Redo.

I don’t know if Blake remembers the first time he felt it, but I do.

It was winter. I want to say February. I stepped into the cold house I didn’t want with my arms tucked around my waist, the safety inspector already on the roof with a tool belt and a clipboard. I remained on the cusp of being sure about this place. The decision to buy a house came from an argument with my dad where I failed to convince him of the lack in my bank account. My mom couldn’t get her mind off of this particular block, which is what usually happens when something big is about to occur. My roommate at the time had a dream that I laughed at, loudly and with gusto. I had 100 dollars to my name. What was I doing?

I stood in the middle of the living room and surveyed my surroundings. Cracked doors. Missing doorframes. Chewed up drywall. Graffiti all over the garage. Chipped linoleum in the kitchen. Windows that were at least 50 years old. A carpet of unnamed color that should have been replaced 10 years ago. A sliding back door that would perpetually stick. Rotting eaves. Old tile. Odd light switches. A wobbly bannister around the stairs that was just asking for a fall. I think we called the color used in the bathroom, “salmon,” air quotes included.

Someone had once loved this house. Then fell apart in this house. Then took their anger out on the banks in this house. It was impossible to miss.

The inspector smiled as he handed me the report, but became more serious as he pointed out his concerns. I listened intently, examining each photo, too afraid to even try to run numbers in my head. There were so many pages. Splinters. Holes. Sagging wood. Worn out shingles. I was told to basically expect a plumbing emergency at some point. 

I thanked him for being honest and he politely left. I sat on the floor with the new book of repairs, flipping through page after page of problems I was incredibly under qualified to repair. As each photo passed, my smile grew a little bit more. A glow set root in the base of my heartstrings—the one that signs me up for foolhardy things. I glanced around the house once more, and laughed.

I was going to fix all of it.

Fanny Mae made it clear that I shouldn’t have even been in the running. I was up against cash buyers and corporate sellouts who would gladly smear some paint and cheap drywall around and leave with a profit. I went toe-to-toe with mortgage companies and sellers and selling agents, aggressively putting my name in the hat and accepting the things I couldn’t change,* for now at least. I knew what flippers did to neighborhoods like mine. If I could stop them from taking at least one, then it was worth

I didn’t even know WHY it was so important to me. I didn’t want the stress of a house, much less a fixer upper. I’m not a landlord: I turn to jelly when confrontation is present and I don’t like managing people. I don’t know how to repair furnaces or replace floors or fix kitchen sinks. I may very well do more harm than good if I wasn’t careful. None of this process was remotely something Normal Me would have done. But I kept making it crystal clear to everyone involved that I would be getting this house and deep down, I knew why. Me and this house were the same. 

There were remnants of happiness left over, if you really looked. It was etched into the stickers that covered the bedroom closet. It floated through the clouds painted on the bedroom wall, and glowed through the stars stuck to the ceiling. It sifted through the perennials and the garden beds and the lilac bush someone carefully planted. It wove through the little antique cabinet door someone kept in the bathroom on purpose. It lived on the names spray painted over the garage window in hot pink and gold. 

Love lived here once. 

Then life happened. 

I knew what that felt like. 

Change was slow. Roommates moved in and patiently took each one in stride—waiting two weeks for a new air conditioner because the first one was stolen and learning to share a tiny, crumbling kitchen, for example.I bought projects as I could afford them—with my salary, it averaged to a couple of things per year. By the time I met Blake I managed to fix the furnace, replace the garage door, get a few new windows, put something livable on the kitchen floor, and do some minor plumbing. He caught the bug and insisted on trying his hand at the downstairs bathroom.** Somehow I managed to pay for a new roof and a wedding at the same time. The more we were in the house, the more we gained momentum. A new back door that didn’t swell in the summer heat. Smooth drywall where there used to be holes. Electrical wires rerouted and brought to code. The bannister replaced with a sturdier half wall. Fresh paint over the old accent wall. Primer over the graffiti in the garage. The “salmon” bathroom replaced with lavender. Clay pipe under the basement jackhammered and repaired. And my pièce de résistance: restoring the original wood floors.

The glow would return in the quiet places, landing in a blank room and watching between the shushes of fine sandpaper and the low growls of cotton rollers. The little nymph rested between the folds of my messy bun and giggled at the schlups of stray paint on my cheek. The warmth of something true held me close every time I sat and marveled at a freshly restored floor. It swelled in the tiniest catch of my breath— if I listened close enough.

He is a God who loves to restore. 

There is a facet to Deconstruction that is the most true, but is often left out of the conversation.*** Deconstruction is lonely, yes. It is confusing, disillusioning, vulnerable, an odd clarity, a new grief, tiring, scary, maybe trendy, very real, and arguably a necessary component of faith. But it’s also, most importantly—temporary. You may be there for days. You may be there for years. There is no set timetable. How long it takes to work through it is between you and Jesus. But it is temporary. Deconstruction is always followed by a rebuild of some kind. You won’t look the same after but don’t worry, you aren’t supposed to.

Take heart, friend. It is a rest stop, not a home. 

I am not sorry for my gloomier days. There are problems that cannot be fixed by prose, and I have never known Jesus to be someone who shoulds us out of our sorrow. He is constantly reminding me that my hard things are not too much for Him. It feels weird to declare new things at a time like this, while I am in my warm home with a full belly and others are not. But when the timing is right, this God of porch swings and dusky windows, of dogwoods and fairy rings, of mushrooms and lilac bushes and broken houses, will give you a glimpse of His heart. The one that gains so much joy in taking what’s laid bare and making it new. 

When I was so sure in all the ways that I couldn’t, I needed a teacher. Nothing less than a carpenter would do. 

To be honest, I’m still not sure about it. I don’t know if this will pan out, if this will have unintended consequences, or if it will be satisfying in the end. But at the very least, it’s becoming less about profit or risk or escrow or the stack of things I’m acquiring under my belt, and more about being a participant in joy. The kind that tentatively partners with hope. The kind that rebuilds. The kind that sees.

So if you’re in the middle of it, I see you. We can get coffee or sit in pajamas in front of a movie or I can come do your dishes. It’s valid, that thing, whatever it is.

When you’re ready, I’ll also grab you by the hand and show off my house. I’ll be way too proud of it and excited about little things that wouldn’t even remotely matter to a buyer. I’ll point out the new curtains and the freshly painted closet and the flower pots I’m going to plant. We can remember together the God who makes things new and remind Him of His promises—persistently, and specifically, and often.

After all.

He loves to restore.

Footnotes:

*That’s why my siding is a hideous color, FYI.

** I mean if you want to test out the solidity of your relationship, renovating a crusty bathroom together is one way to do it. You will know by the end of the weekend.

***For good reason. A lot of us ended up here because we hate platitudes.

Undo.

Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks; some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else.

—C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

I’ll never forget what our floors first looked like. 

That weekend we, with much trepidation, crawled on our hands and knees holding box cutters and pliers, coaxing our ancient carpet away from the solid oak underneath. I remember that graying rug with clarity, as it was caked in decades of dust and by all accounts remained unsalvageable. We worked diligently, prying staple after stubborn staple, rubbing blisters from our thumbs and sending endless puffs of dog hair into the air. A tension headache began its crawl through my neck by the time we were done, and as we sat cross legged on the newly exposed planks we knew we were both in over our heads. 

Sludge from the padding glued different areas of the floor in patches, exposing rough hewn spaces that were clearly the result of foot traffic and moisture. I cringed at the gray green stains dotting small areas here and there, only guessing at their origin. We stared for a good five minutes at the 4 layers of vinyl tile baked by the sun into the corner.  How many little paws have traversed and scratched and potty trained on these floors? How many toddlers with sippy cups christened them with Kool-Aid and applesauce? How many times were soups and water glasses and coffee mugs slipped from busy hands? How many high heels, socked feet, loafers and snow boots? How many paper cuts, stubbed toes, and tears from yet-to-be-kissed boo boos? How many late nights under lamp light, or afternoons with sun soaking in from the windows? I didn’t want to believe these floors were done yet, but it was evident that they’d seen so much. The stories were written all over the wood. 

This was a fool’s errand. And I guess I was just the fool for the job. 

I wish I could tell you that glittering inspiration and starry eyed hope was the reason I pressed on. It was some of that. It was also the river of raging, stubborn will that runs rampant in Stueber women, along with a decorative addition of spite after someone insinuated that they didn’t think I could do it. Blake had no doubts about the mission. I had many. But I also have a permanent soft spot in my heart for aging objects that have seen things. At the very least, I could try.

The week was planned—November, when it was convenient for both of us to take PTO and the HVAC could be turned off without affecting the temperature too much. We booked a hotel, made arrangements, and budgeted for equipment. Doorways were taped off, and air vents removed. After a dozen tries, the vinyl was successfully scraped off. And finally, we were ready to rent the sander.

Removing the finish is the hardest part. One worker from the hardware store suggested we use an orbital sander as it was more forgiving, but we quickly found out we were going to need something far more aggressive to get all the years off of this floor. A drum sander was the only thing that would do, and they—especially of the non-professional rented variety—need a special amount of practice and finesse.* Drum sanders are a particularly heavy machine that need to be balanced properly and kept from pulling the wrong way. The lights would flicker every time I turned the darned thing on. No less than three passes with varying degrees of sandpaper is required, otherwise the boards will be left uneven and course. So it stands to reason that sloughing off all the old polyurethane was slow, steady, sweaty work, complete with a  humid ring round my face where the N95 lived for hours at a time. It took me three days and by the end of it, I felt like I had been hit by a train. Blake had to finish with the edger because my arms were too sore to control it anymore. I’d leave the house every night barefoot and cloudy with sawdust, hoping against hope we wouldn’t have to throw up our hands and cover it up with carpet again.

Thank God for Advil and heating pads.

By Tuesday morning, I nervously opened the door into the dining room and inspected the naked boards after the overnight dust had settled into the corners. A soft oak greeted me—satin white in the morning sun, the porous, vulnerable material ready and waiting. There are few things that feel better than a warm floor on bare feet, newly smooth and ready for an oil stain. I noted a few splotches I tried to correct, hoping that Minwax could help us out. I glanced at the corner where the vinyl once lay and could barely believe I got it up. Standing in the middle of the living room I raked my hand through my hair in disbelief. We did it. We actually did it. 

I hated removing all the stories this floor had to tell. Everything it had been through mattered to me. But buffing out the scum and the fuzz and the faded patches and the rough indentions was necessary if I wanted to make room for something new. 

I didn’t know it yet, but in the thick of it my heart was being prepared for a weird kind of loss I should have anticipated, but didn’t. 

God must know I love a good metaphor.

There are a lot of catchphrases floating around, as catchphrases do. Toxic. Progressive. Exvangelical. Cancel Culture. Normalize. Influencer. Neurodivergent. Doomscrolling. Inflammatory rhetoric. Usually trendy, sometimes overused and reductive…most existing for a reason. Deconstruction was never one I anticipated resonating with.

Evangelical leaders of any variety** have now gotten ahold of the word Deconstruction and managed to thoroughly confuse it with Deconversion. The assumption is that one will automatically lead to the other. Sometimes that’s true, but it isn’t often or always. Most of the people I know going through the deconstruction passage want to hold onto their faith. So before taking all your prepared quips about how this is just a trendy topic recently coined and run off the rails, let me let you in on a little secret: this thing we’ve happened upon isn’t sexy, or entitled, or prideful, or clever.

It’s lonely.

There’s a spectrum to it that’s always a part of the conversation. But across the whole thing exists an irreversible point where you must start asking some really hard questions about the place where you’ve made your home. You are aware that people will never be perfect, and that this family has been patient with you, too. You’ve learned, tangibly, what restorative forgiveness looks like. You’ve understood on a primal level how the love of God is like a hurricane and an ocean and a new mother all at once. You’ve tried to reckon all of it with a culture that has taught you to keep secrets so well and after a while, it starts to become too heavy. Reality settles in, crashing and uninvited. Disillusionment strips away all the things you thought you knew. You become way less fun to be around. You know any attempt to talk about it will be received as an attack. It’s a devastating moment where you suddenly look around you and realize, after all this time, that the fruit is rotten. You uncover how much hope you have put into certainty. You are grieving something that doesn’t make sense.

The smallest, quietest part of you doesn’t want to believe the floor is done. It’s still there, beckoning.

So you make your way down the hallway, pulling up squares of carpet and padding and staples to get to the boards underneath. You are slowly sanding away the years of bad theology, westernized homogenization, patriotic idolatry, religious trauma, everything you were involuntarily on the sidelines for, and every excuse made to refuse loving your neighbor. You mourn this loss, and accept this invitation to dig into the uncertainty and figure out what it is teaching you. You are in over your head. It is slow, steady, sweaty work.

And it is lonely. 

This is usually the part in the blog post when someone who has shown little concern over the vulnerable in a pandemic wants to take me to coffee. Their treat.

So if your friends are going through this thing—this questioning, this stripping disillusionment, this grief that doesn’t make sense—please understand it for what it is and leave behind the things it isn’t. Save your “hard to swallow pills” for some other subject, they only serve to create cynics. Try your best to put your defenses down, even just for a minute. Maybe take some friendship notes from Tolkien.*** Sanding old floors is tough, fearful, vulnerable work. 

You never know. One day it might be happening in your house. And if you’re lucky, you just might have someone to walk through it with you.

Who knows? Maybe they’ll even know how to use a drum sander.

Footnotes:

*There are divots in the guest room that bear witness to my beginner days.

**To clarify, I’m not really into this whole “get Matt Chandler canceled” thing. I think people on both sides of the aisle have taken an old clip and ran with it, thinking that it’s helpful, and it isn’t.

***Like if you’re gonna yell, maybe make it about magic trees or something.

Ring.

I kind of miss my class ring. Also, I don’t.

I remember the day the company came for their annual shill of another unnecessary token of memorabilia from high school. Ah yes indeed, time to rake in some dollars from unsuspecting 17 year olds in the name of tradition. Do people even keep their class rings for more than a decade? I don’t know…but I was excited nonetheless. This was the signal that we were about to enter our senior year. We had two more semesters to savor every last second of our high school lives. More purchases would arrive. Next it would be yearbooks on the order card. Caps and gowns. Degrees in faux-leather bound packets. Promises to call, to email, to be friends forever and to never forget our best days.* All of it dripped with golden nostalgia, and I ate it up—the class ring especially.

I was so meticulous about design, and color. It had to be worth remembering. My little, bubbling, potential-laden self was so proud that this was one of the first big things I was able to pay for by myself. Obviously I wanted to get it right. Who knows, maybe someday I’d be showing it to my grandchildren, allowing them to bring it in to win “oldest” or “most unique” at their schools.

Maybe.

I had it for a year. I wore it almost every day, save for the afternoons I was loading tater tots at my part time job and jewelry wasn’t allowed. The ring was never out of my sight. I would sit with my friends at lunch and compare designs, noting stone color and engravings. I considered wearing it on a chain instead to keep from losing it, then decided against it. It scraped against every desk I had as I penciled in notecards and lined paper. My hand clunked it against lockers as I walked down the hallway. One full school year of admiring my first big-kid purchase with pride. Then, it vanished.

It’s disappointing to be sure. I really did love that thing. But the ring’s disappearance is actually a reminder of love I had forgotten about until now.

Not many people know this about me, but when I was 18, my house was robbed while I was in it. 

I suspect I was protected twice. That weekend my parents traveled to a different state so that my dad could rescue yet another vehicle in need of small repair that he could then turn into the family camper. I stayed with a friend and came home a night early so that I could go to work the next day. It was the first time I was allowed to be home by myself overnight, and I happened to fall asleep on the couch. Around 2 am, my little dog Simon woke me with a start—growling with growing intensity at the door to the garage, eyes pinpointed toward a sound only he could hear. I froze, holding him to my chest and putting my hand to his snout to quiet him. If someone was down there, I didn’t want them to know someone was up here, awake. Finally, as the minutes ticked by at a glacial pace, I came to the conclusion it was only the cat and we both fell back asleep.

I woke up and went to work the next morning without a second thought. My parents came back that afternoon after having decided that the camper wasn’t worth it, and we all slept peacefully that night. I had no idea what I just dodged until the next morning, when I was gently shaken awake at 6 am.

“Do you know why the garage door is open?”

Eyes bleary and the gears of my brain still rusty from sleep, I trudged downstairs to see the door pried a quarter of the way open. I glanced in the basement to see several missing places where our things should be—the computer, the PlayStation, my iPod, my brother’s commemorative coin box, others that escape me at the moment. My mom’s car had been rifled through. A piece of cloth I didn’t recognize lay on the lid to the deep freezer. I nervously looked toward the file cabinet and the toolbox. Slowly the pieces came together and I glanced at my dad. He was clearly trying to piece together a rational explanation for this. I turned and gently suggested that we should call the police. 

I’ve felt fear before, but this was something worse. This had a grip that was stronger. Colder.

Remembering that morning means I don’t remember that night, and I’m grateful it wasn’t worse. I know others who weren’t so lucky and that’s why I only tell this tale with Nuance at the table. My story isn’t everyone’s, and that’s why not every takeaway is for everyone across the board. But what I can’t shake at all is the fact that a small miracle occurred that night—not a single one of us woke up. No one stirred, no one got up to use the bathroom, no one went downstairs for a midnight snack. Not my brother, who bunked with our terrier that yapped at the slightest provocation. Not my parents, in the bedroom across the hall. Not the cat, who had direct access to the basement and a curious nature. And not me—sleeping closest to the living room, where they had slipped into the main floor, took a thorough look around for what they could carry, and clearly spied my purse on the coffee table. The woven one with bright colors, my favorite at the time. It was the one containing my wallet, my work ID…and my class ring. 

I miss my class ring. But also, I don’t.

A kind stranger actually found it, years later. They tried to send it to me, but it got lost in the mail. I like to think it was on purpose. A reminder. I didn’t go downstairs that night. None of us did.

I’m struggling a lot with trust at the moment. My mind is constantly documenting the near misses and Google searches and the fear that maybe this time my luck has run out. I wrestle with truth and myth, terrified of second shoes suspended in midair. I’m under no illusions and He’s under no obligation to tell me what He’s up to. It’s an old battle, depressing and cyclical with a sharp memory.

I know anxiety is a liar. Sometimes it shouts that I am not immune to this world, which is true.

Other days, when the terror is loud, I tug on the edge of robes and ramparts. Waiting a second, I wade through all the words I want to say. Tight-lipped and chin-tipped, I settle on a shaky sentence:

“Hey. You didn’t let me go downstairs. Ok?”

He knows I’m reminding me more than Him. 

I could swear He comes closer anyway.

“Yea. Ok.”

Footnotes:

*Or worst, depending on who you ask.

.

Dawn.

Our back deck really isn’t anything special.

Honestly, it should be torn down and rebuilt. A third of the original railing remains. The stairs keep rotting and breaking in half, no matter how many times we repair it. I made sure to get a tetanus shot this year because of all the rusty nails coming loose from the floorboards. Half is molded from the rain and half is way too close to the electric line for comfort. The whole thing is actually lopsided. It’s safe to say it is nowhere near up to code. At its very least it stands, steady and sound. This was what prompted me to shuffle downstairs towards my husband, with iPad in hand, saying, “I have a request.”

We bought the rust-red porch swing on sale at Lowe’s, overpriced but sturdy and soft. We* put it together in a day, and sat on it that night. Blake asked if I was happy and I said very—even though the view was so, so Raytown. Overgrown bushes. A yard that desperately needed someone with a green thumb. Power lines through the back. Neighbors with yappy dogs and questionable backgrounds.** A rotting privacy fence from a different era. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t in it for the scenery.

I was in it for the sound.

Crickets. Birds. Dust flung from Kevin’s paws when she chased after something. Screen doors opening, and closing. Latin music from the pool party three doors down. Sirens, sometimes. Neighbors laughing, or yelling for kids to come home. Cars shushing down the block. The woodpecker who would just not give up on our roof. An owl in our magnolia tree that was none too pleased at my presence. Cicadas that drowned out everything else. On luckier nights, fireworks from the stadium.

I do love stadium fireworks.

I needed a place to go when I ran out of steam, and time, and words. The neighborhood filled in the gaps. I didn’t have to say anything, and that was probably for the best. 

I am in the middle of learning how to be a person again. I’m on month number 5 of recovering from an illness that left me reeling, hanging by a thread and wanting to quit. You wouldn’t know it from looking at me, and that may be the worst of it. I’m hanging in the balance—knowing that this could have been so much worse, contending with leftover terror of not seeing the morning come.

It made for some long nights.

It got to the point where I was afraid of falling asleep while it was dark, so I would start going to bed before sundown. I’d prop myself up on a half dozen pillows, crack open the window and listen to the birds. If I didn’t see the night, it couldn’t get me. And if that didn’t work, I’d go to the swing and rock until I dozed, burrowing under a weighted blanket like a five year old, moving to the couch to sleep sitting up before I drifted off too deeply. 

I never said it was sound logic. And it was mournful. I used to be friends with the night. I liked being awake when everyone else was asleep. Dawn was the enemy, with its bright sun and loud noise, interrupting my blinky existence. I felt robbed. 

Inevitably, in this new pattern, I would struggle through sleep and finally give up at around 5 or 6 am. The timing was just right to wrap in a blanket and head to the porch, where I settled back onto the swing and listened to a world that woke up slowly. My prayers whittled themselves down to a word, and nothing else. It was too early for words, and that was ok. The neighborhood filled in the gaps.

When the room was spinning and I was too weak to stand…when my face was drained of color and the tremors returned…when I felt like I couldn’t breathe and it was too overwhelming to even watch tv…somehow I could only find God and peace on a back porch. He sang me to sleep with barbecues and cardinals and car horns.

There are some things we go through that are not beautiful or inspiring or salvageable. Sometimes they are only hard. And ugly. And raw. I can’t muster positive imagery to offer from this. I can’t glean a bright eyed post that is motivating and tied up in neat little bows.

Maybe someday.

Until then, I’ll tell you what I told me, rhythmically, repeatedly, even though I couldn’t believe a kernel of them.

Joy is still possible. Even hope.

Be gentle with yourself, yes, even now.

If all you can do is make it, then that’s enough.

You are allowed to grieve what has happened to you.

You are braver than you think—even though you stood in the middle of your kitchen with tears in your eyes, telling your husband that you aren’t brave at all.

Believe your therapist when she tells you you are kicking ass and taking names.

And maybe, in the thick of it, when you can’t figure out why this happened or where the purpose of it is hiding, you turn into someone who greets the morning.

I know I did.

Footnotes:

*Ok, BLAKE put it together. I had…reasons.

**Honestly the guy with the face tattoo is very nice if you get to know him.

Bias.

I was 13. 

I remember that I was 13 because when I was 13, I was in 7th grade, and you weren’t allowed to go to the youth group’s New Year’s Eve lock-in until 7th grade. We milled about the choir room, our youth pastor standing in the corner while fiddling with a remote, attempting to get a countdown onto the projector. I sat next to my best friend Debbie in the position that all nervous middle schoolers do—hunched, arms between my knees, feet pigeon toed out, biting my lip and intermittently twirling my hair between my finger tips. I looked the part, for certain: flaired jeans, a graphic tee, Addidas tennis shoes I convinced my mom to buy, a bright colored scrunchie made to look like fake hair, blue eyeshadow, and an embarrassing amount of green cheek glitter. 

So far the night was fun, full of friends and games and every attempt to make teenagers throw up*.  Chaperones were volunteered to participate in Backstreet Boys dance recreations. At 8 pm we gorged ourselves on pizza and Mountain Dew. Some shyly looked at their crushes across the room. All of us put brave faces on and insisted that NO, we were NOT tired, we were going to stay up the whole night. I’m certain there was a piñata, somewhere, but I couldn’t tell you if we used it. Were there scooters? I’m pretty sure there were scooters.
For me, because I’ve always been an anxious person, the night was just a tiny bit…tainted.

That night was December 31st, 1999.

 After being successfully immersed in Christian pop culture, I spent the last five years as an influence-able kid who was low key terrified the world was going to end at any minute. Most of that I can thank Tim Lahaye and Jerry B Jenkins for, with the publishing of the Left Behind series  and and inevitable, endless follow up sermon series that made its entrance time and again. A circulating obsession with the book of Revelation seemed to follow me everywhere, though it was unwanted. Before that, I believe it was the Ozone hole. Before that, Columbine happened. Before that, I think there was something with El Niño. All of it ushered everyone quite nicely into the very real fear of Y2K—an overwhelming** terror that every digital medium we came to rely on would crash and leave us in the dark ages for who knows how long.

People wonder why Millennials turned into anxious, jaded alcoholics like we weren’t raised in constant fear of apocalypses.***As you can imagine, 2001 did not help that one bit.

To mine and everyone’s relief, the best thing possible happened—nothing. We welcomed in 2000 and expressed thanks to seeing such a historic thing. I played more throw up games and promptly passed out on my bed the next morning. What a night.

Despite the heavy content I was actually no worse for the wear. The benefit of being young allows time to grow out of things and the resiliency to do it. But it did affect the lense in which I saw things—and more accurately, people. I believed that time was desperately short and many around me were mistaken about important things. It was an odd bias, one that I didn’t really grow out of until late high school and didn’t even confront until college.

If you would believe it—My Bible professors were the reason.

I remember my first day of Old Testament survey vividly, and it’s because our professor started it by holding up the Holman Christian Standard Bible. “This,” he stated, matter of fact, “is the Holman Christian Standard Bible. I have asked you to purchase it for this class, because I helped to translate it and every time someone buys it, they give me money.”

Now this? This was a man who was not going to lie to me. 

I know I give my old institution a fair amount of deserved criticism. One thing you need to know about it, though, is that there existed an unspoken and universal rule that the main Bible and church history professors were awarded a specific, fond respect. Their classes were coveted, and it wasn’t because of status or an inflated desire for sophistication.

One was notorious for running to every class, a coffee mug in one hand and briefcase in the other. He did not spill a drop, and sometimes raced students to the door. I remember him in particular because he was so kind to me when I was trying to figure out how to take a test and be at a D-now at the same time. Another wore a suit and tie every single day, and seemed like a stuffy scholar until he started talking about either Koine Greek or growing up in rural Texas. Another condemned someone to hell every class period.(PLEASE understand that this wasn’t an inconsideration of religious trauma but a cultural commentary on the church’s history of willy-nilly condemnation practices). One was 1000% a Calvinist who I loved to spar with regarding Luther, who even spent half a class period analyzing the spacing between a comma and another word in Ephesians. And, ok, one was notorious for putting people to sleep in his class.They were absolutely fallible and you will not find me putting them on a pedestal. But they were also beloved, because they were honest. There were times when we were not spared from the messy conversations. After being out of school for so long, I’m finding that other Christian universities didn’t do that.

You wouldn’t expect an unraveling of indoctrinations to happen in a traditionally Baptist religious studies class—and I can smell your skepticism. But even though it was incredibly surface level, there is not an amount of money I would trade for the day Dr M spent on Revelation, showing us all the ways Christian Pop Culture had taken liberties and preyed upon our fears, filling in a few context holes and pointing out things we weren’t even really certain about. 

You would think I would have no bias now, but in truth it simply changed. Instead of being certain that our time is short and everyone is mistaken, I’m simply resentful of anyone who tries to convince me the world is ending. I have to take it in stride and reckon appropriately when there are very real, scientific concerns about things like global warming. Just because I’m resentful doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

Bias, as it turns out, is like a butthole. Everyone has one.

Or rather, bias is like BO. Everyone is mostly concerned with everyone else’s when the real problem may be their own.
It wasn’t the end-of-worlds belief that was the bias—it was the way it shaped my interactions. People didn’t know what I knew, they were obviously ignorant, and I had to save them.

Most of my degree revolved around detecting bias, taught by someone who was pretty good at it (except that he would get triggered if someone just said the word “postmodernism.”) It was always an interesting process because I would spend the majority of it picking apart letters, writings, official statements, first and second hand accounts, rememberings, legends, all of it—asking critical questions like “why would they, specifically, think this way?” and “why would they do that thing this way instead of the way I’m used to?” and “who benefits from this point of view?”I would then gather all of this objective information up and present…not an objective argument. Because no arguments are objective. Objective arguments do not exactly exist the way that we think they do. Facts exist, objectively. Some things are objectively true. But objective arguers do not exist. Confronting that on a personal level was what made a good paper.

When I see accusations of bias, I start with skepticism, because most of the time it isn’t that the material was incredibly biased, it was more that “this information upset me but I want to sound intellectual about it.” Or, sometimes, it’s “this does not follow my bias, therefore it is biased.” When someone points out propaganda it’s generally by those thinking of the Nazi variety, forgetting that Dr Suess and Walt Disney also produced their fair share— and I don’t mean metaphorically, I mean they were literally hired to make actual war propaganda. Most of the danger of bias comes from those under the illusion that they don’t have it.

You can find that in CNN and Fox News, as it turns out. Bloomberg and Breitbart. The New York Times, and The New York Post. Don’t even send me something from The Blaze, I won’t read it.

I think it’s good that we are becoming more educated about bias. It remains an important component of all kinds of literacy. But it’s only one tool in the toolbox. We do our critical thinking a disservice if we examine everyone else’s and forget about our own. So next time, before getting upset about something we read, let’s take a beat. Ask ourselves why. Consider context we are unfamiliar with.

And maybe put on some deodorant while we are at it.

Footnotes:

*They teach you that in 90’s youth pastor school. Games are only fun if someone throws up. 

** Or overrated, depending on who you talk to

*** you should know my parents tried to combat our fears with common sense and boy, did they have their work cut out for them. 

Speak.

I get this look sometimes.

It was 2007. I sat in the bleachers at a basketball game, slightly miffed but present. The gym was invaded by loud thumps and abrasive buzzers, announcing various changes as they progressed. We were ahead, if I remember right. I was there against my will. My roommate (one of the best people, honestly) was tasked with rousing me out of bed and trying to get me to exit our room after a brutal depressive relapse that left me sleeping most of the time. In the process, she was convinced she could get me to be a person that goes to basketball games on purpose, which is how I ended up watching girl’s junior varsity on a Friday night. That’s when the conversation behind us caught my ear:

“Yea I actually really, really want to intern there. I think I’m going to apply.”

I turned around, butting in but polite about it, giving a small wave—

“Are you talking about Texas?”

The girl turned to me with an eyebrow raised. I knew her from mutual friends and some shared classes, so we weren’t strangers. Recognizing me, she replied, “I am, how did you know?”

“I know the team lead for interns. I’d be glad to put a word in for you if you want.”

And then it happened. The look. The look I get every time I say anything with any kind of confidence. The unmistakable look, that says very clearly:

“Who do you think you are?”
Who did I think I was? No one special, not someone who pulled strings or leveraged contacts on a regular basis. But I did know the team lead, he was a kind person who had put up with a decent amount of my teenage nonsense for the last couple of years as he volunteered with the youth group. When he moved to Texas, he managed quite a few of my friends during the exact program she was talking about. We weren’t even remotely close but we did have the kind of relationship where I could point out a name on a resumé for thirty seconds. I wouldn’t make something like that up just to sound impressive, that would be weird.

She was hired that summer. Go figure.

It was 2014. I was at a friend’s house for a gathering to welcome a new church staff member. I sat down next to my friend Alyson with my plate of various finger foods and munched as conversation about various topics commenced. ‘What neighborhoods are you interested in?” “What do you like to do in your free time?” “What’s important to you in your new role?” Minor chit chat flowed easily between bites of food. I looked down to scrape up the last bite of a mozzarella stick when I heard the new guy say something I couldn’t ignore:

“Anyway, so we are actually kind of interested in getting a teacup pig.”

I dropped my fork, abandoning my fried cheese and blurted “oh please do not do that.”

It was quick this time. Cocked head. Conversation lull. A slight eye squint.

Who do you think you are?

Here’s who I think I am—someone who just shared a house with a teacup pig. The only people who should have teacup pigs are people who have hobby farms, and zero other people. Their little hooves are not meant to walk on tile or carpeted floors. They are smart enough to be incredible escape artists—and when they are big enough, to break into the fridge. They scream at three in the morning in decibels that rival fire engines. They eat their food—and the plate. And worst of all, they bite your ankles when you are trying to do laundry. I have only kicked one animal in my life, and it’s when I lived with a teacup pig (he wasn’t even fazed). Most aren’t even true teacups, they are cheaply, irresponsibly crossbred and sold under false pretenses, so unknowing buyers are left with a no less than 60 pound animal with significant problems and terrible reproductive behavior walking around their house that they can’t get rid of. I am telling you, I will die on this hill, do not get one. 

He didn’t get one, so I consider at least one family saved.

It was 2015. A friend of mine had just gone on a camping trip with the boys. He was showing around photos from the weekend when a picture surfaced that I recognized immediately. Angry bites trailing the entirety of someone’s leg, dotting in and out. He asked if anyone knew what the bites were and I piped up: 

“Those are chiggers.”

He rolled his eyes. “They aren’t chiggers.”

“I will bet you money, those are chigger bites.”

You know the drill. Frown. Scoff. Head tilt.

Who do you think you are?

Look, am I a bug expert? No. I never said I was. But I am someone who worked summer camps for the past four summers. And within those summers—because we are in the Midwest, after all—an inevitable mud fight would commence, and I wish I didn’t have the pictures to prove it. On one such occasion I was caught off guard, sopping wet and eyes on the wrong enemy line, when a student snuck behind me and poured an entire bucket of mud down my back. Turning to chase him, I slipped in the muck and immediately ate it in a giant puddle. I stayed there, void of dignity and gasping for air because I was laughing so hard. It was no surprise that 4 hours later I was sitting outside the shower room, legs slathered in hair gel, waiting for everything to dry out and subsequently suffocate the nasty burrowing grass-mongers that made their home in my legs in identical, angry bites. I had no less than fifty bites. I still want to barf just thinking about it.

So, sure. you can waste time asking me who I think I am, or you could listen for five seconds so I can tell you how to get rid of chigger bites for less than 3 dollars. I’m wrong about a lot of things but chigger bites aren’t one of them. And also, what a weird thing to be annoyed about.*

I’ve learned some things since then (…boundaries, for one). And there’s something to be said for approach, saving room to decipher who you do and don’t accept input from. I can’t say, on the flip side, I would have listened to me all the time either. Most of the time, I am choosy about when to speak. Am I saying that to get you on my side? Yes. Yes I am. But I’m also saying it because I’m a big fan of nuance, and as someone who’s learning what unsolicited opinions feel like, I get it.

But also…

I’ve noticed a running theme in my life, whether I’m the talker or the listener, and it’s this—the truth we tell is only as good as the truth we receive. 

I’ve been in enough situations where input was requested, and then rejected, to notice that truth tellers tend to be the worst truth receivers. It’s usually the type who pride themselves on “telling it like it is” or being “always right.” I distrust people with self-claimed gifts of discernment the most. They are generally easy to recognize, as they often only show up in my comments section when they are annoyed. And if you’re like me—nodding your head, thinking “so-and-so really needs to understand this”—maybe so-and-so isn’t the problem.

It doesn’t even have to be about differences of opinion. Too often the truth in question revolves around legitimate concern. I’ve witnessed firsthand the dire consequences of closed ears and an open mouth. It usually sounds something like:

“If you don’t find a way to slow down, you’re going to burn out.”

“I really need you to make me a priority in this.”

“What happened to me was real, I didn’t make it up.”

“This person has just communicated that they are sensitive to this topic, so maybe it isn’t time for your opinion.”

“I’m trying to make this work but I need to know what you actually need from me.”

“I’m trying to make this work, but this is what I need from you.”

“I know you think you’re doing the right thing, but you’re hurting people who care about you.”

And, possibly the MOST true: “No, the musical Cats will never be good.”

I’m kind of over the Matt Walsh look alikes. I’ve learned to look for the listeners, the doers, the people who show up. It’s them who leave room for context, and take their words off of pedestals they were never meant to be on. They take the time to ask themselves if their words are inspired, necessary, noble, or holy—or if they just sound good. The pastors who have sat in the background of weddings and funerals have had richer things to say to me than the once a week variety in the pulpit. It’s teachers who gave me the gift of patience who made the most impact. Genuinely, one of the great universal human experiences is finding out our assumptions are wrong. How exciting!

There’s a season for everything; for truth telling or forbearance. And if you’re wondering, I’m not advocating for withholding truth.***

It’s just that, maybe it isn’t really about telling it like it is. Maybe it’s about letting words run unharnessed. 

Or, more specifically…

Untamed.

Imagine that.

Notes:

*In fairness, this person probably had some reason not to listen to me. That reason being that once he posed the question, “what’s the difference between Bheetoven and Mozart” and I answered him in twenty three successive texts. Please save your cringes for the end of the post.**

**On second thought, I’m not sorry. Don’t ask me what the difference is between Bheetoven and Mozart if you don’t want the answer.

***You always have to say that for the Baptists in the room.

Lamp.

First of all, I’m not anti-streetlight.

That’s important to note, before I start. After a decent amount of cross-state driving by night and living in a neighborhood where we’ve had at least one failed drive-by, I’m grateful for them. Love them, in fact. This attachment to them is strongest about now, when my body is in a long-standing fight with the winter solstice and the sun abandons us by 4:30*. Streetlights are good company on the boulevards when the dogs and I both need a walk. The single investment made on our block directly in front of my house is a welcome sight when I’m unloading groceries and double checking the bushes. In another time, they were the beckoners of outside children at dinner time, the signal for offices to close up shop, the sign that a wardrobe is more than it seems. Streetlights are friends of mine. I notice them most when they go out.

Secondly, I hate cliches. It’s important to grieve the night. We must make room for the things that mattered to us, it is the price we pay for loving them deeply. It is a worthy and noble cost. On darker nights, it’s not only ok to be disappointed in the lack, it is so very needed. It isn’t overused sentiments I hate in concept, it’s only that I rely on them to give me an out. With a cliche in my back pocket, I no longer have to feel the depth of whatever is happening. 

There are lamps in my life I once counted on, now dimming. This year, we’ve all felt it. It’s been dark. This is not the way things were supposed to be. 

Here is what I will also say, something equally true. Sometimes the dark can be quite...illuminating.

I’ve spent a decent amount of time tramping around rural America and even rural Other Places to learn something we all already know. I found it when 10,000 feet of land above sea level lifted us closer to the sky. It was there in the rare seconds to myself when I sat on cabin stairs and watched heat lightning pulse over Missouri woods. It toasted my cheeks when fire pits were built on little river campgrounds. It wrapped me in moonlit docks as stars began to dot glassy lake waters. It crinkled my mouth corners when my roommate raced to the middle of her cattle farm and pointed upward, shouting “Look! Look!!” 

He has numbered them, known each and every by name. None are lost.

There are things that are brighter when everything else is dark. 

So, while we stand on the cliff of endings and beginnings, in a year of unending surfacing and I, like most, am grieving weird things, I hope to offer a benediction in the middle of things that finds you where you are:

When the Loud is roaring, may the snow dampen into quiet.

In the cold and ice, may the fireplace be warmer.

When you are weary, may your sleep be sounder.

When the night comes early, may your lamps glow buttery and pleasant.

May your candles smell like Christmas, Autumn, and The Beach ™ in stale houses.

When’s its all heavy, may your couch be a soft place to land.

Maybe your apple cores be a sign of fuller pies.

May your sun be brightest on shorter afternoons, 

And when it’s too quiet, may the songs you sing in kitchens, cars, showers and rocking chairs be richer.

May you be sanctified when you are adrift, for now you have a reason to wander.

May you be blessed when you are disillusioned, for it means you are still teachable.

May you be consecrated on the hallowed grounds where you are stretched thin, for now you know what you’re really made of.

May your hope be the most stubborn when all is lost. 

Some things are brighter when other things are dark. 

I accept the night for what it is.

Dawn isn’t too far, I hope, I’m sure.

But man, in the meantime, do I look forward to the stargazing. 

Footnotes:

*I’m very dramatic when it comes to the sun, you know. 

Mend.

I guess it’s time to bring up Costuming 101.

There were six of us. We were shuffled together in a stuffy fabric room, stair stepped between available folding chairs, countertops, borrowed office chairs, and the floor. In theatre, making do was the affectionately accepted norm. Someone checked their watch. Thirteen minutes past class start. We were fidgeting, silencing our phones, exchanging brief and knowing looks each time a minute hand clicked by. Our director was nowhere to be found and we were allowing a five minute grace period before we left.

Nobler people would have stuck it out but we were not noble. We were college students. We had papers to write and cereal to eat. And by handbook technicalities, we could have left after ten minutes.

The door burst open as we were packing up our things; nineteen minutes and thirty-four seconds after start. A bewildered expression was offered, and then familiar storm clouds. We were going to get a lecture about how we should take our education more seriously...by the person who was twenty minutes late.

It was a small and silly interaction, but it was also the beginning of the end. Alas, poor Yorick.

The assignment itself was simple: twelve dresses sewn within a month to outfit the dancing ensemble for the fall musical. Ten modest forms of plain white fabric fitted at the waist, and two requiring more complicated design and delicate fabric. The two were assigned to myself and a close friend. We were each young and growing, but more than up to the challenge. Excited, in fact. That’s when the first sewing machine broke.

Hell hath arrived.

Disclaimer: theatre kids are well acquainted with the art of figuring it out. We ransacked every thrift shop and fabric store acquiring props and borrowed time for every single show. Makeup was self-acquired and self-taught in the days before YouTube was ever useful. All shows are completed on minimal amounts of sleep and striking set to save every possible scrap of wood and screw manifested into a non-negotiable life skill. If there was no time to grab dinner beforehand, actors rehearsed hungry. Splinters were mandatory for set design, and crying about it was a federal offense. If someone was dying from a mortal wound then they better figure out how to strap up the blood transfusion bag in a clever disguise and show up well before curtain. The show must go on. 

That’s how we, “the two,” found ourselves on hour twenty-three desperately trying to get an ancient Singer* antique to cleft together three yards of satin at four am. Pin, sew, tangle, repeat. Curse as we rethreaded the bobbin. Cry when we couldn’t find the bobbin. Laugh in a state of drunk-by-exhaustion euphoria when we found the bobbin. Stare blankly into the void when we realized finding the bobbin didn’t matter because the tension didn’t work. The point is, we knew not to make excuses. We were also both refusing to admit that we were at our actual wits end. Not even when one of us sewed over our fingers by accident or when the other left to stay up an additional twenty-four hours to complete an activity run by the same leadership would we dare to even think about defeat. Defeat wasn’t an option.

The director refused to fix the broken sewing machine. The working one was in constant use by the costume mistress.  A portable one was brought in, to be used in front of us, for...spite? I don’t know, but we weren’t allowed to touch it. 

We were eventually rescued by a beautiful soul** with her parents’ modern sewing machine and two cherry limeades in tow. 

…Then we were yelled at for bringing in our own equipment. And for procrastinating, even though we were on schedule. And for not getting the director a cherry limeade.

Believe it or not, the dress wasn’t the wake up call. That came on an October night walking back to the dorm post-rehearsal, after receiving a scolding for being physically unable to be in two places at once, on a schedule that the scolder created. This was the nature of our relationship, between the virtues and goodness I tried so hard to hold in my other hand. Somewhere on the way from the door and my bed a small glow I’ve grown to love wrapped me in the warmth of permission: stop trying to fix it. Just stop.

This director and I actually went back the last four years as mentor and mentee. We spent the last three on a traveling team working with students, cultivating rich moments of adventure and team comradery. It was supposed to be a good time. It was tainted by a decent amount of my own mistakes as well as something murky and muddled I avoided acknowledging until it was just too late. Emotional abuse.

It still feels weird saying it.

I didn’t know I was knee deep in it until I saw it happening to younger girls who came after me. The same jagged pattern imprinted on slightly younger faces. I witnessed all of the old questions reappear on furrowed brows: “Wait….what just happened? What am I doing wrong? How do I right this? It must be my fault. It’s definitely my fault. I’ll try harder.” I was hoping that given enough time they would make it to the other side of her favor...but no such luck. Ignoring it only made it worse.

There was outright favoritism. Subtle gaslighting. Double standards. Occasionally, a direct insult dressed up in the guise of concern. Every question treated as an accusation. Intermittent explosions of anger. Lies, if it was a really bad day. It was 24/7, because the team and the degree required 24/7 work. I have to be vague, but looking back the effects were palpable. My grades suffered. I was exhausted. I was unable to prioritize. I pushed away people I cared about to try and save this relationship. I very unintentionally but also unmistakably cowered before any form of leadership for years after. I was certain at every step of the way that if I was just a better adult, I could fix this.

I wasn’t a great adult, but it took a long time to realize it wouldn’t have helped anyway.

If it all seems subtle, or like it doesn’t exactly sound like a really a big deal—that’s kind of the point. Abuse thrives when one person is successfully made out to be crazy or oversensitive.

….When it comes to conversations about reconciliation, I feel like there’s a remnant left outside of it. If threads of humility, forgiveness, and a specific rate of return are sewn into the weak cinches, we preach that the relationship will all come out in the wash. Rips can be mended. Creases ironed out. Frays wound back in. If we are doing it right, then we must untie all the knots. If we don’t, then we are doing something wrong. It’s all well and good until every form of reaching out fails. Sometimes mending the relationship means agreeing to live under someone else’s thumb, which is no kind of life. There’s a portion of us wrestling between the belief that anything is possible and the knowledge that nothing has worked. We can’t keep saying yes to families and friendships when we feel like garbage in the middle of them. Paul doesn’t seem to be a Bible verse for that.

I don’t know. Pearls before swine, or whatever.

She didn’t understand when I walked away. I’m sure the narrative our shared friends received was ripe with hesitations, “secrets”, and faux-confusion. At the end of the day it isn’t that I don’t regret it—it’s that, for my own well being, I can’t. In the clarity of today I can see a person who felt vulnerable, deeply lonely, and terrified that they would be found wanting and incompetent. An inability to cope is what caused a hurt person to hurt people. But compassion doesn’t reverse the toll of mind games, heavy amounts of guilt, and chronic instability—especially not when that compassion has been leveraged. 

Toxicity’s best defense is confusion, and pity makes for a poor bandage.

I’m working to better own my words, here, now. But in the interest of honesty I’ll also admit that I don’t love reliving this portion of my life. I’ve kept it close to the vest for a long time and will continue to do so. The only reason I’m opening up a little right now is this: I can’t shake the feeling that someone, somewhere, also needs permission not to fix it.

Not all people are your people, and that’s ok.

Someone can love you, and even like you, but that doesn’t mean that they value you or that they are for you.

If they constantly criticize in the interest of helping you “grow”, they are not your people.

If they take pride in “telling it like it is”, even though it’s usually at your expense, they are not your people.

If they think manipulating you is in your best interest, they are not your people.

If they don’t value your voice in the conversation, they are not your people.

If they treat your wins like rejection or competition, they are not your people.

If you feel like you must be going crazy in the duration of the relationship, they are not your people.

If they’ve made it clear by their actions that they don’t think you really know anything of value, they are not your people.

If they set you up for impossible standards and then berate you for failing to meet them, they are not your people.

If they go out of their way to remind you that you are expendable, they are not your people.

If they still say nice things sometimes, it doesn’t mean they are your people.

If they do not participate in healthy communication, they are not your people.

If they treat you like a predator, they are not your people.

If you are killing yourself to please them, they are not your people.

If they tell you in all seriousness that your face reminds them of a turtle...they are not your people.

This is me saying to you, my beautiful friend, that it’s ok to leave them behind. Forgiveness doesn’t mean saying it was ok. It wasn’t ok. If it was ok, there would be nothing to release.

When you are ready or brave, open your hands. I’ll be right there, cheering you on.

Footnotes:

*Whit remains my favorite person to this day because she (A) had one available and (B) trusted us with it

**Rosie is my other favorite person. She has achieved sainthood before every single one of us, don’t @ me because it’s true.

Young.

Let no one despise you for your youth, but set an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.

1 Timothy 4:12

Let’s talk about something I’m really good at, which is crying in my car.

My earliest memory of this was at Walmart, because if you’re going to cry in your car then the Walmart parking lot seems fitting. 50 points if there’s an empty styrofoam cup on the ground next to the cart stall and a weird couple making out a few spaces down.*

I was on my way out, when I passed the in-store Subway and heard a small, familiar noise to my right followed by a murmured “oh!”. I looked. There sat two ladies: one, a middle aged woman in denim shorts and a dotted shirt, the other  an elderly woman, likely in her nineties, in a floral top who just spilled her drink. My eyes started stinging and I headed for the doors.

Fun fact about me...a great way to get me to start crying immediately is if I witness an elderly person spill their drink. 

I wish I could blame this on virtue but in reality it’s a complicated thing sitting at the pit of my heart strings. The root is empathy, however it’s all buried under a tangle of immature emotions. This is a person who has lived a whole life. She is someone worthy of dignity, basic human respect, and a trip to Subway accompanied by a loved one without incident. They will both forget this by tomorrow. Through all the tiny expressions and micro reactions I could gather enough—embarrassment, a moment of confusion, quiet frustration at aching joints.

Worst of all—and hopefully unnoticed—a bystander who looked at her with pity. 

Perhaps it’s at the risk of assuming too much about this whole event...but sometimes we just want people to see us. To drop their assumptions for at least a moment and remember that we are human beings.

I made it to the car and stared at the ceiling, willing the tears to stay put. No one needs Eric Carmen hot-mess energy today, there’s too much to do. Get it together, Phillips.

There was a second time I cried in my car, much later, but the reasons were different.

I had just walked out of urgent care after the actual longest day, firmly grasping the end of my rope. It was 8 pm, I had been running since 6:30 am, and I still had a half hour drive to get home. After two hours of waiting rooms, chest x rays, breathing treatments and a 75$ copay I couldn’t afford, I had an ending diagnosis that the bronchitis I had been fighting for two months had finally turned into walking pneumonia. Which is just terrible, because I felt like death but sick leave was not something I had access to. Even if I did, it was going to take weeks to even feel functional again. It was only Wednesday, and even if it was a Friday it’s not like I would be able to sleep much before the alarm interrupted 6 am again.

It happened when I sunk down into the driver's seat. Before I could even turn the key my body launched into another violent coughing fit, complete with watering eyes, burning rib pain, and no room to cross my legs. There wasn’t time for a bathroom break since at least 4, and as I struggled to breath I felt a horrific and vulnerable sensation.

I finally coughed so hard that I peed my pants. 

Even though I was alone, I might as well have been stripped of my clothing and left shivering in my underwear. I was skinned of any dignity I had left. If this is how it felt to be in your 90s, spilling your drink in front of a misunderstanding observer, then it was just awful.

I slumped, staring blankly at the dashboard  while the fresh batch of tears dripped down my face and off my chin. I didn’t wipe them away. Why bother.

The chain of events that led me here is long and boring to anyone who didn’t have to live them. The thing I worked toward for 5 years just crashed and burned, punctuated by a scathing review of my performance that I probably deserved but had no ideas left of how to fix. Everything, and I mean everything, in my hometown was falling apart. I didn’t have health insurance. I was either three or six credit hours away from finishing my degree, depending on what the powers that be who held a lit match to my diploma decided. One of those powers hated me, because my teacher yelled at another teacher, about me, very loudly. Everyone knew. I couldn’t physically go back, because of that and because I had a job I couldn’t give up thanks to loan payments that arrived in full force during a horrific recession.   A number of my friend group was under the impression that I had simply gone crazy, and then went home. I would soon be informed that, after draining the rest of my savings to an actual zero dollars, I couldn’t take the class I needed to graduate—too late for refunds, gosh, so sorry. In addition, the only advisor available to me would have a massive heart attack, need extensive recovery time, and there’s no not-rude way to ask what I’m supposed to do in that situation. That was when I realized if you were stressed out enough, you could periodically break out into hives. And oh, by the way, since I waited until the next semester before broaching the subject because I understood that heart attacks require a decent amount of recovery time, the school would drop me as a student but benevolently allow me to re-apply—no guarantees, though, I’m not special. 

Months later, when I did reapply, they would lie about my payment status and threaten to drop the class if I didn’t pay again, which counted double would be $4000.00 I didn’t even remotely have. So that’s fun. **

I gained a new appreciation for people who have seen the buttcrack of rock bottom and still manage to get out of bed every day.

The point of this isn’t reread a sad chapter that’s ten years closed while sending out invitations to my backdated pity party. At the time, I was trying to just accept whatever was next while jumping through a multitude of hoops. I knew life wasn’t supposed to be fair. I knew other people had problems too. I was stepping up to the plate, even though the pitcher had a monster of an arm. Meanwhile, the news had a lot to say about me.

“Millennials are killing the diamond industry.” “Why won’t millennials move out?” “The ‘Me’ Generation—What’s Next?” “College should be free, says spoiled twenty somethings.” “Obama just extended health coverage for dependents to age 26, hogwash says bystander.”***

None of the headlines were good. Everyone still believed them. 

So I sat there, tears gradually drying and my seat getting cold, trying to remember where I could pick up upholstery cleaner with the remaining 30 dollars I had in my bank account. The tremendous weight of all the fingers pointed my way was unwavering—insisting that I was stupid, selfish, lazy, disrespectful, entitled, that I didn’t know how to have a face to face conversation, that I couldn’t speak professionally, that I couldn’t do anything for myself, all because I had committed the sin of being in my twenties. Holding grief about any of this just meant that I wasn’t taking responsibility for myself and that I wanted attention.

I didn’t want victimhood; I just wanted a taste of humanity. I wanted to be seen. I wanted the pearl clutchers to let go. I wanted loved ones to stop looking at me like I was crazy when I told them what I was trying to figure out. I was so tired of people assuming they knew the depths of my character because they watched a Simon Sinek video. Even those who claimed to be sympathetic didn’t understand why I was angry and tired, even though I was watching in real time every single aspect of my life slip through my fingertips like sand.

Asking for basic human respect shouldn’t come at the emotional expense of my entire backstory.

The media and all its fingers won that night. In a way, so did I. It took stained jeans and a fist grasping three prescriptions to stop giving a damn what any generation said about any other generation.

Perhaps someone could argue that I and some others are the exception to the stereotype. The more young people I listen to, the more I realize that I am the rule. However, before you quit reading in the assumption that this is all about hating on Boomers, know this: the Boomer’s opinion that mattered was on the other end of the phone that night. My mom. 

She simply laughed with me when I admitted that I looked ridiculous and believed me when I said this was hard. She maintained my humanity and didn’t even have to do it on purpose.

…I’m sorry that the pressures of living have made it so easy to elevate any generation by tearing down another. I’m sorry that it’s cyclical. I’m sorry that there is a perceived need for that—insisting that your youth was better, that you actually had quality whatever, that you were spanked as a child and that made you a better person. But if we have hope for bridges, know that it isn’t going to come from reduction. It comes from relation, from common ground, from leveled eyesight, from seeing. It comes from people like me, and like my mom.

You could learn a lot from her, you know.

Footnotes:

* Don’t look at me like that. You aren’t too good for Walmart.

** Before you assume it was a misunderstanding, just know that it took 4 calls, 3 different contacts, 2 faxed receipts, and a half hour arguing over the phone to convince them otherwise.

***If you are asking, no, I wasn’t eligible for that either. The companies involved found a convenient loophole for themselves.

Cereal.

“Hangry” is a real thing. 

Allow me to set the scene. Ten year old me is sitting mournfully at the end of my parents big dining room table, glaring at the lacy table cloth covering glossy finish. It’s 1:00 in the afternoon. Before me is a bowl of cereal I had poured for myself, and next to me were my parents, looking concerned, waiting for me to finish so they could get me to children’s choir practice. 

Why am I glaring at my cereal? Well…ok, stay with me.

Our church was about to make big decisions regarding our new building, and had called for a congregation-wide fast. Families could choose to participate, and also to  fast how they saw fit in regard to what was healthy for them—skipping certain meals, drinking juice or broth for a day, choosing a meal or day that consisted of more “simple” foods, choosing something ELSE to fast from such as television or the up and coming World Wide Web, etc. etc. It was along the same parameters of what a  person might consider for Lent and one of the few times we practiced specific liturgy. Our family chose a bland food for one meal on Sundays. I have opinions now on children and fasting of any kind, but before you accuse my parents of child abuse, know this—I jumped into this with both feet and the object permanence I usually have when it comes to sweets. I made a promise that was promptly forgotten when my parents tried to hold me to it, as ten year olds are wont to do. 

So there I sat. Cereal. Glaring. How dare they make me eat cereal like I said I was going to do, when I so clearly wanted something different.

Hangry.

It’s a memory I look back on with fond embarrassment. Perceived suffering can be so exacerbated by the simple act of being 10. 

I also think of my grandmother. 

Affectionately dubbed “Mawmaw”, she came from a long legacy of matriarchs who loved their families fiercely and quietly. She was among the women in my life who remained a constant, providing stability and safety nets that children so often need. When at her house, she never failed to pray over us before kissing us goodnight. She made sure we had hot breakfasts, taught us solitaire, gave out endless snacks, laughed at our jokes, stole single jelly beans from our stash, handed out birthday spankings, clapped when we got As on our report cards, and absolutely beat the pants off us at Super Mario. In a past life she quit her job to care for her mother in law full time, and she was always showing up for her family even after arthritis claimed her joints. 

She was also a child of The Great Depression, and that’s important.

She never revealed too much. We know that her mother championed the family’s survival by constantly working her garden, raising a single cow for meat, canning, baking, making soap, cooking things to preserve, and all the general rolling up of sleeves and tying of apron strings. They were not exempt from poverty, or the ramifications of a country that collapsed. Mawmaw knew the frays of tattered dresses, felt the tightness of hand me downs, remembered the warmth of shared beds and winced at the pinches of worn down shoes—when you could afford them, that is. If there was sugar it was meant for applesauce, not coffee, and only if there was enough to last. In other words, Mawmaw knew what it was to actually be hungry. She never forgot. 

The older I get, the more I understand some of her issues with food alongside my own. Had she been there the day I sat glaring at my cereal, I don’t think she would have scolded me. Mawmaw was never the “eat your vegetables because there are starving children elsewhere” type. But I have to wonder at her perspective. I curse the existence of pantyhose, avoid group projects at all costs, and never knew a day without store bought flour. She remembers giving them up when nylon was rationed, an entire city turning their lights out to avoid detection,and rejoicing when her family was finally able to afford a freezer.

We have so much to glean from the women we love who learned to make do. 

Here’s the thing...the inevitable place where we pivot. American Evangelicals are really good at convincing each other they are the object of persecution and I’m kind of over it.

I’ve spent...just… an alarming portion of my life being certain that a shooter was going to come into my school one day and ask if I was a Christian. I remember nights being terrified all my friends were going to get raptured and I’d have to take on a prophetic monster all by myself. I braced myself to be raucously mocked for my faith and was always on the ready to shout “NO” if someone offered me drugs*. 

It was icky, to say the least. Cringe-y to those with eyes for the obvious. I still remember the day when I found that Cassie Bernall’s story of western sainthood had been misunderstood at its best and vastly exaggerated at its worst. One of my favorite classes was the one where I found out exactly how complicated of a man Martin Luther was. The slow unraveling of a conditioned martyrdom complex gave me a necessary clarity. In the twist of things it’s an unbinding, not a binding, that I hold close when the world is heavy.

I’m glad to be out of that space. But the echos are loud and lingering. I have to wonder what the underground churches** who are seeing actual suffering have to say when we cry oppression for ourselves...genuinely, and sans propaganda. 

Claiming victimhood is a handy way to distract ourselves from the way of Jesus. It's easy to think we are doing God’s work by “protecting the constitution” and staving off the fear of snowball effects, but here’s the hard truth: people are wondering out loud why so-called gospel people are willing to risk the lives of their congregations on principle alone. And they are right.

Throw all the stats and likelihoods you want at me. People are dead. People are dying. People are losing jobs, and going hungry, and shriveling from isolation. Meanwhile, John MacArthur is packing his sanctuary and ignoring regulations. 

Instead of bending to the bowl, wringing out the water and gently taking feet, we are saying “who is my neighbor?” and “what about me?” “These are all just fear tactics” and “you don’t understand, this is harder than I expected.”

That’s what a martyr complex does. It creates an idol out of perceived suffering. It keeps a sharp eye for the end of worlds, putting a literal focus on a figuratively written book. It praises leadership who “tells it like it is” and then promptly get butthurt when that doctor cited turns out to be a genuinely discredited source***. It slaps labels of “sheeple” when that’s a really strange insult to use given...the...entire New Testament. I’m genuinely disappointed by the amount of people I've had to remind that the plexiglass thing at the grocery store isn’t there to protect you, it’s to protect the cashier. I’m not here for any of it when my immunocompromised friends are afraid to go outside.

Real, personal, tangible people have been permanently affected by a disease and conservative Christians are using words like “just” and “only.”

No longer will I bow to the altar of confirmation bias and defensive rhetoric, taking misplaced pride in knowing more than everyone else and using my Jesus as an excuse.

These are hard days, and I’m not here to tell anyone that it isn’t or that they should just be grateful. But I do have to wonder if we’re all just glaring at our dining room tables, ignoring our moms and reluctantly eating cereal.

Cereal, you know?

Don’t tell me to wake up. I woke up a long time ago. As a result, I’m here—rolling up sleeves, tying apron strings, sinking to the floor with a bowl and a towel...hoping to live up to a legacy. On the days when I want to come back to the cereal bowl, I think of Mawmaw. Her life. Her faith. Her survival.

And then I put the spoon down and walk away.

Footnotes:

*It was brief and anticlimactic, as someone politely offered to share their hand rolled cigarette and shrugged when I said no thank you.

**and mosques, and synagogues, and temples, by the way.

***First rule of siblings: “If thou cannot taketh it then thou shalt not dish it out.”

See.

It's weird, the bits and pieces from high school we take with us.

I remember—vaguely—a reflection assignment I was given during our unit on the Salem Witch Trials. I don’t know why it sticks out in my memory—it was the same content in a circulating curriculum of American History classes. Ladies were accused of witchcraft, the trials were a sham, it was all very sad, the townspeople probably looked like the extras from Monty Python, etc etc. I don’t even remember what this specific chapter was covering, I only knew that I was supposed to reflect and get my participation points. So I reflected.

After all, they must have been so primitive. Women* were witches just because a neighbor said so? Conveniently located next to available land that could be cheaply absorbed by the next highest bidder? Have you seen the doctrines and complexity of 17th Century Puritanism? The bystanders, the onlookers, and the accusers were likely suffering from some form of mass hysteria. But as I put pen to paper...my attitude changed. 

I thought I knew who I was in this story. Surely there were some voices of reason in this that saw beyond the theatrics. Someone standing in the crowd, looking around them with wrinkled brows. That would have been me, right? I would have done something, right? The more I considered—the surrounding circumstances, the fear of disease, the clouded faith in the supernatural, and the  daily habits of economic necessity—the more disillusionment dawned on my own young self. Would I be the voice of reason, or the person in the crowd shouting that she was guilty? By the time I reached the end of the page...I didn’t know anymore. 

I shouldn’t have been surprised. I was knee deep in my off-center adolescence, close to college with a brick being thrown into the middle of my faith. I was finding out in the midst of a particularly painful chaos that the good guys are not always the good guys, and the bad guys are not always the bad guys, and sometimes they are both and neither all at the same time. Pair that with a history teacher who was good at getting her students to think for themselves and there I found myself—wading in my own context and rolling down the first slope of deconstruction. 

Sometimes, we look back at history and think we know exactly who we are.

Sometimes, we look back at history and accept that it was complicated.

Both are useless if we stop there. They adjust the lenses we are looking through. They make it so easy to close our eyes when the people around us are trying to get us to wake up.

Thats the only reason I’m bringing this vague, irrelevant memory to the surface.

I watched the video of George Floyd’s murder. I wept. I wasn’t benevolently misinformed on the matter. I wasn’t naively unaware of his “past.” I wasn’t inconsiderate of all the invisible things outside the camera frame. I watched helplessly, alongside thousands, while a grown man used the last of the oxygen in his lungs to cry out for his mother. I cursed the eyes in my head that did not see sooner. 

This is the prayer I’m shouting at the western skies: give us eyes to see.

The point of this isn’t to lead you through a white girl’s epiphany and demonstrate short gratitude that I learned something. The point is to understand, with certainty, that this fight has been raging for a long time, and some of us are catastrophically late. It didn’t stop after the civil war. It didn’t stop after the 60’s. My own city has been divided for decades**. I still have relatives who try to explain that some Jim Crow policing was warranted and that the KKK really isn’t so bad***.I couldn’t see it before, because my lense was obstructed by a picture painted for me during February school days—a sober and docile Martin Luther King Jr., a grandmotherly Harriet Tubman, dignified and obedient black heroes who “won” a battle with a neat beginning, middle, and end that extinguished in the 70s. When people were acting outside of that paradigm, I was allowed to shut my eyes. 

Give us eyes to see. 

I debated saying anything, for a lot of reasons. Because a lot of what I’ve had to say has fallen short. Because I want to embrace a posture of learning. Because I know I can be vain. Because people of color don’t need my guilty conscience right now. Because corporations are starting to capitalize on this. Because I don’t want to be louder than the black voices who need to be amplified in this moment. Because I don’t want to put the burden of education on someone else. Because I don’t want to confuse humility with self-deprecation (the latter of which is not fruitful and puts the job of making me feel better about bad things on someone else).

 But mostly, because I know how deeply it can hurt when people who didn’t believe you a year ago are suddenly jumping on the bandwagon, pretending they’ve been there the whole time. 

If you were wondering? It hurts. It hurts a lot. 

...I also know that sometimes silence speaks. So this is me—briefly, without fanfare—saying something, and then sitting down to listen. I’m not the authority on any given subject but if history has taught me anything, it’s empathy. In the thick of it, I learn the need for justice circulates and evolves. To study it means to keep listening, to keep searching for what has been erased, and to keep coming back with new eyes. If you can’t see that, then your eyes are still closed.

Give us eyes to see. 

Footnotes:

*And sometimes men.

**If you’ve ever driven on Gregory or 63rd street to the Kansas state line you will know exactly what I’m talking about.

*** A Klansman opened fire on a Jewish Community Center down the street from where I work in 2014, killing a 14 year old boy and his grandfather. Let me be clear: you can and never will convince me the KKK “isn’t so bad” and I’m sad that’s a sentence I have to say in the year 2020 AD.

Selah.

I fall in love with words sometimes.

Galoshes. Malarkey. Inosculate. Eloquent. Whimsy. Boysenberry.

When pensive appears on a page, I’m already imagining subtle facial expressions in sunlit windows.

When a descriptor of bashful stops by, my cheeks brighten in a brush with empathy. 

I had the word Agape tattooed on my foot over ten years ago and I have yet to be sorry. 

It was a hot summer when I first became acquainted with Selah. 

We were working a camp—admittedly, one of our favorites due to the abundance of shady trees and cabin showers with a steady stream of hot water. It was the second to last week of my most difficult summer, and we were exhausted. A teammate of ours from the school led music that week. Between a sweaty afternoon of kickball and a night of teenagers refusing to go to sleep, we were mid oh-how-he-loves-us when he called for Selah between bridges. Once. Twice. A few times more.

Selah is common in music, we just never say it. It isn’t meant to be said. It isn’t even entirely understood.

It’s just a pause.

A breath.

Some stanzas of purposeful silence. 

Selah. 

Is it any wonder that there were so many in the psalms when David was emptying his soul.

It’s been weeks. Every night, I sit cross legged on my bed with my bible, my journal, and nothing to say. The view from here looks a lot different when everyone has the same weight of the world on their shoulders. I start. Stop. Reconsider. Try again. And always—every night—land on the same four words.

‘’Jesus...people are dying.”

The words sweep me under with their overwhelming implications. What history taught us. The ancestors I’ve lost. What science can’t answer. What leadership won’t do. How fear behaves, unbridled and passionate.

I don’t even know what to ask. I just sit in my hovel, with open hands and a crushed heart, waiting for... something. He’s got to have something to say. Certainly the bottle of my tears He’s kept has a label. My moonlit bedsides are soaked in heavy questions, wondering where on earth He IS in— *gestures vaguely*—all of this.

Nothing. There was nothing.

Silence.

Selah.

It’s Good Friday. Did you know? With the event they label “everything that’s been going on,” I’ve forgotten until now. But with every Good Friday, my thoughts always wander to the disciples. The Son of Man—beloved, sacred, everything the prophets foretold and heavy with the expectation of ending oppression—was dead. This was new territory. Grief wrapped it’s hands around so much more than initial loss. All of it was for nothing. He wasn’t who He said He was. They were so close to freedom and it was ripped from them. What world were they even living in, if Jesus was gone? Where is God in this?

Selah. 

I know a God who is holy. Who knows all things. I know a God who planned Sunday, and the slow resolution of hope. I know a God who restores, and retains purpose. And that’s why I struggled for words for so many nights. Pat answers of cosmic chess matches couldn’t and can’t resolve this deep well of sorrow comprised of rising death tolls and dwindling supplies. I cannot let go of the fact that they are important. Even if the virus disappeared tomorrow, the cost has already been incalculable.

...I think, in His kindness, God provides us time to grieve the things that matter. 

...I think, in His kindness, He was giving me time to express that these things matter. 

...I think, perhaps, that is what Lament is for.

Selah. 

I’m certain He heard every single one of them in the days between Friday and Sunday. I know He was aware of every footfall and quiet sob. He could keep time with all the pacing feet and trailed off, candlelit half-prayers. Since the days in the desert when Hagar called Him by name, He has never ceased being the God Who Sees.

I don’t know when our Sunday will be. I don’t know how to get through this more than anyone else. I don’t have any words of wisdom or suggestions on how to make it better. All I have is the value of a musical interlude, used to communicate with our Maker when words fail. 

…When the next stanza rises, maybe He’ll come to you like He did me and whisper something to the effect of: “In the thick of this, can you trust that I can see some things that you can’t?”

Selah.

Vow.

Blake does this thing sometimes.

Every few sundays, when we are sitting in church, the speaker will give some historical example to support point number 3 (subset A). I’ll look to the side and squint, the physical symptom of my brain flipping through my inner Rolodex of books, lectures, and podcast episodes, shuffling through the cards of interpretation. It’s an unnecessary practice that generally belabors the point in question, but despite this, Blake will lean over and whisper; “is that true?”

The reason why is significant...but complicated.

When we did our premarital study, a point was made about halfway through that everyone has a “vow.” The speaker giving the study pointed to his suit as an example. Growing up, his family experienced extreme poverty—the “never enough to eat, didn’t come home every night, shoes never fit and need to wear clothes until they turned into actual rags” variety. He wasn’t able to afford decent threads until he was an adult. Once he arrived, he promised God and everyone he would never go back. Nice clothes were a non-negotiable item in his closet. Shoes must be shined, and ties must be straight. It made sense, until that mentality evolved into a divisive agent in his marriage. It wasn’t the clothing, but the “never again” that became an idol that—thanks to prolonged trauma—became easy to use as a fence instead of a bridge. His warning to couples was to acknowledge your “vow” now, and to never put it before your partner.

We had a long discussion about it, and I'm glad we had the talk sooner rather than later. We practiced an imperative vulnerability rooted in practical matters, and I’m hoping it’s something we can hold onto when we are at year 50. A couple of tears were also shed that night, because I was in the middle of learning to come to terms with my crippling insecurity when it comes to intellect. 

My “vow” was to never, ever let anyone treat me like I’m stupid again.

When people treat me like I’m dumb, I can’t handle it...and it happens all the time, in ways I take far too personally. When superiors talk down to me at work. When my problems, professional or otherwise, are taken for granted. When I have to say the same thing 5 different times in 5 different ways before someone believes me. When I start getting excited about some psychology thing, or some biblical canon thing, or some history thing, and people give me this skeptical look. When I say anything and it’s flippantly dismissed. When it even happens in the “nice ways”—a tsk tsk followed by “well, she’ll see eventually.”

I feel like I’ve spent my life fighting twice as hard to be taken seriously, and I hate it.

My logical brain knows that it is irrational, and I’m sure I have a couple causes I could point to. The fact is that I’m not sure which one is correct and they don’t really matter any more. Right now the importance is in the navigation, and boy am I bad at steering ships. Just this morning I had to physically stop myself from giving seven different disclaimers when asking questions at the veterinary office.

I’m doing the work. It’s just taking a while.

So sometimes, on Sundays, Blake will lean over to me and softly ask, “is that true?”

He’s asking because he wants to know, but he’s also saying, “I love you.”

...Insecurity is a thorn. My point is this: sometimes thorns are followed by a bloom.

I know. I’m not the person who throws out the philosophical turds like “everything happens for a reason.” Thorns hurt, sometimes life sucks, and nothing has made me more certain of the doctrine of total depravity than driving on 435 every day. But sometimes...thorns have blooms. 

I don’t know how else to say it, so I will say it like this: struggling with this has given me a gift in the art of listening. That’s not a brag. In so many conversations my flesh struggles not to correct, ask sensitive questions, or vomit information that may or may not be relevant. I can be judgy, hyper focused, and opinionated. But I have this supernatural ability to get people to open up. On more than one occasion we’ve left a store and Blake has commented “I didn’t think that cashier would ever stop talking.” 

Perhaps, sometimes, maybe, I hope that it’s the work of Redemption turning the Vow into something new.

People tell me things. I try to ask questions that help them feel safe. Mysteriously, the thing they need to hear comes out of my mouth. I always manage to find the pressure release. I look out for the pockets of fresh air in need of harnessing. I help someone feel heard, because the thorn aches every now and then and I don’t ever want anyone else to feel like that. 

I promise to stand up for myself.

I promise to use my powers for good. 

Truly.

If we are being honest, it isn’t even the bloom I wanted. I wish things were different. I still have a lot of work to do. How I carry it is between me and Jesus. But it’s a bloom, nonetheless. One that will look quite nice on my table, opening under the sun and thriving in a glass. 

I hope your bloom is in sight and within reach. I hope you find it soon. I hope the petals smell sweet, and the colors are vibrant. If it opens, let’s get lunch. I’m told I’m a pretty good listener. 

Excuse.

Did you know the most effective way to lose weight is by being faced with your untimely and inevitable demise?

It was not the first time I hopped on the diet train. My first trip started at the age of 12 and ended at the age of 17. Then again at 18. Then 20. 21. Each were a starry eyed attempt at “lifestyle changes” and a “journey toward better health.” This time, at 24, my motivation came from a different place. The stakes were a little bit higher. 

Two stakes, to be exact. 

The year of 24 was the year I experienced several stress related health challenges. The cherry topping the germ-sundae of bronchitis, stomach flu, pneumonia, and back injuries was finding a lump in my breast tissue. Approximately six months later, a second, larger lump appeared. The not -at-all comforting lab tech with the bedside manner of a bridge troll told me to call my doctor immediately—do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars. 

I guess some of us go through a midlife crisis earlier than others. 

What followed were appointments, and tests, and more appointments. Long, giant needles. Boob ice packs. Copies of live imaging. A lot of furrowed brows. Almost all medical professionals agreed that it was probably just a benign fibroadenoma but there was always this remaining 5% leftover uncertainty that maybe we should try one more thing. At long last we all decided to just put me in touch with a surgeon to get her opinion. She had the remaining 5% also.

Believe me, I’m immeasurably grateful for the amount of people willing to be so thorough. On the same token, 1 ½ years is a long time to wait to see if you are going to die.*

Within that time frame, I knew that if I was going to have a chance—at changing my troubling bloodwork, being easier on my back, reducing the risk of breast cancer that my grandmother died from—change had to happen now. I was out of time. No more excuses.

It wasn’t an easy or quick process, and after the two year mark I was still a long way from my goal. It took a lot of saying no when people around me wanted to say yes. No to extra activities, to food, to gatherings when I knew I couldn’t resist whatever was being offered knowing full offense would be taken. It took walking for at least an hour every single day, and blisters on my feet the size of quarters. I had to relearn how to be hungry, and ignore all the fears of being outside after dark (even though it was only 6 o’clock and every streetlight was on). At the end of it I had lost 50 pounds, significantly reduced the strain on my back, and removed the two lumps via surgery. 

Benign. Whew.

I felt better in almost every area of my life and would go back to that physique in a heartbeat. But can I be honest for a second? 

My brain also really, really sucked at the time.

I now understand why a lot of people go into this “no excuses” mode whenever they accomplish something big. My inner monologue was voracious; hyped up on glittering attainments and recipe blogs. I only let her out every once in a while (because manners) but she had the energy of a cracked-out motivational speaker with the moxy to match. I get it now, others don’t lose weight because they just don’t want to. If we’d all stop avoiding our hang ups, we’d be better people. Get off your butts! If I can do it, you can do it!

It’s a very specific kind of high. It didn’t leave much room for nuance.

She became quieter as the pounds came back. Five here. Ten there. When I hit 20, I gave up. Five years later, I regained all of it. So much for no excuses.

I don’t make New Year's resolutions for this reason. This year, I’ve decided to leave the phrase behind. My resolution is to drop it from my vocabulary because it’s not a thing that meets people where they are, and often it doesn’t even tell the truth.

“No excuses” doesn’t consider the fact that maybe things have been really hard at home and it feels like a family is falling apart. It doesn’t take into account that we’ve been operating on borrowed time and thin ice. It doesn’t see the late nights we are up rocking babies, or waiting for someone to come home. “No excuses” doesn’t face the fact that we’ve just been pregnant, or our genetics are mean, or that there just isn’t room in the budget. It doesn’t care whether we’re in chronic, undiagnosable pain, or if the light has gone out of our world and we are quietly searching for it on hands and knees. It is ignorant of our relationship to food that is nine layers deep and 4 generations long**. It doesn’t think about the reality that it’s actually kind of hard to stay on 1200 calories a day when your body is used to 2200, and that there are 7 million resources out there saying 8 million different things. It doesn’t want to hear about the privileges we had last time—a safe place to exercise, a companion who made it less lonely, or a job that didn’t treat us like dirt. 

It’s not very useful when real life happens. The only lasting fruit I’ve witnessed from this type of ideology is a cycle of shame and inevitable burnout. It just doesn’t work anymore. “No excuses” is the girl at bible study saying if we really loved Jesus, we would get up at 5:30 in the morning to have our special quiet time. I’m over it.

So, on that note: can I offer a kinder, more hopeful version?

The next time you gaze into the cold face of failure, bring your hands up to your face and nuzzle into the warmth, whispering, “life happened, but I’m going to do the best I can.”

I’m claiming it, anyway. I feel like there’s a lot more room in those words. I am assured that my life is not just a project to be wrapped up. That “best” will be relative, but attainable. They remind me to live in the fullness of my humanity from time to time.

Losing 50 pounds taught me that we don’t do things until we actually want to do them.

Gaining 50 back taught me that old lessons are malleable, and so am I. 

I’m taking both with me. I’ll hold onto them when I make difficult goals. I’ll fish them out of my pockets when I need mercy. I’ll hold them up to the light when I’m trying to find my way again. Maybe I’ll see the 50 disappear once more someday.

Whatever it is, I hope you get it. The job, the weight loss, the self love, the $100,000.00 mark. I hope you run face first into bubbling ideas and sunlit benedictions. I hope it happens, and you get to hold it close to your chest, whispering “I really did this.” But when life happens, I hope you reserve kindness for yourself. I hope you make amends for your vulnerable side when the load is heavy. When you can’t excel, I hope you show up. When you can’t thrive, I hope you survive. When explanations are hard, I hope you find peace in the in-between. 

I hope you find your best in the light and the dark.

No excuses.

Footnotes:

*Spoiler alert: if they make you wait that long it usually means that you probably aren’t going to.

**Spanning all the way back to the Great Depression, don’tcha know.

Function.

Here's the thing about Delta Airlines….

I loathe Delta Airlines.

The hate I possess is an unreasonable hate. They have seats that are more big butt friendly, I’ve never had customer service issues, and the flights I have taken with them have been smooth. But inevitably, for some awful reason, Delta always requires a layover in Hell on Earth, GA—known as the Atlanta Airport. 

This layover was particularly rough. I have an irrational phobia of planes that has never improved in my 31 years and I was running on a mere 3 hours of sleep thanks to leftover hurricane winds and my other irrational phobia of strong storms. I was coming home from a week of business at my old job, and needless to say I was ready to be back in my own bed. I sat down on the tile floor outside the gate with my hastily thrown-together lunch, hoping for ten minutes to charge my iPad. That’s when the shakes started.

It was five minutes later when my friend and coworker, Becky, sat down beside me with her Chic fil a and a book. She looked over to see me staring hard at a breathing video on my phone. 

“How ya doin?” She asked.

“I’m having a panic attack.” I replied.

“Oh, ok.” She continued, and just...returned to her book and chicken sandwich.

Believe me when I say that it was the best possible reaction available. I am both hyperbolically and legitimately thankful that Becky was my travel partner that day. 

Panic and anxiety attacks are not new to me, and if you, reader, also have them then you understand how sad it is that eventually they are something a person just gets used to. With enough practice, one learns how to handle them in public places and the fact that I didn’t have to handle somebody else’s panic on top of my own was a Godsend. It also meant, unfortunately, that I was going to have a fast pulse, shaky hands, sweaty armpits, and labored breathing in the Atlanta airport, then on a crowded airplane, and then possibly in the car on the home. Becky was perfectly helpful by remaining calm and collected. But when it game down to the grit of the situation, the reality was this:

I was the only one who was going to be able to get me home. 

I did, and my smiling husband with dogs in tow to pick me up was a welcome sight—as was my bed when I eventually collapsed into it and slept for four hours. I was lucky. Mental illness is a tricky business, and it seems like the business is growing amongst our population as the years pass.

There’s something I want to get off my chest, but I want to do it as gently as possible. It’s something I need along with anyone else, and I know how I react to words like these. I almost always hear the things that aren’t being said—it’s a giant struggle of mine. That’s why I want to make certain that what I DO say here is not lost in the things that I’m NOT saying. 

Here’s what I’m NOT saying about mental illness:

• That we’re just making excuses. We aren’t.

• That we should just do better. A lot of times, we’re doing the best we can.

• That we can’t express our feelings when someone hurts us. We spend a lot of time protecting other people, and often they don’t realize it.

• That we can’t express when we are struggling. Our brains are a minefield, and trying to manage minimal functionality can be exhausting.

• That we can’t ever ask for help. In fact, a lot of us avoid asking for help.

• That our wins should look like everyone else’s. I can guarantee you they won’t.

• That we have to accept the blame for everything, all the time. It’s physically impossible for everything to be our fault.

• That if we really wanted help, we’d find a way to overcome the lack of access. Health coverage is a current American crisis for a reason.

Here’s what I am saying, the truth nugget that’s really hard to hear sometimes—it’s not someone else’s job to manage our emotions for us. We can’t spend our lives asking someone else to be the adult. It isn’t our spouse’s job to wrangle us when we’re having an episode. It isn’t our parents job to coddle us until the inner roar pacifies. It isn’t our friend’s job to just be patient and absorb it when we are agitated and say something mean or prickly as a result. It isn’t our roommate’s job to feed and water our pet for the third day in a row because it’s too overwhelming. It isn’t our boss’ job to just cover our workload when we are struggling to get through the day. It isn’t even our therapist’s job to navigate our brain for us—their job is to show us how to navigate our own brain, and be a support system while we learn to do so...even if it’s a lifelong process.

Becky was an awesome support, but it was not her job to get me home that day. It was mine. 

I know. The first time I heard it, it really hurt. Life, in it’s due-process, has assigned us a lonely and impossible task. It’s unfair, and it’s ok to admit it’s unfair.* But it’s true, and the sooner we accept it, the sooner we can put in the real, brave work of getting and feeling better. Because getting and feeling better takes nothing less than real, brave work and we can’t be truly effective until we own our s***.

Now that that’s out of the way, can I communicate something I learned that is ridiculously freeing?

We have permission to figure it out.

I don’t mean you need MY permission to figure it out. And I don’t mean it must be figured out in all the negative senses of the word. We can figure it out! What a relief. 

There’s no rule that we have to do it the normal way. If Life is going to do us the disservice of handing us an abnormal brain, then we get to find the abnormal ways of functioning, and we get to have fun doing it, dang it. We get to be creative.

Don’t feel productive until night time? Set an alarm at 8pm and set aside an hour to do stuff. Don’t like showering because self image is a struggle? Shower in the dark until you can manage to turn a light on or bring a candle in**. Having a really rough day for no reason? There is no law against googling pictures of kittens in hats. Don’t like cleaning the kitchen? Guess what, our mom isn’t here and we don’t have to clean it like she does—crank your beats, do it in underpants, load the dishwasher all wrong, leave crumbs in the corners, whatever we’ve got to do to have some semblance of getting it done. Figure it out, and figure it out our way. If someone has something to say about how we are figuring it out, send them to me and I’ll tell them where they can bite it.***

I am the most annoying person on the face of the planet to clean house with because motivation is stupid and I can generally only handle about 20 minutes to an hour of it at a time. But a day cleaning in twenty minute increments means that my house is at least 20+ minutes cleaner. Given my “hand to mouth” coping mechanism with anxiety, I don’t know if I’ll ever stop chewing my nails and possessing a constant compulsion to eat—but what I WILL have is a darn hydrated body and minty breath because I’ve figured out I can alleviate it by keeping ice water and gum handy. I’ve learned long ago to never trust my short term memory, so I live and die by list making apps and calendar alarms.**** I watch ASMR of people whispering at my face so I can fall asleep. I sleep way too much on the weekends, because if I sleep on the weekends that means I can face the work week ahead of me. If I can’t figure it out I read. If I can’t find it reading, I podcast it. If I can’t find the right podcast, I YouTube it. If YouTube is useless then I ask. If no one else knows, I add it to the list to talk with Dr B about.

What I’m saying is that dysfunction is hard, and sometimes I think we get so overwhelmed and trapped in it that we forget about the resources that ARE available. We are NOT alone. There are people who DO want to help. There IS free content available. We DON’T have to operate under the constraints of expectation when we are trying to figure out that whole moving forward thing. My hope for all of us is that we can embrace the mess that is learning how to function. Celebrate your wins, my love, no matter how “small” they may appear. We get to figure it out.

And please do celebrate your wins. You are amazing, and you deserve them.

Footnotes:

* Out loud, and with gusto.

**In fairness, I stole that idea from a meme.

*** My butt. The answer is my butt.

**** I literally have one set every Monday to tell me to water the plants. No. Shame.

Author’s Note:

Need some good places to start? Here are some resources I’ve either found or were recommended to me:

• For basic financial tips and “grown up finance questions”: follow Two Cents by PBS on Facebook or go to their web page. They even answer things like “what is social security” and “is it really better to rent or own a house.”

• Functioning in the adult world and questions on how to adult: Check out the book How To Skimm Your Life by the ladies from TheSkimm. They cover everything from basic budgeting, to organizing your closet, to finding the best wine. (Their fan base isn’t awesome, but the book is a good place to start.)

• Along those same lines, I’ve been wanting to read 101 Questions You Need to Ask in Your Twenties by Paul Angone. If anyone has a good review on that one, send it my way!

• Any and every lady question you’ve possibly had: listen to Stuff Mom Never Told You by How Stuff Works. They aren’t unbiased but they do talk about everything from why poop smells different at different times of the month, to vitamins and supplements, to gamer girls, to sexuality and sexy time questions.

• Can’t sleep? Here’s my favorite ASMR channel on YouTube (judge me, internet. Judge me.), LatteAsmr. The Headspace app has a couple of good, free sleep casts. Additionally, here are some sleepy podcasts recommended by The Bustle.

• Need to hear from people who just “get it”? Try the podcast, The Hilarious World of Depression.

• Check out Facebook groups for local support—it’s not a perfect source, but a  lot of urban communities have online support groups available and it’s nice to have if you just need to get something off your chest.

• Struggling with grief, and tired of everyone saying exactly the wrong thing? Try the podcast Terrible, Thanks For Asking. It’s not great for feeling better but is great for honesty and some therapeutic practices.

• It’s faith based and not for everyone, but Jen Hatmaker’s For The Love podcast helps me feel a little better about the world when I need it.

• Celebrity Dogs exist, and often have their own Facebook pages, YouTube channels, and TikTok channels. My current favorites are Coconut Rice Bear and Tucker Budzyn.

• I know we’re all rioting against TikTok (aka recycled Vine) at the moment, but it’s funny and I need friends so I’m plugging it.

• Lastly, here is the breathing video I referenced earlier.

• Have some suggestions of your own? Hit us up in the comments! We’re in this together, after all.

Vienna.

We affectionately called her The Beast.

Four wheels. Sliding doors. Grey interior. A long nose and faded blue finish. 8 seats, if I remember right. She would pull into the apartment complex’s parking lot at 6am in all of her wonderful minivan glory. She was, by far, my most difficult classroom to date. 

This was the semester I was supposed to complete student teaching and as luck would have it, my lovely friend Amy was assigned to the same tiny little school in rural Missouri. She in English, I in Social Studies. We carpooled, and the Beast would faithfully cart us down country roads before and after the school day.  My, the stories she could tell. 

There were jokes, and enormous amounts of giggling. We chugged coffee while prying open our droopy eyes. I yelled at traffic, and Amy roared in support. We argued over who would get dibs on Brandon Flowers and settled on Amy, since she found his solo album first*. A semi advertising a giant picture of toast followed us one day and we dubbed it “Happy Toast Truck” in tribute. I earned the title of “The Cookie King” at the staff potluck. We ran late. We came in early. Snow fell and melted. Students grew taller. Daily stories were traded and we developed playlists of epic proportions—mostly of The Killers, and some Billy Joel for good measure.

Most of the joy stayed in the car. Most of the pain, too.

I wish I could say that I rose above every obstacle that came my way and crushed that semester. The very real fact was that I crashed and burned...hard. It almost seemed senseless. I was nowhere near a perfect student, but I worked hard towards this very specific end. I was ready to fight for the humanities in education. I gave up entire family holidays to write papers and turn in assignments. I did extra observations in order to make sure this was what I really wanted, and put in time over the summers learning to build relationships with  diverse age groups and demographics. Every opportunity to perform up until this point, I passed with flying colors. I even spent the last summer working a camp, putting my girls to bed at ten o’clock, and then locking myself in the bathroom until two in the morning to write papers. I practiced, and trained, and learned ...and then suddenly it all stopped. That spring, I found out I was awful at something I so desperately wanted to be good at. I dreamed of being a teacher for years, and that dream died. Violently.

The Beast held a lot of tears that spring. I made a mistake that was expensive** and disastrous.

But man...how I learned.

How to have hard conversations. How to re-evaluate. How to have grace for each other. How to pick up the pieces left over. How to keep getting out of bed, even when it was useless. How lucky I was, to have someone like Amy and The Beast to usher me through it.

I still mourn sometimes, and the reality is that I need to stop rereading this chapter of my life. I love what I do and who I am.*** These days, the rereads are fewer and farther between.

But you know what I also do? I listen to Billy Joel.

“Vienna” is my favorite. It’s a love song I sing to my former self—the Melinda who remembers those hours and keeps pouring over everything that went wrong. That Melinda deserves a love song, and Vienna is the perfect one for her. I want her to have it.

Slow down you crazy child,

And take the phone off the hook and disappear for a while.

It’s all right, you can afford to lose a day or two.

When will you realize

Vienna waits for you?

I’m sure Mr Joel has his interpretations of the song, but every time it comes on I relax into this exceptional anthem for the young and dumb. I often forget that we’ve all been young, and sometimes dumb, and sometimes new at all of this. These reasons alone are enough for grace. I don’t know why this melody is the thing that unlocks my heart to receive this particular mercy, but I’m ok with it. I’ve been withholding forgiveness from myself for so long. 

Sing love songs to yourselves, my dears. I give you permission. You deserve a breath of fresh air, even if your mistakes tell you otherwise. They don’t get a say in your life anymore. You do, and you know what? 

Vienna waits for you. And it waits for me too.

Footnotes:

*Even if it is your fault Elton John is gay, you dirty pirate hooker.

**My parents are exceptionally kind humans who will never remind me of this, but they sacrificed quite a bit for me to go to school. Quite a bit.

*** Mostly. 

Like.

I was fortunate to spend most of my childhood at the feet of the Canine Theologian.

To be fair, my grandfather gained a Master of Divinity in the ordinary things and liked to wax poetic—often, and out loud. He was the reverend of open kitchen windows and rosebuds. He was the sacred keeper of sunsets and foggy mornings. He regularly participated in the tabernacle of porch swings, iced tea, and thick books. He loved the smell of cut grass and deep woods. He noticed beautiful things, and pointed them out. We became “noticers” for one simple reason—he taught us to notice. Perhaps his favorite ministry, always, of course, was the Church of the Four Paws.

Dogs were his favorite. Or maybe cats were. He taught us to love them all. As a family man, Poppaw spent most of his mornings on a walk with Tommy, the family dog—the two of them shooting the breeze and solving the world’s problems before the harshness of 8 am. He regularly referred to his cat, Leroy, as “the Reverend,” because the feline would hop on top of the weathered King James lying in his lap every morning. (Leroy made his protestations to the nickname clear every time with a loud yowl). Whenever my aunt came to visit, he would point at her dog’s head resting peacefully in her lap and say, “See there? He just wants to be with her. That’s his only desire. That’s how we should be.” Anytime I showed up at my parents house sans Kevin he would be quick to ask where my best friend was. Our little dog Simon was bestowed the duty of proofreading his devotionals and seemed to take it very seriously. So when I say I didn’t mean to be this giant cornball who learns these pat lessons from animals, I’m telling the truth. I was indoctrinated into their liturgy—I swear.

Enter Shadow, stage right.

Shadow was chosen for us by a kind shelter worker who helped us match temperaments. She was in rough shape. We can’t even guess at her past (dumped maybe?) but when she came to us she was about 20 pounds underweight, might have had puppies recently, her coat was dull and she just started treatment for full blown heart worm—a task I always swore that I would never take on. She earned her name by spending the first six months close at my heels throughout the house. When she was afraid, her eyebrows would shoot straight up. Somewhere along the way she became toy and food defensive, reactive on the leash, and terrified of strangers (due to my less than perfect training, she received a reckoning after snapping at my father in law). The trainer we worked with said she sees this a lot with dogs who have been taken from rural shelters to urban communities—hope was not lost, but we had our work cut out for us. I rolled up my sleeves...that’s when the lesson began.

With the heart worm treatment it was important that she be kept calm and disciplined. I’m not the dog whisperer by any means, so I started with the patterns that I know: a calm and steady voice, clear expectations, and routine. No big displays of praise. No overly affectionate behaviors. Just asking her for specific behaviors and rewarding her when she understood. ...and also a few incidents with shoes (oh lord, the shoes).

She caught on, and we learned new things to teach her. Eventually she was cleared from heart worm by the vet, and we celebrated with big treats and long walks. We avoided the struggle of separation anxiety; and thank the good Lord above and all his angels we did not have to even mess with potty training. It was going ok, until I noticed something. I shouldn’t have named her Shadow. I should have named her Eeyore.

It’s true that with time she learned her “spot” in the house and became sure that she would always have food and a warm place to sleep with us. But her tail never wagged. She would just sort of mope around the house and hang her head, staring at us out of the corner of her eye. The only thing she showed any affection for was food. I was puzzled. I had tried to to do everything right. Teasingly I would ask her, “do you like us yet?” She would stalk away and lay down on the couch.

It took a while to click, but it did. Poppaw never spoke to his animals this way. He always talked to them like he enjoyed their company. Like he actually liked them.

A radical concept, right?

And we do like her. Her favorite place is under our bed. She snores LOUDLY. When she chases something, she runs like a drunken giraffe. Her one true love is her food bowl. I’ve never, ever had to worry about her around children.  If you scratch her butt, she starts dancing and jumping. If you ask her to do something she doesn’t want to do, she puts her paw on her face. She waits outside the bathroom when the door is closed, just in case I need any assistance. She is Blake’s number one fan, even though he pesters her mercilessly. She actually cocks her head when she’s listening to us, and it’s cute.

...It took a few months. I spoke to her in bright tones, became excited when she greeted me at the front door, gave her treats just because and made a point to play with her when her toys were out. I just treated her like I liked her, because I did. One day I got that tail wag. They gradually became exponential. It squished my little grandma heart that loves to heal things that have been hurt (read: a crippling hero complex and I need therapy).  And I thought...we do all these things willingly for an animal, but are so reluctant to receive it ourselves.

Because God likes us, you know?

He enjoys us.

So many times we balk at this idea of God liking us because we fear that it’s selfish, or that it shifts everything to center on us. We hear a lot of things that I’m not saying. Sure, God loves us. He loves us by wanting what’s best for us. Love trumps like. Certainly a God who likes us is overly concerned with only our happiness and lives to please us. Liking us is a softer, fickle emotion that we don’t have use for. And so we don’t.

But a God who likes us in addition to loving us isn’t a God who necessarily takes all of our actions and holds them up, calling them good. It’s just that we are allowed to think He’s glad to see us. That’s it. It’s really that simple. It’s part of that whole grace thing.

We are allowed to think that God is the dad who would show up to your t-ball game.

We are allowed to think that God is the friend who isn’t too busy to come to your potluck, and by the way he’s bringing His favorite whatever.

We are allowed to think that God is the mom who puts your hair behind your ear when you are telling Her that your BFF is being a real jerk right now.

We are allowed to think that God is the one cranking the volume up in the car when your favorite song comes on.

I just feel like there’s room for that stuff in the mystery of the cosmos. And it’s not as if Scripture leaves it out.

We know the God who communed with Moses (Exodus 19).

We know the God who assured Martha that Mary was right where she needed to be, close to Him (Luke 10).

We know the God who was...seriously, just ALWAYS feeding people (Matthew 14, Matthew 15, John 21).

We know the God who invites Himself over for dinner (Luke 19).

We know the God we can boldly approach (Hebrews 4:16).

We know the God who literally REJOICES over Israel. With LOUD SINGING. (Zephaniah 3:17).

We know that God.

Sometimes we treat Him like the God of justice OR the God of truth OR the God of compassion Or the God of the Old Testament OR the God who does what’s best for us OR the God who wants us to die to ourselves OR the God of glory OR the God who likes us.

He’s all of ‘em, friends. He’s big. He’s “and.” There’s a reason why the name “Yahweh” literally translates to “breath.”

...We still have some work to do. But every once in a while, when I’m driving, I’ll look to the seat behind me and Shadow’s eyebrows are down. She’ll rest her head near the wooshing air and partake of the world going by. Her muscles will relax, and for a few minutes she’ll simply sit and enjoy herself.

I can almost see the Theologian now, pointing at her with long, knobby knuckles. “See there? She just wants to be here with us. That’s her only desire. That’s how we should be.”

Saturday.

“I don’t think I’d be too strict. I don’t know though, I wouldn’t want my daughter listening to something just…super sexual when she’s so young, you know? Maybe it’s unfair to think of it in gendered terms, but I feel like that’s appropriate.”

“Makes sense, but I wouldn’t want a butt-ton of violent lyrics, either.”

Blake and I were on the couch discussing lyric restrictions on hypothetical children after our daily ritual of watching all our news shows (you know—children you don’t have that you already know how to parent better than anyone else? Those). This was after he turned to me and asked who Cardi B is, and then we realized that we’re exceptionally old. No joke, we’re planning a trip to Perkins soon.

“I guess that rules out Slipknot, then,” he commented.

“Is Slipknot that violent?” I asked.

“Well it’s weird, that for sure.”

I looked at the floor, surprisingly disappointed. I was hoping these children that didn’t exist would be able to bond with their father over metal. Alas.

If you went back in time and told a very crispy Christian 15 year old Melinda that she was going to marry a metal-head who liked Limp Bizkit, she would have gasped. He listens to that for fun? Regularly? What’s a closet juggalo? OH NO. LAWD TAKE ME NOW.

I’m still a little crispy, and I still don’t really understand the hype of heavy metal. It strikes me as a different way of being dramatic with heavier strings. But then I saw this video.

Yep. Yea. I get it. Me, circa 2007, belting anything by MCR out the car window on a late summer’s evening, cranking the volume knob up and up. My life wasn’t really that difficult but dang it, I’m going to scream along passionately with the high riffs. YES. When I grow up I WILL be the savior of the broken, the beaten and the damned. I WILL lead the black parade. I WILLLLLLLLL.

I asked Blake today why he was so into heavy metal growing up. His answer and mine were the same—it’s cathartic. It involves swimming to depths of emotion and thoroughly keening through the latest breakup, or bad test score, or family dysfunction, or friend drama. It’s like an odd...exploration suffering. A funeral of all my good intentions. Music does that, youknow—helps us to sit in a certain kind of mourning.

I think a lot about the second day. Saturday. The one after Friday. The one before He came back. The day when the disciples scattered. A day saturated in loss.

Easter is supposed to be this bright thing. It’s full to the brim with pastels, springtime, eggs, and baby animals. We sing songs of life and new beginnings. Hymns make our hearts soar with hope to come. I think, often, we as Christians camp out in the area of joy and positive thinking. After all, if emotions are ruling over you, then Jesus isn’t. Things hurt now, but don’t worry! They will be better later. Hold on to that. Hold onto it with everything. But that isn’t how we start the season—no, not in the least. We start it all with a thorough ritual of deep lament.

“Remember O man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.”

Ashes and oil are spread on waiting foreheads. Fasts begin. Penance is contemplated. Confessions are made. It is a liturgy that Protestants have neglected, and Jesus is walking me through the beauty of the time meant for lamentation. It’s important to cry out about all the things in this life that aren’t supposed to be. The joy of Easter is everything… but we miss out if we skip Saturday.

Saturday. The day when his followers grieved. When we all did. Saturday, when all was lost.

Grief, it seems, is a house sparse with candles. We light them for those we lose, and we carry them for those we’ve loved. Grief’s door is open to us, inviting us to stay as long as we need. Grief is full to the brim with the anguish of wanting. Trimmed in emptiness and uncertainties, the abode then has room for the hard questions. This is where we do the hard things. It’s where the hard times settle, in the eaves and doorways. We get by a lot better in this life when we realize that there is no way around Grief. The only way out is through. The back door is only opened when we come to terms with the agony our hearts have been hiding all this time—and even then we usually take a souvenir with us. It’s an odd little house, everyone’s own in different shapes and sizes. But it waits for us, an unusual homecoming. It encompasses a sacred kind of sorrow. We do holy work in this house.

We take, and we eat, and we drink in remembrance of Him. Communion with the Man of Sorrows. We ask why the world must be so broken, bewildered at the way it twists, resting in uncomfortable silence of answers that don’t make sense. We sit in Saturday, friends. We shake hands with mourning, we finally understand the intimacy of lament. Our souls exhale the whys and hows, and Jesus is with us in it.

You still won’t find me arguing the theological merits or drawbacks of heavy metal and dark culture (I don’t have the time or education for that, it probably doesn’t exist, and don’t really care about Metallica that much.) But you will find me remembering Friday. Sitting in Saturday...doing the hard things, and watching the skies.

After all, tomorrow is Sunday.

Eighteen

Dear 18 Year Old Melinda,

1. I like you. I really do. There’s lots of reasons to like you.

2. Don't worry, you’ll be able to sleep at night again eventually.

3. Err on the side of judging people less.

4. Don’t worry about money so much. You’ll earn your own soon enough.

5. The F word is really therapeutic sometimes. Own it.

6. It’s ok to be frustrated about being single.

7. Not all of your dreams will come true, but you should try anyway. Theatre and music will still make this life beautiful and full, and your husband will like the way your eyes light up when you talk about your shows and your “kids”.

8. Don’t let dad keep your bass in the big barn.

9. Your soft heart is a virtue, not a flaw. Don’t be afraid of it.

10. On the same token, not everything is as big as it seems.

11. Your husband isn’t even in the same state at the moment, but telling you so won’t make the process any less angsty. I understand.

12. You really aren’t fat, and big butts are a thing of envy. Be proud of it, sister.

13. Forget to bring hair ties to retreats. It will spawn friendships you didn’t even know you needed.

14. Don’t beat yourself up too much over the nice boy with brown eyes. We all date the wrong person at least once.

15. Relapse is hard, but you will survive it.

16. Check on your brothers.

17. People really do like you, your brain is lying.

18. I know you think IPads are stupid, but maybe buy some stock in Apple and just see what happens. Also, go find podcasts.

19. You’re doing a great job.

20. Love yourself enough to walk away from toxic people and relationships. You can’t fix them, and will only hurt yourself by trying too hard.

21. One day you will walk into an animal shelter to see about a golden retriever mix. Take her home, she will save your life.

22. Don’t believe the poo-pooing about being an adult. Being an adult is awesome. You can buy your own cake and eat it for breakfast and no one can say jack.

23. Maybe shower a little bit more. I’m saying this because I love you.

24. When your friend is coming out to you, that is the exact wrong time to make it about you.

25. When you get to school, you will get the best roommate. Everyone else should be jealous, because she’s the best one.

26. You have SO MUCH to offer the world.

27. Sometimes you will regret the school you chose. Go anyway, because you will find your people there and they will mean the world to you.

28. We go gray really early. I know, I’m disappointed too.

29. Your Jesus loves you so, so, so much. Even when it feels like He’s left.

30. Your high school circle will slowly become scattered, but you will be surprised how much you are still in each other’s corners.

31. Say yes to the boy who asks to you to get lunch at Panera. He will walk into your life when you don’t believe in love anymore, and will break all the rules you were taught about all of it. It will be exactly what you didn’t know you were looking for.

Hurt.

“I went to church thinking it would be like an epidural...that it would take the pain away...but church isn’t like an epidural; it’s like a midwife...I thought faith would say, ‘I’ll take away the pain and discomfort,’ but what it ended up saying was ‘I’ll sit with you in it.’” —Brené Brown

Have we ever talked about Mr. Goodcents?

I’m sure he doesn’t come up in conversation a whole lot, but maybe he should. The impossibly thin-sliced meat. The fresh cheese. The squeezably soft bread. The wheat buns that don’t even taste like wheat. The melt in your mouth cookies. Heck, our local Mr Goodcents was one of the first to get a Coke Freestyle machine.  All hail Mr. Goodcents. Aaaaalllll haaaaaiiillll.

My beautiful friend and once-upon-a-roomie Jordan used to go on sandwich soapboxes with me, because she GOT IT. God help you if you offered to pick up dinner and came home with Jason’s Deli. Jimmy Johns who? Planet Sub? Subway? They can all GET OUT. Mr. Goodcents put magic in their oil and vinegar standard dress. I don’t care if the main ingredient for their mayonnaise was crack—it was the only acceptable option. Give me and Jordan all of the Mr Goodcents. All of it.

Imagine my deep and profound grief when my turkey and swiss ivory tower came tumbling down on a winter’s day.

It was lunch time. I had taken a half day at work for a doctor’s appointment. I entered the local Goodcents to grab lunch on the way home and greeted the young girl behind the counter with a smile. As her associate met me at the end of the counter, I grabbed a cookie and empty cup. I looked down to unzip my wallet and fish for my punch card when I heard the unthinkable.

“How far along are you?”

I stopped dead in my tracks. Looked up, confusion in my eyes. My eyebrows furrowed.

“...I’m sorry?”

“When are you due?” She tried again.

I looked down at my stomach, and looked up again. My mouth went dry.

“Oh, I’m not….”

“You aren’t pregnant?”

“No. Nope. Not pregnant.”

Mortified, I shoved my credit card at her. She muttered a rude apology and rolled up my sandwich to go. I grabbed it and ran. Once I got home I immediately laid my food on the kitchen table, hustled to the bedroom, stripped off my pants, and threw them in the trash. Blake came home later to me in sweatpants, scowling on the couch. He made it halfway through asking about my day when I snapped, “Just don’t ask. We aren’t going to Goodcents anymore.”

It wasn’t until the franchise was sold to a delightful immigrant family (who have NEVER asked me if I was pregnant) that I went back.

I didn’t boycott every Goodcents shop. I even still ate Goodcents sandwiches. But I couldn’t walk back into that particular shop without my cheeks turning bright red.

Every once in awhile, when I’m mindlessly scrolling through my feed, I see this meme pop up on the pages of my fellow church-goers:

And if I’m being super honest here? It’s times like those when I wish I could reach through the screen, rip it off the page, ball it up, and send it hurtling off of a cliff. I despise this meme, and like everything else in my life it apparently takes a really roundabout thread of reasoning to get to the meaty “why” of it. Let me try.

I think a lot of times people get to know me and sort of assume that I live this charmed life. Any explanation to the contrary just lands me deeper in the waters of niceness and naïveté that projects onto all of my interactions. The harder I try to explain that I’ve paid my fair share of dues, the more eye rolls I get (and understandably so—who wants a victim all the time, anyway?). I’m very fortunate. I have amazing people in my life. I’m lucky to have been trained up in values like kindness, listening, and discernment. But I have seen things. A lot of things. Most of the perspectives I’ve ever gained about people are directly tied to stories I’ve listened to and hands I’ve held in their telling.

So when I see meme like these, all I can think of are the thousands of stories behind them. This graphic was created as a frustrated response to shallow observation of people who were offended by a church and walked out. But they speak to the people I know and remember.

The girl who was being beaten at home, but her youth pastor couldn’t be bothered to report it.

The marriage that was torn apart by adultery with another church member.

The deacon who was indignant about paying child support, even though his ex-wife had custody and was living below the poverty line.

The group of girls who were bullying someone because the clothes they had weren’t modest enough.

The man who assaulted a woman because “she was tempting him on purpose.”

And most recently, the middle aged man or woman who was molested by a Sunday School teacher. Or pastor. Or volunteer.

Those people don’t go back to the restaurant. Those people don’t eat out anymore. It’s not that the waiter was rude to them—it’s that every time they came the waiter spit in their food, upended their table, stepped on their silverware and insulted their date…and then the manager walked by and told them to stop making things up and pay for their meal. Their “bad experience” wasn’t just a bad experience, it was deep trauma. And instead of remembering that Jesus is the healer and lover of lost causes who reaches out in the midst of muck and mess—we shrugged our shoulders and made a picture. You’re over-blowing the issue, Melinda. After all, we weren’t talking about THOSE people. THAT stuff isn’t us. That’s OTHER churches.

It’s never us, is it?

For shame.

Within the publishing of the Houston Chronicle’s article regarding over 700 cases of sexual abuse in the SBC, I see and hear so many laments. Cries by baptist churches for repentance. Open prayers for forgiveness and wisdom in moving toward healing. All things that are right and good. I'm glad. I'm glad the pushback is responsibility. Promises for tangible justice: background checks, arrests, relief of employment if allegations are found to be true.

But if I’m honest, I’m also hearing an unsaid murmur humming amongst the observers.

“Oh.

Now you care.

Now.

Now that you look bad. That’s when you’ve chosen to do something.

Not when we asked you for help.

Not when we were afraid.

Not when we needed you.

Now.”

It’s not something I even know how to begin to fix. All I have to offer is a cry of anguish. I hear you. It hurts. I know. And I’m sorry.

I’m sure there is much to be said for going forward. Plans to put in place. Assurances to be made. And I’m glad of it.

But for those who feel left behind in this? I see you. And while I would love to take you out to the new and improved Mr. Goodcents and lavish the love of my Jesus all over your life—in the moment, there’s plenty of time to sit in the quiet. To mourn with those who mourn. He does. If it’s bitterness, anger, grief, confusion, or depression you are sitting in, I’ll be here and ready to sit with you in it.

Church, if we must make this a picture, let’s make it this one: