On Words and Writing

My mind is laced tonight with words of CS Lewis; I've been reading enough of his letters that I feel as though I'd been talking to him. And I do not always agree with him, but I am always challenged, always moved to more wondering... moved more to run to God.

The gift itself (a hefty, beautiful book, closer to 400 pages than 300) came in the mail for me, a huge surprise, a concrete outpouring of love from friends who I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting in real life. So it makes me smile that the way I have come to know Lewis is the same as the way I've come to know them -- words, words, more words! We read each others' blogs for a while, a long time in our short lives. Found, finally, screennames and could have conversations in real time -- awkward at first and filled with gaps of silence, and then, soon, filled with laughter and words exchanged as quickly as our fingers could move. Nevermind the ocean in between, the years in our age difference... it did not matter. Since then, skype and hearing each other, pictures, prayer, tears, laughter, a few letters condensed from our busy lives, and friendship.

It does not bother me, has never bothered me, that some of my strongest friendships breathe in written words. Authors who I cannot know offer good counsel and stimulation. Friends too far to see often, if ever, are still close enough to mail, email, IM. And even, I have found, when I live only a few stairs away from someone, I will still send messages, write notes, rather than talk face to face at times.

If I write the words, I can see them, think about them.

If they write words, I can see them, think about them, touch them, slide them into my pocket, under my pillow.

It is not how everyone remembers, but it is how I learn. It is not the only thing that I look for in friendship, but it is a beautiful addition and a powerful draw, when I find that someone can paint in light and shadows, or brilliant colors, with their words.

(Imagine my delight that God has written many many words, and sent the Word...)

It has been amazingly useful to me, too, to realize how incredibly word-focused I am. It's how I think. Lists scratched on index cards, lines of poetry on scraps of paper, journals filled with wandering thoughts and more focused prayers than I can ever pray out loud.

So I shall indeed keep writing, as I was exhorted to do in a rather unique goodbye that ended simply with, "Keep writing."

(I love being a Biblical Languages major and getting to do WORDS!)

Make Me Over

Tension.

Decisions.

Mistakes.

Tears.

Stubbornness.

Memories.

Forgiveness.

I live in the midst of it all, as a redeemed one, as a still-sinner. Snatches of song drift through my head, more CCM than hymns, although maybe someday they will be hymns too.

Sorrow is a lonely feeling
Unsettled is a painful place
[Between You and Me -- dc Talk]

and

I dunno what I was thinking when I just pressed SEND
[Your Love is Better Than Life -- Newsboys]

And I am eager to justify myself, to blame something else -- if only I wasn't such a quick typist (ha, as if it were my fingers' fault!), they'll understand, it wasn't that bad.

Some of those reasons have some merit.

I was rude, but not inexcusably so. And there certainly are different guidelines of courtesy in different relationships and different circumstances, and perhaps what I said this time do not fall entirely outside of those.

Cold is the night
But colder still is the heart made of stone turned from clay
And if you follow me, you'll see all the black, all the white fade to grey
[Fade to Grey, Jars of Clay]

What hurts most, I suppose, is the knowing that there is still part of me perfectly willing to lash out where I know there will be no retaliation, when someone stronger is willing to take it. Because that is ugly in me.

In the quiet
I lament
Every nail my sin did buy
And I wonder
Why You spent
Lavish blood on such as I...
[Praises, Newsboys]

And then I am faced with options. Do I bother to apologize, knowing that the response will be something like, "It's okay?" (Haven't I offered the same response?)

Or do my lamentations lead me to wonder at that He did spend lavish blood on me, and shall that wonder turn to praise which will overflow into all of my life...

And lead to more grace...

Certainly not is there a desire to sin more that grace may increase more. But Lewis' words in The Four Loves have been percolating through my mind, and drip gently on my heart.

For this tangled absurdity of a Need, even a Need-love, which never fully acknowledges its own neediness, Grace substitutes a full, childlike and delighted acceptance of our Need, a joy in total dependence. We become "jolly beggars." The good man is sorry for the sins which have increased his Need. He is not entirely sorry for the fresh Need they have produced. And he is not sorry at all for the innocent Need that is inherent in his creaturely condition.

In reality we all need at times, some of us at most times, that Charity from others which, being Love Himself in them, loves the unlovable. But this, though a sort of love we need, is not the sort we want. We want to be loved for our cleverness, beauty, generosity, fairness, usefulness. The first sign that anyone is offering us the highest love of all is a terrible shock. This is so well recognised that spiteful people will pretend to be loving us with Charity precisely because they know that it will wound us... But the thing would not be falsely said in order to wound unless, if it were true, it would be wounding.

And other song-bits dance in:

A taste
Of grace
Is all it takes
A morsel of the Maker
Face to face
The bitter heart breaks
And salt pours from the shaker
[Taste of Grace, Michael Kelly Blanchard]


If I was not so weak
If I was not so cold
If I was not so scared of being broken
Growing old
I would be...
I would be...
I would be...
...frail

Exposed beyond the shadows
You take the cup from me
Your dirt removes my blindness
Your pain becomes my peace
[Frail, Jars of Clay]

it is so that my transgressions have born a withered fruit,
the sun has scorched the rising plans;
alas they have no root, the bleached bones of animals bound by leather strips,
dance through the air with laughter as i wield this wicked whip,
as you did warn me carpenter, this world has weakened my heart,
so easily i disparage, self-seeking the work of my art,
and there you have come to me at the moment i bathe in my sorrow,
so in love with myself, sought after avoiding tomorrow,
where do you find the love to offer he who betrays you?
and offer to wash my feet as i offer to disobey you,
your beauty does bereave me, and how my words do fail,
so faithfully and dutifully i award you with betrayal,
the weak and the down trodden fall on broken legs,
as i walk past a smile i cast, fervor in my stead,
but my bones like plastic, do buckle backward now,
i lay in this field by Judas' bowels and anticipate the plow,
i can not be forgiven; my wages will be paid,
for those more lovely and admirable is least among the saved,
and where would i fit Jesus?
what place is left for me?
the price of atonement is more than i've found to offer up as my plea,
Jesus my heart is all i have to give to you, so weak and so unworthy,
this simply will not do, no alabaster jar, no diamond in the rough,
for your body that was broken, how can this be enough?
by me you were abandoned, by me you were betrayed,
yet in your arms and in your heart forever i have stayed

Your glory illuminates my life, and no darkness will descend,
for you have loved me forever, and your love will never end
[Matthias Replaces Judas, Showbread]

And a prayer, with words echoing Lifehouse's Make Me Over

Wrap my arms around your name
Feel your breath against my pain
As i breathe out
The past is gone
Empty smile
Naked heart
Who I was, falls apart
When you're here
Inside of me
Feel till your numb
Depth perception becoming
The new deaf and dumb

I'm losing myself just to find a place in your mind
In your mind
Changing myself, just to stand alone in your eyes
In your eyes
Pull me in, take me out, make me over

Read the wave, ride your fears
In this ocean of years
We've been here
Swiming on

Take me deep, till I find
Every corner of your mind
We've been here
Swiming on

Touch, till you taste
All the time
We are wasting alone
Waiting here

I'm losing myself just to find a place in your mind
In your mind
Changing myself, just to stand alone in your eyes
In your eyes
Pull me in, take me out,
make me over, and shout me out loud,
Shout me out loud

I'm losing myself just to find a place in your mind
In your mind
Changing myself, just to stand alone in your eyes
In your eyes
I'm losing myself just to find a place in your mind
In your mind
Pull me in, take me out, make me over

Surely He Loves Me!

I was organizing the pictures on my computer yesterday, and ran across one that I had forgotten was even taken.

Surely he loves me.

The picture captures a girl who stands awkwardly, aware that her picture is being taken, and unable to quit grinning. I know what she is thinking.

He loves me! He loves me!

Her arms are shiny with water, her clothes (although too dark to show much in the picture) are waterlogged, entirely saturated from the downpouring rain.

I know what she wrote that night, how it spilled out in fragmented thoughts in ink onto paper, unable to capture the painful pleasure that had caught her and carried her that night.

The next picture in the album makes it even more evident. Blue eyes shout shining joy through star-clumped lashes and her smile leaves no doubt. A rainbow of glass beads and a fine silver chain stand out against her black shirt and everything takes up the reverberating cry of JOY.

I know how the lightning arced across the sky, how the thunder split eardrums and cracked with a mighty roar, how the campus lit up and the rain pounded down and the dirt washed across sidewalks. How people left their work to come outside and see, standing and talking and reveling at this unexpected, unasked for surprise. How they stood in the new spring grass in the dark night broken by sudden light from the storm that washed over them.

After a while she was wet, so wet that there was no point in trying to remain dry. She had gone to get a scone and some kind of coffee, and was totally drenched before she could run the short distance back to her dorm, and then rain didn't matter any more and she stood in it, eating the scone before it soaked into sogginess, and burning her tongue on the hot caffeine, and rejoicing.

And then she ran back through, feet dancing and skipping and splashing through deep puddles, laughing with a freedom close to tears, and aching with joy.

I know these things, of course, only because it was me.

Another morning I woke up with Jars of Clay's Love of a Jealous Kind stuck in my head and could not stop smiling, not through all the walk in the sunshine to church, not through the church service.

I built another temple to a stranger
I gave away my heart to the rushing wind
I set my course to run right into danger
Sought the company of fools instead of friends

You know I've been unfaithful
Lovers in lines
While you're turning over tables with the rage of a jealous kind
I chose the gallows to the aisle
Thought that love would never find
Hanging ropes will never keep you
And your love of a jealous kind
Love of a jealous kind

Trying to jump away from rock that keeps on spreading
For solace in the shift of the sinking sand
I'd rather feel the pain all too familiar
Than to be broken by a lover I don't understand
'Cause I don't understand

One hundred other lovers, more, one hundred other altars
If I should slow my pace and finally subject me to grace
And love that shames the wise, betrays the heart's deceit and lies
And breaks the back of foolish pride


I don't rejoice in my unfaithfulness but I do joy in knowing that His love is of a jealous kind, that He'll live and fight and die for me.

Look!

For your Maker is your husband,
the Lord of hosts is his name;
and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer,
the God of the whole earth he is called.
[Isaiah 54:5]

He is my Husband-Brother, and I know nothing more beautiful. And I wrote to Him that afternoon, praying, Hold my heart. Keep it safe, wrapped securely with the unbreakable wires and cords of your love.

And He laughed. That's what brothers do. That's what I do. I died for you, after all. Learn to be beautiful and strong and wise.

So I asked Him what I was afraid of, a little afraid, although the fear seemed like a thin shadow on that afternoon when I wrote, in a quiet sunshine lit room. What if there is never a man who I can trust after you? Someone who can hold my heart safely?

Shh, silly girl. I'm training him too. It takes time. Pray for him. He's going through darkness and fire to be my servant and brother, and one worthy of you.

And I relaxed in His hands, soaking up the peace and the promise that He's near, always and forever.

It is a good thing to be daughter of the King.

It is a good thing to be the little sister of Jesus.

...I can feel His pleasure... [Chariots of Fire]

Sounding Silly

Nowadays, the accusation you have sinned is often said with a grin, and with a tone that signals an inside joke. [Cornelius Plantinga Jr., Not the Way It's Supposed to Be.

He's not the only one to think that a major tactic of Satan is making serious things look silly.

The fact that 'devils' are predominantly comic figures in the modern imagination will help you. If any faint suspicion of your existence begins to arise in his mind, suggest to him a picture of something in red tights, and persuade him that since he cannot believe in that (it is an old textbook method of confusing them) he therefore cannot believe in you. [CS Lewis, Screwtape Letters]

The door opened into the lit hallway and she looked at me, eyes with so much depth that I always think first of them as golden and only remember afterwards that they're brown. What do you want?

And I almost didn't answer that, because my answer sounded... silly. Although I knew it was not, and I knew that she knew that it was not... but it sounded... canned. To seek God's face.

Or another time, looping around campus, an honest question fell into the silence, soundwaves disturbing the cool night air. So what is your problem?

Pride.

That shouldn't sound silly, shouldn't feel silly to say.

And it is in small part the same pride that tells me such a thing is too silly to say, argues silently that there is no cause to even say it. Pride is everyone's problem, it whispers, not just mine.

But that's not my concern.

Here's what is.

Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with your God. [The Micah Mandate -- Micah 6:8]

So I can sing-pray, with something far better than silliness, with a high and holy joyous confidence:

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?

When evildoers assail me
to eat up my flesh,
my adversaries and foes,
it is they who stumble and fall.

Though an army encamp against me,
my heart shall not fear;
though war arise against me,
yet I will be confident.

One thing have I asked of the Lord,
that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
and to inquire in his temple.

For he will hide me in his shelter
in the day of trouble;
he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;
he will lift me high upon a rock.

And now my head shall be lifted up
above my enemies all around me,
and I will offer in his tent
sacrifices with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make melody to the Lord.

Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud;
be gracious to me and answer me!
You have said, “Seek my face.”
My heart says to you,
“Your face, Lord, do I seek.”
Hide not your face from me.
Turn not your servant away in anger,
O you who have been my help.
Cast me not off; forsake me not,
O God of my salvation!
For my father and my mother have forsaken me,
but the Lord will take me in.

Teach me your way, O Lord,
and lead me on a level path
because of my enemies.
Give me not up to the will of my adversaries;
for false witnesses have risen against me,
and they breathe out violence.

I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living!
Wait for the Lord;
be strong, and let your heart take courage;
wait for the Lord!
[Psalm 27]

Cover Me

Fingers let go of a tray long enough to brush a shoulder.

Pray for me?

She turns startled from her dinner conversation, the laughing joking noise, at this touch that is groping for a lifeline to hang onto.

What did you say?

Pray for me.

There is no time to explain; paths cross for only an instant here, then diverge. But it is okay that way, okay when you have fought many battles before together.

What's up?

You'll see.

The two are swept apart in the wave of action, anchored by the thin invisible unbreakable cord of prayer in an ocean of memories and uncertain future.

The request for prayer is a quiet admission of humility. Of trust.

I'm going in/So cover me...
I've always been strong/Can't make this happen
[Breathe You In, TFK]

And the prayers offered up in a loud, crazy dining hall reached the King of the Universe and He cupped His hand around His broken children and healed.

And it was good.

Zechariah 7:13

So, rather late/early here, I was working on my translation at the end of Zechariah 7 for Hebrew class tomorrow.

And I ran across a verse that almost made me cry, made my heart break with the pain of what it means.

And it happened as He declared, and they did not listen -- so they will call, and I will not hear, says Yahweh of the heavenly armies. [Zechariah 7:13]

I can think of nothing more chilling. I can hardly even bear the thought of calling out when I need help and humans not hearing me. I cannot begin to comprehend calling out and God not hearing me.

And He took this for me, too...

So that I can come boldly to the very throne of God, and be heard.

Pride and Prayer

I don't like asking people for things.

I don't generally mind when people ask me for things, but I really dislike having to ask someone to do something for me. This ranges from asking someone to swipe me in for a meal to admitting that I am sick (they might decide to check on me! gasp!) to... anything.

It's a pride issue.

It's an issue of my pride, to be honest. And I'm not proud of it (no pun intended; I didn't catch this till I published and read through), and I often don't fight it well.

But yesterday I did ask someone to do something (which is as elaborate as I'm getting, because the actual request isn't the point. The relationship and response are). There were any number of factors in this decision, not least of all the fact that I was kind of in hot water already for not having asked when I should have before.

I was writing about it this afternoon. (Anyone noticed that I process by... writing?)

Another of the things which I noted as something which influenced my actually asking was the fact that I have been asked, numerous times, in so many words, "What do you need?"

And I didn't quite dare to ask outright, or to say I need, rather, I said if you have a chance.

The answer which I received was simple and quick, so much so that I was afraid that they had not fully understood what I was asking. I can.

I asked again, being more careful, taking more time to explain what I meant, and then adding that I trusted them enough to abide by the decision.

And the answer came again, exactly the same. I can. Adding, "You only had to ask."

How often is that the case and I refuse to ask?

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! [Matthew 7:7-11]

You only had to ask.