I was recently stranded at a bus station with a friend. Why, I do not know, but the opportunity to truly communicate and share my feelings and concerns with a friend whom I know cares was agonizing. I wanted to talk, to share, but the moment was too painful. So I spent most of the time listening and later reflecting. My friend spoke of recognizing his lack of confidence and I began to think about my own level of confidence in different areas of my life. I first realized that my confidence in my ability to creatively thrive in this new town, country, culture is seriously lacking. This is a strange and normal thing. Normal because I have lived most of my life on the mid to low point on the confidence spectrum. Strange because when I began this PC experience my confidence in my abilities, personality, and intellect were quite boosted. Now, as I've been put out alone, I am strangely quite insecure. The worst of it is that I know better, and when I remind myself that I am capable, I feel worse for not feeling better!

Talking with an atheist friend who envied the comfort available from my faith in God, I realized a destructive thought pattern. I confessed to my friend that not only do I not take advantage of that comfort (like many Christians who get caught up in the pride of self-sufficiency), but when I realize my arrogance, I beat myself up for being a 'lousy Christian.' Instead of recognizing my 'error' and moving closer to God, I back farther away into my self-pity. Then I wonder why I do not have a better attitude! This goes back to the self-confidence mess because as a Christian, I cannot be confident in myself apart from my confidence in God. So as I grow farther from Him, I lose faith in myself because I am not daily, hourly being reminded of His faith in me, His creation. By no means do I lose faith in Him as I become weaker, but weakness is from not seeking strength. How tragic that I have yet do not use. How should anyone be attracted to God through me if I do not shine of Him?

Random Ramblings

I have really nothing to say, but I have really not much to do so I'm blogging from this cheap internet connection while listening to Matt Kearney musing kindly in my ears. So my Bulgarian life... what is it like here?

Here are the basics: Quality of life is quite decent here and the cost of living is considerably less than in the states. For a Peace Corps Volunteer, life is pretty good. I have a decent (over using the word, I know) flat in a town of about 13,000. Razlog is smack in between Pirin, Rila, and the Rhodope Mountains. It is fantastically beautiful. Beyond words really. The quality of housing varies greatly within each town and even more greatly within cities and regions. I don't think that in this country, where quite adequate housing is available, PC would allow us to live in anything less that safe and secure. Food is interesting here. It seems that kitchen conviniences are not quite considered here. Funny because most folks can afford better stoves, they just don't buy them. It is more important to spend extra time preparing each meal, but save money for a family vacation, or entertaining guests. It is a real priority statement.

Here, I live in a flat with a bedroom, a bathroom (note on BG baths... we don't so much have a shower as it is known in the states. There is simply a showerhead in the bathroom. People use tile in their kitchens and bathrooms always, and frequently in the rest of the house, so it is just more convenient to not build the extra walls for a shower.) and a kitchen/dining room/living room. I have a very old stove, a refrigerator, a washing machine so old I'm afraid to use it, a television with a cable from my neighbor. My neighbor is my landlord. This flat is not, as is common, part of a soviet style block building. I live on the second floor of a multi-family home. Baba and Dyado (gramma and grampa) live on the first floor. Their son, his wife, and their two teenage boys live on the third floor. Their sons will likely be my students in the fall. You'd think all of these conveniences would make me feel quite at home.

I guess the culture shock only set in once I left the cozy training. It is difficult now, but I'm keeping up a decent attitude. I have few folks to whom I whine and complain in sorry emails, but after I rant a bit I usually feel much better. The most challenging problem I face right now is simply not having much structure... in my living arrangement, work schedule, diet, anything. That's tough for me. We're getting there.

I believe I've racked up this internet bill enough for today. I, as always, welcome your emails and comments. Sorry for a crummy post. I just needed to post and haven't anything valuable to say. Love and kisses from snow capped July mountains!

Loving the distances...

"Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up if they succeed in loving the distance between them, which makes it possible for each to see the other against a wide sky." Rainer Maria Rilke

I absolutely love this quote, and one day while I was quite alone a pondered on it...

To rephrase, we cannot fully love eachother until we love the space in between eachother. We must fall in love with the differences -- those things about eachother that can make us feel so far apart. What a liberal concept for this conservative girl. I do conceed that humanity has had tremendous difficulties seeing the distances without fear and abomination. These spaces have been the causes and results of great wars, great problems, and a great deal of apathy, which is far more dangerous than the most venomous hate.

So what is a girl such as myself to do? I love -- I love with an unaffected, ineffective love. My love is talk -- all men are created in the image of the Lord. Jesus is alive in the hearts of all men. But does my behavior reflect this radical love? Have I ever really loved someone "unloveable?"

How does the love of the distance effect my more personal relationships? There are certain distances which seem like wide gaping abyses. We stand on the precipece and gauge the distance to the other side. We try to construct bridges using only those objects which are quickly at our disposal. There are so many more methods than we recognize. So perhaps I should begin to peer into these distances not with a longing to dive but to understand them, to know the person on the other side more deeply. I should understand these distances which are between us. Why must I consider these distances so inexcusable? Perhaps even in my cotrolled and deliberate form of love I can begin to look into the distances more as if they are beautiful lakes countaining bounty within and many ways to be traveled and explored, rather than as an empty abyss with nothing to offer a soul and no way to be bridged.

In the midst of the storm

I now know why the ancient greeks believed gods ruled them from atop a mountain with bolts of lightning and claps of thunder. Sitting under a giant umbrella at an outdoor cafe in my pleasant mountain town I watched -- experienced -- a fantastic thunderstorm. Here in the Pirin Mountains the thunder shouts with such a voice that sends a shot of adreneline directly to your heart. For that moment, in which you must decide if that is God speaking or the weather coming off of Pirin, your heart stops entirely, the restats in double time. Those adreneline induces endorphins float to your toes just long enough for you to forget you are alone in this town. Perhaps coming down from this rush is like any other. The previous pain still remains.

I do not want to be whiny-lonely girl -- I think I will love this place. But for today, I cling to the next chance to speak in English with a friend. I will disregard common courtesy to read and respond to an SMS from another lonely volunteer (Absnese must truly make the heart grow fonder- now we friends of less than three months are reminding each other of our love and mutual sense of missing). I would pay double its value for an internet connection in my flat. After a phone call from a Bulgarian English speaking friend who promises to visit in a month, I jump up and down for joy. This is loneliness.

I killed a giant spider last night. In America, I would have first gotten my father. Not here? Get the vaccuum cleaner and such the jerk into spider oblivion. Oh, I haven't got a vaccuum cleaner (here, the Bulgarian word for vaccuum cleaner literally translated is 'dust sucker'). Now this guy was big, too big to smash with my flimsy TP. He got a shoe to the wall, then cleaned off with toilet paper. Fifteen minutes later I had to pound on my back door to chase off the cats having outrageously loud sex on my back porch. It was obscene. I am truly living on my own.

Its not so bad. I've inquired about the gym here and will start working out soon. I should be getting cable internet in my flat in the next week as well. I have other Americans with in two hours travel. Best of all, I know God is my strength and anywhere I am, He is near to me and providing for my next step. That is just hard to remember sometimes. That God I am in a beautiful country, with a great PC staff and a group from which I will gain life-lasting friendships.
Vcichko Hubavo and Chao from the heart of the Balkans.

No man is an island

"Ask not for whom the bell tolss, it tolls for thee... No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. Any man's death diminishes me, beacuse I'm involved in mandkind." Quote from poetry of John Donne

Its a strange feeling when you are in so many ways quite alone, but there is comfort in knowing first that there is a God who is providing and protecting and who has lived this life; and second, while no human being will live my life exactly, and I can never truly understand the life of another, we do share something with all of humanity. This life it its constant cycle, this Dantean wheel of fate has certain common elements that no man will ever avoid. with those unpleasantries of human experience come the divine joys that only we blessed humans have the great capacity to fully appreciate. The stages of man are many and varried but liken to all men. There is comfort. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, but acknowledge that it tolls. For you and I it tolls. Every time.