I Still Keep Moving

I sit with my hands holding a cup of coffee to keep them warm. I am not really cold, yet inside I feel cold and the unceasing rain outside seems to seep into my soul and make me shiver. Fernando Ortega sings a ballad but something inside me refuses to be soothed. There is anguish and a wrestling that persists. There is a joy and overflowing that runs through it. The two are inextricably joined but there are times when I wish I could hold them apart, like the pulling apart of a curtain, and see beyond them, into a place where I can understand and have answers to all my questions. It is like playing hide and seek with God with this being a moment I want Him to sit with me in the place of being found.

This week has been roller coaster for my heart. I never know when the twists and turns will come, but they do and throw me completely off kilter. I still keep moving towards Him.

A woman who was a strong steady influence in my life has died at age 94. I have not seen her for 3 years since I moved to the West Coast. Going to her funeral would be a way to honor my relationship with her and yet I think that writing a letter to her family would allow me honor what she was to me. Going to her funeral would mean putting myself into a circle that will refuse to eat with me, shake hands with me or hug me because I have chosen to leave it. I weep for the stupidity of religiosity that cannot reflect the love and character of Christ who calls us to be Christians – like Him. I weep for the hypocrisy that I see in the church. I sometimes wonder how I can still want to go to church. Then I remember women like this 94 years old who walked through pain and agony and still could celebrate life. She showed me His heart many times. I still keep moving towards Him.

I read a blog where someone was celebrating their years of waiting for children and then finally it happened and she became a mother. All she ever wanted was to be a wife and mother and … after waiting it happened. She got all she dreamed of.
It’s nice and I should be joyful for her, and I am. But inside I weep a little more. I have dreams too, dreams that I have waited a long long time for, am still waiting for and they are dreams that have not a thread of hope anywhere in the canvas of my life – at least that I can see. A piece of that dream turned out to be an illusion, but for a moment I held it and it felt exquisite. Then someone, who knows me well, tells me that it wasn’t anything at all. My feelings are invalid? My dreams are invalid? So what makes yours something and mine nothing? What do we do to each other in these moments? How do I honor you and you honor me in the moments of joy and the moments of sorrow? My dreams are like grains of sand that forever slip through my fingers. I held them for a moment and felt them brush across my life, but they are gone now. When I hold this pain I wonder why I dare to dream. Yet I still do. I still keep moving towards Him.

I read Freedom on Sacred Space today ponder the bitter sweetness of the words.
Everything has the potential to draw forth from me a fuller love and life. Yet my desires are often fixed, caught, on illusions of fulfillment. I ask that God, through my freedom, may orchestrate my desires in a vibrant loving melody rich in harmony.

Parker Palmer talks about -illusion being the point where illusions are broken and truth is revealed. I don’t like to read that but I know it is truth –illusions are not reality, they are not the place of truth and freedom. Only by pushing beyond the illusion can my heart live in that melody.

Today is like a haunting lament in a minor key. It truly has its own unique harmony and I am picking up those notes. The weeping today is part of the harmony in a minor key. I play the piano by ear. Today this life melody is from the string section of my heart. I not sure I’ve got it, but I still keep moving. He keeps calling me towards Him.

And speaking of moving, I have a Moroccan dinner to prepare for guests that will sit round my dinner table tonight. I will be listening to see when the melody changes from a minor to a major key. God is invited and I know He will sit at the table with us. He is here, so I still keep moving.