Boats at Sea

Usually we don't realize what's going on around us in a given moment. Only in hindsight can one see (and marvel at) all that was taking shape at a given time, and how it all worked together to bring about the present moment. We're thrown into situations and have to figure stuff out while it's already going on, and there's no pause button. [A friend said of this: it's like a boat at sea. You can never dock it on dry land to patch holes or whatever; you have to make all your repairs while still keeping yourself afloat.]

The whole process of growing up fits this pattern. To use a super simple example, we had bodies long before we knew what bodies were, or that we could control our hands and feet using our thoughts. Which, sidebar, seems pretty miraculous when you think about it. This wordless fluency with which we pilot these bodies we didn't choose and often don't understand.

In a relationship with God you eventually look back and realize He was pursuing you all along, way before you were aware. He works before you give Him permission, to get you to a place where you will give Him permission.

All of life is improv. Maybe this is why on-stage improv can be possible. It's not nonsensical to step into a pre-existing situation/"scene", or, if it is, at least each player/actor has loads of experience from doing this every single day of their life. People say to me all the time that improv must be scary, and I appreciate what they mean by this, and don't mind the comment, but each moment of their own life has been improv. No matter how much you prepare for something, it's never exactly how you expected it, and you must adapt or face grave consequences. "Yeah, but you have to be funny," they reply. Well, it's easier to be funny than to be loving, kind, brave, gentle, good. Much. I would know.

I like clean breaks. Clear beginnings, wrapped-up endings. But I rarely seem to get them. I recently read that "closure" is an idea that often makes people unhappy by getting them to think it is a real thing. This was both a relief and a great disappointment. I'm sure closure is a real thing, but I am equally sure it is way more elusive than anyone wants. Certainly more elusive than I was able to admit to myself before reading that it might be fake.

You don't get the hang of almost anything until you've been doing it for a while. Here's an example about getting involved in a new place. I've been telling people about this theory I have that it takes, say, 51 times showing up somewhere to reach the tipping point. The first 50 times you show up somewhere (examples: Bible study, the teachers' lounge) in a foreign country, you see strangers and any contact is necessarily shallow and you feel awkward and have to make an effort not to leave. But that 51st time you enter the room and are greeted by name and surrounded by familiar faces, probably friendly and smiling ones. If you are living somewhere for only a semester, you can hit this sweet spot right before it's time for you to move away. Here in France, the other teachers seemed to be nicer to me than ever in my last two weeks of teaching.

It's sometimes difficult for me not to feel a little regret and wonder how this year (this seven-month?) would have turned out if I had been more outgoing and taken more risks earlier on. But, two problems with that: 1) I can't turn back time, and there are plenty of great things about this experience, I'm not going to go out of my way to engage a bad feeling; and 2) I think you always appreciate people the most at the moment you say goodbye to them. This was one of my favorite things about the study abroad experience. I appreciated my college and all my friends sooooo much when I left the country, but unlike with graduation, I got to come back the next year and appreciate them in person again. In my experience you can't rush this goodbye- closeness/attachment/appreciation. I suspect it's brought on by the pending separation. That was why studying-abroad "worked" in this way: I really left, and really came back.

Is there a lesson I gained from this? I think it changed my interactions with people because I began to think, "This is fleeting. When I look back on this, how will I want to say it all went down?" Which I think is a good way for me to live in general, in relationships or in other areas. Because life is pretty short when all is said and done. And I loathe the idea that someone could be feeling unappreciated or unloved and have to wait until, like, their retirement party to find out what they meant to people. Or worse. But I bet that happens often. People say really nice things at funerals. When we die, hopefully we go to heaven and see what we meant to others, though while we were alive we just had to trust that it was Something and that there was a current guiding our little bobbing undockable boats that we just woke up inside one day with no warning.

Songs I love but can't agree with, part one

[One of my favorite things is responding to songs as though they were one half of a conversation. I'm a little self-conscious because I know dumb pop songs are just dumb pop songs and supposedly they only pick the words because they rhyme. Maybe they are not meant to be taken that seriously. Nevertheless, I love this and am thus doing it anyway.]

Recently on a blog I keep up with there was a post called "I've been using music to amplify my toxic emotions." I got really excited when I saw the title, because I was like, "I think I do that too!" Unfortunately the post didn't live up to my expectations. I thought it was too general. And the author's way of using music isn't exactly the same as mine. But it probably doesn't matter whether we had the exact same emotions, or what songs overlapped with our negative emotions. I'm sure the outcome is quite similar, and unfortunately the solution too. What worked for her was wiping her iPod and starting from scratch with only music that creates positive thoughts. Ouch. I'll have to keep that idea on the back burner for a while until I can handle considering it. In the meantime, I am happy, delighted even, to critique songs I love (for the way they sound, and also in a guilty-pleasure-improv-character sort of way) but just cannot agree with.

Katy Perry has a place in my heart, even though I just deleted "I Kissed a Girl" from my iPod and iTunes because I realized how dumb that song is and how I am never just like, "man I want to listen to that song." The lyrics, even with gender aside, are all about kissing someone you don't even know, and that idea has honestly never appealed to me. (Also in this case they're drunk, which, if possible, makes it an even less inviting idea.) I was really sad when I learned that that awesome old black-and-white picture of a man dipping a woman into a kiss was between strangers. It no longer seemed as charming to me. So "I Kissed a Girl" was relatively easy to part with. I don't love it or agree with it.

But "The One That Got Away" is another story. It's super catchy. Sure the first verse is full of rascally behavior, but I consider high school to be distant enough past that it doesn't really matter. Well, tattoos are for life, but, moving on.. The chorus begins, "In another life/ I would be your girl/ we'd keep all our promises, it'd be us against the world." I can't argue with the factual nature of this, because it's another life so anything could happen, but I do think that this is sort of a dumb thing to think about, especially for this type of thing. We're not in another life, and continuing to repeat this particular speculation is more likely to hurt than to help anything, emotionally speaking.

The next part I have more of a problem with: "In another life/I would make you stay." I hate this line. You can't make someone stay, and if you could you wouldn't want to. This is like the whole epitome of why sin is possible and why the world is so f'ed up. God values free will highly enough that he allows us to make choices that hurt people, and hurt him. He invites us into love and freedom, but doesn't force it. Love is the opposite of making someone do something.

I am about to quote The Shack. Prepare your heart. In The Shack, Jesus says, "To force my will on you is exactly what love does not do. Genuine relationships are marked by submission even when your choices are not helpful or healthy." Thank you, Shack Jesus! Can you tell Katy Perry this, please?

Further, Jesus breaks all the locks and all the chains that bind us. This is something we cannot do, so this is always "his part." But we have a part, too. We have to walk out of the now-unlocked cages by ourselves. We have to stand up and dance until the chains fall off. If we can't do it right away, he waits. Super patiently. His arms are always open and they never get tired. But we have a choice to make that he can't and won't make for us. It's a partnership in this sense. [Oh, you want a concrete example of chains? He conquers the sin that other people have committed against us, breaking the hold it has on us, freeing us to forgive by his own victory and forgiveness. But we choose to forgive. He won't make us, and we yet we won't be free until we do forgive.] I say all this to emphasize that even Jesus doesn't make you stay (/make you do anything, technically). So it's stupid for anyone else to aspire to this. (Particularly if the only reason you give for this is "So I don't have to say you were the one that got away," which isn't even grammatically correct).

So Katy, or whoever actually wrote this song, in another life, you would not make him stay. You shouldn't want to. You should want him to be free, and happy. You can want him to pick you, but if he doesn't, he's not your man and you should respect that for both of your sakes.

I keep thinking of Terri or whatever Mr. Schuester's wife's name is in the first season of Glee. SPOILER ALERT.. for the first season, lol... she fakes a pregnancy to get him to stay with her selfish self. And guess what he does the second he learns the truth? That's right, he leaves. And he doesn't come back (at least not as far as I am in Glee, which isn't far, but I don't think he's planning on it, either). The things we could do to make people stay are not worth it. Honest, honest. And it doesn't work, usually. You can make someone stay physically without keeping them emotionally engaged. In fact, this is a likely outcome if you force someone to stay.

Back to "The One That Got Away." There's another verse, sort of clever but fluffy at the same time. Then she sings towards the end, "I should have told you what you meant to me," and this, I can get behind. This, rather than making someone stay, is actually a good thing to do a lot of the time. Then the other person can decide what they'll do about it, as a free being. So, ultimately she hits on a good idea. But she doesn't stick with it. She goes right back to that chorus. Twice.