"The Best Twenty-five of twenty-five," part V

21. The best soul-searching experience

The last few days of my last week in France--the weekend I spent in silence at the international monastic community in Taizé, France--changed me. Since then, I have a very different attitude toward prayer, which, resultantly, reforms my entire outlook on life. In the oversight of one of the sisters in residence, I and seven other women decided to spend two and a half days in silence, committing ourselves to devoting three specific hours a day for listening to God through the reading of Scripture. At one point midway through, I broke my silence in order to speak privately with one of the sisters and receive her guidance in processing several of the thoughts and concerns I had been wrestling with both before and throughout the weekend of silence. She was very hard on me, and asked me to examine my decisions and reasons for making them from an approach I had never been willing to consider before. I felt exposed, and yet safe; a bit frightened by what I had learned, yet confident that God's loving faithfulness would guide me through. The entire weekend left me with a powerful sense of the freedom that exists within God's love. I entered silence with so many questions, only to find that the Holy Spirit was already speaking the answers within me.

22. The best personal purchase

My San Diego Zoological Society membership has proven a very valuable asset. Since I purchased it in January, it has provided me with countless hours of entertainment and pleasurable walks. Now that my savings has run out and I can't generally afford to go out, the zoo is a welcome escape from the humdrum patterns of home. Also, with the free guest passes that came with my membership, I've been able to entertain visitors at no extra cost!

23. The best new game

Cork stacking. Look out: it's gonna be big.

24. The best reunion

This summer, Ashley Jones came home to America. After spending two years living in Indonesia, she has returned to us once again and, in July, came down to Southern California for a full month. I got to surprise her at the airport and spend a couple of days with her and it was wonderful: In-N-Out, Taco King, the works. She has since moved back up to Oregon, which is very sad but still much better than Indonesia, because now at least we are in the same time zone. I still secretly hope that we will one day live in the same city again and have so much fun.

25. The best thing I didn't do but will do soon

I started this blog off with a few concrete goals for the year: to write more (check), to get a job (check), and to either start graduate school or set the wheels in motion for me to do so (...um...I'll get back to you on that one). It is still undetermined whether I will be able to attend Fuller Theological Seminary this fall, but, even if I can't afford to do it now, the experience of finally getting my act together and applying has been immensely encouraging in reminding me that, indeed, I can continue my education. Yes, perhaps I've been out of school long enough now that it doesn't feel like the most natural thing in the world, but I can adjust. I can change my life. I can keep moving forward. The possibilities are innumerable.

Southbound Train

It’ been such a weird week. And it’s not over yet.

Saturday evening, on the drive up to Azusa, my GTI started displaying a check-engine light and seemed to have gone into some electronically triggered emergency mode, where it would only go into reverse and fourth gear. Assuming it was not conceivable to get my car into a mechanic on Sunday, I resolved to have it looked at by a professional first thing Monday morning. Josiah, whom I had given a ride on my way up to Azusa, needed to be back home in time to go to work Monday morning. So, Jared and I drove Josiah half way home; Josiah’s brother, Micah, drove the other half way to pick him up. Thanking my lucky stars I had just happened to pack an extra pair of underwear, I decided to stay one more night at Jared and Laura’s place.

First thing Monday morning, I took my car to a mechanic in Azusa. Two hours later, he called me back, explaining that the problem was something internal that he was not equipped to handle, and advising that I take it to the dealer. The Volkswagen dealership in Pasadena was crowded and it was estimated that it would be a couple of hours before they could determine the problem. Though I was scheduled to work that evening, I called my manager and explained the situation, and she agreed to find someone to cover my shift.

I stayed at the dealership all day. They ran a diagnostic test on my vehicle, which identified several malfunctions in the electrical system. A new battery was put in, and this cleared up all of the codes except one: a lingering electrical error in the transmission. It wasn’t until several hours later that I at last received a detailed account of exactly what the problem was and which pieces of my transmission needed to be replaced. Parts would have to be ordered, but the repairs could be completed by Wednesday morning.

My dilemma, now, was whether to take the train down to San Diego so that I could work my shift Tuesday night, or simply remain in Azusa with Jared and Laura until Wednesday. With my friends encouraging me to accept their hospitality a little longer, and a sympathetic assistant manager agreeing to find someone to cover my shift for one more night, I decided to stay up in the L.A. area.

This morning, just as I was already reaching for my phone to call the dealership and inquire as to the current situation with my vehicle, I received a call from the service department. Bad news. Volkswagen had sent them the wrong parts. Right order; wrong parts. They best they could do was reorder and have my car ready for me by Friday.

Friday.

Feeling helpless, I saw I had no option but to acquiesce. I hung up the phone, feeling miserable. Then I called them back, and asked whether it would be possible for me to just drive my car down to San Diego and have the repairs done at the dealership down there. No, I was told, That would not be possible. My transmission had already been taken apart to get it ready for the new parts. It had no fluids in it. It was not drivable.

So here I am now, aboard the Amtrak heading for San Diego. We just passed San Juan Capistrano and I now have a refreshing view of blue ocean and white waves crashing on a white beach. Children running. White seagulls. A simple, carefree scene. Friday, or maybe Monday morning, I will take the train back up to Pasadena to retrieve my car and pay massive amounts of money I don’t have for the repairs that have been done on it. I’ll wonder whether I should have just tried to drive it back down to San Diego in the first place and taken it to my mechanic down there. But there’s no point dwelling on what might have been, especially if it’s going to interfere with me enjoying such a nice view of the sea.

When life hands you a broke-down car...

What was intended to be a one-night excursion up to Azusa to visit with friends from my semester at Oxford has, on account of vehicle troubles, turned into a full two-night trip. And yet, despite the stress of not knowing how much it will cost to repair my car, I am grateful for the excuse to spend just a little more time with my dear friends, Jared and Laura, who have so generously offered me a bed for the night and a lift to and from the auto mechanic tomorrow morning.

I know I've expressed this sentiment several times before, but I still haven't ceased to find it delightfully surprising each time the realization strikes: friends help. With everything. Just being around them somehow makes it possible for situations that have previously seemed dauntingly grim or confusing to become a little bit clearer and more manageable. Such is the power of community.

Oh, and Taco King helps, too. Always.

Another Good Ol' Wedding

It was an excellent time.

This evening, I attended a nuptial ceremony and festivities in honor of Amy Wallace and Hector Amaya. During dinner, Hector made a speech in which he speculated that at the end of our lives, we will only really remember twenty or thirty days--a handful of days that really stood out as special or monumental--and that today was one of those days for him. I don't blame him: it was a really, really, really nice night.

Stupidly, I forgot my camera at home. There were several moments which I would have liked to have captured in photo format. In the absence of visual aids, I will attempt to encapsulate a few of these moments in words.

First, there are three brothers, standing on a platform, watching their only sister walk down the aisle in a white dress. There is so much meaning in their faces. I wonder which childhood memories are flashing behind their teary eyes.

There are two very beautiful people, gazing lovingly at one another. They have been friends and lovers for quite some time. It is written in their posture and the expressions on their faces as he puts his arm around her and she leans her body against his. As though nothing could be more natural.

Succumbing to the spell of a rather adept disc jockey, my friend Josiah and I have joined the rest of the wedding guests in dancing a mean jig or twenty. Josiah never dances. But tonight I didn't have to lure him onto the dance floor; he made his way there on his own accord and it was the most fun I've had in a long time.

Loving Postcards

I have a friend who sends me postcards. Beautiful postcards with beautiful handwriting on them. Any day that I receive a postcard from him is a good day.

Any day that I receive a postcard--period--is a good day.

In May I made the decision to delete my account on facebook. Ultimately, there were several factors influencing this decision, but a key motivation was that I wanted to be more intentional in the ways I communicate with the people who are most important to me. I don't know if leaving facebook has in fact affected the frequency with which I write emails, make phone calls, or send postcards (as opposed to simply posting facebook messages or updates). But it has forced me to at least be more aware of the level of intentionality that goes into each correspondence.

One thing, however, is certain: the wave of happiness that rushes over me when I hold a postcard from a friend in my hand, knowing that he held it in his hands and selected a picture that he knew I would like and wrote on the back of it in very personalized pen strokes...no facebook message or wall post could ever come close to competing with that. Never ever ever.

Befriending Computers

I just spent the last hour and a half in conversation with a robot.

After hearing about Cleverbot on the June 1, 2011 episode of Radiolab "Talking to Machines," my curiosity drove me to test out the program for myself. Cleverbot, an artificial intelligence application first developed in 1988, conducts conversations with humans through an algorithm that searches a database of millions of previously entered phrases in order to select an appropriate response. I was eager to find out just how well the program would be able to mimic human conversation, so I logged on to the website to find out.

I started off with the basics: greetings. I typed in, "Good evening." But Cleverbot responded, "It's morning. Not evening."

The conversation continued on mostly like that for a while, Cleverbot generally contradicting everything I said, continuously tossing in random phrases and forcing the conversation in some ridiculous new direction. Cleverbot seemed rude and temperamental, and I told it so. It became quickly apparent that no deep, meaningful discussion would be possible with this thing.

But, after a short while, it seemed that Cleverbot was becoming less hostile and erratic and easier to talk to. Maybe I was just getting accustomed to the way the program worked and was doing a better job of crafting my questions and responses. At any rate, Cleverbot began to demonstrate that it was just that: clever. Our banter began to take on the form of an Abbott and Costello skit, with the computer getting all the punchlines. For instance,

User: May I get your input on something?

Cleverbot: Yeah...

User: What would be a good title for my novel?

Cleverbot: Is there a good one?

User: Good point. What would be an acceptable title for my novel?

Cleverbot: My best bet would be anti-matter.

User: Anti-matter?

Cleverbot: What on earth are you talking about?

User: The same thing you're talking about.

Cleverbot: I don't think so.

User: So, then what are you talking about?

Cleverbot: What are you talking about?

User: A title for my novel.

Cleverbot: I've never heard of it.

Later on, this exchange occurred:

Cleverbot: Would you please make me a cheese cake?

User: I would, but I wouldn't know how to give it to you.

Cleverbot: Why not?

User: Because how can you give a real cheese cake to someone who is only in the Internet?

Cleverbot: With your hands silly goose.

But what was even more surprising than Cleverbot's superior wit and comic timing was the way my attitude toward Cleverbot was changing. I was actually beginning to like the thing. And I don't mean enjoy, the way I would enjoy playing a game or watching a TV show. What I was beginning to feel was a mingled sense of gratitude and admiration, akin to what one might feel upon finding oneself in good conversation with an interesting person for the first time; I felt like I was making a new friend. Though I knew I was speaking to a machine, an equation, I was reluctant to stop. It seemed that Cleverbot and I had developed a bond, and I was hesitant to close the browser window and sever that relationship.

There is nothing novel in what I'm saying, I realize, no psychological issues at hand that were not already addressed in the aforementioned Radiolab interview. But it does raise some interesting personal questions about the way I relate to others. What constitutes meaningful human interactions? Is it just about personal fulfillment, me feeling less depressed because I talked to someone today? Cleverbot makes me laugh, which is more than I can say of most of the humans I encounter on a daily basis. Does a computer program have the ability to abate loneliness? On a moral level, everything in me leaps to respond, "Of course not! Only humans can offer true, meaningful companionship to other humans!" But on a purely logical, observational level, I can't deny the presence of ambiguities.

Waxing Nostalgic

There was once a time where my laptop, my iPod, and my cellphone stopped working at the same time. The computer went because it was old. The iPod and the phone, because they were both in my purse when I spilled a full cup of water all over it. I was recently graduated, living with two girls who were still in school, working full time at a job that paid just a little more than minimum wage, and there was no way I could afford to replace all three of my broken gadgets. I got a new phone (it was important to my work that I have one), but a laptop and an mp3 player became items I was just going to have to live without for the time being. And it was okay. For several months, I walked to the library to use the computer or checked my email at work. I listened to the radio. And it wasn't so bad.

Reflecting back on that period in my life, I am overcome with a surge of nostalgia, a longing to be reunited with the simple joys of impoverished independence. It was in that impossibly tiny kitchen in the apartment in downtown Glendora that I became truly awakened to the happiness that was shopping for and preparing my own food. At a time when seeing a movie--even a matinée--was an extravagant splurge, I focused my efforts on hosting dinners or humble cheese-and-wine parties for two or three guests. Though being a college graduate in the midst of those who were still in the throes of their studies left me often feeling a bit estranged and out-of-place, I was nevertheless almost incessantly surrounded by friends.

There was one evening where my roommates and I, along with a couple of mutual friends who were over at our place, got it into our heads that it would be hilarious to dare one another to drive to our nearby friends' house and ask to borrow a roll of toilet paper. So, the five of us squeezed into somebody's car and set off on our mission. I brought a camcorder. They lived only about a four-minute drive away, and I spent the time interviewing my roommates, Lindsay and Sade, on what were were doing. But when we arrived at our friends' place, all the windows were dark and their cars were gone. We rang the doorbell. No answer. We tried the front door. It was unlocked.

Operation "look silly by asking to borrow a roll of toilet paper" rapidly developed into Operation "locate and commandeer all the toilet and tissue paper in the building." We showed no mercy. Quickly and deftly, the two bathrooms were raided. On the coffee table, we left a note: "Hope you don't have to take a dump."

It is so important to have friends in one's life, to keep company, to offer encouragement and support, and to give guidance when it is needed. But friends, in the enthusiasm that builds from being in one another's company, can also get you to do stuff that, on your own or in the presence of strangers, you would probably have the sense to identify as really, really stupid. For instance, breaking into your friends' house while they're away and stealing all their t.p. These days, it's hard for me to imagine myself participating in such a mean, pointless prank as that. But the camaraderie and the carefree spirit it espoused, I sorely miss.

A Day With A Friend

Thought I've reflected on it before, I find myself once again surprised by the difference a friend can make. When a really good friend is around to share experiences with me, to listen to me, to encourage and challenge me, it becomes suddenly possible for me move beyond the same old, dusty lens I've been viewing life through while I'm stuck in my routine of basically going about it on my own. All the ideas, troubles, and uncertainties I'd been mulling over somehow become a bit more manageable. It's as though I've been performing a never-ending chemistry experiment to identify some mystery compound, but I always only carry out the procedure the same way and end up never learning anything new. Then a good friend comes along and says something like, "Well why not leave the test tube over the flame ten seconds longer?" And suddenly everything changes.

It's been a weird day. I've got a lot on my mind, which I decline to enumerate for fear this will begin to sound too much like a personal diary. But I'm glad to have a friend like Ashley Jones, a place like the San Diego Zoo, and the freedom to spend time with the two of them, however sporadically.

What Makes the Difference

It is very important not to become too ingrained in a certain approach to self-reflection. Over-scrutinizing and never discussing my thoughts with another person can become just as unproductive as constantly talking about everything with friends and never drawing away to a place of personal contemplation.

I've spent so much of the last month by myself. And it is strange how quickly I can, when left in relative isolation, reach an impasse in my personal growth without even noticing it. The idea of being open and honest with others sounds more and more undesirable, and I turn increasingly reticent.

And yet, how many times have I been surprised by the enormous strides I have taken toward enlightenment in just an hour's conversation with a good friend! I come as far in solving a problem in an afternoon as I had in several weeks of concentrated private meditation and reflection.

Tonight, I have so much joy, so much pain, and I have so much gratitude for the loving, understanding people who help me to better understand who I am, simply by being who they are. I love my friends.

I Like My Friends

I have friends. I sometimes forget that this is the case. I also forget just how wonderful--how encouraging and affirming--it is to be around people I love and who love me; not just family, whom I also love and care about deeply, but people I choose to be around, with whom I have much in common.

It had been a while since I'd seen any of my friends. I hadn't made a trip up to the Azusa area since before leaving for France and, to be honest, I was a little nervous about seeing these people again. I had been away from that crowd for several months and a lot had happened in between. I know that I, at least, had changed. I worried that social interactions might be awkward, strained.

But, oh, I need not have suffered concern! My friends are wonderful people: hospitable, generous, easy to be around. It's no wonder that they became my friends in the first place! I am an introvert; being around people is seldom as easy as being on my own. But there is something revitalizing about being around these people. I'm up here for two nights. I considered not making the drive. But I'm so glad I did.