BIG PICTURE: Met with Alick. When I read my journal entries about “The Silence of the Heart” where I described how pissed-off the book made me, he laughed really loud and slapped his knee. “That’s what it did for me too!” I read him all my journal entries regarding the book and he said…”That’s why I gave it to you…to provoke you, to get you thinking outside the box. You passed the test!”

Very funny.

I read him portions of my hike journal and he was, as always very encouraging, telling me that I’m on the right track, right where I should be, that I’m special, that he’s proud of me. He also told me that my “fear” of having to “patiently endure” various things will get harder and harder to deal with as I get older.

Yay.

CLASS WORK: I’m enjoying the hermeneutics course. Confirming that a conservative approach to scripture and a liberal approach to the promptings of the Holy Spirit could, when properly blended, make for one exciting ride. I MIGHT get done with this class this week.

READ/RITE/REFLECT; MBE: I’m 3/4 of the way through it and waiting for something other than continued cheer leading and boasting cleverly disguised as “illustration”. The book had promise in the beginning, and I’m grateful that there were parts which inspired me (despite my shame at being movable by stuff like that), but I’m losing patience with it. there’s only so many ways you can tell someone:

1) Trust God

2) It’s going to be hard

3) Trust God anyway (insert self-aggrandizing anecdote here)

Actually, now that I reflect again on what I read, there WAS an interesting train of thought in this reading: The author very strongly makes the case that you must keep your “paying” customers separate from those who are depending on your benevolence. He diplomatically describes the difference between those who are from the main stream who are PAYING to use whatever service your business provides and how they will not want to be “mixing” with the smelly, inconvenient and bothersome poor.

I have thought about this many times when imagining a coffee house of cafe where we want poor people to be welcome. This brings up a central philosophical issue for me. I agree that having people around that the world considers “un-lovely” is bad business. But we’re still the church, and Jesus made a few things pretty clear, among them, how we should treat the poor. So what do we do? Do we follow an “ideals path” and say, “Tough! we’re going to do this all together or not at all!” and by doing so doom the business?  Or do we follow the explicit advice of someone who’s already done this and clearly says: “Don’t try to mix the two groups…it won’t work!”

I’m truly perplexed.

BIG PICTURE: Circumstances plus my continued flatness conspired to prevent me from journaling the last two days. So, no studies today, no READ/RITE/REFLECT, but I will offer a journal entry. I’m not worried about the flatness. Some of it is simple attention span. Some of it is simply due to the “change” I’m living in, some due to the lack of intensity I mentioned in Tuesday’s entry. I’m trying to stay alert to what this experience carries with it:

–           I KNOW that if this were occurring just 2 years ago, I would be struggling with guilt. The committee in my head would be saying things like, “You’re not accomplishing anything!” and “This is a waste of resources” and “Yeah, I  know, everyone else is having to pick up the slack while you sit around reading and “reflecting”…That’s just not happening. I can’t tell you why, but the fact that my Dad is not here contributed to this lack of guilt. Let me be clear: My potential feelings of guilt would not have been his FAULT…it’s just one of those things that exists between father and son, and therefore ceases to exist when one side of the relational equation is removed. I think it’s one of those “binders” that Alick said would disappear after dad died. I miss him. I’m glad he’s not here to see how pitiful my garden is turning out though. It’s drowning out there even as I type. Arghhh.

–           I had a spiritual high yesterday as I listened to an instrumental version of “Come Thou Fount..” I was wrecked again by grace…it was not a flat moment by any means. In this sabbatical setting I had the complete freedom to enter into that moment, to savor it, allow myself to weep and pray and offer thanks…and I did. The interesting thing is how that moment seems to have been swallowed up by the flatness. It disappeared from consciousness, was covered by a rising tide of bland feelings, and ceased to exist until this morning. I am grateful that it “returned”, but I am mildly perplexed about its disappearance in the first place. “Pray continually”, Lord, I don’t know how.

–           As I drive to my study place each day, I pass most of the infrastructure of the Tulalip Indian Reservation. I grew up in this area, and so I am by no means unfamiliar with the native presence and the Tulalips in particular. Both my children attended elementary school at a building on Rez land, and so there was always a presence there: blessings and stories from tribal elders begin each school year, there is a totem outside the main entrance, etc. Yet…as I drove by a sign in their native language day after day, it slowly dawned on me that I know very little about the details of this very old culture that existed here during the time Abraham walked the arid Land of Ur. What was this language called? From where does their alphabet come? My ancestors cut down the trees these people worshiped. My father went to school with people who now serve as the only link for an entire generation back to their heritage.

I took some time to research the language. Lashootseed, a form of the Salish language. So strange and beautiful, Compelling. Why am I drawn to this “now”? Something tells me it’s simple boredom with the routine of study, etc. Something to make up for the lack of intensity. But something else tells me is has to do with touching ancient things. I feel the same impulse when I imagine walking across the fields of Northumbria, “restoring walls”. I am and have been for some time highly annoyed by the politics surrounding Native American affairs. I don’t want to touch that junk with a 10 foot pole. Yet, I recall being drawn to native culture as a child “before it was hip”. At some point that affection became corrupted by the reality of native life and my willingness to co-opt anything and inflate it into something that would get me attention, and so for those two reasons (at least) any interest I might have had has slipped away. Is it returning?