life as transition

Once again I find myself in transition. It always strikes me as odd that after transitioning so much in the last four years, it never seems to get any easier for me. It just changes. Surely, it got easier to go back to school from summer break because I always knew what was to come. I always knew that in a few months I would, like always, travel back to Montana and then return to school. The different thing now is that I don’t have any plans for next year. I don’t really even have any plans for next week. The future is open ended now. There is no overarching reason for me to be in any one specific place. I assume that this is pretty normal for most recent college grads but that doesn’t make it any less real for me.

Anyway…being in Guatemala has been phenomenal. I’ve had time to rest, relax, think, write and just be. But it has also put a bit of a hold on the transition out of college. I now feel like I’m still in the middle of my trip back to Santa Barbara from Montana but I’m also going to be adjusting to being back in the US. It is kind of a lot to think about, and there is one main thought that I have about that…but I’ll come back to that later.

Right now I want to reflect a bit about my life here and what I’ve learned. I am sick right now, just a cold, but when I get sick my inabilities become extremely clear to me. In the last few days I have become overwhelmingly aware of my desperation in all situations of my life. It is a good place to be, hard but good. I look back on the last few months with all of the new thoughts and desires and I can say that the way I live has not changed. I’ve talked of great things. Changing the way I/we live as Christians. Loving people because they are people…you read all the posts. I was excited and inspired. I have considered a new way to live and I found that I could not do it. I didn’t help any poor people, I didn’t speak freedom, I didn’t even love a guy that I see everyday, and I didn’t want to. I think that somehow along the way I started to believe that I could just do all of this new life stuff, and that I would love it. I knew it would be hard, but it would be a glorified hard. I somehow thought I could start living a life fully affected by the Gospel without being fully affected by it myself.
We have all read books that have great ideas in them but somehow it just doesn’t sit right because we know the author doesn’t live like they believe what they wrote. I am that author. I have written pages about how it’s time to live a different way, but I don’t live that way. Maybe I’ve been more interested in the discussion than the actual life…it sure is a lot easier that way.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sitting in the dark feeling bad for myself. I’m just being honest. I have been what I don’t want to see in Christians. I’ll stop the rambling and just say what I mean, and I say this to myself but it might apply to some of you. Stop reading about what a Christian life should be and go and be with Jesus. If you have questions, don’t go find a book. Ask God. Don’t fool yourself, change will not come through a book, not even the Bible. Change will only come through God.

Ok…my thoughts on transition. Well, mostly I just have one thought and it has everything to do with the place I have been and the place I will be. I grew up in Kalispell Montana. I was surrounded by mountains, lakes and rivers. I have often said that it is about as different from southern California you can get and still be in the same country. Besides my family, I will miss being on the river most. It might just be because I grew up there or that God really does reveal part of himself there all the time, I’m not sure. I do know though, that to be on the river is peace. It never took long, only a few moments feeling the river, smelling it, hearing it, and there was peace. I finally read the book A River Runs Through It this week and it made me think a lot about leaving Montana and what I will be missing. Norman Maclean says it very well,

“Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.”

You can only know it if you’ve been there and I hope you have. I will be missing it a lot this next year. Not only for the unique beauty but also for the ways that God used those times to quiet me. When I left Montana in June I was struck with the fear that I don’t know when I’ll be back there and if it will ever be the same. I’ll finish this post with two quotes from my journaling the other night about Montana.

"My memories of Montana will always include water. Some of the richest moments of my life were on or near the rivers of northwestern Montana."


" I have never purposely planned on spending more than four months away from that place and now that my separation is indefinite I am quite uneasy. I have learned to love other beauties but they will never overtake the beauty that is simply known. It was known over the years of childhood. I am not afraid to admit that I am afraid of not going back to Montana. I am afraid that when I do go back the peace won’t come. I am afraid that I’ll leave the silhouette of my father and brothers in the river in some other world. Or that I’ll not again enter that world, but admire it from afar. Maybe most of all I’m afraid of not finding another way to receive the Peace, the Presence, and the Truth that have always come in the river."

I hope you will all know Montana at some point before we ruin it.

This will be my last post from Guatemala. TJ and Occy will be arriving sometime this week so I’ll be busy with them. I probably won’t be writing too much here for a few weeks while I travel back to Santa Barbara and look for a job. (pray for that if you remember)

go in peace,
adam