Item 2: Super Powers

Everybody wants super powers.

We all want to be super heroes.

But the Batmans (Batmen?), Incredible Hulks, and Black Widows of this world

Are the Yous and the Mes who take our devastating, terrible, potentially crippling experiences,

And rather than letting them encourage us to fear the evil,

We use them to fight for good.


To be a Super Hero is simply to refuse to give your past power over your future.

Take those moments you'd rather forget

and use them to rescue your fellow citizens from the darkness you once knew.

Item 1: Battle

Once in a while

you're graced with a reminder

that you have a hero inside of you

and the monster is fighting a losing battle.

Not a Blog

I’m terrible at blogging. I admit it.

But I have a good excuse! 

Reason?

Excuse.

A friend recently blogged about how he is bad at blogging because he feels his blogs have to be blogged perfectly in order to blog effectively. And I get that. Because I do the same thing. When I blog. Blog.

It seems that the writing advice you both give and get most often is “edit, edit, edit!”

The issue here is that you can easily edit so hard and so much that your end product is something that you never even wrote.

Or worse

You don’t want to edit it, so it just fades away into that file of half-blogs that’s been squatting in your computer’s attic for years.

I think maybe the best advice that we give and get should be, “Just write.”

So here’s my solution

Instead of waiting for a blog to be perfect, I’m going to try not-blogging sometimes.

Not giving up.

But rather giving in.

To the idea that maybe you can have

A blog

Where you blog

But it’s not always a blog

Sometimes it’s a

Thought

Or poem

Or just some words.

I got the idea from one of my favorite writers.

If figure - if he does it

And he makes a lot of nice words

Then maybe there’s something to it.

Courage

It is easy to feel, much against what is true, that I am alone.

For some unknown reason, when something particularly difficult happens, we - humanity - take it as a sign that we are not in good company.

I do not know a single person, of whom I am particularly fond, who has not undergone some sort of devastating moment.

 The one where every bit of oxygen leaves you

 at the precise instant that the air on every side closes in

pressing

on your every inch.

Quite at the same moment

each atom in your body fuses hot and cold

creating an unknown and altogether unappealing sensation that you are 

drowning 

while you also 

happen to be on fire.

Spontaneous combustion seems palatable.

It is, in every way, the worst feeling.

But the glistening glory, the grain of sand that rebuilds an entire world, is the knowledge that this is but a moment that opens a doorway to a new kind of life. A life in which you live among giants.

Think of your heroes.

What was their tragedy?

And what is it that makes them your hero?
Surely it is their courage in the face of evil.

Tragedy, you see, welcomes you into excellent company.
But it is with courage that you earn your keep.

Courage is a funny thing.

You are given courage to begin with. It is in you. But it does not stay if you do not ask. And it certainly does not stay if you are unwilling to put forth the effort it demands. Courage must not only be actively chosen over and over again, but fought for. It offers itself in each choice, but it does not give itself easily.

In fact, usually, it is the quietest option. It waits to see if you will notice it's there, ask it to dance. Normally, to be honest, we choose fear, because look at the way it twirls in that dress. And flight, see the way it beckons you away? And, oh, revenge, how sweet it seems. But courage is the wallflower that woos us all.

Choose courage and you will be ruined for all the others.

And it is in this courage that you will one day look up and find that you have become the giant, and that you stand alone no longer.

Parade

Already in bed.

Dozing and texting.

Surrendering to the end of this today.

*clink*

No mind.

*clap*

Wait.

*crash*

It’s here.

Out of bed and through the door. Sleep didn’t matter and tomorrow could wait.

The first rain was knocking, and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

It crashes over everything with a ready-or-not attitude, existing to touch and be felt and to change and move and pour over every inch it can reach, urging things clean and to grow and toward what is to come.

Rain, you see, in a word and in every way, is joy.

God did me a kindness when He brought me to an apartment with a back porch. Sitting feet-tucked-up, too-cold-to-move, silent-for-fear-of-missing-a-drop is the best way I know how to appreciate in genuine awe the first rain of the year.

Ripples in puddles that only just exist. Wind turns visible, showing it’s true nature is not to bite. And, oh, in a way that is past understanding, no sound falls sweeter than rain’s orchestrated cacophony of a voice

Calling me to remember the truth that, to me, it is joy.

Hang Tight

I wrote this post in September or October, I don't remember which. I opted not to post it at the time-but now, today, on this lunch break, I'm sharing a bit more of me with you. 

***

People keep asking me why I look different.

If I’ve changed my hair or…they just can’t put their finger on it. And then they look for a long second, examining me.  Trying to figure it out. I have nothing to tell them. My hair is the same, my make-up is usual, my outfit is typical.

But what I can offer them -- is that I am awake.

There is no good way to describe the way you feel when you wake up.

Let me clarify:

  There is no good-enough way to explain to people the feeling deep down of coming alive again.

I was caught in sleep for months, it feels.  Pressing the snooze button, slowly seeking consciousness. Deciding I could sleep a bit longer.  

But that’s not how sleep works.

Sleep is not for hiding-- it is for rest.

When the time came that I was shown that I was no longer resting, but hiding—I woke up. 
Thankfully, it was just in time for Autumn, the consistent time of year in which I feel most awake.

            When the weather turns cold

                            And leaves carpet the sidewalks

                                            And squirrels become particularly defensive.                                             (They’re even a little scary about it. But that’s their thing to work through.)

It’s as though the tectonic plates of your life have shifted and you begin to feel your life quake.

Things are moving, sliding, rushing, creeping, to places you never would have expected. All the while things are moving back to places you thought were permanently barren.

Life springs forth, and moves forward.

Life goes on.

And so do you.

Hang tight.

Rafiki

Do you remember that time when your uncle orchestrated the wildebeest stampede that murdered your father and then told you it was your fault so that you would run away and doubt yourself and your abilities for the rest of your life? 

No you don’t. That happened to Simba. 

But.

You can probably relate to him on a basic level.

 There is something that happened to Simba the 90’s dream lion that I think has happened to a lot of us. 

In the midst of supposed failures and a desperate search for who his peers and culture thought he was supposed to be, he lost who he actually was. Mm. Well. He didn’t lose it. He just forgot it.

Fortunately for all of us, a crazy stick-wielding baboon and a swirling-clouds-in-the-sky-with-diamonds-apparition of Simba’s father, Mufasa each had a heart-to-heart with him reminding him to…

“Remember who you are.”  

I’m going to remind you of a few things I know for certain about you, things you might have forgotten. Or, maybe things you have never been told. And then, I encourage you to cling to those things and move forward with confidence in who you are – not who culture tells you to be. 

You are:

-Spectacular and unique, gifted with talents and skills that could change your world.
-Loved. Even if you don’t feel it/believe it, whoever you are, I promise that you are loved. And, if you don’t believe me, let’s talk.
-A human made by the same God who designed everything from supernovas to the tiny whatchamacallits that make up atoms. Not only were you designed by Him, but you were calculated in each step of the creation process to look like Him and reflect Him. Ain’t too shabby.
-By nature of being human, not alone. There is someone else dealing with the same things you are, and they’re probably closer than you think.  But, if you can’t find them, there is a God (the One mentioned previously) who became man for a time and suffered through the glory and agony that it is to be human so that you could always go to Him, because He gets it.
-To die for.

Ok. That’s that. I have a lot and a lot more to say. But chew on this and let me know what you come up with. Those things I just said were true of you. And if you can process through them and own them, there’s nostopping you. 

Remember who you are. Not who you think you’re supposed to be.