The elections were big. BIG. But were they big enough? Will the historians of tommorrow point to today as the beginning of peace, or will the drama of today become just one more stepping stone on the path towards political ambivalence? Not since 1954 have Iraqi's had the chance to vote in a limited democratic election.
It is enough that we celebrate with the toothless women on television, today. Although the future remains uncertain, we can recognize the significance of Iraqi emotion this day. Perhaps recognizing the importance of today will protect our hearts from becoming calloused by future political complexities. Perhaps.
So to sum up all that back burner ponderation from the last post: running around in Atlanta, meeting people, forging community ties, all this STUFF isn't just a symptom of me passing through and casually adding to my experience bank. These people and places have stories that I have joined. I belong, in some sense, to their realms of experience.
Knowing implies being known, when it comes to community. You think?
I used to think that travelling through a place implied some sort of ownership. It was as if running through a neighborhood, finding my way through city streets or airport terminals, or anticipating where the beans are in Wal-Mart all gave me some legitimate claim on those places. Knowing a thing, I thought, meant owning it in some way.
"Oh yeah, I know Chattanooga. I used to live there."
"Oh yeah, I've flown through Detroit a lot. I love that airport."
"Oh yeah, I'll just run in. I know exactly where the lentils are."
I also used to think that I would just be content for people to see me as I truly am. If only people would see the real me, all would be well. I would have some claim to them and their love. Of course they would love me. I only wanted to be seen justly and assumed that anyone who looked upon me witha critical eye was just seeing injustly. Pooh on them.
These ways of thinking were at odds with one another. Either experiencing or being experienced gave me some special right, some certain rank. MEMEMEME.
Chuck Frost preached on John 3 yesterday, on the last half of that chapter. In it, you can see John making the connection between Jesus and the Christ, and drawing a no-bones-about-it comparison between Jesus (the greater) adn himself (the lesser). It's good to hear John's humility and confidence in the sovreignty of God, even when it meant giving up power or prestige, or whatever came with baptizing the most people. Surely we have the same confidence. Nice, happy sermon.
Then Chuck drops the bomb -- what about tsunamis? What about John's imprisonment? "Are you the one, Jesus, or shall we look for another?" What about separation of married parents? What about losing a child? Are you REALLY willing to draw the same, no-bones-about-it comparison? To rest in God's sovreignty? Or will you accept good from the Lord and not evil?
OK, Chuck. Point taken. I stick with the nice, happy reading of the text too often, I think. It was good to have somebody prod me towards the "so what?" Confidence and faith always have a so what attached. If we really are the happy and confident people we claim to be, then we have what it takes to reach a hurting world, to feel their pain, to legitimize their suffering with the story of sin, and to offer hope through the story of Jesus' suffering, death, adn resurrection. If not, then that happiness and confidence is just a sham, anyway. You think?
The other day, my good friend Jeep posted some thoughts about leaving people behind. I've been thinking of what he said all day long: while waiting tables, while cleaning my kitchen, while doing my finances. And then I started Isaiah.
I've always felt that departures are harder on the people left behind than they are on the leavers. Part of what I was thinking about today was all the ways I have left and been left by others. When I opened up my Bible after work, I was wondering how to be a good leaver and how to be left well. And BAM! Isaiah opens up with this incredibly emotional wake-up call to Israel from God.
I wonder if I'll ever quit being surprised by this God who is often left behind. Why would God let himself be lefft? What does he feel like when his prized possessions are the ones doing the leaving?
"I come from a long line of leavers,
out of the garden gate, with an apple in their hand.
And I expect an unbeliever
is gonna run out of love,
is gonna give me the shove,
cuz that's the thing that lovers do.
And then there's you."
-- Caedmon's Call
First of all, the poetry game involves everyone writing random words on pieces of paper and passing them around a circle, such that each person receives a paper with three(ish) words written by the three people previous to them in the circle. Each person has to write a poem (any type, any meter) that includes tthose three words, within a certain time limit. Then, everybody reads their stuff.
Lots of fun.
Second of all, I have officially moved to Atlanta. I'll be living here until I hit the field. HOWEVER, I shall have to do quite a lot of travelling. I was in South Carolina last night to visit a church, and will proabably make a *quick* trip up to Chattanooga early Saturday morning. Hmmm. I will have to get back before my Saturday night shift. Hmmm. But I should go up to get my suitcase full of pasta and canned food... and those boxes of books and t-shirts... and that 20 lb. bag of sugar.
I can't think of any of those other questions right now. I'm going to go unpack books.
"It was dumb! It was obvious! It was... short. We loved it!"
Ok, ok, I finally watched Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits. I'm not sure I laughed harder at the thought of KAI watching it with her former housemates (and thus losing all movie-selection privileges for the duration of her tenancy) or at the hilarious midgets. It was dumb and obvious, but hey, at least I knew when to laugh. And it was a lovely thing to watch. A bit like muppets, a bit like The 5th Element, and a lot like Gilliam's other stuff.
And somehow, I think it's stupidity was strangely endearing. (Not sure what that says about me.) Afterwards, while my sister held a marathon phone conversation with her significant other, my parents and I enjoyed five rousing rounds of the poetry game...
Here are two good ones:
"untitled" (by an anonymous author)
as the plane leveled off at 30,000 feet
the steward come across
the phone
and recommended for our lunch today
the very wicked lamb
"untitled" (by me)
The strangest things can happen when you eat.
Be careful lest your food go down too soon.
An undigested piece of cheese or meat
can make your earlobes swell up, like balloons.
And if, upon life's dull and lonesome path,
some seaside trip should suddenly occur,
then stop, my son, and quickly do the math.
Allot three hours twixt mealtime and the surf.
The careless eater makes investments poor --
for, as she sees it, life is much too short
to worry over eating less or more.
(Besides, she thinks the worry causes warts.)
You may receive (if you don't make a pact)
sad reimbursements from your g.i. tract.
To begin with, can I share a comment I just deleted?
"I am terribly sad and have no one in this world. Have so much of love to give but there are no givers and takers. I am a 48 year old woman, 5'8" tall and weigh 56 kilos. Wish to have a caring friend who is well settled and enjoy finer things in life."
What in the world? Can you imagine who might have written this if it weren't just spam (which it was)? Imagine the self-awareness and self-concept that fictional person must have had, to list her most important identifying attributes as (1) having lots of love, (2) being 48, (3) being 5'8", (4) weighing 56 kilos, and (5) wishing for a friend. Part of me wants to say HOW AWFUL! Part of me identifies with this girl, seeing parts of all my friends and part of myself bound up in her desperation.
Which brings me to my family. It's been an unbelievable blessing to celebrate Christmas and my birthday all in one week, all five of us under one roof. It reminds me of my roots. There are people in West Virginia and Montana who love me. There is a man in the highest courts of heaven who loves me. How can I manage to remember weeks like this when I'm having trouble turning my prime self-description from "I am needy," into "I am loved?" How can we help one another turn each other's self-definitions from descriptions of want into descriptions of grace? I suppose it begins with evangelism. I suppose (correct me if I'm wrong) that all of our relationships should start with evangelism.
My brother's leaving today at 4 pm. Sigh.
with my family. It has John Cleese, Sean Connery, and was directed by the same guy that directed 12 Monkeys. Dad's really excited about it. I'm a little nervous and a little excited. Anybody out there seen it? I'll post about it.
wipers beating
I've never ever written listening
only to the
rhythm of the language of the
words, like pellets,
driving into windshields or are
we, the drivers,
driving into them?
treetops are fibrous
against the wild, fog-filled sky,
stark feathers breathing
of not getting everything done.
of not sleeping much.
of investing and then wondering if anything worthwhile happened.
of being belittled for my height and heart.
of serving wealthy tables.
of not having time for the people I really care about.
Yeah, I guess that's it. I worked my last day at the Chattanooga Macaroni Grill today. Well, yesterday. Tonight. It was nice to have Susan and Hannah mad at me for leaving. And I had the well-wishes of the chefs and the servers. And getting a big hug from Ann and Braden was awesome. (Two hugs, each a different flavor of awe.) But when I walked away across that lonely parking lot, I wondered if my presence had made much difference, after all. Finally, I think, two things happened: I learned to wait tables, and I learned to wait. Relationships don't just happen. Waiting means cultivating patience, and cultivating patience means waiting.
Good night, tired world. Maybe you will be a more lively world six hours from now. Maybe my eyes will be more lively.
Or at least able to focus.
I just ran across this poem today, and its final lines struck me as some of Evan's favorites. Occasionally, I've seen them on his blog. Here is the poem in its entirety, published by Denise Levertov in her collection: A Door in the Hive.
The Love of Morning
It is hard sometimes to drag ourselves
back to the love of morning
after we've lain in the dark crying out
O God, save us from the horror. . . .
God has saved the world one more day
even with its leaden burden of human evil;
we wake to birdsong.
And if sunlight's gossamer lifts in its net
the weight of all that is solid,
our hearts, too, are lifted,
swung like laughing infants;
but on gray mornings,
all incident – our own hunger,
the dear tasks of continuance,
the footsteps before us in the earth's
beloved dust, leading the way – all,
is hard to love again
for we resent a summons
that disregards our sloth, and this
calls us, calls us.
Springs (cat of Greyfriar's manager and former roommate, WT) was especially friendly to me today after Mike left for Belgium. This lends more fuel to my theory that Mike, Springs, and I are playing the roles of a Tolkien-esque triangle. Springs is like Gollum, Mike is like Sam, and I am like Frodo, minus ring and quest and growing insanity.
I'll have to watch that cat.
Saying goodbye with all the right words is for the movies. Heroes and heroines have these clever lines scripted for them, but in real life it seems like we say the important things without words. Small words might come out, but the important thing is the look, the feel, the eye contact, the smile. Not the words. Not much.
And when I watch movies, read novels, hear stories, the plot usually falls neatly between the boundary lines of scene and act. The best way to tell a story (or even a joke) is to think about the steps you're asking the audience to take. Think of the whole journey, then divvie it up into little bits. Act 1: exposition and rising action. Act 2: introduction of conflict, suspense accumulates. Act 3: Climax! Punchline! Exclamation Marks and Capital Letters! Act 4: resolution, falling action, the end.
Life lacks a script. It also lacks clear scenes and boundaries. The simple rise and fall of a story helps us to understand ourselves precisely because it is so simple. As complex as any story can be, the elements of a good one are usually easily grasped and powerfully felt. Not so in life. Our lives are messy, complex creations, each one an artist's opus with no clear sense of line and movement. Each one is a story that refuses to fall into clear stages. And so saying goodbye is made even more tricky! Even if we were given all the right words of farewell, we wouldn't know how to use them. We never know whether Betty will move to Argentina to die, or whether she will reappear in another Act. And who knows if we really will see Arnold on the next page, as he promised? They refuse to be predictable, not simply part of a performance.
So you see, I wish for many reasons that I were some famous character from some compelling myth, with a compelling script and sense of scene. It certainly would make moving easier. I could just worry about being picturesque, instead of worrying about sound relationships. But where would be the challenge? Where would be the allure of the unexpected? The rewards of making sure the ones I leave behind know their value to me? The rise-fall-dart-weave-rise again plot? Becoming some character would mean having some great farewell moments, of course. Maybe I could leave at the head of a parade in some great city, maybe looking up some great starwell at some dame standing in a great dress, maybe on a good horse with the wind in my face and trouble at my heels. But if great farewells come at the expense of living like a pilgrim, learning good lessons about being incarnational, and learning to love people every moment they're given to me, then no thanks.
Give me all the awkward and non-photogenic goodbyes, the ones with no words, only looks. I'll hit the road not knowing if I made a sound getaway or not, if it means leaving knowing that the people I love feel loved. That's really all I want.
while praying during the supper
this morning, full of grace,
i ponder the angles of the wrist,
dark tongue-in-groove panelling,
obtrusive perspective and perception
that come with emminent departure,
women in and out of my life,
and what it means to remember
something not in my memory,
to remember
in the older sense.
leaving town inhabits lacunae
i have not taken time to shut
and it fills them with noise and mess,
leaves them fuller and suddenly dependent
upon occupation.
a woman i know breaks my bread
since i have been too sick to touch
the common loaf.
she smiles at me and looks away,
perhaps to pray.
i feel fragile and full of air
the way a cold makes you feel when it leaves
and your sinuses are empty, hollow,
so much space inside your head
that maybe you will break.
the same way the elements leave your mouth
and pass through inside spaces,
spaces you always took for granted.
people are only complicated containers.
you see leaving town is like that:
pilgrimage highlights spaces
and the spaces want a purpose.
and the spaces
make you think
about leaving town.