S.A. Journal

I’m having a tough time in my Spiritual Autobiography class.  I’m not exactly sure what I was thinking.  (Actually, I do know what I was thinking.  It was something foolish like, “Yeah.  I’m ready to revisit this.”  That was a bit of a miscalculation on my part.) 

Since returning to school this past September, I haven’t had too many cases of anxiously staring at a blank white screen, but the number has definitely gone up in recent weeks.  I look back at the old blog posts and think that things would have aligned much more nicely had I taken this class a few years ago, when writing about my spiritual life was what I did for fun.

Now… “Meh” would be the most accurate term for how I feel about trying to find good words for the particular place I’m at in my journey.  It’s one thing to fling my thoughts out into cyberspace, allowing them to be read by whoever cares to visit more than once.  It’s quite another to be vulnerable on the page, and then sit in an arbitrarily selected workshopping group, nervously reading out loud to three or four blank faces who may or may not have any idea what it is I’m talking about.  Some kinds of hangups only make sense to those who have been there themselves, at least, I suspect this is the case most of the time.

Meh, indeed.

When I mentioned to Daniel that I was going to be taking a Spiritual Autobiography class, he couldn’t have been more pleased. “Let me know when the book’s coming out,” he quipped.

“Yeah, I don’t know about that.  I haven’t even figured out which way is up yet when it comes to all of this,” I said. “It’s all… messy…” I said, trailing off into defeated silence. Over the last few years, “messy” has become a catch-all term for what’s left of the faith I used to know.  (Perhaps you’ve noticed.) 

“Ah. There’s your title. ‘Which Way’s Up’ seems like a great place to start.”

I wonder if he’s always been this comfortable with uncertainty. It very nearly makes me want to slap him. Then again, it’s nice to have someone in your life I can tell all the horrible things I think sometimes. He never cringes, much as I would expect a pastor to.  I told him once that I wasn’t sure if I was really a Christian anymore.  The conversation continued no differently than if I had told him that I like pepperoni pizza.

I love him for this.  It’s this kind of permission that helps me keep trying to find a place for faith in my life — somewhere I can be a thinking person and a graced one.

Still… I’m not quite sure what to say.  At 27, I haven’t come close to anything resembling a landing place yet.  An autobiography of any kind, much less a spiritual one, seems like an exercise in futility, an exercise in ascribing significance to events as they’re happening.  I don’t have a good lens for this yet.  I haven’t really moved past that moment of finding myself on the ground, looking around to see who pulled the carpet out from underneath me.  

I’m not sure how to.

Spiritual Autobiography Journal

Messy

When I mentioned to my pastor friend Daniel that I was going to be taking a Spiritual Autobiography class, he couldn’t have been more pleased. “Let me know when the book’s coming out,” he quipped.

“I haven’t even figured out which way is up yet when it comes to all of this,” I said. “It’s all… messy…” I said, trailing off into defeated silence. Over the last few years, “messy” has become a catch-all term for what’s left of the faith I used to know.

“Ah. There’s your title. ‘Which Way’s Up’ seems like a great place to start.”

I wonder if he’s always been this comfortable with uncertainty. It very nearly makes me want to slap him. Then again, it’s nice to have someone in your life I can tell all the horrible things I think sometimes. He never cringes, much as I would expect a pastor to. 

journal

my writing area…

My desk is set up in our little “office.”  My computer sits on a sturdy oak desk, and speakers are set up to play whatever music suits my fancy.  Three books sit on my desk: TS Eliot’s Four Quartets, Thomas Merton’s Thoughts in Solitude, and Frederick Beuchner’s The Hungering Dark.  I try to keep it as uncluttered as possible — since clearing away clutter is my main expression of procrastination.

Above my desk, a bulletin board is full of things that are meaningful to me.  The pages we read our vows from are in one corner.  A note that came with flowers Justin sent me a day before his visit after a long time apart is tacked above them.  A sheet of paper speaks two words that became my motto that first difficult quarter back at school: “Die trying.”  Song lyrics.  An email from a prof encouraging me after a good paper.  Pictures that remind me of relaxing moments.  A prayer from Thomas Merton.  Cards from my husband, filled with words that are precious to me.

A whiteboard hangs a few feet to my left, and birthdays and other events are written down so I don’t forget them in the crazy rhythm that is our married-working-student life.

Next to my desk is a huge, somewhat-organized file cabinet, and my diplomas sit above it — just to remind me that graduation is indeed possible.

Behind me are my keyboard and guitar.  I don’t play them as often as I should, but having them near is soothing.

 

journal

I’m working on getting most of my photos scanned into my computer.  I keep on coming across old pictures of my mom when she was young.  One sticks out.

She’s about nineteen in this photograph, and recently married to my dad.  Her wavy auburn hair is longer than I’ve ever seen it in real life — it’s been cut short ever since I was a baby.  She’s standing in between two cars, and she’s aiming a mischievous grin at the camera.  Even her eyes are smiling.  She’s beautiful.

What strikes me most is her coquettish pose.  One elbow is bent and her hand, holding the keys, is dramatically held near the top of her head.  (Is she about to throw the keys at the cameraman?)  Her body is turned a little sideways, and her knee is bent, showing off her girlish curves.

She looks so carefree, so vibrant.  The whole world is ahead of her.

I see glimpses of this girl whenever my mom gets going on a really good laugh.  The grin, the smiling eyes.

   

journal

I’m in the library, working on a stubborn poem.  Since I’m new to this, they’re all stubborn.  Stops and starts.  Mostly stops.  I’m easily distracted.

My eyes keep on drifting to the windows looking out at Red Square.  Two men, with tall placards.  “Jesus saves from Hell.”  ”Turn or burn.”  There they stand, yelling their proclamations at passersby. 

Sharing the good news.

This isn’t the first time men like these with banners like these have stood on the bricks of Red Square, and it probably will not be the last.  I wonder what it is that brings them back time after time.  It does not seem that many people “turn” as a result of seeing these signs or speaking with these men.  What is their intent?  What kind of satisfaction do they get out of turning people off to their cause, out of angering those they claim to want to save?

I think of Phelps’ church in Kansas.  Such hatred.  In the name of standing up for God.  As if he needed the help.

beginning the journal

Among other things, I’ll be using this blog as a journal of observations for my Spiritual Autobiography class.  We’ll see how it goes…

X-rays

The x-ray machine is tucked back into a corner room of the doctor’s office.  The room is dark and nearly silent.  I’m instructed to get up onto the bed, a thin mat lying over polished metal. 

The x-ray tech, hurried and mechanical, is all business in her aqua and brown scrubs.

Except that she’s smacking a huge wad of gum between her teeth.  I find this humorous, even in my pained state.

Finding each new position on the metal bed brings more sharp pain through my low back.  I wince, but do as I’m told as quickly as I can.  I apologize awkwardly when I misunderstand her directions.  She says nothing.  She is neither pleasant nor unpleasant, she is merely present, lining up the lights with my navel and pushing buttons when it’s called for.

She’s young.  Probably younger than I am.  Already she’s good at clinical distance.  Lying there, waiting to be told I can get up, I wonder how many people she saw before each of us became one more chart, one more number.