looking back to look ahead

 Hello dear blog!  It's been too long.  Let's write something.

I'm a new season (thank God).  However, I do not want to forget a morsel of what I learned from the previous season--mostly because I never ever want history to repeat itself!  I also want to officially remember in thanksgiving so that I can cleanly move into a new place of the spirit.

Below are some snatches of almost-posts/journal musings from the last year...

October 15, '12

    Some years your heart is wrung out, mistaken for a tattered dishcloth.

    I don't say who does the wringing, but I know who mops up the mess afterward.  And such a mess!  What a stink it is, too—the deep, heavy sticky juice melting into all it touches, all it feels.

Stains everywhere, on the most ordinary objects.  

    It’s like this—you wake up and rush to a physical because your health insurance is almost expired and that’s what responsible adults do—they get physicals.  The mundane tick tocks along until you are asked your family medical history.

    A bored middle aged nurse says, “Let’s starts with your Mom.”

And Mt. Fuji erupts!  The UK sinks! 

    Heart stains everywhere, doubling you over as you stumble out, “She dies in June.  Cancer.” 

The previously stoic-bordering gremlin nurse transforms into Florence Nightingale, gives you a hug, and apologizes.  You muster up all the strength of a two year old and tell, with your toddler’s timbre, the specific cause of death and the age of the deceased.  The heart stains fade back into the carpet and you’re able to discuss more pleasant, normal fare—like why you don’t want a pap smear today (Ladies, if anyone asks you if you’ve had your “Well Woman” lately, be warned.  They speak not of vitamins).

September 18, '12

Humility Buoys/Little Things

The little things I am not above. 

Making my bed and peeling carrots, taking vitamins and braiding my hair. 

I’ve sunk underwater; I look up at life from twenty feet under like a stingray.  The sunlight patterns gentle waves, flexing and flowing in simple loveliness. 

From below, from below. 

If I just make muffins, play a Sonata, laugh until my gut aches…if I just go to bed on time.  Then I will begin to float in the shallows.   Just gulp humble air and remember I'm alive--and let the mechanics of my body spark and ignite my soul.  

I am a simple creature.  For all my pawings at greatness, I drown in my own depth. Forsake the exquisite sculpture that sorrow carves into the heart—just enjoy the coffee, baby. 

Let toes finger the deep, but don’t dive for long.  Let my greatness come from flying not falling.

I am done with dazzling depths that collapse my heart.

Let the ordinary keep me afloat.  Let it save my life.

Hairy tales

I interrupt your normal blog-casting of deep, heady morose fare for....

                                             HAIR TALK WITH STACIA!

I have thick hair.  In fact, I may have the thickest hair of any girl I've met.  It bursts hair ties and shatters claw clips as a matter of course.

Typically I give some warning to my hairdressers, the students at Paul Mitchell school.  And typically the lucky student nods naively, greedy to get another haircut closer to graduating.  She gushes over how beautiful it is and how lucky I am.  All is happy-smiley.  But then she starts washing it and wonders what happened to the shampoo.  My hair swallows shampoo by the bottle.

The girl, still perky, giggles nervously and guides my dripping locks back to the cutting chair.  She pins it up.  It instantly falls with impressive weight, cascading down like the Niagara Falls with mighty aplomb.  The poor girl then tries several other clips, each one bigger than the last with stronger, sharper teeth.  As the long task ahead becomes apparent, her frustration begins to jab at my skull with copious hairpins.  I close my eyes to avoid wincing.

She cuts one layer and unwinds another.  I breathe out, calculating that at this rate, the ten tidy twists on my head will be shorn in good time.  She sniffs, grimaces, and pins back half of the hair twist.  Too much.  We share a suppressed sigh.

There is then: a long time.

In which not much happens on my end, but my valiant little haircutter chips--er, snips--away at Mt. Vesuvius.   My girl keeps casting dark glaring glances to other, happier, students with thin-haired clients.   She mouths, Look how thick!  I KNOW!  Can you BELIEVE it?  The other students quickly look away as from a bloody corpse, their minds reeling in horror.

I fleetingly consider charging money to my own freak show or perhaps supplying goods to yarn stores.    There's got to be a better use of my abounding tresses than $10-a-pop public humiliation.

An old Asian hairdresser with feverish eyes randomly flits to and fro between the shearers.  She stops abruptly at me, doubles over and starts hurriedly collecting shorn scraps of my hair.  I forget all manners and roundly stare at her.  Shouldn't I sign some waiver or consent form?  What could she possibly want with my hair?  Is this voodoo or something?
She explains in broken English that she is doing a hair color project and needs samples of red virgin hair.  Well, I do have both the red and the virgin going for me.  Take it away, strange hair lady.  Just don't take my soul.

At long last the deed is done.  Never mind the blow-drying that took the better part of an hour.  Never mind that my girl's arms are about to fall off from heavy lifting.  My hair is shining, laden with product that I will never slather on it again, and I am about just about to leave  my chair when...

The girl's supervisor sweeps by and does a final check-up on the cut.  I smile wanly and nod, Yes, yes, it's great, fabulous, I like the back, yes...  I say nothing of hairpin stabs or smarting remarks.  That kid owes me big.  All I'm thinking about is my snappy exit.
The supervisor then leans in gallantly, delicately lifting layer upon layer of pampered hair.  He is a tall, regal and strangely bald African American with a flashing wide smile.  Motioning to the mass of butchered hair lying sadly on the floor, he comments sweetly, "I'm going to take your hair and glue it on my head, and then I'll be as pretty as you."

I nervously chuckle, picturing little patches of auburn hair pasted on his dark bald head.  Was that a compliment?

As I pay up and leave, I am reminded of a roommate's comment; she and the other roommates love my hair.  She laughingly warned me that one day I might just wake up and find it shaved off, and the girls dancing around with little Stacia hair wigs.
Talk about a disturbing visual!  Although...I suppose there's more than enough to go around.


Notes:
~All of these things really have happened over multiple visits to the illustrious Paul Mitchell School.  There's actually more that I've witnessed there, including random dance parties and a marriage proposal.  I am so serious.  Men: do NOT, I repeat, do NOT propose to your girlfriend in a salon.  I don't CARE if she cuts hair.  It is beyond tacky.
~I actually love getting my hair cut because I get a head massage.
~Oh, and virgin hair really is a thing--it just means that you've never colored it.  It's rather rare these days, and every single time people are shocked that I'm still a virgin.

Really loving her

I used to think I loved my Mom.
Now I believe that I genuinely thought I loved her, probably actually did a smidgen, but largely just needed her.  I received her love as a child, guzzled it down.  Which is fine and dandy, but now I'm twenty six and slowly bumbling out of the heavy sweater of childishness.  {I'm growing up even as I'm growing younger.  Maybe by the time I'm fifty I'll know the feeling of being a little child.  Childlike without the prison of narcissism}

God gave me lots of chances to really love her this year.  I tried.  That's a whole other post.

Grief has a really obnoxious way of uncovering the heart when it's most naked.  Exposing disease.  I realized that I wanted my mother here WITH ME even more than I wanted her happiness.  And God's plans?  Screw it, I need her.  Here and now.

{I need her to believe that I'll finally get married and have all those kids and see all those beautiful    dreams and prophecies, the ones that are soft and frayed from daily praying, actually materialize into gloriously messy reality.  I need her to explain her recipes.  She never measured.  I need to tell her about Micala's wedding and Aaron leaving for grad school and my job imploding in the same three days, how well friends have loved me and how people can say really dumb things.  How I've hidden and tried not to hide, how I can't even talk to one of my closest friends on the phone because I just can't talk.  How my heart has finally been beaten into submission but I'm afraid I've beaten too viciously; it doesn't work very well now.  How I'm worried about not being worried that the old burning ache to see China worship has been covered in ashy sediment.  How I saw the ocean, saw the mountains, found a new artist and a new musician, that it all poured life on my soul.  How death is now a personal enemy and I feel power coursing through me when I sing, "Death where is your sting?" I know the devil hates it.  I have the authority to lord it over him, ha!  I will always keep singing.  If I can't today, I will tomorrow.  Just because of Jesus and lots of prayers.   How I've written ten songs this year, but too many of them are slow and in the key of A.  How I have no f-ing idea where my life is going.  How I'm in the mists; like when we hiked rain forests.  How darkness comes early and winter is breathing heavy like a wolf.  How days are bathed with the sheer exhaustion of being alive.}

A few months back I was hovering, wandering about the water cooler at work with an empty head and brimming eyes.  A coworker who had lost his Mom when he was about my age asked me something about name badges, and I stared stupidly up at him, a couple tears bleeding out.  He roughly gave me a side hug.  Advised me to remember that whenever I'm feeling selfish and want her here, just to remember how happy she is up in heaven.

I sniffed self-righteously and thought,  It's not selfish to want your mommy.

That's true.  Death is an obscenity to which we were never meant to become desensitized.
I've also argued with God since then, bringing up how hard Mom fought to stay on this earth.  Clawed for life.  Even with so much death around her, she would not acknowledge her dying body but fought the good fight.  But I know that she is adoring heaven.  I believe that she has assignments from Jesus that she's partnering with Him in, and also that she's part of the great cloud of witnesses.  If God is all around, maybe she's not as far away as I thought.

I hope that one day loving someone won't mean letting them go.  It will mean vowing to hold on, hold close.  {And even with Mom, I am not letting her go.  I am letting myself live.}

But at least for now, loving my mother, loving my friends, etc. means blessing who God has formed that person to be.  It means blessing them to go where He leads.  Even if it's not where I want them to be.  Even if I need them here, closer.
I get to love them the way God has given me to love them.  It's just frustrating that so often this means bitter, freezing pain.
{The buck always stops at God's character.  Always.  He's so brave that way, letting the root of every accusation slowly trace its way back to, Who do you say I am?  Because, naturally, he could have changed his plan so that my mother didn't die.  Just like he could have prevented so many things.  It's a gauntlet thrown down by the devil and God too--Will I still trust him?  Do I still say that He is overflowing with loving-kindness?}

But now I have the chance to really love my mother.  Not for what she can do for me, but to just LOVE HER.
To bless God's taking her.  To twist my lips into a half-smile after doing another batch of weeping when I think of her dancing.  I hear the overtones of her laugh sometimes, feel the life of her smile.  Her obstinate joy that conquered lymphoma.  I love her by getting up and living.


After all, she's only as dead as Jesus is.

file://localhost/Users/Stacia/Music/iTunes/iTunes%20Music/Karla%20Adolphe/Honeycomb%20Tombs/08%20When%20I%20See%20Him.mp3

a few thoughts on fear, and The Beginning

It computes, I suppose, that Christians tend to be the most fearful people I know.  We are called to higher things, to fling ourselves headlong into Love himself.  And so of course our adversary would pinpoint us with fear like a sniper, shooting until we collapse.

I know that the opposite of fear is love, that perfect love casts it out, and that God = Love.  But  living this truth is akin to breaking out of chain mail armor lashed with bolts and locks galore.  It's the sort of thing you can pour your lifeblood into, burst a lung over--a real battle.  The journey from fear into Love.  I want to write without fear.  I want to live without it.  I want to run so far from fear that I crash heavily into Love, again and again and again.

My mother taught me the most about not being afraid.  I do not remember her being afraid this year, not once.  Not when her hair was falling out.  Not when the prognosis was 9-11% survival (that just annoyed her, and she would not talk about it).  Not when chemo was making her old.

During my forty days of wearing black I haphazardly wrote the story of how she died, frantically finishing just before I reemerged in color.  It is extremely unedited and unfit for anyone to read--I'd have to kill ten people at least.
Nevertheless, it is honest.  It is called My Vanquishing Vanishing Mother (I can never resist alliteration).
I may occasionally post slices of the story; here is the beginning.  It relates to fear:

           My mother, LeMei Carolyn Moore Littlefield, celebrated the New Year 2012 with gusto.  She always did, praying and reflecting and celebrating.  A few days into the year I was getting off work and about to go to Zumba class.  I saw that my sister Micala had called me four times and had texted me that Mom was in the hospital.  My Dad had also called.  I quickly called my father, panic rushing to my throat and stabbing my gut.  He told me that Mom had never gotten over her cold of three weeks and that her cough was worse.  She had gone to the local clinic that had immediately taken her to an ER in Denver, at St. Joseph’s hospital.  I was not to worry.  They were running tests to see what was wrong.

            I cried a few frightened tears and my roommate Nicole hugged me.  She advised me to still go to Zumba, which I did.  The next day I went up to the hospital after work.  My beautiful Mom was there.  She looked so vulnerable in a flimsy hospital gown, but wore a calm, reassuring smile.  I hugged her, and after a few minutes couldn’t hold back the tears.  She held my hand and told me that I don’t have to be afraid; fear is never of God.  She had some painful procedures, and asked me to step outside while the nurse took a bone marrow sample.  Afterwards she mentioned that it hadn’t been that bad; I probably could have stayed.  The early days seem like such child’s play in contrast to the end, where she couldn’t hide the pain anymore and held my hand so tight.

_____________________________________________________________________

Mom told me not to be afraid, and she also commented that worry was a form of fear.  God had been talking with her about that.
I have not lived that well this year, but her words sank like granite to the bottom of my soul.  Now I'm not quite so easily swayed to worry.  I've got a bit more weight of glory in me.  Precious little, but I can feel it.  Maybe it's from her.

{On a side note, that first day was the only time I cried in front of her in the hospital.  
Fitting, surreal, nauseating.}


I was going to wrap this thing up with a few pithy takeaways to avoid fear but the words taste false.

Honestly, 2012 has left me with more, not less, fear.   I don't have more separate fears, but rather a heightened foreboding of their fulfillment.  The worst thing really can happen.  It does, all the time.  In another six months, who else will slip away?  There seem to be no rules.  The ones we have, that keep our universe bolted into place, have ample room for horror.
Remembered pain grows into an evil tsunami, lurching over me as it grows and shadows the future.

It really is true--only one thing remains.  Jesus.
Love himself.  He is with us.  He died to make that happen.  And whatever horrors happen, there is grace rippling alongside.  That's all I got.  It doesn't feel comforting, it doesn't feel kind, it doesn't feel good.

But He is more real than feelings and He is enough.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofgybd5coQE

Praying for people

Today I prayed for women who came into a free healthcare clinic connected with my local church.  I am now part of an intercession team that offers prayer to women who desire that before or after their doctor's appointment.  Some come back solely for the prayer.  

And I suck at it.

I used to know how to do this--I have been on countless prayer teams, formed a college prayer group centered on dessert (if there's ice cream, they will come), gone through a prayer internship, and been a full time intercessor for years.  You would think I could pray for people.

And I can.  I do.  Prayer happens.  Worship happens.  God is glorified.  But secretly I think it's all a joke--me, who can barely get out of bed, offering people prayer!

But I hobble to and fro in absolute exhaustion, worship, feebly ask women if they would like prayer, and am shocked if they say yes.  

And I am jarred out of my selfish grief world.  And thank God that I have a car and not an abusive ex-husband.  And I continue to pray for them.  And start to ache for them, but then my heart saltily reminds me that I'm in way too much pain as it is, and to shut the hell up about these other people (my heart often has a potty mouth).  And I'm disgusted by my myopic self-centeredness in a helpless sort of way.

I've never been this weak before.

Today I arrived just as a mother, grandmother and little girl were being prayed for.  Afterward, as they waited for a prescription, the three-year old girl spied a stash of children's books and greedily grabbed an armful.  Girl after my own heart.  

She looked around, and caught my eye.  I smiled and offered to read them to her.  We read through a couple, and I became increasingly concerned by her lack of engagement.  I always try to involve kids as I read to them, and she would not point out where the crab was, turn the page, or really do anything.  She didn't say a word.  I know it doesn't seem like much, but I knew something was wrong.  From her eyes and a half dozen other things.  She was not in a good situation, and I could do absolutely nothing except pray for her.

I cannot relay how horrible it is to see children shut down and lifeless, and know that abuse is happening RIGHT NOW but that it will probably be years before it stops, and more excruciating years before God addresses it and they slog through the awful miry bog toward healing.  If at all.  I told another lady, and we prayed, and I'll keep praying.  Who knows what is going on.  Who knows what God will do because we prayed.

Oh but it grates on my soul.   Kyrie eleison.  Christe eleison.  

Jesus, you have such a brave heart to refuse to give up on this place where we live.  

Jesus, rescue the little girl with the old eyes.   Do your thing.  I love it when you do (actually, that's a complete lie.  I love it afterwards).

Gentle knead her soul into breathing.

my soul, juiced

Well, here we are.  The first blog of 2012.  I've spoiled myself with tea and ambience and time, and now all that's wanting are words to fill the empty page.  And hopefully some mental engagement to accompany said words.

Some years your heart is mistaken for a dirty washcloth and goes through the wringer.  {Oh this post is da bien.  keep going. keep going.  One of these days I'm going to write a secret blog that has cuss words galore, and it will be secret except for those who will understand and appreciate profanity's highly debatable place in literature.  I will strain my coarse venom out of this blog, however.  This blog is a lady.}

I can't say who does the wringing, but I know who cleans up afterwards.  A soul crushed into jagged realities--what a bloody mess.  Like a lemon cut and mashed into a juicer.  How do you heal that?

I've been holding off writing for at least 11 months because I've felt I've had absolutely nothing to say.  Now I see that there is much to be said, but I'm not sure how to say it, and don't trust myself to handle things adequately.  Also, I feel like it would just plain be too sad.
But regardless of whether or not people read it, I must write.

Out of courtesy for my fragile mental state:
1. I am not going to start linking my blogs to facebook. At least not for a while.  (What would become of my reputation as a relatively sane individual?)
2. I am not going to worry about making sense.  That would take far too much mental contortion.
3. I am going to write in sketches.
4. I am not going to expect very good writing.
If you still want to read this after all those conditions, Lord love you.  And grant you grace and mercy!


A typical morning in grief:

             I wake up and cringe.  Remember Regina Specktor's lyric, I am awake and feel the ache.  Wish I knew more about her life.  Press snooze ten times.  Scrunch my comforter over my bedhead and groan like a toddler.  Look at pictures of my mother on my wall.  Miss her.  Play her voice like a phonograph in my mind.  Wonder, fear prickling, how much longer I'll remember.  Look again.  Stare.  Hit the snooze.
             Remember that Christmas is coming and I don't know where her coffeecake recipe is.  We have to have the stupid coffeecake.  It's Jesus' birthday cake.  Stare.  I'll make it with too many chocolate chips, I know I will.  It will be mushy and all wrong.  Stare.  Blink.  Stare.
             I recall how annoying it was when she'd wake me up, because she'd be preternaturally chipper, her voice jumping an octave in sing-song.  I would motion for her to come next to my bed, and I'd bury my face in her stomach, and she'd hug me.  I would feel about five and be happy.
I close my eyes and feel dead weight forming beneath my eyelids.  That's right, I sobbed right before bed.  Crap.  Am I getting eye bags?  Can grief do that?  That's so unfair.  Should I get another brand of concealer?  If I just managed to sleep, it'd probably take care of itself.  God.  God.  Jesus Jesus Jesus.  Be with me.  Near.  Really near.  
              I stare at the white of my comforter, then at the creams and yellows in my room with the morning streaming in.  An aspen room.  It's so pretty.  I should appreciate the aesthetics.  I wonder how old I'll be when I die.  Jesus Jesus Jesus.  Jesus.  Finally, finally finally I scrape the cover off and stumble up, dizzy.

Music. On. Good.  Getting dressed.  Decisions.  Oh dear.  That requires thinking.  My feet are cold.  I always get grumpy with cold feet.  Socks, socks, socks---No, you FOOL!!  MAKE YOUR BED!  It's a matter of national security!!  Make it NOW!! NOW!!! MAKE IT!  Billions of LIVES depend on it, the fate of the Middle East--JUST MAKE YOUR--ok.  Good.  Done.  HA!  I made my bed! With cushions!  I'm a success at life!  Yes.  Thank you Jesus.  Now what in the world was I doing?  Um...teeth.  Brush your teeth.  Oh bother, my feet are cold.  Socks!  Right.  Socks.  What time is it?  OH CRAP!  Brush your socks!  BRUSH them!  No...

It is a miracle I leave the house acceptably dressed.  If I have earrings on, it's a special miracle.

I have, however, taken the precautionary step of donning a onesy to bed.  That way if I completely lose it, I will show up to work halfway decent.  Or at least warm.

asking

Well.  It's been a while since I've written, so I'm determined to write something.  

Asking.


Asking God for things.  


Jesus asks us to ask him for specific things.  Like when he asked a blind man what he could do for him (Matt 20, Mark 10, Luke 18).  And when Jesus asked the cripple by the pool if he wanted to be healed (John 5).
(I always thought those verses indicated a sense of humor, but now I believe Jesus was in earnest.  Drastic healing means drastic change, and voluntary change is never for the faint of heart.)


And of course, the famous, "Ask [in my name] and you will receive, and your joy will be complete (John 16:24)." For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened (Luke 11:10)," "For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened (Matt 7:8)."  And more.


God has asked me what I want during various conversations, and my typical response has been, "I want what you want."  I truly want what He wants, and believed that this was the right, holy answer.  It's also a pretty safe answer.


I still think that.


HOWEVER~~~~ 


It wouldn't be very fun if a father asked their four-year-old what he wanted for his birthday, and the kid replied precociously, "I want whatever you want to give me, Daddy."  


It builds intimacy to voraciously LONG for a red fire-engine and then receive it.  More fun for the parent, too.  There's no robotic qualities whatsoever.


So with God, He's been nudging me to ask for things I want.  Which is terrifying and difficult!
It challenges who we can truly say that He is (probably most important question of our lives).  Is my Jesus kind?  Does He care about my desires?  Are they submitted to him but not stuffed into deadness?


And after the courageous leap to ASK (for healing, for a nation, for strawberry bubble gum, whatever have you) comes.... the waiting.  [duh duh duh DAH. Beethoven's 5th]


I wonder if the hours in the Garden of Gethsemane were not harder for Jesus than the flogging. 
The anticipation, the AGONY... the waiting.


confusion and doubts and accusations sting like hail.  No wonder faith (being SURE of what we HOPE for) is called a shield.


Well, that's all I've got.  Being in the thick of things, I really don't have resolution except that 
1. God wants us to search after what's in His heart and ask him those things. 
2. God also asks us to ask Him for things that we truly desire.  He LOVES it, because this means that we trust his kindness towards us, and we HOPE in Him. This brings us closer to him.  
3. Waiting is a battlefield, and God is glorified when we dare to fully feel and ache with him.
4. We know Jesus in a unique, precious way when we wait for things we long for.  He's only been waiting, oh, several thousand years for his bride!

flower in the rain

I don't really have thoughts congealed enough to shape tonight. But read this--

"Again [the Shepherd] smiled, but only remarked quietly that the important thing about altars was that they made possibilities of apparent impossibilities, and that it was nice that on this occasion it had brought her peace and not a great struggle.

She noticed that he looked at her keenly and rather strangely as he spoke, and though there was a beautiful gentleness in the look, there was also something else which she had seen before, but still did not understand. She thought it held a mixture of two things, not exactly pity—no, that was the wrong word, but a look of wonderful compassion together with unflinching determination.

When she realized that, she thought of some words which one of the Shepherd’s servants had spoken down in the Valley of Humiliation before ever the Shepherd had called her to the High Places. He had said, “Love is beautiful, but it is also terrible—terrible in its determination to allow nothing blemished or unworthy to remain in the beloved.” "

Hind's Feet on High Places (Hannah Hurnard) p. 163

for all the things that don't resolve

that sink below the memories

for all the things we lost along the way

for all the things that used to shine

but cried themselves to rust

I pray I pray I pray

~~~~~~~~~~

oh I know that there are holes

and scars too deep to mention

but

you bring beauty again

and it's alright

if all is dead tonight cause

you raise the dead in the morning.

carve my heart into your art

no matter how I scream about it

make it so that I can hold the rain

hold my sorrow in your eyes

that wept when mary cried

just show me how to live another day

~~~~~~~~~~

I know that there are holes

and scars too deep to mention

but

you bring beauty again

and it's alright if all is dead tonight

cause you raise the dead in the morning.

darkness and sighing will flee away

death's swallowed up by life today

darkness and sighing will flee away

death's swallowed up by life today

~me. A few months too early, as usual. It's always weird when you write something and then God teaches you what it means--or puts it to good use--later.

it's a song (of course it is).