hope remains...and it is finally november!

well, it looks like travis will be furloughed, we just don't know when. should he wait it out or find another job? who knows. things are pretty uncertain and we have no idea what the future holds. we hope to stay in minneapolis, but we don't know at this point.

but somehow in the midst of all this uncertainty, hope remains. not hope that things will get better or hope that we will stay in minneapolis. but a hope that we will get through this. that circumstances aren't everything. but i have to say my attitude sucked for a while. and it took me a while to get to the point that i could say this.

i'm in the middle of reading anne lamott's traveling mercies. she talks about grief and even though i don't think this is really "grieve" that i'm dealing with, i feel like i can look at this situation in the same light...

"...don't get me wrong; grief sucks; it really does. Unfortunately, though, avoiding it robs us of life, of the now, of a sense of living spirit. Mostly i have tried to avoid it by staying very busy, working too hard, trying to achieve as much as possible...But the bad news is that whatever you use to keep the pain at bay robs you of the flecks and nuggets of gold that feeling grief will give you. A fixation can keep you nicely defined and give you the illustion that your life has not fallen apart. But since your life may indeed have fallen apart, the illustion won't holdd up forever, and if you are lucky and brave, you will be willing to bear disillusion..."

i guess i feel that i have embraced where travis and i are at. i'm not going to deny it and pretend that everything is just fine and that everything will be just peachy. but at the same time, I'm not going to let this situation rob me of the present. i have done that way too many times in my life.

right now, i'm surrounded by a great group of people. i'm in a great city. and i'm going to enjoy that as long as i can. i have to say that the people of solomon's porch have been life to me. i love that community. and when i walk into church on sunday, i feel peace and it soothes my soul. but it is so much more than that, it is the relationships, the unique people that i meet and am getting to know. and i'm very thankful!