This is only half finished, and I can't decide which direction to go next.
What will it be like, do you think,
To live where the wild geese land,
To hear sirens over the water and watch
Them come, sliding and settling before
Your feet. To winter with axioms,
Walk out in the mornings and throw corn
To the pole of every desire,
Live in the proximity that is
Nine-tenths possession.
And then what? The whole thing begs equivocation, the grand bait-and-switch that is human nature. Just the moment that I pronounce something the need, the end, the ultimate, it is not enough. Everything disappoints once we are close enough. They do not call to you once they have landed.
But if this is strictly truthful - if I am speaking of myself, and my composite experience, and not one flippant month or two - and the axiom is Lewis's Joy, the gleam and flicker of You, then there is never possession. Scarcely presence. Either way, it is lost once owned.
...so what exactly am I talking about? It's been like this all month, a time to be poked in the eye, elbowed into reassessing what I am chasing and why. Many stories, and you don't want to hear them, :) but the nights have been long.
And then I stumble across this today, from the Twitter feed of John Piper (who usually posts a first tweet at five in the morning).
"There are dreams that should wait for the age to come. The world is fallen and there are other things to do. They will come."
Among many other things, our society privileges dreams. They are a right: if you dream something, you're authorized to pursue it, and anyone who discourages you from it was suppressed themselves as a child, and someday after you have achieved your dream they will embrace you and apologize through tears. The inevitable real world rarely affirms these dreams with a job or a PhD, but still we are shoved towards them and guilted for eventually selling out.
But that's just our society. There are calls in God's economy, visions and desires, but there is also a great deal of duty on the way.
October 2012 again.
I don't remember where exactly I was going, even if I had an end in mind. Probably why this was never finished.
But it is continually in my mind, as the seasons change. I have lived so long in a state of want - either waiting for or resigned against people, places, futures - that as I approach the fruition of these things I find myself afraid that I will miss the wanting for the possession. After all, aren't we created in that mode? - obvious relationship with God aside, our relationships with other people are never absolute, either. By the time we fully know a person, if it were even possible, they have changed. And we are still dissatisfied in them.
Chicago, for instance. Even Cape Town. As I wait for word from Moody, I tell myself that it wouldn't be so bad, after all, to not be accepted for this year - I could intern for SCF, save money, get better TESOL training, try again. My people here still need me. I tell myself I have peace, contentment. True - six months ago, thinking of another year in Evansville had me on my hands and knees. I am so grateful for the fruit of the past year that would almost have me stay and cultivate it a little longer.
But is that all? Or isn't this fear - fear of expecting too much good of any one mortal place - masquerading as pride - pride that I don't actually need any one place or person - masquerading as holiness?
Of course it is fear. To this point, everything I've loved has functioned as an Isaac: do I love Him well enough to give it back? And when I do, He is so good to me; He is better than family or beloved, den or nest. I can say this with certainty, and that knowledge is worth all the world. But it is still painful to have it proven all over again, and somehow I operate as though He only gives to take; I hesitate to receive good from Him. As if He were not a good Father.
And there is inherent good in risk. I've learned that in the past three years, too: regardless of the object of risk, it is a necessary exercise of the heart. We have a finite amount of emotional energy, so use it wisely and on the people God obviously gives, but even if people were not infinitely valuable as facets of His image it would still be valuable to risk on them.
One of my favorite passages of Lewis -
"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."
-C.S. Lewis, from the Four Loves
This is the way He has always functioned, after all. He acknowledges the pain of living in a broken world, but be of good cheer - He is better, worthy, and will soon, soon work all sorrow backward into glory. He gives to take, yes, but gives so we remember our need and takes so we will come running after Him. There must be a copy that causes us to desire "a better country, that is, a heavenly one." And then - I first found this a few years ago and it still shivers through my frame every time I see it - "therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared for them a city."
So I take it. I accept from You new cities, new people, things I have long desired - even the possibility of fifty-years people, which is still a little ridiculous - and acknowledge that I will likely lose them. I will prove that You are worth more, and that it is better to burn out than freeze as I am. I will sojourn here, with the things I think I love, and send them winging off again in the spring. You will be good. You are good. Do be gracious to me.
October 2012 again.
I don't remember where exactly I was going, even if I had an end in mind. Probably why this was never finished.
But it is continually in my mind, as the seasons change. I have lived so long in a state of want - either waiting for or resigned against people, places, futures - that as I approach the fruition of these things I find myself afraid that I will miss the wanting for the possession. After all, aren't we created in that mode? - obvious relationship with God aside, our relationships with other people are never absolute, either. By the time we fully know a person, if it were even possible, they have changed. And we are still dissatisfied in them.
Chicago, for instance. Even Cape Town. As I wait for word from Moody, I tell myself that it wouldn't be so bad, after all, to not be accepted for this year - I could intern for SCF, save money, get better TESOL training, try again. My people here still need me. I tell myself I have peace, contentment. True - six months ago, thinking of another year in Evansville had me on my hands and knees. I am so grateful for the fruit of the past year that would almost have me stay and cultivate it a little longer.
But is that all? Or isn't this fear - fear of expecting too much good of any one mortal place - masquerading as pride - pride that I don't actually need any one place or person - masquerading as holiness?
Of course it is fear. To this point, everything I've loved has functioned as an Isaac: do I love Him well enough to give it back? And when I do, He is so good to me; He is better than family or beloved, den or nest. I can say this with certainty, and that knowledge is worth all the world. But it is still painful to have it proven all over again, and somehow I operate as though He only gives to take; I hesitate to receive good from Him. As if He were not a good Father.
And there is inherent good in risk. I've learned that in the past three years, too: regardless of the object of risk, it is a necessary exercise of the heart. We have a finite amount of emotional energy, so use it wisely and on the people God obviously gives, but even if people were not infinitely valuable as facets of His image it would still be valuable to risk on them.
One of my favorite passages of Lewis -
"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."
-C.S. Lewis, from the Four Loves
This is the way He has always functioned, after all. He acknowledges the pain of living in a broken world, but be of good cheer - He is better, worthy, and will soon, soon work all sorrow backward into glory. He gives to take, yes, but gives so we remember our need and takes so we will come running after Him. There must be a copy that causes us to desire "a better country, that is, a heavenly one." And then - I first found this a few years ago and it still shivers through my frame every time I see it - "therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared for them a city."
So I take it. I accept from You new cities, new people, things I have long desired - even the possibility of fifty-years people, which is still a little ridiculous - and acknowledge that I will likely lose them. I will prove that You are worth more, and that it is better to burn out than freeze as I am. I will sojourn here, with the things I think I love, and send them winging off again in the spring. You will be good. You are good. Do be gracious to me.
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