I'm a little late in posting this, but I couldn't skip week 35 as it marks the halfway point in my 70 weeks. I must admit, I haven't been focusing on the prayer of where I should be as much as I should. I've been working on trying to focus my prayers- really keep my 70 weeks and my future in prayer. In general, I've been losing touch with God a bit- just not having quality time. I'm especially trying to remedy that during Lent and have been pushing forward more in prayer about where God wants me. This is more of an update post rather than a philosophical post as my 70 weeks as evolved a little.
Reality, however, has been knocking on my door these past two weeks (which is also why I've put off this post- I don't want to deal with reality). Political issues with the new and ridiculous(ly terrible and unconscionable) bill in Wisconsin may mean that jobs back home in IL/WI in a year and a half (when I would move back) will be hard to come by or a bad idea because classes could have 40 students with special ed students completely included (in WI) and highly qualified teachers from WI will be looking for work in IL because of the poor situation for teachers in WI.
There are a lot more details I'm to exhausted to discuss, but in short, a conversation with my mentor (and old professor) led me to believe being a public school teacher (which is where I had felt called up until this point in my 70 weeks- and where I still feel called) is unrealistic and that I should embrace all the opportunities I would have with my BCBA/master's degree in applied behavior analysis. He's beginning a program to train BCBAs in WI and would like me to teach at my alma mater (Carthage), supervise BCBAs, and potentially eventually direct the program. I could see myself doing this potentially many many many years down the line if God called me to it, but not now. But my mentor made my calling seem like such a hopeless case, that I should at least go into consulting and parent training. All of this feels so phony- I haven't taught enough in the public schools to consult for them and tell them how to run things.
I feel called to teach- to teach teach. Special ed students in a public school. But my mentor, my mother- they all sound disappointed, like I should do "more" (which, what really is more than being a teacher on the front lines?), they talk as if I'll grow out of this notion. And I still feel like God wants me to teach teacher, but then again, I don't know anymore. I'm just generally confused and thus praying more specifically about my next phase of life, as I said earlier.
And in general, I'm still just so exhausted- my entire life just feels like a heavy weight I can't lay down. At least I've had some quality God time this weekend. I had a pretty spiritual experience at the Over the Rhine concert I went to on Friday- realizing how far I've come, and just singing along to a lot of their songs like I was at a praise concert- and in a way, that's what it was.
I took the bus back from New York City today and lay down on the seat, the sun shining through the glass roof of the double-decker bus. I skipped over all the songs on my praise/Christian related playlist that talked about all the ways we fail, how much we need to repent to God, how we need to change our behavior. I know all that, I'm far too focused on all that right now, to the point where I nearly doubt my redemption because I realize just how much I fail. So, I listened to "bridge over troubled water," playing it over and over hoping to feel comfort and trust from God- that he would remove my burden when I'm "weary, feeling small." And for the most part, He did- I felt His presence surrounding me, warming me, although I still didn't have any clearer answers.
When I hit Boston, groggy and still confused and cranky, I went down to the redline to catch the T home. A man was playing a classical guitar- the song was just exactly what my soul needed to hear. Warm and alive- I can't describe it beyond that. I dropped a dollar in- I usually just do change- because his music was exactly what I needed. I stood on the platform, swaying back and forth, and just felt God with me- more clearly this time- and more specifically, I felt Jesus. So strongly I'd almost swear He was there, had come down in the body of a street performer to play this song just for me. Tears came to my eyes and the train appeared- a soft warm light. So maybe I don't know where I'm going, but if it's the right train, I think I'll be alright.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Week 34: Long Distance
It's been an exhausting week. I realized I didn't need a vacation from work, I needed a vacation from my entire life. And well, that's difficult to coordinate. I've been full of frustrations, many involving God.
I feel as though most of my life involves me shouldering burdens- wherever I am. At home, at work, with family, with friends. I ask God why I have to carry so much. Of course, he replies, in the voice of my old Gospel choir director, "you've gotta lay your burdens down, child. And you know you'll feel betta, so much betta, if you lay 'em down." But I still think of my future, the end of my 70 weeks and I just see more challenges, more burdens.
I feel distant from God, a large portion of which I am at fault for. I find myself spending so much time talking about God, talking with fellow Christians, surrounding myself with Christian ideas that I forget to talk to God and have an actual relationship with him. It's like talking to all your friends in relationships about your relationship and reading advice books on relationship but then never spending anytime with your significant other. It doesn't work.
But I also feel as though I'm just so distant from His will, off from where he wants me in my daily life. Not in the big things, just in all my millions of small actions, in my thought process. I'm distant in that I put things before Him in value, want more things than His love.
Yet, here's the kicker. I've been working on loving God properly and so sometimes I'm in a better place and really wanting His love, trying to fathom it, trying to understand the depth of it, and on the verge of grasping a small speck of it's grandeur, it's wildness, how it makes any human love I know look "like milk and water." And in those times (and really all the time) I just realize how I can't grasp it, full feel it, and ultimately, can't have as much God as I want. I drink Him in, feel His presence, but it's never enough. I can't get enough of it here on earth. Of course, this is no shock, but it's frustrating. God wants to be in my life so much but I can't have as much of Him as I'd like, I still feel distant. As I said to my friend, sometimes my relationship with God feels like a long distance relationship. "There's a reason," I said, "why people won't do long distance relationships. Because they're already in one with God, they can't deal with another one." Now, I know he's right here and present all the time, but his presence is like a phone call, sometimes maybe like Skype. You're talking to him, you can hear Him, even feel him, but his presence is never going to be as strong as it could be, say, if you saw Him in person.
I have a lot of frustrations, I know the answer to these is to turn to God, pray, lay my burdens down, put Him first, rest in His love, but when I do that, I just realize how much of Him I don't have present. I'm thankful for God being present in my life at all, don't get me wrong. But, knowing how big God is, even thinking how his pure presence would feel, I can't help but desire it so strongly. Normally I'd end on some positive up-beat note about how I was in a bad place but came to some heart warming realization. This is sort of an exception.
I'm not going to say how lovely everything is because the reality is, I just miss God (and I know He misses me too) and I'm sick of this long distance relationship.
I told a friend of mine about how once I wanted to do something drastic, probably sinful, just so God would take me back, so I'd feel his presence especially heightened as I have in the past. Of course I wouldn't, but I desired to feel God's strong presence so much that I thought about it. "You're sick," he said. I started to argue but instead replied, "Yes, yes I am. I'm sick because I'm separated from him and I'm not going to be well until I see His face." And my typically argumentative friend clinked his glass against mine.
I feel as though most of my life involves me shouldering burdens- wherever I am. At home, at work, with family, with friends. I ask God why I have to carry so much. Of course, he replies, in the voice of my old Gospel choir director, "you've gotta lay your burdens down, child. And you know you'll feel betta, so much betta, if you lay 'em down." But I still think of my future, the end of my 70 weeks and I just see more challenges, more burdens.
I feel distant from God, a large portion of which I am at fault for. I find myself spending so much time talking about God, talking with fellow Christians, surrounding myself with Christian ideas that I forget to talk to God and have an actual relationship with him. It's like talking to all your friends in relationships about your relationship and reading advice books on relationship but then never spending anytime with your significant other. It doesn't work.
But I also feel as though I'm just so distant from His will, off from where he wants me in my daily life. Not in the big things, just in all my millions of small actions, in my thought process. I'm distant in that I put things before Him in value, want more things than His love.
Yet, here's the kicker. I've been working on loving God properly and so sometimes I'm in a better place and really wanting His love, trying to fathom it, trying to understand the depth of it, and on the verge of grasping a small speck of it's grandeur, it's wildness, how it makes any human love I know look "like milk and water." And in those times (and really all the time) I just realize how I can't grasp it, full feel it, and ultimately, can't have as much God as I want. I drink Him in, feel His presence, but it's never enough. I can't get enough of it here on earth. Of course, this is no shock, but it's frustrating. God wants to be in my life so much but I can't have as much of Him as I'd like, I still feel distant. As I said to my friend, sometimes my relationship with God feels like a long distance relationship. "There's a reason," I said, "why people won't do long distance relationships. Because they're already in one with God, they can't deal with another one." Now, I know he's right here and present all the time, but his presence is like a phone call, sometimes maybe like Skype. You're talking to him, you can hear Him, even feel him, but his presence is never going to be as strong as it could be, say, if you saw Him in person.
I have a lot of frustrations, I know the answer to these is to turn to God, pray, lay my burdens down, put Him first, rest in His love, but when I do that, I just realize how much of Him I don't have present. I'm thankful for God being present in my life at all, don't get me wrong. But, knowing how big God is, even thinking how his pure presence would feel, I can't help but desire it so strongly. Normally I'd end on some positive up-beat note about how I was in a bad place but came to some heart warming realization. This is sort of an exception.
I'm not going to say how lovely everything is because the reality is, I just miss God (and I know He misses me too) and I'm sick of this long distance relationship.
I told a friend of mine about how once I wanted to do something drastic, probably sinful, just so God would take me back, so I'd feel his presence especially heightened as I have in the past. Of course I wouldn't, but I desired to feel God's strong presence so much that I thought about it. "You're sick," he said. I started to argue but instead replied, "Yes, yes I am. I'm sick because I'm separated from him and I'm not going to be well until I see His face." And my typically argumentative friend clinked his glass against mine.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Week 33: Sun, how do you do it all the time?
So here I am, week 33- nearly halfway through my 70 weeks- writing from back home in the Midwest (“Home.” I don’t know what that word means. But more on that later). Weeks when I’m home are very impactual in this project in prayer because they are often very clarifying, meaningful, soul-shocking, painful, beautiful, beautifully painful, painfully beautiful. God often gives me some answers and revelations about the next phase of my life. I think weeks home are so meaningful because as I’ve said before, I feel called back here. So going home I pray and think and feel my way around, feeling the place out again as if, by leaving the state for a while, someone has turned the lights off and I need to feel my way around to know what my house is like and how to move from room to room. And so, I go about feeling about the Midwest- trying it on to see if it still fits. Maybe I gained some emotional or personality-based weight out on the East Coast and I can’t fit into the Midwest anymore. More like, maybe I lost a few pounds of soul or made myself thinner to fit between the thin trees, slide through the New England forests and now the wide open Midwestern fields will feel too big and baggy on me. Maybe I’ll have lost something or gained something and just look ridiculous here to the people I know and love. So every time I go home I look around, pray, see if this truly is the place I’m called to go. Which doesn’t necessarily mean that I love it or that I fit in it, interestingly enough. But those two things would be helpful or at least, make things easier even though I’d do without them if I were asked to.
Going home- I never know what that means. I call the place where I usually sleep “home.” I called my dorm room home, I call my apartment home- and yet when I say I’m “going home” for vacation, everyone knows I mean the Chicago Suburb where I grew up. In a way, my apartment out east is more home than my Chicago home but the East Coast is not my home- the Midwest is more my home. Really, I don’t know if there will be a place (this side of eternity and short of heaven) that will truly feel like home. But I do desperately want to find a place on this earth that I can call home moreso than I can call any place home now. I want to find somewhere where I’m supposed to be and supposed to stay for a while. Maybe that place is a location, a place of work, a person- maybe a combination (which would be nice), although I often fear I may never have any of those things in a way where one feels like my “home.” In a way, where I work now is more home than anything else- a place where I feel close and connected with all my students and co-workers and where I spend so much time- I even sleep there every once in a great while. Aside from a home with God- I don’t know what “home” means but I think whenever I go “home” to Chicago as of late, I find myself looking for a home in it. Looking for a home your own home- the place where you grow up. Heh. What a sorrowfully interesting notion.
So anyway, I went on another trip home- looking for home. Needless to say, I started out this trip a little worse for the wear. Tired, snappy, exhausted with my life situations and daily tasks- despite how I love the people in my daily tasks dearly and would do anything for them- time makes things more exasperating, pushes us to our breaking points. I came “home” to a horrific mess, rooms full of remnants of dead relatives and all the messes I had left here just by living the past 24 years, to a mother so broken down by illness I barely recognized her, and thus a future of painful decisions and situations- and thus a lot of decisions about my future made for me- unfolding before my eyes. I thought of all the things I want in life for myself that I fear I’ll never have and had the pain of losses of intimacy with others as times and friendships change hanging over my head. And all along, I think, “I’m called back here?! I don’t know if I can do it.” Sometimes thinking that terrible and ridiculous thought, “when am I going to live for me?” to which the answer in my heart of hearts is always, “never. I’ll always be living for God- who will give me more than I could ever ask for or attempt to gain in ‘living for me’ and even if He didn’t, He’s already done more than enough for me to owe him my lifetime- even though because He is so good, I owe nothing and could never pay Him back if I tried anyway. But that whole interestingly circular set of debt and forgiveness and love, if you understand it well enough, makes it impossible not to give your life out of love and gratitude to God.
But I digress, I came here broken and somewhat hopeless in a few respects. I prayed for strength and clarity- that God keep me strong in all I had to do on this trip- confronting the situations with my mother, situations with my friends, and sins in my own life- making sure that an idol has not returned to my heart.
And I found myself on an open road underneath the big Midwestern sky- I could see so far, much further than New England forests allow. The tall grasses were waving to me in the sun and I could see the ground, although everything glimmered as if covered in glass as the ice that coated everything shone in the sun. My favorite Christian radio station that I haven’t listened to in months played songs that I associate with so many good memories from when I student taught in the public schools back in Wisconsin, and I couldn’t help but smile. I felt free- free from the burdens of my sin for God was with me, reminding me how he’d forgiven them all and even brought me up so I could keep myself from committing them further. Free from winter’s weight- the sun was shining, I didn’t need my heavy coat. Free from feeling enclosed- the wide open road, the wide open spaces, the light was just right and there were not trees or clouds to hide me from it. There is nowhere to hide from the light of God in a wide open field. The Midwest still fit- still felt like home- I don’t know what that is- but I think if anything feels like it, it’s someplace beneath the Midwestern skies.
God rode with me, was so present- in the sunshine, the open fields, in old pictures of my family, in an old journal my grandmother wrote on her road trip to California when she, like me, was 24. In her incredibly poetic words about how her experiences with nature convicted her that there was a God. In all the things about my mother and Grandmother that I see in myself, in my close friendships stay strong no matter the time or distance, in the poetic words and stories of my friends and family, in the precious conversations I have with my mother, in the softness of my 11 year old puppy’s fur.
God, life is just so beautiful even when it seems it’s at its darkest. And I’m not taking the Lord’s name in vain there.
I often see the beauty in the world, but today I could see just how clearly all of it- ALL of it- not just the nature part (which is easier to see than the human/relationship part sometimes) was God.
I came here from a world still pretty much frozen in white and found despite the huge snow storms here, the snow had thawed thoroughly and I could see the ground. I even flew out of an overcast snow covered Boston and, even though I landed in a dreary overcast Chicago, for a few blissful hours, I took a nap in the sunshine. I had a whole row of seats to myself in the back of the plane and laid down on my back, letting the sun stream in through the window. High above the clouds that keep me from His light, I was flying now in it. Listening to a folk artist I’ve recently fallen in love with named Daisy May as she sang,
“Oh sun,
how do you do it all the time?
You take the weight off me,
take it on and you still shine.
Oh, when it rains and all the greys
come over me,
I know you remain the same
even though I cannot see you, Sun.
So do you think you could
shine a little bit for me today,
oh if you’ve got time while you’re ridin’ along
that big old skyway,
Do you think you could
shine a little bit more so I can see
and maybe someday sun, oh you’ll see me.
Oh Sun,
How do you do it all the time?
Keepin’ me warm
When I’m cold, as cold as ice.
Oh, even in the night
You still shine
When it snows and everything blows
Out the door
Oh, I know you’ll stay the same forever more
For you are the sun…”
I like to think of the sun as The Son. And I think Daisy may mean that, too. And oh, Son, I don’t know how you do it all the time because when I try I just grow weary, and cold as ice. But You keep me warm, You restore my soul, so would you shine a little bit more for me today?
Going home- I never know what that means. I call the place where I usually sleep “home.” I called my dorm room home, I call my apartment home- and yet when I say I’m “going home” for vacation, everyone knows I mean the Chicago Suburb where I grew up. In a way, my apartment out east is more home than my Chicago home but the East Coast is not my home- the Midwest is more my home. Really, I don’t know if there will be a place (this side of eternity and short of heaven) that will truly feel like home. But I do desperately want to find a place on this earth that I can call home moreso than I can call any place home now. I want to find somewhere where I’m supposed to be and supposed to stay for a while. Maybe that place is a location, a place of work, a person- maybe a combination (which would be nice), although I often fear I may never have any of those things in a way where one feels like my “home.” In a way, where I work now is more home than anything else- a place where I feel close and connected with all my students and co-workers and where I spend so much time- I even sleep there every once in a great while. Aside from a home with God- I don’t know what “home” means but I think whenever I go “home” to Chicago as of late, I find myself looking for a home in it. Looking for a home your own home- the place where you grow up. Heh. What a sorrowfully interesting notion.
So anyway, I went on another trip home- looking for home. Needless to say, I started out this trip a little worse for the wear. Tired, snappy, exhausted with my life situations and daily tasks- despite how I love the people in my daily tasks dearly and would do anything for them- time makes things more exasperating, pushes us to our breaking points. I came “home” to a horrific mess, rooms full of remnants of dead relatives and all the messes I had left here just by living the past 24 years, to a mother so broken down by illness I barely recognized her, and thus a future of painful decisions and situations- and thus a lot of decisions about my future made for me- unfolding before my eyes. I thought of all the things I want in life for myself that I fear I’ll never have and had the pain of losses of intimacy with others as times and friendships change hanging over my head. And all along, I think, “I’m called back here?! I don’t know if I can do it.” Sometimes thinking that terrible and ridiculous thought, “when am I going to live for me?” to which the answer in my heart of hearts is always, “never. I’ll always be living for God- who will give me more than I could ever ask for or attempt to gain in ‘living for me’ and even if He didn’t, He’s already done more than enough for me to owe him my lifetime- even though because He is so good, I owe nothing and could never pay Him back if I tried anyway. But that whole interestingly circular set of debt and forgiveness and love, if you understand it well enough, makes it impossible not to give your life out of love and gratitude to God.
But I digress, I came here broken and somewhat hopeless in a few respects. I prayed for strength and clarity- that God keep me strong in all I had to do on this trip- confronting the situations with my mother, situations with my friends, and sins in my own life- making sure that an idol has not returned to my heart.
And I found myself on an open road underneath the big Midwestern sky- I could see so far, much further than New England forests allow. The tall grasses were waving to me in the sun and I could see the ground, although everything glimmered as if covered in glass as the ice that coated everything shone in the sun. My favorite Christian radio station that I haven’t listened to in months played songs that I associate with so many good memories from when I student taught in the public schools back in Wisconsin, and I couldn’t help but smile. I felt free- free from the burdens of my sin for God was with me, reminding me how he’d forgiven them all and even brought me up so I could keep myself from committing them further. Free from winter’s weight- the sun was shining, I didn’t need my heavy coat. Free from feeling enclosed- the wide open road, the wide open spaces, the light was just right and there were not trees or clouds to hide me from it. There is nowhere to hide from the light of God in a wide open field. The Midwest still fit- still felt like home- I don’t know what that is- but I think if anything feels like it, it’s someplace beneath the Midwestern skies.
God rode with me, was so present- in the sunshine, the open fields, in old pictures of my family, in an old journal my grandmother wrote on her road trip to California when she, like me, was 24. In her incredibly poetic words about how her experiences with nature convicted her that there was a God. In all the things about my mother and Grandmother that I see in myself, in my close friendships stay strong no matter the time or distance, in the poetic words and stories of my friends and family, in the precious conversations I have with my mother, in the softness of my 11 year old puppy’s fur.
God, life is just so beautiful even when it seems it’s at its darkest. And I’m not taking the Lord’s name in vain there.
I often see the beauty in the world, but today I could see just how clearly all of it- ALL of it- not just the nature part (which is easier to see than the human/relationship part sometimes) was God.
I came here from a world still pretty much frozen in white and found despite the huge snow storms here, the snow had thawed thoroughly and I could see the ground. I even flew out of an overcast snow covered Boston and, even though I landed in a dreary overcast Chicago, for a few blissful hours, I took a nap in the sunshine. I had a whole row of seats to myself in the back of the plane and laid down on my back, letting the sun stream in through the window. High above the clouds that keep me from His light, I was flying now in it. Listening to a folk artist I’ve recently fallen in love with named Daisy May as she sang,
“Oh sun,
how do you do it all the time?
You take the weight off me,
take it on and you still shine.
Oh, when it rains and all the greys
come over me,
I know you remain the same
even though I cannot see you, Sun.
So do you think you could
shine a little bit for me today,
oh if you’ve got time while you’re ridin’ along
that big old skyway,
Do you think you could
shine a little bit more so I can see
and maybe someday sun, oh you’ll see me.
Oh Sun,
How do you do it all the time?
Keepin’ me warm
When I’m cold, as cold as ice.
Oh, even in the night
You still shine
When it snows and everything blows
Out the door
Oh, I know you’ll stay the same forever more
For you are the sun…”
I like to think of the sun as The Son. And I think Daisy may mean that, too. And oh, Son, I don’t know how you do it all the time because when I try I just grow weary, and cold as ice. But You keep me warm, You restore my soul, so would you shine a little bit more for me today?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)