mercy

Sheldon Van Auken, in one of my favorite books A Severe Mercy, says of a conversation he had with C.S. Lewis,

"One night at Magdelen we talked. . . about that something we're longing for, whether it be an island in the west or the other side of a mountain or perhaps a schooner yacht, long for it in the belief that it will mean joy, which it never fully does, because what we're really longing for is God."

So I am once again reminded that what I'm really longing for is God. It's not to have my a validation of my personality, to have noticeable gifts, or a secure future. Whether I live long and prosper or die young a pauper matters little. As long as I realize that my insufficiencies are opportunities for His glory to be manifested and His power to be shown at work in my life, my longings are complete.

official

It is. Official, that is. I have the acceptance letter slipped neatly in-between my Literary Criticism folder and my Philosophy folder. It says that my credits will transfer. It says that my financial need was big enough. It says that my life could look a little bit different this fall. It says that I could finish my undergrad degree there and get my masters degree free with their teaching English as a second language track. It says, on fine linen paper with navy blue printing, that I've been accepted with pleasure.

It says, in very small print at the bottom, that Lee University is in Cleveland, Tennessee.

That's what the paper says.
Now let's see what the Lord says.

For Becky

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
-W. H. Auden

I will mourn your death and perhaps I will mourn my loss. Perhaps nothing new will come that is good; perhaps, but probably not. Because all I have to do it remember the good that was, and your leaving is a little less painful, a lot less bad. So I'll still look at the ocean and I'll still wish on the stars. I'll still listen to the forest and I'll still rhyme with the man in the moon, and I'll remember that nothing good lasts forever and that I had you for your forever and now it's time to live mine.

remembrance

It always sneaks up on us unawares. We snap our heads to shocked attention and salute as a funeral song plays solemnly in the background. There is no forewarning and, therefore, no forbearing, it just is. Like another day, another mistake, another event in the lives we pretend are our own, it just happens.

This Easter marks the fifth one I’ve celebrated since I knew what the power of death really was. My brother, who had argued with me about laundry three days before, was suddenly lying with the earthworms and sleeping until he could wake up for the first real time. And that night before Easter, me leaning up against my dead brothers bed, my leg against his mud caked hiking boot, was the night I first knew what the Cross meant. It was the first night I knew what power the gospel has.

So here I am again, three days before that Holy Remembrance Day, five years later and a whole lot more grateful, and yet the pain of another sudden death leaves me cold and awkward. The knowledge that I will praise the Lamb on Sunday and weep with those who weep on Monday hurts my head, my heart. What do you say? What did people say to me?

Jesus be your comfort. Jesus be in your solitude and in your moments of fervent anger. Jesus be your head and heart. Jesus be your gospel. Jesus be your resurrection. Jesus be all that you think you cannot have ever again, and in that take your rest.

bashful

Jesus didn't have many friends and I think Paul's personality might have been a little rash for social graces. Moses wandered around the wilderness, followed by bodies but rarely hearts and Elijah found solace in a stone cave. It took the gross discomfort of a fish's belly to bring Jonah to his senses and Peter was indeed the only one to step off the boat. All the important spiritual awakenings happened in utter aloneness - by abiding in a place where all else faded and where even whispers could be heard and understood clearly.

But knowing all of that doesn’t make the aching loneliness, when it comes, any easier. It rears its ugly head often when we step into unknown places, meet new challenges, function in different circumstances and live single-mindedly – in the wrong direction.

I’ve always battled loneliness, an introvert by nature and a lover of alone time by default. By battling I don’t mean fought against, I mean I recognized it as being a snare I easily succumbed to and the confines of which suffocated me before I knew it.

A few days ago it suffocated me again. I found myself weeping on the kitchen floor of our small apartment; the linoleum comforting to my hot forehead and the silence and darkness of the room aiding my selfish cries. One might ask how this could happen to me, I’m a college leader, an A student, a good daughter and friend, a successful employee and a clean housekeeper. I do what needs to be done and keep a small circle of perfect friends. I’m fine, I tell people. I’m fine, I tell myself. No, no, really, I’m fine. I enjoy being alone. I enjoy the solace of the library and staying home when the rest go out for late night pizza. I like being pegged as the introvert of the crowd; it’s a good identity to have: you never feel left out, you never have to bite your tongue, you certainly don’t have relationship problems and no one would ever think of gossiping around you. It’s a fairly good life.

Until the kitchen floor is your only companion.

Elisabeth Elliot, in her book, “The Path of Loneliness” says this, “Loneliness is much worse than being stuck in a traffic jam or having to do without cheesecake. Perhaps we hardly think of its calling for courage, because we hardly think of it as real suffering, yet it fits the simplest definition I know: having what you don’t want, or wanting what you don’t have. Loneliness we don’t want. It comes from wanting what we don’t have.”

Loneliness comes from wanting what we don’t have. Whether we don’t have it because we don’t want it is beside the point. We still want something to fill the gap left by insufficiencies in our lives. We are taught that loneliness is, like the flu or a common cold, something to be avoided; inevitable, but avoided at all costs. It looks like a black abyss of hopelessness and a pitfall into depression. STAY AWAY FROM IT.

And yet, as I sat there the other night, while my friends ate Italian food at Sergies and I stayed home by choice, my wet cheek leaning up again the tiled wall, I realized for the first real time that this loneliness was not the abyss I’d always thought it was. This loneliness had a point, a purpose. This loneliness was my humanity telling me I had a lack. I had a lack which could not be filled with the things we humans fill our lacks with, friends, money, matrimony, success, even some good things. I shut my eyes tightly and recognized that the insistent hole inside of me could only be filled with one thing: The beauty and wonder of the gospel afresh.

See, I can stand and raise my hands on Sunday, pray with the weakest on Wednesday night, email encouraging notes to the shy girl in the back, and forget the gospel has the power to save me every moment all over again. I hadn’t lost my salvation, I had only, in my belief that loneliness was the byproduct of my melancholic nature, forgotten it. Salvation is where we begin our journey back into the constant communion that is the right of a child of God, and relationships are where that communion is manifested. The people around us are not tools for us to practice our Christianity on, side pieces in the puzzle of Christlikeness, instead they are the barometer we gauge our relationship with the Lord against.

Being alone and liking it has its advantages, but, when it has all been said and done, relationships are where we are stretched and grown. Jesus left the garden of Gethsemane and Peter had miracles to do. Elijah finally allowed the whisper to interrupt his self-made monastery and David sought out his best friend for refuge. There is strength in numbers, I’m learning, even if they begin with only three elements: Me, God and the kitchen floor.

november 2004

Forget

Sometimes when I am writing an essay I am caught up in the subject and forget a few things:

The cap: 1500 words or less.
The principle subjects at hand: A comparison of Plath's Morning Song and Auden's Funeral Blues, not Sylvia Plath or W.H. Auden themselves, as the pile of books I've gathered at my side might suggest.
The cap, once again: still 1500 words or less.
The Lord: These people didn't love God.

mood

I've been in a mood the past few days. Well, at least yesterday and today. It's a bit a-typical too. I'm moody by old-nature, quiet by default, non-communicative by bordem, and a little bit neurotic about my space. I forget what people are saying halfway through conversations, I forget what I'm saying even sooner. But I've been in a different sort of mood the past few days.

A mood unlike my normal moods.

I have laughed loudly, prayed earnestly, rejoiced soundly, listened intently, and thanked honestly. And the best part is, I have no idea what to contribute it to. When I'm usually in a good moood I and everyone around me is able to articulate the reason and predict the moment the mood will change due to my consistant moodiness. But not today. Go ahead, guess. Ask me. Even tell me why you think it is. My answer will be the same:

Isn't the sky so happy smelling today?

two

cold,
originally uploaded by loreferguson.

Once in a while you find some things that go really really good together, like lemon ice and Ives park, earl grey tea and Jane Austen, summer and flip flops. And after a while you can't even imagine one without the other - the thoughts are simultaneous, even as the people are. You watch one lip sinc to whitney houston and all you can remember is the silly song the other made up about you before you'd even met. And you knew you were destined to be friends.

Here are two things I can't imagine apart.

grow

At some point we will stop pinching ourselves in the semiconcious reality that these are our lives. We will put on a bold face and climb out from under the covers where we've hid from the monster under our beds or in our closets, and we will know that we know that we know that these are our lives. We'll know that we haven't missed the pink slip excusing us from the rest of the story and that we won't have to do things someday, but that someday is today. And that sometimes someday was yesterday and we missed the memo. Only there isn't the quitting, or firing, or excusing, or forgetting option we used to have. Today is all there is left of the first part of our lives and these sands are filling up the bottom of a glass which can't be flipped -- only one time to get it all right.

At some point that thought will stop being so overwhelming. Someday. Not today.

firefox

I've recently switched over to mozilla firefox and I love, love, love it. I'd heard complaints from firefox users when veiwing this page, but didn't realize just how horrible it was until I was forced to come here myself. It really is poor and I'm sorry. I'm not sure how to make it look the same in IE as it does in FF, though. Any answers?

backspaced

I have already written this [a few times]. I have backspaced, like Joe Fox does on You've Got Mail, one letter rudely punched out of existence at a time. I have deleted whole files of writing not deemed worthy, not declared wholly, not guarded enough, and far too obscure to be called writing, more worthy of the label Algebraic Equations: you fill in the blanks and figure out the X's.
You asked for something and I have nothing, really.

Oh.

I'm supposed to write in here? Huh.