life ebbs and flows

i've heard about this book for a couple of years now, but never had it in my hands. someone unintentionally put it in my hands this past sunday so i've started the journey through. be on the lookout for snip-its here and there from me. i have a feeling it's going to be liberating. "Because it is a distortion of being more fully human, sooner or later being less human leads the oppressed to struggle against those who made them so. In order for this struggle to have meaning, the oppressed must not, in seeking to regain their humanity (which is a way to create it), become in turn oppressors of the oppressors, but rather restorers of the humanity of both..." "...Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both..." pg. 44, Paul Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Erin just sent me the link to a series of photographs, depicting life in Mongolia. The pictures are hard. They are simple. They depict life. They are real. Check them out here . Let me know what you think.

it won't be as cute as a baby story, on tlc, but it is a story. a story of a family. a colony. scavengers. this, my friends is the story of the ants who took up residence in my work desk drawer. it's a friday afternoon and i was thinking of a snack from my food drawer [yes, i have a food drawer]. i knew i had some rice cakes in there and i was hungry for just that. as i opened the door, my mouth flung ajar, for what did i see but a million ants. that's right, a million. i had seen ants all morning, here and there, but not enough to be alarmed. i thought they were the lone rangers--exploring out on their own. little did i know, they were scouting out the rest of the desk for crumbs and goodies. i looked at the ants for probably a minute straight--doing nothing, simply mesmerized by their pure existence. i snapped back into reality and tried to find the source...what were they after?! it sure wasn't the rice cakes because there wasn't even a single one on them [not su...

as often as you can, find time to sit on porches, sharing and laughing.

3 months. 90 days. just yesterday. forever. It has been 3 months since I left mongolia. Some days it feels like I was there just yesterday while others it feels like these have been the longest 3 months of my life. I neglect writing about this painful time because I still can't seem to find the right words that could describe the emotions and thoughts that I have. No words suffice. No amount of tears calm. No hugs or "it's gonna get better"s really change much. I ache. I long to be in that place again. Yesterday, Erin and I were talking about what we say and think when people ask 1. "If we miss Mongolia?" and 2. "What do we miss the most?" If you know us at all, you know that the first question will hardly make us pause, it will cause us to chuckle and say, "Yes, I miss Mongolia desperately." And that is the truth. Which always leads to the second question. Which is harder to answer. I usually give the answer "The people are what I m...