#44. Realizing that my life is better than I dreamed about as a kid.


I live in a house with a yard. I have a nice car (a 2001 Honda Civic, but I think it’s pretty nice :) and I own a computer and a convection toaster oven. I’m sleeping on clean sheets and I’m watering plants and watching the hastas grow under my front window. I’m fit and healthy; my back is strong. I get my hair done in a real salon and I go to the dentist for cleanings. I have friends— good people, fun people, people I can openly share with. 
These were all things I didn’t have as a child, things I used to long for. I yearned for clothes from Old Navy, I pined after clean cars and fresh fruit, I wished to live in a place to which I could invite people. And now I have all these things, all these things and more. 
But it’s more than the things. 
I have a Savior, my Lord Jesus Christ, and He has lavished on me so many gifts. I have a confidence I never had as a child, a sense that it’s okay to speak my mind. I have a husband— something I didn’t really long for as I child or a teenager (back then I thought love was for the romantically foolish), but caught me by surprise and totally remapped my interior life. I have a college degree…  and now I’m finishing up my masters degree. I understand my place in the world. I feel now; I experience emotion in a way I never did before, deeply. I have a voice, I’ve been gifted, I know what it means to live.
I’m no longer the child that I was ashamed to be. I’m a woman, a very blessed woman looking to the future with hope and enjoying the present moment with deep satisfaction.

into golden brilliance

Up temple steps,
one Alistair goes reluctantly
with arms full of books
and his left shoe untied
and a mind back in the stacks
searching for the one last
reference which (he pretends)
would complete
his research and, so,
him.

A girl, Lysette, sits
on one polished bench inside
and with an unmoving gaze
watches the moving fresco
of the sky. Her young
mind sees the blue reimagined,
clouds spun in gold.
Her books are outside the gate.

Temple emerges from navy
midnight to pure rose
, into golden brilliance.
Sinks into purple
dusk again. A temple
in time.

Some Playthings


A trembling brown bird
standing in the high grass turns
out to be a blown

oakleaf after all.
Was the leaf playing bird, or
was it “just” the wind

playing with the leaf?
Was my very noticing
itself at play with

an irregular
frail patch of brown in the cold
April afternoon?

These questions that hang
motionless in the now-stilled
air: what of their

frailty, in the light
of even the most fragile
of problematic

substances like all
these momentary playthings
of recognition?

Questions that are asked
of questions: no less weighty
and lingeringly

dark than the riddles
posed by any apparent
bird or leaf or breath

of wind, instruments
probing what we feel we know
for some kind of truth.


[poem by John Hollander, from his book A Draft of Light]

Wool Slacks and The Temptation to Power


It is ironic, as Henri Nouwen articulates, that even while claiming to follow the poor and powerless Jesus, the Christian leaders of history "gave in to the temptation of power."

. . . . . .

Monday I went to rent a car. It was a long trip getting there, but I wore high heels and wool dress slacks and a knit top for the entire day just to impress upon the rental car personnel that I was someone serious and business-like and they should not disrespect me or try any chicanery. Watch out!-- I'm wearing slacks! I called ahead asking for directions and rates and the woman on the other end gave them to me, as well as a rundown of the needed qualifications required to do business with them. "You needa be at least 21, with a driver license, and proofa insurance." Check, check, and check. 

When I walked in the door, slacks and all, I gave the attendant a bright assertive smile and said, "Hi, I'm here to rent a car. I just talked with you on the phone." Smile. Assertive posture. SLACKS, for goodness' sake. She says, "Um, honey, are you 21?" I wore those high heels for nothing.

. . . . . . 

I think that my petite stature and young face and perhaps even my femaleness have given me a sensitivity to patronization. I don’t experience it often, but when someone acts condescendingly to me, my pride flares hot and bright. In those moments I feel the need to instruct people that I am not a high school student, I am not his secretary, I am not a summer intern, I am not a dorm student. What I am trying to say is, “I am better than that. I deserve more respect than that.” But why? Does a dorm chaplain deserve more respect than a dorm student? Does a ministerial officer deserve more respect than an administrative assistant? Does a graduate student deserve more respect than a high school student? Reflection tells me that this demand for respect comes out of a place of personal insecurity.