Journeys of a Wandering Wordsmith
Journey with me on my blog!
I Can't Believe I Came From Her
My grandmother died. These words rattle around my heart like pinballs that won't settle, even a week beyond her funeral. And yet I wonder if the settling of these pinballs would be any better – the finality of their lodging into the belly of that machine, no longer kept alive by another flap of the paddles. Mayme Alice was the last of my grandparents to leave this earth, and undoubtedly the one with whom I grew closest.
2021: Wasted
I look back on this year and can't help but feel the wince of apparent wasted time. The lethargy of a lingering pandemic, the apathy of my creative soul, and the heavy, sometimes brutal work of ministry. Of holding less and less tightly to relationships – even if it means letting some go. My 34 years of life feels increasingly like a bell curve. Isolation and worthlessness filling the lowly cracks of my adolescence; a rising wave of optimism for my twenties, filled with new friends and adventures aplenty; and a steady decline of ambition into my mid-thirties.
Our New Alivelihood
In one sense, how convenient for a pandemic to occur in the year 2020-21 and not 1920-21: for many of us to work remotely and stay "connected," at least in some sense of the word. But I've felt the strain of not experiencing a dimension beyond screens on screens on screens. Experiencing the dimensions of humanity and creation interwoven again. Last week, I saw humans with hats and cameras and boots and smiles walking all around me from the blues of Lake Tahoe to the beige of Death Valley. Humans: exploring, basking. Like we were ever ago made to do, like we evermore shall do.
Do You See Me?
I did what You asked, I built what You told me to build, and it literally collapsed. So now what? Are You even there anymore? I feel the strain in Nathanael's voice. The wavering. A desperate pleading to be seen.
Beyond the Rot of This River
I've become more justice-minded in this year of isolation - to do something with this faith of mine. To borrow a vivid example from Ronald Rolheiser's "The Holy Longing": to not just retrieve dead bodies from the river, but to go upstream and find the source of all this death.
Another Dawn Closer
What a comfort. What an assurance. That no matter how much the last day or last four years have tested us, drained us, broken us . . . the sun rises anew. Gives us a new chance to absorb the light and also a new chance to shine it. Or as poet laureate, Amanda Gorman, perfectly put it at today's inauguration: "For there is always light if only we're brave enough to see it, if only we're brave enough to be it."
What Will I Have Done This Year?
Instead of saying, "What do I want to do this year?" try saying, "What will I have done this year?" It's a productivity tip I learned from Donald Miller, and I've never been more eager to implement this subtle mental tweak for 2021.
Can You Feel the Fatigue Tonight?
I'm ready for the election to be over. I'm ready for 2020 to be over. I'm ready for the main stage of my disease to be over. I'm ready for my tiredness over it all to be over. I heard something described on a podcast as "fatigue-fatigue," and boy do I feel that. Do you?
The God Who Won't Speak Back
Six months into a pandemic, three into an autoimmune disease, my outlook feels more than a little frantic right now. Constantly on my phone or laptop and craving some sense of connection or novelty. A momentary break in the loneliness, the stuckness, and the waiting. Sometimes the break comes. Often it doesn't. Often I am greeted with silence. Thick, dark. Empty.
This Disease from Up Top
It's unnerving not knowing where you are. Like I'm on the bottom level of a parking deck (garage) with no idea how long or far or deep or wide or harrowing this thing goes. Was this last month of infusions a definitive leap toward healing or a total wash? Do I move on to the next phase, or do I start over with something else?
Prisoner of Hope
Oh, the freedom to no longer hope in anything far off. To forget the future and, perhaps, attain a greater ability to live in this present. It hurts to hope, I've been learning (groaning) through adulthood. It hurts to hope for things, only to see them fall flat – or, worse, fall further.
'Twas the Night Before Treatment
Tomorrow morning, bright and early, I set out on a new quest. A new quest within an already new journey of the last couple months – this unforeseen journey with an autoimmune disease. Tomorrow begins this new quest for healing and recovery. Remission. Or so I hope.
Not So Wonderfully Made
I don't feel wonderfully made right now. My autoimmune disease makes me feel newly flawed. Like my Designer forgot to quality-check my body before He sent me to the womb, apparently knit with this broken strand.
He is Still For You
May we rest in this comfort: that we are cosmically not alone in our loneliness. The One who forged heaven and earth walked a harrowing road with nowhere to lay His head. He is with us. He is for us. All these centuries later. In times of peace. In times of famine. Even still.
Give Us Tomorrow's Barabbas
Our entire lives we have wanted to be more present. And now that we've been given nothing but buckets upon buckets of the present, we are kicking away the pails and saying, "Give us back our precious longings." The savior we have anticipated through countless yesterdays is finally here in our midst, and we cry for Barabbas.
Thank You for Being Brave
I'm writing this blog from home. And I never blog from home. Like ever. I have no other choice. Nothing is open. No late-night coffee shops and no early-night coffee shops either, for that matter. Coronavirus has violently disrupted every facet of normalcy. Society's. My own. Normal Monday evenings aren't normal Monday evenings anymore. And for God only knows how much longer.
Burn Up Your Psalms
I've participated sporadically in Lent over the last decade. Some years I think nothing of it; others, I've fasted from food or masturbation. I recalled this notion of psalm-writing. Of putting away my Bible and penning my own. As a writer, I feel it hold such an allure; as a human, too. I'd been wanting to connect with my Creator like this for many months. Why hadn't I? What's been holding me back?
Debt-Free
Before I knew it, YOB was no longer a hobby. It could no longer be treated that way – that is, if I wanted it to grow further. And I did. I knew I could pay off my Juke and be debt-free if I simply kept working at the boarding school through 2017 and maybe a little into 2018. Paying off a 4-year loan in a little over a year was absolutely doable. But that inner beckoning grew louder and stronger.
Mortality
It's there in my consciousness, a shadow sitting in the corner, unmoving. My mortality. Just . . . there. I will die one day, and this is how it's always been ordained. This is nothing new. Why has it taken me 30+ years to realize this – really realize this? More than ever, I want to make every moment matter. I want to live every day I've been given to live. It's such a crime for anyone to stay settled and never venture out. I cannot bear the thought for myself.
My Name on a Stone
I traveled to Pennsylvania for Christmas, my first trip there since Ahh died this summer. My grandfather's gravestone wasn't chiseled until just recently, so this was my first time visiting it. Seeing it. It was the first time I'd ever seen my name on a stone.