Back to the start...

What am I doing here

If You're not with me?

What have I got to live for 

If it's just my own dream?

Take me back to the beginning

Back to the start

Gravity's pulling

You're still holding my heart

-Mat Kearney, "Crashing Down"

One of my many Mat Kearney favorites... It puts words to exactly what I've been telling God lately. I love to dream, and I hope that, should I live to a great age, I'll sit in my rocker, white head propped in hand, and think through the complexities of the world... the intricacies of its beauty and seamy messiness... and try with every ounce of logic left in my aging brain to conjure ways I can be a small part of restoring the world and its people to what they were meant to be. I hope I still get ideas and act upon them. More likely, my abilities will be limited to giving cookies to neighbor kids, but that sounds good to me.

The problem with dreaming? I can forget that the dreams aren't completely mine. I don't want them to be. I don't want to go into the Promised Land without God inside me, outside me, above and below me. I want my dreams to be shared property with God. I want them to be God, reaching through me, painting the world with color. Sometimes, I forget. And God has to remind me. He takes me back to the start.

Life here is breathtaking in its simplicity. Deliciously frightening in the breadth of its possibilities. 'Way back when being my current age looked far-away and rose-tinted, I visualized myself doing... or, at least KNOWING... what I'd be doing the rest of my life. Why am I laughing? :) I think I've learned that life just isn't that static, that predictable. I am both consoled and unnerved.

So. Here I am. All the puzzle pieces scattered around me. Stirring them around. Waiting for two to fit together and the picture begin to take shape.

Meanwhile, observing Lent is a sacred opportunity to quiet myself, to spend time just rediscovering that, most importantly, God is still holding my heart.