When Your Roots Extend Beyond Your Flowerpot

Small nervous breakdown. Am I allowed to have a minor panic attack right now? I mean, I know it'll all work out, maybe not for the best, but it'll work out. And I can sit back and say I shouldn't have done this or I should have done that, so I'm not asking for sympathy... but I am asking for relief. I know I don't deserve it and I know I haven't come to You and I know that You deserve everything instead of the nothing I've been giving. All the little things are running me over- will You stomp them out for me?

Supplications. Just because I know You can. I am a hypocritical and unfaithful wretch. That's why I need You. That's why I've always needed You. Help me to see this mess as You see it and then I'll stop panicking (because an Awesome and Mighty God is in control) and I'll start to work to make it what You intended it to be, what You told us to make it when you came down to give us a fighting chance.

That's all I want- a fighting chance.

A Day in the Life

Scheduling may just be the bane of my existence.

It's 9 o'clock and get down off of Prometheus (my bed), stepping next on Maxwell (my chair) and landing a little less than solidly on Hades (the floor). I next walk over to my closet, hitting Paul (the shelves) with the door, possibly knocking Maurice (the microwave) and Victor (the refrigerator) a little out of place. I make sure that George (my window- Christine's is Fred) is closed before I change and make my way out the door, laughing a little at Clifford, the futon with a blue cover, whose alternate personality is the Enterprise when the red cover's around. You might say my room has a little bit of personality.

I head out across campus up to UUMC, which is a lot closer than it used to be, so coming in for morning prayer on Wednesday mornings is a lot less of a big deal. Since I don't have class until 2, I contemplate walking over to Hill to get PMA grilled cheese but decide that it's probably better to get back to my room and do some reading. I glance at the random quote of the day as I open my door- it's Beatles week this week. Then, for the next couple of hours, I dive into Joshua and Judges for my Hebrew Bible class, as well as some extra readings that have to be done before I can write my paper that's due Friday.

I start packing in a panic around 1:15, grabbing book after book off of Albert (my bookshelf) and cramming them all into my backpack. Feeling like an unbalanced turtle, I leave my room again and walk out of Grimes, behind Hamilton, behind Lenoir and in between Greenlaw and Bingham, weaving in and out of crowds in front of the UL and down, across the street in front of the Bell Tower, to the Stone Center for Reli 103. After a decently interesting lecture (my professor had on the most awesome coat the other day, so today's normal attire was a slight disappointment) at a whirlwind pace about the history of ancient Israel from the time of the patriarchs to the time of the judges (with a little bit of an overview mentioned these guys named Saul, David and Solomon, whoever they were), I motor out of Stone Center, up past the construction, through the arch in Caudil Labs and into the bottom of Dey Hall. I slow my power walk down in Dey to listen to snippets of French and Spanish as this is the more pleasant part of my marathon from the Stone Center to Phillips. Up, out of Dey, around the back of Gardner, cutting in front of Carrol while admiring the new journalism hangings between the columns and over and up three staircases to make it to the second floor of Phillips.

Ah, Phillips. Who can help but appreciate your exposed pipes and wires, your less-than-bright lighting, your freezing classrooms and your colorful personalities? I drop off my bag in 265 and rush over to the bathroom and am reminded of the kvetch I keep meaning to send in- 'You erased the bathroom graffitti in Phillips! Now where am I going to find amusement and solace in the midst of my physics induced panic attacks?' I was my hands thoroughly, because the sign on the door told me that this would stop me from getting the death plague (also know as swine flu) and walk back into class to collapse between two friends on the front row. After a decently boring lecture on the statistical probabilities involved in thermodynamics at various levels of particles, I dash out of 265 to make it down the hall to 275, where I have my Astro 291 problem solving session. We talk about the differences between frequency and wavelength in the various forms of the Planck function and get hung up on parsecs and AU in an easy question about parallax and then I leave early to speed over to the Kenan music building, walking into Symphony band rehearsal late.

I sigh a small sigh of relief- Symphony band, like bell choir, is what I do for me, the little bit of stress relief and entire lack of pressure for a couple of hours a week. Even though I utterly fail at parts of the Holtz suite in F and mess up large parts of the Esprit de Corps, even though I've played it before, I'm still a little bit happier walking out of symphony band than I was rushing in. If we had had bell choir practice, I would, at this moment, be figuring out my position and learning to read below the bass clef, since I'm (crosses fingers) switching bells. But, since we don't start until next week, I have a second to come here and give the world an excuse for my lack of contemplative thinking. In a world of emails and instant messages and texts and Facebook (and blogs), where am I supposed to sit back for ten seconds and give my heart a rest from the weight that's sitting heavy on it? Where do I go to get away from a hall that is wonderfully social yet never peaceful? Out on campus at night? To a library? To a study lounge? By the time I've got time to stop and breathe and wonder, the sun is far gone and the stars are blocked by the lights that make campus that much safer.

So I stop and I breathe and I wonder at my life. Then I dive back under the water, reading, writing, talking, thinking until there's no point in keeping my eyes open and I crawl back up on Prometheus, who may have just used the day to regrow his liver instead of the night. I think tomorrow I'll let fire burn during the day and find a chance, just some small chance, to think about better gifts to humanity.

Determination (Or, Who I Really Am)

Day 734500 in the desert and I'm still lost. I guess I never left in the first place.

I am not a whole person. I don't have peace (peace: totality, completeness, fulfillment, soundness, wholeness, harmony, security, a freedom from disturbance), I don't have joy, I don't have over flowing love, I can't even make it up to have happiness most of the time. I have the face of a whole person. I shove it in my backpack with my books and my papers and pull it out when I have to talk to friends or acquaintances. Occasionally, I forget it and then people get the full front of the brokenness. Like the Phantom without his mask, I overreact, I rage, and I use many more words than are necessary at the time. I'm busy turning over tables while the blind still need healing and parables that need telling. In other words, my friends, it is never a righteous anger and never what the Spirit wants me to do.

But before you start prescribing Prozac and recommending good therapists, let me explain. No, there's too much. Let me sum up by using an example. I felt I was being ill-used. Whether I was or not is immaterial- it's not my place to say what's just and unjust with respect to me unless it can help someone else stand again- but I thought that I was and so I stood up for myself and, rather vociferously, told my friend that if she still wanted my help, she'd have to treat me in a more respectable manner. I felt justified and I walked away a little different, though not relieved like I wanted to be and not happier like I thought I might be. Just justified, like whatever tiny wrong that had been committed had merited an veritable explosion.

I have words. I use words. I don't always mean what I say. Does this make me a filthy hypocrite? Why, yes. Yes, it does. I complained about people wanted me to change my schedule to fit their needs, yet I've been known to enforce a little bit of my schedule on others. I'm a little too busy- I think 40 days in the literal desert would be a wonderful vacation about now and it's the second week of classes. I also complain about other people not working as hard as I do, but I know that I spend a little too much time harvesting my crops on Farmville and I know that right now I'm wasting a good couple of hours that should be spent reading the myth concerning Ba'al for my Hebrew Bible class. But everyone needs a break, right? And I want everyone to put forth an acceptable effort, but I also know that I don't want to try anymore. I want things to fall into place again, no sweat off my brow. Lazy, slovenly, useless hypocrite.

Ah, you say, don't be so harsh on yourself. Well, who is going to be harsh on me, if not myself? It's not acceptable to waste what you've been given and be less than you can be. I wasn't made to sit on the floor and wonder, I was made to fly. And so were you. If flying takes all that I have and more, I'm OK with that, because there's this infinite repository of things I can't manufacture on my own, like courage and strength and love. Now my own problem is that tiny little, baby little hiccup: I have no clue where my keys are.

I don't know how to find God. I don't know how to pray- everything I think is too brash and everything I say is too formal. And don't give me that mess about there not being a right way to pray- there's certainly a wrong way because goodness knows I haven't been in the right spirit to talk to the Lord in a long time. But I need this. I need the peace, I need the patience, I need the hope, I need the life that comes from knowing God better today than I did yesterday. But I can't get at it- maybe just because I want it for me, because I see what I do and I don't want to be that anymore. But I also see what I can be and how that can help and surely that's not as selfish as it sounds?

Ah, God, I would run to the desert if I knew that You were there. If I knew that the pillar of smoke was going to guide me along, I wouldn't care if you drove me in circles until my children's children rolled their eyes at the idea of a promised land, as long as I knew that You were there, that You were the cloud. I would run away at night, leave the pages to be read behind, and just go stare up at the heavens and be reminded of the sublime, of the holy, of the glorious definition of You that I find written up there, if it would help me find You again. I don't want an image, I don't want an idea, I don't want something flimsy that the world can beat down with logic and 'reality' and a thousand other hope-killing things. I want You.

Come save me. I run to the cathedral, but the door's been locked and all I can do is knock until my fist bleeds and I fall asleep in the rain with my back to a pillar, hoping that it will remind me of why I was willing to run up those stairs in the first place.