(extra)ordinary day

I pulled weeds out of the cracks in our driveway tonight. Less poetic than the Bishop's evening garden walks, but equally therapeutic. (Another reference to Les Mis...I'll try to pace myself. I'm only on page 98 of 1463). When my heart and mind are calm, I love doing yard work. I make joking references to transforming our house so that it outshines those in Better Homes & Gardens, but immediately wonder why. Don't I hate everything that magazine stands for? (What does it stand for?)

Anyway.

I find joy in creating spaces where people feel loved, comforted, relaxed. Charlie and I shared a hearty breakfast of applesauce and watery coffee on the back patio this morning. It was the sun and the music and green vines reaching for our hair...

Memories of moments like these sustain me through our nine months of wet and cold, when I gaze not out the window but at dull folds of window coverings and a million shades of gray and warm my soul by the golden glow of nutmeg-scented tea lights.

I squinted down at seaweed and crashing waves through sandy toes this afternoon as I lounged on a sheet with Clarissa at the Edmonds Beach. She noticed but forgot to mention that my shoulders were burning. A bit tender tonight, but I don't mind - bring on the cancer! (I don't actually mean that.) I resolve to suck the life out of every last ray of sun and twilight bird song God provides this summer. Each day is precious.

When I visited Alaska two years ago I was struck by how much they valued daylight. We frequently stayed up until 2 or 3 in the morning because the moon never shooed us to bed. It's a shame to sleep while the sky remains illuminated...

I copied the following quote into my journal tonight, and to it say "yes and amen." God is steadily broadening and deepening my understanding of what it actually looks like to be a follower. Sometimes it's messy.

"Those who believe they believe in God, but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself" (Unamino, quoted in Walking on Water by Madeleine L'Engle).

This post made possible by the accommodating folks at www.flickr.com/photos/charlier.

grateful

Here's what I give thanks for tonight...

The ability to share my feelings with the one who inspired them. The surreal experience of being as deeply intrigued by the soul of another as I have until this point only been by my own (how self-absorbed does that sound). The peace-giving sense that comes with ultimately wanting God's will to be done even more than I want my immediate desires to be filled. The awe that occurs when I consider the path I have walked on to reach this point. The fact that I have had close companionship for the journey.

The freedom to surround myself with city when I am overwhelmed by suburb. The relief of not caring that my purse doesn't match my outfit. Melancholy music on cd mix tapes. Lyrics about the search for a fleeing girl... "send out a battalion to find her"... that remind me of my own God-given desire... under all the right circumstances... to be pursued forever, to the ends of the earth. A smiling inner acceptance of this girly wish. The adjective "smashing" (I'm obviously getting tired). My growing hope - confidence, even? - that for the rest of my life I will find freedom to evolve and daily reinvent myself.

Unfortunately this may be my last post for awhile. I resolved tonight that I will not publish again until Charlie adds a brand new photo to his stunning collection: www.flickr.com/photos/charlier. Bye for now!

tonight was worth the drive

I've realized most of my posts lately have been quite somber. 'Tis the season. Will probably not always be this way :)

Two posts for tonight because the subject matter is different. This is number one:

My heart is full tonight - too much thought and emotion to be contained within Lynnwood city limits, so I drove to Greenlake and perched on a concrete runner at the water's edge. The quietness of sunset and a relieving sense of anonymity as strangers walk the path behind me, mindless of my presence, provide much needed space to think without engaging. It is peaceful.

The birds and the water and the airbrushed sky flood my senses, distract my attention from Hugo's detailed character profiles.

An Islamic man comments on the passing ducklings and eventually asks about Christianity, redirecting my thoughts from nature to religion.

Five phone calls from a friend interrupt our conversation and allow me to drift from theology into relationship.

This is my travel. This is my adventure. My body stays local while my soul and mind explore fresh terrain. My eyes discover new beauty while tracing familiar landscapes. My heart steps beyond well-worn paths, vulnerable and exposed, into deep and lovely territory.

My exploration lately has been as wide as the greater Seattle area and as deep as the reaches of a soul. I am satisfied because I am being challenged...in the past this was one of my main incentives to travel. Maybe new motivations will come, but for now my mission is this moment.

fully human

The delightful comments stemming from my most recent post made me consider the issue of self-acceptance again tonight. Okay, to be honest, I've been thinking about this for the past few days.

Kind of obsessively.

(that's another personal trait I am trying to love)

I appreciate Bekah's confession. It is true that the things I listed on Wednesday are probably the quirks I have grown to like and have already embraced. The ones I truly abhor will not as easily find their their way onto this public blog. The ones I most wish to hide or vanquish I tried tonight, for the sake of transparency, to enumerate, but still cannot bring myself to post.

But this list - all the things I am really ashamed of and need to work on accepting - seems harsh. Those who read it would likely denounce it as exaggerated, unrealistic, or unbalanced. But self-perception can become hazy when it creeps outside the grace-filled and absolute boundaries of truths the Bible offers about who we really are. Our self-concept may have very little to do with reality. We must cling most desperately to what is eternally true.

What if God looks at my "worst" traits and labels them more graciously? "Searching and growing" instead of insecure..."deeply connected with people" instead of lonely... I have this idea that He is much kinder toward me than I am.

I agree with Charlie: the things I most admire and love about other people truly are the strange quirks and unique traits that make them human and accessible and individual and interesting and different than any other person in the world. Like not brushing one's hair for four years (you really are my hero).

I start to feel bad when I, for example, lock my keys in the car or call my dad five times a day to update him on my emotional well-being, because I think about how this must make life more difficult for those around me. I feel I should be able to keep my issues from bleeding into other peoples' lives. But when I consider similar habits I observe in my friends and family, I would not wish for them to change, not the slightest bit (unless it was hurting them in some way). Even the habits and characteristics that make them difficult to interact with or understand. Because I see that these things make them who they are. And I love who they are, just as they are.

I do not want them to become smaller or quieter in order to make my life more convenient or less confusing or even to save me frustration. I want them to be fully themselves, fully human, fully who God created them to be. Young children do not apologize for who they are or shrink back from making requests or stating their opinions. When do we learn to do this? When are we first told that it is not okay to be ourselves?

I have been ranting, but I know this is an important thing to wrestle with. Maybe instead of writing self-absorbed and tragic lists of the many things I wish God would change about me, my time would be better spent sharing enumerating all of the crazy habits and oddities of the people I love that make them absolutely beautiful in my eyes. Consider yourself warned... :)

In other news, I bought a plant today. The flower lady at Central Market informed me that it was her favorite... she said that each of them had a specific personality and I chose the one she liked best. It made me beam. Apparently I have good taste in plants.

I read today. I think I am ahead in the race to devour Les Miserables. Despite the beautiful weather I find myself indoors too often. It may take some time to adjust my habits. I am used to assuming I will get wet and frizzy outside.

Happy First Evening of Summer :)

avoid all forms of self-rejection

It's a phrase I just stole from Henri Nouwen. He entitled a chapter in "The Inner Voice of Love" (sounds like self-help, huh?) with those words. Avoid all forms of self-rejection.

A former counselor instructed me to wear a rubber band on my wrist and snap it lightly whenever I started thinking derogatory things about myself. My new counselor says this sounds like a mean way to learn to be nice :) It worked though. And the less I judged myself, the less I judged others. It was a natural outcome. Things started to flow.

And now I'm working on the same issue again. So here is today's list of things I will no longer hesitate to embrace about being me. I'd like to hear yours...

perpetual ice cream stickiness on my forearms
frizzy hair and mismatched clothes
lateness. aaaaaalways late :)
dirty fingernails
more alive in evenings than mornings
2-3 week infatuation periods with new hobbies
enjoy thinking about books and buying them than actually reading
becoming best friends with the AAA slim jim guy
cavity teeth from too much coffee

I think that's a good start. Tomorrow will bring new opportunities to grow.

and until then...

Tonight I'm not overwhelmed by questions and contradictions, but find myself peaceful and simply observing their presence in my head and my heart. Somehow tonight I feel unconcerned and carefree in spite of them.

We are all waiting for something, no matter who we are or what situation we're facing. I have to believe that a time is coming - maybe not so far off - when I will have fewer questions and more answers and more peace about the things I dwell on right now. History proves this, and faith bolsters my confidence. It helps to just acknowledge that the time is not yet, but will come. That I am still in the midst of many things, but will at some point emerge. It is quite alright with God that I can't see with perfect clarity or think with logical or linear precision about issues. He knows and He loves. Now is the perfect time for faith and peace and trust to reign. And they do.

Today's important lessons:

don't roast coffee beans to 490 degrees - they will be too toasty and set off the alarm.

father's day sermons about fathers were never intended to interest non-fathers.

it's better to be humble than proud.

a surprising amount of happiness can be found in autistic children and excursions to the grocery store.

"naan bread" sounds confusingly like "non-bread" to a listener.

i am worth dying for. so are you.

the poem marched in at six this morning demanding its debut

the loving
(is no longer found in the shade of Eden's
giant dinosaur leaves and
romantic silhouettes against sunset)
began as perfection

has persisted and grown
despite
regardless
as "ideal" faded from our temporal scene

the sorrow
regret
wondering if the loss of perfection
meant
the loss of love

the miracle
love thrives not in standard, anonymous forms
but in random
oddball
quirks
giving contour to relationships
surprising Type A personalities
reflecting a creative Creator

the joy
(a discovery)
my heart will find its place in love
not despite
or regardless
but because of
me.

you must remember this:

God is always okay with how we feel, even if we are freaking out about nothing.

A man on a porch was rocking a baby that was crying and someone walked by and asked him what was wrong, because the baby just kept crying but he was so calm. He responded, "Nothing's wrong. But she doesn't know that and that's why she's afraid. And I'll just keep holding her until she realizes that."

quotable

You can't be connected with God until you're at peace with who you are. If you're still upset that God gave you this body or this life or this family or these circumstances, you will never be able to connect with God in a healthy, thriving, sustainable sort of way. You'll be at odds with your maker. And if you can't come to terms with who you are and the life you've been given, you'll never be able to accept others and how they were made and the lives they've been given. And until you're at peace with God and those around you, you will continue to struggle with your role on the planet, your part to play in the ongoing creation of the universe. You will continue to struggle and resist and fail to connect.

-Rob Bell, SexGod

Mary [the virgin] did not always understand. But one does not have to understand to be obedient. Instead of understanding - that intellectual understanding we are so fond of - there is a feeling of rightness, of knowing, knowing things which we are not yet able to understand.

During the question-and-answer period after a lecture, a young woman said to me, "I read A Wrinkle in Time when I was eight or nine. I didn't understand it, but I knew what it was about."

As long as we know what it's about, then we can have the courage to go wherever we are asked to go, even if we fear that the road may take us through danger and pain.

-Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

saturday play-by-play

a healthy move from the sad darkness at the back of my house to the sunny front

caring about details like lamp placement and the smell of a flower (this is progress)

an emotional conversation that somehow turned out better than I thought it might (it often happens like this)

today's trivia question at work for 25 cents off: tell us your most embarrassing moment. laughter, good stories shared among strangers, a tribute to our humanity.

two delicious iced decaf peppermint mochas

a pitiful attempt at cleaning the attic with my mom

off work a half hour after closing - a record! loving my job.

a joyful phone call reunion with my former roommate in Belfast

crouched on our roof, protected from the elements by an overhang, pondering life and the slight rightward direction of silent drizzle

two new songs on the piano

time logged at apartmenttherapy.com (thanks to Molly)

beyond restoration

I now stay away from generalizations like "life is complicated" or "relationships are messy" because to be completely honest I'm not making assumptions about how things work anymore. A close friend says this means I'm more open to God, to life. This is good. But the vague haziness between the loss of my preconceived ideas and the discovery of a deeper truth is kind of a scary place to hang out. I grope into the darkness for the rock, the word, the truth…

when they call on me I will answer them...

in all things God works for the good of those who love Him...

And so I fight for my rest, and occasionally breathe easy.

Three thoughts gave me comfort during an especially difficult and emotional yesterday.

First, that in the end God's will will be done. Despite me. Through me. Encompassing me. I am not the final say.

Also, that in each second that passes, God reigns. This one. This one. This one. No matter what the next second brings, the defining truth of the moment is that God is King and Jesus is Savior. Hell could break lose - and sometimes seems to - and yet, in that instant, neither death nor failure nor meaninglessness prevail.

Finally... and ultimately... God's faithfulness surrounds Him. Like a massive bathrobe or a cosmic aura of good juju, anyone who comes near to God is immediately surrounded and penetrated by His faithfulness. His commitment to seeing us through to the beautiful, shining end. To pulling us out of our gutter water and cleansing us to the core. To not allowing us to languish in sorrow... even if he has to pry our melancholy and self-pitying little fingers out of the mud one by one. To orchestrating every detail and circumstance so that we will reflect His glory more, and find greater joy in eternity and in life.

All I have wanted for the past few months has been restoration. I beg God: I want to feel like me again! I want to be joyful. But the truth I discovered yesterday is that restoration isn't on God's agenda for me. He wants more than that. The resurrected Jesus was not simply a restoration back to his old self. His disciples couldn't even recognize him after he rose. God did something new.

And so my hope is this: that God's best for me is better than what I have been hoping for. That His vision for this year, and for the rest of my life, is far greater than what I had imagined and if I'm not careful I'll be looking out so narrowly for restoration that I'll miss my own resurrection. God is doing something new.

I am beginning to start my mornings by asking God for a gift that only He can give, that defines my attitude throughout the day... the ability to hope and to believe. When I call, He answers.