The focus at All Saints Church in these weeks following the holidays has been on missions work.  In keeping with that theme we had Craig Mathison give a talk on Corinthians on Sunday.  Craig and his wife Dana are model missionaries, having answered the call to Europe as newlyweds and spending the next three decades in the field.  The Mathisons began attending All Saints about 6 years ago, and their impact has been tremendous.  We have gone from being a church body who liked the idea of missions to a church committed to missions in every sense.

Missionaries are conduits for God.  The healing of this world will come through the people of God.  Every person on Earth has been invited to participate in this healing, but the message has not yet been delivered to all of the people who God wants to involve.  The Mathisons took this message with them to places like Spain, Romania, and Macedonia.  There they strengthened their understanding of it, honed their godly skills and approach to community, and then they brought those talents to All Saints and to Seattle.

I was honored and a little intimidated when Craig mentioned me by name during his sermon to the congregation.  If I am a good servant, it is only because I am following the example of people like him and Dana; people who have heard all of the sales pitches from the one-million sources of distraction in our nation and have instead chosen to stake their joy and peace, happiness and legacy on the promise and commission of Jesus Christ.

I spent most of the day with my dad, Joe.  Our friendship has strengthened significantly since early 2009.  It was around that time that we made a conscious effort to invest more in each other.  We no longer spend time together as a father and son might, but as peers who have both love and respect for each other.  We are growing more and more alike each day; a fact which has grown to influence which things bring us joy.  In conjunction with mine and Stacey’s upcoming Kilimanjaro climb, I am going to raise $8,000 for Hogar Infantil Shalom; the orphanage All Saints church has sent workers to during our last two service trips to El Salvador.   My father is going to raise $8,000 to get two buses delivered to King’s Castle in El Salvador.

After we got back from a trip to Starbucks, I was mulling over how to go about fundraising.  Joe was on the phone when inspiration struck me, so I simply wrote on a piece of paper “I’ll race you.”  And so we are racing.  I have created a fundraiser on crowdrise.com with the heading “A Race to $8,000 for Samael, Vladimir and Their Sisters and Brothers in Christ.”  I am excited about the prospects and feel totally engaged by this effort.  By the time we have both crossed the finish line, more than a few people in El Salvador will have a reason to smile and be thankful to God; and, I think, a boy and his father will be smiling too.

Sometime around our trip to serve in El Salvador, my good friend Stacey asked if I might like to climb Mount Kilimanjaro with her.  The answer to a question like that can only be “of course.”  Of course I would like to summit the highest peak in the continent of Africa.  Of course I would love to go to Tanzania and Kenya, to see an ancient, exotic part of the world from a rare and beautiful vantage point.  Of course I would like to spend a week or two with one of my best friends.

Today I started looking into how I might prepare my body for 19,341 feet of elevation.  The highest peak in Washington State is 14,409 feet.  Seattle, like so many great American cities, has an abundance of resources for would-be adventurers.  REI has been a store I have enjoyed visiting since I was just a boy.  I was given a sleeping bag from REI in 1987.  That sleeping bag is the one I use to this day, and is awaiting my return to Albania.  I did some research today to find out how mountaineers prepare for ascents like the one I have committed to.  

Wayne at REI recommended I try beginning with an easy hike like St. Helens, followed by Mt. Adams and then maybe Mt. Baker and finally Mt. Rainier.  I have not had a physical goal since high school and I am curious how my body will respond to a different kind of stress.  The city was beautiful today, I was thankful to have a reason to visit it.  I am still adjusting to the notion that I will be in Albania this time next week.  It is amazing where life takes us when we walk through open doors.

If I could have scripted

This visit home

I would have allowed for days

With you alone

Time would pass as though

Merely memories were the fabric

Like we were looking back 

On who we are

In short sentences

Recalling days and evenings

In blinks, beats, sighs and breaths

No amount of time

Replaces you for me

I would trick the clock

Glue his hands somewhere in a V

Bribe the sun to

Freeze our shadows

As we walk, set, climb and slide

Fix a dozen breakfast meals

Convince myself time was not real 

Give to you all that I am

For as long as you would have me

Joshua Hughes

14.February.2013 

Tonight I decided to attend the Ash Wednesday service at Saint Mark’s Cathedral in Seattle.  I have only been there for Compline services in the past.  As I walked into the sanctuary I was disoriented by the lighting.  I can only recall coming inside Saint Marks when the lights have been dimmed for the chanting of the monks.  

As the service was about to start, there was a bell chiming at a regular interval.  I imagined that my heart and the hearts of everyone in the place were being calmed to a common rate.  I imagined that our hearts were beating in time with the heart of God.  Over the course of the service I received two blessings from two different clergymen.  The first was “Remember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return.”  And the second was “Joshua, may you know God’s blessing this day and every day of your life.”  And so I am; dust animated for the purpose of participating in God’s healing work in this world, until I am dust once more.

Just across the lake from Seattle, Bellevue grows at a steady pace.  Bellevue is emblematic of what America is becoming; a flavorless, high-gloss, empty, wealth center, entirely void of culture.  In 2010 The University of Pennsylvania ranked the US 9th and Albania 103rd on a scale according to the average annual income of the citizens of those nations.  For all of that difference in wealth, the average Albanian is outlived by the average American by only ten months; and we have to ask ourselves just how good those last ten months of life tend to be.  

So, are we buying with our money?  Can money buy you family living upstairs, downstairs, in the houses next door, surrounding a shared farm?  Can it buy you coffee any time of day with brothers, meals prepared by sisters, smiles brought by joyful nieces and nephews?  Almost to a person, the Albanian men I met would move to the US if the opportunity presented itself.  Why?  Because the average Albanian earns 82% less money than the average American in a given year.  We can all recognize the sacrifices we make to have the wealth we do.  As I sit here in this $300,000 Starbucks on a plot of land worth $.5 million, I sit alone.

In little over a week I will be back in Albania.  I am not trying here to be critical of either system, I am merely curious for the first time about ways in which our system, however adept at gathering wealth to an individual, might learn from a system like the one in Albania.  A system which keeps people in poverty, with family at the center and community as the only true essential.  

In April of 2012 I was not able to get off to Albania entirely cleanly.  At that time, I had a number of people and projects which required more time or care than I was able to provide.  In one instance, I had agreed to help my friend build a camping trailer for his family.  As the weeks evaporated like a mid-morning mist on Queen Anne Hill, I had to leave him and his project unsatisfied.  To my surprise, Todd did not begrudge me my limitations.  When I announced my return home, he quickly and eagerly invited me to see him and his family.

Todd and his wife Ann Marie have been friends of mine since 2005.  At that time I worked for Carlisle Classic Homes as a carpenter.  Their house in West Seattle was where I spent much of my time for a season or more, gutting and remodeling their kitchen, bathroom and daylight basement.  I was honored to be thought of when Todd needed a hand building his trailer from the ground up with nothing more than a printed set of plans and instructions as his guide.  I am even more deeply honored to be thought of by Todd as a friend.

Saturday I met Todd at 9AM.  We exchanged updates about our week, and how we thought the Superbowl turned out.  Over the course of our time together, Todd never seemed to stop smiling.  Around 2PM we broke for lunch, and I got to experience Circa and their gigantic hamburger.  Todd’s generous spirit was evident throughout the day.  He is a loving father of three; a patient, caring, and thoughtful.  As I was preparing to leave their house, Todd and Ann Marie asked that I visit more often.  I left feeling like I have one more home in Seattle.  God has provided one more sanctuary of health and well-being in my world, a world I am growing to love more each day.

Invited to the road span journey by

Friend made over tragedy

Kept over miracles

Sustained as if preordained

Another few hours to digital song

Thoughts dot my sage and frozen waters

Cargo trains wind long and slow lakeside 

Hawks in the updrafts keep two eyes

Navigation star a wondrous beacon

Mile markers come fast and faster

Sooner is the moment passing

Greetings, introductions, games, goodbyes

Joshua Hughes

8.February.2013

When I was young my world was full of powerful men and women.  They were giants who could push lawn mowers and build houses, operate motor boats, drive cars, and command large house pets with authority.  In high school the first of the giants died.  Norman, my grandfather on my mother’s side, succumbed to the rigors of cancer treatment coupled with pneumonia when I was 16.  Soon I had lost both of my father’s parents as well.  For a time I grew to expect and not to take much interest in the steady passing of those who had lived through the Great Depression and World War II.  

They had had their time, and they had lived in a time of greatness.  I could not perceive how much the rest of humanity was loosing with the death of each treasured person.  On this trip to Yakima, the home of most of my childhood giants, I wanted to visit four specific people.  My grandmother Carolyn, of course was the person I most wanted to connect with.  I also wanted to see my great-aunt Janice and her husband Uncle Gunther, and my late grandfather’s best friend Wally.  Today my grandmother took me around the city to see them all.

My Uncle Gunther may live another day, or another week, or longer.  I would not have recognized him if Aunt Janice had not started speaking with him as he sat in the hall of his care facility, staring blankly in the direction of the reception desk.  I took some time to try a conversation, but that was not possible.  His ability to speak coherently has been lost.  I rested my hand on his chest.  I wanted to feel him, to feel his life, to feel the rising and falling of his ribs and sternum.  As he breathed, it was like every expanding of his lungs was a beautiful act of defiance.  He must know how close he is to death now.  We are all closer to death than we have ever before been, his awareness is simply more acute.  

Janice seemed better.  She is feisty, has always been a bit rebellious and independent.  If someone at Thanksgiving dinner was going to get into an argument with someone else, chances are it would be Jan.  She carries an irreverent joy in her eyes and in her smile; the kind of person who hears someone tell her she can’t and thinks “I can.”  Resilient, sparky, funny, precocious, determined; my great-aunt brings another dimension to every conversation.

Wally and my grandfather breathed life into each other for over four decades.  I imagine that they loved each other like David loved Jonathan.  Since travelling to Albania I think I have a better understanding of this kind of love.  There the men dance together, hold hands while talking, and spend countless hours together at cafes; any time of day and all times of the day men will sit and talk and bond over everything and nothing.  Wally gave me my first rifle when I was 15.  It is an 1897, German-made, bolt-action, 7mm Mauser which I own to this day.  

Maybe someday I’ll give that gun to my best friend’s oldest grandson.  Wouldn’t that be something?

Having only a few days left on earth, this earth, this particular earth, I feel like I have to maximize the way I use my time.  This morning, after meeting with one of my parent’s neighbors about some work he needs to have done on his home, I drove to the birthplace of my family in the West; a little city called Yakima.  My great-grandparents emigrated to Seattle from upstate New York in 1924.  A year later they moved to Yakima.  

A few decades after arriving here, the Derby family purchased the largest home in Yakima, a mansion called Rosedell.  The Rosedell house was in the family until shortly after my great-grandmother died in 1983.  Today it is a bed and breakfast which is run by a lady named Holly.  Although I was too young to understand much of what took place in the days before Rosedell was sold to another family, I still have memories of reading Christmas songs off of sheet music in the parlor at the base of the stairs. 

The house is in good hands.  The current owners have taken a real interest in the building and its history.  This also means that they have taken an interest in the history of the three families who at one time owned the home, including mine.  Holly was able to tell me some things I had not been previously aware of, which was both surprising and a source of delight.  My roots are here, and now that I am going to have some face time with my grandmother, in her home town, I am certain that I will learn more about them and come to a greater appreciation of where I come from.

Tonight, for instance, I learned that both heart disease and uremic cancer run in my family.  It is good to know where you come from.  Written February 5th, modified February 6th.