Murals in heaven

When the tornadoes struck the southern states last week, they took many lives. Among them was my one of my older cousins, Tina, whom I hadn't seen in years. I barely knew her, but still, she was a life lost - she was family.

I don't know much about Tina, except on her facebook page, I see some of her artwork posted in pictures. She painted brilliantly colored pictures. She seemed to march to the beat of her own drum. I heard about her occasionally through the years, that she was a kind of troubled soul wandering from place to place, restless, searching for something bigger to be a part of. Seeing some of her artwork, it's evident she expressed this vividly in color and images.

Our family doesn't really know much about her faith in God, but in the "Religious views" box on her facebook page, she'd posted this quote: "It's always bigger, it's always better... than anything our puny brains can imagine."

Tina was onto something. Something huge.

In those words lies the faith journey of life with God. But also, my daily choice between hope and despair. I was talking with a friend today at a coffee shop, and he mentioned the fact that, here in western culture and in the Church, we're not all that prepared for life to be sad. We're groomed for it not to be and do everything in our power to avoid sadness. Not everyone in the Church would admit to having to choose between hope and despair, but it requires no explanation to those kindred souls who have experienced some of life's tragedies and yet still hold onto faith in God. Instead of spiritualizing it away or sweeping it under the carpet, we've got to be honest and take the mask off. There is hope, and there is despair. Both are very real. And for some seasons in life, each day is a conscious effort of one-foot-in-front-of-the-other, choosing hope or choosing despair. Choosing to believe that there's always bigger and better beyond what our puny brains can imagine (and I'm not talking about cars or technology or jobs or menu items). With God, the best is always yet to come. But I have to choose to believe that every day.

So I want to pause and say thank you to Tina, who managed to teach me something about faith in her own doubts and searching.

Tina, I hope you are painting murals in heaven that are brilliant beyond what our puny brains can imagine.

Anecdote for complaining

I stumbled upon this post yesterday after finding this woman's blog on another blog I was reading. The faces and message quietly demanded their own post on my blog. Of course, what you'll see is much more than an anecdote to complaining. I pray these people, names unknown to me but known by God, and their untold stories stir something deeper in us than guilt or tears. This is the call of love, a love that changes us and compels us to action. It could start as simply and practically as how I spend my money...

What do I really value?

http://buildingtheblocks.blogspot.com/2011/04/i-wonder.html

Clearing the bug guts

I hate when I can't see out my windshield while driving. Often times my sight is impaired by the heavy rains and semis kicking up dirty sprays of water on the freeway, and sometimes, by bug casualties. I remember barreling down the highways five years ago or so with one of my good friends, her Toyota Camry our over-burdened pack mule, carting her belongings from Seattle to Mississippi. The further southeast we drove, the more bugs we collected on her windshield. It must have been only three days into the trip before we could no longer see very clearly between the fine display of bug bodies splattered across the glass. We finally decided to pull over and scrub the windshield before we continued with our trip.

While reading Room of marvels (I highly recommend this book, by the way) yesterday, I paused at this little exchange between characters, feeling strangely that I could have been the character being questioned:

"Let me ask a simple question. Who made your eyes?"

"What? That is something a two-year old would ask?"

"Who made your eyes?"

"God? Is that what you're looking for?"

"Precisely. It was God, and he wants you to use them to see his marvels."

Come to think of it, my eyes can be a lot like that bug-splattered windshield, collecting grime as I cruise along from day to day. They can start off so clean and sparkly, allowing me to see sharply the landscape around me. Within days or weeks or months, they can be cluttered with grime, remnants of ickiness I've picked up along the way that seem to have adhered themselves to the lenses of my eyes. If I don't stop and scrape them off, the build-up is blinding. I can see, but not clearly. Or what I see is not beauty, but bug guts. Not the most life-affirming thing to behold.

My eyes feel so often gunked up. It takes a lot of stops along the highway to keep my windshield clean and clear, but when I tire of the bug guts, I know its time. I'm not seeing his marvels, and I know that's what my eyes are for.

Snail mail

I rifled quickly through the mail scattered on the floor before leaving home today. I didn't expect to see it, this thin letter addressed to me, sender unknown. I thought it's probably an invitation to something or a thank you for a shower attended some months ago. But it was a letter. A one-page, handwritten letter. From one of my old college roommates, nonetheless.

As is true with so many of my friendships over the years, they come and go. I've accepted that, come to terms with my limitations, with the delicate ebb and flow of relationships. There are friends for seasons and friends for life, and one thing I've learned about myself is that I'm much better in person with people than I am from a distance. Still, over the years, I'll find myself missing someone I had connected with at one time, enjoyed, and genuinely wish were still in my life. I've written a few of those old friends from time to time. This was the first letter I'd received from a friend from a past season in life who was remembering me - and missing me. It brought tears to my eyes as I clutched the page to my chest. Sometimes I think we just feel forgotten.

As I read her letter, recounting some of the qualities she'd once admired in me, she seemed to wonder if I was the same person she had known. Knowing I've changed a great deal from those days in college, I wondered if she would like the me I am today. I decided I needed to write her back, not only to thank her, but to re-introduce her to myself.

There's something about being remembered, about knowing that your life touched someone else's life as they touched yours. And as we are not static people, but ever changing with the seasons of life, there's also a desire to know that these same ones we connected with then could still be touched by who we are now.

And there's something about receiving snail mail, holding the paper in your hands and seeing the penmanship of someone you love. It's so easy to send an email or a facebook message or an e-card these days. How rarely I take the time any more to send a letter, yet how precious they are to receive, to be savored and tucked away to pull out and read again another day. I hope to remember this feeling, so I can once more practice the art of letter writing to brighten someone else's day.

Going backwards, moving forward

"Now," he thought, "that all these transitory things have slipped away

from me again, I stand once more beneath the sun, as I once stood as a

small child. Nothing is mine, I know nothing, I possess nothing, I

have learned nothing." He had to smile again. Yes, his destiny was

strange! He was going backwards, and now he stood empty and naked and

ignorant in the world. But he did not grieve about it; no, he even

felt a great desire to laugh, to laugh at himself, to laugh at this

strange, foolish world. (Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha)

The message of "moving forward", of "success" or "progress" in our culture is very much a linear experience. This progression is supposed to launch us forward in a straight line, from one point to another, ever climbing higher. With it, we have our expectations of what's supposed to happen in life at certain points, benchmarks we're to meet. When they aren't met on time, or at all, it creates a dissonant tension or a crisis. We wonder if we're ok, or believe we're stunted or unsuccessful. We tried the formula, and it didn't work.

What if there was another way to look at progression in life, a non-linear understanding?

I've been thinking and writing lately about how it seems I've actually gone backwards in life, according to my expectations and definitions of personal progression. It has appeared that the ground I worked so hard to gain in my twenties left me not having attained any of the end I sought. Or maybe... maybe I am finally reaching the end of myself. Having thrown up layers upon layers of false selves, perhaps this feeling of going backwards is created as each layer of false self falls away, revealing more of who I really am. And I am not who I thought I was.

We start out life with numerous influences. Many people, whether directly or indirectly, consciously or subconsciously, shape who we become from childhood to adulthood. We cannot help but influence each other, and much of this can be positive, though just as many experience painful influences from childhood. But even among the greatest of intentions, we can find ourselves funneled along a path that we did not entirely choose. Perhaps it seems we did. And along the way, layers are laid upon us, telling us who we are, making us feel we are progressing. When those layers begin to be stripped away, we often feel our identities, our way of being in the world, our values, our very sense of worth or achievement, is threatened. This feels like moving backwards, but flip it around and it may be that this is when we actually begin to move forward.

The first part of our lives are spent growing up, away from childhood, and yet, this stripping away seems to draw me closer again to childhood. And I stand in life with the humbling revelation that, as Siddhartha described above, "Nothing is mine, I know nothing, I possess nothing, I have learned nothing." Or at least, my learning has brought me to the place of realizing that I know much less than I thought and have heaps more to learn. I am more like a child than I thought, and this is progress.

A very present help

In times when words escape me, I appreciate the depth of honesty and humanity in the psalms. These ancient psalmists timelessly capture the essence of being human while desiring to seek after the heart of God. They can be explosive in emotion - rage, despair, sorrow - and still, explosive in faith.

It seems that the more natural and human-made disasters that accost our world, with increasing regularity, the more difficulty I have not feeling fearful of the future. I used to eat up the news about these sorts of things, wanting to stay in the know on the unfolding events. Now, I struggle not to cringe and shut out the news when I hear about the facts of the disasters, the toll they are taking on lives. I learned last night that one of my cousins, whom I've only met a few times, lives in one of the towns that has been reported to have been wiped out by the tornado in Alabama. My grandma called my mom last night in tears, saying she hadn't received her usual morning email from my cousin. I stood there in partial shock, trying to imagine an entire town being carried away or flattened by a tornado.

I opened to a psalm, having once again no words, and I read this cry David wrote thousands of years ago, imagining many in the south and midwest could identify:

My heart is severely pained within me, and the terrors of death have fallen upon me. Fearfulness and trembling have come upon me, and horror has overwhelmed me. So I said, "Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest. Indeed, I would wander far off, and remain in the wilderness. I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest. ~ Psalm 55: 4-8 (NKJV)

I'm not even in the midst of a tornado, and I can relate to wishing I could fly away and be at rest someplace safe. To hasten my escape from it all. It's cowardly, perhaps, not very faith-filled. But it's real.

Then, I turned back to another psalm, needing something more than this raw emotion David expressed. I found solace in one of my favorites, Psalm 46.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, even though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though its waters roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with its swelling (verses 1-3).

There is the fear, the terror at times, the desire to escape the storms. And then, somewhere in the midst of it all, there is God. The safe place, the one refuge in the storm that cannot be plucked up, blown over or ripped to pieces, is a very present help in trouble.

simple pleasures

My head needs a little break from thinking so much, and since pictures are worth a thousand words... it's picture time today. These pictures - recently taken from various excursions around the city or in my neighborhood - are lovely reminders to slow down and savor the simple little things in life, moment by moment.