A Star in the Night

The first person to really say anything to me when I got to Nepal was the man at the passport desk. He looked at my name printed on there and said, “Tara is a Nepali word.” He didn’t tell me what it meant though, and I forgot to ask.

Tara is a Nepali word that means “Star”.

Tonight I went up on the rooftop to watch the stars coming out. Like I normally do. I enjoy watching sunrises and sunsets. But I like looking at the stars more. Especially when they are first coming out. There’s just something about it.

I sit up there, curled into my blanket, and scan the sky for the very first star. It’s usually one of the planets that you can see first. I make a wish on it anyway.

Then gradually, almost imperceptibly, the rest of the sky starts filling up with little dots of distant light. One by one they fill their little corner with whatever light they can muster, and then they stay there and twinkle quietly at all the other little stars around them.

I love watching the stars. My name fits me perfectly. I just didn’t know it until I came to Nepal.

But my favorite star to see is not that first one. Or even the first hundred usually. It’s when it’s getting near to the end and the sun has almost completely disappeared.

It’s the one that shines through the clouds, mist, and/or smog. In Kathmandu at least, there is always some sort of thick something-or-other along the horizon that makes you feel like you need to rub your eyes to get it out. It’s a little hazy and frustrating because it makes it so you can’t see the Himalayas.

But the stars shine through it. There is one star in particular that is one of my favorites. It’s this small, bright, persistent thing. It just pierces through the dusty cloud without regard at all to its suffocating influence.

As I’m watching the stars coming out, I also take plenty of time to look at the lights of the city gradually coming on all around Kathmandu Valley. Each one representing a house, a family, several hearts, souls, and lives. Each one is a different kind of star in the world.

Some are funny. Some are quiet. Some cook food really well. Some have an unlimited vocabulary. Some have big dreams. Some have big fears. Some talk in their sleep. Some don’t like to wear shoes. Some are allergic to peaches. Some can do handstands. Some are born with six fingers. And on. And on. And on.

They are all amazing. And beautiful. And unique.

But the ones I love the most…. Are the ones that shine through the dust and smog of the world. The ones that fight through all the grime. The ones that refuse to acknowledge that it could possibly have any power over them at all to stop them in the slightest.

The ones that are persistent in shining bright and being good. The beautiful, shining stars in the sometimes dim and tired world.  

Everyone’s light grows bit by bit. It doesn’t need to be anything magnificent right now. It just needs to be there.

And growing.

And becoming.

And persisting.

No Comfort in the Comfort Zone

I did write that title correctly.

I actually can’t remember the last time I felt like I was in my comfort zone. This last year has been an interesting one for me. I spent the first four months in Utah going to BYU. Then I went to Alaska for four months to work as a tour bus driver for the cruise ships. Now I am in Nepal for three months doing humanitarian work. Most of my last month will probably be spent in Idaho with family during the Christmas season.

And that’s just this year. I won’t go back any further. There have definitely been plenty of adventures that the other years have solidly claimed as their own. Needless to say though, I haven’t felt super comfortable for a while now.

And yet…. I have.

You’ve probably heard that saying, “There’s no growth in the comfort zone, and there’s no comfort in the growth zone.”

I’m not sure that’s actually true.

While I have definitely been pushed out of my areas of expertise and knowledge and places that I know very well lately, I can’t exactly say that I have been any more uncomfortable then than I have been during some of my previous times of ease. I think I have actually felt more comfortable during the hard, learning phases even than during those easier times in my life.

You know those times. When everything is going exactly right. When you just go through the days one by one and they basically go as you planned them. And when most things around you stay basically the same day after day after ridiculously boring day.

However, times like that don’t seem to happen very often. We praise the world and life when they do though, and wish they would last longer. But they never do. They’re not supposed to. In truth, for me at least, they are incredibly uncomfortable anyway and I am always glad for the relief of their departure.

Why?

God has said that we are Eternal Beings. Eternal first off in the physical sense; we will never truly die. But it also means Eternal in the God-Like Potential sense. We have infinite potential. There is so much that is still untapped within us that we could harness to do good and to become good. There is way more to all of us than anybody seems to realize. Perhaps we would all be frightened if we could truly understand it even in the slightest sense.

The thing is, we will always be most comfortable when we are being who we truly are. When we’re surrounded by things that are who we are, especially things that are buried deepest inside of us.

Including!!! When we are surrounded by our still mostly unharnessed, unimaginable, Eternal potential.

When someone is uncomfortable in their lives, often they will say something like:

“I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t understand.”

Or “It was different than what I knew.”

Perhaps there is still a small amount of unsurety and unsettled feelings during those difficult, growth phases, I’ll grant you that. But is it truly more uncomfortable than being surrounded by everything that you already know?

Your Soul wants to grow. It wants it so terribly bad. It wants to change and fulfill its purposes and abilities and become everything that it’s supposed to become. Laziness or repetition or constant sameness all the time is completely repulsive to it. There should be growth every day in some shape or form. That’s enough to feed its hungry appetite and allow you to go about doing the things that you still have to do.

Like go to work. Change diapers. Take kids to school. Not to say that you can’t have growth in those areas though. There should be growth in all areas. All areas of your life. All areas of who you are. All areas of the world.

So are you really actually comfortable in that so-called comfort area? Or is your soul longing for something else, but we are just too lazy to try? That Natural Man inside each of us is desperately trying to hold some people forever back at the bottom of the mountains of success and achievement.

As are a lot of the socially accepted phrases and teachings in this world. Maybe you should try questioning a lot more things that are told and taught to you. Question your schooling, question your teachers, question this article. I think it’s true. Maybe you don’t. Maybe you don’t believe a word of it in the slightest. That doesn’t hurt my feelings a bit.

But maybe if you’ll actually learn to question things and the very roots they came from, you may start to learn a thing or two that you never even considered to be possible before. New ideas and thoughts will start to flow into your mind. Connections between seemingly insurmountable things will suddenly become clear. There will flow an energy into your soul that you are taking your life and learning into your own hands.

You will take your mind clear out of its “Comfort Zone” and into the comfort zone where it truly belongs. Where growth can actually occur in boundless multitudes.

Well, We Tried

Last week when we were at the Cerebral Palsy Daycare the lady in charge asked us if there was an art that we could teach them the next time we came. She told us that they have done finger painting before and they were wanting to learn something else. After her mentioning finger painting, the first type of art that came to my mind was Paper Mache.

Why? I don’t know. I guess I associate both finger painting and Paper Mache with my childhood. I’ve got some fond memories with both of those.

So that’s what I said.

So today we showed up with our bag of flour and they brought balloons and newspaper. They tore the newspaper into strips while I mixed the flour with water to make a pancake-batter-ish consistency. Then we presented it all to the kids and showed them how to do it.

3 minutes later….

Two of the kids thought that the Paper Mache mix was food and had it all over their faces. One of them was busy smearing it all over the table. Another one was trying to eat the newspaper. We had Paper flour-water mixture on our clothes and the floor. Two of the balloons had popped and scared one of the girls. She was crying and couldn’t be consoled.

And we were just standing there staring at it all.

What was my thought in the very moment looking at the disaster that my hopeful fun idea had caused?

“Well, we tried.”

And then we laughed it off and cleaned it all up. One of the kids was still busy stuffing a fistful of the liquidy substance into their mouth.

Two of us still made some of the Paper Mache on the balloons. We made one for each kid and set them out to dry. Maybe in a few days we’ll try their hands at finger painting on the Paper Mache balls. I’m sure there could be nothing dangerous about that….

Well, we tried.

It’s not the first time we’ve felt failure here in Nepal. The more you try, the more you fail. The more you succeed too though. Sometimes you’ve just got to try with no idea what is going to happen.

The kids had fun though, and we had a good laugh.

You can’t let your fear of failure stop you. You can’t let your lack of knowledge stop you. You can’t let anything stop you. If you want to help bad enough, you’ll start figuring out how.

We all want to help this world in some way. We want to make it a better place for everyone. Most the time though, we have no idea how to do it. So we just start and we figure it out along the way.

It’s been the most amazing experience feeling these failures as well as these successes. Every day is different.

This week I taught a great self-defense class. Then the next day I destroyed a Cerebral Palsy Daycare with Paper Mache.

Well, we tried. And I am happy that we did.

Tara