Tag: dc

Home Isn’t A Place

Touching down in the middle of a corn field is kind of peculiar sight, but if your in Iowa…it’s normal.

Home. I felt my heart ease into a strange rhythm of familiarity. So strange how easy it is go back to “normal” after being away for so many months and literally having been out of the country and back.

Home isn’t a place, it’s where your heart is tide too. My family. My friends. They are pieces of my heart running around. Now that my two best friends no longer live in Iowa, it’s more sad to go back, but my family is still there.

Iowa is just full of corn, but if you lived here your entire life you would find more to do than just starring at a cornfield across the road from your house. People who ask me what ones does in Iowa; I wouldn’t know. If your used to being bored, you find ways to entertain yourself.

My friends and I  jokingly dubbed ourselves the Queens of our small town…little did we know that a year later, neither of us would be around to reign over our metaphorical subjects.

As heartbreaking as it may seem…there is a happiness about it. A happiness that we can say later on in life as we all have careers and six digit salaries “remember when we all were poor and worked at the Cheese House together that entire summer?” or “Remember the late night runs to Village Inn?” and all the other crazy road trips and laughing until we couldn’t breathe.

I miss those days.

I don’t want to relive my life though. It would be nice to stop in once in a while. It would be nice to meet up at the corner near my house to drive into the city. It would be nice to get up early for church and eat at our favorite diner. It would be nice some days to hear Dad shuffling around upstairs on a Saturday morning. It would be nice to always find someone to hug in the house, especially Mom.

Those were the days.

But these are the days now.

Sitting in my office, I’ll suddenly have this out of body experience of wondering “Why am I here? Where do I belong?”

Thinking back on the last 10 years of my life. Back when I was 13 and constantly feeling a push to go forward. Now I just want to step back.

All of a sudden all the things I have accomplished and gone through in life will melt into these series of flashbacks. As epic as it sounds…

It makes me sad, nostalgic and lonely.

Lonely for the people who were there along the way; sad at the goodbyes to the people who came and went so suddenly, and then missing the ones that are still by my side though they are a thousand miles away.

Home isn’t a place…and yet it’s a place we are constantly longing for.

But until we get to Heaven, the longing will never cease. Can you imagine, being in a room full of faces you love and cherish? We get a taste of that every once in a while, but it brings tears to my eyes when I think how Heaven will never have loneliness, heartbreak or regrets. It will be full of those people who pointed you to Christ with how they loved you.

We see in a mirror dimly now, but when we get to Heaven, we will be fully known. We will see Christ face to face. That separation will no longer pine at us.

But today I will sit in my office and go through the motions of today, and constantly seek to do what God is calling me to be. Though my questions will sometimes raise to “why am I here? What am I doing?”, God has this amazing story for my life, and though I can only see through it dimly, and sometimes not at all when it is darkened with my confusion, grief and loneliness; I’ll trust His plans are far better than my own.

In The Quiet

D.C. is a place full of noise; ambition, and ladders to climb…

But there are certain places you find that make you remember that there is more than that when you find the quiet.

The Jefferson Memorial sits beside the basin of the Potomac, looking towards the Washington Monument that stands as a beacon in the city. It’s quiet there. Couples will sit on the steps and talk about their hopes and dreams…some of us will eat ice cream and talk for hours about what we want to be.

Behind the Lincoln Memorial, you will find a quiet spot to rest, as the crowds swarm inside to get a peak of Lincoln and his gigantic frame.

There are the places that go untouched…and one of those secluded places is Theodore Roosevelt’s Island. It sits on the Potomac, where you have to take a walking bridge to get to the inside. There, in the heart of the island, you will find Theodore Roosevelt, looming ahead with his arm raised.

Behind him, there is a series of quote on Youth.

“I want to see you game, boys, I want to see you brave and manly, and I also want to see you gentle and tender. (Address at Friends School, Washington, DC, May 24, 1907)  •  Be practical as well are generous in your ideals. Keep your eyes on the stars, but remember to keep your feet on the ground. (Speech at Prize Day Exercises at Groton School, Groton, MA, May 24 1904)  •  Courage, hard work, self-mastery, and intelligent effort are all essential to successful life. (America and the World War, 1915)  •  Alike for the nation and the individual, the one indispensable requisite is character. (American Ideals, 1897).”

At 42, Roosevelt became the youngest man to serve as president when McKinley was assassinated in 1901. He was a progressive, championing the Square Deal, and mediated the Treaty of Portsmouth to end the Russo-Japanese War, along with that he wanted to preserve our national resources with national parks, forests, and monuments. He remains one of the top five presidents in popularity.

Sitting in the middle of the island, those quotes ring out as a quiet reminder to those who can find the secluded spot, that the generation to come must be brave. We must have courage; hard work, self-mastery, and intelligent effort. We must have character as the heart of our nation turns some of us into the villains we despise and some of us into the heroes we never thought we could be.

When I read these quotes I feel a sense of urgency. My life hasn’t been easy, easier than some, but everyone experiences trials and hardships.

“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”

Teddy says courage. Courage to stand up when it counts. Courage to sit down and listen. Courage to take leaps when you are not sure what the outcome will be. Courage to place in yourself and others.

“Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don’t have the strength.”

The youth in us all dares to dream. But Teddy says to be mindful. Keep your feet planted in reality.

Work hard. Even when the going gets tough and you have to keep on. Sometimes their will seem to be no benefit to all the trying.

But keep going.

Teddy says to be a master of your own self. Not others.

He wants to see you have intelligent effort. He didn’t say to be smarter than everyone else. No one cares about how much you know until they see how much you care.

And add that all together…character is the indispensable requisite to life.

Don’t let the world steal you away; the ladder of ambition is ceaseless but the higher the fall.

Be kind. Be brave.

Step into adulthood with those qualities.

“A man’s usefulness depends upon his living up to his ideals in so far as he can. (A Letter to Dr. Sturgis Bigelow, March 29, 1898) •  It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. (The Strenuous Life, 1900) •  All daring and courage, all iron endurance of misfortune make for a finer and nobler type of manhood. (Address to Naval War College, June 2, 1897) •  Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die: and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life and the duty of life. (The Great Adventure, 1918).”

I use to wonder why the secluded monuments were the best. It’s because they are quiet and don’t hold as much people. You can sit and reflect.

There is a reason the water fountain in the center of the World War II Memorial is loud enough to drown out the noise of the people talking.

In the quiet we find what we need. We find understanding and empathy.

So if your on Teddy’s little island one of these days or in a secluded spot that no one really knows about in D.C.

Walk around.

Sit.

Listen.

You may find yourself some peace as you sit in the quiet.