wonder three

when n.t. wright told me that the line between good and evil runs through the middle of all of us, i agreed, in theory. but, in practice, i see the world in binary: you're either good or bad. sometimes good people mess up; sometimes bad people get it right. still, you're basically either one or the other.

but that's not quite true, i'm discovering.

i'm where i am today because someone once compared me to henri nouwen. not in terms of insight or contribution to the growth of others or spiritual depth, but in terms of my needs. and even though i've been hurt by this person on multiple occasions, and won't voluntarily speak to him/her probably ever, something told me that this analysis wasn't off the mark. and that stuck in my head.

so, my wonderment is: how can it be that i have received wounds from those who also spoke life and truth to me? not the good wounds that lead to repentance and reflection: bad wounds, which taste like anger and death. how come fresh and salt water do both flow from the same spring? james says it shouldn't be so!

the thing is... it is so! that's james' indictment: we go around, praising and cursing with the same mouth. (james 3:10-12)

oh, to be able to discern light from shadow, truth from fiction, life from death... within and without. to speak and hear only goodness, and to let the rest fall to the ground.

wonder two

my first semester at university felt like complete immersion in a foreign country; it had its own language and culture, and it was so very easy to feel like an isolated misfit. thinking of that worn-out adage about being alone in a crowd only added insult to injury: i deeply resented being a cliché. still, there was no denying that i could be surrounded by friendliness and conversation all day long, and ultimately walk away feeling as though i hadn’t connected soul-to-soul with anyone. experiences like that made me doubt if i ever would.

now i have.

whenever i reflect on those dark phases in my life, there is inevitably only a dull ray of light to illuminate my loneliness. i am beginning to accept that i shall always wonder what loneliness is. but, as long as i'm gentle, i can strive to sketch out the silhouette of this mystery.

i missed hearing my own name, to start. i missed being touched. i missed being missed. i missed being known as an individual. i missed being an i.

these vague shapes, the product of squinting and struggling, have given me some measure of comfort. listen, we're not tailor-made for each other. you're not going to instinctively know how i like my tea and what song makes me cry and who i am becoming. i'm not going to know what's not ok to ask and who inspires you and what your favourite word is. it just doesn't come naturally, you know?

the beauty of friendship is that we choose to learn each other. we desire to know each other, and allow ourselves to be known. i invest in you (singular) and you (singular) invest in me. that is the only cure to loneliness i know.

if you have a minute why don't we go
talk about it somewhere only we know?
~ keane, "somewhere only we know"

first wonder

i've been trying to narrow down the seven wonders of my world, but i have thirty-four so far, and i am not one to censor (or censure) wonderings. instead of reeming them off, i'm going to share one a week, in detail.

wonder one: when i was just shy of fifteen, i received a swift kick to the lower leg during an intense soccer game. while i was no athlete, i decided i was all gritty and hardcore and chose to play out the rest of the game. not only did i have the wickedest bruise in amateur sports – about the size of my fist, and deep purple and green – but because ice wasn’t administered immediately, it didn’t go away for a long time. more than ten years later, i still have a bundle of scar tissue just above my right ankle. it is almost numb except for a slight tingle when i touch it. every time i take notice of it, i’m reminded that i once took a soccer game very seriously. i’m also convicted about my habit of ignoring what my body needs.

i have other scars: more than a dozen burns, scratches, stitches, and scrapes, the circumstances of which i can’t always remember. knowing that scars are quite common has done nothing to change how i feel about them: they absolutely fascinate me. when i see other people’s scars, i'm always tempted to ask how they were acquired. (i try to fight that impulse because it’s led to a few awkward moments – sometimes the stories have been forgotten, and sometimes we just wish we could forget them.)

scars are the marks life leaves on us. our very skin becomes a living scrapbook, and we can read our stories right off our own bodies. there are inner scars, too… they have colour and texture, but are invisible to the naked eye. that underlying ache is always there, waiting to be rediscovered at the oddest of times. there are some people who seem to instinctively know where the tenderness and vulnerability is; they just find those spots and jump up and down on them. just like with tangible scars, we can’t always remember how we got the hurt to begin with. all we know is, it’s hurting again, only different. like the echo of a hurt.

i don’t understand healing – why it is that God pronounces it over my life; why it is that the process seems to be stalled at “pathetically incomplete;” what its status says about God; whether there’s hope of getting anywhere at all; why i only ever notice my own healing in hindsight and from a distance. but i am starting to see that scars have a purpose in my life: they remind me that i am still fragile and urge me to be gentle with myself. attentive, even.

they are a mirror, reflecting back to me the pain that i refused to deal with at the time.

close your eyes and i'll kiss you ‘cause
with the birds i’ll share
with the birds i’ll share
this lonely view
~red hot chili peppers, "scar tissue"

wonderments

on july 7th, they'll unveil the results of a global vote on the new seven wonders of the world.

thing is, the choices are limited to man-made structures completed before the year 2000. and i don't *really* wonder about buildings so much. so, i'm working on a real list: the seven wonders of my world. results to be unveiled on... say... july 7th.

what leaves you in awe?

p.s. here are gandhi's seven blunders of the world:
- wealth without work
- pleasure without conscience
- knowledge without character
- commerce without morality
- science without humanity
- worship without sacrifice
- politics without principle

talking about language

responding to linda hirshman

ahem-hem.
this from amazon.com's write-up of linda hirshman's "get to work: a manifesto for women of the world."

A former attorney and professor of philosophy, Hirshman labeled child care as a low-status job and urged all women to rejoin the work force in her now infamous American Prospect article "Homeward Bound."

Now she's back, using statistical research and convincing anecdotal evidence to challenge the politically correct assertion-as well as the moral, value and economic judgements inherent therein-that children, and ultimately society, benefit when mom stays at home.

In her attempts to "restart the revolution," Hirshman spotlights the emptiness of "'choice feminism,' the shadowy remnant of the original women's movement," that puts the freedom to choose before progress or equality.

"Stay-at-home moms do not like to hear that the sacrifice of their education, talents and prospects to their spouses' aspirations and their children's needs was a mistake," writes Hirshman, "so they contend the stay-at-home decision cannot be judged." But by making that "stay-at-home decision," Hirshman contends, women are creating, collectively, their own glass ceiling, in the end harming society as a whole by keeping educated, affluent women hidden at home.

don't tell the kids, but we're wasting our time on them. thoughts?

whine no more, ladies (and gents)

you know what my bible says? "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. AGAINST SUCH THINGS THERE IS NO LAW." (gal 5:22-23)

i wish Christians would stop whining about our civil liberties while people starve, freeze, overdose, and cry themselves into lonely deaths. maybe if we focused on others for a change we would realize that what's most important - and what God wants - cannot be legislated against.