Living the Questions

classes started this week. on top of a job and spending time with people, there's now a ton of work to do, which is exciting :) i've been in new orleans for 4 weeks as of friday. coming into seminary, i think i was woefully unprepared for what i would be doing and getting into. i expected to have an amazing experience, to make wonderful friends, to learn a lot and to simply enjoy being here. i knew it would be difficult sometimes, because life always is, but i didn't really think that it would be a lot of trouble. i didn't expect to have the struggles i've had. i didn't expect for it to be this hard, only 4 weeks in. i didn't expect to have to buy a new computer. or to feel like i had no friends. or to feel like i was so out of place. or to get a job at a place i'm not particularly excited about, and within a few days start hoping that i could find something else. i didn't expect any of that. they said at orientation that if you don't have a bre...

not a big one, and one that had been forgotten by me until the answer presented itself...at least, what i'm assuming to be the answer... i drive past city park everyday on the way to work. it is absolutely beautiful, so i have been wanting to spend some time there (we all know how much i love the park). i got back from buying some groceries, and i decided to go today and explore city park a little, since i had the time. i looked up the park online to make sure i knew a bit about the layout of the park and to see what all city park had to offer, when i saw the description of storyland .  and all of a sudden, i remembered something i hadn't thought about in a really long time. when i was little, we lived in the middle of nowhere. the road was dirt and we were surrounded by woods and a few other houses. we walked down our road to pick blackberries, and the creek was behind our house (granted, my sister and i weren't the play in the woods types, so we didn't venture back...

i beg you...to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a foreign language. don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. and the point is, to live everything. live the questions now. perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.... rainer maria rilke

i posted just a couple days ago, but this time i'm including a few pictures! the new state i'm living in.... my new living space...  a picture wall/closet...   i got a library card yesterday! it rained a lot the other day... and on a side note, i've been to the grocery store twice and each time the sky has decided to open in a big way...both times i was caught without an umbrella...and i've now decided i should probably just keep a spare in my car... while i was in said grocery store, i had to ask for help finding honey, and the guy stocking the cans told me where it was. when i said thank you, he said, "no problem. i always like helping the pretty girls." that may be the nicest thing someone has said to me since i've been here. which, admittedly has only been a week as of yesterday. and it's not like people are walking around being rude, it was just nice.... today i went to the satchmo summerfest, which is just a jazz fest to celebrate louis...

that's right. i now live in new orleans. to go to seminary. to study for full-time ministry. i can't believe i just wrote those sentences. when we first got here, all i could think was surreal. surely i'm not actually doing this. surely this is wrong. i'm living here? to learn and do ministry? God, are you sure? this was not in the plan. my plan never including having 6 different jobs since graduating from college or moving to baltimore, back to atlanta, and then to new orleans. my plan never included thinking about leaving teaching for a completely different career. my plan also never included being single at 26 (or when i graduated college for that matter). other people said to me, "you'll end up doing _________" (like my sister, who randomly told me once while we were in high school i was going to be a missionary to peru), but i never listened. i guess part of it was fear -- i don't know that life! that's scary, to be far from home and engage...