Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Hushin' Up

I enjoy silence.

I enjoy silence and most people don't (especially at 20).

I enjoy silence and most people (especially at 20) do everything they can do avoid it.

Why?

Because silence is scary. It leaves us only with ourselves, forcing us to deal with our lives. When I stop moving is when I realize where I'm biting it in life. It's also when I leave room to ask God what He thinks about my life. 

Quietness also leaves room to be a part of creation. When I'm silent I hear the world around me. I'm not trying to avoid it or move past it, I'm just awaiting each minutes slow, methodical turn as life continues on. 

Silence leaves room for hard questions, and sometimes I feel like those questions sit in the air right in front of me mocking me. I feel small in the midst of big questions. But I also feel a sense of adventure. The constant thought I've been having these past few months is, "is this it?" I want something great. And I believe with my heart that God has something great for me that's bigger than Christian college and "quiet times." 

I love big questions. The mystery of the unknown is appealing to me. Scary, but man, the thought that maybe there is more to it all then what I have settled for excites me. Big questions leave room for imagination, for dreaming, for the pessimistic side of me to dissipate and the optimism to flourish; to hope for better and get me excited about things again. 

When I have room to dream, I get excited about God. I come back to the place where I know that He loves to surpass expectations and that He's got bigger plans than Christianity as it is now. Ecstasy (not the drug) fills my being when I imagine something bigger than what I settle constantly for. Dreaming reminds me of my smallness. And I'm good with being small in the expansiveness of what He's created. I don't feel small in the sense of inadequacy, I just know my place, and that creates dignity within me. Knowing where I stand with God and being able to rest within that.

Silence = Questions = Dreams = Ecstasy (not the drug) = Smallness = God

Speaking of knowing my place with God. I've been reading in Luke, and the disciples crack me up. They get it wrong a lot. There are few times in the Word I recall Jesus not rebuking them for trying to earn something or being cocky or having little faith or something. 

Not that that's really funny. But nothing's really changed. At the end of the day we want something to show for our faith. We want to be the best or the most faithful or the favored. We want something out of it, it's just human nature. 

When I'm busy and ignore silence I feel entitled. But when I become a part of the stillness, I come back to knowing my place. Silence is humbling

Being an introvert, I am much more okay with silence than most, but man, I think we're supposed to be okay with it. Jesus went into quiet places all the time. He knew He had to get away. He knew the fleshy side of Him needed to ask God what He thought about things. But I am quite often guilty of avoiding solitude for the shear fact of not wanting to deal with what God has to say about things.

I know when my remarks are too biting, when my patience is wearing thin, when my love is about me, when I'm feeling entitled, but I want to stay that way, because it's easy. When I let God into that though, I'm more me. When I sit with Him, I don't feel as if I have to freak out about the little things. I just get to rest in knowing my place. 

I'm not saying that I need to institute more "quiet times" into my life. In fact, I hate "quiet times." I think they're retarded. It causes me to segment it out of my normal life into my special "God place" and that's gross. In the end, I enjoy God more when I know my place. And I know my place better when I am quiet. I'm quiet when I choose to forgo a mind-numbing activity for something that really satiates. It's as simple as that. Letting go of a little of me for a little of Him.  And in the end, that's what's Good. That's where change settles in. 

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Freedom

I know, two posts in a week, can I get a whoop whoop?!

I just got done with one of those good conversations with my momma. You know the type where you get to talk and talk and feel like you're actually making sense for once. Well. They're good for me, because I don't actually make sense very much of the time. 

I've probably heard my mother say this 100 different times, mostly to me, but to others as well.

"God told me that people don't want to be a ministry, they want to be enjoyed."

For the loooooonnnngest time I have wondered what the heck that means, and am starting to land somewhere. 

On a walk with a friend yesterday we just talked, no advice was administered, no judgement was rendered, no platitudes were beaten into one another, just soul-refreshing, life-giving, joy-creating catching up.

And I felt enjoyed by her. 

I'm tired of and drained by conversations about "what God is doing" in my life. The expectation created in a Christian atmosphere to be growing, and finding God in things is smothering. Not once did I ever read of the apostles asking each other how God was working in their lives. 

We segment our Christianity....and it causes us to lose the fullness with which we were supposed to experience it. We don't enjoy it, and it's because there is nothing to enjoy in our systematic, processed, inorganic, caged lifestyles we've produced. 

Last night my sister told me of a woman who blogged every day for a year as she went through depression. She said it was ugly, heart-breaking, and not politically correct, but she also said it was beautiful, and honest, and rich with the reality of her being in the midst of that. 

My small group here is comprised of some amazing girls. Over the past few months I've just gotten to hang with them and hear about school, get updated on the exciting things, listen to the boring stuff, anticipate Graduation with them, and get to walk through the confusion of second semester of their senior year of high school. It's been wonderful. I love the slow and natural way relationships take shape when there is no expectation, but instead, lots of love, grace, and enjoyment. 

There's no totem pole or standard to judge how "good" the relationship is, it gets to stand alone and freely blow around as it may. It is free, pure, true, and Godly. It allows room for mistakes, and boxes out a place for judgment; leaves space to grow and mature and to not need to be fixed or to fix. It's centered around enjoying others and the relationship that Christ intended for us to have with one another.

Those kind of relationships are refreshing to me. They say, "hey, you get to just be a part of the goings on of my day, I don't have to segment time for you, you're welcome to join me, and it's enjoyed if you're here." They are the relationships where you can sit and watch TV together, or clean your room while you idly chat, or catch up over laundry. No pressure, no rules. 

I think that is completely Godly because I think that's completely God. Truth manifests itself in the way we live our lives. God enjoys us the same at all times, whether we are in month 3 of a lull, or at the top of a mountain screaming our lungs out to Him in passion. He enjoys us the same at all points. I think that's beautiful. 

That is the kind of relationship that leaves me wanting more. That warrants desire in my life to change and take in other people's ways, it is the kind of relationship that cultivates the earning of the privilege to speak in people's lives rather than assuming it because of "wisdom." I think there is a lot of times more wisdom in listening and stillness than there could be in the most applicable idea. 

I want to be a woman who is allowed to grow at my own speed, and retract a little too. I want to be a woman that allows people to grow at their own pace, and enjoy them all the same, without assuming responsibility for their actions. I want to earn the right to speak into people's lives and believe God is big enough when they don't hear me. I want to cherish people, enjoy relationships, and not be strangled by expectations. 

I want freedom. 

Monday, April 11, 2011

Touche

The cursor is blinking at me. Mocking me with it's sardonic, vertical winking in my direction.

I would love to sit here and write about some enlightening, full-hearted truth that I have been discovering, but thus there is none.

I heard once someone said, "if you're not reading, you're dying." Well, I haven't been reading. And a bit of me feels like it's slowly wasting away. I'm bored.

The glamour of college has worn off in the past two years. People are people, classwork is classwork, and it all gets to be old hat after awhile. Reading has always been something to excite me. It was a place where I could cry after walking through the tragedy of another only to read a few chapters further and experience the joy of redemption. Somewhere where I could get a glimpse of the great minds and wise counsel of those who were born years before I was even a thought.

Even blogs fall into this category. Reading about a woman who has been walking through the agonizing, yet joyful process of adopting a child from Ethiopia; or her best friend who is honestly and refreshingly writing about normal life after experiencing infidelity a year ago.

There's something restoring to me about hearing another perspective, and not from someone who I am doing normal life with. To be honest, there is something refreshing about adults. I don't get enough of them. I'm living in a sea of young, naive, impressionable people, and I am willingly raising my hand to say I am one of them. It seems there are all these ideas out there bouncing around. Learning, learning, learning. We're all taking in things like a porous sponge.

It's nice to sit in the presence of people who are a further beyond this. And that includes authors. And like people, I get quickly turned off by the ones who write about everything as if they're the stuff. I appreciate genuineness.

I don't have any settling thoughts tonight. I just kinda wanted to show the cursor up. It idly blinks at me, awaiting my next move, and I'm ready to say "touche" and let it win. I want to read. I'm withering on the inside. So, that's it. Go read books.