Well, I had several ideas of how to end the decade on my blog, like lists, videos, photos, whatever, etc.

But I have recently been given the gift of insight, as a puzzle has come together in my mind, with pieces representing everything from relationships to films. and i believe that it perfectly represents the past decade, unfortunately.

>

This past year has put us through the fire, but in a way of purification, thankfully. In the late Winter/early Spring, when the economic climate was very lame, I was given the green light to find a new job. this was bittersweet, because I love my job, but a living wage with benefits was something to be excited about - even in the potential. and more than that, a job had just been posted at the Columbus Vet Center, specific to Marriage and Family Therapy. I had already interned at the Boston Vet Center, and I had developed a relationship with the "Team Leader" at the CVC. It could not have been a better fit, nor a better time. It was $35,000 more than I was making (to start), with federal government benefits. We were just beside ourselves with excitement and joy - completely forgetting why it was we came back here to Ohio.




I went through the insane federal application process in late February. We then waited to be called in for an interview all of March. Anxious, Excited, Anticipatory. The end of March brought a letter from the VA. Letters are never good. They didn't put me through to the interview stage, but without any substantial reason. They checked off the most abstract, generic reason on the list of reasons. I called the team leader at CVC - and he immediately began communicating with HR. We thought this would change everything - but then he called back and told me there wasn't anything he could do - but gave a list of things to do and say, how to do them and how to say them, who to talk to, etc. but they never returned my calls or emails at HR. so basically, i could just go fuck myself, unless i had a politician to make a call. i didn't. we were devastated, and left with fatal stab wounds from the knife of discontentment. we had given ourselves to the goddamn modern idea that there was something better - and we needed it, and we goddamned deserved it! and we lay on the floor bleeding from it.



but we had learned a invaluable lesson when we moved back from Boston, MA to Ironton, OH. when i was not given the job that i now have, we had to somehow become content and invested in a place that we had not at all invested in, and didn't necessarily know how to do so. this led to some interesting happenings, the most interesting being the social work job i had for three months, in one the poorest counties in the country. the place where Ashland Oil was still raping the landscape for coal. this is where i read "Jayber Crow". this is when i began to understand the beginning of the end.



so by God's grace, did i still have my job in FTON. Suddenly, we were thankful. and more, we had decided to invest in the church side of my job - kelsie teaching kid's church every other week - getting our kids involved - and opening ourselves up to the neighborhood families as we had not yet done. it was difficult, and often still is, because of our differences in cleanliness, in class, in theology, in education, etc. but we knew it was right. it was something we shared. and we no longer believed there was something better. fuck pay and benefits. fuck a better place to live. fuck better people to live with. fuck a better "church". fuck the black hole of ungratefulness and discontentment.



this conflict is an ever growing theme among our peers, among our generation. we choose ideas over people, we invest in education instead of relationships, we pursue career in without thought of family, we move on to another place in the world, when the current place has not met our expectations, expecting the next place to be better, more meaningful, and without compromise - and ultimately, independence is always looming, where shared/dependent relationships become too much of a burden, sacrifice, and disappointment. many friends have fallen victim to divorce because of these things. many will never marry, because it asks too much of them. there is not enough space for two, in these post-modern times. we have become too independent, too selfish, and we have a globe full of hiding places. some of us claim to be pacifist when it comes to war and physical violence, but the roots of violence stem from the spirit of independence, on the level of marriage, family, friendship, and community, which has ushered in a kind of relational holocaust, rather than the Kingdom of God.