Sacraments & Running Away

The Sun! It happens sometimes

I'm in Wisconsin for Easter, which is kind of strange for me. It's the first year I haven't gone to a Good Friday service in my whole life. While I miss the communal remembrance of sin and sacrifice (I think it was just this year that I finally truly understood what Christ's death means. All the depravity, selfishness, and twisted manipulation that humanity has and does and will continue to unleash on the world and each other is awful. It's frightening. The amount of darkness inside of me alone frightens me. And Jesus took all of it, and it was so much that the sun couldn't even continue looking. The entire world went black and the stones cried out, and I finally understood it's because so much evil was in one place, on one person), I feel like I am able to remember the passover, Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Christ in a different way here.

The view of our house

Last night we ate pizza and talked about what it would mean if the bread and wine in communion was actually Christ. How we carry Him around with us in our everyday life, and the consequences that gives to pizza and Thursday nights and road trips.

I love my friends, this chosen family, so dearly. Yet when I am with them I know how unbelievably selfish I am. I forget to do what I say I will do, I break my promises, I betray others without even realizing (which is worse, because whatever understanding I'm betraying isn't of enough consequence to me for me to remember it in the first place). The sorrows of the world, of myself, visited me, became stones, and placed themselves on my ribs and palms and feet. Then Jesus took them.

Death consumes all of us, daily and in the end. I'm leaving these beautiful people. They're crazy, and I'm thankful. I'm so thankful I just burst into tears yesterday while reading a book, because there is so much love and it feels so useless when physical presence will end.

What is also true, however, is that death itself is gone. C.S. Lewis and Sheldon Vanaulken meet in Oxford for what, both of them knew was most likely, the last time. They hug, and maybe wept (I don't remember). Lewis crosses the street and down a ways while Vanaulken watches, wanting to make a memory. Then, Lewis turns around, and this tall oak of a man shouts "But the great thing is, Christians never say goodbye!"

So this weekend, I'm making a memory. While crafting this beautiful space that I will relive in Easters to come, I carry the life and memory of Christ. He is faithful. He is risen.

E

I Say It's Alright

Chicago looked like this last Saturday. I took a Polaroid.

There's this scene in the Parent Trap (Lindsay Lohan edition) that I watched a million times this summer curled up in my flat in Scotland, (seemingly) dying of mono (which I just thought were terrible allergies at the time), where American Lindsay goes to her mother's fashion studio in London and begins playing with the crystals. Here Comes the Sun comes on, and there's something kind of magical about the combination of the Beatles and glittering crystals and being wrapped in motherly love that the scene presents. I feel like that now.

River Walk on Wacker Drive

I see this everyday. Such is student life in a library.

It's been approximately 180 days since it has been this warm in Chicago, and I love it. During winter, the trees and ground hold their breath and then it snows and then the sun comes and they exhale into blossoms and warm rain showers and green grass. Winter brings the kind of peace that stems from resignation. Spring brings peace that stems from hope.

There wasn't even any rain! Just a rainbow!

What's really exciting, to me at least, is that I can talk about my graduation without wanting to throw a tantrum for the first time since July. I will be dead and gone, as one friend put it, come May, but it will be such a good kind of dead and gone. I've had an amazing collegiate career, have been given the best group of people to live with I could have ever asked for, and the sun came out in Chicago. All I can do is be thankful.

Cake at Magnolia Bakery, from that sunny Saturday in Chitown

I feel as if I've been wrapped up in love and warmth, and the wind through the pines and buds sound almost like the music of wind chimes, and the Beatles are playing on the fresh lawn. All the good things in life came up to me, shook my hand, and stored themselves in my heart and memory, and I get to carry them with me like jewelry. My life is only beautiful things.

Wacker River Walk

Photo shoot in a Mall.

Beautiful things, and SUNSHINE.

E

Snappin' a friend with the good news.

Fightin' & Laura

I'm a little obsessed with this song. And Laura Mvula.

It's a grey day, light rain, you have to pay for the sunny days with something. I was spoiled over spring break, eighty degrees and a lake, it was slightly miraculous.

Turns out that it rains at the lake, too

When I was in middle school, my mother told me that I was in a chrysalis, fighting against the package I was sealed in, strengthening my wings until I burst forth. I resonate with the fighting part, I always have: if I could have stopped time, I would have done so already. I would have done it in September when a friend and I danced to Glen Ellyn. I would have frozen staring at my Christmas tree with my little brother. There would a snapshot of reading on the dock of Lake Marion that I could enter whenever I wanted to. But it's Wednesday and it's raining.

Photo Bombin'

Nordstrom employees weren't fans of our modeling

I didn't develop powers over spring break, but I did cultivate a bit of acceptance. I called it resignation at first, because I had no other word for it: I've been mourning May for a long time. But talking to a friend over lattes this morning, she mentioned the word and I realized that's what I meant. I accept that I am walking forward, out of February and March and April and into the vast unknown that lies after May 11.

You can see this kind of stuff from airplanes

It's not entirely unknown. I have an interview tomorrow and I applied to jobs last week and (in typical style) I have about five back up plans. But the fighting, trying to smash the puzzle pieces that I want to interlock together until everything's a little bent, including myself. The fighting is over. I don't stop. It's time to walk forward, to decide that the next seven weeks will be brilliant, to welcome the rain as it melts the snow and turns the soil into daffodils.

My Beloved City

She don't stop, she don't stop, she don't stop.

E

My Beloved Home

Let's Just Stay Here

Sunshine in February!

How cool would it be to live in a snow globe? Maybe a little boring after a while, but right now the idea of living inside a little glass orb with perpetual snow and chimney smoke sounds fantastic. I want to dismantle the days of February and make them into walls and roof and a fireplace so I can live here. As I was walking to class this morning, there were robins chirping away in the empty birch trees. I guess they're not aware it's winter. Or they're aware it's Valentine's Day on Friday and they've got to step up their game. Who knows.

Magical Blanchard

I was listening to the Weepies (question: when am I not listening to the Weepies? answer: when I'm not listening to Kings of Convenience or Ben Howard) and there's this line I love from Slow Pony Home: I held so many people in my suitcase heart. Which is exactly how I feel. I told a friend on Friday that as much as I could adopt him, I would. I will be mother and father and sister and cousin because I love him and support him. Then we both cried. Because we know that we don't live inside of February and that the suitcase has to be unpacked in order to go on the next journey and grief is the price for loving people.

Snapchat: A Family Activity 

Coloring Our Friends: A Family Activity

This Friday is Singles Awareness Day or Yeah, I'm Dating Someone! Day or Let's Get Some Chocolate or Thank God It's Friday!. I've always loved Valentine's day (who doesn't love a day that revolves around notes, chocolate, and love?), but this year is more special. This is the last opportunity I have to try to tell my adopted family, my worn and heavy suitcase, how much I love this moment with them. How much I want to live in this house of February with them forever, hanging cut out hearts, eating Kisses, and listening to the robins.

Much love,

Em

CHRISTMAS: A Family Activity

Stealing My Phone: A Family Activity

Pretention & Decision Points

I told a friend on a airplane that I think that other people who write blogs are pretentious. But what I really meant is that when I see other people writing blogs I feel less unique, less important. So I stopped writing here for a while, and I may not write for another six months after this. For now, I want this moment captured.

After stressing out for the past six months about my prospects as a future employee, I have a job offer. A pretty good one, too. It's terrible pay, challenging and thankless work, far away from my dearest friends and treasured family, and very short term. More importantly, it's in a new, unexplored city, mentoring middle schoolers (in math specifically but hopefully in life more broadly), earning a wee bit of cash (mainly being able to pay off my loans at the end of it). I applied to this job as a sort of jest, I didn't think they would want me, I didn't think it would happen.

December Snowmen

Walking down my favorite street in this town, past the house I would live in if given the opportunity, the snow mountains dotted every lawn. The sun was bright, my hands were cold, my friend had a bad day. We walked and commiserated. Our dreams were seemingly floating off behind us and who knew where we were going or why. I said, "I just want to be in Denver, mentoring younger people, telling girls that they are valuable and precious and beautiful and capable, I want to be a part of a vibrant church that wants to be near the poor, and I want to knit with friends on a Friday night." Denver was a joke, part of some fantasy kingdom, a place somewhere out in this magical land called my future where I pay taxes and choose to have a simple life and carry my groceries home after getting off the bus. Normal life, outside of school, living on my own. Five hours later I got a call, asking for an interview.

Walking Buddies, with Ian photobombing

And now it's here. Denver. Tutoring kids. One year. An adventure that will be hard and scary and I'll want out several times. A gamble that may or may not have dividends of real consequence. I haven't decided, I have until 5 today. For now, I just want to remember that my God is one who gives more than we ask or imagine. In a moment in December when I thought the only people listening were Andrew and the snowmen, God was there. He was on that walk, bundled up this gift, and now it's in front of me, wrapping paper and all.

Other gifts

Things I Love

The first one in a while, I know.

On this, the last day of my twentieth year of blessed living, I will give you twenty things I love.

1. Jesus, for existing alongside me in all of the glorious and fragile moments.
2. SNOW! Yep, it snowed. In South Carolina. In fact, it has snowed three times in the past five days. Because life is amazing.
3. My fabulous family. My dog even recognized my presence as I walked in the door, so that was pretty impressive for such an old guy. Families keep you in place, they're good reorient-ers
4. My darling friends. The family I chose and chose me. God only knows what I would be without you.
5. Wheaton, IL. Last year I was riding down Washington and counting myself lucky to be living inside of your small but loveable lines and I feel the same now. It's an enduring kind of adoration.
6. Glasgow. You taught me what love is, in the oddest way, and how faithful the Lord can be.
7. Mary Oliver. When I first met you on paper I judged you hard core, but you became a beautiful and ever-applicable companion.
8. Food. Where would I be without you? Between Thanksgiving dinners and cheese cakes and four pumpkin pies, you make life worth living, truly.
9. Crafting. I wish I did more and did better and had more money to do more and better, but alas. But the attempt is so exhilarating.
10. Risks. I used to hate you so so so much. I was so afraid of you and the entire world. But walking down the side of mountain this summer, you and I became friends. It was one of my better moments.
11. Mischief. The kind my friends and I get into when stealing a tack board from Lower Beamer. The kind I'll get into later this semester with surprise art and love. The kind that is always surprising me.
12. Winter. I dreaded you, you were the enemy and I had so many weapons until I realized that it's better to justice relax beside you and enjoy the particular joys you bring. Thank you for a reason to sit down.
13. Homes away from home. I have about five of you, and each one is a different shade of love and peace, reminding me of all the ways that love and peace can find me.
14. Unrequited love. I talked about you yesterday and how you give me a greater capacity to love and greater appreciation for the large amount of love in my life. So, ever present friend, I'll hold your hand as long as needed.
15. Adventure. Will you be my best friend forever? Please? Because so far this has been legit.
16. Endings. Because just as your whole life ends you understand how to craft a new one.
17. Uganda. I hated you sooooo much while I was with you, and it's not until a year and a half later that I can mean it when I say that you are the pearl of Africa.
18. Edisto Beach. You hold the best parts of me throughout my entire life.
19. Letters. Only good things come from the mail, from coupons and catalogs to love letters and thank you notes.
20. Breathing. The simple act of taking in the air and redistributing a different kind to the rest of the world, this silent, thankless function of my lungs and diaphragm that soothes the anxious pieces and fuels the brave moments and is the engine for the laughter. The miracle of existence is so ordinary, so boring, simple and scary. But we keep on breathing, because it's worth taking in and it's worth giving back.

Much love,
Em

A Warm, Cozy Monday

You know that part at the end of Willy Wonka (and yes I mean the Gene Wilder version, because I love Johnny, but seriously, what the heck?) where they're in the glass elevator spinning above the town and it's beautiful and Pure Imagination is playing in the back ground. Wonka tells Charlie that he'll be running the factory and his family can move in, and then says, "Now, remember Charlie what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he ever wanted." Charlie asks what. "He lived happily ever after." And then Wonka and Grandpa Joe and Charlie spin into the sweet, chocolately future.

A while ago I was basically offered everything I ever wanted. A long term missionary position in Glasgow, with possibly a job State-side while I fundraise. And then I freaked out, because what if it's not everything I ever wanted? My heart is my compass (something I love and hate about myself), and my heart just froze. It's like that moment on a speed boat when the engine cuts out and the boat is just gliding on the water from inertia and there's just silence and no control.

But I've got time, right? There are no deadlines for me. I'd like to have a plan. I'd like to have a crystal ball and play the guitar and make art with my friends into the sweet chocolately future. But somehow I think my future will be sweeter. Because my patch work life will continue to be warm and whole and odd in the way that having oompa loompas and making candy that never loses its taste is odd. Odd but wonderful.

So, here's to living happily ever after, and being willing to think that everything you ever wanted is possible. Or at least worth seeing just once.

Much love,
Em