Saturday, July 9
Wednesday, July 6
How is it that the path to freedom and goodness inevitably leads us through journeys of brokenness and humility? I've been looking for a few words to string together that might express the landscape my soul has been inhabiting for a few weeks now and then stumbled upon these thoughts from Eugene Peterson regarding the passage found in Luke 11:1-13 and realized that he's already said it. Read on:
"A realization and embrace of our basic neediness, our poverty, is a necessary precondition for the employment of the imperatives in the [Lord's] prayer and parable [of the friend at midnight]. If the imperative is issued from wealth, it is nothing, but wanting more, stark religious or spiritual consumerism. We command God to give us what we want, not what we need, using prayer to raise our standard of living.
St. Paul tells us that Jesus Christ, the revelation of God become human, 'set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death-- and the worst kind of death at that: crucifixion' (phil 2:5-8, msg). In other words, when God became man, revealing to us our sheer humanity, he didn't come in the form of a superhuman, but 'experienced the poverty of human existence more deeply and more excruciatingly than any other man could.' He became absolutely poor and of no account: 'a root out of dry ground... no form or comliness... despised and rejected... we esteemed him not" (Is 53).
When God became human in Jesus, he showed us how to become complete human beings before him. We do it the way Jesus did it, by becoming absolutely needy and dependent on the Father. Only when we stand emptied, stand impoverished before God can we receive what only empty hands can receive. This is the poverty of spirit in which Jesus blesses us (Matt 5:3). When we listen to and follow Jesus, who lived in continual dependence on his Father, we become convinced of our poverty as men and women. we realize our absolute neediness. We are all beggars. Father, give us bread. Friend, lend us three loaves. being human means that we are the poorest and most incomplete of all creatures. Our needs are always beyond our capacities. Johannes Baptist Metz writes of the 'radical indulgence of our humanity" and the "transcendental neediness" at the core of our humanity.
We do not become less needy, less dependent when we pray; we become more needy, more dependent-- which is to say, more human. When we pray we dive ever more deeply into the very human condition from which sin alienates us and Christ saves us.
* * *
Jesus concludes his teaching on prayer with this: 'If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!' (Luke 11:13).
Holy Spirit? We thought we were asking for bread for ourselves and for our friend. We thought we were asking for a fish and eggs. And we were. We are. But by introducing the term "Holy Spirit" into the conversation, Jesus anchors our understanding of the words and ways of God in the details of each and every hour of each and every day. Holy Spirit is God's way of being personally with us in all our listening and speaking and acting. God in all the particulars of our lives and our friends' and neighbors; lives. God comprehensively and personally present."
-- Eugene Peterson, "Tell it Slant" p 54-55
Wednesday, June 29
oh give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever.
late nights, up writing. Interesting how so many things really are like riding a bicycle. Once you start pedaling, you remember how well you learned to balance.
I realized something the other night. I want this. I want to do it. I've been wondering for a year or two if the desire would come back. And then, when I was reminded of the opportunity to duck out, to walk away, I realized how much i wanted it.
Funny how when we wait for so long for something, we sometimes forget how much we want it. The waiting becomes monotony.
But then, suddenly, I looked down and it was in the palm of my hand I remembered my 10th grade realization that this is all I wanted to do-- this is where I belong.
This week, I'm starting to believe people when they say "you can do it." and "you are going to be great." Now I see it.
And oh-- how good good good.
---
And that reminds me of something else. I've been pressed lately. Some days I've felt nearly crushed by some invisible, nameless force. Pressured by an invisible fog of uncertainty.
How are you? She asked.
I wonder if I should lie.
I'm not a big advocate for it-- I like to assume that if certain people ask this question, they are actually seeking honesty.
How am I? I am good and sometimes I feel crushed.
How am I? I am good and my life is full of challenge.
How am I? I am good because I am facing difficulty.
How am I? I am good and that is not because things are easy.
I've thought a lot about goodness over the last year or two. ANd I have come to love this word because it somehow expresses a sort of depth and fullness. GOOD. GOOD. GOOD. It doesn't mean things are pristine and carefree. It doesn't mean I have everything I think I want. It doesn't mean that my life is arranged according to my expectations.
But it is better.
Good.
"Strive for growth, not perfection."
late nights, up writing. Interesting how so many things really are like riding a bicycle. Once you start pedaling, you remember how well you learned to balance.
I realized something the other night. I want this. I want to do it. I've been wondering for a year or two if the desire would come back. And then, when I was reminded of the opportunity to duck out, to walk away, I realized how much i wanted it.
Funny how when we wait for so long for something, we sometimes forget how much we want it. The waiting becomes monotony.
But then, suddenly, I looked down and it was in the palm of my hand I remembered my 10th grade realization that this is all I wanted to do-- this is where I belong.
This week, I'm starting to believe people when they say "you can do it." and "you are going to be great." Now I see it.
And oh-- how good good good.
---
And that reminds me of something else. I've been pressed lately. Some days I've felt nearly crushed by some invisible, nameless force. Pressured by an invisible fog of uncertainty.
How are you? She asked.
I wonder if I should lie.
I'm not a big advocate for it-- I like to assume that if certain people ask this question, they are actually seeking honesty.
How am I? I am good and sometimes I feel crushed.
How am I? I am good and my life is full of challenge.
How am I? I am good because I am facing difficulty.
How am I? I am good and that is not because things are easy.
I've thought a lot about goodness over the last year or two. ANd I have come to love this word because it somehow expresses a sort of depth and fullness. GOOD. GOOD. GOOD. It doesn't mean things are pristine and carefree. It doesn't mean I have everything I think I want. It doesn't mean that my life is arranged according to my expectations.
But it is better.
Good.
"Strive for growth, not perfection."
Sunday, June 26
Monday, June 13
sometimes the greatest risk we have to take is simply claiming what is already ours, acknowledging what is true regardless of the unknown implications, past, present, or future.
Imagine what our lives would be like if we actually lived in the fullness of reality and trusted that we have a good Father who is bigger than all of it...
"Attachments occur when we take the risk to allow someone else to matter enough to us to hurt us if they choose to."
Attachment, or boundedness, is our deepest need. This is because it is also the deepest part of the character of God.
The Bible goes so far as to identify the very nature of God with love: 'God is Love' (1 John 4:8). Love, which comprises the deepest part of who God is, determines what he does: 'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son.'
God is pro-relationship and anti-isolation.
The existence of emotional attachments in our lives is not an option; it is not a luxury. It is a spiritual and emotional necessity. We are designed for it...."
Imagine what our lives would be like if we actually lived in the fullness of reality and trusted that we have a good Father who is bigger than all of it...
"Attachments occur when we take the risk to allow someone else to matter enough to us to hurt us if they choose to."
Attachment, or boundedness, is our deepest need. This is because it is also the deepest part of the character of God.
The Bible goes so far as to identify the very nature of God with love: 'God is Love' (1 John 4:8). Love, which comprises the deepest part of who God is, determines what he does: 'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son.'
God is pro-relationship and anti-isolation.
The existence of emotional attachments in our lives is not an option; it is not a luxury. It is a spiritual and emotional necessity. We are designed for it...."
Saturday, June 11
this is the shame of the woman whose hand hides
her smile because her teeth are so bad, not the grand
self-hate that leads some to razors or pills
or swan dives off beautiful bridges however
tragic that is. this is the shame of seeing yourself,
of being ashamed of where you live and what
your father's paycheck lets you eat and wear.
This is the shame of the fat and the bald,
the unbearable blush of acne, the shame of having
no lunch money and pretending you're not hungry.
This is the shame of concealed sickness-- diseases
too expensive to afford that offer only their cold
one-way ticket out. This is the shame of being ashamed,
the self-disgust of the cheap wine drunk, the lassitude
that makes junk accumulate, the shame that tells
you there is another way to live but you are
too dumb to find it. This is the real shame, the damned
shame, the crying shame, the shame that's criminal,
the shame of knowing words like glory are not
in your vocabulary though they litter the Bibles
you're still paying for. This is the shame of not
knowing how to read and pretending you do.
This is the shame that makes you afraid to leave your house,
the shame of food stamps at the supermarket when
the clerk shows impatience as you fumble with the change.
This is the shame of dirty underwear, the shame
of pretending your father works in an office
as God intended all men to do. This is the shame
of asking friends to let you off in front of the one
nice house in the neighborhood and waiting
in the shadows until they drive away before walking
to the gloom of your house. this is the shame
at the end of the mania for owning things, the shame
of no heat in winter; the shame of eating cat food,
the unholy shame of dreaming of a new house and car
and the shame of knowing how cheap such dreams are.
-- Vern Rutsala
her smile because her teeth are so bad, not the grand
self-hate that leads some to razors or pills
or swan dives off beautiful bridges however
tragic that is. this is the shame of seeing yourself,
of being ashamed of where you live and what
your father's paycheck lets you eat and wear.
This is the shame of the fat and the bald,
the unbearable blush of acne, the shame of having
no lunch money and pretending you're not hungry.
This is the shame of concealed sickness-- diseases
too expensive to afford that offer only their cold
one-way ticket out. This is the shame of being ashamed,
the self-disgust of the cheap wine drunk, the lassitude
that makes junk accumulate, the shame that tells
you there is another way to live but you are
too dumb to find it. This is the real shame, the damned
shame, the crying shame, the shame that's criminal,
the shame of knowing words like glory are not
in your vocabulary though they litter the Bibles
you're still paying for. This is the shame of not
knowing how to read and pretending you do.
This is the shame that makes you afraid to leave your house,
the shame of food stamps at the supermarket when
the clerk shows impatience as you fumble with the change.
This is the shame of dirty underwear, the shame
of pretending your father works in an office
as God intended all men to do. This is the shame
of asking friends to let you off in front of the one
nice house in the neighborhood and waiting
in the shadows until they drive away before walking
to the gloom of your house. this is the shame
at the end of the mania for owning things, the shame
of no heat in winter; the shame of eating cat food,
the unholy shame of dreaming of a new house and car
and the shame of knowing how cheap such dreams are.
-- Vern Rutsala
Monday, June 6
"We heal through our connections to others... 'If we observe women's lives carefully, without attempting to force our observations into preexisting patterns, we discover that an inner sense of connection to others is the central ongoing feature of women's development. By listening to the stories women tell about their lives and examining those stories seriously, we have found that... women's sense of self and worth is most often grounded in the ability to make and maintain relationships...
... There are certainly real differences that separate us all in many ways, but in the end, we are more alike than we are different. We all need to feel valued, accepted, and affirmed. When we feel worthless, rejected and unworthy of belonging, we feel shame: One of the most important benefits of reaching out to others is learning that the experiences that make us feel the most alone are actually universal experiences.
Regardless of who we are, how we were raised or what we believe, all of us fight hidden, silent battles against not being good enough, not having enough and not belonging enough. When we find the courage to share our experiences and the compassion to hear others tell their stories, we force shame out of hiding and end the silence."
-- Brene Brown, "I Thought it was Just Me (but it isn't)"
p 127
"A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.. You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge in sinful nature, rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself." Galatians 5
... There are certainly real differences that separate us all in many ways, but in the end, we are more alike than we are different. We all need to feel valued, accepted, and affirmed. When we feel worthless, rejected and unworthy of belonging, we feel shame: One of the most important benefits of reaching out to others is learning that the experiences that make us feel the most alone are actually universal experiences.
Regardless of who we are, how we were raised or what we believe, all of us fight hidden, silent battles against not being good enough, not having enough and not belonging enough. When we find the courage to share our experiences and the compassion to hear others tell their stories, we force shame out of hiding and end the silence."
-- Brene Brown, "I Thought it was Just Me (but it isn't)"
p 127
"A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.. You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge in sinful nature, rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself." Galatians 5
Sunday, June 5
Saturday, June 4
Sunday, May 22
"So my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you may belong to one another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order than we might bear fruit to God. For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the lay were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code...
...Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law may be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature, but according to the Spirit.
Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what the sinful nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of the sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
You, however, are controlled not by sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. but if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your Spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of Sonship. And by him, we cry Abba, Father. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, we are also heirs-- heirs with God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
... what shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-- how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns?"
-- Romans 7
"No good tree can bear bad fruit"
I've been thinking about rules. Lists. Laws. Guidelines. Right and wrong.
I've been thinking about guilt. About the thought of needing to try harder, do strain against my desires, to muster up the self-control to do what I ought to do when it feels like swimming against a current.
I've been thinking about the process of becoming a person who simply does the things that are good and right and pure so that when the challenges and the hardships come, choosing life will be as simple as breathing.
I've been thinking about choosing to believe what is true about me, regardless of the people around me who are telling me that I am wrong, that I've done something wrong, that I ought to be ashamed.
I am thinking about the process of waiting and resting, even when the wisdom of the world tells me to stop being lazy and get on with pulling up my bootstraps.
I've been thinking about the necessity of play and rest and enjoyment and the absurdity of what some people call "proper time management" that is actually a way of justifying an addiction to work and accomplishment.
I am thinking about receiving the gift of joy and freedom and how unnaturally good it feels to stop condemning myself for things that the Father actually delights in.
I am thinking about the value and goodness in taking life one day at a time and the freedom from worry that comes from trusting that the Lord is good and that he will provide.
I am thinking about how letting go of control takes practice, but yields unbelievably lavish results. I'm thinking about getting out of the way more often and just opening my hands to receive.
I'm learning about being less hard on myself and trusting that I have a Spirit in me that is directly wired to the source of life. I am thinking about living more in a rhythm that trusts that I have a good Father who is wise and loving enough to let me know if I get off track.
I am thinking about getting to know a Father who is full of goodness and mercy.
Saturday, May 7
Monday, April 18
Double Happy Honesty Cup
Watch the full episode. See more Austin City Limits.
listen to me, you Islands;
hear this, you distant nations:
Before I was born, the Lord called me;
From birth he has made mention of my name
He made my mouth like a polished arrow
and concealed me in his quiver
He said to me, "You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will display my splendor."
But I said, "I have labored to no purpose;
I have spent my strength in vain for nothin
Yet what is due me is in the Lord's hand,
and my reward is with God
And now the Lord says--
He who formed me in the woed to be his servant
to bring Jacob back to him
and gather Israel back to himself
For I am honored in the eyes of the Lord
and God has been my strength
He says:
"It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
To restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept
I will also make yo a light for the gentiels
that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth
this is what the Lord says--
the redeemer and Holy One of Israel--
to him who was despised and abhored by the nation
to be the servant of rulers:
"Kings will see you and rise up
princes will see and bow down
because of the Lord, who is faithful
The Holy One of Isreal, who has chosen you
This is what the Lord says:
"in the time of my favor I will answer you
And in the day of salvation I will help you
I will keep you and will make you
to be a covenant for the people
to restore the Land
and to reassign its desolate inheritances
To say to the captives: "Come out"
and to those in darkness, "Be Free!"
Isaiah 61
Monday, April 4
A few things:
I don't think I need this space very much anymore. Did I write this before? I can't remember. It is still true though. I don't. I started it because I wanted someone to see me. To hear me. To know me. I don't really know how much it met that need over the last six and a half years, but what I do know now is that there are other ways. And they are better.
I was driving the curve this morning and reached something of an epiphany:: There are just a lot of other things I want to do more. And that doesn't make me a failure and it doesn't make me a bad person. It just means... well, I haven't gotten that far.
I came here to do the thing that I always find ways to put off. And now I am putting it off. Because I have other things on my mind and I am too tired to care that much. I suppose it becomes a problem when the things I want to do more include the simple act of thinking about something else.
I was practicing a Quaker prayer of receiving and releasing several weeks ago and I felt the weight of a teaching job placed in my had-- easy as that. But it seems too good to be true and so I don't really want to believe it. That attachment and disappointment thing again. But I suppose He loves us enough and it is possible. And he doesn't seem to be browbeating me nearly as much as... well... me.
There are certain coping mechanisms that I used to find quite comforting that I now find repulsive to consider. I sit and there is the red hot burn of vulnerability and ache and I try to cover it all up again, but it doesn't seem to cover anymore. My new heart doesn't seem to fit the pieces of the old one. He promised that he would replace the thornbush with the pine. And apparently He wasn't lying about that either.
But that also means that I am carrying around all of this gentle, new skin. You know the kind, like when you totally burn all the layers off and then it begins to grow back softer in that little spot. And there are a thousand things, sensitive to the touch-- feeling with nerves I never knew I had. Like sunlight to the dilated eye of the yesterday blind. It feels like hurt and fear, but maybe its just poignant, real. The walls are down and the callouses have taken flight.
I don't think I need this space very much anymore. Did I write this before? I can't remember. It is still true though. I don't. I started it because I wanted someone to see me. To hear me. To know me. I don't really know how much it met that need over the last six and a half years, but what I do know now is that there are other ways. And they are better.
I was driving the curve this morning and reached something of an epiphany:: There are just a lot of other things I want to do more. And that doesn't make me a failure and it doesn't make me a bad person. It just means... well, I haven't gotten that far.
I came here to do the thing that I always find ways to put off. And now I am putting it off. Because I have other things on my mind and I am too tired to care that much. I suppose it becomes a problem when the things I want to do more include the simple act of thinking about something else.
I was practicing a Quaker prayer of receiving and releasing several weeks ago and I felt the weight of a teaching job placed in my had-- easy as that. But it seems too good to be true and so I don't really want to believe it. That attachment and disappointment thing again. But I suppose He loves us enough and it is possible. And he doesn't seem to be browbeating me nearly as much as... well... me.
There are certain coping mechanisms that I used to find quite comforting that I now find repulsive to consider. I sit and there is the red hot burn of vulnerability and ache and I try to cover it all up again, but it doesn't seem to cover anymore. My new heart doesn't seem to fit the pieces of the old one. He promised that he would replace the thornbush with the pine. And apparently He wasn't lying about that either.
But that also means that I am carrying around all of this gentle, new skin. You know the kind, like when you totally burn all the layers off and then it begins to grow back softer in that little spot. And there are a thousand things, sensitive to the touch-- feeling with nerves I never knew I had. Like sunlight to the dilated eye of the yesterday blind. It feels like hurt and fear, but maybe its just poignant, real. The walls are down and the callouses have taken flight.
Thursday, March 24
"Every package has somewhere to go and the contents remain a mystery. Occasionally, I'll find a box where the address has been written by a child. I used to put these boxes to the side until the end of my shift so I could study the penmanship and compare it to Leo's. In a child's handwriting, language is exposed as the pained and crooked medium it really is. Since loosing Leo these packages are like shards of glass."
"I miss autumn-- the sason when summer takes on the memory of its own mortality. And then winter. And the the miracle seaosn, when everything begins again fearlessly."
-- Simon Van Booy, "Distant Ships," (from "The Secret Lives of People in Love")
My new journal has been christened by the first splash of clumsily spiled coffee. I caught the edge of the saucer, tipped the cup and sent the creamy lifeblood to distant reaches. The man at the next table responded instantly to the unmistakable clink by turning to the opposite side and somehow I knew he was going to hand me a napkin soon. It seems often I drop a pencil, spill a notebook full of paper, dump my coffee and everyone else wants to clean it up while I find little reason to jump up and clean it. The mess is okay for me.
I waited a few minutes and forgot about the man's search in his packpack until he produced a single white napkin-- a kind gesture, but inadequate for the spill. I set the napkin upon the saucer and turned back to my book, unconcerned. I found the passage, copied it out, replaced the bookmark and glanced at the cup, saucer, and napkin, surprised. The lily white object residing somewhere between paper and cloth now took on hue, value, and saturation of the still considerably-full cup and the saucer now mirrored the past purity of the gifted napkin. Strange how, bit by bit, all is changed.
I've been fighting in the trenches of children without enough time with their parents for one year and thirteen days now-- approximately speaking. People ask me that question of questions: "What do you do?" and immediately I feel the gigantic pocket of airlessness in this gap. The What I Do-ness seems 80% irrelevant to the real question, which is: How does your daily activity encapsulate who you really are? I feel guilty or empty or something, so I don't say what I am really thinking, which is "I am waiting for my life to begin," because this seems like a stupid, shallow, disconnected, discontent, un-spiritual, and faithless thing to say-- I feel immature in thinking that . {And actually, I do say this sometimes, but I still feel all of these things, so I immediately try to take it all back, stuffing it back into my pack, and walk away in true accordance with the failure that I feel in its truth}
But I am working on a bit of a personal project, which is the endeavor to stop hiding from things that are actually true. That is, stopping the urge to pretend that I don't feel the things I really feel deeply, quitting giving into the temptation of guilt for wanting the things that I really want, putting an end to pretending like I don't think things that I do. I've decided that even the unmet desires are better acknowledged for what they are than the excoriating pain of killing every good thing from the inside out.
So I'm not doing the things that I really want to do. My day job gets in the way of my real life. I hope for things that I've been trying to deny myself for a million years. I'm giving in to the urge to stop doing things that my mind screams I must do at the expense of listening to my need for sleep and beauty and relationship.
I'm doing what I want to do when I want to do it, despite the condemnation that comes pouring in the form of "what if's" and "your faults."
I keep having dreams that people give me new cars-- totally undeserved and unrepayable gifts.
I've started expecting men to hold open doors for me and I've started walking through them like I deserve it.
I used to be really good at pushing down my heart and convincing myself that I am not only okay with, but "really enjoy doing things by myself." I'm not good at this anymore and I have legitimately stopped telling myself that I like it. I've started admitting that I have chosen not to do particular things because I simply didn't want to to it alone. I've started to choose not to do things because I don't want to do them alone. I've given in to the temptation to simply grieve it instead.
I've started telling the truth: I don't like being alone. I hate it in fact.
Which leads me, inevitably, to the thought that perhaps, I don't have to keep telling myself that I'm alone and that's the way it has to be. I've started to accept the reality that I am worthy of being known and that I don't have to sit through the pain of running from the fear that I may yet be found unworthy.
I was falling asleep in Old Chicago at midnight when I had a bit of a personal epiphany. I spent the evening caught between the disconnect of my exhaustion and need to be refilled. Too tired to speak, but deeply needing to be heard.
"I spend the day making sure everyone is feeling loved and cared for," I said-- mostly for my own hearing. I realized in that moment that all I wanted was to be seen, but free of demand. And then, the thought went through my head, or maybe it emanated from my heart, I'm not sure which: Is there really anyone to make sure I am feeling loved and cared for? Sometimes it is so hard in this parched desert to hold the small droplets of water given. I hope for the day when the famine gives way to feast. Refreshment.
But, I realize, like my now-brown napkin, that so much is given-- the desires of our parched heart-throats-- through small processes of osmosis, the permeable membranes crossed slowly by ongoing contact. And, before we know it, the fibers are filled to the brim and the mess of our spilled-upon saucers are restored to their pure whites. Neighbors pull napkins from backpacks and men hold doors for women. College graduates endure hourly jobs until hopes are met in opened positions and people who recognize the worth in our faithfulness-- even when there are wrenches thrown in our plans, even when the coffeee spills, and we find ourselves in that gap between hope and dream and there are only crocked letters scrawled by children-- we find a way to hold our purple, wounded hearts open and He comes in.
"I miss autumn-- the sason when summer takes on the memory of its own mortality. And then winter. And the the miracle seaosn, when everything begins again fearlessly."
-- Simon Van Booy, "Distant Ships," (from "The Secret Lives of People in Love")
My new journal has been christened by the first splash of clumsily spiled coffee. I caught the edge of the saucer, tipped the cup and sent the creamy lifeblood to distant reaches. The man at the next table responded instantly to the unmistakable clink by turning to the opposite side and somehow I knew he was going to hand me a napkin soon. It seems often I drop a pencil, spill a notebook full of paper, dump my coffee and everyone else wants to clean it up while I find little reason to jump up and clean it. The mess is okay for me.
I waited a few minutes and forgot about the man's search in his packpack until he produced a single white napkin-- a kind gesture, but inadequate for the spill. I set the napkin upon the saucer and turned back to my book, unconcerned. I found the passage, copied it out, replaced the bookmark and glanced at the cup, saucer, and napkin, surprised. The lily white object residing somewhere between paper and cloth now took on hue, value, and saturation of the still considerably-full cup and the saucer now mirrored the past purity of the gifted napkin. Strange how, bit by bit, all is changed.
I've been fighting in the trenches of children without enough time with their parents for one year and thirteen days now-- approximately speaking. People ask me that question of questions: "What do you do?" and immediately I feel the gigantic pocket of airlessness in this gap. The What I Do-ness seems 80% irrelevant to the real question, which is: How does your daily activity encapsulate who you really are? I feel guilty or empty or something, so I don't say what I am really thinking, which is "I am waiting for my life to begin," because this seems like a stupid, shallow, disconnected, discontent, un-spiritual, and faithless thing to say-- I feel immature in thinking that . {And actually, I do say this sometimes, but I still feel all of these things, so I immediately try to take it all back, stuffing it back into my pack, and walk away in true accordance with the failure that I feel in its truth}
But I am working on a bit of a personal project, which is the endeavor to stop hiding from things that are actually true. That is, stopping the urge to pretend that I don't feel the things I really feel deeply, quitting giving into the temptation of guilt for wanting the things that I really want, putting an end to pretending like I don't think things that I do. I've decided that even the unmet desires are better acknowledged for what they are than the excoriating pain of killing every good thing from the inside out.
So I'm not doing the things that I really want to do. My day job gets in the way of my real life. I hope for things that I've been trying to deny myself for a million years. I'm giving in to the urge to stop doing things that my mind screams I must do at the expense of listening to my need for sleep and beauty and relationship.
I'm doing what I want to do when I want to do it, despite the condemnation that comes pouring in the form of "what if's" and "your faults."
I keep having dreams that people give me new cars-- totally undeserved and unrepayable gifts.
I've started expecting men to hold open doors for me and I've started walking through them like I deserve it.
I used to be really good at pushing down my heart and convincing myself that I am not only okay with, but "really enjoy doing things by myself." I'm not good at this anymore and I have legitimately stopped telling myself that I like it. I've started admitting that I have chosen not to do particular things because I simply didn't want to to it alone. I've started to choose not to do things because I don't want to do them alone. I've given in to the temptation to simply grieve it instead.
I've started telling the truth: I don't like being alone. I hate it in fact.
Which leads me, inevitably, to the thought that perhaps, I don't have to keep telling myself that I'm alone and that's the way it has to be. I've started to accept the reality that I am worthy of being known and that I don't have to sit through the pain of running from the fear that I may yet be found unworthy.
I was falling asleep in Old Chicago at midnight when I had a bit of a personal epiphany. I spent the evening caught between the disconnect of my exhaustion and need to be refilled. Too tired to speak, but deeply needing to be heard.
"I spend the day making sure everyone is feeling loved and cared for," I said-- mostly for my own hearing. I realized in that moment that all I wanted was to be seen, but free of demand. And then, the thought went through my head, or maybe it emanated from my heart, I'm not sure which: Is there really anyone to make sure I am feeling loved and cared for? Sometimes it is so hard in this parched desert to hold the small droplets of water given. I hope for the day when the famine gives way to feast. Refreshment.
But, I realize, like my now-brown napkin, that so much is given-- the desires of our parched heart-throats-- through small processes of osmosis, the permeable membranes crossed slowly by ongoing contact. And, before we know it, the fibers are filled to the brim and the mess of our spilled-upon saucers are restored to their pure whites. Neighbors pull napkins from backpacks and men hold doors for women. College graduates endure hourly jobs until hopes are met in opened positions and people who recognize the worth in our faithfulness-- even when there are wrenches thrown in our plans, even when the coffeee spills, and we find ourselves in that gap between hope and dream and there are only crocked letters scrawled by children-- we find a way to hold our purple, wounded hearts open and He comes in.
Monday, March 14
foreign languages
"Attachments occur when we take the risk to allow someone else to matter enough to us to hurt us if they choose to."
Attachment, or boundedness, is our deepest need. This is because it is also the deepest part of the character of God.
The Bible goes so far as to identify the very nature of God with love: 'God is Love' (1 John 4:8). Love, which comprises the deepest part of who God is, determines what he does: 'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son.'
God is pro-relationship and anti-isolation.
The existence of emotional attachments in our lives is not an option; it is not a luxury. It is a spiritual and emotional necessity. We are designed for it....
It's a sad fact that Christians who have ever been able to be vulnerable with their needs for connection sometimes are then drawn to fellowships where true bonds were trivialized-- or, even worse, dismissed as 'trusting man too much,' The fact is that having relationships with God and other persons is not an either-or proposition. It's a both-and necessity. The heart has a deep need for God, who placed eternity there. The same heart yearns for the satisfying and safe human attachments in which we can be truly known and truly loves, that we may all be one."
"As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment, heaven was opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, 'This is my son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."
"This is my son, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life."
And now, for a personal conversation {taking place in my head}:
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Hurting," she said.
"Why?"
"Because that is what I do."
It's gut wrenching, I am pretty sure. I ask myself why the year is passed and I look up from my lunch and see failure written without color on the whiteboard across from me. Who wrote that? I ask myself and then immediately wonder how many times I've read it over and over and over again. Now that I've looked at each letter and it's stabbed me in the heart, I think I might be ready to erase it.
It's depressing, I know. My finger reaches for the backspace.
But I think about why I feel this way and begin to consider whether or not I've been trying to look through a thick sheet of pain for approximately one hundred years, wondering if it isn't as easy as I thought it should be because I've stopped burying the hurt and started bearing my heart.
Sort of like when they say, "I'll make your headache go away by kicking you in the shin." Something like that.
Attachment, or boundedness, is our deepest need. This is because it is also the deepest part of the character of God.
The Bible goes so far as to identify the very nature of God with love: 'God is Love' (1 John 4:8). Love, which comprises the deepest part of who God is, determines what he does: 'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son.'
God is pro-relationship and anti-isolation.
The existence of emotional attachments in our lives is not an option; it is not a luxury. It is a spiritual and emotional necessity. We are designed for it....
It's a sad fact that Christians who have ever been able to be vulnerable with their needs for connection sometimes are then drawn to fellowships where true bonds were trivialized-- or, even worse, dismissed as 'trusting man too much,' The fact is that having relationships with God and other persons is not an either-or proposition. It's a both-and necessity. The heart has a deep need for God, who placed eternity there. The same heart yearns for the satisfying and safe human attachments in which we can be truly known and truly loves, that we may all be one."
"As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment, heaven was opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, 'This is my son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."
"This is my son, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life."
And now, for a personal conversation {taking place in my head}:
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Hurting," she said.
"Why?"
"Because that is what I do."
It's gut wrenching, I am pretty sure. I ask myself why the year is passed and I look up from my lunch and see failure written without color on the whiteboard across from me. Who wrote that? I ask myself and then immediately wonder how many times I've read it over and over and over again. Now that I've looked at each letter and it's stabbed me in the heart, I think I might be ready to erase it.
It's depressing, I know. My finger reaches for the backspace.
But I think about why I feel this way and begin to consider whether or not I've been trying to look through a thick sheet of pain for approximately one hundred years, wondering if it isn't as easy as I thought it should be because I've stopped burying the hurt and started bearing my heart.
Sort of like when they say, "I'll make your headache go away by kicking you in the shin." Something like that.
Wednesday, March 9
"Let the people of Sela
sing for joy;
Let them shout from the mountaintops
Let them give glory to the Lord
and proclaim his praise in the islands
The Lord will march out like
a mighty man
like a warrior he will stir up his zeal
With a shout he will raise
the battle cry
And triumph over his enemies
For a long time I have kept silent
I have been quiet and held
myself back
But now, like a woman in childbirth
I cry out, I gasp and pant
I will lay waste to the
mountains and hills
And dry up all their vegetation
I will turn rivers into islands
and dry up the pools
I will lead the blind
by ways they have not known
Along unfamiliar paths I will guide them
I will turn the darkness
into light before them
and make the rough places smooth
These are the things I will do
I will not forsake them"
Is 42
"For the father loves the son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he wil show him even greater things than these.
For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it."
Jn 5
"However, it is written:
'No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
No mind has conceived
what God has prepared for
those who love him---'
But God has revealed it to us by His Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. for who among men knows the thoughts of man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the spirit of God. We have not received the Spirit of the World, but the Spirit of God, that we may understand what God has freely given us...
... Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's spirit lives in you? Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a fool so that he may become wise... So then, no more boasting about men. All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos of Cephas or the world, or life of death or the present or the future-- all are yours and you are of Christ and Christ is of God."
1 Cor 2&3
sing for joy;
Let them shout from the mountaintops
Let them give glory to the Lord
and proclaim his praise in the islands
The Lord will march out like
a mighty man
like a warrior he will stir up his zeal
With a shout he will raise
the battle cry
And triumph over his enemies
For a long time I have kept silent
I have been quiet and held
myself back
But now, like a woman in childbirth
I cry out, I gasp and pant
I will lay waste to the
mountains and hills
And dry up all their vegetation
I will turn rivers into islands
and dry up the pools
I will lead the blind
by ways they have not known
Along unfamiliar paths I will guide them
I will turn the darkness
into light before them
and make the rough places smooth
These are the things I will do
I will not forsake them"
Is 42
"For the father loves the son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he wil show him even greater things than these.
For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it."
Jn 5
"However, it is written:
'No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
No mind has conceived
what God has prepared for
those who love him---'
But God has revealed it to us by His Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. for who among men knows the thoughts of man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the spirit of God. We have not received the Spirit of the World, but the Spirit of God, that we may understand what God has freely given us...
... Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's spirit lives in you? Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a fool so that he may become wise... So then, no more boasting about men. All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos of Cephas or the world, or life of death or the present or the future-- all are yours and you are of Christ and Christ is of God."
1 Cor 2&3
Monday, March 7
"There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
-- Anais Nin
"somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gestures are things which enclose me
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me,
though i have closed myself as fingers
you open always petal by petal myself as spring opened
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in my understand
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands."
-- E.E. Cummings
"Love one another, but make not a bond of love. Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls."
-- Kahlil Gibran
-- Anais Nin
"somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gestures are things which enclose me
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me,
though i have closed myself as fingers
you open always petal by petal myself as spring opened
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in my understand
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands."
-- E.E. Cummings
"Love one another, but make not a bond of love. Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls."
-- Kahlil Gibran
Monday, February 28
I've been thinking about writing something really intelligent here for approximately 3 days, 5 days, 7 days. I've been thinking about deleting this entire thing for a few months now. Why do I keep coming back? What is this black elixir that seems to have addicted these flying fingers. why why why? I started the habit at 17 and now here I am, submitting these white words to the black abyss again. reasons I still can't name except the opium of its secret thrill. a strange literary endorphin.
I've been thinking about writing something intelligent about truth and hunger and seeking and all sorts of things like that. Really good ideas that might make you change your mind about things that you thought before.
But I think that I might be lying if I follow through. I mean, not by saying words that aren't true, but laying down bricks to keep me from putting down my heart. Keeping secrets. A tactic of control rather than an act of truth and vulnerability. fake fake fake. why bother pretending to have answers when I really just want to let some air out through the sides of my questions.
I sat here three weeks ago. Wrote a few things in purple ink over my lunch break. that was the word in fact,
break break break break break.
Written over and over and over again. Its all I could think of. break. broke. broken. lost.
I write it again here and I wonder how many different ways I'll be misunderstood, misinterpreted. I'm already anticipating your probing questions that I'm sure I'll find a way to evade out of frustration or maybe just disdain. I probably shouldn't be saying that either. ohwell. now you know. save your questions for the next witness, I guess.
anyhow-- the writing was on the wall. or was it? I'm not sure. But nevertheless, I mixed a little more magenta into the bottle and wrote it anyway.
have you ever been squeezed so tight you thought at any moment you might loose the whites already floating in fluid in your sockets? A pending explosion of all the tension that's been held in by your held in breath. How long until the flood gates burst and destruction ensues?
I imagine Aladin in Jafar's transformed serpent clutches, his little legs sticking out of those white balloon pants. He was a liar too, full of false-pretense, used fake words to avoid the real ones. A whole new world. I suppose, it was, of sorts.
But that's not the point. Well, actually, it is sort of the point. A whole new world.
Its been 31 days plus 28. The whole world seems to be flipped on its head and all I can seem to account for it is age. Happy birthday. or something like that.
Maybe I'm just tired, worn out from this unexpected intermission in my life. Spending the day sorting out who is the wrong-est when I had nothing to do with it-- I was just trying to pass Comp 101 and find a part-time job.
But the truth is, I'm tired. Exhausted. Wondering how much longer I'll be Aladin and he'll be Jafar. I'm tired of putting on a good face, projecting an illusion of strength when I think I'm just doing what I can to hold it together until enough time passes for the truth to become clear to someone.
It's June. I sat there, green plastic lawn chair dug into the pebbles, two and half hours from home, rain getting ready to pour down all around the shelter of our tent: You are lifting weights, she said. I already knew that.
How long is it again that someone can train before their body just stops? I'd like the excuse of muscle atrophy.
I was reading about Jesus and the four thousand. He had compassion on them for they had come a long way and were hungry. He feared they might collapse on the way back. And I think I saw my face in the group photo taken at the picnic.
It seems as though I've been keeping a thousand secrets. I wonder if Mary felt like that, treasuring up all of those things in her heart. Did she hold them all inside for 33 years? or was there something else to it?
I feel like a precious vessel that's been dropped on the floor, and through some internal energy, I've been holding all the shattered pieces together on my own. What I'd really like is to let go and let all the shards fall to the floor. Sit in a relaxed position and do what I want to do. Close this two and a half inch gap between us.
I wonder how long before you'll allow the truth to set me free.
Because I need to say outloud that, as hard as I try to keep it a secret, I've never done anything so hard in my life. As much as I'd like to hide behind unmet goals and less significant hurts, the truth is that it simply takes everything I have to hold it together in the midst of the one thousand things that I can't understand. The world's greatest discrepancy.
I've started to work on trying not to hide the truth from myself so much. And part of that is admitting the things that I want, another part resisting the urge to kill everything, a third part putting a stop to the thought that I could actually control the uncontrollable. Just accepting a thing or two and letting it be true, regardless of the repercussions.
And if I write here the truth rather than the masks and lies that tempt, I have to write the truth that it is all so hard. I want to make it simple and straight-forward, but the honest thing is that most days it feels like my insides are pulled apart, shred upon shred. And I can't do much more than hope that someday these small loaves will be turned into basketfulls of leftovers and that, by some miracle, there will be something more for me on the road home than an inevitable collapse.
I've been thinking about writing something intelligent about truth and hunger and seeking and all sorts of things like that. Really good ideas that might make you change your mind about things that you thought before.
But I think that I might be lying if I follow through. I mean, not by saying words that aren't true, but laying down bricks to keep me from putting down my heart. Keeping secrets. A tactic of control rather than an act of truth and vulnerability. fake fake fake. why bother pretending to have answers when I really just want to let some air out through the sides of my questions.
I sat here three weeks ago. Wrote a few things in purple ink over my lunch break. that was the word in fact,
break break break break break.
Written over and over and over again. Its all I could think of. break. broke. broken. lost.
I write it again here and I wonder how many different ways I'll be misunderstood, misinterpreted. I'm already anticipating your probing questions that I'm sure I'll find a way to evade out of frustration or maybe just disdain. I probably shouldn't be saying that either. ohwell. now you know. save your questions for the next witness, I guess.
anyhow-- the writing was on the wall. or was it? I'm not sure. But nevertheless, I mixed a little more magenta into the bottle and wrote it anyway.
have you ever been squeezed so tight you thought at any moment you might loose the whites already floating in fluid in your sockets? A pending explosion of all the tension that's been held in by your held in breath. How long until the flood gates burst and destruction ensues?
I imagine Aladin in Jafar's transformed serpent clutches, his little legs sticking out of those white balloon pants. He was a liar too, full of false-pretense, used fake words to avoid the real ones. A whole new world. I suppose, it was, of sorts.
But that's not the point. Well, actually, it is sort of the point. A whole new world.
Its been 31 days plus 28. The whole world seems to be flipped on its head and all I can seem to account for it is age. Happy birthday. or something like that.
Maybe I'm just tired, worn out from this unexpected intermission in my life. Spending the day sorting out who is the wrong-est when I had nothing to do with it-- I was just trying to pass Comp 101 and find a part-time job.
But the truth is, I'm tired. Exhausted. Wondering how much longer I'll be Aladin and he'll be Jafar. I'm tired of putting on a good face, projecting an illusion of strength when I think I'm just doing what I can to hold it together until enough time passes for the truth to become clear to someone.
It's June. I sat there, green plastic lawn chair dug into the pebbles, two and half hours from home, rain getting ready to pour down all around the shelter of our tent: You are lifting weights, she said. I already knew that.
How long is it again that someone can train before their body just stops? I'd like the excuse of muscle atrophy.
I was reading about Jesus and the four thousand. He had compassion on them for they had come a long way and were hungry. He feared they might collapse on the way back. And I think I saw my face in the group photo taken at the picnic.
It seems as though I've been keeping a thousand secrets. I wonder if Mary felt like that, treasuring up all of those things in her heart. Did she hold them all inside for 33 years? or was there something else to it?
I feel like a precious vessel that's been dropped on the floor, and through some internal energy, I've been holding all the shattered pieces together on my own. What I'd really like is to let go and let all the shards fall to the floor. Sit in a relaxed position and do what I want to do. Close this two and a half inch gap between us.
I wonder how long before you'll allow the truth to set me free.
Because I need to say outloud that, as hard as I try to keep it a secret, I've never done anything so hard in my life. As much as I'd like to hide behind unmet goals and less significant hurts, the truth is that it simply takes everything I have to hold it together in the midst of the one thousand things that I can't understand. The world's greatest discrepancy.
I've started to work on trying not to hide the truth from myself so much. And part of that is admitting the things that I want, another part resisting the urge to kill everything, a third part putting a stop to the thought that I could actually control the uncontrollable. Just accepting a thing or two and letting it be true, regardless of the repercussions.
And if I write here the truth rather than the masks and lies that tempt, I have to write the truth that it is all so hard. I want to make it simple and straight-forward, but the honest thing is that most days it feels like my insides are pulled apart, shred upon shred. And I can't do much more than hope that someday these small loaves will be turned into basketfulls of leftovers and that, by some miracle, there will be something more for me on the road home than an inevitable collapse.
Monday, February 7
I was perusing the Reader tonight and was struck by some really essential thoughts from my friend Jessica. I couldn't have said it better:
Do you remember that Jennifer Garner movie...13 Going on 30? I do. And unlike the beautiful Jennifer Garner, my age progression does not seem to be going forward.And also from her blog, this gem that I find quite poignant:
I was reminded last night, in a frustratingly and beautifully honest voice, that I am still a work in progress. Every time I think I've found solid ground, something shifts, or changes, and I come to realize that no matter how hard I work, or how far I've come, I'm not done growing up.
In some ways, I'm glad for that. I don't want to be static, or stagnant, or stunted before my time. I want to be pushed and challenged, I want to grow and explore. And more often than not, I don't have the time or energy, and more often than I'd like to admit, the courage, to push myself in more than a few ways. I've spent the last few years pushing my body. It's far from perfect. But it is by far better than it has been. The mental challenge that this requires has changed me too. And while I appreciate my new found physical and much quieter emotional strength, there is still work to do.
The person that pointed out this not quite fatal but still detrimental flaw is someone I have not known long. But nonetheless, someone that has become important to me very quickly. I hate the double edge sword that relationships sometimes seem. In order for you to know them and them you, you must open yourself. Unfold the layers of guilt and hurt, of memories and experiences, and try to share them. Not explicitly, by telling story after story of your life up until the point you met, though some of that does inevitably happen. But rather in your actions and person, through who you are and HOW you are. And it's sometimes ugly. Really ugly. How do you know if sharing what you are and how you got that way won't make them turn heel and run? You don't. How do you know you won't peel away the layers, hoping to replace those with fonder memories and lovelier things, and they won't be bandaged but instead scrapped away. We don't. And I guess that's the risk we take when we love. It takes a strong person to love, and a stronger person to let themselves be loved.
"One does not fall in love. One grows in love, and love in him." Karl A. MenningerThanks, Jae. Right on.
Saturday, February 5
Wednesday, February 2
Tuesday, February 1
I think that perhaps the greatest gift of love we can give is to simply allow ourselves to be the beloved.
How long I've been peering down this dark hole, I don't know. But for days now, I keep circling back to this line from the movie, Magnolia, spoken by the character Donnie Smith. At what seems to be his last moment of desperation, as the rain pours outside, he cries out, eyes aflame, desolate: "I have a lot of love to give; I just don't know where to put it! I just don't know where to put it..."
I think often about what an old friend wrote as her only interest on her Facebook profile: I love people more than anything.
I have a deep and poignant memory sitting in Rembrandts', four good years ago now, light streaming in, colored by the stained glass, looking across the substantial table, doing everything I could to keep from standing up, bolting out the door, avoiding the tears that pressed hard against the banks of my lashes. "You have a lot of love to give, Heidi," he said. The thought had never crossed my mind, let alone my heart. Who, me? Lovely and lover?
Fast forward to October 2008. I got in my car, parking lot empty, all the parents come for their children, sun setting above the mountains. My heart was so full-- I was swimming in the reality of all this love pouring out of my old, fragile heart. I was making friends with a self long buried under the rubble of rejection, confusion, and hurt. A self left behind on some Christmas morning or under the kitchen table early in the morning.
I had long forgotten what it felt like to love and in its place was a habit of shameful begging.
Last spring, my eyes began to focus on a few clouds that have been set upon the retina for a while now: I was aware of a presence of a deep love for people that I fear can never be properly received. It is there, soft and red, but held back behind elephantiasis skin. The connections are somehow always broken. And so I keep it to myself.
I've been wondering about needs. What are needs, what are things that we just want, and what are the things that are absolutely essential to our deepest being? I have a hard time intertwining the things that bring the deepest, most brilliant doses of joy with those things that are also my deepest needs. It takes a lot of work to open my heart to the thought that this kind of abundant-life sort of goodness is also essential to my existence. Goodness as a non-negotiable in our experience of actually living? Could it be that joy and a goodness beyond comprehension is actually built into the way we were supposed to live?
I am wondering how long I've been living out of the belief that to give love is an imposition. Something beautiful and good that was placed in me before the beginning of everything got twisted somewhere along the way. This longing to love, to give myself, to know and be known, to share all the beauty I see in the world with someone else, got relabeled as some sort of inappropriate demand upon those I ought not assume any connection. Something got mixed up in this broken heart of mine and I began to believe that this deep and good desire for companionship was an unworthy gift that is not mine to assume. The little lies began to sneak in, how selfish of you to demand the time and attention of others. Who do you think you are to ask for any commitment or attachment? Your desire for friendship, for community, has little to do with your giving and all to do with your taking.
But the eyes set upon my heart are changing these past weeks. How foolish, how misguided to believe these things. The love got buried. The joy in giving and serving and simply being with those the Father has given got trampled by the million rejections, the broken pieces that no longer know how to connect. The truth has gotten lost.
And so, I am wondering about a way of loving that is not often spoken of. Could it be that the best way of loving one another, the most valuable gift we can give, is to simply allow ourselves to be the beloved. Is it possible that we need to turn everything back around and stop pretending like we have to take care of all of our needs alone, in isolation, and begin to allow ourselves to need the love of others. Because I think we have an innate need to give love-- and when we close off our hearts and stop receiving it from one another-- even in the frail and broken and shadowy forms in which it often must be given-- we kill something in one another.
I wonder if community, if connection, if intimacy is a sort of reciprocal operation, a literal dance of give and take in which both the giver and receiver is simultaneously brought to life.
Perhaps the deep ache of our hearts today is not a matter of too little love given, but too little love received. I don't pretend to imply that either position is easily taken. To take the posture of the receiver is to put ourselves at the risk of loss. As C.S. Lewis so eloquently says, "To love anything at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken..." I think this is equally true of allowing ourselves to be loved. It is a precarious bridge we walk and must somehow trust, even when the construction so deeply resembles our own inadequacy, that to allow our raw and bleeding hearts to touch another is worth the pain and risk of separation and failure.
And how long can we continue to hold out our loves before our arms tire and our ears bleed of rejection. How many thousands of time must we hear the words, "It's not enough," or "I don't have time," or "I can't pay you back," before we stop offering, tired and frustrated? How do we resist the lie that living a life of love is just to good to be true-- not for me. I must muddle through without expectation. A lone reed.
Truth be said, I don't have the real answers to any of these things. How does it all get fleshed out, I don't know. But perhaps the first step is asking for eyes to see and a courageous, softened heart. Maybe it is a matter of realizing that if I follow my need for love deep enough I will more accurately discover a need to give love without fear of the hardened hearts upon which it so often shatters. Perhaps we need to stop preaching demeaning sermons to ourselves about the need to muster up more of this love and begin simply to ask for soft hearts to receive it.
Maybe this is what John meant when he said "We love because he first loved us." We can stop thinking of love as something we have to do to balance out the equation in our needy relationships and come to terms with the reality that we are worthy of a life defined by a very deep love. Maybe then our relationships will escape this rigid economy of equal payment and enter into the reality of a more fluid abundance. We can enter the reality of a simultaneous flow of love where we are both the giver and receiver.
And I realize so much of this sounds so lovely and simple and logical and easy in writing. But the truth is that my heart is still deeply broken. I do not know how to enter this reality. I don't know if I can handle another round of the disappointment that comes from a door shut in my face out of fear. I'm not sure how many more walls of your heart I can hit before this cut begins to bleed.
But I do know this-- the thing I need is a place to put all of my love and that may mean that I must find the strength to keep trying, to keep knocking. I need you, not for what you can give, but what I need you to receive. And you need me too-- not because I can fill your empty places and patch up your voids, but because my smallness, my weakness, and my mere presence is the ground upon which your need to stretch your legs and run the race of love that keeps us all alive is met.
How long I've been peering down this dark hole, I don't know. But for days now, I keep circling back to this line from the movie, Magnolia, spoken by the character Donnie Smith. At what seems to be his last moment of desperation, as the rain pours outside, he cries out, eyes aflame, desolate: "I have a lot of love to give; I just don't know where to put it! I just don't know where to put it..."
I think often about what an old friend wrote as her only interest on her Facebook profile: I love people more than anything.
I have a deep and poignant memory sitting in Rembrandts', four good years ago now, light streaming in, colored by the stained glass, looking across the substantial table, doing everything I could to keep from standing up, bolting out the door, avoiding the tears that pressed hard against the banks of my lashes. "You have a lot of love to give, Heidi," he said. The thought had never crossed my mind, let alone my heart. Who, me? Lovely and lover?
Fast forward to October 2008. I got in my car, parking lot empty, all the parents come for their children, sun setting above the mountains. My heart was so full-- I was swimming in the reality of all this love pouring out of my old, fragile heart. I was making friends with a self long buried under the rubble of rejection, confusion, and hurt. A self left behind on some Christmas morning or under the kitchen table early in the morning.
I had long forgotten what it felt like to love and in its place was a habit of shameful begging.
Last spring, my eyes began to focus on a few clouds that have been set upon the retina for a while now: I was aware of a presence of a deep love for people that I fear can never be properly received. It is there, soft and red, but held back behind elephantiasis skin. The connections are somehow always broken. And so I keep it to myself.
I've been wondering about needs. What are needs, what are things that we just want, and what are the things that are absolutely essential to our deepest being? I have a hard time intertwining the things that bring the deepest, most brilliant doses of joy with those things that are also my deepest needs. It takes a lot of work to open my heart to the thought that this kind of abundant-life sort of goodness is also essential to my existence. Goodness as a non-negotiable in our experience of actually living? Could it be that joy and a goodness beyond comprehension is actually built into the way we were supposed to live?
I am wondering how long I've been living out of the belief that to give love is an imposition. Something beautiful and good that was placed in me before the beginning of everything got twisted somewhere along the way. This longing to love, to give myself, to know and be known, to share all the beauty I see in the world with someone else, got relabeled as some sort of inappropriate demand upon those I ought not assume any connection. Something got mixed up in this broken heart of mine and I began to believe that this deep and good desire for companionship was an unworthy gift that is not mine to assume. The little lies began to sneak in, how selfish of you to demand the time and attention of others. Who do you think you are to ask for any commitment or attachment? Your desire for friendship, for community, has little to do with your giving and all to do with your taking.
But the eyes set upon my heart are changing these past weeks. How foolish, how misguided to believe these things. The love got buried. The joy in giving and serving and simply being with those the Father has given got trampled by the million rejections, the broken pieces that no longer know how to connect. The truth has gotten lost.
And so, I am wondering about a way of loving that is not often spoken of. Could it be that the best way of loving one another, the most valuable gift we can give, is to simply allow ourselves to be the beloved. Is it possible that we need to turn everything back around and stop pretending like we have to take care of all of our needs alone, in isolation, and begin to allow ourselves to need the love of others. Because I think we have an innate need to give love-- and when we close off our hearts and stop receiving it from one another-- even in the frail and broken and shadowy forms in which it often must be given-- we kill something in one another.
I wonder if community, if connection, if intimacy is a sort of reciprocal operation, a literal dance of give and take in which both the giver and receiver is simultaneously brought to life.
Perhaps the deep ache of our hearts today is not a matter of too little love given, but too little love received. I don't pretend to imply that either position is easily taken. To take the posture of the receiver is to put ourselves at the risk of loss. As C.S. Lewis so eloquently says, "To love anything at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken..." I think this is equally true of allowing ourselves to be loved. It is a precarious bridge we walk and must somehow trust, even when the construction so deeply resembles our own inadequacy, that to allow our raw and bleeding hearts to touch another is worth the pain and risk of separation and failure.
And how long can we continue to hold out our loves before our arms tire and our ears bleed of rejection. How many thousands of time must we hear the words, "It's not enough," or "I don't have time," or "I can't pay you back," before we stop offering, tired and frustrated? How do we resist the lie that living a life of love is just to good to be true-- not for me. I must muddle through without expectation. A lone reed.
Truth be said, I don't have the real answers to any of these things. How does it all get fleshed out, I don't know. But perhaps the first step is asking for eyes to see and a courageous, softened heart. Maybe it is a matter of realizing that if I follow my need for love deep enough I will more accurately discover a need to give love without fear of the hardened hearts upon which it so often shatters. Perhaps we need to stop preaching demeaning sermons to ourselves about the need to muster up more of this love and begin simply to ask for soft hearts to receive it.
Maybe this is what John meant when he said "We love because he first loved us." We can stop thinking of love as something we have to do to balance out the equation in our needy relationships and come to terms with the reality that we are worthy of a life defined by a very deep love. Maybe then our relationships will escape this rigid economy of equal payment and enter into the reality of a more fluid abundance. We can enter the reality of a simultaneous flow of love where we are both the giver and receiver.
And I realize so much of this sounds so lovely and simple and logical and easy in writing. But the truth is that my heart is still deeply broken. I do not know how to enter this reality. I don't know if I can handle another round of the disappointment that comes from a door shut in my face out of fear. I'm not sure how many more walls of your heart I can hit before this cut begins to bleed.
But I do know this-- the thing I need is a place to put all of my love and that may mean that I must find the strength to keep trying, to keep knocking. I need you, not for what you can give, but what I need you to receive. And you need me too-- not because I can fill your empty places and patch up your voids, but because my smallness, my weakness, and my mere presence is the ground upon which your need to stretch your legs and run the race of love that keeps us all alive is met.
Sunday, January 30
Friday. I raced south out of town. Same ritual. Different heart. I wondered how long I've been heartbroken. Wondered how long it would be before I found a way to cover it up again.
I remembered January, February, March and April. Resisting the urge to lay on the hardwood floor with the sun streaming in, when all I wanted to do was soak in the green paint and hurt. Instead, I got up and told myself to get on with things. But then only ended up sitting at my desk, staring out into space. Trying to write it all away in yellow ink.
Saturday. Driving circles, searching for a parking space. Eventually, I thought, things will change or fade or stop and I will go back to the way I was before. And then, I realized there is no back once you've gone through. There is no back. Recalled another season in which the only right thing seemed to be through. A green mountain and a tunnel on the road towards Portland.
I was twelve or thirteen. He kept on asking me about my family, if everything was alright. I didn't know what he meant and couldn't understand why he kept on asking. I'd like to travel back in time to the dark basement and ask him how he knew.
I found the courage to say no. Stopped expecting different results from the same insanity.
"Where are you?" I thought into the closet, as if to know another world behind the shirts. And in the midst of the thickness, the darkness, and warm enclosure of cotton, I realized that I was searching for an old version, a broken illusion. The comfort of my old expectation is gone and in its place is something clean and new and unfamiliar. Like a new clutch. It has stopped slipping, but you still long for the old one because you knew how to handle it. You could at least count on it finally failing some day.
We've opened the door to a new open field. The stretch is vast and the horizon impenetrable. The beauty and the air is frightening to clouded eyes and musty lungs. Yet we know it is good and He is content with the hours we must stand still just to take it all in.
Because there is no back. Only through.
I remembered January, February, March and April. Resisting the urge to lay on the hardwood floor with the sun streaming in, when all I wanted to do was soak in the green paint and hurt. Instead, I got up and told myself to get on with things. But then only ended up sitting at my desk, staring out into space. Trying to write it all away in yellow ink.
Saturday. Driving circles, searching for a parking space. Eventually, I thought, things will change or fade or stop and I will go back to the way I was before. And then, I realized there is no back once you've gone through. There is no back. Recalled another season in which the only right thing seemed to be through. A green mountain and a tunnel on the road towards Portland.
I was twelve or thirteen. He kept on asking me about my family, if everything was alright. I didn't know what he meant and couldn't understand why he kept on asking. I'd like to travel back in time to the dark basement and ask him how he knew.
I found the courage to say no. Stopped expecting different results from the same insanity.
"Where are you?" I thought into the closet, as if to know another world behind the shirts. And in the midst of the thickness, the darkness, and warm enclosure of cotton, I realized that I was searching for an old version, a broken illusion. The comfort of my old expectation is gone and in its place is something clean and new and unfamiliar. Like a new clutch. It has stopped slipping, but you still long for the old one because you knew how to handle it. You could at least count on it finally failing some day.
We've opened the door to a new open field. The stretch is vast and the horizon impenetrable. The beauty and the air is frightening to clouded eyes and musty lungs. Yet we know it is good and He is content with the hours we must stand still just to take it all in.
Because there is no back. Only through.
Tuesday, January 25
When I said give me eyes to see..
apparently, what I meant to say was "dropkick me in the face."
I've been struggling a lot these days with what feels like a crushing amount of doubt. Whispering the words, "Abba, are you here," somehow feels like breathing in toxic fumes. I think some people like to refer to this lovely space as something like "the dark night of the soul." The valley is deep and the fog is thick. I walk through many of my days heavy and strange. Staring and sighing. Why, I do not know. A strange voice says, "medication," and "just make it all go away, nice and clean," but something deeper, stiller seems to simply say, "hold on-- I'll carry you through."
There is a purple sort of catharsis. IT feels as though my trust is changing. Or maybe a section of my heart is being cut out. A heavy steel door is being moved- something of a simultaneous opening and closing.
There are many days, even more nights, that feel empty and hopeless. Stuck. Confusion. Blank and heavy and crushing and patient and wonderful and terrible and ugly and full of even more beauty.
But, somewhere in the dark, even as any emotional investment in the request feels like a lung full of lead, I write in hard pencil out into the lightless cold: help me see you. I wonder to myself if I will believe it even if I see it. My heart has been fighting hard for hope and it feels as though the well has run dry and I'm keeping my throat well slathered in dust. I suppose there is no more try and therefore perhaps something real can begin.
I looked down at the faded tile on the hall, following behind a line of 2o silent children this morning, suddenly thinking the thought: it might be different if it was the thing I love. Some ghost from my past suggested, can you remember that this isn't really what you wanted? And then one more: How will you ever know if you never try?
I heard these things, but my fingers felt no wrap. No grasp or clutch. Just rested there. The palms stayed open and my acceptance felt as light as the words themselves. Maybe. Those words sat down on the surface of my limp hands next to the brokenness that has also settled there. A secret neutral gray.
So I whispered it again today. I got in the dusty red car and drove east today. I waited for the train to pass, thought about all the yellow grass and they grey-blue sky and thought about Mary and her hair, her jar of Alabaster and the kind words of the master, "She has done a beautiful thing." I thought about a few words heard, debated about believing that little line "it is good," wafting about like incense. I stopped at a stoplight and thought about Middle School kids and there, written across the windshield were the words, undeniable: Love Recklessly. Great, I thought, okay. Peaceful and unimposing.
I parked in the neighborhood, in front of a pink house with painted white rod iron porch railing, just beyond the yellow painted curb. I walked across the street, picked up a chocolate cookie and a paper cup of apple juice, found a chair. I got out my notebook and wrote the date across the top of a new page, day, month, date, year. "Teaching Social Skills." Settled in for another powerpoint presentation with inspiring purple swishes gracing the staple turquoise background; ready for some good old professional development.
And then I felt the bottom of both feet meeting my forehead:
oh. right.
I drove west in the dark, a little stunned. Who smuggled that in? There seemed to be some courage to do a few more things. But I can't tell you about them now. I don't think it would count.
I've been struggling a lot these days with what feels like a crushing amount of doubt. Whispering the words, "Abba, are you here," somehow feels like breathing in toxic fumes. I think some people like to refer to this lovely space as something like "the dark night of the soul." The valley is deep and the fog is thick. I walk through many of my days heavy and strange. Staring and sighing. Why, I do not know. A strange voice says, "medication," and "just make it all go away, nice and clean," but something deeper, stiller seems to simply say, "hold on-- I'll carry you through."
There is a purple sort of catharsis. IT feels as though my trust is changing. Or maybe a section of my heart is being cut out. A heavy steel door is being moved- something of a simultaneous opening and closing.
There are many days, even more nights, that feel empty and hopeless. Stuck. Confusion. Blank and heavy and crushing and patient and wonderful and terrible and ugly and full of even more beauty.
But, somewhere in the dark, even as any emotional investment in the request feels like a lung full of lead, I write in hard pencil out into the lightless cold: help me see you. I wonder to myself if I will believe it even if I see it. My heart has been fighting hard for hope and it feels as though the well has run dry and I'm keeping my throat well slathered in dust. I suppose there is no more try and therefore perhaps something real can begin.
I looked down at the faded tile on the hall, following behind a line of 2o silent children this morning, suddenly thinking the thought: it might be different if it was the thing I love. Some ghost from my past suggested, can you remember that this isn't really what you wanted? And then one more: How will you ever know if you never try?
I heard these things, but my fingers felt no wrap. No grasp or clutch. Just rested there. The palms stayed open and my acceptance felt as light as the words themselves. Maybe. Those words sat down on the surface of my limp hands next to the brokenness that has also settled there. A secret neutral gray.
So I whispered it again today. I got in the dusty red car and drove east today. I waited for the train to pass, thought about all the yellow grass and they grey-blue sky and thought about Mary and her hair, her jar of Alabaster and the kind words of the master, "She has done a beautiful thing." I thought about a few words heard, debated about believing that little line "it is good," wafting about like incense. I stopped at a stoplight and thought about Middle School kids and there, written across the windshield were the words, undeniable: Love Recklessly. Great, I thought, okay. Peaceful and unimposing.
I parked in the neighborhood, in front of a pink house with painted white rod iron porch railing, just beyond the yellow painted curb. I walked across the street, picked up a chocolate cookie and a paper cup of apple juice, found a chair. I got out my notebook and wrote the date across the top of a new page, day, month, date, year. "Teaching Social Skills." Settled in for another powerpoint presentation with inspiring purple swishes gracing the staple turquoise background; ready for some good old professional development.
And then I felt the bottom of both feet meeting my forehead:
oh. right.
I drove west in the dark, a little stunned. Who smuggled that in? There seemed to be some courage to do a few more things. But I can't tell you about them now. I don't think it would count.
"No matter how big our conception of God, it is still too small."
"The images that are carried about are burdensome.
A burden for the weary....
"Even to your old age and gray hairs,
I am He, I am He who will sustain you.
"I say: My purpose will stand
And I will do what I please...
What I have said, that will I bring about
What I have planned, that I will do.
"I am bringing my righteousness near,
It is not far away
and my salvation will not be delayed. I will grant salvation to Zion
My splendor to Israel."
Is 46
It seems as though as soon as I find an image to trust, it shatters. Retreats into the shadows. HE is every-illusive, and everlasting mystery. Where is he to be found? Must we wait until the end of this life for the shadow to become flesh and blood? Are we yet walking around with veiled faces? Or is there yet hope for a not-too-far-off tomorrow?
"The images that are carried about are burdensome.
A burden for the weary....
"Even to your old age and gray hairs,
I am He, I am He who will sustain you.
"I say: My purpose will stand
And I will do what I please...
What I have said, that will I bring about
What I have planned, that I will do.
"I am bringing my righteousness near,
It is not far away
and my salvation will not be delayed. I will grant salvation to Zion
My splendor to Israel."
Is 46
It seems as though as soon as I find an image to trust, it shatters. Retreats into the shadows. HE is every-illusive, and everlasting mystery. Where is he to be found? Must we wait until the end of this life for the shadow to become flesh and blood? Are we yet walking around with veiled faces? Or is there yet hope for a not-too-far-off tomorrow?
Saturday, January 22
the most simple things are always the hardest
I came across a few words this week that have been on my mind: The first is from William Morris, a prominent mind behind the 19th Century Arts and Crafts Movement, which sought to return to the more simplistic roots of interior design in the wake of an entire society disillusioned by the industrial revolution.
He says: "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
and the other quote... well, I can't remember where I read it or what it was about, but at the time, I thought it was good enough to write down. And didn't. Oh regrets.
ANyway-- not the point. This afternoon, I am taking a little break from working on a painting I started maybe last weekend or so. It is a painting of this house that I've passed on my way to work in Superior for the last eight months-- an image that drawing after drawing and a few attempts at painting that continues to elude me. I can't seem to get it right.
This afternoon, as I sat eating lunch, looking at it again, I was aware again that the things that we need to have the most simplicity are the most dificult to master. Simplicity is an every-illusive thing. It seems like it ought to be the quickest, easiest endeavor. Yet it seems like a hundred years until its actual complexity is mastered the point of the simplicity that is desired. I often think about one of the first major critiques I had and something deeply profound that my professor said: "If you are going to make it simple, it has to be incredibly beautiful." And that-- I come to find out-- is extremely difficult.
One of the strange nuances-- and therefore extremely fascinating aspects-- of color is that it goes against all of the things that we think ought to be. You have to be extremely careful, because there is a deep power in color and you have to make sure you are wielding the sword you hold with great strength and restraint. I fall into the temptation a thousand times to use all of the most wonderful colors, all of the screaming, heavy, and outwardly fabulous ones. But the problem is often that no matter how stunning, no matter how deep my love for it, too much in the wrong context does nothing but harm. It is often true that the best way to honor these "best" colors is by using only a small amount and surrounding them with the strange and neutral ones that only serve this one small dot of favorite.
Or sometimes, it is only the subtlety of colors that only contrast on one dimension-- only saturation, only temperature, only value, only hue, only compliment-- not all of them at once-- that give them the most strength. When we try to have it all, it seems to fall apart only too quickly.
Somewhere earlier in the process of this painting, I got caught up in the seduction of a certain color. I was searching, walking through the possibilities of this endless walk towards the perfect simplicity, and I got sidetracked by a flaming red orange. This will bring the depth I want, I thought. I used it-- a lot. And then I stepped back. I tried to preserve it. Altered it. Fussed and maneuvered around it. But then I stepped back and realized-- this isn't what I want. It isn't right.
I think one of the most important tools a painter uses is the palette knife. Some people get the mistaken idea that this tool ought to be used for actually painting in an additive way. And I suppose these artists can enjoy a certain amount of success, but they limit their strokes deeply using it primarily for this superficial purpose. No-- the palette knife is often the savior of any great painting because it is the method by which we are able to remove all of these things that simply carry us down a path that we did not mean to go. I looked at the red orange, glaring and distracting there at the bottom, and away it all scraped, so swiftly and easily. gone. As Morris would instruct, we need to use the palette knife to remove all that is neither "useful or beautiful."
I've been thinking a lot about this in the rest of my life recently. I often get to these points where I suddenly am aware of the fact that all my inner space has been used up. I need an interior palette knife. I need to clear away all of the things that lack use and beauty.
I've been wrestling with the need to sort out the things I've been choosing in my life. I've been thinking about this dichotomy between choosing a path, living a directed, intentional, and meaningful life and enduring the things that I hope will inevitably lead me there, even though I feel the weight of the possibility of being led astray, disillusioned and exhausted.
I have often heard people say that their art often takes them places that they did not expect to go. That throughout the process, the stumbled upon something unexpected. And although I do not mean to invalidate their experience or process, I find this reasoning to indicate, to a certain degree, a lack of integrity. I don't mean that in the sense that they are liars and cheaters (although, perhaps, that is what is happening afterall). What I do mean to say, though, is that I find that the process of art-making that continues to drive me forward is one in which I am guided by a strong sense of control over what is happening in my work. I set out with a purpose and seek to find the way in which to meet it.
I suppose that there are moments that I simply "follow a creative wind," but those are moments when I am seeking to create something devoid of conviction or meaning. I simply want to see what materials can do. This is all right and good-- but these are often things that I give away to kids at work or end up throwing in the garbage-- they tend to lack any communicative value; they really only serve me as learning processes to be used later when I am actually seeking a purpose.
A number of months ago, a friend asked me what makes a piece of art good. At the time, I wasn't sure how to answer this question. Yes, there is the matter of opinion and a certain aesthetic that connects to your temperament or experience. There are formal elements that work together in a harmonious manner. There are matters of popularity and historical value. But, as I've still been thinking about this question now, a few seasons after the presentation of it, I realize that all of these elements can be present in a work of art and it might not be any good.
However-- the word that I keep coming back to is this idea of integrity. I think what makes good art is integrity, that is, "the state of being whole or undivided," as our friend Merriam would say. I think there is something to any form of expression that tells us whether or not it is connected to anything deeper than the surface from which it is emitted. Any real and serious art comes from some sort of intention.
I often get frustrated about the sheer amount of things that get made these days. I often think the production of art can be divided into two roads: There are people who try to make art because they want to be artists and there are people who must make art because they are artists. It is a matter of personal integrity-- that is, integration with oneself and identity. A sense of wholeness. And I think this can't help but come through in what is made.
And so-- if I am painting a life according to an intention, it would follow that I don't simply "let the the work lead" and see what happens. I think often our experiences do reveal more about where we are and where we ought to be going, but they still are leading us towards or away from something and we have to take an active look at those realities. I sometimes have to take the palette knife to areas-- even if they may be quite beloved and good-- because they do not fit within the wholeness of my intention. Not for this painting anyway.
And so in the last month or so, I've been taking a lot of looks at what the painting of my life looks like right now. At this moment, things seem to be at the messy stage-- somewhere in the middle where I wonder if the picture is ever going to be resolved. I come home from work and think find myself thinking about the next task that needs to be accomlished. There don't seem to be any areas of neutrals and the eye has no place to rest. My canvas is too full. But it seems like for this painting, this season, that is how it must be. Messy, difficult, and uncertain.
Over the last few years, something that I've really learned to see is where my limits are. I have learned that although there are many things that I can do, and there are choices that I can make to fill up every spare minute with being "productive," this doesn't mean that these are the choices that will really lead to life. I have learned that although it is possible for me to say yes to every person and obligation that presents itself, it probably isn't right or good or helpful. There is a certain threshold that I simply realize that I should say no.
And, in the midst of reaching this self-understanding, I have also learned that these limits take a special vigilance to protect them. It is all too easy to let others try to tempt me into negotiating my limits-- Just do this one thing. You can do it; you will be fine. Or-- You have to do this. You have no choice. And in the midst of these exterior influences and as I pass through various seasons and necessities, I do find that these limits do need to flex or I may need to expand my borders. And that is often a very complex decision, and negotiation of desire, trust, and humility. It is that process of analysis that tells me what to take out of the painting and what to add. And it also tells me when the painting is in the middle and when it is finished.
And so here I am. Here and now. I've battled a lot of discouragement this week. I found myself driving home from work last night wondering if I am even any good at teaching. Wondering if I am living in some illusion of an aptitude that I do not actually possess. I'm sure it has something to do with two or three boys who have a fondness for following me around all afternoon reminding me that "No one likes you," and asking, "Why are you so mean?" It may have something to do with the reality that I am doing very little of what I really love-- creating art and helping kids love it to-- and spending more of my time and energy bracing myself to complete another task or project for which expectations are extremely unclear. Perhaps it is the perpetual battle I fight in my mind against unwarranted guilt and inadequacy. Perhaps it is a deep sense of loneliness and a need for enough encouragement to counteract the sapping experience of working with children who find a particular affinity for deliberately walking away while I am mid-sentence and shouting disrespectful comments while I am explaining the activities I have prepared for them to do. Perhaps it is an overall lack of any sense of real purpose in what I am doing in this endless day-to-day.
I am tired. I do my best to "consider it great joy when you face great trials," but there are days and weeks that it all feels gray and endless. Hopeless and impossible. The resolve to hold tight to hope, to keep my dreams from sinking into the muck is only one more burden to maintain.
And yet-- in the midst of it all, I do hold to a deeper reality that this is only a small part of this long and changing journey. When I can catch a breath, I find deeper down a reminder that it really isn't all up to me afterall, that I am held by a greater purpose, that my intention ought only to be the pursuit of the Father's heart-- a Father who is pursuing me more than I pursue him and he is running to meet me on the road. Somewhere, like a far-off whisp of cloud, I remember that I can hope in his love and his faithfulness and know that he is my rescue, my sustenance, even when I don't feel it, when I don't even have the energy to actively believe, even when the only sense of comfort I can find is to call out into the darkness all of the doubts and questions. And then I can trust again that the road to simplicity is a long one, that even the smallest stroke in the direction of my intention will carry me forward. And so, somehow, I choose to remain faithful.
He says: "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
and the other quote... well, I can't remember where I read it or what it was about, but at the time, I thought it was good enough to write down. And didn't. Oh regrets.
ANyway-- not the point. This afternoon, I am taking a little break from working on a painting I started maybe last weekend or so. It is a painting of this house that I've passed on my way to work in Superior for the last eight months-- an image that drawing after drawing and a few attempts at painting that continues to elude me. I can't seem to get it right.
This afternoon, as I sat eating lunch, looking at it again, I was aware again that the things that we need to have the most simplicity are the most dificult to master. Simplicity is an every-illusive thing. It seems like it ought to be the quickest, easiest endeavor. Yet it seems like a hundred years until its actual complexity is mastered the point of the simplicity that is desired. I often think about one of the first major critiques I had and something deeply profound that my professor said: "If you are going to make it simple, it has to be incredibly beautiful." And that-- I come to find out-- is extremely difficult.
One of the strange nuances-- and therefore extremely fascinating aspects-- of color is that it goes against all of the things that we think ought to be. You have to be extremely careful, because there is a deep power in color and you have to make sure you are wielding the sword you hold with great strength and restraint. I fall into the temptation a thousand times to use all of the most wonderful colors, all of the screaming, heavy, and outwardly fabulous ones. But the problem is often that no matter how stunning, no matter how deep my love for it, too much in the wrong context does nothing but harm. It is often true that the best way to honor these "best" colors is by using only a small amount and surrounding them with the strange and neutral ones that only serve this one small dot of favorite.
Or sometimes, it is only the subtlety of colors that only contrast on one dimension-- only saturation, only temperature, only value, only hue, only compliment-- not all of them at once-- that give them the most strength. When we try to have it all, it seems to fall apart only too quickly.
Somewhere earlier in the process of this painting, I got caught up in the seduction of a certain color. I was searching, walking through the possibilities of this endless walk towards the perfect simplicity, and I got sidetracked by a flaming red orange. This will bring the depth I want, I thought. I used it-- a lot. And then I stepped back. I tried to preserve it. Altered it. Fussed and maneuvered around it. But then I stepped back and realized-- this isn't what I want. It isn't right.
I think one of the most important tools a painter uses is the palette knife. Some people get the mistaken idea that this tool ought to be used for actually painting in an additive way. And I suppose these artists can enjoy a certain amount of success, but they limit their strokes deeply using it primarily for this superficial purpose. No-- the palette knife is often the savior of any great painting because it is the method by which we are able to remove all of these things that simply carry us down a path that we did not mean to go. I looked at the red orange, glaring and distracting there at the bottom, and away it all scraped, so swiftly and easily. gone. As Morris would instruct, we need to use the palette knife to remove all that is neither "useful or beautiful."
I've been thinking a lot about this in the rest of my life recently. I often get to these points where I suddenly am aware of the fact that all my inner space has been used up. I need an interior palette knife. I need to clear away all of the things that lack use and beauty.
I've been wrestling with the need to sort out the things I've been choosing in my life. I've been thinking about this dichotomy between choosing a path, living a directed, intentional, and meaningful life and enduring the things that I hope will inevitably lead me there, even though I feel the weight of the possibility of being led astray, disillusioned and exhausted.
I have often heard people say that their art often takes them places that they did not expect to go. That throughout the process, the stumbled upon something unexpected. And although I do not mean to invalidate their experience or process, I find this reasoning to indicate, to a certain degree, a lack of integrity. I don't mean that in the sense that they are liars and cheaters (although, perhaps, that is what is happening afterall). What I do mean to say, though, is that I find that the process of art-making that continues to drive me forward is one in which I am guided by a strong sense of control over what is happening in my work. I set out with a purpose and seek to find the way in which to meet it.
I suppose that there are moments that I simply "follow a creative wind," but those are moments when I am seeking to create something devoid of conviction or meaning. I simply want to see what materials can do. This is all right and good-- but these are often things that I give away to kids at work or end up throwing in the garbage-- they tend to lack any communicative value; they really only serve me as learning processes to be used later when I am actually seeking a purpose.
A number of months ago, a friend asked me what makes a piece of art good. At the time, I wasn't sure how to answer this question. Yes, there is the matter of opinion and a certain aesthetic that connects to your temperament or experience. There are formal elements that work together in a harmonious manner. There are matters of popularity and historical value. But, as I've still been thinking about this question now, a few seasons after the presentation of it, I realize that all of these elements can be present in a work of art and it might not be any good.
However-- the word that I keep coming back to is this idea of integrity. I think what makes good art is integrity, that is, "the state of being whole or undivided," as our friend Merriam would say. I think there is something to any form of expression that tells us whether or not it is connected to anything deeper than the surface from which it is emitted. Any real and serious art comes from some sort of intention.
I often get frustrated about the sheer amount of things that get made these days. I often think the production of art can be divided into two roads: There are people who try to make art because they want to be artists and there are people who must make art because they are artists. It is a matter of personal integrity-- that is, integration with oneself and identity. A sense of wholeness. And I think this can't help but come through in what is made.
And so-- if I am painting a life according to an intention, it would follow that I don't simply "let the the work lead" and see what happens. I think often our experiences do reveal more about where we are and where we ought to be going, but they still are leading us towards or away from something and we have to take an active look at those realities. I sometimes have to take the palette knife to areas-- even if they may be quite beloved and good-- because they do not fit within the wholeness of my intention. Not for this painting anyway.
And so in the last month or so, I've been taking a lot of looks at what the painting of my life looks like right now. At this moment, things seem to be at the messy stage-- somewhere in the middle where I wonder if the picture is ever going to be resolved. I come home from work and think find myself thinking about the next task that needs to be accomlished. There don't seem to be any areas of neutrals and the eye has no place to rest. My canvas is too full. But it seems like for this painting, this season, that is how it must be. Messy, difficult, and uncertain.
Over the last few years, something that I've really learned to see is where my limits are. I have learned that although there are many things that I can do, and there are choices that I can make to fill up every spare minute with being "productive," this doesn't mean that these are the choices that will really lead to life. I have learned that although it is possible for me to say yes to every person and obligation that presents itself, it probably isn't right or good or helpful. There is a certain threshold that I simply realize that I should say no.
And, in the midst of reaching this self-understanding, I have also learned that these limits take a special vigilance to protect them. It is all too easy to let others try to tempt me into negotiating my limits-- Just do this one thing. You can do it; you will be fine. Or-- You have to do this. You have no choice. And in the midst of these exterior influences and as I pass through various seasons and necessities, I do find that these limits do need to flex or I may need to expand my borders. And that is often a very complex decision, and negotiation of desire, trust, and humility. It is that process of analysis that tells me what to take out of the painting and what to add. And it also tells me when the painting is in the middle and when it is finished.
And so here I am. Here and now. I've battled a lot of discouragement this week. I found myself driving home from work last night wondering if I am even any good at teaching. Wondering if I am living in some illusion of an aptitude that I do not actually possess. I'm sure it has something to do with two or three boys who have a fondness for following me around all afternoon reminding me that "No one likes you," and asking, "Why are you so mean?" It may have something to do with the reality that I am doing very little of what I really love-- creating art and helping kids love it to-- and spending more of my time and energy bracing myself to complete another task or project for which expectations are extremely unclear. Perhaps it is the perpetual battle I fight in my mind against unwarranted guilt and inadequacy. Perhaps it is a deep sense of loneliness and a need for enough encouragement to counteract the sapping experience of working with children who find a particular affinity for deliberately walking away while I am mid-sentence and shouting disrespectful comments while I am explaining the activities I have prepared for them to do. Perhaps it is an overall lack of any sense of real purpose in what I am doing in this endless day-to-day.
I am tired. I do my best to "consider it great joy when you face great trials," but there are days and weeks that it all feels gray and endless. Hopeless and impossible. The resolve to hold tight to hope, to keep my dreams from sinking into the muck is only one more burden to maintain.
And yet-- in the midst of it all, I do hold to a deeper reality that this is only a small part of this long and changing journey. When I can catch a breath, I find deeper down a reminder that it really isn't all up to me afterall, that I am held by a greater purpose, that my intention ought only to be the pursuit of the Father's heart-- a Father who is pursuing me more than I pursue him and he is running to meet me on the road. Somewhere, like a far-off whisp of cloud, I remember that I can hope in his love and his faithfulness and know that he is my rescue, my sustenance, even when I don't feel it, when I don't even have the energy to actively believe, even when the only sense of comfort I can find is to call out into the darkness all of the doubts and questions. And then I can trust again that the road to simplicity is a long one, that even the smallest stroke in the direction of my intention will carry me forward. And so, somehow, I choose to remain faithful.
Friday, January 21
it seems as though
we are caught; pacing
in this no-man's land somewhere between
The Awareness
of our inability to walk this road
alone
And the Inability
to do it any other way
He said the words
"It is not good..."
And yet here we are.
alone
How did we get here?
or is it just me.
Sometimes it feels a little like
feeding the very
Monster
from whom we hope
to untangle our kicking feet
trying to climb our way
out
of a pit we simultaneously
dig
Wondering how it just keeps getting deeper.
I drive along
thankful that at least
the windshield is
clean
But the sun
blinds us all
witless
And maybe it is all backwards
perhaps: We bit
The hand
That fed
Or (expect) the feeding hand
will bite back
It seems easier
to settle for the under-table crumbs
than hope for any hand at all
I grow weary
sometimes
tired of hope
sick of asking questions about
my part
and Yours
Tired of the regret
disappointment
and questions
I say
I'm giving up control
But I think that maybe
I'm just finished faking
a strength
I never really knew
I don't know where you are
Can't seem to grope
anymore
through the dark
I want to scream and fight
but don't even have the words
wondering
how long it will be
that I will be emptied out
Is this little lifetime anything more
than this series of
unanswered questions
tired legs
weary hearts?
They say
Where we end
you begin
But it feels like I ended long ago
And you are still
far off
too busy
or withholding
And where am I left?
with an angry
confused
heart
A head swimming with chemicals
invalid
too much
demanding
and over-sensitive
and lost.
we are caught; pacing
in this no-man's land somewhere between
The Awareness
of our inability to walk this road
alone
And the Inability
to do it any other way
He said the words
"It is not good..."
And yet here we are.
alone
How did we get here?
or is it just me.
Sometimes it feels a little like
feeding the very
Monster
from whom we hope
to untangle our kicking feet
trying to climb our way
out
of a pit we simultaneously
dig
Wondering how it just keeps getting deeper.
I drive along
thankful that at least
the windshield is
clean
But the sun
blinds us all
witless
And maybe it is all backwards
perhaps: We bit
The hand
That fed
Or (expect) the feeding hand
will bite back
It seems easier
to settle for the under-table crumbs
than hope for any hand at all
I grow weary
sometimes
tired of hope
sick of asking questions about
my part
and Yours
Tired of the regret
disappointment
and questions
I say
I'm giving up control
But I think that maybe
I'm just finished faking
a strength
I never really knew
I don't know where you are
Can't seem to grope
anymore
through the dark
I want to scream and fight
but don't even have the words
wondering
how long it will be
that I will be emptied out
Is this little lifetime anything more
than this series of
unanswered questions
tired legs
weary hearts?
They say
Where we end
you begin
But it feels like I ended long ago
And you are still
far off
too busy
or withholding
And where am I left?
with an angry
confused
heart
A head swimming with chemicals
invalid
too much
demanding
and over-sensitive
and lost.
Monday, January 17
Sunday, January 16
a few words on love
Today was the perfect blend of cloud and sun. Out with Little Red, getting closer each day to Old Dead Red, ten miles east, stopping, looking for roads with no traffic so I could stop short when my heart stopped and my breath left. Aperture, shutter speed, color balance, manual focus.
French toast on sourdough bread. New table, same space, good music. I look around and think, "I'm pretty sure everything in here is something I really love." I think about the habit I try to maintain of only buying things that I find wonderful, exquisite, or lovely.
I live an impractical, inefficient life. I don't think so much about dollars and cents, nor hours and minutes (mostly). Usually, my decisions are based on the amount of potential goodness. My currency typically runs somewhere between color and general beauty. I'm not a very good capitalist nor am I much of a consumer. Things are rarely just things.
I was sitting high on a mis-matched bar stool, eating eggs with my french toast, full of maple syrup, re-visiting these questions of want and ideas about dreams. I've been thinking a lot in these last few weeks about how much that which we love tells us who we are. I've been mulling over the thought that the only way to really hearing the tender cries of our burning hearts is through the voices of our desires, that which brings the most delight, the utter lavishness of our wildest, most wonderful dreams and the hope from which all of these things spring. And, on the other side of the coin, our hearts are often unburied via the deepest hurts, the realization of our broken world, and the desires that remain unmet.
The arrival of the new year, the re-cycling of seasons, has kept this contemplation at the forefront of my mind. I find myself facing down the state of my dreams. Where is my heart these days? What are my wildest dreams? What are those things that I love? And, inevitably, I find it quite necessary to remember the dreams that have led right here, to this apartment, this day, this hour. What where my dreams a year ago? Two years ago? Six years ago? Are those still my dreams, or has my heart changed?
I got in my car this afternoon and drove east. As I moved towards the open browns, the rolling hills, the expansive stretches, a vision came back that I think has gotten buried in the mundane, in the difficulties, in the landscape of this life that I could never have imagined I'd be living. But then I remembered. This dream, a quiet what-if about a house in the middle of an open field. A quiet place far from neighbors, large, open windows with the Colorado breeze blowing in. Waking to the most beautiful paintings enclosed only by window frames, changing with the seasons, hours, and sunshine. That was the life I once hoped for. I let it get lost in the middle of the city and too many exhausting jobs. My eyes have narrowed.
These last few days, I've been asking myself what it is that I really want. What is it that I am really hoping for?
I look around my small space-- all mine-- and see that in so many ways I am living the life I want. I live a life devoted to celebration, to enjoyment, to doing things that really bring true life and joy and goodness. This is the first thing I want: to live a life of love. I remember coming to an extremely influential realization at the end of 2007-- a season marking the start of what would be perhaps the hardest year of my life so far. I was paying more than imaginable for a terrible apartment, cavelike, with what seemed like a small, yet wild jungle up above and an invasion of flying ants pouring in from a hole in the wall below. It took me seven months to find a job that would last 45 days. My friend would die and I would face what seemed like an endless number of days in tears. Nevertheless-- I sat down on the couch and looked out the triple panel of windows lining the front wall of the living room and took in the sunshine filtering through tiny green leaves of the bushes out front and thought to myself, "I want to live a life of celebration." I remember sitting there, thinking, "I have no idea what it means to love, but it seems like I could start with these green bushes and their tiny leaves."
Now, three years after, I wonder sometimes if I ought to get serious about some things, if I am truly as irresponsible and silly as some people seem to think. I wonder if I ought to grow up and save a little more money for retirement and start setting for more mediocrity. And then I realize how much bullshit that is. I don't mean retirement, because I do think that is sort of important, but the mediocrity part for sure. It just isn't the life I want. So I will have a little wonderfulness in place of a lot of sort-of enough to get by without making waves or assuming too much worthiness.
What else do I want? What else is there to want than this?
I want a few good friends, I hope for someone to share my thousand dreams with.
I want to pour out the fullness of my heart in a classroom of my own-- as terrifying the vulnerability is.
I want a car that has at least enough shine left on it to show that it was probably new at some point.
I want to travel more. I used to have more dreams of this, but also let go in the midst of school work and insufficient paychecks.
I want to have clear skin again and I want opportunities to put on lovely dresses and laugh all night long.
I want to hang beautiful artwork made by someone else in my house (the old one out in the middle of a yellow field, facing the blue mountains)
and I want a comfortable place to sit where people can come and visit and we can all sit around laughing and crying and sharing life.
I want to pour my life and my heart into other people alongside someone else with the same dream.
I want to have the courage and the momentum to put my work in places that thousands of people can see it and feel my joy and maybe get a little beauty into their lives too.
I want to have the energy and space in my life to really make art with the vivacity and freedom that is billowing inside of me.
I want the patience and the courage to hang on to these dreams in the midst of this long season of wilderness and smaller joys.
French toast on sourdough bread. New table, same space, good music. I look around and think, "I'm pretty sure everything in here is something I really love." I think about the habit I try to maintain of only buying things that I find wonderful, exquisite, or lovely.
I live an impractical, inefficient life. I don't think so much about dollars and cents, nor hours and minutes (mostly). Usually, my decisions are based on the amount of potential goodness. My currency typically runs somewhere between color and general beauty. I'm not a very good capitalist nor am I much of a consumer. Things are rarely just things.
I was sitting high on a mis-matched bar stool, eating eggs with my french toast, full of maple syrup, re-visiting these questions of want and ideas about dreams. I've been thinking a lot in these last few weeks about how much that which we love tells us who we are. I've been mulling over the thought that the only way to really hearing the tender cries of our burning hearts is through the voices of our desires, that which brings the most delight, the utter lavishness of our wildest, most wonderful dreams and the hope from which all of these things spring. And, on the other side of the coin, our hearts are often unburied via the deepest hurts, the realization of our broken world, and the desires that remain unmet.
The arrival of the new year, the re-cycling of seasons, has kept this contemplation at the forefront of my mind. I find myself facing down the state of my dreams. Where is my heart these days? What are my wildest dreams? What are those things that I love? And, inevitably, I find it quite necessary to remember the dreams that have led right here, to this apartment, this day, this hour. What where my dreams a year ago? Two years ago? Six years ago? Are those still my dreams, or has my heart changed?
I got in my car this afternoon and drove east. As I moved towards the open browns, the rolling hills, the expansive stretches, a vision came back that I think has gotten buried in the mundane, in the difficulties, in the landscape of this life that I could never have imagined I'd be living. But then I remembered. This dream, a quiet what-if about a house in the middle of an open field. A quiet place far from neighbors, large, open windows with the Colorado breeze blowing in. Waking to the most beautiful paintings enclosed only by window frames, changing with the seasons, hours, and sunshine. That was the life I once hoped for. I let it get lost in the middle of the city and too many exhausting jobs. My eyes have narrowed.
These last few days, I've been asking myself what it is that I really want. What is it that I am really hoping for?
I look around my small space-- all mine-- and see that in so many ways I am living the life I want. I live a life devoted to celebration, to enjoyment, to doing things that really bring true life and joy and goodness. This is the first thing I want: to live a life of love. I remember coming to an extremely influential realization at the end of 2007-- a season marking the start of what would be perhaps the hardest year of my life so far. I was paying more than imaginable for a terrible apartment, cavelike, with what seemed like a small, yet wild jungle up above and an invasion of flying ants pouring in from a hole in the wall below. It took me seven months to find a job that would last 45 days. My friend would die and I would face what seemed like an endless number of days in tears. Nevertheless-- I sat down on the couch and looked out the triple panel of windows lining the front wall of the living room and took in the sunshine filtering through tiny green leaves of the bushes out front and thought to myself, "I want to live a life of celebration." I remember sitting there, thinking, "I have no idea what it means to love, but it seems like I could start with these green bushes and their tiny leaves."
Now, three years after, I wonder sometimes if I ought to get serious about some things, if I am truly as irresponsible and silly as some people seem to think. I wonder if I ought to grow up and save a little more money for retirement and start setting for more mediocrity. And then I realize how much bullshit that is. I don't mean retirement, because I do think that is sort of important, but the mediocrity part for sure. It just isn't the life I want. So I will have a little wonderfulness in place of a lot of sort-of enough to get by without making waves or assuming too much worthiness.
What else do I want? What else is there to want than this?
I want a few good friends, I hope for someone to share my thousand dreams with.
I want to pour out the fullness of my heart in a classroom of my own-- as terrifying the vulnerability is.
I want a car that has at least enough shine left on it to show that it was probably new at some point.
I want to travel more. I used to have more dreams of this, but also let go in the midst of school work and insufficient paychecks.
I want to have clear skin again and I want opportunities to put on lovely dresses and laugh all night long.
I want to hang beautiful artwork made by someone else in my house (the old one out in the middle of a yellow field, facing the blue mountains)
and I want a comfortable place to sit where people can come and visit and we can all sit around laughing and crying and sharing life.
I want to pour my life and my heart into other people alongside someone else with the same dream.
I want to have the courage and the momentum to put my work in places that thousands of people can see it and feel my joy and maybe get a little beauty into their lives too.
I want to have the energy and space in my life to really make art with the vivacity and freedom that is billowing inside of me.
I want the patience and the courage to hang on to these dreams in the midst of this long season of wilderness and smaller joys.
Thursday, January 13
a delicate tower composed of fine lines and feathers on the wind, urgent messages in green glass bottles upon the rocky sea. Does he see our hearts and hear our prayers? Are my dreams whispers in the wind or ladders climbing the sky? What is the one thing that matters, to what should I relentlessly hold?
An easel covered in faded green sheet, cut paper plates, Popsicle sticks, and little hands peaking out from behind, small snow-boot laden legs flailing arms erupting around the sides. Stiff arms and legs and alien languages become robots murmuring in the background. Here a Japanese Space Alien, here a French one. Everyone is fascinated with their country of origin and clay is a hot commodity. High fives and synonyms for "good job" are the highlight of the day and she is stressed out about having to put her snowpants on at school.
"They seem happier this year," she said, talking about letting go of units and agendas in favor of more free play and "student-led learning". I thought about years-past class discussions about the ideas of traffic and the personification of vacuum cleaners, remembered long chapters in text books about Italian children discovering trees in a thousand ways.
I drove home in the crisp cold darkness and thought about this morning's plot-free outer-space play that seemed to come to an appropriate end with a dance party, complete with impromptu song making. I thought about myself standing there in the back of the room, thinking, "I can't believe that I get paid to be a part of this." I thought about the rarity it is for these children-- starting now and for the next 12 years-- to be in an environment free of extreme scrutiny. They are free to simply be a part of a play without being required to make logical sense. It is appropriate for the show to end with a dance party and everyone laying on the floor laughing. There will be no grades, no feedback, no judgment. They just get to try it out.
I think about this beautiful thing that I get to be a part of for a few hours a day. How right it seems that the background music to my work in the copy room is the laughter of children simply enjoying everything that is to be enjoyed. I think about how "swinging" and "playing catch" are major portions of my job description. I thought to myself as I served snacks today, "It's sort of like hosting a party everyday."
I lay sick in bed on Tuesday, hardly able to keep my eyes open-- a whole day to indulge in much-needed sleep, and my primary thought was, "I just wish I could be there," thinking of hair-bows and tiny drawings.
...
It's been a year now. What a strange, beautiful, amazing year it has been. Place me beside myself, these two people twelve months apart-- would you see me in there? Somewhere between? I often see this image of myself, staring out the wide windows, that white, white door-- all so stark-- I see myself standing there in that kitchen, full of terror. Who am I? What have I become? Who am I headed for? I looked inside and saw.... nothing. So little. An empty shell, lost. A dry flake of heart. A head full of answers and a heart full of burned out wicks. lost lost lost.
It's been a year now and now I find myself asking this whisp of a question: What happened to my dreams? It's been a year now and I can't help but realize that so many things have changed. And I think many of my dreams have changed with the weather, with the city. Changed with me.
If I am honest, I have to say that often I am afraid because the passions, the longings, the hopes, and the goals that used to drive me are simply... gone. The things I wanted so badly four, five, six years ago are just that-- things I wanted then. And it isn't that I don't want them now. I just don't have the drive, the passion, the desire that I did then. Why? I am not sure.
I wonder, though, as I sit here, in this chair, January 13, 2011, if perhaps what drove me then had less to do with the thing itself. I ask myself if I wasn't driven more by the desire for self-sufficiency, if I wasn't running after a way to keep from really needing anyone, if I was simply determined to be something. I found it useful to say things about a "calling" and matter of "can't-not," but I am wondering now...
It's been a year now and I am still asking myself a lot of hard questions. I am facing down this sense of grayness that I still feel about teaching. This something that continues to exhaust me. Something outside my reach. Perhaps it is this matter that actually touching this dream still feels too big for me-- even though my education, even those around me, tell me that I have what it takes, that I will do well, I am... afraid.
This seems to be the only word I seem able to find. It is, perhaps, a similar feelings to jumping off the ledge for me. Even when I know there is something above, holding me, I always find it impossible to jump. I am frozen. Why am I afraid? I am not sure. A sense of aloneness, I suppose. It feels much like walking into the darkness. A vulnerability. An extreme potential for failure. A totally new experience that, truth be told, I am afraid to walk alone.
What is alone versus not-alone? I don't know this answer either. I can think of many trite things to say, many easily-said, harder-to-swallow things that someone else might say. And yet the sense of difficulty seems, perhaps the greatest of my life. I am facing something large that I cannot do on my own. That I don't want to do on my own.
If there is anything I would say that has changed in me over the past year is this sense of needing to everything myself. I've lived a good 23 years of my life devoted to getting everything covered on my own, figuring it all out, doing my best to keep from imposing my needs upon others. But something in my heart has changed. I've started to allow myself to be in need. I am able, now, in so many new ways, to be small, weak, broken and needy. I've learned to see that although I can read the manuals and figure it out in some difficult way, say I manage to muddle through on my own, there is a great deal more goodness and depth to simply letting others in to my need. Two are better than one, I believe some wise sage said once.
Yet-- here is this duanting thing that I've closed the door on for a year. I've walked away, ignored it, saying I've had other things to do. And perhaps this is true. But I think it is also time that I face the fear, scale the wall, dive in.
I have been thinking about the delicate balance between dreams, desires, trust, and risk. They all seem to hold hands in this tedious sky-dive of life. There are dreams and desires that must be held loosely-- surrendered, but not crushed, discarded, or destroyed. The feather must rest upon the hand of the dreamer. We entrust the whole of our selves in the hand of the father, coming to Know his love, experiencing his care, believing his goodness. We come to a place where we know him so well that we bring our dreams, hold out our desires, knowing that he sees with a depth that is far beyond our understanding. And we wait for him there as he prepares all things for our good. Good that is worth every minute of waiting.
And then there is the risk. It is the moments of the really hard questions that force us to ask,"What is keeping me locked away? What is keeping me from reaching the top of the stairs, finding the way out of this endless labyrinth?" I have to ask myself what fears keep me locked away, what keeps me settling for less than my dreams?
I think we get stuck sometimes in these places of settled-ness, of less-than because walking into the true abundance of God is a frightening, uncharted territory that we would rather not wander. It is more comfortable for me to stay in a classified, hourly position, under someone with less imagination than I do than it is to step out and believe that the Father would actually give me my wildest dreams. There is something about that desired thing, that yet seems, too wonderful for me. It is like the one who is left in the cage so long that when the cage is unlocked in the center of an open field, they only want to remain in the cage or return to it quickly.
So, I suppose that is the word I need to face in my own heart: fear. This is the thing I must claim in order to walk through it. Perhaps I should take the advice of Parker Palmer and the Quakers, and ask, "What does this fear have to teach me?"
So it has been a year. I am certainly not the woman that I was. My values are different. My desires are different. My dreams, it seems, have shifted their shape. And I have a lot to learn, a long journey ahead.
But this I do know: that the Lord is ever-faithful, that he loves me in a deeper, more abundant way that I can ever begin to grasp, and he has promised to never leave me or foresake me. He knows my fear and yet, I know, he will continue to awaken my heart and call me forth to a new freedom and a new reality, like never before. Despite my thousand fears, I can't wait to see what he has to do in me in the coming year.
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