I'm not who I was

Yesterday, while preparing for a teaching session that I was to give this morning, I re-read a paper that I had written in 2007 for my graduate degree.  As I usually do, I read through my work with a sense of pride and remembrance. Proud of my ability to craft well written papers and remembering the circumstances which surrounded the turning in of said paper.  Then suddenly, a few pages into my happy diatribe, I was accosted with a section of my own work that made me cringe in both shock and horror. Sadly, the unsettling came not from the grammar or structure of my words, but from the thought process itself; so brazen, so steadfast, so far removed from what I think today.

Had this been a paper of my students' that I was proof reading, I would have heaved a sigh of "Oh, Honey!" and thought long and hard about how to engage her in conversation. Being my own work, however, the reading of this paper forced me to suddenly revisit the paths that my life had taken; to look back on the twists and turns that led me from that initial thought process to the place where I am today.  I saw how my decision to leave one safe, comfortable bubble in search of a new experience allowed me the opportunity to introduce a new kind of friction into my life: a friction that first pushed me away for it felt so uncomfortable, but eventually drew me in as it scraped away the non-essential wrappings that had been causing me to lose sight of the underlying simplicity of things like faith and God and love.

These past few years have been a process of change in me that I didn't go looking for and didn't expect, but now I can see with incredible thankfulness just how much I needed these experiences.  I needed to be unhappy and to be uncomfortable. I needed to be in a place where I had no connections and could not rely on other people or their faith to sustain me.  I need to go looking for community and not find it, to go to church and not like it.  I needed to allow myself the freedom to not feel guilty for skipping church or not reading my Bible. I needed to live with those who's lifestyles were "controversial" and I needed to be asked tough questions in regards to my response to them. 

In essence, I needed to start over. Not from scratch, mind you.  I did not throw out every belief or ideology, I simply set it all down. All the burdens and assumptions, the expectations and the traditions, all the trappings I had picked up along the way were shaken off and set before me to examine.  Now, ever so slowly, I am beginning to pick them up again one by one.  I've started with, and may never move past, the concept of love. Of all the things I've learned about God over the years, one of the first is that He is love... and what in the world does that mean!?

So I'm learning to look at love differently.  To shake of the dust and grime and good intentions that we have wrapped the concept of love in and I'm trying to see it in a different light - in a natural light.  Recently, I often find myself sitting in the sun, breathing deeply and contemplating what love looks like, how it acts, what's its motivation.  There's something about the natural world that allows me the freedom to look at those items that I've set down, that I originally picked up from some sort of good-intentioned, man-made vending machine, and to enter into the process of discovering those which are worthy to be picked up and those which can, and probably should, remain on the floor.

It's an interesting journey to be on, for sure, but as I look back, I see it as an incredible one. Possibly one of the greatest adventures of my life.  I have no idea where this process will lead me or when it will end, but I find that comforting. If I had stopped at 26 and decided I was content with myself and my life, I shudder to think what may have become of me. Just three short years later I look back on who I was and I am overwhelmed with gratefulness for the people, the places, the opportunities, and the challenges which have caused the growth I see in myself already.  It may be small, and I may still have a long way to go, but as always, I'm taking it one day at a time, living in the knowledge that the journey itself is far more important that whatever destination lies ahead of me.