God's Presence

At church we've just begun a series about our relationship with God. Alongside services we're doing small groups and reading "Can You Hear Me". This first week began with a meditation on Psalm 139 and Jeremiah 23:23-24. We were to contemplate what it meant to experience the presence of God, to be aware of God's presence and how you know.

1-6 God, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand.

I'm an open book to you;

even from a distance, you know what I'm thinking.

You know when I leave and when I get back;

I'm never out of your sight.

You know everything I'm going to say

before I start the first sentence.

I look behind me and you're there,

then up ahead and you're there, too—

your reassuring presence, coming and going.

This is too much, too wonderful—

I can't take it all in!

7-12 Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit?

to be out of your sight?

If I climb to the sky, you're there!

If I go underground, you're there!

If I flew on morning's wings

to the far western horizon,

You'd find me in a minute—

you're already there waiting!

Then I said to myself, "Oh, he even sees me in the dark!

At night I'm immersed in the light!"

It's a fact: darkness isn't dark to you;

night and day, darkness and light, they're all the same to you.

I've shared my feelings with some close friends in the past about how I experience God, but it's something I keep private for the most part for fear some won't understand. Our church is unique in the fact that it provides "open mic" a chance to be a part of service and share "your piece of the mosaic" and that was something I felt I should do because I KNOW how I feel about this. So, while I mull over things here on my side of the woods, I thought I would share with you what I shared with my church family last weekend.

When I’m listening to certain music, epic & pressing in some way, after a few moments a feeling creeps into me that I can’t quite name. My chest tightens, I feel the urge to close my eyes, and I need to move. I can picture the movements, the perfect movements for that piece of music.

Sometimes it’s just the urge to dance that comes over me, without any music at all, a particular move my body wants to make, always accompanied with the tightness in my chest & the urge to close my eyes. Watching performances with the specific type of music or dance has the same affect for me, often with tears.

For me, dancing has always been a very private and guarded thing. I either want to be alone, or somewhere safe, removed and expected, like rehearsal or a performance. Dancing I’m no longer myself, but this puppeted creature, moved about by the music and something that isn’t of this world. It’s how I was created to feel and express, to worship and be. Dance, ballet, is where I meet God, where I see Creation and the only place I can express myself to God and feel like I’m heard. It’s my prayer.

When I see a beautiful movement, feel my limbs stir or see a graceful dancer, to me that’s proof of God’s existence, these ethereal movements orchestrated by a higher power.

I thought about sharing a piece with you all tonight, but I don’t think I’m quite ready. So instead I’d like to share this short clip of Polina Seminova. It may not strike you as particularly epic or intense but I love it because she possesses amazing grace and skill. She moves with the music in her rehearsal clothes in an empty auditorium, feeling everything. I think she feels God here too.

Polina Semionova from Sebastián Acevedo on Vimeo.

Restless

These last few days have found me flip-flopping between complete exhaustion and the complete inability to shut my brain off and just sleep. I am also having wild dreams, and craving as much change as possible.

*Sigh* I feel bad for Adam, who looked confused, but put on a smile when I asked for his help re-arranging the living room the day we got back from Hawaii on a red-eye flight. Then I came home with shorter, straighter hair, complete with bangs on Monday. Wednesday was when I decided it was high time to re-organize every closet or drawer in our house, followed by my intense search for all the things we should get rid of, and either donating them or posting them to Craigslist. I do this. I go through this extreme needs for change, so I make the little changes I can. My dreams have been vivid and bizarre, though thankfully not nightmarish. Still, they're waking me up in a confusion, the kind where you have to walk back through your dream to realize it was in fact a dream, not a memory.

I've been wanting to find ourselves a church we can love, and become a part of for some time now. Adam doesn't share my pressing need for this, which is unusual, it's generally the other way around. I will confess I have never felt a constant, or deep connection to God. Maybe it feels like there's too much pressure, so I can't perform, can't make it happen. Or maybe it's because I've never had the right avenues to connect to Him/Her. I've had moments, like everyone has moments. Dance is generally the way I connect, or being in some amazingly beautiful place; like Rome, or Hawaii, or even watching a Panhandle sunset.

My recent inspiration for hope has been, oddly enough, a memoir recently made into a movie-starring Julia Roberts like all the good ones do. "Eat Pray Love" has me thinking, digging, writing, exploring. I'm reading it for the 3rd time right now. There's something about it that I know I'm supposed to be gleaning, so I plan to keep going back for more until I've taken all I can from the experiences & lessons "Lizz" has to share with me. Some might find it ridiculous that I've turned to a best seller memoir for spiritual guidance, and maybe they're right. Maybe I'm grasping at straws here, but to speak honestly I have to say, "No, I'm not." I need something else, something/someone outside of Adam, friends, family, therapists...I crave the connection I can easily find with these people, but I need it with God. I want it so badly, and have always felt as though I was chasing after a ghost-until now.

If you're one who prays, would you mind slipping one for me in there? That I will find peace, a familiar place with God, and the ability to just sit still and feel, not rush to change.

Worship, and God---for Me

So at church on Sunday I shared what worship and God mean to me, and I how experience that. It took me awhile to figure out just what I wanted to put, and how to word what I meant, and I still wasn't sure if I would be understood, or sound crazy. I was amazed afterwards when I was told by several people "I really could worship with it, after hearing you speak", or "I feel like I understand a whole new aspect of you now." It was incredibly encouraging, since I seldom share on this subject (unless prompted, like Sunday) because it isn't always well received. Here is what I shared:


When I’m listening to certain music, epic & pressing in some way after a few moments a feeling creeps into me that I can’t quite name. My chest tightens, I feel the urge to close my eyes, and I need to move. I can picture the movements, the perfect movements for that piece of music.

Sometimes it’s just the urge to dance that comes over me, without any music at all, a particular move my body wants to make, always accompjavascript:void(0)anied with the tightness in my chest & the urge to close my eyes. Watching performances with the specific type of music or dance has the same affect for me, often with tears.

For me, dancing has always been a very private and guarded thing. I either want to be alone, or somewhere “safe”, “removed” and “expected”, like rehearsal or a performance. Dancing I’m no longer myself, but this puppeted creature, moved about by the music and something that isn’t of this world. It’s how I was created to feel and express, to worship and be.

This clip may not strike you as particularly “epic” or “intense” but I love it because she possesses amazing grace and skill. She moves with the music in her rehearsal clothes in an empty auditorium, feeling everything.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz2Gp7a38DM