I've started making actions out of faith for faith. It's a little like conducting an experiment, and it's working.
This morning I danced in the kitchen at 6:40 as my oatmeal cooked in the microwave. The radio was blasting. Grandma gets up at 5:30, but doesn't put her hearing aids in until about 7:30, so when she turns the radio on, boy does she turn it on. Lord love 'er.
The radio is always on. It fills this muffled house. I like the noise, and I'll dance to it, even if it's always tuned to our local Christian station. Grew up listening to that station, even gave money to it when I was a pipsqueak. I think their mission is critical, but I also think it is profane. Most churches, most Christian-anything seems profane when compared to the sacredness, the high-holiness, of God.
But if I keep scratching Christian-anythings off the list, soon I'll be left with nothing but lead. Soon I'll be alone. If I turn the radio off because it's not good enough, instead of appreciating its potential and recognizing that "hey, they are preaching the gospel," I accomplish nothing except to fulfill my desire to enforce limits. All I am doing is limiting the capabilities of hard-working people, limiting God by saying He can't use something so...umm...lame, and— Limiting myself.
I limit myself—and God's proffered gift to work in and through me—when I dwell on the past; when I let other people offend me, make me anxious, or make me cry; when I am particular about the location I live in; when I blame things on my personality; when I let one uninspired and emotional, grammatically-incorrect-to-boot worship song ruin the entire service for me; when I let struggling Christians influence my belief about Jesus' power to change; when I turn my back on the church; when I let my mind run on autopilot at all hours and drag me into darkness; when I let my life in America negate everything I ever learned and believed about myself and God and others and beauty and the church and history and brotherhood and reconciliation while I was in Italy.
Pathetically, that's what it all comes down to: Italy. Six months out of 22 years, but I keep coming back to it. I have an effervescent faith over there. A deep calm in my soul when I am over there. A purpose. Every time I come home, I lose it.
That is not right. The Italian version of myself is not a fake version. It's the more real, more eternal version of myself. My body unites with my soul when I am there.
Living in America shouldn't hydrolyze me. It shouldn't make me compartmentalize. No matter how much people don't get along, no matter death, no matter minimum wage, no matter the doctor saying "there's really nothing we can do, but you'll be fine, just live with it," no matter the absence of Alps—
I don't want to limit myself anymore.
This is not Italy, and I've never been more home than I am now. But I am not limited.
I'm not letting it happen anymore. My soul is hollering and won't shut up and my mind is giving in to its blessed cacophony.
And somethings happening. I'm scared to use the word "transformed." I dared to admit to my Mom when I last saw her that I've been in a better frame of mind as of late.
That is what it is, though: seeing everything in new frames. Frames that were built strong and tight out of the best lumber because—dang what grace!—I was raised Christian and my parents, church, friends, and school taught me a thing or two. And those frames are pretty because I've lived in beautiful places my whole life. And they will endure forever because of God. He provided all the materials, built them so they would fit my unique line of sight. But He gave me freedom, said I don't have to use them if I don't want, and either way, mourning and doubting or joyfully submitted He will save me because He's merciful.
But my day to day existence would be better—indeed, could be one hell of a celebration—if I used His frames.
Day to day, minute by minute companionship with someone is what I've needed. A stable source of goodness that promises to be present in every single day of my life, so that no matter what happens with my body, family, church, career, or country I can have hope.
What do you know, I found that companionship with my triune God and everything is changing.
...Just like every Christian radio, book, preacher, friend, etc, said it would. I want to lay some blame and say they didn't emphasize how hard it would be to get here, or how worth it it was once you got there. But I guess they did. I'm not making excuses. I'm done analyzing this whole process. All this time alone, I'm tired of myself.
Living in America shouldn't hydrolyze me. It shouldn't make me compartmentalize. No matter how much people don't get along, no matter death, no matter minimum wage, no matter the doctor saying "there's really nothing we can do, but you'll be fine, just live with it," no matter the absence of Alps—
I don't want to limit myself anymore.
This is not Italy, and I've never been more home than I am now. But I am not limited.
I'm not letting it happen anymore. My soul is hollering and won't shut up and my mind is giving in to its blessed cacophony.
And somethings happening. I'm scared to use the word "transformed." I dared to admit to my Mom when I last saw her that I've been in a better frame of mind as of late.
That is what it is, though: seeing everything in new frames. Frames that were built strong and tight out of the best lumber because—dang what grace!—I was raised Christian and my parents, church, friends, and school taught me a thing or two. And those frames are pretty because I've lived in beautiful places my whole life. And they will endure forever because of God. He provided all the materials, built them so they would fit my unique line of sight. But He gave me freedom, said I don't have to use them if I don't want, and either way, mourning and doubting or joyfully submitted He will save me because He's merciful.
But my day to day existence would be better—indeed, could be one hell of a celebration—if I used His frames.
Day to day, minute by minute companionship with someone is what I've needed. A stable source of goodness that promises to be present in every single day of my life, so that no matter what happens with my body, family, church, career, or country I can have hope.
What do you know, I found that companionship with my triune God and everything is changing.
...Just like every Christian radio, book, preacher, friend, etc, said it would. I want to lay some blame and say they didn't emphasize how hard it would be to get here, or how worth it it was once you got there. But I guess they did. I'm not making excuses. I'm done analyzing this whole process. All this time alone, I'm tired of myself.
So I dance alone before breakfast in the greenish, pre-thunderstorm light, and study at night, alone, as Grandma dozes. I run alone, sleep alone, and it's still lonely and a little sad and some things wrack my nerves, but it doesn't crush me. The routine of the days is still busy-monotonous, but there's an undercurrent of energy, this feeling that anything could happen. And even if it doesn't, even if the day passes as another boring day, the theme du jour was still good. Because I experienced intimacy with God.
I'm scared to publish this because when I do then people will know I'm in a better frame of mind and they might make me stay this way.
Maybe I should wait for my blog's 10th anniversary. Its only 3 weeks away. I could back out, write something existentially reflective, recap the past 10 years.
...10 years...
What's 3 weeks in 10 years?
10 years in eternity?
There is so much incomprehensible math and beauty and truth, why waste my time letting evil tip the scales? It's having its heyday alright. But what's a heyday in eternity? Any time I've been given, I want to redeem.
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