Lie to Me. I Promise, I'll Believe*

I believe man is born with an inherent need to believe. He thirsts for knowledge before birth. Even in the womb, babies explore their growing bodies; they kick out, they punch, they find their appendages and savor the atmosphere. Once birthed, they have an entire new world to explore and figure out.

At a baby shower this weekend, the mother-to-be explained how babies want to be swaddled for a while at first because they're used to a small, warm environment and, "they feel like their limbs are going to fly off!" How traumatic! If I ever have kids, I will swaddle them so that they don't have to have appendage-flight anxiety. From the beginning a child needs to trust and believe in the parents, needs to believe in the dream that all limbs are safe.

However, without the nurturing assurance of a parent and loved ones, the baby might just believe that all appendages are bound to detach sooner or later. That is, until they don't. You see, if we don't believe in one thing, we will automatically believe in another. We have a need to believe.

Whether you know it or not, you believe in something. You might not believe that your limbs might unhinge at any given time, but that is, in fact a belief that your limbs will stay attached. The absence of believing in one thing is the same as believing in another-- the absence of a belief-system is, in itself, a belief system.

Does any of this make sense?

*Ten points for getting what song this is from. No Google allowed. :-)

One of the most grievous and frightening things about the state of mankind is that he wants so badly to believe in something that he'll believe in almost anything.

The Sun Slept In

Last night I awoke here and there to a crash of thunder or emblazoning bolt of lightening illuminating my room. This morning, when I finally peeled myself away from my warm and sweetly enveloping bed, the sun still lay slumbering beyond the horizon. Or at least it so appeared since the wind still raged and cumulus nimbi continued to drape themselves across the celestial sphere. As I left the house, I turned to back porch light on, assured the day to be one of gloomy darkness.

Then, as I drove northward into work, something happened. As the clouds relieved the horizon of their foreboding presence, light came glimmering through as though the world might finally awaken for the day, as if I saw the sun rise a few hours late. I haven't seen a sunrise for quite sometime, but I imagine it would have appeared as so, with the darkness retreating, giving way at last to the clarity of the dawn. Sunsets, which I also haven't seen in a bit, offer glorious layers of light and dark as the sun makes a defiant exit. Sunrises are less like the tympanic nuance of "Also Sprach Zarathustra: Sunrise" and more like the slow, steady unfurling of a flower or the methodic unraveling of a tattered sweater.

Today I got to see the morning unwind.

I want some of this. Now. I wonder if others will notice if I "accidentally" spray them with it, as well. Actually, I wonder if there's enough in one bottle for how many people I might need to spray. Maybe I'll order two... or ten. 

Pick a Side

Happy Valentine's Day, one of the most divisive days on the calendar since Election Day--and at least that only happens every four years. There are people who like Valentine's Day and people who hate it. There are people who love it so much they decided to do it again in October and call it "Sweetest Day." Valentine's Day is going to happen whether I want it to or not, therefore I think it rather annoying to buck against it. I mean, I like Halloween even though I'm not a vampire, werewolf or ghoul. (perhaps I should say, even though I'm a Christian and it's supposed to stand for evil. whatever)

Yes, I believe that it's just another commercial holiday-- a ploy to capitalize on a sugar rush in the lull between Christmas and Easter candy. Not for me, though, since I take forever to eat it, I still have Christmas candy. As a matter of fact, it's a running joke in my family that I would have Halloween candy until Christmas and Christmas candy until Easter and then who knows how long I would have the Easter candy. So, I'm still good on candy.

What I could use more of, however, is love. Don't get me wrong, I have loving family and friends and a loving God. I just think everyone can always use a bit more love. So, lets try to remember to love each other after the sugar rush (or bitter taste for those anit-v-day readers) wears off, ok?

The Girl I Mean To Be

I never pictured myself to be the most mature among my friends and colleagues. My hope has always been to remain youthful and spritely. However, lately I feel like I just want to yell at people to grow up. I've had the ever growing feeling of having to play mother to some. I've tried to balance this by being less mature myself, shirking responsibilities, but it has just recently occurred to me that the solution isn't me dumbing down, but them growing up. There comes a time when you have to take responsibility and if you don't you plant the onus on others around you.

I'm trying to figure all of this out. How to age gracefully, if you will-- and I'm not talking about wrinkles. In an attempt to pacify any encroaching tension and anger, I'm listening to a semi-operatic musical. Sounds like a mature thing, right? Nah, it's a musical we did in high school. Brings good memories. Plus, I like it. So, there.

We'd Drive Around For Hours Hearing Adam Counting Crows.
I Miss Those Nights*

Tuesday was the 2nd anniversary of the end of my aunt's battle with cancer. Therefore, yesterday was the 2 year anniversary of Patricia Lee. This is one of those times that it's hard to believe God is good. Losing a loved one at a "young age" seems to disprove justice. Seeing that loved one struggle through seven years of pain before finally succumbing to rest numbs the mind to mercy. Wondering whether or not God predestined her choose heaven cries for grace to kneel in judgment: my judgment. And yet, who am I to judge? No one. So I sit here. Wrestling with these thoughts, I scream to God, "Why?!?" Is this good and just? Is this merciful?

He says yes. All He does is good and just and merciful. I do not understand. He says, "I know."

I don't know if I ever will. He says, "I know." I ask what will happen in my future. He says, "I know." That somehow brings me peace.

He says, "I know."



*From Emily Deloach's song, Almost Tried. It's nice to know I'm not alone in finding loss difficult.

For Goodness' Sake

I have a mother who loves me. She spoils me and cares for me. She worries about me. She treats me well. I have a sister who loves me. She laughs with me and cries with me. She treats me well. I have a dad who loves me. He spoils me and cares for me. He worries about me. He treats me well. I have a Father who loves me. He is just and gracious. He does not treat me well. He is good to me.

I have had relationships in which I have been treated well and treated horribly. I have treated others well and treated them horribly. People change. God is good-- unchanging, unfailable, unbelievable. For, whether I believe it or not, God is good. Whether I agree or not, God is good. Whether I feel like I'm alone or wrapped in His arms, God is good. Whether I feel I am a disgrace or cover in His grace, God is good.

We can't truly be good to each other. Sometimes, with all that's wrong in the world, it's hard to remember or believe it, but God is good. And having God be good to you is so much better than being treated well.

0.25 Seconds

Yeah, that was the average length of viewing per visitor to PRE last week. Ha. Kind of pathetic. Makes me want to write something heinously long just to see if I can get that time up. However, I suppose if I posted more than once a week then people would have to stay longer just to check out the new stuff. Fair 'nuff.

So, here's a story kids. I was hanging out with a couple of new friends last night and we ended up in a sort of who do you know/ six degrees conversation. Except that since we live in Nashville and the Information Age, it was more like three degrees of separation, if that, across six states, or more. Funny, funny stuff. Then, to show what true nerds we are, we get online and start showing each other pictures of all the people we were talking about. Simply hilarious. Totally geek-a-rific.

I guess this is a more light-hearted post than what I've been throwing up here once a week. I've just had a lot of stuff on my mind and it's not a bad thing. I've had to think about things that I've either been ignoring or never realized. And I've had to be more creative in other senses, so I suppose I've let my little bloggings fall to the wayside. I can't promise I'll write more and I can't promise I'll write less. I'm just here.

Thanks for sticking with me any way.

Much love.
~Me

Unpacking
Before me lays an ornate box of sturdy mahogany and golden gilding, smelling faintly of warm cedar and chilled lilies. It bears no easy lock and key, but an intricate puzzle both diamond sharp and dangerously enigmatic viciously protecting its precious keep. Mere flesh and bones cannot undo the trances and barriers fortifying the innocent-seeming-yet-undeniably-mysterious crystalline conundrum of a latch. Inside, you see, wrapped in iron and silk hides my vulnerability.
I suppose it is not the most kosher step to reveal my need for vulnerability only to disappear and leave you with a cryptic message about a rope and a well. Don't worry, I'm doing well (ha, "well"-- get it? "well?" nevermind). As a matter of fact, that rope message wasn't so much about the rope as it was about the well. I don't feel at the proverbial "end of my rope" by any means. It's more that sometimes I feel emotions so deeply that I haven't the words or reactions with which to define them. In that sense alone am I left high and dry-- at once both a fish out of water and a diver out of air.
But, it's a nice change of pace.

I Need A Longer Rope

Sometimes I feel as though my well bottoms out far deeper than my bucket could ever descend.

Candid Does Not Equal Vulnerable

Last night I went to hear Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz speak at the Belcourt. I expected a lecture and got a book reading instead, a surprise for which my frazzled mind applied much gratitude. An even bigger surprise, however, laid in the personal revelation I drew from the question and answer time. Someone in the audience asked Don how he could be so vulnerable in his writing. His first, and characteristically comical, answer was that it's easy to be vulnerable when you don't think anyone is listening, or in this case, reading. Expanding upon this thought, Miller cited artist David Wilcox's answer to such a question. Let me paraphrase it this way: unless you give people the opportunity to hurt you, they can never be close to you. Miller, in turn, decided that he wanted people to be close to him, so he opened up.

I share this all here because, honestly, this blog began as a medium in which I might express my vulnerability. As I listened to Don last night I thought about how right he was. It's easier to be vulnerable when you don't think anyone is reading. I've said that the most powerful music and writing occurs when the audience feels as though they have stumbled upon the artist in an intimate moment; one they feel almost ashamed to peer at and yet one from which they cannot pull away because it resonates so much within their own hearts and longings. However, the magic only works so long as the artist continues unaware of intruders.

I have been that person here. I have tried. I have also hidden her from the glaring eyes; an admission that hurts because, like Donald Miller, I want to be close. Last night I realized, however, no matter how many deep secrets I tell you or lies I dispel, I am merely being candid. You see, I've found that I can reveal myself to you without being vulnerable. I can be honest and still be safe. But it is in this safety that my ability to be vulnerable dies. It is in this safety that my conversations and relationships become more shallow. It is in this safety that the living well of my relationship with God evaporates to a mere puddle, the ground water dried, the crops malnourished or dead.

You see, I need not worry about being candid with God because He knows everything anyway. There is nothing a I can hide from Him. Being vulnerable, however, involves being candid with myself; revealing to myself the truths and lies from which I hide. What I learned is that I can not be vulnerable with you because I am not honest with myself. That lesson, in itself, may be the first act of honesty I have taught myself in quite some time. Perhaps it will continue. We shall see.

Appeal for Advice

So, I have a problem. I've talked to a couple of sources about it, but have come up short. I have yet to google it, because, honestly, I'm not sure what search would even work. Therefore, I have decided to lay it out and hope someone on the grand world wide web might have and idea...

I gave blood a month ago and that elbow has been sore and stiff ever since! I've talked to the red cross and they just said to apply moist heat. I've applied moist heat. I've been wary of working out---ok, I just haven't worked out... but I finally did this past week and its still sore and stiff! And to top it all off, the people looked really nervous as I was giving blood and I think the girl who stuck me was new because the other people were watching her very carefully... details which have not eased my anxiety about my elbow.

Any ideas?!?!?

Update on the Po' Man's Mocha

1. Clean Snowman-shaped mug from last mocha.
2. Fill mug with "interesting" workplace coffee.
3. Add gas station powdered hot chocolate mix.
4. Stir with candy cane.
Yields one (1) po' man's peppermint mocha.

In other news, it's the New Year; a time to "wipe the slate clean." People make resolutions as if entering the New Year is like walking into the classroom of life on a Monday morning after the janitors have washed the blackboards with soapy water. Throughout the week teacher marks up and erases the blackboard, but no matter how many times erasers clap against it or each other, a chalky residue lingers stubbornly behind. No, the chalkboard is never as clean as it is on Monday morning.

Today is the first Monday morning of the New Year and I've already miffed my "resolution" to get to work earlier. I've already chalked-up my board. However, I didn't enter the New Year feeling all sparkly and polished-patent-leather new, so it doesn't seem like it really matters. And does it? Does it really? Do our lives truly depend on one day a year to cleanse our misdeeds and clear our slates? Think if classroom blackboards only got washed at the beginning of the new term. By the end of term the teacher might have better luck illustrating his/her point by tracing through the chalky residue with his/her finger instead of adding to it with more chalk.

No, I think there's a reason why janitors wipe the blackboard once a week as opposed to once a year. And I think that we don't need a New Year to wipe our slates clean. As a matter of fact, I don't believe a New Year can really wipe our slates clean. After all, are we not a sum of our days? Do we not all have some sort of chalky residue somewhere, perhaps in the running board or around the edges where one might forget to clean? Behind one's ears? Is there a shelf too high or a gutter too low to reach on a regular basis?

So, this is the New Year and I don't feel any different.* Well, at least not any more different from the daily, weekly, monthly, moment-by-moment cleansing process to which I've already set my paces. I don't have to wait for one day a year to atone from my wrongs and turn a new leaf. It could happen any day, any moment and yet I'll still be the same. And yet I'll be different. A sham and a hypocrite and a truly genuine person all at once. A paradox for which I am glad.



*lyric by Death Cab for Cutie

So, it's Been a While

I haven't written anything anywhere since before my birthday-- which, by the way, thank you all very much for your incredibly non-Christmasy well wishes.

Here's the general update: Christmas with the fam was good; cold, but good. Actually, my mom and grandma thought I looked sad on Christmas morning. I said I wasn't, but perhaps I was (and I know they'll read this, so here's the explanation). I wasn't sad about what I did or did not receive, I was sad about what I was unable to give. I had a lot of grand ideas for gifts (that I will not give away here since it's bound to be read by those parties to whom I wished to give and perhaps someday might still be able to give) that never actually materialized. They weren't fancy gifts, just things I wanted to be able to do. That's all. I wasn't sad with them, but with me because to me the present thing is more about giving than receiving. (yes, yes, I know, thank you Tiny Tim) And presents are more about the thought put into them than the dollar value. So, I guess I was just sad that my thoughts never materialized and I wasn't able to show my family how much I truly love them. I mean, it really is the little things that mean everything.

Right now I have a lot of those little things swimming around in my heart and mind.

Preamble to a Birthday

Today is not my birthday. Tomorrow is. However, tonight I am having a small group of friends over to mark this lovely occasion. Last night I slaved over my family's traditional birthday rum cake-- which came perfectly out of the bundt pan this morning without any finagling or cutting it away from the sides of the pan, exciting me beyond words. Tomorrow night, on my actual birthday, a friend is having a Christmas party and promises to have a cake for me, as well-- a very sweet notion, but I almost wish she wouldn't.

It's not that I'm completely bitter or anything. I mean, I like Christmas and all, but when it comes to my birthday, Christmas celebrations tend to steal what little flame my birthday might have had. Over the years I've shared my birthday with Christmas/Holiday celebrations, winter dances, final exams and graduations. For once, I just wish I could be selfish and say my birthday is mine. Last year I sort of did this by devoting the whole day to the Lord of the Rings "Trilogy Tuesday" marathon. And what a glorious, butt-numbing day it was!

So, tonight I'm having people over. We'll sit around, chit chat, eat cake and other tid bits and just relax, because that is what I want to do with my birthday. I want to slow down. I want to break the cycle of going out for birthdays and simply stay in. I want a low-key night with good food and good people. That's my idea of a wonderful birthday. In fact, the very thought of the stillness of it all sends joyful shivers of excitement down my spine.

One dreams of being blessed with great friends, but in awaking to the reality of them finds the dreams wholly unsatisfactory. 

I remember my grandfather as a brilliant engineer who used to watch debates on CNN and C-SPAN while we kids roamed around the house. Though generally slow to speak, he surprised us time and again with quick, witty barbs. As years racked up and passed him by, however, my grandfather slowly fell to the dimming effects of Parkinson's disease. His quick wit came off the shelf less and less until his hibernating lucidity pinned it forever to the far back corner of the shelf. In the end the disease sapped him of all energy, mental or otherwise until he could hardly recognize us, much less summon quick anecdotes.

I can hardly measure which left a greater pang, seeing the gears in his head grinding away only to stop stubbornly on the tip of his tongue or the altogether vacuous expression of an ever-ebbing memory. So often I looked into his eyes to be met with an impish glint of mischief. Over the years that sparkle morphed into something else. Instead of dimming, like one might automatically assume, the light in his eyes seemed to diffuse from a glint to a gleam to an overall glaze, as though they simply reflected another light, not unlike the moon reflects the sun. Yes, in the end his eyes shone not the story of his years, but a mere echo of the soul that once extended to the tips of his every limb.

Though technically my grandfather by marriage and therefore not linked by genetic makeup, I nearly understand how it must have felt, for I too sense a form of sanity slipping through my fingers. Too often I feel my eyes glazing over like a deer caught in the headlights of life. Whether it be the ubiquitous act of walking into a room only to completely forget the purpose of doing so, the easily understandable act of typing the wrong password into one of my many email accounts or the more heinous crime of missing a loved one’s birthday, I find myself stepping on the virtual toes of this dance partner called memory day in and out.

And yet, others often accuse me of grandiose acts of nostalgia and sentiment. My mother went through yet another box of my left behind, but not forgotten, wares and relics hibernating in her cellar. In it she found old pompons, a diary from my cheerleading trip to Ireland, books I had written and illustrated in grade school and notes and birthday cards hailing from the beginning of time. Some objects she finally wrenched through my imaginary protective shield, enabling her to throw them away. Others, however, still emanated the spell of my sentimental value, charming her into keeping them for yet another day or year.

Perhaps this is why I find little room to remember menial things today such as my locker combination or home zip code. My memory banks simply cannot contain it all. Years of treasures, pages of stories and reels of homemade movies hold them captive. You see, the fact of it is this: I do not so much cherish sentiment as much as sentiment has long since besieged my heart and mind, stubbornly refusing to let them go and making room for the new only when they have finally become old.


For what you label sentiment, captivates my every step.
Binding history round my soul. Ne'er to let this prisoner go.
To live the moment, yore's lessons borrowed
For every today turns yesterday tomorrow.

The Least Wonderful Time of the Day

As I groggily rolled out of bed this morning I had a running commentary going through my head about the blog I needed to post regarding my disdain towards waking up. Surely waking up heads the list of my least favorite times of day, right? Then I worked on my budget and finances... oy. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new winner.

I think I'm going to go drown my sorrows in a homemade mocha consisting of cheap powdered hot chocolate mixed with the sludge that oozes from our staff kitchen coffee pot.

Stay tuned for more on this subject...

Open the Eyes of My Heart

We sang this song at church on Sunday. I learned it in college and it tends to bring a certain meaning to my worship times. It reminds me of different times in my life and many times of worship. The song used to be one of my favorites. I used to smile at hearing the opening chords. When I was down, hearing the song reminded me of happier times.

I spent one summer on a mission trip where we sang praise songs every morning. That summer the song made me homesick; made me cry. Whenever I hear this song, I retreat to my own little world. Over the past few years I've hardly heard it, but when I have, it has filled me not with joy or homesickness, but awe and fear. To be perfectly honest, I'm terrified to, as the lyrics beg, "see You."

I don't want to see God. I mean, I do, of course and I long to see Him-- when He has brought me up to Glory with Him. At the thought of seeing God, I find myself less like Thomas, boldly asking to touch His side, and more like Isaiah, crying, "I am ruined!" I know that Christ has "bridged the gap" between God and man, but I am still afraid.

Maybe it's my Catholic upbringing, the one that had me fearing morning lightening bolts for forgetting bedtime prayer-- literally. It was that God who scared me away from religion at all. Who wants a god who will strike him down for simply being human? And yet, though my frequent sacrilegious humor would suggest otherwise, it is that God I still fear.

I think it's healthy to fear God, though perhaps not to the extent that I sometimes do-- and not nearly to the extent that I most often find myself where I forgo any fear at all. Jesus is not my buddy. He is not my pal. He is my friend, yes. But He is also my King and my Savior and my Lord. He deserves reverence. He offers grace and mercy. We deserve death. He offers adoption into His family.

Just as adoptive parents ought not lord it over their adopted children, neither does God lord His adoption of us over us. Just as adoptive parents do, God cherishes us as His children and as gifts. As the Christmas season draws near and I think of so many gifts that will be opened and tossed aside, I think about the gift of adoption. Adoption is gift to both parent and child. It is a gift to be cherished and revered.

This isn't to say that the parents and children don't still get in fights; that the children don't still disobey and the parents don't lose their tempers. It isn't to say that the children won't go afoul, go astray, have a hard time looking into their parents' eyes when they've lied. Too often, my human state leads me to many a situation where I lie not only to my adoptive Father, but to myself, thinking that it'll be alright. After these situations, I find myself like that disobedient child, looking at the floor, kicking the dirt.

Unfortunately, these situations happen so often that I find my head easily bowed, not out of reverence, but fear and shame. Fortunately, my Father is not ashamed of me and there is no fear in Him (for He is Love and there is no fear in Love). What I am thankful for, then, this Thanksgiving, is not only my adoption and my redemption and His forgiveness; it's that He lifts my head and allows me to look on His splendor, allows me to be bathed in His beauty while I would have wallowed in my filth. For, even when I am terrified of asking to see Him, even when I don't want to see Him, He wants to see me.