Communion is Essential

For the first time in forever, I am back in communion. On Saturday, anxious over the truth but more afraid for my sins, I went through my third confession since becoming Orthodox a year and a half ago. Being protestant much of my life, confession still feels foreign and awkward. After all, we spend so much energy covering up and hiding what we really are until we become nothing but a shell stuck in a web of lies - or worse, we become a Pandora's box begging those close to us to peak inside and release our darkness to the surrounding world. However, you can not treat a festering wound by keeping it under a bandage, and confession is that fresh air to the wound. It shines light on the things we desperately want hidden and scatters the darkness within. If confession is the bandage removed, communion is the ointment applied.

Communion is essential. For life, for light, for healing and joy. As I move further into the light, I realize heaven can be here. That life before this is a shadow play of dark greys. But here is color, here is joy, here is life further in and further up. I look forward to stepping further into this light, illuminating more demons in my soul and chasing them away. The fire that burns, that my dark thoughts fear- those dark thoughts sitting like a lizard on my shoulder and whispering lies into my ear- this fire once too bright is made bearable by this communion. Bread and wine made body and blood mingle somewhere between my body and soul and purify both, so I can burn bright like this fire and yet it does not destroy me.

The world around me is not left behind, but brought also into the light. The birds sing stronger, the sun shines brighter and that soft lemon light emanating from the core of everything returns to my field of vision. Yes, the world burns and is illuminated with the presence and love of God. This communion pulls the blinders from my eyes and I see it once again, but only glimmers here and there. Perhaps tomorrow, through grace, I will step further into this light, see life a little more pure, be a little more pure like Christ. "Taste and see that the Lord is good." If this is a hint of what life can be, the beginning to something more and beautiful, I never again want to turn my eyes away and take steps back. For perhaps the first time in my life, I have found something worthy of fighting.

But first, there is the fight. The work, the refocusing of thoughts frustratingly straying, the darkness and weakness of my own story, the habits, the passions, the laziness and necessary discipline. The fear of breaking into myself and finding a hollow inside, the fear of others seeing this inside and giving up on me. Yes, there is much work here, but through grace I am becoming. And finally, with conviction, I know my final destination, my final me, is worth every ounce of sweat, tear and pain.

I desire life everlasting and full, Lord give the blessing!

St. Nilus Island

Welcome to my home for at least the next month. I give you, Saint Nilus Island!

This is the common house. Below is the kitchen and a small living area, above is an office and two rooms for Mother Nila and Sister Julia. The porch overlooks the Muffins and morning sun spills into the windows, when the clouds open up and allow this. I am told this is not often, however the weather has been gorgeous since my arrival.

Here we are, Saint Nilus Island residents. Spruce Island is seen in the back. Remember this, because I have some stories about Spruce Island for a later reading.

Here is Mother Nina and Mother Nila on a spruce and moss-everything path on the island. The other two permanent residents have moved to the island over the last two years, but Mother Nina and Nila have been on the island since the beginning. The fine tuned system that I find in place right now is the fruit of their 11 years of labor. Incredible women, these two.

Mother Nila is the gardener on the island. Here she is with one half of her garden. Due to the rain this year, the gardens have not produced as usual, which means winter will be beans, rice and smoked fish. Mother Nila also has a flower garden close to the beach, claiming that it is the color in her life. I would claim the whole island, glowing of greens and blues, is the color in my life, but I have only been on the island for sunny days, so I really have no say in the matter. The flowers are beautiful, regardless.

Within the last year, the nuns and monks at an adjoining skete on Spruce Island invested in a saw mill to produce their own lumber. Here is Mother Nina in the lumber yard. My first day on the island, I was placed on saw mill duty with Sister Julia. Fun work, although I am told atypical for monastic duties. We are planing the wood for a new one room house for Mother Nila.

This is my island paradise. More pictures and stories to come! Thank you to Extreme Kayaker Hans for the pictures.

First Impressions on Monastic Life: Thumbs Up

So much has happened in the last ten days that I don't know where to start. I am in Alaska on a small island teetering on the border of the Pacific Ocean and the top of the world. I live here with 5 other women- three nuns, one novice, and another long term pilgrim like myself. There is no running water and electricity is scarce (either gathered by solar or wind power). Life is simple with good old fashion work. Water is carried from a spring and filtered. Food is gathered, grown, or caught. Wood is chopped and stacked in preparation for an Alaskan winter. There is a smoke house for the salmon and a root cellar for refrigeration. Laundry is done in buckets with a crontraption that looks like the progeny of a bathroom plunger and a butter churn. Oil lamps light the table, outhouses and bucket baths are available for hygeine and the ducks by the workshed go quack, quack, quack. And the ducks go quack, quack, quack.

I have stumbled on my paradise. There are a few buildings on the island, which contains an area of about 1sq mile. The guest house is next to the workshop and duck coop. The common house, wich houses two nuns and a kitchen looks out over rock outcroppings affectionately named the Muffins. The smoke house and root cellar are on the path to a one room cabin. The other one room cabin sits by cliffs filled with puffins, a 10 min walk from the wood chapel. Buidlings are connected by foot paths winding through spruce and moss-everything forests. The center of the island contains a natural spring. The silence is profound and deep, with sparrows singing, wind whistling, and waves crashing against the cliffs. It is still here.

Although there is plenty of work, the stillness of the surroundings is finding its way into my core so my soul can honestly respond to the call, "Be still and know I am God."

I am being cleansed by this life.

Slowly I feel everything that I knew before- the artifical neon lights, the buzz chorus of one hundred appliances, the exhaust filled air of constant traffic, the partially hydrogenated oils and the cornsyrup high on fructose, the cell phones, coffee, and lonely nights spent drunk on wine and beer, the necessity to know every moment that slips from numerous clocks into space telling me that I am late for everything, the missed appointments, dashed dreams and broken hearts, the vomit of color, anorexic teenage superstars, and permeating feeling of inadequacy- slowly, everything is untangling itself from around my mind and heart setting me into a freedom I thought obtainable only for the birds singing in the trees. But here I am, sitting under those same birds and listening.

As well as the material changes in my lifestyle, my spiritual life has been ramped into a high degree of activity. I am living in a monastery, afterall. I wake up at 3:00am to pray before the morning service at 4:00. Meals start and end with singing and chanting thanks. After working hard, I attend and participate in another service in the evening. More prayers and quiet time follows the service before I go to bed and start it all over again the next morning. On the weekends and feast days, services can last up to three hours. I read during the service, chant prayers and sing in the 5 person choir. I am beginning to find my voice. I am second soprano. Fast are strict and often- Monday, Wednesday and Friday, no meat, dairy, wine or oil. Yes, this includes fish. I am learning the duties of chapel upkeep and struggling to pray constantly throughout the day. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. Breath out. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. Like a flower afraid to bloom, I feel a warm sunlight beconning my soul to open up and become more, to experience the joy of an everlasting spring. If I were ever in a place to answer this plea, St. Nilus Island is the place to do it.

Life is becoming inspired, spurred on by the desire to heal and grow. This is my garden, my paradise.

Nesterov and Monasticism

This is a picture by Russian painter Mikhail Nesterov. I have posted it here because it contains a mood or a feeling that is similar to the hopes I have for Alaska.

I fly north on Friday and, God willing, will be at a monastery on an island in Alaska next Thursday. I hope to stay at the monastery for up to a month, in quiet contemplation and prayer, sometimes in manual labor, but also struggling with the thoughts and feelings that pull and torment (as thoughts and feelings often do). I hope to find the center of my soul, a direction for my life, and a foundation to my faith.

It is true, this is a large agenda for only a month long stay, but if anything, I have hope that I am starting a journey that may take my whole life. I am excited for this, life, and the next month trapped with myself and pulled out of myself by God and my surrounding fellowship.

When Have We Finally Grown up?

When have we finally grown up?

Is it going for a run on the morning of the memorial service of your favorite running partner and finding the trees of your childhood cut down? Is it when really hard experiences leave you with strategies to guard yourself in the future and a resolution to continue living life larger and happier than the given circumstances? Maybe it is when, in the midst of what feels like a broken heart, you can quiet all the mean and hurtful thoughts you want to say and instead approach the person with "forgive me." Or maybe when you finally make decisions for yourself and stick with them through think and thin, through sickness, violence, and disappointment.

Last Tuesday morning, my uncle died as twenty five friends and family gathered around the hospital room, praying and listening to his last breaths. I watched my aunt lay next to my uncle, stroking his hair, hugging his body, and kissing his face. If love is watching someone die then grace is having the love of your life die in your arms. In that hospital room, friends and family labored together in the best way they knew- through songs, readings, tears, and memories- ushering my uncle into his afterlife of paradise. Closeness and compassion within the family became tangible and we watched it grow, engulfing one member after the other while we waited. This was the first miracle.

The second miracle that day was the final smile on my uncle's face as his monitor flat lined and his last breath puffed into the world. Perhaps these miracles were my uncle's last "I love you" to everyone gathered around his bed.

Love is watching someone die.

Love is larger for me now. Maybe we have finally grown up when in spite of everything we can look at the world and its people in all its impermanence and still choose to love. In the end, I want to say it was better to have loved and lost than to never loved at all.

Moving On

After a week of contemplation, Stage Two of Katie's Amazing and Formative Journey has finally been decided. I give you: large mountains and large bears!



I fly north from PDX next Friday, August 20th.

Tim Trembley

Timothy Trembley
January 22, 1957 - August 10, 2010

On the morning of August 10th, 2010, Tim Trembley, after running a race of 53 years, beat us all to the Pearly Gates and the arms of Christ. In our hearts we can hear the Lord whisper of Tim's legacy, "Well done, good and faithful servant, Tim." With a smile, Tim looked on the face of his creator and left this life in peace and joy.

Tim was born on January 22, 1957 to William and Joan Trembley in Norwalk, Ohio and was raised along four other siblings - Chris, Dan, Jim and Brad. In between filling carts full of snakes, tormenting older siblings, and exploring the many different uses of gasoline, Tim enjoyed testing the limits of the world around him. He also enjoyed running track and graduated from New London High School in 1975 as a record breaking track star.

Tim moved to Washington after high school and fell in love with the mountains. In Washington, Tim also met, fell in love with, and married Kim Vance on the 19th of July, 1980, the love and best friend of his life. Perfect love creates and changes the surrounding world. After much diligence, Tim and Kim were blessed with the birth of their two children Joshua in 1984 and Jennifer in 1987. Tim was a beloved husband, father, son, brother, uncle and friend and inspired life in everyone that knew him.

From 1980 to 1986, Tim was an Air Warfare Systems Operator in the Navy. After graduating with a Bachelor's in Civil Engineering from the Oregon Institute of Technology, Tim started working for NOAA Corp in 1988. He retired as an officer from NOAA Corp in 1997 and continued working for NOAA Marine Operations Center in Seattle until the present. Tim was a hard worker and quickly became a valuable team member in all his work ambitions.

Settling in the Kitsap area, Tim and Kim became cornerstones of their church family at Crossroads. Tim was active in youth and college ministries as well as in church leadership. Together, Tim and Kim were known for their hospitality and opened their house to many different people. Tim was a life-long student and lover of theology and biblical archaeology, constantly reading and then teaching, leading, and discipling those around him. Tim will remain a spiritual role model in the lives of all the people he touched.

Tim had many hobbies and characteristics, a few of which include: bee-keeper, gardener, brew master and vitner, mountain climber, rock climber, runner, skier, camper, pyrotechnician, machete-ist, chicken whisperer, joker, reader, history guru, debater, pipe smoker, instigator, cliff jumper, hiker, project starter, expert builder, music lover, professional cowbell player, traveler to warm places, show-er off-er, landscaper, fixer of all things, bone-head, story-teller (with an expertise in Jim-and-Tim stories), great and wonderful knower of everything.

Tim was buried on August 13th in Tahoma National Cemetery in Kent, WA. In his memory and in lieu of flowers, please send contributions to a memorial fund under the name of Kim Trembley at Bank of America in Silverdale, WA. Comments for the family can be left on Tim Trembley's Obituary at www.tuellmckee.com.

Pray for Tim Trembley

I have lofty dreams of world travel and exploration for the rest of my life. But when the blade of tragedy cuts deep and close to my family, it severs my heart in two. In circumstances such as now, the only thing I can hope to do is draw close to the people that I know best. Through shared hugs and tears I may begin to sew the two halves closed again.

As my last glance of Mexico disappears below scattered clouds and I claim this trip finished, I feel peace that I have made the right decision in returning home. There was no decision, in fact. No matter how big and wonderous the world is or claims to be, it will still be there tomorrow... and the next day... and the day after that. The last thing I learned about myself from this trip of self discovery is that regardless of the promise of tomorrow, as for today, family will always be first.

I love you, my beloved Uncle Tim. You will always be in my prayers.

Mayan Ruina: Toninâ

I should be able to tell you something cool about these ruins without the help of Wikipedia, but

1. I'm too cheap to hire a guided tour, and
2. even if I spent the money on a guide, I still don't understand spanish well enough to do anything more than smile and nod at large stacks of rocks.

So, here are some fun Toninâ facts provided by Wikipedia.

Toninâ means "House of Stones" in the Tzeltal language, but this is an adaptation from the original name of "the place where stone sculptures are raised to honor time." The name was changed for marketing reasons among Tzeltal tourists as well as ease in directing the Cambi driver of your desired location. Also, around 1970, a group of wayward deconstructuralists boycotted the original name claiming that stone sculptures could be raised to honor time in many different locations and therefore the name was ambiguous. After a large campaign among the locals, the interpretation was shortened in 1972 to "House of Stones" and it has remained that way since.

The ruins were a series of pyramid temples built around a ball field. The nation of Toninâ mostly warred with Palenque until eventually they became the dominant city. Really, this means that when the wars were all said and done, Toninâ had more Palenque warriors to brutally sacrifice in the "House of Stones" than vice versa.

There were many different rulers of Toninâ, all laid out in a spectacular graph should you care to look at the Wikipedia sight. Most of them were made of stone and most of them looked something like the man pictured below. My favorite, by far, is Ruler 7. View his reign of terror here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonina
Here is his biography, Wikistyle "He (Ruler 6) was succeeded by Ruler 7, about whom even less is known. Around 764 Toniná defeated Palenque in battle." Thank you, Ruler 7 for the downfall of an incredible civilization!

Some really smart people have been writing about Toninâ since the 17th Century. There are lots of structures on the premise, all made out of stone. You can also visit the Museum and use the bathrooms for completely free! This may seem like a given to most of you, but spend a little time in Mexico and you will see how precious public restrooms become. If you feel tired after scaling the ruins, you can ride horses back the quarter of a mile instead of walking.

So there you have it. Toninâ is super important and the grounds are really beautiful too. Should you find yourself in the area, visit the ruins of the glorious civilation that once dominated Palenque before Ruler 7.

Jaguarte Part I: Colors

Jaguarte: kind of like the pig thing around Seattle.

Jaguarte Part II: Faces

Jaguarte Part III: Ugly

Or perhaps I just don't understand this selection like I should.

Self Medicating in Mexico

In the past week, I have married off two serious ex-boyfriends, decided to extend my trip into Guatemala to work in an orphanage where road blocks seem to be rearing their ugly heads at every turn, and been groped by a man in a Cambi. On the positive side, the man invited me back to his house rather than recommending a cheap hotel. I left the Cambi running. I have my standards, and fortunately, quality of wine is not one of them.

How does one self medicate depression in Mexico? Why, the exact same way in the United States. With boxed wine and chocolate.

Chamula, Chiapas Revisited

I returned to Chamula to witness the church service in the impressive and indigenous church. I also found village life in full swing with the weekend market, several different processions happening simultaneously, and lots of drunk men stumbling about. My friends and I walked to a vista point of the valley on top of a hill. There were lots of steps and three beautiful crosses on top. The valley was incredible.

A procession with a marching band, women holding bouquets of flowers and men lighting off firecrackers. We learned that they walk throughout the valley from church to church. Here we are, they say, as mass continues inside the building.

Crosses near the plaza.
Market life.



We watched this drunk man stumble down the street with his chair, rest for a bit, and then continue his journey home. It was about 1:00 in the afternoon.
Three crosses atop many stairs.
Tada! A beautiful mountain valley!
If you look very closely at the middle of this photo, you will see the a procession making its way to another church.
Chamula city councilmen? A band of Chamulan warriors? A band of Chamulan musicians? Your guess is as good as mine.