The best and worst of times

We moved truckloads of crap yesterday to the new house we are renting. It seems you never really realize how much stuff you have until you move. Before yesterday I would have said that we live pretty light and don't have that much junk. Today I am overwhelmed with the amount of stuff "living light" translates into.

We had a boatload of people show up to help, and all of them humbled me as they moved our crap from one place to another. On the way to the new house, one of our cars died, and one couple drove almost an hour back and trailered the piece of junk to the new house. It was way beyond the call of duty. Everyone's gift of time and muscle was way beyond the call of duty and friendship. How do you repay people for that kind of love?

Then there was the other side of humanity. Some new neighbor had to stop in - as we were in the middle of unloading our crap- worried about how many cars we might have that might make the neighborhood unsightly. Someone took the keys to the house, so we were left without access to the little guest cabin out back that was to become our extra bedroom. Currently the nice mattress for that room is covered in 5 inches of snow and sleet leaning against the door we have no key for. The previous tenant's stuff is in almost every room, so we can't set up anything. There was no offer to move the junk; no willingness to let us move the junk; and little empathy for our plight.

It was weird to experience total opposite treatment from the same human race. One side selfless and giving; the other thoughtless and unkind.

Yet God made us all, and somehow manages to love us, whether we are selfless and kind, or whether we are complete pigs to each other. I hope someday to be able to love with that kind of grace. But today I am stuck in frustration and finding it hard to love the lesser side of humanity.

Without a map (or a clue)

We will move most of our belongings tomorrow to a new house. Strange to think that the path has led us to this place. Or should I say away from this place? It was almost two years ago that we moved to Colorado, following what felt like the Spirit of God. Some pretty miraculous things happened for us to be able to buy this house and live in this place.

But now that chapter is ending, and as the pages turn, I really don't have a clue of what lies ahead. I know the new address, and I know the bills that are piling up in the middle of the chaos of our lives right now, but where the road leads is a mystery. And behind the curtain of the mystery, behind the "what" of what lies ahead is the eternal question of "why". Is God at work in every movement, or are we blundering on in our typical style of life? Is there a grander scheme, or are we taking another step in a meaningless staircase?

I won't pretend to know the answers. (At least that much has changed.) What I do pretend is to believe that God is still in charge, still directing, and still interested in creating in us a little bit of Himself. And it is to that end that we follow the ongoing mysterious road that lies before us.

Climbing low mountains

Another blog post way over due (thanks Carol for the reminder).

I was talking with a guy the other day whose philosophy of life is best summed up by the theme statement "climb low mountains". It reflected in his life very congruently. If he never tried to climb a mountain that was very high, he could never fail. And I found myself admiring the integrity. He really is a guy who won't try for the high mountains.

But I found the call in my heart as obviously on the other end of the spectrum. I realized that my pattern of life is probably best summed up in the philosophy "climb impossible mountains", which translates to disappointment and discouragement much of the time. I wonder if I might do better trying to summit little peaks rather than the huge ones. But when I think about it, its just not me. The very essence of who I am is a combination of dreamer and enough "ridiculous" inside (I have plenty of that) to actually try to live out the dreams.

And after 30 years of that, sometimes I wonder if I should give up. How many lower peaks could I have been successful on? Or would they have even felt like success if I had settled for the accomplishments of smaller mountains? All I know is that I am called to live what is true inside of me, and that truth inside has never spent much time on low mountains.

So I guess my new philosophy is one that sounds something like this - "Blunder on, and trust that by doing so, God is glorified because He made me a blunderer."

I deeply pray that He is reflected somewhere on the trek to the highest mountains.