Currently Becket By Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole, John Gielgud, Gino Cervi, Paolo Stoppa see related
I'm a firm believer that, like a story, life has themes. With everyone, there is always a particular idea or thought that seems to reoccur with some kind of underlying lesson or revelation to be learned. For me, that recent theme has been time and death.
I think for the first 18 years of most people's lives, the "after life" is pretty much set out for them by society. At least in my case, while growing up, it took up enough of my thought life to consider what life would look like "after elementary school," "after junior high," and "after high school." I've been in "life after college" for a couple years now, and to be honest, the idea of no more institutionalized norms about "life after ..." has just kind of hit me as of late, and hard. It's weird to think of myself at age 30...40...50...60... Questions about where I see myself in five or ten years has never freaked me out more. Does anyone truly know? I mean, I have an idea of where I'd like to go and where I'd like to end up, but the fact is, I don't even know if I'll make it out alive tomorrow. No one does.
A couple weeks ago, I'd learned that a friend of a friend was "terminal." I'd only met that person once and didn't even know it. It got me thinking about what it'd be like to see that person again with that new knowledge in mind. I can already feel in my bones the difference in my demeanor and perceptions. I know that's wrong and that sucks, but it's a natural inclination that's most likely unanimous. These thoughts led me to the conclusion that...the fact is...we're all terminal. So in that sense, every time we meet one another, it's technically viable to encounter those moments with that same amount of sensitivity and conscientiousness.
We do so much to these bodies of ours - stuff it silly, starve it to death, paint it, cover it, uncover it, inject things into it, build it up, break it down...yet, to what end? It blows my mind to think that all that hard work and financial investment in the name of Flesh, can all become naught with a bit of metal...be it an inch long cylinder or a sharpened stick...turning us into fertilizer for a graveyard. As simple as that, Life and Death aren't just neighbors - they are siblings joined at the hip, always side by side, no matter where They lead us.
Having said all that...........
One of many experiences that we've turned into a commodity, by that I mean music, has been my recent refuge. It's close to essential for this insomniac to sleep with her hand-me-down ipod in order to reach even a semblance of mental reprieve. I need a voice, a melody to keep my soul company, until it finally lets itself go to find its nightly rest. And with such moments, I've come to ask myself the following questions: "Am I more 'extroverted' than I think? Have I taken on the traits of an only child? What and how much am I carrying alone?"
I really used to be okay with solitude. Yet, while it's still true that I draw my energy from being alone [being around too many people for too long wears me out], I think the current dilemma is two-fold - 1) I've been engaging in more than enough solitude these past couple years, and 2) I've tasted the goodness that comes with good company...and now I'm hooked. It gets me thinking...maybe I'm not the mute everyone used to think I was...maybe I actually get a certain amount of energy from people as well. Maybe this only child is finding true solace, not in her self-made activities, but in a community of siblings. ...Maybe I'm starting to realize that I shouldn't be carrying so much on my own, the way I have been for so long...
Life has all of a sudden been starting to feel really short. The more everything is compiled into one tangible contraption, the smaller life becomes. But, it's not enough to live in a constant reactionary mode, waiting for people to comment on your life for you to finally speak up and respond. Sometimes, life calls for turning off technology and weaving your life into other ones. There's something to the idea of not being the main character and allowing life to be as big, albeit finite, as it actually is. Letting it be what it is makes room for meaning to surface.
My soul, when this room is made, will you stop? listen? participate? You don't have to wait for the afterlife to start living. The Kingdom thrives in the now as well as the not-yet.
I haven't been able to sleep well these days. It takes forever to fall asleep, and the slightest morning sounds will wake me up for good.
This morning, I decided to take that unrest and run with it. Literally.
The run itself didn't last very long, but I ended up at a nearby park and made my way in. With my thighs getting over their prickly sensation and my throat feeling it'd been dragged across the carpet, I set up my territory on a bench right by the man-made lake with ducks swimming by in pairs. Hugging my knees, I took in the sunlight on the water, sparkles popping like firecrackers across the surface, the reflection from the trees' green turning it from blue to green.
It'd been a good while since I had myself sit outside and not stare at a technological screen of some sort. During the first couple minutes, I could feel my soul getting fidgety and fretful, but the more I absorbed the silence of the moment, there was more to be had and a calm finally broke forth.
I'd been watching a pair of ducks for a while when off from the side, another duck came flying in, drawing the form of ringlets as it hit the water, skiing across the surface, til it found its brakes and began to coast. Between the air and the water though, before it made its landing, the whistle that came from the duck's circling wings echoed the whistling that came from the birds that were singing in the trees nearby. Hearing that duet got me to see that even in nature, there's a larger theme that connects these arbitrary, yet not coincidental moments, moments that contribute to a greater song.
Looking to where the birds were singing, they sat like me, perched on their chosen branch or territory, and between the rustling of the golden leaves and the sporadic turning of beaks among them, you wouldn't be able to tell them apart with just a casual glance. As I watched for each leaf, each beak, I couldn't help but consider how nature understood something I wanted to learn...this idea that our striving in this life is to become like strong, deeply-rooted trees, to be to be able to hold up those that need of a place to perch. As that thought crossed my mind, I got to realizing that there was more to that imagery...that in fact, there is Someone who better fits the role of the tree, and how it's He who provides a place for us to abide. What's more, you don't need to have lived long on this earth to start feeling a discomfort when you see that there are others who've found a better spot on that tree than you did, that they, unlike yourself, have an easier time calling that tree home, instead of flying away all the time. But...the fact is, there is no scarcity factor here - there is room for all. Just because another's present condition looks better and more expansive than yours does not mean that your given space is worse off or smaller. The Tree's roots are infinite, its branches unending. There is freedom to abide and be satisfied where you were created to be, to be known, and to be valued.
"He leads me beside still waters; He restores my soul." This describes my morning today rather perfectly...
Role 1: The Investigator These days, I get to wondering...would I have been one among the many? Would I have taken a strange, controversial teacher seriously enough to follow him around, across counties, and possibly even fight through the throngs to touch his cloak? Would I be the type who would be fascinated enough to actually get up, open my door, and go outside to seek Him out? And if so, what would have motivated me - the rumors about his supernatural deeds? the unparalleled wisdom with which He taught? the discord He provoked within the religious elite?
Role 2: The Elitist I have not been able to get away from this one particular story - in my reading from Mark, live lectures, and podcasts [and I don't even go to school] - in which the disciples rebuke a man who is "not one of them" for driving out demons, yet He tells them not to...because "whoever is not against us is for us." Each time, I'm driven to wonder how often I do that, knowingly or not, mentally or verbally, dividing myself from others, thinking He would agree with my so "wisely placed" social lines...only to find that it is actually me who is not in agreement with Him.
Role 3: The Responding Party A man rejects Him, because money just means that much more to him. A pair of brothers asks to become seconds-in-command. To be asked what is the bare minimum one can get away with, or to be seek after an immeasurable responsibility out of arrogance blinded by naivete... These make me think about how I would have scolded them straight into the ground, shook them and forced them to see how right I was and how wrong they were, withheld my love from them to put them in their rightful place... Yet, the One who is patient "looked at him and loved him" [10:21]. He gently and relentlessly points to the truth without any desire to shun or shame them and is solely committed to pouring out His empathetic heart to them.
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I am continually convinced that the arbitrary tradition of an altar call does not flip up some spiritual "on" switch. While it does make sense to put out an initial "yes," it is not until you weather a journey of constantly reoccurring desperate breakdowns and redemptive breakthroughs that you can even understand what saying "yes" actually meant. It's between that initial "yes" and the desperate breakdown where it becomes too easy to let His love simply comfort us without allowing it address us personally. So, as the One who intentionally created the brain's right hemisphere compels me to engage in some right-brained role-playing, He presents His case before me:
to let Him address me personally... to give His words the benefit of the doubt and investigate what's behind His mysterious controversy... to actually consider the One I mean to speak on behalf of before I label someone as an opponent... to see the other person with different Eyes and love them instead of shaming them out of my own need to be right...
Granted, none of these are easy for me to swallow. But even so...I'm won over. Through His stated points and position, I see Someone who believes in my potential, who makes Himself available and is open to being known, who could never be exclusive even if He tried, who cherishes each individual deeply, regardless of their flaws and limits...
All this is to say, I'm not in this just because one day I happened to feel like going for it. I never simply said "yes" and that was it. It's every waking moment that I have to consider what my answer is going to be. This is the difference between today's flippant self-labeling as "Christian" and what it means to say, "I believe and follow."
I've been free for less than a week now, but I got to say...there was actually something really lovely about those several months of training for my mental marathon. The whole process ended up teaching me a lot more than just the in's and out's of a test, but it really taught me about unifying the mind for one purpose. Simple ideas like actually taking care of yourself, sleeping early and waking up early, eating well, moving around a little bit each day, savoring and absorbing optimism and doing away with the clutter of unnecessary worries and irrelevant concerns... More importantly, in terms of the exam itself, it wasn't about choking the answers out of the questions; if anything, it was about listening to what the questions had to say, to approach them in humility with the mindset that you're there to learn something from it, that it's there to teach you. In the beginning, I would almost feel this resentment toward each question, as if they were all purposely hiding the right answer from me. It wasn't until I recognized that I actually have all the right answers in front of me that I was able to breathe a little easier and keep my wits about me. The more I knew how to be nurtured and well rested, the waves of potential rose and overflowed as each day progressed.
All this to say, it got me thinking...a similar approach to life wouldn't hurt. I mean, the system we've got going has conditioned us to think that it's normal to be so obsessed with trying to figure out our future and what our matured selves will one day look like. I know if we could, we would strangle life's 8-ball for all the answers, coercing each triangular answer that swims to the forefront of this tiny window into the future to read, "Yes." Yet, I wonder how much good our efforts do in trying to figure life out before it happens. Such efforts forgo the need for any type of faith in anything. At my very best, I do believe that it's the other way around. I believe that life's the one that teaches us about itself, and the only way we can allow room for such a lesson is by realizing that life is actually bigger than we are. It sounds rather obvious, but at least for me, it really is humbling to remember that I am not the point...to know that all the right answers are indeed at hand and that if I'm open enough, clarity will not fail to keep its appointment.
In effort to give my eyes something new to look at, I went to the Fullerton Arboretum the other afternoon. As I walked around, encountering different flowers and trees from around the world, I could not help but think they all suggest that there is something else to living this life. There is no deadline these trees have to meet in which they have to be in a particular state at a particular time. You would not be able to ask them to grow faster even if you wanted to. They all have their own time, their own functions, and their own contributions - medicinal, nutritional, or simply beauty for beauty's sake. Spending some time there made me think that all these things - flowers, birds, water, light - they all have something to offer, some bigger story to communicate. All these things restore my belief that the One who orchestrated each design and layout has an incredible knack for expression and that by piecing nature together the way He did, He is letting us know that He pieced us together with the same beauty and purpose. Suddenly then, social labels and merits don't make sense anymore and the idea of not having the answers to life's mysteries no longer presents itself as a dilemma, but it becomes a mouth-watering invitation into a new perspective that is warmly accepted by our thirsty souls.
So during all those months of preparation, it's no wonder that He would tell me and tell me again, "I go before you. I made you and formed you. It is all in My hands." It is for this reason that I know none of this has been in vain. None of it.
I don't understand who You're asking me to be. When I find myself in the fetal position, breathing in the sheets to mute my cries, I don't understand who You're asking me to be. Be loved? Beloved? You're asking me to be the Be-loved? What is love? What does it look like?
There is a language You're asking me to learn, and while I'm intrigued by the Kingdom's dialect, the feelings of nonetheless being a foreigner to this Kingdom remain. Your reign is immersed in these notions of intimacy, relationship, and love, but I don't understand them. It feels more appropriate to continue to believe that I am the leper outside Your gates - deathly exposed, untouchable, and not to be familiarized with those three ideas... Your invitation for me to come inside, to be loved...again, I don't understand who You're asking me to be. Help me understand...
You return me to the end of this past June when one of my internship supervisors, who has become more like a mentor, father, or friend...or all of the above, kissed me farewell on the forehead. No one's ever done that before, and yet I realized after he did that, that was something that I'd always wanted, something I'd always been wired to want - not necessarily for that deed to be done, but...I'd always sought to be loved simply and without bullshit. It wasn't even a thing. It wasn't forced; it was casually done and freely given.
Something about that act breaks my heart, because it was a moment that openly acknowledged and let me be human, a real human being that could be touched, kissed, and shown an expression of love. I didn't have to desperately conjure it out of the other party; it came and found me and initiated.
If that's the case, I think faith does not truly belong to those inside those gates... The fight to believe and faith itself are the same thing. The fight of faith looks like one who is crippled, blind, unclean, who keeps drawing near...who keeps hanging around the Kingdom's entrance with the utterly ridiculous notion that she might one day receive a kiss on the forehead. What a miracle to think that the King might actually meet with me and do just that...that He might actually embrace me, and not mind doing so...maybe even want to.
Perhaps that's too far of a leap for my mind at the moment, but until I come to that place of hope-realized, I will continue to cry out, "Son of David, have mercy on me! I believe; help my unbelief!"
