Hindsight

On a day like many of the others this winter, the horizon melted into the dismal gray of old snow. Whether it was run off from the warming ice or fresh flakes that liquefied on the road, the highway itself matched the wet, wilted world of the Middle West in February. I drove from Indiana back to Nebraska alone and silent. Through the windshield, my white car’s grimy exterior mirrored the hills and sky. A haze coated the world. My eyes blurred. My heart sank. This winter had extended too long.

In an effort for something, anything, to clarify the view, I pushed the button to activate my windshield wipers and fluid. There was little chance of an improvement with my broken wipers. Yet, with the sudden stream of cleaning fluid and the staccato of my hardened wipers stuttering across the glass came a miracle: the view truly cleared. The horizon still faded into oblivion, and my car was still stained. But I could suddenly differentiate so much of the scene, could suddenly tell that I had been staring through a mucky window expecting it to be clean. Before I had hindsight to explain my situation, I had thought I had seen clearly. Then, I clearly saw.

How often in life do we discover the truth in this metaphorical experience? I know for my part I have spent hours, days, weeks, dare I say years considering myself an enlightened viewer only to be sideswiped by a sudden onslaught of clarity. These moments burn because they cauterize wounds we didn’t realize we had. Initially we feel robbed even though the universe never promised us anything at all. We may be angry, dejected, disillusioned. Almost universally we are disappointed.

I have been reflecting a lot on broken plans and hindsight. When I was in elementary and high school, I expected to be a writer. Tirelessly I typed away, generating new takes on classic fairytales and semi-autobiographical works built around my adolescent fantasies. I went to college for writing, applied for a competitive major in writing, received affirmation after affirmation for this chosen path. And yet, when the crucial moment came, I had to walk away. Leaving behind writing broke my heart—even if I walked away with the peace of a prayerful soul. I just had no idea how God could be working through the roadblock.

Yet, God has. In hindsight I discover how many innumerable and beloved experiences I have gained through the abandonment of my past dreams. In hindsight I realize what foolish and shallow hopes I used to hold—hopes that now appear incomplete, immature, and downright dull. Why I spent so long crying over the changes in the course of the river or the digressions over unappealing terrain I do not know. Why I seemed incapable of considering everything with perspective, I cannot explain. Yet now, as I stand at a new fork in my road and contemplate all the quirky sidesteps that have led me to where I am, I cannot bemoan any of the seemingly counterproductive experiences I’ve weathered. Everything has led me to this point, and whether I can make sense of the past or no, I am thankful for it all.

I guess that is the solution for all the momentary inconveniences or smashed dreams we experience: thankfulness. On the other side of our heartbreaks we meet the beauties we never saw coming. If we can recognize these blessings, if we can embrace these revisions to our dreams of yore, we find there is no other option but to be thankful. And in our thankfulness we discover a renewed sense of trust in the path ahead. I do not know what will become of me, whether I will leap for joy or rent my garments, but I am peaceful about all that is approaching. Blind as I may be in this journey, I know I’ll see everything through 20/20 eyes, in hindsight.

Obedience, part I

One of St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises is a meditation on duty—or obedience. He doesn’t exactly put it in those terms, but he challenges his practitioners to consider the request of a great king. The divinely-appointed king approaches a citizen and asks this person to serve for the sake of the kingdom. The king is just and will be laboring alongside the citizen, will share in the toil and share also in the success. St. Ignatius claims that everyone who is approached by such a king would feel an unavoidable sense of duty, and would be crazy not to accept the charge. In turn, St. Ignatius equates the same impetus for serving an earthly king as the rationale for serving a divine king. The citizen of God’s kingdom would feel an unavoidable sense of duty, and would be crazy not to accept the charge of serving alongside God. Right?

I found myself pausing over St. Ignatius’ self-evident claim. Perhaps as an American, or simply as an innate rebel, I have little interest in duty. I’ll hide behind the sins of my country to claim indifference towards patriotism, and I’ll hide behind the affronts of our leaders to validate discounting civil service. From the safety of the outside I criticize those within. And I am irreproachable because I am uninvolved.

There is a safety in this outsider’s position. We can abandon ship whenever necessary because we’re not beholden to its weathering the storm. And we can rebel without conscience when it fits our mood. The leadership says something we disapprove of, we ignore it. Perhaps, if we’re perfectionists, we’ll toe the line for the sake of keeping out of trouble, but in the end we won’t take the authority’s word to heart because that authority doesn’t truly represent us. In a word, we’re irreverent.

Does this irreverence translate to other points in our lives? St. Ignatius seemed to think that personal allegiance towards an earthly leader would necessarily predispose an individual to personal allegiance towards a heavenly leader. If that’s the case, then does personal irreverence for an earthly leader necessarily predispose me to irreverence for a heavenly leader? And if that’s the case, is the fact that I occasionally take issue with God and God’s declarations—especially those voiced in the church—indicative of God being behind the times or me simply being a dissident?

Unfortunately, I’m inclined to think the latter. The ramifications of this realization, though, I’ll save for the next entry. Stay tuned.

Providential

We have different opinions about when it began. Perhaps the easiest marker is the day when Ed finally asked me to be his girlfriend: We had wandered from park to park in Houston, Texas; had gone to see Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers play our song live; had borrowed a guitar and sat atop a hill looking out over the skyscape of America’s fourth largest city; had discussed our pasts and prepared for our futures; had kissed for the first time. That day we told each other we loved one another. Yes, that day could certainly be the beginning of love.

But it could have easily been earlier—perhaps the first time we hung out, discovering different nooks on a frigid night in Houston’s downtown. I had packed for much warmer weather, so I was layered with Ed’s clothing. We walked the streets with a common blanket draped over our shoulders to shield us from the 40 degree cold, and took shelter in the shadow of skyscrapers when the wind drilled against us too hard. To avoid the crispness of that February-becoming-March air, we paid $15 for glasses of water and a table for two at the local Hard Rock Café. We split Thai food takeout on the patio of the Symphony Hall, and I received a flower as I got off the longest three-hour plane ride of my life. Yes, that could have been the beginning of love.

Before that there were late night phone calls and early morning wake-up calls and successions of emails. There were long distant phone “dates,” when we shared a meal at our respective locations, talking on the phone and avoiding other restaurant patrons’ inquisitive stares. There were chats about our families and our dreams and our fears and our brokenness. The seedlings of love rested in each of those conversations.

And then, of course, there is the day we were set up. I was unaware of what was happening—my friend had simply (and off-handedly) warned me that I’d either love Ed or hate him. She had very intently informed Ed that he would love me. Meetings are awkward enough without the pressure of starting a relationship. Yet somehow he saw through my retuning-from-abroad-with-serious-culture-shock sensitivities, and I saw through his nearly-incapacitated-from-the-flu misery. Something clicked between us, something strong enough to span 1200 miles and weeks without face-to-face contact. Yes, love very well could have begun there.

But Ed and I both trace our beginnings to long before we ever heard of one another’s names. Providence was acting long before, a voice calling out from the deserts of our previously broken hearts. Neither of us understood what those early stirrings had been at the time. Simple moments of clarity in which we could prayerfully accept that God had a plan for each of us. And that God undeniably loved us. In Providence there is excitement, comfort, peace, and sincerity. In God’s will there is a love greater than any human emotion conceived. In the months leading up to our first meeting, both Ed and I had experienced a sort of conversion to God’s desires, a sort of preparedness that whispered into our hearts that something rested just over the horizon—something larger than either of us could dream. With hindsight we have discovered just what God’s providence could mean. It very well meant the beginnings of love.

I find comfort in the Providence displayed throughout this opus. Relationships are never easy. No matter how well we know another person, there is always going to be the unexpectedness of independence. Yet, throughout this entire process, Ed—and God—have been teaching me more about what it means to trust. Trust in God’s plan. Trust in another person. Trust in the power of love to overcome all of our unique and abounding failings. In love we encounter the best in ourselves—that spit polish luster of divine grace. In love we get acquainted with whom we most truly could be. I do not know what will become of Ed and I. Neither does he. But we both rejoice in the love we have experienced since the inklings first began. That providence that has offered us this glorious year will follow us through wherever it leads. Resting in that steadfastness makes every anxiety fade. Resting in that love makes everything make sense.

Complacency

Ed often prays that we won’t become complacent in our contentment. The prayer is beautiful in both its simplicity and its depth. Complacency is certainly a violent threat to persons and to society. It’s what drags us into a standoff with change and what builds barriers against new experiences. We’re happy in our bubble, and will not move beyond it.

Even with his praying for our protection from such a curse, I regret to say that I am in the throws of complacency. I'm happy to sit at home, all day, every day, and pretend as though I'm going to be productive. More often than not, I dream up my next great project. Not that it ever materializes or ever even begins. I could, if I ever managed to drag myself beyond my complacency, accomplish my goals or complete all of my tasks. There are enough hours in the day. I could fix something within myself, or even fix something in this world. I have no excuses. Yet I seem to always be putting it off for tomorrow.

Flannery O’Connor really offers us an idea about what to do with this mindset in her short story, “A Good Man Is Hard To Find.” After a criminal holds a woman up at gun point, she suddenly begins to grasp just what it means to love others selflessly. O’Connor leaves us with the criminal’s reflection that the woman would have been a good person if there had been someone there to point a gun at her throughout her life.

Now I’m not about to pull a gun on myself, nor do I want to run into every dangerous situation simply to be reminded of my own mortality. But I do see a benefit in living as though I were going to die tomorrow. I don’t want to look back and regret those opportunities I let slip through my fingers. I want to live life more fully, to embrace each day, and to go to bed knowing that I’ve done all I could do with the time I’ve been given. Please, God, let that be my nightly thought for the rest of my life.

Strength

Most weekday mornings at 8am, I turn on my computer, brush my teeth, and assemble my plastic stair-step. With a movie playing, I’ll step up and down, kick right and left, count off my pushups, and stretch out my hamstrings in an unintimidating attempt at getting fit. Actually, it’s an attempt at preventing bone loss, a threat my doctors are already wielding with zeal. They tell me that my skeleton is eroding out from under me. “Weight bearing!” they press. I must bang this body around a bit. I must get strong, or I’ll become very, very, very weak.

Strength seems to be the theme for this period in my life. I come across it every day. One example: a recent assignment has me ghostwriting a man’s autobiography. We’ll sit down at a local coffee shop—only a few inches away from the next occupied table—and he’ll tell me stories of being raped as a child, of growing up with a learning disability, of becoming a drug and alcohol addict. This man does not dumb it down, does not dodge the phrases nor bat an eye at the things he says. Rather, he stands up to his broken experiences and says, “No more. I will not be beholden to you ever again.”

That sort of strength astounds me. But he’s not the only one who faces down beasts. Consider the person who sits beside the bed of a dying parent, never cursing God or running away. Consider the person who battles fears, anxieties, the crushing weight of expectation and still says, “I am my own person, and I will not be mastered by this.” Consider the person who has a heart beaten up time and time again by a should-be ally and remains buoyant and willing to embrace the world just the same. Consider the person whose body sears with daily pain, and yet who is a bright light to the world. Consider the person who lives life fully alive, refusing to be scared off of love or hope or faith that the world will be better tomorrow. Consider the person who asks for help, the person who lends a hand, the person who battles for a change.

These, these and so many more, are the strong. These are the heroes.

Heroism is not monopolized by the great among us, but by the once-weak. For weakness begets strength. The end of Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians reveals this fact perfectly, reminding us that even the greatest have struggled with brokenness and challenges. “That I might not become too elated,” explains Paul, “a thorn of the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’”

What power, what strength do we receive in our weakness? What might must we have to not be subdued? The silent and the strong are here among us every day, revealing heroism in the beautiful and broken world we experience. We must remain faithful to them, acknowledge their presence, take courage from their strength and their example. In their presence and fortitude, we discover hope in our own moments of weakness. In their lives we find possibility for our own.

Seeking out the strength of others—and admitting to our own weakness—we are made new and whole and ready. Suffering is not our enemy. It is the crucible that yields our strength. Just as my weight-bearing exercises yield a strength that will keep me upright, so too will our weight-bearing experiences yield a strength that will keep us going even in the worst of times. We find ourselves in our suffering. And by the grace of God, that is enough.

Narration

“You’re reading Pride and Prejudice again?”

I’ve heard this comment many times. There I’ll be, clutching my Dover Thrift edition, gluttoning Austen’s mischances and Mr. Collins-eses. The wizened and satirical tone of the book’s narrator paints my world a new color with each perusal of the pages. Every time I revel in her word choices, her attitudes, her opinions, I feel as though I’m on a coffee date with a very dear friend.

Sometimes I wonder whether everyone else is reading the same thing I read when I pick up this classic. Certainly some readers are Mr. Darcy’s mistresses. Others seek a scholarly understanding of the time period. Then there are the pimply-faced high schoolers who are simply trying to survive the language. A reader’s reception of a piece varies by degrees with each perspective they bring to the pages. No matter how honed an author makes a text, there will always be a margin of error. Just as there’s a margin of error in every author.

Narrators are invariably broken people. Writers grapple with this fact and are constantly unearthing new ways to manipulate these voices. (Consider Gatsby’s Nick Carraway or Lolita’s Humbert Humbert.) The task of the writer and/or the narrator is to stretch or break open the nuances in his or her voice. To exploit the strengths and weaknesses of the perspective. This intentional manipulation succeeds when one is self-reflective enough to recognize the negative-space in each of our experiences. We’re each different. An author must be fluent in his or her own psychology as well as the psychology of everyone else. Then an honest voice may develop, one that is coherent and engaging. Only then. It is an understandably difficult task.

Whether we write things down or not, we are all narrators. But what happens when we don’t know that our narration speaks from a bias. Each of us has encountered that uncomfortable moment when we realize that our approach to a situation is skewed, unbalanced, or simply broken. There’s a miscommunication, a fallacy in our statement. Sometimes we backtrack, discover our mistake, and correct. Sometimes we fall and are forced to climb out of the crater-like hole in our language. Other times, though, we simply continue onward, ignore the fact that we’re fumbling about in the air like Wiley Coyote, and maintain our brokenness. We count on everyone else to understand our approach and not once do we consider whether we are, in fact, the ones off track.

Communication is key. I’m realizing this more and more as I continue a relationship with Ed. Our most common fights stem from our differing perceptions. Some topic will catch our fancy and we’ll digest it sweetly until suddenly something is misunderstood and everything turns sour. Take, for example, a very simple argument that had me storming for hours: We’re cleaning up after a photography shoot and our friends tell us that they’ll meet us later at our next destination. I comment, “That sounds great. We’ll follow you.” My assumption—my perspective—used the term “follow” in its uncomplicated definition of “Use the same path after someone else.” Ed perceived me to mean “Proceed directly behind.” When he disagreed with me and cited my statement, I was completely at a loss as to where our miscommunication lay. Who wouldn’t use “follow” in the way I did? Obviously, Ed wouldn’t.

We all have our broken lenses, our idiosyncrasies that taint our perspective or warp our understanding. That’s allowed. But to enjoy that benefit we must also recognize its cost. There’s a responsibility in communication, a responsibility to understand the other’s terms before too many personal assumptions cloud our approach.

One of my professors in college always used to make me define my terms when we began a conversation. I laughed at his eccentricities (I mean, really, who would think they’d need to define “How-was-your-summer?”?), but I’m now grasping his wisdom. Certainly we can’t always go around and ask everyone else to define their terms. But recognizing that each of us approaches the world with our unique perspective (and vocabulary!) will help us respond to miscommunications in the future. Hopefully then we won’t find our narrations so incompatible after all.

Motivation

For the past several months—perhaps for the entirety of my self-awareness—I have been contemplating my motivations to write. In this contemplation I’ve encountered Two Antagonists residing within my core: one, The Egoist, fantasizes that I am a good writer and wishes to bestow my insights to the world; the other, The Child, halts the process of creation by saturating me with self doubt. The Egoist tells me that I should write, but that I should write for reasons that my heart knows are wrong. The Child tells me that I shouldn’t write, because even if I were writing for the right reasons, I would fail to speak any sort of Truth.

The Two Antagonists wield a lot of power over me, especially whenever I look at a blank page. However, if I can silence them, if I can get over my desire and fear of being a writer, I touch on something almost prayerful. It is all encompassing, something that my mother can see on my face and which she has titled “the Ozone.” In truth, her word choice may not be far from the truth: “Ozone” connotes “celestial” in my mind, a term that mirrors the event horizon I encounter while I write. It’s the same feeling I get when I look at a masterful piece of architecture or listen to a soulful piece of music. The hope to articulate something beyond myself. That hope subdues the desire to be known for writing and the fear of being good at writing. In the Ozone, I may actually simply be myself.

The title of this blog comes from St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. He declares:

"For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things. At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known."

-1 Corinthians 13: 9-12 (NAB)

The last line is terrifyingly hope-full: I am fully known. Every single thing about me is known. The good, the bad, the insane, and the contradicted are all viewed and understood by God. This level of nakedness in the eyes of God shames and exhilarates me. Fully known. Fully. Completely. Wholly. I find hope in such a thought, a hope that drives me to write despite the gnawing intimidation of the Two Antagonists. We know partially. We cannot know fully. We speak partial Truths. We cannot speak full Truth. But if we cling to Love, to God, we may discover, we may see, we may know fully, even as we are fully known.

I want to write of Truth, to analyze Truth, to know Truth. I want to create something beautiful—like a cathedral or a sacrament. I want to glorify God with what God has given me. Here lays my motivation. Here I may rest.