TO HOLD THINGS, OR NOT

Sometimes it is difficult to hold things in your hands. Heavy boxes. Important decisions. Very hot potatoes.

But it might be more difficult not to hold anything in your hands at all. There is nothing for you to hold, and yet, you need there to be—want there to be—and so you close your fists tight around air, around anxiety, around necessity or panic, digging your fingernails into your palms. It hurts.

The most difficult thing of all is to hold nothing in your hands and to wait, open-palmed, for something to be placed in them. It is difficult, and your hands are shaking with the waiting, and the wanting, and the not-knowing what it will be—if it will be good, or bad, or not what you wanted or ever imagined it would be. It will be surprising. And, if you've really waited, open-palmed, not grabbing at air or other things that aren't very worth holding, it probably will be just the right thing.

Wait.

TEASPOONS

hello friends.

i am at one of those points in the semester. one where i almost slip off the face of the earth for a bit, and you're not sure where i've gone or what's happened to me, though you shouldn't worry; inevitably, i'll come walking over the rounded horizon again when all the academic battles have been fought in who-knows-what-universe, and, won or lost, i'll come back thirsty and mentally wounded and will need your company.

please be there.

i won't have much time to post in the next while, but here's a thought for now:

we live a life measured in teaspoons

just another true thing i heard from gary schmidt—one of my english profs who holds much wisdom, grace, and, by far, the best stories.

we live a life measured in teaspoons

this made me sad, because i know it's true; our days are full of carefully measured minutes and lists, and this is especially true in the last weeks of school—the very last weeks of school i will have at calvin. inevitably, they are chock full of final projects, some which are simply hoops to jump through before i graduate, others which are supposed to be the most crafted essays and creative projects—ones that reflect all that i have known and learned over the past four years, and what, because of these years, i hold and believe.

there seems to be too much to hold and consider, then to figure out how to write about, and far too little time for it all to happen. teaspoons.

still, i am trying not to be snared in the nowness and listness of the next few weeks. because i do not want to look back and see how small and measured i've made my days, and how lonely, and how sad.

I KEEP FORGETTING TO REMEMBER

Tonight, I am writing my way through some final essays, personal statements, job applications, etc., and I ran across something I wrote in an essay for my English Senior Seminar class back in February. It's something I keep forgetting to remember.

I think that living through fear is one of the easiest ways we can destroy our creatureliness. God did not create us to be creatures of fear; and so I think part of vocation is dispelling the fear of messing up and simply choosing, trusting that God will find you on the road you are walking.

...

I really do believe God can use his servants to do meaningful work in any context, after any choice or blunder or weak-kneed move, but it is good to remember that “Maybe [God] just wants you.”

...

Maybe it is because of [our] rude understanding that the only thing that seems really right is to turn everything over. We can theorize and calculate and drive ourselves nearly mad trying to figure out what we should do or trying to get to the depth of a mystery, but in the end, maybe we just have to hold on to the truth of giving ourselves up entirely.

I really believe these things; I just don't feel them today. So I am glad to run into this reminder. And I'm glad for people who remind me. (Thanks, friends.) There is too much to hold in my own hands, and I need you. Also, there is so much I cannot understand, and this is okay, and I need to be better at trusting.

That is all for today. Thanks for reading.