The Chain

9/6/11

A Taste Of Heaven

On Sunday I went to Newberg Christian Church and a friend and I were handed little pink Baskin' Robins taste tester spoons. When the sermon was told it was all about heaven and it's characteristics. The pastor began to talk about what it means to get little "tastes" of heaven: watching his sister preach to children in a third world country, watching his son by a bonfire. I left that day and didn't have much time to change and get my bike ready for a ride. I met up with an aquaintance and it turned out to be just him and I. So we took off down the highway onto a route I'd never been before. Down a country road with no shoulder, past open yellow fields, and overflowing rose gardens, past hanging hops farms, giant factories and dark skinned workers. I felt like I was in a foreign country surrounded by things I had never seen before and couldn't completely understand.

We found a clearing to the river with mexican workers playing their loud salsa music, carried our bikes down the rocky beach and leaned them up against the twigs and vines. He went and changed into a pair of shorts and I stripped down to my shorts and sports bra, and like a couple of kids from Huckleberry Finn he jumped in the river and I climbed out across a giant fallen tree to leap into the water. There was a moment in which I swam out to a thick tree limb submerged in the water, resting in the sun, and I sat down on it and let the sun warm my feet through the flowing icy water, while he was climbing around on the end of the tree trunk trying to figure out how to use it like a diving board, and I got a taste of heaven. It wasn't an "aha" moment, it wasn't filled with incomparable joy, but it was certainly freedom. There were no expectations, no anxiety, no discomfort; just the filtered sun, the chilly water, the smell of animal on the river, an adopted cousin, and beautiful moment.

We dried off in the sun and he skipped rocks while I only managed to spin them clumsitly into the water. We biked back in the baking sun, flying down the side of the road pushing ourselves hard, and making good, easy conversation. It was like a day in the Kingdom. And maybe I can imagine it someday; racing out the gates of the new Kingdom down golden side walks with a brother, finding new places, traveling great distances, pushing ourselves hard, jumping in rivers, and enjoying the never ending time.

It was a pink spoon day.

9/5/11

FAT

I did a survey to get credit for my psychology class and it was a survey completely geared toward women and their self image. I didn't think much of it before I took it-I realize that my culture puts pressure on me to look perfect and skinny and what have you; it's not a new concept to me. But the questions started out asking about my mother. What is her self image like? And I answered honestly, confirming that she wishes she were thinner, feels the need to diet, comments on women being beautiful when they're thin, and has been critical of my image, even if it's not my weight. And the questions about my father went the same way. And the questions about my close friends went the same way. And I got off my computer, walked into the kitchen, and there were two of my close friends for the next half hour on and off, one male and one female, complaining about how they're overweight, how they shouldn't be eating so much, and talking about the way other people look as well. Ah. The idea that my culture puts pressure on me took on a whole new meaning.

Every single person that has influenced my life growing up and sharing life with me now has been critical of body size. Critical of their own and critical of others. It surrounds every conversation about clothes, food, beauty, and excersize. People larger than me want to be thinner and people smaller than me want to be thinner. People smaller than me talk right in front of me about how they wish they were skinnier because they think the way they look is disgusting. They think "fat" people are disgusting. And it makes me look at myself and worry. Worry that every single person around me is determining their own worth by their body size, judging others according to theirs, and therefore making assumptions about me based on mine.

I look at myself, and I am okay with myself. But I interact with the world around me and feel fat. Feel "not good enough" because no one seems to think they look good enough so why would anyone think that I do? And there's no pretty conclusion here. Just the realization that I am surrounded by physically critical people that have been making me physically critical of myself since birth.

So to all of you people that look just fine
and are obsessed with criticizing your weight,
(Please) Shut up.
You're making me uncomfortable.
The oldest sculpture we have,
The oldest glimpse into the first culture,
which honors a woman's beauty
is this:


Where did those days go?
I want them back.

9/4/11

Mine

I am tired.
And I don't want to write.
I don't want to be personal.
And I don't want to give you a thing.
I don't want to give anyone anything.

I just want to write.
I want to write my soul.
And it's certainly not for you.
It's certainly not for anyone but me.
So that I can learn from my honesty.

And no one is going to learn anything tonight but me.

9/3/11

Forgiveness

I dreamt last night,
oh marvellous error,
that there were honeybees in my heart,
making honey out of my old failures.
-Antonio Machado

While sitting in Old Testament Literature it rushed upon me and crashed like a swelling wave. My story of rejection is God's story of rejection. The story of God's relationship with humans is a story of a broken relationship. He forms a relationship with his soul mates and they go behind his back and betray him, he's angry and he's hurt and he's tempted to completely throw them out forever. But he knows what's holy, and he wants to forgive them so he keeps his relationship with Noah and stays faithful to these people as they wrong him over and over again. He never stops pursuing the renewal of that relationship. He continues to help us, forgive us-which is a process, teach us what's right and how to relate to him-while still allowing us the free space to be ourselves and have our own personalities. I have gone through so many relationships with people that have ended in being wronged and rejected, and that is also the way it is with God. He is searching for that renewal with us. The woman searching for the coin: God searching not just for us but for the renewal and forgiveness of the relationship between each one of us. If God is that example to me, than how much more should I seek out doing the same with others? How much more should I seek out PEACE? The King forgives the servant and I the servant need to forgive my fellow servant.

It's language that I've heard before. All themes that have been presented to me in the past about renewal and forgiveness, but it was never so personal as when I realized that I am to God as all the people I've been battling to forgive are to me. God's relationship with me became much more real, and the state of our relationship and what him and I are working toward became much more clear.

God opens our eyes. He gives and he takes away in Good time.

9/2/11

I found that quote in the art gallery at our school at the new exhibition. I think God has placed honeybees in my heart that seemed like the turmoil of failed friendships and are now creating honey out of my past.

War

My heart was made very apparent to me recently. Something I couldn't explain occurred, and instead of digging deeper to the core of it, I placed the blame on who I believed was most likely in error. Because it made sense, because it's happened before, because it's in their character, because it gave me an outlet for the anger I already had stirring against them. And then the situation turned out to not be at all the way I thought and I realized that for all my intentions of forgiveness, the brutal and vulgar feelings I was carrying around in my heart, though carefully hidden, were still very much there. And I was mortified by the state of my heart, the state of my soul, and the depths to which my anger had ingrained itself. The war raging within me had never been more mortifyingly apparent.

There's a war of the flesh, and it rages between our desire for the holy and our desire for the righteous. I heard a sermon this last Sunday that was all about forgiveness and the process that it entails. The pastor used the acronym PEACE: Prayer Empathy Act Confess Example to describe the process of forgiveness: forgiveness defined as a renewal and a peace between two people, but it comes with wisdom as well. Wisdom that tells you when it's okay to be with someone and maintain a living relationship and when it's better to keep space and distance as acquaintances or nothing at all. In both cases, renewal and peace can still be worked. And in my life there are people in which tension, anger, judgment and revenge still boil in my intentions and part of my soul screams that I've been wronged and am entitled to cut them out, never say anything to them again, and think the worst of them. Another part of me wants to pray for them, empathize with why they do what they do, be honest about how I feel toward them and my desire to change, take ownership for my part of the dissension and remember the example that Jesus lived for me to follow. But it's a constant war. There are plenty of people that keep telling me that I'm sending mixed signals about what I want with people, that I just need to make up my mind, but it's war of the heart and it's not that simple. As the pastor at Newberg Christian said, "We need to act ourselves into a new way of thinking instead of think ourselves into a new way of acting." I want to take action toward forgiveness even if my other actions won't always line up with that.

The song "Skin & Bones" has been stuck in my head for days and seemed fitting, but I got it from this dance on SYTYCD and upon watching it back realized that the dance is quite fitting as well. It fits not only as an allusion of my struggle with myself but also as a representation of my struggle with others, the parts being interchangeable.

9/1/11

Long and short moments in one day.

A second can make all the difference. How long did it take me to get out of bed when I heard a loud knock at my door? How long did we stand there talking before I invited him? How long did I pursue searching half heartedly for his wallet in my house? How long did he choose to make small talk before leaving? What are the odds that after looking both ways before crossing a street a bike and a car would be trying to occupy the same space at that exact moment in time? Right after leaving my house today my friend got hit by a truck while on his bike, and came out of it with just a slightly damaged body and spirit. And it makes me ponder the second. Ponder the moment. What are the odds that we would have taken just the right amount of time at each and every step to place him in that position? I remember that during the whole exchange I felt pushed along, like I was on fast forward for some reason, as though time was trying to meet a deadline and I was being swelled forward as on a wave. I envision that each moment is a snap shot on a movie reel, each second is designated for a slow upward treck or a fast downward hurl as on a rollercoster track, and as I let the moments steep in the systematicaly fading now, I am made accutely aware of the feud bewteen coincidence and destiny.

*

When you're busy with things you love, it makes all the difference. But still there's something more important than loving what you do, and that is loving who you're with. There are plenty of people that I am surrounded by that are real friends to me. But there are plenty of real friends that I am surrounded by that, though they have taught me the real definition of unconditional patience, loyalty, and forgiveness, are not my soul mates. They are not the kind of people that stop breathing for the same things as me, but the kind of people in which rolled eyes, confused furrowed brows, and laughing alone are common. So I've been lonely, but have also found immeasurable comfort in the presence of another soul typing away next to me, slipping in and out of long silences and short chatter late into the night, night after night.

8/31/11