kibroth hattaavah

we take up our post as gravedigger
as we watch for the wind to bring more
we stare at the sky
expecting to die
even as our food blankets the floor
we have all we need
but we beg and we plead
to be sold into slavery again
our hands full of bread
we would rather be dead
so we dig
and we dig
and we dig
our graves of craving

my fake boyfriend, or why i should have listened to what my mother always said about telling white lies

for sara

So at some point in their lives, I think that many women have probably lied about having a boyfriend. You’re in an awkward situation, somebody you would rather not have ask you out is asking you out, and you panic. “I already have a boyfriend!” Lie. Oops.

I recently got placed at a temporary job for only three weeks. I was working with a group of guys who thought it was funny to give me a hard time in order to see if they could get a rise out of me. It was all fun and games, until this conversation happened:

Co-worker: “Do you have a boyfriend?”
Me: (responding to what I believed was obviously a joke) “That’s just ridiculous. You are clearly too old for me, and I’ve already heard you talk about your wife.”
Co-worker: “Ha. Ha. It’s not for me; it’s for my son.”
Insert the previously mentioned moment of panic…
Me: “Ummmm…yes. Yes I do have a boyfriend.”

Lie.

I didn’t think much about it at first. It was actually kind of funny. My fake boyfriend. However, even in such a small amount of time at this job, my friendships with my co-workers actually started to become genuine. We started to ask questions about each other’s lives- families, friends, weekend plans- and inevitably, the questions about my boyfriend came up. You know, my boyfriend who wasn’t real. The guilt started to creep in.
I swear it was harmless! I didn’t mean it! I just said it, before I even knew what I was saying! No matter what the reason for telling it, this seemingly harmless little fib was now obstructing genuine relationships. Just because I was trying to avoid a little awkwardness. I found myself wishing that I hadn’t underestimated how genuine these people would be in their attempts to get to know me. I was sad that I hadn’t been more genuine in my attempts toward them.

I knew what I had to do.

Yes, I broke up with my fake boyfriend.

Thank you in advance for your deepest sympathies. Thankfully, it was a clean break, mutual, and the best for all involved.

Consolation gifts and chocolates will be accepted.

While we’re on the subject, the guys I work with are now convinced that the reason I’m not dating is that I don’t hunt or fish. So if anyone is offering lessons, please let me know.

dark glass

i’ve seen bottles to drown out unbearable pasts
widows mourning at graves of lives that went too fast
people selling themselves for a high that won’t last
and yet, i can see.
i was blind but now i can see.

i’ve seen children orphaned by incurable disease
crippled nations with too many mouths to feed
i’ve seen families broken by infidelities
and yet, i can see.
i was blind but now i can see.

i cry out for this world to be comfortable
to be fair, to be just, to be good
or maybe just to be easy
if you’re real, it would be what it should
this deep ache for mercy makes my heart heavy, heavy
when i’m quiet it makes my heart sing
this reminder that i don’t belong
also promises i will go home
there’s a promise that i will see home.

i see children go hungry
for worship of money
i see mothers alone
and we pick up our stones
and yet, i can see.
i was blind but now i can see.

i see through a glass that is darkened by flesh
these shadows that whisper of Goodness
these glimpses too often drowned out
by graphic displays of our human weakness
reality clashes with Reality
what is clear with what remains a mystery
what is fair with unreasonable mercy
i can’t see! but i’m not blind like i used to be
these shadows promise that when i arrive home
i will finally know as i am known
they promise us we will see home.

when deep speaks to deep

Psalm 6

O LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath.
Be merciful to me, LORD, for I am faint;
O LORD, heal me, for my bones are in agony.
My soul is in anguish.
How long, O LORD, how long?

Turn, O LORD, and deliver me;
save me because of your unfailing love.
No one remembers you when he is dead.
Who praises you from the grave?

I am worn out from groaning;
all night long I flood my bed with weeping
and drench my couch with tears.
My eyes grow weak with sorrow;
they fail because of all my foes.

Away from me, all you who do evil,
for the LORD has heard my weeping.
The LORD has heard my cry for mercy;
the LORD accepts my prayer.
All my enemies will be ashamed and dismayed;
they will turn back in sudden disgrace.

As the rock I thought I had built my life upon has often appeared more like deceitfully shifting sand, I have grown anxious and weary and depressed. This doubt has been accompanied by a deep sadness as I have pondered whether Jesus, the place where I have sought joy for the past 10 years, is actually a figment of the church’s hopeful imagination. If so, where do we seek joy? Where would I seek hope? Where do those things come from in a world that seems so hopeless, if there is not something More? I have seen some indescribably ugly places in this world through my work as a social worker. If not Jesus, what redeems the cruelty and brokenness in those lives that cry out for that justice and redemption?
In this struggle for something more True, I am growing to believe more and more that God is indeed creating something beautiful in my life, something more refined and yet less tame. Refined and yet more free. Something Real.
When I read this passage this morning, I felt that familiar yet sorely missed urging that I was hearing God. That Magic that defies reason and bypasses my stubborn head to speak directly to my heart. That deep, incomprehensible knowledge that these Words had been written for me. That as God inspired the writer, He knew that this morning, those Words would be a light in the darkness for me. The Lord has heard my weeping. The Lord has heard my cry for mercy. The Lord accepts my prayer. He is mighty to save, and yet He sees me. He is Lord of creation, and yet He hears me. He is sovereign over all of the universe, and yet He has not forgotten me. How can this be true?
“What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” (Ps 8:4)
I cannot comprehend why God is mindful of each and every one of us. It makes no sense to me. But isn’t that the point? His Love is greater than our very limited comprehension. Although I often stubbornly demand to understand, this morning, I saw a glimpse of peace in that Greatness. And I was left in awe of a God so big Who would so tenderly speak to someone as small and stubborn as me.
The darkness still lurks. My footing still will stumble. But this morning, I heard something Real. I may doubt it tomorrow, but for today, it is Good. And for today, I am thankful for these joyful tears. For today, it is Enough.

Death of an Evangelical

I took a long weekend retreat to the beach, completely overwhelmed and worn out. I had just quit a job that had sucked all signs of life out of me, and yet life did not miraculously become simple the moment I walked out of my office and turned in the key. I found this rather annoying, that all of life’s problems couldn’t be solved by quitting something difficult. I know- the nerve of this universe to be complicated.
So I took another step toward the elusive peace and answers I had been not-so-actively pursuing, and I headed to the beach. I was committed to being quiet and still and contemplative for the weekend- something that had been very much lacking in my life lately. On my first evening there, I walked down to the beach. I found a good sitting place and watched the waves fall over each other in their hurry to reach the shore first. I thought about this ten year struggle with faith I called my “Christian walk”. I thought about how lately, God seemed awfully far-fetched. Christianity seemed a little supernatural for my taste. So you’re saying that this guy, God in human form, was brutally murdered, took on all punishment for every bit of unGodly behavior in the world, came back to life, and then went up to heaven to wait for us to join him? Does anyone else feel a bit foolish for claiming this as the meaning of life? As Don Miller so aptly put it, as if Christians were like that Star Trek fan who has not yet realized that the show is not real?
I looked out at the ocean some more. “The size of the ocean seems awfully far-fetched, too,” I thought. There are blue whales swimming in there that are so big that their tongues weigh as much as an elephant and some of their blood vessels are big enough for me to swim through them. (Gross? Yes. But also pretty amazing.) I thought the fact that our bodies work- that our hearts beat and blood flows and brains think- that also seems far-fetched. And what about gravity? Come on. An invisible force from within the earth that draws us all to the ground so that we don’t float off into outer space? Hello, Sci-Fi channel.
I guess what I meant by “far-fetched” was that I couldn’t comprehend it. What if I stopped believing in gravity because I just didn’t get it?

At this point in my peaceful contemplation on the beach, a man playing a set of bagpipes walked by. As if it was completely normal. Really. It happened. This has no spiritual significance, but the randomness of it was remarkable. Incidentally, while we’re on the topic of randomness, on my walk home later that evening, I saw a man wearing a tuxedo watering his lawn. A tuxedo. Who does that? When I commented on his odd choice of landscaping outfit, he sprayed me with his hose. He never did explain the tux.

After smiling at the bagpipes, I sat there on the beach wondering if I should indeed stop believing in gravity. But I knew that my struggle with faith was different. It was more personal. I could not laugh it off and be okay with it like I could with topics like the depth of the ocean or the intricacy of the human body. I sighed. I felt reconciled to this state of limbo- not wanting to reject my faith, but feeling that I could not continue to claim it with any integrity because of these huge, ever-present doubts.
A song that a friend of mine had recently recorded and posted on her web page for struggling friends came to mind. “I said it takes faith/ and perseverance/ to live the life/ that you have been given/ but you’ve been given life/ with divine breath inside/ so breathe deep tonight, my friend.” (You can hear her sing it herself at www.youtube.com/alicerouse.) I smiled at memories of her while tears started to make their way down my cheeks. I felt so stuck. I didn’t know if I had any more faith or perseverance left, or if this journey was even worth the struggle to find them within myself anymore.

As I sat there, the word “ACCEPTANCE” suddenly imprinted itself on my mind. The reality to be accepted was this: I had a hard time believing that Christianity made sense. I had an even harder time throwing all of my trust into something that by design I could not comprehend or see completely. A lot of days, I didn’t even want to try- I preferred relying on my own understanding of the world, even when the results were painfully lacking. The familiarity of this meager existence still felt safe. This might not have been the most attractive place to be, but as a wise friend of mine had taken to saying, “This is what is.” It was Real. I could look ahead with hope to a time when I would stand on more steady ground, and I could continue to try to seek out a deeper understanding of Truth, but today, this was Real.
I chuckled at the word “acceptance”. Wasn’t it the last stage in the five stages of grief? I felt like I had just witnessed the death of an evangelical.

Although “evangelical” is not by definition a negative term, for me, this term had come to mean that I should know the right answers and believe them 100% of the time, and not only should I know them, but I should always like them. I felt wrong to be having any doubts, and when those doubts had become so strong, the only option in this black-and-white religion that I had built for myself was to walk away completely.
So when I say “death of an evangelical”, I mean that I was seeing the freedom of a new way to approach Jesus- approaching Him with honesty. I was trying to look at the Jesus I hoped was not just a figment of the church’s imagination and say, “This is all that I have. You already know that. You know that I often doubt more than I believe. You know that I think this is all crazy talk half the time. If you are Real, please, please help me to believe it more. I have to depend on you to do it, because I am woefully out of ideas to fix myself.”
I knew that this “evangelical who needed to know all of the answers” in me probably would not stay in the grave, but for that night, I had a taste of a long-awaited peace that felt Real.

I stood up and started my trek home, wondering if others walking the beach that night thought that I was moved to these tears by the beauty of the random bagpipes.

too much

i can’t live anymore without dying
if i die i don’t know how i’ll live
and the sparrows fly high and the lilies grow tall
and i sit and pretend i am deaf
i know you won’t play this game with me
i pretend that you’re here all the same
then i ask why you’re gone and pretend that you’re wrong when you say you’ve been calling my name

you ask too much
you ask too much
you ask too much when you ask for it all
you ask too much

when you speak it’s as if it’s in riddles
that are too simple for me to solve
then i strain my ear while i try not to hear
the clues that you whisper to me
you want to take everything from me
i suspect i would be better off
but with white-knuckled grip i continue to sit when you tell this lame girl now to walk

you ask too much
you ask too much
you ask too much when you ask for it all
you ask too much

you ask too much
when you ask me to trust
this voice that i hear are you really real
you ask too much

i want to make sure that i’m still safe
are you a rock or just a fanciful escape
how can i throw all my weight on something i can’t understand
if you’re so strong i need you to pry open my clenched hand

i think that it should be more simple
more easy to see and to choose
but i stand here perplexed and unable to step
into life that requires me to lose
i think that i want to see clearly
but i clutch this veil covering my face
i hate what i wear but i’m stuck in the fear of what i might see in it’s place

you ask too much
you ask too much
you ask too much when you ask for it all you ask too much

i don’t have much
but what i have i’m able to see and to touch
so you ask too much when you ask for it all
you ask too much

i will not disown myself

Summer 2002

Doubt had become a common theme in my life. I was getting ready to begin my senior year in college, and I had surrounded myself with other evangelical Christians who were excited about Jesus. The problem was this: I wasn’t that excited. Sure, I knew how to say all of the right things. I led a Bible study, and heck, I had even been asked to be the student leader of the campus ministry where I had been an overly active member for three years.
My secret was that I was so overwhelmed by doubt that I questioned the validity of half of the things coming out of my mouth. There didn’t seem to be a place for that in the circles I was running in. Nobody else was talking about a struggle with a doubt so strong that they sometimes felt as if they were drowning. I just needed to pray harder, read the right books, have my daily “quiet time”. I would be back to “normal” soon.
At the end of the summer, I went on a backpacking trip to Maine. Surrounded by nature that was breathtakingly beautiful, I kept waiting to feel God’s presence. And…nothing. The painful, dark doubt crept into my mind for the first of many times to come: maybe God made me think He loved me just to get to my family. Now that they are all Christians, He’s done with me. Maybe I was never “chosen” in the first place.
I had first “prayed the prayer” in 1998 at a Christian retreat. Since then, every member of my immediate family in North Carolina (my sister, mother, and stepfather) had become believers. But four years later, I wasn’t so sure that my initial step of faith had been very Real after all.
I struggled all week in Maine, fighting back these doubts that were growing uncontrollably like weeds choking the last bit of life out of an abandoned garden. Then one morning, I woke up before everyone else (a small miracle of its own, considering my tendency to sleep in whenever possible). I looked up at the mountains and across the crystal clear lake where we were camping, and I finally said out loud the words that had been hesitantly forming in my mind all week. “The only reason I still call myself a Christian is that it would be too hard for me to go back to school and not be one.” My heart sank with the knowledge that I couldn’t settle for living that lie. Again, I spoke aloud, not sure who I was actually speaking to: “So I’m not one. I am not a Christian. God, I do not believe in You anymore.”
Suddenly a verse I didn’t remember ever learning seared through my mind, “if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.” (2Tim 2:13). I almost fell to my knees. This felt Real. I finally felt something true. And I was overwhelmed with thankfulness.

When I went back to school, I sat at a meeting listening to person after person share about their amazing summer mission trips and how much they had learned about God. Toward the end, I looked at the faces of the people remaining silent, and I wondered if any of their stories were like mine. Always one to enjoy a good, dramatic moment, I spoke up and said, “I had a terrible summer. I decided that I didn’t believe in God.” I relished the surprised expressions for a brief, self-indulgent moment, and then I told the story of my summer: of hearing from a God who would not let me walk away, as undeserving as I was in that moment of denial. Afterwards, some people did admit to me that their stories were similar to mine. Or even if they could not directly relate to my experience that summer, they thanked me for my honesty and called it “refreshing”. I hoped that in sharing my story, I was stepping between other Believers and the loneliness of a struggle that had taken such a firm hold on me. I could offer them some hope as someone who had been there and had made it through triumphantly.

Looking back, I don’t know whether to call it optimism or foolishness. I didn’t know at the time that this experience would be one of many low, low points on the rollercoaster of my faith and that I would come to doubt the reality of that moment in the mountains of Maine as much as I had doubted everything else. It was not finished.

mud.

a story retold will soon lose its meaning
a sky repainted will lose its blue
a believer removed will lose his believing
images can’t replace truth
skillfully woven stories shine with your fingerprints
i in my blindness can’t see your face
people keep holding up all of their mirrors
but i see their likenesses in mine’s place

i say i believe
but my heart always falters
Lord do i know you or an image of you
i try to be still
but my mind loves to wander
beautiful pictures are only dull echoes
that ring in this hollow solitude
hands scarred and empty from these futile pursuits
are weary and lifted up
desperate for truth

i believe
overcome my disbelief
i want to believe
take this doubt away from me

i know something’s real but i can’t put my finger on it
no matter how compelling the accounts that are told
i try too hard to imitate the emotion of the teller
again i’m left with nothing i can tell of my own
if you’re real your touch should be more easy to recognize
your presence should be as plain as day and night that you have made
i’m tired of life’s fantasies, i just want reality
could i have spent all my time looking in the wrong place

i wish you would put your concoction of mud on my eyes
cure my blindness
show me truth from the lies

what does hope look like in the dark?

Today one of the homeless mothers I work with had a breakdown. Sobbing in my office, confessing that she had thoughts of hurting herself, hurting her children, relapsing to make it go away. Feeling alone and unable to take care of all that was hers to care for.
I convinced her to go to the hospital, and then we took on the task of finding someone to care for her three children while she could not. Plans were made, and out the door this mother went, to try to find some peace and rest and answers…whether a short time away or a prescription or a doctor can help her find any of those things, I don’t know.
After the door closed behind her, her one-year-old son watched it for a long time. I tried to distract him, made him a snack, but he just watched the door. He went down the hallway to see if she was there. Then he came back and stood in the doorway with tear-filled eyes. I picked him up and he put his head on my shoulder, as close in as he could. I held him tightly and walked around the room saying over and over, “We’re going to make sure that you are okay.” As he fell asleep, I listened to so many phone calls go unanswered and thought of so many notes that were left unwritten, but this was the most important thing that I would do today.
Even as I said it, I was overwhelmed by the fact that I can’t make sure that he is okay. He was born in a substance abuse treatment program. He has never known a home that was not a shelter or a program. His mother has chronic substance abuse issues and mental illness, and even when she is well, she will probably always have to be in a fight for that wellness.
I wish this innocent, sweet baby with his impossibly contagious smile had something different to wake up to. But when he wakes up, there will be a social worker (me) there. When his sisters get out of school, there will be a social worker (me) outside to pick them up. They will stay with a family member until their mom gets out of the hospital. And then…what? The road ahead of them is not hopeless. I cannot believe that there is no hope for them. But it is a long road that is anything but smooth.

Oh, Jesus. Please, please let Your promises be real. Come quickly.

come.

It’s been over a month since I have been in church. But today was the day.

Today, I went to church. I got all the way to the parking lot. And then, after this valiant attempt, I made my roommate get out of the car and go in without me.
Earlier this week, I was feeling ready to at least give God a chance. He has been a pretty important part of my life for quite some time now. The least I could do was to show up and see what would happen before tossing Jesus like a bad rough draft and starting over.
Today I started to feel anxious. I thought that maybe if I read my Bible, I would feel some sort of encouragement- some sort of something. I picked up my familiar copy and thought, “Here I am, God. All yours for the inspiring.” I flipped around, read the most well-worn pages- Psalm 27, Isaiah 53. Nothing. I could not muster belief in a single word of it. My head sank under the weight of the disappointment, and there I waited. I had waited like this many times before. I didn’t expect the doubt to go away. I just waited for the familiar sting of discouragement to fade enough for me to get up and go on with my day. But the sting doesn’t really fade.

When I lifted my head, the beginning of Isaiah 55 caught my eye:

“Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.”

This invitation was like a word directed straight at my soul- an empty-handed soul who desperately needed to hear that I was wanted, even with nothing to give. Sadly empty hands were all I had. I got up and got ready.
And I got close. Closer than I had in a whole month. I just couldn’t go in. I was scared that I would sit through the service and feel nothing except that ever present, nagging doubt. I was scared that I would not be able to take communion, because I would feel like a liar. I was scared that rather than hearing God, another couple of hours sitting in that sanctuary would serve only as another reminder of His silence. The silence that seems to say more and more that like a fool, I am waiting to hear a voice that is not coming- a voice that is not actually there.
I think it might seem odd for me to be so distressed by this. Megan, If you don’t believe it, you’re just not a Christian. Stop going to church and move on with your life.
Something in me won’t allow me to let go that easily. I don’t know if it’s habit or fear of change, or if it’s something more Real than that.
I’m not ready to let go, but I guess I’m not ready for church, either. It’s too dear to my heart to go and not mean it. To eat that bread and drink that wine and not mean it.
Or maybe it’s pride. I don’t want people to know that I am having a crisis of faith when I cannot make myself go to the table to take communion.
Maybe it’s both.