Idle and Blessed

My entire being is a jumbled mess of everything. In yoga classes, when you’re supposed to close your eyes and look into your own soul from the outside, I usually just pray instead because I don’t know what “looking at your soul from the outside” really means. But right now I do. And it’s that scene on the news, the helicopter cam looking down on the land where a tornado was. It’s those paintings in the children’s section of the Frist where all the colors are muddled together into brown because kids can’t really use paintbrushes. It’s that sentence you can’t get out so you keep stuttering and mixing words together because you’re nervous. It’s how you would imagine drowning being like if you can see the glimmer of daylight through the water but can’t tell which way is up. That’s my soul. That’s what it looks like from the outside. I’ve been going through the days by swinging in the middle of calmness and frenzy. Silence and screaming. Fake and real. Up and down. I keep thinking either th...

There are some times in life when all of the sudden something explodes and you become a different person. These are the times in my life I have come to fear, expect, love, hate, stand in awe of; in some ways I invite them in, wish for them, pray for them, and in some ways I expend lots of energy trying to avoid them. I think a lot of people refer to these times as crises. Crisis. That’s got to be one of my favorite words, because (side note) I use it all the time about everything, especially when I want to exaggerate, which is every minute. But still, crises shape us in a very strange and unpredictable way, and I feel like if we all just sat down with our neighbors and recalled the crises in our lives we would all get to know each other better, and we would get to know something really important about humanity and about life. Again with the side notes. Last night I met some friends my roommate had over, and we stood in the kitchen for a while and talked about moments of panic ...

Do you ever get frustrated with how hard it is to connect with people? To dance the dance of cultural norms and social graces, work through the limited medium of language, and get over the inner life of our minds to enter into the life of the Other while making ourselves known. Enter dishonesty, pride, fear, apathy, and selfishness, and there's not much hope left for authentic communication. I mean, that's not true. Because somehow we humans still manage to communicate with each other semi-effectively most of the time. My point is just that it can be really difficult. I've been in a phase lately of wishing I could just shed my skin and leave behind the clutter and brokenness of this life. Of myself. I have little patience for imperfection right now. Admittedly that is a problematic place, one that I hope to grow away from soon. But for now, I'm here. I'm reading a book called Soul Making for class, about one man's journey of discovering desert spiritua...

Sometimes it’s the goodbyes that I remember the clearest. I’ve been six times, and the years blend together like the long summer days of a Tennessee August. Hard to sort out in your mind where one ended and the other began. But when I think back on those six goodbyes, I can see snapshots of them all pretty clearly if I try. The first year I remember shaking hands with Slavik and saying “baka.” I remember that because I later wondered if it was improper to say “baka” instead of the more formal “das vidanya,” and it ate me up all year until I realized it wasn’t that big of a deal, and people like Slavik don’t hold it against me even if it was. The second year was the year I cried because Katya left without saying goodbye to me. So Anya called her and let me talk to her on the phone, and I just remember standing there in Anya’s room crying like a fool because I already missed Katya and it was occurring to me I wouldn’t see her again for a year. Years three and four are less de...

Jesus knew I needed to see the UM team today. I'm sitting at Bongo using the internet since the connection at my new apartment is sporadic and annoying. When I walked in here an hour ago, I saw all of the UM staff sitting at a table with our new Missionary Residents. I haven't felt so happy to see Belmont staff ever before. Christy gave me a big hug and then they asked me about Russia and I talked about missions for a while. And then Micah told me to come by the office soon and chat more about Russia, sophomore slump (which in theory should be gone...), and life. I feel like maybe I have a real community here at Belmont, I just forget sometimes. Especially when school hasn't started yet, no one is here, and I'm in a brand new apartment with a brand new roommate. So although I never pictured myself ever saying this, I can't wait for school to start. I can't wait to have people around me who know me, support me, keep me connected, and remind me I have ...

Here are some pictures! The first three are at the orphanage. Orphanage. Eating some ice cream we brought. They wanted a picture with me :) Not at the orphanage - this is Bahgdan, definitely one of my favorite little boys! And here's another favorite - Vitalik with his kitty Moorka!

I didn't start missing everyone until I was about six and a half hours into our Moscow to NYC flight. I had grabbed my prayer journal and started talking to the Lord about how excited I was to go home, but within two sentences my tone had changed to sadness. "I've been excited and yearning for home for a week now. But sitting on this plane today I am mourning the difficulty of this ministry you've given me. I am mourning the difficulty of getting to that part of the world - logistically, physically, and emotionally. I miss my Tanya's. My Nadya and baby girl, my Karina and Rusik and Tima. But I don't see myself going back to them next year, and that breaks my heart and brings me relief simultaneously, because although I desperately love those people, I am tired and my body has been put through the wringer and I miss my home." Conflicted. Mixed feelings are not new to me - I pretty much have mixed feelings about everything in life - but with Russia trips, th...