The Shepherd's Sheepdog

I've heard stories of people who have had border collies and Aussies (who grew up without any herding opportunities) and took them to a farm with sheep. I've heard from a couple different people that their dogs seemed to have something snap inside of them. They ran for the sheep and began grouping them together, then cutting them into sections, grouping them again, and herding them to each corner of the field. I imagine that they ran past their owners with passionate eyes and flicked their ears at them as if to say, "just tell me what to do, I got this. I was born to do this!"


Today I went to Ephraim to watch the soccer team that Cini is coaching play. On the way there and back, there were a lot of sheep. And I missed him, intensely. I had a dream that someday I would take Harmboy to a place with a lot of sheep just to see if his Collie instincts would kick in.

I waited too long. I'm so sorry boy.

But it's more than that. There's always a deeper meaning for me, I guess...

I wanted to see him run into an open field with the sheep and immediately know he belonged. He would know exactly where to be to get the sheep to respond to him. He would be respected and would respect the sheep. For once he could feel that he was enough, and that he was in the right place at the right time and it would make a difference, simply because it was he who was there.It would be hard work, but it would just feel right.

I wanted to see him secure with himself for once. Harmboy seemed to spend his every waking moment trying to be noticed, good enough, and lovable. He was hyper-sensitive to the slightest hint of failure, mistake, or frustration. The slightest presser on a leash and he would drop back immediately. He was so concerned with his own "lovability" that when Harmboy heard Gar's name called or even the cat talked about in conversation, he seemed to only hear "NOT Harmboy" and would come quickly to redeem himself from being uncalled. Harmboy had such a big heart to fill up, it annoyed the crap out of everyone who didn't understand the anxiety he always had behind his constant panting. He was seemingly always searching for the right place to be, the right person to be with, and the right time to be good enough to be wanted.

Even at the end, he lay there, unable to get up by himself, yelping, almost constantly at night. "Do you still love me? Are you there?" That last night I spent with him, he cried the second I would stop petting him. His yelp was much like how Kevin Kling described the call of a loon "a desperate plea, 'please, don't leave. You're all I have.'" His deaf ears could not hear me whispering, his eyes were cloudy. He just wanted to be touched, constantly reminded...

I get it, boy.

I want my field of sheep. I've been blessed to have gotten a taste of it at work, I've run in and something in me snapped. I feel I'm where I belong, doing what I need to do. It's hard work but it just feels right. Please, God, let me get accepted somewhere so I can, literally, get into my field, a bigger one where I can reach more sheep. Let me Feed Thy Sheep. It's the only time I feel like I truly belong.

The Lord is my Shepherd, and I am His Sheepdog. A Collie like Harmmers. The sheep follow Him, I'll catch the stragglers. Lead me to "white fields". Just tell me what to do, I got this. I was born to do this!

Heart Whispers

I wrote this out and shared it with a few people, but it's kinda big news... So I should share it on here.

I'M GOING TO LIVE!

So I went and chopped all my hair off... it barely touches my shoulders... I know. I tried to feel the weight of fear leave my head!

I met with the doctor about my heart a couple days ago. He said in reviewing the results from all the tests, my heart is "weird," but fine.

In addition to the arrhythmia, they were worried about a leaky valve. It is confirmed that there is no leaky valve! Hooray! The regurgitation they were seeing has to do with the arrhythmia not a bad valve. Occasionally an irregular heartbeat of my type is the cause of premature death in young people (creepily referred to as "Sudden Arrhythmia Death Syndrome") depending on the heart's ability to handle the constant heart hiccups. This is what they were most concerned about and why they wanted me to take it real easy until they could get control of the situation. yikes. According to the doctor though, my heart is one of the strongest that he's seen in a person my age. He thought I was a super athlete... nope, just ride my bike and hike sometimes. He said that in some ways my heart is "broken" BUT it is strong enough to handle anything it can dish out and he's not concerned at all about it. My heart's capacity to compensate for the hiccups far exceed the harm they could possibly do. So premature death is pretty much not a risk for me, even with my type of arrhythmia. My heart truly "beats" the "odds".

I asked about the fact that sometimes my heart skips seemingly every other beat. It's hard to focus on things when it takes my breath away so often. He said that normal hearts skip beats too. A normal heart may skip up to 1000 beats and be just fine. But most of the time, people do not experience the symptoms or even feel it happening. I asked why I'm so special that I can feel it so strongly. His reply was that my type of arrhythmia is apparently hard to ignore and as strong as my heart is, it must be more sensitive than the average Joe's heart.

I asked about the dizziness. He said to know that the dizziness is normal for the work my heart is having to do. He said to be patient for the blood to get to my head and to trust my heart to be able to handle it, because it can. My dizziness is not an indicator of trouble, just of my heart probably sighing as it should be allowed to do every once in a while because it's a good worker.

So, I just found this whole situation relieving, and also encouraging and enlightening. I found some really meaningful metaphors. :)

•  I have a heart that beats to the beat of a different drummer... and it's okay. 
• My heart is broken in some ways, but God made it strong enough to handle it just fine. I need to trust that.
• Dizziness makes me stop in my tracks and close my eyes and be still every once in a while. It is my heart sighing, and it is a privilege it deserves every once in a while. It reminds me of a story about turbulence from Pres. Uchtdorf.
• My heart is quite sensitive and feels nearly every hiccup. It's very distracting from the distractions of my day, but I get to learn a new language this way. surely my heart must have something to say to me if it's stomping this hard for my attention sometimes. There must be some reason why it hiccups at certain times and why it has good days and bad days. I am being forced to pay more attention to my inner landscape of life even more than I already am. Next on my agenda is to learn what my heart is saying. Someday every hiccup will be felt AND connected with instead of just being rogue, distant, and scary. I refuse to just be acted upon by my heart. We're going to work together. My heart is teaching me to speak its language so we can be on the same page and feel a little more whole. We're kinda stuck with each other for eternity... I ought to start paying it the attention it has always paid to me. 
• Good thing: I was forced to find a family doctor that I really really like, and he knows my situation and my cardiologist really well. I feel safe with their net below me.
• My cardiologist said my heart was adorable and very photogenic. . . I just like that. Someday some guy out there will see that. ;)

So, I'm okay. No need for further tests or worry. I can do whatever I want physically with a few precautions and banned activities (like roller coasters and sky diving... I'm good with that!). I may feel the symptoms for the rest of my life. If I just listen to my heart and trust it and we'll be just fine.

I admit, sometimes I like to make it work a little extra so I can hear the odd rhythm thumping in my ears like it's whispering to me in it's precious little stutter:

"I'm yours... I'm yours.. I'm.. I'm... I'm yours YOURS."

A Weekend In Heaven

Once upon a time I went to the storytelling festival and took off my shoes to save a seat (I didn't have enough belongings with me to save the 4 I needed). I walked away in my socks on the cool grass to find something to do in the park for an hour when I overheard two girls in the aisle: "did you bring any cards?" "Oh yeah, cause I just carry cards around with me everywhere!... no." So I stopped and got out the cards that I just carry around with me everywhere and asked if they wanted to play with me.

While we were playing I felt a tickling on my stocking feet. I thought it must be someone I knew. I turned around to see a little gray haired lady running away and yelling back to me, "I'm sorry, I couldn't resist, and you looked like the kind of girl that wouldn't mind!" Later, when my guests arrived, I went to my seat to find another old lady sitting next to my seat. We started talking and sharing life stories. She was 82 and was there because one of her girlfriends was turning 90 and for her birthday, she wanted to go on a roadtrip with her three other girlfriends from Nebraska to Orem, UT for the storytelling festival. I asked if she would be my grandma for the evening. She hugged me and said she'd love to, but that I might not like it because she was crazy. I was beginning to tell her the story of the foot-tickling lady and how it just made me love that lady, how she couldn't do anything crazy enough to scare me off.

She cut me off, "No, you don't understand. just an hour ago, I tickled some stranger's feet just because and then ran away!" I lifted up my memorable socks and said, "I bet she had crazy socks like these, how could you resist!?" She covered her face and screamed into laughter, "AHHH I was never supposed to see you again!"

Only at the storytelling festival, folks. Two and a half days in heaven. Heaven will be full of crazy socks and little old ladies who can't resist and the kind of girls who won't mind. . . and their dogs.

We Are The Love We Give

This labor day weekend is one of my favorite weekends of the entire year. It is my Christmas, my solace. It is the time I splurge and let myself have more of what I need than I usually do. It refills me. It shifts me back onto track and I feel home. Though I was alone for most of this year's storytelling festival, I felt less and less lonely.

I'm in this place of total uncertainty. I'm in between homes, between jobs, between relationships, between schools, and between selves. I feel like Cini when she got off the plane from her Navy experience and my brother and I took her to my uncle's house (my temporary digs) with to stay with me until we could get into our new place. She sat down in the car from the airport and took a deep breath. "Umm... I'm excited to be here and for what comes next. Really, I am. I don't know if I look like it or not. I'm just... I'm in a car. A real car. I don't know how to act. I don't know what is expected of me." My reply to her was, "Just be you. I love YOU. However you come." That reply didn't seem to really solve her awkwardness, but she did calm down a little.

I totally get it.

I can imagine she was thinking, "great, I'll be me.... wait, I don't know who me is in this situation." I took her shopping because all she had was Navy uniforms and sweats. We went to six or more places she could not find anything that was her. I asked her what her style was these days, maybe we were just in the wrong stores. "I, I don't know! I don't know what style I am! I don't know who I am! What looks like me? I don't even know what I look like! I have no identity!" We decided we were going to have to start from scratch. We were going to create her. Ironically, in the end, the clothes she bought looked like me. I found them. I would have picked them if we were shopping for me. In fact, I was kinda looking at them for me, assuming Cini wouldn't like them, as would be the case a year ago. We came out of the store and she had some jeans and a sweater. Both looked like me.

I know, bean. I know. At least I have clothes that are my style, that's true. But I don't know who I am inside now either. I used to be RA. I used to be studying psychology. I used to be dog trainer. I used to be somebody. Now I'm on the bottom rung again but I don't even know what kind of ladder this is. It's not the ladder I've been climbing to get to. It's like a stupid little step stool in between. My insides feel naked, like I'm wandering in and out of stores, trying on personalities, wondering, "is this me?" I've tried on the "I'm so passed you and don't need to do college over again through you" style and the "I'll tell you exactly what I'm thinking, even when I shouldn't" style and the "resurrected RA" style (mentoring everyone - even those that don't want it). I've tried the "whatever, I don't care" style. None of them fit well or looked like me. I've fiddled with the idea of just sporting the "someone save me" style again. For me, this is kinda like that shirt you really don't like to wear anymore (at least not in public) because it's stained pretty bad and there are some holes, but I can't seem to throw it out because it was a shirt that kept me warm through so much. And you never know when you just might need it in some desperate situation. And you know it fits and it's comfortable and it's really cheap, in fact it's free, already in your closet, and you just need something to cover yourself at this point, so you stare at it forever wondering if it is really a good idea to wear it in public instead of going out and buying a new shirt - which can be expensive and time consuming and is always a gamble in durability and comfort. It took all my energy, but I left it on the hanger in my closet and shut the closet door. Lastly, I settled for the "emperor's new" style and shut down pretty completely, not leaving my room inside at all, not talking to others that I don't have to.

I've felt pretty naked, staying busy, so I wouldn't have to leave my room inside. And this was how I was when I left to go to the storytelling festival. I sat by myself. I didn't eat, by myself. I listened by myself. I didn't laugh even though I would have, if I wasn't by myself. Then, I ran into my storytelling teacher at my second story hour. We never really had very many private conversations. We aren't particularly close. I've just performed my stories for her and been graded by her. I learned a lot in her class, but mostly from my classmates (she mostly just facilitated learning from each other. She never lectured or even demonstrated in class). She's seen my former internal style more than I've seen hers. She saw me. I walked over and said hello because I couldn't pretend we didn't just meet each others eyes. I was expecting to quickly turn back around and sit in my spot, alone. She had a very cute safari animal shirt on. It wasn't my style, but I loved it.

"Jill, I don't know why, but I've been thinking about you all day long!!!!" I haven't had contact with her since class ended in April. The way she looked at me and hugged me, I felt that she'd be excited to see me, however I came. Basically, it took about ten seconds for it to sink in deep that I needed her today. So I got my stuff and sat a couple rows back from her, just to be near her. She saw me behind her. Without a word, she grabbed her stuff and moved to sit next to me just as the storyteller was beginning. That move there begged me to come out of my inner room, naked. It was a little embarrassing but NOT lonely. Halfway through the story, I felt the intense desire to lean against her shoulder. I needed touch. I debated for a while. What's appropriate? Is this totally weird? Is this crossing a boundary? She was my professor at a University! Normal people with clothes on the inside would probably not do this even on a dare... But I didn't have those clothes. I didn't know if it was weird, unacceptable or not. So I just did it. and asked if it was okay. She said yes and put her arm around me and held me. Tears welled up. She accepted me, fully exposed and vulnerable on the inside.

At the end of that story, I got up to go to a different tent. "Thank you." I said, eyes watery. "I have been thinking about you all day long, Jill." she said into my eyes. "I think I really needed you today." I said, biting my lip, standing there with my insides bare and vulnerable. "Don't stop needing me, Jill." she said, and I left. But I realized as I walked away, on my insides, I had on a shirt. It had little safari animals on it.

Now I know why Cini bought a shirt that looks like me.

We are the love we receive when our hearts are naked and vulnerable.

And to be so open-hearted and to trust someone enough to give your raw self to them is to give love.

We are the love we give.

I Can Still See

After one particularly difficult day in Holocaust and psychology class last week, I left the room like a zombie. I know I did not actually see it happen in front of me except on screens and in the recorded voices of witnesses. However, somehow, I felt like I had intimately witnessed sadism and horrifying events that no one needs to know about - except for those who do not think the Holocaust happened, those people should see it and feel a fraction of the pain I was feeling after this class.

I knew the zombie syndrome would not last forever, but even that fact seemed an injustice in the world and was confusing to me. The world outside class seemed an ignorant and ridiculous image, something like the photos of the killers at Auschwitz laughing and enjoying life together with the smoke from chimneys in the background. These two were taken around the same time in the same place:
  

The world seemed a lie. And yet I submitted to the knowledge that in a few hours, I also would meld with this absurd world going on in the face of should-be-world-stopping events.

I stared straight ahead as I tried to remind myself that regardless of the evil around, it was my duty and blessing to feed the frogs at the Wilk and love them. So I took it one step at a time, amazed after every step that the step had actually been taken. Each step seemed impossible until I was past it and moving to the next one. My mind seemed to be in slow motion, but my body didn't seem phased. I felt disconnected. I was disconnected from my life and I didn't think I could possibly belong in this world, in this body ever again - yet knowing, just like my steps, somehow I would, and it would happen as if by some grace, I'd find connection again. But it felt impossible to me in the moment despite my knowing.

Then, among the crowd of people that existed between the library and the Wilk at that time (with EFY going on) there was a young mother and a little girl, not quite two years old. The little girl had just got the hang of walking on her own. Out of the many other people walking by outside, the little girl stopped walking and let go of her mom's hand. She just stood there, staring at me, a zombie. With my frame of mind (being an artist, I experience emotions quite visually) she looked like a ghost, like everyone else - blurry and far away from me. But as the little girl raised her hand up beside her face, the blurry world stayed blurry and gray, but the little girl came into focus and I saw her. I saw her in color, dull color, but color. She opened and closed her little fist in that innocent child-like wave.

I stopped walking and turned to face her. I slowly moved my hand up to my chest and opened and closed my fist in the same way. Neither of us smiled as we did this, but our eyes were locked.

The mother grabbed her hand and pulled her away, anxious to get to the library totally oblivious to our moment. And my feet felt pulled the opposite direction towards my frogs. No words. But all of a sudden the impossible had happened. I had connected to someone. As if by grace, I found connection, a lifeline. The color didn't come back to my world for a while and it was still a blurry gray. but the memory of the little girl stayed with me and it was enough to make me feel alive in the death that threatened to consume me. But it could not consume me!

As the phantoms roared at me with frightening questions and accusations, "Why live in a world like this!?" I stared it firmly in the face and raised my hand to my chest deliberately, hovering beside my heart, and I opened and closed my fist at him... And with that, the devil shrieked and fled in anger. Despite the devil filling my world with death, I can still see life. He left my world dark and gray and blurry, but I can still see even if only in my heart's memory.

Life Through Lilies

Starting a couple days ago, I am experimenting with life with Lilies. It is an experiment, yet when I say "experiment" it just doesn't seem like the right word, but perhaps it is what the word ought to mean. Despite the scientific sound of "experiment" and all the connotations that accompany science (objectivity, manipulation, control, unbiased) it is quite the opposite. I am doing a subjective study of a powerful gift to nurture and grow that simultaneously exist somehow with a lack of control. And I am more than biased in the outcome of this study, I have invested much in it, and I am committed.

I suppose mine is an experiment in the way that life itself is an experiment. I would venture to say that all of us lose our curiosity life and forget to see life as a sort of experiment. Yeah, sure, we want answers, but we don't even know life well enough to ask the right questions. The best studies are those that involve a living with and engaging with the topic at hand, and they usually lead to better questions. But, we, unfortunately often get attached to certain outcomes. And therefore are haunted daily by the fear of loss and failure. What if, instead, we were committed to life instead of attached to it? To be committed to life creates a sense in me that life is something that is wise in itself, something we can learn from, and something we act for the sake of because it is worthy of it and good in itself. And I think it also means that you commit to all that life means and stands for (sometimes getting to know life means getting to know death). To be attached, on the other hand, gives me a sense that life is a thing to be possessed, controlled, and that life should act for the sake of "me" because I am all that and a bag of chips by myself.

I love that when I google searched committed, this picture came up. My letter to Life:

So like I said, my Lily Experiment with Life is one in which I am committed to the life of the Lilies, and yet, not attached. Should life leave, I may indeed be sad because I miss it, but I will treat life's decision with respect and find what it is trying to intimately teach me. I may even find that as I am committed to it, it never really leaves. Perhaps Life is kin to Joy - able to exist among its shadow.

I have two different experiments within my study of Life. And I want to tell you about them.

Experiment 1: 

I was having one of those "I miss em" days and I just couldn't take it anymore- I needed some life, something alive I could care for and that needed me at my apartment. I needed something I could be intimate with without the fears that so often new people elicit in me. I needed an Easter Lily. They are my favorite. I went to the store and I asked them if they had any Easter Lilies left. "No, we only carry those for a few weeks in April." said the young lady in an orange vest.

"Why is that?" I asked.

"That's how long they last. Very short."

"Do they only live that long?!" I was shocked.

"Well, no, that's just only how long they bloom." she admitted.

"So you only sell the living things when they look their prettiest?" I questioned.

"Yeah, that's the only time people buy. No one wants plain old green! They just want the beautiful colors! Don't you?" she said and quickly turned around and continued counting a flatbed of 2X4s.

"no... not really. I want an Easter Lily." I mumbled, frustrated that the balm I was hoping for was unavailable.

And then I thought, "how true that is." Don't we often treat other people the same way that Home Depot treats their stock of plants? We only hang out with the interesting and colorful people. We look to that one guy that everyone is crowding around and say, "man, he's who I want to hang with." And we sometimes treat the quiet plain person or the one who lacks one social skill or another with pitty at best, "I hope he finds a friend someday" or "If he'd just change in this way, he'd have more friends."

Additionally, we treat ourselves the same way. We only sell our prettiest parts. We just assume that this is all that will sell, all that people want. Why would they want to see our plain green leaves or our dried up blooms? Who would possibly want us just for who we are? Why would anyone take my wilting leaves or crooked stem home with them? Who would believe us that we are more than we seem? And maybe we have good reason to assume that. But we miss out on the few people who may just want us for who we are. All because we are afraid to sit on the shelf next as customers come, maybe point in dismay, maybe ignore... yeah. That is pretty scary... But I so wanted an Easter Lily. I didn't want the blooms, I wanted the life. Maybe there are people out there who just want You. But when they come to the store, they learn that you're out of stock, because you're not in bloom right now. Maybe someone just needs YOU like I needed an Easter Lily.

So I settled for an Asiatic Lily, an orange one much like the wild ones that grow on the side of the backroads at home- ones I pulled up and planted at Gar's grave. It had lots of buds but none of them were out and all of them still very green. It was the only one without a full bloom. So you bet it was the one I bought.

I was so proud of it, I set it in my lap the whole ride home, the green buds tickling my chin as I drove.

One day later, in the evening, one of the buds was already starting to turn orange and one petal began to unfold. I was elated. Man it grew fast! Then, this morning I woke up and there were two flowers in full bloom, all the petals out. I felt as if it had been deciding whether it was safe enough to come out all night. I liked the idea of it peeking out in the quiet of the night and watching me sleep. And I looked so harmless lying there, so it had finally decided to open its eyes wide and to get a good look at me when I opened mine.

Interesting, Lilies bloom in darkness. 

Experiment 2:

In checking out what needed to be done in the flowerbeds and garden at my grandma's house, she pointed out to me that someone who weeded last had completely trampled one of her Asiatic Lilies- a pink one. It was flattened, just a stick with what looked like seaweed wound around it, only 6 inches long. It reminded me of one of those awful ASPCA commercials where they show the emaciated puppy with those eyes... Sarah McLaughlin sounded in my head "in the arms of an angel, far awaaaaay, from here..."

I scooped it up. "What are you gonna do with it?" Grandma asked.

"I'm gonna see if I can save it." I said. And I took it inside and got the clippers. It was terribly dry, brown, and dead in the middle. So I clipped out the middle. and stuck the root and the stem of the "wick" Lily in a little pot side-by-side and took it home. I had to disentangle it from its own leaves, long since dried up and split. I cut off all the dead leaves.

"I don't know if Lilies can grow like that. I don't know if they have bulbs or seeds...I don't know much about Lilies." warned Grandma.

But this was good news to me. If I knew more about lilies, I would already have deduced which of my pieces of lily would not survive. My beliefs, I am sure, DO have an effect on the life around me. Ever had someone treat you a certain way and suddenly you become it? The "baby" in the family understands this well, at every family gathering, long after they've grown taller than all the other siblings, they're still the "baby" and suddenly they find themselves going right back there. I do not think we understand how our beliefs about each other affect each other. We think we are so isolated, independent, and the same from context to context, but we are just afraid of the idea that we are intricately and necessarily in each others care at all times in some way. Being blind to what "science" says, I can have genuine hope for both the stubby Lily root and rootless and naked Lily stem. Both of them have my vote.

Secondly, despite feeling like my belief may have a more profound effect on life around me (yes, even a Lily), I also became acutely aware of also how little power I hold. I have seen plants grow in the most unlikely places under the most hostile conditions. And I've seen some die there. I've seen opportunist plants that shut down to survive and then leap and bound suddenly when opportunity glances its way. I've seen plants that never take the opportunities given to them, afraid the summer won't last long enough, so they stay in survival mode. I have also seen the same species of plant in the most fertile soil and with the perfect amount of sunlight and rain suddenly wither and crumble. I've also seen very very happy plants in the same conditions. "Science" might tell you that it's all in the genes. But what if it was in the soul? Just because science can't comment on it, doesn't mean it can't be encouragingly true. What if there is some life in a Lily that, under certain constraints, has some level of choice in its own fate? Inside these two pieces of Lily is a will, I believe, to live or to give up.

 

Granted, I don't think that the root and the stem can simply just decide to live. They are most certainly constrained by its biology, or even perhaps by God's will. But somewhere in that mess of constraints, it has some choices about how this all will go down. It may have very limited options, but it has options.

Thirdly, as I consider that this little hurting plant has a will of its own, I start to feel that this experiment is not an experiment of all Lilies, but an experiment of this Lily. It is not an experiment of all life, but this life. I am eager to learn about this Lily's life. I'm highly invested in it's growth, and if it dies, I will be highly invested in that process as well, being with it all the while. This Lily may have many things in common with others, I may even relate to it myself as we share some aspects of our life. I have felt like a naked stick, without roots, shoved into new soil. I too have been constrained and limited. I too have chosen. But in the end, I learn about a particular Lily in a particular context at a particular time. Interestingly, this is all that science is, the study of many different individuals in different contexts and yet we say it tells us something about life as it "should be." The individuals that don't fit the mold are chalked up as "error" or "abnormal." What if they were simply really quite perfect at just being themselves in their particular contexts?

And the study will continue... these are just my observations so far. This is me, publishing my findings.

Love Still Is

           Warning- this post contains difficult material. Stemming from the pains of the Holocaust and my struggles with understanding how it could have happened, and still happens. But it also contains light at the end. Hopefully this post won't throw you into depression. But I hope it throws you. I hope it changes how you see people and what is really right and wrong.

            The hardest part about reading in my holocaust class, besides the pain and joy of "suffering with" AKA "compassion", is when it brings up other things in my life. We talk about the dangers in assuming that the Nazis were genuinely evil people. When we assume that, we assume it can't happen again. And yet it does, all over the world and even in small ways in our own homes. So we see perpetrators in ways that try to normalize them, NOT EXCUSE them. But in ways that we can see similar tendencies in ourselves to avoid responsibility, to go with the flow, to leave authority unquestioned, or to control, blame, or dislike others to combat our own fears.  If we don't see the potential in us, we may be turning a blind eye to the hurt we cause others and not even see it until it is too late, or worse, we may never see it. We also study to see the potential to save, rescue, and stand up. But we aren't there yet in our class. That will be another post.

            Today I read about a policeman who shot only children after his partner shot the mothers. He could not stop the war, but he could shoot the children, was his attitude. He truly felt he was doing the right thing, principally. This is tough stuff, and like a holocaust victim, I'd rather spare you details that I have read and seen and heard. But the point is that he truly felt he was doing a good thing. He had convinced himself that since the mothers were gone, he was saving them from a motherless life. Part of me cannot excuse him in the least and feels he ought to burn in hell and hunger and thirst and never be satisfied. He cannot come back from that, cannot repent. This is because of something powerful that it brought up for me.

It brought up my last experiences with my very best friend in all my life. Garcelle, my service dog, was by my side for 6 years, 24/7, from the moment I got out of bed to the moment I fell asleep, that fuzzy red lab was by my side – even in school, and work, church, and the store…everywhere. She was part of me, spirit and body. We were one being. She got melanoma a year and a half ago and it killed us both. She eventually broke her leg where the tumors were crowding and we knew it would not heal and she couldn’t walk. I took her to the vet. He missed the vein and he had to do it again, only the second time, she struggled. The vet asked me to hold her down while she fought for her life. And then I carried her to her grave. I fell it the hole with her and sobbed. I still question occasionally if I did the right thing. I still question if I killed her or if I saved her. It haunts my dreams at night and even turns my daytime into a nightmare sometimes. I know this is different from Nazi killings, but this chapter played on all my fears, pointing out the similarities. Forgive me for needing to talk about that. That’s what this brought up for me. I still struggle to live with it and maybe I will for the rest of my life. Sometimes, in weak moments, I wonder if I were put on trial like that policeman if I would not deserve to be hanged. Maybe then it would be enough. No, it would not be enough to make up for what I did- a dark voice tells me.

But Hold on, keep reading. I have saving grace.

            I cannot live with that darkness. If there was ever anything I am learning from the Holocaust, it is that where there is the deepest depths of despair, a light ten times brighter will shine through. Here’s where the light is- my heart was only with her and God. I prayed. I begged. I suffered severely to make that decision I did. I sacrificed my desire for her to stay with me whatever the cost for her to not be in pain, and for me to be with her until the end. Even at the end, she was willing to give her life for me. She fought. She was willing to live with severe pain in order to stay with me. And in setting her free from the suffering in my arms, I gave up my life for her. I am no longer that girl I was before. That is love.

And that is what is different between me and that policeman. I did not make up this story of love so that I could feel better about what I was doing. The love was real and deep and I was connected to the death. The Nazi policeman felt he was doing something good for that child whom he shot- but for him, they were separate, individual, beings. He and that child were not connected by anything more than principles of wrong and right (however true they may or may not be). Gar and I were one and we gave each other our lives. Her death was not separate from mine, and we knew from the beginning that our lives were not separate either. We were connected at our very souls. Principle was not the voice that guided us then. Principles still failed the policeman. They might have failed me, too. And maybe that is the real difference between right and wrong... Love was the voice that guided us. Love still is.

Bread Alone

This spring semester I am taking a tough class. Not in work load, but tough for the emotion and the irrationality contained in the topic: Psychology and the Holocaust. I am taking it from my favorite professor, Dr. Jeffrey Reber.

I love Dr. Reber's teaching philosophy. He believes that every class is a community in which all are obligated to the other. Students to students, students to professor, and professor to students. We have special obligations to each other, and as we go through his classes, we inevitably find the deep obligations that we have, as a class, to the world around us. And the fun part is that Dr. Reber believes that an important part of community is food. Communities eat together. In other classes I have taken from him, we have had weekly lunch hours as a class in which we just eat, laugh, and hang out. Once we even left class a little early to walk down to JDogs and eat there together.

However, we all agreed that we don't feel right eating together when our community discusses topics like the Holocaust. It seems quite disrespectful to talk about starvation with your mouth full. So, Dr. Reber decided to do something else involving food to unify us in our obligations to each other and to the world. It has to do with Bread.

Bread has constantly been used to symbolize life and the sustaining of it. Interestingly, it was the Jews who received the Manna from God to sustain them in the wilderness. In the Holocaust, it was the Jews who had bread withheld from them them. In fact, in the camps, that was the common meal each day, a slice of crusted bread and something they called soup - which was more like a broth. People would do whatever they could do to make their bread last longer. Some hid it in the ground, others under pillows at night, still others ate it a crumb at at time, and others stuffed pieces into their cheeks for hours until it disintegrated.

Victor Frankl, a psychologist who survived a concentration camp experience, noted the incredible meaning that bread can have and the effect of starvation on the mind. He told a story of a man who was in his camp with his son. The man knew that his son stashed bread underneath his pillow at night. In the middle of the night, this man stole bread from his own son. He watched as another man gave up his own bread to another man in poor shape - but no poorer than his own.

The potential for good and evil are within all of us. As Dr. Reber says, studying the Holocaust is like looking at yourself and the world through a fun house mirror. Parts of us are exagerated severely. We see what we never imagined we could be in front of us. Don't think you could ever be a Nazi? You don't know that. You've been a perpetrator before, and even scarier, you probably weren't even aware of it. No one is immune to the propensities that are within us for evil. Don't think you could have the courage to be a risister or rescuer? You don't know that. You've stepped up before, and even more impressive, you may not have even noticed the deep goodness of a simple action or comment you made. The minute you don't believe you could be a perpetrator is the minute in which you let your guard down. You may not notice until it is too late.

There was a lady in a camp who survived. She actually married her rescuer, the first US soldier to enter the camp. She moved to Boston with her husband after the war was over. However, although the war was over, life didn't become easier for the Jews and other displaced persons. Many returned to find that their homes had been taken over by others who would not give it back. They still could not go into many places. Anti-semetism was still in full swing. Many families or remaining members, lives shattered, became homeless an starving in the street. This lady, however was safe in Boston, and recovering quite resilliantly from the trauma of life in the camps.

She loved to go to the supermarket as often as she could. When others asked her why, she told them that it was to help her English, as the labels in the grocery stores had pictures with the words for an easy way to learn vocabulary. The truth, she said later, was that she had to go to the grocery store to reassure herself that there was enough food, that there would be more food the next day and the next. One day, she brought in her groceries from the store and grabbed a loaf of bread from her sack, and sat in a chair in her living room. As she ate from her very own loaf of bread, she felt incredibly depressed and in despair. As she looked out the window she thought, "Oh how I dreamed that I would one day sit in the safety of my living room with my very own loaf of bread. But I never dreamed that I'd be eating alone." From that day, she dedicated her life to an orginization that went back to Europe to aid starving and homeless Jews. Never again did she allow herself to eat alone.

It was after this story that Dr. Reber took out a loaf of French bread, tore off a chunk, and passed it around the class. To me that chunk of bread I ate with my classmates was a solemn promise. That bread represents six million Jews. They will not suffer alone, I vow to listen to their stories so they don't have to feel alone. Even in their mass graves or ashes in a burnt down barn, I will hear them. It is a promise to learn the uncomfortable truths of the Holocaust - the potential for humanity to be horrifically cruel and immensely beautiful even in the same concentration camp and often by the same person. There are those out there who are without bread (literally, and symbolically-as discussed earlier).

Man cannot live by bread alone. Read that differently now. What does it mean to truly live? You cannot truly live (in the existential sense) by eating your bread alone.

I vow to never eat my bread alone.

A Storyteller's Void

Sometime around 4th or 5th grade, I gained a conscious testimony of who I was to God. I felt like His little girl. I remember being very homesick for heaven during these years. I remember wishing I were an angel. I hoped with all my heart that if I believed hard enough, God would take me back as one of His angels. On windy days, it was all I could do to make it through school and run home as fast as I could. I would run to the garage and get a tarp, tie it around my wrists and ankles on each corner, and stand at the edge of the front porch several feet from the ground, and I would close my eyes and jump. I felt something, something I couldn't see, grab me and carry me across my front lawn. I would open my eyes and find myself landed where I could not hope to land if I simply jumped without the wind to hold me. I would climb back up to the porch and jump again, hoping "THIS time I'll really fly, more than just the wind can take me!" There are sometimes the void has nearly swallowed me.

In all of us, I believe there is a homesickness, a void. Perhaps it started when we were born and passed through a veil, separated from our Heavenly Father and Mother for an unknown amount of time. Surely being separated from a loving parent at birth can do some powerful things to a person. We may feel angry, we may feel depressed at times, we may get mixed up in things we ought not. Invariably, we feel a profound void, a longing for that something that is bigger than us and wrapped us up in belonging at one time.

            I think my favorite stories that stay with me, and the ones I feel most urgently to tell, are the stories which speak to this homesickness inside of me and to the homesickness I believe lies at the heart of naked humanity. And to get to the naked humanity, I cannot help but elicit images, descriptions, and actions that are reminiscent of children and in a story-world so wrought with symbolism and the unseen that it is almost magical. In an adult mind, no hugs to a tree could really transfer to a dead Grandpa and no, dead people can’t whisper in sunlight. And yet, everyone in my audience believed me, or at least considered it viable. Somewhere in their naked child-like hearts, they were hoping I was right. The idea made the void shrink just a little for a moment and it felt good to feel more whole.

            It is children who allow themselves to really feel the void. They cry when mommy walks too far away or when the beloved stuffed puppy is dropped somewhere three steps behind. They giggle with delight when they feel the void shrink when daddy gets home or when a doggy’s fur moves beneath and tickles their little hands by some force, some being, bigger than their own, or out of their control. It is the void that leads children to desire to grow, to know, and to give. As we get older, we begin to avoid feeling the void. We spend hours on Facebook, Netflix, or simply being busy – too busy to be left wanting more. And yet we are wanting more. As we climb into bed, sometimes we can feel a slight heartache muffled by covers and plans for the next day.

            Stories are void-shrinkers. A void which is felt together shrinks. Someone mentioned in my feedback slips that my grandpa tree story is like an allegory for our relationship with God. I agree; it is a journey we all take and in which we each feel anger at times, humor and giggles at clever “coincidences,” and peace when we feel Him near. When we connect with a story shared by another, we connect with something bigger than us, perhaps even God. We do not seek stories to rid us of the void. We need the void to connect to the very thing that can ultimately fill it for us. It is only when we become exquisitely aware of how far away from home we are that we begin knocking on doors and they begin opening.

            One thing I enjoy and think I can do well, is create a shared image. In my feedback, several people sketched my grandpa tree, or rocks, and they were all perfectly spot on. When I describe things, I think of myself as a little kid when a guest comes to my house to visit. I go into my room and come out with an armload of my favorite toys and want to show them all to the audience. It’s not the toys I care about so much as the wanting my visitors to see what I see in the objects so we can be one. If I can get a group of people to see a simple object the way I do, then in the simplest form, I’ve created something bigger than us both – a shared meaning. The void shrinks, and I’ve done my job as a human being. Some call me a storyteller. I'm a student learning to be human in front of you.