Anxiety and Eternity

There are moments that recur in my thoughts. I know you have them, too. Reels of sights, sounds, smells, sensations, that play in my memory. Faces, diagnoses, situations.  Flashes that sneak up from the stuffed subconscious and demand conscious attention.

• 

Scene: Somewhere in Santa Clara County, California. Skilled nursing facility. COVID Unit. “Barbara’s” room.

I walked by just in time to see her pick up her water bottle and to see her fighting hard against the Parkinsonian tremors she cannot will away. The bottle wobbled back and forth in her grasp before falling briefly onto her lap, rolling onto the floor, then gushing onto the hard linoleum between her bed and her roommate’s bed, a mere curtain separating the two.

Determined, she picked up a wide-mouthed glass of lemonade with a straw in it, the cup waving wildly and the straw dancing back and forth as she tried to draw it to her lips. This, too, fell into her lap, covering her thin gown and soaking her frail body. Her tremors are more pronounced now than they had been this morning, as if she had almost no control over the movements in her limbs. She asked me for her PRN anti-anxiety medication.

I asked the CNA for help getting her clean and dry while I went in search of her medicine. Like so many things in this place, the medicine was missing, and there wasn’t a pharmacy on hand to replenish it.

I returned to find her half-dressed, twisted in her gown. The CNA outside the door raised her hands in a show of innocence as told me Barbara had insisted on putting it on herself. Barbara was breathing rapidly, and I could tell her pulse was racing.

If she was embarrassed, it didn’t show.

Nor was she frustrated.

She was afraid.

I crouched down next to her nearly floor-level bed and asked her if something was upsetting her. She told me she had just gotten off the phone with her sister, and her sister was telling her about the novel Coronavirus. For perhaps the first time, she realized what it meant that she was in the COVID unit.

I took a deep breath and looked into her eyes from behind foggy glasses and face shield, trying to ignore the N95 digging into the bridge of my nose. “Barbara,  let me tell you something: You are breathing on your own. Your lungs are strong and clear. You don’t have a fever. Your body is fighting this. You’re going to be ok.”

And my mind keeps telling me – our world needs someone to look them in the eyes, take them by the hand and tell them:

You are strong.

You are fighting this.

You are going to be ok.

Maybe that’s exactly what you need to hear. I wish I could stop there. I want that feel-good ending.

But that isn’t the whole story, is it? I almost swallowed those words as soon as I’d said them to Barbara. Most of the patients in the COVID Unit I worked in will recover from the virus. But most of them will not recover from the disease and injury that brought them to the facility in the first place. The dementia and diabetes. The Parkinson’s, the cancer, the heart disease, the terminal illnesses. They will not simply be “ok.”

Most of us will recover from the damage this year has done to our bodies and our wallets, eventually. But our souls are crying out. The stuffed subconscious will not be ignored.

We are desperate for SOMETHING right now. And sometimes it feels like a grasping for who-knows-what, because what do you hold onto when all of your handholds break?

• 

  This is not Barbara 😉 This is my delightful housemate, Becki.

We are desperate for deeper. Desperate for truer. Desperate for peace. Desperate for all the headlines to be taken back. Desperate to cling to our sense of control – yet every new diagnosis and every next (un)natural disaster reminds us how mistaken that notion of control must be.

Maybe desperate is exactly where we are supposed to be. We have become proud, defiant, self-satisfied, numb. And yet this year has brought so many to one of two places:

• 1. Desperate to believe that there is a God who is good and omnipotent when all feels wrong.

Or

• 2. Desperate to defy an omniscient God that would allow all this mess to happen. All these lives to be broken. All these dreams to die.

It strikes me that this is probably exactly where an all-powerful God would have us be. Looking up beyond the screens of our smart phones and Zoom meetings to be reminded WHO holds the power. WHO holds the future. WHO will hold us though the world falls apart around us – though our carefully constructed worlds are falling apart around us.

It strikes me that we are being reminded that we have a choice. We can keep fighting with our own faltering strength and our own meager means.

Or we can surrender.

We can recognize that when we’ve offered all the fight we have in our bones, our striving was never meant to be good enough.

Enter Jesus.

You know the story. Do you feel it, too? The pull to bring out the lights and the decorations and the merry earlier this year? The need for something to celebrate?

How about THE reason to celebrate? It’s not about twinkling trees and glowing store windows, folks. It wasn’t joy because of a gift-laden tannenbaum. It was Jesus’ birth that has caused people to sing joy to the world for more than two millennia.

Barbara’s tremors remind me just how much our bodies betray what our spirits sense: that we have a desperate need for hope and reassurance. A need to be reminded that all will be ok – ultimately. If we chose to believe in Him who does not change with the next outbreak, the next earthquake, the next lay-off, the next devastating loss.

One day, we will all be in a situation from which our bodies will not heal. And there will be weeping. Or there will be celebration.

I don’t just want a Xanax to appease the anxiety. I want the Jesus who offers eternity.

• 

 

What I’m learning from my houseplant, and other important things.

Let’s talk about this little guy for a minute.

This plant is the only living thing that has come with me to all of the homes I’ve lived in since moving to Denver in 2009.

It didn’t used to be little. It used to have many stems and leaves and the delicate curved single-petal white flowers (spadix) notable to anthuriums.

It stopped producing flowers several years ago.

I noticed, but didn’t think I could do anything about it, so I left it.

Then I noticed it wasn’t producing any more leaves.

For several years it seemed stagnant.

Then the leaves that remained were slowly—over months and years, starting to die.

Recently, I grew concerned as newly developing leaves were wilting even before they fully unfurled.

I looked at the pitiful remains of the plant I had in what was now an almost comically-too-big pot. I needed help.

I took my plant to the potting section of a favorite local garden center. A knowledgeable staff member with kind brown eyes knew immediately what had happened. (Also, I might have a crush on kind-eyes guy)

My most recent potting choice-prettier and bigger than the previous ones- had no drainage for the soil, and my plant was slowly dying from root rot. As he gingerly dumped the soil from it’s container, I was dismayed to see so many once-vibrant roots wilted in the soil like an unwanted infestation of worms.

What remained was a previously-thriving main stem and three delicate little leaves with a small collection of sturdy roots.

He told me I needed to start over with a small pot and some nutrient-rich peat moss, and let the plant re-establish itself. He seemed confident that the roots would grow, the plant would re-establish itself again, and I would once again see new life blooming from the reduced excuse for a favorite house plant.

I took the plant with me to California. Symbolically, it just seemed like the right thing to do.

One of the leaves got clipped in transit and wilted away.

The remaining two leaves of my potted plant sat on the sink in my extended stay hotel. I kept looking at them, looking at the stem, waiting to see this new life happening. I wasn’t impressed.

Still only 2 leaves remained as I packed up and headed back for Colorado. 

Except I left my plant in the car by accident one night-and one of the leaves wilted in the unabating California sunshine.

Hoisting my overnight bag into the back seat of Esperanza (My not-unintentionally named Subaru) –I was dismayed to see only one healthy baby leaf surviving.

I had the mental conversation: “We’ve had a good run.” “I tried my best.”  “This is depressing, I think I should just cut my losses and move on.” I surveyed the area around the parking lot, thinking to possibly re-plant it and hope it survived. No good options presented themselves and I figured it probably wouldn’t go well, anyway. I stuck my finger in the soil to see if I had overlooked any hidden promise.

There. 

Half an inch under the moss. A new root. 

Here-just working its way towards the surface- a new sprout about to break through.

I smiled, somewhat dolefully. I couldn’t give up now. 

Last week, 3+ months after re-potting, a new leaf unfurled itself from an offshoot of the main stem.

Another one is going to pop this week.

Can you see it? There at the base?? A tiny new shoot has made it to the surface. And behind the stem, where you can’t see, an even smaller one braving the open air.

I could weep for the hope of it, and Lord knows we need the hope.

I customized this pot from an Etsy order because I needed to watch it grow and keep being reminded:

The best is yet to come. 

IF we do the work. If we root out the rotten parts. If we will plant in fertile soil. If we continue to water and feed and fix what’s broken.

Our root rot is showing, y’all.

We’ve got root out and re-pot the things that aren’t working.

Painful as it is—I think it’s happening.

I kid you not when I say I placed that stone-the stone that says, “breathe” in the soil of the plant for my journey and took it with me. Seemed right—heading to care for Coronavirus-infected patients. 

Seems even more right-as we speak up and speak out with those who are saying they can’t breathe. Who haven’t been given the same opportunities for fresh air and equal“American dreams.”

I pray for uprooting of systemic injustice.

I pray for untangling of priorities.

I pray for truth and reconciliation. 

For gracious truth-speakers and humble recipients 

For minds (and mouths) willing to approach difficult conversations without polemic responses. 

Ones that are willing to hold the tension you can be FOR people-for the PERSON even when you disagree with their opinions or their choices.

I think that’s what Jesus did.

And I don’t know of anybody that ever got hated out of hell.

I pray that we would relearn that common human frailty, common ground (hummus), is a beautiful place to start digging up potting soil.

And please, Jesus, as we look at our roots- burden our hearts to continue speak out for the most vulnerable among us. Let us not be swayed most by the angriest voices that cause fear, but by the wisest voices calling us to love outside of our comfort zones. May we be willing to get uncomfortable and challenge the things we thought we understood-to be challenged by those who have a perspective majority culture has not understood.

Hear me say unequivocally – Black Lives Matter.

And may we have the humility, may we have the big open-heartedness to recognize the additional roots tangled in our systemic problems. The way we have treated Native American lives, immigrant lives, refugee lives, women’s lives, LGBTQ lives, and the holes in our approach to the entire spectrum of life:

From the unborn babies waiting to breathe, to the abused and abandoned children, to the un(der) supported single moms, to the unfairly targeted and incarcerated young men (and women), to the mentally unwell middle-aged drifting to and from the streets, to our actual genetic roots-the elderly, slowly rotting away, unvisited in nursing homes ( I just lived this in California, more on this later).

This is hard. This is heavy. This gives me anxiety to even write about because I know we won’t all agree. I don’t claim to have the answers. But I’m here for many more gently-led uncomfortable conversations and intrepid new steps.

I almost gave up on my plant because I couldn’t see what was happening beneath the surface. How the work and the waiting felt like absence of growth because it took more time than I anticipated and setbacks felt like defeat.

Let it not be so of us.

~~~

You know that soil with all the old rotted roots in it? 

The gardener (kind eyes) told me to bake it. Put it under high heat for a stretch—and when the old bacteria and fungus in the dirt have been neutralized by the heat? It makes excellent potting soil for the next plants you want to see flourish.

 

Phenomenal Cosmic Powers! Trapped.

“Phenomenal cosmic powers!…Itty bitty living space.” You know the quote from Aladdin. As the Genie is telling Aladdin how he is bound to his magic lamp- a suffocatingly small space that he cannot be freed from unless and until someone uses one of their three wishes to set him free. Here’s a quick refresher clip: Phenomenal cosmic powers!

I’ve been thinking: we are all bound to small spaces in our own ways. Often because of our own self-limiting thinking. The way baby elephants are chained when they are younger and as adults they don’t even pull against the chains they could easily break free from. A learned helplessness.

So this post is about learned helplessness, or rather – a learned powerlessness that effectively looks more like an agreement NOT to use your power because you’ve been tricked into fearing it (or believing you don’t actually possess it).

Wide open spaces- Devil’s Backbone Open Space, NoCO

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I don’t think of myself as a fearful person.

I like to think I’ve done a lot of things that most people would consider brave (though some might rightly be considered ill-advised):

• Solo multi-week road trips
• Climbing 14,000ft mountain peaks
• Solo camping
• Flying to Africa-solo
• Hiking in grizzly bear country (sometimes solo)
• Speaking on stage in front of hundreds of people
• Going back for a second degree at age 30

See a common theme? Undertaking of things that I was mostly confident I could do within my own power. Of my own strength. With a prayer and some training for endurance, of course. With flexing of quads and travel experience and study habits. A lot of it on my own.

Know what terrifies me?

Rejection.
Criticism.
Abandonment.

For my own reasons and in my own way, as you have your own reasons to fear the things you fear.

I think its fair to say we all dislike un-constructive criticism. Destructive criticism, really. That which tears down rather than building up.

And I long ago received the message that what I thought, the way I interacted with the world, the way I reflected upon it, was not welcome.

Not by all-but by a minority of voices that I gave power to. Without even realizing it. Without knowing that was possible to do. To people who have no idea I gave them power. What is that? Why do I do that? Why do we do that?

See, I’ll admit it- I was an awkward kid. (Well-how about endearingly quirky?)

And-when I get stuck in small spaces of my own thinking, when I react in fear to my environment, my quirky adult self dis-integrates into unconfident awkward adult.

As a creative, idealistic, and sheltered kid, I didn’t know how little I knew- until I was told, until I was shown by peers- that who I was and how I engaged the world wasn’t right.

Enneagram 4, homeschooled, pastor’s kid (If you know, you know) with a penchant for drawing or making up stories with my Barbies or stuffed animals for hours at a time. I even once convinced my younger brother to spend hours choreographing a dance with me. Not that either of us had any dance experience — minus the one day of ballet I took before I quit because I didn’t want to practice first position, I wanted to dance. 

Side note: There were also Lego cities and forts made from massive piles of raked leaves, and soccer practice but that is a bit too normal to reference for my current purposes, mmm k?

I liked who I was. I was content living in my own little world.

 

Until fifth grade. Private school. Dubbed “sir-questions-a-lot” by a classmate. I’ll never forget the realization that I didn’t fit in, that I wasn’t cool, that others snickered at me behind my back, that I didn’t know basic pop culture references that “everyone else” knew. That sometimes invites were obligatory. That there were people who didn’t like me-even teachers- and it was too late to change their mind. And I got a “C” in Bible class. How did I get a “C” in elementary school Bible? As a PK?!

In 7^th and 8^th grade, now in public school, I experienced a new kind of mean. Threats. Shoved into lockers a few times. The middle school lunchroom experience. I made friends with people from all different groups, but never felt a part of a group, myself. I was a floater. Exchanging gifts with friends for Christmas, a classmate gave me a necklace from Claire’s (as one does) that matched, “that sweater you wear all the time.” And I learned that not only was I unfashionable, I was obviously unfashionable. Another thing: I distinctly remember that, although I became one of the few players on the girls’ soccer team to get an award, I spent most of the August tryouts unsure if I’d even make the team. The self-doubt was being sewn, deep.

In high school, I learned a way to earn approval. Succeeding in school. I annoyed some classmates by asking questions until I understood, studied longer than most people, found out early on that I was top of my class and felt pressure for the following 2+ years to maintain. Because that’s how you made parents and teachers proud. (Also: I’ve got a pretty strong 3 wing, in Enneagram speak). On the outside-a successful kid. I played varsity sports, took Advanced Placement classes, participated in the drama club, and was a well-behaved, respectful teen.

If you asked me to describe my high school self, I’d likely call myself a “nerdy loner jock.” This is not descriptive of my full reality, but the stories that re-play in my mind. The stories I rehearse, the ones that have become my “truth.”

Because the “truth” I learned early on was, “Who you are is not wanted. Your natural self is not ok.” But there was a double-bind: always valuing authenticity,  I wasn’t going to change who I was, so I just resigned to being unwanted and working hard to prevent others from seeing that I wasn’t ultimately worth sticking to, always subconsciously expecting them to ultimately come to that conclusion on their own.

Listen: Self-fulfilling prophecy is a whore that will sleep with anyone that gives it the attention it seeks. I say that not to be vulgar, but to be really direct about harsh reality. It has a nasty way of rearing its head and pointing out all the little and big ways in which what you believe about yourself is true. And it has a stunning aptitude for recall of all the confirming encounters. Later, to my deep disappointment, I have realized that some of the big ways in which I experienced rejection were directly related to me pushing others away before they could reject me. Turns out I’m naturally pretty good at social distancing. OUCH.

But you can’t heal what you don’t know or won’t address, right?

This rejection thread being so real in my lived experience, I began to feel every criticism, every snide comment, every conversation that I happened into in which I was being mentioned – as a direct attack on my person, as affirmation that it wasn’t safe to simply be me.

Fear of criticism kept me in very small spaces. Keeps me in small spaces. Shrinking even from people I know to be unkind, people I don’t like (though I want to like everyone). Even from people whose opinions I don’t esteem- whose voices I have zero desire to give space in my heart or in my thoughts. It has caused paralysis of self, a second-guessing of who I am and what I am capable of that should have NO PLACE in my life- no place in yours.

But I’m recognizing it. Calling it out. Working to take my thoughts captive (2 Cor 10:5). Learning how to send lies to the pit of Hell where they belong. Recognizing the subtle and stealthy ways in which the enemy, the prowling lion, has devoured me by encouraging repetition of self-defeating thoughts (1 Peter 5:8). I am fighting-and it IS a fight- to re-learn Truth and separate that from paralyzing truth. To re-write the way I remember things and in so doing, to re-member myself back into a whole, asking for a lot of help and seeking a lot of wisdom that I don’t naturally possess along the way.

I am chagrined to realize that I’ve spent so much time fearing what others thought of me, that I largely discounted what others were saying to me.

I repeat-

I have spent too much time fearing what others-whose voices I don’t want in my life to begin with-are saying about me

And too little time receiving the life-giving things that dear ones- whose voices I have invited into my life- are saying to me. 

I gave away my power by giving power to fear and lies. By letting others’ perception of me, or my own fear of their perception of me- define me and delineate me into really small spaces. To hell with that. Truly.

 I want to remember 4^th grade me. (Well, the homeschooled me that may have actually skipped most of the 4^th grade curriculum. We can’t be sure. But also, that explains a lot of things).

I want to own being the quirky, creative, sensitive, inquisitive, nature-loving, empathetic  and yes- competitive, little girl that I always was. Who loved making up stories and building forts and knew that she was delighted in, just as she was. (Just with a heap bit more self-awareness).

I want to bring my experiences of being the outsider- of, at times, relegating MYSELF to the outside- to others and to bring them in with me. Not to a place of popularity, but to a place of acceptance. Of self, first of all, and then into the freedom of being known and loved for who we truly are. For the Imago Dei in each of us that shines out distinctively when we know our own individuality and celebrate that for what it is.

For me, brave doesn’t look like climbing mountains. That looks more like stubborn determination.

 

For me, brave means believing that I am ok- just as Molly was made.

Brave means believing that I am loved, and loveable. That I am allowed to believe and receive that other people like me, want to be around me, aren’t going to leave me.

Brave means not withdrawing and moving on when I expect or experience rejection.

Brave means not allowing fear of criticism to control me and prevent me from living my life to its fullest.

Brave means accepting that, in this broken world full of broken people like me, people don’t all like each other. And not everyone will like me. And not everyone will say nice things about me. And I can’t control or change others’ perception of me, but I can choose to like me, regardless, and choose to not to live in the small space of needing you to like me, back. Of needing to prove myself to you, or not disappoint you, or at least not act in a way that will attract unwanted attention and criticism from you-which really means not acting at all.

Brave for me means inviting other people to join me- on road trips, on adventures, into my life in a consistent way.

Even though inviting others in has been painful in the past.

Even though I have been hurt by inconsistency and people who offered their love and took it back.

Even though I have felt deceived and devastated by those who haven’t been faithful to their word.

Even though fear of abandonment feels all too real, because sometimes parents die in their sleep- and what’s to stop other deep loves from leaving like a rug swept from beneath your feet?

Even though I have been inconsistent and unwittingly hurt other people from my broken places when I have let fear win the day.

I have long loved the Marianne Williamson quote:

Typograph from: source URL

Those are powerful words. I mean, c’mon: Marianne has such good words…she had a platform to run for president.

But as much as I love it, I think I am equally haunted by it.

How do I live into my “powerful beyond measure”?

The first key component is not giving my power away.

And our power? I have an inkling that it is directly related to what we are most afraid of about ourselves. Because Satan is a fierce war strategist and he will go after our strongest weapons. (Let’s revisit the idea of the Armor of God- Eph 6:10-18, shall we?) He will attack the very things that could take down his kingdom by trying to cut us off at the knees. You see, those things that make you a different kind of quirky from me, that set of skills that define you as an individual- THAT is the key to your power-

Because that which makes you unique is that which God placed specifically in ONLY you. And what ONLY you possess, that’s your superpower, meant to reflect an omnipotent God that gave ONLY you the gift and the responsibility of reflecting that aspect of who He is and how He lives in His creation. (Revisit: Spiritual Gifts 1 Cor: 12 .)

I’m convinced we are most powerful when we are most fully the healthiest version of ourselves. When we don’t let fear call the shots (Shout out to Donald Miller), when we seek the help we need to be healthy: mind, body and spirit, and when we voice aloud the things we are most ashamed and afraid of — so they lose their power over us. When we dig up the weeds and give truth the space it needs to take root.  And then showing up and doing it again tomorrow. And giving yourself grace and love when you get it wrong. Because none of us gets it right all the time.

And the next time I forget my “phenomenal cosmic powers” and fall back into my own, “itty bitty living space,”  there are a few places I know I need to come back to:

• The ultimate words of Truth in scriptures. The reminder that we have an enemy seeking to paralyze and devour us, the admonishment to resist him, and the encouragement to take our thoughts captive: to be very careful with the stories we rehearse to ourselves and to others.
• Trusted friends who will be the voice I need when my own is too loud
• To a family of fellow believers committed to seeking the Lord, loving others, and living fully into their Imago Dei.

And I leave you with a challenge to truly consider:

Who and/or what have you been giving your power to?

How would your life be a more powerful representation of Imago Dei if you lived into the fullest version of yourself?

Nephew and niece, because, well, look at them. (heart eyes)

A few podcasts I’ve listened to lately that I found life-giving and powerful:

Annie F. Downs. I like pretty much everything Annie has to say and she has a gift at inviting other powerful people into deep conversation. Especially in this: Jennie Allen on Episode 201 of the That Sounds Fun podcast. Real talk about getting out of your head and taking your thoughts captive:
http://www.anniefdowns.com/2020/01/28/episode-201-jennie-allen/ 

The Refined Woman. Kat Harris, a long distance friend, former teammate and woman who is owning her individual power with humility and grace and much beauty. I was blown away to see how much she has stepped into her brave and is speaking life to women everywhere. In times such as these, I found this episode particularly helpful-getting out of your head, and into your body:
https://therefinedwoman.com/podcasts-all/how-meditation-can-change-your-life

 

Bless and be blessed,

Molly

 

That one time I hit the thing

I can’t tell you what happened in the title.
It ruins the story.

The following is resultant from a writing prompt to share an awkward moment as a snapshot from childhood. Enjoy!

Nine year old soccer Molly

I haven’t had any car accidents as a driver. Not really.

My sister-in-law is laughing when she reads this because she likes to tell me I’m a bad driver (but ask my brother about her driving…).  My rebuttal is that I get a “good driver” discount for my car insurance.

But there was that one time…

I was dropping Audrey off after soccer practice in pre-season. Senior year of high school.

Two-a-day practices in August. In the mid-Atlantic. When its 95 degrees and 90% humidity. The kind of weather where you shower and as you towel off, can’t be sure whether you are still damp from showering or already sweating again. Steam on the bathroom mirror doesn’t exist because you are basically living in steamy post-shower humidity.

Needless to say, I was pretty sweaty when I dropped Audrey off from practice.

And I needed to spit. All that running and dripping and chugging from a water bottle make one rather lady-like.

So I hand-cranked down the window of my sister’s teal 1993 Mazda Protege* and hocked a loogie.

Only- it didn’t make it out the window.

Embarrassed, but only to my own personal chagrin, I wiped it off.

Only-I was still rolling.

And I rolled right into a mailbox.

There, adjacent to Little John Drive, in the Nottingham Woods neighborhood,  around the corner from the house I spent hours attending in-home art classes as a child.

I can still see the wooden post wobbling. The steel box precariously nodding, clinging, swaying- really- on top of post.

I paused. I parked. I did what an honest small-town teenager would do.

I rang the doorbell and admitted my crime to the owner, who hesitantly opened his front door, kids in tow, and observed me from behind the glass pane of his storm door.

He looked at me with raised eyebrows and little sympathy as I half-heartedly offered to replace the mail receptacle.

He graciously declined the offer. Actually no, as I recall he looked at me blankly and barely responded, but his response indicated that no box need be bought.

I got back in my own steel box and drove away- their mailbox and my pride both barely intact.

~~~

*I drove my sister’s car Sr. year of high school when she left for college. She may have never heard this story. But her car was no worse for the wear. 

 

We, like the leaves

 

I recently attended my first writing retreat.

More like a retreat with like-minded people in the woods to write and reflect and be still and do yoga and eat beautiful, healthy food. To be pensive and drink coffee and have deep conversation.

Place yourself here.

You’re on Whidbey Island, off the coast of northern Washington, in the Puget Sound. The weather is drizzly and in the low 50s most of the weekend. Around you is lush, dense, green, mossy, growing forest. Even rotting trees have new life growing out of them-the decay a fertile soil for new growth.You’re invited to participate in an exercise on sensory exploration.

Your group wanders out into an open space with a walking labyrinth lined by stones. It’s raining. Very lightly, but persistently. You wander a little up a trail, surrounded by deep forest, and sit on a fallen log. You close your eyes and listen. You open your eyes and look. You wander down the trails of connection that happen in your mind: sights and sounds, smells and memories. You see and you hear individual raindrops-landing on leaves and ferns all around you. This ultra-green and thriving. This splattered and yet still successful landscape.

 

 

---

All of us are wet.

 

What a startling, uncomfortable way to start.

Both this description-

And life itself.

 

We are born messy. Covered.

When we inhale our first breath

Oxygenated blood stops shunting through our hearts

Stops bypassing lungs and borrowing oxygen

 

When first we wail-we force closed tiny ducts in our heart,

Force open our own cardiorespiratory systems

Bypassed lungs now in full use-

Life outside the womb

Bright red. Loud. Crying.

When it’s healthy.

 

Out here– green. So green.

And yet green because drops are falling.

Rain. Wetness.

To the casual visitor: Messy. Covered.

 

We want clean and orderly and dry

And yet we admire wild and free

Unrestrained growth.

 

Small children that are entirely unafraid and completely unaware.

They know not strangers or skin colors or allegiances.

 

Teenage boys that consume 2000 calories. Per meal. And still ask for more.

They know not body image or grocery bills or self-control.

 

Teenage trees that shoot towards the sky- leaning towards the light.

Their roots know not sidewalks, their leaves know not fences.

 

And yet they grow-not in spite of the rain

but grow because of it.

 

As the drops fall-

A staccato of surround sound on upturned faces

 

The symphony all the more full because no note is quite the same

In quite the same place.

 

To watch the drip on a small fern face,

The violence of the hit could seem cruel.

 

The quiver of the impact

The bowing of the branch

The drooping down towards the dirt.

 

Yet the startling beauty of the painful drops

Dangling off the weighted leaves.

Magnifying small details and bigger beauty

Gleaming prismatic in spare streaks of sun

 

Rain is falling on different leaves.

In different places

At different times

In short succession

 

Not all at once, in one place-

It isn’t selective like that.

 

Life-giving splatters on one leafy face

While another rebounds from the impact.

 

We- like the leaves

We are all wet.

 

Because of Your Sweet Momma

Because of your sweet momma, I found myself in a nail salon, in west Texas, feet in a pedicure basin, tearing up at a scene from Family Feud in the middle of a Thursday.

It was sunny, and yet bleak outside. One of those days the sunshine feels both welcome and intrusive.

Like the world doesn’t know the sorrow that it holds and is stubbornly intent upon being hopeful when it should resign to its own sadness.

While my feet soak and soften, before old polish is scraped off and shiny new polish bedecks the toenails on my increasingly wrinkled feet, I watch a family hold onto one another and jump up and down in celebration. They’ve just won $20,000.

And this makes me cry.

I’m not crying because I like gameshow television. Or getting pedicures. Or because I’m really all that happy for them, honestly.

I’m crying because I thought of the day when we go Home. Really home. Forever home.

What a celebration, a real, true cause for celebration that will be.

I cried because I was in west Texas to celebrate your momma’s life.  To celebrate her freedom.

Freedom from an earthbound body that was ready for a better resting place.

Because when she took off her shoes to dance at your wedding, we knew it wasn’t because of the shoes. She looked lovely and coiffed and like the Texas belle she must have always been, yet the layers underneath seeped through in flashes and we could tell she was putting on a brave, beautiful face. You slow danced, and she held onto you because she needed to, and her splintered vertebrae was sending piercing pain through her spine. Your looks said it all. The love, the pain, the sadness, the closeness.

Your brother sent out updates and I knew it was bad.

When chemo treatment regimens are changed, adjusted, tweaked because the desired response isn’t happening.

When organs get blocked and stents are placed.

When abdominal fluid, ascites, being drained is measured in liters instead of milliliters.

When bed alarms are introduced for the patient’s own safety.

When “comfort care” is brought into the picture.

When comfort care involves opioid drips and intensive home health care.

When you get the text message that you need to come home.

When we’re all waiting, and the waiting is painful, and the suffering is immense, and the passing on from all of this feels like a relief.

Except the relief, we know that it is mixed. It isn’t relief by itself at all. It’s mixed, swirling, with myriad passing, sometimes stabbing, sometimes almost tangible emotions. Sadness, numbness, anger, brief flashes of gratitude, inexpressible loss.

I’m here because I know what today means; I know what today feels like. And I know that I will likely remember today better than you will. You’re functioning. You’re hosting. You’re pulling on one pant leg and then the other. Your brother is joking about how his suit doesn’t fit the way it used to, when it was purchased for a happier occasion. Because any occasion would be happier than this one.

And all these people are here to support you, but it feels like they need something from you. And they need to be fed. And everyone is offering words, but words feel empty. And as well as the pastor encapsulated your momma in stories and scriptures, none of them truly encapsulate what she was to YOU. None of them ever could.

And I’m sorry for all of these things that you’re feeling. And that right now, maybe you feel guilty that you don’t feel at all. Because you simply aren’t able to yet.

There just aren’t adequate words for times like this.

And yet here I am, offering some of mine.

I told Ian, and I would tell anyone, “If you told me you couldn’t imagine what it was like to lose a parent, I would tell you, ‘You’re right, you can’t imagine. Because I couldn’t have imagined until it was my reality.’” I’m sure you feel the same if you’ve lost a child, a sibling, a spouse, a grandparent closer than a mother, a cousin closer than a brother.

And I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

The days your spirit is so overwhelmed that productivity seems a cruel invitation to what feels meaningless.

The nights your spirit is too weary to sleep, your dreams oppressive, and your limbs too heavy to move.

Those blindsiding evenings when even a favorite film, a strongest drink -only illuminate the flat feeling in your soul, the dull ache in your intestines.

The weeks getting out of bed seems a fruitless effort, and to what avail?

The months when to your own self you feel “other” and estranged.

The season where words of encouragement feel insulting, admonishments feel shallow, and to all others you feel misunderstood.

I grieve with you the days you will be blindsided by a random billboard that reminds you of your mom.

When you stand in line to get take-out and are struck to realize you know exactly what she would have ordered.

When you realize you have saved the last voicemails from her on your phone, can’t afford to lose them, because there will be no more sounds of her voice in your ear.

When all the little things that frustrated you about her become things you cherish about her-because they were uniquely part and parcel of her and her alone.

When you find something that smells like her in an old forgotten pile of clothes and the smell is so real, you’ll be astonished how cruel a dirty t-shirt can be.

When you uncover letters you’ve sent, texts you’ve exchanged, memories you didn’t know you harbored in bright, blinding flashes that stop you in your tracks without warning-corneas burning, mind spinning, balance maddeningly thrown off.

Because it isn’t the waves you know to brace yourself against that knock you down and drag you out.

It is death by pricks that should feel tiny that are felt more as invisible stabs to an unseeing world. And in gasping at the shock of pain, you look around and find the rest of the rushing world unscathed. And this makes you angry. This is unfair. How can the rest of the world go on as though nothing had happened, when everything has changed? When all is upended and out of order and imperfect and just -wrong. It just isn’t right. And God wasn’t right to take her, or him, or them. At least to your truest of thoughts and feelings and truncated, shocked emotions-it isn’t right or justifiable or fair or good, at all. A good God doesn’t allow these things. Does He?

And your mind reels and guffaws and loops through these emotions over and over again.

Maybe, like me, you’ll realize you don’t trust a lot of things. Chief among them God. Also friends-who don’t understand. Co-workers, who express undiscerning condolences. Church members, who send way too many fattening casseroles and sympathy cards that feel pathetic to a soul whose pathos is worn dry. And the few safe people who actually get it—they know they can’t fix it.

It is their silent strength that will uphold you. Like a salt-water-warped post on a pier, they are a ballast, a leaning post, but it still hurts to hold on. The waves still crash. They come with force of indeterminate, alternating strength, and it seems you can’t track the moon to understand the tide.

Hold on. Don’t let go.

You’re Gonna Be Ok- Brian & Jenn Johnson

(I would sing it to you, but Jenn Johnson does so much more beautifully and powerfully)

I know it’s all you’ve got to just be strong
And it’s a fight just to keep it together
I know you think that you are too far gone
But hope is never lost
Hope is never lost

Hold on, don’t let go
Hold on, don’t let go

Just take one step closer
Put one foot in front of the other
You’ll get through this
Just follow the light in the darkness
You’re gonna be ok

I know your heart is heavy from those nights
But just remember that you are a fighter
You never know just what tomorrow holds
And you’re stronger than you know
You’re stronger than you know

I know. I know you’re stronger than you feel. Stronger than you think you are.

I know that some days, the sunshine is blinding. The nighttime is deafening. That talk is empty. That all seems noise.

You need a Samwise Gamgee. (Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers)

Someone who, when you are at the end of your rope, you can admit to, “I can’t do this, Sam.”

Who will respond,

(watch first, it’s better in video)

Sam’s Speech- LOTR: The Two Towers

“I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are.

It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now.  Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding onto something.

  “What are we holding onto, Sam?”

 “That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.”

You’ll need a Sam, a person who is your ballast, to agree with you that it’s all wrong. That this isn’t the way it was meant to be. To remind you that the stories you loved as a child were the ones where the heroes had lots of chances of turning back, and they didn’t. To refuse to leave you on your journey despite the many things you have and will yet encounter.

Paul calls our struggles, “light and momentary” (2 Cor 4:17). He says that they are, “achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” Most of the time, I can’t help but let out a belabored, longing sigh when I hear that verse. A half-believing half-laugh. Light and momentary. If we only knew what heaven held that rendered what feels heart-wrenching and endless on this side of the curtain “light and momentary” -how much our perspective would change!

I agree with you, nothing about this feels light. Or momentary.

As I approach the twelfth anniversary of my own father’s passing, I still feel the ache. I’m still, at times, blindsided by memories and smells and a sense of what can never be recovered.

But hold that tension with me for a moment.

At the risk of mixing metaphors, let me refer now from Tolkien to C.S. Lewis.

If I’ve learned anything from Lewis it’s that, in the end, Aslan wins. And he defeats the White Witch. And he melts the endless winter. And he breathes life into the unfairly entombed stone creatures-again. (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe).

New life has been breathed into ME since that day.

New life is offered to me-to all of us, if we will accept it. Life that is to come and cannot be measured by time clocks.

I wish it weren’t so, but sometimes, God has to let us sit in the fullness of the weight of the world, before the weightlessness of what we are offered has any appeal. But despite the cyclic reality of reasons to despair, I know there is reason for hope.

In my best of moments, I am a poor apologist. Yet still I believe in a Jesus who offers life beyond this one-one that is full of a glory that far outweighs them all, and if you want to talk about my Jesus with me, I’d be thrilled to talk about your Jesus with you.

Even the son of God cried out to his Father for relief from his suffering in the midst of his despair-asked to be spared of it if it were possible.

 And He wasn’t.

Because God knew what was more important. I can only imagine the anguish that ripped through his heart when Jesus suffered innocently on the torture device we call a cross. It wasn’t needless suffering-it was needed, for our sake.  Reluctantly, I am learning that when we aren’t spared, it is for good reason. For the best of reasons.

There are still reasons and answers that I want. Most likely always will. Sometimes I resent that I may never have them. But the answers that I have? They point to a path better than I would have chosen from my own myopic vantage point. I have come to cherish that my own wisdom is short-sighted and fallible. Because if I called the shots and God fixed it all– if those who suffered, struggled, died along the way had been saved –how many of us who have stood stricken, astonished, and in wonderstruck admiration at their stories would have been changed in ways they couldn’t have chosen to change us of their own accord, had they been “saved” from their own struggles?

How many have been changed by simply watching those who have lost loved ones carry on in the midst of crushing grief?

It is both an honor and a visceral gut check to be present with people in such deeply painful times.

To have been someone who needed others to be present with me in those times.

~~~

Another brother of yours yells at God in the bathroom early in the morning, that Valentine’s dawn. Tells you to take her home.

And you do.

 

A Song for the (Still) Single

Not a tune, really. Because ours don’t sound the same, but maybe the lyrics are similar.

Because somewhere along the way, I must have accidentally prayed for God to make me patient.

Because this wasn’t the plan.

Because I have had too many conversations with other singles who are frustrated at hearing pep talks and admonitions from non-singles.

Because sharing the conversation feels terrifying… so it’s probably also important.

Because I know what lonely feels like; I have a sneaking suspicion most of us do.

Because you need to know that you aren’t hopelessly flawed…any more than we are all hopelessly flawed.

Because every crush, every ended relationship that turns into a non-event (or a heart-melting one) is starting to feel more crushing than the last.

Because your heart matters.

Because you aren’t a recipe lacking a crucial ingredient.

Because we don’t need another sermon on singleness from a pastor who married before he started seminary.

( I can say that because 1. Well, it’s true and 2. My daddy did just that, and I don’t recall any sermons on singleness, but I’m sure if he was here to give one now, I’d struggle with it.)

Because we don’t need a marriage book on waiting from someone who tied the knot at 25. (Your story, if that belongs to you, is NOT invalid, it’s just not the story of waiting I know at 33, that my friends know into their 40s.)

Because, as many times as I have felt unseen, I want you, single one, to know that I see you. I resonate with your desires. I see the potential locked inside of you that you’re afraid won’t be discovered until it’s too late. And I’m sorry that I haven’t, we haven’t, seen you as you are and for the many times we will fail to in the future. Just maybe-maybe you became good at hiding who you are like I did.

Because I understand the mascara stains on your pillowcase, the angry conversations you hold with no one in the shower, the night drives you take in your car just so you aren’t sitting at home in the silence.  The silence you can’t allow since the roar of it overwhelms you.

So yeah, because your desires are felt, they are shared.

Because what I want to see is for those who haven’t reached the other side yet to share their hearts and their struggles. For those who are holding strong to be honored for waiting well.

What I desire to see acknowledged in my community, in my faith group, in my church, is the faithfulness of those who haven’t figured it all out, who don’t have a pretty bow to tie around their story yet. Maybe they never will, because life is really messy that way.

• I want to hear from a thirty-something or forty-something single who still hasn’t met their someone (or who lost their someone) but knows that God sees their longing heart.
• I want to hear from an addict who still has relapses but knows intimately what grace means and how God provides strength beyond our willpower.
• I want to hear from someone in financial crisis who doesn’t know how their next bill will be paid, but knows they serve a God bigger than their resources.
• lI want to hear from a grieving parent, or child, or spouse, the heartbreak they are experiencing and the stronghold that Jesus is to them amid their broken life plans.

You too?

What we need is for fellow single and married peers to tell us that they see value in our waiting, in our perseverance. That the things we think no one sees, they aren’t invisible. That, in fact, they are valuable, they’re desirable, that WE are desirable.

We need to see, to hear from strong, confident singles, who still have a desire to share their lives with another who are living fully into their right now. Who hold hopes for the future but refuse to succumb to the lie that they can’t be the best version of themselves in this very season of life. Who challenge themselves to answer the question of who they want to be and how they ought to live-regardless of their life stage: single or married or divorced or widowed or any other form of relational self-identification.

From people who do it better than I do, because Lord knows I’ve had moments where I’ve all but crossed my arms and thrown a tantrum in a public place like a toddler in a grocery story who has been denied Lucky Charms (cereal choice intentional 😉).

But please stop telling us we’ll meet our person when we are fully satisfied with ourselves first, or better yet, fully surrendered to God.

Because, well, were you? And what does that really mean?

Were you completely content with your season in life and its trajectory when you met the (wo)man of your dreams? Ok, maybe you were, if you met your senior year of college. Whatever.

My intent is not to discount the validity of marrying young, please don’t receive my words that way.

As I will need your experience in marriage, I hope you will value my insight into being single.

I’m not unaware that relationships are hard, I’ve been there. I know what it is to think I’m going to share a life with someone and stand in the midst of flaming fallout and rubble.

Yet, as I don’t know the despair of a lonely marriage, the joy (after pain) of childbirth, the exhaustion of mothering, the responsibility of fathering, the lessons you learn only after sharing a life with someone for many hard-won years, I must contend that if you married young, you do not understand the weight of my longing, of our longing.

Of bitter tears over another hope dashed and another year without a second plate at the dinner table (or a third or a forth…).

Of the honest anger and despair that pour forth when someone asks your newly rejected heart what your plans for the weekend are, and all you can respond is with what feels most true:

What does it matter? It doesn’t matter, because there is no one for it to matter to. What difference does it make if I stay up until three, or sleep in until noon? If I pour a little too much wine while I binge-watch Netflix and self-indulge in on-screen romance/comedy/action, etc.? Does it matter, will it even be noticed, if I skip that meetup, or meeting, or church service this week?

It feels like it doesn’t matter because there isn’t someone waiting at those places for you (friends aside). No one to care if you go to the gym, sleep in late, finish the project that’s been on your list for a month too long. No one to notice that you need some TLC and just to pull you onto the couch and hold you close. No one who wants to shut out the rest of the world for a few hours to show you that your presence is enough, and the rest of the rushing world can wait.

Ask me how I know.

I have lots of questions, lots of misgivings, and yeah, sure, some baggage of my own to bring to the table. Yet,

I want you to know: I’m not defective. YOU are not defective.

You are here with reason and with purpose, and even when you find that someone to share it with, they cannot live the part of the vision only you were created to fulfill.

Some days, it takes all that I have to separate the way I feel from the way things are.

And on the days I think it doesn’t matter how late I sleep, what I put into my body, what stories fill my mind—I find I am becoming more willing to challenge myself with the question: Would I want to be with that version of me? Am I the person I want you to wait for?

How do I choose the harder way of claiming a calling when nobody else seems to see it, rather than wallowing in minimally effective self-pity and comfort measures?

I know that the person I want to meet has wrestled with these questions, too, and is stepping forward in hope and integrity, despite the absence of confirmation that all of their wildest dreams will come true.

My unsung song is for those who have ever been silently offended at the implication that they needed a spouse in order to live well, yea even to lead well.

It is a silent clap for those who have lived well in spite of the weight of their longings, in the midst of their longings. For the Elijahs praying for rain, believing in the deluge, before the first sighting of the cumulonimbus clouds.

For those who have ever felt like the next-step guy or girl for someone else finding their true love.

For those who have moved homes multiple times due to roommates getting married.

For those who have celebrated, time and again, the love of those they hold dear, and truly meant it, despite the ache they felt in the pit of their stomach.

For those who have been through heartbreak and know they are neither infallible nor entirely innocent and will carry that wisdom with them into a new relationship with both trepidation and determination.

To you, whose love will be all the wiser, all the more patient, all the more committed for the refining it has been through on the path to find the one your heart desires.

To you, whose eyes will swell along with your heart when your someone finally says to you,

“You have been so worth the wait.”

 

I don’t understand

Just me. Being honest. 

I could provide an “answer” for most of the below that I don’t understand. But a known answer and a felt Answer exist in very different realms.

I don’t understand why people drive with their windows up beautiful days.

I don’t understand how they can carry on without stopping agape
at pink-tinged sunsets with gold-rimmed clouds.

I don’t understand why some beautiful things
seem to exist solely for the sake of being admired.

I don’t understand how it brings me such delight to observe children lost in their play.

I don’t understand why peace is found beside crashing waves and slipping sand.

I don’t understand how a smell can feel so good, and so sad, and so hopeful,                    and so full of memories so close as to be almost palpable.

I don’t understand why loneliness is more real when you aren’t physically alone.

I don’t understand how, when we crave deep connection,
entirely disconnecting can be most healing of all.

I don’t understand why hope that is broken and trust that is lost
hurt the most of all.

I don’t understand how our deepest of sighs can be more honest
than our most profound of words.

I don’t understand why encouraging words to a grieving heart
feel emptier than none.

I don’t understand how empathy makes and emotion real
and laughter truly is better than ibuprofen.

I don’t understand why my faith felt so much bigger
when my understanding of the world was so much smaller.

I don’t understand how we all gain knowledge about what to say
and how so few gain ability to make their feet go.

I don’t understand why cancer. And congenital diseases. And disabilities.

I don’t understand how time is coming, passing, past.

I don’t understand why I feel things so deeply, too often, too much.

I don’t understand how to free myself from your expectations of me

I don’t understand why the falling of late autumn leaves
evokes within me a visceral awareness of the temporality of things.

I don’t understand how to discern when it’s best to keep fighting forward
and when to let your weary heart stop striving.

I don’t understand why words written in duress are so much more honest
than those written in delight.

And I don’t understand how my spirit could feel so sure of you
before I realized the impending end of me and you.

 

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When Hope Disappoints

I’m angry at hope.

Not at a person named Hope, but at hope itself. “To cherish a desire with anticipation: to want something to happen or to be true” (Merriam-Webster). That kind of hope.

Because, dammit, hope so often disappoints, does it not? Especially if you are an idealist like myself. Especially when you see so many possibilities that seem so rarely to come to fruition. Especially when your heart is involved and it gets pushed by the wayside. Like a shiny new toy that one was excited about, saved up for, played with excitedly for a few weeks, and then lost interest in and moved on from-like one of Andy’s toys in the infamous Pixar movie without so much as a name written on the sole of your foot. But a name written on my soul that left scars. More of them.

A few weeks ago, I texted some girlfriends to see if they wanted to take a drive into the mountains. It is peak season for aspens to turn their taunting brilliant yellows and the Colorado Rockies love to flaunt their colors. I made it clear the purpose, however. To drive. To listen to music, maybe a podcast or two, to just “be” because being anything else was too much. I knew these friends would understand, were in their own versions of the same place. So, Katie and I looped around back off I-70 to scoop up Andrea when she got off work and wove our way through 5 o’clock traffic with the nose of the car pointed West. When I have my way it’s almost always pointed in that direction. To the mountains. To beauty. Away from the city.

The mountains must have known. They were as moody as we were, and even the colors of fall were dimmed by low lying clouds, drizzle, and fog so thick I couldn’t see more than 10 feet in front of me as I wound up a mountain pass towards Winter Park. I white-knuckled the S-curves up the pass and leaned into my steering wheel as I drove. Nevertheless, we found a particularly yellow patch amidst evergreens along the way and hopped out for the obligatory selfie. We look cold and uncomfortable, and the photo is colored with as much grey as yellow, but we’re feigning big smiles, anyway.

 

In Winter Park, which was shockingly clear as we drove down the western slope of the pass, snow speckled ski slopes that will soon be full of winter enthusiasts. Not yet, however, and we walked around bundled in fleece blankets just long enough to assure ourselves that we had done our duty “exploring” the abandoned ski town and climbed back in the car in search of comfort food.

Nosing back east in the dark, the fog thicker than before in the pitch black, we turned on a podcast and let it speak for us where words continued to fail. Not even knowing the synopsis, I had downloaded a podcast from Radiolab entitled, “Anna in Somalia” and played it while I prayed not to misjudge a sharp curve or rear end another vehicle in the worst visibility I’ve driven for a long time.

It was not at all what I expected.

It was a story about a man named Mohammed who lived in Somalia in 1981 while it was under the dictatorship of Siad Barre. Mohammed, newly wed, received a letter from a friend of his who was the director of a hospital that was in dire need of supplies, especially bedding, but had been cut off from supplies by Barre and his regime. He asked Mohammed to discreetly raise funding for the hospital. Mohammed, however, wrote an open letter asking for financial support and described the terrible conditions of the hospital and of the country, in general. Several weeks later, in the middle of the night, Mohammed was arrested, accused of treason, and sentenced to a life of solitary confinement in a political prison. His jail cell was approximately 6’x6’, concrete walls, a hole in the floor for a toilet, a very high window that allowed little light. Cockroaches, rats, and mosquitos infiltrated the cell. The worst part, however, was the jarring silence that filled his mind. Prisoners were forbidden to speak to one another.

Complete silence. Until one day, eight months later, he hears a knock on the wall adjacent to his cell and the words, “Learn ABC”. The prisoner in the cell next to his was teaching him to learn an alphabet of sorts via different knocks on the wall. Their own form of Morse Code. Learning the code was described by a prisoner as, “the most exciting day of your life.” Prisoners could communicate to each other through these taps without being detected by the guards. Telling a joke might take an entire hour to relay to the prisoner eight cells down, but the laughter was worth the wait. Despite the reprieve communication brought, Mohammed would wake up from nightmares in the middle of the night and awaken his neighbor to tell him he needed to “talk.” He feared his new wife would divorce him because of political pressure, and his fears turned into resentment. He feared he would lose his sanity. He feared he would die in his small, concrete cell. His hope was waning. Months turned into years.

Two years after he was arrested, the prisoner in the cell adjacent to Mohammed, Dr. Adan Abacor (sp?), the very same doctor who had asked Mohammed to help him raise funds for the hospital, was released from his cell for a brief period. He was ushered into a room where he was allowed to pick one article of personal clothing to wear to switch out for the putrid jail clothes he had worn for a full two years. Rather than selecting a pair of pants or a shirt, Dr. Adan paused and asked if he might select a book instead. To his surprise, the guard acquiesced, and Dr. Adan selected Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, the largest book he could find. It is 800 pages long.

When Dr. Adan returned to his cell, he tapped to Mohammed that he had a book, and that he would “read” it to him. All 800 pages. 350,000 words. Over two million letters-each to be tapped out individually through a concrete wall. In preparation, Dr. Adan wrapped a strip of his bed sheet around his wrist to brace it for the knocks against the wall.

Every morning, for over two months, Dr. Adan tapped out lines from a novel about a 19^th century Russian noblewoman who left her husband to declare love for a soldier who stole her heart. Mohammed related his situation to that of Anna as he realized her ostracization from “society” and her heartache for her lover was similar to his imprisonment. Through the eyes of different characters and their perspectives, his heart for the difficulty his young wife must be facing in his absence also softened. He realized his wife must be suffering terribly and his self-pity turned into a newfound love and regard for his wife.

Eight years later, with the change of political winds, Mohammed was released. Still another 10 months after that, Mohammed was finally reunited with his wife, Isman (sp?), who had been living in a refugee camp in Germany. They had to re-learn to love one another, and the road was not easy, but Tolstoy and taps on the wall made that more possible.

Because the taps brought distraction. They brought insight. They brought perspective. Most of all-they brought hope. Radiolab -Rough Translation: Anna in Somalia

It took me a few days to arrive at this realization, but when it did, I was struck to have to acknowledge following:  hope is one of our greatest survival instincts.

Because if we haven’t hope, for this life or the next, what have we? How do we make it through the loss and heartache? Through the broken bodies and broken hearts and broken dreams? Through the mornings when the sunshine seems cruel and the nights we are too weary to sleep?

As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour? I face death every day—yes, just as surely as I boast about you in Christ Jesus our Lord. If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus with no more than human hopes, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”                  I Corinthians 15:30-32

What Paul is asking the Corinthians, essentially, is- “If this Jesus that I am risking my life for, daily, is not the real deal, then what is the point? Why am I choosing to suffer for a purpose greater than this life when I could eat, drink and be merry now?” Well, because Paul staked his life on the relationship he had with the savior because he knew it to be a mere foretaste of the glory that awaits (Please, Lord).

But sometimes I resent that Paul actually had a foretaste of said glory, that he heard the voice of the Lord, that the Lord actually told Ananias (who prayed that Saul would regain his sight after being struck blind) that, “Saul is my chosen instrument to take my message to the Gentiles and to kings, as well as to the people of Israel.”

…He next said, “And I will show him how much he must suffer for my name’s sake.” (Acts 9:15-16) But I don’t like that part as much. Does anyone?

So when we hope for good things, things we believe God has placed on our hearts, and that hope disappoints, what then?

I’m not trying to get “spiritual,” but as I write snipets of scripture come to mind and I have to dig a little to find the rest of the passage. In Romans, we are told, “Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory. We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.”

I don’t know about you — actually, I have a good inkling you feel the same– but sometimes I feel utterly exhausted of developing “endurance.” And I think my character is doing ok. And how is it that character strengthens our hope of salvation? And how do we know that this hope will not disappoint? I would be grateful for some audible words from the Holy Spirit as reassurance now and then…

What about hope in things of this life? The hope that I will, sooner than later, be seen and known and loved by a man who wants to commit his future to serving the Lord and serving others with me. With me. When will that hope not disappoint?

I suppose the reality is that hope that does not disappoint is based on Jesus.

And the hope that keeps disappointing is based on man. On men. On hoping for them (and myself) to be more like Jesus. And I disappoint others and am disappointed all the time. It is a reality that stings.

But maybe? Maybe character truly is what is developed when we persevere through the disappointment. Maybe patience is built into that character. Maybe self-control gets a bit of a leg up when we learn that our own attempts to affect change preemptively lead to more pain. Maybe our love runs deeper when we have experienced the break of shallow love. Maybe real joy rings truer when our bones know what it is to feel dry to the marrow. Maybe our kindness is more sincere, our gentleness more authentic, when we gain the perspective that everyone is secretly fighting their own battles, because we, ourselves, are constantly fighting hidden battles. Maybe, when we have experienced fake “good” we see right through it and learn to offer real good—the good that is harder to offer yet more easily affects change. And just maybe, when we have been wounded by unfaithfulness, be it from a friend or a lover, we learn what a gift it is to find one who will remain faithful. Maybe even WE grow in our capacity to remain faithful. To one another. To our faith. To the Jesus we hope in who does. not. disappoint.