The blue giraffe

Click here first, and select 'show playlist' and track five. Easter orthodox loveliness for you to accompany your reading.

I talked with my counselor the other day about my plans and started with something I knew I didn't want to do. He said, 'If I tell you 'Don't think of a yellow elephant', you think of a yellow elephant, right? If I say 'Think about a blue giraffe' you think of a blue giraffe. Focus on the positive, on moving forward with what you do want to do.'

These days I am discovering that there are consequences to doing what is true. I am metaphorically girding my loins for what will happen once word gets out that I plan to study at a "wildly liberal" theological school near me, rather than the conservative evangelical one that is the assumed choice: I've already had one well-meaning 'concerned email' and I've told very few people so far. I know I'm not responsible for their reaction, but it makes me sad.

My blue giraffe is that I myself can't wait. I have very little idea how the work/study/bills arena will be resolved, nor if/whether some kind of vocation shift is on the horizon or not, but sometimes you have to just do a thing anyway. I have the advantage of not having small dependents to feed, and I decided I wanted to do some study that I 'own', that I feel engaged with at a more personal level.

I'm still learning to trust my own voice but it feels like a weight lifted from me every time I do and I stand a little taller with two feet on the ground, breathe a little deeper, smile a little more, and raise my eyes in gratitude to the great Blue Giraffe in the sky.

 

pic from here