Book Reflection: How We Love (2)

To follow up on yesterday's post, my major take-away from How We Love is that my coping mechanism of choice is avoidance.

It took me a while to come to this conclusion. But the fact is, I do a lot of avoiding! It's especially marked when I'm in conflict with my mom. But I do it all the time, which is why I don't have open conflicts with most people. For instance, I can't remember ever having a fight with a friend. A disagreement, sure, maybe a lively discussion--but not a fight. If it starts to look like a fight, I shut up or back down. The conflict just isn't usually worth it to me--the cure feels worse than the disease.

When I do get stuck in a conflict, when the tension can't just be ignored, the urge to get away is overwhelming. I want to walk out of the room, out of the house, spend the night somewhere else, not ever have to think about resolving the conflict or seeing the person whose words or actions are making me feel this way. I want to leave and never come back.

In actuality, though, the most I do is leave the room. And the next morning, things never feel as bleak.

If my tendency to avoid is so strong, why was it hard for me to identify myself as an avoider? I initially thought maybe I was a pleaser (seeking comfort through the approval of others), because I do care so much about making O. happy / meeting his expectations; then I thought I was a vacillator, because one of the markers is feeling, "My partner doesn't want to be as close to me as I want to be to them," and also because the book said vacillators tend to have a hard time identifying their own type. I knew I wasn't a Controller/Victim.

I also figured I couldn't be an avoider. Why? Partly because of the dynamics of my relationship with O., and partly because the portrayal of the avoider in How We Love was so extreme.

The dynamics of my relationship with O.
I recognized immediately I'd had a pattern of avoidance with O. during our dating. I wanted to take the whole relationship slowly, being on my guard against getting too close too soon. I wanted to protect myself by maintaining a degree of distance--after all, we were just dating, I reasoned. Friendship and school come first, then a boyfriend, because boys come and go but friends stay, and responsibilities don't go away just because they're inconvenient. O. on the other hand tended to take a "she loves me, she loves me not" view of the situation, and I believe he felt panicky when I pushed for more autonomy. (Pretty sure he's a vacillator!)

Since we got married, though, I've often been the one feeling too much distance, demanding more of O.'s attention, and pushing for greater togetherness. During our honeymoon, for instance, I felt ignored when O. would stop talking to me or looking at me to look things up on his shiny new smartphone, as if he had disappeared into this black box, into which I wasn't invited. This particular problem was quickly fixed when O. and I discussed it and he promised to be more mindful. Nonetheless, it's a good example of the small things that easily leave me feeling ignored, wanting more time together, better time together, better togetherness. These are not the characteristic feelings of the avoider but of the vacillator.

So I figured I wasn't an avoider anymore. But what I eventually figured out is that I am still an avoider, it's just that I'm not as extreme about it as the book's examples, probably because I had a fairly secure attachment to my parents. I just had to observe myself more carefully and more candidly, and think harder about the key ideas behind the book's somewhat extreme presentation.

The book's extreme examples:
My greatest criticism of How We Love is that it didn't make any concrete mention of less extreme cases. An early chapter discussed what it looks like to have a secure attachment style, but then secure attachment was hardly mentioned in the rest of the book, almost implying that if you are securely attached, you'll never employ the unhealthy strategies that mold the relationships of those who are insecurely attached. How We Love is packed with anecdotes and case studies that paint clear and vivid pictures of what each "love style" quintessentially looks like, but fails to give examples of these negative patterns working in more subtle ways, or to explain whether the securely attached can also fall into these traps. A greater range of examples, or at least some commentary on what a less extreme manifestation of each imprint might look like, would really have helped clarify the ideas for me. Precision! It's key!

Conclusions
I did eventually recognize my own pattern, though, and now it seems obvious. I seriously doubt I would have realized how often I feel like escaping or hiding without reading this book and thinking hard about which love style I tend to fall into. Equally important, I probably wouldn't have realized that not everyone feels that desire to escape in the midst of conflict.

In sum, How We Love has already been helpful to me in seeing myself more clearly and thinking in a new way about my important relationships, especially about my marriage. The greatest insight for me was recognizing my avoidance, but there are some other good take-away points too, such as the following:

• Comfort is key--we're all seeking comfort (in our different ways) and the provision of real comfort is what changes the dynamic.
• Comfort comes from being heard and being held.
• The ability to identify your feelings, to name them and talk about them, doesn't come naturally. I'm blessed to have parents who taught me "soul words," asked me about my emotions, talked me through difficult feelings, etc. O. on the other hand is from a family which, though loyal and loving, does not so much discuss feelings as act them out. I can't expect him to be in the same place as me with listening, asking questions, naming his feelings, etc., when I've had years more practice. That's just setting both of us up for frustration.
• O. doesn't have to figure out for himself what to ask and how to listen; there are resources--like the lists of questions and of emotions in this book--that can make learning so much easier.

Storm

The rain is a curtain outside. I have opened the windows to hear its fall, and to feel the thunder's rumbling. From the edge of a neighboring roof, the wind blows a fog of raindrops shattered by their own fall. The trees wave their arms. Finally the heat is breaking.

I am inside with the rabbits, who seem undisturbed. Pepper is sleeping on the floor of the open cage, Pipkin has holed himself up as usual. It is quiet, with the air conditioner finally off. We have been running it constantly for the past two days. It is an old wall unit, and very loud. Its roar has been working itself into my head.

Now the machines are still. For a moment, the cacophony of the city is blanketed by the sounds of a beautiful storm. Rain patters down, onto roofs, sidewalks, trees. The wind rustles in wet leaves. Thunder rocks the sky.

I could use a rainstorm inside the house, inside me. Shake all my branches, wash away the dead leaves. Stop the machines of my consciousness, and let the rain flow. Let the thunder rumble through me, till all the music and the chatter stop.


Afterward, everything will be still. Then, one bird will begin to sing.

Bloggistential Crisis

Lately I have been wondering about purpose. What is this blog for? Is it accomplishing what it should? Should I be doing something different? something better? Ever since reading two or three blogposts about how to make your blog better, get more readers, increase traffic, etc., I have been intermittently paralyzed from blogging, or writing at all, with the perpetual question: is this any good? Will anyone want to read this?

Often I treat this questions like flies, swatting them away without much thought. They are annoying but short-lived. But these are flies that hover around the "New Post" button on blogger, and, as I do with any pest-infested place, I have been avoiding that "New Post" button, and even more, the "Publish" button. This is a problem! I'm not a blogger if I don't blog. I'm not a writer if I don't write. I want to live in my identity as a writer: I need to write. And so I need to face my fears.

I have been noticing more and more that the unexamined fears are the most troublesome. They nip at my heels, they growl at me from behind. They are always behind me, you see, because I never look at them. I studiously avoid eye contact, because in order to look at them, I would have to acknowledge their presence. Unlike wild beasts, these threaten me more by the fact of their presence than by harmful actions they could take against me.

In truth, when I look my fear in its yellow eye, it wilts like a scolded dog. It turns tail and disappears under a car like a stray cat. Simply by acknowledging that I have been afraid, I diminish my fear.

My fear here: I am afraid of being judged and found wanting according to some unwritten standard. I am afraid this blog will be a failure. --But when did I sign a contract subjecting myself to the judgment of the internet? The internet may judge me (most likely by ignoring my existence), but its judgment has no real force in my life. Why am I allowing it to have force in my heart?

The problem is, I have no idea what the purpose/mission/goal/raison-d'etre of this blog is. Or rather, I have several ideas, and sometimes they get along but sometimes they fight each other. Sometimes I think I keep this blog so that people can read my writing. This is scary because what if no one does read it? What if it's always just my parents reading? Sometimes I think I keep it because I write different kinds of things here than I write in a journal or an email. This is less scary. I am the only one I have to satisfy. Other times I think other things. It gets messy in my head and then I just stop writing, for a while. But I come back. I come back because, even though I can't tell you exactly what my purpose in writing here is, I know I have a purpose, or a hundred fragments of purpose, and I also know this blog doesn't have to be a mere means: it can be its own end.

My purpose in keeping this blog is to write, and to write well. Goodness is its own justification, and I don't have to write the best, the most, to write well. So here I am, and here I'll be.

Restless

I love this song:


This is the place I am. Restless, restless, unsure of my path, unsure of where I'm running. Why? I keep wondering. Switchfoot tells me what I should know of myself: "I'm looking for You."

Life Questions

Lately, I've been asking myself a lot of questions. Life-changes (especially those in the box of surprises we call marriage) seem to generate these questions--or perhaps it's the conflicts created or revealed by changes that give birth to these questions. The questions come in flocks. They descend from the skies, their wings clattering. They leave the ground a mess of droppings and feathers.

One flock is the color of money. Its birds sing about saving, about future expenditures, about how I spend too much. They demand to know why I need so many things, why I want them. They remind me, people are starving in other places. Children are shoeless in the Russian snow, and here I am, my closet floor full of shoes, considering whether I "need" a pair of boots.

When that flock drifts away, another flock settles around me. It pecks at me. It caws about newer clothes, more make-up, a different purse, more care in putting together an outfit. It tells me I am not doing things right.

Like sparrows that fill every bush and peck every square of sidewalk, questions twitter at me about chores. Has the laundry been done? When are you going to do it? What's for dinner? How about breakfast? Is there granola? Is the bread dough going to go bad? Are we getting enough vitamins?

There's a bird that shrieks that I'm not accomplishing anything, that I'm going nowhere. When will you apply to grad school? Why do you expect anyone to accept you for a PhD program? Why haven't you sent out any poems yet?

There is a rooster that crows some mornings: What do you have to contribute? What could you possibly have to say that is worth reading? (This started after I read a couple of posts on how to get more readers for your blog, which introduced previously unconsidered goals and standards into my brain.)
 
There is a vulture circling overhead, asking, What are you forgetting?

And I keep hearing the questions, Am I a child or an adult? What makes me happy? Why am I here? But at least those questions are asked by my own soul, not by insecurities and fears and the polluting influence of a materialistic, narcissistic, workaholic, kaleidoscopic society.

I constantly need to remind myself: I am not what I accomplish. My worth is not measured in statistics of any sort--in fact, it isn't quantifiable. I am a person, a story, a poem, a picture: not a machine. In solitude, in silence, in stillness, I still exist.

I breathe in deep, and blow out. I blow away the birds.

[Quote of the Day:] Secret Self

I've been doing a lot of reading and a fair amount of talking lately, and not much writing. As a reflection of that, here is a quote from a book that I finished recently, which made me ponder and brought me peace: Seasons of Celebration, by Thomas Merton.

Personalism is the discovery, the respect, but not the cult, for this deep reality. [...] The great paradox of Christian personalism is this: it consist in something more than bringing to light the unique and irreplaceable element in the individual Christian.

On the contrary, Christian personalism does not require that the inmost secret of our being become manifest or public at all. We do not even have to see it clearly ourselves! [...] Christian personalism does not root out the inner secret of hte individual in order to put it on display in a spiritual beauty contest.

This comment about "the inmost secret of our being" brought me relief in an area that I hadn't even realized I was feeling tension. The goal of self-knowledge always seems desirable to me, because understanding myself has often brought me clarity and peace--or at least calmness. The untangling of my emotions has brought the stillness and emptiness which together allow for a dreamless sleep, and which I have often sought.

But seeking has not always meant finding. Unwinding the knotted threads has not always brought understanding, which often seems too slippery to grasp. Moreover, even if understanding somehow falls into my open hands, and does not pour out through my fingers, communication may prove impossible.

This predicament is made worse by the feeling that knowledge I can't express is no knowledge at all. What good is reflection if it doesn't bear fruit: actions or at least words? If I can't make myself understood, or if I can't even understand myself, I have failed. At least, that's how I tend to think. Hiding and secrets come naturally, and so I've struggled against them and treated them as the enemy.

But Merton sanctifies secrets and mystery. He places mystery at the heart of holiness, and secrets at the heart of personhood. In that light, I can stop struggling to smooth out the shadowy folds of my self. It's okay to be a secret; it's okay that God only knows me through and through; it's okay that I don't understand.

Wind and Waiting

When I come to the blogger page, there is such a temptation for me these days to just look at the list of updated blogs I follow, and go read all the new posts, go benefit from all those people's thought and effort, and then not write anything myself. Why is it I don't want to write?

It's because I don't want to answer questions. I'm not in the mood for statements. I'm uncertain. Walking alone, I close my eyes to feel the wind better, because it is strong enough to lift me. I lean into the press of the wind. Will it sweep me away? Will it carry me far from here, into the distant blue? If I gave myself to the wind, it would set me down in a stranger's story. Facing someone else's problems, I would spend my confusion on puzzling out the facts, the history.

As it is, I am embedded in my own story still, and I need to be puzzling out the present and the future. Where do I go from here? More to the point, where exactly am I now? I keep wanting to step around the issue. My eyes slide over it, my feet sidle past it, but it keeps reappearing in my path. The wind won't pick me up and lift me over it. The wind won't even blow it out of the way for me.

When Elijah was discouraged and lost, despairing and demanding death, God set him on the mountainside. Then

a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.

When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"

I am feeling the great wind rush across me. I am feeling the trembling of the earthquake, rattling my bones. I am feeling the fire burn in my mind. But after the fire, a gentle whisper. (A still, small voice, to use Dallas Willard's terminology.) I am waiting for the gentle whisper.

Pause. Breathe. Listen.

When the still, small voice spoke gently to Elijah, it asked him a question. And if God asks me, "What you doing here?" what can I answer? Elijah answers from the depths of his despair, without sugar-coating.

What am I doing here? I have tried to seek Your will. I want to believe I have been zealous for the Lord--not working miracles like Elijah, but speaking what I know of the truth, giving what I can. I believe Your word: "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come." So why do the words of Sara Groves' song echo in me?

Feels like I have been waking up
only to fight with the same old stuff
Change is slow and it fills me with such doubt
Come on, new man, where've you been?
Can you wriggle from this self I'm in,
leave it like a skin on the ground?

That's all I can say. I don't really understand where I am, what I'm doing here.

But after Elijah says,

He replied, "I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too."

God speaks to him again. God gives him direct instructions about where to go, who to speak with. God tells him the plan that's going to unfold, and God tells him that his own dismal assessment of the situation is, thankfully, wrong. Elijah is not actually the only one left; in fact, God says,

Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him. (1 Kings 19)

So I am waiting, if I can only be still enough, to find out the plan. Where do I go from here? Thank God Almighty, I don't have to decide that by my own wisdom.

Temptation

I ran into this article about self-control a few days ago, and so self-control as a virtue has been jostling around my head since then. Discipline isn't a common topic of discussion around college campuses these days (at least, not mine). The cultural focus is on self-actualization / self-realization / fulfillment / happiness: the self as god. Self-control postulates the reverse: self as servant to ... what? Higher goals than one's immediate desires, anyway.

I am pretty disciplined about getting my homework done, waking up on time, eating healthily, holding my tongue, showing up to meetings. People consider me responsible. And yet I do things like spend the majority of a three-day weekend reading a novel (and now it's Tuesday night and I'm still in Cryptonomicon's thrall), or eat half a bar of dark chocolate in a sitting, or wander around day-dreaming of fairy-tale love. I indulge in mid-afternoon planning sessions, trying to map out how many requirements I've fulfilled and how many are still lurking on my path, checking off completed classes like I'm collecting scalps.

This is a darker temptation: the need to justify my existence to myself. The need to pass my own standards, to surpass onlookers' expectations. The compulsion to make a good impression, most of all on myself. The drive to be good enough.

In I Samuel 18, everyone loves David, and no one cares about Saul any more. [Now if you'll just bear with me for a moment... (I promise I'm not doing this!)] My Bible study is doing a character study of David, and this is the chapter we're reading tomorrow. But this chapter seems more Saul-centric. David may be the main character, but the emotions we hear about are all Saul's. Saul is very angry, he's galled (v. 8), he's jealous (9), he's afraid (12), he's still more afraid (29). Why is Saul so upset? All his angst comes out when he realizes that "the Lord is with David," and it gets worse and worse as more and more people switch to David's side (that's how Saul perceives it, at least). So is he upset because he's unpopular? I think his loss of popularity is just an exacerbating factor. The actual reason for Saul being so disturbed is that God isn't with him.

Problem: Saul is far from God.
Remedy: (A) Saul should try to kill David because God is with David.
(B) Saul should approach God.

Hm, which one is a better solution? If you ask Saul, the answer is (A). Clearly there's a disconnect here: Saul is disturbed because he's far from God, but the way he deals with the problem is to take actions that increase his distance from God (i.e., attempt murder). What's going on in his head?

I think Saul is in a state of mind where he can't conceive of humbling himself. He's the king of Israel, he's powerful, he's a head taller than everyone else, he's on top of the world--at least, he thinks he should be. He's relying on himself. And that's why he's so afraid. Losing his reputation, losing his kingdom, these losses would destroy him, because those are the only things he has.

A kingdom, and a family, and a reputation are not trivial. However, they are not a reliable foundation for an identity.

Here's the issue: I keep thinking like Saul. Self-reliance is a deadly temptation, and it comes with a complementary poison, self-absorption. The kid's computer game Jumpstart 3rd features a bratty girl who redraws the solar system as the Polly system, with all the planets orbiting around her face. That's my mental image of self-absorption. It's so easy to start thinking as though the whole system as orbiting around my own little notions.

But that's not how it is. In reality, my self-condemnation doesn't count, because God is the real judge, and my self-vindication doesn't count either, because God is the one who gives worth. Worth is all relative (an item is worth something to someone or for some purpose, not just in a void), and God is the agent relative to whom real worth is calculated. I need to have that larger perspective, to see myself in the light of His evaluation and as part of a larger system than my immediate surroundings.

Interior Decorating

I am addicted to comfort, and afraid of hope. I quash my imaginings, fold them up neatly and layer them in the bottom of an empty drawer. Occasionally one wakes up and batters itself against the inside of the dresser so the drawer clunks back and forth. The shaking rouses all the other visions and dreams, too. They flap and flutter, and at least one escapes into the open air. It follows me around, getting in my eyes, casting flitting shadows that distract me from whatever I'm looking at. Every time I put something down, I'm afraid I'm about to squish it into a stain on my book or bag or butt. I don't want to smash those dreams, really. I want to have them around. I just don't want them as a real part of my life. They're too dangerous. Following a butterfly will get me lost in the woods.

Instead of gazing at my dreams, I pore over memories. I sort through filing cabinets and pull out my favorites. Those hang on the wall to constantly remind me: those good times are real. They happened once, so they can happen again. But my imagination is too stunted from being kept in the drawer, too afraid of being shoved back into that small orthogonal space, to take any risks in envisioning the repetition of a good moment. My imagination doesn't dare translate a situation to a new cast of people or a novel location. It keeps the plots tethered to their characters and setting. My imagination plays slide-shows of memory's photographs, instead of painting pictures of its own.

I live in a house wall-papered with memories, with the curtains shut to keep out the brilliant light of the future.

why why why

If I am afraid of hurting people's feelings, is that because I love them and don't want them to suffer, or because I am cowardly and don't want them to be angry at me?

If I don't want them to be angry at me, why do I care? Because I care about who they are and what they think of me because I value their judgments? or because I try to define myself as a nice person so I can't take the idea of someone thinking I'm mean?

But I'm being to hard on myself. I do hurt people's feelings, when I know it's the right thing. I don't think of myself as an especially nice or kind person--I reach out and try to be welcoming not because it's natural or who I am, but because I believe it's important to treat people as valuable. It's something I have to work at, so it doesn't surprise me that I can't always succeed. Regardless of whether I seem "nice," my motive for niceness and my (professed) motive for keeping boundaries and thus causing pain are the same: doing the right thing.

I second-guess myself so much. I always want to be independent, but in the time of decision, I want someone else to tell me what to do, tell me it's okay to do the thing I really want. Justify me, is the cry of my heart. I seek security in all the wrong places. But I'll say of the Lord: You are my shield, my strength, my portion, deliverer, my shelter, strong tower, a very present help in time of need. Be Thou my vision.

Wonderland

"I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it," laments Alice in Disney's rendition of Lewis Carroll's classic, as the bizarre creatures around the meadow peer at her from the shadows. Alice is a bit of a nitwit, so I'm reluctant to admit similarity to her. However: I give my peers very good insights, but I very seldom believe them in my heart.

By which I mean, when the hopeful things I tell people are real actually do manifest themselves, I am surprised. I was actually right? (I think to myself.) Oh yeah, there's a reason I believe that--which is that it's true! It's true whether or not I feel it, whether or not I believe it.

Reality is not contingent on my moods.

Reality is not contingent on my choices, either. Yes, I am responsible for my own actions, and by acting rightly, I improve my life--but if I fail to act correctly, sometimes things can still work out. Sometimes good things fall out of the sky, without my earning them. Sometimes there is unexpected mercy. Sometimes I don't know how to fix a problem, or even what the problem really is, but then it fixes itself. For instance, today: you surpassed my wildest expectations. Maybe you don't understand me completely, but you understand enough, and you're doing what you can. Freedom is a beautiful birthday gift. Thank you. (Thank God.)

God is good: all the time. All the time: God is good.

Fear

I am homesick. I think it's because I am afraid of what's here.

I am afraid of where I am going. What am I doing? How do I deal with these situations? What is it that scares me about the possibilities, about that particular interaction, about growing closer, about talking and talking and talking, about staring?

I don't know. All I know to do is to write, and sleep, and hope. I know to face the things I want to run from. But the truth is that I want to run away, home, to the warm weather and my own room, to silence, to the mountains and the beach. I want to run 3000 miles and 3 hours of time difference away. (Difference: I cannot quantify how much difference there is between us. When you care about all the same things, how big a problem is it that you seek them in completely different ways?) I want physical and temporal distance to keep me safe, to be the guards so I don't have to guard myself, to be barriers so I don't have to erect them myself. I don't want to push you away, but I also can't seem to let you in. What is it about the way we interact that makes me feel burdened? Why am I afraid, when this is everything I thought I was looking for?

I want to be home, I want to be a child, I want life to be simple. Nothing is wrong, but something is wrong, and I can't name it.

But maybe the real reason I'm homesick is just that it's been a month. Maybe it's just that it's March and the snow is pouring down. The sky doesn't exist today; it is all full of snow. No such thing as space. A snowflake occupies every place--just like person occupies every place in my mind, in my schedule. I am sick for solitude. I am sick for the familiar, for the family. I have never thought of myself as a fearful person, but I find I have more in common with Much-Afraid than I realized. When will I find my hinds' feet and reach the High Places? I'll stop pretending: it's not the snowy weather or the number of weeks away that make me long for home, but the climate of my soul and the number of fears in my heart.

"God be merciful to me"

Gracious God, my hope renew
Make my spirit right and true
Cast me not away from Thee,
Let Thy Spirit dwell in me
Thy salvation's joy impart
Steadfast make my willing heart
--The Psalter (based on Ps. 51)

I do need my hope renewed. Even though I haven't experienced anything drastically hope-destroying lately, life is full of minor disappointments and tragedies. People are struggling. Their hearts cry out. "Why does every guy look right past me?" "How can God send people to hell when their actions and choices were conditioned by their environment and genetics?!" "How can God's message to us be a story full of violence and even rape?" "When will I not be alone?" "How can I save my daughter?" "What's wrong with me?"

I try to be a good friend, to give the right advice, to offer a comforting hug, to keep people in my prayers, to provide answers. But most of these questions don't seem to have answers--or if they do, I don't know them--or if I do, I can't put them in words--or if I can, there is another question behind that one. Point is, I can't fix things. The brokenness is a temptation to despair.

Temptations are to be resisted, and virtue happens partly by an act of will. I choose to hope.

But that choice faces the same problem as all the others. I can't fix myself, either. The things I believe are not always the things I feel. I don't know them with my heart. Ultimately, the ability to hope is not within my control. Gracious God, my hope renew. I cannot renew it myself.

Solitude

In the crowded room, I shrink into myself. I sit with my knees up, feet on the edge of the chair. I hide in a book, sometimes. Other times, I pretend I'm not overwhelmed by the hundreds of conversations, the thousands of thoughts flying around, the millions of permutations of words and gestures. I pretend it's not too loud, that I don't mind the population density, and I sit down and talk to someone. I talk to several people. "Hey! How are you? How was your week? What's going on in your life?" To each one, I ask the same questions. . . to each, give slightly different answers. . . I'd rather not add to the noise and commotion. Listening is better.

I walk home under the stars, and the cold doesn't bother me because I wrap myself in wordlessness, listening to the wind. It moves, yes, but with grace and purpose, not chatter.

But at home, in the stillness of my room, I want to talk to someone. Who? To you, maybe. To my family, to someone who knows me through and through. So is it really solitude I seek, or is it safety? I don't know. I only know that the wind is enough.

Time Travel

In The Time Machine, H.G. Wells' Time Traveler character claims that when we recall a moment vividly, we travel back to that time (in "spirit", perhaps). My quarrel, though, is that, in remembering, I don't actually revisit the moment itself, or even my own experience of that moment, but rather my retrospective interpretation of my experience. A year or a month later, looking back, I always simplify and classify my experience and emotions. Nuances are difficult to remember. Ambivalence, ambiguity, half-hearted and unsuccessful attempts to make things go a different way: these don't stick in my memory. They fade out, too delicate to be caught and held, like the photographed rainbow that vanishes into the pale sky on paper.

But when I read my journal, I see the things that ran through my mind as I was still processing, still reeling from whatever happened, still sorting out whether it was good or bad. My journal is a record of events before hindsight imposed a paradigm on them. It's still my interpretation, yes, but it's the interpretation from that very day, a day that I can't re-live but that I can re-imagine. It's a snapshot that retains all its colors, even if it's only one view of the scene.

When I want to travel back, I still try to go in the vehicle of memory, and I see through the haze of my judgment. But when I open my journal and it falls to an earlier page, I fall, too. I fall into a record of my mind, into a moment I had left behind. I find it not as I recalled it, but as it was, with more shading and texture than I could sketch it with now. Fortunately, it's easy to climb back out. Turning pages, I come to a blank one: and I record this moment, too.

(In)credible

I want badly to be a person of integrity.

Integrity is wholeness. There is a lot of overlap between being a person of integrity and being a person whose actions, thoughts and feelings are integrated with each other: if you act in complete accordance with the way you think and feel, you cannot lie, for instance. Deception fractures the self (indeed, perhaps the soul). When thoughts and feelings and deeds are aligned, though, the self is united.

I want to be whole badly enough that I disintegrate myself. In the moments--or dare I admit, periods--when what I feel (rejection) is divorced from what I know and believe (there is a place I belong), rather than recognize the discrepancy, I tell myself it isn't there. I know what I know. I believe what I believe. What does it matter what I feel?

That is the mantra in my head: My conscious choice is all that matters.

But when I step back from iron determination, I find that in my heart I do not, perhaps cannot, truly believe what I say I do. The words I refuse to say echo in my chest. "No, you don't."

Mostly I conceal from myself the discrepancy between what I believe I should feel and what I actually do feel. I pretend to be whole, even within my own mind. But pretenses make growth impossible. I have to expose the cracks if I am to glue the shattered pieces back together. I have to uncover the rips to sew the garment into a united whole. I have to admit: When you tell me you believe I am a good daughter, I don't believe you. (Sometimes I don't believe you mean it; sometimes I don't even believe it's true.) When I admit my brokenness, finally healing can begin.

So I confess--that I hurt, that I do not have my life together. That no matter how far away I go, your words always have the power to rip me open. (You. There are several of you, the ones I am vulnerable to. I confess--that I am vulnerable.) I confess that I don't feel as though my soul is hidden in the cleft of the rock, or covered there with His hand. I confess that there is a great chasm fixed between what I believe and what I feel, at times.

So hold me,
break me,
mold me and make me
more and more like You.
I've come to worship You.
To love You,
feel You,
draw ever near You
as I worship You.
I've come to worship You,
O Lord.

Ramblings about Solitude

I wander through life wondering who is watching.

When the house is empty, I act differently, for no obvious reason. I sing more, sweep the floor, bake cookies, lie on the couch and read. I spend several hours embroidering a chessboard for three players. I don't login to AIM. Solitude is simpler than being an individual among other individuals, even when those individuals are my own family.

In "What Dreams May Come," the protagonist's widow can't tell when her husband's spirit is with her. She responds to his gestures, but doesn't see him, understand him, recognize him. Who haunts me? Do I look through God the way she looks through him?

Always, I act in response to the people around me. I don't realize it, but when they are gone, I realize: I am a different person. It's hard to isolate my identity. It's hard to see who is really there--inside and outside.

Freedom and Law

We usually think of law as something that constrains us. In particular, Christians tend to consider God's law (as given in the Old Testament) a burden, in that it is a standard we can never succeed in fully attaining by our own effort. The law feels like a cause for fear, a prison of rules and regulations, a list of barriers that must be surmounted.

But in Psalm 119, the law is something else entirely. I especially liked verse 32: "I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free." Here, the law is a path cleared for us through the wilderness of the world, which sets us free from the struggle to move forward and find direction. Moreover, "the path of your commands" is one we can run on. What kind of path would someone run on? Not on a path with traps set in it; not on a badly marked path, or a dark path; not on a path toward doom; not on a path with no known destination. You run with a light heart when you know where you're going and how to get there, and you want to get there. To the psalmist, the law is direction and guidance, and freedom. In following God's law--in running on God's law--he finds his heart free. . .

I would like to have a free heart.

Looking elsewhere in Psalm 119, the law is something that wards off shame (6, 46), that leads us to God himself (10), that is worth more than money (14, 72), that shows God's love (64), that gives delight (24), makes us sing (54), grants comfort (52), gives hope (43, 47, 74), strengthens (28). . . These are all such good things--not just in the sense of "morally edifying", but genuinely desirable. Freedom, joy, delight, comfort: not judgment and condemnation.

"Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law." (v. 18) This is how I want to look at the law--not as a duty but as a gift and privilege.

Impatient

"Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind. . ." (Eph. 4:14)

I am waiting for that day, when waves and winds will not be able to flurry me here and there. I am waiting to understand the restlessness that I cannot pin down as it scurries around my feet, climbs my furniture, tangles my hair, keeps me up at night. I am waiting to become a person who can wait in peace.

Without emotions shredding my thoughts, without emotions flashing across my field of vision, life would be so simple--

Life would be so colorless, without emotion.

I am waiting to find the right palate of colors, vibrant but not clashing, bright but not overwhelming. I am waiting for the right light, so I can begin painting.

Ambition

Here is my life-goal: to be able to read Psalm 27 and say every word with conviction, especially this part:

2 When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh,
when my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall.

3 Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear;
though war break out against me, even then will I be confident.

4 One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.

5 For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock.

I've been reading I & II Samuel, and I am so struck by the complete trust that David displays. I don't mean to imply that David never feared or faltered, but time and again he acts, risking everything, in complete trust. His faith is completely real and practical. For instance, he consults G-d about military decisions (ex. II Sam. 5:17-25), and unhesitatingly takes the answers he gets as clear and trustworthy. I want to have that kind of radical abandonment to G-d's sovereignty, and that kind of clarity when I seek His will.

I want it so badly because I don't have it now. So often I catch myself thinking of praying as a self-help deal, or as a bonding exercise, or a good habit to teach kids, or as a demonstration of belief, when really it is a direct appeal to the Almighty, which, regardless of how the pray-ers feel during or after the prayer, has unfathomable capacity to invite G-d's intervention. When I pray, I don't often get a definitive-feeling answer--certainly nothing as concrete as the replies David gets. When I feel like I'm risking something, I don't have the rock-hard conviction that David expresses in this psalm. And I want that.

I want to feel and live consistently with what I say I believe.

But for now, I'm going to memorize the psalm.