The Life and Times of Me

I don’t know if it was the pain in her face, or the crying man outside that solidified the atmosphere, but I do know it was the phone call that told me it’s name.

It was about 10 minutes earlier and the word was a shock. “He passed,” she said and the word just made me jump. Like a slap to the face, or a punch to the stomach.

After I walked in, we started talking, and the older dog knew something was up. She knew and needed reassurance. I couldn’t be petting her enough. I couldn’t be paying her enough attention. She’s normally not that needy and she gave me even more insight into how the whole house was reacting.

It wasn’t good and I had to help. My self-pity and depression became luxuries that I couldn’t afford to keep. My worries and fears became childish in front of this real pain.

The dinner was opposite. It was a different group of people and it seemed like a different world. Lighthearted, not ecstatic, but carefree and untroubled. It was hard. It was cold. It was calloused. It was absolutely normal and perfectly fine. I was the one who needed to change, I was the one who was being insensitive and cold and calloused.

I needed to rejoice with those who were rejoicing. Mourning was not here, pain was not here. It’s not mine to share, it’s not even mine to fix.

It was almost harder the the house. At the house I knew how to act. I knew how to be strong, how to be there, when not to be there. I knew that sometimes I needed to just let them work though it themselves. Sometimes I needed to bring some sunshine in – not to much – but just enough to remind them that the pain will pass. And here, well, I just couldn’t. I was tired. I had to leave. I was not ready to make the switch. I’ve been working on mourning and sadly I wasn’t up to celebrating.

I couldn’t. It’s been something that I’ve been hearing and trying to put in practice all year and I couldn’t.

(more…)

I slept two hours last night. And I got do do some “sight seeing” today, most of it confined to the interior of one supermarket. There is nothing like a supermarket to make you feel far from home. Things like Brandson Pickles (which is a spread), malt loaf (which I could never find an got fruit loaf instead. I hope it’s close enough. the checker said it was “vey nice” with some tea), and a butt load of the best candy covered chocolates in the world -these all remind you that you are not in Kansas anymore (though you never really were).

And the fact that the prices are all in pounds and pences doesn’t hurt either.

Yep, I’ve spent most of the day exausted but I feel pretty good right now. Go figure.

On the flight yesterday, or today, when ever it was, I read almost 400 pages of my book, Xenocide.

This is my first post from a strange land.

I am an expat. It’s the first time I’ve tried to put how I feel down on paper, and it sums up like this:

I am here.

I am – there’s no way around it. There’s no denying that I am not far from home, far from the land that raised me up and trained me.

I am me. I am a creature of the wood. I am a creature of the mountains. I am a creature of the lakes and streams and ocean. My bones are hard as granite bones of the mounts  and my muscles is the color of the clay the fleshes the hills. My nose is full of the grass, green in the spring, gold in the summer. My tongue tastes the snow and the summer scent of dried pine needles and hot evergreens. Limestone caves, marble monoliths, towering trees, waiting waters are the adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine that store my genetic make-up. But being transplanted from my natural habitat and left to fend for myself – the defenses and weapons I have mastered and engrained into me no longer seem apt.

I am here. Far from me. Far from all that is familiar, far from all that is friendly, far from all that is family. In the foreign land where the very trees are hostile. Where the deer are small and form large herds. The semaphores are on wires and are yellow, and sometimes mounted sideways. The Walmart is huge, arragned different, and doesn’t have any good carts. The hills are sad, and the trees don’t even seem to try to grow tall.

I am meant to be here. Silly, but true. It’s the little things that remind me that this is where my crazy God wants me to be. It’s a word here, or a word there from people I know hear from God. These little words, they are these tiny answer to my questions. And it seems that there is something here that I’m supposed to learn, something that I’m supposed to get, something that is further going to define who I am and who He wants me to be. And there something here that I am going to impart.

I am the only me there is. No one else is me. I have years of training. Years of being poured into. Years of sitting under people who love the Lord.  Chapel in the Pines, Rivers of Life, City Ministries, Over the Edge, Rock the Nations, Mexico Trips, Redding, the SHOP, The Call, Joint Youth Trips, Leader Retreats, Rafting Trips, Late Night Talks, County Wide Worship Nights, Night Strikes, Thursday Night Worship Practice,  and IHOP are the amino acids of muscles in my spirit.

I am not here to spread the gospel of Tuolumne County. Nor am I here to further the reach of Chapel in the Pines. It’s not on the SHOP’s behalf I come.

I am here for here.

I am here for now.

I am here to see what God has planned for the little Podunk town.

I am an Expat and I am here.