Lay Down

Early this week I sorted through a file box, trying to organize various pieces of paperwork that I don't yet trust to digital. In the file box is one slim folder that holds a few memories - "Personal Mementos" is scrawled on the curling tab of the manila folder.  Inside this folder is a print out of an email sent to me in 2000 by a woman who I had worked with on a  summer missions project. That this scrap of paper has survived three cross-country moves is a testament to why it is in a battered "memento" folder.

The email begins with an epigraph.

"But the God that sometimes can't be found will wrap Himself around you. So lay down, sister, lay down." - B. Norman

The internet tells me that these words are from the song "Rita" by Bebo Norman - It's a sad song, about the death of a friend. I don't think I ever knew that before this week.   I just knew that this week, as they did 14 years ago, those words filled my soul in some way that made me take a deep, cleansing, breath.

Those words have resonated through my head countless times in the past 14 years. If not the words themselves,  then the simple truth of them has been there even when I couldn't remember them exactly or where I heard them first.

This is the beauty of poetry to me - that words become life - take on shape and have meaning. It is not just a sentence - it is imbued with something more. The poet (or songwriter) has chosen words carefully, caring about more than syntax. .

In the many years since those words first appeared on a computer screen and prompted me to hit print - one constant thing about God in my life is that even when he can't be found (or, frankly, when I didn't want to find him) - that somehow he was wrapped around me. There was a thread tangled and wrapped somewhere around my wrist, or an ankle, or a tiny corner of my soul, sometimes tugging with force, sometimes barely perceptible, but always there. I can remember describing the feeling as "God won't let go" in the midst of feeling like God could not be found. It is a paradox - but what in this faith is not?

For my Lenten practice - I have been journaling lament and this little phrase fits well into this experience. Lament is about sorrow and pain and loss - - things that if you spend enough time focusing on, your only recourse is to lay down, lay down. And the truth of these words written into my soul 14 years ago prove true again - that I find God wrapped around me. I'm pretty new to observing anything liturgical like Lent. I've never done an Ash Wednesday service - never had the cross smudged onto my forehead - but this year I am seeing anew that God who wraps himself around me, giving beauty for ashes I didn't even know I still carried around. Strengthening areas that are too-often governed by fear.  Putting firm foundation under the my feet and lighting a path. It is not what I expected from my Lenten journey of lament. I think I expected more sadness. But I am finding that when I mourn and dare to question God about the pain and brokenness in this world, in my life, that I find the God who wraps himself around me.

Taking Up Space

If I had written a "What I've Been Into" post for the month of July it would be about how I've been reorganizing my apartment. My two roommates from last year moved out and three new women are moving in soon. July was my in-between time. I pushed furniture around, cleared out cabinet spaces, scrubbed and vacuumed.  While I occasionally started to get a bit lonely, I enjoyed the month of introverted bliss.

One of the main projects was to make sure that all of the three new ladies would have enough space. Last year it was just two of us for a while, and then when a third person moved in she didn't need much space. So, my things were quite spread out around the apartment. I've been re-organizing and condensing kitchen and bathroom shelves, emptying out what was an extra closet last year so that the fourth person could have it, and trying to maximize the space in my own closet and under my bed. 

I've been working hard to make sure that the space is as equitable as possible, but the bedrooms are different sizes and mine (that I'll share with one other person) is the big one. I realized I was battling some type of guilt over that, despite the fact that I was not the architect. Last year, when we were divvying up kitchen cabinets I took the smallest one, trying to be fair or generous or something, and soon found the tiny sliver of a cabinet unsuitable for my stock of various lentils and beans, vinegars and oils. In reorganizing the kitchen this past month - I arranged some of the dishes into that tiny cabinet, leaving one large cabinet free for each person's food storage. (One is slightly smaller, but I freed up a drawer for whoever gets that cabinet.)

The other night as I agonized over square inches, shelf space, and equitable proximity to power outlets,  it hit me, "I'm afraid I'm taking up too much space."

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When I buy airline seats I am very methodical. I check the make and model of the plane on seat guru and analyze the inches of width in the seat design of various planes.  I choose my seat near the window, not for the view, but for the ability to lean my body into the unoffended wall and away from the presumed discomfort of my flight neighbor-to-be. On the morning of, I dress nicely to prevent the "lazy slob" description. I arrive early, so that I can board in the correct zone and slide into my seat before my row mates arrive and I have to squish my body through.

A few months ago, I flew stand-by. I jumped from gate to gate waiting on a flight, any flight to get me to my destination. A couple of minutes before takeoff my name got called. I made my way down the aisle of the almost-full plane and glanced at the letters above the seats and realized I had a middle seat. I took a deep breath as I saw my seat - one empty slot between two seats filled by slender men. "Excuse me, that's my seat!" I said with a smile. He got up and let me through. I avoided eye contact for fear of seeing annoyance or even disgust. I buckled my belt (relieved that it fit) and squeezed my arms together, pulling in my wide chest in the process. I made myself as narrow as possible.

Somewhere in the flight I relaxed out of necessity. One can only hold a squeezed-in position for so long. But as I relaxed and realized the world didn't end and my neighbors didn't huff in disgust I mentally relaxed as well. This is my body. It takes up this space. It deserves the space it inhabits. My neighbors' long legs were folded up awkwardly in the space between his seat and the one in front of us. His legs were not wrong, they are not committing some social travesty by needing more room to be comfortable. Neither was my width. Here, the airline had shrunk and crammed: every inch a dollar sign. Money was deemed more important than people. It was a choice I submitted to when I boarded a plane, but their focus on profit did not mean my body was wrong. My fellow passengers had made the same choice - to fly in a coach seat with unknown neighbors. 

Outline is Me. :) 

I'm no psychotherapist - but I'd call the fears of "taking up too much space," whether it's my body on a plane or my life in an apartment, related.  Realizing that connection helped me breath a little easier about the apartment sharing. I'm doing my best to set things up to be equitable. I'm more than open to the input of my future roommates and to share the things I have. The best I can do is be me and thankfully that is all that is required.

Candles and Cast Iron

My kitchen is full of objects that tell the story from whence I came.

A black cast iron skillet that stays on the stove top once held permanent residence in the kitchen of my grandmother. Southern comfort food was served from that skillet for years on the farm my father was raised.

 I run hot water, squirt dish soap, and wipe a rag over white dishes rimmed in blue flowers; it is a ritual that the hands of my mother's mother performed who knows how many times on these same thin plates.

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I sometimes wonder about how I see scripture. Literally - how I see it - how certain words pop off the pages I've read countless times and how some of them seem to blur into the black text on the thin white pages, unremarkable.

My field of vision is illuminated by candlelight.  Small flickering flames only lighting part of the page.

One candle for each life experience. One candle that is that memory verse I learned as a child about Jesus being the light of the world.  There is also the candle I earned when life taught me about regret and betrayal and remorse.  That light flickers over words that tell of smoldering wicks that will not be quenched.  Another candle, one that smells of hyssop, joins the crowd. And then there is the group of three, powerful in their communal strength, one candle for each time I prayed for that thorn to be removed and they shine light on the words about pain and anguish. One more standing stronger still near them -this one all about lighting up grace.

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I didn't know my grandmothers well.

One was 15 hours away. The other six. The one further away made the journey to visit us about once a year. We returned the favor about the same, with waning frequency the older my brothers and I got. The closer one was afforded a few more visits. I have a few more memories of farm life and her mannerisms than I do the other. But, I didn't know my grandmothers.

Yet, it is important to me, significant, to use their kitchen ware. It is important to me to feel connected to this part of my past in some tangible way. To remember the lives of women who each had their victories and struggles. Somehow it reminds me that I am not an independent being sprung from nothingness. My immediate family did not poof into existence. There is history and blood and legacy - for good and bad. My life is enriched in the remembrance of such.

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The most beautiful thing is: I'm not the only one with candles. I did not spring into faith from nothingness. There are countless women and men who have held their bundle of candles through the centuries. From pillars of fire in the dessert to the flames that consumed the bodies of saints of old, the legacy of this faith has passed from generation to generation. It has been refined and explained. Abused and muddled. It is a long legacy and all of these people have left their lights, shining on the pages of scripture, shining on my life. They are a chandelier: thousands upon thousands of flames, a great cloud of lights above me.

And if I take the time to look, I will see them teach me, "Here is how we light the candle - how we've done it for centuries."

My cluster of candles do provide more light than only a single one, but it's nothing compared to the disorienting, but ultimately brilliant glow of the gathered candles of all the saints. 

Heavy and Full: a love letter to my body

Linking up with a synchroblog at She Loves.


Dear Body,

Your fifth grade classmate pointed out that you were the first to look like a woman. It was not a compliment. You turned your face down in shame. But chin up, dear one. You have always been heavy and full, defying fashion's cute little insistence that a halter top is not actually a neck-breaking torture device. Bursting the seams of life with your wideness and waves that defy the stringent rules of straight lines.

Body, this I promise you: I will not squeeze you, strain you, or compress you to meet an unattainable ideal. I will not wish for another body simply because the world has not yet learned how to embrace your greatness sufficiently.

You have been knit together. Strong and Sturdy. Delicate and Fragile. You will break and heal. You have scars and beauty marks.

I will remind you of what exactly the design of the Creator God has made you heavy and full of. You are full of promise, passion, forgivness, intelligence, and stubbornness. You are heavy with possibility, strength, humanity, courage, love, and, yes, even (especially) beauty.

Embrace the momentum of the passionate Creator and find your heaviness to be a force.


Love,
Me


P.S. And there is nothing, not even a little part, of you that is empty because you have not grown life inside of you and given it birth and nourishment.

Girl Meets Life

Or, God writes more than love stories.


Dear 18 year old self,

I am writing this letter to you from a few months shy of your 30th birthday. I know you were so anxious to actually be an adult and not just feel like one, so that age doesn't scare you at all. However, you're going to need to brace yourself for this next part because almost-30 looks absolutely nothing like you imagined it would.


I send this letter to find you on the eve of the beginning of your undergraduate life. You are so scared. You chose a school close to home so you could commute and avoid the uncertainty of dorm life filled with unknown people and tales of communal bathrooms where someone might glimpse your imperfect body.

You chose the option where you could live at home, and yet you are still filled with anxiety. This was not your dream. You didn't want to go to school. All you wanted out of life was a family. You would've been perfectly happy to be married at 18 with babies soon on the way. Had that happened, I'm sure you would've been great at it. But, it didn't happen. It still hasn't happened.

Don't freak out.

You're totally ok with your life.

(Ok, maybe not "totally" - but you're happy and have a future and a pretty awesome life.)

Look at you! (somewhere around 18, before we stuck pictures of ourselves on the internet all the time.)

Let me highlight a few things that you're going to learn that will make all the difference:

If you look for it, God fulfills your dreams in many ways. You are not yet a "mom" at almost-30, but you've been blessed to hear "Happy Mother's Day!" from children whom you mother. You'll see people who need that mothering instinct and you'll figure out how to use that. What's more, while being a mother will always be your greatest dream, you'll recognize that there are things that happen in your life that couldn't have happened had you started motherhood early and you'll appreciate the bigger picture.

Right now you're still scared of the unknown, but soon, you're going to get a taste of adventure and seeing life from different perspectives and you'll be excited to experience ife in different places. That's gonna happen, and you're going to love it! Eventually, you are going to love the thrill of the unknown. You will thrive on those experiences that promise either great success, or defeat. Really, you will.

You're going to get your heart broken. You'll waver between trying to fix it with anger, trying to fix it with kindness, and trying to fix it with indifference. Eventually, you'll realize it's not going to get "fixed" and you will let yourself feel the hurt and shame of it all. At some point, it will be a fogged-over memory and almost as if it happened to someone else with only the occassional itching of the scar it left behind to remind you that it is part of your story. Mostly, though, you're going to be ok.

That body of yours? It's awesome. It is strong and capable. When you stop hating it, you'll take care of it. You are not what society labels your body type. You will prove them wrong again and again. You will feel beautiful. You will dance. You will let yourself be hugged and held without worrying about if your body is being judged.

Also, you are so creative! I know, I know, you are not the artist in the family. Your painting of Christmas ornaments is horribly childish. Poetry is overly complicated. And, what is with abstract art? You know what though? You totally could have rocked art school (Yeah, I know, that secret little dream of yours that you pursued for about two seconds before you dropped it because you "can't draw.") Eventually you're going to dabble in creative writing (yes, poetry, and it can be pretty fabulous). You're never going to get great at drawing, but you can turn a room into a masterpiece. You can serve dinner with flare. You'll wear bold colors. You will wander museums happily alone, drinking in the beauty of lines and splatters and bold swatches of color. You will one day happen upon classical music during a scan of the radio on a dreary rainy day and you will be hooked. You and art, you're gonna be great together.


This next thing is what I really wanted to tell you though. If I could reach back in time and assure you, here is the picture I would want to give you. At 18, you are scared about college and it's not even something you want. 11 years later though, you'll hardly be able to contain your excitement as you prepare to change your life one more time to begin graduate school. Furtheremore, it's kind of a degree that's attached to politics. I know, it seems crazy, that idea is not anywhere close to your radar! You hate politics. Let me tell you though, you have never been this excited about the future. For that matter, you've never been so uncertain about the future. You have absolutely no concrete idea of what you'll do afterwards. Sure, you have the ideas, the dream jobs, the goals. How it all pans out though is an absolute beautiful mystery. But, remember, you love those leaps of faith now. You love the tension between the unknown and the vast realm of possibilities.

So, dear 18-year-old-self, cry tonight. Get up in the morning and start that undergraduate degree. Learn and grow and embrace life. The next decade is going to be a doozy, but you're gonna come out stronger and better knowing who you are.


I'll see you soon,

love,

Me.


P.S. You get to live the city life for a few years. It really really fits you well. :)