Originally written September 16, 2006

I am so angry right now. So unbelievably angry. And I have been all day.

This morning, I went to the post office to pick up the birthday present my sister had sent me: The Office Season 2 DVD. My birthday was a month ago, but the DVD just came out and was mailed this week. The Office, in case you don’t know, is not only the funniest show on television [ed. note–this post was written before 30 Rock came on the air], but my favorite. I have most of the episodes on my DVR; I have downloaded several to my computer; I quote it endlessly. It never fails to get me laughing and lift my mood. I have been waiting for this awesome gift for one month. I have planned the whole week around it: marathon viewing sessions with friends to prepare for the Season 3 premiere on Thursday. If you are thinking right now that all this is a little strange, then that’s must be because you don’t watch it. Trust me–it’s that good.

Back to the post office. My sister had sent the package from Amazon under the name she calls me, a nickname many of you know. It was a joke. She often sends me mail like that. Today, it was a problem. At my post office, you must provide ID in addition to the claim postcard. I showed my ID. I showed my postcard. The post office employee, wielding her mighty scepter of vindictive power, refused to give me the package because my ID name didn’t match the one-word nickname. Her “supervisor” was equally helpful. They were rude, condescending, and petty. I left in frustration and rage, calling my sister and others through tears. I couldn’t believe the injustice. So my sister forwarded me the email she had from Amazon containing the package tracking information, my nickname, and my address. After a few hours (and hoping for a shift change), I took that, the claim card, my ID (from Alabama), and a renter’s insurance bill (containing my name and address) and traversed the 10 or so blocks to the post office. As soon as I walked up, the same lady from before heaved a huge sigh and muttered something under her breath. No dice AGAIN. Again, I asked to speak to the supervisor. While I was waiting the ten minutes for her to decide to punish me by making me wait ten minutes, the people in line behind me shared their stories of similar mistreatment by said post office personnel. They looked at me with eyes of resignation and defeat. I vowed I would not be one of them.

The woman who puts the super in supervisor finally ambled to the window. Fighting down screams of frustration as I watched her shake her head and curl her lip, I explained rationally what can only be accepted by a rational person. Thus, you can guess what happened next. As I write, my DVD–my BIRTHDAY PRESENT–is sitting on a shelf in the Murray Hill Post Office. That is, of course, unless it has been destroyed beneath the foot (or posterior) of a staff member.

Someone (a counselor, most likely) once told me that anger is a cover. There is always something deeper and more true underneath it. When I heard this, I was relieved. I can get angry pretty easily, so it was reassuring to hear that I might be full of complicated layers and deep levels. Today, as I walked away from that experience, I was full of emotion. Anger, mostly. Anger that there are people who just try to make others’ lives difficult. Anger that such people have any power, and that they abuse what power they do have. Anger that I was so emotionally affected by this (and so many other circumstances beyond my control). Anger that I couldn’t ultimately control the outcome of this–and that I hadn’t achieved the outcome I wanted. In other words, a fair amount of anger. So I tried to go deeper. I tried to figure out what my reaction said about me, and about what I value. I value justice. I value kindess. I value fairness. I also value power. And control. And getting my way. I am a mixed bag–some of it is good, some of it is bad, and some of it can get really ugly. I had just run head-on into others’ ugliest. I knew that what mattered at this point was how I would respond to it. In the midst of this realization, every negative event from the past week flew into my head. I began to give in to the ever-present temptation to complain and blame, and I started to wonder why it all has to be so damn hard sometimes.

I also realized that it’s times like these that determine who I am more than any other times. Times when I am reduced to simple emotion and utter helplessness. Times when I feel like a child again. I hate those times. I hate it when people say crap like, “Character is what a man does in the dark” and about how I should make lemonade out of lemons.

Because the fact is, I don’t much like the dark, and there is a part of me that I don’t like to show people that thinks I’ve earned the right to have someone bring me the lemonade on a silver tray. And the world, infuriatingly, does not comply with those ideas. Sometimes the world kicks my ass instead. Whom do I go to for that? WHERE’S THE JUSTICE?

Guess what? There isn’t any. There’s the idea of it, in courtrooms and legal documents, but any justice we enact is only an attempt at best. There will always be people and situations beyond our control–so what’s the point? What am I to do with what I believe when I am so eaten up with anger, frustration, sadness, grief, loss, disappointment, despair, hopelessness…that I am a walking mess of emotion trying to decide whether to hit someone or hide in my bed?

Tired of me quoting C.S. Lewis yet? Fine–I’ll quote a friend that he quoted, who said, “We regard God as an airman regards his parachute; it’s there for emergencies but he hopes he’ll never have to use it.” When things are going my way, I am happy. And as long as I have happiness on my own terms, I don’t need to seek it elsewhere. I don’t need to seek him. Pain, despair, anger–they shatter my self-sufficiency, my illusion of happiness. Back to Lewis now: “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to raise a deaf world.” Fair enough. But doesn’t this raise suspicion? If he is the God of justice, then our desire for justice comes from Him. And yet he allows us to be treated unfairly. And this God who promises joy, who calls us to “rejoice always” (through Paul), who allows situations that repeatedly thwart our inclination to do so. The only answer that I can see (besides Him being a masochist, a misery I’ve given up on) is that His idea of justice, His vision of joy, is so far beyond ours and based on such a higher sense of them than mine that I don’t even begin to know what they mean. I feel like I don’t understand it, I can’t grasp it, I’m struggling to GET IT–I’m like a child.

Could it be that this is exactly where He wants me? Not out of maliciousness or spite, but because, as He said, “the Kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these”–the children? I work with children every day–but I hate feeling like one. Yet He calls me to this position not because He desires my understanding to stay limited–but because I must recognize how limited it IS before I can truly know what grace is. He doesn’t call me to check my intellect, my desire for fairness, or my hope for joy at the door. He calls me to see how limited my understanding of these ideas is–and then He calls me to journey with Him to the truth of them all. He wants to show me not how far I’ve come–but how far He has brought me. And the journey continues.

I’m still mad. I’m praying about it, but believe me–I AM STILL MAD. Every time I picture that DVD sitting in the dark (which is also where a man’s character is shown, by the way), I struggle to stay calm. But my faith, more than just providing a quaint moral to a story or encouraging me to “make nice”, shows me there’s more to all this. There is a point here. It’s not all for nothing. Maybe at this moment, that’s all I’ve got. But I trust there is more–and that it will be more than enough. Living in the “will be” and “not yet” sometimes bites–but it means now is not all there is. And after days like today, that means more than I can even understand.

Originally written September 5, 2006

Three years ago, the young son of a family close to mine was killed in a car accident. Presently, a dear family friend is dying of cancer. Four to six months–these are the numbers under which this accountant operates now. Yesterday, the Crocodile Hunter was killed–by a stingray. This world simply does not make sense. And we want it to so badly! So much that we try to come up with explanations for these horrible things that happen to us and those we love. As if we could ever understand why bad things happen–as if we ever should, like it’s our right to know the inner workings of the universe. Christians have even made a commercial industry out of it. WWJD–remember? Let’s all put on a wristband that asks what Jesus would do. AS IF WE COULD EVER KNOW! The most predictable quality of Jesus Christ was His unpredictability. If He were here on earth today, do we really think we could predict where He would be and what He would do? I doubt it would be like anything we would expect, or among people we would approve of. The most knowledgeable teachers and students of law and prophecy didn’t recognize Him when He was standing in front of their faces–what makes us think we can explain Him? This quality of unexpectedness, of certainty turned upside down, is one that I have long fought in my own life. But I realize that if I don’t embrace the uncertain and the uncontrollable, I will never really know Him. And in the process, the quality I have feared the most is becoming the quality I love the most.

A predictable God would be comfortable and safe. He would meet my expectations and affirm them–but never exceed them. In no aspect of His unpredictability is this more evident than in the way He loves us. This is where the trouble with believing comes for most people–including those of us who say we believe. We believe until something bad happens, something bad enough to make us ask the question: How could a God of love allow this? And as we reach for explanations, we are really reaching to manage and define Him. We call it trying to understand Him, but really? We are trying to control Him. We don’t want to admit that He is beyond our understanding because if He is, then what will He do next? If that is love, how afraid should I be of how He will love me tomorrow?

Regarding the love of God, C.S. Lewis writes, “The problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God who loves, is insoluble so long as we attach a trivial meaning to the word love, and look on things as if man were the center of them.” His argument is that when we expect God to love us within our definition of love, we are asking Him to love us less. And He cannot, and will not, love us less.

Our definition of love is much like our definition of God: much smaller than the real thing.

Originally written August 29, 2006

     I just rewatched an episode of The Office (Emmy award winner for best comedy, thank you very much)–in other words, engaging in one of my favorite pastimes. It’s the episode where Dwight wins the Salesman of the Year award and has to give a speech to hundreds of colleagues. The problem is, he is paralyzed by fear–much like I would be in that situation. He recounts how he lost the fifth grade spelling bee to Raj Patel when he misspelled, in front of the entire school, the word FAILURE. (Being the Alabama State Spelling Bee Winner, I can’t relate so much to this particular incident.)

     I just returned to the city after a two-week vacation. I immediately felt the need to catch up on blogging lest the world fall off its axis, pedophiles sit in first class, and snakes take over planes. Plus, it’s important to give people a diversion from working and something to use against me, right? I was looking for ideas in a notebook I keep to record random thoughts. It’s a big notebook, and it’s very random. Awhile ago, I had written down a short and simple phrase: Give yourself permission to fail. I don’t know the circumstances or inspiration that prompted me to write that, but it stood out among the other random sentences, so I’ll take a stab at it.

     Most of my life, I have avoided roads that held a high failure potential. Example: the spelling bee. It wasn’t exactly fun, and I didn’t so much WANT to practice spelling obscure words every day, but I was a naturally good speller (and nerd) and I knew this was an area I could really succeed in. I weighed the risk of embarrassing myself in front of a crowd of people, and I determined it was worth it. Subsequently, I won. Fast forward a few years to eighth grade, when I decided to start taking dance classes. I, like most people, did not start out as a great dancer. I, like some people, never became a great dancer. It just didn’t happen. Granted, I only gave it two years. But when I realized I didn’t have the feet or the natural talent for ballet, I switched roads and pursued one more familiar, with which I already had success: school. I don’t tell that (thrilling) story because I regret studying or harbor secret desires to dance with Baryshnikov, but to raise a point: We rarely give ourselves permission to fail. We, in fact, avoid it at all costs.

     Here’s another bedtime story for you. When I was in seventh grade I had been suffering from migraines for a couple of years and had several tests run–MRIs, CAT scans, etc. Finally, I went to a neurologist who asked about my performance in school. When I told him I made straight A’s (once upon a time, I did), he told me that the next time he saw me, he wanted to hear that I had brought home some C’s. His point was that I was putting too much pressure on myself and that was causing the headaches. This guy with a medical degree believed that my fear of failure was showing up as profound pain. Is fear that powerful? I don’t know if he was right or not, all I knew is that my mom nearly snatched my arm out of my socket running me out of there. And there wasn’t a next time.

     Our fear of failure is unfortunate for several reasons. One is because anytime we operate out of fear, we aren’t living in truth, and we therefore become someone we are not meant to be. Another reason lies in the way we are designed. We are not designed to succeed when we are solely self-sufficient. Yes, Donald Trump would disagree, but then he and I would probably define success differently, wouldn’t we? We are designed to fail at self-reliance, because we are designed by one who knows that we can only reach our full potential and live our truest story when we rely upon him. Unfortunately for us and our egos, we tend to learn and grow more from failures and suffering than when times are great, sailing is smooth, and our ratings are up. Willa Cather wrote that some things are learned best in calm, and some in storm. I might amend it to say a few things are learned best in calm; everything else is learned best in storm. We are designed so that when we fail, we see the truth more clearly as well as the one who is all truth. It is in that recognition (in the storm, most likely) that we reach a new place in our lives and our stories. We become more us. And if it takes failure to get us there, is that really something to be afraid of? Our failures refine us; they make us more honest and real–but only if we let them. Only if we give ourselves permission to fail.

Another random thought: Tom Hanks made Turner and Hooch before he made Saving Private Ryan. We all have to start somewhere.

Originally written August 15, 2006

     First of all, a huge thank you to everyone who helped me celebrate my birthday, from phone calls to dinners to bundt cakes to emails, it was a great one and I love you all. Thus begins my twenty-ninth year…and I guess the most exciting thing about that is that I’m not thirty yet. 
Which reminds me…here’s what I thought my life would look like by now: married, settled in the Southeast somewhere, with kids and an awesome dog/house/car. Here’s what it looks like instead: single, living in New York City (arguably the most UN-Southern place in the country), no kids, paying ungodly amounts in rent every month for a nearly negligible amount of square footage, and my primary mode of transportation being these ghastly feet that are about to receive a much-needed pedicure (thanks, Mom). If there can be an opposite to what I thought my life would be at this point, I’m pretty much living it. And as I see it, there are two ways for a God-fearing person to respond to that:
1) resentment. (Ha ha, joke’s on me, God. Any other tricks you have up your sleeve for turning my plans upside down?)
2) reflection. (So what exactly IS your point here anyway, You being the all-powerful and all-knowing Creator and such?)
Thankfully for the purposes of this blog and my own (hopeful) growth as a person, I’ll go with option 2. 
I’m now living in that place that is somewhere between what I thought life was going to be and what it really is. And if “Jesus Loves Me” like the song says, then that has got to be more than a cosmic joke, right? 
A little current events-based exposition: yesterday began the agreed-upon cease fire between Hezbollah and Israel. For now, the media is reporting that said cease-fire is holding (despite some small skirmishes and the possible 10 Katyusha rockets fired last night…). So the world breathes a collective sigh of relief as peace reigns in Lebanon….right? Everyone got what they wanted…right? Kofi Annan can sleep at night with visions of world peace resting like laurels upon his head, decriers of violence everywhere can claim the victory of diplomacy over war, and we can all take a breather from the world’s longest and most enduring struggle. Peace reigns. But does it really?
How well are the citizens of Lebanon and Israel sleeping tonight? Do we really believe this is over–that a resolution will end in one day the hatred and violence that have characterized a section of the world thorughout history? Bombs have been quieted for now. But is this really what peace looks like?
Don’t get me wrong–just as much as anyone else, I would love for this to work. I would love for the violence to be over. I don’t want to see that death and destruction any more than you do. But the enactment of a UN resolution doesn’t mean that these issues are resolved. As long as there is hatred in men’s hearts and devotion to the extermination of a race of people, this will not be truly over. This pause in fighting is just that–a pause. The simple fact is, it’s not that simple. That is not what true peace looks like. It is not the absence of fighting coupled with the presence of a nicely worded agreement. It is not just the silencing of bombs that are still present and ready for firing. All of that is the appearance of peace–it’s not the real thing.
The things I wanted to have in my life by now–marriage, kids, home–they were all symbols of something deeper that my heart, and all our hearts, yearn for because we were made for it. Something that is conveyed by words like identity, security, relationship, and love. But my thinking that those symbols would achieve a lasting security and peace, would cement my identity and guarantee unconditional love–that thinking was misguided. It’s just not that simple. And as long as I live in wavering acceptance of a better plan, all the while keeping my own plan ready at the sidelines for enactment by my own forcing, I will never know true peace–only the appearance of it. 
My life doesn’t look like what I thought it would look like–thank God. If it did, I would have sold out real peace for a pretty picture of it. What I have now may not look or seem peaceful most of the time. I’m not exactly financially secure, for example. Savings account? Nonexistent. And I’m not entirely comfortable with that. But the point here is not my comfort–it’s His plan. And while a retirement plan would be great to have sitting there like a pillow for me to rest my head on at night, it’s not the plan that is going to buy me a good night’s sleep, and it’s not the plan that is going to make me who I’m meant to be. There’s only one plan that offers me that, and it’s a plan that is beyond my understanding and control, just like the peace it offers. It’s called peace that passes understanding for a reason. Maybe part of the reason is because it looks nothing like what I thought it would–but it’s more real every day than I could have imagined.

Originally written August 5, 2006

     I had a couple of opposing yet seemingly unrelated experiences yesterday that provided more food for thought than I realized until now. The first thing to note is that the heat finally broke! This blessing ended three days of the following activities: power continuously flickering on and off (the worst was an eight-hour stint on Thursday that allowed our apartment to become an infernal pit; however, it also provided the rationale for me to eat a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Karamel Sutra–why waste a perfectly good lunch?); walking down the street being slapped in the face by urine-soaked, humidity-filled, heat-ridden anti-breezes; and sweating to the point of nausea throughout the day (but especially on subway platforms–you haven’t lived until you’ve been stuffed into the 6 train directly underneath some man’s soaked armpit).

     So Friday was the day to celebrate 85-degree versus 100+ degree temperatures. A friend and I went on an afternoon sailing cruise on the Hudson to the Statue of Liberty and back. Most of the trip was peaceful and relaxing; the air was clear, the water was calm, and we could just enjoy the view. Unfortunately, the view included a man and woman who had apparently been drinking all day. Their glistening gold wedding bands and constant public displays of affection led me to believe they were newlyweds so I tried to cut them some slack at first. But it quickly became clear from their (loud) conversation that they weren’t married to each other. At one point I heard her promise to be there for him and she told him that that should mean something because she knew how much that word, promise, meant to him. I was disturbed and saddened by their spectacle for several reasons. As someone who is not yet married but hoping to be someday, I wondered why two married people would give up on their marriages and spouses in such a blatant and public way. I know marriage isn’t a magical and completely self-protective institution; after all, it involves imperfect human beings. But the picture in front of me of such a disavowal of commitment, coupled with the delusional, one-sided definition of promise left me feeling slightly sick–and it wasn’t from the pitch of the boat. Maybe even sadder than that was the other thought that struck me: down what roads and how far people will go to ease their loneliness and seek affirmation. That, to me, is a tragic part of the story that is caused by and creates brokenness. We’ve all made mistakes, done things we weren’t proud of that hurt ourselves and other people. I know that at some point in the process, there are two roads to choose from. One requires faith and facing difficult truths (our own inadequacy, our lack of control, our fear we won’t measure up); the other is the road of least resistance that allows us to bypass the tough questions and therefore the truth. I was saddened to be in the presence of two people on the second road and to be reminded of my own experiences on that road…but for the grace of God I didn’t have to stay there.

     The opposing experience occurred last night when I went with a group up to the Bronx to a neighborhood church that sponsors a monthly hip-hop service as an outreach to the community. The goal is evangelistic: meet as many people as possible where they are and show them a different way to live. The neighborhood was poor and suffers from the effects of violence and the threat of hopelessness. But the leaders within the community who have chosen to take the second road and forsake all that is familiar for something that is better were as inspiring as the previous experience had been disillusioning. Choosing to believe in someone who refers to Himself as Father when you don’t even know where your own father is; choosing hope when all you can see is despair; these are acts of faith that contain more bravery than I can imagine. People with resources and blessings like I have think we can create our own destiny because we have in our possession so many of the tools it seems that would take. But these empty-handed yet full-hearted people know the truth: faith means realizing your life is in Someone else’s hands, and that is something to celebrate, not fear. We choose the road we will take, but there is only one road that carries that truth.