realization:

I had forgotten. As I always do.

Isn't it funny how memory is never good enough. That we cannot trust ourselves enough to remember the important things.

Regardless. Here is an interlude in my train of thoughts, a bit of background to remind myself of context before I drop myself in medias res. Visited Houston for the first time since graduation and met up with dear ones. (i think a piece of my heart will stay in houston, no matter where i go) It was a mad whirlwind of conversation and food and rain and nostalgic memories. It was so very good. Haha, good doesn't even describe it. It was... so easy, so natural, what I think I needed after the past months of struggling by myself.

Maybe because I was only gone for, what, six months? It's really not actually that long. It is, but it isn't, y'know? It was like falling into old patterns. Like knowing the steps to this dance, the way the melody will shift, the way the stairs will creak at that step. Walking around Rice, going through buildings, meeting with cell group, talking to the people that have a hold on my heart, going to HCC and serving lunch again ah haha, seeing the familiar. Noticing the slight differences.

Ah, but enough nostalgic reminiscing. I really must be growing old, because I had not known myself to be sentimental.

But in a very real conversation that I have missed so much, we got on to talking about secrets. And as we drove around and bounced thoughts off each other, half exclaiming with a new thought or idea whenever it struck us, interrupting each other, trailing on with half-formed thoughts, tentatively exploring new concepts or connections, opening a million cans of worms, as is the norm.... as the night neared its ending, I found myself sitting the passenger seat with my eyes closed, breathing as shallowly as possible as if even the sheer act of breathing might make me forget. Because I remembered all over again why I share myself.

Med school is so freaking selfish. Med school has made me so freaking selfish. I am falling into the old and familiar patterns of high school again. Where it is safer to keep your cards close to your chest, to think that there is no gain in being vulnerable, that secrets are best unsaid. Or even better, locked and buried ten feet under.

What is true transformation? Who we are, are they just a reflection of the people and the culture around you? Can it survive the transplantation to another city? Who are you without your friends, without the community around you. When I said I grew, that I definitely changed through college, was that just me adapting to the environment around me? That I was merely holding up a mirror in front of myself to reflect the place in front of me?

Can I survive here in San Antonio?
I don't know.
But I so freaking hope so. 
Because I am doing the slow fall. The slow forgetfulness. The creeping one that is never apparent until I turn my head to see my trail wavering and astray.

By God's grace.

A realization:
How can you expect anyone to keep your secret if you can't even keep it yourself?
I clung to this in high school.
People came and crashed through my walls and into my personal space in college - and I couldn't do anything but laugh at the shattered pieces because, before I knew it, I believed it was worth it to have someone within my walls rather than everyone outside.
But that quote still always struck me as good sense. And I guess it still does, even today.

I thought it was enough if I knew the truth. Why does anyone else need to know?
But have I confronted the truth if I just bury it deep away? Noted, acknowledged, and willfully put away.
Sharing is almost a way of confronting the truth in its entirety.

Even though people can't freaking keep secrets, and communication sucks, and nobody knows what anyone is saying, and even though sometimes I think it is useless to share what is in my soul because they will never understand or be able to add to my own understanding or they will just see it as trash instead of precious... even despite all of that, there is still worth in sharing.
Not just as a gift, not just as a way to bond, but to confront the truth of yourself outwardly.

What need do we have for facades if God has already seen through it all?

Another realization:
It is better to give than receive. Who doesn't know that already, what a trite phrase, what an overused phrase. But when I heard it said so gravely, so solemnly, it hit me so suddenly I felt unsettled by the implications of this truth. And couldn't help but think of how selfish I am these days. There is no time to care for others, to give precious time. I just expect to be fed, to receive, to take. Church shopping, fellowship looking, it was never about what I could give. Never about what I could add. But what I could take.

A consideration:

Would you want to know the secret that could break or shatter another person?
I replied yes, immediately.
I said so for the truth of the person, to know entirely the truth rather than the facade. Even for my friends, I have always seen intimate truths as just the core of the self rather than knowledge that could potentially be abused. I had not even considered....
But perhaps I do not consider the emotional burden behind the knowledge.
Whether it is enough to just know truth, or whether there is responsibility behind the knowledge. Or is it enough to just know it as it is.
And I thought about what could shatter me as a person. And wondered if anyone knows too...

A front:
Questions. Answers.
I said those determined whether I was on the offensive or the defensive. And then I laughed because of how I thought about conversations. And then thought a little longer and frowned. But I do. I do think about questions as being on the offensive and answering as on the defensive. I hold myself too tightly. I guard myself too closely.
I give out the analytical thoughts of myself easily and then bury the emotional a thousand feet under.
Because it is too vulnerable. Because I cannot help but think that people do not care unless they ask. And keep asking. Ask at least three times, because who would face two bluffs and return for the true answer but someone who wants to know? But they must ask. And keep asking. Because I cannot trust anyone to keep my secret, since y'know, I couldn't even keep it myself.

What a lonely way to live, a friend once observed.
I know, I said. And then asked her a question because I already gave too much away for her to say that statement.

---

this was so incoherent. a mix of flashbacks and a recounting of memories and a rambling of moments of realization. and maybe it will not make sense because they are scattered. a handful of precious thoughts yanked out at random from my brain and then spilled into words. the thoughts are unfinished, unpolished, and maybe a little too raw.
but they are true and they are a little vulnerable. more than i would like, which i know because my heart flutters uncomfortably at the thought of pressing the "publish" button.
but maybe this is a first step to confronting myself again.

Surgical

It's a little like arts and crafts for adults. The things we do with our hands. Putting things together and taking them apart. We play with string and thread and we try to make beautiful things.

It is like anatomy with the backwards scissoring. But it is not. Because underneath those scissors and scalpel blade, it is a living breathing bleeding person that is depending on you. Not a cadaver who's purpose was to teach you.

It is like arts and crafts for adults with the thread and the knots. But it is not. Because underneath your hands and your needles and knots is someone who is depending on you to do well. It is not a piece of entertainment that you can just play around with.

Craving

I really, really want to eat katsudon at Hokkaidos.
Or maybe Pine Forest.

Arghhh why won't this week go by faster.....

Two thoughts.

One. That faith is unreasonable. It is not something that can be reasoned through, not something that you can measure the risk factors and come to a quantitative conclusion that it is the right thing to do. To trust the other party. It is not something that "makes sense", except perhaps in your heart. Because faith comes from knowing who God is. Not because I can calculate the exact number of times trusting God turned out the way I wanted or that even if I logicked it out it would make sense in that way. It's hard when I cannot rely on reason. Because that means I am not relying on myself and my own abilities. 

Two. That I cannot treat finding a fellowship in a consumerist attitude. What do I get out of it? Because in the end, fellowship is not just about me, but about building a community that pleases God. 

another post too ^^

It is worth it.

It is.


It's delayed gratification.
It's the harvest.
It's the put-in-time-even-though-you-can't-see-results.

People. People are worth it. 

a little thought about impersonal prayer

I've always had problems with this.

If I don't know the person I am praying for specifically, I'm a little less heart-felt.
It's like praying for an entire country, or for world peace. Nice, but not very... eh, helpful? Or maybe that's not the right word, because who knows, maybe God would hear that prayer and deliver on world peace just like that. It's just not eh, practical to expect. (Here, I can already hear someone telling me that I need to have more faith and faith can literally move mountains. Yes. I know. But it's still hard to honestly believe world peace would happen after my prayer tonight.)

Or when a friend asks you to pray for a friend's friend who is sick. Or something. Two degrees of separation is probably the hardest for me. Praying for a friend, of course. Praying for a friend's friend, yes, because I can see how that person I don't know is affecting my friend. But going beyond that, it becomes more like a prayer list where I just repeat almost word-for-word what you told me about your friend's friend in a prayer.

Honestly, it's harder to care.
One person is a mourned death. Ten thousand is a statistic. 

Maybe it's because I'm feeling more cynical these days, I dunno.  

But I dunno. It's not about effectiveness, is it? We aren't praying to see results. (Vending-machine-God comes to mind.) We pray more to communicate with God. Because we're a body.
I guess half the struggle is because praying for someone/something usually lies solely in the "asking" part of prayer. Not the praising, or other prayer aspects. 


I guess it is like faith. Trusting in things unseen.
Which is hard, because it's always easier or nicer to see the direct impact of things.

Do you pray for things in your past? For the church that you left, for the people you don't see anymore, or the people who have passed out of your life? Even for organizations where everyone you've known has left?
And how often? Whenever they come into mind? Daily? Once a week?

Duty is a strange thing.
Is it a duty to pray for people? A responsibility?
Love is, I think. Love your neighbors, is a command. You should. You ought to. What then, is prayer also?
I pray for you daily, says Paul.
Is this, too, a command?

I guess it wasn't such a little thought after all.

---

Maybe the flaw in the conception of this post is that prayer should arise naturally, like loving someone. It's not about the logistical aspects or who and when and where and how often. But that you desire to pray for someone.
But can you blame me for thinking about how it happens practically in daily life? Amorphous abstract pretty phrases are well and good and we never want to be limited by logic. But.. *shrug. Sometimes the knowledge of who when where and how often helps.

Sometimes I wonder

Sometimes I wonder if I could just sit down with someone and talk to them over a cup of tea, or three cups and a scone, slowly. Slowly, like we would savor our words and spend them wisely. Not talking about the weather and oh-how-was-your-day, but something that resonates and something so deep that we must take a moment and sip our tea so we can ponder it a little longer, and then another moment that makes us laugh until our cheeks hurt. But instead, we smile and nod at each other in the hallways. I'll remember your high school name, but forget your sister's name. You'll remember the odd collection of knick-knacks that I collect, but forget if I was allergic to milk. Because, you know, it's not like our circles of friends overlap. And we'll run into each other and exchange pleasantries, hello-how-are-you, are-you-well, and then leave amiably. Leaving the things that could be said unsaid.

 I wonder if I have passed by so many people that I could have loved if only I had taken the time to sit down with them over a cup of tea. 

 ---

There was a quote I liked:  “Spend your money on the things money can buy. Spend your time on the things money can’t buy.”