A blog from move in day (10/4)

It looks like I live on the ocean, now. Standing out on the balcony reminds me of our family vacation in Florida; hotel on the beach, overlooking the waves, sand instantly at your feet and in your toes (because who wears shoes, really?) I’m not too sure where the beach is, for some bigger high rises take first place on the shoreline here and they creep right up to the edges of the water, but it can’t be too far. The water is just right there. Morning’s are getting chilly already, but I will be out on that deck in December, peering at the lake—yes, it is the great Lake Michigan, not an ocean—are you frozen over, yet? Which is a silly question, really, the lake doesn’t freeze over all the way at all and only at the edges if it gets down to the 10’s and 0’s. January. February. Then the ice forms and runs along the lake, creating a thin cover that stretches for a while until eventually It cannot hold the moving currents, and the water is free.  Free to stretch as far as your eye can see, free to move about as the sun rises up on its horizon.  That horizon, that line, I sympathize with whoever believed the world was flat. Makes sense to me.

I don’t know if I just ended a wild ride or I am just beginning one.  Thoughts nagged and nagged me for months, what is next? What will I choose or be chosen for me? I tried my hardest to make my own decisions. I think, in the end, I really did. God brought things to the table, and said, want this? How about this? Green eggs and ham? Try them, you’ll like them. You’ll see. The funny thing about making choices is that you do have to just try it. Try the green eggs and ham, Sam. You can say you don’t like them if you want. Maybe he didn’t feel like he could—that he had to both try them and like them. Then the choice doesn’t seem like a choice anymore, however beneficial. Things being chosen for you isn’t so bad, people had no choice for thousands of years. They just did what their parents did, married who they were supposed to, prayed to who they were told to pray, ate what was growing in the fields, worked or had babies. Ironically enough, we still do all these things. We still want all of these things. I want to have babies and get married and eat and pray and live. I want to work hard, too. 

The whole money thing has always been a curve ball for me. My odd view of money has both hindered and helped me in my life so far. I wouldn’t have lived as a missionary without making a dime if I cared for money too much. Though I would have had a clearer direction on where to go after being a missionary if I was motivated by the green stuff. Luckily, by applying to school, I was motivated to make money to spend it on a nobler cause—education, education and an even greater purpose, to help people. So now I want to make tons of money so I can pay off my bills and help people sooner. Getting a job for the sake of having a job sounded. Absolutely. Terrible. Give me something to care for, someone to care for, something to make right, and I’ll do it.

Lloyd Dobler “I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that." He describes to a table full of professionals, not understanding his rambling in the least. Lloyd wasn’t just a guy, he was a man. Trying to find his purpose in something more. 

Vijay said to me the other day “I just feel somewhere inside me that I’m supposed to change the world.”  I said he was right to feel that, we’re all supposed to feel not only that we want the world to change, but that we should feel like we can change it. Not in big ways always, although I think that’s what he wants. When you see the world with God’s eyes you see that the world is not as it should be, and your skin just crawls. So in those moments when God actually allows you to see, and you do, hold on tight. It’s not just the world that needs to change. Ok, I’ve quoted Lloyd Dobler and now I’m going to quote Michael Jackson, bear with me. “If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, and make a change” yes, Man in the Mirror is quite the inspirational song. Michael ended up taking those words a little too literally…but they are true words.

To be honest, I have no idea how to wrap up all these thoughts. I’m certain I’m not leaving you inspired, but I can leave you with the fact that God has got some serious providence in our lives. I landed a decent job, which will fit a student’s schedule perfectly and moved into a comfortable, big, lovely home last night.  I look at the lake. It looks at me and says “I’m here!” reminding me how close something constant is, how close something that soothes me. I had my big tree at my last place, now I have the water. Endless, open, water. And the gulls flying above, their wing tips dip in and out of vision between the lake and the sky.