Life

Today I experiences the first taste of homesickness.  I’ve been gone for a less than ten days, but today I would have loved to be back in Denver.  Yesterday quickly filled with things to do and places to go.  We visited George at his office on the other side of Grenoble, about forty five minutes.  As soon as we arrived home, quickly packing a bag I grabbed what I needed to go swimming with some friends.  Christine dropped Guillaume and I off at Nicolas’ work where we had to say bonjour to Nicolas’s boss.  When I say we said bonjour, were couldn’t have been there longer than an hour.  In France, saying hello and catching up with any friend you see goes without question.

Nicolas, Guillaume and I arrived at the Busi’s house  (Raphael, Nicolas, Justine and Ségolène) around seven.  Quite hungry, I expected top each relatively soon.  Oh no.  We talked for a few hours, played ping-pong while dinner was cooking, or so I thought.  Not until eight thirty did I see Raphael put being cooking the meal.  After dinner around sunset we decided to go swimming.  Yes, we went swimming at Lake Paladru for about an hour right after sunset, watching the colors slowly fade from the sky.  Our evening swim ended around eleven when we returned back to the Busi’s house.  The decided to watch a French movie around midnight, while I decided to work on my website instead.  We didn’t return home till two in the morning, a normal act for Nicolas I’m beginning to realize, more like experience.  Last Saturday we arrived home around four in the morning and another night one.

If you know me at all, it’s a minor miracle if I’m awake fast midnight.  Yet here, people talk and hang out with each other to the early hours of the morning.  Regardless of going to bed at two and waking up at ten, I awoke exhausted.  The past few day’s I’ve spend anywhere from three to six hours working on French.  Today, studying was useless, quickly I became frustrated, I could barely speak French.  Eh, it was bad.  All I wanted to do was to curl up on a couch with some friends around who know we well and just be.  The scenery, food, people and places are absolutely breathtaking here, yet nothing can take the place of some people who know the real you.  That’s what I miss the most.  I miss you all.  I hope life is good back in the states.  Love ya!

The recent blogs I’ve written have shown the interesting place I find myself residing.  There was a time when my thoughts were posted on a regular basis.  Yet recently I haven’t found the inspiration to write, neglecting to seek it in it’s hiding place.  Normally a thought would overtake my mind in class, a conversation with a friend would linger throughout the day.  Ironically enough, inspiration was found at a hole in the way coffee shop.  Looking around a rather odd, yet creative artwork flood the colorful walls.  People from every walk of life converse at place covered with colors.  The mentality of the place varies as its flow of music.

Where does inspiration reside?  Why do certain places, people, experiences bring forth the desire to create?  Months have passed since my creativity hijacked my thoughts.  The pressures of school, classes, church, and anything else has distracted myself.  A friend of mine defines his creativity as a core piece of who he is.  When the burden’s of life dampen these desires of his being, he feels incomplete.  Do I feel incomplete?  Am I suppressing a part of me which reigned for a year of my life?

For a year I worked at a camera store while pursuing freelance photography.  The range of my photography was immense.  I had the opportunity to capture weddings, missionaries in action, the effects of wars in Africa, the beauty across America, the political euphoria of an Obama rally, non-profits seeking to make a difference.  God allowed me to use the talent he bestowed upon me to show what was truly taking place in the world.  I can recall photographs capturing images I wish I could forget.  I have captured atrocities committed by he human race the world has yet to see.  The ignorance of people forcing the poor into unimaginable places.  The other side of the spectrum, I have seen the vision of a person turn the heads of thousands for the greater good.  God blessed me in capturing the work of missionaries loving on the unloved, feeding the famished, preaching to the lost and celebrating the miracle of a new life in Jesus.  I have traveled the globe, Africa, Latin America and our beautiful country capturing the beauty of our Lord in places I never imaged.

Looking at how this has evolved, I can see the passion pent up inside of my heart, longing to express itself once again.  What if the stress, the anxiety, the longing I have felt was the creativity which once reigned, yearning to breathe once again.  Ironically enough I live in one of the most beautiful places in the country, yet have shelved my desire to hike the mountains in search of God’s beauty for knowledge hidden in books.  There are many things once can never expereicne and live through books, but only through being.  This appears to me a plea from a part of my heart recently hidden, ignored and pushed away.  The sun is setting, the mountains are covered with fresh sheet of snow.  There is no time like the present.  Please excuse this abrupt ending, I found something which was once lost.

Good Friday.  This day seems adequate to begin writing once again.  Recently life has crept up upon me, bogging me down.  This weight was welcomed by dread at the start, but now I am beginning to see its beauty.  I have heard it said we much keep our eyes focused towards the future, keeping our mind pointed in the right direction.  Truth lies in this statement.  Yet it stands incomplete.

The future rests, waiting for what it may receive to make with it what it wills.  The pieces it receives is depended on many aspects.  The best way to understand the future is to understand the past.  Neglecting to grasp events of the past is neglecting the pieces to the puzzle.  Years were spend in ignorance of this fact.  Willpower and determination are adequate to conquer what may come.  I was ignorant.

Breaking through the careful crafted walls, meticulously made to keep past pains from emerging, this is difficult.  For years my goal revolved around keeping my past, many issues and problem, away from the present.  I mastered the art.  No matter how crafty I imaged myself, the past continued to creep into my life.  At one point, I began to loose control.  For the first time in my life, I did not know if I possessed the strength to hold myself together.  I was terrified.  What would people think if I broke down in class, at dinner, a concert?  How would they see me?  A wise man told me some powerful words.  I would appear human.

The past is the past.  It cannot be changed or manipulated.  It can be neglected, ignored, but will never be inconsequential.  I have started a new journey.  This journey does not include a sound mind or a strong willpower.  The power lies in the unknown, accepting my ignorance and weakness.  I hate it.  I loathe it.  The process involves stripping down every defense I built around myself for protect.  Brokenness, vulnerability, helplessness.  I find it intriguingly ironic true power lies in weakness.  My prayer has shifted.  No longer do I pray for strength in keeping it together; I pray for strength in allowing myself to fall apart.