The Middle

It's been almost a month since I've updated.  Chalk it up to the "Middle". (The English put the punctuation on the outside of the close quotes if it was not part of the phrase in the quotes.  I've always liked that much better than the American way, but it gets circled on papers a lot.).

The Middle has always fascinated me.  I capitalize it because I think it's one of the most sincere and legitimate states I find myself in most often.  Politically speaking, I like the Middle, because I hate the downfalls that come with decisions made at any point on a political spectrum.  The Middle affords me time to think, time to solve.  But I often realize the Middle isn't actually solving anything, it just expresses my lack of solutions for the issues at hand.

And, even if something has a definite interval of time, the Middle always feels like it will exist and perpetuate indefinitely.  High School felt like the Middle, because it came before college.  College feels like the Middle because it comes before "real life".  (Note the punctuation.).  The Middle is where the story occurs: between the clearly defined beginning and end, the Middle exists because of those two.  Yet the Middle doesn't always define the story as much as the end and sometimes the beginning, but is that right?  Should the Middle be just as important?

I don't know.  But what I do know is this: the Middle is a critical emotional existence.  And it's happening on England Semester.  I wept the other day for the first time on the trip so far.  Some people were shocked that it was the first time I've really cried, but I wasn't.  It was one day after the exact middle mark of the trip and I think that's so fitting.  The Middle kills me every time, no matter how much I enjoy it, no matter how much it satisfies the seemingly-impossible hope that everything will speed up and slow down all at once.

My original hope for this blog post was that I would update the world (and myself) about all the various incredible experiences I've had in the last month, but really, it's turned into this.  Whatever this is.

It was hard to leave Ireland.  We're heading back on Friday, but we're going to Northern Ireland, which is simultaneously a different place and the same place all at once.  When I begin to reflect on Ireland's situation, I find myself so grateful for its hardship; clearly I'm not happy that its people have suffered and continue to suffer through difficult questions of identity, freedom, and peace, but it's questions and broken attempts at answers stream parallel to the humanity of all the battles we face.  Ireland is in the Middle with me.  They've got their hopes and aspirations hanging from the trees of places they've never found directions to.  Their identity, plunged deep into the murky waters of political and religious confusion, visible enough to know it's tangible but distorted by the waves and ripples of finite time.

The answers are in the infinite.  And so is the hope.  We know God has no beginning and no end.  He also has no Middle.