Empty Space

I just read this:

‘Empty space tends to create fear. As long as our minds, hearts and hands are occupied we can avoid confronting the painful questions, to which we never give much attention and which we do not want to surface. ‘Being busy’ has become a status symbol, and most people keep encouraging each other to keep their body and mind in constant motion’ (Henri J. B. Nouwen, Reaching Out, 70).

That was written at the start of the 80s, prior to texting and social media. How much more true would this be today? Certainly I identify strongly with it. Clutter tends to dominate my world. I want to start creating empty space for myself, time just to enjoy solitude, reflecting, pondering, resting. 

I went for an hour long walk last night, fairly aimlessly to the beach. It was so great, in the dark, overcast and spitting a little, and hardly a soul on the road, just scuffing along the roads themselves, musing to myself and having a little God-time. I'm so glad of the time and space to do that! It wasn't really lonely or depressing at all, just peaceful, and a good reminder of God's perspective. Even though at times things are confusing and I have no idea what the point is, and difficult things like that can be on my mind, bogging me down, it's good to feel comfortable amidst it all. Having space brings these things to the surface, but as I hold them before God I get the peace and trust that God is good and he loves me. Verrrry encouraging!

Into Action

Aghhhh far too many distractions and things to do! My bookshelf is more a burden than a delight with its far too many unread books... My sax, guitar and clarinet are gaining weight in dust... My body and hockey skills are demanding more attention always... My Twitter and Facebook and friends' blogs want reading, my room and house want cleaning, hair wants cutting, sketch book wants sketches drawn, journal wants writing, youth group wants leading, budget and organiser want work done (as does my mum's design business), friends and sponsored child want letters sent and emails replied to, my trip to India wants planning, family, flatmates and friends want attention... You get the idea! And I want to do it all, but I don't know where to begin. It all excites me heaps (some things more than others of course), but I don't know where to start! I literally have piles of things to do, and I love the thought of getting into it all. Maybe this blog will be the trigger, the thing to set me in motion to start ticking boxes! But some of these boxes can't just be ticked... Practice makes perfect, but so many of these things require that! Perhaps some boxes with their tasks must simply be removed... Priorities must be set! I'm going to try prioritising where I spend my time, with whom, on what. Organisation to achieve efficiency. But it must all be with love. Love must be at the core, otherwise it simply becomes cold, organised efficiency. A bit like spiritual disciplines I think. Without the 'spiritual' it's just a discipline, and that won't achieve nothin' other than a false and orderly faith. Passionless. But without the discipline it just doesn't happen. Ok, here comes an attempt at a go-getting, organised and hard-working Elliot, who can still remain free, spontaneous and loving. Fully engaged, enthralled, enjoying.

Some Jill Rice wisdom

This is my mum's response to my previous blog post. She's so wise and thoughtful. This helped me heaps, some good stuff for me and hopefully y'all to think about regarding living life - together! Not solo.

28/06/2011

Dear Elliot

Found your latest blog post. Made me cry! If I am allowed to comment, this is what I would like to say.

Bud, I applaud your honesty. It’s good to own those feelings, but not to wallow in them. They are very real.

Yes, I think we are made for co-dependency. I don’t think we are meant to go solo. God our father is the 3 in one, and we are made in his likeness, to be like him. God is also not separate from humanity – he is very much in it. I think our trust in God and love for God is shown in our love and trust of those around us.

He said, whatever you do for the least of these you do for me, whoever welcomes one of these little children welcomes me (Mark 9:36), whoever receives you receives me, he who receives me receives the one who sent me (Matt 10:40), the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me (Rom 15:3) etc etc – we’re all together in this. It’s not just about you and God, it’s about us, because God is in us. We are interconnected. Where 2 or 3 come together in my name there I am with them (Matt 18:19). When you hurt, we hurt (1 Cor 12:26) etc etc. We are not islands, but more like an archipelago (!), together, with God, through each other.

No human relationship is going to completely fulfil and yet somehow that is God’s plan – that we are completed by each other. As we fail each other and then reach out again and forgive and trust each other again, in this way we are God to each other. God uses the imperfect to show himself to us, the weak to shame the wise, the last to be first etc etc. We recognise our frailty and in so doing, through faith we are made strong.

Jesus also felt lonely, and let down, by God his father, and by those around him, in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matt 20:36).... And yet he also kept trusting, not just in God directly, but in his human friends – kept relying on them to be there for him, to help him do his work and to spread his message - to love him. I love that he told Peter, after he had let him down 3 times, that “on this rock will build my church”.

So yeah, I think God is reaching out to us all the time, through e-mails, texts, phone calls, facebook, blogs, invitations of various kinds, and we do have the choice all the time, to respond or to reject. I think the answer to loneliness is to keep on choosing to do the former. And yes, that is an action.

I love you so much. Thanks for trusting us with your deepest, most personal thoughts. God bless.

Mum

Preach it mum. Love you too :)

The latest...

I haven't posted in a while. I don't think I've had much to post about really. I got to that place where I realised I was desperately lonely and everything felt meaningless, and finally I understood, felt just how badly I needed God. But that's how things kind of remained, and to an extent, still remain. I got really excited about my newfound hope, which I was anxious to see fulfilled. But for some reason I didn't really act upon it. I knew I needed to seek God above all else, because that was all that mattered, but the action didn't seem to come. Perhaps I have been unsure about that need for action, when I hear so often that it's not about us reaching God, but God reaching us. People tell me I need to just stop and let God do the moving. But isn't stopping an action? So for a while I didn't even take that step just to stop and wait on God. I've been doing it more lately, spending more time in the Word seeking there, as well as just reflecting, be it writing in my journal or going for walks. Let's be honest, I've only been for one. So it's still not enough. But what is 'enough'? It would be nice to have a set of instructions that would lead me to God and the intimacy of a relationship where he knows all about me. I somehow don't think that's how it works though... It seems I've just got to get totally confused and lost to the point of giving up, and in the murk of that situation I've just got to reach out for God's hand, trust it's God's hand and grip it with all my strength. So that's where I'm at. Still thirsty, still unquenched. However, I still trust and still have complete faith and hope that God will relieve all this. I trust and claim to know the Holy Spirit is with me, and I'm learning to recognise that. I trust I will come to know God by his Holy Spirit, and that I will know his presence beyond mere trust to something tangible and undeniable. It will be a relationship where I actually recognise I am being lead and called to things, and where my response must be to obey, or reject. For now though it seems I'm just stuck trusting and believing, and I find that to be tough.

With all that on my mind, the rest of life seems to get a tad hazy, especially given I've been sick with flu these last couple of weeks, so quite drowsy, plus my usual busyness of work, church, youth group, life groups, parties and hockey... I'm starting to get a bit of direction though as I pursue my recently discovered desire to study at Bible college. Checking out papers and enrolling is getting me pretty excited. I can't wait to study again, to research and borrow library books and have good discussions about ideas. Academics seems an extremely pleasurable thing to pursue!

I don't think I will post this to Facebook as I usually do. Not feeling the self-promotion anymore. I'm sure it will be disappointing seeing very few views in the statistics, but I don't want to waste peoples' time reading thoughts that they likely don't get much from. I enjoy posting these for my sake, and if someone gets some value out of them, well I'm glad!

Jordan Bond leaves for Canada tomorrow. I'm excited for him on his great adventure, but a bit sad for myself at the same time. It's sad how people come and go in life. We are such a bunch of individuals. Writing that, I wonder if it's a good thing or not. I think sometimes I may do life a bit too solo, disengaged, independent. Is co-dependency a good thing? Is it important?

Stuff about me, and Ben's Baptism

I talked with Renier, the psychiatric consultant dude (pretty sure that's his title) on Friday to get a review of the psychiatric profiling majig I did last week. It was cool, he talked as if he knew me and the way I am because of the information he had drawn from the several questionnaires I did for him. Some of what he said I couldn't agree more with, and other bits made me question him, and question myself. He seemed to think I'm much more of a to-myself, individualistic person than I had thought, and that my social sophistication is low; that I'll go to parties and camps and such, but rather than be the centre of attention I prefer just to get into conversation with a smaller group and spend the night quietly, and I don't have a problem missing out on things. I disagreed about that, as I see myself as quite an out there guy, who loves to take centre stage and make people laugh, and hates to miss out. That said, I do also love the other side of things, being the quiet guy, spending time in my room reading or chilled on the couch at a party having a quiet conversation. I've found it interesting how since our chat I've been taking on what he said, noticing how different traits he believed I possess are quite prevalent, that I hadn't really noticed before.

Based on all the information I gave him, he told me there's pretty much only one career path he can see being suited for my personality with my abilities and interests, that being the path of academia. He told me I must go back to uni and plan to be there for years, do a PhD, become a lecturer, and stay there researching. I was so stoked! That sounds ideal to me, and I love that he just gave me the one option. It's cool: I suddenly see being a student in a completely new light. Being a student would actually be my occupation, as opposed to being a notch in my path towards a career in architecture. I think that was my problem in my undergrad. I never fully focussed on what I was doing, because I was always concerned with where I was headed, and the prospect of being an architect often failed to enthrall me. That's dumb. Doing that with anything is dumb! So now I want to go back to uni, and fully engage myself in it, really love and make the most of learning, excel. I want to fully engage in life! Jesus was good at that. I was talking with my mate Dan about it the other day. He mentioned the time Jesus was eating with some prostitutes and tax collectors, people seen as being bad people. When the self-righteous Pharisees came up to him, accusing him of being in the wrong for what he was doing, he curtly sent them on their way, because he was spending time with the needy people, and he didn't want to waste it. I want to fully engage every situation, to be present in the moment and see how I can glorify God by what I do. I think that might be what it means to be fully human.

So next semester I'm thinking I'll go to Carey Baptist College to study full time, which, conveniently is only 3 days a week so I can still work and hopefully afford flatting! I'll learn some very interesting stuff I'm sure about the Bible and theology and all things Christian and cultural and historical. Then I'll decide whether to pursue a vocation in theological studies or return to studying architecture and try my hand there. I'm excited! I feel God has answered me resoundingly with such a direct path to take! I'm sure it will take twists and turns on the way, so I'll be sure to keep seeking him always in order not to miss them and miss him! Complacency's a killer. But now for the first time in months I feel the gears are starting to turn again. Don't get me wrong, they have been going overdrive internally. These last few months full time at the cafe have been amazing for giving me space to think and sink my teeth into things other than architecture and study, and I don't regret them one iota. But change might well be on the horizon.

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I had the privilege of baptising Ben Harris tonight at Windsor, along with Grant and Dan. Being in the pool and asking him if he accepts Jesus as his Lord and Saviour, hearing his affirmation, then dunking him under and bringing him back up was such a special and proud feeling, to be involved in such a significant step in the life of a young man (or is it old kid?). I hope I'll get to enjoy that many more times! I was determined it would be a moment of deep sincerity for him, not ruined by mocking or anything like that, as I reflected in a smidgen of regret to my baptism when I replied 'Yee-eess' in a rather funny tone. Doing it that way it was more about me and getting laughs than committing to a life spent desperately pursuing God, and enjoying all the richness such a life like that has to offer. I wish I had said it much more determined, a resounding and confident "YES!" YES, THIS MOMENT IS IMPORTANT BECAUSE I'M DECLARING GOD'S PLAN FOR ME TO BE BETTER THAN MY OWN, AND THAT I TRUST HIM WITH MY LIFE, WITH ALL THAT I AM, BECAUSE HIS GRACE HAS SO ALLOWED IT! TAKE NOTE EVERYONE! I don't regret it too much though. I was young and immature, and now I know what it means to have my life given over to God. I think Ben did it good. Along with the sincerity came celebration, and we did it in fine style, the four of us bombing back into the refreshingly cold pool when everyone started heading back into the church - Grant included! No doubting the night's memorability. And then we got to pray for him. Tonight was a great night, and I'm so excited to see where God's going to lead Ben, and all the other Fuel boys I am so fortunate to lead.

Apt

John 7:37-38 (New International Version)

³⁷ On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. ³⁸ Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”

I'm thirsty! Let me drink!

Dirty Mac - Yer Blues by Gaspard_Elliott

Bloody weather...

The main feature article of the NZ Herald website as of 12:28am, Monday 16 May 2011 says this:

Heavy rain, thunderstorms, gales and snow are forecast to make the next few days miserable for just about everybody, the MetService has warned.

Guts! I love how they not only forecast the weather, but the mood too! Meteorological psychologists - now there's an interesting profession!