T.S. Tuesday: An End and A Beginning

For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
~T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"

This week marks the beginning of new era for me. I wrapped up my job at Plant With Purpose last week and have about a month of bucket listing, bridesmaidsing, and packing before I move to Guatemala.

The last couple days, as I've stared at my screen, fingers perched, or opened my journal, pen clutched, I've found myself voiceless. Like Eliot writes, I'm caught between "last year's language" and not yet confident in my next year's voice.

Usually my words flow profusely, involuntarily. But this transition, from full time, productive member of the working world to, as ee cummings puts so eloquently, a "human merely being" has been tough to process.

I'm sure this voids any sympathy you were feeling for me in my "tough transition," but this is how I spent my first morning of "funemployment."

I don't know exactly how God is moving. I don't know if I'm supposed to be sad to say goodbye to my friends and coworkers or if I'm supposed to be excited for the new adventure that awaits. I've found myself torn between the bitter and the sweet, wondering what to make of it.

I'm scared that I've made a mistake. That I'll get to Guatemala and be lonely out of my mind. I'm scared that my writing will wither when I don't have to spill words onto a screen before work, when blog posts aren't squeezed into lunch breaks, and when I look at my schedule and see wide open spaces.

For the first time in 4.5 years, I don't know exactly where I'll be on Monday mornings or how much will be deposited into my bank account every 15th and 30th of the month.

It's a little disorienting to say the least. But also exciting, exhilarating. When I was in high school, one of the most meaningful things I heard from God was the promise,

"You will grow."

The one thing I am sure of as I look at this next month, this next year, of unknowns is that I will grow.

I am excited to learn more of my identity outside of Plant With Purpose. I am excited to make new friends in a new country. I am excited to see God move in new ways, to count new gifts and chart new graces. I am excited to await another voice of a new year.

And though I'm scared, I am excited to make an end and a beginning.

T.S. Tuesday: Moving and Shaking

So I'm definitely a little obsessed with T.S. Eliot's 'Four Quartets', and I will continue to mine these poems for T.S. Tuesday content.

Today's excerpt comes from East Coker, No. 2 of 'Four Quartets.'

"In my beginning is my end. In succession

Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,

Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place

Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.

Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,

Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth"

The poem begins with "In the beginning is my end" and ends with "In my end is my beginning."

What happens in between? In between the beginning and the ending and the beginning again?

Here, Eliot speaks of the building and destroying and restoring of houses. Movement happens. Progress happens in this in-between, this meanwhile, this space between the now and the not yet.

Movements from building to destroying, from knowledge to ignorance, from life to death, which breeds more life.

Our lives are a series of progressions, of movements. We move from children to parents. From students to teachers. From singled to married. From coupled to heartbroken. From employed to laid off and back again to be promoted.

These movements are constant: sometimes they're life-giving; sometimes they stink of death. Sometimes the moving feels more like shaking, a quivering between growth and retreat.

My spiritual life has followed a series of movements: from unerring confidence to despondent doubts. From running from God's presence to basking in God's love. From tearing down dogma to stacking up truths.

Where are you moving? What's more, where is God moving? Are you moving toward life or are you ushering in death? How is God leading you to give life and grieve death in all of the movements of your life?