The ten week program I am co-leading is called Rooted. It goes through a lot of what one might call "The Basics" of Christian living - the Nature of God, what we are called to as Christians, etc. It also involves each person giving a testimony about how they came to where they are in their lives.
We did this in 2024 when I first did the program and so I have been going through my old notes, trying to get them into a form that is more of a narrative. That has turned out to be a more challenging than I thought, both from going back and editing things ("Why did I include this anyway?") and some additional realizations.
The idea that was contained as a theme in my 2024 biography (I hesitate to call it a testimony) was that I was someone that had always sought to find an "identity", something that defined me in a word. I have written about most of these over the years: hopeless romantic, called to ministry, business founder, called to ministry II, living near family, writer, executive business leader. Every time, "circumstances" served to crush that particular identity (it was clearly God).
Now, with removal of The Ranch from my life, there are essentially no identities left to me.
---
Reviewing this history, I was suddenly struck by the fact that most of my life after college has been a stripping away of wrong thoughts, wrong motives, and (apparently) wrong dreams. That surprises me a little bit: my time through college was about a third of my life, and I have now had the other two thirds to undo all the issues I had in the first third.
A lot of that is sin, of course: I came out of college with a lot of "squishy" morals that I had picked up, along with the general bad personality habits that I had acquired in the years leading up to it: selfishness, self-centeredness, a certain wildness of character - plus of all of the "standard" sins. And I was also burdened (if you will) by a lack of experience in life - not necessarily the "gritty" realism of the street (although I was missing that as well) but the reality that life is a lot less of what we want and a lot more of how we react to what we are presented with. In some ways, it has taken years for me to accept a lot of things that, if I had accepted them earlier, would have caused me a lot less grief.
---
And then, of course, there are those "identities".
If I substitute "dreams" for "identities", the whole thing makes more sense. I have had the dreams of how my life should have gone - the list is up there - and in every case, the dream has collapsed. Most of them were unlikely in the first place or perhaps possible if I had made that my sole goal; the fact that I did not convinces me I did not want them that badly. But even within the wanting, there was still a sense that in back of all of this was a series of green meadows and hills that were waiting for me someday.
Until someday never came.
---
It is not as if I am without anything right now: I have a good job. I am able to do those things that I find meaningful (Iai, harp, gardening, reading, writing this blog, loving on A The Cat and J The Rabbit). I have a good marriage and children that are doing well in life (even if I do not hear from them as much anymore). And I have a church which I can only feel I have been very clearly directed to.
But I still have no identity and no place to belong.
That is odd to me, because in my mind I have always had a place that I belonged. Now I feel - as the title suggests - rootless, floating on a sea without land in sight. This is so odd to me, such a strange feeling, that I can scarcely describe it in any meaningful way. It is not fear, nor is it discomfort. It is just a vast ocean of unknown, where I feel like I have no destination or even the ability to set a compass.
It is certainly no alarming - as FOTB (Friend Of This Blog) Bob commented earlier this week, although we do not understand our circumstances we know the One who is in control of our circumstances. But it is the strangest feeling ever for someone who always sought to define himself by an identity and place.
Now, it feels I have neither.
Small wonder you're feeling rootless TB, an anchor to your past is gone, The Ranch is no longer yours. Renting isn't quite the same as owning perhaps, plus age also. How and what you lived through over the years. He has a plan for you as do the rest of us, all you have to do is walk through that door called Tomorrow. If anything I said makes sense well....full disclosure, got a "D" in my only philosophy class at University.
ReplyDeleteNylon12 - Anchors being gone are a very good analogy. He does indeed have a plan; the selfish part of me wants to see what it is instead of just walking through that door called Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.
DeleteI assume the "D" in Philosophy was for "D*mnably Brilliant"?
At one point in my life, I lived for that feeling of being on a sea without land in sight and wondering where I would end up. I suppose I was no different than explorers like Magellan or Columbus. But something about aging caused me at some point to acquire roots and then ache to plant them somewhere in fertile ground so they could grow. But all around me, I have seen others who did exactly that, eventually float away again as their kids and grandkids found root elsewhere so I am expecting at some point I will likely slowly have those roots pulled and be released once again. A cycle of life? God's handiwork? Something else? I cannot say.
ReplyDeleteEd, I think it is a civilization change as well. While there have always been "going forths" by people, generally people were in one place most of their lives. Even my maternal grandparents more or less grew up, lived, and died in the same area (although my paternal grandparents came halfway across the country). The modern Western era seems much different: we are always in motion nowadays it seems.
DeleteAnd that has its advantages - I have seen and experienced so many more things than if I just had stayed in one place. But at some level I think we were built to "belong" to a place.
Maybe it is God's handiwork, or maybe just a calling He has gifted some. If a calling, I am not sure I appreciate the reason for it.
I've had to move from place to place throughout my life. As a teen, I moved from the South Shore of Long Island to the desert of California. I lost my roots. Most of the kids in high school had known the same friends their entire lives. By the time I got to know anyone, it was time to graduate. Then there were my 21 years in the military, moving from place to place to place. Again, by the time I got to know anyone, it was time to move again. After that, it was back to the California desert again, where I've been for the last 24 years. I do what I can, TB. I pride myself in my roots as an American, a military vet, and a Christian. I've endeavored to learn everything I can about the podunk Western town I live in, to the point of knowing more than most people who have lived here since birth.
DeleteMAKE where you are now HOME, TB. You've got your job. You've got your church. DIVE IN! BECOME a member of your community! This is all we can do. My family has been on the move since it left Europe, and the movement won't end with me. Like it or not, there's no end to that motion. It's ours to deal with... and savor...
Thanks Pete. Truly, dive in where you are is the only real option at this point. Which I am trying to do, although in the back of my mind I am haunted by the thing that puts us on the move again.
DeleteA tool in the hands of a skilled craftsman can do many things. A chisel can frame a door, carve a statue and in-a-pinch shave a beard. The tool goes where the craftsman tells it to go and guided by the craftsman's hands makes His will and vision manifest.
ReplyDeleteWhat you see as indecisiveness and waffling may be that you were honed, oiled and put back into they toolbox until needed for a specific purpose.
ERJ - Thanks for that lovely illustration. It makes a lot of sense. One wonders what the tool thinks as it sees itself in the box, unused. Perhaps changing from "unused" to "ready for the next task" is the point of view I need.
DeleteKnowing a bit about your personality, I think it would be more accurate to say that you are actively acquiring and mastering skills (software upgrades?) to better serve the Master Craftsman.
DeleteYou might be a catalyst whose introduction into the process is sensitive to timing or process condition. Too soon is not good. Too late is not good either. You have to be ready for the call.
ERJ - Given my Luddite tendencies, I had to laugh at the "software upgrade" metaphor. But the point is well taken, and even something that came up this morning in that I think (as much as I think God talks to me) that I was not to take on anything new, but work on the things that I currently have (which, to be fair, is a long list).
DeleteI am wondering if I have spent so much time going and doing that the idea of resting and focusing is almost a foreign concept.
Nylon and Ed bring up good points. I think of Moses, 40 years as Mr. Big Shot in Egypt, 40 years in the back side of the desert, unlearning all he learned. Then 40 years as God's under shepherd to a messy gaggle of whiners. Major changes.
ReplyDeleteWe all have our histories. And they are part of His Story. All of us who have come to Christ are living Acts 29. That is your chapter. All of our life is an Ebenezer: Hither by Thy help, I've come. So, it doesn't really matter where I am or where I want to go. Where is the Master leading? If He slows, I slow. If he stops, I stop. I want to be where He is.
STxAR - One of the best modern characterizations of Moses' story I heard was from Chuck Swindoll, who gave the modern equivalent of Moses as a CEO demoted to a janitor and then one day the mop bucket starts boiling away and says "Moses".
Delete"Unlearning". What a great idea. There has been a lot of that latel.
Pillar of cloud by day, pillar of fire by night. It is hard (for me at least, humanly speaking) to advance/stop at His command, not my own.
For me it was looking back at the original intent. There was a purpose in the beginning, but we lost it when we rejected both our responsibility to creation and the Creator. We were meant to have a relationship with the rest of creation, and that didn't go away with the Fall. We're just so surrounded by a human created world that we've lost our way.
ReplyDeleteIt is funny that you mention that, Leigh. The first full week of Rooted deals with the creation and our original purpose. Interestingly, in some ways moving to New Home 2.0 has helped with getting me back into some kind of touch with creation on a much more daily basis than New Home, or even New Home and one week a month at The Ranch.
DeleteI am wondering if the conscious decision to walk down and work in my plot at The Allotment will do the same (still at least a week out from planting, I think.