Last night I swung my feet back and forth talking about the moon, watching the moon, a sliver chased by its greater bulk. It set in the southeastern sky, its face turning orange, reflecting the still light horizon. The big dipper dipped and the little one made a showing too. I sat on a turning world in the dark watching falling bodies of light, reflections of light, shooting bursts of light, and felt small and stubborn.

Even the stars above, things that seem still, are still changing.

Ben Folds

I turn too because I am bound by gravity, not because I am fond of it---or of any sort of change for that matter. I am not.

So when my soul does feel the need to change, I take note and listen. Not to its prodding (my soul is unreliable and fickle), but to what it is saying. It is, after all, dictated to by my spirit and I have great respect for that. I've been feeling the need for change. Impatient for it recently. Waiting. Answering questions with shrugs and lopsided smiles, the sort that tell people that no I don't want to talk about it but I don't know what else to tell you. There are lists of things I'm waiting for, it's nothing in particular, and I'm not so foolish as to assume that even when things get checked off of that list that I will somehow be eternally satisfied.

My soul is a thirsty master.

I wake up this morning and stare at the red numbers to my right, send a text message, roll to my left and throw back the covers. I wash, rinse, repeat. I down coffee that tastes like the bottom of the pot and I make my soul do my bidding. I arrive at church, the worship team is playing to an audience of none, church doesn't start for another two and a half hours, I am measuring paper in my office, I sing along with the music from the sanctuary. I sit for a few minutes in one Sunday School class, reading over notes for children's church, and remember other things I should be doing. I head downstairs, grumbling in my head, smiling on my face. We pitch together and we make it happen. It happens. We are late to worship in the sanctuary. I leave as soon as the last chords end and from my classrooms of kindergarteners I hear clapping, laughing, music, announcements, and loud prayers from the open windows to the right. I play Red Light, Green Light. Wash, Rinse, Repeat. It is 12:30pm, still barely afternoon.

Life feels monotonous sometimes. Overwhelmingly same. And no matter how much I hate change, no matter how much I fear it and stand shaking my head at anyone who offers it, stillness is sometimes just as hard. But I am learning again that in the midst of stillness there's still change. Minute motions, things I tell my soul to do, ways I churn character out, all of this is because there's a bigger picture, one I can't see.

Unless I sit for a while staring at the details through a scope bigger than the details.

Also with moisture He loads the thick cloud;
He disperses the cloud of His lightning.
It changes direction, turning around by His guidance,
That it may do whatever He commands it
On the face of the inhabited earth.
Whether for correction, or for His world,
Or for lovingkindness, He causes it to happen.
Job 37.11-13