The youth are gone for the summer…. and yet I remain.  We are done next Tuesday at noon, which feels unreal, considering that this summer has been so full of experiences and of work.  It has been frustrating, exhilarating, eye-opening, challenging, exciting, and it isn’t over yet.  Now the fun begins–cleaning up the mess we made and processing the experience ( as though all we could feel about it will be clear in the next 3 days… I will be processing this for months!)

The worst I think is realizing that I have to go back to Boston soon.  Not that I dislike Boston, but I am not really mentally prepared to go for many reasons.  For all of the frustrations of the Youth Initiative as a staffer on its inagaural summer, I have really come to love this place and its people.  I have grown accustomed to being around Alex so comfortably over the past year (almost) and I am afraid to figure out what it will be like to live far away from him for 8 months.  I am worried because I know it will be hard to leave everything, because I don’t know if I am prepared to hunker down and write vociferously for 8 months while dreaming of those far from me.

So yea, thats whats on my mind (in addition to the war in georgia and ordination exams and all the other things swirling in the air).

there is something ridiculously satisfying about watching episodes of “weeds” in the youth initiative office…. I know its wrong, but it feels delicious!

A lot on my mind today.  Things to remember-

-ana’s sharing during the zega exercise about abuse

-”It’s not like everyone in E. Grand Rapids lives right on the lake or anything; I mean I live there and I dont live on the lake…. I live a couple blocks away”

-the Star Wars “blind man” skit

-boundaries in ministry

-frustrations with what it means to work here

-tiredness

-emilio playing egyptian ratslap with the kids from Michigan

-peter’s and brenna’s enactment of the turning over the moneychanger’s tables in the temple

-bill’s sermon about God’s calling us to seek the better life that we often fail to see, the call to live more fully the life God made us for.

Things I am struggling with:

-feeling safe to express myself honestly without being judged or misinterpreted by others

-being honest about my boundaries and having those boundaries respected

-working on a team with other extremely extroverted, talkative people.

-finding God in the chaos

-staying emotionally healthy