The Real To-Do

The other day I was reading a segment from Søren Kierkegaard's 1835 journal entry because, you know, that's just the kind of thing one does in college. The attention of my thoughts were held captive by these words:

"What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know....The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do; the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die."

It's that time of the semester when I feel swamped and irritable. When my highest aspiration is to get in bed and stay there, preferably in uninterrupted sleep, for more than four hours. When I wonder if I'm retaining any information -- let alone wisdom -- from a hefty daily reading load. When many conversations seem like grating noise in my ears, and I long to be left alone to think in quiet. 

It's that time when all too many of the people I pass by on campus have red-rimmed eyes from lack of sleep or from tears or from particularly debilitating colds (or some combination of these). Everyone's a bit on the oversensitive and griping edge about everything. 

It's that time when I wonder if I've become a second-rate friend and second-rate Christian, when I'm unhappy with where I allocate my time, and when what I want to be doing is very different from what I am doing or what I must do. 

And I daydream of hiking and sitting in the sunshine in a peaceful state of mind and knocking literature off my ever-swelling reading list and somehow producing prodigious amounts of visionary writing and traveling to fabulous places and cooking for myself and getting the ball rolling on future -- but palpable and substantive -- long-term plans (like a career?!). 

An awful lot of the current tasks set before me feel like chores from which I try to distract myself, and somehow I always feel a little bit behind, and a little bit angry at myself.

And my Bible sits on my desk collecting dorm room dust. And my friend's email sits there unanswered in my inbox. And a Christian life survey I fill out sends me into a fit of insecurity about what I'm doing with my life and how I'm doing it.

I often don't understand myself in these kinds of times. I get hung up on what I don't know -- which is an awful lot -- and don't pay attention to what I'm actually doing, how I'm doing it, and Who I'm actually living for. 

Why does anyone -- fellow college student, savvy adult, anyone -- ever think that "It'll get done" is an appropriate, helpful, or encouraging thing to say to a stressed out individual?! 'It' will only 'get done' when I DO it. Papers don't write themselves, attitudes of passionate learning don't complacently shape themselves, relational and spiritual disciplines don't just cultivate themselves. 

As I struggle to bite back words of irritation when I feel like someone is monopolizing my time or when I'm frustrated with or smothered by another tedious task on a to-do list, I'm reminded that I'm pretty sure I could figure out what God would have my responses be in each moment, and I'm pretty sure they would be ones of graciousness and diligence. And I'm perfectly capable of these kind of responses. Maybe that should go on my to-do list.

I'm reminded that I can still keep seeking and pursuing the idea and truth for which I can live and die. 

Much is asked of us because much has been given to us.

This Day Will Never Come Again

When my family was in Macedonia in January, my Dad's closest friend and mentor passed away. They had known each other for 39 years. Gib officiated at my parents' wedding; he baptized me when I was seven; he buried my Grandfather. And I can't even begin to describe how much he shaped my Dad's thoughts on theology, on fellowship, on marriage, on confession, on counseling. Gib was one of those incredibly rare people whose life is about serving others. There was something special about him, something transformed and transformative. After being in his presence or having a conversation with him, I felt like the "old self" in me -- that dark, ugly, fallen part -- would sort of shrivel up, overpowered by that sense of a "new self" committed to that which God had called me to -- the light, redemption, the truth that refines us and sets us free. This is the power of God at work through another human being, a human being who loves Him and listens to Him. 

I wasn't able to attend Gib's funeral back in Washington, because I'd returned to California and college life, but Dad sent me a copy of the eulogy he would speak at the memorial service. 

"Friendship and fellowship are fundamentally deepened by the knowledge that another human being is truly present with us in compassion, empathy and love," Dad wrote. "I knew that if Gib said he would pray for me, he did. ...I knew that he shared in my life -- a kind of presence that is hard to describe. This quality of service and 'bearing with me' made my world seem a little less lonely and inhospitable..." 

He ended with Paul's exhortation to Timothy: "But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it." Like my Dad, I, too, could hear Gib's voice speaking these words. 

This might sound strange, but I remember that when Gib would talk with me, it was as if he assumed I was a good person, as if he trusted that I loved God. And the funny thing was, it made me want to be a good disciple of Christ. It made me be better, run back to the arms of my Heavenly Father. Gib had faith in me because he trusted that I was in God's hands. 

He didn't have to know I hadn't cracked open my Bible in months. He didn't have to know the decrepit state of my 'prayer life.' Because the way Gib spoke about God opened up these floodgates that let others, including myself, speak about God too. It seemed almost ridiculous to doubt God at all when I was around Gib, for Gib's faith was so unwavering, so... fiercely solid. This was evident in his eyes, and it was terrifying and lovely and challenging and calming all at once, sort of like the way we experience God, I suppose.

For months now I've had a little card with a Thomas Merton quote pinned to the bulletin board above my desk. On it is scrawled in bold blue script, "This day will never come again!" 

Now, as I think of Gib, this short sentence is imbued with a new depth of meaning.

Gib ran the race faithfully. I have no doubt he is one of those that God will greet with the words, "Well done, good and faithful servant." Among the sweetest words we could ever hear.   

How did you spend this day, this day that will never come again? Did you listen to God? Did you love God, and love others because of it? Did the power of God work through you? 

It really comes down to this: 

Did you perpetuate the darkness, or did you loft high the light? Are you honoring God with your daily life and interactions with others, or are you not?

Continue in what you have learned. Continue in what you have firmly believed. Know from whom you learned it. 

As he prepared for Gib's memorial service and the words he would speak there in commemoration of his dearest friend, my Dad told me, "I just want to honor Gib, and honor Jesus." 

There is no doubt in my mind that Dad did, and does. 

And there is no doubt in my mind that I just want to honor Gib and honor Jesus too. 

Uninhibited

It was your typical Sunday at an American megachurch...the kind where orange-vested volunteers in the parking lot directed you to the last available parking spaces, where the sanctuary resembled a hybrid of black-box theater and warehouse, where the worship band's performance was emblazoned on your eyes from multiple screens facing the congregation from every angle, where the music was so loud that my Mom brought earplugs to church (when I told her this was embarrassing, she retorted, "A musician's ears are valuable."). One particular Sunday, the band began a hymn after the sermon. I remember (I was around eleven at the time) looking out at the vast congregation. The melody was lovely, the words profound. My heart sang out in praise.

Everyone remained seated.

I was seized by the urge to stand. I wanted to raise up my hands to God, with my whole body worship Him. My eleven year-old self wondered if it was socially acceptable to just stand up. Maybe everyone would rise to their feet, uninhibited. I pictured it, the powerful motion of a whole sea of people rising up. The evocative image of a mosque full of faithful Muslims all prostrating themselves in united prayer came to mind. We, as Christians in that megachurch, were all assembled in God's name. It seemed almost ridiculous to me that no one moved.  

And then I, too, stayed seated. 

An unresponsive, passive posture.

We use our bodies for all kinds of things, some more honorable than others. Why is it that we suddenly restrain ourselves before God?

People are watching, I always thought. For my part I knew that I stared at people that broke from the stale Wonder Bread norm. I probably sometimes harbored judgmental thoughts in my heart, too. Just like Michal "despised" David in her heart for "leaping and dancing before the Lord." 

I understand that it's not always appropriate to fall face down on the floor of the sanctuary and sob uncontrollably in front of everyone. Sometimes you can't kneel, or dance, or clap, or shout. Sometimes God leads us to stillness. Matthew records Jesus' words: "...when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others...But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret..."  

When I was living in Istanbul, one evening I'd attended a Sufi ceremony of dhikr (remembrance, in the tradition of Islamic mysticism), performed by the iconic whirling dervishes of the Mevlevi order. Grown men with felt hats twirl in billowing long white robes until they achieve a kind of trancelike state, a unity between divine and earthly. The ceremony had clearly become something of a tourist trap. But as I dwelt on its timeworn significance, I came to appreciate the idea of physical movement, of posturing oneself so that God's love and closeness was felt in such an all-consuming way. 

Why should not the outward reflect the inward? 

When I came across this journal entry of Sophie Scholl's, I felt that she'd put expression to my very own feelings. After an April 1942 Easter service at a Catholic Church, Sophie wrote: “Much as I needed that kind of service -- because it’s a real service, not a lecture like you get in a Protestant church -- I’m sure it takes practice or habit to participate fully...My trouble is, however, I’d like to kneel down, as it accords with my feelings, but I’m shy of people seeing, especially people I know. I’d like to bow down before an effigy of God, because you shouldn’t just experience feelings but express them as well, but again I’m too inhibited.”

What if we didn't just experience, but express? 

The deprecating Michal tries to shame David, that Old Testament archetype of worship and praise, for dancing unrestrainedly before God. And he tells her, "...I will make merry before the Lord. I will make myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be abased in your eyes." 

We should probably care less about what other people think and more about what God thinks. We should probably stop judging those around us for 'putting their hands together', or for choosing not to. 

Our bodies as well as our minds belong to God. Our physical as well as emotional and spiritual states should be oriented towards Him. 

So use your body to worship Him.

Stand up. 

A New and Old Year

This time last year I was trying to fit more socks into an already over-crowded suitcase as I prepared to fly to Turkey for a semester abroad. Little did I know that I was about to embark not only on a physical journey but such a deeply spiritual, emotional, and intellectual one as well. I can’t think of a better way of putting it other than that I have donned entirely new lenses through which to see the world. 

I also wouldn’t have guessed, that first week of January 2012, that exactly a year later I would be sitting in an apartment in Skopje, Macedonia, writing this. 

Part of me feels like I still haven’t even processed everything that we observed, every lecture we heard, every conversation we participated in, every detail we soaked up with our senses. I hope I carried some of the richness of all these experiences back with me in my suitcase, that most of this information is stashed somewhere carefully in my mind. I am so thankful for every mistake, every tearful night, every fervent journal entry, every adventure, every relationship, every way God has showered me with undeserved love, that has brought me to where I am now -- a very imperfect but blessed twenty year-old, a human being pulsating with the delight of being alive. 

Last night my sister watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I wasn’t paying much attention until one of Paul Varjak’s lines snagged on my thoughts: “...no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.” 

I don’t like running into myself. Most of us probably don’t, if we’re really honest with ourselves. You’d think that when you travel you can hide behind all the activity and newness...but the truth is, sometimes when you decontextualize yourself (when you have little control over your surroundings or cannot avoid certain kinds of interactions) and are unable to insulate yourself with the usual busyness that keeps you from searching your soul, you actually discover how lonely and cold you are when you refuse to let Christ transform you. You might see the world, learn everything there is to know, experience a host of ‘good’ new things... and meanwhile let your integrity atrophy. 

But thankfully strength of character can be exercised like a muscle. If you’ve built it up and worked it daily, its resilience can hold up anywhere and everywhere -- even under strain and weariness. 

You might be in really good shape already, but if not maybe you can think if this as a new kind of New Year’s personal fitness resolution. 

Yesterday, a very delightful Macedonian Orthodox woman showed us the Holy Mother of God Perivleptos Church (which dates back to the 10th century!) in Ohrid, enthusiastically narrating the explanations behind each exquisite and ancient fresco. We came upon a mural of winged creatures depicted in ascending movement on a ladder stretching to the heavens. It was Jacob’s ladder. Painted beneath it were Jacob and an angel, locked in silent conflict. “Some angels are going up the ladder,” we were told. According to Orthodox theology, we all climb up the ladder towards God. We can get very far, clambering up the rungs and doing good things and forgiving each other. But we hold bitterness against each other, we sin, and we have to go back down the ladder again. “See how some of the angels are going the other direction, away from God?” I hadn’t noticed this before in the dimly-lit church, but it was true. “When the apocalypse comes, we want to be found going upward -- even if we are at the bottom of the ladder -- keeping God always before us in the struggle and process of doing good. It is never too late to begin, never too late to start again.” 

I don’t necessarily agree with Orthodox theology, but I found her statement to be very profound. 

When I found the relevant passage in Genesis later I stared and stared at it. 

God says to Jacob: “...Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done that of which I have spoken to you.” Then Jacob wakes up, and says, “Surely the Lord is in this place; and I did not know it.”

God is everyplace. He is beside us in every new year inevitably marked sooner or later with our fumbling mistakes and failed resolutions and, yes, glorious achievements. He is there when you wrestle with Him. He is there wherever you run, and whenever you run into yourself. And I can tell you from experience, you can run into yourself even in someplace like Istanbul, or Amman, or Jerusalem, or Stuttgart, or Skopje. 

C.S. Lewis says it a lot better than I ever could: “If we let Him—for we can prevent Him, if we choose—He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into...a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful, but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what He said.”

Sweet Sorrow

Parting was a sweet sorrow. 

Some goodbyes are the casual "well...have a good life!" kind; others are the cry-your-way-through-airport-security-and-beyond kind.

As wonderful and enriching as travel is, time abroad inevitably forces you to say sad goodbyes made even harder by the realization that you might not return to that place or see that person for a very long time, or in some cases ever again.

Sitting in the airport during a miserable layover in Belgrade, Serbia, I thought of this... Already missing our dear German friends. Thinking of the joy and delight that was Christmastime celebrated with them in their home. Wishing I could better communicate how much I loved each of them and cherished the time we spent together. 

I hadn't expected the tears to flood my eyes with such force when we all parted. It was unbidden, undiluted sorrow. 

Later I understood the sweetness of it. 

I was glad for the sorrow, for I recognized it as a confirmation of truly caring. 

Goodbyes can reveal to us how we value those we adore and cherish most. Sorrow at parting is sweetness on our tongues when we are conscious of what we have lost, whether permanently or temporarily, when we realize how someone has changed us, loved us.

In Pencil

“You can write, but you can’t edit...edit...edit...” -- Regina Spektor 

I always associated the beginning of September with new school supplies. I loved to label glossy new folders, meticulously outline my upcoming class schedule, sharpen pencils to needle-perfect points. I would spread out everything in front of me and reflect on the school year ahead, my plans to stay organized, my aspirations for my social life, my goals for discipline in my faith. I tried to prepare myself as best I could for the stress I knew inevitably lay ahead. Getting everything in order was my calm before the storm -- the times I would unravel emotionally in the throes of perfectionism, unrealistic expectations, a hectic schedule, and lengthy to-do lists. 

Despite my best preparations (and my petty joy in the newness of my carefully-selected school supplies), September also heralded the unknown...the unforeseen life lessons I could not possibly brace myself for, the new knowledge and wisdom I had yet to gain. To put it simply, I had no way of knowing what really lay ahead. But I invariably had high hopes for starting afresh. 

My favorite new school-related items were almost always my pencils -- more specifically, their erasers...their pink erasers...smooth, untouched, velvety soft, bubble-gum hued, plump and supple atop their yellow No. 2s. If you couldn’t already tell, I was (am?) a bit obsessed with these pink erasers...to the point that when I was younger I would buy those ugly, bright-colored little refill eraser tops to cover up my new erasers so that I could preserve them in their un-smudged, pink perfection. I refused to erase anything with the actual pink erasers formulated for that very function. I even covered up their loveliness as a result of this absolutely ridiculous apprehension that someone would use them (heaven forbid!) and only occasionally let them see the light of day so that I could admire them and contemplate their simple beauty. Footnote: if this makes you laugh at me and think that I was absolutely crazy, you are fully justified in doing so. But I have a reason for admitting my pink eraser-fixation: it’s analogous to my life, and maybe to yours. 

Don’t hide loveliness, or diminish the significance of a gift you have just because you’re afraid of using it. Utilize what you have for its intended function. If you’re holding a pencil between your fingers and think you have something decent to say, WRITE. ERASE. Write some more. Encourage, challenge, rectify, create, persuade, motivate -- mistakes and triumphs mingling on the page.

What does it mean to plan ahead? What hopes will be dashed by unpredictable Septembers and the months that follow? What can we prepare ourselves for? What can we anticipate? What does it mean to write plans for our lives in pencil? 

Some goals and dreams shift around a bit in your suitcase when you travel. Some lists are unfinished and awaiting additions. Some love poetry ought to be edited. Some words should be erased, but they have to sit there on the page awhile first. Some sketches look better smudged. 

Writing in pencil begs for fresh starts, better words, chances to self-correct or be corrected. Ergo, writing in pencil also requires an eraser. 

I’ve realized that I sometimes avoid erasing. If I discover some abhorrent paragraph of thought or deed scrawled on the pages of my life-journal, I’m tempted to tear it out, crumple it up, burn it, toss it out. But maybe it would be better to besmirch the pink-eraser-view of perfection I’m ludicrously trying to preserve in my expectation of myself by erasing that undesirable page instead...and writing over it with something redeeming and beautiful. 

Sometimes the organization and discipline I try to build into my academic, spiritual, and intellectual life each September ends up falling discouragingly short of my good intentions. Reflecting back on this past semester, which has just mercifully drawn to a close, I am realizing that perhaps too many of my goals are oriented toward some lofty dreams about the future and what my life will look like, when in reality there is little that I know about what lies ahead for me and much I have still to do in practical, daily steps towards those goals. But spiritual discipline starts NOW. I can come closer to realistic achievements NOW. I need to think about what my life looks like this very minute. 

God is helping us compose our stories, pencilling in new details, making smudges in the margins, erasing our failed attempts at perfection and writing over them with definitive redemption. He doesn’t make us wait until the next September to re-evaluate, restock, reassess, and start afresh with renewed exuberance. 

So for now, I will pick up a pencil. I will write, and I will erase, and I will write some more. 

I hope you will, too. 

The Waiting

This post will and must be short (you can thank my research paper for that). But I need to write, like I have a soul itch. 

It's that time of year when the topography of my desk has been transformed by new mountains of books with titles like Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich and Resistance of the Heart; when somewhere behind the drawn curtain of our dorm room I can hear the pitter patter of the rain, constant like the static of a radio station; when I sip scalding green tea from my favorite glass mug; when it hurts to type because of the harp-string-induced blisters on my fingertips from the Christmas Festival concerts; when hearing my Dad's voice on the other end of my phone call makes me miss my family even more.

It's that time of year when I get even more excited than usual to go to Trader Joe's so that I can collect more of their paper grocery bags and carve away at them with scissors to craft Christmas cards; when I have to remind myself that I don't need to buy anything from Anthropologie, no matter how festive and enchanting it may be; when I feel increasingly thankful for true friends; when I miss Turkey a great deal (oh wait, that's all the time).

For whatever reason, it's also that time of year when being serenaded by Michael Bublé's rendition of "All I Want For Christmas Is You" over Pandora, or enjoying a gingerbread latte in a cozy armchair, or watching all the be-scarved couples strolling hand in hand under the twinkling holiday lights of downtown gives me this little ache inside, a longing to share this season with someone special. 

I'm definitely not saying I want someone to come along just so I can hold his hand and sit by the fireside reading together (as wonderful as those things may be)...I just recognize that this is sometimes a rather melancholy time to be single. It's probably worse than Valentine-less Valentine's Days. And I know I'm not the only person who feels this way.

But as I was engrossed in a volume of the last messages written to friends, family, and fiancés by men and women who resisted Hitler and were martyred, I came across a letter written by Rose Schlösinger to her young daughter in 1943, shortly before Rose's execution for her involvement in a resistance group against the Nazis. It was beautiful, and something young single women should perhaps remind themselves more often. Rose wrote "dear little big Marianne": 

“Do not be too prodigal of your feelings. There are not many men who are like Daddy, as good and as pure in their love. Learn to wait before giving all of your love -- thus you will be spared the feeling of having been cheated. But a man who loves you so much that he will share all suffering and all difficulties with you, and for whom you can do the same -- such a man you may love, and believe me, the happiness you will find with him will repay you for the waiting."