no, and no. These may help reduce crime rates temporarily, but these will not fix the core issue. Treating abdominal pain with a pain pill seems rather foolish if the root cause of the pain is cancer. The pill may offer temporary relief, but to ignore the underlying disease would be fatal.

We are in a predicament. We understand there is some moral code, some Golden Rule, that we cannot bear to see violated, yet we ourselves are incapable of perfectly upholding it. None of us on our own are capable of being perfectly good.

After you peel back all of the culpable layers, this core dilemma pervasive throughout humanity is the cause of the tragic Arizona shooting. The shooter fell way short of the standard. And even though it might seem like our blunders aren’t nearly as shameful as his, the truth is we all fall short of the standard too. No, a pain pill will not treat this cancer.

(*Chiblings is a term I coined to fill a gap in the English language. It is a gender neutral word for the children of one’s siblings and is much more succinct than always having to write “niece(s) and nephew(s).” You’re welcome, English speakers.)

Thanksgiving, 2007

Last year my brother and his wife had plans after the family gathering, so Brian and I arranged to take their two youngest, Brady and Paige, home with us to Pittsburgh to spend the night. This year, without impetus we did the same, extending their stay until Sunday.

After a lazy Saturday morning and easy afternoon with Penn State football, video games, and the game Tri-Spy, Brian, Brady (9), Paige (6) and I set off to a nearby playground. Closed for construction. Bummer. Thinking on the fly, we went to the bowling alley. An hour-and-a-half wait. Strike two. As we loaded the car and headed to the movie theater for Tangled in 3D, I twisted around in the front seat and told Brady and Paige, who were still upbeat and cheery, that if we didn’t get to do anything fun this weekend, they could at least tell people that we had fun ideas.

Fortunately things turned in our favor and we spent the rest of the evening enjoying the movie and the amazing Winter Festival of Lights at Oglebay Resort. The chiblings didn’t have a camera with them, but each took 70-100 photos of the light displays using their Nintendo DS systems. One of Paige’s favorite displays — that I happened to capture, albeit crappily, on my cell phone — was the carousel with moving horses. Throughout the entire evening, even after we left the resort, she continued to exclaim, “How did they get the horses to move like that?!”

On Sunday, we scored again with an afternoon at Carnegie Science Center’s SportsWorks. We were fortunate to pick a day with a small crowd, giving us pretty much free reign and nearly unlimited access to whatever “exhibit” we wanted. Brady (who is flipping on a trampoline in November’s masthead) loved the virtual roller coaster best. Paige’s favorite was the 25-foot (that is, about 7 Paiges) rock climbing wall. The weekend was officially a success.

Brian and I pulled our car into the garage Sunday night, children returned to their parents and our cats in charge of the house again. The house is quiet, which is nice on one hand, but missing a joy and presence that only those amazing little people can fill. A couple times I have caught myself sitting on the couch or at my desk staring off into nowhere, reflecting on the fun weekend and the kids’ antics, smiling as I remember Paige beam as she told the SportWorks attendant that she had pushed the button at the top of the rock climbing wall not one, not two, but three times. I too was in awe of her boundless energy. She had climbed that wall 6-7 times at least, ringing the proverbial victory bell with a push of the button on the last several attempts, and then she would rappel down as though she had been doing it professionally for years.

But that beaming. There was no prize for the number of button pushes; she was just so delighted in her own accomplishment. We are impressive creatures, aren’t we? Almost always capable of achieving so much more than we ever credit ourselves able to do. Anyway, it’s these little moments with our chiblings that inspire us to rustle up our home for a weekend with their imprint and to create new traditions.

]]> http://mooretokens.com/index.php/2010/12/two-times-makes-a-tradition/feed/ 1 http://mooretokens.com/index.php/2010/11/still-learning/ http://mooretokens.com/index.php/2010/11/still-learning/#comments Mon, 22 Nov 2010 04:13:56 +0000 admin http://mooretokens.com/?p=1223 The masthead for October 2010, “A Work-filled Fall,” perhaps could be better titled — “So What If It’s Late November and I’m Just Now Posting an October Masthead.” The photo was taken at the Philadelphia Convention Center with a cell phone that I’m eager to replace. Under one of the escalators/staircases was this huge wall of chinaware magically secured in place. I nearly blew right by the artistic expression as one who is distracted by her thoughts might do, but after I frustratingly tried to dodge a small crowd of people taking photos of it, I got out of my head long enough to see what they were actually taking a picture of.

Until someone pointed out to me on Facebook that none of the bowls and cups have handles, I thought this was a massive collection of coffee mugs. I’m going to go ahead with that initial impression and dedicate this masthead to the night in mid-October when I went to McDonald’s at 9pm and ordered a large mocha latte. I very rarely order a coffee-based drink, let alone an espresso-based drink. It’s more to do with taste preference than to do with caffeine. Actually, I’ve always purported that caffeine doesn’t affect me like it does others. That is, until I ingested 20 ounces of liquid adrenaline on an empty stomach that night at McD’s.

I entered the restaurant already exhausted but in need of a quiet work place because earlier that day my advisor had set a lofty deadline for the next morning. I worked there until 1am, then headed home for another 4 hours of dissertation bliss. Mid-all nighter, the shakes started. And the muscle tensing. And the heart pounding. I thought I was having a heart attack; of course I wasn’t in the mood to die, but it did cross my mind that I would at least have a good excuse not to meet my deadline.

Well, I didn’t die, I did meet my deadline, and I did realize that I am not impervious to a caffeine high. Just when I think I’ve figured myself out, there I go and surprise myself all over again. And I’m not just talking about the caffeine here.

“There, in the middle of a memorable and imposing emptiness, stands an eminence of exceptional nobility and grandeur, 1150 feet high, a mile and a half long, five and a half miles around, less red than photographs have led you to expect but in every other way more arresting than you could ever have supposed…You cannot stop looking at it; you don’t want to stop looking at it. As you draw closer, it becomes even more interesting. It is more pitted than you had imagined, less regular in shape. There are more curves and divots and wavelike ribs, more irregularities of every type, than are evident from even a couple of hundred yards away. You realize that you could spend quite a lot of time — possibly a worryingly large amount of time; possibly a sell-your-house-and-move-here-to-live-in-a-tent amount of time — just looking at the rock, gazing at it from many angles, never tiring of it.”  Bill Bryson, In a Sunburned Country

However forced or cliché it may seem, I cannot help but to compare the most impressive rock on Earth and the Rock of the Bible.

“There is no one holy like the Lord; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.” I Samuel 2:2

My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him.  He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken. Psalm 62:1-2

God is like Uluru, but living, bigger, more powerful, more dependable, holier, more personable, more loving, full of grace and redemption…  Okay, so they’re nothing alike, but I do love the imagery.  “See this magnificent rock that is so awe inspiring you can’t stop staring at it?  Yeah, well I am the unshakable, eternal Rock that is exponentially more arresting and majestic.”

In the midst of a cold and bleak Midwest American winter, here’s one small reminder of the warmth, inspiration, and fortitude that comes from standing at the foot of the Rock and gazing tirelessly.

I’m writing a little blurb now, however, because I posted a new masthead this month, a slice of a painting, and I wanted to give props to the artist.  For our TENTH anniversary last Friday, Brian and I were simply going to celebrate with dinner and a movie.  Because we are exciting people.  All day long I anticipated the movie theater popcorn.  Because I like to think about exciting things.  But then, at the last minute, we spontaneously slipped away from our world and spent the night at a high class resort.  It was a rare opportunity to experience the type of luxury the rich and famous experience on a daily basis (and to spend more money than we normally would ever pay for a bed and a couple meals).  For the twenty-four hours we stayed at the resort I was sure that I would run in to either the Queen of England or Jessica Simpson.  Didn’t happen, though.

Our hotel was named the Chateau LaFayette.  It was designed to replicate the Ritz Paris, which is slightly ironic because nearly twelve years ago a bellman kicked me out of the Ritz in Paris, yet last weekend the bellmen anticipated and met my every hotel and traveling need before I could even ask.  So I guess the Chateau is just like the Ritz Paris only kinder.

I cannot speak about every floor of the hotel, but our gorgeous hallway was lined with artwork by Boyer.  Just outside of our exquisite room – decorated with a recessed ceiling, crystal chandelier, and marble in the bathroom – was the painting that I used for the masthead.  If I were Boyer and someone posted my artwork on their blog then I think I would want people to see the entire piece, so here it is:

I wanted to find out more about this artist so I could cite him (or her) appropriately, but according to Google there are a lot of Boyers out there who like to paint.  This makes you wonder, are all of these Boyers related?  Wow, what a testament to genetics that would be!  Anyway, Boyer, if you are from this century, are currently alive, happen to be a faithful reader of Moore Tokens, and recognize your artwork that I posted, please give us an “About the Painter” blurb in the comment section!

Boyer?  Boyer?  Boyer?  Boyer?

A college friend, Sarah (Gale) Evers, wrote sort of a New Year’s resolution in January, 2009 on Facebook:

I’m calling 2009 “The Year of Kindness.” What could life look like if I treated myself with kindness? What if I worked out not because I ought to, or as punishment, but because I wanted to, or it was the kindest thing to do for myself? What if my self-talk was more kind and gentle? What if I relaxed in my expectations for myself and lived in grace? And what would happen in my relationships as that sense of freedom and KINDNESS overflowed from me?

***

myjoy, a commenter on the Stuff Christians Like website, wrote:

My anthem right now is Ephesians 4:29, it’s everywhere around me, in sermons, in studies, on TV, everywhere! God is clearly trying to tell me something.

“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”

God is challenging me to have everyone be better off than before they talked to me.

And today I just had a revelation. It’s not just directed at other people. It’s also about what I tell myself. Is my internal dialogue helpful for building me up? Or am I tearing myself down? Am I better off after hearing my own voice, than when I started? Or do I remain dejected, discouraged?

So I pray God will use this verse to change my heart, to tame my tongue, that the same mouth I use to bless His name I do not use to curse others or myself.

I too am challenged to add more kindness, more grace, and more truth to my internal dialogue.  When my head hits the pillow each night, I want to look back over the day knowing that I was better off after listening to my own voice all day long.  After all, if the God of the Universe can forgive me, love me unconditionally, and see me as completely worthy in his eyes, surely I should do the same.

A Cat Story

She asked, “Are you coming outside or what?!”

I said, “Not until you do your tap dance routine.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

She said, “Fine, but not unless you get me my top hat and cane.”

So I did.  And then she did.

Then I said, “Ha ha, I was going to come outside whether you did the routine or not.”

Then she came inside and puked on the carpet.

I guess we’re even.

***

(Side Note: Are cats supposed to be this long?  When I look at this picture I can’t help but think Abby was playing a trick on me.  Like she persuaded Scout or a neighborhood cat to go in on the “Super Tall Cat” gag.  They rented a Giant Abby costume made from real fur and catskin.  Inside the costume the accomplice cat was on the bottom standing on its hind legs while Abby was sitting on its shoulders to convincingly look like the tallest domestic cat in the world.  I’m not sure if all of this was for laughs or attaining greater power over humans.  I am watching their moves very closely.)

If I’m being honest, when this photo was taken Abby wasn’t really eager for me to frolic outdoors with her.  She actually wanted me to let her inside.  Just like the second photo of Scout in this post – Scout isn’t really screaming; she’s yawning.  It’s okay though, they’ve both given consent for me to create whatever story I want with their photos.  Between the verbal consent and the fact that cats don’t recognize their own reflection or pictures of themselves, I figure I’m in the clear.

But there are parts of the Cat Story that are true.  For example, I am planning on spending more time outside.  In fact, I am going to fight every ounce of lethargy and overwhelmedness in my body and attempt to get back to triathlons.  After not racing for nearly two years, I am ready to start training for the Pittsburgh Triathlon in July.  Training this month will be a huge challenge since I still carry the weight of my comprehensive exams (due end of May/early June), but I’m hoping that making a public proclamation to compete in the Pittsburgh Triathlon will serve as one form of accountability to help that goal come to fruition.

Another aspect of the Cat Story that’s true – Abby can totally tap dance.