Storm - Laundry

 I am reminded of the nautical term "Becalmed." Of when sailing ships had no wind in their sails - powerless to harness their great bulk and potential to their destinations. How they must wait and pray for a change in momentum. 

It must be terrifying to be a sailor. We talk of the "ocean of stars" in space, but the ocean on earth is already so vast to comprehend. I have flown in planes and seen the earth far below in perspective through clouds. But such a marvel is even at such speed as to fold time and space into a manageable package. Flying feels like man has conquered limitations and broken barriers. But it is not always so. Storms are called Acts of God, and can shatter that feeling and remind me of how frail my idea of control actually is.

But this absence of a storm. A quiet. Where there is a forced rest. You know what you want your heading to be, but can't pursue it. Or being in the eye of the storm, knowing that if I stray too far, I will be at the mercy of a whirlwind pacing. I get tired, overwhelmed, and distraught at the notion of potential. 

My mother had a mantra in the past that haunts my mind occasionally. "What is the point/purpose behind what you are doing?" And for years, this mindset acted as a prod to my system, the idea that I could always be doing more, pulling knots tight so that my sails maximized the effect of the breezes around me. But I got exhausted and emptied, sometimes not feeling like I had the mental and physical energy to maintain that level of focus and perception of needs. I realize, as a mother, you are ever alert to the needs and nurturing expected of you to train and direct your child's development. And she meant well to direct me to push myself and overcome mental blocks to try to grow my strengths and fortify my weaknesses.

But I have an anxious temperament at times and can work myself into a frenzy obsessing over a minor imperfection to figure out how to solve or work around it. I love fiction because it is contained and orderly, the author being a small god of a world and having to tie a narrative together that makes sense and has a purpose. But that is a luxury few can afford in daily life. It is a comforting illusion that the world will have a greater logic and sense. I have had to learn to hold looser to my idea of how the world needs to make sense to me. So although my mother's question is a noble view of the world, it assumes that the world always has a purpose. And to my idealistic mind, that would be attractive and tantalizing. But like the Greek myths of Narcissus and Tantalus teach, the things you want most are often just out of reach and leave you to waste away with the wanting. So I have had to accept that my mother is not always right in this expectation. And that I shouldn't feel guilty at not always having a greater purpose in small actions. There is a joy to letting go and relaxing control. If I hold onto the string of a balloon, I won't get to have the glorious experience of watching it climb to the heavens. Even in loss there is the reminder of things higher than yourself claiming their dominion and setting your terrestrial existence into perspective.

To return to the point of the world being pointless in its consequences and circumstances at times: I mean, you can point back to the Fall of Man and how the world is suffered imperfection from its natural state. But more than that, I am arrogant to consider that the world should be understandable and comprehensive to my finite mind. Douglas Adams jested in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series about a theory that if the universe was ever comprehensible to a being, the universe would sense this and immediately transform into another iteration that was even more inexplicable, and that some other people had suspected that this second part has already been triggered before.

The law of entropy is believed to be a constant. That the universe is actively decaying into disorder, but there is a strong instinct in life and it's experiences that "order" is the intended state of things. G.K. Chesterton wrote about the "white fence post needing to be repainted and maintained to remain a white post." And control of our environments, both external and internal, is a strong impulse. We feel as if things "should be a certain way." C.S. Lewis leans on this strange instinct in his book "The Problem of Pain" which has proven to be a comforting resource for when I feel overwhelmed by sorting out this feeling, knowing that at least one other person thought about this feeling of responsibility.

It comes down to decency and responsibility to fellows around us. With roommates, there is a loss of total control when committing to forming a community in living space, common resources, and private property. Standards of living differ from person to person. It depends on their perceived level of comfort with how their external perception of how their environment matches their internal metric for "This is how my life should be." When there is a disconnect, it can trigger behavioral changes to correct course. But sometimes, I don't have the winds of motivation or reason behind me. I am forced to pause and reconsider, in the lack of natural solutions, whether I will accept the environment and change my preferences or work against that nature with internal fortitude and sweat to bend it to my design.

And not all battles against nature are worth fighting. I will exhaust myself and wear myself thin of being good company if I insist the world I live in is beholden only to my understanding. I am reminded of Proverbs 3, of having to trust in the Lord with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding, in all my ways acknowledge Him and He will direct my paths.

It comes to laundry, trash, and other chores in daily life. It needs to be done one item at a time to progress towards combating entropy into order when I am overwhelmed by the scope of everything that might need to be done. I can't fix the universe of disorder wholly, but I can set smaller things towards rightness, contributing on a small level towards the tribute to the renewing and remaking of all things.

And so, living among others is a reminder that I must strive to emulate the signoff of Paul to the church in Corinth in 2 Corinthians 13, of trying to live at peace with my brethren and be of one mind in knowing Christ and being perfected together. Though my friends may balk at being greeted with a holy kiss.

Prayer - Binding

Lord, give me the grace to know I am loved. And how I may best show your love to others. For I am tired and weary, and not always in the best frame of mind to give and receive as I wish I could.

You are a great and perfect high priest to advocate on my behalf, knowing my needs and advocating them better than I. I listened to Neil Gaiman's short story "The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury," and in it there was a smaller anecdote of a man travelling in the woods at night who realizes that he has left his prayer book behind. So as he is laying back to rest, he says, "God, you know these prayers, as you created the words with which they were made. So I will say the alphabet and trust you to be able to take them and shape them into the prayers I cannot remember." Lord, it is a funny story, but an extremely sweet one for me to think about.

I trust your wisdom, but sometimes want things to involve me more directly. I am a child wanting to help his Father in His great work. But my hands are clumsy and overeager. Please take my spirit and channel it to Yours. Not for my greatness, but for Your ends. I want to be useful, and if it involves me being pushed, shaped, or some parts of my identity to be shaved and cast aside, let me not hold too tightly to whatsoever is not true, good, and honest. I am proud of the strangest things, so give me the grace and humility to accept your wisdom and direction.

It is a great gift to be alive, but terrifying when I do not know how to best spend my gift while I have this time. Please grant me discernment and kindness to seek out Your will. To bind up the brokenhearted and discouraged. To grant graces when I feel like my comfort is being challenged or ignored. When others treat me ill and I want to respond sharply, give me gentler words to turn away wrath and anger. When others are in pain, let me have the presence of mind to approach Your throne and advocate for them. I want this world to be better. But I am tired today, so grant me peace and reflection, to not be ashamed of rest, but to accept your example in Creation of the Sabbath day. I want to glory in Your creation.

Thank you for this. This day. Please give us the strength to face the day tomorrow with courage and grace.

Tumbler - Mulling

 My older sister called me a "muller." A person who has to sit and digest an idea for a while. I mull. She often figures out things about me before I do, as she is very intuitive about people and knowing how they express themselves. She an excellent writer and a good proxy "ideal audience" both in my head and in person.

I tailor my messages depending on my audience and how I can figure out how to communicate my message I want to convey. Because I puzzle through things and people to figure them out and unlock a bridge of communication between us. I learning how to talk so someone else can understand me, I gain perspective on how to better understand myself as well.

So I was texting a friend today and was trying to explain this. My mind is like a rock tumbler. It uses internal friction to refine and polish my thoughts. And if I stop it too early, you'll get nasty rock grit and funny looking rocks. Some friends press me on my incomplete opinions,  occasionally I can cobble together a rough draft, but not always, and it can be funny for my friends to see mixed up thoughts. And yet, it would bother me because I FEEL that it isn't ready and the thoughts don't look right. My process got interrupted, so I would need external polishing while they are out, or I would have to wait for my mind to pick them up again and slowly build up steam to start from square one and try again.

Book - Mark

 I have liked to say that "The more bookmarks I leave in a book, the more the book has made its mark on me."

Because I grew up in a house with a certain fondness for books and etiquette around them. While I don't have misplaced reverence for the objects themselves, it just seemed to be good courtesy and behavior to treat them a certain way. I don't like the idea of writing notes in books, though I have made an exception in a books I planned to keep by highlighting passages I really liked. But that behavior mainly concerned Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton, a book that was rather short, and would have yet been full of bookmarks otherwise. A lot of interesting things were said in that book and it entertains me that it was a snapshot of a time in Chesterton's mind. No revisions or anniversary revisitings of his Orthodoxy. Chesterton wrote books at the drop of a hat and in his life, a lot of hats fell off his vigorous head.

And as for "dog earring" pages? I suspected that I was being slightly inconsiderate to future readers of the book, and perhaps myself in making progress through it if I kept stopping.

And as for marking my place by placing it page side down? ... I am not perfect. I admittedly will use all kinds of things for bookmarks, but in the lack of finding any flat object close to hand, I have cracked some spines in my time.

But what brought this blog post to mind is that I have rediscovered a leather bookmark with my name on it in marker with a scripture on the other side. I do not recall for certain when I was gifted this bookmark, though I have a few ideas. It is a nice reminder that someone was thinking of me and crafted something. And that I am getting around to using it for its intended purpose rather than scraps of notebook paper or baseball cards which have lost their interest and value for their original purpose.

However, I will freely declare that athlete sports cards are a delight to use as bookmarks. Troy Nixon may not have made a long impression on the Boston Red Sox legacy, but he has held his own in many a novel. And just the name "Mo Vaughn" is an excellent reminder to keep moving forward, finishing some works I have started and having permission to discontinue ones that are not grabbing me. I can Move On indeed.

I know that I have left my original book/media blog go to seed for a while. But I have been reading quite a bit each year, just, not posting reviews about things for others to see. And so it remains unsaid unless I feel especially strongly about something and want to attempt eloquence to dislodge it from my mental craw.

I have finished over 100 books this year of varying length and while some of them stick with me as resonant, all the ones I finish leave some impression. And I am grateful for that.

Pitch - Catchers

Lately I have been a little bit constipated of mind and emotions. It has caused me some distress while I figured out the source of my blockage, and in the meantime, I squirmed and shifted, waiting for a breakthrough.

Then today, a friend texted me asking how I was doing and I managed to put it into words. I kinda suspected what my issue was. In that usually I am able to sit down with one of my friends and talk frankly about my life and my thoughts about it, helping me sort my thoughts and feelings out. But the friends I can usually trust with this level of weight have been busy in their own lives. I do not resent them for this, as life happens and catches up to us all. But it left me stumped as to how to figure this out myself in the meantime, carrying my baggage until I could find a safe space to set it down.

Watched The Darjeeling Limited with a friend group last night, and it had an absolutely love visual depiction of emotional baggage and its toll. But upon finishing the film, I wasn't in the headspace and situation to properly arrange and unload my own offloading. So I was relieved to see them and have presence with them, but went home and slept on it.

Anyway, this other friend texted me and finally I was able to focus upon setting down my baggage for a second to select how to explain my problem to a new party rather than a familiar one. It set a problem that made my brain curious and unstuck to explain it thusly.

"So I am having to figure this out differently than what has been available in the past. Friends are a true treasure. But it is a mutual connection of trust built. You share certain parts of yourself with certain people because "they get this". And sometimes I can throw something outside the strike zone and they'll still catch it for me. But I have to respect that I shouldn't ask them to do that as often. It is outside their main zone."

And this helped me frame a metaphor more fully and contextualize how I was feeling. So I pursued it further to get to this:

"And tbh, I play catch for a few people to whom I don't pitch back. I have practice and can catch their thoughts, but they are not in the position  to handle what I might throw down, so I respect those boundaries and don't throw them any balls they might misunderstand or fumble. But that can get to a lot of balls for me to carry around. So I like to have friends that I can play catch with and ease my load, y'know? And with my usual catchers being busy, I am having to figure out juggling the balls and seeing if I can work on that skill of patience and fortitude for a while."

This illustration clicked for me and helped me sort myself out and get out of my own way. I am better at doing so when I ask trying to communicate with someone else, I can better understand myself. Thus, my distress and botheration as mentioned at the beginning at not syncing up with another person to "help Me help ME" sort myself out.

People need community. My mind is not a prison, but I do need to open my door so often, let in some fresh air and see if anyone outside myself understands my position. It is isolating to wonder whether I am being a "good human" with only myself as a reference. So it is nice to just see another person and ask, "You feel?" And they affirm, "I do." 

Good. 

Not just me feeling out here.

Anxious - Recursion

I was going to write something today. Pressure built up in my brain and this is often where I end up. But the topic was prompted by my sister. I had a day where an anxiety circuit tripped in my brain and I had to patiently ride it out. When I described it to my sister, she was a little distracted and was trying to be patient with hearing me out, but didn't quite understand.

And I get it. And I don't. But I try. And such is anxiety and my coping with it. Good Charlotte has a song about it and the song covers examples pretty well. "Like a clock ticking slow in a waiting room. Like a doctor calling, but he's got no news. My heart keeps racing, I don't know what to do. You're giving me anxiety! Like a message in a bottle that nobody read. The famous last words that nobody said. Tell me what is wrong tonight. You're giving me anxiety!" Or the song by fun. the band called "Be Calm" which at some points feels like a panic attack, even though the message of the song is trying to find a center and moment to collect around.

Except anxiety is like listening to a record of a song, and it getting stuck on an imperfection, looping the same moment over and over, digging the groove deeper and not progressing. The Killers have an excellent song about being stuck in emotional weight called "Rut", and it is comforting at times too. But again with the record example, it is as if I finally make my way forward and past, but every so often, that loop will for no rhyme or reason just come back to mind. And I have to get over the memory of that moment again even when not directly experiencing it. My mind just gets fixated on a moment and turns it over, trying to figure out what factors contributed to the imperfection and whether it was resolved correctly. Who was to blame? Was anyone to blame? Did anyone find it as frustrating? Did it get fixed so it is unlikely to happen again? Is anyone else still thinking about it, or were they able to leave it in the past?

To be honest, anxiety is not pleasant to explain. Or hear about, because even if it is described accurately, it is conveying discomfort in a situation that you desperately want to leave. And if it is conveyed poorly with increased fragmentation and greater length of failure? Then the latter example becomes an case study in itself, only it takes longer to reach that result.

My experience with anxiety is that my brain gets stuck on a perceived threat of a problem, then hyperfocuses on finding solutions to resolve it in different ways. And this process goes on until a satisfactory result is found. Sometimes the problem is something that already happened, but my mind wants to check if there was any potential fallout from the course chosen which might have polluted the current landscape of relationships with any nearby witnesses. And sometimes the problem doesn't exist yet. And sometimes it never does. It is like accidentally asking an old computer to run a search query and the computer just puts everything else on hold while it figures it out.

I neglected to mention that often the perceived problem is not even very relevant. Though the example of something that happened in the past being reworked in the present is, by definition, futile. (Unless the problem being resolved has to do with finding a solution to being about time travel. But then, it is too late, because it should have been figured out then. And if figured out now? Then you can't go back because now is the earliest you could have had a time machine. If it was already available in that past memory, you would not be here now because it would have happened differently. ["How to live safely in a Science Fiction Universe," by Charles Yu deals with this issue. So I guess he is to blame for the parenthetical. Because I barely understand the edges of that book's potential, but find it fascinating and fun nonetheless.]) But my mind doesn't want to get off the track into actually being present and useful. So I can try to "force quit" what I am doing to try to clear the jam, or just wait it out to see if it exhausts itself and decides to settle on something as an okay solution or just gives up and lets me redirect my focus.

My anxiety just uses my brain's potential against me. I am both decently smart and hopelessly paralyzed. Both can be true at once without being a paradox. I have trouble making decisions at times because my brain panics and tries to consult with multiple paths of potential outcomes. If I were less creative at problem solving, maybe the exponential branching would not occur. I am not bragging, I am despairing at the supreme dumbness of paralysis of analysis.

There are upsides to being anxious. I try to think through problems from multiple angles, and include the input of others where I can, to check against my own view of things as rational and agreeable. I can be empathetic and compassionate at times because I want to find a solution that satisfies more than me. And people help me find ground when my brain is struck with lightning and has shocked my senses into overload. I realize my need for people. But anxiety has the downside of making me hyperaware and irritable at times, in recognizing that I crave other people to help ground me. That neediness can be exasperating at times when I am too jittery to connect and BE grounded.

It is certainly a weird realization that not everyone is wired this way. I am grateful that there are some people who do not struggle with extreme self-doubt and are able to let things go. But I have had to accept the bad sides along with the more beneficial traits. My mind can be a beautiful labyrinth, but it is embarrassing when I find myself lost inside my own construction.

Hope - Support

This year has been one for the anxious. But I have been thinking a lot and learning to trust in community being able to bear one another's burdens, as Galatians 6:2 mentions. And it has eased my mind. God has been faithful during this time. I know there is hurt in the world, but I cannot stress about being the savior of it all, but to try to address what is feasible to me to handle. Please don't shame me for this, for I always think I can do more, but such thinking can spiral me off course again. I have to work the problem before me, one manageable step at a time.

There is a song that came to mind again this year (As well as "This Year" by the Mountain goats, an evergreen anthem that really found deeper roots -covered live on both days of the band's Jordan Lake Sessions concert last year.). But this song is called "Faint Not" by Jenny + Tyler. I may have written about it before, but here it is again. It starts a bit rough, but it smooths and builds on itself. It is about problems we face as a society and how our hearts are not strong enough on their own to bear the weight of caring about them. There is a need to overcome, but we need to look to the Lord for the strength to carry on when we are weak. I really found the song apt in the last year with issues that surfaced to stark focus.

Another song is Rich Mullins' "Hope to Carry On", which is worshipfully triumphant about Christ's life giving us hope and an example to follow. But I am more personally fond of his song from a Liturgy, a Legacy, a Ragamuffin Band (One of the albums most dear to my soul for its electiticism and passion) called "I'll Carry On". I remember this most vividly when I put it on during a car ride with my dad to commute to college campus. I was feeling fatigued in the middle of a semester, wondering if I was on the right path for my major and where it would lead me in life. But this song felt so first person, talking about leaving home and setting off, holding chin up to the uncertain future, equipped with two strong hands and the memories and support of his community. It reminded me that I was not alone and I needed to leverage that confidence and support others had given me throughout the years.

I often had a habit of getting overwhelmed by self-doubt and anxiety spirals over things that looked like insurmountable obstacles in my path. But it was my pride that whispered I was responsible for overcoming them on my own. But I had others around me with the same path, and I could discuss what to do about it together. Another mental scenario would allow me to consider if I made myself vulnerable by admitting doubt and a need for help, whether another person would scoff and dismiss my concern as weak. But this was my fear, and it is also reasonably common. It takes a brave and honest soul to be the first to open up the door to a desire for collaboration when there is the possibility that the doors could be slammed shut multiple times along the way by the jealous, individualists, and the insecure. I am not blaming or shaming them. But college can be competitive at times and collectivist in others. But however many group projects were assigned, there were still those in the first camp who did not trust others and refused to risk the fate of their grade upon the behavior and work ethic of others.

But even self help and business books stress that the world operates on interdependence, which is frightening to realize that the underpinning structure of the world is an intertwining of economic fates. It requires trust in the work of unseen hands and minds that they will hold up their ends and jobs so that there is not a mutual cascading failure that affects all parties' lives. It is either mutually assured construction/destruction. Big idea and theory, which can be comforting or worrying depending on how in control you feel about your own life at the moment. Small things build outward to bigger bases of foundation and comfort.

But I am called by God's example not only to trust others because of mutual self-interest, but to actually care about others regardless of how it benefits me. There is a line in Rich Mullins's song "Damascus Road" that drives this home for me, "I say I wanna give you glory, Lord, and I do. But everything that I can think to offer comes from You. So if my darkness can praise Your light, give me breath, and I'll give my life to sing Your praise." And this life is a gift I cannot repay, my rebirth and redemption in hope of a clean future even more so. But it is a relationship that is built on trust, and humble admission that I cannot earn it. It does not make sense that God would give me this hope, but I am grateful for it.

Maybe I am a fool when witnessed by others who do not acknowledge my God to praise Him for something that I cannot help - just being here. If God created everything, why are some things still broken and I feel wrong and empty at times? Life does that to people, Job 1:21-22, even after great loss, one which I have not experienced, nor might have the same faith and trust if it did. But I do not rest in brokenness, for I have hope of better and want to play my small part in making it better. I love C.S. Lewis's The Problem of Pain, a book that wrestles with the idea of what pain and suffering have to do when reconciled with the belief in a gracious God. Simply put, if this world be so awful and hurtful, what is the source of drive and frustration within us that this world SHOULD be otherwise than the way it is?

But this answer is not satisfying to all. And I would have to try my best to find a means to communicate it to those willing to hear me out. I can't save everyone, nor appeal to everyone, but I don't have to stress like that. I need to have confidence that God can use others like he uses me, that together we all can minister to our communities and bear one another's burdens. It is not on me to be overwhelmed and exhausted, but to trust that Ecclesiastes 4:12 holds true as well as Matthew 11:25-30.

The title track of Jars of Clay's "The Eleventh Hour" project haunts me sometimes, but the chorus calling for rescue from doubt is sometimes all too tempting. But "I Need You" from the same album is a more directed and trusting spirit and I should reach for that footing more often. As well as their other song "Valley Song (Sing of Your Mercy)" which I encountered before I grew to love the band and had clowned on their sincerity. Because to be that honest and vulnerable about trust and redemption takes bravery to admit as I stated earlier, and in my immaturity, I did not have that humility. Another song from the "Furthermore" project of live and demo songs by Jars of Clay is now one of my favorites to come back to visit when I need centering for my wandering heart and mind. "Redemption" is a perfect song for me in this regard. I still don't claim to know why it was written, but it means something to me. God bless the poets, the patient, and the providers who showed me grace and hope before I recognized the full depth of my need.