Tag Archives: School

Head in the Clouds

Posted on by under regular

I’m a sky kind of girl. I know many, many people stand with their toes in the ocean and it washes over them, over and over, how insignificant and known they are all at the same time. Don’t get me wrong; I can get really loved by the sea. But give me a sky–a sunrise, a storm cloud, an unbelievable blue; a sunset viewed from the Target parking lot that shimmies you from grocery shopping to insignificant and known–and I can write 10,000 poems.

I’ve been worried this week that maybe I hadn’t been noticing the sky as much as I should. I had a friend ask me what I’ve been up to, and when I told her (two jobs, five classes, 17 books, some significant relationships), her eyes widened. “Is it too much?” I wonder. “Will I start to miss the sky?”

I was watching the babies at church after a long day. I’d been sweating all the day long, praying fall over every single over-83-degrees day in the 30-day forecast (that’s every single one.) I was wearing a dress that wasn’t conducive to rocking and jumping and diaper-changing. I was thinking maybe I should have had an afternoon coffee. But then we played Peekaboo.

“OK guys,” I said. “Everyone cover your eyes. Then I’m going to count. 1 . . . 2 . . . PEEKABOO!”

If you haven’t recently seen a two-year-old dissolve in laughter, I’d suggest you take a peekaboo into a nursery this week. Bodies so little that they can’t handle all that goodness; they lose their footing and sit on the floor, shaking with giggles. “Again!” they squeal. Peekaboo 28 times. And it was there, under the florescent lights, that I saw the sky that night.

So, yes. This to say I’ve been busy. This to say I fall asleep over He Wishes For the Cloths of Heaven. This to say the Starbucks baristas know my face, name, order, middle name, and shoe size. This to say I’ve said, “I can’t. I have too much stuff to do,” enough that I start to wonder if it’s wise decision-making or too much stuff to do. But also, this to say, “Peekaboo!”

I know what you’re thinking: “Stop talking about the sky and give us the good stuff!” And I have to say that I don’t exactly know what you’re talking about.

It’s been pretty fun. (Life, that is.) Sure, it’s easy to fall into a place where your planner dictates your every move, but I refuse to be one of those people. It’s easy to focus on the fact that you’re getting less than 7.3 hours of sleep every night. (Nine is my sweet spot.) It’s easy to say, “Too tired. Too much reading. Dishes, laundry, homework.” Here’s what I’ve been trying to say: “Do you want to get coffee? Do you want to come over? How are you? I can do that. Hey, look at the sky!” Or maybe Peekaboo.

Go, go, go. Stop. Sit. Breathe.

The wonder of the little bits–so big, in fact, that they give me the sky: this reels me in from too much stuff-thinking and stuff-doing. Like this: I got an email the other day while I was in class that said something along the lines of, “You are wonderful, and I love you.” I was meeting Norm in the lobby of a musty, crowded building, and even with all of those people there,  I walked up to him with glistening eyes. “Hey, listen to this,” I said. He listened, and when I took a breath, he looked at me and said, “And you are wonderful.”

We walked out into the rain, and I looked up: grey, twisty, breathtaking sky.

Insignificant; known.

“Does God proclaim Himself in the wonders of creation? No. All things proclaim Him, all things speak. Their beauty is the voice by which they announce God, by which they sing, ‘It is you who made me beautiful, not me myself but you.’” –Augustine

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King and Lionheart

Posted on by under regular

A week full of moments like this: I am standing in line for a roller coaster, inching forward, telling myself the moment I step onto the vehicle is a faraway one, not something to consider. I am enjoying where I am, the sights and smells and the heat of the air around me. I am laughing with my friends as we wait, but we know we’re in line for something big. Something wonderful, oh yes; something stomach-flipping, absolutely. It’s been a summer-long roller coaster queue, actually, ever drawing closer to stepping on, and the name of the ride, my friends, is called Change.

I know that there are many, many facets that pile on top of one another and cause me to shirk away from the big, bad monster of change: my personality, my childhood, my fondness for doing things well (new things aren’t necessarily things I can do well, you know?) In short (HA!), I’ve spent the past several years shaking in my boots as I climb onto the coaster again and again, reminding myself of the promise of adventure, reminding myself that the very essence of adventure is the exhilaration of new, not the familiarity of I’ve-got-this. Actually, I’ve spent the past several years learning again and again that I’ve never got this, but that this works to my advantage, in more ways than I know. As I get closer to His heart, I find myself opening my eyes in the morning to a great big God who leans down and whispers in my ear: “Ready? Let’s go. I got this.”

“‘Safe?’ said Mr. Beaver. ‘Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.’”
―C.S. Lewis

But lately it seems like more things have been different than have been the same. First they slowly shifted, and I stood my ground. Then all at once, as if I’d walked into a house with a bucketful of water hanging over the door frame, I was drenched in it. “I can’t do it,” I murmured. I noticed that the world insisted, “Yes, you can!” But the still, small voice—the one that seems louder and louder everyday—said, “You’re right.” Slowly, softly, I begin to learn surrender again. Slowly, surely, my fears fade. I look around and realize I’ve been on solid ground the whole time.

“He stood me up on a solid rock
to make sure I wouldn’t slip.
He taught me how to sing the latest God-song,
a praise-song to our God.
More and more people are seeing this:
they enter the mystery,
abandoning themselves to God.” –Psalm 40:2-3

So this week—this summer, and inevitably, in the months to come—have been a seemingly constant flow of this business of change, and of trembling, and of the reclaiming of the strong Spirit. I look ahead, and I begin to shake in my boots. So many unknowns, so many uncertainties, so many foggy days where I can see only the three footsteps ahead, and nothing else. But here’s what else I’m learning: in the Light of the day, there is much joy to be grasped. In the today, there is a dark chocolate brownie to be (metaphorically, but if you want to bake some real ones, that is not frowned upon) eaten. There is the best friend who nods along, who finishes your sentences—even the unpleasant ones—with truth. There is the hand that holds yours while you nap in some buttery August sun, content to simply be. There is the hours-long coffee date where eyes smile back at you and promise, “You are a masterpiece.” There are tiny hands that cup your cheeks, and, with a smile of adoration, kiss your nose. See, sometimes I have write them out here to be able to turn around and see that yes, they are there, and yes, they are brilliant. And more than that, I hope you’re able to turn back to look at the days before this one and you too can point and agree that yes, they are there, and yes, they are brilliant.

At the end of the day—or at the beginning of a new week, or right in the middle of an ice cream sandwich—I am reminded by the same still, steady voice that I have not signed up for the carousel, that I have been in line for the roller coaster all along, that surrender can be tricky, but I should really go ahead and strap myself in for Adventure. I’m not one to be OK with missing the party.

“So I answered, ‘I’m coming.
I read in your letter what you wrote about me,
And I’m coming to the party
you’re throwing for me.’” –Psalm 40:7-8

Perhaps I’m in good company when I admit the boot-shaking; perhaps you’re nodding along, “mmhming,” relieved that you’re not the only one.

Perhaps you bound out of bed every day hoping the UPS guy drops off a big, scary cool package of Life Changes. Perhaps the idea of eating the same thing for breakfast every day makes you want to gag. Perhaps you would be really comfortable with moving to the moon just for kicks.

Either way, I’d like to have coffee with you. You tell me about your moon dreams, I’ll regale you with my Earth stories. We’re all on this ride together, friends, with the greatest Captain we could imagine. And everything about that takes me from boots-shaking fear to barefoot-dancing joy. What fear?

“But all who are hunting for you—
oh, let them sing and be happy.
Let those who know what you’re all about
tell the world you’re great and not quitting.
And me? I’m a mess. I’m nothing and have nothing:
make something of me.
You can do it; you’ve got what it takes—
but God, don’t put it off.” –Psalm 40:16-17

 

We

Posted on by under regular

You know what is truly the peanut butter and jelly of life?

Well quite literally, it’s Peter Pan and Smuckers. But also people. PEOPLE. Am I right? While we’re throwing our hearts, souls, minds, and bodies into serving the Lord, people make this whole thing even better. Because people are fun to love a lot of the time—and worth it even when they’re not. C’mon. That is good blogging right there.

This week I decided to go ahead and quit my desk job, which has been responsible for my devotion to Dawson’s Creek, several friendships, at least 17 in-depth conversations, and many a blog post. I’ve spent hundreds of hours behind that desk, sometimes loving it and sometimes hating it, but almost always grateful for it.

It was sort of hard to say goodbye—Breaking News: goodbyes aren’t my strong suit—but also sort of easy. It’s time, you know?

So I set to use my new-found hours wisely: Making them count. All too soon they’ll be stretched over the minutes it takes to walk to class, and to expand my brain, and to pore over chapters, and to write more magazines, and to scrub some dishes. But this week, none of that is a priority. None of that is here to demand minutes. So I looked at my open planner with a smile, and then I did what seemed to be the best idea: I took those hours and filled them with people. First, I went home for one last rendezvous before the hour-stretching of one more fall semester.

“Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’” –Matthew 22:37-39

I don’t know about your home, but my home is place where they let me make 4,006 “your mom” jokes before they a. call me out on them and b. start making them themselves. My home is a place where pizza for dinner is smiled upon; where waking up at 7:30 on a Saturday to give your hours to people who need them is a given; where coffee is plentiful (my mom is my coffee soul mate); where when you call out someone’s name in the middle of the night, they come. (Just to clear up any confusion, I didn’t do the name-calling-out, but the soothing. Middle-of-the-night is a scary time when you’re eight.)

It’s where we go together, even though we’re different. Of course, we’re not that different. It’s called blood, people. And it’s important. They’re my friends, there.

Of course, I have people who don’t share my DNA, but share a lot of other things with me, and they’re just as sought after. We share souls, and when they call, I come running. And when they don’t call, I show up. It’s a good time either way.

Then I came home to a house that was bursting with back-togetherness, even if just for a half hour. “GRACIE!” There was into-arms-jumping. It had been awhile, but there we were, in our kitchen, and it was like all of the other times we’d been in our kitchen together. Check out our kitchen:

Now that I’m back in Tuscaloosa to stay (that was the last of the nomadic weekends for awhile), I’ve been penciling in my free afternoons with coffee dates that were out of reach when I was sitting behind a desk. I promised my hands to move my best friend back, my night to welcome her home. And it feels good to dole out my time to faces, faces that show me that it matters, faces that give me back words that make me laugh, or inspire me, or cause me to find myself on my bed at 1 a.m., gathering myself from a particularly moving bit of prose written to me. I’m taken with these faces. They’re mine.

And there’s so much more on the horizon. So I look at my planner, and I clear it. “I’m all yours,” I say. The best words I heard all week, from one of my favorite people? “I’ll be home soon.”

I’m waiting for you, because you—all of you—make the whole thing that much sweeter.