Here I go talking about seasons again. I guess I’m just on a season kick. I love seasons, not just the calendar seasons, but life seasons. I blogged last time about seasons bring change, and I’m still going strong in that vein. This quarter is almost over and we will be headed to our different destinations for spring break mission trips. Once we come back from the trips, we’ll have about ten or so weeks left of the internship and then on to the next thing. Oh Wow! I actually have to have an idea for what’s next? I’m getting a little anxious about what is coming next.

Bellingham is a great place and I have grown to really appreciate it as a place of refining and growing and maturing in my spiritual life. I have learned a lot about myself during my time here so far and I know that there is still a lot more to learn. I have met so many amazing people who have been blessings to me while I’ve been here. My host family, for one, has been incredible and so welcoming taking me in for the year. They are truly loving and hospitable and for that I am so grateful.

Also there is another family who has blessed me so much by their generosity as well. They have loaned me a car during my time as an intern. I am so thankful to them and it has been such a blessing to have a car and have the ability to get around more easily. God is so good and will always come through. I just have to trust and rely completely on Him. He is always there ready to help and bless when the time is right. He gets the glory always and I need to trust always and not doubt.

So, with that in mind, the anxieties that I have about the future don’t need to weigh me down and keep me bound by worry and doubt. God is in control and He will show me what’s next. I just have to trust in Him and maybe take that first initial step towards that new season. He’ll be right there next to me to help me along the way.

As it says in Proverbs 16:9:

“A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.”

Thank You Lord that You are there to direct my steps.

When pressed, I will describe myself as bookish. I’m not often pressed to describe myself in one word; more often, I self-disclose. Maybe it’s the glasses, the assorted sweaters, or the fine pallor I’ve cultivated over the years to match my ectomorphic body type (what Wii Fit likes to insinuate as sickly). But probably it’s that I’m typically reading a book or pretending to write one of my own.

As an intern, I have the privilege of leading a book group. Last quarter we read essays by biologist and writer Barbara Kingsolver. This quarter, we’re looking at short stories by Andre Dubus. I’ve taken the opportunity to step outside what small groups tend to read (standards by the likes of Donald Miller, Lauren Winner, Anne Lamott, and breakout hits like Susan Isaacs’s Angry Conversations with God), which are all delightful books by people I rank among my heroes. What I look for in a selection for book group is something that confronts traditional expectations.

Take Barbara Kingsolver, someone who I’d never actually read up until the fall. She writes from the perspective of a scientist, environmentalist, a mother, a writer, and a piecemeal faith sometimes Christian, sometimes Buddhist, and most times goddess Mother Earth. Compare her with Andre Dubus, a Catholic whose short stories often take on the horrifying reality of domestic abuse and the creative ways humans employ in hurting one another.

I like reading books that are confrontational. I like asking how faith influences the way writers write and readers read. Books that push us away from where we’re comfortable are best, I think. Books that maybe don’t affirm what we think or believe. Books that present us with difficult realities. Books like that, from Christian writers or not, can bring about plenty of good conversation. And maybe we finish it and have a better understanding of ourselves, others, and the world around us. And I could go on and on.

I haven’t decided what we’ll read next quarter. I’ve got my fingers crossed for a good graphic novel.

“What’s your favorite subject?”

“Recess”

Don’t you miss hearing that? Don’t you miss the hot smell of rubber on asphalt and the cold shiver of the very best hiding places in your schoolyard? In a culture so bent on the pursuit of leisure, so intensely interested in the promotion of well being, why have we abandoned the philosophy of recreation we grew up in? What happened to the daily break from work (usually right after lunch, but sometimes in between 4th and 5th period) to just play? In an age where people are increasingly without politics, without religion, without favorite sports teams, it seems we are also increasingly without recess.

It’s time for this to stop.

Three of the students that I work with in the recreation ministry of the INN have started up a program to combat this horrid trend. We call it college recess. Nothing more than some playground balls,hula hoops, and street chalk, it nevertheless weekly proves its effectiveness as an inoculation against the ravages of anti-fun in the average college student.

More than that, I feel like this recess provides a time to share the gospel in a way that seems somewhat overlooked these days: fun. Foursquare and tetherball and tag are wordless testimonies to the complete and all encompassing nature of God; He did in fact create fun, and he created us to enjoy fun- freeze tag is not a sin, and we don’t have to forget about God when we’re playing it.

On a campus that can often be filled with bleakness, around a fountain known for proselytizing people towards or away from every creed- often in a very impersonal way- I can’t begin to describe what it means to me that the INN (a religious organization that believes fully in the redemptive message of Jesus) can send up a group of students to campus whose only goal is to show people the fun of God.

Jesus loved the little children, and claimed that the Kingdom of heaven is for such as these. We try to love the big kids, and we’re just trying to help them feel more like children again.

When I was younger…well, to be honest, even now when I go home, I look forward to Sunday mornings. Not just as a time of rest from school and work, or because I am super stoked to sleep in, but because I knew Sunday mornings always meant one thing in the Nelson house: sourdoughs.

My family values good breakfast. Especially on Sundays. My dad mixes the batter the night before- not from a recipe card, but from the routine etched in his brain that I never thought I would have the chance to know. He asks us the seemingly simple question my brother, stepsister, and I mulled and voted over: Pancakes or Waffles? He adjusts the recipe accordingly, leaves the batter overnight to rise from the yeast, mixes in the rest of the ingredients, and fills the house with the smell of Sunday.

When I get the chance to be with my dad, I have come to expect this fantastic meal. I expect it to be a chance to savor the best pancake or waffle flavor while sitting at the table together. We usually finish most of our breakfast as Dad finishes the batter and smiles at our enjoyment.

Serving pancakes on campus on Tuesday mornings this quarter has given me a chance to see students value and expect a weekly pancake or two…or seven. Although the pancake feed started as just a one-time welcome back event, it has expanded to a weekly event. Students have started asking why we are on Vendor’s Row every week. One lady bluntly asked us this morning, “Oh, so are you recruiting?” People are starting to recognize us and become regulars.

Why are we doing this? We must have some hidden agenda, right? Isn’t that what Christian organizations giving away free things are usually about? Well, no. We are honest about our intentions. We aren’t hiding the fact that we have a Tuesday night program, we are a college ministry, and we want people to start recognizing that we are on campus.

That’s not the only reason we’re up there. We hope to provide a fun, delicious pancake breakfast for students, a chance for people to convene, take a break, and enjoy Tuesday. As I focus on flipping over four rows of four pancakes on two steaming griddles, I think of my dad. I hear students say, “I’ve been looking forward to this,” “This made my day better,” “This is really cool,” and “I’ll be back next week.” And I understand my love for Sundays at home is like their love for Tuesdays.

The fall marked my transition to wearing glasses instead of contact lenses, out of convenience and thrift. I still keep contacts around, for those times when I’d rather not risk losing, breaking, scratching, or otherwise detrimentally impacting my spectacles—like broom hockey. For those occasions, I save pairs of contacts; and, I receive compliments when I pop them in. People have commented, “Dave, you look rested, and refreshed,” in the sort of way that makes me wonder what I look like otherwise: harried? exhausted? But I learned a while ago how to take a compliment, even the vaguely and unintentionally backhanded.

Winter Quarter rushes in like a lion. After two weeks break for the holidays, it still sometimes feels like I’m catching up, catching my breath; and, we’re now—what?—five weeks into the eleven. With everything moving at such a pace as the INN does, and with the addition of mission training and fundraising each week, sometimes it can seem like there’s not much time to catch a breath. I’ve been learning to catch it on the fly.

There’s a refreshing sense of timing necessary these days. When there’s SHOP on Monday, the INN on Tuesday, Lost to catch up on Wednesday (I’m just going through my week, honestly), Mission Training on Thursday, and book group or myriad fundraisers on Friday and Saturday, moments are precious. I take time on Monday, with other INN and FPC staff, over donuts and coffee. I take time at Mission Training to just be with my team going to Bend, OR. And sound check for the music team on Tuesday night—well—sound check is something pretty special.

And though the weeks are long sometimes, the high points seem a little higher and the restful moments seem just that much more invigorating.

January is almost gone and we are in full swing into the Winter Quarter. The Fall Quarter came and went like a flash and it was great. Challenging, but great. Now getting back into the swing of things after a break from the busy schedule of the internship was a little tough. I guess the effects of homesickness finally hit me after being here these past 5 months. As the seasons change, we also change. Whether it be out attitudes or our work styles. There is just something about the seasons and the weather that comes with them really affects how we function.

People say that this season is the hardest to go through. The dreary days. The cold. The rain. The wind. I see how that is probable. But, I also see that it is a time for growth. The times when we are challenged and stretched are times that can be the most beneficial to us. I have really been seeking the Lord and asking for direction and trying my best to listen that still, small voice that is speaking to me. Sometimes I feel like there is no voice at all, but I just keep listening. Keep trusting. There is a poem by a contemporary “slam” poet named Bradley Hathaway entitled “Silence” that speaks to this very topic. The last line of the poem, the crux, if you will is this, “…just sit here and enjoy the peace that I offer in my silence / for when I am silent I am listening, and not abandoning.”

So true. So good.

Here is the full poem. Enjoy.

Silence by Bradley Hathaway

What’s happening here?
I was once so alive and now I’m so full of dread and almost dead
Show me your wounded head that is lead to communion with the father
But where did he go?
His presence seems farther and farther away each day
but I’m trying so hard to steer his way
Yet still lonely and confused on this cold hard ground I lay

Speak to me wise mouth and say “it’s all good kid, it’s nothing that you did, and though it feels like I’m not here with you right now just be still and silent and listen for that sound..
Shhh..
Did you hear it?
Listen again.
Did you hear it?
That silent voice that just spoke nothing, that is me, I’m listening to your plea with open ears Counting all your tears flowing from your irritated eyes
Searching the skies looking for that hope that beyond there lies.

Oh you young worrisome sparrow, find rest
Lay your battered head upon my omnipresent breast and make it your nest
No strong cold wind could ever blow and carry you from this your home
Look around, see the life shooting up from the ground
Spring colors springing fourth and celebration of your trusting

It’s a constant process this is
Growing you into the man you are to become
But when you sense the setting of the sun know it is only rising and has just begun
Now go fourth, sing songs of faith, and lift up others in the midst of this race
And if you can’t keep the pace or lose sight of my face
Know that I’m always near so you need not fear
But don’t worry about all that right now
Just sit here and enjoy the peace I offer in my silence
When I am silent I am listening, and not abandoning.