Today I am Loving {279}

[When you find you do not want to live, 

without looking for the beautiful.]
{R.I.P. 277, 278}

When it is a good day,

 to work from your home cottage.

Today I am Seeking {3}

There is vulnerable, and then there is VULNERABLE.

I hear a lot, the call to "be vulnerable," about, oh!, how it will open those pesky relational doors, build community, stuff like that.

There is prison in everyone, I see that. I see how a call to be vulnerable is the call to free.

I see the call to free as being our human cry. And I am a product of great Healing from all of the things that twisted me up, in order that I might "go and do likewise."

But sometimes I worry that the call to "be vulnerable" is a sleight of hand (have you seen one lately?), that says "oh, hey, wait a second--this is all about me, MY prison, MY freedom..."

(I am afraid that too often it looks good on the outside but is all. about. me.)

And sometimes I think that in our rush to "be vulnerable!" we will entirely miss: the VULNERABLE.

And so, today, I am Seeking. And, today, this is what I found:

In poor urban neighborhoods across the United States, black and brown boys routinely have multiple encounters with the police. Even though many of these children have done nothing wrong, they are targeted by police, presumed guilty, and suspected by law enforcement of being dangerous or engaged in criminal activity. The random stops, questioning, and harassment dramatically increase the risk of arrest for petty crimes. Many of these children develop criminal records for behavior that more affluent children engage in with impunity. [B. Stevenson, Just Mercy, p. 155]

The twisting up for each of us is absolutely real (enter: the human condition), but for some the twisting up sits on top of a foundation of shot at and broken down. And can we be vulnerable enough to say that written into our white american (dare I say christian?) DNA is the lie that says:

They deserve it?

If we can be vulnerable enough for that, then maybe there is hope for the truly VULNERABLE.

[There is much we don't know; there is much we can learn. Reading Just Mercy will help.]

Today I am Seeking {2}

I thought a word: Allegiance.

"I pledge allegiance, to this XYZ, because I think it will work out well for me."

There are allegiances I have made with intent
(I buy Boden, because their dresses are unique and long enough for my tall frame);
there are allegiances I have made with the blindness of my eye
(I buy Boden because I am white, privileged, american...).

There are allegiances of the "this is the way it has always been" kind.

(Is "Allegiance" related to the word "allege"? I claim that this thing will do what I think it will do. I swear that it will, I "declare it with positiveness" though I have yet to offer proof.)

I walk in allegiance every day; we all do.
The question is: Is my eye clear?
Look closer: My eyes are scarily sadly comatose blind.

(Look closer. Look close. Turn your eye inside.)

To evaluate allegiance, I must agree to die, to all that I have held as true, in order to arrive at Truth.

And so, today, I am Seeking. And, today, this is what I found:

But I do believe in something like composting for the soul: that if you can find life out of death, if you can use the smashed up garbage to bring about something new and good, however tiny, that's one of the most beautiful things there is. [S. Niequist, Bittersweet, p. 121.]

It doesn't feel like enough: There are lives at stake.
But maybe it's where we start, to agree to face the garbage we've carried, to agree to smash it up.
To agree that if I die to myself, there is Life, for someone else.

Today I am Seeking {1}

It was going to be 365 days of it: Today I am Loving.
(Look backwards, on this meant for friends & family blog; you'll see it.)

It was my way of battling in the weary hard of worldliness, it was my way of saying that amid the muck there was beauty and that in the muck itself was something to notice.

I was going to wrap it up in a three-hundred-and-sixty-five day bow, and send it off to the printer, a gift to myself, a collection of my life.

But then the world went from muck to mad, and loving the beauty was not enough. And keeping it for myself was not enough, either.

The madness has always been present, of course; there is no new thing under any sun. But in the face of this current madness, the swirl around me has not led me out onto any battlefield that one can see: It has led me to my knees.

There are those who have marched out, swords raised battle high; I was on my face.

There are those who have spoken with eloquent power or even righteous rant; I heard my words dissolve, into groanings of my heart.

I have felt the cold stare of those out front, wondering where I am.  I have pressured myself, wondering where exactly was my place. I have looked for my voice, only to find it tangled and hidden, unsure of how best to help in this high and holy mess.

But high and holy is my desire, and high and holy is my cry. And so though it seems like a time to stand up and breathe fire, I got on my face and I let my heart groan. I went looking under rocks, and I listened for what is crying out, beneath the sounds of all the rest. I found: if someone doesn't listen, those cries will go unheard. And every cry is a necessary one, in the battle for what is whole.

And so, today, I am Seeking. And, today, this is what I found:

"Barriers that falsely advertise self-protection are guaranteed ways of self-imprisonment. 

Barriers that supposedly will protect your heart so it won't break are guaranteed to break your heart anyway. Yet being brave enough to lay your heart out there to be broken, to be rejected in a thousand little ways, this may hurt like a kind of hell--but it will be holy. The only way in the whole universe to find connection...is to let your heart be broken. 

Love only comes to those brave enough to risk being brokenhearted." 
[A. Voskamp, The Broken Way, p.214]

I got on my face and I let my heart groan, because the call to fight includes kneeling and standing, includes the sitting-with and the marching out. Because we need strength in constant curricular* motion, in all of the ways it is most truly offered. Because we will not win without all of our mutual bearing with grace. And because every battle won begins in a battle of and for each and every heart to freely freely love, broken and poured out.

Tomorrow I will seek again. Until tomorrow, then.

*Origin of curriculum:
1625-1635; < Latin: action of running, course of action, race, chariot

Today I am Loving {276}

When you gather to celebrate,

with women who have loved together long and hard,

through all the many moments. 

Today I am Loving {275}

When Friday is your writing day 

and you say "Lord, I need a spot"

and you hear the whisper "library" and sure enough, 

 there it is,

and then you take yourself to the working lunch.

Today I am Loving {274a}

When you climb into the beautiful bed, with the get-ready-for-now bible study and the good night whiskey, the wind chiming beyond your walls.

Today I am Loving {274}

When He, in all of His Jealous, has been reminding you that you are where you are for His Purpose and His Purpose alone, and then you sit with the student to listen advise affirm in the confusing hard thing that you yourself have also walked, and you tell it to her straight and she nods and writes down the words she was needing to hear, and you watch her backbone sit up, taller, and then there is the other,  who cries out all her tears and seeks out your loving "please do not judge me" eyes, and as you work out together the plan to take care, there is peace and joy and what is calm, and you settle in, OK.

Today I am Loving {273b}

When the friend you haven't seen in quite forever is on her way over and you just feel like you have to DO something, and then you have THE BEST IDEA YOU HAVE EVER HAD. 

Today I am Loving {273a}

When you have the working lunch with the friends and co-instructors, to talk about the real things,  and then you have the class, where the students go there with you. 

Today I am Loving {273}

When the friend makes you the homemade kimchi, 

and breakfast is forever changed.

Today I am Loving {272}

When you start the day, curious.

Today I am Loving {271}

When He restores you, 

to what is simple.

Today I am Loving {270}

When it is Sunday night, and your 6 o'clock commitment got moved to 4 o'clock but you already had a 4 o'clock commitment, so that when 6 o'clock hits you find yourself at home, curry bubbling on the stove, and --calmed by the strangely wildly productive of yesterday-- curling up with the book. 

Today I am Loving {269a}

When He said "I'm sending you out and it's a mess out there, 

 and you will feel it, the barest of seasons, 

stripped of everything I have taught you to know,

but in the bareness you will see what is otherwise hidden,

and when you come home to sit with Me, I will restore you."

Today I am Loving {269}

When it is a foggy Saturday, 

 and you need a walk, 

so you take one.

Today I am Loving {268}

 When the eyes of history are on you,

and you find yourself at the reception to follow with those at the forefront of the fight for what is just, and you are welcomed and hugged on and loved by those you've come to know and care for, and all is warm in the midst of the battle raging outside.

Today I am Loving {267}

When you and your grad student are working on your headshots, and she suggests your quaint little town.

Today I am Loving {266}

When sometimes the multiplicity of your life overwhelms you, but you ask Him to change your perspective and the day unwinds slow and full, and you find: He does.

Today I am Loving {265}

When He calls you in the early, 

to care for you.

Today I am Loving {264}

When it's the little things.

Today I am Loving {263a}

When this 94 year old lady talks as sharp as she looks, and in her still is childlike sweet as much as is strength, gathered in years.

Today I am Loving {263}

When there's a lazy day with mom and dad, 

and it does not involve a hospital.

Today I am Loving {262}

When it's time for time together.

Today I am Loving {261}

When you arrive for the party a tidbit early, and your job is to hang out with the children,

and then the adults arrive.

Today I am Loving {260}

When your first piano lesson of the year won't happen until next week, but you feel the need to just hang out.

Today I am Loving {259}

When you have been, generally speaking, a bit of a hot mess, and you awaken to that feeling of not wanting to face your day, but then you discover the world is a sheet of ice, and your morning meeting is cancelled, so you sit down with the coffee, and GET YOURSELF TOGETHER.

Today I am Loving {258}

When your day is so full and you are so dragging, 

you climb into bed at 9:04, and sleep.

Today I am Loving {257}

When you're back in the classroom.

Today I am Loving {256a}

When not to us, but to Your name be the glory.

Today I am Loving {256}

When you forget you live in a glorious place, 

and then you roll through the hills, and are reminded.

Today I am Loving {255}

When this is your view, and you are the coziest.

Today I am Loving {254b}

When you go to celebrate the friend, and there is laughter and love, to feed your soul.