Time Flows

The clock pours out its empty string
Of numbers - stringing me along with
Promised meaning - meaning I will know
Where all these strings of numbers go

Time flows like everything else
So slowly - else I’m swept away when it
Move quickly - quickly learn to breath
Whether I’m drowning or dying for the water to seethe

The clock is a paradox of purpose
Self-trapping - when we purpose it not to
It’s freeing - freeing us to learn to live
With the contradictions that its numbers give.

The Great Adventure of the Christian Life

I'm coming to realize something -- a great truth.

It came after a bout of bitter tears yesterday. The short of it was I was questioning God's timing in several areas of my life. I couldn't comprehend why God would withhold something from me that is good, that I earnestly desire and that I would do well with.

As I was crying, a statement I made months ago came to mind. I was describing a young man I know to Chris. I said that the young man "has so much love to give that he just wants to put it somewhere. However, he directs it all into the wrong places (in this case, to girlfriends instead of God)."

Suddenly, I realized that I was no different from that young man. I had so much good intention toward this thing I wanted from God -- so much enthusiasm and love! Wisdom settled into my heart like a sweet, comforting whisper sinking into my ears. Don't direct your enthusiasm and love into all the wrong places. Give it all to God. Find all joy in him. Be completely content in him."

This is the great adventure of the Christian life: that as we walk with God, relying on him entirely, the things he chooses to give us along the way will be sweeter and more beautiful surprises than what we would've chosen for ourselves. We always try to conjure - we try to make spiritual situations happen, we try to improve ourselves, we try to love people better. The truth is, when we let go and say, "God, I love you above all. I will follow you whatever you ask me to do," we're so busy looking at God that we don't even realize we're about to stumble on a moment of great spiritual significance, growth, or depth. Then we stumble upon it, and our joy is unsurpassable. We are able to say, "God, when I trusted you, you brought me right to where I needed to be. You blessed me in a place I wasn't even looking for blessing. Thank you, mighty Father!"

I long to live the adventure. Truly, there is nothing my heart wants more!

A Talk with Aleta Jo

Two weeks ago, my grandmother Aleta Jo fell and broke her hip, and has been in the hospital for surgery and rehab ever since. I've spoken with her a few times, including today. She said a few things that both touched and broke my heart:

- She's loved spoiling her grandkids, and she's sorry that she can't do it anymore.
- She's concerned about whether or not she'll be able to live on her own after this, which she so loves to do.
- She's so proud of Chris and me for finishing payment on student loans, and would have paid for them herself, if she could have.
- She thinks I'm a mature young woman and that Chris is a wonderful husband to me -- the one she has been praying for for me since before I was born (now those were beautiful things to hear).

Hearing these things from my grandmother was difficult, yet special. Difficult, because once upon a time, everything we talked about was simply happy, and she and I were so much younger. Special, because she now trusts me, as an adult, with the thoughts of her heart.

It serves to remind me that I cannot escape the changes that come with time. They bring both good and bad. They are normal, and universal. There is no point in the fearing the changes -- they will come, and by God's grace, we can walk through them well.

I feel as if a baton has been passed. My time of childishness is over and done, and while I will jealousy guard my childlike heart, I walk forward into adulthood with confidence, knowing that the Lord is over and above time itself. He can walk atop the tumultuous changes just as Jesus walked on the roiling surface of the waves so long ago.

Smokers, Schedules and Grand Adventures

[Tales from the CART moment of the day]

While I was sitting on the botany sign today, waiting for the CART bus, a large lady in bright pink sat down beside me. She had just come out of the phone booth where she was yelling expletives at a friend of hers and was mumbling to herself. She pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

Turning to look at me, she asked, "Does smoke bother you?"

I was so surprised that someone was showing the courtesy to ask me that in the first place, I mumbled a lame half-yes half-no answer while gesturing incomprehensibly.

She then proceeded to tell me she'd switch places with me if the smoke blew my way. It did. We switched places.

The End.

---

Isn't it funny how our hearts long for adventure at the same time schedules bring us comfort? It's an interesting balance -- an intricate arrangement of desires in conflict with one another.

I'll use myself for example, as I am the person I'm most familiar with. I like schedules. I get things done when I have a schedule. They are also the things that kill me most easily, that I will submit myself in slavery to the moment I feel like life is slipping out of my hands. Ironically, I do that so I can gain control (though it never works).

However, everything in me also longs for adventure. Every since I was young, I've dreamt of seeing things grand and far away and strange. Curiosity still overwhelms me from time to time and gets me into trouble. Surprises comprise some of my fondest memories, and challenges light the fire in my heart that makes me think and write as passionately as I do. I want to see the world, in whatever context God has for Chris and me.

Lately, God is teaching me a lot about how to embrace both organization and spontaneity. He is instructing me in how to hold my schedule with an open hand, and take up the opportunity for various types of "adventures" when he sends them my way. Already, I see my joy blossoming in the midst of it, and life bursting with color in a new way before my eyes. It's a deep pleasure to get things done well without giving myself an ulcer in the process, and to know at the same time that I have the freedom to put reading and writing aside to take a walk with my husband, burn a napkin on the sidewalk (don't ask) or sketch out a picture of a Wheel of Time character for the sheer fun of it.

It's great, kids. Anyhow, I'm ending this abruptly because the adventure of REM sleep and the schedule of bedtime is calling my name, and when both adventure and the schedule call, I answer.

Keeping Sanity Intact

Hello, dear reader. After all that talk about rest, I have made a decision:

I will keep a Sabbath day.

Trust me, this is not an easy task, especially for a type A person like me! However, I would argue that it's type A people who need a specified day of rest the most. I told myself, year after year, that I was going to reserve Sunday for true relaxation (read: NO HOMEWORK). The end of every week was burdensome to me, as I toiled over reading the last passages and completing the last assignments. The stress and pressure left me feeling exhausted and pessimistic about the upcoming Monday.

Stress is not a fruit of the Spirit; this I know! While a Sabbath won't dissolve the perfectionism and fear that lie behind my stress, I can already see that--on my first day of keeping Sunday open--there is great merit in the idea.

Thank the Lord. Like I facebooked the other day (Chris, there's your verb)...

By God's grace, life keeps getting better: not less difficult, not less confusing, not less emotional, but definitely better.

Yeah. Middle school is rock-hard evidence of that.

"Buying Time"

As I was dropping off to sleep last night, this poem--which I wrote on September 22, 2004--kept running through my head. I've revamped it a little to ameliorate a few painfully obvious rhymes. Thought I'd share it with you.

Buying Time

A moment lost, a moment gained.
A pure one, or a moment stained.
O what is time? The world forgot
It is a power dearly bought.
Its nonexistent crown is laid
Upon a goal so swiftly made,
Alas!, yet never finished, for
Time ate away its solid core.
It dominates the lips of men
That stifle loving words, and then
Time moves his finger and lays waste
To that which was not moved in haste.
A moment saved, a moment spoiled
A moment laughs at how we toiled.
Time can be a healing drink
Or cause unstable rafts to sink.
O what is time? The world knows not,
Nor sees our lives by Time are bought!

I finished sweeping the floor; time to sweep up some lies?

It's strange to me that my earliest class during the week is 11:30, and today, I don't even have one until 1:30. This leaves me much time for pondering what to do with my time.

Huzzah!

There are always more things that can be done. I have this fantastic ability to note those particular things, and to beat myself up if I can't think of activities other than non-work or non-ministry related ones. For me, these usually are: reading, writing, HALO, going on walks, having people over and talking with my husband. I fear that if I do these for any length of time, I might be squandering my life.

I am discouraged by that thought. Then, I remember that God is a God of joy and inner peace. There is hard and tiring work to be done, and He provides grace for us as we do it (both preparation and execution). However, I believe there is a tiredness of God and tiredness of the flesh. I cannot ignore that God has said "His yoke is easy and His burden is light," as well as that "His commands are not burdensome."

Not burdensome does not mean not difficult. I think we can agree that a Christian life comes with spiritual, emotional and physical difficulty. However, for my part, I do a heart check when I merely feel saddled by myriad good projects I "have to" do for God.

No matter how many "good things" I'm doing, they aren't good if they are done merely to tick the checklist of guiltless self-fulfillment, or to earn God's love and pleasure.

I think that absolutely everything we do is means of glorifying God, even reading, writing, HALO...you get the picture!

What does that glorification look like, specifically? I suspect it is a position of the heart, and not something I can achieve by striving and striving.

Shoot me your thoughts.

-Jaimie

Giving it a rest

Sometimes we get so caught up in planning things to do that we have no time to consider if we even want to do the things we plan.

Last semester, I enslaved myself through planning. Isn't that sick? I'm a checklister--to a fault, sometimes--and I made the ultimate weekly list. I recalled to my husband last night that every lunch and dinner was taken by a particular,scheduled person on campus. I enjoyed spending time with each of those people immensely, but when someone cancelled, and I discovered I had a free hour?! ...NO WAY! It was too exciting. I made sure to use it to isolate myself in a booth and eat a quiet,cozy lunch with my companion, a book. A non-textbook, on special occasions.

It's not that I was face of every student organization or something, though I was involved in various organized activities. The issue was, on top of external concerns, I was undergoing changes in mindset and lifestyle that affected my use of time and amount of energy (Don't let anyone tell you that the material/physical and emotional/spiritual worlds are disconnected from one another).

I'm a social artsy introvert, but I'm still an artsy introvert! My means of rest, reading, writing, dreaming and the like, were nonexistent. It was draining!

I reflect on this, because this summer was--I can tell this semester is going to be--vastly different. Over the summer, I was able to pick up habitual leisure reading again; I hadn't done so in nearly 2 years. I had forgotten how much I love it. Over the past month, I have picked up habitual leisure writing again. I love that even more! Now for the clincher, which should be painfully obvious, but isn't, at least to me: The things we are passionate about doing are important to do. Maybe, honing and sharpening our passions is as important as schoolwork (gasp!) or socializing (oh my!). Of course, honing passions, schoolwork and socializing aren't mutually exclusive; I'm not trying to say we should choose one over the other. But my life is evidence that putting your passions on the back-burner will negatively affect you.

There is something very spiritual about the small, deep joys of life, the ones we find in simple things like good music and sunrises. Our delight in God's gifts brings Him delight! We are each wired to enjoy some gifts more than others, and to be gifted in some ways more than others. We should embrace this!

So if you're like me and often need a little push, here it is: Sit back and enjoy your life sometimes! I'm living proof that it won't kill you (no pun intended)!

Meanwhile, I'll keep trying to do the same!