This Is Worship Too.

I’m in the throes of 2L year and I’m feeling as if I’m lost in everything and all the work that means.

I hate that, I feel as if I’m functioning and fine, but not necessarily “alive” the way I am when I’m in closer connection with God and the people I love around me.

On one hand, it's so true that I struggle with the mundane. God knows that. I mean, He created the big picture mentality that I live in. But I also want to learn to do the mundane and do it well. More than that, I want to get really good at not losing my relationship with Him meanwhile. I hate feeling disconnected. I hate it. Even when I can feel His presence all of the time, it's not the same as spending quality time and connecting with Him. It seriously like any other relationship. It's like the difference between knowing the fact that someone is in your presence all of the time in whatever you do and actually doing all of those things with them. There is a bridge to this in the midst of busy that I haven’t yet learned how to effectively construct. God help me.

And then there's the fact that it's so hard to invest in people with the lack of TIME that law school presents. I have to be so intentional about where and with whom I spend my time in order to stay sane and physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually--all those different brands of...healthy. 

There are these girls I'd love to invest in at church. I'd love to teach them to read better, introduce them to some of the stories of the world, of faith. But I am praying about it, I need to be sure it's right and that the time will be provided. And then there's the people at school. I think I finally realized this morning that that's not where I'm called relationally and that's okay. But still, I wish there was all the time in the world to get involved. 

There are other profound needs at church too. This community on the Eastside of St. Paul is literally shooting each other up. And I'm sitting in class. I hate that.

But one the other hand, these thoughts run through my heart and mind, but then it strikes me: this has to be worship too. God asked me to do this. It is worship too, even if it’s not the kind I prefer.

It’s worship to get up every morning and do assignment after assignment and fill my mind with the law I’ve been given to study—that He's tasked me to study. And I have to remember this: it's worship because God has asked me to do it. I don't get to decide how and where I most effectively worship my Maker and where He needs me most. He does. Even if it doesn't feel like I'm working for the Kingdom as I'm reading word after word, sentence after sentence and then page after page of legalese it is worship because He asked me to do it. And obedience is always worship. 

I'm tearful as I write that because it so conflicts with my desire and sensibilities of what it looks like to deeply love the community I live in. That I've been placed in. It's so counterintuitive to think that this is how God has called me to love right now. He's called me to cultivate my mind in legal framework because, somehow, in the long term I will love better having gained this knowledge and experience. And He knows that my short-term community involvement will be curtailed in the meantime so that I will be able to love more powerfully and uniquely in the long-term. For the greater Kingdom good. God willing. I have to believe this and come back to it because right now I feel like a crappy friend, a crappy sister, daughter...whatever. 

That said, on the bright side in the last week or so I’ve begun to notice that I really have learned some stuff. Like, I can see how some of the stuff I’ve been studying has sunk in and I am seeing how it fits into the world around me. That means the synthesis of knowledge has begun—only begun—but nonetheless it feels good. It feels as if, finally, maybe this is all not for naught. I can't even begin to imagine where this is going, but I can begin and continue to trust. To be intentional, and to keep...reading.

And I will.

Healing: Reprise

I wrote this at the end of last year right around the time that I felt the Lord speaking healing over the next year. I now know who it's for, and my heart is behind his journey. My cousin, who born two weeks apart from me, grew up side by side and who knows where I came from better than nearly anyone else can. He has a spot in my heart and life that none other can possess. As he hurts I ache, and ache for life, the abundant life that waits on the other side of this road he's on. This is for him.

K.L.C.

A difficult day’s made of difficult hours

Of a minute to minute fight not to cower.

The difficult knows its place in time

The difficult knows when it’s meant to chime.

“Count it all joy” is easily spoken

But harder to know in the midst of broken.

Healing can come, it does occasion

But inflicts itself not without pervasion.

Healing is often as painful as pain--

But worth the journey of eventual gain.

So healing is truer for the hurt and harrow

Of suffering its slings and terrible arrows,

Never fully grasped the joy of dawn’s break

If we know not black night’s gaping ache.

-T. Emerson

Love.

I've been trying to concentrate on my dry homework reading for a few hours now and I can't. I must have something on my mind.

Of course I do. I always do. I was thinking that today was my last day in my "writing every day for a month" thing, but actually yesterday was. I counted wrong, but whatever. It seems I have more to say anyway even if I've already fulfilled my last obligation to myself.

I'm glad it's over, because time is growing more and more scarce while school is in session. I'll be laying low until mid-December. I've learned, I think, what I was meant to. And I've noticed a few things:

--Writing every day means poorer quality in general, with a few exceptions every once in a while;
--It's a lot harder to edit when you're just trying to crank thoughts out;
--Because of these two things, it's more vulnerable to put something out every day because it's not your best.

Valuable lessons/observations, I think. I'm glad I did this, it was right.

So, there's that on my mind and then there's one more thing....

I had a FaceTime visit with a friend in Alaska. I can hardly call her just a "friend" she's essentially my sister as we've been through a lot more together that I care to elaborate, but all that to say she knows me well.

I was apologizing to her for being so unresponsive and hard to get a hold of lately. I told her I felt like I've "dropped off the face of the planet" since law school started. Most of the time it's just easier to keep in touch with people on the surface, resorting to little texts or pictures or Facebook and such rather than really keeping in touch with those who know you deeply. Those conversations are longer, and more profound, naturally.

She laughed and told me not to worry.

"You've done a good job loving us, Traci, no one doubts that they're important to you. It's okay if you can't respond, we get it."

I actually could not have known until I heard this that I kind of needed to hear that. For two reasons, in fact. First, I have been feeling guilty. I feel as if I am a world and a half from where my head and heart were when I left Alaska and I've been having trouble reconciling that. Second, I needed to hear someone tell me I'd loved well.

This is why:

Frankly, for all the crazy places I go and stuff I do--academic or not--I want to be known for one thing above all: that I loved well. Sure, I'm getting my law degree and who knows where God's taking me and where I'll end up living eventually, but someday when I'm gone I want to be remembered by how well I loved, not by my accomplishments. Really, even now I want that to be the first thing that comes to mind when someone thinks of me. Because that's "to live is Christ, to die is gain."* Who cares what school I go to and for what.

Make no mistake, the kind of love I'm talking about is not the kind that always gives "warm fuzzies." I'm talking about the just kind of love that points love's object in the right direction. The kind of love that will do what it takes to see people come to the life they are meant to have. The kind of love that desperately and sacrificially wants to see His Kingdom come and His Will be done.** The kind of love that will do whatever it takes to see that happen.

The kind of love that leaves a taste for Eternity in your mouth...so that you'll never be satisfied until you taste that whole, beautiful banquet of the Ever After that awaits every one that dares to open, read, and accept the invitation. The kind of love that's not really about me. The kind of love that's real.

I think it's safe to say that Emily had not contemplated all of this when she so generously validated me this afternoon. And it's safe to say I've not entirely lived up to my aspirations by any means. But the encouragement made me think again about that which I want my life to be most deeply marked. My soul echoes:

"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing...."***

If I study the laws of men and of nations, if I read the words of minds great and greater, if I have knowledge, if I have resource, if I have possessions...but know not how to love well with, it's all for naught.

Wow...yeah I guess I had some stuff on my mind. With that, I'm signing off for a while, probably. My personal journal needs some attention now. And so do my studies.

*Philippians 1:21
**Matthew 6:10
*** I Corinthians 13:1-3

Great Minds

Tomorrow this commitment to write every day for a month will be done. I'll be glad.

I've learned from this. I've learned I don't always have something to say. And when I don't have much to say, I start talking about the events of my every day life instead of ideas.

"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."

This is attributed to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. I think there's a great level of truth to this.

But I don't know if I'll ever be great. One cannot force themselves to not talk about events or people simply because they want to be great. This defeats the meaning of the statement above.

What it means is that idea is level on which a great mind resides and functions, and so forth.

Like I said, I don't know that I'll ever be great. And I'm okay with that. But anyway, I've learned from this experience. :)

(Day 31)*

*It seems I miscounted...I'm not surprised due to my frazzled state.

Some Moments

I suppose that we are changing every moment we live. Our experiences blend the the science of our very construction and we change from moment to moment.

But then there are those times when that change is made more swift by a more peculiar moment: a situation, a word, a gesture.

It's in those moments, sometimes, when you know you're changing. Sometimes you don't, but sometimes you do.

Something happens and all of the sudden words, or actions, or a scene begins to meet your consciousness and begins to register. And sometimes in those moments you know you'll never be the same. That something just changed.

Like, when you're hanging upside down in a vehicle, wondering if you're alive. Like, when you just found out what your LSAT score is. Like, when you find out Grandpa passed away--and you hear your dad sobbing, asking if you can come home.

Yes, of course.

Or, someone writes you a letter.

These moments mark you and change you and shape you--and the common denominator between these moments is that they are most often entirely out of your control. They just happen to you, and you can do nothing to stop them.

And you realize this, sometimes, when you're in the middle of them. You're in the situation, stunned or not, for better or for worse, and trying to dig down deep and know how to respond--

That's when your true character shows. That's when true integrity is put to the test.

And then the test endures: how do you face this change every day, for the long term?

Well, usually the event, the word, the conversation, the scene gets played over and over in your imagination. Or you read the letter over and over. Wondering if it's real, and remember at the same time that it's truer than true. For better or for worse.

And you can't change it. So you keep thinking about it, remembering, reading.

And it comes back, I think, after longer intervals. But by the time one thing begins to heal another wound is inflicted.

And maybe someone's walking around with a wound you inflicted and you have no idea. And therefore can't fix it.

Time does heal. They say this and it's true. But they forget to mention that time is not always kind.

(Day 30)

Authors.

I found out today that Harper Lee is a descendant of Robert E. Lee. I'm related to him as well.

This means that I'm related to: Mary Barrett Browning, Charles Dickens (by marriage), Ralph Waldo Emerson (if I did my research correctly) and now Harper Lee.

I apparently it's in my blood to write.

I should do that instead of law school...

Just kidding.

It's hard to write anything on the days when I'm at school from 8 in the morning till 9 and night.

That's all.

(Day 29)

The Library and Chile

I love my job at the library. I love being around books, I love the research, I love watching everyone come in and out of the library. I love the vantage point and the work.

But today I was talking to one of the international LLM students who is a regular at the library. He had an accent so I asked where he was from. Chile. I said I'd always wanted to go there. He said I should come. He and his wife would show me around. I asked him what the best part about Chile was...he answered with this and my jaw dropped:

Torres del Paine National Park. I want to go there someday.

Just wow.

(Day 28)