Limbo

As usual, I find myself at a natural ending (the end of January) realizing that I have not paid much attention to this blog. And so, I have so much to share, and yet so little since memory has already slipped away. I am fighting those guilty feelings, and then shaking my head in disbelief that I feel guilty about a blog.

This new season has become more pronounced. School is in full swing. I am in a bunch of classes and activities that are surrounding me with new people, so I feel like a freshman all over again. My freshman year of high school I switched high schools. I went from my community, small and Christian, to a public school. Everyone had their cliques and groups and roles, and I was the newbie. It was so lonely. There is that inherent awkwardness of not knowing where to butt myself in and where to hold back in meeting new people. I am in that place all over again.

My job has finally come to an end, which was more sad than upsetting. I love my boss. I doubt I will ever work for anyone else like him. He has been a huge support and a huge cheerleader for me going to grad school. He was also my last real tie to Phoenix outside of friends and mom that are there. All the things that physically connected to me to Phoenix are gone. Any illusions that I wasn't actually a grad student are also gone as I am finally facing student loan checks and FAFSA filings.

And then there is the constant call to enter my story more deeply. To experience the grief, sadness and joys that are there. At this point gratitude seems far off, and grief and sadness are just too close and disrupting to enter. So I feel in limbo, in all of these areas, there is just that funky feeling of not knowing what's next, where to turn, where to look, where to enter. Limbo.

Seasons

This week was the beginning of a new season, another trimester at mhgs. I spent 12 hours of lecture time with Dan Allender as he presented his teachings on marriage and family. It was fascinating, disturbing, uncomfortable. He says that the goal of marriage is to call forth the glory of your spouse, so there was a lot of talk about glory. It is weight and light, it is substance and essence, it is God and God reflected in us.

It started snowing on Wednesday. I am captured by the glory of snow, just like I was captured by the glory of the fall colors. It was midnight and I was restless to go to sleep because I knew the snow was pouring down right out my window and I didn't want to miss it. I got up and sat in a chair facing the window and just watched the snow fall for an hour. It is amazing, glorious. The next morning I woke up to this outside my window:

As much as I love these changes in season I don't handle them very well. This snow season has been costly for me, literally. As I watched the snow fall I kept wondering what it was about the snow that was so intriguing to me. I finally decided that it was silent and yet leaves a beautiful mess the next day that can be so destructive. Rain is violent, and yet it leaves clearer skies and produces greener spaces. Snow causes me, and this whole city, to slow down, or even shut down. It makes us wait, but the view is beautiful.

I am compelled to consider which season I am transitioning into right now, or will it even be that different than the last? In retrospect, I entered last trimester with complete anxiety and fear. As I look to the year ahead, I think this season will be more about some kind of active rest, letting go and yet pushing forward, pulling people closer even as I gain more clarity as to who I am called to be.

New Year's Musings

Amazingly, I have not put a lot of thought into the new year. No resolutions, no stated hopes, no real regrets. But, for posterity sake I feel I must post some musings. Here is where I am at on the first day of 2007:

I am quickly approaching my 12th day of sickness. Perhaps the reason for so few deep thoughts lately. I am so sick of being sick! *cough*

2007 is the year I will turn 30. It is scary and exciting. It feels like such a mile marker, and yet completely over-hyped. I never had a crystal clear picture or plan of where I would be at 30, but I am absolutely sure none of my daydreams included grad school, seattle or single!

I read three books about the Celts over Christmas and came to realize that everything I learned last semester (and hence, perhaps the foundational theology for this school?) comes from 4th century Celtic Christianity...as in St. Patrick. All of humanity is made in God's image, and therefore at our core, true self we are good. Sin cannot take away from the inherent goodness within us. Jesus is the savior of our true selves, through him we can live out a taste of the fulfillment we will experience in heaven. Why do we cling to all that is bad within us? Why was this message considered heresy in favor of the emphasis on our depravity?

I can't stop playing Sufjan Stevens music. I can't pick a favorite song or album. It's all good.

My hair is finally long enough to twist up, which makes me wonder why I am trying to grow it out in the first place if what I am excited about is being able to pull it up?

*cough* *cough*

My old worship pastor stayed at my house over Christmas, and I got to have dinner with him and his wife before they left. I felt my deep judgement of the Church and Christianity spewing out to them, which has made me deeply desire for a time when I can get past this place of judging.

I am longing for some good reality TV marathons today, but my only choices are Beauty and the Geek and the Biggest Loser. I sooo need to get a job in TV and set these networks straight!

I actually made it to midnight last night at a 007 new year's party. I was quite proud of myself because I felt like going to bed around 8 p.m. But that would make me just like my mother, and despite turning 30 this year, I am still too young for that! =) *laugh at myself* *cough* *cough* *smile* I left at 12:05 a.m. to find a fire cracker had hit my windshield and left several circular cracks. The kicker...I just got my car back after a month in the shop following my snow slide accident (see post below)! I refuse to take this as an omen!

Happy New Year!