I had the perfect view from the plane tonight. I was in the aisle, but no one was next to me so I also had the window seat. At one point out of the window, the mountains covered in snow were lit up and the sky was a light purple and the clouds were golden pink above and deep blue beyond. I watched the sun set as I flew. Watched as I flew away from all that I loved and was comfortable with... All that belonged to me. "The Mountain" (As an after thought, I should have pulled out my camera and taken a picture of it, it was really breath taking.) I could not help but thank God for it. It was much like the current sunset of my life... This is always an odd stage... that place between night and morning just before the sun is going to rise and the sky is turning bright but its still not light enough to see any of the path ahead... That's where I am. This was my life. I know I must move on (and I will, no worries!) and like I said, I know this is the right thing for me to be doing. My future in college is bright next year (minus the actual school work of course.) But I am safely home and in four days will be back up the mountain for 2 and a half more months.

Common Fire seems like a dream. This year wasn't a waste. I know myself better and where I stand and what I believe.. and where I'm going than I have any other time of my life. I feel like I could continue down this path of self discovery no matter what. I'm okay. I will be okay. My life is moving on. My seasons are changing. They will always change. And that's okay with me! Yes, I will miss people. I will really miss people, my heart will break and I will cry. That I expect to happen. I am tired in more ways than one. This year was one of the hardest of my life... it was the hardest and best. And I'm not the only one here to think so. There were days when I wanted to run away and never look back and there were days I couldn't imagine myself anywhere else. Jen asked us (Briches, Flany and I) if we'd do it again another year... They both answered yes right away. But it was hard. It was so hard. It was tiring; it was Summer Staff times 40. It was good; it was Summer Staff times 4 Million! Would I do it again? With these people, in a heart-beat! This is my family... But I am very at peace. I am very at peace. I really am. My heart is sad, but it is well with my soul.

After the big all-staff BBQ yesterday Common Fire went fluming. The first fluming of the summer! It was nice. We even went in the tippy Kayaks off the flum! shh... don't tell the administration! :) hehe! At first the water was chilly, but move away from the flume a bit and the water got quite nice... The air and water were nearly the same temperature.It was nice.. I swam back and forth across the lake a few times... Oh, I wish today had been warm and not cold and rainy so I could have swam in the lake today!

It was my last day in the office today. Bitter sweet, but good to move on from that phase of life. It was possibly the most hectic and busy day I'd ever had in that office! This weekend is our 50th anniversary and there was much preparation to be done along with last day office duties and normal jobs... plus the ghetto copier hates me. I should it what was up!

A big group of us went to dinner tonight! Sarah Lowe, Jeremy, Craig, Phillip, Flany, Andrew, Amanda, Kari, Jenny, Briches and I! We ate Chinese food... I know, not Mexican, but soon! Soon, dear reader, I will eat Mexican food! It will be soo good! Shoot... you just wait!

Craving Mexican food. Outdoor Ed gets to go down and eat Mexican food. I get to eat left overs. No macaroni. Sad day.

Office dyed their hair weird colors. Everyone dyed their hair weird colors. All staff. Weird. My hair is pink. Will wash out pink tonight.

Good-bye Common Fire party today at 4:00pm. Come. Be there. After party making a cake with Juana. Cutting Juana's hair tonight. Should be a hair dresser when I grow up. Should go to beauty school. Don't care enough about beauty to go to beauty school. Would flunk out of beauty school.

Two more office days. No more office. No more Common Fire. Will be home in five days. 50th celebration this weekend. Good food. Proabbly won't be enough food. Won't get to eat good food.

Still craving Mexican food.

This is my 102 post ever! Cool, huh?

Yesterday evening I was watching the stars come out. And I have decided to pass on a bit of wisdom to you. Briches said, "I like the stars but I would never want to be a star." And I said, "Really?" Thinking, who wouldn't want to be a star, right? And his response was, "I'd rather be the moon, because it reflects the light of the sun."

Wise words Briches.

Las Vegas was good. The funeral was nice. The fellowship was healing. Kari, Christy and I all agreed that it was a good road trip if only it had been under happier circumstances. But I am home safely. I am sick now though. I had a fever this morning and slept for most of the day. I will miss living in community. Its had its bad points, sure... but when it reaches out and wraps its arms around you to comfort and love and heal.... When the founders of Common Fire first thought of this program, this was how it was imagined.

"When we all get to Heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be! When we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout the Victory!"

I can't sleep. I'll be honest, I haven't tried. Yes, I am sad. There is a lot on my mind. It's in moments very much like this that I really miss Ryan. In fact, I really miss a lot of people. I even miss some of the people I see every day. Someone loved me enough tonight to sit up with me until 1:20 in the morning and talk to me. It was good, we prayed and cried. Common Fire really pulled together tonight with prayer and worship. There are some times when I know that I will really miss living in community. Granted, we all suck at having patience, cleanliness and loving kindness all the time we really have pulled together in the end. I love you.

Jesus is really working here. Jesus is really working in my life right now. I know that he's always working and ever present but I just really sense it now. If you gave me 2 hours to just talk about all the things I'm seeing God do you would probably only get a glimpse of everything happening right now. All of it good. Jesus is working in people and working in strange situations. Hen is working in my heart. My prayer for the last few week is that I might see His work. That I might have spiritual eyes and spiritual ears so that I could worship Him with my whole being. I recently recieved a copy of The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. If you've never read it, I recomend that you do. If you've read it before, I recomend that you read it again. Brother Lawrence states, "Neither skill nor knowledge is needed to go to God...All that is necessary is a heart dedicated entirely and solely to Him out of love for Him above all others."

Hello! I am trying out a new template! Unfortunately, I lost all of my links! ACK! If you wouldn't mind sending me the addresses to your Blogs, Live Journals and Xangas as well as to your friends and loved ones' Blogs, Live Journals and Xangas....I will be as quick as possible to put your link back onto my page. Email me or leave comments...Thanks!!

Common Fire has been like a sweet love letter. It began with a beautifully addressed envelope, one that makes you hopefully and anxious to read whats inside. Hurrying into the letter it starts out perhaps a bit overdone and even exagerated though therein deffinately resides some truth. The middle section of the letter was read quickly bits of it even skimmed over, anxious for what lied ahead. Then when suddnely you realize you've come to the last paragraph you slow down realizing you're near the end. Drinking in every word and moment wishing there could be more words on the page. Then at least the eyes linger over those final parting words, "Fare well and all my love."
It was and still is a beautifully written letter.

This morning in Bible study we looked at the Lord's prayer again... I'm always convicted at the part, "Forgive us our debts just as we have forgiven our debtors." What that says to me is that I will only be forgive as much as I forgive... or just as I've forgiven.. and you can take whichever side or view you want but this always convicts me and causes me to look at all the people who have hurt me in some form and I have refused to do anything but hold it against them. Last Friday someone (or rather, two someones) walked back into my life. These were people I never thought I'd be seeing again. People I'd honestly have been okay with never seeing again. But they acted like nothing had ever happened to cause a rift in the friendship.... They hurt me. Both in different ways but they had deffinately hurt me deeply (just about anyone on Common Fire could tell you the same.) Is it time for me to put this behind me as a bnig misunderstanding? Those who know the enitre situation tell me I have every right to never speak to them again. But is that what Christ wants me to do? The last thing I need are comments telling me, "Oh, forgive and forget...forgive like you want to be forgiven" or anything else of that nature. No one knows how deeply I was hurt or the answers to these questions but Jesus. The question I just keep asking myself is if its time to forgive yet. I know it wasn't time a few months ago... and I know it wasn't time when it happened. But is now the time to forgive?

I'm reminded of my last day of seventh grade. Our choir (that was as good if not better than a highschool choir that year) was gathered together for the last time. I was sitting in my chair at the tend of the last row. These were my friends, my family.. the choir I had traveled with and loved. Yes, it was the last time we would all be together, sitting in the same room with the same songs in memory. Waiting, as you always must wait, for the director to turn from the white board and address the choir he has learned to love for the very last time. We knew this day would come, it always does, it has to...You can't stop it, can't avoid it can't overlook it. It wasn't that I would never see these people again... many of them surrounded me all through highschool, many of them I still know and love. But it would never be everyone all gathered together in the same place again. (Even if by some miracle we were all united again someday it would never be the same. I am so different now... I have different priorities, different passions.... different wishes and dreams and hopes. Imagine all the changes everyone else went through.) I'm feeling the same about Common Fire except that no one will be saying the final words to us. There is no final song to sing... and sing with such passion and love that you can't even make it through the chorus without everyone breaking down. There is nothing left to do or say, its all already been said and if it hasn't, we waited too long to let our feelings known, but say it anyway. This group of people here right gathered together in this choosen place and choosen time. There may be reunions but it will never be the same... drink it up and savor every drop.... There won't be another time around in this world.

Ellie Line says it all:

"rad boy + rad girl - common interests = a flop. a dirty shame, but a flop none the less."

Amen, Ellie.

I like when I feel like everything is right in the world. Like suddenly, everythings back in its rightful place. (Unfortunately, for me it doesn't happen often, or stay long) I haven't made any dumb choices, stupid mistakes, or ignored the voice of God. Its feels right. It feels good... I've fixed what was fixable and touched what I could with love. And Praise Jesus, but He was the one who kissed Grace and Forgiveness into the things I couldn't do on my own (which was basically everything.) Yes, I like when things are right in the world.

You know, the are times in my life, dear reader, when I don't have any idea whats good for me. Little children, for instance, if given the chance will choose an icecream sunday over a green salad. They pick what they think tastes good, but they end up with a stomache ache a few hours later. God gives us the same choices in life. He offers us choices and He gives us free will to choose. "Jesus, guide me in the path you want me to take." Deep inside we know wich choice is really the right one for us, its just reaching inside and pulling out fresh healthy answers, instead of reaching without thought toward the fattening cookie jar. Plenty of things feel and taste good at the time... my friends Ben and Juana use a chocolate cake as an illistration. If you eat a cake right out of the oven its not only hot and will burn you but because its not 'set' yet it will give you a stomache ache. They chose to wait rather than rush in. My Friend Fred once talked about flowers in the same manner. When the bulbs around the Ranch house started blooming there were a few that remained closed up for several weeks. I'd wait in anticipation to see what colors and what kind of flower would appear... if I had forced it open, it would have died. It would turn brown and gross and die. I like things to hurry along. I like choosing the icecream sunday over a green salad. But now that I'm sick, a few hour later, in retrospect that salad was a much healthier choice.

So not only did I get blisters as a souviner from the bike race yesterday (never walk uphill 7 miles in flipflops) but when we started trecking through the forest I also got a spider bite. I thought it was just a misquiot bite, but apparently not. its got two little white marks in it... is swelled and is hot (as in temperature, not as in sexy.. gosh, guys... honestly) Leslie said that its warm because it has a fever... how funny! My elbow has a fever! heheh!
*itch-itch-itch-itch*

Last night was fun! Amanda, Andrew, Phillip and I headed down to Fresno, all dressed up pretty and met Kari and Eric for dinner... we had amazing Japanese food... YUM! then we all just hung out... it was good times for sure... I'd do it again! It really was a nice evening. I didn't get to sleep in much today, the wrk group finished painting the Ranch Hosue today... unfortunately, they painted on my days off so I never really got to sleep in... Oh wellie!

So Phillip and I went to the bike race today... it was really fun. We didn't really see too many bikes though. It was on a trail called: 007. Its a down hill race (look at me, I'm learning about bikes!) But its this long downhill trail So all the racers get shuttled up because it would wear them out if they rode up then had to ride a race. It was probably like 8 or 9 miles walk up. (Not sure exactly, I'll check with Phillip and see what he thought.) So a good long walk up in the hot sun. But it was fun we chatted and stuff... and like I said, didn't see too many bikes. At one point we were watching a section of the race about 100 feet or so, where the road crossed the track and this car comes driving up, of course normally they wait to check and see if the way is clear... Phillip is standing in the road and he holds up his hand for them to stop (I'm sitting on a rock in the shade watching all of this) and the car doesn't slow down very much.. so Phillip starts to get out of the way and the car "bumps" into him... they just didn't ever stop completely. WAIT!Phillip's not hurt at all! That sounded bad.... more like it pushed him a bit or bumped him more than it ran into him. He had the greatest look on his face, its true... really funny afterwards, we laughed a lot about it... Then on the way down we decided to hitch hike. Two guys stopped for us they weren't super friendly and started driving while I wasn't all the way in the truck yet... so they were ghetto... anyway, my legs hurt and I'm super tired now... I put on sunscreen (See, Mom, I am a good kid!) though, so I'm hardly burned. anyway, it was just a fun afternoon.

I like bike races! :)