George MacDonald: My Dead BFF4E

I’ve been swimming around in some really interesting imagery that’s been swirling a bit in my head.  Imagery of our relationship with God being like the hidden topography of a mysterious, murky lake.  Some people seem to step in and find themselves immediately submerged in faith.  Some meander on the shore, never seeming to get more than ankle deep.  Some, like myself, keep finding themselves practically beached on sandbars that follow trenches.  At times, now especially, I feel as if I’m almost completely off my feet.  I feel like my toes are clinging desperately to the ground, not wanting to be moved too much by the tide.

It’s a wondrous thing, water.  Experience tells us that you can float in it, but it’s an odd thing to comprehend without experience, you know?  And as I teeter on the edge of an unknown precipice in my faith, I hear the slight slaps of the waves lapping against each other, beating out the rhythm of the heart of God.  And in their beat I hear a subtle reminder to trust the water.  Trust my faith.  Pick up my feet.  The waters will hold me.  The waves will guide me.

This morning, my eye somehow caught a glance at a notebook I haven’t taken off of a shelf since I first moved into this house a little over a year ago.  Inside of this notebook is a computer printed copy of George MacDonald’s Unspoken Sermons.  They are, without my doubt, my favorite, most treasured piece of literature.  I decided I’d read one this morning with my coffee instead of the Bible and / or  commentaries as per usual.  This was a very good idea indeed.

The first sermon in the index that caught my attention was “The Higher Faith”.  I was reminded, again, of my position in this mystery faith lake.  I went with it.

As I’ve come to expect from reading George, my life is changed.  I made so much noise, oooing, ahhhing, moaning from meaning.  He affirmed some things I’d only dare to wonder about, without ever really seeking advice on.  The whole sermon, especially the last few paragraphs, are now mostly blue with highlighting in my notebook.  I’d encourage you to read it, and you can even get a free copy here, but I want to share the part that meant the most to me.  It is a lengthy quote, but please oblige in reading it if you too feel like you’re on the edge of a deeper faith.

...But it is about hopes rather than prayers that I wish to write.

What should I think of my child, if I found that he limited his faith
in me and hope from me to the few promises he had heard me utter! The
faith that limits itself to the promises of God, seems to me to partake
of the paltry character of such a faith in my child--good enough for a
Pagan, but for a Christian a miserable and wretched faith. Those who
rest in such a faith would feel yet more comfortable if they had God's
bond instead of his word, which they regard not as the outcome of his
character, but as a pledge of his honour. They try to believe in the
truth of his word, but the truth of his Being, they understand not. In
his oath they persuade themselves that they put confidence: in
_himself_ they do not believe, for they know him not. Therefore it is
little wonder that they distrust those swellings of the heart which are
his drawings of the man towards him, as sun and moon heave the ocean
mass heavenward. Brother, sister, if such is your faith, you will not, must not stop there. You must come out of this bondage of the law to
which you give the name of grace, for there is little that is gracious
in it. You will yet know the dignity of your high calling, and the love
of God that passeth knowledge. He is not afraid of your presumptuous approach to him. It is you who are afraid to come near him. He is not watching over his dignity. It is you who fear to be sent away as the disciples would have sent away the little children. It is you who think so much about your souls and are so afraid of losing your life, that you dare not draw near to the Life of life, lest it should consume you.

Tears streaming down my eyes, I knew it to be a reflection of my current state of faith.  As I sat and pondered what I had just read, I got the feeling I get when a dear friend speaks truth into my heart.  I hadn’t felt that in months and I only found it a bit strange that I felt such comradery for someone who has been dead for over a hundred years.  But I do feel a certain sort of friendship that is deeper than so many I have.  I guess what is really there is George MacDonald’s way of revealing God in a way I don’t see often enough.  It’s not like he spoke some sense in to me, he spoke some faith.  Rather, the Spirit used his writing to speak faith back into me.

Either way, I feel more full of faith and a sense of longing to drink coffee with George again tomorrow.

FacesNicoleMakesWhenSheTalksToBoys.com

I’ve been watching too much Discovery Channel.  You know that show “Planet Earth”?  The one where they use macro filmography and such and it’s very National Geographic like, lookin’ at bugs and trees and stuff?  It’s narrated by Sigourney Weaver, whose calming presence makes you feel okay that a hyena is eating a baby monkey.

Anyway.  I’ve been watching that too much, I think.

I went to get some coffee and read this morning at a coffee shop.  A guy I know comes in, notices the chair empty beside me, and asks if he can sit with me.  Of course, I oblige.

MISTAKE, MENASCO!  VACATE THE PREMISES NOWWWWWWWW.

I don’t have particular feelings for this boy or anything, but I don’t know him that well and we aren’t independent friends or anything.  So, there’s a bit of… weird… that comes when you’re not quite familiar enough to be having coffee with someone.  And, for whatever reason, the small talk started, initiating the FacesNicoleMakesWhenSheTalksToBoys.com sequence.

You see, my friend Kayleigh once took a candid picture of me this one time when I was talking to a boy of the same familiarity as this one this morning.  She captioned it “FacesNicoleMakesWhenSheTalksToBoys.com”.  It said it all.  I look so… uncomfortable… So… emotionally unstable.  I’m not exaggerating.  I look crazy.  Like for real crazy.   Mainly, I’m transparent and any degree of discomfort shows up on my face.  What’s worse are the words that actually come out of that painfully awkward face.

So here we are, drinking coffees, talking.  Only, it’s more like him saying a sentence and then me gushing on for a solid 2 minutes about something similar but not quite like a Super Caffeinated Tween NIGHTMARE.  It’s very unbecoming.

It was in the middle of the second, uncontrollable stream of mindless dribble that I began to hear Sigourney Weaver narrating in my head.  At first, she was all like “STOP.  TALKING…. NOW.” And, of course, I couldn’t stop.  Each new train of thought led to something else that took me on a direct express journey to crazy.  After I would finish talking, we’d sit in silence for a while.  Then he’d bring something else up and there I’d go again.

Eventually, Sigourney changed her tune, after she’d completely given up on me, and started going on about how “survival of the fittest” was about to ween me out of the gene pool AND THIS IS WHY.

And it’s maybe kinda true.  I mean, girls who can’t talk to boys can’t get married and make babies.  That’s gotta be some sort of natural law.  And I can’t manage to sound much more than half my age when I talk to them.

Truthfully, there are only a handful of boys I can talk to among whom I do not turn into an Incessantly Awkward Adolescent.  And I don’t mean awkward like the purposeful awkward teens of today, I mean the ones who truly have some sort of social ineptitude.

Maybe this is why I’ve never had a real boyfriend, never been asked on a date, never kissed a boy.  Maybe.

In all honesty, with no hidden resentment, I am pretty okay with it.  I think a heart for celibacy is a blessing greater than a heart for marriage, I really do.  And remember when I took that online spiritual gifts test a few weeks ago and it said my number one gift is celibacy?

I mean, who knew I had a built in marriage deterrent?  It’s like “OFF” bug spray, but for relationships!  And I’m totally fine with “OFF”, if only it didn’t smell so bad, you know?  Like I’m totally cool if I don’t get married, but it would be pretty convenient if I could carry on a casual conversation with boys that wasn’t business related and didn’t end with Sigourney Weaver explaining how the world will be better without my genetic malfunctions tainting the future generations.

I’m just sayin’.

So, in summation, future procreators of the world will carry on the torch that lights the next generation… As for me?  I’ll be all like:

Healing Through Hell

There is a time for everything but I…

My finger jerks spastically between the “f” and the “t”.  Which key will I tap?  I feel and I think and I can’t tell which is which right now.  What is the word for both?

There is a time for everything.  I don’t know whether I feel it or think it, but it seems I am living with everything all at once as opposed to living things one by one.

I don’t want to feel it.  I don’t want to think it.  I want to know it.  I want an intimate, real knowledge.  I don’t want to guess anymore.

Day by day, it gets both harder and easier to live in the space between contradictions, in that state of perpetual tension.

And just as I let go of reason, someone tries to thrust it back into my grasp.  And now I have to fight the thing I once held on to.

But at least I have a vicarious knowledge.  I know that God told Moses to go back to Egypt and do a hard thing.  I know that it didn’t happen right away, but that doesn’t mean that Moses was wrong.  Moses wasn’t wrong about hearing God.  Just because it was hard, just because it didn’t make sense, just because it made things a helluva lot worse for quite some time, that doesn’t mean that Moses was wrong.

Sometimes God calls you to Him and the most direct path is from the hell you’ve numbed yourself to and through a raw hell.  And just because I’m entering into the raw hell right now, just because it looks painful, just because it looks like there is an easier way, just because it doesn’t make sense, does not mean that I am wrong.

When you numb yourself from the pain, you numb yourself from the healing.  You have to deal with the reality of your hell.

You can’t get over what you refuse to feel; in doing so you refuse to heal.

And if I look completely undone, good.  Because what was holding me together was a lie.  And if you mourn my circumstances and wish things to be as they were before, then you are wishing imprisonment.

I have to walk through this flame.  It is hard enough.  Please don’t encourage me not to.  I may listen.

The Here and the Not Yet Here: How Faith Holds {My} Universe Together

I think God is the only one who really gets how something can be here, but not here yet.  Well, maybe he’s just the only one who can stay balanced within that sort of system.  Because I sure can’t.

How can you let go of the past and also perhaps even the future while living in the reminders of both?  It’s like living right beside all of these potential universes and paths and stories that never will happen or never will happen again, and worse, maybe never actually happened as you thought they did.

How can you live in a world with limitless possibilities and yet not hold your breath in hope for any of them?

How do you just live now?  Or how do you just live now without setting yourself up for failure or heartache by idly expecting the course of events to progress in a certain way?

How can you just… be?

How do people brush themselves off so easily when things don’t go as planned?  How do they jump right back in again?  Either they aren’t learning their lesson or else I don’t understand what the lesson is.  Either way, I’m not that girl.   So I’m trying to be the girl who just doesn’t hope for anything, I try to just live right now, and that doesn’t really work either.

I need that balance caused by the tension from two opposing forces, pulling the universe, it seems, perfectly taut.  To be here and to be in the future and to be mindful of the past.

I need to hold on to sanity but let go of reason.  I need to stop dreaming but go after my dreams.  I need to move forward mentally and emotionally but stay behind physically.  I need to be somewhere but nowhere near there.

This tension exists and I’m searching for the emulsifier to make everything stick and stay, when I really don’t understand how any of it works to begin with.   It really is beyond my comprehension.

…

We’re reading through Exodus right now, which has been quite helpful.  I read about the Urim and the Thummim.  Urim means light.  Thummim means perfect. Some say they were these two stones, one of them dark and the other light.  They were kept close to the high priest’s heart… physically… like inside his breastplate.  And he would use them to discern God’s will in manners which were beyond human comprehension.  Maybe they were kinda like dice.

I’ll admit, when I first read about all of that, I was kinda pissed.  I mean, here we spent several chapters talking about how the cotton pickin’ drapes and decor of the tabernacle needed to look like, to a nearly ridiculous degree of detail, and then it’s all like here are these two things that will help you make decisions based on chance.  Like why is God so concerned with the structure where he dwells but not the decisions of the people inside it?  Why so much attention to the decor of the tabernacle but not to the heart of the child within it, you know?

And I knew I had it all wrong, but given the current state of things, that’s what it felt like.

But, you know, looking into the Urim and Thummim more, it’s maybe like God was giving them an out.  A well welcomed out.

It’s so hard to make a decision about something you really can’t understand and God was giving them a way to make the decision by “chance”.  And I’m guessing it really wasn’t chance at all.  They just had to let go of what made sense and let God roll the dice.

So maybe that’s the emulsifier.  Maybe that’s what the tension is.  Maybe it is letting go of reason and holding on to faith.

Juggling Flaming What Nots While Blindfolded on a Unicycle or Why Trusting Seems So Hard

Do you ever feel like God is telling you to juggle flaming what nots on a unicycle while blindfolded?

I do.  Right now.

It’s like, I know that if God wants me to do something that I can totally do it because it’s really just me dying to myself to let him do it in me.  But seriously.  Juggling flaming what nots on a unicycle?  That’s just… too much.  I mean, WHO CAN DO THAT?!  No one.  I mean, clowns, but really no one else.  And he knows how I practically fall over every time I close my eyes while standing, so why would he even suggest such a thing.  And remember when we were taught to juggle in elementary school and it so did not happen for me?  AND ALSO WHY AM I DOING THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE.

So all of these really critical questions are just spinning in my head and I find myself more angry that he wants me to do something so hard.

And yet, it has to somehow also be so easy, you know?  Like maybe I just need to trust him.

And it sounds really easy but it feels so hard.  To mix some metaphors here, it’s kinda like I’m on Dance Dance Revolution.  I don’t know the steps and I’m missing some and I’m no good at this and I just want to play nice and easy ski ball, okay???

I want to be faithful.  I want to be.

But to even be asked to be clued in to the why and the how feels faithless.  But I just don’t think I can do it.

If I don’t know how, I’m going to fail.

And I’m failing.  I’m dropping the what nots and I’m steering off course and I’m petrified to take off my blindfold because the reality is so hard to deal with.

…

But it’s all comin’ back to that manna, you know?  It’s all coming back to to trusting God right here, right now.  Swallow this bite and know that there will be another.  And it’s not like he’s gonna give you poison, either.  He’ll give you the grace to take the bite.  It may seem bitter, but maybe your tastes are a bit off.  It’s supposed to taste like honey.  His provision is sweet.  If it tastes like fermented vomit in your mouth, maybe it’s because your perspective is a little off.  Maybe you’re into the delusion that you actually provide for yourself.

…

Believe it or not, if he’s asking you to juggle flaming what nots while blindfolded on a unicycle, you’re going to be able to do it.  It won’t be entirely based on your abilities either.  It’s just going to happen is some magical, overwhelming way so that you know, in the depths of your soul, that God is going to provide a way for you.  You know that it wasn’t just you.  You know that you’re not alone.

You’ll be able to look back on this one day and really see, again, that it isn’t about you or what you can do.  It’s about obedience.  It’s about grace.  It’s about faithfulness.

Not yours.  His.

And one day, maybe, you’ll be at peace with that.  You’ll be at peace with yourself.   You’ll be at peace with him.

Wearing Damned Shoes That Fit and Chompin’ on Manna Like a Champ.

“Just buy some damned shoes that fit.”

I couldn’t help but let out a chuckle when he said it, but on the coattails of the laugh, a sigh you can feel came and lingered.

“Reference noted”, I replied with a bit more sobriety.

Mother Teresa had deformed feet.  Did you know that?  She did.  Whenever she was in need of shoes, she’d go through the donation pile and find the shoes in the worst possible condition.  After almost a lifetime of doing so, her feet became deformed.  She would rather suffer than allow another to suffer.  She was selfless, a living martyr.

The point he was making was that I was suffering and I didn’t need to be.  A living martyr dying for something that wasn’t worth it.  Not nearly as noble as it is ridiculous.  In this particular situation, I didn’t feel like I was being a martyr.  I was simply unaware.

I had just told him that I’d be getting an eye exam soon to address the increasing discomfort behind and in my eyes from sitting at a computer all day.  He thought that a good idea, as well he should since he was the most persistent in his insistence for me to be examined.  I then expressed some reservations I was having about it.  Really curious, now to see if discomfort isn’t entirely normal.  Perhaps, even, I was making a bigger deal of it than necessary, though I didn’t express it.  I didn’t have to express it.  He knew it.  Thus his response.

It seems a little sharp upon retrospect, but I suppose it is just as necessary.  Maybe not in this instance, but in many, I am quite the living martyr.  Of this, he knows, for he was the first person to label me as such, the first to expose its flaws.

I’ll be honest, it’s really hard to see being selfless as a flaw.  But it can be.

Some things aren’t worth suffering for, dying for.  Some things really are other people’s responsibilities.  If other people don’t take care of their responsibilities, then I deny them both the opportunity to mature and also the consequences of their irresponsibility when I take them on.  And I get that.  I get all of it.

But sometimes, I think it’d be pretty rad if someone helped me out in a big way.  People have, certainly.  The coffeehouse wouldn’t be running had it not been for those who labored while I fell apart last year.  So maybe that’s not what I’m talking about.  Maybe what I’m really talking about is people helping people in little ways.  Because I am totally appreciative when I get offered help in dire circumstances, but it would be maybe equally awesome if someone would put away my laundry or cook me dinner.  Clean my car or hang the art up on my walls.  Heck, I’d be delighted if someone would just sit with me as I did any of these things.

This isn’t an attack on my roommates.  They are wonderful and I love them.  And they do sweet things for me, too.  That’s not what this is about.

This is about feeling like I’ve poured all of me into the universe and have been given a meager supplication in return.

This is about serving and not knowing what it’s like to be served and living in a mindset that says that is totally okay.

This is about wondering whether God is really going to come through for me.  At it’s heart, this is it.

This is all probably not actually true.  I’m probably just feeling it.  But it’s definitely experientially true.  And in the end, something will be added to my pile of responsibilities that I probably shouldn’t even have and then I will become a hermit again, hoarding my time just to feel I have control of myself.

But I don’t have to live this way.  I don’t.  I do, but I don’t.

…

A lot of people have been talking about Exodus lately.  It’s kinda weird.  Like the plight of the Israelites is numero uno in the zeitgeist.  It’s cool with me, though, because we’ve actually been reading in Exodus for this little bible study magic lady group I’m in.  Of course we’ve already had the great “What do you think manna looked like?” share time.   My take:  large flakes of instant mashed potatoes that taste like Frosted Flakes.

What’s really cool about the manna was that even though it was totally God’s provision, there were still limits put on it.  Everyone was supposed to get a certain amount.  It was a lot, too.  Like 2 quarts full of Frosted Flakes, man.  That’s serious.

But still, some people didn’t trust.  Some people took more.  Maybe they were greedy.  I like to think they were scared.  Scared that manna wouldn’t come the next morning, you know?  Well that didn’t make God happy.  Here he is makin’ miracle Frosted Flakes appear out of nothing every morning and the people didn’t trust or believe that he would provide.  So when they kept extra, God was like, “Fine then.  Worms.”  And all that extra magical manna got eaten up by worms.  I’m sure that REALLY made the Israelites more confident that God would provide…  PSYCH.  I woulda been friggin’ out like I don’t even know what.

But you know what the simple truth was?  If they just trusted him, they wouldn’t be in this mess.  If they just trusted that he’d deliver, that he’d provide, then they wouldn’t have gathered more and he wouldn’t have turned the excess into worms.  It all starts with distrust and it ends with worms.

Ain’t that the truth.

And that’s kinda sorta completely my problem.  I give as I feel I should and I fear that God won’t provide.  Why?  Because sometimes I give more than I should.  And the thing of it is is that everyone is supposed to take a portion of the manna, but when I take on more responsibility, others responsibilities, it’s like I’m given my provision away.  Then I go hungry.  So then I hoard my giving and then it turns to worms.

There’s a balance to everything. I’ve  never stayed there very long, but I’ve visited it a bit more often these days. I think it exists when you trust God for the day.  For your daily portion of manna, for your daily bread.  You trust him in that little thing right there and then maybe you’re a little more willing to trust him in the next little thing right after that.  Before long, maybe you don’t spend all your time fearing where the provision will come from because you’re totally committed to the idea that it will always come from God.

You’re sittin’ there chompin’ on your manna like a champ.

And maybe you glance down at your ill fitting shoes and your slightly deformed feet…

New shoes are next, buddy.  Just you wait.

 

 

I am the old.

The word is “new”, but it’s not a new word.  I hear it everywhere, now.  New beginnings, new opportunities, new life.  And who wouldn’t think of “new” and feel renewed.  See?  Told you it was everywhere, it’s even in that word.

But if there is something new, then there is something old.  And I grieve the loss of the old.  New beginnings form at the end of a now old beginning.  New opportunities arise as old opportunities die.

Life begins and life ends and life begins and life ends.  And I’m so tired of life ending.  I’m so tired of grieving.

I’ve been thinking about this pretty regularly for a couple of years now, and with increasing frequency in the last couple of months.  In the safety of confidence with a close friend, I confessed how much death bothers me, even death of insects.  He asked why I thought that was.  Because it is so… permanent.

When new things come, the old things will never be the same.  As a Christian, I should have a completely different outlook on all of this.  I have a new life in Christ, God’s mercies are new every morning.  But my joy for new is overshadowed by the inner torture of the death of old.

One of my best friends packed up a car today and moved to Portland, Oregon with her new husband.  And I couldn’t be happier for them.  And I couldn’t be sadder for me.

A friend of mine and I had a long stretch of miscommunication which led to no communication and, in many ways, strangled what was once a life-giving friendship.  In that time,  new opportunities rose up for him.  In that time, I wallowed in grief alone.  And I couldn’t be happier for him.  And I couldn’t be sadder for me.

In my hyper-critical, cynical heart, I feel overlooked.  For newness happens for everyone, but I am the old.  Maybe this wouldn’t feel so lonely, helpless, and hopeless if the death of something old meant I would find something new.  But I don’t.   And it feels as if my days are numbered.  The days draw nearer to when I will be replaced one last time by someone new until I am alone.  Or so it seems.

Not so deep down, I know the root of all of this misperception.  I invest in so few, and even then only to the persistent and most safe, for fear of the death I know will happen eventually.  My fear of abandonment is so skewed and exaggerated that even the most basic and normal and natural patterns of ebb and flow within relationships seems to be less like coming and going and more like hesitation and death.  The only “comfort” is in choosing not to be invested at all.

But that is not the life I was supposed to lead.  I am not the person  I grew up to be.

And so I offer this plea:

When I retract, please draw near.

When I hide, please come find me.

When I get up to go, please ask me to stay.

It’s certainly not your responsibility, but if only you understood that the reason I push and run away was to cause a premature death that I can control, then maybe you would not be so disappointed in me.  Maybe you would be spurred to pursue me more, and I would feel safe to stay.  And, one day, maybe the grace you bestow to me will be the grace of God.  This part of me would heal and neither one of us would have to try so hard.

I Walk Alone.

10 years ago, my favorite book was “Pride and Prejudice”.  At 18, I thought Eliza sounded like the perfect heroine to emulate.

I’m 28 now.  The things that I see now are a bit different.

The 20s, it seems, were reserved for making mistakes in relationships.  I could say learning about relationships but I think making mistakes and learning are synonymous in this situation.  Now, as I’m leaving my 20s, I’m seeing things a little differently than what I saw coming in.

For one, when I reflect back on Pride and Prejudice, what I see amidst a love story is also the story of a girl who couldn’t bite her tongue.  She showed no sort of constraint as she flagrantly aired her opinions of Mr. Darcy around.  In the end, even her own father is skeptical of her love for him and his for her.  And why?  Because she had no self-control.  Sure, Mr. Darcy was an ass at times, but so much of what made Mr. Darcy an ass was actually something benign that had been miscommunicated.  She lacked grace for him.  She lacked perspective.  Instead of taking the time to seek understanding, she lashed out.  It wasn’t hard to do.  Far too many were all to eager to support her opinions of him.  Her hurt feelings from his offenses destroyed his name.

If there is one thing I could say that I do admire about Eliza, it’s that she did, finally, humble herself.  Mr. Darcy owned up to his part and she owned up to hers.  In the end, that is her only redemption, in my eyes.

So often, I find myself in the same situation as Eliza.  I get hurt.  I lash out.  I defame someone.  I tell one side of a tale.  And then, when my nerves calm down a bit, when I take time to think things through instead of feeling them through, I find, quite often, that I wasn’t entirely right.  I find that I’ve made a mountain out of a molehill and rallied the troops to overthrow the {not so} evil tyrant {that actually doesn’t exist}.  I take my problem and multiply it like the cup in Bellatrix Lestrange’s vault.

I am sorry.  I am sorry to the whole world.  I am sorry that I experienced hurt and turned it into seeds of hate, sowing it into the fields of all my relationships.   I am sorry that I’ve pulled others down because it hurt to be down by myself.  I am sorry that I have had no self-control.  I am sorry.  I am.

But now is the time to be an adult.  Now is the time to be 28 and not 18 {which is really only adult in the eyes of the law}.

I want my life to be different and it starts with steps such as these.

Oligarchy

May 11th, 2008

I was riding in a car with a friend.  Out of the blue, I remembered a word that I had heard someone use that weekend and, considering my friend was a lexophile, I decided I’d ask him what it meant.

“What does…  oh.  Nevermind.  I’m not sure I can pronounce it right anyway–”

“Oligarchy,” he interjected.

I sat in stunned silence.  That had been the word I was thinking of.  THINKING of.  I had given him no sign at all as to what I was talking about and our previous conversation had gone nowhere near that word.

The next few minutes were a blur of high pitched, fast-paced, practically inaudible, inner turned outer monologuing from me.  As steady and perhaps confusing as a stock ticker.

I think there was an attempt for me to escape his car at one point in time.

He just laughed.

When I calmed, he asked me what I thought it meant.  I was flabbergasted.

“I think it means that God’s listening,” he offered. Close, I thought, but not quite.

“I think it means that God’s speaking.  He’s speaking through you.” I concluded.  I guess I’d known that for years, but it never seemed so real.  God never seemed so real.

Today is the 3rd anniversary of that event.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately of Ebenezer and Bethel.  Not the Scrooge, not the college.  They were both monuments erected from stones by people in the Bible to commemorate an interaction with God.  Whenever they, their people, their descendants pass those places, they can look upon them and recall what God has done.

I tend to be so present minded that I often forget the past and neglect to plan for the future.  The idea of raising a monument to remind me that God is Jehovah-Jireh, my provider, seems more appealing every time it wanders across the path of my thoughts.

In some ways, “The Oligarchy Miracle”, as I’ve come to deem it, has become an internal kairn or stone monument.  Just like the individual stones that make up the structure of a kairn aren’t that special, neither were any of the details involving “The Oligarchy Miracle”.  It wasn’t unusual to be spending time or talking with my friend.  Even the word “oligarchy” isn’t anything inspiring.  What makes the rocks of a kairn special is what happens where they were and what the reminder of that event symbolizes.

The same is true for “The Oligarchy Miracle”.

Three years later, it’s hard not to have awe for the event.  I’ve tried to play it cool from time to time, but the truth is I don’t want to think that God interacting with us in a car one summer night, out of the blue, is something to write off as banal or trite.  God interacting with us is special.  Those moments should be looked back on and revered.

God with us is not blasé.  It’s a miracle.  And I don’t want to forget all the little miracles He has done, is doing, and will continue to do in my life.

The Dragons, The Submarines, and Me

“Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” – G.K. Chesterton

We’d all like to think that we are the heroes and heroines of our own stories.  We’d all like to think we slay the dragons and settle the injustices of the world, all while upholding our dignity and integrity.

But what if we woke up one day and realized that we weren’t the heroes we dreamt we were?  We have often had the opportunity to slay the dragons and free the oppressed, but instead cowered.  Averted our eyes.  Perhaps even hid until we didn’t feel so wrong for hiding.  Hid until we didn’t feel anything at all.

What if we woke up one day, disenchanted by the false ideas of who we are?  What if we saw that the dragons had run rampant and our lack of courage all but spoon fed them?  Instead of dealing with our dragons head on, what if we find that we are wallowing in the dung of our inaction?

If someone were to find themselves in such a situation, I think we’d have a lot to talk about.

Somehow, I’ve managed to get on the dragons’ hit list.  The last few years have brought a dragon of every color, shape, and size.  Some dragons have been slain.  Most have been ignored.  I believe I may have inadvertently convinced myself that quite a few of them are just a part of my life and forever will be.  They are practically pets.  I ought to name them and arrange play dates.  But I suppose this really is no laughing matter for a dragon is a dragon and always will be.  If I haven’t been eaten alive by my now pet dragons, then it’s simply a matter of time.

I think 3 minutes on high flame ought to do me up to a nice crisp.

I am 28 years old and I think I might like to be an adult this year.  I don’t know why I choose the word “adult”, exactly, but I know that I don’t want to be a child anymore.  The dragons in my life are to be slewed by me.  I can not defer them to anyone.  I can not blame them on anyone.  They are mine to face.

And it’s not like I’ve never tried slaying dragons, it just normally ends up poorly.  And that’s where submarines enter the picture.

You see, I have anxiety issues.  9 months of therapy and internal struggle has helped me to accept this.  Now that I know it, though, I have been spending a lot of time trying to rewire my mind.  For instance, when a level 2 event happens, I’m trying not to max out at level eleventy billion.  I am trying to listen to what I’ve deemed my “adult voice”.  It tells me that everything will be fine and, in some cases, already is fine.  And, after 6 months, I can say that this voice has developed and been quite helpful.  But, as I’ve come to find out, rewiring your mind is one thing… one TERRIBLY difficult thing… but rewiring your body is infinitely harder.

You see, anxiety isn’t just something in my head.  In fact, many times I feel something physically for hours preceding any anxious thoughts.  For whatever reason, 11 AM is a popular time for me to start feeling anxious.  Typically, even with mental coaching, it takes another 8 – 14 hours to pass.

So, when I’m facing that dragon, it is often as if the dragon bewitches me into feeling like I’m inside of a cold, dark, damp submarine that has come under attack.  Just like in a movie.  Red lights start spinnin’ all over the place, sirens start whooping, something like an alarm clock keeps making that Godawful sound.  The rivets start to tremble at the seams, water streams start jetting out every which way from underneath them, and then the rivets start popping out one by one as the pressure smothers me.

That is exactly, word for word, how it feels.

Only, of course, that has to be translated to my physical body.  So it’s a strain in my throat, making it hard to swallow, a tightening in my chest making it hard to breath, palms turn to icy sweat, a quiver in my lip, and tear ducts filling and ready for action, all too anxious to sting my eyes at the slightest unpositive thought.  If it’s a particularly bad case, I’ll get a tension headache from the back of my head down the left side of my neck into my back.  Ringing ears, and sharp pains in my head at random.  And everything sounds like noise.  Loud, obnoxious, overpowering noise.  I can’t understand anything I hear or read… not music, not emails, nothing.  Not even my own thoughts.  After all, what can you expect when you are in a submarine that is about to implode?

So sometimes I have to face a dragon and somehow I’m trapped in a submarine plummeting to the depths of the sea.

But an interesting ending has recently developed in the submarine.

You know how in really traumatic scenes in movies, at the peak of stress, the movie will become quiet?  Everything will run in slow motion?  That’s what has been happening.  I know the sirens and lights and water are still orchestrating chaos, but the ringing in my ears takes precedence before suddenly, smoothly, a quietness dwells in the midst of it all.  Suddenly, at my desk, it’s as if a blanket has drifted down from the sky and embraced me with a soothing power that thwarts off the dragon’s bewitchment and rivals Valium.

And quietly, I hear that whisper again.  I’m going to be okay.

I may not always come out smelling like roses, and may often end up doing more harm than good, but I’ve got these dragons in the crosshairs now.

And also one badass sky blanket.