on making beautiful things...

he who seeks to save his life...

I realized something this week. I don't want to teach in the fall. Some days, I remember laying on the carpet in the hallway at the Alpert house and asking the Lord the question, "Why did you make me this way?" There are days that I ask that question over again-- why can't I be simple, shallow, stupid? Why must I be the complicated mess that even I cannot seem to untangle? Why does it take me so long to sort through my own expectations, my own pressure, my own prescriptions of self-acceptance and enough-ness?

I feel as though much of my life these past few months has been a fight against rest, a resistance to the very peace I long for? I hear the voice say, "give up. stop striving. let it all go." And I name that voice laziness rather than realistic. I don't want to be weak. I don't like being wrong and I don't like it when I can't do everything right on the first try. Truth be told, failure isn't something I am used to and it isn't something I am as apt to accept as I like to tell myself {and others} that I am. Failure. I didn't fight hard enough, didn't work hard or long enough, didn't pull it through in perfection as I hoped I would.

I am insecure. It feels like I've started over again, like I got to the end of this thing having mastered who I was and now I am in this vast open field again, where even I am unrecognizable. I wonder if I will be enough, if I will make it, if I will be as good at things as I was before.

And I am learning over again what it means to freefall. To let go of everything and trust that the Lord is enough, that he has given me all I need for all that he has for me today.

I have been wondering for months why it feels like there is a giant road block between my heart, my mind, my hands, and the task of pursuing teaching for the fall. I've wrestled through my own sense of inadequacy, the question of desire, the need for sleep. The truth is that I think it has less to do with teaching and more to do with now. I never thought, until now, that perhaps this untraceable, imperceptible sense of failure was actually the way the Lord may be telling me to stop. It may have actually been his way of saying, "you don't need this to be lovely, acceptable, or worthy." As I take a long hard look at my heart and life, I realize that the Lord often gives rest in ways I fail to see because I do not believe I deserve it. Yet, he knows what is best. He knows what I have need of.

I have been saying, "perhaps what I need is x, y, or z--" then I would feel ready, then I would have the security I long for, then I could really buckle down and conquer this. But I am coming to see that perhaps the Lord does not give as we ask because it gives him opportunity to speak through what we lack. I've been asking for the Lord to do my will because somehow I got my expectations mixed up with his infinite knowledge and goodness. I have been believing that the Lord would agree with me on the next logical step, that he would have no other ideas than my own (even as blind and pushy as I've been in asserting my own thoughts about these things). But the truth, the wonderful truth, is that the Lord is never bound by our small conventions. My plans, societal boxes, financial obligations never really bind him. The Lord will do as he pleases and his hand will not be swayed.

As I've gotten older, one thing I've come to know about myself is that at times, there are simply things I am not ready for. No matter how much stamina, regardless of my focus, independent of my determination to make things happen, there are certain things, certain times in my life that I simply cannot. The only choice I seem to find is in waiting-- I have come to rely on this strange process that takes place in my heart that makes me ready for certain things only in time. Perhaps this is the process of growing, of maturing. I don't know. Nevertheless-- I am feeling that sense here, again--- this sense of simply not being ready for reasons beyond my ability to sort out. There is no logic, no obvious purpose, but there is simply the hope that the readiness will come when the time is right.

And so, although I find myself sorting through my continued thoughts and feelings about what I do want, I find this one small piece of clarity. I am working hard to accept the small graces the Lord has been trying to give all along. It seems as though another layer has been stripped away. I am surrendered again to my own smallness, my weakness in the face of change. Once again I am humbled by the realization that life is much bigger than I am and I am faced by the need to give it all up again, to move with the tide rather than fighting the current.

And so, although my ideas about this coming and present season are seemingly inadequate, I realize more than anything that what I long for is a bit more space free from my own expecations, I hope for some time when I can be free from the pressures of school and its lifestyle. I think there is something telling in the jealousy I feel towards someone I know who has decided to begin teaching only part-time to devote more time and energy to making art-- perhaps the Lord is giving me the gift of devoting myself to art in a more focused way (how does he always seem to take these things in directions I do not even ask for?) Today, I received a call from the gallery in Loveland where my work has been since November-- they are closing and my brother so kindly went and picked up all the paintings from them this evening. I've been thinking of taking my paintings down for months now-- how strange that this would come at such a time? In the past few days, I've had an opportunity to explore painting a mural for a local non-profit and another request to create some graphics for another group-- and there is little I want to do more, even for little or no money. I am learning that perhaps simply paying attention to where my energy lies may speak to where the Lord would lead.

I am looking forward to perhaps and entire year of just working without a lot of thought or pressure about teaching or school or any of these things that seem to have been bearing down so heavy for a good four years. I am looking forward to having more time to read, time to research and read about whatever I want to read about. Nothing about pedagogy or lesson planning if I so choose. I am looking forward to having a place of my own, even if it is small. I am looking forward to having time and energy to devote to relationships, to spending the next year investing in people, in maintaining relationships that may last for longer than six months. Wouldn't it be nice to be at one job for more than one year? Oh-- how I long for this.

So, truth is-- nothing seems to be more right, to be more peaceful, than to lay down this expectation of jumping right into teaching. And I know it isn't because I don't believe I can nor do I believe that if I don't get right into it now, I never will-- it simply is not the time for me now. There is something else, something better. And for that, whatever it is, I am eager and waiting.

Little Losses

"There is no ongoing spiritual life without this process of letting go. At the precise point where we refuse, growth stops. If we hold tightly to anything given to us, unwilling to let go when the time comes to let it go or unwilling to allow it to be used as the Giver means it to be used, we stunt the growth of the soul.

It is east to make a mistake here. 'If God gave it to me,' we say, 'it is mine. I can do what I want with it.' No, the truth is that it is ours to thank Him for and ours to offer back to Him, ours to relinquish, ours to lose, ours to let go of-- if we want to find our true selves, if we want real life, if our hearts are set on glory.

Think of the self God has given as an acorn. It is a marvelous little thing. A perfect shape, perfectly designed for its purpose, perfectly functional. Think of the grand glory of an oak tree. God's intention when he made the acorn was the oak tree. His intention for us is '... the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.' Many deaths must go into our reaching that measure, many letting goes. When you look at the oak tree, you don't feel that the 'loss' of the acorn is a very great loss. The more you perceive God's purpose in your life, the less terrible the losses seem.

...the lesson of the seed had not yet been fully learned. There must be a relinquishment. There is no way around it. The seed does not 'know' what will happen. It only knows what is happening-- the falling, the darkness, the dying.' ...'The first step into the realm of giving is... not manward, but Godward: an utter yielding of our best. So long as our idea of surrender is limited to the renouncing of unlawful things, we have never grasped its true meaning: that is not worthy of the name, for 'no polluted thing' can be offered.' "

-- Elisabeth Elliot, Passion and Purity

This week, all of the uncertainty is bearing down on me. It seems to be all crashing down, like the day the shelf fell off the bedroom wall and the broken pieces of glass cut my foot. I have tried to avoid writing in this space when I am just generally depressed because I often feel stupid later for putting something out into the void that isn't actually very true. I try to avoid emotional diatribes here because it seems unhealthy to give my unbalanced brain chemistry reign in areas connected to reality. But today, this week, I need to let it out. Vent. Say a few things to someone, even if it is just the black background with my picture and the archives waiting on the left. Maybe someone real will also hear it and maybe sometime soon, I will feel like everything is going to be okay.

I wondered last night if maybe I've run out of trust. I've been working on trust a lot since this little year of our started off, but I feel like much of it has been deflated now. It feels too hard now to accept much love, truth be told-- I find myself in a tense posture, feeling again mostly like a lost little burden. I'm trying really hard. I think I am trying really hard at everything and I am weary.

I wonder if I am just exceptionally tired, that my sense of defeat has more to do with a series of nine-hour, break-less work days, a transition to a more demanding position, and a lack of sleep. Regardless-- I am tired. I am struggling to peaceably accept this season when I wonder if I will ever find my feet. I feel like a failure-- that I can't work hard enough, try hard enough to do what I set out to do. I will make it work is often my mantra. As I've grown up, my mom has continually said, "She has always known what she wants." And now-- I wonder if that is a blessing or a curse. I thought knowing what you wanted gave you something to seek, provided the luck of having something to strive for, a set direction-- I often think that it only takes a certain amount of steps-- one foot in front of the other-- to get there. But these days, it feels as though my legs might be broken, or my feet weighed down. The stepping seems impossible yet the destination seems more imperative than ever.

I opened 23 tabs yesterday. Total number of art jobs posted: 0. I was talking to a friend the other night about why it feels so hard just to commit myself, why I can't seem to sit down and accomplish anything, why I can't get anywhere in the job search for the fall and she said, "Maybe it is because it is hard." Maybe it isn't me. Maybe we really are in a recession and maybe everyone does hate giving money to education. Maybe I've been in denial, saying, "It will still work out." It doesn't seem to be working out.

I feel as though I am between a thousand proverbial rocks and hard places. Maybe it feels like everything is bearing down because my lease is up in a month and 20 days and I am struggling with the question of whether or not it is wise for me to sign a new lease in a city with one of the highest costs of living in the state. I am struggling with the fact that this over-expensive city also seems to be the best place for my heart, that the high rent of this city has been mingled with an almost instant realization of the community I've been longing and begging for for many years. I've paid a lot in rent in exchange for an almost instant sense of home. The question perhaps remains: has it been worth it? Will it continue to be worth it when the time comes to repay it all?

I am caught between the rock of needing independence, distance, and autonomy and the hard place of not being able to get there without dependence, debt, and the humiliating act of continuing to ask for help in the midst of an inability to believe that it is freely given. It is a simultaneous pursuit of enough security-- a land to jump from-- to get to a place where I can achieve a bit of security. I'm chasing my tail. It is the catch 22 of needing a living space where stress and burden do not take energy from the pursuit of the means to live in a place free from daily stress and burden. It is the continual asking "Lord, should I go somewhere else? Do I need to start over again?" and hearing no yes and wondering if the no I feel is only my own longing heart, the desire for the world to stop spinning. Or is it possible that I could trust my own heart because the Spirit is there? I think the only way to escape the catch 22 is to pick up one foot and hope the other lands on solid ground.

My sheep know me and they hear my voice. It feels as though so much of me is being put to the test these days. I daily feel the burn as I walk through fire after fire. "Do you love me, do you love me, do you love me?" He seems to say over and over. I have meditated often these past 5 months-- maybe the last year-- upon the thought that we cannot truly encounter the Father, our Creator, until we venture beyond ourselves. I am in over my head. Treading water. Yet, it feels like the line between trust and foolishness is a tight-rope walk. Paul says that the way of Jesus is foolishness to those who are perishing. What about those from whom I must borrow to pay rent? Is money really just a drop in the bucket?

The last few years, I have really been exploring the thought that perhaps money doesn't actually have as much of a final word as the Great Capitalist They seem to lead us to believe. Is God able to provide even the means to repay my debts? Is he more concerned with my heart, my trust in him, the path he has prepared for me than something so small as money? Or am I being disobedient in my choice to live in a place I cannot afford? Can I really afford to live anywhere besides a basement steeped in an old, toxic life?

I made the choice to move here because I believed that it would provide the opportunities to grow in community, because I hoped for a place that my art and my Spirit could flourish, because I needed to be distanced from old habits and patterns. I took the step, as difficult physically and emotionally as it has been, because, for reasons I still feel shy to really lean into, I felt that the Lord was speaking into my heart. I remember, one year ago, probably even to the day, saying to the Lord, "Are you sure? Will I be able to afford it? Will you provide for all of my needs there? Am I being foolish?" I begged him to open a door to a place that I could foresee being able to make it on my own. He did not. He only turned my face here. He said, "Go."

And so I came. And here I am. Sitting in this living room, looking out at the mountain, enjoying my yellow chair on the wood floors surrounded by the cool air blowing in through the windows. I am going to look at an apartment in an hour or so. A studio-- a place of my own. A place I might be able to afford for a few months and then after that-- uncertainty. Trust. I might have to keep asking for money. I have no idea.

Yet, the impulse to rest seems foolish. It seems more responsible to keep running, to keep worrying, to sacrifice all that I seem to know in my heart, throughout the whole of my body and being for the sake of the math. This other, ugly dissenting voice keeps saying I ought to be more self-sacrificing, that being realistic means denying my spirit, abusing my body, ignoring the still small voice for the sake of logistics. "Don't risk," the voice seems to say, "it is foolish and may yet land you in a place you cannot rescue yourself from." But isn't that the point-- trusting that the Father truly loves us enough to give us dreams so big that we may land in an unexpected place of rescue in our reaching for them? That is the voice I have come to know in our God.

So today, much is uncertain. Truth be told, I have little hope of teaching in the fall, but the greater truth seems to be that giving myself that grace feels better than anything else. I think I've had this image of "success" in my head that says I ought to be able to keep plunging forward at breakneck speed, but the picture of "right" in my heart feels more like giving myself a break just to be and live. I don't yet have the footing, the peace, the space, or the stamina to pursue this right now. For the time being, for the summer at least, the Lord has been faithful to provide a job that seems to be enough both for my spirit and for my finances. I do not know what the end of August or September or the coming year may look like, but taking the next season as it comes feels better to my Spirit than scrambling for something that just doesn't seem possible for me to conquer right now, for whatever reasons. I seem to continually be fighting this battle of knowing how much I ought to attempt to prepare for the future and how much I need to listen to my own limits and simply allow the Lord to pursue and provide.

More than anything, I long for a little time in my life where I can come home from work and not be thinking so hard about what else I need to do for another full time job, a little season where I can simply follow my passions, my desires, my heart without a million other pressures that feel like the whole of my entire future adult life bearing down on me. Could this be the gift of a Father who knows me better than myself? One who knows what I need more than the University, with all of its commands about professionalism and success? Would it be just like him to give a season of rest? True rest? Maybe.

I want to end this post with a passage from John 14 given to me a few weeks ago and has continued to flood me. I am still meditating on what it really means for me during this process, but it still nevertheless has brought a great deal of comfort.

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God. Trust also in me. In my Father's house, there are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you may also be where I am.

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and you have seen him... And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the son may bring glory to the Father. you may ask for anything in my name and I will do it... 'the world cannot accept [the spirit of Truth] because it neither sees him or knows him. But you know him for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live you will also live.

... But the counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."

gaps and a season's draw

The best word I can think of to describe this day, this feeling is appropriate. I spent the day feeling the beat of the sun on my shoulders, the dappled sunlight filtering through trees as I finished my year-long affair with Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Tomorrow feels like the start of a new season of sorts. Summer camp begins and I will walk through the doors as the AD-- I will be assuming the role of an overseer of sorts-- the long awaited opportunity for independence and leadership has come into my hands like a gentle rain. Somehow it is just here. And that feels good and exciting and hopeful. I am at great peace with my life these days, happy to sit in silence, calm and ready, free from apprehension or worry. I feel as though I am discovering in myself a new sense of beauty in quiet. I no longer crave the rush and noise of getting things done. It seems to have taken five months, but slowly my heart rate has lowered and I am at peace. Not that all is easy nor are there no moments when I feel at a total loss of insight and wisdom, but I am happy to sit and take things in. I am learning to slow down long enough to listen.

Like I said, I finished Pilgrim today and there doesn't seem to be any better way that the book could have ended for me nor could there have been any better day to lick the dripping last pages from my sticky fingers. It seems funny-- I have spent a lot of time reading these past few months and it seems that each piece of writing, one after another, seems to be timed by some outside force, all-knowing. Anyway-- here is a little piece of the book's last words:

"Thomas Merton wrote, 'There is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.' There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparantely moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly and then sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage. I won't have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions more dangerous and bitter, more extravant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.

Ezekiel excoriates false prohpets as those who have 'not gone up into the gaps.' The gaps are the thing. The gaps are the Spirit's one home, the altitudes and latitudes so dazzlingly spare and clean that the Spirit can discover itself for the first time like a once-blind man unbound. The gaps are the cliffs in the rock where you cower to see the back parts of God; they are the fissures between mountains and cells the wind laces through, the icy narrowing fiords splitting the cliffs of mystery. Go up into the gaps. Squeek into a gap in the soil, turn and unlock-- more than a maple-- a universe. This is how you spend this afternoon. Spend the afternoon. You can't take it with you."
--Annie Dillard, "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek," p 274

The recurring theme of this season seems to revolve around these gaps. I still have Hauerwass' words floating around in my head, "God is in the connections we cannot make." I've been thinking about voids, about the reality that the places we come to meet the Father are the places that everything has dropped out from beneath us. Thomas Merton's words keep ringing ringing ringing: Penance strengthens the action of our will. I've been thinking about fasting, about surrendering everything, about giving up control, about allowing everything to fall silent and waiting for the singular word. The continual song, the chord struck over and over is a reminder that "we are enlarged by our anticipation" and the truth that "no one hopes for that which has already has."

I don't know what this life holds. I do not know what will come of these dreams, these investments, this body and spirit of mine. But something deep in my Spirit finds more comfort in that truth that anything else-- my security is found only in my created-ness. I am here, I am breathing, and I am living. I am entering the gaps and waiting for the air to fill my lungs and my wings. Although I think perhaps the breath has already come because I am feeling the exhilaration of the freefall.

The beautiful sting of surrender is found in learning to say no without denying the yes.
We offer the lamb without searching for a spot.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.... What then, 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? Christ Jesus, who died-- more than that, who was raised to life- is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

"For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither heights nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Romans 8

It is 11:12 a.m. Somehow, we've made it all the way to Wednesday-- oh how swiftly the river has flowed this week. I should be working on planning activities for this summer-- art projects and team building games. I should be finishing my application to Sheridan before they fill all the positions or my session expires or something. I should be scouring websites for openings and frantically entering information about experience and philosophies. But I am not. I am writing here, reflecting here, can't get my mind off this love that engulfs. everything.

It is May 26, 2010. It seems so strange to think that these five months have passed so quickly. How many days this very day seemed an eternity away. How the seasons fly. I woke up this morning reflective. I've been looking over the pages and pages that I've written in this time, wondering at the fires and the rivers I feel I've walked through in the midst of this burning wilderness. I will take her out into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her.

I feel like much of these past months have been a sort of show and tell. "Look at what I've made in you," the Father seems to be whispering to me. I am beholding the beauty of his image in me-- strange how this strength in my bones, flowing through my veins has come to suddenly simply be. I feel strong, secure. oh, so deeply loved by the one that has promised never to let me go.

The last few weeks, I've been filled with this peace, this sense of security, a new awareness of his grip on me. Oh, how He will never let me go. Storms will come, the waves will crash, the wind will pass, and yet this cord of his Love, this consistency of faithfulness I have come to find in his touch, in his face, carries me home. I have found this poetry ringing ringing ringing: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or sword?" Oh-- how can He love me so? And yet-- I am immediately answered by the truth that he does, unfathomably does. Everything, everything, everything may pass away, I can let go of it all, allow the sword to rip through the whole of my life, pierce the depth of my heart and yet I am irrevokably held by the love of this infinite Reality.

Four days ago marked two years since Rachel's departure from this world. I walk around on the bricks often, thinking of her, thinking of our friendship, all of the joy she brought. And today, two years and four days later, the greater memory is the Love of a Father that seems to infinitely transcend. I am entering another season, another summer, another life and suddenly I feel a peace that truly passes all understanding. My life is good. My life is full of.... life. I am no longer breathless, but rested. At peace, comfortable and secure. I feel as though I've been sitting in the theater, watching the home movies of my life, and the Lord has been sitting next to me, narrating. Look what I've brought you through, he says. I reflect on all the things that have been stripped away, stripped away, stripped away, and realize under everything, there is this bony spine, this mineral vein running through the whole of my life, a still small voice saying over and again, : "I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you." Funny how often it takes a deeper and deeper pierce of pain, greater and greater places of uncertainty to teach our hearts to know a love, to understand a security that is so much greater than all of the things we are tempted to pursue in the flesh. Suddenly I look up and find the world crumbling all around me-- fragile and fleeting.

I wonder if perhaps sometimes the Lord brings goodness into our lives and reserves the right to take it away so that we can enter a bit deeper into the fullness of his grip on us independent of all these things. It is in the ripping away of our expectations, the revoking of our gentle hopes that the Lord enters. I never cease to be amazed at the similarities between the experience of pain and the understanding of love. There is something intermingled there-- a sensitivity, a vulnerability, a rawness that is inevitable in both. And yet, as our wounds heal, as our bones rejoin, our spirits are reinforced by the experience. Our scars become reminders of his care for us rather than bitter resentments of his allowing us to enter the danger to begin with.

I have a scar on my right index finger shaped like a seed. I recieved it as a gift during a very important time in my life, in the midst of an extremely important experience of growth-- and I often look at it as a permanent reminder of the neccesity of death in entering the fullness of life. I am learning so much about the beauty of laying everything at the feet of the Father-- I feel as though, today, May 26th, I know a security that far surpasses the circumstances of address, title, occupation, or place in the eyes of others. I am at peace knowing that this world has no hold on me. My hope is in no man, no number, no location, no occupation, but only in the Lord-- the Lord who has promised to be faithful and has yet to prove otherwise. Oh how good is His love.

come to me and find your life.