Discomfort

It's been two months since I've written here.  I don't know why precisely although I can create a litany of seemingly valid reasons, school demands more and more attention, I find myself more deeply involved in a few of my church commitments, I work hard to create intentional time with my kids, the litany continues.  What is more likely the case on some deeper level is that I have simply had nothing to share that could be formed in any meaningful and articulate way and my stream of conscious thought wasn't something I thought anyone would ever really want to read.

To update you briefly on our first year anniversary, we went to Disneyland for the day.  It does sound kind of nuts on one hand, getting up in Seattle at four in the morning, flying to Disneyland and coming home fifteen hours later to sleep in our own beds.  It's really all we had time for, given school and work for Emily etc.  It was meaningful, more than I can express actually.  Chris' laughter will forever be etched in the walls of Space Mountain so going there to hear it was important.  We left rainy grayness and found Southern Californian sunshine, complete with thriving orange trees in the California Adventure side of Disneyland.  Kids soaked up much needed Vitamin D, something in short supply naturally in our winters and I soaked up that and a plethora of theological and psychological significance to just about everything in the park.  In the end it was simply hard not to smile a lot.  I felt Chris' nod of approval, even at the absurdity of spending the money to fly that far of a round trip for one day.  9:51 p.m., the exact time of his passing, found us on an Alaska Air flight somewhere over Oregon most likely, heading back to Seattle, holding hands, remembering and finding some okay-ness.

I've been learning about discomfort and self-consciousness a lot lately.  I have plenty of both, like most of I suppose.  I have felt increasingly challenged to confront both of these concepts.  So, I'm trying to open up to precisely the very things that challenge my comfort level...emergent types of worship (something seminary is filled with), new ways of thinking about how different people come into relationship with God and even Tai Chi, something that I have been totally closed off to because I simply thought I looked so retarded trying it that I couldn't get past that in my head enough to live into the experience.  I'm not fully there yet but I'm learning. 

Along the way, I've pulled out my bible, partly for the lectio divinio way of reading it, letting it be the organic form that it is and come to ME instead of me having somehow to master it.  That's been tremendously rich to my devotional time.  The other thing I have done is open myself a little more to the last book of the New Testament a little more deeply.  With the help of a book by Eugene Peterson, that is something I will be sharing a little more of here in this venue.  When Chris first passed on, I defaulted to my favorite books of the Bible, Psalms, Jeremiah and Lamentations.  They were very comforting.  And I have long been made uncomfortable by Revelation, mainly because I've struggled to understand it.  But in this theme of being open to discomfort and of my deep desire to stay aware and open to the incredible Church Triumphant, I am learning that being uncomfortable is a good indication that you are growing. 

And so I'd like to invite you into some thought about the meaning of holiness, of the Church Triumphant, of heaven, of the very kingdom of God and into learning to live with discomfort.  We'll see where this goes and I'll try not to let two months lapse before I share more of what I am learning.

Grace for your journey,
Leigh