Just thinking about...

Processing
I process fairly slowly for a long period, and then in sudden bursts of understanding. I need lots of time and space to sit and think things out, and then I need the opportunity to have a conversation with a friend and verbalize the things in my head. I often find that as I have those conversations, I am speaking out random thoughts, and suddenly realize that God is speaking to me through my own words.

Being Relational
In one of those verbal processing moments last night with a friend, I realized an important truth about the direction I’m seeking in life just presently. I don’t really care too much about the ultimate location, as long as I’m living within a community of friends with whom I share a common heart, and who offer a reciprocal challenge to live more fully the things God has planted within each of us. Does the fact that I place such a high premium on being relational make me postmodern? Community is such a buzzword, and I don’t care about the hype, I just care about the people. I also believe that wholeness and healing happens primarily in the context of relationship with others and with Christ, and that that wholeness and healing are more fully attained within the context of a caring community living as the body of Christ on earth.

Location
Like I said before, I’m not so concerned about location as I am about the people, but there are certain things and areas of the world that pull at my heart like nothing else. I dream of sitting in the Incan ruins at Machu Pichuu in Peru and listening for the voice of God. I can’t explain that one – who travels halfway across the world to sit in some ruins and pray? I dream of visiting the many locations I studied about in school – the places where this faith in Christ, the definition of what it means to be Christian was shaped, formed and reformed. The places where movements were birthed, where the deep things have been spoken for centuries. I also dream of warmer climates, of skirts year round without frostbite concerns! I do feel that Calgary will not be home for too much longer.

Vulnerability/Humility
These are words that have been spoken and implied quite a lot lately in regards to my journey. They are the deep cry of my heart, and conversely, completely opposite to my human nature. It is hard to choose humility – I have to overcome this thing that I have engaged with for years that says that my worth is in being noticed, being respected, having power and position, being known for something, being successful. I’m starting to wonder if success isn’t really about having great relationships, being joyful in life, caring about others first, and being obedient to the leading of Christ. But I’m also having to fight in huge ways to remember that.

I am also learning how very difficult it really is to be vulnerable. Vulnerability and honesty are things I have long believed in, and ways I have chosen and felt called to live out life. Here’s the thing – it makes other people uncomfortable, and it tends to set you up to get hurt. I’m working to negotiate what it means to live out this part of my life in a church setting that doesn’t exactly welcome the sort of experience of God that has so defined my journey and my identity these past few years. I know I’ve inadvertently offended some lovely people by simply being honest about who I am and my place in life. I keep thinking about the life of Hannah, who was so completely vulnerable in her emotions that she poured herself out to God and was mistakenly thought to be drunk. I have known for some time that a call on my life is to break silence – the silence that so often perpetuates evil – that has perpetuated evil through generations of my family, and in the lives of a lot of people I know.

Growth and Mentoring
I continue to be hungry for mentoring as I seek to walk out life with God. I long to learn by experience and by sitting under the teaching of Godly men and women who have walked this journey longer than I and have wisdom to offer. I have been blessed with some good friends who I am also privileged to call teachers, but am hungry to see this lived out more consistently in my life. I suppose it comes back to the relational aspects I talked about earlier – I see myself flourishing when I am in relationship with people who challenge me in my faith and in my thinking.