My thoughts are fragmented tonight. I feel as though I write while in the act of stepping from one stone to another in this phase of my life, crossing an icy stream. I cannot pause to collect my thoughts, for to cease stepping is to begin falling in. Those tentative leaps, when one's foot has only moments to decide whether the stone it lands upon is a suitable resting place, or a treacherous platform that will tip into the flowing torrent. Perhaps I should pay more attention to the next stone and less to writing about the moment when I hang in between them. But my thoughts seek to be written. Perhaps I can force them into a cohesive framework. Here goes.
It's been a few years since I've been in this place.
My wristwatch is back. It vanished from my wrist while in Taiwan, and stayed mostly off it from the time of my return until a couple of weeks ago. Now it encircles my wrist again, marking the passage of time and a newly necessary concern for it.
As a symbol, it's useful for marking my return to a familiar style of life.
For almost a year now, I've been back in the States. It's not all been pleasant, but God has lifted me from my post-return slump in more ways than one. Now I'm living in Dallas Texas and attending classes at Dallas seminary. My brain and will resisted the change in some ways. They had gotten lazy, used to weeks in which my schedule was flexible. Even working at Barnhart, when I had little time for anything else, felt like a cessation from normality, not a change in the pace of life.
Starting the semester, I took too much advantage of the free time my schedule allowed. Though I did search for a job, finding few suitable openings and applying fruitlessly to the ones I did find, my time-management was fundamentally unacceptable. But the metronome's pace was quickening inexorably. The change was preceded by a torrent of godly wisdom, received from my surroundings at seminary and a loving Father who did not deal with me as my actions (or inaction) deserved. Then the flood of busyness came. The experience is like an out-of-shape person getting back into an exercise routine. First it seems impossible that such a physically demanding workout could be repeated multiple times a week. Then it seems possible but exhausting. Then it seems exhausting but somehow rewarding. Then it becomes rewarding and enjoyable. Enjoyable in a tiring way, but enjoyable nonetheless, as useful and productive things often are. Finally one finds oneself enjoying something that would have been totally impossible before. It's growth, in a real sense.
Now I am working into a pace of life that slips on like a constricting but familiar necktie, and I see how far I am advancing. Ecclesiastes reminds us that there is a time and a season for everything in life. This is, it would seem, the season in which I do many things and rest little. Projects, meetings, assignments, ministry, church meetings, errands... where have I seen this pattern before? Ah yes.
Hello college days. Haven't seen you in a while. Were you missed? In some ways, perhaps.
Now Taiwan that was an open-ended change in my life, with a return but no resolution, begins to assume a consigned place in it: "Between my post-college work experience, and my time at DTS." It sounds so mundane with bookends, even with one bookend being DTS. Yet thankfully it has not been made less relevant by the consignment. That year, so much more significant than a year could seem to be, propels me forward. And it stays with me, in some ways. Somehow, I know a little Chinese. It becomes almost humorous in the context of American life. Suddenly I am speaking some other language which white people do not, as a rule, speak here. I hear a strange voice, and that is certainly Chinese coming from me.
I cannot allow myself to rest upon that year, however. It would be easy. I have enough stories for a lifetime of telling interesting stories to people who haven't heard them yet. I have enough Chinese to impress Chinese people who haven't met me before. I have enough Taiwanese nicknacks and decorative odds and ends to look well-traveled and experienced to untraveled or inexperienced people. How disastrous would it be to remain here, growing comfortable in a slowly diminishing Taiwanese adaptation, satisfying myself with happy memories of a year to be remembered? A sad fate. One sadly realized by not a few.
But I have a goal, one I feel did not originate in me. My burden for Taiwan may be made to rest and wait while I make preparations, but it has not been laid aside, or forgotten. I pray that God will never let me do so. And it does not seem that He will. I am in a Chinese church now, where my meager Chinese cannot be taken for granted, but must indeed be improved if I am to be effective. I have been asked to lead missions trips to Taiwan. I met a TEAM rep the other day. Such things are not coincidental, and I have not sought them out. They found me, and I only responded. I thank God for this two-fold blessing; that I could continue my journey towards Taiwan even as I spend time away preparing for it, and that He brings these things to me so that I cannot accuse myself of pursuing a Taiwanese 'bubble' when I am surrounded by other needs.
So now I walk an unfamiliar path, yet with surroundings and echoes that seem familiar.
Living in a new city but with Taiwanese food. Working at a new church but with ministry in Chinese. Ironically it is that which is foreign that seems familiar, and that which is familiar that seems foreign. My mind struggles to separate the two, yet is grateful for their presence together.
I am plunging back into the realm of serious academia, yet with a flavor added by experiences gained since my last sojourn there. (Shall all of life unfold this way?)
But I cannot rest here either, for graduate school does not last long.
The sluggish inertia that seeks to lie down and sleep at every new pause and the restless drive to push on past every resting place are in constant tension. The flesh rises up in rebellion, clouding my vision and impeding my steps. There can be no tolerating it, total war is the only option.
Lord, please teach me to rest in you, and yet also run the race with endurance. I am not satisfied with who I am, but let my progress be guided by a disciplined seeking after Christ, not by a conformation to the demands of my life. And all this cannot happen from my own efforts. I must seek the presence of the One who gives life in abundance.
I need more of Him. I must have more of Him.
-Joseph
