it is first important to know that as i write, i am nestled in a tent that is set up in my living room. here’s why you should know this,

my beloved roommate allie and i, when we get together- are inspired in some pretty crazy ways. laughter and creativity are the products of our friendship and community with each other. so we do things like set up a tent in our living room. we create photo albums to make our friends laugh. we use eight strands of christmas lights to decorate our apartment to bring joy to others. we invent our own language. we make short film series.

as i was driving home from an unfruitful evening at the library, i was pondering why all of a sudden i began to have desires for life after college today. all semester, i have almost dreaded it. but today, i actually started feeling passionate about some things.

at this point, i had a revelation.

my passions and talents and giftings are intricately connected to community with others. let me convince you of this.

my freshman year of college i lived in a lot of passions. passion for culture and people. i also lived in deep community with the people in my life at that time. after that, when, as i have so often mentioned, things began to fall apart and community became strained and nonexistent- i did not live out of my passions and talents. hope and joy were far from me. i took no pleasure in art, culture, language, or any of the other things that i love.

last spring, as things began to slowly change in march april and may, i started picking up on passion for art and inspiration as i have never done before. it was synonymous with relationships as they improved and grew deeper.

and then i went to senegal.

cut off from community and distant from my relationships, i didnt care about art anymore. culture frustrated me. i didnt build relationships or share with people as i had hoped for. (this is not to say the Lord didn’t work in my weaknesses, i know He did) i cant remember being inspired even once to create. my sketchbook remained empty. my blogs were rushed and unimaginative. something felt dead in me.

then this semester, as i re-entered the country and relationships began to deepen in new and unexpected ways, passion entered again. art, writing, and the french language once again flared up in my soul. the thing is, i can dream about doing anything i want. but the only way those dreams have depth is through community. the more i am living out this life connected with others and with God, the deeper and stronger passion reaches to the core.

i cannot love the things i love and be isolated. thus, i don’t think i can move to some unknown place without community and think that i will be able to live and breathe in my capacity for art or my love for language and culture. i am open to the purposes of God. but after everything i have seen and known, i am in a place of desiring community above my specific dreams because those dreams cannot exist for me outside of community.

i can pretend that i have grand ideas and vivacious dreams, but i know that those things are illusions when they do not involve people with whom my heart is interlaced. i have seen them die and be reborn, just as relationships have done the same.

and so i will hope and pray that wherever God takes me, He would hold me in His hands with some of the people i love most dearly.