The Miserables

Like many others last week, I made it out to the theaters to see Les Miserables. It is one of my favorite stories. It was assigned to me as summer reading my senior year of high school, and like the high schooler that I was, I put it off reading it until 5 days before school began. I read it (abridged though it was) in 5 days.

Last year I was introduced to the musical of Les Miserables. I had seen the year before (so back in 2012) that Les Miserables would be performed in L.A. the next summer and somehow I convinced my fiancé to plan on going to see it in those first couple of months of our marriage. We bought tickets, bought the soundtrack, listened to all the music, had no idea what it was about, and went to enjoy our experience of Les Miserables LIVE.

This time around was different. I knew the story, knew the music, knew the way it was performed, yet still I found myself crying embarrassing hacking sobs in the middle of a packed out theater.

As I’ve been considering it the last few days, I realized that one of the most resounding aspects for me of the movie was the ending. Or rather, the lack of what I might consider typical happy ending. Fantine has died much earlier, now many young men have died in a revolution attempt, and instead of ending with the marriage of Cossette and Marius, the story moves to Valjean’s death. He enters the next life with the host of others who have gone before him in the story. The Miserables re-united is how I might sum it up. It is, in many ways, a confusing ending. Marius has just sung, “Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me what your sacrifice was for.” Now Valjean joins those friends. He joins the ones who have died without bringing about any change. He joins Fantine, who was not even able to see her daughter before her death, though she gave her life for her. He joins Eponine, who dies for one who loves another. He joins the cast of the miserable ones, leaving you emotionally exhausted and perhaps confusingly hopeful.

They were all in heaven, you might think. So that’s a pretty happy ending. But the power of the ending is found in the final words, words easier to miss as you wipe your nose and prepare to leave the theater after nearly 3 hours of mind-numbing sadness.

It is quick. Fantine sings, “Come with me where chains will never bind you, all your grief at last, at last behind you.” And as he enters the chorus of the miserable, the triumph resounds from those with the saddest of beginnings and the most desperate of endings:

Do you hear the people sing?
Lost in the valley of the night
It is the music of a people who are climbing to the light
For the wretched of the earth
There is a flame that never dies
Even the darkest nights will end and the sun will rise

They will live again in freedom in the garden of the lord
They will walk behind the ploughshare
They will put away the sword
The chain will be broken and all men will have their reward!

This is the song of redemption, but it is the song of men who lived and died in misery. They carried their crosses and they felt no relief. They died without their children, with unrequited love, and with no hope of social change. They died in misery, in a bloodbath, conquered by those mightier than them.

The “dark night” you expect to end while the people live does not end. It claims lives. Yet somehow the people still sing, “Even the darkest nights will end and the sun will rise.” They did not live to see it, but they claimed it. They never saw freedom, they died fighting, in slavery, yet now they “live again in freedom…They will put away the sword. The chain will be broken and all men will have their reward.”

Marius has just sung, “Here they sang about `tomorrow' And tomorrow never came.” But here we see that “Somewhere beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see. Do you hear the people sing? Say, do you hear the distant drums? It is the future that they bring when tomorrow comes!”

We cry in Les Miserables because there is no respite. There is no reward. There is no hope. There is misery after misery after misery. This world seems to offer little joy and no real triumph. People die longing for “tomorrow” but tomorrow does not seem to come. They die fighting for a new world, but one does not seem to emerge. But there is a glimpse, a battle cry of relief, as the world they longed for arrives, as they enter into tomorrow.

The ending seems dissonant to our American sensibilities. We only know of good things fought for and gained. Victory seen and grasped. But this is our story. It is victory longed for, died for, not yet realized. It is victory when everything seems to have been lost, when we lose. It is victory after death. It is victory in death. It is redemption in its truest sense: a victory we do not now see and often do not feel; victory accomplished yet long awaited; victory we claim as our own as we join the cast of the miserable ones and look forward to raising the flag with them.

Leaves of Glory

I can smell the damp musty decay of the leaves that reminds me of my childhood. It is the smell of ground seeping through sheets of colored glory, moving them towards disintegration. It is the smell of raking with my hands, patting and forming my perfect bed of leaves. It is the smell of lying face upturned, of autumn sky and sadness and dreams, and a cold wetness staining the back of my clothes.

 As I stand, surrounded by heights of orange, red, yellow—leaves slow-dancing in the breeze, gracefully poised in stillness on the ends of thin limbs—I am amazed that there can be so much beauty in the midst of decay. That it is the very process of decay that gives simple leaves wild color strokes. How is it that the decay of leaves is so glorious—so memorable that I can smell its mustiness and be transported back to my time as a girl rolling, leaves clinging to my hair and clothes, in a leaf-bed—while the decay of our own bodies is a slow, sad song? It is pain and suffering and grief. It is watching the person you love turn into someone you don’t recognize anymore. It is standing there wanting them back, yet wishing them forward. It is not knowing what to say and crying when you’re done not saying it. It doesn’t feel like there’s glory in our death.

At least, that’s what my grief told me. I feel like I have never really known grief until this year, and now I have known it twice. Death knocked at my door and grief opened, unknowingly, but quick and fast. Death is recognized in the same instant that grief overtakes. They share the same moment, becoming intertwined and inseparable as they meet at that open door. It is the moment when you too feel as though you are dying.

In spite of this, in a strange and incomprehensible way, there was one death—perhaps one of the most horrific deaths of all time—that was simultaneously glorious.

“So Jesus said to them, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I AM…” (Jn. 8:28)

“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” (Jn. 12:32)

Christ was “lifted up” in a double sense: lifted up on the cross and at the same time lifted up in exaltation. For Christ, his death was his exaltation. It was in moment of his death that God himself was revealed—the one who is called “I AM” and who draws his redeemed to himself.

And this happened so that even though there doesn’t seem to be any glory in our death, there can be. It is a glory that we don’t see, and to be honest, that we don’t really understand. It is not colorful and musty; it is disheartening and painful. It is despair written on the brokenness of our bodies, sin carved in our decay. When we are close to Death, we see the Fall manifested and Glory feels far and unknowable. And that’s because the glory we ache for is not visible to us. It is, as yet, unseen, by those who remain here.

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Cor. 4:16-18).

These verses feel perhaps hopeful when we read them before we do laundry or pack our husband’s lunch. They feel weak when faced with the reality of the cold, stiffness of death. Eternal, unseen glory? Yet my grandma lies scattered, and I’ll never hear her voice on the phone again singing me Happy Birthday. She won’t make us pancakes and gracefully accept our gift-offerings of blooming weeds, displaying them in a vase for all to admire. She won’t send us a Valentine’s Day card signed with her shaky handwriting or make us all line up before we leave for a picture taken with her disposable camera. She won’t shuffle down the hallway, looking in drawers for that thing she meant to give me, but can’t remember now. Eternal glory seems weak because it is not what I know and what I know is now gone.

Thankfully, that does not make it any less true. The only thing I have learned this last year as grief has made its home in the corner of my house is this: We really need a Savior. We need to be saved from this decay of the body that is not glorious. We need to be saved from the wrenching apart of body and soul that was not intended. We need to be saved from the inescapable grief that comes when we have to live without the one we’ve always known, or the one we didn’t know we could love so deeply. Redeemer, we need you.

“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’

And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold I am making all things new.’ Also he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’ (Rev. 21:3-5).

Poor Souls

My pantry is small; cans of tomato sauce stack on one another, somewhat precariously, waiting to tumble off the hidden corner shelf. My budget is tight; I touch the softness of sweaters and look and the brightness of colors and wish them for my own, but in the end I turn away wistfully. My house is simple; books double-line bookshelves and plaster cracks and moths wriggle through holes in window screens, and I want to fix everything, but I just live here.

This is my life--simple and sweet in many ways, but in the end, poor. It's different than what I've always know. What I've known and breathed was frugality--poorness by choice. Knowing you have money away in the bank, but choosing not to spend it, it's a different thing. Knowing your husband isn't working full-time anymore, but going to school, scouring textbooks, and your paychecks are small and the money in the bank is all there is, it's a scary thing.

I think many of us are under a false impression that once we graduate from college, we'll be set. We'll get a job with our degree and settle in and make money and pay off our car and go to restaurants and plays and support our church and save for rainy days. Then we get an entry level job, or get married and go back to school, or face mounds of debt and we find ourselves discouraged. Maybe it's not that we think money is all there is, just that we thought there would be a bit more of it. I find myself remembering high school days when my after-school job paid for movie tickets; today we buy a Groupon deal and save it for six months, waiting for a movie really worth going to see. I remember buying make-up and jewelry just for fun; now I look at the two pair of earrings I wear on a regular basis and kind of wish I had remembered to ask for some for my birthday. I don't feel like I need a lot of stuff, I just hate feeling restricted. And when I ache under those ties, I find myself feeling discontent, slowly allowing myself to be taken into a bondage of covetousness and idolatry.

Right now, I don't know how I'm going to get through the next four years of seminary living, and the years of kids and ministry after that. But this is what I do know:

I am united to Christ. I am quite literally, one with him. And if that is true, what I do have to worry about? Hudson Taylor wrote to his sister, "Oh, my dear Sister, it is a wonderful thing to be really one with a risen and exalted Saviour, to be a member of Christ!  Think what it involves.  Can Christ be rich and I poor?  Can your right hand be rich and your left poor, or your head be well fed while your body starves?" 

I will not be left alone. I will not go without. I will be cared for. As long as I am one with Christ, I have nothing to fear, no anxiety that is really legitimate. I am the body of Christ and my Savior will care for me in whatever way he sees fit. He was himself abandoned so I do not ever have to be. 

I have endless things to be thankful for. The more time I focus on what I can't have (which these days, seems to be quite a lot), the more I miss the small gifts of grace given to me each day. If only in the hum of my washing machine, the musty autumn breeze on my neck, the mud in my hands and under my fingernails, God is gifting me with more than I deserve. He sings his love song to me and twines my life with grace-gifts that I only need to receive. He says to me, "See, see, you are the one my soul loves. I am here. I am with you. I am caring for you. I am loving you." 

It is a sweet thing to thank him. It is bitter to begrudge him what I do not have.

Poverty is part of my identity. I found myself thinking the other night in the car as I drove a long drive home about Psalm 40, which ends: "As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me." I was surprised to remember that my condition is not "poor for a time" but "poor for all time." I am poor and needy. I have nothing to bring before my Savior. I have nothing to offer. I deserve nothing. I need everything. I am dependent on my Lord for salvation and life. Each day I breathe because breath is given to me. Each day I am saved because Jesus has claimed me. I cannot hope to ever be anything but humble, yet the Lord takes thought for me. How can I truly think I want for anything, when the riches of Christ have been given to me? And how can I think I deserve to live better, when my very soul is poor? I can only pray that God will give me humility to see myself for what I am and live in thankfulness that in spite of this, he has named me and made me his own. 

Life of Pi

This, friends, is a book recommendation. If you haven't read Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, you should. I read it for the first time this summer and, after plodding through the first couple of chapters, was completely captivated.

Some straight information (in case you're on of those people who just wants to know the basic plot): This is a story about a boy growing up in India, whose father runs a zoo. This is a story about a boy who grows up to be a man who loves religion (he practices three!). This is a story about a boy who is shipwrecked and winds up on a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutang, a zebra, and a tiger. This is a story about survival. This is a wild adventure.

(Ok, that was more or less facts right?)

A bit of persuasion (in case you want to know what I thought about the book): The story starts, "This book was born as I was hungry." (It's in the author's note...read that first, even if you're the sort of person who skips over things that say "Author's Note.") I think this book is about hunger. It spends a lot of time dealing with physical hunger, since this boy is stranded on a lifeboat for over seven months, and is in general trying to avoid being eaten by the tiger on board with him. Martel makes you think about what it must be like to be so hungry you would eat anything. Anything. The madness of survival in the midst of starvation. Pi is driven to animalistic measures as his stomach yearns for life. But this book is about a lot more than physical hunger. This is a story about hungering for something more. Religious hunger, you might say, although I'm not sure that quite captures it.

The key phrase of the book is: "I have a story that will make you believe in God." What kind of hope would you have for a story to convince you there is a God? I think we often think stories make us wish there was a God; they don't make us believe there is a God. But, we underestimate the power of story.

I think what Martel has to say could be taken a couple of different ways. It could either be that it doesn't matter if what we believe is "true", so long as it serves a greater purpose, OR that we are made for something more--joy maybe? I think perhaps Martel means the first thing, but persuaded me of the second. In the story, Pi adopts three different religions: Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. Each one moves him in a different way. Each one draws from a different part of his soul. Religion is not necessarily about which one is "true," but about the aspects of truth they all have. Perhaps, they all lead to the same thing. Perhaps, they are all different ways of looking at the same story. Pi is against "dry yeastless factuality" and for "the better story." "What moves you?," you can almost imagine him asking you. "You must believe something. Will you settle for the dry and lifeless?"

Martel writes: "Words of divine consciousness: moral exaltation; lasting feelings of elevation, elation, joy; a quickening of the moral sense, which strikes one as more important than an intellectual understanding of things...An intellect confounded yet a trusting sense of presence and of ultimate purpose."

At least atheism, according to Pi, believes in something--requiring a leap of faith--while agnosticism, which chooses to doubt everything, winds up with nothing. "[T]he agnostic," Pi says, "if he stays true to his reasonable self, if he stays beholden to dry, yeastless factuality, might...to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story."

Reading this book made me wonder, Is that all there is? A better story? Lots of good stories? Stories you choose to believe because the alternative is too much to handle? Stories that move you and reveal parts of the truth, but perhaps all ultimately made of the same cloth? Lewis and Tolkien did not think so. While Martel creates a dichotomy between "feelings of elevation, elation, joy" and "an intellectual understanding of things," the Christian story unites them. Feeling and fact are harmonious in the Gospel. C.S. Lewis writes, "The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history. It happens—at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical circumstances.” The Gospel is a holistic story, requiring both an imaginative and a reasonable response. Lewis says, “For this is the marriage of heaven and earth: Perfect Myth and Perfect Fact: claiming not only our love and our obedience, but also our wonder and delight, addressed to the savage, the child, and the poet in each one of us no less than to the moralist, the scholar, and the philosopher.”God calls us to receive the Gospel both as myth (and thus with joy) and as history (thus as truth). 

The reason I loved Life of Pi is because it reminded me that I love a story that is somewhat wild with imagination. I love the hero who lives in spite of impossible circumstances. I love to feel my soul jostle within me as I long for worlds unknown to me. We all do. It's why we choose the "better story." But we don't choose it because it doesn't matter and the other option is too boring. We choose it because we were made for it. We were made for something more. We were made for wildness and beauty and joy. And we were made to find this in something mind-blowingly true.

If this book is to make you believe in God, it is simply because it will convince you that you want something more because you were made for something more. And, unlike Pi, I don't think it will really satisfy us unless it is true.

Moving Monster

I'm sitting in our new little apartment/guesthouse writing this, feeling a huge sense of accomplishment and relief, because this move has been a bit of a killer. Mainly because we decided/offered/madly signed ourselves up to paint this place before moving in.
Did it need it? Desperately.
Am I glad we did it? Our cozy yellow walls answer that question.
Did it last several weeks and make us exhausted and take up all our evenings? Yes.

So, we're here. I'm sitting in a place of God's provision, painted by His grace, and it's good. God's gifts are good. Even when the kitchen is a bit small and I can't walk around without tripping on things right now.

But man, I am really glad it's done. That we're living here. Because moving does scary things to me. When we move, Rachel disappears and in her place is this crazy huge monster, swinging sharp claws and baring razor teeth.

Actually, that's not even really true. Because I don't disappear. The person who is scary and ugly is ME. And that's scariest and ugliest of all. All the sin that I try to so hard to stuff down into my crevices, to keep down there by plugging up the holes and swallowing quickly when it starts to crawl up my throat...it melts, begins to ooze, and then gains speeds and starts to shoot out of me. And pretty soon the creature who is me is running alongside the Devil instead of away from him.

Let's just say I'm glad you were spared this. And I'm sorry my husband wasn't.

All this is because moving takes everything I love, which is control, and turns it into everything I don't love, which is chaos. I am control freak. And when I don't know where things are, when things are exploding into and out of boxes, when my husband isn't moving according to my schedule, when it's mad hot and a tool box almost falls on my foot, you see who I really am. I think I have life under control, but I have nothing together. I can't even control my own SIN! I am needy in the worst sort of way.

Today I'm amazed by the Gospel once again. Last night, Adrian and I ate our first dinner in our new house, and as we sat talking about the Catechism question we're working through, we were reminded by the gift of a Redeemer. There is only ONE Redeemer. Everyone else claims to point you to the Way. Jesus is the Way. Everyone else claims to show you the way to save yourself. Jesus saves.

And I really can't help but think of Lewis and Tolkien who knew that in a lot of ways, the Gospel story doesn't make sense to those who don't get stories-- who haven't felt desperate by an inevitable doom and amazed by the happy ending. Wonder. The Gospel also doesn't make sense unless we know it's the TRUE story. The story that happened here, where we walk on the dead grass and feel the water mist our faces. Here where we run to Target and paint our houses. Jesus came. God Himself stepped down into the world and said, "You're desperate; I'm here to save you." Story of stories.

It's a good day, folks. I am out of control and I've got a Savior beyond belief. I weep.

Sometimes

Sometimes grace is full and sweet, like the first bite of a ripe peach where you find your teeth sinking deep and look up sheepishly with juice trickling down your chin.
Sometimes grace is sharp and salty, like the way tears cut their way across your flushed cheeks and your tired mind can trace their path and taste their deposits at the corner of your mouth.
Sometimes grace is both, twined together, entangled.
Sometimes you look up and you think, The goodness of God is too good. And it stabs itself into your stomach and makes you gasp, even as tears rush down your face because you know, I don't deserve it.
Sometimes you wonder how God could really have answered your prayer, simply because you asked it. And sometimes you wonder why he didn't answer your other prayer, the one you wept and slept.
Sometimes you open your hands, slowly, weakly, tired of clutching them and squeezing--suffocating--the flame of joy because you're so intent on holding on to it--protecting it. Like the little girl who smiles ghoulishly into the fish tank, anxious for her next victim.
Sometimes you stand on the top of the hill, gasping, aching, looking at the sun meandering its way behind the hills and you know fire--grace--gifts.
Sometimes you hug someone and you think Redeemer, we need you.
Sometimes redemption is deep waters, enveloping, swallowing, dragging to the bottom claiming Him for their own so you could stumble, collapse on dry ground. Taste sand and know joy. Wild.