The Edge [of all] Journeys

My conscience has been bothering me for years about my boots. They are big and bulky. Heavy. Probably made in China by grossly underpaid and mistreated workers. I’m sure none of the materials are from recycled sources. And when I walk in them… to think of the scars they leave on the land: the crushed grass, the ruined flowers, the shattered twigs, and the horrendous indentations in dirt and mud alike! Oh the shame. They have no soul… I mean sole left (well, I’ve had them for years and years after all).

No longer!

I am now clad in the closest thing to my own two bare feet that can still get me past those dastardly “no shirt, no shoes, no service” signs! I am as silent as a ninja. I bend scarcely a blade of grass when I glide across the land. It’s marvelous – rocks and sticks practically roll out of the way when I step so that the bare earth can cup my friendly feet. I am wearing Vibram FiveFingers where ever I go now.

These are the most amazing invention of the 21st century. Hands down. Or, feet down as it were. I recommend them without reservation. Unless, of course, you are the kind of person who prefers to check your toes into a normal 5-star shoe resort, letting them bask in a jacuzzi, sip rum and cokes, get pedicures and their hair styled, and sunbathe under the kind of arch support that could suspend the Golden Gate Bridge while pounding heals and knees against asphalt… well, then in that case these marvels of modern technology will not really interest you.

However, if you are anything like me and would much rather feel the mud between your toes, the general texture of each rock – sharp or smooth – on your arches (think reflexology, not coal walking), the water from creeks and streams flowing in and over and through and leaving your footwear, the soft ground soft, the hard ground hard, the steep inclines stable with 10 points of contact instead of 2, the climbing effortless (trees, rocks, and other obstacles like tall buildings), and the land itself – the terrain – the feedback from every chunk of 12 inch ground contacted and passed at a time… then you too would be in a blissful state of trekking paradise in these foot-gloves.

My one main concern was breatheability… Actually, I’d prefer to be barefoot 100% of the time. In fact, but for the aforementioned prejudicial policy many commercial facilities insist on maintaining – and for the tendency of terrain that I like exploring to be more impervious than my own skin – I would be barefoot all the time. In fact, my feet can manage to sweat in flip-flops, so breatheability was a top priority. In this and every other respect the Vibram KSOs have performed flawlessly.

This past week I’ve been helping set-up a 100 Km adventure race course across urban and wilderness environments. With my predisposition for barefooting I experienced practically zero break-in time for these “shoes” and found the course set-up to be the perfect excuse to put them to the test. I have walked, run, climbed, waded, and sparred across pavement, grass, railroad tracks, gravel (large and small), creeks, trails, swamps, forests, mud pits, rivers, trees, rocks, streets, churches, malls, restaurants, basketball courts, and more.

My feet were initially delightfully sore in the way that only using forgotten muscles regularly again can achieve. No blisters. No raw spots. It was as if my feet grew an impervious second sole. There, now I’ve used impervious twice in one post. Your mileage may vary. So far, only two complaints – they were slightly chilly wet in 45 F temp at night. But certainly not as cold as barefeet I suppose. The other problem that is likely not solvable by anyone or any footwear: I managed to stink them up in one week of swamp tromping despite the space-age-antimicrobial-odor-suppressing imbuement the soles are supposed to bear… washing them twice (once by hand and once in the laundry) didn’t even cure them. But I suspect a good soaking in miracle soap would.

So, all that said, I am ready for the course! I will be traveling much more light-footed this year while I’m shooting video and photos for the race, shadowing the student teams as they self-propel their way through the final challenge of the year. And I must close this by saying THANK YOU BEN for barefooting with me and for sending me the Vibram info years ago (it seems like years anyway). I certainly did not forget about it.

It’s the perfect picture. Out our dinette window I can see the most precious thing ever. Andrew is teaching the kids how to fish. They are knee deep in mud, Joy is on Andrew’s back and everyone is enjoying the weather and the mud and hoping to catch a few bass that were washed up to the shallow water and now stuck there when the river went up considerably a couple of days ago. I am supposed to be working but wish I was out there having fun in the mud too. It’s my turn to work and his turn to play with the kids.

This morning, while Andrew got some work done at the coffee shop, I took the kids down to the river bank to play in the sand. We had finished scripture study and had a really great time of discussion. The kids were so interested and eager to learn. While we were outside immediately after, they still had that eagerness so decided to take advantage. “Okay, everyone! Time for math! Everyone grab ten stones and line them up!” I spent time with each child individually, using the rocks to do some math problems, while the others were content playing the sand. I used the Ray’s arithmetic with Reayah, using the rocks to practice addition, subtraction and the beginning understandings of multiplication and division. Bennah is a visual person and using rocks to represent groups, he was able to practice his multiplication very easily. He has learned to count by 2s,3s,4, and 5s and is now learning to count by 6s and 7s. Zach and Jaiden did simple counting and threw the rocks into the river when they were done. As I taught them, I was rejoicing at how easy this was, and prayed that I would have many more days like these :).

After lunch, the kids had some play time and then came in to do journal writing. The kids had been making up their own worship song and so I asked them to write it down as a poem. Reayah loves to write and had no trouble concentrating and filling up 3 pages in half an hour. Bennah on the hand struggles when there are many distractions around him. While we started to write, a short thunder storm started so we were all in the trailer! Including a baby who wanted attention, a tired toddler and a provocative 4 year old, who drove his truck over Bennah’s journal.  So, Bennah had a rough time and after some frustration on both our parts, he completed his assignment. I want to accommodate him so he can concentrate and do school joyously, without frustration, but I also need him to practice concentrating with distractions. He won’t always be do his work alone, away from everything. I think it’s a good skill to learn. I do want him to see that I am supportive of his struggle though, and encourage him to overcome. Writing is the hardest subject for Bennah. Not because he’s not good at it, but because it requires a different form of concentration. And sitting still!

It was a good day. We did school, we did our chores and got the trailer clean and prepared for Shabbat (Sabbath). We love Shabbat. The one day we Andrew and I can sleep in while the kids fend for themselves and run amuck!

Ahhhhh….. It feels good to be clean. Nothing like a nice hot shower in your own home. Even if it is small, the trailer is starting to feel a lot more like home. Every time we arrive somewhere we have this little family joke: “We’re home!” no matter where we are when we stop. I’m thankful for the things we sometimes take for granted: hot water, electricity, heat (especially on days like today). I enjoyed my tromps to the laundry room and back in the cold, and the family walk / run – the exercise and cold air felt so good. And so did coming back to a nice warm cozy trailer!

I am really enjoying having Andrew around every day. There have been sacrifices that we’ve had to make, and challenges adjusting to this new way of life, but it’s worth it to start and share every day together with him. I like brewing a pot of coffee for two rather than just myself. I think I could even live in a tent and eat rice and beans every day as long as we were together as a family. Of course, I say that now, not knowing how hard it would really be. Andrew gave up a really successful position at a comfortable job with an income that spoiled us a little, but the kids and I missed him.

It’s going to be nice staying put for a while so that we can relax a wee bit, visit family and friends, and have a little time to enjoy our home sweet home before we take it with us to our next adventure.

Well, we made it! We’re in Winnipeg! (12km west of the perimeter on #1, anyway, but that counts!) We’re settled in our cozy warm trailer (heat cranked as it’s down to 35F / almost 0C outside now, and judging from the ice on the ground around our water hook-ups it might get even colder yet tonight). Hmmmmm….

We wanted to call you all  (yes even you strangers who might happen across the blog), but we haven’t figured out how to get our cell phones switched over to Canada roaming yet [Verizon gave us an access code to use once we got here but it didn’t work and we don’t have a cell phone signal to speak of at the campground]… BUT our handy dandy AutoNet Mobile router has 40% signal to some other cell network and that’s enough to get this post out as a close second and regrettably impersonal alternate option.

Thank you for all the comments! I wish I could respond to them all in depth. They’re so fun to read and it’s encouraging knowing others are traveling with us.

Long day… We hit the road at 8:30am and had several stops along the way, but we rolled into the campground right around 9pm after an hour or so of  driving through the flooded southern plains of central Manitoba, which was actually a perfect backdrop for contemplating an upcoming post that will probably be titled something like “Death by Bureaucracy: Archetypes of the Hidden Worldwide Slave State that permeates everything and can be found in something as simple as trying to legitimately cross the longest undefended border in the world…” It will ramble on about how we’re all slaves to a system that controls us far more than we realize until little moments give us glimpses, but then the glimpses pass and we forget again… about how – even with the level of freedom we seek to attain in our travels – there is yet a strong opposition in the world to anything that resembles true freedom (not freedom of “choice” to do whatever one wants, but true freedom)… about how there is a spiritual freedom that should be impervious to such encroachment – that certainly goes far deeper than any physical freedom to do or say – but how even that can be stifled if the mind gets in the way… about how odd it is that so many people can’t fathom or process or even contemplate that some crazy folks (like us) would actually NOT want to live in one place all the time… (the simple question, “Where do you live?” in fact belies how narrow minded people can be)… and, how foolish it is that every modern societal construct in our fancy western culture is wired to the fundamental assumption that one must have a home address (not merely a mailing address mind you) where they can be found most of the time… how silly would the Bedouins or other ancient and modern nomadic peoples think you were if you asked them “Where do you live? … Where is your home?” …….. After today I can completely relate, and I’m sure none of the 3 border crossing guards at each of the 3 levels of redundant-question-asking-security (2 of which were completely new to me in crossing) had any idea how silly I thought their questions were. Ah…. it was once such a simple thing to cross the border. I did it every weekend for a year (give or take a few weekends and most of those when I was in Mississipi) when Renee and I were engaged and I was stationed at Minot, ND. And as long as you seem “normal” and they can measure you and quantify you and rely on you to act predictably (like pretty much everyone else) you can slide right through no problem. Well, no such simplicity here. HOWEVER, we did get through, and YHWH can certainly provide crossings in even more impossible scenarios in the future.

There, now I don’t even need to write that post after all.

So, after a cruise around the campground and an hour and a half setup (connect electric, off the hitch, level front to rear, slide-out, stabilize and level side-to-side, connect sewer line, connect water line, etc etc) while Renee got the kids tucked away in their beds it will finally feel like we’re here after a couple “normal” nights’ sleep that aren’t followed by driving days. YEA! See some of you soon! Although we are thinking that we might just lay low this weekend and get some rest, recover from travel, settle in, tend to some loose ends (like showers and laundry), that kind of thing… if we can get away with it 🙂 We’ll see how it goes.

Since I’m posting this, we do / should have normal email access, which might be the best way of contact until we get the cell service figured out… ok… supper and then bed!

You may think this title a little ironic – aren’t we supposed to be on a Family Life adventure or something? Why need a Family Day? Well, yesterday… actually it built up to yesterday, but we’ve seen cracks forming in our children’s behavior pretty much since we got here. It just took one good, epic Walmart session to shake the cracks into chasms and inspire a good bit of frustration in all of us. By the way, I hate shopping at Walmart. I’m not sure what it is, but I almost always come out of there worked up. Maybe it’s all the people, maybe its the fact that Walmart is a pretty good poster child for the materialism that I’d just as soon escape completely, maybe it’s something else. But4 hours is more than I can take, and I can understand how it would demand more than the best behaved child’s capacity. But we had a LOT of decisions to make as we continue the Revolution of Organization in our tiny home, and that takes time.

Putting them to bed, reflecting on some of the disobedience that surfaced (and our own shortcomings as parents who are still learning patience and all that good stuff) we concluded that we needed a Family Day:

1. YHWH first – give Him the day
2. Each other second – Love > Respect > Serve each other ALL day
3. Whatever else happened to work out.

It was a great, full day. I let Renee sleep in because she almost always lets me sleep in (hey – she’s the morning person in the couple), I whipped up some semblance (impostor) version of the homemade granola she spoils us with, we had Scripture Study and prayer, then we hit the chores: Zach did dishes, Reayah cleaned everything off the floor so Bennah could vacuum, I mounted a baby bouncing seat thing in the trailer so that Renee could free her arms up a little more often (this project took a bit of improvisation since RVs typically don’t have the kind of door frames those are designed to take advantage of), Renee got the kids bunk room in order with all the Walmart supplies, then she made Fruit Salad for lunch, then I went rollerblading with Bennah (he was riding Zach’s scooter) down “the lane,” then back in the creek with everyone, then we borrowed a sprinkler for the kids to run around in and invited the friends over…

Speaking of friends… I have a theory about one thing that contributed to the meltdowns (aside from, of course, the normal difficulty of adjusting to such a big life change, which we expected and knew it would throw things off balance for a period of time). We also realized that the kids have spent a LOT of time with their friends here – which has been great. But it isn’t “normal,” and despite the fact that we are now redefining “normal” for us as a family on a daily basis, it is at the very least not good if we aren’t balancing quality family time with quality friend time. We’ve been so busy getting settled and trying to stay on top of all the things that seem like they have to get done that perhaps we were just kicking back to be a family and have fun together as deeply as we should. Perhaps up until today (and I already had a tendency to do this anyway) we were subconsciously treating family time as just one more thing that had to get done during the day so that we could get onto the next chore.

Anyway, the whole point we’re doing this is to learn how to take our own personal expression of Family to a deeper level so that YHWH’s purposes in love for others can pour out of that. Today was certainly a neat milestone on that journey. There were still issues, but we were in a new place of strength to deal with them.

…so after all that (around 4pm) when the older friends got home from school and since it was so hot – all the sprinkler running and creek wading quickly deteriorated into massive water gun battles, pond throwing, and that sort of thing. We collected our children from the fun-tangle for dinner together as a family – one thing that we DO want to guard as “normal” – and feasted outside under the awning on grilled salmon (cooked over a new grill we are trying out that is a gift if we decide we can take it with us) and grilled asparagus (from our family friend here – she cut it from their garden today). After that: family movie time and popcorn in our cool A/C’ed mini-home and then bed time. Overall, a marvelous day together.

And we really needed it too – we are basically down to ONE week before we plan to pull up anchor and get underway again. Hopefully, this has recharged us a bit, as there’s lots to get done yet. I have to finish the desk project that I’ve been working on (wait till you see this thing!), we still have to get our overall weight down (we’re going to jettison the bedroom doors at least – replace them with curtains, ditch the blinds in the kids room – they just kick them all night in their sleep anyway, and anything else we can eliminate), replace the fresh water pump with a quieter model and keep the current one as a backup, make our reservations at campgrounds in Winnipeg and Oregon for the next few months, etc. etc. I could go on and on.

But I actually have to go take care of all that kind of stuff now… Some REALLY cool show-and-tell posts in the pipeline though… just taking longer to finish the projects that will inspire the posts. Renee and I are also trying to get $$$ work done somewhere in this all. This is really a lot of challenging fun!

Yesterday I helped dig a grave out in a field’s corner at the farm where we’re staying. That was a first for me, and a  very sobering and reflective endeavor on many levels. There we laid to rest the body of Barucha – a wise and strong spiritual grandmother to many – she didn’t need it any more. YHWH delivered her spirit from a three and a half year struggle with cancer, and she is now dancing in the Heavens once again.

As her husband shoveled the first few scoops of dirt onto the body in the grave, I put a rams horn to my lips and sounded a long steady blast that held strong until my breath collapsed. It was a wail of mourning and a victory shout all at once. The victory is this: she trusted and served her King – Yahushua the Messiah – faithfully until the end and will be raised incorruptible in the last Day.

My last memory of Barucha – the most vivid one – was etched in place on Day 9 (just 2 days before she passed away). She was lying there on her hospital bed in a lot of discomfort, holding my 6-month old daughter’s tiny little hands, delighting in baby Joy who was just sucking away on her finger. I remember feeling the profound weight of the differences and similarities colliding in such a small space between the two of them. Here were two Daughters of Tsyion that – by all physical appearances – were at completely opposite ends of life. And yet, they both had such a strong ember of life burning in each of their spirits that they could connect at precisely the same spot beyond human comprehension.

I have been very thankful that this was my children’s first firsthand exposure to death – as part of a bigger spiritual family in Barucha’s immediate family and others here who understand that death is part of life – that it is a transition, not an ending – that it is not something to be feared or avoided in conversation or treated as some strange thing.

I believe that death – as with anything in life – should be faced squarely, head on, dealt with as best anyone can, and then left behind. Barucha did this with all her might, and her family carries on in the same way.

The barley is Aviv in Israel! (Photos)

The first reNEWed moon starts the year this friday night – “This month is the beginning of months for you, it is the first month of the year for you.” Therefore, YHWH willing, we leave in 2 weeks after the pattern of the original Passover.

It hardly seems real. One week left at work. A week after that to finish emptying the house of all the remaining material trappings that cling to us (and it feels like there’s quite a lot left). And then a Severance. The old passes. The new comes. It is not too soon.

A dark storm gathers on the horizon. It may yet take years to reach its fulness and shed its fury, but it will not find us on these shores.

There is so much yet to do, but I know it will all fall into place – guided by the Hand that upholds the laws of creation and brings forth the Aviv barley in its time.