Uncertain souls.

I choke on the words that are far too big and heavy to come from my lips. My voice isn’t loud enough and my heart can’t beat another time in this minute.

I don’t care if you read the Bible and can look up from the pages, thin and edged in gold, and utter words like “Homosexuality is a sin.”

Call it ignorance if you must, or denial or delusion, but I can’t stand by you there on that piece of dirt where you rest your confident feet, firmly planted in this truth, or Truth.

When the topic comes to the church sermon calendar, I sink inside myself and feel ashamed. I listen to the pastor say this is wrong and that is sin and I want to look around and find the hurting eyes in the room and plead forgiveness on behalf of us all for the words coming from the speakers and piercing uncertain souls, my uncertain soul. I wish that this pew would open wide and swallow this body. I’m restless in thinking that I might be choosing what is convenient from this Word, these words.

I feel less than Christian for the way I can’t force myself to be so black and white—the same way I want to be seen as less than Christian if Christian means I must agree with this judgment.

What would it be like to have your life, the very existence you may or may not have chosen for yourself, torn apart passing a street corner.

I see a man holding up a sign on a busy street corner that says, “God hates homosexuality.” I hear the honks and see the glances. Others march around him with signs and t-shirts with the same message. The condemner sees the condemned, two men holding hands, coming towards him in the crosswalk, and he begins to yell louder his message of hate and judgment. His supporters join in and the noise becomes deafening.

Then a man steps out from the crowd, silent. He pulls a thick, black, permanent marker from his jeans pocket. He never says a word, but he bends down and leans his face toward the concrete sidewalk. The bustle of the busy street corner comes to a hush as he marks the cement with black ink. With each letter scribbled there, the crowds begin to disperse more and more until only the two remain.

I’m not dumb to the obvious, that this story is slated to end with Jesus, holding that marker, looking right into the eyes of the men standing beside him on the sidewalk, and saying these words: “Go on your way. From now on, don’t sin.” (John 8:11, MSG)

Yet as I try to imagine that scene ending, I can’t see it going that way.

I crave the concept of ultimate grace and a God who steps in on our behalf with enough of it for everything. I’m open to the idea that my sins are called sins. I feel the weight of them, and ask for mercy and forgiveness I know I need and don’t deserve. I can receive this theology of a broken world and a need for a Savior, of a great God who hold the keys to justice. I cannot, however, decipher the correlation between the very Word I base my life on and the words, “I was born this way.” My mind spins with thoughts of science and predestination and the theological implications if that statement were indeed the truth.

There are too many things undetermined for me to stake my claim on one side of the tracks or the other.

I will instead keep choking on the words, so heavy and complex, even when they are coming out of your mouth.

Adaptation.

Blank pages that ask nothing of me but truth await my attention. A cold day soothed by hot soup for this lone girl in a big city, and a chair situated by the window, surrounded by crisp books and worn and tattered furniture. This is the space I’ve needed, the clear space filled with only beautiful things and my thoughts. This drips with grace. Timing so carefully orchestrated and so divine that I would find myself here, in a place so ideal I think I might have dreamed it up.

This bookstore is shelved ceiling to floor with words, books of great hopes and adventures seasoned with hurts and misfortunes along the way. Ahead I see the newspaper stands, black and white reminders of the ordered chaos of the ins and outs of existence. I could almost reach and feel life—the summation of happenings, of beautiful things and great losses. While I sip coffee Elizabeth is twirling about the dance floor with Mr. Darcy.

Here I have enough spare moments to choose each word deliberately, to study the wood beams in the ceiling, to feel the crisp, chilled air that floats in when the door is opened. I’m so present I can see the coffee stain on this table and remember its shape. This is the slow rhythm my heart craves. The quiet assurance that earth is spinning but I don’t have to.

Yet, the jolt of sudden airplane landings keeps the beat of my days as of late, and a quarter of a year has nearly gone by. My memory of it has been painted with giant, thick, dark strokes that have forgotten detail or colors. Finding that even simple acts have become laborious, my heart can’t begin to even digest the emotions, nor my mind process the thoughts.

Home is perhaps somewhere around eleven thousand feet or between the stiff sheets of a chain hotel. Tiny bottles of soap and bleached towels replace warm baths and soft down comforters. I long for the comfort of familiarity. The life-giving act of knowing and being known has dried up, only to be resurrected momentarily through brief, distant telephone exchanges on rare occasions. I still have to use my phone to navigate the streets of my own city, and guess which drawer I should place the clean serving spoons in after I wash them.

But I’m thankful for the routine of packing my black suitcase on Wednesdays because it brings some consistency, and for the days when voices of new friends fill my living room to make it feel alive. I feel like heart healing happens in the pews of the new church I attend on Sundays. In some sense I feel that this one life of mine is nearly a blank slate again, and I’m just trying to take the time to fill it in on purpose.

I’ve stumbled upon this daunting truth: Adaptation to the new is work, hard and requiring much perseverance, seldom rewarding along the way. Yet looking around at the books that fill the space here, I think of the stories I know, be it from words on pages or words on lips, and I call to mind another truth: From the deepest pains beauty is birthed.

Up ahead I see pages turning and feel in my soul that the most beautiful things my mind could ever imagine will be written in the next few chapters. The best authors don’t just have good stories, they have precise diction and know that choosing words carefully is part of the art. No single letter typed on a page without reason, and every single letter bringing the story to life. So I continue this great work, pouring all effort into this devotion to adjusting. I will savor the times when the rhythms start to slow and I can tuck vivid details into my mind and save them for later.

Reading List FAIL

I just read an article in Neue called “How to Get Familiar with Classic Literature” that suggested 5 titles they considered a good entry point into classic literature. It was possibly the worst list I’ve ever seen compiled.

Here it is:

1. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
2. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
3. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
4. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
5. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding

I’m positively perplexed by this list. I immediately sent a text to my older sister after reading it. Being the voracious reader and lover of classics she is, I knew this would be upsetting to her as well.

We disagree on Ayn Rand entirely—I’m not a fan, she is—but agree that these are great books. Great books are not the same as solid works of classic literature. You can’t go wrong with Dostoevsky, but I’d hardly consider Brothers Karamazov a good place to start “getting familiar” with literature. As for John Steinbeck, I could be persuaded to add The Grapes of Wrath to the list instead of East of Eden. I’m mostly confused by the classification of titles published in the 50s and 60s as “classics”.

Where is Pride & Prejudice? The Adventures Tom Sawyer? To Kill A Mockingbird? A Tale of Two Cities? Frankenstein? Wuthering Heights? Jane Eyre? Gullivers Travels?

So many real classics left out of the game. Sad, sad day.

What do you think are the “classics” a person should read to get familiar with great literature?

Wings to the air.

I opened my eyes this morning and they refused to shut again. Hours too early, I wake to thoughts and heart racing. In my mind I envision a packing list and try to remember if I’ve put it all in my suitcase. If I were honest with myself, I’d just stop checking twice for shampoo and that one pair of shoes. This anxious spirit is not about my suitcase, which is too big, or rushing to catch my flight that leaves in 6 hours. It’s not even about remember to do all of the important work things I’m supposed to do once I get there, or about trying to stay calm the whole weekend.

I’m restless because I feel a sense that this is it. This, today and tomorrow and the next, is why I left everything I loved in a sunny state and came to this lonely place. This is where I can no longer say on a bad night in Texas, it will get better when I actually get to start traveling. This is where the wings hit the air and I step my feet into my first arena and beg God to let this be as great as He promised it would be.

God, can you show up and tell me this is where I’m supposed to be? Tell me that this is actually worth missing nieces being born and close friends getting married. Show me that you haven’t forgotten what I left behind to follow you here, Lord.

This is it.

My first Women of Faith conference is this weekend. Omaha, Nebraska---Be good to me. 

Home

Thick, warm air is easy to breath. Rhythmically my feet pound on the pavement, my eyes searching the homes and shops I pass. The trees above my head hiss and rattle with the snake like sounds of these southern cicadas, and I shudder.

I’m running, but so much more than that I’m studying. I read the cracks in the streets and the worn paneling on the sides of the houses. The tiny one room Baptist church on the corner has a story and so does the man sitting in the wheelchair on the front porch of the little white house. I make notes on the disparity of BMWs passing men sitting on corners waiting for work. I study this place with intensity because it is my home. Now it’s a part of my story, and I’m a part of its.

My legs carry me only a few miles, but the tiniest of side streets seems worlds away. The charm of the old in this place—the peeling paint and the dark brick structures—is brought to life again by the people that fill the streets and call this place home. New life.

The quiet in my apartment, like the rattling trees and the wet air, feels new. Like all things new, it doesn’t fit just right until you break it in. When the tears come, because usually as the sun sets they do, they don’t mourn anything at all. The pain is a longing for the comfort of familiarity. On the good days I manage to gain a little perspective and I’m soothed by a peace that comes with knowing I’m home.

I keep running until the hot sun drops its glare, until I’ve taken it all in. For as long as this place is ordained to be my home, I will be thankful for it all.