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." 

Sshhh.

"Hence it comes that men so much love noise and stir...hence it comes that the pleasure of solitude is a thing incomprehensible." 

- Blaise Pascal, Pensées - 

When I stopped running to slow my rapid and ragged breathing, I grew aware of the noiselessness of my surroundings. I was gloriously alone in the blooming quiet of morning. No loud voices punctured the film of nature's whispers. The rough edges of the humdrum of coffeehouses and dorms and classrooms and rehearsals and hangouts were smoothed by forces more organic. It was like escaping from a stuffy room into crisp air, realizing that before that refreshing moment every breath had been inhaled in a stale atmosphere. I thought back to the Spring, to how I hadn't felt the full extent of the intensity of life in East Jerusalem until I'd left it. Going from noise to quiet was like that.

I drank in the new silence like it was an elixir for a withered body.  

What lovely, mentally cleansing and clarifying activities are the acts of walking alone outdoors, savoring silence, dwelling in solitude, appreciating stillness, listening with rapt attention to a soft voice. 

Sometimes this makes re-attuning oneself to the drone of constant activity and noise that much more painful; sensitized ears are more acutely aware of how loud we actually are. 

Maybe this isn't the most even-handed generalization (if there ever is such a thing) to make when living in a dormitory on a college campus, but...

Americans tend to be LOUD. 

(Note to self: subdue your ear-piercing laughter). 

From our courtyard-facing window, we overhear every aspiring musician strumming over-zestfully on his ukelele and robbing us of precious sleep in the late hours of the night, every rendition of Lady Gaga hollered at remorselessly high decibels. The entire dorm is subjected to certain individuals' screams and squeals (why does anyone feel the need to literally shriek out a conversation?!) and alternately heated and disconsolate phone calls (we are all now privy to the details of your family, personal, fiscal, and relationship problems). How difficult would it be to keep your window closed to muffle the obnoxious bleeps and rambunctious reverberations of your video games and action movies issuing endlessly from your room? And, honestly, not everyone appreciates having their studying bumptiously accompanied by country music or impassioned jam sessions of repetitive (dare I say Christian?) music. Pianos keys don't necessarily need to be pummeled like some kind of obstinate construction project. After one morning when someone's alarm in a room across the courtyard rang for a full sixteen minutes with metallic, xylophonic ascending scales before finally being turned off (I timed it, bleary-eyed but irreparably awake), one of my roommates moaned from her bed, "Whoever that is...if we were friends before, we aren't anymore."

I found myself wincing recently when my friend raised her voice to speak over the racket of the radio on a car ride...when I realized my hearing had been temporarily impaired by an excessively loud college chapel service...when members of the basketball team violated the sought-after sacredness of the 'study' lounge by playing inane YouTube videos and guffawing rowdily, apparently impervious to the scowls and cleared throats of their disgruntled peers and ostensibly oblivious to the fact that other students had attempted to retreat there to actually get some work done.

But what bothers me most about all this is not necessarily the noise itself, but the fact that an individual's or group's loudness evinces a blatant unconcern for others in the vicinity -- a thoughtlessness that is, frankly, invasive and rude. 

These observations about American loudness are not just a product of experiences at college, but also from abroad. 

Almost immediately when we were adjusting to daily life in Istanbul, we noticed how the Turks approached and respected public space in an entirely different way than we were accustomed to as Americans. 

In Turkey, subway commutes and public buses were usually fairly quiet. No one spoke too loudly (anyone who does was usually an oblivious and inconsiderate American tourist), if at all. In days upon days of observing people on ferries, buses, shuttles, and the metro system, I was fascinated by how, in the few times when someone's cell phone caused a disruption, the grimaces of fellow commuters quickly nudged the offender back in line. There was a sense of shared space, of commitment to the common good to be found in making daily commutes more bearable for everyone. Because of this, people spoke softly, tread with subtlety and a certain culturally-impressioned respectfulness of others. Calling attention to oneself, in certain contexts, seemed thoroughly selfish and daft. 

I thought back to times when I'd ridden buses in Seattle and San Francisco, how I usually ended up sandwiched between someone gabbing away on her cell phone and someone whose iPod earbuds were turned up to such indecently high levels that I might as well have had them in my own ears. In the States it often seems like everyone is so keen on asserting his or her own 'individual' personality and demands (as if entitled to some unquestionable human right) that any perception of how others are being greatly encroached upon is entirely forgotten or unsophisticatedly overlooked. 

Observe who and what is around you. Think before you brazenly impinge your conversation or musical tastes upon someone's mental and aural space. Evaluate whether or not you need to be speaking so loudly. Learn to enjoy solitude and silence and stillness. Only after much listening and observing can we make sound instead of cacophony, music instead of dissonance. 

Ad Orientum

The other day in one of my history classes, a professor showed us a powerpoint slide of a typical Medieval church floor plan. "The apse faces East," she said in passing. "Priests would pray oriented Eastward, to be ready for the return of Christ." Judging from the deadpan expressions on the faces of most of my fellow students, this didn't really mean anything significant for their lives.

But I felt like I'd had an epiphany. I'd been reminded of an experience I'd had in Istanbul, and I began scribbling emphatically in my notebook.  

Orientation is, obviously, very important to Muslims. The mihrab in a mosque indicates the direction of prayer towards Mecca (in the early stages of Muhammad's revelation, his followers prayed facing Jerusalem...anyways, later on Muhammad changed that). 

As a Protestant in the West I had never really given much thought to what direction I was facing when I prayed. In my ignorance I hadn't realized that for many Christians this is highly significant. 

Of course orientation matters for Muslims and for Christians in the East. 


We had reached the first week of March. The sun warmed our faces as we stood outside Chora Church, known in Turkish as the Kariye Müzesi (the word “Chora” in Greek refers to the original chapel, which was outside of Constantinople’s city walls back in the 5th century AD). The pure ancientness as well as Byzantine essence of its structure were striking. The church sat there in the midst of an Istanbul neighborhood, cobblestone streets, new park, and touristy restaurants as if it ended up there by a subliminal accident -- and yet there was something determined in its timeworn existence and integrity, even if it was tinged with a little bit of melancholy. 

As magnificent as the Hagia Sophia is (and if you know me well you know of my obsession with that particular place), its mosaics and frescoes are no where near as incredible nor as numerous as those of Chora Church. Every single direction we craned our necks were new Biblical (predominantly New Testament) scenes depicted in a spectrum of colorful tiles. The gold glinted here in the fanned tail of a peacock, there in a sullen emperor’s crown; here on the book Christ clutched in his hand, there around the head of a martyr, saint, or apostle. We saw Peter holding the keys to Paradise, the child Mary taking her first seven steps, angels swooping down from every corner... it was breathtaking. Chora church still served as a Christian place of worship even following the conquest of Istanbul in the famous (or perhaps infamous, depending on your background) 1453. Only in 1511 was it converted into a mosque (try to imagine how contentious that was!); then to a museum at the end of World War II. 

In what was once the sanctuary of the church, I stood staring at the mihrab, off-kilter from the orientation of the original chapel (which faced towards Jerusalem) in favor of alignment towards Mecca. I turned my gaze away from the mihrab, squinted my eyes and tried to imagine an altar there. I looked down at the marble under my feet and started saying something to God. I was almost immediately interrupted by the harsh voice of a security guard. It took me a moment to even realize what he was telling me and what I was doing wrong: “NO PRAYING,” he said. “MUSEUM ONLY.” Rattled from of my quiet thoughts, I nodded quickly and he waved me away from the spot. We heard later that while we were in the church three Christians had gotten thrown out for offering up prayers to some iconic saints depicted in the mosaics. 

I was disoriented by this experience in a way I hadn’t anticipated. There was something intrinsically affronting about starting to pray in an ancient church and then being confronted so abruptly, especially when I hadn’t thought that anything in my body language conveyed what I was actually doing or thinking. I felt like a hermit crab who tried to retract inconspicuously into its shell only to be followed into what should have been a place of safety -- my own mind. It was a strange encounter, and made me even more thankful for the solace of some thoughts and prayers that are too deep to ever be drawn out from inside my shell. There is solace, even if it’s under threat, in knowing that your mind is free to pursue God.

What direction are you facing when you pray? 

Are we oriented towards Christ's return, no matter where we are in the world? 

Maybe we should be more intentional about how we orient our lives, especially when we are in a place that makes in difficult to do so.

May our faith be deliberately oriented, intentional and devoted even when it's hard and our values are extremely countercultural or alien or not accepted in a certain social group or atmosphere. May we remember how we ought to orient ourselves no matter where we are... 

Near to You

My mind is buried in Pascal's Pensées and a thick stack of readings on Fascism, my heart is graffitied with Poison & Wine lyrics and the dark ink of bad News, my hand is aching to be held, my head is gravitating toward my pillow...and my whole being is longing to be living abroad again.

Mind, heart, and head are heavy. 

Hand and being are reaching, reaching. 

Love and death and happiness and purpose and suffering and God...I try to comprehend them then shrink back and want to stay in bed and not get up for a long time. 

The intentionality with which I wish to conduct all the nuances of my thoughts, my intentions, my prayers, and my actions has been replaced by tumbleweeds of weariness and distractions and apathy and irritation. 

Everything and nothing is under our control. 

Everything and nothing is as God intended it to be. 

May every soul disquieted and discomforted turn in the right direction, to the right person...

No matter how buried or graffitied or aching or weighted or filled with longing.

Dragon Skin

"I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it. The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know -- if you've ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy -- oh but it is such fun to see it coming away." -- Eustace Scrubb in C.S. Lewis' The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

My friend sat on the edge of her mattress, on the verge of tears. The hopelessness and frustration in her voice made my heart ache for her, made me want to reach out with more than a hand or the consolatory words I could muster up in the moment. The words she used to describe her struggle snagged on my memory of words I knew I had spoken or written, months previously. On impulse I scampered away and returned with a small journal in my hand. "Can I read to you?" I asked. She nodded. 

It had been a few months since I'd opened that journal, and I loved the feeling of it in my hands. It wasn't just a travel journal I'd filled with pencil print from Germany to Turkey to Jordan to Israel back to Germany again; it was a receptacle of personal thoughts, emotions, and observations that I've never let anyone read. I hadn't even read back over most of these myself since the time I'd written them. 

I wondered if starting to read from that journal would be a horrible idea.

I wasn't sure what I was looking for, but I leafed through the pages, propelled by memories of bleak hours when I, too, had sat on the edge of somewhere, on the verge of tears. I could tell when these times had been by the subtle alteration in my handwriting. And I read. Where it applied, I read through the messy bits, the confused bits, the frustrated bits, the scathing critiques of myself, the questions to God. 

But I knew there were hopeful bits coming, answers to prayer that were a long time coming but infinitely better answers as a result. A major aspect of those answers were in the very act of getting mucky and wading through the questions. Transformation doesn't always happen in clear water. Eustace had to have his dragon skin scraped off. 

I continued to thumb through, to the culmination of particular struggles and stories, the ones I'd chosen to compose coherently in that little travel journal. Embedded there I rediscovered verses, quotes, prayers...and metaphors of sinfulness, forgiveness, and grace I could hardly remember pressing into those pages.

It was as if my past self had written a prescient letter to my current self, to the current self that now sat in front of a good friend, self-revealing in the hopes of healing. 

Somewhere in the course of this I started crying, struggling to keep it together and keep reading, because in that moment I saw a glimpse of God's work in my life over the last several months, felt his ever-present love. I looked up, and the tears were now streaming down my friend's face too. 

Writing has this power to surprise. To drop in our laps what has been lost through the holes in our pockets of memory. To soothe current wounds with the salve of past processes of healing and the wisdom that comes from this whole operation. To apply to several people in myriad different ways, but in simultaneously, bewilderingly pertinent ways. To tear into us deeply and painfully and pleasurably -- again. To pencil on our hearts remembrance of and thankfulness for God's transformative work in very broken beings.