Consistent Consecutive Consolidated

I only upload my photos to flickr in sequential order.
I'm super OCD with how my facebook posts look once published.
I love consolidating things.

After much useless mind energy devoted to these things, I have decided to transport all of my WendkuniNews letters onto this blog, discard lengthy monthly newsletters to masses who don't read them so I can get more disciplined about posting here. Whoever cares to read, can at their leisure.

I'm against deleting or editing these various electronic musings even if they now seem irrelevant. They are part of my story and therefore part of me and absolutely relevant to where I am. So, this blog is about to be inundated with updates from years past, will be out of order, will be messy, probably confusing... but in the end, it all seems to come together.

Thanks for caring (she said after making a massive assumption)!

All Things Go, All Things Grow

So my last post was in October... a lot can change in a little time. I wouldn't know where to start or where an appropriate place to end would be if I were to tell you the story of my life in the past eight months, so I won't. Instead, I will tell you where I am today and where I plan to go and grow. I will leave it to you to fill in the blanks, ask the questions you wonder about and imagine all the days that have filled the space between last Autumn and the Summer season of now. In those ways you can conjure the ways I have gone and grown for yourself. If you care enough to read this blog I trust you know me well enough and that knowledge will direct your mind's eye down the right paths. The places where I worried what you though of me have gone, now I simply trust and live.

I will start by saying I am nowhere and going nowhere I had imagined I would be a mere three months ago. All of these things I am embarking on are new to me, new to my plans and ideas of a future. However, they seem to be familiar, the way a child can possess an old soul. These are paths that I have pondered, but have never come to a place where I was prepared to walk them. These are paths that do not present themselves as abrupt, nor particularly different from those I had anticipated going down... though they are different.

I, Courtney, find myself today, on the 23rd of June in the year 2009 at my mother's house. I am single with a heart on the mend and a head held high in expectation for what is next, trusting it is better. I have searched for a job that fits my passions, training, education and talents since November, and have found none (no thanks to 'these economic times'). I have spent some months looking around me for creative ways to grow and move forward. After a season of getting back on my feet I am observing my surroundings, taking stalk of things at hand and finding new opportunities presenting themselves that I would have not considered had it not been for the drastic change in my life's plans.

When I was 20 years old I worked in Hong Kong at Crossroads International. When I was 23 I lived in India for five months. When I was 24 I graduated from UCSD. Now I am 26 and watching in amazement at how all of these things in my life have been preparing me for now.

I have decided to move to Hong Kong and work with Crossroads for a year. In September my best friend Darla and her husband, Vivek, who we met when we were in India, are having their wedding reception. I will be joining them along with my sister and several amazing friends. My return flight originally had a twelve hour layover in Hong Kong, I have modified that to a twelve month layover.

If this seems drastic to you, it is most likely because I have not done a good job keeping up with most people in my life over the past year or so. But then again, it may not come as a surprise to you. Recently I was telling one of my friends that being able to hang out after work depended on when the farmers were able to finish up the harvest. They replied with some smart aleck response like "sounds like such a Courtney job".

I know my life may appear random and chaotic, and yes, sometimes it feels that way. But I assure you, I really weigh my decisions and dwell on them for a long time before making a move. It is just that often I keep that process inside, save for a select few close friends of mine who are lifelong sounding boards. My goal is to let you more in the loop of my mind and decision making and daily interactions with the world.

Why? Well, for several reasons. The main one being, that this next year will require a deep interdependence as I will be looking for partners in my support raising to be at Crossroads. The organization runs on a fully individually funded staff, and I plan on being a part of it. That, however, requires you stepping along side of me to be just as much a part of the work done.

Look over their website and check out the work they do. I am so honored that I will be able to be a part of this work. I see it as an amazing opportunity to align who I am with who I want to be. It is a spiritual move, a career move, and a personal move.

I am so grateful for such amazing people in my life, these past few months have poignantly proven that. If you are actually still reading, chances are you are a dear friend of mine. Thank you for being a part of my life and supporting me in all the ways you already have, be it with friendship and advice, a shoulder to cry on, a companion to walk with, or whatever way you have charmed me enough to keep our friendship going.

Sleepy Articulation

This morning I woke up and found my earring next to my pillow. It was a little silver unicorn stud that Laurel gave me for some memorable holiday a while back. I have no recollection or reason, but it seems I took it out and replaced the back before putting it next to me. I can barely form coherent sentences when I am sleepy, then all of the sudden I surprise myself by having the focused dexterity to remove my earring, and replace the pack on the little post while completely unconscious.

So, it turns out a life of stability has just as many challenges as one of chaos. This has proven to be the season of restoration that I was anticipating. I have been able to spend long afternoons wandering around San Diego with my friend Nikki who is about to have her first baby, bike rides and chats in the sun with Andrea, spending time in my garden coaxing my plants to produce enough vegetables to offer to my neighbors. I have laughed with my family and caught up with them to the point where I don't feel like we are just spending our time together catching up. I spend nearly every day making up for lost time with Colin, an incredible blessing to share my life with one of my dearest friends and most trusted confidants. I have a hard time determining if I feel like this past year and some months has flown by or if it feels like we've been together forever. Either way, it is good.

I planted a garden and then neglected it. I returned to it, finding it still there but dry and sad and wanting of attention from nurturing hand, held together by the miracle of growth and love. It is starting to perk up, beginning to show signs of fruit.
This growth and love is beyond my understanding. How is it that my watering, pruning, and removing of pests ultimately causes a garden to grow new leaves and produce food that will in turn nourish me? There is clearly another element tying my actions (and at times inactions) to the reaction of my garden without witch neither I nor the fruit of my garden would be interdependent. In actuality, the dependance is on that middle substance that ties us together, for if it were not for that there would be no relationship at all.

What I have noticed as of late is that my perspective of that love and growth between me and the garden I love is not always going to be the same. That necessary tension that holds us together, holds us accountable for our actions and what we give to the relationship will not always look the same because it is never the same. Yes, there are times in this season of restoration that I will be watering and giving, there will be times I am gently tearing off dead leaves, and times when I will kill the bugs that threaten the lives of the plants in the garden. But I am not only giving. I must receive. I must accept it when a plant will not yield fruit, or when it has wilted into the ground, or when it is heavy laden with fruit for me.
It might not be that the garden looks to me as its provider of nourishment, it may see me as the one in need, it holding the responsibility of giving me food and even the sheer enjoyment of having it there by my door every time I look for it. This perspective swap may also change how each party understands that love and growth that is between us. All parties understand its importance, maybe though very differently.

I do not have the capacity to articulate exactly what that difference is, or why it is. Perhaps it is something that I understand deep inside of me, like something I have known for most of my life and have been doing without realizing the consequence of its place in me because it is something that occurs quite often without even a second thought. Like how I can take out an earring and put its post back into that little whole in my sleep. I have done it nearly every day since I was 8 years old not paying much mind to it, not realizing that its gotten to a point where I can literally do it in my sleep and didn't realize it until I actually did.

Even if I have known of the existence of myself, the people in my life and the God who is integral in holding us all together by facilitating the love that can grow between us, maybe it took finding it laid bare before I really understood that I don't understand it. I have known it in my gut for a long time, and taken that knowledge for granted... when I was finally challenged in it, I just couldn't explain the differences in each of the three parties perspectives of each other and the God that binds us together. I do recognize that those differences are vital in keeping the relationship alive, keeping each party engaged. Ultimately though, it is that center source of love and growth, God, who has the correct perspective of Himself, myself and the others. That is the one I want, that will take more work than I am up for right now. At least now I know what is in store for me, why this restoration is not really rest, but a new season of striving for more of what the Lord has for me.

This is harder to articulate than a thought when I first wake up.

A Time to Plant

I feel as though I am somewhere between a time to plant and a time to pluck what is planted. Throughout the years I have seen seeds sewn, some have fallen on fertile grounds, others (though it pains me to remember them) among the thorns. I have also, however, had the privilege of nourishing and raising up the seedlings, watching them grow little by little. The greatest and rarest joy is when the time to harvest comes and all of the work, time, patience, watching, waiting, praying comes to fruition and the fruit of your labor is right there in your dirty, calloused hands.

There are various cycles of this pattern in my life. There are things that are planted and pop right up ready to go before you remember to even water it. Others are planted, cared for and eventually lost amongst the others that bear faster and brighter fruit. These interest me, not in a way that is always on my mind... so perhaps intrigue is a better term for them. It is these plants of long-suffering that I -knowingly or unknowingly- keep in a far corner of my garden. I come across them every so often when watering a near by plant whose seed was sewn near by, or while wandering about the grounds in awe of the garden as a whole, but at times I am drawn back to them. Back directly to them.

I remember one such fruit. I was twelve and going through some of the worst pain a family could muster under circumstances they brought upon themselves. I remember sitting on the floor in my room, music blaring. I took a small palm-sized notebook and scribbled "God, let me and my sisters be alright." And that was it. The seen was sewn and I walked away to try to keep other plants clearly dying alive. Years and years later I'd be going through old boxes in an attic, find this teal green notebook and begin to weep. We are all alright. Despite my neglect the Lord had heard the plea of a desperate child and kept a promise. The revelation of this beautiful fruit was at the precise moment I needed to remember that God does what He says He will.

Though we are faithless, He remains faithful for He cannot deny Himself. Moments like that bring back memories of other forgotten seeds and leave me to wonder if there are even more that I have forgotten about so long ago that I don't even know I have anything to have forgotten.

I am entering a new season. It is one that I can't tell from here if it will include planting or plucking what has been planted. The Lord has told me that this is a season of restoration... more to follow.

Repetitious Revelation

I was experiencing M.I.A. blow my mind in a recent concert in at 4th&B in San Diego when it hit me; she can get her message out just as passionately night after night. The same message, the same songs, the same lyrics and the only difference is the audience. This is an audience who really could care less that she has done the same thing over and over in hundreds of cities, if she appears apathetic, inconsistent, irritated, tired, or shows a fickle face towards the message she wants out, she looses her audience in search of something they too can be passionate about.

Then at UCLA I watched Steve Haas, the VP of the organization I work for, talk on HIV/AIDS for the third and fourth time. Same talk, two even back to back. I knew what was coming, I too even know the statistics by heart. By my breaking heart as I try not to cry for the second time as he talks about experiences with dying AIDS victims in Africa. The same message, the same words, different audiences. Each audience looking for something that is real, something to fight for, to fight against.

I got to wondering at my own role in this repetitious rut I have found myself in over the past month. Landing the WV AIDS Tent National Tour in four states, watching thousands of people go through the exhibit and training hundreds of volunteers to catch the vision was amazing. But I found that by the end of a long tour stop (of 4-5 hour long trainings per 10-15 hour day) I was beginning to stumble over my words as though they were some inanimate object beneath my feet and not the powerful truth that this platform I have been allotted compels me to speak.

It is not that I need to be reminded why I do this, I still cry at the drop of a hat at photos and videos I have seen dozens of times over... its more that I sometimes loose sight of the moment. What is it to this new crew of volunteers that I have done this scores of times and their faces tend to blend into one? For each of them this is the first time hearing this information, it is the first time they have stepped out of their comfort zone to begin to fight this global pandemic, it is all they can do with their time since loosing their job, it is extra credit in school, it is an eye opener, it is a challenge, it is a life changing moment. Who am I to taint what the Lord is doing in their lives because I am not feeling up to par? I am no one.

I remember hearing a talk given by Christian worship leader Jason Upton. It was on the joy in finding what you are called to say, and even if it is the same message over and over and over... it is alway just as glorious as the first time, refreshing as the moment the Lord whispered those words directly into your ear. For him it was "God is love. God is love."

Perhaps for me it is "Dance upon injustice. Dance upon injustice."

And God said, "Ha!"

The past five years of my life I have been doing everything in my power to stay out of America, the past three years I have avoided mega-churches and mainstream Christian culture like it will kill my soul instead of saving it... all the time serving God whose got a fiery sense of humor.

Since September I have been traveling all over SoCal with the World Vision AIDS Experience Tent. We have mostly been at college campuses and though exhaustion sometimes gets the best of me, I love it. A year ago, had you told me I was still going to be in the Sates, I would have dreaded the boredom, however, I find myself entangled in more adventures than I've ever signed up for before. Then I get the news about the Spring and Summer tour... all mega-churches and Christian music festivals. Yep, God's snickering as I ponder the ways I will be able to cope.

I am being stretched in ways that I never wanted or expected. It all came full circle this week when my tour brought me to the shiny new campus of The Rock Church in San Diego. I was at that church for six long years waiting for God to let me go somewhere else. I loved the people, but the church had no global perspective and though I was plugged in deep with leadership there, I felt my spirit and vision slowly melting away... but I trudged on, knowing the Lord had me there talking to what seemed like brick walls about global issues, injustice, poverty, and so on and so forth for a reason. I never thought I would see that reason, especially when I left and nobody seemed to notice or care about the seeds I had been sewing all six years I was there. I felt snubbed and unappreciated and just kept reminding myself how grateful I was that that was all I had to deal with there, its not like they crucified me or anything, they just asked me to bridal my passion and get into the box.

So, you can imagine when I got the call that The Rock had booked the Tent, my first reaction was, "do they know it has to do with Africa?"

This week I have the opportunity to do something that I try to never expect, that is, see the fruit of the seeds I have labored to put into fertile ground. How faithful is our Lord? The Rock is starting a partnership with World Vision and the people here are so stoked on the possibilities.

Thus, the Lord is preparing me for the stretches that are sure to come this next season of my emersion into mainstream Christian culture. I always talk about how much I like being uncomfortable and out of my element... welcome to the fruition of God's sense of humor in my life.

Working Public Weirdness

Sometimes I find myself staring at people till they get so uncomfortable they stare back then eventually shift their gaze to something different and less intrusive to their personal space. Take this middle aged guy sitting next to me right now at San Diego Coffee, Tea and Spice on Cass St. The minute he walked in I got a weird feeling and couldn't place for the life of me where I had seen him before. A half dozen coffee shops, restaurants, professors, volunteers and boardwalk regulars went through my head... no, no, no, no, no, yes!

This guy was one of the feared regulars when I worked at the coffee cart at Horton Plaza (maybe 3 years ago). He would always ask for me, always bring up neo-ultra-conservative-psycho views of what he thought would be done in the world (like nuke the Middle East or let Africa die)... somehow he always wanted to talk to me, would come around the counter and put his arm on me and tell me it was nice what I wanted to do but America needed me... he needed me to serve him coffee. I became quite good at ducking into the pantry to rearrange the coffee beans whenever I would see him coming. I now understand the click of survival instinct to hide under my table or behind my laptop when he walked in the door. No recognition, I'm safe.

Working in places where I regularly see hundreds of people in just one setting is strange. I see them surfing, at the grocery store, on the boardwalk and in pubs... always there is the awkward smile exchanged then I rack my brain for hours trying to place them sitting at a table telling me what they want to eat, on the opposite side of the counter reminding me to give them non-fat milk, asking me about Area Development Projects in Zambia, or explaining free-market economy schemes in developing nations from a podium.

Sometimes I wonder if my life is much stranger than the people around me or if we all think that about ourselves.