stupid little bird

My clients are known for having some interesting requests. And a couple days ago, I kid you not, I got a voicemail that said this: Hey Megan, I found this baby bird that must've fallen out of its nest - do you think you could look online for me at places we could take it? Thanks! See you tomorrow! Now, the thing of it is, I have approximately ten trillion things to do with this guy. We need to go to the Social Security office. We need to find him a place to live. We need to go to lots of meetings and appointments AND he lost his bus pass so I will have to cart him around myself until he gets a new one. That's a lot of stuff. So ask me if I really care to spend time looking online for bird sanctuaries. The answer is no. No I do not.

So sure enough, at our scheduled meeting time, in walks my client carrying a giant cardboard box.

Hey guy, I say. You've got a bird in that box, don't you? Affirmative.

Now, I don't really like birds. I like putting birds on things, but I don't so much want anything to do with an actual bird.  So mostly to appease him - because he is undeniably sweet and clearly very concerned with the health and safety of this little pipsqueak - I went up to my office and googled "found a baby bird Denver." Much to my surprise, through a series of weird phone calls (hard to hear, what with all the birds in the background), I found myself jotting down directions to the Wild Bird Rehabilitation Center of Denver. That's a thing. And because my sweet client wasn't going to let go of that damn bird until I took him there, there is where we went. To Wild Bird Rehab. Which, to recap, is a real thing that exists.

As I drove, the little nugget sat in my client's palm, squawking and being generally bird-like, and I have to admit to you that I was feeling a little annoyed. This was adding more than an hour to an already long and generally unpleasant expedition to Social Security. All for a stupid little bird.

We arrived at the bird place and the bird people, rushing it to an incubator, applauded my client for keeping the little dude alive for those few days. He'd saved the little bird's life. It was a little adorable, how pleased he was, how relieved that the bird would get the care it needed, how he explained so earnestly that if you just make this little noise he'll open his mouth to eat - and since I'm not some kind of heartless fiend, I did begin to soften a little to the whole situation. Even Wild Bird Rehab. My client asked as we walked out - something of an afterthought - what kind of a bird was it that he'd saved? A sparrow, she said.

Sometimes the world is rough. Sometimes people look at us, at me probably, and say all of this trouble for stupid little you. When we've got so much more important things to worry about. But when I heard that woman's voice say that it was a sparrow he'd saved, my breath caught a little because an old hymn rang through me, clear as the squawk of that little bird in my client's palm:

He laid out a path for me that I may see - 
I sing because I'm happy, I sing because I'm free
for His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me


Even on that stupid little bird. You don't have to sing because you're happy, I don't know if you are. But at the very least (which if you ask me is maybe the very most) you can sing because you're free. I know you are that.

the haps and the goings on

So, I've been relatively inconsistent in the writing realm. That's on me. This is for multiple reasons, but mostly, I'm just very busy and important these days. It takes up a lot of my time. You understand.

Today, in a matter of moments, in fact, I am driving to Wichita for what I have affectionately dubbed my annual introversion binge. You see, I am an extrovert of the highest order. In ways that are not always adaptive, I am a people person. As such, being alone, spending time by myself? So not my jam. But once a year, about this time, I get the itch to spend a glorious 7-8 hours all by my lonesome in my little red Saturn. And during those 7-8 hours - completely uncharacteristic to my people personhood - I don't want anything to do with any person other than the cast of Rogers and Hammerstein's 1963 version of the musical Cinderella starring Lesley Ann Warren, which I will sing in it's entirety, probably more than once. Annual Introversion Binge, we meet again. Here goes nothing. And you don't need to worry about me. I have mix cd's, so it's fine.

Another reason I will be relatively preoccupied in coming weeks is because I am moving. Yes, tis true, the puggle will be my roomie no longer as Kels is moving to San Fran for love and bliss and all that. I'm not mad about it, there's not really any room for that, but I am a little frantic in terms of what to do now. I have some options, which is nice, but the future is yet uncertain. Oh, there's nothing quite like this seemingly unending stage of transitional twenties. Oh well. Que sera, sera, and all that.

Here is something nice that has come of the past few days, however. In putting the word out about my move to anyone who will listen [I'd say strangers excluded but I don't like to lie], I have been met with many suggestions of what I should do. I have been offered basements [the good kind], other basements [the unfinished, dead-bodies probably buried there kind], the back-end of a Forerunner, couches, more basements, summer sublets, old people's basements, rooms in South Carolina, pallets on the floors of friend's bedrooms, squatting in empty neighbors' houses, et cetera and so on and so forth. What struck me though, with all offers both serious and not-so, is the number of people who cared and responded. To crazy me. Empathy [I'm choosing to not call it pity] dripping from their voices, telling me these words:
At the very least we have an option. We'll figure it out, ok?

Moving sucks. Scouring Craigslist on the daily for a house that isn't terrible super sucks. Life, sometimes, is sucky. Sometimes it's just nice to know that in the face of all the suck, I will be met with countless people who will tell me it's ok. I'm not alone. And that's something, yknow?

OH, I almost forgot! In addition to walking for Victory in the Valley, and watching my sweet little niecey pie Emily graduate from high school this weekend (!!!!), I am also travelling to Kansas by car in order that I might procure this little guy: a wicker lion which has been lovingly bequeathed to me by my sweet little Nana pie. So wherever I end up in the next month, I know one thing for absolute certain: I will have a wicker lion with marble eyes in tow. And that is also something.

have no plans

If you're looking to have a spectacular weekend, here is my advice to you: have no plans.


Last Saturday, for the first time in quite some time, I had no plans. Not a one. So we set off that morning into the wild blue yonder to do whatever we felt like. We never made any plans in any kind of future thinking fashion, and for something like 14 straight hours, we did not stop having a great time even once. We just did what we pleased when we pleased. At one point we decided we should go eat falafel literally because I saw some granola bites in Walgreens that I thought and commented looked like falafel. Things just happened like that, all day, one after another. We ended up crashing a crawfish boil with a live bluegrass band. We stumbled upon it on our way to get a sno cone margarita suggested to us by one of the ladies whose yard sale we'd attended that morning. Everything about all of it was completely ideal.

I'm not much of a planner to begin with, that's a fact. But this was different - because at no point while we were doing this day was I concerned with anything going on in any other place than the one I was in. I wasn't trying to figure out how to meet up with 26 people or be anywhere at any certain time and I just got to live delightfully moment to moment in a way I'm not used to doing. In a way, I might add, that I will be doing at least monthly from this point on.

All because, for once in my busy little life,
I simply had no plans.

 I highly recommend it.

help isn't always professional

I recently learned something important about working with people. You see, I'm a counselor by education, a case manager by day, and a people person by birth, so I do a lot of people-work. I'm trained to do all sorts of therapeutic interventions. I know how to de-escalate someone who's agitated and I can make 50 minutes of therapy fly right on by. I can teach coping skills and strategies for prevention of relapse. I know these things, and there's always more to learn - and I believe they work or I wouldn't do what I do. I believe the people I work with need these things. Honestly, I believe a lot of the time I need these things.

I believe in therapy, in medication, in the power and effectiveness of mental health treatment. But I also believe we have to be open to seeing what people really need in a given moment - and that it's not always those things. The other day I watched anxiety reduce, spirits lift, and mood shift radically in about 4 minutes and 37 seconds and I didn't do a dang thing to make it happen. Because on that particular day, she didn't need a professional intervention. She needed to sing some Whitney Houston.

People need help that is professional, sometimes. And sometimes people need help that isn't. Sometimes they just need a minute to do something that makes them happy. Sometimes people just need people who will give them space to be people. I want to keep learning how to better help people professionally. But no matter how many letters end up after my name, I hope I will never lose sight of the therapeutic power of basking in the sunlight, driving with the windows down, and singing your favorite Whitney Houston song at the top of your lungs.

You may not work with people, but at the very least, you are people, so listen up. Do something that makes you happy. Take the space you need and feel free in it. Relieve your anxiety, lift your spirits, shift your mood, and never underestimate the power of the things that bring you joy. Watch The Bachelor, drink a diet root beer, listen to metal/country/90's R&B, pay a visit to a swingset. I don't care if it seems silly or inconsequential. It's therapeutic.

Take it from me. I'm a professional.

here is something nice

I love that people all say things differently. I love that we could see the exact same thing and then we'd say totally different words about it. Today my friend Kim gchatted me and she said the best thing, and with her permission I am guesting her words on here [in italics.] She was in a coffee shop, she said, sitting near two little brothers. She said they were about 11 and 14. They arent saying anything, she told me, just eating next to each other. And the older one was helping the younger one get all his things, she went on, and I just am emotion queen watching. [We love emotions, me & Kim.]

This is my favorite part, what she said next:
They are so awkward but they love each other. I am pretty sure about it.

I loved hearing about it. But then I've always had something of a penchant for the awkward types, so no surprise there. She said, when we were talking about why we loved it so, I was thinking sometimes I am shocked when people serve for others. Mmmmmmhmmm, I said. It's refreshing when it's a way of life for 11 and 14 year old strangers. Can I get an amen?

I tend to think love needs to look a certain way. Kim didn't see those boys say two words to each other, and she saw the love in their exchange regardless. Because the thing is, loving another person looks so many ways. The best kind of ways, I think, are just the ones that leave other people pretty sure about it.

I think that may be the trick, in the end. To try and do life so people will say of us:
They are so [whatever way you are] but they love each other. I am pretty sure about it.

true confessions of a person who recently watched an entire TV series in a very short period of time

Disclaimer: First of all, it's about to get all kinds of crazy exaggeratory up in here. You've been warned. Secondly, if you've never seen the show Friday Night Lights, you probably aren't going to care about any of this or think it's that funny. Sorry to be writing for such a niche market today, but I guess that's just life in the big city, baby.

Ya'll, over the last few months I accomplished something important.

I watched the hit TV series Friday Night Lights - all 5 seasons of it - in it's entirety.

Am I embarrassed to have watched that many hours of TV in such a short period of time? I wasn't until I conversationally wrote that question to myself and now I kind of am, but we're already here so I'll push through it. I fell pretty instantly in love with everything about that stupid show. By the end of Season 5, I was so attached to everyone and everything that I literally had to stand up to watch the final play of the STATE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME YA'LL, I was so nervous! I can't help it. I am one with the fabricated town of Dillon, Texas and every made up character in it. There are two particular people I will miss the very most.

  

First, Coach's wife. Hot diggity. Talk about a sassy lady.

The reasons I love her include but are not limited to:

She wears cowboy boots with every outfit she ever wears.
She's married to Coach Eric Taylor, the hott with two t's molder of men himself.
When a-hole football coaches ask her to call heads, she calls tails.
She has bombshell hair, like, all the time.

She is content [happy, even!] with her life even though Julie Taylor is her daughter (woof) and Gracie Belle has the most giant forehead I've ever seen on a human child in my life up to this point. Yes, everyone, I'm talking about it. Don't pretend like you didn't notice.

Here's the thing about Tami T: she always knows the right thing to do. She's brilliant and everyone knows it because every person on that whole show goes to her with every single problem in their life whether it makes sense for them to or not. Plus, homegirl sticks to her guns. She is strong and steady and doesn't falter even when she's making understandable compromises for the betterment of her marriage or town or children's lives or whatever. If I don't know how to handle myself in a given situation, I will ask myself one question: what would Tami Taylor do? And then I make great choices. Sassy, strong, wise, bombshelly choices.

Real talk: when I grow up, I want to be just like Tami Taylor. It's just that simple. I'd do anything she told me to, except I feel like she might tell me to stay away from Tim Riggins. In which case, Tami, I'm sorry to let you down... but I mean... have you seen Tim Riggins? The only thing that could possibly outweigh my goal to be just like Tami Taylor is my life dream to be all up on Tim Riggins. [Don't worry ya'll - he's 31 in real life so it's not weird.]

Tim Riggins? He's like the heart-of-gold-guy-with-a-rough-past-who-just-needs-a-good-woman-to-love-him-through-it poster boy. Pick me, Riggs. I will love you through it.

I can't say much more about it without getting embarrassed and also upset because Tim Riggins is not a real life person [although on a bad day I'm moderately convinced Taylor Kitsch is actually a Canadian Tim Riggins and if we happened to run into each other near his current home in Austin, Texas we would fall instantly in love.] The real test is this: I can think of no scenario in life where I would ever wish it upon myself to be Lyla Garrity, Tyra Collette, Becky Sproles, or Julie Taylor. Except for the scenarios in which they are being seduced/befriended/loved/protected from tornadoes [are you kidding me with that by the way? be still my beating heart.] by Tim Riggins. For that I'd happily trade lives with any one of those crazy fools. And that, I think, is true love. Right?

I may have slipped into a mild depressive state for a minute there when I finished watching, I have to admit it. Anyway I think it's what Riggs would've wanted. The hurt of the loss makes me feel like slamming my car into a mailbox on purpose, Julie Taylor style, or drinking a million beers like Lyla did when she fell on hard times, or brooding silently on my open field of Texas land like #33 himself. But I will be strong, Tami Taylor style, and I will move on with my life. Because I've lived long enough in this Texan fairyland, and in the words of Tami herself, it's my turn now. It's my turn, ya'll. 

birthday hangover

I know you've all been confused and wondering what's been missing from your lives over the past week - and I will tell you. It was me. It's just that, you see, it was my birthday week. So I've been busy being showered with love and attention and extravagant gifts and doing fanciful activities all week long. Far too busy to write anything or even remember I have a blog. Or a job. Or any other role aside from birthday-haver. You understand.

I love birthdays. We know this. And my birthday week was, for all intents and purposes, stellar. Here are some items I'd like to highlight as being especially lovely on what was a great segue into *GASP* my late twenties.

this picture is my new favorite thing.

I drank a hot toddy, ate free banana pudding and watched open mic comedy. I saw Thoroughly Modern Millie on a big screen - wearing long pearls - and we danced the (tap-tap-tap)Tapioca in the aisles after. This in particular was the kind of wondrous activity I wouldn't have even wished for because I didn't know something so wonderful could exist. I saw a brilliant production of Wicked. I'd seen it before and I love that musical, but this was a level of good where I was choked up during every song - not because it was emotional - but because it was so unbelievably beautiful. I got cute shoes and pictures of tomato plants and cakes and DrawSomething drawings of cakes and birthday cake oreo ice cream [somebody get that outta my house please] and phone calls and texts and words of affirmation out the wazoo. I got my very own karaoke party with so many people I love and I got to dance the Cupid Shuffle and really, what more do I need? Nothing, that's what.

I don't mean to sound braggy, but honestly, I feel a little braggy.

And now in closing, thank you, all of you, for knowing just exactly what would fill me with birthday joy. Thank you for a perfectly lovely week in which you attended happily to my every whim and desire, which apparently includes watching weird musicals from the 60's, laughing at amateur comedians while consuming geriatric treats, and singing Mandy Moore for an audience. And to those of you who know me so well, who know my craziest, ugliest, and most broken parts and who have stuck around to love me, I've said it before and I'll say it again: you are, by far, my most prized gift.

Though I love my birthday more than words can say, I know when it's time to step out of the spotlight and resume normal life. If you need me I'll be here listening to the Oldies but Goodies Pandora station to cope with it all. And so with that, I bid you adieu, birthday week. Hello, late 20's. Let's try to be friends. 

reflections on a holy week

I know I go to the right church because I'm consistently doing things that
1. are awesome and
2. make me wildly uncomfortable

Case in point: Maundy Thursday.

I didn't actually know what that service entailed until I got there and learned that we would, as a congregation, be washing one another's feet. I was sitting with a friend, so there was no stranger danger [you know, when you're in danger of having to touch a stranger's foot], but still I was sweating it a little. It wasn't so much that I didn't want to touch her feet, because I felt confident her foot hygiene was just fine, and I didn't think she'd judge my washing techniques or anything. No, what made me nervous was having another person holding my feet in their hands. I hadn't prepared. I haven't had a pedicure in months, but this was going to happen even though my nail polish was chipped and my heels were calloused. Our feet, in a way, serve as a symbol of where we've been. In order to get anywhere our feet have to take us, so at the end of a day, our feet have on them all the mess of a day we lived and sinned in. That's a scary thing to put in the hands of another person.

I tried to put myself in the position of the disciples on that night when Jesus knelt before them and took their feet in his hands. I tried to imagine the panic that the disciples must have felt when they prepared to have their dirtiest part examined, up close and personal, by their leader, their savior, their mentor. I imagine their thoughts were similar to mine: COME AGAIN? We're going to do what, exactly? But I didn't prepare for this! I get why Simon Peter flipped out a little and tried to refuse. He wasn't ready, hadn't prepared. Had he known Jesus would be washing his feet, maybe he would have walked more carefully on his way over. Maybe he would have avoided that one place where things get especially messy. I thought of how I approach Jesus all the time - prepared, prettied, primped. Ready to go, looking my Sunday best. Heaven forbid he see the real, true, hot mess that is me.

But regardless of their lack of preparation, Jesus took their feet and washed them of the mess of the day. And in so doing, I think he sent a very clear message to the disciples (or at least, to me): I know. I know the very messiest parts of your mess. I know where you've been. And I know what I'm doing. Then he instructed them to do the same for each other. It was a symbol of humility, of service, yes. But I think it's also a command for vulnerability in community.

At our Good Friday service, we were given the opportunity to write down any sin we felt convicted of and nail it onto a giant wooden cross near the altar. [Revisit the above checklist for my feelings on this.] I thought of the most depraved parts of myself, and I scribbled them quickly, carefully onto the paper. I approached the cross, praying no one would see what I'd written, and the previous day's thoughts began circling in my head as I put together the pieces. I thought, my sin is too great. My list is too long. There's no way Jesus can cover this much. And there's no way, if Jesus had known what I would be doing, how I would betray and deny and doubt him, he would have done this for me.

But I wonder if it's not exactly what he was saying when he washed the disciples' feet. Jesus knew full well how awful you and I would be. He knew he would be betrayed and denied by the very men whose actual feet he washed. And God sacrificed Christ that we might be saved in spite of that. Jesus saw their feet. He knew their messiest, dirtiest, most shameful places. He knew, and he gave his life anyway.

For the season of Lent, we purposefully omit my favorite part of the liturgy of my church [which for the record 1. is awesome and 2. no longer makes me uncomfortable]. At the end of service every Sunday, we throw stuff at the cross. Not objects, that might get violent, but we mimic throwing stuff at the cross. It's the best. Our pastor says the "all of our..." part, and then all together we say the rest:

All of our problems - we send to the cross of Christ
All of our sins - we send to the cross of Christ
All the devil's works - we send to the cross of Christ
And all of our hopes - we set on the risen Christ

Today we will throw things again. Today is Easter and Easter is my favorite because it means that we are saved. We are free. We are loved. We have a place to throw our junk and a place to set our hopes. We have a Savior who loves to wash us clean and we have a community of believers to be our messy selves in. We get grace and mercy and all kinds of wonderful gifts we didn't earn and don't deserve.

I've had this song in my head all week:

To make a wretch his treasure.
To make me his treasure.
To make you his treasure.

Hallelujah!
HALLELUJAH!
HALLELUJAH!

Jesus loves me, this I know

Yesterday I had a horrible day.

I won't get into it because it's so not worth it, but it was bad. I was crying before I even got to work, and everything from then on just made me do more of that. It was like for one day I just had zero stress tolerance. The stuff that happened wasn't that bad, but I felt completely and uncharacteristically ill-equipped to handle it. So I didn't, not well anyway. I cried a lot and spent more than average amounts of time on the phone with my mom. It wasn't pretty. Also it was snowing. In April. Which we all know I don't love.

I was so ready for the day to be over, but I had long-standing plans to spend time with my sweet friend Morgan, as she has recently returned from being cool and living in France for a bit of time. But as the day dragged on, I was feeling less and less like spending time with anyone, and started thinking I might cancel. I sent a few non-committal texts and we decided we'd grab dinner right after I got off work and then I could go home and go to bed dramatically early. Like salt in a wound, on my way to fetch her from her place of residence, I got stuck in a million hours of women's basketball championship traffic. I continued to feel woe-is-me about the state of my life. But then, while sitting at yet another traffic stop perusing the endless abyss that is Twitter, something caught my eye.

One of my all-time favorite old movies, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, was being screened tonight, for one night only, at this artsy little theater not far from my friend. I looked at the clock - the timing was perfect. After a moment of I'll never get anyone to go with me sadness, I realized something great: if I was going to convince anyone to go sit through 2+ hours of Debbie Reynolds at the last minute on a Tuesday night, it's absolutely going to be Morgan. How fortunate that I have such good taste in friends. And how fortunate that her response when I presented the option to her was, without a moment's hesitation, "well, should I make us some popcorn?" Didn't I say I have good taste in friends?

Now, I don't want to sound sacrilegious, but Jesus loves me, this I know: this was no ordinary night at the movies. The event was put on by the Molly Brown Society, and it was a whole to-do. There were women everywhere in period costumes, a band playing music that sounded straight from Christmas Morgan's saloon (banjos and bagpipes, be still my heart). They even had complimentary "gin and titonics" for us after the movie, in which there were ice cubes in the shape of the Titanic, I'm not even kidding. [Not to mention, compounding good with goodness, this whole movie deal is a series. And next week, the very day before my birthday, they are screening the only movie that I could possibly be more excited to see on the big screen than Molly Brown - Thoroughly Modern Millie. It's a birthdayweek miracle.]

For those of you who don't know me well, all of this is right up my alley. I was giddy. I can't imagine a more tailor-made event to turn around my terrible, hopeless day than this one. Like, a normal night at the movies would have been great - this, though, felt like a party planned just for me. That might sound really stupid to you, but I felt full and loved. Not in a generic, ordinary way. In a hugely personal, intimate kind of way.

The kind of way I believe we're supposed to experience Jesus.

So no, while I don't think Jesus commissioned a bunch of ladies to dress up in big hats and that cute bartender with the 50's haircut to make us free drinks just to turn my bad day around, I do believe it's a picture of how Jesus loves us. Personally. Intimately. At the end of a long day when hope feels lost, joy is restored in a way that nothing and no one else could even come close to doing. I think it's apt that this came during holy week, too. Because as I've thought about it more, I wonder how much more beautiful to experience the death and resurrection of Christ through the lens of a love so profoundly and personally intimate. Christ's sacrifice was for everyone, but it's not selfish or silly to feel like it was for you, specifically, because it was. All at the same time, each and every one of us is loved by God in a way that feels like walking unexpectedly into a party thrown just for us.

That's just about the best thing I've ever known.

I'm not strong enough to be a dragon

In grad school I had to write a paper about my personal theology of change. Basically, if I believed change was possible and how I thought it happened in a person's life. I don't really remember what I wrote, something about Jesus and cognitive behavioral therapy I'm sure, but I'd like to change my answer. If I could write it again I'd just quote CS Lewis and be done with it.

If you haven't seen or read The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, I recommend it, even if only for this one part because it's so perfectly perfect. In it, there's a character named Eustace who is awful. He's obnoxious and rude and a hater and no one likes him. In the course of the story, due to an act of pure selfishness, Eustace is turned into a dragon. When he is finally a boy again, he explains the experience of turning back. First he says Aslan [a lion symbolizing Christ in the Narnia stories] leads him to a well and asks him to undress. Eustace recounts how he scratched and peeled the dragon skin off, three different times, each time only to find more scales had grown right back. So then? I'll let you read it. Then go read the whole thing because CS Lewis is truly geniusly brilliant.

Then the lion said  – ‘You will have to let me undress you.’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it. The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know - if you've ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away. Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off - just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt - and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me - I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on - and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again.

I have some thoughts.

1. I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now.
Eustace tried so many times to fix himself on his own and couldn't do it. He was desperate and powerless, but afraid to ask for help. There's always going to be fear, I think. You just have to get to a point where the fear of staying the same becomes greater than the fear of changing.

2. The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right to my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt.
The weird thing about doing the right thing is it almost never feels right. You would think, I don't know, if you're making big, mature steps toward a better life it would feel good right away. But it doesn't. Right things are often hard things and don't feel right at all. But it doesn't mean they're wrong - it just means we've gotten attached to the not-right things, we get used to them, and the first few tears are going to feel truly, unbearably awful.

3. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.

Eventually, when you can start to see some of the progress, it starts to feel worth it. Results aren't immediate, and they aren't necessarily pleasant. But as days pass and the pain of it becomes less sharp, it really is sort of fun to see the dark, thick, knobbly stuff coming away.

4. Then he caught hold of me [that part just makes my little heart sing] - I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on - and threw me into the water.

After all the tearing and the ripping and the heart-wrenching, we're made clean and new. We feel the pain leave us and even though it smarts for a moment it is - and I love this - perfectly delicious.

Change isn't fun, but it's possible. And I think CS Lewis has captured here in the most perfectly simple terms a working theology of change. We can't do it on our own because we lack the power (maybe even the willingness) to cut deep enough. And when we give ourselves over to our Aslan, the searing pain that is necessary to get to the good part is so unbearable that we often walk out right in the middle, maybe even more than once. We think we can't do it, can't take it, won't be able to survive it. But if we're desperate enough - if, as I said, our fear of staying a dragon outweighs our fear of changing out of one - relief comes. The pain will leave us and we will be made back into who we are. The fun thing is, Eustace didn't just become a boy again. He was different. Oddly, mysteriously, he was better for the experience.

The trick, I think, is that we tend to believe we're not strong enough to endure it. When it hurts so much I can't see straight, I think I can't endure the loss of relationships, changes in my lifestyle, the disappearance of the coping skills I've clung to for so long. But I think that's wrong. Change will be hard, but it won't break me. What will break me is to remain much longer in a skin that's not meant for me. We think we're not strong enough to do what it takes to turn back, that we'll be safer as a dragon. But we've got it backwards.

I'm not strong enough to change all by myself. I'm also not strong enough to spend my life under the thick, isolated skin of a dragon. But because a power greater than myself is willing to fight for me, I'm strong enough to endure changing back out of one. So long as I trust Jesus enough to get me there.

kids at a party

Is there anything more fun than watching kids at a party?

 

It's always the same - some sort of cross-cultural phenomenon I bet. I don't know what it is about the brain chemistry of children under the age of 9, but they all act the same way at parties where there are grown ups. For the entirety of the gathering, from the moment coats are dropped on the floor til the moment mom yells that it's time to go, it's a constant loop of running, chasing, through the house, outside, inside again, between legs, spilling drinks, red-faced, sweating, and giggling with a notable degree of panic because AHH SHE'S ALMOST CAUGHT UP TO ME LEGS RUN FASTER! For those few rambunctious hours, age doesn't matter and rules go out the window and somebody might get kicked in the face, but they'll bounce back quick, just watch. Always and everywhere, I have found, it is the same. Kids en masse just instinctively know how to party.

I get sad sometimes because I watch kids grow up with video games and portable electronic everything. I get it, though, because I've nannied my fair share of wretches and I clearly remember the feeling of relief that would flood over me when Dora came on and I got to sit down for 22 minutes or so. But at times like this, at parties watching kids I'm not in charge of running every which way, playing with each other and falling down and skinning knees and laughing so hard they can't breathe, that I sigh a little sigh of relief.

Because kids still know how to be kids. All is not lost.

hymns

I may have mentioned that I love music. It's also worth noting that I doublelove a good cover - when someone sings a version of someone else's song. You may find this shocking, I realize, what with my love of karaoke [by definition, covers as far as the eye can see] and my not-so-secret desire to someday be a part of a cover band that sings primarily Heart songs, but I digress. I just think it's sort of fun, a little refreshing, to hear a different interpretation of a song you already know well. This maybe isn't really the same thing, but for some reason I recently [re]discovered a little project called Page CXVI, which is what a local Denver band, The Autumn Film, is called when they do covers of old hymns. [Can you call a hymn a cover? I'm asking.] Regardless of what it's correct to call it, I can't get enough. It is like rest for weary ears.

I think I've needed to feel a little worshippier than usual. As such, I've been listening to the hymns nonstop, and it has been so, so good. I've always loved hymns - I think they are timelessly beautiful, and lyrically speaking they are completely poetic, which given my moderate obsession with the written word shouldn't be all that surprising to anyone. And above all, I think I take great comfort in them because there's something powerful in this, for me: whether they were written 10 years ago or 100, they are as true now as they were then. Amen & Amen.

The overhaul, as it were, has been hard so far. I'm making healthier choices and putting up better boundaries and not doing things that yes, aren't great, but I've gotten really used to doing them so not doing them is hard. As a result of these difficult tasks, I have found myself getting a liiiiittle more anxious than I am used to or comfortable with. I don't like anxiety, and when I get crazybrain I tend to run with it, a little; so before I know it I'm ten miles down a rabbithole that I shouldn't have even looked down in the first place, let alone sprinted into like my life depended on it. And the other day, that happened. Out of nowhere, in the middle of my motivational interviewing class, I was panicking like the Pima building was on fire or something and I didn't really know why. And since I didn't really know why, I really didn't know what to do about it, or how to make myself feel better. The panic continued. Until.

I pulled out a sheet of paper and I started writing. I didn't care what my handwriting looked like or whether my punctuation was correct or whether the girl next to me thought I was having a psychotic break. I didn't write my own words, I didn't journal or write out my feelings or write a letter or even write out a prayer. I wrote a hymn. I let my pen sing the lyrics right there onto the paper and I let the rhythm of the familiar tune - floating through my mind, taking the sting out of worry and doubt and fear - soothe my very soul.

I wrote it until I ran out of lyrics, and then I wrote it again. I wrote until I ran out of paper, and then?

Peace.

Amen & Amen.

nothing like a little midweek mystery

I've told you all before about the drama that exists around my new-to-me Colorado phone number and the lady who possessed it previously, Shelley. Poor Shelley. She continues to receive collect calls from prisoners on the reg, so honestly I'm never super surprised when weird phone things occur. Like yesterday.

Another crucial layer of this story is that I am weird when I'm asleep. I'm a really deep sleeper to begin with, so when awoken I am almost always extremely confused/distraught in the minutes that follow. I'm not a sleep walker (praise the good Lord because sleep walking terrifies me) and I'm not much of a sleep talker, that I've been told. But every morning when my alarm goes off, my brain develops elaborate dream schemes to keep from registering that awful beep as a wake-up-signal. If it's the beep, I think it's some kind of siren. I changed it to bells for a while and I just kept dreaming that I was getting married in a Disney movie. It's the primary reason I oversleep and am late to most things on most days, and it's genuinely not a lie. What can I say? I sleep deep.

Yesterday I woke up at 6:42AM, turned off my alarm, and started putzing around on my phone only to notice something strange. Right there in my call log, at 4:43AM, was a red highlighted missed call from a number I didn't recognize. That's funny, I thought, I don't remember my phone ringing in the middle of the night. Even better? Right above it in black, clear as day: apparently, at 4:46AM, from a dead sleep, I called the unknown number back. And I engaged in some sort of 50 second long call with said number. Upon further inspection, it became evident that I woke up again at 5:34AM, and called it back again. This time the call was only 4 seconds long, but still. Do you have any idea how disconcerting it is to wake up in the morning to find that not only have strange numbers been calling in the night, but without my conscious awareness, I have been calling them back?! It's not a great feeling. Not great I tell you.

My coworkers, furthering the proof that we are meant for each other, were all into solving the mystery at the lunch table later in the day. Barbara called the number back on her phone, and we're thinking we're pretty smart, that this is a trick we can use to find out who the mystery caller is. Was there any sort of plan beyond "call from another phone"? No. No there was not. An old woman answers:

Hello?
B: Hi, who is this?
Who is this?
B: Um, I... received a call from this number earlier
Well who is it?
B: Like I said... someone called me from this number...
It wasn't me. It may have been my husband. What is your name?
B: Barbara?
Barbara? Are you sure?
B: [confused] yes, I'm sure, I'm Barbara
Are you sure you're not Megan Greaves?

You may now cue the serial killer music.

I finally bit the bullet and called the mystery number myself. I mean, this person knew my whole name and the way she said it was like we were on an episode of Law & Order or something, and you don't just let that go, right? The old woman answered again. I told her I was sorry to bother her, that I had gotten a phone call in the middle of the night from this number and that according to my call log, I had called the number back (Possibly in my sleep, can you believe it! Allow me to put you at ease with my jokes and light-hearted tone!) and I wanted to be sure that I hadn't spoken to someone (in my sleep, remember that part?) and forgotten about it. She had clearly learned my name from the caller ID of my early morning calls. Which, by the way, she let me know she did not appreciate; she was actually mad at me for waking her up so early. I reiterated once again that I had gotten the call from her number first, and that I was just soverysorry for interrupting her morning, you know, in my sleep. After that she said something vague like, well I didn't call you and neither did my son. It could have been my husband but then YOU WOKE US UP and I'm crabby and irrational! That's what I heard, anyway. At some point she hung up on me, and I went back to the lunch table to report my sad, inconclusive findings. They weren't upset though, because while I was gone they'd picked up a new mystery to solve: the case of Trevor's roommate's potentially fake significant other. We've got some good leads, but nothing definitive just yet. I'll keep you posted.

I suppose the mystery lives on. I mean, probably it was a wrong number initially and then my dream-scheming caused a whole slew of problems by repeatedly stalker calling that poor old woman. I so feel it is also possible that her husband was trying to booty call Shelley, but I guess there's really no way of knowing for sure. What's even better is that later in the day while I was at work and my phone was in my pocket I BUTT DIALED THE NUMBER AGAIN. I'm positive that lady thinks I am a crazy stalker. I went ahead and deleted the number from my call log after that last little incident in order to prevent any future issues. I really can't afford any harassment suits at this point in my life. I'm far too poor.

overhaul

Remember how I was excited about Lent?
That was before I went to the Ash Wednesday service at my church.

I still wasn't sure what I was going to do, for Lent, and I went in prepared to keep myself from shame-spiraling due to the immensity of the "list of things I could/should Lent because I should probably be doing them anyway." But instead of feeling shame like I'd so hoped and expected, I felt conviction instead. And that's no fun, because while I can be a good little therapist and talk myself out of a shame-spiral, I have to pay attention to conviction because it/s usually pretty accurate. And it almost always means a fair amount of work on my part. Don't love it.

The scripture read in service was Psalm 103, and so it goes: Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits - and then they're listed, which is great: who forgives all your sins, heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things, and so on. My pastor focused on the beginning part - the forget not piece. He asked us, as we prepared for the season of repentance, if there was anything we had forgotten. Any of God's benefits. Almost immediately I felt the conviction. The list, I think, is my pit. And I'd tried to get out - to white knuckle it, hunker down, pray for superhuman willpower to just do better. But when I failed, I think I just sort of settled in. The pit is terrible, but it's safe. I was so busy trying to work all of it out on my own, though, I'd forgotten that God is rescuer. A redeemer of the pit. I looked all over the place for rescue, but forgot to look where I say I believe it is.

I am aware that it would be highly unrealistic to try and tackle every item on my pit list over the next 40 days. Instead, I asked God to make clear to me where I should start, where I was looking for rescue that I could let go of until Easter Sunday comes. It was pretty easy choice, really, one that maybe I'll tell you about sometime when I understand it better myself. So I'll start with that. And as for the rest, it is my hope, my prayer, and also my fear that God would begin what I think really needs to be an overhaul of my life. And I don't mean to sound dramatic; it's mostly things you maybe wouldn't even notice if I stopped or started doing them. All I know is that I need to make space in my currently cluttered life for a relationship with Jesus. And it may be really ugly, I bet it will hurt a lot more than I'd like, and I feel sure it will take longer than I think it should. But I know the overhaul is necessary. I need rescue, and I absolutely know I can't do it on my own.

The amazing thing - the reason I believe this is the real deal - is that even though I'm looking at giant life alterations, I don't feel any shame. I don't feel like I'm the worst person in the world. And I'll be really honest, I'm terrified to ask for the overhaul, because what if it doesn't work, what then? What if nothing changes at all and this stupid pit is just my lifelong reality? What if I lose interest and go back to pit-living? I guess it's a possibility, maybe. But then I read through Psalm 103 and I think probably it's safe to ask for an out. I forget that God is faithful, even when I'm not so much. And it says right up there that the Lord is a forgiver of sins, a healer of diseases, a redeemer of pits, a crowner of love and compassion, a satisfier of desires. God wants to do that for us, for me. I think he delights even in our asking.

Lent is a season of penitence, but at the end of it all, Lent is about grace. At the end of the service that would instigate the great life overhaul of 2012, we sang a song that has a line in it that stands out to me: sin had left a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow. We were forecasted to have a light dusting of snow the following day. Instead, while I slept, snow covered every surface of my world. I woke up Thursday morning to about 4 inches of pristine, white, snow-covered ground. And even though I wasn't dressed appropriately and I hate scraping car windows more than anything, what a lovely picture of the possibilities.

Grace is so much more powerful than sin.

Forget not all his benefits: I believe God wants to forgive us, heal us, redeem us, crown and satisfy us. Even a pit lover like me.