New Churches, Reinvented Thoughts

Today I visited a church with a friend.  I just pulled this churches website off a list of area churches, looked around their website, and decided to visit.  I’m glad my friend was willing to go with me.  I don’t like to do new things alone.  Which is one of my greatest weaknesses.  It makes me nervous to do new things that require meeting new people, or involve new experiences I don’t know how to plan for.  I like to plan things.  People can’t be planned.  And you can’t know everything about the best way to prepare for some new trip or experience.  I like to know what is going to happen and know how I can prepare to feel the most comfortable.  I’m somewhat obsessive about such things actually.

The visit went really well.  The people were extremely welcoming, which helps me a lot to feel more comfortable and less awkward.  It happened to be a day with a pitch-in meal after the service, and my friend and I decided to stay for it so we could get to know people more.  One of the main focuses of the service was prayer and how we need to do it more in our lives, and how listening is also a part of prayer.  Good reminder, not sure how well I will carry it out.

One really helpful thing during this visit was talking with the pastor at the end of the lunch.  He came by to introduce himself since he thought we were new faces (always a good thing to see in a church, that the pastor knows who is visiting versus the regulars).  We asked him a few questions and learned about the history of the church and how sermon topics are chosen.  I approve of what he described, and what he explained about the reasons behind the church activities.  They don’t do things because it’s how churches work, but because there is a good reason behind it.  And if there isn’t a good reason, they won’t do it just to “look like a normal church.”

He also explained some of his personal background in how he came to start this church.  One of the things he talked about was how he became a Christian and felt called as a pastor while still in middle school.  But he didn’t do anything about it for years.  Some days I feel like that.  That I know what I should be doing with my life but am simply pretending I don’t.  Some days, I just have no idea.  I don’t know if I’m just hopefully thinking I feel a call towards it, so I can know what I’m doing, so I can feel like I’ve heard God speak in my life.  I’m trained in Psychology, I immediately tend to analyze myself and everything I do or think or say.

I know this.  I have a strong desire to have a family and raise my kids in a certain way.  I read about different methods of raising kids and how to teach them and how to guide them and be trusted by them instead of resented.  I think part of it is that I want to do better than I feel about my own childhood, but also I just want to do it.  I want to fast forward to the point where I have my own family.  Everything feels like it’d be more straightforward then.  There is so much to know, and I’m sure it will scare me when I get there.  But I still feel like there are so many resources out there, and it’s a positive thing to want.  I understand the concept of having a family and how the positive family looks.

I don’t understand how to live on my own.  I mean, I do, but I also don’t.  Right now, I have a roommate and that affects everything, because we are both home so much and actually share a room, so we don’t really have individual personal space as much.  Even now, I write this on one couch as she sits on the other.  She’s so much quieter than me.  And she doesn’t share her life thoughts very much.  Or she doesn’t think that far ahead as much?  I don’t know exactly.  I know she’s thought about the future and what she wants to do, but I feel like she doesn’t focus on it much.  I think about it every day.  I want to talk about it, to discuss life topics and thoughts with others.  I want to talk to someone, all the time.  Just talk about society and God and everything under the sun.

Perhaps I’ve just gone full circle.  The sermon was about prayer, and whenever I think to myself about how I wish I had someone to talk to about these things, I think that I should talk to God.  But to me, he doesn’t talk back.  So it isn’t a discussion.  Not how I understand it.  I feel like I shouldn’t feel that way, but I don’t know how to move on from that thought.  How to hear.  I know how to listen, I can listen.  But I don’t know how to hear?  Not from God.  And that’s another thought I’ve had before on calling.  I want to answer questions.  Online there are so many places that people ask questions about God, or even just questions that can be answered with God.  Or even just cries for help.  I want to provide that discussion for others.  It’s not the direction my current job goes, or the direction I’ve thought about going most recently.  Not exactly.  I do have a fascination with the idea though.

Choices Shouldn’t Cause So Much Pain

Don’t we all want to be free?  Isn’t that what we all long for?  The freedom to choose what we want in our own lives, and to do whatever we want and have everything turn out alright.  Sometimes I am too tired to choose.  I just don’t want to have to make the decision.  I want it to just float away, to be made for me.    Can’t I just choose to not choose?  Can’t I choose to give up that choice, to let it be made for me?  I hate the frustration and doubt of being in the middle of a decision.  Of having to make a choice, and having no clarity on what is right, on what is best.  Maybe there isn’t a right choice and a wrong choice.  Maybe that’s what my problem is, that I see it as a right and wrong.  Maybe there is no right choice, just a lot of possibilities that could all be okay.  But I feel like there is a best choice.  A choice that will lead down the best path for me and for those around me.  I’m not sure I’m ready to move on, to make a choice to leave.  I’m not sure what I’m scared of, except perhaps everything.

It’s not just fear keeping me from choosing to leave.  There are good things here.  There are things I can learn, things I can gain from staying here just a little longer.  Maybe there are things I’m supposed to learn from being here.  Things about working in an office, when I’m still in a relatively safe office, a Christian office.  We are hiring two or three new people, maybe they’ll be good for me.  I like some of the projects that are coming up.  I like several of my coworkers and I think I can still learn from them.  Maybe I need to learn to trust someone I don’t find trustworthy.  Maybe I need to learn to give grace, to not always demand perfection.  To understand when people make mistakes.  To be less affronting to people as I get to know them.  To be calm.

Can I handle working under my boss, who doesn’t communicate, doesn’t seem to lead the office, doesn’t always pay attention to how others should be treated. Can I perceive him differently?  Can I handle working under him and being okay with it?  Telling him when I really think he’s wrong, trying to make sure he understands?  Yet respecting him, though I don’t always feel like he has the correct attitude about things.

I like living with my roommate.  I like that my good friend will be living in the same complex.  I like that I have family nearby.  Other friends nearby.  I like my church.  I liked my small group, though our leader is leaving so I’m not sure what it will morph into for next year.  I like that I get to work on a website.  I like that I feel like I’m improving something.

Moving would be a hassle.  I might not have a roommate which would be somewhat nice, but also dangerous – for example my roommate was gone the whole weekend and I got rather depressed for a good portion of the weekend alone in my apartment.  I also was watching romance movies, so that probably didn’t help the loneliness.  I should have gone somewhere and hung out with people.  Regardless, I still don’t know exactly what sort of job I’d like to do.  I would be willing to do some sort of IT work of various natures.  But I like websites a lot at the moment.  I like the idea of starting Graduate school, but I’d need to pick a program.  There are several I’m interested in, and I don’t know which I’d pick.  There is an easy option only 25 minutes from here that would work if I wanted.  It’s a bit late in the year for that option though.

All the way up to college, you always know what you are expected to do.  Go to school, maybe get a job at a restaurant.  Get good grades.  Pass tests.  Pick a college, go to college, pick a degree.  Then find a job.  Find a job is such an open ended problem.  It’s not straightforward like everything else.

Productivity in the Real World

I think that living with a roommate has increased my natural tendency to just stay home all the time.  When I get done with work, which is entirely more tiring that it should be, I come home and just stay home.  I’m not working to even maintain most friendships, let alone really make new ones very much.  Not that I’m avoiding people, but I’m not putting effort into anything.

I have so many hopes and dreams and desires for my life.  So many things I’d like to improve.  But sometimes, you just come home and don’t want to do anything.  Nothing that requires effort or thought.  I’m so tired, my brain is so tired, from a day at work that I just don’t want to have to think anymore.  I want to improve my Christian life, to learn more, to experience, to create.  I want to help people.  I want to meet people, to experience the things in life that don’t show up between work and home.  I have books that I’ve picked up that might teach me more about life, about how to help people, about the society we all live in.  About how to move on from those things and become a person I’m proud of being.  Become someone who is an asset to the community I live in.  It’s not even that I don’t know how to do this, it’s just that I don’t know how to give myself that motivation to be productive in this world.  Isn’t it enough that I go to work, make money, buy groceries, wash dishes, make dinner, and even keep up with a minimum number of close friends?  I go to a small group Bible study through my church, I go to church, I am meeting with a friend twice a week to exercise.  I’m not completely lost, but I’m not as much as I’d like to be.  I’m just existing, not always truly doing what I’d like.  Or maybe, I’m doing too much of what I like.  And just not enough of what I want to be doing.  I want to read the books about sustainability, about knowing God, about loving people that I have.  Books about how to figure out your life, about what choices lie before you in a life on your own like this.

How does one keep up with a full life?  Americans, we have crazy full lives.  So many things we feel we have to do all of the time.  I’m only doing a minimum of it, but I’m already so exhausted half the time.  Some of this is because it’s winter, winter makes everything harder.  I love snow, but my body hates the grey cloudy sun-less days.  My body doesn’t know how to live in this environment for so long.

I want to make friends, I want to support people.  I’ve hung out individually with 4 different friends in the past week, just to hang out with them.  Each occasion involved a meal.  That kind of stuff is good.  I like it.  And I’ve been around other people too, the guys I carpool to church with, my small group, my coworkers.  I met my coworker’s daughter this week, that was interesting.  It’s nice to have a face to put with the name.

I do want to help people.  And I want to learn.  And I want to contemplate life, to discuss deep things with friends.  I recently read the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson.  It made me think a lot.  Especially one particular character.  He has collected religions, knowledge of how they were practiced, what their beliefs were.  And he takes it as his mission to tell people of these religions, whichever one he thinks might fit them.  Eventually, in the third book, he becomes lost from this mission.  He realizes that he’s been preaching these varied religions to people for so long, but he doesn’t know what he believes himself.  He goes through all of the religions, and has no hope.  He has no belief that any of them are true religions.  None of them can be the truth by logic.  Finally, a friend sparks him to understand that religions are about the faith.  That extra piece that doesn’t make logical sense, well that’s where a person must just have faith and believe.

I made that choice, to just believe.  But now I want to understand too.  I want to follow my belief with truth and understanding.  But I’m not trying, I’m not reading my Bible every day, I’m not putting that effort into study of what I want to understand.  Why is it so hard to live a life that’s further than just work, household chores, meals, sleep, and uselessly spent free time?  What level of free time is okay?  When is it that I’ve had too much?

For Nostalgia

It’s been awhile since I posted anything.  I need to get back in the habit.  It’s good for me, it helps me think.  Once my roommate moved in with me in August, I just spent less time on my own.  Because she was around, I just didn’t write as much.  I didn’t think or contemplate and need to work things out for myself.  I still do those things, but when I’m home, I get distracted from it.  Sometimes I wish she had something that made her busy outside the times I’m busy, so I could have some time on my own.  But it’s really my own fault, because there were things that she’d do that would leave me alone in the apartment for a while.  I just didn’t take enough advantage of those opportunities.  The thing is, I like to be alone when I’m thinking and writing.  I like to be able to cry if I need to, or have complete silence if that’s what I need.  I suppose this means I need to clear off the desk in the bedroom so I can go in there and write at the desk in the evenings, all on my own.

I like having her here, don’t get me wrong.  She keeps me from being lonely, most of the time.  We have an odd relationship sometimes.  This is our second year being roommates, but I’m still not sure we’ve gotten deep into this friendship.  We live together, but it doesn’t mean that we know everything about one another.  It’s somewhat similar to my relationship with my sister.  We collaborate on things, hang out, do things together, don’t fight too much but can annoy each other, and it’s all good.  But we don’t always get deep in our conversations about things.  Or, at least, I haven’t.  I’ve shared a good bit of my general life annoyances or thoughts, but I haven’t shared the really deep things.  The things I don’t tell people about.

She just started dating someone.  Her first boyfriend ever.  It’s been about a month so far.  It’s odd to watch.  I’m sure they’ll seem more normal to me after some more time goes by.  So far, they’ve been to dinner a couple times, they play a card game in his apartment with his roommates, and they are watching Merlin together in our apartment.  Not much time to be settling in yet I suppose.

It, like everything else, makes me think about myself, and relationships.  I wait.  I wonder what else I need, before I’ll be ready, before it’d be okay to wish and hope.  I need to prevent myself from thinking about it though.  I’m not ready.  I can’t be ready yet.  And when I’m ready, when the time is right, it’ll happen when I least expect it.  I think.  Perhaps one day I’ll really follow my own advice on this.  Maybe.  Eventually.  Until then, I’ll sit in my apartment, doing nothing to encourage something into happening.  I want friendships, more than anything.  I’m in this odd place between college student and real-life adult.  I graduated, but I’m still in limbo.  By my own choice, since I chose not to leave like normal people do.

Nostalgia, for friendships long gone, for the times when I didn’t have hard things to think about, if those times ever existed.  After my last trip to visit my high school friends, I realized that I’m growing apart from them in a way I hoped I’d be able to avoid.  But I made a choice, and that choice makes it harder to deal with their lifestyles and to understand who they are now.  This most recent trip wasn’t that bad in a lot of ways, and I had a good time over the course of the weekend.  But it had awkward moments, too many of them.

My best friend, she always has to be doing something, she can’t just sit and talk.  We can’t just be friends, we have to be doing something, something has to be happening for her to be okay, for us to be happy.  Or something.  Things that are important to her, to her life, they aren’t to me.  They don’t guide my life and give me purpose.  I need to be finding my purpose in God, my worth in who he believes I am.  But she doesn’t feel that way, and never has.  She finds what she needs in accomplishing everything anyone asks of her, no matter what it costs her.  It’s about how others feel about her, about climbing the corporate ladder.  I have problems in finding worth from my own feelings of happiness from completing projects, and part of that is my personality I will never conquer.  But she just is different.  And the guy she is “not dating” anymore…  They certainly acted like they were dating.  Apparently they are “dating” when in person and since he lives several states away it doesn’t count as general dating.  Whatever.

I have nostalgia for the good old days when all that we did was read, play video games or go laser tagging.  That was fun.  REAL fun.  We’d never have alcohol, or “go to a bar” for fun.  I don’t think “going to a bar” is an activity, certainly not a “fun” “activity”.  I can’t win at that argument.  But at least this time, the only time we went out for a similar thing was a place with pool tables that happened to also contain a bar.  So that was choice, and a fun activity that just happened to allow the option of alcohol.  When we were younger, we scoffed at the idea of having alcohol.  And yes, at that point it’d have been illegal.  So of course we didn’t do it then.  But I had some hope that it wouldn’t change just as our ages changed.  But it did.  For them at least.  I went to a school where we voluntarily signed an agreement to not drink.  That’s okay, it was by choice.  And why not?  Why would I want to be in an atmosphere of expectation that I would drink alcohol?  Why does our culture require it?  Why can’t we have fun like we did when we were kids, without substances to alter our mental state?  And if it doesn’t alter our mental state that much, then why is it expected to have it at all, if it doesn’t do anything?  Why can’t I drink Dr. Pepper and be an equal?

I started this post with an entirely different topic in mind to write.  It’s not too late, I could write another post I guess.  I might.

To Write Without Fear

I started this month intending to do NaNoWriMo, but of course, that didn’t really happen.  I didn’t start with a plan of what I wanted to write, and after I hadn’t come up with something specific in the first few days, I was stuck, and no longer felt like accomplishing that goal was in my plans for the moment.  This makes sense to me, knowing my personality, my schedule, my desires, my goals… I like to read.  A lot.  But to write is a whole different story.  I can blog, because this is more about writing about my thoughts than having characters and a plot.  But I need to do this more.  I have so many thoughts and topics I could write about.  I even have a list of possible blog topics sticky-noted to my desktop.  But of course, writing a full fiction novel seemed too daunting a task for me just yet.  Needless to say, I accomplished no novel writing over the course of this month.

I did accomplish one thing in the month of November.  Come November 1st, I posted a closing status to Facebook, logged out on my laptop and phone, and stayed unconnected from Facebook for the month.  I still have a few days left, and intend to continue not using Facebook over those days.  Just so I can have accomplished something over the month, and because it really has been a valuable learning experience.  I have a Facebook chat/message app on my phone that I left available, and I did text one new status during the month, but I have not read my notifications, responded to friend requests, or scrolled my homepage feed for news about my friends and the various other people I know or once knew.  It’s been odd.  It’s been, painful to some extent.  It’s odd to discover quite how much you depend on a thing when you don’t use it for a month.  I should have used the extra time spent not on Facebook to write my novel, or failing that, I should have been writing blog posts.  I have nothing inhibiting me from writing blog posts, but I just was “too busy” or something.

I like writing about my thoughts.  I like putting my perspective out there.  I’d appreciate the interaction with the wide world, though I really don’t get much of that through this blog.  I think the idea of a public blog intrigues me a bit much perhaps, but I’ll keep with it.  I write all of this publicly, and while my name is not connected with this blog in any way, I do know that someone who knows me well might be able to connect the dots if they ever read this.  But there is a freedom in writing in this way, a freedom that I rather appreciate.