The Angels Sing

I've spent the past seven or eight years in somewhat of a rut, on a whole lot of levels. I see my life as a small one, and I don't often see myself as important, in the grand scheme of things. 

Yesterday, I started thinking: What if I were to die tonight, and when I got to heaven I apologized to God for not using what he gave me, not making the most of my opportunities for life and career advancement? 

"Lord, I sat processing spreadsheets and answering telephones for years, and there were many times I failed to treat people as I wanted to be treated, and many times I let myself fall to gossip. Lord, I wore down the same ruts of behavioral patterns over and over, obsessing over things that didn't matter and trying to find my happiness outside of you. Lord, there were so many false starts and rabbit trails in my life and I think I missed your will along the line."

I wondered if maybe the answer would be something like:

"Almost all of those things are true, but they are not the only true things. 

"There were times when you apologized to a co-worker for snapping at her, or when you swallowed your bitter words unspoken. There are times you did think before you spoke, or even before you emailed. You hated that obsessing more fully, mourned it more deeply, each time you trod what felt to you like the same ground. Your heart broke a thousand times and you moved from seeking to wound as you had been wounded to seeking to swallow the shards so nobody else would be hurt. 

"All of those things you did for me...and the angels sang. 

"As for the rabbit trails and false starts...didn't you catch glimpses, even then, that you weren't aiming for a destination, but a person? You didn't miss it. You didn't miss me. Your life didn't fall outside of my will. I had you in my hands the whole time."

What if the grand scheme of things isn't what I think it is? What if I have the little things and the big things reversed?

"On that day they will say to Jerusalem,

'Do not fear, O Zion;

do not let your hands hang limp.

The Lord your God is with you,

he is mighty to save.

He will take great delight in you,

he will quiet you with his love,

he will rejoice over you with singing.'"

~~ Zephaniah 3:16-17

Sexual Sanity

That is the title of a conference that some people I know have been promoting. I am not going to this conference. Wouldn't have even if I didn't get an email today clarifying that the female speaker is going to address married women. Why? Because talks on that subject are depressing. 

This is the sort of thing I usually hear (DISCLAIMER--it might not be what is actually said): Men are all sex-obsessed and can't keep their eyes in their heads. If a woman shows any skin or wears clothes that aren't baggy, she is putting the spiritual health of all men at risk. As for women, what they need to hear is primarily how to help men, because men are the ones who have trouble with sexual sin and the odds that women might have any difficulty viewing sexual issues in a balanced and godly way are so low as to be negligible. (I've heard this logic somewhere besides the OPC...hm...where would that have been?)

I always come away thinking, "Okay, okay! I would hate to lead men into sin! I will wear potato sacks if I have to!" and then, "This is probably why I'm not married, because apparently 'men,' and I use the term loosely, don't even look at women who are wearing potato sacks." Oh, the dilemma.

If the only choices are leading men into sin or perpetual singleness, it isn't a choice for me. I'll be single until I die, no sweat. It is easy because I don't want anybody to sin and because I would only ever want to be married to a man, anyway. And to me, anybody who chooses to be restricted and defined by his sin is not living as a real man.

I come away mourning for the ideal of Biblical manhood that is apparently never reached, the stories I don't hear about the men who don't struggle with sexual sin 24/7/365, or who fight on a daily basis and are victorious, or who have fallen and repented and been forgiven. The men who look for spiritual beauty above physical beauty and are able to value and celebrate the latter more fully because the former is present. The men who put God above their appetites. Where are the men?

And I have to stop and list them. My dad. My brother. My grandfathers and other relatives. My friends who have protected me over the years in more ways than one, especially the friends who have shown a high degree of respect towards me and other women. The men who make me proud to be their sister in Christ, who make my heart sing out to God in gratitude that He is indeed bringing His kingdom.

The men are there.

And the women...we have our problems, too.

Way deep down, underneath all our manifest differences, underneath all the conferences targeted one way or the other, we have the same core problems. And the same solution.

Good Idea, Bad Idea

Good Idea: Leaving your trash by the curb.

Bad Idea: Leaving your trash by the curb if it's a box for something like a 32" LCD TV. I feel that's like putting a "please rob me" sign on your lawn. But maybe that's just me being ignorant. Maybe criminals don't even bother to go for anything under 42" anymore.

Facebook Sabbatical Update

(In case you swing by again, Zo.) 

On April 8, I deactivated my Facebook account. Have I found other ways to procrastinate? Ohhh, yes. Do I miss Facebook? Not really. 

I almost feel guilty about how much I don't miss Facebook, like I dropped a lot of friends and don't care. In fact, Facebook is great at trying to guilt you out when you deactivate your account. "So-and-so will miss you," they say, and maybe some people believe them. 

Okay, I did get an email today from somebody who said she missed seeing me on Facebook. I doubt most people have noticed I left, or would have noticed if they hadn't heard from me. But that's the kind of obsessive "is so-and-so missing me? thinking about me? ever recalling my existence if I'm not forcing it on them?" weakness that I was trying to back away from by deactivating the account. It's also an example of how the people who want to contact you will find ways to contact you.

This morning I logged in to look up a few email addresses and AIM handles. I scrolled through my five pages of "friends" to see if I needed info on them. I almost wrote down a few email addresses and then stopped myself, thinking, "s/he would probably be weirded out to get an email from me. " And although I know there is plenty of room in this world for casual friendships, and people you don't see on a regular basis but enjoy seeing when you do meet, I don't know that I want to have casual friendships via internet, yet one more step removed from intentionality. Especially not with those people I share a city with. I know that for me it is a comfortable copout to inquire after people on Facebook when I brush past them in church hallways with barely any eye contact. 

Will I be a regular Facebook user again someday? I'm not as sure that I will as I once was. Certainly not as enthusiastic about it. It feels kind of like a trap I escaped. I have considered the possibility of reactivating someday and deleting all of the people I see on a regular basis, along with the people I don't see but feel weird enough contacting even via a social networking site. We'll see.

All of which is starting to remind me of something I wrote last September:

Computer screens

Telephones

Instant

Convenient

Our lives in degrees of separation

I try to fit you into my schedule

When and where and how I want you

But secretly I like it when

You burst into my life

Whether or not it works for me

College-era throwback, early-onset mid-life crisis, or something else?

People keep asking how the job search is going, and I don't know how to answer. It feels like an emotional land mine--a casually-meant question that edges closer to dangerous ground than the questioner is aware--and I've found my perimeter defenses kicking into action.

I spent over seven years doing something that as a child I told myself I would never, never do (a desk job! horrors!), and I'm afraid of getting into another rut like that. And my latent idealism is reactivating. I'm getting all these ideas about working for a nonprofit, of doing something creative on the side, of trading a "dependable" income for job satisfaction.

People are staring at me blankly a lot when I do say these things, and I feel like I've given the wrong answer on a test, or that (worse) maybe they see through me and don't think I've got it in me to follow through. (Do I?)

I know what I want, but I don't know if I want it enough. Or if it even matters what I want. Maybe I'm just an angsty, overly-enabled middle-class American white girl with the luxury of introspection who needs to get over herself. Maybe that's comfier to believe than any of the alternatives.

How's the job search going? Well, my resume is on Monster and CareerBuilder and CalvinLink and I've got a few leads I'm following up on and I'm learning how to write resumes and cover letters and I went to a practice interview and I know for sure I don't want to do 100% commission sales and I have more surface information to throw at you if you want or is that already more than you wanted to know?

I love E.M. Forster...

...and so far I love A Room with a View best. I'd post some quotes, but we're reading it for book club and I have a strict "no spoilers" policy, so I won't.

I'm taking lots of notes because I am reading it so early in the cycle...my book club doesn't meet for over three weeks yet. I couldn't wait. I had read it once before and was so excited to read it again I had to start right away.

Oh, how I love this book. Read it and then let's discuss! 

Hey, big spender

I went to Meijer today and bought groceries for the first time since March 20 (it is an ongoing experiment, seeing how little I can spend...and I was out of town for a week and a half, and I had a lot of stockpiled food from before the layoff, so it's not like I've been starving). I was only planning to buy some fruits and vegetables, but I have been eating granola bars for breakfast every morning and getting a little tired of them, so I broke down and bought milk and cereal. 

I feel like such a spendthrift, but then again, milk sounds like a major luxury after four weeks.

Remote Control

There are no buttons on my life. I've checked. 

No matter how much I've wanted to pause a moment like I had today, standing on the bridge over the Calvin Seminary pond and feeling the breeze and beautifully existing in that place, I can't (today, my business-shoe-clad feet started to hurt).

No matter how much I've wanted to fast-forward until I get to the good parts, past all of this uncertainty and fumbling around, I can't. (Over ten years ago, I read an essay in which the author pointed out that if life was like a movie, we'd miss everything but about two hours of it.)

Mostly, though, I don't dwell on the fact that I can't pause or fast-forward my life. Mostly, I want to rewind. I want to rewind so strongly that I almost believe it possible, that I start running scenarios in my mind about how I'm going to do things differently when I get a second chance. But there are no second chances. Not like that. Opportunities pass.

If only I knew then what I know now. I would have made a different choice. If I had known that person cared what I had to say, I wouldn't have said what I did say. If I had thought they cared where I was, I would have been there. 

There is plenty of room to delve into my assumptions that sometimes the people in my life don't care what I say or do, but today, thinking about rewinding a recent situation, this thought occurred to me: "Make sure you don't become a source of regret on that front."

Want people to be there? Tell them. Appreciate people? Tell them. Expect people to know something, but they aren't picking up on it? Tell them.

Life is too short to live it passive-aggressively. Tell them.

there is only so much time

that the window is open wide

and then you watch it close

before you could decide

~~ Rachel Zylstra

Waiting on and for and in You

Search me and know my heart, O God. Direct the path (wherever it leads); open the doors (whichever they are). Guide me, O thou great and mighty Jehovah.

Here am I. You know me more than anyone ever could, more than even I ever will. You have not given a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, hope, and a sound mind. (Not a mind in turmoil, but a heart at peace.)

Send me.

Libation

this isn't quite the thing

smiling and raising of holy hands more

easily interpreted from the outside

but here we are

(a really good love story always makes me cry and

amazing

you love me

you love me

you love me)

tears speak to you like tongues

and if weeping were to endure forever

this would be the way to do it

(but it won't last forever

a promise that is part 

of the reason it happens now)

today

tomorrow

always until then

oceans of sorrow and joy poured out before you

may they be pleasing in your sight

my strength

my redeemer

Fish, not snakes

hasn't God said

he wants you to be holy

trials produce great gain

life here is difficult

hasn't he said

joy not happiness

desires of your heart, sure

if they're the right ones

if you're doing it the right way

hasn't he asked you to ask him

and have you

have you asked him lately

asked him often

beaten down his door

hasn't he said he's already given you everything you need

who are you to want more

don't you think he's busy with bigger things

beyond handouts

the voice is dusty with familiarity

the smile is not the shepherd's

the teeth the better to eat you with

and you haven't said happiness, Father,

but I fell broken over that corner stone long ago

and I refuse resist reject that after that

you mean to crush me like dust

World readership

One of the rather egotistical sorts of things I like to do after I've "published" a fanfiction is to go to the site and see the readership broken down by visitor country. (This is after I go see how many people have read it in general and wonder why so few of them have bothered to leave me a review. Yeah, it's nerdthetic.) So far, my latest fic (check it out if you want, but beware of Smallville spoilers) has had readers from the following, listed in order of number of hits:

USA

UK 

Canada 

Australia

France

Brazil

Germany

Philippines

Italy

Belgium

Turkey

Chile

Ireland

Norway

Indonesia

India

Austria

Croatia

Poland

Mexico

Finland

Bosnia

Argentina

Guam

Malta

Russia

Latvia

Puerto Rico

Pakistan

Netherlands

Switzerland

China

UAE

Venezuela

Greece

Dominican

Denmark

Guiana

Slovenia

Sweden

Czech Revar

Malaysia

Spain

I mention this because it's the most impressive list of countries I've seen yet--43, and that's not counting the mysterious unmarked country that I didn't note on the list. It speaks more to the popularity of Smallville fanfiction in general than to my own personal popularity, but still. It's pretty cool to see someone in Latvia, which sounds a lot like somewhere Dr. Doom would live, has read my work.

UPDATE: There are 56 countries total listed in the visitors to all my fics for the month of April. That represents over a quarter of the countries in the world. Including Iran. Whoa.

What you want

"You already know what you really want, we all do. We just don't listen." -- Chloe Sullivan 

In general, I believe that. We confuse ourselves. We rationalize away the things we really want. Maybe sometimes for good reasons, but maybe it's still best to step back and raise the mental fog and take a good hard look at the things we want and don't have, and at why we don't have them yet. Because that feeling like your brain is going to overload and explode? Maybe that's what happens when you lie to yourself. Maybe the frustration is less related to your circumstances than it is to your reactions to them. 

"These excuses, how they've served me so well 

 They've kept me safe 

 They've kept me stuck 

 They've kept me locked in my own cell" 

-- Alanis Morissette

Or as my dad (a far more reliable source for wisdom than either Chloe or Alanis) put it in his pre-college advice that stuck with me more than any other advice I ever remember getting: "If you want something and don't get it because you didn't try for it, you have nobody to blame but yourself. If you tried your best and didn't get it...well, you tried your best."

Okay. 

Let's try for a few things.

Logical Limitations

I admire the Vulcan race. Often seen by outsiders (or non-Trekkies) as emotionless beings, the reverse is actually true. Vulcans are intensely emotional beings, who over their history found that their capacity for negative emotional outbursts was great enough to pose a danger to their entire civilization. A visionary named Surak founded a philosophical system based on meditation and self-control, which reigned in these emotions to such an extent that nearly all emotional expression was curtailed, to find an outlet only once every seven years.

The Vulcan system is indeed based on a certain despising of emotion, but that is due to the pendulum effect, a phrase I may or may not have just invented, in which the reaction to an extreme position is to take an extreme position as far away from the original as possible, often while failing to recognize that the central point is the same. (In this case, the central point would be "emotions are powerful," and the two diametrically opposed postions would be to embrace emotions completely or to shun emotions completely.)

Sometimes, stuck in the same familiar emotional ruts I've worn down to bedrock, I forget that this is not how the Holy Spirit works, that there is no sitting back and waiting for me to master my emotions, to exert self-control so powerful that nothing can touch me except for those regularly scheduled times when the world explodes.

But then sometimes, traveling the same worn-out roads, I forget how it is that the Holy Spirit does work, how it is that he can be working even when I don't see any progress, even when I see the same feelings flaring up that have been flaring up for a lifetime with no sign of stopping.

I suspect that life is not illogical, but rather extralogical--beyond logic, outside of the grasp of logic, larger than logic alone. Life is not to be found in logic, but rather what undergirds it: logos. Word made flesh. Dwelling with us. (The strain on the central point of the pendulum would be unbearable if it were anything other than divine in nature.)

How then shall a would-be Vulcan live?

Facebook Sabbatical

Lately I have been feeling the dangerous lure of casting myself backwards into the abyss of the internet, and have been trying to work out how I'm going to deal with it this time. (Last time I felt it this strongly I got all confessional and it got really, really ugly and my life sort of imploded around then, so it's not a scenario I'm anxious to repeat.)

Today I deactivated my Facebook account, for lots of reasons that are kind of hard to explain but that relate to the above paragraph and involve big issues with how I relate to people. I could go for the easy "it's because it's sucking up my time and I'm on it way too much when I should be looking for a job," but that is only part of the answer, and even that can tie back in to people issues.

I'm disappointed that all I have to do to reactivate my account is sign in again. There should be more hoops to jump through, or maybe a quiz to take based on your reason for leaving. In my case, since under reason for leaving I marked "Temporary; I'll be back," the quiz would ask me about whether or not my time away had lived up to all I was hoping for it, and if I was really ready to come back yet. Or maybe instead of a quiz my computer could be rigged to play something really obnoxious when I tried to log back in, like anything by Kanye West.

As it is, this is a job for an under-used asset: willpower. Hopefully, this will spill over into how and what and why I write on this blog. And how many times I check my email inbox or my instant message program looking for some kind of validation. And how open I am and why with which friends.

Goodnight, dear void.

Ruining it forever

"These Days," by Rascal Flatts, is the second biggest stalker song I know. (The undisputed winner, of course, is "Every Breath You Take.") Rob Paravonian says that "if you listen to the lyrics of a pop song, it'll ruin that song forever." Well, it isn't only true for pop songs.

Have you ever heard "These Days"? It's a plaintive, romantic ballad about a man who hasn't forgotten his first love. Except that his first love left. Apparently a while ago. Because since the last time he saw her she has graduated from college, moved to Vegas, and married a rodeo cowboy. "Wow," he says, "that ain't the girl I knew." No kidding. Because you haven't seen her in years. She ain't the girl you knew. 

But the really stalkish thing about the song is that it's written as a first-person monologue directed to the woman in question. And the scenario is that they've met randomly in an airport. And when they meet randomly in this airport, he (knowing both that he hasn't been in contact with her for years and that she's married) spills his guts about how he's still not over her, how he cries about her when he wakes up and dreams about her when he falls asleep, how he listens to their song and checks his phone messages in case she left him one.

There is one line in the song that gives a hint to the woman's point of view on this scenario: "Well, hey, girl, you're late, and those planes, they don't wait." (Translated from the polite brushoff, "I'm running late and my plane is leaving really soon" means "I didn't initiate this contact and have no desire to prolong it. I am so thankful for a ready-made excuse right now I could almost cry.") 

He asks her to stop by next time she's in town, to visit an old friend. Sure, that sounds like an appropriate thing for a married woman to do, drop by for quality time with a high school or college boyfriend who still professes devotion. Smart. Not awkward at all.

Let it go and move on, protagonist of "These Days." Your "girl" obviously did.

What's your favorite stalker song?

P.S. For anybody who was wondering, I didn't go in for the third interview. Started praying about it and the second sentence turned out to be "Give me the strength to say 'No,'" which was odd considering I hadn't known that was what I was going to be saying at all.

Honestly?

Sometimes I want a husband just so I have somebody to push decisions on. 

"Should I pursue this insurance agent job even though it means working all on commission and doing things that sort of scare me and a huge learning curve and a whole lot of work hours, especially at the beginning?" I would say, and he would say, "No, that's a bad idea, I'd rather you didn't go to work at all because I make enough money so that you can stay home and keep the house clean and cook and write and visit other friends who are at home during the day" or "Yes, you should do it, I believe in you and you are capable of so much more than you give yourself credit for and no matter what happens I'll always have your back." (Either way, I think you have to admit my imaginary husband is a pretty sensitive and amazing person.)

As things are...well, if they offer me a job after my upcoming Round Three interview, I figure I should have something better to say than, "Wow, I didn't expect you to like me this much and thus am completely unprepared with a response. My mom is hesitant about me working on commission and maybe going into seedy neighborhoods, can you speak to that?"

Tomorrow after I call them back, I think it's concentrated prayer time.