I have work to do, but I can't concentrate. I can't focus. What is it that I am looking for? What are these distracting thoughts about me about you about life. About the path of life. What is all of this about.

Last night, as I sat on the floor in sweet solitude with my pen and ink and paper, I had a new sort of thought. It was a thought associated with the thoughts that I have been having about why I am here, where I am going, about Paths. Walkways. Roads and plans. I began to wonder if my mindset, my eye on the certain prize has colored my choices, my steps. And I began to wonder if even though I was saying that I will come here to Boise to make new discoveries and to see where things lead, I was still very much committed to returning to the same path that I was on. I said I came here to adopt a new mindset of being less concerned with the path of production and accomplishment and fulfilling some set of expectations, but I don't know if I have really died to that yet. Really. I am sort of in this dilemma of why is it that I have chosen to continue on the path that I am continuing on. Really.

The question: Why am I choosing to return to Colorado, why am I going back to CSU to finish my degree. Part of me, when I ask that question, whispers, "Uh, hello, dear, but it is sort of obvious isn't it? Finishing your degree is what you are supposed to do. To not do that would be like, you know, quitting, flaking out. Not accomplishing what is expected of you in light of 'success'." And then the other side of me has to answer with this rebuttal: Am I finishing my degree just so that I can have something to do with my life? Am I wanting to finish my degree so I can have a secure future with a good job. Do I say I want to teach just becuase it is the only "career" that I want, since I have to choose? I mean, don't get me wrong, I enjoy teaching and I think being a teacher is a role that I am passionate about filling in this world, but I have learned something in all this time being around people. Am I seeking this structure to avoid the hard work of really focusing on relationships?

I want me life to be focused on relationship first. I want this to be my driving passion. "It is the love of Christ that compels us." I want love of the hearts of others to be my driving force. But the thing that I find is that it is really easy for me to get distracted. I think we set up systems in our world that breed these distractions. I am a book worm. Why? Because the sense of accomplishment that I get after completing a task feels a lot more secure that the rejection that I fear. It is a great deal more tangible.

But I don't really want to have that kind of security anymore. But I feel like it is so difficult for me strike a balance. How can I be a student and also be a person. How do I keep my busy school schedule from becoming my whole person? How do I avoid this isolation? How do I indulge my love of learning, reading, intellect, without letting it become more important than the deeper lessons that there is to learn from being with other people.

I am beginning to experience this world of just being with people and enjoying other people and it is all that I want. I feel that our age of information has done us a great disservice in communicating that there is greater fulfillment in earning money and getting our willies from a sense of accomplishment from paper success than the risk of opening our hearts to other people. We become comfortable in our cubicles behind our computer screens-- we become myspace profiles and we email so we don't have to face each other and we think this is safe and nice. And yet we wonder why we have internet addiction-- this type of connection never really satisfies.

And I am beginning to see that breathing the same air as someone else, looking into the eyes of another and hearing the nuances of their cracking voice is so much more life-giving. It is real-- it is soil in place of the plastic that chokes us.

And so as I think about going back to school, I suddenly feel afraid. I am afraid of getting sucked back in. Sucked into this resume-building, stress-induced intensity that perpetuates a system of death from safety. I have been so enjoying earning my livelihood from barista-ing because it helps me pay the bills, but the emphasis is being on a team-- we all work together to get the coffee made, the food served, and the floor swept. It isn't a matter of deadlines and failure to please others. It is a matter of being connected to one another. It is this cycle of helping each other run a business so we can all stay alive in this world. We aren't just serving this giant corporation and getting a paycheck every few weeks to make it all worth it-- we are all playing a part in our own livelihood and the livelihood of those around us. That feels very good. It is very fulfilling.

And so I think about going back to school and I think about the life that I lead here. And the last few days I have been thinking about how even though I have been physically here, I have still been spending a lot of energy maintaining my place in this system-- somewhere else. All that I have been seeking and striving for has been to make sure that I have something to show for myself when this time is done, that in the future, I will have this paper success. This stuff that I can show for myself. What I do for today seems to always be for something somewhere else, somewhere later.

I know I have written before about always planning for the next thing. After I am done with high school, then I go on to college, which is preparation for some career in some capacity, and once I get that big time job, it is in pursuit of the next promotion and then after that it is retirement-- the time that we have time to actually enjoy our lives, if we are able to after our ingrained lifestyles of stress anger lack of fulfillment for the sake of "the man." Who devised this system of enjoying our lives only after we have destroyed our hearts to the point of being unable to enjoy anything.

I know I talk about this a lot and now I have reached a crossroads where I have to intentionally decide how can I make my life truly reflect this idea. What am I doing to enjoy my life today? How much of my life is devoted to maintaining the promise of security for the future. How much of my life is driven by the fear of lack thereof?

There is a lot of focus placed on the importance of being "responsible." We must fulfill our obligations and we must place our lives in such a place that we have those obligations or else what are we called? Bums. We are answering to so many people about how our lives ought to be considering meaningful. What is a meaningful life? honestly? I think there has to be a balance somewhere, but I keep having this sense that we need to always be doing things with our lives that are ultimately driven by love. Even if it is a few layers below the surface, love must be down there.

So a life that is about relationships. I don't want to live a life where relationships are buried somewhere down below. I don't want to live a life where relationships are just a part. I don't want to live a life where relationships are the icing on the cake that make life endurable.

And so another thought emerges from this. If I am still finding that ultimately my life is based on this assumed path of " success" to "success," something is missing. I think this is the thing that really keeps me from being present. When my life is simply about breathing in the lives of the people around me, then tomorrow doesn't matter much, does it? The focus suddenly shifts from me maintaining my own security in isolation to learning how to be more connected to the hearts around my own. And it is this process of investing deeply without expectation, pursuing reconciliation until we find the end (which I'm not sure will ever be reached) and having a loose hand of grace when people move in and out of our lives.

It is a messy process, I find. A process fraught with pain and challenge and the continual need to build new muscles and a bravery to face the deepest of pains. And it is in no way methodical or formulated. And this is why I think we try to cover it over with the "really important" systems of success. Those ladders we try to climb-- maybe we are just trying to get away from the intensity of actual life, the life that goes on in our real hearts. And so we do get away, unfortunately, we get away from the heart that beats and we become hard and wonder why we feel so very dead.

So where will all of thie lead me? I do not know. Today I haven't really accomplished all that much, for which I feel a tiny twinge of guilt, but mostly it is refreshing to seek a balance of what really matters. If I were to do much more today, it seems that it would be out of a sense of obligation. I am experimenting with the idea of spending time enjoying my life every couple of days. I am experimenting with the joy of getting enough sleep at night and taking time to listen to my heart.

Jesus often spent extended periods of time away from the obligations and expectations of those around him-- when crowds were coming to him, begging for healing and teaching, he chose to retreat to solitary places. He wasn't consumed with fulfilling the expectations of others or maintaining any sort of resume-- he clearly rejected that sort of occupation. Being called insane by your family and a drunkard by the religious athority didn't really seem to bother him all that much. So maybe now I will begin writing my speech for tomorrow. just because....

being present. I'm still thinking about it today. As I mentioned in my last post, it was pointed out to me that I am not really being fully present here in Boise. And, as I mentioned in the last sentence. I've been thinking about it.

As some people like to point out (ahem) a question that I have been conitnually posing to myself these past months has been "why am I here?"And as much as that question seems to betray feelings of remorse or uncertainty about the fact that I am here, but i think really, it is a question indicative of an essential process of this whole experience. I have often found the question "why" to be of great value and I think this brand of "why" is important for me now and the lessons I am in the midst of now.

I think it is important to be asking, why I am here, now, in this place, doing what I am doing and where am I headed? I think that the way that I approach this moment is affected by what I have in mind for the future. And i wonder if there is a balance I must seek between planning for the future and being free to be present today. Giving myself to whatever presents itself today, choosing not to withdraw. withdrawal. Something about that idea feels breathless and empty. thirsting for something when that something is simply the glass of water in front of me that I am choosing not to drink.

I want to give myself fully today. I want to invest in the life that I do have here today. And I haven't been. And it is difficult for me to figure out how to give myself to the life that I am living day in and day out here which still knowing that is temporary. And not that I don't have a choice about even that, but that the things that I really do want do make it temporary.

Part of me thinks that most of this makes no sense, mostly becuase it makes very little sense to me. that is why it is still a question. I feel like I just took a bite of just a big question. So please excuse me if my words are not clear while I try to speak with my mouth full.

after a long evening with conversation with a good dear friend, i am realizing that I may not be as content as I thought I was and that I still have a long way to go even now. And I have been reminded that it may be wise to retrieve my mind and heart from where I will be in a few months to where I am in this moment, today.

Be present, she says. Be present. hm.

More and more I see my way of life shifting from following the right religious rules in case anyone ever checks my homework to a way of life driven and permeated by healing. I am seeing old patterns of fear and shame replaced by the desire to love, to know, to connect with those around me. I think less that God is left in a box in the corner for us to use to make ourselves feel good occassionally and I look for him more in the faces of people in the grocery store and and work and in school.

More recently, I have been thinking about the people that I have in my life. I find that I often find that my closest friends, the people I am around most and who know me the best are those like me-- I am not around people often who are not like me. I often wonder why this is and I know that the answer is that these are the people who are most comfortable for me, the people that I am drawn to and the people I feel safe enough to put my trust in. And this is an area that seems like an ongoing goal for me to make changes in.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about the people that I work with. I love my job, I love the opportunities to be busy and productive, but even more than that, it feels so good to be part of a team. And it is a team of people who are friendly and are interested in connecting with others-- including me. And it is enjoyable for me to see the growth in myself to be able to trust those relationships. And those relationships have caused me think more about God, about where he is to be found and the way his image shines in each of them, even though they might not know it.

Something has caught my attention this afternoon. Two of my coworkers are spending significant amounts of time caring for an elderly relative. One woman is working through the frustration of an un-diagnosed illness in her father that has taken his ability to live normally. Another coworker, a girl just my age, is living with her grandfather simply to care for him as he battles the challenge of old age. And for some reason, both of these situations is very intriguing to me. I think it is extremely inspiring, maybe a bit humbling, to watch as they do so much to care for their family. I'm not sure why my attention is so piqued by it, but I think it is something that I am simply going to pay attention to. There is something about this sort of sacrifice on a day to day basis that makes me feel alive. Even though the circumstances are difficult, there is something life-giving about it still.

Ethnos. Imago. I love the idea that our world is so very injected with the beauty and reality of God. I think it is the gift of the artist's eye that allows a person to look at the world as one integrated entity. I look out my window at the front yard, my car and the house across the street and I watch as dust devils swirl the floating snow of the cotton woods and I don't see individual objects as much as I see this thickness of white fluff against the green grass backdrop, mixed with the light blue of the house and turquoise of the suburban. There is a thickness to it all that seems to be full of the essence of reality somehow.

Sometimes when I am feeling very discouraged or depressed, I suddenly snap back to reality with the reminder that the world is so much bigger than my isolated struggles. I don't know why this makes me feel so differently, but when I begin to view my life as part of this big orchestra, this flow of rhythm with parts and players coming in and out and I just get to catch a little slice of a glimpse of it, this greatness of peace just washes over me. Everything feels a bit more hopeful and I feel less alone and that becuase of all of this, things are going to be okay. nothing is quite as big of a deal as it was before. The end of the world doesn't seem to be a real place anymore. Things become three-dimensional again.

And so today I am feeling blessed to be breathing in air in three-dimensional space. I am feeling blessed to be able to catch some small glimpses of the lives around me. I am finding that I am experiencing something new-- this feeling of being surrounded by people, by life. I am feeling so vibrant these days because I feel balanced in my connection to people. I don't go through my day just to get through the semester or to accomplish some task in case someone is checking my work-- no, I am seeking life, breath, joy, connection. There is this strange aliveness that comes from finding your heart near other people in open kinds of trust. I like it.

I have been feeling a great deal of balance lately. Balance. What does that feel like? you ask. It feels a bit like when you stand right on the fulcrum of the teetertotter of life, like even though the board may shift, you are safe, secure, that there is strength there to keep your footing. It is a feeling of peace that goes deeper than a feeling-- it is this sense that even when everything feels off, you know somewhere deeper that there is a footing, a place to rest your feet and find your strength-- even though you might not feel like you have "it," you know of a well where "it" is found. Maybe, even just a little.

These past few weeks have been very peaceful. I think back to places in my life where I felt very good but I did not feel secure. I was in this state of extacy and joy, but feared the day that I my ability to maintain it would finally wane and all would be lost again-- the blackness of the pit would return and life would be hopeless again. But I get this sense that an enlarged view of life makes one realize that the well really does run deep. Maybe it is a greater degree of trust, trust that when things look the worst, when they are the most unclear and confusing, they are only signs of the degree of clarity and joy that will follow. And I don't really know if this is true in all cases, but I just wonder if as the depth of our well of understanding of life grows, so does our trust, our security. When your world is big, there is less unfamiliarity to fear. But I think at the same time, maybe we also begin to recognize how much more there is to learn and experience.

So peace. Joy. Balance. I wonder if this is where true bliss is found-- in this discovery of contentment that Paul speaks of. When we are content, when we make the choice to simply breathe deep when we know how to do nothing else, there is this overwhelming sense of completeness. The wholeness that comes, filling your lungs, allowing yourself this one luxury.

I'm not sure what else I want to say today. I feel quite full today, which feels almost unfair, but oh so beautiful, so right. And what is my purpose in telling all of this to you, you who stop here to peek into my heart-- I hope that you too, are able to give into this peace. That you will find your heart at ease, that you will find your fulcrum in the midst of the swing of right to left. Take a few deep breaths and ask for the peace to know your own beauty and wonder.

Abba, I thank you for your peace, for your arms of safety around me here in this place. I thank you for putting people around me to love and support me, for all that you HAVE taught me in this time about community, about being a lover and allowing myself to be loved. I thank you for contentment and that in the midst of my uncertainty, you do prove to be faithful for TODAY, and that is enough. I thank you simply for you love and your provision for my needs and for the right to care for myself. Abba, I thank you that you are so big. I thank you that even when we stray from the opinions of others and the boxes we try to use to find security, you are still bigger than all of that. That you are as big as the sky and that we are able to freefall in your love-- a love that is so large that the only way for us to begin to take it in is simply to breathe it in-- to trust and hope and cry and be. And to be okay with all the others ways that we do not understand and the ways that we will never be able to explain it to anyone else either. Abba, I just thank you for your love. Love that I cannot understand, but a love that draws me into your arms. Love that takes care of me when everything else around me is crumbling and people are leaving me alone to my own devices. Thank you for your empathy for the cries of my soul. That you hear and you are a God of love, a God of release, a God who is big enough and strong enough to hold it all when we feel like it is too much for anyone else, and yet we are still holding it when it is too big for us too. Thank you that you pick up where we leave off. Beautiful. Abba, thank you for your simple beauty. If this is all we discover of you, I know it will be enough. Make me into a woman who understands this one little thing-- beauty. Thank you is not enough.

A great deal of my body is in pain from too much standing and too much walking this week, so sleep seems to be all so illusive. So what else is there to than to blog?

I am feeling strange, longing for a little sacred, but fearing that that will be out of the picture for a while. I gave away my Sundays. I thought they didn't matter, but I think I am seeing now that they do matter to me more than I thought. I care for my Sundays. Sunday on a Saturday doesn't quite work, it seems. The feeling is different. Things feel more quiet, more special. I have never really had a sunday in all my life that I really did work in the same way as another day of the week.

I am actually beginning to miss traditional church a bit, which is actually quite refreshing. All of this has taught me that most of the time I do not enjoy "church," but being away from it has taught me to appreciate it, despite my frustrations. Sometimes, occasionally, it can be refreshing. Especially after a long absence. It can be refreshing when it isn't one more thing to do, but it is a place to pour out in worship and to be filled when the message comes from a honest heart. I miss it. And I am sad, disappointed, that I am not really going to be able to go for a while, it seems.

Sacred space. I feel like that place of quietness is far away now. Which I think is okay, actually. I used to feel so guilty, so messed up when I didn't feel all that "spiritual," but I am beginning to see that these really are not the things that gain me favor in God's eyes. I am not a "bad christian," which translates to "bad person" because of it. I have the freedom to be free from it. Freedom. And I think when we are separated from these things, then we are able to truly return because we want to-- that is where the joy is found.

Joy. enjoyment. Celebration. I think we get so caught up in doing things that we forget why we do them. And it becomes a matter of guilt and shame, that we bear our crosses in hopes that we can still pay for our own ticket to favor in God's eyes, not because we know that new life comes from the perseverence of suffering with our Christ.

There are some things that have become so engrained in me. They could be rituals, and those are okay, but they could also be chains. Numb, blind, stuck rut-ness. Those trails that get embossed across the mind after being retraced time after time after time. And I think it has been good for me to be freed from those patterns, at least for a while, in order to have an opportunity to step back and observe what they really look like. So I can admire the pretty ones and begin to erase the ugly ones. To re-learn enjoyment.

I have always been intrigued with the idea that Abba longs for us to be people of celebration. That his purpose in putting us here on his beautiful, green earth is for the sake of enjoyment-- that he would have something to pour his love into and that we would simply be here for the purpose of loving him and all he is and all of himself that he had put into all that is. And I am convinced that more than anything, we are called to be people of celebration. To be people of enjoyment.

As I write this, I wonder at my own life-- how much of my energy is put into celebrating? How often is celebration the singular motivation of my heart? Am I living out of celebration, or am I living out of fear, hurt, resentment, anger, frustration, selfishness. What would my life look like if everything was about enjoyment, celebration? Even in the moments that there seems to be nothing to celebrate, how did we get too that moment? What lessons can we celebrate in it?

And another thing-- celebration is hard to do on your own. I mean really. What do we do when there is something to celebrate? have a party, right? And what, in its basic definition, is a party but the cause to bring people together. I think so often in our culture we miss celebration becuase it is so simple-- it is often the singluar task of breathing in the richness of life. It is the basic action of being in the presence of another. We enjoy things when we just take a moment to take them in-- nothing to produce, nothing to save, nothing to prove.

And so I wonder, even though I have to work tomorrow, if that action can still be sabbath in its own way. I think sabbath is taking a day to remind ourselves to enjoy, to celebrate and I think those things are best done simply by taking in that which is good. And what is church but coming together with others to celebrate that which is good? hm. I have heard some people talk about "sacred spaces" before and I wonder if maybe I have just found one. Maybe.

I am learning that sunday can look a lot different from the ways that I grew up seeing it. To be really honest, it is hard. I already miss the special feeling sunday has always had for me, but I wonder if this is just another one of those things that I have to die to in order to see it blossom into new life. The simple experience of Sunday just being different for a little while I think is worth the experience. It is worth trying even that out.

"Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Holy Spirit in the desert, where for forth days he was tempted by the devil. He are nothing during those days, and at the end of them, he was hungry." Luke 4

This passage was a part of my reading for the day and a ffew things about it struck me in interesting ways. In a lot of ways, I feel like the patttern of my life this semester has been a great deal of wandering in the desert and now I feel I have entered a new, green place. I've been thinking a lot lately about getting my needs met and the juxtaposition of silence and speech.

So this passage struck me in a few singular ways. Sometime ago, I read on FollowtheRabbi.com that any mention of the Jordan River is quite significant and the idea of "crossing the jordan" symbolized a certain crossing over in life, a turning point, a covenant, the turning over of a new leaf, if you will. And so the first thing I noticed here was that Jesus knew he was reaching a turning point. The paradigm had shifted.

Second, I noticed that he spent this time in the wilderness and although he was led by the Spirit, he was still ravaged by temptations, the beast of uncertainty. I mean, what is temptation, really? Temptations are presentations of choices about how we are going to get our needs met. He was led by the Spirit, but the choices were still there to make.

Third, when he finished his work in the desert, he was hungry. I mean, at first pass, this may seem obvious; not eating for forty days= hunger, pretty simple. But I think there is something deeper here. At the end of his time in the confusion of the wilderness, he returned empty. He had an accute awareness of what his needs were and the places where his own self-fulfillment ended. He was hungry, probably in more ways than one.

And I think when we immerse ourselves in this type of solitude, when we brave the unclear desert, we place ourselves in a position to return empty. Hunger. Have you ever been in that place? Maybe before Thanksgiving dinner, maybe after a long day of hard work. You return empty with the joyful anticiaption of being filled. After three long months of searching, your joy is so much greater when you find your hands full. When you allow yourself to become empty, everything feels clearer because there has been time to "clean the beach" as someone told me once.

Hm. Interesting. I can't help but look back at January February March and wonder. I was very frustrated at times, but I had this sense that the solitude was so important, even despite how unclear it was and how frustrating it was at times. I needed that opportunity to get hungry before I continued gorging myself on life. Could that be it?

Maybe that is why we get so frustrated in our culture. We get so busy, we gorge ourselves on media, accomplishment, production, that we forget the sweetness that is produced by the emptiness of the desert. We never stop to take a breath and wonder why the air tastes stale all the time.

So Jesus returned hungry. I like this idea. I like it a lot. And so I suppose the question that I must pose to myself now is how do I really work to maintain that rhythm in my life so that I have those moments of hunger?