The Girl in Yellow: Behold, You are Loved!

Dear Reader,

There are two things I want you to know today:

     1) God makes room for himself inside us.
     2) You are loved.

Pt. I
This week, I've been trying to think about dwelling in the middle of nowhere. I'm learning to be comfortable waiting, and I've learned waiting is often more about the formational process of waiting than about the things waited for.

For the last 2 1/2 years or so, my life has neatly paralleled the Israelites' wandering in the desert. After several months of examining this metaphor, I've learned that feeling lost, being in-between, having questions but not answers, living in the still barrenness of winter, is OK. I've learned that the wilderness is a place of preparation, a place that disabuses you of former treasures, visions, and joys. The wilderness creates a longing for the Promised Land, that is, walking through the wilderness results in a deeper desire for God.

I have learned that even Moses' time tending sheep in Midian, all 40 of those years before he became the champion of his people, before any bushes burned, were not wasted. God doesn't waste time, he uses every second of it, even when for us each second feels like Chinese water torture. Moses slowly learned to tend sheep, and then he slowly led a stiff-necked and wayward people through the wilderness. Even in the desert, God provides and leads: there are pillars of fire and cloud, piles of manna waiting on the ground, and the law, lovingly revealed. God never, ever goes away.

I have heard God say to me, over and over again, "Have courage, and say yes." I have often felt, reflecting on these words, that God is preparing me for something big, something that will take a lot of courage to face. This new thing is something that will require absolute, full, trusting obedience: the kind that dwells in furnaces of fire and lions' dens and does not let the cup pass.

My perspective is focused on earthly measures of success. It's as though I'm waiting for God to make me richer, or prettier, or more widely loved. But really, as I've been walking through this awful wilderness of being, or my twenties, I've learned that one of the most important things to have is an open, empty heart.

We think of emptiness as a bad thing. It's bad when your fridge is empty, when your wallet is empty, when your brain is empty, when your schedule or womb or stomach is empty. We are so focused on being and staying filled. In the short span of time I call my Grown-Up Life, the most important thing I have learned is that God is carving out a big space inside of me for Himself.

At least, I used to think this big space inside of me was for Himself. Sometimes I think that the big, empty space is just for the sake of emptiness. All I know is that this big, empty space is one of the most important things about me. I've become a large receptacle, and I'm waiting to be filled.

Kathleen Norris, in Cloister Walk, though married, writes about celibacy from the perspective and insight of her monastic friends. Norris writes about how, in celibacy, the heart grows large and opens; there is room enough for the entire world, because there is no room designated for just one person or one exclusive type of love. I don't know if I'm going to be celibate my entire life, but I am celibate now. And I do find, when I look deep inside myself, that there is all this room and space, waiting for something. Sometimes, being empty inside feels horrible, and I run around frantically, trying to fill that hole with something  anything  that will remove the feeling of hollowness I bear. But more often, I feel and know that this space is good; it means that there is room in my heart for lots of people, it means that there is a lot of room in my heart for the love of God.

I want to be a person who is comfortable with space and silence. When you think about a cathedral, or a chapel, you think about empty space. Those spaces we call sacred are nothing but concrete cavities for love and worship. If there is one thing I know about God, it is that he loves it when we make room for him. I have become a room entirely. It is not that I have room for God, but that I am room for God.

"Aubade for a Friend" was written by Fr. Gregory Elmer, O.S.B. of St. Andrew's Abbey. You should read the entire poem, it's wonderful. I'm copying the relevant parts of it here.

Whoever excavates a deeper bay
In your heart, so that you can the better
Yearn to love Him more, Who carves
Out this most precious space in
Your soul, a wound that curiously
Comforts you, a cave of the heart
Now being painfully excavated to
House more God, more love, to build
Within the middle of that heart, not
Only a more capacious pilgrim hostel,
On the shores of your spirit, but digs
Deeper the secret pilgrim road to the
Bottom of our heart, where. . . .we pass
Over the world, and set forth to cross
The wilderness. . . .We stumble down a way ever more interior. . . .
which leads on, in this life. . . .to the life eternal.

Becoming a temple of the Holy Spirit is painful and takes time.

&

Pt. II
Today I went with my roommate to Urth Caffé for breakfast while her tires were being replaced. Over our multi-grain waffles and tea lattes, roommate and I talked about the weeks we'd had, both of which were full of unpleasant people doing and saying unpleasant things, to put it mildly. While we were eating, two deferential, hipsterish twenty-somethings approached our table and apologized for interrupting us. They said they had a word from God for a woman in yellow, and that I was the only person matching that description in the restaurant (I was wearing a yellow cardigan). I can't remember every word they spoke, but by the end of that encounter, both roommate and I were wiping tears away.

The content of their message was that God sees me and wants me to know a new season is being ushered in, that a lot of changes are coming all at once which will be hard to understand. But God is leading you, they told me, like Dorothy down a yellow brick road in the Wizard of Oz. And, speaking even to this wilder-wandering time, they said that God has seen me in the shadows.

Every time God speaks it is always good news. I keep forgetting this, but it's true. Every time God speaks, it is always good news. 

The pinnacle of encouragement is to hear another person say that God loves and delights in you. God sent someone today I didn't know to just the right place at the right time, because he wants me to know I am loved. I am dearly loved.

Roommate bought me a Rifle Paper Co.-esque art print to commemorate the day. Do you know what it says? It says, "You are loved."

Dear Reader, you are becoming room for God, and you are dearly loved.


Oh! How he loves us! 

Grace: A Beautiful Punch in the Face

My word of the year is grace. I’m living this year trying to understand what it means when we say that God is gracious, that we are transformed and renewed by grace, that grace is free and present and abundant all of the time. One thing I’ve been learning is that sometimes the working of grace in my life looks like a punch in the face—it shocks me, hurts me, makes me take a look around and reconsider my expectations. But other times, grace is like a warm hug, a spicy samosa shared with a friend, a cup of Earl Grey, laughing in the midst of a field of poppies, an infant’s little fingers wrapped around my pinky, breathing.

God gives us grace, in the packaging and dosage we most need, at the times when we most need it. I’m learning to recognize the presence of God in the everyday. I eat a strawberry: its sweet redness, its heart-shaped perfection, reminds me that God is good.

And then there are those other moments. The moments when what I most want is to just walk out of the room, out of the door, into nothingness, because existence feels futile, and frustrating, and impossible to bear. Then I think grace is like a sharp slap across my face, because it makes me remember that I have been created for something more: for something good, and true, and lovely. The me who was satisfied wandering around in circles pretending to live is more desperate than the me who is sitting on the ground, rubbing my sore jaw and wondering what just happened.

Grace is supernatural. That means that grace intervenes in nature—in the ordinary, the mundane, the status quo, the expected. Grace is wholly unexpected, wholly undeserved, and dearly needed. My natural self cannot get anywhere without God’s cosmic karate chop. I need God’s power not just to make all of my dreams come true, but to shatter the dreams that are built on false and shaky hopes, and to build new dreams on substantial foundations.

Grace meets me where I am, and then, like a whirlwind, it picks me up and whirls me around until I lose my bearings—leaving me somewhere else. The land may look barren—broken rocking chairs strewn about the desert, someone’s dazed cat stalking by on wobbly feet, but it is here, in this place, that I can meet God, because there is nothing else I expect to see. I have been taken out of myself to meet him. To meet God on his own terms, in his own timing, on his own fruitful soil.

To find one’s self in the economy of grace is to find that you do not have enough money for the journey. In fact, you are a thief and a stowaway and you have been found out. But instead of being tossed off the train, with your raggedy carpet bag tossed behind you, you find that you are invited to dine in the first class coach, provided you admit to the other passengers that your fashionable clothes are borrowed, and that your fare has been donated, not earned. It is in grace that we learn how poor we are. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. This means, blessed are you when you can’t pretend anymore that you have anything to give, anything left to bargain with, anything to cover the fact that left to yourself you are only naked and mean and ugly.

Grace takes this ugly unkindness and dresses you up, beautifully, generously. Suddenly, you are the belle of the ball, and you remain here—in twinkling crystal slippers and a blue gown—until you forget that your carriage is really only a winter squash and that rodents alone will befriend you. Then, here comes grace, like a clock chiming twelve, to remind you that all you can claim for yourself are rags and woes and a bed made of ash.

Thank you, God, for the punch in the face that reminds us of how good you are, and of our poverty without you.

As Anne Lamott says,

“Remember, God loves you exactly the way you are, and he loves you too much to let you stay like this.”

A Vocation of One's Own

Sometimes I hate my job because it means that I am the only non-specialist in a world full of experts. I was not made to function as a maid of all work. I'm not a generalist by nature. I want to throw myself into some highly-specialized, creative and desperately needed, utterly meaningful work of my own. 

I've said it before and I've said it again: I want to be George MacDonald and Amy Carmichael smushed together into one person. This is who I am. You figure it out. 

She sees the realities of this world and alleviates human suffering with a sacrificial love. 

He sees the realities of the world to come and communicates them to others with the creative power of his soul. 

I need a vocation. 


This thought that is getting me through the desert of now:

"His Kingdom is Upside Down and in Him your part is large and lovely and needed and art."

Surely, I was created to be more than a Teacher's Assistant.

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.”

Rose of the World

I had better write something. I'm trying to engage more fully in life during this season of the Nativity. Mostly, I'm remembering why I sometimes like to live on the periphery of my own consciousness: it's easier. The thing about fasting, about any kind of willing self-privation, is that it leaves you feeling empty. That is how I felt all day today. I wandered through my day, wander is the only appropriate word, feeling hollow inside. I kept asking myself why I felt that at the very center of myself all that existed was emptiness. This is why I fast--I fast so that I can come more quickly to the end of myself. If I am not distracted by food or media, by things that bludgeon my spiritual awareness with their facade of pleasantness, then I cannot escape a great awareness of my own lack. It's not a good feeling, but it's a true one.

There is this George MacDonald fairy story I like, "The Wise Woman", in which two horrid little girls--Agnes and the princess Rosamond--are kidnapped by a mysterious woman and thrown, separately, into a room of mirrors. In the room they are naked, left entirely to their own selves. It takes very little time to discover how ugly the world is if you are the only thing in it.

Nothing bad could happen to her--she was so important! And, indeed, it was but this: she had cared only for Somebody, and now she was going to have only Somebody. Her own choice was going to be carried a good deal farther for her than she would have knowingly carried it for herself. . . .All at once, on the third day, she was aware that a naked child was seated beside her. But there was something about the child that made her shudder. . . .The moment she hated her, it flashed upon her with a sickening disgust that the child was not another, but her Self, her Somebody, and that she was now shut up with her forever and ever--no more for one moment to be alone. 

Well, that is how I am beginning to feel. That's how I feel during every fast. When I strip away the things that distract me from a sober knowledge of my own self, I feel trapped in a world of mirrors. And at the center of the world is only my own Somebody. This is unpleasant. I wonder what it feels like to be in solitary confinement, are there any distractions then? Is there any way to turn away from a vision of your true self?

I think, eventually, after looking so deeply into the well of my own soul, I'll see something glimmering at the bottom. This something is grace, I think. It is the evidence of God working in my soul. The presence of the Holy Spirit, given to me as an inheritance, shining constantly through the murky, stagnant waters. In the meantime, I will try to see myself without flinching.

"My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad."