Here’s something I’ve learned so far in Seminary … it’s hard. End of story.
Just kidding. But really, it is hard. I’ve spent most of my time reading and not really doing much writing. Which is evident because I haven’t posted a blog in 2 weeks. That’s just crazy!
I would go back and talk about all the things I’ve been learning and growing in but it’s a lot so instead I’m going to talk more about something that happened today. Today I had a meeting with NPU’s Campus Pastor about getting involved with University Ministries. During our meeting we got on a few tangents and she challenged me to a sort of 30 day “fast.” And I’ve decided to take her up on it.
This fast is purely technological and relational in both execution and intention. I shared with her my struggle with feeling as though I am caught between two places. I shared this in my post on Tim’s site (relationalyouthministry.com) but more and more I think I have struggled with wanting to make connections here but finding that it is so much easier to just call home/KC/Muskegon where people know my story, know my struggles and know my passions. But I was challenged in my thinking of that today.
You see, it’s been proven that we only have space in our lives for 200 significant relationships. Significant meaning that we think about them, they think about us, we have the ability to modify them and they have the ability to modify us. Now, if you think about it, it only takes a couple of big moves until you fill up those 200 spots. So at some point, you have to either cut some people or not make new connections in new places. Right?
So if when I moved here I used 70% of my energies to really continue investing in the relationships back in various places I’ve lived then I only have 30% left to give to the people I’ve met here. The funny thing is that those relationships are so good because I jumped in at 100% in Kansas City/moving back to Denver, etc. So why doesn’t Chicago, this community deserve that same 100%?
I have sacrificed my incarnation-al relationships for my technological relationships. When something exciting happens I get on the phone/twitter/facebook to notify people in various places. When I’m struggling with something I do the same thing. Same with what I’m learning. My first instinct is to retreat back to those relationships that are already comfortable. Shouldn’t my first instinct be to invest in people who I can talk to face-to-face? I’ll answer that for you …. yes.
But it’s not about dropping my friends (like they’re hot). It’s about trusting those friendships enough that we know that in order for us to be in healthy places that we must be fully invested where we are at. It’s about being able to come back to those friendships and picking up where we left off. It’s about knowing that in order for me to be healthy, I need to learn to depend on the people I am in physical community with.
So here are the logistics. For the next 30 days I am cutting out the day-to-day communication with friends that live outside of my current zip code. This will include but is not limited to: texts, phone calls, facebook and e-mails.
Now, I will say a few things about exceptions…. prayer requests will be accepted from my friends outside this zip. Also accepted of course, would be emergencies. I will also offer any (close) friend an option of a once per week catch up session via phone call. But that’s about it.
The result, hopefully, will be the actual sharing of my true self with those around me. Whenever something happens (good/bad/indifferent) that I want to share, I will have to find someone to share it with face to face. I will have to have more incarnate relationships and invest in them.
NOTE: This will be an extreme adventure for me. I’m not saying it is going to be easy, in fact it will probably be incredibly hard. We all know how much Alicia likes her facebook …. however, this is me trying to be intentional with these people who I will be spending the next 2-3 years with.
I will be blogging (maybe) through this experience. We’ll see because let’s be honest, it’s not a lack of things to say that have kept me blog free lately. It’s the hundreds of pages of reading I have due about every two days here.
But here we go, adventure time!
adventures in living an abundant life