My Beloved Monster and Me

Sometimes I wish I could take a situation in my life and make it into something. I'd pull the stress it brings me out of my body, gentling disentangling it from my spine and shoulders and neck and jaw until it sat in front of me, a pile of dark grey ribbons and coarse fabric. I'd breathe out the life it's been taking from me, bright and white and sparkling, and it'd settle, effervescent, among the grey. I'd sit with the emotions it causes, letting them bubble and brew until they seeped out of the palms of my hands, the middle of my chest, the depths of my gut, vibrant red and viscous. These I'd gather too, and drip from my fingertips onto the gathered light and dark. Then I'd pace around with these understandable things, with Stress, the embodiment of a problem, and Life, the potential that it saps, and Emotion, the reaction it brings about in my being, and I'd let my insides writhe with frustration at this thing that is not yet fully the monster that this situation is in my life.

Then I'd get to work.

I would see what the skeleton for the monster needs to be, what bones it must have if it is to stand and take on a recognizable shape. Ribs of oppression, fibula and tibia and femur and radius and ulna and humerus of aggression, vertebrae of inertia, clavicle of vanity, skull of arrogance, and metacarpus and metatarsus and phalanges of unkindness, uncaring. It would hunch, of course. It would lumber, of course. But it would also tower and strike with surprising alacrity, a gleefulness all its terrible own, and so I'd need to think about the ribbons of stress and how they'd cover and connect the bones, dark grey enveloping a deep ink black. I'd need to think about the emotions that truly make up the monster, that will comprise its veins and organs and circulate through it, and how they can be both healthy and diseased like a liver before and after drink. I'd place them so that the monster could live and breathe and move and I'd spend hours wondering about the monster's nerves and whether I'd give it the grace of feeling and pain. Sometimes I think I could face my monsters more easily if they were numb. They are made of me and so I know that the question is moot. Then, after the husk was assembled, I'd color in the details, green and blue and a sickly striping yellow covering all eight feet of the monster's height, adding horns and claws, spindly and spikey, as needed.

And when the monster stands in front of me and I have the full measure of its power, I'd siphon into it a little of the life it took from me, coaxing the ephemeral past its fangs and into the lively bits I'd shaped as best I could for it. I'd stand back and watch as the monster woke and began to flex its digits and open its eyes. I'd wait for it to focus on me, innocent as new things are, and then I'd act.

I would take my monster by the hand and walk it down the hall and sit it down beside me, scaly knee resting against fleshy. I'd sit and wait as it acclimated itself to the world, to the stories it carries inside of it, to the being it inherited. I'd let it take as long as it needed. And then I expect, as the air rustles its lungs and the spark of thought danced along from its brain to its mouth, the first thing my dear monster would say to me, in a rasp unused to voice, would be, "Why?"

And then we'd talk, my monstrous love and I. We would sit and stand, bound and bounce, pace and ponder while the events leading up to its formation flowed between us. The horns and barbs and claws would grow as we dug deeper, talking through the day and long into the night, and I'd be scared when he stood and I could see the full strength of this being made of the pain I had been carrying. I'd like to think that at that moment, I'd remember that this was my monster, something I'd made. If I could remember that, if I could only remember the hours before, maybe then I'd be able to calm the monster down, shrink it with kind words and self-understanding. After all, it's only my monster and I care for it so. Otherwise I would have let the problem fly over my head like so many birds, never letting it nest in my heart. But we always love our demons more than we ought, never sending them back out into the world when they could curl up beside us and sleep. I am not at all sure that I know how to deal with my beloved monster as I ought.

Sometimes I wish I could take a situation in my life and make it into something. It's a wish born out of a desire to do something, anything, with my sense of powerlessness. (Never mind that the powerlessness is sometimes self-imposed.) The flesh and bone would give me something to stand in front of, to hurl accusations and abuse at as needed. I think that's maybe what I was trying to do this Lent. I could name the monster, sure, and its name would sound like Loneliness or Rejection or Uncertainty. I confessed to one of my classmates the other day that being ordained, being allowed to dedicate my life to serving the Body of Christ, that's the first thing in my life that I've wanted. I wasn't prepared for the highs and lows of this kind of journey, one that could end in devastation or elation. I'm never prepared to care about something because caring opens you up to hurt and I... I don't do hurt. I'm cheerfully apathetic and I think that on some level, I stepped away so that I could stay that way. I stepped away so that I wouldn't have to shape the monster to begin with.

But see, that's not what God does. That's not what Love does. When Love creates, Love makes something new. Love makes something and calls it good and very good. And when Love sees a situation in Life, Love, too, wishes for incarnation. It's just that Love has actual power and so when Love faces demons, Love can come down to Earth and set things to rights. Love names our monsters alongside us and shows us how to redeem them. Love shows us how to be love for others and for ourselves.

As we approach this Holy Week, moving ever closer to Friday, we would do well to remember that Love came down to Earth. Love came down to Earth and was made of flesh and bone and we stood in front of him and hurled accusations and abuse at him. We have made a monster out of Love and day by day, we crucify him anew in the myriad ways we deny love to each other, neighbors near and far. We need to sit with this, scream and shout and be with this, until Love can calm us down with kindness and understanding born out of the great love being given to us. We are called and claimed, friends. That is what Love does. When we see this, when we can believe it, then we can truly live into the Resurrection we've been waiting for, living forty days in the desert preparing for, longing for. Everything I want to put into my monster is taken from me on Friday and I am left with a void where what I thought I was used to be.

And then comes Sunday.

Provided For

I was just thinking that my heartache needed some balm. The Avett Brothers came on shuffle. 

I was just thinking that I needed money for tires on my car. Extra hours at work and two tutoring jobs came through. 

I was just thinking that I needed more time. All of my professors have pushed back deadlines this week. 

I was just thinking that I needed someone who knew me. I got three hours of texts and phone calls and a pile of emails.

I was just thinking that time away from the city would do my heart some good. I got half an hour of a gorgeous drive out to Barnesville Road. 

I was just thinking that I could use some people-time for a change. I got four people gathered around a television, talking about life and living.

I was just thinking that I needed a win. I got a national championship. 

Remember

Remember.

Remember that we all have different eyes, different minds, different hearts, at least at first, and so the things that seem obvious to you, the things that you see first, the things that jump from the world outside of you or the page in front of you, the things that walk in through the open windows and doors of your eyes and mind and settle in your heart, those things may not be the same for anyone else you meet. You are unique. Your way of interacting with the world is unique. And while it is unlikely that you will see or think something that is completely different from what every other human has thought, it is equally certain that your perspective will bring something new to those around you. Do not be afraid to share what you see.

Remember.

Remember that you are living your journey while others are living theirs. Even when you travel alongside each other, every other person on the road is as concerned with their own journey as you are with yours. The secret loves and fears that you carry, the tiny obsessions that you let dig at you, little foxes running in the vineyard, others have their own, tails flicking past branches that they too wish would grow. It is not easy to be a human, no matter where you are, and our own difficulty blinds us to the difficulty of others. We hold in common not only our problems but also the shame with which we hide them until we can bear our self-imposed loneliness no longer. But because you know that your heart is full-to-bursting, look for the fullness in the hearts of others. Look to their loneliness just as you wish someone would look to yours.

Remember.

Remember that you can split your heart, that it will be in multiple places at once if you've been loving properly and that you have, indeed, loved properly, no matter how much you're afraid that you haven't. That is the way to combat the loneliness, by the way, to repeat the ever-growing litany of people that you've loved or who have loved you or both, and to remember that love comes in a wide variety of forms. It is beautiful, in a way, that English only has one word for this kind of affection, that we elide fraternal and passionate and self-giving love into one word, requiring you to uncomfortably grapple with the depth of your admiration for any given individual while affirming the self-sacrificial nature of the very act of caring about anyone at all. The people that you pray for, the people you have affection for, the people you invest in, all those people hold an ever-increasing bit of your heart and this is not a bad thing. I know you feel the emptiness beside you at night deep down in your gut, but remember, remember, love, that it is not a true reflection of the love you have waiting for you out in the wide world.

Remember the myriad of places you have been. Celebrate the absurd amount of travel you have done, the sheer number of beds (and couches and futons and planes and trains and patches of ground) that you have slept on over the course of your life. You've been incredibly welcomed and accepted everywhere you've gone and that has been a wonderful privilege. You have filled the years of your life with such activity merely by saying yes to the embarrassment of opportunities that walked you way. You've suited yourself to the travel, to be sure, and worn out the bottoms of suitcases and shoes, but it would not do to forget this concrete representation of the blessing laid upon your life. There is something to be said for letting your feet acquaint themselves with a diversity of soil.

Remember the arms that have held you. I know you like to dwell on those moments that felt like they could have lasted past the crumbling of the Earth, because we all like to dwell on those moments when we become the sole focus of another's caring embrace, but those were not the only arms to ever hold you. You've now spent enough time with a tiny one to know that you must have tired out your parents' and grandparents' and aunts' arms when you were small yourself. You've passed the peace enough times to lose count of the number of strangers whose arms encircled you. You've been a part of enough groups to know that a hug is an act that anchors you, makes you be here, makes you share space you'd rather have kept for yourself. Man, I bet Jesus gave great hugs, arms stretched wide enough to bring in every human in time and space but wrapped around each individual with the kind of intense, knowing love that only an infinite God could lavish on the beloved. Remember the arms that have held you and know that even the most wonderful moments only dimly speak of a greater love yet to be, and somehow now.

Remember you are loved.

Remember you are claimed.

Remember you belong.

Remember you're forgiven.

Remember you are freed.

Remember you are loved.

A Snow Day (Internal) Conversation

Nobody's going to notice if you don't post on time. Also, you have a lot of other work to be doing. Go do that work.

Yeah, but it's a commitment I've made to myself and with so many other promises I've made falling to the wayside, shouldn't I at least make a small effort to be the person that I want myself to be?

No one said not writing a post had anything to do with your moral character.

Yeah, but nobody didn't say it, either.

You know what does say something about your moral character? The fact that this paper that you're meant to be working on was due at noon and seven hours later, it still hasn't been turned in.

I didn't know it was due at noon! I found that out at 11:45am!

Because you didn't read the syllabus.

Because I had this professor last semester and I thought I knew what was going on and also-

Also because you were talking on facebook chat as the professor was reviewing the syllabus rather than listening?

Again, I thought I knew what was going on.

It's an easy mistake to make and it's not the end of the world.

...Notice the lack of forgiveness for being on facebook in class?

I did, actually. Let's just throw it along with all the other things that I've explained away rather than repented of. It's a big pile. What's one more item?

An item like the paper you have due tomorrow morning that you have yet to start?

That's, like, two pages. I have time. And thoughts about how it's going to go. And besides, I need a brain break. I've been up to my eyeballs in books about Charles Wesley for hours now.

You've spent more of those hours doing anything but actually researching and writing.

Time spent investing in relationships is not wasted!

Time spent investing in relationships is not wasted.

Well, ill-timed then.

God and humans do not show up according to our invented schedules.

Which implies that more time should be spent in preparation. We've known about all of these assignments since January. There's no excuse--

Yes, but there is room for self-compassion. This is not an easy time.

That's not an excuse.

Only to be kind to yourself.

It's not a kindness I feel like I've earned.

No one has. That doesn't mean it isn't necessary, especially for you.

Okay. That sounds fake, but okay.

When will you learn?

Oh.

Probably after the next paper.

And the next?

And the next.

A Dragon's Tale

Once upon a time, there was a dragon, and I’ll remind you from the beginning of this story that dragon is not necessarily a derogatory term. There are good dragons and there are bad dragons across folk tales and other literature, just like every other kind of being, except for maybe orcs, who I think are maybe all bad (by definition, right?). Point being, once upon a time there was a dragon and identifying her as a dragon does not make any pre-existing claim about the morality of her overarching character.

Now, this dragon knew she wanted to be different than she was. She was quite happy with some parts of herself: her chestnut and silver and gold scales (shut up, you imagine your dragons how you want and I’ll imagine mine and mine has chestnut scales, okay? They glow kinda red in the sunset and they’re lovely), the strength of her wings, the agility of her mind. She worried over her claws, though, and the way she’d swing her tail without thinking, and how dangerous the combination of the strength of her jaw and the sharpness of her teeth could be when she went on the attack. As a rule, she didn’t want to hurt anyone. She wanted to be one of those kind and wise old dragons that were sought out for their knowledge and advice and sometimes protection.

So she went on a journey to learn how to be kind and wise. She flew away from her places of comfort and sought out the places where the wise lived with their castles and libraries and extinct volcanoes. She spent many borrowed gold coins (not all dragons have hoards) and gained knowledge, a new way of knowing, and the conviction that the best progress might simply be asking better questions. But for all she learned, it didn’t seem that wisdom followed directly from knowledge and anyway, she knew she needed to learn how to be kind. She winced at the claw marks she left.

She flew away again and after a few days settled in another new land. There she folded her wings and made a home because she knew that kindness did not come easily to her and that her search for wisdom had only sharpened her claws and made her more careless with her tail. But no matter how much she worked at kindness, no matter how many words she heard from those of great kindness, she still found her knowledge coming out of her mouth like her flame: such potential to be useful and life-giving but mostly harmful undirected burning, like an out-of-control forest fire, until maybe one day she hypothetically finds herself pacing in beer aisle of the grocery store, rehashing her thoughts about baptism loudly on the phone to a dragon friend, convinced of her rightness as she stalks up and down past the bottles until she sweeps through the checkout and actually starts listening to what’s being said. That’s just an example of what might could have happened. And after that, she might find herself discouraged in spite of all the kindness that had been shown to her and walking into the woods, looking for a cave to settle into until her heart cools.

But the dragon had missed something fundamental all along: kindness and wisdom are not easy for any dragon. All dragons are born with claws and tails and teeth and it takes practice to be aware of the space you occupy and to control the way the fire escapes from your mouth. Every dragon stumbles along the way because dragon feet are not used to walking it and the wind makes flying impossible, at least at first. There’s not much use in screeching at yourself because you’ve fallen. You’re a dragon. You’re simply going to fall from time to time. Stock up on aloe, burn ointment, and bandages for others, but don’t forget that those talons on the end of your feet can cut you too, so be kind and understanding with yourself as you pick yourself back up.

I would love to tell you that the dragon preserved on the path in spite of it all, that she learned the self-control that leads to wisdom and kindness and was able to master the mindset that enables her to use her powers for good, not evil, but unfortunately, the dragon is still figuring things out. She asks, though, that you be patient with her, as best as you can, and pray for her as she learns how to walk through and fly and finally soar on the winds that enliven and push her through every step of her journey. Hopefully that patience and prayer will be enough.