I don’t know why I seek people out at all times of the day, but I do.  When I was in Albania I wanted to have time at the end of the day to myself.  Here in the States I have been craving the company of people, especially late at night.  Sometimes I make the conscious effort to get home early, stay home and get to bed early.  Other nights I feel the need to decompress around strangers at a local eatery like the Ram.  One of the things it took me a few weeks to get used to after coming home is that I can have conversations.  It had not occurred to me before heading overseas that I would not have a real conversation for 8 months.  Although there were English speaking people other than myself in Albania, I was not close with any of them.  My closest friends were natives; the language barrier did not allow for an accurate articulation of fears, loves, aspirations, frustrations, hopes, dreams or other poetic sources.  Since arriving in the States I have steadily increased my communication with the people around me to what I now perceive to be a maximum.  Having said that, I know I have more to say, more to do, more to enjoy, more life to live while here.    

I am so very thankful for my Seattle community.  Last night I played pool with the Van Dalfsens.  Aside from being good friends of mine, Sam and Dana are also supporters of my missionary efforts overseas.  It was good for me to have a chance to catch up with them.  We went to The Garage on Capital Hill and played half-a-dozen games of Cut Throat.  As we did, I found myself participating in a fresh and exciting way.  I can not remember ever having played pool before and not feeling frustrated at some point.  The best part of the evening came when Dana eliminated me from the competition during the third game.  Mostly I found that I loved every minute I had with my friends.  I am so blessed.

Life is a puzzle; a box full of pieces that don’t seem to fit together for any purpose.  When working out the pieces of a puzzle, it is good to have help from friends.  From time to time, while piecing the obscure shapes into a coherent picture, we benefit from looking at the picture which conveniently comes printed on the box.  Wouldn’t it be great if we had a picture to use from time to time to get our lives moving in a productive direction?  I think the Bible is the picture on our box.  As we try putting one piece after another into the wrong slot, growing frustrated from our constant failure and natural inability, it is comforting to know that we can simply look at the lid of the box for the help we need in decoding a healthy path forward.

When I initially arrived back in Seattle in mid-December I was unimpressed by the changes I saw. There is a new ferris wheel on Alaskan Way, but the city seems otherwise to have been like an athlete with enormous potential who is simply running in place.  The lives of my friends have been far more dynamic.  Since I left the States in April, my friend Kaley has moved his family from Seattle to his home town, acquired a restaurant, begun the remodeling of some adjacent motel rooms, and is working as the bar manager full time.  There has been one other change to his family.

At 2 o’clock yesterday it occurred to me that I was going to be free until the following evening at 7:30.  I had been told that Raymond was a two-hour drive from Seattle, so I found a map with my phone on Google and started to drive.  Sometimes I am thankful to be single and without children simply for the latitude it grants me to thrive.  I have been looking for a window of time to go and seek out my friend in his entirely new context.

Highway 101 leads right to Raymond.  The town is small, and I was able to identify the Top Notch Tavern because the truck I sold Kaley before I went overseas was parked out front.  I was good to see Sarah again, that was my pet name for the 1990 Ford F-150.  As I walked through the front door, Kaley pointed at me from behind the bar and said “I know that guy.  I know that guy!”  It has been Kaley’s dream to move his family back to Raymond in time for his children to attend grade school there.  It was so very refreshing to see a friend of mine on the road to fulfilling his life vision.

Kaley offered me his guest room, as I knew he would, and his wife Sammy was delighted to have me in their home.  Kaley is the hardest working man I have ever known.  I remember one of our earliest conversations this way.  Me: “So what is the most you’ve ever worked in a day?”  Kaley: “Like, as, within a 24 hour time period?”  Me: “Yes.”  Kaley: “24 hours.”  He is a man who has now undertaken the role of a community leader.  Raymond, Washington is fortunate to have him back.

Seattle is known as being a city addicted to coffee.  Starbucks Coffee Company was founded here in 1972.  In the tradition of trying to bring home-like comfort to a shelter-bound people like ours, there are hundreds of small cafes vying for the love of a very demanding customer base.  It rains in Seattle almost everyday.  Seattleites don’t gather in parks, or near monuments; they gather in reclaimed, industrial spaces with good lighting, forced-air heat, clean bathrooms, wireless internet,  and predictable yet fine wood and metal work.

Yesterday I visited two coffee shops; one in Ballard and another in Belltown.  Street Bean on 3rd and Broad was established a few years ago by two local heroes; Linda and Ron Ruthruff.  The Ruthruffs have been pouring their lives into reaching kids without homes for nearly 30 years.  A visit to Street Bean will yield a conversation with one of them as often as not.  Neither was there yesterday.

My visit home has yielded many opportunities to reconnect with people I love and admire.  I had breakfast with Rob Carlisle this morning.  Rob is a great family man and a man with a generous heart.  I am composing this from Millstead & Co.  I met my good friend Joe Macias here this morning for some rare and sweet Sulawesi.  Joe is one of the best men I know.  At times I am simply amazed at how deep and rich God’s love runs for me.  Who am I that He would bless me with friends like Rob and Joe?

I tried to limit or define, fabricate language around or describe the concept of: now, but I find my abilities to be lacking.  Now is all that we will ever truly know.  Learning to love the very now is a freedom we were designed to enjoy and a calling that humankind was meant to participate in the celebration of.  Now is the world, reality, this world, this reality, our world, our reality; the moment, this moment our moment.  Love and love now good reader.

Today I visited the statue of Lenin in Fremont.  This eyesore was created by Emil Venkov and originally installed in Czechoslovakia in 1988.  After the Velvet Revolution the statue was moved out of view into storage, where an American named Lewis Carpenter purchased it.  It was reinstalled in the Fremont neighborhood in Seattle in 1995. 

The idea of Lenin has become something both awesome and awful.  Had relations between the United States and the Soviet Union remained strong at the close of World War II, who can say how celebrations of this, one of the 20th centuries most influential personalities, might differ in the States today?  I think it is a beautiful testament to the independent mind of Seattle to have this statue so prominently displayed.

To have this relic removed from the corner of North 36th Street and Evanston Avenue North for political reasons would be akin to having the works of Marx removed from our libraries.  America has nothing to fear from either man.  Our world is rich in thought and art, the wisdom or foolishness of which it sometimes takes centuries to prove out.  

Keeping a journal in this format has been very good for me.  I originally undertook the keeping of a blog so that the people who provide monetary and prayer support for my mission abroad could follow my journey, that we might all walk together.  And we have been walking together.  This morning at All Saints, my church home in Seattle, I was encouraged to continue observing, photographing, living and journaling about the life which God has prepared for me to participate in.

It is disorienting to be so completely without anchors or boundaries aside from those ascribed through the Bible.  I have been invited to serve anywhere in the world, everywhere in the world, which is like being told to eat all or none of a priceless fine dessert.  I can not remember a time in my life that I have enjoyed more than the life I’ve been blessed with over the past nine months.  One of the reasons I have been able to so enjoy my life since choosing to serve is the innate knowledge that today will be better than the yesterday I will never again know.  Blessings more magnificent than the smile from a happy person are poured out on me as I walk each day.

I spoke with Paul Oremland at church today.  He asked me about what being home was like.  I feel at home and homeless, happily homeless.  I am a wanderer walking a stoneless path.  I am placeless, my place is the path.  Even I can not fully articulate God’s plan for me, but I know it is a beautiful plan.  It is a plan where I get to smile at strangers, bridge through love, receive through service, and revel in the magnificence of the Creator’s love for us all.

Riding tall on the back of his father, my friend Jim Killet, Aiden knows how I feel.  My father God has had me on His shoulders to aid in all of my times of reaching.

Richer than you remember

Bright, white stained blues

The glass under floating birds

A shift like to bouncing

The black wrapped walkers

Dogs tow people one to three

Driven and looking to drive

Fishermen watch their lines

Camerawomen sit in silence

Girlfriends all a chat

But you had never taken

Closest path unpaved

Had not before seen

Gravel crushing under leaves, dirt

Creeping wet feeds grays and greens

Beauty ceaseless courting vigilance

Joshua Hughes

25.January.2013

Abroad, away from all known comforts, one looks for and finds poor substitutes for connections akin to those we are all born intimately into.  Having now been back in the States for a little more than a month, my mother and I have navigated and drawn up fresh ways of communication.  A mutual love and affection has always been assumed, yet articulation of those treasured feelings takes intentional, purpose-backed participation.  The map of love must be updated regularly with fresh ink in the form of time and laughter, stories and hugs lest that map grow out of date.  Time away, followed by this long visit home, has given me license to coauthor a second edition to what I will call “my love atlas.”

Yesterday marked the beginning of my Uncle Norman’s 64th year.  Uncle Norm and his wife Aunt Nancy have been dear to me since before my infant mind could perceive the difference between air and love, touch and food.  After having dinner with my mother, followed by some time sharing and explaining my photographs from El Salvador, I drove up to Seward Park to drop in on two of my favorite people.  The three of us shared some white wine and conversation, of course I was welcome to stay in the spare bedroom.

This morning my uncle and I went out to breakfast with one of his dozen-or-so friends from high school.  Time with Gary is precious to my uncle, and I know he enjoyed having the three of us at table together.  On our way to breakfast we stopped to watch the materializing dawn.  Dim sky gave way to vibrant, orange-kissed pinks.  My uncle and I stood on the dock of the Leschi slips and I sang him some Brett Dennen songs.  Dennen was in the tape deck of Cebolla’s Subaru Outback during our tours of El Salvador last week.  It was the “What the Hell is Heaven?” line that brought me to pay attention.

My uncle is not a good man.  My uncle is an excellent man.  My uncle is my confidant, as I am his.  We know all there is to know about each other and still we seek time together.  If there is a God, and there is, He is gracious for giving me this time with people I cherish and admire, value and love.

Years ago, 2004 maybe, I fell deeply in love for the first time.  I met a woman in Seattle and her adoration for who I was brought me a happiness I had never before experienced.  We met in September but I remember the following Spring vividly, especially the vegetation.  The reason I remember the flowers and blooms, the growth, green and bright all around Queen Anne and the other places I happened upon that season is because I had never noticed the vibrancy of Spring before.  My mind was awake to the beauty of God’s creations.

I found myself bending over to bring rosemary and lavender closer to my nose before inhaling deeply and then sitting, tall in my shoes with my eyes closed, so that I might never forget the moments of those days.  Now I seek the beauty of blooms wherever I go.  El Salvador is full of beauty and sadness; all of the elements for health and plenty are there, but there is so very much suffering.

On Monday of this week, Cebolla took my father and I to two orphanages we had not seen before.  Now that we have seen them, we have experienced a total of three El Salvadorian orphanages, which by no means makes either of us any more than akin to novices on the subject.  Although I cannot speak definitively on the subject of orphanages, I can speak definitively as a human who spent a few hours walking among the suffering, the trapped, the lonely, the forgotten.

Hogar Del Niño Adalberto Guirola has dedicated most if not all of its facilities toward caring for children with brain damage.  In one of the rooms there were seven children between ages 8 and 12 who were housed in baby cribs.  One of the boys, upon hearing the voices of us, the visitors, began rocking back and forth with his face up toward the ceiling and crying out.  He must have weighed about 90 pounds; a child trapped within a body he could not control, trapped inside a baby crib he could not escape, trapped inside a compound leave, trapped inside a nation without resources, trapped inside a world with no end to the misery it brings him.

Hesitantly I thought “I should touch him.  Maybe if I just touch him and pray for him, he will have some amount of peace.”  I had almost decided to walk out the door, his screaming at the sky and endless repetitive flexing and rocking was not easy for me to stand near.  A caretaker had come to sooth him by then, kindly placing her hand on his shaved head, turning his right ear through the delicate smoothing of her thumb and pointer finger.  “Can I touch him?” I asked, showing her what I meant with my hands.  “Si,” she replied.  I placed my hand on the point where his neck and shoulders met and I prayed to God to heal him.  He was not healed, nor was he soothed or his cries answered.

In short order I followed Cebolla and my father out of the room.  We were on a tour hosted by the Hogar’s principle.  What can we do to help that child?  What can we do to help that child?  What can we do to help that child?  I asked God why He doesn’t heal that boy, why He doesn’t heal all of the children of that place.  The answer I got was that God is healing those children, and that is where the Body of Christ comes in.  We are God’s hands of care and feeding, his praying lips, his weight bearing shoulders.  We can do more; as Christians we should be doing more.

After seeing the boys at the orphanage again on Monday, I was further moved to want to participate in the healing in their lives.  Maybe I will start writing regularly to some of them.  While in the Houston airport on my way home today, I penned the following words onto a Fernando Llort greeting card for two of the boys at the orphanage.  Samael and Vladimir are brothers.

Dear Samael and Vladimir,

Hello.  I have been blessed to meet a number of strong people in my life; people of joy, people of promise, spirit and courage.  I wanted to write and to tell both of you that you have these four qualities in abundance.  A man might live his whole life in search of what you two have while still in your youth.

I was also encouraged to see that while you both exhibit fearlessness, you use your God given characteristics to bless the people around you.  You showed respect and love to me and the people of my church family; the same respect you show to your teachers and the other children at Hogar Infantil Shalom.  A life of respect and love will open every door for you.  I also noticed how protective you are of the girls you live wit.  Protecting those women, you sisters, in one of the greatest honors and privileges a young man can participate in.  Thank you both for honoring those around you.

May God bless you both as you bless those around you.  I will keep you in my heart.  Love,

Joshua Hughes 22.Enero.2013