Opening Pandora's Box

Hope. It hit me unexpectedly the other day.

You have to be a pretty good liar to not believe in hope. I guess that makes me a good liar.

Here's why I say that:

Hopelessness happens when you are so able to convince others that you are fine, that you create an absolutely solitary environment for your despair. Hopelessness happens when your sin so overwhelms you, yet you hide it so well, that the only part of yourself that you feel is really yourself -- the self so deep that no one but you knows it -- is your overwhelming sin. Most people cry in private. People cut themselves in private. People commit suicide quite privately. Hopelessness is when you meet your darkest side, and you are too afraid to make it public. Hopelessness is you and your dark side, alone, in private, commiserating with one another.

That's why I believe that my friend who cuts herself has hope. Her secret was discovered. The symptom (her cutting) of deeper issues came to light. It's as though the opening to those deeper issues has been discovered, and now a Pandora's box of darkness, hurt, and pain has been opened, and with it -- hope.

Sometimes I wish there had never been a need for hope. If Eve had never bitten into the beautiful fruit, if first sin had never taken place, if the world had remained young and perfect forever, no one would know what hope even was. After all, what would we hope for?

Other times, I scream with gladness for hope's existence. It's like someone said somewhere: How would we know light, unless it had first broken through the darkness? I have a little black box in my soul -- my own Pandora's box of sin and shame that I keep hidden from everyone I know. I can't seem to let go of it because I'm so busy keeping it covered. I think hope exists inside of those boxes. Hope is released only by opening Pandora's box. Hope happens when my despair encounters the Gospel.

Hope is not victory. Hope is faith in victory. Sergei told me, "Life is a wrestling match. Sometimes we win small victories, sometimes we fail. What counts is not winning every round, but continuing the fight. You might fall a million times, or more. What God asks is not that you never fall, but that you never stop fighting. We know already that the ultimate victory is ours."

That's hope: falling, having to tap out, going to the corner to catch your breath and get a drink of water, and returning to the fight. Hope is confident of victory, without yet seeing it. We know that our Coach is not merely watching from the corner, but is giving us the strength to continue the fight, to love the fight, and ultimately, to see the victory He won and continues to win through us.

Similar to faith, a small mustard seed of hope is all it takes to create light from darkness, beauty from despair. That's what I experienced the other day. In the face of all my repetitive sins and old fears and continuing sense of shame, seeds of hope grew into great spreading trees of faith in Jesus Christ who loves me and gave Himself for me.

I hope that next time, I won't go back to the old sin. I hope that I will be the winner of the next round, in the name of Jesus Christ my Lord. "I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams." I hope.

Guiding Principles, or, The Great Commandment Again

Hannah and I were talking in the little Starbucks at Barnes and Noble today: we've both been having some life crises lately. You know, the usual Senioritis scares of Who-Am-I-Really-And-What-The-Hell-Am-I-Going-To-Do-With-My-Life. Maybe it was because of the stimulating Barnes and Noble atmosphere, or maybe it was because I was coming off a caramel frappuccino, or maybe it was because when Hannah opens up like she did I always get inspired. But I came up with a couple diagrams (scrawled on ripped-out pages from a little pocket notebook), the first a simple principle that I hope comes to define my life and the second a principle that will define every person's life as long as she doesn't give up. (Giving up is the worst.)

Guiding Principle No. 1:

LOVE YOURSELF.

Guiding Principle No. 2:

(It got a mention on Hannah's blog! Wow!: http://londonfoggyblog.blogspot.com/)

Try --> FAIL

Try --> FAIL

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Try --> FAIL

Try --> FAIL

Try --> FAIL

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etc.

Try --> die.

= SUCCESS...

...is NOT being perfect.

...is being a glorious imperfection in the Kingdom of God.

Really, I just stole those principles from Jesus' two Great Commandments (Matt. 22:37-40). The first "Guiding Principle" is only a summary of the two commandments, and the second sums up our lives lived in light of them. I'm not trying to be cynical.-- I mean, life is scary...and awesome! By the grace of God (as opposed to my effort at perfection) I get up again every time I fail.

My difficulty is with Guiding Principle No. 3:

Grace

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>-|-O [sideways stick-person me] <------Grace

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Grace

(This diagram means rest in grace.)

Pockets Turned Out

What if we hid nothing from each other?

I've been writing letters back and forth with a beautiful young Christ-follower that I haven't known very well before, and she has been so transparent with me. It's allowed me to do the same. There is in the space of such a small time a connection between us that I rarely feel: an encouragement and a hope built. A trust. One I never expected to feel with her. A trust that I will struggle to keep, because we are sisters in Him who makes trust, and hope, possible.

Suddenly, without even realizing it, worship happens.

What if we all did what they used to do before the first person ate the first bite of sin? What if we exposed ourselves for the (im)perfections that we are? That we all are.

What if Adam and Eve hadn't hid themselves?

As Kathleen Kelly says in You've Got Mail: "I don't really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So goodnight, dear void."

Composed of Eros and of dust...

Once, I looked out of the back window of a minivan and believed that I could clamber out onto the clouds in the sky above, and that when I got there they would be great soft mountains and I could explore the hundreds of shining caves. I thought if I looked long enough, I would find God there.

Once, my sister and I picked dozens of red berries that stained our fingers, and used them to decorate a scrawny, four-foot pine tree in our neighbor's back woods. The pine tree had only two branches, each on opposite sides like arms reaching slightly forward. We hung berries on each of his green needle fingers. It was Christmas time. I imagine snow everywhere, but I'm not sure if that is only my imagination enhancing the memory. I know that we named the tree "Little Pine." (We were very creative children.) We used to visit him often, he seemed so lonely standing in the middle of the path, a small citizen in a tall world. That winter became fiercely cold, and Michigan suffered from several ice storms that shattered many pipes and caused a great number of power-outages. The spring that followed, Hannah and I wandered back through those woods to visit Little Pine and noticed that his fingers weren't green anymore and the sap had run dry beneath his skin. Winter had robbed him early of life. We both cried a little then.

Once, the song Pavane, by Gabriel Faure, changed me forever.

(Listen to it laid out on your living room floor with your eyes closed. If you are unable to lie down, or if your living room floor is a primary walkway in your house, then feel free to ignore this stipulation. However, eyes closed is imperative.)

Once, I sat in a hammock next to the person I love and pretended to be in the Amazon rainforest. For all the birds and all the green leaves swirling overhead and the warm smell of rain, it may as well have been. I felt delight when he said it might as well have been, too.

Once, I read these words for the first time: "Part of you thought: Please don't look at me. If you don't, I can still turn away. And part of you thought: Look at me." For the first time, I thought: Yes.

(I spent the rest of that reading -- The History of Love -- thinking Yes, again and again.)

Once, my great-grandfather died. At his funeral, I couldn't get the smell of Tootsie Rolls from my senses.

One night, I looked out from the window of a loft where I was preparing to sleep. I stared out over the fields and fences and thought a soft white fog had lowered over everything on the earth. But the trees had dark islands beneath them where the fog left an untouched circle. I understood: the soft white fog became moonlight. I leaned my face against the cool glass and watched the full moon drench the world, looked down and watched the shadows spread. I laid my head on the pillow and slept.

I find all of these things to be beautiful. Like the deep blues and glowing yellows of van Gogh's Cafe Terrace at Night, the memories of these flicker inside my heart in varying colors of pain and joy. Hannah and I drove to Houston from Baton Rouge today -- five hours -- and we talked about this ... "aesthetic sense," for lack of a better term: this sense that fills all of us at certain moments. Moments we can't predict or pattern, but that rumble inside of our souls when they come and leave us in hushed and reverent wonder. They serve to "keep us out of the set ways of life," as Hannah read to me from A Severe Mercy. They remind us of the terrible beauty of being alive.

These are some of mine.