I, cultural chameleon, professional airport navigator, competent cook on any continent, do not want to be a missionary.

This is what it means to be a missionary.

Everyone is suspicious. Can you really blame them? You look suspicious, in your vaguely wrong clothes. You do suspicious things. You are over-educated. Your circle of acquaintance is altogether too wide.

Church people are suspicious. What are you really getting out of the whole deal? You cannot genuinely want to live the way you do.

The world is suspicious. The pieces of your life don’t quite add up. Your drivers’ license and your permanent address are in different states.

Customs agents are particularly suspicious. You are holding up the line with your chaotic passport.

This is what it means to be a missionary.

You can imagine the future, the all-people-invited epic party future. It brings you to tears. You cannot imagine the where-you-will-be-tomorrow future. You cannot figure out what to pack. You have no plans. You travel by the seat of your pants, or of your long blue skirt.

This is what it means to be a missionary.

You watch the luggage belt go around again. Your suitcase fails to appear. The last bag comes out, the belt stops. You want to sit on the floor and sob. It’s just stuff, but it’s all you have right now besides your own naked self, standing alone in the middle of baggage claim. This is the life you have chosen, to lose everything over and over again, and finally to stand naked before God who demands everything, and receive from God something, some little green sprout. You’re not quite sure what it is, yet. Your suitcase is shipped to you a week later, the contents damp and slightly smashed to the left.

I do not want to be a missionary.

denisehess: Mindful by Mary Oliver Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light. It was what I was born for - to look, to listen, to lose myself inside this soft world - to instruct myself over and over in joy, and acclamation. Nor am I talking about the exceptional, the fearful, the dreadful, the very extravagant - but of the ordinary, the common, the very drab, the daily presentations. Oh, good scholar, I say to myself, how can you help but grow wise with such teachings as these - the untrimmable light of the world, the ocean’s shine, the prayers that are made out of grass?
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denisehess:

Mindful by Mary Oliver

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

(via laudsandvespers)

Source: denisehess

On the sidewalk

We walk down the street, it’s our night out. Stomachs full, eyes taking in all the neon signs. I see him in a small brick alcove, a box and some coins on the pavement in front of him. He’s using his mouth as a trumpet, funneling Jazz melodies through a plastic cup. I walk by.

This could be me. I could be him. I was just trumpeting with my own mouth yesterday, Oh When the Saints Go Marching In…

On our way back, I dig in my wallet for a dollar bill. I want to say, I see you. I bend over, put it in his box. It’s conspicuous next to pennies and dimes. I stand and we are eye to eye.

“Let me play you a song, sweetheart. What do you want to hear?”

I mutter something, No Thank You probably. I walk away.

I’ve only gone half a block and I have tears in my eyes.

This is what I should have said:  Oh When the Saints Go Marching In.
 I should have stood and listened. I should have applauded. I should have shaken his hand and asked his name. Why the hell am I in such a hurry?

I wake up in the early morning and I feel tears on my pillow.

Why didn’t I stop? I dreamed I was standing on the sidewalk, trumpeting in harmony. Oh when the Saints go marching in.

one day to breathe.

Today I made baked oatmeal and homemade deodorant, read my bible, cooked real food for the week, played my guitar, ate dinner with a friend. We told nursing jokes, laughed way too loud and we hugged goodbye. I shut the door, took a breath, and realized that I am still me.

Even though my sleep schedule is so messed up, even though I never see anyone, even though I dream about normal pediatric vital sign ranges and cardio-respiratory monitor alarms, even though every movie I watch makes me cry, even though I haven’t been to church in 5 weeks and I badly need a haircut and and I slept for 19 hours this weekend and doing laundry is a small victory, I am still me.

There is LIFE on the other side of this semester. Beautiful, exciting, new life.

Realizations From This Week

  1. I am very excited to graduate and only work 40 hours every week.
  2. There are quite a few perfectly acceptable men in this world, which is the opposite of what you might assume from my “Dating Life” (by which I mean, “the Lack Thereof”).
  3. The Lack Thereof most likely stems from the sad fact that I have two green horns growing from the back of my head (this is probably what my friends are getting at when they tell me “the back of yo head is ridikulus”)
  4. It is entirely possible that I should be more selective about who I smile at on the street. But hey! this could be the solution to #2 and #3!
  5. I really, really, really need to study for the NCLEX.
  6. Really.
  7. For approximately a year. I changed my mind about #1.

If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.

T.S. Eliot, “Ash Wednesday”

“Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled…”

(via invisibleforeigner)