The Trek

Aaron and I are getting ready to spend what we have of a summer vacation on a Trek. What this means is that we are going to get on school buses with over a hundred youth (14-18 year old) from our church, and ride 5-6 hours to Wyoming. We will stop at Martin's Cove, WY where we'll be assigned handcart's to load with our possessions and trek with across several windy miles. We'll do this repeatedly for 3 days, then get on the school buses to come home. But this is more than just an intensive reality-based vacation. This is an opportunity for us to experience - a very dilute bit of what Early Mormon Pioneers went through to live the things they believed. I think that there is great power in living a life with such integrity that you would walk away from all that you've known to pursue what you have found to be true. We live in a world if pioneers - I think that we often leer at those who pursue paths that differ than our own. Perhaps some are lost and take the paths that open to them - but many follow a light that has revealed itself to them. I think that we each have gifts, talents, temperaments that open certain paths to us. I stand in awe of the passion and faith of many who I know. While I admire these great people and grow from their strengths my own path is unique. I look forward to this Trek and the insight which I hope to glean from my own thoughts and experience. I anticipate that it will be a very worthwhile use of my summer's vacation.

Fundamental Truth

I've been reading my sister's blog for a while and each time I've felt that I ought to create my own. I have been experiencing a personal renaissance for several months now. A great part of which is being present. In other words - I am striving to be with the feelings I feel and act on the impulses that arise. So I am sending a bit of myself into cyber space. I stand each moment at the gate of the eternities, arms raised and open to embrace what lay before me. I look foward to sharing the experience and my thoughts thereon.

The Invitation
by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithlessand therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty, every day,and if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”
It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

- by Oriah Mountain Dreamercopyright © 1999 by Oriah Mountain Dreamer.