thanksgiving break post

as i first drove into my neighborhood in charlotte this week, it felt like i had never left. i've been in atlanta since august, but it's funny how home is always there. some things change: there is a new stoplight on elm lane, the picture frames in the dining room are arranged differently, the walls of my room are much barer, but somehow everything still looks the same, smells the same. the air is the same. it's nice to be home. i feel though, that this year i've finally made that transition. coming home used to be a literal coming home, returning from college as if it were some extended summer camp adventure, and charlotte was where i still really lived. but now, atlanta is definitely home. i love it there more than i could've imagined. i have friends--a family--there, a home there, work to do there. so now coming to charlotte for the holidays is a visit, a brief return to former things, a chance to catch up with what's been going on in the lives of the people i seem to know the best and the least all at once. it's a start toward that weird place of home not really being home. i've always wondered how it is for my mother to only see her parents very sparingly, and feel, at least somewhat, like we do, that grandma's house is a vacation getaway of sorts. this is a place to rest, to refuel. a place to leave again.

apologies for falling so naturally into the thanksgiving vernacular, but being home has also reminded me how very blessed i am. my family is great--maybe even a little less dysfucntional than i last remembered. this truth is thrown into sharper distinction by my recent viewing of the movie Precious. in short, the main character is abused in every way by her biological family. i come home to a family who has been eagerly awaiting my return. my mother changed my sheets and made my bed for me, complete with chocolate on the pillow! she remembered to turn the heat on upstairs hours before i arrived so i that i wouldn't be cold. she has cooked more food for us than one would think humanly possible (this morning it was banana pancakes--yum!). it all makes me stop and wonder what accident of birth allowed me to have this kind of life. no, we're not perfect, but i have always been loved, and loved well. at my dad's house, where i usually spend much less of my time when i'm home (the years of back and forth have led me to settle at mom's and stay), he followed me into the kitchen when i wanted a bite of dinner one night. he opened the refrigerator door and proceeded to show me all the grocercies he had bought because he knew they were things that i particularly enjoy: good salad lettuce, pineapple, apple slices. he didn't even know that i would be there to eat those kind of snack-like foods, but he bought them just in case. my dad's love through provision has so often reminded me of God's abundance: the extravagance and the detailed, intimate knowledge of the recipient. i don't always agree with the lifestyle of extravagance my dad has chosen (and works hard to enjoy), but this year i've begun to see that providing for his family is the way he best knows to show his love. and there's something really beautiful in that. sometimes life is just about doing the best that you know how.

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one of the first things i did this week in charlotte was to meet with my candidacy mentor. we've only met once, and i've been pretty slack in pursuing my ordination requirements thusfar, so i wasn't entirely sure what to expect. we had such a great talk, though. of course, there is much to catch up on, since i've completed almost an entire semester of seminary (and my first one at that) since last speaking with him. he really spoke to the fears and frustrations i've experienced in the last few months. i've been craving this conversation--someone to mentor me through this process--so i was more than willing to be vulnerable, and he was very willing to push me even further into those places. i admitted that one of the things i've struggled with this semester is my lack of personal devotional time--in the Word and in prayer. this has led to a feeling of distance from God. he reassured me that God is close even when i don't feel God there, when i don't have all the warm-fuzzies. God is bigger than emotion and God certainly doesn't rely on my compliance in the relationship for the existence of the relationship (if that was true, we'd all be in trouble). God wants me to spend time in devotion, but that doesn't define our relationship. right now, i am obeying God by being in seminary. this is the place God has led me to, and i am being faithful by doing the work of seminary. it's a different kind of faithfulness--not necessarily a complete one (if there is any such thing), but a step toward a maturing relationship, i think. it's moving further beyond the Sunday school ideal of God to one that has a little more practical experience.

pastor shane also reassured me that i am, in fact, engaging in discernment already this semester, moving closer to the place to which God is calling me. he asked me who the greatest teachers in my life have been, using those examples to say that great teachers are passionate about what they teach. as an aspiring religious educator (or pastor or what have you), my primary job is to love Jesus, and to let people see that. a true passion of that nature will have to impact people, in one one way or another. i can see how this might sound like a cop-out for the real work of ministry that needs to be done, but i don't think that's how he meant it. his point was to say that the best thing we can do is to just love God and be passionate about the Gospel--all the other work we do is God working through us, anyway.

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a few closing notes:
1) i am in love...with my new puppy nephew
2) my iPod is in the ICU, and i'm only hoping it will make it through a few more workouts before christmas. now the question is...iPhone???
3) christmastime really makes me miss singing. sometimes i miss it like i would breathing--singing so often was something i did all the time, and it was my life. i may already be annoyed by the christmas stations on the radio (i mean really, there are more songs and versions than the rotation of about ten songs they all seem to have), but i can't WAIT to sing christmas carols in church.
4) i also miss dancing. that was almost ALL i did for workouts last year. the absence thereof in Atlanta has led me to significantly improve my running game (me and Baxter, said puppy nephew, went a couple of miles or so on the greenway together yesterday--also the occasion of the iPod coma), but being home, i was able to attend a cardio funk class on wednesday night. i danced myself into something of a muscle paralysis as i am now experiencing it. i can barely move for the rediscovery of some of those muscles and dance moves, but it was great. there is a class tomorrow at 5, which i expect i will attend despite any lingering soreness, between panther football and tarheel hoops!

home on monday. one more week. 3 papers, one final. then done. when did that happen?