A Hero and A Princess

I thought the days were supposed to be getting longer, not darker.

I remember in 1997 when the original trilogy was re-released for the 20^th anniversary and Star Wars started to show up in my life. The first Star Wars movie I saw was The Empire Strikes Back and even though I was quite the precocious child, I wouldn’t have said it changed my life then, even though I remember more about that day than I do about my high school and college graduations combined. I don’t think I really appreciated the role Star Wars played in my life until I started listening to others’ stories about representation.

See, it never crossed my mind that young women couldn’t rule the world. I’d seen Princess Leia do it a million times.

Carrie Fisher redefined what it meant to be a princess for me. A princess is a diplomat. A princess is a rebel. A princess sits in on war councils and gives commands and is the last one to leave the base when it is under attack. Even if a princess had to be rescued from time to time, it wasn’t because she was powerless or useless—it was because she had been taken captive by the Empire and it’s hard to beat Darth Vader. That rescue is not an escort mission—a princess grabs a blaster and gets them out of the poorly-planned mess they’re in, or takes the chain she’s been bound in and strangles a space slug/gangster overlord. And she does it all by being genuine and unapologetically in charge. Indomitable.

Every time I saw her in a movie after that, I was always delighted. Here was my hero, from before I even really understood that I had heroes, off doing something else. I love her in When Harry Met Sally. When I started getting into screenwriting and found out that she was a script doctor for Hook and Sister Act and so many other movies, my heart jumped again and I pulled those screenplays out first. I haven’t read any of her books yet because I was worried they would just be over-dramatic tell-alls, something that I regret intensely now. I had no idea how funny and honest she was and I have been depriving myself of a joy.

And then she comes on screen in The Force Awakens and of course she’s a general. Of course she’s leading the resistance. Of course she went back to the thing she was good at: leading. That’s what she taught all of us to do. While Luke was off finding himself and losing his hand and Han was off growing a soul, Leia was always fighting, always leading, always standing up for what is right. There’s never going to be another Princess Leia and there’s never going to be another General Organa. She blazed a trail and they broke the mold after they made her, all those clichés.

Those clichés apply to the lady we lost today as well. There will never be another Carrie Fisher. She fought her battles and taught us how to live our lives without undue concern for what other people think of us and left us with a legacy to enjoy and be inspired by. She’s gone too soon and I’m going to watch Star Wars on repeat to help deal with that fact, but at least we’re left with that.

Rest soundly, Carrie. You’ve earned it. 

Afraid

I think it's time to admit that I am frightened. I am frightened.

I am frightened by all manner of things. I am frightened by the presence that hovers near the front door in the dark when I get up to go to the bathroom in the mornings. I am frightened by the space underneath my bed and what could hide there between my luggage and shoes. I am frightened by faceless things in nightmares that find me night after night and hold me down in unbearable darkness or light until I remember that this is all a dream, and then become frightened because I cannot escape it.

I'm actually genuinely frightened that I'm going to fail some of my finals this week. I'm afraid that I'll fall asleep and the work won't get done and I'll have to repeat a class or a semester and I'll lose my scholarship or I'll have to leave and I do not know where I'd go. I'm afraid I won't get another job and I haven't fully planned for that financial possibility. I'm afraid that I'll have to go home and start everything over from scratch, only with more loans this time and fewer prospects. I am frightened by my unworthiness and how very publicly it could be displayed in the near future.

I am frightened by the news from Aleppo. I am frightened by the news of hate crimes. I am frightened by our incoming government. I am frightened by rising sea water and catastrophic storms. I am frightened by nuclear weapons and biological weapons. I am frightened by guns. I am frightened of people who are stronger than me and what they can do to me. For maybe the first time in my life, I am afraid for my body and my possessions and my security.

More than anything else, I am frightened because I am not more frightened for others. I am frightened because I am more scared losing something that was never mine than I am scared by the pain in the world around me. I am scared of how easy it is for me to be frightened by loneliness and mistakes, how quickly I choose to focus on fears of situations resolved months ago, the reopening of freshly-healed wounds. I am frightened by my inability to place my emotions completely to the side. I am scared that one day I will not be able to get out of bed, that I will not care about the humans on the other side of the door enough to engage with them, and that I will never again engage with them. I am afraid that no one else will either.

I am not frightened by death or the void or silence. I am afraid of what I leave behind in life, in the world, in noisy community.

I don't like talking about fears because I know that we are not given a spirit of fear but of power and love and of a sound mind and because I know that there is a spectrum of rationality to my fear. I know that I am not called to be afraid, just as I know that some of my fears are born ghost stories and an overly analytical mind. I know what imposter syndrome is, guys, and I'm aware of how fear sells in the media. I know how my basic need for control, whatever its root is, is reflected across all of these fears.

But I don't want to explain away the importance of naming our fears. I don't want to shy away from analyzing what makes us withdraw from the world. The tensions and contradictions of human fear are fascinating and complex, but the reality of my fears and my fear of my fears is something I need to acknowledge and wrestle with without academic detachment. Because I shouldn't be driven by fear. Fear should not be what motivates my action. If I can see it, I can address it, re-shape it, speak life where it is lacking. All the same, I have to repeat again and again that fear does not define me. The foundation of my life isn't built on anything that can be taken away. I'll see my fear and work with it and know that my hope rests somewhere else.

Stolen

The stories we tell ourselves matter. The words we say to ourselves matter. And the words that we say to other people matter, because all too frequently, they become the words that people say to themselves.

I got on the red line train last Tuesday and the car was so crowded, I couldn't even reach into my pocket to get my headphones so I could block out all the humans and make the ride tolerable. With one hand trying to find a railing and the other clutching the book I was meant to be reading, I decided that instead of fumbling around for something to do, I would pray for everyone on the train. Now, I know I'm in seminary and so this should seem like it's in character, but I want to say right here and now that the only time I pray for large groups of people is when I'm asking for them to get out of my way. I am not present in a crowd. I enjoy the escape more than anything else.

But pray I did. I prayed for our journey to our homes and for what waited for each person when they arrived: their families, their meals, their loves, fears, frustrations, work, relaxation. I prayed for the people who jostled and bumped me on their stumble toward the door. There were a couple of people in eyesight that seemed particularly weighed down and so I prayed for a blessing in their lives, that whatever held them low would be removed or mitigated. I prayed grace on everyone.

I felt lighter when I got off the train. I didn't put my headphones in, didn't open my book. I just kept the headspace I was in and thought about what I would do when I got back to my empty flat. Something needled at the back of my mind, but I assumed it was just something I had forgotten about work or school or something. There's always something. But the bus ride and the subsequent walk home were pleasant, I think. We've been having a lot of the kind of crisp fall days and nights that require a jacket and a scarf, but gloves are optional. The air's easy to breathe. It was nice.

When I got home and put my bag down, I realized that one of those humans that I had prayed for had stolen my laptop.

Well, I suspected. I put off the panic because maybe I had just left it at the office and anyway, there wasn't anything I could about it right now. The next morning was the day before Thanksgiving so the usual people who opened up the office weren't there and I ended up putting off the search for my laptop for another hour or so. And even when I did get to my desk and saw that my laptop wasn't there, I didn't feel anything except a sinking feeling in my stomach. Okay. My laptop's really gone. So we're dealing with this.

Over the next few days as I assessed the damage and looked up replacement options, I would say, "My laptop got stolen." My laptop got stolen. I was clear it wasn't missing, that a theft had occurred, but I couldn't figure out why the sentence sounded so odd. My laptop was stolen, maybe? Correct that grammatical "mistake"? And anyway, isn't the end result the same, no matter what words I use? I don't have my laptop. It is no longer in my possession. It was taken from me. Who cares how I express that thought? The facts on the ground are the same: I don't have it.

Except it does matter. Someone stole my laptop. I don't know who did it, but it's not some passive event that occurred. A person made the decision to reach into my bag and take out my life and it's debatable just how over-dramatic that statement is: my work from this semester, any projects that I've been working on for the past few years, and all my notes and research from last year are gone, not to mention some of the music and pictures that mean something to me. My half-marathon sticker was on the case, as was my save the whales sticker from Iceland. And all those things that made it matter, the data and the memories, those are the first things the thief is going to wipe from the computer so that he or she can resell it. Keep the computer, then. Give me back what I care about.

To fail to hold people accountable for their actions is to participate in the problem. I won't find the person who stole my laptop, probably, and this is not a loss that I need to go Batman over; by the grace of God (and that is not an insignificant thing), this is a hit I can take on the chin and carry on. I've been surrounded by coworkers, family, friends, who have comforted me, cheered me, and helped me figure out what to do next, how to report, how to look, and how to replace. But just because I can absorb the hit does not mean that the problem needs to be ignored. This was not some indifferent force of nature or some act of chance; a person acted here, a person who is part of a system, with a level of malicious intent in their heart that could range from indifference to hatefulness, and people and systems are things that we can question, we can push, we can try to change, we can hold accountable. If not in this particular situation, definitely in others.

So everyone, back up your data. Carry your belongings in a bag that can be secured, especially when you go into crowded spaces. If you see something, say something. Learn from my life. That's what lives are for, after all. But see the bigger threads, too. Think about how you speak about events. Think about what you tell yourself about events. Have that second-check on the reality that you perceive. Think about inevitability and think about action. Think about what you can do. Be aware.

For days, I told myself that my laptop got stolen, that this was my fault and my stupidity and that I deserved to pay for it. But to tell myself that story is to continue in my personal history of unkindness towards myself and indifference towards injustice. Of course there are things that I could have done differently, but that doesn't mean I was asking for it. Someone stole my laptop. The better sentences to speak, once the comfort and grace have done their healing work, are questions, and questions in search of answers. Why did someone take my laptop? Did they feel entitled to it? Certainly not. Were they thinking just about themselves? Maybe not. What situations in their life led to this moment? Is there a way to balance accountability for the wrong committed with grace and understanding for the wrongs committed against them? What can we do here?

I'm known for drawing a whole heap of thoughts out of an event and I think I probably stopped thinking about laptops long ago. I don't want to have a conversation about hardware-- I want to talk about systematic inequality and our inability as a nation to hold people accountable for their words and their actions. I want to talk about honesty and where it's lacking. I want to talk about blame and how I'm finding it to be an unhelpful concept, or maybe a concept with an unhelpful gloss. I have questions and thoughts enough for a lifetime and maybe I fill my days too much with them. So let's end with something that just slipped on by as the story unfolded: my thankfulness for those around me and for those memories that were saved. Now I feel less bad about all those Scotland photos I practically spammed my facebook with.

Find joy where you've got it, friends, and take seriously your thoughts and your questions when they come.

People

For a couple of years now, I've fallen back on the phrase "people are the worst and I hate them" whenever I am disappointed by the world. It works out pretty well most of the time. Someone yells at you when you were just doing your job? People are the worst and I hate them. Someone leaves you in a lurch, making you responsible for extra work at your job, at school, at home? People are the worst and I hate them. Someone says hello to your chest before they meet your eye or "accidentally" grabs your butt on the metro? People are the absolute worst and I hate them.

It works for more minor offenses as well. Someone cut you off in traffic? Someone check out the book you need from the library? Someone sneeze on you and fail to apologize? People are the worst and I hate them.

But I've found that this phrase that I've clung so tightly to, the one that has protected me and my heart for the past two or three years, the combination of words that lowers my expectation for those around me so much that I can only hope that they won't be able to surprise or hurt me anymore, that phrase fails in light of the big disappointments.

Someone walk out of your life and never look back? Someone say a hateful thing to a vulnerable person? Someone do something to hurt a vulnerable person? The nation elect a candidate who in many ways represents the worst of America? People are... people. And when people do these things, I realize not our value but rather how broken we must be. How ignored. How frightened. How angry. How lost. How unloved we must feel. How hated.

I thank God that in those moments of realization, I feel overwhelming compassion instead of derision or rejection. I know that doesn't come from me. l know that quiet sadness that settles into my heart and reaches my arm out toward another isn't me. Throwing my phone across the room on election night and screaming at the television is me. Reaching for a bottle instead of the phone is me. Staring at the pavement as I walk past those in need is me. I have so much me inside me. It rises up and occupies my mind with my needs, my pain, my sorrow, my shame. It clouds my eyes day after day, only allowing me to see the problems of my heart to the exclusion of all other cares. It is focused on myself because I have believed the lie that if I don't care about me, no one will. All those people out there, all they want to do is hurt me. They're the worst. I hate them.

My sisters, my brothers, this should not be. As humans, we are capable of such terrible things. We are bound by such horrifying self-preservation. We do not let the cries of those in pain reach us. We do not acknowledge when we are the cause of that pain. We allow our fears to twist us. We do such hateful things.

But we do not have to. I know we don't have to. I know we don't have to because in those moments when I realize the depths of human brokenness, I do not feel that hate. In that time when hate should overwhelm me, when by all rights I should despair, something better works a miracle in me. A tiny miracle for me, because the burden the world has placed on me is so much smaller than for others, but I can recognize that same miracle in those from whom the world has taken much. There is a light that can shine through us even in the worst of times, a light that brings love where by all rights there should only be hate.

Friends, let us seek that love. Let us seek that love in every situation for as long as we can. Let us love and protect those who are vulnerable and let us never cease to speak out and act against the people and systems causing and exploiting that vulnerability, but let us also love those who hate. Let us hear the pain of the hateful and seek also to heal that. It is only by healing the hearts of humans that we can hope for change.

I don't have the exact actionable answer for how we do all that healing. I don't have a detailed plan for how to ecumenically reach every human heart and stop it from hurting another out of its hurt. I only really realized that I shouldn't hate people yesterday. I hadn't thought about how deeply I had allowed a flippant phrase to take root in my own heart and how atrophied my muscle of love had become. But recognizing that there is something better than hate in every situation is a step. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Be that love. Be that loud, active love.



"[16] So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. [17] Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgement, because as he is, so are we in this world. [18] There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. [19] We love because he first loved us. [20] Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. [21] The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also." 1 John 4:16-21.

Wednesday

Think about November 9th.

I know that these last months have been a race to November 8th. I know it has been an exhausting time. I know we're all ready for Wednesday. But I also know that election day is vitally important for our country. I want to add my voice to those asking you to go vote on election day. This is your chance to be involved in your government, to have a say in who represents you and shapes your country. Our democracy is exactly as fragile as the people it governs. The government by the people and for the people cannot survive without the people, without the belief of the people. People have fought and died to gain and preserve your right to vote. Your vote, if you choose to exercise that right, honors their sacrifice and safeguards the nation. I can't think of anything better to do with your life today. 

If you do vote, I want you to keep November 9th in mind. On November 9th, regardless of who wins, we wake up and start holding the current president and congress and governors and state legislatures and judges and every other elected official you can think of accountable for their actions again. They have months left in office at the least and they have so much work to do. November 9th is the day we let this past season go, turn back to our current elected officials, and begin the practice that our new president and members of Congress and every other elected official should come to expect from us when they take up office in the new year: the demand for accountability. As you vote, keep in mind who you want to hold accountable in January. Keep in mind who you think will respond to your voice as a voter. Keep in mind the candidates who will listen to the criticism and critique of those around them when they are not acting in the best interest of the American people and the vulnerable citizens of America and the globe. 

On November 9th, the wounds we've inflicted on each other, the divisions we've allowed this election to foster, the angry words said and the friendships broken will all still exist. The end of the election will not change the words we said during the election season. We will need to rebuild, and maybe more than we've ever needed to rebuild before. As you vote, keep in mind the candidates that will facilitate that rebuilding. Vote for the people who can help make us a more complete nation. 

But most of all, whether you voted or not, whether you've run from this election or cheered on your candidate, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican or adamantly or dispassionately neither, on November 9th, be a part of change that you wish to see in America. Pray for healing, for wholeness. Pray for our current leaders and for our future leaders. Continue to pay attention even as the lights turn away from the government. Don't step away from the world because the drama of this season is over. Hear the voices of those in need and help them or at least help their stories get to those who can help them. Do the good that you can in the world. 

The success of the American experiment is not guaranteed. It is only with the honest participation in and respect of the democratic system by voters and candidates that America survives. It is care of the people that it will carry America forward. Friends, let us be those people. Let us care for and carry this great unfinished symphony forward. 

My Editorial Ghost

I have three blog posts that I started for today but they're all pretentious wastes of words and you don't need to read them.

That's not true. I don't think they're pretentious. I'm only saying that so that you'll think I have some humility about what I write. I think there's value in the ideas, but they're half-formed and I haven't been able to sit down and make them write themselves out of my brain because I'm working and I should be studying and I have this thought that I simultaneously love having and know that I shouldn't have and my mental powers are consumed between working and studying and struggling and so my output is not what I want it to be. It's fine. It's trying. I wrote this paragraph so that you would see that I value who I am and what I do and what I think. I wrote this paragraph to set up the critique that I over-value who I am and what I do and what I think. Please don't think so little of me as to assume that I haven't already bounced this ball off the walls of my mind. The repetition has left a dent. 

You can never really know what's in someone else's mind. They can tell you, but you don't really know. You can't experience it. You physically cannot see the world through any eyes but your own. The taste and touch and smell and sound, the way the minutes tick by and the colors dance, the distance between you and every other object and being in the universe, the way in which the universe enters into your understanding of it, all of that is perfectly unique to each person who experiences existence. I can tell you that I love you, but you don't really know what that love feels like. You don't know how strong or weak it is, how much it's based on careful consideration of the emotions I've experienced and how much of it is intuited from two glances and a dance. I can tell you how my stomach jumps when I think about you, but you would still have to relate that back to a time when you felt butterflies over someone you have affection for. Even then, we had two distinct experiences that may or may not have any relation to each other. Neither of us will ever actually know if what we feel is the same thing. There might be no one else in the world, feeling what I feel right now, would classify it as love. There's no externally verifiable evidence here. There's only the indescribable qualia of the heart. And if you think this paragraph is just about processing something in my experiences, you've missed the existential point in favor of the sensory one. Maybe that's what I wanted when I wrote it. But better to give me the benefit of the doubt and think that I intended for the honest example to draw you in and hoped that you would make a wonderful connection with it.

So if there's a real way in which we can't understand one another, can never understand one another, can never actually connect with each other on a basic level, do we despair? Do we consign ourselves to waving at each other from across the chasm of our perpetual separation from every other human? Do we learn how to embrace the loneliness that the nature of our existence seems to force upon us? Are you judging me for using too many rhetorical questions? If this were a court room, would you object loudly to the judge that I'm leading the witness? Be patient with me. I promise I have a point. I assumed, when I set out to write, that you'd be with me in this, that you'd hang on for my point, that you'd trust my guidance as we wander through the mire of consciousness together. Have the generosity of spirit that I assumed you'd have.

Humanity, I think, has never despaired of its loneliness. We talk. We talk and we listen, we write and we read, we make movies and art and write songs and poetry and share those things with others. We seek experiences. We travel to new places, we explore, we seek out the company of others and when that company cannot be found, we invent others. There is some kind of calling in our bones to be community, in relationships. We will shout across that void and toss light and lifelines until our throats are raw and our arms exhausted. If you're distracted by my use of "light" in last sentence and think it was left from an earlier draft, the first thing is that the joke's on you-- the majority of my posts are first drafts-- and the second thing is that I have been told that poets sometimes will place words together that don't make sense in order to force you to lean into that incongruence and source it and wrestle with it. I revel in mixing metaphors and I know it upsets people and I am not bothered by that. There is an infinite set of things I am bothered by, but the majority of my writing choices are not contained within it. What I want most from you is for you to respect those choices, to see them, acknowledge them, listen to them, question them, engage with them, and to never sweep them under the rug as if I believed so little in the impact of my words that I would toss them about like leaves in the wind instead of the precious children that they are to me. I may toss them in the air, but never too far and never beyond me ability to catch. 

This month is National Novel Writing Month and I don't think it could have been more timely for me.  No matter how prepared you think you are for it, seminary is an upheaval of the soul. There wasn't the tearing down of foundations for me like there may be for others, but that's because I already did that on my own. I have been re-formed and I have been shaped and every step of the way I have had to be intentional about the way in which that reformation has happened. I got a thought I need to deal with, a longing that I need to write around, and I think it's going to have to be long form. I wasn't going to do NaNoWriMo this year because making the time for it will be an endeavor, but I need to shout across the void. Even if no one ever reads it, I need the practice of expressing something which I have found to be true.

Some people can express their truths through their actions. The beliefs they hold deep are written in the lines of their faces. I need to practice that, to be better at loving people in the real world we all inhabit together, to see every person that comes before me as a person and as such, valuable. I need to care and care deeply for others and I have to be better at expressing that through my life. But I have these words, you know? I have these thoughts and I am tired of apologizing for them. Because I wrote this paragraph to tell you that I know that I have to love others and I undersold my ability to care for them so that I'd fit into your narrative of who I am, or what I fear your narrative for me is. Please don't treat me like a new soul walking into this strange world without any ability to do anything other than absorb. If I am blinded by the cacophony of lights that is existence, it is because I have endeavored to see it. I could have chosen otherwise. 

Anyway, all this to say that I might be a little spotty with the posts this month. I hate not keeping a commitment, especially when I've gotten so much from writing here, but I do genuinely think there'll be a benefit to the change. My pride sits at the back of my head like a little editorial ghost, telling me that I'm good enough without trying, telling me that my disposition is only an advantage, minimizing the effects of the truth spoken to me. Even though my heart and mind has felt the rumbles of the past few months, it'll be good to move into a space with a different kind of resonance.

Maybe I'll learn something that way.

Tell Me What's So Bad

I remember waking up one morning in Scotland and just being happy. It wasn't some transcendent joy and it wasn't due to anything in particular, as far as I can remember. I just woke up happy. On the right side of the bed for once, I assume. It's a little bubbly feeling in your chest and a lack of headache in your temples. I was just happy, for the first time in as long as I could remember.

Monday was like that for me here. Not in the morning necessarily-- I woke up early to work on a paper-- but it was such a lovely crisp morning and I got to see the sunrise on the bus. Then at work I got to do a planetarium show and I had forgotten how much I love doing shows. My friends have been bearing with the brunt of my bursts of astronomy passion in the past couple of weeks as I send them quotes from adorable children or pictures of artifacts in the Air and Space Museum or yet another expression of how happy I am to be back working the telescopes and editing curricula. I had forgotten how much I loved this kind of work and the kind of people that are drawn to it. Add in the autumn that has been cascading around us the past few days and I didn't think that my little heart could be happier.

But then it was. I went from work to class, bouncing facebook messages and texts off the satellites as I walked to the metro stop, then running into some girls from my program on their way up to a different class, and having a good talk about where we're all at and what's expected from us. Later, during the break in class, one of my other classmates asked if I was okay and asked what was going on in my life and my best answer, and the truest one, was that I was in my happy place. I've been swimming in a lot of theology lately and I'm in that exciting place where I'm reading edifying material and making connections and putting pieces together and having lovely, deep conversations with lovely, deep people, and I don't feel like I need to slow down the spin of the wheels in my brain. I don't know what my face is doing while that thinking is happening (I've been told I look somewhere between distraught and distracted), but I love letting my brain chase ideas down. I love letting it explore. And it brings me so much joy when an idea clicks into place that I have a tendency to confuse the messenger with the message, forgetting that what I've been looking for is the spark and not the human that evidences it, but right now, I'm just happy that so much is pouring into my brain and wedging its way into my soul. It feels like everything I ever wanted.

I know that we only get a fleeting number of days and I know that one day, barring any kind of intervention, the Earth will be consumed by the Sun and everything we ever loved will be obliterated by the heat of a dying star, but I could live for days like Monday, where the good was more than sufficient and the bad did not suffocate, where the world was beautiful around me and the people near me kind. My disparate passions have found their way into life, all at once.

Monday was one of those days that showed you what to wish for.

We could all use that sometimes.

---

Today's blog post title comes to you from the song Happy by John Fulbright.