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These Days (Kendra)

Saturday, November 14, 2009
I always said when I finished college I was going to sell my car, buy a hippie van, and drive across the country.
What actually happened was this:
I finished college, moved home, went to Africa, and spent months on end wrestling with the culmination of all that I had become and the frustration of how that person was supposed to fit into this world.

After 10 months of wrestling, it is time to move. I realize many of you who read this may have no idea who I am. In these personal entries I am going to try to be as honest and vulnerable as I find myself able before an unknown audience. I hope you'll enjoy following, I hope you'll leave comments when you feel so compelled, and I hope you'll allow both Keturah and I the freedom to experience what we experience in our own ways, regardless of how that may appear on the surface.

A little bit about myself as it relates to this trip:

I am drawn to the extreme. I am compelled by the ridiculous. I get jittery when I think about possibilities, potentials. Hearing about someone else's experience makes me ache.. I want to experience it myself. I know enough now to know that unless I do, I really cannot claim to know anything at all about whatever it might be. Reading books is good, but they only make me want to experience what I've just read on my own. Seeing photographs is good, but they make my eyes and my insides itch to be in it myself. I've been called curious, which is probably true. But my drive really doesn't come from curiosity or a need to be in the know. What I need is to understand. This need for experience undoubtedly stems from the desire to live an authentic life. Forming opinions, desires, dreams even from someone else's experiences lacks a degree of authenticity I don't want to live without. How can I speak of someone as a statistic, of a country as a shape on a map, of a people group as a stereotype or a study?

I'm taking this trip for many reasons, but the greatest of the many is that I might encounter: myself, my country, my fellow Americans, and my God. To zip from coast to coast in two weeks would entirely defeat the purpose of this trip. I must go slow. I must take the time to absorb and reflect upon every conversation, observation and experience until each one has settled deep inside of me. I must take pieces of America with me as I go, and I must find a way to leave pieces of myself in the form of blessings along the way. I need to be more in-tune with myself, with the air, with the sounds, with the Spirit, with my God. Separated from any "group", any responsibility, any obligation, any specific place, what will my heart feel? What will I long for? Where will the winds of the Spirit blow me? And how will I respond? I need to find this out.. because when I'm home I long for home, when I'm in Africa I long for Africa, when I'm at Brockport, I long for Brockport. (etc. etc.)

But I have a feeling God has something to say to me that boundaries have rendered me unable to hear and I cannot bear the thought of missing it any longer.
much, much more to come..

1 comments to These Days (Kendra):

Erika said...

Kendra, what a wonderful young woman you've become. I'm so glad that you've been a part of my life ... two of your lives, really ... once as a child, and now again as an incredible adult. Wishing you all you're searching for on this amazing adventure!

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