The Nest

“Home, let me go home. Home is wherever I’m with you. Let me go home. Home is whenever I’m with you.”

Five girls, one home. Five little birdies in one beautiful nest. I quite like this new place to call home. It’s not a home I would have predicted for myself, neither the people nor the home itself, but it is a wonderful place. We’ve all been here for two weeks now and it has already brought with it moments of laughter and moments of sorrow. That’s the point of this home really. We are all busy girls, in and out all day long, but we want to support one another the best we can. Here is who we are:

Valerie: “You’re the only senior in the house? That makes you like the mom, right?” No, not exactly. Yes, she’s the one who tells the landlord who’s boss and she also set up our internet, but we don’t want to have a sole person in charge. She’s our whimsical fairy princess of a friend. She flits in and out giving love to anyone in her path.

Rachael: Our first nursing major. Also, the kindest person in the whole wide world. I remember once this summer, someone asked me the question, “Who is the most beautiful person you know?” I chose Chomes (that’s our nickname for her). She’s beautiful on the outside, yes, but she also has the biggest heart of anyone I know. She fears hurting people and she desires love in all areas of her life. She also has a laugh that will light up a room.

Kate: Our second nursing major. A tall goof ball with a smile that shines bright. When she discovered she was living in a house full of student leaders, her response was, “Good, you can all lead me!” Bold and bright, she has a confidence about her that I admire so very much. She also happens to be the perfect height for hugging, which is fortunate for me.

Becky Jo: What a priceless treasure is my dear sweet Becky Jo. She’s 5’10” and 100% full of heart. That’s a lot of heart…five more inches than I have. I adore coming home at night and seeing a stream of light pouring out from the crack of her bedroom door because I know it means I can walk in and plop myself on her bed to talk about life. She somehow makes time for everyone in her life and still manages to bake cookies for us, too.

Me: A tap dancing, viola playing scholar who wants to change the world. I rip my hair out because I sign up for classes that make my brain hurt and then I make my way to one of two band practices. I love to cook breakfast food and drink sweet orange tea. I also like to wake up early and watch the sunrise from our balcony as I read Rilke’s Book of Hours.

So, there we are. Five crazy girls who somehow managed to find each other in the midst of a dizzying spring quarter. I’m excited for what the year might hold. Already I foresee many sleepless nights, cups of morning tea, art projects instead of homework and milk and cookies. I see a bustling kitchen and hundreds of tealights being burnt until the very end. I see tears of fear and frustration, but with them hugs and encouragement to warm the soul. Most of all, I see love. That’s the point. It’s not just about living in a house and splitting the rent five ways. Living in this house, so aptly called The Nest, is a big blessing. I’m excited to see how all of our crazy lives will intertwine this year and how we will be able to support each other with the little that we have. For it is in the little that we have that we can create so much love for one another.

On Relationships

Our very first lecture at Upward Bound began with these three questions:

What is the most important thing in life?

What causes the most JOY?

What causes the most PAIN?

Answer: Relationships.

How odd, I thought, that the one thing in life that brings us the most joy also brings us the most pain. Having the first ten days of Upward Bound focus on relationships was very important for me. This idea of our relationships causing the most joy and the most pain was ringing all too true for me at the time. Speaking as a friend who has felt a lot of hurt and caused a lot of hurt in the last year, but also living a life so full of love and laughter, I wanted to know how this is possible. It was something I had pondered earlier in the year when learning about forgiveness. Why is it so difficult to forgive those we love the most? It is because those are the deepest relationships that we are entwined in so tightly.

Over the next few days, we listened to lectures and discussed different aspects of relationships. Here are the things that stood out to me:

1. Man was never intended to live alone. In Genesis, God sees that Adam is alone and makes a partner for him. From the beginning of time, we were never intended to live this life on earth alone. We are to live in fellowship with one another.
2. Living life fully is a balancing act of learning how to love God, love others and love yourself.
3. You must be loyal to those you love and this loyalty is not something that can be proclaimed, it must be proven.
4. Learn to speak the truth in love. It hurts someone just as much to speak lies in love as it does to speak the truth without love.
5. Focus on living your life with God, not for God. He wants to walk with you each step of the way, not just watch you from afar.

The next weeks were full of putting this into practice. I was surrounded by new friends and also thinking of those at home. It became a very familiar challenge of trying to figure out how to foster my existing relationships while also trying to grow new ones. It is still a struggle for me, but while I was away, I did learn about simplifying and thinking about what is truly important. I don’t need another pair of shoes and I don’t need to see every musical at the 5^th Avenue this year. What I do need to do is focus on the things I have that will last: relationships with the ones I love.

All Alone

Don’t leave me alone at this time, for I’m afraid of what I will discover inside. –Mumford & Sons (Roll Away the Stone)

Just a few days before Upward Bound ended, we were hiking one day and we were led on a wild goose chase to a clearing in the forest. We all suspected by this time that we were going to be participating in the long anticipated solo night. Still, I think we all found there was no way to really prepare for this. Some had saved food from their lunches and others had packed their crochet hooks, but when we finally set out on our solo time, none of that really mattered.

When we reached the clearing in the forest before we all went our separate ways, we were told the basic purpose of the solo time. SO OFTEN, WE ARE TERRIFIED TO BE ALONE. WE MUST LEARN THE BEAUTY OF BEING AWAY FROM ALL DISTRACTIONS. I was actually looking forward to the time on my own, but others were cuddled close to their friends until the second we parted. The thing that surprised us all was that we would not be alone in the woods for 24 hours, but for 48 hours. Two days in the woods and here is what we had:

-a tarp and small rope to create a shelter

-our backpacks and whatever might be inside them

-Bible, journal and pen

I was worried about fasting, others were scared to be alone and the more logical ones were wondering about thunderstorms. So, after a short lecture on the spiritual discipline of fasting and solitude, we were led through the woods and dropped off one by one in the 20 square meters that we would be living in for the next two days.

It started off just fine for me. The sun was shining, I ate my last bit of food (an absolutely delicious apple) and I sat on a rock thinking to myself, “this is going to be great!” I built, what I considered to be, an excellent shelter that would guarantee me to stay dry. I opened my Bible and began plugging through Isaiah. As soon as the sun went down, it started to get very cold and I waited for the leaders to come fill my water bottle so that I could go to sleep. They came by and I proudly showed them my shelter and then I crawled into my little cocoon and fell asleep.

The next morning I woke to the sound of rain pouring down on my tarp. I was not wet, so the shelter had been successful, but I was very uncomfortable because I was tired of lying down and there was no way to sit up inside my shelter. So, I reached my hand out to feel how hard it was raining and decided to brave it. I put my shoes and raingear on and discovered it was not raining as hard as I thought. It was dry enough for a moment for me to create a second shelter out of an extra garbage bag I had in my pack. I tied it up in a tree and I spent a majority of the next 30 hours sitting in this spot. I constantly repeated this to myself:

Be still and know that I am God.

I was disgusted to later discover that my foot had been sharing my shoe with a slug for quite some time and was now covered in slime. Frustrated, very cold and very wet, this solo time was harder than I anticipated. But it was so good!

I went two days without eating any food. I wasn’t bored. I didn’t get lonely. I learned that I really don’t need much to survive. The only thing I desperately wanted was to be either warm or dry…it didn’t even need to be both. When it was finished and I was asked it I would do it again, I said “definitely, but only if it was sunny or I had a tent.” It really taught me not to take the basic things for granted. Things like hot drinks, a roof over my head and a mattress. It also proved to me that we really are not made to be alone. When we came back together after the time was up, we broke our fast together and it was one of the most joyful reunions I have ever experienced. We were full of love.

Licht Krieger!

My biggest challenge and my greatest joy, those are the two ways I can describe my team. Both descriptions are very true and what it came down to was this: they were wonderful people, but so incredibly fit. Our fitness levels ranged from mine-a girl who works out by tap dancing-to Dominic, a German 22 year old training for marathons. The first few days, I didn't notice how strong they were, but when our first tour hit, I could feel myself slowly falling to the back of the line. After our first day of hiking where we left last and ended up at our destination quite some time earlier than all the other teams, I asked myself, "Why am I on this team?" I quickly found out I was on this team to learn some lessons. Lessons about humility, strength and joy. We were a team of very distinctly different personalities.

We had our fearless leader, Tony. A man who listens to country music and line dances on Friday nights, but happens to hail from Northern California. He was cynical about everything which caused me to defend my optimism even more than I did before.

There was Karen, our civil engineer from Hamburg, Germany. She taught me how to deeply care for people, always cook with salt and the vital importance of a very good friend.

There was Sarah, a priceless gem. Through thick and thin, there was somehow always a smile on her face. When she had monstrous blisters and when we were camping in the pouring down rain, she somehow managed to keep all of our spirits high.

We lost Jonathan two weeks in due to a dislocated shoulder, but he was an excellent friend from the start. Easy to talk to with a full life behind him and a full life before him. He dressed like an old man and was so utterly proud of it that we too wanted to look just as goofy.

That brings us to dear Celeste. I met her about five seconds after I arrived in my room. She was a vivacious bubble of energy who knew Taurenhof front and back. She was only 19, but carried on conversations that a 25 year old wouldn't dare to attempt. She taught me the beauty of relaxing and enjoying every moment of life.

Dominic...how do I even begin? 22 years old from Southern Germany, but he is already fluent in three languages, has spent a year doing missions work in Africa, has a beautiful voice and ran 12 km in 45 minutes. A phenomenal man, but the most humble person I know. He always hiked in the back of the group so that nobody would have to feel like they were last. He carried my climbing equipment on a day that I couldn't bare the weight. He taught me that it's okay to ask for help.

And Luke, dear wonderful Luke. A Canadian who had been traveling the globe since January, he was just about closing off his trip with these five weeks in Austria. I am so glad he was on our team for many reasons. He embodies the rule of "a time to speak and a time to be silent." Sometimes he would be absolutely silent and other times we could talk forever on the trail about everything big and small.

It was a wonderful team and I'm so glad I was with them. They were always very encouraging, even when I so often doubted myself. They taught me that it's okay to ask for help, to cry when I must and to laugh when I want. I was quickly dubbed "Happy" because even when I should have been so entirely unhappy, there was always laughter mixed with tears. There was something about the combination of the mountains and this wonderful team that brought out the best in me. I came alive when I was with them and it was a true honor to be a part of the Licht Krieger with them.

And in case you are wondering, Licht Krieger means "Warriors of Light" and it has to do with Ephesians 5:8 which says: For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light." We did our best to make this ring true as we walked through the mountains together. Step by step, sore muscles and all.

My Happy Place

"Tonight was ultimate peace with the Alps in all directions. Somehow, each day brings a new wonder that I cannot believe. I am challenged beyond my limits, but the peace that comes afterword is perfection." -July 12, 2010: Upward Bound Day 9

The day had been a very long, hot and difficult one for me due to an empty water bottle paired with a steep push to our final destination. This picture was taken that evening after our dinner of sauerkraut and dumplings and in that moment I was filled with peace and wonder. Peace of mind because I had accomplished much on this day. I had hiked quite far with a pack on my back for the first time since I was eight and now here I sat in the middle of the Alps staring at the massive mountain range. But more than peace of mind, I was completely struck by the enormity of this world. This wasn't the first time I had this revelation and it certainly wouldn't be the last.

I was found in this happy place so many times while in Austria. It's a place where I can see the vastness of the world and within that I am able to see the glory of God. Something so often discussed was the difficulty with loving an intangible God. How is it that we can love and believe in a God that we cannot see or hear or touch? Well, moments like this one demand for that question to be rephrased because we can see God. He is in the world that He created and we can see Him everywhere. We see Him in the mountains and in the stars. We hear Him in the birds and the howling wind. We can smell Him in the hot pine needles and the fresh rain. We can taste Him in the fresh berries and the clear water. We can feel Him as our hands scale rocks and as cold snow falls into our boots. HE IS EVERYWHERE.

My father gave a sermon on Sunday that completely summed up my feelings about Austria. The sermon considered the power of beauty. Beauty has the power to transform us into someone new. It has the power to hurt, but also the power to heal. The power to move forward or the power to take a step back. As I sat on the rock you see in the photo, all the troubles of the world seemed to melt away. I was completely captured by the immense beauty of our world as the clouds weaved through the valley. I knew deep down in my heart that Seattle and Iraq and the Gulf of Mexico were all out there somewhere, but right there, in that moment, all I could see was mountains. All I could feel was peace. All I could think was how great is our God.

This picture now sits on my desktop at work and I stare at it every once in a while. I don't do it to make me sad and wish that I were not in an office, but rather in the Alps. It is simply a reminder that God is good and that I can always feel His presence in my life. He is not an intangible God and that is something I firmly believe. So long as we believe and trust in Him, we will be able to taste and see that the Lord is good!

Upward Bound

It's 5 am. I have now been up for an hour, trying to fall asleep, but it is hopeless. Those planes which took me halfway around the world have also taken away a normal sleeping pattern. So here I sit, in my bed, wishing to be asleep, but with a mind racing too fast.

How do I even begin to tell what I have experienced in the last five weeks? I could share a thousand memories of moments in the mountains. I can give an account of each tour we took through the Alps. I can match these accounts with dozens of spiritual analogies that I witnessed first hand. But none of these will ever amount to a full debrief of all that I have experienced and the ways that I have grown and been shaped. In the coming weeks, I'm sure I will give more detailed stories, but for now let me just share with you a little bit of what Upward Bound has meant to me.

I went into this program with the wrong attitude, but after about 2 hours, that attitude didn't seem to matter. Any preconceived notions of what Upward Bound had in store for me were thrown out the window the moment I stepped through the doors of the main building with the large letters of TAURENHOF painted on the outside. I entered my bedroom, shared with six other girls, and looked out the window. Right outside my window were the Dachstein mountains, boasting gloriously over the quiet and rainy streets of Schladming. These were the mountains I had come to climb? No, not really. I didn't come to climb physical mountains...I came to climb away from home, just for a moment. How strange that life can make me so tired that my only solution is to run away. "Austria will be the perfect escape," I thought to myself. Wrong. Austria would be the place where I would face and conquer the challenges that drove me there. "The mountaineering will push me out of my comfort zone," I said. Wrong again. These mountains would stretch me and push me so much that I would stop in my tracks 300 meters from the destination begging for water, feeling unable to continue.

Why oh why oh why did I ever think that this was going to be easy?

There was no way of knowing, really, how simple or hard this journey would be. We can try to plan things ahead of time, but in the end, you can never know until you're there. I learned quite quickly upon my arrival that you don't need to know. One of the biggest ideas of Upward Bound is that if you don't have to plan ahead, don't do it. This meant that for five weeks, we would not know where we were going, what we were doing, how long we would be away, what time it was or how far we would be hiking. For many, this was a huge challenge, but for me it was the biggest blessing I could have asked for. After a strictly scheduled year of school, not having to think about anything was heavenly. So now, when people ask me questions like "How far did you hike on any given day?" I can't provide an answer. I have no idea how far we hiked, but the distance was not the point of the hike. Ask me questions like, "Where did you see God on this hike?" or "What was the most beautiful thing you saw on that hike?" Those are the questions I can answer because those are the things I experienced.

On our last day, we met with our leaders one by one to discuss our time at Upward Bound. They asked us questions about our original goals and fears that we thought of on the first day. They asked us how we grew. They asked us what we learned. They were big questions and we could have discussed them for days. Let me tell you about them as well.

My three original goals:

1. To love the mountains. It's true. I'm a Dahlstrom who, until quite recently, didn't love the mountains. How this happened, I'm not sure, but by some freak accident, I never found the rest and beauty in the mountains that the rest of my family seemed to grasp so easily. Coming to Upward Bound, I wanted to find that and I did. Very quickly. Maybe it was the special Alpine feeling or the goats that wandered the mountains, but something that should have happened 20 years ago finally happened and I can say honestly now, I LOVE THE MOUNTAINS!

2. Live for today. This goal was difficult at the time, when I found out we would know nothing about the program until we were actually doing it. After about one day, though, I realized how perfect it is not to have to plan anything. Living "in the now" was a beautiful thing and getting back to reality will be very difficult.

3. Grow in Christ. Yes, I did this too. It would have been impossible for me to be in those mountains and not see Christ. It would have been impossible for me to be surrounded by 35 wonderful students and not see Christ's love. He was everywhere and I began to grasp that much more.

My three original fears:

1. Caving! A conversation in the cave:

Victoria: "Isn't this awesome?"

Holly: "No, I'm really freaked out right now."

Victoria: "Why? We're in a cave!"

Holly: "That's why!"

Victoria: "What's freaking you out?"

Holly: "You know, the crawling through small spaces, the fact that if I take a wrong step, I could fall an indeterminable number of meters into oblivion and die or the fact that I am unable to see the light of day."

Victoria: "Oh. Good reasons, I suppose."

The fear never entirely went away, but I still spent the night in that cave and seeing the light afterward is a feeling I will never forget.

2. Using this time only as an escape. I was afraid that I would use this time as nothing more than running away from my problems. Quite quickly, the program wasn't even used for that reason. Upward Bound was not a place to run away, but a time to refresh and a place to grow.

3. Going too fast. I wasn't talking about the hiking, just the five weeks as a whole. I didn't want to take any second for granted, but treasure the time I had there. When the five weeks were up, I could hardly believe it. I think it would have been impossible not to let the weeks fly by, though. They were too jam packed with beauty and joy to avoid the inevitable fact that they would finish so soon after they began.

The biggest question of all: What has stood out to me the most?

I think, of all the lectures and all the hiking and all the reflection time, what has stood out to me the most is that fact that this world is so much bigger than I can comprehend. I remember the first night of our first tour, I sat on a rock on a ledge and stared for a long time at the mountains beyond. I could see nothing but mountains every direction I turned and they seemed to go on forever. It was at that moment I was filled with awe by the fact that I get to be a part of it. I get to be a part of this beautiful world and that is a privilege that I shouldn't take for granted.

I swear there's magic in those mountains. Magic that makes cold pasta taste good. Magic that takes away fears. Magic that brings everyone together. Magic that makes the troubles of yesterday disappear. So go. Go to the mountains. Find the Lord in them and bask in the glory of creation.

"Oh taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him." -Psalm 34:8

Blessings

I have been here in these mountains for six days now and each day holds a new wonder.

The first day, it was the people.
The second day, it was the sound of the rain falling through the leaves.
Third, the vibrant green matched with the bright blue sky.
Fourth, the family of goats basking in the sun.
Fifth, there was the conversation.
And sixth, there was the view from what felt like the top of the world and then a light night hike beneath the most beautiful stars I had ever seen.

I have lived in Washington all of my life and I have traveled through many different mountain ranges, yet these mountains hold something that no other mountains have. I'm not sure if it's the exotic feeling or the cows and sheep that graze on the hills, but there is something majestic hiding in these trees. My soul is at rest here. The world can be so silent here that all you can hear are your footsteps and the wind in the leaves.

Of course, if I paint too beautiful of a picture, it can't possibly be true. Yes, we are all suffering from bad blisters and very sore muscles, but there are so many moments when I just don't care. Last night, we were sleeping in tents and woken up late at night. We were told to go on the same hike we went on the first day, but this time at night, without our leader and without speaking. Normally, such news would have angered me, but when I poked my head outside the tent and looked up at the stars, I could have run for miles. The most phenomenal stars I have ever seen were twinkling above my head...why would I ever complain?

Something struck me last night as we trudged up the road. We were stopped four times by our leaders and they each had a bible verse to share with us. In the silence and in the darkness, all I could hear were my own thoughts inside my head. Mostly prayers and hymns were running through my head. I'm not sure why, I never listen to hymns except at church, yet here, in the silence, the words of "Amazing Grace" and "Be Thou My Vision" were the only things running through my head. No anxious thoughts or bitter thoughts or questions earnestly seeking answers. Just words of thankfulness and awe.

How blessed I am to be living in the place I am and at the time I am. I sometimes hate reading the paper or listening to the news because it just highlights all the things that are wrong in the world. Yes, these things do happen and they are horrific, but why can we never look at the good? Why can we never pause for just one minute to see the beauty? The beauty in relationships, in birds and in rain. Pause right now. What do you have in your life that is beautiful? Wash away the bitterness and fear for a moment and think of what is good.

I am learning quickly that it is far more important to stress about what is right in front of you as opposed to what you're unsure of in the future. I am here in the Alps for five weeks and I have no idea what I'm doing after dinner. I also have no idea what I'm doing with my life, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that right now, in this moment, I have no need to fear. Life is good...so why stress about the things which we have no control over? We must learn to give up the things that hold us back from simply living. Our lives are gifts and we should not bring fear and anxiety into them.

I see Christ all around me. In the smiles, the sheep and the river, He is there. Where do you see Him today?