Memories, Quotes, and an oddly poignant evening...

I had an experience tonight that reminded me just how many things can trigger memories. One moment I was standing at the sink, rinsing lettuce leaves for the taco salad I was preparing, and in the next I'd been transported backwards through time and was re-living a moment I'd nearly forgotten. It's a oddly powerful and poignant sort of thing to have that happen.

George is safely at the mechanic, and I even managed to get a full yoga workout in.

I went hunting tonight for a scrapbook like journal I created in the first few years of university. It's full of quotations and thoughts and comics that I'd collected. Favorite things that spoke in different ways to me, or that simply made me laugh. There were a few forgotten treasures in there.

At that time in my life, I was approximately right in the middle of the seven years I suffered from severe depression, before so very unexpectedly encountering God's healing. I was finding it hard to cling to faith, to believe in God, and strongly identified with any statements that made room for my doubts, my struggles, my questions, and my depression to co-exist with a relationship with God. I came upon a few of those quotes tonight as I flipped through that journal, and smiled as they again acted as salve to a tired soul.

The questions are different these days, but there are still questions. The doubts are different, and rarely reach the depths that depression drove them to, but there are sometimes still doubts and uncertainties. I know now, in a way that I didn't know then, that I will never be able to walk away from Jesus - that in Him has been the only joy and fulfillment I've ever really found. I'm learning daily about trust - and how trust mostly exists in the uncertainty. There's not much need to trust if I can know something for certain. But I still appreciate those philosophers, writers and thinkers who offer space for God and those questions and doubts to co-exist.

Quotes like these:

"When we get our spiritual house in order, we'll be dead. This goes on. You arrive at enough certainty to be able to make your way, but it is making it in darkness. Don't expect faith to clear things up for you. It is trust, not certainty." (Flannery O'Connor)

"It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt." (Fyodor Dostoevsky)

"Without somehow destroying me in the process, how could God reveal himself in a way that would leave no room for doubt? If there were no room for doubt, there would be no room for me." (Frederick Buechner)

I went hunting for that journal, not because of treasures like these that it contained, but because it contained a typed out set of lyrics to the song I mentioned yesterday. "Because You Are" by Everybody Duck.

The partial lyrics I'd put in the journal read as follows:

I can't feel You like others around me
I don't feel like kneeling or closing my eyes
Is there something wrong with my heart that I can't see?
Or do You feel love still when nobody cries?

'Cause I know in my heart how bad I want to touch You
You must sense this love my soul barely contains
No lack of desire in this desert to worship
I keep singing skyward it just never rains

So I'll praise You if I never feel You
And I'll love You cause I know You're there
And if You should choose I'm sure one day I'll feel it
But feeling good's never the reason I cared.

It's funny to me to remember, years later, the space I was existing in when those lyrics first hit a chord. At the time I was just beginning to encounter God in a more "spirit-filled" way. Actually, it would probably be more accurate to say that I was part of a community that encountered God in that way, and that I was desperately hungry to have those sort of personal encounters and relationship with Jesus that they demonstrated for myself, but was equally convinced that it would perhaps never happen for me. Thus the power of lyrics that began, "I can't feel you like others around me."

Five or six years later, after many crazy encounters with Jesus, I've walked for the last year and a half through some very challenging circumstances. I'm more convinced than ever that Jesus speaks and guides and loves. But I'm also in a place of exhaustion, in need of rest and healing and recovery, and, when I came upon this song again earlier this week, I was struck deeply by the lines I quoted yesterday, "No lack of desire in this desert to worship. I keep singing skyward, it just never rains."

So I worship anyway. Even in those moments when it feels like rote memorization. Like a dead practice, instead of a living joy. Because I've learned, too, that eventually the rains always come. I spent the afternoon looking out my office window at the downpour we were having, remembering the many complaints the last years of drought, and praying that in ways that are internal, that impact my heart, the rains will also come, and bring cleansing, healing, refreshment, restoration, and new growth and life.

Still unpacking...

A post with content related to something other than the fact that I moved two weeks ago is coming. I promise.

In the meantime, my roommate and I began the task of tackling the arranging of furniture in our living room tonight. I have quite a few piles of things to sort through still. And a large stack of items to be taken to a thrift shop. And a microwave to be returned to a friend who loaned it to me a couple years back, when our first house didn't have a microwave.

I'm off to unpack the last bookshelf, and perhaps sort through a bit of other stuff.

I'm waiting for my dad to call, as George needs yet another visit to the mechanic (though I think just for an oil change this time) and I'm borrowing a vehicle from my parents to drive tomorrow while George is getting checked out. Dad will meet me at the mechanic, I'll take him home, and then head back to my house with one of their vehicles.

And, I'm hoping to do a bit of yoga or stretching, or some sort of exercise tonight - hoping that doing that will help me sleep a bit better tonight.

With that, I'm off to return to the unpacking process... (I'll be so glad when that is finally under control...)

Henri Again...

A few more thoughts from Henri Nouwen... the first one in particular challenged me, since I was definitely raised in the church culture that put way more emphasis on giving than stopping to admit a need to receive, and it's something that I still struggle with often.

A Time to Receive and a Time to Give

It is important to know when we can give attention and when we need attention. Often we are inclined to give, give, and give without ever asking anything in return. We may think that this is a sign of generosity or even heroism. But it might be little else than a proud attitude that says: "I don't need help from others. I only want to give." When we keep giving without receiving we burn out quickly. Only when we pay careful attention to our own physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs can we be, and remain, joyful givers.

There is a time to give and a time to receive. We need equal time for both if we want to live healthy lives.

Becoming Food For the World

When Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, he summarized in these gestures his own life. Jesus is chosen from all eternity, blessed at his baptism in the Jordan River, broken on the cross, and given as bread to the world. Being chosen, blessed, broken, and given is the sacred journey of the Son of God, Jesus the Christ.

When we take bread, bless it, break it, and give it with the words "This is the Body of Christ," we express our commitment to make our lives conform to the life of Christ. We too want to live as people chosen, blessed, and broken, and thus become food for the world.

Premonition?

I slept more poorly last night than I have in a very long time.

I'm sure it was a combination of a number of factors.

Heat - it was very hot and stuffy in my bedroom last night, and my window doesn't particularly open, so there wasn't a good way to combat that heat.

Viewing - I watched a television show online last night that looked interesting. Half-way through I began to get that "this is not an okay thing for me to be taking in" feeling that I've become familiar with. I talked myself out of listening, because the show had caught my attention. In retrospect, it was rather dark, and messing with stuff I know better than to allow myself to absorb.

Others - I am as always, innately connected to some others in my life, and there were a few who were engaged in things last night that generally stir things up.

Work - we are launching a new product today, and are definitely not fully ready for this launch. It's been rushed, and everyone seems to know that except for a few managers who've pushed the launch. As tensions in the department handling the launch were already running high, with people on the verge of resigning their positions, it's likely to be an interesting week around here.

I dressed more cautiously than usual this morning. Picking comfort items and specific things I wear when I'm feeling on edge. When I have that sense that a day is going to hold challenges.

It's a weird balance, that "premonition" I sometimes get. If I pull too strongly into it, it's easy for the day to be a disaster just because I'm expecting disaster. If I ignore it entirely, I am blindsided by the numerous "disasters" that arise.

So I dressed cautiously today, wearing items that are reminders of prayer, and the nearness of Jesus. A bracelet made of cream colored resin roses. Another bracelet with a variety of saints on it, a gift from a dear friend. A scarf (because they bring warmth, and have been something I've prayed deeply with) - in this case a gift mailed to me recently by another friend. I have on (as I do nearly every day) the necklace with a St. Clare medal on it. A reminder of a dream I had a while back - a deep encounter with Jesus. I need that particular reminder quite a lot today.