What's this? Is she really blogging two days in a row? Indeed. Look what happens when I get away from all those distractions like my job and living in a town where I actually know people. Introspection, that's what.
Today, I just want to take a few minutes to jot down some of the things I've noticed about my new home--things I like. So here we go. In list format.
1. Trees. Trees are like weeds here. They grow without anyone's permission. They act like they own the place. The first morning in my new house I stepped out in the backyard to count the trees. Sixteen. Sixteen fully grown oaks and maples. This is a novel landscape for me.
2. Fireflies. I know it's cliche to like fireflies. They are such weird little creatures--insects who basically have a chemical reaction in their backsides that makes their hiney's glow. Weird. But a lot of fun to watch from my front porch in the dusk.
3. Ambient Bird and Insect Noise. I live in a quiet neighborhood, but it is never really silent. The quieter the cars and people get, it seems, the louder the insects and birds get. I think it's the buzz of the cicadas and the unfamiliar bird calls more than anything else that remind me that I'm not just one or two towns over from my old home. I am in a completely different environment.
4. Being Anonymous. I am an unknown quantity here. I go out, and I don't run into anyone I know. I'm not un-conflicted about this fact. There are definitely bad sides to it, which I will get to shortly, but I also really enjoy it. It feels like stepping into a clean white room. There is no personality and it may not be very comfortable or lived in, but it is clean. I haven't built up any relational mess or personal clutter here. I like that, but I know that it is a dangerous place to be at the same time. As my friend Josh wisely told me once when I was fed up with some of the relational mess back home and wanted to run away, "You take yourself wherever you go." Being in a new place may make me feel different, but it doesn't make me different. In every good and bad way, I have brought myself to my new home.
5. Meeting New People. Being with old friends makes the world seem small and safe. The past few days of meeting people in my new program have made the world seem very big and myself small. Yesterday I went out to lunch with a group of six other graduate students in my program. My department is very international. In our group of seven people, seven different countries were represented. We are in my home country, but this is not my home town, and I'm new here too. I felt foreign. It was an unsettling feeling for me. It was also unsettling to realize how rarely I have felt out of my native element like that. I felt my personal boarders expanding. I'm excited to see where these friendships go.
I suppose it is only natural that the things I notice and enjoy here make me think of the things that I rarely noticed but now miss from my previous home. I miss a lot of things from that other college town. It's not a sad kind of missing, though. It doesn't feel like bereavement. It feels like being hopeful. It feels like saying "Thank you." It feels like saying "Please."
1. Resonate Community. I miss my church family. Of course I miss the people. They are my friends and I miss them. That should be a given. But I miss more than just my friends. Resonate was my community for the past three and a half years. As my community (or a community of which I was a part), Resonate was more than the sum of its people. Resonate was something special and nothing special. Resonate was a local church--normal and amazing, intimate and transcendent. It's not the only one. It's not God's home. God is here too. God is in his church here too. I know this. If there is one thing Resonate taught me, it is that church is not optional and it's not an obligation. It is an integral part of how we are designed to know God and serve the world. God taught me this. In Resonate. God is teaching me this now. I am looking ahead. I'm praying for a new community. I trust God has a place for me here. Resonate is not the end of my ongoing relationship with the church. I still miss it, though.
2. Being a Local. Back in my other home, I knew my bus drivers. I knew the baristas at the coffee shop by my work. I waved to people on the street. I was a local. Sometimes that made me feel trapped. But it also made me feel known. I miss that.
3. My Family. I didn't live with them before. I didn't go to my parent's house that often. I could, though. Anytime I wanted to, I could blow off a few responsibilities and be there within 3 hours. It's a little harder now. I miss them. I miss being in the same time zone.
4. Dry Heat. My hair is a mess here.
5. Friends. I am starting to miss people. Before, I think I was missing familiarity. I was missing comfort. I was missing a network of human connections that had built itself around me over four years of day in and day out interaction. I still miss that part, but, now, I am starting to miss individuals too. It's missing friends that scares me most. My family is not going anywhere. I know that. I wont loose touch with them. We wont grow apart. My friends, though, at least many of them, are much more tenuous relationships, and despite all my, and their, protestations that we will keep in touch, I know that things are inevitably going to change. I'm trying to fight it and I'm trying to be okay with it. I don't want to lose these people. I pray that I don't, even if I lose the current relationships I have with them.
I didn't intend for this post to get so personal. I'm sitting in a tea and coffee shop called Saints and right now I am feeling a little overwhelmed. I have been so incredibly blessed. I'm not sure when these ramblings turned into a prayer, but they have.
Thank you. Please.
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