Pushing Away
Summer has come to Nashville. Summer and not Spring, because you know how it is. 55 degrees one day and 85 the next. But it's beauty-filled and and running over, greenest grass and tallest trees and the flowers all bow down in the wind. It makes me glad to live here, grateful to live here, and I think it helps me take hold of the moments better. It helps me live in each moment, singularly, noticing. I notice there's beauty because there's a newness to it. Suddenly, it smells like cut grass. Suddenly, it smells like the color yellow. Suddenly there's not winter in the air. Suddenly.
We learn best by contrasts. We notice change more than continuity. It's a point of noticing for us.
This summer my prayer is that when the fall comes, when change comes to me in big and real ways, it will be a point of noticing. A learning time. An exploring time. I know myself enough to know I won't like Atlanta at first. But I'm praying for a sense of wonder and open eyes to explore that world for three full, good years. I'm moving toward the direction of this is an adventure, and I will learn about God here and I will run and bike and do yoga here, and I will feel what it is to live in a place of newness.
Some days I rail against the things I don't know. I push them away with strong arms, locked elbows. It's the lack of control that gets me. I think all of you already know this about me and I'm the only one who's been fooled, but I'm realizing I like control. 98% of my daily frustration comes from things not going as planned, quickly, prettily, easily. And I get to a place where I'm boxed into a small space of my comfort zone because I've pushed so many things away. Not on a big scale, but on a small one. The day-to-day one. The emotional and inner-life one. Although this sounds cryptic and abstract I hope someone out there understands it. It's something of living out of fear.
Living out of fear.
I've been very convicted of some ugly places in my heart recently. I graduated college and have all this free time, so there's lots of space to notice the places the gears are sticking. They're sticking on places like anger, resentment, selfishness with my stuff, competitiveness, wanting to be the best. And discontentment. Always things could be better. Always time could go slower, friends could be kinder, running could be easier, the house could be cleaner. And I ask myself why, in this season of beauty and warmth and freedom and summertime, in the city I call home, with everything going fine, I feel discontent in my days. The common denominator is fear.
Because if I can't control things, they're scary. If I can't control people, they're scary. If I can't be the best I'm afraid I'll be the worst, and that's scary.
I just don't want to be worst.
Or average, or not good enough.
And so back to square one, with the pushing away. The pushing forward. The reaching and the pulling. The striving and the rejecting, and the anger because I'm afraid it's all a failure and I'm not good enough.
Living out of fear.
So yeah, I compete, and I try to be better at my sports and smarter in my studies and I try really hard to have life follow a pattern I like. All good things. But then there are times when it all comes to the surface, and there are times when I'll have to move to Atlanta, and I hope God has enough mercy to teach me to be not afraid. To notice. To take in my surroundings and accept them. Richard Rohr says 'to accept reality is to forgive reality for being what it is.' I want to forgive reality for being what it is.
Yesterday my yoga teacher had us stuck in Warrior II for like 20 minutes. Actually it was more like 120 seconds, but that's a long time to be in Warrior II. And she said something that resonated with me when she said, "Don't run away. Look into yourself and realize there's nothing there to be afraid of."
So today I'm looking myself in the eye, face to face, right up close, and telling myself there's nothing in there to be afraid of.
And really, when it comes down to it, there's nothing out here to be afraid of either.
We learn best by contrasts. We notice change more than continuity. It's a point of noticing for us.
This summer my prayer is that when the fall comes, when change comes to me in big and real ways, it will be a point of noticing. A learning time. An exploring time. I know myself enough to know I won't like Atlanta at first. But I'm praying for a sense of wonder and open eyes to explore that world for three full, good years. I'm moving toward the direction of this is an adventure, and I will learn about God here and I will run and bike and do yoga here, and I will feel what it is to live in a place of newness.
Some days I rail against the things I don't know. I push them away with strong arms, locked elbows. It's the lack of control that gets me. I think all of you already know this about me and I'm the only one who's been fooled, but I'm realizing I like control. 98% of my daily frustration comes from things not going as planned, quickly, prettily, easily. And I get to a place where I'm boxed into a small space of my comfort zone because I've pushed so many things away. Not on a big scale, but on a small one. The day-to-day one. The emotional and inner-life one. Although this sounds cryptic and abstract I hope someone out there understands it. It's something of living out of fear.
Living out of fear.
I've been very convicted of some ugly places in my heart recently. I graduated college and have all this free time, so there's lots of space to notice the places the gears are sticking. They're sticking on places like anger, resentment, selfishness with my stuff, competitiveness, wanting to be the best. And discontentment. Always things could be better. Always time could go slower, friends could be kinder, running could be easier, the house could be cleaner. And I ask myself why, in this season of beauty and warmth and freedom and summertime, in the city I call home, with everything going fine, I feel discontent in my days. The common denominator is fear.
Because if I can't control things, they're scary. If I can't control people, they're scary. If I can't be the best I'm afraid I'll be the worst, and that's scary.
I just don't want to be worst.
Or average, or not good enough.
And so back to square one, with the pushing away. The pushing forward. The reaching and the pulling. The striving and the rejecting, and the anger because I'm afraid it's all a failure and I'm not good enough.
Living out of fear.
So yeah, I compete, and I try to be better at my sports and smarter in my studies and I try really hard to have life follow a pattern I like. All good things. But then there are times when it all comes to the surface, and there are times when I'll have to move to Atlanta, and I hope God has enough mercy to teach me to be not afraid. To notice. To take in my surroundings and accept them. Richard Rohr says 'to accept reality is to forgive reality for being what it is.' I want to forgive reality for being what it is.
Yesterday my yoga teacher had us stuck in Warrior II for like 20 minutes. Actually it was more like 120 seconds, but that's a long time to be in Warrior II. And she said something that resonated with me when she said, "Don't run away. Look into yourself and realize there's nothing there to be afraid of."
So today I'm looking myself in the eye, face to face, right up close, and telling myself there's nothing in there to be afraid of.
And really, when it comes down to it, there's nothing out here to be afraid of either.
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