Change - Day 3

"You can't control how others behave - you can only control how you respond."

This is one of many "Brenda-isms" that filled my childhood. My mom is a wonderfully compassionate and level-headed person, who did her best to instill a sense of optimistic realism in my siblings and I. Other golden phrases include "happiness is a choice", "now, this is a life lesson, so I'm going to tell you even though you don't want to hear it...", and "you're right, life isn't fair." Brenda is a very wise woman.

Regulating my response to other's behavior became a guiding factor in my life. Especially as a teenager, I couldn't quite grasp why my peers were so affronted by so many things. Controlling your response was easy, I thought, so why did people get so angry?

As I've grown up, though, I've gotten things a little bit twisted. I'm still good at controlling my response, most of the time. But now the thing that makes me most angry? When other people can't seem to do the same. When the response to difference or tragedy is divisions and hate I find myself outraged. Why can't we be better? Why can't we be smarter, kinder, gentler, more peaceful?

I wish we could realize change has to begin with us. I wish I could realize the change has to begin with me.

We can rage at politicians and pastors and teachers and universities and social media activists and other religions for not fixing the problems of the world, but we can't control them. We can't influence every person to think and act the way we do - as much as we seem to try. We expect so much more out of others than we do out of ourselves. I expect more out of you than I do out of me.

All you can do is change you. All I can do is change me.

In response to the San Bernardino shooting, and other recent tragedies, what do we do? Perhaps hypocritically, I suggest staying off social media. Tweeting your support for victims is a nice gesture, for sure, but maybe before, take some time to stop and pray. Serious, heart-wrenching prayer. Ask that scary thing of God, that he would break your heart for what breaks his. For me, this means staying off social media not because I'm tempted to comment, but I am so easily outraged by what I see. More about that another day.

I will probably say a lot of things over the course of this experiment that sound judgmental, condescending, arrogant, prideful, or holier-than-thou. I know myself well enough to admit that. But what I most need to realize is that making peace with the world around me means creating peace within myself, and loving the very people who so outrage me.



25 Days for Peace is a cooperative blogging experiment between myself and five other artists, designed to explore the facets of peace, particularly centered around this season intended to experience the peace of Christ. Visit this page to see the other contributions to this journey, and like it to join with us in exploring what peace means.

Advent - Day 2

A large part of this journey for me this season is making peace with the world around me. I have a tendency to bottle up frustration with the state of my world. I harbor a lot of unrest sometimes when I think about how much fuss people make over things that seem to me so frivolous. The annual complaint about "the war on Christmas" is one of those things.

I have always loved Christmas. It brings warm fuzzy feelings to my heart and makes the beginning of the cold season much less sucky. My family has a myriad of traditions, mostly typical - baking cookies with my mom and sister, decorating the house together, attending the Christmas Eve service, opening just one gift on Christmas Eve (spoiler alert, it's pajamas!), visiting family, and all around goodness and cheer. I love buying presents, I love wrapping presents, I love planning for presents, I love watching people open presents, and I love getting presents (I don't care if I'm not supposed to say that, its true!). I have a good excuse to put peppermint in everything. If I want to wear a sweater every day for a month, no one will judge me. Christmas is wonderful.

Lots of people in my world have been saying for years that these are not the things Christmas is about.

I would like to humbly disagree.

Presents and snowmen and trees and snow and reindeer and family gatherings and cookies and singing; these are what Christmas is about, the Christmas that is a cultural holiday. Because Christmas stopped being about Christianity long before any of us was born. (1647, actually, according to the Puritans.)

Would you like to know what is about Jesus?

Advent.

Advent is something very different entirely. Advent is a season of darkness, waiting, expectation, and anticipation. Something peaceful and eager, looking forward to the coming of the Savior who changes everything. It is a season of wonder and joy, looking back on the grace God has shown us.

Advent is also wonderful.

Advent is not Christmas. Christmas is not Advent.

As Christians, we can have the blessing of intertwining our culture and our faith. Christmas came from Advent, centuries ago, and there are still overlaps. Advent doesn't celebrate Christ's birth until January, but there's no reason not read the story of his birth on our cultural Christmas. Advent is meant for remembering God's grace, and how better to appreciate the grace you have been shown than by spreading goodness and hospitality through caring for the poor and underprivileged in your neighborhood? Bring as much faith to Christmas as you want! Sing the Advent carols, put an angel on the tree, set out the nativity scene, reflect on Christ as God's gift to us as we gives gifts to each other, integrate your cultural experience with the richness of faith!

I'm not good at celebrating Advent, and part of this journey for peace is about getting better. I hope you find some time in the beautiful crazy of the Christmas season to rest and to expect. Reflect on the grace and the goodness of the year behind you - even in the darkest year there is something. Look forward to the celebration of the Messiah, and to another year to serve and to bless. Please, join me in searching for peace and joyful expectation these next weeks.


25 Days for Peace is a cooperative blogging experiment between myself and five other artists, designed to explore the facets of peace, particularly centered around this season intended to experience the peace of Christ. Visit this page to see the other contributions to this journey, and like it to join with us in exploring what peace means.

Leaving - Day 1

I was going to start 25 Days of Peace with a little intro, a little discussion about what peace means, probably a deep theological investigation on all the avenues of the term.

God had another plan.

I've hit the last week of my internship, and I am overwhelming thankful for the gift of God's peace. Two weeks ago, I was a panicked sort of sad about leaving Columbus. It felt like I had spent the whole six months wishing I was home, and now I couldn't bear to leave. Every hug from Ahbry and Genna, every long dinner chat with Susan, every office lunch, and every pot of coffee I brewed brought up a well of emotion. (Don't judge - you spend as much time making coffee as I do, you'll develop an attachment too.) Just thinking about leaving caused high levels of anxiety.

Then I went home.

Thanksgiving break was full and beautiful. I sat in IHOP for six hours drinking endless cups of coffee with my friends. I had Thanksgiving dinner with my closest aunt, one set of grandparents, and my immediate family. I got to play with so many family dogs. I ran errands for my dad and went grocery shopping with Mom. I watched four Marvel movies with my brother. I helped bathe and administer medicine to my beloved dog to help nurse him back to health. I had coffee with my oldest and best friend, catching up on hardly a fraction of everything that has happened since September. My sister and I had chances to reconnect. I had lunch and long talks with my other set of grandparents.

I returned to Columbus full of peace and joy, completely at rest in myself.

I'm still sad about leaving. I've cherished the beautiful experience in this complex city. I'm still walking around saying "This is my last (staff meeting, gathering review, pot of coffee, morning drive, etc)". But I can really enjoy it now! I can love every last moment of my time here because God has granted me peace. I am leaving a beautiful place and incredible people, but I get to return to a place equally as beautiful and people just as incredible!

As I look back on my life, God has been good in this area. I loved high school, but when it came time to leave, I was ready. He orchestrated events that made me eager to move on to the next thing, and made leaving my educational home easier. As I have transitioned away from the church that has been my home for almost my entire life, God has opened doors to make that change easier, and show me how much finding a new community is the best choice. As I look forward to graduation, God has used this internship experience to show me how the relationships I have built will follow me, even when my friends are scattered. Graduation doesn't mean the end of what I've worked to build, it just means a transformation.

Leaving is hard. But God, in his infinite grace and wisdom, has granted me peace.


25 Days of Peace is a cooperative blogging experiment between myself and five other artists, designed to explore the facets of peace, particularly centered around this season intended to experience the peace of Christ. Visit this page to see the other contributions to this journey, and like it to join with us in exploring what peace means.

Lunch Break

There is something powerful about sharing meals. I’ve heard that said many times. In all the best books about community and hospitality and relational ministry they mention sharing meals, breaking bread, family dinners. I always want for more to be said, so I guess that means I need to say it. The best way I know how is to tell a few stories first.

The Bubble

High school was really a pretty amazing time for me. I’d been in the same school since kindergarten, known the same people my whole life. My best friend and I had been such since the second grade. I’d weathered teenage angst, maybe a little more sharply than some, and come out the other side it seemed, by the time I came to senior year. I didn’t expect for much to change. I’d go to the same sorts of parties and we’d tell the same jokes we’d been telling since the seventh grade and we would graduate in the spring just slightly more mature versions of ourselves. Then on the first day of our senior year, a girl I was moderately good friends with decided that she and I and a third friend were going to sit at a table essentially populated by boys. Now, the strangeness of this was determined by factors of high school social politics that would take a long time to explain, and would bore you very much, so suffice to say it was a bold move. The three of us sat down at their lunch table without announcement, and suddenly, the third friend and I became part of their circle. We ate lunch with them, sat on their couch in study hall, joined their section of chairs in the classroom, and were assumed members of group projects. (For more high school typical reasons, the first friend was less automatically embraced, and socially ended the school year in a very different place than she began.)

This meal time change altered the whole course of my year. Lunch hour with what we affectionately dubbed “the bubble” was mostly a highly energetic affair. Most keenly I remember heated debates on the meaning of 'metrosexual’, paintings done in ranch dressing on paper plates, dissected pizza slices, towers of trash on red plastic trays, deciding to cook a whole pound of bacon in the communal microwave, and much eye rolling at each other’s general ridiculousness. From lunch came other meals. After school stops at Taco Bell with one friend became common. When one friend’s parents were away, I and one other went over to make pancakes and watch cartoons. After a party, holing up in a McDonalds, eating terrible fries, and trying to write a presentation. A particularly special evening we spent way too long figuring out how to split the cost of a pizza after a late night working on our most epic final project.

Graduation came, and things changed, as they should. I looked back on that last year and nothing was the same as it was going to be. Briefly we all had the feeling that some night soon would be the last we saw of each other. But that night never came. We saw each other every few months instead of every day. Meals became drawn out affairs, lasting hours, into the early morning most times. The numbers vary, sometimes two or three, often six, only once all nine of us sit together and share a meal. Coming up on four years later – ages in the life of school friends at our stage of life – we’re making plans for our Thanksgiving reunion, per usual.

These most unexpected friends taught me more about friendship than I think even they know. At one point I looked across the table at IHOP and thought, “If they met me now, without this history, would they still be part of my life? Would I be part of theirs?” I’ve learned how to talk about faith differently. We are all growing in this, but it is one of the most profoundly amazing things I have been a part of in my short life. We grew in different ways, different directions, different courses, different goals. Despite being the same age together, we are in vastly different places in life – school, jobs, relationships, and faith look so different in each life. But we sit down to meals together and in the course of our burgers or pancakes we reach the point of honesty. I think it’s in those moments we realize more than ever how little we know. These friends teach me more about life than I could have imagined. Just by being and allowing me to be with them, they force me to think differently about career and education and marriage and God and the world.

Ministry Lunch

My freshman year of college was a very weird time for me. As previously mentioned, I’d been in the same school my whole life. I’d never had to make friends from scratch before, there was always history, or the new friend was encountering me in my comfort zones of school and church. Pick that girl up and set her down on a college campus and internal chaos ensues. I had no idea how people made friends.

Thank God for whoever it was that decided a random assortment of people from our Foundations of Christian Ministry class should eat lunch together after class twice a week. I was outrageously uncomfortable, but so pleased that someone wanted me around. That particular group of classmates wasn’t consistent, and after the class ended, so did lunch gatherings. But one particularly persistent friend was intent on ‘getting the gang back together’ in our second semester. It happened once or twice that spring. Oddly enough, the fall of our sophomore year, a segment of that original lunch group was rounded up again, by our persistent friend if I remember correctly. There were five of us now, myself the only girl, all ministry majors. The bond between us was quick and strong, for reasons that none of us are quite sure of even today. We all have theories, but no real answers. We developed an odd familial dynamic, complete with parental roles and birth order. Suddenly, I was Mom. We ate lunch as a family twice a week, plus dinners randomly in different combinations. We had movie nights and one very strange trip for ice cream an hour away. Then we adopted a freshman worship major, and our family grew. It’s hard for me to explain the weirdness and the beauty and the joy of it without sounding like a nutjob.

Sophomore year of college was probably the hardest year of my short life. But becoming family with those boys was one of the two things that God gave me to get me through it. (The other being another beautiful group of friends, but that is a story for another essay.) Telling them about the fear and the breakdowns and the hard choices I was making gave me strength. When the toxic relationship that was the nucleus of so many of my issues finally broke, they were there to force me back into life. When I got strings of painful texts, they were there to remind me how ridiculous his accusations were, and in one case someone stepped in to put a stop to it. Over the course of the last two and a half years, they have come to me for counsel and let me cry on their shoulders. Our friendships have been tested in so many ways, some unique to us, but just as many simply the growing pains of early adulthood. Not all of it was idyllic. A lot of it was hard. Some days I wanted to punch them.  Others I had to fight the protective instinct to punch someone who hurt them. I cried over broken relationships and destructive behaviors in all of their lives. In a stage of life when romantic relationships suddenly held so much more weight, we learned how to have healthy male/female friendships – through a whole hell of a lot of trial and error. I got to rejoice in their triumphs and cry tears of joy when they overcame the hurdles life had set in front of them. Sometimes we disagreed so deeply that I questioned if we were going to stay friends. Sometimes individual friendships were really unhealthy.

But now as we teeter on the brink of “real” adulthood – graduation, marriage, ministry, even more education – I don’t question the place they hold in my life. I know it will change. If it didn’t, we would have a problem. We won’t have twice-weekly lunch or family movie nights. But these six months of PRIME have shown me that we can still have intense theological discussions and heart-warming, healing, late night chats. There’s even a chance we’ve accidentally provided future children with a whole host of extra aunts and uncles.

All of this: growth, love,  depth,  reflection of the Gospel – because someone invited me to lunch. Both times, unexpected. Both times, initially  unremarkable. But two and three and four years later, the people I ate regular meals with became irreplaceable.

Here’s my theory, in two parts:

Practically, there is something to be said about the function food can play. When you sit down to a meal together, you have to stop talking for a few minutes. Putting food in front you means that while you eat, someone else gets a chance to talk. It gives you a starting point – if you have nothing else to say, talk about food! Meals, done well, are a time for rest. It’s a moment to stand still, take a breath. Asking another person to join in that rest holds a degree of intimacy. This, I propose, is part of why we feel so affronted when someone we don’t know well asks to join us at an empty lunch table.

More importantly, there’s a reason Christ gave us a meal to remember him by, and told us to practice it regularly. Sharing food, stopping your day to connect with another person, nourishing your body and your soul in the same moment, these things are powerful. Don’t hear me saying that lunch with my friends is the same as a sacrament, but I am saying it is something more than just food. Communal meals are a sign of the life to come, the celebration of real community that we call “the marriage supper of the Lamb.”

A special word of encouragement to all my friends still in undergrad – pick one lunch a week, pick one person or group, and make it a habit, just for a semester. I promise, it will impact you. Particularly my HU friends – you’re already stopping at the hub or the DC after class. If you don’t have back to backs, why not take that hour to invest in a friend. Sacrifice your nap once a week, take a long lunch, and see what happens.

We can achieve something powerful if we choose to see our meal times as so much more than just a moment to pack some nutrients into our bodies. They are incredible opportunities to invest in other humans, and to be invested in. It refreshes you – yes, even us introverts – to connect, soul to soul, with another person. This, my stories above, is what we miss when we work through lunch every day, when we spend half of our lunch break on our phones, when we hit the drive through on our commute instead of sitting down with our families. We miss out on glimpses of eternity.

So take a lunch break.

10197/10557

Obligatory introduction regarding the bizarre nature this reading list has taken on. Now we will proceed.

Later this week I will post an update on the approaching end of my internship, but today I wanted to return to this silly list. After this, there will likely be one more reading list post, when I've finished off the required school reading and tied a neat little bow on the whole thing. I knew trying to completely update the list and write little reviews on everything after the explosion of papers I'm about to write next week would just not be feasible. So here we are.

Reaching Out, by Henri Nouwen.
Look, a school book! I loved this. Loved it deeply. At this point, it has been the most influential piece of required reading I've done in the course of the internship. Nouwen speaks in simple, realistic terms that reach to the heart of the spiritual life, revealing some of the deepest set patterns of human experience. Even after writing a paper about this work, I struggle to convey even the surface level of the things I learned. The chapters on loneliness versus solitude have helped me see how my anxiety rises from my own loneliness, and how real peace can make all the difference in the way I live life.

Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis
One afternoon, I had a terrible lack of motivation for anything. So rather than fiddle around on busy work or social media, I read Mere Christianity. I'd started it once or twice, but I think what this book and I needed was just a solid, uninterrupted span to really get to know each other. They were hours well spent.The theme of love has been appearing in lots of things I've read on this journey, and Lewis said some of the most profound words on the subject. I'll quote just a few here: "Love in this second sense - love as distinct from being 'in love' - is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God." The emphasis is mine, but this was the moment that planted itself in my mind. Grace and love are inseparable. I couldn't love anyone without grace... This is a thought that needs more attention, which there is not space for here, and needs more working out in my own heart before I can really explore it here.

The Game, by Terry Schott
Sometimes when my brain gets tired of wading through theology, I get on the iBooks store and pick some scifi and fantasy novels from the free page. I did not expect to be so attached to this story! It was a sneaky trick, which I'm sure is common, putting just the first book out for free so now I'm dying to buy the other books to find out what happens. The whole premise is that of a virtual reality replacement for traditional education. Children through their teens plug into a computer which allows them to live multiple lives, gaining life experience before they enter the real world. The catch is that while in the game, they don't know that it's a game. The world of the game is called Earth.
Schott does a masterful job of drawing the reader in slowly, adding levels of complexity to the story slowly, so by the end of the first book there were plots upon plots all woven together, with a mystery looming that I can't wait to unravel. I worry though, since there are five books total, that the early complexity of the book may not be sustainable throughout. I have hope though! I recommend The Game for people who enjoyed Hunger Games for its fast pace and socio-political commentary, but if you're looking for a YA romance, this is not the place to look. The seeds are planted for potential romantic development in later stories, but only as pawns of the greater story line.

I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith
I admit, my expectations and attitude going into this book were a huge factor in my loving it so much. It was recommended by my friend Kayla, the cover art was modern but understated, and the review on the cover was from JK Rowling, so I had it in my head that it was a recent publication. It wasn't until halfway through that I realized it was written in the 40s. All of that to say, I went into it with an open mind, and it paid off. The story flows beautifully, and the narrator has this blend of practicality, wistfulness, and imagination that I identified with strongly. Think Jane Austen, but with hippies of the 40s. It was glorious.

Unlovely, by Celeste Conway
If you've never heard of Ollie's, you're missing out on the most hodge-podge of discount stores. I've found that their bookshelves (logically located next to hair care products, just passed the dog food) are an entertaining guessing game. I've found brilliant little unknown books there.
This was not one of those.
I'm not sure what the author was going for. I thought it was going to be a spooky little story about ballerinas. Maybe she was trying? But I ended the book with a general distaste for the hero and all of his life choices, and I was generally in the dark about the creepy ballerinas and their little murder club. All in all, a decent idea that really didn't go anywhere.

The Gifting, by KE Ganshert
Another iBooks free download, and another sneaky trick to get me to buy more books. It worked again. I need to know what happens to them. This book freaked me out. I had nightmares. Mostly I think because the scary men only they can see where described in a way that reminded me of a supernatural serial killer from an anime, but that's just me.
I won't give this nearly as high praise as I did The Game, because while I was entertained, I don't see much lasting value in the story. It is fast paced however, an unsettling mix of medical drama, YA romance, and science fiction that obviously left me wanting more. A fun, creepy way to spend your time.

The Last Sin Eater, by Francine Rivers
This is a re-read, so I wasn't sure whether to include it, but it'd been years since I picked it up, so why not? Francine Rivers is a gem among Christian fiction writers. I have a soft spot for terrible Christian romances, the sort set in the old West with pioneers and school teachers and lots of horseback riding. However, Mrs. Rivers does a special thing, and creates stories of theological depth and pastoral importance in a pretty tired genre.
Sin Eater takes on questions about predestination, cultural sensitivity and appropriation, and the power of the Holy Spirit, as told through the eyes of a child. It's beautiful. Little Cady wrestles through grief to meet God, and God uses her to change her community in the face of death and strong evil. A wonderful book, and well worth returning to time and time again.

Origin, by Jessica Khoury
Another's Ollie's gamble, but a winner this time. It was a funny sort of story, about a medical experiment child who would live forever, born in the depths of the rain forest. A pretty typical YA novel, forbidden romance, teenage angst, questioning authority, but with neat scientific and mythological twists. Pia was a pretty likable narrator, rare for the genre. The ending was predictable, but not annoyingly so.

Unceasing Worship, by Harold Best
I have been trying to finish this book since July. It was slow, hard work, a few pages at a time. I had to keep stopping to digest what had been said. This book was profound and thick, and really changes my posture toward worship, art, and humanity. I really can't begin to explain the concepts concisely, I don't grasp them well enough for that yet, but I'll try and say just a few words.
Best paints a picture of humanity in the image of a Triune God, ceaselessly pouring out in praise and honor. The direction of this praise is always changing, but the outpouring never ends. The Christian life a training, to direct our worship where it should go. Upon this foundation, Best builds incredible doctrines of music and art and church. I try not to say this often, so take it with a grain of salt, but I believe this may be a book every Christian should read in their lifetime, and return to again, because it is difficult to entirely grasp the first time through.

The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
It's always a weird feeling to recommend something that left you feeling so sad. But this story is important. Anne, my friend, I can't thank you enough for telling me how much I need to read this book.
The journey of this narrator is so complex, so true to life, so colorful and tragic. My heart broke over and over again. As the world around us is broken and hurting, and this story for me was a call to see the hurt more openly. It reminded me not to walk pass global tragedy with blinders. I say this carefully, because seeing the needs of the world has absolutely nothing to do with posting about it on a blog or social media, or just hashtagging the trendy tragedy of the moment. Someday, I will say more about that, but not today. This book was one of many steps on my own journey of learning, and I promise, while your heart should break, you will not regret this book.

Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller
What did I expect? My friend Kody has been heralding the brilliance of Donald Miller for ages. I picked up Blue Like Jazz at a thrift shop before I moved to Columbus, and figured now was a good enough time to see what the fuss was about. It sat on the shelf for a month or two. Then on my nightstand for another few months. Then a few weeks on my desk here at the office. Then yesterday, full of procrastination and general antsy-ness, I finally cracked it open.
So refreshing. So honest. So convicting. Another one I will definitely return to, as I gain more life experience, to see how my 21-year-old heart compares with my 30-year-old heart. Donald Miller expresses so many things I've thought myself, in less poetic words. In a more personal sense, it was thrilling to see a format I work in myself in print. I think I can safely say it is now one of my goals in life to have my own essays published in a way half as wonderful as Blue Like Jazz.
One word of caution, a very small one. This book speaks to my experience as a college student, and to some of frustrations with the church. It would be easy to read this and feel some righteous discontent and use it to fuel my desire for reform. But that is not the point Miller is making. At least not the main one. The central theme is individual reform. We all need to change. We all need Jesus, so desperately.

10,197 down, 360 to go!




theList//
Spiritual Leadership: Henry and Richard Blackaby
Reaching Out: Henri Nouwen
Unceasing Worship: Harold Best
The Dangerous Act of Worship: Mark Labberton
Silence: Shucaku Endo 
Christ Centered Worship: Bryan Chapell 
Rhythms of Grace: Mike Cosper
Mere Christianity: CS Lewis
Art for God's Sake: Philip Graham Ryken
Culture Making: Andy Crouch 
Works of Love: Soren Kierkegaard
Awake: Noel Brewer Yeats
Fahrenheit 451: Ray Bradbury
Till We Have Faces: CS Lewis 
Beauty: Robin Mckinley
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Blue Like Jazz: Donald Miller
Click: Various Authors 
The Last Little Blue Envelope: Maureen Johnson
Out of the Silent Planet: CS Lewis
Perelandria: CS Lewis
That Hideous Strength: CS Lewis
Warrior: Francine Rivers 
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: JK Rowling
A Child Called It: David Pelzer 
Wither: Lauren DeStafano 
Merlin: TA Barron 
The Last Sin Eater: Francine Rivers 
As Nature Made Him: John Colapinto 
I Capture the Castle: Dodie Smith 
Unlovely: Celeste Conway 
Origin: Jessica Khoury 
The Kite Runner: Khaled Hosseini 
The Gifting: K.E. Ganshert 
The Game: Terry Schott 
Fever 1793: Laurie Halse Anderson 

Feuillemort

I admit, I've been avoiding this space a little.

My time in Columbus is rapidly drawing to a close and I have this instinct to document it. I want to capture every moment of it and bring this place back to Indiana with me. I've written down a hundred topics, planning to flesh them out and update you all on my life here as well as maybe inform you on some theological realizations I've had.  I've read so much, my head is full of musings.

But when I sat down to write, nothing would come out.

Every thought stammered to a halt. The notes that had had so much potential suddenly seemed dry. My witty stories and wry observations fell flat when they appeared on my screen.

Life had become too real and too bright to be captured by me. More talented artists could have transmitted the emotions and moments of the past month into essays and stories, but I can't. Not right now.

I think, in a few months, when I'm settled back into dorm life, or even farther out, when I've finished school and am trying to get a handle on the new scope of my life, I will begin to really process the lessons I lived here. To try and wrap my head around it all now is so overwhelming, and it keeps me from experiencing the day to day of life here.

None of this to day I'm going to stop writing in this space until I'm back in Indiana. But it is to say I won't be killing myself to keep it updated.

Thanks for reading. Grace and peace.



feuillemort
(n.) the color of a dying leaf

An Open Letter: "It Must Be Nice"

To everyone who has responded to my weight with “it must be nice”:

When I rejoiced in my 2 pound gain and my ability to finish a sandwich, or lamented in my body’s stubborn refusal to keep those pounds on or to allow me to eat a normal amount at meals, and you looked at me with some mixture of annoyance, disdain, and disbelief and said “must be nice”, I know it was a joke. Really, I do. But the fact is, every “what a good problem to have”, every “you won’t always have to worry about that”, every “wish I could fill up that fast”, and every “you’re so lucky” makes me want to first rage and then cry. Don’t you understand? I see it! I see the glorification of the body type I was given – this petite thing with not too many curves. Wider culture has told me I am the ideal, or one of them at least. That my steady 113 pounds is something to celebrate, if not try to diminish to an even  110.

But while people around me struggle to drop that 5, 15, 20, 60 pounds; while you starve yourselves; while you count calories; while you imagine a world where you are finally the weight you believe you should be?

 I am weak. I get tired so much faster than you do. I stuff myself on 3 inches of sandwich, so full I could throw up, and two hours later I’m so hungry it feels like I could faint. Stress, instead of making me want to each piles of junk food, makes me so sick I can’t eat anything, and I go days eating just enough to keep moving – which for reference, is less in a day than you eat in one meal. When I stop paying attention and just eat whatever sounds good, I get anemic – nauseous, weak, tired, unstable, sore, irrational, incapable, dysfunctional.

So you know what must be nice?

Just one meal, being able to eat as much as I really want. Not feeling like I have to budget my intake – making sure what little I manage to eat keeps me moving. Feeling strong, instead of breakable. Being able share clothes with my friends. Being able to eat sugar! Enjoying cookies and brownies and cake and ice cream like every other girl my age without taking three bites and feeling like it might come up again if I eat even one bite more. Being able to skip a meal and not be in danger of passing out before the next one.

It must be nice to feel normal.

So here, I take a breath. I end my frustrated rant to say this: I’m learning to love my body. I’m learning to care for it better. I know that a large number of the things I struggle with are within my control, I can fix them with hard work and commitment.

But what I ask is that you? The acquaintance who responds with such quippy lines? I ask that you realize my battle is just like yours.

While you count calories, I’m reading nutritional facts, weighing the percentages of iron in my food.

While you work to burn off those pounds, I am fighting for every calorie to add a single pound.

While your ideal weight may mean losing a certain number, mine means gaining a number.

My goal, to me, is just as much a struggle as yours.

I’m at my highest weight since my first bout of anemia took 30 pounds from me three and a half years ago. It’s an incredible win, but every offhanded comment makes me feel guilty for rejoicing in my little victories.

Here is the crux of it all. This is not an issue of society. It isn’t fat shaming or skinny shaming. It is an issue of community.

After all that frustration vented above, the reality is: I am not alone in my battle, and that has been the most beautiful blessing. I’ve been surrounded with women in my family who have struggled with their own weight and body image battles most of their adult lives. My mother, my grandmothers, and many of my aunts have been supportive and loving, even as my struggle opposes theirs. It was my Nana who first realized I was anemic, which probably saved my life. I’ve celebrated their victories alongside my own. I’ve offered advice and so have they. I’ve been humbled by their compassion and assurance and concern. Their support, along with so many of the men in my family, and friends – men and women –  who have pushed me to eat when I didn’t want to and practically poured water down my dehydrated throat when I was too stubborn and weak to do what was best for me, have made me capable of pushing on.

So, my quippy acquaintance.

I dearly hope that your community pushes you toward your healthy goals, and reminds you that your identity is not in your weight or shape. I pray that next time your too-skinny friend shares her small triumphs, you can rejoice with her, and share triumphs of your own. Because we can all learn to be more sensitive to the battles of others.

With Love,

That Girl Who Needs to Eat a Sandwich

//Note: I am fully aware that this is not an issue of dramatic proportions. There are more important things. Things that deserve my attention and my words much more than this one. This is a relatively small issue. But because it is so small, why not fix it? So then we may devote our attention to more pressing matters of life.