A Return

I have so much to say. In this tiny, incompetent, naive, and yet still arrogant mind are churning so many ideas, songs, inspirations, friends with soft words and perfect sized coffee mugs, and I would like to tell you about all of them.

I must write, even if it will not be enough. Ann Lammott says start small, so that you can write at all, and hopefully write well. I will start by telling you that after one of the most hollow years of my young life, I have been filled. I have been kissed by sweet Massachusetts wind, and nurtured back to health by fresh baked bread and the dirt in the garden. I have remembered that there is no mold for me to try to fit in. I have tasted freedom and I wish on stars that some of that freedom washes over you as you read this.

I went to L'Abri for the summer. I went to rest intentionally. I wanted to think through some things, so I blank-slated my life. I sold or gave away everything I didn’t need, moved out of my apartment, and took a plane to Boston for a month. And slowly, the tension I had held in my arms, bracing myself against the world, against being wrong, against screwing up, began to release.

Seminary was hard for me, and I had a lot of questions and felt so scared of being wrong. This summer I studied the word. I studied the theology of beauty. I studied identity, and anger. I was very angry and desperately did not want anger to turn into bitterness. So I went and asked all the questions I had been afraid to ask. And I thought about the gospel of Christ.

I believe in Beauty intuitively. I believe in nobility, and in honor. I believe in modesty and I believe in mystery and miracles. So no matter how doubtful I get, the gospel message will always be appealing to me. This summer, as I studied the gospel, I realized that Christ’ death on the cross, the Great Rescue of the broken, violated, raped world and all it’s inhabitants, was enough for me. The Gospel not only paid for my sin and my selfishness, my constant neglect of the poor, my inability to be a consistently caring daughter, sister, granddaughter, but for so much more. It paid for the fact that I will not get everything right mentally, academically, theologically. Oh! How can I communicate the weight that fell off of my shoulders when I realized that God’s grace covered my ineptitude as well as my selfishness. I am thinking through a lot of things right now, all from the starting point of grace and rest and beauty. All from a place of safety and covering. All from a place of comfort in Christ.

L’Abri invited me to come back for the fall, to help cook and garden and clean. I thought, “Fall in Boston… at L’Abri, with beautiful books, people, and most of all the leaves on fire… done.”

So I’m going, and that’s where I’ll be. IF you would like to write me, please feel free to do so. You can find the address here.

Afterward, I have not decided what I’ll do. I know that I am interested in bringing beauty where there is none, in praising it when I see it, in training my mind to be honest with itself, in submitting to Christ and His message, in following Him, the source of all beauty. I will be alive for as long as He determines. I will be Home with Him someday. And that means that no matter how imperfect everything is now, One Day, all will be right.