Re-entry

Today I sit. I sit quietly in the corner of the Starbucks in Kroger, where people smile at me, where they speak English, where the old folks gather to chat over coffee.

Today I observe what’s going on around me. Price is right is on TV, circles of old friends laugh together, I can flush toilet paper, I can understand what I read. Today I have no car, no phone number, no objectives I must accomplish, nothing I must see.

So today I think. I write. I reflect. And maybe I’ll do some work somewhere in the middle.

It still feels like a dream. It still feels surreal. I’m in America. In the last year I’ve been around the world, and now I’m really moving back in with my parents. To Indiana. In Leo.

A year isn’t that long, but at my age, it’s a significant portion of the song I’ve begun singing, of the life I’ve begun living. And in that year I’ve been around the world twice, been to 4 countries and made a home in one where I started a new life. I’ve been immersed in an unfamiliar culture, struggled to learn the language with no teacher, lived outside what’s familiar, been thrown into the unknown, built relationships I will always treasure, seen and experienced so many things that I fear soon I’ll no longer remember.

Yet I know that’s not true. I may be young, but in the few years I’ve lived I’ve learned that things like this affect you, shape you, change you. And those changes aren’t fully realized for quite some time and usually manifest themselves in unexpected ways, through what you say or the things you do. And quite often the one who recognizes them is not you.

For I have been slowly changing over the last year. Well, over the last 22.

Like a frog put in warm water that’s slowly turned up to a boil, I don’t realize, I can’t recognize the ways I’ve changed, the slight nuances in thinking, the ways I’m not the same. On the other hand, those who I haven’t seen in quite some time are like the frog who is dropped into a pot of scalding hot brine. They immediately notice that something’s not right. That something’s different. And they may fight to jump out. The change is uncomfortable. It’s new. It’s not what they’re used to or what they knew to be true.

Now here’s where the analogy breaks down, falls apart, ceases to be the case: The boiling water can kill, both the frog who is oblivious and the one who sees the heat as obvious. Yet the transformations that happen over a period of time are not fatal, not dangerous, and can actually be something sublime.

I’m experienced enough to recognize that I’m not who I was when I left, and neither are you. So as I work through processing what has happened in the last year, I ask for your patience, for your grace, for a listening ear that truly cares.

I may become frustrated with the way things are here, may become overwhelmed by what’s around me and the things I hear. I may become impatient with the lack of care for the larger world out there. I may judge based on my experiences in the last year. I may do all these things, but know it’s not how I want to respond. It’s not the reaction I hope to embody.

But I am human and I don’t fully understand myself now. I don’t recognize the transformation in myself, and the shock at times may leave me not knowing what to think.

So I ask for you patience and pray for grace for myself as I try to understand life as I know it now. Bear with me, please.

And to help me gain insight on what’s happened inside me, I hope to write one story a week about those I’ve had the pleasure to meet and the things I’ve seen.

I will say right now, I know full well the world doesn’t revolve around me, and I never want to act like it does, but in this season I want to recognize and internalize as much as I can from my time away. I don’t want these lessons, these experiences, these changes to go to waste.  

A Threat or a Joy?

The sweetness of the storm.

I turn on the TV and see the news forewarning of the arrival of the storm.

A storm with the power to destroy, one fierce and wild, whipping branches like a little boy’s toys.

A storm whose thunder screams and lightning blinds, whose droplets fall like a skydiver with a fury that can’t be defined

A storm that could wreak havoc and leave things in ruins, yet a storm that’s so powerful that while pondering it something inside me begins to move.

This storm, it may be intense and angry, but without it, where would we be?

Our parched land cries out for a drink -that this stagnancy will end, yearning for its cracking surface to be softened, longing to be able to produce life once again.

Under the suns warm glow it’s comfortable, no need to fear, no worry about what’s to come, oh, how kind indeed is that sun.

Yet there is cause for worry.

A land fed only by sun and lacking water quickly becomes a wasteland, a land wanting of green and life and the presence a deep system of roots.

So as we prepare for the coming of this storm, the torrent that threatens to rip and tear through our land, some may run for shelter, doing anything to pretend it isn’t there.

But I rejoice.

I rejoice in the life that this storm will bring.

I rejoice in the painful awakening. The vulnerability, the fragility. This joyful occasion.

I rejoice because I don’t see an enemy in the storm. No, I see a deep love for me that sees and knows my needs and wishes the best for me, providing opportunity for growth. For deepening.

I see the softening of this hard heart, the melting of the outer shell, the revealing of a skeleton so that it can be fleshed out once again. So that it can be given substance, a real self, one fed by both fire and water, by sun and storm. A wanderer, no longer forlorn, who continues on the path to her true self.

So while some are terrified, some become angry, some run and hide-

I rejoice in the storm, and the sweetness and opportunity that stand right by his side.

The Quilt.

It’s amazing how much your eyes grow when you go out of your comfort zone and into the unknown to test out the visibility you currently possess. It’s humbling how big the world is and how we’ve only previously seen a tiny corner of what IS the quilt. The quilt made up of many different patterns, many different stitches, many different colors. A quilt that looks different in each square, and even within each square is a diversity that is almost inexplicable with the words we know. The language we speak. Yet maybe the adequate words are found in the language of that square, or the parts that make it whole.

If your eyes focus on one little piece you can only truly see that piece. And I use truly loosely. But if you have no sense, no perception, pay no attention that the quilt is so much vaster than what your tiny eyes see, you’ll miss the beauty, the vivacity contained throughout the whole.

Yet it’s not just taking a few steps back and getting a quick overview of the whole, although that is better than doing nothing at all. It’s not comparing every single square to the one you know, to the place where you seem to understand. It’s not writing off the other squares as dull or wrong because they don’t match your familiar pattern. It’s not perusing the patters just to say you did.

It’s about learning. Growing. Seeing and experiencing. Suspending judgment and making connections. It’s about noticing the intricacies found hidden within each picture, each square, each color. It’s about learning the pattern, recreating it, yet not being trapped by it. And when you’re in their square, not attempting to alter the picture to fit your perceived ideal.

And in the middle or on the back of the quilt is the lining or the backing. One piece that connects the whole, one piece that unifies, giving shape to the basic human needs, the commonality within it all. And the stitches through each square are the core characteristics of the people. Something that knits them together within the pattern of the whole.

For if there wasn’t a pattern, it would be dry, it would be dull, it wouldn’t be a quilt at all. A blanket covers things and aids with comfortability. A quilt does all that, but at the same time is made to be marveled at.

And, an interesting fact, the quilt is made the by two hands of the same being, not to be disapproved because of the diversity, but so that the intricate uniqueness can be truly seen.

Buenas Noches Mexico

So broken, so torn, so angry and confused.

These men are human, just like me and you, full of anguish from their pasts and hardened by fear and bitterness. Yet drawn together in unity. Searching for love and acceptance. For family. These men, even boys, are searching for love and they’ve found it in the gangs. And if that’s the only place they’ve found it, I cry harder. Where is the body of Christ that embodies love, that exemplifies acceptance, that showers a grace that leads to repentance. Where are their families? Their teachers? Their friends? Who inspires them to make the world a better place? Oh how different it would be if those were present, but the reality is that our world is broken, and much of what should be is absent. Jesus, my heart cries out. It breaks. It longs to give them a way out. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. The dozens of people killed, the gallons of innocent blood spilled. All in the name of the gang. The violence is overwhelming and I pray for their families, of both the victim and the killer. I pray for both the destroyed and the destroyer. For what’s truly at work is the Destroyer. Driving them to this madness. But do they know anything else? Do they even have the possibility to make it out alive? I don’t pretend to know, to understand, what drives people to gangs, how they work, or the frame of mind they operate in, but I do know this. It’s darkness. And under that blanket of darkness lies A deep and desperate child, defenceless and damned by everyone around.

Where is the ground? The firm foundation? The light that brings restoration? God I know you can. I know you are so powerful that you can even change the darkest heart of stone. Your grace has the power to flow and wash away the black dirt to reveal the frightened flesh beneath. You have the power to heal. To bring even the fiercest leader of a gang to his knees. And I pray for that. For your glory to be shown in that. That the worst of sinners drowns in your grace and love and acceptance and the radical change is inexplicable. Being lifted out of the hell he lives in and into your marvellous light. In Jesus name, I know it’s possible, so I pray that it becomes a reality.

The Power of a B

Maybe mom was right

Maybe I should have gotten a B

Maybe it would have better prepared me

Maybe mom was right

Maybe it wasn’t all a good thing that everything came fairly easy for me

Maybe I needed the exposure mentally

Maybe I should have gotten a B

I’ve had a life that’s been pretty easy, with things going quite smoothly,

Maybe I should have gotten a B

It’s a struggle, maybe a struggle that’s unnecessary, but I’m just gonna be blunt.

I’m not used to difficulty, for things to be a challenge for me.

I’m used to being at the top. At least academically. I’m used to at least being decent at whatever I try. And it’s my pride that hates not being the best. That needs affirmation of my abilities. It’s my pride that wants to be the best at everything I do and gets frustrated when I’m not.

Maybe mom was right.

Maybe it would have been better if I had been humbled earlier, if I would have experienced difficulty in the things that matter to me.

Maybe life would be different, easier even, if I had gotten a B

But that’s not how it went. So now I struggle. I struggle with the reality that I’m not good at everything and will never be. With the reality that other people are better than me. And that that’s okay. I need to come to terms with that or my hunger for affirmation and proving myself will kill me from the inside out. And that hunger blinds me to the things I’m actually gifted in, the abilities I should be humbly rejoicing in.

Mom, maybe you were right.

So good thing Paul is getting enough Bs for the both of us J