All The Loves Before

Maybe I needed a wakeup call.
Though, I don't know what to.
What reality is the aching of my heart
revealing to me?

In one way, it's my hope...
Maybe it was too high,
or maybe I'm giving up too easy.
Maybe ... it wasn't true at all,
and the impending reality of it all falling through
causes me to grasp
at any shred of true hope left.

Maybe I'm being melodramatic,
and this is just a part of life, - loving and letting go.
And it's terribly too soon to say,
but it makes me scared at the thought
of ever trying again.

I thought I was in love
with every passing fancy over the years, 

some close and some distant admirations.
And it seems you might not fully know
the weight of your love,
til it's pouring out in endless tears that fall.
And see,
all the loves before
were never love at all.

Heart Unguarded: Worth It

I wrote this soon after, and while I can't say I'm in such a state of clarity and peace now...I'll honor the place I was:

Christian culture has a lot of holes in its theories and practices. Lots of things are pulled out of thin air and placed as doctrine of the faith, without true foundation. Relationships are messy, and while you'd think that people who have Christ as their example would know how to do relationship well -- we often suck at it. 

From the start early last spring of my recent relationship, I was told from about a million angles "guard your heart" (which is completely taken out of context, if you ask me). It was well-meaning, but felt ignorant and fear-driven. Now, here we are, at the end of this relationship as we know it. A relatively amicable end, painful nonetheless - or rather more painful because of that fact. One of the first things I said amidst a wave of tears and sniffles was, "I love you", another via text in the aftermath being, "Worth it."

Apparently we (the Church, not Shawn and I) are fearful of the repercussions of love. I sort of ran into this relationship with abandon. And after nearly crying myself dry over it, I still can't find in me regret. There is pain, certainly, as to why after investing months and months, hours and hours of conversation and driving, why would it all be for naught? To love and let go, that pain is very real. 

While this was my first romantic relationship, this isn't my first rodeo. I have loved deeply and let go a few times before in my life, usually far less mutually. Okay...not at all mutually. It's always painful. In those other situations, immediately I viewed the history of each relationship in a painful way, a sort of regret. And this one, while it's painful I have no regret for opening my heart up to someone who absolutely deserved my love. 

I kind of wish everyone would just quit with that line - guard your heart. Okay, maybe not everybody can handle loving only for a time - hell, I can barely handle it... Maybe some people need to be told to guard their hearts and be careful what they give away. But I consider it an honor to have loved that man for these months. Sure, like any relationship it had its hardships, but that doesn't mean I would rather have gone without. Even now, with it so painful.

I think that's what we ought to be hitting people with: the idea that we can love with abandon and yet open-handed. That if Jesus is our example and our supply, we can love well, without worrying that we're giving something away that we can't get back and that that's bad. That's a lie straight from the enemy! I'm not recommending serial daters, but can we stop being so afraid that loving someone will break us beyond belief? Instead, can we lean into the idea that loving someone even when it might hurt later because of parting, -- that that is really just a way to love someone like Jesus? Not with self-preservation in mind (and again, I'm not advocating for riding out abusive situations, or throwing boundaries to the wind, certainly don't do that!), but with fullness. 

I think if I didn't love fully, and let myself into this relationship fully, then it would have been futile. But because I did, I don't regret it. I have no regret for not treating my heart like something this man had no shot at. Even though such vulnerability proved painful, as it wasn't fruitful in the way we'd hoped, that doesn't mean that him or I have yet fully seen what fruit was there. We loved openly, quickly, and I'm certain that was exactly as it was meant to be. 

My dating advice won't consist of "Guard Your Heart", but instead two other words of God: "Acknowledge Him in all your ways and He will make your paths straight," and "Love your neighbor."

And it might hurt, but it's probably worth it.

Righteous in Our Warm Beds

**Disclaimer: This piece was written pre-deconstruction of religious beliefs and faith system. Many of these beliefs inform the sentiments of the writing and are not in alignment with my values. As this is a part of my journey and an extensive blog over years, I have chosen not to remove a majority of my posts written on faith. Please as a reader, take this into consideration and take what works for you, leave what does not. I also apologize for any harm my words from this past perspective may cause to any readers.**

I'm curled up in my bed, down comforter layered with a fleece blanket and another knit one on top. I have a wool one wrapped around my shoulders. After complaining a little, as is my good American right and duty, our landlord visited the attic to discover no insulation in our 1950's house. The basement where my roommate sleeps is warmer than my room!

A few weeks ago I caved and bought a space heater. One that has a timer setting so I can schedule it to heat up my room a bit in the morning before my alarm. $30 for a wee baby space heater!

At work, we're gearing up for our partner churches to help pack and give away wool blankets with toiletries, and a few warm items wrapped up in the middle to homeless people. We call these, Homeless Care Kits. 

It was quite sobering when nearly a year ago I started working for this amazing organization. I learned about things I'd been pleasantly ignorant to before: one being the pain of homelessness. But I'd also never truly paid due attention to the way God's love was meant to intersect that pain, just as it does all others. I spent the first few weeks at this job, learning about what the bible says about how we ought show compassion to all, and especially the "the least of these," as Jesus called them.

The most startling realization was in Matthew 25. Here He tells us that if we do not do these things, we have ignored Him; we have not fed, clothed, or quenched the thirst of our Savior. This passage couldn't be more clear, I dare someone to try and water it down (though not really, if you read it that way, keep it to yourself) and yet we have so many other concepts in the bible we'd rather hang our hat on. Jesus clearly laid out, both in word and by example what compassion looked like. 

Compassion doesn't resemble judgment. Nor does it resemble fear for our supposed safety. It does however get referred to here as an act of the righteous - biblically meaning those who are in right standing with the requirements of God. That means Jesus was saying, this is part of what it means to be in right standing of me. 

The beauty and the tension is that it still needs to be done from the heart. Serving and giving needs to be done out of love. Jesus isn't saying it's the righteous who do this because He wants us to fall in-line out of obligation. See, in the Old Testament, based on our standing with God being measured by the old Law, we would've had to do things to earn that standing. Flash forward to Jesus telling us this, it was shortly before His atoning death where mere acceptance of His sacrifice is now the mark of our righteousness in God's eyes. That righteousness should then inform our actions, compelling us to show compassion to the ones that society rejects and overlooks, this by love not penance.

We're too busy trying to battle the worries of the world with our own might, slapping the label of 'Good Christendom' on it, in spite of the very contradictory nature that Christ himself lays out toward such Pharisaical ways.

I can't say I've mastered it, and I can't say I'm void of my own blind spots, but I do think this generation is in need of a reality check with what Christ called us to. Since my heart came alive to Jesus' sacrifice, I've never been able to see it as anything other than an act of love. Love was defined to the fullest in those hours.

Kind of makes one question, what are we living and dying for? And is it what we've been called to?

The Call: The Good Fight

**Disclaimer: This piece was written pre-deconstruction of religious beliefs and faith system. Many of these beliefs inform the sentiments of the writing and are not in alignment with my values. As this is a part of my journey and an extensive blog over years, I have chosen not to remove a majority of my posts written on faith. Please as a reader, take this into consideration and take what works for you, leave what does not. I also apologize for any harm my words from this past perspective may cause to any readers.**

Tonight while walking to my car downtown, a man approached me. Addressing me politely and seeming perplexed, he queried, "You from here? ('Born and raised!') Is everyone always this mean? And this cold - it's awful!" "I love it here, the cold's the worst part -- and the passive aggressive."

He was a week new to Minneapolis from LA, his job moved him,  and lo and behold, his car got towed tonight. He paid cash to park in a lot, but somehow got towed - his wallet in the car, and only $100 cash on him, short the towing fee by $18. He told me how everyone he tried to get help from, let alone talk to, in the last two hours was downright rude to him. A guy from LA. The police were "a-holes", yes he self-censored and then apologized. He told me how he went up to another lady, with the same gentleness and courtesy, began explaining his predicament when literally she ran away. He was perplexed and kept telling me I was peaceful, that he'd spent two hours stressed and cold,  but now he felt calm.

We passed a DID (peacekeeping) officer who seemed suspicious at the mere sight of us walking together - apparently someone who the man had sought help from earlier, ironically. I made sure to loudly imply I was walking with this man fully consensually, under no coercion.

We talked as we walked, he said he didn't understand why when he needed help, the cops treated him the way they did. I bluntly retorted, "Do ya watch the news at all - have you heard what's being goin' on around here, lately? Yeah, they're a little on edge, not to pardon it by any means, but it is probably why."

The gentleman was a tall, heavier set, likely middle class, middle-aged black man. Wore glasses. In a mellow in but lively downtown, between 6pm and 8pm, no one would help him or give him the time of day.

Before he spoke to me, I'd seen him walking, I knew I'd encounter him on the sidewalk as I intersected it. I had a moment to choose, and I let it be a small one. Not a wink of fear in me, and why should there be? I didn't notice him for any other reason than he was a person, and so I engaged him, walked with him, and helped him, because he's a person and my city did him wrong.

We're so fearful we overlook, or we jump to conclusions. We leave people in the freezing cold because of our fear. It pains me to think of how we fail each other. It appalls me that assuming something about someone without even interacting with them, rather only by their skin, is somehow justifiable!

I almost told him this was how I was raised, but - no disrespect to my parents - it's not that. It is however that my God instructs me to value each and every life, because He does. My God calls me to trust Him for my safety, not to fear for it as a means to secure it, whilst trampling His beloved.

I am astonished to hear "bible-believing Christians" perpetuating and defending their hateful fear as self-preservation. Tell me where Jesus taught that?

He did however say, "Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me." (Matt 25, good chapter, check it out!) Earlier, He says the righteous did not ignore the least of these. This is by no means to say that others are lesser than us, but that somehow we as a society have let others become less, although their value is truly the same as anyone else's. They have inherent value and importance, as expressed by Christ himself for whom we call ourselves Christians.

I'm certainly not writing this to toot my own horn, so if you insist to perceive it this way, your ears are probably closed anyway; go ahead, quit now. This moment tonight was humbling. When these opportunities present themselves I consider it an honor to risk whatever to show someone kindness, while I lean into the Father's protection over me. To get to play a small role, and give away that which was so graciously given to me; to bring peace to someone's chaos; to bring support to someone's loneliness. This is our call. This is the good fight. This is mercy triumphing over judgment.

Dad's Trees

I gazed nostalgically at the tall, bushy pines on the hill that runs up from the freeway to the road that intersects the street I grew up on. As we drove by, I explained to my companion that when my parents first moved there twenty-eight years ago, those pines weren't there, rather it was a barren expanse of tall grass. When I was maybe about seven, I said, my dad climbed through a break in the chain-link fence which served to keep out the riffraff. He took with him some young pine trees, and a shovel. 

Those trees now served to remind of something, though I never really knew what. Often when I drive that road headed for the most familiar place I know, I admire the now tall pines and think of the mark my father has unknowingly left on something formerly drab and uninteresting. He unknowingly built me a memory, in planting those trees, and revealed a part of his heart that I hadn't fully understood for years.

Although he does have a thing for landscaping, my dad isn't exactly what you'd call a tree hugger. I even remember asking him about the pines when I was a teenager, because frankly, I'd always thought it was a little peculiar. Why go to the trouble of illegally planting trees on the side of the freeway, at least a football field's length from our home? He responded, so matter-of-fact, that that space needed something and he thought they would look nice. That answer not only surprised me, but it never quite felt sufficient. 

Recently, a neighbor who lives behind my parents went rogue, conquering their eight-foot privacy fence by ladder on either side to cut down some trees in their yard that he didn't like. Naturally this sparked conversation when my parents told me. Now, my father doesn't always seem like the most emotional person, but under a certain protective layer of toughness - which I can't rightly call a 'facade' - he is one of the most sentimental people you'd ever meet. After decades on this earth with him, I still learn new things all the time. He is a man of greater depth than he lets on, or perhaps even knows for himself. He told my mom and me a story that I found enlightening as to why he planted the pines all those years ago.

His mother had lived in the same house for many years, possibly the house he grew up in, I honestly don't know. His dad wasn't around a lot growing up, traveling often for work, so my grandma, Sally, was quite a tough little lady, by the sounds of it. I can tell by the way dad talks about her that he had a great deal of respect for her, but was also quite protective of her, as her only son. He told us how upon a return visit to his family home - some time after his dad had passed away - he was grieved to find that his uncle had convinced his mother (in some strange Canadian obsession with empty yards) to rip out the great trees that had lined the back edge of her lot for many years. Even as he gave the account, the disappointment resonated in his tone. 

He recounted that one day after school when he was young, probably about middle-school-age, his dad had called him out to the yard behind their humble rambler. There my Grandpa Joe was with a shovel and several young trees, ready to be planted. Eager to help and likely hungry for any smidgen of quality time, my dad ran over and started away at digging in his new little league uniform. His dad quickly scolded him for working in his white uniform (here my mom noted he still does yardwork in nice clothes) and told him to go inside to change. He did, and the two planted what would grow into tall, beautiful overseers of Granny Sally's little abode. 

My heart rose and fell within the span of that story. My dad doesn't often let on to such offenses having wounded him, but with the right attention the mysteries of his quirks unfold. As he explained the beginning and end of those trees in his yard, I understood him a little bit more than I had before. Those pines will now hold a different meaning for me; a new sentiment.

These are the moments I love; my dad is full of stories, and many of them seem to reveal things about him that I never knew were hidden beneath the surface. Many of these tales are tied to behaviors that have always been perplexing or curious. Many give a peek at the impressionable heart which drives him.

Now I just eagerly await the story that solves the mystery of his affinity for fake flowers...

When Death Wins

Sometimes it's hard not to feel like we're losing. The week before last, I woke in the middle of the night to awful news in an email that disturbed me as I fell back asleep. I woke again in the morning - hoping it wasn't real, but it was. A cloud seemed to float above me that morning. It's hard to approach a normal day with the dark staring at you like that. The thought so surreal, like the Cheshire cat's teasing grin. I spent a part of my day, trying to compose myself and move on, which seemed worse. Disrespectful.

It's hard when it feels like death is winning. Why does it get to win? That's how I've felt with every mass shooting over the last few years - though less so each time, the repetition numbing me slightly more with each report. It sounds terrible, I know, but to some extent it's a conscious numbing, because I can't let the weight of each death settle on me, crushing.

Then tonight, there's Paris. A city that holds a piece of my heart, from a defining time in my life. I think about people innocently going about their Friday night in the greatest city in the world, mercilessly killed. In the name of some thing no one fully understands. I have a lump in my throat, and going to sleep seems unfair. I am not numb to this.

As a Christian, this is one of my greatest theological struggles, when I want to shake my fist at the sky filled with the proverbial heavens - "Why again?"

Each age has had its own brand of darkness, certainly, but I struggle to say, "Oh death where is your victory?", for so oft it seems we see it. Then I find myself weary in the fight, even if the fight is not against death itself, rather to have hope in spite of perceived and some all-too-real perils.

It becomes clear, we live in a tension. Sometimes there it feels similar to stretching a tight or sore muscle. I know that the Lord is good, and that the fight is fixed, but the blows along the way can make it hard to get off the ground again.

Then the next question is, how do we - how do I - fight this battle? When fear has already taken such hold in this world and evil is no stranger hidden away in the shadows, what can be done?

When I feel powerless and defeated, all I can think is to say or do is mutter or tell a simple prayer, "God, where are you? Show yourself." My only hope is that He will be made known and that in Him hope and freedom will be found, in and in spite of everything. And I find comfort in knowing His heart is also grieved.

The We That Was

Pride is meaningless,
Empty.
Love remains, it resounds,
Into the empty space
of the pools of pride over my conviction.
Proud.
We sat,
unable to see eye to eye,
in more than one way.
One last kiss,
a confused and removed peck.
Maybe I don't understand how this works.
Pride is the last thing on my mind...
Or maybe it wasn't.
Either way there is a pit in my stomach
because I hate to cause hurt for the sake of myself.
I've always had a borderline naive hope in the good nature of others;
that they could protect my interest before their own.
Questioning that, I often feel untrue to myself.

You already feel so far away.
I missed you the second the words left my mouth.
It was a new silence for me, a new sting.
Dodging one another's glances,
An occasional unsure smile returned with a blank stare.
We didn't feel like us anymore,
Because we weren't.
All in an instant.
The we that was on a path together,
became the you and I at different paces.
I knew that when I needed
to let go
you would not understand.