Saturday, March 15, 2014

Wide Open Spaces

I took a drive. There was an hour to kill between classes and I took a drive. Sometimes there is a craving deep within me for wide open spaces.

The view outside my windshield was mostly brown, but there was the glint of sunshine off in the distance as it teased the turning hands of the windmills. Leaning forward in my seat, as if the action would suddenly tele-port me to be with the waving hands of the windmills on those blue-brown hills, I let my thoughts travel the wide-open spaces.

Driving the hilly passage of Frog Hollow Road, I looked out of the corner of my eye and watched as fields and hills rolled passed my window frame like the waves of the sea. Brown fields transformed into the wide open spaces of waves and wind-swept fields of winter. Beautiful.


If I think about it, I am living the dream: I attend a private university, have a car, two jobs, and am part of a religion that strives to know what 'Present Truth' is. The 'dream' can sometimes turn into a bubble of sorts; a lot of time spent honing your mind and writing skills to achieve a personal goal of graduating with a degree. And, is that degree enough? Will my life breech this bubble eventually and flourish; reaching towards what is good and what is good for others as well?

Lately, as winter quarter has been drawing to a close and the sunshine has shown its glorious face giving those of us who live in the upper left U.S.A. that there is hope for summer, conversations with friends have turned towards graduation, but more importantly life after graduation. Let's be honest, the world is shifting. For those studying the sciences and aiming for jobs in healthcare: healthcare is changing its focus and those unknowns make a future ambiguous. For those of us graduating with B.A. degrees of some sort, we often wonder if we'll ever find a job that aligns with our degree without having to go to graduate school and then start wondering if we should have gone to nursing school afterall.

This is why I go to the wide-open spaces. Not only does it give me time to be and to breathe, but it gives me space to wonder and ponder and actually look at the physical landscape of the earth and the way Eastern Washington is so wide-open, it reminds me that my life, goals, and future is WIDE-OPEN!

My degree does not define me. The unknowns don't define me, but the way I approach the wide-open present moment and future does, because how I react to this present moment does in fact define who I am and how my future is shaped. In Jesus I have my identity, but he created me to have a brain that holds perspective, the ability to see beyond myself, and a faith that gets out of the chair and walks into action-into the wide-open spaces.

1 comment:

  1. Noooooo, why did you stop writing. Some good contemplations and conclusions here; some very good things to remember, indeed.

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