height and depth, length and width of this abundant love.

and what if we didn't take chances? what if we don't take chances?

do you ever meet those people who just won't ever jump? it almost breaks my heart to see them only focus all of their energy on the faults and all on the corruption. perhaps times when corruption is nonexistant.

isn't our lives about taking chances, isn't it about jumping, isn't it about loving, isn't it about being vulnerable, isn't it about sacrificing?

what kind of love are you giving if you're not taking chances besides selfishly motivated love?

what good is it to just sit and watch? it's not enough to just believe in something, you have to take action.

i wonder how much we won't accomplish in our lives out of fear. or the mentality that someone else will do it. which, unfortunately, i feel like goes in a complete circle because someone else is thinking the same thing.

through out everything i'm doing, i'm beginning to see more and more the generation differences between my parents and me.

it's so strange. they think i'm so ridiculous and crazy and they don't understand why i do the things i do and they think it's a waste of my time.

i think i've figured out that i'm more open-minded and more of a visionary then they are.

i can't understand their mindsets, you know?

the world is so huge.

our community isn't just the walls of our town. or our nation. it's the freaking world, how insane is that?

bizarre, wonderful, beautiful.

what a great gift from god.

and so the question is and remains and always will be. what do you do with this gift of life?

sit and watch or get up and dive right in?

do you live a life of selfishly motivated love or sacrificial love?

what do you do with the gift?

photograph by wayne levin

namaste.

"Laying down your life means making your own faith and doubt, hope and despair, joy and sadness, courage and fear available to others as ways of getting in touch with the Lord of life."- Henri Nouwen

This is my heart's rhythm; it's the beat of my heart's drum.
I've come to realize that I'm not a typical person my age. I don't know what it is about me. I just have this need to embrace this adventure of mine-life. To not sit still because there's so much more to this place that we just don't know about and so much more we can do to make it a better place.

After much contemplation...or the bare minimum-one of the two, I've grabbed a hold of a piece of what kind of person I am. And this is the only way I can make sense of it.
I just have this God given love, this desire to love people as much as I possibly can, doing as much as I can for them. I just don't let up and I keep going and going and going, until I discover that I'm shutting down from exhaustion and I can no longer love the people that I love so deeply. While taking a step back and looking at this problem I run into so often, I've come to the acknowledgement that I need to learn to love people without getting tired. I need to learn and understand that while God calls us to love each other, he also calls us to love ourselves. I just forget to pursue myself sometimes. Or all the time. I forget to assist myself along the way. I forget to make sure I'm healthy before I pass on the love. It's something to work at, cause I hate running out of fuel.

Somtimes it makes my heart ache when people worry about me. Whether it's from what on earth is going on inside of her head, or what on earth does she think she's doing?
I think I have a weird system of going about things/ I have this strange ability to not worry and just jump first. Pros and cons though of course when it comes to being an insane optimist that loves every single person they meet.

I hope to postpone starting college in the fall. There is just so much more to life and learning that a text book can't offer. And I want to dive right in for a while and take a swim. I'm pretty set on the idea and fact that I know I can get an education and there are kids that can't, and I'm willing to put my own life on hold in pursuit of that. Not forever, I know and understand that my education is crucial to be even more equipped to assist people. Educating myself for others has become my inspiration for college..whenever that happens. But, man, does human rights and international justice have a hold of my heart strings.

I kind of just grasped the fact that I'm young...really young. And sometimes I have this insane need to do everything, as much as I possibly can and I forget that I'm 18 and trying to take strides into changing the world as my life. Which it is. But, I forget that I'll continue to grow up. Continue to learn, grasp, challenge, strengthen, and grow along the way. Sometimes, I just forget. But, at the same time. I'm just not afraid to go for it and be an inspiration. Age doesn't mean anything to me and I love grabbing onto my potential and running with it for things that really matter to me and others.

I am content with the heart that God gave me and I love it. And I know that I am something special. I am so special. We all are. And I hope and pray people can begin to grasp this fact about themselves. That they too are so incredibly special.

But, this is the way I live my life. This is why. I embrace this about myself. I embrace the need to lay down my life. I embrace this vulnerability of mine. To put down my own fears in hopes of benefiting others.

There is absolutely no love without vulnerability.

You have to learn how to accept and give love. You have to discover what it is for you to lay down your life for others. You have to clutch onto this vulnerability and let your love grow tall.

However, I feel like this clutching onto is a life process. There's always room to dig deeper.

To learn more.

And I've only reached as far as my finger tips can stretch. But, that's just the surface.

Laying down your life is the search and pursuit.

flip it and fix it.

I feel like I've lost the ability to write, but, I'm sure you know how that goes.

I'm not sure where I'm heading. I just paused my life as I had to take myself out of a study abroad in East Africa. What am I doing? I'm just tired. I've come to realize that I love those kids so much that I need to be healthy before I just pack up and go.
While initially I thought this to be selfish of myself, I can no longer bear any more exhaustion as I am slipping mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

I think a break is a good idea. You can only put yourself behind others for so long, you have to do something for yourself once in a while.

So. I suppose here's to accepting the fact that I need some support and some help. Here's to the beginning of the unpacking process of my mind.

It'll be good.
It'll be a bitch.
I just want to feel like I'm living presently again.

My mind needs a chance to catch up to my body. I just need to stand still for a little bit.

That's all.

This years love.

One thing I keep realizing is how much love I have for those I know, for those I will meet, and for those I will never know.

Perhaps this is an act of some unconditional love God provides us with. In fact, yes, I believe it is.

I've spent the last week in a half continually seeing how much I'm going to miss people. I didn't even realize I cried so much. Something just breaks me, but in a good way. When I look around at all the friendships I've grabbed ahold of all of these years, something tells me I will never let go of them. I guess you could say I take the term "friends forever" literally. Friendships are special and I'm beginning to realize how incrediblely thankful I am for the fact that we all got to watch each other grow up.

I really like that a small town can provide us with that.

I can not even express how excited I am to move forward and take part in new adventures.
There is just so much more to life than the walls of one town. There is the world.

I think I've struggled so much with the act of applying myself. Not that I never did. But I never really did. There was always a point where I would stop in fear of failing. But I'm beginning to grab ahold of the fact that I was made for this.

To just go and love people endlessly.

I can not wait.

let your love grow tall.

As I held the camera in my hands, I lightly pushed the button to focus the image. I glanced over my camera only to appreciate that what was being captured was more than a picture itself. Realizing that this joy-filled child could literally be bursting with the same glow in my photograph, my admiration grew for him as the shutter of my camera took the picture. As he ran around me latching onto my neck, he pleaded to look at the image. While we reviewed the image together, I looked over at him only to see the glow on his face. My eyes dropped back down to look at the photograph. He then looked at me and shouted "un mas photo, un mas photo! Por Favor!" I bursted with laughter as I began to grasp this unconditional love I had for this child, and this new driven desire to capture life through a photograph.
After finding that photography clutches so tightly around my heart, I have come to understand that I have the ability to capture something extraordinary, something much deeper than the photograph. Whether it is a laugh, a smile, a tear, a love, or a hug. It's a story. I have come to enjoy simplicity in its works; a picture can be worth one word or a thousand words. Photography has such a tight grip partly because I won't let go. The images that I capture are a piece of me as much as they are of that person. They're as much of their story as they are my story. I feel like it's almost a way to remain connected, giving someone a part of your love since ultimately they just gave you a piece of theirs in your photograph. I don't know what it is. I just love photography and I love people. I guess I just feel like I can combine the two in a different way. In a way, I am just passing on the love and photography provides me with a foundation. I am not aware whether or not photography is my first love, but it's the first time where I feel like I can truly capture something beautiful. True love, I suppose.