A new season

I'm not a huge TV person, but I do know one way that writers can get unstuck is to write some kind of time paradox/freeze/travel between seasons so that they don't have to attempt to fill in all the information of the new situation, but the important parts get discovered as the season goes on.

That's how I feel at the moment.

It would be nearly impossible to try and create an update for where I am versus where I was the last time I made a public post here. There are many writings that will never see the light of day, so to speak, but I'm back in a healthier place mentally, emotionally, and spiritually to where the desire to write is no longer out of necessity or survival, but out of a place of this weird one-way conversation that I have done for most of my life.  The things that have gone on since last September that are necessary will show up when they are relevant.  And so in this brief window between files, and knowing that the hardest part of getting the water flowing is those first few priming pumps, here is what I am currently thinking about.  

Community and isolation.  

Both are important and necessary (even Jesus pulled away from the crowds to get alone time with the Father), and, like most things in life, cause us to struggle in finding the balance, in part because of our own personal bent towards one or the other.  But I think it goes deeper than just the concept of introvert or extrovert; it's a slippery slope of staking one's identity in either of those places, where one might submerge themselves into a community in order to avoid the inner turmoil, or where one avoids the crowd so that they will never have to deal with someone calling out their issues.  Community can provide accountability, and introspection can provide clarity.  But they can also be a gateway to detaching oneself from the struggles of life. Both who we talk to and how we talk to ourselves have great power, whether for building up or for tearing down.

And so I say all of that because I've had to have this season of isolation in order to work through some things.  Working from home, being on a computer most of the day, was never a part of my plan, but it's been a necessary, healing environment, and just one more notch on the timeline where I can point and say, "not my will, but God's will."

And so now, while I'm at this crossroads again, it's crazy to see the last public post here because I know the person who was inside there and desperately trying to get out of the darkness, and I know that he's gotten out of that darkness by the grace of God, the love and connection of community, and the awareness of self from much reflection.  Not that things are perfect or that I am perfect, but I can say that the practicing has paid off.

So, a tentpole for the next stretch of this journey of life.