Spring comes a little earlier at my current Indiana latitude than the southern shores of Lake Ontario where I most recently lived. But, winter certainly wants to make sure we don’t forget about it too easily. The weather is positively gross today — cold, heavy raindrops slopping themselves onto the earth with no regard for how saturated the ground already is from last week’s rainstorms.
Resting feels easier to justify on days like these, since it’s not like you can go outside and dig in the garden or chop up firewood, unless you like being cold and soaked to the bone. When the wind howls through the corners of the screen door and the temps dance erratically around the freezing point, your bones just know it’s a day for indoor chores and leisure. Wash the dishes, read a book. Pull freshly fluffed blankets out of the hot dryer and take a nap. This is the bread for today, and it is very good.
Stock photo of some guy achieving things. [Unsplash]
I’ve literally (yes, literally) been in bed the last two days, sick with a head cold. I haven’t been bedridden; just, in bed. I’ve been trying to simply let my body get the rest it needs, instead of pushing it to do things it doesn’t need to do–which would only prolong the stuffy nose, sneezing, and general miserable-ness that comes with being sick. I also live with other people, and trying not to get them sick seems like the right thing to do, no?
So, I’ve confined myself to my bed as much as I could…which is hard for an over-achiever to do. But this overall season of my life seems to be one of making myself rest. Not from being sick, but from over-exerting myself for the last–well, lifetime, really.
Ever since I could remember, my life has been oriented toward achieving things. Good grades, stellar school projects, first place ribbons. College degrees, stamps in the passport, loans paid in full. End-to-end cycling roads, hiking challenges, camper conversions. Workflow efficiency, job titles, accolades. I am driven to achieve.
But I find now, day after day, that I am just. plain. tired. I have a list 35 years long of all the things I’ve done, places I’ve seen, and goals I’ve accomplished. I even left my last job not only because it was no longer a good fit for me, but because I felt like I could accomplish more by doing other things–things I was (and still am) passionate about.
Yet here I sit seven months later–laid up in bed for two days straight, no less–and the short-circuit in my head keeps buzzing with, “Yeah, and what do you have to show for it? Why haven’t you done something already?”
And the only answer I have to those accusing words is, “I’m resting.”
“For six years you are to sow your fields and harvest the crops, but during the seventh year let the land lie unplowed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what is left. ”
Exodus 23:10-11
Me, not achieving things for a day, in my tent, waiting out the pouring rain on Le Petit Train du Nord Cycling Road, 2019.
I had to stop and chew on that verse for a bit when I came across it several weeks ago. I found it rather ironic that I was at that last job for six years…and now here I am, just wanting some rest. Needing rest. Not just from that job, not just from being sick, but because this purpose-driven life longs for a season of lying fallow.
There will be work to do again some day, of course. There are plenty of good works that God has prepared in advance for me to do (Ephesians 2:10). But in advance, not right now. Because right now, the soil of my soul is sapped; I have nothing left in me with which to do those works. No strength, no resources, no fervor. To plow myself into doing a million things as usual would produce dried-up sprouts and scraggly vines.
Seasons only last a little while, and then the next one comes. So I don’t want to waste this precious time by pushing myself to “get ahead” or “get things done.” If someone needs what little I have or if something comes out of what is left, then so be it; the fallow field still produces fruit. But doingis not the focus. All I want is to walk gently through this season holding the hand of the One who is making me lie down in green pastures.
It is the very first question God posed to Adam in the Garden as he walked there in the cool of the day. The question is explored in the second chapter of A Curious Faith by Lore Ferguson Wilbert, which was recommended to me several months ago by a dear friend. In the opening pages, Wilbert highlights how we are all born into a place, a culture, a time in history. We are born into a family, we live and work, we form and are being formed by the places in which we find ourselves. She poses the idea that before we can really know who we are, we first need to know where we are.
So…where am I? Logistically, it’s quite simple: I’m in Indiana, house sitting for some friends. But like many things in life, the real answer, the deeper answer, is far more nuanced than what’s on the surface.
Flip back through the calendar, and two months ago I was still living in upstate New York, transitioning out of an unfulfilling, unsuitable-for-me job and letting myself dream about who I might like to be in the world now. Flip forward in the planner, and in a few weeks my friends will return and I will shift into the next phase of the reasons I moved back to Indiana.
Widen the scope even more, and the place and age I occupy on this planet becomes more complex. Complex, like flavor notes in a good coffee or wine – – not complicated like the knots of Christmas tree lights that must be untangled no matter how nicely you put them away the year before.
I was born into two cultures, not one. And although the American part of me is the more dominant of the two, I cannot separate from or be who I am without the Filipino part of me. My last name only goes back one generation due to my dad being adopted; the bloodline may stretch back into parts of western Europe, but I belong to the family who gave us this new name. I also carry my mother’s maiden name, the sound of which echoes the era of Spanish colonialism in the Philippines–yet the DNA ancestry kit unveils the “99% Southeast Asian, Malay, Filipino” lineage that also courses through my veins.
My childhood was tied to this Midwestern plain, but my entire adult life has been spent on planes, trains, and automobiles: Going to college in New York, moving overseas to teach English, traveling wherever my savings and time off would let me, returning to New York, hiking and cycling all over the Northeast…it is admittedly quite an adjustment to be back in the land that raised me. Even so, it is only a home base; a jumping off point for the places my van will take me as I develop the dreams I have had on my heart for so long.
So where am I? I guess it comes back to being ever “at-large.” But for now, this is my where. This is me.
the night is still on this midwestern road, heavy fog following the sun’s evening departure, obscuring the stars, but wrapping me in its stillness cool and quiet
my footsteps are muffled by the weight of the night air I have no place to get to, only strolling until I feel like returning indoors.
the road is straight, but my mind wanders and my heart runs circles around it as though walking two inquisitive dogs, sniffing this way and that. first one thought, then another a memory, an observation– all prayers up to the God Who Sees
so I stroll awhile in the darkness, letting tomorrow be tomorrow and tonight, just letting myself be me.
It’s nearly midnight on a Sunday night. I’m surrounded by cardboard boxes and crumpled newspapers and packing tape, once again putting my life into temporary containers in preparation for another move. (Indeed, this will be my seventh official change-of-address within the past 10 years.)
As I’ve been saying to friends lately, this move doesn’t feel real–yet it doesn’t feel surreal, if that makes any sense. I’ve moved plenty, both within my own country and outside of it; I am no stranger to the barrage of feelings that can come with uprooting yourself and settling into a new place. But this move just feels different. I suspect it’s because I’m not moving to somewhere new, but rather somewhere old. Back to the place where I began. Back to the place where “home” means the town grew up in, rather than the place I currently abide.
But although I’m going back to a familiar land, I know there will also be new things to experience. New people to meet. New opportunities to explore. New journeys to take with God. Hence, the new blog.
If you’ve known me long, you might know I’m a writer–although it’s also likely you might not know, because truth be told, I haven’t written much the last several years. At least, not in this format. I took the plunge into seminary, so four years of my free time was spent writing academic papers and a Master’s thesis. I’ve filled personal prayer journals, scribbled a rogue poem or two, and even had a blog with like, six posts on it. This style of wordsmithing has either lay dormant by necessity or fallow by choice all this time.
However, much like going back to old places for new reasons, I’m entering a season of life that leaves me space to write in a way my heart loves again. This coming week will be filled with more packing, errands, and shoving boxes into my van. But 450 miles from now, there’s new ground to rediscover. You’re welcome to come along for the journey.
Angela At-Large 