..consistancy

I think that I am discovering the beauty in consistency. Thinking of our modern culture, it is not a character trait that I feel is admired in people. To be consistent is to be seen as stagnant, boring, or unintelligent. The consistent person is the one that is most often abused and neglected, because they can be and when the abuser comes back, they will be there like they always are. Seeing as how it is a trait of God (he tells us that he will never leave or forsake us) it must mean that it is perfect and divine, and therefore an attribute of my own life that I need to begin to strengthen. The amazing thing about it is that I feel as though it is already a part of who I am. I am a creature of habit, a human being with a desire for order and structure and they are at the very nature of who I am. Perhaps this is because I am made in the image of God, I don't know, but I count it a blessing none the less. I see the beauty of this reality in relationship where things might be distant at the time but consistency will allow them to be resolved without bitterness or anger. Consistency in my relationship with Christ is key to my spiritual development. As a friend said today, "I might not know exactly how I am doing at the moment but I am keeping practices alive because I know that my efforts and prayers will be rewarded." God has chosen me and given me new life and bought me back from a life of death, the least I owe him (as blasphemous this is to say) is a regular devotional and chunk of my life. Consistency is the direct parent of integrity and without it there can not really be trust. I think that this is a trait that I often condemn as bringing me to a place of boredom. I don't see the flashy lights or the excitement of spontaneity in it but I think that its an amazing virtue and something that I need to practice into my character.

..thanksgiving

I think that I had my heart Thanksgiving today. Yesterday was nice with the representative motions, but today I actually feel thankful. I guess I am just sitting here realizing how much in my life I have done nothing to obtain, yet have been amazingly blessed with. I had no control over where I was born, to what family, or in what social status. None of these crutal elements of my life were within my power to control and I thank God for the things that he has decided to place in my life. I stand in awe of the fact that I could sleep in a very warm house, wake up and eat a huge breakfast, and then go to the store and purchase items that I 'need'. These blessings in my life are things that I usually take for granted and often times I have the audacity to complain about them because they are not quite living up to my personal desires.

One of these blessing that I have chosen to complain about is my parents. As you can see [haha, like anyone actually reads these] from my earlier post, I was complaining yesterday about my dad. But I realized something today. I have been thinking about the definition of poverty that my Economic Geography teacher posed to our class on Wednesday. She defined poverty as "living without choices". When I look into the lives of my parents right now I can see tension in so many areas and I can also see that there is no choice in many of those areas. This realization made my heart break for them. I take for granted so quickly the incredible blessing of my choices. I have a blank canvas that defines the rest of my life. I rest so assuredly that God has a beautiful plan for my eternity and that it will start here on this earth. I don't really know where my parents are to be completely honest and I am not going to sit here and pretend like I have so much of everything all understood. I guess I am just really thankful for the place in life I am in right now.

..turkey

Today was Thanksgiving. That brings up certain, distinct images of turkey and pie smothered in whipped cream and a million dishes to wash. My Thanksgiving did not really contain any of those stereotypical things in it this year. I ate an acorn squash, peas, a salad and some chocolate cake. I watched Scrubs, Oprah, Joe Dirt, and Blue Collar Comedy. I had a really good converstation with Marilyn and have a stronger desire than ever to have a mentor. But the difference in what I experienced and what is desired as normal flowed over from just the food to the realization of my family situation. I love my parents and brother immensely. They have been so consistent and supportive in my life but there are areas where the tension mounts and I don't know exactly how to release it. I longed to dive in to deep CONVERSATION over the salmon and squash but casual niceties were exchanged and thoughts were taken and given, but hearts were not opened and touched. I desire more than anything to sit down and have an openminded discussion with my father and not have it lead to a point where a soap box is mounted and jumped upon for twenty minutes, with the words of conviction just floating around in the room, never entering any psychies. I want our differences in opinion to be expressed, heard, and understood. That never requires agreeing with the other person. Civil discussion is obtainable. Perhaps a reverse soap box mounting must occur on my part. I want to strongly and accurately declare the person that God is making me into to my parents and I think that a forced soap box experience might be the only way to achieve that. I am done listening to one sided battles about capitalism, evolution, Mountain View, liberals, and my brother. I don't want to be talked at anymore. It is an insult to my intelligence and personhood and does not bring me into a loving, give-take relationship with my father. I want to have balanced and healthy conversation. I don't have any idea how to achieve that though so I suppose I will continue to use my current methods of communication which just leave me pissed off.

..disparity

Oh dear. The reason that I am writing again is the reason I opened up this thing in the first place, because in a meager way I feel like I can organize my thoughts and let them flow out into my fingertips much better than letting them sit in my mind. Maybe this process will clarify the spiderweb of thoughts in my brain but I think I will just need to see at the end of this post.

My subconscious brain dialogue has been very conflicted over the last two weeks or so. My heart is struggling immensely in the tension of the role of discipline in my life, the structured things that I must do or feel propelled to do (i.e. Bible reading, praying, church attendance, tithing, Sabbath, memorization). I manifested this struggle verbally to my small group to keep me accountable for these things and handed out paper check lists, in organized rows with boxes to make marks in. My discipleship class has harped on the disciplines of life and the things that really make up the core of our being that we can control. I have been in a perpetual cycle of thought, conviction, action, and then tension as I stumble my way through that class.

The essence of my heart is struggling right now though. I don't really know my pure self, because its me and I can only see myself in a reflection, not in a reality, and because the LORD says that, "The heart is deceitful above all things. Who can understand it? I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind..." But I think I understand the emotions that I am experiencing because of it.

I am falling into this little dilemma, or disparity if you will, between the world and heaven. My flesh and my being a child of the King. My fallen human nature and God. The tension is growing slowly and it is gaining momentum. I am growing in knowledge about the awesomeness of God, his holy and divinely perfect nature, that never changes, loves without selfish motive or condition, and pursues me until the ends of the earth even though I usually I am running away. The more I discover and uncover in the scriptures and through other people, the more I stand in awe of the amazing God who calls me his own. This being absolutely true, the opposite reality of life is true as well. I know the extent of sin on earth, well actually I know a slice and that's enough to overwhelm me. I see the brokenness in everything I do and attempt to do. My false motives and pride can shine through everything in my being and I am so troubled at my core with who I am. That concern is also manifested throughout the earth and the propensity of the world to fall into life without God is such a reality that I experience more and more every day.

This leaves me in a hard place, both internally and externally. Paul could not have said it better than in Romans 7:14 through 25: "We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I have I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do- this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is the sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. WHAT A WRETCHED MAN I AM! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God- through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

The internal struggle is that what it is explained above; its this tension in my soul about having desires for something amazing in Christ and then looking at the flawed human being that I am supposed to accomplish it with and then just becoming so frustrated by it. I see all of the lists of things that I need to do, or think that I need to do to please God, have an effective Christian witness, and to be of value in the kingdom of God. I see my good intentions and then see myself and my lack of follow through and my brokenness and feel trapped in a the paradox of divine humanity.

The external is my life and the way that I live it. I have a tension in my living situation and the way that I operate throughout the entirety of my life and I don't know what to do with it.

I think that I have come to the realization that for me, my Christian journey isn't necessarily going to be this one way street to spiritual maturity, and heaven will just be the next stepping stone of life, but much more like widening canyon. The realities of both my humanity and the world are on one side and God is on the other and they slowly drift apart, the more I become aware of both of them. I am being stretched and pulled because I exist in both worlds, I have a foot on both shores and my body is being pulled to the tearing point. I am a child of God, created in his image, yet I am stuck in a body throbbing with sin and decay.

This makes me think that when I get to a point where heaven is right around the corner, that it will be the ultimate release of my soul. That is won't just be this slipping of me into the next phase of existence, but will be the release of an endless build up of incredible life tension. Heaven, meeting Jesus, and being whole will be the ultimate reward to a life of struggle and homelessness.

There is something that gives me a glimmer of hope and it started in a little paperback with cardboard and duct tape on the front of it. An introduction to an irresistable revolution of love for God and others captured my heart and gave me resources for a future hope. I think that if I closed my eyes really tight and looked into the cravasses of my soul, I would find these dreams: I want a house, two story with a wheel chair accessible ramp next to the flight of rock stairs. In two bed rooms, 6 of us would sleep, eat, pray, struggle, scream, laugh, cry, and worship together. We would have meals with exuberant guests of all sorts and our guest bedroom would always house a random array of visitors. Lives would be shared and love would flow endlessly and there would be a humble but powerful light illuminating it continuously. The freedom felt within the walls of this community would allow us to enter back into the world of Seattle Pacific and life, the clay vessels that we are, but with more faith and more excitement because Jesus' calling and our lives would be coinciding. There would be incredible communion of souls, as we all run toward Jesus for life, bringing us to the same place, through the same experience in Him.

I don't really know what to tell myself as I sit here and type this all out. Maybe I don't have to say anything though because I think that it might be Jesus' part. Maybe this tension is being built so that if I ever get lucky by experiencing a little bit of heaven on earth, I will have felt that hunger in the depth of my soul and "just as I have recieved Christ as Lord, I would continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in faith as I was taught, and overflowing with thankfulness." [Colossian 2.6-7]

..blood

I sit in the room in a cold, steel chair, thinking through intricate complexity within the depths of my brain. I think and then think about thinking, plunging me, fully submerged into the mess of all of it. The steel is cool against my bones and marrow, chilling me to the core of my being. My eyes turn from the neurons inside my brain and scan the landscape of the room that I find myself in, noticing that it is washed apathetically in the greyness of an emotionless existence. The bare floor provides no warmth and my eyes peel back the layers of this reality to find nothing desirable underneath it. As my eyes probe the space, I see it out of the corner of my eye and pretend like it's not there. After turning away, my heart looks for it in the greyness, not finding it, I admit failure, and my eyes return to the empty space on the wall, tensely embracing the deafening solitude. After a few moments it flickers and I summon up the courage to turn and take a glance. In the fframe of the door window, I see a backlit man standing with the brightness of all light fighting to take him over. His body shifts as our eyes fall in line and his ears raise with an exuberant smile. After the joy of the moment has fully matured, his hand rises from his side, up to the door and faintly knocks on the cold steel. I sit and watch, wondering exactly what he is doing. Doesn't he have other doors to knock on right now? But due to my lack of movement generated from the knock he starts to pound harder. I don't know exactly what to do with myself and I feel as though he was attempting to invade my greyness. But the pound, pound, pound grows in my ears, pulsing the hammer, anvil, and stirrups, leaving me with the only option of closing my eyes, hoping the noise will disappear and take the light along with it. But the sounds don't go away, they get lounder and explode all over the walls of greyness into a bloody mess. And the passionate bleeding of unanswered sound streams down the walls, beginning to spread thinly over the conrete floor. Once the red is consuming the entirety of the room, I start to think that something must be done. The tenseness of action tingles in my feet and the blood red has soaked through my All-Stars making movement madatory. Slapping my knees in resolution, I rise from my chair, and head towards the door. The pounding has all but ceased and the light is now filtered through a veil of redness. I stop in front of the rosey illuminicity and touch the cold steel of the door handle on the cold steel door, summoning the courage to twist the knob, my heart leaps and skips approximately three thousand beats. The intensity of not knowing what is on the otherside breaks my bones and I felt so foolish when all that I saw was an emptiness of light, with no man to be seen. But then a faint whisper to my right catches the corner of my ear and I realize that he is collasped on the ground, laying in a small pool of his own blood. He whispers softly that he was playing the flute for me but he never saw me dance, and then he tried to play a dirge and I sat there, emotionless in my lonely room. And then he pounded and pounded and pounded but movement never entered into my bones and I just sat there, motionless. I don't really know what to say to this man that wanted to be with me enough to kill himself, to take himself the end of his life to simply be in my room with me. So I sit down, once again deep in thought, but of a different kind, where I am not the center but the orbiting mass around this man. Who is he that he would want to know me enough to die for me? Who am I that I ignored him until this point?

..alone

I believe that there is a distinct difference between being lonely and being alone. Right now I feel very alone. I feel like that there are people in my life that I love incredibly and experiencing the depth and breath of friendship this year has been incredible. I feel like there are so many more people in my life to pour into and my heart is overwhelmed with joy thinking about these possibilities. I love nothing more than to sit down with someone and peer into their soul, digging to the point where they know someone actually cares. It makes me slightly gitty. I am very grateful for these feelings and thank God for them daily, except I think that he is bringing along another longing. I have been faced with this idea of not being known this year. I have experienced it shallowly in my small group, but I have not dumped my load yet so I don't feel like there is much intimacy. I have become exceedingly frustrated with my parents and their apathy when it comes to developing an authentic relationship with me. I want to badly for someone to know who I really am, at the marrow of my soul and I have come to the realization that the only person who will ever be able to do that is Jesus. I am so thankful to him for making needs and passionate longings that only he can fill. Divine comedy. I however feel very alone in this time of my life. Perhaps God is revealing that I am alone to prepare me to not be in that state. I feel like the gradual exposure to marriage begins with an uneasiness about one's current situation. I don't know if that is actually the reason for this feeling and I feel very trite and cliche when I mention that concept. That said, I do want someone to walk through life with more than anything else right now. Someone who is willing to ask me how my day is without me asking first. Someone who will see pain on my face and ask me how I am doing, never thinking about when I will reciprocate the same question. I want someone who will care enough to take two hours out of their day, walk to gelato and experience a slice of life with me. I want someone who is willing to risk a little, trust a little, and have faith in the person I am, with all of my wounds and oddities. I long for someone to accept me how I am but push me into who I need to become, not a leader on a project site but as a co-laborer on this journey of life. The aloneness I feel can be tasted in large groups of people, hallow conversations, mock deep conversations, and empty phone calls. I want to loose this grip on a life of mediocrity and allow the passions of my heart and my longing for so much more take me higher and higher into the presence of Jesus. I want to experience this with someone else who is just a little bit crazy. I will be waiting...