Trying to balance the world...

I've always liked an integrated life. It makes me feel less hypocritical, more consistent. I don't have a strong desire for personal space or privacy; I'm an open book about most things and am (overly?) interested in the lives of people around me. I want this friend to be friends with that friend and my parents to be a part of my social life -- and I don't usually feel comfortable until this happens. I really try hard to avoid a segmented life. I'd much prefer overlap.

But these days, it's hard to have an integrated life. My sister is in Portland. My friends are scattered through out the country and very few of them have been able to witness this "thing" that is l'Arche. I am making plans for school next year but have no connection to those institutions, unless you want to count more distant connections through my sister or my dad. I'm trying to study for the GRE while trying also to "live l'Arche" ... and the two don't really fit together. And, there's also my sister's wedding in January to plan for. Lots of little fragments that don't really fit together, no matter how much I try.

I think some people enjoy having multiple lives, either consecutively or simultaneously. They act this way when they are at work and then this way when they are at home. They have 3 sets of friends. They have multiple personalities. They can easily get up and go with out looking back, forming a new life somewhere else. But this isn't how I work. I like everything to fit together, like some giant, meaningful puzzle. But trying to fit all the pieces together is exhausting. I'm trying to balance the world...a very complex world at that.

Maybe that's why my faith has, at times, felt so fragile. I want everything to fit together, but there are some pieces that just don't fit and don't belong. This is the problem with being an idealist (which I am occasional embarrassed to reveal about myself). Idealists are forced to run around this crazy, messed up, complicated world with a mental/emotional/spiritual picture inside their head of That Which Should Be. They want roses and get weeds in return. I'm not asking that the whole world make sense. I'm just asking that some meaning or pattern or shape would take form out of all the chaos. I don't think that's too much to ask....though sometimes that seems like an impossible request. I don't even need to know what it's all goign to look like in the end. I'll never understand why some Christians get so worked up on the "End Times." They have it all mapped out, down to the months and years. Pre-trib, post-trib, blah blah. What the heck? I'm not asking to know all that! I just want to know that there IS meaning, even if I never figure out what it is! That is what ultimately will bring me comfort....knowing I'm in the midst of some massive puzzle slowly being put together. It's shape and form isn't as important as it's very existence. This is where faith comes in. Believing without seeing. Moving forward without knowing the way.