words are not enough » [live... from planet earth]

Masthead header

Be At Rest Once More…

Time is a funny thing. The last post I wrote was over a year and a half ago, but it feels like a decade and a half. Work at the Red Cross teaches me lessons:

lessons of endurance…
of patience…
of life.

That’s what time does.
If you listen carefully – I’m not talking about hearing, but actually listening -  time teaches life.

A year and a half ago I started what I thought would be my dream job. (It isn’t, but that’s okay.)
My job let me buy a house. It’s a pretty awesome house.

A tornado directly hit the Red Cross building where I work five days before Christmas.
Then another larger one ripped through midtown Mobile Christmas evening.
It was a rough time. At work. At home.

But that’s how life goes.

A year and a half ago I was wondering if I’d ever get married.
So I started chasing this girl on Valentine’s Day 2012.
This past March I asked her to marry me.

She said yes.

The last year and a half has felt like a decade and a half.
Time – life – does that to you sometimes.

I can only hope to quiet myself long enough to hear.
To quiet myself long enough to listen.
And learn.

“Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the LORD has been good to you. For you, O LORD, have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the LORD in the land of the living.” - Psalm 116:7-9 (NIV)

K+6…

Six years ago on August 29th I sat in the same room I wrote this, listening to the wind howl outside. The wind here was strong. Across Mobile windows broke. Limbs fell. Trees uprooted. Homes flooded.

Less than fifty miles west the unceasing tide rose, pushing inland without remorse. Nature has no remorse. It has no emotion. There were no “I’m sorrys” when Hurricane Katrina washed the world away on August 29th, 2005.

Entire blocks of the Mississippi Gulf Coast slipped into the unrelenting sea. Gone. Forever residing at the bottom of the Mississippi Sound for some future archaeologist to discover.

The levees broke. With them, my heart.

Searching for purpose in the wake of disaster – searching for myself – I volunteered to return immediately to help. I didn’t go. When the campus reopened nine months after the flood, I returned. June 1, 2006.

I made it two years – two years that changed the very core of who I am.

Six years ago today my life was uprooted. As were thousands of others, I became an American refugee. Six years ago I grew up. And in the two years after I returned, I learned what it meant to be a man.

Pain. Compassion. Hard work.

When I quit my job making coffee last year, I went to the Red Cross. I joined because I didn’t want people to suffer the way they had during Katrina. I wanted to help.

And I did. I’ve responded to fires and tornadoes. In the aftermath of the North and Central Alabama tornadoes, our chapter sent volunteers and staff to help. I did everything I could within the guidelines of the AmeriCorps VISTA program. And when a position opened up at the chapter in July, I applied.

Six years. Six years ago I would not have seen myself here. Not in this town. Not doing this.

But here I am. Today – six years to the day after my world was completely rocked – today is my first day as the District Volunteer Development Specialist with the American Red Cross.

I’m sure I’ve been making a difference for a while now, whether it was in Louisiana or Texas or Alabama. Whether it was as a popcorn boy at Target or as a coffee boy at the local bookstore or over the last year as a volunteer and VISTA.

It took a while. It felt like eternity. I’m pretty sure I sacrificed a few of my geriatric years getting here.

Pain. Compassion. Hard work.

It was worth it.

August 30, 2011 - 5:55 PM

Alece - congrats on your new job! this next season is gonna be even better!

September 10, 2011 - 9:01 PM

Leanne - *wipes eyes* Oh, Joe. Sooooo proud of you!!!

[I've Been Everywhere, Man]

Last night I got home from my most recent road trip. I drove to Tupelo, Mississippi then visited the Corinth (Miss.) and Shiloh (Tenn.) Civil War battle sites. After a night in Franklin, I caught the northern terminus of the Natchez Trace Parkway Saturday morning and took it all the way to Natchez before coming on home to Mobile. It was a 14 hour drive, but I’m glad to be home.

Since I graduated high school, I’ve been a lot of places on the road. I decided to see if I could come up with a map of all the traveling I’ve done over the years, including a few trips that I forgot details for. I’ve been to thirty-seven states (in high school I flew into New York City and we visited New Jersey from there) and four Canadian provinces. I’ve lived in four states (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama). One of my goals before I’m 40 is to make it to the rest of the United States and Canadian Provinces.

I’d also like to visit more of the National Parks. I’ve driven the Natchez Trace and Blue Ridge Parkways. I’ve seen the Smokey Mountains, Glacier National Park, and Yellowstone. I drove through the Bighorn National Forest, the Badlands, and the Grand Canyon. I caught the west end of the Florida Everglades. I’d love to get out to Big Bend in Texas and visit the Pacific Northwest.

Anyway, you can click the image (or here) to see a higher-resolution version.

[Risking the Mountain]

In 2007 I took a road trip west to Calgary, and on my way home I spent a couple nights in Montana. My second day had me driving west through Glacier National Park, then south through Butte to the town of Belgrade for night. Somewhere north of Butte, I took a quick detour to get the shot you see above, which would eventually be titled, “and then I went up on that mountain over yonder.” Imagine me pointing *that way* as you read this. Three hours later, I was on my way southbound on I-90 toward my night’s destination.

Three. Hours. Lost. On a mountain. In Montana. You getting this? It was a long three hours on that mountain.

It was getting dark and I was low on fuel. The road changed quickly from narrow and paved to narrower and rock. Then gravel. Then dirt. It was getting a little sketchy. I’m pretty sure every movie that begins this way leads to a gruesome death followed by an hour and a half of terror on screen. I took a risk going up on that mountain.

About this time last year I was making coffee at a bookstore for overprivileged, ungrateful mallrats. I left that job out of occupational frustration to volunteer full-time at the Red Cross last August. It was a huge risk; I would end the only job I had to become a volunteer in hopes it would lead to something better. Something bigger. Something meaningful.

In a way, it did. I worked hard. Very hard. And in January I became an AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America), which is sort of like the domestic Peace Corps. I was assigned to the Red Cross, so I got to stay where I was already volunteering. The job came with no control and no salary; instead it carried year-long job security and a “living allowance” of $10,700. About what I’d make in a year at the bookstore in the mall, but with 200 times the responsibility and 40+ hours a week. It meant responding to disasters. Tornadoes. Fires. Late nights and early mornings. Shooting from the hip and bending the rules. And still. Hard work and minimal pay.

We joke that we get paid in pennies* and hugs. (*Bring your own pennies.) I work hard to keep what I have. I risked a lot to get where I am. I don’t want to lose it. But I also want more. I’ll be thirty years old in the next two weeks. Thirty.

Four years ago I went up on a mountain because it seemed like the thing to do. Low on fuel and headed into the sunset, it was a risky move. Last year I quit my dead-end (but paying) job to start a career. I don’t know if going up on that mountain was worth the risk. I’m not better off having been up there. I got a picture and a story. The last year? Tonight, if you’ll allow me a little leeway, I find myself wondering if that risk will pay off. All I know right now is that it was better than making coffee for a living.

July 14, 2011 - 6:46 AM

Blaize - Great post. You did the right thing and are impacting the world. That the stuff of legends.

July 24, 2011 - 6:43 PM

Dan Sardinas - Fantastic post! Love the last line. Will be praying that God will show you the reward and fulfillment of your risks!

M O R E   I N F O