Think before you speak...and then maybe say it anyway. (Oh Lord, I am a silly girl.)

So yesterday morning as I was getting dressed, I had an epiphany that I shared with my roommate:

"I really hope that I don't get in an accident today because I'm wearing a pair of really ratty underwear."

"What?"

"Well, you know...sometimes when you get into accidents the EMTs cut open you pants, and that would just be really embarrassing because I'm wearing really ratty underwear today."

After listening to her laugh at me for about 5 minutes, I mulled over my statement and realized that if I got into an accident where the EMTs had to cut open my jeans, I would probably have bigger problems than the state of my under garments...

Thankfully (for many reasons - big and small), under God's protection yesterday, I remained accident-free.

Blind Truth

I've been pondering relationship lately. There's this popular idea floating about that "love is blind."

Wow, what a lie. I don't think that the idea could be any further from the truth. Love is not failing or refusing to see the faults of the other. Such a blindness could at best describe infatuation - or maybe a desire of being in love with love. It doesn't equate a love of the person. The person is loved as an ideal, seen through the eyes of the beholder. Wow, how selfish. "I love you because you are who I want you to be." Such an idea forces the "beloved" to conform to a mold. The "beloved" has their humanity stripped from them and is the object of affection so long as the beloved-robot performs according to our specified instructions. What happens when he or she ceases to meet the expectations of the ideal, when he or she steps out and proves their humanity through surprise or disappointment?

Love is seeing a person for all of their faults - in all of their naked ugliness - and still making the decision that he or she is still worth your time and your sacrifice. Love is a mutual willingly laying down your rights for the benefit of another person.

But such a relationship with another carries significant risk. We like wearing clothes, because being naked carries with it exposure and vulnerability. I can't think of anything more horrible than being completely vulnerable and exposed down to the soul and then being rejected.

So, what do we do? We dumb love down and try to make it tame, make it safe. We make sappy cards, make up phrases like "love is blind", and reduce love to kissing and fuzzy feelings. Wow. It may be safe, but it's so far from the passionate life that real, honest-to-God love is filled with.

"Love is blind." How about some truth:

1 Corinthians 13:4-8
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful (and does not count up wrongdoing); it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

Patience implies that it takes a long time. Kindness is required in the face of irritation, in the face of need. Humility is required to confront the temptation to put the self first. Love gives up the demand of putting the self first. It is forgiving and seeks justice and truth. Love is the kind of thing that "takes a licking and keeps on ticking." It's optimistic, it's patient. It doesn't end.

Love is work. It's not floating up among the clouds. It's where the rubber meets the road.

Here's another thing: people can't live up to this model. We are called to it, yes. But let's be honest. We are flawed. We are human. But we can try, and we should try - picking ourselves up and starting over when we fall down and fail.

Christ set the example. He lives the example. The source of this kind of love is God Himself. Of course, such a love is horribly wonderful (or perhaps wonderfully horrible) to accept. It requires an acknowledgment that at any level, it is not deserved. Our inability to give this love deems us unworthy of being recipients to it. But through God's grace, mercy, and through Christ's life, death on the cross, and resurrection we are invited to share in it.

We fall flat on our faces, abjectly aware of our flaws, and then are told that we are loved - that we are precious in the eye of the beholder who just so happens to see everything that makes up who we are. It's horrible - seeing our flaws for what they are when we want so desperately to pretend that we are perfect. It's wonderful - God seeing our flaws for what they are and loving us so desperately that He would die for us rather than lose us.

This love is not safe. It's absolutely dangerous. Blind love is safe, but it also isn't real. I choose the real love. The love that sees the ugly. Because there really is no other option. Plastic Cupids compared to a beating, bleeding heart. I choose the love that is alive.

An Unfinished Prayer

Oh Lord,
my body is tired and
my heart is weak,
but if you'll have
me, I'll give you what
you'll take. Be gentle, be
patient with me. I'm slow
to understand. But you are
so worthy of me singing
an anthem of the highest
praise. Take my heart and
break it. Mold it to fit
your design. If you will
have me, I'll do my
best to give you all that
I have to offer.

Unknown, surprise, and epiphany

I don't know what it is...for the past few weeks I've had so many thoughts floating about in my head. Wonderful thoughts about God and life and metaphor...
and a total inability to write them out. I'm not talking about a lack of time because even though I am ridiculously busy, it seems to me that we can usually make time for the things that we care about. It's simply about a rearranging of priorities (take right now, for example - I'm writing instead of doing homework because the back-up of thoughts is finally too great to stand without some form of relief).

I have thoughts a'plenty, it's just this inability to write. I think about writing it down and lose all desire to type. Instead of "writer's block," let's call it "writer's constipation."

~ Ideas about the metaphor about God and gardening (hopefully, I'll get to that one by the end of the month) from last week.
~ Musings about relationships
~ This week's concept of "swimming in the great, grey unknown"...

So many ideas and thoughts. And they're really just too wonderful to keep to myself. Not that my ideas are just so great, mind you, but it's really more about the sharing of something exciting. When we find things that we deem to be of value, the greatest expression of that can be to share it.

Wow. Epiphany. This is now completely free-write.

As Christians, we're called to share our faith. Don't we often look at this as a command and miss out in the invitation?

This faith that we have - this saving faith that redeems our lives and restores to us our beauty and purpose. We claim that it's the most important thing that we have. Value.

Shouldn't sharing it be a joy then? Why do we often see it as such a chore? "Good Christians share their faith. Did you share your faith today? If yes, then check this little box here. If not, then go back out and try to be a better Christian - oh, and here's a slap on the wrist for you."

It's so much more than about that. God invites us to share in His joy. He found us to be valuable - so much so that He sent His only begotten Son to die on the cross for our sins (thank you, John 3:16). And why? Because we were made in His image to glorify Him. His glory is valuable and worth sharing. Interesting concept, when we share God's glory with others, we glorify Him (directly, indirectly, perhaps both?). This isn't a commodity that gets smaller as it is shared. I'm not sure that it grows either, though. Perhaps, God's glory remains the same - it's our awareness that grows. And we are privileged to see the beauty of our God.

At any rate, it's not about guilt. It's not about earning your gold star of the day for being a good Christian boy or girl. It's not even about sharing in the "right" way.

God made us all so uniquely different, and corresponding with that are all the uniquely different ways that we can share Him and His glory with others. It's wonderful. It's amazing. It takes a lot of the pressure off, honestly.

When we rid ourselves of the shackles of fear and guilt and "ought," then we become free to breathe in this wonder that God has surrounded us with. And our freedom enables us to share.

This is roughly written, but I'm okay with that.

Okay, those are my thoughts for now. Tune in later for ideas on the metaphor of gardening, swimming in the grey, or a look at history and "I said, He said."

This has certainly not gone the way I originally thought it out. Yay God.

Beautiful Discord.

I've been listening to Apocalyptica lately...and now.
I like the precision, the absolute skill that it requires to make the beautiful strains of music...
paired up with the discord, the emotion, the passion of what they're playing.
Classical metalcore.
It fits.

Today has been tough. Tough but good. I've had people praying for me, and I feel somewhat stronger for the challenges faced.

I woke up this morning to a message written on my facebook wall:
"If you had an issue with me you should have talked about it to my face. Writing about it in the paper isn't classy."

I did the right thing. I did the right thing. I did the right thing.

False guilt. Lots of false, misplaced-guilt.

I did the right thing.

I keep having to remind myself that.

Assault. Hands are not for hitting...neither are they for coercion. We all know that.

I don't have to tell that to somebody for them to know that it's wrong. And when I hear that individual express no remorse whatsoever the next day for his actions the night before (done to "unidentified/unknown people" - so that makes it okay, right?)...it doesn't exactly produce an environment that welcomes such confrontations...
even if that was my job...
nope.

He knew it was wrong. He knows it is wrong.

But he's mad at me.

And this makes him feel better, helps him get his mind off the fact that he did the wrong thing.

I had an idea that this might happen.

Oh, and the irony of speaking about classy face-to-face confrontations via facebook walls...!

This hurts, this hurts, this hurts. This is scary. I don't like it when people are mad at me.

But I did the right thing. And I feel good about that. And I will not be a doormat for people to abuse and then turn around and make it seem like they were victimized.

Yes, I spoke out. I broke the silence. And now there are consequences and ripple effects.

I did the right thing.
I got me my Jesus. And He loves me, takes care of me, shelters me under His wing. Micah 6:8
Do justice.
Love mercy.
Walk humbly before the Lord your God.

I'll be that warrior.
I got me my Jesus. So bring it.

"Cinderella," by Anne Sexton

This is just one of those poems that's left their mark on me since I first read it as a senior in high school. I could talk to you about why I like it, but instead, I think I'll just simply post it and leave it at that.

* ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** *


You always read about it:
the plumber with the twelve children
who wins the Irish Sweepstakes.
From toilets to riches.
That story.

Or the nursemaid,
some luscious sweet from Denmark
who captures the oldest son's heart.
from diapers to Dior.
That story.

Or a milkman who serves the wealthy,
eggs, cream, butter, yogurt, milk,
the white truck like an ambulance
who goes into real estate
and makes a pile.
From homogenized to martinis at lunch.

Or the charwoman
who is on the bus when it cracks up
and collects enough from the insurance.
From mops to Bonwit Teller.
That story.

Once
the wife of a rich man was on her deathbed
and she said to her daughter Cinderella:
Be devout. Be good. Then I will smile
down from heaven in the seam of a cloud.
The man took another wife who had
two daughters, pretty enough
but with hearts like blackjacks.
Cinderella was their maid.
She slept on the sooty hearth each night
and walked around looking like Al Jolson.
Her father brought presents home from town,
jewels and gowns for the other women
but the twig of a tree for Cinderella.
She planted that twig on her mother's grave
and it grew to a tree where a white dove sat.
Whenever she wished for anything the dove
would drop it like an egg upon the ground.
The bird is important, my dears, so heed him.

Next came the ball, as you all know.
It was a marriage market.
The prince was looking for a wife.
All but Cinderella were preparing
and gussying up for the event.
Cinderella begged to go too.
Her stepmother threw a dish of lentils
into the cinders and said: Pick them
up in an hour and you shall go.
The white dove brought all his friends;
all the warm wings of the fatherland came,
and picked up the lentils in a jiffy.
No, Cinderella, said the stepmother,
you have no clothes and cannot dance.
That's the way with stepmothers.

Cinderella went to the tree at the grave
and cried forth like a gospel singer:
Mama! Mama! My turtledove,
send me to the prince's ball!
The bird dropped down a golden dress
and delicate little slippers.
Rather a large package for a simple bird.
So she went. Which is no surprise.
Her stepmother and sisters didn't
recognize her without her cinder face
and the prince took her hand on the spot
and danced with no other the whole day.

As nightfall came she thought she'd better
get home. The prince walked her home
and she disappeared into the pigeon house
and although the prince took an axe and broke
it open she was gone. Back to her cinders.
These events repeated themselves for three days.
However on the third day the prince
covered the palace steps with cobbler's wax
and Cinderella's gold shoe stuck upon it.
Now he would find whom the shoe fit
and find his strange dancing girl for keeps.
He went to their house and the two sisters
were delighted because they had lovely feet.
The eldest went into a room to try the slipper on
but her big toe got in the way so she simply
sliced it off and put on the slipper.
The prince rode away with her until the white dove
told him to look at the blood pouring forth.
That is the way with amputations.
They just don't heal up like a wish.
The other sister cut off her heel
but the blood told as blood will.
The prince was getting tired.
He began to feel like a shoe salesman.
But he gave it one last try.
This time Cinderella fit into the shoe
like a love letter into its envelope.

At the wedding ceremony
the two sisters came to curry favor
and the white dove pecked their eyes out.
Two hollow spots were left
like soup spoons.

Cinderella and the prince
lived, they say, happily ever after,
like two dolls in a museum case
never bothered by diapers or dust,
never arguing over the timing of an egg,
never telling the same story twice,
never getting a middle-aged spread,
their darling smiles pasted on for eternity.
Regular Bobbsey Twins.
That story.

That's What the Lonely is For (Oh, David Wilcox)

Thoughts: "I don't get it, but I think that it might be a good place to be..."

So, lately, for what feels like a long time now (months...years...maybe just months, I don't know) when I really settle myself in worship, I end up crying.

*UH-OH CRAZY EMOTIONAL GIRL ALERT!!!!!*

No, I don't think that I'm crazy, out-of-whack emotional. I just can't quite figure it out. All I know is that I experience a sense of connection...and then the tears come.

Sometimes it's brought about by a sense of fear that God is leading me somewhere that I don't know of. He and my future are so out of my control. Honestly though, that's how it should be. The most secure place that my life could be is in the "Great Unknown" of God's great, patient, wonderful, capable, loving, guiding, hands.

Sometimes it's brought about by pain in my life. I am brought to the foot of the cross where I identify with Job in acknowledging that God is good in spite of the pain. Sometimes there's anger mixed in there. But I know from the promises of Scripture and from seeing His work in my life, that God is good. He draws me out and brings me to a place where I have to deal with emotional baggage and scars, and He oh-so-patiently waits with me as I cry and mourn and work things out. He does not fail though. He is the constant provider of joy.

Sometimes - no, usually - it's brought about by a sense of my own brokenness, I think. (That's been the case as of late, anyhow.) It's realizing how absolutely flawed I am, and then also realizing that perfection became human incarnate and died on the cross for me. It's so absolutely beautiful. That kind of love. It overwhelms me, terrifies me, brings to my attention how I so often take it for granted. When I sing of the sacrifice on the cross, I find shame and redemption. Loss and joy.

This kind of love. It's exactly what I want and need...and it's the hardest thing in the world to accept. My college pastor used an analogy tonight in describing God's love. In The Fisher King, Parry, a homeless man, takes the socially awkward Lydia out on a date:

Parry: No, please stop...I'm in love with you.
(Lydia looks at him like he's completely nuts, not believing him. Parry shakes head, puts a hand toward her mouth softly)
Parry:: And not just from tonight. I've known you for a long time. I know you come out from work at noon every day and you fight your way out that door and then you get pushed back in and three seconds later you come back out again. I walk with you to lunch and I know if it's a good day, if you stop and get that romance novel at that bookstore. I know what you order, and I know that on Wednesdays you go to that Dim Sum parlor and I know that you get a jawbreaker before you go back in to work. And I know you hate your job and you don't have many friends and I know sometimes you feel a little uncoordinated and you don't feel as wonderful as everybody else and feeling as alone and as separate as you feel you are...I love you... ...I love you...and I think you're the greatest thing since spice racks and I would be knocked out several times if I could just have that first kiss. And I won't, I won't be distant. I'll come back in the morning and I'll call ya if you let me... But I still don't drink coffee.
(Long pause, Lydia slowly touches Parry's face)
Lydia: You're real...aren't you?
(Parry smiles, and quietly laughs)

I laughed at first, making sideways "stalker" jokes, but once I let my guard down, the truth and beauty of the scene crept its way into my heart where it resounded. The loneliness is there. It's been wired into my humanity as a constant reminder that this is not my home. I can look for love in people, but they will fail me.
The scene...it's like God is saying that to my aching heart. "I know you. I know your faults. I know your flaws. I know that you get discouraged, get tired, feel awkward, and alone. You get frustrated and want to give up. And I love you." And my response is to say, "You're real...aren't you?" And God smiles, laughs, and loves.

That kind of love. It's so frightening. To put my heart on a table and say, "Here I am. Here is all of me. Morning breath, bed head, PMS , short-temper, mean-spirited jokes, cattiness, insecurities, and all. I am far from perfect." And then that waiting...that horrible waiting. I am not perfect - so why would I be accepted? How could anybody love a broken individual like me?

But God does. And He loves me in a way that is completely overwhelming. He died for me. It doesn't get much more romantic than that. And when I force myself to look full in the face of this love being offered - this love that I so deeply desire and yet so greatly fear, it brings on the tears.



And I kinda think that maybe that's a good thing.