Micro self examination

A strange a funny place this is.

I'm sure there is a reason for it.

It seems my pendulum has swung from one side all the way to the other.

What I mean is - when I was growing up I was truly oblivious to the world around me and to myself also. I never really stopped to think about things much. I didn't question things. Now I do. I think about a lot of things and I think sometimes I come across like the absent minded professor but the deal is that I may not be paying attention to what others are because I'm thinking about something or noticing something.

I like this micro self examination right now in spite of any pitfalls. Maybe in time I will increase in my ability to do mental multi-tasking.

Three things come to mind right now from this weekend that are that sort of me looking at me thing.

** Saturday afternoon we took the grand girls down to the pool. (Unbelievable that Xandra is turning 12 and Schigh will be 14 in a few months!!!!!) As I was talking with a couple of ladies that I met just then we noticed a young guy with his guitar just outside the pool area. I was told that he had lived in the apartments for a while and often came down to the pool are to play his guitar. He came in later and I watched him walk. I couldn't imagine doing my "growing" where people could actually watch me. He was home, among people he knew - people who had been watching him grow up and learn the guitar. People who had shared some of his growing up years.

Suddenly I was very aware of how hidden my life had been and how - by comparison - much of it was on display now and I was living in closer contact with people than ever before. To go to the pool in a complex like this is not the same as having one in my back yard and this would be my preference just because I'm me. Even to walk around with my camera is to do so knowing that people see me. Somehow a yard with it's legal boundaries gave me a sense of privacy and aloneness. I've thought of this as I would go down to the car for something and I'm not dressed nice and don't have my makeup on and I'm hoping no one sees me. It's easier to do that when you have a yard and a drive way but in these apartments I can't hide my self so easily. I don't want to be on company manners and appearances all the time so I'm working on this.

I've started wearing my hair in a ponytail a lot. Something I've always done when alone but I would take it down to answer the door just because I that not the way I wanted to be seen. LOL

I had a feeling - when Larry and I ended up in an apartment - that God was going to immerse us in community in a different way. I've expected this to be a different experience and I'm keeping my heart open to receive both the lessons and the people themselves in the way that needs to be. I'm walking slowly as I get to know my neighbors and trying not to make any assumptions.

So I'm very aware of this process and that's why I'm calling it micro examination. Me examining me as I think others might see me. Me examining my surroundings whether people or events.

**The second incidence had to do with a response that came out of me to someone else. I'm not going to tell the story but just say that it was a moment (afternoon actually) as I processed a response that I didn't feel very good about. But I was very aware of living "closer" to this someone than before and the push/pull of a growing organism called a relationship. Being more involved in the actual "life" of a couple of people who already have a relational history with each other. I'm welcome there but I have to learn how to let some past things go and function in the actuality of what it is now.

**The third thing is cooking. I'm sort of a hit and miss cook. You can get a good meal or a bad meal or anything in between at my house but I like to do it, I guess, because my love language is acts of service and I find in me this desire to cook for people and feed them. So I've started doing that and it's turned out OK but not top job. Not like what I have in my heart to do. So this is a place that fits in to my learning/growing in community dynamic. I see and feel that as I do it. I think I'll grow in my abilities and I'll find that thing that is my expression in this area. But I'll know in my heart that serving up a meal is more than the sum of what you see on the table.

This self examination of my self is not new as I've been doing this since the beginning of my healing journey which began in the mid 90's. But it is different. I believe the focus now is not so much on how God heals a person but how he transforms a person.

Also....

I believe there is a focus on how he is transforming people into communities and communities into his body. I'm actually fascinated as I observe this process. I cannot define any of it but it's like various cells in the body are are becoming bones, muscle, sinew, etc. which are coming together to form arms, legs, etc. which will then find their places with others and come together to form this one living, breathing, earth touching, being. And I'm sure there are more phases than that. He has shown me this big picture more than once over the years in different ways. I just happen to be the organism that is under the microscope during this phase of the evolutionary process of understanding. I happen to be the one that I can look at most closely.

So if I seem to be too navel gazing for comfort - well - I probably am. But I'm not going to stop this process and being this way. I believe it is God's expression in my life. It is a way that He talks to me and reveals himself to me.

I've had friends down through the years who were always looking to other people or other places for the "move of God" that they wanted to get into. For many years I have felt that the greatest move of God that I could be in was the one happening in my own life. I felt that I didn't have to go anywhere else for this. I guess maybe I've missed out on seeing God in other ways in the earth because of this but I'd still rather know that my own life is where I find him most intensely.

Yeah - I'm definitely OK with this even with it's weirdness.