Unattached

Floating, no ground, no ropes, no connection, no destination, no idea what God is thinking, just floating.

In the depths of my heart I have always struggled to feel fully connected, the idea of finding my identity in community is really dificult because I have never really feel like I fully belong, like this is my life forever. A voice inside is always whispering that this is just another stop along the way but that I am not fully here. In some ways this has allowed me to build a beautiful relationship with God as I am journeying into his beautiful, mysterious, darkness. In other ways it has kept me from developing a healthy theology of place. The institution of the church continually bothers me, and sometimes I just don’t like people (especially Christians), other times people are all I care about and feel that God has given me compasion for his beloved no matter how messy things are. When I left for Peru a long time ago now I gave up, without knowing it, the sense of fully belonging to one place or people. Now my once satisfied heart is ever longing to see more, to read more, to experience more, and most of all to understand new stories through relationship. Floating.

Intellectually I see the value and need to live out Christ in one place for a long time, change is slow and hard and it takes a long time. It’s not that I don’t know these things or believe in them, it’s just that I feel different. People hunger and consume without reason or reflection, what I hunger for is change. Both to be changed and be a continual part of change. Maybe it is some abstract form of ADD, or Restless Soul Syndrome. It’s not that I am searching for myself, or for anything else. I just seem to be made to float. Always floating.

Jesus floated some, or maybe a lot. I think He understands, I think we are walking in the garden of wonder together and he feels me. Maybe my call to follow Him includes some floatiness in my identity, maybe I am a deluded idiot. All I know is that I love what God has made and I want to experience it all. Maybe this is the air I breathe, maybe this movement is my journey, maybe I was made to float.

I love where God has called me, and yet I hate it. I have radical dreams of what it could become and yet I feel so depressed when I interact with the people who will protest any of those changes. I love the students who are starving for the reality of Christ to be made real in them and in our community. I am in awe of how God has already used our presence to impact this neighborhood, to bring hope and healing. I am a torn man. But I am torn and broken and floating in the center of God’s will for me right now, or maybe just off center. Some are meant to build, some are meant to soar, I was meant to float.

Peace.

P.S. As I am reading “How Not To Speak Of God” I’m finding myself pulled toward the Mystics, I think maybe that is the spiritual river I would like to float in, do any of you know any good Mystical works that would be good reading?