Life to the full
The wireless at Irwin's reverted to its near-standard flakiness, so I'm piggybacking on another nearby signal instead. My pragmatism trumps my pride.
For the next week or so, I've got some version of a meeting or get-together every day. The frequency doesn't bother me, but something about the gear-shifting does. Every setting is a slightly different me, and each takes energy to get into, maintain, and get out of. It'd be great, I suppose, if "just being me" got the job done, but just being me probably wouldn't yield the responses people are looking for (or any response at all).
"Just being me" or checking out isn't what I'm looking for, though. I genuinely like connecting with people and working on the big and small projects with which I'm involved. Nothing on the agenda that makes me ask, "Why am I doing that?" (though I'll no doubt take issue at times with how it's being done). The gear-shifting aspect kicks it all up a notch or two, however, which helps me understand some of the appeal of (often residential) intentional communities and neo-monastic variants. Life is simpler and easier when I limit its activities and cast of characters. Since we're all limited, acknowledging that fact is very healthy. But I find some of those structures unnecessarily exclusive-while I know I'm not of this world, I certainly don't want to edit down my calling to be in it.
As a Christian, the design of my lifestyle can't all be around my preferences. Some call what I'm looking for a balance, but I don't think that's a realistic description of its ebb and flow. Others label it as a tension, but I've seen that word used (and used it myself) as a postmodern cop-out for sloppy thinking so regularly that I've started to recoil from it entirely.
"Life to the full" can be pretty overwhelming to someone still just learning to live it. It takes trust in the One who gives it, and that's not something I'm used to giving.
For the next week or so, I've got some version of a meeting or get-together every day. The frequency doesn't bother me, but something about the gear-shifting does. Every setting is a slightly different me, and each takes energy to get into, maintain, and get out of. It'd be great, I suppose, if "just being me" got the job done, but just being me probably wouldn't yield the responses people are looking for (or any response at all).
"Just being me" or checking out isn't what I'm looking for, though. I genuinely like connecting with people and working on the big and small projects with which I'm involved. Nothing on the agenda that makes me ask, "Why am I doing that?" (though I'll no doubt take issue at times with how it's being done). The gear-shifting aspect kicks it all up a notch or two, however, which helps me understand some of the appeal of (often residential) intentional communities and neo-monastic variants. Life is simpler and easier when I limit its activities and cast of characters. Since we're all limited, acknowledging that fact is very healthy. But I find some of those structures unnecessarily exclusive-while I know I'm not of this world, I certainly don't want to edit down my calling to be in it.
As a Christian, the design of my lifestyle can't all be around my preferences. Some call what I'm looking for a balance, but I don't think that's a realistic description of its ebb and flow. Others label it as a tension, but I've seen that word used (and used it myself) as a postmodern cop-out for sloppy thinking so regularly that I've started to recoil from it entirely.
"Life to the full" can be pretty overwhelming to someone still just learning to live it. It takes trust in the One who gives it, and that's not something I'm used to giving.