I'm going back again.

Merry Christmas to me and a few kids I love. Organizing a few ideas to work on. Hopefully I can do some good while I'm out there. I'm excited to show my family some of the country. I don't know why, but there is some elation that is missing this time. Maybe I'm just tired. I think because I'm going without a clear goal or something. Perhaps it is guilt that I have nothing to bring but my presence. Perhaps it is the dread of coming home so soon (maybe any foreseeable future is soon). I'm afraid to love them sometimes. I am weak inside. I have been lazy or something purposeless. I am prone to self pity. The feedback of self. I'm afraid the joy may not be there as I have often hoped. Those aren't the words, but they are close.

And then I need to remember the blatant selfishness of any thoughts along those lines. The joy comes from the actual work that is done. Anticipating that joy is a short circuit. My parents have been so generous to me in providing opportunities for experiences like this. I have been a shell as of late. I move slow. I guess I always have on occasion, but I'm looking up from this corner of dependency and I realize there is a mighty hand outstretched to me that I must trust and I reach to it frequently. I have seen above where it pulls me up on many occasions and see how things work or at least that they are working. It's time to hit the pavement running again. My language is grandiose in this imagery, but really it's the only way I can think to give names to the invisible processes of the spirit that we arrogantly attempt to define. I describe a darkness in me or around me and in seeking the right words, there is a reminder of the beautiful slivers of light that open to canyons of love and clarity. And then if that light can stay with me, then I can see the worth of my spirit and delicately that assessment gives me power to see others in the same light. Then I move from self preservation to service and my life has some kind of trajectory other than a shallow orbit of my bed.

I am afraid of being too selfish and stale to do anything of worth. God just let me have the energy to share myself again.