Uphill idealist

There are ways in the last week that I've felt re-rooted and uprooted and I suppose that is just the way life can be. A few weeks ago, I was bothered by a dream that left me upon waking with an overwhelming sense of failure. I was not feeling or sensing this emotion in my waking existence, but somewhere in my subconscious it was lurking the way this kind of feeling lurks in dark corners of the psyche only to find release in REM moments of dreamland. It was a bad dream. I don't remember much of the details, just an oppressive feeling of.. "I really messed up and it can't be fixed." For the most part, I shrugged off this seemingly random dream and went about my life. I was at the NYWC in Pittsburgh, so I had lots of things to keep me busy and occupied. I resumed the pace of life when returning home to my family and my work and planned out the remaining months of the year of youth activities and gatherings without so much as missing a beat. That is until tripping ove...

photo found at Wordpress The time of advent is one of expectation and waiting. Waiting is not something thing that our hurried-need-to-get-what-I-need-done-yesterday culture excels. The scripture readings in Isaiah 63:16-19 and 64:2-7 are filled with examples of people asking God to hurry back to help his servants or hurry and do an awesome work that is unexpected, but greatly needed. While the time that we wait expectantly on God is not easy to live through, the waiting time often provides us the opportunity to grow in faith. A few years ago I went through a particularly difficult and what seemed a long period of waiting for God to care for a need in my life. In the waiting time, there were glimmers of hope in escaping what seemed to be an impossible situation. At times, I was living from glimmer to glimmer, thinking my great escape was just around the corner. So much of that time I felt as if God was hiding his face(Isaiah 64:7) from me. One day, while driving to work I was listening...