Fitting

This has been the year of fitting into black dresses that weren't bought for me.

I first encountered this problem earlier this semester, right around my awesome and wonderful birthday, when Christine, Pam and I went to the opera. Having never been to an opera that wasn't put on by the opera class at UNC, I had nothing, I felt, that was appropriate to wear. Christine had been Target shopping online but one of the dresses she had bought didn't suit her the way she wanted. I tried it on and through much effort and lack of breath, I got into it and looked pretty good in it. I wore it to the opera and it sits in my closet as my current little black dress.


I had to once again go dress hunting this week because I needed a formal dress for the Jupiter Ball at the Planetarium. Miranda and I wandered down to Time After Time, the thrift shop down Franklin. I had gotten my Halloween costume for last year from there and that had been a nice dress, so I figured I'd try my luck. Fifty bright pink, purple, green and yellow dresses and about three million and two sequins later, I found a formal length black dress. It looked like it might could fit, so I walked back into the dressing room and proceeded to try it on. That was an adventure in itself and there were many moments were I was sure that I was going to get stuck like that forever and have to ask someone to come in and cut me out of the dress, but I got it on. And I looked pretty good in it. I wore it for six hours last night and it's hanging up in my closet as my back-up formal dress.

And after all, why shouldn't I be able to wear those dresses and look good in them? It's what I've been doing my whole life.

I swear, my whole life I've been looking for something to put on that'll make me look nice and fit the world I'm stepping into and my whole life I've found something that was never mine but that I looked pretty good in. I've paid for my black dresses and smiled at the compliments, all the while knowing that I can't really breathe or be functional in them, and those things were made to be looked at in, not to pick up programs around the Star Theater in, tell me you. All my life, I've been looking to see how I fit into the clothes that someone else has worn.

And the annoying thing is, I fit. OK, maybe it's not easy to get into it, but I'm close enough, you know? And the people around me think that I'm great in what I've been in. Imagine, then, what I could look like in a dress that was actually made for me, tailored so well that I'm not sure that I wasn't made for the dress instead of the dress being made for me. Imagine what each of us would look like in clothes like that.

Now you all know that I'm not talking about dresses anymore. Maybe you're one of those people who follows my life with intense anticipation... OK, since those people don't exist, maybe you know that I went to Exploration a week ago yesterday and maybe you've been wondering what I learned, if I decided anything. I hope you haven't been impatiently awaiting a blog post on it(since apparently I can only express myself in writing mass distributed across the internets) because then I would have to use the excuse that I needed time to reflect on it. Really, I don't think I did. I don't think I even needed to go to discern what I was supposed to do. I'm pretty sure I've known for longer than I want to admit that I was going to end up settling on ordination and living my life out in the church (don't judge). But let me 'splain.

See, I'm kinda angry at the church at times, like a lot of my friends are, because it's not living up to what it's supposed to be. OK, my friends are generally angry at her because she's full of hypocrites and judgmental liars and because she has a long history of hate and violence. And in some sense, I am too. But I have no room to talk; to quote one of the speakers at Exploration, "The church is not perfect but I am the church too." Man, I needed to go just to hear that (and to get an exorbitantly large amount of free bags and pens and to have my nice new blanket given to me and taken away from me and you know how attached I get to things I sleep with [yeah, I went there {anyway}]). The speaker before that, and really the speakers the whole weekend, talked about how we can change the church by the way we live our lives and the way we lead, regardless of whether you end up ordained or as a lay leader. I was watching the NOOMA we're going to watch in Double-C tomorrow and Rob Bell says that you have to own up to your name, to your past, good and bad because it's yours. We as the church have to own up to our collective past, good and bad, and work to make our future better, to help heal wounds and loosen the grip that history has on us. We are the church. "Church, choose to do something different."

Which I can do. Listen, kids, we can change the world. Listen, everyone, we can change the world. We can be better. We can help build the church into what she was meant to be, we can help the kingdom come on Earth, we can be a force for good, might for right, as TH White's King Arthur might say. We don't have to sit still and let a load of good organization, good connections and good people go to waste. We have such potential. Don't let anyone tell you different. "When the wind blows, things move." Things are moving, my friends, and I'm excited.

Because I know where it's coming from. It's the same place that hope and wonder and bushes that are not consumed come from. It's where love comes from. It's where this crazy, stupid, heartfelt, wonderful idealism comes from. It's from this deep, deep well of living water and we have to tell some people about it. How bad I am at this! How inadequate! There has to be someone better. You know, there always is.

But I'm thankful. At least I know my dress fits.

Break in the Action

I'm promising myself that I'll get to that darn E&M soon enough (midterm on Tuesday, entire lack of studying, in way over my head, 30% of my grade, panic, panic, panic), but there's a lot on my mind and so I'll get back to studying when there's room for it.

I've felt a little bit of vicarious pain this week. A friend's grandfather died and she was really close to him and her step-grandmother is being rather unkind throughout the whole ordeal. One of those times when you really just want to make it better, but you can't. Another friend's aunt is in the ICU and I don't even know this woman, but I know that in this accident there's pain for another family that doesn't need it. Other friends are stressed out about school work, job work, auditions, concerts, papers, midterms part two, just life and you want to sit back and say that God is good and life is wonderful, but that sounds a bit hollow considering that you're jittery from coffee and complaining about the same stuff. Some friends are looking at life after graduation and some are just looking at life and it's not the bright frontier we always wanted it to be. Life's tough. And I'm not going to fix that today.

Hmm, but I've also felt some joy. My friends, I wish I could explain to you how wonderful it is to come out of that darkness that is doubt. Did you know that most of the psalms are songs of community lament? So says my Hebrew Bible teacher. In any case, they're not all happy, like Psalm 42, which I always thought was.

As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soul longs for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and behold
the face of God?
My tears have been my food
day and night, while people say
to me continually,
"Where is your God?"

But you can't just stop there, or a few lines from there. Read all the way to the end and you get the gist of my life. "Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God." The psalmist isn't over everything, he hasn't just been gloriously blessed, his problems solved and his dreams exceeded by the good that has just flooded into his life. Where is your God, people ask? And the psalmist doesn't know. He even asks God where He is, but it's not like God comes out of the clouds, surprise. Hmm, but "deep calls to deep," and God loves, my friends. God loves deeply. And it's so good to have that answer. No, it doesn't stop genocide. No, it doesn't heal all the sick. No, it doesn't stop the pain. But it helps me live through it. It carries us through so that when people ask where our God is, we can say that He's right here. He's been with me all along and now, with His help, I'm going to be a part of His making it better. Through me, He's going to fix the world. And if the world doesn't get fixed, that's not Him. That's the flaw of humanity, but humanity, even with its flaws, is worth fighting for.

I was walking back to my dorm after a meeting tonight and a friend was carrying my backpack because I'm lame (and so, so punny). We were talking about life and she said something like, 'There's no one thing that's making my life stupendous right now, but there are a lot of little things that are going right, getting me through the day.' And it's so true. Most of the time, we don't have the sun, but we do have wonderful stars, that are much farther away but much brighter, in and of themselves.

We kept on walking and we got to talking about my current position in our fraternity and she said, 'You're doing fine. Everything comes easy for you,' or 'You're good at everything.' And I'm sitting here thinking, What? I am an epic fail at existence. OK, maybe not epic fail, but there are so many things that I want to be better at. I don't think that anything I do is worth having done, which is crazy frustrating. It amazes me, every day, how much people can believe in you so much more than you believe in yourself. Eventually, though, you're going to have to shoulder that load yourself and know that you can do all things through Him who gives you strength.

Because the world's going to need that someday. From each of us.

Man, I take a midterm on Tuesday and turn in a problem set, take another one on Thursday and turn a problem set and a paper in early so I can get on a plane Friday to go to Dallas to settle this whole calling thing. Psh, and then there's a life after this weekend- I have another midterm on Monday, the Children's Radio-thon on Thursday, a concert the next Monday and then -breathe in- Thanksgiving -breathe out-.

But there's always another corner to turn and I'm hoping that it's coming this weekend. And if not, and if I'm setting way too much store on these few days, then the corner will be just down the block from that. It's always there. Such is life. Sweet, sweet life.

Marching

So I'm sitting on Clifford (that's the name of the futon when it has a blue cover on- I'm big on irony) because I pulled a muscle in my back at or after the basketball game last night (I honestly think it was after that epic block- half the game, I know, right?- I did this weird jump for joy kick thing and felt something pop) and now I can't walk down the hall without looking like an 80 year old who's lost their walker. Sad but true. So I figured, before I started studying to forget my pretty deep sadness at missing not only this halftime show but my last pregame of the season and what promises to be a game, I'd search youtube for some fun UNC Marching Band clips. Enjoy, especially the drum show.

And the bowl game last year.

And Sebastian catching the football. I was right in front of him.

And just our regular pregame festivities.

Realized Love From Down the Hall

He's tugging. Can you feel it?

Here is a testimony to God loving you in your lives, my friends. Or a testimony of God loving me in my life when He knows, when He knows that I don't deserve it. What kind of wonderful miracle is He working when He chooses now, when I am fully and occasionally painfully aware of how what I'm doing is so very wrong, He chooses now to pull me back to Him?

One of these days, I'll find a way to say what I'm feeling right now. And I wonder where do these dreams go, when the world gets in your way? The love of my life just waltzed in for a day yesterday and I could have floated through my day, but I have a friend who has a story that just kills that joy. I have no right to be happy. And so I'm not.

But this, friends, this is more than a boy paying me attention that I never thought I'd get again. That's gone so fast. But this, this is a pull, this is a tug, this is an Almighty storm come down to bring me back to Him. Because it doesn't matter about everything that my head put in my way. My heart came home, my heart searched better than anything my head could ever have done. My heart listened. And it's hard to ignore a hurricane, but we're so good at it, aren't we? My friends, God is good. And maybe it doesn't seem like that right now, and maybe it doesn't seem like He loves you, but believe me, He's working on you. He's working. He's working.



David Crowder Band, How He Loves (courtesy of Pam, who lives down the hall)

He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realize just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

And oh, how He loves us so,
Oh how He loves us,
How He loves us all

Yeah, He loves us,
Oh! how He loves us,
Oh! how He loves us,
Oh! how He loves.

We are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.
And Heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way…