Eat, Pray, Love

So I was a little under the weather last week. I got to watch several movies one of them was Eat, Pray,Love. I read this book several years ago while in graduate school. Everyone raved about how wonderful it was so I decided to pick up a copy. I will admit there were winner lines and moments but overall I wasn't that impressed. I feel like this book/movie promotes this idea that the only way we can find ourselves is to leave the community we know. Gilbert leaves to travel to these beautiful parts of the world to partake in discovering herself. She discovers these new communities while her problems wait silently by. Why do we think we need some awe inspiring moment to bring about change? 

It makes me think about an old Matchbox Twenty 20 song: Hang


She grabs her magazines
She packs here things and she goes
She leaves the pictures hanging on the wall, she burns all
Her notes and she knows, she's been here too few years
To feel this old

He smokes his cigarette, he stays outside 'til it's gone
If anybody ever had a heart, he wouldn't be alone
He knows, she's been here too few years, to be gone

And we always say, it would be good to go away, someday
But if there's nothing there to make things change
If it's the same for you I'll just hang


We have all we need in the midst of our suffering. I remember the days of broken romances clearly. I would have watched this movie and convinced myself that I needed a new adventure to rid me of my sorrow. It is the engagement of our sorrow that we find the strength to heal. It is in the midst of these daunting feelings that I need those who care for me. Gilbert spent so much time working things out on her own. We need people to walk along side of us to refresh us when I weary. This to me is the definition of community...Bearing one another's burdens.Isn't this how God has called us to love one another....to be together?


“The mercy of God does not eradicate the damage, at least not in this life, but it soothes the soul and draws it forward to a hope that purifies and sets free.” Dan Allender