Metamorphosis Mondays

Join me here on Mondays, where I'll share some words that are changing me for the better...

I just started reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard.  I can't get over the way her style simultaneously fills my desire for poetry and for story, and hints at the deeper thrum of what is going on beneath our seeing.  Here's an excerpt...

Cruelty is a mystery, and the waste of pain.  But if we describe a world to compass these things, a world that is a long, brute game, then we bump against another mystery: the inrush of power and light, the canary that sings on the skull.  Unless all ages and races of men have been deluded by the same mass hypnotist (who?), there seems to be such a thing as beauty, a grace wholly gratuitous.  About five years ago I saw a mockingbird make a straight vertical descent from the roof gutter of a four story building.  It was an act as careless and spontaneous as the curl of a stem or the kindling of a star.  The mockingbird took a single step into the air and dropped.  His wings were still folded against his sides as though he were singing from a limb and not falling, accelerating thirty-two feet per second per second, through empty air.  Just a breath before he would have been dashed to the ground, he unfurled his wings with exact, deliberate care, revealing the broad bars of white, spread his elegant, white-banded tail, and so floated onto the grass.  I had just rounded a corner when his insouciant step caught my eye; there was no one else in sight.  The fact of his free fall was like the old philosophical conundrum about the tree that falls in the forest.  The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them.  The least we can do is try to be there.   

 

 

July 4th, No Accidents, and Real Equality

We celebrated July 4th yesterday in pretty typical fashion: people pennant-clad in red, white, and blue; a massive barbecue boasting hamburgers, potato chips, ice cream, and stuffed stomachs; and from the car windows on the late drive home, glimpses of the few fireworks sanctioned by the city (numerous fires still burn throughout our state, so individual fireworks were a big no-no this year).
Yet there were eccentricities to our celebration as well (because, you know, normal is something we just don't do around here).  Present at the barbecue were people from Iraq, Kenya, Vietnam, Libya, Korea, France, China, and Germany, to name a few.  Only a handful were even American citizens.  Most were college students who had traveled to America to earn a degree, and a number planned to return to their native countries after graduating so they could support their families.
It was the American fellow, the young man named Dave who was studying medicine so he could work in Afghanistan and heal the wounds of a war-torn nation, who said it best: "We have so much in this country that we aren't even grateful for.  People all over the world are dying because they don't have doctors, and here we whine about waiting a few hours for a routine check-up in a spotless hospital."
So I am thankful for America.  I am thankful that we suffer from overabundance rather than starvation.  I am thankful that all my sisters are safely here, not sold so my family could pay off a debt.  I am thankful that the police are capable and willing to capture criminals, rather than turning a blind eye or even participating in crimes.  I am thankful that I can have a box of Bibles in my closet, two on my shelf, and one in my bag, without being arrested or tortured or killed.  I am thankful that, even jobless, my family hasn't even begun to experience real poverty.

And all these, while beautiful and good and gracious, are gifts given to me only because, as Bono put it, I am an accident of latitude.  It seems only chance that I was born surrounded by doctors and nurses and family in a hospital that churned out babies daily like factory, instead of in the dirt floor of an isolated hut where no one heralded my arrival.
But, as we've clearly been told, there are no real accidents, and we are here for such a time as this.  These gifts we have been given are to be given again.  The desire is not that we are to be overfed while others suffer, but rather that there be equality for all.  We have been given freedom, yes, and with freedom comes a choice.  We can use our freedom in a way that benefits only ourselves, continuing to live in comfort and enjoying the pleasures that America has to offer.  Or we can use our freedom to help others, regardless of location, and to make equality a reality.

{Breaking Up: Fear}

Dear Fear,
We've been together a long time.  In fact, I think you were there at the hospital, right along with my grandparents in the pristine lobby, waiting for my wrinkled self to emerge so you could lay claim to me.  You kept an arm around me through all my growing-up years.  At first you kept me safe.  You wouldn't let me wander anywhere without my parents (which, in retrospect, may actually have been for the best).  You saved me years of scrapes and scars by making me hyperventilate at the thought of riding a bike until I was ten years old.  You are the reason I made up elaborate injuries to persuade my friends to play on the ground instead of racing to the treetops. I learned to recognize you as somewhere I could hide, a way I could stay safely inside my comfort zone and never, ever get hurt.  I trusted you.
As time went on, however, you became more and more controlling.  I feared punishment, so of course fourth-grade-me lied about cheating on that long-division test.  I feared rejection, so middle-school-me shifted her persona to be more acceptable to her peers, and when she was not, she retreated back into her lonely fortress.  I feared failure, so high-school-me molded herself into every image of success and found herself caught in a pursuit of meaningless glory that left her burnt-out and disgusted at the end.  Fear, it seems that wherever I turn, you are already there.
And I'm not going to do this anymore.  I found Someone else, Someone who says to be strong and very courageous.  I am not afraid to face myself anymore and admit my failures with honesty, because I now know that my shame has been borne by Another and my ugly everything is being made new.  I am not afraid of releasing my true identity to the scrutiny of the world, because I know that there is Someone who loves me and calls me a beloved creation formed after his own image.  I am not afraid to fall through the cracks of a rat-racing society and simply live by living simply, because now I know that I am judged successful based on how well I love, not on how well I stock my bank account.
We're done.  Thank you for keeping me safe, but I've found that safety does not reward.  Anything worth doing, worth being, requires a risk, and I can't afford to not take risks anymore.
I'm over you, Fear.  I'm in love - in Love - now, and so I'm casting you out because there is no fear in love.  You have no more place here.

Metamorphosis Mondays

Join me here on Mondays, where I'll share some words that are changing me for the better...

I'm a huge fan of Bob Goff, the US consul to Uganda, founder of Restore International, lawyer and law professor, and all-around whimsical world-changer.  I'm rereading his book, Love Does, and there are words that continue to electrify me in the best of ways.

I enjoy those parts of the Bible where Jesus talks about how much He loves His bride.  It makes me wonder if the trees and mountains and rivers are things He planned in advance, knowing they would wow us.  I wonder if God returned over and over to this world He placed us in thinking what He had created was good, but it could be even better, even grander.  I wonder if He thought each foggy morning, each soft rain, each field of wildflowers would be a quiet and audacious way to demonstrate His tremendous love for us. 

And then...

I heard a self-help guy say once you could look in the mirror and give yourself something he called positive affirmations, like saying to yourself you are good or smart or talented.  I don't know if that works, to be honest.  Maybe it does.  But I do know one thing that works every time - it's having somebody else say something good about you.  I think that's how we were created, you know, to get named by people this way.  I think God speaks something meaningful into our lives and it fills us up and helps us change the world regardless of ourselves and our shortcomings.  His name for us is His beloved.  He hopes that we'll believe Him like I came to believe what the coach said about me.  He hopes we'll start to see ourselves as His beloved rather than think of all the reasons that we aren't.  Sometimes we don't think that the name someone picked for us is accurate either.  How could the coach think of me as a real ball player?  And how could God think of me as His beloved? But then I remember how Jesus said to one of the guys with Him that he was a rock even though He knew this same guy would deny ever knowing Him.  I don't think Jesus was blowing sunshine at Peter when He did that.  Instead, I think He was calling something out from inside Peter.  It was kind of like the coach telling me I was a real ball player - he saw it in me and was just calling it out.  We get to do that for each other still today.

I also just got involved in a class at my church that's viewing and discussing episodes from the recent Verge Conference.  Wow, have I been missing out!  One of the speakers, Caesar Kalinowski, challenged us to ask God to show us three people we can bless this week.  I love that.  It's intentional, yet not at all in-the-box, and so simple (really? Ask God to show me specific ways I can bless THREE people?  Yeah, I can probably manage that).  He also pointed out that discipleship isn't something "additional," to be squished in the in-between spaces of our lives; rather, discipleship involves transforming everything you're already doing by intentionally living your life as a mission.  Definitely something good to think about there.

Here, Too, There Is Joy

Most days, I feel buried alive.
Technically, I have three jobs now: one, full-time, is watching two girls on their farm about ten miles from my house; the second is marketing CUTCO knives through scheduling appointments (there will probably be a post about this job in the near future); and the third, which I have not yet started and am wondering how I can possibly find time to squeeze in yet another position, is assisting in the assembly of various musical instruments for a man whose demands exceed what he can supply on his own.
Often, it feels as though the world is pressing in on me from every side, and I fight claustrophobia as daily activities surround me and close in.  I've downsized as much as I can in terms of how I use my time, and still I feel consumed by the chaos.
But one phrase has been whispered in my ear in the sacred early mornings before the girls wake up, when it's just me and God and the goofy, floppy-footed Labrador puppy: Here, too, there is joy.  Because here, too, I am found.
I am seeking God.  Not in the mountaintops where it is easy to find Him, where the air is clear and seeing God is as simple as turning around.  I am seeking Him in the everyday, in the moments where girls throw dirt and harsh words at each other, in the moments where I am late to a meeting or forget to call my manager, in the moments where I am falling, exhausted, into bed at the end of the day.
When the Word became flesh, He made His dwelling among us.  He entered into our insanity and self-destruction and offered abundant life and living water through Himself.  And where He is, here, too, is joy.

Beginnings

It's always fitting when mountaintop experiences happen on top of mountains.

I stood this morning in slippered feet and sipped peppermint tea while my mom and Aunt Darlene chatted in the next room.  Buttercup, a lion of a golden retriever, kissed my hand while I toyed with her silky ears, and the twilight-blue Steller's jay flew furiously at the enormous squirrel at the bird feeder (I've seen cats smaller than that animal).  The Poirson's house - mansion, really - towers over the rest of the world from its mountaintop perch, and from any window I could look out and see the city spread like a twinkling map below me, lights winking through the early-morning fog.

I needed some perspective, and here, standing over my life, I began to see a little more clearly.

I feel as though I am leaving behind many things that have clung to me throughout 2012, casting them off because they have become too heavy for me to carry (and, of course, were never mine to bear in the first place). Now I can look ahead with farsighted hope and anticipation of a new beginning instead of a continuation of the tiresome old.

This will be a year of remaking, rebuilding, restoring.  Given my tendency towards failure, I will fall many times and need to be picked up and brushed off and set back on the right track, but ultimately, I believe that the God who began a good work in me will carry it on to completion.  That's the thought that gives me joy and hope as I enter this new year.

Metamorphosis Mondays

Join me here on Mondays, where I'll share some words that are changing me for the better...

Isn't it nice when beautiful things happen in unexpected places?  We read this poem in English class today and I'm still dizzy from the heavy beauty of it.

Evening Hawk by Robert Penn Warren

From plane of light to plane, wings dipping through
Geometries and orchids that the sunset builds,
Out of the peak's black angularity of shadows, riding
The last tumultuous avalanche of
Light above pines and the guttural gorge,
The hawk comes.

His wing
Scythes down another day, his motion
Is that of the honed steel-edge, we hear
The crashless fall of stalks of Time.

The head of each stalk is heavy with the gold of our error.

Look!  Look!  he is climbing the last light
Who knows neither Time nor error, and under
Whose eye, unforgiving, the world, unforgiven, swings
Into shadow.

Long now,
The last thrush is still, the last bat
Now cruises in his sharp hieroglyphics.  His wisdom
Is ancient, too, and immense.  The star
Is steady, like Plato, over the mountain.

If there were no wind we might, we think, hear
The earth grind on its axis, or history
Drip in darkness like a leaking pipe in the cellar.

And from one of my favorites, Jon Foreman of Switchfoot, comes this excellent ending (read the rest here?):

Yes, dancing is absurd. There is no logical reason to dance. It's awkward, especially for folks like myself. Dancing won't end global poverty. It doesn't stabilize the price of oil or fight to dethrone evil dictators. But does dancing bring you joy? Does dancing remind you of your humanity? Does dancing makes you laugh? Heck, my dancing in particular can certainly lighten the mood. I'm tired of fighting my way through life; I want to dance. To head back out on the dance floor of life armed with my four ridiculous dance faces and the intention of finding joy in the journey, finding happiness in the song along the way. Certainly, there are times to fight. There are times to challenge injustice, hatred, racism, and corruption. But most of life is not meant to be a fight. It's meant to be a dance. Victories and defeats will come and go but the joy of the dance is always available.

Also, I can't stand Bradley Hathaway's voice.  It drives me crazy.  But I've fallen deeply in love with this song, so I've learned to tolerate his thirteen-year-old-swallowing-spoonfuls-of-coarsely-ground-gravel voice.  You should also check out some of his poetry along the side of that YouTube page, because it's absolutely fantastic. 

And finally, from Brennan Manning's amazing book The Importance of Being Foolish (I can't even begin to say how much this gentle book challenged and moved me.  Go read it.  Now.):

Scripture is not about the transmission of inert ideas.  It is a call to love, and love that does not lead to action is not love.