be here now

i have spent much of this past year asking myself one question quite frequently: what is wrong with you?!

maybe that seems a little harsh at first glance, but it's a fair question. 

no matter how hard i've tried (and believe me, i've tried hard) i have been unable to shake this general feeling of immobility. like my clothes are made of led. or i'm walking in flip flops through mud. or i'm wearing dark shades and ear muffs though very much desiring to see and hear. 

and i've tried looking with eyes intently peeled, and i've tried standing still with eyes casually glancing around, and i've tried standing still with eyes shut, ready to be taken by the hand in any direction. i've tried walking and i've tried lying down. i've tried announcing my position and i've tried keeping quiet. 

i have scrutinized my past and decisions that may have thrown me off the right track, i've tried analyzing where i'm going, where i want to go, where i was going before i stopped moving and whether or not that direction is still true.

i have talked to God and not talked to God. i have worshipped and remained silent. i have prayed for others and waited hoping to receive prayer. i have stayed through intercession and left. i have read and i have written and i have listened and i have walked and i have laid motionless and i have cried and i have enjoyed company and i have hidden away. i have fasted and feasted. 

i have done everything (other than drugs and witchcraft) possible and have gotten nowhere. no answers. no clarity. 

just one recurring nudge: rest, take refuge in God. 

(but what does that mean?)

and then today i realized that i have done everything except be. i have been everywhere except present. i have analyzed everything except this moment. i have sought God in everywhere except now. 

"were you speaking when it hurt? did i fail you? was i not listening? did i choose wrong? why can't i hear you? where do you want me to go now? what do i do now that i've left all that i know behind? what if i pick the wrong way? why can't i hear you?!" 

but what did God tell moses when asked his name? God said, "I AM." now. here. 

eternal, yes. from eternity past until eternity future. but NOW. God is outside of time and space, yes, not bound by it, yes, but here with us. with me. and i am bound by time and space. and God doesn't expect me to live outside of those bounds just because i know him. 

so. if God IS, and i am thinking about the past or the future, then i am not abiding in him, i'm abiding in something else. how many times have i read those verses in scripture this year? "abide in me", "take refuge." but what does that mean??

i think God is saying to me, "i am here, now. just be here with me."

so. God is omnipresent, and  God is now, and God is love, and if i exist with him here and now then i exist in his love, yes? and God's love is perfect, shown to me through Christ's sacrifice for my redemption on the cross which said, "you mean this much to me, your name is cleared from here on out, and you don't have to do anything more if you will just trust me." so here and now (because God is here and now) i am wholly loved (because God is love) and redeemed and justified (because Jesus did those things). 

God is unchanging, and his word never fails, so if he said that then, it's still true now. yes? and same for me, right? if i said i trusted him when i was 12 then it's still true now, right? 

so wrong...he might be unchanging, but this chick has to choose every day, every minute, to trust him. but if my mind is focused on the past and the future, how can i possibly trust him in the present? how can i possibly abide in his perfect love? 

i can't do it. i wander aimlessly. i seek something that does not yet exist or has already ceased to be and thus remain lost.

so, past self, to answer your question: your problem is that you're living in a really lame fantasy land of non-existent things. taste and see that the Lord is good! blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

"abide in me, and i in you. as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me." -jesus

i can't make past-me abide in him and i can't make future-me abide in him, but i can choose right in this moment to abide in him, and hopefully i will remember in the next moment, too. 

maybe i'll leave my next-moment self a note just incase. 

a change of scenery

though i have recently had a lovely change of scenery, i have very little inspiration to write this blog, it is coming much more out of obligation as i haven't written in a while. as a result it will merely be a series of photos with brief narrative that reflect my recent change of scenery.

it is fitting that a change of scenery should begin with a change of perspective...

which began with a breaking of glasses.

following the breaking of these glasses i purchased a design magazine that came with a cute felt wallet, which i proceeded to leave in the bathroom moments after purchasing it, and moments after discovering my fatally injured glasses in my purse. 

i then boarded a plane a half an hour after the scheduled departure time, disembarked and spent the one hour and thirty-five minutes between 12:05am and 1:40am waiting in lines at the airport, spent $20 on credit i could not use only to discover the call i needed to make was free from a pay phone, called the hotel shuttle and arrived at the lowest-budget budget hotel i have ever seen. 

upon arrival i discovered that the room-with-en suite i booked was not reserved and hence walked to my room-a-foot-wider-than-the-bed, plopped down my stuff, and sought out the communal shower. the communal shower could not have fit anyone larger than me and failed to produce anything other than frigid water. thus, i sought out the communal unisex toilet and washed my fringe in the sink which, frustratingly, produced lovely hot water. 

i spent the hours of 3am to 6:20am alternating between 5 minute naps and laying awake listening to traffic and squeaky floor-boards overhead and then rolled out of bed, unplugged the tv to plug in the kettle, and had some green tea and a rice cracker for breaky while getting dressed. 

at ten minutes to seven, a woman knocked on my door to inform me that it was 7 o'clock and my shuttle was leaving, at which point i scrambled to shove everything in my suitcase (including my hot hair-straightener) and hauled myself outside into the very chilly morning. 

i was to catch a bus at the airport that would take me somewhere to catch another bus which would take me somewhere to catch another bus which would take me to my final destination, tauranga.

there is much too much to tell about those bus trips, but i will mention a lot of purposeful but misguided walking, many attempts to make up for the night of non-sleep, and one moment trying to balance a suitcase, guitar and cup of coffee whilst hurrying across a crosswalk only to discover i could not balance these three items thus causing me to leave my suitcase in the crosswalk, dump my guitar on the sidewalk, take a final swig of the coffee, dump it in the trash and run back for my belongings.

but i made it to tauranga, five hours later, and i am alive, and it is beautiful.

the scene from where i love to sit and read, drink tea, etc...

view from the other side...

technology is most creepy when it does things you don't ask it to, like photograph you...

my adoptive family...

i do have a few thoughts on a few things that i'm sure will be posted soon enough, they just aren't done quite yet.

apparently i'm just an uncertain rollie-pollie...

to start this off, i have to give a shout out to christina cupitt, because this is about bugs and God, and i'm pretty sure she'd appreciate that connection.

i was sitting on the back porch reading tonight when i noticed a rollie-pollie bug walking towards me. (there are a few different names for them, but the enclosed pictures should clear up any confusion...)

needless to say, i got really excited. i know it's a bug, but i put rollie-pollies up there with lady bugs (lady beetles for the aussies). i just think they're cool. when i was little i would find as many as i could and make a house for them somewhere. they never seemed to have as much fun as i did with this activity...when they looked bored i'd flick them a little to make them roll up. i assumed they enjoyed this...my adult brain now recognizes the rolling as a protective move, a reaction based in fear. back then it seemed fun for both of us.

so tonight i poked this little bug a bit so it would roll up (even with my understanding of the poor creature's fear...i am cruel) then picked it up and put it in my hand. if the image you presently have in your head, now knowing that i picked up the rollie-pollie, is one of a happy little bug crawling around my hand, you are quite mistaken. it just stayed there in a ball. for quite a while. so long, in fact, that i went on reading out of boredom in waiting for it to open up. it lay there on its side, balled up, moving one single antenna around a little bit, for a good sixty seconds. 

in my very distinct understanding of the world, my adultness and maturity, i asked aloud, "why won't you open?" and instantaneously realized, and vocalized to this poor mute creature, "ah, you don't know where the heck you are! you are very uncertain."

my natural response to this supposed excuse for not opening is, of course, "but you're in my hand! i'm not a bird who's going to eat you, i'm not a giant bug who's going to fight and kill you (a la honey i shrunk the kids: ant vs. scorpion). you are safer here in my hand than you were before." but obviously my tiny little friend didn't know that, and because he was too scared to look around (truly, i know neither the sex of this creature nor his optical abilities, but we get the idea, yes?), paralyzed by this sudden change of surroundings, in a place that felt different, smelled different, looked different (whatever antennae's do, that's what was different)...to be safe, he just lay there for a good while. 

all of this to say, i know how he feels. and when i realized the reason for his stillness, realized that despite my good will toward him, and his safety in my hand, he was too small and too limited in understanding to have that same realization at that same moment. i immediately had compassion for him. yep, i felt compassion for a bug.

but i felt God saying to me, "you are in my hand, and you're fine, but i understand that you can't move just yet." i felt his compassion. his understanding that my finite mind needs to leave me rolled in a ball cautiously reaching out one single antennae to get a feel for my new surroundings. safer? yes. better? yes. in the palm of one who would never do anything which is not best for me. in the palm of someone who watches my every step, rather than letting me wander unprotected on the ground. and yet i am untrusting. fearful. it's foolish in reality, but he understands. he is not impatient. though i'm not sure he's in the middle a book which he goes back to reading while he waits for me to move, i am certain that he waits with the same amount of loving patience. and the reason for his patience? he delights in me. he enjoys me. he know what it will be like when i gain confidence, unroll, and move. 

i gotta say, that's why i was patient with my bug friend. i like those little bugs, and i was genuinely delighted (odd as that may be) to see him, to hold him in my hand, and to watch him walk around. 

obviously there are differences between my relationship with that bug and my relationship with God...God and i have a relationship that pre-dates my change of 'surroundings'. i know him, have known him, i know his character and his love. that bug and i have, despite my aforementioned affection for him, never met before tonight. he had no good reason to trust me. 

no matter what happens, how quickly i am removed from my previous circumstances, i should always walk with bold confidence, knowing i am in the loving hand of my great Defender. despite that fact, the honest truth is that i don't. i freeze. i have frozen. i became quite disoriented there for a bit.  these last months...this last year...has been one of laying rolled up in the hand of one who has patiently and compassionately waited. 

i have to say though, i feel myself beginning to unroll. my little antenna has been out there feeling around for a bit now...i think it actually discovered a while ago where we were (me and it...or whatever the human equivalent of it is) but i didn't want to open up until i knew where we were going to go. i have not been satisfied just knowing that i'm safe in his hand. i have needed to know where we were going to be going once i decided to unroll. alas, i don't think he's going to show me until i open up and look around, satisfied with knowing he's holding me. fortunately, i have been laying there waiting for absolute certainty to wash over me for so long that i think i'm unrolling out of sheer boredom.

 {the craziest thing just happened...i looked away from the computer and noticed something moving towards me on the floor...a rollie-pollie. i left mine on the porch three hours ago. that is just nuts. i am happy to report that due to this small miracle, the picture of a rollie-pollie in a hand is my rollie-pollie in my hand, instead of the hairy man-hand which you never saw but which was previously displayed}

point: he has been lovingly and expectantly awaiting, all this time, the moment that i would choose to trust fully, unroll and start moving. that moment is just about here.