Being Still, and Knowing.

I've spent a lot of time thinking lately about how I've been launched into the present - the real world of the word. Where people bend and choose moralities, where success is less of an equation, and more of a question - what are you going to do with your life? Are you going to pick up extra tables? Will you work for pennies? Or are you waiting for twenties to fall into your lap? What was so different about the way I viewed the world at Lawrenceville? I still believe in my values, ideals, and my faith, still growing in ideas, academics, and friendships. What feels so fresh about the world lately?

I just have a very new sense of reality. It's pretty crazy how little I knew about people all around me - I didn't need to travel to learn that the spirit Christ left with us doesn't need to be impressed. I didn't need to see exotic things to learn that the world turns on love and love alone, that love governs the physics of space and time, that love dominates the thoughts and hearts of any person on Earth, no matter how twisted, ugly or pure a form.

Experiencing, glimpsing adulthood this year is shocking at times. The idea that people actually believe that I could be married, have a child seemed absurd to me... but now that I have placed myself with peers of older situation or who are done with school, high school has shot from 8 months to light-years away. The biggest thing I am concerned with right now is becoming more and more real. More in tune with God's idea of "reality" through experience and experiencin his testaments and miracles in word and life. The struggles of adulthood are less defined as well - what is right and wrong.

The world is such a very large place - my mind runs circles between studies and cultures that I long to explore. The more I learn, travel, serve, and grow, the smaller I become. For some reason, this makes me feel incredibly light - a feather, ballerina in God's plan for this crazy-huge universe. What a relief I've discovered this year, that I can do anything, but not EVERYTHING. Grams and I talked about this idea a lot in North Carolina. If my heart soars to the skies, then I should follow that passion and fly. If my mind takes joy in the glory of the human condition replicating God's image through classics, I should follow that joy, be surprised by it continually in a serious academic program. If my body longs to be in motion, then I should head to the hills.

Working has made me more independent than I have been before - I understand that word 'independence' in a whole new way as well. Watching older peers try and exert themselves into true careers and independence from the service industry proves that independence must be tempered at a young age - without parents proper, kids so easily think of independence as quick cash, and adult decisions about their bodies and minds. Independence, really, is being able to set up a foundation of mind, body and spirit, so that you can fulfill God's true purpose for your life. To educate yourself so you know what you love, so you can free yourself to truly run the experience of your life. To be independent from the obstacles that lacking self-awareness presents. (Sorry for all these infinitive clauses. Tacky.)

I want so much to be independent. Winberies has motivated me even more than ever to work diligently at Yale, and for better reasons than the treadmill ever presented. God's glory, self-fufillment, love, independence, the joy of lifting another's burdens - these reasons are becoming so real this year, so much more than the rhetoric I throw around so often. I find myself drawn into silence, into reflection, into pausing, so much more. How can I be more me? How can I be more the person God created me to be? Accepting the humbling fact that the Spirit will never stop coming to me, no matter how great or pathetic I may be, has freed me these last months. The bridge that Jesus created between the misled, the unperfected us, and the incredulity who is the laws of life has allowed me to be here, be still and know.

Beauty for ashes - out of one comes the other. For the beauty of creation, I will be ashes on a lot of the trail. By taking my roles as ashes with responsibility, I allow myself to become beautiful. "I delight myself in the richest of pearls - trading all that I have for all that is better... a garment of praise for my happiness. You are the greatest of riches of faith. Take this heart of stone, and make it yours."(Shane Barnard). Will I have the strength to rise up, rise up. There is so much time to know this answer. Sometimes the answer will be yes! YES! and sometimes. No no no.

I was listening to Star 99.1 FM the other day, and a song came on - the lyrics saying - "Would you take the place of this man? Would take the nails from his hand?" And I was struck - no I would not. Not for the sake of the world, but for the humiliating fact that striking nails through my hands and feet terrifies me. A spear, a crown of thorns. The pain overwhelms my logical sense of my body... what strength to rise again from that. Jesus took three days to rise, three days overcoming death - in whatever world he was in, he took three days to be the Word, the word became flesh, flesh became word for three, word became flesh ascended. Will my flesh withstand this journey? Will I be reduced to word? To Spirit? The light of the world stepped down into darkness... open my eyes let me see beauty that made this heart adore you.

As my thoughts probably show, I am in many different places- I am going from peaceful to anxious lately. My bags are packed, I'm ready to go.

On the verge of the Appalachian Trail, my heart is fluttering with ideas of situations and gear questions that have yet to reveal themselves. More and more things keep appearing to make this trip fall into God's will - my brother coming out instead of Costa Rica, my newly active parents, the trail community. Still prayin' on. As the psalmist wrote:


ALL THINGS THROUGH CHRIST WHO STRENGTHENS ME