Engaging

I have spent a lot of my life un-engaged with the world around me. I have always stepped back into the shadows to avoid putting a burden on others, to avoid being seen or heard, to avoid being known. And yet in those shadows my heart has always wept in grief that I was not seen or heard, that my life had no impact on others, that no one really knew me.

The last few months have been about engaging the world around me. Stepping out into the unknown situations that life presents and choosing to embrace the moment, the person, the place. It has been a seemingly easy transition. It has led to new friendships, new adventures, and new heart aches. Each step out has resulted in a powerful recoil of self, a recoil into self. It is a fear, or intense shame, that questions my very being in the moments of engagement that have passed.

What is this fear? And why is it so intense now?

I am moving toward a new challenge that I know will force me into engagement at a whole new level. It is an adventure that will ask me to be fully present and completely authentic. It will ask me to be myself in the face of rejection, to speak truth in the midst of disagreement. Right now I fear that challenge, and yet I know that it will be the battle against my fears that will give me confidence to continue to engage.

Christ calls his followers to engage. So why is this fear so present in my life right now? I can only suppose that Jesus is seeking me out, calling me out of the shadows I have lived in, asking me to depend on his grace and strength in my weakness. It is a beautifully frightening call.

Delight

Have you ever sensed someone delighting in you? Someone simply enjoying you? It's the sparkle in their eye or the tone of their voice that tips you off to the fact that they are embracing your presence.

I felt that today for a brief moment. It is a wonderful thing.

Justice

Isaiah 1:
16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves
clean;remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;cease to do evil,17
learn to do good;seek justice,correct oppression;bring justice to the
fatherless,plead the widow's cause.

...One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for
all.
Pledge of Allegiance

What does it mean to be just? In Isaiah, I am learning, the lack of justice towards those in need and vulnerable was a big part of God's anger toward the Israelites. It was evil to withhold justice to the fatherless and widowed. I am also learning that justice is almost always mentioned in partnership with righteousness...Learning to do good. When we are seeking righteousness, justice should be a natural outflow of the goodness we are practicing.

Confession: the word justice makes my skin crawl. The word brings up images of angry crowds of people, chanting intelligible and ridiculous phrases, using their fingers to point at others in blame rather than to truly do good. Perhaps those are all very stereotypical images, but that is what comes to my mind. But, if I am a follower of Christ, then I have to ask the question...am I practicing justice? I am sure the answer is "no."

Another confession: I am scared of giving, fighting for, practicing justice, because it will require me to ignore the injustices in my own life in order to participate in justice for others. Who will fight for me? I am scared of embracing the dirtiest and most wounded parts of our world...I fear it is more pain and suffering than I have the ability to handle. I am scared that I would do more harm than good by speaking, serving, and fighting inappropriately.

I think Christian Americans are often guilty of pledging more allegiance to this nation than to our God. But this nation, by our very pledge, is under the authority of our God. So who should we really be placing our allegiance with? I want to walk in allegiance with God, which means embracing the command to practice justice. I don't know what that looks like, and I expect that it will involve much stumbling, as do most of my attempts to learn God's calling for me.

Silence

Growing up as a little girl my family had a cabin that was a full day's drive from home. We had the good 'ol Suburban to carry us into the woods of Ruidoso, New Mexico, and I remember the sounds of talk radio and the story time of Garrison Keeler. It killed me when I was little. I would get boredom headaches. Perhaps I just needed some silence.

I have spent the entire morning pouring over music websites trying to find some new tunes to update my already overflowing collection. I am so excited to have found a few artists that are new to me. Here is a sample...

Needtobreathe
Mainstay
Imogen Heap
Marc Broussard
Ashton Allen
Nada Surf

But after hours of perusing so many bands, listening to so many songs...my head hurts. It could be a sugar overdose from the massive Cherry Limeade I just drank down from Sonic, but I think just need some silence.

Doing The Next Thing

Do the next thing.

That has been the consistent advice of my mentor for 10 years. It is advice that has taken me 10 years to even begin to understand. This is one little next step to figuring out the next steps ahead, and inviting others to participate.

Making one's thoughts public seems terribly narcissistic, or on the other extreme, needy. And yet there is something incredibly desirous about having others participate in your internal dialogue. Perhaps any thoughts that make it to this space could be stored away in a private journal, but then they would be just that. Private, like a secret. The daily meandering of my life isn't a secret, and I don't want it to be. And so here I go...

My life seems full of next steps right now.

Stepping out of a career,

and stepping into grad school.

Stepping out of the roles I had accepted for myself,

and stepping into uncharted paths.

Stepping out of comfort and control,

and stepping into the unknown.

Fortunately, there are many others that have taken these steps before me. Like this one...

"Never be afraid to trust an unkown future to a known God."

Corrie Ten Boom