It is the kind of day where I am running on fumes. My comrade in teaching just let me dig through her drawer for tea or coffee or something, and when I found instant coffee (very bold, definitely old) from Starbucks, I felt like I hit the jackpot. I poured hot water into this cup and the whole classroom filled up with the promising aroma of coffee.
I imagined the steam swirling all around (like I'm Pocahontas in a Disney movie) and I could breathe and pray again. And then I went to the computer and heard the clickety clack of the letters on the keyboard as I typed, and I didn't feel so rattled anymore.
So now the confessions emerge.
I confess it here as a practice that calls me away from what is both my greatest strength and weakness wrapped into one trait. I think that this happens to everybody. If they are not careful, the thing they are really good at can become their downfall. You return to it again and again and it reminds you that all of these tides turning are very human things to measure and walk through.
For me, it's being remaining calm and resilient. Being adaptable, holding the line, and taking things as they come. Forging on and knowing why things will be ok. Making sense of things when other people can't. This works in middle school. Instinctually, these things happen, and it's good. But sometimes you only do those things, and you forget the side of living that can, you know, get to you.
I face something that you know, gets to me every day. So I know now that people like me have a high propensity for brittleness inside. Weak, weak, weak if you don't move out of it, if you don't see it, if you don't invite in music and prayer and the things that open up your life. That's what works for me.
More than that, you get brittle if you don't reach out your hand for some help. Being resilient is a great quality, but it's not always aligned with reality. Not on your own, not without Jesus. Enter ton 'o bricks clarity this morning as I drove to work through the blinding snow.
On said commute, feeling vaporous, I called JTB and he prayed for peace and for my life. He reminded me of this song and told me that things will pass and why this can be comforting. These things drew out the brittleness and put things in their place.
Since I started doing this, my life has become a lot more open and free and interesting. I always talk about it like it's coffee or solitude or typing words, but I mean to say always that this is where I meet with God. This is where I feel the peace of Jesus. It's in these times that I also remember an old poem. I remember this line after I confess my (many) weaknesses because it begins with 'Now I Become Myself'.
That line pretty much sums up for me what it is like to be 28 years old. When I think about it, I can say it's been pretty amazing. Even with the gas tank (figuratively and literally) empty today, on a windy April Friday, tired to my core, yes. I confess where I am and I become myself again. I stand still and stop and live better than I was living before.
Now I Become Myself
Now I become myself. It's taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people's faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
"Hurry, you will be dead before--"
(What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
The black shadow on the paper
Is my hand; the shadow of a word
As thought shapes the shaper
Falls heavy on the page, is heard.
All fuses now, falls into place
From wish to action, word to silence,
My work, my love, my time, my face
Gathered into one intense
Gesture of growing like a plant.
As slowly as the ripening fruit
Fertile, detached, and always spent,
Falls but does not exhaust the root,
So all the poem is, can give,
Grows in me to become the song,
Made so and rooted by love.
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people's faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
"Hurry, you will be dead before--"
(What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
The black shadow on the paper
Is my hand; the shadow of a word
As thought shapes the shaper
Falls heavy on the page, is heard.
All fuses now, falls into place
From wish to action, word to silence,
My work, my love, my time, my face
Gathered into one intense
Gesture of growing like a plant.
As slowly as the ripening fruit
Fertile, detached, and always spent,
Falls but does not exhaust the root,
So all the poem is, can give,
Grows in me to become the song,
Made so and rooted by love.
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!
Yes. I, the pursued, who madly ran, now stand still.
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