Wedding Photography
Just photographed my first wedding as a second shooter down in Seattle. Loved it.
Check out the photos
Juan de Fuca Trail
We just returned from an exceptional backpacking trip on Vancouver Island. Undoubtedly the Juan de Fuca trail ranks up there with the Wind River Range trip we took two years ago. Although it is a very different sort of trip, Juan de Fuca was incredibly beautiful.
The Juan de Fuca trail runs through stunning temperate rain forest along 47 km (about 30 miles) of Vancouver Island’s rugged south west coast. Waterfalls, boulder beaches, sandy beaches, old growth forest, and jagged sea cliffs make up the terrain.
We started by taking a 90 minute ferry across from mainland Vancouver to Victoria, on Vancouver Island. From there it was about a 2 ½ hour drive to Port Renfrew, where we parked our car and then hitched a ride back down south to the southernmost trailhead of the Juan de Fuca.
Hitching a ride is really where the adventure began. After waiting an hour or so, a kind, middle aged lady named Magdalene gave us a ride. Magdalene filled the 45 minute drive with stories from the three years she and her husband spent sailing with their two young boys in S. America! It has always been a dream of mine to spend a substantial amount of time on a sail boat, and Magdalene helped re-awaken that dream. Who knows if / when this will happen, but meeting someone who has done it was inspiring!
With my head swimming with thoughts of a 36 foot sailboat, Magdalene dropped us off at Juan de Fuca’s southernmost trailhead, and we hiked 9 km that day, past Mystic Beach to Bear Beach where we set up our first camp. Our campground was literally two feet from a gorgeous rocky beach, and we would fall asleep later that evening to the sound of the crashing waves.
After setting up camp, we turned our attention to dinner. We try to eat fresh things during our first few meals on the trail. Dinner that night was tortillas with fresh garden greens, goat feta, avocado, and hummus. Alongside the main course were apples, carrots, and of course, the ubiquitous trail mix (made with hazelnuts we picked / cracked and roasted plus cranberries, almonds and chocolate chips).
The next day we awoke and made quite a few whole-wheat, cornmeal pancakes on a mini cast-iron griddle. It was a good thing, as this day was our longest: 20 km through the “most difficult” section of the trail. It was quite a grueling section of trail, despite a delicious lunch of avocado quesadillas at Chin Beach around 3:00 pm, we both stumbled onto East Sombrio beach around 8:00 that evening too tired to even think about making a fire. We set up camp, ate pre-cooked packs of Vegetable Byrani from Trader Joes, and crashed hard.
After sleeping 10 hours we had a more leisurely 13 km hike to get to our final campsite at Payzant. We stopped mid-way for lunch at Kuitsche Cove, and afterward fell asleep sunning ourselves on the rocks. When we awoke two sea-lions had decided we had the right idea, and were themselves sun-bathing not one hundred feet from us.
Our final campsite at Payzant was several hundred feet inland, as the northern part of the trail traced the edges of substantial cliffs more so than did the southern end of the trail. At first we were disappointed to not be next to the ocean for our final evening, but upon finding a campsite overlooking a gorgeous waterfall-fed pool (and a quick shower in the waterfall) we figured we could make do and pitched our tent and set about making dinner.
Again we ate pre-cooked meals from Trader Joes, but, as this was our final night on the trail, we’d planned to make herbed Bannock. Bannock is a Scottish word for a First Nations flat-bread, and is incredibly easy to make and utterly delicious out on the trail. We each ate two Bannock-cakes dripping with butter and honey, and even hooked Elliott up with one since he was drooling uncontrollably while we ate ours.
The next morning we awoke early (5:00 am), and broke camp. It was 7 km to the northern trailhead, and another 2.5 km after that to the place where our car was parked. After a filling breakfast at the best (only) cafe in Port Ruepert, we drove back to Victoria, got a double scoop gelato waffle cone to split while waiting for the ferry, and found ourselves all too quickly back in the rush and noise of Vancouver.
Undoubtedly we’ll be returning to the Juan de Fuca, hopefully sooner rather than later!
-Mike & Danae
Bees! Bees! Bees!
The reason for my increased interest is that last weekend Danae and I installed our very first nuc of bees into our freshly constructed beehive. We’ve been waiting for our bees to arrive since early May, and considering it has been such an early year here in Vancouver, we were wondering whether or not it would even be possible to have a hive this summer.
But Bob-the-cuss-like-mad-as-he-gets-stung-bee-man insisted that it wasn’t too late to start a hive (the blackberry bloom has just begun) and thus as I sit here typing, some 20,000 bees are busy multiplying their colony, constructing new honeycomb, gathering nectar and pollen, and madly setting up a cache of honey that will help them (and us!) make it through the cold, wet winter.
Danae and I honey in lots of things—granola, bread, muffins, morning oatmeal, tea, etc.–and could easily go through 50 pounds per year just between the two of us, not to mention fun things like beeswax candles and local bee pollen. Despite the blackberry bloom it doesn’t seem as though we’ll get the potential 50-100 lbs. Of honey from our hive this year. But, we are still hoping for 10-20 lbs., which will reserve enough for the hive to over-winter without too much supplemental feeding. Then, with a healthy colony at the beginning of next spring, we can hope for a substantial harvest in August of 2011.
Here are a few interesting facts about bees.
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Each hive can have up to 80,000 bees.
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The bee hive is one of the cleanest and most sterile environments found in nature.
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Honey was used during the Roman Empire to pay taxes (I’m thinking of sending a jar to the IRS next year!)
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There are three kinds of bees in each hive: a) Queen b) Drone c) Worker. In each hive there is only one queen bee, about 200 drone bees, and some 79,800 worker bees.
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The worker bees are the bees which fly around pollinating flowers and gathering nectar and pollen to feed the colony. The worker bees communicate with one another within the hive via a complicated “waggle dance” which includes waving her thorax around in a specific pattern related to the position of the sun which tells the other bees where to find the flowers she just returned from.
Undoubtedly this new hobby will provide lots of additional content for our blog, so hopefully in the next few months we’ll include some posts about how our honey production is going and how our hive has done throughout the summer.
Oh, and for those of you who are curious, I only got stung once while installing our bees. From the words of a seasoned bee-keeper: “so long as you don’t act stupid and have have sympathetic handling you shouldn’t even need smoke or a suit.”
We’ll see.
-Mike.
What’s an Ideology?
This brief blog entry is meant to serve as the beginning of what will hopefully become a larger group of blogs. My aim is to consider how various aspects of our Western culture impact / affect our calling as Christians to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt 22:39), particularly as it relates to questions of Social Justice. All I’m hoping to do in this first blog is to consider the way ideology shapes how we live.
What drives human activity? Why do we do the things we do? I know that’s an enormous question, the scope of which is far bigger than I shall even begin to adequately consider here. I want to suggest that the following, oversimplified causal diagram holds true as a general description of the “engine” of human activity.
Beliefs->Ideologies->Human Actions
At the most foundational level, an individual’s actions have their origins in the beliefs that person holds. What I mean by this is that what an individual believes about the big questions of existence: is there a God or is there not? Is life merely a chance coincidence? Is there such thing as universal truth or merely subjective opinion? etc. provide the very bottom layer of the structure which ultimately produces human action.
Next, proceeding from or built upon beliefs are ideologies. Dictionary.com defines “Ideology” as “the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group.”1 An ideology is therefore more or less synonymous with “worldview,” in that it is “The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world.”2 An ideology is basically a matrix of ideas, opinions and perspectives which proceeds forth from our beliefs and which we ultimately use to shape our intentions, actions and responses to the situations we find ourselves in. Indeed it could be said that ideologies form the linkage between our beliefs and our actions.
At least, this is the way things should work. Ideally all of our actions would be consistent with our ideologies and all of our ideologies would flow naturally from our beliefs. Unfortunately this is not the case. Obviously humans do not always act in ways which are consistent with our ideologies, nor do our ideologies always flow appropriately from our core beliefs.
This tendency toward inconsistency, however, is not my subject. Indeed, what I’m going to argue over the next few blogs does not focus on belief (ie: Christian or non Christian) or even actions (ie: consistent or inconsistent), though of course beliefs and actions will be referenced when needed. Rather, I want to explore how ideologies relate to and impact Social Justice.
I’m doing this because in several recent conversations with people who are somewhat hesitant about working for Social Justice, much of their confusion and resistance seems to result from ideological confusion. There are many competing ways to think about ourselves and our place in our world. While some ideologies can coexist just fine, not all worldviews are implicitly harmonious. That’s basically a fancy way of saying that sometimes there will be conflicts between various ideologies we could adopt and choose to shape our actions with. Whenever there is strong conflict between ideologies, individuals must make a decision about which potential ideology will have priority—we must determine which ideology we will ultimately allow to shape our actions.
Specifically, over the next few weeks I hope to build on this blog to consider how ideological confusion can hinder the good and necessary work in areas of Creation Degradation and Economic Inequality.
1)http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ideology
2)http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/worldview
Compassionate Somedays
I have a strong dislike for “Compassionate Somedays.” You know what I mean: those noble scenarios that run through our minds wherein we’re finally selfless, finally loving, finally caring for the people who are in need rather than pretending their needs don’t exist. It’s far easier to imagine that we will care for some hypothetical person at some hypothetical point in time with some hypothetical need rather than this particular person in this particular moment with this particular need.
In the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) two men, a Priest and a Levite, ignore a man who has fallen among robbers and is lying half dead on the side of the road. Perhaps they were entertaining their own compassionate somedays as they walked past, reassuring themselves that they really were compassionate, for, after all think of all the good they would do “someday.” When they were finally less busy, had more money, or whatever.
I’m reminded of an Annie Dillard quote from her book, The Writing Life: “how we live our days is how we live our lives.”
There will be no compassionate tomorrows unless we begin to live compassionately today.
-Mike.
Ayoub
There is a gentleman living in The Ranch named Ayoub (“eye-oob”). He is in his late thirties, and is a refugee from Iraq. The past two weeks have given me a chance get to know him a little bit, and I figured I’d write a little about some of the incredible challenges he faces on a day to day basis as a small reflection on some of the hardships any refugee must face when they arrive in a new country.
Ayoub is a Kurdish refugee from northern Iraq. His arrival in Vancouver some eight or nine years ago is a story as remarkable as it is tragic. I’m not sure how much of this part of his story he’d want me to recount here, so I’ll only mention that when he arrived in Canada the only form of identification he had was a gym ID card from a brief time living in Iran. Understandably the immigration official didn’t know how to read Arabic. Astonishingly, he therefore “provided” Ayoub with a new last name. Never mind the history, memories, and camaraderie which come from being a part of a particular family identified by a particular name. New country, new name.
That is just the beginning.
Having lived in The Ranch for nearly six years, Ayoub has been here far longer than anybody else. Thus he’s been showing us the ropes as we’ve been getting settled, and making lots of really strong, double boiled black tea which we all sip from our saucers the way Ayoub has showed us. But we’ve been helping him out some too. While Ayoub does speak a little English, he is by no means fluent and hasn’t yet learned to read and write.
Stop and imagine that for a moment. You arrive in a country knowing nobody. Not speaking the language. No idea where to go to apply for a job, no idea how to read the street signs, no idea how to even sign your own name so people in this new land can read it. All of the paperwork, all of the correspondence, every important document you posses is in a language you do not understand.
Ayoub had kidney surgery last week. While it’s wonderfully fortunate that Canada has socialized health care and therefore Ayoub’s procedure was entirely free (there is no doubt that he would never be able to afford such a surgery in the United States), again, all of the written information, from the time of his actual surgery to the warning labels on his prescription pain medications—is written in English.
Fortunately an awesome English guy named Simeon is good friends with Ayoub and has been helping him manage most of the paperwork. Watching all that Simeon is doing to try to help Ayoub has certainly opened my eyes. I’ve met a lot of people who insist that “getting somewhere” in life is all about “working hard” and “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” etc. Living with Ayoub for just two weeks has convinced me that, for whatever reason, some of us start off on this journey called life with a significant head start simply because we were born in the West, or because our parents believed in education, or because we are fluent in the lingua franca.
If responsibility is an inherent component of every resource, what’s the appropriate response to the realization that by no merit of your own you started with far more than someone who is becoming a friend? Certainly reflection on Leviticus 19:33 is a good place to start: “When a foreigner lives with you in your land, don’t take advantage of him. Treat the foreigner the same as a native. Love him like one of your own.” (MSG).
Cheers.
-Mike
Settling In @ The Ranch
We’ve been in The Ranch for a total of four nights. While we’re definitely not settled yet, we are getting there! But I’m going to rant for a minute. One of the biggest bummers about community houses seems to be that unless someone takes true responsibility for the place, the house can fall into terrible disrepair. Soren, one of the guys living here, said the other day “Oh man, this place used to be the nicest house on the block. Now it’s one of the worst.” It’s nobody’s fault, because it’s everybody’s fault. With people coming and going and busy life and no sense of “ownership,” well, things have fallen apart a little. In fact, we’ve spent more time cleaning than we’ve spent unpacking. I’m pretty sure the grime in some of the cupboards hasn’t been cleaned since the turn of the millennium (okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little. But not much!).
Fortunately, though, both Danae and I are feeling really at peace about this move to the East Side of Vancouver. Already we’re beginning to embody some of the rhythms of daily life we’ve been longing for: evening prayer, consistent time hanging with friends who are more vulnerable members of our society, local eating, and true community investment. Granted, we’re a long way from Regent, but this definitely feels like the place we’re supposed to be living as we continue our educations. Why learn about something if you aren’t going to apply it?
The feeling in this neighborhood is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. It’s like “village-life” in the city. Every time we go for a walk in the surrounding neighborhood we run into people we know and can stop to talk for a while. Indeed, the bulk of our life is within a 5 block radius (with the exception of Regent in the West End of Vancouver and family in the US, of course!) The church we attend is two doors down, the grocery store we shop at is only a couple of blocks away, our garden is in our front yard and most of our friends live less than five minutes away. We’ve never really experienced anything like this before, except when we were staying in our tent in a tiny village in Northern Uganda.
I know I’m a garden geek, I’m really excited by how our vegetables have come along while we’ve been in the United States. We’ve already begun eating the spinach and mustard greens, and are hoping to have our first radishes within the next week or so. A fall crop this far north can definitely be difficult, but I have high hopes that we’ll have a substantial crop of beets, carrots, parsnips, kale, potatoes, beans and peas. The really fun vegetables like squash and tomatoes will have to wait until next year, but already we’re sketching out how we’re going to lay out the plot next year. A few hours of blackberry picking on Tuesday with friends down in Richmond yielded about 20 lbs of the biggest, sweetest blackberries I’ve ever tasted. Blackberry pie on a rainy November evening will definitely hit the spot!
Well, I’ve got some weeding to do as well as two papers to finish up for Regent, so I need to sign off now. As said, I’m hoping to begin blogging at least once a week, so check back soon!
Grace and Peace.
-Mike.
Our New Home: “The Ranch”
Danae and I have been up here in Vancouver for around seven months now, having moved up from Oregon in early January. Our time at Regent College (www.regent-college.edu) has been incredibly fruitful, and we’ve only grown in our desire to be life-long learners. Again and again I’ve been struck by the incredible history of the Church, by the movement of God’s people throughout the centuries, and by the subtle but discernible way in which God is moving things in accordance with His plan. At the same time even as we’ve been learning we’ve also been feeling a growing desire to not allow ourselves to learn only for the sake of learning alone. Knowledge is meant to inform lifestyle. We want to be involved and active in our community. We want to be building relationships and friendships with those who are marginalized in our society. We want to be “living into” some of our deepest beliefs and convictions about what it means to be Christian in the midst of our broken world.
And so, after almost two years since our last “Community Living” experience, Danae and I have decided to once again throw caution (and privacy) to the wind. Later this month we will move in to a community house in East Vancouver called “The Ranch.” The Ranch is one of the three houses developed by Co:Here and is built around the vision of creating “a place of welcome and friendship to the poor, marginalized, and those who normally don’t have a place of welcome in the neighborhood.” Undoubtedly this sort of embodied vision will mean some significant challenges, but of course great and unexpected graces as well.
Along with Joshua and Sarah (the other married couple in the house) we’ve been busy getting the exterior of The Ranch ready. Our collective vision is pretty lofty: organic vegetable garden, six or seven laying hens, and (someday) bees. Vancouver is in one of the very best bio-regions for growing just about anything except tropical fruits. Apples, pears, plums, apricots, grapes, walnuts, hazelnuts, all grow exceptionally well here, not to mention just about every vegetable you can imagine. So far we’ve planted kale, chard, beets, broccoli, radishes, spinach, lettuce, mustard greens, bok choy, beans, peas, arugula, carrots, parsnips and, of course, tomatoes.
Regarding the interior life, we’re hoping to establish life-giving rhythms within the house that enable deeper relationships to form even amidst everyone’s disparate schedules. Things like morning prayer, weeknight community meals, and a backyard fire pit (hopefully!) are in the works. Additionally, there is a self-contained basement suite which is used to house a homeless man or woman for 2-4 weeks. We’re all really excited to finally have a living situation which will allow us to consistently welcome the homeless of our city into a more stable living situation. Granted it’s not permanent housing, but as a place of rest and welcome, hopefully it’s a step in a hopeful direction.
All that to say, we’re really excited about this new living situation and for the ways the Lord is sure to move in the midst of it all. We’ll do our best to keep the blog updated (my goal is once per week).
Grace and Peace.
-Mike.
Our New Home in Vancouver B.C.
We have lived in this place called Vancouver, B.C. just over one month. It’s intriguing the ways a place quickly comes to feel like “home”– and the ways it doesn’t. Our cozy apartment building that was built in the 1940’s feels like home. That was easy. We just had to unpack our books and maps and a couple of candles and we were “home.” I think the fact that we’ve traveled and moved so frequently the past few years has helped both Mike and I readily adapt to whatever ‘home’ we find ourselves in.
This city and “city-life” are beginning to feel familiar, but I don’t think I can accurately use the word “home” to describe it. We have our bus routes to school, to the grocery store, and to church figured out, but the rest of the city is still quite an enigma. This past weekend a college friend was in town and when we wanted to go “explore the city” I discovered just how little I know about this place that is our “current town” on Facebook. This is the largest city either of us have ever lived in. Not to mention the one with the most precipitation.
One part that has felt like “home” from the moment we arrived is the UBC Endowment Lands, otherwise know as Pacific Spirit Regional Park. Think of a forest from Narnia and Middle Earth combined and you are on the right track. It is mossy and wet and thick…filled with miles and kilometers of trails… Sometimes I wonder if it is so comforting because it reminds us of the places we’ve both come from—places with forests, lots of land, and minimal concrete. And it is sort of ironic that one of the places I like best in this city is a place that is very un-cityish.
But, this past weekend, we both got to see new parts of this city. Mike was speaking at a conference downtown and our friend who was visiting brought a lovely opportunity to sightsee a bit. We visited Granville Island Public Market, a year round market that sells everything from photography to tea to B.C. grown foods. We walked along the waterfront and through Gastown and Chinatown. When clouds clear out and you can see the mountains and the city scape, up against the ocean, you remember (like I did this weekend) that this city really is a beautiful one, as cities go. I think there is a lot of knowing to be done before this city will feel like home in a majority of ways. But, considering how long we’ve been here, I am grateful to be finding bits of “home” in this new city, in this new country. It is a good season and I think we both are glad we are living it.
Our Second Marathon
Last weekend Mike and I ran our second marathon, in northern California, near Susanville. Pics. This one was a “Trail Marathon,” on an old, abandoned rail-road line that had had the tracks removed. Trail Marathons make for a slower time, but they involve lot less pain in the joints!
We spent the weekend leading up the marathon (October 12th) at our friends’ family cabin. The cabin was built in the 1920’s, pre-depression era and has been in his family since then. Our friend, Seth, has spent time at the cabin every summer of his life. It is surrounded by mountain lakes and forest service and sits at the edge of Silver Lake. The two days before the race we huddled around the fire, played games, and ate lots of yummy food. What perfect rest and preparation from running 26.2 miles.
I have to be honest, running this marathon was harder than I expected. I mean, I know that marathons are hard, but I had sort of forgotten just HOW hard. Yep, the last five miles were brutal, but thankfully, we ran together once again, so encouragement was always at hand whenever either of us needed it. Even though we ran a few minutes slower than our last marathon, I know I gave it all I had (considering I threw up a couple hours after we finished–I did so last time too…)
So far, no marathons planned for 2009, but we do have our eye on a couple of ½ marathons, one in Vancouver and one in Seattle. I think the goal at this point is to decrease the endurance a bit and hopefully increase the speed. Should be a good challenge. All this to say, while I cannot say I necessarily “felt God’s pleasure” (Eric Liddell, Chariots of Fire) the whole race, I am immensely grateful for a body that can run and beautiful places to run in.
-Danae.