A New Chapter, A New Blog

Im not sure if anyone reads this thing anymore, but I figured I would throw this up here.

I am back in China after a month at home visiting family and friends. And by the looks of it, I will be in China got quite awhile! So I decided to start a new blog and say goodbye to this one. Here is the link:

http://dearsarahjane.blogspot.com

Check out this website for more on what I will be doing in China - www.chinahomefoundation.org

Thanks to all who have read this blog and who have supported me on this crazy journey. It it as much yours as mine.

Back In Black

When I was younger I was in a metal band called Falling Cycle. Now when people ask me about it I always say "crazy" metal band for some reason.

As we grew and grew and wrote more music one song always remained the crowd pleaser and set closer. It was called Heart Turns Black. The lyrics went like this:

I watched your heart turn black
and the pieces of your life are on the ground
Your withered sun
will not come up tomorrow
The beauty of your life is cracking
and every word you say is another spike in his hand
You will never know how much you mean to Him

I wrote those lyrics when I was 19, I think. And if I am honest I have no idea who or what they were about. I probably just wrote them because they sounded cool at the time and then attached a meaning to them so they were no longer empty words.

Now, at 25, I find that those words mean much more than what they did when I wrote them. Its as if they were meant to be a letter post-dated and sent to me now.

I cant feel anything. Its as if my heart has literally turned black. Its not that I dont want to feel, I just cant. Im not miserable but I would rather be miserable and feel it than completely desensitized. Babies die and I cant mourn the loss. I cant even work up a tear in my eye. Its makes me "feel" as if I am just a body without a heart that continues to function. And I am just sitting by watching it, wishing I could pick up the pieces.

The lyrics say, "The beauty of your life is cracking."

A much smarter Ernest Hemingway said, "The world breaks everyone and afterward many are stronger at the broken places."

I assume/hope that is what God is doing right now. Breaking me. And really I asked for it. I need it. Its just hard to sit back, seemingly complacent, with a "black heart" waiting and praying for something to change.

If I have learned anything on this journey it is that God is faithful and uses every situation for something. It would be be igonrant for me to believe anything other than that now.

Sabbatical

Recently, I was thinking about not writing on this anymore.

I had/have a very strong conviction that our current culture promotes a very "I" life style, as if our lives are a Broadway show to be played out in front of an audience. I know for many people this is not the case, but I have constantly fell into this. And when that happens I lose something sacred about myself, about being alive.

This blog has become that to me. It has become a show, something for people to look at and clap at, to disagree with, to applaud, to compliment.

I have made a promise to myself that when I realize I am putting my life on show, I will immediately get off the stage, or more accurately, close the curtains. I know there are probably only 5 people who read this thing, but I guess thats besides the point. A promise is a promise.

So instead of ending this blog, I am just going to take a break. A summer vacation. I think they call it a sabbatical.

See you in September.

Back in Red(with yellow stars)

I have successfully made it back to China.

A few months ago when I tried to get a visa in Delhi, I was told that all the Chinese embassys were only giving out 1 month tourist visas until after the Olympics. This definitely stood in the way of my plan, considering I was hoping to stay until December.

After a lot of thought, prayer, ranting to Russ, and stretching my patience to its limit, I decided to send my passport back to Texas to an agency who said they could "probably" process a 1 year visa. So I Fedexed it from Kathmandu.

And waited.

And then waited some more.

Waiting sucks. There's no more elegant way to put it.

So I waited. I ate..a lot. Read a few books. Worried. Listened to music. Worried some more. Used the internet. Broke down. Prepared my heart for the worst. And kept waiting.

God must have a sense of humor because we are in situations where we have to wait for something our entire life. I heard someone say once that when we pray it doesn't change God, it changes us. I think that might be part of waiting. We can pray and pray to God that God gives us what we want, what we are waiting for, and when we get it our hearts are thankful but not changed. But when we begin to pray and ask God to do as God pleases with the situation, and ask God to prepare out hearts for whatever the outcome, whether or not we get what we are waiting for, we are changed by it.

I know that God used this situation to change my heart.

And in the end, like I said, I am back in China. I received a 1 year multiple entry visa which is unheard of right now. And I am thankful for it. I am thankful that God is faithful, not to what I want or think I need, but to what God knows I need.

Hot News and Cold Coffee

I read a book back when I was in China by the Dalai Lama. I don't remember the exact quote but in a response to a question about anger, he said something along the lines that anger is almost always a destructive thing unless it leads to a sense of urgency and action.

That said...

I decided a few months ago that I was going to make a conscious effort to stay up to date on what was going on in the world. It seemed logical considering I have been traveling around it for the last year. Up until recently, I just wasn't interested. I had no idea about anything besides what I picked up from random conversations. Other than the elections back at home, I was basically oblivious to what was going on in the world that I had been living in. I'm embarrassed to say it but its true.

So with this change of heart, I set out to take in as much as a could. I bought every weekly magazines and daily newspaper I could. Then I would sit down over a cup of coffee and read. Id finish a cup, make another one, and read some more. It was almost romantic. Hot news and cold coffee.

I was hoping to just read objectively and just take in what I was reading without a bias. I hadn't set out to form an opinion but after a few weeks I was beginning to have an opinion on everything. Things I didn't even know were going on the week before, I had something to say about it. And to be honest, I didn't like it. I liked knowing what was going on in the world, but I didn't like having an opinion.

Here's why:

I think that opinions can be applied to the statement the Dalai Lama made about anger - opinions are almost always a destructive thing unless they lead to a sense of urgency and action.

I don't say that as an excuse to be oblivious about what is going on in the world, or to any other thing or subject you can take an opinion. The only other thing worse than a stagnant opinion is oblivion.

But what good does having an opinion on anything do unless it leads to some type of action? Having a well rounded opinion on something can be extremely dangerous because it can provide the illusion that we are connected to the subject of our opinion without doing anything about it.

Take for example politics. I have sat at many a conversations where people can argue about their politcal opinion all night until the sun comes up. But when the sun comes up, they dont do anything about it. Their opinion never takes an action. All it is is a tool to manipulate and dominate a conversation.

Or maybe religion, dare I say Christianity? Every Christian has an opinion on what it is to live as a Christ follower. And many can have in-depth conversations about theology and their opinion on a certain interpretation of this or that verse. But rarely do our opinions ever turn to action. The message of Christianity is simple. If Christians actually lived based of their opinions and conviction, the world would be a much different place.

I don't write this from a high and mighty platform. I am writing it because I am guilty of it. If I lived based on my opinions of things, my life would be radically different. I would be doing more with what I have been given. But its hard.

Its easy to have an opinion, but the challenge is actually to let your opinion change who you are and how you act. If having an opinion on something doesn't actually lead to action, I would question our motive for having an opinion in the first place.

(this is long and probably doesn't make much sense, back to the news and coffee)

Brick by Brick

This probably won't make much sense, but lately I have had the overwhelming feeling of feeling nothing. Which I guess is a contradiction, so maybe I should say the "experience" of feeling nothing.

Nothing at all.

When I was younger I had several very dark battles against depression. A wave of depression, an unexplainable darkness, would decend over my life like rain clouds do on a stormy day. Not for any particular reason. Just some type of chemical reaction the doctor said, not triggered by any specific event.

And just like that everything would change. All the things that worried me before the depression arrived disappeared the instant those dark clouds arrived.

What do they think of me? What should I wear on friday night? Does she like me? What should I do when I graduate? How much money will I make? Does he know what I said about him?

None of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was making it through the day. Because the feeling that came over me during those times was so heavy that it was impossible to look past it. It was very present, very dark, and very unforgiving.

But it was real. Very, very real. The tears I cried were real. The pain I felt was real. I could not hide from it.

I hope this doesnt sound twisted, but sometimes I find myself missing those days. Those dark days when the only thing I could do was feel. Those day were painful, but so honest. So real.

I would never wish that type of stuggle and pain on anyone, but now I find that I can very easily hind away my frustration and pains. And instead of feeling them and breaking down, I just let them bounce off my shoulder and continue on my merry way. And instead of being honest with my heart I convince it that everything is fine.

How could I come so far from that? I always told myself after those episodes ended that I would always allow my heart to feel what it was experiencing, good or bad, pain of happiness. But it seems that some how, over time, I have let go of that.

I cant remember the last time I broke down.

I have been asking God to break down the walls I have built around my heart. To let me feel again. Sometimes I wish God drove a bulldozer and would just knock down the walls with one great hit. But thats not usually how God works. I have a feeling that I am going to have to disassemble the walls I built, brick by brick. And with each brick I take off there will be that much less between what my heart experiences and what my heart feels.

Whether that be dark clouds or sunny skys, I am not so much concerned.

Its Been Awhile

Lately for some reason, I have felt as if I have lost my imagination. As if I can only think about moment to moment tasks and go through the motions of existing.

I dont know the exact reason, but I think it has alot to do with who I am being stetched to the limits: My patience. My frustration. My endurance. My relationship with God.

Its hard to let your mind go when you are using all you have to make it through the day or moment. Its as if I have nothing left in me to give to my imagination right now. I feel tapped out in a way.

This has been sitting very heavy with me for a few days. But now that I sit and write it down and think about it a bit, I realize its not such a terrible thing. Sometimes life requires us to use all we have to get through the day or situation or moment. And thats ok.

My entire life I have had this feeling that if I wasnt "producing" something I was wasting my time. Producing thoughts, ideas, relationships, income, and so on and so on. But I see now that though this way of thought can be a very useful tool it also can be very damaging.

It has an agenda. Instead of walking into a situation openly this way of thought is saying, "What can I get come this? What can I take away from it? There's something to gain here, something to learn, what is it?" And I do believe that every situation and moment in my life holds some sort of wisdom, small or big, that I can take from it. But when I enter a situation looking for this wisdom, sometimes I walk right past it and just find what I think I should learn instead of what I need to learn. I look past the situation at how I can use what I learn in the future instead of just living in it.

And I see now that maybe knowing I can make it through situations that stretch me to my limits is a wisdom in itself. Knowing I can endure. I have to tell myself over and over that its okay to have times when I am just existing. When I am just making it through the day. That is what makes me human.

And thats okay.