So, two weeks, huh?
Blame Baby Jesus and the semester calendar.
Coming up: post about how Mary and I probably wouldn't have been friends in high school, poem about advent (maybe), post about the concept of new years' resolutions (yeah, I know, SO original).
Monday, December 13, 2010
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Science Fiction, Doctor Who, and Learning to Pray
Sunday afternoons in high school, I sat sideways with my legs hanging over the arms of the green leather chair in the family room, and I listened for the creak upstairs that meant my parents were settled in for their nap. My father, a pastor, generally needed a lie down between the morning's sermon and the evening's requirements, whether it was a business meeting or small groups or a potluck dinner. My mother, on the other hand, grabbed any excuse for a nap that she could find. My siblings scattered around the house to do their homework, so I was generally left alone to finish my own. I opened a book on my lap, but once I heard the all-clear, I clicked on the television, turned the volume down low, and -- I never thought I'd admit this -- turned on Andromeda. I'm not sure when the sci-fi series starring former Hercules actor Kevin Sorbo actually aired, but there it was, every Sunday on UPN (also known as the channel people rarely watch on purpose), the adventures of the spaceship Andromeda and its crew. I always turned it off if my parents or siblings came into the room because 1) my parents would not have approved of the space suits the female space travelers wore, and 2) I didn't want to have to explain my fascination with science fiction.
I'm not much for science in general. I dreaded the unpredictability of high school science courses, save for Mr. Bannow’s chemistry class. I only liked it because he greeted each student by name as they entered – if he forgot anyone, he made sure to do so before teaching – and his lab directions designed to see if you were actually reading them. Often, #4 on the directions of a metals lab was “kill your lab partner, dig a hole, and bury him in it.” There was less hilarity in college science. I hobbled through Environmental Science and Chemistry of Life, but not without much groaning and belly-aching.
I know science fiction is less about science and more about technology. I’m not super great with technology either. In fact, new technology tends to make me woozy, and the idea of scientific progress worries me. I cling to the old, nostalgia, the familiar. I'm not a fan of what I don't know and can't understand. Hence why, when I discovered my old-old-old cell phone (it has a CAMERA), I was terribly tempted to keep it forever instead of donating it. Forget about my new 3G Droid X. For a moment, I missed my flip phone.
And don’t get me started about space itself. It is too immense for me to even consider, much less be impressed with. I think about the planets, I see graphs and models, and I shrug. It’s just too much for me. I cannot wrap my mind around light-years (unless the word Buzz precedes it) or galaxies or black holes. The exception is, of course, if these elements are the backdrop to a fantastic story. Then I am utterly hooked. I’m predictable that way (see: history, psychology, English).
Science fiction books captured me first. They have become more acceptable over the years, with the popularity of the mass-marketed movies surrounding the tales. I gobbled up the Lord of the Rings series, the Wrinkle in Time books, and later Harry Potter. I briefly flirted with adult science fiction books by way of Fahrenheit 451. I didn’t stay in adult sci-fi, though, because of a lack of imagination and suspicion. I moved into mystery instead, science fiction’s more mainstream cousin, still full of strange tales to be told and secrets to hold, just without the space ships or other wordly technology.
During college, my penchant toward science fiction was diluted by the classics and real humans. Everyday life – boys in particular – was inexplicable enough. I couldn’t handle any more mysteries in my life than life itself. I mean, how was one supposed to pay bills on time? Or take her car into the shop and still get to class? Or buy groceries when naps seemed like a better idea?
What brought me back to this world of the future? One word, that strikes both joy and fear into my heart: Netflix. This joint DVD and online streaming subscription ruined my life and made it infinitely more wonderful. There are entire television shows, available wherever wireless internet and my computer are located. All it takes is the click-click of a few keys, and before I know it, it’s five hours later, I’m alone in a dark apartment in my pajamas, I haven’t seen a single actual real-life human being all day, and I am content.
After blowing through seasons of television series rapid fire (hello and good-bye, Veronica Mars), I saw a show come up that I had only heard about: BBC's Doctor Who. It was spoken of, tongue-in-cheek, by some British comedians and friends, and that was all I knew about it. It looked intriguing, and even though it was under the science fiction label, I gave it a shot.
Of course I adored it. Oh, this television show combines every single thing I love about stories: wit, mysteries, charismatic figures, doomed romances. The characters were attractive, but not too attractive (thank you, British television) and all of them had magnificent accents. I started calling my obsessive watching “research” for my upcoming trip to Great Britain, for I learned the location of Cardiff, the difference between a Southern and Northern accent, and some useful phrases. Oh, and don’t get me started about David Tennant, that wonderful Scot.
At the center of the series is an enigmatic man who travels in space and time, feeling responsible for the universe and everything in it because he failed his family, his country, and his species. Accompanying him on his adventures is a beautiful young woman who desires to see the world, falls madly in love with him, and finds out about herself and her world because of everything this wide universe has to offer. Plus, there are dozens of frightening and/or comically-lame aliens who either need to be rescued or need to be attacked. You must excuse the lame ones – this is a show that is 46 seasons old, and what was frightening back in the mid-60s was a little different than it is today.
What I mostly love about it – besides David Tennant as the Doctor – is threefold. One, it is ingrained in the psyche of the British people. Some British folks think it is rubbish, but they at least know it. It’s been part of the culture for dozens of years. I'm also a sucker for a good psychologically complex character. The Doctor is completely mad and clever, with the longest history possible and an immense capability for attachment despite pain. He takes the responsibility for humanity upon his shoulders, and this sometimes means sacrificing few for the sake of the many. He's fascinating to me in the same way that Sherlock Holmes is - they baffle me.
The other reason I love this show is the same reason I love science fiction in general: it helps humankind look at itself subjectively. We can look at a future race of people, a future world, and condemn it because of the distance between them and us without getting too uncomfortable and shutting off. Because the situation is obviously fiction, we don’t get as personally affronted when a negative conclusion is made. But then after further reflection, we see the undercurrent of truth and go, “Huh. That was us. That was us in the future if we keep going like this. That can’t happen." It’s tricky and wonderful.
I’ve been reading the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan with my church small group. It’s been an interesting and intense experience, because – as anyone who has read this book knows – it is a hard book to go through. One of the first chapters talks about how we should stop praying. Now, Chan isn’t advocating the complete lack of communication with the Almighty. Instead, he is denouncing those who approach God with lack of thought or preparation. I read this chapter right in middle of my Doctor Who obsession, and somehow, the Doctor helped me understand this God of mine better.
The Doctor was taking me to the farthest corners of this (made-up) universe. Despite the fiction, I began to realize how magnificent our real universe truly is. How big and wonderful and unfathomable. How there are galaxies and planets and stars and moons and places we can only pinpoint in this wide expanse of black we call the night sky. And how maybe the planet Gallifrey is just a figment of a writer’s imagination, but it makes me see that there might be a planet out there like it, where there are people and creatures like those. We might not be alone, and God – in his infinite and beautiful creativity- may have created other worlds out there that seek him.
On the flip side of that, I see how small we are, how little we can do and yet, how our actions change the world, one small step at a time. Any time travel aficionado knows that it’s imperative to leave some things as they are, because without them – regardless of how awful and cruel they were – things that we know now as beautiful would not exist. In an episode of Doctor Who, because a great commander dies, her granddaughter is inspired to live the same life of heroism. When the Doctor in an act of hubris tries to go back in time and save the commander, the commander denies him, believing that future generations need her dead more than alive. Had this been reality and she lived, maybe things would have turned out okay, maybe her granddaughter would have profited more by her life versus her death, but our actions change the world with every moment. We are not to know the impact we have – only God holds those things in his hand.
And so when Chan said to approach the throne of the Savior with gravity and gratitude, I started to picture this throne room. I’m not a true literalist. I don’t necessary think that Jesus is literally at God’s right hand in a magnificent room; I recognize more the social and spiritual ramifications of that statement. But I’m also a believer in the power of story and imagination and pictures. And because of this, now when I pray, I picture God’s throne room at the top of a grand staircase. I have to ascend the stairs every time, and my stomach drops out in nervousness, as it does before I give a presentation or meet someone I admire. Every step resounds in the great hall, but instead of sounding like the slap of a shoe against glassy marble, it sounds like bells. The floor makes my footsteps sing. The doors are ahead of me, wide, huge doors, twenty feet high and made from the most beautiful wood, trees who gave their very selves to create an ornately-carved passage for the King. Carved on the door is a beautiful tree, the tree of Good and Evil that caused Eve’s downfall and our distance, but also our choice. There’s an impact to every choice. At this point, I have to decide to open the door or not. I know what is inside, and because of Doctor Who, I can imagine the various crazy figures around the throne. In person, they inspire fear but also awe, and then I am in the proper understanding for God’s presence.
And so, Doctor Who affects my spiritual life, because God is in all, and he is seen in all, and he becomes all. And all is beautiful through him. Even science fiction geeks like myself.
I'm not much for science in general. I dreaded the unpredictability of high school science courses, save for Mr. Bannow’s chemistry class. I only liked it because he greeted each student by name as they entered – if he forgot anyone, he made sure to do so before teaching – and his lab directions designed to see if you were actually reading them. Often, #4 on the directions of a metals lab was “kill your lab partner, dig a hole, and bury him in it.” There was less hilarity in college science. I hobbled through Environmental Science and Chemistry of Life, but not without much groaning and belly-aching.
I know science fiction is less about science and more about technology. I’m not super great with technology either. In fact, new technology tends to make me woozy, and the idea of scientific progress worries me. I cling to the old, nostalgia, the familiar. I'm not a fan of what I don't know and can't understand. Hence why, when I discovered my old-old-old cell phone (it has a CAMERA), I was terribly tempted to keep it forever instead of donating it. Forget about my new 3G Droid X. For a moment, I missed my flip phone.
And don’t get me started about space itself. It is too immense for me to even consider, much less be impressed with. I think about the planets, I see graphs and models, and I shrug. It’s just too much for me. I cannot wrap my mind around light-years (unless the word Buzz precedes it) or galaxies or black holes. The exception is, of course, if these elements are the backdrop to a fantastic story. Then I am utterly hooked. I’m predictable that way (see: history, psychology, English).
Science fiction books captured me first. They have become more acceptable over the years, with the popularity of the mass-marketed movies surrounding the tales. I gobbled up the Lord of the Rings series, the Wrinkle in Time books, and later Harry Potter. I briefly flirted with adult science fiction books by way of Fahrenheit 451. I didn’t stay in adult sci-fi, though, because of a lack of imagination and suspicion. I moved into mystery instead, science fiction’s more mainstream cousin, still full of strange tales to be told and secrets to hold, just without the space ships or other wordly technology.
During college, my penchant toward science fiction was diluted by the classics and real humans. Everyday life – boys in particular – was inexplicable enough. I couldn’t handle any more mysteries in my life than life itself. I mean, how was one supposed to pay bills on time? Or take her car into the shop and still get to class? Or buy groceries when naps seemed like a better idea?
What brought me back to this world of the future? One word, that strikes both joy and fear into my heart: Netflix. This joint DVD and online streaming subscription ruined my life and made it infinitely more wonderful. There are entire television shows, available wherever wireless internet and my computer are located. All it takes is the click-click of a few keys, and before I know it, it’s five hours later, I’m alone in a dark apartment in my pajamas, I haven’t seen a single actual real-life human being all day, and I am content.
After blowing through seasons of television series rapid fire (hello and good-bye, Veronica Mars), I saw a show come up that I had only heard about: BBC's Doctor Who. It was spoken of, tongue-in-cheek, by some British comedians and friends, and that was all I knew about it. It looked intriguing, and even though it was under the science fiction label, I gave it a shot.
Of course I adored it. Oh, this television show combines every single thing I love about stories: wit, mysteries, charismatic figures, doomed romances. The characters were attractive, but not too attractive (thank you, British television) and all of them had magnificent accents. I started calling my obsessive watching “research” for my upcoming trip to Great Britain, for I learned the location of Cardiff, the difference between a Southern and Northern accent, and some useful phrases. Oh, and don’t get me started about David Tennant, that wonderful Scot.At the center of the series is an enigmatic man who travels in space and time, feeling responsible for the universe and everything in it because he failed his family, his country, and his species. Accompanying him on his adventures is a beautiful young woman who desires to see the world, falls madly in love with him, and finds out about herself and her world because of everything this wide universe has to offer. Plus, there are dozens of frightening and/or comically-lame aliens who either need to be rescued or need to be attacked. You must excuse the lame ones – this is a show that is 46 seasons old, and what was frightening back in the mid-60s was a little different than it is today.
What I mostly love about it – besides David Tennant as the Doctor – is threefold. One, it is ingrained in the psyche of the British people. Some British folks think it is rubbish, but they at least know it. It’s been part of the culture for dozens of years. I'm also a sucker for a good psychologically complex character. The Doctor is completely mad and clever, with the longest history possible and an immense capability for attachment despite pain. He takes the responsibility for humanity upon his shoulders, and this sometimes means sacrificing few for the sake of the many. He's fascinating to me in the same way that Sherlock Holmes is - they baffle me.
The other reason I love this show is the same reason I love science fiction in general: it helps humankind look at itself subjectively. We can look at a future race of people, a future world, and condemn it because of the distance between them and us without getting too uncomfortable and shutting off. Because the situation is obviously fiction, we don’t get as personally affronted when a negative conclusion is made. But then after further reflection, we see the undercurrent of truth and go, “Huh. That was us. That was us in the future if we keep going like this. That can’t happen." It’s tricky and wonderful.
I’ve been reading the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan with my church small group. It’s been an interesting and intense experience, because – as anyone who has read this book knows – it is a hard book to go through. One of the first chapters talks about how we should stop praying. Now, Chan isn’t advocating the complete lack of communication with the Almighty. Instead, he is denouncing those who approach God with lack of thought or preparation. I read this chapter right in middle of my Doctor Who obsession, and somehow, the Doctor helped me understand this God of mine better.
The Doctor was taking me to the farthest corners of this (made-up) universe. Despite the fiction, I began to realize how magnificent our real universe truly is. How big and wonderful and unfathomable. How there are galaxies and planets and stars and moons and places we can only pinpoint in this wide expanse of black we call the night sky. And how maybe the planet Gallifrey is just a figment of a writer’s imagination, but it makes me see that there might be a planet out there like it, where there are people and creatures like those. We might not be alone, and God – in his infinite and beautiful creativity- may have created other worlds out there that seek him.
On the flip side of that, I see how small we are, how little we can do and yet, how our actions change the world, one small step at a time. Any time travel aficionado knows that it’s imperative to leave some things as they are, because without them – regardless of how awful and cruel they were – things that we know now as beautiful would not exist. In an episode of Doctor Who, because a great commander dies, her granddaughter is inspired to live the same life of heroism. When the Doctor in an act of hubris tries to go back in time and save the commander, the commander denies him, believing that future generations need her dead more than alive. Had this been reality and she lived, maybe things would have turned out okay, maybe her granddaughter would have profited more by her life versus her death, but our actions change the world with every moment. We are not to know the impact we have – only God holds those things in his hand.
And so when Chan said to approach the throne of the Savior with gravity and gratitude, I started to picture this throne room. I’m not a true literalist. I don’t necessary think that Jesus is literally at God’s right hand in a magnificent room; I recognize more the social and spiritual ramifications of that statement. But I’m also a believer in the power of story and imagination and pictures. And because of this, now when I pray, I picture God’s throne room at the top of a grand staircase. I have to ascend the stairs every time, and my stomach drops out in nervousness, as it does before I give a presentation or meet someone I admire. Every step resounds in the great hall, but instead of sounding like the slap of a shoe against glassy marble, it sounds like bells. The floor makes my footsteps sing. The doors are ahead of me, wide, huge doors, twenty feet high and made from the most beautiful wood, trees who gave their very selves to create an ornately-carved passage for the King. Carved on the door is a beautiful tree, the tree of Good and Evil that caused Eve’s downfall and our distance, but also our choice. There’s an impact to every choice. At this point, I have to decide to open the door or not. I know what is inside, and because of Doctor Who, I can imagine the various crazy figures around the throne. In person, they inspire fear but also awe, and then I am in the proper understanding for God’s presence.
And so, Doctor Who affects my spiritual life, because God is in all, and he is seen in all, and he becomes all. And all is beautiful through him. Even science fiction geeks like myself.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
[prose #24] Fall Teaches Me About Death
Fall has never been my favorite season. I partially blame it on not being accustomed to the traditional fall - you know, seeing your breath in the cool air while walking under colorful trees. In the Midwest where I grew up, we joked that there were only two seasons: blazing hot and blasted cold. It's funny because it's true. Those temperate seasons - our friends fall and spring - lasted about a week before being shoved out by extreme temperatures. Fall means harvest in that part of the country, and I remember the farmers next door harvesting their wheat or beans in heat so thick you could bathe in it. Welcome to a South Dakota autumn.
Fall heralded the end of summer, which meant good-bye to my ever-anticipated birthday and much-loved freedom. Only a few weeks after my birthday wrapping paper graced the garbage can, I was back in a desk at school. During non-air-conditioned afternoons in late August, my sixth grade teacher would turn off the lights and give us free reading time. We thanked her with placid silence, for those lights being off gave us a few degrees of coolness. I dreamed then of my summer freedom. Granted, that freedom usually had become a burden by the time school supplies were on sale.
Fall also whispered to me of winter. I dreaded the South Dakota winter, cold and long: recesses with snow pants, drifts shutting down roads, bitter wind biting my cheeks. Sure, the snow forts and "tromping" around the acreage with my St. Bernard Mollie, one of us completely happy with below zero temperatures, made the winter enjoyable, but for the most part, I was stuck inside. The same goes for the winters in the Pacific Northwest - just replace cold with rainy, and you have my home sweet home. The summers out here are magnificently moderate and sun-ridden, but winters are terribly dreary. No wonder these days fall seems like a death sentence.
It is, really, a death sentence. Fall does mean beautiful trees turning magnificent flaming colors in an instant. It means acorns falling from trees, and a bite to the air, and harvest time. But all of those things at their core are deat: the leaves are losing their connection, their life force, and are unable to grow any longer. The acorns are disconnected from their parent tree. The bite means the end of the line for many bugs and other plants. And the harvest, while it means life for us, means good-bye to the fruits of a plant. Once you pick it, it is dead.
That sounds depressing, but it's kind of how my brain works. I've always had this idea of mortality buzzing around in my ears, even as a young child. I laugh at it now, but I was a terribly serious child. I drew many pictures of Jesus dying on the cross, with appropriate blood drippage, very concerned about eternal salvation. Also, for a while in late elementary school, I was internally convinced that I would die in a car crash with a drunk driver. Just to be safe, I made wills and envisioned my funeral, the latter which seemed like a pretty sweet party in my head. It's a wonder that I wasn't sent to counseling.
Even now, I am constantly reminded by every bright leaf that falls, every news report, every prayer request that our lives are so fragile. We are walking toward death with every movement. As a Jesus person, that should be okay with me, but so often I do not fear my own death, but rather cling selfishly to those I love. I do not want them to leave me, but I see them coughing or breaking legs or fatigued and I understand that their bodies are weak, only held together with fragile pieces of skin and bones.
Every day, there are less and less survivors of the Holocaust, the bloodiest reminder of how hate destroys and power corrupts and life can be stolen. I watched The Pianist the other day for the first time, and I was utterly devastated, torn apart by the destruction of lives with such cruelty. But then I realized that those who survived the camps, the cold stark days, the hard work and the bitter hatred, are now being taken by disease and old age. Those who lived will still die. And with them dies a little bit of our history as a world. Our children will not know these survivors as anything but a page in a history book. But that is the way it is meant to be.
There is this documentary on YouTube called "Dancing Under the Gallows." I highly recommend looking it up. It's about a woman named Grace who lives in London and who survived the Holocaust because she was a concert pianist, much like the movie I recently saw. She was sent to a camp with other artists, a propaganda piece for Germany to show the world how well they were treating the Jews. She is alive because she played music, and she lives still because she plays music. At over 100 years old, she continues to play on with a joy and a peace. She loves and lives a happy life, despite all of the pain inflicted on her many years ago. She lives with optimism and grace, blessing those around her and receiving blessings from others with great happiness. The film is called Dancing Under the Gallows, because that is what they felt they were doing in the camp - dancing in the place where death could come so quickly. But they danced anyway, and their dancing gave them joy.
And so, even in this season of pain, cold, and death, God gives us reminders of dancing. Even while the world seems poised to persuade us that death is a terrible, horrible, painful experience, the trees show us that death can be beautiful. As each leaf prepares to fall, it turns a brilliant shade of gold, orange, red. They have no choice but to accept their fate and fall with as much grace and brightness as possible. I want to dance as I fall, and I want to shine. I want to know my fate, understand it, and welcome it.
Fall heralded the end of summer, which meant good-bye to my ever-anticipated birthday and much-loved freedom. Only a few weeks after my birthday wrapping paper graced the garbage can, I was back in a desk at school. During non-air-conditioned afternoons in late August, my sixth grade teacher would turn off the lights and give us free reading time. We thanked her with placid silence, for those lights being off gave us a few degrees of coolness. I dreamed then of my summer freedom. Granted, that freedom usually had become a burden by the time school supplies were on sale.
Fall also whispered to me of winter. I dreaded the South Dakota winter, cold and long: recesses with snow pants, drifts shutting down roads, bitter wind biting my cheeks. Sure, the snow forts and "tromping" around the acreage with my St. Bernard Mollie, one of us completely happy with below zero temperatures, made the winter enjoyable, but for the most part, I was stuck inside. The same goes for the winters in the Pacific Northwest - just replace cold with rainy, and you have my home sweet home. The summers out here are magnificently moderate and sun-ridden, but winters are terribly dreary. No wonder these days fall seems like a death sentence.
It is, really, a death sentence. Fall does mean beautiful trees turning magnificent flaming colors in an instant. It means acorns falling from trees, and a bite to the air, and harvest time. But all of those things at their core are deat: the leaves are losing their connection, their life force, and are unable to grow any longer. The acorns are disconnected from their parent tree. The bite means the end of the line for many bugs and other plants. And the harvest, while it means life for us, means good-bye to the fruits of a plant. Once you pick it, it is dead.
That sounds depressing, but it's kind of how my brain works. I've always had this idea of mortality buzzing around in my ears, even as a young child. I laugh at it now, but I was a terribly serious child. I drew many pictures of Jesus dying on the cross, with appropriate blood drippage, very concerned about eternal salvation. Also, for a while in late elementary school, I was internally convinced that I would die in a car crash with a drunk driver. Just to be safe, I made wills and envisioned my funeral, the latter which seemed like a pretty sweet party in my head. It's a wonder that I wasn't sent to counseling.
Even now, I am constantly reminded by every bright leaf that falls, every news report, every prayer request that our lives are so fragile. We are walking toward death with every movement. As a Jesus person, that should be okay with me, but so often I do not fear my own death, but rather cling selfishly to those I love. I do not want them to leave me, but I see them coughing or breaking legs or fatigued and I understand that their bodies are weak, only held together with fragile pieces of skin and bones.
Every day, there are less and less survivors of the Holocaust, the bloodiest reminder of how hate destroys and power corrupts and life can be stolen. I watched The Pianist the other day for the first time, and I was utterly devastated, torn apart by the destruction of lives with such cruelty. But then I realized that those who survived the camps, the cold stark days, the hard work and the bitter hatred, are now being taken by disease and old age. Those who lived will still die. And with them dies a little bit of our history as a world. Our children will not know these survivors as anything but a page in a history book. But that is the way it is meant to be.
There is this documentary on YouTube called "Dancing Under the Gallows." I highly recommend looking it up. It's about a woman named Grace who lives in London and who survived the Holocaust because she was a concert pianist, much like the movie I recently saw. She was sent to a camp with other artists, a propaganda piece for Germany to show the world how well they were treating the Jews. She is alive because she played music, and she lives still because she plays music. At over 100 years old, she continues to play on with a joy and a peace. She loves and lives a happy life, despite all of the pain inflicted on her many years ago. She lives with optimism and grace, blessing those around her and receiving blessings from others with great happiness. The film is called Dancing Under the Gallows, because that is what they felt they were doing in the camp - dancing in the place where death could come so quickly. But they danced anyway, and their dancing gave them joy.
And so, even in this season of pain, cold, and death, God gives us reminders of dancing. Even while the world seems poised to persuade us that death is a terrible, horrible, painful experience, the trees show us that death can be beautiful. As each leaf prepares to fall, it turns a brilliant shade of gold, orange, red. They have no choice but to accept their fate and fall with as much grace and brightness as possible. I want to dance as I fall, and I want to shine. I want to know my fate, understand it, and welcome it.
Thanksgiving post!
Yeah, yeah, yeah. About as original as a grilled cheese sandwich, but there's a reason that grilled cheese is so great - it's delicious, easy, and it's perfect for cold days. The same reasoning applies to this post.
Ever since arriving in college, I have been burdening other families around Thanksgiving time. Given that my family is in Canada - where it is simply a Thursday in November - I'm without family around this tasty holiday. Since I'm displaced from my people, I have gotten to eat a dinner of thanks with most of my best friends. It's always a joy to see my friends in their natural habitats with the people who both drive them batty and give them love. Shout out right now to the Morses (2006), the Sarvers (2007), the Hoppers (2008, 2009), and the Dorrs (2010). You bless me more than you know by letting me observe and laugh and eat with you. And thank you to everyone who asked the question, "So, what are you doing for Thanksgiving?" with that special gleam in your eye that told me better than words could that I was welcome to spend the day with you. The family of God is dysfunctional at times but so glorious at others.
Here's some things I'm thankful for:
--My Canadian family, who always welcomes me with open arms, tears of joy, and Tim Horton hot smoothies
--Navigation on my smartphone - saving my behind since October of 2010
--Hugo, despite his "check engine light" and frozen doors. Without you, I'd be stuck, baby car.
--Newberg - home.
--The gang at the Portland Center. We've seen a lot of turmoil and joy this past year. You make my job delightful, and I'm thankful for a workplace where people love each other.
--My friends-family. There are not enough words. There will never be enough words.
--A nice, warm apartment, a place to put my stuff and burdens
--Newberg Foursquare Church - you aren't perfect but you love people and Jesus. I can't ask for more.
--Powell's - for feeding my addiction to the written word
--People who read my blog and tell me to keep going. I am thankful for you.
And now, the random portion of my list:
--Micropigs
--Tea
--Skype
--Facebook/Twitter
--Netflix
--Doctor Who/David Tennant/BBC/Sherlock/British game shows that never have points
--Upcoming overseas adventures/hope
--the color green. Also, trees.
That's it for now. Thanks for you. Thanks for life. And love and joy and even pain. Thanks, PapaGod.
Ever since arriving in college, I have been burdening other families around Thanksgiving time. Given that my family is in Canada - where it is simply a Thursday in November - I'm without family around this tasty holiday. Since I'm displaced from my people, I have gotten to eat a dinner of thanks with most of my best friends. It's always a joy to see my friends in their natural habitats with the people who both drive them batty and give them love. Shout out right now to the Morses (2006), the Sarvers (2007), the Hoppers (2008, 2009), and the Dorrs (2010). You bless me more than you know by letting me observe and laugh and eat with you. And thank you to everyone who asked the question, "So, what are you doing for Thanksgiving?" with that special gleam in your eye that told me better than words could that I was welcome to spend the day with you. The family of God is dysfunctional at times but so glorious at others.
Here's some things I'm thankful for:
--My Canadian family, who always welcomes me with open arms, tears of joy, and Tim Horton hot smoothies
--Navigation on my smartphone - saving my behind since October of 2010
--Hugo, despite his "check engine light" and frozen doors. Without you, I'd be stuck, baby car.
--Newberg - home.
--The gang at the Portland Center. We've seen a lot of turmoil and joy this past year. You make my job delightful, and I'm thankful for a workplace where people love each other.
--My friends-family. There are not enough words. There will never be enough words.
--A nice, warm apartment, a place to put my stuff and burdens
--Newberg Foursquare Church - you aren't perfect but you love people and Jesus. I can't ask for more.
--Powell's - for feeding my addiction to the written word
--People who read my blog and tell me to keep going. I am thankful for you.
And now, the random portion of my list:
--Micropigs
--Tea
--Skype
--Facebook/Twitter
--Netflix
--Doctor Who/David Tennant/BBC/Sherlock/British game shows that never have points
--Upcoming overseas adventures/hope
--the color green. Also, trees.
That's it for now. Thanks for you. Thanks for life. And love and joy and even pain. Thanks, PapaGod.
Monday, November 22, 2010
[poems 29&30] Poetry Experiences: Billy Collins, Slam Poetry
This past week, I had the opportunity to experience two very different types of live poetry. I can barely describe either of them, but they were pretty stellar events, ones I'm not sure I'll ever experience the like of again. One involved former US poet laureate and all-around poet extraordinaire Billy Collins reading at Willamette University. The other was the spoken word event The Poetry Revival at Reed College. Words cannot describe how different they were - just look at the venues, for example. Anyone from this area would guffaw to think about the range of different students with whom I experienced poetry over the span of 50 hours. For example, at one place, a young man awkwardly accused my umbrella of getting water on his poster. At the other, a group of young men were drinking wine out of a bottle while sitting in chapel pews. Anyway, here's an example of one piece of poetry about each. Both rough - be gentle, dear friends.
Driving to See Billy Collins
I snuck away from work early, and drove
fifty miles, through the hardest rain we've had
all year just to hear your voice. Blinded
by water splattering down in sheets, I thought
about death and how it lurks on highways
when headlights aren't bright enough
and someone is going too fast. And I wondered
if you would write a poem about me if I died
coming to hear your words from your mouth,
a poem about how I risked life for love of art and desire
for brilliance. A mournful beginning, but at the end,
you would, undoubtedly, bring in a dog -
maybe my boxer Gracie - to keep the darkness gray.
You could make it sparkle, laugh, and warm the hearts
of those still here. I would know somehow, my flesh
in the ground, my soul away, that people would
remember me as the one who died. Not a sad thought,
as I held hope of a college English class studying me.
Drenched but alive, I arrived. Your voice wasn't special,
nor was how you pushed your glasses up onto your round
head between poems, fluffing the gray cloudy tufts above
your ears. But it was worth risking immortality
on this failing planet to see you bow so slightly
as we applauded your words and your ability
to make poetry hospitable to us all.
Poetry Revival,
Or Spoken-Word
The fires of revival flamed in chapels
like this, when Edwards thundered among
the pillars and the Awakening woke people to fear.
This 1935 chapel is only modeled after the classics,
and the students don't bother to pretend,
using the wooden pews to hide open wine bottles
while waiting for the poetry revival to start, named
by three scruffy men in red jackets who seek
a generation fidgeting because of smartphones
and dumb luck. These men do not walk like rock stars,
but, at the microphone, the fire burns in their eyes
as they speak to us sinners. Their poetry is not meant
for the page, but in the air it tumbles and weaves,
revealing, then ridiculing and obscuring, as we lean
forward to hear the rise and fall, the yes and no, the fast
and slow that is the rhythm of the poet, who makes
us laugh like children with the anesthetic of silliness,
before cutting open our chests to see if we'll cry
as our hearts, our souls, our lungs are pushed aside
to make room for their words to settle inside.
And if we do not cry, it is fine, as long as they can
sit with us, framed by the pipe organ as they tell us in words
rushing and soothing that extinguish the fires of hell
that God is not angry with us as we had feared.
Driving to See Billy Collins
I snuck away from work early, and drove
fifty miles, through the hardest rain we've had
all year just to hear your voice. Blinded
by water splattering down in sheets, I thought
about death and how it lurks on highways
when headlights aren't bright enough
and someone is going too fast. And I wondered
if you would write a poem about me if I died
coming to hear your words from your mouth,
a poem about how I risked life for love of art and desire
for brilliance. A mournful beginning, but at the end,
you would, undoubtedly, bring in a dog -
maybe my boxer Gracie - to keep the darkness gray.
You could make it sparkle, laugh, and warm the hearts
of those still here. I would know somehow, my flesh
in the ground, my soul away, that people would
remember me as the one who died. Not a sad thought,
as I held hope of a college English class studying me.
Drenched but alive, I arrived. Your voice wasn't special,
nor was how you pushed your glasses up onto your round
head between poems, fluffing the gray cloudy tufts above
your ears. But it was worth risking immortality
on this failing planet to see you bow so slightly
as we applauded your words and your ability
to make poetry hospitable to us all.
Poetry Revival,
Or Spoken-Word
The fires of revival flamed in chapels
like this, when Edwards thundered among
the pillars and the Awakening woke people to fear.
This 1935 chapel is only modeled after the classics,
and the students don't bother to pretend,
using the wooden pews to hide open wine bottles
while waiting for the poetry revival to start, named
by three scruffy men in red jackets who seek
a generation fidgeting because of smartphones
and dumb luck. These men do not walk like rock stars,
but, at the microphone, the fire burns in their eyes
as they speak to us sinners. Their poetry is not meant
for the page, but in the air it tumbles and weaves,
revealing, then ridiculing and obscuring, as we lean
forward to hear the rise and fall, the yes and no, the fast
and slow that is the rhythm of the poet, who makes
us laugh like children with the anesthetic of silliness,
before cutting open our chests to see if we'll cry
as our hearts, our souls, our lungs are pushed aside
to make room for their words to settle inside.
And if we do not cry, it is fine, as long as they can
sit with us, framed by the pipe organ as they tell us in words
rushing and soothing that extinguish the fires of hell
that God is not angry with us as we had feared.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
A Response to Isaac's Angry Conversations with God
I wasn't so sure about it when I picked it up. The book had a lot going for it. I mean, Donald Miller recommended it, even going on tour with the author. And Tony Hale, only my favorite awkward younger brother on Arrested Development, gave it high accolades, said the back of the book. And I'm always up for a new memoir, especially one with the word Snarky in the title.
Susan Isaac's Angry Conversations with God: A Snarky But Authentic Spiritual Memoir had to grow on me a bit. I wasn't too keen on it at the start. The writing is incredibly informal, and I didn't know how long I could follow the premise: a woman brings God to marriage counseling. The book flip-flops between the actual, mostly chronological narrative and a fictionalized transcript of Isaac's counseling sessions with God. It seemed kind of hokey to me, honestly.
But the more I read about Isaac's life, the more I saw myself in her story. She struggled with addiction, relationships, the church, but mostly she struggled with herself as an artist and how her creativity fit into God's plan. In the book, she calls it "playing her note," that feeling when she's doing exactly what it is she has been created to do. I completely understood her frustration with feeling like God has given her a passion but she is unable to do anything with it, while at the same time, things are just falling into place for those around her. Isaacs has had a long life full of both personal and professional successes and failures, and she is brutally honest about them all. I respect that, and I ache for that honesty in my own life.
A key point comes in at the end of the book concerning doing what you love "for fun and for free." If you focus on that, then you'll never be disappointed with your lack of financial success. You'll simply be excited and blessed by all that does come to you. I mean, it's what I'm doing right now. Granted, it's mostly because I'm a slacker and completely disinterested in finding markets (i.e. putting in the work to find markets), but I'm glad to do this right now for fun and for free.
The other thing that has stuck with me is the idea of a transcripted conversation with God. I don't know what mine would look like. Isaac's Jesus is her buddy, God her sarcastic and hurtful older father/brother. She's clear to point out that these are manifestations of her own views of God at a particular time, views distorted and damaged by the people around her and the church that had hurt her. As the book went on, she grew to know God more and his voice became less snarky.
I think my God is a older figure, slightly aloof and distant, cocky, a Sherlock Holmes type. And Jesus is the guy who knows me, knows what I'm going through. That wouldn't be a good story at all. But I have been having a few more honest conversations with God lately. I mean, like Isaacs, I know I can't quit him (accidental Brokeback Mountain reference). He's so much part of my life, my psyche, my being, that I can't just eliminate him and I never will. I can't imagine looking at a tree and thinking, Man, that's pretty. I'm so glad science figured out where it came from so there is no wonder at all. But at the same time, there are some things I really don't get. I had a bit of a spat with God over a story in the Bible, where Abram lies about Sarai being his wife, and the Pharaoh basically takes her as his wife and Abram gets a lot of great stuff. When it all comes out, Abram gets a tongue-lashing from Pharaoh, but gets to keep all of his goods. God doesn't even reprimand Abram; he instead gives Pharaoh diseases for sleeping with Sarai. And what does Sarai get out of this deal? To be forced to sleep with a man who is not her husband. Where's her reward, and where's Abram's punishment? God is strangely silent on this issue in the text, and it's a plot hole to me for sure.
But the more I talk aloud to God in my car, the more I get it and the more calm I get, even after I start crying because I don't get it. Because God's just glad I'm talking to him. I can feel his pleasure at me asking him questions or shouting at him or crying in his ear. He's okay with all of that, because it means I'm trying and I'm talking. I don't have to get it. He's God, I'm not. But I know he's glad for our conversations...snarky or not.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
[prose #23] And a Children's Book Shall Lead Them
Portland, Oregon has a great many amazing things. It's a city of bicycles and rain, and former hippies sitting next to hipsters riding the MAX train system downtown. But the greatest thing about Portland is Powell's. To say Powell's is a bookstore is like saying Michael Jordan played basketball or Dizzy Gillespie played jazz – the label doesn’t do justice to the actual truth. The Powell’s main store is downtown on Burnside, located in a four-story building that takes up an entire city block of Portland’s Pearl district. It is the book lover’s Mecca, a place to find any type of desired book, silence, and contemplation. Each subject is found in a colored room, and each regular customer has her favorite room. Upon entering the store, I make a beeline to the Blue room - fiction and poetry - before stopping by the Pearl room for plays and the Orange room for spirituality. The whole place feels like a church or a library, the same hush as people sit in the aisles to look at books and read chapters and weigh the benefits of each book. It feels like the best part of home to someone like myself.
Powell's has other stores throughout the city and the suburbs, and there's one close to my friend Hannah's house in Southeast Portland. The Hawthorne store is non-specific, a smaller version of the parent on Burnside. Instead of the huge warehouse-like feel, it's more closed in, more tightly spaced. For some reason, when I visit it, I feel more lost than I do among the thousands of books downtown, simply because I get lost easily in the unfamiliar stakes and thus become overwhelmed by the sheer volume of volumes. Foreign bookstores often overwhelm me. But even just thinking about Powell's and the treasures inside gives me a gleam in my eye, so Hannah and I often stop by after getting coffee and stopping by thrift stores.
I walk the fiction halls, dragging my fingers along the spines of books as is my habit at bookstores. I'm not a tactile person anywhere else, but books are all about the touch for me. I like to feel their bulk, look at their typeset, judge them based on their spine labels and front cover art. And so I wander through the stacks of words, opinions and imaginations of people here and people gone.
Hannah has already disappeared off to the right, to the children's section. These days, she is only reading children's books, or more precisely young adult fiction. It all started with a boyfriend who was a fan of the author Jerry Spinelli, and since that time, she's been making her way through Spinelli's fiction, books that celebrate the offbeat, the outcast, and the pain of every middle schooler.
I hold different thick and heavy books, thinking that I’ll want to add these to my collection of much-loved books, but I see in their covers the sighs of the adult lives. They just seem heavy. So I leave the adult world and join Hannah among the brightly colored and thin chapter books. She’s looking over the Newberry award winners, and as I read titles, memories come flooding back to me. I read nearly all of them when I was younger and reading was my only desire. Each title held a brief memory: my mother giggling as she read Holes, reading Walk Two Moons with my reading buddy in second grade, having my sixth-grade heart torn out in fear and love and other emotions I couldn’t name by The Giver.
But the more I looked at those books, I realized I recognized the covers, the titles, the feel and look of them, but I couldn’t recall all of the stories. In fact, I couldn’t recall most of the aspects of the stories I read so long ago. There is an obvious distance between when I sat down with them for the first time and looking at them today, but I remember these books impacting me, affecting me to my core. Why couldn’t I remember them?
I started remember those years, the frantic rush to finish stories as quickly as possible. So much of my identity was wrapped up in being “the one who reads” that I couldn’t help but chase that with all of my might. In my small school, where my entire sixth grade was composed of 70 students – the largest class in the K-12 school – one might think it would be easy to fit in, but in fact, it was immensely difficult. Everyone saw your every move, and at any moment, one action could ostracize you from the entire class for years. The outcast group was small, only two or three, and there was no mercy there either. I needed to be accepted, and so I chased after being smart and reading a lot with all of my might.
It helped that our school had the Accelerated Reader program, where students read books and took computerized tests afterward that gauged how much they recalled. Depending on the reading level of the book, points were assigned, which you could then spend at the library store. I had the most points every year, due to my ability to seek out the longest and most difficult books our library owned. I learned to read quickly and retain for a short amount of time, just so I could pass the test and get my points, retaining my social status. I wasn’t popular, but at least I was smart.
Somehow, that became my work ethic: work quickly and retain knowledge just long enough to pass the test, write the paper, get an A in the course. It worked – my brain happily gained and dumped according to what was required of it that semester. But then I lost something along the way. I lost the beauty of the story. I rushed through books quickly without thought to what they were, instead just focusing on what they could be for me – a topic for a paper, fodder for discussion, even a conversation starter. And so I used and forgot, used and forgot, used and forgot.
After graduation from college with a degree in English and a deep love for literature, I realized that my old style of reading wasn’t necessary any more. I didn’t have papers to write, discussions to start. I could read for fun. And I had forgotten how to do that. So I didn’t read for a long while. I buried my nose in my computer, watching season after season of stories that I saw with my eyes but not my mind. I started books, but put them down in favor of something that held no identity for me whatsoever: the television.
Until I found myself in front of that bookshelf, filled with stories of my youth. Through those tomes, I could track my childhood and I was filled with memories I had forgotten existed. But I still couldn’t name the main characters or the major plot lines. One book emerged from the rest: A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L’Engle. I touched it, as I do with books. And it felt like mine. I can’t explain it. I have this overwhelming desire to own books and to touch them and to make them mine. And so once I saw the price - $4.50 – how could I resist? The book came home with me.
I opened it and I remembered. I remembered why this book won awards, why children adore it, why it is still read by kids today though it was published in 1962 and written without knowledge of the internet or cell phones. I saw myself as a girl in it, while at the same time finding myself as a woman and a scholar. I marveled over the simplistic yet weighty word choice, the complex story line, and the effective characterization. The story works because Meg is exactly how every twelve-year-old girl perceives herself. And it works because it confronts the idea of fear and how it stops you from doing what is right. And it works because it is written with words that matter, and children notice these things, even if they cannot express it.
In that simple children’s book, I started to re-find my love for the written word, for the story, for the act of reading just for the heck of it. I haven’t had that love since I was a young girl, but I’m going to cultivate it now as an adult, because I need to learn to live in the process, in the words instead of the last page, the accomplishment and the need for an identity. I need to not just get through but instead thrive through and because of my life. And this is how Meg Wallace began to change my perspective, a children’s book began to change my life, and reading began to change my whole world…again.
Powell's has other stores throughout the city and the suburbs, and there's one close to my friend Hannah's house in Southeast Portland. The Hawthorne store is non-specific, a smaller version of the parent on Burnside. Instead of the huge warehouse-like feel, it's more closed in, more tightly spaced. For some reason, when I visit it, I feel more lost than I do among the thousands of books downtown, simply because I get lost easily in the unfamiliar stakes and thus become overwhelmed by the sheer volume of volumes. Foreign bookstores often overwhelm me. But even just thinking about Powell's and the treasures inside gives me a gleam in my eye, so Hannah and I often stop by after getting coffee and stopping by thrift stores.
I walk the fiction halls, dragging my fingers along the spines of books as is my habit at bookstores. I'm not a tactile person anywhere else, but books are all about the touch for me. I like to feel their bulk, look at their typeset, judge them based on their spine labels and front cover art. And so I wander through the stacks of words, opinions and imaginations of people here and people gone.
Hannah has already disappeared off to the right, to the children's section. These days, she is only reading children's books, or more precisely young adult fiction. It all started with a boyfriend who was a fan of the author Jerry Spinelli, and since that time, she's been making her way through Spinelli's fiction, books that celebrate the offbeat, the outcast, and the pain of every middle schooler.
I hold different thick and heavy books, thinking that I’ll want to add these to my collection of much-loved books, but I see in their covers the sighs of the adult lives. They just seem heavy. So I leave the adult world and join Hannah among the brightly colored and thin chapter books. She’s looking over the Newberry award winners, and as I read titles, memories come flooding back to me. I read nearly all of them when I was younger and reading was my only desire. Each title held a brief memory: my mother giggling as she read Holes, reading Walk Two Moons with my reading buddy in second grade, having my sixth-grade heart torn out in fear and love and other emotions I couldn’t name by The Giver.
But the more I looked at those books, I realized I recognized the covers, the titles, the feel and look of them, but I couldn’t recall all of the stories. In fact, I couldn’t recall most of the aspects of the stories I read so long ago. There is an obvious distance between when I sat down with them for the first time and looking at them today, but I remember these books impacting me, affecting me to my core. Why couldn’t I remember them?
I started remember those years, the frantic rush to finish stories as quickly as possible. So much of my identity was wrapped up in being “the one who reads” that I couldn’t help but chase that with all of my might. In my small school, where my entire sixth grade was composed of 70 students – the largest class in the K-12 school – one might think it would be easy to fit in, but in fact, it was immensely difficult. Everyone saw your every move, and at any moment, one action could ostracize you from the entire class for years. The outcast group was small, only two or three, and there was no mercy there either. I needed to be accepted, and so I chased after being smart and reading a lot with all of my might.
It helped that our school had the Accelerated Reader program, where students read books and took computerized tests afterward that gauged how much they recalled. Depending on the reading level of the book, points were assigned, which you could then spend at the library store. I had the most points every year, due to my ability to seek out the longest and most difficult books our library owned. I learned to read quickly and retain for a short amount of time, just so I could pass the test and get my points, retaining my social status. I wasn’t popular, but at least I was smart.
Somehow, that became my work ethic: work quickly and retain knowledge just long enough to pass the test, write the paper, get an A in the course. It worked – my brain happily gained and dumped according to what was required of it that semester. But then I lost something along the way. I lost the beauty of the story. I rushed through books quickly without thought to what they were, instead just focusing on what they could be for me – a topic for a paper, fodder for discussion, even a conversation starter. And so I used and forgot, used and forgot, used and forgot.
After graduation from college with a degree in English and a deep love for literature, I realized that my old style of reading wasn’t necessary any more. I didn’t have papers to write, discussions to start. I could read for fun. And I had forgotten how to do that. So I didn’t read for a long while. I buried my nose in my computer, watching season after season of stories that I saw with my eyes but not my mind. I started books, but put them down in favor of something that held no identity for me whatsoever: the television.
Until I found myself in front of that bookshelf, filled with stories of my youth. Through those tomes, I could track my childhood and I was filled with memories I had forgotten existed. But I still couldn’t name the main characters or the major plot lines. One book emerged from the rest: A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L’Engle. I touched it, as I do with books. And it felt like mine. I can’t explain it. I have this overwhelming desire to own books and to touch them and to make them mine. And so once I saw the price - $4.50 – how could I resist? The book came home with me.
I opened it and I remembered. I remembered why this book won awards, why children adore it, why it is still read by kids today though it was published in 1962 and written without knowledge of the internet or cell phones. I saw myself as a girl in it, while at the same time finding myself as a woman and a scholar. I marveled over the simplistic yet weighty word choice, the complex story line, and the effective characterization. The story works because Meg is exactly how every twelve-year-old girl perceives herself. And it works because it confronts the idea of fear and how it stops you from doing what is right. And it works because it is written with words that matter, and children notice these things, even if they cannot express it.
In that simple children’s book, I started to re-find my love for the written word, for the story, for the act of reading just for the heck of it. I haven’t had that love since I was a young girl, but I’m going to cultivate it now as an adult, because I need to learn to live in the process, in the words instead of the last page, the accomplishment and the need for an identity. I need to not just get through but instead thrive through and because of my life. And this is how Meg Wallace began to change my perspective, a children’s book began to change my life, and reading began to change my whole world…again.
Monday, November 15, 2010
i'm still here.
I have about seven half-finished posts, and a few dozen more in my brain. but my words aren't working tonight, which greatly discourages me and brings me low. so i'll be back tomorrow, cross my heart, and i will have something to say.
g'night.
g'night.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Things I am inspired by
I am tired in my bones and in my eyes tonight. Around 5pm, my voice got scratchy, and I thought it was in my head, so I asked my coworker, confused, and he confirmed that it was indeed. I am trying to decide if I fight it off or just sink into its horrible sweetness in hopes that it will move on quickly. I do have scads of sick days, but giving up seems so...weak. And I am trying so hard to be strong these days.
So instead of an actual post - since putting these few words together is taking all of the energy I contain - I thought I would mention some things that are inspiring me, as of late:
--Mumford and Sons:
I always seem to be about a step behind when it comes to new and great things. I'd been hearing about Mumford and Sons for about eight months, before finally breaking down and buying their album three months or so ago. It is something else. Besides being musically interesting - I love a good rock banjo backing gravelly British voices - the lyrics read like poetry. Literally. If you ignore the repetition of the chorus, it would look just fine on a page. I mean, look at these gems: "You can understand dependence/When you know the maker's hand." "If only I had an enemy bigger than my apathy I could have won." "As the winter winds litter London with lonely hearts/
Oh the warmth in your eyes swept me into your arms/Was it love or fear of the cold that led us through the night?/For every kiss your beauty trumped my doubt." And they even sound good sung.
Obviously, I love their vaguely spiritual messages, which tend to be much more truthful than overtly Christian messages. I feel like they're searching, like I am, and God appears in the most surprising of places. I know I feel him in their music.
"Stars hide your fires
For these here are my desires
And I won't give them up to you this time around
And so I will be found
With my stake stuck in the ground
Marking the territory of this newly impassioned soul"
--A Wrinkle in Time:
I have a half written essay about my early reading habits, and this book would surely be part of that. I read L'Engle's masterpiece years and years ago, back when it seemed long and the typeface seemed small. I found it at a bookstore recently, and started reading it for the nostalgia factor. What I didn't realize is how beautifully it's written. I mean, L'Engle is a craftsperson. She uses the language simply for children to understand, yet does so in a way that is brilliant and beautiful. I actually wrote the word "brilliant" next to this paragraph, the first one of the book:
"It was a dark and stormy night.
In her attic bedroom Margaret Murray, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the end of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind. Behind the trees clouds scudded frantically across the sky. Every few moments the moon ripped through them, creating wraith-like shadows that raced along the ground.
The house shook.
Wrapped in her quilt, Meg shook."
I mean, really? "Frenzied lashing"? "Scudded frantically"? "The moon ripped through them...wraith-like shadows"? Amazing description. So few words, but so well placed, and chosen.
Plus, it's just a wonderful science fiction children's novel. It's inspiring, seeing someone do so much with so little.
That's it for now. Things to expect in the near future: essay about reading, essay about science fiction, poem about jazz, conversation with Shauna Niequist. Oi. Better get going on those things. Don't want to lose you, my faithful readers. Drop me a line, tell me what you think. I covet your comments, but only the good ones. Sleep well, dear ones.
So instead of an actual post - since putting these few words together is taking all of the energy I contain - I thought I would mention some things that are inspiring me, as of late:
--Mumford and Sons:
I always seem to be about a step behind when it comes to new and great things. I'd been hearing about Mumford and Sons for about eight months, before finally breaking down and buying their album three months or so ago. It is something else. Besides being musically interesting - I love a good rock banjo backing gravelly British voices - the lyrics read like poetry. Literally. If you ignore the repetition of the chorus, it would look just fine on a page. I mean, look at these gems: "You can understand dependence/When you know the maker's hand." "If only I had an enemy bigger than my apathy I could have won." "As the winter winds litter London with lonely hearts/
Oh the warmth in your eyes swept me into your arms/Was it love or fear of the cold that led us through the night?/For every kiss your beauty trumped my doubt." And they even sound good sung.
Obviously, I love their vaguely spiritual messages, which tend to be much more truthful than overtly Christian messages. I feel like they're searching, like I am, and God appears in the most surprising of places. I know I feel him in their music.
"Stars hide your fires
For these here are my desires
And I won't give them up to you this time around
And so I will be found
With my stake stuck in the ground
Marking the territory of this newly impassioned soul"
--A Wrinkle in Time:
I have a half written essay about my early reading habits, and this book would surely be part of that. I read L'Engle's masterpiece years and years ago, back when it seemed long and the typeface seemed small. I found it at a bookstore recently, and started reading it for the nostalgia factor. What I didn't realize is how beautifully it's written. I mean, L'Engle is a craftsperson. She uses the language simply for children to understand, yet does so in a way that is brilliant and beautiful. I actually wrote the word "brilliant" next to this paragraph, the first one of the book:
"It was a dark and stormy night.
In her attic bedroom Margaret Murray, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the end of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind. Behind the trees clouds scudded frantically across the sky. Every few moments the moon ripped through them, creating wraith-like shadows that raced along the ground.
The house shook.
Wrapped in her quilt, Meg shook."
I mean, really? "Frenzied lashing"? "Scudded frantically"? "The moon ripped through them...wraith-like shadows"? Amazing description. So few words, but so well placed, and chosen.
Plus, it's just a wonderful science fiction children's novel. It's inspiring, seeing someone do so much with so little.
That's it for now. Things to expect in the near future: essay about reading, essay about science fiction, poem about jazz, conversation with Shauna Niequist. Oi. Better get going on those things. Don't want to lose you, my faithful readers. Drop me a line, tell me what you think. I covet your comments, but only the good ones. Sleep well, dear ones.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
True quote of the day...
And this is what Denise told me: she said it’s not hard to decide what you want your life to be about. What’s hard, she said, is figuring out what you’re willing to give up in order to do the things you really care about. Her words from that day have been rattling around inside me for years now, twisting around, whispering, taking shape.
--p. 54, Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet
I am really really bad at giving things up. Terrible at it. Even if that thing is terrible for me. But this quote comes in the middle of a chapter of Niequist's book about trying to do everything better and failing completely. We can't do everything, and we certainly can't do everything well. But what we can do is love the things we love, do them to the best of our ability, and scrap the rest.
Niequist then goes into a list of what she does and doesn't do. Those are hard lists to make. When you're trying to make the one about things you don't do, you try to think of ways to do those things, because you need to do them. Why? I don't know. To be happy? Probably not. Those don'ts will drive you crazy because you probably don't love them. They're not the things you were created to do. They're the extras, the things that life tells you to do to be a good woman or mom or worker.
Tonight I was sharing this concept with Jessie, and we started listing things that I don't do. Here's a few:
--Join worship teams (even when there are cute boys on them as well)
--Cook extravagant recipes
--Sew
--Garden (not hard, considering I have no outside yard)
--Scrapbook
--Blow-dry my hair every day (honestly, I practically never do)
That's the short list. All of those things I'd like to do (in varying amounts), but I just don't have the time, the energy, or the ability. I only have 24 hours and I like sleeping, eating, and I've got a job. That leaves a very small window, and I need to fill it with people and tasks that give me life. Like:
--Read good books
--Write even when it's hard
--Go to Jimmy Mak's or shows or other artistic events
--See my friends, even if I have to drive far to do it
--Call home
--Do the dishes (yeah, I know it's weird)
--Watch witty television shows/movies
--Go to the gym...sometimes
--Go to church even when I don't feel like it
--Talk with my roommate even if I had other plans for that time
It's the little things. It's all about the little things. So that worship team is just going to have to do without me. The cute boy can call me, though.
--p. 54, Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet
I am really really bad at giving things up. Terrible at it. Even if that thing is terrible for me. But this quote comes in the middle of a chapter of Niequist's book about trying to do everything better and failing completely. We can't do everything, and we certainly can't do everything well. But what we can do is love the things we love, do them to the best of our ability, and scrap the rest.
Niequist then goes into a list of what she does and doesn't do. Those are hard lists to make. When you're trying to make the one about things you don't do, you try to think of ways to do those things, because you need to do them. Why? I don't know. To be happy? Probably not. Those don'ts will drive you crazy because you probably don't love them. They're not the things you were created to do. They're the extras, the things that life tells you to do to be a good woman or mom or worker.
Tonight I was sharing this concept with Jessie, and we started listing things that I don't do. Here's a few:
--Join worship teams (even when there are cute boys on them as well)
--Cook extravagant recipes
--Sew
--Garden (not hard, considering I have no outside yard)
--Scrapbook
--Blow-dry my hair every day (honestly, I practically never do)
That's the short list. All of those things I'd like to do (in varying amounts), but I just don't have the time, the energy, or the ability. I only have 24 hours and I like sleeping, eating, and I've got a job. That leaves a very small window, and I need to fill it with people and tasks that give me life. Like:
--Read good books
--Write even when it's hard
--Go to Jimmy Mak's or shows or other artistic events
--See my friends, even if I have to drive far to do it
--Call home
--Do the dishes (yeah, I know it's weird)
--Watch witty television shows/movies
--Go to the gym...sometimes
--Go to church even when I don't feel like it
--Talk with my roommate even if I had other plans for that time
It's the little things. It's all about the little things. So that worship team is just going to have to do without me. The cute boy can call me, though.
Monday, November 8, 2010
[prose#22] Community, Or How a Sitcom Teaches Me about Community
God always seems to find me when I completely lack the ability to seek him. Recently, he is hardly more than a strange cosmic neighbor that I never see. I know he’s there, I know he’s looking out his heavenly window into my life, but I avoid him when I hear him rattling around outside, pulling in the garbage cans, in order to prevent any awkward stilted conversation where I'm talking about the weather that he created with a thought. Some days, I’m better at opening my front door when I hear him stirring, or even going over and knocking on his door, but on days when it’s dark, I still hide. I’m not by myself – I hide with Hulu, Netflix, and the dozens of television characters I know and love.
And yet, the Almighty weasels his way into my escapist entertainment, making me think and wonder about ultimate truths while laughing at hilarious hi-jinks. It’s annoying, but I’m getting used to it, as it’s happening more and more. I guess my neighbor wants to talk to me.
He often grabs me through one of my favorite sitcoms, Community. In its second season, it’s flown under the radar, grabbing viewers here and there with unmatched themed episodes. The title says it all; at Greendale Community College – a setting inherently ripe with comedy – individuals become a community by accident. The group is diverse in age, gender, ethnicity, religion, and life situation, but they are bound together because they are in the same Spanish class and they find out they need people who are on their side. It’s not easy, for sure. Each episode finds the group of seven trying to figure out how to protect each other while confronting their differences, but that makes the show funny – and life-giving.
Recently, I’ve been wrestling with this idea of community. What is it, how do I get it, do I even want it? At my most cynical and honest, I’d say that community is too hard to achieve. It requires risk and pain, loss and vulnerability. That’s once you get past the awkward coffee dates and “So, where ya from?” conversations. For an introvert such as myself who enjoys solitary activities such as jigsaw puzzles and books, community is a scary concept.
But we are created to live in community, which I know in two ways. One is the ache in my gut when I sit alone at a coffee shop, surrounded by people listening to a banjo play softly in the corner. The other is the peace that stirs in my chest during a laughing fit with my best girlfriends, usually involving some embarrassing and unmentionable secret. I know that community makes life blessed and fulfilled, even if the road community takes is filled with occasional Papua New Guinean potholes, ones that rock your entire existence at a moment’s notice.
A recent episode of Community demonstrated this tension and this beauty. Abed, pop culture fanatic and aspiring filmmaker, is asked by Shirley, devoted Christian mother, to make a viral video about Jesus in order to make the Son of God “cool.” Abed decides to go his own direction and becomes a Christ-like figure himself, speaking in vague platitudes to his “disciples,” the students who begin following him with doe eyes. Shirley is alarmed at this change in her friend and offended at his seeming blasphemy. It’s a fascinating look at charismatic leaders and meta-films, but the real punch of the episode comes at the end.
Abed realizes his mistakes, and Shirley sticks up for him, making herself the villain. To repay her kindness, Abed surprises Shirley with the type of video she had originally asked for. As they watch in a darkened classroom, Abed looks at Shirley and says, “You humble me.” She nods at him and says, “You humble me too.” They clasp hands and watch the video of their friend Troy rapping the Beatitudes.
It was a breathtaking moment stuck smack dab in the middle of a comedy sitcom, where earlier in the show they were watching auto-tuned fart videos. I realized that everyone longs for community, but true community is rare. It is a place where someone is unafraid to humble you and does it not out of anger or selfishness, but instead out of love. It always hurts to be humbled, but when it’s done out of love, you know the other person hurts too. They still do it because it’s what’s best for you and your future self.
I am humbled when I make a mistake at work, and my student employee sweetly comes to show me where I was incorrect. Or when I talk and make judges about someone who is going through experiences I have not, and then have friends who point out my bias and gently remind me that I do not know everything. My reaction to that humbling is a choice. Do I create community, or do I leave it behind to save myself? I can either protect my own pride and save my own reputation, or I can choose to clasp the hand of my friend and say, “You humble me.”
I hope that as I am humbled daily by those I keep around me, I recognize how God is bringing me down to a place where I know that I am a screw-up. But so is everyone else, and we’re all messed up together. I can’t speak for him completely, but I think that may be why God gave us each other. He knew that we couldn’t truly relate to him, so he surrounded us with people who make the same stupid mistakes we do, over and over again. The beauty is in humility, getting up from the ground, brushing off our pants, and trying again, with someone by your side saying, “I will humble you, but you can do it. Try again.”
True community – always painful, always humbling, but so incredibly necessary to survive in this world. Without those people, we fly too close to the sun, our wings melt, and we fall back to the earth. With those people, they catch us on our way down, help us mend our wings, and warn us to not fly so close next time. And when we do, they’re there to help us again.
In the words of Jeff Winger, “You've become something unstoppable. I hereby pronounce you a community.” A community. There’s nothing scarier and nothing better.
And yet, the Almighty weasels his way into my escapist entertainment, making me think and wonder about ultimate truths while laughing at hilarious hi-jinks. It’s annoying, but I’m getting used to it, as it’s happening more and more. I guess my neighbor wants to talk to me.
He often grabs me through one of my favorite sitcoms, Community. In its second season, it’s flown under the radar, grabbing viewers here and there with unmatched themed episodes. The title says it all; at Greendale Community College – a setting inherently ripe with comedy – individuals become a community by accident. The group is diverse in age, gender, ethnicity, religion, and life situation, but they are bound together because they are in the same Spanish class and they find out they need people who are on their side. It’s not easy, for sure. Each episode finds the group of seven trying to figure out how to protect each other while confronting their differences, but that makes the show funny – and life-giving.Recently, I’ve been wrestling with this idea of community. What is it, how do I get it, do I even want it? At my most cynical and honest, I’d say that community is too hard to achieve. It requires risk and pain, loss and vulnerability. That’s once you get past the awkward coffee dates and “So, where ya from?” conversations. For an introvert such as myself who enjoys solitary activities such as jigsaw puzzles and books, community is a scary concept.
But we are created to live in community, which I know in two ways. One is the ache in my gut when I sit alone at a coffee shop, surrounded by people listening to a banjo play softly in the corner. The other is the peace that stirs in my chest during a laughing fit with my best girlfriends, usually involving some embarrassing and unmentionable secret. I know that community makes life blessed and fulfilled, even if the road community takes is filled with occasional Papua New Guinean potholes, ones that rock your entire existence at a moment’s notice.
A recent episode of Community demonstrated this tension and this beauty. Abed, pop culture fanatic and aspiring filmmaker, is asked by Shirley, devoted Christian mother, to make a viral video about Jesus in order to make the Son of God “cool.” Abed decides to go his own direction and becomes a Christ-like figure himself, speaking in vague platitudes to his “disciples,” the students who begin following him with doe eyes. Shirley is alarmed at this change in her friend and offended at his seeming blasphemy. It’s a fascinating look at charismatic leaders and meta-films, but the real punch of the episode comes at the end.
Abed realizes his mistakes, and Shirley sticks up for him, making herself the villain. To repay her kindness, Abed surprises Shirley with the type of video she had originally asked for. As they watch in a darkened classroom, Abed looks at Shirley and says, “You humble me.” She nods at him and says, “You humble me too.” They clasp hands and watch the video of their friend Troy rapping the Beatitudes.
It was a breathtaking moment stuck smack dab in the middle of a comedy sitcom, where earlier in the show they were watching auto-tuned fart videos. I realized that everyone longs for community, but true community is rare. It is a place where someone is unafraid to humble you and does it not out of anger or selfishness, but instead out of love. It always hurts to be humbled, but when it’s done out of love, you know the other person hurts too. They still do it because it’s what’s best for you and your future self.
I am humbled when I make a mistake at work, and my student employee sweetly comes to show me where I was incorrect. Or when I talk and make judges about someone who is going through experiences I have not, and then have friends who point out my bias and gently remind me that I do not know everything. My reaction to that humbling is a choice. Do I create community, or do I leave it behind to save myself? I can either protect my own pride and save my own reputation, or I can choose to clasp the hand of my friend and say, “You humble me.”
I hope that as I am humbled daily by those I keep around me, I recognize how God is bringing me down to a place where I know that I am a screw-up. But so is everyone else, and we’re all messed up together. I can’t speak for him completely, but I think that may be why God gave us each other. He knew that we couldn’t truly relate to him, so he surrounded us with people who make the same stupid mistakes we do, over and over again. The beauty is in humility, getting up from the ground, brushing off our pants, and trying again, with someone by your side saying, “I will humble you, but you can do it. Try again.”
True community – always painful, always humbling, but so incredibly necessary to survive in this world. Without those people, we fly too close to the sun, our wings melt, and we fall back to the earth. With those people, they catch us on our way down, help us mend our wings, and warn us to not fly so close next time. And when we do, they’re there to help us again.
In the words of Jeff Winger, “You've become something unstoppable. I hereby pronounce you a community.” A community. There’s nothing scarier and nothing better.
Friday, November 5, 2010
True quote of the day...
For me, to write is an act of rebellion, an uprising against that part of me that needs to be responsible, helpful, adaptive. It is one of the first things, maybe the very first thing, that is entirely my own, that doesn’t help anyone, doesn’t make anyone else’s life easier, doesn’t facilitate or provide structure or administrative support for anyone else.
p. 78, Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines
I'll be posting some more quotes from Shauna's two books in the near future, as well as an interview-ish post from when I got to talk to her a month or so ago.
This quote is from the chapter when she talks about her writing process and how she began to write. I think all writers feel this, the sense of rebelling against the ways of the world when we sit down to write. Maybe all artists do, because by working our art, we are saying that art and beauty are worth something, even though they do not feed the body or the bank account. It's frivolous, unnecessary, pointless even. But it is everything to us who breathe on paper. And hopefully it means something to the one whose eyes scan the words, making pictures of them in her mind. That is why the guilt should be banished to make room for more imagination and creativity. We must do art to feed our souls. That is what it comes down to.
Brief update: working on a few pieces for publishing later. I literally have about four essays started and a few more ideas floating around in this silly head of mine. Now, to finish. Stay tuned, more to come.
p. 78, Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines
I'll be posting some more quotes from Shauna's two books in the near future, as well as an interview-ish post from when I got to talk to her a month or so ago.
This quote is from the chapter when she talks about her writing process and how she began to write. I think all writers feel this, the sense of rebelling against the ways of the world when we sit down to write. Maybe all artists do, because by working our art, we are saying that art and beauty are worth something, even though they do not feed the body or the bank account. It's frivolous, unnecessary, pointless even. But it is everything to us who breathe on paper. And hopefully it means something to the one whose eyes scan the words, making pictures of them in her mind. That is why the guilt should be banished to make room for more imagination and creativity. We must do art to feed our souls. That is what it comes down to.
Brief update: working on a few pieces for publishing later. I literally have about four essays started and a few more ideas floating around in this silly head of mine. Now, to finish. Stay tuned, more to come.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
[poem #28] and one terrible poem...(bereft)
Here. I know you didn't beg, but I feel like it was written so it should be posted. Even though this is how I feel about it --> blegh! It's been a while since I've attempted poetry and I feel that everything Bill taught me has been lost (which literally makes me want to cry and/or go back to last year at this time and beg myself to record every lecture he gave in that class). So this is terrible, and I'm sorry.
Bereft
It is the little things, like how pieces
of his hair reflect the manufactured light
in the lecture hall, curling over his collar
with unconscious ease. The faded green
of his buttoned shirt, new to him after
being new to four others. His slouch, where
his neck touches the chair back, his feet touch
the chair, his knees rise to his chin, and his
posture belies his intense focus.
They make me bereft, these things, as does
the wry humor of the professor, his own
posture hunched over the podium, stroking his
beard that is more stars than night these days.
The smell of the classroom in the early light,
as it pours through the windows near the ceiling,
a yellowing tree’s leaves just visible
as we talk about Yeats and Browning
or Steinbeck and Kerouac, wistfully
wishing for fall air to float through,
to take us from this. But then we leave.
My books are closed and my mind is alone
and his hair still curls over his collar.
Bereft
It is the little things, like how pieces
of his hair reflect the manufactured light
in the lecture hall, curling over his collar
with unconscious ease. The faded green
of his buttoned shirt, new to him after
being new to four others. His slouch, where
his neck touches the chair back, his feet touch
the chair, his knees rise to his chin, and his
posture belies his intense focus.
They make me bereft, these things, as does
the wry humor of the professor, his own
posture hunched over the podium, stroking his
beard that is more stars than night these days.
The smell of the classroom in the early light,
as it pours through the windows near the ceiling,
a yellowing tree’s leaves just visible
as we talk about Yeats and Browning
or Steinbeck and Kerouac, wistfully
wishing for fall air to float through,
to take us from this. But then we leave.
My books are closed and my mind is alone
and his hair still curls over his collar.
Two good poems...
not by me. I'm sharing them instead of something I've written because tonight, I feel bereft. Bereft is one of my favorite words, because it sounds so warm, so sweetly sad, like a blanket of loss that is wrapped around your shoulders. I think, implicit in its sound is the hope for newness, even while carrying on without. Regardless, I don't feel solid enough to write something tonight, breaking my goal only four days into the month. Perhaps I will write, but not post. Who knows what will come out of tonight.
and I walk to class thinking what I might suggest
to the eight young writers around the long, dark table.
I could point out once again that the walls in our room
are made of windows, that mountains are trying to get in.
All Saints
Paul Willis
and I walk to class thinking what I might suggest
to the eight young writers around the long, dark table.
I could point out once again that the walls in our room
are made of windows, that mountains are trying to get in.
Or I might say, “The soccer coach greeted me
in the parking lot in high spirits. His team is going
to the playoffs; his father, however, is dying of cancer.”
Or I might say, “The Filipino maintenance man
asked me this morning what I am teaching.
‘Shakespeare,’ I told him. ‘Is Shakespeare in the arts?’
he asked. ‘Does he write opera? Is he an American?’”
Or perhaps I could share my sorrow about the Korean
pitcher who lost a World Series game in Yankee Stadium
last night. It was midnight, Halloween, there in
Yankee Stadium, but for all of his countrymen
in Korea, it was two o’clock in the afternoon.
In Korea, it had been November for a long time
when the ball sailed into the stands and the pitcher
placed his black glove like a dark flower upon his face.
(via http://www.sbpoetry.net/SB%20POETS%20READ/PaulWillis.html)
Reach hither thy finger
William Jolliff
Maybe the wound still oozed, or maybe
it had healed over with scars like golden coins.
Thomas might have noticed, but I doubt it.
True, he placed his finger in the Lord’s hand,
and his hand in the Lord’s side,
and then, we presume, he held his heart
in the bleeding heart. I like to think that.
And I like to think that years later he was still
radiant with holy light. My unholy hunch, though,
is that within a week he learned to doubt
his eyes or his touch, maybe both, maybe
whether he’d really been in the room or not,
or if again the elders had sent him out
for bread or fish, anything to keep his mouth
out of earshot. He wasn’t the type to suffer
his loss in silence, and the more he wondered,
the more they doubted, too. That’s my guess.
And that may be why only John, the youngest
of the bunch, the mystic, the beloved, the mad,
recalled the very day, and cared enough
about belief to recall the shame of doubt.
(via http://www.christiancentury.org/contributor/william-jolliff)
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
True quote of the day...
The Doctor: "Between you and me, in a hundred words, where do you think Van Gogh rates in the history of art?"
Curator: "Well... um... big question, but, to me Van Gogh is the finest painter of them all. Certainly the most popular, great painter of all time. The most beloved, his command of colour most magnificent. He transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty. Pain is easy to portray, but to use your passion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and magnificence of our world, no one had ever done it before. Perhaps no one ever will again. To my mind, that strange, wild man who roamed the fields of Provence was not only the world's greatest artist, but also one of the greatest men who ever lived."
--Richard Curtis (writer), Vincent and the Doctor (5.10), Doctor Who
A post is being formulated about my newfound love for the British sci-fi series called Doctor Who. This quote is from the last season, with Matt Smith as the Doctor. Though I still have an undying love for David Tennant and thus did not enjoy season 5 quite as much, this quote stuck out to me for a number of reasons.
All you really need to know about the episode is that the Doctor and Amy travel back in time to meet Vincent Van Gogh and save a town from some sort of alien that only Van Gogh could see. Tony Curran's portrayal of Van Gogh was magnificent, and he managed to toe the line between the madness and the genius that we understand to be Van Gogh.
The first reason this quote is true is that Van Gogh was able to turn his pain into beauty. That's what art is, really. It's taking emotion that is unable to be expressed and turning it into something that is meaningful and beautiful. The light is what is glorious, even in the midst of darkness. Artists need to remember to be honest about pain and struggle, but to harness that psychic energy (if you will) and create something that shines light into those dark places, not cleaning them up but rather illuminating them for all to see.
The other reason this quote is wonderful to me needs a bit of context. Let me explain: at the end of the episode, the Doctor brings Van Gogh to the present day (i.e. 2010) to a museum in London where a huge Van Gogh exhibit was opened. Van Gogh was speechless, a man who in his present day was ridiculed and humiliated, no one interested in his work. The Doctor then asks the Curator this question, and the Curator answers as such. Van Gogh is beyond grateful and for once hopeful and joyful. We do not get the chance to tell those sorts of artists what they have done for us, not the ones who are already gone. But we can tell the artists we know now how their work is impacting us. It's easier now than ever to communicate, even with famous folks. Maybe they'll never read your letter. But maybe they will, and it'll keep them creating. You never know. Also, I can guarantee you, those budding artists around you - painters, writers, musicians, actors - need encouragement to keep going, especially in this world that says there is no room for another artist. Tell those you see fighting the good fight to create and to communicate passion that they are doing something worthwhile and beautiful. It will mean everything to them.
Curator: "Well... um... big question, but, to me Van Gogh is the finest painter of them all. Certainly the most popular, great painter of all time. The most beloved, his command of colour most magnificent. He transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty. Pain is easy to portray, but to use your passion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and magnificence of our world, no one had ever done it before. Perhaps no one ever will again. To my mind, that strange, wild man who roamed the fields of Provence was not only the world's greatest artist, but also one of the greatest men who ever lived."
--Richard Curtis (writer), Vincent and the Doctor (5.10), Doctor Who
A post is being formulated about my newfound love for the British sci-fi series called Doctor Who. This quote is from the last season, with Matt Smith as the Doctor. Though I still have an undying love for David Tennant and thus did not enjoy season 5 quite as much, this quote stuck out to me for a number of reasons.
All you really need to know about the episode is that the Doctor and Amy travel back in time to meet Vincent Van Gogh and save a town from some sort of alien that only Van Gogh could see. Tony Curran's portrayal of Van Gogh was magnificent, and he managed to toe the line between the madness and the genius that we understand to be Van Gogh.
The first reason this quote is true is that Van Gogh was able to turn his pain into beauty. That's what art is, really. It's taking emotion that is unable to be expressed and turning it into something that is meaningful and beautiful. The light is what is glorious, even in the midst of darkness. Artists need to remember to be honest about pain and struggle, but to harness that psychic energy (if you will) and create something that shines light into those dark places, not cleaning them up but rather illuminating them for all to see.
The other reason this quote is wonderful to me needs a bit of context. Let me explain: at the end of the episode, the Doctor brings Van Gogh to the present day (i.e. 2010) to a museum in London where a huge Van Gogh exhibit was opened. Van Gogh was speechless, a man who in his present day was ridiculed and humiliated, no one interested in his work. The Doctor then asks the Curator this question, and the Curator answers as such. Van Gogh is beyond grateful and for once hopeful and joyful. We do not get the chance to tell those sorts of artists what they have done for us, not the ones who are already gone. But we can tell the artists we know now how their work is impacting us. It's easier now than ever to communicate, even with famous folks. Maybe they'll never read your letter. But maybe they will, and it'll keep them creating. You never know. Also, I can guarantee you, those budding artists around you - painters, writers, musicians, actors - need encouragement to keep going, especially in this world that says there is no room for another artist. Tell those you see fighting the good fight to create and to communicate passion that they are doing something worthwhile and beautiful. It will mean everything to them.
back and ready to roll.
Well, I'm back on track! I decided to attempt to post every day in November, even if it's just an update or a True Quote of the Day (which have been missing lately - how have you known the truth without my true quotes?). I'm an incredibly habitual person, so if I can make a habit of this, it's probably going to stick.
But I just wanted to say THANK YOU if you have responded to me, either on facebook or in person, about my last few posts. It means a lot to me that you are reading and thinking. I write for me, yes, but I really write for you all. I write so that you can understand me and that I can understand you. I covet your responses, so thank you. I wouldn't be nearly so successful without a community around me, reading my junk.
I'm trying to do good work, godly work. I'm trying to be vulnerable and open and honest with my words. So, thank you for listening and reading, and check back soon for more.
But I just wanted to say THANK YOU if you have responded to me, either on facebook or in person, about my last few posts. It means a lot to me that you are reading and thinking. I write for me, yes, but I really write for you all. I write so that you can understand me and that I can understand you. I covet your responses, so thank you. I wouldn't be nearly so successful without a community around me, reading my junk.
I'm trying to do good work, godly work. I'm trying to be vulnerable and open and honest with my words. So, thank you for listening and reading, and check back soon for more.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
[prose#21] Rock the Vote - or Not.
In a desire to be transparent and vulnerable, I have two things to confess. One: tonight at 9:50 p.m., I ate an entire box of cheesy pasta - you know, the cheap fake stuff. The entire thing. It's approximately three servings. This was the week that I was supposed to be eating well and exercising and becoming a better person. Instead, I inhaled that entire pot full of caloric carbohydrates in about fifteen minutes. Health fail.
I tell you that to cushion this next confession (I can't see how you knowing about my gluttony will make you judge me less, but it's worth a shot). Here it is:
I didn't vote in the 2008 presidential election. I'm sorry if this bothers you, but it doesn't really bother me all that much.
It's strange that the whole voting issue has come to me having a strong desire to abstain. As a kid, I LOVED to vote. I loved the idea of it, the philosophy of it, the action of it. I always wanted to vote on the playground to find out what game we should play, because it was the most democratic way and everyone got a say. And I voted in every school election, even up through high school when those running were the ditsiest and most idiotic. My vote mattered, and I didn't want a student body president who was only chosen for her long blonde hair and her pelvic thrust (she was on dance team! mind out of the gutter!). Well, the next assembly, without fail, she was giving her acceptance speech despite my vote for her opponent, but hey, at least I gave it a shot.
As a kid, I was a big history buff (before AP history sucked the enjoyment away). I loved reading about our nation's history, the wars and the valor, even the pain and the suffering. It helped me understand the story of the land, how it was burned and bruised and stolen. I loved hearing the stories of presidents and their choices, good or bad. I didn't care too much for the politics - the stories of the people were what caught my attention. And I adored every woman who stood up and gave me the chance to sign my name on a ballot and say my piece.
I was so excited to vote for president, to be part of history books and wikipedia entries. I mean, as a 12 year old, I voted in the kids' mock election, choosing the next president. Obviously, I chose Jesus's candidate, good ole Bush himself. But it was all fake, and I couldn't wait for it to be real. I calculated it out. Unfortunately, I turned 18 in 2005, so I had to wait three whole years to vote. Also unfortunately, that was my little brother's first eligible presidential election as well, which was a big deal and sorely unfair when I was twelve and he was nine. Luckily, my entire family left me and moved to Canada when I was 18, so I had the last laugh (obviously, a story for another time).
Another very distinctive attribute of me, besides my ability to get incredibly excited about boring things, is my extreme indecisiveness. My friends force me to choose where to eat dinner out of a desire to "help me grow," which can be translated as a desire to make me suffer. One of my greatest gifts is the ability to see a situation or issue from multiple angles at the same time. It helps me to sympathize - it also paralyzes me and makes decisions nearly impossible.
When I got that election ballot in 2008, the one with the nominations for the presidency, I was paralyzed. The motion was easy enough; grasping a pen between the index finger and thumb, a back and forth motion with the pen's tip on the paper inside a printed box would release the ink, causing the box to be filled in and thus placing my vote.
I had tried to become informed so that I would make a good decision, but the more I looked, the more confused I became. So many people saying so many different things. He did that, he didn't do that, he said this one time. Who was to be believed? As someone who greatly respects the power of the word - both written and spoken - I knew that someone or many someones were misusing words to lie about another, defaming his name and his abilities. I just didn't know who.
In looking at the candidates themselves, I was torn. I didn't fully agree with either of them. At the same time, I partially agreed with both of them. Each candidate raised some great points and had some great ideas (also, which I knew would probably not ever come true). And each candidate stood squarely across the line from my own opinions on certain key issues. What was I to do?
Along with that internal tumult, I was getting fed up with advertising and individuals appealing to my spirituality as a reason to vote for one or the other. It's frustrating when my Jesus is tied to a certain candidate - or party - and my faith is in question if I vote a certain way. My faith background is conservative, my faith (college) education is liberal, and I'm pretty sure folks on both sides are going to be hanging around Jesus' feet once we get to the land beyond.
I'm seeing more and more that politics is a very difficult career path for true Christ-followers. The ways of life don't seem to piece together very easily. I suppose the same could be said about nearly every profession, but politics isn't a place to be authentic. It isn't a place to hold fast to your stances. It isn't a place to promote absolute Truth. It's a place to hold up a mask while making compromises.
Do not get me wrong. I am not making a statement about any candidates who are in office or seeking it. I know some very good men who are in office who I believe love Jesus deeply. I also know the turmoil they go through to be a Christ-follower in the government. It's a hard job, a hard world to exist within. And it's very little like Jesus' commands.
That's why I did not vote for the presidency. I couldn't decide who I wanted to run this country more. I couldn't even decide who I wanted to run this country less. So I didn't vote. I feel like I voted on some other issues, maybe a commissioner or something, but I left the box for president blank, sealed it, signed the envelope, and dropped it off at the post office. The next day, I smiled at the pictures of Americans crying with joy as Obama thanked the crowd, excitement lighting his face. And went on with my day.
Now, two years later, another ballot arrived at my door. I fully ignored it for days, until November 1st. I sat down, looked at it, then shoved it under some books. But it was still there. I grabbed it, opened it, looked at the boxes, then shoved it away, out of sight again. Sitting in silence, I thought about my civic duty, how this was a beautiful right, how those suffragettes had sacrificed so I could speak my mind. The problem was, as always, I didn't know what my mind was saying.
I wanted to just throw it away, ignore Frank Grum and Chris Dudley and all of those other white men. But something in me said, no. Formulate some opinions and stick to them, based on your own heart and the Jesus inside of you. So I did some research online, wincing at the mudslinging. I only voted for about half of the people/issues that were on the ballot. But I feel pretty good about that half.
I believe, as a Christ-follower, that Jesus can redeem anything. Even this crazy, sad, messed-up country. Even this broken, hollow, crying world. So I give my vote, say my piece, and let Jesus guide my own actions: act justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly with him in every season of life.
Well, the actual walking can wait, I hope. I'm a little too full of pasta to be going very far.
Monday, November 1, 2010
[prose #20] Sherlock: A Love Story
I was a gifted child, declared the IQ tests I was forced to take in the basement of my elementary school. Starting in first grade, this label took me out of my normal classes once a week and plopped me in that basement, where we learned about hieroglyphics and other smart things. My mother sat at home, reading worriedly about raising gifted children in a book with a black and white cover. She knew far before the school told her, before even my kindergarten teacher raved. She knew when I was reading the television listings in the newspaper at age four, telling her Billy Graham would be on tv that evening. It's become a familial urban legend, with who knows how much basis in fact. Regardless, my love for the written word, those funny little black symbols on a white background, started early in life and grew exponentially as I did.
I read all of the time. I mean, all of the time. At recess. During math (until the teacher found me out). Every time I sat in the car. My poor mother would force me out into the blaring South Dakota sun or blustery South Dakota winter, and I would sneak a novel out under my shirt. I'd then pace around our acreage, nose behind the book, not watching out for snakes or grasshoppers. When Mom frowned, I protested with wide-eyes: I was getting exercise!
I read far above my grade level for my entire elementary career. I read Moby Dick in fifth grade, undoubtedly missing scads of symbolism but recalling enough to pass a computerized test and gain reading points, legal tender at the library store. One year, I bought a porcelain doll for a few hundred of those points, racking them up by reading the largest point books in the library, hence Moby Dick. I loved that doll - her name was Gertrude. She was a symbol.
My favorite books - the ones I read for pleasure instead of point-value - were mysteries. I started out small, with the innumerable adventures of the Boxcar Children. Then came edgier fare and along with it, my first literary love: Frank Hardy, the elder half of the Hardy Boys. Sure, Joe was funny, stockier, a few inches shorter than Frank (I think we're talking 5'10"), blonde - oh those books are specific in their descriptions. Joe was the daring one. Frank was the opposite: cautious, bright, always getting Joe out of trouble. I would have done fine with Joe as a brother-in-law, but Frank, tall and dark, held my heart. I dreamed of adventures with those boys, racing around in their van, stopping the baddies and arriving at school just in time for first period.
Shortly after I finished most of the Hardy Boys books and was making my way through the more current - and more violent - Hardy Boys Casefiles series (don't even get me started on the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys Supermysteries - twice the pages, twice the drama), I tasted something sweeter and more sophisticated than my lovely bumbling boys. It was like the difference between Hershey's milk chocolate and the milk chocolate my grandma brought back from Germany - it's the same stuff in essence, but one just tastes like beauty.
I found the book while at my grandmother's house in Wisconsin. My father still had some of his childhood books in Opi's study, in the wall of bookselves behind my grandfather's desk. As a child, I was anxious to understand this man I idolized, so I consumed anything of his I could find. So, after kissing my Opi and Omi, kicking the snow off of my shoes, and dropping my suitcase in the room with the stuffed animals, I headed into the study to look at the books, to find something I hadn't read yet. The ones I brought with me were only so long, and I was often in need of some different fare. There, in the study, among all of the German Bibles and old devotional books, hid the book that made me fall in love again. No Hershey's milk chocolate for me - this was the real thing.
The book was paperback, dog-eared. Brown cover, a tweed cap, a wooden pipe, a magnifying glass. Those things we associate with him for no other reason than that's how it is.
Two words: Sherlock Holmes.
The book was The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and I was hooked from the first page. I read that book twice, then looked for more. The orange pips, the hound of the Baskervilles, the Red-Headed League. Frightening, suspenseful, insanely intellectual. I had never read anything like it.
The truth is, I had never met a man like Sherlock. Growing up in a kind and supportive Christian home, everyone around me was so nice all the time. Granted, I'll always be thankful I had that rather than the abuse and pain some people grow up with, but Sherlock was harsh. He was edgy. He said things like they were, regardless of the feelings of those around him. He was fully himself. I didn't know anyone like him.
I was also attracted to his intellect. I've always loved men for their brains, and Sherlock's brains were top-notch. More than that, though, he had a purpose. He had a passion. He knew who he was and he never compromised his own talents for the sake of culture or politically correctness. He knew that lives and puzzles depended on him doing what he knew how to do with all of his being. That single-mindedness is something that I continue to wrestle with as I pursue art.
And, of course, Sherlock's broken. An addict who cannot function in the world of men, he isolates those around him. Both a strength and a weakness, he does not pander to anyone, and because of that, he is often alone. And his abrasiveness makes him all the more fascinating, because you want to believe that he can change, be more - normal. Though, you know he can't because he would lose his glow.
My love for Sherlock has lay dormant in recent years, my only outlet watching the end of Basil Rathbone's version when coming across it on the classic movie channel or listfully picking up the book to read a case when waiting for the cookies to be done. Then, a movie comes out, starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law (who looks nothing like the Watson I'd been picturing). The trailers frightened me - it looked like an action adventure, when the Sherlock I was in love with would have used his head instead. I saw it when it came out, and I told myself, my Sherlock was fine, safe and sound. Guy Ritchie's was the one on the screen, and he was an easy fellow to stomach - only slightly rude, mostly comical, always with an undergirding of sweetness. Not the same as my fellow.
Then, just recently, PBC Masterpiece Mystery - oh, thank the Lord for PBS - released a Sherlock Holmes miniseries. Instead of the Sherlock Holmes I held in my heart, all 18th Century and idolized, this Sherlock was walking around modern-day London, texting and wearing Nicotine patches. Watson was a Vietnam vet with a psychosomatic limp. I was fascinated. This was my Sherlock, but with all of his barriers stripped away. This is what he'd be like in this reality, in my reality.
Truth be told, I wouldn't like him much.
I knew that to begin with - that's why I loved him so. He would be everything I could not stand in an individual I met face-to-face: pompous, self-centered, selfish. He would drive me mad. And yet there is that subtle draw that you feel when you are in the presence of someone who is doing precisely what they were meant to do. And to be fully honest, I wish I were like him. I wish I pursued my passions with my entire being. I wish I was able to push away those who held me back, voice my disdain for those who doubted, eliminate from my life those who sought less than everything. I can't even imagine what kind of writer I'd be, or Christ-follower, or person. I'd probably be annoying and abrasive. Until I figure out how to shed my sweetness in favor of something more Sherlock-like, I'll remain enthralled by my Sherlock: fully entertaining, amazing, and lovely to me, opium addiction and all.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
[prose#19] The Trouble with Haircuts
I have a friend who has perfect hair. I've observed this perfect hair during one of our many sleepovers. She wakes up in the morning, jumps in the shower (or not), and then lets her long chestnut hair air-dry. In an hour or so, instant perfect waves, no gel or hairbrush needed. It’s thick and luscious, but never frizzy. Our friendship is preserved by her quietness on the issue. She never talks about her perfect hair, because she knows every single woman in hearing would instantly send a dirty glare in her direction.
I was not blessed with perfect hair – few women are. For most of us, our hair is both our most defining characteristic and our biggest frustration. We are always in search of the perfect cut, the perfect color, the perfect stylist, the chase ever ongoing. Cuts change with the tide of fashion, always fleeting. For instance, bangs. Who would have thought those pesky little guys would come back? Even our own hair color eventually betrays us, turning white and gray and leaving us with the decision: to color or not to color? That, my friends, is always the question. And the stylist, oh that perfect man or woman who understands the texture of your hair as well as the intricate details of your personal life – there are no guarantees that the therapist-slash-miracle worker doesn’t move on to bigger and better salons, cities, or even countries. The nerve.
Every woman has her hair story, at least some piece of her identity wrapped up in her hair. Whether her hairstyle is always changing, letting everyone know the woman is in constant need of change, or if it has been the same for years and years, instantly recognizable, it tells a story about the woman. By no means is it exhaustive – I know no woman who wants to be judged by her hair, especially on those awful days – but it always has something to say.
For me, my hair story starts out at the beginning. Born with dark newborn hair, in the first few months it lightened and I became a baby blonde. At age nine months, following a terrifying diagnosis, those soft baby hairs fell out and were swept away, due to chemotherapy. Luckily, I didn’t have much to lose, and I just looked like a smooth-headed, big-eyed serious little tyke for a while. One year and one cancerous kidney later, I was pronounced as being in remission. But the hair started growing back, still blonde.
My mother kept my hair long. She would touch it on occasion, her hand lingering as it twisted around strands of hair, and I always knew, with the seriousness of my lost baby-hood, that she was remembering a shiny bald head, so old-looking on a brand-new head. Mom loved to curl my hair, crimp it, put it back in scrunchies. She liked it long, because it reminded her of those days when hair was the last thing she hoped for, but it was a outward example of life, health, and hope.
As I grew into a cautious and studious teenager, I stayed pretty safe, kept my locks blonde and long. There was a brief flirtation with chunky blonde highlights (thank you, early 00s) and some flippage on the ends (thank you, retro mod becoming popular again), but I’ve always been one to like what I know. And I knew long and I knew hairbrushes, and I knew I had absolutely no patience for blow-drying, curling, or straightening.
The thing was, every time I went to the hairstylist, it was exciting and scary. I always wanted to do something different, I always wanted to change, to cut it all off, to start fresh. For me, it was the most obvious thing I could do to change my appearance, my normally dowdy, chubby, awkwardly shy appearance. All I needed was that perfect haircut, and I would have everything. It would change everything because I would be seen by others in a different way. Not just others, but I also would see a new woman in the mirror, and maybe I would respect her more. But alas, I rarely did anything too dramatic. Snips here and there, trimming, layers, the like. Nothing too crazy.
There have been two times in my life when I have cut my hair short , i.e. just to or slightly above the shoulders, both for incredibly emotional reasons, nothing logical at all. The first came right before my senior year of high school. It was Friday night and my best friend was leaving for college on Sunday. In a giddy frenzy, I let her chop my hair off, a good four or five inches, so that it hung just above the shoulders. As far as I remember, it was done with regular old Fiscar scissors, and it turned out pretty straight for the experience level of the one cutting my hair. I also remember it looking somewhat like a triangle, due to the thickness of my hair. The Tuesday after she left for college, my mom took me to get it fixed. I liked the cut well-enough, but it required maintenance, and I decided to let it grow out, back to a length that I was more familiar with. See, the cut didn’t fill the hole that my best friend left, she in college having wild college times with college boys, me still at home in high school, finishing up for my diploma, working, doing everything I usually did. Nothing changed.
I grew it out for about two years. My motivation which I would have never admitted to myself: a guy friend I was crazy about only liked girls with long hair. He was pretty open about this, and while I rolled my eyes and berated him for his shallowness, I let my hair grow out, long down past my shoulder blades, in the hopes that he would finally see me. A few months into sophomore year of college, after a painfully long flirtation, he asked out my roommate, a confidant and vivacious woman with dark, straight, long hair. A broken heart is always cause for drastic change, and that Christmas break, I went in to my mom’s hairstylist, and told her to take it off. This time, the cut by a professional accentuated my natural waves, and it bounced up to just rest on the tops of my shoulders. I hoped it would make me feel strong, like I didn’t need him. The shock on his face was worth it, but I wasn’t any stronger. Love was all around me, and I had short hair that didn’t change the fact that I was alone and confused.
That time, I told myself I would never chop it off again, because the growing back was tedious and painfully long, especially once I realized I missed my long hair, my comfort, the shield to hide behind. Slowly it inched back to where it was and beyond, as I straightened it for graduation, curled it for weddings, and pulled it back for job interviews.
Finally settled post-grad, in an office job that ignored my degree yet gave me a chance to figure out who I am professionally, I realized I hadn’t cut my hair in over ten months. It had grown to its longest length, down to the middle of my back. I had seen a lot of change happen around me – friends moving away and getting married, and I was still in the apartment I lived in during college, in the town where I went to college, around college students. I felt suspended in space and time, in the frustrating in-between. I wasn’t sure who I was: no longer a student, but not quite ready to be a professional adult. I was caught. So I decided to chop all of my hair off.
I ignored that memory in my head, the one that said a change on the outside does little for the inside. The one that said this changes nothing. Instead, I scoured websites for the perfect haircut, asked advice from literally everyone around me, and psyched myself up. I was afraid I would bail and revert back to keeping it long, keeping it long, keeping it long because I was too scared to take a risk. I decided that this haircut would usher in a whole new phase of life, one where I was not afraid of change and the new things to come.
My haircut was at 4:45 on Friday. I went to work that morning, sure of my plan. Above the shoulder, layered for the natural wave, like that picture of Anne Hathaway at the SAG Awards in 2009. But then I started looking at my hair, how it fell, how the length complimented my face. I thought about how easy it was to maintain, how wash and wear it was. How I could pull it back into a ponytail or bun while it was wet and be out the door in ten minutes. The more I thought, the more nervous I became, until I sat at my desk paralyzed and nearly in tears.
Not prone to emotional breakdowns, I was caught off-guard until the reason occurred to me. I had created an idol of my hair. It sounds funny to say, but I had put all of my hope for the future in the perfect haircut. I decided that shorter hair would give me a new lease on life, a new perspective, outlook, confidence. I would be a new woman after 4:45 that afternoon. A better one.
Here’s the thing, though: change isn’t instantaneous. Change is a process. And sure, a great haircut can do absolute wonders for self-esteem. But there are always going to be those days when every hair is going the wrong way, and who you are cannot depend on the thread-like strands coming out of your head. If I want to change me, I need to start with a prayer and a look into the depths of my being, the habits and quirks that make up my existence. A few snip-snips with a scissors cannot do that for me. My hair is not the full representation of me – it simply keeps my head warm and is a decent accessory.
I sat in that chair at 4:45, asked my hair stylist’s advice, and she knew. She said, “I usually can tell when someone is ready to chop off all of their hair, and you don’t seem ready.” So I walked out of there, hair trimmed, layered, thinned, sidesept bands, but long as all-get-out and growing by the second. And I was happy, not because I was a new woman, but because I was the same woman with a lighter head and a lighter spirit who felt ready for change, change that happens in the abdomen and bleeds out through every pore. My hope is that people come up to me and ask if I’ve had a haircut recently, and I’ll say no, but I am beautiful because God is good. Then I’ll walk away, hairs probably out of place but ready for the world to begin.
I was not blessed with perfect hair – few women are. For most of us, our hair is both our most defining characteristic and our biggest frustration. We are always in search of the perfect cut, the perfect color, the perfect stylist, the chase ever ongoing. Cuts change with the tide of fashion, always fleeting. For instance, bangs. Who would have thought those pesky little guys would come back? Even our own hair color eventually betrays us, turning white and gray and leaving us with the decision: to color or not to color? That, my friends, is always the question. And the stylist, oh that perfect man or woman who understands the texture of your hair as well as the intricate details of your personal life – there are no guarantees that the therapist-slash-miracle worker doesn’t move on to bigger and better salons, cities, or even countries. The nerve.
Every woman has her hair story, at least some piece of her identity wrapped up in her hair. Whether her hairstyle is always changing, letting everyone know the woman is in constant need of change, or if it has been the same for years and years, instantly recognizable, it tells a story about the woman. By no means is it exhaustive – I know no woman who wants to be judged by her hair, especially on those awful days – but it always has something to say.
For me, my hair story starts out at the beginning. Born with dark newborn hair, in the first few months it lightened and I became a baby blonde. At age nine months, following a terrifying diagnosis, those soft baby hairs fell out and were swept away, due to chemotherapy. Luckily, I didn’t have much to lose, and I just looked like a smooth-headed, big-eyed serious little tyke for a while. One year and one cancerous kidney later, I was pronounced as being in remission. But the hair started growing back, still blonde.
My mother kept my hair long. She would touch it on occasion, her hand lingering as it twisted around strands of hair, and I always knew, with the seriousness of my lost baby-hood, that she was remembering a shiny bald head, so old-looking on a brand-new head. Mom loved to curl my hair, crimp it, put it back in scrunchies. She liked it long, because it reminded her of those days when hair was the last thing she hoped for, but it was a outward example of life, health, and hope.
As I grew into a cautious and studious teenager, I stayed pretty safe, kept my locks blonde and long. There was a brief flirtation with chunky blonde highlights (thank you, early 00s) and some flippage on the ends (thank you, retro mod becoming popular again), but I’ve always been one to like what I know. And I knew long and I knew hairbrushes, and I knew I had absolutely no patience for blow-drying, curling, or straightening.
The thing was, every time I went to the hairstylist, it was exciting and scary. I always wanted to do something different, I always wanted to change, to cut it all off, to start fresh. For me, it was the most obvious thing I could do to change my appearance, my normally dowdy, chubby, awkwardly shy appearance. All I needed was that perfect haircut, and I would have everything. It would change everything because I would be seen by others in a different way. Not just others, but I also would see a new woman in the mirror, and maybe I would respect her more. But alas, I rarely did anything too dramatic. Snips here and there, trimming, layers, the like. Nothing too crazy.
There have been two times in my life when I have cut my hair short , i.e. just to or slightly above the shoulders, both for incredibly emotional reasons, nothing logical at all. The first came right before my senior year of high school. It was Friday night and my best friend was leaving for college on Sunday. In a giddy frenzy, I let her chop my hair off, a good four or five inches, so that it hung just above the shoulders. As far as I remember, it was done with regular old Fiscar scissors, and it turned out pretty straight for the experience level of the one cutting my hair. I also remember it looking somewhat like a triangle, due to the thickness of my hair. The Tuesday after she left for college, my mom took me to get it fixed. I liked the cut well-enough, but it required maintenance, and I decided to let it grow out, back to a length that I was more familiar with. See, the cut didn’t fill the hole that my best friend left, she in college having wild college times with college boys, me still at home in high school, finishing up for my diploma, working, doing everything I usually did. Nothing changed.
I grew it out for about two years. My motivation which I would have never admitted to myself: a guy friend I was crazy about only liked girls with long hair. He was pretty open about this, and while I rolled my eyes and berated him for his shallowness, I let my hair grow out, long down past my shoulder blades, in the hopes that he would finally see me. A few months into sophomore year of college, after a painfully long flirtation, he asked out my roommate, a confidant and vivacious woman with dark, straight, long hair. A broken heart is always cause for drastic change, and that Christmas break, I went in to my mom’s hairstylist, and told her to take it off. This time, the cut by a professional accentuated my natural waves, and it bounced up to just rest on the tops of my shoulders. I hoped it would make me feel strong, like I didn’t need him. The shock on his face was worth it, but I wasn’t any stronger. Love was all around me, and I had short hair that didn’t change the fact that I was alone and confused.
That time, I told myself I would never chop it off again, because the growing back was tedious and painfully long, especially once I realized I missed my long hair, my comfort, the shield to hide behind. Slowly it inched back to where it was and beyond, as I straightened it for graduation, curled it for weddings, and pulled it back for job interviews.
Finally settled post-grad, in an office job that ignored my degree yet gave me a chance to figure out who I am professionally, I realized I hadn’t cut my hair in over ten months. It had grown to its longest length, down to the middle of my back. I had seen a lot of change happen around me – friends moving away and getting married, and I was still in the apartment I lived in during college, in the town where I went to college, around college students. I felt suspended in space and time, in the frustrating in-between. I wasn’t sure who I was: no longer a student, but not quite ready to be a professional adult. I was caught. So I decided to chop all of my hair off.
I ignored that memory in my head, the one that said a change on the outside does little for the inside. The one that said this changes nothing. Instead, I scoured websites for the perfect haircut, asked advice from literally everyone around me, and psyched myself up. I was afraid I would bail and revert back to keeping it long, keeping it long, keeping it long because I was too scared to take a risk. I decided that this haircut would usher in a whole new phase of life, one where I was not afraid of change and the new things to come.
My haircut was at 4:45 on Friday. I went to work that morning, sure of my plan. Above the shoulder, layered for the natural wave, like that picture of Anne Hathaway at the SAG Awards in 2009. But then I started looking at my hair, how it fell, how the length complimented my face. I thought about how easy it was to maintain, how wash and wear it was. How I could pull it back into a ponytail or bun while it was wet and be out the door in ten minutes. The more I thought, the more nervous I became, until I sat at my desk paralyzed and nearly in tears.
Not prone to emotional breakdowns, I was caught off-guard until the reason occurred to me. I had created an idol of my hair. It sounds funny to say, but I had put all of my hope for the future in the perfect haircut. I decided that shorter hair would give me a new lease on life, a new perspective, outlook, confidence. I would be a new woman after 4:45 that afternoon. A better one.
Here’s the thing, though: change isn’t instantaneous. Change is a process. And sure, a great haircut can do absolute wonders for self-esteem. But there are always going to be those days when every hair is going the wrong way, and who you are cannot depend on the thread-like strands coming out of your head. If I want to change me, I need to start with a prayer and a look into the depths of my being, the habits and quirks that make up my existence. A few snip-snips with a scissors cannot do that for me. My hair is not the full representation of me – it simply keeps my head warm and is a decent accessory.
I sat in that chair at 4:45, asked my hair stylist’s advice, and she knew. She said, “I usually can tell when someone is ready to chop off all of their hair, and you don’t seem ready.” So I walked out of there, hair trimmed, layered, thinned, sidesept bands, but long as all-get-out and growing by the second. And I was happy, not because I was a new woman, but because I was the same woman with a lighter head and a lighter spirit who felt ready for change, change that happens in the abdomen and bleeds out through every pore. My hope is that people come up to me and ask if I’ve had a haircut recently, and I’ll say no, but I am beautiful because God is good. Then I’ll walk away, hairs probably out of place but ready for the world to begin.
Monday, October 25, 2010
triumphant return.
Okay, so maybe a more appropriate title would be "surreptitiously slinking back." I've been away, if you hadn't noticed, for about three weeks. I could list the things that I've done in those three weeks, but they wouldn't be very impressive. It would involve a lot of non-writing and a lot of tv watching.
If I were to be honest, friends, I became afraid for a number of reasons I'm sure to tell you about, and I fell out of the habit, and I locked words away even as they fought to get out. While I was doing it, I knew it was wrong, but I stayed away anyway. I don't regret it, but it's time to return. I have things to say. I have many things to say.
Thank you if you have wondered and encouraged but never pushed. Let's talk, yes?
If I were to be honest, friends, I became afraid for a number of reasons I'm sure to tell you about, and I fell out of the habit, and I locked words away even as they fought to get out. While I was doing it, I knew it was wrong, but I stayed away anyway. I don't regret it, but it's time to return. I have things to say. I have many things to say.
Thank you if you have wondered and encouraged but never pushed. Let's talk, yes?
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Save Blue Like Jazz: the Movie
I'm going to be honest with you. The first time I read Blue Like Jazz, I didn't like it for a number of reasons. One, it was getting very popular. I have a natural distaste for the books and bands that are the latest rage (though, most of the time, I end up liking whatever is hip, because it's actually quite good, and that makes me more mad. So I try to avoid the situation altogether by being judgmental from the start). Automatically, I went into the book, a beautiful purple book with yellow letters on the front, with disdain. And then, I didn't like the way it was written. I couldn't follow it; there were too many stories and not enough tying them all together. It seemed scattered to me, circular. Pointless. I didn't get the themes. And furthermore, I didn't like the themes. Donald Miller's brand of Christian spirituality was not...typical. I was in high school, and I thought I knew everything about God and life and writing, and while I thought this Miller guy probably loved Jesus, he questioned the church and its motivations. He believed in God but he didn't really know about the answers to the big questions. Miller seemed to have very little actually figured out, other than knowing that Jesus was the way to go. That was threatening to me. So I deemed the book interesting enough, some good stories, some good morals, but...nope.
Then I went to college. A Christian university, but one that encouraged doubt and debate, faith and feminism, pacifism and prayer. Starting out, my mind was closed. But little by little, as freshman year so often does, everything opened and then promptly fell apart. I spent a huge amount of time on my knees with tears on my face, wondering who God was and why this world was so broken. Why I was so broken. I read Donald Miller's book again. And while it still was a little circular and meandering for a structured writer like myself, I got it more. I understood his struggle. I understood his friends. I understood his faith and his fears and his frustration with trying to walk this road with what feels like weights around your ankles. His doubts made sense to me, and his brutal honesty was unlike anything else I had read in the Christian sphere. And this time, I appreciated it, because I was starting to feel those same fears and questions rise up within me as I shed the faith of my family to make it my own.
I kept up with Miller's writing as he continued to write in the same engaging and honest style that he is now famous for. His most recent book changed my outlook on my life as both an artist and a human. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years chronicles Miller's attempt to edit Blue Like Jazz for a screenplay, which ultimately meant he was editing his life. He then goes on a journey to find out what it means to live life as an interesting story in which he is the main character.
Here's the deal -- the story is true. The movie Blue Like Jazz is real. Or it's trying to be, anyway. The screenplay is done, and the roles are cast. The only thing missing? The rest of the funding. As of a week or two ago, the movie was still $125,000 away from being fully funded and ready for production. Miller wrote a blog post and basically said the movie was not going to happen.
If anything, the Internet and social media has taught the Normal Joe that nothing is impossible. And so two guys in Tennessee decided to start up a grassroots campaign to fund this movie via Kickstarter, an online fund-raising website. Slowly it began and grew, and normal people pledged $10, or $30, or more. And now, a little more than $78,500 has been donated to get this movie off the ground. $47,748 to go and 21 days to go.
Here's why this movie should be made: it is a story worth telling. This book has changed scores of people's lives with its look at the life of a God-seeker in today's culture. It has told them they are not alone in their struggles. Honestly, there are many other people out there who do not read books. Instead, they see movies. And those people who only see things as pictures instead of text, they need to hear this story. They need to know that God knows their crap but loves them anyway and wants to change them. This is a story worth telling. We need more stories like this - where Christians are highlighted as loving, thinking, and good-crazy people instead of harsh, angry, and bad-crazy people.
If you think this is a story worth telling, if you have been changed in however small a way by this book and this author, donate, will you? Whatever you can give? If the movie is not fully funded in three weeks (Oct. 25), you will not be charged a penny. But I'm hoping, instead, that we will be charged and this movie happens. Because not only would it be a triumph for second chances (which is what Christ is all about), but it would show that there is a passionate audience for this movie. Plus, I love it when the moral of the story is about community and teamwork!
Please join me in sponsoring this movie. Let's do this.
http://www.savebluelikejazz.com/
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
[prose#18] Lin-Manuel Miranda is a Poet
Today was a long sort of a day. It's fall here in Oregon, supposedly, but the sun is bright and the temperatures in the low 80s. I'm never eager for summer to flee with the memories of cloudless days and lazy walks down my small town streets, but at the same time, this strange weather messes with my mind and heart. Usually when it's nearly October here, the trees start to change and the air starts to bite. But not quite this year. While the trees are beginning to erupt into flame, the warmth of the outside air confuses my body, this physical flesh that is invisibly grounded in the tides and the spinning of the earth. My bones know when the outside world isn't as it usually is, and that knowledge of my body affects my entire being and mindset - especially mindset. The rain can wait, but the heat can leave. For once, I'm ready to leave summer behind for the next season. Part of growing up means accepting and even welcoming the changes this world brings us.
This week I've had to deal with lots of other grown-up things. I've had lots of appointments, trying to finally get my medical insurance going. I got a cavity filled, I have an eye doctor appointment tomorrow. When I sit in the waiting room, I feel like a child again, except my mother isn't there, reading a magazine and answering the hard questions for me. And dear Hugo, my red car, had his own medical appointment with the mechanic the other day, always stressful when you're single and work and have no public transportation. I thought he was better, but today his "check engine" light -- which I paid a handful to get rid of -- told me he's not. Meetings, appointments, cleaning, cooking, all of these adult-ish activities pull me down. I want to revert back to that child who, after going to the doctor with Mom, is rewarded with a cookie and a hug, both of which are a necessary gift.
Today, I did a lot of driving, a lot of thinking about art, and a lot of panicking. I had the chance to talk to a writer today, a woman who is doing it, making it as someone who writes books for a living. Somehow, these meetings rarely encourage me. I learn so much about the process of publishing and writing, but instead of being thankful for the inside look, I let the information stress me out, wear me down. I leave thinking I'm incapable and unable, because it seems impossible that I could possibly do as this writer does. And then, spending time on the college campus I so recently left, I felt old and heavy with life. I walked past the 18-, 19-year-olds, studying for exams and going on late night Taco Bell runs, and I was going home to do the dishes and organize my bills. Disconnect was the word of the night.
Getting in my car for the seven-minute drive home, my iPod lit up as I put it into its dock. I knew I needed melody, for the silence would demolish me. The finale to the musical In the Heights came up. In the Heights took Broadway by storm in 2008, the unconventional telling of the way of life in the Washington Heights area of New York City. A lower-income neighborhood mainly populated by Hispanic immigrants, they fight to escape the poverty and maintain the community, to gain personal power without losing their heritage. The story is mostly told through rap/R&B songs, with some boleros, salsas, and traditional Broadway ballads thrown in for good measure.
The musical is the creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda. He started writing the show in college, a way of processing his own life, community, and heritage. After college, he began an eight-year process of work-shopping the show, making ends meet with odd jobs, composing on the subway, before -- finally and against all odds -- the show opened on Broadway, winning multiple Tony Awards and a Grammy. Miranda played Usnavi, the main character, because Usnavi was him. And he did so with such pain and pride, the lyrics flowing off of his tongue with ease.
Miranda is not a singer. He has good pitch, a good ear for music, but his voice cannot hold a candle to other Broadway leading men, not to mention even those in his show's ensemble. But it didn't really matter because they were his words, and he loved them as they came out of his mouth. They are embedded within him. This is most obvious in the rapping he does within the songs, created and performed in a beautiful poetic style that pays attention to the sound of words and the pattern they are put in. The man is a poet.
As I listened to the resolution of this musical, the final song where Usnavi reconciles his dreams with his reality, his hopes with his fears, his desires with his needs, I began to cry. Yes, it had been a terribly long day, filled with frustrating moments and grown-up stressors. But I cried because Usnavi found a home and chose his own life, and Miranda found a home and chose his own life. And he created a brilliant piece of theater that discusses socioeconomic disparities and racial tensions and rising property values alongside community life and new love and lasting friendships. Not only that, he believed in his work enough to work on it for eight years. Eight. He worked it to the bone, so much so that only one of the original songs made it from the beginning to the end of the process and saw the Broadway stage. Miranda believed he had something to tell the world, that his story was worthwhile and should be fought for. And because no one else would fight for it, he fought himself. And in 2008, he found himself rapping his Tony Award acceptance speech.
I don't think I have the vision, the strength, the passion to go that far for that long. But Miranda did not give up, and seeing that man's joy and love for the art he created, I know he must say it is worth it. I want my art to be worth it. I want to love what I am doing so much that I will fight for it for years. My poetry is not able to be rapped, it doesn't ebb and flow with the movement of language, but it has its own rhythm. I just have to solidify it, be prepared to make it better, and believe in it and myself. Lin-Manuel Miranda is a poet, and his poetry made me cry. I want to move people that way. Maybe then, real life - the muggy weather and endless appointments - won't matter so much.
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