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A First

All week, I think about the weekend. Even on days that go well, during lessons that rock, I think in the back of my mind, I can’t wait til the weekend. I can’t wait to hang out with friends. I can’t wait to do my thing. 

I think this every week, and then, on Friday night, all I can think about is sleep. And movies. And reading. and not seeing anyone.

What is wrong with me? It’s been over two months, now, and each weekend that comes up, I find myself at home again, doing quiet, contemplative things.

But every Monday morning, I think, shoot, I didn’t go out again. I stayed home AGAIN.

This weekend was different.

I went out with my sister and her friend, met them late after watching Argo with a boy I grew up with (it was so fun, chatting, nearly getting lost driving streets I’ve driven since I was sixteen, having him lean over and say, “We didn’t get nearly as much talking time as usual, watching this movie. We need to go out again soon.” Old friends are great.)

Later, when I met up with my sister, the place was crowded, the music was way too loud (as soon as I thought this, I cringed at my oldness), and the girls had already finished their drinks when I got there. I was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, since I hadn’t planned to go out at all. I was not looking my best, but I was feeling particularly happy.

The woman working at the bar came over, slid three cinnamon whiskeys towards us, and said, “These are from the three guys over there,” with a nod.

It was totally flattering, and after we drank the delicious cinnamony-delight, we let them sidle up to us and chat for about half an hour. It was fun, learning their names, talking about where we went to college (“Isn’t that super Christian?” they asked. “Yeah, it’s a Christian college.”). I was a little separate from the other girls, so most of the time I watched them interact, watched them laugh and flirt. It was almost more fun than doing it myself – no pressure, no assumptions.

Then my sister and her friend got up to go to the bathroom, leaving me alone. The boys were further away, but the dark haired one came up, smiling, saying, “Don’t want to leave you all alone.”

He told me he was going to college – for the first time at age twenty-four – to study Mechanical Engineering. He saw my VW key and made fun of me for having a “chick car.” I pointed out that I was, in fact, a chick.

The girls were only gone a moment, but it was long enough to feel good chatting with a stranger.

And then, as he was about to leave, he said something that normally would’ve shocked me.

“You’re really pretty,” he said. But then he went on: “I hope you get laid tonight.”

I couldn’t even react. It was like I didn’t really hear the words.

He wasn’t even being crass. He wasn’t trying to be insulting or embarrass me. His voice was low and kind, and his eyes were soft. He could’ve been my mother, saying “Honey, you look so beautiful!” Or my friend K telling me, “You deserve an amazing man, Cath.”

I couldn’t slap him or chastise him or say anything that would’ve told him I was a prude.

He was merely giving me a 21st-century compliment.

It’s not his fault, I guess. That’s what our culture tells us is the highest prize: laid-worthiness.

When I came home and told my mother, she looked at me, shocked. And then she laughed. She kept laughing all day, whispering the phrase under her breath.

He didn’t know who he was talking to. But still, I think there’s a soft spot in my heart for him. His dark hair, his Greekness, his easy way of talking. The compliment that flattered me and shocked me at the same time.

We are looking for such different things.

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Storytelling

This week of teaching has been phenomenal.

I say this a little early (it’s only Thursday, after all), but I can’t help it.

It’s due to a few things:

Being Prepared

  • This goes without saying, but the better you prepare a lesson, the better it’ll be. Even if I go in confident of the material and what I think will happen, if I haven’t prepared for the barrage of repeated questions (“Can I use a highlighter?”, “Can I use a highlighter?”, “Wait, can I use a highlighter?”), things go a little off track. I’m getting better about going with the flow, steering the class back on track. I want so badly to let the kids be who they are, to help them create who they are, so it’s hard for me to tell them to stop talking. Please, would you stop expressing yourself? Please stop trying to connect with me. But I know this is necessary, and I’m working on it.
  • The bottom line is, more often than not, everything takes longer than I expected. So I hope I learn from my week of good preparation and keep this going.

Quizzes

  • I gave a vocal quiz in each of my classes this week. This is good because it forces the kids to study, it shows me where they all are on the spectrum of basic Latin comprehension, and, the best part, it gives time for story-telling at the end…

Telling Stories

  • I think this may be my calling. Or perhaps, my calling within the teaching world. All of my grammar school classes 3-6 grades, clamored onto their respective rugs in their respective classrooms, and watched me with wide eyes as I told them the story of Odysseus and the Cyclops. Did I get it perfectly? No. Did I remember to say everything I wanted to? No. Did they love it? YES.

(I wish it were possible to post a picture of my classes, on their knees, sprawled out on their bellies, chins cradled in little hands. I guess you can imagine what they looked like when one fourth grader sighed blissfully, “This is my favorite story.”)

So maybe my writing and singing play into this life pretty well. Isn’t it nice to listen to a singer read from D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths, or a writer recount the Fall of Troy!

Maybe everything is converging.

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When God Looks Different Than I Thought

Last night’s small group was a lot more than I expected.

The heaviness in the room made me cry — sitting right there on the floor, with my legs crossed and my striped wool socks on — in front of dear friends and complete strangers.

Because what can you say when everything hangs in the unknown, just waiting to break?

~     ~     ~

This is the product of last weekend’s work, the last of the swiss chard standing alone in the corner. It’s too warm for October, and the bees are eating up the sugar water we left out.

I wandered the yard, taking photos, thinking what a beautiful day, and mingled in with those words was a wordless thought.

Something about pain and joy and what it means that God allows such suffering.

How do I interact with the God of Job?

How do I worship when everything is out of order? When a moment of laughing and cookie-eating is shattered by the reality of a tumor?

~     ~     ~

I am learning to encounter people in their pain, even though I sometimes feel like running away.

No. I cannot handle this. I’m sorry. Please take your pain somewhere else. 

I am learning to face other people’s pain with courage.

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Work

It’s the Yankee in me.

I put a lot of value on hard work.

When we were little, Mom and Dad made us work in the yard, around the house, every weekend. I hated it, for the most part. I remember one day – I was probably around seven — it was warm and sunny and all the neighbor kids were running around, laughing, playing tag, I don’t know what.

The four of us were weeding the garden alongside my parents, grumbling the whole time.

I remember my Dad saying, “When you’re through with this row, when everything’s weeded, then you can go play.”

I also remember saying something along the lines of “why do we have to do this when all the other kids don’t have to?”

And, the classic reply: “Someday you’ll thank me for this.”

Well, Dad, I guess that day is here.

We spent yesterday morning putting the garden to rest. The sun was bright, the air was cool, and the work loomed ahead of us, daunting. We pulled up all the woodier plants (broccoli and brussells sprouts get huge!) and threw them out back (Dad’s trying to minimize bugs next year, so we’re getting rid of the old plants). We took out the tomato stakes and piled them up, unknotted and threw out the rags we’d used to tie the plants to their stakes.

I harvested the last of the carrots. It’s hard to get them out of the cold ground without snapping them, but some survived.

Dad and I emptied the compost pile that’d been lying low all season, spread it out over the dirt, and my brother tilled it in.

When we were done, the place looked beautiful. Not nearly as sad as you’d think. Like well-deserved rest.

The girls got the last of the cucumbers.

~         ~         ~

Now, let me get this straight: I am not a naturally hard worker.

When I was around ten, I remember thinking, I wish I weren’t so lazy. And then, like a lightbulb, I realized, I don’t have to be lazy. I can choose to work hard.

This was a revelation. I had thought up to this point that some people were born workers, and some people were born lazy.

This might be true. But it goes a lot further than that.

Every day I struggle to use my time wisely. To complete what I should complete – to give it my all.

 

Work hard in the garden.

Take care of my chickens.

Sell honey and eggs in a timely manner.

Sing.

Write.

Clean, do dishes, you know.

Write good lesson plans.

Teach engaging lessons, even when I’m exhausted.

Read my Bible.

Pray.

These are the things I must work hard at.

Work, outside of our workaholic culture, is a good and beautiful thing.

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Reflection

I am alone in the kitchen. All the dishes are done, the brown and white eggs are drying on the counter, the sky is gray/blue and the leaves are red, and I am listening to hymns. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. 

We got back from church and I didn’t know what to do with myself.

Must be productive.

Must work.

Must make something.

But instead, I’ve decided to rest. Rest and think and pray.

Productivity can wait for another day.

This afternoon was made for quiet.

 

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Forgiveness

I was going to save the idea of forgiveness until the end. I was going to write post after post about hope, joy, love, and then finally end with forgiveness. This was my plan, because it’s forgiveness that I’ve been having the hardest time with.

~     ~     ~

A woman from church once told me, when I was small and easily wounded, that “Christ has forgiven so much; we have no right not to forgive others.”

~     ~     ~

Forgiving in a relationship is not so hard for me (sometimes). A friend from my freshman year of college was adept at the plea for forgiveness: “I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I don’t even know why I did it.” I was trained to forgive, time and time again.

It’s forgiving outside of a relationship that has become impossible. How do you forgive someone who hasn’t even asked for it? Who, if given the choice, would do things exactly the same way again.

This is where mercy and justice get messy.

Even Christ demands repentance – demands to be asked.

That stumped me for awhile.

Until I remembered: I am not Christ.

Jesus had no sins to be forgiven, only infinite forgiveness.

But all this philosophizing of forgiveness doesn’t change the heart overnight. It’s not magic. I prayed again, after months and months of not praying about it. I’d stopped praying because prayer was admitting I hadn’t forgotten, I hadn’t forgiven, and I was the only one who hadn’t moved on.

I prayed that my heart would be changed.

Yesterday, I found a bundle of pictures, taken in the cold spring of 2009, on the streets of Newburyport, the beach of Plum Island, the cliffs of Ocean Lawn. I thought I’d thrown everything out, but here was a bunch of photos, with a younger, softer me smiling back.

Instead of throwing them away immediately, I looked through each and every one. And I even smiled.

I was so different then.

After I’d looked at them, I did throw them out. They’d served their purpose.

And that night, I dreamed we were all in a car together, coming back from a wedding. I was wearing his socks, and he looked at me and said, “Hey, I think you still have my socks.”

And instead of being sad or missing something that wasn’t real, in the dream I laughed.

I laughed and took the socks off, gave them to him over the seat.

Maybe that doesn’t count as full forgiveness, but I’m happy with baby steps.

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The Full Life

Some people assign one word to their year, like it’s easily containable. I thought about doing that in January, thought about affixing the latest Christian buzzword to my twenty-third year and breathing a sigh of relief that now I didn’t have to worry about making my year count – the word did it for me.

And while you may have guessed, since it’s September and I’ve only just mentioned it, I did not end up doing it. Partly because I’m not very good at planning ahead. Partly because I’m bad at judging the passing of time, and in March it still felt like January, and I still had time to choose.

But the crux of it is this: there are too many good things in life to pick just one.

My friends have done this: “This is the year of yes,” “This is the year of trust,” and it’s benefited them greatly. I don’t want to say meditating on one thought or one ambiguous philosophy for one year is a bad thing.

I read Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts. I know what it looks like to have your life transformed by the power of one word. Her experience of gratitude was encouraging, and it opened me up to the possibility of a grateful life, maybe even a grateful life before a penitent one. My journal now has lists of the blessings God has given me.

But I couldn’t stick to it. I tried to count up and up and list a thousand blessings, but I couldn’t do it. Not because God hasn’t seen fit to give me a thousand gifts, but because, I think, it takes more than gratitude to have a full life.

I couldn’t stick to just one fruit of the spirit, just one beautiful thought to meditate on for 365 days. 

Gratitude is a huge part of the Christian life. But so is honesty. So is joy. So is hope.

Over the next few weeks, I hope to explore these things. The beautiful things that make life a glimpse of what is to come.

I join the ranks of many good thinkers and observers and writers. I’d love to hear your thoughts on beauty, joy, honesty, gratitude, all the beautiful.

 

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A Fall Walk

I went for a walk this afternoon because the sun was too beautiful for me to stay inside. I went down to one of the reservations on the way to the beach. It’s short – only about a mile – and it winds through fields, through the marsh, and then loops around Easter Island.

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My parents were out teaching people how to extract honey, my sister was at a friend’s house, one of my brothers was watching football, and my youngest brother was wishing we were apple picking. I snuck out of the house (“I’m just going for a walk,”), and I went alone, even though I knew my youngest brother would’ve come with me. But after a morning at the Farmer’s Market and an hour doing dishes, I knew I needed to be alone.

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I didn’t discover anything deep on my walk. I didn’t have any epiphanies. But I did discover a fort someone had left behind. A boy I dated in college told me about a kind of art people create and leave in the woods or a public place, just leave it there for people to stumble upon. That’s what this fort reminded me of – an earth-toned masterpiece.

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I liked the memory of people in the woods.

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[Cafe Sleep]

I could fall asleep with my head on this table, press

my hot cheek to the cool varnished wood splattered

with other people’s coffee.

 

I still like my idea of beds suspended from the walls,

folded out to catch your tired bones – who

wouldn’t like a comfy mattress for a few

minutes of rest?

 

The busy city wears out your feet and sores

your muscles; the least it can give is a café with beds.

 

But that would be so dirty, they remind me.

The logical ones. The ones who cannot

let go of fact to see perfection.

 

Yes, I admit, it would be hard to keep clean.

But oh how luxurious to sleep

to the muffled voices and toned-down laughs

of a Chicago coffee shop.

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Silly? Maybe.

“Alexander wants to get to know you a little better.”

I am sitting in a small coffee shop (no, not Barnes and Noble this time). The Shins are playing, my coconut mocha is better than I imagined, and I am shocked at how exhausted I am from my first full week of teaching. Five days feel so much longer when they aren’t your own anymore.

And this email has popped up on my computer: “Alexander wants to get to know you a little better.”

Some of you probably don’t quite know what it is.

But, you should know, I have done something silly and irrational.

I joined eHarmony.

There is good, rational thought behind this.

1. I joined when it was free. There is absolutely NO WAY I am paying for this service. I joined when it was free, however, the free weekend is over, and absolutely no communication can happen now. It’s like a black hole of potential love.

What’s the point of “this service,” then, you ask?

2. To prove that there are good, Christian men out there. Oh wait, the clincher: good, interesting, Christian men.

Because it seems that I have a number of great, Christian guys I call friends. But none of them are interested in me. And, even more bizarrely, I am not interested in one of them.

I know, it’s a terrible ego-stroker. I check my email, and every ding – Chris, Matthew, Ramy, and Phillip – sends my little too-cheap-to-pay-for-eHarmony-heart a-pitter-pattering.

I don’t know who any of these men are. And I never want to.

All I want is a silly email when I get out of work, when I’m done teaching, done opening mail, done stamping the seemingly-endless stack of mailings, that says:

Someone, somewhere, thinks that perhaps, maybe, there might be a chance that you’re fun. And interesting. And cool.

That’s all I want. At least for now.