[gotcha!] i have been temperate always, but August 14, 2009

Congratulations, faithful reader (or two or three; however many of you there are): you’ve probably noticed that this post doesn’t quite follow my usual scheme. Know why? Because someone else wrote it! “But, it does sound somewhat like you, though!” I know, I know. That’s what happens when my right brain (aka Anna) takes over for an evening! We’ve been meaning to write a joint post all summer; but what it took was an hour or so in the same room channeling, well, each other. We agreed to choose the poetry of Fleet Foxes as our inspiration and set to scribbling. Although our creative liberties led us down two totally different paths, we still managed to end them in the same way, with the same air of brief finality. And, probably the oddest thing, we settled on a common title that actually fit both! So, dear reader(s), do enjoy my little bit of bloggery on her site, and please do venture into her other delectable entries!

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Wanderers this morning came by
Where did they go
Graceful in the morning light
To banner fair
To follow you softly
In the cold mountain air

Yesterday, I ate a cherry tomato warm off the vine. Today I wept for a six month fresh loss. And I am glad to be alive.

I guess that’s what I’ve been grappling with lately. The mix of good and bad – in the world, in others, but mostly in me. How is it that I can break my heart over a pair of melancholy dog eyes one moment, and the next I’m fuming because my mother asked me to run an errand? How can I shut myself off from friends one week and pour myself into hugs and encouragement the next? How can I worship God for the grace of a new morning, and resent his commands five minutes later? Which girl am I?

Well. Both – and neither.

This “answer” is more complex than my black-and-white mind would like. I’m the girl sulking because things don’t go her way, and the girl spending time in volunteer programs. I would rather think of myself as good with some flaws, or even the tag of “bad” would at least make things simpler.

But I’m also trying to understand the reality that I’m neither. That my most selfish, horrible thoughts don’t define me. Neither do my most loving and pure expressions. That’s weird, because it leaves the question of identity hanging. Like every Sunday School kid, I know the answer to identity: Jesus. But what does this mean, that Jesus lives in me? That I lose my personality in piety, become a holy robot? I know that’s not true, but it’s what I believe most of the time. So how do I accept the Both -I’m a broken image of God- and the neither- Jesus determines who I am.

That’s the tension of in between, isn’t it. I can’t say I know how all this works out in my life, but I want the freedom to find out. To see myself not as all bad or all good, but loved regardless of what I say or think or feel. I’m longing for the heady thrill of grace, to venture outside the safe and lifeless fences I’ve built.

I’m ready for the adventure of freedom.