"You make your plans and then a great wind comes along..."
Tonight I'm borrowing words from Sabrina Ward Harrison's "Messy Thrilling Life", which I read yesterday while waiting in yet another airport... Sometimes another's words can be more fitting than your own...
:: :: ::
And in the end, it turns out that maybe it's not the order of our words and our stories that's so important, but how we pick them up off of the floor and how we hold them, how we live them and how we begin again... There really is no protection from life. But why all the believing there is? Why all the acting as ifs -- the careful protective editing and graceful sashaying away for safety. There is no clean shield from living and loving... I am filled with happiness, not perfect rightness, just a softening of understanding for the way life is going. This has all happened before us... Untied and loose we travel together, making it to the next landing point, bags in fist, eyes wide open.
:: :: ::
I feel the wind these days... And while I don't know what direction that wind is going to take me and what it might do to the pieces of my life, I'm very sure that it's going to carry me to a very good place.
Trusting what I cannot see...
:: "We must be willing to get rid of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us." - Joseph Campbell
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
plight and flight...
I'm safely across the sea again... Last Tuesday at 12:35 I was beginning my transatlantic journey -- I had the thought during my ten hour flight that maybe going backwards across five time zones might actually give me a chance to catch up with myself...
Six days and three states later I'm still a bit numb. Nothing's changed about my life circumstances except that I've now had to try to explain it to a lot more people. Which means, I suppose, that there are more people praying, and more people caring, and less people I have to explain it to later.
Traveling from place to place this way my I'm struck by how my possessions dwindle (less to carry) but my relationships grow. The less I have to hold on to, the more I cling to intangibles, and the more they actually become tangible. Ties of family and the care of friends turns into something I can feel -- like an invisible blanket surrounding me with warmth and security. Small generosities and acts of kindness amaze and humble me. And I am left feeling forever indebted.
Someone asked me the other day, after the muddled explanation of my current situation, "but are you happy?" I thought about it and said that I was. Even in the middle of this uncertainty and undefineable future, I realize my happiness. It's a quiet sort of stable happiness, that ebbs and flows but is always within view. It's in knowing that my security and richness doesn't dwell in anything that can be taken away. Whatever happens in the next few weeks, wherever I end up, the most important things to me in life are not at risk.
They go with me.
:: "My happiness moves..."
Six days and three states later I'm still a bit numb. Nothing's changed about my life circumstances except that I've now had to try to explain it to a lot more people. Which means, I suppose, that there are more people praying, and more people caring, and less people I have to explain it to later.
Traveling from place to place this way my I'm struck by how my possessions dwindle (less to carry) but my relationships grow. The less I have to hold on to, the more I cling to intangibles, and the more they actually become tangible. Ties of family and the care of friends turns into something I can feel -- like an invisible blanket surrounding me with warmth and security. Small generosities and acts of kindness amaze and humble me. And I am left feeling forever indebted.
Someone asked me the other day, after the muddled explanation of my current situation, "but are you happy?" I thought about it and said that I was. Even in the middle of this uncertainty and undefineable future, I realize my happiness. It's a quiet sort of stable happiness, that ebbs and flows but is always within view. It's in knowing that my security and richness doesn't dwell in anything that can be taken away. Whatever happens in the next few weeks, wherever I end up, the most important things to me in life are not at risk.
They go with me.
:: "My happiness moves..."
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
quandary...
I almost forgot it was Tuesday... And last Tuesday, it wasn't exactly that I forgot to blog -- I just had a serious case of wordlessness.
When you're at a loss for words, dictionary.com is always a good place. And I did find one:
"quandary" n 1: a situation from which extrication is difficult especially an unpleasant or trying one; "the woeful plight of homeless people" [syn: predicament, plight] 2: state of uncertainty or perplexity especially as requiring a choice between equally unfavorable options [syn: dilemma]
I think that pretty much covers my current life.
Bible.com is also a good place when you're speechless. Interestingly enough I didn't find the word "quandary", but I did find the Scripture of the Day:
"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then you shall call upon me, and you shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you." (Jeremiah 29:11-12)
And I think that pretty much covers it as well.
:: "I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much." - Mother Teresa
When you're at a loss for words, dictionary.com is always a good place. And I did find one:
"quandary" n 1: a situation from which extrication is difficult especially an unpleasant or trying one; "the woeful plight of homeless people" [syn: predicament, plight] 2: state of uncertainty or perplexity especially as requiring a choice between equally unfavorable options [syn: dilemma]
I think that pretty much covers my current life.
Bible.com is also a good place when you're speechless. Interestingly enough I didn't find the word "quandary", but I did find the Scripture of the Day:
"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then you shall call upon me, and you shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you." (Jeremiah 29:11-12)
And I think that pretty much covers it as well.
:: "I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much." - Mother Teresa