You Give Me Fever

It’s been a long journey across half the country to get here. The stress of moving and uncertainty of whether this was a good idea or not are clouding my enjoyment of the beauty of WA; which, by the way, is really sad because it’s gorgeous here. It stops me in my tracks every time I turn to the SW and see Mt. Rainier. I just can’t imagine seeing something so huge in the place where I live. It’s so hard to describe the mystery and awe the mountain inspires. I suppose much like I dance around the base of Mt. Rainier as I move about the city, so I dance and flirt with what I’m actually doing here. Is it just a ploy of the devil to drive so much gut wrenching fear into my soul as to prevent me from functioning at all here? Is it just so much all at once that overwhelms me and immobilizes me? I wish I had easy answers because then the struggle would end right? I’m sure it would just manifest itself in some other form. That’s what it is to live right? Living is struggle and constantly fighting against yourself, or as one of my professors likes to put it, praying against yourself. Life is tension. Life is dynamic. Life is give and take; push and pull. If equilibrium is the goal, then it is a dynamic equilibrium. A “balance” achieved by a constant back and forth of reactants to products and products to reactants. There’s your chemistry lesson for the day.

What if I’m tired? What if I’m done with fighting against myself? How do you reconcile wanting peace with wanting adventure? I’m dying to know; and I don’t mean metaphorically. Isn’t peace just the absence of risk and adventure the presence of risk? How can these two coexist? Clearly not very well as I daily have and provide proof. My soul, mind and body are weary with a fever of fear, upheaval and anxiety. Yet I still crave the adventure, newness, landscape, challenge and variety of being here. I am well aware that I am a walking contradiction. There are questions to which I do not want to know the answer. Yet there are things that must be resolved if I am to continue on the path that has led me to this place. I am empty and dried out, but full to overflowing with pain, grief and missing MN (i.e. home). I have discovered that one of the things I sought was a God of grace and mercy—the God of gospel. He finally showed up. I’ll grant, I guess, that he was on time. Now I’ve been kicked out of the nest to forage for food on my own and to flap these wings into flight. The only problem is that my instincts seem to be damaged beyond use. So here I have been tossed to thrash about and starve.