Unwritten, Yet Known

Part of my Lent this year is writing more about my contemplation. Trying to work it out with words and not just thoughts. Maybe my thoughts will have a fighting chance of making it to deeds if they are processed. So…there will be some more meanderings into the inner workings of my brain this month.

I saw a bumper sticker yesterday that said, “I came here with nothing and I have most of it left.” It’s funny. It’s clever. It made me laugh. It reminded me of a song a dear friend of mine wrote. It is my favorite of his songs. It is simple, beautiful, and profound. Always making me a little uncomfortable, but inspired. These are the lyrics:

I have nothing.
And this is beautiful to me.
Came here naked, screaming, and penniless
We cannot take the money with
When we go.
So baby, let go.

I am no one.
And this is beautiful to me.
Came here nameless, no one of consequence
With only so much innocence
And then it’s gone.
So baby, hold on.

My friend is an exceptional songwriter. He has a rapier wit, an astounding capacity for empathy, and an extraordinary mind. The first time I met him, I thought he was a bit odd. The second time I met him, I was convinced he was odd. I think he became friends with me because I listened to him. He has a unique way of communicating. And by unique, I mean that the meter of his conversation is usually adagio. He doesn’t really work in allegro. Most people get lost in the pauses and miss the melody. But one time, in one place, I remembered what he said and it made me think and I talked about it with many people for the next week. After I told him he made me think, our friendship began. I think his speech is interrupted with pauses because he is deliberate with his words. And don’t think I am not completely envious of that quality. He takes the time to let his poetry work itself out before revealing it. Or he is just odd. No one knows for sure. The perils of being an introvert in an expressionist’ body. But his process comes with pacing and many, many head bobs. This paragraph is not necessarily germane to the rest of the blog post. More of a “Hey, I said nice and funny things about you. So I hope you don’t mind that I published your lyrics on the interwebs without paying into ASCAP” kind of thing. He might and this entry will promptly be deleted.

The thing I love about this song is it’s juxtaposing of two conflicting ideas. Two choices that if held in tension with one another and exercised simultaneously either make you a contortionist, an over thinker, or potentially indecisive. Since I am usually two out of the three anyway and probably capable of the third, this song makes a whole lot of sense to me. I love contradictory ideas in theory. In practice, I find that my usually complex mind becomes very simple and demanding of simplicity.

I have been trying to wrap my head around a particularly contradictory concept for years. Often, it idles as my default song. The song I don’t notice is on repeat in the background. It has from time to time cloaked itself in counterpoint to whatever song is playing. But it is eventually unmasked and I return to the quest of trying to sort it out.

The concept is this: My future is unwritten, yet known. I have a great deal of difficulty reconciling that things are known yet unwritten. If my future is unwritten, then I have quite a few options. But if my choices are known, then there is an ideal or most beneficial one to choose. If it is known, why isn’t it ordained? And if it is not ordained, how is it known? And if it is known and I don’t choose it was it actually the ideal? This whole theological chicken and the egg thing makes me go cross-eyed most of the time.

I can’t believe that my future is unwritten and unknown. That would be to believe there is not a loving and gracious creator that is involved in my life. And I have seen too much and know too much to play that game.

I equally can’t believe that it is written and known. That would be to believe that this loving creator made me to be an automaton. I believe that I have the will, the choice, and the power to choose my own life in a manner that is unencumbered by some sort of predestination. I am not a passenger on the train of my life. I am the train. I am the track. I am the engineer. Toot! Toot!

I am working in concert with my creator. I am neither rogue nor slave.

By the same token, others around me are empowered with the same. And their choices influence and impact my course, my decisions, my life. And this confounds me and frustrates the bejankins out of me. Because I want to believe there is some sort of simplicity of doing the right thing and choosing the right course and things just work out. I want to live in a universe where I ask in faith what to do, do it, and something lovely is created. More often than not I feel like I came here with nothing and have most of it left. Like everything I try to build is a house of cards that just collapses. And if it all collapses, I must not have been the house I was supposed to build. Faulty logic, but real emotion.

I have a really hard time wrapping my head around all this. I mean a REALLY hard time. I struggle with the choices I have made. I feel foolish for the ones that have led to nothing. I struggle with the choices others have made. I feel foolish for hoping they were going to make different ones. And most of all, I struggle with the crushing sense that I am inadequate to make the right choices, choose the right road, and come out the other side in tact. And I struggle with the fact that there is no “right” road at all. There is only choosing how you walk. And my obsession with finding the right road has dramatically affected my gait. The questions just lead to more questions. And the answers lead to more questions. I’m hoping that the questions just keep leading to an answer I can understand.

These two conflicting notions of unwritten yet known are bound to live in harmony with one another somewhere. I am trying to learn how to let go and hold on at the same time so maybe I will get there.

You are Ugly

When I was a little girl, maybe 5 or 6, I would stare into the mirror until my face looked different to me. I would stare and see every crevice, the one or two freckles I had, and the shape of every feature, the color of my hair and how it lay. I would stare and stare and stare until I would say this to myself: “You are ugly”. No one ever told me that. In fact, I was told the opposite. I was surrounded by loving and affirming people that proactively worked to build my self-esteem. And to be fair, I was pretty cute. But this is the conclusion that I came to staring at my face. I was ugly. It was a time in my development that I was wrestling to distinguish between pretty and ugly, beautiful and grotesque, lovely and awful. For some unknown reason I couldn’t see anything that I recognized as beauty in my own face. And since I couldn’t see beauty the only conclusion to draw was that it was ugly.

It is the second day of Lent. I am a big fan of Lent. I love that there is a season that is dedicated to reflection and soul searching in order to discover our own humanity. To see how intractable we are in our own habits and behaviors whenever we try to make the slightest bit of sacrifice. It is in seeing our depravity and selfishness that we are given the opportunity to humble ourselves, recognize our flaws, and embrace the grace given to us to be at peace with God, at peace with others, and at peace with ourselves. In the liturgical calendar, there is Advent (the proclamation of the birth of our savior), Christmas (the birth of our savior), Epiphany (the public demonstration that he is indeed our savior), the ordinary weeks (where we do just about nothing), and then comes Lent. This is the time to fast in some form or fashion to see ourselves for who we are so that we can fully understand and embrace the wonder of his sacrifice and celebrate Easter with fervor and joy. Hopefully, Lent is a season of transformation that allows us to understand his suffering and learn better how to share in it. We need this time to fully understand that he died for us when we were still sinners. We need this time to see that we are indeed still sinners. We need this time to come to terms with what an enormous pain in the ass we all are. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven”. It is only in the recognition of ourselves that we can fully embrace the mercy and grace given to us freely.

But it is not enough for us to simply embrace this for ourselves within our own hearts and minds. In the Jewish tradition of the New Year, God writes the next year of someone’s life into the Book of Life on Rosh Hashanah, the actual New Year. But before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement with God comes the Day of Atonement with others. They cannot ask forgiveness of God until they ask forgiveness of others. Matthew touches on this theme when Jesus says “ Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” It wasn’t enough simply to ask forgiveness of those you know you have failed; you must go to those you know have an issue with you. Before you even come to the temple in an act of worship, you must be reconciled to each other. Before you can be reconciled to God, you must be reconciled to each other. Richard Foster says in a book about spiritual disciplines “Disciplines are best exercised in our daily activities. If they are to have any transforming effect, the effect must be found in the ordinary junctures of human life: in our relationships with our husband or wife, our brothers and sisters, our friends and neighbors.”
It is important to be introspective. It is important to take time to be alone with our thoughts, consider who we are and how we act, and allow ourselves to be disappointed in what we discover. But we must be careful not to let solitude become isolation. No good comes from keeping only one’s own counsel. We must work out our salvation with fear and trembling and let others see us shake. We are limited in our capacity to recognize our own faults just as we are limited in our ability to recognize our own beauty. We cannot make peace with God without making peace with others. We cannot be at peace with ourselves without allowing others to see and reflect what is ugly and what is beautiful in us. Ultimately, the healing we seek is intertwined. Peace with ourselves, peace with others, peace with God. They all lead to and from one another.

I’m not a theologian. I’m not trying to be. I’m not as learned in all of these things as I would like to be. But I know this: I love Lent. I love the concept. I love the practice. I love the ideal. I love what it is meant to produce. I love it. Love it. Love it. I love it until it comes and I fast from something. I love it until I spend deliberate time reflecting. I love it until it comes, I fast, I reflect, and stare in the mirror and all I have to say is “You are ugly”. Then, I just wish it were Christmas again.