my favorite postsecret this week

This made me cry. In the good way.

www.postsecret.com

a word of caution

I meant to mention this a few days ago:

If, by chance, you ever happen to be playing 2 Truths and a Lie (or, its lesser-known cousin, 2 Lies and a Truth), and one of a person’s statements happens to be that they have webbed toes — DO NOT LAUGH.

The webbed toes statement will turn out to be the true one and you will feel like English 354’s Official Jerkface.

(I didn’t mean to laugh.  It was a gut reaction.  I can only hope no one noticed).   

I should be sleeping…

It’s 5:03 a.m. and I should be sleeping right now, but I’m wide awake.  Apparently my body is starting to get used to my work schedule.

That, and I think it would be cool to surprise Justin on his first break with Dayquil and some Starbucks.  Poor kid has been sick all week and we ran out yesterday.

Probably the real reason I’m up this early is that I’m stressed out.  (Maybe if I vent for a while I’ll be able to go back to sleep for a bit, so forgive me.  I’m going to go into full-on whine mode for a while, because I need to, and this is my blog).  Going back to school has been… really hard.  Harder than I thought it would be, actually.  If I’d known… well, I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t fully know what I was getting myself into.  There’s no way I would have been able to muster up the courage.  As it is, it’s kind of a day-by-day battle.  It’s also a good thing that it’s too late to withdraw, I suppose.  There have been days I’ve strongly considered it.

I hate feeling this messy.

Part of it, I’m sure, is just the load I’m taking this quarter.  I needed a specific class to allow me to officially declare as an English major, and so I was limited in my choices.  Three lit classes were the result.  I’m just barely keeping up.  This past weekend, I felt like I barely saw Justin, I spent so much time in the office typing up papers.  I’d emerge for a minute, wave, and head back in.

I doubt my class load is going to look much different from here on out, however.  With enough credits to graduate already (if they were toward a particular thing — apparently my lack of direction shows in the number of credits I have as a Junior), all my classes each quarter will be literature or writing courses if I ever want to graduate. 

I like writing and literature courses.  But they are kicking my ass.

One in particular.  Frustration took over yesterday to the point where tears welled up in my eyes.  During class.  As if that weren’t enough, a few of them slid down my cheeks.  I’m glad the lights were low.  I was embarrassed enough as it was, and hope my weakness wasn’t noticed.

I genuinely like my prof.  There are days when I really enjoy class.  But the other days… really suck.  We’re learning a certain form of writing that for sure does not come naturally.  I think this is the case for nearly everyone in the class.  And the teacher is working really hard to explain it.  But for me, none of the words are gaining ground.  I believe him that there are huge benefits to learning how to write this way.  I’m on board.  But I… don’t… get… it.  I feel for a moment like I do.  And I write my papers during this moment.  And then I come back to class and realize I was way off.

I’m used to “getting” things.  Fairly easily, usually.  I’m very used to “getting” things when I apply myself and am working really hard.  This is killing me.

Remember these things?

These things, in case you were asleep for most of the mid-90’s, are Magic Eye pictures.  Apparently, if you look at them in a certain way, a beautiful 3-D picture will emerge.

I remember everyone telling me how to do it.

“Relax your eyes.”

“Try not to focus, try to look through the picture, and then the picture will start to come into focus.”

I could look at one of those things all day and wouldn’t see a thing.  Not once have I ever been able to see the damned picture.  I was a pretty happy camper when that craze died off and my next-door neighbors didn’t have one hanging on their living room wall anymore.  I don’t care what picture they saw in that thing — it was hideous.

This is how I feel in class.  My prof is explaining exactly how to do this (also, what not to do when you’re doing this).  Over and over and with greater detail he’s explaining how to do this.  “Relax your eyes.  Relax your eyes.  To the right, and with intensity! OK?”  But the words aren’t making sense, aren’t connecting, and despite trying really damn hard… for the life of me, the picture won’t come into focus.   

At this point, I’m pretty sure my essay will be about the Magic Eye picture that I can’t see.  It’ll be the hardest I’ve ever worked for a lousy grade in a class that I need to pass to declare my major.

Ack.

Justin and I are going to look at the class notes a little later and hopefully he’ll be able to help translate some for me.  It couldn’t hurt — I’m certainly not going to feel any more clueless than I do right now.

As much as this sucks, it helps to have someone who’ll jump in there with me and help sort it out when I feel nuts.  Being married to me for nearly a year is MORE than enough time for Justin to know how overwhelmed and crazy I get sometimes… but every time, he’s consistently there, listening, comforting, waiting for me to come around and gain my courage again.  School will only be for a season, and then there’ll be new challenges and new stresses — but it’s amazing to have such a partner through all of it. 

square peg, round hole

So, hi.  Me again.  After quite the hiatus this past several several months, I think I need to be writing on a slightly more regular basis again.  I’m sure it won’t be anywhere near the amount of words I used to produce, but this is probably all for the best.  My goal?  To purge my oft-overwrought little brain via typing at least once a week.

J and I were talking this morning, and he had this wonderful bit of insight: “I think you might be like me that way.  If you’re not writing, you go to a dark place.”

Justin will often say that he has a lot to learn about being a husband, but the truth is that when it comes to being a husband to me, he’s got a whole lot more figured out that he realizes.  In many things, he knows what’s best for me even when I haven’t quite come around yet, and while this sometimes drives me crazy, I’m glad for it.  Then again, I have my ways of helping too, i.e., “Justin, I know there was an extra hamburger patty left on the Foreman, but we both know you’re going to regret making that a triple-decker.  Eat that much beef, and I’m pretty sure you’re going to be quite ill in about an hour.”  (Justin meekly removes the third patty from his already-huge burger and sits down with me to watch Discovery Channel over dinner).

Ah, the glories of married life.

In this no writing = dark place thing, he’s right.  We’re doing awesome.  Seriously, truly, we’re still living the wonder that is the honeymoon phase, which we hope to continue for, oh, I don’t know, about seventy years.  I LOVE being married to this man.  But life has a way of trying to balance things out.  You know.  Not TOO much ridiculous happiness, or you’ll seriously start to annoy pretty much every person within a five-mile radius of you.

I’m going through one of those I-don’t-really-fit-well-anywhere seasons.  They aren’t rare for me.  I can be friend-LY with just about anyone, and find a certain amount of enjoyment even in that.  But true friendship, real relationship, proves a bit elusive.  I’m an odd breed.  Fortunately, Justin is a similar kind of rare breed, so we get on very well.  I’m blessed in this regard.  I may be lonely for friendship at times, but I’m never in want of love and devotion from my husband, my closest of friends.

I had a gut feeling that building relationships with people was different when you’re married, and I was right.  Friendships that I developed when I lived up here in Bellingham before — our group of girls that hung out constantly – well, we’ve all changed in the past few years.  Mainly, we’ve all gotten married and moved on.  ”Getting together for coffee” is always somewhere on the horizon’s agenda, but the truth is, we aren’t really sure if we’re all that interested in making it happen.  We’re busy.  We’re different.  It’s a little awkward for reasons no one can pinpoint, truth be told.

Justin and I go to a small group from church with three other couples, and it’s good, but I know it will be a fight for me to continue going until I’m comfortable.  I struggle not to be stand-offish sometimes, which doesn’t exactly help me in my quest to make friends.  I never was very good at developing friendships with other girls, being far more comfortable as the token girl with a bunch of guy friends.  Either that, or the friends I did make were non-girly girls.  It’s a little different when it’s a group of married folks and we all split off by gender.  I’m a bit afraid that at any moment someone is going to suggest a scrapbooking party.  I know that there is potential for deeper connection, that we probably have more in common than simply being Mrs.’s, but I have a hard time letting my guard down.

This probably has more to do with the fact that it’s a group of church people than anything.  My mentor/pastor, Dan, had a moment of clarity when were gabbing away at Hot Shots Coffee a while back.  He said that ever since everything happened with my internship and I spent time away from ministry-world, I prefer to stay just off the radar…. I like to submerge for a while and disappear when I’m feeling out of place.  

He’s probably right.  I found out very quickly that I preferred to keep my guard up, rather than letting myself need all that approval again.

(I miss Daniel.  He understood Justin in general and me in particular in a way that few do, especially as regards our faith and our struggles to make it authentic.  I would kill for a coffee date, I really would).

The truth is that I’m just not sure how much I can truthfully share.  I am a messy Christian these days.  I admit it’s not easy for me to be a part of Christian community.  I see who I used to be all over the place, and sometimes, I don’t like what I see. 

Insider, “Christianese” language that I used to speak so freely now openly grates on my nerves.  I wonder if any of us even know what we mean anymore.  I’m quite sure that outsiders don’t.  A month or so ago some folks sitting behind us in church were being extremely demonstrative and loudly displaying their speaking-in-tongues prowess during the musical worship time.  They may have been genuine, but I was so uncomfortable, I was fighting tears a good chunk of the service.  I was so irritated that I found myself unable to turn around and shake hands during the meet and greet.  I sat there, angry, arms crossed, shaken to find the world I’ve tried so hard to get away from sitting right behind me.  I also found myself shaken at how ungracious I can be toward people who love Jesus just like I do — how judgmental and arrogant and self-righteous I can be in my own frustration.  It’s amazing how things you used to say and do all the time can bother you so much.

Other than this incident, however, I’ve found the church a very safe place.  The pastor’s messages are disarmingly authentic and personal, and we’ve very nearly found a home.  In a moment of courage or weakness, I’m not sure which, I met with the worship pastor about possibly being a part of their worship ministry there.  I didn’t want there to be any surprises, so I told him what I basically wrote above, and he seemed very accepting of me where I’m at and not at all afraid of having a messy Christian involved with his ministry.  He encouraged me to “be curious about how God can use the messy parts of your life.”  It was well put, and it has stuck with me ever since.

But, OH!  How I am going to struggle if I am going to stay with it.  In one arena, I was a part of a discussion about outreach, possibly in bars, and I wanted to flee the building. 

Rather than talking about how to effectively connect with people, I heard all about the depravity of people who were constantly in bars, how dark, how meaningless, how misled, how sick it all is, etc. etc. etc.  If there’s anything I struggle with, it’s this I’m-saved-so-life-is-great/you’re-unsaved-so-how-meaningless-and-pathetic-your-life-must-be comparison.  I have a hard time when the comparison is on the differences in our behavior, not the difference of what it means to have Jesus in your heart. 

To be human is to experience darkness, depravity, meaninglessness, and lostness.  Period.  Following Christ is no fix-all for what we experience as human beings.  We’re still who we are, even as we’re being made more like Christ.  We still struggle.  We still are broken people getting put back together.  The difference is not our perfection, but the grace we’ve received through Christ, the hope we have of God working even in our messed-up-ness.  So to distinguish ourselves from the “lost” in their lostness rather than identifying with them seems, well, off.  Not only off, but extremely ineffective since it’s nearly impossible to strike up a meaningful conversation when you’re being condescending. 

And, of course, when you’re looking around to make sure no one sees you in a bar.  (I struggled with whether or not to tell them I spent St. Patrick’s Day evening in one, having a beer with “the lost” as they downed car bombs.)

So… this is the knot of jumbled thought in my mind these days.  Is it worth the struggle to be a former-insider-who-thinks-and-feels-more-like-an-outsider-who-wants-to-be-a-part-but-doesn’t-want-to-go-back-to-being-an-insider?  Most days, I think yes.  The last few days, it’s been back and forth.  It may sound dumb to wrestle over this, but man, have I been wrestling. 

If you pray, please pray for me.  I know some of this is brought on by my own standoffishness and stubbornness, but I’m a bit lonely and could use the encouragement of a kindred spirit or two.  Or, lots of phone calls from far-away kindreds.

      

The Post

I can tell already that this is going to be one of those slightly messy stream-of-consciousness posts (been brewing for a while), so feel free to skip this one, I wouldn’t be offended in the least.  I’m feeling quite human this evening, and just need to throw some words at the wall for a bit, get them out of my head. 

This kills me, but I’ll just say it: I’m lonely.  Ish.  And feeling more than a little restless.

The thing is, life is great.  When I think back to last year, and how much has happened since then, I am absolutely amazed at God’s goodness to me.  This time last year, the internship was beginning to unravel, I had just applied for a job with a church in Bellevue (thus beginning a job search that would last six frustrating months), and my best friend Julie and brother Kevin had both moved away.  This time last year, I was still nursing a broken heart and we were trying that whole horribly confusing “friends” thing.  I’m still glad we did, but in retrospect it pretty much doubled the recup time.

Fast forward twelve months.  Things with church are going well, and the ginormous chip on my shoulder has for the most part melted away.  I’m in a small group I love dearly and am a part of launching a new church plant with one of my dearest friends.  I have a challenging job I enjoy – a great mix of passions and skill – that has potential to be long-term (I’ve stopped looking for a “real job”).  Julie and I are closer than ever, and Kevo and I still get together whenever we can.  God has brought new friends into my life through work and church and it’s nice to know that I’m surrounded by people who care about me & who won’t let me off the hook when I try to disappear every now and then.  The heart is healed up; a little scarred perhaps, but there’s no longer pain there.   

In a word: life has become pretty settled.  I’m not having to entertain many of the big questions that were hallmarks of my last several years.  Although life and God have a tendency to mess with any established plans (and they have that permission), it’s nice not to be constantly asking myself questions like where am I going to live next month? or where should I turn in an application this week?  should I go back to school?  should I stay here and attempt to find a job that will pay me enough to eat, etc.?

Yeah, things are good.  So what’s the problem?

Whatever.  You guys already know the rant that is coming.

It’s just reaching that slightly weird point in my life where nearly all my friends are married.  Definitely all my friends my age are.  Most of them are having babies, which is wonderful and just a little strange all at the same time.  And while I have no notions of their lives being perfect now that they’ve sealed the deal where love is concerned, there’s a piece of me that is envious.  I love my laid-back nights after work, my fun on the weekends, but I’m reaching the place where I’ve proved I can do all that on my own and be okay… I’d like someone to share all that with now.  Work is great, and although I love what I do, I never was one of those who set out for my career to be the most fulfilling thing in life.  Don’t sign me up just yet for the local chapter of the Scrapbooking Club, but wife someday and mom someday are pretty high up on the list.

It’s wicked hard to admit this to yourself if you’re me.  I’ve prided myself on being just fine with life on my own, thankyouverymuch.  Probably been a little feisty about it.  (Especially at weddings, where I inwardly give obnoxious people awards for being the first or most original in their comments about my singlehood ).  I’ve always distanced myself from the behavior of “those girls” who had subscriptions to forty bridal magazines and stalked the living crap out of any man unlucky enough to attract her affections.  I absolutely refuse to give chase, and I’m not afraid to delete a cellphone number or two.  (Jules is totally snickering right now).  But now, even “those girls” are married, and I’m thinking to myself that it is a strange and complicated universe that I live in.

Part of it is complicated because I am.  I already know it’s going to take a pretty unique person to make me happy and to happily choose to put up with me.  Although ministry is big on my heart, I know the schmoozy superstar ministry-type won’t work for me (you know — Behold!-I-am-Chris-Tomlin-cross-bred-with-Dave-Matthews-with-perfectly-tousled-hair)… just as I know the totally church-averse person is out.  If a guy uses basketball as a metaphor for life, we probably won’t hit it off, but the last thing I need is someone even more sensitive than I am.  Good communicator?  In.  Intellectual snob?  Out.  Camping, hiking… IN… I’m not sure if it’s a non-negotiable, but it’s close. 

See?  Complicated.  I say these things half-jokingly, but when certain things are missing, you know it.  And to quote a hero, nothing but the deepest sort of love can tempt me into marriage.  (It’s hard enough even with).

God, can you just send someone who loves you authentically and cares about people but who I can also just enjoy a beer and a good laugh with?

Knowing me, if and when it happens, I’ll probably end up surprised. 

I know all the cliches that people normally interject at points like this.  Know them by heart.  Worse, I know that they’re true.  God has a plan, when you’re not looking it will happen (my personal favorite), don’t worry at least you’re not thirty yet, yada yada yada.  It’s just that so many of them are spoken to me by people who are no longer living in that strange not-yet.  Schmucks.  (Just kidding.  Seriously.  I know they vaguely remember what it was like).   

I do live in the strange not-yet, and to own the truth, I choose to remind myself of these things all the time, (especially on nights I head to church or to my small group, where I am the token single person).  God has a plan.  Focus on what God’s asking you to do right now, in the present.  Don’t be so impatient to get to what’s next that you miss what’s good now.  All of that.  Some days I do a better job than others.  I hold my friends’ babies and make them giggle and start laughing out loud myself… that seems to be enough.  Other days, it’s a little harder and I whisper a few quiet prayers to God, reminding myself that he knows where I am and what I need.   

He knows what I need.  When I need it.  So even on nights like tonight, when all is just a little too quiet, I’ll do my best to continue learning how to trust him.

…end rant.  I feel better now.

moving on: day one

On the last day of 2005, a dear friend asked me: “So how are you feeling about 2005?”

I love friends with good words.  I love friends who ask good questions.  I’m grateful for those who ask good questions — and then wait.

The words tumbled from my lips, clumsy, like a toddler attempting ballet.  I didn’t have to look far for the obvious gifts this year has brought: as I’ve said many times, I’m grateful for the little blue house and for the work I’ve been blessed with.  It was lovely to begin the year with a healed, rather than a broken, heart.  There is much about life that is good, and better than I could have wished.  There is a settled-ness about my life that wasn’t there even five months ago.  In many areas of my existence, a peace prevails.

There is one corner of my life, however, that is uneasy.  Filled with an unrest that prowls back and forth through my mind and heart, it refuses to be satiated; it will not be still.  At times it has wrung tears from my eyes.  At others, it has chilled any concern to an icy and unfeeling numbness.  It has made me want to lash out in anger; it has had me cowering in wounded pain.  Above all, it has tired me.

I have preferred to keep this corner as hidden as possible, tucked away beneath the demands of the job, the laughter of friends, the momentary release of the day’s noise and activity.  But at night, when silence is once again king, the prowling begins once again.  Back and forth, back and forth, willing itself against the stillness.  I pick up book after book in search of something to bring me remedy, of something to offer some answer or comfort.  None comes.

Overdramatic?  Perhaps.  Normally I’d say so too, and these words would be deleted before they ever saw daylight.  Overstated, except that it’s been months and months.  So, now begins the confession.  Writing has always been my preferred form anyway.

Rejection and disappointment are bitter pills to swallow.  They can be toxic in the extreme when they are administered by a church — that is to say, when people within them, especially their leaders, are human beings who sometimes leave wounds in the ones they intended to make strong.  Somehow we think that within this fold, we’re exempt from the same kinds of batterings that we experience elsewhere.  We’re not.

The minute details are of little benefit and would probably only do harm, but it suffices to say that my ministry internship, by all practical accounts, was a terrible mistake.  The ultimate leap of faith for me, I placed my dreams and what I felt was my calling into well-intentioned, but ultimately ill-capable hands.  There was big talk, but in the midst of rapid church growth, we got dropped on our asses. 

The end of my leap of faith was the sound of a sickening splat.  Of course, it wasn’t as dramatic as all that.  These things rarely are — they usually advance by degrees.  But I still felt every bit of the splat.  As did the other interns who had stuck it out, only to experience a disappointment of their own.

Ever since, I’ve been trying to pick up the pieces of broken trust and fractured dreams.

It hasn’t been going so well.  I avoid church whenever possible.  I try my hardest to forgive, think I’ve succeeded, show up, experience the familiar resentment, experience new frustrations because my once-restrained cynicism about capital-C church is now on high alert.  I let protective walls rise sky-high, go home.  Don’t show up for another month or two.  Preferably three.  Repeat.

I feel in this a very deep sense of failure.  Two failures, really.  First: the failure to win enough favor with the powers that be so I could’ve avoided this rejection in the first place.  If I could have just been more ____________, if I could have found a way to prove myself capable, if I could have found a way to be on a person’s radar as a worthy person to invest in, maybe… maybe it could have been different.  Every bit of my need for approval screams out for this reversal of fortune.  What could have been, if only I’d been better. 

Failure two: despite all my efforts to banish it, this darkness is not gone from me.  I seem unable to let go of what happened; or, perhaps more truthfully, to force it to let go of me.  Everytime I see a familiar face, I feel the rejection all over again, and the bitterness wells up new.  I wasn’t even valuable enough to warrant anything more than a sarcastic conversation and a flippant apology.  I was not of value.  I wasn’t worth it.

I will never attempt this again.

I finally ‘fessed up.  I gathered up the words and the courage to say to my small group (the safest place I’ve found, led by a pastor and friend who has mentored and graced me through this.  I go every week, but have always kept my walls as high-up as possible while still being polite) the following words on Wednesday night: “I hate church.  I’ve experienced disappointment more than anything there, especially this past year.  I hate church, but I absolutely can’t turn my back on Jesus, and so I have no idea what to do with myself, or where to go.  And I’m so tired.”

Their response was amazingly gracious: “This – right here – is your church.  You belong here.  We want you here.  Don’t be silly, of course you’re welcome here.”

Chunks of the self-protecting barrier I’d built began to fall, if just a little, that night.  Am I back to trusting as I once did?  Nope, not a bit.  Am I in a hurry to try and work that hard for anyone’s approval again?  Not a chance.  Can I see myself someday trusting folks who have already given their approval, without my attempts to earn it?  Yes.  I really hope so.

Can I learn to forgive the hurts of the past with the healing of a new opportunity and a fresh start? 

I plan to. 

More on that later.  Thanks for listening.  If you’re there, have been there, whatever, if you’re struggling… I’m listening.  Shoot me an email.

***

Thank God for Jesus.  Anything less, and I’d have given this up long ago.  Thank You, Lord, for not giving up on me, and for reminding me that it’s the me-asking-You-questions part that You really love.  I’ll keep asking.  Please keep speaking back.

shame

[I found some words.]

As Americans, I think we are only capable of lucid thought once in a very great while, especially as it relates to the condition of the rest of the world. It takes a great deal to shake us free from our stupor, to stir us from the cozy comfort of our willing ignorance.

At least, I know this is the case with me. I am first among the guilty.

Of course, this will at some point pass, and I’ll no doubt insulate myself again soon by retreating back into normal routine… so I’ll use this moment of near-consciousness to speak.

It is frustrating that I know more about the spawn of the Federline-Spears union than I do about genocide in the Sudan. It’s sad that Brad Pitt has to sit down for an interview with Diane Sawyer and be grilled on his relationship with Angelina Jolie before he can get the cameras to turn to poverty and hunger in Africa. Bono has to get behind a push to ask our reluctant President to send more aid and help cancel third-world debt before it finally garners our attention.

We don’t care until famous people do. We also don’t care until it’s cool.

(Looking at the vast majority of the famous people we worship, and considering what we think is cool, this is deeply troubling. Don’t even get me started on what we call “reality” TV).

As much as watching Hotel Rwanda messed me up, it was this realization that disturbed me more: I don’t remember it. At all. Granted, in 1994 I was fourteen years old, just beginning my sophomore year of high school. Still, you’d think I would remember 800,000 Rwandans dying by machete in the course of just over three months.

You would think.

Here I am in 2005. The same thing is happening, and I am no more informed than I was eleven years ago.

The reasons for the conflict may be different, the region may be different – but men, women, and children are tortured and dying in mass quantities in Darfur, and it doesn’t even make the news. It’s barely even registers as a blip on the screen. (A story of mass death and destruction isn’t exactly a huge money-maker, unless, of course, it happens to be an epic thriller starring Tom Cruise. By the way, does anyone know if our favorite mid-life crisis has proposed to Katie Holmes yet? I simply must know).

I am ignorant by default in many ways. I may rail about the lack of world-perspective in the media, but their simple response is that they feed us what we want, and it’s hard to dispute it. Who really wants to see bloodied women and children in Darfur – and of all things, during dinner-time? Please. Give me the latest Lindsay Lohan feud any day over warring factions in the desert half a world away.

The difficult truth is, there is a lack of world-perspective in the media I choose. I am no longer fourteen years old. I choose what I give my time and resources to. The choice to use mainstream American media as my sole source of information may be a default decision on my part, but it is a choice nonetheless. I may be unconscious, but I choose to be.

I sit here aware that my choices must change. For me, there is no justification for insulating myself against this kind of human suffering.

One scene in Hotel Rwanda will stick with me for a long time. The main character, Paul, was talking to the refugees sequestered in his hotel. All non-Rwandans had been evacuated. There was no one – no one – to protect them from the slaughter. With few exceptions, the rest of the world simply watched, while folks debated on whether the word “genocide” was appropriate or not for the occasion. (Just like now, actually).

To get help from those outside, specifically from the West, he said, “You must shame them into helping.”

Consider me shamed. Ashamed of my ignorance, ashamed of my ingratitude, ashamed of the wealth I take for granted. Ashamed that I don’t know how to help, only how to type. Ashamed that the concern I now feel may recede right back into indifference once these painful images have faded from my mind. Ashamed that the cries of “the least of these” so often fall on deaf ears.

Please, take a moment to be shamed. Take a moment to see where you could play a small part.

www.savedarfur.org

www.darfurgenocide.org

www.one.org

let it be

Hi friends. Been a while.

I needed it. Sometimes I just need a while to struggle and wrestle and let things simmer without attempting to make it useful… without extracting a contrived moral from the story before its time. Sometimes the chaos just needs to be chaos for a while, with no need to know or even attempt to guess how far I am from some semblance of clarity or that promised light at the end of the tunnel.

When I began writing, I was ecstatic to discover an awareness that had long been lying dormant… thoughts and impressions that had lacked any meaningful expression up until that night last July when I found myself typing and unable to stop. Something profound changed in me. Rather than my days rushing along in a never-ending stream of indiscernible hours, my days became filled with marked meaning-laden moments. Or, to be more truthful, I became present to the moments that filled my days. I gained the ability to hit the pause button on my life; to stop and look around once in a while. I found myself no longer merely existing; I found myself living. Listening. Seeing. Feeling (deeply… and for the first time, okay with allowing myself that freedom).

On the good days, this newfound awareness serves me quite well. I drink it up. I thank God. I have plenty of happy things to say.

On the bad days (or bad weeks)… it’s acutely painful. Can I just say that? I don’t like writing about those days. And when I do, I pressure myself to wrap it all up in a nice pretty package of “but I’m learning some valuable lesson.” Then, I typically tie it up with a bow of “but I know God will work it out.” Heaven forbid I leave it messy; unfinished; out of the box.

Chaos doesn’t wrap up well.

But on and on I like to go, cutting even, straight lines on pretty paper and curling twirls of bright ribbon… furiously attempting to make life neat and well-ordered and lovely, at least on the outside. Yeah, I’m frustrated, yeah, I wonder why things don’t seem to be working out… but I’m nothing – of no value whatsoever – if I’m not inspiring and hope-filled, right?

I ran out of inspiring about three weeks ago. To quote a favorite movie, I had lost the ability to bullshit. I’m sure I erred a little too much on the side of wallowing. I cried. I complained. I got angry. I almost scared myself a little. I said some things to God that were probably a little impertinent, given that, well, he’s God, for God’s sake, and I’m me, and we both know the track records of who’s been right more often. But at least, for once, I wasn’t attempting to say it was alright when it really wasn’t yet. It was ugly, but at least it was real.

And when I came to the end of (or at least a significant pause in) my tirade this weekend, I found God there still. (That’s not an attempt at a pretty bow; it’s just a fact).

He used several things this weekend away to remind me, among other things, to get my grubby hands off his projects; there will be no need for pretty packaging when he’s done. There’s timing at work here, and I’m typically so in a hurry to see the end product, the moral, the lesson, the gift, that I’m forever missing the process.

(I think, although I can’t be sure, that he may have also been saying that I would probably do well to lay off the pointed sarcastic comments aimed heavenward and attempt a little more patience. He said this more gently than we both knew I deserved).

I can stop pushing for a quick resolution… and yet, I can still live within that chaos in faith that there will someday be beauty wrought from it. I don’t have to be bitter and depress-o to be authentic. Neither do I have to have a Full House-ish resolution to every daily struggle in order to be a woman of faith.

It’s weird. In refusing to gloss over what’s happening in my life with some flippant Christian cliche, I found them all more true than ever.

Dang it.

love anyway

If you’re going through hell, keep going.  –Winston Churchill

Remember – your darkest hour is still only 60 minutes.  –Normally obnoxious church sign on my way to work
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This week knocked me on my arse.  Pretty hard.  Yesterday it reached its peak.  The entire day was filled with prayers like, “OK God.  You’ve made your point,” and (Anne Lamott-style) “Would it really be so much skin off your nose to help me out here?” and “Seriously… I just need a break.  I’m done.”  Punctuated by certain other words I’m not sure you’re supposed to say to God.

Those moments are hard.  You know that knawing anxious knot in your stomach will at some point unravel itself; your years have taught you that everything passes with time (just one of the mercies of not remaining 16 forever); but still, even given that knowledge, it is absolute torture in the meantime.

I hate these moments for several reasons, but the main one is this: it reveals me to myself.  The inner darker parts that I strive to keep so neatly concealed beneath a veneer of I-have-it-together… they bust loose and wreak havoc when things aren’t going so well.  And all of a sudden I’m forced to grapple with who I am when I’m just too damn tired and frustrated to make any effort whatsoever at being impressive. 

On top of that, I hate that those close to me have to grapple with who I am when I’m just too tired and frustrated to make any effort whatsover at being impressive.  (Or even nice, for that matter).  If you’re anything like me, the one thing you truly despise is having your humanity show too much, especially with those you most care about.  It’s just painful.

Oh, sure, I show enough of my humanity to be real approachable and transparent and authentic — all those buzz-words that permeate our spiritual vocab these days.  That’s all good and well, and tends to help me form good bonds with other people.  I love being able (for the most part) to say what I’m really thinking and how I’m really feeling.  I was rarely able to do that when I was younger, and find great joy in this freedom now.  I’m still growing into it.

But what about when it’s not the charming variety of being human, but the nasty, self-pitying, self-centered, woe-is-me, I feel so frustrated by my life I could just puke variety?  What about when it’s the I know I’m doing bad, and can’t seem to talk myself out of it, and you’re probably not going to do any good either, so just let me wallow alone in my vat of sorry-for-myself variety?

(You kind of stop using pretty words like authentic and transparent at this point).

All my life I’ve been hyper-afraid that my moments of failure would be what defined me in the minds of other people.  Yeah, sure, I’m a sensitive and loyal friend most of the time, but those stressed-out moments when I’m sensitive only to my own wants and needs (which, with my temperament, I’m prone to anyway) — is that what my friends and family will remember at the end of the day? 

I run from this kind of exposure all the time.  I say I’m fine when I’m not, I fiercely avoid most situations where someone I don’t quite trust can see the tears… scared that the image someone will be left with was me at my lowest common denominator, me at my most vulnerable and pathetic.

Even with my friends I have a tendency to do this.  Luckily, for some reason they love me anyway and fight me on it.  For instance, Jason’s response when I apologized for the fact that I was just “a mess at the moment;” worried that I was wearing out my welcome on the friends scale of I-need-to-vent:

“Stacey, have you ever had a friend come to you, messy and needing you to listen, and you felt like they’d worn out their welcome?”

Sniff.  “No.”

“Why do you think I would be any different?”

Or, David:  “How ya doin’?”  Knowing full well that the word “crappy” would be the best key descriptor…

“Fine.”

“B.S.” (hitting me with a Red Robin menu)…

It’s a very humbling thing to show your ugly side to people (or to find yourself unable to keep it hidden, one), but it’s a very liberating one as well.  For me, as painful as these times are, I leave them able to rest a little easier, knowing that my friendships are not based on that ideal presentation of myself I keep struggling to maintain.  No one is keeping a pros and cons chart on me.  They just take me as I am.  And when all I can muster is a “I blew it.  I was a jerk, although I didn’t mean to be.  I’m sorry,”  they say, “Believe me, I understand.  It’s ok.” 

They take me like I take them.  It’s a beautiful thing. 

—-

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.  –George Eliot
—-

A little update — Mom has continued to be quite sick all week.  After a week of all of us waiting and worrying, she was able to get in to see the doctor today.  Good news: Mom has perfect hearing.  Bad news: she has some sort of weird viral inner-ear thing that is causing the vertigo and nausea.  It could last 5-7 weeks, but given what we were all silently afraid of, this is still very good news.  Please pray for my mom to feel better soon.  She can’t drive or work, and is getting antsy.  But we’re ALL very relieved. 

remorse inevitably follows

When it comes to speaking my frustrated mind, I usually have a big burly angel on one shoulder, reminding me to keep my trap shut, or urging me to hit delete rather than send, or suggesting the quite large possibility that I might feel differently in about five minutes.

Apparently he’s taken a few smoke breaks this week.

Why is it, that every time I get up the gumption to really be fired up and feisty, to be blunt and merciless in sticking up for moi… it’s always based on some sort of ridiculous misunderstanding on my part?  And I have to take back everything I said, and then some, with about thirty thousand apologies thrown in, just for fun?

Does anyone else have this tragic deformity?

Just once, I’d like to get to enjoy it. You know, speak my carefully rehearsed (and oh-so-practical, I might add) thoughts… just to have the other person say, “Oh, Stacey, you are SO right.  I can’t believe how I’ve acted.  Please PLEASE forgive me…” and all sorts of other lovely groveling.

It occurs to me, right this very moment, to thank God I am not God.  I have the capacity to be so graceless.  And so grace-needy.  Simultaneously.

I’m so annoyed at the moment that life isn’t black and white, but shaded instead in subtleties.  It’s been my experience that no one is ever so wrong, and never am I so right, that I’m ever really justified in speaking from anger.  Or from a desire to defend myself. 

Every time I open that box of motives and speak from it, I always end up severely regretting it, and saying things like “I can’t believe how I’ve acted.  Please PLEASE forgive me…” and all sorts of other lovely groveling.  You can barely make out the words, however, because of all the humble pie being shoved in my face. 

Can’t I ever just be RIGHT?  And that’s all?

Or at least less dead-wrong?

I am feeling very foolish at the moment, and instead of feeling less vulnerable — which was the unspoken goal in speaking harshly — I have only made myself more so.

God, um, help.  I am so… ME sometimes.