Feels So Empty Without Me

So, what is the point of a blog if I just let it sit here and do nothing? I’ll tell you one of the reasons I have a blog in the first place.

Possible author stuff.

If I ever get picked up and published one day, the literary agent or wherever takes my book will want me to have a social media presence. I personally find it rather nerve-wracking (and irritating) to constantly have to find something to write about for posts and whatnot, but you know what? That’s starting to go away.

You see, God led me to this little place called The Odyssey, which is a platform for colleges to form supervised groups and put out content like articles, listicles, videos, news stories, all that kind of jazz. My good friend Answer The Question Steven got me into contact with them. For three weeks I’ve been writing content for them. And you know, these three weeks have shown me that I really can put out content on a regular basis.

So for all you publishers and agents and whatnots out there looking for an author who can do social media, I guess I qualify!

Anyway, I want to just do a quick update for all of those readers I’m not sure are out there. I’m home from undergrad, with a degree and everything. Woo! Now I have plenty of time to write, and write whatever I want. No homework. No exams. No dorms. All brainpower going to fiction.

And, oh. It feels. So. Good.

I’ll be honest, though, I had burned out pretty badly. My brain could hardly even think about writing fiction when I first got home in May. I had to sit back and relax and de-stress before an idea could even think about sitting still on my imagination. Did I want to watch Netflix and movies with my family, or read books like never before because I had been fiction-starved? Yes, but not really. I wanted to WRITE, and I thought I could, cold-turkey out of undergrad.

That’s not the way life works. And not the way my brain works.

Three months went by, I kid you not, before I had a substantial two paragraphs I felt weren’t trash. But by then, I had come to terms with resting, with its importance for artistic folk who need the kick-back-relax atmosphere to foster their creative attitude and channels.

If you’ve just recently graduated college, and you feel like you need to run run run right now get that job get that apartment do everything and succeed gain consume wealth and whatever…don’t. Relax. You’ve got, literally, your entire life ahead of you. Take in your surroundings. Stop to notice the roses, because you can’t stop to smell what you don’t see is there.

Take care of yourself. You’re the only you we’ll ever get on this planet, and Earth would feel so empty without you.

My love to you, dear hearts. Whatever you decide.

The Human Question – Vol. 2

I started this series back in September, and then my senior thesis devoured my life and time. I’m grateful that it did. All that spare time away from my blog really gave me time to think, and think hard.

People talk a lot about racism, and about the other races in the world, and all of these terms using the root word “race.”

That bothers me.

Race, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, is “Each of the major divisions of humankind, having distinct physical characteristics,” and yet I find this definition and even the word’s subconscious connotations highly problematic. Highly divisive.

First, each of these “major divisions” is itself a negative association. As humans, we were specifically designed to exhibit unique cultures, ethnicities, skin colors, bone structures–you name, we were made for it. These in no way call for a major division of anything, be it of humankind or of the unity of that humankind.

Secondly, as anyone could probably tell you in today’s sci-fi saturated world, the word “race” has come now to mean something along the lines of “a species set apart from another species by major distinctions in DNA, body structure, physiognomical characteristics, etc.;” to make it far clearer, Han Solo and Chewbacca are best friends. But they are very different races. One is human, the other a wookie. Two entirely different races.

How could humans possibly apply this to other humans? We, frankly, are all of one race–that being “human”–and to consider someone alien based on skin color, cultural practices, geographical location, or anything else ethnicity related is ludicrous. Let me say this very clearly so that there can be no confusion when I pull this point forward:

ONLY ONE RACE EXISTS. THE HUMAN RACE.

Now allow me to clarify before any hackles go up. I am in love with other cultures, differently-pigmented people, ethnic backgrounds ranging far and wide, survival techniques from igloo-building to laying in the shade of the Baobab. In short, I am in love with humans. I weep for humans. I rejoice with humans. I despair in the rocky, inexplicable times of human tragedy. I am human, and so is every living person on this planet.

Never will I consider my fellow man or woman to be a different race with whom I cannot identify, something alien and not-of-this-world. Haitian brothers and sisters, I wish I could have your passion. Latino friends, your music is incredible and inimitable and soul-achingly inspiring. Indian brethren, the beauty of your country makes me sob to be in your presence. African American kin, your resilience makes me pray to God for the type of endurance you exhibit. Scottish ancestors, I wish I knew your stories, and I yearn to go to your (and my) country to feel what you felt. Mexican ilk, I pray for your hardships to end every time I hear a report of violence in your streets. Jewish cousins, I envy your long and hard-wrought history of faith and reverence to God.

There are too many cultures to rightly name here.

Whoever you are reading this, whatever your pigment, however your build your houses, wherever you live and breathe and feel emotions and experience human life–know that your pain is my pain. We both cry salt tears. Red blood runs in our veins. The same medical procedures to make me better will make you better. Why?

Because we’re human. Not aliens so different and foreign beyond all hope of reconcile.

I’m a white woman. I grew up in Maine where the only racism I knew existed happened years and years ago, and I thought we had moved past it. Then I entered high school and began watching national news. Much to my surprise and despair, we have not. And for everyone who is not white who’s reading this, I’d like to ask a genuine question, and please send me the best answer you can think of, because I’m authentically confused. As a white person who’s mother and stepfather never made more than $25,000 a year, why is it that the only racism I’ve personally experienced came from white classmates no older than myself?

Now, years later and my last semester in college, my very best friends range all over the board of ethnicity. My heartbreak for the nation pounds through my chest. I can hardly claim to have the answers for any of this chaos, but one thing I do know is that once we begin to lay aside the “race” definition meaning “other than the human we think ourselves to be,” we will never be able to appreciate one another. And once we appreciate one another, we can move on to the solution: love.

Global change is nigh unto impossible, I realize that. I’m not so much of a dreamer that I drift beyond application. However, I hold to the belief that worlds can change; the neighbor down the street, the single mom, the elderly couple who frequent your local grocery store. Their worlds can change. And when pieces of the world find love, find God, how can the whole not feel it?

Race is a concept. Humans are real. I pray that soon we realize this in our own pockets of humanity.

As always, dear hearts, know that Jesus loves and weeps for you, and so do I.

The Human Question – Vol. 1

I want to know what it means to be human.

Not in the way that social activists and hipsters do it, either, going about surveying their inner thoughts and reading poorly-thought-out articles on news sites I wouldn’t exactly trust with an envelope of facts. Opinion, opinion, opinion, and all about how other people should be human according to so-and-so.

Is what I have to say opinion? Probably. I’m not looking to change anyone’s mind about what Christians think of sex before marriage, or if we need to “accept” everyone (whatever that means), or of anything like that. If God plants a seed of thought in you while you read this, great. If you flip your table and rage across town to get as far away from your computer as possible, great. I don’t care what media says, online or in broadcast or in print. I, a human, want to explore what it means to be human.

I don’t really know how to go about doing this, so bear with me while I try. Exploration is easier, I think, than having a full outline and sitting down, only to discover that Truth (Big T) doesn’t fit your ideas. That’s always an interesting phenomenon.

Let’s start with a simple question, if there is such a thing: What are humans designed to do? Well, narrow this down and you have more subjects, more types of humans. Doctors, writers, scientists, policemen, soldiers, politicians, janitors, mothers, fathers, pastors, teachers, anything you can think of. Now, ideally, these people operate in these specific ways because they either have a passion for that specific thing, or they have a passion related to it, or they didn’t have a passion for it and developed one once they started working, whatever the case.

Socrates talks about living the Good life, that that’s the ultimate achievement, and that virtue is what one should strive for at all times. But what does that mean? For a thief, Good could constitute rolling in stolen money and sitting pretty, but that takes away his virtue. Or a nurse could work her job and be rotten to the patients, hence taking away her virtue there. Put this line of thought–of virtue, that is–and marry it to Christian thought, and we find a key element of a start to being human. Can you guess yet?

Let me give you a little more. All the fields of work I mentioned above are optional. These people aren’t forced at gunpoint to be writers or fathers or policemen or janitors. Sometimes you work a job because it brings in money to live on for you or you and your family (janitors) and sometimes you take on a mantel because you know it’s the honourable thing to do. The virtuous thing (parenthood).

What drives this? What drove Jesus to be the Savior of the entire human race when he didn’t have to be? “He had a choice?” you may ask. And my answer is, “Yes. Yes, He did.” He could call down legions of angels and destroy mankind for its insolence if He wanted to; as if He would be forced to suffer a common criminal’s demise, and worse!

No. He chose to do it. Why? Why does a janitor with a degree in electrical engineering take a job far below his talent? Why does a doctor worth her salt take on difficult cases not knowing what lay ahead? Why do parents in dire straits fight for their children?

Can you guess now?

Love.

I have learned that people are designed–purposefully modeled–as vessels into which love must be poured, and back out of which love must pour itself. Without it, we wither. With soiled love, we suffer poisoning. And you know the hardest thing about love? It hurts. It can’t be explained. It defies every expectation you put into yourself.

We’re not mere bowls where people can dip their fingertips and feel warm and fuzzy and walk away with a superficial impression that they’ve done their “duty” as a human. Real love wrenches your gut. Real love looks at social justice and fights not for women, not for Muslims, not for the black community, but for humans. This planet hosts an enormous, beautiful amount of cultural difference; it only hosts one race: humans. Real love sits back and tilts its head, says, “If I do this, it’ll definitely push me into the zone of having a panic attack. Forget comfort, I’ll be a completely different person if I do that.” And it does it anyway, because love makes us who we’re meant to be, and usually that someone is better than the person who would walk away and leave that guy begging for a dollar up the creek without a nickel to float on.

Rocks are worn smooth by the bashing of waves and the whipping of winds. If we’re rocks, then life is the wind and love the waves. Love makes us human. So the next time you look at that really annoying person you can’t stand to be around; when you see the news and the violence across the globe and want to fight; as you struggle to not punch that jerk in the face, the one who just cut in line in front of you at Starbucks–remember that you are filled with love. Why not spread some?

Any questions?