so divided, so united
I have begun to read another book by Erwin McManus. I should have known when God subtly suggested I read this one, that it would have an effect. Just nearly 3 years ago when God said ‘hey, read The Barbarian Way, I think you’ll like it’ (and that propelled me to buy my plane tickets to Scotland!) I felt this urgency to get myself a copy of Chasing Daylight. And you know it’s just a bit eerie his references to my favourite childhood story A Wrinkle in Time, to the term atomos which I just read about in a book on Quantum Theory, and then in my moment of crux, to have an entire chapter on of all things… choices.
I find myself here, sipping wine in the sunny evening after an unexpected full day at work, listening to music from someone who attends Mosaic L.A. pondering the choices I have before me. And the prophecies and words that have been spoken over me. And the choices I have made that have brought me to here and now.
I waste too much time because I get caught in moments of disbelief, fear, doubt, worry, or lack of confidence. And the more moments I waste the more I see them go by and mourn their passing.
A little while ago, back when I was still in Scotland, God told me to remember His promises, the things He had told me before. It’s been hard to remember. But easy at the same time. Hard because when I feel rejected or hope deferred I can dismiss a promise as wrong or false when it just isn’t the time yet.
I’ve been hearing these words from a sermon I listened to many years ago on a drive to San Franciscso with my friend Gina. The key part of it was ‘you have to get left in order to get right.’ And I keep hearing that then thinking ‘You have to go right in order to get where you’re meant to go.’ Heh. And this because I have gone right and then further right, to the East (well it’s right if you’re looking North, it’s left if you’re looking South… interesting…).
I find it hard how people role their eyes at me when I mention L.A. as if it is a childhood dream, a silly figment I need to let go. I get offended when people tell me to move on because I am being childish or that it is time to let go. When the dream of L.A., my passion for that silly city has been more alive in me for more years than ever Scotland was.
I think the dificulty, why I am so divided, is that it is as if my past and future are melding. And because I feel caught between my heart, impossibilities, unknowns and uncertainties. Each choice I have lead me into places of unknowing and places potentially full of good things. Neither path is specifically wrong. But I am haunted by L.A. and feel the need to return at least, at very least to say a proper hello and goodbye.
I don’t know that I have the right questions to ask of God. I don’t know that I know what to even seek in effort to get His direction here. Because the choices lead in different, very different ways which may connect in days to come but right now are divided.
I don’t understand how the city of my dreams (I called Edinburgh that for a while) and L.A. the city of my heart, are connected. I don’t understand the way my heart is or what must come next. I don’t know why the world is the way it is right now for me. My choices seem contradictory and yet equally true.
L.A. I love you. You were my first love and you know it.
U.K. I love you.
Where do we go from here?
Perhaps one day, in the future, you will have the freedom to travel freely between the cities of your dreams. Lord knows, there are well-to-do authors who split their time between multiple cities/countries.
I don’t think you should limit yourself to just one. When it comes to dreams, God is the biggest tent-pole we have, and we are meant to dream big, no matter how foolish it appears to outsiders. A metaphor that helps me, and perhaps it may be applicable to you, is Noah and the building of the ark. Big dreams can take a long time. And dreaming big is kinda like ark-building. Noah was given specific measurements and the actual building of the ark took years and years and years, and every day people would look at the work he was doing and not get it. They would scoff at him, make fun. They didn’t see the big picture. But God did. So when those waters came, all of the haters drowned (to be blunt), but Noah and his family were spared. He put in the daily work to make God’s dream for him a reality.
To bring the lens down even more, I think it’s the same thing with writing. Especially novels and screenplays. Each day we’re spending an inordinate amount of time on something outsiders do not get. At all. We’re building our arks and people don’t understand. Hell, sometimes we don’t even understand. But we do it anyways. Because eventually, when the waters come, we’ll be ready.
It sounds like you’re in a stage of preparation. For us storytellers, that can take much longer than most other professions. It’s hard when you hit your late twenties and you’re still preparing, still working on your craft, and people you graduated highschool or college with are getting married and getting mortgages.
But if you’re like me, and you do happen to find yourself in one of those moods or states where you are burnt out, or in the throes of despair, you still possess that fire in your soul to create. To dream. To write. That doesn’t go away. Sometimes the flame grows weak, but winds come that fan the flames. And the good thing about this fire, is that even at its coldest, if we are honest with ourselves, it still exists. It’s something God placed there. And it burns eternal. Sometimes we just have to pay attention and take care of the bellows.
I think it’s totally acceptable to have room in your heart for both cities, even though presently you feel like the path branches. Forgive me for mixing metaphors, but perhaps those branches are part of the same trunk. And although you may have to choose one path now, maybe that path will eventually cross over into the other. And vice versa.