Monday, April 18, 2011

the safety of presence...

from time to time i go back to my old xanga account...and enjoy musings from back in january 2006...


...the safety of the presence of people who care is beautiful. the beauty of knowing that there is another person on earth who is totally in the moment with you. the feeling of understanding and grace undeserved or judgment withheld. i take for granted how many times i have been given with people like this.

...i would not trade any of these unintentional moments for the best the world has to offer. to experience life with someone else is not necessary...but to be graced with the opportunity to share just a moment is immeasurable. if those moments added up to close to a lifetime, then so be it. 


...i like dreaming of our ideals, knowing that they may be unattainable, but worth running after. i like believing that things can be changed for the better. impossible things, too. i like hearing that despite the endless passions in life i have, they are all worth pursuing since there is a lifetime to do it. i like admitting that i don't understand and being free to ask questions. always ask questions. i contradict myself when i allow myself to freely speak. i like when people let me just talk, with me being completely unaware.

...this weekend...and moving...brought about this understanding that regardless of what happens with friends...if someone really has been my friend they probably have been a part of these moments and i am grateful.


...i'm so bad with words. in velvet elvis, rob bell describes what i couldn't possibly convey from my own thoughts...

"...the sacredness of the moment. that sense that in spite of everything awful i have ever seen, we're going to make it. i know that sounds like it's from a greeting card, but i know you know what i'm talking about. ordinary moments in ordinary settings that all of a sudden become infused with something else. with meaning. significance. hope. 'everything was right in its place' ...i assume you have had moments like this when you were caught up in something so much bigger than yourself that you couldn't even put it into words.

what is it about certain things that ignite something within?

whatever those things are that make you feel fully alive and like the universe is ultimately a good place and you are not alone, i need a faith that doesn't deny these moments but embraces them. i need a spiritual understanding that celebrates these kinds of transcendent moments instead of avoiding them. these moments can't be tangents. they can't be experiences that distract from our "real" faith. these moments can't exist on the edges, because they are a part of our faith. a spirituality that is real will have to make sense of them and show us how they fit. they are expressions of what it means to live in God's world..."

(iceland)

...i think we...i...downplay how we cliche-ly say "god is everywhere" and what that could really signify.   there is something so real about having an ordinary moment with somebody and feeling something so much more exists within it. 


Posted by AshleyM at Monday, April 18, 2011
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