my lonely existence

Withdrawal pains are coming on strong. I thought I could quit e-mail and the internet any time, but I miss them so much. Is it only Thursday? Four whole days to go.

Day one was okay. I was busy on the computer, so that was like eating fake sugar. Kills the cravings without the calories.

Day two I thought to myself that this fasting from the internet was a good lesson because I could determine what I really need the internet for -- bank account information, for instance -- and deem everything else as wasting time.

Day three I called some people, but they didn't answer. So I sulked a little and felt very isolated. I came to believe that I need the internet to stay connected to people since I have so few friends with regular, in-person relationships. But I was kind of mad at the world we live in, too, that has become so connected in technological ways that real relationships are often superficial or nonexistent. If I were in a little village, and took all my laundry to the river to wash it, Isaiah would get the grandma-love he needs on a daily basis, and I would get some adult time.

Today it all just got harder, and I began to dread the weekend when I'll have to say "no" to our Friday or Saturday night movie because I just had to add that to my list of things from which to fast. Why am I such an overachiever? But today was good because I got return phone calls from a couple people, so at least I didn't feel so isolated.

I write this so you don't feel isolated, dear readers. If new blogs posts kill some cravings for you, be thankful for Windows Live Writer, by which I can post to my blog without using the internet. It makes me feel pretty generous.

dollars

I was Sapphira and kept back a dollar
Because I wanted to buy a can of Coke.
It cost me seventy-five cents,
And it didn’t taste good.
The rest I gave to the Latino man
Who dried off my car.
And I felt so generous that I expected
A thank you
Or something.
The quarter I put in my secret stash
Of money to give away
Because I couldn’t keep it to spend.

I want a thousand dollars to give to the single mom
Who waits on my table some years hence.
It’s called grace, charity.
I ought to know because I’ve been given it.
She went and got herself knocked up.
She screwed around. She messed up.
And now she’s fighting hard to make it.
So with my thousand dollars in my purse,
I remember the times I screwed around,
And somebody showed me grace.
So I hand her the cash.

Or I will, provided I don’t keep a dollar back
To buy a can of Coke.

expanding my boundaries

I just got my baby to finish eating his supper by singing "Who Let the Dogs Out?" over and over and over.

july challenge: redeeming the time

My tardiness in posting this month's challenge is all the proof you need to know how much I need the assignment I'm giving myself.

Over the weekend, the house got clean for the first time in who-knows-how-long. As Kyle and I cleared away clutter and swept up the evidence of my post-pregnancy hair loss from the carpet, it was amazing: I started to feel sane again... like I actually could focus on something besides taking care of Isaiah and catching up on sleep! I know, I know, clean houses aren't everything, and the Bible does not say "cleanliness is next to godliness" (does it?). But a dirty house is enough to make me believe I'll never, never, never get ahead. It makes me feel guilty for reading books, it distracts me when I worship, it makes outreach seem unreachable.

So, step one is to try to keep the house (pretty) clean. But even if I fail in that, I've gotta move on to step two: redeem moments in the morning to worship through prayer, Bible study, and quietness. And then, step three is creating goals for the day, so I don't get overwhelmed with the (not just physical) clutter of life.

To me, redeeming the time means capturing it from the Devil's clutches -- to claim it for Christ instead of for self. Instead of giving my moments to the sins of pride, anger, or laziness, I claim the time for joy, for pursuing worthwhile passions.

One last thing: For confidentiality's sake, I am not reporting specifically on last month's challenge. As far as my assignment was concerned, I completed it. But it's not enough, I've learned. Walking across the room to one person in a month is not nearly enough. I'm compelled to stretch out my hands and my heart to the lost, to desire their fellowship for eternity.

the hurting

Last night, I heard my neighbor yelling. He’s divorced now, living with another divorced guy. Isaiah woke up around four, so I was waiting for his crying to subside by reading Mere Christianity in the front room. One of the guys’ trucks pulled up, and before long, I heard my neighbor yelling, presumably at his roommate: “Get it out of here! Get it out of here!” I heard something large and metallic clanking. “I swear…” he yelled, but I didn’t hear the rest. A truck roared away, came back five minutes later. Yelling again. Isaiah cried out again with the disturbance.

I ached, even amid my peeking through the blinds into the darkness. These poor men – families ripped apart. They see their kids only part of the time. Moms probably have custody. I once watched my neighbor’s son circling around the tree in our front yard. Ring around the tree, around and around and around. What’s on the little boy’s mind? Why don’t Mommy and Daddy love each other anymore? What’s gonna happen to me?

I ache, too, because I haven't reached out to them. I never do. But then, maybe it wouldn’t have helped. I tried to reach out to the lady across the street but she left her husband anyway. Divorce is all around us, and I still wouldn’t consider it for myself. Why do they? Where is the point where they give in, give up?

We watched Homeless to Harvard last night. True story: a girl who barely attended any elementary or middle school is out on the streets by age 15, after her drug-addicted and alcoholic mother dies of AIDS. Her grandpa doesn’t want her; she has nowhere else to go. So she sleeps on trains, raids dumpsters for food, stinks. But she’s brilliant, and gets herself enrolled in a high school without them knowing she’s homeless. The New York Times gives her a scholarship to Harvard when she applies by telling her story of self-preservation. But she’s a loser, a real loser.

In elementary school, in middle school, I never reached out to Angie Brown, Heather Huninghake, the Fryes, the Marc What’s-his-names, the Jeffrey Beldens. Maybe if I had, Jeffrey Belden wouldn’t have committed suicide.

In high school, I came to a point of politeness with John Koch, but I wonder if it was only for public image. I think I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, but behind his back, I wrote – for my entertainment – “John Koch wants to be a computer scientist.” It was a joke – my own personal laughing point – because I knew awkward, chubby, dirty, stinky John could never be a computer scientist. I didn’t seem phased by the fact that I didn’t even know what a computer scientist was.

In middle school science class, John had told us, his tablemates, of things from his home life. I only remember him saying that one of his parents – I don’t even remember if it was Mom or Dad – had thrown dishes across the room in a rage. He shrugged it off with a laugh, but now I think now he was crying out for help.

And I didn’t do anything. I didn’t tell a teacher. I didn’t tell him I was sorry, or ask him if he was scared to go home sometimes.

Kyle says I can’t blame myself – that I wasn’t taught to reach out to the rejects, the “gross people.” But I think I had an innate sense that these people needed love, and I was capable of giving it.

one of the fallen

"There ain't no money in poetry. / That's what sets the poet free. / I've had all the freedom I can stand." -Guy Clark in "Cold Dog Soup"

She gleans hundreds of comments because she can write. I feel like an imposter when I scan her blog posts like they're any old cheap, chatty update on life. I read her latest post from the end to the beginning because I caught a line and tasted the quality, and I had to have more. One doesn't skim poignancy. So I moved up, up, up, and saw how she had molded her thoughts into art.

I had to admit I'm a little like the poor, lost, fallen people our waiter was talking about last weekend. He used to be an artist; now he just works at Fiorella's Jack Stack Barbecue -- which, if you have to be a waiter, at least that's a place with food worth its salt. But our waiter said he's not an artist anymore. People don't care about beautiful things. They only want ugly things -- that's what he said. He said we live in a fallen world where beauty isn't valued. But it'll be redeemed. It'll be redeemed. And then he walked away with our smeary plates of bones and barbecue sauce.

I cling to my words, and I hope for art. But on the days when I'm feeling weak and tired, when I'm in subordination to tasks instead of Beauty, I just serve my tables and wait for redemption.

i'd rather be reading...

...but I feel like I owe something to the two beautiful people who deposited comments in my inbox after nearly a month of blog silence on my part. I definitely didn't deserve three comments this morning [last Thursday], so it was like a handful of grace extended to a woman in desperate need some verve. So, my dear commenting friends, I give you what may be my day's most valuable moments: naptime.

I just laid Isaiah down in his crib after he fell asleep in his carseat. (He's in such a chatty stage right now. "Da-da-da-da, ta-ta-ta, buh-buh-buh, pbpbppbpb [blowing bubbles, a.k.a. spitting]" are his favorite things to tell me these days.) I was thinking, Please don't wake up. Please don't wake up, when he opened his eyes and said, "Da-da-da-da," and then went right back to sleep. It gave me a good laugh. That's the kind of thing that keeps me going.