words are stupid, anyway

“Whatever strength the task required I lacked.
No well-stitched words could suture shut these wounds
and so I stopped…”    

             

We turn JOY backwards when it’s already upside down

There are three generally acknowledged obligations that we expect ourselves to fulfill as Christians.  We’ve all used the JOY acrostic, though ironically, we often approach them in the opposite order:

1. You:Your obligation to yourself: how to be happy healthy and safe.

2. Others:Your obligation to the world: how we take care of others and find a useful niche or purpose.

3. Jesus:Your obligation to God: how you serve him with heart-soul-mind-and-strength, how you run the race with endurance, strive for holiness and obedience, etc.

Now, there is a generally known (if not acknowledged) way of handling these obligations, as I stated. To fulfill them you have to 1.Do whatever it takes to be happy healthy and safe, 2.Do good things because people need you to, and 3.Obey God because he commanded you to. JOY. YOJ. Whatever.

It sounds simple. Sure. But then sometimes these people come along and say things that upset the assumed balance of how these obligations are carried out. I’ve compiled a short list of what people have said on each of these areas. (I’m a quoter – If somebody else says something better than I do, then I’ll let them say it!)

To the first obligation, here comes John Eldredge, author of Wild At Heart, and he says,

“There are three desires I find written so deeply into my heart I know now I can no longer disregard them without losing my soul…” The three desires kick off his list of What Every Man Is Made Of,  and the list is:  1) a battle to fight, 2) an adventure to live, and 3) a beauty to rescue – (though, as a woman not in need of a Beauty To Rescue, I think that my third need aligns more in the area of being useful, on giving something that is needed to somebody who needs it – a rescue of sorts, I suppose)

Now, maybe I’m the only one, but this sounds a lot different than the whole HappyHealthySafe idea!  Battles and Danger and Rescuing are not guaranteed happy, or healthy, and especially not safe!

To the second obligation, Gil Baile upsets the whole process of finding a way to be useful:

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

What can I say to that? Upside down or what?

And to the last obligation perhaps is the biggest upset. After listening to a service one day on “running the race” and focusing hard on obedience to Christ, I was walking out of the chapel trying to set my jaw, realign.  My friend Will Thrasher, not usually a man of many words, (or maybe I just didn’t expect it) said suddenly, “You can run the race with endurance, but if you don’t have the joy to live, you’re DONE.”

And he left me with my jaw hanging open.
Because he’s SO RIGHT.
Because I’ve been there. I’ve been in that jaw-set, joyless dry time, and it’s like he said –it’s like the end of a race when things are going so well, you may even be edging ahead, and then…your muscles suddenly stop working. You pull and reach and grit your teeth. You flail your arms. Your legs turn to jelly. And you feel like you are going nowhere. Collapse across the finish line. Forget finishing strong, just trying to survive.

That’s not the way it is supposed to be!

I’ve been fighting my own battle with this soul-desire concept. Here’s the truth: Desperate, far-reaching, crazy desires do not fit in to the neat little box of our culture. Deep hopes and dreams aren’t always “This is what a person should do to be happy, healthy, and safe.”

It’s like the monsters said, in Where the Wild Things Are:
“Happiness isn’t always the best way to be happy, anyway.”

I think they’re right. “Happiness” is a shallow goal at best. I think that I need to be coming alive, embracing danger, being as whole as possible on this broken earth, in order to be most useful. I need to be engaged in life’s battles, in tune with my God-given desires, and seeking out the joy of the Lord! (For the record, JOY = way different than happy.)

“God just wants you to be happy” may be bogus, but joy is another matter. God calls us to run the race with endurance, but, as it talks about in I Peter, we can do so because we are filled with his inexpressible, his glorious joy that gives us strength to run, to fight, to be used by Him!

(Also for the record – receiving joy does require obedience. In case anyone was confused.)

 
 A few years ago I made a pact with myself to put myself out there. To take risks. Not let the world’s ideas take precedence. And I’m going for it!

I know there will be a lot of reevaluating to be done. Scratch that. I think there will be a lot of FACEPLANTS and reconstructive surgery to be done! Figuring out the difference between my selfish desires and my God-given desires requires constant refocus, since my own sinful ones tend to vie for my attention.

It’s a risk. I might fail. Um, I will fail. But not to try is at the peril of my own soul, and with it the work that God is doing and what he wishes to do in the future. And fortunately, He’s got my back. And my pupils. And my footsteps.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

As a last note on the desires thing, I’m with Mumford and Sons, learned the hard way and now I’m saying,
“God,
here are my desires/and I will give them up to You this time around!

/and so I’ll be found/with my stake stuck in this ground/marking the territory of/this beauty-impassioned soul.”

(hallelujah amen.)

For accountability’s sake, I’ve tried to put into words how I mean to do this – deliberately, intentionally. It’s a constantly evolving list, but I’ve tried to say it here in a more practical, less metaphysical way: how I want my moments to be filled:

because i have already been poured full of the grace of God and am aware of that grace each hour, I want

to live simply,

deeply

and fully

surrounded by those I can love

influence,

and learn from.

I want to work with my hands,

delight in every day

to create

and emanate

beauty

embrace adventure

and through it all -

to point up.

why my biography keeps getting shorter

I keep trying to come up with a biography for myself. Like all the other writers. You know, the ones with blogs containing updates every Monday and Wednesday and a readership in the thousands. The blogs that have tantalizing titles and wry humor and sepia photography that makes you drool with envy. The writers with fascinating lives, that drop everything to travel across the country or cook thier way through classics in a year. Who homestead. homeschool. Live in urban community houses or nowhere or everywhere. Dare and dream and seem to have it all figured out, or at least how to write splendid posts about not having it figured out.

A biography that would make me sound like them.

like this:

She grew up reading books, any books, and collecting blank ones even though she didn’t know why. Now she knows – and has spent the last 12 years teaching herself to write, filling up her childhood collection with stories of her past and hopes for her future. She is bookworm turned athlete, barefoot runner, rock climber, freelance writer and aspiring world-traveler. Whether across the country to the mountains of California, in the pages of a book, or a lone stowstorm quest for chocolate, she is always looking for an adventure. She is engaged to the proverbial “man of her dreams” – who encourages her to be even more adventurous than she already is. She counts the tiniest blessings that her Father gives her even as her bucket list gets bigger every day. She dreams of a career in writing, traveling, and making a home for a family, (preferably sons), and being used by God in magnificent ways. For now, she is stuck in Indiana, making the most of it and fighting off frustration and abnormal amounts of emotional turmoil for being such a tomboy…

Ah, see, there are so many problems with this…starting with the fact that I’m not a famous writer or blogger! How can I even have a blog that is exciting enough to read?

I don’t live anywhere spectacular – I live in Indiana, for heaven’s sake, arguably one of the most boring places in the country, (I said arguably – I’m not a hater!) and I like poetry! (NO ONE likes poetry anymore. It’s just not cool.)

I’m a very definitive wannabe – I’m not backpacking across the world, though I wish I was, and I don’t have a string of lucrative jobs that leave me with paychecks big enough for plane tickets – I’m not even living in New York or Boston or any other big, bright, interesting city. I’m not a stay-at-home mom with eight kids, I didn’t build my own house out of hewn logs or create a garden in the middle of a city. I’m just an ametuer writer and photographer who has been told she has a good eye and a way with words- I’ll have to work my way up to the rest.

Here are a few true things, though, about me:

I’m a fifth year college student trying to gain enough credibility as a writer to get paid doing what I am passionate about.

I’m a returning athlete with five months to run a half mile in 2 minutes and 9 seconds and to say goodbye to the team I’ve known and loved for the last four years.

I’m a perfectionist trying to relax enough to take in all the glorious beauty of the world around me, trying to treasure the small and the simple.

I’m a fear-addict trying to force routine into courage and boldness, and dare enough impossible things to achieve some of them.

I’m a woman with big hopes for the future and a best friend and a wedding in June,

I’m an artist

a storyteller

a bit of tomboy,
(but not quite as much as I wish I was)

always thirsty for adventure, hungry for home.

I’m grace-catcher, trying to embrace and then reflect the gifts I’ve recieved.

I have a blog because I need to practice – practice writing and putting myself out there. I have one because, as kristenmark (thewesternwood.wordpress.com/ - I can’t for the life of me figure out how to make the word a link because I am technologically challenged) called it, the “the courage, or perhaps it is impertinence” to publish my thoughts. 

That’s me, right now. Not a list of accomplishments from my past, embellished to sound as if I were some sort of world-conqueror. As they say, memories without dreams are an anchor weighing you down. I need to face forward.

And anyway, not knowing what is going to happen can be very exciting.

The Meeting Before the Incarnation

I can imagine them sitting around up there
through the long midnight hours
over cups of stale coffee and whiteboards crossed and recrossed in faded ink
the morning waits coiled and the hours peel back
there is nothing left to say
or plan.

finally

God leans forward, sets his cup down.
“Well, son,” he says, slowly,
“this is a high-risk investment. It’s all or nothing now.”

the morning coming will be the sort you get up
long before dawn cracks the world,
so early you shake and the veins in your fingers are shot with ice.

“you ready for this?”
it wasn’t really a question.
Jesus nods slow.
the sky turns dawn-grey.

Traveler

you see the house with the winsome picket fence, the
dusky summer-glow curling round the porch
 the crimson geraniums,
her blue flower-print apron.

you hear the idle whistling farmer on the
gravel path
watch the winding valleys roll by
matching his history to thier curves

you see the waitress’ laughing face and her
red lipstick and her ruffled dress
and maybe the jukebox is singing
jauntily

you see the whirl the lights the noise the music
the corner-cafes and galleries
you have the paragraph, you
fill in the page

“Oh,”
you say,
“wouldn’t this be a beautiful place
to settle down?”

There’s a reason the wanderer wanders.
he is following the scent of home
   always
just ahead.

In the next city.

septembery things

The sky is the color
   of storm
and wind
 howls out the window.

We’re opening an old, old book    
  of memories and
tales 
   fuller than the words
themselves.

We are gathered in to its
        scope
cupped by
wind and story
                        crouched
hearts taut
eyes wide

         it’s time
           to turn
                   the
                       page

to all my pining friends, after i’ve found what i’ve always looked for

 

You love so hard
but you are learning to carry around heartbreak
         like the common cold

I don’t have any advice for you. What could I say, anyway?
   “Don’t worry, one day
someone will wink at you in the coffee shop
     then call by chance
and five hours on the phone will surprise you with
     the One You’ve Been Waiting For
      on the other end”?

That’s crazy. That wouldn’t help.

     But maybe
we can take small comfort
    (or take fright)
to know
    the small secret heart-swellings
       don’t go away
just because you found your soul-friend and
                      he loves you fierce and true.

sometimes the pining remains
   just to fill someone
         who’s
               aching

 

why i haven’t posted

because I haven’t been writing, exactly. I’ve been baking.
here’s a splendid poem…by somebody else.

The Poet’s Occasional Alternative
by Grace Paley

I was going to write a poem
I made a pie instead it took
about the same amount of time
of course the pie was a final
draft a poem would have had some
distance to go days and weeks and
much crumpled paper
the pie already had a talking
tumbling audience among small
trucks and a fire engine on
the kitchen floor
everybody will like this pie
it will have apples and cranberries
dried apricots in it many friends
will say why in the world did you
make only one

this does not happen with poems
because of unreportable
sadness I decided to
settle this morning for a re-
sponsive eatership I do not
want to wait a week a year a
generation for the right
consumer to come along

this is the best I can say it.

nor can foot feel, being shod.
-Gerard Manley Hopkins, God’s Grandeur

 

I have raced barefoot for four years now. My freshman year, on a wet, green spring, I took off my shoes before the 800 meter, and I have ever since.
                People always ask me, “but doesn’t’ that hurt?”

                Some say that taking off your shoes puts you closer to the earth, that it keeps you sensitive and alert. For me, it meant that and more, for it held a mental as well as physical significance. Sure, it seemed exiting, daring, unique. But it was also a vulnerable act – both literally and figuratively. Taking off my shoes exposes my sole to anything sharp in the way. It makes people talk. It pounds tender plantar arches and heels to the gravel and rocks and heat of the ground. But it also pulls my spine and hips into alignment. It forces my arches to stay strong and firm against the earth, it makes my knees rise faster and my ankles spin more times a minute. Taking off my shoes made me faster than ever.

                                Yes, it hurts sometimes. It’s a risk.
                But it’s worth it.

                I’m a senior now.  Over spring break, I took a last-hurrah trip to California with my team. We flew to Santa Barbara, where the mountains are low and green.  From the valley, the mountains are not so special – your average big and beautiful. But I know better.  I spent a day clambering around barefoot up their rapid-rivers and rock-faces. That evening, some of us decided to take the long trail to Tangerine Falls.  It was a much longer climb than any of us realized, and we hadn’t expected it to grow dark so quickly.  Some of us had to turn back, for it was dark and the way was dangerous. I could sense the perilousness of the climb – the stony cliff-face on my left, and the cold breath of the ravine drifting up on my right. My fingers and feet had to be my eyes in the dark, seeing the narrow path in front of me, toehold by toehold, hand-over-hand. Every crevice was important.
                We could hear a roar somewhere in the distance, and every once in a while we could see a pale ribbon suspended against the black shape of the mountain…and then it would disappear again above the trees. A Mumford song was stuck in my head, and I started humming aloud to help me concentrate on every step, to keep the wet rocks and muddy patches sure against my heels.

                  “Keep the earth below my feet,” I was singing.
                “for all my sweat my blood runs weak. Let me learn from where I have been, keep my eyes to serve my hands to learn.”

We all had to concentrate, take it slow, feel everything. We pulled each other up.
The trail grew steeper, and sometimes it disappeared.  Handhold by handhold we crept up the mountain. Finally, our guide pulled himself up to a crevice in the rock.
                “Here we are,” he said, and pulled me up over the last precipice.

                The tiny ledge cupped the six of us against the midnight roar of the waterfall. I had never been so close to something so big. We sat there breathless against the cold rock, not sure how to say or sing or mean anything other than quiet awe. Far below us, tucked between the shoulders of the mountains, we could see the Santa Barbara lights, and the harbor, and the oil-rigs flickering like a fleet of pirate ships against the black ocean. And the falls itself hurtled past our ears, clear and cold like the sky. Leo, the lion constellation, rubbed its mane against the crash of the waterfall.
                We sat there for a long time in the dark. It was worth every danger.

That’s what’s supposed to draw us together, isn’t it? Struggling. Together. Like Shakespeare said, “He today that sheds his blood with me/ shall be my brother!”
                The words give me chills every time I read them – such noble thoughts! But demanding ones. It sounds far easier (and more poetic) on a page then to actually live out in the real world. The act itself of shedding blood or time or tears is an act of vulnerability– to struggle together, we must be willing to show our cowardice, our selfishness, our stupid decisions and sharp words. That is difficult blood to draw! Sometimes I think it’s easier to have physical flesh be broken than risk the tearing of souls, which exposes clearly all of the mangled chaos inside.

                Being a runner creates a natural environment for that sort of bond. First, there’s training, which hurts as a fact. But the act, the race itself is always vulnerable, painful. I have to be ready for anything; to let everyone who watches see my stride shorten, my endurance slip and my strength fade. Sometimes my sole bleeds.
                But from the roar of the crowd emerges the only voices I care to hear – my teammates, my fellows, urging my on with gentle pleadings, urgent shouts, and, nearing the end, roars of desperate excitement, louder than the rest of the crowd together.
                That is how I feel about my team. Soul-baring does that. Common goals, common struggle and pain – mental, emotional, sweat, blood, and (I am a girl) lots of tears – forms a bond, a brotherhood, and it draws us all together in its web. We strengthen each other.

                I don’t like the thought of leaving my team. You know the rhetoric: There is a time for everything, the end of something good is the beginning of something better. It’s all true. And it will still hurt a while regardless. But I’ve decided something: 
                 I want to keep the earth below my feet.  I don’t want to miss anything.
               

 Yes. It hurts. It’s a risk. But I can say truly – from where I have been, what I have learned…
                It’s worth it.

 

three definitions of hope

words are coming. but they are not ready yet. so here are some words that aren’t mine:

hope
is the power of being cheerful in circumstances that we know to be desperate.

hope 
is aggression in its most elegant form.

hope
begins in the dark

(G.K. Chesterton, Katie Blemker + 2010 Acura TL, Anne Lamott)