One week

So we've been here in Maui for a week.

We have four more days to go.

We like it here.

We like the sun (although it often gives me a headache).

We like the beach (although I'm not much of a swimmer).

We like the atmosphere (although at times it is a little too laid back).

We don't much care for the guilt.

We're in a strange stage of life right now.

We're really unsure of what our next step should be. We know that we want to sell our Condo ASAP.

We know that we no longer want to live in Atlanta.

That stage of our lives is over.

It is time to move on but to where?

Seven years ago Swell was a beautiful fourth year optometry student. Being the very serious student she was she chose one of her practicum/externships in Maui.

Not because it was to be a terribly challenging externship. Not because she was dying to be an optometrist at the location she was to work at.

No she chose Maui for two reasons:
i) It is after all Maui and
b) She knew a girl.

Swell met a wonderful young woman at Pacific University who was from Maui. Her family was still there and this girl was going to return for summer break. Swell took advantage of this and soon had a free place to stay.

Optometry school has certain rules about how many hours who needed to work per week to receive academic credit for the externship.

Swell flirted heavily with the minimum.

While she was in Maui I was slaving away in the bustling metropolis of Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Now that is a long distance relationship.

We saw each other for a week that summer - at which time I proposed before leaving for another four months far, far apart.

All of that is an aside.

The important part of this story is that while apart from the love of her life Swell found two new loves.
A) Maui - it is after all Maui and
ii) The L family.

Swell lived with the L's that entire summer. K - the Dad - is a pastor at a church here on Maui. S - the Mum - owns a cleaning business. M - the daughter - was at that time an undergrad student at Pacific University and is now an optometric colleague of Swell and I. MK - the son - was then a young punk kid and is now married and in college in Oregon.

Swell was treated as a daughter. She ate with them, was included in their big family events of the summer and was loved on by this family.

It was arguably the best summer of her life.

After her departure from Maui we finished school and got married. The L's attended our graduation (despite having had a very early morning attending M's graduation from Undergrad). They also attended our wedding in which K played a role (one of three pastors at our wedding), M was a bridesmaid, and S made a beautiful flower arrangement under which we stood.

Life move on for both us and the L's.

Swell's other friend, G, was attending OT school in Tacoma, WA and happened to be renting a place from a Hawaiian Airlines pilot. She got a couple of guest passes from said Pilot and took Swell back to Maui for a week or so in the winter of 2003.

G. eventually did an externship of her own on Maui and then transitioned that into a full time job.

We visited her - and I made my first trip to the Island - after my first semester of public health school.

We had the privilege of doing a bunch of stuff while here and also spending a small amount of time with K and S at MK's wrestling tournament.

It was toward the end of that trip that I received a phone call from my Pa telling me that my Grandpa had passed away. A rotten way to end the trip but it was still a very nice trip and I began to realize just why and how much Swell loved the Island.

We continued to live life.

M was enrolled in optometry school in California and MK began undergrad in Oregon.

As a family the L's decided to take a once in a lifetime family trip following MK's first year at Undergrad and M's completion of optometry school.

They went to England, France, Italy and Greece.

We just happened to be doing our big Romania, Italy trip around the same time as there trip.

We just happened to be on the same no-name street as them at the same time as them in Florence.

A one-in-a-million happenstance.

We were able to coordinate schedules and spend an amazing few days with them in Rome and the Vatican.

It was great. They were kind to us. They were inviting. And importantly, for me - as someone who is disillusioned with the church -, they were real with us.

It was a great/beyond words time and we were blessed to have had that "coincidental meeting".

M found her way back to Maui and is now working various jobs as an optometrist here on the Island.

We came here to Maui this time to spend time with G and M and any of the other L's who had time for us.

We came expecting nothing from our trip other than time with people we care about and rest.

G made quite the schedule of activities for us.

One was a surprise.

It was a really great surprise.

On our first Saturday here we got to live as if we were rich.

G took us to the Grand Wailea - an extremely expensive resort where the rich and famous stay - where we sat in lounge chairs, swam in their cool pool and ocean, and ordered pool side food service.

It isn't that G is rich (at least in money - she is rich for knowing us) its that she knows people who can get us a day pass at the pool. It was a great time, although I came to learn that the new "spray on sunblock" sucks.

It was while on this "live like the rich" adventure that I began to read my book.

I purchased a no-brains-required novel that I finished on the flight to Maui but now I only had "The Irresistible Revolution" by Shane Claiborne to read.

Irony at its finest.

Here I was sitting in the lap of luxury with arguably some of the wealthiest people in the world reading about "living as an ordinary radical".

Shane writes about his life and his journey as a Christian. He is part of the "emerging church" - the Christian who doesn't identify with the Republican party. The Christian who doesn't find solace in large church buildings and material things.

I was reading about Shane and some friends packing their things up and heading to Calcutta to work with Mother Theresa.

The night before we had attended K's church.

We were beyond disappointed.

Huge.

New building.

Showy.

A let down.

Seeing that and then going to the Grand Wailea while both Swell and I are struggling to find our place in this world was difficult.

While we had great fun at the resort it created a little sense of guilt.

What were we doing here when we've done so little to improve the lives of others? We were again confronted with our opposition to but complete involvement in the materialism, over consumption of the Western world.

Our trip continued and as Swell and I hung out watching sunsets and seeing the beauty of the Island we began to be tempted by the idea of moving here. The oversupply of optometrists isn't as bad here as it is in the Pacific Northwest. There is a distinct lack of optometrists in certain parts of the Island.

We were also tempted because it is an easy thing to do.

Move to paradise.

Forget the troubles of the world.

We are isolated here.

Far from starvation and lack of clean water.

Far from the needy.

To ease the fears of those who want us closer to them I'll jump ahead.

Maui is not for us.

Swell still loves it here. I love that she loves it but we cannot live our lives surrounded by wealth. There is, of course, poverty here but to open a practice among the million dollar houses we would need to pursue wealth daily.

Our lives would become very limited. The Practice would become the end all and be all of our lives.

We're not ready for that.

So where does this leave us?

Back at the beginning.

Uncertain.

Confused.

Lost.

The L's invited us over for a really nice dinner. It was a delicious Bar-B-Que complete with chicken and steak.

K was feeling under the weather that day. He had been informed earlier that he was anemic and he was having some fun with his family.

"I've never been anything before! Now on those forms you have to fill out I can say Anemic? Why yes I was!"

"You better be nice to me, I'm anemic you never know how much time I have left."

Two days later he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia.

He starts 3 months of chemo on Monday.

He preached on Good Friday.

Swell and G after crying their way through the sermon (I was a rock...) came home and drank - heavily (well, put some alcohol on their ice cream - as a celebration of life).

I won't go into the sermon but it was good and meaningful.

K and the whole L family have a long road ahead of them. K will be on Oahu for the next 3 months and then in California for the 3 after that.

We have a few more days left here on our own and with the guilt we've (I've) been feeling and the witness the L's have been to us over the past 7 or 8years and K's sermon we have a lot to think about and a lot to decide.

Prayer from those who pray would be helpful both for K and for us.

Here's to bad news in Maui!

And to moving ahead with life while "sowing into other's lives".