Free at last

Having quit the game yesterday, I am now free to write what I like - in fact, I am now free to do just about anything I want. When something consumes you, it leaves you feeling quite empty because you just don't achieve what you'd like to achieve. So the burden is gone; I already feel somewhat lighter.

What has increased, though, is my longing to go overseas. Specifically, to the islands of Japan, where I intend to put my teaching training to good use. Besides, this has been one of my goals for quite some time. I just had to pay my credit card off (check!) and save a bit of money (almost there), not to mention the fact that I can't just get up and leave without tying up any loose ends.

As for church involvement, well, God does act fast. I intended to find ways to get involved but instead they found me - already. So it looks like I could be getting into the whole church network setup - learning more about it (since in 2004 when it was set up I was involved to an extent, working for the church at the time), how to maintain it, troubleshoot, etc.

However, since I am getting this burden - a calling: apprehensive and in anticipation of... something - to go over to Japan, the pull is getting stronger and stronger. It's both exciting and scary at the same time. I mean, I wanted God to answer my prayers regarding my future - especially the immediate: this year's direction - but knowing how slowly things fell into place every other time, I'm quite surprised (and, I suspect, not for the last time, either) that this whole life-thing is falling into place so fast.

Not that I have a ticket over to Japan and an established job - but there is a welling in my spirit of things beginning to move. And I know that I have been called over there, no matter how much a part of me dreads it. New cultures are hard to assimilate into - I've been there! And being out of touch with my teaching side, these are some skills that will take some practise getting back into. Let the real me - the new me - emerge once more ^L^

So yup, a new season - an unsettling in my whole being. An excitement and anticipation of what is to come. Either that or I'm not digesting my lunch properly... But really, I truly do see myself securing a position in a school (or two... or three...) somewhere in Japan. A lost society whose ways are beyond a westerner's understanding. But I am the one for this - only I can be me, and do what I can do. There will be a period of frustration, to be sure, but I know that I am going through a great period of spiritual growth right now. The desert is starting to fade!

There are still issues in my life that really do need sorting out. My health, for one. But it is a journey and it doesn't have to be taken alone. Speaking of which, every day that goes by brings me closer to being partnered with my future wife - a God-ordained and Christ-centred friendship to last until my dying days. As with many things in life, though, this is one thing that is still very clouded. There hasn't even been a hint yet, and until there is, all I can do is continue praying into both my life and hers. Ok, getting a little personal there XD I have to watch where my thoughts take me...

So much that I need to do and yet I can't really make much sense of anything that's going on right now. At least writing this is a first step - or a second step, really, if you consider my first step to have been breaking the bond of playing an MMO religiously. No matter where you tack, you will always be steered back on track - that's the way of the Holy Spirit. He's more than a counsellor; he's a guiding path that whispers more quietly than the conscious mind could ever decipher.

To flex my creative muscles, I feel that I should write something. A poem, perhaps. Something new, fresh. Everything that my soul churns out is new, but I have to challenge myself at this time. No better way than to leap straight in and get the creative juices flowing once more. Since I'm going to Japan (I am? Ok.), what's more fitting than a haiku ^^

Justice
I am not alone
Spurred on by a distant thought
Screaming to be heard

An angelic cry
Mortal, painted, a deal
Beyond reckoning

What better sanction
Than that which replaces woe
Aforethought denied

Plunging into depths
Broken, twisted, ideal
Never forgiven

The pain is too much
Morality? Ask again
If you care to look

Make a decision
Vacant, hollow, appeal
And when it is yours?

An absolute choice
Marred by tenuous consorts
Resulting in pleas

It belongs to us
Shadowed, prolonged, surreal
No man can match it

Give it, take it back
This picture of recklessness
Finally granted

It will always win
Honour, justice, my zeal
Carved from every wound

Eh, not my best work, and I sensed a lot of recycled language and emotion, but I feel somewhat more alive just from the pressure I put my brain through. I am still waking up from this bad dream but at least the way ahead is much lighter than what lies behind. I know that one thing I will continue to do is to put into words my aspirations, desires and happenings. That short story awaits; that novel awaits; the future can only get brighter.

-Timotheos