Sunday, December 15, 2013

Silent Expectation

When I was home at Thanksgiving, I found myself watching quite a big of television with my family. (I don’t watch a whole lot of any TV at work and I was sick.  So I mostly basked in this very low key pastime.)  And, because it was Thanksgiving (which may as well be the Christmas shotgun rather than holding its own significant importance, but alas, I digress), watching television came with the infamous addition of Christmas commercials.

I. Hate. Christmas. Commercials.  **

I hate them.  Mostly because they focus on things which don’t matter.  In the slightest.  I blogged about this once before.  More more more for me me me.  I cringe at Christmas commercials because I hate the focus on the commercialism.  We’ve got it all wrong.

So there I was, at home, when a caroling group in red sweaters stands precariously in a kitchen (really?  Because that’s realistic!) singing “go go go go go go go!” and I replied with an irritated and snarky “no no no no no no no no!”  My mother, after an exchange about the commercial’s stupidity replied with a well-intentioned “well mute the sucker!”

Something’s missing from those commercials.  Plenty, I say with my limited recalling from my time as an Advertising and Public Relations student.  But my transition to spending the rest of my college years as a Youth Ministry student leaves me without a doubt.  We’re missing the Christ.  A few years ago I blogged “The ChristmasRemnant”…a conversation between the characters left behind after a Christmas season. The realization the Son was missing.  Glaringly missing.  If we cared, truly cared, the pieces and parts would be missing and just the Son would remain.  He is the missing piece. 

I could and do “mute the sucker” Christmas commercials all day.  But the problem remains.  It’s not the commercials my world (or even, regrettably, my own life) is muting.  It’s the Christ.  We’ve muted the Christ out of Christmas.

Contemplating the ways in which I and we have silenced Christ made me think of something else, however.  It made me think of when God Himself was silent.  In a way the actions of the Israelites, those He called as His own, their lack of obedience and failure to follow became a precursor for this silence.  But God chose to be silent.  For 400 years!  In my Bible, three pages exist between the books of Malachi and Matthew.  A blank page on the backside of Malachi, a new page indicating the start of the New Testament and a blank page before Matthew.  In those three pages exists 400 years.  400 years where no teacher and no prophet brought a word from the Lord. 400 years where no new words or instructions were given to the people God had called to His side and His heart. 400 years of silence…

I think about the times in my life where God has felt silent to me.  Where I couldn’t hear or feel or see Him amidst the garbage and piece of my life.  Unbearable, impossibly, dark.  How hard it was to go seeking for God when I knew His existence and not His presence… 

It made me wonder, a childlike fascinated sense of both wonder and awe, at the realization of Advent.  The church calendar recognizes and celebrates a time of Advent, a season of waiting.  A season of expectation.  A period of preparing our hearts and minds and souls for the coming of the Messiah.  What must have it been like for the remnant of Israel to wait?  What was it like those 400 years?  They had the prophecies, the innumerable mentions of a King and Savior to come.  One of my favorites sits in Isaiah 9: “For unto us a child is born, for unto us a child is given.  And the government shall rest on his shoulders.  And he shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace...” (Isaiah9:6)  So many promises to behold!  To wait in hope and expectation of those promises!  That first Advent…when would the waiting end and with what or whom would it end?

And then the silence ended.

On the first of those three precarious pages reads a self written note:  “400 years…and God was silent.  Anika, you think you grow tired and weary of waiting for God to show up?  I tell you this: if ever you go seeking, you will find.  What comes after these 400 years made it so that “God with us” was a promise fulfilled and sustained. Hold out your hands, hold our your hear.  The cost is great; the pain to be expected.  But the God of Hosts, Lord of Angel’s Armies seek to love and bless you and to love and bless through you. Even when God feels silent with you, may He never be silent through you.  Proclaim the joy and presence of the Emmanuel…”

Silence was ended with Emmanuel.  What came on the end of that silence was “God with us”.  Isaiah 7:14 tells us to expect (and Matthew 1:23 gives proof of fulfillment) that “the virgin will bring forth a son and He shall be call Emmanuel…” 

The magic of Christmas is the transcendence of realizing the perfect love a God for His creation became tangible in a baby boy who grew and lived to die to live.  So that we would never have to know a life where God wasn’t with us.

And not only is He with us but He is in us.  His Spirit is something our imperfect and earthly bodies hold.  One of my favorite “theology degree” terms, which has stuck with me above the rest, is the term “Theotokos”.  It is a Greek term that was used by the very early church to describe Mary.  Theo meaning “God” and tokos meaning “to carry” or “to hold” or “to bear”.  The literal translation is “God Bearer”.  Mary was considered the one who bore God. 

And we are called to be Theotokos’ as well.  To carry Christ that we may bear Him to the world.  2 Corinthians 4:(7-10) was once the heart of my philosophy of ministry.  And it comes with the calling of a Theotokos.  “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.  We are hard pressed on ever side, but not crushed; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.  We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body…”

But to realize we are to be far more than one known to give good gifts but also as one holding the Greatest Gift ever to have been given!

As we draw nearer and nearer to the day of Christmas, may we embrace the expectation of waiting.  Of true Advent.  May we, however, not be silent in our expectation.  The 400 year wait is long since over.  Emmanuel has come!  Take the mute button off.  Bear Christ to the world!  May He never be silent through you… Proclaim the joy and the presence of the Emmanuel! 




*Admittedly, after a significant absence of posts on my blogs, this wasn’t originally a blog post at all.  Instead, it was the rough construction of notes compiled as pieces came during a church service which I then, 24 hours later, turned into a Monday morning staff devo.  My notes transcribed make up this blog post, instead.  But I’ve managed more Christmas blogs than not, so I felt it was only appropriate to post. 


**Okay, I’ll admit, I do sort of look forward to the one where the Hershey Kisses play Carol of the Bells.  And that one Folder’s commercial where the brother comes home surprisingly.  And this year I saw a Meijer’s ad where a family is lighting a house and admiring it and then they go inside and the viewer assumes its their own house they decorated until the elderly neighbor drives home aghast and a little boy is watching out his window.  That one made my heart smile.  

Friday, November 8, 2013

Stitches, Flaws, Good Intentions

In many ways it was doomed from the beginning.

I am a rather inadequate seamstress with rather adventurous plans.  I enjoy the planning and scheming and designing (and the design) in far greater quantities than proportionally my skills allow…

Then…I get an idea.  Like the fact that the colors would in fact be my sister’s favorites, with no regard to any other details.  In fact, while I surprised my brother with his graduation quilt, I let Faith in on the fabric shopping so that it would be exactly what she wanted in terms of colors.  As fate would have it, we found the entirely obscure shade of deep purple she loves.  In the clearance bin none-the-less.  I bought several yards.  [Of a knit fabric that stretched in multiple directions.]  To match a cream and sage green.  The picture in my head was beautiful.

If you’ve sewn at all then you know that inadequate seamstresses should not sew with knit fabric.  It causes innumerable problems (especially if you hate to pin!  Which I do!). At one point I quit carefully pinning my pattern to the fabric so precisely to cut…as each square came out a slightly different size and shape anyway. 

And then, speaking of cutting, I hate cutting.  It’s tedious and tiresome.  It’s the pre adventure of designing and I would rather just compile the puzzle.  I should have considered this before designing a quilt that literally had a few THOUAND small pieces to be sewn together.  It made the project (which I started in late fall/early winter post her spring graduation) seem tedious and tiresome in and of itself.  It was already months behind schedule and I was bored.

And yet, just about the time I thought I found my rhythm…fail.  Utter fail. Because I messed up the design.  I missed a square somewhere in the process and the whole central system with large pieces already compiled in and around it – no longer fit together.  The perfectly designed intricacies no longer lined up and it looked ridiculous.  I quit.  I couldn’t reconcile the imperfection so I bagged up my fraying squares and folded the finished pieces and quit. 

For years. 

My sister graduated in 2008.  I designed and picked out fabric that summer.  Which means it has been five years.  (Even to write it is embarrassing…)  Oh, I’d picked it up a time or two but it seemed so daunting and I never got very far.  Plus, every time I tried to pick it up again, something more went wrong.  I sewed in the wrong square to the wrong spot (seam ripping to fix a mistake destroyed the fabric so it was of no use. Easier to just begin again).  Or the fact that I had moved it so many times without sewing in the loose ends they were beginning to fray.  Because the purple fabric stretched, even just a little, none of my strips ended up the same size.  So nothing lined up the way it was supposed to.  Which in some ways didn’t matter too much because the pattern already didn’t make any logical sense. 

And then, finally, this fall, I decided to tackle it.  I felt this sense of necessity to not leave projects unfinished.  I vowed to finish it.  Though it would be finished as a twin rather than a queen as first designed.  It wouldn’t match the original framework.  And it would be flawed.  I would just have to settle with the fact it would be… flawed. 

And flawed it was and is.  Because of course I accidentally sewed in that defunct strip (because I wasn’t paying very close attention.  Not until it was too late!) where I had earlier put in the wrong square and sewn over it. And then the tattered edges continued to fray amidst the sewn pieces…because the pieces were just so dang small.  And so I stitched OVER the top of the quilt in order to hold the fabric down.  And instead of trying to fight with cutting and sewing more pathetically inadequate squares, I then also changed the pattern at the ends to complete it. 

I managed to deliver a finished product.  In time to place it between Faith’s second wedding anniversary and her 28th birthday.  Only four birthdays and four Christmases and five Easters and who knows how many arbitrary changes in time zones and exchanged daylight savings hours.  With much ado and much apology.  I actually think Faith was confused by the gifting as it had been so terribly long since it was once discussed.  And in quite a bit lesser of a condition than I ever would have wanted to gift.

“She’ll love it because you made it!” my best friend tried to promise me.  And indeed it might have been true.  But none-the-less…

I looked at the quilt and looked at Faith.  “Don’t be deceived” (as I might tell you as well) “it looks better than it is.”

And then I quoted Augesten Burroughs (incorrectly; I didn’t remember who it was who had first said it.) “I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.”  [He is known for saying.]  It was the epitome of my finished construction.  I meant well, I tried hard, I persevered.  But in the end, the flaws were held together with effort and hope alone and the beauty I had dreamed of and originally designed was lost inside of missed stitches, unmatched corners, faulty patterns, and messy compilation.

Of course I notice and am the first to point out the flaws.  I am, after all, the creator.  No one knows that quilt better than I do.  I know every stitch, every frayed edge, every mended hole, every missed pattern. I can tell you, from the front compilation, approximately which square has a small blood stain on the under side of the fabric from where I stabbed my finger viciously with a pin.  You might not look at it and see everything that’s wrong.  But I do.  I do because I created it.  And I know…

And it’s the thing that baffles me the most about God.  He, who created me perfectly and intricately in my mother’s womb and knows the number of hairs on my head (Psalm 139), is also well aware of the ways in which I have marred His design.  He is the Creator.  No one knows me better than He does! He knows every stitch.  And also every frayed edge, every quirky mismatched piece, every mended hole…  I oft find myself, like Augusten Burroughs, taking a look at my life and knowing I am made entirely of flaws…though I was, in fact, stitched with good intention.  And I wonder.  I wonder how it is God can look at me at not see all that is wrong…

What I think is miraculous (and I know this combines metaphors) is when people see the picture of the quilt their response is always something like “that is so cool!”  There is a little awe.  When Faith first saw the quilt (she took it in with the disclaimers of its imperfections first), her initial response wasn’t to say “Oh, I see what you’re talking about now with the missed pattern and the odd overlapping stitches...”  She said along the lines of “Oh wow!” followed by something near “Neek, this is pretty incredible!”  She, in her appreciation for it and love for me, redeemed it.  Redeemed its inadequacies. Redeemed its flaws.  Redeemed its good intentions.

What I think is even more miraculous is that when God sees me, (and others see me through God’s eyes alone I can’t help but believe…else why not see the things I so easily see?), He doesn’t focus on my missed stitches and mended holes.  He knows about them; He’s my creator!  Instead He sees HIS good intention.  One who is holy and dearly loved (Colossians 3:12).  And His love for me redeems me.  Redeems my inadequacies.  Redeems my flaws.  Redeems me FOR His good intentions.  And claims me.  “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.  When you pass through the waters; I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.  For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior…” (Isaiah 43:1b-3a)

There is a DownHere song I love entitled “Here I Am”.  In it there is a line which reads “These broken parts, you redeem.  Become the song that I can sing… [Here I am. Lord, send me.  All my life I make an offering.  Here I am.  Lord, send me.  Somehow my story is part of your plan.  Here I am…]”.  It’s a gift of grace and a response of faithfulness.  Though the road and construction be coarse and mismatched and frayed… To redeem broken pieces makes it so my story (flaws and all) can be part of a bigger plan.  An end beauty.  A Good Intention…


 “Do you look at me and see the one you’re after?  Your daughter, Your princess, Your beautiful disaster…”




Beautiful Disaster
AJK March 2009

A mass of confusion.
Life in utter disarray.
A tragedy of grand design,
Your gifts I’ve tossed away.
No direction, no order.
Only failure of the worst kind.
Falling apart at the seams.
Begging for purpose one last time.

Do you really see beyond my distress?
Do you love me even with my mess?
When you look at me,
How can you not see all that’s wrong?
How do you not just notice
All that doesn’t belong?
I’m not anything close
To what I was created to be... 
Where’s the worth
In this calamity?

What’s beyond
My distorted focus?
Do you smile at what you see?
Is your grace wrapped in
Wonderful chaos?
Brilliant catastrophe?
Do you look upon a storm with the same awe?
The same love?
Is that the same splendor
You’re thinking of?  
Do you look at me and see the one you are after?
Your daughter, your princess,
Your beautiful disaster...






Monday, September 9, 2013

Silly Anika, Trix Are For Kids!


It was the bane of my childhood existence.  The beginnings of the qualms and stirrings of what would scream on my inside to fight for the underdog… 

That silly and stupid rabbit!

It was the Trix commercial of endless story lines with the same depressing conclusion.  Oh! How the rabbit just longed for a bowl of over sugared fruit shaped deliciousness!  (I grew up in the 90’s, yo.  We had Trix shaped like the fruit it was supposedly emulating in flavor.  None of this ball shaped jazz. Psh.)  He would daydream and fantasize.  And he would have that bowl in his clutches.  He would always come so close!  And then, just about the moment when he would ready to take the first coveted bite, some cheery animated child would snatch away the bowl.  Then, with a bit a mockery and perfect correction, the children scold the longing rabbit. 

“Silly Rabbit!  Trix are for Kids!”

Oh, I always hated these commercials! (Much the same way something about the “RoadRunner” cartoons always managed to arise my juvenile angst and anxiety).  I just, one time, just one time…I just wanted one of those snotty nosed smiling children to turn to the rabbit and say “try this!  You’ve worked so hard trying to obtain this bowl.  Please, let me just give it to you! Here, let me share it with you!”  Gah!  How I would have LOVED if the Trix Rabbit could have gotten what he was after just one time. 


Silly Rabbit…

Good ol’ Anika.  Rooting for the underdog.

Sort of. 

But not really.

I truly believe, now years after such a commercial plagued my childhood existence, I just really related to that silly rabbit.  And have ever since.  I wanted the rabbit to obtain what he was after because I wanted to obtain what I was after.  How often and how eager I am for the things which were and are never mine to hold!

My chases have recurring themes.  Lately, for example, I want to KNOW.  My brother and I have had a couple really legit conversations in the last couple of weeks and our convo time has included the facts of the lives we currently know – especially in relationship to the futures we wish knew.  How I envy people with five and ten year plans!  How I envy those with specific dreams and aspirations!  I wish I had a documentable goal.  Those people have road maps!  They don’t always end up where they expected to go.  And if they do they rarely took the route they first intended would get them there.  But in my limited view on the world, at least they know!  They, at the very least, know what they want.

I, I don’t know what I want.  I don’t know that I ever have.  I very honestly wants what God wants.  But He tends to speak in very vague and general categories.  And I, I want to know!

I want to know where to go and where to head.  I want to know what to say and what to do.  I want to know what to plan and how.  I want to know what the future holds or what it could.  I want to know where I should be investing my time and I want to know where I should be using my talents and resources.  I want to know whether to stay or whether to search.  I want to know…

Silly Anika…

I’ve been reading recently in the Old Testament.  Specifically in Exodus.  But the stories have reminded me of other stories and other accounts.  So many times those God called to be a people of His own, sought after things that weren’t theirs to have.  They were a people who want things of His hand and not of His heart.  They were constantly chasing after things God had already said “no” to.  And just about the time they caught whatever they thought they were after, God would reveal to them exactly why He told them “no”.  There had been a reason.  But the Israelites were a disobedient, rebellious, and foolish people. 

Much as I am… 


Trix are for Kids!

Adam and Eve partook of the Tree of Good and Evil.  The temptation which eventually created their demise was to be like God rather than with God.  They chose imitation over intimacy.  The serpent tells them that God has instructed them to never eat of the tree because then they will know… 

Knowing was the first temptation.  Thanks to Adam and Eve, I know the depth of my nakedness, the depth of my shame. The reality of the difference between what is and what should be.  But I am still desperate to know…

I fret and I worry.  I create and I conjure.  I once learned that the best worriers are typically very creative people.  Who else could devise the intricate ridiculousness which is contrived by an expert worrier?  I remember learning such a bit of information, knowing the extent to which I worried, and patted myself on the back and sat a little straighter in the pride of realization at the creativity of which I must be capable!  And then I slouched and sighed at the reality of the actuality…

Worry is based in the want to know.  In the inability to be able to grasp just exactly what is.  Because I don’t know, I worry.  No wonder I chase…

I want to have it all figured out.  People who have it all figured out are given earthly praise and rewards.  But just about the time I think I’ve got it all figured out, God switches it up on me.  Or, more accurately, I tune in to where God’s already got it figured out and realize, once again, the things  thought were in my clutches really weren’t mine to have.

Isaiah 55:7-8 says “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD.  ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher you’re your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts…’”

The things I’ve got all figured out aren’t necessarily the things God’s long since had a handle on.  Sometimes I feel like just about the time I realize I, in fact, know even less than I thought I knew before, I feel like I’m tapped on the shoulder so gently and reminded:  “Silly Anika, Trix are for kids!”  Okay, maybe not the Trix part, exactly.  But simply the subtle implication that what I am holding wasn’t made for me to have.”

I guess that means I keep seeking.  The rote and tired verses of Jeremiah 29:11 gives the confidence that for all I don’t know, God DOES.  “For I know the plans I have for you…” He tells His people after giving them instructions to be faithful in the places where they found themselves.  But His promise comes with instructions that include a promise.  “For when you seek me, I will be found by you when you seek me with all of your heart.”

Seeking accompanies trust.  Oh, it can be done without trust.  But who would dare?  Not this worrier!  They are needed together.  Especially when it comes to knowing.  Proverbs 3:5 and 6 have long since been two of my most favorite and tested life verses.  A book which is about to continue in telling you many things which are to make one wise and live well begins with the greatest of all wisdom and the end to all pursuits.  “Trust in the LORD with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding.  In all of your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your path straight.” 

Later, in Matthew 6:33, instructions come about worry (ironic, right) and how knowing shouldn’t be the pursuit.  But trust should.  (Trust brings understanding I think.  And maybe understanding more trust?)  And we’re told to continue seeking.  But not for answers.  Instead, mimicking Proverbs and Jeremiah, Jesus says “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all of these things will be given to you as well.”

So the life I want held in my clutches?  The one I want so desperately to be in control of and am ever being asked to let go of?  I’m so close…and yet.  Perhaps after all and still…it isn’t mine to have…

“Silly Anika…This one is for Jesus…” 



Thursday, July 11, 2013

Pain. Healing. Reality

I sliced the palm of my hand.

On Tuesday.

That was two days ago.

It hurt a bit when it happened.  But pain was really the afterthought.  I felt something sharp and glanced at it a couple minutes later when I brushed it against the fabric of my shorts and jumped a little when something stung.
It was bleeding.
But just a little.

The wound was small.
It was no big deal.

I'd live.
For real.

I didn't think about it again.  I mean, not until I managed to get a little bleach water in it and I thought my whole hand was going to fall off. *

But then I was really done thinking about it.  I am the captain of arbitrary injuries.  It would grow back.  I would be fine.  Not going to lose sleep or waste tears over something so dumb.

But then I DID think about it.  And, actually, did lose sleep.  Last night, 36 hours after receiving the injury, I lay awake, nursing my pathetic hand.  My palm HURT.  As it had most of the day.  The pain wasn't unbearable, but it was noticeable.  And obnoxious. The cut burned red and hot and the severed nerve endings burned.

The injury?  It hurt.  There was a little pain involved.  But the real pain?  The real anguish of the mark?  The reality lies in the healing.

Why do I now experience pain?  Because it's trying to heal.

It seems odd that this should be the hard part.  Shouldn't the infliction of the wound cause the most damage and be the most challenging part of the whole experience?

But that's not the case?  Is it?

By now you've probably gathered I'm not talking about the one inch slice to add to my injury collection.  I'm talking about life.  Because sometimes life hurts.  And certainly life is full of opportunities to inflict pain.

Why is it that the pain doesn't end at the infliction?  Why is it that there is so much more pain in the process of healing?

My mind fills with examples and illustrations.  From my life and the lives of those whom I've had the honor of intersecting with my own.  Pictures of pain.  Moments of injury... Betrayals by friends.  Divorce and break ups and split ups.  Death and loss and abandonment.  Abuse and misuse and corruption.  Transition and change and opportunity.  Bitterness and biting words and destroyed character and disheveled lives... And the list goes on...

As if the occurrence weren't painful enough...

Every memory, every scar, every attempt towards wellness and wholeness.  Every day with the storm clouds covering the sun and drowning the ability to breath deep.  Every time we clench our eyes closed and a vice is placed around our heart so that we feel a physical pain in our chest and we try not to cry as we try one more time to let go... To forgive.  To abandon.  To surrender.  To heal.

We don't always see it as healing.  It's sometimes hard to see healing in the midst of something that still hurts.

We don't like pain.  We don't like anguish or discomfort or anything that puts us ill at ease.  We would rather be numb until everything was magically all better.

And yet in some ways the act of healing pain is only proof that one is truly and very much alive...

Some pain must be endured in order for restoration to happen.

And isn't restoration what healing is all about?

Sometimes we want to be well.
But we also need to be whole.
Oh but to be both whole AND well!

There is pain in becoming whole.  Just as there is pain in being made unwell.  But where one pain destroys, the other slowly but surely restores.

I pray that as I allow the places in life that still hurt (far outside of my sliced hand) to move towards both a wholeness and wellness, rooted in restoration, that God too will continue to restore me to Himself...



"Heal me oh LORD and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise." [Jeremiah 17:14]

"And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast..." [1 Peter 5:10]



*minor exaggeration but really not too far from the truth.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

What Do They See?

(This was written to be posted almost three weeks ago.  But Socrates and I have been fighting.  Oops! Better late than never?)

Changes are coming in the life of Anika J. Kasper.  It’s a season of transition to be sure and to say the least.  And while I don’t know yet the full extent or length or potential of transition, the very nature has made me quite reflective. 

For one, it has made reflective on my last two and a half years.  And it’s made me realize how many little things for which I’ve taken advantage.  As I approach a new stage – even if it’s just a different summer job – I realized I was already facing the anxiety of people and relationships and encountering people I don’t know and furthermore, don’t know me.

It’s made me realize that, after two and a half years, this introvert had to do little hiding.  I mean, I still do/did…but not to the extent I once did.  After two and a half years of living and working with the same basic team… I’m known.  Not deeply by everyone.  But I dare say that few on my team would have trouble telling you (at least at the basic level…and for good or bad) who I am and what I triumph and for what I stand.  They could give you the basics of my character; they could highlight my soapboxes and most common rants; they could probably tell you what they thought I represented and made evident. 

There was some comfort in being known.  It meant that whether people loved me or hated me, their opinion wasn’t going to change much.  I was who I was and I could be who I am.  As a person who cares, lets be honest, far too much what other people think, it was nice to have a set “image”.  It was nice not to be in constant fear about what people saw when they saw me and whether or not they liked it.  I relaxed…

Which was good but also came at a loss.  At my job, I saw HUNDREDS of new faces every week, but I’d become to get lazy.  I stopped wondering and caring what people saw.  But the question remained…what did they see?

It’s been a question on my mind for over a week.  A new, young friend was running errands with me towards the end of the season.  She had been staying at my apartment and helping us fill the need for instructors at the end of our crazy, busy season.  Some comical accidental injury took place and I turned to remind her swiftly that “safety first was my number two rule!”  “You’ve been living me with two weeks,” I followed emphatically, “you should know this by now!” 

I comically proclaimed that after two weeks, my rhetorical rule and catch phrase ought to be glaringly obvious.  But this proclamation left me with a cringe.  A visible one on my face.  After two weeks…after any amount of time, really…what become my unspoken realities?  What things were true and emphasized in my life before I could put words to them?  If my life were to look seriously into the eyes of another and proclaim “you should know this by now!” What would it say?

What do people know after me after spending not so much time with me at all?  If you lived with me for two weeks…would you know true things?  True things about me?  True things about the world?  What does my life triumph when my lips are triumphing nothing at all?

Convicted.

I was afraid then…as I fear now…that in my “relaxed” stage, I had become not only lazy but neglectful.  I was allowing “true” things and pieces about me to show…and sometimes they were covering, shading, and what I wanted to be the truest things.

If people were to be asked to describe me, in a sentence, what would they say?  Would I be embarrassed by the answer?  Embarrassed, admittedly, because I have a pride issue…  But also embarrassed because of a humility in the answers and their representation of my life. 

When people see me…what do they see?

Do any of them see Jesus?

I cringe because I think the answer could be “no”. 

There is a Sidewalk Prophets song entitled “Live Like That”.  It’s a couple years old now but I just obtained the album it’s on and caught a line I hadn’t remembered hearing before.  The artist proclaims “people pass…and even if they don’t know my name…is there evidence that I’ve been changed? When they see me, do they see You?” 

And there was the question.  The conundrum in a nutshell.  It’s left me cringing, questioning, and wanting.

Wanting to be a life both passionate and alive.  Wanting to disappear into the shadows That the world would look and miss Anika – the good, the bad, and the ugly – and mostly, mostly just see Jesus. 

I wanna live like that…


“Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the gospel.”

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Dear Mom...


For the last few years – ever since I’ve been in college really – I’ve had the inkling to write a Mother’s Day post.  A letter full of ways in which, as an adult, there are things I see and appreciate now that I never could as a child.  Ways in which, looking back, I realize I was by far one of the “lucky ones”.  Growing up we never had a lot of “stuff” but our house was always full of the things which mattered.  I wanted to acknowledge that, and, let’s face it, the following was NEVER going to fit in a card and Hallmark still hasn’t found quite the words to say it the way I want.  I know Mother’s Day was a few weeks ago…I’ll admit I had written the note and waited to post it and very much and quite possibly forgot it was there to post.  But I also don’t believe moms should get relegated to a single Sunday of the year.  As if the other 51 Sundays and 364 days make a mom less important or of less worth to celebrate.  My mom still matters to me post the calendar square and so I thought I’d post it anyway.  So Mom, this one is for you…



Dear Mom,

Happy Mother’s Day!  I’m glad there is a day set aside in the calendar year to recognize you.  To celebrate the women who do so much with very little thanks or appreciation or acknowledgment.  Oh, granted, in this day and age, most women could “choose” not to be moms if they so desired.  And, let’s face it, we’ve discussed the fact that there are moms that don’t deserve to be moms and really shouldn’t be…  But you’re not one of those.  Mother’s Day is for moms like you, moms that need to be celebrated.  You need to be celebrated and thanked.  I hope as the years have progressed, I’ve done a better job of thanking you. Of remembering the sacrifice you’ve made and continue to make for my siblings and me.  But you’ll remember (because you’re my mom and that’s what you do) that I turned 25 this year.  You’ve been my mom for a quarter of a century…and it is time I did something to acknowledge that…  So Mom, thank you. 

Thank you for raising me to love Jesus.  I recently articulated my faith journey stating I was raised in a home with parents who loved Jesus and it showed.  You taught me to have the love of God on my lips and in my heart. You reinforced it with every van ride with Adventures in Odyssey playing, every Psalty song tape, every children’s praise tune.  Thank you for making Sunday School an expectation and helping me memorize my memory verse every week. Thank you for every dinner devotional you made us sit through.  Thank you for praying with us before we went to bed at night.  For praying in front of us. Thank you for establishing that matters of faith were a “life thing” and not a “church thing”.  For demonstrating for us a faith both real and true.  For giving us an example of what loving Jesus was supposed to look like.

Thanks for being married…and staying married…to my dad.  (Whom I also think is notably fantastic and gets many of the kudos in this as well because you two were always a partnership when it came to raising us).  Thank you for demonstrating for the five of us what commitment and sacrifice and family are supposed to look like.  Thank you for telling us about and then demonstrating for us a marriage which wasn’t two people going half way and meeting in the middle…but about two people who went 100% and made Christ the center because a healthy marriage takes three.  Thank you for kissing in front of us and allowing us to see that love and affection.  Thank you for fighting in front of us.  Because eventually we knew the fight would resolve and we were taught that marriages could have disagreements without it becoming a reason to separate.  Thank you sticking with it through thick and thin.  For respecting Dad and making sure we respected him as well.  For showing us what it meant to be a family…and that being a family meant something.

Thank you for being a “domesticated” mom.  Perhaps that sounds silly coming from your fiercely independent and prone-to-advocate-for-women’s-rights-in-most-settings daughter.  It probably even sounds quite taboo in this day and age.  But because you and dad were always a partnership, I never saw it as “female” thing or even necessarily a “mom” thing.  (Nor did you.  Proven by a dad who showed he was just as capable of cooking and cleaning.  And further evidenced by two brothers who enjoy cooking and baking and are more than capable of making beds and washing dishes.)  They were life things. It had nothing to do with a gender role.  Thank you for allowing us in the kitchen from the time we were old enough to hold a spoon.  For teaching us how to bake and giving us the tools and freedom to experiment with making things.  For teaching us how to read a recipe and to use measuring cups.  Thank you for fretting when the house wasn’t “clean enough”…not because it wasn’t but because it meant that you worked to keep the house clean on a normal basis and wanted it to be livable and presentable. And thank you for forcing us to help make it that way.  For teaching us how to dust and properly make a bed from scratch and mend clothes and put on a button.  For doing laundry and washing dishes and making sure we knew we did it, at least in partial, because we were called to be good stewards of what we had and that included keeping things neat and clean and not letting them fall to ruin.  Because of it, I insist on cleaning my bathroom once a week and I fold my clothes before they have a chance to wrinkle and I do my dishes before they’re growing science experiments and I can bake cookies and prepare a meal like the best of them and I can fix a split seam and hem pants.  You didn’t teach me to be a “woman” in these ways; you taught me how to be an adult.  How to, eventually, take care of myself and my home and the people in my care (though they may just be coworkers or friends).  Your “domestic housewife” skills, allow me to be even more independent... 

Furthermore, thank you for those awful chores that we loved to complain about and let you know you were ruining our lives with.  Thank for assigning responsibility and forcing us to act with it.  For reminding us that we were part of a family and that as such we were each in charge of making sure the family functioned and that came with the pieces and parts…from setting the table to taking out the garbage.  Thank you for “Operation Golden Touch” and Saturday mornings when we weren’t allowed to watch TV or play outside until toys were put away and projects completed…because life comes with obligations and expectations and hard work. Thank you forcing me to spend hours picking beans in the garden and weeding the flowerbeds… because everything requires work from somebody or something.  We appreciate the things we have more when we have to work for them.  When we put the effort towards them.  Thank you too for then helping us feel a sense of accomplishment for a task completed.  For helping us feel a sense of pride for a job well done.  From such we were able to learn that hard work came with its own reward…

Thank you for spanking me.  For grounding me.  For taking away privileges.  For denying me dessert and play time and friends over and television.  For setting boundaries.  And for letting us know when we crossed them.  For reminding us that there was a clear difference between what was right and what was wrong and you and dad had little patience for the latter.  You raised us to know better and to act on what we knew.  You didn’t raise us to fear you, but to honor you.  And though we failed (I mean, relatively often. We were kind of naughty. Although I still maintain I got in the biggest trouble for issues which started in intense curiosity.  Like cutting open the screen with the knife.  I mean, aside from the fact I lied about it… it was SO cool!), your expectations at home carried over to the way we conducted ourselves at school and at friends’ houses and in public. Thank you for so deliberately and specifically (and lets admit it, sometimes through clenched teeth) reiterating “your choices are ‘yes mom’, ‘no mom’, or ‘is it up for discussion, mom?’”  We knew that if we followed with “is it up for discussion?” the answer was almost always “No. Try again.” But we also knew you were fair and that when we approached things maturely without the argument and backtalk, life was up for discussion quite often and you and dad would listen patiently to “our side of the story”.  As adults, perhaps more so than ever before, we are able to see just how fairly you dealt with us.  How many of our own mistakes you allowed us to make.  You taught us that our decisions had consequences and sometimes punishments but you reminded us that we were capable of more because those decisions were not who we were…

Thank you for never demanding that we brought home the “A”.  For never demanding a standard we weren’t capable. Thank you for never making your acceptance or approval contingent upon our accomplishments.  But thank you too for allowing us never to settle for anything less than our best and making that your expectation.  For telling us that a “B” we worked really hard for was just as good and in some ways much better than an effortless “A”.  For knowing what we were capable of and compelling us to strive for that and being proud of us knowing we had given it what we had.  Thank you for not comparing us to each other when it came to things like school.  For never expecting me to really awesome at math just because Faith was or telling Caleb that he should be an avid reader and good at English because I was or that Amelia should be great with puzzles and science because Caleb was… Instead you allowed us each to have our own strengths and celebrated our differences.  Along similar lines, thank you for not being the mom (or the parents) to force us into sports or dance or drama or music lessons or any other number of insane and inane extracurriculars.  Thank you for allowing us a) to simply be kids and to b) choose what we were interested in and to pursue those instead. Thank you for supporting us in our individual hobbies and clubs and teams.  For not forcing us to stick with a second season of something we hated but for making us complete whatever season we were in…to see a commitment through to the end.  To give things a “fair shake”. To persevere.  To not let our teammates down.  To never give up or quit when something didn’t go our way.

Thank you for every time you told the five of us to “fight nice”…knowing we were going to have it out but that we still had a responsibility to each other’s personhood and emotions.  Thank you for making us hold hands on the couch until we could be kind.  Thank you for making us apologize.  Thank you for reminding us that our siblings were our training ground for every annoying and rude and terrible person we would ever meet.  That we couldn’t go around socking every person that ticked us off.  Thank you for every time you told us about your roommate in college who used your shampoo without asking and reminded us that life at home could one day get very real.  

Thank you for being thrifty.  For never buying me name brand clothes.  For making insane meals out of the most random items.  For balancing a checkbook.  For “making due with what we had”.  You raised us to appreciate what we had.  To thank God that our needs were met.  To not expect life to be handed to us on silver platter.  For a large family on a pastor’s salary, we sometimes didn’t get what we wanted but we were never without the things we needed.  You reminded us that who we were wasn’t defined by the things we wore.  That a higher cost didn’t mean higher quality.  And that it was possible and essential to live within side one’s means.  We weren’t “cool” but we also weren’t spoiled.  Our friends didn’t like us for our image and we grew up learning to be both grateful and generous…

Thank you for acting out of hospitality.  It’s got to be on your list of spiritual gifts.  And I have yet to bring home a person who would disagree or tell you otherwise.  Thank you for the way you make each one of our friends (and shoot, your friends for that matter!) “feel at home”.  Get to know them.  Take care of them.  Invest in them.  Thank you for being “Mama K” to literally dozens of young people scattered from here to the corners of several states.  For being another (and for a couple of them, a primary…) mother figure to anyone who enters our doors.  For embracing them as “one of your own” and making them feel loved and supported in the same way you always did and continue to do for each of us.

Thank you for teaching us to be caring and compassionate and tenderhearted.  Thank you for every person who came to the house bleeding or bruised or having some rash developing somewhere which you were always happy to nurse.  Thank you for letting us watch you care for the world around you out of your gifts and graces.  Thank you for every random person who joined our crazy bunch for dinner or a Sunday meal (probably a harder experience for them than us, looking back.  Ha!).  Thank you for entertaining basic and sometimes actual strangers and taking care of so-many of the “least of these”.  Thank for every time we watched you give food from our own cupboards to someone who stopped at our house because they knew the pastor lived there.  Thank you for giving away things we sometimes thought we wanted (or decided we did once they were gone) to people who needed it more.  Thank you for demonstrating Christ’s love in real ways.  I don’t think it’s any wonder that your four eldest (the exception being the one still in high school, so he doesn’t yet count) have pursued careers and occupations and degrees that deal directly with the care of people.  You’ve demonstrated for us its supreme importance…

Thank you for waking up to listen every time I had a bad dream.  For always making the time to talk and to listen as a teen and adult.  Thank you for kissing us goodnight and wishing us a good morning.  Thank you for taking care of me just as a much as an adult as you did when I was a child because “just because I didn’t live under your roof didn’t make you any less of my mom”.  Thank you for advocating for dozens of doctors appointments.  Thank you for not being willing to settle with a “nothing’s wrong” answer when I was first so sick and pushing for solutions until they made discoveries.  Dr. O can claim whatever she wants; it was your persistence (with some very ironic help from Jesus) which eventually found my cancer.  And it was you who accompanied me to every appointment and transported me to every surgery.  You have always been there for me.  Every late night, tear-ridden, stressed-out phone call.  Every silly question.  Every bumbling frustration.  You’ve always made the time…

As I type and type I feel as if I could and should go on, Mom.  After 25 years – there is much to be said.  Much I don’t want to forget.  You have raised kids of character and integrity.  We’re hard workers and invested and caring and kind.  It is fun for me, as an adult (because let’s face it, it probably never would have happened when I was a kid!) to brag on my siblings.  The lives that they live, the lives they invest in, the lives they impact.  The real ways in which their faith is demonstrated through who they are.  I hope you realize that those are clear reflections on you and Dad.  Some kids are who they are despite their parents.  Some are in spite of their parents.  And the rest are, for good or for bad, because of our parents.  We are flawed and human and a quirky bunch (the quirky definitely has your name written on it!), but we turned out well.  And we have you to thank.  Thanks for being our mom.  For being MY mom.  And should someday I ever become a parent, let alone of any merit, I’ll be able to look back at a letter such as this and confidently say “I have my own mom to thank…”

I love you!

Anika  

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Friend For The Day

[A brief introduction...]

First of all...I have about three blogs I've started and have yet to post as I haven't yet quite found a good way to finish any of them.  I'm sure they'll come.  I miss my old writing stomping grounds and the freedom to allow words to be a creative outlet...

That being said, the words which follow aren't new ones.  In sorting through desk drawers and boxes and piles of things that have long since needed a home, I mostly threw away a lot of unnecessary items.  But I also found a few treasures.  Like the remnants of a notebook...about 10 pages left in it...all filled-in and scribbled on.  The back cover page faced me after flipping through a page or two and I read the words "Bored to tears! Can't wait to sleep...in Chapel.  Wow, I'm a terrible person.  Welcome to the end of senior year!"  I was about to toss it while chiding myself for saving something so useless when the front cover faced me instead and I discovered it was filled with not just scribbles and scrawls and terrible but true admittances about my perspectives on chapel...but words.  There were two poems and the poem/story that follows.  I know the two poems have since found homes typed and saved (Sound and Fury even posted on me 'ol blog).  But I couldn't even find a file for "Friend for the Day".

I remember when I wrote "Friend for the Day"...but I don't remember why.  If it was just Anika trying to account for her boredom in chapel with a speaker who had said the same thing every year since she was a freshman or if there was actual inspiration.  I do remember compiling it and thinking if I could find the right illustrator it would make a very cute and even enjoyable children's book...with each stanza taking on its own page.  Probably if you made it through my lengthy "brief" introduction...read it with that tone in mind.  It makes it more fun.  It was fun to find today none-the-less.  After all, who doesn't need a friend for the way?




Friend for the Day

Friend for the day!
Friend for the day!
For just twenty-seven dollars I’ll be your friend for the day!
If you want we can talk;
If you want we can play...
For just twenty-seven dollars I’ll be your friend for the day!

Friend for the day!
Friend for the day!
For just twenty-two dollars I’ll be your friend for the day!
We can climb in a tree;
We could build a fort in the hay...
For just twenty-two dollars I’ll be your friend for the day!

Friend for the day!
Friend for the day!
For just eighteen dollars I’ll be your for friend for the day! 
We could fish in the harbor;
We could swim in the bay...
For just eighteen dollars I’ll be your friend for the day!

Friend for the day!
Friend for the day!
For just thirteen dollars I’ll be your friend for the day!
We can count a billion stars;
We can guess how much the earth weighs...
For just thirteen dollars I’ll be your friend for the day! 

Friend for the day!
Friend for the day!
For only nine dollars I’ll be your friend for the day!
We could color 1000 pictures...
And then put our art show on display!
For only nine dollars I’ll be your friend for the day!

Friend for the day!
Friend for the day?
For only four dollars I’ll be your friend for the day!
We could put milk out for the cats
And collect all the strays?
For only four dollars I’ll be your friend for the day!

Friend for the day!
Friend for the day?
For just one whole dollar I’ll be your friend for the day!
We could shout, we could swing;
We could dance, we could sway...
For just one whole dollar I’ll be your friend for the day.

Friend for the day...
Friend for the day?
For just twenty-five cents I’ll be your friend for the day.
We could play in the mud!
A pig could pull our sleigh!
For just only twenty-five cents I’ll be your friend for the day.

Friend for the day?
Friend for the day?
Even for free I’d be your friend for the day...
If you want I can just go...
But if you want...I would stay!
Because even for free I’d be your friend for the day...

*~*~*

“Friend for the day?”
“Friend for the day?”
Did I hear someone calling:
“Friend for the day!”?
Please say you’re here...
That you didn’t go away...
I could really use a friend for the day!

Excuse me, I’m sorry...
But are you okay?
Were you the one calling:
“Friend for the day!”
I’m new in town...
And I’d just thought I’d say...
If you’re offering, I really could use a friend today...

Friend for the day!
Friend for the day!
It was me!
I was calling “friend for the day!”!
We can fish, we can swim!
We can climb, we can play!
We can jump, we can sing!
We can collect all the strays!
We can guess, we can dance!
We can put our art on display!
I can show you around...
We can talk and we can hang...
I really just want a friend today...

*~*~*

Friend for the day!
Friend for the day!
Everyone needs a friend for the way. 
Someone with whom to talk,
Someone with whom to play.
Who needs you to be their friend today?  


Friday, January 25, 2013

The Confession of a People Pleaser


Alright.

Fine.

I confess.

I...
Am...
A...

People pleaser.

Perhaps a little anticlimactic as some who actually read my blog are long past well aware of this personality identifier, character trait, label (whatever it is you might associate it as).  But, none-the-less, it’s true.  I’m a people pleaser. 

It’s hard to see in such a blanket statement sentence on a computer screen... but this confession comes with the air of an introduction at a support group; said with the melancholy of the admittance of the affliction of an embarrassing disease; thrust into the public arena with a cringe and a flinch of the head and a sagging of the shoulders. 

I’m a people pleaser.

The words alone seem innocent enough to indicate that together they should be quite the opposite of its unfortunate reality.  People: populace, citizens, group, nation, community.  Please: satisfy, gratify, make happy, delight.  Sounds grand!  And that’s part of the problem.  Because it becomes the addiction you love to hate and hate to love and still are somewhere stuck in the dichotomy of both.

I’m a people pleaser.  I would rather everyone always be happy.  Always.  Especially and mainly with me.  Although not quite as deeply afflicted as I once was, I will oft do whatever it takes to remain on your good side, keep you smiling (I genuinely do love to see/make people smile), and make sure you’re taken care of.  I am known to be opinionated (even strongly so) but it is oft silenced or conceded on the part of not having an argument...especially on issues where I feel like your view of me would be somehow tarnished. I have no expressible preferences about most things (legitimately...I don’t know if this feeds or comes as a result of) and if you ask me for it I’ll probably panic to come up with an answer. [And even if I come up with one, I probably won’t be able to say it in fear that it would be contrary to whatever it is you’d like.] As a result, I will always gladly go with whatever you want.  I am quick to take the blame in many situations – even if they had little to do with anything I could have done or controlled – and I hold myself responsible for events and circumstances that weren’t my fault – even if only in my head.  I apologize far more than necessary and I know I shouldn’t but I can’t help it.  If I apologize, perhaps you won’t hold whatever possibly awkward, uncomfortable, or annoying thing I just did against me.  Perchance, most noticeable of all, I have a hard time saying ‘no’.  If you invite me to go somewhere or do something and I might let you down otherwise, the answer is ‘yes’ most of the time.  And, if there is something that needs to be done that you wish for me to do, the answer will be ‘yes’ almost undoubtedly.  I will skip sleep if it means you’ll get a little more; I’ll go the extra mile; I’ll do the project I know you hate (even if I hate it as well) before you have a chance to get to it. I might whimper to myself as I fall asleep at night...but I won’t say ‘no’.

This latter piece is extra dangerous as I’ve justified some of my people pleasing tendencies in the name of “being a servant”.  I truly wish to be one but my motives are sometimes skewed.  I’ve been people pleasing for so long that I don’t see myself as trying to match up to the combined unrealistic expectations of dozens of people, I see myself as a servant.  “This is what Jesus would do.”  I tell myself.  “He gave Himself up for all of humankind.  He wasn’t thinking about Himself.  Jesus served, dangit!  The least I can do is put my selfishness aside and do the same!” 

But that is skewed theology.  Jesus wasn’t a doormat.  And while He did give Himself up for all humankind, while He was gracious and loving to a people who didn’t deserve Him or what He gave, it wasn’t all about me, y’all.  Or you.  Oh sure, we most definitely became the recipients of the blessings which trickled down.  We were given the gift, the ultimate gift, and the love the Father has lavished upon us proves individual worth and value.  Because before we in fact were the one’s missing out... Jesus is a restorer.  He restored broken relationship.  The biggest one being between humankind and God.  That we might be part of who He was and what He was doing.  Still, Jesus wasn’t a people pleaser (far from it actually!)  He was, however, a God-pleaser.  Everything He did – including making Himself servant to all was to serve His Father.  It was for the Father’s glory. 

It’s okay to serve people. (I think it’s even okay to do my list above and feel good about it afterwards 95% of the time.) Even and especially to what seems like a fault to the rest of the world...as long as my priorities are in order.  As long as my goal in serving is to love genuinely as Christ has loved me and point back and continuously to the Father.

I was especially convicted of this the other day.  I was reading through a passage I hadn’t been in for a while...the words were there blatantly clear.  Profoundly obvious.  The verse left little room for interpretation.  Galatians 1:10 reads “Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

There it was.  In plain English.  Other translations screaming the same thing. The words neither taken out of context nor the message I received a possible interpretation of an otherwise ambiguous but potentially applicable verse.  Nope.  Right there.  Paul, who is a big proponent of being a servant to all said it straight up “Don’t be a people pleaser!  Whose approval are you trying to gain?  If you’re doing it so people will like you – ‘EHHH! Wrong answer! Try again’.  It’s God whose vote counts!”  The Message translation phrases the end of the same verse “If my goal was popularity, I wouldn’t be Christ’s slave...”  If you’re just going to cower down to what the world says, why bother?

This is a hard realization for a people pleaser...

Those who know me know probably also know that I oft will say “Safety first is my number two rule.”  It almost always elicits the response of “so what’s your number one??”  I respond with “Jesus!  Because He should always be first and He doesn’t always ask us to do safe things.  But if it checks through Jesus, safety should be second!”  People pleasing is a safe choice.  It means I stay on people’s good sides, everyone is happy, no one is offended and everyone leaves with a generally good opinion of me.  But safety should always be my number two.  Pleasing Christ should be my number one directive always and this is no exception. 

Paul tells us that “to live is Christ to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).  It means that I have to be willing to let go of self and control and the things I hold on to – including what people think of me and to find my passion, my direction, my worth, and therefore life, in Christ. 

So it’s about time I admit it.  Get it out in the open.  Confess.  I’m a people pleaser.  But I’d like to be in recovery.  (And I’d quite possibly like you to join me...)

Thursday, January 17, 2013

The Sin of “Go”


Originally written my senior year of college, I found this back today quite at random.  I was surprised to find it wasn't posted when it was originally written.  But it's still good.  And still true.  "Homework" has been placed by any hundred of other things but I still haven't quite recovered.  Nor have some of those in my life. It's for that proverbial "you" I re-post this now...


There remains a classic list of the seven deadliest of sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride.  They are the things which damage the image of God created within us, the relationship we have with Him, with others.  Lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride all carry with them a common thread: self.  In all seven of the deadliest we see, at the heart, a desire to be self-fulfilled, gratified, and serving.  And so we come to realize at the center of the sins which will ultimately choke out our very life, there is an unquenchable thirst for “me”.  And few would argue the seven make a fairly comprehensive list.  It covers in broad categories the specific sins we engage in every day.   Our mind goes easily to this default presentation and tries to avoid with absolute certainty our participation. 

Yet, when we think about the most deadly of sins, some words never come up.  For example, no one ever thinks to warn against the life-stealing nature of “productivity”, “efficiency”, and “busy”.  No one stands to preach the evils of an “honest day’s work with overtime”, a “jammed, packed schedule”, “back-to-back activities”, or the necessity to constantly be “on the go”.  In fact, in contemporary western thought, these are heralded as virtues and triumphed with utter assurance for their positive merit.  Heck, “sloth” sits in the middle of the top seven; we’d hate to be accused of not using time wisely!  Letting one minute fall to waste! 

And so we’ve created the eighth deadly sin: “go”.  It is unique only in that, when looked at objectively, “go” tends to feed our selfish nature while depriving it intrinsically of what it truly needs and desires.  In order to even get a number in the rat race we do rather than be, we drive rather than abide.  One more meeting, one more project, one more paper, one more book, one less meal, one less hour of sleep, one less friend.  “It get’s done!  It always get’s done!”  has become the humorous mantra of the sleep-deprived, over-worked, and under-paid.  If we can just meet up to one more expectation, then maybe...

Maybe it is just “that time” in the semester and, if I were to be honest with myself, I would realize how many semesters of my years prior have had me this close to a nervous breakdown at approximately the same point.  But, perhaps, as a senior, I’ve finally become fed-up with how often the “sin of go” clasps its long, bony fingers around my throat, around my heart, and begins to squeeze.  I have finally got to a point where I can no longer move despite the lack of oxygen, no longer function regardless of necessity. I have realized I live in a culture where we fail to notice this as a dehabilitating disease and instead force it upon each other.  Force it until there is no escape which will not also come with dire consequences. 

Furthermore, we have been trained to believe this is normal, acceptable, and for the best.  Recently, (and ironically), for a class I was required to create a time-management profile.  Detailing in 15 minute increments how I spent my time for the duration of a week.  It assessing the results, in breaking down the numbers to see just where I fell, I was upset, disgusted.  Classes and homework only took up 1/3 of my time (close to 50 hours).  No wonder I was never able to finish everything – I never spent enough time!  Out of 168 hours in the week, I recorded 8 where I was deliberately socializing.  Though accounting for less than 5% of my time, I was sure it should have been less.  “Not acceptable.” became my first reaction as I considered 4% more was used up on activities which had no bearing on real life.  In my mind I was feeling very guilty for spending ten minutes before I fell asleep reading a book which wasn’t required for a class or the one night I spent almost an hour with my hopelessly neglected journal.  How could I make up for lost time?

Yet, my moment-by-moment schedule has left me exhausted, overwhelmed, burnout, and broken.  I canNOT do it all.  I want to.  I want to meet everyone’s expectations...least of all my own...and instead I find myself failing on every front.  What is to be done when a look at any class syllabus comes with the cruel awakening there will be no room for sick days?   When a missed class means automatic missed points for attendance and, in addition, a quiz will be missed which cannot be made up and you will be set perfectly behind?  When emergencies arise and there is no time to complete the one small project which will undoubtedly determine your grade in the class?  When a fall break schedule gets jipped impressively for appointments, group projects, and assignments...and you wonder if it is worth your time to go home this semester at all?  When you want nothing more than to laugh with friends and some days forget to smile because life must be taken so seriously?  When the pressure buildup makes you cry? 

I put my all into everything I endeavor and give past what I have of myself to give.  And, in the end, it is never enough.  I always come up short.  Life always demands more.  And my world crashes in when the assignment doesn’t make the due date.  “This isn’t like me!”  I shout.  “I am the good student, dependable, high quality.  I turn things in on time.  I am responsible.  A hard worker!  Where did I come up short?”  How do I get past this sin of “go”?  The one which has stolen my energy, my time, my passion, and, in many cases, my joy?  Where do I go to rekindle a desire for life, a want for intimacy with God, a life set to ‘slow-down’?  Will the world let me have this?  Will I let me have it?  Or will I forever be on the go?