I Procrastinate...

“Take it, my lord the king, and use it as you wish,” Araunah said to David. “Here are oxen for the burnt offering, and you can use the threshing boards and ox yokes for wood to build a fire on the altar. I will give it all to you, Your Majesty, and may the Lord your God accept your sacrifice.”

But the king replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on buying it, for I will not present burnt offerings to the Lord my God that have cost me nothing.”

//2 Samuel 24:22-24//

"The neediness that we demonstrate is so great. I need God more than I fully understand. I cannot even surrender to Him without His help. Because I have to surrender this want, and I know I have to surrender it. I thin that surrender is not a single, large act. It is a series of small acts, of consistently returning to that altar what we snatch back. If this is the case, then my failure is not earth shattering. Where I reach out my hand to longingly brush once more what I gave up in desperation, He says a gentle "no" and reminds me that He is a better caretaker of my hopes, dreams, sins. It is a process that serves me better than I dare to think or even know to think."

(22.September.2009)

"Everything was red, the air, the sun, whatever I looked at. Except for him. I fell in love with someone who was human. I watched him walk through the hills and come back in the evening when his work was through. I saw things no woman would see: that he knew how to cry, that he was alone. 

I cast myself at him, like a fool, but he didn't see me. And then one day he noticed I was beautiful and he wanted me. He broke me off and took me with him, in his hands, and I didn't care that I was dying until i actually was."

(The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman)

"Hope really is a siren that lures us onto the hidden shoals to our destruction. Hope means hurt on some level at some time. But so does love. All of life is a question of risk and how well you live your life depends on your ability to [anticipate and] respond to pain."

(18.October.2009)

When Embers Turn to Ash

I am burning you, you know...


Brute brunt of a revelationary lance,
the fall strike to a chest without armor.
Bruise, the capillaries bursting,
leaking their precious liquor
into the form and face of a broken flower.
Bones? Unbroken.
No emergency room is equipped for this,
no medicine woman binding busted ribs,
only the faint breath of rosemary
and the farewell kiss of hope.

Moth

Georgia rain shower,

taptap like a million knuckles knocking,

synchronizing with the

thudbeat

of my heart.

I think in that breath of breeze

there was a sigh

even as it kissed my cheek:

cool air and sweet salvation there

to redeem the reddened, blush-burned skin.

You left a stamp of warmth,

and by the flames I am singed.

But every flickered glance

was worth the pain of glory.

Caught Between By the Rock of Ages In a Hard Place

For the past four days, I have been on a backpacking trip in the wilderness of northern Alabama at Camp ToknowHim near Pisgah. The days were not very crowded, which was a surprising and generally welcome reprieve from the madness of the final weeks here at IMPACT, especially the return from spring break when we had the alumni service learning project weekend. We did a day hike back into the Penitentiary where we had our night hike long ago last September, rappelled on the side of the bluff that we were camped on for two days, and had quite a few sessions learning about various aspects of God, from fear of Him to His greatness (shown in His being constant, life, infinite, personal, and spirit) and goodness (in purity, integrity, and love).

For me, the most harrowing event of the entire four days took place on Tuesday afternoon. We finished setting up camp on the bluff by four and headed back up the trail to go into the Penitentiary. To give a little history, the Penitentiary is a deep ravine that cuts a labyrinth through the rock. Its sheer sides soar upward in some places as high as fifty feet, its paths sometimes as narrow as two or three feet wide. These characteristics made it ideal as a holding place for Indians on the Cherokee Trail of Tears, when they were herded into the labyrinth while soldiers patrolled from the top, effectively cutting off almost all possibility of escape.

My hard place was the second narrow cut that we traveled through. The other must be surpassed by crawling while lying on one's side and shimmying awkwardly through the dirt/mud and dead leaves in a space that gets significantly smaller mere inches overhead. The second though is probably a generous two feet at its narrowest, and the path itself is at an incline of about fifty or sixty degrees. The trick involves sucking in your gut, going in at a slant with your feet moving farther uphill than your torso, and finally, not panicking because panic does not help with the breathing thing.

Last September, I did not pass through, choosing instead to travel around the rock with a small group of other students who were equally disinclined to attempt it. But this time, I figured it couldn't hurt to try, so I lined up with everyone else and made Try Number One with Leah behind me to egg me on. But the mouth is the smallest part, and I could not shove my torso past the squeeze point, try though I might. Red-faced and frustrated, I pulled back, allowing a few more people to pass me by before stepping back into line and trying again, this time with a little more determination. I got a little bit further, especially when our guide J.T. told me to try the foot-angling thing, but I started to get panicky at the sense of falling over backward because of the incline and eventually had to step back again.

Finally, only Trent and David remained to go through, and I was more determined than ever to make it through. This time, I combined the tricks of what not to do from the last times with the angling technique (which worked a lot better when I did it from the start rather than halfway in), and after a lot of strain, pauses to breath, and shuffled feet, I got past the first tight spot. After that, it wasn't too bad except for another spot halfway through where the foot path abruptly stepped up about six inches, and the torso/foot transition was rather tricky. At that point, though, I didn't really have the option of turning back since I barely knew how I had slipped past the first one, so with trembling arms and screaming calves, I pushed past that obstacle too. This entire time, Mary Michael and Chelsea were cheering me on from above, and David and Trent were giving encouragement and tips behind me. I doubt I would have made it anywhere if not for Mary Michael's hand reaching from above to pull me along.

At last I was through, seated trembling on a rock while taking in furious gulps of air and sips of water. Chelsea said that my forehead was steaming and I think I was a lot more afraid than I was letting myself know. Somehow there is no sweet taste of triumph from that success. There is only a dull sense of "happened" about it, though Mary Michael said she thought I needed to go back through the Penitentiary just for that. I don't feel as if I learned anything significant about myself, just that I'm mildly claustrophobic and stubborn to the point of near physical injury when it suits me. But I suppose if there is anything I have learned this year at IMPACT, it's that I rarely know the full implications of an event until well after the fact of its occurrence.

Ah, but I have not fully explained the title of this post. Between my second and third tries, David somewhat jokingly told me I should write a poem in my head while going through, I guess to sort of keep calm. Later that evening, while we were eating dinner, he asked me if I'd come up with anything, and somewhat tongue-in-cheek I replied that someone had already written a perfectly good song and no more needed to be said on the subject. When asked what song that might be, I sang:

Rock of Ages, cleft for me
Let me hide myself in thee
Let the water and the blood
From Thy riven side which flowed
Be of sin the double cure
Save from wrath and make me pure

Who Has It Right?

"But sexual liberals also worry about something even more subtle, and it's something that took a great deal of digging to uncover. For sexual liberals, "marriage" is a verb, while for conservatives it is a noun, and liberals at some level intuit this and are concerned about it. That is, sexual conservatives (at least in the ideal) marry once, and once married they are (again in the ideal) forever in the state of marriage. For sexual liberals, in contrast, being married is not only a verb but an active one. For them, a good marriage requires work and discipline, communication and honesty, and it's a process that's pretty much ongoing."
//from When Sex Goes to School by Kristin Luker//


Luker goes on to quote one of her interview subjects who said that in the conservative view there is just a sense of sit down and shut up about marital and/or sexual satisfaction. I hesitate to use the word "satisfaction" because the connotation in this instance is probably almost entirely one as synonymous with pleasure, but please understand that I don't think the subject meant only that.

While her research has been well-presented (specifically in terms of bias, something I am grateful for after reading Sex Seen: The Emergence of Modern Sexuality by Ullman), her conclusion here is one that I would disagree with. Perhaps I don't qualify to enter this argument, since I have never been married nor even in a serious relationship, but if I might I would offer myself and the various Christian influences in my life as counterexamples.

Based on Luker's definition of sexual liberals and conservatives as people who either view sex as natural or sacred (respectively), I think the majority of my teachers in high school, my extended family, and the mentors and friends that I've met along the way would fall under the category of sexual conservatives. But I have never been given the impression that once married, that's it. Even Liederbach's belief that divorce is never sanctioned in any situation by Jesus does not strike me as contrary to the liberal concerns that Luker expressed. But perhaps that's because I have a better idea of what it arises out of: his parallel belief that couples work through conflicts in a healthy fashion and consistently seek to orient their lives around God that they might honor and worship Him through their relationship. Divorce, from such a perspective, is the ultimate give up, the failure to view marriage as a verb.

I do understand her position because she does have a good underlying point. Say that you view sex as "natural," as just one of the various and sundry urges that contribute to one's humanity, and think that it is only healthy to satiate it, inside or outside of marriage. Then you are not likely to get married solely for sex because you've already had that experience and theoretically you can evaluate a potential spouse based on more meaningful factors. In contrast, I can think of at least one "Christian" couple that probably got married more so they could goshdarnit just have sex already, thank you, whether that was the best choice for the moment or not. But I think this view understates the emotional connection of sex that can blind an ordinarily sensible person to detracting factors, and overstates the "noun" nature of the conservative view of marriage.

Perhaps, though, another view lies in the middle ground between her natural and sacred battle lines. After all, sexuality is a part of our created being. We were created male and female with the injunction to be fruitful, and once he got a good look at Eve, Adam wasn't too shy about getting to know her in the Biblical sense. But at the same time, in Ephesians 5 Paul points to the sacredness of that same "natural" sexuality. Within that union, there is a picture of something bigger. So we recognize the natural element of sexuality, but also realize that it is not quite like food and drink, that we can live without it if necessary and that if we are to use it well, we ought to use it in a way most glorifying to God.

And if Luker wishes to restate her argument that sexual conservativism rushes people (like my aforementioned friends) into marriage, and hence, the natural view is more freeing and healthy for the modern man or woman... "All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever." (Isaiah 40:6c-7) Culture, however much it might value control, efficiency, and choice, cannot preempt God's design and purpose.

Modesty (This Time I Mean It)

One of the things that we discussed during our Biblical womanhood retreat was modesty. To be honest, I don't really think much about it. I don't dress like a nun nor do I evaluate most of my clothing on how it may be perceived (except when I think it's too tight). Sure, I tend to wear mid-rise jeans, but there's a good reason for that and it has more to do with me than anyone who sees me. As far as that goes, Emma's quote was an excellent one: "Your clothes should be tight enough to show that you're a woman, but loose enough to show that you're a lady."

In the end, though, the way you act can speak much more clearly (and contrarily) than the loose-fitting t-shirt and jeans you are wearing. Two opposing examples from my own life:

Example #1: Once upon a time, I was a very dedicated member of a Lord of the Rings forum, and yes, you may laugh. I don't mind confessing my fandom, and I still remember that place quite fondly. One result of that experience was that I met a lot of teenagers, some my age and some rather older. We would chat on MSN Messenger or Yahoo, and most of our conversations were not God-honoring. I was as guilty as any of them, although it was a source of entertainment to some of them to see the change I underwent between my shock at first reading their conversations and my participation later. If that's not a Proverbs moment, I don't know what is. Anyway, Proverbs aside, I never met the guys I talked to, and yet I acted with a great deal of immodesty. I never showed anything that was best kept covered, but I still offered myself to them as an object of desire through the things I was willing to say and the conversations that I participated in.

Example #2: I was talking with Carl today at work, and he was surprised when I said that there are some movies I won't watch with guys. Admittedly, these are probably movies that I shouldn't be watching myself, but I think there are some where that is not the case. In particular, I will not watch anything that involves graphic/multiple sexual encounters or nudity. Why? Because you see one another differently when you have shared that experience. Maybe it sounds kind of prudish and Church Lady strict, and I'll admit that I don't always do a good job of following this (usually when I don't know the content), but in a culture that tells its youth that it is only to be expected that we engage in sexual activities, where sex therapists prescribe porn, where nobody questions things like contraception, abortion, or masturbation ... I would rather not be a part of the culture.

If man, in his headship, protects his wife and loves her as he loves himself, the wife can also protect him from influences that would cause him to love himself less. If that man is told that his worth lies in how many women he sleeps with and he believes that lie, he will not love himself as he ought, and she suffers because he is only capable of loving her insofar as he loves himself. In the same way, if she thinks her worth lies in a number on the scale or the measuring tape, in her usefulness as an object of lust, she values herself the less and so cannot value him so greatly.

I make no claims as to my personal modesty: I can think of at least one area where I need God's grace in that regard. But I hope that we never get caught up in the belief that modesty is just a way of dressing. We are to worship God with our bodies, but also our hearts, minds, and souls. If we clothe only our bodies, if we are emotionally promiscuous or allow our thoughts to turn lustful, we have only obeyed the letter of the law and completely disregarded the life-giving spirit behind it.

If the question you are asking is, "Does this show too much skin?" perhaps the better question to ask is, "Am I honoring God in all things?"

//Psalm 116:16-17//
Oh Lord, truly I am Your servant;
  I am Your servant, the son of Your maidservant;
  You have loosed my bonds.
I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving,
  And will call upon the name of the Lord.

Keyword Search: S-e-x

For my ethics project, I am studying sex education. Spring Break seemed like a prime time to do some research, especially with the resources of the Lancaster Library System within my reach, and this weekend I have plenty of time because I'm not working and we have our family celebration tomorrow, rather than Sunday. So I thought I would stock up on books.

If you ever want to do an interesting cultural study, type the word "sex" into a keyword search on a library catalog. Here is a selection of the returns:
- How Sex Works: Why We Look, Smell, Taste, Feel, and Act The Way We Do
-The East, The West, and Sex: A History of Erotic Encounters
-Asking About Sex & Growing-Up: A Q&A Book for Kids
-Sex, Love, and Fashion: A Memoir of a Male Model
-Sex, Science, and Stem Cells: Inside the Right Wing Assault on Reason
-Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality & Spirituality (I liked this one, actually)
-The Busy Couple's Guide to Great Sex: The Medically Proven Program to Boost Low Libido
-How To Choose The Sex of Your Baby: The Method Best Supported By Scientific Evidence
-The Myth of Male Power: Why Men Are The Disposable Sex
-and so on...

In the course of looking over the offerings, I discovered that apparently we can inspire feelings of romance simply by looking someone in the eyes for an extended period of time. That's interesting. As is the fact that men are more attracted to women with large pupils while women are more likely to be attracted to men with medium-sized pupils. But I have discovered that even though I enjoy psychology a lot, I don't entirely trust it. We have bought into the behaviorists' myth that everything is a matter of causation. Nobody wants to talk about the perfect line of dominos falling in their deterministic precision, but how can you avoid it if you believe that you are only the sum of your chemical fluctuations and your biological heritage?

14 Hour Thought Spawn

Spawn is a rather disgusting word. And the cruel mind at Google Maps who thought that it would be a good idea to say that it's actually possible to make this trip in 13 hours ought to be fired and banished to the farthest reaches of the universe.

Today's Calculations...

• Departure from IMPACT: 4:05AM. 
• Arrival in Pennsylvania/home: 6:15PM. 
• Time It Takes For Christy To Go Insane: 14 hours, 10 minutes (and a smattering of seconds, but that's the estimated digit because I don't have a seconds measurement)
• Amount Of Coffee Required To Remain Wakeful: 2 full travel mugs of Brazilian coffee (french-press style) + 1 disgusting Starbucks frappuccino
• Days Until Christy Can Choose Dr. Pepper Over Nasty Starbucks Frappuccino: 3

This blog is not supposed to be entirely about my self-absorption, but I'm having difficulty remembering any of the ten thousand things that went through my head at various points throughout this day. Pardon me while I concentrate in an intense display of mental effort.

Thought Solo// After arriving home late, harried, and haggard, I hopped back into my car and went to Zion Church of Millersville for the Maundy Thursday Tenebrae service. They have a traditional service in which black robe-clad individuals read the shadows over Jesus's last hours (Judas's betrayal, Peter's denial, etc.). After each reading, more light is removed from the sanctuary until, at his death, even the last flickering candle is removed. But it is not blown out, only taken away for a time. Into the darkness, a fine voice rises and falls with the emotion-laden notes of "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?" The candle is returned and the participants slowly, solemnly recess from the sanctuary.

On April 9th of last year, I heard of Maundy Thursday for the first time in my life. There is a reason I remember that date: on the day before, April 8th, my friend Micah died from injuries sustained in a car accident. Easter took on a whole new meaning in light of that event. And Mr. Cote invited my class to visit his church for their observance of Maundy Thursday because so few of our churches had that. I was the only one who took him up on the offer, hoping perhaps that in touching the death of Christ I might better understand the death of a friend.

This year, I returned early specifically for that evening. In some ways, it was a whimsical thought generated last autumn that I didn't really question, merely followed through on. But I am glad that I did so, because I saw the proceedings with eyes not so quickly blinded by tears, with a mind that has reached out to grasp more of the texture of life than it knew at this time last year.

And then I got distracted by a thought about how Spring Break makes me better understand the already and not yet nature of the kingdom of heaven because I am already a part of IMPACT and have been there for a while, but I am not yet able to return. But this break is not given to me to waste in endless pining over what cannot be: it is meant as a time of preparation, of activity, of rest. In the same way, Jesus's resurrection has already ushered in the kingdom, but he has not brought that initiation to completion. In the meantime, we are not to while away our days in longing for the delights of eternity. Rather, we are preparing ourselves, we are active in our communities and our cultures, and we are resting in God's peace.

I also had a really long daydream (during my drive, not during the service) about hiking the Appalachian Trail. When I got home and thought about it with some measure of reason, I had to laugh at myself. But the irrational part of me is probably still plotting in a secret nook in my brain. I'll "accidentally" come up with a brilliant way to make it happen and then marvel at my own spontaneous genius while it chuckles to itself with devilish satisfaction.

(Basie, if you actually do read my blog, please don't hold it against me. I am obviously yet another human being seeking self-importance and significance through the airing of my thoughts via the too convenient venue of the internet. But I write better than I talk, so while nobody actually reads any of this, I go back and read it and gloat because I think I sound smart. This is necessary for the survival of my psyche!)