coalescence.wordpress.com

Well, I did it, I guess.

In many ways, I could not have asked for a better weekend or graduation. The sun was bright and the air was cool, the dogwoods were still in bloom, my family got along swimmingly with all of my friends, we ate Alaskan salmon, we made an M&M mosaic on the coffee table, I sat in the grass in the sun while my friends laid their heads on my lap and we talked about people we loved, I got lots of hugs, and after it was all over, I sat in the sun some more with people I know I won't ever have to say a long goodbye to.

But among all of that was some of the most wrenching pain and worst emptiness I've ever felt. I wanted to shout after some people, "You can't leave--I love you," but it would have been neither effective nor socially befitting. (Sometimes I still think I should have.) Now I am left missing the piece of my heart that came alive at college--the piece that learned how to love and began pumping real blood and started hurting because it was alive, and that is much larger than I expected, and I expected a lot. I feel incomplete, like I've lost a limb. I am afraid of who I will become without the people that have most profoundly shaped my character and personality, because I doubt they will soon be replaced by anyone who can measure up.

Melodramatics, some may say. Whatever, I say. One of my families is gone. That's a big loss. I will be grieving for some time.

(P.S. Don't forget me.)

I can't really do this. I'm just pretending.

if today was not an endless highway
if tonight was not a crooked trail
if tomorrow wasn't such a long time
then lonesome would mean nothing to me at all

i can't see my reflection in the waters
i can't speak the sounds that show no pain
i can't hear the echo of my footsteps
or remember the sound of my own name

yes, and only if my own true love was waiting
if i could hear his heart softly pounding
yes, and only if he was lying by me
would i lie in my bed once again

(nickel creek)

Walking to work today, I saw two signs. The first was in front of a church, and it read, "Congratulations Grace College Grads." The second was in front of a store and it read, "Closed." As I walked, they were both straight ahead, describing my life in one gigantic and bittersweet oxymoron.

Congratulations: For the first time in my life, I will walk across a stage to receive a diploma. For the first time, I will wear a cap and gown and take pictures in the sun. I am here. I did it. Four years of more or less hard work. Complete. Congratulations to me. It is a good feeling.

Closed: My life is ending. Every old goodbye scar on my heart will be ripped open again, with some new ones besides. The pieces of myself I've scraped off airport floors and grandparents' driveways will all be spattered again on the dirt of this campus and in the threads of the clothes of my friends when we hug for the last time. I will have to be careful not to leave tear stains on the cards I will hand them.

Congratulations, graduate. Closed for business. We have loved being a part of your lives.

Last night, I was one of 300 people who walked the streets of South Bend, Indiana and slept in an expanse of grass next to a road beside the campus of Bethel College. It was 40-some degrees and it rained all night. We brought tarps, one side of which we attached to the top of a chain-link fence, the opposite side of which we held down with rocks, logs, trash cans, and myriad other weighty objects, thus creating a makeshift tent, or "shanty," as some preferred to call it. We spread more tarps on the muddy grass underneath, laid down our sleeping bags, and became close friends very quickly. In my region, we must have crammed at least 30 people under three or four tarps. My roommate and I brought only one sleeping bag and one small blanket; we unzipped the sleeping bag, laid on it, and attempted to share the blanket. If it wasn't for our combined body heat, we would have never made it through the night, and even then neither of us slept for more than half an hour at a time. We shivered through seven hours of countless readjustings of the blanket and retuckings of the feet until approximately 6:30 a.m., at which time we dragged ourselves into our big blue bus and returned to our snug campus.

We did this for the Invisible Children. They live in Gulu, Uganda, a region that is being ravaged by war and particularly by a rebel group called the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army) who are kidnapping children to train them to kill to continue their effort to overthrow the Ugandan government. Most of the children live in the bush with their families in places where it is very easy for the rebels to capture them. Every night they walk into town and sleep in the verandas of the hotel, the hospital, and the bus park, cramming in tighter than we ever did in our shanty. It is estimated that the town hosts 15,000 children every night.

To alert our country to this crisis, which has been called one of the worst facing our world today, 50,000 people across the nation slept in the street on Saturday, April 29 for the Global Night Commute. We walked through the town, created art projects that will be compiled into one massive coffee table book whose proceeds will benefit the Ugandans, and wrote letters to President Bush and our senators asking them to give assistance to Uganda.

I won't soon forget the smell of hair, sleeping bags, and sweatshirts that have been damp for a very, very long time. Nor what it means to be close to people. Nor what it feels like to finally be warm again. It will, I'm afraid, be easy to forget the Ugandan children. It was a night to raise awareness; all we did was get funny looks and lots of car honks. And that's okay. We cannot measure the results of what we did, and therefore to us number-hungry Americans, it may feel like we've done nothing.

But I know we did something. The first step to redemption is the recognition of the need for grace. The first step to peace and justice is the recognition of war and suffering. In short, we made something invisible visible. And that is a good first step.

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress... (James 1:27)

Having changed churches seven times in my life, I used to know that I belonged in a congregation when I could close my eyes during prayer and praise time and identify the people who were speaking just by hearing their voices.

Today I was sitting in the computer lab listening to random people in the hallway, and I identified three of them just by hearing their voices.

I'm apathetic about a lot of things right now, but through the haze of fatigue and frustration, I know this: I am home.

(Until someone can sing this to me, I'm singing it to myself.)

never underestimate my jesus
you're telling me that there's no hope
i'm telling you you're wrong
never underestimate my jesus
when the world around you crumbles
he will be strong, he will be strong

One of the most cliched, close-to-graduation songs ever?

You bet.

These last weeks will be brilliant--with tears and gratitude.

is it love tonight when everyone's dreaming of a better life?
in this world divided by fear, we've gotta believe that
there's a reason we're here
yeah, there's a reason we're here

'cause these are the days worth living
these are the years we're given
and these are the moments, these are the times
let's make the best out of our lives

see the truth all around
our faith can be broken and our hands can be bound
but open our hearts and fill up the emptiness
with nothing to stop us
is it not worth the risk?
yeah, is it not worth the risk?

'cause these are the days worth living
these are the years we're given
and these are the moments, these are the times
let's make the best out of our lives...

Things I Learned This Weekend
- Sometimes, eating until you nearly burst is a very good thing.
- Only boys play music the way I like--in the car and too loud for conversation, with a sub in the trunk.
- The Midwest has its own brand of southern belles. These Plains Princesses are tan and skinny, they don't want to go to college (though some of them wind up there), and they want to be masseuses and cosmotologists. They're nice people, but... but.
- God is close.
- I know what my body and soul need to be healthy.
- Easter isn't what it used to be on the outside, in bored churches and lackluster celebrations, but it still makes my heart sing.
- I know now that I love certain people: because I miss them.