All I Can See

This July I went to Italy for 2.5 weeks. Now, I've been back for months. I came back, and didn't want to go to work. I didn't want to start the mundane tasks of cleaning, unpacking, laundry, or even cooking. I had changed, but I was back in a world that didn't seem to accommodate my change. But I had started a new ellipse around my old life, similar patterns, but different interactions.


I just wanted to keep traveling, to keep seeing new things, understand more, ask more questions. I want adventure. Coming home feels like the adventure for summer is over. The excitement is over, and nothing new will happen and rock my world, but the world of the present may smother me. Each place, each face, each set of steps to a dome, each painting, fresco, or sculpture of the trip brought more wonder. More questions. More desires to see and understand. Everything in life seems all wrapped up in one big blob of questions, desires, and goals. It's like my universe is trying to strangle me.

• I was sad to come home. But coming home also brought solidarity and safety.
• I was reluctant to start daily functions, for fear I'll forget "the other way" we did things away from home. Will I forget the packed buses of Rome? Or the smell of markets or bakeries? Will I remember the delicate but clear aroma of fresh baked bread with cheese and prosciutto as lunch sandwiches from 2 Brother's?
• I was excited to bring new ways of doing things into my daily life here. How to make a cappuccino in a french press. Enjoying amaretti or biscotti with my coffee. 
• I was bummed that I did not see everything. But then, could I really see everything or even if I could, could I take it in?
• I was and still am enticed by future options, future travels, future explorations.

Coming back took away the new frontier I was exploring. My heart wants to be open to understanding languages and cultures, fields and mountains, paths and roads, maps and globes. It still yearns for another place, to understand people more. This yearning reminds me of the cyclical, funnel-shaped nature of life.

I am back into a similar pattern as before, but in a new orbit. Each cycle of a day is a new point on the map. Each interaction a chance for understanding. Seasons of life come and go as the rotation of life comes and goes. But it does not stay on the same orbit. Each plot-point of each day shapes the direction and speed in which our lives turn -life never comes back to the same spot, making each moment a one-time gift. As water swirling in funnel moves in a direction without touching the same place twice, the swirl of life happenings may go around in the same funnel, and have the similar shape, but be in a different situation, a tighter pull toward the center.

Some things are the same, anchoring life and me in new situations. I still love traveling different country-sides. Instead of traveling France on bike like 2 years ago, we traveled Italy by train. I still like solitude. Instead of shade trees, we made use of piazza's for rest breaks. I enjoy simplicity. Instead of cooking each meal, we frequented food stands many times. I still am learning to trust. Instead of staying glued to the maps, I trusted friends to lead.

Around and around.

Same, but different.

Similar, but changed.

What is my center of daily life? What am I being pulled towards each day? When I look at my daily choices and habits, what is the same as the past and what has changed? Do I want to continue in that direction? with that force? with that pattern? How will this translate back into life here in Chicago or wherever I am in the world? How have I let myself be changed and how can I let that out and draw nearer to God and His world?

I can't see everything. And when I can't see everything, I can make small goals, small dreams come true. All I can see is what is before me. But what I can do, is as Brendan James sings, "ask the Creator of all good things ... what it means to live" and then listen for His response.

May I keep moving in the direction God leads. Though the funnel might narrow, His grace and truth holds me, and the world in place, providing what we need for that moment in life, that point in time.