AFSHAAN.

The great moments in my life are marked by redheads. My younger brother, much like a delectable salad dressing, is an Asian Ginger. I married into a family of wild redheads. Most of the awesome people I know rock shades along the spectrum of strawberry blonde to deep auburn. 
Redheads are a rare and extraordinary people.

So when my redheaded friend Lydia set me up on a friend date with her redheaded friend Afshaan, I knew it would be legendary. Double the ginger, double the awesome, right? Right. 

Afshaan is a delicious mixture of seeming contradictions: she is a redhead from India. She is softspoken and sarcastic. She is from Dorchester, but she is stylish (Southie burn!) And she is a writer who doesn't blog! 

I had my first taste of Afshaan's deep and ancient wisdom (probably absorbed via osmosis while she roamed the hills of rural India) in a college creative writing course. I have been jonesing for another hit ever since, so when I saw an opportunity to force her into guest blogging for me, I jumped at it. 
I was not disappointed. 

Afshaan does not regularly grace the world with her writing, so if you like what you read, make sure to leave a comment to guilt her into doing so more often. Peer pressure is a powerful tool and together we can make a difference. 

If you think her writing sucks, just do the polite thing by keeping your stupid opinion to yourself and instead harass her cool (brunette) musician boyfriend at http://reverendmusic.com/ . After all, he put her up to this. 

Take it away, Ging. 

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I've been reading my way - slowly and not too surely - through Genesis. I find the stories can be confusing and sometimes downright infuriating. As these people, these Israelites, are making their rambling way across the literal and personal deserts of their lives, I find myself getting a little... well, judge-y. Time and again I'm so annoyed and disappointed with these characters - why don't they keep their word? Why do they ignore God? Why do they live in fear? Why do they do these terrible things?  

I was starting to get a little fed up with these so-called people of God when I was struck by something. What if - for some crazy reason - someone decided that my life was worth writing about and documenting for the ages - an account that people would read for the next, I don't know, thousands of years, over and over again to try eke out some meaning, some spiritual truths. What would the story say? Well, first of all, kept to the bare facts, it would probably be a little boring. But also, it would probably be confusing and infuriating (sound familiar?). If someone were to actually write down my daily reactions (or non-reactions) to God, my repeated bungling of my life, my absolute forgetfulness of the amazing promises of God that are waiting to be claimed, they would probably be disappointed. Why didn't she keep her promise to that person? Why did she take the easy way out in that work situation? What is she so afraid of in life? Wait, HOW old is she and WHY doesn't she have her drivers' license yet? (This is a fact: I am 26 and haven't gotten my drivers' license yet.)

What if the petty little mistakes and deceptions of my day to day life, the lies I tell others and myself, the lack of regard I show to God and my friends (not to mention enemies!) - what if they were written down into a story and read by millions of people? Oh, it would be embarrassing, devastating. What I've grown to appreciate about reading through the Scriptures is that they don't shy away from the complete and utter failures of their characters. How was - on the one hand - David a man after God's own heart, and - on the other hand - a coward, an adulterer, a deceitful and disloyal friend? How am I - on one hand - called beloved, a child of God, worth fighting for, worthy of even death on a cross, and - on the other hand - an anxious, petty, fearful person who often chooses the path of least resistance even if it means being deceitful to myself or to others. 

How is this possible?

What I've realised as I'm reading through these ancient stories, is that what makes these stories beautiful is God. 

Are the stories of the Bible tales of perfect, sinless people who do perfect, sinless things? No, because it's a story about humans - and let's be real: perfection, sinlessness, and humans just don't coexist. No, it is a story - a journey, if you will (see, Marri, I'm incorporating the theme!) - of broken people traversing broken lands and making mistakes and being redeemed by God. Time and again God is faithful to them - allows for and covers their ugly humanity with His grace. Is a story about a group of brothers throwing their brother into a well and then selling him into slavery a beautiful one? Nope, not if it stops there. Is a story about God saving that forsaken brother and raising him into a position of dignity and power and growing him into a wise, compassionate, and godly man so that one day he might save the lives of those very brothers who betrayed him and relieve them of their hunger and shame - is that a beautiful story? Yes, absolutely. God consistently makes the small magnificent, restores the forsaken, emboldens the fearful, is a companion the lonely, makes the plodding pilgrimage into an adventurous journey - in short, He makes the unbeautiful beautiful. 

And the most amazing thing - the Big Story that all these little stories are woven into - is that through Jesus, God did the impossible - he broke the time-tested equation that sinlessness and humanity do not coexist. He gave us a saviour who was human and could understand the daily aches and pains of being in these not-too-trusty bodies of ours. But he also gave us a way out: through his life, showed us an alternative way of living that was so beautiful it seemed (and is) impossible but for total reliance on God. Because God understands that weare beautiful and capable of acts of immense dignity and compassion, that we can grow - but he wants us to understand what we often sort of vaguely keep at the back of our minds: that true goodness, true dignity, true holiness is only possible through Him. Without His grace flooding our lives and filling in the broken, empty spaces, our lives - my life - are sort of just disconnected episodes of failures, half-hearted attempts at "being better," unkept resolutions, frustrating relationships. 

No, he refuses to leave us at that. 

He comes in there and adds colour and depth and joy and bravery and ADVENTURE! He says, "Come with me!" and we sort of look at him a little befuddled and scared and he's waving his hands and saying "No, seriously, come here!" and then we enter into His presence and you know what? 

There's nothing like it. 

He is calling us into His presence to make sense of our boring or maybe brazen lives, to take us in and make us beautiful. He is weaving our stories into His.

journey.

As I announced in last week's post, I'll be having some guest bloggers popping by over the next month or so. I couldn't be more excited to hear what these wise women have to say about our chosen topic: journey.
But until then, you are stuck with me and what I have to say about journey.
And it's funny because a wise author once told me to never quote anyone but myself on my blog. But here is the topic of journey, and it finds me a wide-eyed fool. So I have taken to quoting those much older and wiser and, well, I guess I'm okay with it after all.

And here it is:

Between watching The Hobbit over Christmas and my recent re-reading of The Chronicles of Narnia, (nerd alert) journeys have been on my mind a lot. Across lands, through rivers, over mountains.
For two crusty old academics, Tolkein and Lewis really knew how to create adventures, dangers and wild quests.

I've been on quite an adventure these past few months. First, I left my job in academic publishing to take some creative writing and advertising classes. Why?

Because I wanted to.

What? That's so unlike me!
That's where the adventure comes in, I think. The simple fact that it is illogical, inadvisable, but so strangely satisfying and peaceful at the same time. I can't really explain it or necessarily advise it to everyone else. Frankly, it doesn't make much sense.

I always thought I'd be a career woman. When I was little and I would picture Adult Me, I was always 24 years old, wearing a pencil skirt, working in a fancy office building in Boston and walking home from work. Last year, when I turned 24, I looked around and realized I had become Adult Me, in every sense- down to the pencil skirt.

Imagine my surprise when my heart sunk a little. 

"That's it?" 

This recent adventure has been one of abandoning my own stereotype of myself. Quitting these identities. Being free.

Sure, I was living my dream, but parts of me were suffocating there in that gray cubicle, under those stylish industrial lamps, reading page after page of manuscript. It felt like these things were slamming against the walls of my body, trying to break out or else fade away. I think perhaps these things were my gifts.

Maslow- that benevolent old Russian theorist- called them 'capacities', saying that,

Capacities clamor to be used, and only cease their clamor when they are well-used. That is, capacities are also needs. Not only is it fun to use our capacities, but it is also necessary. The unused capacity can become a disease center, or else atrophy, thus diminishing the person.

I think we all have desires in our hearts. I think a good God placed them there, to nudge us on adventures. I used to see these nudges as tests, like I had to do something unpleasantly risky to prove myself or my faith. But the more I grow and beat back the Fear and learn about my specific weirdness and how it contributes to the Body of God at large, the more I start to feel that IT IS SO MUCH FUN. 
He is good. He provides for these journeys and when I stop worrying about that aspect, well, I quite enjoy myself. Because, at the end of the day, I was created for this specific adventure and like C.S.Lewis said,

The place for which He designs them in His scheme of things is the place they are made for. When they reach it their nature is fulfilled and their happiness attained: a broken bone in the universe has been set, the anguish is over. When we want to be something other than the thing God wants us to be, we must be wanting what, in fact, will not make us happy.

I used to think that God wrote formulas that our lives needed to shrink or snap into. Then I started to think that maybe He was writing love stories, lullabies to comfort and calm. But lately, I really have to say...I think he is writing adventures. You can't read the stories of the Old Testament without thinking about the wild and unexpected. About bravery, battle, journey and risk. I just finished reading a book that wondered if the crisis of fatherlessness that our country is facing isn't in part due to the lack of new frontiers. The void left when the great spirit of American pioneerism reached its end. I suppose that another whole post could be written on that subject, but my point is that I think there's something in us that yearns for quests.

And it seems that adventures are as myriad as the people who are called to them. I have friends who literally travel to the ends of the globe, friends who spend their days working with special needs children, friends who commit to the journey of adoption, friends who give up their salary to stay home with their kids. Friends who look at the American dream and trust that a Good Shepherd can dream bigger.

So how do you know when it's your adventure? How do you know that it's not just a wild urge or a whim born out of boredom?
In my experience, it's when you feel that nudge and your very responsible brain says, 'no, no let's be reasonable.' And your ever wild heart starts to obey your brain, but looks back longingly.
I think that's when you know.
When it somehow meets a wild and ferocious dream that maybe you never knew you had.


And I realize it's not always so easy.
Sometimes it feels like no doors are open. But I don't believe in that. I don't believe in spiritual claustrophobia. I am learning that there is always a door, but not always where you'd expect or feel comfortable seeing one. Sometimes it's a trapdoor that opens to a dead fall until you reach the next door. And that's scary!


And I worry that I'm starting to sound like a substance-less motivational poster, but my best advice is to defy the fear and chase that wild and ferocious dream. Because I don't believe that He knit us together with gifts and desires to sit comfortably and calmly in our routines. It seems He would agree with e.e.cummings that,

It takes great courage to grow up and become who you really are.

So yes, it's been scary and weird and at times extremely difficult to try and be who I really am and not the Adult Me that my littler self created. But it's also invigorating and freeing in a way I simply cannot explain. Because it reminds me of that deep and resounding truth: that I'm not my job, I'm not my apartment, I'm not anyone's expectations (especially my own) - 
I am Beloved. 
And chasing that identity is my greatest journey of all.


PS- Maybe you're wondering where my journey has led me most recently. Well, my partner from that irresponsible ad class of mine hired me as an intern in her agency. Yes, I am older than all of the other interns and yes, I spend most of my day answering the phone and stocking the fridge. Yes, I took a huge salary cut and my paychecks make me cry. 
But I also get to WRITE and be CREATIVE and LEARN and feed my gifts. 
He is good, all the time. 

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As always, it is ever so appreciated if you'd follow/share. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 

dead birds.

Readers, it is time to kill some birds.

Bird 1: I made a promise to myself to start posting once a week in 2013. But, alas, I will be unavailable for 2 weeks in February. One week to move to a new apartment and one week to go to on vacation.
Bird 2: I'm still pretty intimidated by this self-marketing idea. I need more followers but I can only ask you to follow me so many times before it feels a little sad.

Here, faced with two birds I so desperately needed to slay, I saw the light. A genius scheme hatched itself in my head and started pecking at my brain. Aha!

The Stone: GUEST BLOGGERS.

It's so simple, so elegant, so all-encompassing.
I've decided that the best way to put off the dreadful self-pimp and to keep my resolution is to let other people entertain you in my absence. We both get some free marketing and I don't break my self-promise! (I checked with the Official Blog Commissioner and he said it still counts as posting, so don't try to catch me on a technicality. What's his name? It's Bill....Willman...the third. Don't try to contact him he is out sick. Hernia.)

So, three of my favorite wordsmithing friends will be visiting over the next few weeks. They have agreed to write so well that you are satisfied with my decision but not so well as to steal your allegiance from me. It's a tricky balance, but one I feel confident they can achieve.
It only seemed fair to give them a topic, since I sprung it on them last minute and with no real option to back out. I thought that since I will be off moving and traveling, that JOURNEY might be a good topic.

No? You don't like it?
Well, I don't really care.
I just saw The Hobbit and journeys seem very invigorating and significant to me right now. Plus, it can be interpreted many ways, so maybe one of my guests will post a karaoke video of "Don't Stop Believing". You can't be mad about that.