What Are We: Titanium or Glass?*

So yesterday, I was listening to this:

And then a little while later, I was listening to this:

Then I started thinking.

Fact: Dwight memes always help to illustrate the point.

Personally, I am not titanium! I'm not bulletproof, I do have things to lose... so please, don't fire away!

I'm much, much more like glass. Not that I'm a wimp, or that I can't be tough when I need to be. But my heart is fragile; it may shatter. I'm human! While we're all made to have a beautiful strength of soul, filled with God's grace, we are also weak, frail and vulnerable at times. We need each other - and that is a good thing. Can you imagine how prideful and cold our world would be if we were all truly self-sufficient and unbreakable? We would become isolated, turned in on ourselves, wrapped up in own little worlds. And that would be the opposite of love.

Even though it seems kind of backwards, it actually takes a certain amount of strength to admit weakness. It requires courage to take an honest look at yourself! Who benefits when we pretend to be titanium? No one, really. When you say that you're so strong that no one can hurt you, that you don't need anyone or anything, it's denying reality. Who benefits when you deny reality? Certainly not you! It's like going swimming in a lake of alligators, pretending that you're made of steel. Do you really think you're going to win out?

(I think that so many of the problems in our culture, by the way, come about when we don't live our lives according to reality. Contrary to popular belief, we don't decide our own reality! When we turn a blind eye to the way the world really is - and the way our hearts are actually, truly made - we're not doing ourselves a favor. At least, that's how a lot of my own problems happen! But that's a topic for another day.)

Still, the whole "titanium" thing is a tempting prospect, right? If I can play it off like I'm invincible, like whatever you do won't hurt me, then I have the upper hand (supposedly). If I protect my heart from you, you can't hurt me (or so we tell ourselves).

But as the commonly quoted C.S. Lewis said in The Four Loves:

"There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."

He goes on:

"I believe that the most lawless and inordinate loves are less contrary to God's will than a self-invited and self-protective lovelessness. It is like hiding the talent in a napkin and for much the same reason.... Christ did not teach and suffer that we might become, even in the natural loves, more careful of our own happiness."

And then:

"We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it."

When all is said and done, our model is a God who didn't protect His heart (or His mother's) from being pierced. We have a God who wept, who looked with compassion on others, who knew how to be vulnerable and truly to love:

And if our God didn't feel the need to be titanium, why should we?


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*I feel like there are a lot of caveats that need to be made with this topic. I'm not justifying that you stay in emotionally unhealthy relationships, that you be a doormat to abuse, etc. If you need to get out of a bad situation, or if you need healing from something in the past, don't be afraid to seek out help! Call up your local church - you can meet with a priest who can advise you further. They should also have a list of good Christian counselors in your area. If it's a situation that requires civil authorities (you or someone else you know is in danger), don't be afraid to call your local police station. We are not made to be titanium, so it's okay to stop pretending that you're fine, if you're not.

The "S" Word

Merry Christmas! I've taken some time off from contributing to the blogosphere, with all of the busyness of packing for a long break at home, celebrating our Savior's birth, hanging out with relatives and now, recovering from being sick (eww). But I've been storing up some thoughts that I'll be telling y'all about over the next few days. At this particular moment, my brothers are enthralled in Madden football, probably not coming up to the surface for the rest of the night. So here we go...

In case you didn't know it, I was homeschooled for most of my life. And of course, what is the #1 concern of the general population about homeschoolers? It's the "S" word... "socialization."

OOOOOOOH. The big one! And here we go...  "Did you have friends? It's so weird that you were homeschooled... you seem so 'normal'! Did you ever get out of the house?" When people raise these questions to me today, I usually give them a litany of activities I participated in with kids my age: Girl Scouts, 4-H, church choir, homeschool co-op, PSR classes (that's the evening religion class for kiddos who don't go to Catholic school), etc. etc. etc. In fact, I can even tell you my schedule from those good ol' days: Monday was 4-H, Tuesday was choir, Wednesday was PSR, and Thursday was co-op and Girl Scouts (I think). There was even a period of time where I was part of a group of homeschoolers who went roller skating at the local week every week during the day (Friday, maybe?). How cool is that? Seriously! While you were in school, we were roller skating with our friends. Bam. (Just chalk it up as phys. ed class... when you're homeschooled, you can do that.) Now, by the time I was about halfway through high school, I decided these activities weren't enough, and headed off to "regular school." (It was my angsty teenage "I want to be with my friends all the time and ditch my family" phase.) That's a story in itself - but in case you were wondering: yes, I made friends and did just fine in my classes.

The other day, I was thinking about different phases in my life, trying to remember what each one felt like. How did I see the world at that point? Etc. And of course I came to my childhood homeschooling phase, particularly right around when I was in middle school.

I'll tell you a secret. But shhhhhhhhhhhhhh, you really aren't allowed to tell. It would topple the nicely created edifice that I have worked so hard to build all these years. It would destroy the happy mask that I've paper-mached in a desperate effort to get you all to stop judging my homeschooling background. So shhhhhhh... don't give me away.

There was a time in my homeschooling childhood when I did not feel like I was properly "socialized" (although I would not have expressed it in that way). There was a time when I would sit at home, reading oodles and oodles of books, playing with my little siblings, cooking dinner with my mom, and think about the next time I would see my friends. Would so-and-so make it to choir on Tuesday night? Gosh, I really hoped so. If not, I wouldn't see her for two weeks! Would I have a sleepover with my best friend this weekend? Or would she invite somebody else over? I would wonder. I hoped that the two girls I admired would be at 4-H this week, and wondered if maybe they thought the same way about me. Probably not, I thought... and I thought, and I thought, and I thought. Gosh, it was four days until roller skating! And four days was simply an eternity.

I don't think that this was entirely due to my homeschooling background - it was probably, partly, just being a kid. I'm sure that you looked forward to sleepovers and hoped that you were liked, right? Right?? (Just say yes, and make me feel okay about myself.) However, I think there's something deeper here, too.

When I was homeschooled, I really valued the time that I spent with people. Seeing someone for an hour on Friday warranted several days' worth of daydreaming. Then, once I left, I revelled in the memories for another hour or two (or agonized over whether I said the wrong thing, as the case may be).

Fast forward to today. A few weeks ago, I saw some lovely people on a Saturday morning. I came home, did some housework and maybe watched a movie... but I felt unsatisfied. Why wasn't I going out tonight?? How lame was I, that I had no plans on a weekend night?? Angst, unsatisfaction, a conglomeration of frustrating feelings.

But wait... wasn't I just blessed by the presence of others that morning... earlier that same day?

As something becomes more common in your life, it's possible that it becomes more of a commodity and less of a treasure. When I was homeschooled, every chance to see a friend - or a potential friend - was awesome! Now, there are more people who are a part of my everyday life.

There's a trade-off there: today I'm much more confident and outgoing than I used to be. I also think that there's something to be said when an exciting, surprising friendship transitions into a calm, quiet, everyday life kind of friendship. But do I still value every interaction that I have with others? Or do I take the people in my life for granted?

In this year and a half after my college graduation, I've wished and prayed that some of my friends from school would live near me (and I've cried, since they don't). If I would have a chance this week to see a friend from California, or Colorado, or Chicago, I would be psyched!!! <-- multiple exclamation points to show excitement. (Actually, I'm going to catch up with some friends over the next few days, and I am indeed psyched!)

But why do I have to wait until I'm miles away from someone to value their presence so much? Why not start right now - with the people I work with, the people I see on a daily or weekly basis? Am I so busy that I don't take any time to think about this?

"We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and privacy: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship." -C.S. Lewis

A vague concept of "socialization" shouldn't be the ideal. More people, more noise, more unchecked busyness isn't the goal. As Lewis says, we need to temper it with solitude and silence. Which I had plenty of when I was homeschooled... back when I placed more of a value on my time with others. Looking back, not such a bad time in my life, eh?

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Side note: if you've never seen this little gem, check it out. Great for all of your homeschooling myth debunking needs! 

All I Want for Christmas...

So yesterday, I was listening to this, and yeah... I probably played and replayed it about 50 times:

(I don't even like this song, usually, but I love this group! They're Christian, but they also do secular covers... I recommend!).

However, on probably the 17th time through or so, I started thinking about the words I was listening to. "All" I want for Christmas is you. I don't need "a lot" for Christmas. I won't ask for "much" this Christmas.

Huge caveat here: I'm sure that this was not how the song was meant to be taken, so straw man, maybe? But disregarding the person is such a prevalent offense that I think this is relevant anyway.

We are each a gift, yes! Take a second to celebrate that... eat some ice cream, hug your mom, do a dance in your living room. Yay! You are a gift, and your best friend is a gift, and that person you really don't like is also a gift (sorry, can't get off the hook with that one). As it says in Gaudium et Spes, "Man finds himself only by making himself a sincere gift to others." Let's put it this way: are you happier when living only for yourself, following every whim and desire - or are you happier when you live for others? When you serve? Anyone who has ever volunteered, gone on a mission trip or raised a child would say the latter. 

Okay, so we are meant to give ourselves. But what kind of gift? 

"There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal." -C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

If a man or woman were to ask for you for Christmas, that would be the most amazing, incredible, intense gift that he or she could possibly receive (besides God himself, of course). Mind-blowing, really. 

Unless you're getting down on one knee with a ring (or unless this has already taken place, plus a couple "I do's"), I would be pretty hesitant about asking for a PERSON for Christmas. This isn't a gift to be given or received casually - people aren't toys that get boring, or gadgets that go out of date when the newest technology comes out. You can't throw them away or replace them. 

Don't ask for someone for Christmas, or give yourself away, unless you really mean it. And then, give radically, sacrificially... don't hold back.