learning to float

good day today. really good day.

it's been a good weekend, actually. despite the fact that friday started off with 3.5 hours spent on the top floor of Woodruff library, huddled over old copies of Faulkner novels, searching, searching, searching for quotes that are NOT on the same page in the first editions as they are in later versions. and then i worked another couple hours in the office, since i took monday off for my birthday--nothing wrong with that, i definitely had the time. but my office computer can turn 20 minutes of work into an hour because it moves at an absolutely glacial pace.

friday evening made up for it, though, and i can sum it up for you in only a few words: falafel, cat, twilight (if you really know me, of course, that is less weird than it sounds. or maybe just as weird but justifiable). i spent the evening with my friend amanda, and after having a really great conversation and realizing that we might be seminary soulmates (in that we're struggling with a lot of the same issues), we went for mediterranean food before heading to her apartment, where i met her cat, who spent the rest of the evening in my lap. then we turned on twilight and giggled like teenage girls. there is no mental break better than a few ridiculous hours spent with edward cullen (rivaling, in fact, the ridiculous mental break that was the stone mountain laser show last weekend...another story for another time, indeed).

saturday was nice and included a great morning workout, a pumpkin latte, an amazing vegetable dinner with fro-yo for dessert, and a dog pee stain that was successfully removed from my new boots!

today was an absolutely beautiful fall day and i started it off by spending a chilly hour out on the front porch with a mug of tea (sent for my birthday by dear Liz Kool--and i even drank it in my victory tankard!), a blanket, and henri nouwen. i've decided to take a break from morning church and just attend the night service i've been going to. i've never solely gone to an evening service, so i've wanted to see how i feel about not spending sunday morning at church. it definitely feels different, but i felt like i had my own little church out there on the porch this morning--just enjoying the beautiful creation and delighting in the crisp breeze, reading a less dense but still spiritually compelling book.

i needed church tonight, though. and a good word was preached, one that i really needed to hear. the current series is based on exodus, which has been frustrating at times as we simultaneously study it in OT. but God gave me an open and willing heart to receive the message tonight. the passage of Scripture was the ten commandments, and the pastor centered his sermon on the first verse: God does not begin this law code with a command, but rather with a call to remember what He has done. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery (Ex. 20:2). it is the grace of God that ALWAYS comes first, and His desired obedience is but a natural response to that grace, to that incredible gift.

the ten commandments are not, then, a to-do list, but a call to first receive. the pastor set up this great metaphor about new swimmers, who panic, thrash, and flail in deep waters instead of simply floating. this remembrance that God sets at the beginning of the decalogue is a reminder to float--God carries the bulk of our weight, while the arm strokes and kicks of our learned and eventual obedience begin to take us somewhere. but the first step is to just float.

how ironic that i have been a long-time swimmer, with brief stints as a competitive one, but i have never been able to float well. how is it that i can butterfly up and down a lane, but i start to sink when i simply lie on my back? that's just like me--doing and doing and doing until i don't know how to just be. that's going to be an especially hard lesson to learn here at seminary, where taking time to just be is quite the luxury and i often feel as though i'm thrashing and flailing about, wasting my energy and making a big watery mess. but i can already sense that God wants me to get that and let loose a bit. He even started teaching me that this summer! such a doer, so stressed about the work of ministry that i sometimes missed the purpose of ministry, the joy.

tonight during the service, we had a blessed 5 minutes of prayer time at the end of the sermon. we were offered the opportunity to reflect upon the things that God has already done in our lives, that lead us to the place of joyful obedience but more importantly call us to TRUST* Him, to rest in the knowledge of Him. not only was this 5 minutes good for the actual process of relecting and engaging with God, but it was good for me to realize that even 5 minutes of intentional, focused time with God can be exquisitely rich and meaningful.

i think i can start finding 5 minutes to float in the midst of my thrashing, treading, butterflying days.

(*in one of the books i read this weekend, the author named trust as the church's holiest of holies. i thought that was just beautiful.)