We are back in South Dakota now trying to come to grips with the change that has taken place in our lives.  People ask what we think or how we are doing and the only answer I can think to give right now is:  It’s complicated.

One thing is for sure though, the peace, the slow pace, the silence and the solitude of the farm are all very nice.  I am trying to embrace this in between time, this respite from the busyness, this time on the farm to dive in deeper.

I’ve been reading again the daily writings from a book called Embracing Soul Care as well as St. Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle.  I’ve been journaling a lot.  I’ve been mowing, a long missed activity through which I can both help out a bit around the farm as well as listen to the ipod – a podcast, Turkish worship, or chapter seven of  Dallas Willard’s Divine Conspiracy.

Next week I’ll jump back into regular writing, to the work of staying connected with Turkey and to the business of growing my business but I hope to be able to continue to dive deeper into just being, just hearing, just living each day to the fullest as I seek to live the abundant life.

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My family and I are just one week from our return to the states.  It will be a permanent return, born on the back of a one way ticket and a year of prayer and planning.

We return with considerable excitement but also with a fair amount of trepidation.  There are the usual fears: making a living, starting over, surviving transition, fitting back in.

We’ve been changed in our four years in Turkey and we know it.

We think differently. Our priorities have evolved.  Our hopes and dreams face a new direction on life’s compass.

I was reading an article today that reflects one of our concerns in returning.  In I’m Ready To Quit Church, Andy Traub asks some big questions about how we can see something new, something more alive and meaningful in our church experience.

I won’t go into my concerns today, but I want to begin a dialogue about rural faith, one of the topics I feel drawn to talk about and explore and examine.  For some reason, rural faith – faith walked out in small towns across the U.S. – seems different in nature than that of our urban cousins.

There are a host of reasons why and they present both positive advantages as well as some real challenges for those desiring to grow in that faith in the rural environment.  It is a topic I desire to explore with others who claim Christ as savior in rural America.

In it all I am reminded of the words of Erwin McMannus, written both for me and for our churches:

We are all hypocrites in transition. I am not who I want to be, but I am on the journey there, and thankfully I am not whom I used to be.

My desire is to walk out this conversation in an attitude of gracious love.  In no way to I want to be the ‘critic’.  I’ve been reading Oswald Chambers lately and he has given me plenty to think about in regards to a critical spirit.

In the spiritual domain, criticism is love gone sour.  There is no room for criticism in a wholesome spiritual life.  Whenever you are in the critical temper, it is impossible to enter into communion with God.  Criticism makes you hard and vindictive and cruel, and leaves you with the nattering unction that you are a superior person.

So I want to be careful.  I want to walk in grace and love and avoid being critical.  It is a delicate line to walk of course.

A dentist can tell you that you haven’t been taking care of your teeth, that you need to brush more, that there are cavities and do it all without being critical – it’s her job.  She is making an assessment so that she can help you change your behavior in order to have healthier teeth.  But she is not condemning you and you don’t feel condemned.*

We all – individuals and church alike – are in transition, are being changed, are growing and, if we allow His work in us and look to learn from one another, will continue to become the people and Church that God intended.

If you are interested in thinking more about “church” as you know it, Andy recommends a couple of books in his post that may well be worth looking into. Stop By Now.

Life in the Kingdom is a life in transition.  The Kingdom has come and is yet to come.  We live in the interim, in the in-between, in the pain of the old world and the hope of the new.  We live as transients moving from birth to death to life again.

At times, this life in transition – that which is humanity’s reality – is more tangible than others.

My family is in transition these days.  We’ve spent four wonderfully hard and good  and full years in Turkey,  a place that has become a home for us.  We’ve learned the language, begun to understand the culture, and made new friends – good friends.  We’ve been shaped anew by this experience, changed immeasurably and can never go back to life as usual, as life was before Turkey.

But now we are in transition.  We’ve but twelve days left before our plane will carry us across the Atlantic and forward into our new life in a familiar world.  This in between life is difficult.

We are saying goodbye at the same time we are saying hello.  We are looking back even as we look forward.

Those we leave only say goodbye.  Those who will greet us upon our arrival will only say hello.  But we have to say both and say them simultaneously.

Oh that we could have taken a week long journey back on a ship as in the days of old.  Only time allows for processing all that we feel and in our ultra connected world, time is the one resource we have run out of.

And so we live in transition.

Physically we do not yet have a home to return to, nor a car to drive, nor a plan for our children’s education nor a clear picture for making enough money to live on.  Much is yet to be known.

Emotionally we are in transition as well.  We are mourning our leaving of Turkey.  It is in us.  It is a part of us and moving away is a not easy.  It is good and right, but not easy.  And while we are mourning our leaving we are truly excited about our new life and the adventures to come.

It is a strange place to be feeling both at the same time.  Actually, I never really feel them both at the same time.  They come at me in waves rather – first one then the other and then back again and I am sure our families will think us strange, mentally ill perhaps.  May they have grace with us and may we have grace with ourselves.

We received an email yesterday from a good friend back in the states.  It was an encouragement to us after a rather difficult day and struck at the heart of where we are and where we hope to remain, anchored steadfast even as our life transitions before us.

Here is what he shared with the words of another:

Living overseas is a form of fasting. Fasting from the comforts of a would-be heaven on earth. I want to know God deeply and I want him to be known so much that I fast from my beloved family and worldly comforts, and teach my children to engage with neighbors of differing faiths. But to live and fast like that, to raise my children like that, isn’t brave.  When I think about mothering my three children who love this steamy, desert nation, I don’t feel brave. I feel dependent. Helplessly, desperately, breathlessly, clingingly dependent.

It is this dependency that anchors us and that, I hope, will continue to anchor us.  For while many would say that we are “going back” to America, in reality, we are going forward to our new life in America.

A life of adventure, of exploring, of taking risks and continuing to grow in trust.