So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye... Maybe

In the immortal words of Bilbo Baggins at his eleventy-first birthday party*: "My dear people... I hope you are enjoying yourselves as much as I am... I shall not keep you long.  I have called you all together for a purpose...Indeed for [two] purposes.  First of all, to tell you that I am immensely fond of you all, and that [five] years is too short a time to live among such excellent and admirable [people].  I don't know half of you half as well as I would like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve... [Secondly] and finally, I wish to make an ANNOUNCEMENT.  I regret to announce that - though, as I said, [five] years is far too short a time to spend among you, this is the END.  I am going.  I am leaving NOW.  GOOD-BYE."  Cue magic ring and flash of light. *speech edited for contextual changes as appropriate and denoted by square brackets.

Ok let me take a small step back.  I'm not actually going now but I didn't have the heart to edit out such a nicely dramatic flair.  And in truth my decision isn't completely final yet.  But, I do think it is time for me to move on.  In case anyone is holding their breath - either hoping it won't be soon or more likely hoping it will be very soon - I will clarify at this point that the realistic timetable for this is somewhere between summer 2015 and summer 2016.  So definitely not as immediate as Bilbo.  But, as of this moment, unless some kind of major and unlikely changes happen first, I need to leave Vermont.

I love Vermont. I even <3 Vermont.  I have a curious and almost inexplicable attraction to this state and the people in it.  You guys (and gals) are seriously the best and in all my travels I have yet to find such a consistently awesome and interestingly unique bunch of characters.  I could go on and on about how much I love living in VT and have done so in other posts.  But there is a deeper reality that I contend with and which seems to be getting worse not better.  And it centers around the fact that I am an extrovert.  I am an extrovert without strong social ties in a state which lacks people in general and the people that are here are by and large introverted.  Part of the problem is me and I readily acknowledge that.  I will periodically isolate myself which, for me, is a self-destructive impulse.  But, the problem goes beyond that.

I need to have peer group people around and I don't have that.  At college I find that most of my friends and peers are either separated from me by a chasm of life-experience and interests or they have families and other responsibilities which correspond to a different phase of life.  The former are very difficult to connect with and the latter either don't have the interest/need or don't have the time or both.  At church the same problem exists even if it has a slightly different character to it.  Whatever the reasons the net result is that I have been feeling increasingly alone.  And I don't know how to fix it.  I used to have a network of long-distance friends that I maintained but sadly we have mostly grown apart as so often happens with the dual separations of time and distance.  In specific I have known for a long time that I have a need for high quality male friendships whereas I much more naturally make friends with women.  And the supply of peer-group men with time on their hands is ridiculously small in my own experience.  And while I don't work, my profession is dominated 9:1 by women so that is unlikely to be a solution.

I've been considering the question of where I should be for months now/  My answers have always been that I felt called to move to VT, I need to finish school, I have the most fantastic church ever, my sister is here and I love my army unit.  Well... My sister and her new family are gearing up to move to Ecuador, school isn't forever and the most critical piece will be done this summer, the army might kick me to the curb any day, and my calling to Vermont doesn't feel as strong as it used to.  Which leaves my church.  But as I said I love them but it's full of very busy people and introverts.  I know that if I called some of them up saying I need to hang out or talk or something that many of them would make time for me because that is the kind of people they are.  But that is exactly what it would be: them making time in their incredibly busy schedules.  So, I'm not left with much reason to be here.  This isn't the full story perhaps but it is most of it.

This weekend I was forced to face just how much this is all affecting me.  And from what I would have considered an unlikely source I was asked why I don't move.  Sometimes a person can tap into a decision that you've been wanting to make but can't quite face with a very simple statement.  I still remember an AIM conversation I was having with Sarah about 10 years ago wherein she asked me why I was still an engineering major if I was so miserable.  Similarly when my friend asked me if I would consider moving it shifted something inside me.  All of the little pieces clicked together.  As I said the decision isn't final.  There are a couple things that could change my mind.  But all of them seem pretty unlikely from where I'm sitting right now.  So I am going forward with the notion that I am going to try to do what is healthiest for me with an eye for divine redirection.

As for where I'll go I don't know yet.  I am open to suggestions.  Right now I just need to be around people.  Not all of my problems will be solved by having people around but it will make the solutions easier.  I might try to stay close which would be maybe the capitol region of NY or southern/western NH.  Maybe the Maine seacoast?  I have to rule out MA for now since I've heard it is very hard to get a job as a new grad nurse there.  Another thought was Seattle since I have said for years that I want to try living out there at some point and now is as good a time as any.  Maybe the more urban areas of Utah which is a state that I love from my brief experiences there.  Utah would be a different kind of choice though since I would definitely feel like I was on mission in such a Mormon dominated state.  Maybe somewhere in the Northern Midwest?  I just know I have no real interest in moving too far south for many reasons including a deep and abiding hatred for heat.

Anyway I've probably already gone way too long but if you have any questions or suggestions regarding this topic let me know.  Also, another strategy I've considered is picking a really great church and using that to decide where to go so if you know of any in the places I mentioned or somewhere else above the mason-dixon line let me know that too.  I'll keep you all posted on developments.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. –Philippians 4:8

Great Ambitions

So today I was thinking about how incredibly thankful I am for the many, many blessings God has sent into my life.  I could list them and many of them are people but this isn't that sort of post.  I actually feel like I would have trouble doing justice to the many ways that God works in my life.  I have entered a phase of my life where I just feel so amazingly blessed and loved and cared for by God.  In some ways it is a flashback to 2006 when my sense of God was so incredible that I couldn't hold it in.  I'm a very different person today and as I grow and change my relationship does as well.  The response in me is less giddy and more tempered yet deeper and possessing a greater anticipation and appreciation for the Spirit's work in my life.  I suppose you could call it maturity but that is a word that I can still only wear ironically.  Like a little boy dressing up in his father's clothes.  It doesn't fit right.  It's too big a word and I need to grow into it more before I can start to feel comfortable and natural with it.  But I digress.

As I was observing my renewed sense of my blessings and thankfulness, I had the thought to express all of this in some public way.  Not because Thanksgiving is around the corner but just because.  And that brought up memories of my epic failure from last year.  If you are curious look up the blog post "Thankfulness in a Post-Thanksgiving Paradigm".  And then look up the post "There is Grace".  And then look at my facebook wall.  My initiative was a failure in the most objective sense.  And then I started thinking about all of the grand gestures and plans and ambitions I've had in my life.  And there are a lot.  I have a penchant for dramatic gestures.  Or rather I want to have a penchant for it.  I want to do these these things and have these experiences which are exaggeratedly large in scope.  Sometimes I will even plan them out.  And somehow they never seem to happen.  They get scaled down or they get interrupted by some glitch and never picked up again or I can't get the world to cooperate or I rethink the whole mess and decide that it is ridiculous.  And so all these things which sound so good in my head evaporate like mist.

The pattern of this can be seen throughout my life.  I'll make plans that are actually solid and achievable with effort but which are also in some way overblown.  I think I get it from my mom.  Our whole family will know what I mean and no story captures the essence of this better than the words "prayer box".  Ask one of us about it sometime if you don't know the story.  And I think each of us actually has that tendency but we all exercise it differently.  My mom keeps building projects up so that what should have been the work of an hour or two becomes a multi-month project.  Sarah figures out how to make her vision practical and will reshape her life and her relationships to fit that.  Rachel keeps things simple but in ways which are themselves overstated such as her position on fun.  And me?  I am the classic dreamer always planning and never doing because doing just seems so exhausting.  And I often find this piece of myself rather depressing to contemplate.  I feel like I am the most maladapted of us all.  Even my mom as much as she makes her life harder does usually do what she sets out to do.

I seem to have entered uncharted territory here and this was not the direction I had originally intended for this post.  I don't think I've ever tried to analyze this from this angle before but I'm going to roll with it anyway.  Maybe what it comes down to is that I am less independent then my sisters.  I need people in ways that I feel like my sisters don't.  The times when I am successful are when I can get other people to join in with my enthusiasm.  I need the force of other people wanting the same outcome that I do.  I am so prone to second-guessing myself and thinking that what seemed like a fantastic idea 10 minutes ago was really very foolish.  So I need someone else to tell me "No that was really a good idea.  We should do this."  Maybe this all boils down to a confidence issue.  Hmmm.  And I think maybe that is why I have gotten good at my own brand of persuasion.

I think it has a lot to do with story-telling.  I get excited because I've told myself a story about how amazing something will be.  Or perhaps I tell myself a story about how awful a thing will be and why I want no part of it.  And I've learned how to take these stories and make them compelling to the person I'm talking to.  I'm by no means a master but I'm getting better at it.  But I suppose the real question I wanted to ask is why do I keep chasing the grand ideals?  I know I rarely follow through and more often the idea isn't so much grand as it is ridiculous.  I mean at heart I'm a pragmatist in many ways but perhaps one who dreams of being an idealist.  Is it that part of all of us which desires greatness?  Instead of wanting fame (in the traditional sense) or power or wealth I want to be part of something amazing?  Yet at the same time I already am part of the most amazing story that can ever be told so shouldn't that be enough?  The more I sit here thinking about it the more I realize that I honestly don't know why I do this.

I do think that there is something universal about this.  I think that my experience in this case relates back to the common human experience.  I haven't decided how yet though.  I've always considered myself unambitious.  I've only ever desired secondary or tertiary roles.  I have the personality of a helper or a catalyst.  I'm not good on my own.  But perhaps this is my version of ambition.  To live a life interesting enough to be noticed or that someone might even want to read about.  Maybe that's what this blog is.  Like I said I honestly don't know and this probably deserves a little more thought.  So tonight I am walking away from NFOOTFT with more questions than I started with but that's ok.  And last week I ended with a verse which I have decided is going to be the tag line for this blog as it so nicely encapsulates what I am trying to do here and elsewhere in my life.  If I don't write again first I would like to wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving!

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. –Philippians 4:8

Casting out Fear

I know it's only been a couple days since my last rather scattered post but this morning my thoughts are running in circles and I am trying not to use my usual gotos of video games, books, tv, etc.  For one thing they only ever get me into trouble and for another finding peace in the obliteration of thought isn't helpful.  So I find myself back here again and talking to all of you.

I don't really have a topic or theme planned out so I think I will start with a confession.  If anyone reading this knew me more then 9 years ago before Christ awakened me you would know that one of my defining characteristics from the old days was anger.  My sisters can attest to this.  Anger at stupid people who wouldn't agree with me, anger at everyone who talked about me behind my back because I was weird, anger at anyone who infringed on my own personal sense of justice, anger at being forced to go through the same hoops as everyone else when I was obviously better then my peers and should be given free passes, anger at the world for being so darn inconvenient all the time.

There is something comforting about anger.  There's a heat to it.  It allows you to block out feelings of guilt and uncertainty and depression.  It hides fear.  It helps you protect the image of yourself as a person who is tragically wronged by the universe.  It justifies almost any action or thought.  I don't hide that I used to be like this.  But God has done such a transformative work in me that it sometimes surprises people to learn this.  I still get angry and I experience anger's close cousin annoyance on a daily basis but for the most part anger isn't the defining thing it used to be.  God is daily teaching me to set aside pride for humility (a task that will never be complete in this life), hate for love, anger for mercy and compassion.

Last year there was an altercation between me and a professor.  The particulars are unimportant right now except for that it was an instance where I let anger guide me.  And the aftermath of that indirectly led to the loss of one friend and the estrangement of another because of how I responded in a moment when I was still shaken by such an intense, unmitigated expression.  I'm still processing the incident. Yesterday, I felt the anger coming back.  It was different.  It was colder, it was thoughtful, and it was on the behalf of another person.  And part of me still says that in this case I am right to be angry.  I realized I was seeking it, calling it up like an old friend so I would have it at my disposal to use as a weapon.

That realization gave me pause.  I started out thinking that this was a very natural reaction under the circumstances.  That I didn't want this but I couldn't get rid of it without dishonoring a friend.  Obviously excuses and bad ones.  And excuses that violated every stated position I've had for 9 years and even my real instincts.  I have long believed that the only thing that anyone can really control is their own reaction to the scenarios we find ourselves in.  You can't stop a person from shouting insults but you can choose whether you feel insulted and if you choose to feel insulted you can choose to escalate, walk away, or undermine the person by loving them anyway.  My instincts these days tend towards compassion and I was actively pushing that aside.  I'm ashamed to admit it but in that moment I was choosing hate.

Thankfully, God is amazing and very quickly pointed all of this out to me.  It is not my place to condemn or exercise what I see as justice.  Even the worst murderer could conceivably become my brother through Grace and it is my job to show them love in whatever way I can.  That isn't to say that I won't go out of my way to interrupt a person's agenda when I see them causing pain.  And sometimes the intervention may itself be painful.  But I am not allowed to exult in that.  And I don't believe that I am allowed to do more than what is necessary to protect their victims.  Anything else would be like beating a man in chains.  God is the ultimate arbiter of justice as the only one qualified. So I didn't expect to write nearly this much on the subject or in such detail and that seems as good a conclusion as any so I think I'll stop here.  Thanks for coming!

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. –Philippians 4:8

The True Path (remix)

So this post is a little different.  As intimate as I make many of my posts there are some things I want to express which are too personal or would require me to breach confidence.  As I stated in my Pilot post this is a kind of experiment and for me it serves the role of an open source journal. The last couple months have been unusually hard and have involved serious depression and what I think may have been anxiety attacks from all of the things that I am trying to balance in my life.  I think I am starting to emerge from the darkness I have been engulfed in within my own head.  In talking about all of this with a good friend of mine and in helping my friend with their own struggles I said something about guide posts that God gives us in life.  Moments of spiritual clarity and closeness to God.  And I remembered that almost a year ago I started writing a blog post about something very similar and it was my only abortive post.  I never finished it or posted it.  At the time I think I was too close to certain issues and my problems seemed small and petty so I chose to keep my thoughts to myself.  In fact I had already made a previous attempt to revisit it and once again failed to post it.  But right now I think it's time has finally come.  Everything below the row of dashes is the previous post and I will have an original closing which will be set off by another row of dashes.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was thinking about my blog the other day and how I have been posting less.  And I remembered that there was a post I started writing back in October which never got finished.  So I have decided to revisit it.  It is actually the perfect post to revisit as I will explain in a moment.  In October life was going well.  I felt like I could see the way forward.  I had clarity and joy and was resting comfortably in God's faithfulness.  Right now I am in a darker place.  Life feels like a struggle to survive or hold steady and more often than not it feels like I'm losing that struggle.  And I knew that such moments would come when I started this entry 5 months ago.  In what follows I will try to keep most of my original thoughts intact.

So as my third entry is coming together I realize that the shape of this blog is going to be about my spiritual journey.  It makes sense since ultimately I want my life to be subsumed by Christ and that will touch everything I do and everything I am.  I no longer live but rather Christ lives in me.  With that being said onto the entry proper...

You ever have those moments when you cry out to God for clarity, for a path, for something certain... and he gives it to you?  I am realizing those moments are like mountain-tops.  God takes you to the peak of a mountain or maybe even a fire tower so that you can look down on where you've come from and see the rough lay of the land and the path ahead.  In that moment everything is crystallized and clear.  You can say with utmost confidence "This is where the Lord is leading me and I must follow!"  And then you climb down from your tower and you strike out... and everything gets all muddled.  There seem to be a lot more trees in the way then you noticed before.  There are brambles and drop-offs.  There are slick descents and treacherous climbs that you could not see from your lofty lookout.  Sometimes the trail seems to just disappear. 

And then the worm of doubt begins to say "are you certain of what you saw? Did you pick up the correct trail-head?  Are you even properly prepared for what you are about to do?"  And then you start to worry.  Except that because we can fully trust Christ we shouldn't worry.  I find myself thinking about how I was so certain only a week or a month ago but now (shockingly) it turns out that God has asked me to do a hard thing and I feel inadequate to the task.  And frankly I am inadequate.  And then at last He reminds me of 2 Corinthians 12:9-10: ⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. ¹⁰ For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I think that the reason I am sometimes granted my mountain-top experiences is because God knows how fickle I can be.  I don't know if He deals with everyone like this.  I have come to truly appreciate that God speaks to each of us according to our needs.  I need a lot of convincing.  So by giving me these points of clarity it helps me to have an anchor.  Something I can cling to and say yeah God totally wanted me to do this and go this way so I guess I'll just keep on.  Even if I do stray and wander God is always faithful to return me to the proper path one way or another but for my own sanity I believe he lets me know a little of what is going on.  Sometimes.  Rarely.  And only a little.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think that what I keep forgetting is how to really trust God.  Not so much in the big things.  When it comes to money and food I've learned to trust in God's provision.  With all of the little day to day stuff though I often feel like it's my job to get all of that done in my own strength.  And repeatedly I prove to be inadequate to the task.  Priorities get flipped around.  I can clearly remember what decision and state of mind had spawned the original seed of this post.  It was a triumphant and determined thought.  Now it is a much more desperate but hopeful thought.  I think the reason that this post has failed to be finished not once but twice when no other post has ever been put off is because I have no follow-up. No great conclusion.  No ah ha! moment that helps me get it right or do it better next time.  So it feels like a half thought.  And I think I am going to leave it as a half thought.  Something abstract in this expresses feelings that I can't say outright for reasons cited in the opening lines.  There is a certain amount of clarity or direction that I think is missing from this entry but what did you expect reading a blog by someone who calls himself a Fool right?  Anyway, until next time, go with God who can see your path even when you can't.