On Prayer and Pens

Lately, I've been feeling the crux between who I am and who I could be. 

The could be isn't necessarily a good one. 

I, like all humans, have the propensity for both good and evil. 

Creativity, excitement, book worm-iness vs. numbness, depression, anxiety

Sometimes, I delude myself into thinking that I do not do the good for me because I don't have the time. Time-filled days call my bluff, though. I do not do good because I can't make myself. 

And what's so funny and terrible is that if I would move, the rest of me would follow. If I would move, I would keep moving. It takes practice. 

One good day doesn't mean that the next will be just as productive. But that also doesn't mean to give up. It means to practice, in the smallest of ways, discipline. Be consistent. Be persistent. 

I got a letter today from my friend and now long time penpal Leslie. 

Together we discussed prayer and pens, how difficult prayer can be and how settling and clearing writing can be. 

Several years ago, an author named Lauren Winner came and spoke in chapel at JBU. She was super zany with her big ole butterfly glasses, electrocuted looking hair, and Miss Frizzle clothes. Her content didn't help build a case for her either. The most dynamic moment in my memory is of her holding up an invisible squash as though it were the skull in Hamlet and asking if that squash were prayer. 

That question has quietly gnawed at me for all the years since. 

Was that squash prayer? She had tilled the soil and planted the seed and remembered to water the sprout and weeded the garden and pruned the dead leaves and protected the small plant from bugs and squirrels and then, squash. Was that squash prayer? Well...yeah. 

Does that mean that prayer may be more fluid a concept than we think it is sometimes? 

I think yes. 

The deep breath I take to center myself before a phone call, the conscious mercy shown to a persnickety coworker or friend or student, the serotonin supplement I remember to take, the dishes I put up even though it isn't my turn, the letter I write to a friend, the moments spent reading a book and using my mind, all of that might just be prayer. All of that is pursuing righteousness and godliness. 

And prayer, connection, propels us forward, even if at a glacial pace. 

Leslie ended her letter in a way I found poetic in the most beautiful way, and it works as a "call to action", I believe, in a way I'd like to share (pieces of which are paraphrased). 

I hope life is moving forward for you in the best ways. Writing these letters reminds me that life has substance, structure, and is in need of redemption, though the process of writing in itself presses me to pursue a better ending. And seeing your thoughts reminds me that I am not alone in my inward struggles, that everyone has them; an ever-needed "of course other people live life too" moment is always found when I open your envelopes. 

May we all pursue better endings and good words.

Merci

"I'm just a soul whose intentions are good. Oh, Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood." 

The other evening, I was talking to a professor friend of mine and listened as she described a student who had been treating her really horribly.

As she spoke, I had a pit feeling that it was a student of mine.

It was.

Had she known, she probably would not have been so candid.

A few days later, I came across this student and saw him lash out at another professor.

Of course they struggle to love him. Of course they struggle for grace.
He comes across as a terrible person.

But they weren't there on his tour, when I heard his father verbally tear him down for two hours.
They weren't there for the emails, the phone calls, the personal interactions where I saw the light in this kid doused over and again with darkness.

They see the result.
They don't see the context.

There's nobody you couldn't love if you knew their story.

The moment I figured out the student, my heart was burned with mercy because I know him. I know his heart, and I know how much he wants to be good and how much he desperately just wants to be enough.

Over and over in my head, I heard, "He doesn't know. He just doesn't know what he's doing."

Maybe that is how the Lord finds enough grace for us every morning. He knows our stories. He knows our deficiencies. He knows how desperately we just want to be loved and to know that we are enough and to know that who we are is good.

When we are cruel, when we are unreasonable, when we are abrasive, he knows our hearts and he knows that we do not know what we do.

I am not always merciful. I try to be, but I'm not.
What I do know is that I have seen good people let themselves become bad people because there were defining moments when they desperately needed someone to speak truth into them and there was no mercy to be had.
I do know that I have seen bad people grasp fast onto extended mercy and allowed the Lord to revolutionize their hearts.
I know that I have needed that person many times.
And I know that I am called to be that person time and time again.

Airport Music

I'm currently  sitting in the airport terminal of Houston, eating a stupidly expensive burrito, and wishing the wait were over. My perfect spot got bombarded by a mom and child, and I'm trying to drown my ears with music. 

The terminal, though, is also trying to drown us all in what it constitutes as the right noise, as though the blaring sound of humans were not enough. 

Fairly, it's nice music. It just also has a thousand voices yelling over it, which deafens the niceness. 

So I sit here, burrito and phone and earphones and try to some space for inner peace...and Ben Folds. 

Between the waves of songs, there's a little lull in which I can hear the world around me again. And, for a few seconds, I'm afraid I'll have to turn mine up louder. My brain soon focuses, though, and I am in my happy place again. 

The terminal did not quiet, my music didn't get louder, my brain chose which noise to hear. 

In my case, this is good. Tricking myself into believing I have a bubble keeps me calm in the business. However, I can't help but think about the way this is true of all times. 

We choose what we hear. We choose what we see. We guide and direct ourselves, train ourselves, to head in one direction over another. And, once we are patterned, it is hard to break your eyes and ears out of their set gaze. 

I met my husband twice. 

First day, first class of college. 

First day, last month of Belfast. 

My language here is important. We didn't reconnect. We re-met. 

In my mind, Julius appeared four times, and two of those he wasn't even there for. 

Seeing him at the bottom of the steps at a party and thinking how lost he looked (the night he met his first wife), talking to his "girlfriend", learning they were an item, and being totally shocked at the impossibility of that couple, wondering where he was our second year and Facebook stalking him with my roommate (only to discover he had moved away and gotten married to the girl), and seeing him at the bottom of a flight of steps in the student center the semester he returned to Arkansas and thinking how...foggy he looked. Not lost, just...muted. There wasn't an energy there. 

In actuality, he had existed a lot more actively. 

We were in a Leadership program together for a full year, we had overlapping friend circles, we were even in a group project together that first year. He had to show me the PowerPoint to prove it. I remembered the third member of our group, but not him. 

And a couple weeks ago, upon mentioning a game of jenga I had played with the campus chaplain my senior year, Julius said, "Yeah I remember. I was there." 

Shock all over. He had sat at a table with me and one other person for a good while, and I had no memory. 

I didn't see him. 

I was popular and driven and opinionated and clearly had my eyes and ears and heart set in a totally other direction. 

Joking not joking, our buddy Ogle once told me--right before he brought me Julius--that I was attracted to the wrong people for me. 

I can see now what he meant. When you spend your life searching in only one direction, you may deceive yourself the world is flat. 

He hadn't fit my script for what I believed my people were, so my brain erased him, as I'm sure it has so many other truly good, beautiful people, who I could have become so much better for knowing. 

Then Belfast happened to me. 

By the end of that year, all my scripts had been set on fire. 

Then, on my doorstep, a Julius. 

From the moment we met, there was a mutual understanding between us that I couldn't have twisted into existence by my own powers. It just was. 

In Julius, I had a surety that I couldn't explain, despite how broken we both were. 

Sometimes it's good to find your space in big loud places, but don't forget. What you thought was noise may be, hidden by only a few rows of people, notes from a grand piano and pianist alike. I was settling for a copy when a concerto sat before me. Sometimes, opening your ears is worth the inconvenience of connection with the uncomfortable and unknown.