When the Story Hits a Bracket

Do you ever feel like your story has hit a bracket? What I mean by this is that the events that are currently transpiring in your life might feel more like a short aside in the midst of a rich chapter than anything quoteworthy, noteworthy, triumphant. Life is full of in-betweens but we long for a feeling that our stories matter. We want people to tell us this. We want our life's circumstances to tell us this. If we push back at the darkness long enough, we will inevitably grow tired.

Lately, i've been musing a bit on the life of Mother Teresa, and her ability to be Christ in a place of her own spiritual darkness. As her personal accounts suggest, the time of the height of Mother Teresa's work was marked by her own profound experience of desolation. It was a time in which, while serving others, Mother Teresa felt distant from her God, found it difficult to press forward in faith, and struggled through feelings of "loneliness and meaninglessness." The modern church will often tell us that to be follower of Christ is to be ever-joyful, steadfast, placid. I'd like to counter this rather serene description by suggesting that the Christ-follower must often be a warrior, fierce, ever-watchful, persistent. Mother Teresa was a fighter, she fought against every voice (internal and external) that told her that she was crazy, that her work wouldn't make enough of a difference, that her God had forsaken her. And her struggle was real, deeply real. Read these words quoted in TIME Magazine in 2007:

Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear.— Mother Teresa to the Rev. Michael Van Der Peet, September 1979 

What is most earth-shattering to me about Mother Teresa's story is not that she faced extreme darkness but the manner in which she dealt with it. Mother Teresa's courage in the midst of isolation is remarkable and inspiring. It is a dangerous kind of faith that many so often shy from in today's culture, and it is one that I plan to explore further over the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

Hopes, the Present Moment, and Waiting

As the title of this piece suggests, i'm in a period that is particularly full of lots of hopes and waiting. There is a lot of looming uncertainty about the future: what projects I might undertake, where I might travel, with whom I might spend my time, the list goes on. This is, many might say, the space that fills most of our lives, and it is a space we rarely take the time to enjoy constructively.

Like an adrenaline rush, we yearn towards the future, taste just a hint then find ourselves hungering for more. As a woman in her mid-twenties, I have stepped into a space where I can live comfortably, thoughtfully, and strategically yet often feel as if I lack the things that would make my life feel full. My longing, I can quite honestly say, is for something more than accomplishment; in fact, I think articles in women's magazines are just starting to get at this. Women in general are climbing the ladders of their corporate, even social, fantasies and then finding that all of the things that they thought would make them feel good just end up feeling, well, not. My suspicion is that the same is holding true for men.

For many of us, the first few years out of college involve a pressing into dreams for accomplishment, entrepreneurial endeavors, and life-defining moments. I've had many of these along the way since I graduated. But what i've realized, increasingly over time, is that what I actually want is something a lot deeper than these shallow dreams of my youth entailed. A mentor in my first year out of college once cautioned me and several friends (fellows, actually) to treasure the days of our youth for as long as we could before the days of the diapers came along. Increasingly, aye interestingly, I find myself caught at the crossroads of one's youthful dreams and a slight longing for diaper wonderland. And this is the space that no one prepares you for quite adequately; it is a deeply-entrenched life of already but not quite yet.

We go to work energized, come home feeling exhausted and longing for deep connection with other people but so often find ourselves in the space of loneliness. This sense of loneliness can go with us whether we're sitting at home watching movies by ourselves or out at a show with friends just feeling distant. We crave connectedness but so many modern day realities have made it hard for us to cultivate worthwhile relationships with others in our communities. Whether it is the sheer distance between us and our peers or the fact that many of us are transient, unattached, and continuously mobile, it is easy to feel like it has been weeks since we touched ground. My guess is that this sentiment touches on the experience of both marrieds and unmarrieds in my generation, as a few new friends that fall into the former category recently remarked that all their unmarried friends largely ignore them and assume they're off happy in married bliss while they pander on feeling isolated.

Concurrently, in a city like DC so much conversation focuses around the things that we do for a living, the things that I truly believe we in this city think make us who we are. I believe that this is a falsehood, which may have taken the year I spent outside this city to truly sink in. Who we are is not where we work, it is not our talents, it is not our accolades. It is something more, very much more. But our culture has not given us the proper framework to understand or even appreciate this truth, even though so much around us hints at it. There is a sense of fragmentation that runs deep in our communities and it concerns me. It is a way of living that says "its okay if you don't show up, because i'll find something better to do, when a friend drops the ball on plans." We puff in whispered silence "I don't really need you" when others let us down. And something of our "pull 'em up by 'er bootstraps" upbringing has taught us to think this way.

But, what if we change the scenario completely and acknowledge the fact that we do really need each other, desperately? What if we candidly say to our friends and communities, "I can't do this without you and I need you to show up?" What if we openly acknowledge that our forms of community feel isolating, and shallow? Now, what if we decide that we want to do something about this and start breathing life into a vision for something deeper and more communal? 

This is the vague space in which my mind is operating as of late, and it is-to be sure-the kernel of a much longer work in the making. I know not how to express it in anything other than abstraction today. Right now I am being challenged to confront many of the questions addressed here head-on and determine how my reaction is something more than lamentation. What I crave, most desperately, is a remedy, even a model of the remedy, something I feel is largely lacking in our modern day America. I don't think the lesson that I am longing for will be found here in this city, but do believe that the process of discovering it will leave me changed forever. Adventure is on the horizon, and this one will most definitely be shared. As for now, hoping, waiting, and learning to enjoy the present moment, however small and simple.

Untitled Free Verse

I will write your story with my tears

blotted notebook, ink barely legible

You want to be known, loved, held

searching for someone who can understand

and won't abandon

You mask your troubles in fancy labels, ironed tops, and groomed brows.

But I see the glimpses of insecurity

Crunching away your sadness to the perfect abs

Supping on fresh salads, sushi, and organic smoothies

We dined together once

But I knew you no better before than after

A shadow hangs above you;

Can you see it?

Or have you gotten so used to the shade

that it seems like any other day?

You peddle your hours away in the white-walled box

or hobnobbing with elites and expensive diners

trying to make it to the top

or maybe, just getting by for now

Then you return home for a few drinks and some tv

A nice relief, they say, after a long day

On weekends you go out

Maybe for a show

Or maybe to a party.

It's all about seeing and being seen.

You make small talk.

You flirt.

Things look promising;

there's dancing, drinks, and more small talk

Life ticks faster everyday

and you wonder where it went

Wake up to thirty five

and say, have I lost myself?

The last thing you want to hear is yes

But the answer is likely lurking in the rearview

with ever-increasing clarity.

When was enough ever enough?

It never was nor will be.

Always more people to meet

More money and connections to make

More causes to fight

And wars to win

Economy slumps down

Then catapults back up

It's a rollercoaster

And we're all riding

Only problem is there are no seatbelts

I taste salt as the droplets slip down my cheek

Stare out into the sunset

And say, "something's gotta change"

Have you heard the slightest traces

of something altogether different?

Friends sitting around a table sharing life with one another

Glasses filled with lemonade

No money for good wine, but nobody minds.

Freshly cooked veg straight from mom's garden

No plans for the weekend but it's really just as fine

Some gardening, a stroll around town, to the market

Head buried in a book on Friday night

it's hardly the barking chant of HSB's elite

but something here is right

Somewhere in the world life is being lived

well

Children tucked softly away in bed

with no fear that daddy's coming home late

he's already home.

asleep. arms wrapped around mommy.

Old men passing the time in rocking chairs

telling stories from "the good old days"

Neighborhood get-togethers on the veranda

Citronella candles and cool iced-tea making the steamy summer evening bearable

It's hardly glamourous

But it's incredible.

Tears dry.

There's hope.

Take off the mask

and drop the pretenses

step into the sunshine

I know you're dying for a Saturday afternoon walk in the park

An evening feeding the geese at the waterside

Skip the playdate and take the kids for a picnic

Drop the camera and just be

You can't be everything they want you to be

and you don't want to

Heart begins to race with excitement

The laughlines peek out from hiding

and eyes sparkle with wonder

Never doubt again that such a thing is possible

It's spectacular for all it's simplicity.

Tears of sadness turned to tears of joy.

Never forget, there's always tomorrow.

"It's Complicated"

Ahh, the difficult web of relationships.

Tonight I went to see the film "500 Days of Summer." The movie is relatable on many levels for so many young adults: not doing what you're really passionate about because you don't think you can get there, dreaming big dreams that it seems might never come to pass, feeling lonely and longing for love as a cure for that loneliness.

Young and naive, we wander our way into adulthood, without a true manual showing us which way points north. Sure, our parents have done this, and stumbled through along the way. But, the world today is a different place, and while human nature is much the same, there are new complications. We must decide for ourselves whether the dreams of our youth were mere figments of imagination, whether things like true love and fate really exist, or if it's all mere chance. Nobody can really tell us how to do it until we live it and (by living it) know it for ourselves.

Meandering into a kaleidescope of visual stimuli and a delicious selection of folksy indie rock, mixed with a few Brit rock classics here and there, I found myself entranced in the imagery, along with the plot. The film's main character is trained as an architect, and yet he finds himself making greeting cards for a living. He reads Alain de Botton for fun and dreams of redesigning cities, but can't quite seem to understand that his path could involve becoming an architect. As he wanders along the course of life trying to find himself, he falls into a relationship (of sorts) with an intriguing young woman. Her mind and her personality stimulate him, and she's not bad on the eyes either, and so his interest grows rather quickly. Before even knowing her middle name (perhaps), he knows she's the one; of course. Boy with aimless ambition, but full of idealism, suddenly hitches his humble wagon to her sparkling star.

Plot thickens. Meanwhile, female lead says she doesn't want a commitment and doesn't need a man. She builds walls and barriers to keep said male from getting as close as he might like. The conversation's good, they like similar things, he engages some of her deepest longings...but something's always missing. She can't quite put her finger on it, until one day... Before revealing the plot, i'll stop.

What this film reminds me of as a young woman full of dreams and hopes, few of them realized, is that all is not lost. A secretly hopeless romantic still at heart-although I like to hide it even from myself (partly to shield myself from inner hurt and turmoil, and also partly to prevent a resurfacing of wounds from the past)-, I long for the day when I can truly say "this makes sense." Right now, it doesn't make sense. Almost everything is complicated, and I feel like an oyster without a shell. I'm tired of complicated relationships, i'm tired of putting effort into projects and ideas with seemingly little outcome, and i'm tired of always feeling like my deepest hopes will never come to pass. There's nothing worse than false hope: placing your heart's desires in something that doesn't pan out. Sometimes it's a relationship. Other times, it's a career path that doesn't quite work out. Mostly, it's holding life's circumstances to expectations that are probably a bit unrealistic. However, every now and then those deepest passions get stirred and our inner selves, often quenched by the world of adults and responsibility, reemerge-choking, gasping, begging for air.

As 500 Days' narrator weaves his tale, he shows us that those things longed for are worthwhile, they're just often misplaced. We live in a universe of infinite grandeur, with finite minds and bodies trying to comprehend it all. Sometimes, it all feels just a little too complicated for our liking and we just want to give up. We might like fun and games for a while, but eventually we tire of the daily grind, or even passing pleasures. Longing, most deeply, for something permanent, something real, something lasting, we ache for meaning. Sometimes the comprehension feels like grasping and groping along a muddied floor; other times glimmers of sunshine pierce through the rafters. This film, albeit melancholy, provides one of those glimmers for the hopeless romantic in us all.

pre-Easter meditations on life and creation

my eye is my camera
i see beauty, a crispness that is unmistakable
i see things that are not always as they should be
and i am left wanting more

my computer is my paper
i write words that somehow portray what life encapsulates
sometimes they are words of disenchantment
sometimes words of hope, and there is hope, a great hope for this world i live in
a hope that is mine, and founded upon the gospel of jesus christ
which has set me free to love this world, often in spite of itself, always because it is god's creation

my book is the world
i hear hurt, fear, sadness
i perceive lost hearts that crave something more
what we settle for is often astonishing...
i know that there is something more
i read this world every day and i want to speak into it
i want to love it passionately
i want to move in it in a way that is enriching, renewing, inspiring
i crave what i alone cannot achieve
and i alone won't achieve it
but that is the gospel, in its essence
because of the message of the gospel i have learned that i wasn't meant to live in my own strength

my heart is alive
and i want to engage what stands before me
because i have been set free from the bonds of sin
i live as one who is no longer dying
but awaiting the fulfillment of a story instated at the beginning of creation
i look ahead to my resurrection, as i look back at him who was resurrected on the third day
he died on the cross for my sins, and rose from the dead pointing towards a new life
he sits now, already, at the right hand of god, interceding on my behalf
i have a great savior, i have a great god
i live because of this
eternally
i will live forever because of this
i press on because of this
i have hope because of this
and life makes sense because of this
the truth has set me free

"So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed" -John 8:36