This week has been challenging. I love this city and its people and the life that seems to pulse through it, I love my classes and my professors and my adorable apartment. I love the chance that I am having to do this on my own. I love that I am blessed enough to have this experience.
But things are hard. I find myself unemployed and mainly suffering from an insane case of boredom. I haven't not had a job since I was fifteen. I have never only had classes one day a week. And I've never been in a situation where I don't have at least thirty people to call to protect myself from loneliness. Most importantly I have never felt lost in the way I feel now.
I have a friend and she's wonderful and loud and American and feels like a little piece of home sometimes. We're different--very different I think--which is always wonderful--but I think I've been trying to blend with her because to have a friend seems so very special. She is Mormon, not that it matters in any way to me, and is so incredibly passionate about her faith that I find it very awe inspiring. She loves God with a fierceness that pushes her to share her faith and I find that fantastic.
But I am different. I am not Mormon, or Protestant , or Catholic, or anything. I don't even like to identify myself with the term Christian. I believe in God and the Messiah and I believe in the love that God and the Messiah put in us and show to us. But I believe that that doesn't negate the faith of another. I believe that Muslims or Jews or Atheists or anyone else is equally as justified in their own system of beliefs. I believe that most importantly God is love and where there is love there can be no evil. I struggle with organized faith and interpretations and rules and regulations. I struggle with governing bodies that determine belief systems. I question God and his teachings with every breath I take and I think that's okay. I think that to question God is to seek to know him better and I think that to not question God is to live blindly. I believe that evil has the chance to be everywhere other than in love but that doesn't mean its always there. I believe that people should be free to do what makes them happy and fulfilled as long as it doesn't harm themselves or another. And I believe above all else that there is absolutely nothing wrong with being lost.
I am completely and utterly lost in my soul right now and I think it's a completely beautiful thing. I am not a stagnant object therefore I am constantly changing and constantly needing to re-introduce myself to myself. I think this feeling of lost is overwhelming but empowering because it means that I am learning and growing.
I am known as a person that's opinion is always known. In fact I recently fell out with the one of the closest friends I have had in years because of this. But in this situation with my London friend, I feel that I have failed at this to a certain extent. Loneliness crept in silently, like it always does, and I found myself understanding her full beliefs without divulging all of mine. Because they are somewhat unorthodox in the religious sector. Because I don't believe everything in the Bible as fact or take it all at face value. Because I don't believe that I am the one right just like I don't believe that anyone can be wrong with a faith based in love, a faith based in God, that doesn't get muddled down by the doctrines and the interpretations and the politics. I let my loneliness limit my self expression and I am slightly ashamed of myself for it.
So I am writing this honest, raw blog, as an apology to not only my new friend, but to all my friends and to myself. I am lost but I am learning and I think its a beautiful thing. And I am grateful to have met such a wonderful person here that was able to show me this momentary flaw in myself.
No comments:
Post a Comment