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Saturday, July 12, 2008

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:01:27 GMT

I pushed slowly, attentive to the alignment of back, hips, and legs. I could feel her knees, the joints loose and misshapen, creaking beneath the pressure of my hands. When she came to the Gabriel House, a pin—set to hold a fracture in place—was protruding from one leg, which is now inches longer than the other. Doing exercises with Heidi is a bit like exercising with a classroom skeleton display. She is, quite literally, skin and bones.

Her weight problem is due, at least in part, to severe dysphagia. I’ve made it one of my personal goals to fatten her up, this summer. Feeding Heidi is difficult, because she constantly jerks her arms and head around and arches her back. I knelt next to her wheelchair at dinnertime, trying to get her to seal her lips, while simultaneously holding her head, the spoon, and wishing very much for a third arm. One of the workers saw me, and, shaking her head, took the bowl of pureed food from my hand. ”No, no, mire. Te muesto. I smiled at the tiny sting to my pride as my years of experience at feeding people were trumped by this woman who knew how to be more effective with just two hands.

Feeding an older child is a better workout than most people would suspect. Feeding a person with dysphagia is a good test of patience and concentration. Half an hour later, I stood up to stretch and glance at the clock. I smiled, because I’d lost track of time. I’d given my whole heart for that half hour to Heidi, cheering the victory of every swallow, hardly hearing the any other activity in the busy room. And then, in the second that I looked at the clock, I became aware of myself, and the sweet moment was gone. I was back.

I had known Victor, last year. He’s the oldest person living at Gabriel House. He has Tourette’s and mental retardation. One of my favorite things to do with him is to say, “ojitos!”. He would open his eyes as wide as he could and make a silly face. It always made me laugh. Apparently, however, his medication was changed in order to control seizures. Now, he falls asleep or stares unresponsively for most of the day. When I got out a soccer ball, however, he grinned and held up his hands.

For the following hour, I mediated a game of catch between Victor and Josue—a sweet boy with a traumatic brain injury. Victor could throw. Josue could catch. And I could run between them, retrieving the ball and putting it back into play. In the midst of running back and forth between the boys, I thought to myself, “This is good. This feels good. I feel useful and happy and whole.” Then, just as glancing at the clock ended my absorbed focus on Heidi, my realization of this moment’s goodness shattered half its joy.

These events, and multiple other moments, this summer, have convinced me that I wish I could live my whole life as a child plays: fully committed to the task at hand, and un-self-conscious. Because as soon as I am entirely enjoying a moment of selfless behavior, I have to show up and ruin it. I would live my life better, I think, if I just didn’t have to be there. Why can’t I lose me? These moments, when I almost let go and act from the depths of my heart, are always cut short by my pride, by self-consciousness, by thoughts of myself that interrupt what might have been nearly a pure moment....

I relate to Levin, in Anna Karenina when he mowed the fields with the peasants:

“He thought of nothing, wished for nothing, but not to be left behind the peasants, and to do his work as well as possible....
Levin lost all sense of time, and could not have told whether it was late or early now. A change began to come over his work, which gave him immense satisfaction. In the midst of his toil there were moments during which he forgot what he was doing, and it came all easy to him, and at those same moments his row was almost as smooth and well cut as Tit’s. But so soon as he recollected what he was doing, and began trying to do better, he was at once conscious of all the difficulty of his task, and the row was badly mown.”

Annie Dillard says something similar in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, not about activity, but about a quiet, perfect moment:

“This is it, I think, this is it, right now, the present, this empty gas station, here, this western wind, this tang of coffee on the tongue, and I am pattng the puppy, I am watching the mountain. And the second I verbalize this awareness in my brain, I cease to see the mountain or feel the puppy. I am opaque, so much black asphalt.”

I want to be transparent. I spend my life chasing these moments. I throw my arms wide and try to live single-mindedly. I agree with Annie Dillard, who writes in An American Childhood, “Just once I wanted a task that required all the joy I had.” Such a task would, I think, be found when one was the least expecting it. It would not be at Disneyland, when one is considering which ride would be the most fun, the most thrilling. It might be at a wedding, or in the company of someone dearly loved. But I think the most joyful moments must be the ones unbidden, because something higher was being sought.

Joy must not be found in seeking joy, but in living just as one ought to live. I think of my recently departed hunting dog, Ginger. As a German Short-Haired Pointer, the animal had one purpose in life: to hunt. Every minute spent hunting was a right minute. Every minute spent doing otherwise was a minute wasted, a minute waiting, a minute in Purgatory. She never stopped to think about being a hunter, and never noticed when she was acting like one. She only squirmed in her kennel to continue hunting, and sprang into action with boundless ecstasy and energy when given the opportunity to do so. I squirm, caged by my own flesh, to live as I ought without inner division. Instead, my mind leaps from future to past to worry to heartache.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (whose book, The Cost of Discipleship, changed my life possibly more than any other... except The Bible, and Till We Have Faces), speaks of the actions of believers in this way:

“They are still hidden from themselves, and their left hand knows not what their right hand does. Although they are a visible society, they are always unknown even to themselves, looking only to their Lord. He is in heaven, their life is with him, and for him they wait. But when Christ, who is their life, shall be manifested, then they too shall be manifested with him in glory (Col 3:4).”

Every time I look at my hands, they are closed, locked together in fear. I pry them apart. I think about this, as I try to loosen the contracted hands of some of the children, here. If not daily attended to, the range of motion decreases. The joints stiffen. Daily, I have to pry my own hands open, open to receive what God wishes to give me, and to give what He wishes to take. Open to hide from one another what it is I’m doing. It is only by looking for Love, every day, that I can forget myself.

....

Sunder me from my bones, O sword of God
Till they stand stark and strange as do the trees;
That I whose heart goes up with the soaring woods
May marvel as much at these.

Sunder me from my blood that in the dark
I hear that red ancestral river run
Like branching buried floods that find the sea
But never see the sun.

Give me miraculous eyes to see my eyes
Those rolling mirrors made alive in me
Terrible crystals more incredible
Than all the things they see

Sunder me from my soul,that I may see
The sins like streaming wounds, the life's brave beat;
Till I shall save myself as I would save
A stranger in the street.
~ “The Sword of Surprise,” G. K. Chesterton

Monday, June 23, 2008

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:16:26 GMT

[Some of the earliest manuscripts do not include 16:9-20]

This short, block-lettered phrase used to be fully responsible for rendering Mark my least favorite gospel. I wanted 9-20. Ending with verse 8 makes this gospel—already frustrating and lacking fluidity—defeated and depressing. I want it all to end with the disciples going out and preaching everywhere, accompanied by miracles. I do not want it to end with, “And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

This hiding and secrecy only emphasizes what irked me about the gospel: those pesky instructions that Jesus gives to “say nothing to anyone,” post-miracle. Over and over, again. It seemed very counterproductive. If the point was to bring the truth, to make the Father known, and to send the disciples out to make disciples of every nation, it seems necessary to at least talk about it a little bit.

On a long car ride, my mind wandered to The Brother’s Karamozov. When I read this book for the first time, I did not feel that I understood it much, nor did I feel that deep sense of connection that sometimes occurs even without understanding. The book stayed closed to me, like a brick in my hand, even as I turned the pages. It was a surprise to me, then, with my face pressed in boredom to the car window, that I suddenly began thinking about Father Zosima. It was just a passing thought: “I wonder why Father Zosima’s body corrupted....” I thought about the circus, about the crowd gawking maliciously. I thought about poor Alyosha’s quaking faith.

Unlooked for epiphany turned my thoughts to the Inquisitor’s words, “man seeks not so much God as miracles.” Many of those who came to view Father Zosima’s corpse did so not out of love, but out of spite, curiosity, or expectation of signs and healings.

Perhaps, then, the stench of Father Zosima’s body was not a sign, but the absence of a sign. Perhaps it the Inquisitor would rail against Zosima as he did against Jesus: “you did not want to enslave man by a miracle and thirsted for faith that is free, not miraculous. You thirsted for love that is free, and not for the servile raptures of a slave before a power that has left him permanently terrified.”

In Luke 10:21, Jesus rejoices, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.”

The following passage is the parable of the good Samaritan, in which learned and ostensibly good men pass by the wounded man, while the lowest member of society—one who worships what he does not know, as Jesus tells the woman at the well in John 4—shows active love to this stranger.

I read Mark, now, with a different perspective. I read it, not confused or shy before these admonishments of silence, but thankful for a wise and mysterious God who refuses to be a carnival act or meal ticket. He came as a humble servant who simply asked to be followed, and to be loved with an active love that stirs us to obey.

There are dots to be connected, here, and perhaps I’m just really slow on the uptake. But this is a start. The brick softens, and the Word whispers. I’ll follow.

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 04:12:58 GMT

I thrust my hand into a log. The bark in many places was chipped away, exposing the golden, damp inner wood. I clenched my fist, and the wood crumbled in my hand, falling in soft clumps of mulch between my fingers. I released my grip, then grabbed another handful, and another, tilling the wood like loose dirt, fascinated by how easily the rotting branch fell to pieces. It reminded me of a well-broiled fillet of fish.

I lifted my hand to my face and breathed deeply. On my hands, the scent of the tree from which this log had originated—one of the species towering over me that I am embarrassed not to be able to identify—was faint. The massive fallen branch was already resigned to the surrender that identity and the assumption a new one, as part of the carpet of decay that lay on the trail. Still, mixed with the scents of the lake and the soil, there was a bit of distinct tree-life-smell, green and wonderful, left in the fibers that clung to my fingers.

Meg finished photographing the wildflowers we had stopped to examine. We continued our trek around the lake. A rocky terrain demanded my focus for a few moments. It’s amazing how, after attending to one’s footing for only a few moments, one can look up and see completely new scenery, complete with its own shocking wonders. There may be a lesson in this about what we miss when we look away. Or, perhaps, the lesson is about what we notice when we look away, then turn a fresh gaze on what is before us. Both are true. The material point, I suppose, is simply to look. After a bold step onto a higher rock, my next look at my surroundings showed me a young oak tree, nestled between two rocks, growing sideways due to the bolder that slanted above it. I pointed out this tree to Meg. She commented that the oak tree, small as it was, probably was about twelve years old. They grow slowly, and their roots grow deeply.

I pictured fifty years from now, when the oak tree will have grown high and become a source of shade. This will have caused more moisture to collect, and the rocks and boulders will be mossy. Other grassy plants will take root in the moss, and those plants will eventually decay. In the rich soil left by their decaying bodies, other plants with broader leaves and curling vines will find nourishment. But, most importantly, the deep roots of the oak will have cracked through the stony ground and bored their way to more fertile dirt beneath, spread and plunged to grasp, break, suck, and thrive off the earth with a desperate and immense grip. That insatiable hunger and incalculable pressure will progress for years—it was happening at that moment beneath my feet, soundlessly—before any major changes occurred on the surface. I felt a great deal of respect for the youth and determination of that small oak tree—then hardly more consequential than a few dry branches wedged in a crevice—as I walked past.

We crossed a bridge that led over the fork of a river dumping into Pine Crest Lake. I stared at the shooting water pounding like white, vengeful fists into the rocks while Meg set up a slow motion shot of the falls on her camera. And I though about the lives of those rocks. I thought about their jagged edges smoothed slowly over the years.

It abruptly occurred to me why I prefer mountains to beaches. I love beaches, certainly, for their expanses and freedom and reckless joys. Mountains, for some reason, have always seemed more real to me, though. I shared epiphany with Meg, “I think I like mountains more than beaches because mountains show the passage of time in ways that beaches do not,” I said. I had spoken without any deeper contemplation, but as soon as the words had been declared, signs of life and death, of past and future seasons, called from the flora around me.

The trees bear scars from clawing and carving. Driftwood floating by the docks not only tells stories of the trees it once was—carved, burned, or chopped down—but of a journey downstream, buffeted and smoothed by the currents. The ground is littered with fallen petals, leaves, needles, dead insects, shed exoskeletons, and dry twigs that snap like bones as I walk. These things conceal older decay, less easily identified. Beneath the brown, leafy surface, from the well-fertilized soil, seeds die and bring forth fragile, pale things that bend under the weight of single dewdrop in the early morning.

Each life springs from a death and, in so doing, commemorates it. Each life is marked by hardship in ways that last. The scars just expand with the girth of the trunk, and climb higher as it reaches toward the sun. Seasons pass. It is a cycle, but an imperfect one, because nothing is ever the same (and that, perhaps, is actually a perfection).

Even the rocks, whose cracks and chips are polished away by the beatings of the water, still tell stories of years under unrelenting pressure. Perhaps they may not whisper their original woes. I cannot turn them over and deduce from the negative space of their edges what shape the jagged boulder or cliff from which they were severed must have been. Instead, I know a different story. I know the story of their severe healing and return to wholeness.

Beaches do not show the changes of the seasons. Any name I write in the sand, anything I fancifully build, will be swallowed by the waves within minutes, or at most a few hours. The sea conceals the secrets of seasons. The waves erase without differentiation. Their predictable motions level out all changes, or sweep them away. A log burned, a line drawn, a pattern of shells artfully arranged: they will all disappear. Nothing deep grows, and lifecycles are not celebrated, but hidden.

Perhaps this is unfair of me. The lesson the beach teaches may not be about suffering, and the glories it does reveal have their place and their beauty. Yet I think this lesson, this revelation, is still very true, and the contrast is allegorically useful to me.

The more I know of the world, the more I am aware of my need for a strong theology of suffering. And I think (I think... ) that an essential part of the practice of this is not being too quick to point out the light at the end of the tunnel. That there is light might be the most important truth, and the ultimate source of hope. But identifying superficial reasons for the pain, then ducking and running out of the tunnel as quickly as possible, seems unhelpful.

Avoiding or immediately explaining pain are almost always fruitless endeavors.

Beaches, with their record-less sands and methodically smoothing waves, avoid bearing the marks of change and suffering. The beauty of a beach is partially due to its changelessness. Tides rise and fall. The shore remains clean-swept. Mountains are the opposite. Their growth is full of death. Their springs are possible because of sorrowful, hungry winters.

(The sappy, email-forward-like thing for me to ask of myself, now, is whether I live more like a beach or a mountain. Therefore, I.... I’m... a sappy person.)

The truth is that I have beach-tendencies towards wanting restoration from injury that returns me to my original state. I want to wash the experiences away. I want to be clean. I want to enjoy unbroken horizon. I want to be innocent. More recently, however, God has been pummeling my heart’s rough edges, not with the goal of reattaching the broken bits, but with the hope of reforming it with ungentle currents of mercy.

If I have learned nothing else from college (and that’s a horrible big and even blatantly silly “if”), it is that I need to sit still in hardship. Get comfortable and hang up your pictures in the abyss, as Murray would say. The work of the seasons will show. The evils of fire and ice and the hands of men will leave scars. But sorrows nourish new growth. But bitterness grows sweet with time. But rain will make the flowers grow.

It all takes time.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Tue, 27 May 2008 18:15:35 GMT

Morning stirred me from sleep without any artificial beeping to shatter my dreams before they’d run their course. The sunlight and the birds eventually bought me to consciousness. I ate, read my Bible, thought about God’s love, then stretched out on a lawn chair with a tea cup of Earl Grey and my Italo Calvino book.

I had spent the night at my friend, Meg’s, house, enjoying the traditions of her company, such as kettle corn, fudgesicles, movies, and massages. Now, I was spending time with her flower garden. I read a few charming pages of my book, then looked and listened to the rustling, sighing plant-noises.

I like books that not only have the power to pull me into them, but that can also lift my head, with a feeling of awakening, to glance around at the world, and to see it differently. Italo Calvino is like that. I moved easily from being utterly engrossed in his prose to looking around at the grass, the fence, a passing dragonfly, and seeing them all scrawled with his adjectives. His perspective not only captivate me with his world on paper, but shade and cover my world with sheathes of his.

Meg is a very good gardener. I followed the brick edges of her lawn with my eyes. The types of plants and flowers never repeated, but every transition and tone seems harmonious. I listened. The wet grass was making noises. Whether it was due to insects and other invisible life landing and moving in the soil, or because the blades were separating as they dried in the sun, I wasn’t sure. But the grass was moving and almost clicking very gently, like the sound a tongue makes as it taps the mouth’s alveolar ridge. Or maybe it sounded more like tiny, pecking kisses, irregular and frequent like microwaving popcorn. Whatever it was, the grass and the soil called attention to themselves. And this greatly pleased me. A favorite quotation from Till We Have Faces came to mind, something about “things growing and rotting, strengthening and poisoning, things shining wet....”

I went home, because my mommy wanted to see me. I found her sitting outside by our hummingbird feeder, cuddling with Kendall as she read to her about the history of presidential elections. I sat with them and reopened my own book. Garred got up from his homework in the kitchen, and came outside as well to ask Mom, “What’s tu-ber-cu-lo-sis? I’ve been reading about it, and it seems to be a disease that lots of famous people die of.” We laughed.

Hummingbirds are incredibly territorial. Although there is room for at least six of them on the feeder—at least a dozen were swooping with immense speed around my yard, suddenly diving like falcons, or flying to the top of the our redwood tree where they are hardly visible—it’s rare for even two to share the perch. Our favorite, Mr. Pink Chin, is bigger and rounded than some of the others, but the smaller, darting black and purple-headed birds threaten him with their straight pin beaks, preventing him from drinking. The females fare better, even though they are even smaller. I watched them suspended near the perch, outsized by even the red dragonfly that buzzed around the yard (my mom calls them “hummingbugs”). The females, more often then the males, cease their fluttering and actually land with their wings folded on the perch. Perhaps it’s due to their less defensive nature, or perhaps it’s because they are simply braver. When they land, they look even smaller. I could pinch them between two fingers. Their tiny, sloping heads and tapered bodies inexplicably remind me of miniature glass vials.

In flight, their inexhaustible wings produce a low whir with a high whistle floating above it. When they drink in flight, the gentle slope of their neck abruptly becomes hunched and angular. Their wings are acutely angled behind their back. Their tails raise and slightly splay. All this in less than a second as their tongues whip through their beaks. Then they launch backwards and hover, waiting for a safe moment to drink again. Their tails circle for balance.

My mom contemplatively watched them darting at one another menacingly, squeaking at bat-like frequencies. “I think they say bad words to each other,” she reflected.

It’s good to be writing, again. During the school year, I can’t do it. Journaling is intimidating, and Word is limited to paper writing. There isn’t much special about my nonsensical descriptions. They mean nothing profound. They contain little substance. But, somehow, they help me move on to the next thing. I’ve experienced these hummingbirds, and I’ve said so. Now, I’ll experience my Genmaicha green tea and lemon scone at a coffee shop in the company of Laralyn and Erin. And this is fully possible, because the hummingbirds have been processed and packaged and enjoyed twice.

Classes take too much of my spirit for me to journal much in my black book, much less type out these thoughts. I look back through the pages of the semester and see mostly fragments of sentences, desperate prayers, and illegible pen marks that meant something screamed in my soul, represented as much by the undelineated white space as by any graphemes. And, partially due my inability to stop, to think, and to say, I think the health of my soul declines. Praying feels different, disconnected.

It’s all related: the lack of hummingbirds at Biola, my faltering pen, and my frustrated prayer life. Yet I want to make the most of the opportunities and activities, while I’m act school. Perhaps, it’s just a matter of seasons, and the right time to rest. Or perhaps rushed academic life is strange, and I am only half-human during my semesters. It is a mess I’ve been trying to untangle for years.

Whatever the solution, it was good to spend a day looking at hummingbirds....

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Wed, 07 May 2008 18:20:18 GMT

Today, I slipped out of my Physics of Sound class. I love walking through the cluttered upstairs hallway of the science building. Posters of glaciers and rain-forests, cases of skulls and geodes, and scrawled announcements and advertisements tinted yellow by old lighting put me in mind of a brilliant old scientist's attic constructed in strange, narrow dimensions.

The doors of most of the classrooms were open, and I can never help but look in out of curiosity. In the first class I passed, the lights were turned off. Two men were standing at the front of the class playing guitar, and the overhead was projecting the lyrics of a hymn. The stadium-style classroom, dotted with students only periodically made visible by reflected light, was filled with worshipful voices.

In the next classroom, science majors (identifiable anywhere on campus by their sweatshirts, pulled-back hair, and excessively tired eyes) were measuring liquids delicately in beakers. I could still hear the strains of the hymn floating above the deliberate conversations in this classroom.

all creatures of our God and King
Lift high your voice and with us sing
Hallelujah....

I love my school.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:52:04 GMT

Sometimes, I hate reality checks.

My dream for this summer was to spend a month somewhere in Asia. I've always loved Asia more than anywhere else on the planet, and I was awake most of last night drooling over descriptions of missions trips on Operation Mobilization's website. I called my mom, this morning, savoring the names of Nepal, Myanmar, and India, thinking how wonderful it would be to soak in the beauty of the scenery, the culture, and to share the love of Christ in such places. My mom informed that our financial situation as a family would not permit them to pay my way to any of these countries. Of course, I was never expecting her to do any such thing. Sending out support letters is a perfectly normal part of going on a missions trip. She also explained, however, that our extended family and friends still perceives my family as having the largest income, making her feel that it's awkward for me to send out support letters, asking them for significant sums of money. Money issues are delicate and complicated, and I've never been good at them, but I understand my mom's feelings.

So now I'm not sure what to do: should I pursue the opportunity to go someplace distant, rural, and lovely, or should I content myself with ministry closer to home and more financially responsible, this summer? Mexico would welcome me back with open arms.... I could always get a job at Christian Berets, again.... But....

Sometimes, it's hard to separate my passion for missions and unreached people from the selfish voice in my head that sings, "I want adventure in the great, wide somewhere. I want it more than I can tell...." Listening to my mom's cautionary words made me second guess my motives. And the last page of my OM application now waits unfinished on my computer.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 13:42:37 GMT

My grandma is one of the most precocious women I know. Her name is Georgia, and she’s just as high strung and beautiful as such a name would suggest. She loves to be in charge of things. She’s the type of lady who flourishes in church settings with lots of committees and potlucks. She can dance, sing, and play piano; she’s natural performer. She writes poetry. She knows everybody around her and asks about the health of their distant family members by name. She carries around red crayons so that she can correct grammatical errors in menus at restaurants. She’s picky, somewhat short-tempered, delightfully humorous, and unbelievably creative. In short, everyone should envy me for having such a grandma.

I call her “Grammy.”

Grammy, my mom’s mom, married a three star General in the Marines who, long after he retired, still frightened their friends by answering the phone, not with “hello,” but by barking his last name at them: “Buehl!” He was a Vietnam veteran. He died of leukemia, and I have no memories of him. I do know, however, that the remains of his extensive library are the reason I grew up with such books on my shelf such as “The Care of Bonsai Trees,” and a collection of operas recorded on VHS and cassette. My mom’s dad, whom I called Gramps, is almost entirely to blame for my familiarity with opera librettos (I used to read them under my covers at night with a flashlight). Because of him, I owned such classics as a recording of Kiri te Kanawa starring in Die Fledermaus at The Met. Such high tastes seemed to compliment Grammy well, but I always pictured Gramps as a strict, unsmiling man. I think he had a temper. His arguments with Grammy were probably epic.

When I was quite young, I met friend of Grammy’s named John DeBarr. As was befitting for a woman like Grammy, she had met this man while having dinner at the White House.

He was also a General who had been stationed, for a time, at the same base as Gramps. He had also been a lawyer and a professor, among other things. He was brilliant and loved to travel. Despite his impressive military background, John was the nicest man I had ever met. He was extremely wealthy, but even more generous. A widower, John had never had children, and—to my delight—did not understand a single thing about discipline. He firmly believed that my sister and I should have whatever we pleased, and should do whatever we pleased. He loved to watch us play, loved to tell us stories, loved to see us happy. He talked endlessly about how beautiful were, and about how all the boys must be dying to marry us (we told him this was ridiculous, since we were only 5 and 3 years old).

Above all, he was good at make-believe and dress-up. This made him the ideal man.

A short time later, General John Debarr and Grammy took my parents out to lunch. “We want to get married,” they announced, and asked my parents’ permission. My dad—a practical and cautious man—stared at them. “Don’t you think that’s a little rash?” he asked. Nevertheless, my mom gave her mom her blessing to remarry. John asked, not only my parents, but my mother’s three sisters, for permission to marry Grammy, as well.

So it was that, around the age of 5, I was a flower girl in my grandparents’ wedding. I wore and frilly dress and black, shiny shoes. I was very proud of those shoes.

Grandpa John, as we all came to call him, not only married Grammy, but legally adopted my mother and her sisters. He became absolutely a part of the family. He went from being a widower with no children to married man with four daughters and twenty-something grandchildren.

Grandpa John lived in Coronado in a big house that sat right on the beach. His house was full of souvenirs from countless places around the world. Most of these objects were breakable and expensive but, as a child, I remember touching them all, examining them, running to Grandpa John with some mysterious object to hear the story that it undoubtedly held. One story in particular brought tears to my eyes. While in the military, Grandpa John had given a can of beans to a hungry man who, later, saved his life. Some object in the house had been a parting present of thanks. On another occasion, the examination of a crystal camel figurine brought Grandpa to tell us what it was like to ride a camel across the desert. Some pictures and signed letters prompted Grandpa to tell us about his work in Washington, and some connection he’d had with the Nixon administration.

Grandpa John was active. When we would visit him, my sister and I would always sleep in late, and just be eating breakfast or turning on PBS (TV was a Grandpa’s-house-treat, since it was strictly against the rules at home) when Grandpa John would return from his 6a.m. rounds of tennis. My dad, an extremely athletic man, would play against him in these early morning games, and would usually lose.

The years passed, however, and Grandpa John’s 80th birthday was celebrated with much fanfare. Shortly thereafter, he began experiencing inexplicable pain in his legs. The pain was so excruciating that he could not walk. My grandparents sold their beautiful Coronado home, auctioned off most of my Grandpa’s treasures, and moved close to us, in Modesto, where my Grandpa John could visit a pain specialist that my dad knew. They were not happy, however, even though we were overjoyed to have them so close to us. My Grandma’s temper frightened me. Grandpa John began losing to me at cards—something that had never happened before, unless he was letting me win. None of the many medical procedures provided more than temporary relief.

My mom, concerned about my grandparents’ happiness, decided they needed to move away from us. She found a center in Riverside for retired military, and their families, run by the Air Force. Again, my grandparents sold a house, a few more treasures, and moved to a house in Air Force Village West. Grammy wouldn’t have to cook, anymore. There were activities, a golf course, and—when the time came for it to be needed—and assisted living facility... and a nursing home.

It wasn’t many years after this transition that a new diagnosis, in addition to the mysterious pain, startled us: Alzheimer’s. It was difficult to believe that my grandpa, who had more knowledge of politics, foreign affairs, and law than anyone I knew, would ever lose his memory. With each visit, however, I watched it become a reality. He began repeating questions. His conversations grew shorter. He watched more TV.

Alzheimer’s is a strange disease. Sometimes, it seems to completely alter personalities. Other times, it just seems to distill a person’s character, until only remnants of the most engrained bits are left. A friend of mine, whose mother-in-law had Alzheimer’s, said she had always believed that her mother-in-law was self-centered woman, who covered her selfishness manipulation and guilt. As Alzheimer’s began to strip away her clever speech and victim-like guise, just the bare truth, remained: her demands on the people around her became explicit and nasty. My friend said that she felt that this was the behavior that had been lying beneath the surface all of her mother-in-law’s life.

As Grandpa John’s sharp wit fades, and his ability to recall facts becomes less reliable, what remains is, indeed, a reflection of what is most important to him. His conversations now center almost entirely on the other person. He does talk much about himself, as some older people do, unless asked. He tells me how beautiful I am, and what a lady I’ve become. He asks me how school is, and politely enquires if I’m too busy. Then he asks me if I’m hungry. We fall silent. A few minutes later, he repeats the conversation.

Grandpa John has always loved food. But, more than loving to eat it, himself, he would constantly try to feed the rest of us, it seemed, just to have the pleasure of watching us eat. Now, with the sincerity of the utter gentleman that he is, the things he most wants to know about me are: “How are you?” and “I’m hungry. Are you hungry?” He’s so attentive, genuine, and patient that, if one were to only have a few lines of conversation with him, then walk away, it would be impossible to tell that his memory was not perfectly intact. His generosity and concern for others, his deep love for his children, permeates every repetition of every question.

Two weeks ago, he wandered away from home (he can still walk a little, with the help of a walker). He was found in a driveway, fallen, with a broken hip and femur. After his surgery, he stayed in the nursing home, recovering. While there, he fell twice, again, dislocating his hip both times, and needing two additional surgeries. With the third fall, he fractured his femur, again, in another location.

I want to see him so badly.

As a child, I would hear about other deaths, other illnesses of the elderly. I would imagine in horror, with the morbid mind of an inexperienced child, what a funeral in my own family. Grandpa John was the oldest person I knew, and I was conscious of the fact that he was growing older, and would one day die. In most of my thoughts, through, he seemed to me immortal. Any man nearing 80 who could still play tennis at 6 a.m. couldn’t possibly be aging. Besides, it seemed to me that he’d already been alive forever and had survived every possible experience. There was no reason why he couldn’t simply keep living.

Now, my thoughts are perhaps not very different. I count years and think about probabilities—but still with the surreal impression that it isn’t possible....

Anyways, I think the point of my long story is to tell you about a beautiful soul, a soul with dignity and compassion and rare virtues.

And to ask you to pray, because I love him.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 03:52:52 GMT

It's high time I blow the dust off of this, my online thought-space, and say something of the life in me. Declaring life and grace was originally why I began writing, here. For such a long time, my fingers refused to lift a pen. Ink was too black, and my heart too heavy. Now, joyously, day has come. I am burdened, still, but I have seen healing. As King David prayed, the bones God broke are rejoicing.

I've been rediscovering the beauty of lingering in the presence of God. As the weather warmed, a few weeks ago, it is spring in my soul. Now, as the rains come, again, I sigh in small challenges, and remember what lightness, what grace, has been mine. I read my Bible, and know that it brings life. I see beauty, again, in what is around me.

I know that these easy places in the road do not last. But, for now, I can give thanks for it.

My heart has found that it cannot leave its Master's side, no matter how painful the way. It has had victories over itself. Last semester, I remember walking by the prayer chapel and turning the other direction, promising to stop by, later. It would be too hard. The presence of God would come and the weight of holiness would crush my soul. I didn't want to feel it. Now, I can hardly walk by the prayer chapel without hearing the sweet call of the Spirit, stopping in my tracks, and entering for a few moments to breathe.

Last semester began with hymns forced between my teeth, barely whispered and painful at every syllable. My own dedication to a path--and to a Master--pressed down on me. It seemed the weight of the universe, of sin and light and apathy and faith, would crush my heart. The valley was deep and not called Death, but Resignation.

This semester began in lightness, in solace, in love. My heart has jumped with fear, at times, and I have been weak, but the sun is energetically glowing. The valley has been transcended. Grace has proven strong, and the night has ended, for now. I know some new pain is waiting for me, perhaps at the next turn. This, however, is a time for celebration.

Even now, I would not want this morning to last. I this world, there must be ngihts and trials. They teach me to love. In the Heavenly City, there will be only day. Until the end of time and the renewal of the cosmos, I will pass from night to night, and take joy in the glory of mornings.

Years ago, I walked down the street in the neighborhood, barefoot. I had just developed an idea, you see, that feeling the ground beneath my feet was worth the small risk of injury. I stepped more cautiously. I memorized the sidewalk from looking down. I looked up more often, because my steps were slower, and there was time to look around. Even the mere danger of being barefoot, of being vulnerable to careless, sharp objects in my path, thrilled me, in a way. My walk suddenly meant more, because it required consent to a possible sacrifice. And, one night, when I was jumping down from a curb, I landed on a piece of glass. I left a trail of bloody footprints all the way home. And what I think, even now, is that those footprints were worth it. Touching the earth gingerly, trembling, cold at times, was worth the pain. And, at times, life journeys that we can take with our shoes off, or our shoes on. Perhaps everything else will be precisely the same, except some small vulnerability. Perhaps it changes nothing. But, after walking carefully over earth that becomes dear from physical touch and careful glances, you will see how it really does change. The shields we put up to keep our hearts from feeling, to keep our hearts hidden from ourselves and from the world, change everything. Let them down. Unbandage the wounds. Suck the marrow out of life, even when the flavor is distasteful. Take off your shoes. It's holy ground, and feeling it will bless your soul.

I really have nothing to say, except to smile.

(It's just overflow.)

There are many reasons not to smile. But the evidence of God in my life flies over them all. Come, Lord Jesus. Bring the Day.

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 02:26:11 GMT

Since I drank most deeply of life with you—
Since simple structures sank beneath the rising
Antiphon to smaller theologies and poor pulpit probabilities,
Approached by way of mauve grapevines stomped on welcoming green carpet,
Their decade waving piteous farewell to worn out shepherds—
Since we plunged weather-beaten flags into hidden beaches
Announcing no victory, but a white, understated surrender
To a melody half heard, half a hummed extrapolation
Inferred by river reed water and sunlight mirages,
I cannot sever my interpretation of twilights from your voice
Or reopen the precious spaces, the persistent shelter of reverent words.

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 02:11:39 GMT

Some of my friends, who tend to be most critical of our country, got me thinking about patriotism to places. Chesterton talks about this, as well, and so here are a few of my thoughts....

Since globalization allows us to traverse the world so easily, I think something about place and loyalty—some understanding—has been lost. It seems, historically, that the human experience was more likely to include an unreasonably, unconditional preference for one place above all others. A person unable to travel to China in a day will have a different perspective of their own country’s function and government than a person who can board a plane and sit in the sky, objectively, between those two countries.

Obviously, I’m oversimplifying the matter. We are inescapably shaped by our context. An American who leaves the US to avoid unfavorable laws or policies does not suddenly become Swiss, French, or even placeless. They are still American. There is a sense in which, however, we are enabled and encouraged to judge our surroundings—even our local community—due to our mobility.

To me, this is not an entirely positive change. It is a more informed way of viewing the world, I suppose, but I think we’ve lost a lot of what used to define home.

To have a physical center, to be deeply rooted without any rationality except belonging seems to me a beautiful concept. It is how we love, or should love, our family. We should not have uncritical loyalty to our family, but most of us have unwavering loyalty to them. They have lived with us, interacted with us, taught us. They have taken part of our narrative and storied with us. Whatever else we think and do with that fact, we simply cannot leave it behind.

Few people mock modern Scotsmen for their ferocious loyalty to their clan, or scoff at their tartans, even knowing that their clan’s history is a wearyingly long tale of bloodshed. Why not give the same grace to America, and those who love it? I ask not for a cessation of censure; I ask only for your consistency. I am sympathetic to criticism, but the heated disgust I’ve encountered toward our country and its government seems neither Christian, nor rational.

Speaking the truth in love should not be a nicety reserved for the people with whom you agree and get along.

(This post is probably less nuanced and more rant-ish than it should be. Elections always make me a little irate, I admit.)