A letter to me (a know-it-all)

Not knowing everything makes me uncomfortable. 

I always want all the answers. Decisive, simple, black and white answers. I want to be able to point to something and say "this is bad" or "this is good." I want to know the right direction to go, and the right advice to give, always and everywhere, from now until the end of time.

As a mother and a writer especially, there's always a looming sense of responsibility over everything I do, and everything I learn. If I don't know it, I can't teach it, right? Can I presume to teach anyone out of the little I do know? What is my real responsibility, separate from my perception? To what degree is each of us accountable for what we accept as truth?

These are the questions that swirl around my head most days. It's pretty unfortunate, then, that I'm a fallible and shortsighted human who barely knows how old she is on any given day. Because of course, though the ultimate universal truth of everything is what I desire, I cannot contain all of it in this limited body.

There are a few things I know about this:

1) It is good to seek answers. 

In Matthew 7:7, Jesus says, "Ask and it will be given unto you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened unto you."

The deeper I go in my search for God, the more I wrestle with His vastness and my own inability to comprehend it. At times this brings me to doubt what I know. But do I give up when my questions feel too big for me? No. I keep asking, I keep seeking, I keep knocking. Doubt is a natural part of the Christian life, but in my doubt I must have faith--faith that although I may never run out of questions, God will never run out of answers. 

2) It is impossible to know everything.

Isaiah 43:10 says, "You have been chosen to know me, believe in me, and understand that I alone am God."

Plan and simple, I'm not God--but I believe in a God who is, and that is the ultimate comfort. He understands everything I do not, He knows the inner workings of every heart, and He alone is just in judgement. 

3) It is more productive to follow God's lead in each individual moment than to painstakingly work out solutions to every possible future situation. 

The salvation of others concerns me. The future of my child concerns me. How my faith interacts with the issues that accompany being alive concerns me, as I strive to walk with God, to share the truth He's given me, and to reflect Christ in all things. But all of these grand questions are secondary to what should always be my main concern: living with God in the present moment, trusting His Spirit to do the work in me that He purposes to do. 

Ezekiel 3:10-11 says "Son of man, let all my words sink deep into your own heart first. Listen to them carefully for yourself. Then go to your people in exile and say to them, 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says!'"

I am not God. It's not my job to judge rightly, to determine the state of every person's heart, to understand the precise workings of grace, sanctification, and judgement in everyone's life. It is incumbent upon me to trust the Holy Spirit to lead me well, to learn and accept the truth of God's word, to love correction, and lastly (and least importantly) to help others learn to recognize the truth when they see it. 

God help me, I'd never presume to teach where I have no knowledge and no Spiritual insight, but I believe God gives us truth when we need it, and desires for us to live it out boldly. 

If there's anything I know, it's that whatever I know, I know it because God has given me to know it. Life, wisdom, and discipleship may seem at times to be a tightrope walk between confidence and humility--but my confidence, my faith, is in God's leading, not my ability to follow. I know He is faithful to guide me, and I must be faithful in my humble desire for His guidance. Every word He gives me is like a precious seed that grows in His sunlight when planted. 

In this way life becomes simple: as each moment arrives, I am to humbly follow, and do the right thing on God's authority, not my own. 

Shut up and speak

"You don't always have to say everything that's true, but you do have to say the truth whenever you speak."

A friend said this to me this week and I felt at once convicted and encouraged.

Most of my life I've struggled to know when it's best to hold my tongue. I love the truth, I love justice, and I love Jesus. I want others to hear the truth that God has given me. But I haven't always been discerning in when or how to share it--and at times I've been prideful, seeking to make myself look smart at the expense of others. I admit that I have somewhat of an addiction to being right.

This has led me to believe that in many cases, it's better for me to stay silent and listen rather than speak out of a desire to convince others (doing this habitually is a challenge, and I'm very grateful to those who have put up with me while I'm learning). Knowing the truth and knowing when it needs to be spoken are two distinct things.

But recently, things have felt more complex and harder to ignore than I would like them to. I've been pulled in multiple directions, eager to put my neck on the line and damn the consequences, but convicted not to always just follow my instincts. No doubt this is partly due to my recent re-entry into the Twitter community, but I also think the Holy Spirit is to blame. Somehow I've found myself reading the books of Ezekiel, Hosea, and Isaiah all at the same time over the past months, and I do not think that's an accident. God is telling me something, something about Himself and what His vision is for my life. 

These three great prophets were proclaimers of truth. They embraced the pain of alienation from the world. God encouraged them to speak boldly and fearlessly and recklessly--but He also commanded them to wait for His signal. In Ezekiel 3, God tells Ezekiel that he will be unable to speak until God loosens his tongue to proclaim the message he's been given. Ezekiel--a fiery and, it would seem, hot-headed individual, much like myself--has no choice but to surrender to God's authority and timing. He literally can't speak unless the words he's speaking are from God.

Lately I've been anxious to speak. Anxious because the world is so desperate for truth, and because so many of us seem resigned to silence. Resigned to letting lies wash over us. Resigned to resignation.

The common refrain of Christians goes, "it's not worth it."

Not worth it to risk a fight, to alienate friends or coworkers, not worth it to get canceled or censured or silenced. So we silence ourselves, as if that's any better than someone else doing it to us. 

If you're a Christian, wondering how to make a difference in this divided world, I just want to encourage you: you don't always have to keep quiet. Shutting up has its place, but when we start shutting up to keep ourselves or others comfortable, we've left the territory of righteousness and entered the realm of cowardice.

I certainly agree, up to a certain point, that if what you have to say is motivated by pride or selfish anger or vengeance or spite or a need for attention, it isn't worth it. God calls us to self-examination and restraint more often than he calls us to battle--just look at Ezekiel. But if what you have to say is simply the truth, and someone needs to hear it, it's more than worth it. It's worth the conflict. It's even worth alienating friends. Because when a person feels assaulted by the truth, it is not the speaker's fault. And sometimes friends, neighbors, even strangers, need us to speak the uncomfortable truths they may not want to hear.

Knowing when to do this is tricky, and none of us will ever be perfect at it. You have to be steeped in God's word, drowned in prayer. You have to be attuned to His voice so that you can learn to distinguish between the words of God and the words of your own selfish heart. Before you endeavor to teach anyone, you must submit to being taught yourself.

And when the Spirit moves you, speak--and when you speak, be ready for what you say to spark a response. Be eager to engage, to listen, to respond to conviction. Be slow to rebuke, but courageous to do the will of God. Be driven by passion and tempered by grace. Be firm and fair and forgiving. 

These are God's words for you and me, right now, in every space we enter, digital or otherwise. If you're listening to God, He will often shut your mouth for you, like He did for Ezekiel. But when you do speak, your words will be all the more powerful for being spoken on God's authority. 

Contemplations of a control freak

 

I was talking to a writer friend the other day. We were talking about writing, as writers do. Both of us have blogs, and I happen to be painstakingly working my way through a novel that I started back in high school, if you’d believe it.

On the topic of stories, my friend mentioned that it’s a little vulnerable to write fiction, because readers might be able to discern the kinds of dreams you have by reading your words. She said that maybe fiction is a way to live vicariously through stories, and she wasn’t sure if that would be good or bad. I joked that writing is the perfect creative outlet for a control freak like me; you have all these characters who have to do whatever you want, and you can make anything turn out perfect, just the way you think it should be.

Immediately after saying it, I found myself experiencing an ethical dilemma, because I can’t not take every joke seriously (God help me, I’m becoming my dad).

In my mind I asked myself the question, is it ok for me to try and control my characters’ lives? Which is dumb, because they don’t exist except for in my mind, and they wouldn’t exist in any manner if I hadn’t dreamed them up. Fictional characters don’t have free will.

And yet… do they?

I can’t tell you exactly how I conceived of the main character of my book, but the more I think about it, it doesn’t feel like my idea. It started with an image, just a simple picture in my head of a person I might find interesting if I saw him on the street or in the desk next to me in Creative Writing class. I wrote a sketch of him for an assignment in said class, and it felt more like getting to know him than making any kind of decisions about who he was and what he wanted.

I’m definitely not saying that I received my characters from some kind of divine revelation. That would be narcissistic. And a little bit wacko. But I feel there’s something more to it, in good writing anyway (oof, now I’m presuming to say I know something about good writing). In all the good writing I’ve read, the characters feel more real than not, and in my most fruitful writing experiences, the writing of my characters’ stories is almost like reverse reading. One step at a time, one layer at a time, each character’s story unfolds. And you can’t write it down all at once. You can’t know how they’re going to change, how they might surprise you down the road. To make them fit into a small and manageable box limits the story you can help them tell.

You have to get to know them. Date them. Ask questions about their family, their childhood, their fears and their motivations. What do they want? Whom do they love? What is wrong with them? Writing is a study in psychoanalysis.

In that way it kind of feels like fictional characters do have some agency. And if I want to write something good, something interesting or relevant or meaningful, I have to be careful not to make all of my characters me, but with magical powers or bigger problems. I have to let them be themselves. Make the choices they’d make. Say the things they’d say (even if those things include expletives). I have to forget, sometimes, the story I wanted to tell, and tell the one they’re telling me instead.

In that way, writing means leaving myself behind. Maybe that’s just what this control freak needs.

A poem about anything

 

My husband and I talk a lot about poetry. What it is, what it should do, how it should feel. He’s a lyricist–a singer/songwriter, as they say–and I am very much not that. His poetry never comes without a song; I don’t think my poetry is well suited to songs, at least not the kind of songs you hear on the radio. Maybe some 19th-century art songs.

It’s interesting how, despite the different forms our respective poetry takes, Zac and I find a lot of common ground when we consider its purpose, and what makes it more or less effective. The biggest thing we disagree on is whether it’s a good stylistic move to rhyme a word with its homophone (I think it isn’t. Feel free to argue).

In one of our more recent conversations, we both lamented the tragic way poetry is handled by many grade-school teachers, who perhaps have never written a poem in their life and are now expected to impart poetry’s essence to a group of third graders. I remember growing up thinking poetry was meant to be sappy or sad, or preachy, or hilarious and rhyme-y. There was no room in my conception of poetry for subtlety, for suggestion. A poem’s purpose was to have a purpose and make it painfully obvious to the reader.

I hated that about poetry, so I never voluntarily wrote any until high school, when I read some Billy Collins and realized poetry could be meaningful and unobtrusive, and surprising and confusing. It wasn’t about controlling the reader. It was about inviting them into your train of thought and letting them get off at the station of their choice.

Zac had a similar experience. He found it frustrating that his teachers would encourage students to write “about anything,” like simply describing an object could make a poem worth reading. “No one wants to read a poem about washing the dishes,” he said.

And I thought he was right, but also wrong. What if the dishes were just the train, but poem’s destination was really something almost unrelated?

So, to Zac: here’s a poem about washing the dishes.

When the Teacher Says Anything can be a Poem
This is a poem just for you
and you already know what it’s about.
No need for any long-winded effusions,
any grotesquely determined imagery
strung heavily with pearls of soap
and perfumed with lemon verbena,
or whatever that smell is.
You don’t need words to tell you what to smell,
or how to feel the bristles scraping,
an extension of your water-spritzed hand,
its length providing some protection
from day-old crusts of egg,
a smear of peanut butter on a knife,
the gristle of bacon seared onto a pan,
so salty the air can still taste it.
The act itself is enough,
mundane repetitions soaked into your shirt.
You’ll do this a million times, probably,
every time, water erasing the memory
washing it down the drain with all the other
unremarkable leftovers of life.
It’s as though
these plates have never been used.

Something about writing

 

Sometimes I write in a journal. Other times I feel more urgency, so I go for my laptop. I want to feel the words pouring out of me and not worry about how they look or how i’m holding my pen or anything else. Words on a screen, and just words. 

Now that I think about it, it’s kind of funny how much I hate e-readers, considering the way I often neglect my collection of coptic-bound notebooks. Am I a hypocrite, willing to type my words into a digital matrix and send them out to further pollute cyberspace while adamantly denying the book-ness of digitized books?

In my defense, I tend to write—here anyway—for a different medium. This kind of thing, for instance, reads like it should go on the internet. And if I want these words to mean anything to anyone other than myself, it makes sense to put them here. Maybe these words aren’t meant to be bound, and that’s where their power lies.

Poetry, on the other hand, is a different monster. Those are the words you want to feel through your hands, like the ink is your own blood, every letter a sacrificial offering, because damn it if poetry doesn’t require that kind of weight.

These are the things I think about when my mind just wanders. It always, somehow, comes back to words and what to do with them. I crave words at the same time I am filled with them—which can be truly inconvenient, as I don’t always have the means to harness them, and I don’t even always know exactly which ones they are. So here are some now, and I’m not sure where they’ll stop, because it always seems that when I start I could keep going forever.

My cats in haiku

I really like writing haiku–it’s a low-pressure, high-observation kind of poetry. Sometimes it’s nice to write something with a little structure, like doing a puzzle or following a recipe. Also, isn’t it interesting how the lines arrange themselves visually? You’d think that the middle line would always look longer, since it has the most syllables, but sometimes it’s the opposite.

Generally I can’t stop at just one haiku. I love poetry but I also love stories, and groups of haiku together can do more than one by itself is meant to.

Haiku are more complicated than they look. I guess you could say the same for cats.

Pippin, our “first-born”

Precious Lady Pip
Anything you have
becomes Pippin’s, too–even
the air while you sleep

None can resist her
Dainty and dignified, she
will command your love

She made herself Queen
simply by believing it
The sink is her throne

Bombadil, our oldest and most giant (as of now)

Bombadil-o
This Bombadil boy
will reject all your kisses
(secretly he purrs)

Stretchy like taffy
half licorice, but half cream
to dull the sharpness

He is a cat who
will bring you to the kitchen
just to watch him eat

Zuko, our feisty youngest

Zuko Baby
Zippity Zuko
came in from the streets, ready
to bug everyone

One minute cuddly,
next ten all spiky nibbles
Too much energy

He will be your friend
if you sit quietly and
let him bite your face

Check your privilege

This one is for you, Facebook Christian.

If you’re a Christian and you’ve made a habit of calling down God’s wrath and judgement on sinners and non-believers, you need to check your privilege.

Who are you that God is so pleased with your behavior? Were you not, before salvation, a wretched sinner just like that abortionist you’ve condemned to Hell, just like that pedophile you’d love to see castrated, just like that racist homophobe you think should be beaten and branded, just like that robber you gleefully warn about the loaded firearms you keep next to your bed, which you would use to kill them without hesitation?

Who were you, before Christ? Nobody. A depraved, lost and wayward soul. And what did you do do earn his grace and compassion? Absolutely nothing.

Nothing. You have been freely given the grace and forgiveness of God, through Jesus, and you did nothing to earn it, nothing to deserve it, except be unfairly and unjustly and unconditionally loved by the one whose name you now use to speak evil against those who don’t know him. You are saved through no fault of your own.

Praise God that he is merciful and provided a way for us to know him–that while we were still sinners, he died for us. Praise God that we didn’t have to earn it, because God knows we never could. Praise God for the freedom from the burden of sin that we’ve been so graciously given, and the new life we have in him.

And shame on you, Christian, for denying that reconciliation to others, for condemning and judging, for doing anything but hope against hope, as Jesus does, that all who now walk along the path of destruction might find redemption in this life, and one day share the golden-paved streets of Heaven with you. Shame on you for self-righteously anticipating the Day of Judgement, when your enemies will finally get their comeuppance, rather than praying fervently that the ones you should hate will be saved before Jesus returns in glory.

It is ungodly to rejoice in the punishment of sinners. We should be grieved to our core at the idea of someone coming face to face with God without the atoning blood of Christ to cover their sins. We should be grieved, not only because Christ is grieved, but because that could have been us. It could’ve been you. But you came face to face with the love and mercy and grace of God here on Earth, and you were saved, a privilege many will not claim.

Now is the time, Christian, for us to love boldly, unfairly, unwisely. Now is the time to proclaim the mercy of God to all who so desperately need it. Now is the time to remind ourselves exactly who we were and who we’ve become–and to make the heart of Christ our own.

Judgement will come. Do you await that day with gleeful, selfish anticipation, or do you use it as motivation to love more, to shout the name of the Lord from the mountaintops, so that the forgotten of this world will hear and be changed?

I’ve been guilty of selfish thinking lately, too. Many days I’ve found myself overwhelmed by the world, praying that Jesus would simply return and make it all go away. But every moment we have here on Earth, every evil we must endure, is a mercy for all those who have yet to find salvation. So this is my prayer this morning: Lord Jesus, delay just one more day so that more might come to know you.

But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. -2 Peter 3:8-9

All the bad things

Fear does interesting things to people.

I don’t think I have to elaborate for you to know exactly what I’m talking about. Our lives are filled with reasons to be afraid–not just right now, but always. Though we seem, at this moment in history, to be in a season when fear is taking hold in bigger sweeps.

I am, and have always been, a fearful person. My imagination tends to run away with my thoughts and hold them hostage in the dark aloneness of night. As a child, I struggled some nights to sleep, because the shadows conjured thoughts of lurking beasts, abduction and abandonment, and what small traumas I had experienced at that point in my small life. Fear would take hold of me. I would awake with sobs from nightmares whose realness crossed the border from dreams to waking.

Many times after such night terrors I would turn on the light in my room. Familiar colors and shapes comforted me. Sometimes I would creep into my parents’ bedroom, just to hear their breathing and know they were still alive, their presence a protective force around me. My mother would come and sing me the words to Psalm 23 when I called out from my bed in panic. I slept with the blanket she’d made me as a baby until I moved away to college–and whenever it was in the laundry I couldn’t force myself to sleep.

I’d read stories that would anchor me to reality–stories so fantastical they could never be real, like The BFG, or so real they brought me out of the imaginary darkness, like Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Stories that brought me hope, that even those seemingly small and powerless could overcome darkness. And, many times, a book of Garfield comics–in fact, I perused its pages so often I could recite each comic from memory.

Strange to think how I spend so many of my formative hours huddled in my blankets, surrounded by loving teddy bears, warding off the evil I feared so much with the words of people I had never met. Maybe that is partly the reason why, for so many years, I’ve found comfort and delight in being surrounded by books, why every surface in our apartment is laden with stories, why it feels wrong to me when I enter someone else’s home and there’s not a book in sight. It’s certainly at least part of the reason why I now feel compelled to share my own words, my own stories, with the world.

As I got older, my fears turned to other things, things more real and sometimes scarier. In high school I began to hunt through the Bible for words of comfort, courage, and peace, and I stuck them on sticky notes to my door. In the middle of the night I would recite these verses to myself. Something in me understood the power of words, without being able to explain it–that these words, these truths, when uttered into the darkness, bring light and life and hope.

Since that time, have I experienced fear? Definitely. Many times. But all the while I knew that God had me, that He was and is bigger than any of my fears, and He never leaves His children. That assurance is my strength, my courage. It shields me from the lie of darkness. I call on Him in my fear, and He holds me in His arms, singing words of comfort to me.

This past weekend was Easter weekend, and to some that didn’t really matter and never has, but for those of us who call Jesus our Savior, the weeks leading up to this joyous day have been filled with the unfamiliar and uncomfortable–change, and certainly loneliness. And fear. The fear is real right now, for many of us.

But I am not afraid–with Christ as my assurance, fear can’t hold me anymore. Because on Easter morning, Jesus defeated fear. He defeated evil, and darkness, and death. He rose from the grave in glorious triumph, and we can be risen alongside Him, never again to be conquered–instead, through Him, made conquerers of all the bad things.

Psalm 91:

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High
    will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress,
    my God, in whom I trust.”

Surely he will save you
    from the fowler’s snare
    and from the deadly pestilence.
He will cover you with his feathers,
    and under his wings you will find refuge;
    his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
You will not fear the terror of night,
    nor the arrow that flies by day,
nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
    nor the plague that destroys at midday.
A thousand may fall at your side,
    ten thousand at your right hand,
    but it will not come near you.
You will only observe with your eyes
    and see the punishment of the wicked.

If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,”
    and you make the Most High your dwelling,
no harm will overtake you,
    no disaster will come near your tent.
For he will command his angels concerning you
    to guard you in all your ways;
they will lift you up in their hands,
    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
You will tread on the lion and the cobra;
    you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him;
    I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
He will call on me, and I will answer him;
    I will be with him in trouble,
    I will deliver him and honor him.
With long life I will satisfy him
    and show him my salvation.”

How to do nothing (purposefully)

Relaxation.

It’s kind of a dirty word for a lot of us, right? As a recovering (or maybe just ruminating) perfectionist, I know that for me, it has always been hard to relax. I want to be writing and creating and producing–not lazing!

But we can’t always be working–even working on things we’re passionate about. And actually, the need to be constantly working is what leads to the most burnout and–ironically–procrastination. If you’re too busy trying to do everything at once, and determined to make it perfect the first time, it ends up becoming scary and stressful, rather than exciting, to start any new projects. Crippling perfectionism, I like to call it.

I think writers are, in some ways, more susceptible to this than many others–the art we create is incredibly vulnerable, and it’s easy to get into a habit of criticizing ourselves to make sure that others can’t do it first. But! Self-criticism is the bane of morale, so relaxation is necessary to the writing process.

Sometimes that means literally doing nothing, or bingeing a TV show, or eating some comfort food, or going on vacation and cutting yourself off from everything to do with work.

A lot of the time, though–and I would argue, more of the time–those things just aren’t really an option, or they’re not the healthiest way to relax. You don’t want the majority of your rest time to just be spent deflecting or ignoring your stress–you want your rest to be restful, and that means energizing, inspiring, and joy-giving. Rest should serve the purpose of filling you up.

If you have any trouble imagining what that looks like, here are a few tips that have helped me recharge and re-motivate:

Let the creativity of others feed your own.

This one is really simple, but easy to forget–all our ideas come from somewhere, and as creators we need to replenish our supply of inspiration continuously if anything we create can be meaningful and fresh to us. So if you’re a storyteller, you need to enjoy stories told by others. Let them point you to new ideas, new perspectives.

Spend time in nature.

Besides all the scientific health benefits of vitamin D and exercise, there’s a spirituality to the outdoors that humans connect to innately. You don’t have to be a mountain biker or a squirrel whisperer. Just the simple fact of being out in the air, among other living, growing things, is rejuvenating and uplifting.

God created the world; He takes pleasure in His creation, and we should too. And who knows what adventures you may have when you do!

Invest in meaningful relationships.

Sometimes, especially during times of stress, people seem like a lot of work–but with the right ones, we can leave a conversation or a meal or a trip to the mall feeling so much lighter than before. A good friend should build you up, point you to the truth, and give you hope, and we should endeavor to do those things for the ones we love in turn.

Don’t procrastinate your friends and family and spouse. Intentionally support and energize each other.

Lean in to the quiet.

For some this might take the more structured form of meditation, but for me it just means, go to a place you feel safe–and just breathe. Let your mind wander; don’t try to direct or control it. A lot of times, when I’m feeling burned out, my reflex is to avoid being inside my head by distracting myself with any kind of entertainment–which leads, ultimately, to deeper exhaustion. Taking a pause amid all that, just to let your brain be silent, can be healing.

Find a purposeful, creative, pressure-free hobby.

For me, it’s cooking.

I love food. Love it. And it’s so wonderfully encouraging–exciting, even–to create something delicious and different with the resources I have, to share with people I love.

And guess what? No one is telling me to do it, or what I should be doing differently, or that I’ll never make it as a restaurant chef–and even if they did, I’d be (mostly) immune to their criticism. Because cooking, for me, isn’t like writing; I don’t do it with the intent of reaching an audience. I just love food, and I cook because it gives me joy, and the fact that others can appreciate what I produce is simply a bonus.

So find something you can do, just for you.

Moral of the story: you have to feed your creative side, not just whip it into shape. Be like the sword of Godric Gryffindor and “imbibe that which strengthens you.”

Happy endings win

 I’ve never liked stories with sad endings.

When I was little, that used to mean any story that made me feel sad at all. Especially a story where anyone died. I remember having many conversations with my mom as I was growing up, in which I would be ranting about how some movie or book was terrible, and she’d be playing the devil’s advocate, like the grandpa character in The Princess Bride, encouraging me to look for the meaning in it, or at least be rational and recognize that Life Isn’t Always Fair.But I didn’t want to be rational. I just wanted happy endings.

Now that I’m old and ponderous, and have a more eternity-oriented perspective, my definitions have changed a bit. A sad story isn’t a story in which people die–in fact, those are some of my favorite stories now (to name a few: Harry Potter, Van Helsing, Little Women). I’ve accepted by now that death is a part of everyone’s story–a part of life–and death can give a certain level of meaning to things.

No, a really sad ending, to me, is one where sadness is its own meaning. Where pain is romanticized, and death is the end of the end, and serves no redemptive purpose. Where the bad guy gets away–or worse, the hero is consumed by anger and takes ruthless vengeance on him. Like Bridge to Tarabithia or The Call (which if you haven’t seen–don’t bother).

I think people like to watch movies and read books like that because it’s nice, sometimes, to feel things, and have those feelings reflected in them–even if what you feel is unpleasant. We like to be surprised, too, by endings that aren’t predictably convenient or feel-goody. And something in us is intrigued by darkness.

But honestly, what do stories like that really do for us? All they do is make us bitter, cynical, scared, wondering what we missed. They don’t elevate us, like good art should. Good stories need happy endings.

But–I can hear you saying it–sometimes life is just sad, isn’t it? Sometimes we feel hopeless, or angry, or let down and bitter. Stories that amplify those things can fit our perception of life, because they are a very real part of being human. So how can I justify my argument? Because pain may be a part of life, but stories that glorify pain and leave us sitting in it are pointless, hollow.

As my definition of a sad ending has changed, so has my definition of a happy one. And although my reasons have changed, I find that I still firmly believe that happy endings are superior to sad ones.

Because what do good stories–happy endings–do? They take us somewhere, teach us something. They connect us to other people. They give us something to hold on to, something to believe in that goes beyond even death and loss.

In story, pain for pain’s sake says, “This is all there is, and it’s easier not to try to see past it.” And sometimes it feels that way, doesn’t it? People say love is pain, beauty is pain, pain makes us human–and sometimes it’s delicious in a kind of sick way, to cocoon ourselves in pain and let it be the center of our universe.

It’s satisfying to see the bad guy get “what’s coming to him,” because it gives us closure. It’s darkly thrilling to see the serial killer escape the police. It can be almost comforting to see the starring couple cheat on each other or get divorced, because judging their failure puts us on guard against unrealistic expectations for our own relationships. But all of that is just so shallow, and ultimately purposeless.

Love isn’t pain–love is giving your heart despite the risk of pain. Beauty isn’t pain–beauty is strength that endures through pain. Pain doesn’t make us human–our ability to rise above it does. Sadness isn’t beautiful if it doesn’t give way to hope.

What pain and sadness are meant to do is point us toward the things that are truly good. Good stories should do just that.

It’s like Sam Gamgee says to Frodo at the end of the Two Towers:

“It’s like in the old stories, Mr Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass–and when the sun shines it’ll shine out the clearer.

Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why.

But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going, because they were holding on to something… That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.”

This is one of the greatest moments in literary and film history–this moment where Sam declares his hope against the chaos around him, and you know, somehow, that everything is going to be okay. Even darkness must pass.

And if you know the Lord of the Rings, you know that this moment is followed by still more turmoil, as the kingdoms of Middle Earth prepare for all-out war. Heroes fall in battle and sustain life-altering wounds, friends turn against friends and fathers against sons. The world is almost overcome by shadow– but in the end, light and life win, like they always do.

The victory comes at the cost of painful remembrance, lost innocence. For many, it’s stained with loss and brokenness, and the in-between, messy parts that we don’t see, are spent trying to cope with that sadness. At the end of the Return of the King, Frodo reflects: “There are some things time cannot mend, some hurts that go too deep…”

How true that in this life, we will never fully escape pain. But victory is sweeter when we know what it cost, and let the pain of it move us forward–into the hope of a future where pain is a memory, and nothing more.

A happy ending isn’t an ending that isn’t sad at all. It’s an ending that doesn’t let sadness have the last laugh.

Purposeful again

Wow, it has been a while.

And would you believe that for the first time, my negligence toward this blog has stemmed from the very welcome problem of actually writing a lot of things? 

Indeed, your disbelief doesn’t even offend me, given the number of times I have left my creative juices to rot in my mother’s 1930s cellar, along with all the corn she canned just before the Dust Bowl. But it is true, my friends, and I will show you how this has come to be.

Rewind to a few months ago, when I was in one of my trademark slumps, every morning leaving for work, where there was nigh on nothing to do for several hours a day–because I work in an office in a remote corner of a school, where one loses all concept of time.

What was it that Gollum said?

“And we forgot the taste of bread, the sound of trees, the softness of the wind… We even forgot our own name.”

Did you read that in your best Gollum voice? Please tell me you did.

But I digress.

I was becoming idle in my cave, the countless hours not graced by students taken up with mindless scrolling, and streaming, and daydreaming about finally going home to my cat and my husband.

I complained of this to said husband (a new acquisition as of August 4th, 2019; congratulate me!), saying how I wished I were doing something productive, creative.

For a long time now I’ve felt the need to write, but my lack of direction always stopped me. If God wanted me to write, surely he’d provide some revelation of the story he wanted me to tell, dictate its particulars to me and show me exactly where to send it.

My husband, upon hearing my woes, said something profound: “well, if you want to do it, why don’t you do it?”

I won’t patronize you. I’ve heard that same sentence before, from many a source. But I saw those words in a different light that day. I realized that all along I had been waiting, hoping, searching for the right project, the one God had intended for me, and I thought by just sitting and listening it would somehow find me.

What I missed in all of that was this: following God’s plan for my life has never been an all-inclusive getaway–it’s been a bunch of steps of faith across a bridge I can’t see, to get to a destination I think I can imagine, but have no idea what it actually looks like. (any Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade fans here?)

So I decided to take that first step, and just write. Write whatever I wanted to–which, incidentally, turned out to be a book I’d started in high school. Because clearly, regardless of any specifics, God was telling me to write–and I imagine, when it’s important for me to know (likely after He’s done something awesome), he’ll fill me in on the details.

And it gives me joy, right now, to be doing that which I feel called to do, even if no one reads it–because God is my first reader, and that will always be true, no matter how many souls my words may reach.

Don’t you know we’re here to do things, no matter where it gets us? And not for ourselves, but for the God who made us so determined, so imaginative, so hopeful, so very close to His own image and so desirous to be near His heart.

What are you not doing? What passion, what creative impulse, what gift have you been given that you’re saving for the “right time”? Now is the right time. Sing as you wash the dishes, write your songs and play them to the sky, build and craft and create and cook. Teach and learn and run. Play games. And for God’s sake, write. 

 

“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them… Everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. This is why it is said:

‘Wake up, sleeper,
    rise from the dead,
    and Christ will shine on you.’”

-Ephesians 5:8-11, 13-14