Growing Daisies

Somethings I learned today…

*I want a new job. I want a new job bad enough to research jobs now instead of slacking off, and stick with the crap one I have to figure out my life.

*I think I need to apply to seminary and/or grad school. That is a more acute awareness of how bad I want a new job/career.

*The closer I get to graduation the more, and more thankful and grateful I am that I will have a degree.

*The closer I get to graduation the more, and more thankful and grateful I am to the people who pushed, encouraged and supported me through out this whole process.

*The gifts and blessing in my life point to how great God’s grace is and how so underserving I am.

*You can go at least 60 days without talking to anyone and without anyone talking to you. A girl said this today, and I can’t even begin to explain how much it hurt my heart to hear her say that. 60 days. 60.

*I love seeing women find their voice, their value, and their self-worth.

*I flirt with guys who are way too young for me.

*I love hearing people stories.

*I can translate Greek. It may take a few hours, but I can do it.

*I find that I am most with comfortable with people who are honest about their brokenness.

*There is a lot of grace in guys not hitting on me at work. A lot of grace. And almost flattering.

*Hope is not the same thing as wishing. Hope is rooted in real possibilities.

*I’m at a really good place and I have high hopes for what is to come.

How can one person want to do so many different things? How can I want to make music and go to seminary? How can I want to travel and stay put? How can I want to indulge my appetite for adventure and pay off bills? How can I want to be married and single? How can I want to move away and be close to people I love here?

Some people just know what they are suppose to do, and they have known for a long time. Some people are outstandingly gifted to do something, and there isnt a question about what they want to do. Some people are told what they are suppose to do, coerced into what they are to do, born to do what they are doing. Some people are assigned to what they will do. And some people just settle in what they do.

Then there is me. Unfocused, hippie-like, free-spirited me. Im good with people, so anything people are interested in I am interested in. But that doesnt really narrow anything down for me. There isnt one area of study, one hobby, one activity that has stuck out and just screamed “Racheal, this is what you need to do for the rest of your life!” I write well. When I try. Im great at being self-aware.

And I love life. Absolutely love it. The good, the bad, the ugly.

And I love Jesus. A lot.

But what to do, what to do, what to do.

I think Ill just…be.

The class times, and weeks are flying away like autum leaves. With each passing week it’s one closer to graduating college. It’s the most surreal, bittersweet season of my life so far. I can’t believe after four years of commuting, working part-time, going to school full-time, moving twice a year (on average), changing majors, changing theology, changing visions, growing up, maturing, sacrificing…I’ll have a B.A. to show for it all. I never wanted to go back to school, because I was ignorant and stubborn. But now I have a growing respect for myself and for others who have degrees. Because of what this process really means.
“So what’s after graduation?”. It’s that question everyone asks, but I always dread. Its like asking the young married couple when they are going to have kids or the old couple when they are going to retire or the high school graduate when they are going back to school. No one asks about who you are or what you have become or want to become. It’s all about doing.
I love telling people that I plan on doing nothing after I graduate, because they either try to help me plan out my life or they change the subject. Its always telling of what they think a college degree will do for person. Usually that concerned, furrow-browed look shows up when I say “nothing” and I realize that they think there is some career with a salary just waiting for me. Good thing I know better.
So what will I do. There are so many things I would love to do and that Ive talked about doing. Move to Portland and live a urban, young adult life. Pursue worship as a ministry calling by going to YWAM. Seminary. (Like I actually looked at Princeton Seminary the other day. I dont know why. They’ll never accept me and I dont want to go to seminary.) Travel to Europe. Travel to see my friends. Travel anywhere. Maybe go on a date. Like a real date. With a guy Ive never met. Who pays for dinner and has intentions. Pay off bills and save up for the next step in life. Loose 90 lbs. Ok, Ill take 80lbs. Go see a counselor. Do all the things Ive put off doing the last four years of my life. The world is my oyster. And I have the rest of my life to figure it out. Because I really dont want to do anything right away.
Because here’s the deal. Here is something people dont tell you about going to college. They dont tell you that you may leave college fragmented. They dont tell how to synthesize all those smaller parts of you that have been challenged, inspired, changed, matured, educated. Maybe they did and I just missed that. Maybe its assumed that because you declare a major that you are really fragmented at all. Maybe thats the result of a Liberal Arts education. Maybe Im just a different kind of student.
So I actually do know what I will be doing. I will be waiting. I will be waiting for the dust of academic life to settle, for the reality of post-collegiate life to set in and to see what emerges from my fragmented self. Because I dont think I can move forward in any long-term direction yet. I know who I am and I dont. I know myself better than Ive ever known myself and yet I dont know myself at all. I need to see what has stuck, what I need to drop, what I need to keep and what I need to pursue. My fear is that it will all cave in on me and Ill become depressed. Haha. But my great hope is that after awhile something will emerge…something greater than I could ever image….and Ill be suprisingly blown away by what I find. And out of that….will be the begin of my best life now.

I’ve been reading a book called Images of Pastoral Care: Classic Readings.  It’s a compilation of essays written by ministers, and other professionals on the ministry of mental health.  I have found it altogether very interesting, and wanted to post a few snippets of an essay written by one of the more well-known contributors, the late Henri Nouwen:

Therefore I would like to voice loudly and clearly what might seem unpopular and maybe even disturbing: The Christian way of life does not take away our loneliness; it protects and cherishes it as a precious gift.  Sometimes it seems as if we do everything possible to avoid the painful confrontation with our basic human loneliness, and allow ourselves to be trapped by false gods promising immediate satisfaction and quick relief.  But perhaps the painful awareness of loneliness is an invitation to transcend our limitations and look beyond the boundaries of our existence.  The awareness of loneliness might be a gift we must protect and guard, because our loneliness reveals to us an inner emptiness that can be destructive when misunderstood, but filled with promise for him who can tolerate its sweet pain.  When we are impatient, when we want to give up our loneliness and try to overcome the separation and incompleteness we feel, too soon, we easily relate to our human world with devastating expectations.  We ignore what we already know with a deep-seated, intuitive knowledge-that no love or friendship, no intimate embrace or tender kiss, no community, commune or collective, no man or woman, will ever be able to satisfy our desire to be released from our lonely condition.  This truth is so disconcerting and painful that we are more  prone to play games with our fantasies than to face the truth of our existence.  Thus we keep hoping that one day we will find the man who really understands our experiences, the woman who will bring peace to our restless life, the job where we can fulfill our potentials, the book which will explain everything, and the place where we can feel at home.  Such false hope leads us to make exhausting demands and prepares us for bitterness and dangerous hostility when we start discovering that nobody, and nothing, can live up to our absolute expectations (p.78).

In no way does Nouwen advocate against the need for relationships, but what he does is point out how to enter them as a person of wholeness.  When we have a deep understanding of ourselves, and our true nature then we can meet others deeply and guide them to deeper understandings of themselves.  He talks about how we create a “space” in ourselves, out of humilty and not out of self-pity, that invites others to be themselves around us.  I think, on some level, he is also saying that through this process we are freed up to get out of the way to minister to others.  It isn’t about self-reliance, but rather it is about fully understanding loneliness as a condition common to all men and to use this understanding to connect with and help other people. 

Nouwen’s words ring true in the silence of waiting rooms, at the table for two in the restaraunt, in homes all across the world.  As a person who represents hundres of thousands of singles I can say that I find some comfort in Nouwen’s words.  I’ve been in loneliner places in my life than what I found myself at the present.  I can see the loneliness in the eyes of dear friends, single and married, widowed and divorced, professionals and ministers.  It’s the “common enemy” of humanity, and how people deny it is evident by their means of suppressing it’s reality.

But our hope is in Christ, who, as the writer of Hebrews says,

14Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. 16Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (4:14-16)

Christ experienced a loneliness that we will never understand, but in turn He does understand ours.  May we meet each other in our time of need with humility and compassion, not with all the answers, but with an understanding.

It’s Tuesday night, and Im walking down the hall of the third floor of Henderson. Ive just left my Creative Writing class, and the stale, musty smell of the building hangs in the air. As I head for the double doors at the end of the hall I can hear the mummur of another class still in progress. I linger for a moment against the hall to catch the sound of a video the class is viewing. Some preacher is talking about God’s love and the forgiveness found in Christ. I head through the doors, walking down the three flights of stairs that will talk me to the level floor. When I walk outside I am suddenly engulfed by the cool, brisk fall air. It’s night, and I can vaguely make out some of the stary sky that has escaped the light population given off by scattered lamps on campus. Down the hill to my left is the three story Psychology building all brick and stoic. In front of me several yards off is the square, brick, ironically sterile art building. Off in the distance I can hear a song being sung by strong, young voice of a guy who wants to be famous one day. His acoustic guitar echos out of the small gym, and escapes into the night air. This is a paused moment. The crispy air rushes into my lungs as I breath in deep, my ears strain to drink in the raspy melodies, my eyes hungrily search the stary sky, and my feet slowly march down the hill. It is moments like this I have learned to stop and experience them for all they are worth. Its the space and time between point A and point B. Its the time that no one, not even myself, demands anything. I shove the “shoulds” out of my mind and take the moment in. Its the scrap of space left over after a schedule has been cut out. Its in these times where I escape and find refugee. Sometimes this time looks like my long drive home from school with the windows down, the radio off, and my eyes fixated on the horizon. Sometimes this time looks like Thursday afternoon, when my school week has ended but its not quit the weekend yet. I daydream, and wonder around in my mind about my life and what it is and what it will be and what I am learning in it all. That space in between the points, that time in between time is where I recharge. Medition…slowing down…smelling the roses…whatever some one wants to call it…I crave it. And I wasnt even looking for it. It found me.