Nurturing Orchids

Before she left our work and moved to Germany, a friend entrusted her desk orchid to me. It is purple-speckled, lovely, and the sister to my own dual-colored orchid.  

When she gave it to me, I didn't know that I would also join her in leaving our workplace just a few weeks later. Her orchid moved from my desk to my piano at home to the garage when it dropped its flowers and was unpresentable for staging to the floor of a sunroom when it came to Tulsa months later, then, finally, to my new kitchen's terrarium window. 

Orchids are fickle friends. When loved well, they are generous, abundant in their blooms. Three ice cubes a week and gentle sun are what they want. Too much or too little, and they wither and fall to pieces. 

My own orchid gave us 12 blooms this early summer until an ant infestation led to de-soiling, re-potting, and a heavy rinse. The leaves have all dried and fallen, and only 2 blooms remain. 

Tabitha's plant has only remained in our family out of determination--it has been brown and gray for months with no sign of life. Still, each week, three ice cubes are added in with hope. 

Almost a year later, it has regrown a full four huge leaves and is nubbing out for re-growth of a stem. Buds and flowers will follow. 

My orchid will survive with the same determination, but its speed of growth and vibrancy is what drew the predators. What we thought was so strong was being eaten alive below the surface. At this stage, the plant we had taken for dead is the stronger and healthier by far. 

We don't know the roots for the blossoms. Assumptions of strength are mere assumptions and not determinations. All that we can do is be patient, remain consistent with encouragement to grow, and act to protect when enemies make themselves known. 

Pretense and Prayers

This week, I have found myself caught in a difficult place I have found myself so many times before.

To families I work with, I have often called myself a "nontraditional Christian". Perhaps that's prideful, perhaps it's a cop-out so that I avoid judgment, but I'm really not 100% sure of my motivation. A professor in college once called my personality "slippery". I didn't like that, but he's not wrong. I avoid, as much as possible, any and all definition, even though there's nothing more satisfying than feeling known.

I am a question asker. I am a person who needs to know "why". I am a fighter and a seeker, and that can come off wrong. Many times, people have judged that as not being a faithful Christian because they see it as a sign of doubt or disbelief. In my mind, I see it as a sign of faithfulness, of belief. Why fight for something you don't believe in? No, you fight for that you do believe in.

Throughout my life as well, I have been in puddles of "perfect" people while at the same time having a knack for collecting broken people. Maybe I love the broken because I know that we are all broken. Everyone is broken. Everybody has their fissures and canyons in their life. That's why we need Jesus. But there's something beautiful about broken people's inability to hide theirs. You can see Jesus better when you can't hide where he's working, or wants to be working.

Perfect people, people with rock solid testimonies and veneers, bother me. They bother me at some level because I distrust them and their stories. God is good; yes, all the time. But he is also working all the time. In true community, you share. If we are supposed to be in true community spiritually, then why are we not sharing? Why are we judging instead? I posit that we judge out of our own insecurity, out of our fear that we ourselves are seen as being imperfect. Because maybe we won't be respected anymore or get that job at that Christian foundation or be thought of as a "struggler."

Because we have seen how those labels have power and have seen their impact on lives, as people start to believe what they are called. We're responsible for our own development, but it is hard not to feel the sear of the rejections and the names.

My broken collective has all gone different directions. Some have become their labels, some have overcome their labels. All grow, just in different ways.

Have you ever sat down to "judge" someone's faith walk for one reason or another? Walk that line with prayer and petition. Just because one person has chosen to be vulnerable and share where they honestly stand does not mean that they are necessarily more or less "solid" than the person who stands in front of you and says that they're rock solid in Jesus. No man knows another's soul. No one has "arrived" in their spirituality or their walk with Christ. One man's plateau or peak period may be during another's valley. Give them six months. The man you thought couldn't be shaken might have proven himself weak and the "weak" man may still be standing strong.

We are called to love, to lead back to Christ, to be diligent and prayerful and gracious. We correct when we need to correct, but we should always start with love and with God.

I am a person with the propensity for very strongly worded opinions, This is something I am challenged about daily and something I try daily to be more wise about. However, with regards to this topic, I know that I speak truly when I say that above all other subjects, this one should be treated with more gentleness, wisdom, diligence, and prayer than any others before words come out of our mouths.

Paul writes, "may your love abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight so that you maybe able to discern", "approve what is excellent" "and may be sincere and blameless for the day of Christ--filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ".

The first definition that comes up for "sincerity" is "without pretense." Without our masks.
When I read this verse, I hear, "If you are following God with your whole heart, then he will cast aside all human-coated thoughts, leaving behind only what is true and good and holy."

Follow God, listen to his voice while turning yours off, and speak out with a voice that is not your own, one not coated all over with your pride, your position, your particular brand of sinful.

I Know You By Name

If you've never read The Book Thief, you're missing out.
Found for a quarter at a garage sale down the road, this book was a steal in and of itself.

The Holocaust is not something to be taken lightly, but it gets as close as you can without crossing any lines. Why is that important? Because humor, even dark, is part of the human experience, and Book Thief's purpose is to show the human experience as colorfully as possible, the whole of it, not just in part.

The entire narration is from the point of view of Death. It's the first I've read of its kind, but the most interesting part is how Death describes himself. As "amiable. Agreeable. Affable. And that's only the A's" (Zusak 1). He calls himself a result. And, when asked to describe himself, he says for humans to only but look in a mirror. Humans, he posits, are the real carriers of death.

However, in my English II course, we explore how that's the most powerful and hopeful statement. We have the capacity to carry death, but that also means we have the power to carry life, to promote joy and healing and goodness.

Death searches, throughout the entire novel, to answer the question of why human existence is worth it. He knows it is, but he is on a quest to show how.

So, that is our course thesis for this novel: Human existence is worth it.

At the end of each class period, we spend time answering the half statement, "Human existence is worth it because..."

It's my second time teaching through this book, but this semester has hit nerves so much deeper inside me and, I believe, my class.

There's something about this semester at my university that has just been a little off-kilter, a darkness felt by so many of our students, faculty, and staff. As a believer, I do believe that spiritual warfare is alive and well and that the enemy seeks to steal, kill, and destroy, especially when there is so much life and light in a place.

I have, thus far, had 3 students drop my course out of overload. Two stayed at the university, one withdrew due to suicidal ideations. Another yet is taking next semester off because of similar mental and psychological stress. And then there's [Claire].

If we are being honest, Claire bothered me. She came to even the first day of class late. She would sit there and I just felt uncomfortable by her presence because it came off as almost hostile. She rarely turned in assignments. It was as if school--and my class--were below her. Which surprised me, as she is an English major.

Then, one day at Walmart, I saw her with another student of mine who I had recruited, a student I dearly love. Call it Jones' Effect, but if she's friends with my student, she is a good person. My whole perspective changed, and I felt it deeply that I needed to reach out. Her tardiness had gotten much worse, if she showed up at all.

She shared with me of her depression, how she wasn't coming because she couldn't get out of bed. She hadn't turned in her major paper because she had never even started her paper.

We talked. We met together. We made compromises and worked through her missing pieces. I told her how valuable her feedback in class was to course discussion. She didn't even know she had been "seen."

She started showing up to class right on time. With assignments. Good assignments. Blew me away with her next paper. I thought everything was going better, going better than better.

Then came an email telling me she was hospitalizing herself for self harm.
Then came emails from the registrar asking if she would succeed if she came back; I confirmed.
Then came an email from her asking what work she had to make up, if she could.
Then came the first day of class back after Thanksgiving. Late. No paper.
Then came the second day of class back after Thanksgiving. No Claire.
Then came the classified ad posts desperately asking for help toward this "new treatment" and a public expose on her mental illness.
Then came the text from the university at 10pm last night saying they were searching for a student they believed had self harmed.
Then came heartbreak.

A reassurance of her life was sent about 20 minutes later, but so much damage had already been done. There isn't anything that could convince me that it wasn't her. I'd be delighted to know it wasn't, but it was. I know the evidence too well.

Human existence is worth it because...

The heartbreak is because I know the answer to that question. I know it for me, and I know it for her. In fact, I could write a full list for any one of my students about why their specific human existence is worth it.

It doesn't matter if a person is Christian or not. Their human existence is worth it because they each have the capacity to love and be loved. To bless and be blessed. To care. To listen. To give. To write and think and create and dream and dance and play and BE.

To me, today, human existence is worth it because I know the Lord. I know that he has the capacity and desire to restore the broken and to pour love and compassion and grace out on us. Human existence is worth it because I am known by name by the creator of the world, and he has given me life and the ability and opportunity to love and individually care for so many people around me--and to forgive me when I sometimes suck at loving and individually caring for those around me.

I know that he sees Claire. I know that he sees her hands full of tears and the pieces of her life and that he loves her and has a plan for how to make her broken world into a stained glass mosaic full of light and color and loveliness.

Human existence is worth it because we have potential. No matter how old or young or broken or ignorant, we have potential.
There is so much more than we can see in our frozen moments of life.


*student name changed to protect privacy

I Pick You

My front garden turned from drab to fab, with these giant purple irises.

They're beautiful, but it's difficult to compare when I have a history with flowers loved on and planted by David: see here . 

When I pulled open my door, though, I saw this one, and a memory with David sprang back to life. 

 It was a damp, sunny spring morning in Belfast, and I was running late to school about to miss the bus. Running through the kitchen, I saw a beautiful tulip on the counter waiting for me. 

I lived alone, so it wasn't as though someone had picked a tulip for themselves. 

It was a present for me. From a man who knows I love flowers, a man so proud of his flowers (but so British he would never have been able to say it) that he wanted to give one to somebody he knew would appreciate its beauty as much as he did. 

The flower was lovely, but it was the man that made it precious to me. 

David, my man, hardly spoke at all, pleasantries at most, but there were many days where I felt as though David was my very most dear friend. He took care of me in such a practically compassionate way. 

At Christmas, he brought me out of my darkness to decorate. 

In the spring, he wanted to show me the flowers. 

He put up a shelf in my room. 

He teased me when I would make my entrance to the world at noon or past (and always made sure to be extra quiet if he thought I was asleep). 

He took me to uni when the bus didn't come that late day in April. 

He made pleasantries with me. 

He showed me the golden finches. He loves the golden finches, "First time in ten years they come back here, them". Even said "you're welcome" when I thanked him. Yeah, it was a huge deal to him to share the finches. 

David is gentle and kind, without a bad word to say about anyone. The one who gardens in his pleated trousers with button-down shirt, sweater vest, and loafers. 

Tireless. 

Humble. 

A big fan of tea. 

I ran out of the house to catch my bus that day, and David was hard at work edging the garden. When I called out a thanks, he told me he had found the tulip downed in the garden: "Musta been a nail or somethin' break it...Thought you could talk to it."

An american would have been making fun of me, but not David. 

He had entrusted one of his broken baby flowers into my care. And since I know David's love for his flowers, I felt the love of the gesture. 

Hadden: Belfast Brought Back

There is an acute release of the soul which comes only when in the presence of one who knows you.

Not someone who has heard your story or your interests or work ethic or habits but someone who is able to discern your character, who is unwilling to misunderstand you.

They are not flippant and they take their time to study, so as to gather the whole picture before making judgments about who you are. Very few in any person’s life can go into this category.

Hadden is one of those people for me.

As the director of studies in Northern Ireland, he was the person who picked me and my team up at the airport during my very first visit (I sat by him the whole van ride to the manor and heard the story of how he fell in love with his wife Betty), and he was the person who was my stable ground when I moved. Though our visits were infrequent, he always approached me with love, with compassion, and with Christ.

There’s something about “old folk” I love and it’s this: they don’t give you no bull crap Christianity. 

Rather, it seems to pour out from a deep and still place and it resonates with truth inside the listener.

I heard a lot of bull during my struggle but never from Hadden, and I think that’s why I love him so. He listened, validated the truth of my words or weeded out the untruth, then redirected me to Christ but also to tea and a hug. It was not indulgent, but it was also not canned.

Hadden saw the ugliest, most pulpous parts of my wreckage, and yet, he trusts me, he loves me, and he always speaks truth over me.

Sometimes I forget who I am.

Who I am here, I feel, does not always reflect who I was there.

Perhaps it is because I did feel so lost and forgotten and silenced that I now find myself almost constantly talking, in a way that practically screams, “NOTICE ME NOTICE ME NOTICE ME”.

Do I want to be noticed or do I want to follow Christ?

Because, if I were to be totally honest with myself, when I was fully following the Lord, I was deep and still and quiet and, somehow, I was seen, though I didn't draw overt attention to myself (you know, being that I lived alone and for a long time had no friends). And now, when I am surrounded by others, I often feel more unknown and misunderstood and alone in my true self than I did then.

Part of that is how I have ceased to write. And part of that, as well, is that I am closer to “reality” than I was there. I am closer to the consequences of my own words, good or bad, than when I lived abroad and this nondistance is discomfiting.

Being known to the level which I desire takes a lot more time than my patience feels as though it can handle, which leads to a lot of explaining on my part. That, as you know, can never end well, as words, unlike consistent behavior over time, can bounce all kinds of directions in other people’s perceptions.

To be known is to have a voice without speaking.

And it’s as though I forget to trust that the Lord writes my reputation, not me. What will be will be, and nothing I can do is going to make me get ahead. All I can do is follow.

I’m pretty passive and a very good follower in so so many ways. That is not one of them.

What do I fear?

I fear that reverence to my true nature will lead me back to being alone, deeply alone. And sometimes, in a very human way, I don’t think it’s worth it.

Yeah, sometimes I really miss the immaculate times of tea and tears with God, but other moments, I do not remember those experiences clearly enough to want them over what I have now.

Then comes Hadden to speak in chapel this week. Hadden, whose friendship blossomed during a time when no one could hear me, and I remember how right and pure and exactly good and better than everything else it is to be someone who is known. To be known by man is precious; to be known by God is worth far more.

and Eamonn wears a blackbird pin

Class today in comparison to class last week could not have been more different. I inadvertently skipped another class (They changed the time. Didn’t know. Should have). However, the class I did attend was really fascinating.

First of all, I did not start spurting tears at random moments throughout the two hours of course discussion. Second, I actually understood the entirety of the discussion. That has never before happened in a class period with Eamonn.

Our discussion today focussed on family structure, construction of identity, genre debate, and mental health. Not only are those my favourite topics to discuss, they also helped me to construct a paper topic, outline it, and jot down the resources I would need to uphold it for my final paper. I’m pretty excited about it. I built a similar argument in a previous class at JBU, so I have a semi-foundation for discussion.

Using the background of Seamus Deane’s “autobiography” Reading in the Dark and the subtexts of Earnest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast and Henry James’ novella “The Turn of the Screw”, I’m going to prove that Deane’s book is, in fact, not an autobiography but a novel. And, more than that, a gothic novel.

I’m pretty excited.

To now turn to a different book, I’d like to discuss the concept of “common grace”, as defined by Rick Ostrander in Why College Matters to God. Since obviously I don’t have my copy on me here in NornIron, I’ll sum up for you. Common grace is the idea that regardless of something’s goal of being Christian or NonChristian, anything can reveal and draw us closer to the character of God.

I am rather certain that neither my classmate Paddy nor my processor Eamonn is a Christian. Just drawn by class discussion, which often focuses on religion due to the structure of this nation.

However, I was struck, both last Monday and today at the way my professor and my classmate were genuinely concerned for my well-being. Not that non-christians are in any way unfeeling or not able to understand things, I guess I’ve just never had a whole lot of interactions with non-christians.

A Christian would have tried to spiritualize my being upset or tell me that they were praying for me. The two of them, instead, expressed…I don’t know. It was like they felt hurt with me, and they didn’t even know what was wrong. I don’t think I even knew fully what was wrong. They made me feel joined. And both afterward expressed so verbally.

It didn’t end there, though. Today, in continuation from last week, they individually followed up with me and reiterated the fact that academia doesn’t stop short of relations, that they really did want to stand beside me in whatever way I needed them to. I don’t know. It sounds kind of dumb saying it now, I was just taken off-guard by it, I suppose.

Eamonn wears a blackbird pin, representative of Seamus Heaney and representative of Ireland. Literature and stories are his life. I caught myself staring at that pin throughout class and thinking of what it meant in the context of the whole.

I’ve spoken before of Ireland’s struggle for identity and struggle for a voice and struggle to live their own story. Who are they? British? Irish? Northern Irish? And yet, they are all at the same time. All our stories and identities are interlinked.

And we all seek to live a good story.

Donald Miller speaks a lot about living good stories with our lives in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. If you don’t like the story your life is telling, change it.

However, our stories are not our own. Like I said, we are all interlinked, Christian and nonChristian alike. Eamonn and Paddy expressing genuine interest into my life was them choosing to play a role in my story past their assigned roles as professor and peer.

That’s why it was meaningful to me.

Anyone can play the assigned role. Requirement says very little. Taking up space out of compulsion is empty of character. It takes boldness and compassion to choose engagement and role-redefinition, going outside the expected to further the greater story at hand. Christian or nonChristian, that speaks volumes of the Lord's grace through them.

Girl Next Door

Or restaurant...

I get a lot of creepy. No, that's not fair. Let me try again.

My restaurant (and I assume many slash all restaurants) get a lot of lonely people. They don't always seem lonely; in fact, a lot of them seem like pompous, arrogant pricks. However, they are overcompensating for the truth that no one really wants to go out to lunch with them.

Along this vein, I get a lot of single men at my tables. Being a young woman, many of these men (after asking me how old I am) make passes at me. Some women find this creepy, find them creepy, and sometimes it  can be, don't get me wrong. However, more often than not, I just end up feeling sorry for them.

Allow me to lay it out for you in my line of thinking. These middle-aged, single bachelors are willing to come to a restaurant and literally pay for someone to spend an hour or so talking to them and taking care of them. In that hour, that woman is required by threat of no-tip to be gentle, kind, indulgent, sumptuous, and smiley. She also comes bearing food.

And you do this because normal woman don't. You don't have somebody at home who thinks your  jokes are hilarious, your small-talk brilliant. You don't have someone who will make you food. You don't have someone period.

 I'll take your tip, sure, but then I go home to my family and my best friends and my wonderful boyfriend and live my life. And you, sir, will go home to yourself.

That is how I live with myself in my position of low-grade prostitution. I am not your groveling servant. You need me just as much as I need you. Shoot, you need me more than I need you. I'm so sorry, sir. I'm so sorry.