Lonely, but never alone.
Humbled and empowered."
I am the Beloved.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
New Beginnings
I really am honestly going to try to get better about blogging. The truth is that I love to write but I write so often and this is usually the last outlet I go to. Probably because I never know who is going to be reading it and I don't want to accidently offend someone. No one reads my prayer journals and emails/letters are usually only shared with one person. I have no control over who reads this so I feel like I have to be more careful. But I want to be honest still. So here goes...
I am back in New Jersey, living in Pennsauken which is just outside of Camden. It isn't as "dangerous" but it has its own problems. I walked around the last few days and explored the neighborhood and also visited some of my old haunts in between organizing my bedroom. It feels really good to be back here and seeing my friends and neighbors again.
In Mission Year, I learned how to feel. I know that sounds weird but it is true. I became much more self-aware and learned to pay attention to what my heart was feeling rather than just ignoring it for the sake of "keeping it together." This last month I have felt like I've been in a limbo. I've wanted to feel things as acutely as I felt them during Mission Year but sometimes things just got so busy that I reverted to ignoring again. I miss having people around me who challenged that, it made it easier. Now I have to learn to ask those questions myself or look for them where they aren't so easily found.
Last night was a really good night for me even though I ended it in tears. Lindsay and Ra, two of the other team captains from MY, came over to visit. Actually, they came over to help me organize my classroom but about 10 minutes into their being here I knew that wasn't going to happen so we went back to the house where there is air conditioner. We visited for a while and they met Marilus who kept saying, "I'm just going to tell this one more story and then I'm going to watch my show which I'm missing right now!" She's funny. Then we baked some very experimental cookies from just whatever we found in the house which turned out okay considering. We could probably tweek our recipe a bit and then they'd be worth sharing. We ate them. Afterward, I responded to an email I got from Caz. She asked me how my heart was doing; what made it smile and what made it tight. I sent her a very lengthy response (because I write novels) and realized how much what Marilus and Sheila said is true. Caz is a release for me. With her, more than anyone else, I am able to just release whatever is bottled up inside of me even if it is just in responding to an email. It is the need that she fulfills in me.
I responded to her email in tears of relief more than anything that I was finally facing the hard stuff I've been avoiding. And I came to a very awesome realization about God and community. They say that God fills all our needs. I realized how that works last night in the context of community. Ra and Lindsay filled my need for laughter, understanding, and meaningful conversation. Marilus fills my need to be challenged and talked to. Caz fills my need to release and notice my feelings by asking the right questions. But ultimately, there is no Ra, Lindsay, Marilus, or Caz. There is only God, living in each of them and fulfilling my needs through human hands. Henri Nouwen says, "You have to move gradually from crying outward - crying out for people who you think can fulfill your needs - to crying inward to the place where you can let yourself be held and carried by God, who has become incarnate in the humanity of those who love you in community. No one person can fulfill all your needs. But the community can truly hold you. The community can let you experience the fact that, beyond your anguish, there are human hands that hold you and show you God's faithful love."
I think I have spent much of my life searching for that one person that can fulfill all my needs. But I realized last night that I will never find that. I will find my needs met "incarnate in the humanity of those who love me in community." That is how God will fill me. I think in my head, I always knew that. I love and find such joy in those moments when my heart finally catches up with my head. That was where my tears came from, in experiencing the joy of God's love in community last night.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Saying Goodbye
I haven't been a very faithful blogger this year. I enjoy it but I journal so much on a regular basis that I'm often burnt out of writing by the time I remember my blog. This year has been so full that I couldn't possibly catch up in one entry. I will probably be processing my Mission Year for the rest of my life. It seems really surreal right now that it is over. I've been dreading this day for weeks, crying practically a few times a day whenever I thought about it. And now, I'm not crying. It doesn't feel real. It feels like just a short break and in two weeks I'm going to go back to my apartment, neighborhood, team, and Mission Year and be back working at Christus, living in community, and having Team Captain meetings. I'm moving back to Pennsauken/Camden area in September but everything will be different. Honestly, I'm afraid. I'm afraid to be there without the physical presence of Mission Year in the Tri-City area. But I hold onto that I'm not going to be there without God. Before going to Mission Year, I prayed David Livingstone's prayer often, "Send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. Sever any ties but the ties that bind me to your service and to your heart." That prayer was a lot easier when I wanted to go anywhere, when I had not understood "burden" because I did not know how to feel much, and when I didn't really feel tied to anything. But God revealed a depth of emotion and feeling in me that I didn't know I had and now it is harder to say goodbye. "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." -Matthew 28:20
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Past Mistakes
There is a song by the Indigo Girls called “Galileo,” that has a line that has really been speaking to my heart lately. It says, “And now I’m serving time for mistakes made by another in another lifetime.” She’s actually talking about reincarnation, but I think the idea is just as significant whether you believe in that or not. We all carry the choices of those before us. Good or bad, we carry them all. It seems unfair to me sometimes. In my idea of justice, we all should carry only the weight of our own mistakes and choices. But we are all interconnected and dependent on one another; none of us carry only our own choices. My whiteness carries the guilt of the oppressor, current and past, and the slave owner and the imposer of segregation. My neighbor’s blackness carries the lingering residue of oppression, segregation, and enslavement. My privilege carries an arrogance of entitlement as my students and neighbors carry the desire just to survive and be socially accepted. I did not choose to grow up privileged or White any more than my students and neighbors chose to grow up poor or as people of color. Our privilege and poverty were chosen for us and we carry the weight of those choices “made by another in another lifetime.” That’s been a hard thing for me lately, reconciling the meaning of all of this and what my responsibility is in it. It would probably be easier just to say, “That wasn’t me. I didn’t do that so I shouldn’t have to feel guilty or pay for what was done before I was even born.” That would be the easy thing. But it wouldn’t be the right thing. And it wouldn’t be reality, merely an illusion. The fact is, I am serving time for mistakes I never made, but if I didn’t recognize that, I would be indeed making my own mistakes. I have made many already. God never intended us to live separate from each other by our differences. God loves diversity and he loves ALL people. Why we don’t seem to get that, I don’t know. Maybe we’re afraid. Afraid of the stranger, afraid of our responsibility, afraid of God and his call for all his children to reconciliation. Maybe we like our hatred, though we may not recognize it as such or refuse to name it. Maybe we like to feel powerful and in control of the lives of others because we don’t always feel in control of ours. Maybe it is easier to condemn that to accept because we would rather reject someone before they reject us. But I’m really glad God doesn’t think that way. I’m really glad that he accepts rather than condemns and that he would rather be rejected by us than reject us. That is my experience of the unconditional love and grace of God. He waits for us patiently, whispering in us, asking us to choose him, wanting us to sense his arms around us as he rocks us in our tears and laughs with us in our joys.
I strongly believe in God’s desire for reconciliation because at the very heart of us, it is our deepest desire too. I believe he wants us not only to be reconciled to him, but to one another, and to his creation that he has given us to care for and take pleasure in. Not the kind of pleasure that is abusive, but the kind that stops to smell the flowers and admire their simple beauty. We have been on the path of destruction for too long, destroying each other, ourselves, and our home. Instead of caring with grace, we have been taking advantage of people and of our planet. I’m truly repentant for the part I’ve played personally in that and for the mistakes I carry from others in another lifetime. I have seen so much injustice in the world in the last month. The oil spill in the Gulf, caused by our greed and our laziness or fear of taking a stand, is heartbreaking and infuriating. It feels like the greed in the form of crude oil, is destroying my home and my whole childhood as it moves around the coast of Florida. The injustice of Arizona’s stance on immigration that gives law enforcement permission for racial profiling and mistreatment of aliens in the name of “protecting our neighbors” is insane especially when God calls us to love the alien as one of our own. They are our neighbors. We need to seek reconciliation as God calls us to, not separation and segregation.
I strongly believe in God’s desire for reconciliation because at the very heart of us, it is our deepest desire too. I believe he wants us not only to be reconciled to him, but to one another, and to his creation that he has given us to care for and take pleasure in. Not the kind of pleasure that is abusive, but the kind that stops to smell the flowers and admire their simple beauty. We have been on the path of destruction for too long, destroying each other, ourselves, and our home. Instead of caring with grace, we have been taking advantage of people and of our planet. I’m truly repentant for the part I’ve played personally in that and for the mistakes I carry from others in another lifetime. I have seen so much injustice in the world in the last month. The oil spill in the Gulf, caused by our greed and our laziness or fear of taking a stand, is heartbreaking and infuriating. It feels like the greed in the form of crude oil, is destroying my home and my whole childhood as it moves around the coast of Florida. The injustice of Arizona’s stance on immigration that gives law enforcement permission for racial profiling and mistreatment of aliens in the name of “protecting our neighbors” is insane especially when God calls us to love the alien as one of our own. They are our neighbors. We need to seek reconciliation as God calls us to, not separation and segregation.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Back in the Abundance of Camden
First trimester over and the second begins. A new year filled with new lessons, resolutions, and goals. Caz has been asking us to think about what our hopes and goals are for this new trimester. For as goal oriented as I am, I realized I’m not a very good goal setter. Mostly my goals have been set for me. In high school and college it was, “This is what you have to do. Do it well and get good grades.” Write a resume, get a job, do what they tell you to do at your job. Very rarely was I asked to set my own goals for life other than what was expected of me. Even in the first trimester of Mission Year, we were told what the expectations were and how we were meant to live up to them. There was a lot of structure and I’m used to structure. I like structure. Structure helps me to know what people expect of me so that I can living into those expectations and be who they want me to be. Their goals were my goals. Being who other people want me to be is a heck of a lot easier (emotionally) than trying to figure out who I really am. Or is it? While there are still rules and expectations in place, there is a lot more freedom this trimester. Hence Caz asking us to figure out what our hopes are for our own spiritual growth and the growth of our relationships.
Last trimester, I kept waiting for all of this to feel like life. I went home for Christmas and was surprised to find that most of the time it felt like a dream. When I got back to Camden, I realized that it does feel like life here. Sometimes I feel like people see Mission Year as a transitional period of my life as if I was living before and I will be living after but right now I’m in the middle. I don’t believe that. This is my life. Life does not begin or end in events, it just is. Life is wherever we are right now. Letting go of the idea that my life is on pause while in Mission Year and will start up again after is helping me to let go of all the expectations of what my life should be. Sometimes people’s hopes for me, sometimes even my hopes for myself are not consistent with God’s. Why must I always be and do more? Why can’t I just be? Why can’t life just be what it is right now, the good and the bad? In Psalms 66 the other day, I read:
“For you, O God, tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.”
So often we think of abundance as only the good things of life, but this passage refers to the “fire and water” and the heavy burdens as “abundance.” In the good and in the bad, God brings us to a place of abundance. All I went through, all the lessons learned and the coming into a deeper understanding of who I am, all of the really difficult fires and crushing waters I went through, has brought me to a place of abundance and intimacy with Jesus and I see the truth of this Psalm clearly.
My hope for this trimester is that I come into a deeper peace and understanding of the abundance that comes from God in all forms. I’ve just begun to surrender the expectations and judgments held over me by myself and other people of who I am. Until I can let go of that in myself, I know I won’t be able to let go of my own expectations of how other people should be and I want to. I want to come to that place of humility and freedom so that Jesus has His unhindered way in me to love others more completely through me.
“If growing up is the process of creating ideas and dreams about what life should be, then maturing is letting go again.”
-Marybeth Danielson
Last trimester, I kept waiting for all of this to feel like life. I went home for Christmas and was surprised to find that most of the time it felt like a dream. When I got back to Camden, I realized that it does feel like life here. Sometimes I feel like people see Mission Year as a transitional period of my life as if I was living before and I will be living after but right now I’m in the middle. I don’t believe that. This is my life. Life does not begin or end in events, it just is. Life is wherever we are right now. Letting go of the idea that my life is on pause while in Mission Year and will start up again after is helping me to let go of all the expectations of what my life should be. Sometimes people’s hopes for me, sometimes even my hopes for myself are not consistent with God’s. Why must I always be and do more? Why can’t I just be? Why can’t life just be what it is right now, the good and the bad? In Psalms 66 the other day, I read:
“For you, O God, tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.”
So often we think of abundance as only the good things of life, but this passage refers to the “fire and water” and the heavy burdens as “abundance.” In the good and in the bad, God brings us to a place of abundance. All I went through, all the lessons learned and the coming into a deeper understanding of who I am, all of the really difficult fires and crushing waters I went through, has brought me to a place of abundance and intimacy with Jesus and I see the truth of this Psalm clearly.
My hope for this trimester is that I come into a deeper peace and understanding of the abundance that comes from God in all forms. I’ve just begun to surrender the expectations and judgments held over me by myself and other people of who I am. Until I can let go of that in myself, I know I won’t be able to let go of my own expectations of how other people should be and I want to. I want to come to that place of humility and freedom so that Jesus has His unhindered way in me to love others more completely through me.
“If growing up is the process of creating ideas and dreams about what life should be, then maturing is letting go again.”
-Marybeth Danielson
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Live your life, don't just let life happen to you. ~Caz
I am quite possibly the worst blogger ever. I used to be so good about this. Ironically enough, I was much better when I had far less to say, at least far less to say of anything important. The deeper things are felt, the less inclined I am to share them with everyone. A while ago in our curriculum reading we read "The Way of the Heart" by Henri Nouwen about embracing silence and solitude. In it, he talked about how wordy we are as a culture and the more we talk about things, the less we feel them. I've noticed the opposite, the deeper my feelings, the less I want to speak them aloud. Which I guess is ultimately the same thing.
I've been spending a lot of time this last week daydreaming. Dreaming about what live used to be like, the things and people that are familiar. Caz said recently that by this time, two months in, people often start feeling like, "Well, this has been a great missions trip but I'm ready to go home now." I can relate to that. I started feeling very homesick for my friends in Pensacola especially and my little apartment with April and Sheila. I was so ready to leave Pensacola behind forever when I left in August and now there are moments I would give anything to be back there, back where things are comfortable and familiar. I was praying about this earlier today, that God would give me the strength and the faith to stay present and to trust that 10 months from now, everything is going to be okay and I am going to be where I need to be. I realized that He is answering my prayers to learn what it means to surrender and as He is teaching me to let go of the familiar and hold on only to Him, I am clinging desperately to the things He wants me to let go. I am clinging to the edge of the branch, not realizing that God is holding his arms out two feet below me ready to catch me the moment I decided to release my death grip.
I told this to Caz this morning at our team captain meeting. She commented that we are all like that; we all worry so much about what will happen and then finally when we get there, we are surprised to find that everything is still all right. Six months ago I was stressing about where I was going to go next and why I was feeling restless. And yet here I am, doing okay, living life in Camden, New Jersey. In 10 months, wherever I am, I will be doing okay and still living life. So why worry?
A lot has been happening in and around me these last two months, the retelling of which would make this blog WAY too long. But overall things have been going well. Working at the school is great and the teens I work with are a lot of fun...and sometimes a pain in my butt. :) My math skills are improving significantly. My church here is great, though really small. Bible studies have been really fulfilling and most challenging to a lot of my long-held doctrinal beliefs. I love it though; it is wonderful to be thinking of God and His word in new ways. My neighborhood is busy and my neighbors have been soaking in the last of the warm weather so we've been able to sit outside with them a bit more than we expected. Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching and we will hopefully get to spend some really awesome time with them. My team is doing well and have been really good for me through my inner and outer struggles. We've been good for each other.
Please keep me in your prayers. Specifically for my school and how my heart handles each individual student. Also pray for my team and that we grow closer together and deeper into the bonds of community. Their names are Anna, Ellen, Josh, Matt, and Megan and I'm sure it would be a comfort to them as it is to me to be prayed for by name. I could use some prayer too regarding trusting God in each situation. I often do not trust myself to handle difficult situations well and I think that comes from putting too much faith in my own abilities and not enough in God. And lastly, to stay present; that God helps me keep my mind and heart present here, where I am sure I am meant to be.
Peace and love!
I've been spending a lot of time this last week daydreaming. Dreaming about what live used to be like, the things and people that are familiar. Caz said recently that by this time, two months in, people often start feeling like, "Well, this has been a great missions trip but I'm ready to go home now." I can relate to that. I started feeling very homesick for my friends in Pensacola especially and my little apartment with April and Sheila. I was so ready to leave Pensacola behind forever when I left in August and now there are moments I would give anything to be back there, back where things are comfortable and familiar. I was praying about this earlier today, that God would give me the strength and the faith to stay present and to trust that 10 months from now, everything is going to be okay and I am going to be where I need to be. I realized that He is answering my prayers to learn what it means to surrender and as He is teaching me to let go of the familiar and hold on only to Him, I am clinging desperately to the things He wants me to let go. I am clinging to the edge of the branch, not realizing that God is holding his arms out two feet below me ready to catch me the moment I decided to release my death grip.
I told this to Caz this morning at our team captain meeting. She commented that we are all like that; we all worry so much about what will happen and then finally when we get there, we are surprised to find that everything is still all right. Six months ago I was stressing about where I was going to go next and why I was feeling restless. And yet here I am, doing okay, living life in Camden, New Jersey. In 10 months, wherever I am, I will be doing okay and still living life. So why worry?
A lot has been happening in and around me these last two months, the retelling of which would make this blog WAY too long. But overall things have been going well. Working at the school is great and the teens I work with are a lot of fun...and sometimes a pain in my butt. :) My math skills are improving significantly. My church here is great, though really small. Bible studies have been really fulfilling and most challenging to a lot of my long-held doctrinal beliefs. I love it though; it is wonderful to be thinking of God and His word in new ways. My neighborhood is busy and my neighbors have been soaking in the last of the warm weather so we've been able to sit outside with them a bit more than we expected. Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching and we will hopefully get to spend some really awesome time with them. My team is doing well and have been really good for me through my inner and outer struggles. We've been good for each other.
Please keep me in your prayers. Specifically for my school and how my heart handles each individual student. Also pray for my team and that we grow closer together and deeper into the bonds of community. Their names are Anna, Ellen, Josh, Matt, and Megan and I'm sure it would be a comfort to them as it is to me to be prayed for by name. I could use some prayer too regarding trusting God in each situation. I often do not trust myself to handle difficult situations well and I think that comes from putting too much faith in my own abilities and not enough in God. And lastly, to stay present; that God helps me keep my mind and heart present here, where I am sure I am meant to be.
Peace and love!
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Lord willing, I will actually get better at updating this thing. Original plans were to update once a week but the whole not having internet in our apartment put a damper on that one. But since I take a handful of teenagers once a week to a place called Hopeworks that teaches young people proficiency on the computer, I have a computer more readily available to me. Yay!
I am finally getting settled here in Camden and into a routine. Monday through Thursday I work at Christus with 14 ninth and tenth graders. Mostly I am enjoying all of them a lot and am starting to build some good relationships with them. I work as a teaching assistant in math, Spanish, English, and computers (at Hopeworks) which is definitely pushing me out of my comfort zone. I'm supposed to start their after-school program in November too so that should be fun. Weekends are left for our Sabbath, time spent in our neighborhood, chores, curriculum reading, and Church. We are all falling into our own schedules while also making time for each other and I'm relieved to finally start feeling like I'm living life here.
Jesus has been teaching me so much in just the 6 weeks that I've been here. Tonight and tomorrow we all go on our Solitude Retreat and get time to reflect over all we've learned, all we were, and all we are becoming. Most of us are really looking forward to it and some are dreading the silence. I think that it will be far different from what any of us expect, in keeping with Mission Year tradition. Nothing I've experienced so far has been anything like what I expected it to be. But each day I need Jesus more and I desire to know Him better, so I know that I am exactly where I need to be in spite of the pain and hardship.
I'm trying to keep up with 2 blogs right now so I'm not going to write much more here. If you want to see more you can check out my blog through Mission Year too at:
www.missionyear.org/blog/stevieneale
Thanks for your prayers and support!
I am finally getting settled here in Camden and into a routine. Monday through Thursday I work at Christus with 14 ninth and tenth graders. Mostly I am enjoying all of them a lot and am starting to build some good relationships with them. I work as a teaching assistant in math, Spanish, English, and computers (at Hopeworks) which is definitely pushing me out of my comfort zone. I'm supposed to start their after-school program in November too so that should be fun. Weekends are left for our Sabbath, time spent in our neighborhood, chores, curriculum reading, and Church. We are all falling into our own schedules while also making time for each other and I'm relieved to finally start feeling like I'm living life here.
Jesus has been teaching me so much in just the 6 weeks that I've been here. Tonight and tomorrow we all go on our Solitude Retreat and get time to reflect over all we've learned, all we were, and all we are becoming. Most of us are really looking forward to it and some are dreading the silence. I think that it will be far different from what any of us expect, in keeping with Mission Year tradition. Nothing I've experienced so far has been anything like what I expected it to be. But each day I need Jesus more and I desire to know Him better, so I know that I am exactly where I need to be in spite of the pain and hardship.
I'm trying to keep up with 2 blogs right now so I'm not going to write much more here. If you want to see more you can check out my blog through Mission Year too at:
www.missionyear.org/blog/stevieneale
Thanks for your prayers and support!
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