To Wonder

I met God in Ireland.

It started with a really selfish journey.
To my parents, I am sorry for what I put you through. I'm still growing.

I got bored with adulthood and America and wanted to reignite the wonder I found so easily as a kid. From chocolate cake to trees, then cars and warmth and toys and television and computers and presents and birthdays and Christmas trees and the internet and music and new clothes and electronics and women and sex and porn and video games and attention and pride and accomplishment and promise and new new new new, and good stories and thrills and driving fast and food and being young and having free time and using free time and giving everyone attention and being a good person and seizing the day and good poems and writing good poems and being accomplished and loved and INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL TO IRELAND all of it gave me rest and joy and peace and eventually disappointed me.
I kept looking and climbing to higher peaks and finding more peaks
And I found no lasting satisfaction
Not even in these rolling hills abroad.
No lasting peace
and suddenly

God.

Intensely.
Then doubts.
In Ireland, I faced those doubts.
I stayed in, I studied a lot. I read a lot. I listened and watched. I had meals with my roommates and I loved them and the basket of other friends I made. I asked and wondered and doubted.
For the first time, without obligation or pride or bigotry,  (Well, it's really hard to say all of those were absent, but my view was less clouded)
I fell in love.





I've long debated
switching the track of my blog here.
Or at least inviting God by name.
Or by so many names.

There's a certain vocabulary that the church draws from. It's big and wide and powerful and flowery and it freaks me out. I've began to see past the (arguably exclusive) language and hear the stories. The new understanding of love that is suggested in these stories has given me so much more purpose and wonder and rest.

Rest.

I want to explore this new wonder.

My settlement, then, is not to preach (except I'm really bad about that because I love to preach),
but instead to share doubts, theories, ideas, interpretations, misunderstandings, questions, all in pursuit of understanding.

I resolve then
To wonder.

These Rolling Hills

I think I'm still in shock about it all.
I can't tell.
In spite of it, I raise a glass.

This is a toast to the emotional river that came with seeing friends go.
A toast to the river I've ignored and fought and dammed up.



Let's keep this simple, though.
I want a conclusion.

Here's my conclusion, saying goodbye to Ireland was difficult. I certainly finished all my business there and am ready to catch up with America. I'm ready to see what I'm capable of now, back on my home turf. I'm excited to see what dreams come to me next, now that I've tied a bow on this chapter.
I will say again that Ireland will never leave me.

I cannot tie it up in a bundle and move on, which is good because I do not want to move on from Ireland. As soon as the proper inspiration hits me, I'm confident that I would gladly get a tattoo, not for Ireland,

But to remind me of all the hope I found in the world.
I laughed with people from all over the world.
We ate together. We all brought everything we knew about family into one place, and we made a home in the little time we had.

I will never be able to sit on this blog and tell the whole story like I want to, as a narrator. Little things will continue remind us of the little things we forget.


Re-integration is difficult. Nobody wants to hear about it as much as you think they would.
I have a bunch of really good posts just sitting in my computer. I wrote them late at night in all of my worst states. There's so much more beyond those that I could never share right enough.

They warned us about that part. How people won't want to hear about everything. So, I'm not too disappointed. Stories fall out of me sometimes. I anticipate we will spend the rest of our lives recounting everything that happened.

I conclude, finally, with the words of my closest neighbor from my travels, and wish you all a good night,

"we walk around in ireland. study and travel. so many impressions are had and all of a sudden you're pushed back into the old structures. you find yourself in the same old spot and you fulfill your roles as if nothing happened. questions turn around how it's to be back, not what it was like away - or just briefly - and then you're back to old. which is nice too."