Finding God space again

My physical body and motley pile of trappings and belongings have been spirited away from State College for 5 months already.  That went pretty painlessly, though I definitely left it all in the middle of the floor in my parents basement until I had to clear it away for Christmas.  My routine has even made the trip, now that I have work and a schedule that I'm responsible for.  Things look like they're coalescing back to normal on the outside.  On the work side.  On the material side.

If only moving were as simple as transporting collections of atoms.

I'm still moving back emotionally and spiritually.  Those are the parts that give me the most inner turmoil and heartache.  For good reason.

Emotionally
During one of the most intellectually stimulating, stressful, and at times, traumatic periods of my life, I was part of a group of people that were experiencing similar delights, joys and atrocities.  Those bonds don't dissolve (nor would I want them to!), or fade from memory quickly.  The feeling of disjointed connectedness remains, with a physical separation of hundreds of miles.  I feel pangs and memories and aches almost daily.

Friendships change over time and space.  In a way they become windows and views of former places from lofty heights.  The lofty heights of memory, text messages and phone calls don't do friendship justice.  Sharing a cup of coffee or a beer over the phone is...well...inane.  But that is how life forces us to reconcile new places; memories and intermittent contact.  And we drink deeply of the cold, sweet water of reconnection.

Emotionally, I may always straddle the places in life where I've felt and experienced intense emotion.  Everyone does and deals with it in their own ways.  Some ignore the past, some live in the past, and others come to terms with a life of small, constant, distant tugs.  I imagine the latter will always be true for me.  There is too much in the past to forget it, and too much in the future to embrace with open arms.

Spiritually
Perhaps the language of moving and fixed destinations is not appropriate for the topic of a spiritual journey.  However, the setting in any journey does change, and impact the traveler directly, so in that sense I am moving in a different phase of life spiritually.

Life in Penn State Christian Grads (PSCG) was a very stimulating experience.  My head-space was occupied with lofty precipices and even more subterranean lows when it came to questions of faith, meaning and purpose.  There were honest conversations between minds questioning and probing, that received no answers some days and few the next.  Daily struggle was not uncommon, and at times it was exhausting.  Confidence is a quantity that was once prized, but comes to be despicable in many ways.  It seems impossible to return to confidence in anything after a point.  However, despite the unruliness and at times stark contradictory nature of this newer reality, I would never trade this part of my journey.

PSCG is a group of dear friends who cared deeply about each other and still do.  We are scholars from different fields seeking the gospel and life in Jesus, and engaging thoughtfully and honestly with our peers in the hope that they will join us.  We are a missional community.
Throw in the occasional heretical conversation in the "College and Careers" adult bible fellowship that I led at church and you get the mess that I called a spiritual life.   But it took years to cultivate the space for safe, honest questions, and for conversation and dialogue without judgment.  Those opportunities don't materialize from nothing.  God space requires time and effort.

It's taking a while, but I'm finding that space.  Sometimes that space means a small, intimate group during a Sunday night prayer service at the church I grew up in.  At other times it's time spent skyping weekly with two of my closest friends.  God space can be at a brewery for a weekly bible study as easily as it can be at a new church I've found, spending time on Sunday morning in worship.  I'm finding my new God spaces in a new/old place.  Looking forward, I'm excited to see what space I will find in Young Life for eastern Ottawa.  There is space to talk about spiritual things everywhere, it just needs to be cultivated.  YOU can cultivate it.