Rejection from God

Today during Bible Study it was said by a friend that she often mirrors her feelings about relationships here on her relationship with God.

Meaning that if I fear rejection from my relationships here, I fear rejection from God.

So when I wonder why I don’t spend time with Him, could it be that I am afraid He won’t say anything back? Am I afraid of finding out that I have been rejected?

Connections

We forget so easily that we are all connected. When I was driving out with Eric to Colorado for this internship we were traveling alongside the Lewis and Clark expedition trail, a road traversed by Lewis and Clark (ha) and also so many other people in the history of our country. In the history of the world. We walk the same ground now as the Native Americans who lived here way before us and the pioneers to ventured out into the unknown and so many people with so many stories and so many pasts and futures. It took Eric and I 21 hours to drive from Columbus to Colorado Springs. In a car. Can you imagine that trip 100 years ago? People died and were born and lived the whole of their existence on the land that we still walk on.
In that same fashion, how do we forget that the land that we are on right now is the same land that is being fought on in Israel or that is being stolen from women in the DRC or that is welcoming the sun in the Himalayas? When we talk about all being on “one Earth” it’s so easy to forget that means we are all touching each other. It’s the same land. We are connected to everyone in this world by the same land.
I think we forget this, this connectedness and intimacy, because of how often we cut up the Earth. To get to a place quickly, we fly. This creates two separate universes, the one before the plane and the one after. Instead of seeing the gradual changes of our one planet over long journey (therefore reminded us of our connection), we see two drastic places that bear no resemblance to each other. No wonder moving to a new place proves to be so isolating. No wonder we feel so apart. We don’t let ourselves see that we are together.
Overall, we are connected vertically, through the existence of so many lives in the past and so many lives that are coming in the future on whatever square foot of land you may choose to examine. We are connected horizontally by the two touch points-my feet to the ground then the ground then the feet of any other person in this entire world. We are all connected. And God means for us to be family.
So the one constant here is the land, the Earth; this place. While we may not see the people before us or the people on the other side of the world, it does. It will. And I think, as my friend Ela told me the other day, when you spend a lot of time with the land, you start to feel that heartbeat. The heartbeat of all of the life it has experienced and will continue to do so. When God spoke the world into existence, it was the same word that spoke Adam and Eve. As much as God places Himself in us, He placed Himself in this place.
I’m mad at myself that I’ve missed this. The heartbeat. By being too busy and distracted. Maybe this is what God means when He asks us to “Be still and know that I am God.” Maybe when I am finally still I will be able to hear, to feel that heartbeat. Because it’s there. It’s beautiful and it’s there.
The heartbeat of life. We’re all connected.

Are you a betting man? (woman)

I’d like to share a couple more thoughts:

a. Do you ever feel like you just cannot get on the same wavelength with someone? Like no matter what you do, when they joke you think they’re serious, or when you give them a hard time they don’t respond the right way? It’s so frustrating. I think the reason this happens is because when you first meet someone you judge them right away and place them in a category. Most of the time this is subconscious, and unfortunately decides the filter through with you dissect everything that person says. If you place someone in the wrong category initially, it is really hard to take them out of it and put them in a new one. And until then you are both stuck misunderstanding each other. So, I suppose the lesson learned is to try as hard as possible to refrain from putting a new friend in a category when you first meet. As this is often subconscious, however, the next tip is to try as hard as possible to be very observant to make sure that they are placed in the right category.

This will avoid a lot of awkward conversations.

b. Secondly, a comment about friends. I was speaking with another Compassion intern Sage the other night, and we both were talking about how unfortunate it is that everyone has layers, like an onion, as Shrek says. I wish we lived in a world where each person I met was exactly what I got, so that I could predict easily who I should let in and who I should slam the door to. That way I would never make friends with someone, thinking that they were delicious and ripe, and then realize a couple of layers in that they are rotten. Or vice versa, how many incredible people do we miss because we are quick to judge someone as rotten? Ideally, the two should line up–the person on the outside with the depth of a person on the inside, but people are too complicated for that.

So then again, friendship becomes a betting game, as is life. We hope for the best when we begin a new friendship. Often they might be real gross inside, like a mushy apple, but often the inside will taste just as sweet as the outside appears to be. Those friends are the ones you hold on to.

from a phone conversation…