Exploring the Seasons Moment By Moment

I have a relationship, we all have them, where it is extremely broken.  We used to be really good friends, but due to differences and events that happened, someone who I used to speak with often is as foreign to me as words spoken in German.  I don’t understand them anymore and the language they speak to is so distant from what I believe that they too want very little to do with me.  The line of communication was being disconnected.

Because of these differences being so severe, friends and mentors were encouraging me to distance myself from that person and not talk with them.  For months now, I have struggled with this.  Just whenever I would stop communicating with them, something would happened, and before I knew it, we were talking or I was sending some form of communcation.  Their response was that out of love we must distance ourselves because of the differences being so great.  I have been thinking about that for awhile.

Last night I concluded, I can not do this.  I can not ignore this person or act like they don’t exist.  Whenever I want to call them and get their insight into a matter, I should be able to do.  Whenever I want to text a message of encouragement, I should be able to do so.   The answer to love shouldn’t be disconnect from each other.  The answer to love should be to overcome any differences and hurt, and fight for relationship.

I am finished not talking the person.  I am finished with getting upset about the situation because I am exhausted from it all.  I will probably always talk to this person and that is just fact.  I don’t know how close we will be, I guess that is up to them, but the end result is avoiding and cutting the person out of my life was too much work.

If die tomorrow, I won’t be remembered for being the nicest person or the most trustworthy or honest. I am not any of those really. But for someone to be able to say, “He always reached his hands out to me with love” – yes, that is what I think Christ would smile at because you can never show the love of Christ by withdrawing yourself from people.  Love and disconnected relationships don’t equate, ever.

May you find peace with those who you are struggling to be in relationship with.  The answer is not avoidance or kicking someone out of your life.  The answer is finding love in the midst of the craziness (which means you don’t always listen to them about certain topics, but you do talk with them).  May you seek God’s presence in another person and recongize that as you treat them, you treat Christ.  May you reconnect all strings to a relationship and spend the rest of your life trying to make them stronger.

It has been a fascinating few weeks in my life, and I figured out what I want this blog to be.  I went for a walk on campus today and looked into the faces of the students.  I think that this is an excerise every professor should have to do at least once a week.  Walk on campus during a break where students are switching classes and just look into the students’ eyes.  They are bursting with so much insight if one would just do this.

As I walked, in very cold weather, holding bottled water to get some freshness inside of me, within a two minute span I saw former and current students of mine who said, “Hello Mr. …”.  I realized that on a campus of more than 12,000 students, I ran into three students of mine who first started smiling as they saw me and spoke to me first!  I couldn’t get that kind of response from half of my church folk if I wanted it!!!  It reminded me once again that I am here to serve my students, to make their lives better, and for the first time in a while I felt good about what I am doing.  It isn’t just me and my computer up in some window-less office trying to write curriculum, but it is more about connecting individuals with knowledge so that they will have a brighter future; whether they realize it or not.

And then I thought about this blog.  I sent an email out to some close friends and co-workers about a recent event that happened to me and I got more than a few positive responses.  I got an overwhelming sense of “we needed to hear that”.  The message, you ask?  Simply to remember why we are doing what we do, and to show love to others.  Can’t get religious in the work setting, but it was implied and everyone knew it.  But it was a simple message that people needed to hear.

I was talking to another co-worker who stated that instructors and staff don’t share the positive stories and encourage each other like that on a regular basis.  We need to.  During this past week, I went to several offices where instructor after instructor replied with, “That is the way it works around here.”  I remember my days at the court house with some of the public being very rude to the clerks, and I asked them why are they so nice.  The reply was, “We are used to being treated like crap.”  I never understood why.  If we all know the situation, then shouldn’t we support and encourage each other?  Shouldn’t we reach out to a brother and sister and say, “Wow! You can write really well! I think you should publish a book!!!”  (referring to a very close friend who I want to see published soon – cough, cough)

I want this site to be somewhere where people can come and read inspirational stories, thoughts, and insights based off my life to give hope; that is what it started off to be and I got bored with it; however, the more I interact with different types of people, the more I realize that, that is exactly what we need more of.  We need inspiration and encouragement.  And I am out to do just that.  I don’t know what it will look like, and I don’t know who and to whom I will do it to, but I am bound to encourage people.  We may not be able to change the system, but by golly I am bound to change my corner of the Universe.

Some people blog about church issues, personal struggles, and political bandwagons.  I want my blog to help spread the love of Christ to those who may or may not know about it, but can experience it afresh each day.

So, in honor of my first posts, May you feel encouraged today with whatever you are doing.  May you know that God loves you and is with you through the good and the bad.  God never gives up or leaves, and God always has order in the midst of total chaos.  May you read this blog as much as you would like to get what you need from it.  May this blog provide at least one of many smiles each day.

I couldn’t sleep at all last night.  I stayed up until 1:30 and for those who know me, know that that isn’t normal.  I knew what was on my mind, but I didn’t want to deal with it.  Earlier that day, some aquaintances I know told me that they didn’t trust me.  This is work related and when I heard it straight from their mouths, I was taken aback.  When did I become someone that couldn’t be trust?  Yes, I have always done my fair share of talking behind people’s backs (but only the bad people).  Sure I’ve shared secrets with really close friends, but never necessarily betraying anyone’s trust too badly.  But I guess, when I stand back and look at it, I brought this upon myself.

It is no secret that I am a) opinionated and b) strong willed and will do as I please most of the time.  This has led to some drifts at work and really I don’t mind for the most part.  The more I interact with people, I realize not that “you are on your own” but you have those fighting and living for the force of good and those who are living for their forces.  But this is where I am having trouble justifying my actions – because from another’s point of view, I could be just as guilty about living for myself and always trying to get my way just like the others.  The difference is, I think I am right.  But am I?

And so I started looking at me from my enemies view point, and I realized something – we are not different, at all which is scaring the hell of me.  Everyone who walks this earth has an opinion about how things should be done, and even can have a say what they are and are not going to do.  Both parties see an issue, take a side, and move forward defending that viewpoint.  Each party thinks they are right, and in the balance of trying to work through the system, sometimes truth needs to be bent, rules made liquid, and ethics…ummm…I can’t bring myself to say it.

I read in Psalms where the author asks God to destroy the author’s enemies.  I gather that in different situations throughout time this has brought hope to many different people.  I mean, what could be better than the bible telling you, you are correct, and everyone else is damned for the flames of hell.  But I disagree, it didn’t bring me hope.  It didn’t bring me joy.  It brought me immense about of sadness because just as my enemies are guilty in my opinion, I am just as guilty of them.  I don’t tell my enemy what I am doing each day.  I don’t let them have a say in matters where they really should based on position and title.  I just do what I want and know that it is better than what we have, but I am stuck with – does that make it right?

Maybe your enemies are liberal.  Maybe your enemies are conservatives.  Maybe your enemies are atheist or agonstic or even Christian.  But no matter the difference, we are not each other’s enemies.  We are just as guilty of living egocentric lives as the next person.  Let us not pray for the damnation of any soul, but rather the mercy for all.  The awesome grace that God provides to God’s children no matter the generation.  Let us pray for forgiveness because we have enemies.  In my experience, it always take two to tango.

Maybe the truth is – our neighbor isn’t the enemy.  The enemy is rather ourselves.

I have rewritten this post several times because I want to come back into the world of blogging kicking ass.  There are so many types of blogs out there – blogs on information, about daily lives, about what people think on issues.  This blog isn’t about my stance on issues – smarter people than I will be at the table to discuss and solve them.  This blog isn’t about a particular topic – I can not be limited to such narrowness in discussion, my brain has grown too abstract for such linear conversations.  This blog isn’t a daily record of my life’s doings – for that is contained in the many pages of many different personal journals.

This blog is a sharing of my experiences and thoughts that define  life; all of our lives.  Simple truths, hard lessons, and fucked up lies that need to undone.  I find myself yearning for a life that is unknown to me yet.  I find myself thinking I want a life like that and yet it is as distant as a shooting star in the cold night’s sky.  It isn’t a reality for me because I don’t let it.  Is it because I am lazy?  Is it because I am fearful?  A little of both I think.  However, the life I want to live is fully possible and doable.  I just have to choose to want it.

I am not there yet.  I have to take it step by step.  First, I step, I need to get caught up to the present.  All the back work on the desk needs to get done ASAP.  That means that I may not get much sleep or rest, but come Monday, I will be totally caught up.  I have to be if I am going to start to change how I live and what I do.  I have already made my list of things I want to start doing in life and making sure that I accomplish – one being self care which I suck at!

So, here’s a toast, to making the first step…