"Lord, I'm walking... and I'm not taking anything with me."
first the banal stuff. we are currently without internet and have no idea when we will have internet again. reason the first for silence. can't seem to get DSL or cable internet at our new place (400 feet shy), and i've been lazy about seeing if the hotel across the highway has wireless and building a cantenna. FINALLY got switched over to the tech bench, although i've still been spending 50%+ of my time on the sales floor. they finally took me off the sales schedules, but i'm unsure that i'm at the bench full time, and i've been invited to take their leadership training. positive things at work. the Revolution finally received full time and is up for a promotion, although she says her biggest competition ought to have the job, which she also says she's fine with. she still enjoys her job for the most part, but summer's made things painfully stressful and there's unnecessary middle school drama among coworkers.
on the drive to the internet, i was thoughtful and planning to write one of my terribly thoughtful posts. but my friend is working the computer lab and i talked with him a bit, so this may be much more boring lol.
i've been listening a lot to Catholic radio, much to the Revolution's aggravation. ("What sort of Lutheran pastor spouts off Catholic dogma?!?") i've decided that pure Catholic doctrine is entirely compatible with Lutheranism, but there are huge matters of practice that disturb me. still, i've been interesting myself especially in matters of spirituality, strictly speaking. and apart from Unger's "Biblical Demonology", i find the protestant side of discussion sorely lacking. i've picked up the Malleus Maleficarum again, just finished "Lucifer Dethroned" by a protestant author who, despite being vehemently anti-catholic corroborates so much of that old Catholic text. i picked up a rosary and occasionally pray with it, sans the "Hail Mary" because that feels so much like worship. sadly, in America, you can only find Christian books in which spirits are either involved with EVERYTHING or fail to exist, unless you pick up Catholic books. i think we Lutherans need to learn so much from that.
the current plan is to continue living up here in the land where the Republican party was founded for about another year. then, assuming everything works out properly, we'll be moving to the current most violent city in America for my continued study for ministry. i'm thinking of taking the more academic route, but need to talk to a seminary rep... if there will be complications and "no money for you" issues, i don't know quite what i'll do but might as well take a masters at a state university. won't know until i actually talk to the seminary, though. (and as much as i love macs, i HATE the feel of their keyboards!!)
the Revolution continues to talk about wanting to leave the U.S., which makes me consider studying at our sister Church's seminary in Germany, at which i'd stayed. naturally, there are HUGE hurdles to that, namely finding work with my Auslander-tongue and her "no habla DEUTSCH". but a possibility. otherwise there's the ueber-Wisconsin to the north and that seminary.
along those same veins, the Revolution has actually had missionary work in the back of her mind for quite a while... biggest problem being that she would REQUIRE a decent bathroom and showers. hard in third-world countries... but i was a-pondering. she expressed her interest in leaving the U.S. i've been exiled to the northlands without much communicae with my civilized F.I.B.s... i find myself more distant... maybe i'm being prepared to leave the country?
when i first left Chicagoland, i was heart-broken and lonely to move away. i couldn't imagine living without my friends. i've adjusted. my friends seem to have adjusted (or they're pissed at me, one of the two). i married and started living as an adult. the change is still stressful at times, but we've managed to survive and maintain our tobacco habit while keeping a cat and two hermit crabs alive. and that with significant financial blunders! on a rather meager wage... but i'm not as dependent on location and relation as i was, which was the biggest obstacle to my ever leaving the country. and heck, i HAVE left the country! so, maybe God is actually preparing us for a major move. whether it be a mission or study or just avoiding the hailstorm of the fall of this empire, maybe we're actually being prepared to leave.
and one of those changes in my life that i've noticed is my friendships. i realized a week or two ago that if i've ever been a good friend, i haven't been one lately. not even to my wife. i don't think i've turned into some horrible, unfeeling person, no, but i'm not as self-sacrificing and open and available as i've been. much of that is the fact that i work full time. much of that is that i don't have the money to blow. much of that is that my friends are all over the map, even here in Wisconsin. i have less freetime and i usually waste it -- i've always wasted my freetime but quantity allowed for more of that being with friends. needless to say, i don't like that i'm not the friend i was.
part of it, too, is that i see things differently. my friendship with "real friends" is certainly not superficial, but most of our time was spent thus. sitting or dancing in a darkened club, yelling to eachother to make the slightest chit-chat really isn't quality time. we expressed our charity for eachother, but it wasn't deep. most importantly, our times of deepening friendship was always spent face to face, which really isn't possible anymore. and we live in an age when pen-pals or thoughtful essays through the mail just don't match up. and i can't afford hours on the phone, financially or otherwise. i haven't lost my love and respect for my friends, and i hope they haven't lost that for me, but we rarely speak anymore. and i think too many have interpreted that as a failing in friendship. i take great pride in the few friendships where we can be silent for months and start back where we left off. one such friend is moving from the region tomorrow and that's why i've been thoughtful. i'll hopefully see him tonight briefly.
and with that chasm between me and my friends, i've usually swayed between feeling guilty and feeling angry. i've apologized so much for never calling or never writing - but my friends never call or write me. when i've let that get to me, it's hurt and angered me, though it doesn't get to me as much as it used to. i've invited friends up to visit, and i don't the least fault them that they haven't -- they're busy with their lives just as we are! and for that reason, too, i'm trying to shake off the sense of guilt. i moved away, having felt a calling my friends don't share in. one of the consequences of that calling is that things change. and distance apart means relationships change. some whom i'd considered friends have abandoned me. most haven't. but our relationship has changed, as relationships always do, and if neither party can accept the change we simply move on. we grow up, and sometimes grow apart.
even if my location were the same, my life has radically changed from the lives of my friends -- i'm married, living independently and on a budget. my dreams have to be filtered through the requirements of survival, marriage, and the future. i remember the friend who is now moving away nostalgically lamenting how everything has changed from the way things were. a friend i haven't spoken to in quite a while had last expressed how she missed me and wanted me to "come home." but my home has changed. to try to keep things the way they had been would be to reject everything i need to do. i've ran from responsibility for so long, and now i'm struggling to embrace it. i need to find balance. i need to be a better friend. and i hope my friends understand that, even if i were the best friend i could be to them, i wouldn't be what i was or necessarily what they want me to be. and i need to be ok with that.
the subject heading is a line from a song that almost always brings me to tears. it moves me because it addresses putting aside the things of this world, giving oneself to God only, going where He leads and forsaking all that stands in the way. "Let the Dead bury the Dead," speaks Jesus in a troubling line in the Gospel. that's so hard for me - it moves me to tears because i don't want to let go and because i haven't. it moves me to tears because i long to be capable of just that. the song continues, though: "but i'm not alone, and there are those who are coming with me. And I'm on my way home." i need to keep that dear in mind. if i take my eyes off the cross, i'm done for. the refining fire is painful.
we've got Cat Stevens "Greatest Hits" in the car. from "Father & Son", i feel especially the final stanza:
"All the times that I cried, keeping all the things I knew inside,
It's hard, but it's harder to ignore it.
If they were right, I'd agree, but it's them you know not me.
Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away.
I know I have to go."
so now i'm going to leave and do the laundry. it's funny, i've always found the phrase to sound uncaring, but confident, and now strangely appropriate:
I'll see you when I see you.
sincerely yours