you've been dumped.

i'm at caribou again this morning, working on emails, beginning the book of the week ("sacred cows make the best burgers"), and reflecting on the couple of meetings i've had this week with new friends.

after the incredibly insightful and helpful meeting yesterday with monica whose job more or less birthed mine, i made plans to meet her daughter ("you two are just so much alike!" monica exclaimed between discussions of job responsibilities and growing pains. "it's like i'm having lunch with someone i've known forever!").

andrea is 24, a wife, bethel grad, church planter, and marriage and family therapy grad student. in comparison, i am 26, single, uw grad, church worker, and always considering some form of graduate study.

i wasn't expecting to meet with her today. but her mom was so excited to put us in touch that she made sure to call andrea before i left her office yesterday afternoon and set up a time for the two of us to get together. her mom is definitely the ultimate people-connector. i appreciate that. i even enjoy the fact that it's a bit awkward to have such a random meeting, because it's a sink or swim moment. and i love to choose the swim.

we talked a lot about church planting and church growth and what makes people feel welcome. we talked about our generation and how we feel about church in general. we talked about music and welcome and community. we talked about our fear of megachurches, of what our role is in allowing sunday services to become just a time of happy smiles and networking. maybe it's only the two of us, but i regularly fight the urge to shudder when i see too many happy people.

i think i'm afraid it's fake. or i'm afraid that we shy from being honest about who we are and the things we're struggling with. i also know that i am the queen of social expectations and that it would be frustrating to me, too, if people just moped about when the littlest thing bothered them.

i've been living in this place of tension for quite a while lately. how can we be happy when people are being brutally murdered across the world in wars, famines, preventable diseases? and how can we depressed when there is a Living Hope? how is it possible to live hopefully among the mess of our world?

i feel like someone's thrown me a baseball made of glue. bear with me on this ... i'm just typing this out as it comes to me .... when i try to pull my hands apart, the glue stretches out like an accordian. here's my dilemma ... which hand should i scrape the glue from first: the side representing pain and brokenness or the side representing joy and hope? so i bring my hands together again to use one hand's fingers to scrape the other, but when my hands near each other, the glue is thicker and now there's no distinction between the pain and brokenness and joy and hope.

but now, i see hands together symbolizes prayer. is that it? i'll have to consider this image for awhile.

if i'm honest, i don't really want to pray. i want to scrape the glue off myself. i want to figure out the brokenness and pain and joy and hope. and praying, i feel, requires too much patience. how can i pray when things are happening so quickly? how can i retreat into silence and solitude when there's so much to be done?

and why am i so dependent on ME?

okay, okay. my apologies. i know i've just dumped my brain on you, my unwilling reader. apologies all around. ignore my immature thoughts. i'll work on something light hearted or deeply depressing for next time. unless, in the meantime, i figure out how to write about both at once.

adieu.