Ending O30, Starting O31

Another year comes and goes. And so another birthday post is written.

Today, I am 30 years old. Three tens of orbits completed. This is supposed to be momentous, right? It feels momentous. But also not. I am much the same today as I was yesterday and I imagine the same will be true tomorrow. But something significant happened, I’m just not sure what it is or how to describe it. Yet.

The last year has been very good. The previous year came out neutral, but this one is overwhelmingly positive. I’ve seen friends find joy more often than pain and have found that myself along with them. My circle of friends has grown and I am constantly amazed by the large number of wonderful and beautiful people I get to see and spend time with on a regular basis. I have walked in grace and joy.

I attended a memorial service for a great man this afternoon. On my way home, I wondered about what kind of man I want to be. And then it hit me. I am the man I want to be. I’m glad I can say that at 30. I’m not done, not by a long shot, and there are still many things I want to be yet and many things I want to do. But I can honestly say that I am the person I want to be when I wake up and when I lie down and all of the time in between.

What the next year will bring is anyone’s guess. It may not be overwhelmingly positive and there may be trials yet ahead.  It may outshine the year I just ended. It may be both. My pastor had encouraging words for me, though: I’m just starting out on the road and there are many adventures yet to happen.

I wholeheartedly agree.

Ending O29, Starting O30

A friend of mine remarked this week that they would be getting a post from me today as is my custom. I also read up a bit on past birthday posts this week for some inspiration and insight into where I have been. The pressure has been quite something.

As is my custom, I write about the year behind and ahead on the day that marks my coming into the world. Today marks the beginning of the end of three decades worth of orbits around the sun. One more until a trilogy of orbits is under my belt.

This past year has been full of very little for me personally. I did not do anything big or amazing. I didn’t go on any trips. There were no significant breakthroughs or insights into my psyche. I spent the last year simply being. And it was good. And it was bad. But mostly neutral.

At one point during a prayer group as we were doing some pretty deep contemplation and sharing what we saw, I had a picture in my head of me sitting in a chair in the middle of a massive hall (think of Moria from Fellowship of the Ring). Around me were scenes from the lives of my friends in larger-than-life dramas of tragedy and triumph; sweeping events in the course of their lives. And me, just sitting in my chair watching it all unfold as though at the theater.

I didn’t feel like a passive observer, though that’s certainly what it looked like. I felt a sense of being there to observe from a vantage point that no one in the scene could have; apart from the drama and sweeping changes sitting in a calm, peaceful emptiness. This is what my year has been. People have married and people have died. Cars break down, babies are born, projects are started and finished. There is laughter and there are tears. And all the while I have watched in peace and solitude.

From all of this, I did learn one thing. While the things I feel are mine and mine alone, they are also felt by people the world over. The stranger we meet on the street feels those same feelings of joy, triumph, and sadness. The co-worker we see every day can be as happy or hurt as we can and for many of the same reasons. The anger and hurt that burns inside of me from time to time can burn the same in anyone I meet. So too can the love and kindness that so rarely touches us. Only the actions taken seem to differ.

There’s nothing stunning about that lesson.  Nothing odd or unusual, except perhaps the stage of life it came to me during.  And yet it has started to shape my year ahead in unexpected ways.

The orbit in front of me is one of milestones.  This is my 30th orbit around the sun.  Something of great significance as another decade comes to a close and new one begins.  This is the first time people have begun to tease me about being old; a new experience, indeed.

But I don’t feel old.  Not by a long shot.  While I don’t have the energy I used to (and I’m fairly confident that if I were to eat a bit better, I’d be closer to having the energy of days gone by), I don’t feel 29.  I feel closer to my early twenties.  The world is still opening up to me with opportunities and new adventures.  There are many roads yet to be traveled.  There is a lot fun to be had and no reason at all not to have it.

This last year, I pulled away a bit from the anchors in my life in certain ways.  The church has become less of a geographic center of my existence.  So too has my work.  In so doing this and being willing to perforate the boundaries of my life, however slightly, the potential for joy in this life has only increased.  While church retains a central role for my spiritual and social life and work likewise retains a social, financial, and professional role, they are no longer the only places for that to happen.

This pulling away slightly from anchors has served to increase their importance.  While I may have pulled a bit too far away in some cases, friendships have grown in surprising ways as the fertile soil of life has shifted and been enriched with a diversity of experience.  I believe now that we can easily find ourselves so deep in a routine of what we do that we not only forget why we do things, but that all things around us can become infected with the stagnation of our lives.  Routine is good and can keep us grounded, but it may also be routine that gives no pause to enjoy the sun rising and setting, no thought to what the wind blowing across our face can mean to our soul, no comment to the suffering and joy of friend or stranger, no solidarity with those who are tormented for beliefs we take for granted.

I am young still and my race is not yet begun.  And yet life is too short to spend it in a routine.  The lives of my friends and family are unfolding around me in a drama no human could conceive of in its entirety.  And life is too short not to join in and write my part into the play.

The year behind me was mostly uneventful and I have rested and grown a bit and aged a bit and youthed a bit.  Once more I don’t know what the next orbit has in store for me.  But I will be looking harder for my cues in the Play.

Growth: Ending O28, Starting O29

Another year has come and is now gone and so I find that it is time for me to write my annual thoughts on the year behind and the year ahead. Typically, folks do this at the turn of the calendar year. For me, I mark the orbits of the Earth around her star as they match my entry into the great dance that is creation.

This last year has been one of growth as I look back on it. The healing of old wounds and the removal of the emotional scar tissue around it has been one of the major points of the year. But mostly, I’ve been thinking about the little things. The small moves these friendships have made towards wholeness, for instance.

In one case, someone I never expected to be at all close to again has asked me more than once what I’d like for my birthday this year. I’ve hardly known what to say in the midst of being thankful for the growth there. In another instance, I’ve lived in my own place for most of the last year and have dealt rather well with the fears and strangeness and joy that comes with such a shift. In still another, finding the strength and courage to trust people has brought new depth to my world and helped opened doors to new experiences in old guises. In particular, taking part in the Community Chorus of Redlands, specifically the Feast of Lights, was a wonderful experience that I am grateful to have taken and look forward to doing again. And this time around, I intend to actually meet the people I’m singing with.
It hasn’t been all fun and games, though. Learning to trust people again means opening myself up to being hurt. I’ve had to fight hard against the knee-jerk reaction to protect myself from what I’ve perceived for so long to be a mostly hostile world devoid of good things. The small voice I hear in my head that suggests that my friends aren’t really my friends has indeed grown so much softer over the last year, but the whisper is still there. And sometimes the silent irrational thunders over the rational.

In this is the greatest lesson, I think, of my last orbit on this earth. It is in the surrender to the irrational, the accepting it as it is and stopping the fight against it where the Power to conquer it lies. It is being broken and shattered to my very core that I find the straight and narrow path to Peace. In a paradox, I am never whole and complete and in my right mind unless I am broken and fragmented. There is where my self lives and it is there that my Creator waits to calm the storms, give me my faith, and make me the man He intends me to be.

Today begins Orbit 29. I don’t know what is in store for the next trip around the sun. I imagine there will be pain and confusion at points. But those times are already wrapped up into the steps of the dance that is itself joy.

Dancing Seasons: Ending O27, Starting O28

This is the end of my 27th orbit around the sun. This is what has been called my “golden” birthday. I turned 27 on the 27th day of April on a Wednesday, which was the day of the week I was also born on. It’s nice whem symmetry happens.

This last dance around that which holds the orbit of this rock has been in some ways more of the same. Many things have changed in the last year. Some dramatic and sweeping, others small and hidden away in the deepest cracks of broken spirit.

I have traveled to the other side of the globe and back to find that things over there weren’t really all that different, just quirky.

I have watched friendships fall into the chilling frost of a long and lonely Winter. Some have seemed to stay there waiting for a Spring that may only be found on the other side of Eternity. Others have seen a slow thaw into a new season. Through each, the hard lesson of patience has worked its way into my daily life.

I have started a road of understanding just what, “Grant that I may not so much seek to be loved, but to love” can mean and how much pain such a venture can bring when the sights are set merely to the present.

Last year, I was just saying that Jesus is present and hoping that this year I would be more than saying it. I can stand now, at this moment before I leave the day behind, and say that it is not just words. Jesus has been present and He is present. He is there in the darkness just as much as in the light.

Orbit 28 begins now. And it starts with more unknown than any before it. New adventures await. A new way of life rushes towards me from the horizon even now. But it also starts with a confidence that indeed everything will work out for good and a strength of knowing that the darkest of moments cannot overwhelm That which lives inside my heart.

Variable: Ending O26, Starting O27

Today marks my 26th orbit of the star known on this planet as “The Sun.” 26 years ago, in this nearly exact relative location to the aforementioned star, I came screaming into the world, most likely unbidden by myself, with no return to the warm place I had been the previous nine months.

Again, the year has been a good one. I’ve made some new friends, learned a lot about myself, started what may be a long-overdue therapy treatment, what have been long overdue visits to various doctors of other specialties, and avoided losing friends in ways that I have lost friends, albeit temporarily, in the past. So while it has been a good year for me, it has been a bit of a ride as well.

This last orbit was supposed to be about The Gathering, or at least I had hoped that it would be. It has turned into less than that and more a year of finding out more about who I am in the first place.

In the last year, I’ve grappled with both feeling and being alone, the boundaries between a strong friendship and romance, posting to this site on a regular basis, choosing battles at work, getting hired, and many other things not mentioned in this domain. But I have also found prayers answered through some choices I have made.

Jesus has been present.

But I still don’t know what that means, exactly. I can look back and see it, but while the past was present, it wasn’t something I could see.

“Jesus has been present” is sometimes something one says in the hopes that one day it won’t be something one just says.

In the meantime, the reality is beginning to confront me that two of my friends faced cancer in this last year. One of them is in the midst of it right now and it remains to be seen exactly how that will all turn out. We have high hopes and many prayers. The work of healing is apparent when we see the face of this man. Yet, it still happened and I am the same age. It could easily have been me. It could easily be me. If it ever is, I can only hope that I have half the strength I’ve seen these last weeks.

Jesus is present.

And so the next orbit begins with a future even more uncertain than any before it.

Two years ago, I thought that I would be married by now (though I wasn’t sure to who). And I’m not married. Yet.

Last year, I guessed that this last orbit would surprise me. And it has. Nothing I ever expected happened. Everything that did happen was unexpected. It wasn’t often what I wanted, but that was part of the surprise.

This is now orbit 27. A nicer number to me than 26, but it feels like the beginning a downhill rush on a bicycle without brakes. There are things out of control in the orbit of my life; a larger number of variables and unknowns than there have been before. My prediction for this dance is no prediction other than Jesus will be present.

Maybe next year, I won’t just be saying it.

The Gathering: Ending O25, Starting O26

Today marks my 25th orbit of the star known on this planet as “The Sun.” 25 years ago, in this nearly exact relative location to the aforementioned star, I came screaming into the world, most likely unbidden by myself, with no return to the warm place I had been the previous nine months.

The last year has been a good one. I was asked today what the high and low points of my last orbit were. I can think of a number of high points; a house of good friends, many barbecues, a wonderful Thanksgiving, new forms of expression, new friends, the list goes on. I can likewise think of points that would be considered low; strained relationships, uncertain relationships, times of financial uncertainty, times where my humanity was shown to me in it’s most bare and raw form yet. But as I mentioned them, I was forced to add the condition that they weren’t really bad in the long run, but springboards for grander things than I had imagined. The low points sucked, don’t get me wrong, but the redemptive good that happened in their wake is worth the pain they incurred. The relationships that grew (one or two in particular that I am very thankful for), the wounds that were healed, all an amazing phoenix from the ashes of my brokeness.

It was also remarked to me on three separate occasions today, one at least slightly in jest the others during prayer, that there is thanks for my birth around me. I don’t often find myself thinking of my own birth at all, let alone being thankful for it. But the comment (joke?), “Thanks for being born” or the prayer of thanks for my birth strikes me deeply. It’s a warm, healing thing to hear.

I have led and completed what will mostly likely end up to be about a third of my life. It is done and remains with me in the form of memories, photographs, stories of those things I am not able to remember, issues that will need continued addressing for many years to come, and friends and loved ones of longevity for me. It will never be repeated or relived by myself or anyone else. It is set in stone harder than anything devised or discovered by mortal ken. I have, most likely, two-thirds to go on this road, maybe more, maybe less, until it ends in a fate not yet entirely defined. Two-thirds of a life equipped with the knowledge of the first third.

The second third was started the way I’d like the rest of my years to go. Surrounded by friends gathered together for any reason and being blessed by the gathering itself, not the reason. If my life can be about The Gathering for another forty years, that will be a life well lived.

My next orbit is my twenty-sixth. Half of a deck of cards, closer to midlife than to birth, two thirteens. An even number that seems somehow odd, not nice and square like 25, or totally off the wall like 27, or complete as a day like 24, or a perfect, four week interval like 28. Twenty-six stands out, it isn’t quite normal. I think this this orbit will surprise me. I think this next trip around The Sun sees things my imagination cannot fathom and I will look back at the end of this orbit, near again to this point in the solar system, and wonder how so much could happen in just this many days.