tangential mind

Once again I find myself in Austin visiting my sister. She is preaching this Sunday (on the first part of Jeremiah 29) and it is my honor to come and listen and support her. I also plan to make at least one funny face at her during the sermon ... because, well, I am the younger sister and that is what we do ... but shh, she can't be expecting it.

We are sitting on one of her two couches talking a bit of theology. In a bit, my sister is going to practice her sermon on me (to get a better feel for timing, enunciating, stressing and lingering points). The goal of this weekend is productivity. Unfortunately, this is necessary. I am really looking forward to a time where every hour does not have to be accounted for - either school, work, church, or whatever else is happening. That sounds like an amazing concept, something on the sorts of going back in time to a place before life complicates itself with agendas and meetings and deadlines - where what was on tap was eat, sleep, and play outside with the neighbor kids. I am sure that this is no longer obtainable (though I might have to wait until retirement to have unbridled and unworried play again). Just having evenings without expectations sounds wonderful. Alas, a time in the future.

I refuse to be ashamed about receiving help, for investing time in a listening ear and a kind heart that is equipped to counsel. Regularly now (since about a month after my dad's death), I have met with a Stephen Minister (a laymen counselor) who has been assigned to me. Our meeting before last consisted of a long tangential conversation following my noisy, spotty line of thought. So many questions and thoughts and conceived notions of reality vs. fantasy. Noisy.

I do not think that I am living when I am not doing - out in the big world. I live with this general dissatisfication with things. I had not known the cause until possibly now. Miracles were done and felt in Guatemala this last week. The three-doctor general medicine group saw more than 540 patients up in the mountains in remote areas where for most, seeing a doctor of any type and the concept of an alleviated physical burden is a new experience. I have not yet heard about the eye team up in the same villages or the eye surgery team. But I do know this: sight was given to the blind and people were healed! Not to lessen the power of these so many miracles, but I was not there. By no means am I saying that lives cannot be changed if I am not there (I am in fact not God, shocker, I know), but I want to be there. I think that I might need to have a new definition for who I am. If who I am is defined by missional work, what happens when that is not in my calendar for that day? Maybe the answer is to always be "in mission", always serving, helping, sharing, building, whatever ... but possibly not. Who am I should be: "I am a child of God listening and following His movements" or maybe even simply "I am redeemed, claimed, and called" - the rest is just details. Can I live into this or is it simply a nice thought?