42?

Throughout my childhood I was expected to attend the Christian church and agree with it's teachings. Growing up it was a big deal. Even when I had doubts I could always count on the fear to keep me in check: I was afraid to be disapproved of, afraid to examine the unknown, afraid to be alone like I was before church.

In junior high I rebelled with the stereotypical 'Church is dumb, I love Bullet For My Valentine, Eye liner looks great on me' shit. One year at my local high school sent me crawling back to church until graduation- better to be part of the Christian clique than none at all.

The first year at college gave me space to breathe and think. As a biology major I was confronted with the harsh reality that faith simply has no standing room in the lab, and I was at an impasse: how is it possible to be both a person of science and person of faith??

Conclusions: 1) I don't know. The obnoxious truth is that I don't really know anything for sure. 2) Life will at no point pause and give me a chance to figure it out. 3) That is okay. Part of being human means abiding by the constraints under which I live. Mentally, physically, emotionally, it is okay not to have it all.

So yeah. I still enjoy Bullet For My Valentine. Usually once or twice a week I find myself mentally commenting on the stupidity of organized religion. The fear is always there. But ultimately I have learned that this 'God' that I serve- male/female, black/white/blue whatever- this force of life is so much greater than anything I know and it has never given up on me, even when I have given up on it.

You can ask me about it if you like. That is how I met my best friend- she is an agnostic. Through hours and hours of scientific jargon and personal interrogations I know for sure that God is a thing, and I love Him, and I think He might love me more. I don't know how or why, I just feel it.

As a woman of science I denied this claim for most of my life because I had not allowed myself the time and space to consider alternate explanations for my existence. After years of grueling trial and error I just keep ending up where I started: thanking God for my life and wondering why He gave it to me in the first place.
In the end all I am is clueless and ready to learn.

Driftwood

One of my favorite parts of going to the beach is finding driftwood. Logs, chunks, shards of fibrous grains, all molded by tides that ebb and flow day in and day out. I love to look at the age lines that used to tell the tale of the tree but now signify the history of life etched into the inanimate. Often I wonder just how many laps of salt water were necessary to form the graceful swells of each limb-- how far the log might have traveled before breaking off onto its own voyage. So much feeble speculation based on so little factual knowledge.

 I am finding that people are very similar.

One of my favorite parts of going anywhere public is watching people. Young, tall, children and adults all molded by their childhood and the society that they were raised in. I love to look at a person’s posture and mannerisms, and try to piece together what kinds of experiences were necessary to synthesize the soul I see before me—how many other souls must it have brushed against in its journey to this present moment. So much feeble speculation based on so little factual knowledge. So much feeble speculation based on so little factual knowledge.

In Honor of Turkey Day

The following is a list things that I am thankful for, in no particular order:

-Jesus (of course)
-my family
-friends and roommates
-Chewbacca (my dog)
-hot showers
-warm blankets to sleep under
-clean water to drink'
-gluten free alternatives
-fuzzy socks
-parents who care
-roommates who are my friends
-shoes
-indoor plumbing
-coffee
-the bible
-music
-chocolate
-modern medicine

Teach Me How To Feel Real

2:05 PM I think God loves me. It seems too good to be true but the mere possibility that it is changes my perspective drastically. The implications if this shred of possibility are coursing through me and I feel alive. I feel real.

It started when I was reading the story of Jeremiah and the prophets of baal. God sends this blast of flame straight from the heavens to the earth and it burns up the offering, and the alter, and even the stones and water around the altar. Of course all of the baal worshipers repent then and there. 

I was reflecting on this story, thinking about how crazy God is. He cares enough for the obnoxiously stubborn Israelites to teach them over and over again through crazy miracles and object lessons how much he loves them. Jesus does pretty much the same thing with the disciples. Over and over in the bible God takes drastic steps to assure and reassure his people. 

Thinking about all of this made me giggle and I thought to myself 'Maybe if He is willing to go all that way for a bunch of crazies, just maybe He really does love me...' No sooner had these thoughts passed through my mind than I had this overwhelming sense of relief, like God has been waiting for me to realize this.

I am still hesitant to fully accept His gracious love- I still hold that I don't deserve it. But the possibility of it all is enough to give me hope.

R.I.P.

When matter decomposes

The space left behind becomes tangible.

The oxygen there is thicker

And sometimes cooler than normal.

What do we do with this space?

We try to fill it.

New people take that empty seat,

Different faces plaster the news,

And the name of that space is avoided.

Fast forward one year.

The physical space is not gone

But has been otherwise occupied.

His name has long since faded

And the casket has been tucked out of sight.

In our hearts though, that space remains.

Not because we don’t have anything to fill it

But because we choose not to.

For us—that space will never be filled

Now void of memories, images, or laughter.

For us—that space is still real

The lingering possibility of what could have been.

For us—that space is reserved for what was.

Rest In Peace Michael Muange.

When Life Shoots You...

Today I went outside to do my Bible study and after about five minutes I realized two things. First: My backyard is apparently infested with daddy long legs. Second: I love my life. Yeah, I had a long summer. Four doctors, one funeral, $175 in tickets, my first car and a meat cleaver later and I am still alive to tell the tale. That alone is a miracle.

If this summer has taught me anything at all it is how to enjoy life when lemons are present. See, I figured out that they don’t get handed to you. In my life at least, lemons get shot at me like small citrusy grenades. Lemons and limes and maybe even a few avocados just to keep me on my toes.

For most of my life I have been living under the assumption that the only chance I have of success and happiness came in between this rapid fire of fruit but I am learning how untrue that is. The shock when you realize that something big is about to hit you, the acceptance of your situation, the pain of the collision. It is all part of something worthwhile. Because every bruise has a strange sort of beauty and it is this strange beauty that we must live in.

Laying in the grass today I wiggled my toes in the warm sunshine. I love sunshine, it’s like a full body hug. A small spider crawled along my book and onto my arm. I didn’t squeal or even flick it off, I just decided to watch it. The spider crept up to my elbow and then in to the grass before mounting my sandal in a triumphant crouch and then settling in the shadow that it cast. In that moment I found peace. Watching that little spider circumnavigate my book, crawl up my arm and ascend to the top of my sandal was amusing enough but to see it pause in the cool shadow for just a moment, that was so reassuring to me. I witnessed the trek of a fellow organism to place of rest.

To climb mountains, navigate valleys, do life, it is all well and good. But I am convinced that peace can be most readily found in a pause, a single breadth of time and space where basic truth is laying. The moments, this strange beauty, it is good. The more I reiterate this fact to myself the more I am ok with it.

Even lemons can be nice if you take the chance to see how.

New Found Clausterphobia

If I could go back in time and talk to my past self I would tell myself to take advantage of my age. As a child I spent a fair amount of time dreaming about the day when I would take off and live on my own and for whatever reason it always seemed like a just a dream, not a possible reality. Boy was I wrong about that.

Living away from your family, away from the school, away from PA’s and Campus Security- it’s a bit sketch to be frank. I mean I woke up this morning to a house full of random girls with nobody to answer to besides my roommate. Who was asleep. Again. Okay so people are over, no big deal. I like people most of the time and these girls are pretty chill.

But looking around the room, around the house, I see clutter and messes and other things that need doing. And this house seems to look at me as if expecting ME to know what to do and how to do it. Me.

Everyone leaves and I am flying solo. The emptiness of the apartment pressures me to act mature and responsible. I scan my Twitter feed. Oh yeah, dishes. I should probably wash those.

The strangest part of growing up for me is realizing the rigidity of Newton’s third law: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Fundamentally this makes sense but the implications of this law are staggering. If I don’t wash the dishes they will stay dirty. I will eventually run out of clean dishes. Then they all start to mold. Wow. So this is real life.

Something Chewy

They say that the eyes are the window to the soul. If this is true than the door must be reaction.

If you are anything like me, you wear a nice little mask around all day. This mask is a portrayal of your ideal self- the “You” that you want everybody else to acknowledge. Maybe you have crafted this mask or maybe it is just habit but either way you manage the charade with relative ease. We all do.

Like it or not I take my mask seriously and very few things can derail the defenses I have built over the years.  Despite the experiences that have taught me how to further isolate my truest self from the often painful interactions of society I have come to recognize that no amount of careful preparation can ready me for the wild chance that life brings.

When someone comes up behind me without announcing their approach I am known to let lose any number of squawks or squeaks of surprise.  Upon the discovery of anything that I find delightful I (apparently) make some sort of deranged opera-ish series of sounds. These moments speak not to who I want to be, but who I really am.

Similarly I look to my peers and see that a well-timed comment might set free a chuckle from even the most stone-faced students, and good friends of mine react certain ways to certain stimuli. In these moments, these brief but tangibly beautiful glimpses of soul, I am able to understand just a little bit better who they are, who you are, who I am.

That begs the question though; If reactions are accurate indicators of soul then what kind of soul do I have?

…

A loud one I guess.