It’s been a sobering couple of weeks. I'm learning that broken does not mean weak.
I’ve had a lot of thoughts about the attacks in Paris and all of the stuff that I’ve been seeing in the news in the last couple of weeks, but frankly I’ve kept silent because I've feared contributing to the social cacophony that I've been witnessing on the increasingly offensive social media front. These are the first written words I’ve really offered about the matter.
Say what you will, but those attacks affected me deeply. After a lot of thought, I think there are a few reasons why. And contrary to the seemingly naïve admonishments that I’ve been reading over the last couple of weeks, it’s not just because of “beautiful and iconic cafés and streets.”
I was shocked at some of the backlash, soapboxes and platforms that arose out of the situation. Granted, this happens often but I think this may be the first time that I found myself personally offended by social media in general. An odd statement to make, I realize, but I’m serious. But I won't go into detail regarding this for it is outside the scope of my purpose in writing today. I will not make this a platform because how and what I grieve is between God and me right now; He alone knows how much we've been talking about this.
But I will say this: my grief over what happened is not about just Paris itself.
The attacks hit very close to home for me. In short, besides having lived and loved there, my sister was about a block away and in between two of the restaurant shootings. She made it home safely to her flat in north Paris Central that night, thank God. But it was a very odd and terrible sensation texting her amid the terrible acts of terrorism and being able to picture so vividly exactly where she was. I realized a couple of things through my experience on my side of the ocean that night.
First, I wonder if sometimes you have more clarity about the gravity of what is going on—or what has gone on—in a situation once you have distance. My sister has been handling the whole affair better than I have—and though I’m not sure what to make of that at this point, and it’s probably irrelevant anyway, I do wonder about what difference my distance makes. I had a similar experience with “distance” from a situation earlier this year when I was involved in a should-have-been-fatal car accident in May. I was fine for a couple of weeks after the event, but when I had finally had enough temporal distance from what had happened I had a major come-to-Jesus about why I was still walking on this planet (and a part of me even wished I weren’t). Maybe I'm off course on "distance" notion, but it still made me think.
Second, I now have a much more personal understanding of the fear and tragedy that terrorism creates for those it reaches. Terror-ism, may I say, is aptly named. I was 16 when 9/11 happened and I regret the fact that I really did not, and could not, grasp the gravity and scope of the attack. I get it more now.
Third, because of this, I have found that my mental state and grief has expanded far beyond the US, Paris, even Europe in general to all of the places that are grieving and terrorized by all manner of evil all over the world.
…Burundi is on the verge of genocide…there was a shooting in Kenya…a Jewish man was stabbed to death in Milan the day before the Paris attacks...there were a couple of police shootings in Minneapolis…my neighborhood has been no stranger to shootings and death these last months….the list goes on…and Syria. Dear God, Syria….
I am having trouble wrapping both my mind and heart around all of the tragedy all over the literal map that I now have more personal emotional access to. It’s, well, “a lot to process” I find myself saying.
Since I believe in vulnerability and transparency, I’ll be honest: my wonderful walk-in closet has lately become a regular home to a tearful me, on my face, asking God why. And asking him to heal. Over and over.
That’s my heart speaking.
Then, as a person of faith, my head is aware of all manner of doctrinally tight reasons “why,” but I firmly believe that living solely by the logic of my mind (even from a faith perspective)—regardless of how objective I endeavor to be—does not even remotely begin to tell or even address the whole story. The truest of logic, reason or objectivity is, in my view (YES, I am fully cognizant of the irony in that caveat), ultimately a healthy balance of head and heart that becomes a powerful synergy to be reckoned with. This my pursuit. (And yes, I do realize that many consider a faith perspective to be illogical per se. But I will not address this point of view here because I, personally, do not believe that and my desire to write is borne out of my own worldview right now, not that of others.)
That said, I will not cower from the internal tempest that grappling with the present pain in the world --or at least the degree of it that I can perceive/understand--may produce. I have the distinct conviction that it is more courageous to hurt, and work through the pain that one has the capacity to feel because it means you love. AND YES, IT HURTS. But it’s worth it. Because real is worth it.
Lastly, I am becoming increasingly secure in my pursuit of an eventual career in some International NGO capacity. I am becoming increasingly sure that this is the direction that I want to head and quite frankly, it’s no small thing to wrestle with the fact that the wake of terror and travesty left from acts like those in Paris is going to be the future of my career.
I’ve confessed some of this introspective battle to a few people in the last couple of weeks. A few of them have looked me in the eye and understood. A few of them understand far better than I ever could or maybe will. My Marine brother’s sobering nod to my tears spoke deeply of his resonance and his years so far ahead of me in this: "But you will come to understand that the good you do is more important than the pain you feel."
Sometimes people say things and I know the words will stick with me forever. That phrase is one of them.
So yeah, it’s been a sobering couple of weeks. This all made for an equally sober day of giving thanks yesterday for so much more than is easy to think about. It’s extremely uncomfortable to engage in the increasing realization of the privilege (white, American privilege) that I was born into while millions of souls all over the planet will never know what it even feels like to take anything for granted.
But this is what I realize every time I actually reach the bottom of the well within me: I have a place to take all of this. I go into my closet and I consistently go as deep and as ugly as I need to and my Father never tells me that I feel too much or need to lighten up. Rather, He calms me and amazes me with the gentle, always non-judgmental reminder that He gets it. This reminds me, EVERY SINGLE TIME that I could never hurt for the world the way He does because of a) my humanity and b) my resulting limited scope of experience—however “clued-in” I may continue to get.
This place I have, this relationship that will never not “get” me is what I’m most thankful for this year.
Ugh. I hate how trite and “Christian” that sounds because I feel that as soon as I commit those words to paper (or computer screen, as it were) they lose their profoundness. I find myself more disappointed in the effort than well-expressed, frankly. But I guess that’s not the point. The limits of language. Again: ugh.
But thank God He’s beyond the limits of my language and soul.
Thank God.
And thank God that for some reason He still thought that we were worth it. I don't get it, but I'm overwhelmed with gratitude for that fact. And thank You, dear God, that broken does not mean weak.
I’ve had a lot of thoughts about the attacks in Paris and all of the stuff that I’ve been seeing in the news in the last couple of weeks, but frankly I’ve kept silent because I've feared contributing to the social cacophony that I've been witnessing on the increasingly offensive social media front. These are the first written words I’ve really offered about the matter.
Say what you will, but those attacks affected me deeply. After a lot of thought, I think there are a few reasons why. And contrary to the seemingly naïve admonishments that I’ve been reading over the last couple of weeks, it’s not just because of “beautiful and iconic cafés and streets.”
I was shocked at some of the backlash, soapboxes and platforms that arose out of the situation. Granted, this happens often but I think this may be the first time that I found myself personally offended by social media in general. An odd statement to make, I realize, but I’m serious. But I won't go into detail regarding this for it is outside the scope of my purpose in writing today. I will not make this a platform because how and what I grieve is between God and me right now; He alone knows how much we've been talking about this.
But I will say this: my grief over what happened is not about just Paris itself.
The attacks hit very close to home for me. In short, besides having lived and loved there, my sister was about a block away and in between two of the restaurant shootings. She made it home safely to her flat in north Paris Central that night, thank God. But it was a very odd and terrible sensation texting her amid the terrible acts of terrorism and being able to picture so vividly exactly where she was. I realized a couple of things through my experience on my side of the ocean that night.
First, I wonder if sometimes you have more clarity about the gravity of what is going on—or what has gone on—in a situation once you have distance. My sister has been handling the whole affair better than I have—and though I’m not sure what to make of that at this point, and it’s probably irrelevant anyway, I do wonder about what difference my distance makes. I had a similar experience with “distance” from a situation earlier this year when I was involved in a should-have-been-fatal car accident in May. I was fine for a couple of weeks after the event, but when I had finally had enough temporal distance from what had happened I had a major come-to-Jesus about why I was still walking on this planet (and a part of me even wished I weren’t). Maybe I'm off course on "distance" notion, but it still made me think.
Second, I now have a much more personal understanding of the fear and tragedy that terrorism creates for those it reaches. Terror-ism, may I say, is aptly named. I was 16 when 9/11 happened and I regret the fact that I really did not, and could not, grasp the gravity and scope of the attack. I get it more now.
Third, because of this, I have found that my mental state and grief has expanded far beyond the US, Paris, even Europe in general to all of the places that are grieving and terrorized by all manner of evil all over the world.
…Burundi is on the verge of genocide…there was a shooting in Kenya…a Jewish man was stabbed to death in Milan the day before the Paris attacks...there were a couple of police shootings in Minneapolis…my neighborhood has been no stranger to shootings and death these last months….the list goes on…and Syria. Dear God, Syria….
I am having trouble wrapping both my mind and heart around all of the tragedy all over the literal map that I now have more personal emotional access to. It’s, well, “a lot to process” I find myself saying.
Since I believe in vulnerability and transparency, I’ll be honest: my wonderful walk-in closet has lately become a regular home to a tearful me, on my face, asking God why. And asking him to heal. Over and over.
That’s my heart speaking.
Then, as a person of faith, my head is aware of all manner of doctrinally tight reasons “why,” but I firmly believe that living solely by the logic of my mind (even from a faith perspective)—regardless of how objective I endeavor to be—does not even remotely begin to tell or even address the whole story. The truest of logic, reason or objectivity is, in my view (YES, I am fully cognizant of the irony in that caveat), ultimately a healthy balance of head and heart that becomes a powerful synergy to be reckoned with. This my pursuit. (And yes, I do realize that many consider a faith perspective to be illogical per se. But I will not address this point of view here because I, personally, do not believe that and my desire to write is borne out of my own worldview right now, not that of others.)
That said, I will not cower from the internal tempest that grappling with the present pain in the world --or at least the degree of it that I can perceive/understand--may produce. I have the distinct conviction that it is more courageous to hurt, and work through the pain that one has the capacity to feel because it means you love. AND YES, IT HURTS. But it’s worth it. Because real is worth it.
Lastly, I am becoming increasingly secure in my pursuit of an eventual career in some International NGO capacity. I am becoming increasingly sure that this is the direction that I want to head and quite frankly, it’s no small thing to wrestle with the fact that the wake of terror and travesty left from acts like those in Paris is going to be the future of my career.
I’ve confessed some of this introspective battle to a few people in the last couple of weeks. A few of them have looked me in the eye and understood. A few of them understand far better than I ever could or maybe will. My Marine brother’s sobering nod to my tears spoke deeply of his resonance and his years so far ahead of me in this: "But you will come to understand that the good you do is more important than the pain you feel."
Sometimes people say things and I know the words will stick with me forever. That phrase is one of them.
So yeah, it’s been a sobering couple of weeks. This all made for an equally sober day of giving thanks yesterday for so much more than is easy to think about. It’s extremely uncomfortable to engage in the increasing realization of the privilege (white, American privilege) that I was born into while millions of souls all over the planet will never know what it even feels like to take anything for granted.
But this is what I realize every time I actually reach the bottom of the well within me: I have a place to take all of this. I go into my closet and I consistently go as deep and as ugly as I need to and my Father never tells me that I feel too much or need to lighten up. Rather, He calms me and amazes me with the gentle, always non-judgmental reminder that He gets it. This reminds me, EVERY SINGLE TIME that I could never hurt for the world the way He does because of a) my humanity and b) my resulting limited scope of experience—however “clued-in” I may continue to get.
This place I have, this relationship that will never not “get” me is what I’m most thankful for this year.
Ugh. I hate how trite and “Christian” that sounds because I feel that as soon as I commit those words to paper (or computer screen, as it were) they lose their profoundness. I find myself more disappointed in the effort than well-expressed, frankly. But I guess that’s not the point. The limits of language. Again: ugh.
But thank God He’s beyond the limits of my language and soul.
Thank God.
And thank God that for some reason He still thought that we were worth it. I don't get it, but I'm overwhelmed with gratitude for that fact. And thank You, dear God, that broken does not mean weak.
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