We live in a HYPER mobile world where people can not just get somewhere fast ...i.e. the other side of the planet inside of a day, but we are hyper-mobile in that we have no roots. We're potted plants that move so often we can't get roots. Hence, we never know the depths of friendship and the strength it adds to life because we never have relationships that last. And no, Facebook intimacy is not intimacy, relationship - a faux shadow at best. I advocate for relationships that go the distance, transcend affinity or difference, share the grief and the joy in life, that share the burdens, put up with me, and advocate for me. I advocate for life lived deep - live experienced in full color, through the mundane and the peaks.
I'm visiting Portland, and enjoying it. It's beautiful. The trees are turning, the air still warm ...then cooling at sunset. The skies are bright, blue and mellow. It is a beautiful place. More though, the friendships that have weathered since we left here are rich. They matter. They are life long friendships. I miss it. I miss our life. I'm sitting in the café Susanne and I defined and enriched our friendship in so long ago.
Yet, as I sit here, now dark outside, enjoying every relationship from our life past, missing them, wishing we had more of them... I'm no longer home. It is not an insult, a value judgment, a decision against them and for another...
It is simply that I know where we're called. It has its beauty, its relationships, but when one is centered, sent, present, rooted, called, used and God Himself has knitted you to a people, to a place, it's different. New Orleans, she's a muse. She's far from perfect. Portland, similar in size, has so dang much going for it, but she's not home anylonger, not now. NOLA is... she's got her faults, oh she's got her faults. Yet, she's the muse that captivates our imagination. We're called to her, to her people, to her place, her story, her journey, her rising again, her healing, her learning to fly again. We're sent to them, to her.
When you know that without reservation, without doubt, there is no apology. You miss your loved ones in other places, but you can't apologize. You cannot not stay where you are placed.
Thank you for answering the prayer, Lord, for finding place. Who would have known?
