She Who Must Be Loved

You were so young when he came for you--

Too young to understand what darkness meant;

You thought your nightlight and teddy bear were all the army you needed to guard you while you slept.

And though I was fire by night and cloud by day, ready to bring you to promise,

you chose exile.

But child, your story was yet to be sung.

He taught you what it was to quake

To sit so still you couldn’t shake your weary soul awake

Feet beating faster than your heart drew near, drawing fear from every pore

Muscles tightened, you bolted up like lightening shooting the sky,

Such wide eyes

My, what sharp claws he had.

Hands around your neck,

They were cold enough to burn through your very skin

and to ignite the spark of terror, the silent gunman triggering every fire alarm in the house

He showed you fear so sharp it made breaths look like needles

Don’t take one

Hold still, this is going to hurt.

Red like your blood,

White like your innocence, that sly fox wove his coat to look like mine

But he is not of Me. I am not of him. His den was deep, deep within the earth

And looking for new birth, you began to dig. He had a plan for you,

To travel

But your journey was to Me

Further up and further in,

he called you, oh so sweetly toward the depths that lay beneath.

By firelight you saw one night that vixen’s vile teeth. His smile, still so charming,

‘til you looked beneath the fur and glimpsed the claws you knew so well.

Cold razors.

They wouldn’t hold you again.

Eyes now open, ears to hear,

I called you—follow. My world is upside down, so dig as you may,

the farther you run, the closer you’ll find yourself. Reach down one last time,

Push away the earth to find me. Fingers reaching heavenward like roots,

Or like leaves;

Grow child, climb.

Arms strong from tunneling,

Pull yourself up onto emerald fields and be free, breathe.

Dance like a kit in the grass. You are safe here. Behold, I make all things new.

Look up toward the sky. Open wide. I will fish out all of the dark in you.

Cast it away.

You are new, daughter of light.

So follow, beautiful one. There is a world to see and much work to be done.

Planted

Born into a world of death

Swift incision in my chest

Doctor placed within my heart

A seed to break my ribs apart

lift

50 feet of string,

darting and diving

inhaling clouds like flame eats fire

ever leaving,

ever drawing near

i wish i could see things the way you do

for one minute

your chest is proud and lungs are full

unafraid of the gusts that eddy this falling leaf

hold your key tight,

don’t blink when the lightening strikes

i’ll learn from you yet, kite

i’ll learn from you yet

The River

Standing in the river,

Ears tuned to the sound of silence,

She waits

For someone to deliver her broken ribs

From breathing the lies of an urban world

Her hair is a wheat-field,

Caressed by autumn’s whispering

She stares,

Knowing that the heron has found the freedom

To leave all that it has known for new winds

Tattered clothes, no makeup,

Looking down as she is washed clean

She hopes.

The great blue pushing her legs, inviting her

Into cold embrace and faithful friendship

Eyes closed, her heart beats still.

Felled like a beautiful willow,

She yields.

Eyes open to see the swift, sweet water

Engulf her wholly, heavy and holy

  

   

    

     

      

       

She breathes.

Porcupine Theory—The Hedgehog’s Dilemma

I’ve been thinking about this for weeks, and I’ve wanted to write on it for a while, so this is what came out:

I want to be close to you. Understand that. I don’t know why, but I long for closeness. It’s just a part of what I am. It’s me. I miss you. I miss that bond. Either that or I’m still waiting for it. I want to spend time with you and get to know you and listen to you. I have to be conscious of not smothering people. That's just how I'm made.

Freud made this theory popular, though it originally came from Arthur Schopenhauer. This is the Hedgehog’s Dilemma: a group of hedgehogs prepare as winter approaches. The colder it gets, the closer they move together. They desire both warmth and community—but this comes at a great cost. You see, the nearer they get, the more likely it is that mutual harm will come upon them. They’re covered in quills, and someone is bound to get stabbed at some point. So here’s the question: stay safe and sacrifice warmth and community, or take these things and inevitably get hurt.

I know the answer to this question immediately. Take warmth and community and endure the pain. The hurt can be dealt with. It’s worth the ache. Unfortunately, I don’t get to make this decision for everyone. To many, it’s not worth it. This, my friends, I cannot understand. I don’t get it. Why wouldn’t it be worth it? Cognitively, I realize that my self-worth isn’t based on the affirmation I receive when someone is willing to brave the slings and arrows of outrageous friendship, but I still feel hurt when someone doesn’t find it worth the fight. I can’t comprehend why I would fight for it and they wouldn’t. Maybe it’s just because I’m a little boy at heart, but I’m an idealist.

And it is this very idealism that I’m wrestling with. A dear friend of mine told me that men and women can’t be friends. Why not? It doesn’t make sense. I trust her, and I believe she has wise judgment, but I still don’t understand. She says that it’s not feasible to carry on platonic relationships with the ever-looming likelihood of marriage. Perhaps becoming a spouse in the only way to disarm those quills. But I’ve always been friends with girls. In fact, I generally get along with them better than with most men; so as you can imagine, this has been a rude awakening. Why doesn’t it work? So what if feelings develop? Why can’t the individuals just ignore them and sacrifice them for the sake of the friendship? Now I know that 99% of the time this doesn’t work, but why can’t I be the 1% that defies the odds? She told me that (regarding the individual whom she and I were speaking of) though I may be in that 1%, she may not be. Frustration ensues. I can’t change her. I realize that. Maybe it’s not worth it to her. But why not? What did I do? What didn’t I do? That’s where it all escapes me.

So herein lies my dilemma: do I fight for an ideal that I think is right and get destroyed every time because it is unrealistic, or do I accept the inevitable and just try to learn to be okay with what is practically a reality? I don’t know. I want to fight and struggle and labor for this ideal, but maybe that is just foolish youth. Then again, what do I sacrifice when I simply lay down and accept what I find absurd?

I never put much stock in personality tests until I took a Myers Briggs. I started to look at what it meant to be an INFJ. It summed me up perfectly. It described my personality type as an empath, one who prizes loyalty with individuals over having great deals of friends or being in positions of controlling relationships. I just want to be there with you, to help you.

So know this: I’m going to hurt you. I’m sorry. It isn’t my intention. I just want to be close to you. I want to do life with you. This ends without me coming to any sort of conclusion. I still don’t know how to handle the dilemma. I can’t change you—but I don’t really want to; I just want to sit with you.

We Dammed the River, and We Damned Ourselves: on the danger of stagnation

     That morning was short. Much shorter than I had expected. I was an hour and a half late, giving me that much more time to understand what was happening, that much more time to prepare. It was a spurious vow. You see, it didn't really matter. I was leaving and I wasn't coming back. This all happened on Friday at 5:30am. I left my family, friends, home, dogs, and church for a place where I knew nothing and desired nothing of. College.
     You see, I've spent nearly the last 8 months pouring my life into San Francisco. I love that city. I've been meeting new people and constructing a brilliant cathedral of relationships. A safe haven for myself to come to for rest, and a place where I hope others feel welcomed as well. It was good. I spent the three weeks before I left trying to say goodbyes and spend time with people before I left. It felt like I was on the way to my own execution. Giving away my things, realizing that I would no longer need them where I was going. Awkwardly avoiding the word "goodbye," as if that would somehow mean I would still be around in the months to come. I won't be. I remember on the mere 6-hour drive how odd it was to think that I wouldn't need to budget to make sure I had enough gas to get home. I wasn't going home. A wall of tears built itself and crumbled in that moment.
     The evening before, several individuals and myself assembled to depart. One friend of mine was leaving for Japan; I was headed off to college in Southern California. Friends had come to see us off rightly. They did just that. All night long I contemplated what would happen when I was gone. I had loved these people too quickly. In a few months, they had become some of the dearest companions. I wouldn't trade them for anything. I was leaving all of this, and I wouldn't get it back. It would never be the same and will never be repeated. It isn't fair. I was doing something right there. I felt like God had called me to be there, with those people, at that time. And not only did I love every second of it, but I knew that I had been able to help others. That doesn't happen all that often. It was good. Now, it was gone.
     All of this was on top of leaving my family, the room my brother and I had shared for the past 19 years, and the dear group of friends I spend Sunday nights with (among other precious comrades). Too much. Too much to lose all at once. Don't you understand? It was good. Things made sense. I was growing and changing for the better. Life was how it should have been. I was continually filled with joy.
     When I arrived on campus, that is what consumed my thoughts. I knew that God had called me to be at Biola and had provided the means for me to be here now. So what. Apparently God didn't notice what was happening in my life. I guessed He had missed my happiness. It was good. I'd follow where He wanted me to be, but I didn't have to be satisfied with it. I only came to Biola because I knew He'd put me there whether I liked it or not, so I might as well comply. Why would I be here? Everything good was gone. I spent my time missing those whom I love. I would prize what had been good, what I had enjoyed. Trying to imagine how fast I would be replaced at home didn't do me well. Everything changed, though, when the school's president began to speak. He spoke on the fact that mankind was made to live in tents.




    You see, we seek to control what we were never meant to. We've dammed rivers, believing that somehow if we can stop the flow, we can stop the change and establish ourselves as being in the place of power. It's not that lakes are bad, but making them is. All of us are fools. The levy is bound to break. There's no stopping this River. We are called to come and drink, but we can't keep it for ourselves. Jesus NEVER called anyone to sit and be content. He called all of us to follow Him. It requires movement. It necessitates change. It was then that I started to realize that I hadn't left my home. My home isn't the house of my childhood. My home isn't San Francisco. My home isn't Biola University. My home isn't even heaven. My home is Jesus. Where He goes, I find rest. So where I go, I must seek Him and nothing else. There isn't time to look back and miss the old. Waiting is a bitter thing. Stagnation is the Angel of Death. Nothing life-giving resides in those vile puddles. We are called into motion.We are not called to seek after what is good. We are called to what is best. Life, and life abundant. So I do not mourn what I have lost. It was good; but I do not trade best for good. I long for God to redeem those things of the past and make them new. I long to have those things in the finest. Until then, however, I cannot lament a loss. I simply look forward to those very things made better. Wine cannot be fine without age; metal must be purified through the flames; seeds must be buried before they spring forth with life; and men must face change before they can change. Flow river, wash me clean. I follow simply, silently.

Pursuing Joy

I never thought it would be this way. It seems that the message of Joy is that she will sweep over you with happiness and wrap you in warmth. It isn't true. The truth is, I've had to learn to follow her. She's always in the strangest places: huddled in an alleyway, jumping in the puddles, working in the slums. Of course, if She hadn't found me in the first place, I never would've known. A hundred lifetimes couldn't have prepared me for what Joy is. Mirth unimaginable. G.K. Chesterton put it this way,

"...we sit perhaps in a starry chamber of silence, while the laughter of the heavens is too loud for us to hear.
Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian. And as I close this chaotic volume I open again the strange small book from which all Christianity came; and I am again haunted by a kind of confirmation. The tremendous figure which fills the Gospels towers in this respect, as in every other, above all the thinkers who ever thought themselves tall. His pathos was natural, almost casual. The Stoics, ancient and modern, were proud of concealing their tears. He never concealed His tears; He showed them plainly on His open face at any daily sight, such as the far sight of His native city. Yet He concealed something. Solemn supermen and imperial diplomatists are proud of restraining their anger. He never restrained His anger. He flung furniture down the front steps of the Temple, and asked men how they expected to escape the damnation of Hell. Yet He restrained something. I say it with reverence; there was in that shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness. There was something that He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray. There was something that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation. There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth."

She is evasive. The greatest light hidden in the greatest darkness, ever waiting to be released, burning into the world. And this is why I pursue her. This is why I love her. Once we had met, there was no turning back. I think about her often, though perhaps not often enough. She looms in every building and peers from every tree. For though she can be found there, it is not her home. I can find her nearly anywhere. Only once I've found her, it seems she's slipped away again. The ethereal glow of her touch ever stronger than the last, only never satisfying. She always calls for more of me; and so I yield. Her beauty is unmatched. I've never found another, nor shall I, who can call me like this siren with such titanic power. Speaking in the voices of children and thunder; and so I answer. Her hand reaches out to me, offering both promises of life and of death; and so I follow. A life is but a bottle of perfume to be broken over the feet of her Father. One day, Joy will bring me home. The pursuit will be over, and the race shall be run. Glory.