"How can you buy or sell the earth?" (a long blog)

I just returned from a wonderful weekend vacation with my in-laws in the mountains of North Carolina. My recent reunion with the hobby of fly fishing had me quivering with anticipation for the trout that were awaiting me in the Nantahala River. I literally felt a groaning within as we got closer to the mountains...a strange inexplicable magnetism to the stream somewhere in my gut that seemed to make the harsh lines that seperate man from wild soften and dissolve.

As soon as we arrived at the cabin and upacked, I put my gear in the car and headed for a local tackle shop to go about the legal process of fishing in NC (don't want to upset the people who "own the river"). I got my license and asked about a good public access point and fishing location on the Nantahala River. I was told of a place 5 miles down Wayah road between a bridge and a powerhouse". It sounded cryptic but I thought I could figure it out.

I found the bridge and figured, to be safe, I'd just fish in the river near the bridge since I wasn't sure where the powerhouse was.
I stepped in, tried to "listen to the river" a bit to get my fly choice right and then on cast #2 I caught a beautiful "brookie" (brook trout) that, up to that point, was the biggest of my life.

Then they pulled up. You know who I mean too.

Trout in one hand and fly rod under arm, I raised a friendly peace sign to the federal officers in their white ford SUV. "You guys came at just the right time" I said as the senior officer and his side-kick stepped towards the stream. "They're hittin' on the blue-wing olives today!" I said excitedly. "is 'at a fact!?" the older one said with a smile and followed his seemingly interested comment with "we'll need to see your license".

At this point, I thought the check was routine. They saw my SC plates, they knew I was an out-of-towner. No big deal. What I didn't realize is that I picked the wrong side of the bridge to fish on. Literally 20 yards in the other direction and I wouldn't have been sandbagged with a stiff $125 fine for fishing in federal waters.

When I realized that I was actually getting a ticket for being 20 yards in the wrong direction, my blood boiled. I stayed calm and polite so as not to make matters worse, but inside a tempest was brewing.

How can "we" (meaning the desk-anchored bureaucrats) draw imaginary lines to seperate what we consider to be our side of the sandbox from "the other guy's side". For a species of organisms that has such a blip of an existence on our planet, why do we feel like we as individuals, or as small organizations, are entitiled to what has been here long before us and will continue to be long after we're gone? As Christians, what kind of stewardship is that kind of thinking?

So with that...here is a quote from Dwamish Chief Sealth of Seatle in a letter written to President Franklin Pierce in 1854:

..."how can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?

Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing, and every humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. The sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man. So, when the Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land, he asks much of us...

This we know: All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself..."

- Chief Sealth, 1854

well said my friend.

therapy

Things have been pretty topsy turvey lately...not bad at all; I just seem to have a few loose ends up in the air that need to miraculously tie themselves together and float back down to earth to give me a crystal clear message of the path Kelley and I should take in the next year or so.

So in the meantime of unsettled in betweens, Kelley and I both have found shelter and guidance in our God, but therapy in Missy Higgins.

This girl is a lyrical gangsta from down under and I highly recommend a good listen to both of her albums. Check her out on iTunes.

peace out,
jeff

Mr. Angry Face

hehe....I can't help but laugh at people who get angry for no aparent reason...or who let their environmental conditions get them all riled up to the point of explosion.

I had a phone call this morning that ended up with the person on the other line venting very angrily at me...evidently something I didn't do was the straw that broke the camel's back.

So I figured I'd write a little self-help post for how to 1) deal with anger and 2) deal with angry people.

If you are Mr. Angry Face:
1) make sure you don't stop breathing
2) go ahead and start communication with whoever is making you angry - better to be
honest up front than hurt because you were afraid of conflict
3) seek proactive solutions, not face-saving excuses
4) make sure you don't stop breathing


If someone else is making Mr. Angry Face at you:
1) make sure you don't stop breathing
2) ask them nicely: "Do you think you can you calm down and talk to me normally?"
3) put yourself in their shoes: if you want the conflict to resolve, you've got to give them some sort of credibility in the argument, or it's always going to be an argument.
4) make sure you don't stop breathing

For either of the above categories: if steps 1-4 do not work for you, please either 1) consult the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's section on "what to do with angry Vogons"
or
2) sock your anger oponent directly on the nose

Have a wonderful Tuesday!

Into the wild...

"But there are men for whom the unattainable has a special attraction. Usually they are not experts: their ambitions and fantasies are strong enough to brush aside the doubts which more cautious men might have. Determination and faith are their strongest weapons. At best such men are regarded as eccentric; at worst, mad..." -
Walt Unsworth - Everest

So some books on the "I've read them lately list" are: Into the Wild and Into Thin Air (Jon Krakauer) as well as The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Nothing too "out of the ordinary" here because they're all best sellers.

Just thought that I'd get some thoughts down about the Krakauer books. I guess Into the Wild really spoke to me the most...if for nothing else...simply because the 24-year-old kid who leaves family and society to seek out "the wild" of Alaska ended up getting some pretty bad press for evidently being a nut job.

He abandons mom, dad, and sis and leaves for what would become 2 years of adventure around the midwest-western US. He meets some great people along the way and experiences what many of us would consider to be true freedom...then he gets his heart set on Alaska and stops at nothing to get there and prove it to himself that he can make it on his own. He dies after 113 of living in the Alaskan "bush" - in reality only about 30 miles from Healy Alaska. The cause of death was some poisonous fungus that grew on some seeds he collected...so he wasn't necesarily stupid to the point of death...he was simply unlucky.

Still in all...one trend that shows up in the story is that every time he gets close enough to someone to build a solid relationship...he bales out. Parents, close friend Wayne Westerberg, Ron Franz, Jan and Rainey, everyone. Is that normal? Does true freedom require isolation? Can happiness and freedom coexist in reality if "true happiness" requires someone to share it with?

I relate to this guy none-the-less. Not so much in his need to abandon his loved ones...but in the groaning deep within his belly that calls him to experience the unabridged, viceral world. At what point in my miniature adventures would people have called me crazy, mad, or even mildly eccentric for a need to escape from the safehouse geometric prison of modern society to the unpredictable organic of "the wild"?

High Fidelity

So I just saw High Fidelity last week with John Cusack and Jack Black.

I've grown to respect John Cusack a lot over the past few films I've seen him in. He has a real easy way about his acting, and in High Fidelity, it was done a bit like Ferris Bueller...direct camera delivery from the main character as the story progresses.

Really good movie. One of the cool things I took from the movie was how music can truly be such a soundtrack for our lives if we let it.

So since I was broke on Valentine's day (and since both Kelley and I don't put too much stock in a national holiday for balloons, flowers, and chocolate) I made K-time a "mix tape". It was really just a playlist for her iPod, but the songs told a bit of a story of us over the past year.

Putting together the right playlist truly is just as much of an art as writing your own song. You've got to pick tunes that say what you want musically as well as lyrically for your specific situation. For Kelley's playlist I narrowed down her iTunes library to about 50 songs to choose from. The final list was 17 songs and took me through an emotional rollercoaster that let me relive the past year of our lives as I listened to the music. Pretty cool.

So now we're off into the freedom of a 3 day weekend...and I'm interested to see where the music will take us.

Pipe Dreams

It's not all over yet, but the cold is starting to break a little...reminding me of one of the sweetest weeks ever this past summer at the beach...

That week of surfing truly left an impact crater on my heart, mind, and soul. As plans drift towards getting kelley out of her current job and into sewing, we've been planning some much-needed "away time" for the summer. A study abroad is in the working courtesy of the Gregory clan, as well as yet another fantastic week at the beach courtesy of the Bateman tribe. These are exciting indeed and it's always good to get to hang out with the folks, but I think I might have gotten Kelley excited about another idea as well.

In an effort to trim down our "heavier loads" physically, we're working out to lose a few pounds each so that we can truly enjoy a week chasing the waves on the carolina coast. With her not working and me on summer vacation, how cool would it be to throw the dogs in car, the board on the roof, and hit the road for some camping and surfing....heading to wherever the waves are. That much exposure might even get me ready to catch my first tube.

Until then, the pipe dreams will carry me through the doldrums of spring term.

Launching KG THREADS (and other stuff)

My wife is deep into the process of starting up her own business. It's really way into the beginning stages right now, but it's fun and it's showing at least some progress! She is making handbags of all different shapes and sizes and has been selling them around the northeast area of Columbia, SC. She's REALLY good at it and the cool thing is that this whole business thing might allow her to quit her current job.













Today we oficially started her new website, http://www.kgthreads.com


Check it out and let me know what you think!

In other news: I was elected as Teacher of the Year for Spring Valley High School. I'm still not sure how to react to the whole thing. It is such an honor, but for some reason I'm hesitant to go shouting it from the rooftops. Putting it on my blog (that maybe 3 or 4 people read) is a big enough step for now! :)