Settling In

"I am the one for whom God waits. I am awaiting the One who is awaiting me. Embrace the season of winter with hope, it is a good teacher. It will lead you to your innermost depths where God is contemplating you."

~ Macrina Wiederkehr

I'm settling in.

I have returned from Guatemala. I wish I had been able to blog while I was there but there just wasn't the space to do that. I also wish that I could explain my time there, but it is about as hard as explaining Mission Year to people. But I'll say this, being in Guatemala completely affirmed my desire to remain in Camden and moved me to officially decide on moving into Camden with my friend, Molly, and her roommate, Jannelle, after Christmas. I have a job in Cherry Hill planning birthday parties for kids that I have been somewhat surprised to find that I really like. I am still pursuing acting and being a working artist and taking voice lessons and circus classes. And I am trying to build deeper relationships with new people who have chosen to make this area home as well. Soon, Molly, Janelle, and I will work on discovering together what it means to love God, build community, love our neighbors, and pursue justice in the context of real life responsibilities. It feels strange sometimes. Sometimes I feel so busy and I'm with people all day, but still have such a sense of loneliness in my heart. But amidst that loneliness, I am also sensing this incredible feeling of strength and power. Strength that comes from somewhere inside but also somehow beyond me. It is my sense of God in the midst of some hard post-Mission Year processing/grieving, but it's really hard to articulate well. The best I can really explain it is, I'm settling in. Settling into where I find myself and where I choose to be. I feel so much more that I can actually put to words, but I am opening myself to God and trusting that even when I don't know what to make of everything I feel or what to do with it, he does.

The space between

We are here, there, not here, not there, swirling like specks of dust, claiming for ourselves the rights of the universe. Being important, being nothing, being caught in lives of our own making that we never wanted. Breaking out, trying again, wondering why the past comes with us, wondering how to talk about the past at all. - Jeanette Winterson

I read this quote earlier and just loved all the contradiction in it. I'm finding a lot of comfort in contradiction. I think I always have but the word "contradiction" was always said in ways that made it sound forbidden, dangerous, and dirty. Like the whole world would fall apart if there wasn't one right and one wrong.

Today I had a to do a demo as part of an interview to be a substitute yoga teacher at a local yoga studio. I really value the way I was treated. The woman gently corrected and critiqued me through it. She didn't expect me to be perfect, have all the right answers, or do every pose flawlessly. I was hired. It's a small step, but a step nonetheless. I love how open yoga is and how open theatre is. They exist in this world of contradictions and questions that may or may not have answers.

On another note (and I can't even believe I'm admitting this), but the truth is that facebook is depressing. I think my sister is right in calling it "The Devil's Notebook." Okay, that might be a little harsh. Still, as petty and foolish as this sounds, all the engagement pictures, wedding pictures, and baby pictures of friends and people I went to college and high school with are often the worst part of my facebook homepage experience. Not that I'm not happy for all of my facebook pseudo-friends and not that I'm even sure I want all of those things anytime in the near future, but I'm sure there must be a hint, a dash maybe, of envy? Yuck. I should just cancel my facebook account, but then where would I stalk people?

Unforced Rhythms of Grace

Today I sat in the emergency room for hours with Marilus. She's been really sick the past few days and today, after preaching two sermons, she finally gave in and admitted her need to go in. Lately I have been feeling like I'm in this awful space of nothingness. I have no rhythm or routine in my life outside of brushing my pearly whites, feeding my insane Lorelei Gilmore coffee habit, and journaling when I wake up. Other than Marilus, there is no group of people I see on a daily basis. I was gifted a free month of netflix which in theory was a wonderful idea but in practice has taken up too much time and blocked too much thought and feeling. But in a conversation with a far-away-friend, I was able to finally voice what I had felt too foolish to say out loud before. Essentially my issues boiled down to, "I don't feel like I do enough every day to live out my values and who I want to be. I feel incredibly alone and afraid to face brokenness in others and myself all over again. I feel like the Where of my life prevents me from living out Who I am. And that I don't think I trust God very much that he is present in people and places even when I'm not."

Today as I sat in the emergency room with my friend/roommate/pastor/mentor/whatever and as later I held another friend's hand as tears fell for her own brokenness, I realized that I actually do still love people. And that part of Who I am does not change because of Where I am or who I am without or what I can or can't do in that moment. I still hurt in their hurt and smile in their joy. I am awfully hard on myself. I thought I was getting better at that but maybe not. I'm reading a book called, "The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity." It's slower going than I would like, but I was reading about self-affirmations today. Julie Cameron says basically that it is amazing how without any embarrassment we can easily "bludgeon" ourselves with negative affirmations but to offer ourselves positive affirmations feels embarrassing and silly to do even when we are alone. During our 4 or so hours of conversation in the ER, Marilus told me that there are 24 million Christians living as "untouchables" in India. "With a number like that," she asked, "how is it that they remain so oppressed? The number of oppressed people is so high, why does it stay like that?" Well, lucky for her I had just read that part about affirmations. Part of the problem of oppression is definitely the oppressors, but I think the other part is that we oppress ourselves and keep ourselves there with these negative affirmations.

"Who do you think you are? What good do you really think little old you can do? You, you one little person, really think that your love can make any difference? What makes you think you can be an artist? a writer? a scholar? a teacher? a minister? a college graduate? a high school graduate?" If I am constantly asking myself these kinds of questions, then I will live the rest of my life trusting in the little safety net of the worlds I know and not in the big hands of my Creator God who loves and cares for me. And I have to wonder, is that any life at all? Is that living or merely just surviving? All of these voices that tell me I can't, that I'm not good enough, or wise enough, or brave enough, or talented enough, or loving enough. And I listen to these voices and I don't do what I know I should do or could do because I'm afraid that they are right and I don't tell anyone else about these voices because I'm afraid to burden them, to sound stupid or crazy, or like I'm fishing for compliments and encouragement.

I need prayer. I mean, I really need prayer and I'm asking for it from whoever reads this. I don't normally ask for prayer because I'm not much into the idea of the ask-and-you-shall-receive God. I would ask that God be near me, but I know he does not know how to be absent from me. I'd ask to be provided for, but I think it is more likely that I just need to open my eyes to see how he's already doing that. Maybe that I learn to see myself as God sees me, which is not so perfect and not so much of a failure either. I want to find comfort and peace in the middle, in the uncertainty, the contradictions, and the questions. That's hard for me. I like structure. A lot. I like knowing which way is up and down, black and white, questions that have answers, and bread that always lands butter-side-down. But I think what I need now, is to find life in the questions, in the spaces between the known and the answers. Because what I'm learning more and more is that even the "known" and the "answers" are relative.

the art in us

Tonight I went to see a play at the South Camden Theatre Company. It was fantastic. The space is amazing. It is this brand new little intimate theatre right in Waterfront South Camden. The play was called, "Last Rites," set in Camden (at exactly the corner the theatre is now) in 1967 when the New York Ship Building Corporation shut down taking thousands of jobs with it. It really was the catalyst of Camden's decline into what it is now. It was a heartbreaking play. This is a heartbreaking city. By as we drove in it, both Marilus and I said with a sigh, "My Camden." In the Director's Note, he said, "Camden fell because people lost faith in themselves." But there are still some people with a lot of faith left for Camden. I met some of them tonight. Plays like the one I saw tonight is why theatre is so important to me. If it were not for theatre, the stories we tell, and the lives we represent how would we remember where we come from? The choices and lives of simple people that impact us still today even though we have forgotten them? And how would we be able to ask ourselves the really important questions about how we choose to live now? Our stories and the retelling of them are important parts of who we are. And Camden deserves to have its story told and heard because it matters. That is why I am here and that is why I do what I do as an artist, as an advocate, and as a follower of Jesus' way.

P.S. I have an audition on Tuesday! :) Hooray!!!

Journeying

I am an artist. For a long time I wouldn't admit that. I was too afraid of too many things. But I am an artist and I'm talented. That isn't being arrogant, it's being truthful. I have finally gotten to the point in which I can admit that to myself and to other people. I am an actor and a singer and I love theatre as much as I love ministry and fighting for social justice. I'm on a quest to figure out how I can live out both of those equally strong parts of me. So next week, I am going to start auditioning again in the Greater Philadelphia area. I was texting my friend/mentor/voice teacher/etc. Tim and said, "This is scary!" To which he replied, "You've done a lot of scary things before...you can do this one!" I seriously bust out laughing. Too true. I moved to Camden, New Jersey the "Most Dangerous City in the Nation" and hardly bat an eye but a little audition freaks me out. I am still laughing at myself. I appreciate friends who bring me back down to earth and help me not take myself so seriously. Auditioning isn't so scary after all and I'm really excited to do it again. This is the part where you say, "Break a leg!"

Lessons from Strangers

Once upon a time I had a livejournal I used to blog on and tonight, randomly, I decided to log in and read old entries. I mean really old. It felt a bit weird, reading about events and feelings I had entirely forgotten. It felt like I was reading the entries of an entirely different person. It was so impersonally perky even in the more thoughtful writings. I'm not that person anymore, but she was once me. I'm not sure I ever knew her well. She was so busy, so active, running from here to there, sometimes really mean. Every entry sounds like it was written in a rush. Not long ago, I complained to a dear friend that I was bored and he said, "Maybe this is a good time to ask yourself why you always keep yourself so busy." Being in Mission Year taught me how to ask the hard questions. I became a more self-aware person. At 24, I know that I don't really know that much, but I know that I see myself much clearer than I did at 20. I wonder if I will look back on this entry, years down the line, and think that I did not know much now either. Marilus says that I'm a very intense person, that I interact with everything and everyone like I am in love with them. I don't disagree with her. She warns to be careful, that people like me get hurt and become hardened. But I've walked that road most of my life and this last year I learned a different way, this intense way of love. And she's right, a lot of time it hurts and I've been disappointed more than once, but I like being a passionate, intense, emotional sort of person. I like the empathy I have because of it. It is tempting to return to my heart of stone, to rebuild my high walls, but I won't do it. I pray that I won't do it. I don't want to be tough, I want to have the sort of strength that comes from being in those hard places and walking through them trusting, and maybe not fully knowing, that God is with me in the darkness. Sometimes I feel like I walk for days in darkness and confusion and then have momentary sparks of light and awareness before the darkness falls again. More often than not, I choose it in a desire to be more self-aware. To the next question: why do I keep myself so busy?

This could be a separate blog but I think I'll just include this thought here. I met a homeless man last night who completely broke my heart. His name was Thomas, he was nearly 61 years old, and he is a veteran of the Vietnam war. I was broken by his story, disgusted with our society and American war patriotism, and crushed that I could not do more for him than listen. I think one day I would love to write a play about our soldiers, men and women, that we so recklessly send to fight our greedy wars, vehemently display "support our troops" bumper stickers as we sing "God Bless America"and pray he protects them, and then leave these veterans to sleep on the streets in the rain and eat out of dumpsters in their old age because they have made a few "bad" choices in their broken state. Whose fault is it that they were sent to take the lives of other humans and experience a side of life that most of us won't even choose to see by entering the "ghettos" in our own cities? Sometimes I get really angry because of how blind people are and sometimes I remember grace because not everyone has had the privilege of meeting Thomas.

Funny story....TWO days ago I went running in my neighborhood. I invested in a pair of barefoot running shoes and adopted the toe-heel running style. Mind you, I haven't run since before Mission Year ended and TWO days ago I decided to knock out two miles in my new shoes. Just an FYI: when your calves start hurting like a you-know-what WHILE you're running....that is bad news. TWO days later, I am STILL climbing up and down stairs like the 94 year old women in the church congregation. All I need is the pink cane...