Next Steps

This time last year I had just graduated from Stetson and I asked myself, along with every other person in my life, "What's next?"  12 months later the same question is floating around again.  Once again, my concrete plans only extend to early August and I am balancing a strong prayer for discernment and guidance with the patience of trust as well as a small fire under me to make "something happen."

It's good to think about what's next because I am simultaneously thinking about what has been and how it has prepared me for what's next.  As I ended college last year I felt the wide-open freedom of adulthood challenging me to start with the right habits and goals and priorities so that I would set my life path on the way that I believed rather than blindly following cultural ideas of practicality.  Although I am always held in family and friendships and community, my decisions were finally becoming my own.  If I wanted to become a person that embraced the simple, radical, counter-cultural way of Jesus, it would be much easier to start with a clean slate than to go with the flow and decide later on that I wanted to undo all the culturally-expected marks of ladder-climbing and consumerism and individualism.

In that way, this year has been a perfect time for laying foundations.  I've been surrounded by a structured program and supportive community to make conscious decisions about how my choices affect me and others.  Will I continue to make these decisions with less structure in my life?  Granted, I won't be making tons of money, but hopefully more than $125/month, so will I still be generous and simplified in my spending?  True, I'll be living with other people, but will I be tempted to live more like roommates rather than intentional community?  Sure, I'll always have my compassionate spirit for the injustices of the world, but without a curriculum of learning will I continue to challenge myself to engage or become increasingly unaware and apathetic?  These are the calls that I am facing in the next transition of my life.

After all my philosophizing, you are still left with the burning questions, "Ok, Sarah, you're a big picture person, but what exactly are you going to be doing?"  You're right.  Good thing I am also very detail-oriented and a go-getter.  That doesn't mean that I know the exact plans yet, but I am working on them, so don't be worried.

Here's a rough skeleton (which is all there is right now) of The Plan:

Job-wise, I have the possibility to stay with my current organization, Sitar Arts Center, but in a different capacity.  This has its benefits and its detractors, so I'm really praying and looking for discernment.  I am also looking into jobs with the Latin American Youth Council (LAYC) and a hunger-and-poverty-focused organization called Bread for the City.

Living-situation-wise, there are several people that I am considering living with next year and keeping with some kind of model of intentional community.  Of my current housemates, Emily and I are definitely sticking together.  Chris, Clay, and Isa are all working on different plans with the possibility of staying in DC and, if so, probably wanting to live in community.  There are also 3 married couples that we know through Church of the Saviour who are interested in community living.  Obviously, not all of these people could fit in one house, but there is also the possibility of living nearby and doing sister-houses and neighborhood community things too.

House-wise, I am actively looking, through networking and Craig's List and classified ads, for large houses for rent within the District.  I'm super-blessed right now to be living in a spacious house in a great location close to the Metro, bus, grocery store, work, church, and friends.  It's still a little early to be looking in the rental market because most landlords don't advertise until a month before the house is ready to rent.  I'm hoping that if I find something now, a landlord might be able to wait till August or rent a short while until we can move in.  Otherwise, it's just the last-minute rental scramble and hopefully something good will come of it.

If you are reading this, you are probably important to me in some way and care about me (as I about you) so I would appreciate your prayers.  I'm excited about life right now and hopeful for what's to come!

So Dark & So Light

I sat on the beach with my friends, savoring a once-common-but-now-rare moment of worshipping through song, scripture, sharing, and prayer.  I wouldn't begin to assume that I could capture the moment better than any poet in history has tried, but it's true that the waves sang along and the stars twinkles with harmony and all the overly-romanticized images of the quiet beauty were real.  Especially the moon.

Even though it was only halfway exposed, the moon shone incredible brightly.  Each half was a perfect ying and yang, so dark and so light, split exactly down the middle.  I identified with that moon: I am so dark and so light.

One friend read from 2 Corinthians 3:18, "And all of us have had that veil removed so that we can be mirrors that brightly reflect the glory of the Lord.  And as the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like him and reflect his glory even more."

The four days I spent with my friends was a well-savored treat because life is pulling us in many different geographical directions.  In this state of heightened senses, I saw so clearly the shining radiance of God and also the great darkness in the lives of myself and my friends.

Although there are many places that we have not allowed God's light to touch yet, the brilliance of the ways we do reflect is not diminished.  If even a sliver of the moon is exposed to reflect the sun, that sliver reflects just as brightly as when the whole moon is reflecting.  Our darkness, our not-yet places, do not diminish the brilliance of the places already surrendered and transformed.

The time we spent together expressed a more full and mature beauty because heaviness and joy were found comfortably side by side.  The vulnerability is real and not just hyped-up emotion; the joy is real and not just escapist happiness.  The only thing that comes to mind to close out this musing is this: A light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.

Towards Freedom

I have a confession to make.  It is a confession to myself and to anyone who has been reading this blog.  It is a confession that's not meant to be harsh or berating on myself or others, but to be liberating, as all confessions ultimately are, into grace, freedom, and transformation.

I have not shied away from writing because I am too tired or overwhelmed from difficult things or even busy with good, enjoyable things.  I have suppressed my voice because I am afraid of it.  I am afraid that I am to rash in speaking out strongly about things.  I am afraid that I am wrong.  I am afraid that I am not wise enough.  I am afraid of always being negative.  I am afraid of not being funny or fun or light-hearted.  I am afraid that I will be offensive.  I am afraid that I will be seen as trite.  I am afraid that I will be seen as sappy.  I am afraid of rocking the boat and falling out into the realness of life.

When something is in my head, I can nurture it and it is not exposed to the criticisms of others.  Once I have voiced a thought or written it down, others may think what they want and I am powerless.

What am I writing for?  To keep my friends and family entertained?  To put them at ease about what I am doing and who I am becoming while I am physically far away and living through a formative time in my life?  I feel like I've been writing to put people at ease, not to give voice to truths in my life.  I intend to be real, but then I censor myself.

Even if what I say now is not wise or entertaining or beautiful, it is what I am now.  And that is fine.  I need to embrace the now-ness and realize that I will look back on it and probably see how I have grown and matured.  But I can't be anything different than I am now.  I can't be more mature, more eloquent, wiser, or funnier.

I am also afraid of being redundant.  I've been reading Martin Luther King, Jr. lately and he's redundant.  At least conceptually repetitive.  The crux of everything he said, whether the topic was civil rights or elimination of poverty or against the Vietnam War, was that people matter equally as children of God and only love and non-violence can achieve the peaceful family-hood for which the whole world yearns.  He said this in many different ways and always used his best skills of writing and oratory to give life to the concept.  But he didn't stop saying it because it had already been said.  He kept repeating the root of his belief, not because it was a new concept, but because people needed the reminder.

The only things that I can write about are brokenness and beauty.  They may come in different forms or have a concentrated imbalance at one time or another, but they are the root and they go hand in hand.

Because I am compassionate about the brokenness of consumerism, individualism, materialism, and other cultural addictions that contribute to the emptiness of life in myself and others - because of that, I am passionate about freedom in Christ that brings joy and wholeness through community, interdependence, simplicity, and trust that God's way brings true life.  At times, yes, I am extremely weighted down by these thing.  But I cannot express the joy of the light without explaining the reason why the darkness is so dark.

I apologize to myself for not always embracing the fullness of what I am processing, thinking, and feeling.

The only way that I can process the deepening understanding I have of the brokenness of myself and my relationships and the world around me - the only way I can deal with that is through opening myself to more beauty: daily prayer time becomes more tender; music becomes sweeter; worship washes me with emotion; biking in spring weather makes my spirit soar on sunlight; cuddling and talking with friends allows me to fall into their support; my simple participation in the world is opened to the beauty of a multitude of everyday things because I need to recognize that beauty in order to sustain myself.

We're reading a book on cultural addictions called Finding Our Way Home by Killian Noe, a woman pastor who started a drug-addictions recovery program here in DC through Church of the Saviour.  She says, "Sometimes we hold onto various means of numbing our pain and other addictions that cripple us because the known is less terrifying than the unknown freedom we are being offered.  Believe it or not, sometimes we choose to remain paralyzed in a certain area of our inner lives because we are terrified of feeling out of control and terrified of what might be expected of us if we were to become a little more free."

If I were more free to not be perfect, not be more mature that I am at the moment, not be wiser than my years, and not be more articulate than my own voice, then I might be expected to say things that rock my boat and rock other people's boats.  I might be thrown out into the storm of brokenness.  I might wash up on an island of beauty.  I might drift aimlessly for a while.  I might repeat the cycle all over again.  Maybe those things are better than being confined to a small boat.  Maybe.