|
SubscriptionsSites I Read
|
|
|
|
|
I pulled an all-nighter yesterday.
Meet me this time last year. I was hovering around the seventh tally mark for all-nighters of the semester. I justified this in my mind by telling myself that this was just what college kids did.
This happened to be the same day that Joe Modica sent me out of his office during a conversation with orders to “go take a nap—sleep is a spiritual discipline, too.”
Great.
This was a very pesky bit of information. All of a sudden, I found myself somewhat embarrassed and convicted by the dark circles around my eyes.
I've tried to figure out what it means to internalize this reality since the afternoon I shuffled my feet out of Walton and into bed. You don't have to believe me if you don't want, but yesterday night was an exception to sleeping patterns as of late. Since I foresaw this particular stretch of wakefulness, I decided throughout the day to focus on my weakness before God and to ask Jesus for mercy was my mind's liturgy. It’s one thing when you’re feeling fine and dandy while the birds are singing to say that in some abstract theological sense, indeed, we are broken and weak before God. It’s quite another to say you believe it when your body is shaking, your skin looks 20 years older, and your teeth are yellow with coffee.
How could we not consider the spirituality of sleep? Lauren Winner and John Baillie have helped me to think about it:
“My subject is the theology of sleep. It is an unusual subject, but I make no apology for it. I think we hear too few sermons about sleep. After all, we spend a very large share of our lives sleeping. I suppose that on an average I’ve slept for eight hours out of twenty-four during the whole of my life, and that means that I’ve slept for well over twenty years. What an old Rip van Winkle I am! But then, what Rip van Winkles you all are, or will one day become! Don’t you agree then that the Christian gospel should have something to say about the sleeping third of our lives as well as about the waking two-thirds of it? -John Baillie, “The Theology of Sleep” (1962)
It seems that in a productivity-paced culture like our own, sleep has become a sort of commodity to be traded and bartered against time pregnant with endless possibility and apparently a thousand deathly important things to do. So sleep has become our commodity and not our necessity. Who do we think we are? Am I really as important and indispensable as I think I am?
I couldn’t engage people yesterday. I had to apologize before a presentation for being scatter-brained and shaky. I had to leave in the middle of a class to get a cup of coffee. I subsequently didn’t remember much of what was said during my presentation.
“Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
The demands that sleep places on our finite and weary bodies help us remember in tangible ways that we are not the Creator. Just as a Sabbath day teaches us that God is God and we are not, the act of sleep manifests in itself the reality that we cannot be saviors of the world, nor may we save ourselves. Sleep leaves us vulnerable before God and exposed before our fellow human being. The habit of rest helps us to enact "little deaths" that speak to us of the truth of an eventual end to our lives and the lie of our invincibility. Consequently, the opening of eyelids each morning allow us the opportunity to "practice resurrection". These are our sabbaths of the everyday, our discipline, and somehow, our worship.
Who knew nap times could be so redemptive?
| | |
| January 5, 2008 It’s too weird that I’m here again. You see, I haven’t journaled for months, at least not publicly. I finally mustered up the desire and guts to do it yesterday, poured out my little heart, and when I returned to my computer hours later, the computer was off and none of the files were recovered. So I got pissed off and vowed never to journal again. So here I am. And this is my soul. Merton, you said it, "the dewy wing suddenly covered with rivers of cold sweat running backward. The window wept jagged shining courses of tears. joy." 
I smell of patchouli and dust. On the plane heading here, I watched both Ratatouille and No Reservations to kill the time. I was desperate to cook, or at least blow something up. It was terribly unfair to watch movies about being unbelievably infatuated with cooking and not having an outlet afterwards. It’s like watching a well crafted romance and the credits roll as you begin to look around you and feel the tug of the seatbelt at your waist. What is that? But I don’t have to watch movies on planes to write love letters. Sometimes it comes naturally. All this is to say, when the cute Asian stewardess handed me my rice noodles and eel, something had to be done. I noticed that some vanilla Haagen Daas was placed on my tray and had never felt so impressed with such an obscure airline. When the wines came around, I, to the curiosity of my neighbor, poured my Chardonnay over my ice cream. It was awful, really. But give me a break. I didn’t have boyfriend or a talking mouse to keep me company. It seemed like a fabulous idea at the time. I wonder about the people I meet on planes. What if you and I had met on a plane? Would we have told one another our stories for the 14 hours, or would there have been a polite and awkward silence? Would you have airplane food in your teeth? Would we be close enough for me to tell you? Maybe I’d drool on you. Maybe you’d elbow me. I might smell bad, you know. Maybe we would give each our email addresses, or heaven forbid even our phone numbers. Perhaps we’d sneakily peer over and watch at what the other was reading, writing. Then we’d quickly revert our gaze at something else before the awkward eye-meeting. These people I may never see again. And perhaps that is okay, but it is curious and sometimes saddening. What would have happened if we had met in different circumstances? Would Cal and I have had a game of one on one, the man with the hands eight times the size of mine? Would Orabi have tutored me in Hebrew? Dot would have talked to me about why she was a Unitarian and I would have taken it in. Farusha in her wild dirty dreads and mystical tattoos could have told me of her travels and our talk of the Great Spirit and the Way of Jesus would not have been cut short. I could have watched sweet Pat grow up. Teyuki, the manager at a Philips headquarters in Japan with such limited English still would have struggled along in broken conversation with me. On that planned trip to Israel/Palestine, I would have stayed with the soft hearted Ibrihim and Leah that taught me about Judaism and Hebrew and gave me their sandwich from Tel Aviv when I was hungry. And what of the names I can’t remember? The woman who was flying to her husband’s burial and held my hand as she cried with me, the small and ornery Chinese baby that fell asleep on my shoulder, the stubborn and crippled traveling neighbor who refused to sit down when asked and fell and got stuck between his seat and the one in front of him. The Temple professor that spoke to me between his wrinkles of Philly and music and the places we had been to in Roma, the Indian doctor who told me of ancient Indian history in my drowsy state for the duration of the flight, the Thai drug lord that took me through immigration the “special way”. The businessmen heading for Allentown that made bets and laughed and laughed with me, the children whose faces lit up as they revealed only their playful eyes from behind their seats. The old women who are disoriented and sweet. The companions, tattooed and melancholy that took care of me when I was sick and left their books behind when the flight had ended. The ones that kiss your cheek as you separate and hug you as a mother would when it’s time to go. What am I to do with these people, their stories, and our shared plastic cups of bad coffee? Perhaps this is all I can do. 
| | |
| The bones are tired but the heart is glad.
Strange and lovely Christmas jazz just started playing in a Starbucks at 2:00am on August….6th. It’s in the Bangkok airport, probably one of the only places a Starbucks could get away with it. And I am sitting here wondering why we don’t listen to Christmas jazz all year long. Could we just have a carol or two next Sunday? I think Jesus’ birth should be real and romantic all year long. The German couple next to me keep glancing over. Did I sit too close? It was the last seat in the place, I swear. Maybe it’s a booger. Probably.
When those wheels hit the runway, I think I started to cry. I don’t care if anyone saw. I probably am so exhausted at this point (I’m operating on about 12 hours of sleep from the last 80) that’d I’d cry at just about anything, but that’s mostly besides the point. I was listening to James Taylor sing about Caroline and how he’s coming back home to her tomorrow, that she should meet him in the middle, make him melt like chocolate, when we grazed and then bounced along the runway. I was on Thai soil.
“As we glide over the night lights of Bangkok, I realize I am coming home.
I look around at those on this flight, most staring out the windows.
How many are coming home with me?
How many are coming home and don’t know it [as I did one August, years ago]?"
I was in the middle of writing a love letter to a guy I didn’t know when we hit a series of thunderstorms, hit some turbulence and fell for a few seconds in the air. Some of the women started screaming. I thought it might be over for us all, and thought this was probably the most romantic way to go. Could I at least stick my letter in my emptied water bottle and drop it out the emergency exit before we dropped? The flight attendant wasn’t into it. I survived, and warned mystery boy that just cause I hadn’t died right then didn’t mean I wasn’t going to die young. I told him if one of us died, we’d hurt, but we’d move on. He could even marry someone else if he wanted. I talked about how sometimes we’d be the loneliest when we were sitting right next to each other and how we couldn’t be each other’s salvation. I apologized at the end for going on and on just in case I ended up being single.
This journey I find myself on this morning is one of grace. This crazy Christmas music is grace. This caramel macchiato, my bloodshot eyes, traveling companions, swollen feet, eight hour layovers and James Taylor are grace. I am itchy to see my family, but I realize that each detail of this voyage is an intricate part of the process of getting to them.
All of this craziness started when I met the Limas. Erin, a vibrant and delightful redhead, is Duffy Robbins’ daughter. By some unexpected weaving of events this summer, I stumbled into the life of her family and soon took on the title of babysitter and friend. I did not know what I was about to get myself into. After an overnight, a dinner, late night and late morning talks, French fry parties with Sadie and dancing ones with Hank, I was being offered a plane ticket home. I told them they were crazy.
For one, how could I move out? Quit my job- no way. Anyway, it was going to be at least 1500 bucks, if not way more. And last but not least, there was no way that I could receive something like that. Besides, I was supposed to be strong and stick it out. Melancholy for Jesus.
But afterwards, that crazy idea teased me. After sharing this wild story with some of those close to me here, they asked me why on earth I wasn’t taking them up on the offer. I listed all of my very logical reasons and they all sat there and rolled their eyes. One by one, my reasons for not being able to go were stripped away…a new worker was unexpectedly hired, if I moved all of my stuff out of the room, Eastern couldn’t charge me room and board, my boss kindly told me I had permission to quit early and that I couldn’t miss out on an opportunity like this, I found a flight for $1557 when the average rate was $3000, and I simultaneously realized that if I gave one more tour of the school, I might lose my mind once and for all. Now the only thing holding me back was my inability to call. I tried to convince the butterflies slapping up against the sides of my belly to settle down as I wondered bashfully if the offer still stood.
Surely enough, it did. The wild thing was that Erin and Peter seemed thrilled that I wanted to take them up on it. Before I knew it, I was booked on a flight that headed out in two weeks. I didn’t understand what this was all about, and for good reason. This was grace and it left me disoriented.
Erin and Peter messed everything up. They paid to send me home. This didn’t do them a bit of good; they lost their babysitter and 1500 bucks. And that’s it. Most of my conscious life has been spent trying to earn my way to God and his love. If you want love, you’ve gotta deserve it. I try to dish it out but I am genuinely worthless when it comes to receiving. The problem with this was that there is no way to justify this trip except for the gracious spirit of Jesus oozing out of this family for me. There is no rhyme or reason to it. It’s terribly flustering.
And I want it that way. I want to keep it that way. They are teaching me about grace. My problem was that I couldn’t receive and I thought I had to be strong. Strong-Sad for Jesus. But you know what, this whole independent woman thing is a crock of garbage. I want to see my family.
And I will. I am meeting my family during their vacation at the beach. In 7 and ½ hours, my mother or father will have found an excuse to leave their hotel to drive into town to pick me up at the Krabi airport. Then I will slip into the room where my brother and sister are sleeping and be a stranger to them until they pull back the covers. I want to hug my mom. I am going to dance with my father and kick up my legs and spin around like we used to. I am going to give my brother noogies that he’ll never forget. I’m going to slip under the covers next to my sister and fall asleep next to her just like before. This is love come down from throne and theory to touch the soul of a wearied girl.
As much as I’d like to think I’ve considered the idea, I could never be an atheist at this point. Good grief.
| | |
| Homecoming weekend is making its way very near to Eastern. Almost to usher in the festivities, a fine arts concert was held tonight in our rather undersized auditorium. I didn’t even know about it until my late dinner at the Dining Commons, and ended up heading over with a few friends and a hot chocolate/pumpkin spice cappuccino in hand. We found seats and the show began. It was a night of dancing, singing, and glorious instrumentals. Eastern isn’t known for its theatre and music programs, but we sure are getting there. There was beauty in all of it, humanity, and grace. I sat, amazed. And here is what happened. As different groups came onto stage, I began to be able to pick out familiar faces, new friends. This excited me. Because of my length of time here at Eastern, I had never heard or watched on as these friends performed in their different genres or I hadn’t known at all of their involvement in the arts and the night’s events came as a complete surprise. Mostly, it was the latter. Their different performances came as a delight and I did a great deal of smiling. And I realized what was going on: I was proud of them. It was one of those, “those are my friends,” moments. The choir topped the night off. David Maness, who goes way back with my mama, shuffled onto stage without his cane. He had left it off stage. For the final song, the Hallelujah chorus, Dr. Maness invited anyone from the audience that had ever sung the chorus before or who had wanted to but had never gotten to to come join the choir up on stage, that they might all sing together. And people streamed down the two aisles and up the stage steps and joined the choir in their pretty red dresses and fancy-dancey (as Judith would say) tuxes. And Dr. Maness conducted all of them, and we all stood up in the audience, and they began to sing. And they sang beautifully, this mixture of people of different shapes and ages and colors and life-stories all singing together. You can feel it in your bones—things like that mean something. It spoke again of beauty and humanity and grace. It spoke of community. I realized what was going on inside of me all of a sudden: I was developing school pride. Not the kind that necessarily sports school colors or loses its voice at the soccer games (though I’ll probably end up shouting a little with everyone else tomorrow) or bashes other universities or that never admits its own shortcomings. I have a hard time getting into all that. This was a different sort of thing: I was proud to be a part of this community; those late night talks, the class discussions, the smiles on the sidewalks, eating meals together, seeing all of my friends and these magnificent human beings up on stage. I am honored to be a piece of it all. | | |
| “So you Asian, or black, or what?” This bright-eyed, dark-skinned, nine-going-on-ten-year-old girl wondered aloud and unashamedly next to me on the bus. All of the freshmen of Eastern had gone to Chester, a place in desperate need in so many ways. We separated into groups and went around to different sections of the city armed with gloves and trash bags in hopes that we’d make some headway in how the place looked, let a little sunshine in through all of that garbage. I’d never seen or held so many drug baggies. And here I was next to An-jae, my beautiful and lively new friend. She had life and attitude and seemed to respond greatly to the interest I showed in her. Before I knew it, I was giving piggy-back rides, she was styling my hair, we were walking hand in hand. Now we found ourselves sitting side by side on the bus heading back to city hall, where pizzas galore awaited the hard working students and other volunteers of the city. I was not thrilled about saying goodbye so soon. “So you Asian, or black, or what?” I think An-jae had heard something about me living in some place called Thailand and this may have caused some questioning. Also, Chester is predominantly a black area and I was about as foreign to An-jae as I would be to a Thai anyways. The subculture was screaming so strongly out at me, it was wild, really. I wondered how to respond to this question. “An-jae, I’m just like you, except I have less…” I raised my arm next to her own. How was I to explain this? Where was I trying to go? I had paused for lack of words. Thankfully, An-jae came to my rescue. “Mel-nin!” “That’s right! So you’ve learned about melanin…that’s very good. So, I’m just like you, it’s just that I have less melanin.” She sat there in silence for a little while, seemingly pondering my answer, this strange mystery. Then she broke the silence. “…So you black?” “Yeah.” An-jae is special to me. We singled each other out in the dirty, dangerous city of Chester and held on tight. I’m looking forward to a letter from Chester in my campus mail box any day now. | | |
|
