Girl On Fire

When my kids and I hear this song on the car radio, my daughter often wonders aloud whether Alicia Keys wrote the song for "The Hunger Games."  (Turns out that's not the case.)

 

But if my daughter were to turn and look at me during her speculations and if she could see through my sunglasses, she would notice tears welling.  The more I hear the song, the more closely I listen to the lyrics, the more I think of my daughter. 

 

 

 

Today she burns in another future-determining forensics competition, portraying a Holocaust rescuer and delivering extemporaneous speeches about international current events.  She's nervous and excited and anxious to know the outcomes.

She fears that anything short of victory will extinguish what little flame she thinks she has to offer.  But she doesn't see what her mom can see -- that she burns with such vibrant and majestic promise that a "loss" or even a victory will not dampen the slow-building blaze.  She's just a girl, but she's on fire.

______________

Meanwhile, when my son hears the song, he usually wonders aloud, "Why doesn't she just stop singing and help the poor girl?"

Surprise party

Buried deep in the back of my van, in a pile of plastic bags stuffed with clothes, shoes and other soon-to-be Salvation Army donations is a toy reindeer that poops candy.  It was the gift I received at the white-elephant Christmas exchange for the freshman girls small group I lead.  Accompanying the smiling plastic reindeer was a small packet of hard candy pellets.   The reindeer, when gently pushed on the back, would emit a jaunty jingling of winter bells while depositing his sweet pellet offering.

One person in my family can’t imagine why I would want to give this away.

I loaded these many donation bags in my van several days ago thinking I would drop them off that very day.  But a full schedule and biting wind chill have caused me to procrastinate. 

Now, whenever I make a sharp turn or hit a bump – and there are many of these on the uneven country roads I drive – the buried reindeer’s jingle bells play.  And for a moment each time, driving by the slow-melting effulgence of snow-covered fields, my everyday travels feel like a festive adventure.

Velveteen

Since her surprise six-weeks-early arrival and tenuous beginnings, I’ve watched my friend’s daughter grow in beautiful, overt yet subtle, often inspiring ways. I’ve watched from the distance of a few miles, through the stories, worries and discoveries of her mom, through a genuine and ongoing friendship between this girl and my daughter, through tears, with pride, with hope.  I’ve watched.  Enjoyed.  Treasured.

Her mom could brag about her all she wants (though she doesn’t do so often enough) and I would be happy to hear every minute detail.

Perhaps this explains the tears in my eyes as I watched her dance the lead in a local ballet production of The Velveteen Rabbit.  She danced with precision and with joyful abandon, with rich expression and with exuberance.  This beautiful young woman who spent much of her second year of life walking on her tiptoes, worrying her mom.  Now dancing en pointe elegantly.

She found a way to connect deeply with what is true in the character and what is true in herself and to portray these so vividly that we in the multi-aged audience could ignore all distractions and smile through tears at the beauty and truth of it all.

Did I mention her dancing with abandon?  Such wild beauty.  Vivid, alive, enchanting, especially when she danced as the “real” rabbit.

Now she is sixteen, on the cusp of independence, equipped to drive with license, practice and common sense.  She already seems far more real than most adults I know.

But like her fictional counterpart, she’ll face difficult times on her journey to truly becoming real.  She’ll likely doubt herself, as others who are less real put on airs and boast about their bells and whistles and modern ideas, as they dance circles around her, seeming to eclipse her beauty and talent.  They will “boast and swagger [but] by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away.”

This young rabbit, though, she will indeed become real.  I have no doubt about that.   Her “beautiful velveteen fur [will get] shabbier and shabbier, and [her] tail [will become] unsewn, and all the pink rubbed off her nose” by people who will love her and need her.

She might not even notice it happening, until one day she will run and jump and play as only a real rabbit can.   Less energetically than she does now, perhaps, but with deep and undeniable beauty and truth.  She will bring much warmth and goodness and love to this world and she will dance – oh how she will dance – with rich expression and abandon.

And I, her mother’s friend, will smile and cheer through tear-filled eyes.

Our own much-loved rabbit, Jenna

What I would have said...

Recently Conversations Journal solicited blog entries for their September theme honoring Dallas Willard.  They invited those of us who had had him as an instructor to submit our reflections.  I'd encourage you to take a look; there's great stuff there. 

Meanwhile, my entry didn't make the cut.  Now that I've read their blog a bit more, I get it.  My style's less refined than what they tend to post.  I'm certainly capable of something more academic, but I do kinda like what I wrote even if it didn't fit their blog.  

And so, I post it here :-)

*******

Dallas Willard told me I should let my 13-year-old daughter get her ears double-pierced.  Actually, should is the wrong word.  It would be all right to allow the double piercing.

We were at the Saint Malo Retreat Center in the Rockies just before lunchtime.  People were filtering into the great room outside the dining area and I noticed Dallas sitting alone, looking calmly reflective and approachable.  Though I feel a bit star struck in his presence, despite his warm hospitality, I decided to mention something from his morning lectures.

“Stop trying to get people to do things,” he’d said.  I had scribbled it down, marked it with a big star and marveled. 

Much of my life and ministry have involved trying to get people to do things.  Trying to get teenagers to come to events or camp or small group Bible studies.  Trying to get adults to volunteer time and money, room and board, even prayers to important causes.  Trying to get people to show up on time.  Even trying to get people to live the with-God life.

I can’t tell you how refreshing it was to hear Dallas say to stop that.  Even as I write this, I feel my shoulders relax, my breathing deepen. 

This doesn’t mean not to invite them to something larger, better, deeper.  It doesn’t even mean not to encourage them toward better things.  Rather, it is what it sounds like: stop trying to get them to do.  Loosen the grip.  Invite.  Encourage.  Give space.  Above all, pray.

And this is what I bumblingly discussed with Dallas that afternoon in the Saint Malo great room. 

Then feeling emboldened, I decided to also mention my phone conversation with my daughter the previous evening.  As we were hanging up, she’d said, “Tell Dallas Willard he rocks,” and then, “Ask him if I should get my ears double-pierced.” 

She’d been campaigning for extra ear-piercings for some time and I confess, I’d been stalling.  Goodness knows, she could ask for worse, but thirteen seemed a bit young for such things.

So, I asked Dallas her very question.  He chuckled in his warmly amused way.  He paused, smiled and said, “Well, I think that would be all right.”

_______________

 Where is God asking you to loosen your grip on people or outcomes?  What would it look like and feel like to trust God with these things?

 

The Truth of Work Itself

One of my dear Amy friends (and I'm lucky enough to have two of them) sent me the following quote from Thomas Merton:

"Do not depend on the hope of results.  You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect.  As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself.  You gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for a specific people.  In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything."
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
Zowie, that scratches an itch!

Silence

"One reason we can hardly bear to remain silent is that is makes us feel so helpless.  We are so accustomed to relying upon words to manage and control others.  If we are silent, who will take control?  God will take control, but we will never let him take control until we trust him.  Silence is intimately related to trust.

"The tongue is our most powerful weapon of manipulation.  A frantic stream of words flows from us because we are in a constant process of adjusting our public image.  We fear so deeply what we think other people see in us that we talk in order to straighten out their understanding.... Silence is one of the deepest Disciplines of the Spirit simply because it puts the stopper on all self-justification.

"One of the fruits of silence is the freedom to let God be our justifier.  We don't need to straighten others out.  There is a story of a medieval monk who was being unjustly accused of certain offenses.  One day he looked out his window and saw a dog biting and tearing on a rug that had been hung out to dry.  As he watched, the Lord spoke to him saying, 'That is what is happening to your reputation.  But if you will trust me, I will care for you -- reputation and all.'  Perhaps more than anythign else, silence brings us to believe that God can care for us. -- 'reputation and all.'"

- From Richard Foster's chapter on "Solitude" in Celebration of Discipline

Nationals

I'm at the National Forensics League Tournament with my daughter and six other freshmen-to-be.  We're here with a few kids from our high school and two coaches.  The high schoolers have already begun competing.  This afternoon, they'll learn if they've made the first cut from around 400 competitors per event to the sixty continuing on.  Tomorrow, the middle school competition begins, and so, our fun hang-out-a-little-and-work-a-little pace will shift.  Adrenaline will begin to pump.  The drama will commence, literally, figuratively.

Today in this calm before the storm, I ruminate on my own Nationals story, one perhaps better described as a non-Nationals story.  A story I have told few people, because really it's not that interesting to anyone but me.  I am tempted tell my story to people here, because here causes me to remember, but this is not the place for telling.  Now is not my story.

Still, it's a story that has shaped me.  One that bubbles up in my consciousness from time to time accompanied not so much by sadness, regret or bitterness, but more by bewilderment.  We all have these stories, stories we seldom tell but that make us who we are.  Occasionally, we take them out, turn them over in our minds, examining the many facets, ruminating.

____________
I participated in a number of high school activities, but Debate and Forensics were my passion.  I was pretty good, so the passion was not misplaced. Though I dabbled in a variety of forensics events, Original Oratory (a ten-minute persuasive speech) was my favorite.  I did well in this event.

As a sophomore, I placed third in our region's national qualifying tournament.  The top two advance to nationals.  To have done so well at this age was impressive at the time, and it felt like a promise of great potential.  One day, I would undoubtedly be competing in Nationals.  That seemed certain.

The next year, I encountered controversy early in the season.  While preparing to write my oratory, I had flipped through several old Vital Speeches magazines seeking topic ideas and I had chosen as a springboard a speech about fear of failure.  Because the speech was from several years earlier, I was surprised to discover at one of the season's first tournaments that a competitor from another school had consulted the very same article.  In fact, she had not only consulted the magazine, she had plagiarized almost the entire speech.  (Interesting that she chose to plagiarize a speech about fear of failure.)

I told my forensics coach, but as far as I know, he did nothing.  The girl attended the school where he had just worked as an assistant coach before taking the head coaching position at my school.  I'm sure it was complicated for him.  Perhaps he did say something and the coach at her school did nothing.  Either way, she continued to compete with an unchanged speech throughout the season. 

She was a good speaker.  I was a good speaker.  Because we had the same topic, when we competed head-to-head, the person who delivered her speech first usually fared better.  We traded victories back and forth throughout the season.

At the national qualifying tournament, our duplicate speeches became problematic.  When she spoke in a round before me, she got the better score, and vice versa.  The stakes were higher now, though, so I mentioned it to my coach again.  An investigation followed.  Ultimately, she was disqualified from the tournament.

Even so, the damage was done.  I place third in the tournament.  Again.

The  next year the pressure was on.  The season proved promising.  The national qualifying tournament proved promising.

In the finals round -- the round determining who would proceed to Nationals -- one of my three judges was the coach of the competitor I had outed the previous year.

I placed fourth.

____________
Here I am now, at the destination I so deeply aspired to all those years ago.  I've learned it's slightly easier to qualify in high school now.  The top three rather than the top two places go to Nationals.  Had this been the case back in the day, I would have gone as a sophomore and junior.  If that had occurred, would my life be much different than today?  Would I have chosen a different college, career, path?

I am here with my daughter, who is quite good.  I say this as a mom, of course, but also as a reporter of what many other people have said.  Nevertheless, I am throwing her to the wolves tomorrow when she competes in the middle school tournament.

She will perhaps learn that though these events have judges, justice is not guaranteed.  She might also learn that what others say is true -- she is indeed a gifted young woman.  Or she might have the chance to begin to learn that she is not what she does.  That accolades and accomplishments and awards are nice, but she is so much more than these things. That there are lovely portions of her that cannot be rewarded and often are not even recognized, except by those who can truly see.  Some that only God sees.

And I, her mom, am glad I am here.  Though it dredges up past disappointments and lessons, perhaps because it does so.  I am glad to be here while she lives her own story, regardless of the outcome.  Ready with a mom-hug either way.