Sunset

A brilliant sunset. The sun a glow and white. Touches of orange, pink, gray. Streaks of gray shoot out from the sun like trails of missile residue.

Slowly, the sun descends inching closer and closer to the crest of the hill. The colors seems to intensify as if the sinking sun is warming their hues. The moon shows its sliver of a face.

The water is still . . . except where our lures splash its surface. Small birds chirp their songs on the waters edge, seeming to say, "What are those silly humans doing with their sticks?"

And then, the sun dips down. The colors fade and we are left with pallid shades of gray and blue.

Goodnight, Lake McSwain.

Happy Holidays?

I've been thinking a lot about Christmas and what it's really supposed to be about.

Living in America has made me realize how materialistic the world is becoming. Stores have been advertising Christmas sales since the end of October. Black Friday is a monstrosity of a money making day. Instead of opening super early, stores just open their doors at midnight. Do we really need things so badly that we will loose sleep to get them?

We have turned the holiday season into an advertising and profit making scheme. Yeah, family is important and seeing old friends is exciting, but Christmas has really become about presents and stuff. I heard a statistic that the average American will spend something like $600 this Christmas. I'm thinking, "Either these people have TONS of friends, or buying things just makes them happy."

I do not want to part of this consumeristic culture. I want to buy only what I need and use the rest of money to help those who need it. I pray that this is the desire of the church. I hope that we are brave enough to move beyond the popular culture around us.

I hope that we are bold enough to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

So I Was Thinking

The great thing about college is that they make you think...I know quite the novel concept.

I am super excited at the amount of deep thought that my classes have made me do in recent weeks. I recently wrote a Christian beliefs where I had to think through the basic theological doctrines of my faith. It was the most useful paper for my life that I have ever written.

Actually, the more I think about what I believe...the more I realize I am not entirely certain what I believe. I have opinions and particular stands on issues. But if you asked me for a sound logical reason the believe one way or the other, I am not sure I would have an answer.

I guess what I have really been thinking about is why I believe everything that I do. I'm pretty sure I'll never get it completely figured out...if God wanted me to know everything He would have found some way to tell me.

I'm used to trying to end with some deep spiritual or philosophical idea...but I don't really have anything else to say.

The Right Now

"When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanenty, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity--in freedom, in the sense that dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.

The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. One must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits--islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, continually visited and abandoned by the tides . . . ."
-Anna Morrow Lindbergh

How often in any relationship do we think, "Do you remember that time when we did that one thing, at that one place, at that one time?" Reminiscing is sweet and fun but it does not get us anywhere. And how often do we think, "If only this friendship were like this. Then, everything would be good between us."

That's not how it's supposed to be. God gave us THIS moment. We are supposed to embrace what we have right here, right now. I'm sure you've heard this before but have you lived it?

About a week or so ago, I wrote on my hand "Right now". I had been thinking about the future. Not the big future, like a career, but the little future. My parents were coming for family weekend, I HAD to get my homework done, work was really boring and I wanted to be elsewhere. I was thinking about all these things outside of my control and God yanked my collar, saying, "Jana, stop looking so far ahead. Breathe me in in this moment. Think about the present."

This is such a hard thing to do. We want to plan and organize and arrange because maybe if we do that just enough...everything will work out perfectly. Who are we kidding? God, the perfect master of time an plans, has every single day of your life planned out. Why are you worried?

Love Without Fear

I've been reading Spiritual Classics...actually I've only read one author but that's because it was so great I can't move on until I talk about it.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh writes the follow:
"A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. The partners do not need to hold on tightly, because thy move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but gay and swift and free, like a country dance of Mozart's.

But how does one learn this technique of the dance? Why is it so difficult? What makes us hesitate and stumble. It is fear, I think that makes one cling nostalgically or clutch greedily toward the next . . . But how to exorcize it? It can only be exorcized by its opposite, love. When the heart is flooded with lover there is no room in it for fear, for doubt, for hesitation. And it is this lack of fear that makes for the dance. When each partner loves so completely that he has forgotten to ask himself whether or not he is loved in return; when he only knows that he loves and is moving to its music-then, and then only, are two people able to dance perfectly in tune to the same rhythm."

I realized how beautifully true this is. The reason why we aren't completely open and vulnerable with people is because we're afraid. Call it cliche if you like but we cannot move beyond the fear of rejection. But don't you remember this passage: "Perfect love casts out all fear." We are not perfect and neither is our love; but God's love is.

God has been teaching me to be honest with people, to share my story even though it is painful. And it's been amazing. I have the greatest friends ever and I wish there were words to say thank you to them and to my amazing God.

I pray that we go forth and fear nothing. I pray that we remember that Christ in us is invincible. (I took that last line from a friend).