That Great Big Toilet Bowl in the Sky

Have you ever met George? Well, if you hadn't before this, you won't ever have the chance. He's dead.

And Sammi/Sammie/Sami/Sammy too. He was Emily's fish (which is why I can't spell his name, poor dear) that I got from my friend Sarai who kept him in a piece of tupperware for a month after getting him as a secret santa gift and who, as a result, was blind in one eye.

They both died at the same time. Sarai found them, George floating at the top of the tank with eyes (and mouth, as always) wide open and Sammi floating near the bottom like he was napping with his eyes open.

George was the huge fat one that had much more personality. He would vacuum up the the food when I didn't have rocks on the bottom of the tank and then he would suck up the rocks and spit them back out (or not). He listened to me as I read philosophy. He was the source of many hours of amusement while trying to focus on physics and he was a great listener. He never made fun of my singing voice either. He was a great fish. Sammi was a good fish too! (The explanation point is quite necessary.) George ate most of the food, but they were both growing up so well. Sammi was a good back up for George- I do think he was much happier with Sammi in the tank, chilling together.

I really am kinda torn up over this. George had personality. I've said multiple times that I would cry when he died. I didn't because there was someone else here but I really might have had they died when I was by myself. I'm distracted- I left my half eaten slice of pizza right where I put it down when they died. But they're just fish! I've said this at least fifteen times to Sarai, including the moment when I was sick on my stomach as I moved them from the tank to the toilet.

And I want to reason it away and say that they didn't have any personality and go back to a semester of philosophy where I confirmed vehemently that animals had no souls because then it wouldn't matter and it would be irrational to be sad and therefore I wouldn't be sad. Sarai's over on the couch trying to explain it away and get rid of any guilt, like House trying to make Kutner's suicide a murder. But they're just fish. It's ridiculous. It's irrational. There's so much more to life. They're just fish. Just fish.
I can't believe I'm crying over fish.

Chalk

I'm old fashioned- I love chalk boards. I love writing white on black, walking away with the hands of a phantom after finishing a problem. I am also very amused by the sliding boards in Phillips, revealing new parts of the board you had never seen before, black and clean, without any of the now illegible chalk writing that complicates the other boards. Plus, they're fun to throw around.

I also love watching my professors erase the boards. Which each swipe of the eraser, the numbers and symbols get distorted and smeared until a barely recognizable mess remains. One pass leaves a cubist equation, three leave ghosts.

Since I obviously pay no attention in my diff. eq. class, I got to thinking. (Well, honestly, there's only so many times you can solve higher order differential equations with repeated roots using matrices.) We always talk about clean slates and all sins being washed away and there's a good reason for that analogy. Our lives are the chalk board and sin the chalk. When we try to erase them on our own, they end up distorted, maybe causing more confusion and separation than before. Even after many attempts at erasing, we're still left with the ghost of unforgotten sin and that's as much torture as anything else. Our attempts at fixing our lives will never work. An eraser is never going to rid the blackboard of every little bit of chalk. It takes at the very least water. Lucky for us there's a never ending supply of the stuff, at least in the analogy. I'm told grace is infinite.

Upon a Monday Morning

Clouds fly against a grey sky, leaving small lonely patches of blue and reminding me that recent life has given me much to think about and little time to think.
And I don't know that I mind life this way.

Everything

Find Me Here, Speak To Me
I want to feel you, I need to hear you
You are the light, That's leading me
To the place where I find peace, again.

You are the strength, that keeps me walking.
You are the hope, that keeps me trusting.
You are the light, to my soul.
You are my purpose, you're everything.

And how can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

You calm the storms, and you give me rest.
You hold me in your hands, you won't let me fall.
You still my heart, and you take my breath away.
Would you take me in? Take me deeper now?

Cause you're all I want, you're all I need
You're everything, everything
You're all I want, you're all I need
You're everything, everything.

And How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?


Go to Youtube, look up the Lifehouse Everything skit and when you're done crying, come back.
Seriously. It's worth the time. I promise.

We also did this skit at Camp Joy this past summer and it about wrenched my heart out every time (after I got past my awesome fairy of death ballet moves- and everyone who went to camp with me last year is giggling a little...). I really didn't think a ton on the lyrics until I heard the song again, and by that time I had developed an immunity to it. I didn't really listen to them though I heard them.
I cannot express in words how immensely happy I am that my God is not a God of either the mind or the heart but both. He throws this huge painting in the night sky and continues to hide more of His amazingness in the secrets of the tiny world we can't see on our own. He explodes my mind pretty often and, like Job, sometimes we need to see how small we are and how big He is so we no longer doubt His character. He is big, He is powerful and He is in charge.

But I also have this heart, this tiny little broken heart that needs... well, it needs a billion different things but it is being healed by Someone much greater than me. Who has a heart much greater than mine. And I need that so badly.
One of the lyrics sites had the 'post your comment here' spot and under Everything, this person was complaining about the Lifehouse skit, saying that Lifehouse was secular and this song was about a lover, not God. Maybe they were laughing in the face of all the ignorant Christians who thought they had found this amazing song to describe their God and had been mistaken. I think it's perfect- Jesus is the lover of our souls. More than that, where do we think we got our idea of love from?
See, there's this person who loves me, leads me, strengthens me, gives me peace. He's my light and you get to needing light after a while. Oh my God, these lyrics describe You so well! How can anyone see anything else?
How can I stand here with You and not be moved by You?
Would You tell me how could it be any better than this?

A Conclusion (Or, A Beginning)

I stand on the edge of light and I am afraid.

Ugh, how emo is that? And how sad is my life that I cannot appreciate this moment for what it truly is? Here I sit, hours away from Easter morning, and I am scared of what Easter may bring.

Scared? Of redemption? Of freedom? Of life?

This makes no sense to me. I have longed for this Easter like no other. This has been the longest Lent, the longest period of waiting, the longest forty days of darkness I've had in my life. I'm overcome with apathy, with secret sins, with everyday life, with bigger pain that I see around me and refuse to experience. I have no right to be miserable. I'm healthy, I have a whole family, I go to a wonderful, wonderful University with the best basketball team in the country, how much more can I want? I don't deserve any of what I've got and I'm never grateful for what I've got. In short, I'm a terrible person, despite many attempts to persuade me to the contrary. I always thought that was the point of Lent- to realize your horribleness. And maybe it is, in a way. If we were all perfect, the cross would have been such a horrid waste. One day soon, I'm going to be grateful for that.
There are so many metaphors for this at my disposal, I don't hardly know what to say. I hide in darkness because I love my sin, my humanity and I'm comfortable in the dark. This light, this holiness, it is terrifying. Can you imagine being different from everyone else? Can you imagine being completely free of this common factor in us all, this love of darkness that twists our world into the pain that it feels every second of every day. I know these are just words. I'm too afraid to step out and take action.

Something as stupid as doing the dishes for my dad so he doesn't have to stand on his feet for a minute more than he has to. Something as easy as holding a door for someone, smiling once in a while. Something as meaningful as volunteering at the homeless shelter or soup kitchen, sorting clothes or cans. Something as normal to me as saying a few words to someone who needs to hear it, not someone who's heard it a billion times before and could tell me my story better than I can. All of this is too big for me, too scary for me. My bubble is really just right around me, this little home of false happiness that I never escape. It's so easy to do in college. What am I going to do when I'm a real adult?

One of my pastors was talking to my mom about -sigh- my calling. He said I needed more life experience before just jumping into seminary, into leading a church. That was the first time I heard that- a pastor who's not crazy excited about me wanting to join the church? Insanity! How could he know that divinity school is just my way of hiding from the big bad world, which has gotten exponentially bigger and badder with the economy, violence, etc. (and I say etc. because the list is so unreal to me- I haven't lost a job, no one in my family has lost a job- that happened a while ago- and pain is so outside of my bubble).

I am supposed to doubt, correct? I can't just believe everything, I can't just accept this -sigh- calling and run with it. I need to think about it. This is a big life decision. This requires another heart, another life. I have to be good. I'm obviously still human, but there should be something different about me. I cannot live in this perpetual hole of sin that my soul has dug for itself. And these are words! I can say all day long that I'm sorry, that I wish to God that Christ didn't have to die for me, that those sins that I laid on Him never had to separate Him from His Father. I have so many words. All of them run from one little action. Standing up for once to my temptations. Stopping my sins from ruling my mind. Forgetting, forgetting, forgetting and keeping the dreamer from ruling my life. Being more than I am. Being what I was meant to be.

And I am so scared to be holy. I am so scared to get close to the throne and I am so scared of what God can do with me. All this talk of potential- what if He was making me more than I was meant to be? What if He puts me up high and I fail? What if I fall? What if (what a tragedy this would be!) I had to try and I had to work and I had to persevere for once in my pathetic life? What if I had to trust Him for something and let this stupid little world out of my control? What if He was calling me to work at something, at anything, to stop sleeping in mornings and go and be someone, to have some determination, some soul? What if He was calling me to live?
I stand on the edge of life and I am afraid.

And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said.

Broken Toes

I think it's a bit ironic that House, the confirmed atheist, has helped me understand God a little more. Well, maybe not so ironic and maybe not so unexpected. God seems to delight in using the opposite of what we expected, the meek inheriting the earth and all.

In the episode I saw tonight, a doctor in the Arctic had fallen suddenly and mysteriously ill (as they all do) from a break in her toe that was leaking marrow into her system. House, in doing the full body exam over an internet camera, didn't make her take off her socks because she hated having cold feet. At the end of the episode, he's lamenting his mistake to Robert Sean Leonard (!) who plays Wilson but is better known in my life as Neal in the Dead Poets Society and My Lord Lackbeard (Claudio) in Much Ado. Anyway, Wilson comforts House, saying that House actually cared about his patient by not wanting her to be in discomfort in the first place. House insists that he could have solved the case days earlier if he would have just had her take off her socks. When Wilson says that House was cared for the girl, House replies, in Hugh Laurie's amazing sarcastic American accent, 'If that's love, I want nothing to do with it.'

Note to the world: This is not the original love of God. This is not the love that doesn't force itself on you, the love that compelled my Jesus to stop the angels and die on the cross, the love that offers everything and demands only acceptance. That love is given freely and that grace cleans. What I'm talking about now is the perfecting love, the sanctifying grace, the hard stuff for me to deal with. I don't want trial by fire. I don't want to be broken to be made new. I don't want this. I didn't sign up for this. Sure, I want to grow in faith, doesn't everyone? I just thought it was something you're supposed to do. I never realized what God really wants from me.

I was reading the passion story (for what must have been the tenth time this week) and I threw a tiny fit when I came to the crowds once again. I can't take it. They shout Crucify and I scream at them. How could so few stir up so many to cause so much suffering to my Lord? I claim possession of Him and call Him my Lord because His death was my fault and His death led to my life. If they would have seen what they were doing, who they were killing, what happened because of their cries... they would have yelled on. 'Ashamed I hear my mocking voice call out among the scoffers.'
Because I hear them yell crucify and I know that I would yell right along with them if I was there. I watch Jesus walk, watch the Romans grab a passerby to carry the cross when He can't, watch them nail Him to a tree and wait for the time, I know it's coming, when He yells 'Eloi, Eloi...' I always used to have a problem with this. Why wasn't God more obviously present when Jesus was in such need of Him? I know He never left Him- why wasn't He there more? I would shake in quiet rage at this. If God couldn't be visible for His only Son on the cross, what ever made me think He would be here for me in my tiny pain? 'It was my sin that held him there until it was accomplished.' Jesus, having never felt the separation, the blocking effect that sin has between us and God, suddenly had all the sins ever committed in all of eternity upon Him. It's the worst possible feeling ever and He had the worst of the worst as His only experience with sin. Of course He felt like God abandonned Him. No one can see the stars through a thunderstorm.

And so my every sin heaps pain on my Lord. No, I know He's already felt it all. that the sins I commit tomorrow, the next day, a year from the now, the very day of my death, all those have already been piled on Him. I just want to limit my pile now. And here's where the love comes back in. I've told Him, time and again, that I want to be better, that I want to stop causing Him pain, that for once I want to be the person He made me to be. And He smiles because He sees that I really do want to try and I know He shakes His head because He knows when I'll fail. But His love is now not the kind that lets me sit with my socks on and a broken toe unnoticed. He must see into every area of my life and bring to light the things that must be taken away from me to make me perfect as He is perfect. And this is painful, much more than cold feet and discomfort. He is pulling everything wrong in my life, getting rid of my status quo and making me right. And I asked for it.

So this is love. He loves me too much to let me hide these things, no matter what the original discomfort is. House is right. Like Holmes, he usually is. A love that is unwilling to make me take off my socks, that is willing to let me die rather than cause me a little pain to fix my problems, is no love at all and I want nothing to do with it. I'm glad God's love is much better than that. I don't want to leave it.

Champions

I want to remember this forever.

I want to smell like the smoke from Franklin Street. I want to keep the sound of the bell tower, chiming constantly for an hour after the game, in my ears forever. I want to feel the rush of the wind again, see the clouds over the moon as I walked up from the Dean Dome. I want to remember dancing to Jump Around in the Dean Dome as people rushed the court in front of a screen playing a game so many miles away. I want to remember cheering at the beginning of every Carolina possession starting at the 1:30 mark. I want to remember screaming for Bobby as he made his basket of the evening. I want to remember Tyler hugging Roy. I want to remember dancing and screaming and cheering and looking as awkward as Tyler when he came out of the game. I want to remember this forever.

This is redemption. This is seventeen points worth of victory that sprang out of twenty-eight points of defeat. Sports writers said that this game was as heart-warming as a demolition derby, and they're probably right. That didn't stop me from jumping up and down every time Wayne and Danny hit threes and screaming every time Tyler made a basket. It wasn't a gorgeous game and I'm sure some people turned it off because they could only take so much punishment. Everyone wants a close game, a good game. This is what I expected out of my team. They have worked too long and too hard for this and after four years of running sprints up and down that court, these seniors deserve a game won their way.

I'll miss them all- Mike, Tyler, Danny, Bobby (and Patrick Moody, among others). I'm sure I'll be missing Ty come this October, and maybe Deon or Ed. But tonight, they are my team. When, years down the road, someone asks me which was my favorite Carolina basketball team, I'll smile and say, 'The 2009 National Championship team.' I'll tell my kids that I was at Carolina when Tyler Hansbrough won player of the year and came back for an extra year, when Danny Green danced to Jump Around (and when he didn't), when Ty Lawson raced like a light beam across the court and when Roy Williams led a team to a National Championship four years apart. I'll tell stories. I'll inform everyone of the amazing and unappreciated of Bobby Frasor and I'll recommend that they all read whatever glorious piece of writing Adam Lucas puts out about this team. My team.

So forgive me if I talk about this for years to come, even as Roy recruits a new class and I learn new names and Carolina basketball moves on. Forgive me if I wear this Jump Around shirt to pieces and forgive me if I show off every time I wear my national championship shirt for this year. I'm not trying to be haughty or proud or stuck up or anything.

I'm trying to remember this forever.

Much better than last year

83-69.
Happy Palm Sunday, everyone!