Breck!

Skiing in Breck for the first time in a couple of years—so fun (though I think I'll be bruised for days...)!

 

   It was soooo warm out for the first half of the day! Definitely got a little sunburned...

Tosha-the-Brave and Jody-the-Tenacious

The four Adventurers!

   Linnet, Tosh, and me in Breck... Thanks to David for taking our photo. :)

    All photos provided by Tosha-the Brave

Missing Out

"Let's see, I can fit you into my schedule next month." Yes, my neighbour actually said that to me. I smiled a little, since it was still early in the current month. Then I sighed inside. I used to be that person. Some seasons I still am, because friends are only in town at certain times and you make crazy work.

Summer is my losing-sanity season. I sweat at work for long summer days. I sweat on the hiking trail drinking in freshest mountain air. I sweat when I show visiting friends around town—somehow it's always sunny here when people want to amble downtown. I sweat most when someone asks me to get together—Um, no thanks. I'm physically exhausted, I can't people—is what my brain thinks. My mouth sometimes follows suit, declining as graciously as I can, or sometimes saying yes. I resent the event if I say yes and haven't had an evening or three for margin, so I try to learn the dance steps of balance.

Perhaps it is because Millennials crave experience that they1 are novice dancers of this balance. There is an intense fear of missing out on all kinds of experiences. If you don't believe me, try this: think of a time you were invited to an event you weren't too excited about attending. You decided not to go—then spent the entirety of an hour, or the evening, vacillating on whether or not you should have gone. Classic symptoms of the fear of missing out. It rears up in other forms, too. For example, always looking to what is coming next, rather than enjoying the present moment, day, or season. It is snowing? I wish it were summer. It is summer? It’s it far too hot to do anything. Too bad it's not autumn! And on it goes. Millennials or not, I think many of us wrestle with wanting something in the future, neglecting to enjoy what we have now. We're so afraid of missing what we might have that we, in essence, throw away what we do have.

After one particularly draining year and a very unbalanced summer, I began to purpose to miss out. Because Sundays were largely taken up with church and co-leading youth group, I began to make Saturdays my sabbath or solitude-day. Was it difficult to say no to events with friends on Saturdays? You bet. But, I needed a day not to have anything forcing me to be on schedule in some way. Even if I have a hike all planned out for a Saturday, alarm set for some golden hour of the morning, I am going because I want to and I know the drive and the hike will both recharge me. And if I don’t get up when the alarm sounds, it’s my own choice to sleep longer and hit the trail late. No one is going to call and ask where I am—you can’t “oversleep” if there is no timetable. I turn off my phone many Saturdays—one doesn’t always have to be available. I may write or reply to emails, not because I feel the pressure or demand to, but because I want to write. I will probably putter around my kitchen or do some housework, but I will also sit on my porch and watch the clouds sail along, turning all pink in the evening. I rest. I breathe. I perspire. I am inspired. All because I miss out.

By saying yes to a sabbath, I end up saying no to other things. However, I have learnt that missing out means having more depth and sanity in my life. Missing out often means I don't make room for shallow relationships. Staying to help a friend clean up after the party often leads to heart-to-heart conversations. Conversations that could not have happened during the ever-in-motion gathering. Missing out means hiking alone and praying—meditating on the things I haven't had enough thinking time in one stretch to ponder during the week. Missing out means some things get written that never would have, had I not purposed to be home a couple of evenings a week.

Missing out means I rarely get invited to social events anymore, so I stress less over how to say no. This is a relief, as I don't enjoy disappointing people. I no longer waver with guilt when I stay home from an event—especially if I never even knew the event was happening! I get invited to the important gatherings by the friends I know well—celebrations I want to say yes to anyway. I don't maintain too many surface friendships [acquaintanceships] when I get left off certain social lists. I have a lot of tea dates and let's-go-for-a-walk-and-talk dates with my friends. There are many small dinners in my even smaller cabin. I don't miss out on the conversations where we're laughing until we cry, and crying until someone offers a gentle look and the kleenex box.

I don't miss out too much, because I am learning to be present. Being present in the quiet evenings on my porch with a mug of tea. Present—just watching snow and silence swish down. Present in praying and looking and thinking and thanking on hiking trails, meeting friendly people and dogs as I go. Present in washing dishes with friends and in offering kleenex. Present in the laughter and the tears and the sane moments in between. Present to hear the ups and downs of the relationship all along, so that I can cry and squeal with delight when my friend calls to tell me she just got engaged. Present to the still, small voice, whispering through the pines, singing from the stars, holding out hope while I sit in the ashes, holding me up when I can't stand.

Miss out. Try it. Miss out on the surface stuff. Choose to have a solitude evening or day. Guard it—let me tell you, it is hard to guard my sabbath. Miss out sometimes on listening to music or podcasts or anything but the wind in the trees, just for an evening. Miss out on leaving one party for the next, so you can stay late to wash the dishes and talk. Miss out, so that you, too, can learn to be present.

__________

1. Though I technically fit in the Millennial bracket, the way I was raised—being born barely in the Millennial window, having much older siblings—places me in a different lifestyle than many of my peers.

Wintering Others' Discontent

Dusk is falling all around me, silently painting green leaves a crisp black silhouette against a living grey sky. A planet blinks open its eye, peering at me sitting here in the gathering darkness—alone. Winding down the day with a London Fog, staring at the sky all by one's self may not be ideal for many; yet for me, this is my favourite part of the day. It is cool and quiet, a time of reflection and being.

In the comforting twilight, hiding me from prying eyes—save that of the aforementioned planet—I have time to mull over the conversation I had with a friend recently. He had asked if I was happy where I am, as so many of my friends are transitioning into relationships, moving away from the ministry where I work, or going on adventures. Owl-like, I blinked at the question. Had I given the impression that I was unhappy or dissatisfied with life? No, he simply thought it must get wearing to always be the one plugging along while things happened to everyone else. What did I want more than this 'provincial life?' he questioned.

Should I want something more than enjoying the work of my hands, the leisure I have, the family and friends I have been given, or the home in which I live? Spiritually I want so much more—more holiness, more discipline, more love, more of Jesus. Yet physically and emotionally I am content. Content, not complacent, mind you. My relationships have their ups and downs, there are days I want to run away and get lost in the woods not to find my way out again until starlight—but I still love my life.

Why are people so constantly nagging me to move on, move forward, or to move away? On to what? Away where? What do they think I should be chasing, if not a contented life? What if I like to listen to the footfalls of rain on the leaves or to sit in silence on my front porch? What if I don't want to have someone waiting for me when I get home from my day? I am thankful to come home to a dark, quiet house, ready for me to fill it with soft lights and stillness, or sometimes my friends and family.

Curiosity that must restrain itself from becoming bitterness wells up in me, why do others want to foist their discontentment upon me? I struggle to maintain balance and to have enough solitude in my days and weeks, but my frustration at my lack of discipline does not mean I don't like my job. I might not like how much time it takes away from my mornings, but I like the work that I do. It lies on me to rise earlier so I have more morning to enjoy before tromping to my little mail room. Sometimes I overcommit my evenings, then feel drained or harried because I have not recharged in quiet thanksgiving to the Maker of the stars—but that doesn't mean I need to run off to a new place. I am my own worst enemy—my lack of managing the time I am given frustrates me deeply—but finding a new position at work, moving, or getting married will not fix that. Any of those things would simply sap my time and provide me with a score of more stressful considerations. I must learn discipline and rhythm here and now before I can implement it at any other point in the future.

When I see the source of my frustration—my own failing at discipline—I puzzle over the discontent others have for me. Why hasn't someone snatched you up and married you? they want to know. Maybe because I haven't let them. I enjoy being single, why do I need to pursue something I don't have if I am content with what I do have?

Why don't you try to move up into a different position at work or find a different job? I hear often. Why should I seek a job I'm not suited for—or wouldn't like—when I enjoy the one I have now? More money and benefits are not always worth the mental or emotional strain certain positions bring. I can leave work at work—I can come home without it weighing on my soul. Peace of mind and a flexible schedule that allows me to spend time with those I love are more valuable than the prestige of a bigger title (and the stress such a title brings).

What are you going to do next? someone is always wondering. Live life each day. What are you doing now? I wonder internally.

Don't you want to change the world or go on adventures? That, at least, is a sensible question. I want to influence my sphere of friends and acquaintances with the love and light of Jesus. I want to be hospitable and gracious. I seek to be faithful with the gifts I have been given, whether it is my home, time, words, or material goods. I may not be serving meals to the homeless, but I try to open my front door to my neighbours. Who defines adventures? Does hiking in uncharted snow for miles and seeing an avalanche count? Does scaling a fourteener make the list? How about travelling all over the country because I have friends to visit? And what about the adventures that happen on my front porch? From chasing away black bears to chatting with skunks and squirrels, or watching magnificent lightning storms. I think I have a pretty interesting life.

Maybe I am too easily satisfied. Perhaps the discontentment I hear in the comments others make ought to spur me toward bigger goals, but it does not. I am not inclined to be discontented with life. So many persons have been conditioned by culture to think there is only one way to be content or successful—whether that is always manoeuvring one's way up in the working world, or getting married, or doing new things, or being constantly busy. If those are the things that make one content, why is it that the friends I know who are chasing those goals are so often miserable and dissatisfied?  

I take risks, have friends, go on adventures, enjoy coming home to quiet, and get to sit under a starry sky alone with the night and its Creator. And I like it. The hardest parts of my life are things I inflict upon myself—namely, lack of discipline and love—and the pall of malcontentedness others seem to cast on me in their search for a good and meaningful life. The winter of others' discontent is made glorious by the Son of God—in realising that He does not leave us in the squalor of our sin; in giving thanks for that which is good, even if it is hard. These things bring us to Jesus, shaving off our selves and allowing His likeness to be seen in us.

It can be difficult to meet the discontentment others pour on us with the warmth of the Son's joy. Yet joy is a choice—often in the face of hard, unpleasant, or uncontrollable circumstances. Joy is a choice—even when our fellow Christians are not choosing it, we should. We are free in Jesus to choose to be content in the good we have, rather than to be discontented over what we have not.

Are you a person who freezes others with your discontentment about their life's progress? How can you choose to encourage them where they are instead? Perhaps you are like me, prone to get bitter when someone asks me yet again why I have not moved up the corporate ladder or why I am not married. What do we need to do in order to halt frosty replies with genuinely warm contentment? Most often the answer for me is very simple—though hard to practise: to choose to hold my tongue, to pray for kindness, and to enjoy where I am, even if it confuses others. Now then, this evening, I’m going to enjoy nightfall, cricket songs, and the blesséd silence the slower-by-choice single life permits.