silly spiritual idiocy

I had to make myself sit down and write because I have felt so much like that one line in that one song in the Sound of Music, "How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?"

I don't feel unusually happy, energetic, bouncy...but I do feel something that it took me a week to name.

Contentment.  And I had mistaken contentment for numbness.

I sat on my bed in a peaceful darkness last night and decided to pray.  I wasn't sure what I was going to pray about but I wanted to talk to my Father.  But as soon as I said his Name, I realized that it was not numbness that I felt.  I have just become so accustomed to feeling anxiety and frustration and confusion in the past months that I forgot what contentment feels like.  I don't know why I felt so surprised at the thought, either.  Just a week ago, I wrote down an extensive list of worries, frustrations, burdens and asked God to take away the pressure of dealing with all of it.

Yet again, God proves Himself to me.  "I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands."

Isaiah 49:15-16

I felt a silly sort of relief at the realization that God listened to my prayer and reacted.  And now I am telling myself, "Well, Micaela, you decided to believe in something crazy and improbable and unprovable.  If you believe God is who He says He is, have the guts to believe what He says." (I picture myself doing this with the face and voice of my dad when he is telling me something he knows I already know but don't want to admit...and I get that really impish "I know, I know" look on my face).  

So, I can laugh at myself because I am a silly spiritual idiot sometimes, like when the most basic form of communication between myself and God actually working leaves me dumbstruck.  The important thing is that it is a further proof that my Father listens to me, that He is.  

Yours,

Micaela

Frailty

I am looking back on this past summer with my brows furrowed in deep frustration.  

It was a summer of self-discovery and inspiration, hungering for more knowledge of myself and of Yahweh and his Spirit and his Son, peace and contentment of my soul.  I fell asleep each night lulled to the world of dreams by the quiet whispering of the One I love, the Spirit residing within my own soul.  I was in passionate love.  

Why, then, am I so emotionally distant from the same One with whom I was enamored a mere few months before?  Oh, I know the answer.  I do.  Not just to this question, but to the hundreds of questions that have attacked the security of my heart since coming back to Chicago and beginning this life again.  I was hoping that the answer would be more complex, more terrifying.  And in reality, it is, because simplicity is a rare glimmer of peace in a world of chaos.  The answer, it seems, is a not-so-unique emotional reaction to a new season of life and circumstances, and lack of communication with my God.   

Oh, my pride.  I thought I was harder to crack than all of that, I honestly did.  Even through my own blatant past mistakes, even under breaking circumstances, I knew my God stood next to me and I never faltered in recognizing his presence.  It has never occurred to me not to. 

Until now.

And now, I know I am frail.  I used my own pride as an excuse to cut off communication from the One who loves me best.  How dare you let me be lonely, I thought.  How dare you take away my security—my community, convenient access to you, my friends, those who know and care for me so well, my Kingdom-enriching job that I loved, my church, my everything.  How dare you open up the Old Testament to me and make me realize you are not as familiar to me as I thought.  How dare you let me feel depressed and lonely, purposeless and afraid. 

I have hurled bitter accusations in defense against that army of invasive questions often in the past few months; they have become more dull but have maintained their presence consistently, especially the past two weeks when almost every night I find it impossible to sleep until just before I have to wake up. 

I accused, and steamed in anger and confusion and ignorance and fear.  I crossed my arms over my chest, stuck up my nose, and closed my eyes.  I felt enlightened by the nothingness I felt for him and completely sorrowful at the loss of rock-hard strength I had known not so long before.  I dared God to make me feel peaceful again. 

And then I went home for a long weekend.  And, as they say, shit got real…on multiple levels.  I was confronted with everything I have been missing. 

I saw some of most important people in my life.  Tim and Jennifer Ayers picked me up from the bus stop and took me directly to my doctor’s appointment.  Because I am Christ’s and therefore their own daughter and they love me.  I spent the evening with Bekah Sardar and we lay on a blanket with her brother and mother and watched the stars and the candle in the newly carved pumpkin flicker in the darkness, laughing at Isaiah’s innocent energy.  I helped her pack for California and we talked about our emotional and spiritual exhaustion until the sun was only an hour or so away from warming our side of the earth again. 

I spent the day with my family at my grandparent’s farm in rural Indiana.  I held Braylen tightly in my lap as we slowly hovered over the grass in the go-kart, with which later Caleb and I cut lines and figure eights in my grandpa’s fields. 

I went to church on Sunday morning and listened to David Bell.  It is rare for a sermon to speak directly to my current situation, but when David spoke of the disciples who refused to abandon Christ, asking, “To whom else will we go?” my soul wept inside of me. 

I spent that evening (and the wee hours of Monday morning) sitting and listening to my dear friend Cally Abdelsayed, who moved to New York and got married while I was in Costa Rica, and whom I had not seen in almost two years.  Just her presence was comforting and reassuring.

But my heart continued to weep the next day when I had coffee with David and explained that I have felt miserable, confused, exhausted, lonely, and abandoned. And that I am unsure about the legitimacy of the Bible as proof of God’s existence and how flat out crazy our beliefs really are.  Legitimately insane.  And after much discussion and some tears on my part, he prayed for me.  In the end, we had come to the same conclusion as he did on Sunday and as the disciples did on that day that some abandoned Christ: 

To whom else will we go?

On the drive to the bus, I explained to my dad, in what seemed like broken English to me, what I was feeling.  And when we got to the bus stop and it was time for me to get out of the car and I fell into weeping, he held me and told me he would have the strength that I didn’t.  It amazes me how one man can have the strength of all the people he has strength for. 

So after a very full, very emotional, and very exhausting weekend, I came back to Chicago.  Homesick. 

A few days ago, David, Eness Jarvis, and Rob Yonan—three incredibly influential and dear people in my life—came to visit.  After Chicago deep-dish pizza and good conversation, they left.  Homesick. 

I am being as honest as possible.  It has been an incredibly rough semester and I cannot wait for it to be over.  I know the end of the semester does not mean the end of this complex thing I am struggling with.  But it means Christmas and warmth and familiarity.  It means Josh comes back from France.  It means music and “Silent Night” candles and building a snowman with Braylen.  It means I will be full of what I need when I return next semester, and that even if next semester is just as hard as this one, I will be assured of something good.  Like after my long weekend at home, I came back to Chicago still frustrated and sorrowful, but full of the knowledge that the people I spent time with care about my wellbeing and that, although I feel lonely, I am not alone. 

So, I have no happy ending for this story because it is still going on.  I dropped a class to relieve some stress, which has been nice.  But I am still just at the beginning of turning accusations into genuine questions of “How dare you still love me after such pride and weakness?” “How dare you give me a few friends in Chicago to keep me from total loneliness?” “How dare you forgive me over and over and over again?” “How dare you call me daughter?”

For everything there is a season.  I have known what it is to stand on a mountain and feel the Spirit so clearly that he is like the wind running his fingers through my hair.  And now I know what it is to walk blindly through the dark night of the soul, where wind stands still and nothing living dwells.  But I will wait for the rising of the son to bathe me in his warm essence and soak my eyes in mud and run his airy fingers through my hair.  As long as it takes. 

Methoughts I heard one crying, Child!

And I replied, My Lord.

-The Collar, George Herbert

Yours, 

Micaela

From The Temple, George Herbert

“The Altar”

A broken ALTAR, Lord, thy servant rears,

 Made of a heart, and cemented with tears: 

  Whose  parts  are as thy  hand  did  frame;

  No workman's tool hath touched the same.

A    HEART    alone

Is   such   a   stone,

As    nothing     but

Thy power doth cut.

Wherefore each part

Of   my   hard   heart

Meets  in  this  frame, 

To  praise  thy  Name:

That,  if  I   chance  to   hold  my   peace,

These stones to praise thee may not cease.

Oh  let  thy  blessed  SACRIFICE  be   mine,

And   sanctify   this   ALTAR   to   be   thine.

“The Collar” 

I struck the board¹ and cried, “No more;

I will abroad!

What? Shall I ever sigh and pine?

My lines and life are free, free as the road,

Loose as the wind, as large as store.

Shall I be still in suit? ²

Have I no harvest but a thorn

To let me blood, and not restore

What I have lost with cordial³ fruit?

Sure there was wine

Before my sighs did dry it; there was grain

Before my tears did drown it.

Is the year only lost to me?

Have I no bays⁴ to crown it,

No flowers, no garlands gay? All blasted?

All wasted?

Not so, my heart; but there is fruit,

And thou hast hands.

Recover all thy sigh-blown age

On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute

Of what is fit and not.  Forsake thy cage,

Thy rope of sands,

Which petty thoughts have made, and made to thee

Good cable,⁵ to enforce and draw,

And be thy law,

While though didst wink and wouldst not see.

Away! Take heed/

I will abroad.

Call in thy death’s-head⁶ there; tie up thy fears.

He that forbears

To suit and serve his need,

Deserves his load.”

Bus as I raved and grew more fierce and wild

At every word,

Methoughts I heard one calling, Child!⁷

And I replied, My Lord.

1. Communion table

2. Always in attendance, waiting on someone for a favor

3. restorative to the heart

4. The poet’s laurel wreath, a symbol of recognized accomplishment

5. Christian restrictions on behavior, which the “petty thoughts” of the docile believer have made into strong bonds

6. Skull, emblem of human mortality, and often used as an object for meditation

7. The call “Child!” reminds the speaker of Paul’s words that Christians are not in “bondage again to fear” but are children of God, “and if children, then heirs.” Romans 8:14-17

"...and so you must love one another."

This is how it's done. 

Don’t give up.

It’s just the weight of the world.

When you’re heart’s heavy, I

I will lift it for you.

Don’t give up.

Because you want to be heard

If silence keeps you, I

I will break it for you.

Everybody wants to be understood

Well I can hear you.

Everybody wants to be loved

Don’t give up

Because you are loved

Don’t give up.

It’s just the hurt that you hide

When you’re lost inside, I

I’ll be there to find you.

Don’t give up.

Because you want to burn bright

If darkness blinds you, I

I will shine to guide you.

Everybody wants to be understood

Well I can hear you.

Everybody wants to be loved.

Don’t give up

Because you are loved.

Don’t give up.

It’s just the weight of the world. 

Everyone needs to be heard.

You are loved.

(Josh Groban)

To whom shall I go?

http://musingsofahomelessheart.blogspot.com/2010/10/one-path.html

Tired bits of my brain

Let's begin with the optimistic and wonderful. 

Jared, firstborn son of my parents and favorite older brother of mine, is getting married!!!!! in a few days, to a wonderful young woman soon to be known as Jenny Shore.  I am going home tomorrow to celebrate with family and friends. 

I feel a deep sense of happiness for my brother, a sincere love for the woman he will marry, and a strong hope for their future. 

Now for some slight pessimism, glimpses of hope, and attempt at contenment.

Why I decided to enroll myself in four literature courses, I have no idea.

Granted, I am a student of English and Spanish.  I have willingly dedicated myself to these particular areas of study for a few not particularly light reasons, but those I will share later.

For now, let me say, I drink too much coffee out of physical necessity rather than for enjoyment.  My body generally aches from too much caffeine and not enough movement, sore from sitting in the same manner for hours on end as I dissect text after text for various types of literature. 

Here is an example of my average to do list:

Old Testament: Psalm 89:1; 104

Society in Literature: finish the Maltese Falcon

British Literature: finish Beowulf; Marie de France’s “Lanval” and “Chevrefoil”; first                

                                two parts of “Gawain and the Green Knight”

Spanish Literature: “Milagros de Nuestra Señora” and “El Conde Lucanor”

African American Lit: Read The Known World

And that’s just for Monday and Tuesday.  I don’t know what I was thinking.

In the midst of hundreds of pages of artistic language and social satire, historical accounts and rhyming rhythms, my God is providing me with a beautiful atmosphere.  The most comforting part of this experience has been the continuous confident knowledge that God is orchestrating my life, and clear evidence of this.  He has been bringing to the surface the realization that the experiences I have had lately have prepared me for this moment in which I am living, for the people with whom I am living, and that this now is a preparation for future moments and people and places.  People, places, moments are all so inconsistent.  The Holy Spirit is with me.  No variation.  

Oh, sweet freedom!

Somehow that peace that I found a few months ago is still with me, even when I have to search deep inside myself to remember it is. 

I am finding myself missing Costa Rica and the people I came to love there more and more everyday.  I am sometimes happy for the amount of work I have to do simply because I know it keeps me from being in a constant state of mourning over moments passed and people out of my reach.  The boyfriend of my roommate from last year played soccer at Northwestern this past weekend and Laura and I went to the game to watch.  We had only met him once, but even he seems like a part of the family we became a part of down there.  We hugged him tightly, trying to feel even a shimmer of the essence of our former roommate whom we love so much.  I never could have imagined the intensity of the bonds we formed in Costa Rica.  I know I have family all over the world, a fact I will never take for granted.

Oh, and my best friend Josh is in France, which is wonderful but sometimes my whole being selfishly wishes he were here.

There are so many thoughts I wish to share, so many people I wish to write about, but time is short and functioning brain cells are scarce.  Another time.

Until then, I pray to continue to experience glimpses of peace and tranquility, love and laughter, hope and rest.  For you and for me. 

Yours,

Micaela

Double Culture Shock

 I moved back to Chicago.  After a couple of days of throwing myself back in with my old friends, excitedly not wanting to sit still for two minutes, rediscovering a tiny fraction of my neighborhood, and thoroughly enjoying the real-live-I’m-an-adult-now apartment (fully equipped with the little speaker in the wall with a button that buzzes people in from downstairs—love it!), I find myself running into a brick wall of emotion.  I am beginning to feel the returning shock of being in a new place, which is really an old place from a life I feel I lived a hundred years ago. 

I am usually in-tune with my emotions.  I analyze myself pretty frequently…how and why I am affecting the circumstances surrounding me and how those surrounding circumstances are affecting me.   Knowing this, I become frustrated when I feel something “for no reason.” 

For example, last night I had dinner with my three best guy friends at Loyola.  After dinner we walked around Borders and I happened upon the Travel section, searched out Latin America, and wound up flipping through a couple of guidebooks highlighting the hotspots of Costa Rica and Guatemala.  I saw pictures of places I have been, places I have lived.  Places I may never live again.  Because, although I love Costa Rica, I no longer have the desire to plant myself there.  I have mercifully been stripped of the desperate longing to return to a place I grew to love so dearly, full of people I love even more. 

Still, I felt disoriented after having a few nostalgic moments to myself and showing some of the pictures to Mike, Mike, and Matt before leaving the bookstore.  I was taken aback by this new sense of disbelief that the past year had even occurred.  I explained to Matt that it is not a feeling that can be labeled as “good” or “bad.”  I am not disappointed in my current situation.  On the contrary, I am completely content to be here and with my friends I love so well.  What I felt in that moment, and what I am sure I will feel again, was simply discomfort.  I, along with my emotions, was being pulled in multiple directions while I simply wanted to be at peace.  And I was, after a while. 

I suppose I just was not expecting this new wave of “culture shock.”  It took me by surprise.  But God is good.  He provided me with experiences in Costa Rica and at home this summer that were, and will continue to be, life changing.  Will those overwhelming moments of discomfort occur again? Yes…for a while.  But they will eventually fade away.  But those experiences will always be teaching me, always be changing me.

And I welcome the new ones with trust and open arms.


Yours,
Micaela

Summer Lovin'

I just experienced the best summer of my life.

Woah, woah woah.  What? Micaela, you just lived in a beautiful Latin American country for a year.  No way was the summer that followed endless weekend beach trips, swimming under waterfalls, and speaking Spanish daily the best one of your life.

Yes, actually, it was. 

You see, I expected to spend these last few months in a consistent state of sadness and mourning.  I expected to be bored with my life, uninterested in the people around me, and constantly desiring to return to the land of la Pura Vida. 

I expected too little.  I temporarily underestimated the workings of the powerful lion of a God who loves me and—lo and behold!—does not wish for me to exist in a state of emotional suffering.  

A series of spur-of-the-moment decisions and not very much prayer (okay, no prayer on my part was involved whatsoever), I found myself two weeks out of CR, a member of the ministry team of Access (Grace’s college community), co-leading a small group focusing on and discussing a book called Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster, and working an internship at a non-profit legal clinic in Indianapolis. 

It is very unlikely that I would be able to briefly describe to you what I experienced with the various activities of the summer.  But I do want to make a few points known and a few people recognized. 

According to dictionary.com (I know, very academic source, right?), the verb “learn” has the following definitions:

1.  to acquire knowledge of or skill in by study, instruction, or experience.

2. to become informed of or acquainted with.

3. to memorize.

4. to gain by experience or exposure to example.

5. to instruct in; teach.

If these explanations of learning are true, I did nothing but learn this summer.  I was instructed.  I taught. I even memorized.  I acquired knowledge.  Not simply textbook knowledge, but real world, difficult to deal with, hard to explain knowledge.  Truth. 

I acquired and was informed of distinct truths that are crucial to my spirit’s livelihood.  Truth about Jesus and who he was and is, about what exactly happened when he died and why and how that affects me and my relationship with sin and guilt.  Truth about the Holy Spirit, this distinct entity of God that is married to my own spirit and listens to me and fills me up and is powerful.  The Breath of the Creator.  A still small voice that we must quiet ourselves to hear. 

At the clinic, I was informed of aspects of immigration that I was previously unaware of.  As a Spanish translator there, I was shown a glimpse of the legal world of immigration (legal and illegal) and was overwhelmed with the complexity of the system of immigration that has been created.  Some understandably complex…some not.  My heart was overwhelmed and softened by the stories of searching for hope in a new land, only to be poorly treated, abused, neglected, or taken advantage of.  And I am grateful for gaining a friend in my supervisor, Dre, with whom I had many soulful conversations and laughs.

I learned what it feels like to have freedom in Christ.  Growing up in the church, that phrase, “freedom in Christ,” was lost to me.  I knew not what it meant for me or for anyone.  Now I know.  Christ’s death, his transformation into our own sin, liberates us from the guilt and shame that should come with disobedience to His law.  This is the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament! We no longer have to fear God’s punishment, nor do we have to DO anything to “make things right” with Him.  When Jesus said “It is finished,” he may have just been talking about his self-sacrifice, his life, his purpose.  But with that…Guilt is finished. Shame is finished. Fear is finished.  Trying to abide by hundreds of rules, although they were good to follow, is finished.  And thus begins the acceptance of an impossible love that we were first given and now we return. 

It takes nothing.  It takes everything. 

I learned that sometimes God puts people in our lives for a season when we most need them.  I had very specific people in my life this summer that greatly affected me and supported and helped me.  Without going into specifics, without naming names (there are quiet a few), it is an amazing thing to make the connection between the people in your life and their purpose for being there, that the Father brings people together as gifts for each other.

Speaking of which, I do want to mention a few specific people who had an immeasurable impact on my life this summer.

Bekah Sardar.   The orchestration that took place in order for Bekah and I to even meet is incredible.  God’s perfect timing is revealed in our friendship when I told David Bell that I wanted to lead the group she was leading.  Over the past few years, we have had countless opportunities and mutual friends to bring us together, but our loving Father knew the appropriate time.  She was and is a beautiful gift and it is incomprehensible the level of comprehension that we share.  I cherish her. 

Nick Wehner.   One of the most honest men that I know.  He also lead with me and Bekah, stood solidly as the only man in our group, taught us what faithfulness and devotion, even through the Valley of Shadows, really mean in relationship with Christ, and allowed himself to be taught by us as well.  I am grateful for him.

David Bell.  Fearless leader of Access and dear friend.  Lifted from me a spiritual burden so heavy that I was eating dirt.  I am liberated in Christ because of his leadership and authority in my life. 

Christine Twedt.  I met with Christine and a couple of other girls every other week this summer to debrief our small groups and other things going on in our lives.  She is a very wise woman and gave me some priceless advice that I will always keep with me.  And I will never be the same again after soaking my feet in a foot bubbler and watching a Colts game in her company J

In conclusion…

I have only scratched the surface.  So much. So much in me changed. I am learning.  I am Christ’s apprentice.  The Lord has searched me and He knows me, and He is—in His perfect timing—revealing myself, and Himself, to me.  I am liberated. 

And so, I leave you with what I memorized.

“No power on heaven or on earth can separate you from the love of God.  God’s love is unshakable and can always be relied upon.”  Romans 8:38-39

Sweet freedom.

Yours,

Micaela

Dear Friends,

This is a potentially random time of my life to begin a blog (can I just right off the bat say I think the word “blog” is ridiculous and the art of telling stories on the internet deserves a prettier name? Anyway…)  I recently returned from spending ten months studying and traveling in Costa Rica…it probably would have been a more interesting time to start writing about my life a year ago as I prepared to leave for that trip.  However, I find myself today with much more insight into my own mind and spirit than I did a year ago.  My perspective is broadening, my mind is expanding, my soul is searching, my heart is mending, my relationships are deepening, and among the mountains and valleys of life, my God IS.  As He always has been.

I find my passion and peace in the written word.  It fascinates me what a story can evoke from us.  I also love deep, analytical, soul-searching discussions that bring us new and unexplored thoughts.  I just want to share thoughts and stories with you.  To what purpose?  I’m not sure yet.  At the very least, I am using this as an outlet to practice and refine my writing disciplines.  A good writer must exercise his or her abilities just as an athlete, right?  But I do hope that someone else benefits in some way from this.  I hope that as a friend, I can share pieces of myself with you and maybe you will discover something new along with me…or at least nod politely and murmur, “Huh, that’s interesting.”

So consider this my personal correspondence with you…just letters from a friend. 

Yours,

Micaela