This is an email sent to by Ate Lianne, my D12 leader. Beautiful. :)

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This is from the preface of a book I bought in the States. It’s written by Donald Miller, the author of one my most favorite books, Blue Like Jazz. I bought the book precisely because of these lines. I read it out loud to some of you I’ve seen since I got back but since they also want a soft copy of it, here it is :) I think it really spoke to me, and I hope it speaks to you too :) Love you all :)

***Background: The book is about Donald taking a road trip from his hometown Texas (mostly cowboys and desert kind of state) to Oregon Portland (east coast, trees and winter and all that state) and permanently residing in Oregon. In the preface/author’s note part he talks about that. Favorite parts ko in bold (but these paragraphs are my favorites in the section and spoke to me)

“I remember the sweet sensation of leaving, years ago, some ten now, leaving Texas for who knows where. I could not have known about this beautiful place, the Oregon I have come to love, this city of great people, this smell of coffee and evergreens reaching up into a mist of sky, these sunsets spilling over the west hills to slide a red glow down the streets of my town.

And I could not have known then that if I had been born here, I would have left here, gone someplace south to deal with horses, to get on some open land where you can see tomorrow’s storm brewing over a high desert. I could not have known then that everybody, every person, has to leave, has to change like seasons; they have to or they die. The seasons remind me that I must keep changing, and I want to change because it is God’s way. All my life I have been changing. I changed from a baby to a child, from soft toys to play daggers. I changed into a teenager to drive a car, into a worker to spend some money. I will change into a husband to love a woman, into a father to love a child, change houses so we are near water, and again so we are near mountains, and again so we are near dear friends, keep changing with my wife, getting our love so it dies and gets born again again and again, like a garden, fed by four seasons, a cycle of change. Everybody has to change, or they expire. Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons.

I want to keep my soul fertile for the changes, so things keep getting born in me, so things keep dying when it is time for things to die. I want to recognize and cherish and preserve the things and people in my life that I have kept coming back to no matter how far I have gone. I want to keep walking away from the person I was a moment ago, because a mind was made to figure things out, not to read the same page recurrently.

And my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around dear friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn’t it?

It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out. I want to repeat one word for you: Leave.

Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn’t it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don’t worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed.”

— Sent by Ate Lianne

This is very timely. Don’t be afraid to leave :)