Holy the Firm, pp. 60-62

His disciples asked Christ about a roadside beggar who had been blind from birth, "Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" And Christ, who spat on the ground, made a mud of his spittle and clay, plastered the mud over the man's eyes, and gave him sight, answered, "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be manifest in him."


Really? If we take this answer to refer to the affliction itself--and not the subsequent cure--as "God's works made manifest," then we have, along with "Not as the world gives do I give unto you," two meager, baffling, and infuriating answer to one of the few questions worth asking, to wit, What in the Sam Hill is going on here?

The works of God made manifest? Do we really need more victims to remind us that we're victims? Is this some sort of parade for which a conquering army shines up its terrible guns and rolls them up and down the streets for people to see? Do we need blind men stumbling about, and little flamefaced children, to remind us what God can--and will--do? ...

Yes, in fact, we do. We do need reminding, not of what God can do, but what he cannot do, or will not, which is to catch time in its free fall and stick a nickel's worth of sense into our days. And we need reminding of what time can do, must only do; churn out enormity at random and beat it, with God's blessing, into our heads: that we are created, created, sojourners in a land we did not make, a land with no meaning of itself and no meaning we can make for it alone. 

Who are we do demand explanations of God? (And what monsters of perfection should we be if we did not?) ...

--

I think I finally get it, Annie.

Life updates, August 2010

I haven't blogged to just blog in a while. I've written a lot about PLC; I've written a few creative pieces, but I haven't just blogged.

Granted, most of the time I blog I have some muse to inspire me. I'm muse-less. I'm reading an essay by Ray Bradbury about "feeding and caring for your Muse," but it hasn't helped. I'll be back to school soon and will have plenty to write about. So, no worries. (Were you worried?)

But, stuff has been going on, so I'll update you.

Updates:

1. I'm in America. Yes, I'm adjusting well. I've spent 20 years and two months in America; two months away isn't going to do much difference. I wish it did, sort of. I wish I viewed my life completely differently (but for the better) now that I'm home. I wish I was more thankful for my freedoms. I wish I spent my money on the children in Iraq and not on Old Crown coffee.

2. I have a boyfriend. For those of you who don't know the story, Nate and I started talking when I was in Iraq - the first week I was there, actually. We had a few classes together at IWU. (Fun fact: one of my first memories of Nate was when he beat me in Scrabble. Bah!) We're "official" now, and have been for 3 1/2 weeks.

3. I'm going back to IWU soon. I don't know the exact date, but I'm heading back early for Sojourn workshops. I am the managing editor this year (second in charge, I guess), so I get to plan said workshops. It's kind of fun. But also extremely stressful and hectic and frustrating.

4. I have a million half-read books on my bedside table. I started reading a few books in Iraq and in transit (Jayber Crow, Teaching a Stone to Talk) and started a few more now that I'm home (The Zen in the Art of Writing, The Copy-Editing and Headline Handbook), but I've only finished a few this summer. I'm disappointed in myself. Last summer, 19 books. This summer, 3.

5. I was in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette this morning. I was interviewed about my internship. You should read it, then feel led to donate to PLC and #RemedyMission.

Georgia peach

"We are most deeply asleep at the switch when we fancy we control any switches at all. We sleep to time's hurdy-gurdy; we wake, if we ever wake, to the silence of God." Annie Dillard

--

I am supposed to be in Istanbul right now. So for those of you wanting a recap of my past day (and a look into my next few days) here it is.

--

My flight from Indianapolis was delayed because of storms in Atlanta, but I board the flight only 45 minutes later than scheduled and all was well. My window seat is nice. I get to look out on the Neighborhood of Make Believe, or what seemed to be, with the tiny cars and all. And I read.

“That’s a great book,” says the woman next to me, who looks like Diane Keaton.

Jayber Crow. “Yeah! I’ve read half of it already, but it’s been a while so I thought I’d start from the beginning.” For some reason I tell strangers more than they need to know, or care to know. I spend the rest of the flight trying to guess her profession. (English education.)

When we approach Atlanta, the captain announces that the storms would keep us from landing. We hover over the airport for a while (I don’t know if planes really hover; I just imagine it like that) then fly 180 miles west to Huntsville, Alabama where we sit. On the plane. For over an hour.

Meanwhile I'm sending text messages to Daniel, another intern, who's at the Atlanta airport waiting for our flight. He keeps me updated on delays. I tell him I think I'll make it back just in time; he tells me the captain announced that they're waiting for our plane to get in before taking off.

We make it to Atlanta by about 5:00. The captain on my plane asks for only those who needed to catch flights to get up and get off. Everyone gets up and gets off. I’m in the back of the plane. I squeeze in front of Diane Keaton and shuffle off the plane and begin looking for Gate T3. Other side of the airport? Awesome. I run. (Power walk.) I huff and puff all the way across Atlanta's airport only to find out that I just missed the flight.

Breathe, girl. In and out. In and out.

I wait in line to get my flight changed. Turns out the next flight isn't until 4:20 p.m. the next day.

[I'll fast forward through my minor freak out, eating dinner, paying $10 for Internet access and getting a call from Jessica who asks me to fly in a day later even so I can arrive with Lydia, another intern.]

I wait in that long line again to talk to Draga, the Delta exec. I talked to the first time I was in this line. The one who told me that I couldn't get on a flight until Saturday evening.

Me: Is it okay if I fly in a day later?

Draga: No, we can't do that.

Me: But the people I'm meeting can't pick me up any earlier.

Draga: Sigh. Talk to her. (Points to woman next to her.)

After this woman finishes talking to the most adorable elderly couple, who speak only Italian, I ask if I can move my flights back a day.

Woman: Of course you can. (Click-click-click of her computer.)

Me: And can I get a hotel for tonight?

Woman: Yes. It will be free for tonight, but will cost you tomorrow. You'll have to ride back on the shuttle to get another voucher.

Me: Okay. Thank you. And how do I get to the shuttle?

Woman: I'll take you there myself.

Nicest woman ever. At least compared to Draga.

I wait outside for my shuttle. Finally it hits me that I'm in Georgia - what a pretty state. I remember thinking that as we flew above it a few hours before. The sky is a pinkish blue color now; the weather is 70 degrees and breezy. I get into my shuttle and daydream about perusing the town for a cute coffee shop.

The driver asks where I'm headed - Days Inn. He calls me Days Inn Girl the rest of the trip. I tip him two dollars because I like my new nickname.

--

I spend the rest of the night either laughing on the phone with Molly or sobbing on the phone with my mom. I am one emotional cookie. We were having issues changing my flight out of Istanbul. But $600 later, we get it figured out.

--

Earlier this week I was thinking about the book of Job and how maybe we try to find hidden truths within it, truths that aren't really there. We take verses out of context; we try to figure out what God means about this and if it justifies that. But if we look too deep, if we look too hard at the details, we might miss the big picture.

It's a simple story: Job has it rough, but things end up okay.

Maybe the conversation between Satan and God was metaphorical. Maybe Satan didn't do the taking away; maybe life happened. And maybe Job thought he had everything under control and he realized he didn't. Maybe God needed to talk some sense into Job in the end, to call him out in the middle of the storm - in the middle of the chaos - to say, "Job. You're not a god. You can't control everything. Let go and trust me."

I'm not saying that the story isn't literal - I don't want to cause a theological debate. But if we look at the story of Job in its purest form, we see a guy who's met conflict, didn't handle it right, but still made it through in the end.

I see myself like him.

What happens to Job will happen to me. I have experienced conflict, yes. I've handled it wrong too. But I'm going to be okay.

So far, so good.

Iraq, here I come. 

(Just later than expected.)

Lauren

*Gulp*

In 10 days I'll be up in the air.

People keep asking me if I'm nervous. I'm not nervous; I'm scared out of my wits.

I have never left the country.
I have never flown alone.
I am never alone.
Oh God, I'm never alone.
Can I handle being alone in a foreign country?
Can I handle being a grown-up?

Back in December this sounded like a splendid idea - like a daydream. It's so real now. I will be in Iraq in 11 days. I will be where American troops fought. I'll be where Shane Claiborne traveled in 2003. I'll be in the ancient Mesopotamia, the land of Babylon, near the Garden of Eden.

Holy crap.

I'm excited. I'm not changing my mind or anything. It's just ... real. Not a lot of things I dream up become real. Like that year I really wanted to be on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno - never happened.

What's worse: I cannot be comfortable. I can't even take comfort that everything's been taken care of - because it hasn't. IWU still needs to approve my loan and CitiBank still needs to disburse it. I need a whole lot of money in just 10 days. Oh God, I'm scared. Can you make this happen?

--

God knows what he's doing - I've been signing my emails like that. I solicit your prayers, dear saints in Christ. I can't do it without God; I can't do it without all of you.

--

There is no one but us. There is no one to send, nor a clean hand, nor a pure heart on the face of the earth, nor in the earth, but only us, a generation comforting ourselves with the notion that we have come at an awkward time, that our innocent fathers are all dead--as if innocence had ever been--and our children busy and troubled, and we ourselves unfit, not yet ready, having each of us chosen wrongly, made a false start, failed, yielded to impulse and the tangled comfort of pleasures, and grown exhausted, unable to seek the thread, weak, and involved. But there is not one but us. There never has been.


Here I am, LORD. Send me.




Ezekiel

Another one of those days.

[[Disclaimer: If you have anything to do, don't read this blog. I just wrote what I felt and sometimes what I feel is nonsense. But if you want to anyway, feel free.]]

Well, how do I begin?

My car... augh, someone backed into it... now it has a huge dent. (Yuck) Today has just been one of those days--not horrible (I mean, the night's still young n' all) but not exceptionally great. I just feel blah.

I feel like I have so many feelings inside of me that I haven't really taken care of. Instead I have just suppressed them (they're still inside of me) and I don't really know what I'm going to do when they're unleashed.

Two and a half months ago I ended a crush on a guy. But how do you just end a crush without the feelings returning? I read something in Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek that reminded me of this feeling in some way:

"...[A]s you look at a still-beautiful face belonging to a person who was once your lover in another country years ago: with fond nostalgia, and recognition, but not real feeling save a secret astonishment that you are strangers." [80]

And maybe this feeling isn't describing that "ex-crush" but a certain ex-boyfriend whose heart I mistreated. We are strangers. I guess that the "just friends" philosophy isn't much of reality. Oh, I wish it were.

My heart aches. There are so many guys that I am better off befriending than dating. I regret dating Austin for that, uh, week and a half, just because it put a rift in our relationship. I talked to Austin like I had talked to no one before. Who can hold conversations for six hours and twenty minutes without getting bored?

I'm a lucky girl. I have great guys in my life (my brothers!) and an awesome best friend. I just wish that I didn't take people for granted. That I just respected them and accepted them as who they were; that I loved them the agape way.

I guess my biggest fear right now is awakening feelings of hostility that I felt a year ago (toward my best friends) or unhealthy crushing over an unattainable guy... things that I thought by faith I had overcome. But have I? Or did I use temporary will-power?

Was it all for nothing?

I fear I'm going to wake up mad at my best friend for hating "him" or let myself crush over apple (oh geez, I know). I fear that what I thought was overcome through my relationship with God was just... covered with a bandaid.

The wound isn't going to heal without exposing it.

So here I am. I'm not really that bad. I'm just pensive. Just, really pensive.

Lauren

kill the inconvenient truth

[Another attempt to find myself politically. Here's to being a left-winger. *Cheers!*]

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I'm on my dad's 2000 IBM PC. Imagine what it was like to surf the web 8 years ago. Yes, it's that bad. My dad, thanks to some neighbors who are tech-savvy, has upgraded to wireless internet. But still, it took about 2 minutes for Firefox to load. No kidding.

Nevertheless, I decided to observe my family as Annie Dillard might, with a careful and thoughtful eye. I guess I realized a few double standards--I'm not shocked or anything--but it just interested me. I will share those observations with you. (In light of Annie Dillard... the author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek... my least favorite book at the time.)

My family is very conservative. Not like... Luke or Adam conservative (uh, make your own inferences off of that) but still, strong Lutherans. My dad's sister-in-law is probably what I would call a Neo-Lutheran (not like old-fashioned Lutheran, but still conservative).

But my sister and I are more on the left-wing side. [Me? Not as much as her, but let me lump into her group for the time being.]

Okay, back to the story.

They are conservative, which is fine. I like conservatism. I believe in tradition, the occasional legalism when need be. (Again, I'm making unnecessary loopholes here.) BUT when conservatism meets coldheartedness, I get concerned.

And my family is really nice. My aunt, the "Neo-Lutheran," is one of my favorite people. But, when liberal ideas are mentioned there are walls put up.

I hate the word tolerance because it gets such a bad rep. I don't believe you should tolerate sin in your life. BUT, I think you should tolerate, or rather, accept other's beliefs or ideals.

I heard a guy speak at an outdoor concert explaining how evolution was a delusional concept and that anyone thinking differently should be burned at the stake. He said that evolutionists are "ignorant" and according to him ignorant means "stupid." (And He said that. I quote, "People who believe in evolution are stupid." I was fuming.)

Stupid? Okay... Mr. Creationist, how's this for a try, what if we decided that instead of saying all people who are ignorant are stupid, let's say it is stupid to be ignorant about subjects and judge them anyway.

Did Mr. Creationist even study evolution? Does he not know that evolution IS real? (Microevolution, which has to exist if you believe in Noah's ark!)

My point is this: if my conservative family can judge liberals without knowing them and Creationists can judge evolution without truly studying it, how are we serving Christ?

This is no longer a political debate, but a Christian one. How is our bigotry showing people the Freedom Christ offers? It's not.

Hullo, did Jesus sit with his twelve at Seder and discuss why Caesar promoted idol worshiping? Did He sit around arguing against radical politicians or even vent about those "sinful Samaritans" over yonder? No. He loved.

And not only that (as if it weren't enough) He didn't even DISCUSS politics (not even once!) He told the story of the good Samaritan, and didn't even judge the woman at the well. "Give Caesar what is Caesar's...."

We like to remain ignorant about other people's beliefs and it builds up walls. You don't have to sell your Christian beliefs for say, Islam, just because you read the Qur'an.

It bugs me how quick people are to judge other people based off of their beliefs. I don't want to be hated because I'm a Christian. (yes, I know that will happen regardless). I don't want to be judged because I believe homosexuals should be allowed to get married.

I'll only say this once, I promise, DON'T HATE HILLARY CLINTON BECAUSE SHE IS A WOMAN AND BECAUSE SHE ENDORSES PRO-CHOICE.

For crying out loud! Jesus loves her too!

People shouldn't be judged for their beliefs (their faith in God or lack thereof) or their political party (donkeys or elephants) or anything else.

And now I'm ranting.

It's Thanksgiving: learn to love. Forget about what people believe. Forget about whether they think its okay to have sex before marriage or if they go to church every Sunday or read their Bible or vote Ron Paul or Obama.

Love them all.

Show mercy.

Speak with love.

Oh, I'm trying not to rant...,

Ezekiel