One Last Post for 2007

I've been trying all day to figure out what to write, how to end this year off on my blog.

I don't really know what to say. Tomorrow I'll reflect backwards, and then turn and look forwards, but tonight, there aren't quite words.

I'm sitting here in the semi-dark. In a few minutes I'll go back to the episode of Grey's Anatomy I'm watching on dvd. But for a few minutes I paused the dvd, and crept up into my stairwell.

My upstairs neighbors are African - Christians we're quite sure, though we've never met them except to smile and greet in passing on our way to and from our respective apartments. I sat in my stairwell in the dark, on my side of the door and wall that separates my home from theirs, and listened. They are singing and praying and worshipping in the New Year. Such beautiful harmonies, accompanied only by a tambourine, and such passionate prayer, though all in a language I'll never understand. I crept up the stairs to listen, to sit in the dark and let their prayers flow over me because I recognized the tune, if not the language, to one of the songs they were singing. "Oh How I Love Jesus." So beautiful.

I'm glad, I think, that the people who live above me bathe their home in worship and prayer. Tonight it makes me feel safe, and cozy as I stay alone this week while my roommate is out of town. I live in a building that (at least half of it anyhow) is regularly bathed in prayer. Beautiful.

Happy New Year!

The Long Way Around

I was thinking today about how the path I'm choosing in life right now isn't really all that traditional. How most of the people I went to high school with are all in graduate school becoming academics, or pursuing high paying careers in various fields. How I have a degree, but I'm working as a a receptionist in an unrelated industry, and dreaming of travel and coffee shops, and praying with friends all over the country and the world. How a new year is coming and my dreams are becoming stronger, rather than fading with a sense of growing responsibility and settledness. How in eleven days I'm leaving Canada for a month to start pursuing those dreams.

I was driving around earlier, doing errands, and listening to the country station on the radio (and singing loudly - since I believe that one should always sing loudly along with the radio while driving alone), and the song "The Long Way Around" by the Dixie Chicks came on. I can never actually decide what I think of the Dixie Chicks and their in-your-face political statements, but I do love a few of their songs, and this is one of them. Today, a few of the lyrics grabbed my attention, spoke of my journey, and gave me hope.

Well, I fought with a stranger and I met myself
I opened my mouth and I heard myself
It can get pretty lonely when you show yourself
Guess I could have made it easier on myself

But I, I could never follow
No I, I could never follow

Well, I never seem to do it like anybody else
Maybe someday, someday I'm gonna settle down
If you ever want to find me I can still be found

Taking the long way
Taking the long way around
Taking the long way
Taking the long way around


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Now playing: Dixie Chicks - The Long Way Around
via FoxyTunes

Why I Make Smile Lists

I had a moment this morning, standing in the shower and talking with Jesus that reminded me again of the reason I've cultivated the habit of making mental (and sometimes written) lists of the things I'm thankful for - the things that make me smile.

I was standing in the shower and talking with Jesus. Working off residual crankiness from the past few days. I was complaining once again about having to go to church, and teach Sunday school, which I was feeling particularly unmotivated to do this morning. (I have quite a lot of Sunday morning conversations in the shower with Jesus, that mostly involve me informing him that since he hasn't given me permission to leave this church, he'd better help me out with the motivation and attitude to get me through the morning.)

And, as I was griping, a list began forming in my mind. A list of the reasons I actually end up enjoying teaching these girls most weeks. A list that included:

• that I love being a voice a little different from what they hear other places
• they make me laugh
• they remind me, just a little, each time I teach of that awkward and pivotal time in life that happens as you begin high school, and your world is suddenly growing, and you are beginning to figure out your place in the world
• that three individual personalities come together in that room as we sit on the carpet as they seek to understand more about Jesus
• that in spite of being raised in the church that also raised me, these girls are looking for glimpses of Jesus in a personal way, not just out of a sense of religious obligation
• that they challenge my way of thinking and engaging
• that when we do "best thing/worst thing" (highlight and lowpoint of our week) they are always thoughtful and willing to celebrate the good, and that the good is almost always more defining than the bad

I cultivated the habit of making smile lists because in the moments when I most need a change of attitude, an ability to be grateful in the midst of something that feels miserable, the lists begin forming in my head in spite of myself. And that makes me smile, too.

Truth and fiction

I'm sitting here, just presently, with the movie "School of Rock" playing on television in the background (and incidentally I love this movie in the way only someone who went to an incredibly uptight, academically driven high school can) and thinking about the difference between fiction and non-fiction.

The way I learned the difference was this - non-fiction is truth, fiction is made-up and therefore not truth.

The trouble is, something's been tricked out of that definition.

I read far more fiction than non-fiction. Mostly because I find it more readable as a general rule.

But here's the thing - I've often felt guilty for preferring that which wasn't true to that which was.

And so, today, I've been thinking about the difference between fiction and non-fiction.

And I realized something - the definition I grew up with is wrong. The difference isn't truth, it's facts. Non-fiction recounts facts. Fiction recounts fables. Both can contain profound truth.

Take, for example, the novel I just finished. "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini. A good novel, though not superbly profound. There was, however, one paragraph that took my breath away with the truth it shed on a particular relationship in my life.

This past year I've kept track of only the non-fiction books I've read, essentially a very small percentage of my total reading. I think, in the new year, I'll keep track of everything.

A friend of mine was sharing with me recently about her commitment to live a life without lines. Without lines separating things. This year I'm not going to draw lines around what contains truth. I'm going to look for truth wherever I can find it - in a memoir, or in the words of an Afghani novelist.

dreaming

I went to bed at 2 am. I set my alarm for 9:30 am. I woke up for the first time at 6:30am. Rolled over, realized it was 6:30 (when I normally get up for work), thought "no way in hell," rolled back over and went back to sleep.

Going back to sleep was my mistake. The dreams that had been below the surface came roaring into my reality.

Which is why it's now 8:45am, and I'm sitting here blogging and watching Grey's Anatomy on dvd. When I woke up again for the second time I just couldn't face going back to the dreams.

I work at being okay with the dreams, but every once in a while, I just don't quite know what to do with them. Today is one of those days. Not sure what to do about the things I saw. Not sure I understand most of them, but knowing there are things from them that are probably important.

Here's my thing. I think, that if the Lord is going to give someone dreams, He should also give them the gift of dream interpretation.

I'm tired of this. Tired of the dreams, and wondering what they mean. Tired of the confusion. Tired of how vividly real they are, and how they add to the load I'm already carrying.

I knew this would probably happen when I went to bed last night. There's something about talking to the friend I spoke with on the phone that always pulls me into a place of deeper awareness of the spiritual realm. That, plus, by the end of the night I knew I needed to spend some time praying and going to the deep places for a couple of situations. Going there generally means that I'll end up having a night like I did.

So, I knew it would likely happen. And I'll be okay. But right now, I'm tired, and an hour away from spending time with a friend that will probably end up being intense and requiring me to engage, to see and hear and be willing to go to the deep places for and with her. Right now I'm wishing I wasn't carrying the added load of dreams.

So I'm laying here, and giving my brain a rest by watching Grey's Anatomy. And in a little while, I'll get up, and get dressed, and pray, and head into my day.