Stay

I love to travel. I love seeing new places and I love experiencing new things.

I grew up in the same town all of my life until I left for college. Once I left for college, though, I didn't stay in the same place for more than a year or two before moving on.

I have never liked the idea of settling down. It seems boring, too safe.

The reality, though? It is not safe at all. 

It is the staying, the investing, that is dangerous.

It is dangerous to stop in one place for a long time. Relationships have more of a chance to implode. Neighbors have a better idea of who you really are. Friends might reject you because they have more time to see deep inside of your heart.

I'd rather keep moving on.

I have tried to fool my own heart, convincing myself that my wanderlust is due to my love of excitement, due to my desire to not live life in safety.

That, however, is a lie. It is a lie that I have lived with for a long time.

It is because I love the safety of shallow, the security of anonymity, that I don't remain in one place for long.

Now? I've been in the same house for almost five years, and in the same town for seven.

 I'm learning. I'm learning how to be vulnerable and how to help hold others accountable. I'm learning what community, long term community, really looks like.

I'm learning how to stay.

Why I Want To Join

I am a logophile, a lover of words. I love the way that different words evoke different emotions, and even when two words have the same dictionary meaning, they can still have very different connotations. 

I love searching for just the right word that paints exactly the picture I want so that others can see what is in my mind.

Every Friday, I get a writing prompt. Just one word, to challenge me to write for five minutes without editing. Just to practice my craft, to practice being able to find exactly the right words. A few Fridays ago, the word was “join”.

Join.

My heart was immediately flooded with emotion, just from that one simple word. Everything from sadness and self-doubt in remembering times I was not asked to join, to desire and longing to join...anything.

What is it about that word? Why does it evoke so much emotion? 

It makes me want to belong, want to be a part of something. Not just anything, although there is a part of me that might want to belong to anything, but to be a part of something that really matters. 

I want to join, to be an important part of an important group that is...I don't know, changing the world?

It almost seems a bit ludicrous, that a such small, simple word can pull such complex feeling out of me. As I thought a bit more about it, though, I realized that this is probably something that God put into all of us. 

I wonder if God has placed a strong desire to join, to belong, to be a part of something, into each of our hearts in order to draw us closer both to Him and to each other and the community He has placed each of us in.

Yes, this is a difficult thing and involves risk and vulnerability on our part.  Yet, as I wrote last week, it is God asking us to do what He has already done.

Perhaps, if we who follow Christ can find the courage to also follow Christ's example of opening our hearts to those around us, then God will use that desire to join, to belong, that He has placed into all of our hearts to draw those He is pursuing into His community.

I will pray for courage. I will open my eyes to discover those to whom God is asking me to open my heart. I will trust God's Spirit to do the rest.

Will you join me?

Why I Offer My Heart To You

We are all walking wounded.

We have all been hurt. We have all been rejected. We have all offered our hearts only to have them thrust back into our faces.

Why would we continue to offer what no one seems to want? Why would we want to keep risking when we seem to receive so much hurt in return? 

Why would we continue to make ourselves vulnerable, holding out our hearts in cupped hands, when so often the result is more bruising, more cuts, more places that will not heal?

Why?

Because this is what God did.

Yet while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

For if, while we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son...

This. This is why.

God continually offers Himself to us. He offers us His heart.

God continues to offer what we don't seem to want. He risks Himself and often receives hurt from us in return. He continues to make Himself vulnerable, holding out His heart to us while we simply thrust it back into His face.

While we were still sinners. When we were God's enemies.

That was when He offered up His heart in the form of His Son.

And that is why we continue to offer our own hearts, to make ourselves vulnerable so that we can form the sort of community that demonstrates to the piece of world around us the immense and vulnerable way that God loves.

art credit: painting of Christ Crucified by Velazquez

All Things Made Sacred

I've been thinking again about the idea of God being in everything, having bearing on everything, the idea that everything in our lives should be made sacred. Thus far, I have come up with two different spheres of thought (although they do overlap, of course).

In a broader or grander sense, I've been wondering if you can fully study anything without believing in God. (This truly is a question, not an "I have a definite opinion and am just phrasing it as a question" sort of wondering!)

Can you fully study anything without a recollection of the context in which you work? 

If, as I believe, all order, all created things, is a gift, then it seems as though if you study math or music, science or sociology, without an underlying attitude of gratitude as well as an understanding that there will always be mystery, then you are missing something. 

Without that context, are you really studying anything to its fullest potential?

As a side note, I love the idea that there will always be mystery in our world, our universe, for our curious minds to explore. The idea that we are at the pinnacle of knowledge is a bit ludicrous. As Isaac Newton said, 

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

I am interested to know what others think. Is it possible to study anything outside of the context of a creator God? (Forget, for a moment, what you believe about a relational God or about Jesus Christ...simply consider the idea of a creator God.)

In a more immediate and practical sense (I am well aware that not everyone is as much a lover of learning and studying as I am!), I am discovering that in order to find God in everything, to make everything sacred, I must work to develop habits of living more fully present where I am. I must truly pay attention to who and what is surrounding me. 

It is much too easy for me to just drift or skim through a day, usually focusing on what is to come rather than on what is. 

A huge part of living more fully present is completely relational. Every one of you reading this is a son or daughter, brother or sister, friend, spouse, parent, or grandchild. Finding God means developing every day habits of loving, patient, kind, selfless living in the community in which we are right now. It is discovering once again what family means, what neighborhood means, what community means.

It sounds, perhaps, too simple, but it is something that I can start doing and exploring right now and never reach the end. I can never get bored with this even if I work at it for the rest of my time on earth.

Will you join me?

art credit: photo of Eagle Nebula from NASA