Talking to plants is supposed to help them grow, right?

Hi guys, so glad to hear you are actually reading this and that you are enjoying it. Sorry it’s been so long since I wrote; September has been super busy.

After spending the weekend in Pasadena, I arrived home in Isla Vista around 9pm tonight. Lisi and I went for a walk out to the bluff to see the moon rise. Instead, it turned darker and darker orange, then red. As we watched, it sank into the sea where the sun usually sets as if it were being dragged behind by a collar and chain. "Ah the moon," we laughed. "What is he up to now?"

Lisi is one of the two girls I actually knew when I came out here and has been one of my primary connections to the body here for the past two years. Last week she decided not to see the year in the houses through after all and will be moving out within the month. There is agreement about her decision and we are looking for someone to take over her lease, but of course, no one can fill her place.

This is the third weekend in a row that I’ve spent away from the houses. Labor Day I spent in Orange County with family, last weekend I spent camping in Big Sur with some girls from the church and this weekend I spent in Pasadena with Amaris at the Pike’s house. And in between I work from between 8 and 9 am to between 6 and 8pm so I feel a little less consumed by what’s going on in the church here, even comparatively disconnected at times. I am trying to be very present, very intentional with the time I do have here, but to allow myself freedom to have a life outside the church and to be faithful in the jobs the Lord’s given me.

Speaking of which, last week we were reading a book on space in the 2nd/3rd grade class at the charter school and a little girl said with complete sincerity and PC compassion, “I don’t feel comfortable reading this book. I mean, some people don’t even believe in space . . . you know like in Mexico. They don’t believe in space, THEY believe in God.”

And on Friday I saw a little girl, maybe 6 or 7 walking around holding her bum cheeks in her hands. “What’s going on with so-and-so today?” I ask another instructor. “Oh, I asked her earlier,” she says. “She told me she was pregnant, that she was carrying her baby in her butt cheeks and surprise! She was having twins!”

Where do they get this stuff?

So aside from taking notes on children for my future book, I go to lots of prayer meetings, and water a lazy brown lawn that has little will to live. It only grows in the few spots where it is continually shaded by trees or bushes, but the gardener still assures us “Si, is right type of grass. Si.” So it is without excuse.

“You’re not even trying,” I accused it on Friday morning around 6:30am. “Look here, do you think I get up at the crack of dawn every morning and water you by hand for my health?” But it isn’t interested in my moaning. And it doesn’t want mending. What it wants is a complete overhaul, turned ground, new soil, new seed . . . a fresh start.

“I understand. I hear you,” I cajole. “But this is all I have to offer, this is a rental, it’s out of my hands.” The lawn just shruggs and says to me “Who’s not trying now?”