So this cordial of corrective wisdom has induced a great many lapses into contemplation and consideration, but so very rarely am I able to stay here, and allow for the truth to penetrate my most stubborn regions of understanding. As I walked and picked flowers the other day, I thought of my "door" into the world I believe to exist, and the strange diversions I take as I doubtfully approach that other reality.

I just dozed some, and in my half sleep I slipped into a most delightful reverie. I thought on one of my favorite souls, and our first mingling together. The little pumpkin was nine when we were entwined, and in the ensuing months, I saw the life flight of a child's soul believed in, loved on, and lifted up, and out of our little, brittle world. We were driving home one night when she unrolled the window, smiled mischievously in my direction, and yelled to all the passerbys. Her liberty startled her mind, and with a blushing shame, she waved at those whose attention she caught. I laughed, smiled deeply, and wondered how much love my heart could bear without bursting. She grabbed my hand as we rolled down the canyon, and I thought much of childhood as I watched this little person grow. Straddling the desire to be older, and the wonder she was able to embrace and enjoy as a child, it seemed she viewed me with a confusion that beckoned an answer. She saw how I too could feel the ticklish tremors of life lived here, and how I could also be 26. I had no answer, and we just stared and smiled, while a chord as thick as taffy tightened around us. Our lives parted some time ago and few words have given voice to the sweetness experienced over that year. When I saw her last November, her little fingers hesitantly reached out across a nearly two-year silence, and clasped what might well have been my entire being.

These snippets are not unrelated -- at least in my mind -- and I hope they might be brought to you all somehow. Let's braid these three together: we have the short story, the call in Thessalonians to a simple life, and the precious, childlike love with my little friend.

Various offshoots of these themes have plagued me this year as I perceive subtle contradictions to abound regarding the country behind that "door" to the other world. The gospel I know speaks of the least being the greatest, and the first -- last, but as I've lived more, I've come to love less. I've no accolades to list about my life, and while Scripture condemns this, Christian culture seems promote it, and so I flounder. I've been making choices for my life according to what seemed most "noble" for this cause of Christ, and while I love and adore all people of this world, I know not where or why I'm proceeding as I have. I've been pressed and pushed, and ashamed to delight so deeply in pie-baking, hammocks, seeds, and simplicity. I've sought to seek the "greater" things, and with this I've adopted a shame and condemnation I simply cannot shake. My ambition's are not as all the other folks at my school, and just this week I accepted this.

I drank 1 Thes. 4:11's powerful tonic, and with an abandon I've missed, I plucked all the little wildflowers from about the roadside and skipped in my soul. Scripture says that I am to make it my ambition lead a quiet life and to work with my own hands... I can do this, for I was created for it. I am to live simply as I was designed, and as we are further implored throughout the whole of Scripture, I am to LOVE others. Greatness often follows a love of goodness, and so instead of seeking greatness, I will take again to delighting in Him who is goodness complete.

As for my little friend, it goes like this: our little isolated encounters speak to me of my true country, and the exchanges present there. They speak of a freedom and controlled wrecklessness to love uncovered, and with the hesitancy present here to cover and hide from the other. There is a smiling exposure and delight, and a mingling of souls present seldom in our lives and homes.

These three profundities (they are such to me) have convinced me of the essence of the life I am called to live. I have been wooed and lulled into a love relationship with a living God, wherein the treasures of heaven have been offered to my feeble heart through His word, and communicated [delightfully] daily through His Creation and people. Because of this love, I am compelled to love as well, and with an abandon present as my heart is forever held and protected in Jesus. This love drives me to the things He has given me to love, and because of His love for me, and my love for Him, the vaccuum that is a life without Him, is filled, and unknowable joy is given to do the simple tasks of this earth with -- and for, others. I may stay in Columbia, SC, rock on to Niger --or return to PA, but if I am delighting in my God, I am quite positive that He will bring all the good works out of my life without my even considering them! Hallelujah -- I am free.