Steps

Seven years ago, a very normal incident sparked a series of events that threw me into one of the craziest, richest journeys I've ever walked and blew the dust off of a faith that was beginning to grow stale.

I met one of my best friends while walking home from school one day. I didn't know her very well yet, but we struck up a conversation, which led to the topic of God, and I found myself inviting her to church the following Sunday. I wasn't aware of it then, but that moment was a catalyst launching me into an adventure of faith. She came to church with me that Sunday, and a hundred Sundays after. She just didn't stop coming and I had the privilege of being with her when she accepted Jesus about a year later. This past weekend (six years later) we went to a Christian youth conference for our fifth time, except we went as leaders rather than youth. The transformation is stunning: now my friend is pouring into the lives of youth, telling them about living for Jesus and ministering and serving and worshiping; not because she now has a perfect life, but because she has hope and a healing heart.

As we led together, I was struck by the richness of this friendship and all the intense pain and crazy laughter we've experienced together as we've both learned how to follow Jesus: she, as a brand new Christian, and I, as a pastor's kid redefining how and why I believed and carried out my faith. We have so many strange and beautiful and God-filled stories, and what we've experienced could probably fill a book but what strikes me, what humbles me, is that I could have missed it all.

I could have ignored the prompting to invite her to church. I could have swept the invitation under the rug of my fear or hesitation but by God's grace I didn't. That one small risk led to a dozen more and it built a relationship, which grew two faiths in completely different ways. The effects have reverberated across the miles that separate us and through the years till now. So much fruit and blessing has come from one blip of a moment. One tiny act of obedience altered everything.

Sometimes a small step is all that is needed to drastically shake up our lives and push us into a better version of ourselves. Sometimes the best way to see Jesus is to take a risk and lean in and trust hard. It probably won't be smooth or easy. My friend didn't become a Christian the next day; it was a year before she accepted Christ. In fact, much of our relationship has consisted of wrestling with hard questions, and walking through many experiences of heart-wrenching pain, but I think, through it all, we taught each other how to press into God, how to let Him be sovereign, and how to experience a mysterious joy in difficult circumstances.

Take a small step in faith, and it might bring clarity to some of the foggy edges in our lives. It might involve sacrifice, but it might also produce rich blessing. It might answer some of our most difficult questions and leave us with harder ones. It might stretch us, but it might also propel us to continue on. We might be glossing over our fullest life because we're being tugged back into fear or tunnel vision or a list of rules. Dare to take a step and follow a prompting and watch what tumbles out of that. It could be that behind the risk, tucked under the unknown, a shower of blessing is waiting to be unleashed.

Autonomy

I'm trying to think of what has been on my mind in all the leftover space. To be honest, I haven't been hashing through any grand or lofty issues. Sometimes I just get very quiet and contemplative and content with the present moment. That has been happening a lot lately. I've just been appreciating life and where I am right now, soaking in time, praying quiet prayers, and generally flying under the radar. I really love flying under the radar: not in the sense that I am underestimating myself, but in the sense that I know myself, I'm secure in where I am and where I'm going, and I like having ambiguous areas in my life that only I know about. 

A steady theme in my life this year has been the idea of becoming autonomous- not relying on anyone else or anything else for my identity, yet being part of a community and loving it well. I'm so prone to dive in and latch on to places, ideas, people, and when the time comes to move on, the rip is anything but clean. I leave kicking and screaming and finding hollow places in myself that I try to cover will all these external things. Not anymore. I've brushed up against that elusive balance between independence and interdependence. We all need people and places and seasons, but not as saviours. 

I wrote the above over a month ago. As the end of first year approached, I began reflecting on the past eight months more often, in quieter moments. It's funny how little memories remain impressed in my mind. They seemed so insignificant at the time, but really those little moments were mini turning points, pulling and twisting me into change and a new perspective. Looking back, I was so right. I'm done school now. I've said good bye and, somehow, I'm not very sad. Of course, I know I'll be going back next year but the old me would have tried to hold on to little pieces of this past year, attempting to preserve them. Now I've come to realize that good friends, good places, good experiences are a gift to be enjoyed and thankful for. There are always endings, but there are always beginnings, too. Life ahead is full and promising.

I remember one night, in the middle of winter, I was in my room, wrapped in a blanket, and suddenly I had this clear thought: "Christy, what do you actually want?" It wasn't a selfish question. I had been frustrated with myself and cloudy areas in my life that didn't seem to be working out in a very clean or ideal way. When that question dropped in my mind, I was reminded that I was drifting toward a very problematic path of living in a way that seemed "right" because it was the direction that I perceived most other people to be walking. However, when I thought about it truthfully, I realized that it didn't fit with who I was at the time. I was trying to shuffle myself into a "norm" rather than being honest and making decisions for myself.

That moment released a dozen others just like it over the next few months. Surprisingly, staying true to myself and the direction I knew that God was guiding me in allowed me to love others in a more free and accepting way. I think it made me more secure in myself. It's a strange paradox: focus on yourself, and you will be freed to live for others. I've been trying to unravel it for a while because it can be so easily misinterpreted or misunderstood, but it is something essential that I had been missing for so long.

It might be the difference between people pleasing and loving people. I think before I would have said that I was "living for others," but really I was trying to bend into the person I thought they wanted me to be. That isn't helpful for anyone. Rather, maybe this paradox should look more like: know yourself, and you will be freed to love others. If I were to nail down one part of me that changed the most this year, that would be it. Know yourself, love others.

For me, this "knowing myself" part meant allowing myself to own opinions and speak them. It meant exploring who I am as an artist and understanding who I am not. It meant balancing time spent with people and time alone. It meant figuring out a new rhythm of prayer and listening to God. It meant staying healthy mentally, physically, and emotionally. This is only the beginning of my personal list. There are so many things that tangle and cross to converge within us as humans, and it is the untangling and massaging out the knots that teaches us who we are, one lesson at a time.

Autonomy. It's something I didn't know I needed to grow in until it happened. I'm seeing now how being a Christian is a lifelong journey. I am constantly being taught and changed by God and it is always intriguing to me how God is going to grow me next. It is such an adventure, and it never fails to challenge me, perplex me, and bless me in hundreds of different ways. Like I said, endings always trail into beginnings. Life ahead is full and promising.

The One I Didn't Want to Post

I didn't want to post this. There is nothing scandalous here, no deep, dark secrets, but being vulnerable in a public space is just rough, sometimes. Often I'll learn things about myself and it turns into a post and I just kind of pray, "God? Couldn't you teach me about some kind of world issue or.... I don't know, something else that isn't so personal!? Couldn't this be a bit less like a journal?" But no, this is what it is.

As a little update, I've been keeping up my weekly pilgrimages to the mall to pray. I keep the fact that I do this pretty quiet in "real life," because I love having this space in my week totally carved out and secret. I've had so many interesting encounters and experiences on these outings, and it is a rhythm that has enhanced my life, and my relationship with God, so much since first semester. it is amazing how simply taking the time to show up and pray expectantly, or just sitting in silence, has opened my eyes and my heart. It has been a way to intentionally refocus, and it has been so, so worth it.

I've changed so much over these past two semesters of school. One of the prayers I pray most often is: "God, what needs to change in me now?" I find that those prayers are always answered in the most interesting and startling ways.

That essay I wrote about? The issue was less about the content and topic of the essay, and more about what it sparked in me. I'm finished it now, but I've been thinking hard about all of this, grappling with this passion I have for writing and where I want to take it from here. I say I'm grappling with it because, really, it has been a point of contention with myself for as long as I can remember.

Writing is what makes me fundamentally myself. Words on the page expose my most truthful self, something that can't be expressed in any other way. On the other hand, I've always wished that I had a different gift. I've tried to store this one away, hide it, downplay it, pretend that it isn't mine. I've been frustrated that writing isn't a necessarily "performable" talent (like dancing or singing), I've kicked back against the honesty that writing forces me up against every time.

When I think of who I am, the first two words I would use to describe myself would be "writer" and "introvert," both parts of myself that I've wanted to change countless times as I've grown up. I've always had this strange wish to be a logical, extraverted person and not this quiet, creative personality that I've been given. I remember, as a very young girl, retreating to my closet to write among stacks and stacks of papers; half finished ideas, stories, letters. I hid it all. Even now, I equate writing with hiding to some extent.

Hiding. Flying under the radar. I've been a bit of a wallflower all my life because it is the most comfortable place for me to be. I prefer to stand away from the spotlight. My idea of a good time mostly consists of activities that can be done alone. That is my niche. However, as a Christian, being alone all the time isn't what I've been called to do. I've also been given this intense love for people, and I've been learning to balance my natural tendency to retreat and this calling to love people.

So- writing. It is uncomfortable. It is gritty. It is also one of the most fulfilling parts of my life. Just as I haven't been called to hide away, I have also not been called to stifle my gifts or hoard them selfishly. That is why I share my writing. It is not something that I want to do, exactly. I'm not here to impress anyone or imply that I have all the answers. This is what I have been given, though, and every time I have used this gift, I've been blessed in countless ways. I'm reminded of the parable of the talents in the Bible, the one where the servant buries the treasure his master gives him rather than putting it to use. That is not who I want to be.

This year, praying about what needs to change, I've grown into myself more than ever. I've begun to embrace this creativity, my writing, my opinions. I'm trying to hide less and settle more into what I've been given.

This is where I stand now, at the edge, batting questions back and forth and peering through keyholes in search of answers. I'm constantly being pushed into uncomfortable corners of honesty and truthfulness, and I'm learning to be okay with that. I'm learning balance and autonomy and wisdom. I'm learning to accept the gifts I've been given and use them well. I'm learning that change is an ongoing process and that when I ask, I will receive. When I press in and really seek, I will find. I might not find what I thought I wanted, but that is the beauty of it all. There are so many unexpected gifts in so many unexpected places.

Navigating the Sacred and the Secular as a Student

I'm writing an essay at the moment for an English class at school and the main themes of the essay, the main ideas that I've been kneading out lately, are the intricacies of the body, the spirit, and the mind. I've been thinking over basic questions like "what does it mean to be human?" and "what is this empty space in our spirit that propels us to search for meaning and fulfillment?"

Of course, as a Christian, I have the easy, Sunday school answer to these questions: Jesus.

And yet, I'm still wrestling with the themes in these texts I'm analyzing. There is a fundamental lack of hope and a cry of desperation ringing in them. They are wrung through with rebellion. The main characters are lost souls searching for love and fulfillment and meaning in all of the wrong places. The texts deal with a burning anger toward Capitalism, absent fathers, injustice, and an overall sense of numbness and despair.

I can't gloss over these themes and write an upbeat, optimistic essay that preaches "These people just need to become Christians and all of their problems will be solved." Of course I believe that Christianity and belief in Christ is what offers us hope and joy and life and everlasting peace. Of course I believe at the very core of myself that all these gaps are the absence of God, that these people are lost and searching and I know what they are searching for. I know what could redeem these stories, these poems, these films.

The problem with being a Christian at a secular University, studying secular literature with rough edges and gaping questions, is that not all the edges are pinned down so neatly. (Frankly, I don't want to pin them down so neatly, either). There is no opportunity for me to bend these texts in a way that points to Christianity and Jesus without sounding superficial or judgmental. It wouldn't be appropriate to slide in a "Christian perspective" paragraph at the end that neatly boxes the whole package into a compartment of hope and cozy theology.

This is an essay of analysis, not opinion. I don't write everything for school with a Christian slant by any means, but lately I've decided to critically look at how I can have a strong voice in the world of secular academics and literature without slipping into a safe category of "inspirational," or kicking every topic toward the same theme.

I believe that Christian literature and writing has its place (hence this whole blog and the foundation of most of my own personal writing), but I've also been thinking about how to expand my reach, my arena, my worldview. I don't think that every Christian has to get a Christian job or go to a Christian school. These are options that must be critically assessed. For some, these areas will be the perfect fit. That will be the place where they thrive and grow and bless and minister in the best way. For others, though, being strapped to the Christian bubble beyond their church community will be restrictive, unrealistic, or suffocating to them. Some people will weave in and out of both circles.

What am I trying to say?

As Christians, there is a delicate balance between becoming immersed and connected within a solid community of believers, and engaging beyond ourselves. Both are extremely important to pursue. However, there are sometimes grey areas between allowing our faith to propel our love, our values, and our opinions, and brushing up against, or creating the perception of, manipulation, judgement, or exclusion through our actions, our art, and our words, both written and spoken (even if it is unintentional). Is it fear or comfort that is binding us to our Christian circles, or is it the foundation of community, a passion that thrives best there, or a genuine calling?

As I said before, I don't write all of my essays through a Christian funnel, but I've been realizing that I am standing in a unique position right now as a student and a young adult. I should think about how my beliefs colour my studies, my relationships, and my work, especially my creative work. I've become aware that I have a voice and that is both a privilege and a humbling responsibility. I'm beginning to see this seam between the sacred and the secular more clearly than ever now. In some ways, I've witnessed a skillful and loving bridging of the two, in other ways, I still see a clear divide, and, in a few contexts, I've found a dilution of one into the other that mixes contradictions to produce a confusion of loyalties.

So this is the wild mess that I am picking through right now. I have a fairly clear vision of the road that I am personally walking, but I don't want to overlook new lessons I can learn here and now. I have no easy answers, except to navigate these issues through prayer and to continually align my focus through reading the Bible, becoming familiar with Jesus' character, and following in his footsteps. I want to remain discerning, malleable, open-minded, yet anchored, as I ask questions, press deeper, and wander through this journey we call the Christian life. It's a tangle of brokenness and hope.

Slow Release

Last week was a hazy sweep of work, laughter, emotion and action. The days smudged together and time warped and Friday night was so welcome. The week exhaled to a close.

I've been thinking about Lent in between all of the chaos. I have a few blog posts written and saved in a document on my laptop that wander through my thoughts about Lent, but none of them seemed authentic enough to share.

Last year, I engaged in Lent for one of the first times and it altered something in me on a very deep level. It taught me about looking outward rather than inward. It taught me about trust and prayer and walking on the edge of wonder and anticipation.

I prayed for five different people over the forty days of Lent. I didn't decide to do this because of Lent, but it happened to come up around the same time, so I ran parallel to it, grafting myself into the practice. The five people didn't know that I was praying for them, but I saw very direct and clear answers to my prayers manifested in their lives. Something fresh and rich grew up in me during that time and I point to that season as one of the most healthy and vibrant periods in my life.

I wanted to recreate that experience again this year. I wanted to have a focus and a direction and, to be honest, a cool story to tell about it. I've been trying to bend myself into Lent by attempting to find something meaningful to give up. Lent has already started and I still haven't pinpointed what to go without.

What is really resonating in my spirit right now is a quiet "wait for me." I think that I might simply need to use this Lenten season to sit and wait in expectation for God. Something in me pushes back against this. I don't want to wait. I want to see. I want to experience. I want the miracle and the transformation right now.

On the weekend, I engaged in a worship session that brushed up against a callous place in me. I realized that, somehow, I've been gripping burdens like a lifeline and their weight is pulling me down, suffocating my spirit, squelching my joy at times. I don't know what exactly I'm holding onto, but it is allowing fear and insecurity to seep in around the edges.

I thought I was done with this. I thought that I had found freedom from all of my fears already. I can't believe I've come full circle. I didn't properly guard myself against relapse. All of these thoughts caved in on me as I realized how heavy and ingrained these burdens are. They have begun to grow and intertwine like vines to build up a protective layer, a shield, a wall of distance.

A constant unclenching of the fist. Really, isn't that the essence of Lent? Isn't it about giving up, about going without, about regaining focus and grasping meaning in the hollow space that has been channeled into your life? What will fill that gap? Will it be new truth, or a conviction, or simply some air for breathing room?

Maybe, instead of giving up coffee or committing to a different way of prayer for Lent, I need to wait and reflect and begin to loosen the knots that have blunted my spirit and my trust. This whole season must be a slow release, an uncurling of the fingers. It takes time to pull away the layers. The deepest lies are not easily redirected. The heart of a burden is buried deep.

Rather than letting go at the beginning, this Lent will be a journey of release.

Journalling, Special Tea, and Sacred Spaces

There has been an idea growing in my mind lately that threads in and out of my normal thoughts. Last night it surfaced again and I couldn't file it away, so I decided that it was time that I make it happen.

Before university I was a coffee lover. I still am a coffee lover. Strong, full tastes appeal to me and the robust flavour of coffee tops the list. I was convinced that I would be the ultimate candidate for full blown coffee addiction in university but, in a surprising twist of fate, I have switched my allegiance to chai tea. Coffee has slipped to a (very) close second. I will still drink coffee at any hour of any day, and I still love the taste, but chai tea has become my drink of choice here.

There is a chai tea blend at Teavana that I love. I ask for it unsweetened, without sugar, and it is the most amazing drink ever. It is my Special Tea, a tea that I will only ever reserve for special occasions because I do not ever want to get tired of it.

The idea that dropped into my mind was to strike out to the mall, get my Special Tea, grab a booth and do some writing, and that is exactly what happened. Maybe it is abnormal for someone my age to say that they absolutely loved going to the mall to drink tea alone, but I'll admit to it.

One of the best parts of the whole excursion was writing on paper again. I've written in a pen-and-paper journal since I was nine and, in recent years, I've journalled almost every day. However, university changed more than my preferences in hot drinks: I stopped journalling on paper. It blindsided me a little. I didn't expect that over a decade of writing in pen and paper would dissolve in a matter of a few months, but it did. 

Maybe this is part of why I feel this silence so acutely. Journalling has been my form of prayer, of connecting to God, of debriefing the day, of holding myself in check, and tracing back to see how I've grown. I didn't anticipate this discipline changing as drastically as it has. I tried to keep it alive at the beginning, but it felt forced and unnatural. 

I made an executive decision and declared a paper journal hiatus. All my personal writing had deferred to a Word document on my laptop, so I decided to allow that to become my stand-in journal. It is still good, but it is not the same, and I was reminded of that when I sat down in the booth today with my tea. 

When I sat down to write this morning, it felt like old times again. My writing is the most authentic and raw when it is written on paper and I could feel a release of pressure with every line filled.

Pages and pages later, I had to force myself to stop.

That hour in the mall this morning, just drinking tea and writing and praying, stayed with me the whole day. I've been thinking over it, wondering why my journalling (and when I say journalling, that is synonymous with prayer) only worked when I completely removed myself from my normal location.

A change of space. A meeting ground. An intentional connecting of heart and spirit. Maybe this is where I need to be more often. When I lived at home, I would journal at the end of the day in my room. Here at school, my room is where a large part of my life unfolds. I study and work in my room. It is my home base. At home I never did anything in my room except sleep and read and journal. It was, in a way, a sacred space.

Carving out sacred spaces is a theme that I have noticed subtly unfolding in my life over the past few months. I've met God in coffee shops, on bridges, and in an empty atrium. Maybe the shape of this season includes intentional pauses and finding a location to do nothing but meet with God. 

I'm going to try to do this on a weekly basis: to very intentionally carve out portion of my day to meet with God somehow. It doesn't have to be Special Tea every time, but a new rhythm needs to form. A rhythm of meeting. A rhythm of expectation. 

A rhythm of sacred spaces.

Hollow {Or: Silence. Part 2}

My life is a constant rhythm of one step foreword, three steps back.

Or so it feels.

I'm usually spinning in ten different directions in my mind, dissecting thoughts, analyzing everything, noticing details. It's normally a pretty crazy place in there and I'm juggling all the ideas and words in a valiant attempt to shuffle them into some kind of linear sense.

Lately, however, I've become a mellow line rolling steadily onward.

It has been really, really quiet around here.

My last post was all about silence and growing through it, but I feel as though I'm growing out of it at this point. I desperately want to shake things up. I don't recognize this place and I miss the random bursts of colour, the unpredictable, the anticipation of possibility.

: :

Smells are very important to me for some reason. I go rogue in soap and lotion stores. I'm not into anything too fruity or too perfume-y. The smell has to be distinct, yet subtle. Smells are directly connected to location and memory (and I didn't make that up, either. That is an actual fact). I found a lotion today that I used for all of first semester, and one whiff took me back to the days of early fall and econ class and the different shades and nuances that season held for me.

Now I am here and in some ways I feel as if I have digressed. I like to think that I'm always pushing foreword and growing, constantly building up and gaining new ground. These days, though, I'm either stalling or rolling backwards. I get moments of air and clarity sprinkled throughout my days and, in those spaces, I convince myself that I'm totally fine. What was I worrying about again? There's nothing wrong. It'll work itself out. Life is dandy.

Then I notice how quiet everything is.

What I'm really doing here is kicking around the inside of my shell, trying to punch a hole in it. I really hope I'm making sense, but if I'm not, I'm ok with that too. I don't have all the answers. This is a journey and I'm standing at a point in the road where I can't see where I'm going. It's a little foggy.

: :

In attempt to gain some direction, I've been running over these frayed ends, trying to pull them together in some kind of connection. Scattered ideas are all I have.

• I could be on the verge of something. I feel as though I'm walking around with a blindfold on and earplugs in, stumbling around with my arms waving out in front of me, but when this blindfold comes off, I could find myself further ahead and standing in a place of more brilliant freedom and maturity. I can let this silence create distance between myself and God, or I can press in and allow it to draw me closer toward him. 

• I might need to do something. There is a thought bouncing around in the back of my mind that I need to stop thinking sometimes and start doing things. I don't think this means ignoring underlying issues or pretending away what I feel, but I might be overthinking all of this just a bit. It might be time to pull out of all the theorizing, stop connecting the dots and start taking action.

• I am not defeated. Honestly, all of this quiet kind of trailed me into autopilot after a while (hence the plodding mellow line). All of last year I lived with a sense of total and complete awareness of God. I was still a confused and wandering mess of a child, but I'd seek hard and pray hard and watch intently as God kept showing up in my life. It floored me every time. Somewhere, somehow, the bottom cracked a bit. I felt it, but at the beginning I had no idea how the hollowness would reverberate through every part of me. I still pray all the time, but I'm not as expectant as I used to be. My prayers wilted a little. I'm walking around with an attitude of defeat when I should be standing in a posture of victory and freedom. 

This is me shuffling through, scraping back, and trying to regain my footing. This is a messy part, choppy water, but when is life ever a free ticket to serendipity? Usually the most joyful moments are found in pockets scattered over the hard road. I've lived this. I know this. 

Sometimes it takes a while for my heart to catch up with my head. 

*Note: I am not blaming God or suggesting that I need to do something to "gain his favour" again. What I am getting at is this: I am prone to wander. I have so much more to learn. God is always faithful. I may not understand, but maybe I don't have to, and maybe I never will. The word "trust" comes to mind....

Silence and a Hymn

Sometimes you just need a quiet space and a way to worship.

To be honest, I've been walking through one of those periods of spiritual quiet for some time, now. I've been straining to hear, craning my neck to see, but nothing comes.

I've kept my eyes and ears open, waiting for a glimpse or a whisper, but all I receive is a reverberating silence and my own words dissolving into thin air.

I would say that it has been a source of tension for me, and it has, but it has also been a calming type of quiet. Yes, I've tossed a few harshly worded prayers to heaven in moments of frustration, but I have also come to know the silence well and sometimes, if I look or listen hard enough, I can see a shadow or echo of presence, a ripple of something more real that I know moving beneath the surface.

I am not alone, and when I press into the silence, I understand that. I know that a friendship has reached a deeper level when I can simply sit in comfortable silence with the other person. Perhaps this kind of silence from God is similar.

When the silence comes, I become more alert. My senses are sharpened because I'm desperate to hear, to see, to feel. When this period of silence is over, I know I will appreciate my relationship with God in a fresh way. I'm not taking Him for granted.

I am simultaneously waiting in peaceful quiet and actively searching for God. I know I am not abandoned, yet I can't wait to come to the place of meeting again.

Patience.

Those frustrating moments I mentioned? They agitate, like sandpaper against the soul. My heart is a stone and the silence is scraping, smoothing my rough edges, wearing me down....

Breaking point.

I went downstairs tonight and sat in front of a piano and played hymns. I played hymns and paid attention to their words and one hymn struck me. It is called "Lord, You Sometimes Speak in Wonders," written my Christopher M. Idle, and these are the words:

Lord, you sometimes speak in wonders

unmistakable and clear;

mighty signs prove your presence

overcoming doubt and fear.

Lord, you sometimes speak in whispers,

still and small and scarcely heard;

only those who want to listen

catch the all-important word.

Lord, sometimes you speak in silence

through our loud and noisy day:

we can know and trust you better

when we quietly wait and pray.

Lord, you often speak in Scripture,

words that summon from the page,

shown and taught us by your Spirit

with fresh light for every age.

Lord, you always speak in Jesus,

always new yet still the same;

teach us now more of our Saviour:

make our lives display his name.

Silence is what remains when all the noise is chiseled and fallen away. We're swimming in noise and silence is the ocean floor. It is the bottom, the solid, the canvas before it is painted. A seed doesn't need sound to grow.

I'm learning to see silence as space. It is space to grow and think and be still. it is a space to ask questions and prepare for answers. It is a baseline, it is the foundation, and, like it or not, I am here.

Lord, sometimes you speak in silence...... 

Now and Then

Life is, as always, a collage of pieces that make up the whole. Right now the fragments of my life that make up this collage include studying, watching movies way too late at night, eating really good Asian food, going to church, laughing, drinking tea, so much singing and even more studying.

Once in a while, though, stress creeps in and there might be a temporary digression in my resolve and maturity. Last night may have looked like me laying on the floor and eating chocolate while listening to the Ultimate Playlist of Angst.

We all have our low moments.

However, a good night's sleep can cure a multitude of anxiety and the sun did rise again this morning. Today is a day called "You Must Crush Every Scrap of Work in Your Path," and my motivation has been restored.

That is my external situation. Internally, I've been batting around some new questions and allowing myself to consider some new answers. Something fresh is taking root and growing and that is both healthy and hard. I realized that there are a couple of things in my life that I could be gripping too tightly. One of these things is an ideal and the other is a kind of "chapter" I've been living in for a while. If I lost them both tomorrow I don't think I would react well. At all. I am hovering dangerously close to placing too much of my identity and hope into these things and I do not want that. I've also been getting the feeling that I will have to let go of them sooner than later, and I want to do that with grace and integrity when the time comes.

The realization that letting go is on the horizon is sometimes hard to reconcile. It starts with an idea that leads to a consideration, and suddenly little signs and signals begin to arise and line up and point to a truth. I've come to a place where I see where all of this is going and I have to decide whether to accept this reality or live in a rosy glow of denial, prolonging the issue.

The problem is that denial and attempts at justification and resisting change takes up so much effort that is, essentially, wasted. I've done it all before and it is exhausting. This time I want to try something different. Instead of resisting, I want to relinquish with gratitude. I want to enjoy what I am given while I have it and, when the time comes to let go, release and embrace what may come. These are not life or death issues, and life will go on beyond them.

These decisions are, like I said, still a dust cloud on the horizon. I'm not trying to be melodramatic. These are just questions nagging in the back of my mind and I want to be honest about them.

In the meantime, in the now, my collage is coming together nicely. I'm so thankful for what it has become.

Grounded

So I say that I am going to work on my candour and it turns out that it isn't very hard so far because life is, well, not too exciting, to say the least. We're knee deep in our second semester of first year, which means that (most) of the all nighters and crazy antics have run their course. We got it out of our system early and now we're in a whole new rhythm that is more healthy, but slightly less eventful.

I love it, in a way. I liked the crazy spontaneous nature of first semester, but I think it ended while it was still good, and it needed to. Someone (genius) once told me not to mourn too long over the old seasons that pass, but appreciate what was and look full into the face of what is. I used to chronically look over my shoulder, wishing for a wisp of the past to return, but I missed so much of the good that was happening in the moment. Now I'm trying to be more intentional about noticing the seasons passing and appreciating them for what they are.

If there was a word to describe this season, it would be "grounded." I don't normally label the seasons I go through, but this time "grounded" seems to fit. I'm less hurried these days, less anxious and less analytical. I'm very present, and my stress level is significantly lower, thank goodness. It is suspiciously calm around here. Normally I could pinpoint something that I did to get me to this place of peace and security, but there aren't any obvious tricks or magical answers this time. I do have some theories, though:

1. I made a promise to myself not to procrastinate this semester. I've been a procrastinator for as long as I can remember and exam time last semester was absolutely not enjoyable as a result. I am not ready to repeat that this semester, so this time around I have not procrastinated much at all. It is definitely a better way to live.

2. The reason why not procrastinating is easier this time is because I enjoy what I am studying. This is a sign to me that I am in the right place in school. I switched my program twice, but I've found my niche. Looking back, I wouldn't have wanted to find this place any other way. The exploration was the part of the journey that confirmed the destination. I know for sure I'm in the place I should be because I know for sure where I shouldn't be, and that is valuable knowledge.

3. There is something to be said for giving yourself permission to be who you are and to embrace failure along the way. Recently I stumbled across the realization that I so often glance over into other's lives and wish for things I don't have. I started looking at my own life and found that I actually appreciate who I am and where I am right now. It turns out that I wouldn't want anyone else's life and that is very freeing. It allows more room for possibility and, strangely enough, permission to fail. Failure doesn't pinch the same way when you love where you are and who you are becoming. It adds some colour to your story and can be very good and needed if you allow it to be.

So I'm standing now in a place of middle ground. I said before that I felt as though I was running up a vertical learning curve, but I think it plateaued more quickly than I expected. Thank goodness for grounded spaces.