Beautiful Elemental Things

What do you say when you return to what you love, after being gone for a long, long time? 

As I am sitting here, I am blinking and feeling fairly thoughtless about beginnings.  Not the rest of the story.  Just right now with 'how to begin again'.   I'll say this.  I have learned that writing always brings me back to well being.  But it wasn't that way, at least recently, for me and for Life on the Bridge.   I became embarrassed of it.  Really really really.  And then I forgot that I loved it.

Here we go.  Short and sweet.  Just tell the story.




I quit writing for a time because I accidentally posted thoughts about the 20s (not unusual behavior) on my homework blog intended for students (unusual behavior) and my response was utter embarrassment.  To a level I didn't even know I could possess.   I discovered this two days and 57 anonymous page views later.  And I was mentally undone.    The realization of this mistake, at my desk at school in May, was followed by this numb feeling of the world being too much.  Absolutely too much.

Now I can ask it....'And why, anyway?'  It wasn't that I suddenly saw the Internet for how public it was.  That is always there.  It was my position as a teacher and this direct communication with a very specific group of people in my world that felt so embarrassing. 

These are people who, commonly at least, know nothing of me save for my last name and general professional demeanor. (And what their kids tell them.)  Teaching is my common work.  My business.  And there is a public element of the teaching life which directly clashed with my little mistake.  I was sending this blog post to them.  (And they are not 20 somethings.  Enter a fresh wave of embarrassment.  Or something of that nature.)

I considered deleting every single word, but Leigh kept me from being rash.  From being so harsh towards my own fatigued mistake.  Life was big and busy and completely difficult and raw.   I was dealing with the things that come up when your life really changes on many levels.  Good, bad, middle ground.  All of it. 

So yeah.  I wasn't 'best ever'.

Enter, then, silent summer living.  Road trips.  Mountains and silence.  Summer meals on the porch.  Vanessa and Chris and McKenzie and newness and friendship.  The significance of pushing the reset button.  Less of a schedule, of 'a net for catching days'.   And the time to convince myself I don't write things down like I used to.  Which was, very simply, for the intrinsic value of loving this part of our great big world.

And then, now in the fall, the ongoing discussions in my mind about what writing is to me, who finally admitted to loving it.  And what it does for other people who happen to read what I string together.  And why, undeniably, it lines up with my heartbeat. Writing will always be fascinating.   Interesting and intentional people called this out of me.  I wondered again why I am sometimes such a stick in the mud about it all.  But I think that's what everyone also calls the inner critic.  

Henri Matisse once said, 'Creativity takes courage.' 
I, afresh and anew, absolutely believe this to be true.

The shape of my life right now is different than what it was in May.   In so many significant ways.  I moved to a place that was closer to my favorite people and further away, literally, from teaching.  God dealt with the brokenness of my life.  (Again.)  My world expanded with new people.  Authentic life at a church came back.  Being older made sense.  I began to pray for the life of my family the way I knew God was calling me to pray.  I wore a lot of sunscreen.  You know.  The big things of life.

It should be said that last year felt really dusty.  Really worn.  Really 'lowest tide, ebb and flow, dark night of the soul' kind of stuff going on.  There were joyful things in that season.  But my gratitude about leaving that season is really strong.  At Hiawatha this year, we began to sing a song by Gungor called 'Beautiful Things'.    (Have you been listening to the song?   Hope hope hope so.)   

I didn't know it was Gungor until today, which is the truest me, by the way.  To love a song but not know who sings it.  To love maps, but not, for the life of me, be able to use them for navigation.  I have come to grips with this.  Thankfully, wonderful people emerge in my life who are willing to help me out.  :)

This song has always talked to me about being taken away from your worst, embarrassed, broken self in order for this terribly good thing to happen in its place.  It is again Jesus, who used grace to refashion me.  I am again now grateful and new, with the elemental and connected things of life right in front of me.