Reflections on Bellingham: Out of Isolation

Yesterday dawned on the beginning of our last week in Bellingham -- literally -- we will be loading the trailer and driving out on Saturday.  It has been a tumultuous 11 years in Bellingham in which I have run the gamut of human emotion.  From the desperate isolation of the new guy in town to the euphoria of getting married and watching my children come into the world and all those experiences and feelings that come between that make up the rhythm of our lives.  Today, while mountain biking on Galbraith Mountain, I was reflecting on Western Washington University (WWU), the reason I moved here in the first place.

My wife is wanting to take a walk, with our boys, across the campus, go back the beginning, as it were, and I am sure that spurred on this reflection.  I drive here in a '93 v.w. golf, 4 door, with a yakima rack for my skiis and my bike, trunk full of cloths and climbing gear and camping gear and a head full of energy and fear.  The majority of my gear stayed packed in boxes as I found I was a very small fish in a very small pond and everyone around me had the shape and speed of a predator.

I withdrew into a desperate search for a job (I had to pay the rent and I ended up with two) and a place to live, both happening at the same time.  I moved into a little room in a big house and promptly became best friends, then romantically entangled with, the woman who would become my wife.  I struggled with work and school and besides my bride to be I made few friends and when she applied for an Americorps position on the east coast I went to Australia.  We re-united in Bellingham, got married, had kids, and have struggled to build a life here, watching friends move away and building our way out of isolation and into community one day at a time.  But it has been a slow, long slog out of darkness and desperation for us as we have struggled to identify who we are, build on our dreams, on our marriage, and raise our children.  Just now, at the end, can I look around me and identify a tangible community of friends and neighborhood, at the end, as we prepare to leave.

A couple of months ago I was working on small custom home with a local general contractor.  I was nailing together sky light boxes -- that would then be fastened to the roof, flashed, and covered with a sky light -- with my framing nail gun, which "bump fires" (when trigger is pulled, the nose of the gun needs to be pressed against the work piece for a nail to shoot) and I double shot a nail which went past my sky light and into the pointer finger of my left hand which was holding things steady.  The nail went through the big knuckle, out the other side and pierced the skin of my middle finger an inch away.  I looked at my hand, saw the nail going through my glove and pulled it out.  This entire sequence took less than 10 seconds.  I wrapped my finger in tissue from the porta-john and duct tape, creating a splint of sorts, and went on to finish the day in near constant pain, though I had full mobility (two months later my finger still hurts to high heaven if it gets bumped or have done a lot of heavy lifting or a lot of breaking on my bike).

This incident was a microcosm of my life in Bellingham, taking on injury and pain in isolation and bearing it as best I can, finding inner strength and carrying on with the day as it comes.  I have chosen to bear the burdens of my family, be the provider and to sacrifice, not always cheerfully but certainly willingly, to lift them up and carry them through the darkness. 

I would like to dodge a bullet here and say that the strength I rely on comes from me, it is all buried within my innate human nature to summon reserves of strength and determination.  But I am a weak person and I can only stand as determined and capable man by the strength of God.  No matter how I fail to live in his image, no matter how I resist engaging the living God in relationship and worship, He always gives me the strength to be the man I have to be --  not for myself but for my wife and my children.

As I look back on WWU, looking forward to a walk across its ever evolving campus, I look back at the begining of a journey with God, one in which he carried me through isolation, depression, and darkness, and delivered me into my family, into community, and into a place from which I can confidently lead my family into the future.