Switching to Wordpress

For all of you following my blog, I have switched to Wordpress.
My new address is http://missadventuresrussia.wordpress.com/
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I Am (Not) My Writing

           I am my writing. I have been told this is a lie, yet every tap on the keyboard feels like a needle invading my finger veins, draining drops of blood. I am my writing.It is not hard to understand why this statement seems so much more like truth than a lie. Since childhood, I have felt closest to God with a pen in my hand, outpouring my reflections and prayers in a cozy journal that never made me feel unsafe or misunderstood. When I pray out loud, my sloppy words waddle around in distracted circles, but when I write to God, it feels like he takes over my pen and guides my hand to record the truth that gets lost in the wind when I try to speak. For a glorious stretch of time between my first journal entry and the end of high school, I was not my writing. Writing was a joy, an escape to exotic locales and vivid characters. Writing was a gift, a bowl into which I could pour all my messy emotions and observe them to get a proper perspective. But when college began, something changed.

          As I was thrust into the world of discussion-based classes alongside students who seemed to know what they wanted to say and how to say it, I began to feel painfully incompetent. When I tried to contribute in class, my sentences seemed awkward and broken, filled with stops and starts and misused verbs. I would chastise myself for answering a question with “yeah, it’s pretty cool,” when the guy sitting across from me threw around words like “Aristotelian” with a yawn. I had thoughts, I had ideas, but when I opened my mouth, I was as articulate as a caveman, and as I compared myself to my classmates I wondered if I was somehow mentally deficient. Outside the classroom, I felt caricatured by those around me, carelessly squished into a box labeled “quiet, responsible, and a little boring.”  In this new school where I desperately wanted to find friends, I didn’t feel perceived as who I really was, the goofy girl who loved people and adventures and traveling to foreign countries.

          It was with a pen that I found the power to fight back against the one-dimensional identity that I thought was being forced upon me. When my TGC class was assigned a “This I Believe Essay,” I lit up when I realized that the assignment offered me the opportunity to share about my experiences in Russia, which were adventurous and daring and anything but quiet and responsible. I felt immense satisfaction as I passed in the finished product, knowing that whoever read it, even if it was only my professor, would see who I really was.

          But to my delight, it wasn’t only my professor who saw it; I was assigned to have a conference on the paper with my TGC fellow. It was an understatement to say that I had a crush on this senior T.A. I was convinced that he was everything I wanted in a man; with his intense gaze and depth of insights into suffering, love, and the good life*, it wasn’t just three flights of stairs that made my heart race on my way to class. But alas, I was cursed with the freshman-ness and inarticulateness that made me invisible to this intellectual demigod. I trembled in nervousness as I hiked my way up to the third floor of the chapel to meet him, and four years later, his words to me still resonate: “it was one of the most polished essays. It had an enthralling tone! And I know I shouldn’t say this…. But, it was my favorite.” I’m sure my eighteen year old face was glowing as if he had just asked for my hand in marriage.  I am my writing, I thought.

            My sophomore year, I stood before my creative writing class and read a poem that was my masterpiece: it perfectly articulated all that God had been teaching me, and the form and structure reminded me of Edgar Allan Poe. I will never forget the bewildered, confused look on my professor’s face after I finished reading. His wide eyes and open mouth seemed to betray that he absolutely hated it but was trying not to let it show. An awkward silence lingered for a few seconds and I took my seat, defeated. I am my writing. This summer, a friend read the same poem and he loved it, expressing amazement and appreciation for my thoughts and the way I had worded them. He “got” my writing, therefore, he “got” me.

My experiences in college have shown me that the belief that I equal my writing is a dangerous equation, a mode of measurement as capricious as New England weather.  Sometimes the words flow effortlessly, but most of the time, I feel like I can’t string together sentences worthy of a third grader. Nonetheless, writing has become a defense weapon, a shield against my fears that I do not measure up. It has become an advertisement for myself, trying to convince others that I am worth their time. And after four years of striving to prove myself through two dimensional black and white pages, I have begun to realize that my idolization of writing has squished me into a smaller box than the one I was trying to escape.

            Ephesians 2:10 says that we are God’s workmanship, a word that comes from the Greek “poiema,” where we get the term “poem.” We are God’s poems, masterfully sculpted works of art whose stories cannot be constrained to something as paltry as a page. To try to wrest the pen from my Creator in a small-minded attempt to make a name for myself blinds me to the breathtaking story he wants to write my life into. So as I graduate, I want to transform this pen, to use it not as a weapon, not as a billboard promoting Hope Johnson, but as a gift, remembering that though writing is a tool God has given me to process this life, it is not life itself. Taking my eyes off myself and fixing them on the author of a much greater story than could fit on a page frees me with truth that I am not my writing. No, I am His writing. 

*love, suffering and the good life are three things Gordon College's first year seminar really likes to talk about. Alot.

Remembering the Future

Dedicated to my Beloved Grandmother, Marie Ann Tingley, 1935-2013

“She loved.” The past tense is cruelly abrupt. There is no apparent beauty in the transition from the smooth, continuous sounds of the present to the hard stops of the past. “She loves” loses it infinite, unfettered s and replaces it with an uncaring, blunt d. You can’t hold the sound of a d. Try it. It’s impossible.

~

There is a little house tucked away in a grove of pines, far away from the road. Knicks-knacks decorate the wood-walled living room, and there is always hard candy in the colorful porcelain box on the coffee table. We don’t go there very often, but when we do, there are usually lots of sweets and cable TV and relatives I’ve never met. We always go there on Christmas Eve, where we open presents around a fake pine tree with jewel toned glass balls. The living room is toasty, and I feel happy and full. The roaring vent at the foot of the plushy carpeted stairs is my favorite; I like to stand on it and feel it puff up my forest green dress like a hot air balloon. I don’t know her yet, not really.

~

The past tense is unacceptable. Mom and I walk by her car, and “her tires need air” slows into a little cry at the realization that we have to alter a lifelong grammar. “She is a wonderful- was a wonderful woman.” “She is- was so gentle.”

~

Grammie lives with us now, and I am nineteen. There is a little thrift store down the road, and it is our tradition to go out on weekends when I’m home, “messin’ around” as she calls it. We love to paw through piles of musty garments, determined to find a hidden treasure. When I’m not there, she likes to fill up her bags at Marshalls in thought of me. One time she brought me home a dress that had been marked down to 89 cents. We both know that that is a great victory. Most of my jewelry comes from her. Whenever I get a compliment on my black and white pearl necklace or on my chunky jeweled pendant, I proudly respond that my Grammie Tingley gave it to me. She has an eye for pretty things.

She complains about getting unwanted attention when we go out on the town. “Do you have guys starin’ at you all the time?” I smile and shake my head. “Well, I’ve got guys starin’ at me all the time! Golly! It’s the red hair…” She feigns annoyance, but I can see past it to the mischief in her light green eyes. When she is at home, in the little in-law apartment connected to our guest room, she plays with her big Persian cat, Caesar. “He’s just an old love bug,” she loves to repeat as she strokes her faithful pet of fifteen years. And when he jumps on the table or lets out the occasional snarl, the loving look remains on her face. “You little donkey!” she says as she wags her finger. In the summer, she sits with us on the deck and tells the story of how her mother had to hide the grapefruits from her father when she was a little girl. He loved grapefruits, and he always ate them up right away. It drove her mother crazy.

~

“Marie, who was a devoted wife, mother, grandmother and friend, will be remembered for her love of gardening, her sparkling green eyes, her flowing red hair and her gentle friendliness. She had a knack for making friends wherever she went. She loved with a generosity that is rare, lavishing gifts, time and kindness on her family and friends without a thought of receiving anything in return. Marie brought beauty and life wherever she went, and her quiet love will never be forgotten by the many people whose lives she touched.”

 The obituary seems obsessed with persuading me that the present reality doesn’t line up with the present tense. The thing is, I wrote part of the obituary, but my own words still haven’t convinced me that my grandmother needs to be shoved into an ending that she is not yet ready for herself.

~

It is the February of my senior year, and Grammie has just gotten home from three months of cancer treatment. She still puts on vintage jewelry and a coat of red lipstick every morning, even though she is too weak to hang up the dozen dresses she bought in Florida. We talk about graduation, about how nice of a day we hope it will be, about how her arm hurts.

“This stuff, yuck!” She motions towards the potassium powder drink she is reluctantly sipping. “Your mother says I have to drink this stuff to get better, but yuck!” She makes a face. I laugh softly, and I believe her with all my heart.

She lets me go through her closet and I find a flowy, golden dress that is perfect for Gordon Globes. “Doesn’t it just look beautiful on her,” she says to Mom, then reminds us that her arm hurts. Grammie sits on her bed with me as I splay her antique jewelry on the coverlet, and I can’t choose between pearls and a golden pendant. “Why don’t you just wear both?” She suggests. I look in the mirror and see that she’s right.  

Her arm hurts, and we’ve worn her out, and we pack up the jewelry. I hug her goodnight and I am shocked by her sudden frailness. Early Monday morning I go over to her place and give her a quick goodbye. “I love you Grammie. I’ll see you later.” She smiles softly, and I am sure that later will be soon.

~

The past tense is harsh in its reality, but hope tells me that it is malleable, somehow temporary. Hope urges me to press an ear to the wall and eagerly eavesdrop, waiting for the moment when а new language will flood the senses with an understanding that outshouts the tyranny of time. For now, the phantom pains of losing her strike at the most unexpected moments, in the most unexpected ways, but the understanding that I don’t truly understand gives me a gentle peace. So I will believe that “she loved” can turn to “she loves,” and then finally, to a heavenly form that I can’t yet articulate, but will someday roll off my lips with ease.

For Whom the Bell Doesn't Toll

This piece was recently published in the spring 2013 issue of the Vox Populi, a publication of Gordon College.

     A brassy peal emanates from the corner of campus, spreading its eerie power in a shockwave throughout Gordon’s domain. For just a second, the campus stops. Chemistry majors look up from their lab work, soccer players on the quad turn their heads, studiers in Jenks lose their place in Our Father Abraham.  Some sigh, some crack a cynical joke, and some shrug their shoulders. Despite our individual reactions, for just a moment, we are united. Gordon is rich with legend, and few Scots haven’t claimed the tales of the car at the bottom of Gull pond or of Teddy Roosevelt’s horse buried under the quad as part of their heritage. The mysterious lore surrounding Gordon’s history certainly plays a role in shaping our identity as students here, but nothing seems to compare to the metal monument that lounges proudly in its gazebo throne, observing passersby under its sway. The cultural icon that has the power to bring us together for better or for worse is that wonderful, terrible old bell*.

      We see its power in conversations, humming at a constant din throughout the four years, first starting off wistfully, hopefully, then morphing gradually into a senior cynicism or a lifeless joke. The bell makes regular cameos at Gordon Globes, providing a source of comic catharsis for those who find themselves bemoaning the infamous Gordon ratio or the rabid desperation of Gordon girls. The bell is occasionally rung by the reckless non-respecter of its sacred power, but the rest of us know that only under one circumstance may you ring it and leave unscathed.

      The bell’s renown reflects the fact that Christian colleges, and Christian culture in general, is infamous for framing marriage as the cardinal goal of life. Our generation is known for pushing back against the pressure to marry young, but still, the cultural constructs of American Christianity loom over Gordon culture, encouraging unhealthy interaction between the sexes. Many people I have talked to are familiar with the awkward apprehensiveness of male-female interactions at Gordon. The vicious cycle goes like this: Christian girls have a reputation for singling guys out as possible husband material; thus, guys fear that too much friendliness on their part could be mistaken as a marriage proposal. Assuming that Gordon men hold this view of them, many women also mete out their friendliness and smiles in controlled doses for fear that they will project a message of desperation. I have seen and experienced the frustrating awkwardness of this cycle again and again, and I have also seen a striking contrast in my two times studying abroad, where I was able to seamlessly befriend members of the opposite sex without fearing that they would think my attentions were a desperate plea for a ring.

      Not only is the emphasis on marrying young damaging to relationships now, but it sets us up for disappointment when we actually marry. With the best of intentions, Christian culture spreads the propaganda that marriage is the answer to our problems and the beginning of our lives. As such, marriage is one of the prime idols of single Christians everywhere, an antidote to loneliness and a license for guilt-free sex. And like all idols, it doesn’t deliver what it promises.  The National Center for Health Statistics reports that 60% of couples who marry between the ages of 20 and 25 decide to divorce, 10% more than the national average. This is not to say that there should be a ban on young marriage, but it does illustrate that at least 60% of young people tying the knot discover that marriage is not the cure-all that they had envisioned.

      But to be fair, perhaps the lore of the bell is casting a shadow of untruth on the nature of Gordon students. Although perceptions about the opposite sex’s intentions do seem to inhibit cross-gender friendships, the quest for a ring does not define the majority of the students I know. I do not see girls paralyzed by fear that they won’t find “the one” at Gordon. I do not see lazy young men, too indifferent to commit. No, I see men and women pursuing their God-given callings with direction and confidence. I see students investing in lives in the city of Lynn, I see RAs committed to loving their floors, I see blossoming mentorships between faculty and students. In short, I see people invested in deep relationships whether or not they lead to the altar.  

      I admit that when I first heard the legend of the bell, I hoped that one day I would join the ranks of ringers. But now that four years have gone by without anything resembling that type of relationship, I can say with confidence that I have no regrets. Statistics say that for most of us, marriage will eventually come. But regardless of that fact, there is no use in spending four years chasing a fantasy when the opportunity for deep relationships is at its peak. So love the legend of the bell. Laugh, roll your eyes and pass on its magic to the classes to come. Just don’t let it take a toll on your perspective.

*The bell on Gordon College's campus is only to be rung by couples who have just gotten engaged. Lore has it that if you ring it under any other circumstances, you will have 7 years of bad luck, or worse, 7 more years of singleness...

A Grainy Photograph of the Unseen

  Dedicated to my father, who has shown me what it means to follow Christ.

            I don’t see God the way he truly is, and this bothers me. I logically assent that he is the God who delivered his people from Egypt in an epic of miracles, the God whose glory would kill me if I looked on it, the God who is love incarnate in the sacrifice of his one and only Son. I affirm these facts about God, yet so often he seems as flat and scratchy as a mini Jesus on a Sunday school flannelgraph.  Attempting to fit the infinite Creator of the universe into my finite human paradigm leaves me with an unimpressive, blurry photo that I can fit in my wallet. Although logic tells me that this photo is nothing more than a crude representation of reality, I feel constrained by my humanity to perceive this grainy four-by-six as the real thing. I don’t see God the way he truly is, and sometimes I wonder if I am just worshiping an idol I’ve carved to fit the puny dimensions of my brain.

~

            Andrea* and I sat across from each other in the quaint Salem pizza place, discussing whether some people were destined from the foundations of the earth to spend eternity being tortured. She was convinced that they were. I met Andrea, a young seminarian’s wife, my junior year at Gordon. I began attending a Bible study at her home, and it soon became clear that her favorite flower was definitely the TULIP: total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints. Back home, Calvinism was often the butt of jokes, an abstract theology that evoked the image of a crotchety man in Shakespearean dress high on his own hot air. My father, a devoted follower of Christ, often expressed frustration not only with Calvinist theology but with what he saw as the arrogance that was its center. His experience with Calvinists had been dominated by exchanges in which those not agreeing with their viewpoint were treated as second-class Christians. Not only was his viewpoint anecdotal; he explained his side with firm Biblical support. Everything I experienced confirmed my father’s viewpoint; it only took a cursory glance at the blogosphere to find a myriad of arrogantly judgmental comments from Calvinists, some going so far as to question the salvation of non-Calvinists. But when I saw Andrea’s life: her dedication to God’s word, her commitment to mentoring college girls and her love for the Lord, it frustrated me that she didn’t fit into a mold that was less attractive. She had definitely studied the Bible more than I had, so who was I to disagree with her conclusion? The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, right?

             At this point, I was secretly chagrined that Andrea hadn’t come across as judgmental and crazy, like the puffed-up Calvinist commenters I had discovered online. That would have been easier to swallow. Instead, two godly Christians in my life had come to different conclusions about an issue that seemed to define the character of God.  It wasn’t that I had to know the answer. I didn’t really care whether it was Calvin or Arminius who would be saying “I told you so,” the moment they entered heaven. No, what scared and frustrated me was the realization that I do not have the capacity to see God as he truly is.

~

            Growing up, I don’t remember ever questioning my perceptions of God. I am one of those saved-since-she-could walk Christians, and God was just a natural part of life, so much so that I rarely stopped to stand in awe of Him or think about what it actually meant to be divine. He naturally knew me personally, loved me, and had great plans for my life (which I thought he needed to be constantly reminded about). But he was also very American. If I didn’t work hard enough, he would be displeased with me for my laziness. If I happened to miss “his will” for my life because of a poor decision, he would likely tell me “you’ve made your bed, now you lie in it.”

~

            I have been taught from the womb to pray that the Holy Spirit would lead and guide me when I go to the Word of God. In junior high school, I may have had a passing question about the possibility of my faulty interpretation, but I was more into taking the Bible extremely personally. I’ll never forget the gleeful entitlement I felt when I found Proverbs 6:5, which said “free yourself… like a bird from the snare of the fowler.” Fowler was the last name of the boy I wanted to marry. He didn’t return my sentiments.

I still use that same Bible, and I am always slightly embarrassed when I have to share with someone, because I know they will see the confident personal applications of junior high in words like “basketball,” “high school,” and the initials of the boy I liked. But looking back at these scribblings, I have to wonder if I don’t do much of the same thing now, if maybe we all do. After all, even though Andrea and my father had prayed for the Holy Spirit to lead them when they approached the Scriptures, they had still come to opposite conclusions. My flustered question at this point was “why was the Holy Spirit leading them to believe totally opposite things?”

~

             In my favorite novel, The Brothers Karamazov, two brothers, Ivan, an “atheist” intellectual, and Alyosha, a novice monk, discuss the problem of suffering and what it says about the character of God. Ivan brings in newspaper clippings detailing cases of child abuse in order to illustrate his assertion that “I accept God, but I do not accept his world.” For Ivan, the suffering of children was irreconcilable with a loving God. Alyosha, though, remains firm in his faith, willing to accept the paradox that God is good even when his world seems unjust.

            My RA staff last year had a habit of getting into theological conversations about unanswerable questions such as those raised in The Brothers Karamazov. We had one “Ivan” on our staff who wanted answers that would reconcile a loving God with his sense of justice. Last year, I was the one who watched these conversations quietly, confused by his zealous anger towards not understanding.  “Ivan’s” perspective was fascinating, but I never could truly relate to it. I saw the world with the same eyes as Alyosha, and what others viewed as lack of engagement, I counted as peace.  This year though, I have been able to relate to Ivan’s perspective more than ever. Unanswerable questions have claimed a permanent home in my mind as I have become more and more aware of the seemingly unjust suffering and death in the world. But even in my questioning, I still am an Alyosha; I am more comfortable with paradox than many.

This comfort with paradox does have a negative side; I often am fearful to express conviction in any point of theology not contained in the Apostles’ Creed. If theologians who have studied the Bible their whole life have come to different conclusions, then who am I to approach the Word of God? I am often scared out of my mind about approaching Scripture, the one thing that I’ve been taught for years is the main ingredient necessary for my spiritual growth. Do I believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God? Absolutely! Do I believe that I will come to it with my own biases and preconceived notions about God’s character? Again, absolutely.

Left to my own devices, I will inevitably distort God’s words, but I am learning that the Christian life is not about my ability to comprehend, but about God’s grace and power in my weakness. He knows that each and every one of us views life through glasses shaped by our culture, family, personality and experiences. This does not scare him, and maybe it shouldn’t scare me either. What should scare me is attempting to live as if I do have the capacity to comprehend God. It seems that the urge to fit God into a systematic theology might stem from the subconscious desire to usurp his place in our lives and become our own gods. Perhaps one of the reasons God has only allowed us to see him in a grainy photograph is to remind us that he is God, and we most definitely are not.

Maybe the differing conclusions of Andrea and my dad have less to say about the leading of the Holy Spirit and more to say about what God actually wants his followers to focus on during our few years this side of heaven. To me, the fact that they disagree says that having a monopoly on “good theology” isn’t one of God’s priorities for us during our short stint on planet earth. Jesus didn’t tell us to go therefore and make theologians; he told us to go therefore and make disciples. My focus should be on the tenets of the faith that all Christians agree on. I can trust that God is good; I can trust that God is love, and I can trust that it is his Son, not my theology, that saves me. And if I’m not taking it out of context, 1 Corinthians 13:12 tells me that one day I will know God as he is: “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully.”

I don’t see God the way he truly is, and I am okay with that…for now. Now I hold a faded photograph, but one day I will be joyfully overwhelmed by the reality that it represents. Unanswerable questions and disagreements between Christians will continue to remind me that it is not my job to fully comprehend God, but to follow him, and I can take comfort in the fact that I worship and serve a God who refuses to be constrained to the puny dimensions of my brain.

*Name has been changed to protect the privacy of the individual mentioned.

A Taste of Russia

Gordon College doesn't offer Russian, so when I received a grant to promote Russian language study at my school, I was elated. As many of you know, Russian language is one of my greatest passions, and I will jump at any opportunity to share my excitement with others. The Critical Language Scholarship, the program through which I studied in Vladimir, Russia, offers small grants to alumni to further pursue their critical language of choice. They agreed with me that promoting Russian at Gordon would be a great idea, so I set out to create an evening that would give students just a little taste of the country and language that I have fallen in love with.

I was pleasantly surprised to have 16 attendees, two of which were professors. We began the evening by diving into the Cyrillic alphabet. I learned Cyrillic about ten years ago, so I was unsure as to how much time people would need to get the hang of it. In a few minutes though, students were reading cognates like "шоколад" (shokolad) and "президент" (presidyent) and writing their names in the Russian script!

After they had gotten the hang of Cyrillic, students split up into groups and practiced simple greetings. This was definitely fun, but my favorite part of the evening was teaching a favorite Russian folk song,"Миленький ты мой" (My Darling). This song is a conversation between a man and a woman, with the woman trying to convince the man to take her with him. She firsts asks to be his wife, to which he replies that he already has a wife; next, she revises her proposal and says that she will be his sister, but he tells her he already has a sister. Finally, she demotes herself to being a stranger, as long as it means going with him, but alas, he has no need of a stranger. This seems to be a dismal ending for our young woman, but our folklore teacher in Vladimir taught us the "Хулиганский вариант," (The Hooligan Version), in which the girl sings "Миленький ты мой, ну и чёрт с тобой! Там в краю далёком, есть у меня другой." This translates roughly to "My darling, go to hell! Where you're going I already have someone else." So yes, Russian folk music has boasted Taylor Swift renditions before Taylor Swift's grandparents were even thought up.

 

We ended the night by feasting upon a spread of delicious Russian cuisine. Included in our meal were блины и одадьи (thin and thick pancakes), варенье из чёрной смородины (black currant jam), сырники (pancakes made from farmer's cheese), хлеб с колбасой и сыром (bread with kielbasa and cheese), шоколад (chocolate), пряники (gingerbread), и чай (tea). 

The evening was wonderful, and I am so thankful to have had the chance to share my love for Russia with those at my school. It was a joy to interact other Gordon students who are interested in Russia that I might not have met otherwise. Yes, the evening was wonderful, but definitely not enough to satisfy my appetite for all things Russian. It is my hope that by this time next year, I won't be ordering Russian food online, but taking a маршрутка (taxi-bus) to the магазин (store) to buy my beloved творог (farmer's cheese) and свежий хлеб (fresh bread).

This blog does not necessarily represent the views of the CLS Program, the Department of State, or American Councils.

That Lovely, Unquenchable Thirst

The first time I felt that paradoxical desire to cry from happiness was when I was four. My family was traveling back from a daytrip to Bar Harbor, and we had stopped at a little ice cream place on the side of the road. I remember eating bubblegum ice cream (spitting each little piece out by the way on the pavement of the parking lot, trying to be a good little girl) and I was unexpectedly filled with emotions that my little four year old heart didn’t know what to do with. 17 years later, the memory is cloudy, but the feeling is unfadingly vivid. Since that first moment of memory, my life has been characterized by a thirst for adventure and romance that is tinged with this paradoxically beautiful melancholy, this joyful sadness of longing for something that transcends this world. When I was four, I didn’t recognize it as the calling of God. As years passed, I began to believe that the longing would be quenched by intimate friendship, or fulfilled when I met a man whose heart’s rhythm was in pace with mine. But I think I always knew in the depths of my heart that this longing was nothing less than the longing to be overwhelmed by the love of God in a way that is impossible on this earth.

A few weeks ago, I read John Eldredge and Brent Curtis’s book The Sacred Romance and I was struck by the clarity with which they articulated these inner workings of my soul that I had struggled for so long to understand. They write:

 "In all of our hearts lies a longing for a Sacred Romance. It will not go away in spite of our efforts over the years to anesthetize or ignore its song, or attach it to a single person or endeavor. It is a Romance couched in mystery and set deeply within us” (19).

These words gave me the chills because of their truth. I am often struck by this paradoxical joyful longing that is awakened by things as simple as a certain song on the radio, a crisp starry night, a memory of childhood. I am so often filled with “sehnsucht,” the German word that C.S. Lewis uses to describe an “insatiable longing…for we know not what” (Danke Wikipedia J).

Eldredge and Curtis quote Lewis as saying:

"Even in your hobbies, has their not always been some secret attraction which the others are curiously ignorant of- something, not to be identified with, but always on the verge of breaking through, the smell of cut wood in the workshop or the clap-clap of water against the boat’s side? Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it-tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest-if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself-you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say, “Here at last is the thing I was made for.” We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all” (qtd. In The Sacred Romance 20-21)

As I look back through my journals, I see a pattern of continually trying to put this unquenchable longing to words when it comes upon me. This past summer while overcome with this “sehnsucht,” I prayed:

“In my melancholy state, the one I love so much yet ache when I feel. Why do I like feeling like this? Or do I like it at all? It’s just that I feel such a depth of emotion, and I want to share that emotion with someone else, somehow know that they get, understand, the deep love, melancholy, beauty, peace and sadness that Russia evokes in me. I like being in this state, because it makes me feel more human than ever. But it is on the tip of depression. Loneliness. The longing to be one with someone else. In a way that I fear is not possible on earth. There are hints of it in family, and marriage, but nothing that compares to the way you know me. I long to be known, that I could incite in someone the same feeling that paces my heart in its melancholy state….And although you know me, it doesn’t feel like you know me to the depth I long for, but I know you do! If I could understand your love, your knowledge of my inmost being, I wouldn’t feel lonely. And I am so vulnerable to wanting a person to fill that gap…. And I’m going to go my whole life with this feeling, recurring at times when life Is full and colorful and a slice of heaven, yet tainted, broken, the fall still so obvious….And what I was truly made for will finally come to fruition when I die, shed the broken body, deceitful heart, longing sighs. To worship you forever and be one with you….No person can fulfill these desires, answer my melancholy cry with a oneness of soul, because the cry deep in my heart is for you, and will only be consummated after this life. Every line of poetry that pierces my heart, every chord of music that cuts into the layers of my soul, every desire unquenched, points to you."

And less than a month later I wrote:

“What is it about wanting to be known and understood at the core, the deepest heart of hearts? The desire that these experiences, the feelings you get from a certain song, could be felt in unity with someone else? To have them look at you and with their eyes say “I know.” When I hear a song, and the inexpressible emotion courses through me that has no words in the English language, I want to hold someone’s hand and have it course through them; tears of joy will form because someone finally gets it….And I want to spill my heart on the pages of the world in hopes that someone will find that their heart, their essence is in rhythm with mine. That they will read it and be struck. They will say “I know.”

Everyone longs for connection. Everyone longs for intimacy. And in that search, we are all broken. We are all longing. We are quickly satisfied, then quickly emptied, disillusioned by the imperfections of another human and their inability to understand you, empathize with you at your soul’s deepest core. As we walked along the moonlit beach tonight, it felt surreal. Hauntingly beautiful- the joyful ache of eternity beckoning me, whispering “Hope, remember that this is not all there is.” Although the creation was at its zenith, and all the senses were fully satisfied: comforting campfire smoke, scent of salty ocean, sand escaping under feet as minty cold waves lap against our bare legs, and the moon, casting light onto the vast ocean in flowy prisms. Yet imperfection was clearly there. Our conversations, full of personal insecurity, pride and distrust in you, surface. Our ache for fulfillment clear in our words that at times seem so empty. And sometimes I talk to fill the silence. And I usually regret it, how it spoils the sacredness of such moments. We are caught in between, Lord. Your beauty so clearly cries your glory, breathtaking as it speaks of You. Yet we are trapped inside ourselves, bodies full of sin and minds with attention spans for worry but not for you. We rarely know the freedom of being outside of ourselves. So even a night like tonight is far from perfect, because of our fallen state. Regardless of the perfection of the surroundings, my sinful heart, my insecurities, my pride and my selfishness mar even the most sacred experiences. I am beginning to long for heaven. When I will be free of this trapping, claustrophobic, stale body of death that is never satisfied and always searching. Lord, I would be happy if you took me now. I want to be free from this cage, this prison of selfishness, me-centeredness, of constant longing, thirst, hunger, of my deceitful heart.”

I share these entries not because I want to make a habit of posting my prayer journal to the world, but because right now I am so eager to share to joy that these realizations have given me.

 The realization that these desires cannot and will not be met by humans is extremely freeing!

 I hope that the heart understanding that this longing points toward God and heaven will help me to place less pressure and expectation on those around me to fulfill desires that they were never meant to fulfill.

 I hope that when I am overcome with this sehnsucht, I will not give into depression, but I will accept it as the pulse of heaven’s citizenship inside me, beckoning me to remember the hope to which I was called. 

To remember that “for now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (1 Corinthians 13: 12).