I'm on a Train

Kind of like the commercials with the buff dude who says "I'm on a horse," only I'm not buff, nor a dude, and the metaphor I'm working with is locomotive, not equestrian. I'll get around to explaining this, don't worry.

Time to get real:  I've been having a hard time in the last few weeks. I've been feeling pretty ragged, emotionally, spiritually, physically. I'm working two jobs, driving 200 miles a week to and from said jobs, and trying to coax all the moving parts of my life to work in harmony (financial parts, discernment parts, writing parts, teaching parts, etc.). It's a lot. And I miss my sweet little Spaz kitteh, who's been gone almost two months, now.  I'm better off than I was last year, because I'm doing things that I love, but I've still been obsessed with the gaping maw of "what am I really doing with my life?" It is, after all, a journey of discernment.

And it's a sacred journey, as the subtitle of this blog indicates. Sacred because all I have, all I do, and all I am is from and for God. That last subset is the key: all I am. Discovering who I am... not what I'm here to do, is what true discernment is about. I'd been asking the wrong question: "What am I here to do?" The question is really "Who am I?" Lest this tilt into the realm of existentialism, I will qualify that question:  "Who am I in Christ?"

Coming to the realization that I'd been asking the wrong question and realizing the true question involved with discernment was a major move forward this week. The other forward movement came from having dinner with one of my close friends here in L.A. Her name is TL, and she is the person who helped me find a place to live here. She's been one of my closest and staunchest supporters from the time I decided to move to L.A. up and through the present time.

So TL and I had dinner last night at our favorite Thai restaurant in Toluca Lake, and she turned me onto something else very important in this discernment process: seeing myself as God sees me. That is to say, seeing the gifts that God has blessed me with, EVEN IF those aren't the gifts that our world/society/culture deem important. I recognized that I have set up benchmarks for myself that perhaps aren't so important after all. By that I am not referring to the stereotypical "house, car, kids, job" expectations against which professed non-comforists like to pit themselves, but rather something more subtle.

olden but golden ICHC

The gifts that God has blessed me with are intangible, yet they make an impact on this world in all its dreariness. Yes, I'm striving to become a published author, and that's great. But what's more important is that I've already been about the business of the Father without realizing it: Teaching. Mentoring. Supporting former students of mine when they get to L.A. Teaching teenage girls about literature and critical thinking, and giving them a place of safety to be themselves (something I didn't really have when I was 16).

The truth opened up inside me:  I already AM doing God's work in the world, fulfilling His will for my life. I've trusted Him, and He's led me to the places where I teach and tutor now, places where I can touch lives every day. And not just student lives, but also colleagues' as well. And... they touch my life.

And then this morning I saw this image while I was standing in my kitchen waiting for the tea water to boil. I've been living my life as if I'm on a train on one track, and parallel to me is another track with another train. I've been on this train, looking at the other train, waiting for the right moment to jump over to the roof of that one, like an action movie hero. "This" train being my current life. "That" train being consecrated life (or what I perceive to be consecrated life - a "better" life).

Then the image of the two trains vanished, and instead I saw ONE train. The only train. This train is my current life, and as I move forward in time and space, other cars will be added - perhaps the car of consecrated life behind the engine, perhaps not. Many cars make up this train - my life.

My entire life IS the will of God. There is no separating "now" from "then" or "will be." Compartmentalizing a life into these pieces is ultimately destructive. The attempt at controlling these illusory compartments of a life will ultimately lead to self-destruction.

And so... my discernment continues, but in the context of lived life in Christ, rather than thoughts and worries of a life not yet lived.