Human Flight

There is a trail by my house that I like to escape to for a good long run as often as I can. It is so close to the strange Baltimore suburbs, and yet covered by a canopy of trees and a path in the sky of bright blue, that makes you feel like there is no way a main road is less than a mile away. This place is for me an unwavering sanctuary. Small overlooks towards the water, a tiny bridge overhead just passed the 2 mile marker. Covered with ice in the winter, mud in the spring, dust in the summer and well... I'm rarely there in the fall, it is always a sweet escape, relentlessly offering a time sequestered away.

Yesterday, I was running and at one point picked up my pace and let my feet come higher off of the ground. For just a second I had the feeling that you get when you are in a dream, and you realize you are in the dream, so you run really fast and then try and take off into flight. I chuckled at how identical the feeling was. Embarrassingly, I ran faster again trying to get that feeling back. I thought to myself "Jessy- run as if you could really fly, like your dreaming" and .....Thank HEAVEN no one was around because I may have looked like sonic the hedge hog (oh, don't pretend like you don't remember sega genesis!) as I tried to run to "lift off" speed.

Suddenly it occurred to me. I was running way better and faster when I thought that maybe I could fly (or at least pretended to think that). My run was better because I had a hope for something higher. It's silly of course to think I would have truly lifted off the ground...but fighting for it, made me run differently. Suddenly I thought of all of the heroes of the faith. They lived like they believed that God would do what He said they would do, and they lived better lives because of it. The crazy part is that they died before He did. He did indeed fulfill His promise. But what if they had lived their life as if He wouldn't. Because, in their human perspective, in the span of their consciousness, He didn't keep His word... But He did keep is word. So they lived according to truth, and because they kept their eyes on this they lived a life more pleasing to God, and a life more in line with the truth than if they had done anything different.
Thinking I am going to be able to fly for no reason, is not the most substantial belief to live by. However, not all the things we can believe in are that ridiculous, and they are literally spelled out in the Bible. Like healing, salvation, Heaven...

If I run like flight is possible, I run better, faster, more efficiently. Maybe if I lived like healing was possible I would be more joyful in the meantime. Maybe if I lived like my dreams and ideas were possible, I would work harder at what I have been given now. Salvation and joy for those I love. And Heaven... what of that reality?! Maybe if I lived like _______ was possible, and that God actually kept His promises (which is, in fact, the truth) maybe I would just live differently...

All the heroes of the faith
lived like God would do what He said
They died before He did
They died before He did

All the heroes of the faith
lived like
He kept His promises
He kept His promises

Maybe if I
ran like I could
Fly
I'd run faster
Maybe if I
ran like I could
fly

B'LIEVE HON: the disillusionment and joy of moving back.

          Last week, taking care of some errands towards the city, it became apparent that I have officially moved. "B'LIEVE" and "HON", and "B'LIEVE HON" stickers plastered the back of most of the SUV's in sight, while the little Honda's carried "Coexist" as their mantra instead. I laughed. Getting out of the car at whole foods I was temped to keep a tally of the "Life is good" apparel bearing the representation of every available pass-time and hobby in teeshirts, hats, stickers and dog-kerchiefs. Where am I? I thought. It's all so familiar and somehow I feel like I don't belong here. I walked into the Starbucks nearby, and ordered my unsweetened ice coffee, left a tip, smiled a thank you, added some cream and headed out the door. The heat surrounded and encouraged the heart that wondered in all of the A/C if it was still in fact summer. It is indeed.
           I have always like Mount Washington. It is self-decsribed as an "enclave of beauty, art, fashion and fine dining", and it has always given me a "one day" sort of feeling. It is small and artistic and well stocked with organic foods and local produce. Slightly above my economical status it always seemed to promise to hold a place in my future, when I would be all grown up and be able to afford a house. Now I've seen many other places and the "one day" feeling can be found in multiple locations. But this, this was the original one day (aside from New England of course). Here I found myself in the middle of it, feeling quite out of place. 
            


Despite my internal revolution, I knew Baltimore would have to be home for more than a couple of weeks, and I needed money. The job search was on my mind constantly up-front and center (and still is, to be honest). 
            I got into my pre-heated oven of a car and proceeded to leave the parking lot. My heart kind of halted a bit as I drove passed the Amazing Glaze (a local paint-your-own-pottery studio), maybe I could get a job there, I circled around, no -it wouldn't pay enough, I circled around again. I doubted the necessity of the unnerving feeling of walking into a cute little place and asking the college-y feeling question in my cute girly voice: "Um- excuse me, are you hiring?" being sure to have a rise in inflection at the end to seem unintimidating and reliable; I just didn't want to do it. I circled yet again. Before I knew it I was walking in, and I ran right into the manager who was hiring indeed. I left the whole cute-high-pitch college-y thing out of it and I probably just sounded like Jessy. The manager had put an ad on craigslist two weeks before and was conducting her interviews TODAY! 



            Did I have a minute to grab a seat, fill out an application and answer some questions? Of course I did. Everything she needed I had experience in, and a love for. Art, kilns, commissioned work, kids etc. I looked around, it seemed every one working was a girl my age who loved art, and was smiling. Long story short I have an offer for a part time job there and it's in the works as I get other commitments sorted out and try and find another job to balance it out.


              God knows the plans He has for me, plans to prosper me and not to harm me, plans to give me HOPE. Plans to keep me alive (maybe even alive abundantly!) and for now, that is the plan, all else is extra and added benefit. There are many other details to be sorted out financially, and especially health wise (prayers appreciated - diagnoses and progress has been made). But I must hold to the fact that He is in control, He is the God who sees me... He is the God sitting with me at Caribou, smiling from across the table. He is the Love that wont let go of my soul... Perhaps He is the one who led me into the pottery place as well- after all He knows me that well. 


            You find me today with clenched fists slowly releasing. A stubborn obstinate will to make sure I settle anywhere but here...steadily relenting and facing my fixed perceptions and fears. I'm back home, in a place that isn't really home anymore. I don't even know what I want, but being stubborn will just make however long God has me here more miserable. So... I'm letting go bit by bit. How did I manage to find myself here where "life is good" and people "b'lieve" ...hon? Writing this is just making me smile and laugh at myself. I need to just give in. I might not be here forever and being back is a blessing in many ways. Really and truly. I may even get to work around pottery again, a common theme in my life. 


 Seeking Him, and b'lieving His word. 




Planted by water,

Jessy