Tag Archives: fear

The First Sunday After the Election

Posted on by under Hope and Place

It was the first Sunday after the election, and I wasn’t the only one who came to church in search of healing. Our congregation is many in terms of race, culture, background and class; but we gather because we were also one. One hope. One faith. One Lord. One old red-brick building facing east, perched on a hill overlooking a wide, crowded valley. Overlooking the city that is my home.

Pittsburgh, Pa. November 13, 2016. Mercifully, the sun had risen another day.

On that Sunday, I gave and received hugs, eased my body into a pew, and tried to settle my mind. Our daughters were collecting crayons and paper from the table in the back, and my husband sat close, leaning into my arm. He knew I was barely hanging on.

I sighed.

Psalm 27 filled the first page of the bulletin. Too much text, I thought. I need to sing. I was desperate to gather up the chaos inside and release it into words, notes, and vibrations. I needed our collective voices to transform some of this pain into hope.

But I had no choice. This was how we were beginning. And so, as sunlight through stained glass filled the room, I submitted to the many words.

The Lord is my light and salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

And I thought, Lord, would you like a list?

When evildoers assail me to devour my flesh–my adversaries and foes–they shall stumble and fall.

Or win elections. Betrayal was still bitter on my tongue.

…though war rise up against me, yet I will be confident… for he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble… Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud, be gracious to me and answer me!

The psalm went on and on. And on. Together we heard it. Together we allowed it to soak in. Together we let the light crack through the stone we were using to protect our aching hearts.

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Photo by V. Wolkins

You could almost hear the chisel at work: Do not forsake us, Lord–the Lord will not forsake us–Do not forsake us, Lord–the Lord will not forsake us.

Chip, chip, crack.

I believe I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord!

Now it was time to sing.

* * * * *

Later, during prayer request time, we shared our own words.

I know a lot of army recruits. I’m concerned that the fear and the rhetoric will lead to more deployments. These recruits–they’re great kids.

Our foundation cannot be shaken–God is still in control. God is king of kings, president of presidents. No politician has ultimate power. Don’t be afraid.

How can we have reconciliation with Christian brothers and sisters who don’t even understand why this hurts so much? 

If Muslims are forced to register, we will also register as Muslims. Because Jesus is Lord.

First, we cast our votes. Now, we cast our lives. This won’t be the first time. 

And, like Psalm 27, we went on and on. And on.

* * * * *

My family left before the end of the service. We had previous plans to visit my parents, who live an hour out of the city. But first, on our way to their house, we would go on a quick bike ride. It was a beautiful fall day in Western Pennsylvania, and we had wanted to try this trail for months.

But now I was nervous.

As we drove north, the Trump yard signs multiplied, and my stomach tightened. Paranoia surfaced. Why had my husband insisted on wearing his “Black Lives Matter” t-shirt? Would someone say something disparaging in front of the girls? Or worse? We would be in isolated places on the trail. What if someone tries to hurt us?

I had one comfort–it was cold. My husband  would have to wear his flannel over his t-shirt. We could blend in. None of us had dark skin, or wore a hijab, or seemed ‘other’ in any other way. No one would know who we were and where we came from.

And that quickly, I forgot who we were and where we came from.

* * * * *

The other day a friend said to me, “There are people who are deeply invested in the divisions in America.” This didn’t make sense at first. Aren’t the deep divisions our problem? But then I realized–it is the divisions that keep us safe.

As long as my husband wears his “Black Lives Matter” t-shirt in the city and his flannel in the country, we will be safe. As long as we vent our frustrations about the election with like-minded friends, no one will challenge us. As long as we pray with people who feel our pain, we can comfort one another.

Now. There’s nothing wrong with comfort, venting, or self-preservation. But we can’t stay there. Somehow we must find a way to bring our whole selves into the scary and uncomfortable places. We must listen. We must speak, somehow, in a way that can be heard across the divides.

We must learn, and learn again, to love more than we fear.

Last night I wrote out the text of Psalm 27 and posted it by my bathroom mirror. It is a reminder. A clue. A signpost on the way to hope, which I might be needing in the days to come.

The Lord is my light and salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

No one, Lord. No one.

The Wall I Pretended Not to See

Posted on by under Iconic Place

A half hour from my house stands an icon I used to rarely think about. It doesn’t look like much: stopped cars on a wide freeway, a low-lying government building. And in red letters, on a white overhang, a sign: Mexico.

The San Ysidro Port of Entry is considered one of the busiest border crossings in the world. About 300,000 people commute back and forth every day through this entry point between San Diego and Tijuana. The political boundary between the US and Mexico also marks the border with the greatest economic disparity of the world.

Growing up white in San Diego, I mostly ignored the border. Ignored the city and its restaurants, and hotels. Ignored the violence, ignored the plight of people deported, ignored the brutal iron wall that stands sentry in the waves on a beautiful beach in the borderland.

Why would I go to Tijuana, when everything I thought I needed was on this side of the fence? Why would I think about the border when it so rarely touched my life?

This isn’t true of every white person. I have friends who regularly travel to Baja—to surf, to vacation, to serve, to explore. Others seek out cheap medicine or healthcare, or the raucous, infamous Tijuana nightlife.

But despite my fluent Spanish, and growing up within spitting distance of a Spanish-speaking country, I’d only visited Tijuana twice—once as a kid, and once after college. I didn’t like it much either time—the pushy vendors, the activity we chose (shopping), the sense that “real” Mexico was further away, in the historic cities at Mexico’s center.

So like a lot of people in my hometown, I just didn’t think much about Tijuana, much like you ignore like an occasionally itchy tag in the back of a shirt.

A few years ago, though, I started attending a local Spanish-language church, and the border—so close, and so far away—got more uncomfortable. Less like an annoyance, and more like a wound. Less like someone else’s problem, and more like my own.

Why, I wondered, did I feel so disconnected to my sister city? Why, as a fluent Spanish speaker, had I only visited twice? Why, when I had gone, did I feel so uncomfortable?

What was wrong with Tijuana? No. What was wrong with me?

The spiked iron wall in the ocean divided family after family in my congregation. Women in my Bible study couldn’t go to serve on missions in their native country because they were undocumented, and would not be able to return. How could I pretend to ignore what the border meant to real human beings?

An undocumented  friend in my Bible study—I’ll call her M—sends her American-born daughters to visit their grandparents in Mexico every summer. M celebrates the closeness those visits create. But her daughter had a milestone birthday, and her dearest wish was to celebrate with her entire family, all in one place.

That simply isn’t possible. M and her husband can’t leave unless they exit permanently and yank their kids away from their native soil.

Another friend discovered she had liver cancer. Unable to afford treatment in the States, she went back to the public health system in Mexico. Her husband of decades couldn’t go with her; his income supported them both. When she grew worse and died near Mexico City, there was no way for him to return for her funeral.  No way for him to say goodbye.

I live without these restrictions. Why had I chosen to stay away?

Last fall, hoping to turn towards Tijuana, I asked my friend Lety if she and her husband, Juan Daniel, might visit the city with my daughters and me for a morning. We took the I-5 I’ve traveled thousands of times in my life until we passed the red letters marking our entry into Mexico. The road curved to slow motorists for potential stops, and then, so simply, so oddly, we were in a completely different country.

It’s so much weirder than taking a plane. It points out the split personalities that our borders create. Same land, same chaparral scrub brush, same rainfall, same ocean waves. Two completely different planets.

Perhaps the in-my-face abruptness is another reason I hesitate to cross.

That morning, I  expected to host, but in typical Latino fashion, Lety and Juan Daniel treated us to a generous hospitality my gringo heart still struggles to comprehend. We sampled local baked goods and toured the aquarium. We strolled through a garden, got tacos at a local stand. It was a lovely day.

Later, as we headed home, we drove along the ugly corrugated metal wall that divides the countries. I couldn’t help but notice someone had attached large white wooden crosses to it every few feet, clearly a vertical cemetery. “What are those?” I asked Juan Daniel.

“They put one up every time someone dies crossing,” he said.

I breathed in. The wall and its crosses stretched to a vanishing point on the horizon.  I had never seen them before.

How could I have known all that I didn’t know? My blind spots blinded me.

Writing this, I imagine my blind spots, my fear, my nervousness about the border—even after visiting—like invisible crosses on my side of the wall. I think about how hard it is, even sharing a language, to cross the invisible borders at my church. How the dividing lines of ethnicity, culture, privilege, and class can divide me from women who are my sisters.

It’s easier to turn away. Easier for me to stay afraid, to stay blind, to stay away from the borderland. To think of “illegals” instead of friends. To sigh about political rhetoric and skip to the next article instead of listening to real stories.

But I am so tired of being rich, and white, and blind. So tired of not admitting to myself how much my fear impoverishes me. So tired of trying to limit my world, instead of embracing the enormous open doorway that is right in front of me. I’m ready to face the border and the richness that awaits on the other side.

Border Field State Park / Imperial Beach, San Diego, California

Border Field State Park / Imperial Beach, San Diego, California by Tony Webster

* * * * *

Heather

Heather Caliri is a writer from San Diego who knows first-hand how tiny steps of bravery can transform lives. She loves breakfast, advice columns, and non-violent murder mysteries. Get her short e-book, “How To Become Braver,” for free here.

Finding Hope Beyond the Western Wall’s Shadow

Posted on by under Iconic Place

Jerusalem is a slippery place. You can’t help but notice that after taking your first steps within the towering walls.

Your feet slip and slide, and if it rains, you slip and slide all the more. After growing up in the evangelical subculture that is obsessed with “slippery slopes” of belief and practice, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought of this major religious center being “slippery.” And sloped.

After a few idyllic weeks in the old city during my senior year of college, tragedy struck.

While spending some time with my friends in the western valley outside the old city walls, we heard the roar of ambulances zipping to the eastern side of the city. They were on their way to the Temple Mount area.

We ran through the winding streets of the Armenian Quarter and then worked our way into the narrow alleys of the Jewish Quarter. The slippery limestone slowed us down, and we hardly took any notice of how few people were on the streets at that hour. Perhaps we knew that history was happening, and we had to be there for it. Perhaps we had seen so many soldiers with guns that we reasoned they wouldn’t let things get too out of hand. Perhaps we just ran to trouble because that’s what you do when you’re a 20-something who doesn’t know better.

From a lookout post above the homes in the Jewish Quarter, we finally caught sight of the scene. The Western Wall, known also as the wailing wall, was deserted. Soldiers lined up outside the entrance to the neighboring Al-Aqsa Mosque with riot gear. Emergency and military vehicles had streamed into the courtyard outside the Western Wall.

Aswall-picture with most things in the Middle East, the situation had been far more complex than the preliminary reports and even the endless analysis that followed could capture. Had a politician provoked a riot? Had military pressures and land seizure created pressure that would inevitably explode?

I didn’t come close to understanding any of those events back then, and now today I know even less.

Most visitors in Jerusalem make that wall a top priority, and tour groups decked out in matching vests following color coded banners make their way to the wall to pray. It’s the place where so much history happened. I understand a little of the fear and the disappointment. I think I understand why people would throw rocks and shoot rubber bullets after decades of conflict, and I suspect that I would be among their numbers depending on which side of the wall I’d been born on.

That wall was most likely near the place Jesus said should be a house of prayer for all nations. On the day that the men on one side threw rocks and the men on the other side shot rubber bullets, the wall stood as a reminder of the things that divide us.  

I stood under the shadow of that wall to pray many times in the following months. I didn’t wear a shawl or bob or sway like the other men around me. But those prayers at the wall didn’t give me hope. If anything, I felt the weight of that wall, almost crushing me. Tucking a prayer scribbled on a piece of paper into the wall almost felt like I was making it stronger. How could a world with so much violence and division ever make it?

Slip-sliding my way down an alley in the Arab Quarter, I joined a group who visited an Arab Christian church. I didn’t think about the fact that most of the Israeli Christians were just about completely divided from this group who graciously welcomed a motley group of American college students. We sang together in a room packed with about 50 people. After the songs, a translator led us to a side room padded with red cushions where he translated the announcements, prayers, and sermon.

They prayed the prayers for unity and peace that I needed someone else to pray for me. These people who were suffering the loss of business from bottled up checkpoints and trying to send food to families who were hardest hit also had the words for peace that I couldn’t string together.

Profound and life-changing as that experience was, I didn’t return to that little church. I can’t quite tell you why. I wish I had. If I returned to Jerusalem, I think I would slip down the limestone streets until I found it. But instead, I returned to the wall. Perhaps it’s easier to visit memorials and icons of our ideals. Perhaps seeking out the places where suffering meets hope is far more costly and personally challenging.

It’s easy to stand at that wall and to remember what Jesus said. It’s quite another thing to stand among the people experiencing poverty, fear, and uncertainty, joining them in their prayers that remain the only hope I have for tearing down the divisions in their land.

Ed bio YAH

Whistle Stop

Posted on by under Sound & Place

When I was seven, my family moved from California to Washington State. At that age, you don’t question why the palm trees are turning to evergreens, or why there is suddenly snow. You accept it. Sometimes I miss the days of taking the hand of change willingly and giving it a squeeze, already thinking about the fun in store for us together.

I’d always shared a room with my younger brother, but in the new house, we had our own rooms. Mine had red carpet and two closets. From time to time, I would rig one of them up as a cave or outer spaces, using my trusty tape recorder and a few well chosen props. Tights from the clothes bar were stalactites and I always included a flashlight for closer examination. Mostly though, I would count on my audience to picture the asteroid fields, or the underground rivers. Once ready, I would send my mom or brother into the closet, turn on the tape recorder and wait expectantly for their reactions. During the day, I loved the idea of a room all my own, with a lock on the door. Still, at night, I wanted someone to talk to, I hated being alone.

But, I was a big girl. I was old enough to have my own room. It was something prized by all of the little girls in the books I loved to read. It signaled that they were their own people, and as they grew up, more exciting things were going to start happening to them. In those days, everything was linear. I fully expected that I would go from my own room to becoming a babysitter, driving my own car, and spending evenings with a high school boyfriend who called on my landline and kissed me at the movies.

At night, I tried to focus on the plan. I needed to stay in bed, there was nothing to be scared of. The girls in my books didn’t get scared for no reason, they weren’t afraid to be alone in the dark. I couldn’t see my beautiful red carpet, or take comfort in my brother’s even breathing. The normally inaudible sound of the living room clock sounded ominous, and every creak signaled an intruder.

My fears were not helped by the fact that someone did break into that first Spokane house. We weren’t home at the time, but when we returned from the store and found the door open, the smell of cigarette smoke still hung in the air. It seemed perilously close to danger, to what I’d always feared would happen. My parents kept saying that they were thankful that the thief had only taken things, that we were all safe, but they took more than things, they took away my ability to whisper in the middle of the night: “Nothing bad will happen.” The red carpet did not stop calamity.

Whistle StopIn that house, we lived close to a set of train tracks. At first, I noticed every time they sounded their whistle, but after a while, it became part of the soundtrack of my life, so woven into the texture of my days that I would never have mentioned it. It would have been like mentioning that my eyes were green.

It was different at night. There were few sounds in our neighborhood, but I would strain to listen for an intruder or an animal. I contemplated which of my closets to hide in, should the worst happen. I wondered how expensive it would be to turn one of them into an elevator that could take me to the roof in times of trouble. Then a train would go by.

When the whistle danced into the night, it felt like a secret message for me. The blasts were long and shrill, sometimes they almost sounded hoarse. The tension in my chest would ease and I would start breathing normally again. No matter how fast my thoughts were running, they would slow, settling into a comfortable rhythm.

When we moved from that house, away from the train tracks, I worried about the quiet nights. What would I do in the new house, the new room, to combat my fear? I put on my pajamas and settled in to sleep, apprehensive. The whistle blew, more faintly, but I could still hear it. It filled my ears with an audible warmth. This whistle was lower, a closer cousin to a foghorn than my wooden train whistle. I still can’t tell you where the train tracks were near that house, but they were close enough. I fell asleep, lulled by the familiar sound in a new place.

Once I started treating my anxiety, my therapist and I quickly realized that I’m quick to jump to the worst case scenario. I wanted, I still want, to go back and comfort that little girl, but sometimes I’m not sure what I’d tell her. “I made it this far,” I could say. “I’m still scared sometimes.” I’ve learned that life isn’t linear, that the job and the boyfriend don’t follow having your own room. That sometimes the thing you feared the most happens, and you survive. I’ve learned that even if you pride yourself on being deeply logical, you can be calmed by something that has nothing to do with you, something that never promised to keep you safe. Even now, in bed with my lights out, when I hear a train whistle, the tension drains from my body. I accept that I am safe, and go to sleep.

cara YAH bio

An Unwanted Gift

Posted on by under Money & Place

I wasn’t supposed to be there.

We were in sunny, sweltering Palm Springs for a week of orientation. It was the end of July, and I had spent the previous six months intensely preparing to move overseas. I had made a commitment to teach English for two years  in a country where it was illegal to share the gospel.

All summer I had been busy buying a year’s worth of toiletries (half a suitcase), filling the rest of my bag with clothes and food that reminded me of home, and reading books that my mission agency had sent about the country I was headed to. As I packed, I wondered what it would be like to live overseas. I had never lived on my own before. Many people I met that summer were impressed by my new job. Even strangers exclaimed, “You’re teaching English overseas? That’s so cool!”

But I didn’t want to go.

I was afraid of moving so far away from home. I’d just graduated from college and was leaving most of my friends and all of my family behind. I had been living with my family that summer,  packing in my bedroom and dreading the next year.

And I was afraid that I wouldn’t be a good teacher. As an introvert, I preferred working in small groups or behind the scenes. I was nervous about standing up in front of a classroom with 300 students every week. I had already taught in that country for a month two years previously and I’d had a wonderful time, but I’d had only fifteen students. When I’d returned, I was so exhausted from 16-hour days with students and teachers that I barely got out of bed for two weeks.

But I applied and committed to going because God called me to go. Even when I was overseas before, I sensed I would be coming back. When I prayed about what to do after I graduated, God said, “Be a missionary.” When I searched online for other jobs, he patiently told me, “You’re wasting your time. I’ve shown you what to do.”

Then I realized there might be a way to stay home.

By then end of May, we each had to raise $5,000 in support to be eligible to buy our plane tickets. But on June 1st, I had only raised $1,000. I happily thought, Maybe they’ll let me stay.

But because of an accounting error, my ticket was purchased anyway. I couldn’t believe it when recruiter told me that I had replaced someone on a team who hadn’t raised the required $5,000 to buy her plane ticket. I wondered why I had been allowed to go.

When I finally said the last tearful goodbye to my parents and flew to Palm Springs, I felt like a fraud.  I don’t deserve to be here, I thought to myself. I don’t fit in, and I didn’t even raise enough money to go. As soon as the accountant finds out that I didn’t raise enough support, maybe I’ll be sent home. As I thought about how embarrassing that would be, I almost wanted to stay.

When I finally met with the accountant and explained that I hadn’t raised the required amount, he said, “Oh, that’s fine. Of course you’re going. More support will come in after you go overseas.”

He was right, darnit. Over the next year, support eventually came in. My teammate later told me that she’d had an uneasy feeling when she first heard about their team. “I looked at everyone’s picture, and it just didn’t seem right,” she said. “But when we finally received the email saying that you were on our team instead and we saw your picture, we just had a good feeling, like our team was finally complete.”

And it was a good team.

But it was a hard year. I grew depressed and bitter because things weren’t going the way I had envisioned. The first people we met said, “We’re so sorry you’re at that school,” meaning our school – the one I was committed to working and living at for the next two years.

Our first semester was a whirl of negative rumors and disagreements all covered in humidity and thick, dark pollution that filled our nostrils and covered our floors in black soot. I was told that people were spying on me and I started to believe them, staying inside away from the crowds.

I had many wonderful students, but others didn’t understand English at all and didn’t seem interested in learning. I hadn’t been trained to teach beginning students, but that didn’t stop my self-condemnation. Frustrated at my failure in the classroom and with my team, I started procrastinating to the point of barely getting up until it was time to go to class. Day after day I returned home and collapsed on the cold tile floor in tears, crying with loneliness, misunderstandings, and homesickness.

I blamed God for sending me to that place, but mostly I blamed myself for failing to live up to my high standards. I had unrealistic expectations of success, and I didn’t give myself or others grace when we failed.

Maybe sometimes grace is easier to see–and receive–in retrospect.MiahOrenPhotography-1 copy 5

Now, 10 years later, I think of how my life has changed because I was there. I think of all the wonderful students I met who took me out to dinner, introduced me to their families, and encouraged me when I was ready to give up. How perhaps my biggest success was that I stayed and didn’t quit.

If I met the girl I replaced now, I would sit down over coffee and tell her, You missed a crazy year. I’ve never cried so much. I’ve never been so alone. But I wouldn’t trade that year for anything because God works all things for good. Even when it’s hard. And even when we do our best to run the other way.

* * * * *

MiahOren portraitMiah is the author of The Reluctant Missionary, a memoir about her time overseas. She writes about learning to let go of perfectionism and embracing God’s plan for her life. She lives in Dallas where she dreams of someday having another cat. Connect with Miah online at www.miahoren.com.

Don’t Get Too Close

Posted on by under Guest, Travel & Place

A story about looking for love when you’re traveling.

“I guess I’m still trying to figure it out,” he says in reply to my question a few minutes earlier.

I put my phone back under my pillow, trying to think about what to say. It was after 2AM in Antigua, Guatemala, a tourist town a few hours away from the city in the mountains where I had been living for the past eight months.

A year ago, I had Don'tGetTooClosenothing to lose. No job, no apartment, no relationship to leave behind. So when I was offered a teaching job in western Guatemala, I said “yes”. I imagined myself being free and independent, ready to take on the world. But when I found myself in a place where my primary dating requirement was “guy who speaks English”, the internet became my connection to the outside world.

So when I woke up one morning to find a message in my inbox, I was intrigued.

It’s funny how quickly a new possibility can begin to consume my thoughts. This is usually the time when I start pushing away, afraid of letting myself be overtaken by someone who I have never even met. I start imposing rules, censoring words, allowing weeks to pass between short conversations.

In this moment, I realize that I’m scared.

I’m scared of never settling, of never figuring it out, of never getting it right. I’m scared of being irresponsible, of wasting my life away. I’m scared of the people who talk about me behind closed doors, saying “she could have been so much more.”

I’m afraid of allowing myself to love someone who doesn’t have it figured out either. Not because I expect perfection, but because when I look at someone else and see my own faults reflected in him, I see a relationship built with toothpicks and glue. I’m looking for someone else to hold it all together. I need him to be stronger than I am.

After all, I have tried that before. I have waded through the months of confusion that come from dating someone who is deeply uncertain about everything. Once I return to the United States, still without a job or a real life of my own, I’m afraid that person will be me.

So I want to tell him the truth, I want to tell him that I don’t have it figured out. I want to tell him:

Don’t get too close, I’m dangerous.
Don’t get too close, because I’m broken.
Don’t get too close, because I don’t have it figured out.
Don’t get too close, because I might leave.

How do people do this, I wonder? How can we allow someone else to hurt us, or to be hurt by us? When we’re all stumbling around blindly, making mistakes and trying to “find ourselves”, everyone is a risky commitment.

I wanted to roll over and ignore the message in my inbox, but as I lay there, staring at the ceiling, I had an idea. “Maybe relationships require us to change,” I said. “Maybe we need to find someone good, and then figure it out together.”

“Maybe so, but I’m still not there yet,” the realist replied.

It was a relief in some way, knowing we both told the truth. But still, we are stuck in the stalemate of I live here and you live there and I want this now, but I might want something else tomorrow. Giving someone else permission to change us doesn’t come easily, but I think it’s the only way out.

The desire to leave is a powerful feeling. That desire to leave brought me to Guatemala, and it became like a thread that stretched for thousands of miles, connecting me to another person with the same desire. Love, however, comes not from a desire to leave, but from a decision to stay.

Maybe this isn’t happily ever after. A leap of faith can’t fix everything, nor can a plane ticket bring two people closer together whose ambitions might be miles apart. But someday, everything will change. Someday I will say let’s figure this out together. We can fix what’s broken. And if you leave, I’m leaving with you.

I don’t know who I will be saying this to, but God, if you’re listening, I have a suggestion.

* * * * *

beccaBecca is a teacher who has discovered writing as a cheaper form of therapy. Originally from Chicago, she spent the past year living and working in the town of Xela, Guatemala, where her hobbies included squeezing onto tiny, overcrowded busses, reading in the park, and smiling and nodding when people spoke Spanish much too quickly. She blogs at beccanelsonwrites.com, where she is passionately spreading the word that it’s okay to fail. You can also follow her on twitter @beccaliz.

Naked Among Friends

Posted on by under Guest, Travel & Place

The day of the trip was gorgeous, sunny and warm. I arrived at the shoreline nervous and hopeful, wanting to make a good impression. Sarah had invited me to the lake, and Sarah would understand how I felt. She was a female pastor, like I was. We both knew what a struggle it was to feel out of place in a profession that tends to be mostly male and mostly older. I didn’t get invited to golf games or men’s retreats, and so I wanted to make the most of this day–connecting with colleagues while inner tubing and water skiing.

16810235579_4f640d352a_oAfter setting up lawn chairs and drink coolers around a barbeque pit, Sarah asked if I’d like to try jet skiing. I’d never ridden a jet ski before, but watching people zipping around the lake inspired an unusual confidence to try something new.

I watched as Sarah took the jet ski out onto the lake, the handlebars parallel to the footstand as she floated on top of it. Then, as she picked up speed; she came up to her knees. Finally, after going even faster and taking the handlebars up to a perfect 90 degree angle against the footstand, she happily stood tall on the tiny machine cruising along the top of the water.

It looked easy, as hard things often do when done by an expert. When she handed the jet ski over to me, I made my first attempt, revving the engine too soon and losing control before I got the chance to raise to my knees. I tried again, same result. Over and over I held the handlebars, floating on the surface, coming close but always losing my grip and letting go before I could stand up.

Without fail, as soon as the the handlebars slipped out of my fingers, the jet ski would begin to circle, zipping around and around in the cool black water like an eager puppy hoping I would play its favorite game, waiting for me to regain control. Frustrated and embarrassed that everyone on the shore was watching me get schooled by this tiny plastic machine, I tried to keep smiling as I adjusted my swimsuit and climbed back on, sure that I had it in the bag this time, only to feel the jet ski power away from my tired hands again.

On my ninth attempt, I felt it. I was going to get up this time. I had the handles firmly gripped and as the motor began to pick up speed, I was ready. And then – whoosh – the force of the motor blew back into the water and took the bottom of my black tankini with it.

I was naked from the waist down.

I motored forward, trying to slow the machine as I bobbed behind it, holding the handlebars horizontal on the water. Each second put me farther away from my now missing bathing suit. Even if I could have stood up, I didn’t want to show off my exposed lower half to everyone enjoying their afternoon at the lake. As it was, the force of the motor was pushing that most buoyant body part to the surface, effectively mooning every passing boat.

Not knowing what else to do, I decided to cruise into the cove where our group was eating lunch. I thought if I explained the situation while staying a little way out from the shore, I could ask someone to throw me a towel and possibly save myself the humiliation of this new group of friends and fellow ministers seeing my backside.

I held steady in the water at the edge of the cove.

“You guys,” I yelled. “The jet ski blew off my bathing suit bottoms. Can someone throw me a towel?”

After a few moments of confused looks from the shore, I yelled again, hoping someone would take pity on me.

A guy in his lawn chair stood up and yelled back, “Um, we don’t know you.”

I looked again and realized that indeed, this was a different cove and a different group of people than I had come with. I waved and began to motor away, my rear end floating to the surface as the strangers on the shore began to cheer.

I found our friends two coves down. I tried yelling for help but before I could even begin my story, they applauded, laughing, and threw me a towel, telling me that they’d heard me yelling to the strangers down the lake.

The camaraderie the rest of that afternoon was rich, the ice having been clearly broken by my lake-wide display. Instead of being embarrassed or feeling alienated by my escapade, I felt the welcome and affection that comes with shared experience. I lost my bottoms and with them my nerves, finding instead a place among friends.

* * * * *

100_1050“Naked Among Friends” was written by Lindsey Smallwood (far left). Lindsey loves being near the water and usually manages to stay fully clothed. A former pastor and teacher, she now lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband and two young sons where you’ll often find her chatting at the park, walking by the creek or writing on the couch. You can read more on her blog Songbird and a Nerd or find her on Facebook.

Pelican photo by Lars Plougmann

 

To see what I could see

Posted on by under Alone in Place

I had travelled more than a thousand miles to be surrounded by people, yet there I was, alone on a hard red-dirt trail in the Santa Fe National Forest.

To be clear, I was “alone on purpose,” as Nicole Morgan so deftly phrased it in her recent guest post. But following through on this intentional aloneness had taken great willpower. By choosing to set off solo on a hike that afternoon I was voluntarily leaving behind the potential of great conversations and new friendships—the very experiences I had in mind when I devoted a week of time and a sum of money to attend a Glen West writing workshop.

Many people at the Glen arrive in search of space and time to think and write, but as a full-time solitary writer who longs throughout the year for “colleagues,” I went to the Glen to fill that space and time with people. I needed a break from being alone with my thoughts and words, and during my first three days there I had accomplished just that. The mornings’ inspiring conversations in my non-fiction writing workshop transitioned into lunch hours sitting with authors I’ve long admired. Afternoons spent around courtyard tables, hearing about writing projects others were working on, gave way to more conversations over dinner, followed by engaging author and artist talks. Each night found me fighting the need for sleep as the extroverts and night owls gathered for more talk and laughter over whisky or wine, late into the night.

By that Thursday afternoon I had reached a state of “satisfyingly full” and knew some solitude (beyond the fast-asleep kind) would be good for me. It was one of those moments of awareness that separates childhood from adulthood: when you know that something—maybe eating those greens or getting up early to exercise—is important for your wellbeing, so you do it even though you don’t really want to.

I didn’t really want to be alone, but I knew it would be good for me, so I set out on the nearby Atalaya Trail to see what gift Aloneness might have for me in the midst of so much togetherness.

photo (9)The hard-packed ground was dry and gravelly, a shade of burnt, orangey-red that might as well be called New Mexico Red. I passed by Juniper and piñon, cacti, yuccas, and sagebrush, breathing in a heavenly-yet-foreign blend of scents that added a new layer to my aloneness: I was alone in an unfamiliar land.

As I continued walking, I began to wonder what range of unfamiliar creatures might call this arid region home (rattlesnakes? scorpions?). Then I recalled the coyotes whose sparring the night before had awoken me in my narrow dorm room bed, the windows open to the cool night air. Suddenly, alone took on multiple layers of meaning: I was not only by myself, far from others, but I was 7,000 feet above sea level in a foreign land, surrounded by potential dangers. The cell phone in my pocket didn’t even have service. I began anxiously singing, for company:

The bear went over the mountain,
the bear went over the mountain,
the bear went over the mountain—
to see what it could see.

I couldn’t remember what the bear saw, so I stopped singing and walking to just breathe—to calm the tinge of fear I felt and focus my mind on the quiet and the beauty that was all around me.

After walking a bit further, I reached a trio of wooden plank steps that carried the trail up and over a gravel road. Turning around, I lowered myself onto one of the steps, opening my water bottle and taking in the view below, the path I had just walked. The college campus, where all of those conversations and friendships had taken root the days before, looked small, but there it was, waiting.

I pulled my journal out of my backpack, turning to a page where I had taken a few notes while the poet Scott Cairns had read to us an evening or two before. A line from his poem “Draw Near” had especially captivated me:

For near is where you’ll meet what you have wandered far to find.

I had traveled all the way to New Mexico to be with other writers and artists—I needed new conversations and different perspectives to help reframe the story within me. Then I had traveled up this mountain for time and space alone, in a land so different from the one I know that I couldn’t help but be aware, notice, and respond—not intellectually but viscerally. And all of those miles, all of that wandering both with others and alone, had helped me meet what is very near, in my heart.

photo (8)

Somewhere Else

Posted on by under Alone in Place, Guest

The red numbers on the digital clock switched to 4:55 as I entered through the bank of glass doors, stepping from fading daylight into a fluorescent glow. A few yards down the hallway, I found an empty space of wall to lean against. I tried to exude an air of contentment and assurance as I avoided the eyes of others trying to do the same.

The heavy drone of exhaust fans and clanking of dishes rose above the silence. The aromas of greasy pizza, chicken nuggets, and french fries were already permeating my clothes and hair.

As the minutes ticked by we slowly converged to form a line at the register. Coming together, but all still alone, like beads strung on a necklace.

When the clock finally read 5:00, my nonchalance turned to hustle. It was easier to eat before the cafeteria got busy.

It hurts more to be lonely in a crowd.

After swiping my card, I strode as fast as I could to pick up my silverware and tray, all the while scanning for which food line would be the shortest.

Salad again.

Once my plate was heaped with greens I walked swiftly toward an out of the way table—three from the back next to the windows overlooking the softball field. The table I chose everyday.

The table where I hid—hoping no one would notice me, praying someone would see me.

The three empty chairs at my four-person table formed a fortress between me and everyone else. I could restaurant-690951_640watch them—filling their plates, joining friends in laughter, or trying to hide behind their books—from my rectangular island of neutral laminate.

We were all students at the same college. We were there for a similar purpose and supposedly held similar values.

But I didn’t belong.

As I quickly ate my spinach leaves, the clamor continued to rise. The line at the register had shifted from sporadic individuals arriving early to avoid the crowds to the crowds themselves—chatting groups of friends, sports teams, entire dorm floors.

The tables started filling up, my sign to get going. I rushed to finish my meal before the groups looking for somewhere to sit started looking my way, eyeing me reproachfully for occupying a space for four.

I resented everything about the cafeteria. The cacophony of laughter and conversations highlighted the connection I was missing, while the greasy food smells clung to me as a reminder. The people went about their lives as if I wasn’t even there.

I blamed them for my loneliness.

And I blamed myself for not being acceptable. For not being lovable.

Everyday I sat at that table counting down the days until I could be somewhere else. A place where people were kinder. A place where I was worthy of love and belonging. A place where I could be the person I wanted to be.

I sat and watched my peers, but I didn’t really see them. I was so focused on being somewhere else that I didn’t see where I was.

College had promised a fresh start somewhere new.  But instead, I found myself biding my time until I could graduate and move on. Even after I had the diploma in my hand, I carried with me the expectation my next job, home, or friend would bring contentment. No matter where I was, I looked ahead to the next place.

A decade later, a simple phrase in a sermon challenged my perspective.

Invest where you are.

As God told the Israelites when they were exiled in Babylon, don’t hold yourself aloof waiting to be rescued. Don’t while away your time believing you’ll soon be somewhere that really matters. Don’t just survive the place where you find yourself. Invest in the place of your exile and build a home where you can flourish and help others thrive. Whether you’re here for a moment or a lifetime, this time and place matter. These people matter. You matter.

My cafeteria table didn’t have to be a place of exile.

I can’t go back and change my experience, but I can invest where I am today. When I feel unnoticed I try to remember to look around for others praying to be seen and invite them to the table.

I don’t know where I’ll be tomorrow, but today I want to pull up a chair, grab a slice of pizza, and join the conversation right here.

Will you join me?


JohannaSchram (1)Johanna Schram feels most comfortable in places that are cozy and most alive in places that are spacious. Though the city changes, Wisconsin has always been the state she calls home. Johanna is learning to value wrestling with the questions over having all the answers. She craves community and believes in the connecting power of story. Johanna writes to help others know themselves and find freedom from the “shoulds” keeping them from a joyful, fulfilling life at joRuth. She can be found on Twitter @joRuthS.

A brief personal history of an extrovert, alone

Posted on by under Alone in Place

I am nine, and I’m standing at the kitchen sink washing the dinner dishes, utterly alone.

The dishes are my job every other evening, which means every other evening I feel a sense of abandonment and despair—the most acute embodiment of “woe is me” that a middle class American child can experience.

It is fall and getting dark earlier, so when I stare mournfully out the kitchen window toward the backyard, hoping for a bit of beauty or distraction, only the vague silhouettes of bare trees and my own sad reflection are there to keep me company.

I’ve finished washing the glasses and silverware, but the piles of tomato-sauce-glazed plates and—worst of all—pots and pans still loom large. In the next room I hear my dad complain about a referee call in the game he’s watching on TV. I hear my mom cheerfully greet Sasha, our dog, as she lets her in from the back yard. My brother passes through purposefully on his way to get a schoolbook from his bedroom. And I am alone with these dishes.

Of course, I’m not really alone. The rest of my family is within reach, but they seem emotionally out of touch. So from an early age this becomes my definition of alone. And I hate it.

*   *   *   *

I am 16 and in the backyard reading Pride and Prejudice for the fourth or fifth time.

It’s spring break. My boyfriend is off on a trip to North Carolina with his best friend, and all of my closest girl friends are somewhere warm with their families. But surprisingly I don’t feel sorry for myself for being stuck at home with nothing to do. Instead, I’m getting a start on my tan, enjoying the rare early-April warmth and indulging in a week of reading books, old and new.

Suddenly it’s easy to remember why reading had been my favorite pastime as a younger child, before it had gotten lost in the mix of boyfriends, tennis practice, school clubs, and a part-time job. On this April day, I’m happily reacquainting myself with my love for books, and also with the warmth of the sun after a long Michigan winter.

I am completely alone but it doesn’t occur to me that I’m alone, because I am completely content.

*   *   *   *

I am 20, a junior in college, and I am falling in love with someone who seems, in at least one important way, to be not like me: I am falling in love with someone who loves to be alone.

He shares an apartment with a group of guys across the hall from where I live with my friends, and an open door policy has been established. As his roommates watch TV before dinner, I watch him take a cup of tea and a book out to the hammock he strung up on the balcony. As my friends and I talk and goof around before bed, I see him walking home alone after several hours in his painting studio.

Suddenly I am certain that “alone” is something I’m not good at, and I see that as a flaw—the result of insecurity and a sign of shallowness. It has not occurred to me that my love for being surrounded by people—for being in the thick of conversation and debates, silliness and laughter—is a product of who I am, how I’m wired.

Likewise, as I’m falling in love with him I see his ability to be alone as something admirable, deep, and brave—not as a product of who he is, how he’s wired.

I’m hopeful I can learn from him.

 *   *   *   *

I am 30 and married to the painter—for eight years already. Our toddler and infant are both tucked in their beds for the night, and I am sitting alone on the loveseat in my cozy sunroom, an issue of The New Yorker open on my lap.

As an exhausted young mother, this moment should feel more delicious than it does. The house is quiet, and within the realm of these walls I have the freedom to do whatever I want. But what I want most is companionship, conversation. A look of recognition and understanding, a dose of empathy for whatever small trials the day brought. Someone to help me laugh.

I flip to the magazine’s table of contents, hoping to find something with the right mix of intellect and heart—the sort of piece that engages both my mind and emotions the way a good conversation might.

It is fall, and mostly dark outside the row of tall windows to my right. But in the back corner of our yard a bright square of light shines from the old one-car garage, now a wood shop and studio where my husband works each night on an art project he is preparing for an upcoming show. After this show is installed, there will be another show to prepare.

A lover of logic, I turn to it, hoping to find comfort: My husband teaches all day and needs every hour he can spare to create the art that drives his career. I get that.

My head is able to reason out my aloneness, but that doesn’t make it feel OK anywhere else.

*   *   *   *

I am 34, and I am alone.

My two busy daughters, now four and six, are in bed for the night, their questions and negotiations, stories and songs silenced by sleep.

photo (4)I brew a cup of tea then sink gratefully into the sofa to work on a sweater I’m knitting. Remnants of the busy day are scattered here and there throughout the house—a Playmobil scene carefully arranged on the coffee table, too many pairs of shoes and rain boots by the front door, a small stack of dinner dishes in the kitchen sink. But it’s OK, I’ll get to them later.

Since my divorce, I’ve been able to let go of the unhelpful sense that it’s someone’s job to keep me company. I’ve also been able to quiet the inner nag insisting that it’s my job to keep the house clean. When you’re alone, the consequences of waking up to a messy kitchen are also yours alone. Maybe it’s time to teach the girls how to wash the dishes, I think, as I pick up my knitting.

For now, I’m just sitting on my sofa, alone, and it is good. It’s good because I’ve finally learned that alone and lonely are two different things. I’ve learned that being someone who derives energy and ideas from interactions with others is a part of me to embrace and nurture, not to fight. And I’ve learned that savoring time alone allows me to process and express all that I’ve soaked in from being with others.

Now I can see that “alone” has always been important to me, and I’ve even been good at it, in my own way. Finally I’m able to call it what it is—just “alone,” apart from lonely—and embrace it for what it is: a gift of respite and reflection, and nothing to fear.

*   *   *   *

Q&Sdishes

 (No one should ever do dishes alone.)