Transportation is a Privilege

When I moved to the community where my new church is located, I was lucky enough to find a home close enough for me to walk to and from my place of worship & work. This is both a good motivator for me to walk when the weather is nice, and a source of privilege that I can drive that half mile when the weather is less than nice.

Several weeks ago, I checked the weather as I usually do in the morning and decided it would be a good day to wear sandals into work, and only a lightweight sweater over my shirt.  It was going to be mostly sunny all day and I would spend most of my time inside besides.

The weather report was wrong, and later as I was working remotely from church in a local coffee shop, it started to rain heavily.  I tried to wait it out to no avail. By the time I made it home that evening, I had damp shoulders and soaking toes.

It was uncomfortable for me, but by the time I got home, only an inconvenience.  I could take my shoes off, dry my feet, and have warm socks on within minutes. I am reminded, however, that this is a privilege, just as it was a privilege a few hours later to retrace my steps back to church for worship in my car rather than walk in the continual rain.

While living in Manchester 2015/2016, someone giving me a ride on a rainy day was an absolute blessing; most of the time, I would arrive slightly damp wherever it was I was headed. It was an expense and a treat if I decided to take the bus (and I would make sure to use my pass as much as possible to get my 4 pounds worth of a ticket).  I have fond memories of peddling through a far deeper than expected puddle near a park, and the funny look I got from a priest when caught drying my socks on the radiator in our office.

I give thanks for my ability to walk, ride, or drive wherever I need to go whenever I need to go. And I appreciate every opportunity I am afforded to pay forward giving a kind ride to someone else.
 

14 August 2016: Emptying Out My Closet

It is almost overwhelming returning home to a room and space and a whole household of things I lived without for a year.  And I mean a full household of my own personal belongings that turned my apartment into a home for two years at University.  There are things I forgot about (My Lego collection and several sets of odd sized bedding), and a few I missed terribly (playing Nintendo 64 Tetris).  Much of my year living in Manchester was done with the consideration of 'living simply', and some of the clutter seems unnecessary in my room now.  The place where I felt this change most was when I turned and looked into my closet with a bit of a sense of angst.

Let me assure you here that there are not any skeletons or bodies hiding in there.  There are no strange relics of past lives or echoes of a self that I'd rather keep hidden.

All there is in there are some old clothes and university t-shirts that might have once been more important than they are today.  Some people might think of them as second skins that create an identity of a formative part of life and should be held onto as memory from that time.  Once upon a time they probably did for me too.  The simple story was that a lot of it didn't fit post-Manchester-me anymore.

They are no longer my identity.  Just memories that were good mostly, have come to pass, and now I have grown into the current best version of me that lived out of two suitcases of clothes for a year.  This current and best version of me also lost several clothes sizes worth of weight after cycling or walking everywhere around Manchester, and the things I left behind last August quite literally no longer fit my body.

Change is easily seen from the physical outside, it was harder for me to see the change a year of accompanying St Chrysostoms Church had inflicted on me until I stood there staring at a closet of transformed 'me's and said out loud to myself:

"It's okay to have grown and not wanting to be who I had been when I was last in this room packing a year ago."


Suddenly that little knot of angst loosened in my chest and I felt like I could let it all go, and give myself the permission to be me as I was in Manchester in Virginia.

Reflection from 17 June 2016

Packing

The date suddenly hits you
  

One month until you finish work, another few weeks before you leave - naturally you start winding projects to a close and packing your things.  There is so much to do, where do you begin?

You start with the immediate, making sure to take in every new moment and experience, tallying up all you've yet to do and all you've already done.  Then these lists take you back in your memory to the beginning of this journey.


Lets start over


Packing started the day you arrived, in a reverse way: everything was new and you had to take it all in somehow.  Sights, tastes, smells, new people, new work, new everything.  All of it at once and you were pushing all this excitement into every day, packing in as much as you could into a day.

It very soon stopped being new, and even though you're miles from where you began it all started to feel familiar, but you were given the chance to be unfamiliar.  Not unfamiliar with others, but with yourself.  Given the chance, you now have the opportunity to grow in a new environment foreign yet familiar to the one you came from.


But now you are at the end and you've still got to pack


How do you fit all of this garden of change into one suitcase, one backpack, one sentence when people ask you how your year was?  You want to ask them, 'Do you have a year for me to adequately explain?'

All you can do is smile when you answer, 'It was good, and I am still trying to unpack all of my experience that has changed me through the past year, though I did not bring nearly as much physically back as I left with!'  But the memories you packed into your heart along the way


They take up no room and weigh the heaviest of all.

Garden from Rocamadour, France

What More Can I say?

Wow.

What more can I say?  I have just had an amazing week with YAGM in Chicago, the amazing love and support that was shared during that week completely amazing me.  It was outstanding to witness so many young adults who are in the program, alums of the program, or fervent supporters come together to share such a profound experience.  

It was a bit  exhausting, too.  We had breakfast at 7:30am, and our last session ended at 8:30pm nearly everyday, with only a few hours to process all the intense sessions and delicious meals throughout the day.  There were so many uplifting people all in the same boat, though, so no one really felt how exhausted we all were due to the excitement each day brought us.

Ryan(L), Rebecca, Haley, Luke, Mycah!, and Nicholas(R)

Some of my fondest memories come from the times when my small group met, comprised of people who were all going to different countries (or in the case of our alum, had served in a different country), so we all brought unique perspectives to discuss with the other.  We also made it a point to have fun, heading down to the Lake Michigan beach on our first day to relax in the windy sun while talking about our journey's to that point (pictured right), or setting up someone's slack line (a wikihow article on what this crazy fun contraption is) to enjoy for some stress relief midway through the week.  We found a quiet space to practice meditation, and wrote each other encouraging notes to read in a few months when we need a taste of home.

Waiting for my flight to take off!

After all of this community building we constructed within seven days, it came to pass that everyone started to leave in their country groups to head off to serve, after having spent a week building us up in faith, spirit, and soul in preparation.  I had the interesting experience to be able to fly directly to my service site, and will head to my in country training in a few days.  It was a bit of a fiasco when I arrived to O'hare, but I suppose that's why YAGM gets us there so early!  I thought I was flying with British Airways, but as I found out an hour or so after I'd arrived while waiting for the ticketing counter to open, I was actually flying American Airlines which was located one terminal over.  So, hauling all of my luggage with me, I caught the tram to the other terminal, finally figured out how to check in, waited through the long security line and had a quick lunch, then waited around two more hours for my flight (as a fun joke, I had McDonalds in the airport for my last meal in America, if anyone was wondering).  My flight was then delayed by about an hour for departure, and we had a delay getting to the gate upon arrival, and then the line for boarder patrol was an even longer painstaking wait to get through than security had been.


The welcome I received upon arrival once I was outside the airport was amazing, everyone here in Manchester has made me feel very at home already, and I've just finished my first full day here in town.  I have already experienced hanging my wash up to dry, and had too many cups of tea to count.  The weather has been sunny both yesterday and today, which is a complete misconception of how it usually acts (so I am told).  Soon I will head to Leeds for in country training, and then back again here to Manchester to really begin my year of accompanying these wonderful people who are apart of Saint Chrysostom's Church.

I would like to invite any of you who are interested in receiving a more formal newsletter that will come out every couple months, please send me your email!

In peace, and with a cheerful smile,
Mycah 

P.S. Clearly I had a lot so say other than 'wow'!