What Saved My Life Last Year

I have upwards of thirty albums in my phone’s photo gallery. It used to be just the one, but I organized my photos several months ago, while reading and journaling through Christine Aroney Sine’s The Gift of Wonder, a book of practices that facilitate delighting in God, our neighbors, and ourselves. Organization is not one of the specific practices the Aroney-Sine names, but she does place a high premium on noticing and taking note, which comes easier to me when I am organized. 

By the time I picked up The Gift of Wonder at Barnes and Noble last June, I was already on a mission to clarify what a good day would look like for me, thanks to a challenge issued by best version business coaches Dave and Debbie Evans of RLC Global. Their challenge was to take a thirty day period - any given thirty day period, though mine happened to be the month of June - and choose an activity to do every day for that thirty days, or to do more days than you did not. The idea was to choose something that would bring you more and more into alignment with the person you wanted to be. I knew I wanted to be more creative, so I decided I to do something creative twenty out of thirty days in June. 

See, by the time I made it to June, I could have sworn I was disappearing. It felt like no one saw me, no one heard me, no one knew me, and certainly no one cared. Honestly, I didn’t count my life worth showing up for. One thing I knew, though, was that creating - whether writing stories, or capturing and editing photos, or drawing, or painting - always made me feel better. 

So that’s what I did.

Around the same time, I was also inspired by an essay by Kirsten Johnson on The Creative Independent, On discovering new ways to see. In it, she says this: “I’ve worked for a lot of different directors and I thought I was doing the thing I was supposed to do, which is adapting to whatever their film needs and shooting in radically different ways. But, you know, when I started going back through all the footage, it’s like, ‘Oh, I have things that I always do and ways that I always do them.’” I wasn’t a filmmaker (though I do have a film degree), but with my countless roles as support staff, I could strongly identify with becoming whatever the position at hand required of me; in fact, I was more than a little disillusioned with it at the time. I started seeking the things I brought with me to every job, regardless of its description. I started looking at my art - which I’ve never been good at categorizing/labeling because it varies - for similar patterns.

In her essay, Johnson also asks a critical question of herself in the projects she takes on: “How do I get as close as I can to the space where I am the only person who can tell this story?” I started asking this question of my own work and art. 

That’s the headspace I was in when I started reading Christine Aroney-Sine’s The Gift of Wonder: dissatisfied and observant. 

I read it slowly, over the course of seven months, pondering (and journaling about) the questions she poses and testing the practices she proposes. I highly recommend it if you are hungry for rhythms of joy and awe in your life. 

But I really want to share my answer to one of the final questions Aroney-Sine asks in The Gift of Wonder, because it effectively summarizes the changes I’ve seen in my life even as I read it.

“What new practices have you established that increased your trust in God as a result of reading this book?”

To name a few:

I am learning to delight in the things about myself that delight God and be more of those things. I feel bad about myself often. Every day, even. I am always evaluating if I am not enough, or much too much, and the perfectionist in me wants to be just right all of the time. I had difficulty envisioning God delighting in me … how? When? 

Aroney-Sine suggests that the things in which I delight, notice, and am captivated by have been ignited by God and He is delighted when I enjoy them. God is not a sadist, and my misery is not fun for Him.

Therefore, I am learning to notice and note what brings me joy … and what creates tension. For example, I enjoy taking road trips, having my breath taken away by beauty, and not knowing exactly where I am; God enjoys my sense of adventure, awe, and trust in Him to get me where I’m going. I enjoy creating and sharing; God enjoys my freedom and openness. 

On the flip side, the fear I felt over my roommate’s response to her cat dying while she was out of town was reminding me of behaviors I’d seen from her previously but was trying to ignore, behaviors that indicated she did not always have rational and reasonable responses. God didn’t and doesn’t want me to be fearful, but He gave me the faculties to know when something is wrong. Ultimately, those faculties kept me alert and gave me peace once it was time to walk away. 

I am also learning to notice and note what captivates me. I started with a running list of all the objects that caught my eye and concepts that caught my imagination, like the Devon Tower in Oklahoma City from 18th Street and Harvey, or how I learned in an accounting firm that numbers, too, can tell a story.  Then, I started stopping and taking pictures of the things that caught my attention.

It’s why I have around thirty different albums in my phone’s photo gallery. It’s why one of the albums is labeled, “Caught My Eye.” It’s why there are 137 photos in that particular album. It’s why, one October evening in Falmouth, Maine, I walked down a road just because of how the setting sun was hitting it. 

I am learning to look at my story - every season and rhythm - with God at the center of it, enjoying it. I look at a near-fatal experience just over three months ago, and instead of the end of my life, I see the end of any idea that I should not be here, that I should not be showing up fully, that I should not be enjoying every minute. If I wasn’t supposed to be here, if there was no purpose for my individual existence, if there was only misery in store for me, God wouldn’t have awakened me a little after two that morning so miserable that I knew the only way I would get any relief would be to go to the ER. (Even then, I was thoroughly convinced they would find nothing wrong with me and send me on my not-so-merry little way, and gossip with each other about my low pain tolerance after I’d gone. Until the doctor came back from running my labs, shut the door, sat on the stool beside my bed and said, “It’s a good thing you came in,” I really had no idea.) He wouldn’t have awakened other people that morning to pray for me. There is a lot of deep and challenging healing work ahead for me - on all fronts - but God has brought me to it, He remains in it, and He delights in it.

I am recovering my love of play (especially in children’s ministry), reconsidering how my decisions affect others, rediscovering gratitude, and reawakening my desire for hospitality and community-building. 

The past twelve months have been the most challenging of my life; they very nearly wiped me out. The saving grace is not that I have increased my creative output from the year before (by about a thousand percent); it’s not that I have greater insight on my creative style and voice; it’s not that I’m more aware of what catches my attention; it’s not even that I’m still here. What made the past twelve months worth it is gaining the awareness that God delights in me, and that the prospect of my joy makes Him overjoyed. I can rest in that.

And thanks to The Gift of Wonder by Christine Aroney-Sine, I am equipped with an arsenal of practices to help me remember. 

On The Nerve of Some People

George MacDonald is my favorite author. 

I was thrilled, then, to discover a volume containing three of his stories for $7.99 at Half Price Books several months ago. It had been "edited for the modern reader," the cover proclaimed. I assumed that meant updating obsolete words or words whose meanings had evolved, so I bought it.

I finally had the opportunity to pick it up this past weekend. (I've been reading C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia the past several months, and while I can read numerous nonfiction books at once, I don't have that same capacity for fiction.)

I'd been journaling through a chapter of Christine Aroney-Sine's The Gift of Wonder and savoring a chapter of Christie Purifoy's Placemaker (she just speaks my language, y'all), and I was ready to immerse myself in the characters and stories of my favorite author.

I don't always read introductions and forewards to classics, because they're usually some academic's conclusions about the work, and I'd rather come to my own. My curiosity about why the editor had taken up this project got the better of me this time, however: I was sure I would find a fellow MacDonald lover here.

Reading about the first time he and his wife read these stories, though, I felt my blood pressure rise: "Buried among the debris of an outmoded and difficult literary style was an absolutely readable and relevant mystery/romance/adventure novel."

I'm sorry? I know you did not just use the word "debris" about George MacDonald's writing.

The editor continues, "MacDonald wrote at great length about small events, and used the events as springboards for doctrinal digressions and religious rhapsodizing. Many of these descriptions, dialectics, and dissertations, while fascinating in themselves, do nothing to advance the story..." [Insert gasp of indignation here] "...we edited...striving to acheive a balance between brevity and breadth that would be economical to print, interesting to the modern reader, and faithful to the heart of MacDonald's vision ... The excesses of Victorian style have been trimmed away - but none, I hope, of MacDonald's jewels have perished along with the trivia."

[Insert brain sirens and lockdown here]

Okay, first of all, who are you? And second of all, how dare you?

I enjoy MacDonald's work because of its depth. I enjoy feeling like I know the characters and am in their world because of "the excesses of Victorian style" in his descriptions. I enjoy digging into the thoughts and questions that arise in my mind from his "doctrinal digressions and religious rhapsodizing."

He is the kind of writer I aspire to be: one who helps the reader know the characters and their predicaments, and one who helps the reader ask questions and search their own hearts.

Reading his work is time-consuming and challenging. It's also adventurous, romantic, and rewarding.

So I am a little indignant at the nerve of someone taking many MacDonald's best elements out of it. I'm several chapters in, and occasionally I get a glimpse of MacDonald in the dialogue, but I don't feel like I know the characters like I would if MacDonald had been the one to introduce us. The descriptions certainly have nothing on MacDonald's. It feels like a knock off.

If I'm going to finish it, I'm going to have to abandon the idea that it's MacDonald's work at all. It's not.

I'm even going to have to abandon the idea that it's the work of some supervillain  who lives to destroy the work of other writers and crush the dreams of readers.

I'm going to have to read it and evaluate it as the work of a freelance writer from Indiana who has his own style (even if I wish he hadn't applied it to my favorite author's work).

Who knows? Maybe I'll be able to set aside my disappointment and enjoy it this way.

Or maybe this is one of those things that will never go away...

On Reading Dead Authors

When I was eight years old, my parents presented me with a Great Illustrated Classics version of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. I didn't read the unabridged version until I was twelve, and continue to discover new things each time I read it, but even at eight, I loved the story, especially the parts where Sidney Carton steps up to save the life of his look-alike, Charles Darnay. I quickly followed up with David Copperfield after A Tale of Two Cities, and read a handful of his other works throughout my teen years. A Tale of Two Cities remains far and away my favorite. I can honestly say I acquired my taste for dead authors through Dickens.

During the summers, I participated in our local library's reading programs. The grand prize was always picking a book off the shelf that had been curated for the occasion.

The first year, given my aforementioned taste for dead authors, I selected Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. I'm not sure I completely understood it the first time I read it, but I enjoyed it enough that the next year I selected Wuthering Heights by Charlotte's sister, Emily Bronte.

I remember the librarian expressing surprise at my choice, thinking perhaps the content was "above me." Naturally, in order to prove her wrong, I stuck to my decision and read it anyway. By the time I'd finished it, I was convinced it was the most depressing story I'd ever read. Now, I tend to think the librarian was probably right and I simply might not have been old enough to appreciate it for what it was. I don't remember enough of it now to be certain.

This uncertainty found me in Half-Price books a few months ago perusing works by the Bronte sisters, and more particularly, those of Anne Bronte, whom I'd never read, because I'd entirely given up on the sisters after that unfortunate incident with Emily. I held in my hands a little volume by Anne Bronte, Agnes Grey, wavering: what if she disappointed me as Emily had? 

Eventually, though, I decided for the purchase, and I'm glad I did.

Agnes Grey's adventurous spirit coupled with her natural reserve and the resulting experiences were thoroughly relatable to me, and, as I understand, rooted in the author's own life.

Upon entering a new governess position, Agnes remarks, "I awoke the next morning; feeling like one whirled away by enchantment, and suddenly dropped from the clouds into a remote and unknown land, widely and completely isolated from all he had seen or known before; or like a thistle-seed borne on the wind to some strange nook of uncongenial soul, where it must lie long enough before it can take root and germinate, extracting nourishment from what appears so alien to its nature: if, indeed, it ever can."

I found her story decidedly more optimistic than that of Wuthering Heights, and even than that of Jane Eyre. Perhaps this had to do with the character's obvious relationship with the Heavenly Father, something decidedly Iacking in both Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre.

Agonizing over a matter of the heart in prayer, Agnes relates this: "I fell upon my knees and offered up a fervent but not impetuous prayer: 'Thy will be done,' I strove to say throughout; but, 'Father, all things are possible with Thee, and may it be Thy will,' was sure to follow. That wish - that prayer - both men and women would have scorned me for - 'But Father, thou wilt not despise!' I said, and felt that it was true. It seemed to me that another's welfare was at least as ardently implored for as my own; nay, even that was the principal object of my heart's desire. I might have been deceiving myself; but that idea gave me confidence to ask, and power to hope I did not ask in vain."

I found Agnes Grey brimming with insight as well, in spite of its narrator's claims of shelteredness. In one passage, detailing her lonely condition, Agnes seems to echo the Apostle Paul: "Habitual associates are known to exercise a great influence over each other's minds and manners. Those whose actions are for ever before our eyes, whose words are ever in our ears, will naturally lead us, albeit against our will, slowly, gradually, imperceptibly, perhaps to act and speak as they do."

In another place, she speaks of poetry as a haven to alleviate poetry: "When we are harassed by sorrows or anxieties, or long-oppressed by any powerful feelings which we must keep to ourselves, for which we can obtain and seek no sympathy from any living creature, and which yet we cannot, or will not wholly crush, we often naturally seek relief in poetry - and find it, too - whether in the effusions of others, which seem to harmonise with our existing case, or in our own attempts to give utterance to those thoughts and feelings in strains less musical, perchance, but more appropriate, and therefore more penetrating and sympathetic, and, for the time, more soothing, or more powerful to rouse and to unburden the oppressed and swollen heart."

The plot of Jane Eyre, at least, is higher than that of Agnes Gray, but I can forgive that easily enough. Sometimes, those of us with more romantic sensibilities need a more romantic story without undue and agonizing hindrances, even if such do not particularly reflect reality. Though not entirely unmolested by isolation and doubt, the story ends happily, with Agnes receiving her heart's desire.

Still, I wonder about the differences of style between the Bronte sisters, and hope to delve into and analyze them in the coming months. Of course, that means I will have to give Emily Bronte and Wuthering Heights another opportunity.

On Reading the Mueller Report

Over the past four days, I read the nearly-450-page report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller regarding his investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 elections, its possible conspiracy or coordination with the Trump campaign, as well as possible obstruction of justice by President Trump in regards to the Special Counsel's investigation. The report concluded that Russia had indeed interfered in the 2016 elections through an aggressive social media campaign and hacking Democratic computer networks, but found no evidence of conspiracy or coordination with the Trump campaign, despite various links to persons within the campaign. Additionally, while the Special Counsel laid out President Trump's responses to its investigation (and the FBI investigation that preceded it), and analyzed each within a legal framework of obstruction of justice, it did not make a determination whether or not President Trump obstructed justice. To my understanding, the burden of proof regarding intent was outside of the Special Counsel's scope and would be very heavy to anyone who decided to take it up.

I didn't read it because I particulaly enjoy reading dry legal reports, but because I prefer the direct presentation of fact to the media frenzy that has surrounded absolutely everything to do with President Donald Trump. I have never cared to allow the media to curate what I need to know about what's happening in the world around me or what I should think about it.

I mean, have you seen the headlines? (Full disclosure: I have not read any of the articles falling under the following headlines, and remain blissfully ignorant of their contents).

Vox graciously highlights what we need to know: Mueller report: 4 key things to look for once it's released and Mueller report: What you actually need to know, explained. The Washington Post kindly offers its summation of What's in the Mueller report, and S. E. Cupp reports "the good news from the Mueller report."

The Washington Post alleges Trump is accused of gross abuse of his office, when in fact, the Special Counsel refrains from making any such judgment because there is not enough evidence at this time to determine President Trump's intent, which is legally crucial to determine abuse of office. The Hill reports MSNBC's Mika Brzezinki's assessment that the report reveals President Trump's "unfit, impeachable behavior," when, again, that is not a conclusion reached in the Special Counsel's report.

I have slightly more respect for PBS Newshour, who called on 3 legal experts to analyze the report, and Time, who called on a Watergate Expert to do the same. I remain slightly cynical, however, because I know experts can be produced to support just about anything.

The most perplexing headline I've seen is from Vanity Fair: Mueller confirms: Don Jr. Was Too Stupid to Collude. I'm sorry ... did you want him to have colluded? Would that have somehow been better for the United States, or is it just your bottom line you're thinking of?

I would have read the Special Counsel's Report anyway, but seeing some of the headlines inspired me to push through the drier passages of legal jargon and precedent in order to form my own conclusions about all of it. These I have decided to share, not to influence the opinion of anyone else, but to encourage independent research and thought.

First of all, Russian interference in the 2016 election did not provoke any sentiment or ideology that was not already here, however dormant it may have been lying. The Special Counsel's report showed that Russian intelligence studied the citizens of the United States in order to find our buttons and push them.  In particular, they manipulated and exploited the more dehumanizing aspects of social media to accomplish their ends of stirring us up against each other. It's evil. Had this taken place between two individuals, we would call the aggressor a psychopath. As it is, this played out on the international stage, and is, I fear, a common occurrence there, which brings me to my second thought.

I don't think the Russian government is guilty of anything of which the United States government is not also guilty. Many of the redacted passages relating to the IRA and GRU cite "Investigative Technique" as the reason for their blackout, suggesting to me, at least, that these are techniques our intelligence (also) uses, otherwise, why not let the American people know how Russia did what they did? I wonder if Russian interference in the 2016 elections is not retaliation for our government's "interventions" throughout the world, on some level.

I was surprised to find that Russian interference did not seem to be predominantly pro-candidate Trump, or even anti-candidate Clinton, despite assertions to the contrary from my liberal and feminist friends. On page 23 of the report, Mueller quotes an IRA directive: "Main idea: Use any opportunity to criticize Hillary [Clinton] and the rest (except Sanders and Trump - we support them)." How Sanders might have aided the Russian government's agenda, I could not begin to say, though research into the matter might reveal some insight. Perhaps the Russian government thought Mr. Sanders would be a less formidable opponent for then-candidate Trump, or perhaps the Russian government prefers candidates who, like itself, display the ability to stir up a crowd.

I believe President Trump's actions in response to the investigation may be exactly what he indirectly claimed them to be: not wanting the success of his campaign attributed to anything but himself. It is entirely possible that President Trump has been concerned with the scrutiny of keeping promises potentially made to Russia in exchange for influencing the election, but overwhelmingly, conversations recorded in the report repeatedly show President Trump concerned with the legitimacy of his election. That does not mean I think President Trump did not obstruct justice; I simply think he might have done so with the motive of protecting his pride, not necessarily because he was covering up conspiracy or coordination with Russia. I certainly don't think it makes it any less offensive or should carry less of a consequence.

Finally, what I consider to be good news: President Trump is not surrounded by yes-men. The Special Counsel's report shows that Jeff Sessions (his own deceptions notwithstanding) stood his ground, refusing to unrecuse himself from and exert influence upon the investigation, in spite of tremendous pressure to do so from President Trump. Donald McGahn is another stellar example of refusing to cave to President Trump's often impolitic requests. Additionally, however I may disagree with their personal ideologies, I believe President Trump received good counsel regarding this investigation from chief strategist Steve Bannon and former-Governor Chris Christie, which he often chose to disregard.

Don't take my word for it. Read the report yourself. Determine that what catches your attention is what is important for you to know. Formulate your own thoughts on it. Talk or write about it.

But for the love of all that is good, please stop letting the media spoon feed it to you.

When Jesus Isn't Mentioned, Even Once

A few weeks ago, I went to see Unplanned, the story of Planned Parenthood clinic director, Abby Johnson, and her journey to becoming a pro-life advocate.

As far as exposure of abortion and the industry that profits from it, I thought it was well done. The movie covered the gorier aspects and consequences of abortion, and dug into Planned Parenthood's well-known-but-somehow-still-ignored practice of placing profit over the well-being of the women who visit their clinics for reproductive care.

Pro-life and sickened by abortion as I am, there was something missing for me.

Jesus.

Don't get me wrong: chunks of the film show how God created all life, His mercy and forgiveness, and even the power of prayer. 

But Jesus?

Jesus and the cross were not mentioned once.

And I just wonder: how can we have a conversation about life, and not talk about Jesus, who said, "I have come that they may have life"?  How can we talk about God's mercy and forgiveness, and not talk about the sacrifice of Jesus through which they are offered? How can we talk about the power of prayer, and not talk about Jesus, who makes it possible to approach "God's throne of grace"?

There is one point in the film where Abby sorrowfully admits she has been complicit in 22,000 abortions, and I wonder: where did the weight of that go?

To be fair, I haven't read the book, which, as books usually do, may go into greater detail about her healing process, and not just her extraction from Planned Parenthood. I don't know.

I do know, however, we cannot hope to have productive discourse about life, see healing from abortion (individually or culturally), or change anti-life industries and legislations without bringing it all back to Jesus.

Jesus who came to bring life, who died to bring us back to God, and who lives to empower us with His Spirit.

My Mom, A Tale of Two Cities, and Hephzibah

"'Did you ask me for my name?'

'Assuredly I did.'

'One Hundred and Five, North Tower.'"
- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

My mom didn't like me.

Barely, a month after her death, as I grieve her loss, that's an extremely painful thing to admit, but the fact remains: my mom didn't like me, and couldn't believe that anyone else would, either.

I'm not going to delve into the manifold ways my mom let me know she didn't like me, and that no one else should, either. All that matters is that she didn't, and I knew it from my early teens through my mid-twenties.

She softened with her ALS diagnosis, and I think maybe she liked me a little bit the last few years, though I couldn't begin to tell you why that should have made any difference. I'd forgiven her, anyway: her mother wasn't kind to her, and I'd wager her mother (or stepmother) before her wasn't, either.

Still, the damage was done: my mom didn't like me, and neither should anyone else.

A few Sundays ago, I was serving with someone, and at the end of our time together, she said to me as she gave me a hug, "You are a delight. Such a joy."

I thanked her, but I was thinking, You clearly don't know me at all.

When my office wrote a complimentary post about me on Facebook on Employee Appreciation Day a few weeks ago, I dismissed it with this thought: They're just trying to make me feel better because my mom just died.

I think anyone who speaks well of me is being disingenuous, because how could anyone who knows me think anything good about me?

My mom should have at least had the claim of knowing me better than anyone, and she certainly didn't think highly of me.

Someone challenged that thought last week: "God knows you best."

Every couple of years, I read A Tale of Two Cities over Lent. I think out of all Dickens' work it contains the most overtly Christian themes, paticularly those of restoration and laying down one's life for another.

The exchange I quoted at the beginning of this post is between Dr. Manette, recently released from prison, where he has been held for several years, and Mr. Jarvis Lorry, an associate committed to his recovery. Dr. Manette believes his name is the cell where he was held: One Hundred and Five, North Tower.

It hit me as I read that I am going by the name of a prison cell where I've been held, too: tolerable. Unlikeable, and loved only by those who must love me out of obligation to family or spiritual ties.

There's God, of course, but He loves everyone, including me, and He's God, of course, so I don't believe it's a challenge for Him to love anyone, not even me.

But no one wants to be around me. No one enjoys me. Certainly no one gets excited about me.

This is what I believe. I've believed it for years.

And it's a lie.

With the challenge that God knows me best, I was also encouraged to begin not only seeking out what God says about me, but soaking it in.

The Holy Spirit reminded me of a verse, a name highlighted for me last summer: "You will be called Hephzibah...for the LORD will take delight in you ... [As] a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you" (Isaiah 64:4-5 NIV).

God doesn't just love me in a generic way; He delights in me.

I've studied that word ... delight ... and its Hebrew origins this week to aid in the saturation of this truth.

It's difficult to reconcile, but I know if I don't receive His delight first, I will never receive it from anyone else, so I will keep coming back to it, keep coming back to Him.

He delights in me.

He delights in me.

He delights in me.

He delights in me.

"Lord, help my unbelief."