QUIET

(Inspired by Talking to Grief: Denise Levertov)

Let me take you in and let you become a part of me. For I am convinced that you cannot be convinced to leave, and since you must be here, you might as well be made comfortable. Then we can respect each other. I am afraid of dogs. I was, in my past. They were going to hurt me, I knew it. And so you will hurt me if you grow much more hungry.

The dilemma is now either feeding you, and making you stronger, but making you my friend, or keeping you destitute, so that when it comes time to drive you away it is much easier, because you are so weak. But you are a part of me and so I cannot hurt you except by hurting myself.

And I am already hurting so much.

I have been left by the one I always hid behind, and so I want to hide behind you. I should make you stronger, so that I can have something more substantial to block the interrupted stares as I glance around. I cannot bear to see you grow any closer, but you already share so much of me. You have taken over and will continue to take over what I did not even know I could relinquish.

Stop screaming silently in my ear!

I cannot hear anything but you. Get out of my head. You constantly revise your mantra. If you would only keep it the same so I could tune it out. Then I could say, oh, right, that’s you, I know how to stop that. But you always change. And I think that there is hope in the difference, but I only continue to drop deeper into despair.

Sinking.

Slipping deeper below the surface.

If I get far enough below the surface I will just be crushed, and that means that you will be crushed out of me. And then you will be silent.

Not Perfect

(Inspired by Imperfection: Elizabeth Carlson)

Do I love my imperfections? Am I trying to make them disappear? Am I too delicate? Too outspoken? Do I talk too much, or not enough? Why am I so concerned with how people think of me, but also so determined that they will not judge me? I want to be accepted. But only by the right people. Only by those who appreciate my imperfections. How did I get here? I surely don’t belong, or really deserve this.

I want to fall in love with my imperfections. I want to listen to the rain with Elizabeth.

I don’t have time. I have too much to do. I have to read for class, write my essays, prepare sermons, bible studies, mission moment stories. And even those I don’t do well enough. These things are good, they are tasks which will improve my skills, and make me a better…________.

But my imperfections are what I love about me. They are how I identify me. I may be too self involved, but I am myself. I am allowed to be an expert. If I need an afternoon to study my imperfections then perhaps I should take it.

We live in an imperfect world, and we are fooling ourselves when we say that we can make it perfect. It is impossible. And truly, we would not want to live in a world which we had made perfect. As my toughest critic, I now absolve myself of being perfect by my own power.

Not Perfect.

Loved.

Love to spend some time with you as you come to love your imperfections, too.

Love the way you talk, with a hesitation, but strong. Love the way you spend time praying in color. Love the way you cook for your friends so that time together is spent in fun. Love the way you can see the good in those who try to hurt you. Love the way you love.

Not Enough

Not enough time. Not enough sleep. Not enough preparation. Not enough friends. Not enough faith. Not enough.

I do not have enough patience to do this right. I find that I miss out on things that could be important. If I could only find new ways to look at it, I would be able to see. But I don’t have enough vision.

I don’t have enough grace to feel free with what I have. I need, I must keep it safe, and not be relaxed. I have to keep my head above the water. I do not have enough energy for this. I don’t have enough of me to keep giving out.

I am a limited resource.

I can only do so much, work so much, give so much.

But, what if…

What if I have it backwards? What if my keeping myself safe and protected is only keeping me from receiving what is bigger than me? What if the very act of keeping what I need keeps me from the openness of a grace that allows me to have my cup, and my life overflow?

Then let me have not enough pain, not enough sorrow, not enough grief, not enough suffering, not enough close-mindedness, not enough time for self pity, not enough strength on my own, not enough safety.

Let me have not enough, so that I can know that I am not the source, only the container. Fill me up from your infinite supply. Make me infinite by flowing through me.

Let me never have enough of you.

Still Evolving

My Ideas are evolving. I change. I adapt. I learn. I shift. I grow. I give new things to new people. I continue to take new challenges and to see and to learn new things. I venture out to new places. Each time I go somewhere, it is new because I am new. My self learns. My self changes. My self grows.

I am so glad that I am not stuck in one form, one place, or one time. My situation cannot help but improve. I am forced to be different. Different than I was, different than I will be. The time is different. So glad I am changing. Evolving. Still evolving.

As I began divinity school I did not know what I was getting myself into. I knew it would be hard. I did not realize the kind of hard it would be. I had to change the way I read, thought, spoke, reasoned, wrote. I was lost for a few months, steeped in the complex tapestry of the shifting faces and friends that I met each day. My worship changed. My singing changed. My understanding changed. I grew.

As I continue my ministry in school and at church I am struck by what I have been forced to change. I am drawn to consider all other positions, and respect the people who represent them. On any given day I can talk about Aquinas, Augustine, Aristotle, Yoder, Dante, Milton, and Satan. Sometimes all in the same conversation.

My mind is ever required to come to new places and new conclusions. I am having to learn to see things in new ways. I would not have it any other way. The creature of my mind is becoming ever new. Continuous rebirth and resurrection overtake me each time I find a new direction to approach a controversial idea. As ideas overtake my mind, I am washed in the violent flood of a refreshing source of growth.

And my mind is still evolving.

Bird Song

Soft snow.
Soft branches.
Soft whites.
Soft blues.
Soft footprints trailing behind the little girl
Walking amid the twilit snow
Dressed in red.
Red.
Bright red.
Eyes downcast and watching the ground
As she walks beneath the birch trees
Alone.
Little does she know that her red
Matches the red of the birds watching her.
She does not look up.
She cannot hear them over the wind rushing through her hair
Over her ears
Against her coat
As she hides her hands from the biting cold.
The little red birds sing:
The cold of winter will soon pass
But we will still sing
The days are now short but will
Grow long again
And we will fly away.
We may return, but you may not
The time when we could be friends is passing
As you pass under us.
We hide in plain sight,
Sharing your colours.
Time is fleeting as they flit between the branches.
She does not hear them.
She does not know they are there.
And the day draws to a close.

Taps, Continued…

I tried my hand at free verse when I was a teenager, but to be perfectly honest, that was driven more by a idle fascination with magnetic poetry than anything else. So when I began to take this spiritual formation group that had me write each week, I was not prepared for the poetry that sprung out of my fingers onto the screen. My mother discovered that I was writing again—after trying to teach me to write for twelve years—and so she read what I wrote, but did not understand my poetry.

To be perfectly honest, sometimes I don’t understand it.

Over break, however, I went to an interment for a veteran from our church. I wrote a poem about the experience because that was the only way that I felt that I could respond to the moment, through poetry. Prose did not seem adequate.

Coming out of that, and because of that, I now feel more comfortable with the possibility that I could continue to write poetry. Like the rest of my writing, ask me a year ago and I would have thought that you would have been crazy for the suggestion. I suppose that really I was crazy, because I had allowed this part of me to lie so dormant.

I wonder what besides just the practice of continual writing has made me more of a writer. Was it the relationships I am in, the experiences I had the opportunity of engaging in, or just the base force of writing for class to release what has seemed at times to be a gushing river of words streaming out of me.

I wonder.

Rubbernecking Haiti

I’ve been in a surprising number of earthquakes for a young woman born and raised in the south. When I was in undergrad we had one that stretched out of Tennessee and all the way to LaGrange. While I was in Kenya, my parents and I felt two or three, and the quakes continued after they returned to the States. But all of these earthquakes were small, the earth shaking just enough to be exciting. I wonder if that is how the quake in Haiti began.

Haiti is probably like many two thirds world countries, especially considering it is among the poorest of the world nations, that the houses are not built to be earthquake resistant. If the houses are built like any that I have seen or heard of in places like that, they are built floor by floor, stacking each upon the former, creating the perfect death trap in an earthquake. But I have never been to Haiti, and have only heard news reports through the years.

I didn’t hear about the quake in Haiti until Wednesday afternoon as I was checking my email before preaching. At first I didn’t know what was going on, how strange it is to me to receive my news through the prayer beginning class. Later, I checked my web news sources (pretentiously: NPR and BBC) to find out what had happened Tuesday night.

I thought about going to Haiti when I was in High School, but the trip fell through, and so going to Haiti fell out of my mind. I participated in fundraisers for trips to go, but never really cared to go myself. Until now. What is it about a disaster that makes us all want to focus on the despair and unfortunate circumstances of those in crisis, especially when they are so close, but previously so easy to ignore.

Now, because of this earthquake, Haiti will receive more notice and attention, until the next disaster. A week ago you could text ten dollars to provide clean water in Africa, now you can text ten dollars to the relief work in Haiti. It is so easy to do that and say that we did something, and forget that we have still the opportunity and perhaps the command to do more than merely send a text. Unfortunately, many will go to Haiti in the next few months, and then promptly go in search of a new disaster, forgetting that Haiti will need assistance for many years down the road. (Lets face it, Haiti may need help forever. I could talk about the cycle of aid/need but that’s not what this is about.)

I would hope that we can continue to pray for the people of Haiti. But also I pray that God would use this situation in Haiti to show others, those of us who consider ourselves more fortunate, that we have still much to learn about how God’s provision works.

Taps

The twenty-one gun salute

Made me jump all three times.

They shot live rounds

Into the cold blue sky.

Taps on a bugle.

Cold lips and winter air.

Respect and valor.

Nine men who had not met the dead Major

Honored him with their presence.

Careful steps

Careful folds

Careful movements

Tearful eyes

Quiet words to a grieving woman.

Relief.

Assurance.

Healing.

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Are you sure? Really?

Perhaps not.

In a time when we are all caught up in the hullaballoo of the culmination of the season, it is easy to forget what we are celebrating. But it is also easy to forget in our celebrations those who are unable to celebrate.

When we force our festivities on those around us without looking to see what is going on in their lives, we place those in our community in a place of additional discomfort. Though this may be the most wonderful time of the year because we are celebrating Christ’s birth, it is not wonderful for everyone. For many of us, even those of us who are able to have a comfortable place to live, and enough to have elaborately set tables and extravagant gifts for friends and family, we still may be caught up in dilemmas and problems beyond our control.

Forcing those in the community to celebrate without recognizing the brokenness in the lives of the individuals makes us less of a community and more of a general grouping of individuals with needs and desires going in all different directions. When we assume that everyone is going to have a good time, we make them take on a façade of happiness which tears them down even more.

As a true community we are called to celebrate with those around us, and mourn with those who mourn. This is not a call to always be weepy around everyone, or manic at every festivity, but to be reasonable about the realities in which we live.

Think of those who are experiencing their first Christmas after losing a loved one or a broken relationship. They cannot have the full celebration if they are not allowed to grieve. I imagine if I lost a loved one during my favorite time of the year I would be torn between missing them, being aggravated that my season was messed up, and annoyed at myself for thinking that way.

Instead of assuming that this is the most wonderful time of the year, we can wait, look, and see into the depth of each person’s life, and see the amazing work that God is in the process of working, in times of pain, and in times of joy.

I pray that this is a time of joy for you, in the midst of the craziness.

Christmas Eve

I arrived home yesterday to a beautifully decorated house. My mother enjoys having her house decorated for each season, so there are decorations up in every room in the house. The trees are decked out in all possible ways, and the house feels like Christmas.

Since I began living away from home this is the latest that I have ever arrived home on break. It seems that Christmas has come much sooner, even though I had put up a tree in my apartment at school. Even though it took longer for me to get home than usual, I still am ready for the season, for the day, for tonight.

Tonight is Christmas eve.

It is my favorite time of the year. This is my favorite day of the year. In my living memory, I have had only two days which were not normative, the day of the tornado, and the day I spent in Paris with my sister. Unfailingly, I spend Christmas Eve with family. Even the year I was in Kenya, I was able to come home to celebrate with my loved ones.

I love Christmas Eve because (I don’t work in retail, and my prayers go out to all who are chained today) it is the day of anticipation. I am awaiting what will happen the next day. After coming through the busy time and the time of preparation during Advent, we have been building up to the celebration of Christ’s birth.

The service which we have for Christmas Eve has changed over the years, but one tradition which our family has continued to practice is to lead Silent Night during the final lighting of the candles at the end of the service. As we sing to dad’s guitar we watch the sanctuary fill with the gradual light of the individual candles that then light up each face as we continue to sing the verses of the Hymn. For the longest time, it was my favorite song. As we watched the light fill the room, and then watched the room dim again with the meditative emptying of the sanctuary, the light was calm and beautiful.

As a child this was my favorite, almost even more than Christmas, because of the possibilities. The excitement that is part of the season comes to fullness, and the moment before we fulfill it is a time when we are ready to be the most loving, and the most forgiving. In our family, at least. As I continue to mature, I have realized that half of the fun of most things for me is the anticipation and expectation in the celebration of any given event. It is not that it has to be exactly how I planned it, but it is that I am looking forward to it, and looking forward to a surprise. Generally, it is a good surprise.

So, God, let me be surprised to see how you have been working, and let me see the work you want me to do, so I can anticipate a fuller future in you.

Grace and Peace to you this Christmas.