Kaci spent the money for a ticket, got on a plane, and came. That’s the hard part of going anywhere.

The easy part was being together. We went hiking and climbing and exploring the park; we ate the famous lobster roll from Side Street and sat at quiet neighborhood eateries that the locals don’t want anyone to know about. We bought a few gifts for home and thrifted for a few things for ourselves.

When it rained we sipped tea and read books.

I’m so glad she came. I’m glad that she did the hard part so that we could have the rest.

I think that’s how all good happens.

I put on a pair of shorts after work and went back out to run.

Everything went away. Frustration, tired, noise — it all turned into fuel, I guess.

I ran up the shore path then took the meadow loop to the woods. I walked when I was tired and then ran more. And then ran more. And more.

I don’t know how long or how far; it doesn’t matter.

It was windy, but not in the trees. It started toward dark, so I ran back by the meadow and passed a whole field of purple lupines blooming in golden hour on the way home.

Back on the shore path the bay was catching the light too, and I ran faster and only thought, rõõm.

I only feel a little guilty for ditching my team tonight. A couple of them were going campground walking to promote our services and I probably should have gone too, but I did this instead.

I hope that tomorrow my head will be clearer and my heart better because of it, that I’ll have more to share.

My favorite people who came into the store today were an older couple who asked for a recommendation for a place to get a lobster roll. I haven’t tried one yet, so I told them what everyone else has been telling people: Go to Side Street Cafe.

An hour or two later they came back in… “We just had to tell you thank you for the wonderful recommendation,” the lady said sincerely. “We don’t have anything to compare it to, but it was really such a good lobster roll, and the blueberry pie was so delicious.” And they were so kind. They remembered me. They said thank you.

Another one: A family came in and bought a few things. When they were checking out we chatted about what they’d been doing and seeing in the area. After back and forths the mom looked at me and saw me (you can tell) and asked, “But how are you doing today?”

I have some rõõm.

Day off. It’s raining. I’ve been inside with tea and pillows and calls to family and friends. I also baked a 50¢ can of biscuits to have with cucumbers and little squares of cheese and am now working on the chocolate chip cookies Mom mailed.

Things are getting better. Todd and Matt transferred me to Island Trading and life feels a little less hectic. IT is a smaller store, a newer store, a brighter store… It comes with a little more responsibility and a lot more freedom… Mostly the hours there don’t feel as long and it’s simplified things.

But I’m not working today… it’s raining and things are quiet. I’ve been thinking about how little time I’ve had to think about God or to pray or to read anything good. Just little bits here and there, silent prayers for help or little thanks, maybe a few psalms one day or a short section in a book.

But I’m learning from God still working in spite of the busyness that the best relationships aren’t equal all the time. I’ve been busy, but he’s still been faithful. And I think it’s fair to say that there have also been times that it’s felt like God was busy and I’ve had to be faithful.

It gives me hope that it’s really a relationship, since a relationship is just two beings’ willingness to relate and give life back and forth to each other through resources and ideas and energy and love. When one is unable or unwilling to hold their end of the relationship open, the other waits until they are. And that holding open is the sacrifice that we all know about, that taking up of slack for someone else so that the relationship stays intact.

I haven’t thought it all through, but I suspect forgiveness has something to do with it. That forgiveness is staying open when the other closes off, maintaining the weight of the relationship alone and staying open to the other so that when they come back they can step back into the relating.

Anyway, I feel that right now, that God is working for me when I can’t work for him like I wanted. While I’m busy eating and sleeping to work and running from meeting to meeting he’s arranging things into something better and bringing people into my life to relate to while I’m at it.

Like the other night one of the guys from the old shop came in for two seconds, handed me an open package with one fancy peanut butter cup left in it and said, “I brought you a treat!” and then ran back out again. And another time one of the girls came in while out on an errand to say hi and catch me up on all the goings-on at the other store. A couple of friends and I are getting together after work tomorrow to support a local high school outdoor performance (there’s free pizza somehow involved) and then are having a painting night.

I don’t know if all that makes sense or not, but I had to write something. Maybe I can muddle through it later.

The point, though, is that God is always faithful.

Just got back from going to see worship service locations with the team. Noah said there would be time to stop for muffins, but it took us longer than expected to go and do; instead of a muffin I stopped in at Country Store for a piece of blueberry pie to go with morning tea. Country Store is also owned by the corporation and our employee discount is good for their fudge and baked goods, so it’s cheaper than a muffin, which is nice, and I know the people who made it — also cool.

I’m very excited about this pie.

I’m also more excited now about the ministry after visiting the worship sites and getting to know the team a little more. I’m nervous about Sunday since I’m speaking, but I think if I get it down here it will help, just to have sorted my thoughts. Here’s the jist:

Ecosystems:

One of the first places I visited in the park was Seawall. Danie, my manager, was taking me and another coworker on a WalMart run to Ellsworth and decided on a whim to drive us around the island. We stopped at Seawall as the sun was getting low to walk on the rocks and watch the birds over the water.

“Seawall is special,” Danie told us. “There are several different ecosystems here, all in one spot, look…” She pointed out the sea, obviously, and then to the bog across the road and to the pine forest beyond that. There were two others she mentioned that I can’t remember — I think there were five altogether, visible from that one spot.

That was three weeks ago, but I haven’t stopped thinking about ecosystems. I even looked them up on wikipedia and read about them. Here’s the first part of the article, which I’ve condensed to be more reader-friendly:

Ecosystems by Wikipedia

An ecosystem is a community of living organisms in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment, interacting as a system. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the system through photosynthesis and is incorporated into plant tissue. By feeding on plants and on one-another, animals play an important role in the movement of matter and energy through the system.

Ecosystems are controlled by external and internal factors. External factors such as climate and topography, control the overall structure but are not themselves influenced by the ecosystem. Unlike external factors, internal factors are controlled, for example root competition, succession, and the types of species present.

Ecosystems are dynamic entities —they are subject to periodic disturbances and are in the process of recovering from some past disturbance. Ecosystems in similar environments that are located in different parts of the world can end up doing things very differently simply because they have different pools of species present.

^^ We believe that God is Creator; this is how he creates: building communities of living things with controlling external and internal factors, systems that are always changing. God puts things together, he creates order, he brings things together that give life to each other. It’s how he’s made the world to work.

But people are the one ingredient that can choose not to be made like this, and we do. Look at us. Arguing, fighting, hoarding, distrusting, isolating ourselves so that we can be “happy”, that is, so that we can live.

Jesus came to put us back together, to set us right. “Here’s how to be human.”

“Love the Lord you God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself”

Look around. We find life and peace in places like these, within systems that are living and dying for each other, each giving part of itself, each sacrificing, and each one thriving because of the sacrifices of the other parts of the system. When it happens without a will, like in nature, we call it “life”; when it happens voluntarily, between humans with a will, we call the same thing “love”. It’s a different kind of life, a higher form of life, the kind on which we’re meant to thrive.

What does it look like when humans function as an ecosystem? Paul talks a lot about it: it starts with us, with the Church, but the Church is just the beginning of God’s plan for all of humanity. It’s all supposed to look this way. He’s Creates like this, and we’re meant to be his image, to be doing this very kind of bringing together and making life.

Here are just three places where we see a glimpse, but the Bible is full of things like this, full of ecosystems.

1 Corinthians 12: 24b-26 But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

Colossians 3:12-14 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against one another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

Ephesians 4:15-16 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

What human systems are you part of? Where are you communities, the people you belong to? Your family? The people you work with? Are they sitting next to you in the park or the restaurant or the ones traveling with you? Is it your church family?

All human communities are meant to reflect the live-giving Creator. When the members love each other, we honor him by showing his true nature.

Ecosystems.

I was almost late for church this morning — finally fell asleep around 5 or 6 or some such a.m. and then woke up at 9:05. But I made it to UCC by 10, and good thing.

Rob talked about empathy today. He talked about meeting a couple who go around to different places where there are long-held grudges and misunderstandings; they use improv nights as an outreach to bring people together.

“The thing with improv is that you have to build on someone else’s story. The thing with improv is that you have to say, ‘Yes, and…’; it builds empathy by getting you out of the story in your own head and into the story that someone else is telling. And after a while you look around and see this thing you’re building together and you discover that there’s more joy in it than anything you were coming up with yourself.”

He talked about our faith, and about how God often places us in situations that don’t match the picture in our head. Rob said that it’s up to us to take what we’re given and build on it, to improvise, to build something with God.

“Yes, and…”

It made me think about where I am now, how it doesn’t match the picture in my head, and what I’m going to do with it. Acadia is beautiful, no question there, but there rest has been interesting. For example:

I thought I would be working with people my age. Seth and Ashley were just out of graduate school when they went through the program and I assumed that it was full of people like them. I was so hoping to find friends who were grounded, who had studied, who had a few years of life experience, who would sit around a campfire and talk about faith and hope and big things they’d been learning. But these are really kids, good ones, but kids with a lot of things to sort through. They’re about half my age.

On the other hand I’m rooming with women twice my age. I like my roommate (she was a social worker before she retired, a victim advocate…), but there are others who are touchy and grumpy and who frankly don’t like me. Sometimes they snore so and I just lie awake and pretty much cry.

I thought I would be upstairs selling art in the “Maine crafted gallery” and was looking forward to it. Turns out I work most of the time downstairs in retail. I fold t-shirts a lot of the day; I walk through the store and turn all the jars of jam to face the same direction. I put paper bags of popover mix into boxes and print shipping labels for them. I handle money at a cash register and have said, “Hey, welcome!” so many times already there’s no way to count them. I was hoping just to spend my time learning about and appreciating beautiful things and then sending them home with others who saw the same value and loved them too.

YES, AND…

Rob Browne says you make the most difference with people who are half your age: here they are. I work with about 20 of them, both on the ministry team and in the shops. Maybe I’m here to be the friend someone else needs.

Being around women twice my age is also good for me. Every day I have to ask myself, one way or another, who am I becoming? When I’m twice my age, will I be gentle and understanding, or will I stomp and be touchy and find fault? Will I see the people around me, the younger ones? How set in my ways will I be? And what can I do for these women now? I’ve been trying to keep the common areas clean — sweeping for all of us, taking the trashes out at least.

There are skills that I’m learning in retail. I’m learning a lot about cash handling and shipping. I see people behind counters in a way I’ve never before seen them. I’m building an understanding for entirely new groups of people — people at registers, people doing seasonal work — like really seeing the faces of Asians after living in China. And I’m learning all the good that can be done merely by showing strangers that you recognize and share in their humanity — laughing together, having patience while they dig for pennies, finding sincere pleasure in wrapping their purchase in two pieces of tissue please.

Yes, and…

Improvisation.

This is the first meal I’ve cooked that I feel good about so far. We have an induction cooktop and I overdo or underdo everything but oatmeal.

But this is good. Guess the trick to rice is butter, and that wherever veggies are there should also be garlic and onion powders.

My manager is shifting my days off so I have three free days in a row. There’s no rain in the forecast and I’m thrilled. This morning I swept the entire apartment and kitchen area, did a load of laundry, played my guitar, went to the post office, explored more of town, and sat by the water with a scoop of strawberry-mint ice cream. (One of the Acadia shops makes their own ice cream, and so far they’ve given me a free scoop when I’ve come in on days off. Perks!)

I took a nap. I went hiking. I saw an owl in the forest. I sat on a rock and ate a piece of chocolate.

It takes time. That’s my big thought for the day. At ministry training one of the leaders said, “Your third month is going to be great, so why don’t you jump all in and make the whole summer great instead of waiting for things to get better?”

I understand what they were saying, but that’s not how real things work. Real things have to be built. The reason the third month is great is that you kept going when the first two months weren’t.

So I’m trying to get to know people and to learn what this place is. I work hard at work; I laugh as much as possible. I’m even figuring out the cooktop.

Someone lived here by the sea
Old home long gone
Now all that’s left are stones and steps
Where once a life belonged

Something in me wants to sweep them clean
And live another life here by the sea

To build new walls
And sing new songs
And to belong and be

Halfway through the second week now. I opened the shop up alone this morning. Mackenzie and Daniel came in during the day; it’s more fun and laid back now that we all kind of know each other and basically know what we’re doing. Two cruise ships were in town; we handled everything that came up. We’re Acadia Corp’s main and busiest store, so that’s something.

I like the people that come in. They’re from everywhere. A lot of them will laugh and chat with us — who their gifts are for, things they collect, where they’ve been.

I’m starting to get a feel for Bar Harbor. A lot of locals have come from somewhere else and have stories to tell. It’s not a big place, so people from our other stores can be seen passing on the street when they’re not at work, that kind of thing. I’ve run into park visitors in town again too, people who’ve been in the store buying souvenirs. To them I’m a local.

I stopped at the dollar (-ish) store on my home tonight to buy a $4 yoga mat and ended up standing around for probably 10 minutes talking to the lady working. She told me about the weather here, what to expect as far as crowds go in the busy season, and she had a few useful tips for me as well. “Pack your lunches, and if you do want to eat in town, check the ship schedule. You can’t find a seat at lunchtime the days they’re in!”

About the weather here: It snowed on Cadillac last night. I can’t say I hate it.

“It’s 10:08, Robert.”

It’s 10:08, and I’m sitting down to a second cup of tea and three cookies. Chris taught me that trick: if you take three cookies it feels like a lot and you’re satisfied, whereas if you take one cookie at a time, before you know it you’ve eaten ten. So go ahead and take three, and be happy with them.

Work went late today, but it was good. Danie is my manager; she’s chatty, personable, direct and confident, not just confident in herself but in that the store is going to be ok and there’s nothing I can do to mess things up. That’s helpful. I’m learning faster because I’m being handed responsibilities and being trusted. I’m starting to believe that it’s going to be ok.

One of the upper management people came in today and was talking about the company. “We really just try and hire good people because the job itself is something that can be learned. We never know how it’s going to work out from year to year, just somehow it does. It’s good that you’re here — there’s usually a good core that stays the whole season while the rest come and go, you’ll see.”

I like this company. I want to actually be the kind of person they’re looking for.

Dear God, the path I found today,
the one beside the sea…
Did you make me for the path
or make the path for me?