I may not be living in Mafia infested territory, with prostitutes chilling on my corner or cars burning outside my bedroom; but life certainly seems perilous in other ways.
It's interesting how the sights and sounds, smells and sensations wrapped up in my time in France still come back to haunt me. The smell of cigarettes now reminds me so strongly of Europe, lying in bed with my sliding door open as cars ran by and pedestrians smoked in the day, hookers puffed their long stemmed cancer sticks at night.
Things back home have been good, if not bumpy. I returned to no job and no real source of income. God's been gracious to provide a great job for me (and a not so great job I had to quit because apparently I have these things called "morals") and I'm living in an awesome house with good friends in north Spokane.
But I don't really get myself. To be somewhat poetical I feel like I'm pursuing a destination, something for which I have a Holy Discontent and for which I was made. The journey to this place, however, is only the beginning as far as I can tell; and I'm not sure if it's that open ended nature of reaching what I now see as my goal that scares the crap out of me or if I'm just overtly confused.
Probably both. I'm charged, I have to get there, it was placed in my bones to live in this place and my marrow sings whenever I approach it. But the energy by which I am propelled closer to it somehow manages to drive me further from it as well. I'm drawn to it and it is simultaneously repelled by me. I don't get it, I don't get me.
There's a great level of mystery behind it, and how it interacts with my mind. I'm content where I am, but I know I won't be forever, and even if I'm content here there's a part of me that never will be. It's a Holy Discontent, something I believe God placed in me and something I'll spend the rest of my life pursuing. Even when I get there I won't be there, I won't be finished. I'll have to explore, to search, to conquer in a way or I'll go utterly insane.
And yet it's the one thing I can't conquer but must give itself to me, and must be something God brings me into. It's cyclical, repeated, I get closer and farther; more confused then incredibly lucid.
Oh well, so it goes. I try to break the cycle and end up broken, I try to fall deeper into it and end up crushed. The beauty of Christianity is often found in it's wonderfully, if not precariously balanced paradoxes. It seems I've found myself in one of those and like an eddy in a river I'm stuck swirling around until God comes along and plucks me out.
I suppose I should be learning something while I'm here. Eddies suck, whether rafting a river or braving spiritual waters.
In the meantime I'll just make videos and music and enjoy Jesus and friends. I've been blessed with so much, I'll be grateful for it all eventually. Until then I'll just focus on Jesus and try my best to follow Him one step at a time. There are no better, more valuable, more privileged options than this.
Enjoy Marshal Cane, the greatest Action Trailer to hit the internets since cold pie.
