My Favorite Story I Have To Tell

“You’re going to Jamaica? That’ll be so nice! Some R&R on the beach!”

“Well, no. I’m going with some people from church.”

“So, a missions trip?”

“Well, we don’t like the word ‘mission’ so much.” It was a trip with a mission. But not our own. Not one we could ever have named. We thought maybe we could have an impact on some teenagers from a poor neighborhood in Kingston. Maybe we could show them our faith, maybe we could talk to them about starting churches, or at the very least, loving Jesus. And the best way to have an “impact” on teenagers, stuck in a somewhat poisonous, hard-to-escape environment, circling the vicious cycle of unemployment, teen pregnancy and absent parents? Taking them out of their comfort zone and hiking them up a mountain.

We drive up the side of a mountain, toward the base of the Blue Mountain Peak, the highest point in the longest mountain range in Jamaica, the second highest peak in the Caribbean. Of course we’re late, because Jamaica just runs late, and doesn’t seem to mind too much the panic in our rushed New England eyes. “So, at this rate, we won’t even get up to the camp until midnight? I ate a peanut butter sandwich for lunch at 3. It’s freaking 8 o’clock.” The bitching begins. The two of us sit, isolated, at the front of a bus full of loud teenagers, who don’t seem to understand the fact that we are about to hike up a mountain for four hours and are utterly unprepared. Save your energy, guys. Why won’t you calm down? Why are you still singing Bruno Mars songs? Why won’t you realize how scary, daunting, and NOT ideal this situation is? I close my eyes in frustration and fear and remember words I once read. Jesus told us, “I am the author of your circumstance.” I tell Eric this memory and we both take a deep breath and feel the impact of these words. Gratitude is but a whisper now, but will be our song for the night to come. We get to one of the first bases, Mavis Bank, a coffee-farming community at an elevation of 3000 feet at 8:30PM. We unpack 15 teenagers, 10 Jamaican leaders, and ourselves out of the bus. Bags are distributed, water bottles are filled, boots are strapped tight, flashlights are turned on. Ready for a four-hour hike in the pitch black. Hour four. My eyebrow is swollen from running into a thorn bush. My knees and my knuckles are bloody from a trip over a stump. Four adventurous, hiking American men with $60 boots on their feet and 60 pounds of tents on their back are losing their strength, but not their will. We are finding our way with an instinct and a walkie-talkie, as we lost the group an hour ago. Eric has my pack on his chest, after I’m humbled by the fall and finally surrender after 30 minutes of silencing his push, “Is it about pride, Ashley? Give me the pack.” I’m defeated and I’m angry and I’m losing my breath. The locals in the hill villages tell us, "You're not even halfway." But they told us it would be four hours. They told us we’d connect with the kids. “They” told us a lot of things, as “they” do. The sirens -- who are “they”? -- promise us ease, and we are stuck climbing mountains in the middle of the night. And it’s so easy to blame “them” in this moment. It’s so easy to let the poison in our hearts spit resentment through our teeth, but then the water we drink goes down darker. The nourishment we need is swallowed into a tightened throat, not able to reach our tired blood. 

With every step through the dark night, the man beside me becomes more visible. His encouragement and his strength are transparent in the light of my flashlight, in the vulnerability of my fear. His heart for me is beating through both backpacks, and I can smell his every thought. He looks at me with regret after hearing Hour Four is not even halfway. He complains about the sirens, and sighs, “Out of the overflow of the mouth, the heart speaks. I have darkness in my heart.” We stop and pray and confess and confide, and remember our song. You are the author of our circumstance. I will climb this mountain with You. I will climb this mountain with my hands wide open. It is no one’s fault we are here. It is Your design, and we are grateful. We will climb with You, for You. Thank You. It is tattooed on the arm he holds, the password to our Father’s presence. Thank you. We climb. We encourage. We are new. We are healed. We are whole. We are weary, but not weak. We are almost there. The fight for our lives has to be almost over. Right? “Mi brethren, you got 3.5 more miles to go.”

"Fuck this."
Why did I curse Him again? Why are we so quick to forget? No, I can’t keep climbing. No, God. No, friendly Jamaican full of unfriendly news. I will not keep climbing. I will not. How can this be expected of me? It’s not fair. What kind of Author would write this kind of horrendous story? When will the fight be over? I lay back on the chest of the man who keeps saving me, on the tail end of the climb, on the very ends of ourselves. He is defeated and can only lead us closer to God, it’s our only option now. He whispers the words, falling from the tip of his tongue, “Daddy,” and I know I’ll never know a man to love me as much as him. To die to yourself and every comfort you’ve ever known to hold a broken woman in your failing arms and cry this childlike cry, hoping it’ll save us, is the truest taste of the Kingdom I've ever seen. The closest I've ever been to see God's love for me manifest on earth. I can’t find these words now, so I tell him I love him and that our lives will be better intertwined and that I’m certain that I’ve been waiting for him my whole life. We pray and we know, we have to keep climbing. We have to keep climbing these mountains. They’re too tall, and we’re too weak, and we don’t know how to keep going. We have faced all of the obstacles, all of the objection head-on. Many a thorn bush has been thrown in our face. We have sat with members of our community as they tell us our faults and their worries about our relationship. We have made the sacrifices, we let go when all we wanted was to hold on. We wished off the sirens months ago, knowing full-well fighting for this love was neither easy nor fair. But there is an Author. And He wants us to keep climbing. He wants to keep giving us strength. He wants us to be surprised at, really, how much easier it’s been than it should’ve been. And we are surprised to almost run the next 3.5 miles. Singing about the Author’s Promises, the end of this story. Eric screams behind me his revelations. That God loves us, He is fighting for us, and we have to keep pressing on. That our love and our life is this mountain. And we basically run up the rest of the trail, pass our friends, and get to the camp at 6000 feet above sea level at sunrise. We climbed for almost nine hours. And God came through on His promise that we’d make it. He came through on the promise that we’d experience so much of Him in that climb, and so much of each other. We’ve read it in Scripture, but He let our hearts know the truth in being able to do anything in Christ who strengthens us. He broke down my pride and independence, made me rely on another human being in a way that I’ve always dreamed I could, but never really tried. Now, this post is full of “us” where it would be full of “I” and I’m not sure if I’m just talking about Eric & I or if I’m talking to you about an experience we all have as humans on this mountainous earth. His promise was not that being on the top of the mountain would be easy. We slept in too-hot-to-quickly-too-cold tents, we barely ate, we spent most of the time exhausted and unable to fully connect with anyone at all. I forgot God again, I forgot my strength in Him almost immediately. I got tired fast, impatient fast, negative even faster. His promise was not in finishing the climb that the top would be simply glorious. His promise was that He would be there. He will show up in ways we never could’ve dreamed up. We will live the greatest love story ever told, amidst the epic climbs of this life, which come again and again. We get weak, He saves us. We get tired, He saves us. We forget Him, He forgives us. And he gives us more than we’ve imagined; my favorite story I have to tell about how our love is a mountain He will help us climb.

Some People Conquer Fears.

I just tire mine out. // I've made a pretty stark observation about myself over the last month of travel. I spend a considerable amount of time expecting. I walk through the next day, or next week, every step, every train, every move. Maybe I think that if I watch the whole movie once that I will be able to predict, and thus overcome, anything that could trick me up. But honestly? Fear lives only in the expectation, but not so often on reality. When you're sprinting to catch the only train to your next destination, you have very little time to be afraid. When your survival instincts kick in like that, no amount of expectation is going to be of aid. In fact, typically said expectation leads to a sleepless night and this far less energy to do that sprinting. // no amount of thinking could have prepared me for the fact that nothing in Europe runs on Sunday. And ALL of my travel dates are Sundays. No amount of thought could magically teach me The French I really need to talk to most of the people in this little town. No matter how many times I put a car into gear into my mind, today I have to drive stick and will almost for sure stall a few times. // expectation is just the perfectionist's anxiety. But it's pretty much a waste of time. Plus, I'm exhausted. If staying up all night with my expectations hasn't actually done anything to change some difficult circumstances, then I choose to sleep instead and take the difficulties as they come. I've never said to myself "Wow, I'm so glad I THOUGHT that one out beforehand. I really saved my own ass there." no. But I have said: "thank god YOU were there to speak French to that bus driver!" "Thank God I found YOU in this situation! What would I have done if I were alone?" // the lesson is - Maybe we just aren't made to help ourselves. We need people and community. We need to trust that God will send someone in a huge coincidence to help. Little European angels. I planned and planned and still couldn't have done a thing on my own. Yet I've caught every train. Miraculous, really.

Be reassured.

I am no longer feeling that icky homesickness. PHEW, THANK THE LORD. These feeling may be fleeting, however, as in two days I will be headed to France - the first country that language barriers may rise far aboove my capacities, the first country where I will be with mostly strangers, the first country where I have obligations and such. No, I will not think about this peace fleeting. // Stay present, Ashley. // For the first time since I've been in Europe, I feel close to being myself again. That is mostly due to my aunt now being here and making me laugh and feel free to be who she's always known me to be. I feel myself, yes, but with a little bit more. I feel encouraged to be more of that artist I talked about in last night's post. Little plans are starting to fill my head about who I should be when I get back to the States. I want to fill my life with music and writing. I want to follow this bravery and run with it a million miles. // I don't know exactly what I'll do. Do we ever? // I don't know what the point of this post was tonight. I suppose just to reassure the ones I love that I am finally feeling just fine. Your prayers and your loving words are so dear to me, and I feel so close to your hearts, though I'm far from you. // PS. A couple book requests. 1. "Sexgod" by Rob Bell. This man (pastor?) talks about the relationship between God and sexuality, often talking about marriage. A good one. Not too intensely Jesus-y. 2. "Blue Like Jazz" by Don... something. (I don't have my books in front of me, since Internet is only good downstairs, and my room is very much upstairs.) You'll find it if you google it. (I just love the Internet-age. So wonderfully lazy and unknowing, expecting someone else to do the work of figuring everything out.) This one is great, too. Like its subtitle suggests, it is simply thoughts on Christianity. It is the memoir of an average sinner and his journey toward falling in love with God. Again, not preachy. It's just a discovery of something most of us are searching for - more Love! 3. "Little Bee" by Chris Cleave. The backcover instructs me not to tell you what happens in the story, as its magic is in its unfolding. I will, however, tell you that any Clark kid will instantly fall in love with the story of this sweet African refugee. I will also tell you that I read it in two days, which is rare for me. It is such an easy, entertaining, deep read. 4. The last book is a devotional that now I can't remember the name of, which is insane because I read it every morning. Maybe that is God telling me either a. It's time to go to bed, or b. Stop suggesting Jesus books, because people are starting to feel you're getting to preachy. Haha. Either way, I have no idea what it's called now. But JR - my lovely friend from Woostah, who gave me this book - if you're reading, can you comment and remind me? Anyway, I'm being politely ushered in German out of the Internet-access part of the Hotel. And politely ushered by my aching bones to please, for the love of God, get some sleep. // Love you all like crazy.

God whispered in my ear today, "Start taking small steps."

Tonight, I watched the two greatest street performance groups I have ever seen in my twenty years of life. The first was a samba drum line that I could hear from my hotel. They had women behind them dressed as mermaids, painted green, walking on stilts. They promoted optimism and green-living, and succeeded through filling the somewhat shady streets with musical smiles. I swayed beside strangers and nearly cried tears of joy, and gratitude. The second group, a classical-meets-jazz string-trio-plus-piano-and-accordian, filled my heart further. Listening to them play Pachobel's Canon above the piano's strange 7th chords, I fell back in love with music. // After three years as a vocal student, I wouldn't say I am completely burnt out necessarily. I am simply more afraid. With every lesson, with every criticism, and especially with every performance of every peer and mentor that is one million times more talented and brilliant than I am, my mind fills with worry, doubt, and "yeah, maybe a 9 to 5 job after college wouldn't be so bad" demons. // But tonight, as I watched the tilted heads and swaying hips of the strangers around me, and saw the blue sky beginning to grow darker beneath the majestic castle-like Munich architecture, I thanked God - for the first time in a while - for making me a musician. Musicians - artists, for that matter - are given the great responsibility of creating these sweet moments. We are given the gift of awakening the soul. I vowed, right then and there, to get out of my head and get into my soul. I vowed to stop being afraid of this responsibility and start reclaiming it as a gift. // The person - the artist - that lives inside of my soul exists quite like the musicians I watched with awe tonight. She is brave, charming, and does not apologize for her art. The person who lives in my mind, however, never feels adequate enough to obey her housemate. There has always been a dissonance between my two halves, thus creating great dissonance between my thoughts and my actions. I write these words as if I am some great speaker, but I am not. I sing songs inside of my head and give grand performances, but it is rare that I sing in front of people except for academic credit and obligation. Who is this soul-dweller, and why can she not come out and live amongst the rest of us? // Tonight, under the brilliant sky, I decided to finally lose my mind. I sang Debussy through the streets. Quietly at first, and then slowly I became braver. I sang Debussy, and then Chausson, and a bit of Copland under a bridge. Most people walked by me, probably writing me off as another crazy person. Some stared as they walked by, a couple smiled. Most thought, or perhaps knew, that I lost my mind. I think they were absolutely right. I abandoned my fearful mind for the soul of the artist. The artist who exists somewhere deep inside, where Love lives, where the Irrational lives, where God lives. God. My soul, my music-maker, my artist. Following Him and this gift He put inside me made me, if just for tonight, a bit less afraid. Or at least I felt brave enough to make the first step toward Him. The first step toward being unafraid. Isn't that why they always tell us? In church and in the Bible? "Abandon your mind," they say, "have a heart for God and He will show you what you have inside and make you brave enough to let you live as that creation." // I always just thought that was evangelical jibber-jabber, not meant for artists like me.

Deutschland Dreamland.

Hello!! I've had really no Internet, and barely any time, thus lack of posting. I'm with my Aunt now - we met a few days ago in Berlin and then flew to Munich together yesterday. Berlin was interesting. It is a very international city with lots of American influence, it seems. There was a ton of interesting art, and we actually hung out one night in a pretty young area. We stayed in Charlottenberg, which seemed to be Fashion Central. Prada and Louis right next to our hotel. Swanky for sure. Saw a lot of Mauer sites - East Side Gallery, where a huge chunk of the wall is there and artists have come and done installments all over it. A lot are peace-related, and it's really actually quite moving. Saw the Nazi-era Olympic Stadium, which was quite fascist and creepy... Carried a lot of my German film knowledge into that situation, remembering Leni Riefenstahl's creepy Nazi films, one of which was shot at the Olympic Stadium. Weird to be standing somewhere that Hitler stood, for sure. And then last night we got to Munich and I entered into my own personal heaven. (Dad, you are going to be extremely jealous.) Diddles (my Aunt) and I were getting on the U-Bahn to find a cafe or bar to eat dinner an watch the soccer game. Germany and Denmark were playing in the final game of the First Round of UEFA Euro Cup. This is a pretty big deal for Europeans. Fairly close to the World Cup, but Euro only. This game determined whether or not Germany makes it to the next round - the quarterfinals. We get on the U-Bahn (subway) and see tons of guys in their Deutschland jerseys, and decide to just follow where they're going. We end up at the Munich Olympic Stadium with a thousand psyched drunk German fans. FOR SIX EURO. We get into the freaking Olympic Stadium to watch this game FOR SIX EURO. Unbelievable. So if you know me well, you know why this is my personal heaven. Watching a soccer game with a thousand Europeans, for six euro. Amazing. And Germany won. The U-Bahn back to the hotel was packed full of fans, and they jumped up and down and banged on the sides of the cars singing soccer cheers about "Super Deutschland". We thought the train was going to come off of the tracks. Simply amazing. Still a tiny bit homesick, but not sick exactly for home. A guy I met in Oslo asked me what it is I miss about home, and I couldn't totally think of anything. Of course I miss my parents and family because I love them, I miss my friends and my church, but I wouldn't go home just for all of that. I told him, "It's the lack of control. I don't know where anything is. I'm lost, confused, and separated from people. I don't know which way to go, I can't just talk to anyone. I don't entirely belong here, and I'm not entirely comfortable here. I miss the feeling of having control and comfort." He said, "I think you just defined homesickness." I think he was right. I also think there is no feeling more healthy, more character-building, or more humbling than this feeling. I have no control. And that's okay.

June Tenth, Feeings.

I feel ill-equipped. Like a child on this huge adveneture. Unprepared, yet overprepared in all the wrong places. I feel incapable and weak. I feel guilty for having these feelings, like an ungrateful brat who can't appreciate the magical adventure she's in the middle of. I feel too quiet, too easy going, too easy to walk all over. I do not feel like the strong woman I thought I was before I left. I do not feel like I am conquering the world. I do, at least, feel honest. I do feel like I will fight this. I do feel like it will pass. I do feel like I will be stronger and more something after all this is over (not quite sure what that is yet, though). From Proverbs: Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure everything out on your own. Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he's the one who will keep you on track. Josh Garrels: And even when I fall, I get back up, for the joy that overflows my cup. Heaven filled me with more than enough. Broke down my levee and my bluff. Let the flood wash me. I will climb this mountain with my hands wide open. And now I feel God's peace, and that's all that's left in my heart. Goodnight. xoxo

The best prank of all time.

I am in Oslo!!!! Flying over Norway was a ridiculous experience, it is so beautiful here. Last night, Kelli (who I'm staying with, a friend from home) took me out with some of her friends. Tobias and Stian met us in the park and we made hotdogs on a little disposable grill. We drank vodka from waterbottles and put the hot dogs on tortillas with dried onions and ketchup. Tobias was trying to teach me some Norwegian, but it is really hard to pronounce a lot of their sounds. I did learn how to say "Melkesjokolade".. guess what that means! Milk chocolate! Then they all decided I needed to learn more practical phrases. I learned 'My name is....' (which right now I forgot, and google translate is wrong).. and then they told me that the most polite thing to say when introducing yourself to someone is "Nice to meet you".. They tell me in Norwegian this is "Fitteslikker".. (if you speak Norwegian, you are now cracking up).. This word is really hard to say and remember, so I'm walking around all of Oslo practicing it. In the park, Fitteslikker. On the subway, Fitteslikker. They are laughing hysterically at me, and I start to get embarrassed by my bad language skills. I'm self-conscious and ask why they're laughing! They just say it's funny to hear someone say a word in a strong accent. So the time comes when I can use my new skills. At the end of the night when we're all a little silly and drunk, Stian grabs me by the shoulders and walks me to a girl we see on the street. I say Hi, my name is Ashley... Fitteslikker! This girl looks me in the eyes, grabs my shoulders and says, "Don't ever say that to anyone again!!!" Apparently I called her a Pussylicker. That's right, a Pussylicker. And that's what I was saying - pretty confidently and loudly - throughout the entire city of Oslo. Good thing I can take a prank. We were all cracking up the rest of the night, and I commended them on their awesome pranking skill. Then, we took the subway home and walked through Kelli's beautiful town, as the sun was both setting and beginning to rise again at about 1:30 AM. Great introduction to Oslo, my Fitteslikker friends.