Grace Notes

[learninggracenotes]

What it Takes to Break You

I've been told that the post-college phase is really rough. My parents, friends, mentors, and acquaintences (I mean seriously, everybody) are in accordance. Even BuzzFeed, in one of its funny lists, proclaims the year 23 - the year after most people graduate - to be the absolute rock-bottom of a person's 20s.

My worst year may not have been 23 (I escaped the dreaded number by fleeing into the arms of a one-year Teaching Assistantship overseas), but 24 is hitting pretty hard. 

There's this passage in two of the gospels about how Jesus is the cornerstone - you can either fall on him and be broken to pieces, or the cornerstone can fall on you and crush you. (Matthew 21:42-44, Luke 20:17-18) I'm not trying to say that Jesus is breaking me with his crazy counter-cultural ideas or impossible moral demands (those views of Jesus are a conversation for another time), but I do want to draw on this idea that something good can shatter you, and give you the opportunity to be re-made. 

...because in the last 7 months, I have been broken. 

I had stars in my eyes about being a baker. That train came to the end of the line in the shape of the night shift job I wrote about in my last post. I had put manual labor on a pedestal... and then realized it was a pedestal onto which I didn't have the strength to climb. I simply didn't have the physical resilience or the special meticulousness needed for that kind of work. I was humbled into recognizing that baking was a bad fit for me.

I thought I had emerged from college with a particular deep and lasting friendship. That friendship blew up in my face. Six months later we are picking up the pieces, but that failure shot cracks into my understanding of some things, cracks that are deeper than I can really see. 

After these two things, I collected myself and my energies and decided to pursue a new career, one that people had suggested to me since I was old enough for grownups to feel entitled to tell me what I would do with my life. I decided to take up interpreting. To my utter surprise, I suspect I will actually love interpreting. So I set out to make myself a professional and took a nannying job to keep a roof over my head in the meantime.

That feels like being remade. That feels like hope for a better future. That feels like something I could actually go after with my whole heart.

But the story doesn't end there. You see, being remade is not easy, and it often hurts. Everything is new and confusing. Pieces of you fit together in new ways, and waves of change, waves of new expectations from a new world rock you and threaten to swallow you and your craft with their tallness. 

Not one month into trying to make the dream a reality, my boss yelled at me.

And that was all it took to make me break down: some unkind words. 

I cried more violently about that tiff than I've cried about anything all year. There I am, trying to navigate the morays of a completely new way of life, having only recently established a sense of direction of my own. I'm trying hard and all I want is to do my best, and all it takes is for one authority figure giving me a dressing down to make me feel like I'd been shoved back into the position of a middle schooler who failed some assignment. 

I'm sure anyone reading this can identify with being made to feel so young.

I'm sure it's not the last time I'll get yelled at... or the last time I'll cry about it.

But I hope that I'll settle into this course I've set for myself, that the boat won't always rock quite so hard, and the waves won't always look so tall... or that if they do, I'll get used to it and develop a sense of adventure and fierce joy. I hope that I'll develop a thicker skin. But until then, if it only takes a harsh word to make me cry, I won't be ashamed of it.  

[learninggracenotes]

Nice to meet you, Night Shift

I've started making bread at night. It feels a little bit like insanity. 

I work at a bakery now. A real, honest-to-goodness bakery, where they make bread and pastries. Because I couldn't handle my first week of pastry-making (so much rolling out of dough that SO does not want to stretch - I was afraid I'd get carpal tunnel), I switched to the night shift, where we make bread and bake off pastry. ...and like I said, it feels a little bit like insanity. 

Every night this week I've gone in at midnight, and baked 'til sunrise, cleaned up for an hour, and gone home. I know how that sentence sounds, but "baking 'til sunrise" is not quite like "dancing 'til dawn". I've worked out how I can sleep during the day, and get enough sleep, and I'm doing it... but it's only been a few days, so I'm still adjusting. 

As I've told the people who love me that I'm working the night shift, the overwhelming response has been a facial expression - a cringe, like they got sucker-punched. Then they'll say everything from "You're in deep shit" to "You never know, you might like it." But the first response is always that "oooh, ouch" facial expression. Overall, though, the best advice I got was from my grandpa, who told me that switching to the night shift is like jet lag, but without the help of daylight. "See," he said, "when you go to another time zone, you have the light helping your body adjust. Working at night, you don't have that, so you have to figure out a way to make it really dark when you're trying to sleep and really bright when you're awake." Great advice, Papa Jim. So this week I've been working to adjust my circadian rhythm, and so far it's working out ok. I've got blackout curtains in my room, no one's home when I'm trying to sleep, and I've worked up to sleeping 7h or so. 

What's still weird is working. Every night around 10 or 11, as I think about going in to work, I have to fight anxiety. I want to run, hide, cry, ask anyone who's still awake for a hug. Then, when I've prayed or been prayed for, and gotten all the hugs I can, I get in my car and drive through the night, my afternoon, and try to make the bizarre mental adjustment that is this shifted schedule. 

People have asked me a few times if I get sleepy. With baking, you're pretty much constantly moving around - you never sit down, you're never still. So it's not that I get sleepy, I just notice that my brain isn't keeping track of everything it should, and I move slowly. Like this morning I forgot to put the carrott juice & pulp in the Carrott-Spelt bread. That the carrott was missing should've been bleedingly obvious (after all, the dough wasn't bright orange)... but it wasn't. My boss had to come behind me and fix it. 

Add to the whole working-at-night, being-at-75%-mental-capacity thing the fact that my boss is super passionate about politics and conspiracy theories, and work gets kinda surreal. It's dark outside, I'm fighting to function, learn about breadmaking, and get along with/get to know my boss, and we're listening to books about the Illuminati, "alternative media" podcasts, and NPR. I always want to come up with a rebuttal, but come up short, and decide that bread-making is more important than idea-making right now, and stick to the work. Coming home is like re-entering a different, safer world. And actually, this surreal quality may be part of my pre-work anxiety.

That being said, I really do enjoy the work. And I love working full time. It's such a relief! After two years of working only part time and being upset that I had to figure out how to fill the empty hours, it's so satisfying to have a 40h workweek. I love having my time filled by work, and having the weekend actually feel like rest. One of my favorite things is waking up at like 3 or 4, having slept through those pesky afternoon hours that have driven me crazy for the past 8 months working at Babette's, when I would come home at 12 or 1 and twiddle my thumbs 'til it was time to have dinner and be social. I honestly don't even know what I did with that time - and am kind of ashamed I didn't put it to better use. 

So that is how I'm doing with the night shift so far. These are all first impressions, mind you, because I haven't even gotten through a weekend yet. I have plans to bring my own media to work, so that I don't drown in conspiracy theories, and I'm hoping that by prayer and petition, and with thanksgiving (aka by God's grace) my anxiety will decrease/go away and I'll learn how to interact well with my boss. In the meantime, Night Shift seems like she's a little off her rocker - but she might not be so bad, once you get to know her. 

[learninggracenotes]

Dependent

It's been two years now since I graduated from college, and I've been amply reminded this week of just how much time has passed. A lot of things have changed. Among other things, my parents moved to the other side of the country and my sister got engaged, broke up with him, and started a new relationship, learned her drinking limits, and came to enjoy college. I "worked" in Austria for a year, moved back to my alma mater's city, to an impoverished neighborhood, started living out my dream of becoming a baker, started dating someone, and came to realize that someone I thought was a friend actually wasn't. And that's just the executive summary. A lot of things have changed, on a lot of levels. For one thing, I've gotten much more comfortable in my own skin. And I know some things about myself now that I didn't know two years ago - like that I really just don't like drinking because it makes me sad. 

So this morning when I was driving my sister to the airport on her way to hang out with our parents for the summer, I was able to tell her that I don't have a high tolerance for alcohol because i just haven't wanted to build one. We've had this conversation several times now, and she likes to remind me that alcohol removes inhibitions and reveals underlying moods. So today I could tell her that my underlying mood is generally sad and critical, so I naturally haven't built up much of a tolerance. 

And driving home, thinking about our conversation, I put two and two together. In my last year or two of college, I was absurdly happy. Like, I was consistently, regularly full of joy and happiness. It is tempting to look back on the last two years of college as the golden years I never had in high school. But that's not really healthy or good - I know from growing up moving all the time that you can't live longing for the past: it keeps you from having a good present. But one thing that is true is that my baseline changed in those two years. Instead of sad, my baseline feeling was contentment and even happiness, and I distinctly remember that coming from God.

My reasons for sorrow had vanished, I had everything I needed, but I still had this habit of being sad. And at some point, I was walking and praying and I remember feeling as if God said, you just don't need this anymore. Those sad feelings aren't true, they are left-over habits from the past. And then by his grace I was able to let go of those feelings. 

And that's when I put two and two together. I may not be naturally joyful - that is my weakness - but God is the source of joy, and I know from experience that he is capable of helping me feel joyful and thankful. And because of God's character - because he is faithful, and loves me, and is determined to sanctify me, and determined for me to be a clear example of how great and awesome he is - because of God's character, I know I can depend on him for joy.

In fact, depending on him for joy, even as I depend on him for strength and patience and righteousness in general, will bring him honor when I tell my story and live my life. So I'm grateful for the opportunity to show off God's strength. It feels right... fitting and good. In my weakness, God's strength is made perfect. And I will tell that story. I am dependent on God for joy, peace, patience, love, and goodness in general. It's not an empty statement. I regularly do not have those things, and regularly pray for them, and then find myself able to be patient, or joyful or loving or thankful. That is what it means to me to live by grace... and be dependent on it.

[learninggracenotes]

wading in the wind

Found this piece in some stuff from last year. I still like it, so here it is for your entertainment & edification:

She put on her coat and left. The girl walked out the door. It was green - the coat, I mean - and she was free.

She strode ‘round the corner and left. The girl walked out the door. She walked out the door, and turned around, and locked it, and watched the lock click into place. And turning around again, she began to walk, relishing the purpose in her stride. “Look at me,” she thought, “walking so purposefully! It is good to walk.”

She walked on, and the wind brushed her face, and she welcomed it like the old friend that it was. She and the wind had a long history, dating back to the days when she would walk down the hill, away from that chaos of a school, toward the demands of home. The wind and she, they always shared those times, those in-between times, where there is space to think and to breathe.

And so they walked on, the girl and the wind, the wind blowing one way, and she walking another way, through it. The wind loved embracing her like this. It often carried a message for her from the One they both loved. That was its favorite part to play, the one of messenger. And it loved the smiles she gave in return, and the warmth on her cheek as it ran ‘round her.

The wind runs around so many things - houses, trees, fences, cars, hills, pigeons, crows, flowers, everything. It fancies itself a sketch artist, delineating all the solid things that ever were, and how they move. But the wind’s favorite thing to do is make people feel free.

Some people, when they feel the wind, naturally stretch out their arms, as if to fly. They know it’s how birds fly: they just catch the wind under their wings and are borne aloft. But people can’t catch the wind: they swim through it, like fish through a strong current.

So the girl walked on, swimming through a breeze sweet as elderberry juice and rejoicing. Because walking was good and the wind was good and her coat was green, and the One she loved loved her beyond her wildest dreams.

[learninggracenotes]

Promises

God made 2 big promises to me in 2013:

In January, he promised to sustain me through the rest of my Teaching Assistantship. I had been pretty isolated for the first 3 months, and over Christmas break it became clear that I was exhausted, burnt out, and terrified of going back. I could hardly believe the next 6 months would be better.

God did sustain me. In fact, he did it so well that by the time I left, I felt loved, known, and accepted for who I was in a way I never had before because three whole communities took me in, without conditions or caveats.

In July, when my teaching assistantship was over and I had no place to live, no prospects of a job, and felt helpless to procure either one, he promised to provide for me food, shelter, and money until I had a job. And he has. I have lacked for nothing, despite not having a job between May and October and making an average of $500/month since then.

Last week at my church they talked about how sometimes God's promises in Scripture take a really, really long time to be fulfilled. So long that we stop believing them and get bitter. I identify with that a lot. But if God's promises to me are any indication of his faithfulness (and I have to think they are), then there is good reason to keep hoping.

[learninggracenotes]

Rooting for the Underdog

Lately I’ve been walking around the neighborhood a bit more than usual. My roommate’s been out of town, so I’ve been taking care of her dog, and it’s nice to have an excuse to get a look at the place where I live.

Because (like I said in my last post) this isn’t exactly the best neighborhood on earth, it’s not wise for outsiders to the neighborhood to walk around alone. But Meg's dog is pretty protective, so taking her makes it relatively safe. And in walking around the past week or so, I’ve realized something.

This place is beautiful.

Sure, it’s disheveled and largely abandoned. And maybe it just looks beautiful to me because I like old things; but walking around these streets, they really do look beautiful to me. Things that are modern and clean have never really held my eye, but this neighborhood does. In spite of its decrepitude and brokenness and the plain old trash that litters the ground, this neighborhood has something. Like all the ancient trees that haven’t been cut or shaped by road maintenance crews. They just stand tall and spread their branches wide and house flocks of birds flying south. And there are so many beautiful houses, boarded up but eloquent with history and possibility.

And - I may have said this before - I love how often you see people walking around. I love the lack of cars in this neighborhood. The safest place to walk is the middle of the street, and I love that too - that pedestrians have almost taken back the roads. There’s a lot of freedom in that, if you could get out of the miasma of danger that hangs around. So I walk around with the dog, asking Jesus to hold my hand as we go, and I dream about this neighborhood, restored, housing families that are here now and have been for years.

This place is beautiful. It really is.

[learninggracenotes]

Icy Windows

The city I live in is not usually cold. Definitely not typically so cold that it freezes at night. But this year, it has been. And my roommates and I all park our cars on the street by our house... which means our windshields have been routinely iced over.

And, just as a quick reminder, we live in what is probably literally one of the worst neighborhoods in the country. That's right. The country. Your gentrifying neighborhood's got nothin' on this place.

So when I say to you that every morning I have come out of my house to find that the ice on my and my roommate's windshields has been mysteriously cleared, I hope you realize that I can't make this shit up.

Some well-meaning soul in this neighborhood (I have my guesses as to who) clears - or, in fairness, tries to clear - our windshields every morning. By the time we get out there, they've usually iced over again, but the gesture is... well, perplexing, to be honest. But kinda nice.

Sometimes the guys' house gets people coming to sell them things, and we have people offer to wash our cars and get flowers for our yard and stuff like that. But we don't even know who this person is. They're not asking for credit. They're not asking for money. And it makes me think that, though it may not be all the time, people here do look out for each other. Maybe more than people do in the 'burbs.

Today, though, whoever it was got the bright idea to pour water on our windshields instead of scraping off the ice. No bueno. It re-froze, and it took me a solid 10 minutes to get it off, even with a bearclaw and the power of the sun. And I just had to laugh, because of course it only kinda-sorta worked. It's the #newnormal!

[learninggracenotes]

On Grief

Last week, I thought I'd lost my best friend. She's in this new relationship, and she hadn't talked to me in days. It was like... she was around, but she wasn't ever with me anymore. I was at a loss for how to respond. And in pain. So I told God about it - because that's what I do when stuff is beyond me - and, in prayer, was surprised to find just how much pain the real-and-present danger of losing my best friend actually caused me.

The next day, I went to the park to spend some focused time with God. I'm reading through John, and the chapter I'd planned to read in that time is chapter 11. What I had not realized before I got to the park was that this is the story of when Lazarus dies. Now, I don't know if you're familiar with the story, but basically, the short version, one of Jesus' closest friends, Lazarus (who is also Mary and Martha's brother) dies, and a few days later Jesus goes to where he's buried and raises him from the dead.

That's the short version, but it leaves out some of important details that add drama to the story. Like how the people who live in Judea (where Lazarus was) had almost killed Jesus a few days before, and he'd had to flee. Or how Mary and Martha both - on separate occasions - said to Jesus that if he'd only been there, their brother wouldn't have died. Or how the whole town trekked out to the grave to show Jesus where his friend was buried. Notably, this chapter is also where we find the shortest verse in the bible: Jesus wept.

Now, I know this story. But this time around, I got hung up on that "Jesus wept" bit. I heard in a sermon a while back that the word that's used for wept doesn't mean "Jesus shed a manly tear for his best friend," it means something more like, "Jesus doubled over, wracked with uncontrollable sobs." And I got hung up on this verse for a couple different reasons.

What I noticed, and what I want you to notice, is that Jesus willingly entered into deep pain and tragedy, when, in my opinion at least, he didn't have to. 'Cause here's what gets me: Jesus already knew he was going to fix the situation by raising Lazarus from the dead. Just read verses 11-14. And that means that even though he could do something about it - even though he was sure he WOULD do something about it - Jesus STILL took the time to lament (Lament: the expression of grief; Grief: a cause of deep sadness). It surprised me. I think of grief as being mixed with a sense of helplessness. Grief says, "this is horrible, and there's nothing I can do to change it, and I don't know how to cope except by doing my best to express how much this sucks." But Jesus has the power to change the situation. So why would he grieve?

What that says to me is that God, for some reason, values grief and lament. He does not dismiss it or try to skip over it. In the verse where it says "Jesus wept," Jesus is with Mary, Martha, and all the other people. Just a little earlier, the story says that "he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled," and saw the sisters and their community weeping. After that they all go to the grave, and he weeps with them. So for one thing, he is grieving the death of his close friend. For another, he is entering into this corporate moment of pain and its expression, in solidarity with those who experienced deep loss. I think he's also lamenting the pain that his friends Mary and Martha and their community feel.

When I read this, I was comforted. I realized that Jesus has actually gone through the exact pain with which I was threatened, and I felt his compassion. I felt like he was in solidarity with me, too, and even if I did lose my best friend, he would grieve with me, and help me heal. But I also felt that there might be something more God was trying to teach me about grief.

This Sunday, the pastor read that passage from the pulpit, just before an extended time of worship. So I decided to ask God if there was more he wanted to say about grief. And I'm not really concerned with trying to figure out if God spoke to me or how that all works. But the thoughts I walked away with from that time of prayer are, I think, a continuation of what I learned reading about Lazarus that day in the park.

Grief, it seems, is part of the whole story. If God is the inventor of everything good, then he's the inventor of Story, too. And grief and loss are somehow part of that. God values grief because it is a tangible expression of our knowledge that the world is not as it should be. It is to the soul what pain is to the body - the message that something is wrong. God enters into lament with us in order acknowledge (and help us acknowledge) that that message is true. (Brené Brown, author of Daring Greatly, shares a powerful story about God lamenting, and other thoughts on grief & God, in this viedo interview.)

Furthermore, our grief is proof that we are made in his image. If grief is a kind of cognitive dissonance (or dissonance of the soul?) between what is and what should be, then our knowledge of what "should be" points to a standard of rightness which could only come from our creator. And if we experience pain when things are not as they should be, then how much greater must God's pain be? He loves much more deeply than we do, his sense of justice is purer and bigger, his desire for things to be right much greater than our own. So God grieves, too. Probably much more than we do, and much more than we realize. Bethaney noted, when I talked this over with her, that if you read the OT with that in mind, God sounds less like an angry despot and more like someone who got his heart broken.

Lastly, God's lament does not negate his intention to make things right. In fact, it serves as confirmation that he cannot, will not let things stay the way they are; grief expresses his strong desire to resolve that disconnect between what is and what should be. And so we read about how "the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work," (1 John 3:8). See also the prophet Isaiah who reports:

"This is what God the Lord says— the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out,     who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it,     who gives breath to its people,     and life to those who walk on it: 6 “I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;     I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you     to be a covenant for the people     and a light for the Gentiles, 7 to open eyes that are blind,     to free captives from prison     and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness. "

And that is what I learned about grief and lament this week. God grieves in his own right, and he grieves with us: because he loves us, his creation, and hates to see us suffer; because he, too, feels pain when things are broken or not as they should be; because he intends to set things right.

In case you're curious, I did not actually lose my best friend. We're back on speaking terms, and it's delightful. In his kindness, God gave me the opportunity to talk with her about what was going on, and then helped us come to a resolution.

Also, that situation is not the only reason I've been thinking about grief and lament. With all this talk about the new stadium, my neighbors and I have been starting to get informed about the political situation around here. Talk about things not being as they should. To get an inkling of some of what's going on, you can read this article that was written about a meeting that happened last week.

Hope this was at least interesting to you! I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on matters of grief and lament. How have you experienced God when you were grieving?

[learninggracenotes]

rueckblick

The truth is, I never imagined I'd be living here. When my church started talking about this place from the pulpit, I was like, "Man. That's crazy." It never occurred to me that it could become my daily life.

Just goes to show, you never know what things are the beginning of something mega-big in your life, and what things aren't at all.

You never know 'til you look back.

[learninggracenotes]

Rideshare

"Hey baby, think you could drive me up to the Western Union?" It was the second time someone had asked me for a ride that day, and I wasn't inclined to say yes - I had friends over and muffins in the oven. "I can't really leave right now," I said. "Alright, well, what about your friend?" He looked at Bethaney's retreating back. "No!" she called back to us, her tone exasperated. He chuckled and went on his way.

After he left, one of my friends looked at me curiously and asked, "Does that happen a lot?" "Not really," I replied. What I should have said is that it happens relatively often, if you know someone.

The first person who had asked me for a ride that same day was a high school girl from the neighborhood, a girl that we tutor. She came asking if she could get a ride to Best Buy to get a new phone. A little conversation revealed that she wanted to look for a phone she'd seen three years ago, because her phone broke that morning. She didn't know what model she wanted or how much money she could spend on it, so instead of giving her a ride, I sat down on the sofa with her to do some research. Then I told her I couldn't really take her anywhere (my friends were coming over soon) but that she could come back later when my roommates got home and ask again. She was perfectly content with that answer, and ambled off. She seemed to have gotten what she needed... who knows, maybe it was just some company.

But the one who REALLY knows about ridesharing is Jesse. We call him "Taxi" sometimes, because he drives people around all the time, whenever they ask. Lots of buskers get to the stadium in 5 minutes instead of 30 because of his big heart.

So yeah - it's not unusual for someone to ask you for a ride. After all, there are an average of 5 cars parked outside our houses every night. And for me, it's another #newnormal situation - because if you have a car, why shouldn't you use it to help out your neighbors? Right?

[learninggracenotes]

Absurd Kindness and a Legacy

It was a Friday afternoon, and I was driving up the highway, out of the city for a meeting. Traffic was stop-and-go, the sun was warm, and I was bored... and eventually sleepy. I started nodding off, and the next thing I knew, my face was flying up against the wheel of my car, and I'd hit the guy in front of me.

Fast-forward a few days. Tuesday. I was at house-church, talking to some friends when I got a call from my mom. I went out to the porch to talk to her. "The car's totaled," she said. "And after seeing the pictures, I'm just so glad you're not hurt." The best response I could think of was "SHIT. Now what?" "I don't know," she said. So I told my house church. They prayed for me. They offered to drive me to work and wherever I needed.

The next day, KN, a friend from house church, drove me to the shop to get my stuff out of the now-totaled car. The day after, when I got home from work, I had an e-mail from another house-church guy. He offered to let me borrow his car during the week, "to keep my commute dry". I was floored. And as it turns out, he really meant it. He only used his car on the weekend, he said, and had thought about it all day Wednesday, as soon as it occurred to him that it was possible. It was a Holy Spirit-led thing, he said. Amazed, I accepted.

We made the switch Sunday night. I was trying to insist he drive himself home, when he offered me the keys and said, "I want to see how you drive my car." I thought he made a fair point, so I drove. On the way I said, "You don't have to do this, you know. It's kind of a big deal." "I know it is," he replied, "but I'm doing it anyway." And in the next few days, as I drove his car around town, immensely grateful that I could, I couldn't help but reflect on his sacrifice. Here was a pretty tight-strung, straight-laced guy, lending me his perfectly good, meticulously kept car - me, who had just recently totaled my own car - and we didn't even really know each other that well. It was an absurd amount of kindness. And then I thought, well, doesn't this just reflect God to a T. God with his absurd generosity. At which point the tightness in my chest that resisted of accepting such generous help began to melt a little as gratitude started to warm me.

In total, I drove DT's car for 2 weeks. Because in the meantime, my parents talked with the insurance, got $$ back from them, and I began talking with my mom and aunt about getting a new car. We batted possibilities and listings back and forth, 'til I began to think we'd never find anything. Then a few days ago, my uncle got in touch. And after a few questions, he had an idea. A Honda mechanic he trusted also refurbishes and sells cars. So he called him to see what was available, and lo and behold, there was something. A possibility. (Spoiler: that something is now sitting on the street in front of my house.) It was a little car, old, but the mechanic had replaced just about everything under the hood himself. He was looking to sell it for a few hundred dollars more than what I was looking to pay. We talked. We test-drove. We bargained. And now I have a new car.

The new car is a legacy. It comes to me through death of my mother's favorite car, the first one she negotiated for herself, and which she had hoped to get back from me in time. It comes to me through my parent's generous input of additional money. It comes to me through my uncle's experience, good business sense, and knowledge of cars. It comes to me through my uncle's good relationship with his mechanic, and through the mechanic's love of cars and love for a job well-done. I could not have found this car for myself or by myself.

This new car is a legacy of how God makes good things out of things that should never have been. Because it is very, very good. I couldn't have asked for anything better suited to my desires and needs. This car is a legacy of my family's love for and commitment to me, in more ways than I can count. I could not have found this car for myself or by myself, and I am so, so grateful for it and everything it represents.

In the last three weeks I have been shown so much kindness and love... it kinda blows me away.

[learninggracenotes]

Good Samaritan

I'd just come back from getting groceries, and was going back outside to get them out of the trunk, when I saw a commotion on the lawn in front of the abandoned house next to mine. My neighbors, Richie and Greg, and another man, were pouring what looked like milk on a guy's head. Richie was on the phone, and the other guys were trying to keep the guy alert, "Stay with me man. Stand up. You gotta stand up." 

As they half-walked, half-carried him across the street to the water hose, we heard sirens, and in a few moments the fire truck came. While they were working to revive the man, I asked Greg what had happened. So G told me how the guy had been kinda wobbly on his feet as he walked down the street. G asked him what he was dancin' about, but the guy didn't respond, and right as G realized he must've OD'd, the guy fell over. So G tried to get someone to help him, and folks just passed by. Finally Richie and that other guy saw what was going on and lent him a hand. "Nobody wanted to help the guy." he said. And I couldn't help but think of Jesus' parable about the good Samaritan.

Here was Greg, with his snapback, gold-plated teeth and tattoo-covered face and arms, a modern day good Samaritan. He'd been walking along down the street and, while most people didn't want to even notice another guy acting crazy, Greg saw that something was drastically wrong, and moved to do something about it. We know Greg, and we know he's a good man, but I couldn't help but think that he didn't look like the kind of man he actually is. 

The other thing I thought was that it's amazing how, even in this kinda scary neighborhood, even though a lot of shit goes down here, people will still stop to help a man in real need. And that, my friends, is God at work, and his image on display. And it is good.

In the end, the ambulance came and took the man to the hospital. I've been praying and hoping that he will meet God and be healed and remember this day as one of the moments God used to show him how valuable he is to him.

We learned that his blood pressure was so low that, had R and G not kept shocking him, he probably would've died. So hey, Richie and Greg helped save a man's life today. Nbd. It's just the new normal around here.

[learninggracenotes]

Cleaning up Blood

**Disclaimer**: Before you freak out too much, no one is seriously injured. But there was a dog fight. 

It was a pretty standard morning. B had gotten up before me, I was ignoring my alarm, trying to get in one more hour before my body rebelled and told me that we were very definitely going to wake up now. That is, it was pretty standard until I heard Richie in the front room, telling Megan that if she called Animal Control on our next door neighbor, and another neighbor, L, found out, he would call A.C. on Evie (Megan's dog) and we would probably lose her. By the time I had prayed about the situation and was awake enough to get up, Megan was gone with Evie to a clinic, Richie was gone, and B was making coffee as she gave me the update.

Our next door neighbor kind of takes care of a stray pit/lab mix. This dog had puppies a week or two ago. This dog and Evie are usually very friendly, and early this morning on her walk, Evie apparently got too close, and the dog flew at her. Evie quickly submitted, crouching low, but the Momma dog wouldn't let go. So Megan stepped in to try and grab the back of the dog's neck - an alpha-dog move that would persuade her to let go. Instead, the dog bit Megan, and then turned back to Evie. At some point, Richie came on the scene and did what Megan had tried to do, only this time it worked, and Evie ran off down the street. Eventually they chased Evie down and found that she was pretty injured. She allowed Megan to carry her back to the house, and rinse her off in the tub, and eventually take her to a clinic for surgery.

"There's a lot of blood on the front porch," B said, "we'll have to clean that up at some point." And since she had to leave and I didn't have work this morning, that's exactly what I did. As it turns out, there was blood on a lot more than the front porch. I ended up bleaching the door, the floors, and various bathroom surfaces, plus a load of laundry. Turns out bleeding is ridiculously messy.

As I cleaned, there were two thoughts I kept coming back to. The first one was to do with how it was splattered over the tub walls and the door. In the Old Testament, a lot of the sacrifices required that things be sprinkled with blood, the idea being that the blood of the sacrificed animal stood in for the blood of the people who offered it. In other words, the blood was supposed to cleanse them. In Christianity, the idea is that the blood of Jesus cleanses us. His blood, his punishment, stands in for ours. And I kept thinking, Jesus' blood purifies this spillage, this expression of sin... so the blood symbolized two things.

The second thought was of the women in my neighborhood. We hear about shootings and fights pretty often, if we take the time to listen. And I wondered how many women in my neighborhood have done exactly the things I was doing: getting buckets of bleach, dunking a rag into them, and wiping away the traces of the night's butchery and storm. I wondered what they had felt... and thought it must be greater sorrow or hardness than I've felt in my entire life.

[learninggracenotes]

Hashtag New Normal

I don't know when we started saying it. A few weeks ago, maybe? I first heard it from Lindsey, I think. She was talking about some wacky circumstance in our even wackier living situation on the outskirts of one of Atlanta's more dangerous and downtrodden neighborhoods. Then one evening, the guys were at our house for prayer and someone added a hashtag to the expression. "Hashtag new normal!" someone exclaimed, to uproarious laughter, and as we remembered the last few months and laughed at all the craziness, "#newnormal" quickly became both an inside joke and a way to encourage one another. Recently I've been thinking about that evening, and this living situation, and I decided that there needs to be someone who writes about all the crazy - if only so we can read about it later - and I think this is a good place to do it.

As you may know, I initially started this blog to chronicle my time as a teaching assistant in Vienna, Austria. I titled it "Grace Notes" as a pun on "grace notes" in music - the extra notes in baroque-type scores that are quick but add great beauty - and "notes on grace" as in, the grace that God shows me through his gifts, and his love. It was intended to be about adventure, and my learning curve, but also largely about gratitude.

Basically, since those themes - adventure, a steep learning curve, and a need to express gratitude - are still very much present in this newest stage of my life, I've decided to continue using this blog as a platform for chronicling adventures. Specifically, the #newnormal adventures.

So without further ado, welcome to re-invented face of Grace Notes - the New Normal!

To whet your appetite, here are some of the adventures that have already happened, which may or may not appear later as posts:

On how Evie barks at EVERYTHING but we are occasionally glad she does.

That time Eric and Malachi went under the house and discovered the toilet hadn't been connected to the sewage system.

Ants, airconditioning, dryers, dishwashers, and all the repairmen.

Dogs and Streetfights

That month and a half where we had to wash our clothes at the guys' house.

On being asked for water.

The Festival and the Parade

The Corner - stories about the police and the ones they're after. Kind of.

[choicewords]

here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

E.E. Cummings, "[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]" (via choicewords)

[learninggracenotes]

Centimeter

There's a restaurant chain in Vienna called Centimeter. I'm not sure how many there are... at least seven. I have been there twice.

The first time was just after Christmas break, and I was overjoyed because - wonder of wonders - I had officially decided to move out of the place I was living at the time, and to move into the same apartment as Kelly. It had happened in the span of two days, and I could hardly believe my luck. Thankfully I didn't know that night that I would only be there for a month, because communication problems with the landlady would escalate to the point where she asked me to move out. No... that night all I knew was that not only was I free of the oppressive environment I'd been living in, I was moving to the center of the city and going to live with one of my favorite people in Vienna. It was a good night. Kelly and Cai celebrated with me, and there was much rejoicing and laughter.

The second time was when Ade came to visit. Betsy's friend, she was vibrant and full of life, and she reminded me of home. Within an hour, we were friends (which is saying something, for me). So Betsy and S and Ade and I all trudged out into the cold to Centimeter, and ordered a whole WHEELBARROW of food. It was enormous. Three of us - Betsy, Ade, and me - ate until we could eat no more, or risk serious argument with our intestines. But S was determined to finish the lot, "like a man." He seemed positively manic. So we watched him, and made jokes about feeling nauseous... well, maybe we were actually just trying to laugh our nausea away. lol. In any case, the wheelbarrow defeated him in the end (which surprised none of us) and we took home enough spaetzle and noodles and schnitzel for several more meals.

I know these stories aren't super exciting... but they are food and fellowship. They are the Good Times. We spent more time in pubs and restaurants, stuffing our faces and staring at each other across tables than I can count. Let's not underestimate the power of eating with people has to foster connection. In an "information-soaked age," where distraction is the norm, eating together helps us to just be in the room with the people across the table.

[learninggracenotes]

Joshua Landy, a professor of French literature, argues in “How to Do Things with Fictions”: fiction teaches us how to think about what we take to be true. In the cacophony of an information-soaked age, we need it.

T. M. Luhrmann, "C. S. Lewis, Evangelical Rockstar," The New York Times