Hot air balloon

I have a godmother. She is one of my mom's closest friends and is like a second mother to me. Any twenty-something woman can tell you that the transition relationship you share with your real mom as you move from dependent daughter to independent adult can be  ... rocky. I love my mother very much (she is an amazing mom) but we have our moments, and my godmother is one step back from all of that.

My god-mama is a very good listener, and a very intuitive metaphorical thinker. I was talking to her about my life these days: I'm no longer at the university that became my home the past four years, I'm in a new job with a lot of new co-workers, the environment in my choir has changed drastically for me, my sister is getting married and my brother is making plans to see the world, I'm moving to a new place with new roommates, my best friend moved across the country for grad school, my relationship with my parents is evolving ... basically everything in my life is different and changing. All of the things that anchored me are coming up.

I told her I feel like I'm being tossed in a lifeboat on stormy seas surrounded by fog ... I feel unsteady, un-anchored, and like I have no bearings.

She said this: [paraphrased] "I think it sounds more like a hot air balloon. You know how hot air balloons have anchors tied to the ground to keep them down while they inflate the balloon? That's what all those changes sound like. Each big change isn't a wave hitting your boat or another roll of fog, it's a rope being untied. And one you're untied ... where do you go? Up. And after you float on up, where do you go next?" [To which I responded, "Down?"], and she said, "You go wherever the wind takes you."

Perhaps I don't know my current direction or my destination, but I love the thought of going whichever direction the wind blows. Somehow I will find the grace to not just accept the changes in my life but to embrace them as the birth place of growth and my own evolution into the woman I want to be.

I am so thankful for the people in my life who see me, and see me more clearly than I see myself.

Shift work

It's funny how when you should go to sleep you're as awake as if you'd finished a pot of coffee to yourself, but when you should stay awake your eyes are perpetually half-closed as you function in a state of semi-lucid dreams.

When I'm switching from day shifts to night shifts (we work twelves, running seven to seven), I try to stay up late so I can sleep in before I go to work that night. I am not one of those lucky people who can just sleep straight on through for 16 hours so my goal is usually to stay up past midnight in order to allow myself to sleep in past noon. In theory I could go to bed early and get up early and try to nap in the afternoon, but then I run the risk of not being sleepy when I should be napping, and it's a looonngg night until I can return home to bed.

It's not even 11pm and I can barely keep my eyes open. This is after an 8-hour sleep last night and 2-hour nap this afternoon. What the heck, body? Why are you doing this to me?!

Starry Night

I am watching the sun sink towards the horizon as I write. The prairies are beautiful like this - softly dusted in snow and syrupy golden in the last rays of sunshine. Everything looks so quiet and peaceful. It makes me miss the wide-open spaces of Saskatchewan, where the horizon arcs all the way around you with the curvature of this planet. Most of all, I miss the night sky the way you see it from the countryside - a pitch black canvas dripping in winking silver lights. Ahhh. It makes me feel so small and marvelously insignificant.

When I am standing under a true night sky, undiminished by the light pollution of cities, it seems so much easier to get things in perspective. I find it pathetically easy to lose track of that which matters. Somehow a starry sky brings the difference between matters of importance and inconsequential details into sharp relief. Now, as I adjust to my situation as it currently is and look towards my future, perspective seems a crucial part of sorting the elements that compose my life. I want to live my life on purpose, to find my dreams, to be good but bad enough to be memorable, to achieve my goals.

I think some serious star-gazing is in order.

You cut me down

Warning: blatantly spiritual content to follow.

I was raised in the church. When I was younger (about aged 11-17) I was extremely involved. For those seven-ish years I attended and taught Sunday school, volunteered and worked at summer day camps, attended and volunteered with the youth group, babysat the kids, worked in the nursery, helped to organize and run church functions and Christmas pageants, even served on the committee looking to hire a new youth pastor. I grew up there.

When I graduated, I moved away for a year and a half, and after moving back I realized that the church I had been attending was no longer a healthy place for me. I needed a place that fed me, not one that only absorbed my time and work. I have been looking for a home church ever since.

I must own to the fact that, in part, the length of my search is due to being particular in what I want, but part of it is due to the ways that I often feel that the capital-C-Church has betrayed the world, not to mention betraying God Himself. My personal struggle has never been one of doubting my faith. I am not someone who questions the existence of God, or the divinity of Jesus Christ. What I struggle with is scorn; scorn for the Church that scorned me while I was trying to figure out what it meant to be a believing adult in the 21st century. A Church that scorns those who I believe the man Jesus would most reach out to - the lost, the sick, the broken, the hurting. In His words, it's not the healthy who need a doctor. 

Perhaps my tendency to face a fight with my fists up and my head held high has made things more difficult for me, but dogma and piety and self-righteousness and judgement of others make me sick to my stomach. I'm not so good at biting my tongue or turning a blind eye, either. I have found too many churches that want to separate 'us' (good, righteous, Christians who are going to heaven) and 'them' (heathens, dis-believers, homosexuals, sinners who are going to hell) in an effort to feel holy and good about themselves, and keep the undesirables out. And it's wrong. So incredibly wrong.

The second century Church was famous. Famous for the way they loved, for the way they cared for and fed and clothed each other, both physically and spiritually. They lived in the world without being of it. They didn't feel the need to justify themselves to popular culture - being relevant to pop culture or politics was a non-issue. They cared about sharing the news that their Saviour had died to share; died to make true. And they themselves were willing to die before betraying their Lord. Radical faith.

I do not expect perfection in a church. I do, however, want and need to find a group of people who are less concerned about judging 'them' and justifying 'us', and instead focus on knowing Him. A church should be a place where anyone (and I mean anyone) can find peace and a safe place to seek God, to learn about Christ, to make mistakes, to build a relationship with their Creator. 

The following are the lyrics from the song "Holland Road" by Mumford & Sons. When listening to this song all I can hear is the way the Church has made me feel so many times - like my struggles are unacceptable. I want to love the Church, but it is so hard to love when you've been cut so deeply.

Holland Road

So I was lost
Go count the cost before you go to the Holland Road,
With your heart like a stone you spared no time in lashing out.
And I knew your pain and the effect of my shame, but you cut me down.
You cut me down.

And I will not tell the thoughts of hell 
That carried me home from the Holland Road.
With my heart like a stone, I put up no fight 
To your callous mind; and from your corner you rose to cut me down.
You cut me down.

So I hit my low.
Little did I know that would not be the end.
And from the Holland Road, well, I rose and I rose and 
I paid less time to your callous mind,
And I wished you well as you cut me down.
You cut me down.

But I'll still believe, though there's cracks you'll see,
When I'm on my knees I'll still believe.
And when I've hit the ground, neither lost nor found,
If you'll believe in me I'll still believe.

And I still believe,
Though there's cracks you'll see.
When I'm on my knees I'll still believe; and when I've hit the ground,
Neither lost nor found,
If you'll believe in me I'll still believe.

Roadmaps, GPS, and details

Sometimes I feel lost in my own life.

It feels a little crazy to say that because I have been actively involved in the decisions that lead me to where I am right now, but it's true. I'm feeling lost.

I think part of this is due to the shock of working full time and no longer measuring my life in four-month segments (September-December, January-April, May-August: the seasons of a student). For the first 23 years of my life, I basically knew what the plan was (well .. the first four years I didn't really give a damn, and then I started kindergarten). School from September to June. Summer. Repeat. Graduate high school. School from September to April. Summer. Rinse and repeat.

I speak only for myself here (although I'm sure lots of nurses can relate) when I say that nursing school was the most difficult thing I have ever done, and basically the only way to survive is to tuck your head down and run for the end. All of a sudden, four years have passed and you see your feet cross the finish line and you look up and .... you have no idea where you are. You got so focused on just surviving the day-to-day that you never took in your surroundings. My plans were graduate and get a job.

Well, mission accomplished. I have fulfilled that whole plan and currently don't have plans beyond get up and go to work. My brother says this is en expected feeling - that everything will settle into a sense of normalcy at about the six-month mark. Right now, however, it just feels scary.

My mother (and sister) take the cake on Type A personalities in my household [a fact for which I am extremely grateful because I HHHATE details and being organized], but I still like to have a working plan. Even if it's just a dream or a distant idea, I like to have some vague thought on what will be happening six, eight, twenty four months down the road.

Perhaps this is an exercise to improve my Type B-ness. Shucks.