An Indomitable Grace

An Indomitable Grace

Thoughts on mercy, humanity, vulnerability, and beauty

I like to write. I don’t know if I’m any good. I like ee cummings, Beyoncé, John Keats, and Shakespeare. I think life is better than death, but perhaps I’m biased.

  • Woman of the Island

    An Indomitable Grace

    I have this idea of a woman. She has long hair, probably a little red, and she’s soft. Her skin in the wintertime is as pale as milk, but gets brown with exposure and summer sun. She is used to wearing hand-knit sweaters, flax-woven dresses, and flowers in her hair. Sehnsucht is in her songs, whispers of all hope and memory and longing.

    She sees the beauty of every kind of weather, wonder in pink sunsets, stormy afternoons, or silent snowfalls. She has not romanticized life, but has let all these things romance her to her very core. She is not frail, not ever, even if sickness wastes away her fleshier parts, she is sturdy, determined, stoic. And yet, she knows when she needs to be cradled by the earth or wrapped in someone else’s arms, when the earth doesn’t suffice. And yet, she can laugh for hours and love for eternity, even when the strain of it hurts her sides and her throat is parched and she doesn’t know to how draw even one more breath. Somehow, she keeps on.

    There, in her eyes, can be seen in turn, or maybe even all at once, a merriment and a sorrow, sorrow that goes down so deep, it mingles with the very groaning of the earth, mingles with the earthquakes and volcanic rumblings, mingles with everything unsettled, mingles with the soil, even as it gives birth to life.

    She is a storm-weary traveler.

    She is the soft sun, breaking through the leaves.

    She is alive.

    She is mystery, paradox, enigma.

    I have this idea of a woman. In her voice is triumph and subtlety. She is bountiful in graces, even when she is lacking in possessions. She maintains the tenuous complexity of being and becoming.

    I have this idea of a woman. She is imperfect and oh so perfect in her imperfection.

    I have this idea of a woman.

  • Great

    An Indomitable Grace

    “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”

    -William Shakespeare

    This line was written as hyperbole to puff-up the already large ego of a character in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Its pompous grandeur and false depth were laid as a trap to make a fool out of a very arrogant man. It worked (watch the play). What was Malvolio’s failure? Why was he so taken in by these words?

    He was blind to the greatness in others.

    I must admit—albeit sheepishly—I have often aspired to greatness (I even read that Jim Collins book). I don’t mean popularity or approval. Those things are not indicative of greatness. Greatness is not about how many people know your name. This is why I love shows like The West Wing and Newsroom. They unfold events that demand greatness of the characters (who fail—a lot). In turn, this demands greatness of the audience. It’s inspiring. It’s…relieving.

    Now, I will tell you a secret, something I suspect Shakespeare knew when he sarcastically scribbled the above lines: greatness is not a birth right or an achievement or a force of nature. Greatness is a generosity.

    Unless we believe that others are great, we cannot be great. Unless we choose to see others as equally capable of all the greatness we hope to achieve, we are merely going to be Malvolios, or worse (and possibly more pitiable), the same CEOs whose business decisions lead to economic havoc or the politicians who can’t create laws supporting average Americans while their own income is wildly disproportionate to the average. We will be the nagging mother or critical boyfriend. We will be the micro-managing boss or the choir lady who corrects everyone else but never sings on key. Treating people with contempt is the best way to hinder your own greatness.

    If any of us strive for greatness—in our careers, with our families, in our communities, in our faith—we must believe that the people we meet, interact with, and read about have the same potential for greatness as the fire that burns in our own imaginations.

    This does not mean that everyone is, in fact, great.  Some are in outright rebellion to greatness. Some are merely pretending. They have learned the right songs to sing and the right beers to order in pubs. They have just enough hipster in them to make them interesting without being condescending. They have just enough nerd in them to make them intellectual without making them socially awkward. They have just enough art to make you think you could write poetry to them forever. And of course, there is greatness in them; they’ve just turned it off with so many shoulds and constructs of cool.

    Maybe my determination to see greatness in others is foolish optimism. Maybe even the term “great” inevitably leads us into the same trap Malvolio falls prey to. Maybe this is just a sentimental ideal, a remnant of the archaic Platonic philosophy. Maybe the amount of evil in the world is too much, or maybe the system is just broken.

    Maybe.

  • my father moved through dooms of love

    An Indomitable Grace

    Read with your intuition at the ready, not your practiced knowledge of grammar. Then you will know its beauty, and you will see the sky the same way that Van Gogh must have.

    34

my father moved through dooms of love 
through sames of am through haves of give,
singing each morning out of each night
my father moved through depths of height

this motionless forgetful where 
turned at his glance to shining here;
that if(so timid air is firm)
under his eyes would stir and squirm

newly as from unburied which
floats the first who, his april touch
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates
woke dreamers to their ghostly roots

and should some why completely weep 
my father's fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry
for he could feel the mountains grow.

Lifting the valleys of the sea
my father moved through griefs of joy; 
praising a forehead called the moon
singing desire into begin

joy was his song and joy so pure
a heart of star by him could steer
and pure so now and now so yes
the wrists of twilight would rejoice

keen as midsummer's keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand,
so strictly(over utmost him
so hugely) stood my father's dream

his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn't creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile.

Scorning the Pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right as rain
his pity was as green as grain

septembering arms of year extend 
yes humbly wealth to foe and friend
than he to foolish and to wise
offered immeasurable is

proudly and(by octobering flame
beckoned)as earth will downward climb,
so naked for immortal work
his shoulders marched against the dark

his sorrow was as true as bread:
no liar looked him in the head;
if every friend became his foe
he'd laugh and build a world with snow.

My father moved through theys of we,
singing each new leaf out of each tree
(and every child was sure that spring
danced when she heard my father sing)

then let men kill which cannot share,
let blood and flesh be mud and mire,
scheming imagine,passion willed,
freedom a drug that's bought and sold

giving to steal and cruel kind,
a heart to fear,to doubt a mind,
to differ a disease of same,
conform the pinnacle of am

though dull were all we taste as bright, 
bitter all utterly things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb death
all we inherit,all bequeath

and nothing quite so least as truth
---i say though hate were why men breathe---
because my Father lived his soul
love is the whole and more than all

-ee cummings

  • You are Gone

    An Indomitable Grace

    You are gone (2)

  • I Know why the Caged Bird Sings

    An Indomitable Grace
    By Maya Angelou

The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream 
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks 
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze 
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

  • Sacred Interruptions

    An Indomitable Grace

    I don’t know where this comes from, but even our dependence on language seems to be born out of our propensity for categorizing.

    We plan and construct and carefully organize. We buy plastic bins to hold our out-of-season clothes, our Christmas decorations, our past selves that we can’t quite throw away. If we have enough, we build castles, or we content ourselves with one in a row of tidy, little cottages. We keep calendars and balance checkbooks. We learn math and logic and how to bring order to everything we touch. We think agency is orderly.

    Then there are people. They are messy things more often than not. They open up our neatly kept boxes, reorganize our cupboards, draw out of us our deepest fears and joys. Relationships are really sacred interruptions, more than phone calls or bad traffic. We cannot approach the sacred with sharpies and bankers boxes. Relationships are mysterious things that cannot be boxed and shelved so easily as our memories. They are to be among the most cherished of our posessions. We may approach, as one philosopher put it, with fear and trembling. 

  • Different Kinds of Happy

    An Indomitable Grace

    “Let us hope that we are all preceded in this world by a love story.”
    –Sweet Land

    Whenever someone asks me what my favorite movie is, I can’t just give one answer. There are at least ten. This is one of them. It is about a young German woman who travels from her home in Norway after World War I to marry a man she’s never met. She finds herself in the middle of Minnesota, where anti-German sentiment is unbridled.

    This isn’t a political film, though. It doesn’t dissect the social norm of mail-order-brides from our modern perspective or try to convince us of the need for the burgeoning socialism. It’s a love story, the kind that makes you want to sit at home with someone you love, after working all day, or bake a pie and drink black coffee. It’s a story about community that reminds me, in this big and sometimes disjointed city, how important it is to help each other out. It is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen.

    At several points in the film, there are references to a conversation Olaf has with his best friend Frandsen while taking a photo of his bride to be, Inge. Frandsen asks Olaf what the word for happy is:

    Olaf: Lykkelig
    Frandsen: Lykkelig’s happy? I thought glede was happy.
    Olaf: That’s more like delighted.
    Frandsen:…What’s the difference?
    Olaf: There’s no difference.
    Frandsen: So why have two words, then?

    When Inge is older, Frandsen poses the same question to her, to which she replies, “Different kinds of happy.”

    In the midst of struggle—being an outsider, not being able to speak the language, a difficult harvest, and losing loved ones—this is a story about people who experience different kinds of happy; like the smell of grass and feeling the sun on your face; friendship and good pie; dancing to familiar music; building trust, forging bonds, and creating memories; the simple gesture of holding hands. This is the story they so beautifully pass on to their children and grandchildren.

    This is my story too, not just because my parents have given me a love story to aspire to. If there has ever been anything compelling about the story of my faith, it is this: we were created in love, redeemed for love’s sake, transformed by love, and remain here to love. We are all preceded by a love story, a story of perfect love. And that love creates in me different kinds of happy.

  • The Art of Invitation

    An Indomitable Grace

    “Jesus never compelled; he invited.”
    -Chip Burkitt

    I sat across from him in a study room at the library. Neutral ground. I had convinced myself I was in love with him, convinced myself that he cared deeply about me, after phone calls from Oxford, Christmas with his family, and tearful conversations about his dad or grandpa. I thought I was important.

    He sat across from me and took back every apology he had made just a few days before, when I told him I felt hurt and that I wasn’t going to hurt silently anymore. I confronted him because I thought he was worthy. People make mistakes, are blind to how their actions affect others, and can fix it if they know it’s broken. He didn’t want to fix it. He wanted to blame someone else.

    I was stunned as he told me that all of the things he had done to hurt me were my fault. I got up to leave, and he coaxed me back to my seat, repeating my name in a sincere, serious tone. Why did I stay? To date, that was the single most painful conversation I have ever had. I felt utterly obliterated. He told me that I was too much, that my desire for intimacy was impossible, because I was too intense (not just for him, for anyone). He told me that I initiated too often, started conversations, planned events. He told me that our friendship only existed because I pushed and pushed.

    Afterwards, my friends told me he was an emotional cripple who couldn’t appreciate authentic human connection. For a long time, I believed them. Sometimes, I still do.

    This was not the first time, nor would it be the last, that I was accused of initiating too much. This isn’t just a failure of conservative Christian sub-culture to accept that women can play an equal role in the formation and sustaining of a relationship. This feedback is actually true. I initiate all the time. I have an idea; I try to make it happen. I think someone is interesting; I invite him to things. I do it so very automatically; I don’t even realize I’m doing it.

    I’ve discovered since then that there’s a reason I’m good at initiating. The Clifton StrengthsFinder says that I am an activator. Activators start things. I have other strengths too, giving rise to frequent ideas and the drive to get things done. I’m also an extrovert who is good at meeting new people and collecting new experiences. I am a risk-taker. This word—risk—can cast me in the best or worst light.

    In relationships, this can be trying. Not everyone likes to start new projects. Not everyone likes my ideas. Not everyone feels comfortable being asked to social functions over and over again and having to turn them down due to other commitments. I can very easily see how my enthusiasm and persistence could be completely exhausting and stressful for someone else, especially if that person dislikes having to say “no.”

    I finally walked away from the library room promising to hate him for a while, shaking, and an hour late to one of my classes. I’m not sure how I survived those months, not talking to him, following through on my promise to loathe him, trying to readjust my routine—I actually got As in all my classes that quarter. As it turns out, I was in love with him and foolish for it. I couldn’t see that then, though, but I wouldn’t undo it. Just like we should carry our great loves with us throughout our lives, our great sorrow must come too.

    Over time, I have learned the art of invitation. At any rate, I know it exists. I am far from perfecting it. Inviting is a specialized form of initiating. An invitation conveys generosity, acceptance, and kindness.

    “Jesus never compelled; he invited.” This is how the church (at its best) operates as well. And this is my goal, to invite, to let people know that they only need knock, and that, once they are inside, there’s no need to worry about me locking the door behind them. Every day, I am striving at cultivating a heart that says, “Come in; it’s warm and cozy in here, and we will have oh so many adventures,” a heart that is strong and resilient to rejection (after all, you’re probably doing it wrong if you’ve never experienced rejection).

    This approach will still scare people. It will feel as though it is too much, as though I am too much. But if that is the case, it will be because of demands they are placing on themselves, not ones that come from me.

    Today, he and I are friends, not the kind that text everyday or know everything about each other. We catch up at parties and reminisce or philosophize over drinks sometimes. In those moments, I am reminded what had intrigued me; I remember why we became friends in the first place.

  • On the Occasion of Another Birthday

    An Indomitable Grace
    By Fern Hill

Stored up in the brimming caverns of my heart
is an innocent plead that once I made.

Solitary, on my back in the whispering mid-afternoon grass
I let the spring winds caress and bless me.

There the perfume of my sacrifice rose, amply laden
with hope, to forgo the fires of youth in quest of truth.

Stipulating little, I knew only a vague shape would await me:
redolent with kindness and a heart that burned.

I bring it forth now to abate my lonesome sorrow,
a traveler reminiscing their first steps, though still far from
  the end.

     

  • Mal du Pays

    An Indomitable Grace

    Let me live in yesterday,
    when the untamed land was as spacious as the sea,
    as terrifying as it was inviting;
    let me live in the days of possibility,
    when all that is was yet to come.

    Let me live in yesterday,
    with a horse-drawn plough
    and toilets outdoors;
    let me live when normal was necessary
    and necessity a great beauty.

    Let me live in yesterday,
    in the wide-eyed wonder of innovation,
    of first flights and first test drives;
    let me live when women dared greatly,
    and men did the same.

    Let me live in yesterday,
    in the dawn of the cocktail party,
    revel in a sound with more soul than structure;
    let me live in Fitzgerald’s fairy tale,
    or near Chanel’s first store-front.

    Let me live in yesterday,
    with pastel-colored cars
    and picket-fence dreams;
    let me live in the light
    of the evening’s rising moon,
    when we forgot and remembered how to be.

    Let me live in yesterday,
    when midnights were full of magic,
    and tomorrow still held hope’s promises;
    let me live in last night’s embrace
    and the once adoring expression in your eyes;
    let me slip into sleep in the peaceful knowing
    of your present and unwavering affection;
    let me live in bygone days once more.

    If I never make it Home again,
    at least let me live in the in-between
    of almost, before time has had a chance to decay
    what today has already begun to slip away.