March was full, sweet, and sour. Some hints of rest, lots to consider, and some weighty concerns for prayer.
Simple Pleasures
- Being on Spring Break!
- March 26th was my 7 year Jesus-versary
- Seeing my students hungry to know more about God. Our lunch period frequently turns into a student-led theology block where they bring me their wildest questions (ex: “How can I be closer with God?”). My third graders will literally hold their breath until I have finished answering so they can insert their question right after the words have left my mouth. I breath when they are talking. And we go back and forth like that until they have run out of burning questions and are ready to talk about something less intense (like dogs).
- My new hammock. Some purchases are frivolous, but others are life-changing. I’m so excited to read books on my kindle and lounge throughout the rest of this week and summer!
- Enjoying the benefits of Intermittent Fasting
- Just re-started mosiacing with a friend! Looking forward to the stress relief and the creative outlet
- Deeply celebrating Easter and Passover with my new church community. Feeling really at home in that space and getting to share meals with people.
- Gardening! Repotting my strawberries, seeing my crocus, daffodils, and grape hyacinth bloom, ripping out English Ivy and adding a trellis. planting my vining Jasmine and sweet peas, having many seedlings on the way
Important Updates
- I will find out later this month if I’ve been awarded a scholarship that has the potential to pay for the rest of my degree
- Been receiving some important dreams about next steps regarding career stuff
Shifting Priorities on Friendships
I intentionally pulled back from my normal rhythms of hanging out with friends last month, both to focus my energy on completing my Contextual study and to reflect on how my priorities for friendship having changed within the last year. Lately I’ve noticed that I am seeking out certain types of people more than I have in the past, and needing more distance from others, based on the season of life I’m in. These are some general trends I’m noticing as my preferences shift.
Personalities I crave like I’m missing a vitamin:
- People who will talk to me about Theology and want to go deeper
- People who are wildly creative (in prayer, in their teaching as a craft, in entrepreneurship, and more)
- People who are dead-set on worshipping Jesus as the sole object of their sight!
- People who believe the Church is worth fighting for
- People who genuinely LOVE making peace with those who disagree with them
An added plus
- The type of people who clean up trash that isn’t theirs, and genuinely want to leave spaces better than they found them.
- People who love to cook and will push my creativity. Also, people who will let me feed them and will enjoy my food.
- People who are anointed listeners, who can help detect the root cause if I’m sharing something tender and encourage/empower me to pray into it.
- People who are weirder than me (so I don’t have to be the weirdest for a while).
- Gardeners! This one has the effect of being soothing to me, because so much of my family is into gardening, horticulture, botany that people who have similar interests carry a specific kind of peaceful familiarity. Also, people who aren’t necessarily skilled but have an interest in talking about plants and will allow me to share the many things I know.
- People who take big risks, people who aren’t afraid to speak with conviction (whether in gentleness or healthy boldness).
- People who I can comfortably talk to about next to nothing (history, ease, accumulated time). To be able to pull this off, you have to be really good at taking yourself less seriously.
- People with pets I can play with.
- People who have a lot of working knowledge about different cultures and can apply it fluently in a way that honors and ministers to those communities.
- Women who have more experience than me, both in age or by the virtue of other life experiences (as mentors, adoptive older sisters, adoptive grandmothers, friends).
Becoming less crucial
- People who had specific advice for how to navigate D.C. (first 2 years of me moving here).
- Friendships with people who are different from me just for the sake of learning from those differences (pursuing difference is healthy only when you preemptively build rapport by building common ground).
- Adventure partners who AREN’T also hungry for God.
Pondering
- The Parable of the Wise Virgins as a word about Denominational Unity/Ecumenism
- Would Judas have still killed himself if the religious authorities had taken accountability for their role in Christ’s death?
- How can Benedictine spirituality provide me a model of classroom management for after Spring Break? How can it help re-balance our classroom dynamic this fall, in a mostly post-COVID school year?
- How did animal and plant life look before and after the Fall?
Things I’m Praying For
At work:
- Favor (not favoritism), the softening of hearts
- For everyone in my school community to know the love of Christ personally, at an identity level
- Genuine love, freedom, and healthy balance
Until later,
Haley
Age of the Unexpected 
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