Today I am thoroughly energy-less. Staying up late watching movies and staying up even later worrying tends to do that to a person, I suppose. I thought getting back up the hill would be so painful, but it was actually the going down that took a greater concentration of willpower. I saw some friends turning left while I was waiting for the orange hand to turn into a glowing white man, legs poised for walking. I was hot and tired and stared blankly. Quite blankly. The Bicycle seat seems to have melded with my body and with or without it, I feel its presence. The brown bike, its old rusty clank of metal, baskets on back, new, plastic headlight in front. The white plastic protecting the precious cable is cracking from the submersion in snow and there is a deep cut of rust across the handlebar where the cable was inevitable pressed so tightly while awaiting the freedom of spring warmth.

I went to Old town today, where the train passes by during the break for donuts and bananas and handshaking, where we talked as a family about what we should do with all the people who keep wanting to be adopted, all the students who need homes and who may inevitably be pulled away later by tests and papers and stress and sleep. And then we talked about what Jesus meant when he said the gold-encrusted Temple would be destroyed and what "the day of his appearing" means for husbands and wives and electric razors clanking in sinks and cars being unmanned and careening into oncoming traffic. And we finished with the reassurance that the Lord is full of compassion and mercy and that fighting seems irrelevant. And as I write this simplicity that I rode my bike a few miles to encounter this morning, I realize some may accuse us of "watering down the message" or whatever the hell you want to say but the thing I appreciate about it is that it feels doable. I think there is this assumption that if people don't leave church feeling "convicted" and heavy (and dare I whisper to say condemned) there is a problem. You are teaching strong enough biblical truth. But I am beginning to wonder if we might be able to incarnate a clearer picture of the father if we don't expect so much of ourselves. Isn't one simple truth enough, especially if it is actually in a small enough bite to handle?

And, as I sat quietly with my tall brown friend at the corner of Howes and Magnolia, waiting for red to turn to green or else the chance to ignore the signs altogether, I began to wonder if the problem of church attendance becomes a problem when our spiritual standing is limited to this small expression of membership or non-membership. I realize this is no new statement, but I feel it becoming refined. The stokes of paint are being built up and the ugly, unreadable colors are getting painted over, the lines neatened up so that if it is ever a matter of fear or control or self-sustaining security in it ever-so-fragile state, it is okay to flee. Or something. I'm still not really sure.

This is what Jesus said: "for whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses hie life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they seen the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."

My ears were perked at the part where he talks about gaining the whole world at the expense of one's very soul because I feel like I am waist-deep in that very river at the moment. This idea speaks right into the heart of employment and matters of time-spending. Why work a secure, well-paying job when it leaves you feeling dead? Because I grew up being told to be responsible, to be grown up, to be a martyr and self-sacrifice to live a life free of risk and hardship.

I had another job interview yesterday and didn't get the job. And hard as I try, I can't help but mull over what could have gone wrong. I just can't figure out who I am supposed to be and what I'm supposed to do. How do you win the mind-reading contest when so much of your livelihood depends on it? I'm realizing I'm not sure what foot to put forward because I'm not sure which feet are mine anymore. I feel as though who I actually am has gotten lost in all the chaos, in all the crowds. And I am afraid of loosing the side of myself that is deep and sincere in attempt to develop the courage to actually be able to share it outwardly. This reconciliation of the inner and the outer sure is hard work and I fear there is danger in loosing one at the expense of the other. And there is something extremely nerve-wracking about attempting to reveal who you are to someone you have never met, is probably at a different stage in life than you and has a great deal of power over your financial security.

But yesterday I was sitting at the Alley Cat mulling all of this over and was attempting to wrap my mind around this idea through a bit of concentration and meditation that the One who is really in charge of my care has already taken me in. I have already won his approval. You are mine, he said, and you are the sheep my my pasture. The faithfulness that I show to you is a continuation of the faithfulness I've been maintaining for generations and generations before you. My provision for you lies within my already-moving flow of faithfulness to my children. And the reality is that I don't really get that, but it is still comforting in a shotty, sort of momentary way. And so this whole employment thing makes me feel a great deal insecure and obnoxious and sever and yet still too shy, but somewhere swimming around I have to believe that all is not hopeless. I am not hopeless.

This week, someone gave me a bit of an extensive lecture about how I can be a real jerk. I'm still struggling on how to respond to that.

So once again, I get a wake up call, a reminder that who I am today is not the same. Something has shifted and changed and there is this sort of invisble kingdom I am working so hard to keep ahold of. This release of my own life and the systems of this world in exchange for my real soul, somwhere down there. Those feet that hopefully someday will become familiar again.