to be with dolphins...

I'm remembering the sounds of wild dolphins swimming all around me in the open ocean...hundreds of them gracefully gliding. Free. As far down as I could look were these magnificant animals, as far in every direction that is all I saw. I cannot describe what it was like to swim amongst the pod...probably all who had never seen human beings, yet alone welcomed them into their midst. I was terrified...yet, it was the feeling of being in awe that overwhelmed me...I had never witnessed anything like that before. For just a few short minutes of my life I was in this other world. I wanted to push the "pause" button and not let time slip away...

This experience taught me a lot. I learned what it means to feel small...to not have control, but try to be okay with it...to let the simplicity of life carry me. I felt like I was a part of something big...something extraordinary...

My heart aches. I long for healing. Yet, it seems to come so slowly. I wish I could bring others into this world of peacefulness that I experienced with the dolphins. I wish I could gather everyone's pain in a bottle and throw it far far away...but it doesn't work like that. And all we have to offer is love - this gesture that often seems so pitiful and insignificant, and hope that in some way, it helps.

I like to dream big...it gives me this feeling of hope - that there can be something more. One of my all time dreams is to have a beautiful big house on the edge of an ocean with miles of white sand, more flowers than I can imagine, horses, golden retrievers, and big oak tree forests with endless hiking possibilities. And it would be a place of rest, peace, hope, comfort, warmth, and grace. For those who are lonely. Single moms who have no where to turn for help. Girls who seek acceptance through prostitution and never seem to find it. People overcome by addiction. Someone who has nothing but a cardboard box to their name. Those who are left out. Forgotten. Invisible. This is what my heart aches for. Can you imagine a place like this?!? Where everyone feels like they belong and has something to give...and also where they can rest in the feeling of being loved no matter what baggage they carry or what scars they have...a place to just be.

There's something I have realized...I am screwing up. I want to be a person of warmth, of love, of grace, of acceptance. Yet, I am given many opportunities to do this, and I don't. I understand that everything starts small and I can only do so much - yet if I am not even doing the small things, what am I doing at all? Am I capable of such love?

Here is the company statement read on the front page of the application forms for Starbucks:

"Starbucks Coffee Company is an equal opportunity employer, dedicated to a policy of non-discrimination in employment on any basis including race, color, age, sex, religion, national origin, the presense of mental, physical, or sensory disability, sexual orientation, or any other basis prohibited by federal, or provincial law."

I feel like that should be my life statement. Yet, it is so much easier to put into words than into actions. I want to yell at the top of my lungs "equality for all!!!!"...and see if something happens...maybe my first impressions of people will be replaced by a knowledge that each person has brokenness they are hiding. Maybe I have to learn to be more comfortable in my uncomfortableness. To grasp onto the fact that each of us is hurting and we need each other. I want to find that freedom that I felt with the dolphins. And maybe in an idealistic world we can live in a big house by the ocean - and offer a place of escape - but for now we are here. And for now, I need to sit in my frustrations...and go to sleep. Because it is late and I think I have had enough of "contemplating the mysteries of the universe" for one day. :)