Category Archives: Disc golf

Too Many Days of Lent: I’ve Been Revelling in the Weather

Posted on 30 March 2012 | 2 comments

How much of a blessing has this weather been?! The trees are bloomed out with leaves and assorted flowers, the wild flowers are brightly colored and diverse, the grass is growing and growing and growing, and the birds wake me up every morning with their anger or sexual desire, whichever is worse I am unsure. They scream and chatter and occasionally whistle and chirp outside our bedroom window at the bird feeders. They are my natural alarm clock, beautiful and harsh.

Every time I look out the window at the beauty of the day, I want school to be over so I can play outside. I want to go swimming, biking, running, disc golfing, kayaking, and I want to do every other activity that someone can do outside! I want to roll down a hill and make myself sick. I want to be free. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again here: God wants us to play. There is a whole theology of play that helps us to better relate to the divine through spontaneous acts of creative play.

Part of play for me is recognizing who I am in Christ and being free from societal constraints. In other words, I feel free to play when I realize that my identity lies in Christ and not in what other people think of me. And, I play with reckless abandon, which means I have a few people in my life that don’t quite understand me. My greatest desire is to be unencumbered by those things that other people see as necessary. My mom always says to other people, “I think she just wants to be poor.” Yeah, I do. I don’t want to be tied down by earthly possessions or monetary things. I never intended to buy a house. I would love to get rid of all my stuff until everything I own or everything I need could fit in my camping backpack. I’m pretty sure that would make me perfect for monastic life, which is still a kind of dream of mine. I’m not sure I want to be monastic in the “I’m celibate and live in a cold cell with a hair shirt” kind of monastic, but more in the new monastic, communal living sort of way where I share things with my community members.

When I am having these thoughts, my morning prayers typically confirm my thoughts or dissuade me from them. Today they confirm with this quote from Peter Maruin, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement: “The world would be better off if -people tried to become better. And -people would become better if they stopped trying to become better off.” I think living in a self-sustaining community and trying to be better and more compassionate is definitely a way for me to be better off. I think of communities like Simple Way and the way they intertwine work and play in all aspects of their lives.

I would be able to work hard and play hard without trying to conform to some arbitrary economic constraints.

I would only have to please God and provide for my “family.”

I would have plenty of time to revel in the beauty of God’s world and word.

I could play.

Peace.

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Posted in Art, Capitalism, Christianity, CNF, Disc golf, Ethics, Goals, Homelessness, Lent, Mental Health, Play, Politics, Poverty, Relationships, Religion, Social Justice, Spirituality

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Turning Over So Many New Leaves

Posted on 5 January 2012 | 2 comments

New Year Day: As I sat there in my overly full, grain-induced coma, I reflected over the past few years of my life, and I realized that I am not so happy with where it is or where it’s going. I decided to put some new resolutions into place, and they are radically different than those before.

  1. Eat paleo. Eat clean meats and vegetables without the gummy, yucky grain foods. Maybe order 1/8 of a bison or half a wild boar. Also, no beer. Or very little.
  2. Watch less TV. Watch more movies instead. Or maybe even read more!
  3. Exercise in a variety of ways (including swimming) while running a race a month. When it’s warm enough, run barefoot. Maybe do a barefoot half-marathon.
  4. Meditate. I always feel more calm when I practice meditation.
  5. Deactivate Facebook and Twitter for the year.
  6. Play more.
  7. In short, do things which bring me joy.

Maybe doing all of this will decrease my blood pressure, which isn’t really high, but feels like it.

It is my hope to start using this space to write about some current events and to write more deeply about those things that are important to me. I also want to care less about my job, but when you’re a teacher, it’s sort of difficult to stop caring, especially when you realize that the lives of your students depend on your care and nurture.

I think this year will bring new and promising events, and hopefully it will bring a much better attitude on my part. We’ll see. I’m going to try to focus on being positive, which is a HUGE goal for me.

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Posted in Beer, Buddhism, Disc golf, Food, Gleaning, Goals, Play, Running, School, Swimming, Teaching, Writing

Muncie Mission. Organization. Marathon Training. And Compassion.

Posted on 6 July 2010 | Leave a comment

I was shocked to hear on the radio this morning that the Muncie Mission had a horrible fire. I was even more shocked to hear that the dormitory side of the mission was pretty much a loss and that a good portion of the men lost their belongings in the fire. How messed up is it to have such horrible circumstances that you end up living in a mission, and then have the mission along with your belongings burn down around you. Here are some links to articles about it:

WISH TV

Muncie StarPress

WTHR

According to all of the articles, everyone got out of the mission safely, but there is about a million dollars worth of damage to the brand new building.

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I am trying hard to face the things I need to face in the upcoming weeks, and I realize that I waste quite a bit of time procrastinating the things I need to do, sometimes to the point of not being able to enjoy leisurely activities because I know I have so much work weighing on me. So, one more time I am going to try to work on this horrible habit of procrastination and learn how to get what needs to get finished, finished in a timely fashion. I had to edit my plan to tackle all of the things I need to tackle by August 18. I only switched a couple of things, but here is the revised schedule of how I plan to accomplish all of it:

  • House painting—WEEKENDS
  • Dissertation—MORNINGS
  • IEI—AFTERNOONS
  • Running—EARLY MORNING before dog walking, must get up by 6
  • Write On! and Planning for School—EVENINGS
  • Disc Golf, etc.—IN BETWEENS

With the exception of these activities, I am on an activity blackout. Unless it’s already on the calendar, it’s not going on the calendar. I’ve spent too much time playing during the first part of the summer to keep up that level of playing for the rest of the summer and still accomplish what I need to. Sorry.

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Today was the first day of marathon training, and I ran my three miles. It felt good, even better since I’ve been trying to go easy to let my ankle heel from whatever is making it ache. I am trying to maintain this vegan diet to cleanse my body and to lose some weight, so I can run the marathon. I know I am going to have to stick to my run/walk pattern to finish 26.2 miles, but it might be easier to finish if I could lose a few extra pounds between now and then. Yesterday was a good eating day. I started with sweet potato waffles with berry syrup, sausages, and fresh fruit. I ended with garbage pizza that had mushrooms, squash, and tofu on it. With just a week of not eating animal products, I feel quite a bit better. I can’t really describe how it feels, but my body feels lighter and I feel more in touch with myself and with the world. Running only helps with this connection. As I was running this morning, I kept listening to my breath, feeling my feet touching down on the ground, and thinking that this is what it feels like to be alive. I wonder if that is what I will think at mile 26.2?

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I’ve been reading a website called Tiny Buddha. I have been introduced to all sorts of ideas about compassion, happiness, and positive thinking. What I like about this particular website is that it’s written from multiple perspectives, and people can send in their own thoughts about various topics. It’s helpful to me to read about how to think positively, but it’s also affirming to know that some people just need to be left to their own devices. In other words, I am learning to be compassionate, but that there will be people in your life that are simply disagreeable and that no amount of trying will make them like you, respect, you, or treat you well. You have to know you have tried to be compassionate, but you also need to be compassionate to yourself. It’s difficult for me to recognize when to stop being compassionate or when to stop giving grace. I tend to err on the side of giving it too much, and I let people walk all over me. Tiny Buddha and some other Buddhist readings I have been doing have helped me to see that you can show compassion to others only when you have compassion for yourself. I am working on this.

The difficult part of this is that Buddhism also advocates forgetting yourself. How do you forget yourself and have compassion for yourself as well? Here in lies the rub.

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Posted in Disc golf, Dissertation, Goals, Grace, IEI, Reading, Relationships, Running, School, Teaching, Vegetarian or Vegan, Writing

Vacation and the Rest of Summer

Posted on 1 July 2010 | 2 comments

I just learned that I start teaching at Burris on August 18th, which means I have approximately six and half weeks (not counting the week I will be gone to Nebraska and Minnesota) left to accomplish all of this:

  • finish painting the outside of the house (the floor will wait until next summer)
  • finish a chapter of my dissertation (or at least get a really good start on it)
  • work 20 hours each week in the IEI
  • start training for the marathon in November (once school starts add lifting weights and swimming)
  • go through all of the Write On! Featherweight stuff and get it together
  • plan for the entire school year next year (two seventh-grade, two eighth-grade, and one tenth-grade year curriculum plans)
  • play some disc golf, basketball, and possibly soccer (can someone teach me to play soccer?

Here is how I plan to accomplish all of it:

  • House painting—WEEKENDS
  • Dissertation—AFTERNOONS
  • IEI—MORNINGS
  • Running—EARLY MORNING before dog walking, must get up by 6
  • Write On! and Planning for School—EVENINGS
  • Disc Golf, etc.—IN BETWEENS

I am sure there is something I am forgetting. I am not sure I can accomplish all of this in 6 weeks. Say some prayers, breathe some for me.

*

My family (Dad, Mom, Adam, and I) just got back from vacation in Cincinnati. Cincannati is like dissecting owl pellets: you have to wait through the disgusting stuff to find the gems inside it. The majority of the city of Cincinnati, not the suburbs or the outskirts, looks like the worst neighborhood of most other big cities. We wanted to walk to Findlay Market, but the shuttle driver at our hotel said he’d better drive us because the neighborhood was so bad. I agree. Usually, I am unmoved by deteriorating neighborhoods. I am not afraid of loitering people, or run-down buildings, but this area of Cincy was more than just derelict. People had looks in their eyes that were so down-trodden, so forlorn, that I was afraid of them. They looked the way Cormac McCarthy describes people in The Road. That desperate. That carnal. While we were there, each morning the news reported several shootings within a couple of miles of the hotel. My dad couldn’t sleep because of all the sirens, and there were literally 50 or so homeless people sleeping on the grounds of the library across the street.

However, much like other big cities, if we stayed South of our hotel, toward the Great American Ball Park, there were no worries. In fact, there were multiple tourist attractions and affluent shopping malls, complete with Brazilian steakhouses and upscale clothing stores. I wish I could rest one day from thinking about culture. I wish the injustices and inequalities weren’t so blatant to me. Sometimes I just want to go back to not recognizing the painfully obvious way our society is stratified. I can’t though, so my heart hurts. I have a hard time having fun, but I have a hard time identifying how I can do anything to help a system so big and so broken. One of my constant prayers is for God to show me my role in helping to fix our very broken world.

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Also, I found this amazing graphic to help me plan meals while I am training.

The only hard part about this pyramid is drinking enough water. Our water tastes pretty gross, and even though I know algae isn’t bad for me, I still don’t want to drink water that tastes like organic matter. Ew.

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Food: banana, juice, sweet potato waffles with strawberries, blueberries, and a touch of syrup, carrots, cherries, tortilla with faux peanut butter and strawberry jalapeno jelly, a few Thai chips, chocolate soy milk, salad, guacamole and salsa and chips, cauliflower, blackberries, peach, veggie burger with bread,

Exercise: walked the dogs,

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Posted in Disc golf, Dissertation, Fat, Food, Goals, IEI, Running, School, Swimming, Teaching, Vegetarian or Vegan, Writing

A Great Summer Ahead?

Posted on 26 April 2010 | 6 comments

As it turns out, I didn’t get a summer assistantship, so I will be living on tax money and student loans. Any other time I would be really weird about not getting an assistantship, but I am going through a major “I don’t care” phase right now. It will be nice to take this summer off with nothing to do but finish projects around the house, finish the dissertation proposal, play disc golf, and run. I will be a little more in debt when the summer ends. Then so be it. I’m already wallowing in debt as it is.

I attribute this phase to the fact that I have been buffeted on all sides this semester by people who think they are doing the world a favor by maligning me. One of the maligners reminds me of Hillary Faye in the movie Saved.

There is a scene in the movie in which Roland (Culkin) is watching Hillary Faye (Moore) abuse Mary (Malone). He says to Hillary Faye, “You have everything, Hillary Faye. What are you afraid of?” I want to ask a couple of people this same question: “You have everything. What are you afraid of?” I suppose my friend Monica is right: these people have no control of any other part of their lives, so they find it necessary to manipulate and control others. I always wonder why, though, I seem to be a favorite target. If anyone has any idea, could you please let me know. I am perfectly willing to admit to any part that I have in this fiasco, but I am having a hard time seeing what I have done to deserve the treatment I have received. I want the nightmares I have that are induced by these people to stop coming so frequently. And, frankly, I am getting tired of being the rug that people wipe their feet on. Thanks, I’d like my self-assuredness back now.

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I am beginning to get nervous about the IndyMini because I was sick all week last week and only got to run about 15 miles, if that much. My sinuses are rebelling because of the increase in pollen, but they have relaxed this week so I should be back in good shape come tomorrow morning’s run. I think I am going to try for a nice, slow five-miler that I know won’t compare to Friday morning’s beautiful four along Lake Shore Drive and Navy Pier. The sun was just peeking over the horizon and the booms and clicks of the lighthouse warning systems were sounding. The seagulls were screeching and the lake was slapping up against the wooden poles of the pier, and all I could think about was how I wondered if the people who get to run there every morning know how lucky they are. I figure they take it for granted after a while, but maybe there are a few of them who know it’s a privilege to be able to soak in the pleasure of the shore every day.

I also wondered why I always want to be anywhere, anytime but where or when I am. I spend a lot of time worrying about the future, trying to make up for the past, and not reveling in the present. I am trying to learn mindfulness. I am trying to just be. But I am having such a difficult time with it.

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Posted in Disc golf, Dissertation, Relationships, School