Do I actually have time to write this?

When I was a freshman in college, I used to have period spaz attacks wondering how I would ever get all of my work done. I got up everyday around 6 am and I was “on”…doing SOMETHING… 10 or 11 at night. I know some people do more than that, but for me, that was a long time to have to be “on.”

I quit my job at the beginning of my sophomore year of college to try to lighten the work load a bit. It worked. But then, as I watched the world around me rushing here and there, working 10 jobs, taking 100 classes and doing some weird side project without breaking a sweat, I started to feel really self conscious…like, maybe I should be doing more with my life besides going to class and studying.

So this year I got two jobs on campus…neither of them is extremely time consuming, but I have found that my lifestyle has become like it was my freshman year—rushed, hurried, trying to see how much I can do without breaking a sweat, being “on” all the time. The big difference between this year and freshman year is that I don’t panic anymore when I have a ton of stuff to do. I just do it. Like everyone else.

I read this in the Bible the other day (and a few days since): “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” –2 Cor. 3:18

There is a footnote in my Bible that goes with this. It says: “As we behold him, we become what we are created to be.”

Sometimes I believe that be a “good Christian” I should be productive all waking hours of the day, always striving, always working, always going, and going, and going, and going. I am starting to wonder if I am deceived by pride. In my quest for productivity, I am starting to wonder if I am responding to grace or if I am in a vain, self-initiated pursuit for salvation.

Some people scoffed at me for quitting my job so I could have more time for school, as though I were taking the slacker’s way out. And so for the past fewyears I have pondered the question of how much is too much.  And I don’t know if I’ve drawn any conclusions for the collective whole, but I think I’ve decided that when I don’t have time to “behold the glory of the Lord,” I might be doing too much. When a walk, a prayer, a nap, a five minute look at the clouds out the window doesn’t fit into the schedule, then maybe something is wrong.

What is the veil that hides my face from the Lord? Sometimes I feel like it’s a cloud of smog streaming out of my highway-paced life packed with productivity and busyness. It used to make me nauseated living this way…but, like living for years in a country with sick air, I’m used to it now. I’m used to being sickeningly busy. And having time to behold the glory of the Lord often seems like a childish fantasy that doesn’t exist in the real world.

Is it?

Is it impossible to lead a productive life without living in an existential state of tiredness all of the time? Is it impossible to lead a life where smelling the flowers, looking out the window, or writing doesn’t need to be scheduled in? Is it impossible to take time to behold the glory of the Lord? Is it impossible to become who I am created to be?

Why I don’t really know if chocolate doughnuts taste good…

One of my favorite things about living in twenty first century America is the fact that I’m encouraged to always follow my heart and speak what’s on my mind.

Even though I probably shouldn’t always do this, if I know what’s good for me.

Yesterday I spoke what was on my mind (heart?) to my fiancé. I had spent an evening—a weekend really—working on various projects for my midterm exams…studying for tests, writing an epic term paper, and doing random other homework that was thrown into the mix. And after a night of doing that, I was burnt out and just wanted to hang out with my man. So, when he called me after work and told me that he had a bunch of homework to do at his house (which is a good twenty minute drive from mine) I decided to speak my mind.

“Can’t come over here and do your homework?”

“No, my stuff is at home.”

“Fine, I see how it is. You always do this to me. You call me up and before you even say anything you just rattle off your agenda…you never have time for me…blah, blah, blah…” (This rant went on for a while.)

Was I being logical? No.

Was I being fair to him? Absolutely not.

Did it feel really good to berate him over some lame excuse after I had a stressful day? You bet your boots it did.

I read this quote today that I really like:

“In the presence of the passions, even our state is not reliably indicated by the heart, and our impressions are not such as they should be, and tastes are distorted…”

–Theophan the Recluse, On the Spiritual Life, p. 59

My mom got really sick last week with some weird cold-ish, flu-ish thing that has been lingering around for a week. On Sunday, after being sick for almost a week, she decided to eat a chocolate doughnut and said it didn’t taste like normal.

Sickness does that to you. It ruins the taste of even a good ol’ chocolate doughnut.

That is why I probably shouldn’t speak whatever is on my mind. That is why I don’t trust what’s on my heart. Because it’s like trying to taste a chocolate doughnut when I’m sick… only my sickness is in the soul. My sickness comes from selfish desires…the passions…as spiritual people call them. Selfish desires that take a chocolate doughnut—something good—and turn it into something that is only meant to satisfy my own greedy appetites.

Though I probably should have said to my fiance last night, “Wow, sorry you had a bad day at work. I hope you can get everything done okay tonight…” I said instead, “You never spend any time with me…blah blah blah.”

St. Theophan continues in his quote, “…That is why we presently have the rule of restraining our hearts and subjecting its feelings, desires, and inclinations to strict criticism.”

Often times, America tells me to follow what’s on my heart. Most of the time, I should probably tell myself, “Please don’t.”

I switched my major this year. I was dragging my feet to do so because I knew my current major would include more challenges and more things I don’t necessarily enjoy doing compared to my old major. But I finally had a reckoning that maybe I need to forge through the tough parts of the new major in order to get to the good on the other side of it. I’m sure plenty of people pursuing a specific degree know about this.

When making the switch though, part of me hated myself. I felt like a part of me was screaming, “YOU SHOULD FOLLOW YOUR HEART! YOU ARE NOT COMPLETELY PASSIONATE ABOUT THIS!”

But I am…the passion for it is just not amusement park thrill ride passion…as are many things in life that are worthwhile. It was hard for me to figure this out though, because my tastes are distorted and I wanted to pursue something that was all-about-me.

“…If someone should be cleansed of the passions, let him give the heart its will, but as long as the passions are in force, to give the heart its will would mean to patiently doom oneself to every sort of uncertainty.” –St. Theophan

Maybe someday I will be able to completely follow my heart. Maybe someday I may not need to scrutinize every desire I have and every move I make. But for today, my soul is still sick…and following my heart is like trying to judge the taste of a doughnut when my system is full of mucous and puss. I need more guidance and discernment to figure out what the doughnut really tastes like. God help me.

Why I don’t dislike anime as much as I thought I did…

I used to dislike anime. I thought it was nothing more than a boring, stylized cartoon.

Then I actually watched some anime…

Today I was watching part of an anime movie called Grave of Fireflies as part of a class, which is kind of a depressing movie about two orphaned children and their lives during WWII. The children’s father dies in the service and their mother dies in a bombing that leaves their homeland a desolate wreck. Not only is the physical landscape of Japan in a sad state, but the souls of the people also seem ravaged by war—calloused, indifferent, hopeless.

And as I was watching a scene in the movie where the little girl is being carried through the desolation with people crying and bleeding all around her, I started to think that simply living is a lot like being a fish swimming in a pond.

We begin our lives as little fishes that can’t perceive anything because our eyes our too weak, and thus we are oblivious to our surroundings. But then we grow and our senses heighten and suddenly we realize that our pond is contaminated. And not only is our pond contaminated, but the contamination has made every other fish in the pond sick. And then we realize we are sick…and if we aren’t sick enough to just swim around trying to manage our pain, then we realize that we can only spend our life responding to the sickness in the other fish (or ignoring it all…but that’s a different story).

Suffering is inescapable. Sometimes I think that as a privileged American, I have luckily escaped many of the world’s sufferings. But then I realize that I—or someone in my backyard— is dealing with family problems or diseases or sadness or whatever…and I realize that the conditions in the rich states are bleak too. Maybe the suffering here isn’t as apparent or as tragic in some ways as the 1940’s war torn Japan…but there are still people walking around on the streets, quietly nursing their wounds.

I often think about what it means to love other people. And I always come back to the conclusion that love is not a feeling. Yet, even when I come to this conclusion, many of my actions are often motivated by feelings. I don’t help someone out because I don’t feel like it. I say something insensitive to my fiancé just because “I felt like it.” Yet, love is an action that rises above feelings.

I haven’t had large amounts of stress in my life. I have not had to face grotesque deaths or illnesses or famine or wide scale suffering of any sort. And because of this, sometimes I think I can’t handle much stress. And because of this, sometimes I think I can’t love as well as many others throughout history. It is easy to love when life is good and you’re well-fed and happy and healthy and prosperous. But when everything has gone down the crapper…then love is—I would imagine—only a choice. A choice to give to others not from the overflow of riches, but from the scraps of poverty.

And to keep loving in such conditions, I would think the only way through is to keep acting. To not think about your deeds or the costs or what you’re receiving. But to only give.

In the words of Nemo, “Just keep swimming.”

Sometimes we (I?) think we are the only sick fish in the pond and everyone should cater to our needs. The truth is, we’re not. The whole pond is contaminated with suffering. All we can do is choose a response.

The opportune time…

I had a dream the other day that I was a Sunday school teacher upset by the state of my dwindling class. However, as I was lamenting the state of humanity to someone else (though I don’t know who, one of those ambiguous dream-figures), the other person told me not to worry because “we (humanity) are forever being saved.”

Lots of people have opinions on “salvation”…some heated, some indifferent, some clueless…

I am inclined to believe that salvation could be a process—maybe not forever—but maybe more than a one time event. Maybe salvation stretches out in this lifetime behind us and before us and the more we walk down a road of redemption, the more we become better people.

Maybe everyone is right. Maybe it is hard to make sense of the nature of such things given our limited understanding of things like time and space.

For the last two years, I have been fascinated by time…specifically the fact that in Ancient Greece, they had two ways of understanding time.

There is chronos time…time that is linear, time that unfolds like a chronological line of seconds ticking away on a clock and days being x’ed off on a calendar. It is the doldrums of time that we inhabit daily filled with schedules, appointments, minutes, ticking, ticking, ticking closer and closer and closer each day to our death.

But then, there is kairos time, which is harder to understand.

Kairos time can be understood as “the right moment” or “the opportune” time (according to an article I read on cowpi.com/journal…).

Kairos time is not time that ticks away on a clock but time that disrupts the normal flow of things. This could be a moment like meeting your significant other or marrying your significant other or having a kid or doing something that makes you forget that time exists.

It is time that transcends time.

If all of time were sand grains slipping through an hourglass, kairos time would be golden grains that remain when all others fade away.

But kairos time is more than good memories. Kairos time is also a moment of opportunity.

The CowPi article describes this “opportunity” in terms of a great metaphor, “The second meaning of kairos traces to the art of weaving. There is “the critical time” when the weaver must draw the yarn through a gap that momentarily opens in the warp of cloth being woven…kairos [refers] to a passing instant when an opening appears which must be driven through with force if success is to be achieved.”

I think sometimes in our lives, time opens like a gap and we have an opportunity for change.  We feel a decision, an opportunity calling to us and we have a chance to leap through a window of time before the window slams shut and we are stuck forever on the other side of change.

This moment might be what they call a “leap of faith.”

Sometimes I feel like we live in a culture where we can’t make decisions. We are so bombarded by choices that we become indifferent to the weight that some of them hold. We stand on a precipice of opportunity, yet we can’t leap off because we fear the unknown. We feel compelled by the mysterious pull of a choice, of a change, at certain moments, but we resist them in a fight for normalcy.

“We are forever being saved.”

Salvation is happening now.  It opens to us like a window, like a moment of kairos…and we have a moment to jump in before the window slams shut.

“Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” –Mtt. 3:2

Repent…what does that mean?  Accepting a tract? Praying the sinner’s prayer? Going to church? I think salvation is more complicated than that.

I think part of salvation may mean doing that thing that we feel we need to do in our deep spirit, and quit putting it off.

I am dying. YOU are dying. EVERYONE is dying. Our chronological lives are flooding through an hourglass, and the moments of opportunity are slipping down with it.

“Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts.” –Hebrews 4:7

Kairos time is an opportunity to act. We always have excuses for why we haven’t done THAT thing we need to do, whatever it is…writing that play, applying for that job, going to that church, talking to that guy, telling that person how we feel, forgiving that other person…we can’t because we have family obligations, time constraints, weaknesses, priorities, responsibilities….true. But, as someone told me once, “Only you know if your excuses are valid.”

The window is open now. But not for long.

Expectations

I had a conversation with one of my fiancé’s friends the other day where I brought up the fact that I was living in a house with girls again this year.

“Ugh, I could never live in a house full of girls,” he said.

“Why not?” I asked (beyond the obvious gender reasons).

“I just know how my sister is,” he told me. “Her expectations for people are too high, and I could never deal with it.”

I was struck by his comment, partly because I realized I was probably a lot like the sister. My expectations for people are often too high. I’ve noticed this especially with my fiancé. Most of the comments I make about him are more often critical then affirmative, which is really sad, especially since he tends to hold back most of his negative comments about me. Fortunately, I’ve talked to other girls who tend to do the same thing to their significant other, so I have the comfort of knowing I’m not alone, though that does not excuse the behavior.

However, while I don’t like the fact that my expectations for people are often high, I like to think that there are some semi-noble motives at the heart of it. I am a girl. I value relationships and I want them to achieve the heavenly ideal every day, all the time.

A priest once told me, “I never want to be loved for more than I am or less than I am.”

I think a lot of times I, and probably others, try to love people for more than they are. I expect people to be perfect people, and to have a relationship with me that is a manifestation of the kingdom of heaven on earth, when the truth of the matter is that everyone is carrying around pain…some that is worn on their sleeve, some that is hidden in their heart …but pain that limits them and causes them to fall below my expectations, just as my limitations do for them.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer says a lot of good things about this subject of expectations in his book, Life Together. And though the book is specifically talking about Christian community, I think many of his statements apply to a variety of relationships in my life, and the word “community” could easily be replaced with “marriage” or “friendship.”

He says, “God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community (marriage/friendship?) demands that it be realized by God, by others, by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly,” (p. 27, italics mine).

When I make my list of demands for people, I am not only disappointed when people fall short, but I start to alienate myself by being angry and judgmental.  And worst of all (well, maybe), I fail to be grateful for what I have, I fail to be grateful for the day in front of me with people in it who are gifts from God.

My senior year of high school I didn’t have a lot of friends (which was probably my own fault in a lot of ways…so I don’t feel sorry for myself) and so on Saturday nights I would go downtown and hang out at this church that had a colorful populace of churchgoers. And when I was in that routine, a lot of my family members gave me grief about hanging out “in the ghetto” with people who have a ridiculous amount of life problems. But I just wanted to be somewhere, anywhere, with anyone to combat my pathetic loneliness.

But now that I have people all around me, I often forget those lonely days of sitting in the back pew so I don’t have to be alone on Saturday night. I take for granted the fact that every relationship in my life is a gift that could be pulled out from under me.

As Bonhoeffer says, “Because God has already laid the only foundation of our fellowship…we enter into common life (friendship/marriage?) not as demanders but as thankful recipients…We thank God for giving us brethren who live by His call, by His forgiveness and promise” (p. 28).

It’s easier to have expectations than to have gratitude. Beautiful, idealistic expectations can live undisturbed in our head, gratitude must be lived out in the messy, broken real world.

As a pastor once told me, “To live above with those we love would be all grace and glory, but to live below with those we know…now that’s a different story!” Amen.

The Giving Tree

I love the book “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein. If you don’t know, the book is about a boy and his relationship with a tree. Yes, maybe that sounds corny, but it’s really not.

The book begins with the boy always coming to visit the Giving Tree, playing in her leaves, sleeping in her shade, etc., etc. But, as the story progresses, the boy goes away for periods of time, and each time he comes back, he wants something more from the tree.

He wants money, so the tree gives him apples to sell.

He wants a house, so the tree gives him branches to build a house for his family and him.

He wants a boat, so the tree gives him her trunk to build a boat and sail the world.

And each time the boy comes back, the tree invites him to play, but he is always too busy or too tired or too something to play like he used to.

The last time the boy comes back to visit the tree, the tree has nothing to give. She is only a stump.

So the boy (who is now an old man) sits on the stump, and, as it says throughout the story each time the tree gives a part of her self away, “the tree was happy.”

If I were the tree, I wouldn’t be so happy about some little punk taking advantage of me all the time. If someone made money off of my fruits, took my branches to build a house for himself and a nice family while I was all alone, only showed up when he wanted something and was too busy and tired to REALLY hang out with me to boot, took the last remaining parts of me ONLY so he could get away from me, AND still showed up with the intention of sitting on me, I think I would be royally pissed off.

I used to have this friend who told me he “wanted to die a martyr’s death.” A noble desire. I’d rather die peacefully in bed, thank you very much. However, I don’t think dying a martyr’s death is the MOST noble pursuit. I think it is harder to live a martyr’s life. To live like a giving tree.

When people take advantage of me and let me down and make use of me only when they need something and ignore me the rest of the time, I don’t like that. When people say things to my face that I know are ignorant or are lies or are harmful to them or to me OR all of the above, I don’t like that. I want to scream at them and tell them they’re wrong and make them see the truth that they are so PAINFULLY missing.

But that would make me a bully. I AM a bully. I like to be right. I like to defend my honor. I like to crush ignorance at the expense of people.

The giving tree only wanted the boy to be happy. So much that she ignored his selfishness. So much that she gave him the freedom to learn slowly, at the expense of herself, her whole self. And when he was done wanting the world, he came back to her.

And the tree took him back, and she was happy.

I want to be mad at the child in the story for being selfish and greedy, but I can’t.

The child is me.

The insatiable black hole

This year I made a commitment to myself that I was going to write every day, exercise every day, study every day. I failed on the first two, succeeded on the third. Unfortunately, my success in studying has come at the expense of my sanity and health at times…but I shall digress.

The problem with my commitment to writing and exercising is that I don’t always feel like doing those things. My heart is not always in getting all sweaty and gross and stealing hallway space from my room mates so that I don’t have to annoyingly pound my feet on the hard wood floor when I exercise.

So, some days, I just don’t do it….and then, I feel less and less like exercising in the days after that. What can I say? It is hard to get back into the routine of doing something I don’t want to do in the first place.

My fiance has told me that his German family has a saying… “We must have discipline.”

Not a very popular opinion in America anymore. In our culture, discipline implies being rigid and boring. Discipline implies doing things without putting your heart into them.

In America, we try not to ever do things without putting our heart into them…whether it be exercising, cultivating some talent, or even praying.  If we do something and don’t really feel like it, it is insincere, it is practically an offense against who we are.

But…the thing is, if all my actions REALLY reflected what I felt like doing, I probably wouldn’t do much good at all. In the perfect world, my heart would be everything I do. But in this broken world, my appetites are broken–beyond broken–they straight up desire things that are bad for me. Right now, I feel like drinking a big honking smoothie, even though the milk in it will make my stomach hurt like crazy. Right now, I feel like laying around and watching movies, even though I know studying for a test tomorrow would probably be a better option for my life here and now. If I acted on what was in my heart all the time, I would offend people, I would say and do stupid things and I probably wouldn’t get done anything that really mattered.

I have to agree with my fiance’s German family. Without discipline, without pushing myself to do things I don’t like to do when I don’t like to do them, I become out of shape. Whether that means physically, whether that means as a writer, whether that means as a Christian who prays every day, my life starts to fall apart by filling up with stupid trifles when I don’t have discipline. Discipline helps me carve out time for the things that REALLY matter.

I need to have something, some rule, some person, some book, some whatever, telling me what I should do so that I know how to live a better life. A Russian psychologist, Lev Vygotsky, came up with an educational term I like called “scaffolding.” In scaffolding, a “more skilled peer” helps a child learn to do things he couldn’t have done on his own (sort of like tutoring). I sometimes think of scaffolding literally, as if someone who is bigger and stronger than me was pulling me up a ladder I was too weak to climb alone. Unfortunately, that “scaffolding” is not the American way. We are consumers, we are running the driver’s seat, the shopping cart, so we would rather become insatiable black holes of vices than listen to some yahoos who tell us what to do, no matter how much they might be right, no matter how much their insight might help us grow. At the end of the day, we really just want to do what we want to do. We’d rather satisfy our appetites than do the right thing.

Wedding World

I decided something today.

I do not like wedding planning.

I sort of thought I would. I had hope that despite my fairly cynical outlook on life that I tend to have…a little…sometimes…I just might like planning my own wedding. Picking things out, choosing colors, designing a menu…it sort of seemed like it might be kind of an exciting challenge…like, how do I do all this within my meager budget? Bring it on world!

But today, after I got the estimated catering bill and walked through several craft stores of paper and ribbons and tulle and invitations and flowers…I decided wedding planning sort of blows…especially on a low budget.

As I wandered through the aisles of discounted wedding doodads and hoohaws that creative people can string together, I suddenly had visions of little children in sweat shops producing wedding gear so we can buy them in this country at discounted prices. Then I felt really bad about myself and this wedding situation because it seems like there’s no way to win. You either pay out the wazoo for quality or be cheatingly cheap to be economical.

I didn’t realize what an industry of wedding-ness there is. I mean, really, if you go to one of said craft stores, it is shocking how many sparkly, shiny, lacy, sheen-y, glittery, fluffy, white and ivory random wedding-related things there are. I think the small wedding list that I had upon my “let’s get ideas trip” expanded exponentially as I walked down the seemingly-unimportant-but-annoyingly-necessary wedding doodad aisles. From guest books to garters, I was thoroughly overwhelmed.

Now, I know that many married couples acknowledge the annoying pre-wedding stress of planning, but I sort of wonder if the retail wedding world is more than just annoying, but slightly dangerous. Aside from the fact that the stress of it all is enough to pull an engaged couple apart, it also seems as though hidden beneath the silk and the lace is a package of romanticism that we are being sold as well.

There seems to be this subtle message that a good marriage is like good consumerism. If you can purchase the right lace and tulle and food and colors then you will have a magical night of bliss and love (whatever that word means anyway) that should last for years and years. Maybe we could call this feeling the Hollywood effect. And, if your “big day” and the ensuing (impending?) marriage are anything less than that, then you can just dump your spouse because you didn’t get what you paid for. Cash in on the warranty (pre nup anyone?) and start looking again. Maybe this time you’ll go with blue instead of red for your colors and that will make all the difference.

I think we want to believe the honeymoon period, Hollywood effect, the retail wedding world feeling will last forever, but I don’t think it really does. Underneath the tulle and silk of every couple (I suspect) lurks two people who are going to be irritatingly human 90% of the time—making stupid jokes, wearing annoying t-shirts, being neurotic and boring and selfish and annoying and less than retail ready…justifiably returnable even… probably at least once a day everyday for the rest of your lives.

But, I think marriage is just that way. If I had to define love in one word, I don’t know if tolerance would be a far off definition…but how do you market “toleration”? It sounds too close to “toilet” to look elegant with lace and shear.

When people ask me about getting engaged, there are usually two questions that come up, “How did he propose?” (With no romantic speech) and “What are your colors?” (Who cares? I mean, red-ish). But the proposal and the colors aren’t going to get you through hard times, yet retailers and Hollywood make it seem like they are all that matters.

I would say that my relationship with my fiancé is less than romantic the majority of the time. Yet I do know he puts up with my neuroticisms, fixes my computer, moves my heavy furniture, listens to my ridiculous rants, buys me things when I’m in the poor house, encourages me through the great and mundane aspects of life, and gives me undeserved compliments way too much.

And so I have faith that we are going to be okay…not because we measure up to cinematic standards for romance, but because I believe that the power binding us together in marriage will be enough to hold two messed up people together for a lifetime.

The paradox of living

“As for man, his days are like grass / As a flower of the field, so he flourishes; For the wind passes through it, and it shall not remain” –Ps. 102:15-16a.

I went to calling hours yesterday for the mother of a former co-worker who recently passed away from cancer of some kind. Apparently the woman had been doing pretty well for a while then suddenly her health took a turn for the worse and she was gone. Her son, the one that I worked with, was only a few years older than me.

When I went into the church and shook hands with her husband, I could sense his grief so strongly that it almost made me cry, even though I hardly knew his wife.

As I was driving home from the calling hours, I couldn’t help but think about the sorrow of loss and I wondered what the family was thinking now that they had lost this beloved member. Beyond the grief, were they grateful for the time they shared with her? Or were they angry that they didn’t have more time? Or maybe it was a mixture of both.

Lately I’ve been realizing the importance of “showing up” for things, and it makes me think of that silly quote, “your presence is a present” as well as the other quote, “the present is a present.” They say the present is a present (or a gift) because we can’t get back the past and we don’t have the future (though some of us…like me…like to pretend like we do).

And as I was leaving the calling hours I was thinking that our presence in the present moment must be the ultimate present (or gift).

And I realized yesterday, yet again, how much I take TODAY— the present— for granted…as well as the people in it.

Being in a relationship with someone can be a real fly in your coffee sometimes. I find that my fiancé often fails to meet my expectations or goes unacknowledged when he surpasses them. This topic of relational expectations once came up in a conversation with our priest, who said that, “I never want to be loved for more or less than I am”—and that’s what I do, unfortunately. I expect too much from the people around me or I take for granted the things they do give.

I don’t take THEIR presence as a gift—I demand it like a right.

 If my mom died, I’m pretty sure I would get angry that she was taken away from me. I would probably be upset that I didn’t have more days with her and ask the “why me?” question over and over.

If I ask, “why me?” upon the death of a loved one— the question—in reality— should not be one of anger but one of gratitude. Why was I given the gift of love from a mother, from a father, from anyone, when really I probably don’t deserve it because I am ungrateful for it most of the time?

We only have people for this moment—for today—and then they’re gone. Then we’re gone.

Everything in life is only here for a moment in the cosmic scheme of things. Yet, I act like everything will be here forever and I fail to treasure every moment, every person, and thus I fail to live.

I think the paradox of living is being aware of dying. (I think some wise person probably said that more eloquently somewhere along the line.)

And sometimes I think, in the United States, we deny the fact that we are going to die and find ways to run from it. And ironically, I think that flight attempt brings on a slower, sadder kind of death where we miss out on the whole of life because we don’t see it for what it is. We don’t “show up” to live by being fully present in each moment.

I hope that when the people I love start to die, I will be able to look back on their lives and have the satisfaction of saying “I was there”—I really saw them, spent time with them, loved them.

I think sometimes, it is easy to be reclusive, especially when writing is one of your strengths. Yet, I hope I never pull a Thoreau and then come back from the “wilderness” angry because I missed out on life due to my own vain agenda. I think if I shout the angry “why me’s?” at my mother’s funeral, it will only be my own fault because I didn’t fully appreciate the time we had. Some people may have legitimate reasons for anger at someone’s funeral, but I don’t. My life hasn’t been too hard, and at this point in time I should only have gratitude.

I only hope that as I mature, I can continue to see the good around me and take it as a gift and not a right.

A Modern Urn

I remember reading Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn” my senior year in high school and wondering what he was talking about and being annoyed that the poem was titled Ode ON a Grecian Urn instead of Ode TO a Grecian Urn…

But now, only a short three years later, I think I’m starting to figure out what he was talking about.

My sister and I always make fun of my dad because he watches a lot of goofy teenage dramas on T.V. I remember getting accepted into the National Honor Society at the end of my junior year, and telling my dad there was going to be an induction ceremony on a Thursday night, to which he replied, “Oh, so I’m going to have to miss the O.C.”

The O.C.!!!

Well, he was a good dad and missed the O.C. for my induction, but we still make fun of him for trying to relive the “glory days” via teenage drama shows.

But…the sad thing is, I actually find myself falling into the same trap sometimes. Though most days I am glad I’m in college and I no longer have to hear about people’s high school sex-capades over bad cafeteria food, sometimes I find myself driving familiar paths in my car and wishing that the world was still just vanilla ice cream and country music and endless summer.

I look at the ring on my finger and think, “man, someone is going to have to pay for this romance” and I realize that in the real world, romance and freedom always come hand in hand with responsibility.

Sometimes I think (though I’m definitely not the literary scholar) that the world Keats was describing on the Grecian Urn was one of vanilla ice cream and country music and endless summer. But the thing is, that world is suspended on an urn…never to be touched again. The world on the urn is not unlike the world of modern day movies and T.V. shows (i.e. the O.C.) that capture the joys of youth that we re-play over and over in our minds when the world of responsibility starts to drain us.

But alas, there is sadness about the urn too. The lovers never kiss, the boughs never shed. The beauty of the urn is static…and much of the beauty in life happens through change. We grow older and we learn the joys of giving, the burdens of responsibility, the tribulations of living— and we become wiser, stronger, better through them (hopefully, anyway). The lovers on the urn are forever young and naïve, the leaves on the trees never experience the beauty of seasons.

But, I also still hold out hope that after this life ends for me, I will be in a place that has the beauty of the urn coupled with the beauty of change that is only good. That the change will make that world become even more like the scenes on the urn—forever becoming more lovely, more beautiful, but more dynamic. Where the lovers embrace—but the embrace is filled with more than romance, where the leaves are forever lively but somehow illumined with the beauty of seasons, where the whole world takes on a mature youthfulness (if that makes sense) and we have the wisdom of age without the wear, and the lessons of life without the knocks it takes to gain them. That the beauty around me will be outside time and not frozen in it…not replaying the same scenes but an actualization of the world to which those scenes were only a shadowy prequel…

…That, in that place, I will be surrounded by an understanding of the phrase ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all  / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know’  without the complications of multiple interpretations and divisions…and that I will be in a  place where my mistakes no longer follow me, where my distorted urn-ish memories no longer haunt me, and where I can unabashedly say what I mean and know I mean every word I say and every word will be beautiful and not full of vice and up for criticism.

I know pieces of that world are HERE, are NOW…but they are wounded saplings springing slowly into a forest. And I must find the strength to keep planting the seeds even if I never see the trees in this lifetime…because if I don’t I’m doomed to die staring at the urn all day…a stupid, lofty dreamer.

So even in the moments that I reach like the frozen lover toward vanilla ice cream and country music and endless summer…I have to remind myself that there is dynamic joy HERE to be grasped to which the naivety of yesterday is blind…and I become better the more I open my eyes and see it.