Open Thou Our Lips: On Detachment pt. 2

     About a week ago, on Saturday morning, I woke up, dressed, and walked outside into the grey light of day. I intended to spend the day doing some deep cleaning in my old apartment, and hoped to make progress with deciding where to store my belongings. While I was walking toward the bus stop, I noticed a bitter, burning smell in the air. As I approached the intersection, I saw firefighters and police officers using their vehicles to block off the street, cautiously dismantling a burnt vehicle as they stood on scraps of charred metal. Because it would have been impossible for the bus to pick me up from that stop, I decided to start walking. To walk from my house to my old apartment would take over an hour, but there was nothing else to be done.
            I pounded down the sidewalk with my arms crossed over me, trying to keep out the surprisingly cold wind. As I walked, I reflected on my lack of motivation. Why should I have to spend my Saturday cleaning a home that was no longer mine? Why should I have to pack and divide my belongings, to store them at cost until I could find another opportunity to live in the way I desired? As I walked, I grew angrier and more frustrated, feeling nothing but the injustice of my situation, feeling trapped in a whirlwind of circumstance.
            I realized, suddenly, that I could not say, with Kathleen Norris, that the thing happening to me was the thing I desired. This was a sobering realization. I remembered her advice about how to adopt an attitude, how to inhale a spirit, of detachment. There was only one method: prayer. So, as I walked down long grey sidewalks, wondering how long until I made it home, I prayed. Because God had already begun the work of detachment in my heart, I felt able to pray for this. I prayed that God would enable me to choose rightly, that he would show me whether I should keep my belongings, and that he would help my heart to release all the things I wanted to keep.
            As I prayed, I noticed a few things. First, I didn’t feel angry or burdened anymore. Second, this release of distress came with the decision to give away and/or sell my belongings to the girl I replaced in my new house, because she is swapping lives with me, and moving into her very first apartment, which she will share with one other person. The deep surprise of this moment, I think, was the absence of pain. I felt certain that this is what I wanted to do, not just what I ought to do, and I felt free from the burdens of my own emotions. Finally, after about 40 minutes of walking, the bus came. I reached the apartment, did some cleaning, and when my old roommate returned, I told her what I had decided. The girl who is taking my things came over that afternoon and together, we walked around the apartment as she evaluated what she could use. Instead of feeling like a mother selling her children in a market stall, I found it easy to extol the merits of my sofa, the comfortable, attractive, brown-suede couch that I had cried over purchasing a year ago, because furniture is so adult and I’m afraid of money.
            I think I’m keeping my kitchen supplies: dishes, pots, and pans, because I can store them in the garages of a few family friends and they will keep until I need them, if I need them, again. But we will see about that, I suppose, because the goal is to “be free from wanting certain things to happen.” It is amazing how many things I no longer own.
            God never forces us to do anything we don’t want to do. Why? Because He loves our yes.

“Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things, and give me life in your ways.”

Open Thou Our Lips: On Detachment

Detachment:

"Being free from wanting certain things to happen, and remaining so trusting of God that what is happening will be the thing you want and you will be at peace with all."
 --Kathleen Norris and Dorotheus of Gaza

I want to contemplate the virtue of detachment. A few weeks ago, a friend read me the chapter on detachment from Kathleen Norris' book Amazing Grace. This topic strikes me as appropriate not only for Lent, but also for the season of life I'm entering. My current roommate, who is one of the best and most beloved roommates I have ever had, got married about a month ago. Because all the other women I know are married or live with their parents, I could not find a roommate to share my lovely, comfortable, quiet hermitage. So, even though I had just reached the stage of early adult life where I owned furniture, had utility bills in my name, and could throw dinner parties with real dishes and silverware, I had to pack up and leave.

I'm not just sad because my dear roommate is moving over lands and seas, but also because I am giving up the place that has been my only home for the last two years. During the seven years I spent in college, I longed for a space of my own. I kept boxes of pretty dishes and table linens given to me by family friends, waiting for the time I would be able to use them. I glory in domesticity. I love having my own kitchen. I love deciding what color of paint goes on the wall, and not having to resign myself to an ugly wall-hanging because everyone else thinks it looks lovely in the living room.

It's hard to give up something that you are actually grateful for. I've prayed about this move many, many times, mostly using words like "Jesus, please, please, please, can I stay?" But even while I prayed for this, I knew that I really needed to pray that my heart would be aligned to the will of God. It's scary to feel desire clutching your heart in its fingers, controlling the rhythm of its pulse. I made a thorough search for anyone female, Jesus-following, and non-crazy. I did not find a roommate. I did not, do not, feel "free from wanting certain things to happen."
 
Instead of finding one roommate, I found five. On Saturday, I moved into an intentional community house. Most of the women who have lived there left behind piles of belongings: stacks of books, mattresses, luggage, mismatched dishes, and shabby furniture, so there is no room for my treasured belongings. I'm ashamed to admit how much this upsets me, but that is the case. The women are all wonderful people, lovers of God, and so good to me. The house has a lovely quirky charm, with odd cupboards and cabinets, a white picket fence, and a well-kept lawn. My little attic bedroom is painted in a lovely shade of grey, with walls that slant upward at about five feet, and a window that overlooks the front yard. Nonetheless, I am having a hard time with this transition, because I am confused about what my life is supposed to look like, who I am supposed to be, and what I am supposed to strive for. A spirit of detachment is wanting. I am trying hard to step away from my constant desire to read the tidy narrative of my life, as though I can stand in the place of God, observing the unfolding of the universe in time, and holding my existence in my own hands. I wish I could see inside the mind of God, because it feels like I'm regressing, going back to my life as a college student, shoved into a small space with a lot of women, unsure of where I am going or why.

 Kathleen Norris writes about a monastic understanding of detachment. As Christians, the point is not to be free of all desire, but rather our aim is to "not [allow] either worldly values or self-centeredness to distract us from what is most essential in our relationship with God, and with each other." Community is more precious than cups, and faithfulness more treasured than furniture. I believe, O Lord, help my unbelief. 

I'm still planning to store my dishes and furniture, but I want to do so with my heart believing in God's constant loving-kindness, with hands that are open to give and receive, and a mouth that is ready to sing worship and shout praise. It's nearly Good Friday after all: "Not my will, but yours, be done."

Hitherto thy love has blessed me,

 thou hast brought me to this place, 

and I know thy hand will lead me, 

safely home by thy good grace.

Amen.

"O Lord, open thou our lips, and our mouths shall show forth thy praise."

A Certain Strangling

      I have lost my voice. Spiritually, I mean. I intended to spend 2013 writing and contemplating voice, in order to regain the part of my own voice that has weakened and been lost.  This did not happen, however, and I can’t say why, though I can talk a little about what has happened to it. When I was younger, in my first few years of college, those truly, purely idealistic years, I took a risk. At the time, I believed that God wanted me to take my voice to the ends of the earth, and to recount his story of love to those who had never heard it. But when I tried to do this, when I embarked on a big, scary overseas adventure, I found that the journey was too hard, the task too large, and I failed. I discovered that I lacked the courage to live boldly every day.

            Since that time, that tragic moment of epic failure, over seven years ago, I have been walking under a sky of shame, and the weather does not change. This is important in our conversation about voice, because it was shame that silenced me. It hushed the part of my voice that spoke boldly, that took risks and chose adventure. I am trying now, after all this time, to release some of that feeling of shame. It is hard, sometimes, for me to be gracious with myself. But God is gracious, more gracious than I understand.

            I was recently describing my feelings of condemnation toward myself, and the judgment I feel emanating from God, when someone wise spoke to me and said, “No, God is kinder than this.” And, “You need to show yourself more grace.” She doesn’t know, of course, that I desperately want to feel permitted to show myself more grace. I want to be kinder to myself, but I feel that I don’t deserve it. Such kindness is unwarranted, unearned. But that is the point of grace, isn’t it? It is never about what is deserved; grace gives, lavishly, what is most needed.

            I need to feel this grace extended to me, from me, because God’s grace in this same matter is already given. Sometimes, I can see the light of grace falling from his open hands: little golden daffodils of grace wholly gratuitous. I’m going to climb inside one of those glowing yellow cups and sit a while.

            Essentially, to regain my voice, I need to remove my hands from around my own neck, until my face is no longer blue and my eyes sink back into their sockets.  

“And the ransomed of the LORD shall

            return

     and come to Zion with singing;

everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;

     they shall obtain gladness and joy,

     and sorrow and sighing shall flee

             away.”

LENT: I CHOOSE ALL!

Currently Reading:
Shirt of Flame: A year with St. Therese of Lisieux

Currently Mulling over:
T.S. Eliot, the Four Quartets

“The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.”

Currently Lectio-ing:
Psalm 119
Philippians

LENT.
It’s over now, and, as usual, I’m feeling dissatisfied with, as my friend Sara says, my ability to “inhabit the Lenten drama”. I’m not sure what the standard should be. I began Lent concerned with mindfulness, which then led to a desire for thankfulness, which has ended up with a deep desire for belonging and the ability to welcome suffering. I do feel that Lent has made me more mindful: more aware of God and the world, more present to the Great Realities of life. It’s also made me a better reader of the Bible, which was one of my most important Lenten goals. It’s also made me more aware of superficiality in my life. A friend told me last summer that she thought I wasn’t living the life I was meant to live. I see that clearly, after Lent.
In my head, I believe that it is possible to do Lent perfectly. What does that mean? I don’t know If Lent is a skill one develops, I don’t know if that should be my concern. I gave up reading and watching, because I wanted to embrace emptiness and be more aware of God than the world of invention.
It’s very hard to sit with emptiness, and there were many times when I distracted myself with things I had not declared anathema during this forty day fast. Lent was a struggle because I’m brawling with Calvinist doctrine: very few of the TULIP’s petals smell sweet to me these days. My church is studying 1 John, so I’m struggling with assurance, too. Do I feel certain right now that I’m saved? I don’t. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, they’ve told me. Well, I believe. The issue is a lack of fruit, fruit borne as proof of this salvation. . . . I haven’t written in so long it’s hard to retrieve the right words. . . . After Lent—a time when I should have embraced struggle—I’m struggling with one thing. I’m deathly afraid of suffering.

Embracing Jesus means embracing all he offers—every blessing—and suffering is a blessing, and don’t I know that already?

When I’m not fearfully running from suffering, I like to tentatively pat it on the head with one hand, an acknowledgement of its presence and worth, but not quite a hospitable embrace. I just can’t wrap my arms around it; it might bite my face off. Or, rather, it will bite my face off. How do you welcome pain?
I like to read Saints’ lives because they challenge my understanding of knowing God. For example, St. Therese of Lisieux is all about embracing suffering.

What true saint is not about embracing suffering?

I’m struck with St. Therese’s famous saying: “I choose all!”. Well, I like to choose all the parts of knowing God in Christ that are comfortable and obviously good, and leave all the suffering for more zealous Christians. But, I must be a zealous Christian; that’s the only option available. We only live, only suspire/consumed by either fire or fire.

From St. Therese’s, The Story of a Soul:

Later, when perfection made its appearance to me, I understood that in order to become a saint you have to suffer a lot, always be in search of what is most perfect, and forget yourself.

I don’t want to be a halfway saint. It doesn’t scare me to suffer for You; I’m afraid of only one thing, and that is to hold onto my will. Take it, because ‘I choose all,’ all that You want!

Divert my eyes from toys and trinkets; invigorate me on this pilgrim way.

Lent: Bad at it

To know you only
my soul disappears.
I tire of glimpsing you
in dusty mirrors.
The beauty in the world I know
is only ugliness to me
if you I cannot see.
pregnant with your love,
I climb.
But on this narrow stair,
I recall how fair,
the vanities of this world are.
And I find the path too steep,
the pain too deep—
to keep on looking for you.
I tear my hands—clutching
at blossoms—truly,
only—thorns in my side.
My pride
woos me to stay,
while fears
—heavy iron spurs—
slacken my steps,
protecting me from truth,
making my cup—a pulsing star—
overflowing with your joys,
bitter and black,
—gall and tar.
Drop!
Drop!
Your blood in my cup.
Shine
Shine
(your light in my eyes).
The water of life rushing
in my ears
the currents rise,
and carry me along,
so strong your rivers are.
Your song now
palatable—I float
my ascent, swallowing
mouthfuls of your words.
As the earth revolves
so I spin, turned by you
the One who moves.
Sugar and sadness in
my hymn, I begin to tune
my lips to your unchanging
symphony.
Clutching to the drifting sun,
I wash up on your
golden shore—
and I can't remember anymore
anything brighter than your face.

Lenten Preparations

I'm trying to decide what I should give up for Lent. This will be my second year actually observing all forty days. It's so strange to consider giving up something I'd rather keep. It's also strange because I remember how very endless Lent felt last year, and how the best part of that experience, was growing in an awareness of my own wickedness. It's terrible to contemplate one's faults. But, this is the point I think. I want to give up an unnecessary thing that I have come to believe is necessary. Something I turn to for comfort, entertainment, or solace instead of turning to God, or simply sitting in the presence of my own emptiness. There are some options spinning around in my head right now, but I sometimes find it hard to choose wise self-denial over masochism. I also learned last year that fasts really reconfigure human relationships. If I give up, say, going to the movies, or eating out, then I'm denying pleasures for other human beings besides myself. Lent is great, I tell you, because it also made me aware that my actions happen in community. Maybe I should just decide to do everything more slowly. I want this year to be about slowing down in meaningful ways. I want to calmly savor life, instead of swallowing it whole and running for the door.

Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things, and give me life in your ways.

In search of some water that isn't so smeary

One of the worst things about living with 7 women in a cramped house is never having space to reflect. Even when I have room in my schedule for being time, which is not very often, I must war against the forces of chaos in my own home. There is no place in my home where I can hide from the world. Living in the midst of so many people is a little like living in a bus terminal. It isn't a place to dwell, but rather an in-between-place. It's a shooting-off point for going or coming, never for being. I love all the women I live with, but, there are really, very, many of them. This means that contemplative time becomes media time. Instead of reading or writing or merely sitting in silence, I watch Gilmore Girls or crack jokes about our Landlord and The Poolboy . I enjoy these things, but when they are over, and I take myself to bed, I find that I am missing something. I'm missing peace. In order to find peace and rhythm and balance in the midst of a hectic life, I need time to be. I used to run away to coffee shops for this, because it is possible to shut out the world if you don't know the world by name and it isn't asking you to have in-depth conversations about racism or tell you a funny anecdote from its day.
I want peace. I can do the busy, crazy, hectic, frantic chaos that is daily life only if I stop in-between-times to be and to create cosmos for myself. So I'm taking this moment, the few brief minutes between class and work, to stop and reflect on my internal state. I feel crowded. Not merely hedged in on every side by living partners, but also crowded with things, with noise, with bustle. I think I'd like to spend some time on top of a mountain, just for the sake of sitting in open air and silence--not surrounded by possessions, not distracted by disorder, just given the chance to be.
It's Lent, and I'm hardly aware of it because the chaos that is around me is entering my soul. I can't hear the voice of God over the screechings of audible and visible clutter. I often wonder what it would be like to live with all of my possessions on my back. Like a fairy tale character, my kerchief tied to a stick, holding within it every thing on this earth I call mine. It sounds so sweet and free sometimes, to live this way. I would often like to have no blanket but the stars, no pillow but the earth, no lullaby but the dance of the planets. I've been thinking so much about eternity and the weight of the world. I don't believe the body is bad, as Plato does, but the body is so prone to gathering things about itself, things that weigh it down and prevent it from glimpsing what is meant foremost to be seen.
Lent, when I remember it's Lent because someone offers me a cookie--reminds me of the cumbersome nature of possessions. Giving up "pleasure foods" in some ways isn't even hard, because I'm still surrounded by so much real, natural, healthy food. Abundance is with us still. I think it's the abundance that bothers me, that hinders my being, because it's of the wrong sort. It isn't the abundance of charity, of peace, or of beauty; it's the abundance of worthless items crowding the vision of my heart, body, and brain.

Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways.

"You're glumping the pond where the Humming-Fish hummed!
No more can they hum, for their gills are all gummed.
So I'm sending them off. Oh, their future is dreary.
They'll walk on their fins and get woefully weary
in search of some water that isn't so smeary."

Streams of Lenten Conciousness. . .

I'm keeping Lent this year. Really keeping it. Not in the usual sense where I think vaguely pious thoughts to myself about the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus.

For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.

Two years ago, when I was in England, I went to a truly beautiful Ash Wednesday service in the chapel at Magdalen College. I'll confess that it was beautiful to the point of being distracting and disorienting, but the memory of that night serves me well. I must say that it was an achingly beautiful service. Candlelight, incense, a boys choir, stained glass and statues of saints, British people, liturgy, participation, religious vestments--all things I love. I heard sung for the first time the Allegri Miserere, which has become one of my favorite musical pieces. It's Psalm 51, sung in Latin, which is currently my favorite psalm for Lectio. I love this Psalm and the Miserere because they make me feel like it's OK to stop and simply recognize my sinfulness. I spend most days concealing sins or trying to immediately fix them. I love the darkness because my deeds are evil. These songs help me see the value of sitting with my transgressions in full awareness of my own wretchedness. It's freeing I think, and the first step to genuine repentance. I remember how later that night I returned to study at the Bodleian, the wispy grey cross on my studious brow as I researched rewarded virtue in the fairy tales of George MacDonald. What a beautiful life.

This Lent, I've decided to give up all food that I eat only for the sake of pleasure. So dessert, eating out, and sugar are off the list. Not just for the sake of foregoing pleasures, but for the pursuit of greater ones. Giving up "pleasure foods" for Lent mentally reinforces that Jesus is the source of happiness. It's an idea worth thinking about. If I reward myself in the midst of reading Hume or memorizing French vocabulary with a pan au chocolat, or grab Thai food with a roommate after church, I am easily satisfied. This isn't bad. But it's another matter after a long day of researching a paper on cross-cultural literacy development or preparing grad school applications to simply sit back and not attempt to satisfy my desire for reward. It's good sometimes to simply feel the lack of something.

Self-denial really is it's own pleasure. It slows one down and allows for the space to reflect. If, as Pascal says, all men are distracting themselves because what we most fear is being alone with ourselves in a quiet room, then it's good for me to brave the simplicity of emptiness. It's good to shake off the noisy demands of the body in order to hear the quiet, pensive pleas of the soul.

Generally, I love having the space and time to reflect. But it's easy to forget to do this in the midst of finishing up my last semester of college, straining with all my might to run with elegance the last leg of a difficult race.

I want Lent this year to be about feeling the lack. I think I've forgotten the good in feeling that I'm missing something. It's amazing how possible it is to live with unsatisfied desires. This has become especially important because my biggest fears right now are concerned with being able to make ends meet after college. I'm fearing only the things Jesus commands me not to fear. To feel, even in a small way, that I can be OK without is a great boon to my soul.

I'm also trying to be unselfish. I'm so morbidly selfish it's a wonder anyone wants to be friends with me. The practice of going without for Lent is meaningful then, because it reminds me that my primary goal shouldn't be my own comfort. I always provide rationale for self-centeredness, claiming that I must ensure my own needs are met because no one else will do so. But again, if God is our Father and if he bid even Jesus to wander in the desert with him for 40 days, then I can trust him to care for me while I seek to love others first.

All this because I'm not eating pancakes for breakfast? Yes. I think so.

I want truth for food.