sub-par goodbyes and Nouwen

The quality of my goodbyes has been sub-par as of late. How do you adequately say goodbye to someone? How do you tell them what they have meant to you, how they have affected your life in positive ways without making it feel awkward and uncomfortable platonically? How are we ever to relate on real gut honest and honoring levels if we are so stuck by the status quo, the fear of becoming known and inappropriately intimate? Lord knows I don’t want that to be a part of my life, but it is. And I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know how to distance my heart properly and how to risk and open up safely either. I watch people around me that are seemingly successful at it, but than I wonder about them. Are they scrambling around on the inside just as much as I am trying to figure out who is safe? I am highly suspicious that I may not be the only one.

Let me quote Henri J. M. Nouwen from “The Inner Voice of Love”.

Stay with Your Pain
“When you experience the deep pain of loneliness, it is understandable that your thoughts go out to the person who was able to take that loneliness away, even if only for a moment. When, underneath all the praise and acclaim, you feel a huge absence that makes everything look useless, your heart wants only one thing—to be with the person who once was able to dispel these frightful emotions. But it is the absence itself, the emptiness within you, that you have to be willing to experience, not the one who could temporarily take it away.
It is not easy to stay with your loneliness. The temptation is to nurse your pain or to escape into fantasies about people who will take it away. But when you can acknowledge your loneliness in a safe, contained place, you make your pain available for God’s healing.
God does not want your loneliness; God wants to touch you in a way that permanently fulfills your deepest need. It is important that you dare to stay with your pain and allow it to be there. You have to own your loneliness and trust that it will not always be there. The pain you suffer now is meant to put you in touch with the place where you most need healing, your very heart. The person who was able to touch that place has revealed to you your pearl of great price.
It is understandable that everything you did, are doing, or plan to do seems completely meaningless compared to that pearl. That pearl is the experience of being fully loved. When you experience deep loneliness, you are willing to give up everything in exchange for healing. But no human being can heal that pain. Still, people will be sent to you to mediate God’s healing, and they will be able to offer you the deep sense of belonging that you desire and that gives meaning to all you do.

Dare to stay with your pain, and trust in God’s promise to you.”

Okay. Though I love Henri, and writers like him, sometimes they make the concepts they are trying to get across more difficult to understand or to live out. So! This morning when I was waking up, my mind wandering, I stopped it and said, “OK GOD! Here I am, lonely and in pain. Help me.” That’s all I got out, it’s all I really knew how to get out because what else do you say to the Being who knows you through and through?? I think all He wants is our admission of need of Him, and then the courage to stay there. Because all He really wants is ALL of me. I mean. It’s that simple I guess. If that is simple.

The last line of that quote is the kicker: “Dare to stay with your pain, and trust in God’s promise to you.” It is daring to do that, I know! Because even on my most strong risk taking days when I feel the most brave, the daunting task of bearing with Jesus and my heart through pain seems almost overwhelming and undoable. But I guess maybe the secret behind it is to remain open and to try not to stuff.

Trusting, waiting, hoping…big, big heart words. Seems difficult to put into practice when life throws everything its got at you. But what else is there to do? At the end of the day, I am less of a human if I have not made those words more of a part of me. I want to be human. The most human I can be. With my heart fully online with all the capacity is has to love and give and heal and forgive and hope and trust. I wonder…

veracity/voracity

I have 2 dimes on my desk near my keyboard. My newly manicured fingers reach for them mindlessly as I rock back and forth in my black office chair, soon to be packed away in its original box because I am done with this blasted job.

It was a good idea at first. Yeah! I’ll be a “travel agent”! sounds like a lot of fun. I know a lot of missionaries that need my help. A year later I sit here wondering at what I have done to myself outside of spending my life savings on doing a job that I never really believed in from the beginning.

That’s a terrible fault of mine. If I don’t believe in something enough, wild horses couldn’t make me be faithful. It’s the curse of being a Gemini I guess. Must have entertainment, must be fascinated, must be new and exciting. Not always true I hope. Maybe that is why Jesus is talking to me about dreaming again. About living out those dreams that have been there for an awful long time, now that I am 26 and still formally uneducated. On the other hand, if my curiosity isn’t satiated about something than I become obsessive to the point of annoyance and will not be quieted until I have what I want, again a terrible fault of mine. But once I have it, it is no longer a novelty and I don’t really want to play with it anymore. Oh, I might eventually come back around to appreciating it, but unfortunately my compulsivity gets the best of me.

Anyway, what was I talking about? Ah yes, my present job, that will no longer be my present job after Friday. I will be traveling though. Something I love to do. Never got to do as a travel agent because everyone else needed to do it before me. Not so good for a person with massive wanderlust issues. To be honest, I don’t really want to be gone as long as I will be gone this summer though. 6 weeks in toll, my wandering heart might be settling down finally, now that I have a place of rest for my soul.

There is a roly-poly walking down my wall. We have had a roly-poly invasion here at the office. They like it in here. I like them too because it reminds me of my childhood. These days I pretty much like anything that reminds me of my childhood.

This is the most geminiic ( a newly coined word by yours truly to evoke a sense of the Gemini reality of paradoxical and scattered living pronounced: JEM-in-ei-IK) write I have ever had so far. This is how my mind works, constantly. All over the place all of the time.

So 6 weeks of travel. Here are my plans, I will keep you updated, and I hope to include pictures of my travels as I go along.

I am flying to Albany, NY next Wednesday and I am going to visit my friend Katherine near Rochester for a day or two, than I am taking the train (there will be a lot of Amtrak involved in my journeys) to Rutland Vermont to hang out with some friends, than either catching a ride, or taking the train to Burlington Vermont (super cool town) to hang out with another gang of friends, than I will be training down to Brattleboro, VT where hopefully my friend from Keene, New Hampshire will come pick me up so I can hang out with him for a day or two, than on to either Manchester, NH or Lawrence, Mass to chill with the YStorm crew. Than Amtrak to Washington DC, though today I was thinking if I go through Jersey I might stop to see my long lost brother whom I have not spoken with since I was 18, I’ll keep you updated on that, it may be a very emotional thing. Not may be, will be. Then I will be in DC with my friend Amanda for 4th of July week and then finally on my way, via Amtrak, to Jacksonville, Florida for my best friend’s wedding. Then I will be flying home just in time for my parents to be packing a uhaul truck and hopping in it with them, and my long lost sister who I haven’t seen for over 4 years and driving them to Washington (the State) and hanging out for a week or two there, and by the beginning of August I hope to be home back in my cute little colorful apartment, safe and sound.

Holy Cow.

So if you are in the vicinity of any of these stops, let me know and I will come visit you (if you are presently a friend that is, I do not meet strangers abroad).

That is all.

Josiah Tate Nelson

When I set out to write something I do strange things. First I lower my chair so that I can be closer to the keyboard…than I scroll through the list of fonts to choose just the right one for my mood today, I chose Poor Richard today. Than I make the font a nice big readable size 14 and I set to writing.

So now that all the pieces are in place…

My friend left today. He’s gone to the west coast to pursue his life calling of helping Jesus heal people. I have much emotion about the turning of proverbial pages if you will, the passing of seasons, the ending of chapters… We have been through a lot in the last 3 months shy of 3 years.

He sauntered into my life a really confused boy who thought that if he could just look good and look like he was always having fun that no one would see the “cavernous depravity” that wracked his soul, mind, heart, spirit. I am astounded at what God can do to a human in such a short amount of time. He opened up his heart in ways he never knew he could and found life there. He opened his life to people on levels he didn’t even know existed and he turned and turned and turned until he discovered that he had been twisted into a horrible disfiguring knot of humanity and then he broke. He broke at the sight of his own bloody mess and found love waiting for him there. Love that began to untie and untwist and undo the years of injustice wrought on him by life and poor broken people who never knew any better. He all of the sudden began seeing with new eyes, it was like he woke up to these amazing depths that had always been there, but just could never have been recognized before. One day my friend got a real glimpse into eternity and he has never been the same again. I don’t know if it was the drizzly night we stood outside of a kinko’s on the Plaza and I talked to him about the God of Revelations, the one enthroned in light, and with fire in his eyes…etc. but at some point he got it. At some point he began seeing that he had an eternal purpose on the earth and that he had a voice that Jesus gave only to him, and that he had a role to fill so that people who were broken like himself could find healing too. He found confidence, and OHHH what a difference that made in him. He began giving out of himself and speaking life into the hearts of people all around him. He brought life and hope to strangers to whom he served coffee. And best of all, he didn’t know it. He had no idea how his life was affecting the people around him. He was never aware of how his negative actions affected people as well. But Jesus is sharing that with him now. He is showing him how to walk a life worthy of his calling, fully pleasing his Father in the process.

Now Josiah Nelson is walking tall and straight, a man, full of life, purpose, and the tenacity to see it happen in his life for the glory of his Father, out of my life. Congratulations Josiah, you have done well. You have honored your Father in heaven. My prayer is that you never forget your chains, that you never forget the sound of His hearts pleasure over you, that you never forget who your friends are, and that you always walk upright before God and Man.

You are amazing, I love you. I am so honored to know you, to have been a part of the transformation. I am so excited to see what comes out of you in the years to come. The mountain isn’t conquered yet! Keep going. I am SO for you! And I am sorry that I could not articulate this to your face. Forgive my weakness in expressing with spoken words.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!

Birthdays are a strange thing. This year I have made mine a big deal on purpose. Because every other year I am always disappointed for what ever reason, and my feelings get hurt. My birthday is the one day of the year, every year that I can feel the most rejection and pain. It’s amazing.

This year is different because I am taking a different stance on the whole thing. I am an adult now, it’s my job to make it what I want to make it. So I’m throwing myself a party (I don’t really want to do it again…hint, hint) I hope to God that I am not an emotional wreck tonight. As it seems that I get in this weird mood when people try to celebrate my life. It’s like I want it so bad, but when it happens I am so weirded out by it I shut down and get embarrassed and want to run way and hid in my closet. STRANGE!!! I am not going to be ruled by that anymore. I am grown up and can handle people loving me and enjoying me because THEY want to.

At least I secretly hope they want to.

I’ve been thinking about the primal need in humans (outside of the cloths, food, and shelter deal) to have impact and intimacy. I’ve been thinking about my life and the direction it will take in the future. Praying that I will become more alive as the years go by (a major reversal from what has been going on) and that my aliveness will rub off on the people around me and they will want to become alive as well. I think before that can happen I need to find where my fountain head is. He said “River’s of Living Water” right? It has been a long time since I felt that belly thing. I miss it to be honest. I miss His voice in my head, in my heart, the fire in my belly. I miss those to real feelings that I used to get when He would come close to me, or at least when I became aware of His presence (since He is always close). I miss my eager heart to do anything and go anywhere for Him. To speak any truth, to pray loud prayers unabashedly, to sing my guts out until I manifest and get so hot that the people around me feel the heat radiating in waves, I miss the lead blanket that I call His glory, talk about comfort. I know He isn’t in the earthquake, and that his voice isn’t in the storm, but that it is a still small whisper, but you know what! Sometimes I really liked hearing God so clearly that it shook me to my very core, to obedience, to awe.

Anyway, so I’ve been thinking about intimacy and impact. A core Master’s Commission theme, (thanks Lloyd and Michael) it has changed the way I think about my life and how it is suppose to look. I see that impact can best happen when you are in your ‘PLACE’, running your ‘RACE’. And that’s my big question these days. Where is my PLACE? What RACE am I suppose to be in? I have all the pat answers (I’ve been a Christian for a LOOOONG time) but they are not helping. I need real in your face answers about my life calling, vocation, blah, blah, blah. Of course the one pat answer that will really get me somewhere in this whole thing is found in Psalm 27,

1 The LORD is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?
2 When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, when my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall.
3 Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then will I be confident.
4 One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.
5 For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock.
6 Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me; at his tabernacle will I sacrifice with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the LORD.
7 Hear my voice when I call, O LORD; be merciful to me and answer me.
8 My heart says of you, "Seek his face!" Your face, LORD, I will seek.
9 Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, O God my Savior.
10 Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me.
11 Teach me your way, O LORD; lead me in a straight path because of my oppressors.
12 Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me, breathing out violence.
13 I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
14 Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.

The end says it all: Wait. Be strong, take heart, wait. So that’s what I’ll do. It’s what I’ve been trying to do. I’ll hear His voice again some day. I’ll feel the fire again someday, maybe not until I’m back in the place where I am from, his burning heart. I crave it so bad sometimes.
GOD!!! I CRAVE YOUR HEART!! I CRAVE ETERNITY!!! COME BACK SOON!!!!!! I WANT TO COME HOME FOR GOOD!!!

So how does that work? The craving for eternity and the reality of it to be ever present in my life, and the ashes and dust reality of life on earth?? Not that I hate living or anything, I actually enjoy it most of the time, but there are moments when I all of the sudden realize that I have forgotten about what I am really here for. I want to live in both places at the same time, can I do that?? People say you can, but I have such a hard time believing that I can do it. Maybe its all back at the fountain head. Maybe that is why He is gathering me from all my scattered places into one centralized throbbing place full of life so that I can remember who I was from before time began…while my residence was in the flame.

I hope that if you read this, you will realize that that place inside of you that aches uncontrollably sometimes is that craving for your eternal home and I hope you pay attention to it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!! THANKS FOR LIFE JESUS! THANKS FOR BEING WITH ME THROUGH ALL OF IT!!

Yet You are He who brought me forth from the womb;
You made me trust when upon my mother's breasts.
Upon You I was cast from birth;
You have been my God from my mother's womb.