the choice we keep making

i sat today in the sun, on my beach (3rd ave, of course), in a stripey old beach chair in a new white bathing suit, with my ipod on, cucumber water cold next to me and "the great divorce" in my hands. there was a tiny breeze. two tiny blonde kids playing in the water ahead. a warm sun just pouring down. i felt perfect, perfect, perfect. i get bored of the idea of perfection a lot of times, because i think that when theres nothing to solve, no light and dark contrasts, no challenge, no ache, its just.... bland. but today's perfection, mixed with early morning prayer with the roomies, meeting holly downtown, working a tiny bit on church stuff, going to bargain barn and buying an amazing old couch and two non matching arm chairs, and riding my bike around town doing errands in 70 degree weather, was full of flavor. it was soaked up. it was right. it was perfect in its everyday ordinary-ness.

"the great divorce" is about heaven and hell and its gnarly. i began reading it like 3 years ago, maybe, and havent finished it. its weird, its less than 200 pages and its taken forever to get through. mostly due to my ADD-book thing i have. but, the central theme so far (in 80 pages) is about heaven and hell and how when we have chosen one, all the other parts of life and death become stages of one or the other... cs says

"But what, you ask, of earth? Earth, I think, will not be found by anyone to be in the end a very distinct place. I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a region in Hell: and earth, if put second to Heaven, to have been from the beginning a part of Heaven itself."

and it got me thinking about the progression of my faith. i have this thing where i want to work so hard, and so fast and so completely on getting DONE with things (example: i have recently been in such a manic state at church with re-doing the offices and completing tasks that have to do with aesthetics, etc) that i can finally just be done, be complete, be finished. i want to work and then be done with it. no progression, no cycles, no seasons. just total work and then total rest. its annoying that i am this way.

something about the concept that we may be in the first stages of heaven here and now, should we chose it, makes me rethink myself. i am on this journey (please, i think as i type, no more journey analogies! but they are so good, though, its unavoidable) and i have tried to chose heaven as i know it and if what cs says in some way is true, then i am going to keep getting closer to the next stage of heaven (in a mysterious sense, i hope this isnt coming off like i am changing my theology) as i keep growing and changing and choosing to follow after God. and, so, in a sense, my work on earth, my growth, my change, my progress, is never done. the more i know or understand or think i know or understand God, the more awareness i have of my need for him, the more awareness i have of my need to live for his Kingdom and to be part of bringing that in some small or big way here and now.

i made a choice to follow God one summer and as i continue to live in the wake of that choice, i realize now that i needing to keep choosing it... because my understanding of the choice keeps changing. it begins to encompass more. its deepening, consuming.

i dont feel like i am being clear.

ok.

i think as i get older in my faith, i am realizing that i am continually learning about what it means to call myself a christian and live as a christian (little christ).

for the first part of my years following jesus, i thought it was choosing the right moral path... not kissing boys i wasnt dating, not getting drunk, not being selfish and self-centered, not gossiping. so i worked hard at that, learned how to tame some of those desires and bad habits... and don't you know it, i have found it relatively easy to stop those little sensual sins from creeping in too often (i am not perfect by any means and am not claiming i havent made mistakes in these areas as a christian, but the mistakes are less frequent and less intense as they were before).

so the next stage of following jesus was serving God in a church setting, reading lots of christian authors, reading my bible and trying to be a "light" to those around me. so, i volunteered at the church for 3 years, almost part time during the summers, read lots and lots of zondervan, tried to learn the bible and talked to my friends in college about jesus and my "relationship" with him. all good things, all helped in my growth, etc etc.

stage 3... mentor, community/bible study and "relationship evangelism" and then even beginning to mentor someone else.... check, check (double check, actually, as i oversee community groups for the church), half check (it could be better, cause now that i work for the church, i barely interact with people outside the church, which makes my heart sad and disconnected), and check (somehow i get to have a rad girl in my life who wants my advice on things, its weird).

ok, so i think now, this month/year/year(s?) i am coming into the next stage, sort of. on the edge of the abyss/black hole/unknown(?) i feel like, even in all the service, and learning, and relating, and growing (and again, ALLLLL these are so good and positive and important, i am not downplaying them), i am still, STILL figuring out how to give every part of me to the One above it all. to live in the inbetween, between dreams and cloudy fog and unformed mass and sorrow and brokeness and work and sad-- and then in those bits of beauty, the real reality (heaven) awaiting me- the flashes of heaven that haunt me in moments of perfection, in moments of connection, moments of "i think im in love", moments of utter rest, moments of joy and moments of eveything's right with the world.

i still don't think i am saying it.

cs famously says in the great divorce:

"If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell."

and i guess what i am saying is i want to dig around under the bed and in the back of the closet and behind the shelf and inbetween the couch cushions and give back my souvenirs.