The Core Curriculum

This morning while I was waiting for the computer to load, I did what any modern, tech-addicted, ADD person would do.

I loaded Facebook on my phone and flipped through pages while I'm waiting for my other technology to get going.

Talk about short attention span.

But while I scrolled, I came across a video about a teacher that looked interesting. Within 10 minutes it made me reconsider everything I thought about teaching.

It's about a physics teacher and his remarkable relationships (good ones) that he has with his students...and why he's able to do so.

You'll need to watch the video but its essence is this message-- the reason that physics works, that the universe works, is because of love. In order to make a classroom, a relationship, a family, a nation work, there must be love.

My nose started getting snotty as my eyes began tearing. How often do I forget the importance of love?

When it comes to my husband, it's easier. With my family, sure thing. With my friends, absolutely. But what about my work, my outside-the-home,church, family-responsibilities?

When was the last time that I made love the center of why I teach, why I communicate, why I write?

So often I get caught up in externals--  the theory, the technique, and the textbook--but as is rampantly evident by anyone who's experience a broken education system--those things, without love, become as a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.

This is a teacher living out I Corinthians 13, something I'm ashamed to say that I often left it out of my lesson planning. It's after watching this, though, that I'm reminded to make it my core curriculum.

It's Going to be Fine

It is. Really.

If you’ve read any of my other blogs, you know how often I don’t feel like it is, fine, I mean.

So often I walk around with a sense a dread, waiting for the other (or first) shoe to drop (wait, what does that expression even mean?) and feel that my actions affect the course of eternity. A feeling which, as Gandalf told Frodo, is too great a burden for any one person to bear.

But still, it’s easy for me to feel that way. Call it insecurity, call it narcissism, it’s a tendency towards panic whenever anything goes wrong, and the supposition that it’s my responsibility to fix it.

But the reality is, it’s going to be fine. 

Now, I’m not talking about gargantuan debt, life-threatening illnesses, or other “big” concerns—although, greater perspective is always healthy even in these areas too—but someone I’m more okay with some of the big concerns than the fact that I gave the wrong syllabus to a student, that I was late on that assignment, or the fact I’m having a bad hair day. Or forgot to get gas. Or that we’re out of milk and I had to drink dry, black coffee. These little things can rock my world. And sometimes the most powerful truth I can tell myself is that it’s going to be fine.

It’s a message that ran through my head this morning while I taught my classes, and as I spoke to students who were as nervous as I with the beginning of the new semester.  It’s going  to be fine that you couldn’t find your class today; it’s going to be fine that you got the wrong text book; it’s going to be fine that you said that weird thing in class, because if life moves in a healthy way, those things don’t really matter. You’re supposed to make mistakes and learn and look stupid occasionally. It’s part of life. You learn. And it’ll be fine.  If it’s not—and it’s interesting what we often qualify as not being fine—then, well, maybe it’s time to move in a different direction, bring in some help.

But that’s natural, too. We weren’t made to be “fine” on our own anyway.

One last thing. I realized this morning that in our hyper-achieving culture, I often think that “fine” isn’t enough—that I should be great! fantastic! excellent! at all times and with exclamation points. Never mind that that mentality can be exhausting; never mind that sometimes that’s not how life goes. Not that we don’t love and work for the highs, but if life is always a high, well, then you just created a new norm, and what’s after that?

Anyway, all this to say that life isn’t always a string of highs, greats, and fantastic, sometimes it’s okay to be just fine, sufficient, and enough.  And sometimes enough is all you need.

I Think I'd Like to Control God

Nobody ever accused me of not being ambitious.

This idea came to me this morning during prayer time this morning, as I was rummaging around for the "right" words to say, things like, "Help us to serve You, help us to make wise decisions, and help us come to know You better," interspersed with different thanks.

I had paused looking for words to pray over my husband, when I became startled by the realization that I hadn't talked with him in a while about his Scripture reading, what he was praying about, or what he really needed. We've prayed together, certainly, and we talk alot about our every day lives, but I had not asked him specifically (or anyone else, for that matter) what they were thinking about God, or how they've been seeking Him.

The realization was enough to embarrass me into silence for a bit, mid-prayer.

I breathed deeply, and then asked myself why.

As my brain creaked into gear to produce an answer, this thought, "I want to control God" flitted across my brain. And like that I knew it to be true.

Let me explain.

I was raised in a wonderfully secure conservative Christian home, intentionally so because both of my parents came from very insecure, unstable homes. My parents wanted to give my brother and I what they did not have and they gave us a home built on love, faith, and commitment. All good things.

The theological problems I inherited however (and ones my parents have since been working through!) is the idea that God is likewise stable, secure, and knowable in the pin-down-able sense. Meaning, if you're a Christian then you'll know all you ever need to know about God through reading the Bible and attending a Bible-based church.

It was a fantastic beginning foundation for a young family. I loved the church I grew up attending--it was small with most people coming from similar backgrounds. But when the church began growing, and people not from middle-upper class secure backgrounds began attending that our church's theology began showing its cracks. Its firm grasp on certainty and tradition wasn't always able to handle those who didn't inherently have or understand those things.

And the breakdowns continued as I got older. I started realizing how many people--Christians--understood God differently than I did, even as we read the same Bible. It began dawning on me that the secure, somewhat predictable God I understood, was not fully God, maybe a part, but not His whole.

Whereas I responded by becoming bewildered and a bit frightened by all the differences, my brother reveled in this. He loves asking people about what they are reading, how they are understanding God and why. He likes generous debate and conversation about the unknowns. Me, I tend to keep my mouth shut unless it's to correct someone's thinking: "No, no,you see, that's not how God works because...."

But as I get older, the more I read Scripture, this is an attitude that Paul spends a lot of his time correcting-- preaching that God works as He will, with or without mankind's "assistance" (I'm reading Galatians right now). There are certain unshakeable truths-- that God's grace was greater than legalism, His love is unfailing, His mercy is sure-- but otherwise God was God, despite man's attempts to tamp Him down.

(By the way, I'm noticing that Paul spends more time discussing these certainties of God's grace, love, and mercy, than he does whether or not someone has long hair, whether we should drink wine or grape juice, or whether or not we can go see R rated movies.)

I take this long road to say all this, because my attitude--the tamping-down attitude--was not one that I applied to other faiths, but to other Christians. If their experiences or questions are different than mine, sometimes I struggle to know how to engage with them. My tendency is to correct rather than care; to lash out rather than listen.

So this is why I often don't ask others, even my own husband, about their relationship with God. I get this itchy feeling when their experience is different than mine.

Why? I don't know. Because I like to think that I'm right; that God is pleased with MY way of doing things; that I can't be challenged.

But here's the funny part; Scripture tells me that because of my faith in God, He IS pleased with me; that I don't have to be right; and that of course, I'll always be challenged. But that's life; it's relationship and interaction with others. To pull back from that is to be thrown into isolation--the very opposite from what God has called us into, and the very thing that He has saved us from.

I repented this morning and asked God's forgiveness for the horrid isolation I put myself in. I announced that I wouldn't try to control Him today, and that He could do whatever He wanted; just use me however.

It's pretty exhausting trying to hold the cosmos together, much less the One who created it. So today I'm letting go, and going to start some conversations today.

What To Worry About

So it began.

The mad crush for parking. The confusion of wandering a foreign campus. The trembling schedule printouts in the hands of sweating students.

School is back in session.

This will be my third year of teaching English at MTSU, and I'm pretty excited, no less than for the fact that by the third year a little magical something happens.

You realize you're not a student anymore.

Okay, okay, maybe it's just me. But for my first two years of teaching, I sweated bullets because I felt like some come-uppity imposter teaching peers. I've always had a babyface, always enjoyed being around college students, and for that reason I couldn't scratch up enough esteem to consider myself much older, or wiser, for that matter.

But this year, I wanted to change that. And something sparked that told me I could.

I was sitting in a flush of other teachers during orientation when I overheard two seasoned teachers comparing notes on their classrooms. As I listened to their conversation I was struck by what the conversation came back to: the teachers themselves. One of the teachers began chatting furiously, defending her teaching methods and why she wanted them to think well of her.

I thought about that.

Probably the most terrifying thought I had when I stepped into my first classroom was "What will they think of me?" The thought of being "that" teacher to a student, the one that's remembered for being unprofessional,lazy, unfair, and angry, made me want to pass out.

But what I soon found out was that the more I worried about myself, the less interested the students seemed, the less engaged they were. Yet when I focused on them and listened to them, their work was interesting, good, and worthwhile.





That's what good teaching means. That's what being the grown up, the classroom leader, means.


And that's what I thought about when I went into class today. I had my notes ready in a PowerPoint, and I had a syllabus composed. And when I thought about screwing up my notes or mispronouncing something, my hands went a little colder,and my voice shook,

But when I looked them in the face, when I asked them questions, when I took an extra second to listen, my body warmed up, my hands relaxed, and I started having fun.

No, I'm not a student anymore, and I'm trying to learn to be a grown up and a teacher. A far as what students think about me, hm, well, in some respects I cannot control that. But I have learned that when I make my focus a good lesson, a good discussion, an honest interaction, between them and myself, those other things tend to take care of themselves.

Happy First Day of the Semester, MTSU! Let's see what you've got for me this year.

Get the Look

Yesterday was orientation for the new fall semester and it went really well. I learned some new classroom strategies and also felt affirmed in some things I already knew. Overall, the day was really great.

Then my hair got frizzy.

I don't know about you, but my hair is like, the bane of my existence. Strong language, yes, but maybe you don't have fine hair that has to live through Tennessee humidity every year.

I will spackle on my makeup, take painstaking showers, and wear perfume, but whatever polish I manage to possess via these things is quickly diminished by strands of almost, not-quite curly, frizzy hair that WILL puff up, even after I have conditioned, gelled, and sprayed it within an inth of a millimeter of every hair follicle.

And that kind of ruins my day. I end up talking to people, trying to work, attempting to look professional, all while stuffing my hair back into a ponytail or frantically pulling up my sunglasses, trying to push back my stray wiry curls.

And I'll obsess about it, plan other ways of how to fix it, and generally be very, very worried about it.t

I'll page  through magazines, sighing over the hair columns, and try ways to "Get the Look." It never works. I'm thinking mainly because I don't have a team of stylists getting my hair ready for a photo shoot. Need to look into that.


I've spent a lot of hours (probably amounted to entire weeks or months) of my life devoted to worrying about my looks, my hair, my clothes. But as I get older, meet more people who are wiser than I, I am starting to learn to ask more often: Does it really (really?) matter?

Not whether we shouldn't be thoughtful of our appearance as occasion calls for it, and not whether we all don't want to look our best. But really, how much does it actually matter? How much weight does it bear in relationship to important things like, well, relationships? Other people? Good work? Love?

Um, a very very small amount.

See, when I get caught in the thinking that every nook and cranny and inkling of my appearance is of cosmic significance, I turn into a fearful, conniving individual. Defensive. When I assume that everyone is judging me, I suddenly find myself judging them, silently evaluating their clothing, inspecting their makeup, analyzing their skin, all rather than actually listening to them, learning more about them, hearing their ideas. Asking how they are.

It's an odd two-sided coin: when I work so hard on my looks, I kind of forget to look at other people.

It's natural, can't help it, to see the appearance. But when that's all we zero in on, man, there's a ton that we miss, both in others as well as ourselves.

New Seasons

Okay, I'm not too proud to say it. School begins on Monday, and I'm terrified.

I woke up at 3am this morning, my mind racing over my syllabus, whether I've done enough, and whether I'll catch all my typos before I print my final draft.

Good times.

I face these heart palpitations every semester as all the unknowns in students and schedule and the juggling act of home, school, writing, volunteer programs, family, etc. get together and multiply anxieties in my mind like bunnies. Then I feel like a fake and wonder why I even bother doing anything. Ever.

But last night (or rather this morning) as I said my multiplication tables in my head last night, trying to go to sleep, a feeling began pooling around my heart, crossing over into my mind's race track: gratitude.

Gratitude for an amazing summer where I experienced God's faithfulness and gentleness to me in family changes, Nathan's and my decisions, my writing, my relationships. Gratitude for a summer of afternoon naps, lake weekends, patio suppers, and afternoons painting furniture. Gratitude for peace and contentment, even gratitude for the days I felt worried and restless, because I had time to work through it.

All of which translate into lessons, energy, and ideas I'll carry with me into the busy times this semester; a reminder that God's goodness doesn't stop, or start, by our seasons, but new mercies are given every day. Such is His great faithfulness.

Looking at the time, I'd better go get dressed and ready for orientation today. I'll have to begin a new blog schedule this fall, since I'll be teaching when I normally write. But it'll be alright, a new season is here, and with it, new mercies. And I can't wait to see them.

Ugly Stories

Yesterday while eating lunch at East Nashville's fantastic Silly Goose restaurant, my friend Lisa and I fell into a conversation about art and writing and the crazy ways we try to make creativity happen. She's an ah-mazing visual artist with a double-whammy of gifting for writing, and I, well, I try to write.

But even if our expressions are a bit different, we agree on one thing-- we hate sharing our creative processes with anyone besides ourselves.

"I'd rather no one see some of my work," Lisa said. She's even burned some pieces. They're not nice, she added. She'd rather show the pieces that reflect hope and truth. And that's what she has hung up in her apartment. The other stuff, she feels, are kind of embarrassing.


When I write, I would  rather duel to the death than reveal my work unless I think it's absolutely perfect. I write terrible drafts full of dark, probably really emo, sentiments. They're unwitty and full of flaws. I'd much rather show you the buffed-up, shiny work that is the finished product.

So the question came up- what's the value of sharing or keeping those dark works, the embarrassing pieces, the ugly first drafts even have? Maybe they are just better off burned.  Maybe.

And yet.

I follow two websites called The Well-Written Woman and Freedom with Writing that provide encouragement and resources for aspiring literati. They post stories and great quotes like the Vonnegut one here, and I can't tell you how much relief they give this writer. It's good to be reminded that others face challenges writing too. This encourages me; spurs me on, and gives me hope that my crappy attempts at writing are going somewhere.

And this is what I thought about yesterday. That maybe our ugly drafts, the awkward process is one more way of  encouraging others. Sure, we're working towards something more finished, more complete, but it's a journey. And on a journey, you may as well have some company. And eat lunch together and talk about it

Don't get me wrong- I'd much rather write--and live and think-- in a way that's isolated, all buttoned-up, and perfect. But in art, as in life, I realize such living isn't grace-based or relational or actually creative. It is controlling, coy, and based on fears of what others may think.

This makes for bad art, bad living, and bad theology.

In Scripture, isn't this what the stories are about? God using ugly stories for good? For encouragement, wisdom, and a great deal of comfort?

This morning I read how in Galatians, Paul recalls his own ugly story of persecuting and killing Christians, reminding the Galatians that it is God's grace that called him out of that and into a knowledge of  who God actually was.

God used Paul's ugly stories to not only bring glory to Himself, but to also minister to others (not sure many folks saw that coming). By embracing his less-than past,  Paul was able to encourage thousands with the  message of grace, that God redeems and uses ugly stories for good.

A behavior-based gospel can't do that. Buttoned-up theology can't do that.

And maybe we don't exactly show off bad drafts or less than stellar pieces. But we might as well talk about them, maybe show them to some trusted friends and let other people in on our struggles and stories. You know, share our burdens.

As Lisa and I finished our sandwiches and salads, we both acknowledged how awkward this is, how counter intuitive to our behavior-based society this is--to let people in on our unfinished-ness, our imperfections, our gangly processes--be it in art or just life.

And yet we just had. By talking about it, we had snuck out of our mutual isolations and into journeying with one another, helping one another, with ugly stories in tow, towards the kind of artists, the kind of people we'd actually like to be. And that process was a pretty beautiful thing.

Enjoy

Just got back from a quick turn-around weekend up in Cincinnati where my brother lives. Some friends were throwing him and his fabulous fiancee an engagement party so Nathan and I, along with my parents, packed up the cars and headed up I-65 to I-71. It was great, the couple was celebrated, and the party kicked off what promises to be a full, fun and busy year of wedding preparations.

I've written before about traveling, and how I've come to love it for shaking up my soul a bit, getting me out of my dogged routines and perspectives and helping me refocus when I come home.But even as a I love what travel does for me, it's often hard in the process. I get carsick easily, and apparently after 30, sitting for more than 2 hours constitutes foreplay for a nap, so I'm not always the most fun traveling companion. Plus, if family is involved, I usually have just enough time to think about how things could go wrong, what I could do to make it better, and from there figure out how to control everyone else.

Then I stay in my head and don't air out any of these ideas, so naturally I become irritable when Nathan doesn't do exactly as I *think* and follow my mental vibes. He's just going along haphazardly, thinking everything's fine. The nerve that man has.

Ahem. But anyway, I tried something different this weekend. I tried just enjoying myself.  And it was awesome.

My brother and fiancee did a fabulous job hosting us in a way that was completely them--sharing favorite restaurants and sites that they loved with us. Nathan did what he does best, be completely present, telling stories from work and family, talking about his hobbies (many of which Stina enjoys too), my parents and Stina's shared their stories, and the mix was awesome. It was unique, better than anything I could control. And I could just enjoy it.

On the way back home, I was a little sad. I usually am after a visit. I want to wrap up Wes and Stina and take them home with us. But that's not where they are; it's not their home. Nathan and I chatted about our thoughts and feelings from the weekend and finally resorted to turning on a Broadway Pandora station, and sang show tunes all the way home. We were cracking up by the time we got to our front door.

What I'm trying to say is this. For us planners, for us controllers, being present is mighty hard; we're always trying to think of the next step. But I miss so much joy and uniqueness when I do that. Now, it doesn't mean that I don't take care of me or am unwise in considering what comes next, but when it's safe, simply being present is powerful. You'll get new ideas and experiences, maybe even new show tunes.  Enjoying the moment is like a little kid and an ice cream cone, catching every dribble with the tongue, licking up all the delicious messiness that's there.

Learning to enjoy is like learning to live in the present. Being fully there, tasting all that life has to offer.

Even When It Don't Feel Like It

Image found at blog.fatherhood.org

There was this song on an album my mother loved when I was growing up called, "It's Still Love."

It went something like this:

Even when it don't feel like it, it's still love;

Even when it don't act like it, it's still love;

Well, we made ourselves a promise and we're never giving up,

Even when it don't feel like love.

It was a great song about the power of the promise of marriage; that even when emotions say otherwise, holding to the promise is still love.

While it is a great sentiment about marriage, it applies to other areas of commitment too. The question being, not whether I FEEL like fulfilling my commitments and responsibilities every day, but whether I know I want to do them and that in my heart of hearts it's the right thing to do.

Every Tuesday I help some kids in a local housing development with homework, snacks, and games. And every Tuesday I experience the weirdest kind of dread and self-doubt. All the reasons not to go whirl through my head: I'm tired, I have other things to do with my time, no one likes me, and really I'm more of a bother than a help.

It's weird, I tell you. Almost crippling, debilitating

And I have the choice to give into those emotions. No one demands that I come. No one gets angry if I don't come. They can't dock my pay. I could listen to these feelings and back down.

Or I can go back to what I know, and why I committed to be with these kids in the first place:
Jesus loves children and the impoverished; by being with them I get out of my own comfy life; there is a tangible need for homework help, food, and support for the staff there; and last but not least, I love that my church even had the heart to help with a non-churchy program.

The thing is, these reasons still hold true. There are still needs and last I checked, God still cares about these folks.

And every Tuesday when I go, I am far from rejected. I receive hugs and high-fives; I see kids open up to conversation who never have before. I see loneliness dissipate; I see community happen.

In my heart I feel like we're doing some pretty important work with these kids-- especially since each of us volunteers face such dark feelings every time we're about to go out. I think evil would love nothing more than to keep these kids isolated. I think evil would love to keep our church distracted from this kind of outreach.

I would worry more that the dark feelings were true if I never saw any glimmers of light or hope in our work. But I do. Every single time.

As I think back on that song, I think that this is the power of love, of promise, of commitment. Not blind love or blind commitment, but the ability to look through the fog of dark and doubt and to actually see and embrace the truth of the situation. That even when we don't feel like it, love is still at work.

What's in Front of Me

I'm a planner.

I've written about this woe a couple of times now, but it really is an affliction. It's an affliction because it's a snarling, scraping attitude that tries to condense the world down into patterns and linear logic, only to be constantly thwarted at every turn, forcing said planner to constantly pull back, readjust, and try to throw her arms a little farther around the world.


I wish it were only about good business practices, efficiency, open and honest communication skills, and a desire to reach others better. Unfortunately, it's not always. More often it's about control.

I like to control things, to have a grip on the projects and people I engage with. I want a sure footing at all times, which means I get really resentful when thing shift and I have to move to uncertain places.

Man, I hate that. Both things, actually, the having to move and the resentment that follows.

This morning was such a morning, when I realized my footing was not so sure on some projects I've been involved with. It turns out that I dropped some balls which will result in my day backing up and the possibility of not being able to accomplish what I had scheduled for today

And that sucks.

As I began fretting over the repercussions for the rest of the week, a conversation with a friend came back to my mind, a conversation we had had about worry. Her family is facing much more severe problems than I am--we're talking not even in the same league--and yet she applauded something I said.

"You said you were just going to focus on what's in front of you," she pointed out. "I like that. I'm going to try it."

Gotta love it when your own wisdom comes back to bite you.

My friend's own willingness to have a different perspective amidst troubling circumstances radically shifted my own perspective and tore my eyes away from my sniveling navel gazing.

Alternate plans knock over ours every single day. We can choose to be anxious (not exactly Biblical) or we can deal with the knowns--the stuff that's right in front of us and be faithful in it. It doesn't mean that we're blind to the future or how events affect one another, but it's a paradoxical acceptance of the present while developing plans for the future.

This morning I'm planning to focus on the projects, needs, and responsibilities that are right in front of me. The future, the rest of the week, will be there when I get there.

What Do You Have to Say?

Found on  http://alignyourlife.wordpress.com

What do you have to say?


When I last blogged on Thursday I posed this question to the wide, wide, web, and gave myself a sneaky out to not have to answer it for myself until today.And I think I have my answer.

It's you don't have to be afraid.

I have struggled with fear as long as I can remember. I remember being afraid of the dark as a little girl. I remember being afraid of hell and damnation very early. I remember being afraid when a Democrat was elected. I was also afraid of being fat forever (I was the largest kid in my friend group until I was 12.)

More subtle fears crept in as I grew older. Fear of rejection from peers, fear of being though lazy, fear of being overlooked, fear of making mistakes and being an economic reject for the rest of my life and never having a steady job. Fear of being a bad daughter, a bad sister, a bad friend. Oh, and goody, after I married I could be afraid of being a bad wife.

Depending on your own experience and powers of deduction, you may know what the antidote, or at least the result, of these fears is: busy-ness. You become an absolute PRO at whipping yourself into a frenzy of productivity for anyone and over anything just to avoid having any of these fears come true.

Of course, the trouble is, they're so often self-fulfilling prophecies that once we allow them to master us, we're usually able to upset something or someone pretty well just the same.

The more women I talk to, the more magazines I read, I find that these are the fears that honestly bind us together; it's what we have in common. At least we're on the same page!

Having felt fear all of my life, I've also had the privilege of critical time and relationships that have helped me go head-to-head with many of these fears. I've had people who have helped me name them, sit with them, hold them, and at the end of the day deal with them so that they don't rule me.

I walk with them, yes,  and they often follow me around, but when I look them in the eye I can see them for what they are--sensitivities, perhaps, emotions, maybe, and even warnings. But not my masters.

I remember going through a little book with my mother and brother when  I was in high school. The book was called "From Fear to Freedom," and in its humble paperback form, it was one of the most powerful messages I've ever received. Rose Marie Miller connects the Gospel with these internal fears we harbor and answers them with truth: You are enough (you are God's) and You have enough (God provides).

It was radically practical, holistic thinking that affirms our broken, afraid, human thinking, and turns us to find our identity in God. This was so freeing to me because it meant that I didn't have to seek validation from anyone (the peers I so desperately wanted to please) or anything (finances, furniture, my looks or a seasonal wardrobe). My intrinsic worth came from my Maker, and nothing external could change that.

This is an idea that changed my life. I keep returning to over and over and over again, and it shows up in my writing, because I see these fears so often at work in those around me. I see it in myself constantly. And  I want to write about the daily work of returning to the truth that I am enough, that God provides.

Asking the Good Questions

"What message has God put on your heart to share?"

It was a good question posed on a blog I read this morning. And I have to admit, it startled me a bit.

I had been talking to Nathan about questions--the good kind--and how to ask them well. Because see, as an introvert, it's so easy for me to live in my head and to think I've "got it"--that I understand my life and the world around me.

The problem with that is that it's a perspective that can be so one-sided and two-dimensional. In fact it can become the road to living an out-right lie--a life that's simply not true; the sincerest kind of make-believe.

Good questions keep us in check with reality.

My pastor once said that healthy reflection is not about self-absorption, but aligning our lives with truth. Questions ask us to bring our perspective and our lives in line with God's leading.

So when I read this blog this morning, it felt piercing, like something that cut through the shit of self-justication, excuses, and hmms and haws, and simply asked, "What do you have to say?"

Not, "What do you think you SHOULD say?" Not, "What do you think other people NEED to hear?" Not, "What do other people EXPECT you to say?" 

Just, "What do you have to say?"

This is a good question for a writer. If you're not a God-believer, that's all you need to take away from this. When you believe in a personal God, the heat is on a bit, because it's like having to deal with a present or responsibility from someone, and you've really got to deal with it. But outside of that theology, most of us have a feeling or particular pressing that belongs to no one else. So just think about that.

Put this question on a post-it note and just stare at that today. Think through it, feel through it, wrestle with it on your own terms.

Because I guarantee what you have to say, what's on your heart to say, doesn't match up with those other three questions-- the shoulds, the expectations, the perceived needs you "think" you see.

When I'm Overwhelmed: Needing the perspective of friends

From fastcoexist.com

I'm easily overwhelmed.

I feel EVERYTHING, so not only do I perceive tasks mentally and physically in a space of time, but every event has to filter through my million layers of limestone emotions. Then and only then can the event be processed.

The problem is that events don't happen one at a time, but in general, eh, several in a day. And it all has to filter.

I can usually handle everything pretty well if I have a little time in the morning for quiet and sipping coffee. Sipping coffee speeds the filtering process. It also helps when I have a couple of hours over the weekend to walk or run, sit or smoke or drink wine to simply sit and think. It cleans the filter for another week so I can take on the load.

But when I don't have that time; when I can't filter, odd things start to happen.

I become restless and edgy. I crave stimulation like a drug. I can't focus, only movemovemove and hope that something will come along and make me happy. If it doesn't, I'll simply stay frustrated, irritable, and angry until it does.

So after 30 years of these ups and downs, I'm learning I need to take time for quiet, both for my sanity and the safety of the world.

But quietness alone isn't what helps me. I need the valuable input of friends and family who can help guide my thought process and give me new stones to put in my mill, the better to turn the grist. I need to share my processing occasionally with others so that they either affirm my thinking or hold up a few warning signs.

Because you see, with all this internal processing can come the deadly side effect of living in one's head. Left alone too long, a moldiness of mind and ideas sets in, and like mold, permeates every thought and every action. But when aired out with others, the good ideas flourish and the bad ones dry out.

I hung out with a marvelous friend yesterday whom I love. We can air out ideas and speak into one another's lives with our perceptions. On this particular day, I had the chance to talk about different jobs I was considering and how I wish I made more money.

It was while we were talking that I realized that the job and responsibilities I have right now are enough and that I can and should stop obsessing about money.

It was an idea that I've reflected on, chewed on and prayed over for weeks, months even, but an afternoon of chit-chat and Goodwill-ing told me what I needed to hear.

When I'm overwhelmed, my natural tendency is to retreat into my head, and certainly I need time for that kind of reflection. But I need the other kind too. Like amateur optometrists, or at the very least, humble mirrors, the best friends can correct our vision or at least reflect it, giving us insight we could never achieve on our own.

Seeking Shelter

And I think my home is just Heaven's reflection, as long as my home's here with you.

Michael Card

From Greatjoy.com

 

It's a pretty old song, and one that was passed around mainly in conservative Christian circles that only listened to Michael Card. Well, after they finished their Bill Gaither tapes.

But it's one I've thought of ever since I was a little girl, as the first connection I ever made that home, as in our physical dwelling, bore, or could bear, any resemblance to a spiritual home, a home for the soul. It was also the first time it occurred to me that a spouse, or at least a roommate or loved one, could help sustain that metaphor.

I was lonely many times when I lived by myself, but I don't think I realized how lonely my heart actually was/is until I married. When I lived alone I learned to develop a certain callous over the extra-tender spots. Not that I ignored them or pretended they weren't there, it was just a developed sensibility to say, well, there's nothing I could really do about it.

 I supposed if I had a more extroverted personality I might have begun dating like crazy or something. But I didn't. I just let it be.

When Nathan and I married and this introvert could let her guard down, I started realizing what a needy, lonely person I was. Since I wasn't maintaining the callous the tender spots could be felt-- little hurts, little alonenesses, little frustrations, little fears--that I had previously shrugged over.

But whereas I ignored them before, I had a choice as a married-- to impose all my needs on Nathan and demand he heal and fill them all, or acknowledge them, discuss them with him, and ultimately take them to the One who actually has the capacity to heal and to fill.  

My husband isn't God, nor am I, and we cannot heal one another's wounds--that's ultimately God's business. But I'm realizing we are placed here to be with one another and provide comfort for one another--no small benefit of the married life. And in our conversations, in our acceptances of one another, we are working on doing just that.

Our relationships, our homes, have the potential to be soul shelters to one another--homes without walls that last. 

 For the full song: "Home" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYQyDh8-Neo

New Spectacles: Chaim Potok's "The Chosen"

Image from http://www.sonlight.com/430-22.html

 I was lucky enough to receive a gift card to Barnes and Noble this summer, and I finally spent it this week. By the way, walking into a bookstore is always a wonderful thing, but it's especially wonderful when you're spending someone else's money.

I had decided to pick up some books that I needed to read or had not read in a very long time and didn't own. I spent an agonizing hour and a half making my selections (for I had more books than money in my hands) and ended up with an odd assortment of books, two were favorites I wanted to personally own, and then a third which I had never read.

The first two were "Quiet" by Susan Cain (and if you have not read it, be you introvert or extrovert, I highly recommend it. In fact, stop what you're doing and go get a copy. Now, immediately. What are you still doing here???), and the second was Michael Chabon's "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" which I had just read this spring and immediately loved (I loved it so much that I wrote Chabon a thank-you letter, to which he responded. It's here on my desk where I can look at it every day).

The third was Chaim Potok's "The Chosen." It's one of those classic books that I, an English major and masters, missed completely. I have many friends who love Potok, and whenever I feel out of a loop I like to get back in.

What drew me was the premise--two young Jewish boys from different sects of Judaism--Danny is Hasidic, Reuven comes from an intellectual and liberal father-- who form an unlikely friendship. 

Boom. I was already hooked.

But why? Why was a I hooked? Why does this kind of theme pull on me?

It's what pulled on me in "Kavalier and Clay"--this struggle with Jewish identity, this commitment to traditions and ways of life that are constantly under attack and persecution,, the struggle to reconcile with the world as it is and the way they believe God ordains/directs/prescribes it to be. 

The art that comes out of this tension is glorious. It's gritty in the sense that it goes toe-to-toe with Jewish worldviews and secular ones as well as Jewish and Christian. It's an honest grappling, and a grappling that says these things are worth considering, contemplating, arguing, and fighting over.

Sometimes I think in Western Christianity we're so focused on the sweet by-and-by that the here and now gets overlooked, resulting in shoddy art and cheap worship service.

I'm only half-way through "The Chosen" but already I'm savoring the implications of not only the friendship of the two boys, but the tension between the worldviews. It's honestly not so different than the implications, the tensions that Western Christians supposedly face, but again, sometimes I feel like contemporary Christian writings focus so greatly on the hereafter than the importance of relationships and worldviews are somehow neglected.

And this is, I think a fundamental difference between Christian literature and Jewish (and please forgive any gross over-generalizations, I'm learning a lot, so feel free to correct me and add to this, if I am wrong). Christianity is more often preoccupied with the great consummation, the conclusion and completion of all things. Jewish literature comes from a faith that is still looking for the Messiah, still looking for a Promise to be fulfilled. So, while they are waiting, they concern themselves more with the now--exhuming the earth rather than acting as if God Himself will do everything and we have no responsibilities (again, which can often be said of our Western Christian worldview--not always, but often).

I'll stop there before digging myself further into a hole-after all, I have not yet finished the book. But these are just some reflections on why I am finding Jewish literature so good for my soul. It broadens my perspective, and causes me to consider my own faith in a new light. Another good pair of spectacles to see through.

Why Restlessness is a Good Thing

                                                                  From webmd.com

 Lately I’ve been feeling restless. Again.

My bouts of tranquility never seem to last for very long. As soon as I overcome one source of turbulence, another bubbles up, leaving my eye twitching and heart racing.Sometimes it's hormones, sometimes it's stress. Sometimes it's just a pressing need to get things done.

These are the times when my imagination goes crazy. I dream high lofty dreams where I achieve perfection and completion…and amply set myself up for disappointment, if not outright depression, at my inability to accomplish the dream—whether in terms of writing, relationships, how my house looks or how my day went.

Why do I do this to myself? I wondered. Why can’t I just be okay with the here and now, taking events and people in stride, rather than building up all of these unattainable goals and crumbling with despair when they don’t work out?

I posed the question to God this morning, and, in my exhaustion I felt all I could do was pray and try to get on with my day. But a nudge encouraged me to continue in my reading of 2 Corinthians, and this is what I found:

[W]e know that when these bodies of ours are taken down like tents and folded away, they will be replaced by resurrection bodies in heaven—God made, not handmade—and we’ll never have to relocate our  “tents” again. Sometimes we can hardly wait to move—and so we cry out in frustration. Compared to what’s coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we’re tired of it! We’ve been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies! The spirit of God whets our appetites by giving us a taste of what’s ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we’ll never settle for less. 2 Corinthians 1-5, The Message.

Paul zones in on the restlessness that comes with frustrating living arrangements of whatever kind, and how he then likens it to the restlessness we feel while waiting to see the promises of God fulfilled. It's like an artist who sees something better and wants to create it perfectly, but has to walk the clodhopper road between the perfect vision and the physical manifestation. These are exactly the same kind of anticipation and knowingness—knowing that there’s something better and knowing that we aren’t living it yet.

And we can get tired of the tension.

But the trouble happens when we think that this kind of perfection and completion is available here on earth, and I think this is where my skin gets itchy. I think that if I just try a little harder, focus a little more, give it a little more elbow grease, that I’ll attain that perfection here. Oh, and if I don’t, it’s totally my fault and I should work harder.

Whew. No pressure there.

Instead, what Paul offers is a Heavenly perspective versus a “Better- Than” perspective. “Better –Than” says there’s always something [on earth] that’s better than what I have now, and that I should struggle and sweat and worry until I get it. The Heavenly perspective says a more perfect reality exists outside of the physical and that there’s nothing here on earth that compares. We can reflect it, impersonate it, and look for it. But we can't attain it. Yet.

It also means then that this restless, this itchiness, I feel for something else is natural and good. In fact, if I don’t feel it to some degree, then it means I think this world can fill my needs. The restlessness reminds me that God is the only one that can.

Paul goes on to describe the kind of perspective that we are to have instead:

But neither exile [troubling living conditions] nor homecoming [perfection] is the main thing. Cheerfully pleasing God is the main thing, and that’s what we aim to do, regardless of our conditions (verse 9).

The question at the end of the day is not whether I have accomplished something, or whether I’ve done something “as best I can.” And in contrast, neither is it about not caring at all and giving up on this physical life. In fact, this life isn't about the "doing" at all, at least it's not the priority. The doing is only as good as the heart it comes from. Life is about "being"-- pleasing God, being in relationship with Him-- and neither physical perfection nor performance has a part in that.

So I can embrace the restlessness, let my imagination go, and try to see and find and reflect the perfection. But I can also rest knowing the perfection isn't in the doing; it's in the being.

 This is a good perspective for this restless girl to rest in.