Aggregates, Dust and Emotional

I played volleyball for about three hours tonight. I think probably about 12 games all told. I won once. That's a great record. I am not really very good at that game. I'm not really very good at any sport. I'm not really very good at anything, I'm just competent in a lot of things. Jack of more trades than normal, that's me. We played on a dirt court, and mayhaps it would be more accurate to say a dust court. It's not just staff, but some of our other friends come also. Surprise, surprise, I'm about as social with them as I am with anyone else. I'm really struggling with that.

To be honest, I'm really struggling with a myriad of things related to that. I'm not an extroverted, socially dependent animal. I'm an introverted, socially... indifferent person. Lots of the things other people here talk of doing, I just can't imagine myself doing. What I'm really struggling to understand is if that's OK, or if I need to change. Am I selling my work here short by not taking advantage of more opportunities to interact with others? Or is it OK to just stay in my room, write, play games, read? What it seems to reduce itself to is that I a still trying to feel my way through my role here.

Today was Friday morning. And as I sat and listened, I was struck again with the thoughts I keep fighting, ones of inadequacy and bewilderment. Inadequacy compared to these people. Bewilderment at what I thought I could do here. Inadequacy in my thought processes as to why I am here. Bewilderment since I either lack the vision or refuse to see what could have been the reason for my arrival here. Inadequacy in how I relate to the ways these people Relate. Bewilderment at the fact that I am here. Inadequacy because I again couldn't bring myself to say anything in small group Talk about things that are going on because I can't put them at the same level as what is going on here. Bewilderment since I know that all is equally important.

Lest you become disturbed, I am not really bothered by these things that I work through in my head. Well, perhaps on the face of them, I am bothered by them. But I am not thrown into doubt over the Reason that I am here by them. It is more that it seems not to hold the justification that I thought it would. The realization is growing in me that what I am here for isn't something easily grasped or distilled. There are no pat answers, no convenient three step explanations for it. Rather, this is a process, another step in the journey. The difference in this situation could be likened to the second time the training wheels come off, and since it had seemed so easy with someone else's help to start off, it has to be easy by myself, right?

I don't really remember the first time I rode without training wheels. I do remember the second. I plotted my bicycle on an inexorable course with my destiny - a thirty foot tall apple tree. I hit the tree. I remember not being particularly frustrated, instead thought of how I could avoid such a situation in the future. I figured out how to steer away from the tree.

In many ways, I think that this is the process of hitting the tree. This is the process where an examination takes place. Hopefully, all of my notions of how this was supposed to work, of why, I will leave those behind. Instead, I think I am beginning to catch a glimpse of the Reason. Maybe if I get more than a corner of my eye on it, I'll tell you about it.