The 'It' Factor

    You know those people who just have ‘it’?   Everyone wants to be around them.  They are magnanimous: joyful, confident, and generous.  They are happy to be themselves.  I want to be like that.  But the pursuit is frustrating and fascinating; ‘it’ seems always attainable but just out of reach. 

     I've tried to acquire ‘it’ by imitation (because joy, confidence, and generosity are great qualities).  I've tried to acquire ‘it’ by pursuing originality (because I know that I am created uniquely to be me).  But I am left restless, still wanting whatever ‘it’ is.  

Finding 'it' is part elusive, part frantic.  Yes, just like this.

     'It' is not just being funny, or kind, or a good listener, or generous, or happy, though these are good and imitable.  Pope John Paul II said that we are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures.  I think we are also not the sum of our gifts and successes.  We are the sum of our Father's love for us.  

     No, what these people have, this ‘it’, is the deep peace resulting from the struggle and beauty of allowing the light of Christ to shine in their darkness, healing and revealing their true selves.  These people have had an encounter with one who knows them and wants them in all their fullness.  They have the better part which will not be taken from them. 

     Allowing Christ’s light to shine into darkness is uncomfortable and unnerving because what will be revealed is not yet known.  But equally – actually more - uncomfortable and unnerving is darkness; the restless strive to ‘create myself’ through an endless game of imitation and originality.  So let there be light. 

     Once I am convinced that darkness is scarier than light, it begins.  We walk through my soul.  As I watch Jesus teach me about each thing we see along the way, it becomes easier and easier to trust Him.  He brings clarity, peace, and simplicity to what was confused, unknown, and tainted.  My idea of finding 'it' through imitation and originality fades in the light of the glory of His new creation.  And I am not alone in aching for light to shine.  

At the beginning I said there were Personalities in God.  I will go further now.  There are no real personalities anywhere else.  Until you have given up yourself to Him you will not have a real self.  Sameness is to be found most among the most ‘natural’ men, not among those who surrender to Christ.  How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints.                                                                                              - C.S. Lewis

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.  

John 1:5

Chasing Sunsets

The first night week month in a new place is weird.  It doesn’t feel like home.  First off, cardboard reeks.  Attempting to function out of cardboard boxes: also undesirable.  Meeting new neighbors: fun but odd, especially if we meet as I’m hauling boxes on a 90 degree day.  [Well hello, dog living 20 feet from my bedroom window.  My morning is fine without events that spur (in)voluntary profanity and fight-or-flight spasms.  Thanks anyway.  #thingsiwillmisssomeday]

The first night, I was tired, but determined to be crowned victorious over all that is ‘moving’.  So I went on a walk.  Two things I knew I’d miss about the old apt: 1) my porch and 2) my 3^rd story windows that faced West.  I’d see things like this every night:

I spy a hot air balloon off in the distance...see it?  Toward the left.

So ugly, I know.

 Leaving cardboard behind, I set off at dusk to navigate the neighborhood in hopes of finding a lookout like the one I was missing.  It was nice, warm, peaceful, and I saw the sunset, but no view compared to the fields and open sky from up high. 

view from new place + clouds MIA + self-fulfilling prophecy = mediocre sunset

I wanted to never miss the sunset, to always have it with me.  Taking that (impossible) wish to its logical (not feasible) end; the only way to have a never-ending sunset is to hop on a jet that flew fast enough and low enough to get it all ‘just right’.  But then I’d never be on the ground, I'd probably be motion sick, and likely terrified.

“Just let the sun set.”

I was chasing the sunset and missing the beauty.  I felt like I wanted something so big, like I was missing something so much.  I didn't even know quite what I wanted or what I was missing.  But dear Mr. Lewis, (a co-author of the site – you didn't know?) eloquently clarifies the angst and the next best step…

"The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. 
These things - the beauty, the memory of our own past - are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers.  For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited."

 Here’s to the Giver of the sunsets, the longing, and the glorious days ahead.   

Listen to this: it's a goodie.  "This Side" by Nickel Creek 

See, it's not so bad after all.  11/24/12