facebook & nothing

I’ve spent a lot of time recently, thinking about nothing.

An acquaintance of mine took a day off work because her sister was going in for surgery. She spent the entire day on Facebook, posting about nothing. There were comments about how she thought her sister might be doing, about how her sister might feel as the day progressed. There was no real information about her sister or the surgery, about how the acquaintance felt about the fact her sister was in surgery. But there were posts, lots and lots of posts. About nothing.

I’m just as guilty. Hit my FB page and see what games I’ve played. My accomplishments in a pixel-enhanced world stream constantly, signifying, well, nothing. I’m not physically searching out artifacts in Aztec ruins or actually decorating my house for Christmas or the New Year. I’m sitting on my couch, clicking random pretty pictures, killing time and doing… nothing.

Why does this matter? Because nothing fills time quite like doing nothing. Worrying about nothing, talking about nothing of consequence, thinking I can’t do something for some silly, nothing reason accomplishes more nothing.

And that matters because there’s no reason for anything to stand in the way of pursuing art or making the world a better place. Granted, struggling against one’s fears makes for a great story. But apathy? Not caring, not doing makes for a bunch of horrible stories. And that does nothing for anyone.

America’s brave new world since the technology explosion distracts like nothing else. Apps and tech are everywhere, accomplishing more than previous generations dreamed of doing in seconds. But all this bright, shiny tends to distract us from the things that really matter: relationship. Community. Other people.

The fact that Angry Birds might give you more dexterous thumbs and a better understanding of basic physics pales when compared to playing basketball with a neighborhood kid. Or even just setting the phone down to talk to a family member.

I’m not sure what to do to not do nothing, but there’s got to be something else. If life boils down to choices, then making the choice to not do nothing works as a solid first step. Making that choice again when I’m faced with Facebook or spending time with strangers who could become community, well, that really will be something.

aftermath

just talk to me
until the shaking stops
when I'm a little less cold
& feel more
just
give me a few minutes
and it'll be better

see, i know it's ok
and I know it's better
but right now I can't not
shiver
right now it's cold
& i'm surrounded

and i just need
a moment
to hurt
and cry a little

you don't have to understand
i can't explain just yet

but please don't leave
just...
talk to me
and maybe this time

i can admit
i'm scared but
that's better

that'll make it
worth the shaky
aftermath

oily rag world

There was once was a woman madly in love with... lust. She thought life was her personal graphic romance novel, and pursued sex, experience, pleasure with mindless abandon.

Talking to a chick at the bookstore, she freely shared that she’d left her husband with his head in his hands earlier that day, as she randomly sexted some guy she met at the movies an hour before. Then she smiled lasciviously, leaning over, making it obvious that she wasn’t wearing a bra… and asked the girl to dinner.

Rebuffed and unaffected, she sat, sipping a coffee while she alternately sexted, and flirted with, well, every man, woman, and book in the store.

She thought God would fix her, and when that didn’t work (what with Him not being ok with her making stupid, unsafe decisions and her not being ok with having to not make them anymore), she dumped Him and picked up two more sext partners on the way home.

(The fact that she was married, her husband was a straight-laced, vanilla monogamous man, and the sex she had with whomever, wherever, however was never safe were minor details, offered in that bored tone usually reserved for the weather and parents of teenagers.)

She was the main character in the story in her head, and she was determined to make reality submit to the role she had chosen to play.

My friend, Mike, and I were talking a bit ago, and it came up in conversation that he was concerned he was becoming “that guy” – the guy whose ego filled Jerry’s temple; the guy that pushed because he could; the guy who parked his bicycle in a car-sized parking space. At an angle. Yeah, that guy.

He went on, saying that there’s this idea that it doesn’t matter what you say, but how it’s taken that matters. And how if that’s the world where we live, without a serious counterweight, we totally buy our own hype. We become the roles we’d rather play, not the people that we need to be.

That idea has really rumbled through my head since he said it. Seems like especially recently, there are rampant examples of what happens when people decide what they want is far, far more important than anything else (like laws or basic ethics). The epic fail that was the supercommittee in Washington and the former coach at Penn immediately springs to mind, but this very obvious idea also weeds out very subtle intertwinings, too.

Which is what made me think of the woman I knew in another life, and of Nehemiah.

Nehemiah was a dude in one of the smaller books of the Bible few know exists, let alone have read. It’s in the back, really short. There are no miracles in his book, no stars or water-to-wine. He’s a bureaucrat, a politician. And his life’s ambition is to build a wall. Yep, it’s a page-turner.

Except that’s seriously sort of awesome. It’s full of really good stuff that takes time to really absorb.

For instance, at one point Nehemiah’s in a room with a bunch of unethical moneylenders who claim a label of faith. He calls them all on what they’re doing, and since he represents more political power than they do, they do a lot of head-nodding and mea culpea’s.

He doesn’t believe that they’ll do anything differently after he leaves – and says so. Nehemiah even goes so far to say, if you don’t follow through with this, it’s not on you, and you don’t have to worry about me. The God you serve will attend you.

And in the middle of his shaming, he makes an interesting statement:

⁶ When I heard their outcry and these charges, I was very angry. ⁷ I pondered them in my mind and then accused the nobles and officials. I told them, “You are charging your own people interest!” So I called together a large meeting to deal with them ⁸ and said: “As far as possible, we have bought back our fellow Jews who were sold to the Gentiles. Now you are selling your own people, only for them to be sold back to us!” They kept quiet, because they could find nothing to say.

 ⁹ So I continued, “What you are doing is not right. Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies? ¹¹ Give back to them immediately their fields, vineyards, olive groves and houses, and also the interest you are charging them—one percent of the money, grain, new wine and olive oil.”  (Nehemiah 5:6-9, 11)

The bankers and those with names and power only saw what they wanted to see, and not what was. The exquisitely humble Francis Chan has a prayer phrasing it this way: “I know I have cravings that sway and distort my ability to reason.” What we want to be, what we want to see is not what is. We have to be reminded just because we want it to be does not make it so.

All of this culminated in my head this past Sunday. Sitting in a pretty church with stained glass, I listened to a video head pastor. He said God tried to give us perfection first, but that pain is the gift we understood.

We are made of a broken world and we see unclearly. Perfection doesn’t make sense. So God gave us the gift of pain, which tells us something is wrong. Pain hurts, driving those things that distract us from our sight. Pain sheers away anything else, and remains like nothing else.

We weren’t created to only see pain, or continue trying to right our sight. And we weren’t created to escape into the sensation of constant pain, either.

We were created to worship, and to serve.

And we, I, you, need to be reminded we see not rightly. We find fault with perfection, and celebrate our limitations as if they were achievements. Because our limitations were at least our choice. And to paraphrase Rich Mullins, we’d rather fight God for something we don’t really want, than take what He offers, that we need.

We do what is not right. We sneer at perfection, and numb ourselves to escape pain. We become roles we shouldn’t have been playing in the first place, then wonder why our world seems overflowing with oily rags. We are that guy.

And still our lover waits, offering home and open arms.

unable

I sit in my silent frustrations
angry at the world
furious at my ineffectiveness
scorning my fallibility
hating my humanity

I don't understand how You can love me
Or how You can even care

there are times when the only explanation
for my behavior
is that i simply want
You to give up on me
everyone else has
why should You be any different?
how could You be any different?

i play scenes from my life in my head
pondering the stupidity
i see scenes in my life
pondering at the waste of creativity
i plan scenes for my life that will never be
because i lack the power to make them happen

i call them dreams
those scenes that will never be
i have imagination
but lack strength
i have vision
but lack ambition
i have the reasons why i should
but not the passion to want to

i want realized dreams
but won't work towards its substance
i want applause
but won't put in practice
i want admiration
but won't appreciate those who admire me

i sit
venting all my angers and frustrations
to an entity that cannot feel

i sit
yelling and screaming silently
to an audience that cannot hear

i sit
motioning and signing
to a multitude that cannot see

i sit
angry
frustrated
violent
hurting

unable to heal myself
unwilling to let my defenses down
even long enough to let You help me

unable to defend myself
unable to put my sword down
for fear You might win the battle for me

too scared to surrender
too hurt to fight
too angry to forget

too tired to remember

I know that You love me
I know the world never will
I know I don't have to prove myself worthy to You
I know I'll never be able to prove it to the world
I know that You will never leave me
I know the world will never stay, never care

I love You
I fail You so often
You love me
You never do

I sit
in my silent frustrations
angry at the world
furious at my ineffectiveness
scorning my fallibility
hating my humanity

i sit here

unable to understand why You love me
when i am unable to love myself

weekend conversion

The past few days have been filled with time spent with friends. As a world-class introvert, I'm as surprised by that fact as anyone else would be, if not just a little bit more so.

Wednesday night a group of friends gathered to talk about God, and what it was like when they met Him. One wondered if he had ever really met Him, or if just seeing glimpses throughout life really was all the meeting he was going to have. Another spoke of a shift in her path, that she hadn't had a come-to-Jesus-here's-the-angels moment, but how she felt God leading her to wiser decisions. I shared that I'd had a Jesus meeting when I was 5, that conveyed a haunting beauty whenever I look back on it.

Thursday, I left a voice-mail for a friend I've not spoken to in weeks, and missed dearly. God'd been nudging me to contact her, but my ego prickled fiercely for days before I actually did it. A short voice-mail, just a "I miss you and I was a flaky idiot" not-even-5-minute note took a couple of days of intent shoulder-tapping from God. But I did it.. and she e-mailed back Friday

Friday night into Saturday morning, my friend Jose and I spent a lot of time introducing our gods to each other. (He's very new to having a relationship with the Divine, and radiates that honeymoon blush.) He talked of his conversion, of a beautiful moment where the world he knew dissolved and he met Jesus. I told him of wandering, how Jars of Clay beguiled me back into community with the beauty they saw in the God they followed, and how it made me want to be a Christ follower, rather than just look like I did.

I spent last night with a couple of different friends. We watched a stupid funny movie, played Mad Libs, played cards, had wine and vegetarian food, talked about nothing, God, and the Celts.

Then I went to church this morning, and God talked to me.

The sermon was about things we don't believe, and Andrew was eloquent and passionate. But in the middle of his talk, there seemed to be a shift, a conversion of topic, if you will. He told this story about his little boy, who's still young enough to have unsolidified joints and only this week had his first trip to the emergency room.

Andrew talked about how he had to watch his son screech in pain as the doctor rotated his arm; how incredibly hard it is to watch as a parent. He said he imagined it was like that for God, when there are things needing to be re-aligned or sacrificed in our lives, and all we can do is react to the discomfort.

Then came a comment that really struck me speechless, like hearing a secret chord. Andrew said, "God doesn't care about your comfort; He's passionately pursuing your conversion."

Now, I've wrestled with the idea that God is good because good can be relative and depends on perspective. And I've been prone to wander, like the hymn so eloquently said, from the God I love. But if what I believe and have been told is true - that is, if God is love, and love is patient and kind, not wanting something just because it wants it - then God allows what He allows because each circumstance has been tailored to my needs, and is the least painful way to teach me what I need to learn.

And if God cares more about my conversion, more about me being a reflection of His light tomorrow than I am today, than He does about my feeling comfortable and safe, then it would make sense that He would prod and hound and poke me into actions I don't want to take, but make the world a better place - and me a better person.

So here's my confession of the week: I am lazy and spoiled. I'd rather talk about God than talk to Him, and I absolutely would rather talk at Him than let Him talk and me just listen. Listening takes time and effort, and worst of all? I can't un-hear anything.

Why? Because responding - or not - is a choice. And if I am willing to spend time and effort talking to other people about God, if I am willing to choose to allow Him to be a topic, isn't He worth the time for me to actually pay attention to as well?

I hear, and I have to act. I listen, and I have to respond. I wander, and I have to change my path.

God speaks... and I have to convert.

I have to accept that I serve God; He does not serve me. That means that my discomfort, my loneliness, my darker pains are things to be offered, not reasons to justify poor decisions.

God leads. I follow.

I am not the center of my universe... but hopefully, I'm learning to be a better reflection.

Books That Should Read by Everyone (in no particular order)

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Fahrenheit 541 by Ray Bradbury
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
A Woman of Independent Means by Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey
The Chosen by Chaim Potok
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
The Firebird Trilogy by Kathy Tyers
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engel
The Watchmen by Alan Moore
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
The Complete Works and Sonnets of William Shakespeare

fear love

leave me to stew in dark cold first light
alone & unsure
surrounded by glass, steel
and the ghosts of my sin

come twilight i’ll seek forgiveness
and hope
that i won't be alone

until then there’s routine
what’s expected and allowed
comfortable apathy on tap

leave me here and I’ll percolate
dreaming of light and in-betweens
I have everything
and need something else

leave me to mull in the shadow chill
lonely & doubting
surrounded by commercial, sleek
and the hauntings of my failure


come starlight i’ll seek redemption
and accept
that i fear love

tacos, God, & diamonds

I’ve been a Christian for as long as I can remember. The first place I went as a newborn was from the hospital to my house, and then church that Sunday. Being a Christian wasn’t a choice; it just was.

It’s weird now to realize I have a relationship.

There was this party in a basement Sunday while it rained. A friend, a stranger, and I were nomming tacos and fresh fruit. And somewhere in the middle of a conversation about what makes us different and what makes us the same, I realized I was gushing – about God.

Not a big deal for those Jesus freaks born in Southern states who don’t know any better… but I am not one of those people.

I’ve always prided myself on wrestling with my faith, being one of those rebel Christians who lived a decent life and just happened to go hang out with friends and talk about God on the weekends. And the only thing I’ve not poked at or just flat out disbelieved at some point, was that Jesus loves me. Everything else – from what’s right, what’s wrong, heaven, hell, cussin’, drinking and sex – has been up for debate. Loud, cynical, skeptical debate. It doesn’t matter if I was born on a pew; that’s just where I came from. It’s not where I wanted to stay or how I wanted to be identified.

Until it was.

So back to this moment, when I felt like two people – one who spoke and one who reacted. My friend asked how I became a Christian, and I went through the list: parents went to church, explored in college, found a church after, yadda, yadda. She nodded smoothly, and said, “So recently.” It wasn’t a question, and it caught me off guard.

My decades in the church, my tradition, my pride stung. I’ve been a Christian, my mind stuttered. Born on a pew, hello. Baptized at 4. That’s street, erg, church cred right there.

But all of a sudden this thing I did on the weekends; this thing I ran far, far away from in college; this label I tossed into the back of my self-identity closet looked like a diamond on my ring finger.

I can’t say I don’t know when it happened. Looking back, it was a slow, easy thing, like dawn breaking, but at the time it was a choice, a hard one. Then it was easier choice, until it became a desire. Now, it’s a need.

I can’t explain it, except to say I feel loved. It’s a weird, illogical place to be. But it was worth the harder road.

a smaller hallelujah

I have to start this with a confession: I am far too literal a thinker to be a writer. There are themes I don’t get, and phrases that I like, but I can’t tell you why.

What I don’t understand could fill books. Grey’s Anatomy-sized books. And I would read those books, to try to figure out how to see what other people with more imagination see instinctively.

There are a couple of glaring examples I’ve seen recently. The first that immediately springs to mind is the book “The Giver.” I really admired the writing style, enjoyed the story, and the process; thought the idea behind the story was definitely worth time and attention – but I did not get the ending.

It’s not that I didn’t like the ending, or that I didn’t get that it was the first memory passed to the Receiver. I just… didn’t get it. I could see the start, and I read the end, but I have no idea how the two connected.

I wracked my brain for longer than I care to admit to come up with the idea that the ending was supposed to be representational; that the red sled was blood, and how freedom requires choice and weighty, worthy responsibility. Stretching the idea a bit farther, I could even see how, given the subject matter of the story being based in a significant and sad piece of Jewish (and on a grander scale, human) history, the Receiver was a scapegoat, and only through the shedding (or sledding, yes, I pun) of his complete innocence and absolute sacrifice were all the things that make humans textured – sin and glory, hope and hate, broken, cold hallelujahs – freed to be shared, and covered in a lingering grace.

I have no idea if that’s what the author meant with that scene, though… and I am still disappointed with the ending. I can follow the song. I can see the beauty. I just don't understand that hallelujah.

Conversely, one of the first authors to show me a different hallelujah, a different way to worship was Kathy Tyers. She wrote Star Wars novels, and loved Jesus. Why does that matter? Because before her, I didn't know anyone else who loved Science Fiction and Jesus, and there's nothing like a good story full of stars and possibilities to make one feel less alone. I could understand her song, although it was challenging and different. Her hallelujah made mine seem far less broken.

Ms. Tyers wrote a book recently, Wind and Shadow, part of the Firebird series, that presents a haunting, challenging beauty. Taking literal stories I know as well as most women know faery tales, Ms. Tyers reimagines them as characters with warp drive and interplanetary agendas. Wrestling angels, demons, aliens, and seriously fierce fire fights, somehow her characters show a faith and devotion my often lackluster hallelujah longs for...

I know there is a universe full of things and people and ideas I don't understand. I don't always get how to get from the Giver to the sled, and I hate that. I hate that not understanding makes me feel small and powerless. I want to know everything, know it now. I want an app for that.

There should be an app for that. There should be something I can just click and get the information I want, the maturity I need, the power-up for the next level. Following the journey grinds and frustrates.

But those that give, stars, and God remind me that I am a story in the writing, representational, messy and broken. And all of that is a worthy hallelujah.

There's a blaze of light in every word

It doesn't matter which you heard

The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah

"Hallelujah"

I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?


It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah


Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah


Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah


Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah


Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah


Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah


There was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah


Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah


Maybe there’s a God above
But all I’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It’s not a cry you can hear at night
It’s not somebody who has seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah


Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah


You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light in every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah


Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah


I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah


Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah


Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah


Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah


Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah


Hallelujah

-Leonard Cohen 

tuesday

Today was a hard day.

Mom woke up feeling great. She had energy and was moving easily around the house this morning. It was a pretty day outside, even if it was another ozone alert, and I don’t really know when things changed.

Mom woke me up a little after 2 because we had a meeting at my brother’s life college. He’s been doing great recently, and the faculty decided he could handle living on his own. He’s been chosen to be the first resident in a new program, and it starts the beginning of November. He called yesterday, audibly bouncing off the walls about the meeting, moving, getting his own place.

Mom’s so proud.

The meeting was long, and the main speaker talked. A lot. Every point on the agenda was covered. In detail. An hour and a half later, we still had a couple of points left to discuss. That’s when mom had a seizure. She’d asked for water before we started, then caught the eye of one of the faculty members to ask for something to eat.

They knew she’d “not been feeling well,” so were very solicitous. When she asked for food, someone slipped off, quickly returning with some crackers, lunch meat, and an orange.

It wasn’t a bad seizures, as far as seizures go. Her blood sugar dropped, her mood swung. She didn’t lose consciousness, no serious damage was done to her or anything else.

But it took the rest of the day for her to recover. The meeting wrapped quickly, with questions of about what else could be done to help her.

She was tired and sensitive, drained and frustrated.

We were supposed to get our toes done, and then go to this funky diner for dinner. But with her pale and shaky, all I could think was getting her food. The drive seemed to take forever, and I felt clumsy and incapable when I missed a turn.

She picked at her food, looking small, like she was fading every time I looked at her too long. We talked about nothing, incomplete thought just lingering at the table.

Afterwards we went out for ice cream from another local place. She consumed a hot fudge sundae like she’d never been fed before, and it helped.

Except this vile idea that she is entering a second childhood haunts me whenever I see her not as healthy and energetic as I wish she were. It clings, making me wish I had the time to cry.

But tomorrow could be a harder day… I can cry after it's over.

random thoughts at starbucks

Sometime in the late mid-century, it became artistically acceptable to pursue something other than beauty. Art broadened its horizons, to speak to tragic, grotesque, profound, simple. A simple change of pursuit, but the result affects art, literature and even perspective now. So if art no longer speaks beauty, but strives for truth, why do we still have philosophy or religion?

I would present that art is the lie that tells the truth, and religion is the truth that shows our lies. 

Beauty is easy - easy to identify, easy to look at, easy to lose one's self in. Truth, however, can be quite harsh and difficult to accept. Truth destroys pretty illusions, and shows the hard things we balk at - like courage and honesty - to best advantage. And sad to say, it is far easier to accept an easy, pretty lie than even share space with a rough truth.

Why does this distinction matter?

In a word: character.

That je ne sais quoi some call maturity, and others, a certain moral compass, finds itself founded in character. Once described in this process: difficulties produce endurance, endurance producing character, character producing hope, and hope does not disappoint - it becomes clear that character (that is, being able to endure difficulty, or difficult truth) connects something true (difficulty) to something beautiful (hope that does not disappoint). When searching for truth in a lie, one loses the appreciation of any beauty, because it becomes unseen; or worse, expected to disappoint. Conversely, religion, promoting faith (which is, at its base, completely illogical and unreasonable) shows truth unedited, or said a different way, inartistically. This places the experiencer in the difficult, true position of choice.

Depending on what is true, but not beautiful, or trusting what is carefully presented to be truth-filled creates a tension that requires a choice, and requires character to settle.

What then, as a society and as a people, will we choose? Convenient beauty or challenging truth?  How will the character of those choosers be decided?

coolness & ice-skating snakes

A friend of mine was rummaging through the blogosphere, trying to figure out what made for a decent blog. He found polls and lots of references to common happenings; things that matter today to everyone, and things that can be easily read and understood.

According to those guidelines, I’m not sure that my blog’ll ever be read.

But… since it probably will not be, I’ll say woo, and share things I don’t think I would if it were read all the time by millions. So, here’s a list of cool things going on, and some confessions I’ve felt I need to share.

Cool things: My mom’s doing better. She can walk around the house more than she was before, and there’s a lightness in her spirit I’ve not seen for months. Most of that happened this week because…

She heard from a local church where she had applied to work that they were looking for someone to Sign Lay Pastor classes. It seems that there are two young men feeling a calling to be pastors, and they’re wrestling. Not just with that weighty glory, but also with just everyday life stuff. One of the guys had some serious parental-related shake-ups recently, and now that his world’s shifted, well, everything seems harder than it was before.

He is also a young man my mom holds in great affection, and one she’s had the honor to Sign for before. To say she’s stoked would be an understatement, and to say I am thankful that she has something that’s lit a fire under her would be, too.

So, woo. Very, very cool.

Also cool: My bar-none favorite modern female author read a review I did of one her books, and dug it. Her assistant got in contact with me, and passed along an Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of her next book. I can’t really go into more detail now, but… trust me. It’s a blessing wrapped inside a hug wrapped in an amazing book. There will definitely be more details when I can talk about it more. 

Coolness continuing… my brother is doing awesome. Not only is he doing awesome, his awesomeness got noticed. His life skills college will be starting up a new program in the not-so-distant future, with new apartments for the residents who are ready for that step. They want my brother to be one of the first residents to make that leap. Talk about coolness: We’ve gone from not being able to leave my brother alone for more than an hour to him being able to shop for himself and take care of himself on an ongoing basis. That’s a heck of a sign of growth.

Woo. And woo. And yay. Yeah. Just sayin’.

And now, for the confessions, which are supposed to be good for the soul.

The same friend purveying the blogosphere read mine, and had some questions. Seems there are some areas where I am not clear, and I know it. I’ll even admit that the spots where I am weak and my ego threatened are where I tend to shy and defer, so I come off as quiet and confusing.

So... here’s some light.

I’m not sure how to really define what I am addicted to. I’d love to say it was *just* roleplay (RP) or Facebook or the Internet. But it’s all of that and none of it. The backstory there is that I was stupid in college. I got into chatting back when it was colored text on a colored screen with coding for actions. I lost a free ride to college, and didn’t even blink.

Then I got into computers as work, and it covered my really unhealthy thing with social acceptability. From there, I learned about World of Worldcraft (WoW) and Second Life (SL) and… time became very, very relative. I started RPing for hours, lost in the perfection of graphics. There was no sickness, no change, and the stories were as varied as the number of people I met.

Plus, I was beautiful.

I was seen as perfect and witty and wanted.

Back then, I’d’ve sold my soul for a guy to see me that way, and say that in real life. Since there were no real buyers, that soul transaction happened virtually.

All of that drove me into a really, really bad headspace. And what’s really messed up is I didn’t realize how bad it was until, well, bluntly, the restraining order had to be ordered.

I met someone online that, well, I thought was a dream. He was articulate and charming, and I fell like a ton of bricks off a tall building. When it was good, it was magic. When it wasn’t, it was impressive.

I tried to break it off a few different times. The first, I said I didn’t see a future, so he proposed. It was such a grand, romantic gesture, and I loved him, I accepted. It was great – for about a week. Then the fights started again. We’d argue until I couldn’t remember why I disagreed in the first place. Then it’d be Ok for a day or so.

One day in April, I was trying to think of what to give up for Lent. He jokingly said him, and it resonated. Thinking absence makes the heart grow fonder, I asked that he not call or text or IM for 40 days. He made it 3 hours.

It still hurts to think that the person I’d’ve sworn to love, honor, and cherish forever said he would come down to take me back with him. I was so befuddled; I thought not having a choice in the matter was romantic and fantastic (rather than illegal and kidnapping).

So, yeah, that’s why I’m single now.

I still RP a bit, but there’s little joy there anymore. I’m not going to say every face has become my ex’s, but I realized recently I cower when men at church move to hug me. I’d apologize for it, if it didn’t require words and thinking, which I can’t do when I see someone bigger moving towards me.

Am I coward? Possibly. But I’m learning that trust and surrender comes as easy for me as a snake learning to ice-skate.

summer snow

you stood on the path



the night soft and lazy


around you and me


and your hair of burnished gold


you said it was good to see me


and I melted like snow

love's reflection

I was getting ready for work and my mind was wondering. I thought about some of the choices I’d made recently, and how badly I’d handle chances to be good.

I thought about this guy I knew and what an ass his recent choices had made him appear to be.

And this story popped into my head.

There was a prince of a guy riding through the countryside. His long, Pantene-like hair flowing through the breeze, he looked around at the country that would so be his soon. The donkey he was riding brayed as the road narrowed, and the prince, aggravated, beat his ride to make the animal move faster.

He was a jerk, but he could be. He was a God-chosen prince. He was beautiful, rich, and owned farther than the eye could see of a peaceful, beautiful land… so why not?

Anyway, the ass was riding an ass. And as he passed a tree, those luscious locks tangled themselves up in a tree. The donkey turned around to the prince. He brayed to himself at seeing the prince, and (in my head, at least) said, “Wow, man. You really are an ass! You could have moved slower, and not gotten your hair tangled. You could have gone a different way, and avoided the tree altogether. But you had to go this way, this fast.”

The donkey kept laughing, leaving the prince hanging, angry and humiliated.

I laugh because I so relate to that tale… and it’s not usually until I am hanging by my hair, in a place where what I thought I knew turns into something unfamiliar and scary that I’ll admit I have a very carefully constructed view of power; that my power is solely based on perspective.

Last week, I heard another story. A friend went to the funhouse at the state fair last fall. He was there, chasing kids and making funny faces in the warped mirrors, when a little girl obviously done up for a pageant came in with her family.

Her mom lead her to the mirror that makes you look fat, and the little girl started to tear up. The mom lead the little girl to the super-thin mirror, and the little girl started crying. The mom led her to the third mirror with the warped S-shaped reflection, and the girl just broke down.

Another female family member saw all of this, and brought a little compact mirror out of her purse. She offered it to the little girl, and she stopped crying.

What do the two stories have in common? Perspective and uncertainty.

We need to know who we are. We have to know what truth is, and we have to be able to trust it.

We have to choose to trust it.

When my mom collapsed, I freaked out. I didn’t know what to do or who to trust. It didn’t matter what the tests said or didn’t, because they didn’t fix anything. They all said she should be fine, and they charged us for the lack of information.

As far as I was concerned, and have been, and probably will be for a while, hospitals are where people I love go to die.

And there are those that would tell me this is an issue with a spiritual answer, and I agree with them, as that’s something I’ve said before. When my mom wasn’t hooked up to tubes looking like every breath cost her.

But truth is truth, no matter the angle or perspective. Otherwise, it’s not truth.

So, believing that, what do I do?

There’s a verse from a letter written by Paul, that talks about letting your requests be known to God, and for years (most of my life, really) people have read that to mean “whatever your issue is, pray about it.” Or worse, if you have a problem, it’s because you haven’t prayed about it.

But what if that’s not what that means at all?

What if that verse is really saying, you are hurt by this thing you care clinging to which is not God… so why is that? What is it about that ______ (job, person, house, responsibility) that offers you a fuller, more completely safe place than God?

What if it’s just a subtle request for you to turn the Lover of your soul first?

One of my mom’s favorite rants is that if the Church were doing its job, there wouldn’t be a need for counselors or jails or food stamps. There’d be less government watch-dogging, and more effective good in the world.

The first step in that is for each and every one of us to admit that we just don’t trust God.

It can start with me: I don’t trust God. I don’t believe that He’ll use me ever again. I honestly believe that someday, He’ll wake up and realize how screwed up I am and how rough around the edges and horrid and messy… and He’ll leave.

Or worse yet, He’ll stay and resent me for being the way I am, wait for me to go off on Him (again), and He’ll just stop responding.

See? Here’s a secret: I’m really a prince with an ego issue… and part of me will always be that little girl, seeing herself as warbled and warped, not really sure what I look like to other people and scared that what I feel isn’t really true.

But… here’s a bigger secret, one I really can’t deal with sometimes: God knows already. He loves me anyway.

06.26.11

On July 26th, while I was at work, my mom was home, collapsed on the couch unable to move. She had her cell, so she called 911. She spent the next three days in the hospital, being poked and prodded and tested. The tests came up clean, but she is still having the spells that first put her in the place of needles and iodine.

It's been 20 days since then, and life has shifted. Sleep means less, time means more. Money is tight, tension is constant. 

But subtle things have changed for the better.  Packing up the walker for when we go out makes for a great upper arm workout. And it means she's not plugged into some machine in some building far away. Helping her out of bed or off the couch reminds me that she wouldn't let just anyone help her a few years ago, and I can give thanks for that, too.

There are different questions running through my head: how many forms do we need to fill out? How many copies do we need to request of the test results? So this form goes there, but this forms goes somewhere else? Even though it asks for the same information? How do we pay for that? What test do we need to have taken now?

There are still no answers, although we have a very rough timeline of this lasting at least six months. She can't drive, lift anything over 5 pounds, and has difficulty walking across our 900 square feet house.

The strongest, most energetic person I know wears out eating a Subway sandwich.

It has been, bar none, the hardest, most painful, most beautiful experience of my life.

I hate that she hurts - and hurts all the time. I hate that she can't speak soft words and there's always this edge of anger because she just can't take deep enough breaths. 

I despise that we just keep finding more questions, and fewer answers... and there should be a rule that the longer the word,the  less it should cost.

I wish I could rant against the drugs that fix a symptom, but don't really affect change. But they make the migraines bearable, and every little bit helps.

Most of all, though, I wish I had my mom back.

Weighty Beauty, Haunting Clarity & Stephen Hawking

Andrew, one of the pastors at my church, started a series today about the beginning of the world. He said that the first verse in the Bible was basically the first line in a really good book, and set the tone. Immediately, I thought of all the really good books that have really, really good opening lines:

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times…”

“It is a truth universally known that a man in possession of a fortune must be in want of a wife.”

“It was a dark and stormy night.”

And really, the Bible is the best book I’ve ever read.

It’s full of stories and histories and people I can relate to. All the great themes are there, too – sin and redemption (of course), but also wars and wanderings, poetry and praises, rants at a quiet God and chapters and chapters of birth records, infinite beauty, the end of the world with angels and demons and incest that brought down a nation, too, just for good measure.

Andrew continued, saying that he sees the first part of Genesis as a creed, a statement of faith, written in the form of a song. There’s a rhythm, repetitive and comforting, telling the story of a God creating a world where we happen to live.

What it isn’t is a logistical wonder. It doesn’t make logical sense; there’s not an exact timeline to follow. One doesn’t start at the edge of darkness, meander through the dinosaurs and end up with a tidy little flow into the third millennium. What the first chapter of Genesis does show is who God is, and consequently, who we are in relation. And that makes for a very worthy introduction.

Andrew continued, drawing a parallel between going to the first Creation story and looking for a timeline to seeking information about the shepherds from John’s telling of Christ’s birth. Almost everyone knows the Christmas story from Luke, resplendent with angels and shepherds on hills and Mary smiling beatifically.

And here’s what John has to say: “The Word became a human being and lived here with us. We saw His true glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father. From Him, all the kindness and all the truth of God have come down to us.” (John 1:14)

No shepherds. No angels. No candy canes. Weighty beauty, granted, but one wouldn’t look for an overstuffed inn in John. Conversely, there is a haunting clarity to John’s words that one cannot find in Luke’s more detailed telling.

There is beauty and answers to hard questions offered in each Scripture. But if the wrong questions are asked, all of the good remains hidden, like staring at poetry written in an unknown language.

That thought really started my mental train rolling out of the station, because it’s very rare for even a semi-liberal Christian to make the statement that any thought is just…. wrong.

But the statement was made, and like a mini A-bomb, the thoughts rippled after. If I read a single, given Scripture with an expectation of a particular answer, what other ideas or answers am I not allowing to come to me? What could I be denying in my single-mindedness?

What answer do I really want Scriptures to give me? Why am I even approaching a holy book with the idea that it serves me?

There was, curiously enough, a special on the Science Channel tonight, dealing with the argument of science explaining the creation of everything, versus religion’s. Stephen Hawking explained his stance, ending with the statement that God (if He exists – which Hawking doesn’t believe) wouldn’t have the time to create the Big Bang, which created the universe.

Andrew made the comment at the beginning of his lecture this morning that he doesn’t really believe that the debate between how science says we got here versus how Scripture describes it really matters at the end of the day. He believes that there are other issues far more worthy of debate, time and energy – like the condition of your soul and mine; like suffering – anywhere, everywhere; like how each and every one of us has a responsibility to make the world a better place for every single one of us, whether we like each other or not.

I have to agree; But I find it very, very interesting that Stephen Hawking thinks that God didn’t have the time to create us. And because, in Mr. Hawking’s mind, God lacked the time, this proves God couldn’t possibly exist.

And at this point, I have to confess (although I fully acknowledge it’s petty), I wonder this: when Christians are narrow-minded, it’s called judgmental. What is it called when scientists do it?

My pettiness and Hawking’s limited logic tend to make one very striking point: we’re both imperfect, and we are the problem. Flawed and imperfect humans skew everything, because we can’t see where we’re weak or lacking.

There are reasons why it took Galileo in the 1600s to figure out the Earth was not the center of the universe – and it wasn’t just because the Church wanted it to not be true. Humans, although we have brilliant moments, are not masters of the universe. We learn more completely in groups, in community.

It’s the arrogant and lonely who think otherwise, and their clay-footed, pedantic logic will show.