Saturday, June 22, 2013

bringing the boat in at night...

You start out gliding through glass.

Quiet, just you, under a wide, full moon, rising over the dark waters. Dimly lighting the way.

There are lights, others, like you, drifting with some purpose in mind.
Sometimes you can't tell how far or close they really are. 

The trick is to not try to see too far ahead. To see what's right there.

Stay centered, and bring her safely in.

It takes a special kind of vigilance,

keeping your eye on the shore lights but still right on ahead,

watching for stray buoys, or logs,  settled in the silent night waters.

Then the shore lights near a little,
Specks on the horizon, growing bolder, hailing you to a safe place.

But it will still take longer than you thought.

You'll start to wonder in the black if you really saw what you thought. If that is the shore you wanted?
Or was it a ways back? If you are really moving towards dry ground. 

Stable and solid.

But you must see it through. You must trust what you knew of this place in the brilliant light of day.

When sky and shore and water were all so distinct.

You must move inch by inch through the depths.  For eventually the shore will near and you will find yourself tied sturdily off on a dock. 

You're feet firmly on the ground.

Friday, June 7, 2013

findING a job, but mostly finding something else even better

Lately life has been this combination of opportunity and disappointment. Sometimes it looks something like hope and other days it smacks of despair. Transitions have always been tough for me. There are days they feel adventurous, like something lovely on the horizon about peek its head over the hills, all light and goodness. Then there are days when its all so terrifying, and I curl my toes and dig my heels firmly into a steady soil, resistant to change. Resistant to the unknown.

Oh, the unknown. And that is just it. Life is hazy right now. I don't know what life will look like in the next few months, or the next year, or the next five. And really, who knows any of that about life to begin with?

For me, all this comes in the form of starting a career. Which, never did I expect it to be this way. I never thought it would matter so much. But it has to me. And in this whole process I learn. I learn to move forward and to be confident. I learn to take it on the chin when life seems unfair. I learn to keep spinning my wheels, because I won't know right away where they are going. I learn that I can be ugly and jealous and petty. But that I can overcome it and learn to be happy, so very happy for others. Sometimes.

And of course I learn grace. This has been the most wonderful. That in these waves of hope and despair. Storms of my own emotions or disappointment. I can rest.  I am learning the most delicious thing about grace and it's that there is always enough for me. It never ever ever runs out. Ever! Did you hear me? While that is just about enough to surge joy right through anyone, it gets better. Since grace never runs out for me, there is always enough for giving. I am finding that by receiving grace upon grace upon endless, endless grace. I can give it fearlessly. I can give it with abandon, knowing that the stores will never run dry. The dam has already broken and it runs wild. We are all already swept away in it.  That even when life feels graceless, when I feel graceless and run ragged and raw by the blows of life, there is still more than enough. It was never really my own grace to give anyway. Which is what makes it so great for giving away.

All of this to say, after posts like this or this grace finally caught up with me. Which I guess isn't really right, it was always there, its just a matter of remembering it.