Keeping Our Eyes Open

I noticed something this week in Maui. We live in a world that is incredibly focused. We go through life with our gaze fixed straight ahead—usually on the sidewalk directly in front of us making sure we don’t trip on anything, and we move quickly, dead set on arriving at our final destination as efficiently as possible. I’m completely guilty of this myself usually. One of my former roommates used to tease the rest of us for not “lolly-gagging” enough and tried to teach us to slow down, but I’m not sure it really worked. Until this past week that is. See, I have been to Maui several times now thanks to various people’s weddings and business conventions being held there over the years, and my all time favorite thing about being on the island is whale watching. I have never been to Hawaii when it has not been whale season, and quite honestly, I am not so sure I would enjoy it as much, as crazy as that may sound to some. There is something about literally sitting for hours doing nothing but staring at the water searching for the tell-tale puffs of mist that signify the presence of a whale beneath the surface that is absolutely addicting for me. On my last few trips over here I have pretty much insisted we go on a whale watching trip, not because I love being on a boat with 80 other tourists, but because it gets me out on the water and so much closer to these magnificent animals.

Anyways, the other day my parents & I had left our hotel and gone to lunch in Lahaina, at a beach-side restaurant that had a fabulous view of the walkway that connected several different major hotels with the beach (perfect for people watching), and the ocean beyond that. The entire time we were waiting for our meal and then while eating I couldn’t stop looking out at the water searching for those puffs of mist, and the occasional breach of a humpback, when I realized something. The whole time I was fixated on the water, literally thousands of people passed in front of us on the walkway, heading to or from their hotels, and none of them stopped walking to look around them! Maybe they figured that when they got to wherever they were going then they would look around and take in the view, but while they were walking, none of them slowed down enough to notice that right in front of them were some of the most majestic creatures on the face of this earth playing in the ocean.

That got me thinking. How many ways does God reveal Himself and His creativity, splendor, and glory to us? And how many times does He do this to have us completely ignore it? It’s like I preached about back in January—God reveals His glory all the time, but we are so busy being so focused on where we think we need to go that we frequently miss it. Even though we often ignore Him, God is going to continue revealing Himself to us. Those whales are going to continue breaching, blowing, spotting, and playing right in front of us, whether we are watching or not, but it is my prayer that we might all open our eyes a little wider, walk a little slower, and shift our gaze from the sidewalk in front of us to the splendor around us. Who knows, when we open our eyes, we might be privileged to see something like this:

or this...(a mom and her calf)

Aloha!

There’s nothing like 5 days of doing nothing but staring at waves, watching whales, and reading for fun! It was definitely a different vacation for me though! For one thing, this was the first family vacation I’ve been on since Megan and Nathan got married. They weren’t able to join us, so I was the “only” child for a week—lets just say I missed my sister! We’re used to going on business vacations, where Mom & Dad have banquets or business dinners each evening, but when that happens the two of us usually go to dinner together, and then either go for an evening swim, enjoy the hot tub, or go down to the beach together to watch the sunset. I wasn’t prepared to have to eat several dinners alone! I’m usually ok with doing that, with reading or people watching if I have to be in a restaurant alone, but there was something about it this time that felt weird! I’m not sure Hawaii is as much fun without you, Megs!

But, because this was a business trip (Thrivent, my dad’s company, takes their top insurance sales people and spouses for a week long trip each year to celebrate their accomplishments in 2006 and to re-motivate them for this upcoming year, and my dad was there from the corporate office to act as one of the “hosts” of the week), Thrivent chose the location. So they pay for the rooms, but each family is responsible for anything extra they order—food, drinks at the pool, movies etc. So since Thrivent chose the place to honor their top 100 sales people, we were at the Ritz Carlton, a place I have never stayed, and a place known for their astronomical prices & phenomenal service. Anyways, so I was on my own for all but 2 dinners of the week, so I went to the restaurant a few times and ordered room service a few times. I thought I’d save money one night by calling room service & ordering something from their kid’s menu, which they won’t let you do in the main restaurant but they will via room service. I didn’t have the entire menu in front of me, so I asked what they had on their kids menu and decided that the hot dog/French fry meal with a bottle of water—this sounded like a good, and probably one of their more inexpensive options available. So the bill comes…yeah, I enjoyed a $15 hot dog and a $12 bottle of water….and that was the most inexpensive thing we were able to order all week…needless to say when we go back to Hawaii on a non-business trip we won’t be visiting the Ritz!

Here are some photos from the week:

The first day I was there, my mom and I went on a hike with about 10 other Thrivent folks out to a blow hole and to a spot with this crazy cool lava rock spot.

Maui has all kinds of crazy beautiful spots that you just kind of stumble across as you wander...

The Ritz...yeah it was a rough week!We went whale watching on Saturday, with our new friends Hana and her grandpa. Here we are, ready to head out to sea in search of humpbacks!The West Maui Mountains from the boat Our hotel had baby sized palm trees--they were SO cute and I was actually taller than them!The beach by the hotel

And…even though I am not officially Lutheran any more, the one thing I have always appreciated about Lutherans (even though this is not something you might expect me to say…) is that they sure do know how to throw a party! Each night of the week had a different theme, and they did a full-blown bash every night to celebrate the accomplishments of their top producers. I wasn’t invited to any of the parties until last night when they let the families come to the St. Patrick’s Day party, and I was blown away by what they had put together. I didn’t realize this but Thrivent has a team of event planners that do nothing but plan the big events for Thrivent throughout the year. Since the last night of the week was the 17th, an Irish pub crawl was quite appropriate, and it was also a fabulous way to announce that this top conference for 2009 would be taking place in Dublin, Ireland (next year’s is a Mediterranean cruise…I’m kind of bummed my parent’s probably won’t be asked to host that event!) Here are some photos from last night: they even brought in a band that impersonates U2, they’re called “To-You” and were surprisingly fabulous—they did all the U2 songs and did them really well, getting everyone dancing and celebrating.

The entry bridge

They very cool guy hiding in a fruit platter who startled people as they reached for dessertOf course they had plenty of accessories around to help everyone get into the Irish spiritHana beating me in foosball

And...That's a Wrap!

So I haven’t decided if this is going to be a ridiculously long post or if I am going to split this into a couple different posts—I’m currently writing this in a word document as I’m on an airplane, but we’ll see how I am inspired when I actually go to post this tomorrow! I haven’t written in quite awhile—and have actually received comments from a couple of you asking me when I’m going to have something new to read—I didn’t even know people faithfully checked this page, so to my faithful readers, thank you! And I’m sorry for being so delinquent in my writing! I can blame it on class work, and finals, but really laziness and a lack of inspiration also have played a part too!

So winter quarter is officially over, and it was pretty much insane right from the beginning. Classes were a lot of work, but we also had a ton of extra events for the Presby community that took up a lot of time planning and organizing. It just felt busy from day 1, and I never felt like I even came close to being caught up until I turned in my last final paper. Mom and Dad had a business trip to Maui scheduled for this past week and had invited me to join them. I of course jumped at the opportunity & then realized it was finals week, not spring break, so that meant trying to turn in all of my work early, which sounded totally do-able about 2 months ago—and about a week ago sounded like the most ridiculous idea I have ever had. But, somehow I managed to get everything finished, turned in, and on Tuesday I hopped on a plane and spent the past 5 days relaxing in Hawaii. It was a wonderful trip…and I have more thoughts/pictures on that, so see the post below (Keeping Our Eyes Open).

This quarter found me figuring out a new passion of mine that I didn’t realize I had—preaching. This quarter also found me discovering one of the most difficult and frustrating things I have ever done—preaching. I took homiletics this quarter, and supposedly learned how to write a sermon…what they don’t tell you is how unbelievably difficult and aggravating this process can be. I can research just fine. Give me a passage and I’ll somehow figure out some cool historical background information on it, I can tell you if there is anything interesting in the Greek grammar of the passage, I can talk about who the original recipients of the letter were etc. But, the process of taking all that information and putting it into a message for people, a message that is not simply a lecture on the historical background of a passage of scripture but a message that actually speaks to their present situations is enough to drive me to tears each time. I love to write, and I love to speak, but somehow this process of sermon writing is unbelievably overwhelming to me. Yet I still love it. Because, it is a time when I am forced to say “ok God, I cannot do this on my own. I have nothing to say to this audience on my own, I need you to give me your words, I need you to help me figure out how to frame this in a way that people can hear it.” And what absolutely shocks me, is that every single time this has happened, God has been faithful. He does speak, sometimes not on my time schedule, but God does speak, He does eventually help me craft my research into a message, and I get to deliver a sermon that I know I did not write on my own. It is a crazy experience—one that I can’t often describe, but each time I am more and more amazed at how faithful He is. In April I’m preaching again at First Pres, Burbank, and am tackling a passage from the book of Revelation—which I am very excited about…so stay tuned J

I am also really looking forward to next quarter because I have decided to try slowing down a bit. I am only going to take 2 classes instead of the 4 I was originally registered for, and I am hoping to be able to spend more time experiencing different aspects of ministry in my internship because I feel like I just did not have the time this past quarter to really learn as much as I could have in this fabulous opportunity I have to serve on a church staff before I am thrown into my own church to sink or swim! I also hope to slow down a bit and be more intentional about keeping in touch with those who I have pretty much managed to ignore this quarter in my self-centered busy-ness—so to those of you who I have not done a fabulous job of keeping in touch with, I’m sorry and I am hoping spring will look a little different for me!

Anyways—I’m on my way back from Hawaii, and because I left early during finals I still have a whole week off before class starts!