And the reason that you had to Care

Once again, Bono's got it just right:

The heart is a bloom
Shoots up through the stony ground
There's no room
No space to rent in this town

You're out of luck
And the reason that you had to care
The traffic is stuck
And you're not moving anywhere

You thought you'd found a friend
To take you out of this place
Someone you could lend a hand
In return for grace
...

This incredible loneliness just hit me as I was driving back from helping out at The Week.  In my little car, driving through the mountins, listening to "Bittersweet Symphony", I realized all I was leaving behind.  Though imperfect, there was such a strong community there, one that realized there is a life for us above money and stuff and education.  There was such a strong faith in God, such a drive to live fully, that was embodied in jumping off cliffs and running around in the dark and worshipping with abandon.  One moment I want to remember is when I was looking for something to do, and asked Chris, and he just looked up at me with his burning blue eyes and said simply: "Hang out.  Worship."  There was something happening in the calmness, in the space between all the work and driving.  This cliff jumping, this community, is what life is about, and I wasn't there.  Not quite.  It's just not really me.  But still, I had a place.

But in the traffic, in the struggling up hills alone with my old stick shift car at 45 mph, I felt alone.  And I had finally begun to care.  I finally got it.  I didn't want to go back to the smallness of where I lived, where I worked to earn money for clothes and home decorations and waited for the summer to be over.  The world was so much bigger than that.  I needed to move.. but with people, not by my self, and that time of traveling with others is over.  I will no longer be surrounded by these people.  I will find new community, community centered around God even, but it will not be the same.  And ultimately, from this point on, I will be traveling alone.

Memorable Moment #2

The last day of Kids Hope was hard.  Karina was mad and left without saying goodbye.. I actually cried the whole way home.  I felt no closure at all and although I care a lot about her, I felt like she couldn't care less about me, that the hour a week I spend with her for two years made zero impact on her life.  I accepted that this was just something I had to let go of and leave up to God.  And man, did he listen. 

Today I was at the Buchman's house doing work and there was a woman cleaning the house at the same time.  When she walked down the stairs and saw me, instant recognition crossed her face.  She knew exactly who I was even though I've seen her maybe twice, and she explained in fractured English that she was Karina's mom.  I don't think its a coincidence that she happened to be the housekeeper of the woman I work for.  That in itself was a sign to me that God does listen, and that he works in unexpected ways.  But she seemed thrilled to see me, and told Mrs. Buchman that Karina loves me.  I never would have heard that from Karina herself, and had stopped hoping for that kind of validation about all the time I spent with her.  She just didn't express herself that way to me.  It gave me both closure and confidence, and inspired me to continue trying to be a part of her life. 

Memorable Moment #1

Mowing my grandparents' lawn today, I had trouble with the mower twice: a pretty average amount for me.  The first was after breaking a sprinkler (oops) and my Nana quickly got it working again.  The second time my Opa came out after many tries of my own (it's a little embarrassing needing so much help from grandparents) and easily got it going.  I asked, "So do you and Nana just have the magic touch?" "Nope." he answed, pulling back his t-shirt sleeve and flexing. "Muscle."

Ralph Waldo Emerson said in his essay Self-Reliance: "In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts ... to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another." And even that is written by some one else.  It's starting to seem more and more that whenever I want to communicate an idea, it is better put by someone else.  Often when I read, I find things that I have thought more abstractly myself, and just didn't know how to articulate.  If I have a presentation to give about something I care about, the parts that I feel communicate best what I want to say are in someone else's words.  When I find some well communicated truth, it's wonderful and frustrating at the same time because though it conveys my thoughts, it's not my own.  All I really want out of this blog is to have thoughts of my own.

Sometimes I wonder what the next crazy invention that will change the world is going to be.  I can't imagine a better, slicker, computer, or a smaller iPod that would hold even more, or higher skyscrapers.  Maybe in 20 years I'll look back and wonder how I got by with what I have, just like it's weird to imagine my mom using a typewriter.  But I also think there's an increasing group of people that's disillusioned by our culture's obsession with stuff and technology.  I think we're forgetting how crazy life is because we're so consumed by this stuff that we don't pause and think about it.  I know that I, just as much as anyone else, have this problem.  Sure, whenever I go on a hike or a mission trip or get outside of my bubble I appreciate it, but sometimes I'm still trapped in it, I prefer it to going without. 

I've begun to realize that I am the type of person who loves beautiful things.  Often a love for shopping is equated with an obsession with surface, material things, but I don't think that's it at all.  There is something about the universe and the life that we live that cannot be put into words, that can only be glimpsed, and different people see and convey unique parts of it.  It's beautiful, certainly, but not simple: it's a beauty that's incomprehensible and bittersweet.

I've also noticed that a lot of what I'm drawn to (clothes, music, colors) matches up with this indescribable thing.  It's not just that I have a certain style or music taste.  What I like goes beyond just liking it... it represents something to me that cannot be portrayed in words.  And I think everyone has this to an extent, that maybe subconsciously, their clothes and rooms and favorite colors match up with something that they are striving towards.  Or maybe I'm just crazy.

The truth of it is... I like things.  But I like them because they somehow help me to define myself, and in defining myself, maybe associating myself with something greater, maybe even with God- who also loves color and beautiful things.

A Few Of My Favorite Things

I've been getting really negative lately.  Especially now that it's the second semester of senior year and I'm really able to picture myself in college, I'm getting annoyed and frustrated very easily.  High schoolers can be so immature and obnoxious, and it gets tiring living with my family.  But I think I'm going to take inspiration from the Sound of Music and instead of getting depressed (which is easy to do, especially if you're reading "Waiting for Godot" in LA class) I'm going to try to think more about the things that make me happy.

#1) Being called Em.  I don't know why I like it so much, but whenever I'm called that (by Troy especially) or even read it in a text, it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.

#2) Knitting.  Especially at this point in my life, it's so nice to have something completely relaxing and stress-relieving to do.  The problem is that it gets addicting and I end up knitting instead of doing work, which leads to more stress, which leads to more knitting.  It's a vicious cycle.

#3) Warm drinks.  Coffee especially, of course, but tea and chai are pretty good too.  My nana calls our generation's love for always carrying a drink around an oral fixation, or pacifier equivalent, which is probably true.  But still, something about having a thermos or Starbucks cup or mug with me is just really nice. 

#4) Being asked for advice.  It makes me feel important and validated.

#5) U2 and Bono... there is something so comforting about being obsessed with a band.  No matter what, listening to U2 is like listening to a familiar voice.  They have so many songs and so much variety that I can't get bored, and I learn new things from the lyrics all the time.

... to be continued.

My Pocket Sized World

As humans, it's inevitable that we will put things into boxes.  By boxes, I mean limit our ideas of reality to where it makes sense to us.  There is no way for us to fully comprehend our existence, so we break it down into little bits that we can understand.  We cut our ideas of God, ourselves, and others into pocket sized pieces to carry around with us, because it is too overwhelming to think past what we don't understand.  And we're afraid of being overwhelmed.  Because if we're overwhelmed, it means that we don't know something.  It means we've lost control.  We prefer to stay in our own little bubble where we are always right rather than accept the fact that there is a whole world out there that we will never fully understand. 

And by we, I mean myself as well, maybe even especially me.  I have a very limited comfort zone.  When I say I'm going out of my comfort zone, those are still things that are somewhat easy for me.  I don't like to think about problems in the world because it means I'd have to let go of some of my self-centeredness.  Even the fact that some people might not agree with me on design ideas for the yearbook or a certain way of viewing religion blows my mind.  It gets very lonely, having this limited view of the world.  I have this sense that I'll only wear certain colors or styles of clothes, and that I'll only design my room a certain way, and that I'll only listen to certain music.  When I come across something that I can't understand, I disagree with it or block it out of my mind. 

While I think to some extent this is human nature, I want to constantly work on seeing things from a different perspective, learning more about the world even if it's uncomfortable, and freeing myself from my fear of inconsistency.  In the past few months, I've been very inspired by Bono, largely because he doesn't allow any fixed views about himself or the world to hinder his ability to live fully.  Learning about him makes me want to take risks and allow myself to be raw and honest.  I long to be fearless and have an unforgettable passion for life.  I want to be able to expand my box so that I don't bump into the border each time I try to think differently, or realize that maybe, I may not be the center of the universe.

Donald Miller on Marriage

“It isn’t what you think it is, Don.”  Paul takes his gaze from the city and eyes the pipe in his hand.  He turns it over and taps the top ash onto the roof, rolling the embers under his sneakers.

“What isn’t?”

“Marriage.”  He looks me in the eye.  “It isn’t fulfilling in the way you think it is.”

“Paul, will you  be honest with me if I ask you something?”

“Yes.”

“Are you happy?”

“Define happy.”

“Are you glad you married Danielle?”

Paul puts the stem of his pipe back in his mouth.

“I am happy Don.  I am very happy.”

“What do you mean it isn’t what I think it is then?”  I was expecting him to talk about sex.

“Well, maybe I can’t say what you think marriage is.  Maybe I should say it isn’t what I thought it would be.  I thought to be married was to be known.  And it is; it is to be known.  But Danielle can only know me so much; do you know what I mean?”

“There are things you haven’t told her?”  I ask.

“I’ve told her everything.”

“Then I don’t know what you are saying.”

Paul pushed himself up a little to the pitch of the roof from which you can see the Portland skyline.  I joined him.  “We all want to be loved, right?”

“Right.”

“And the scary thing about relationships, intimate relationships, is that if somebody gets to know us, the us that we usually hide, they might not love us; they might reject us.”

“Right,” I tell him.

Paul continued.  “I’m saying there is stuff I can’t tell her, not because I don’t want to, but because there aren’t words.  It’s like we are separate people, and there is no getting inside each other to read each other’s thoughts, each other’s beings.  Marriage is amazing because it is the closest two people can get, but they can’t get all the way to that place of absolute knowing.  Marriage is the most beautiful thing I have ever dreamed of, Don, but it isn’t everything.  It isn’t Mecca.  Danielle loves everything about me; she accepts me and tolerates me and encourages me.  She knows me better than anybody else in the world, but she doesn’t know all of me, and I don’t know all of her.  And I never thought after I got married there would still be something lacking.  I always thought marriage, especially after I first met Danielle, would be the ultimate fulfillment.  It is great, don’t get me wrong, and I am glad I married Danielle, and I will be with her forever.  But there are places in our lives that only God can go.”

“So marriage isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be?” I ask.

“No, it is so much more than I ever thought it would be.  One of the ways God shows me He loves me is through Danielle, and one of the ways God shows Danielle He loves her is through me.  And because she loves me, and teaches me that I am lovable, I can better interact with God.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that to be in a relationship with God is to be loved purely and furiously.  And a person who thinks himself unlovable cannot be in a relationship with God because he can’t accept who God is; a Being that is love.  We learn that we are lovable or unlovable from other people,” Paul says.  “That is why God tells us so many times to love each other.”

When the sky got dark Paul and I went back into the attic.  We made small talk for an hour before he went downstairs to be with his wife, but I kept thinking about these things.  I turned out the light and lay in bed and though about the girls I had dated, the fear I have of getting married, and the incredible selfishness from which I navigate my existence.

                                    _____________________________________

I had been working on a play called Polaroids that year.  It was the story of one man’s life from birth to death, each scene delivered through a monologue with other actors silently acting out parts behind the narrator as he walks the audience through his life journey.  In the scene I had written a few nights before, I had the man fighting with his wife.  They were experiencing unbearable tension after losing a son in a car accident the year before.  I knew in my heart they were not going to make it. That Polaroids would include a painful divorce that showed the ugliness of separation.  But I changed my mind.  After talking with Paul I couldn’t do it.  I wondered what it would look like to have the couple stick it out.  I got up and turned on my computer.  I had the lead character in my play walk into the bedroom where his wife was sleeping.  I had him kneel down by her and whisper some lines:

            What great gravity is this that drew my soul toward yours?  What great force, that though I went falsely, went kicking, went disguising myself to earn your love, also disguised, to earn your keeping, your resting, your staying, your will fleshed into mine, rasped by a slowly revealed truth, the barter of my soul, the soul that I fear, the soul that I loathe, the soul that: if you will love, I will love.  I will redeem you, if you will redeem me?  Is this our purpose, you and I together to pacify each other, to lead each other toward the lie that we are good, that we are noble, that we need not redemption, save the one that you and I invented of our own clay?

            I am not scared of you, my love, I am scared of me.

            I went looking, I wrote out a list, I drew an image, I bled a poem of you.  You were pretty, and my friends believe I was worthy of you.  You were clever, but I was smarter, perhaps the only one smarter, the only one able to lead you.  You see my love, I did not love you, I loved me.  And you were only a tool that I used to fix myself, to fool myself, to redeem myself.  And thought I have taught you to lay your lily hand in mine, I walk alone, for I cannot talk to you, lest you talk it back to me, lest I believe that I am not worthy, not deserving, not redeemed.

            I want desperately for you to be my friend.  But you are not my friend; you have slid up warmly to the man I wanted to be, the man I pretended to be, and I was your Jesus and, you were mine.  Should I show you who I am, we may crumble.  I am not scared of you, my love, I am scared of me. 

            I want to be known and loved anyway.  Can you do this?  I trust by your easy breathing that you are human like me, that you are fallen like me, that you are lonely like me.  My love, do I know you?  What is this great gravity that pulls us so painfully toward each other?  Why do we not connect?  Will we be forever in fleshing this out?  And how will we with words, narrow words, come into the knowing of each other?  Is this God’s way of meriting grace, of teaching us of the labyrinth of His love for us, teaching us, in degrees, that which He is sacrificing to join ourselves to Him?  Or better yet, has He formed our being fractional so that we might conclude one great hope, plodding and sighing and breathing into one another in such a great push that we might break through into the known and being loved, only to cave into a greater perdition and fail down at His throne still begging for our acceptance?  Begging for our completion?

            We were fools to believe that we would redeem each other.

            Were I some sleeping Adam, to wake and find you resting at my rib, to share these things that God has done, to walk you through the garden, to counsel your timid steps, your bewildered eye, your heart so slow to love, so careful to love, so sheepish that I stepped up my aim and became a man.  Is this what God intended?  That though He made you from my rib, it is you who is making me, humbling me, destroying me, and in so doing revealing Him.

            Will we be in ashes before we are one?

            What great gravity is it that drew my heart toward yours?  What great force collapsed my orbit, my lonesome state?  What is this that wants in me the want in you? Don’t we go at each other with yielded eyes, which cumbered hands and feet, with clunky tongues?  This deed is unattainable!  We cannot know each other!

            I am quitting this thing, but not what you think.  I am not going away.

            I will give you this, my love, and I will not bargain or barter any longer.  I will love you, as sure as He has loved me.  I will discover what I can discover and though you remain a mystery, save God’s own knowledge, what I disclose of you I will keep in the warmest chamber of my heart, the very chamber where God has stowed Himself in me.  And I will do this to my death, and to death it may bring me.

            I will love you like God, because of God, mighted by the power of God.  I will stop expecting your love, demanding your love, trading for your love, gaming for your love.  I will simply love.  I am giving myself to you, and tomorrow I will do it again.  I suppose the clock itself will wear thin its time before I am ended at this altar of dying and dying again. 

            God risked Himself on me.  I will risk myself on you.  And together, we will learn to love, and perhaps then, and only then, understand this gravity that drew Him, unto us.