Is it really Do or Do Not?

I am tired.  Not just need-a-nap tired or vacation-would-be-great tired.  Tired of all of this relationship stuff.  I promised you all that I would write a blog each week and you, my faithful readers, check in daily to see what’s happening.  I’ll keep writing, for sure, but today I’m also kind of tired of talking about this stuff. If only relating was as easy as breathing. This week I felt inundated with relational problems:

The Demise of Guys.  An article about whether pornography and video game usage makes the contemporary male adolescent increasingly incapable of healthy and regular human interactions.  Is there no hope for men and therefore no hope for the women who want to have men in their lives?

Why I Won’t Be Freezing My Eggs.  A blog post about banking embryos in case the years creep up and it’s the only option left.  It kind of just made me depressed to think about lots of lonely people.  And then I wondered, “Will I be one of those lonely people?”  How much we do use the gift of science and technology to pursue relationships?  And how much meddling do we do?  I love The Adjustment Bureau’s pondering of this complex dilemma .  Do we act or do we wait on God?  Or do we do both?  There’s free will and predestination.  There’s praying, waiting, and acting.  How do we navigate this?  Scripture offers stories that support all of the above (well maybe not sperm banks).  How do we see the stories collectively to navigate the desires of our hearts?  We need other honest people to help us see when it’s a good desire and when it’s an enslaving craving.

Fifty Shades of Grey.  My mom told me about this controversy.  An erotic novel that’s sweeping the nation with its popularity but causing debates over its dominance and sadomasochism content.  Some are wondering much freedom we have to consume whatever sexual content we want, especially in public libraries and schools.  Others are concerned about the bondage and inequality present.  What exactly should we be consuming?  How much does what we engage in shape who we are?  Biologically, how much neuro-chemistry changes based on these interactions?

Awful Tattoo = Amazingly Public Facebook Break-Up.  It was one week.  She inked his face on her forearm.  He was livid that she chose such a permanent expression of her love.  They hashed it out over social media.  What?  Maybe this would make life even better, if we were all just more transparent and used Facebook for our affairs.  A quick status update takes care of our tedious relationship dramas.  Though, what about the little stuff?  Should I comment passive aggressively or spend an hour analyzing someone else’s status?

People, this is exhausting.  There are so many decisions to make when it comes to dating, relating, and procreating.  To and fro, stop and go… but is this truly what makes the world go round?  Is there a way to make it more simple?  Is there a way to be less preoccupied by it?  I’d consider disconnecting from all of this media information and social technology if I wasn’t heavily relying on it to fulfill such a huge portion of my daily interactions and desire to connect.  (Thought to ponder later: Could I just meet up with them in person?  Or does coordinating that also require some form of technology-induced communication?)

God, why did you make all of this stuff such an integral part of our lives?  Even your incarnation put the focus on relationships.

Maybe, above all else: listen.  Turn our ear to heaven and seek his guidance.

“There may yet be hope.” ~Lamentations 3:29b

Risk the Divine

42 days.  That’s how long I have until my 31st birthday.  Is this where things go down hill?  It seems like there are lots of birthday parties for everyone until their big 30th bash (and they do their 30 things before 30 list).  31 and beyond is where only Buzz Lightyear dares to go.  Well, suit up strange-sad-little-man, you’ll have company soon!

Last year I blogged on my birthday and talked about what I wanted for my new decade.  Ironically, none of them have happened yet.  I haven’t gone horseback riding, to Ireland, adopted, or bought a bread machine.   These things will come eventually.

One thing I am struck by what I wrote last year is: “I resolve to fall in love again.  I pray that it will be reciprocated, but I am willing to risk loving another person regardless of the response.  I want to be a person who loves and who is willing to offer my heart with no strings attached.  My God is big enough to patch up a broken heart.”

Our Hallmark, Rom-Com, and casual sex culture stares as this phrase “risk loving another” like it’s TuPac come back from the grave.  Taking a risk these days is going sky diving or drinking unfiltered water in a foreign country.  We do not risk love.  We hold others at arms length because even marriage is no guarantee.  We fall in love accidentally — the heart wants what it wants.  And then we walk away if we’ve lost that loving feeling, if it’s harder than climbing Machu Pichu, or if something better comes along.  We fool ourselves into thinking we’re taking a risk, but we’re really just being reckless or sentimental.  We’re not sitting in pain or confusion or doing the right thing because it’s right and not because it feels good.

Even when I say that I want to risk loving another, what I mean is that I want to date someone and try to love them.  It’s not even that deep.  I know not what I say.  It’s a whimsical and brave-looking cowardly thing to say when someone gets fired up from an Adele song or those magical Morgan Freeman commercials when he tell us to “Join the global cheer!”  These inspirationa montages might sell things, but they won’t carry a movement of people to change.  That requires real guts and real risk.

Risk equals reward.  The more we’re willing to risk, the more and better we’ll receive.

So say you’re ready.  Say I had you at I’m-getting-older and now you want to know how to take a risk.  What does that look like? you ask.  Good question.  My honest answer: no idea.  Pieces of an answer: being vulnerable, praying, reconciling, fighting.

Being vulnerable means telling stories, sharing feelings, exposing more of ourselves than we are comfortable with.  When the blood starts to flare and the heart beats in fear, we push through it and offer ourselves anyway.  It means taking a deep breath and throwing caution to the wind.  It means the possibility of being rejected.  It also means the possibility of being accepted.

I know those moments during conversation when that door opens and I can be vulnerable.  It comes and I calculate the risk.  I take the risk.  Sometimes I regret it and grieve.  Mostly, I feel proud of myself.  I’d rather offer myself than hide away alone.

We have the potential to change the world and it begins with humbling ourselves and offering the most sensitive and fragile parts of ourselves.  We lay them out for others.  They are bleeding hearts just asking for abuse.  To not only be ignored, but also to be pierced, punctured, and spit on.  It is audacious to be vulnerable.  It risks our very cores.

Then how do we recover from these pains?  What happens when we’re bleeding and beaten?  Left for dead and rubbed raw?

In John 9 Jesus comes across a blind man.  He spits on the ground and gently rubs the mud onto the man’s eyes.  Jesus’ own saliva is a balm of healing.

When those low moments come, I drop to my knees.  Sobbing in my nakedness and gasping in pain.  Desperately I seek the salve of Jesus; to have that spot deep in my soul be soothed and comforted by the shepherd.

When the possibility of new love arises, I think about those dark days.  The agony of when a risk repays with loss and disappointment.  It brings me pause.  Do I want to unclasp my fists and offer my hand to another?  That might bring laughter — “You fool!  Do you really think someone could love you?”  Or acceptance that turns to rejection — “It’s over.  I’ve found someone else.”  Or a twisted love that is really just fish hooks to the flesh — “If you really loved me then…”

Risking love might still lead to be being lonely and alone.  Even when it seems like safer love, with a friend or family member.  They may reject me or harm me.  Actually, they will.  It’s a guarantee that each relationship I venture into will grieve me in some way.

What I’m learning by risking is that reconciliation takes work.  It does not mean that I have to swallow my anger or ignore my pain.  Those things can be set on the table and explitictly explained to the other.  But that is not the end of the story.

Risking love fights.  It puts the good of the other person at the end of the story.  Saying, “This is wrong.  I will not stand for it!  But this will not undo us.  I will grieve and you will grieve.  And we will repair and heal.  We will still be a we.”

Often, this part is harder than just leaving.  We have the chance to walk away and take our broken heart with us.  To offer it to God and then try again with someone else, vowing to never let it spin that far down again.  Because if we stay, it might get worse before it gets better.  Staying means swallowing pride, taking responsibility for our actions, and changing.  It also brings strength, trust, and healing.  Weaving relationships through trial, affliction, and repentance produces a kevlar-strong bond.

A few weeks ago a dear friend shared an idea with me: possibility.  We read the story of David and Mephibosheth and she read Eugene Peterson’s thoughts:

“The gospel miracle is that human beings like us from time to time evade the temptations of power and the brittleness of success and actually manage to vulnerably love another person who has all the potential of turning on us and rejecting us.  Everytime such love is ventured, another piece of gospel is proclaimed, and the Kingdom of God is made credible.”

Vulnerability and risk is not only a selfish act that makes us feel less alone, brings about grand 31st birthday parties, or the possibility of once-in-a-lifetime love.  It is also the very heart of the gospel.  It is the Kingdom of God on earth.  It’s taking up our crosses and quick-stepping through the rough terrain as we try to keep up with Jesus as he blazes the trail.

If I risk sharing my heart with you, if I offer my hand in forgiveness to you, if I pray goodness for you then I step into the holiness of heaven.  I experience divinity and give the world a glimpse of God.  I tear down the curtain, roll back the scroll. and bring down the glory of the Lord.

With God, risk always brings reward.  He offers us good gifts from heaven (Matt 7:11), intends goodness when others intend harm (Gen 50:20), and works all things for our good (Rom 8:28).  God is a risk-tasker himself when he continues to pursue us.

Be sure, the way is via the cross and crucifixion.  It is a risk that requires much of us and will be hard at every step.  But it is glorious.  It is worth it.

If none of the above has convinced you, then be inspired by the words of little Sam from Love Actually: Let’s go get the shit kicked out of us by love!

Home

It’s kind of like a burning sensation.  The blood underneath my skin on fire.  A cheese grater racking against the tender nerves of my spine.

When he wasn’t around.  I never really knew if he’d be coming back.  These days, there are no guarantees.  Committment is a rather fluid word.  Like the Pirate Code of Parlay that Kierra Knightley and that one-eyed pirate spit out at convenient times when it suits them, it’s more like a guideline.

He is many.  He got replaced a lot.  I’d be with one man, it’d end and then there’d be a new one.  He could be any he, but there was always a he.

Sometimes we were attached.  Boyfriend and girlfriend in dysfunctional bliss.  Other times I’d be pining away, letting my affections trickle down a storm drain when the feelings weren’t reciprocated.

This is my confession.  This is my greatest battle.  This is the topic of countless therapy hours and book readings.  When God told Eve “Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you,” (Gen 3:16) that curse feels very real in my life.

I feel ruled over.  Or perhaps a better way to put it is, I continually submit, attach, and cower.  He could be totally unaware that he rules over me.  I just assume the posture of subjection.  He isn’t even a husband. He is any he.

All sense of logic flees from my brain.  Sometimes emotions head out with it.  Any neurological cells that are functioning are in the navigator’s seat while fear is driving the tank.  It is as if my primal fear is to be alone.   Food, shelter, safety, and attachment.  So I hunt.

Katniss and I have much in common.  Driven by hunger and survival, our bows in hand and our ear turned outward.  Pouncing and clawing and grasping.

But once I have the meat, it’s never enough.  There is no filling me.  My stomach is a bottomless pit.  And this often drives he away.  So it’s a sad cycle of hunting, having, and leaving.

This is kind of a Debbie-downer when it comes to my relationship with God, too.  If one man provides all that I need, why do I need anything else?  Except the reality is that one man just consumes my every thought and deed so that there is no room for anything else in my life.  See the predicament?  My mode of relating sucks.  It sucks like a vampire because it almost literally sucks the life out of me.

Somewhere along my growing up way, I tried to suction my rooting system to another human being.  As if my life has become one big long game of Goldy Locks.  Except no porridge, chair, or bed is just right.  It is a wandering and homelessness.  Continuining the insanity by thinking that I can just try it again with a new hapless schmuck (no offense, men).

God.  But, God.  But there is a God.  And I need him to allure me to the desert; to speak tenderly to me.  I prostitute myself to any random he.  I “chase after [my] lovers but never catch them” (Hosea 2:7).  I could marry, but he would still never be enough.  He will never satisfy me.  Because I’m not just lonely or seeking out that cleaving of flesh and bone.  No.  This is about me and my Creator, even though  I’ve made it about me and the created.

One day I hope to love a man with all my heart.  But really, only part of my heart.  Because I want all of it to reside in God’s hands.  And to receive the gift of partnering with another as we care, nurture, and sacrifice for one another in worship of God.

I keep trying to find my way back home; as if it exists somewhere on this earth.  If I knock on enough doors or lie in enough beds then home will be in one of those.  Life as one big treasure map where X has got to be somewhere.

But if home resides anywhere, it is with God.  Now, if I could only find his address…

Or, if only I had lived 2,000 years ago.  If I had been there to see him and be touched by him.  If only…

But even Jesus said that he had no place to lay his head (Matt 8:20).  When the Pharisees asked him when the Kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is within you,” (Luke 17:20-21 NRS).

Somehow, home already exists.  And it’s in me.

A place of love and acceptance.  Of patience and familiarity.  Where good memories exist and pain is healed.

One of the things that I love about DC, especially in contrast to LA, is its moisture.  Most people hate humidity and the stickiness it pastes on everything.  I love it.  It reminds me of running through the field in my grandparents’ backyard.  Of getting stuck on their slide as my sweaty little legs and rubbery tennis shoes inched down hot metal.  Of swinging endlessly on their backporch while Grandma rocked us and Grandpa fired up the grill to get his fish fry on.  Of the painted grey cement steps that I ran up hastily and ended up splitting open my chin and getting stitches when I was five.

Sometimes I picture them on a big fishing boat with Jesus, catching as many bass and bluegill as they can (That’s me to the right, with my Grandpa’s hand.  They taught me how to fish.).  Other times I try to hold on to those memories tightly as if they are the only anchor that keeps me sane.  With them, I felt at home.

This world is passing away (1 Cor 7:31).  We cannot hold on to anything.  That scares the hell out of me.  Yet at the same time, there stands an invitation.

The resurrected Jesus offers his hand to me.  Not just once a while ago.  Not just each morning when the mercies are renewed.  It is every heartbeat.  Every breath where his nephesh keeps me alive.

 

 

 

Stockpiles of Sacredness

Got a text from my mom yesterday: “What kind of tampons do you use?  Sport or regular?”

Me: “I have approximately 252 tampons right now, thanks to the 4 boxes you recently sent me.  I won’t need any more until 2020.”

Mom: “But they’re on sale.  And they don’t go bad.  Do you need regular or super?”

There’s no reasoning with this woman.  No matter how much or little matter my uterus can expunge each month, she has a coupon.  And in all fairness, there’s a good chance that I’ll need some tampons in a little while.  And about a month after that.  Then maybe 28 days later.  I’m seeing a pattern in this.

But in all seriousness, one of the reasons I got to writing this post is because I came across an organization called ZanaAfrica today.  They have a thing called the Pad Project.  Many girls in Kenya end up missing days of school or dropping out entirely due to lack of funds for sanitary pads.  “ZanaA has found a long-term and holistic solution to this problem, which is to establish a sustainable business creating locally-produced, environmentally-safe sanitary pads in Kenya while advocating for greater policy support of girls.”  They are educating women by selling them feminine products.  Who would have thought?!

For some fun, go to their website to take a quiz where you can answer 25 interesting questions related to the history of menstruation.

For example, Question 18: The first sanitary napkins didn’t sell well in the USA until?

**Spoiler Alert** Answer: “Women were allowed to self-serve at drugstores by placing money in a box and taking a package from a concealed area.”

Apparently we’ve always been a little shy about buying those things.

When I think about the girls in Africa, I wonder if people know why she’s missing school, which opens her up to ridicule from her classmates?  When I buy them I try to find a female cashier.  If I can’t find one, then I try to act smug and non-challant with a male, as if I don’t care.  Except I kind of do.

And what happens if you run into a male that you know?  Maybe an acquiantance or a crush?  A neighbor or friend’s husband?  For some reason, we still get very embarrassed by buying the pink or black packages.  No amount of cutsy-ness makes feminine products less culturally awkward.

Beyond the packaging, the situation itself is just plain annoying.  It affects our sex lives.  It affects our relationships (PMS and other hormonal fluctuations definitely offer some added bonuses to all relational dynamics). It influences the economy (how much is spent on feminine hygiene products, bathrooms, and advertisements?).

Yet, it’s just a fact of life.  So, why do I bring all this up, you ask?  It’s not because I want to bring these bodily function issues out in to the open more, since I already did that with Everybody Poops, Even Jesus (though most of you never read it since apparently sex sells but, poop doesn’t…)

My question is: how sacred is this monthly annoyance?

(Aside: I once knew a guy who was appalled that I called my period the bane of all women.  Because, he reasoned, this was how I contributed to bringing life into the world.  How beautiful!  Sorry, dude, but you get ejaculation and a few wet dreams.  Um, no.  Apples, oranges, and a whole lot of wishful thinking on your part.)

How is a period sacred?

Sacred?, you ask (wow, you are just full of questions today!)  Yes, sacred.  For two reasons: blood and life.

Scripture talks a lot about blood.  First there’s the lifeblood.  In Genesis 9 God tells Noah that he cannot eat blood.  “And I will require the lifeblood of anyone who takes another person’s life. If a wild animal kills a person, it must die. And anyone who murders a fellow human must die,” (Gen 9:5 NLT).  (Incidentally, the Hebrew word for blood is dam.  Though, this might be related the the word ha’adam, meaning man.)

Then there are all those places in Leviticus that outline the rituals a woman must take when she is having her monthly flow of blood.  (See Lev 12 for giving birth; Lev 15 for menstruation, and Lev 18 & 20 for having sex during her period.)  She is considered unclean and cannot come into the temple.  How do you like that?  Kicked out of the community because of that silly red stuff that flows between my legs rather uncoothly and without consent.

For this, I like to remember the stories about Uzzah, and Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu.

Uzzah was helping the Ark of the Covenant travel from Baale-judah to Jerusalem.  When the cart came to the threshing floor the oxen got a little too excited, throwing the unsteady cart into upheaval.  Possibly like that gut reaction a mom has when she’s driving and has to slam on her breaks so she flings her arm out in front of her passenger, instinctively Uzzah thrust his hand up to the cart.  What looks like lovingkindness to me, appears to be less so to God: “The anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah; and God struck him there because he reached out his hand to the ark; and he died there beside the ark of God,” (2 Sam 6:7).

Aaron’s sons are not nearly as righteous as Uzzah.  They were playing around in the temple and put unholy fire into their censer’s, which God had not commanded them to do.  “And fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD,” (Lev 10:1-2).

Blood is sacred.  It has a special relationship with God.  During the ordination ceremonies and purification rituals in Leviticus, the blood of the sacrified animal was dabbed on the right ear lobe, right thumb, or right large toe of the human.  Bodies were painted with blood as a way to sanctify them.  The hemoglobin and plasma are just the first astonishing attributes.

And it’s not just any blood that is considered unclean and denied entrance to the temple.  There’s no mention of nose bleeds or paper cuts.  It’s the blood that could have become a human.  In a sense, this is almost the truest lifeblood.  The same rules apply for semen.  This applies to either a “discharge from his member” or an emission of semen (Lev 15).  They, along with a woman’s regular flow of blood, make a person unclean.  Unclean =  a no go into the temple.

My point is that God is holier and grander than we can fathom (hence Isaiah’s apprehension when he is in God’s temple, coming into the presence of God himself in Isaiah 6).  His holiness reigns with laws that are holier and grander than we can fathom.  It’s not that God’s anger burned at what they did, but that there are some things that are so sacred, they cannot be in the presence of God (hence why uncleanness can’t come in the temple, it was the Ark that caused Uzzah’s death, and Tweedle-Dee & Tweele-Dum got struck down taking holy things lightly).

So back to me.  I don’t understand why blood leaves me like clockwork each month.  And the last thing I’m thinking — believe you me! — is how sacred this situation is.  Though, it is.  We only have this death because of its possibility of life.  What’s even more strange is that the blood does not guarantee life.  Not all women will be mothers.  And some women do not even bleed.  But no life can begin unless blood exists.  Our uterus is a little mini Lion-King-circle-of-life

I’m not sure there is a better time to be a woman that right now.  Companies mass produce pads and tampons (and fight over us female consumers via advertising to convince us that their product will actually bring transcendance during menstruation).  Indoor plumbing and sewer systems are reaching farther and farther places of the earth.  Our understanding and manipulatory faculties of materials enables us to make them out of the most softest and gentlest substances.

So it saddens me to find that girls are stuck sitting at home instead of in the classroom in places of Africa and likely elsewhere.  Have we failed our sisters?  Are we falling short by not caring for their lifeblood with such passion as we do with their arithmetic or grammar?

Or is it a fallacy to think that my life is really better because I can secretly slip a tampon into my purse, sneak off to the bathroom, and come back with no mess and no pain while my classmates or co-workers are none the wiser?

Somehow, our periods are always on our minds.  Butting in on vacations, sneaking chocolate at midnight, and compromising the integrity of our favorite panties.  But the next time you’re face to face with it, consider God’s invitation to draw you closer to him and something greater than yourself.

Dream Lover

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore–
And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over– like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Langston Hughes’ words from 1951 will likely echo for eternity.  I had this poem up in my freshman dorm room.  I would see it every night when I’d settle into my top bunk, when I’d likely spend some time daydreaming about my latest crush.   (Oh crushes, why are you mostly out of reach?)

Of the infinite depth, questioning, and declarations that Langston makes in this poem, the one thing on my mind right now is: How do you know when a dream is deferred?

There is no call from the airline to say the dream is delayed.  No police knock on the door to say there’s been an accident.  A teacher doesn’t tell you to wait your turn while other’s dreams are fulfilled.  A sales clerk doesn’t inform you that it’s temporarily out of stock.

How do you know when a dream isn’t just deferred, but it’s just never gonna happen?!

There’s a woman whose heartache I don’t envy, but whose outcome I might.  She was in a good marriage.  But there’s another wife of her husband (it was one of those “Once Upon A Time” days when polygomy was rampant).  Second lady ridicules her for not having any kids of her own since wifey #2 is popping babies out left and right.  This was likely a time when a woman’s worth was based on the number of limbs she could reproduce, so this barren lady is left to feel worthless.

Her husband loves her, this much is true.  But then he makes this janky comment about how his love should be better than the love of ten kids put together.  Homeboy, there can only be so much dysfunction in this story.  Having her life revolve around you, double-wifed as you are, is not helping.

So, she takes her compaints to God.  In fact, she becomes so loud and verbal that a priest overhears and marches over to give her what-for since she’s clearly been tipping the bottle in the Lord’s presence.  Nope, she’s just praying.  And in this prayer she promises to give her firstborn son to God if she could just have a wee little babe (this sounds remarkably like Rumplestiltskin…).

A little while later there’s some bow-chicka-wow-wow and God “remembers” bitter-weeping-barren woman.  I’m not really sure how this remembering works since God is omni-potent and omni-present.  I think it’s more of a word that we humans use because we can’t fully understand God’s ways.  But it does make sense that God would remember her pleas for a child at this particular moment –when she was hooking up rather than when she was kneading matzah dough.

So the lady gets the baby and then dedicates him to the temple for the Lord’s service.  No qualms about giving up the very thing that she was desperate to possess.  She’s super happy and even sings a beautiful song.  Then her womb is blessed with five more rug rats.

Moral of the story: every woman can use this story as affirmation that “If you pray for it, it will come.”

Except no.  Plenty of weepy prayers are drunkenly pleaded before God and there are no new kids, no fancy cars, and no super bowl titles.  Our prayers go unanswered.  We are constantly disappointed and devestated.  Prayer is not a simple formula where if we ask for it, we’ll receive it.

I was reading a fantastic blog this week and the author remarked on how it seemed to him that being healed of his cancer probably didn’t have anything to do with deserving to be healed.  Because, he declared, if it did then a little kid would be alive but he wouldn’t be.  Life is unfair and bad things happen to good people.  And, almost more frustratingly, good things happen to ridiculously annoying, bad, greedy, or however less deserving people.

No matter how much we pray and plead, sometimes it’s going to be futile.

How do we know when to give up?  How do we know when a dream has gone from deferred to a permanent state of never?

How do I know if I’ve ruined things?  Or if it was never in the cards for me?  Or if these things just happen?  How long before it’s just a matter of time before I realize there is no hope.  That I’ve been deluding myself into thinking it’s just deferred, when it’s really dead as a door nail?

I guess, at some point, the writing is on the wall.  He married someone else.  All the eggs in the uterus are dried up.  The heart stopped.  The last field goal went between the posts.

You see, we all have these big and gradious hopes and dreams.  Our Creator gave us tenaciousness.  It’s a beauty of our race, we keep hoping.  It just doesn’t end.  We’re those “against all odds” people.  Until the fat lady sings, we keep on trucking because it ain’t over til it’s over.

Then what is prayer?  How does it work?  Is thinking that it “works” the first mistake?  Even with my Master of Divinity degree and a dozen years of following the Lord, I still don’t understand prayer.

And Hannah’s story from above (1 Samual 1-2) offers limited guidance.  Especially because I, like Garth Brooks, thank God for unanswered prayers sometimes.  That job I didn’t get.  That guy who broke up with me.  That place I didn’t get to travel to.  His movements in our lives and the limits of our broken world are all confusing.  I don’t know how much He does, I do, and humanity has handed down to me in a series of generational vignettes.  Sometimes he offers miracles.  Sometimes I feel completely abandoned and unheard.

Maybe we should just keep praying until we have the answer.  Until she’s married someone else, the eggs are shriveled, the heart stops.  Or until he proposes, there’s two blue lines, and the pulse returns.  There are even times when God actually speaks to us (Which, btw God, are so much more convenient!)

What happens to a dream deferred?  Maybe it dries up like a raisin. Or festers like a sore.  Or runs.  Or stinks.  Or crusts like a sweet.  Or sags like a load.  Or just explodes.

Or maybe it flourishes.  It grows and gains.  It stays and perfumes.  It outruns, outlasts, and out performs.  It stays lit for eight nights.  It opens the river and we walk through it.  It incarnates and moves into our neighborhood.  It redeems, reconciles, and resurrects.

Maybe a dream deferred really is just postponed, not dead.  And somehow, the dream arrives.

Chemical Reaction

It was the perfect night.  Well, except for that small incident of my wallet being stolen.  A New Orleans evening in December.  The faintest spekcs of rain were gently falling and Bourbon street was crammed with sweaty bodies and sketchy circumstances.

He and I were about to lose each other in the crowd so he reached back his hand to me.  Our flesh touched and the world began to spin away.  We stood facing each other on the street corner and were suddenly alone.  The humidity was thick but our chemistry was thicker.

We ducked into a club and found ourselves spinning around a dance floor.  Our bodies inched closer and closer.  We held eye contact and supressed smiles.  Leaning in to each other it became clear: this was the perfect chance to kiss.

Except there was another small incident: I was technically dating someone else.  Seriously.  For over a year.

Don’t be under any delusions, friends.  I am far from perfect.  My story contains a lot of mishaps and I’m still piecing things together in all areas of my life.

This night in question was truly the only time in my life where I felt like it was the perfect moment for a kiss.  I would look back on it fondly except that it began a very long period of heartache.  I broke up with the guy I was already seeing and still have dreams about seeking his forgiveness for the pain I caused.  Then there’s the guy on the street with me.  We ended up dating but after four months of bliss he utterly destroyed my heart.  I remember wandering around aimlessly at a Hobby Lobby the afternoon he broke up with me.  Passing the ceramic pots and scrapbooking materials as I gazed into nothingness.  And every day after that for a long time was filled with a similar emptiness.

God is good.  He used this time to help me reorient myself.  No one’s world should revolve around another human being.  But even so, there was more heartache that came after this.  Years and years worth.

As I have reflected on this one night I wonder about what was happening — the chemistry between us.  I remember our very first touch.  It sent the greatest amount of electricity pulsating through my body.  At the time that is how I rationalized holding his hand while also holding down a boyfriend at home: this was how it was supposed to be.  I appreciated how my boyfriend cared for me.  I was on fire when new guy looked at me.  This was how love was supposed to feel.

But it truly wasn’t.  No part of our relationship or my actions had anything to do with love.  It was a successsion of thrill seeking late-night conversations and getting high on being wanted.  The chemicals that were present were forcing a crazy train up a dangerous mountain.  It was a Little Engine That Could to destruction.  And don’t get me wrong, I’m not being dramatic or using literary elements for fun.  Life-altering events happened and chemistry was the TNT detonating all the bombs.  We went way too far, slinging gun powder around like opened pixie sticks.  And when the fire caught, I burned down.  My heart became charred and limp.

But enough about me.  Let’s talk about chemistry.  I’m sure you have it.  There seem to be three cases where it exists:

1.) Chemistry without Substance: Feeling that sexual attraction but no desire to date someone.  This is a real drag.  It gets in the way of relationships because when you want to see someone as Jesus, there’s a little something that keeps popping up.

2.) Chemistry as Excuse: Having such a strong attraction that one abandons all reason due to the natural drive.  Danger!!!  Never abandon sound reason for any reason.  Not if Harry Shum, Jr. invites you to his sister’s Quinceañera or if you’ve found that you’ve never told anyone that before.  It’s called chemistry like that annoying class in high school for a reason.  These aren’t warm, fuzzy feelings they are sultry and seductive.  Proceed with caution.

3.) Substance without Chemistry: Feeling affection for someone on only a platonic level.  No matter how hard one tries, there’s no spark or flutter.  Equally sucky.  What a great person that will make a great spouse to anyone else on the planet but me.  It’s just not happening.

So the questions are: Where does chemistry come from?  What are we to do with it?

I’d like to posit that chemistry is from God.  This the triune God with a mysterious Holy Spirit.  There are things that are unseen that influence us.  Chemistry seems to be an odd element without predictability.  We never know who will spark it or how long it will last.  It can overpower us if we let it.  And we can try to seek relationships without it, but in the end I think we’ll end up being disappointed and resentful if it’s not present.

Sex appeal comes in a multitude of ways.  Maybe it happens over differential equations or mucking horse manure.  That night with that heart-breaking guy in New Orleans it happened over a game of Scrabble.

It’s swifter than emotions, elusive like the morning mist receding.  It doesn’t make any sense; which gives it some fun.  It shouldn’t be ignored.  Yet, we can’t make it a bonfire either.  They’re hard to sustain with lots of wood and gasoline.

Here is my advice: we take in information from all of our senses.  Consider the level of chemistry and compare it to other levels.  Then administor a heavy dose of self-control into your veins so that it infuses every cell in your body.  Pray.  Fervently.  If you can’t seem to honestly pray because you’re so distracted by the thought or touch of another, take that as a warning.  Probably not a good thing to chase after.

There is no part of chemistry that is solid.  It’s whispy and unreliable.  No one can build a relationship on it.  Yet, without it, I’m not convinced a relationship can go anywhere.

A friend of mine said that he views chemistry as a way to get the ball rolling.  That physical attraction pulls us together so that we will view each other as a potential companion.  And it’s odd that even these things ebb and flow.  Someone I overlooked becomes utterly attractive as I get to know him more.  Or a looker has not one interesting quality and the chemistry flees like air in a whoopie cushion.

As Scott Croft writes, “God has graciously given us physical attraction, chemistry, and pleasure to make marriage and its unique intimacy that much sweeter to us. That’s good and right.  Enjoy those things, but don’t be a slave to them. Desire them, but have a realistic idea of what those words mean in a fallen world, and the limited role they should play in one of the most important decisions of your Christian life.”

I’d like to hope that chemistry continues long into our gray years.  Two hands gripping walkers bump on the way to a bridge game.  A coy look shared over soft breakfast food.

I hope that it can be a beautiful feature of my life and redeem all of those tears that I cried in the past.

Sex: Not a Big Deal

What if sex wasn’t important to our lives?  Maybe one thing among many, but not the topic of many conversations or something that got the blood pumping like nothing else?

I went on a cruise this past week.  We did this same cruise in September and it was just as enjoyable.  (See what happened then here.) (Also, just want to put it out there: Why hasn’t someone married into my family via me?  We go on awesome vacations.  Disney in December!)

What book did I take with me?  While everyone else was busy gnawing on their beach blankets while reading The Hunger Games triology, I was reading Sex in the iWorld by Dale Kuehne (Baker Academic, 2009).  (Ok, and then The Hunger Games.  Just finished book 2.  You’re lucky I have to wait for my order of book 3 from Amazon or this blog might not have come out this soon.)

This book said one particular thing that has stuck with me for the last several days: ”Sex is not an essential aspect of the deepest and most fulfilling relational life that is found in a spiritual connection with God and others… Yet even as we desire sex, what we crave even more deeply is love and intimacy, and the deepest love and intimacy is available to us without sex… If we have a relationship filled with love and intimacy, sex will not make it more relationally fulfilling,” (Kuehne, 169-170).

So, sex isn’t really all that important?  Ugh!!!  Then why am I wasting to much energy on it?!!  Buying that lingerie (ok, nightgown)?.  Going dancing?  Getting massages?  Writing about it on and on and on…?

A friend of mine wrote about this when she commented on my post Lingering in That Aisle: “Additionally, the church probably doesn’t talk about sex that much because for most married people (who are the ones they are encouraging to have sex), it just really isn’t a big deal.  It’s a nice bonus to marriage, but so far away from the core of it that it doesn’t make a lot of sermons.  At least that is what my husband and myself have felt and have had echoed by married friends.”

Not a big deal?  Again, I have been wasting tons of time.  Maybe this will be my last post on sex.  (Yea, who are we kidding.  That won’t happen.)  But just think about the gravity of this.  So many resources go into this.  There’s the wardrobes, the workouts, the flirting, the dates, the weddings, the bouquets, the condoms, the babysitters, and all that time (some more than others…).

What my friend said that I saw once again in Kuehne’s book is that what we — I — should be pursuing is intimacy with every person.  Intimacy is much more than nakedness and sexual intercourse.  It’s an opening of the soul;, an offering of the heart.  It requires a great deal of listening, self-sacrifice, and intentionality.  Not to mention bravery.  It’s hard to be honest.  And it’s hard to care deeply about other human beings.

I have wasted precious time in the pursuit of sex.  There are so many relationships that enrich my life, yet I have chosen other thoughts or actions over them.  Now, my eyes are open to a whole new possibility of connecting.  And even more so, the desire to connect.  To see potential in every person.  Yes, it’s kind of selfish.  Instead of putting all of my eggs in one great big basket of men, I’m spreading them out amongst friends and family.  If I have high needs of emotional intimacy and connection, I can create a large web of people to meet those needs.

Imagine, what will life be like if I ignore that hunk in the corner and really focus on the person sitting across from me at the cafe table?  The window will continue to close on my reproductive years, but I’ll be living a life that offers something akin to what Jesus offered.  I’ll be more like him when he met the woman at the well and said he could offer living water.  I won’t be hunting for something, I’ll be offering something.  It feels like going from a barren wasteland to that green pasture by quiet water that the psalmist writes about in 23.

Widen the circle of possibility.  See everyone as someone important.  Because sex isn’t.  That is what I’m beginning to do.

Day 50: Savoring Sensation

#10–Celebrate yourself and your senses. Learn how to create space to pamper yourself. Eat some really good food. Buy a new piece of clothing that you feel great in. Teach yourself a new skill. Take a bubble bath, light some candles while you’re at it. Do an art project.*

I had big dreams for this challenge.  The whole day would be dictated by physical pleasure.  Whatever my tongue desired would touch it.  Pancakes, ice cream, cheese, bread — yum!  My skin would get massaged and caressed.  I’d revel in my comfortable bed and linger in the shower (I detest baths.)  Maybe I’d try that art thing.  Or run.  Or write.  Or have a delicious hot chocolate at that Tynan place I continue to write about (why am I so obsessed with that little shop?!)

Nope.  This thing got done in small bits.  Today I took a longer shower and really enjoyed the steam.  I had some barbecue beef brisket, corn bread, sweet tea, and corn on the cob.  Savored these.

But I also rode my bike uneventfully.  The trash cans got brought in.  I checked my email.  Several people got hugs from me today.  Did not savor these.

How bad is this?  If I just went about doing things in life but not experiencing them, what is the worst that would happen?  I’d miss out on some stuff?

Well, my brain is just pre-occupied.  I’m too hungry to taste the food, too focused on what to tell you to enjoy our hug, and too fatigued to feel the breeze brush my cheek as I bike home.

If I truly lived this experience I would be learning to live in the now.  Maybe even developing patience.  Perhaps self-control, but let’s not get carried away.

Fine, I’ve convinced me.  I’ll celebrate my senses more.  And I can start right now.  My back is aching.  I can ease its pain by ending this incessant blogging and going to sleep!

And I’ll go on that cruise.  Today.  Bon voyage!  (For reals, I’m on a ship right now and this blog post was written a few days ago.  I’m sneaky

Happy Easter everyone!

*Day 50 of the 50 Day Challenge of Embracing My Sexuality in Healthy Ways by Kristin Martin and Kimberly Williams.

The End!

Day 49: Pillows & Hearts

#38–Learn what it means to offer your heart to someone. Giving your heart up is a very risky thing to do. Along with the risk are many benefits. Begin now to learn what it means to truly love others and practice in small ways what’s involved in offering your heart. Maybe it’s a calling you feel God is leading your towards or something else you are really invested in.*

6 years.  Or 30 years and nine months.  So far, both of those measure how long it’s been since someone has accepted my heart when I’ve offered it.

Six years ago I broke up with my last boyfriend.  Technically he was the one that ended things, but let’s not quibble over details.

Six years is a rather long time.  If I’d had a child then, she or he would be in first grade.  A car would have a much lower resale value.  And someone might be close to finishing their PhD or medical degree.

Some days it feels like I’m still 24 and it’s just one really long year.  But I know how much has changed.  And I’m glad for it all.

Counting by 30 years is more about the emotional state of my singleness and heart-offerings.  Bob, the person I pay to listen to my problems (aka, therapist) and I spend most of our time talking about relationships and my involvement in them.  Both of us would agree (no need to comment, Bob, I got this) that my mode of operandi for those three long decades has been rather lackluster.

In a blog post that I like to refer to as: Pillows, Boundaries, Codependency, and Control, Donald Miller writes:

“The therapist went on to explain how relationships should work. She put three large couch pillows on the floor and stood on one of the outside cushions. She then had me stand on the other outside cushion so there was an empty cushion between us.

“‘This is my pillow’ she said, ‘and that is yours. This is my life and that is yours. The pillow in the middle represents our relationship. So, my responsibility is all about the pillow I’m standing on and yours is about yours. Together, we are responsible for the relationship. But at no point should I be stepping on your pillow.’”

I’m not sure if I’ve had pillows in my life.  I kind of think I’m standing around with a bunch of goose feathers fluttering about my head and encircling me.  Someone forgot to sew mine together.

Therefore, the thought of giving my heart to someone — loving them — really scares me.  Will I know how to do it?  Will I be good at it?  What kind of person am I when I am in love?  How do I know it’s love?  What sacrifices will I have to make?

I somewhat take issue with this challenge because I feel like I could make some good cases for times when I did offer my heart to someone.  But they didn’t want it.  It just got left out like a final sliver of cheesecake on the kitchen counter, slowly going moldy.

But I also want to champion the cause of risking to make the offer.  It’s something I decided to do way back when my clock struck the big 3-0.  While love itself is kind of a big deal, the act of risking an offer also does some good for the soul.  If we only loved because we knew our affection would be returned, we’d be pathetic pansies, too afraid to really love.

I’m not sure how to envision love.  Is that possible?  If I don’t know who I will love, how can I know what it will look like?  I know some of my dreams, but I hope that they will intertwine and make way for his dreams too.  What will we talk about?  What will become our secrets and our pet names?  What will be the central aspects of our fights?  How will I feel on day one?  On day 463?  On day 18,249?

There are crushes and loyalties and codependencies, but at the end of the day, where is my heart?  I think it’s in a fairly fortified part of me.  I’ve got to get to it and then offer it to someone.  Not in order to fulfill this challenge.  No, this is not the Goblet of Fire or anything.  But because God offers us his.  And he tells us that we should love one another how he loves us.  One aspect of that, is spousal love.  And one day I want that challenge.  I’m am training for that challenge.

*Day 49 of the 50 Day Challenge of Embracing My Sexuality in Healthy Ways by Kristin Martin and Kimberly Williams.

Day 48: Hips Course

50 feet off the ground.  The metal rope was 1/2″ thick.  As I set my right foot on the piece of wood, my heart clammored around my chest.  Once I shifted all my weight onto that plank, nothing would be stable for a while.

I moved forward.  Adrenaline ripped through my veins.  I wobbled and swayed in the open air.  My gloves gripped the metal ropes tightly.  One foot in front of the other.  My colleague had finished crossing.  She said I could do this.  Could I?

Everything I knew — walking on the ground and planting my feet squarely — had evaporated.  My body had to move and compensate in different directions to keep balance.  I was tethered to a safety rope but nothing felt safe.  With each step my body flung into a new motion, a ship thrashing amongst unpredictable waves.

The ropes course meandored.  From one tree to the next with wood and cable between.  After the first crossing, I clutched the tree trunk on which a steady platform had been erected.

For the next crossing three 2-by-4′s had been triangulated and hung 5 feet from each other.  I had to step from one to the next to cross.  Beneath me was open forest floor.

Somehow I had traversed three triangles and was now smack dab in the middle.  I was terrified.  My balance was not very good and I wasn’t feeling particularly limber.  My body was shaking.  How would I finish this?  I had a decision to make.

It wasn’t conscious.  I simply reached my right hand out and gripped the sturdy wood.  Twisting my hips I stepped over to the next triangle with my right foot.  Then the left side of my body followed.  The wood and metal and my body started working together.  A few more steps and I was again safe on the landing.  It was at this point that my fear was released and I let Jesus hear a passionate thank you!

The next crossing came with a plank bridge and pieces of rope dangling from the top.  I reached out my right arm and took a step.  Then my left arm and took a step.  But I got to a point where I had to let go.  I couldn’t hold on with both arms and then step forward.  Part of me had to be free-flowing.  So I let go.  And I landed on the next plank, grabbing the next rope.  Across I went.

Eventually I came to a zip line.  Finally, something ridiculously easy!

8 crossings later I came to one with a few long wooden beams, each strung horizontally with ropes attaching it at the beginning, middle, and end.  Stepping at the beginning brought the beam down toward me.  As I moved to the middle it stabilized.  Then, stepping forward, the beam quickly shot down.  I gripped tightly, waiting for the fall.  Instead, I hung there.

I reached my right foot out to grab the next beam.  My legs slid farther and farther apart — into the splits.  I tensed them and bought my legs back together.  I was mastering the wood.

As I moved forward the ropes began to catch at my belt with its safety harness and its zip cord attachment.  I had to weave my hips around the rope that was holding up the wooden beams.

The gentle gliding, stepping, split-making, and tensing became a rhythmic dance.  I was maneuvering with ease.  I could do this.

By the time I finished, I felt completely calm.  This was cake.  I was proud.

Then we tried a harder course.  Oh.My.Goodness.

Five of us women stepped it up a knotch and we got more than we bargained for.  After a few crossings we came to a rope swing.  It was tricky, but not nerve-wracking for me.  I waited on the other side for my colleague.  As she approached the landing deck she reached her feet out but the momentum stopped the zip line so that her toes were gripping the deck but her arms were still holding on to the rope.  She sprawled diagonally in the air and screamed out in panic.  I latched on to the cables around the tree with my right hand and stuck my left hand out.  I grabbed at her twisting body and caught part of the harness.  Pulling with all my strength I yanked her onto the platform.  In relief and exhaustions she clung to the tree trunk.

We made a few more crossings until we got to the chains.  Two metal cables were strung across and approximately ten chains hung between them, about two feet deep.  We were to step one foot on each chain and move across.  There was nothing steady.  It all swayed and towards the middle the chains shortened to less than a foot.  We were 100 feet in the air.

With each step I wobbled more and by the third one I began, “I can do this.”  Next step forward, “I can do this.”  One more, “I can do this.”  Over and over until finally the end.  My whole body was shaking.  It was one of the most terrifying experiences.

At this point our head boss had hit her limit and haulted on a landing, calling out for a staff member to help her down the 60 foot ladder.

My two colleagues decided they would go to that point and climb down the escape as well.  With two courses left until that point I took a step out.

This one was composed of two short beams with cables strung through the middle of the beams.  With my second step the wood circled around.  My foot circled with it, lurching me over the side.  My left arm scraped against the cable and my feet kicked in the air.  I hadn’t thought that I would actually fall.

I tried to pull up my left leg but fatigue was pulling me down with the gravity.  What would I do?  How would someone rescue me?  They might now.  I might have to do this myself.

I wrestled some energy from some hidden reserve and flung my left leg up.  Then I twisted my body and got my right leg up on another plank.  I was straddling two beams but seated.  Steady once again.  Slowly I set two feet together and shoved them against a cable to keep balance.  Then I pulled my body up with all my strength to stand again.  New strategy: perpendicular feet.  Step by step (and a lot of weight on my arms) I made it across.  It was time to follow the others down the escape route.  We were done.

After a feast of barbeque, we slowly waddled home (via car, but it felt like we were limping).  Before saying goodbye we examined all our bruises and realized how much we had exerted ourselves.  I will be in pain for several days.  From the gripping, adrenaline, and falling, our bodies were beat up.

I’ve taken yoga and played soccer.  I’ve danced and eaten.  I’ve prayed naked and explored my skin.  But nothing put me in touch with my body quite like this ropes course.  It brought out skills in me that I did not know I possessed (and also mucles — ouch!).

Taking a risk with my body heightened everything.  And it was breath-taking.

Relfections on #5–Take a risk with your body. Do something that feels uncomfortable: rock climbing, surfing, rollerblading, ice skating, etc. See what it feels like to feel the adrenaline rush and to work new muscles that you don’t normally use. Be willing to fail and look silly.*

*Day 48 of the 50 Day Challenge of Embracing My Sexuality in Healthy Ways by Kristin Martin and Kimberly Williams.