Turkey and Cousins

There is nothing more important in this world than family. I'm so glad for mine.

"...breeding/ Lilacs out of the dead land."

Sometimes I feel like I'm searching for God in a sandstorm, and even though I've never been in a sandstorm I can imagine what it would be like to be lost in one. Blind, stinging, dry, directionless. Just lots of yellow stuff swirling around.

For the first time in a long time, immeasurably long (immeasurable because I can never keep track of time), right now I breathe. I have only half a paper to write, and then it will officially be fall break for me. This half of paper represents all that I throw my hatred and exhaustion and uncertainty into. It represents all the scratching and professor-pleasing that I do to get A's that I don't need. It represents all the resume-building that I used to think was so important. It is a paper for my Honors class, and it is one of the most pretentious-sounding things I've ever written. (I love being able to use words like "thing" and "stuff." It's so liberating.)

Check this sentence out:

Here, my integration of perceptions failed to integrate in another's mind. Or perhaps the ideas presenting themselves to me seem incompatible, and my mind is unable to perform the integrations between them, in which case I fail to conclude at all.

Who would actually want to read something that dry and boring? Nobody. Especially not people who just need a break. (Like me.) Unfortunately, someone's gotta finish this paper. And that someone is me.

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I am now on top of Lookout Mountain, looking over the city of Chattanooga. It is dusk, following a red sunset. The moon is a steady sliver hung midway in the sky. I am sitting in Hannah's bedroom five floors up with the windows flung open and no screens barricading me from the mountain air. Sufjan Stevens is singing "Heirloom" to me. I have been reading A Severe Mercy for the past hour and now I am sitting, taking in what is happening to me in these days of rest and peace.

And what can I say now of life and God? Only that he is enough. I read one of the most well-known passages in all the Bible two days ago -- Philippians 4:4-7 -- and for the first time it shocked my heart like a bell struck. I felt so thankful for fear and distress and a certain feeling of being lost, because suddenly the speakings of my Lord became alive in that context.

It's funny how lostness works that way, and distress, and fear. I guess the sandstorm is the place to find God after all. He's like an oasis that fills the entire desert once you find it. I started looking because I couldn't handle the thirst or the dryness anymore. How quickly he found me then! It's not that my confusion is gone, but that while I wait for it to "shake out," as Hannah would say, I'm finding all kinds of joy and goodies in God's presence -- or, to be more poetical, "peace that passes all understanding."

Sometimes I'd like to find a house in a field in the middle of a forest in the middle of nowhere, with a garden erupting with lilacs and roses and winecups, with a bench in the middle of the garden where I can sit and spend out the rest of my days contemplating Christ. It would be lonely and pretty against how God set things up to be -- in community and everything -- but I think I would be at peace. But then, that shows how afraid of people I am. And of pain.

I guess on that note, because I'm rambling, I'll close with this quote from A Severe Mercy, which I picked up today. In spite of the fear, and because of the beauty, and because I hope that out of all this contemplation and all this distress and all this joy will flow one thing -- a great Love -- here are these words:

“He had been wont to despise emotions: girls were emotional, girls were weak, emotions—tears—were weakness. But this morning he was thinking that being a great brain in a tower, nothing but a brain, wouldn’t be much fun. No excitement, no dog to love, no joy in the blue sky—no feelings at all. But feelings—feelings are emotions! He was suddenly overwhelmed by the revelation that what makes life worth living is, precisely, the emotions. But, then—this was awful!—maybe the girls with their tears and laughter were getting more out of life. Shattering! … What is beauty but something that is responded to with emotion? Courage, at least partly, is emotional. All the splendour of life. But if the best of life is, in fact, emotional, then one wanted the highest, purest emotions: and that meant joy. Joy was the highest. How did one find joy? In books it seemed to be found in love—a great love—though maybe for the saints there was joy in the love of God. … But in the books again, great joy through love seemed always to go hand in hand with frightful pain. Still, he thought, looking out across the meadow, still, the joy would be worth the pain—if, indeed, they went together. If there were a choice—and he suspected there was—a choice between, on the one hand, the heights and the depths and, on the other hand, some sort of safe, cautious middle way, he, for one, here and now chose the heights and the depths.”

"somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond"

Today I went to Dearman's Diner and had a fantastic cheeseburger, all dressed, and an even more fantastic chocolate milkshake. I ate mounds of sweet potato fries. I sat at a table with ten middle school girls who have all become so much to me throughout these long summer days. We were there to say goodbye to one another, they to me and I to them. We sat in red vinyl chairs, sipped our milkshakes, and shared our memories. A piece of me, maybe the piece sipping on chocolate milkshake but I think something deeper down, shriveled up and died.

I saw a cicada shell clinging to a tree the other day, brown and crisp with a great crack down the center. A friend wrote to me in a letter about when we are lifted from our earthly bodies and carried to the paradise of God -- like a cicada separated from its lifeless shell and lifted away on new alive wings.

Sometimes I say that I like change. And I do. But I've realized the kind of change I have spent my entire life hating is the separating kind. Goodbyes are my greatest untalent. (Sergei can testify.) When I say goodbye to Baton Rouge -- to Sarah Beth, and Sophie, Christina and Christine, Elise (who I watched discover Christ), Madison, Carolyn, and Anna Catherine (with her perpetual shy smile) -- when I say goodbye, something in me closes off again. The fearful part, the part afraid of hurting or dying again. The part that dreads separation.

Have I left pieces of my shell on trees in cities all over the country?

I can't help but think, when at last I am lifted from my earthly body in that final separation, will I be sad to let the earth go? Do I hold on too tightly?

And yet. On that day, when my shell is left clinging to the old world and my soul soars to the new, won't all of the separations that gave my soul small deaths in the old world become the uniting that resurrects my soul in the new? Face-to-face with all the lives that have brushed mine, that I've been so blessed as to brush up against, with friends who fell asleep long ago, with family I never knew, with those whose written words charged and changed me, with old loved ones, in short, with that great cloud of witnesses; face-to-face -- at last, at long long last -- with the Great Lover who Saved me, will I not believe with the faith of all things that all separation is resurrected into union?

Those days (if they can be called "days" when no time can determine their beginning or end) will make today seem like a brief farewell before the long and joyful embrace.

Postscript: Come to think of it, now that I'm all packed with my bags and suitcases piled around me: in less than a week, I'll be reunited at college with some of my best friends in the world. And with my love. :) I'll turn from sadness and look forward to those long, joyful embraces.

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

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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.