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.
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