Through a Glass, Darkly

So this is how it feels at the rock bottom of despair
When the house I built comes crashing down
And this is how it feels when I know the man that I say I am
Is not the man I am when no one’s around

This is how it feels to come alive again
And start fighting back to gain control
And this is how it feels to let freedom in
To break the chains that enslave my soul

The summer of 1999 was a hard one for me - some big plans had to change, I lived in a lot of fear and out of a sense of rejection. When things are hard, I am not good at remembering them, and what I remember about the summer of 1999 is kind of a blur. A cookout here and there, a trip to Fort Mill gone awry, late nights at Mike’s apartment. Nothing concrete. Without really thinking about it, I can’t tell you what I did for my birthday that year, I can’t tell you if we went on any kind of vacation. I just remember a sense of sadness.

Sometime that summer, the CDs we had to play at the store featured a song that was coming out in August, something about jail, something about freedom. Every time that song came on, I would try and soak it in, because what I heard resonated with me. I felt that, in many ways, I was refusing to live the way that certain people thought I should live, and I would sing the chorus as if I was singing it to them. “I refuse to be locked up in here like a prison cell.” I don’t know exactly where “here” was, but, to be honest, it felt like my own heart.

I refuse to be locked up in here like a prison cell
Where all I ever get is a meal and four walls
I used to be just fine in here but not anymore
Gonna break through these steel bars

I have been singing the song lately, for whatever reason, and I realized that, at some point, my focus shifted from the first stanza (rock bottom of despair) to the second (come alive again). The past few years have been about gaining confidence in who I am, in my abilities. I didn’t feel very loveable back in 1999 - in fact, many of the things that happened seemed to prove just the opposite. I wasn’t communicated with, and I took that as being deemed “not worthy of communication.” I was rejected for who I was, mostly because I was messy and I made mistakes. I wasn’t given a chance to rectify any of it, I was just rejected completely, and it’s taken me several years to crawl back out of the foxhole that all of that sent me into emotionally.

You would think that being married would help that, and, to some extent it has. But being married means letting your spouse into a lot of that mess, which, admittedly, is the way to start healing. It takes a lot of pain to get there, though, and it’s something I’m still learning. I can point to a few things, though, in the past two years that have been about me learning to stand up for myself. To believe that people like me and that I am capable of being in relationships without having to become a different person to meet expectations.

Not only have my relationships with people improved, but my relationship with God has improved. I am finally able to see how I was believing so many lies about God - I talked here about how I had this view that everything was about Teaching Me a Lesson. I don’t believe that anymore. Instead, I focus on seeing the strength and grace that God gives me, and using that as I learn about relationships and forgiveness and what it really looks like to love people.

At the time, I really believed that some of the hard things in the summer of 1999 were about refining me. And now I can see how that has come to pass.

So tell me how it feels when the tables start to turn
And you find yourself on the losing end
Tell me how it feels, you’re not welcome here
Cause I’m tired of pain and I’m tired of sin

I used to hear this song and cry because it was so much of what I wanted - to be free of hurt and the expectations I felt were placed on me. Now I hear it and I cry because I see how far I’ve come. A lot of the journal-burning came from that sense of moving on, and even though I claimed it wasn’t a deep ritual, it did give me a feeling of moving past that rejection, from being the person who was so caught up in her own misery that she couldn’t see straight.

Lyrics by Andy Gullahorn.

On the way to church last night, I left the music off and left the phone in my purse. I had a couple of things on my mind, something that had been bugging me all day, and I needed to give myself some space to think about it, to wonder why I’ve been carrying so many feelings about this issue lately, even though it’s something I’ve tried to put behind me over and over again.

As I was thinking and praying about it, what I realized was that I still don’t really want to put it behind me, because what I want is to be vindicated first. That’s why I’m still angry. I thought about it and prayed about it, and I asked God, again, to help me put the anger and the fear and the people pleasing that this issue always brings up behind me. I feel like I’ve said and done all of this a hundred times, and tonight I realized that I will probably do it a hundred more (but I promise to try not to post about it a hundred more times). Maybe part of the problem is that I’m not letting myself enjoy the process, that I’m wanting instant change, for these feelings to go away. Instead, maybe I should be willing to get down in the dirt of my soul and wrestle with this stuff a little more than I have been. Maybe I should be a little less focused on the end goal. It always helps me to think of it as working out my salvation - not that my salvation depends on this one thing, but that working it out is actually going to be beneficial to me.

It was nice to be at church among friends and to get a break from some of these endless mental cartwheels. And on the way home, I left the phone in my purse, but I did put on Miranda Stone’s 7 Deadly Sins, which is my go-to February album. I expected to play it through, but I kept playing the first song over and over.

This time is the last time and this time is the last time . . .

What I realized is that I need a new beginning. I need to start over with this whole situation and actually believe that forgiveness is possible, actually believe that I could put it behind me. Inspired by some of the words of the song, I decided to think of the rain that was falling as a sort of baptism, that I was going to move from this pattern into a new kind of life.

Driving rain chauffeurs me to redemption
Working out my dishonorable mention

The thing about baptism is that it doesn’t mean that you do everything perfectly afterward. It’s an outward sign of your inner change. Everything didn’t change in the car last night, either to church or on the way home from it. But maybe I’m finally ready to allow that change to come.

The first time I heard Sixpence None the Richer, I hated them. I didn’t like her voice, and I didn’t get what their lyrics were about, and they didn’t seem to be talking about God at all, so I didn’t know why they were a Christian band. I wasn’t counting JPMs, not quite, but it was close. And I wasn’t interested.

Enter Mike. If he had told me that Milli Vanilli was his favorite artist, I would have listened to them for him. And since he likes Sixpence, I was willing to give them another chance and try their self-titled album. And, you know, I liked it. Not all of it, and I’ll admit to being one of those people who really likes “Kiss Me” and its jangly guitars, but I liked it. I borrowed his copy and listened to it a lot.

It’s funny, because when I was thinking about this this morning, I realized that a lot of the songs that are really meaningful in my life come from that particular time of my life - Waterdeep’s “18 Bullet Holes,” and Counting Crows’ “St. Robinson in his Cadillac Dream,” just to name a few. We listened to a lot of music in those days, and maybe just the act of falling in love made everything new and exciting, made everything sparkle. Whatever it was, the Sixpence song I remember most from that time is “Anything.”

So hey baby, can you shed some light on the problem maybe?
‘Cause we’re all tired and we’d like to know
If we should pack our tents, shut down the show.
Yes, we should like to see a burning bush-type sign.
But anything would be fine.

I remember thinking that was really clever when I first heard it . . . and then everything hit the fan with Mike’s family. And I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to fix things. I didn’t know if I should run from Mike, because his family situation was a little more than I knew how to handle, or if I should let him go, no strings attached, rather than making him choose between me and his family. And somewhere along the line, this song became a bit of an anthem for me: “I need to know what to do, please. Skywriting would be nice, but anything, really.”

Of course, it doesn’t work like that. It’s pretty rare in this life that we get anything as clear as skywriting, or a voice from heaven, or a burning bush. We usually get just enough to know what to do next, and as all those nexts added up to me still being with Mike, I took that as my sign.

If I had had skywriting, like I requested, it’s not like it would have made the hard times any easier. I still would have been sad and worried and upset. And if I had really known back in that very difficult summer of 1999 how persistent some of those issues were going to be, maybe I would have run. Looking back, I’m content with the decisions I made. And this morning, when “Anything” came up on my iPod, I thought about some of my current struggles, and I prayed that I would know what to do. It doesn’t hurt, I thought, to ask for skywriting. If that’s not possible, though, could you show me what to do next?

I suppose it was just a matter of time before the musical baton got passed my way. Jeff Holland is the one who kindly handed it over to me.

The honest truth is that I’m not a huge music person, not like a lot of my friends and most definitely not like my husband. I like music, and I listen to it in my car and at work, but I feel a little insecure about talking about it because I’m such an amateur. I am also very lyric-centric, and I don’t know anything about playing music, so it’s hard for music to really grab me without the words being something that move me. So, with that in mind . . .

Amount of music on your computer?

Most of it is Mike’s. He says: “9580 Songs. 39 GB. Although I do have a lot more stuff than what is on my computer, these songs are all in my top 10,000.”

Currently listening to?

I usually put my iPod on “shuffle songs,” because I’m not so good at creating playlists. Lately my no-skips have been Patty Griffin, Waterdeep, Miranda Stone, and Sarah Masen.

Five songs that mean a lot to you?

So. Difficult. Disclaimer: These are not the only five that mean something to me. Just five that I’d like to talk about.

“Reflecting Light” by Sam Phillips. Yes, I’ll admit I heard this first on Gilmore Girls. Luke can waltz. Yeah, I said it. But this was my introduction to Sam Phillips and A Boot and a Shoe, and there’s just something about the way the music is so peaceful and the lyrics are so sad that make this a must-listen every time.

“Love’s as Strong as Death” from Canticle of the Plains. We had this song in our wedding, and we both loved it.

“Mansions” by Burlap to Cashmere. Yes, this is the most radio-friendly song on Anybody Out There, and there are probably better songs of theirs. But it has a special place in my heart because I heard it for the first time with Mike in his living room, and then he let me have his pre-release copy of the CD. And I gave him a hug. That was the first inkling I had that he might actually like me like me. Mike talked about his first time hearing the song here. (One of my favorite Burlap stories is that Mike came back from Cornerstone that year all excited to tell me about his discovery of the band, but as they had played at Ziggy’s that spring, I had already heard their CD from a friend. He was so deflated that I already knew about them. hehe.)

“At Least I Got a Car” by Waterdeep. This song just screams to be played loud, with the windows rolled down. And even though I have never dropped out of school, I can relate to the fear of change and wanting to just play video games (or, in my case, read) instead of being a grownup. When this song comes up on my iPod, I have to listen to it at least two or three times before I can move on.

“Hold it up to the Light” by David Wilcox. And Smalltown Poets. I heard this song when Mike and I were getting a lot of resistance from his parents about getting married, and it helped me realize that you can’t second-guess yourself, that you have to just move on and make the best decisions and live your life. It helped me learn a bit about living without regrets.

Top five albums?

Also hard. Let’s see. To me, a top album is one where I skip hardly any songs. So it may not have a particular favorite song (although some of these do), but I pretty much listen to everything on these five:

A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band by Rich Mullins. My first Rich Mullins album, and still one of my favorites of all time. There was almost a year or so where I listened to it every single day. I just could not get enough of it. “Hold Me Jesus” was long considered my favorite song of all time (although I don’t know that that’s true now).

Seven Deadly Sins by Miranda Stone. I got this album when I was in a very low place emotionally, and the whole thing reminds me of how I was holding on to my faith, trying to believe that God was working in my life and in my situation. I listened to it over and over and over.

Caedmon’s Call by Caedmon’s Call. Here’s a confession I’ve been wanting to make. Caedmon’s used to be my favorite band, but there are currently only three songs by them on my iPod. How things change. But I still love this album, and consider it one of my top five of all time.

Greatest Hits by Simon and Garfunkel. (We have The Essential Simon and Garfunkel, but this is the one I’d choose. The only song I think it’s missing is “The Only Living Boy in New York.” And since it’s my list, I can choose a greatest hits CD.)

August and Everything After by Counting Crows. I like pretty much all their albums, to be honest, but this one stands out because it’s the first one I heard. This boy who was crushing on me lent it to me, and I remember liking it. And then, when Mike said they were his favorite band, I borrowed this album so I could learn more about him. One of the things I appreciate about our relationship is that we make an effort when it comes to each other’s interests: I listen to Counting Crows and learned about the NFL for him; he listens to Patty Griffin and learned college basketball for me. This album reminds me of that give-and-take (though I will admit to skipping “Ghost Train”).

Honorable mention: Flood by They Might Be Giants.

Last album bought?

Mike got us Springsteen’s new album. The last album purchased specifically for me was probably A Boot and a Shoe because Mike doesn’t care for Sam Phillips (which is okay since I don’t dig Coldplay) (I told you I’m not a music person).

Recent discoveries?

I like what I’ve heard of Anna Nalick. Mike is the discover-er in our family.

And the baton goes to:

Alisa (Alisa’s answers)
Brian (Brian’s answers)
Emily
Roger (Roger’s answers)
Shelby (Shelby’s answers)

Last night I was driving home from work, and “The Boxer” by Simon and Garfunkel came on my iPod. I have mentioned my Simon and Garfunkel love before, and this song is one of my favorites of theirs.

I got into Simon and Garfunkel when my friend Kim made me a tape of the record she had containing their greatest hits. I listened to it over and over in my car, often with my brother in the passenger’s seat. My car didn’t have air conditioning, and we’d roll down the windows and turn the music loud and let it envelop us.

Last night I thought about those days, and I rolled down my window and listened to “The Boxer” over and over. It’s a song about loneliness and failure and despair. And those strings come in at the end, getting louder and louder, pushing you until you think your heart will break, but just when you can’t take it anymore, the song gets quiet and goes back to just guitar, feeling almost hopeful again.

I don’t even feel like I completely understand the lyrics to the song, or why it resonates so deeply with me. But I know it’s a song I never skip, partly because of those days when Joseph and I used to listen to that tape over and over and over, and partly because of the way it ends so quietly with the guitar, reminding me that everyone goes through periods when things look terrible and you think you’ve made all the wrong decisions and your heart is completely broken. It’s a song about being human. And I’m going to go listen to it again now.

“Time it was and what a time it was
A time of innocence
A time of confidences
Long ago it must be
I have a photograph
Preserve your memories
They’re all that’s left you” -Simon and Garfunkel, “Bookends”

On the last day of Governor’s School, someone played this song and said, “This is how I feel about this summer.” Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits had long been a staple in my car, so of course I knew the song, but it hasn’t been the same for me since that day. I hear it and I remember that last day and how tired I was from staying up late and from crying. I remember that summer, how hard it was and how much fun I had, and how much it changed me. A thousand little memories return - eating pizza in Brooke’s room, playing pool in the basement, sleeping through assemblies (not me, but my friends), my birthday, late-night games and conversation . . . could that all have happened in just six weeks?

If that was the only story I had about this song, that would be enough. And I wish it was, but the problem is that, as it takes me back to those amazing places, it also reminds me of my former best friend, because I met her at Governor’s School, and most of those memories also involve her. I haven’t yet figured out how to look at those memories without letting them be shadowed by what came later. And when I have those eyes, lines like, “A time of innocence/a time of confidences,” feel more bitter and poignant.

That’s not the way I want to remember that summer (”the summer that changed my life,” as I have been wont to say and as cliche as it sounds), so forgiveness in this case also means reclaiming those memories for what they really were, and letting the things that happened later be what they were without letting them take over my whole life.

Mystery’s walking on my head again
In a pattern figure eight
Round a turn cross a path again and again and again

Save communion for the holidays
And keep perception at a safe arms length
Does hallelujah wear the same old face
I’m okay yeah okay fine okay
What I really want is to wrap my arms around Your name

I just spent several minutes playing Yahtzee (oh, excuse me, “Yahdice”) on my palm pilot during my lunch break. I am not feeling all that well, not because I am sick but because I am stressed out. I don’t know why I chose Yahtzee to help me calm down . . . my Yahtzee skills are legendary. Legendarily bad. Right, Mike and Brian?

Today is one of those “okay yeah okay fine okay” kind of days. The weekend wasn’t bad, necessarily, but I did get an email this morning that put me on edge. And I’m still recovering from being exhausted all week last week for no discernable reason. The real kicker was the conference I went to on Friday and Saturday at my old church. Much of the conference centered on our identity in Christ. I decided to go because a lot of my friends have been before and just love the materials, and I figured it couldn’t hurt.

To break the cycle cynical
Keeping man inside his head
Wisdom offers up her best advice
And I’ll run to her side and ask why and ask why

Nothing that was taught was bad by any means, but I just couldn’t connect with it. At conferences like that, I get caught up in, “Well, how do I know what this guy is saying is true? Do I agree with his interpretation of this scripture? Should this scripture be read in light of this other passage?” and so on and so forth. I don’t respond well to lists of Bible verses taken out of context because my brain starts thinking about what they mean in context and who they were written for and why and I don’t seem to be able to accept that I can just apply these things to me, to my life. I don’t know how to read the Bible without getting caught going down all these paths and making all these connections . . . I like making connections and I like that the Bible is consistent, but it all gets so heavy. I don’t know how to read it and enjoy it anymore.

I am used to relying on my mind and my intellect, and I think it’s really causing me problems in this aspect of my life. But the only way I know how to approach things is intellectually. I don’t know a different way. I don’t know why I don’t make the heart connections that my friends are able to make, why I can’t just accept things. I have to overthink everything. I have to wring all meaning out of it before I allow it to be true. And there’s just not a lot of joy in that.

I’ll scrape the bottom ’til I’m good and ready old
And take the cup of kindness while searching for the gold
For the gold for the gold
Tomorrow’s filling up like yesterday
Something’s constant underneath this place
Shape this prayer to sing with such a grace
For today just today or someday
What I’d really like is to wrap my arms around Your name

I don’t know how to enjoy these things of faith like I used to. I want to be able to soak things in and see God’s faithfulness in the Bible. I want it to be a little simpler, like I think it’s supposed to be. Somehow I have made things really complicated.

What I’d really like is to wrap my arms around Your name

[And credit must go to Sarah Masen for her beautiful lyrics.]

I will be the first to tell you that my life isn’t hard, especially by the world’s standards. I have always had enough to eat, and clothes to wear, and a loving family. Life, though, is hard on everyone in an emotional sense. Things happen that are sad and upsetting. People die, and they let us down, and things we hope for don’t always come true.

The funny thing about the way a girl gets destroyed
About the way that deal goes down
Is that everybody pretty much sees it coming at the sister
From all the way across town
And she isn’t always blinded, she isn’t always far astray
She just might not be thinking, she might be having a bad day
But when you choose, you choose, and when you drown, you drown

In the summer and fall of 1999, I was dealing rather badly with some of the changes and disappointments of life. I got a little depressed (actually, if you ask Mike, it was a lot depressed) and behaved in some ways that I’m embarassed about. One of the results of that was that Mike’s parents decided they didn’t want to support our marriage, and cut off contact with us, including not coming to our wedding. This isn’t something I talk about much on a public forum such as this, but I feel like it’s okay to state the bare facts like that.

Oh, God, it hurts so bad to love anybody down here
Why don’t you come and help me out ’cause I can’t even see clear

Mike and his sister have told me ad nauseam that it’s not my fault, that similar things have happened quite a lot, and that I shouldn’t blame myself. I think it’s fair to say that it would have happened eventually, but that I was a catalyst for causing it to happen more quickly.

Regardless, though, it was a hard thing. I listened to a lot of Waterdeep that summer, and “18 Bullet Holes” really resonated with me. It is hard to love people here. It was hard for me to love Mike well, both because I was so caught up in feeling sorry for myself that I couldn’t grasp the enormity of what he was going through, and because in some ways, loving him meant losing some of my ideals of having a “perfect family.” On the flip side, it was hard for him to love me well, because I was in such a dark place that I wouldn’t let anyone help me.

When I look back at that time, I realize two things. The first is that that time brought us closer together as a couple, because we had to decide if this relationship was really what we wanted to do. We were having to face up to some of the serious sacrifices we were going to have to make - not just little things like, “I like skim milk and he likes whole milk,” or even, “Oh, I want two kids and he wants three.” We had to decide if we could construct a reality where we were together without the support of his parents, and if we wanted to make those sacrifices. And because we both decided to do those things, it strengthened our relationship. It does hurt. I don’t have in-laws who love me. We don’t spend holidays with them. We haven’t even talked to them in over five years. Life hurts. But when I close myself off to the pain, I am also closing myself off to the joy that relationships bring.

The second thing is that that period of time is when I really began to grasp some things about the incarnation. The past few years have been a time of disappointment and letdowns even more serious than those that spun me into those dark days of 1999. And over and over and over again, God has reminded me: “I was there, I understand. I was betrayed by one of my closest friends. Even my closest friends didn’t understand me most of the time. Bring those disappointments to me, because I can help you with them. They are too much for you to carry on your own.”

Oh, God, it hurts so bad to love anybody down here
Oh, that’s right, you know so well
One thorny crown, three nails, and a spear
One thorny crown, three nails, and a spear.

Mike has been enjoying posting his top 50 songs list, and while I don’t have the patience to list all my songs in order, I do have around 50 songs that are my favorites of all time. So, I have decided that, from time to time I am going to post those songs in this category - Music that Matters. Most of these songs are special to me because of the lyrics, but many of them are also special because of where I was or the company I was keeping when I heard them. So, without further blathering, here’s the first song in that occasional series.

Just before my sophomore year, I moved into the basement of my aunt and uncle’s house. Their four children had each taken a turn there, and when I asked if I could move in, they said I could. It was a great situation overall - they didn’t need to raise any more children and I didn’t want to be raised any more.

That basement is where I took my first real steps into adulthood. I got engaged while living there, had my first kiss, had my first job issues, got accepted into the business school, planned a wedding . . . I look back on that time and see how I started to take more responsibility for myself, started learning how to make my faith my own and to think for myself. If you had asked me, I would have said that I was already doing those things, but the truth is that it takes some being on your own to really start to figure those things out. I won’t even pretend that I have them figured out now. Regular readers know that my faith is something that is a constant struggle for me, and as I continue to work out what it means, I think I am still in the process of making it my own instead of my parents’ or Mike’s.

I loved living there. I loved being able to go upstairs and hang out with my uncle after my classes were over for the day. I loved having my aunt around to talk to. I loved my room, sparse as it was, and how the washer and dryer were just down the hall, and my bathroom that was decorated with penguins. I loved my proximity to campus and that I had a real home to go home to. I didn’t care so much for Zelda the cat, and I wished for central air and heat, but overall it was one of those decisions I am so glad I made. I miss living there sometimes, even though I know I can’t go back.

After Mike and I got together, he shared with me his love for the Counting Crows. In the fall of 1999, This Desert Life came out, and I made an effort to listen to it so that I could learn to love the Counting Crows like he does. I like a lot of the songs on this album, but the last one really stood out to me: St. Robinson in his Cadillac Dream. I’m no ballerina, but I could relate to Carrie in the second verse.

Carrie’s down in her basement all toe shoes and twinned
With the girl in the mirror who spins when she spins,
From where you think you will end up to the state that you’re in
Your reflection approaches and then recedes again.

And there’s a line near the end of the song that seems like it was written just for me:

There’s a girl in the basement coming out of her shell . . .

This song didn’t make Mike’s top 50, but it makes both of us think about that time in our life - I was living in a basement, my life was changing, our relationship was growing, and I was coming out of my shell.