grace

There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about Jeffrey.

But I am moving forward, in my way; praying, working, ringing, singing, talking and getting together with friends and family, making plans, meeting new people, learning new things, reflecting, crying, praying some more.

Sometimes I think that where I fall short in loving and accepting myself, I try to make up for in loving and accepting the person I've fallen in love with. And not only do I become very attached to them, but I lose my footing, taking on their problems, assuming I must be the one who needs to be different than I am, that the person I am isn't good enough as she is, that I have to change in order to be worthy of love.

Jeffrey asked if we were doomed to always trigger one another, and I guess in this way we were, because Jeffrey does not love or accept himself. And when he couldn't accept me and the love that I have to offer, I got lost, thinking something was unacceptable about me and trying to change into something that would be acceptable. Really, he was projecting his inability to accept himself, and I doubted myself instead of recognizing what was happening. I accepted and loved him so deeply and wanted to be accepted and loved in return, and my self-doubt made me think I needed to change in order for him to fully accept me.

What makes me most sad in thinking about our relationship is wondering what it would have been like if he loved himself and I doubted myself less and loved myself more. My gut, my soul, the fiber of my being says that it would have been truly amazing, a great light in our lives and in the world.

We came together under different circumstances, though; saw glimpses of that light but could not embrace it. But we both saw and felt it, and maybe that is the gift we were always meant to receive from crossing each others' path - to know that there is grace and love in the world, grace we cannot earn but that God grants us in the midst of our imperfect love out of God's perfect love.

It is my anger at how he hurt me with his self-loathing and my guilt for however I hurt him with my self-doubt that cause my heart to suffer. And both the anger and the guilt stem from my stubborn clinging to a false expectation of why God brought us together. So I pray for healing for both of us; for freedom from the prisons we have constructed for ourselves; for hearts that are open to receiving grace and to sharing God's love.

love's light

a light in the room
it was you who was standing there
tried, it was true as your glance met my stare
but your heart drifted off, like the land split by sea
i tried to go, to follow, to kneel down at your feet
i'll run, i'll run, i'll run, run to you
i'll run, i'll run, i'll run, run to you 
i've been settling scores
i've been fighting so long
but i've lost your war, and our kingdom is gone
how shall i win back your heart which was mine
i have broken bones and tattered clothes
i've run out of time
i'll run, i'll run, i'll run, run to you
i'll run, i'll run, i'll run, run to you
i will break down the gates of heaven
a thousand angels stand waiting for me
take my heart and i'll lay down my weapons
break my shackles to set me free
i'll run, i'll run, i'll run, run to you
i'll run, i'll run, i'll run, run to you

kevin olusola, avi kaplan, scott hoying, mitch grassi, kirstin maldonado, and ben bram
copyright 2013 madison gate boulevard music, inc. (BMI)

tragic invitation

There are so many truths coexisting  and here are two: two people love each other, some tragic or demonic force poisons the well of that love. Where are you, O God?

Here is the deep underlying truth of our love as music made together speaks to my heart, forming poetry:

The Invitation

Wandering amid the shards of failure, confusion, shame, pain, brokenness
Shafts of light illumine strength, faith, intention
 Out of the deep, I have heard you calling:
Come and see
What I have prepared for you
what I have prepared you for
Behold! I, who have created all things, am doing a new thing.
Come and see
And there we stand, before one another.
Disbelief gives way to joy,
Seems to break, fractures as fear, pain, resentment creep in.
We are forced to our knees.
Out of the deep
Voices cry in unison:
Why have you brought us here, O God?
 Called to faith
To seek and to open in trust, Love,
That pulsing heart, full of beauty and strength,
Pain and ugliness
To ask and to receive.
 Answering the call with voices at once complete and not fully formed
Digging into what seemed the fertile
Ground of being
Found.

Now we wander, lost again.

courage in love

What follows is an extended excerpt from an email I wrote to my father recently, and I feel strongly that the wisdom in these words God brought to me first through the man I love. My hope is that you will find wisdom in them, too.

"I realized that I always try to meet people where they are in a situation even to the point where I subsume or set aside my own needs. And I often try to be the diplomat or catalyst that makes everyone okay.

While it's good to have empathy and strive to meet people where they are, it's not good for anyone - those people included - for me to neglect meeting myself where I am, too. I need to have the courage to say what it is that I am thinking and feeling, and have the courage to give myself as much consideration as I strive to give to others.

Learning to do that (and do it well) may take me a long time, but I have to try. I cannot guarantee that my own feelings or anyone else's will not ever be hurt. But, crazy as it might sound, I've been living my life thinking that I could somehow "make everybody okay." I don't have that power. I can only do my best to consider other people's feelings, ask them to tell me what they think and how they feel, and share what I think and feel, and do my best to honor myself and others.

And then I have to trust that the love between those people - in this case the love between father and daughter - is strong enough to meet the challenge of acknowledging that we can't prevent all disagreement or difficulty. I have to trust that being honest in love brings growth and new depth of understanding to our relationships with each other. That sometimes that growth and deepening comes not from avoiding discomfort but through facing it together.

I love you and while not everything that has happened between us in the past has been comfortable and there's no way to guarantee that everything in the future will be without difficulty, I believe that our relationship can be more honest and benefit because of it.

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to make you happy and wanted you to be happy with who I am. The problem with that is that I cannot "make" you anything. Our relationship is not 100% under either of our control - not mine and not yours. It survives and thrives through our love for each other, being as open as we are able to be and realizing that we will be imperfect in any number of ways even as we strive towards more meaningful relationship."

independence day

I think it's been months since I wrote about my grandparents' home which I was hoping to live in when I moved to take this new job.

Well, I don't have the emotional energy to tell the whole tale, but the bottom line is that I will no longer be trying to take that massive project on.

I sat down with my parents today and talked with them as directly as I could, and it was clear that my dad is unwilling/unable to support (financially, conceptually, or emotionally) the kind of restoration/revitalization of that property that is necessary for me to live there happily and healthily. Also, while he did agree that the property needs to be sold, as it has been draining funds from their retirement for over a decade now, my dad is still having trouble letting go of all the stuff that's still in the house. He started going through it (finally) last fall, but has a long way to go. He can't even commit himself to a deadline of any kind - even to say definitely by the end of 2014 - to finish that project and put the place on the market.

It is a huge shame that this hasn't worked out, but at least we could agree that the property is putting too much stress on everyone and we need to move forward and away from it.

but what do you *really* think?

There's so much to do - existentially, but I'm talking here more practically about my own personal daily life - but I'm more or less spinning my wheels. Chatting with some friends and family on Facebook, and now writing here, while I could be taking care of other things. Mind is not in taking care of other things mode at the moment, though.

I started the day looking at dresses online. I'm going to a wedding with my boyfriend next month - friends of his. I woke up too early on a Saturday, but that's pretty much par for the course - especially with this heatwave we've been having which I've allowed to curtail my (admittedly modest) level of physical activity. Less physical activity = less sound and sustained sleep.

Anyway, then I got to talk to my boyfriend - which was really great, because we usually see each other on the weekend, but he's now working at a summer camp for a month. He's only been gone a few days, but it already feels like an eternity. Have I even mentioned that I have a boyfriend? Yeah; since October. I'm so bad at this blogging thing. Seriously.

But this is really what I wanted to put forth in this post (if anyone even looks at something that gets updated once an eon): My boyfriend is a musician, teacher, poet, seminary student, and Christian and one of the most insightful, reflective, expressive, thoughtful, passionate and creative people I've ever met. He's from NJ, too. His parents are from Ghana, though, so he's also black.

I thought that living in the northeast and the 21st century meant that such a difference wouldn't turn heads or upset sensibilities - especially not my friends' or family's. But apparently people and our times are not so. At least one person I'm close to is having a problem with it, and we got some questioning looks and ugly attitudes from some of the people we encountered on a recent weekend trip to PA. (My boyfriend is also more than a foot taller than I am, by the way, so we do make a striking image in a number of ways.)

So. I'd like to put you on the spot - insofar as you're willing to comment - and ask you whether knowing that we are an interracial couple causes you any negative feelings and if so what they are, what you think might be at the root of them, and what you think would be helpful for helping dispel that negativity. What happened in the case of the one person who is having a problem is that they didn't think they would have a problem with it until it happened and it turns out they did have a problem. But they didn't think it was appropriate to feel that way, so they tried to conceal how they really felt, telling me they were alright. It didn't work and now we're trying to work it out kind of retroactively. My point is that I think it's better to have this kind of issue out in the open, than to try to pretend it doesn't exist. (In an ideal world the fact that we love each other is the only thing that would matter, but we don't live in an ideal world, of course.)

Thanks for anything you can share.

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love." 1John 4:18

The E word

Is it March already? Beware the Ides of March, right? Well, I hope this year's has treated you well. And here's a "postcard" for you!

As you know or have noticed, I've given up Facebook again for Lent. Even though I'm entirely too busy for this season of reflection for other reasons, I still think it is a good practice to abstain from Facebook for a while. It's been extra difficult this year not to look at my own page/news feed, because I'm in charge of social media for the Library and I feel like the view of the Library's page is better when I'm logged in as myself than as the Library. But it's a daily test of willpower as I wait for the login to complete and quickly click on the button that let's me switch to viewing the site as the Library.

Anyway :-) This is what happens when I start typing late at night at the end of a long week.

So, I dropped one choir to open up some time in my schedule. And then my church organized a small group Bible study (sadly there were only enough interested people to form one small group, but at least there's us!) centered on a book called "Unbinding the Gospel." It's about evangelism. (gasp!) It's challenging for me, and to be honest, I haven't given it all the attention it deserves, but on the other hand I feel like I've given it all the attention I can muster. My mom and I have become prayer partners, which is really nice. Neither of my folks (nor my sister) are really coming to church at all, so I suppose I'm evangelizing to my family at the moment.

I also am being installed as a deacon at some point soon. The service is actually this Sunday, but I'm going to be away, so they'll have to take care of me later. (I feel like such a prima donna, but I did have these plans for months before being nominated.)