Belly of the Whale

Welcome, my friends, to my brain when I'm not really thinking.

That's been the story of the day today--no overthinking, just lots of doing and talking. Doing and Talking without thinking can be messy but it's also vulnerable and real and unedited.

Inside of me there and thoughts. And a lot of fears.
     thoughts about my fears and even some fears about my thoughts.
...to fear your thoughts sounds a little strange, in my opinion, but as I sat in silence last night, I understood that that's a lot of where I'm at right now...I fear my thoughts and I fear my emotions. When I let myself think and feel freely, without reservation, the reality expressed is not controlled. In our society "to lose control" has awful connotations--carelessness, mania, powerlessness, etc. Though these may characterize some situations in which a person has lost control, they do not encompass the whole.

Still, the fear instilled by the negativity is what remains in the forefront of my mind and so I keep control.

I am afraid of what a loss of control would actually look like.
I am afraid no one would know what to do in that situation. And so I'm afraid I'd end up alone in my uncontrolled mess. Somehow that seems worse than choosing to be alone in the contained, neat and tidy version of the mess.

That choice is subconscious.

If someone were to literally ask me, I would choose companionship in my mess--because I know I have people in my life who would not be scared of my mess, maybe a little hesitant at first, but not in such a way that keeps them from helping me through it however they can.

Dumb.

Dumb.

Dumb.

I may have an IQ about 50 points higher than that of the average human being 

but my brain is still dumb.

Example.

It has been almost a year and there's this one person I still struggle to trust. She hasn't really given me any reason not to trust her and, from wha tI can see, she's done everything she knows how to get me to feel confortable to trust her. Still, my brain is being stupid and is afraid of judgement and rejection and of not being good enough or of being too much.

That's what's inside of me.

New Semester. Old Issues.

I HATE CHANGE.

really.

really really.

I really hate change.

But the ruler of the universe doesn't seem to care.

what's up with that?!!

The change of classes and professors isn't the issue here. It's friends leaving. shocker, I know. it's not like we haven't gone through this before. 

Try this dialectic on for size: Sure, I have abandonment issues, but I know this isn't about me.Yeah, I'm gonna miss 'em, but I know this is what's good for them.

Still, I liked things how they were. I liked it when we were all here.

I have this group of best friends. There are five of us and though we are rarely all together, we are always with one another. We've memorized each other's work and class schedules and schedule in "best friend time" on our google calendars. And when we aren't physically together, we are still textually connected (and emotionally, of course). In fact, Annie figured that for each hour she and I spend apart, we have a minute of phone conversation--this hypothesis was proven over the two weeks we were with our families during this past Christmas. We weren't always best friends--none of this 'we grew up on the same block and have been friends since kindergarten' business. It was gradual and, for the most part, natural. I could tell you stories about the precise prompting event that led me into friendship with each girl. Annie--crossroads class. Claire--texting pranks. Amanda--well, actually, I don't remember, Erin--living next to (and then with) each other.

Erin is in Ecuador. Awesome, right? She and I have bonded over our love of the Spanish language and, more specifically, the Latin American people and culture. We had hoped to travel to Nicaragua for a two-month immersion trip this summer (the scholarship got cancelled so that's not happening, don't worry, you haven't missed anything that big).  Some "plans" didn't work the way we expected and that resulted in Erin's decision to study abroad this semester.

Studying abroad is awesome. And I'm fully for it. But I don't like that it's taking one of my best friends to the southern hemisphere for and extended period of time. Fact is, I miss Erin. And she's only been there since Saturday. 




Person leaving #2: Fr. James Vioss, SJ
Much of my reason for being so absent from the blogoshpere this past semester has to do with this very fine man and his very fine class entitled 'Sources and Methods of Theology.' That's a fancy way of saying 'read this 400 page book written for Ph.D. students on the doctrine of the Trinity, understand it, and come up with a way to make it integral to your final project, which we will start during the second week of class.' And if you don't understand that description, it has also been called 'hell.' The class is a research seminar required of all junior theology majors and it is well-known for being the most difficult class in the major coursework.

Fr.Voiss keeps the class small (we had 6 students in the class) so he can offer each of us personal attention. He requires us to meet with him two or three times outside of class...I probably went to see him ten times. You sat and talked about life for 5 minutes then about class for 3 then about your paper for 5 then more about life and spent quite a bit of time staring at each other, trying to read the other's facial expressions. I cannot even tell you how many times he'd be smirking and I'd ask 'what's that face for?'

This was the first class I've had during my collegiate career that has actually challenged me.I've had classes that required a lot of work and some that took a bit of reflection but nothing like this. Fr. Voiss quickly tuned into the range of my abilities and was not about to let any of it go unused. There was one Friday in October when I cried in all of my classes because I was so stressed about an assignment due for Fr. Voiss that evening. There was a time I shed tears in our own class when he gave us a revised syllabus outlining all the work for the rest of the semester. It seemed like one class period I would be so angry and frustrated with Fr. Voiss that I was about to explode and cause a scene and the next I would tell him he was a great man and I loved him. Confused? I was.

We turned in our final projects on December 12 and on the 22nd, he emailed us telling us his provincial had requested his transfer to a province in the Northwest. Once again, I cried.

It was a rough class but I learned so much and I am a better student and theologian for having taken it. NO ONE can teach that course the way Fr. Voiss did. I am so incredibly grateful for having taken the course this semester and for being pushed and pulled the entire way.

I wish I had realized sooner how great I had it. I want to make an effort to be more present to the good, more grateful for the challenge, and less stressed about the inevitable.


People are indispensable. 
Experiences only occur once. 

Processing Encounter: I have something to offer?!!

Lord, make me your bread, your body.

Take me. Bless me. Break me.

And share me with everyone you know.

Amen.

This is my prayer. This was our prayer on ENCOUNTER last weekend. At first they were just words (more often than not, that is how I feel about “premade” prayers) but as I reflected on the meaning of those words, they came to life. In fact, they came to have intense meaning for my life.

I feel this deep satisfaction from the idea of being taken, blessed, and broken for the greater glory of God. But that's pretty vague--what does it really mean for my life?

It means I'm doing something right. It validates my vision of what my life is developing into. As a social work student, I'm becoming increasingly aware that my heart will be broken over and over again as I pursue others. People are my passion, they always have been. People who have experienced things unfathomable to many ooze strength by the simple act of getting up each morning and continuing with this thing we call life. These are the people I want to serve. I want my heart to break as they share their brokenness. I want to be present with them in their pain. God blessed me with a desire for brokenness. 

He doesn't break you without building you back up. It may take time but His love never fails. 

This all made much more sense in my head but I find trouble to articulate it clearly. 

Basically, in the last week I've been affirmed in my life journey multiple times by multiple people and experiences. Things I once saw as personal flaws are becoming sources of blessing. My impulsiveness gets me to ask the questions everyone is thinking but won't ask. My bluntness offers me a bit of ease when it comes to asking the tough questions. My silence in tough situations allows me to  assess the person's needs and  meet them better. My stubbornness breeds intentionality. I was made as me, imperfections and all, for a purpose. I am the only me this world will ever experience and so I better make the best of that--leave this world a little different than it was before me. 

Step 1: be. experience. live.

I'm so physically and emotionally exhausted. School has been kicking my butt and I've been letting that happen. During my work shift on Friday I made the conscious decision to not allow school (junior seminar, in particular) stress me out and control my happiness and worth anymore. These things are here for me to learn from not to slave over. School is forming me into the person I want to be--I most certainly do not want to be the woman I've been recently stressed out beyond belief and not completely functional due to sleep deprivation. I only have one life to live. I only get one chance at each day. I do not want to keep regretting and dreading these days. 

Processing Encounter: Anger to Acceptence

With the retrieval of the authenticity of my heart this past weekend, I wish to reinstate the regular functioning of this blog. You've missed me, I know.

ENCOUNTER. 

what does that word mean to you?

To me, ENCOUNTER means being blessed in my brokenness. It means listening and really hearing what has been drone out for so long. ENCOUNTER means together. 

This past weekend, I went on Saint Louis University's 41st Encounter retreat. Campus Ministry advertises it as being similar to Kairos, TEC, and Search, if you are at all familiar with those. It was similar but my experience was much different. 

I went on Kairos as a junior in high school. I was chomping at the bit to go on the senior retreat as a junior so I could lead my senior class the following year. This plan flopped on its face because not only did I not end up leading in the fall, I didn't have that great a time. I was too busy trying to impress the seniors that I was neither focused on myself or God. Fail. Now, I'm a junior in college. 4 years later. I had the opportunity to go on Encounter beginning with my first semester here in the fall of 2009 but I didn't. I was a retreat junkie but I knew there was something special about Encounter and I wanted to make the retreat at the right time--whenever that would be. The right time was now. My friends ask me how the retreat was and I cannot come up with a more fitting answer than "perfect."

God and I experienced a definite shift in our relationship beginning last March when He began challenging me in ways I did not appreciate. Anger is the easiest emotion for me to experience and so, naturally, I thought I was mad at God. False. It's a lot more complicated than that.

On Encounter (just like on Kairos and the other retreats, I'm assuming) we talk about a relationship with God as a friendship and I was hesitant to relate to this when we began on Friday. I mean, when I pray, I call God "Daddy" and when I think of our relationship, I wasn't feeling too buddy-buddy. Upon reflection, however, I realized that friendship is exactly what it is. Because we're involved in a friendship. I feel free to have these emotions toward God and treat Him the way I have been--though, I admit, it's not the way a good friend would treat someone. 

I'm not mad. I'm disappointed. I feel let down. I feel like He wasn't there when I needed Him most. And if He was there [because people say He never leaves us] He stood there and watched as evil occurred. What kind of friend does that??? You see? It's complicated. 

We were engaged in something called 'Ignatian Contemplation' yesterday morning. SLU is a Catholic school of the Jesuit tradition and as such, we pray with Ignatian spirituality often. It basically involved allowing your imagination to propel you through a scripture passage as a character in the story. We were using the post-resurrection story of the road to Emmaus. Not a story I've found a whole lot of meaning in in the past. I LOVE Ignatian spirituality. God speaks to me in a very present way through this type of prayer because I have such an active, vivid imagination. The prayer took probably 30-40 minutes and God and I hit it off in the last 10. We were chilling and whateves for the beginning but then it hit me. Sean the Jesuit scholastic leading the meditation led us to conversation with Christ. 

Look at Him. What does He say?

Crazy, but it's what I heard: "My daughter...(long pause)...I'm sorry" Yeah, you got it right, He apologized. In that moment, I felt absolute peace. It's as if that is precisely what I had been waiting for for the past 8 months. 

Walk up to God and ask "where are we going now?"

My vivid imagination: small pools of tears formed in Jesus' eyes when I asked Him this. His response besides the tears was so true to our current relationship--"really? you want to go with me?" God had realized I had distanced myself from Him, it was like we were in a fight and I was giving Him the silent treatment and now that I was engaging our relationship, He met me with surprise. 

Yes, I want to go with you. I'm scared and I don't totally trust you, but I want us to go together again. I'm tired of ignoring you and I'm tired of pretending to everyone like our relationship is just fine. Let's go. Slowly. Together. Hand in hand encountering all of this.