Home. Right on target.

My friend Erin gave me a pocket journal the night before I left Charlotte. On the front of its warm yellow cover is playfully written, “She decided to start living the life she’d imagine.”
Perfect.
It’s absolutely perfect.
It brings to mind my two worlds. The stark contrast of my past and my future and that great glimmer of hope that has become my present. Erin has challenged my ability to love. She has forced me to love wildly and without bounds. And in this challenge I am discovering what Brennan Manning terms ”the second call.”
Briana, another fiercely bold friend of mine, landed this book on my front steps and challenged me to read it. It’s quite funny actually, how I come by my reading material. Funny to me because I have to laugh at my stubbornness in order to get past it. But this book, “The Ragamuffin Gospel,” has been showing up in my life for the past two years. That’s how it happens. There is nothing and then…it’s everywhere. At the airport in the hands of a fellow passenger, an ad in a magazine, recommendations, a reference in the last three books I have read. These pieces of literature show up all around me until I finally give in and crack them open.
And then I devour them.
What is it they say about God’s timing…?

Manning writes beautifully that “second journeys usually end quietly with a new wisdom and a coming to a true sense of self that releases great power. The wisdom is that of an adult who has regained equilibrium, stabilized, and found fresh purpose and new dreams. It is a wisdom that gives some things up, lets some things die, and accepts human limitations. It is a wisdom that realizes: I cannot expect anyone to understand me fully. It is a wisdom that admits the inevitability of old age and death. It is a wisdom that has forced the pain caused by parents, spouse, family, friends colleagues, business associates, and has truly forgiven them and acknowledged with unexpected compassion that these people are neither angels nor devils but only human…we are aware that we only have a limited amount of time left to accomplish that which is really important.”

And then I realize the vast differences in what is important to me now and what was important only a few short years ago. If you had asked me then to describe my idea of a successful life, it would have included wealth and recognition as a film director, living a luxurious life in my ultra-hip New York City loft, with views in all directions from my rooftop garden. My “rock-star” husband and I would split our time between NYC and Paris, and if my personal trainer could guarantee, in writing, to get the baby weight off of me in 30 days or less, I might have considered having children.
I don’t even recognize that person anymore.
Good riddance.
But she was real.
Really scared.
And she fed into all the bullshit that was fed to her about what makes a success.
And worse yet, she created her own timeline and criteria. A measure of worth and value. And she slowly crumbled under the unrealistic pressures she created for herself. As she missed deadlines and failed to measure up, her perfect life--My perfect life, floated up ahead, just out of reach. I created a prison for myself, trapped in plot lines and the glossy pages of magazines.

“I see all this potential and I see squandering. God, damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need…You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your fucking kakis.”

I sincerely hope that you broke Tyler Durden’s first two rules about Fight Club!
I hope you talked about it whenever you had the opportunity. And I hope you continue to do so. And I pray that these truths outweigh the one-liners thrown out by a shirtless Brad Pitt. Because in the midst of the fancy camera work and the blood and violence a very true message screams out: “The things you own end up owning you…it’s only after you’ve lost everything that you are free to do anything.”

I think it hit me back in October when I was driving with my friend Nate. I realized how much stuff I had managed to accumulate over the years and how trapped and pinned down that made me feel. I had a house full of stuff. Things I had purchased for a life I no longer had. And I didn’t; want those things anymore. I wanted a fresh start. To purge my life of those reminders. And I began to see how things were connected. That I could proclaim one morning that “I have nothing to wear” but then manage to fill five bags with clothes to donate to the Salvation Army that afternoon.
I want to be satisfied with what I have.
I want to be grateful and find joy in the moment.
And I couldn’t do that worrying what would happen to me if a fire erupted or robbers broke in and I lost everything. All my shinny possessions.
My tally marks of worth.
So I figured out what was important to me. What was wasteful to get rid of, and what I loved but never used. I realized I have strange attachments to things. I had a shirt I bought in Paris and a coat I bought in New York City and I loved them both. But I never wore them. I would put them on and only be reminded of painful memories and another life.
So I finally parted with them in hopes that they could bring happy memories to someone else. After all, these pieces don’t define me.
That’s something I am learning as I go.
That the things I love do not define me.
I run. I am not a runner.
I take pictures. I am not a photographer.
I write. I am not a writer.
I am however, a dearly loved child of God, and as such, by refusing to be bound by these worldly labels, I am making room for words of life and light.
Words like Hope. Trust. Joy. Gratitude. Beauty. Grace.
By denying these earthly shackles I am answering the call. “I am a limited creature called to limitless joy” (Stronger Than You Think).

So, now, at the very beginnings of my “second journey ”I find myself a little lighter in wares, but still fighting that “IKEA nesting instinct.” I recently took a trip to Target to develop photos (whereas a trip to Target in Charlotte consisted of a two minute hop-skip-jump Uptown, it is an hour long haul up to Bangor from my mom’s house) and my mom laughed at me as I marveled over the isles of bright-and-shinnies like I had never stepped foot in civilization. It was rather disgusting. But I craved that “normalcy.” It brought back the same sensation I felt when I stepped inside that boutique in Paris just to listen to the Coldplay song that piped through the walls. After two weeks of wrestling French translations, Chris Martin’s English words were like home. Effortless. Comfortable.
I liked this feeling. It made sense. And again I was disgusted.
Commercialism. Consumerism. The effortless comfort of this iPod world.

(I am typing this on my MacBook, by the way. Barf!)

Where is the balance?
Where is the equilibrium?

I am getting ahead of myself. Baby steps. I am still in the beginnings. But already I can see a grand transformation in the things that hold substance and value for me. I am trying desperately to “really accept the message that God is head over heels in love with [me]…that Jesus didn’t say that maybe God was love, or that it would be nice if God were love. He said GOD IS LOVE—period. But there is more to the message of Jesus. He insisted that his Father is crazy with love, That God is a kooky God who can scarcely bear to be without us!” (Manning) And this message changes the way I look at things. It filters them through. Asks the hard questions.
And I imagine the life I want to live now. A life of adventure.
Four walls and a warm bed.
A gas stove and an enormous dinning table to fit all my friends.
A Christ-loving husband who understands the key to my heart lay more in time he attended to choosing the words he proposed and the attention to detail with which he planned the presentation of my glorious $16.99 cubic zircon Target Special. (I'm not a diamond girl.)
And oh how my heart longs for children. To raise them up in a home where they spend every moment free from doubt that they are loved. To teach them. And learn from them. Failures and mistakes. To witness their journey, walking along side them, cheering them on.

But I pray that I can be content with whatever life the Lord provides me, knowing full well that even this description has placed limitations. Drawn a slightly larger box for myself. But I’ve got more room now and I’m readying for risk.

“Many of us are haunted by our failure to have done with our lives what we longed to accomplish. The disparity between our ideal self and our real self, the grim specter of past infidelities, the awareness that I am not living what I believe, the relentless pressure of conformity, and the nostalgia for lost innocence reinforces a nagging sense of existential guilt: I have failed…The ragamuffin who sees life as a voyage of discovery and runs the risk of failure has a better feel for faithfulness than the timid man who hides behind the law and never finds out who he is at all…” (Manning)

And so “on the last day when we arrive at the Great Cabin in the sky, many of us will be bloodied, battered, bruised, and limping. But by God and by Christ, there will be a light in the window and a Welcome Home sign on the door. “ (Manning)

Blessings on your journey. See you at home.