A Choice

"I suffered, but things that don't kill you make you stronger. How could I possibly show my children the right path in life if I let life break me down? ~Safeta, Bosnia

I feel so American.
So American in the way so many may view us. wanting. spoiled. young. not understanding the cold.
removed.
Like a private school daddy's girl walking past a homeless girl and hurrying home to catch my favorite show.
There is so much more.
I suppose in some ways we are all products of our environment. Surrounded by the latest technology and style we walk by it and want it. Surrounded by it, it can easily consume us. Or instead...is our environment a product of us? One way makes us a victim and removes responsibility. It's a note excusing what we have been made for the time being. The other places the responsibility on us and gives a choice: succumb to it or change it. (it is both I think, but the importance is in which you allow to come first)

Safeta is a Bosnian who was raped repeatedly while her husband was out digging trenches in a work camp during the Bosnian war. They did not kill her assuming she would kill herself. Before the war Bosnia held pride in different nations living on the same soil. "most people identified themselves as Bosnians first and secondarily as members of ethnic groups." She was raped by her neighbors she lived peacefully by for years- the ethnic ties now had ripped the peace apart. Now she when she hears voices she follows the voices to see if one of them was her attacker.
"I want them to see that I am still alive, that they did not kill me, neither body nor soul, nor will they ever be able to do it" She is a product of her environment, marred by memories and left with scars- a victim. But her defiance and hope take control of that and changes her from victim to ...a human living life...i can't think of a poignant word but her choice has brought her above her circumstances. Shaping her- yes- consuming her- no.

As Victor Frankl, a holocaust survivor wrote "Every day, every hour, offers the opportunity to make a decision - decision which determined whether you would or wouldn't submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of yourself, your inner freedom, which determined whether or not you would become a plaything of circumstance..."

tears fall silently down my cheek reading of women and men and the suffering they endure. Now... not to get all rastifari/hippi on you but...these are our brothers and sisters. Fellow human beings. At first I find myself moved by pity and probably as a typical person removed from a situation i want to throw some money their direction to help them out. But pity elevates one above the other. Pity keeps us from learning and leaning on each other. It keeps us from love and I think from seeing God as he is. A deeper look brings humility (and thus empathy which keeps us as equals). perhaps the real difference is the adversity. I lack their harrowing tales that have embedded in them strength, wide eyes, and deeper convictions. I do not envy their pain, but I envy what their pain has produced.

it makes me shift my focus.
It brings me to humility. Oh God you are so good to give me what i do not deserve. even so good as to speak to me when i am not listening and giving when i do not ask. Here God speaks to me through these people fathoms away. do they know God is speaking through their lives to a girl in the northwest?
Once again...i re-evaluate. i long for simplicity. any moment the comfort of an early morning and starry night, warm tea and showers, summer and winter clothes, music to fill my ears may be snatched from me. Who i am, what i receive and what i give has to come from above all those things. If i live in that simplicity then perhaps when diversity comes I too will not be a victim and let life break me down. But I will stand up and defiantly cling to what is real.

meanwhile, I find I no longer "need" a lot of things I have in my mental list. Certain problems or feelings that were overwhelming seem so small and removed from truth. Now I long to come alongside my brother or sister, those who need help standing and instead of pulling them up on firm footing I can put my arm around theirs and walk to firm footing with them. sharing our humanity...hoping when my foot slips and I need to look defiantly in the face of any kind of death someone too, will hold my arms up. I am removed from their pain...yes. i don't know what they suffered. But the things they have learned- their stories can bring- beauty to us. It can prepare me for what I know life will inevitably bring. For that I feel a kindred-ness, and thankfulness towards those who share their pain. it helps us push through and rise above (or out depending on you preposition of choice)

"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing. The last of human freedoms- to choose ones own way, and there were always choices to be made" Frankl

My Lifeline

Oh God!

Thou art love!
I build my faith on that!

I know thee,
Though hast kept my path
and made light for me in the darkness.

Tempering sorrow, so that it reached me
like a solemn joy;

It were too strange that I
should doubt thy love.

~Robert Browning

water wings

A table tucked away in corner. Flooded with dusty afternoon sunlight.

She sits and stares.

Annoying music muffled by earphones playing empathetic music-feeding and soothing her pain. She sits in the café, in this corner, at a wooden driftwood table for two; sipping Jasmine tea from black mug. To her right a black kettle rests holding a reservoir. In front of her, sits her journal.

She sips, she sits, she stares.

She glances around every so often. She imagines a wise person meeting her eye across the room. This wise person with a knowing eye holds her gaze until they sit in the empty seat. They draw her layers with their words and speak life to her.She turns up her music. No one pays attention. The café's music is not fit for her mood. The weather is though; it is an overcast yellow day. It holds a wistful if only with windblown branches and tousled hair.

She sips her Jasmine tea and pours more from the pot.

Then, she embraces her pain.
It squeezes around her heart, the heart that doctors can't reach- her soul heart.
She tries to let the flavor of the tea, the sounds in her ears, and the wind in the windows melt over her. To consume her. She tries to force a smile with her eyes.
She glances down at her journal:
"Drowning, falling.
Slowly, sinking, holding my breath.
Everyone is outside, breathing, living, laughing.
My hope is here somewhere, I have to swim through to find it."

She looks up at the window again. Tired.
Being miserable makes you so tired. Tired of being miserable. But too tired to want anything else. She thinks. She considers writing that down. But that is too much work.

She stares. She waits until she finds a pocket of pleasure from what she sees, hears and tastes. Just enough to give her courage.She smiles with her eyes. A fierce determined smile. A transient smile of hope.

But she can't seem to stop the confusing words. They rush back at her and plunge her within herself. They make her sick. Regret. She shrinks wishing the words would consume themselves and pull her in. cover her. Drown her into a comatose state where she doesn't have to fight. Kill her. She is already half dead. Grieving the death of the living. The living cold. The unwanted.

The wind blows and locks her eyes on the waving branches knocking gently against the window. She pours more tea. Sip. Stare. Drama she tells herself. Stop it.

She wants to stand in the wind with her eyes closed, her arms out, her hair swirling. Flying.

She finds a voice of courage. The most courageous thing you can do is to move on and let go. She doesn't know how, but she takes the small piece of bravery she has and whispers for help, refuses blame, shuns bitterness.
She relaxes. She breathes. She smiles with her lips.

She finds she has been given just enough to find grace.
She has found her water wings.

"Sometimes Grace works like Water Wings, when you feel you are sinking"

~La Mantt

all things beautiful become old

Yesterday I was looking through my shoes…trying to recall why I bought most of them.
Cute?
Practical?
A bargain?
Perfect?
Now they sit in a pile in my closet and I am waiting one seasonal rotation of weather to get rid of them (as recommended for impulsive people). They aren't necessarily useless…but somewhere along the way they have become unappealing and I no longer reach for them. Which got me thinking a lot of things are like that...

We can't stop looking at beauty when it first comes. But we look at it for so long that it becomes as familiar as everything surrounding it. And suddenly- it's just- blah, normal. At first you're so excited about those shoes and you want to wear them all the time; but slowly we wear them less and less…they just don't fit right, don't match, -they have lost their luster.

In a way- that's scary to me. Because we get so excited and it's almost embarrassing how quickly we discard the object of excitement for something newer that seems more exciting. How can we trust ourselves?

Of course I hope you realized I am not only speaking of shoes- but of the real things that come into our life- Shoes, shirts, friends, ideas, faith, books, food, cars…

Then again...

What about the old shoes we can't wear enough? How does it pass the process where its holes become like home? A companion. At what point do those lucky few objects pass through excitement, obtain familiarity and wear and tare, and retain their beauty in an endearing way that makes their age a comfort preferred to new and exciting?

huh. It's a rhetorical question. We don't question it really. You never know what will pass the test, it just seems to happen. Some friendships fade and some withstand the wear. Some ideas hold and some are released. Some gifts become a treasure while others become garbage.

I am continually searching for "the one" pair of shoes that will pass the test. I cringe whenever I buy a pair of shoes because well...will they become what I'm looking for? A signature for my feet, always there, always comfort, always practical, always my style? I have a pair in the running- high hopes for them really…but the luster is still there. Will they continue to garb my feet when the newness fades into familiarity? ...Only time will tell.

Meanwhile, I am still looking for that pair of shoes that slip onto my feet and feel like home.