an unexpected homecoming

Last Monday came around, and things were looking real good: the turbo and exhaust systems on the skiff were in great shape, the galley was stocked, and the crew was restless to get up north and fish. Then the steering mechanisms quit. The Yankee Boy still relies on an old school system that works through an array of points, electric switches that manually control rudder positioning. When you have a problem with your points you can't buy new ones at the store, rather you have to retrieve them from old school equipment that uses the same technology. In the end I'm not sure what the problem was, since my role is pretty much confined to performing the most menial of tasks, but the incident prompted Jim to push our sailing date to this Sunday the 28, at 10am.

My initial reaction was frustration: I'd been anxious to fish for months now, and the prospect of another week in Bellingham grated on me. I had hoped to come home, put in one full week of work at the harbor, maybe see a friend or two, and then leave. Like many of my peers who have gone off to college, I experience tension between who I have become away from home, and the roles that I am cast in when I return. What's more, in a place the size of Bellingham it is impossible to grab coffee downtown, go for a run, buy batteries at RadioShack, or go grocery shopping without meeting several acquaintances from years past. These impromptu encounters are strange, and often not that pleasant--"Hey man, what's up?! I haven't seen you in like, 3 years...nothing much, just graduated from college this June, and am headed up to Alaska before moving to the UK to start grad school...yeah, stats and finance at Oxford...what's going on for you these days?...well that's great, bro, I hope everything works out well for you...take care." The usual questions and same old small talk serve as a deafening reminder that our temporary physical proximity and a couple shared memories are no mask for the fact that time has created a yawning gap between us. We have changed in ways that we can't communicate in such a short meeting, yet we can only really speak to the other person with the past as our reference point. In many ways we're stuck talking to shadows of ourselves, knowing that the whole thing is merely an illusion, yet feeling obligated by prevailing social norms to engage in a show of artificial familiarity.

Even more powerful than the tension between personal growth and encounters with old acquaintances is a deep fear of the ordinary. I went to deposit some checks the other day and my teller was a guy who knew me from CCF, my old Christian fellowship up at Western. I didn't realize that I knew him until it came time for me to present my ID, and he said "it doesn't hurt that I know you, either." I asked how things were going, and he told me that he had married another CCF gal, and that they had settled in Bellingham together, happy to have finished their undergraduate studies. Theirs is a representative example of the path that so many of my friends from WWU have followed: they fall in love with this place, and often with another person, and settle down never to leave again. I often have to remind myself that there is absolutely nothing wrong with this, that not everyone is as happy as I am to aimlessly wander around the world while changing schools every two years in pursuit of a high-intensity career path. Yet I wonder sometimes if the decision to stay in this town is really the best option for many of my peers, or if some of us have just settled without having tested the full array of possibilities open to us. I find this question so pressing because I went to college in Bellingham for two years, and am stunned to see, in hindsight, how small my awareness of the world outside of Bellingham was and how little I knew myself when I left high school. Though it was my deep desire to get to know it better, and pursue a life that would lead me along pathways less-traveled by my friends and family, I can't help but feel as though my life was saved by the Stanford admissions committee that made the decision to offer me a spot against hundreds of other highly-qualified applicants. The opportunity to leave Bellingham for Stanford was one of the most important milestones of my life, yet it depended so heavily on factors beyond my control. For example, the 2007 transfer student acceptance rate at Stanford was 1.9 percent, for a class size of 21, driven downwards by an unusually high enrollment of admitted freshmen. What if that had been my year? Somewhere along the line Bellingham became for me a symbol of forgotten dreams, unused potential, and remoteness from many of the more pressing issues that we confront as a nation and global village. Only as the frontiers of your life experience grow do you begin to understand how vast is the world, and how insignificant is your understanding of it: my time at Stanford set me on a path that has launched me out into that great unknown, yet the awareness that I only just barely left home unnerves me, and makes me wonder if I will ever again come as close as I did to settling for something less than life to the fullest.

As I left the harbor last Monday, however, none of this was clear to me. I just felt a lot of unrest, mingled with a twinge of relief of having an unexpected week of rest and sense that God had reached into my life and slowed the pace down for a reason. One valuable lesson I picked up during my first season in Alaska was that a major component of happiness in all times and circumstances is not sweating things out of one's control, even when things seem particularly crappy. So I decided to put fishing out of my mind until I heard from Jim again, and make full use of the days ahead.

As I thought of who I might spend time with that week, it occurred to me that two of my best friends were volunteering as counselors for the week at Royal Family Kids Camp. RFKC is a nation-wide network of Christian camps that is exclusively dedicated to providing abused and neglected kids with a week where they are loved purely, affirmed passionately, and allowed to experience the childhood that many of them have had stripped away from birth. I'd known about the camp for several years, but had spent every June since beginning college either out of state or out of country. Suddenly I began to see some purpose in my delayed sailing date: though Stanford had given me much, one of the things that I left behind in Bellingham was consistent service to young people, something that had been crucial to me throughout high school and my time at Western. I called a good friend and mentor who I knew was working at the camp, and with whom I'd served in children's ministry with at my old church for over five years. It turned out that a male counselor had gone home sick that same morning, and that their activities director was feeling over-extended and in need of a helping hand.

A couple hours later I had become the resident rocket-building experts, scrambling to keep track of children, small parts, bottles of glue, and the requests for help of bewildered counselors in training as they worked with their kids to assemble a rocket. The rest of the week was a beautiful combination of helping to set up activities, including an outdoor carnival that involved a rock wall, inflatable obstacle course, bungee run, cotton candy, and lots of prizes, and building relationships with the campers. I was especially moved by one young guy I met who had moved with his four brothers and sisters from East Palo Alto to live with his great grandma. On my first day at camp we built a rocket and played one-on-one basketball together during rec time, and I was immediately impressed by his blend of tenacity, vibrant energy, and personal warmth. Though he related well with the counselors and many of the campers, there was a select group of kids that he absolutely hated, and as the days passed it became clear that their rivalry would not just disappear. These kids' wounds create some extremely perplexing behaviors: they would go from being friends one afternoon to being at each other's throats in a matter of minutes. As a non-counselor volunteer, my role in the situation was limited, but I did get to have several conversations with this particular child about why he was acting out so badly. It came down to the fact that he has been taught from birth that violence is the natural response to the experience of anger. Though we had several conversations that seemed meaningful to me at the time, this kid's behavior only got worse throughout the week, and I began to wonder if anything any of these counselors or staff did really made a difference for kids like this one. Old questions about God's love for all people, and why it is that some of his little ones suffer so deeply and often grow to perpetuate the same evil on their own children surfaced as well. Here the Lord reminded my heart of a lesson that I had wrestled with over the course of spring quarter. This is that if we try and carry the weight of the world's brokenness on our shoulders, assuming responsibility for outcomes in others' lives that are ultimately beyond our control, it will break us instead. We are not the change agents: the most we can ever do is press into the God who loves us, offering up to him our talents, our gifts, our resources, and courageously, wholeheartedly pursuing a spirit-filled life. I've drawn great inspiration from John 11 and 2 Corinthians 11. The former is a lesson about physical brokenness as an opportunity for God's love to be revealed, while the latter emphasizes the sufficiency of his grace in the midst of persistent trial. I have to believe that the counselors and staff at RFKC are called to embrace the notion that we are only ever instruments for the transmissions of God's grace and love, and that ultimately we must entrust these little ones that we come to love so much over the course of a week to his care. You never know what stage of life a person is in, and I've become convinced that the majority of what we do on this earth is like breaking ground over a dry field or setting a foundation. Our work may one day result in an abundant harvest or a beautiful tower, but we must reap our reward not from seeing our labor come to fruition, but from the knowledge that we have lived out our calling with faithfulness, obedience, and above all, love.

The highlight of the week at camp, for me, was when I got to go out an fire off the rockets that we had spent much of the week making together. What a joy it was to see the anticipation in the kids faces as they watched their rockets soar hundreds of feet in the air, and to watch them take off racing across the grassy lawn as the rockets slowly parachuted to the ground. My little buddy from EPA and I had made a rocket together, and I'm pleased to report that his rocket performed excellently. As I watched him chase his rocket across the field on that beautiful sunny day I was filled with hope for him and for these kids. Sooner or later we all lose our innocence, but what a great tragedy it is to watch that be taken from children. In the space of a week, though, RFKC creates a place where they can experience that again, and awakens in all of us--not just the children--a longing to return to place of innocence and joy, a journey made possible by our loving heavenly Father.

This post just never ends. Needless to say it has been a purposeful and blessed week. In addition to my time at RFKC I have connected with many dear friends from high school who I would not have otherwise seen, and been reminded of the fact that despite the internal struggle I face when I pass through Bellingham, this is where some of my strongest and most beautiful friendships are rooted. Though I'm still sure that I am bound to leave this area on a permanent basis, I have been grateful for the opportunity to re-center myself around these important relationships. I've also been challenged to see that the more ordinary, humble side of life is not something to be feared. Each person follows their own path, what is important is that we live courageously, with a desire to make full use of our gifts in the short span of life we are allotted. This leads some to stay and some to go, but in all things I believe that the hand of God is working to bring about a more perfect world.

I'm leaving for Alaska in two hours, and am so ready for this next leg of the journey. Next time I post to this blog I really will be in Petersburg!

transitions

I just finished my first full-time work week in two years, and am taking advantage of a quiet, overcast Bellingham afternoon to make my first blog post. I'm not really a tech-savvy guy, but enough people have told me that these are a better way to stay in touch than occasional mass emails that I thought I'd give it a shot. I'm also prone to lengthy pontification, for which I apologize in advance--at least I won't be cluttering your inbox!

On Sunday, June 15, I sat with several good friends in Stanford Stadium, surrounded by family and well-wishers, and watched Oprah Winfrey deliver our commencement address. An hour or so later I attended my departmental awards ceremony, feeling the satisfaction of a strong finish and of having established great relationships with my profs and peers. Though it was an awesome time of celebration, the groundswell of emotion that I expected never came. I remembered how quickly my time at Western had also passed, and thought about how much faster my time at Oxford will also zip by. Life, at least during this season, is in constant flux. I can't cling too tightly to the way things are at any given time, but I can take with me the lessons, good memories, and strong relationships that I develop along the way. What's more, God's constant presence and the sense that He is coordinating the different phases of this journey reassure me at all times and places.

It was with this frame of mind that I stepped onto the gangplank at Dock 5, Squalicum Harbor, less than 24 hours later to meet my skipper, Jim Glenovich. "I'll bullshit ya in just a moment, son. For now why don't you go give Timmy a hand up in the tophouse?" Thus began a week of washing windows, scrubbing decks, loading hundreds of pounds of food, water, and beer, and other prep work. After two years of jeans, t-shirts, and the occasional suit and tie, there is something reassuring about wearing my grimy carhartt double-knees and XtraTuf fishing boots again. This world is so much less complicated, and is filled with simple pleasures that I miss in the academic environment, such as the joy of eating a meal you feel you earned, working side by side with other guys as a team, and seeing the fruits of your labor as a tangible, physical outcome, rather than the vague sense of having written yet another decent paper or having somehow contributed to making the world a better place. I also love the atmosphere of adventure in the air. The fishermen on the docks are always talking about how the salmon runs are looking, where there's money to be made, and when they're thinking of heading north (we'll probably leave on Tuesday). It's as if we're miners during the time of the Klondike gold rush, seized by the possibility of striking it rich in the Alaskan wild.

The change in my human environment has also been quite abrupt. I am the youngest guy on my boat by over 20 years, and the only college graduate. At this point I'm tempted to invoke all kinds of blue collar stereotypes, yet after one week I've already been reminded of the fact that people, if you allow them to, will always defy the labels you place on them. Tim learned to speed read in the fourth grade, and has since read more books than I will probably get through in my entire lifetime. The shelf in his bunk includes selections from Sherman Alexie, Toni Morrison, and Upton Sinclair. When we dropped him off at his place last Friday I noticed the phrase 'no pasar' (don't enter) written on his driveway: apparently he has kids who are adopted from Mexico. Harold wears the hat of a hard-drinking jack of all trades a little more easily, but a bit of digging reveals a noble-spirited man who's been burned bad by love, broken by his failures, and cares deeply for his family. In his mid/late 50's he's also as jacked as the average Stanford football player, something I plan to ask him about once we get to know each other a little better.

Jim, my skipper, grew up in a fishing family, and spent several years of his boyhood living in Chile, fishing for herring with his father. Later on he went to college, fell in love, and then was drafted to serve in Vietnam. He and his wife got married five days before he went and fought in the bush for a year. He made it back alive to be reunited with his young bride before immediately being shipped off to Germany at the height of the Cold War. He said that when he came back, all he wanted to do was fish, and that's what he's been doing ever since. Even that took it's toll, as he would lose both his brother and his best friend to the ocean. His resilient spirit amazes me. When he mentioned his time in Vietnam I was taken back--he doesn't have the air of several Vietnam vets that I've met. "You fought in Vietnam?" I asked, looking as deep into his eyes as I could. "Yeah," he said, and in that brief moment I saw a cold, deep scar, and realized that the war had taken a piece of him that he would never recover. But you would never guess it. Jim is always cracking jokes, has taken a genuine interest in my studies and future plans, and motivates his crew without being overbearing or abusive. Since he returned to Bellingham to be the skipper of the Yankee Boy at age 26 he has raised four daughters, become a proud grandfather, built a thriving business, and recently invested in over 300 acres of real estate with three other partners. I realize that there is absolutely no room for self-pity with this man, or with Harold and Tim for that matter, and am anxious to learn as much as I can from them in the months ahead. My Stanford education has been awesome, as I anticipate my masters studies at Oxford will be as well, yet in my crew, my captain, the docks, and the Alaskan wildness, I find that there are deep wells of knowledge for me to draw from. This is why I am in this place right now: to rest and work with my hands, but also to learn and solidify lessons that will shape the person I become in the years ahead.

In spite of all that is good about this new season, I know that this will probably be the last time in my life that I'll do anything like this. In the past I've felt conflicted by my desire to work with my hands and my eagerness to use my mind to its fullest potential. I have a lot more clarity on this point now, with my experiences over the past year affirming a direction that leads me away from the docks. I'll always remember these times, however. These men make me simpler, humbler, and stronger.

Once we get our skiff repaired we'll be good to go, so Tuesday is looking like a pretty sure departure date. I hope to have photos of my crew soon enough, along with nature pictures, and details about what this job actually looks like. I'm shooting to have this updated about once a week, but we'll see how realistic that is as the season progresses. I may also start uploading shots to Picassa, if I can find the bandwidth up north. In any case, the next time I post to this blog will be from the Petersburg Public Library!