I bought an e.e. cummings poetry book: this is what resulted. (Okay, this hardly exemplifies my admiration for cummings, but I did split a word between two lines.)
Also, it’s fiction. Geez.
Also, also: three syllable lines!!
IV.
Dear future
husband, I
am sorry
but I have
(in retro-
spect) cheated
on you. Love,
forgive me
because I
didn’t know
you yet and
I thought you
wouldn’t mind
if I kissed
a man who
isn’t you
and let him
touch my breasts.
Dear present
wife, it’s fine.
I love you
anyway.
November 8, 2010 Leave a comment
He baked you a cake?
Yeah. Isn’t it great? I’ll never want to finish eating it.
He obviously likes you.
Well, I thought so. Before, I mean, when he gave me the cake. But I know he doesn’t.
Caitlyn, he baked you a cake for crying out loud. How could he not like you?
He’s just home-broken. House-broken. Whatever you call it. He bakes.
No guy bakes for a girl he’s just friends with.
This guy does.
I don’t believe it.
Oh, believe it. You should’ve been there when I met him.
Tell me.
We were at McConn.
Together?
No, no. I was in line, and he was in front of me.
Did you say hi?
Not right away. I just kind of stared.
At what?
His hair.
His hair?
He has really nice hair. He usually covers it with that silly hat.
But underneath it?
Really … great … hair.
[pause.]
So then you said hi?
No, I touched his hair.
You didn’t?
I did. And you know what? It’s soft. Just like you’d expect it to be.
You’re joking, right? You just went up and touched his hair.
I wish. I asked first.
That’s a little better.
I said, “You have really great hair. Can I touch it?”
Oh, Caitlyn, that’s hilarious! What did he do?
He leaned over and let me touch it.
Aww.
The rest is history.
Then he likes you?
Not exactly.
You just said the rest was history, like it’s the end of the story. So it’s not?
Well, that was a month ago. So much has happened.
Like what?
The date.
You went on a date with him?
Sort of.
Tell me!
It was nothing. We just watched a movie at his apartment.
Alone?
Well, yeah alone. It was a date … I think.
You mean you don’t know?
It seemed like a date. He flirted.
Yeah?
And he walked me back to campus.
Did he try to hold your hand?
No.
Then it wasn’t a date.
He could be a prude.
Yeah, Caitlyn, get real. Did he know that you liked him? On the date, I mean.
Oh yeah, it was pretty clear. Lots of signals.
But he didn’t hold your hand?
Nope.
Then he doesn’t like you.
I told you.
But there’s more, isn’t there?
Well, that happened two weeks ago, so yeah there’s more.
What next?
He called me.
He didn’t!
The next day. He called me just to talk.
Oh, guys never do that.
They don’t.
Surely he must like you.
I thought he did. When he called me, I was sure of it.
Then what changed?
Well, he gave me the cake.
Right.
He gave me the cake Thursday, then yesterday we talked. We DTR’d.
Defined the relationship. Got it.
I told him I liked him. I told him I liked his hair and his smile and the way he says his vowels.
Then how’d he respond? What’d he say?
He said, “Huh.” He just brushed it off, like it was nothing.
That doesn’t mean anything.
Of course it does. It means everything.
[pause.]
So are you sad?
Kind of.
What’re you going to do with the cake?
Eat it, I guess.
November 3, 2010 Leave a comment
Grace doesn’t grow in the springtime. Grace grows in the winter, when everything’s dead, when life is the brown sludge beneath your rubber boots.
It comes as a surprise.
We talk about life as having seasons. In the spring, life is born. In summer, it’s sustained. In fall, it starts dying and by winter, it’s dead.
But what if that’s not how it works at all? Maybe life is always about dying. Maybe it’s about repeatedly dying to our worldviews, our theories, our ways of doing things, our attitudes, our agendas, our impatience, our sins.
I think the seasons of life take place between October and December. In October, we start dying, but not to the right stuff. We die to the good we’ve always known. In October, we sin.
Then by November, we’ve killed God. We have sinned enough to shut him out, to no longer care. We’ve let sin creep in, settle on our sofas and stay awhile.
In November we think we’re screwed.
So we started messing around in October, now we’re deep into this new way of living. It’s easy to be short-tempered; it’s easy to walk past you. We’ve become different people. We used to be, by the grace of God, patient people. Now look who we are.
Hope: it’s gone. The trees stay green forever.
But in December, Grace grows unexpectedly. Up from the ground, under your feet, through the snow, through the dirt, through the frozen ground, Grace grows.
Thank God.
You don’t need Grace in the summer when all is well. You need Grace when things couldn’t possibly get any worse.
—
I wrote Late October first, while reflecting on sin — my own sin — and how it seemed unconquerable. A week or so after, I wrote Late
November and Late December while plotting a way out of sin. I want a way out. I’m close.
It’s been fall for a long time; now it’s winter, and I’ve seen sprouts of Grace.
In the past week or so I’ve posted two of the three poems in this series. Here’s the complete collection including Late December, my poem on Grace.
—
Late October
Late October
and the Norway maple hasn’t turned
red or orange or whatever color
Norway maples turn.
Today
and tomorrow:
an endless cycle of green
and green and green
and green and green.
Through the window
the masochists
slit their wrists,
crying but with bliss.
Late November
Late November
and God is dead
like the maple trees and the leaves
falling out of them.
I did it
with a handful of the
foliage of God, yanking leaves
one by one by one by one
—just so I know he’s gone:
he’s dead.
God haunts still,
like apparitions, and
he howls through crooked
branches, waving:
Hi, I miss you.
Do you miss me?
Late December
Late December
and grace grows
like heaths. It is the
dead of winter,
yet grace grows in the dead
leaves crushed to the ground
and stomped upon,
with booted feet,
crushed into snow
and slush: grey, black,
brown.
October 30, 2010 Leave a comment
3.
Late November
and God is dead
like the maple trees
and the leaves falling
out of them.
You did it
with a handful of the
foliage of God, yanking leaves
one by one by one by one
—just so you know he’s gone:
he’s dead.
God haunts still,
like apparitions, and
he howls through crooked
branches, waving:
Hi, I miss you.
Do you miss me?
October 26, 2010 Leave a comment
I told Nate I’ve forgotten how to write prose–perhaps I have. I’ve been writing poetry a lot lately, mostly for class, and I’ve written a lot of news stories. I haven’t had time to write creative prose. This blog may seem disjointed, probably because I’m out of practice, or because my thoughts are so disjointed.
—
What have I been thinking about lately? Sin.
I almost wrote a sin blog a few weeks ago, but I haven’t found the time. Even now, even on fall break, I know I should write a lit. analysis or a four-page paper on Saladin instead of blogging–but I need to blog. I have to blog.
So. Sin.
I used to try to narrow all my petty sins back to a bigger, more internal sin. Usually I got it back to pride or selfishness. I think that’s true.
What was Eve’s sin? She took the fruit from the snake. How was that a sin? She disobeyed God. Why did she disobey God? She thought he was holding back something from her, something she needed. She was insecure. She was selfish.
What I hate about sin is how unavoidable it is. Christ says stuff like “things that cause people to sin are bound to come.” You think you’re clear of sin: things like lying, cheating, stealing, adultery, gossip? You get all haughty and proud. Good job: you just sinned.
I hate that God’s standard for sin is so broad: “Whoever, then, knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.” I should eat low fat yogurt instead of this chocolate chip cookie … ah, what the hey. It’s the weekend. Whoops, you just sinned.
I hate how sneaky sin is. Thrice (yes, the band Thrice) describes sin as a lion and a wolf. You try to keep the big sins out, but the little sins sneak in without noticing like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. (Or, I think of Little Red Riding Hood.) Those little sins let the big sins in the door.
The wolf, he howls
The lion does roar
The wolf lets him in
The lion runs in through the door
The real fun begins
As they both rush upon you and
Rip open your flesh
The lion eats its fill and then
The wolf cleans up the mess
I hate how much God hates sin. George MacDonald said whatever comes between us and God must be destroyed with fire.
—
Here’s my question, theologians, when you’re stuck in sin, how do you get out? If you tell me that to be a Christian I must live a God-honoring, righteous, sin-less, “blameless” life, how do I stop sinning? Is it just my decision? Is it willpower? Is it God? Can the Holy Spirit stop me?
What if prayers aren’t answered? What if the cycle of addiction never stops? What if I can’t overcome, what if I let sin win, what if I have to give in, what if I’m tired of fighting, what if I no longer care?
You Calvinists say I’m fine.
You Armenians say I’m going to hell.
When will I remember that life is a series of troughs and peaks, summits and nadirs? When will I remember that my relationship with God, like all relationships, is in flux?
In Comm. Theory we talk about Relational Dialectics which states that truth: relationships are always in flux. There are times when everything seems to be perfect, this is called the “aesthetic moment.” It never lasts.
So my aesthetic moments with God are few and far between.
But we’re okay.
(God, we’re okay, right?)
—
At least there’s hope.
Believe it or not: there is some.
“There’s now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
And,
“But sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.”
Ezekiel
October 22, 2010 Leave a comment
II.
Late October
and the Norway maple hasn’t turned
red or orange or whatever color
Norway maples turn.
Today
and tomorrow:
an endless cycle of green
and green and green
and green and green.
Through the window
the masochists
slit their wrists,
crying but with bliss.
—
Author’s note: “Things that cause people to sin are bound to come” [Luke 17:1a]. If only they weren’t.
October 22, 2010 Leave a comment
“[God] is against sin: insofar as, and while, they and sin are one, He is against them–against their desires, their aims, their fears, and their hopes; and thus He is altogether and always for them. That thunder and lightening and tempest, that blackness torn with the sound of a trumpet, that visible horror billowed with the voice of words, was all but a faint image … of what God thinks and feels against vileness and selfishness, of the unrest of unassuageable repulsion with which He regards such conditions.”
—
Lauren’s thoughts: It’s odd thinking that God is both for and against us. He’s against the sins we’re tangled up in; he’s against our innate drive for self-gratification, for hunger over restraint. But because he is against that, he’s for us. He wants a Lauren – he wants a you – purged from sin.
October 4, 2010 Leave a comment
George MacDonald said, “Poetry is the highest form of the utterance of men’s thoughts.” Sometimes when I’m thoughtful and pensive and nostalgic and lonely and upset I write poetry.
1.
I told God to sleep
On the couch. Tonight
I’ll sleep alone with the comfort
Of my comforter.
I’ll let God
Sweat it out
And wonder why
I am so pissed at him.
He’ll think
About what he did: did he
Tell a crude joke or say
Something rude about my hair?
When he asks (and
He will ask)
I’ll tell him
It’s nothing.
And it’s nothing. God,
I’m fine. I’m fine,
Really. Just don’t
Come back to bed.
*Update 9/29/2010
September 25, 2010 Leave a comment
I hesitate to blog anymore because my audience has grown so much. I don’t mean that to sound like bragging, but since I went overseas and got a boyfriend, more people have been interested in what I say. That scares me. Gulp. Do I want you to read this?
I have one standard for my blog – honesty. I write what I believe (whether it’s truth or not is another matter). I write in order to enact change; I write in order for my brothers and sister in Christ to agree, to say “Amen”; I write to vent or rant or ask questions. But I write with the intention of total transparency. I know I’m not always right. I know that what I say is often embarrassing or self-righteous or ignorant. I want this blog to be a testament of my brokenness. As long as it’s honest.
(It’s odd: I only half-realize that what I write is public. It’s not until someone I don’t know very well comments on a post that the regret kicks in. Should I have written that?)
But I’ve been doing this since I was 14, so no use stopping now. Even if this blog gets read by thousands – oh, maybe one day – I can’t quit being myself. I can’t quit pondering and wrestling and ranting. Am I not Ezekiel, God’s mouthpiece?
I’ve been thinking about my heart a lot, because of this book I read. I finished reading Joy in the Morning by Betty Smith for possibly the fifth time. I lost count.
The story is about Annie and Carl Brown during their first year of marriage in 1927. Carl is a third year law student and Annie is his 18-year-old bride. It’s a rags-to-riches story, a theme popular in its time.
I love the book because I think I’m Annie. Rather, I view myself as someone like her. I know I’m not really that much like her. I either wish I were or I try to be.
Annie’s a writer. She’s this quirky girl who gets way too excited about silly little things; she gets absorbed in projects; she wants to fit in; she loves reading; she loves observing people. She’s a character.
What I love most about Annie – and how I relate to her the most – is her childlike heart. She seems so very young. She calls herself a dope all the time. Carl calls her his child-bride.
Annie’s 18 in the book, 19 by the end, but her heart is still 12.
Her heart is a curious little girl who wants to read and write and play house.
She has conversations like this with Carl:
“Would you love me if I was a factory worker?” [asked Carl.]
“Of course. But you’re not a factory worker. You are going to be a lawyer. You got to be a lawyer. I told the children their father’s a lawyer.”
“What children?”
“The children I’m going to have.”
“We’re going to have.”
“I’m going to have them. You can watch.” p.61
When I am confused about something or need to make a decision that my heart has a say in, I compartmentalize my Heart, my Head and sometimes my Body. I give them voices and let them speak.
I did it once for this
blog.
I let my Head speak for my rationale. I let Heart speak for my, well, heart. And I let Body speak for my impulses.
But I decided a few weeks ago that my Head, my Heart and my Body are different ages. Body is obviously 20. But Head is in grad school – 24, 25 maybe.
I think my Heart’s still a baby.
I remember when I first had that realization, when I was 13. When people asked me how old I was, I’d want to say 12. Sometimes I still want to answer 12.
I don’t know what that says about me exactly. I hope it’s nothing bad. I hope it doesn’t hurt my relationships or cause me to remain naive or pathetic for the rest of my life.
But I think it’ll keep me like Annie. I think it’ll keep me hopeful when life is stressful. I think it’ll keep me writing even if I never get published.
—
A few years ago I began this
quest to find myself. I wanted to know who I am stripped of every relationship, every label or stereotype, every defining quality. I wanted to know who I am via Jesus and no one else.
Something happened, I think. I had it all figured out sometime last year. I felt cool. I felt confident. But then life happened. I started doubting God. I started doubting that he cared about me at all, that he had a plan for me. Or something. Man, I don’t even know what happened.
So I’m back here again. What I started two years ago, I’m starting again. I’m trying to find myself.
Yeah, I know the basics. I know who I am as a writer. I know who I am as a student, as a woman, as a dreamer, as a friend. But I don’t know who I am as a girlfriend. I don’t know who I am as an adult, a professional. I don’t know who I am fully. I only know in part.
I know my Head, but I don’t always know my Heart. I never know what she’s up to. I have to ask her, and when I do, she starts freaking out.
I figure life is like this. I wrote a few years ago how my friend Adam told me that you can never fully know who you are, and I said that I didn’t believe him. I believe him now. I won’t always get myself. I’m peculiar, even to myself. But I can learn. And the learning may never stop.
Ezek.
September 3, 2010 Leave a comment
I haven’t blogged to just blog in a while. I’ve written a lot about PLC; I’ve written a few creative pieces, but I haven’t just blogged.
Granted, most of the time I blog I have some muse to inspire me. I’m muse-less. I’m reading an essay by Ray Bradbury about “feeding and caring for your Muse,” but it hasn’t helped. I’ll be back to school soon and will have plenty to write about. So, no worries. (Were you worried?)
But, stuff has been going on, so I’ll update you.
Updates:
1. I’m in America. Yes, I’m adjusting well. I’ve spent 20 years and two months in America; two months away isn’t going to do much difference. I wish it did, sort of. I wish I viewed my life completely differently (but for the better) now that I’m home. I wish I was more thankful for my freedoms. I wish I spent my money on the children in Iraq and not on Old Crown coffee.
2. I have a boyfriend. For those of you who don’t know the story, Nate and I started talking when I was in Iraq – the first week I was there, actually. We had a few classes together at IWU. (Fun fact: one of my first memories of Nate was when he beat me in Scrabble. Bah!) We’re “official” now, and have been for 3 1/2 weeks.
3. I’m going back to IWU soon. I don’t know the exact date, but I’m heading back early for Sojourn workshops. I am the managing editor this year (second in charge, I guess), so I get to plan said workshops. It’s kind of fun. But also extremely stressful and hectic and frustrating.
4. I have a million half-read books on my bedside table. I started reading a few books in Iraq and in transit (Jayber Crow, Teaching a Stone to Talk) and started a few more now that I’m home (The Zen in the Art of Writing, The Copy-Editing and Headline Handbook), but I’ve only finished a few this summer. I’m disappointed in myself. Last summer, 19 books. This summer, 3.
5. I was in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette this morning. I was interviewed about my internship. You should read it, then feel led to donate to PLC and #RemedyMission.
August 19, 2010 Leave a comment
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