He drew a deep breath. "Well, I'm back," he said.

Reminded that this blog existed this week; found this half-written and decided to continue. Nearly in this season again. Original from December 28th, 2011.

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.

an appalling Whitman reference

Chicago, another (drafty)

You are a Jerusalem, a Mecca,

The axis of every desire so designated

With scarcely any credit,

My particular dream because I must have one

And you sit at a distance that is convenient.

Conjured complete in my head,

You wear derbys with satin bands

And old sweaters, patched at the elbows;

You are slightly hoarse.

You have great, missional, scheme-bearing shoulders.

You are the city of the great shoulders.

I have heard tales of you

And I love them.

bucket list

By way of writing something a little more cheerful. There will be no other time to write this week - four serious papers, two minor ones, teaching, and an Old English recitation to finish between now and Friday - but I have next to nothing due for two weeks after. Perhaps I'll be able to catch some of the thoughts that have been buzzing 'round for you. Still more optimistically, perhaps I'll have understood them by then. Prayers appreciated, my friends.

But for now - the current bucket list.

Publish something. (A scholarly article would be fine, a biography best.)

Learn to fly. (A plane.) And jump.

Run a marathon with Mom.

Ride an Amtrak. Overnight, if possible. (Silly, I know. There are childhood reasons.)

Walk through Robben Island, South Africa. (And a hundred other places, but this one is chief.)

Spelunking. With James, preferably.

Play an instrument on a street corner.

Never let the passport expire.

Speak a dying language. (And record it for the rest of the world.)

Speak an unreached language and translate the Word into it. (Become part of the kingdom come.)

Speak Spanish, French, Arabic, and Russian well enough to be able to share the gospel clearly. (Just think of how much of the world that is... :))

Raise multilingual kids. (Assuming the above happens quickly. And I marry someone who's multilingual, and...yeah. :D Lord willing!)

...oh, and so many other things...this is the silly list. Amusing to note just how much of it has to do with words...characteristic, no? :D

Suggestions welcomed. :)

have been writing too much theory.

I have always hidden behind certain things: my interesting hair, the wideness of my smile, the crisp edges of my prose. They are an easy identity, a convenient and thoughtless handle, the stuff cute bios are made of.

My flesh likes the easy answers, so these self-markers usually suffice, but every once in a while I look at them too hard and am weary. Another email this morning, from another professor, which wound somewhere along the lines of, "Outstanding evaluation paper! Would you mind if I posted it as an example for the class?" I was polite and grateful in my reply, but I wanted to attach a bulleted list of fallacies in said paper, the soft logic and brash leaps. Did you happen to notice the content, sir, ma'am?, or have my decisive statements claimed another victim? Is this a judgement of the arguments, or an acquiescence to the neat touch of irony at the end? Because I always smile, for everyone.

So much glitter, surface excellence. Sometimes, although the honest prospect is terrifying, I yearn for them to see beneath the nice front, to hear the ugly, hollow woosh and sigh that only human hearts - that I, in all my stratified selfishness - commit. Not because I have some desire to be known, or something else that assumes there are things worth knowing there, but because then I think I would feel less hypocritical, smell less like formaldehyde.

Apologies...in the post-summer funk, that awful, reverberating dullness that happens every year when I leave the tangible, fruitful, crazy-busy goodness of camp for a world of half academic hubris and half sloughing through waste for a piece of stamped paper. I nearly quit school every fall, to go pass out rice in Uganda or teach English in China or talk to students in Johannesburg, just do something that is measurable and good and not centered around myself. (Although doing things for that reason wouldn't actually be any less selfish, but...you understand. Argh.)

Also have been convicted of a few pervasive idols in my life over the past month or so, things that have been suspect for some time and I've just been ignoring. But I have confessed it now, said it all aloud, and just that acknowledgement is usually enough to keep me alert. Sometimes it is hard, especially waking up in the middle of the night, cold and terrified, to keep from turning to those thoughts - so easy! - and letting them lullaby me back to sleep. But then there are afternoons like this past one, riots of yellow lights and More on the radio and the sun behind opaque clouds, where He has painted love across the sky in every word I know. That reckless personalization - of the whole universe, and for me - breaks my heart every time. He is enough, so ridiculously enough, and everything else is threadbare next to His grace.

Just talking now, and I have other papers to write before midnight. Sorry to rant again.

To my friends who keep saying simple, wise things, thank you. I apologize for the mix of "oh, fine" and ridiculous theory-of-my-life I unleash on you every time we talk. You are much better than I will ever be able to say, and I am blessed to have you.

old lessons

Found this in my five-pound notebook from last semester - since it still sounds pretty good three months after the fact, :) I thought I'd put it up here.

This semester, I have learned...

how to write a literary paper. Really fast.

that violence is useful.

that you cite your own work when talking about yourself.

how to contextualize, destabilize, and analyze someone else's work.

that I am not really that good at Spanish.

that we are not nearly so advanced as we think, that there is still a great deal of ugliness and use in the world. That Roosevelt participated. That wars still rage.

that I am a pretty good writer of prose. That I could be published, even.

just how comfortable I am.

how good it feels two hours out of my comfort zone.

that there are still good people in the world, and they love me. And they want me to talk about myself.

that I desperately need my family.

that one can spend a fortune at Starbucks.

to love linguistics.

to love Moody.

to be content. Almost. :)

that pity is not equivalent to love, and rarely has any part in it.

that people will not hate you because you say no.

that everyone doesn't have to love you.

that I could do so much more.

hardly a prologue any longer

this is me getting carried away. there's a cycle of poems, a book, the rest of my life crammed into this poor thing. and it's probably entirely incoherent. but it makes me quite happy to have it all in one place. :D please do let me know if it made any sense (especially the third stanza!).

later - have redone the whole ending, and am much happier with it now. it's true now. :)
(except the title. i can't do titles.)

Coming and Going

I remember the first time I re-met you

As an adult; it had been three years

Or so. I had fallen in love, gotten engaged,

Since I last saw you, and you had fallen out of it

And lived with your dogs.

You hugged your daughter first, in the kitchen doorway,

And then your son-in-law, who was inwardly

Pleased that you had driven up without coercion.

The kids bounced off your knees, running circles, bubbling

"Papaw!" Later we sat on the couch

And you grilled me about this guy,

Brandished pictures of a new dog

On a newer cell phone that wouldn't text.

Somehow we started talking books, comparing Joyce episodes,

And we finished a sentence about being locked in a closet with King

Together and just laughed. Somehow

You are me, fifty years older and wary with

The lives scattered behind you - four daughters,

Three wives, each dropped in a different city.

You have a gentle forehead, you never meant

To hurt anyone, but your eyes are large

With cowardice. As are mine. I detect

The same reluctance to move in, settle down,

The same nameless dissatisfaction

With life in myself. You are atoning now,

And moving to Belize, which I will follow

When I am sixty as well, but I am terrified

That I will also break the people I love

In all sincerity. Surely you loved them all.

And yet our notion of love is not enough.

The guy we talked about that afternoon -

I loved him as fervently as I knew how, and likely

For longer than I should have,

But that wasn't gravity enough to hold

The universe from spinning into the night.

I am moving to Chicago next year,

As soon as I have sorted all this out,

And alone. Maybe I will get a Doberman.

Sometimes when I am speeding in the dark

It occurs to me that I am selfish,

Stubborn, proud, demanding of space.

I may have been unloveable

For a very long time.

It also occurs to me that I would be content

To drive on forever; my dreams

Are of places and concepts, not people.

Here again I am your granddaughter:

If all the rest of the world,

Beating against the bars as it does for love,

Still struggles to keep it, why should we,

Who have pragmatically ceased to seek it,

Be the ones to own it at all? Are we

Defective? Suspect, unable to maintain

Another person? Is it written across my forehead

That I will never need them so much as they need me?

But we are different, you and I; I am also a child of

Your wife, who was last in a long line

Of Weaver women, keen, tenacious,

Griffin matriarchs, dichotomies of

Diaphanous wings and harsh tongues.

I have seen my own parents recoil

And consciously eschew your legacies.

And I do love -

Many, and very well, even the dangerous

Who doubt sincerity universally.

I have misloved, but never unloved,

And never in fear.

And I would like to think

There is redemption for us both; you were

Striking out at the world, as hard and fast as you could.

That was a haymaker in a glass town

Fogged with the breath of your mother

Who never told you she had cancer.

I can nearly understand the rebellion, then the fear -

An affair, a pregnancy, and finally

Stripping the bank account of your little girls.

I can fathom the how.

But I have passed through my own waters -

I looked that boy in the face when he said

He had not loved me for some time,

And I swallowed it and spit it out and

I still love people. He even says

Every once in a while

That he misses me, and I do not break

Anything. I can still see

Sparrows clinging to fence tops like dust,

Glimpse the great portentous fact of the world that is love,

That from which you have been running so long.

I have seen it, Papaw. It sits in the corner of a coffee shop,

Sings between the stars, far outside you and me

And the shards of other souls we mince around.

It will come to you when you stop swinging.

Love will come.

dear Smorgasbord Studios,

it's been a long time.

I have missed you. Really, I have. The stress of lines, the energy of stage lights, the jokes. Makin' Eggs. Even the pancake.

And I have missed your people. Not everyone, all the time, but at least once. All of them at least once. Their faces, their moods.

I am jealous for the new people you have acquired. And the old ones who have mellowed since I was last there. I realize this year would've been easier than any in the past, and perhaps I could have handled it again.

But you understand, don't you?, why I cannot come back. I am old, and older every day, and I see too much now. No matter how endearing, or careful, or mature you become, I cannot look you in the face without my chest tightening. I have forgiven you, and re-forgive you every time I see you, quite gladly, but I do not love you any longer. You are not mine any longer, and you must stop asking. Please, stop asking.

In fifty years, when I am a little old bird-woman, I will still be hunting up good theatre and sitting in the front row, trembling with emotion along with the actors when they don't quite get it. And this will be entirely your fault. Thank you, Smorgasbord, for that much. It was lovely, and Our Town was a very lovely goodbye, and I think it is time.

Goodbye.