Blue and White

          I live in a world of blue and white.

          I was born in white and raised in blue. My first name is Blue and my last name is White, with Sky squished somewhere in the middle.

          I grew up a stone’s throw from a vast, deep blue edged with soft, wind-stinging white. The warmth of the white coated my feet after I dipped them in the cold of the blue.

          Blue stretches above me and white floats across, sometimes rushing, sometimes raining, sometimes faking us into thinking it’s actually grey, only to vanish later into the blue with a wink and a nod.

          In school, we painted messy blue into oceans across a glossy background white, and I stared down at the puddle on my page and wondered how to turn it into a sea so my ship could sail on.

          I fill the white spaces amid thin lines of blue with words and numbers and sentences and equations, with thoughts and dreams and hopes and quiet, unspoken wishes that peek out from between the lines.

          I come from a land where shards and shades of blue meet trills and trails of white, deft and delft and I dance on blue and white in wooden shoes.

          I walk toward a land where I touch blue and white, twirling my tzitzit between my fingers and feeling the reminder that I am royal, a priest, called to be a sign and a symbol of He who made me in blue and white.

          There is white beneath my fingernails and blue in the green of my eyes. I wear blue on my hand and white on my wrist. I clothe myself in blue and wash myself in white, and blue and white cover me at the end of the day when I close my eyes and rest.

          I come from a world of blue and white, and blue and white is the world where I am going.

The Storyteller

My first college essay. How exciting. I had to write an autobiography for IDIS 149, aka Prelude. This is it. I should note, though, that Creative Writing was not my only favorite high school class – there are several more that I loved just as much, if not more, but didn't lend themselves to the purpose of the essay.

          My favorite class in high school was Creative Writing. It was a one semester course, and it was one of those classes a teenager would be actually willing to report to every morning at eight a.m. As much as I loved it, the class didn’t come without its challenges. I tend to be a rather meticulous person, and I like to make sure I follow the instructions given. If I have another idea or want to do things a little differently, I ask.

          “Is it okay if I don’t follow the instructions exactly?”

          Ms. Arda, our teacher, answered without missing a beat. “This is Creative Writing! Stop following instructions!” She paused to smile at the four writers who sat around our table. “But, if you don’t know where to go, follow the instructions.”

          In Creative Writing, instructions were more of guidelines – there to give us a place to go when we were lost but not to hinder our quest for creativity, or rather, our quest for ourselves. Creative Writing told me that who I am is worth exploring, that only I see the world as I do. I write, Ms. Arda taught, because my story is worth telling.

          Stories and writing have been a part of my life ever since I was little. I learned how to read early, and from then on reading became my favorite pastime. In our house, instead of being told to turn off the television and go read a book, my siblings and I were told to put down our books and go play outside. I knew my favorite books backward and forward, and I had my own library card in elementary school. Reading programs at school or the library were simple – I read more than the required amount anyway. Stories were my treasures; they were and still are a part of who I am.

          That love of stories eventually led me to writing. My two best friends and I were among the very small selection of middle schoolers who chose to play pretend at recess instead of racing to get in line for four square. Our three nameless characters went on adventures to save our imaginary world from impending evil, borrowing from our favorite stories as we went. As we moved from elementary to middle school, our world began to stabilize. The vague locations became specific settings; our characters gained first names, then last. One of my friends started writing our story, leading the other two of us to write it along with her from our own characters’ perspectives.

          My first foray into the world of writing was, to say the least, terrible. Over the next few years, that story would go through draft after draft, some of which were improvements, most of which had more plot holes than they had plot, and none of which got past the second chapter. Even so, that first story of my own was important to me. It became a part of my story. Like the books I read when I was little, it became a part of who I am.

          If middle school was where I first discovered that I was a writer, then high school was where writing grew into something I loved. My first high school class was English 1, coincidentally taught by Ms. Arda, who would later teach me Creative Writing. Through that class and the English classes that followed, my teachers encouraged me. I began to write more outside of class. I attended Calvin’s biennial Youth Writing Festival as a freshman and again as a junior, organizing the group myself the second year so that we could go. I took Creative Writing. I submitted work to Scripta, our school’s annual art and literary publication, every year of high school. I participated in National Novel Writing Month twice and completed my novels both times. I actually enjoyed writing and revising most essays.

          Then, the spring of my junior year, I took the ACT that included an essay. The writing section was scored out of twelve points. When we practiced in class, I earned a ten. On the actual test, my score was a six. Seven or so months later, I took the SAT with the same result.

          I’ve said before that my writing is a part of who I am. Those essays were standardized, the prompts were dull enough that I don’t even remember them, and I didn’t have enough time to put in the work I usually give to my writing. Even so, those failures are a part of me. I’ve succeeded and failed in many places, both within the realm of writing and without, and they’re all a part of who I am.

          While my writing is only a part of who I am, it’s also something that seems to connect all these different parts of me. I would not be the person or writer I am today without the people who have encouraged me along the way. My family, friends, and so many others are essential characters in my story, whether they provide me with instructions or remind me that it’s okay sometimes to let them slide out the window. This story isn’t one that I can walk alone. As a human being, I am meant to be in community. We all have our own stories, and we are all a part of a larger story that we walk together – God’s story. My writings, my story, and my very self are founded on Him. They, and I, belong to Him and are in His hands.

          I still have that first story I wrote back in middle school. A few drafts of it are scattered around amidst the old files on my flash drive; the one on my computer is hardly recognizable as the same story that I began in elementary school and put to paper a few years later. In some ways, this draft isn’t very different from the others – I like to think it’s an improvement over the last one, though it still has plot holes and it still isn’t past the second chapter – but that’s okay with me. I haven’t touched it in a long time. Maybe one day I’ll make it better, patch up the plot holes, and finish it. Like the others I’ve written, that story is a part of who I am, and I am a child of God. His story – and as one small part of it, mine – is one worth telling.

Remember

For James. With inspiration from Psalm 46.

There is a place
where the river runs slow,
where its waters trickle by
       like the falling of a leaf,
where the wind whispers
       through the trees,
"Do you hear?
 Do you hear?"

There is place
where the river runs swift,
where its waters call and play
       like the laughing of a child,
where the wind whistles
       through the trees,
"Do you see?
 Do you see?"

There is place
where the river runs fast,
where its waters roar and foam
       like the boiling of the clouds,
where the wind hisses
       through the trees,
"Do you feel?
 Do you feel?

"Do you feel,
 weary traveler,
 the burden that you bear?
 Do you see
 the length of the road
 stretched out
 behind you and before?
 Do you hear
 the cry of your
 beaten, broken
 soul?

"Will you go?
 Will you stay?
 Will you stand?
 Will you fall?"

Will you be?
Will you simply,
                    utterly,
                         completely,
                                   wholly,
                                             be?


Be —
     be —
          be still
                              and know
        that
               I AM GOD.


Because there is place
where the river runs calm,
where its waters make glad
       like the rejoicing of a city,
where the still, small voice
       sings the traveler's heartsong,
"I am here,
 I am here,

                         you are Mine."

God Even Uses Candy Conversation Hearts

          Sometimes, life is a bummer.
          It’s like when you open a box of those candy hearts (the ones that I’m told taste like cardboard and sadness where there should be unicorns) and the first one that falls out is orange, your least favorite flavor, and says “miss you.”
          But then again, sometimes the next one that comes out is yellow, your favorite, and says “love you” on it, which kind of makes you smile at the irony, if you compare it to the last one you got.
          That is, until you promptly proceed to drop it and it falls beneath your dresser with the dust bunnies and you can’t find it for the life of you, and all the while you look ridiculous down on your hands and knees searching for this stupid candy heart beneath your dresser.
          And then, of course, just as you’ve given up, told yourself this is dumb and begun to get up off the floor, you discover it’s bounced out from beneath your dresser, and you couldn’t find it because you were looking for it where it wasn’t.
          Funny the way these things work, isn’t it?

deeper and deeper...

Found in a post by James Kostelyk in the FYF Facebook group.

Lately I've felt like
Jonah

I've been in a pit
engulfing waters
drowning in an ocean
seaweed wrapped around my head
barred in

forever?

deeper
and deeper…

Hey GOD!
Where are you?
I asked you to help me!
Are you going to let me die?
Don't you care about me?
Is this it?

drowning
alone
scared

and you had me
eaten?
…really?

the LORD provided
salvation
is a giant fish?
a giant nasty fish?
…really?

[my child
just wait
you'll see
I LOVE YOU]

take a deep breath…
let it go…

I'll
run
strive
reach out

I'll talk to God
he knows what he's doing
he will never let me go
he will NEVER FORGET about me
EVER

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

he is here
above below behind in front next to
always

I'll fall in love with him

deeper
and deeper...

Once, There Was a Place

A speak aloud poem, or a prosetry, really. Written during our first FYF Space for God time.

Once, there was a place,

a long time ago,

where the sun still shines

like it hasn't shone before and

where the stones sometimes laugh

as if they've only just discovered

the earth while the cattails pretend

they are bulrushes and bulrushes

play hide-and-seek with the

cattails outside on a bright

summer's day.

And in that place, where starlight

runs like a river and colors

waltz between the trees, where

daffodils wave at passing clouds

and the ocean's waters taste

sweet to the touch, there was

a girl who used to find pebbles

on the shore of the sea and

paint them with the morning dew.

She would rise with the sun

and fly among the clouds, and

she would laugh with the stones

and play with the rushes and

the colors taught her how to dance.

At night she would bathe in the

starlight and wrap herself in a blanket

of fog before falling asleep to the sound

of the pebbles in her pocket saying,

"wish, wish, wish."

And far away, there was a wish,

a wish of a man who had never

seen cattails or fallen asleep beneath

a foggy blanket or found a place

where daffodils still grow.

So one day he got onto his feet

and started walking wherever they

might lead, and wouldn't you know

it, but that young man stumbled across

a mountainside where he ran into

a girl looking out across the way

and they both went tumbling and rolling

down the valley until they landed with

a snap in a pool filled with spring.

And the boy had only just gotten to his

feet and held out his hand to help the

girl up when he realized that his stuttered

apology had turned into a bird, which

the girl took from his outstretched hand

and threw into the air, and it flew away

to the mountaintop where snow was falling

like wisps of cotton candy and turning

into toadstools just as it hit the ground.

The girl took him by the hand and led him up

the starlight stream to where he could feel

the sun across his face even while the

clouds were racing in the sky above,

and he learned how to laugh with the

stones and play with the rushes, and

the colors taught him how to dance together.

And after a time, the two of them took the

pebbles they had painted with the morning

dew and set out for the mountain where

the girl had first wished for a dancing

partner and where the toadstools smelled like

freshly fallen snow, and they took those

pebbles and they threw them, one

by one, farther and farther until

they couldn't reach any more, and

then they ran down the mountain to

that pool filled with spring and climbed

onto their raft and sailed down the

river of starlight and out over the

ocean where the waters taste sweet to

the touch, because they knew that

there was something waiting to be

found over the horizon.

So if, one day, you ever find

that place, where the sun still shines

like it hasn't shone before and where

the stones sometimes laugh as if they've

only just discovered the earth while

the cattails pretend they are bulrushes

and the bulrushes play hide-and-seek

with the cattails outside on a

bright summer's day, let me know,

and we'll go there, you and

I, and we'll rise with the sun and

fly among the clouds, and we'll laugh

with the stones and play with the

rushes, and maybe, the colors will

teach us how to dance.

Nagging Doubts

Written for the physics blog I kept during an independent research project my junior year of high school.

is it okay
that I think more

than I read and

that I write less

than I think and

that I even have

these doubts about

those silly things?