Since our last chat...

The weekend before last, the roommates and I went ziplining through the forest with wonderful ocean views. At some points, we felt like small and fragile imitations of spiderman. The "Tarzan Swing" was the best part! You hook yourself on a line and jump from a platform into air. No safety tug of the harness on your legs. No reasurance of the people in front of you makes it feel safe. For a split second before the rope catches your weight, you fly.

 

Last weekend, I finally felt completely at my ease in Japan. I ran 12 miles to finish at a coffee shop where I successfully ordered coffee politely in Japanese. They even filled up my running water bottle so I would have water on the way home. SOOOO NICE! Anyway, on the run, a Japanese grandma laughed at my red face, patted the bench beside her and told me to sit beside her. I could only smile back and shake my head for the negative. All in all, it was a wonderful weekend.

This weekend, I was lazy. A phrase has been churning in my head since early morning. “I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on the water,” from EAT PRAY LOVE (the book ya'll). I sat on the doorstep of my apartment with my back against the door and my feet in the rain allowing the phrase to permeate my brain. Contemplative days are wonderful every once in a while. Two hours completed one measly list. 

It came from the idea of Eat Pray Love and sprang forward into something more personalized. What do I want to learn? What do I want to do? Who do I want to be? Who am I meant to be? All are paralyzing questions for me in many ways. The answers freak me out. What if it changes? What if I can no longer recognize who I am? What if I become one of those smack-you-in-the-face-with-my-religion Christians? It boils down to the fear of losing yourself, losing balance. Here, I returned to Eat Pray Love. "To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced life." What would life look like if I lost my balance in a shift towards loving God, His people, and His creation? Would I still be losing? 

As for the list, it begins with love. I want to learn some things in my life:

• Learn to love: I don't mean the gross, gooey type of romantic attachment (which freaks me out the most); instead, I want to learn what a life based on, drowning in, and flowing with love for other people looks and feels like. Then maybe, just maybe, I could see beyond myself.
• Learn to see: The biggest difference in lives is made by simple sight. I miss so much of the world by being consumed in my own thoughts and feelings. I listen to respond, not to understand. I look to amuse, not to address.
• Learn to act: What is love for if it has no action? What is sight if it has no response? I am most often kept back by undefined fears. What if I say something wrong? What if I offend this culture? What if I am seen as a freak? What if I ruin someone's life because of my actions? It is all fear. 

So for now, the mantra is as follows.

"Fearless Love, Sight, and Action"

See y'all soon.