Poets

I love Sarah Kay's work.



And this, this is excellent.

And me? I am learning who I want to sound like when I grow up. I am aware that when I am done with this season, I will be someone else. I look forward to that. I feel like I should unpack that more, explain that more, provide a little more detail...but I don't really have any. At least, not today.

And if you have the fortitude to listen to a poem about surviving rape, this is as excellent as art made from pain ever gets:

Man. These guys hit it. And when I say "it", I mean that they have such well thought out ideas on race but also education, media, and the value of people. Fantastic. This is invaluable perspective.

The Waiting Room at the Base of Mount Sinai

A couple of days ago, Tyler and I were talking and we reached the conclusion that everyone over-spiritualizes something. You can over-spiritualize anything from purity and following the rules to freedom and open-mindedness. And sure, God is in those things. But God is not nearly as invested in those as most adherents are.

I have been turning that conversation with Tyler over and over in the back of my mind, carrying it with me until I knew what I was looking for. Today, I stumbled on it.

I over-spiritualize learning. It is how I define success in my personal life and success in my religion. Am I still learning? Because learning equals growing and growing equals not dying (or giving up) and not dying equals success. Am I right? That and, at bottom, God doesn't demand that we are perfect in a day so as long as we are moving towards that goal, we are "walking with him" and that is salvation and the very point of Christian existence. Right? I mean, how else do we interpret verses like "continue to work out your salvation" or James's piece about faith being evident by deeds?

Besides, I love learning. I really do. And I think God does too. But maybe he doesn't need me to always be learning the way I need me to always be learning.

Learning for me has become the biggest reassurance that I am on the right track. God is teaching me, therefore where I am is good. As if, God is not also the one who teaches me when I really blow it. As if I am not learning just as much when I am behaving my worst as when I am truly doing my best. See, in reality, learning just means that I am still paying attention to my actions, their consequences, and any other details I observe. But accomplishing observation hardly tells me about the quality of my life and my choices.

Granted, this has been a hard year for measuring success any other way. Moreover, I literally have no idea what success means anymore. Or if I care. Am I successful? feels like the most irrelevant of queries. As if you asked me if I was a bird. Who the hell cares if I am a bird/successful? What matters is that I am trying, I am changing, I am learning. Or so I thought and I mostly still believe.

Except, I have been trapped in this desert for so long now and there is only so much that the wind and the sand can teach you. I do not think I am learning anymore. I do not think God is speaking to me any new truth or even any old truth that I have forgotten.

Throughout high school and most of college, I have loved who I thought I was becoming. I knew it was a gift to be able to accept myself as I became myself. Sure, I really struggled to extend myself grace, but it was largely because I so wanted to be my future self already. All the same, I was excited for where I was going and who I thought I would be.

I am not excited anymore. Why? Because I cannot pretend, imagine, or predict what is coming. I know this may seem quite silly to you. But I am a creature whose main form of survival is adaptation. On a level very near my DNA, I think I can learn fast enough and rearrange myself quick enough to be whoever I need to be on a given day.

Sure, all of you with Bible degrees, more life experience, or just a good dose of realism see the fault in my armor, the Achilles' heal, the base I haven't covered. And I do too. But carrying that burden of learning justifies ever season of life I find myself in. It makes me just the right amount of busy to really feel successful. And, there are so few negative side affects to being passionately over-committed to learning.

That is, until you get stuck. My life literally hasn't changed in 6 months. When I said, I was a creature who adapted for survival, I meant that I adapted as most humans breathe. Not changing feels like suffocation. Sure, I have gotten engaged, had job interviews, traveled etc. etc. etc. But my view of next week always looks the same. It always looks back at me with more questions than I can ask of it. Sure, I fill my time. But I am not convinced that I am going anywhere. Like God got busy and put me on hold and now I just live in the waiting room at the base of Mount Sinai.

Of course this is all horrible theology. But this is what the best of my senses perceive. I am not learning any new big thing about the world or God or myself. I am just here. And God is here. But He only says that He loves me and then moves on to the next person. And I know that if I was a good Christian, it would be enough to be loved by the God the universe. But I want so badly to have a purpose. And that blasted Westminster Catechism just plays in the background "man's purpose is to obey God and enjoy him forever." As if that tells me what to do tomorrow, or next week, or at all.

Though it is the most hypocritical of paradoxes, I am learning how to not always be learning. I am learning not to over-spiritualize or over-emphasize learning. It is one my less graceful lessons. But I challenge you, what do you over-spiritualize? It is not an easy mirror to look into.

I woke up with the burning need to write something. This happens. It is like thirst except things tumble out of your throat and out over your tongue instead of being drawn in through your mouth toward your gut. It happens most often while I am driving. Sometimes I speak the words that I would write so that they exist at least for a moment with me in the car like condensation evaporating.

If I have ignored writing for too long, I wake up like today with half a dozen rivulets flowing in different directions but knowing that my hand will only travel the tide of one voice. The rest will likely be lost. Sometimes, I can dam up a tributary and hold it by the head like a snake. I will write down the location to the headwaters of an idea. Too often, though, when I pass back by that idea, it has dried up and no longer know what I meant, why it was important, or where it would have taken me.

Today, I woke up to find the headwaters of several disparate rivers in my mouth. Every thought came out in prose. The shower was alive with rumbling of words. I have saved up introspection just for this.

But today, like every other day, there is only so much time. Already, the tributaries are waning.

Do I write about the ants who have sent their second wave of scouts into my kitchen and penetrated my defenses much more thoroughly than I would have thought possible on a Monday morning? All weekend, there was no movement and I let my guard down. No casualties as of yet, though they would carry off the sugar jar if they were strong enough.

I have a prompt that I have been saving that starts, “When you are a White American, no one asks you where you are from or how long you have been in the United States.”

Or do I want to explore the constant companion of discontentment? I do write about that a lot in my attempts to out run dissatisfaction, create understanding, and engage a new season of life.

I am constantly mentally writing a detailed analysis of Dan Simmons’ twin works Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion. What he accomplishes in regards to an alternate science fiction universe, his characters’ relationship to time, and the question of what kind of relationship between God and creatures should exist is phenomenal. He very much deserves all of the awards that his work has received.

I have a half thought out piece on how living with no regrets is bullshit. Unless you either love the people in your life perfectly or don’t really love them at all, you are going to mess up and hurt people that wish you didn’t. Trying to chase the cliché of “no regrets” just makes you unrepentant and arrogant. I understand that it appeals because it wards off a certain degree of vulnerability, but invulnerable people tend to be selfish jerks. (There’s a reason I haven’t published that gem yet. It could use some polishing.)

Or do I attempt to sort out all of the confusion I am carrying around about my health, my present, and my future?

Oh! I could write up a list of unhelpful things that people tell you when you are planning a wedding. And what I think planning a wedding is really about.

Lastly, do I finally start that food blog that I keep threatening to make?

In reality, I need to go make some food, get to an appointment, go grocery shopping, have my first visit with a Western doctor, and attend the gardening class that I (apparently) signed up for. It’ll be a good day. But the desire to write remains unsatisfied. And so, I leave this bit of angst for all of my good intentions that never do satisfy myself.