Fallow

Sometimes, we need fallow ground in one area of our life, while another area is in it's prime growth. Simultaneously, a seed is sown in protected dark to thrive. While, paradoxically, green shoots sprout from another area.

It's been over a year and a half since my social media life died. Like a domino affect, I experienced a tumble of die off in unexpected spheres. This blog, plus sparse texting of a few valued key souls, and once a week emails, were the irregular cerebral sharing I partook in. 

Currently, I would describe this blog as fallow. It is a cultivated place, that I have mostly allowed to be idle during a huge growing/ and die off season of my life. Soil is still magic. It has had it's growth before and is lying fallow with the potential to re seed again.

Outside of this space, I am becoming someone...surprising. 

Cerebral is of value. Cerebral will always be my first response to life, living as I do inside my head. I thank God for computers, devices, connection and cerebral ways of expression. If I would not have had that outlet, I honestly do not know what kind of regression would have taken place. It was of huge import to explore and nurture that aspect of myself in my twenties and thirties. I can be a slow adjuster to change and growth until one day I wake up and it feels so sudden. Balance in all things right? If we give to one area, another area MUST lie fallow. We make choices of what we are NOT by what we choose to DO, and each choice becomes part of what we ARE.

I think people are lucky to know me. I think I give a lot in a unique way. I also feel sorry for people who know me. I am a MESS most of the time. I say the wrong thing, I feel ugly most of the time and I have to actively overcome myself just to be present. I don't have a voice for all the complexities and awesome connections I have on most days and can come across as ditzy, but then, on spaces where I can write or have a platform suddenly I have a lot to say. Some of it can be profound. Some is ridiculous. I think it is BOTH/ AND. 

I have been wrestling with closing this space down. Many of the posts do not apply anymore, but yet they were so crucial to whom I am...and for that, I love them. Some have unexpectedly spoken in ways I could not imagine to souls I do not fully know. There is connection, beauty, love, and cultivated grace here. Thus, I am leaving this blog open, with the knowledge that it may only be a short season of fallow, or maybe I will need it desperately at regular intervals soon?

All of a sudden my thoughts and sharing have become sacred to me. It was sacred that I shared online but there is a caveat. This is an important side of verbalization I do not actually give to many in my life.. When used for a bridge of understanding- it has mattered. But I no longer feel I, personally, need to be understood...yet, I also want to GIVE all the understanding I can, in places that I need to be in. Also, there is a level of offline, in person sharing, that can not happen from a computer screen. The screen of any device is introverted, which I love, but lacks the sensory sharing... and begets both control and a lack of control that is both less messy and infinitely more tricky than life off line. 

At first, I did not know what to do with myself. Connections grew into pockets. Pockets became containers, and containers grew into cozy tree homes. There is SO MUCH BEAUTY out there. But it takes work to find. It takes sacrifice. It takes confidence. It takes faith. It takes bravery. It takes both grace and boundaries. Focusing on one over the other, begets loss. It takes ignoring the news and critics, and BEING...which sounds easy in theory, but is a daily grind of choice. It is the choice to engage in what is immediately in my path. My husband, my children, my home ministry of protection and connection, my seasonal connections, my community etc. I finally have realized that I am just ME. I am complexity and simplicity. I can be a speedy voice of loudness and hyperactivity in a group setting (followed by copious regrets) and talk a mile a minute sometimes, while at others I stay in comfortable silence and need days of alone time to process. I do not have to choose between the two to be authentic. I do not have to force myself into expected boxes of being (I mostly have done this to myself by the way.) 

I have not heard it often said...so I am going to say it here...FREEDOM??? Freedom has to come from within but spread outside the margin of self. Freedom can not just be of the mind, or of the soul, or of the body, or of the emotions. And if one is taking up 70 percent of life as the sole focus? If one person is ONLY focusing on spirituality and denying the body, usually they become fundamentalist or another pathway of extremism. If one is only focusing on the body at the cost of the soul, they will become empty shelled epicureans, always looking for the next sensual hit. If one is giving all their energy to the cerebral (their screens of the mind, assuming full connection but forgetting the connection outside of that device) nihilism and anxiety are natural outcomes. If one is only focused on emotional well being, they can forget the balance of the rational and become chaos. With only the rational, order reigns. Freedom is actually an incorporation of seasons of fallow and growth. It's a constant influx and a flexible model of incorporation, collaboration and change. I like to think of it as the Trinity. That is what freedom optimally is. 

I have a lot of thoughts, but whom am I really to share them? The answer is no one and everyone. I am important. But I am no more important than you are. I am redeemed so my strivings cease ( or in theory they should) but I am flawed and human, so there will always be a grappling. Freedom is found in Viktor Frankl's Man Search for Meaning. Freedom is found in Spirit but that freedom? It looks different from person to person. The answer is subjective and also concrete. 

I do not want to be known for what I am not, or what I do not stand for, or what ideals I support or advocate for. I just want to BE. I want to wake up everyday, and face each challenge whilst accepting the small beauties and victories. If I hear music, I want to pay attention...perhaps share with someone I love or who I know needs or appreciates it too. I want to be present over perfect. I want to seek first. But I also want to rest well. Most of all, I just want to love Spirit and try to love others. I want to allow the fallow and celebrate growth but not strive for or allow either to encompass my full theme of life. I need BOTH/AND. 

Back to life...

xo

Thanks Amy for the song choice: Back to Life- Rascal Flatts

Nobody- Casting Crowns