NPR Essay Attempt

There's a series on NPR called "This I Believe," in which celebrities and average NPR listeners alike share three-to-five-minute essays about their personal beliefs. Anyone is welcome to submit an essay, so I've been wanting to submit one. I'll probably write several before I actually send one, but here's one I wrote today.

As a college student, my public school days are not so far behind me; thus, I remember well the rite that was the first day of school: finding classrooms, seeing who changed most since we last walked the halls, coming to terms with the very real end of that heaven called summer. I also remember well one particular tradition: the reading of the classroom rules. And it seems to me that every teacher – in whatever subject – had a rule that went something like this: “Show appropriate respect towards yourself and others.” There were other rules, naturally: don’t talk out of turn, don’t throw things at the teacher, no yo-yos. But I recall many a teacher saying that, in an ideal world, they would only have one rule: the respect rule. And then, some clown (I’m sure it was me more than once) would do an awful impression of Aretha Franklin. And I would think to myself that my one rule in an ideal world would be Don’t be stupid, and feel proud of myself.

But I have to say that I get it now. And I believe that respect is more than just a fluffy concept that our teachers and employers and pastors and saviors throw at us for the sake of sounding moral and heroic. I believe that, in a world that needs saving, respect is just right for the job.

I don’t know what I believe about what happens when we die, but for C.S. Lewis, the key to understanding the meaning of the universe was this innate sense of right and wrong we humans display. Respect, you might call it. And I wonder if, long before I decipher the universe’s grand meaning, I might just find that respect is key to understanding the people that surround me. Whatever happens after I’m gone, I think understanding my company on this journey is a worthwhile goal while I’m here.

It’s hard to know what to believe about the environment. I always land somewhere in between supporting animal rights and thinking that they must be made out of meat for a reason. But I have climbed mountains and walked by streams; I have swum in oceans and picked blueberries near waterfalls. And I can’t help but feel Mother Nature is someone who deserves my respect.

Let me confess that I’m easily the worst among any of us. I say much more than what I mean, I jump to conclusions about people. I litter, I drive a fossil-fueled car, I find that the garbage can, being much closer to my chair than the recycling bin, proves a better place for my used aluminum can. But as I write this, December is drawing to a close and a new year is approaching, resolutions and all. I will make my usual laundry list: write letters to people, get better grades.

But this I believe: the best resolution I can make this year is to respect my friends, my family, my earth, my soul. As it turns out, my career of choice is teaching. Maybe my classroom will only have one rule.

O Come, Let Us Adore Him

I would first like to say that it is now 2:18am on December 26 (no matter what time it says I published this post), and Christmas has only begun. We will be turning on our Christmas lights for several nights to come.

Secondly, a word on "the Christmas spirit." I was worried that this spirit had forsaken me this Christmas: about half of my December was full of academia and exams and meetings and so forth, and the week I had at home before Christmas was awfully busy for those around me - the Nutcracker, the ending days of school, cotillion, etc. Yet I say to you early this morning after the first day of Christmas proper, that I have never in my life felt such wonder and awe at this holiday. I feel extremely blessed and wonderfully soulful.

The business sped all the way into Christmas Eve, which I spent doing last minute shopping, baking bread for Christmas dinner, answering the door and receiving presents from the neighbors, etc. Even as we approached the day we have marked to begin our celebration, the business spun us around. Finally, I found myself in Salisbury, NC, at the Hubbard Christmas Party - a party held by my dad's family which was a tradition for many years, was on hiatus, and was renewed this year. All the hints of the season were there: wassail, family, the "Chinese auction." But I was frustrated with the energy required to reintroduce myself to family who hadn't seen me recently enough to remember, to tell yet another person where I was in school and what I was doing, to make small talk of large subjects. But I think my Christmas spirit began a bit with the Chinese auction, and here's how that works: each person that plays brings a gift (which may be nice or funny), wrapped in some fashion. All the gifts are put in a pile in the middle of the room, and numbers are drawn. Beginning with he/she that draws number one, each person gets to choose a present, either from the pile or - beginning with number 2 - from a person who has already drawn. If one's present is stolen after one draws, one may choose another present from the pile. Basically, it's best to have the highest number (my sister, Anna, won with number 19) because you have the option of choosing the last gift left in the pile or choosing from any of the gifts that have already been opened. Many of the gifts are gag gifts - my great aunt Ann received an Austin Powers baseball cap that says "Why must I be surrounded by frickin' idiots?" - and it was in the laughing and joking that I first felt the Spirit of the season.

We were a bit late to choir practice for the 11pm Christmas Eve service, but we made it back with enough time, anyway. And the service this year was beautiful. I have learned, recently, that music just makes me cry, and that's that. There's usually one hymn each Sunday that gets me going. And Silent Night did, indeed, get me going. And I could feel all of us standing still and feeling peaceful and waiting in wonder as the Spirit moved over us. And I could feel the Spirit in my tears. And I swear there was divine intervention in the fact that I didn't smack a certain church member who complained, during a very holy moment, that we were sitting when we were supposed to be standing. It was truly beautiful.

This morning was beautiful, too, in a strange way. I actually became very frustrated with my family on the way to church, when I felt that I had been prematurely chastised for being late. But the first hymn this morning was O Come, All Ye Faithful, and by the end I was crying again and didn't really know how to be mad at anyone. And it was a beautiful service - the choir sang a piece called Gesu Bambino which was once a classic of our Service of Nine Lessons and Carols, and a soloist sang Sweet Little Jesus Boy for the introit, and it was simply lovely. Hanging around the house after church was fun, and after a while we went to the movies (the annual Hill family Christmas Day tradition) to see The Family Stone, which was a wonderful movie. It contributed another set of tears to my holiday season. We ate a really great supper together, we drove around and looked at Christmas lights. I reveled in it all.

I have, of course, been in somewhat of a spiritual quandary lately: youth and intellectualism mix to make believing awfully difficult sometimes. And Christmas makes believing in Things Unseen easier, but it hasn't fixed everything. What has been so amazing to me, in the beginnings of this season, is the peace and fullness of soul I have felt, along with the overwhelming conviction that the universe has purpose and that earthly life is not the only life - and yet, an overwhelming conviction that the universe is full of mystery and I surrender that I do not know it all and never will. And I am thankful that the Lord of my tradition sent a son to save us all, to free us from the darkness of mystery and to free us, to invite us, to live in that same mystery's wondrous light.

Anyway, I have written all this to say that I am very blessed and humbled by what I have experienced so far. The company of my family, the friends I have gotten to see (Otto's house, despite being rather random, was completely soul-feeding), the joy of the season, the stillness - all has found me at a strange peace for which I am very thankful. I am going to do my best to keep this spirit alive for the just-over-two-weeks that remain of my break. And I hope that, when the break is over, I will feel freed to walk forward into the norm, seeing it in the new light cast on it by a holiday full soulful joy and spirit-led peace.

Thanks be to God.

An Open Letter to God and Whoever Else Is Listening

Recently, someone told me that it sounded like part of me had died.

I wonder, with fear and trembling, if they're right. A certain veil has been lifted from my eyes and reality won't leave me alone. So I'd like to tell you (that is, God and whoever else is listening) what kinds of reality I've been facing.

Believing in God is an awfully hard thing to do. You're raised with all these crazy ideas and you accept and confirm them with some degree of blindness and then one day you wonder if maybe your belief really boils down to a bunch of people who, like you, are afraid to die and thusly conjure an Imaginary Friend who guides their lives, teaches them lessons, and saves them from death by having a big party in the sky when it's all over. I know I may seemingly be stepping on toes here, but please understand that I'm stepping on my own toes as well when I say we believe something ridiculous, and that makes it hard. Have you ever thought about finitude? Heavens, what a scary thing. Religion surely eases the pain.

I want to believe in God, and I am pretty sure I do. But we all face those moments of doubt. I think what's most difficult about it is that there will never, ever be anything rational about it. There have, of course, been plenty of attempts to make belief an easier, rational thing: consider, for example, the theory of the First Mover: everything is set in motion (beautiful motion, I might editorially add), so there must have been a first mover. Maybe the world operates on its own today, but one day in the past, Somebody said, "Go." I like that theory; it's comforting. But I don't know how much it helps. There's also that philosophical work called The Wager, which essentially asserts that without God, life is pretty pointless and there's death without redemption at the end, so you might as well believe and hope for meaning. Sensible, right? But believing becomes no easier.

I'm reading Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. It's my latest literary soul food to keep me going in my little dark doubt corner. I like it a lot, though he talks about Satan a little much for my Presbyterian mindset (chuckle, chuckle). But it frustrates me, just like Anne Lamott frustrated me with Traveling Mercies, when someone is so good at saying "I believe in Jesus Christ." Donald Miller emphasizes that something inside him causes him to believe. I'm searching for that something, but I keep looking for it in books on theology and in my own clever musings, both herein and in the songs I write. Thus far, the search proves not as fruitful as I hoped and more frustrating than I would like. But I haven't given up my hope for Hope. I think God's just waiting for me to come around.

I am convinced that there are things in this world which transcend human scientific truth. I feel pretty strongly that the finality of death is less a grand scientific end and more a Grand Beginning. But I'm still looking for the confidence to shout it from the mountaintop. And I will wait, God (and everyone else). I will tell myself to be quiet and I will wait.

Here I raise my Ebenezer; hither by Thine help I'm come,
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger, wand'ring from the fold of God:
He, to rescue me from danger, interposed His precious blood.

Thanks be to God.


P.S. I intend this new blog (which I hope will have a new audience which will make new comments, ahem) to be a place different from my LiveJournal. The narratives of my life will work their ways in, I'm sure, but this is less an online journal and more a irregularly-published column. My apologies to any non-religious who may have found themselves frustrated with the fact that my musings, once artistic and political, have recently been zealous and God-filled. I still have ideas about other things; but These Things keep screaming really loudly for attention, and I find it exceedingly difficult to turn away.

The Latest Lyrics (edited 12.12)

[There is, of course, music that accompanies these two songs, which I am planning to record over Christmas Break and hopefully publish soon thereafter. Enjoy.]

Things Unseen

Pearly gates, pearly gates,
Won't you come, come to me?
Pearly gates, pearly gates,
Won't you come, come to me?
'Cause I want to see my Granny again,
And I want to find every long lost friend;
I want to sing with Nat King Cole -
Pearly gates,
Guard my soul.

Crystal river, cover me:
Let your water wash me clean.
Crystal river, cover me:
Let your water wash me clean.
'Cause I know there must be a prayer in my heart,
But sometimes it's hard just to know where to start,
And I get so jaded by the things I've seen -
Crystal river,
Wash me clean.

With sweetest sunrise to light my days,
And sweetest hymn-tunes to sing Your praise,
And sweetest faces, all is divine,
And, in the end, we will be just fine.
'Cause there ain't no devils hiding under my bed,
And I know the Darkness is only in my head;
I'll walk through this life, hamming up each scene,
and keep on believing
in Things Unseen.


Believe

A land of endless joy - who are you kidding?
The streets are paved with gold up there? Yeah, right.
And God and Jesus Christ are right there sitting
At the dinner table with you every night?
Well, I don't know 'bout you,
But all that I can do
Is say that's hard to believe.

The skies are always blue and mostly sunny -
A couple clouds to keep the balance right.
You may have laughed before but you don't know funny
Until you've heard the jokes God tells night after night.
Well, I don't know 'bout you,
But I find it so hard to
Know just what to believe.

I'm here - right here, O God, with all these questions:
I'm asking for answers or maybe just a sign.
I haven't lost my faith, O God, I promise -
But it seems sometimes my faith is on the line.
And I don't know 'bout you,
But, Lord, all I can do
Is hope I always believe.