Today I am a student, writing a research paper about suicide. Tomorrow I will still be a student, but in two weeks I will no longer be a student. In two weeks my time at SPU will be finished. In two weeks I will be leaving this place, this season. Turning a page to write the next chapter. Closing the covers of this book and opening the empty pages of another. Today I am a student but that identity is quickly slipping away from me.
This doesn’t mean I am regretting my decision or that I made a wrong choice. This choice isn’t about right or wrong, it’s just something I have to do. I am not sure why but there is an unquenchable desire in me, a driving force, that won’t let me stay here. It doesn’t matter how hard leaving is, what drives me tells me the adventure ahead is going to be worth it.
There is also a sense within my heart that the purpose of my time at SPU is over. What was to be learned and accomplished here has been learned and accomplished. Yes, I could stay another year just to get the paper that officiates these accomplishments, but that would be staying to long in a place I don’t need to stay at. It would be lingering to long in a chapter that can already be summed up.
I do not want to turn back. I do not want to change my mind. Though I am sad and grieving the loss of this time I do want to forge ahead and see what new adventures are out there. The force driving me isn’t abusive or dragging me somewhere I don’t want to go, it is beckoning me and gently urging me; nothing harsh or deceptive about it. More like a simple invitation to go into the unknown waters and test their current. The bay I have been in is great and has helped me learn to swim. If I stay to long in it’s calm waters, though, I fear I will grow lazy. It is time to grow new muscles and past new tests. The time is ripe. Jumping in now is good and sweet.
I cannot help but long for a celebration, though. I am leaving early and without a diploma. To some this appears to be giving up or failing at a task. In my heart I know this is a lie. I have graduated from a season of life so it is time to move to another; winter can’t last forever, even in Narnia. I can’t help but wish that could be celebration of spring coming. No congratulations or graduation gifts are going to happen, though. There is no letter to send out to friends and family to ask them to celebrate something I accomplished. What would I say? Congratulate me because I realized I don’t have to be here any more. For some reason I don’t think most people would get it.
Today I want someone to say they are proud of me. I want someone to say “way to go, you accomplished something great!” Not because I doubt that I did something great, but because I want someone to recognize the hard work I have put in and validate a celebration.
I miss my dad, today and I wish he could tell me this. I am scared to tell him I am dropping out because I fear his response. I fear he would tell me that I lack commitment and I gave up to quickly. I fear he would not be proud of me at all but would instead be disappointed and angry. So I haven’t told him. I don’t want him to crush the celebration and pride I feel for myself. I don’t want to risk that. He is the one I want to hear those words from, though.
Today I am a student, writing a research paper. In two weeks I am graduating from a chapter of life. In two weeks I begin a new chapter. In two weeks I will celebrate for myself the woman I have grown into; I have become more myself than I have ever been before. I am more fully alive, more fully Joy, than I was three years ago. The places I have been, people who have graced my life, books I have read, and lessons I have learned have each shaped me. They shaped me by chipping away lies and burdens stuck on me to reveal a beautiful and truthful woman: Joy. I am more Joy than ever and that is something to celebrate. In two weeks I won’t be flipping a tassel or getting a diploma, but I will be graduating from a phase of education that is much harder than an undergraduate degree. The School of Life will be awarding Joy a diploma worth more than a BA, MA or PhD: a degree in living, because that’s what I have learned. I have learned how to be alive. The beauty of this is that I will always be learning how to live. Or am I learning how to die?
Love to you all,
Joy
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
New Adventures
Good Morning Everyone!
Don’t hold your breath for brilliant thoughts in this blog, as I just woke up 20 minutes ago and am now at work, with not much to do.
The purpose of the posting is basically to let y’all know what’s been going on in my life. Big things are coming!!
It is now official that this is my last quarter at SPU. I am in my junior year here, about 4 quarters away from getting my degree, and I am withdrawing! My plan is to take a year away from formal education and go into the world and learn. My classroom with be a farm somewhere in the Northwest, or California perhaps. There are lots of farms I found through a website (WWOOF.org) that trade room and board for 4-6 hours of work a day. So I am gonna go try it out. If I love it (as I suspect I will) then hopefully I can just keep doing it. If I don’t, then I have a few other possibilities in my brain of things to try out.
Hopefully this doesn’t catch to many of you by surprise as I have had a tough time at school since I got here my freshman year and am always talking about dropping out. I do not at all regret the past three years and I know they were needed. Though I am leaving without a degree, I really sense that this season is over and it is time to go to the next one. Where I will be and what I will do is yet to be discovered, and I am really excited (though slightly terrified) about the unknowns that are ahead of me.
This summer I will still be working at a YoungLife camp in Oregon called Breakaway, so I won’t be going to my farm until September or October.
Of course, I will be writing all along the way so y’all can read about my adventures.
And if anyone has a dependable car they want to sell for cheap let me know!
Peace be the journey,
Joy
Don’t hold your breath for brilliant thoughts in this blog, as I just woke up 20 minutes ago and am now at work, with not much to do.
The purpose of the posting is basically to let y’all know what’s been going on in my life. Big things are coming!!
It is now official that this is my last quarter at SPU. I am in my junior year here, about 4 quarters away from getting my degree, and I am withdrawing! My plan is to take a year away from formal education and go into the world and learn. My classroom with be a farm somewhere in the Northwest, or California perhaps. There are lots of farms I found through a website (WWOOF.org) that trade room and board for 4-6 hours of work a day. So I am gonna go try it out. If I love it (as I suspect I will) then hopefully I can just keep doing it. If I don’t, then I have a few other possibilities in my brain of things to try out.
Hopefully this doesn’t catch to many of you by surprise as I have had a tough time at school since I got here my freshman year and am always talking about dropping out. I do not at all regret the past three years and I know they were needed. Though I am leaving without a degree, I really sense that this season is over and it is time to go to the next one. Where I will be and what I will do is yet to be discovered, and I am really excited (though slightly terrified) about the unknowns that are ahead of me.
This summer I will still be working at a YoungLife camp in Oregon called Breakaway, so I won’t be going to my farm until September or October.
Of course, I will be writing all along the way so y’all can read about my adventures.
And if anyone has a dependable car they want to sell for cheap let me know!
Peace be the journey,
Joy
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Freedom Exists?
The first week of the new quarter has been hard. It took a small miracle to keep me from dropping out on Monday and running away to California. The feelings of panic, being trapped, and hating what I study were all too familiar. It isn’t a new thing for me to want to drop out of school, or for me to wonder if there is a point to getting a degree.
Freshman year of college I actually did drop out for a quarter. I panicked and couldn’t handle sitting through classes, so I ran away to California for most of winter quarter. It was a time when running away might have been the best choice to make. I found myself surrounded by a community of family friends that loved me without conditions and wanted to support me in life. That community has helped keep me going through the last 3 years of college.
Most quarters I begin with a sense of excitement until the first lecture starts. Once I actually have to pay attention and learn and be interested I freak out and can only dream of gardening, hiking, writing stories or playing with dogs. I feel stuck and trapped in a classroom. The voice of a professor seems to drone without end. Though I usually have great professors who genuinely care about my learning, and me, they become the enemy during a lecture and I want to dash out of the room and scream at the top of my lungs just to remember I am alive.
This quarter began the same way. Panic, my legs twitching in preparation of running, and my heart speeding up, pumping blood everywhere in case I do run and need to scream. This quarter, however, I realized that I could leave. I am not bound to school; I do not have to study. I could do something else. With this newfound freedom I wanted to run even more. The running felt like skipping away in victory however, so I didn’t immediately recognize it as the same desire to run away.
What kept me from dropping out and going back to my California family? I have no idea what else I would do besides school. I have no idea what I want to do in life. I have whiffs of dreams, like my hands covered in dirt or working hard in a field, other times I dream of getting to write all the time and actually being able to make a living out of it. However, I don’t know what to do to make these a reality. I have loans up the wazoo that would have to be paid off if I dropped out.
So I stayed in school. However, the freedom I found is still there. This quarter I will do school because I am settled here and don’t have a good plan for anything else to do. Next year… the doors feel wide open.
I don’t think traditional education is for me. Anyone who has spent anytime with me in classes or doing homework knows I play with my nose and don’t read a thing. I think about lots of things and am smart and interested in lots of subjects, I just get bored in a classroom and hate reading things I don’t find interesting or relevant to my life. I could be a really great student who gets straight A’s and blows peoples minds with my wisdom and insight (ok, maybe not that good)!
Yet, I am a mediocre student who doesn’t really read or participate in classes and only do the assignments I have to do to get a decent grade. I don’t care because it feels useless. Why on earth do I need to know what John Wesley thought about communion? Or what Freud thinks my deepest darkest secrets are?
What is important to me is how do I live in a way that fulfills my deepest joys and somehow finds a place to meet a need in the world. I find deep joy in cooking for people. Can’t I just go cook for people? A deep joy meets a great need. I love gardening. Can’t I just plant a garden and let people come play in the dirt with me? People need to play in the dirt; it is restful for their spirits to have their hands covered in dirt.
Yes, I could do these things. However, they will not pay the bills. Reality is I need to make money. I hate this reality so much. I feel trapped by this and want to run out of the moneymaking classroom and yell at the top of my lungs. This wasn’t helped when I went to Uganda and learned I didn’t need half as much stuff as I thought. I can be totally content to live in a hut without electricity or plumbing and have no car or cell phone or computer. I can love that life.
I also learned in Uganda that I am not really cut out for international living. I am a homebody, and I love my culture and the people in it. I am uniquely suited to love my American brothers and sisters. To live in America I have to be able to sustain myself. I have to make money. That doesn’t mean I need to hate it, though.
How to I find a deep joy that meets a need that also brings in an income? I have no idea. This week I learned that I don’t have to do what I am doing, though. I can change degrees, or schools, or states… I am free to take longer to get a college degree. I am free to be ridiculous and transfer during my senior year and abandon the major I made up for myself. I am free to find a school that lets me be free and spontaneous in my education. Or to find a job I love that doesn’t require a degree. I could go be a park ranger for the rest of my life if I wanted to! Really the point is that I am freer than I ever though. I am also capable of things I never thought I was. I am a smart and able woman who can do more than I know is possible.
I am free.
Freshman year of college I actually did drop out for a quarter. I panicked and couldn’t handle sitting through classes, so I ran away to California for most of winter quarter. It was a time when running away might have been the best choice to make. I found myself surrounded by a community of family friends that loved me without conditions and wanted to support me in life. That community has helped keep me going through the last 3 years of college.
Most quarters I begin with a sense of excitement until the first lecture starts. Once I actually have to pay attention and learn and be interested I freak out and can only dream of gardening, hiking, writing stories or playing with dogs. I feel stuck and trapped in a classroom. The voice of a professor seems to drone without end. Though I usually have great professors who genuinely care about my learning, and me, they become the enemy during a lecture and I want to dash out of the room and scream at the top of my lungs just to remember I am alive.
This quarter began the same way. Panic, my legs twitching in preparation of running, and my heart speeding up, pumping blood everywhere in case I do run and need to scream. This quarter, however, I realized that I could leave. I am not bound to school; I do not have to study. I could do something else. With this newfound freedom I wanted to run even more. The running felt like skipping away in victory however, so I didn’t immediately recognize it as the same desire to run away.
What kept me from dropping out and going back to my California family? I have no idea what else I would do besides school. I have no idea what I want to do in life. I have whiffs of dreams, like my hands covered in dirt or working hard in a field, other times I dream of getting to write all the time and actually being able to make a living out of it. However, I don’t know what to do to make these a reality. I have loans up the wazoo that would have to be paid off if I dropped out.
So I stayed in school. However, the freedom I found is still there. This quarter I will do school because I am settled here and don’t have a good plan for anything else to do. Next year… the doors feel wide open.
I don’t think traditional education is for me. Anyone who has spent anytime with me in classes or doing homework knows I play with my nose and don’t read a thing. I think about lots of things and am smart and interested in lots of subjects, I just get bored in a classroom and hate reading things I don’t find interesting or relevant to my life. I could be a really great student who gets straight A’s and blows peoples minds with my wisdom and insight (ok, maybe not that good)!
Yet, I am a mediocre student who doesn’t really read or participate in classes and only do the assignments I have to do to get a decent grade. I don’t care because it feels useless. Why on earth do I need to know what John Wesley thought about communion? Or what Freud thinks my deepest darkest secrets are?
What is important to me is how do I live in a way that fulfills my deepest joys and somehow finds a place to meet a need in the world. I find deep joy in cooking for people. Can’t I just go cook for people? A deep joy meets a great need. I love gardening. Can’t I just plant a garden and let people come play in the dirt with me? People need to play in the dirt; it is restful for their spirits to have their hands covered in dirt.
Yes, I could do these things. However, they will not pay the bills. Reality is I need to make money. I hate this reality so much. I feel trapped by this and want to run out of the moneymaking classroom and yell at the top of my lungs. This wasn’t helped when I went to Uganda and learned I didn’t need half as much stuff as I thought. I can be totally content to live in a hut without electricity or plumbing and have no car or cell phone or computer. I can love that life.
I also learned in Uganda that I am not really cut out for international living. I am a homebody, and I love my culture and the people in it. I am uniquely suited to love my American brothers and sisters. To live in America I have to be able to sustain myself. I have to make money. That doesn’t mean I need to hate it, though.
How to I find a deep joy that meets a need that also brings in an income? I have no idea. This week I learned that I don’t have to do what I am doing, though. I can change degrees, or schools, or states… I am free to take longer to get a college degree. I am free to be ridiculous and transfer during my senior year and abandon the major I made up for myself. I am free to find a school that lets me be free and spontaneous in my education. Or to find a job I love that doesn’t require a degree. I could go be a park ranger for the rest of my life if I wanted to! Really the point is that I am freer than I ever though. I am also capable of things I never thought I was. I am a smart and able woman who can do more than I know is possible.
I am free.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Presence is Possible
This Spring Break I have been reminded, again, of presence.
I have spent the last week at Point Loma Nazarene University. I came to be with two friends from Uganda; Holly was my roommate in Uganda, and BJ (aka Brian) was my friend. Both of those were true again this week as I bunked in with Holly all week and hung out with BJ often. However, I was blessed with much more than reuniting with Uganda friends.
BJ and Holly had classes all week. I knew this was going to happen, but it dawned on me when I arrived that this meant they would be doing things throughout the week I couldn’t join them in. I would be alone. At first I was ok with this. Then I remembered how much I hate being alone. I freaked out and contemplated not hanging out for the week and going somewhere else. However, I learned in Uganda not to run from hard and awkward things, but to sit in them in active patience and let them wash over me.
So I sat. I told myself to trust God and see what would happen. Beautiful things happened. First, BJ’s friends very suddenly became my friends. They would call me or find me and ask me to be with them. People I had only met when I was here for a brief weekend in February invited me to sleepovers and hikes and meals. BJ’s friends became my friends and I was brought into a community that eagerly accepted me. I felt no need to be a different person for them, either. I felt free to be me!
They were present with me. They were present by bringing me into their community and loving me. When I said goodbye to them last night and today I found myself grieved over leaving this community. It didn’t feel like I had only known them a week, it seemed like I had always known them. Their presence was real and tangible in my life and I experienced a flow of life between us.
On Wednesday night I went out to do homeless ministry with BJ and many others from PLNU. I was scared. Homeless people scare me. BJ told me I could hang with him, so I did and didn’t feel quite as scared then. One of BJ’s friends is named Michael. Michael is homeless and he spends his nights at a certain spot on the sidewalk near downtown San Diego. BJ has been hanging out with Michael for a while now it seemed and I soon found myself sitting on the sidewalk with these two men. Few words passed between us, and anyone eavesdropping would probably have found the words awkward and meaningless. However, I experienced a presence in that space that I hadn’t known since being in Uganda. Words weren’t needed, it was ok to sit and be together. Call it solidarity or whatever. We were together and it was a full together. Words weren’t even expected. In Uganda this happened a lot; I would find myself in a Ugandan’s living room without much for either of us to say. At the time it felt awkward and uncomfortable because in the US we expect words to happen all the time. If we aren’t talking we aren’t being productive or using our time wisely. With BJ and Michael words weren’t expected. In Uganda I wanted to run from this or fight against it. This was the first time I had experienced this situation since being back and my soul felt such peace and rest in it. How delightful to not have to say anything. How beautiful to be totally present with someone, a stranger to me, without any expectations. This is presence.
Then tonight two nights ago I finally got to talk with Deanna, another Uganda friend, on the phone. We haven’t talked in a couple weeks and we had missed each other greatly. Though we were on the phone in different states and different time zones we felt more present with each other than we felt with anyone we had been in a room with. The connection between our spirits transcended the limits of time and distance and it was as if we were in a different realm or dimension. A realm where time and distance are immaterial and what is real is what cannot be seen. So thick was her presence with me that I could smell it, taste it and touch it. Such freedom was between us that our whole selves were able to mingle and inter-digitate without fear or pretense. In this place we could totally care for the other without having our self taken away. Both of us could take up space without fearing offense of the other. In this presence we could feel the Holy Spirit passing between us and sharing true life, abundant life. We both felt alive. More than our hearts beating and our blood flowing, life that goes deeper and wider than our bodies; life that is eternal.
Presence, and the ability to be present with people, did not leave me when I returned from Uganda. The need for presence has only grown stronger in me. When I am found by it I lap it up like a dehydrated dog. Presence as I have described is rare and so hard to find. When it is found, however, my soul seems to soar within me and sing truly. Not a song I can hear, but one that is truer than anything I can sing with my voice. How good it is to know I am alive tonight.
There must be a key or something that unlocks this kind of presence. Right now these events feel random and mysterious, however, in writing about them I noticed a theme. What I experienced in each of these events was freedom to be me without expectations of anything more or less. Because of this freedom I was able to let myself take up space and I was also able to let others take up space. There was no competition between us or expectations that could not be met. All there was in those moments was freedom and space to bring my whole person.
Is this something I can only find with certain people? Or can I bring it with me wherever I go? I am beginning to think presence isn’t something that can only take place with certain people at certain times, but something that can take place within myself all the time. It is also something I can bring to people. If I give myself the freedom and space to bring all of me everywhere I go then others will also have that space around me. Presence isn’t random, though it is probably more full when everyone is practicing it. Presence is practiced, just as patience is practiced. It takes work and willingness to be disciplined. Presence and patience aren’t virtues but are disciplines. This means anyone can practice both; I can practice both. I give all of you permission to hold me to this discipline, as well.
I have spent the last week at Point Loma Nazarene University. I came to be with two friends from Uganda; Holly was my roommate in Uganda, and BJ (aka Brian) was my friend. Both of those were true again this week as I bunked in with Holly all week and hung out with BJ often. However, I was blessed with much more than reuniting with Uganda friends.
BJ and Holly had classes all week. I knew this was going to happen, but it dawned on me when I arrived that this meant they would be doing things throughout the week I couldn’t join them in. I would be alone. At first I was ok with this. Then I remembered how much I hate being alone. I freaked out and contemplated not hanging out for the week and going somewhere else. However, I learned in Uganda not to run from hard and awkward things, but to sit in them in active patience and let them wash over me.
So I sat. I told myself to trust God and see what would happen. Beautiful things happened. First, BJ’s friends very suddenly became my friends. They would call me or find me and ask me to be with them. People I had only met when I was here for a brief weekend in February invited me to sleepovers and hikes and meals. BJ’s friends became my friends and I was brought into a community that eagerly accepted me. I felt no need to be a different person for them, either. I felt free to be me!
They were present with me. They were present by bringing me into their community and loving me. When I said goodbye to them last night and today I found myself grieved over leaving this community. It didn’t feel like I had only known them a week, it seemed like I had always known them. Their presence was real and tangible in my life and I experienced a flow of life between us.
On Wednesday night I went out to do homeless ministry with BJ and many others from PLNU. I was scared. Homeless people scare me. BJ told me I could hang with him, so I did and didn’t feel quite as scared then. One of BJ’s friends is named Michael. Michael is homeless and he spends his nights at a certain spot on the sidewalk near downtown San Diego. BJ has been hanging out with Michael for a while now it seemed and I soon found myself sitting on the sidewalk with these two men. Few words passed between us, and anyone eavesdropping would probably have found the words awkward and meaningless. However, I experienced a presence in that space that I hadn’t known since being in Uganda. Words weren’t needed, it was ok to sit and be together. Call it solidarity or whatever. We were together and it was a full together. Words weren’t even expected. In Uganda this happened a lot; I would find myself in a Ugandan’s living room without much for either of us to say. At the time it felt awkward and uncomfortable because in the US we expect words to happen all the time. If we aren’t talking we aren’t being productive or using our time wisely. With BJ and Michael words weren’t expected. In Uganda I wanted to run from this or fight against it. This was the first time I had experienced this situation since being back and my soul felt such peace and rest in it. How delightful to not have to say anything. How beautiful to be totally present with someone, a stranger to me, without any expectations. This is presence.
Then tonight two nights ago I finally got to talk with Deanna, another Uganda friend, on the phone. We haven’t talked in a couple weeks and we had missed each other greatly. Though we were on the phone in different states and different time zones we felt more present with each other than we felt with anyone we had been in a room with. The connection between our spirits transcended the limits of time and distance and it was as if we were in a different realm or dimension. A realm where time and distance are immaterial and what is real is what cannot be seen. So thick was her presence with me that I could smell it, taste it and touch it. Such freedom was between us that our whole selves were able to mingle and inter-digitate without fear or pretense. In this place we could totally care for the other without having our self taken away. Both of us could take up space without fearing offense of the other. In this presence we could feel the Holy Spirit passing between us and sharing true life, abundant life. We both felt alive. More than our hearts beating and our blood flowing, life that goes deeper and wider than our bodies; life that is eternal.
Presence, and the ability to be present with people, did not leave me when I returned from Uganda. The need for presence has only grown stronger in me. When I am found by it I lap it up like a dehydrated dog. Presence as I have described is rare and so hard to find. When it is found, however, my soul seems to soar within me and sing truly. Not a song I can hear, but one that is truer than anything I can sing with my voice. How good it is to know I am alive tonight.
There must be a key or something that unlocks this kind of presence. Right now these events feel random and mysterious, however, in writing about them I noticed a theme. What I experienced in each of these events was freedom to be me without expectations of anything more or less. Because of this freedom I was able to let myself take up space and I was also able to let others take up space. There was no competition between us or expectations that could not be met. All there was in those moments was freedom and space to bring my whole person.
Is this something I can only find with certain people? Or can I bring it with me wherever I go? I am beginning to think presence isn’t something that can only take place with certain people at certain times, but something that can take place within myself all the time. It is also something I can bring to people. If I give myself the freedom and space to bring all of me everywhere I go then others will also have that space around me. Presence isn’t random, though it is probably more full when everyone is practicing it. Presence is practiced, just as patience is practiced. It takes work and willingness to be disciplined. Presence and patience aren’t virtues but are disciplines. This means anyone can practice both; I can practice both. I give all of you permission to hold me to this discipline, as well.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Reflecting, floundering, searching.
Hello Friends,
It has been a while since I updated you on Africa and my journeying there. Mostly cause I got back, so my journeying has taken a different form. Today, however, I got to pause for a few moments and words flowed out. I wrote them down (luckily) and would like to share them with you all. If you weren't a part of USP then some of this won't make sense, for which I apologize, but I didn't want to get to bogged down in explanations.
Today my eye doctor, after learning I went to Africa, asked me if I had heard about the slaughtering in Nigeria that happened yesterday. 500 people hacked by machetes. I think he even used the word hacked. He looked at me, waiting for my response but I didn’t have one. He then talked about meeting Africans and said they were always the nicest people, but apparently they aren’t that way to each other.
My full reaction didn’t come until later as it hit me that 500 people were slaughtered with machetes. I know what those machetes look like, my Uganda brother chopped wood with one every day and my house mom, Irene, cut banana leaves with them. I also know Africans. Though Nigeria and Uganda are entirely different places, the continent of Africa still has something common woven through it. I think even African’s would agree with this.
Then there is Rwanda. I do not often think about what I experienced in Rwanda, nor the things I saw. I don’t often want to return to those feelings of shock and overwhelming sadness and anger. Today I did, though. Drew’s song, Sula Bulungi, played through my head, “I have seen children’s clothes lying bloody next to broken skulls… all these things must come to pass, all these things will happen again.” I have seen skulls with cracks from machetes and I have seen piles and piles of bloody, rotting cloths once hung on the bodies of Rwandan’s now dead. It has happened again in Nigeria between Christian’s and Muslims. Children’s skulls have been hacked by machetes, pools of blood next to broken bodies with missing limbs. It has happened again.
The eye doctor seemed to have many opinions about the condition of Africa. His first question about Uganda was, “How’s the government there? Pretty unstable?” As if he could assume everything in Africa is unstable and chaotic. Then it seemed like he expected a huge emotional reaction from me upon hearing about the killings in Nigeria.
I didn’t have a huge emotional reaction, though. I got very quiet, feeling as though I had no right to speak or give my own reaction to what I had just learned. What could I say after spending a week in Rwanda and four months in Uganda? What does it matter that I am sad about what happened in Nigeria? What does it matter that I feel a deep connection to what happened though I have never met a Nigerian? What does it matter? What can I say or do that would actually be meaningful?
The truth is I am so full of emotions about these killings in Nigeria that I don’t know what to do with them. My heart is heavy, and something very close to the Rwanda shock is near the surface of my heart again. What do I do with it all? Why I am so upset over this? Why isn’t everyone else upset about this? 500 people were hacked to death with machetes. Brother killed brother. I sit in my kitchen, smelling cookies baking in the oven, stressing about papers that need to be written. I am speechless at the disconnect between what I feel and what I do; people were murdered and I am eating cookies.
Probably a lot of these emotions are leftover from Rwanda. I was there in September, 6 months ago, and then emotions feel just as fresh and shocking as they did there. I am still speechless at what happened there and what my life is. I have no idea how to take that I experienced and integrate it into my life. It feels like I have only two options: become paralyzed by it all, or forget about it in order to live. However, we learned in Uganda that Jesus proved there is always a creative third option. Do I know what it is? No, I have no idea what the third option is here. I am searching for it, though, always searching for it.
Today the third option was teaching myself Sula Bulungi by watching the Teahouse movie. Playing that song connected me to USP friends, Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria, and Seattle. I was able to hold it all in my heart as my fingers held chords, my hand strummed gently, and my voice reverberated off the kitchen cupboards. I don’t know if I will find the third option tomorrow, or if it will even cross my mind to look for one. Hopefully it will, though, because I think the more I am conscious of finding a way to hold that part of my heart with all the other parts of my heart the more I will find myself connected to people, places and myself.
Love to all,
Joy
It has been a while since I updated you on Africa and my journeying there. Mostly cause I got back, so my journeying has taken a different form. Today, however, I got to pause for a few moments and words flowed out. I wrote them down (luckily) and would like to share them with you all. If you weren't a part of USP then some of this won't make sense, for which I apologize, but I didn't want to get to bogged down in explanations.
Today my eye doctor, after learning I went to Africa, asked me if I had heard about the slaughtering in Nigeria that happened yesterday. 500 people hacked by machetes. I think he even used the word hacked. He looked at me, waiting for my response but I didn’t have one. He then talked about meeting Africans and said they were always the nicest people, but apparently they aren’t that way to each other.
My full reaction didn’t come until later as it hit me that 500 people were slaughtered with machetes. I know what those machetes look like, my Uganda brother chopped wood with one every day and my house mom, Irene, cut banana leaves with them. I also know Africans. Though Nigeria and Uganda are entirely different places, the continent of Africa still has something common woven through it. I think even African’s would agree with this.
Then there is Rwanda. I do not often think about what I experienced in Rwanda, nor the things I saw. I don’t often want to return to those feelings of shock and overwhelming sadness and anger. Today I did, though. Drew’s song, Sula Bulungi, played through my head, “I have seen children’s clothes lying bloody next to broken skulls… all these things must come to pass, all these things will happen again.” I have seen skulls with cracks from machetes and I have seen piles and piles of bloody, rotting cloths once hung on the bodies of Rwandan’s now dead. It has happened again in Nigeria between Christian’s and Muslims. Children’s skulls have been hacked by machetes, pools of blood next to broken bodies with missing limbs. It has happened again.
The eye doctor seemed to have many opinions about the condition of Africa. His first question about Uganda was, “How’s the government there? Pretty unstable?” As if he could assume everything in Africa is unstable and chaotic. Then it seemed like he expected a huge emotional reaction from me upon hearing about the killings in Nigeria.
I didn’t have a huge emotional reaction, though. I got very quiet, feeling as though I had no right to speak or give my own reaction to what I had just learned. What could I say after spending a week in Rwanda and four months in Uganda? What does it matter that I am sad about what happened in Nigeria? What does it matter that I feel a deep connection to what happened though I have never met a Nigerian? What does it matter? What can I say or do that would actually be meaningful?
The truth is I am so full of emotions about these killings in Nigeria that I don’t know what to do with them. My heart is heavy, and something very close to the Rwanda shock is near the surface of my heart again. What do I do with it all? Why I am so upset over this? Why isn’t everyone else upset about this? 500 people were hacked to death with machetes. Brother killed brother. I sit in my kitchen, smelling cookies baking in the oven, stressing about papers that need to be written. I am speechless at the disconnect between what I feel and what I do; people were murdered and I am eating cookies.
Probably a lot of these emotions are leftover from Rwanda. I was there in September, 6 months ago, and then emotions feel just as fresh and shocking as they did there. I am still speechless at what happened there and what my life is. I have no idea how to take that I experienced and integrate it into my life. It feels like I have only two options: become paralyzed by it all, or forget about it in order to live. However, we learned in Uganda that Jesus proved there is always a creative third option. Do I know what it is? No, I have no idea what the third option is here. I am searching for it, though, always searching for it.
Today the third option was teaching myself Sula Bulungi by watching the Teahouse movie. Playing that song connected me to USP friends, Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria, and Seattle. I was able to hold it all in my heart as my fingers held chords, my hand strummed gently, and my voice reverberated off the kitchen cupboards. I don’t know if I will find the third option tomorrow, or if it will even cross my mind to look for one. Hopefully it will, though, because I think the more I am conscious of finding a way to hold that part of my heart with all the other parts of my heart the more I will find myself connected to people, places and myself.
Love to all,
Joy
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Bittersweet Bath of Life
Hello Friends and Family,
For this, my last blog from Uganda, I thought I would actually let y'all read some of my final paper for a class here. It pretty much sums up much of what I have learned this Semester. Of course, if I were to try and say all I have learned it would take years, it will take years. So here is a small part.
See you on the other side!
Love,
Joy
For this, my last blog from Uganda, I thought I would actually let y'all read some of my final paper for a class here. It pretty much sums up much of what I have learned this Semester. Of course, if I were to try and say all I have learned it would take years, it will take years. So here is a small part.
Brokenness
I am wholly broken. People are broken. Humanity is broken. It has been this way since at least the fall of man, though sometimes I wonder if we were created broken. The beginning of our brokenness is beside the point, however. The point is we are broken. It took me a long time to come to this realization, and once I did I hated it. This semester I have again and again been confronted with human brokenness and each time I have hated it. My instinct in the face of brokenness is flight; turn the other way and run far and fast from it. There have been so many times when I have wanted to run from brokenness this semester. Even as I write this I am fighting a massive urge to run away from a broken reality I have been confronted with. However, if I have learned anything this semester it is that there is a third option. Though they are my instincts, fighting or fleeing are not the only options. The third option is patience; sitting through the shit, letting it wash over me as the grace of Christ, in the hopes of coming out on the other side a new creation.
A couple weeks ago, I wrote a blog on patience in relation to the chapter on patience in Compassion. In my blog, I reflected on what patience actually means and how it is an active discipline, not a passive virtue. The authors of Compassion state, “Patience means to enter actively into the thick of life and to fully bear the suffering within and around us. Patience is the capacity to see, hear, touch, taste, and smell as fully as possible the inner and outer events of our lives” (93). Patience is the third option. Patience asks me to stay in my brokenness and in my family’s brokenness, to experience it fully and with every sense allow it to wash over me. This is terrifying.
In Rwanda, after visiting the Nyamata memorial site (a church were 10,000 people were slaughtered over 3 days), wanted to flee. I didn’t even need to hear the story to feel this pressure of explosive emotions and itching need to run. It was enough to see the bullet holes and piles of clothing, to smell the rotting bones and know deep in me that brokenness was the cause. It took a great deal of restraint mixed with a touch of numbness to remain in the church and hear the blow-by-blow account of what happened. For days after that experience I wanted to flee back to the U.S. and hide from one of the most horrific accounts of human brokenness I have come into contact with. Brokenness scares me and sends me into a panic. Why? What is so terrifying about it that I need to run from it?
My first real encounter with human brokenness happened when I was 17 and my parents split up. It took years for me to finally be able to accept the broken state of my parents. In fact, I still have a hard time accepting this. What has been hardest to accept is that it is a permanent condition; while on this earth, my parents will never be unbroken. This means it will always be challenging to be in relationship with them.
Growing up, I lived in what I thought was a perfect family. I also thought I matured early and was pretty good at being in relationships with people. My life was whole and unblemished, or so I thought. I didn’t know until later in life that this isn’t a possible reality, nor was it ever my actual reality. In the words of Switchfoot, “My world is wrong / My world is a lie that’s come true.” The world I lived in was a lie. It was a world of perfection. My perfect world blew up in my face, though, and brought me abruptly into reality. Reality meant not only seeing my family’s brokenness but my own as well. I saw my lack of maturity, host of insecurities, and many shortcomings in relationships. This terrified me because I had no tools to deal with brokenness, nor was I prepared to live in a broken world. I was scared of being broken myself and of never feeling whole and complete.
I had reached a point before this semester of feeling able to sit in my brokenness and not flee in panic. I thought I was through the labor of learning to live with it, but I was wrong. In a sense I had done this, but in reality I had only learned to resist the temptation to literally flee. I still found ways to flee from brokenness within myself. In Dan Allender’s book, To Be Told, he says, “To turn away from, rather than embrace and learn from, tragedy is a double loss. We lose not only in the original harm, but we add to that harm by closing our heart.… If we face our tragedies with an open heart, we will become more tender toward ourselves and others” (87). I was still facing tragedy with a closed heart. I thought it was the only way to survive tragedy, because if I left my heart open it would mean fully experiencing the tragedy I found myself in the midst of. Fully experiencing the sorrow, anguish and injustice of what had happened to my family, to Rwandans, meant death in my heart and mind. I thought it would kill me.
However, while reading Compassion, I started to wonder if this was the case. Would I actually die if I let myself be fully immersed in the present sorrow? Or is it my desperation to escape the sorrow that causes me to fear it in such a way? I started to wonder what would happen if I instead chose to stay in the tragedies of my life and of other people’s lives. Would this be life-giving or life-taking?
Surrounding all of these thoughts is the ever-present tug on my heart that I think is my calling. The tug is towards knowing, naming and feeding. I ache to be known fully by those close to me, and this ache has been translating into a passion to really know people. Not in a share-your-life-story way, but more of a what’s-in-your-heart way. In being known people are restored and life is given.
Naming goes hand-in-hand with being known. In Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wind in the Door, Naming is a calling given to people. The role of a Namer is described as follows: “A Namer has to know who people are, and who they are meant to be” (97). A Namer fights against Un-naming, that is, taking away from a person everything that makes them uniquely them. Knowing a person is vitally important to naming them and helping them see everything that makes them uniquely who they are.
In relation to both of those is feeding. I love cooking and I love feasting with people. I also believe that in feasting around a table life is given and shared; literally in the food, but metaphorically in the trust and love passed around. Feasting with people requires a certain level of trust and often vulnerability. I find no greater satisfaction than sitting around a table with my family or close friends eating warm and colorful food and relating the events that have shaped our lives in recent days.
Each of these callings requires me to be present: present with myself, with those in my life, and with God. This is fine when I am content, happy and have a full stomach. But what happens when the cupboards are empty, the family is in shambles, and the world feels like it will literally crumble around me at any moment? Those are the moments when fight or flight takes over, and you do what you must to survive. In those situations what happens if I take the third option: patience?
The authors of Compassion say, “But what really counts is that in the moments of pain and suffering someone stays with us. More important than any particular action or word of advice is the simple presence of someone who cares” (13). Shortly after finding out some hard news, I sat behind IMME quarters (where off-campus students hang out), playing guitar, hoping the song I was singing would somehow take away the grief and remove me from the brokenness staring me in the face. Drew Duffy wandered back there and sat down. He hadn’t brought a computer or a book or a notebook. It was just him. And he sat with me for a long time; sometimes we would talk or play a song, a lot of it was sitting in silence. I was wrestling with the tragedy in my heart and soul, and he was present with me.
Similarly, on Ssese Island, I was again in a place of extreme vulnerability, puking and shaking with fever. This time it was Brian who stayed with me; for a long time, as I tried to fall asleep but couldn’t, he read A Wind in the Door to me. I have rarely felt so completely cared for than in these two moments of tragedy and suffering. Drew and Brian both chose patience in those moments. They knew I was suffering, and they could have run from it. Pappa God knows I wanted to! But they sat with me, not trying to fix it or take it away, just sitting with me and letting the shit wash over me, leaving me a new creation. That had more impact on my heart than a cliché phrase ever could.
In my life, I will be faced again and again with brokenness. I see that now, and I still hate it. I hate knowing that “each person living in a fallen world will encounter abandonment, betrayal, and shame” (Allender 76). My heart sometimes breaks with this knowledge. However, I have learned that I do not have to flee or fight in the face of brokenness. I can stand in it, be it my own or another’s, and patiently face the horrors of it in solidarity with my brothers and sisters in the world, letting the love of God mix in with it and create a bittersweet bath of life.
See you on the other side!
Love,
Joy
Thursday, December 3, 2009
A bit of nostalgia
The end is coming upon me. I have finished 3 of my 5 final papers and am departing tomorrow for a weekend safari. And then next week is my last week in Mukono with my family. After that we get 4 days of debrief in Entebbe, and then it is Hasta La Vista! I will board a plane for Amsterdam, and then a place for D.C., and then a plane for San Francisco, and then a plane for Seattle. All in all it will take about 2.5 days to reach home again.
I am excited to shower and let a machine wash my clothes for me. I am glad to be seeing my family. I am glad to get to wear pants again. I am glad to be in cold weather and not sweat 24/7. I am glad to eat American food, and drive on the right side of the road (yep, Ugandan’s drive on the left), and listen to music and sing along to it while I drive. I am so glad for soy milk!
But I am sad, so very sad. Sad to leave the routines of life here. Sad to leave my close friends. Sad to not bathe under the stars anymore. Sad to be cold and wet all the time in Seattle. And nervous! Nervous to see my family and try and relate normally to them, to be in that routine again. Nervous that I might forget which side of the road to drive on! And what my life will look like. It’s not like I want to always bath in a bucket or pee in a squatty-potty (though it is way more comfortable)… but what do you do when you have experienced something so unique and different from everyone around you? Inside jokes are bound to come up, but you are the only one inside of them. Or phrases that bring up a story only your friends would understand… who do you tell it to?
I have grown. I feel older, not in a bad way. But like some of my immaturities have been stripped away, leaving more of the woman I am behind. The pot I am being formed into is deeper, more detailed, and able to hold more of what it was intended to hold. The witnesses to this growth are all around my right now, but in just a little while they will be gone. Sadness comes up with that thought. How do you explain to people what has changed over the last semester; what rough edges have been filed, and what new details have been uncovered? Explaining it almost makes it less than it is.
I am not looking forward to answering the bagillion question I will be asked by people who barely know me. I have already started rehearsing the answers… not to say I don’t want people to ask about it, because I do. I just don’t want to give half-ass answers to please the person. If you want to know what happened, I will tell you. But if you just want a 2-minute summary of the experience, then you probably won’t get one. Too much has happened for 2 minutes of words… it might take a lifetime to actually say everything that occurred within and without of me. As of yet I am not even sure what all of it is, words are not yet formed and the stories are not yet complete in my heart.
I am sorry if I am coming across as cynical or depressed, because that isn’t what I am meaning to communicate… except by saying that there probably is a part of me that does feel that way. But mostly I am just processing through my wealth of emotions (God has created me a beautifully emotional woman… sometimes I don’t like that), hoping that in some way it will ease the pressure they are putting on my heart.
Well, I am off to see wild animals. How freakin’ cool is that? Pictures will be posted next week sometime, though I have two more papers to write when I get back.
Love to all,
Joy
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