In 6 months..

I've realized that I don't want to live a life of counting - days, weeks, months, jobs, goals, hours, landmarks, conversations. There are so many things I want to do in this life, but I don't want to get them done and then check them off but rather to simply live each and every day for what it is and what it brings and what I can give to it. I wonder if it's possible to live outside of time.. to be barely conscious of the days passing. If it's possible, I would like to find out. I'd like to find out what it's like to work to accomplish something rather than to fill the hours or receive a paycheck. I'd like to discover what it means to be present in each and every moment; never rushed, never checked-out, never wishing I was somewhere else.

There has been a heightening point of tension for me. It lies where my deep, often times painful love for the world collides with my intense love and longing for the very essence and fullness of Jesus Christ. In the ten years since I first experienced this Jesus I've found myself high with excitement, passion and zeal and I've found myself desperately clinging to what I've known to be true when nothing has made sense. I've held dirty, malnourished children in my lap and danced in multi-million dollar churches. I've been judged for the lifestyle I've chosen, from recklessly pursuing the heart of God, to living with pot-heads, to graduating early to pursue God's will for my life to, now, taking up residence in the ghetto (and so many things in between). And every time the judgement has come from Christians.

The questions began to wander in and out of my mind as I found myself frustrated with the walls Christians were putting up, with the "black and white" lines that were being drawn in areas of what were to me very gray, or dependent on the person doing them and the state of his/her heart. I suppose why I'm writing this now is simply to say that in the last 6 months I've been living closer to the non-christian world than I ever have before. I've made mistakes. I've misrepresented Christ. I've been frustrated with the stereotypical view of Christians and have therefore tried my best to change it, but still I have come out in the wrong. I've robbed God of His beauty.

(unfinished but publishing anyway..)