Viva la vida. La vida sin impossiblidades.

I often hear my friends -- or myself, in my own head -- wish for the day when things will be "stable." You know, the day when you don't have to worry about having different living arrangements or a different job every year; the day when essay writing is a thing of the past, and we leave our work at work.

Maybe there will be a day without essays, but I disbelieve that life will ever be "stable."

Those who have their money safely locked away in 401(k)s or other stock based retirement funds recently got their fill of the erroneous notion of stability. And I've learned the hard way that even family walks teeteringly on the edge of instability.

Five years ago I imagined myself soaking up the books (and rain) in some Oregon college with my high school sweetie no more than a short drive away. I knew what I wanted to do with my life, but aggressive career pursuits were far from my mind -- in fact I thought such thoughts flirted with idolatry. I was confident in my theology. Washington, D.C. was only a place I saw on the news.

Though my family still recognizes me well enough, when I return to Oregon I feel more and more like a stranger and visitor. Granted, I still have my quirks and hobbies and get along well enough, but the pool of experiences in which my life has been dipped -- apart from my family -- has washed away much naivety, innocence and presumptions I once held.

If so much can change in five years, where will I be in the next five? Even just a year ago I imagined myself graduating from college right into a newsroom as a reporter. Now I watch helplessly as the newspaper industry collapses across the nation. I watch unemployment numbers tick-tick-tick up, and read one article after the other about the plight of some family, group or individual that is suffering from an element of the economic blight. I watch my student loans stack up.

This is an unpredictable world. Didn't Jesus warn us not to obsess over the future? After all, he said, we don't even know what tomorrow will bring. We can plan this or plan that, but in the end it's often a roll of the dice; a draw of the cards. I can follow diligently the mist-shrouded land in the distance, but who knows what islands or icebergs will accompany my journey there -- or what mirage my goal will reveal itself to be.

I may or may not make some drastic decisions in this next year. I might surprise some people, and might disappoint others. But I do the best with what I have. It's guess work most of the time. My guiding principle is that which I had tattooed on my right calf a year and a half ago: πίστις--pistis. That is, faith. I am told in the Bible to walk by faith, not by sight. Faith is the "assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" says Hebrews 11:1.

There is a lot I can't see; a lot that can undermine any "stability" I find in life. But I have greater promises than stability.