Maturing

Me and my quirks...

So, Sunday marked the 21st year of my intentional decision to follow hard after Christ.

Yesterday also marked a revelation... I've hit my spring lonely spell...

I ready Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry over the weekend and realized that I long for the days of old, where a community would work and visit and live, all together... Surely there were a lot of missing pieces, there was no facebook, no twitter, no text message to keep them all connected. But they didn't feel that lack.. And when they were lonely, well, they would go on a walk to the neighbors and visit. It was enough for most to provide them encouragement to continue.

This isn't the days of old, but rather the 21st century.. and, considering what I just read in Real Simple "It sometimes feels as if the world is turning into one big meta-experience," I gather that I'm not the only one who might be feeling lonely.


There is a challenge I am facing as I find myself here...  Can I allow the world to carry on without me, and settle into the small, limited, private world of our town... or will I always be like the 3 year old who must stay the life of the party until way past her bedtime and then cranky and tired, throw a fit?

Learning.

So, 21 years is quite a long time, and in the natural world, 21 is considered a full fledged adult.

As I process this spring lonely, I am drawn to the word, to the life of David, who, for all of his activity and foolishness and sin, was a man after Gods heart.. David, whose very nature was a bit rash and excitable (sounds familiar) yet longed for the courts of the Lord (also sounds familiar) who knew the solitude of shepherding (solitude of long walks with my dog) as well as the noise and violence of battle (the noise and violence of my youth in the city)

And the Lord afflicted the child that Uriahs wife bore to David, and he became sick. David therefore sought God on behalf of the child. And David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground. And the elders of his house stood beside him, to raise him from the ground, but he would not, nor did he eat food with them. On the seventh day the child died.... Then David arose from the earth and washed and anointed himself and changed his clothes. And he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. He then went to his own  house. And when he asked, they set food before him, and he ate. Then his servants said to him, "What is this thing you have done? You fasted and wept for the child while he was alive; but when the child died, you arose and ate food?" He said, "While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, Who knows whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live? But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again, I shall go to him, but he will not return to me."
(Second Samuel Twelve)

And so, I leave you with a thought. May we pursue Christ with fullness, in repentance, with our joy and sorrow, with our lonely and our busy, much like David. Fully living, in crisis or in health...