discovery

So, I was able to load the longer post--I have finally been able to connect to the Internet at Shiloh. LIttle things like mistaking a 2 for a Z can get so silly...anyways, here is the longer post if you are interested.

So many thoughts and questions seem to fill my head these days. Yet I welcome them. There are absolutely times when I want to take my brain out and stick it in a pot, as a good friend once told me, yet I am learning that these questions and deep, intense feelings tend to mean that I am growing-growing in my walk with God and hopefully growing into the woman he desires me to become.

I’ve been doing some reading while I’ve been here—catching up on my Geez magazines (a magazine that encourages experiments with the truth: www.geez.org ) from last semester and also reading Can you drink this cup? By Henri Nouwen, one of my favorite authors. He is very profound in the way he writes and communicates different ideas. This book seems especially intriguing right now as I feel as though I’m learning to see. Rainer Maria Rilke once said, “Did I tell you? I’m learning to see.” That is one quote that I feel epitomizes my life right now. I’m learning to open my eyes and really see. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it hurts to realize that there are rich mansions on one side of the river and shacks built out of boards and metal roofs on the other side. I don’t know what that means or even how to begin to process it all-yet I’m learning to see through all of this.

But I digress-back to Henri Nouwen. He compares living life to drinking a glass of wine and claims that a life truly lived is a life reflected upon, contemplated, and thought through. We have to know what we choose and why we choose it. “One thing I learned from it all: drinking wine is not just drinking. You have to know what you are drinking and you have to be able to talk about it. Similarly, just living life isn’t enough. We must know what we are living. A life that is not reflected upon isn’t worth living. It belongs to the essence of being human that we contemplate our life, think about it, discuss it, evaluate it, and form opinions about it. Half of living is reflecting on what is being lived” (p.26) This type of writing causes me to really think—how can I continue to learn what I am living and how does that translate into living life to the fullest?

Nouwen goes on to write about the paradox of joy within the sorrow, something that I feel as though I constantly struggle with and am constantly trying to understand at a deeper level. “The cup of life is the cup of joy as much as it is the cup of sorrow. It is the cup in which sorrows and joys, sadness and gladness, mourning and dancing are never separated. If joys could not be where the sorrows are, the cup of life would never be drinkable. That is why we have to hold the cup in our hands and look carefully to see the joys hidden in our sorrows” (46-47). Sometimes I ache so much with this desire to solve the long term sorrow yet at the same time I don’t really know how. Little girls in the market place at TLC begging—their eyes seemingly empty of joy, how can I give life to that situation? Sometimes it seems like all I see is pain and the joy escapes me.

“Life is full of gains and losses, joys and sorrows, ups and downs-but we do not have to live it alone. We want to drink our cup together and thus celebrate the truth that the wounds of our individual lives, which seem intolerable when lived alone, become sources of healing when we live them as part of a fellowship of mutual care.” (p. 57). I think too that by sharing, by writing, by expressing my thoughts to you whether that is through blog, e-mail, or phone call, it helps me to articulate a bit more and perhaps helps me to see the faint glimmer of joy. Sometimes I feel like I am learning so much about what it means to release thoughts and feelings and emotions to God—like I’m trying to get to know him at a deeper level. So much to think about and so much to discern. Yet the questions still aren’t answered-how to find the joy within the sorrow?

“When we do want to drink our cup and drink it to the bottom, we need others who are willing to drink their cups with us. We need community, a community in which confession and celebration are always present together. We have to be willing to let others know us if we want them to celebrate life with us. When we lift our cups and say ‘to life’ (leichim) we should be talking about real lives, not only hard, painful, sorrowful lives, but also lives so full of joy that celebration becomes a spontaneous response.” (p. 60).

I think I am also really learning what it means to develop a community as well—I am so thankful for my strong support community back in the States, it helps so much to know that you are all praying for me and send me so many encouraging notes and e-mails. Yet at the same time, I feel as though I am beginning to understand a bit more of the larger global community within which I live as a Christian and as a child of God. Yes, it is taking time to develop friendships here but at the same time, almost because it’s a bit slower, I’m starting to realize the depth that community can have. The Thai culture is so relational—I love it and I think that Thai people truly grasp the meaning of the word community. It is all about people and working on developing different relationships with them. How can I learn to be open to that? God seems to be deepening this love for Thailand in my heart and I feel as though I am still in the process of discovering what that means.