i made it into westwinds a couple of nights last week. i had committed to myself to have sorted & boxed all the books that i wished to keep before we left on vacation. there always seems to be a reason to avoid unpleasantries.. especially the kind that wait quietly. but the guys have been more than patient... and physically there was no reason why i couldn't get it done.
i found the shared office shelves covered with scribblings & diagrams for future plans. it almost seemed symbolic... like some cruel joke G*D was playing on me, forcing me to let go of the future to deal with my past. at least the future i had anticipated. i chose not to read them... for they are not mine to read or scrutinize... and i knew reading them would only fed-ex thoughts & emotions to my doorstep that i had no desire to open.
sorting through the books themselves was not as hard as i imagined. but it was sobering to see tangibly how many useless books i'd hung onto. at least useless in my thinking now. time changes our perspective of things like this. i'll let some friends go through what's left to see if they wish any of the spoils; although, i imagine there will be little of interest. books hide their wisdom very easily... and the ones filled with little of it won't tell you otherwise until it's too late.
i mostly boxed books that i want to pass on to someone... or read again because they were that good... or have as a resource just in case. but i'd say i purged about half of what i had.
i've packed many of these friends at least 4 times... this making the 5th. that's how many churches i've served, not including the ones before t.e.d.s. each time they went into the box with another church in mind... packed with a layer of excitement about the ministry potential in the next context.
holding some of them again rekindled that same anticipation... reminding me of the dreams & hopes i had for ministry... for changing the world. it's not that i'm giving up on that dream. it's just that it doesn't feel like i know my role in the dream right now. i find myself refusing to think that it's time to pass the baton... although i know that time comes eventually for all of us.
yet... my thoughts are still so confusing that i cannot run into the future with any sense of direction. which... to be honest... does at times make me wonder if the dream was authentic in the first place.
sometimes i wonder whether i'm approaching the crest of a hill, on top of which i'll see this incredible vista... or discover that i'm too late to brake for a fatal collision of sorts. who can predict? only G*D knows such things.
looking back over this journal entry makes me chuckle at the thought of people reading posts such as this who don't dip from the same melancholic salsa bowl as i. how could they not think me "whacked"? and how could they not say of me the same thing i've thought of them over the years... that being... "what a shame it is that they're missing so much in life."
oh well... i've only been given this one pair of eyes. and only time will tell whether they've allowed me to see anything accurately at all... or if my mind has simply painted pictures over my blindness.
"lord, would you turn up the music? please?"
