Ask Me Again

Ask me again.

Because I walk through this life with eyes wide open and I feel like I see so many things and so many people and so many events and they all set me running towards understanding but sometimes that understanding is hard to come by and so I just don't know how to answer. But

ask me again.

Over the course of a week in my life, a friend had a baby and my brother got engaged and another friend got married and a different friend lost her grandfather and I want to speak about the beauty of life, how it allows us to see beginnings and endings in the span of a few days, how it doesn't slow down, even when you feel like it should, how it pulls together the disparate parts of your being as it throws you into new communities and reminds you where you came from and where you're loved. But I don't know how to say all those words exactly, to tell the stories of the leaves that only have the potential to change, clinging to summer green when the world around them aches for autumn, to talk you through involuntary smiles and sing-alongs, to teach you how to drink deeply from the wine of good conversation or let kindness flow from the store of goodness recently renewed in your soul. I'm still trying to give shape to these thoughts and so what I need you to do is to

ask me again.

I'm here, I promise. I'm focused and I'm engaged and I want to let this experience form me, make me into the person I know I've been aching to be. I'm excited for all the information that's coming my way but it's a lot to work through, you know? It's a lot to handle. We're reactivating circuits in my brain and forcing them into perpetual use and we're asking that from my brain after it's been disoriented by life and location. And then, on top of that, life kept on happening. I can't be disassociated from everything that's come before. So we're rattling the foundation I've just finished rebuilding while I'm finding my place again and wondering how it is that I've never asked these questions before or had these questions answered and where I can take these thoughts now that I've developed the muscle of chasing them down. I'm doing my best to be present but sometimes it's hard to hear over the mental gears ticking so it would help me out if you could

ask me again.

Because there's a lot going on and I don't know what my answer should be.

Because I'm good at protecting myself, but I know that I do that to my own detriment and I'm not sure how to fix it.

Because I do want this. I just express that poorly.

So ask me again.

Names

"What's their name?"

It's a common enough phrase at the ends of bible studies or small groups or any church community meetings where prayer requests are shared and taken. It was one of the first ways I learned to be unselfish, the taking down of names. So-and-so's second cousin who has a broken ankle is just the object of another sentence that I have to wait through before I can speak to my pain and grief and annoyance and ask for blessings. But Amelia's cousin Jeremy who works in landscaping and really can't afford to have to take the time off because of his broken ankle is a person, a living, breathing individual who I can pray for and who, if I have the means, I can assist and care for. Taking down a name is one of my earliest spiritual disciplines.

There is power in names. You're given one shortly after you enter this world and your name still exists after you've left it, buried somewhere in paperwork or engraved on a tombstone or held in the hearts of those who loved you. Naming someone in your prayers brings that power to the fore and calls God to accountability for this person. You connect to this person, even if it's the thinnest of threads, the most easily broken. It's not some girl who just had a baby-- it's Anna. You know Anna. Or you can imagine Anna. By naming her, you connect to her.

This is why we say their names. To humanize, to connect, to make just another black male killed by police an actual person in our minds. Keith Lamont Scott. Terence Crutcher. Two names on the litany that we should saying to ourselves every night, calling God to accountability for. Two more people who are never coming home again. Two more human lives lost among a system that has taught us to fear humans because the color of their skin, to speed up as we walk down the street or be too quick on the trigger rather than seeing the person who owns that skin. How long does the litany need to be? How many names? How many people?

Pray with me, my brothers and sisters. Pray in earnest. Say their names and call their memories up before the Almighty. Because when you do, when you come to God with prayers for these people, for this nation, for these times, when you say their name to make God accountable for the tragedy that we live in, participate in, benefit from, defend daily, I truly believe that God will move your heart. God will transform you.

God will let you know that you are accountable. You are meant to have kept your brothers and sisters as brothers and sisters. We have not done that. We have not done that.

When God changes you, when your heart is broken for these people, for their families, for their communities, come talk to me. Let's talk about police training. Let's talk about caring for our officers who mean to keep us safe. Let's talk about supporting police departments. Let's talk about building communities. Let's talk about the ways we can work on changing the human heart. To steal a phrase from a friend, let's together learn repentance and patience and grace so that we can reframe how we understand force and power and authority. Let's figure out which leaders are going to build bonds between people. Let's talk about the people who have been taken from us and let's treat every life like it belongs to a name rather than a number on a statistician's sheet.

Ask for their names. Preserve their lives. Live in this world with these people and love them deeply because they are people. Because they have names. Because they matter.

Start at the Beginning

I know, I know, I said that I'd have a post about what I'm learning for you every Friday. But I also want to make my creative projects work for me and that means every other Friday, I'll be posting my Vlogyries video on here in place of a text post because videos take time and my videos are rarely if ever uninfluenced by what I'm studying. So here, at the beginning of a new semester, is a reflection on beginnings, influenced by some of what I've learned in my Spiritual Formation for Ministry class and some conversations I've had with friends as the year begins.

Life and Lessons

A couple of housekeeping things before I get to the meat of the matter:

1. In the midst of job hunting and classes starting and Labor Day, my car broke down and I had life to deal with, so I missed a couple of posts. Sorry, team. 
2. For those of you who don't know, I'm in my third week of classes at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. I'm in the Master of Divinity (Mdiv) program, which is a three-year program that covers the basics of biblical studies, church history, theology, and ecclesiology. You know, all the stuff you want your pastor to know. Wesley is a United Methodist seminary and for ordination in the UMC, you need an Mdiv (typically). So stay tuned on all of that. 
3. As soon as all the paperwork clears, I'll be doing a more or less full-time internship alongside my five classes this fall semester. I imagine things will be busy but I do want to maintain the discipline of writing something each week. My goal is to write a post about what I'm learning for each Monday and a post about my life/what I'm feeling each Wednesday. Those may drop off as the workload amps up but that's the goal. 
4. Has anyone told you today that you're beautiful and you matter? Because you are and you do. Be affirmed, friend! 

And now, on with the post! 

***

I take almost everything in life as a lesson. Any big life event is not only an opportunity to learn something new about myself but also a chance to listen with intention for the message I'm receiving about my role in the world. I don't want this to come across as overly fideistic or moralistic or spiritual. I'm not preaching here, or trying to set an example. This is just how I live my life amidst all the chaos and bullshit and things I can't control. I can control this. I can control how I react. I can learn from the curveballs and fast balls and the occasional sweet pitch that sings right to where your bat wants to be. I can learn from the ones that earn you a walk.

Like when the car broke down. There were ten kinds of divine providence smiling down on me that fay, from the people who gave my car a jump in NC to the fair weather on the roads on the way up to the small miracle that was pulling into a gas station that happened to have a service center with remarkably kind people only a mile or so from my apartment. The car could have died in Charlotte and needed a tow back to Hickory, leaving me stranded seven hours away from where I needed to be. The engine could have whirred its last on some backroads highway in Virginia with no cell service. I could have decided to go somewhere else for gas and ended up paying for a tow and an impound fee. I could have decided to drive it to my apartment and ended up with a lifetime's supply of parking tickets. 

Through the whole thing, I learned stuff, like exactly where the alternator is and what happens when the engine mount breaks and how a tow truck hooks up to a vehicle. I learned (again) that I don't like depending on others, that I take every kindness thrown my way as unimaginable grace, that I'm uncomfortable with the impact of the whims of fate, and that I don't know how to treat those emotions and thoughts. Do I really think so little of my person and so much of the space that it occupies that I can't ask for a little help now and then? What's my deal with being unwilling to accept kindness? Do I really need so impenetrable a shield as that? And what use is that shield when forces outside my control dictate the terms of my response anyway?

When we went to orientation at Wesley, the first thing we really did was have a worship service. Now, I love me some singing and some responsive reading and a good word or two preached. But they asked us to hold hands during one song and I stepped on away. I do not hold hands with strangers. And they asked us to come up and dip our hands in the font and remember our baptism and I did not want to do that. I can remember my baptism from back here, thanks. I do not want to walk up in front of this group of people that I do not know and participate in a symbolic gesture of a faith that I hold to be deeply personal. It's been rocky sometimes and no amount of remembering a dedication to Christ that I didn't ask for is going to help with that, or at least, it's not going to help within the fifteen minute space of the end of this service. If I go up to that font, I am going to sob like a child in front of all of these people who will not understand my tears.

I went up anyway.

It was a barrier that had to come down sooner or later and it may as well have been sooner. I participated. I was next to last in line and I splashed my hands around in the fountain because if God's not a God of joy in creation, I may as well go home now. I let this part of the service work for me. I let a community start to love me and I started to believe that they would shoulder my burdens with me. Then after that, we all hugged our way through passing the peace. I swear, hugging is a spiritual discipline on its own. I marvel at people who can just casually go up and share space with another person like that. Is your love for all humanity really of that easy depth? Why isn't mine? Do I want it to be? 

I know that I do community differently at the beginning of my stay somewhere than I do by the end. We all do. I have friendships already and I want to put time into maintaining them; I want what already happened in my life to continue to matter. So even watching television becomes a social experience, with long conversations and all caps reactions. I know my friends on the other side of the screen and they know me. They get me. They support me. We're already invested in each other. It makes me tired to think about putting that work in again in a new place where I have to spend the majority of my effort pretending that I've found my footing months before I actually will have. Anyone who's met me in real life in the past couple of weeks has not gotten my level best. There's just too much else to be worried with. 

But you get what you put in, I suppose. You only learn the lessons if you're looking for them and you generally only form relationships if you ante up. Besides, my car's dead. If there was ever a sign from the heavens that I should stay put for a while, it's that. Cars are complex systems. It's easy to read divine intervention into the perceived spontaneous mechanical failure. Now all I need is for the internet to go out and maybe that'll jump start this whole friend process.

(Dear God, please don't let the internet go out. A car I can live without. The internet is a completely different story.)

Orienting

It's funny to me how a year can reshape your mental routines. Every time I glance out the window and see that it's sunny, I start planning how to make the most of the fine weather while it lasts, forgetting that tomorrow's going to be sunny too. And the next day. And the next. And the next, with a chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon. My body's surprised too-- I look down at the blisters on my toes and heels from wearing sandals and flats instead of boots and wonder at them, tiny little painful reminders that what I used to be used to is not what I am currently accustomed to.

For three years, I was paid to drive for sometimes five hours at a time. Why am I antsy after two and a half? I grew up driving on the right side of the road and following the traffic patterns for vehicles and pedestrians that go along with that. Why does my body shy away from imaginary traffic coming from the opposite side of the road when I go through a crosswalk? I've always had an answer for every question the instructor poses to the class. Why are my answers now questions?

I had thought that I could pick up the person I was, the one I left in America last September, with little or no problem, as easy as pulling my glassware out of storage and putting it in a new cabinet. (It is, by the way, the world's biggest comfort to be able to drink water out of my glasses and coffee out of my mugs, to eat food off of my plates and out of my bowls, to be reminded of the permanence my life had before and will have again.) I mean, I don't know that I'm in love with that version of myself, but I figured I could borrow back her habits, at least, her patterns of speech and cultural acumen. Heck, the first thing I did when I got into DC was find the NPR station with the best reception in my car. I should be settled and sorted. I'm home.

Orientation was a great comfort when that idea proved to be wrong. "You have to understand that you're not where you were three months ago." "Starting seminary is a big change and you have to acknowledge that. Change is stressful." From introductory lectures to student panels, there was an through-line of understanding and acceptance. "We know you want to look like you've got it all together, to be the one who's got it together so that you can care for someone else. You don't have to pretend like you've got it all together. You won't have it together." Beyond acknowledgement of the stress of transformation that this whole experience would induce, they pushed self-care. Find your sabbath and keep it holy. Talk to people when you feel overwhelmed. You don't have to do this alone; in fact, you can't.

You know the thing I noticed about pastors-in-training? We all read responsive readings with verve. The first worship service we had together, I was stunned by how loud the voices were around me. I felt like the chapel rang with our sound. You know, I know how hard it can be to teach teachers. I've led a couple educator workshops in my day and teachers make for interesting students. But I think if we can preserve that sound, that boldness and unity, even for just a few minutes over the course of a service, I feel like we'll get through this. It's a journey to be shared, apparently, no matter where we've come from.

I missed church on Sunday but I was preached at on Friday and again on Tuesday by people of faith who care deeply about this country and its ideals and its problems. I nodded as I listened, felt a shiver every once in a while when something that felt like, sounded like, must be truth hit my ears. There's an urgency to the questions we ask. There is a world for which we are being prepared and it needs us. It needs our voices and our thoughts, our actions and our hearts. This conviction, this burden of care, this is what stops the sharp points of my mind from slicing into others. I'm called to bring grace into the world. This burden of care is acted out in love, which I feel like I'm daily rediscovering in conversations with friends, in words of support, in surprisingly still-frequent hugs, and in the thousand tiny ways those surrounding me pay attention to me, serve me, bless me, carry me.

In the National Cathedral, there's a statue of Lincoln and an inscription which reads, "Abraham Lincoln whose lonely soul God kindled, is here remembered by a people, their conflict healed by the truth that marches on." On Tuesday, I waved at the moon rock in the stained glass window, I leaned into the quiet a cathedral brings into my soul and mind, I sat in a chapel and prayed, but it was this inscription that sank down into my heart. Whose lonely soul God kindled. Whose lonely soul God kindled.

This feeling here, down in my gut, the one that promises me that we will make the world better, that we will together go forward in love and truth and freedom and beauty and all those other words that put labels on entities that we are privileged to try to understand, this feeling is home. This is where my heart rests. And when the melancholy hits, when I forget or doubt or wander or worry, I really do think I'll have people to bring me back here. God knows I'll need it.

Transition Train of Thought

Why does my back hurt so much? Oh, because I packed half my worldly possessions into a backpack that I lugged around three countries, then flew on a plane and slept on a less-than-ideal bed, then flew on a couple of planes and slept on a real bed but unpacked and re-packed the other half of my worldly possessions, then drove for seven hours, then moved all my worldly possessions into their new home and then rearranged furniture. Also, I have bad posture and carry my stress in my lower back. Mystery solved.

This'll be fine. It's fine.

I'm not overwhelmed. I'm not nervous. I've done this before. I've done this before in the last year. I can do this. I've done this. I'm fine. It's fine. Everything's fine. I'll just update my bullet journal for the next couple of weeks and...

Why is there nothing after August 27th?

WHY IS THERE NOTHING AFTER AUGUST 27TH???

Okay, calm down. We planned out this journal in June, so of course September seemed too far away to think about. We'll just update it and put all the things we need to do down in a list and then we'll do them and then we'll be sorted for the future. Before you know it, it'll be October and we'll have a routine that's much more substantial than a podcast feed and we'll forget that this whole transition period happened. One step at a time. One day at a time. That's how you build a life. Just stop for a second and breathe and we'll be fine.

I don't have a ruler.

How am I supposed to update my journal without a ruler? My edges won't be straight. I'll look back on these pages and all I'll see is the fact that I couldn't even draw a straight line and you learn how to do that as a child and that means that children are better than me at everything and what's the use of the past TWENTY YEARS OF MY LIFE if I CAN'T EVEN DRAW A STRAIGHT LINE?

If I run my hands through my hair one more time, I think I'm going to go bald.

At least my nails are short so I can't tear my scalp to pieces or nervously scratch my eyebrows off.

Okay, clearly I'm a little overly jittery. No more caffeine today. Lesson learned. Box checked. We're going to be fine.

This would be so much easier with someone else.

Nope, not gonna go down that mental rabbit hole right now. One step at a time. Breathe in. Breathe out. Make a list.

Books. DMV. Job search. Church search. Budget. Plan weekends out of town. Tick through this all today and tomorrow because you've got orientation on Friday and--

What am I going to wear to orientation? It's going to be so hot. We're going to walk around. Do I have anything appropriate? Where did all my fancy clothes go? Can I wear a dress? Would that be weird? All my dresses are wrinkled. Where is my iron? I didn't pack my iron, did I? Does the laundry room have an iron? Why do all my clothes smell like this? Why don't I smell like me anymore? And it's not like I can just open up a window-- I'm not paying to air condition the outdoors. Maybe just some air movement? I don't have a ceiling fan. I DON'T HAVE A CEILING FAN. DC, YOU'RE BUILT ON A *^&%$#** SWAMP. WHY DON'T YOU HAVE CEILING FANS?

I'm doing so well.

I'll just go over to Facebook for a hot second, say hello to some people, get a little social distraction in. And I can do some research while I talk. It'll be good. It'll ground me. It'll remind me of... of good things, right? Connections. Friends. Funny things. It'll be good.

Books. DMV. Jobs. Church. Weekend plans. Conversations. Articles. Articles. Election thinkpiece.  Buzzfeed penguin "article". Parking map.

If I open another tab, I'm going to scream.

You know what? Let's take half an hour and just not be fine. No one's home. We'll just turn up the music and come back to the list in thirty minutes. Have a bit of a singalong. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in...

"I'M TAKING THIS HORSE BY THE REINS MAKING RED COATS REDDER WITH BLOODSTAINS AND I'M NEVER GONNA STOP UNTIL I MAKE 'EM DROP AND BURN 'EM UP AND SCATTER THE REMAINS YEAH"

Lafayette, you never let me down.

Oh, hey, lunchtime! Ham and cheese, here I come!

This is going to be fine. I'm fine.

I got this.

Reverse Culture Shock

I always rolled my eyes at people who "picked up an accent" after some time abroad. No, my friend, a year is not enough time to change the vowel structure of your speech patterns. You know how you sound. Stop it. 

But then I went and picked up some oddities in my behavioral patterns that come out as I tell stories or try to refer to everyday objects. So, in order to avoid sounding like a pretentious braggart, I'm going to collect all my thoughts on the British-American cultural divide here. From the first couple of days back, at least.

-Flip-flops. Praise be. Boots, you can sit the next couple months out. 

-I don’t worry about taking my passport with me anytime I leave town. I am a citizen. I do not need a visa. I can work for whoever I want, however much I want. 

-I no longer check the currency exchange daily. 

-I just paid $5 for lunch. This is the cheapest meal I’ve had eating out in over a year.

-Tax is included in the prices. I find myself fishing for change whenever I use cash now.

-Waitstaff checks up on you over the course of the meal and tips are suddenly expected again. (Not that I’ll be doing a ton of that as I am a poor student again.)

-Do I bus my own table? I probably bus my own table. No one else is leaving their food trash. Better look for the bin, then. 

-FREE REFILLS. Not confused, really, just pleasantly surprised every time they happen. 

-Oh, you don’t want to see my signature and compare it to my card? That’s fine. That’s normal. That’s what we do. 

-Guilt-free Starbucks.

-Guilt-free McDonalds. 

-I need health insurance now. 

-Why am I awake at 4am? Oh. Because my body does not know what time it is. 

-Light switches INSIDE bathrooms. 

-Ceiling fans. 

-Outlets. 
-The paper is the right size again.

-It’s DARK by 9pm. I knew this would have happened eventually anyway, but I’m thrown off guard by it. 

-I know this is just an Edinburgh problem, but I get distracted by the stars nightly.

-The crickets are so loud. 

-The people are so loud. 

-American flags are everywhere. EVERYWHERE. EVERY. WHERE. 

-Political attack ads. 

-Someone just asked me if I was registered to vote and if I’d moved in the last year. I… yes? and yes? Should I…? Do I…? Listen, I’m just going to go google this.

-Or get distracted by ALL THE SHOWS on American Netflix. 

-“This content is not available in your region.” NOT TODAY, SATAN. 

-No, Safari, I no longer want to use maps.google.uk. Stop suggesting it. 

-“I’ll have a Tennets—Stella—Carlsberg—Uh, do you have Yeungling? Perfect.” 

-It’s 8pm. Why am I so tired? Oh, because my body thinks it’s after midnight. 

-“I’ll have a Coke, please.” *Takes a sip* WHY DOESN’T THIS TASTE LIKE COKE?

-Chips? Crisps? Fries? I don’t know anymore. I just don’t know.

-Salt. I think there’s a layer of salt on everything in America. 

-Butter. 

-ABC stores. 

-Concealed carry notices.

-I’m very aware of my gender when trying to find the restroom in a restaurant. 

-Edinburgh. Pittsburgh. Pittsboro. Carrboro. Greensboro. Edinburgh. 

-I sent that message like three hours ago. Surely they’ve seen it. Why are they not responding? Are they dropping me from their life that quickly? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME? Oh. Wait. It’s 2am there. 

-“You wanna FaceTime or…? OR I COULD CALL YOU.”

-“Wanna have a pub day over Skype?”

-I keep on asking for the bin, partially out of habit, partially because I am now aware of how painfully nasal the a’s in “trash can” are. 

-“My new flat— roommates…”

-“I’ll just pop to the loo before we go, shall I?” No, self, you’re going to run to the bathroom. You’re in America now. 

-PANTS. PANTS PANTS PANTS PANTS PANTS PAAAAAAANTS. Fanny. Pants. 

-I don’t want to call it soccer but I can’t call it football… better to not talk about sports at all. 

-OH GOD EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT SPORTS. 

-Huh, that word does look better with a u. 

-Why is that word misspelled? Oh. Z. 

-Lord Almighty, everyone here sounds like me. 

-I swear the sun is brighter over here. Squinting all over the place.

-I got sunburnt from driving.

-“Better bring a jacket and a brolly,” I think, grabbing the items on the way out the door fifteen seconds before walking back into the house to drop the items back off again. 

-Seriously, excepting June, it’s been a year since I’ve seen this many elbows and knees out in public. 

-Also, been a year since I’ve seen this wide a variety of skin tones. 

-It's so hot.

-It's SO hot.

-It's like 90 degrees in the shade. (Yeah I used Fahrenheit. SUCK IT, CELSIUS.)

-I think I’m dehydrated literally just from sweating. 

-There’s so much space. 

-Driving in the car on a sunny summer afternoon with the windows down and the Avetts turned up is a familiar kind of heaven, but there’s another kind that involves a pub with friends on a cold and rainy night, listening to the words and sounds of the past year bubble up around me. 

-I have my mountains back, at least for a few days. Explain to me why there’s a near-perfect ache for the Highlands in my gut.