Whitewash and the Taj Mahal

Once upon a time...a long time ago, there lived a king and queen- and the king loved the queen very much. She was the light of his life. One day sickness struck, and the young queen died. Overcome with grief, the king refused to bury the queen. He claimed that he would build her a temple, a sanctuary, a beautiful place for her to rest for eternity that symbolized his great love for her. And so he began to build. As the temple took shape, the king became obsessed with making it beautiful and perfect for his queen. Month after month, the king grew more and more obsessed with creating the biggest and best and most precious of all sanctuaries. He became so immersed in the project that he forgot his grief and some even say lost sight of why he orginally started to build this temple. One day, the king was inspecting the beautiful pure white building and noticed an old plain wooden box lying in the middle of the floor. Angered by the plainess and ugliness of the box, the king ordered his guards to get rid of it so it could not take away from the beauty of the queen's temple. Following the kings orders, the guards unknowingly threw away the box that held the remains of the queen- the very thing the temple was built to honor. So the king built the most beautfil of resting places for his queen, but when all was said and done, the king had forgotten to preserve the most important thing of all- the queen. The king ended up with an uninhabited sanctuary, a memorial with nothing to remember, a temple with no god. This is the legend of the Taj Mahal.

Kind of sounds like Christianity doesn't it?

We've kicked Jesus out of His temple.

We make beautiful noises, but void of true praise.

We do good deeds and works, but without the motive of love.

We build beautiful altars and churches, but forget to offer true sanctuary to people who need it most.

We read His words, and then use them as weapons against ideas we don't agree with.

We promote an all forgivng, all gracious God, but assign people to hell.

We declare a life changing faith, but remain the same.

We've built a beautiful relgion, but forgotten our God.

The Not-So-Sweet Spot

I've always been a big planner. A plotter. Someone who maps out her trip before she leaves. I firmly believe in maps, itineraries, schedules, and procedures. And I admit, sometimes I get slightly bent out of shape when things don't happen as I planned for them to.

I had a plan for my life. And in no way did it include living alone in a cabin several miles out of civilization working at a tiny church in rural Tennessee as a youth minister several hours from home. But yet, here I am. Despite all my planning, dreaming, plotting- I've ended up here.

And for awhile, I've kind of been kicking and screaming about it. Subltly, but still kicking and screaming. My discomfort with my current place in life has been sitting under the surface of me, bubbling, yet under control. For the most part, I've kept the fact that I'm not at all where I wanted to be pretty quiet. Sometimes if things make me mad enough, I let it spill over into my attitude and I am openly dissatified.

Its not that my life is horrible. In fact, my life is pretty incredible. I recognize the reality of the fact that I am insanely blessed. I have more than most people could dream about. I have family who loves me, probably the best and most supportive friends anyone could find, and a job that I really do enjoy.

However, its just not the life I wanted. Its a life I've ended up with. And while there is always joy and goodness in life, I know that this is not how life is supposed to be. In fact, I've experienced what I call the "sweet spot." The place in life where its just so good and you feel as if you are exactly what you are supposed to be. And I recognize because I've been there, that I'm not in that place any longer. I feel like I'm sitting at a really long red light.

I don't know if its job, geography, personal life, or just the fact that I'm disgruntled at the fact God pretty much threw my roadmap for life out the window without consulting me, but I'm in a not-so-sweet spot.

But after lots of blatant kicking and screaming and several attempts at escaping, I'm finding that I'm stuck in the not-so-sweet-spot. For some reason, I'm meant to be here in this moment. And despite my best efforts, I can't leave this place and time.

And maybe its so that I will have a better appreciation for life when I finally hit the sweet spot. Or maybe its God trying to teach me, that I make the spot sweet no matter what the situation is. Or maybe, I'm just at that last place of learning before I get released to what is next. Or maybe its a lesson I need to learn about planning (about how you shouldn't because it never works out just like you expect).

Whatever it is, I'm going to try and appreciate this place. I'm going to remember that while its not so sweet, its still pretty sweet. And that, its never too late to stop and change directions.

I no longer know what I'm trying to say- maybe just that I recognize that I'm not where I expected to be and maybe that's for the better. But I also don't know exactly where I'll end up or when I'll get there, but I do have faith that it will be a place infinitely better than I could have ended up left to my own plans and directions.

I guess I'm just waiting for a green light. A turn signal. Something.

What's past is prologue....

If you hang around church much, you hear about how your past doesn't really matter. That Jesus creates you new, and the old life is gone.

I agree- to a point. Jesus can make us new. Religion changes us. Hopefully, changes us to the point where we do indeed leave our old life for new.

But however, I don't necessarilly jump on the band wagon of "The old is gone. Your past doesn't matter."

No matter what changes you've undergone or experienced, you can't erase the past. You are stuck with it. It is what brought you to this point. Your old life, is history, but still remains your history.

I agree with Shakespeare- "What's past is prologue". I think our past is what makes us who we are in the present. I think that no matter how much we may want to buy into the idea that the past doesn't matter- it does. It's what makes us who we are. We are a culmination of our experiences, our mistakes, our triumphs, our joys, our lessons. And no matter how far we run, our past remains with us.

Possible, more than remaining with us, our past sets us up for the future. It prepares us for what we might next experience, what we might next encounter. The next turn our life might take.

As important as new starts our, remember the past is important too. Instead of resenting what has been, find joy in it. Even if it is awful, it brought you to here. And you have the choice to resent what you are, or rejoice that you aren't what you were, and can change. So what's past is past. But what's past is also prologue, a new chance for a new beginning....

"In a very real sense, not one of us is qualified but it seems that God continually chooses the most unqualified to do His work, to bear His glory. If we are qualified, we tend to think that we have done the job ourselves. If we are forced to accept our own evident lack of qualification, then there's no danger that we will confuse God's work with our own or God's glory with our own."

-Madeline L'Engle

When home is a millions places

Its strange being back to work after two wonderful weeks away. Its strange to be back in the cabin after two weeks at home. And its strange to sit in silence after the hustle and bustle of living with 4 other people and 4 animals for two weeks.

But its a good strange. I LOVE my time at home. Someone wise once said that "home is where we are the safest, and therefore the most alive" and I truly believe that. I am so much more ME at home than at any other place. I am more ME when surronded my mother or my sisters.

But, I'm learning that home is becoming less a physical location to me and more of a group of people. I could be at home in Lithuania if the right people were with me. And those people aren't just my blood family. Its a collection of people who I feel truly safe with that have become my extended family. They are people who have built trust with me over the years, knocked down the wall I've put up, and simply won me over. So they earned the right to be home. They are my home away from home. However, they are either concentrated around my physical location of home or scattered throughout the US.

After a long period of time away from my Home-people (homies...haha), I can feel myself becoming blah. I can feel the essential "Kellyness" that makes me- me, draining when I'm away from people who KNOW me. I feel like I eventually lose sight of who I am. Before I left home for Christmas, it took so much effort to do anything. To be entertaining. To use the quick wit I'm known for. Or to simply be me. I felt I was acting like me, acting like a Fake Kelly because I didn't know where I really had gone. I felt kinda dead, in a sense.

But now after two weeks immersed in all who are home sweet home to me, I feel more myself than ever. Its effortless to be completely and abandonly who I am. I feel so alive.

Perhaps, that is what I need to work on for the new year. I need to work on allowing myself to let more people in. I need to knock down the walls myself and give trust more easily. I need to be easier to know. I need to find more places where I am fully alive and safe. I need to let people know me. And I need to get to know myself. I need to be able to remind Kelly of who she is.

More than that, I need to let God remind me of where/Who home is. And that above all else, He created me and can tell me better than anyone else Who I am. I need to learn to depend less on home, less on self, and more on God....