brace yourself; this got a little long.

Let me set the scene we’ve got going here: I’m sitting at my desk in my pajamas, running off of three hours of sleep, listening to my “sad, sunny afternoons” playlist (PS I’m a 13-year-old emo girl), typing in a room lit only by candlelight, because I have a migraine and absolutely everything hurts. Normally, in this moment, I would give up and go to sleep. Which seems like an appropriate response.

But I feel like I have so much to say. There’s nothing specific that I’ve outlined or anything, but I can feel it all moving and stirring in my head and if I don’t get something out, it’ll be bad news for me.

I purchased a plane ticket to New Orleans today. That’s responsible spending of my first paycheck in my mind. I am so excited to see the friends I left out there, go back to my old job, spend time in the city I fell in love with so quickly. Part of me loves making these impulsive, semi-irresponsible decisions. I should be saving my money for the rent I’ll have to pay come August. Riding the streetcar, conversations beneath Spanish moss, hearing that strange, wonderful accent again, walking through the quarter—the choice was pretty easy.

That’s a fun, good thing. There are other things going on though. Lately I’ve noticed this apathetic, indifferent attitude I’ve developed toward my own future. I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from, but found myself saying things like, “I don’t care where I end up.” I had stopped having any real opinion on it. During the prayer time at church, I realized this was totally a defense mechanism.

See, my relationship with my dad is pretty emotionally distant. I don’t feel like he cares about me or thinks of me as worthy of his time, attention, or affection. This is something I’ve recognized for years. I see patterns of behavior that I have and I know that I can accredit them to my resistance to healing from our relationship. The messages from my dad are ongoing and right now the hardest thing to discuss with him is my future.

I always felt like I was disappointing him in a big way when I rejected USC’s offer of admission as a high school senior. I followed what I wanted and went to Tulane instead. When I started talking about transferring to Westmont for this spring semester, my dad was unimpressed; he assumed it was for the guy I was interested in/started dating/just broke up with. My dad considered it a poor choice, believing the school was below my academic abilities. Knowing he thinks I’d pick up and change my entire life for some sort of crush really hurts me. I feel like he thinks of me as a dumb little girl, not a young woman who is deeply self-aware and very in touch with what I believe is God-given discontent.

Since Westmont didn’t work out, I’m back in the college decision period once again. My favorite place. Just kidding, guys, I hate it.

When my dad asks about my plans for school, I’m super defensive. All I want is to get the conversation over with because I assume that if I stay in it long enough, I’ll receive a discouraging, doubting, or sarcastic comment from him. He’ll think it’s funny, but I’ll leave feeling deeply wounded. I’m much more sensitive than I let on.

So, as we often do, I have projected my situation with my earthly father onto my heavenly father. Oops. I didn’t realize it, but I’ve been totally withdrawn from God on this issue. I trick myself into thinking I’m being open with Him: drop a quick prayer every night—something along the lines of “And please let Your will be done when it comes to school next year. Amen.” It’s just become something I tack on to the end of more sincere, vulnerable prayers. It’s not something I’ve felt the freedom to be transparent about at all.

This brings us back to Sunday night. For the first time, I became overwhelmed by one jarring, plain fact: God cares about my future.

He’s not waiting with His arms crossed for me to open up so He can shake His head and say, “Nope! You got it wrong again. You messed that up. You’re choosing this for the wrong reasons.” Those are the messages I hear from others, but they’re not true of my loving, affectionate Lord. He wants to support me. He wants to hear my fears, my doubts, my anxieties: how I’m worried that I won’t get into a school near home, or that I’m just making choices based on friendships I have, that I’m not living up to my “potential,” that I’m disguising my own petty feelings as “God’s will.”

I’m frightened. I feel like a little girl, nervous about going down a slide—something that silly and small. Because if I’m realistic about Kingdom living, a decision on where I go to college is silly and small. There is no singular, correct option. I just get to continue making choices and hoping in God’s name that He’ll show me enough mercy to guide me into His will.

I feel like God came down and brushed my hair away from my face, showed me who I was looking at and, in this, set me free from lies I couldn’t even recognize before. He set me free and will continue setting me free.

I have a lot of healing to do. Right now, I feel like I’m coming before God with my hands cupped, cradling all these little plans and options and thoughts and emotions. I feel a little bit bashful about it—a little bit shy. It’s hard to show yourself to a lover sometimes.

another sentence.

In the garden at the beginning, there was a lush, centered tree—a tree containing a serpent, subtle in its reiteration of God’s words to Eve, she, naked and craving an act that would make her more like this God, who kept His eyes away as her teeth split an apple’s skin, passed next to Adam who bit into it also, letting the juice and Eve’s saliva intermingle on his tongue, which fondled the apple’s flesh, signifying a new awareness of their own flesh and their mortality too, the couple now open-eyed and vulnerable to death. The apple was delicious.

freighting.

I have faith in Christ not for the early Sunday mornings and hand motions of childhood, the smiles from strangers beside the church building, nor my mother's weary voice, tremulous over the phone, straining to push out, "God will take care of you," but rather because of the cigarettes shared on the beach last night, the sound of a banjo with two broken strings, the sweet hesitance in another's tone upon mouthing "fuck" aloud, the way music moved in stillness over traffic lights, relentless in their changing while we watched from the car, parked--my brow furrowed with the fullness and aching of vision and discord and the resilience of tired hearts.

cool and good.

Just wanted to write a quick note (that became not so quick of a note) on lunch today. I was really encouraged by a conversation I had with Shea and Brandon at our informal lunch after-hours. I kind of sidled into a conversation they were having about prayer. They were sharing how they've been changed through opening up to prayer, prayer training, the Holy Spirit's push and call. That's something I haven't done much and listening to both of them made me realize it's an awesome thing to start thinking about.

Secondly, a shout-out to Brandon for voicing and understanding a lot about the changes he's gone through--how his plans have changed and shifted in order to become part of God's plan. I sort of off-handedly and unenthusiastically said something about how I dramatically change my life plan every six months or so and he bursts out, "What do you think your life is about?" Brandon, that was so awesome. You're so right. He said, "You think you're making those decisions?" Ah, how comforting to know that it isn't me, but someone creative and wonderful and powerful enough to give birth to music, to oceans, to hands, and to humankind with all its fullness and complexity. I can put my faith in that. My life is no problem.

I know change is impending now in my life and I feel more willing to be open to the spirit of God in how exactly those changes will look, take shape, branch in and around my life and future. Living with a spirit of accepted uncertainty- hopeful expectation that does not demand specifics- this is how I'm intended to declare trust in and faithfulness to the Lord.

Another conversation Shea and I recently had also played a part in this. She pointed out a verse I've heard a ton of times, but it's also a verse that hasn't ever materialized for me the way it's doing now:

"Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.'" James 4:13-15

How often my plans revolve around those exact things: moving locations, spending a year at this or that school, in this or that city, with this or that person, all of which have somehow become half-hearted attempts to obtain financial stability, to get a job someday, carry on business and make money. I don't even want that, yet my whole life is oriented toward it.

I think I'm re-orienting. So wherever I end up- Westmont, Chapman, Orange Coast, jobless, dropped of school, going to grad school, getting married, staying single, traveling the world- I'll be oriented toward Christ. The other things will work out as God works me out.

only the beginning.

I specifically promised myself that I wouldn’t post any of my poems here as soon as I find out we were required to keep a blog for CIRCLES. Never say never, my friends. I write a lot of poetry. I love it so much, but I also deeply fear that it’s hackneyed and silly. We'll get back to that.

Every once in a while (and not often enough) a conversation gets me truly riled up, plucks me out of my apathy into a sort of…holy frustration? I don’t know if that’s the best way to articulate it, but I’m having trouble.

Late night at Del Taco (aka real church) yesterday, I sat with a few people that I would consider part of my new group of friends here at home. I was having trouble figuring out where I was going to land, being back from New Orleans, and these people feel like home to me. We talked about the church, where we find our hopes and frustrations with it, the beauty and ugliness of our hearts and our roles. I almost feel like another something snapped in me. I suddenly felt okay with needing to abandon situations and relationships and plans, in order to pursue Christ. For now, I don’t feel like I need to abandon anything specific, but it’s incredibly liberating to be okay with it.

I honestly don’t know if I’m making any sense right now. I just think there’s a lot going on inside of me, that Christ is remembering me now and weaving in and out of whatever “new thing” He’s doing in my heart.

So anyway, this is a poem that I wrote last night, attempting to articulate the inability to articulate what I’m feeling. Bear with me, circlers. Oh, and it doesn’t have a title for now.

At the entrance to your apartment,

we stand in half-light and talk about God.

Curse a little, and my skin trembles with cold.

I don’t know what to say to you.

It brings my eyebrows in, not to know,

makes my throat ache with wordlessness—

the heavy awareness that there is much to say.

Soundless lips, a weak pen;

I am no worthy vessel.

A brown spider glows behind you,

suspended back-lit in the gate and it exhausts me.

I fall short of language, but words grasp outward,

gnaw at my rib bones in a hunger that harms me.

I crave surrender, do nothing—

drive home crying, singing off-key hymns

of a heaven much too current to bear. 

chariot by page france.

a song to check out if you get a chance. the imagery is killer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbX1v2HZOmM&feature=related

mac daddy and cheese.

At first, I was having trouble figuring out what I was going to blog this week because I didn’t have any ideas. Now I’m having trouble because I feel like I have so many things to choose from. This week has been a huge contrast to my last…almost year and a half. I think I’ve chosen my subject.

I’ll begin with a little moment from my night last night. I went to see Iron & Wine and Laura Marling at the Wiltern with Meesh (one of my closest friends). Thanks to CIRCLES lunch on Monday, Shea and I discovered we would both be there and we were able to meet up and enjoy the concert together. She was with three friends and we were all introduced to each other. The concert was really beautiful. Afterward, Shea invited Meesh and I to join them at a diner called Fred 62. We met up there, had a great time, and ordered some food. Meesh and I decided to share the “Mac Daddy and Cheese.” Classic.

Our food finally came and as soon as everyone had a plate, I grabbed a forkful of macaroni and, no sooner than it was between my lips, realized that everyone was staring at me, holding hands, totally silent.

We were going to pray.

I was pretty embarrassed and tried to remedy the awkwardness of the situation by removing the bite of macaroni from my mouth and laughing apologetically: “Sorry! I’m not used to hanging out with Christians!” Not so smooth. I tried to explain that indeed I am a Christian and loved that they wanted to pray before eating, but failed, and so we began. Prayer, eating, conversation. It wasn’t a huge deal to anyone else, but for me, to have a group of random people pray before a meal at a restaurant was pretty significant. I pray in restaurants when I know all the people and am generally aware that we all share a Christian belief, but would never expect to without knowing who else was sitting at the table.

In my past year and a half in New Orleans, I cannot think of one single time that I prayed with others before eating.

I know it seems small, but the moment signified a new thing God is doing in my life. In Isaiah 43, the Lord says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” My desert and wasteland in New Orleans was my community of peers; all we did was get wasted together. Most of our conversations were centered on the bars we went to, the party last night, who hooked up with who, how many shots we took. I prayed all the while for God to reveal a Christian community to me, or else to give me the strength to leave it all behind. I left it. God is showing me now that His word is good, that He won’t let me down. The moment at Fred 62 was just one moment, but these images and gatherings of Christian people that I truly enjoy, have fun with, connect with—they’re springing up all around me.

There’s so much more I’d love to share about how different things feel since Saturday, even about the conversations we had over dinner that night, but I’d like to process them more before I post about them. For now, just a simple, semi-embarrassing story and my most sincere happiness about getting to be a part of CIRCLES and getting to engage in this stuff together.