emily elizabeth

Caleb & Sarah drove over this past weekend to pay a visit. We celebrated the last official weekend of summer as school started today. We had a great time together. I showed them Spokane and my digs, initiated them to the wonderful grass-stained proned sport of ice-blocking in the dark, and took them to Coeur d’Alene to chill for the day and go swimming. It was great fun! I miss you guys already and think that we should start planning the next visit! I must say though, they are officially the typical married couple in that they aren’t much for staying up late anymore. Another one bites the dust I guess.

As unfortunate as it may be, the summer seems to be quickly disapating. I spent this last weekend at the Gorge, with Corey this time, to see Dave in concert. It was my first time seeing him. Although I’m not the biggest fan and probably don’t know half of his songs, I’ve wanted to see him in concert for a while now just because he’s a great entertainer, and so we went. We had a good time, but it wasn’t all that I thought it would be. Maybe my expectations were somewhat inflated, but for some reason, I expected it to be a little bit more exciting. Now granted, we were quite tired after somewhat of a long, hot day and he didn’t even start playing until 8:30 or 9pm, so we were pretty much wiped half way through the concert and ended up leaving before it was over. Most of what he played were newer songs and most of what I am familiar with are his old classics. And you know how that is – going to a concert that you don’t know most of the songs. Regardless, we had a pretty good time and enjoyed some laughs. There were some guys sitting behind us at the concert that were pretty entertaining. They would have fit in well with some of Corey’s buddies. We learned all sorts of names for various characteristics of one’s body. For instance tankles. Never heard of them before, but according to these guys, they are when your calves go down to your ankles, thus … tankles. There are more, but I’ll stop here. Nothing crude, just perhaps offensive to some.

We camped at Wanapum State Park where it was really, really windy sunday night. Not just that nice summer breeze that comes down the river at night, but 40-50 mph gusts. It was crazy. We got back to our site late and wondered if our tent was still standing. As we drove to our site, we saw a few poor unfortunate soul’s tents straddling trees. Some, to their own demise, had purchased those huge, spacious tents. You know, the three-roomers that provide ample room to change in, but are too tall to stand a chance in gusts of this magnitude. Silly people. Mine, on the other hand, is so small that you have to enter feet first. There’s not really enough room to turn around in it if you enter head first, at least not if the other person is already in there. Probably not a good choice in a tent if you’re claustrophobic, but hey … it was still standing and it really is a nice tent. And so we were awakened a few times throughout the night by the strength of the wind alone. I was really tired, so it didn’t take long to fall back asleep, but at some point Corey and I just started laughing at how windy it actually was.

Well, just one more weekend left and then school starts back up again. I have a movie to finish watching and a book to finish reading before the summer is officially over. This week will be spent organizing and getting things in order for the semester and then buying all my books and stuff that I’ll need to get started come next tuesday. It’s sad to see summer come to a close, but I think that this will be a great Fall, Winter and Spring ahead!

My parents and I spent this last weekend on one of my favorite rivers, the Salmon. We spent 4 days rafting down the lower stretch of the Salmon River which eventually flows into the Snake River in lower stretch of the ever-popular Hells Canyon. This was the 3rd annual trip for my dad and I and my mom’s first trek down the Salmon. This being her maiden voyage, she was prime prey for teasing on how scary the Salmon’s whitewater can be. Of course, I find joy in dramatizing the experience and seeing her squirm in anticipation of what’s down river. I know, it’s bad, but so much fun! Now she knows what the Salmon offers and like anything else, the unknown is always much more intimidating.

Anyway, it was a great trip. Days were spent swimming, fly-fishing, eating, and sleeping. And then waking up and doing it all over again. I have a hard time thinking of another way I’d rather spend my summer days.

The following is an excerpt that I found a while back and find it beneficial to revisit every once and a while. It brings back focus and perspective when the busy-ness of life can take away our focus on Jesus being our necessity and the reason why we live. I hope you find it as beneficial as I have.

Teaching A Stone To Talk
Annie Dillard
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Once a man shot an eagle out of the sky. He examined the eagle and found the dry skull of a weasel fixed by the jaws to his throat. The supposition is that the eagle had pounced on the weasel and the weasel swivelled and bit as instinct taught him, tooth to neck, and nearly won. I would like to have seen that eagle from the air a few weeks or months before he was shot: was the whole weasel still attached to his feathered throat, a fur pendant? Or did the eagle eat what he could reach, gutting the living weasel with his talons before his breast, bending his beak, cleaning the beautiful airborne bones?

I would like to learn, or remember, how to live. I come to Hillon’s Pond not so much to learn how to live as, frankly, to forget about it. That is, I don’t think I can learn from a wild animal how to live in particular – shall I suck warm blood, hold my tail high, walk with my footprints precisely over the prints of my hands? – but I might learn something of mindlessness, something of the purity of living in the physical senses and the dignity of living without bias or motive. The weasel lives in necessity and we live in choice, hating necessity and dying at the last ignobly in his its talons. I would like to live as I should, as the weasel lives as he should. And I suspect that for me the way is like the weasel’s: open to time and death painlessly, noticing everything, remembering nothing, choosing the given with a fierce and pointed will.

I missed my chance. I should have gone for the throat. I should have lunged for that streak of white under the weasel’s chin and held on, held on through mud and into the wild rose, held on for a dearer life. We could live under the wild rose as weasels, mute and uncomprehending. I could very calmly go wild. I could live two days in the den, curled, leaning on mouse fur, sniffing bird bones, blinking, licking, breathing musk, my hair tangled in the roots of grasses. Down is a good place to go, where the mind is single. Down is out, out of your ever-loving mind and back to your careless senses. I remember muteness as a prolonged and giddy fast, where every moment is a feast of utterance received. Time and events are merely poured, unremarked, and ingested directly, like blood pulsed into my gut through a jugular vein. Could two live that way? Could two live under the wild rose, and explore by the pond, so that the smooth mind of each is as everywhere present to the other, and as received and as unchallenged, as falling snow?

We could, you know. We can live any way we want. People take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience – even of silence – by choice. The thing is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse. This is yielding, not fighting. A weasel does not “attack” anything; a weasel lives as he’s meant to, yielding at every moment to the perfect freedom of single necessity.

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The stage at dusk
Originally uploaded by roverem.

I had a couple of days off last week and got a chance to spend them with Caleb & Sarah at the Gorge. They had made plans to take their youth group there to enjoy the fun. I tagged along and “helped them out,” an adequate excuse to see them and maybe even catch a few concerts. We had a great time. It was good to see people from my home church that I haven’t seen in a while. We had fun together, even though they’re still not convinced that I found the short-cut to the Gorge My philosophy is why go the same way everytime if you don’t have to? Anyway, I uploaded some pictures from the days spent in the sweltering heat (I’m being slightly dramatic now .. what’s new). We got a chance to see Mercy Me, Toby Mac, Bethany Dillon, and Rebecca St. James among others. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Oh, and lest I forget the most important part, you can expect a new CD to be released from Sarah & I. We got some great material from the camping trip and are in the process of recording our new songs. Not sure what the release date is yet, but if you’re lucky enough to be in the presence of one of us shortly you can make an attempt to request us to sing one to you. My favorite thus far, perhaps because it may be our only one that is finished, is Stinky Lotion. Trying not to be boastful, but we’re expecting to earn a Dove Award for this recording.