Death and the holidays

It’s 4:14, and I’m literally watching the clock. My stomach feels like it’s eating itself, and a wonderful toasted turkey and cheese sandwich awaits me at home, so I’m eager for the clock to say 5:00. Why does the last hour always seem to be the longest? Ben’s birthday party kept me out super late last night, so I slept through my morning class today and as a result, didn’t eat breakfast until late. The crevices of my fingernails are still orange from the mango I had at 11:30am but it didn’t tide me over long enough. I digress…

The last couple of weeks I’ve been buried in death certificates (pun completely intended) at work. Going through never-ending stacks of them has led me to start paying closer attention. For instance, I know that the prettiest ones come from Gillespie County in Texas. And of course I always check out the cause of death. But since I work in estate planning my particular stack of death certificates is lacking severely in the salacious causes, tending to lean more towards the “natural” causes. So scandalous they are not, but intimidating they are: “end stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease”; “acute respiratory distress syndrome”; and “metastatic cholongiocarcinoma”. Geez. They really ought not to let people with a history of depression spend 8 hours a day sifting through piles of these things.

Four more classes, two more write-ups, two presentations, a quiz and a final paper to go. And then finals. Next semester’s lighter load is greatly anticipated.

As previously discussed, I am experiencing an uncharacteristic enjoyment of holiday cheer this year. Going to Rosie Thomas’ show last night – where she played songs from her new Christmas album, which I love – didn’t help at all. There are other changes as well. This winter, knitting has been replaced with calligraphy as my hobby of choice. My roommates and I are also committed to decorating our house, which is a first for me. But not everything is different: Mom’s homemade hot chocolate is still my #1 beverage of choice for the season, and there’s still nothing better than curling up under my micro fleece blankets in sweatpants and watching Love Actually to get into the Christmas spirit.

Simple pleasures

Last week my friends were discussing simple pleasures. For example, the pop that ensues when you open a sealed jar, or the smell outside after it rains. Well one of my simple pleasures is checking this website: http://foundmagazine.com/

Some of my favorites from FoundMagazine.com:

Nude L's?

Love this

Uh oh

A good reminder

The circle

As I write this, I hear sounds of my friends upstairs. They are laughing and swearing and eating and drinking, and it is a comfort to me to hear the sounds of their life - of our life - drifting down the stairs. They all got on trains and buses today, and walked up Alexander Avenue and through our door bearing pies and wine and hearts full of thanks. And we did the traditional "go around the circle and share one thing you're thankful for" thing, and had a chance to remember that our lives are infused with blessings. We did some damage to a 23 lb turkey, complimented one another's cooking, spiked the eggnog and broke off into small conversations in the presence of one another. We are doing our best to be family to each other, in the absence of our actual families we are making room for God to form family among us. This is a good thing.

Today I am thankful for the unexpected... for the hope that something I can't predict will occur and shake my world. I am thankful that my God is a God who interjects himself into the course of my life in ways I never saw coming, and changes my attitude towards what's in front of me. I am thankful that my finite perspective is not reality, and that I am not in control. I am thankful that my God knows what I need when I don't, and provides it for me in ways I wouldn't even have asked for.

I now look forward to a long weekend of leftovers and spontaneous outings and naps and reading and flannel sheets.

Holiday smear

Everyone I know is currently blogging. Which should excite me, but it's actually pressuring me to post.

I just finished "Life Together" by Bonhoeffer. Some of it was definitely skimmed through, but other parts were deeply challenging. One of the things that hit me the hardest was the truth that community is a human reality, not an ideal. Anytime we put our own desires on a community we're looking at it all wrong. Because community doesn't exists to meet the needs of its members, but it is essential to living the Christian life. We tend to talk about it as this external entity that we'd like to create around us somehow, someday. But the reality is that the community of brothers and sisters is simply the way God created us to live, and it can't be formed out of our own desire, it should be built out of obedience and thankfulness to our God who knows what we need so much better than we do.

Later in the book Bonhoeffer speaks about ministry, about how the key elements of our ministry to one another are holding our tongue, humility, meekness, listening, helpfulness, and service. I must say I was quite convicted. I try so often to be a superstar at ministering, but my idea about what that looks like is really skewed. And in the last chapter Bonhoeffer talks about confession, and about how we share in the cross of Christ through confession. Confession is an act of humility, of admitting who we are as sinners, of standing in that shame before another Christian. But what did Christ do on the cross but take on all of that, for the entire human race, and bear it? Being honest in front of my brothers and sisters is an opportunity to share in the sufferings of Christ. Food for thought...

In other news, I'm drowning in case studies... 7 this week, each with a thought paper and 2 with a presentation. Ridiculous. I'm also strangely overcome by holiday cheer. Usually I'm the Scrooge character, bitching about decorations and Christmas music taking over the city before Thanksgiving. But this year I've found myself pausing to gaze at the holiday window displays, the lit up snowflakes in the Time Warner Center, and browsing iTunes for bearable Christmas music. What's happening to me?!

Today I busted out the Cuddl Duds, and friends arrived at our door singing carols (albeit mockingly), and I'm not even mad about the late night of wrestling with case studies ahead of me. Damn holiday cheer.

Shooting stars and cigarettes

I'm ashamed of my desire. It's a desire others call holy. It's a desire I believe is hidden in us all. But it's a risky desire, one which pulls me out of my basement fortress and into the dining room where sunlight streams in and people talk too loudly and share their food with me and notice when my eyes don't meet theirs. I think we're a lot less alone in this desire than we convince ourselves we are. Mostly we're just afraid to voice it, to grip between our fingers for long enough the words to communicate it. But it lives on in the shadows, hiding when life is grand and creeping out when we can't escape ourselves any longer. We need each other.

I have amazing people swirling through my life every day. They laugh with me and learn with me and cook with me and walk with me and we try to build each other up and try to apologize when we've been too harsh. And we all love our God. But somehow still I've been pursuing him alone. I've been existing with him in silence and solitude and there have been too many days lately when I don't have it in me to pursue, to exist in the same heart space as him. I need to hear the voices of others crying out to him, need hear them breathing next to me and feel their hands grip mine. I need those people to step in, to push and pull me into the presence of God when I can't get myself there. They have fed and bathed and clothed and cared for me and now I'll dare ask them to do even more. I'll ask them to be God's face to me. When I can't see him, when my mind is too dark and I'm too drunk to find my way they will lead me to him. I think this is community.

These friendships I have are valuable. They put a gentle but honest mirror in front of me and urge me to grow. But until I ask them to take steps with me I don't think we've found community in one another. It's significant that community doesn't happen without the sharing of desire, the admittance of need, the humble request for help. It doesn't happen without mutual intention, risky vulnerability, and hearts full of grace. But if we can all get there, what might we see? I hope we would see ourselves fade, and the work of God rising in the space between us. I hope we would serve that work of God above ourselves, and that through our humility towards one another God would grow us and prepare us for our next steps. I hope we would see tears and healing and strength and beauty breaking forth from the cavities of our souls. To turn ourselves over to our God, in a submission that is mutual and at the same time personal, is our goal. I want to learn how to get there.

Life on the edge

Life is always lived on the edge, whether we realize it or not. Sometimes we’re resting on the brink of something good – something we’re anticipating on tiptoes, waiting for a slight breeze to push us over. Other times we’re on the brink of something dark and ominous – of somewhere we don’t want to go, and we’re resisting the swirling gusts with everything we have. We spend our lives pretending we’re not on the edge, pretending we can step in any direction without changing where we end up. We lie with our backs against concrete rooftops, trying to grasp the misty sky. We close our eyes so we don’t see the darkness, imposing on ourselves a different kind of night. Self-imposed darkness is less scary, until it becomes an endless stretch of black walls we can’t find our way out of. We breathe and we sleep and we walk and we laugh, to push the darkness away, to create for ourselves a bubble of bearable world. Everyone tells us to make our own light in our bubble, but making light is a difficult thing to do. God did it with four words, but no matter how many words we scream into the space beyond our lips, we cannot force even one ray of light to appear.