chameleon

I'm a chameleon.

I have realized in the past few years that it is very easy for me to change to fit in wherever I may be.  I can never entirely shed my origins, but I can embrace new things.  As I move from place to place, I find it really hard to know what is really me, and what my environment imposes on me.

And so, I am a chameleon.  I fit in lots of places, and I change with seasons of life.

I think I found something of the true me in Bellingham, though.  And I miss that me.  I found a philosopher, a searcher after truth.  I found someone concerned about justice over legalities.  I found a me who was able to embrace the grey quality of life.  I found friends who understood that.

It would be so easy to return to the former me.  I don't want to lose the philosopher, though.  I don't want to lose the scholar.  I don't want to dismiss the questions.  I don't want to narrow my view.  I want to pursue justice for all, not just those like me or those I understand.  I want to always remember that the God I love is so much bigger than a single theological system or system of morals.

Fear submerges the "West Coast" me.  It's scary to be real around other Christians, because Christians everywhere tend to claim truth.  This truth extends beyond core truths about God and the world to a whole system of morality.  To step outside of this box is to rebel against the whole system.  Threats of "losing one's faith" or "displeasing God" keep me imprisoned.  But I promised myself that graduating with my masters' in history would not end my pursuit of knowledge and God.  It's time to keep myself accountable to that.  To stop viewing my 8:45-5:30 job as the entirety of my identity, as the extent of my responsibilities.  To stop simply blending in because I'm afraid of challenging the status quo.  It's time to pursue God, to stop hiding behind words, to truly pursue the One who has given me life and purpose.


I think I'm afraid to be what I am called to be.  For too long I've hidden.  I've ignored God.  I've let life take a rhythm of its own and have neglected my faith.  Enough.


Enough.

Top five reasons i know that i have arrived in small town southern Georgia:
5: It seems as if at least a third of tv commercials are about flood insurance.
4: If I want Starbucks, I'll have to go across the border to Florida (or further away in Georgia).
3: Apartment managers send "pest control" in every month to make sure the apartment hasn't been infested by roaches.
2: I've seen quite a few Waffle Houses, apparently flourishing despite the ugly yellow signs that have probably never been redesigned or even replaced.
1: One third of radio stations are country music.  One third are Christian music.  The other third?  Conservative talk radio.

homesick

I have arrived in my new home.  Well, sort of.  I'm in a hotel for the next two nights and moving into my apartment on Friday night.

I'm trying to be happy about being here.  And in many ways I am.  Georgia is pretty (although it has nothing on Washington), and I think I will enjoy my job as much as one can enjoy employment.  The culture has been fascinating so far.

But this isn't like when I moved to Washington.  I moved to WA without looking back.  I was so excited to be there, and I loved every second of it.  It was so beautiful there, and I remember walking around with mouth agape.

This city is rundown and spread out.  It is flat, and it is humid.  And it doesn't have Starbucks.  No university, and a city library with the most pitiful "social sciences" row you've ever seen.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm excited for the adventure, and I'm happy to be here.  But I'm a bit homesick for Bellingham.

A lot homesick.

melancholy

Tonight I am a little sad.  It's a strange sad, because it's mixed with eagerness, anticipation, and excitement.  But I'm sad, because I'm leaving a beautiful city and beautiful people who have become my good friends, my home away from home.

Tonight at a friend's house overlooking the bay at dusk, I was struck by the thought that that may be the last time I see Bellingham Bay.  The end is so near now...and I haven't really processed it at all yet.  I've been so busy with the day to day...right up until this afternoon, when it finally all ground to a halt.

For the past few days I have been semi-secretly, semi-not-so-secretly plotting to try to leave on Friday rather than Saturday.  Due to circumstances w/ my job at school that are beyond my control, I will not be able to leave until Saturday.  Part of me wants to be bummed.  I miss my family in SD, and my sister's getting married in under a week.  But I can't be too sad.  In fact, I really can't be sad at all.  I get one last afternoon, obligation free, in the city that has captured my heart in a way that no place has before.

It's supposed to rain all day tomorrow.  I don't even care.  I'm going to soak it all in, whether that be sitting in the 5th floor of the school library reading a book or strolling by the water's edge.

Bring it on Bellingham.  I'm going to enjoy my one day of "summer" in Bellingham to its fullest.

dancing in an empty room

Christina Perri sings a song called "Lonely."

The lyrics are as follows:

2 am, where do I begin?
Crying off my face again,
The silent sound of loneliness
Wants to follow me to bed


I'm the ghost of a girl that I want to be most.
I'm the shell of a girl that I used to know well


Dancing slowly in an empty room,
Can the lonely take the place of you?
I sing myself a quiet lullaby,
Let you go and let the lonely in
To take my heart again.


Too afraid to go inside
for the pain of one more loveless night
For the loneliness will stay with me
And hold me till I fall asleep


I'm the ghost of a girl that I want to be most
I'm the shell of a girl that I used to know well


Dancing slowly in an empty room,
Can the lonely take the place of you?
I sing myself a quiet lullaby,
Let you go and let the lonely in
To take my heart again.


Broken pieces of 
a barely breathing story
Where there once was love
Now there's only me
And a lonely 


Dancing slowly in an empty room,
Can the lonely take the place of you?
I sing myself a quiet lullaby,
Let you go and let the lonely in
To take my heart again.


Before you leap to too many conclusions, no, I am not going through a messy breakup.

Tonight I related to this song on an entirely different, more abstract level.  Spiritually speaking, if I am going to be completely honest, I feel as if I dance in an empty room, a room that used to be full of joy and hope.  "Where there once was love, now there's only me and a lonely room..."  At some point I stopped pursuing an emotional faith as evidence of God.  On the one hand, I think it gave me a deeper appreciation for the core of what it means to have faith.  My faith is about living it out more so than feelings anymore.

But I miss the feeling...I miss feeling as if God was right there with me.  It's hard for me to adjust to living with this new style of faith I have embraced.  It's hard to be in relationship with God when I no longer am sure how He speaks.  It used to be that I took my emotion as the Holy Spirit.  I no longer do so, and it makes for an excruciatingly "lonely room" at times.  It's not that I don't want to trust my emotions.  I do want to trust them, for riding an emotional high made some aspects of my childhood extremely joyful.  When God was near, I was untouchable...

It's hard for me to be honest about the "state of my faith" at times, I think mostly because for so many years my faith was characterized by mountains and valleys.  Now it's just a flatland.  Not high, not low of all lows. Just an enduring belief that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died to redeem the world from sin and an abiding desire to serve Him with everything I am.  Despite this belief, skepticism follows me in the day to day.  I'm never really free from it, and although I have learned to deal with it, I sometimes feel like I have failed entirely to follow God as I should.

I just wish that my emotions would catch up someday.  Maybe not in the same way they interacted with the belief system of my childhood, but at least in a way that didn't leave me feeling entirely disconnected.

I'm looking forward so much to being done with school at the end of this week.  I need time to just think about all of this.  I need time to process all that has changed in me in the last few years.  I need to deal with the skepticism, with the scars.  I need to seek God earnestly, although my approach may be entirely new to me...

I'm clinging to hope that this "lonely room" is only temporary.  That at the end of this winding tunnel is peace and clarity.

the worst

If there's something I hate more than anything else, it is being psycho-analyzed.  In the right situations, I am fairly strong willed, and my training as a historian only makes any attempt to give me a cut and dry answer seem entirely futile to me.  Not only do I hate being psycho-analyzed, but I hate being told what I should and shouldn't find important in life.  I recognize that my perspective is undoubtedly limited and vastly flawed.  Often, though, I find advice from others to be rather self-seeking.  I hate being ambushed and told just how wrong my perspective is - just how much of a failure my current approach to life is.

I hate these things so much.

And yet, one of the reasons I probably hate these things so much is that I am all of those things.  I psycho-analyze (myself and others), I tell others what they should find important, I give self-seeking advice (especially in Risk). And I ambush people with all the reasons they are failures.  

It is so difficult to live humbly.  To approach each and every situation from a selfless place.  To love without reservation, to offer oneself to the world as an offering to God.  That's my calling, but it is so often a distant aspiration rather than a current reality.  I cloak anger in the guise of love.  I feign concern in order to get information.  Among sinners, I am the worst.

on love

I usually keep my walls up pretty high.  This is me letting them down, even if just a tad.  I am letting them down because in the moments when I let the emotion in, I recognize how much hope I hold, in spite of my proclaimed skepticism.

In high school I was a hopeless romantic when it came to dating and marriage.  I had committed to not dating in high school, so I figured when college came around that would change.  It didn't.  The vast majority of the time I have been out of high school has been spent single.  At some point, I became highly skeptical.  Skeptical of my ability to fall in love, skeptical even that love even exists, except in rare occasions.  I began to see people who marry as weak in some way, or misguided, or foolish, if only because this protected my emotional state.

Mostly, though, I have become increasingly skeptical that love will ever happen to me, and even skeptical of my need for it.

I'm still skeptical.  I mean, my life is great as is, and if it weren't for the constant inundation in television, movies, books, and just life in general that reminds me that marriage is the ultimate goal, I think I might be just fine with life as is.  I love the people in my life deeply and being single affords me so many opportunities.

But there are moments when I realize what a lie it is to claim that I don't want to fall in love.  There are moments when a song touches a chord deep in my soul; when I realize that I, too, am capable of love, even if some days it seems about as likely as a UFO touching down in my back yard.

Today is one of those days.  Today is a day when I dare to dream of love.

The guy will have to be pretty perfect, though. :)