walkabout

Today I spent walking around Pitesti looking for reasons to love it, trying to step into the decision of it and the will of my Father when lately I've felt nothing but hostility toward this city. I got back from Rasnov a few days and it is a hard transition, one felt squarely in the middle of two weeks gone, the pivot point where one student group leaves and the next one arrives. Such different groups, so entirely different.

So today, a day that looked and felt like Spring, after seeing a street I'd never noticed before, I decided on a whim to climb the hill behind my apartment, the same one the sun sets behind. From there looking backward you can see across the whole city to the hills in the east that grow into mountains farther north. I found a quiet road in Razboieni, behind the stadium, climbed some concrete structure and stood for a moment there, wondering. On the way back down there was a man fly-fishing in the snow in his backyard. A truck splashed me driving by. It's filthy here these days with all the melting snow and mud, but this isn't the problem. And while turning to see across the whole of Pitesti, the surprise of it, was like drinking deeply, there is little answer here.

I know what the problem is, only I'm not sure best how to approach it. It helped today to walk and pray. How do I put this in the hands of my Father? A few things come to mind: I am to serve others as I would serve my God. This is important. And I came here because an expressed need--it's a little more complicated than that, but this is irrelevant if only because I believe God knows a whole lot better than I do about a whole lot more than I do, meaning I'm here because he brought me here and it is enough to trust him.

But I am so frustrated here. It's easy to write about getting away to the mountains whenever I can, but these are only pretenses. That isn't exactly true: I love the mountain and I think it helps me to look at/be in creation/nature, but while it is usually refreshing, this time when I left--before, even, right around the time of that transition--it was holding on tight to what had not been enough (to be fair, I was working the whole time). I even decided on a whim, after talking to my old roommate, to go to Bucuresti for a day. It's like having a scarf wound too tightly around your throat, pulling at it. It's stifling.

I am reminded that only in God is there fulfillment and contentment. I want to run to him, to drink deeply his mercy, his grace, his rest. "With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation!" From Isaiah, chapter twelve, verse three. I'm not sure what to do with all these frustrations. The answer here is to put them before him, I know this, but I'm having trouble doing it, and meanwhile there is no rest. And yet:

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon me and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest in your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30)

Especially that part about learning from him, being gentle and humble in heart. Father, help me.