I looked down at my arms this evening as I sit to start homework that is due tomorrow. Dirty, a little beat up, tired, I have done battle with my truck this entire day. Trying to change the timing chain and gears, although I spent all day just trying to get to them, I am far from done.
But I do have a small sense of accomplishment. I like that I gave it a try, I like that I am dirty. It was an entire day outside, some of it under a tarp to try and stay dry as I took apart my engine part by messy part.
The life application... this is what is happening to me, I feel like my truck at this point. Sort of spread out over the ground, messy, covered in coolant and grease, dirty. A little chaotic. As I looked at all the nuts and bolts and parts, I was trying to remember where everything went and which parts went where, I should have written it all out. Like I said it was a perfect metaphor for what I am going through. The hope though, and I am trying to look at this more and more, is that there is a better and a bettering that is happening here. That is all.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
the defining moments
In this story of restoration the significant points are worth mentioning because, well, they are significant. I can remember specifically four of them. The first came almost immediately when I got back to Tennessee around my brother Brandon and his wife Pace. It took all of about a day I think, I remember riding in the car with Brandon going somewhere, can't remember where, but instead of a happy and fun ride I felt like I was the black hole. Sucking in all life and happiness and fun and killing it. Not at all on purpose, but because of the hurt I was trying to figure out on my own. Forced laughs, trying to be in the moment with my brother there in the car, but all I could think about was myself, France, and what the hell happened there?
Brandon and Pace are relentless and as I have described them in the past, my cheerleaders. They are for me in ways I haven't expected, none of it I don't think is out of the ordinary, but I have been encouraged by them so consistently to not settle for hum drum. This time was no different. Through awkward silences in the car and forced laughs from me, it finally came down to them inviting me over to see Afton, hang with them and just talk. They let me spill, they listened for over a half an hour, for me just to get the cobwebs out. They sat, listened, asked questions, made me be present there with them in that room and then just prayed for me. Both of them listening to the Lord, calmly, for me, nobody else.
Out of that time of them praying and me just sitting, the picture that came was a wall, a huge big foreboding wall that was starting to have the first signs of cracks in it. This was a good thing.
I had killed something in Sweden and this crack in this wall, this fracture in this unconquerable force was going to eventually lift off. I was feeling lighter though.
I would love to say that it lifted immediately, but I am glad it didn't, it is still coming off to this day.
From there I will describe three other events that were huge in this process. The second was hanging with an old roommate and good friend Ryan Wapnowski in Bellingham. He has always been a source of good conversation and just one of those people who carry peace, and life and love with them as naturally as water falls. He made me a few presents, as he is in the habit of doing and one of them happened to be a remarkable quote that he had written out and then read aloud to me. It was superb. One of the lines was about standing on the banks of a silvery lake illuminated by the moon and screaming "yes" to living and loving. I had to do this. After Ryan walked home with me, I got on my Softride bike and under a beautiful full moon I biked to the lake not five miles away. When I got there, standing at the banks in the freezing clear night I declared that I would not be controlled, I wouldn't lose one more day to this funk I was in and then yelled "NO" with all my might and an entire lung full of air, leaving in one huge noise in less than a second. I rode home lighter still.
Then five days later, February 6th 2007 I was to be in class, but I intentionally missed class, I think that makes 5 in my college career, to sit and write out what was going on in my heart and head. It took about an hour, but a part of what came out was this:
"For me to change has always meant that you [God] will sit there waiting with arms crossed for me to "fucking get it right. Hunter, this is as far from the truth as you can get., Jesus in you means I am with you always, I am changing you from in here. And thank you for that, but I want more, always. I want to be better for the people around me, I want to be better for this world, I want to bring life. My life life is being hidden by this dark cloud of self-importance. Does my desire need to change? No, my desire is to share with people hope and love and life, but only because I know that I was made for people, I was not made for myself. I was never made to isolate myself..."
Brandon and Pace are relentless and as I have described them in the past, my cheerleaders. They are for me in ways I haven't expected, none of it I don't think is out of the ordinary, but I have been encouraged by them so consistently to not settle for hum drum. This time was no different. Through awkward silences in the car and forced laughs from me, it finally came down to them inviting me over to see Afton, hang with them and just talk. They let me spill, they listened for over a half an hour, for me just to get the cobwebs out. They sat, listened, asked questions, made me be present there with them in that room and then just prayed for me. Both of them listening to the Lord, calmly, for me, nobody else.
Out of that time of them praying and me just sitting, the picture that came was a wall, a huge big foreboding wall that was starting to have the first signs of cracks in it. This was a good thing.
I had killed something in Sweden and this crack in this wall, this fracture in this unconquerable force was going to eventually lift off. I was feeling lighter though.
I would love to say that it lifted immediately, but I am glad it didn't, it is still coming off to this day.
From there I will describe three other events that were huge in this process. The second was hanging with an old roommate and good friend Ryan Wapnowski in Bellingham. He has always been a source of good conversation and just one of those people who carry peace, and life and love with them as naturally as water falls. He made me a few presents, as he is in the habit of doing and one of them happened to be a remarkable quote that he had written out and then read aloud to me. It was superb. One of the lines was about standing on the banks of a silvery lake illuminated by the moon and screaming "yes" to living and loving. I had to do this. After Ryan walked home with me, I got on my Softride bike and under a beautiful full moon I biked to the lake not five miles away. When I got there, standing at the banks in the freezing clear night I declared that I would not be controlled, I wouldn't lose one more day to this funk I was in and then yelled "NO" with all my might and an entire lung full of air, leaving in one huge noise in less than a second. I rode home lighter still.
Then five days later, February 6th 2007 I was to be in class, but I intentionally missed class, I think that makes 5 in my college career, to sit and write out what was going on in my heart and head. It took about an hour, but a part of what came out was this:
"For me to change has always meant that you [God] will sit there waiting with arms crossed for me to "fucking get it right. Hunter, this is as far from the truth as you can get., Jesus in you means I am with you always, I am changing you from in here. And thank you for that, but I want more, always. I want to be better for the people around me, I want to be better for this world, I want to bring life. My life life is being hidden by this dark cloud of self-importance. Does my desire need to change? No, my desire is to share with people hope and love and life, but only because I know that I was made for people, I was not made for myself. I was never made to isolate myself..."
A fear realised...
In 2005 I participated in a ministry training school on the island of Cyprus. I was there for six months doing everything from outreach to scrubbing bathrooms and from learning how to live in community to severe personal change. In any case we had each week to answer a few questions creatively in this journal. One week we were to write out our most daunting fear, either spiritual or physical I can't remember exactly, my greatest fear is this: to be emotionally and spiritual dead. To spend the days, weeks, months of my life in front of the TV or doing something that my heart is not in. To not be effected by an event, to not feel passionately about anything, to not feel at all. To not see Jesus in people, to not be able to hear His voice, to not love. I never want to be in that place.
Well in fact I got as close to that fear as I ever want me to be, I got right up next to it and was just about to throw my hands up when i got back from France to Tennessee on December the 20th, 2006. I was around the family that I loved, a new nephew that I hadn't even seen before and I could hardly experience any of it. I couldn't feel. I had killed something inside of me while I was overseas and it was in danger of being lost forever. As the story goes and as God would have it, there is restoration. It is slow and like in movies, hell, like in real life things heal slower than we would like. This thing called my heart, this thing that died in me as I was in Sweden and France is slowly, painfully slowly, coming back to life again.
Well in fact I got as close to that fear as I ever want me to be, I got right up next to it and was just about to throw my hands up when i got back from France to Tennessee on December the 20th, 2006. I was around the family that I loved, a new nephew that I hadn't even seen before and I could hardly experience any of it. I couldn't feel. I had killed something inside of me while I was overseas and it was in danger of being lost forever. As the story goes and as God would have it, there is restoration. It is slow and like in movies, hell, like in real life things heal slower than we would like. This thing called my heart, this thing that died in me as I was in Sweden and France is slowly, painfully slowly, coming back to life again.
The messy times
So I am starting this as I do many a thing in my life, to battle something else. Running to combat laziness, college to make sure my head doesn't turn to mush, biking to reduce waste, but this time it is a blog to war against my tendency to isolate myself. I've got this problem, well these problems, but one of them is that when I am not the upbeat person I want to be, I hide and try to hunker down until the dark cloud of Hunter's moodiness and self-improvement rolls over.
This time, the cloud has stayed for a little longer than usual and so me isolating myself has turned into not knowing how to interact with people. I am constantly wanting friends and people to ask the right questions, to say the right things and in general know exactly what I need as I go through this time, rather unrealistic to be honest. Five months of this mentality and isolation has left me a little worse than when I started, but it isn't over and I am not ready just yet to give up.
At the risk of being hoest, at the risk of bearing all the raw emotion and frustration I have had, at the risk of being known for who I really am, this blog is going to happen. Like a friend in France said to me, " Tu dois oser." (You have to dare)
This time, the cloud has stayed for a little longer than usual and so me isolating myself has turned into not knowing how to interact with people. I am constantly wanting friends and people to ask the right questions, to say the right things and in general know exactly what I need as I go through this time, rather unrealistic to be honest. Five months of this mentality and isolation has left me a little worse than when I started, but it isn't over and I am not ready just yet to give up.
At the risk of being hoest, at the risk of bearing all the raw emotion and frustration I have had, at the risk of being known for who I really am, this blog is going to happen. Like a friend in France said to me, " Tu dois oser." (You have to dare)
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