So Thankful…

So, I know it’s not common to start a new paragraph with the word “SO”, however, I thought that it should be done so thats what I did. So, as I went for a walk this morning with my wife I thought that today would be a great day to make a blog post, a post very much overdue. So, here I am writing this post not out of regret for not writing in a long time, but rather, writing out of a thankful heart. That’s what I want to focus on today, the things that I am thankful for. I could just make a list of the things, but that lacks meaning and I can imagine myself getting bored reading someone else’s list of the things they are thankful for… So to infuse more meaning into this post I want to explain why I am thankful for these things.

1. My Wife, Megan. I’m so thankful for her. Her personality is an artful conception, there is such meaning and beauty in her just being herself. The other day she told me she sees and hears things in colors and shapes. It’s as if she sees the world in a painted form that she sometimes gives me a little glimpse into. She is funny and doesn’t hesitate to remind me so. She is crafty and artistic. She is beautiful and thoughtful. We have been married a few months over a year now and it’s been just a small sample of what forever together is going to be like. I’m thankful I get to spend forever with her.

2. Family, I don’t live near my family right now and, well, somedays that sucks. But really I am thankful everyday for them. For the memories we made growing up and our relationships. Having four sisters was interesting to say the least but I wouldn’t trade any of them for a brother. Love was aways in the house and the house was always packed… Not literally, but my family – even though they can drive me nuts – always has shown me love, even when I move far away and I’m not around much. I’m thankful that family is family no matter how far away.

3. Laughter, I really enjoy laughing. I think this probably comes from growing up in a full house and always having something or someone to laugh at, or with. Laughter is an overflow of Joy. If life doesn’t seem to to have any joy just find something that’s funny! Laugh a little. There was one week this year that I laughed harder than I had in a long time, I was laughing so hard I cried. It feels so good to laugh. Also, I will never look at scrambled eggs again without laughing… But that’s a different story for another day… ,Abe.

4. Experiences. So thats kind of a broad thing to be thankful for, but thats what I am thankful for. Experiences. This summer, Megan and I got to go out to Oregon to a friends wedding. It was my first time ever going to Oregon and it was amazing looking out and seeing the mountains rise out of the desert-like land of central Oregon. We stayed in a house with the other members of the wedding party and had a blast getting to know new people. It’s always a blessing getting to celebrate a new chapter in our friends lives. Megan and I also got to travel to Haiti this fall and be a part of a medical missions team there. It was an eye-opening experience and hard to put into words. There was so much we learned and saw on that trip. I am thankful that God has given us opportunities to serve everywhere we go.

5. Challenges, I’m thankful for all the challenges that have come with being a youth pastor, with learning to be a husband, with living in a state that is not my home, and navigating the adventure of life. These challenges haven’t always been fun or easy, but they are shaping me and the more I stop and think about life, the more I am thankful for them.

6. Interruptions. Let me explain. Yesterday, my friend Thomas came and spoke at our contemporary service and one point he made was about how God wants to interrupt our routine, our cycle of how we do our lives. Thomas explained how Jesus was a beautiful interruption. Jesus wasn’t the Messiah that the Jewish leaders were expecting. He wasn’t a normal Rabbi either. He was an interruption, God’s divine interruption. I’m thankful for Jesus interrupting my life. For knocking me out of my routine.

My hope this Thanksgiving is that we can let Jesus be that beautiful interruption in our routine. That in the midst of the turkey, too much food and football we might stop and really be thankful. Not just a passing quick ‘thanks’ either. A real genuine, “SO, let me tell you why I am thankful.”

Once Upon A Time + As We Go

Once upon a time, just a month ago I stood on the other side of a doorway waiting to seeing my bride for the first time. In that moment I stood there thinking everything is about to change. The world I once knew will no longer be the same and the future is just on the other side of the door. The future, the unknown, the adventure is about to begin.

“Once upon a time”… those words at the beginning of every good story that tell you something is about to begin. That moment in which you are about to be swept away to a different place and time, and everything you once knew is going to change. There are a few moments in my life that could be prefaced with the words “Once upon a time”. Like Once upon a time I packed up my car said goodbye to my parents and sisters to set out on a long drive to a small college I had never visited in Kansas. Or once upon a time I lived as a missionary and english teacher in Brazil, South America for six months. Or once a upon a time I packed up everything I owned to move by myself to North Carolina to be a youth pastor.

When I left for Kansas I knew I was setting out on an three year adventure for which I had hoped would bring me the opportunity to learn and get a college degree. The goal was set and navigating the trails was to be much easier than the Lewis and Clark expedition. Then when I set out to go to Brazil my visa only allowed for one hundred and eighty days in the country and so it was obvious when I would return home. In Brazil the future was not as clear cut as college, however, once I figured out how to teach and adapt on a missions field the adventure mostly enjoyable. After living in Indiana, Kansas, and Brazil, North Carolina just seemed liked another place to explore.

However, all of these other “Once upon a time” moments in my life pails in comparison to that moment where I stood waiting for my bride to walk down the aisle. As those doors were opened and I saw her standing there in her white dress any fears I had of the adventure a head of us was swept away with joy. For the first time in my life I realized I was not walking into the unknown future alone. In Genesis God said “It’s not good for man to be alone”, and everyday that becomes more clear to me.

If there is anything that I have learned over this first month of marriage it is that life is meant to be shared. Not just the living space, or the bed or the food we prepare for dinner, but the experience of life itself. The experience of our everyday living should be shared. When we decided to get married we were making the decision to be a community, a family, best friends, and partners in exploration. A team that is committed to love and share as we go through life.

Yesterday at a bible study at the church were I serve we had a discussion about missions and what does that look like to live out the call that God has given us. As you might expect we turned to the typical verse about missions Matthew 28:19-20 (NIV), “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age.” Over the years I have been a little skeptical of the people that point to this verse and say lets help missionaries, but do little of anything but send money to foreign fields. We often forget that this was intended for us. For us to make disciples. Our senior pastor made the point that in the greek the “Therefore go” is better understood as “AS YOU GO”. As you go through life make disciples, baptize people, teach and do everything that I have done.

I think we have it all wrong if we think that the only way that we can make disciples is if we have classes or invite people to church. When I look at what Jesus did with his disciples I see a man who was willing to share life with people. To love them despite their faults, to teach when necessary, to forgive always, to tell stories, to travel with, to eat with and to simply live life together. Jesus lived out an example of what it meant to make disciples and so those disciples knew that meant that the future was not going to be clear cut and obvious. They learned that following Jesus was more of an adventure than a college course on truth.

Likewise in the past month I have been reminded that despite how many marriage counseling books or classes I taken, I have to learn to love as we go. I am learning that Jesus can us as a married couple to make disciples out of each other. To walk as Jesus did sharing life as we go.

Once upon a time Jesus descended into heaven leaving his disciples standing there in the field looking for him. They stood there much like I stood there waiting for my bride. Neither of us knew completely what the future would hold but the Holy Spirit has and will give us the strength to go forth into what God has prepared for us.

We the church are the bride of Christ he is waiting for us to walk through the door. To walk with people and to begin to be and do what he has called us to do. I can not say that I will ever fully have marriage figured out and I can honestly say that I may never fully have christianity figured out. However, I am committed fully to both, to living out to the fullest in sharing life with my wife and to following Jesus in this adventure of life. As we go, as we learn, as we share may we fix our eyes on Jesus knowing each moment is a once upon a time story that is just about to begin.

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Restore My Joy… Enable Me To Go

“Yet I will Rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of the deer, he enables me to go on the heights.”-  Habakkuk 3:18-19

In October of 2012 I moved from Indiana south east to North Carolina, I left my family and a great group of friends behind. I didn’t fully realize how much those friends really meant to me until I found myself battling loneliness in my little apartment. I missed the deep philosophical conversations about competition that my friend Bobby and I would have over a game of cards. I missed the late night runs to Stake N’ Shake and our off key renditions of the Avett Brother’s song “Shame, which I’m sure we sang a thousand times. I missed the random weekly get togethers at someone’s house. You can’t really recreate that atmosphere of joyful community we had. That longing to just be together with others went with me when I left.  Ever sense those first few weeks here I have been praying for a community of people that I could just worship with and be myself. People who were more interested in being the church rather then doing church.

Over the months I started to get more discouraged and more lonely. I was discouraged by the fact that even in the church that I work at as youth pastor, there wasn’t that community. The doing of Church was all there, but the level of community and openness that I have had before was not. I found that it is much harder to lead when you feel like your running on empty. I am such a people person it hurts when I have to be alone. I think this probably has to do with the fact that I was raised in a house with four sisters and parents who always welcomed in our friends. When you are around people so much like I was growing up sharing life is just part of living and so when I am in a place where I am less able to share life with others it feels like I start to die. It’s as if my souls is fragile and weak outside the context of community.

Slowly, I started to make a few friends through some retreats that I attended as a leader and started to see hope again of community. Hope is a powerful thing, when hope takes root the world starts to seem like such a brighter place than before. So as I got to know these people a little more I started to hang out with a guy also named Caleb, which I find ironic. That was the start of God answering my prayers. I had not given up, but my hope had been fading.

Two weeks ago Caleb ask me if I want to go to a house concert in Greensboro where a local band was playing. I didn’t know the band but that didn’t bother me because concerts are one of my favorite things. So we went to the concert in someones living room where we knew no one. There was maybe 30 people crammed in the front room of the house. The small intimate space made for an awesome setting and the music started playing and I felt my soul coming back to life. Every word of the each song sounded like sweet worship to my ears.

After the show we were leaving and ran into the lead singer in the street. We started talking and just out of the blue he invited me to a monday night worship gathering that he and some friends have every week. I was stunned and excited because in my heart I knew thats what I wanted, really what I needed. A rough week went by and I sorta forgot about it. But then monday hit and I remembered the invite and looked him up and asked him where the gathering would be. He told me but said he wouldn’t be there. I thought about not going because I made the excuse I wouldn’t know anyone but I felt God kept saying you need to go, just do it and trust me. So I went, I drove up the greensboro to a neighborhood I had never been to, to a house I had never seen to hang out with people I have never met and it was exactly what I needed.

When I showed up I knocked on the front door but no body answered, after making sure my directions were right, I knocked again and realized the door was unlocked and cracked a little. I would’t recommend this but I let myself in. I heard some people talking in the back so I yelled hello and walked in. There were two guys there who welcomed me as if I was suppose to be there and just like I was a friend.

Others started showing up about 20 of us were there and we all shared a meal and talked. It felt like home to me. I didn’t know anyone when the night started but I felt like I was suppose to be there. After we ate we all moved into the living room and two of the guys started leading worship. There wasn’t sheet music or hymnals, they just picked a key and started singing and everyone joined in. As we sang I was reminded of my time in High school where we use to have a time of worship every wednesday night, where we would just sing worship songs together, no set order of songs or set time. We would all pray for those who needed prayer and just share together.

As the the group sang “Restore the Joy of my salvation God, be my hope oh Lord”, I was filled with Joy again. Joy that i could just be with people that just wanted to be together and sing praises to the Lord. People who just wanted to share a meal and conversation for no other reason than to be in community. It says in Acts that the early church met together, broke bread, prayed, worshiped and just were the church. The church was the people the community. I realize my faith is much stronger in the context of community. When in a place where I can be myself and just sing with all my heart for the Lord. Where life is shared in open honest community.

As the night closed the group shared praises and prayer requests.  There was both joy and sorrow shared with no hesitation. I told the group that I had been praying for a place, a community where I could just worship with others my age and felt like God had lead me there that night. It’s one of those God things. You look at it after the fact and say wow, I didn’t see that coming but I sure am glad it happened. As I drove away I felt God restoring the joy of my salvation.

When I woke up the next morning, I turned on my Bible app on my phone and read Habakkuk 3:17-19 “Though the fig three does not bud and there are no grapes on the vine, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stall YET I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights”

The Lord has restored my Joy and he is my strength, out of the loneliness and times when nothing seemed to be going right God was still working. He is faithful to restore, even when it doesn’t seem like it in the midst of the drought. He will enable us to God where he leads. I hope to go back again to be with this group of people, to be in community and to go where God leads.

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Day 19 “A Year of Thoughts”: Your Face Tells a Story

Today is Day 320 in my adventure of taking a picture a day for a whole year. Mathematically that means I’m 45 days away from completing my goal. For me this has been a great learning experience and more of a challenge then I thought it would be. There were somedays that just seem to beg for the camera to be taken out of the case and taken on some grand adventure to fins those things worth taking a picture while there were other days that taking a picture was an after thought once everything else the day had to hold had ran it’s course.

I learned to not get disappointed and not compare one day’s picture to another because each day was different. Each day had it’s challenge. Each day had it’s different sunsets and weather to case that sunset was my choice to make. Each day had it’s unexpected and it’s planned moments but when to take a picture was always different.

 

This has challenged my commitment level each day, even though taking a picture is a small commitment it has a lasting effect on me knowing that I can do something everyday for a whole year. Not just something like brush my teeth or take a shower, but something out of the ordinary, something that stretched my creativity and also challenged me to think more outside the box.

 

There were days I would think for hours about how I wanted to take a certain picture or catch an idea or message through a picture and then do it. There were days that I would create something to go in the picture and if it didn’t turn out the way I wanted I would create something else. (This happened a lot actually.) There were days were ideas came fast and quick. The pictures taken could be anywhere from on average 70 to 150 pictures on a good day or as low as 10. Taking a picture a day opened my eyes literally to a passion that I had dabbled in as a kid but hadn’t really considered pursuing until I took on this challenge.

 

There is just something about capturing a moment, or framing a day, or a place, a time, an idea, a message or just anything. For me these pictures have created memories for me. I can tell stories about most of the days from the last year because of these pictures. I like the challenge, I like to be challenged, especially when that challenge deals with being creative.

 

As a little part of this challenge to myself I wanted to explore a little more about myself and getting to know me for me. I know that sounds a little weird, but one of the questions that has come out of this past year in a number of ways is how can I be more honest with myself and others? So why not through pictures. Many of these picture have captured little parts of me, my passion, my heart, my thoughts, my feelings, emotions, travels, stories and life.

 

I have taken over 120 self portraits over the past year to help me understand me. To catch a moment and look back and try to think through what I was thinking through. The self portraits are not because I want attention on me, or need everyone to remember what I look like, no the self portraits tell me stories. As if my own face is telling me my story over the past year. I think I read somewhere or I’m making this up that a photographer can look at a picture and always see beyond it, in it and though it, they were in that moment so the story is there for them. The rest of the world my not understand the story but they get it. Now I get it…

 

One of the pictures that has come to mean a lot to me from the project 365 and is one of the self portraits is this picture I took while sitting in a bed up against the wall in a room that my friend David and I used as our teachers lounge while I was teaching at the International school in Carpina, Brazil. The picture was taken in the midst of my trying to stop crying because for two hours I had the worst homesickness of my entire twenty-two years of life. In that moment I had been telling God he had to carry me through the rest of my time in Brazil. I was tired and worn out and I had three months to go. In that moment I knew all my tears were not in vain, I realized how human I was, how much I needed God’s strength and how deeply I really wanted to learn how to love the students I was teaching. That for me was one of the defining moments in that trip.

 

 

 

 

 

Another portrait that I really like is this one where I’m looking through a magnifying glass. I remember finding the magnifying glass somewhere in the school after I had gotten done teaching for the day. But in the picture you can see parts of the sky behind it. I wasn’t planning on catching the sky but it happened. The picture is a reminder to me of how much I love to adventure and find new things, to find the unexpected and to look close at life. Life interests me more than any other subject. How we live each and every day of our lives must be examined, experienced, and sometimes looked at through a magnifying glass.

 

 

 

 

One of the cool self portraits that I took came when I discover my interest in lighting. With different lighting you can create different effects on the face or object. I don’t think I really thought about lighting until I started taking pictures each day. This one picture basically was just my face pressed as close to the light bulb as I could without touching it and seeing if I could get half my face to disappear. It took me a while but it worked. So I have the picture to remember.

 

 

 

 

There are obviously many different pictures that I have taken over the past year that are “self portraits” and each tells a story but to share them all would make for a really long blog post that even I might not want to read. However, the last one that I want to share is a picture that I titled “Justice” it’s a self portrait that I took in response to human trafficking and the sex trade. I feel strongly about these things and finding justice for those who cannot speak for themselves. To me the pictures says a lot with saying very little.

 

Through project 365 I have been able to learn a lot about my self and my world. I believe many people assume they know themselves and they assume they know the world around them but I challenge them to take a picture, to really be honest with themselves, to look deep into their own life. To take a real honest look at the world, did you know that there are human’s enslaved right here in the USA, did you know that most of our youth, the next Generation are broken and longing for healing, did you know that most people go through life without meaning or purpose, did you know that your face tells a story every single day.

 

You are telling a story… Remembering your story, understanding yourself honestly will help you tell that story.

 

Even when this project is over I hope to keep learning and being challenged to become a better photographer and help people tell their stories.

 

How will you live?

 

How will you tell your story?

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Day 15 “A Year of Thoughts”: A Detour is Part of the Adventure

A Detour.

 

For someone to come to or have a detour, it is a mistake or failure or hindrance that must be gone around. But those of you who choose to see the journey as an adventure may find the detour to be an awesome experience, full of the exciting unexpected. Sometimes those detours are forced upon us and other times the detours come from when we miss an exit.

 

Trying to find our way back to the right road can be full of uncertainty, rather frightening, and altogether challenging, but when we see the adventure in the detour, the challenge becomes a learning experience, the scariness becomes a memory, and the uncertainty is changed to confidence as you find your way back.

 

 

So in the past week of driving to New Mexico from Kansas and driving back again, we took two detours. Both of which were from missing an exit. After obtaining three maps, “enjoying” the smell of Dodge (sarcastically speaking, Dodge smells like road kill heaven), fighting everything in me that is a man and asking for directions, our second detour found us in Amarillo, Texas. I thought there would be a sign on the highway that should have pointed us to the road we needed- there quite possibly could have been- but somehow we missed it… and I got to experience a little more of Texas.

 

In detours we learn a lot about each other.

 

 

The challenge of the detours made for a great experience with my best friend. My worries were met with, “Chill, we’ll get there.” My uncertainty was a reminder that life is an experience. We’re human. We make mistakes. But failures and detours are not the end but rather a part of our journey. My life has been full of detours, failures and mistakes but they’re part of who I am. Part of a story I’ll tell my children someday. Some of my detours have allowed me to learn things I’d never thought I’d learn. Some of my detours have allowed me to share life and laughter and create memories with incredible people. Detours created time and space to talk, think and explore.

 

Sometimes when we come to detours, if we’re not thinking of it as an adventure, we find it annoying and time consuming. So… What would it take for us to change our thoughts?

 

To experience the detour?

 

To take life as an adventure?

 

Would we learn more?

 

Would we be challenged to find new ways to do things?

 

Would we be able to face our fears of the unexpected?

 

To be able to take our uncertainties and turn them into confidence?

 

To find hope in making our way back, taking the risk it needs to get there?

 

So next time you come to a detour or think over the detours of your life, choose to see it as a blessing, a part of your journey, and a chance to find adventure.

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

 

 

P.S. I dictated this to my best friend Megan Eby while we were driving back to Kansas from New Mexico

Day 14 “A Year of Thoughts”: The Mountains Await…

 

 

The mountains are majestic and breathe taking as we have spent the last few days in New Mexico under the shadow of them rising out from under our feet. I went out for a walk today and found myself staring at them as they rose above the trees, to the shining snowy peaks. As I walked through the snow it soaked through my shoes as I dodged the cactuses poking through.

 

I think I like it here.

 

The culture of the west excites me and the open wilderness breathes

 

ADVENTURE

 

GO West

 

 

 

 

The Mountains Await..

 

– Caleb Ross Hunter

Day 9 “A Year of Thoughts”: Genes or more?

There is part of you that makes you like them, but there are experiences, life, and your story that is all your own.

 

Yesterday, my best friend mentioned how eyes are hereditary. We get them from our parents. We didn’t ask for a certain eye color when we were born and thats what we got. We were made to have the eyes we have as they are genes passed to us by our parents. I have greens eyes that have a fiery yellow to them in certain light and little tents of blue from time to time. My best friend has blue eyes that when they are excited they glow and almost turn more of a teal color.

As we talked about our eyes it got me thinking about the things that I have inherited from my parents, well a least genetic things. Things like my hair I know comes more from my mom’s side of the family along with my long legs, green eyes, and my smile. From my dad I got his teeth, his long torso, and my nose. Those things make up who I am physically but they don’t really make me who I am.

 

Life is not all genetic. It’s experiences. The things that I have done, learned, seen, heard, felt, remembered, explored, and the places I’ve been, the people I have meet and the whole of life makes me different. I am not my parents. I may carry some of their genes. I may have lived in many of the same places and might know some of the same people but I am not them.

 

I love my parents and all they have done for me growing up and the support that they have shown and still show to me. But there is part of me that longs to be different then them, to find a way to live my life that is even more engaged in what God wants to do with my life then they have been. To find new ways to think and live. To never settle for anything less then a full life. To never stop adventuring. To never not be honest with who I am so those around me might know who I am and where I am going.

 

Sometimes I think people set out saying I do not want to be my parents so they do everything in rebellion against the way in which their parents live. I on the other hand want to learn from my parents experience and move on. They have been a blessing to my life though there may have been things that they have done that have hurt me, however, many of those things I’ve learned from and allowed to push me to grow. That I believe makes me different. Learning about what I see in their lives and applying myself to growing, healing, studying, adventuring, and asking God to make me more into who he wants me to be.

 

Life is not about me or proving myself to the world. It’s about learning to love and serve the world around me. Like I have said before I am broken, I am part of a generation that needs healing and love.

 

I’ve found healing in understanding where I come from and where I am going.

 

I may be a man with green eyes but life is more than the eyes in my head and the things I have seen. Life is a learning experience, an adventure, and an opportunity to find the beautiful, awesome, incredible, breathe taking fullness that God has placed in front of us to experience. Our genes may be from our parents but God picked them out to make us. Our lives from the very beginning was full of God’s love. How we chose to live that life is up to us.

 

Learn

Live

Adventure

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Introduction to: “A Year of Thoughts”

“A Year Of Thoughts” will consist of a few of my thoughts for each day of this year that we have just began. It is collaboration of my goals to expand my creativity and my deep desire to write a few books in my life time, that really is the reason for starting this now. With these goals in mind I am setting out on a journey, an adventure and take the challenge to see this year through my writing. This “A Year of Thoughts” I hope it will be a way of sharing my experiences of this year with others.

I do not yet know what the topics or style that I will be writing each post but as an exploration I may write about the same topic over a few days or weeks. I may write stories, or poems, or just give a word picture of the day. Sometimes these may be about my day and sometimes I may just be about something that I am thinking about this day. If I were to know all the things I was to write about this would be far less appealing and exciting for me. I find writing to be something that has to flow out of the mind, heart, soul and experience of life. There may be times where my writing may come across as raw, unrefined, honest and hard to read but my hope is that these would be the thoughts that are most needed to be shared with those who care to read them. Though this is very public I hope to be able to look back on next january first and find 366 posts that capture this year in thoughts.

As a reader I hope that you take time to find something that challenges you. I wouldn’t even require myself to read every single post until the year is over, however, let even just the idea of writing a little each day challenge you to do something. Life is best lived fully alive. Writing is part of life for me, find what is part of who you are and pursue that, chase your dreams, through off the doubt and fear, be honest, be vulnerable, but most of all be who you are made to be. If you don’t know who you are or even if you do think you know who you are take a deep look into your thoughts and find something you have never known before or hadn’t thought about in awhile.

 

 

Life is a learning experience so never stop learning.

 

 

So

 

Here we Go…

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

To sit in a tree and drink some tea

There are sometimes in life where the moments just seem to be filled with poetry. With each step and word formed through the making of the moments. The things we take in through our colored eyes or anxious open ears. The moments just seem to almost pop with brilliance and vigor. The moments that mean the most to me are those like the notes of Jazz improvisation that are on edge to the ear and for a split second you might think they don’t really fit, but they do, for sure they do.

Last friday, which would have been Dec 16th, 2011, was one of those days that presented one of those moments. It was the last day of finals before christmas break and when I woke up that morning I knew that this would be the last day that I would see my best friend (who also happens to be my girlfriend) for three weeks, so needless to say I wasn’t all that excited for the day. I took my last final at 10 am and it really wasn’t that hard of a final considering I studied a grand total of 3 hours for it. There was only one question that I really just made up an answer for. I’ve discovered that I have a hard time worrying about things especially little things like tests. If I know the information I will do well and if I don’t well at least I know I won’t fail. I’ve never really failed a test so I’ve never really needed to worry.

Why worry? Christmas break is a whole three weeks long but I haven’t really worried about the drive home or back to school or what I’m going to do over break. But I knew waking up that friday morning that it was going to be hard being away from my best friend so I had planned to spend the time after my test and up until she was to leave that afternoon with her. I wanted to allow the poetry of the moments carry us into break… but I got a surprise… A GOOD surprise.

My friend had read my bucket list about how I wanted to sit in a tree with my best friend and drink tea, like a tea party in the tree. So as a surprise she brought out a travel mug of chai tea for our adventure. We walked down the old dirt road on the edge of town. The road leads by a field on one side and a patch of trees on the other. There was little to no whispering breeze, which was odd for a kansas winter day. The naked trees seemed content and stiff, though inviting like blank faced totem poles waiting to tell a story. To the end of the rows of tress we walked talking the whole time of life and the plans for break. There at the end of the row is a tree that we have sat in before when the weather had been much warmer. On the left side of the tree a large branch reaches out enough that both of us can sit rather comfortable… there in that moment in that place the poetry of life painted itself in vivid colors and without a worry in the world. Moments like that are remembered for a long time. The elements of that moment may have been created or brought or brewed in a coffee cup but the moment itself is made real by those who are in it.

There is no better way that I would have liked to spend the first afternoon of christmas break than to sit in a tree and drink tea with my best friend. Perhaps moments like these full of poetry are waiting for you to find them, make them, create them, brew them, but don’t forget to be in them. Moments are best remembered for being present in them. For #19 to be checked off my bucket list I had to be present in that moment and take it all in.

Wake up! The day maybe full of moments that you weren’t expecting! Be in them!

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Live Life: life lived to the fullest

Life is full of metaphors for how we live. Take for example my life motto which is to “Live Life”, you might read this and be like well isn’t that everyone’s motto as long as they are breathing. Perhaps in some sense it is or should be everyone’s motto, yet for me “Live Life” is a loaded set of two words that means so much more.

To LIVE LIFE

Think about it for a second what does it really mean to Live Life.

Are you alive?

What makes you alive?

What gives you the right to say I am Alive? Or I am living Life!

Often times we assume that we are living life. Coasting along and doing everything we think we want to do and calling it life. We eat. We Sleep. We Read. We Write. We have friends. We have family. We Work. We Play. We drift through twenty-four hour periods that we mark off on the walls of our prison cell life as just another day. But is there more? Is there more than just drifting? More than just calling today a day? Are we living?

Life is not simply explained by any form of science, philosophy, education, or religion. Life is not a mathematical formula that we can just type into our computer chip brains and come out with the answer too. We were not made to know all about life and just read a manuel to fix all the twists and turns, breaks and problems. Live Life is so much more than that.

At the core what is life? An experience? A Journey? A story? A bleeding out of all emotions and thoughts? Is it something that only we can feel or is it something we share fully in with others? Life raises a lot of questions but to find the answers we have to live the very thing we can not at times fully define. But what is life at it’s core.

Jesus speaks on life in John 10:10,

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (NIV)

“Anyone who goes through me will be cared for—will freely go in and out, and find pasture. A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.” (Message)

When I read these verses it’s pretty clear to me that Jesus says at the core life is lived through him. Life is only fully life when it is fully lived in the way, the truth, and the love that Jesus offers. It’s there that we find the pasture where we grow and learn to enjoy life. So life is more than what we think we might be living?

Jesus life was lived in serves to others. In other words life is most full when we are able to give it way. When we serve we find life but also in serving we are sharing the experience and joy of life with those whom we serve. Jesus spent the majority of his time on the streets or in others homes healing the sick, comforting the weak, telling stories to inspire and spread the truth of love, and ultimately giving all he had including his life to serve others.

One of my favorite quotes that seems to capture this thought on how serves is a part of life is from J. Oswald Sander’s book Spiritual leadership where he writes, “True greatness, true leadership, is found in giving yourself in service to others, not in coaxing or inducing others to serve you. True service is never without cost… we must aim to put more into life than we take out.” To put more into life than we take out. Live Life means to give all we have to serve the world.

To Live Life is to Serve.

Even if that means giving up everything to do it.

But thats not all that life is. Life is so much more. It’s adventure of exploration and discovery, each day holds truth and mystery. For me this means going on quests to find truth, search honestly and deeply to find what drives my soul. Adventure is calling us forth to get up and find the life that God is calling us to. To be never settle for the mundane or boring. To always look for more, always to grow, explore, create and be all that we can be.

This is living alive.

Live life is an Adventure.

Live Life is also a Story.

In the Message translation of John 10:10 it says “ (they) will freely go in and out, and find pasture”. Freely we will explore the world and find the adventure and write the stories of our lives that will be worth retelling to the next generation. New York best selling author, Donald Miller, has written a number of books that have inspired me to live a better story. To live life in such a way that it’s incredible, different and creative. Donald talks a lot about living the story and making intentional choices that will create moments in your life that will teach you things that you never thought of learning and wont ever forget.

Dare to actually live life.

Live Life.

Live the Story.

I think the third thing that we often miss in trying to live life is we forget to Love. We forget that at the core of everything love is always better. I do not mean love in the sense that the world uses it, as going out and getting the girl or guy and being intimate in a sexual way. No, love is more than that. Love is caring so deeply for others that it moves you to take action to meet their needs in every area that you possibly can in a healthy and meaningful way. Love means putting others first and pouring all your potential gifts into them.

Love Helps.

Love Moves

It not only moves you but it moves them.

Love changes things

When you encounter Love that cares you can not remain the same.

Love is not passive it is active.

When life is lived to the fullest it is there that we love people enough to bring them to the pastures with us. To bring them on the adventure. To share our story with them. To serve others along the way or wherever we find ourselves. Life can not be separated from love because without love life is merely an empty space filled with worthless lines of history soon left in dusty closest irrelevant and uninspiring.

Jesus came in Love that we might have life to the full.

It’s there for the taking or the living.

The first half of John 10:10 talks about the thief coming to kill, destroy and rob us of life. There are many things that have been robbing us of Life. The things we often choose to fill our days with are really killing and destroying us. If self is the core of our own lives are we not stealing from ourselves the opportunity to share our experience with others?

I can’t say that I have always lived life. I have stole a lot of time
and opportunities to be more alive simply because
I rejected the very thing that would give me life to the fullest.

Fear often drives us away from living the adventure because there is to much risk. Pride often keeps us from serving whole heartedly because we look for what we might get out of everything. Lies rob us of the truth that is freely ours to be lived out. Love is to hard a choice to commit to. Laziness kills the greater stories that are just waiting to be written in your life.

I don’t know of anyone what would allow a thief to come in their front door and steal the very things that mean the most to them. BUT why do we do it? Why do we steal and kill the very life that is waiting for us to live? To live life is to get up and take action. To live like Jesus. To chase the dreams and find adventure. To throw off fear, pride, lies, laziness and so much more that we are allowing to stand in the way of Living Fully alive.

WE MAY HAVE LIFE TO THE FULL.

Live Life

Live life is written on a few places around my room and on my phone so I remember it everyday. Two words inspire me to search, go, learn, grow, be, love, care, dream, adventure and always tell my story one day at a time. A few years ago I wrote on a blank white piece of paper the words LIVE LIFE in black sharpie and hung it on my wall. Slowly God is showing me more fully what it means to live life. It’s become more than two words on a piece of paper, it’s a motto and the first of many metaphors that are becoming reminders and lessons for me on what life is really all about.

My hope is that you would LIVE LIFE

Join the adventure

Take the risk

Life is waiting for us to Live it.

-Caleb Ross Hunter
10/26/2011