Ingrid.

So, I just wanted to say a great big thank you to those of you who have extended your gentle and
accepting support to my exploration of harder emotions on this HNGR journey. And by "gentle and accepting support", I really mean, "sharing your completely uncensored glee at the prospect of Emily Goldberg being even a tiny bit angsty" (you know who you are, SARAH AND BREANNE).

Seriously, it is good for me to try to write about the harder things I am seeing and feeling and experiencing. It helps me process it and I like trying to share stuff.

But at the moment?
I am SO UNBELIEVABLY SICK of writing about HNGR angst.

So, instead, today I'm going to write about Ingrid Michaelson.

I love her. Really. If we met on the street, I promise we would be best friends within an hour because she is adorable and I would win her over to Emily's Land of Pursuing Friendships With Adorable People.

I've listened to her fairly incessantly on HNGR. I love her unique voice and that of her back-up singer, I love her quirky lyrics, I love her melodies that are both beautiful and fun. "The Way I Am" helps me wake up, "Sky" makes me dance, "The Chain" makes me WEEP, "Keep Breathing" is beautiful, and I'm going to dance to "Giving Up" at my wedding. I'm totally serious. Can YOU think of a more romantic song than pledging to always stay together, even if I "never let you win/and chase you with a rolling pin"? I know right. That is commitment. Heck yes.

And you know, she helps cheer me up when I just wanna be okay, be okay, be okay, I just wanna be okay today, and she helps me experience Bolivia on a deeper level when I just wanna feel today, feel today, feel today, I just wanna feel something today.

She really helps me orient my heart towards service, too. I mean, after listenin' to some Ingrid, I feel SO motivated to give you my sweater if you are chilly, or buy you Rogaine if you are losing all your hair.

And she helps me affirm my love for my parents. Mom and Dad, get excited. If I get rich someday, I'm TOTALLY gonna buy you a home in the South of France.

If you're reading this and feeling a bit confused, or even a little bit bruised, don't you worry there my honey. I'll soothe your worried looks... by telling you that YOU JUST NEED MORE INGRID IN YOUR LIFE!!!

Which I have made quite easy for you because two of her songs are on the playlist at the bottom of my blog.

I also am extending this post as a gift to all current and future HNGR interns, to help with their self-esteem. In those moments where you are lying sweating under your mosquito net, thinking how you are just a TERRIBLE HNGR intern because you are NOT grateful for your mosquito net but in fact find it claustrophobic, and you are SICK of trying to learn the local language, and unlike some earthy spiritual annoying intern in this week's newsletter who wrote a beautiful dissertation on how much she discerned the Holy Spirit in the tribal drums this week, YOU spent your whole indigenous church service thinking how much you wanted to sing Chris Tomlin...

You can remember how I not only (gasp) listened to AMERICAN MUSIC while on my HNGR internship (on my IPOD, no less), and not only (gasp) UPDATED MY BLOG regularly, but also (unbelievable), UPDATED THE AMERICAN MUSIC ON MY BLOG.

And then you can think to yourself, "Well, I may suck as a HNGR intern, but at least I'm not Emily Goldberg. How did she even get IN??!!".

I promise that when I glide away from Bolivia on soapy heels, I'll come home with nice sweaters and teach you all how to dance.

*happy sigh* It feels nice to not be angsty. Deeper entries to come later this week.

Thanks for taking me the way I am, y'all.

Why I Love Matt Hiltibran

(I mean there are so many reasons...)

But this email conversation's a pretty good example:

Me: (insert near nervous breakdown venting here, ending with:) ...and I just wish I could schedule an hour just for venting out all of my HNGR questions without even expecting a response...

Matt's reply: We totally should. How's Wednesday?


Um, dear God, thanks for giving me the best friends ever, love, Emily.

I miss my BFF.

(EDIT: The pic finally loaded! This would be Matt holding an ice pack on my face. I had dental surgery this summer and he flew in from Ohio to spend two days watching Grey's Anatomy, making me cold packs, and laughing at me as I jealously watched him eat all the delicious things I couldn't. This AND he puts up with my HNGR angst. True friendship.)

Another "Seriously".

“Do not despise your place,
your gifts,
or your voice

for you cannot have another’s,

and it would not fulfill you if you could."

-Henrik Ibsen

(Hat tip: Lovely Sarah K (Current HNGR Intern, Uganda))

Two Helpful Conversations I Had Yesterday, on the "September Blues"

1. With my patient and timely God, via Psalm 73:

(I think "yet" may be my favorite word in the Bible after rereading this passage. Maybe tied with "still"...)

"Then I realized that my heart was bitter,
and I was all torn up inside.
I was so foolish and ignorant- I must have seemed like a senseless animal to You.
YET, I still belong to You; You hold my right hand. (Thank GOODNESS)...
My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak,
but God remains the strength of my heart; He is mine forever." (vs 21-26)

Dear Jesus, thank You for still liking me even when my attitude sucks. Love, Emily.

And...

2. With my hilarious and lovely Elise, via Gchat:


Elise: it will get better

me: im not crazy?

Elise: never!!

I've been reading sylvia plath lately

she was crazy

not you
me: lol

Elise: its all relative :)

Dear Elise, thank you for putting it all in perspective (and making me laugh). Love, Emily.

Seriously.

"...Every summer the lilies rise
and open their white hands until they almost
cover the black waters of the pond. And I give
thanks but it does not seem like adequate thanks,
it doesn't seem
festive enough or constant enough, nor does the
name of the Lord or the words of thanksgiving come
into it often enough. Everywhere I go I am
treated like royalty, which I am not. I thirst and
am given water. My eyes thirst and I am given
the white lilies on the black water. My heart
sings but the apparatus of singing doesn't convey
half of what it feels and means...
there is everywhere the luminous sprawl of gifts,
the hospitality of the Lord and my
inadequate answers as I row my beautiful, temporary body
through this water-lily world."


-Mary Oliver, from "Six Recognitions of the Lord"

Ask the questions...

So, normally, when we have a paper to write for school, the traditional thought process is that it´s going to be about conclusions. Right? We all know the drill. Thesis statement, expand on three supporting facts, wrap it all up with a nice conclusion paragraph...

Yeah, so, every month for HNGR we have to write a 5 or 10 page paper responding to some quotes from our assigned readings for the month. I finished my August one on Saturday and sent it in.

My final 6 page paper had FIFTEEN question marks in it. Almost every single paragraph ended in a question mark... and the one that didn´t ended in the sentence, "I don´t know" (and was preceded by a sentence which ended in a question mark). And we´re not talking like, question marks at the end of rhetorical questions I used to make my brilliant (conclusive) points... The paper had fifteen question marks because that´s what the responses of my heart AND mind are to the readings this month, and to the specific quotes on which I was writing. Questions, questions, and more questions. A few conclusions ("God cares about the poor??"), but I´m slightly scared to make them because they´re DEFINITELY going to lead me to even more questions ("So what do I do now?").

After I sent the paper to the HNGR office, I sent a personal email to Dr. Robinson, HNGR´s faithful director. Basically just pointing out everything I just wrote here- uhh, I feel like normally I try to make statements when I write papers! But I´m not in a place to do that right now. Is that okay?? Is that normal? What the heck, please?

He wrote back that yes, it is fine and even great that everything here is leading me to questions- quote from his email, "I think the hallmark of a liberal arts education is not to provide you with the answers, but to teach you to ask the questions. This is also, I believe, the essence of the life of faith...". I love that. (Maybe because it´s also the essence of the life as the daughter of two psychotherapists! ;-)).

And he included this quotation from Rilke:

"...Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart
And try to love the questions themselves
Like locked rooms and like books
That are written in a very foreign tongue.
Don’t search for the answers,
Which could not be given to you now,
Because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is, to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps then, someday in the future,
You will gradually, without even noticing it,
Live your way into the answer."

OK then. I´ll keep asking them. And trying to live them, even if falteringly.

(This entire interaction, by the way, is a really good example of why I love Wheaton professors SO much. They really are just that amazing.)


OK, so I wasn´t planning on including this part, but, I just decided that I´m going to!... here´s one of the quotes I was responding to, and a few of the questions I am asking, in my paper and my heart.

“God always takes His stand unconditionally and passionately on this side and on this side alone: Against the lofty and on behalf of the lowly; against those who already enjoy right and privilege and on behalf of those who are denied and deprived of it". -Karl Barth. How do you react to this?

Bits from my paper:
"My first reaction to this quote, and to all other ones similar to it in other pieces of writing and especially in the Bible, is to be really freaked out." (Yeah, I used the phrase "freaked out" in a formal essay. How great a writer am I, not.)
"...Deep down, don´t my lifestyle decisions say that I believe that I am “different” from the people I see here? That somehow, my “needs” are different- I just need more. Or even that I secretly believe that I deserve more??"
"...And when it comes to “identification”, if my life is structured around avoiding suffering, how am I going to be able to truly identify with those who suffer?"
"...Do the poor know my Lord in a way I don’t… are there sides to Him they get to see that I cannot?"


And in case anyone´s wondering what these readings are, there have been several but the biggest one was:

Missions and Money by Jonathan Bonk
as well as The Scandalous Message of James: Faith Without Works is Dead by Elsa Tamez.

My Friends Rock

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Emily. Emily was having sort of a tired and stressful week. One morning she woke up, read her Bible, checked her email, and then walked to work, Trying (not necessarily successfully) to Be Cheerful.

Emily's cheerfulness factor soon got much easier to maintain, though, because upon arriving at the office to check in, the secretary handed her a package that had arrived in the mail the day before.

What! thought Emily, A PACKAGE! She then opened it, finding art supplies, chocolate(!), and beautiful letters. (And this amazing drawing):


And then Emily cried. And all of a sudden it wasn't as hard to be cheerful. And not only did the week get better, but Emily got reconvicted about how completely filled with undeserved joy and love and friendship her life is, and suddenly the good attitude came more out of gratitude than gritted teeth.

OK, writing in third person's getting a little annoying.

Not only is getting mail ever SO encouraging, but it really was perfect timing in terms of brightening a down-ish time. The letters of course are always the best part... and they also included this new favorite quote:

"...May joy be with you and the girls. May your capacity to love increase beyond all expectations. And may chocolate facilitate in all of these things..." -NR.

(yeah, they sent me DOVE CHOCOLATE... did I mention the FRIENDS ROCKING PART?!)

Wow. Amen. And thank you for providing me with a new life prayer.

However, once I brought the package home it became clear that I may not even be the person happiest about it...


Yes. Sending art supplies pretty much has you at superhero status now in this house. The kids immediately wanted to know where they came from and when I said, "My great friends Alex and Nate" they set right to work...

(They LOVED the orange pencil sharpener btw, brilliant idea... There have been a few fights over who "gets" to sharpen dull pencils :-)).

I bit my lip SO HARD to keep from cracking up but I couldn't help it... I laughed out loud with absolute joy when I saw that they each drew little pictures of "the three of you" (I tried to include a closer-up shot but it won't load...). If that isn't the cutest thing in the entire world EVER I don't know what is. If you guys ever want to come to Bolivia, you have a fan club ready and waiting, trust me. We've spent all week coloring in the living room after dinner.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so blessed and lucky.