This Pilgrim In the Windstorm blog is going to be in transition (still posting from time-to-time) for the time being, until before me unfolds a cohesive theme and direction for future posts - please bear with me....I have some ideas in the pressure cooker, but they're not yet tender. Ultimately, I want what I do and say here to bring glory to God and to not keep pointing back to myself - how do we do this? I have a few things to learn...
In the meantime....until I hit that stride (and then some), I've begun a new online gratitude journal for the purposes of lifting my mind toward blessings and gifts and everyday graces and more importantly to the Provider of these gifts and graces...(you're welcome to share in tasting them as I post them - there should be a feed to the side of this post which will give you a tiny nibble, but the direct link is 1,000 Confessions of Gratitude). You may smile at a couple, wince at a few, relate to some more, and not get others, but they are here if you so choose to partake... Better yet, make your own (check out Ann Voskamp's blog, A Holy Experience) and send me the link so I can rejoice with you. I also plan to post an occasional link to things others have said, or newsbits I find interesting... just warning that this blog has the potential (but is not guaranteed) to become rather eclectic at times...
Anyway, I am doing this gratitude journal because even though the past 12 or so months of my life have been filled with amazing things - experiences, blessings, insights, glimpses of glory, little and not-so-little miracles - I sometimes get bogged down in earthly things - thoughts, dreams, desires, wants and wishes, some fulfilled, others hopelessly and painfully denied. And earthly things can lift our minds to God, but we can also become enamored of them and hold them before ourselves as idols. I submit that I get bogged down in earthly things because I am, after all, but dust.
These months have been about transition and perspective shifts...In a period of a short few months, several of my long-time friendships and other closer relationships have shifted - given to marriage and dating and office-things and loyalty shifts and priority changes... Some of these shifts I saw coming, others I didn't anticipate and still cannot quite understand and suspect (translation: know in my heart) that I have missed something essential and potentially damning - where I have failed to nurture or to respond or to "be there" or some other unwritten but impassable rule...or where others have lacked the sensitivity they were trusted or assumed to have. I have also shifted - seen things and experienced things that have forever changed me...if I pretend to be the same person I was 12 months ago, I fool myself and create ridiculous rifts.
All of this has shifting of the tectonic plates of our existences have left me considering and rethinking questions and definitions of community and what it is to lean on God and what it is to share and carry the burdens of one another if we are part of the church (meaning, of course, the universal body of Christ). What is it to be joyful in all circumstances? What is it to rejoice with one another? What is it to consider others more important than ourselves, and what is it to value so that we might love others as we love ourselves? Where is the fitting? I know I'm not alone in these shifts and questions and longings...
I would offer an apology, but a writer is prone to moments of melancholy and pensiveness and dare I say angst as one who visits other lands may be prone on occasion to wanderlust, and to ask questions about the culture with which she or he is 'most' familiar. As one who claims to follow Jesus and knows there is a home in glory awaiting us, questions or dialogue about what we call our home will and should naturally arise.
feel free to join me in this windstorm for awhile...
peace
mel
0 comments:
Post a Comment