know your onion!

it's been undeniably dear to me, i don't know why
when every other part of life seemed locked behind shutters
i knew the worthless dregs we are,
the selfless, loving saints we are,
the melting, sliding dice we've always been

not really sure exactly why this 'shins' song popped into my head while sitting down to write today. i even had to look up the lyrics, because you can really only make out about every third word when they are singing it. but i knew the gist of it, and i like the title. to me, it says a lot about peeling back layers to discover the good and the ugly in yourself, getting over it, and moving forward.

i got to talk with hooooney and hoooney husband last night about a conversation that Yale and i started to have on monday night. about this middling place where i find myself. about the delicacy of feeling happy, numb, scared, excited, calm, smitten, and nothing all in the same instant. about the fact that my emotional self appears to be taking a long nap over these last few months. happy but not too happy. excited but not giddy. pangs of sadness but no grief or tears. glimmers of fear and glimmers of euphoria flash and fade faster than i can call them by their names.

it is to be expected, i suppose. maybe even healthy. the emotional upheaval of the last several months. even the past couple of years. the violent, shaking sadness of death and loss were smoothed down with relief and the tight grip of Jesus around my shoulders. and all those months of fear and worry and anticipatory dread rocked quietly to a calm.

and now the "bad" things seem less bad. the pains and sorrows of the world - injustice, lonliness, disease, lack of proper care and resources... they don't keep me up at night, and honestly i rarely give them a heavy thought. the unspeakable blessings and beauty and joyful glimmers of just being alive - summer flowers and really good chocolate and incredible friends and maybe even tip toe steps towards love... i usually remember to give a grateful word of thanks, but my heart doesn't race and my lungs aren't singing out with joy like i remember i once could do.

where is that girl? where is the passion? i want her back. i want the extremes, the full spectrum. the heights and the depths. i used to live in them. hanging out in the foothills is growing tedious. i don't feel sad and i don't feel depressed. perhaps this is just a part of the path that has to be base camp for a while. a gearing up for something big. to be able to hold tight to the fearlessness and the hope and get back the wonder and the sensitivity to the pains and joys of the world.

so i guess the prayer becomes something about listening for the Lord's nudge out of base camp and into the wild. when to pick up my walking stick and head back into the high and low switchbacks of passion and drinking deeply of life in the world.

i don't want to get stuck here. things are finally getting interesting in a good way.