jubila_en_el

... will finally come back.



I saw a bald eagle last night at the river, and watched a most spectacular sunset.














 

It's funny.  I feel like last year, most of my identity and life were filled by relationships.  I knew who I was when I was trying to love people-- I guess that the "trying" itself kind of was who I was.  Or seemed like it.

But ever since "the Catastrophe" last semester, I just get confused when I'm around too many people for too long.  I quickly forget who I am supposed to be.  I can be around one or two good friends indefinitely; four or five people I trust, for quite a while; but as soon as the number gets closer to 10 or I don't feel really comfortable, it literally feels like things start to fall apart.  Like I vividly feel the pieces of my mind fragmenting and can't hold them together anymore.  Not like I go crazy, really, but rather start feeling intensely overwhelmed and can't make sense of what I'm experiencing and feel like I must be broken somehow and afraid that maybe I can't be fixed.  This has happened so many times in the past few weeks I couldn't count them, but Thursday would be a good example. 

I was feeling unusually adventurous, and went over to the weekly bonfire our brother-house hosts.  I went to almost all of these bonfires junior and the first half of senior year but stopped as things got worse and worse in the Spring semester.  I hadn't been back since until this week.  And it was okay for about the first five minutes, but after that I just forgot who I was again and felt lost.  Like I didn't belong, like I wasn't wanted, like I didn't look right, or laugh right, or know the right people.  This isn't because the people there are mean-- they're really nice.  I just have forgotten who I am and who I want to be.  I don't know how much longer I can blame  the Catastrophe because I don't want to be unfair and hold it accountable for problems that weren't caused by it.  It's hard to distinguish now, because it has lasted so long.  Except maybe it would be fair to say it was the catalyst for something much bigger in my life, so even if it wasn't the direct cause for where I am, it was the trigger.  The proverbial straw on the camel's back. 

Anyway, last year I was all about relationships but now they threaten to overwhelm me as soon as they become in the least complex.  Now, it's like I only really know who I am when I'm alone and outside somewhere beautiful.  And that is the joy, the point of this post.

Wednesday I was feeling pretty claustrophobic in my house, so I went down to the river to that nice little private beach and sat in the gazebo.  I brought my Greek homework and iPod with me, content to alternate between working and being still.  And as I sat there staring out over the beach to the river, breeze blowing in the trees over my head and the breathing in the salt air, I felt whole again for the first time in a long time.  Like, really whole.  Not that I hadn't been happy before that-- I've had plenty of "happy" days and experiences.  But not whole.  And even days when I went to the beach at home and walked in the wave and sat on the sand, I didn't feel whole.  I remember feeling free then-- truly free, and that is pretty close to feeling whole.  But not the same.  Like, if someone is prisoner, maybe they are in chains and also their leg is broken.  When the chains are removed, they will feel free and maybe be able to move around.  But they will not be whole, not until that leg is healed.

So there, on the river, I sat between the earth and sky and felt whole.  I knew my place in the world.  I understood how I fit into the patterns of life on the earth, and my relationship to the sun and to the water and to the trees.  I felt beautiful.  I felt loved.  I felt like I belonged, like I was intentionally and perfectly created.  I haven't felt that way in so, so long.  But I felt it then.

And I've felt it since.  Each time I've been down at the river alone, in fact-- which has been for a couple hours almost every day since then.  Things are starting to make sense to me again, at least when I'm alone and outside.  I start to remember who God is and who I am. 

I'm so glad.  That was the first time I really wholly believed that maybe I wasn't crazy.  That maybe I will get better.

¨ walking outside (in general)
¨      studying Greek
¨      listening to music, especially classical music (while not working on anything else... just paying attention to the music)
¨  playing guitar
¨ cleaning my room
þ  buying a hair curler/straightener and learning to use it
¨  skateboarding
¨ going and browsing the bookstore or library
þ spending time at a coffeeshop
¨ doing a spa-at-home day (pampering myself with lotions, nail polish, trimming my hair, etc.)

As you can see I've already done some of these over the past few days and I have to say, it has helped so far.  Some of them seem like pretty hard work, I guess (studying Greek and cleaning my room?) but they make me feel accomplished and if I do them of my own volition, I usually enjoy them.  Nice.

PS   Just for the record, all the reading I've been doing?...  I've re-read Harry Potters 1, 2, 5, and I'm almost done 6... in a week.  Yeah about that.

Anyway, I guess that's about enough for one post.  I'm going to go apply to work at Aroma's :)  Have a good day!!

"It's funny how someone can break your heart but you still keep loving them with all the little pieces."


 

            Today was confusing and made me sad. We were going down to the vans to restock our food. The first mile or so was OK but everyone is just so fast and I can’t keep up.

            Thought the first: I have a hard time figuring out whether I literally can’t do it physically or if it’s more of a mental block – like could I just suck it up and force myself through these things? The time after Pond Mountain suggests that maybe I really am not physically up for it – I mean my body legitimately rebelled. But what about today? I felt my mental state just begin to plummet – so was that because of my body or just habit to think I can’t do things?

            Thought the second: I think Kip was right when he thought I might be trying to do something for God or be good enough for God (and people too). I had this surreal experience once I started to fall behind – once I got distressed enough, I sat down and cried a few minutes. I felt so ashamed. I eventually decided I’d have to go anyway so I started walking again until I got to the bottom of the hill and saw that everyone else was already at the top of the next. I did not want to walk out onto the plain where everyone could see so I stayed behind a bush and waited, hoping they’d keep going. Suddenly I felt exactly like Adam and Eve in the Garden—no, I didn’t feel like them, I was them. There I was, hiding from everybody because I was ashamed and I just felt like I could hear God calling, “Susan, Susan, where are you?” That broke my heart all over again. Eventually Karen came back looking for me but I was so drenched in shame and sorrow I walked a little more then told them to go without me. 

            When Karen came to get me we had a funny little interaction. She kept asking me if I was OK and I could hardly speak because I was weeping. She told me the class was worried I had fallen. I couldn’t really respond, and she saw my tears. Trying to encourage me, she kind of told me to “buck up” and not let the class see me cry. I know Karen is a runner, so she’s probably pretty good at being strong and rallying her willpower, but my heart copes with things very differently. I felt like the class should see my weakness, my brokenness, because really that is much closer to the truth of who I really am than some strong, silent character. So I just wept, and was ashamed. The class started down off the hill just as I was getting to the top, though, so not a ton of people saw me up close anyway… although I felt sure they knew.

            I hate feeling like I can’t do something everyone else can. I have always been impatient with myself in this way – things that don’t come easily to me frustrate me almost immediately, although I’ve gotten better about it over the years and I can be patient with other people until the cows come home. I want to please the Lord and people I care about so much, it’s devastating to me to feel like I’ve failed. That was one of the things [K] criticized me about and maybe one that hurt me most because the way he said it, it was almost like my dislike of failure was a failure unto itself. He said I needed to get past needing to be good enough for others but the way he said it cut me to the core. But anyway. I think that hiking this week was better for me overall because I knew my weaknesses and could plan for them so they didn’t negatively affect the group-- I could leave early and get to camp on time and stuff. But then when we hike as more of a class unit – when Tyler was sweeping last week and then today, for example – I just feel like the weakest link and so, so ashamed.

            It occurred to me at some point that I am fearfully and wonderfully made by the Lord and to be ashamed in front of His other creatures is foolish or, in gentler terms, unnecessary. I am who I am and their perceptions of me are mostly irrelevant. It also occurred to me that the word “holy” means “set apart” and so in one way I could revel in my loneliness and weakness. I think this might be a stretch but I’m not sure, the thought just passed through my mind.

            Maybe I was made this way. Maybe these characteristics of mine aren’t bad or wrong. Maybe it’s not that I need to “fix” anything about myself at all. Maybe this Christian subculture that tells us how to better ourselves for God is well-intentioned but misguided. Maybe God’s bigger. Not to excuse my faults without thought or growth but to reclassify a lot of the things I see as faults. Why is it bad to want to do well by people I care about? If it doesn’t lead me to idolatry then it seems good and honorable to love and serve the best I can and mourn (a little) when I fall short. 

            I bushwhacked back up the hill to our campsite, still filled with shame and sorrow, and this song got stuck in my head:

            He will allure her

            He will pursue her

            draw her out to wilderness

            with flowers in His hand

            she is responding

            beat up and hurting

            deserving death

            but offerings of life are found instead

            she will sing, she will sing, oh to You

            she will sing as in the days of youth

            as You lead her away to valleys low

            and acres of hope

            “here in the valley

            walk close beside Me

            don’t look back

            for Love is growing vineyards up ahead

            you have called Me ‘Master’

            and though you’re in the dark here

            call Me ‘Friend’ and call Me ‘Lover’

            marry Me for good”

            how the story ends is love and tenderness in Him

            not safe, but worth it

            we’ll sing together

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never fails.

I Corinthians 13





I just wrote a very hard e-mail to someone, and the whole process of writing it frightened me so badly it made me want to cry.  The real testament to my growth in Christ was that I did not, in fact, cry-- whereas in a similar situation six months ago, I was a mess of tears.

Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth.  Ironic, isn't it? because today's culture would have us believe that love means "never telling the beloved 'no,' giving them all they want and more until they are completely happy."  Well, according to the famous passage from Corinthians, that is not at all what love means.  Love means TRUTH, which is sometimes the last thing we want to hear-- or tell.

I want to learn to love.
I want it so bad.








Oh, my God, shine Your light on us that we might live.  I've been holding on, but all that is inside me screams to come back home.  I've been broken down, but I'm not giving up, love will come back around.  Shine Your light, shine it down-- let Your mercy come for us!  We long to love.