The Body Mosaic BLOG

I was watching “Bones” today in the car on my iPod (no, I wasn’t driving…), and I have to first give props to Keely for recommending that show. Love it. Highly recommend it to anyone reading this because you’re probably smart enough to like smart TV. This is smart TV.

In one of the episodes from this season, Dr. Brennan (the main character) tells her partner about a gift she received when she was in high school from a supposed boyfriend who ended up being her Secret Santa. The guy gave her Brainy Smurf for Christmas, instead of Smurfette which he knew she had wanted, and she took it as a commentary on her lack of attractiveness as a female.

When she told Booth, it was obvious how much it had hurt her back then, so he decided to get her a smurf figurine to make up for it. You saw this moment coming for the whole show, only I expected that he would go ahead and give her Smurfette, which she had wanted so much back then. Only he didn’t.

There’s the big climax moment, and Booth opens his hands and there’s a small figurine of Brainy Smurf. Of course, she gets angry because she wanted Smurfette, and he proceeds to tell her that Smurfette was brainless and self-involved. Even though she was pretty, she was only pretty. She had nothing else to offer. Booth told Dr. Brennan that she had so much more than her looks, although she had those too, and that was what made her such a unique person. It was very touching.

It made me, of course, think. Because that’s what I do. I got to thinking about the expectations we have. We expect to get married and have children, or to get this perfect job, or to make a million dollars, or to get Smurfette… what we have been told is the best of the best. Instead, we get Brainy Smurf. We don’t get married, or we can’t have children, or we get a job that’s really difficult or far away from our family, or we don’t get into the college we want or get the grades we want or make as much money as we want, or whatever. And essentially, we see this as a sign that God doesn’t love us or that God isn’t interested in us, or that He wants us to suffer or whatever. What if that’s not the case at all?

What if who we really are is Brainy Smurf, only we don’t know it? What if we think we want or deserve or desire Smurfette for a whole series of reasons that are based on nothing substantial? What if we only want to get married because it’s what everyone does (or what you should do)? What if we only want to have children because it’s the thing to do? What if we only want that job so our life will be happy? What if our reasons are not reasons that give us life? What if what we really want/are/desire/have is Brainy Smurf?

This made me think… am I happy with what I have been given? And am I making the most of me, Brainy Smurf that I am? Do I take advantage of everything I’ve been given and stay grounded in the present? Or do I wander off into the past or the future and make camp? Do I worry or fret or become anxious about what might or might not happen, or how I could or could not have handled a situation better than I did? What if what God is asking me to do is just to lay it all down anyway?

I guess my question is really, how can I be content with Brainy Smurf?

I don’t expect an answer. I don’t know what I expect, but it’s definitely not answers. Maybe, if I’m lucky, it will just create new questions within me, and new problems to be solved. Gotta put my Brainy to use, after all.

I’ve been sitting here trying to title this post, and I have no idea at this point what it’s going to be called (I wanted something that started in “cluster”, but it was going nowhere fast, use your imagination. So I feel a little like I’m starting a story with no point. But here goes.

So on the Marathon Road Trip angle… everything was not well in paradise today.

And we were, truly, in some amazing country today: Colorado. It was everything it had been built up to be by all the friends I have who live there. It was beautiful, majestic, breathtaking, gorgeous, etc. In retrospect.

We get into Colorado this morning and the car has already started overheating, early on. We hit Denver and then start moving up hill. The “low fuel” reminder goes off just as we make it out of the Denver city limits. No sooner had we started moving up hill than our engine starts to overheat. We decide to try to pull off to give the engine a rest, and we run out of fuel. We end up coasting into one of the “chain-up” areas in the very first pass (of three, which we did not know at the time). We had officially run out of fuel.

My sister, who’s driving in her car ahead of us, has already pulled off the road in Idaho Springs, so we call her and tell her to buy some fuel and come back to meet us. Of course, none of us have ever been on this road before, so we don’t really know where we are. There was some heated discussion about which mile marker we had just passed, and which exit was about 1/3 of a mile up the hill, and whether or not we should just call AAA.

Now, it’s a relatively hot day outside (it ended up well over 100 today), and it’s starting to get hot in the cars. My sister’s car is old and doesn’t have good ventilation or tinted windows. Her cat, who is traveling with her, starts to overheat and foam at the mouth, just as my sister is driving our gas back to us. So as she’s afraid her cat is dying of heat exhaustion, and doesn’t know where we are. Then, she takes the wrong exit and ends up on another freeway with no exit. She can’t pull over to check on her cat. And she still can’t find us, because neither my mom or I know exactly where we are.

Finally, she finds us, and we fill up, and get back on the road. And less than a half-mile up the road from us… you guessed it. Gas station. Not that we would have made it there anyway. Piece of advice: your car never gets the same gas mileage when you’re towing. Should have thought of that.

We didn’t run out of gas again, thankfully. But our car continued to heat up as we went up (and up and up, and then down and up and up and then down and up and up and finally, down, down, down, down), so we spent the next 60 miles pulling off at almost every exit to cool the car down. No air conditioning, and with the heater blaring at 90 degrees (hey, it’s what the manual said to do…), and with 100 degree temperatures outside. Finally, when we started going downhill again, I sort of zoned out and stopped paying attention, and we all passed out from the heat exhaustion when we finally got to Grand Junction.

So I sit here, in Fruita, Colorado, thinking back on this ordeal.

At one point in the worst part of the trip, my mom kept saying to me, “this was the biggest mistake I ever made… we never should have done this… we should have hired movers and flown… this is totally stupid.” And I tried to calm her down, saying it wasn’t a big mistake, and that it’s all going to be fine. And I stopped to wonder to myself, was this really a mistake? Should we really have not done this?

And as hard as today was, as much as it completely sucked, I would have to say no, it wasn’t a mistake, and yes, we should really have done this. Because as much as it sucked, I can look back and say, “wow, that’s what I’m like under stress.” Some of it was good, some not as good… on my part and everyone else’s. But we all did what we could given the tools and abilities we had at the time. The point of having hard days like this: to help you have a better hard day next time.

The “mistakes” I make aren’t really things I want to go back and change, they’re learning experiences. And I know some of you are thinking, “that’s just semantics”… but I would argue that in some cases, semantics make all the difference.

I do think it’s important to think of things in terms of learning experiences instead of mistakes because if I make a mistake, I berate myself, I feel guilty, and I punish. But I don’t necessarily try not to make that mistake again. However, if it’s a learning experience, then I approach it from the standpoint of “what could I do differently (or the same) next time I’m in a situation like this?” It’s a complete attitude change.

I’m not saying it’s easy, but I am saying that I think it’s necessary. Because as I sit in my air conditioned hotel room, on the other side of this really horrid day, I realize that I can learn from my learning experiences. And I can learn more than “you shouldn’t try to move from Kansas to California in late July ever again” or “you shouldn’t try to tow a u-haul with a small SUV through a succession of mountain passes in the heat of summer whether the dealer tells you it’s tow-capable or not”.

I can learn about how I respond to stress and what my triggers for anxiety are. I can learn how to adapt in high-stress situations, and who to turn to in a crisis. I can learn what fuels me and what drives me to make the decisions I make.

So I guess the moral of the story really is: go ahead and embrace that hard day today, learn from it, and hopefully it’ll help you have a better hard day next time. Because hard days will always come. Best to be prepared.

Some of you know that I am on a marathon road-trip across the country right now. I thought I would just quickly post while I have internet access to tell you a little about what has been happening.

Because of some unforseen circumstances, I dropped a class at Bethel, and so did not have Intensives this week. And because of this, I ended up driving the whole way with my mom and sister instead of flying. We’ve been moving Maggie from Lawrence, KS to Long Beach, CA and it has really been a trip.

We started in Bozeman, and went to Wall, SD. I hadn’t been to South Dakota (oddly) before, so it was all new to me, and very exciting. I also hadn’t been to Iowa, which we hit the next day, along with Missouri, Nebraska, and then Kansas. We stayed in Kansas for a few days, packing, cleaning, moving. Got to see the KU campus several times. Very exciting. Just for the record, every single person in that town owns a “2008 Champions” shirt. And I got to see the streets that were flooded after the game. It was very interesting. Went to a store called “Brits” which locals call “The Brit Store”, which was right next door to “The French Store”, basically in the same building. Ironic. But the store itself was awesome. Spent lots of time and money there.

Then, yesterday, we finally left Lawrence for parts unknown. We went across Kansas, and still haven’t managed to leave the state, but we will. We’re hoping to go to Liberal, KS today to see the house from the Wizard of Oz. Should be exciting. Today, we’ll drive through Colorado and get to Provo. Then tomorrow, it’s Vegas, baby! We’re hoping to get to Vegas early, because neither my mom nor I have ever been there, and Maggie can show us around.

Then on Tuesday, we’ll pull into Long Beach, unload, get rid of the U-haul, and start unpacking. We’ll go to Disneyland (our favorite place on earth, I think) on Wednesday, and then head back for Montana on Thursday, hitting all the major cities on the way back, it sounds like. I’m looking forward to being in Denver again. Really love that place.

So this is our marathon. 12 states in 12 days. The driving marathon of the century for me. It’s been character-building to spend this much time in one stretch without significant alone-time. But it’ll all work out, I’m sure.

Thanks for reading, dear reader. I will post from the front again soon.

With love,
Becca

I was just reading TS Eliot again. I forgot how much I love Eliot. Here my favorite section of Eliot poetry in the world. It’s from section five of “Ash Wednesday”, which has six parts. I used to have a blog called “The Unspoken Word” because I think it’s sort of ironic how much we “talk” when we blog, but we don’t actually give voice to words, which is so important. Sometimes, I think I could get by without talking, if I could blog. But there’s something so powerful about the spoken word, even though there’s no record of it, like there is here, of all my unspoken words.

But if you haven’t read Eliot, I would suggest Ash Wednesday, perhaps the Hollow Men, and of course, the Waste Land. For poetry, anyway. Murder in the Cathedral is my favorite play of his. But he’s a far better poet than a playwright. Anyway, here’s the poignant thought of the day… the second long section of this reminds me a lot of Hopkins, who I will likely post later. Love that rhythm in this section.

From Section V of “Ash Wednesday” by T.S. Eliot

If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Not on the sea or on the islands, not
On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,
For those who walk in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here
No place of grace for those who avoid the face
No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice

We had a family tragedy this week. One of my cousins, young and vibrant, died suddenly yesterday. He left behind a wife and daughter. He left behind a broken, grieving family that now also grieves his loss.

I was trying to process this last night, and it seems like this part of my family just keeps getting hit and hit with one difficulty after another, and just when they all collectively take a breath, something happens. I know that I want to see the redemption in all this…it’s not that I believe there is none. It’s just really hard to see right now.

I was closer to him and his wife than I have ever been in his life. And I feel the loss, but I feel it more profoundly for those he really left behind. His parents especially, his sisters, his wife and daughter. He was a healthy young man, for all intents and purposes. This was not expected. I do not know how we all will recover from this. That’s probably why it’s so difficult to understand. And profoundly surreal.

I don’t know what to do or say or think or feel. But I do know that I want to believe in a grand plan more today than I did the day before, and I will probably want it more tomorrow than I do today. I still have so much to learn and discover about God… but one thing I hope to be true is that something redemptive will happen here… because we all need it.

Last night, I watched the movie Lars & the Real Girl on a recommendation from my boss. If you haven’t seen the film, I can’t lie… it’s disturbing. It’s quite good, in a disturbing way. I’ll try not to give anything away, but it was just such a profound movie. I know this may not be what the film is “about” per se, but it was so incredible to see the power of love. Essentially, this girl was real because everyone loved and affirmed Lars, out of a deep love for him. And when the major distress of the film happens, every relationship is thrown into sharp relief.

The truly amazing concept in this movie was that an entire community was willing to suspend belief or suspend judgement or suspend reality because one person in their midst was having a personal struggle. It made me wonder what this movie is saying to us, as people, as a church, as a community.

It seems that there are times when people need us to suspend something in order for them to survive. Sometimes we need to suspend our own desires so that other people can have their desires fulfilled and/or their needs met. Sometimes we need to suspend our belief because there is more at work than we can comprehend. Sometimes we need to suspend our judgment because our opinion is not what is required of us to contribute to the situation.

Suspension, as a practice, is not something we’re used to. It requires a certain amount of sitting inside tension to work appropriately. The people in this movie, for instance, had to suspend their judgment of Lars’ sanity in order to provide him with the support network he needed. They had to suspend their personal desires because Lars needed their time and their participation in order to move through his delusion.
But the reward of their suspension was amazing. He became a functioning member of the community, which no one would have expected from the beginning of the film.

I’m a big fan of the “so-what-did-we-learn” moment… so this film made me wonder, what do we have to learn about suspension in order to function well in this world. Suspension requires something of us that we’re not used to having required: selflessness. It requires us to place others before ourselves, and allow the needs, desires, and priorities of others to take center stage. Those of you who are parents may be familiar with this posture… it’s called surrender. Surrender of things you once thought were important, to care solely for the needs of another person.

And it’s great that we do that sometimes.

But I think we should always be on the look-out for the Lars in our life. Who is it today that I can surrender to/for? Who is it today that I can suspend something for? Who is it today that I can ascribe ultimate worth to by the way I treat them? Who is it today that I can make the Lars in my life? For me, today, that’s even a better question than “What Would Jesus Do?” Although, if I’m honest… they’re basically the same question anyway.

I think it might be my high “Input”, but I love new things. Once things get used, especially if it’s free to replace them, they usually go by the wayside. So I have a new blog theme. This is my new thing for the day. Tomorrow maybe a new opinion or a new attitude. But today, it’s a new blog theme.

I was reading Richard Florida’s blog today (which, by the way, if you haven’t heard of him, you definitely should check out his blog…brilliant researcher and theorist…his book “Rise of the Creative Class” changed my life), and I ran across this map. Since I can’t figure out how to imbed pictures from other sources in my blog yet, I’m giving you the link so you can look at it. It’s a map of the gas prices for the entire country, color-coded by county.

He found it on GasBuddy.com, which I’d never heard of before, but I thought it was a fascinating map to study this morning. Here’s the original url:

http://www.gasbuddy.com/gb_gastemperaturemap.aspx

Absolutely the most interesting graphic I’ve seen in ages. Hope you take a look at it.

I think, on some level, we all have “tapes” in our head. Something that has communicated a message to us about ourselves (or God or the world) that is essentially wrong. This “something” could be other people, it could be media, it could be the church… it could be any number of things in our experience. Something is giving us a picture about ourselves or God or the world that is not true, but seems to line up with our experience. Or so we believe.

Example. I have a tape in my head about “the real me.” Better known as the “you’re not good enough” or the “anti-Stuart-Smalley” message. I am not good enough for _(fill in the blank)___. This job, this boy, this relationship, this dream, this God, this hope I have. Something about me is inherently flawed and needs to be changed before the fill-in-the-blank can happen. Or before I can be happy.

While I am a huge fan of self-improvement and growth (seriously, I’m not just saying this… I am actually a proponent), I also think that there is something inherently powerful and beautiful about being accepted, COMPLETELY, for who we are. Not accepted…well, except for that job you have (I apologize). Not accepted…. well, except you could lose some weight. Not accepted… well, except for that haircut. Not accepted…. well, except your family is a nightmare. Not accepted…. well, except for your plans for the future. We don’t long to be “excepted”. We long to be “accepted”. Completely. Wholly.

I realized that in a new way this week when I admitted something that I wanted. To myself and to a friend of mine. Yes, I said, I do want that. And I want to want that. And I want to be wanted for wanting that. Or at least accepted for wanting that. I want for it to be okay that I want that, and okay that I want it in the way that I want it. That was a powerful thing to say out loud. Because essentially, what I was saying was that I wanted acceptance. Complete acceptance.

And where these “you’re not good enough” tapes come in is exactly in our weak point. Because as much as we want to be accepted for who we are, most (if not all) of us don’t love ourselves enough to disagree with those tapes. We don’t accept ourselves first, and that makes it hard for someone else to accept us completely. Not because they’re not capable, but because we won’t let them see our self. This whole “you can’t be loved until you love yourself” line is just that. A line. Anyone can love you. You’re easy to love. Or most of you are. But the person I have the hardest time loving? Me!! Not you, not Hitler, not Polpot. ME! I have the hardest time understanding how people can love/like/stand/not-assassinate me! Aren’t we all like that? Aren’t we all taken aback when someone wants to be our friend, or wants to date us or marry us, or when someone wants to hire us? Isn’t that sort of shocking?

Don’t we all say, “if they only knew…__(fill in the blank)__… they would think differently.” But honestly, we all know that other people have flaws. We don’t expect them to be perfect. We expect them to be present. So, it makes intuitive (although not experiential) sense that we should expect the same of ourselves. Although I don’t claim to understand why that is, it gave me a little bit of an epiphany today.

I must love me. I must need me. I must accept me. Not because others can’t until I do. Plenty of people love, need, and accept me. But I don’t. And that is THE problem. The only way I can stop those tapes from playing in my head (and consequently screwing up some pretty stacked stuff) is to start disagreeing with them. It’s my complicit agreement that allows them to hold so much power over me. But when I start to at least want to disagree with them, that’s a great step. I want to believe the best about me. Then, eventually, I start disagreeing with them. Then, they start getting softer and less insistent. Then, they sort of fade into the background. I know I keep waiting for that. I guess it all starts with loving me.