Deshi Basara!

"Why do we fall, Master Wayne?"
Michael Caine's steady British tones reverberate around the hushed theater.  Lights dimmed, blond head on my shoulder.  Black, tattered cape tucked to the side.  The 2:30 hush settles over my eyes and tired, popcorn stained fingers. Tired mind starting to wander, dabbling on the black cape fringe of sleep.
Mmm, Michael Caine just keep talking...

"Why do we fall, Master Wayne?"

Huh?

"Why do we fall?"

Oh...I don't know...you've got the accent, you tell me...

"To get back up."

The line brings me back from the tipping brink of a caffeine crash.
Rise, Rise, Rise, Rise, Rise. Suddenly I'm more awake.
Yeah, get back up Bruce! Get back up!

Get back up.

It's been a while since the Dark Knight Rises premiere.  I somehow made it out of the theater and into sound sleep in the backseat of my brother's car.  I slept in till the full sun of the next summer afternoon fell thick, warm, and sweet through the window panes, and began the next seven months without a second thought toward Master Wayne and Rise, Rise, Rise.

But rise never means much until you've fallen.


And down here once again at the bottom of the pit, I look up at the blue sky, the surface world, and all the happy, happy people far, far away. And I lie in the filth of my own failure.  The broken promises and tears and "I swear this is the last time"s.  And how easy it is to rationalize, to lie to all of you and even more to myself.  And hell, why not lie to God too while I'm at it? And back broken and bloody on the unforgiving tile, I can only lie here and look up at the light and feel in the depth of my core the exhaustion of the impending climb.  And aw screw it, I'm just gonna lie here alone.  Forget the upper world.  Forget the happy people.  Forget everything but the latest failure and curl up in its sneering guilt.

"I’m just a flawed man, man I fucked up.
Like so many others I just never thought I would.
I never thought I would, didn’t pick up the book
Doin’ it by myself, didn’t turn out that good."

And "relapse" is too pretty a word.  Too neat and clean. Sterilized from the jagged edges, the disease-ridden , dank dungeon of addiction, and the devil whisper that never actually goes away.  It says nothing to the days you overcame.  The two months free.  The heart conviction that at last it is all gone, all done.  And shattered now, they dig in like so much cutting glass, breaking, tearing, and painful as hell.  

And you know, oh yes you know, that you have no one else to blame. 

But why do we fall, Master Wayne? 

"We fell so hard
Now we gotta get back what we lost."

And from the cold, hard bottom I look up at the sky.  I look up at the surface world and the happy, happy people who need me still.  And every atom of flesh in my heart screams out, "No! No! What's the use?". And the devil voice still whispers, "stay here, they won't want you back."  But it's not about them.  It never has been.

So my faulty hands find slick, earth walls, and I begin the climb.  Or rather He begins the climb and I hold on for dear life.  And today I'm just a few feet off the ground, heavy heart weighing me down and tired hands barely keeping their grip. 

But I feel His heartbeat even when I can't hear his voice.

"I thought you'd go
But you were with me all along"

I feel the sweat bead up on the back of His neck and roll down on my arms.  And I look down and realize it's hot, red, and sickly-sweet, and His sweat-blood mixes with my own.  And I want to run away from this, from Him.  From love, from hope, from the sweaty back I cling to, but then I feel His heart beat. And it's strange to know He has a heart like mine: broken, beating, and human.  And it's calling my name with every pulse. 

So why do we fall, Michael Caine?

We fall because we cannot fly,

because we are weak-willed and wretched,

because the devil voice is often drunken-sweet.

We fall because we are not giants,

though even giants fall,

and mice-sized men, we can never conquer on our own.

We fall because it is not until we've hit the bottom that we can truly love the sky,

and it is not until we lie there in failure that inexhaustible agape becomes the most beautiful of pearls, drowned in unconditional faithfulness.

And yes, we fall so we can get back up.

So we can start over one more time. 

1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. ... 11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. 14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

Understanding Surpassed

Walden Pond, MA picture by Christine Bosch 

It had rained that day.  The path had transformed into sticky grit that lodged itself into every sneaker crevice and between my bare toes. Perfectly round beads of wet hung from every pine needle, and every now and then one of these drops would loosen its hold on the deep green spike and fall with a light ping into a wreath of lake ripples.

And that would be all.

On the day I trekked that muddy path around Walden Pond, "still" is the only word I could employ to adequately describe the place.  Breathtaking, pure, and beautiful would be true as well, but secluded in a prickly nest of green pines with a glass water middle like a mirror to the sky, "still" describes it best.

But that is not the still this post is about.

"Rejoice in the Lord always."
"Again, I say rejoice."

Rejoice is a scary imperative -- an elevating experience but rarely a sensation that can be flipped on by mandate.  Occasionally there will come times in your life, and I sincerely hope you have experienced some already, where your heart will be stirred to new heights of delight.  It can come in one whirlwind moment. It can come on the mountaintop.  Or it could come in the quiet ripples of beauty with a step into the mirror-lake.
Yet there are  far more frequent times, I'm sad to say, when rejoicing is the furthest possible thing from our darkness. When a piece of our heart is resting under six feet of freshly turned dirt.  When that heart is broken again and again until it becomes lost.  When the world is bright but a heavy shroud around us keeps any light from reaching through.  These are the seasons we find ourselves in constant conflict with the other meaning of still.

It is not until I reach this joyless point that I really appreciate the story of Job.  Watching a man lose everything and fall to his knees in the rubble, we see his filthy, disease-ridden face lifted to Heaven -- lifted to the God we credit with miracles but question in suffering -- and hear him utter one of the most life-shattering statements of faith ever made:

"The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord."

Have you ever been in a desert?  I haven't, but I have watched "Hidalgo" like forty times so I think that's probably close enough.  I keep thinking of Walden.  Of how green it was,  how deep, living, earth-rooted, eye-shocking green.  How the water was cold and how the grey pebble beaches were so smooth.  Then I'm forced off my damp tree stump into that grating, fire pit of sand and desert sun.
And I'm suddenly very thirsty.

And suddenly I'm in conflict again with the idea of still.

You see Job isn't just a sad guy with an inspirational story.  He is an uncomfortable mandate given to us in our own problems.  You might be in sweet, June, rain-filled Massachusetts, or you could be dying alone in the middle of the Sahara.  God gives good things, and He can take them away again, but still He is good.

Blessed Be Your Name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name

See God, I really like that place.  It's so easy to find joy in that place.  Why can't I just stay in Walden?

Blessed Be Your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name 

But God why?  I thought You were so good!  I thought You loved me!  I thought You were gonna take care of me!  Now I'm parched and weary and hurting and alone in the desert, and now You're telling me I'm still supposed to rejoice?

I'm still supposed to bless You?

I'm still supposed to proclaim to everyone around me that You are good.

yes.

"Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in him! Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you’re on their side, working with them and not against them. Help them see that the Master is about to arrive. He could show up any minute! Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life."
(Pilippians 4:4-7 the Message) 

And this is precisely what I've found.  I don't know why I'm lost in the Sahara.  I don't know how to get out or where I'm going next, but I know that I am loved.  I know who loves me, and little by little I'm finding out how much.
And here in the heat and the sand, beyond any explanation, I'm finding peace like a sweet oasis.
And surpassing any understanding of mine, I find myself able to more fully rejoice.

Red

Rain pounded against the rapidly fogging windshield.  The constant swish-squeak of wet wiper blades pounded in time to my anxious heart as I stared out blindly into the eight o'clock downpour.  Gripping for dear life to the wheel and searching desperately for the lane-lines, I finally had to admit the truth.  I couldn't see a thing.

"Whoa...."

"What?"

"That's cool..."

"What?"

"Whoa..."

"What?!"

"There's a rainbow in your light bulb."

She turned around and stared. "Alright, what you smokin'?"

I am probably around ten years old, tall and of those awkward proportions possessed by many fifth graders throughout history. I am sprawled on my back across my parents' bed, my mom has probably been talking to me from across the room, and I am completely distracted by the ceiling light hanging directly over me.  

"I'm serious," I say, "I can see all the colors."

Six years later and after countless strange looks from optometrists across the St. Louis area, "what I was smokin'" was officially pronounced "over dilation."  Explained simply: my pupils are too big.  

Doesn't seem like a big deal, I know.  And growing up, I didn't think anything was weird at all.  In science class they told us how white light was actually seven colors, and that all made perfect sense.  They just never told me that I wasn't supposed to see them.  But that day as I sat in the little white office, the spectrum halos around white light bulbs, the long, streaky beams coming from every street light, and the way every Christmas light shone in the cold dark like fifty-pointed, cartoon stars now had a name.  And at the time, that's all I ever thought of it. 

A long, sharp blast from the car somewhere behind me echos between the falling rain drops.  I swerve but correct too far and run halfway up the curb.  "Oh God, oh God, OH @#!&%! oh God, oh God ohGodohGodohgodohgod..." My lips run in an incessant babble of two-word prayers interspersed by vulgarities. "Oh God, help me!"

That's all I ever though of it, that is, until I started driving.  

At first it was horrible. Daytime I could handle because things were bright enough to keep the road visible even when I had to pass oncoming headlights, but my night became a world of stark contrast -- blinding lights and pitch-black darks and little in between   With practice and experience, I learned to cope, to look at the shoulder when cars passed me, and to memorize the size of my lane. But the one thing I could never, ever learn to cope with was night-driving in the rain.  

Every wet droplet around me shines like a searchlight in my face.  Wet rubber skids on wet asphalt and it takes sheer iron determination to keep myself from worsening this problem infinitely with wet eyes.  My world is a swirling glare of yellow streetlights, car horns, and pounding rain.  And I know it, I'm not gonna make it home.

Oh God, I'm not gonna make it.

I'm not gonna make it.

Yes I will.

My faulty eyes focus once more on the only steady thing in my terrifying storm as the glowing red taillights of my brother's car flash a little brighter as he slows for me to catch up.  And I calm myself again. 

I'm okay.

I'm okay.

I can still see his taillights. 

I can follow them home.

If you can't see the point I'm making yet, scroll back up to the beginning and read this again.  

Have you ever been in a storm? Life itself is a storm sometimes. Life is a storm a lot of times. And life for me right now, is definitely a storm.  

And I cry and I scream and I pray and I swear, but through it all I am as blind as my last night drive in the dark.  Nothing is sure. Nothing is constant. The lanes curve or narrow suddenly. I'm lost and I can't even see where I am.  I can trust nothing, nothing in this storm.

Oh God, I'm not gonna make it!

Nothing except the taillights.

Nothing except the red.

Nothing but the red.

Oh God, nothing but the red. 

But the red is enough.

And it will lead me home. 

The Wrong One

Do you remember the movies you watched as a kid? They were on these weird rectangles called VHS and you shoved them into another weird box call a VCR.  And sometimes if you were lazy it wasn't rewound all the way from the last time you watched it, and sometimes, if you were anything like me, you left the movie playing while you rewound it so you could watch Tarzan swing backwards through the vines.  One movie in particular in our house received this treatment an especially brutal number of times, but five-year-old, farm-animal obsessed me was unashamed to claim it as my favorite movie.  Do you guys remember the movie Babe?  You know, the one with the pig and the sheep farm and the grouchy old sheep dog Rex and Ferdinand the duck...oh Ferdinand... okay, so maybe I still love this movie, but there is one scene of pure gold in there that has come back to me over and over again throughout my life:

It is Christmas morning, and the farmer's grandchildren have come to visit and open gifts and what-not. And the world's brattiest granddaughter gets up to open this huge package.  It's beautifully wrapped, bigger than she is, and since we have been watching the story, we know that inside is a gorgeous, hand crafted doll house that her grandfather has constructed himself.  Her greedy little eyes open wide as she rips off the paper in one excited effort and -- promptly bursts into tears.
Her complaint?  "It's the wrong one! I want the one I saw on television!"

Now, when I say this scene is pure gold, I mean that is one of the most obnoxious five minutes ever produced on film.

But take a minute to think about it.

Don't we all do the exact same thing?

When I walked in my front door the other night after a school banquet, it was past 1:00 a.m., the whole house was snoring softly (ah, the joy of thin walls), and the only thing awake with me was the multicolored glow of the Christmas tree in the corner of my front room.  I kicked off my heals and removed the pins that were keeping my short curls in a form slightly better than their usual state of disarray.  And there I sat and watched the lights reflect off the packages beneath the green limbs and thought, yet again, of this scene.

Wrapped in the afghan and shadows of the cozy room, I wondered, not for the first time, why we all struggle so much with the idea of "the wrong gift."  And I'm not just talking about the ones that come in wrapping paper and red bows.  Every moment, interaction, friendship, family, smile, sunset, snowfall, beautiful song, beautiful night, beautiful second -- all of it.  It's a gift. Despite how trite that always sounds, it is completely true.  This world, this life, and all the good things in it are gifts.

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."

Yet not all gifts are quite what we asked for.

No, some aren't what we asked for at all.

Right now it is Christmas morning.  All the house is still, and the shadows and I watch the tree again.  I mentally pick out the boxes wrapped for me.  Here's this pair of shoes.  There's that charcoal set.  This one? I don't know. 

No, I guess we never really know until the paper is crumpled on the floor around and the anticipated item is in our hands.  Oh, if only we could know.  Know the gifts that we will be given.  To not wait so long in consuming desire.  To look ahead, look up into that timeless hand above and see oh yes, there are friends for me next year, oh, and look, there's love that won't leave me cold, and oh God, are those my kids? Really? They're beautiful!  

And no, of course that's not the way it works.  So I sit here on the floor by the tree, here in the mortal, finite world of what-ifs and maybes, hoping and poking packages, desperate and filled at inexplicably the same time.  And one half of my heart looks at the gifts I've already been given.  The "wrong" ones.  The ones I cried and schemed and prayed would magically change into something else.  The romances that were friendships.  The friendships forever that lasted a season.  The time I told God I just needed someone to care about whether I lived or died and he showed me a world full of hurting people and said "they need it more."  The time I pleaded for peace and was told "I am sufficient for you."  The time I pleaded for a sign and was told...nothing...  These are the gifts my inner brat opened and screamed, "IT'S THE WRONG ONE!!"

The wrong one.  Hmm.

The other half of my heart is filled with -- well I'm not sure we've really reached "joy" yet, but let's just call a deeper sense "okay" than I've known in a very long time.  And that half looks back at the wrong gifts and sees: holy shit! I cannot believe I wanted to date that! and how that short friendship was enough to get me through that time and how helping someone else healed my own scars more effectively than all the pity in the world.  How the scars I still carry -- reminders of shame and failure -- have drawn me to those who are scarred themselves, and how they keep me from ever convincing myself I can do this alone.  How the summer of sleepless nights drove me to my knees.  How the long night alone in my room...well...that one I'm still working out. 

But that half of my heart also looks forward at the doubts, still covered packages, and the gifts recently unwrapped and wonders "why these now?"

Why no love, God? I'm a romantic, but still no love.  Why no security, God? You know where I want to go next year, but still no word from them.  Why no peace at home, God?  Why did you take them away, God? Why do You feel so far sometimes?

But these are the wrong questions. 
For nothing from Him is ever "the wrong one."

Amid the crunched up balls of wrapping paper and mangled bows around me, there lies friendship, with all its good times and laughter, and there lies trust, heavy but warm to wrap around my shoulders, and there lies family, a gift I often forget to love, and there lies two new mentors that understand me so well, and there is God, with me where He always is, constant and immovable.  And he says, "Merry Christmas" and "I love you" and "I know what I'm doing; these gifts are what you need."  And I leave the two halves of my heart to fight it out on their own and run curl up in His arms and watch the flickering lights gleam off the colored ornaments hung from every green branch.  

And so we bring in the best Christmas yet, just Him, the shadows, and me. 

And five-year-old me won't understand all this yet, but I hope that you do.     

A Humble Hymn

You are the trembling before the storm
You are the waterfalls
The high towers
The thunder and the rain-soaked symphony
You are the highest arms of every oak
The deep rumbling of the earth
A shout over the mountaintops
A whisper in my ear
you are the everything I wait for
You are like downing,
You are the breath after a dive
You are like freedom,
You are the widest, bluest sky
You are the voice that spins the earth, twists hurricanes, Breaks oceans, crumbles continents,
And floats around the stained glass wings of each aimless butterfly
You move my life in dynamic waltz that I don't know
I stand on your shoes and be blissfully moved
As you will
In a love that is like You
Where similes have failed and there is nothing deeper to call it like
For oceans are as raindrops, clattering on the rooftops,
And galaxies a pin hole star on black construction paper held up to a 40wat sun and made to shine
For you are colors that Ive never seen
The songs I've never heard
The promises I hope on,
Trust in,
Cry to.
breathe.
Breathe in every lungful of this You
And sail through it like a kite
Without a string.
in purer love like flight.

Unthwartable

"Who are you?"


I waited.

"What makes you so good, huh?"

Still nothing

"JUST TELL ME WHY THE F*** I SHOULD TRUST YOU!"

There was only the sound of the engine struggling up the asphalt and the unnatural silence that inevitably responds when you scream at the dashboard and honestly expect an answer. And my white, angry knuckles gripped the wheel still tighter while my brain ran hot and furious as the engine under my heavy-footed management of the gas pedal.
No, if you couldn't guess, I don't like to trust.
Don't even get me started about trusting. Ugh, trust this and trust that seems plastered on the world like a tacky ex-girlfriend tattoo. We have trust circles and trust falls and trust building exercises where we all hold hands and sing kumbayah. And we trust our friends who invariably let us down. And we trust our special someone to be our warm and fuzzy forever, which invariably falls apart. And we trust that the earth is round and that spring will come and that the sun will rise tomorrow -- which despite it's track record gives no guarantee. And we trust our heads and we trust our hearts and how the frick does that help us trust?
No, I really don't like to trust.
Which brought us to that moment in the middle of rush hour with me swearing like a fiend at the dash board which I knew wasn't listening but was pretty sure God was so I guess that's who I was really swearing at in the middle of 270 with bumper-to-bumper traffic and a scowl fit to break a mirror.

In the four years that I've known God and especially now in the four months since I've been walking with Him, He has never made any demand on my heart harder than this:
"Trust Me."

"F*** NO! ARE YOU KIDDING, GOD? You know I don't trust!"

"Trust Me."

"Yeah? Why should I? Have You seen my life recently?"

"Trust Me."

"Uh, hello, do You know where I'm at? I'm lonely and empty and desperate and what have You done? Look at all this that You, You took away. See him? Yeah, I thought it was love. See her? Yeah, she walked out too. See them? I trusted them with everything, and you called them away. See that? Yeah, that mess in the mirror? That's me. Damn...who's gonna want that?"

"Trust Me."

"And who are You? Who are You that I want to trust? I don't want to be empty again and again. Please no. Not again."

"Trust Me."

"No, I can't, God I can't."

"Trust Me."

No I won't, God not with this."

"Trust Me."

By this time my refusal came out on the breath of a whimper. "Please no." But the silence stared back without sympathy. I grew cold and clutched the wheel like a life preserver, my last grasp on reality. And He waited there in the front seat beside me, patient and quiet till I'd worn myself out. And He waited still longer as I spent another 12 hours in mortal existence. And then He still kept on waiting until I sat at a computer keyboard and vented my fears in times new roman. And He's here, standing beside me, above me, around me, under me, through me, with me. With me and I'm not alone. And He's saying the same thing I heard all day, gentle and soothing as to a wounded animal or frightened child. And I cling to His legs and say "Daddy, there's something under my bed." Not because something's there, but just so He'll look and say, "It's ok, you're safe." Because sometimes all I need is that "you're safe."

"And God, I don't feel safe. I don't feel safe, I feel scared."

And that's when He takes me by the shoulders, stares right into my eyes, and says, "I promise you're safe. I'm holding you now, and I promise I'm not letting go."

"Oh, but God, God, it hurts sometimes. Life hurts sometimes, and I just don't know. Why can't I know? Why did I have to go through that and that? And that, and that other thing, God, why would You let that happen to me? Why can't you just show me what You're doing here so I know?"

And He looks in my eyes and says, "Trust Me."

And I close my eyes tight because I think I might cry. And I know I don't have a choice.

"Who are You? Who am I trusting?"

"I am the Way, follow Me and take my hand. And I am the Truth, embrace Me and you'll understand. And I am the Life, and though Me you'll live again. For I am Love. I am Love. I am Love...

...And yes, I am worth trusting."


"Then Job replied to the Lord:
“I know that you can do all things;
No purpose of yours can be thwarted.
You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
Things too wonderful for me to know."

 

To Whom It May Concern

To whom it may concern:

Why do they make the shingles black?

Seems an ugly scar across the skyline, seems a boiling tar pit in the summer, seems a waste of color.

All monochrome 

All melancholy

And me 

So many were the times I waited there.

Only black to burn the hands and rough to grate the knuckles

And daring knees who scaled the drain pipe or the leaning shed out back.

All hot and baked, sun soft tiles

All rough and gritted pitch,

All empty

All black

And me

To wish into the autumn sunset and bleak midwinter sky

Oh many were the days I waited there

And as the summer fell away with light turned gold then slowly white,

To cast the shingles milky grey in fog.

I spread my arms across its warmth  and let the grit dig in my skin.

To take the last memory of sun 

To take the pain

To face the longing 

And learned to love the black

All empty 

All lonely

Like me

So many were the times I waited there

Now I've clambered back up here and wait on the black

I slipped a little on loose tar and cut my hand on a hail chipped edge.

A thin red line appears on my palm and the air around me turns as black as the roof,

All melting together.

And suddenly the stars seem close.

So close they're all around and I could reach them

Could pluck one down with my bloody fingers and hold it in my fist

Oh I wish... I wish...

...perhaps if I was taller

Or got a running start...