Diving In
I hate starting things. I don't know if it is my recovering perfectionistic nature or my impaired ability to make a decision when faced with endless options, but the task of beginning can leave me at the edge of the water, dipping a toe in here and there, agonizing over the entry point. And so that is why I write blog posts in my head on a day by day basis but have yet, until recently, settled on the defining title and jumped in.
This paralysis is debilitating during a move. Nine months ago our family uprooted ourselves from a perfectly lovely home in NC where we had friends, a church that we had become deeply invested in (with loving members who were mutually invested in us), and a familiarity with all the back roads and shortcuts that only comes from settling down and knowing a place like the back of your hand. I can still remember feeling turned around three or four years after we moved to Winston-Salem, a town most certainly not built on a grid. After ten years, however, I could set the autopilot from the driveway and wake up 15 minutes later when I arrived. There is something strangely reassuring about that kind of familiarity.
No wonder then that grumpiness ensued the afternoon that my brain mistakenly thought it knew the way in our new town, sent me into autopilot mode after picking up the kids from school, and then took 10 minutes to notify me that we were in foreign territory, in sight of the interstate but with no entry ramp and no identifiable landmark. Out came the GPS (the glory of technology) and the reminder that we were not inKansas North Carolina anymore.
For the first few months, I found myself on Facebook more than ever...too much. It became the connecting point to a life I knew then and there while I waited for this life to take form here and now. That's sitting on the edge, of course. There is only so long one can subsist on relationships that no longer come with real contact -- hugs, smiles, tears, stepped on toes, bad hair days, shared cups of coffee or glasses of wine. So recently I took the plunge into some real water. I did my usual toe dipping, up to my knees, then my belly until I couldn't hold onto the edge any longer and fell fully in by necessity. Some of us are just like that!
Toe-dipping: I showed up at a stranger's house, invited by the first friend I'd made in this new town, to a book club that was advertised to me as "not your suburban mom's kind of club." True that was. We had tea. Tea as in real steeped hot tea in a pretty little tea set with dainty china cups. I listened to stories of travels abroad and tried to distinguish the multiplicity of accents of these ladies around the table who hailed from different parts of Europe and the States. It was fun if nothing else.
Up to my knees: We joined the Y, and I started going regularly to exercise...until that first summer vacation. I had felt energized getting involved in a local community center, and I will get back there. I will! We also joined two CSAs -- one for vegetables grown an hour or so away and the other for grass-fed beef from a farm just down the street from us. It's our first serious venture in trying to eat locally, and it's HERE, in our new home.
Jumping in: After months of visiting churches in Clarksville and feeling a little more empty and disconnected to our new home each time we walked away from whatever church doors we had entered that day, Brian and I mutually decided one night that we had to follow our hearts. To travel an hour to church on Sunday, add twenty minutes for traffic on Wednesday evenings, seemed totally irrational. Each time we would attend Glendale, however, I felt like weeping. Far from the person I used to be who cried at the drop of a hat, I tend to keep the tears reigned in these days, and I can count on one hand -- maybe three fingers -- the times I've shed tears since we moved. I won't debate the health of this -- chalk it up to being consumed with family life and less focused on me, which is not a bad thing in and of itself. If I were to put on my chaplain hat for a moment though, I would say that tears fall most easily when we feel safe enough to let our guard down and relieved enough to know we can stand down. Tears slid down my cheek during prayer tonight. At the forefront was gratitude -- gratitude for streams of grace in which we can dip toes or fall in and rise again.
After months of feeling not quite at home, we found a place that we believe we can call home. Not to say we are there yet -- family takes time. But we are beginning to know names, we are learning a few of the stories, and our kids are finding their niche. Handshakes have become hugs. I just might start spending a little less time in the virtual living room of Facebook and more time sitting around the table -- be it the fellowship table on Wednesday night or the welcoming table of broken bread and Baptist grape juice on Sunday morning.
We are connected. That was the theme of the pastoral prayer tonight. I chose this name, Connected Streams, six months ago when I wrote the first words of this post that I could not quite bring myself actually to post. We are connected by hopes and disappointments, by fears and inexhaustible courage, by the need for sustenance, the need for breath, and the need for meaning. And streams -- streams do not sit still. They are living, moving entities that nurture life itself. They are not always predictable, nor are they invincible to outside forces; however, they are often highly adaptable.
I don't know what this blog will be exactly. Most likely it will be about my wonderings and thoughts on vocation -- the streams of being mother, minister, and spouse -- about my many questions, and about what answers I find that are most definitely not ultimate but are enough for me on any given day. At the very least, I am pretty sure my ramblings will fit within the confines of Connected Streams. And so it begins.
This paralysis is debilitating during a move. Nine months ago our family uprooted ourselves from a perfectly lovely home in NC where we had friends, a church that we had become deeply invested in (with loving members who were mutually invested in us), and a familiarity with all the back roads and shortcuts that only comes from settling down and knowing a place like the back of your hand. I can still remember feeling turned around three or four years after we moved to Winston-Salem, a town most certainly not built on a grid. After ten years, however, I could set the autopilot from the driveway and wake up 15 minutes later when I arrived. There is something strangely reassuring about that kind of familiarity.
No wonder then that grumpiness ensued the afternoon that my brain mistakenly thought it knew the way in our new town, sent me into autopilot mode after picking up the kids from school, and then took 10 minutes to notify me that we were in foreign territory, in sight of the interstate but with no entry ramp and no identifiable landmark. Out came the GPS (the glory of technology) and the reminder that we were not in
For the first few months, I found myself on Facebook more than ever...too much. It became the connecting point to a life I knew then and there while I waited for this life to take form here and now. That's sitting on the edge, of course. There is only so long one can subsist on relationships that no longer come with real contact -- hugs, smiles, tears, stepped on toes, bad hair days, shared cups of coffee or glasses of wine. So recently I took the plunge into some real water. I did my usual toe dipping, up to my knees, then my belly until I couldn't hold onto the edge any longer and fell fully in by necessity. Some of us are just like that!
Toe-dipping: I showed up at a stranger's house, invited by the first friend I'd made in this new town, to a book club that was advertised to me as "not your suburban mom's kind of club." True that was. We had tea. Tea as in real steeped hot tea in a pretty little tea set with dainty china cups. I listened to stories of travels abroad and tried to distinguish the multiplicity of accents of these ladies around the table who hailed from different parts of Europe and the States. It was fun if nothing else.
Up to my knees: We joined the Y, and I started going regularly to exercise...until that first summer vacation. I had felt energized getting involved in a local community center, and I will get back there. I will! We also joined two CSAs -- one for vegetables grown an hour or so away and the other for grass-fed beef from a farm just down the street from us. It's our first serious venture in trying to eat locally, and it's HERE, in our new home.
Jumping in: After months of visiting churches in Clarksville and feeling a little more empty and disconnected to our new home each time we walked away from whatever church doors we had entered that day, Brian and I mutually decided one night that we had to follow our hearts. To travel an hour to church on Sunday, add twenty minutes for traffic on Wednesday evenings, seemed totally irrational. Each time we would attend Glendale, however, I felt like weeping. Far from the person I used to be who cried at the drop of a hat, I tend to keep the tears reigned in these days, and I can count on one hand -- maybe three fingers -- the times I've shed tears since we moved. I won't debate the health of this -- chalk it up to being consumed with family life and less focused on me, which is not a bad thing in and of itself. If I were to put on my chaplain hat for a moment though, I would say that tears fall most easily when we feel safe enough to let our guard down and relieved enough to know we can stand down. Tears slid down my cheek during prayer tonight. At the forefront was gratitude -- gratitude for streams of grace in which we can dip toes or fall in and rise again.
After months of feeling not quite at home, we found a place that we believe we can call home. Not to say we are there yet -- family takes time. But we are beginning to know names, we are learning a few of the stories, and our kids are finding their niche. Handshakes have become hugs. I just might start spending a little less time in the virtual living room of Facebook and more time sitting around the table -- be it the fellowship table on Wednesday night or the welcoming table of broken bread and Baptist grape juice on Sunday morning.
We are connected. That was the theme of the pastoral prayer tonight. I chose this name, Connected Streams, six months ago when I wrote the first words of this post that I could not quite bring myself actually to post. We are connected by hopes and disappointments, by fears and inexhaustible courage, by the need for sustenance, the need for breath, and the need for meaning. And streams -- streams do not sit still. They are living, moving entities that nurture life itself. They are not always predictable, nor are they invincible to outside forces; however, they are often highly adaptable.
I don't know what this blog will be exactly. Most likely it will be about my wonderings and thoughts on vocation -- the streams of being mother, minister, and spouse -- about my many questions, and about what answers I find that are most definitely not ultimate but are enough for me on any given day. At the very least, I am pretty sure my ramblings will fit within the confines of Connected Streams. And so it begins.
I love you! Thanks for "jumping in! *hugs*
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