I am my Father's daughter

I’m sitting in my bed feeling the warmth and heaviness of blankets and down. It’s absolutely winter outside and I can hear the icy wind blowing outside my window mixed with the sweet melodies playing from my computer. It’s a mellow evening at home, a night where there are things I could do but I shamelessly choose to do none of them and just sit in the warmth of my thoughts and music. It’s from my bed that I catch my reflection in the mirror and see a face that is like my mother’s in so many ways and still there are a couple features remind me that I am my Father’s daughter, like that widow’s peak of a hair line or the pug face wrinkles that appear on my forehead when I make various expressions.

I found out this week that my Dad’s cancer is gone. The surgery was a success and he is cancer free (!!). Oh what a sweet phone call to receive. To hear my Dad on the other line telling me that he’s in the clear and that we don’t have to worry any longer was the biggest relief. I could finally breathe again.

I’ve spent a lot of time lost in my own thoughts since my Dad found out he had cancer. I traveled down the countless paths that could have been with each diagnosis or treatment and what each would look like in our family and in our relationship. I held my breath as I thought about losing my father without ever really knowing him. There are customers at the Dragonfly that I know better than my own dad. That fact alone makes my heart sink. I want more than that.

That’s enough of a start for me. The fear of losing my dad is enough for me to get my act together and have the sort of relationship with my dad that we never had, the kind where I can call him without any reason but to say hello, to watch football together and actually understand the terms he throws around as easily as I do laughter, to go out for breakfast and feel at ease in conversation and the generous amounts of syrup we pour over everything (Hannon’s have a wicked sweet tooth), and mostly to feel that I haven’t missed out what could be an amazing relationship that has been so close yet so far away all these years.

love is risky business

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be rung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies, and little luxuries, avoid all entanglements, lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless-it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."-C.S. Lewis

This quote gets me every time. In being pretty much perpetually single, this quote gets me at my core. It reminds me of something my college roommate once told me. She said that it made her kind of mad that I rarely dated anyone, or not really at all in college. This bewildered me. Why would she be upset that I didn't date? It was my decision, and to me it seemed to be something that I was withholding from myself in a sacrificial way. Not in a spiritual way but the dating pool was just something I pulled myself out of. I was going to sit this game out. I was fine with this decision until she brought it up. She went on to say that when you pull yourself out of the dating pool for however long, it's a selfish decision. In my head, I was shocked. Of all things, I did not think not-dating was a selfish decision. She went on to say that we learn and grow so much from being in relationship with people, especially in dating relationships and that I could grow so much from dating, that I had so much to give to others through relationship. She told me that in a way, I was depriving others from the experience of growth. That got to me. All of a sudden the coin had flipped and it wasn't only about me. Ha, what a realization..the world actually doesn't revolve around me. When she brought this up, it wasn't a huge long discussion. It was more like a brief mention in conversation, but it definitely stuck with me and I find myself coming back to it more and more.

We are created to be in relationship, to be known and to know others. I haven't been single all these years because I don't want that. I've always wanted that and it comes back to the C.S. Lewis quote, "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be rung and possibly broken". Love requires risk and that's the part I'm not so good at.

I'm resting in the Love that casts out all fear
let this soul learn to trust
to know its loved
and feel its worth
let my love be fearless.

The Story

I cannot tell you how much I love hearing people’s stories, hearing where they come from, what their world looked like and felt like growing up, and learning about little and big experiences that have shaped who they have become.

All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am
-Brandi Carlile

I truly love it. I could listen to people tell stories all day. It’s such a privilege to glimpse into that part of someone; especially since a lot of life stuff doesn’t come up in daily conversation or maybe it’s too long of a story or too dark of a story to share. Every other week at our home community through Imago Dei Community, one or two people will share their life story, their testimony with everyone in our community, as a way to go deeper with each other and to see how God has shown up in the midst of the joy and the pain. I just love the image of a group of believers sitting in a room with the sole intent of knowing each other and knowing God more. To sit in the presence of another person’s life story, all the beauty, messiness, brokenness, and soul-I just eat it up.

What I love most is that I believe in each of our stories, we recognize pieces of ourselves in each other. We recognize ourselves in the experiences of others, the feelings of others, and the brokenness of others. One of my favorite Over the Rhine lyrics is "pain is our mother, she helps us recognize each other". Our stories connect us in ways that we might never have imagined. I’ve seen how the sharing of stories in our home community has encouraged more boldness, realness and an uncovering of what has been kept hidden and how in this sharing people are growing and learning; learning that they are not alone and they never have been, alone. I have been getting goose bumps a lot lately and surprisingly, not because I am cold. When I hear something incredible or see how certain life pieces just fit in my own life and in the lives of others, it’s as if my body is telling me to

stop.

Take notice of this.

And so I do.

And in that moment of recognition, my faith deepens as I remember that our lives are only a small part of a much greater story being crafted and I know the one who created it all and He is good.

My dear friend Courtney posted this as a facebook status and I’ve been marinating on it all week.

He said, "Why don't you spend your day floating down this river with me?" and I said, "Well that would be GREAT, but do you know where it goes?" and He said, "Yeah I know the way....I created it."

trust that something will grow from nothing

Two posts in one day, can you tell my workload is dwindling? Or maybe it’s my procrastination that has taken on all new levels as I just have one more paper left…anyhow, I was searching through old emails for quotes, because I often send quotes to myself so I can remember them later. I came upon an old email I had written to my friend Emily in Colorado. My roommate Mel had just moved back to Seattle and I had just moved into my studio and I was feeling the loneliness of starting anew. I had spent most of my energies maintaining friendships in Seattle or with friends across the states and with my roommate, that I had not formed a community in Portland. I wrote about how hard it is to have no community or to experience glimpses of it here and there as friends would visit only to be left wanting more. What stuck out in the email was this, “It's so hard to trust that something will grow from nothing”.

I stopped as I read that again. Something has grown from nothing. An amazing community has grown from nothing. I had felt so far out in the desert, so far from community and so far from people that know me. Fast forward. To open my eyes now and feel so supported and encouraged by the people around me, to find a community that bears one another’s burdens, that is open and honest with their struggles, that loves in all circumstances- I am just blown away. How did this happen? It reminds me of the movie Under The Tuscan Sun…this woman dreamt that she was wandering all over the countryside in a desperate search for ladybugs. She looked everywhere with no luck. She grew tired in her search and fell asleep in a meadow. And when she woke up, she was covered in ladybugs. This is how I feel. I tried to find community, I looked and looked and just couldn’t find it. And then it seems, that just out of the blue, community fell into my lap and I am surrounded by such amazing people and they truly bless me in so many ways. There is so much to be thankful for.

God is so good.

If you’re wondering what quote I was looking for in the email, here it is.
“The dominant characteristic of an authentic spiritual life is the gratitude that flows from trust—not only for all the gifts that I receive from God, but gratitude for all the suffering. Because in that purifying experience, suffering has often been the shortest path to intimacy with God".
–Brennan Manning

on being known

I LOVE knowing people’s names. I really do. I love it when people know my name, even if I still blush a little when I tell people my full name, or when people give a hearty chuckle when they hear my name. I feel like people know me when they know my name. It makes the world a little smaller, community a little more real. You could go all around town all throughout life without having anyone really know you, and the idea of that forms a pit in my stomach. We are wired to be relational to be with people, to be known. This is why isolation is greatest punishment. We NEED people.

Complex pathways of the brain and regulation of certain functions of our limbic brain makes expulsion from the company of others the cruelest punishment humans can devise. Studies have been done long ago on orphan children, finding that children NEED affection and emotional attention. Feed and clothe a human infant but deprive him of emotional contact and he will die. We are born with the innate need and desire to be known.

It’s not easy to be known; it requires vulnerability and risk. It’s not always something that comes easy. We hide ourselves for fear of truly being known and on the other end of the spectrum we have within us a deep desire to be known. We need it but we fear it. What does one do with that? I find myself hiding myself away at times for fear that people won’t like the real me and trying to be vulnerable hoping that people will like the real me, so much of life is lived somewhere in the space between.

I value community and that place where everyone knows my name. I like feeling at home with people. Take for example, my place of work, at the coffee shop; someone can come in everyday and we quickly stack up fleeting moments of interaction and all the while have no idea who the other is, but one day, a moment is taken to ask the name of the other. Once names are exchanged, it’s a whole new interaction as if the name is your “in” this allows you to ask questions, see who the other is. At least this has been the case with me, maybe I am a little nosy or curious, but I can’t help it. For me, it has that feeling of “yeah, we go WAY back.” Like an old friend. And even though that’s not the case, I like that feeling of seeing an old friend when they walk in the door.

I like going for a run in the neighborhood and passing my favorite old couple on the street with a smile and a wink. Or running into Steve who is giving his son a pep-talk on how to ride a bike even if it’s scary, or passing Lee and his co-worker out for a run along the riverfront. It’s the hellos I’m after, the community, the recognition of knowing and recognizing the we are all tied to one another.

We are all fellow travelers in this life. We’re all in this together.

Jumbled thoughts on love

Forgive me if this doesn’t make the most sense. It’s been a while since I’ve written and I’m also coming off a crazy long day at the coffee shop, so this one could be a jambalaya of sorts. I’ve been thinking this afternoon about being known and loved. How everyone longs to love and be loved. How everyone IS loved but they don’t often know it or don’t believe it. How so many love those who don’t love them back. I find myself thinking about unrequited love pretty often actually. It’s heart-wrenching to think about, yet my thoughts wander that direction, drawn to those thoughts like a moth to the flame.

Wouldn’t love be so easy if everything was cut and dry? If we just made deals and kept them. If those we chose to love, chose to love us in return. If we promised to love and never leave and then kept those promises in the end. Remember how crushes and “dating” played out in elementary school? When we would send friends as messengers across the playground to test the waters of a new love interest and report back the likeliness that it would happen?

“Jill, would you go out with Ben if he asked you out?”

“…like, for sure.”

And just like that, with the assurance of a yes, Ben asks Jill to the movies. Now I reference this kind of deal-making in the times of elementary school, but really don’t we all want that same assurance currently? In college, out of college, as real life grown-ups, we all want the certainty of love and the complete absence of rejection. However, our world is far from perfect. Promises are broken. We have no absolute certainty that those who love us will continue to love us. We risk rejection everyday. Love is complicated. We hurt those that mean the world to us. We are hurt by those that mean the world to us. It takes a lot of courage and vulnerability to love these days. We all want to be protected from sadness, sorrow and rejection. There’s this great quote from the excellent book, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, “You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness”. If we constantly have our walls built high and our hearts on lock-down for fear or rejection, then yes, we are doing an amazing job of protecting ourselves from sadness. But we are also doing an amazing job of protecting ourselves from happiness that we could be experiencing if we let down our defenses and let ourselves be known.

This is scary, to be fully known. I think we all struggle with being known, at least I do. It’s a balance between wanting to be known AND loved and being known AND rejected. For someone to know everything about you and reject you is a real blow, enough of a blow to want to hide away one’s true self. To have the whole of you, your core rejected, that is crushing. It reminds me of a Pedro the Lion song, “If they really knew me, they would run.” We have a deep fear that if we are known, people will turn away...

I was just talking with someone today about how love is about really knowing someone. There is this cute couple that comes into the coffee shop and we had made a comment on Henry’s shirt the other day. He was wearing a shirt with rows of commas arranged in various positions in rows across and down with the heading of Comma Sutra above them. We thought it was hilarious and perfect since he’s an editor. We congratulated Gretchen on a perfect gift for him and she told us about his perfect gift to her, special edition Travel Scrabble. He knows she loves words and travel and games. She knows his sense of humor and love of punctuation. It was sweet really. No need for diamonds and flare. They are showing their love for each other and their knowing of each other. I just loved that. When we risk real love, we are inviting others to know us and love us despite rejection. And I pray that we would all have the courage to risk and to love fearlessly.

Under my umbrella...(ella ella eh eh)

I have recently become a fan of umbrellas. I don’t have one but I will always stop to look at them in store front windows or in the hands of people walking by. I could count the number of times I’ve used an umbrella on one hand actually. It always seemed easier to use a hood or rain jacket, why bring in reinforcements when I can shield myself from the rain? And why take the chance of becoming a poor unfortunate soul whose umbrella has been blown inside out from the wind? They have always seemed rather unnecessary. They were for those girls who feared a drop of rain touching their perfectly coifed hair. That was not me at all. Nope, no umbrella for me.

Since I moved to Portland, I am seeing umbrellas everywhere. I’m fascinated by pictures with umbrellas in them. I’m hearing songs about umbrellas. The song I want played at my wedding someday is called “umbrellas” even though it never even mentions umbrellas. What once seemed like a silly accessory has now become fascinating and comforting.

As overplayed as Rhianna’s song “umbrella” is, I still like it. I’m a little behind the times as well. I only heard it for the first time about a month ago. When I came back from Malawi, it seemed everyone was busting out with, “you can stand under my umbr-ella, ella ell-eh eh…ella ella…aye aye”. I had no idea what had gotten into everyone, was this some inside joke? Everyone was saying it, so it was just as strange that I didn’t actually hear the song until months later, and then I was struck with a big, OH…..I get it now, “ella ella eh eh..” I was all over it and jumped on that bandwagon.


In my ponderings lately, I’ve come to appreciate the symbolism of an umbrella. An umbrella protects and covers. Isn’t that we all want, someone or something to protect and cover us from the storms of life? I have this print I got from Ikea, it’s so sweet and I just love it. It’s a couple walking through the storm together and another of a man holding an umbrella for his dog. It’s just precious.


Storms are inevitable and it’s okay to bring in reinforcements. We’re not meant to be able to make it on our own. Sometimes we invite others to stand under our umbrella, and sometimes we are called under another’s umbrella. And no matter how bad it gets, it’s not so bad as long as you have someone right there with you under an “umbr-ella ella eh eh…”

“When the sun shines, we’ll shine together

Told you I'll be here forever

Said I'll always be a friend

Took an oath I'ma stick it out till the end

Now that it's raining more than ever

Know that we'll still have each other

You can stand under my umbrella.”