Valley of the Shadow

A friend of mine has been walking through a great darkness, for longer than expected and with no sign of reprieve; some days the darkness actually seems to expand and deepen, yawning ahead in terrible monotony.  

So I have been reading the Psalms with a cynic sitting on my shoulder that digs its sharp little claws into my skin when the psalmists exclaim over God's comfort, nearness, mercy: 

"I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry"

(maybe You haven't heard me yet?)

"For I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God"

(but how do we praise what we can't find?)

"He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes who were too strong for me"

(Maybe You just haven't gotten to my friend yet, is she next on the list?)

Why, when we need the solace of the Almighty most, do we seem to walk alone through the valley of the shadow of death?

Rabbi Harold Kushner came up with the conclusion that God in fact is impotent, in Why Bad Things Happen to Good People.  That solution doesn't sit well with me.  Scratch that off the list. 

Another option is that God perhaps removes himself purposely, that we might learn to have faith.  To a degree, it is certainly evident that we are purified and refined by suffering.  However, I detest the idea that God might withhold Himself in our time of need just so we might toughen up.  (Is that crass?  There is probably some value to this line of thinking, but I still don't like it.) 

Or perhaps it is our fault.  Perhaps like the hardened Israelites, we fail to have eyes that see and ears that ear; we do not recognize the manna, the pillar of fire, the water from the rock.  This has some merit.  Humans have a history of blindness. 

But still.  When this friend tells me that faith seems inadequate to answer the deep questions of life and that God seems far away when she needs Him most, do I tell her it is her fault?  Do I tell her God is teaching her a lesson? Do I tell her He actually cannot do anything to help?

I doubt Brother Lawrence intended his book title to help me answer my questions, but nonetheless, Practicing the Presence of God seems an apt description of how we might approach our suffering.  If I take God's Word, written and Incarnate, seriously, then I must believe God is with us in the valley.  If I believe that He was born as a man, crucified and resurrected, defeating sin, death and the devil... well, then.  He is certainly there amidst the shadows.  I am borrowing from Karl Barth when I say I think there is an objective Truth that God is near, even while we somehow subjectively experience His absence.  So we practice.  We practice His presence.  We practice trusting.  We resolutely cling to God-With-Us even though our circumstances indicate otherwise.  

Rainer Maria Rilke writes in summary better than I can.  

"So you must not be frightened, dear Mr. Kappus, if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness like light and cloud-shadows, passes over your hands and over all you do [...]  You must be patient as a sick man and confident as one who is becoming well, for perhaps you are both."

-Letters to a Young Poet

Glory

"Christ has conquered! Glory fills you!

Christ our King is risen, Alleluia."

It is hard to believe "Glory fills you!" when you have coffee breath, a dirty ponytail, and are wearing green cutoff sweats and linty wool socks, as I was the morning I read this from my dog-eared copy of Celtic daily prayers.  But no matter what you are wearing, it is hard hard hard to believe the weighty beauty of Christ's resurrected glory dwells within us.  Harder, I would contest, than accepting the apparent truth that we are as dirty and linty as our clothes indicate, and sorrowful and mean and weary to boot.  

How difficult is it to recount stories of our failure?  For that matter, how difficult is it to tell the story of humanity's failure?  I think it is even trendy nowadays to talk about how shitty we all are. Excuse the language, but I did use the word purposely, because it reflects a blase, comfortable colloquialism toward our depravity.  We are used to depravity, because it presents itself to our senses every minute and every day, such that many agree with the famous summation of human existence written by Thomas Hobbes: it is, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."  (Ever the optimist, that Thomas Hobbes.)

What I am saying is this: it is more complex to understand oneself as an object of grace, a child of resurrection, a creature of glory.  It contradicts our experience.  It requires powerful imagination because it concerns an often-unseen reality.  Accounts of people committing acts of great mercy or justice or loveliness seem rare.  And if it is hard to see beauty in humanity collectively, I think it might be most difficult of all to see it in myself.  I know better than anyone how selfish and small and blind and hardened I can be.  Back to the linty wool socks. "Christ's glory fills me?  You must be joking.  Can you see my socks?"  I am faced with the crucial choice of living in the one-dimensional truth of my dirtiness, or living in multi-faceted tension as one who is filled with squalor and splendor, shame and glory, death and life.  

But mostly life.  After all, it is the Life of God Himself that fills you and I, and if that isn't a trump card I don't know what is.  

Tree Hugger

Is there any thing more patient than a tree?

I have been taking coffee, book, journal and myself to the park across the street as often as possible, sitting at the roots of an old maple hoping that I might absorb its steadfast elegance by some miraculous osmosis.  (The osmosis hasn't worked.  I have, however, gotten a crick in my neck from craning upward to watch the wind play in the leaves, and grass stuck to my sandals and shorts.) 

The glory of a tree is its long memory.  By that I mean the way it bends and deepens over the years, persevering in its slow growth through all kinds of weather, drought, and trauma.  Joy, too, I suppose.  I imagine the tree holding within itself memories of the last storm or the last branch lopped off, so that it doesn't lose heart when the wind starts howling but instead keeps pushing inch by inch into the earth.  

In my current transience and impatience, I resemble something more like a dandelion than a tree: sprouting up when the sun shines and keeling over when the temperature drops, hasty, green and trigger-happy.  Dandelions rarely survive a good frost, much less an entire winter.  Compare this with the old maple who has the wisdom of two hundred weathered storms!  What can shake her?  She is drinking from deep, ancient veins of water far below the frenzied surface.  Do not blame me, then, for asking to borrow from this weathered soul.  In her is the long-suffering Hope of her Maker.  

Blessed is the one who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked [...]

but whose delight is in the law of the Lord

He is like a tree planted by streams of water, 

which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither

Psalm 1 

Receiving, or An Argument for Commuting by Bike

 I agree with the maxim, "Tis more blessed to give than to receive," but for what are assuredly selfish reasons, namely that I would rather be in the empowered position of giving.  Receiving is humble.  

So when I found myself with a dead car and dead battery this morning on the side of the road, I first shuffled through my wallet in order to find my AAA member card, because I figured if I was going to need help I may as well get it from professional helpers, people from whom I would not mind receiving aid.   But I was parked on the side of a residential road, surrounded by doors on which I might knock...around the corner from shops to which I could go... therefore I sat like a bump on a log in my car.  I met the eyes of people driving by, my hood popped open, and dared them to decide to stop.  They didn't.  Small wonder. 

A red Taurus idled past (lost? looking for parking?) and I decided to follow another maxim, "the Lord helps those who help themselves."  I flagged down The Red Taurus.   Krista --aka Good Samaritan-- had the kindness to step out of her car and lend her time and jumper cables, and I was soon able to be on my way.  

Krista seemed honestly pleased to stop and help. Really, I mean, she smiled the whole time and it wasn't because I was smiling at her: I was too busy swearing silently at my car.  It made me think that the neat thing about being in a position of receiving is its reflexive quality; that is, the Giver may also be the Receiver.  In this scenario, though she was technically extending me the gift of time, cables, and a willing attitude, Krista was given the gift of being invaluable to another human being at a particular moment in time.  The outcome of my day depended on her presence in my life.  Krista was made very important. 

A reluctance to receive, then, may in fact be an insult to those around me, sending the message that I am not willing to let them play an important role in my life.  It becomes a matter of control, a question whether or not I have the humility to surrender the reins when it becomes clear I am not enough in and of myself?  Mostly no, I do not.  

C'est la vie.  Back to where I started.  Still, I am grateful to the small kindness of another human and the also small opportunity to practice the posture of receiving.  

Fair Game?

There is a forty-something year old man who comes into my store and acts like junior high boy. That is, he makes dirty jokes, comments on my appearance, tells co-workers he "has a thing for me", tells ME he comes to the store to see me, and then stands by the espresso bar during mid-morning rush and either watches me or tries to make conversation. 

That's sexual harassment, homes.  

I simultaneously feel angry, belittled, and nervous.  Angry because I am a captive audience; he's in my work place where I am stuck behind register or coffee bar.  Belittled because his attention is so unwanted and insensitive that I feel shrunken-- I want to take up less space for him to notice.  And nervous because I am not sure what he will say or do next. 

I am a free, adult woman, and this creep has rendered me fair game for whatever fantasies about nice, blond baristas keep him company at night.  I didn't sign up for the job, but I am nonetheless a participant, even if unwilling.  

On the flip side, I have yet to tell him off.  He has caught me off guard with his innuendo and his pointed interest.  And I am perpetually nice.  It's a bad habit: I am used to seeing sheep and have trouble recognizing a wolf in disguise.  Maybe in someway I have let myself be victimized by not taking a firm stand?  I can either let my co-workers and manager take care of my business while I cower in the corner, or I can muster up my best F-off speech and angry eyes and stand up for myself, refusing to be a part of his perversion.  

I don't want to play into a role that has been played many times before: helpless, harassed female.  That still leaves him in the position of power.  I want to turn the tables and decide whether or not I am an object of a middle-aged man's sexual desire.  I choose NOT.  And when I tell him to start behaving or get lost, I will top it off with a customer-appropriate smile and a damn good cup of coffee thankyouverymuch.  

  

The Bachelorette Pad

Its true-- Janelle and I have a new Bachelorette Pad.  

Here's the low down on the apartment in numbers: 

Ikea couches: 1

Completed bottles of wine: 4

New scratches in the hardwood floor: 1

Bags of tortilla chips consumed: 2

Loud house parties next door that keep us awake: 2

Times Janelle has glued her fingers together with wood stain: 1

That is not a comprehensive list. 

Though The Move for me has been within the same city, I nonetheless find myself in the throes of transitional angst (big surprise, right??)  It takes 30 minutes longer to get to work than before, and the number of new expenses are staggering.   It is hot hot hot when bed time comes because our third and top floor apartment soaks up sun all day for a cumulative effect similar to an oven.  The smells and sounds and patterns are unfamiliar. I yearn for the day when I stagger into the kitchen for morning coffee and grind/brew/pour like on automatic, without fumbling for beans, outlets or counter space. 

Still, this place has hints of Home forming in it.  Already I like the way evening light filters in the northwest windows.  Our gerbera daisies seem comfortable on the windowsill.  The floors creak gently to welcome me back from work.  We are fortunate for this little apartment, and for the chance to begin a new life chapter. (And will keep the Trader Joe's wine flowing until we feel sane again.) 

Old Stuff

I cracked open my journal from January 2008, the month I traveled to South Africa.  I have not thought about the trip in over a year; I think I was anxious to move on from it.  Today, though, I felt a desire to remember what I was thinking during those bewildering few weeks. The eclectic nature of the following 'snapshots' is a very truthful reflection of my experience of contrast throughout the entire country.  Here goes. 

Babes

 Today I sat with a woman dying of AIDS. Her name was Babes, and her smile was like a crescent moon in an otherwise diminished face. Babes asked me questions even though the process of forming words seemed laborious.  She talked more than I did, because finding language in my brain was like dipping a bucket in a dry well.  

 I perched like a nervous bird on her bed, awkward because of my backpack and because of the dirty sheets, and I am embarrassed to say that the first thing I thought as she reached for my hand was, "What if I have an open cut where the virus could creep in?"  (the answer was yes and no: yes, a small cut on my pointer finger, and no, her hands were eerily clean and elegant.)  

It felt like acting on television.  Was everyone in the room watching the white woman crouch over the dying coloured one?  My colleagues receded into the background. Visitors and nurses watched silent as gravestones.

Her fragility was luminous. Maybe people close to death get a little extra beauty, or maybe beauty ordinarily hidden by the trappings of daily life shines more clearly because it is all that is left?  Either way, Babes is (though now she is probably a "was") beautiful in the truest sense. 

How does beauty accompany death?

Cranky

I don't want to go back to the home stay where I feel awkward and cramped. I don't want to make conversation with our hosts. I want my bed and my blanket and to make my own food and not be around any people. I don't want to eat whatever the hell it is Touma is making.  I am tired of meat I don't recognize.   

I want an apple. 

Today I am sick of South Africa. 

African Hope

 The world is a cold gray ember (I read yesterday in Gilead) that God blows into a flame which flares and burns for a moment, or a day, or a lifetime, and then dies leaving no sign that it was ever related to fire.  But the flame does come, and it takes courage both to witness the transfiguration and to hope for another. 

Perhaps in Africa I need more hope, not less.  

I have been reading in Isaiah and the passages of restoration and redemption are almost painful for all that they seem so unfulfilled.  How does the person selling ostrich feathers and beads for a living interpret the rich promises of safety and blessing?  Was Isaiah a false prophet?  Or, for the more sophisticated, a prophet writing from specific context and history?  Or, did he dream of a future reality still undisclosed?  

Or maybe their lives have a richness that I in my relative wealth and busyness cannot fathom.  

Maybe hope has nothing to do with apparent reality.  

Naughty Monkeys

Andi left her window open and the monkeys got in.  They got the marshmallows and the instant coffee and left sticky, caffeinated fingerprints on her wall.  "Naughty monkeys," said Zama. "Damn rodents," said Andi.