{i never swam far from shore}

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av2O2MIZuHY

I think I've been listening to this song on repeat for about an hour at least and I'm not even the least bit sick of it. There's an ease to the melody, and a consistency... a confident yet at-peace stillness. It's a song that reminds me of the eye of a storm. Perhaps that is why it has made itself at home in my head.

Lately I've been feeling what I can only describe as slow motion chaos. There's an element of that every time I'm anticipating big change or transition. My counselor-self reassures my non-counselor-self that this is all normal, and I'll soon settle back into homoeostasis. In the meantime, I'll listen to this song and others like it that seem to infuse the slow motion chaos with a soothing reminder of transcendence. Standing alone, on a sandbar out in the middle of some vast expanse of water, a monster of a wave threatening my unprotected human body with its mass. I close my eyes, surrender to the unknown, and the fear fades because I know the Knower.

I'm not sure exactly what the wave is. Maybe I subconsciously named it earlier... "the unknown." Not just some stupid "unknown" that people refer to when someone graduates high school or college... or a masters program. I mean sure, yes, I am graduating in a month-ish. No I don't have a ten year plan... or a one year plan. But to say that my personal unknown can be simplified to graduating without having nailed down my next whatever is almost insulting. The big wave is so much more complex and mysterious, probably because a person is so much more than a two-dimensional being that leads a connect-the-dots kind of existence.

In my world, the unknown is synonymous with tension. I think of how many times I sense its threatening presence and react by either running towards the wave and surrender to it just so that I don't have to anticipate my collapse any longer, or putting up my dukes as if I could fight it off. I'm picturing that kid from the movie Little Giants who has the muscle mass of... well... me..., and stands in front of a mirror growling and flexing.

What about rooting myself in truth {i.e. who God is, who I am, what God has promised}, fighting the urge to react, inhale slow and deep, and stand in the unknown... in the tension... in the blank spots that are left when old lies are finally seen for what they really are- empty.

The complexity, mystery, and silencing power of the big wave sends my thoughts to my God who is not just complex but sovereign over His intricacies; who is not just mysterious but stays with us in the silence; who is not just powerful but compassionate in His omnipotence.

I never swam far from shore

never tried the secret door 

but when you give me love

when you give me love 

I have no fear of heights 

no fear of the deep blue sea

although it could drown me

I know it could drown me 

I'm warming up to the idea that not only does God meet me in the tension, out in the middle of the deep blue sea, but that He actually calls me out there... He invites me into the tension, into the unknown, into the slow motion chaos.

Because 

it's in that tension that I must be oriented to Him. My heart must be calibrated according to His. We are made to outgrow the excitement of the shore. We are made to venture into the dangerous places in life, or simply the awareness of them. I do not pretend to have a tight grasp on the "whys" and "hows," but I am confident in this: God draws us into the tension and into Himself in the same motion. 

I never walked near the edge

used to fear falling

...

but when you give me love 

when you give me love

...

no fear of the fall

no fear if it's with you that I fall

I'm thinking about the last line of "A Grief Observed." Lewis quotes Dante {I think?} to give one final glimpse into the preciousness of his bride's heart.
"Poi si torno all' eterna fontana," ...
"then into the eternal fountain she turned."