A Welcome Place for the Unwelcome Elephant

This week I have the glorious privilege of guest posting for one of my newly hatched blogger friends. Adrian's blog, Life Before the Bucket, is one of the mighty morsels of delicious food for thought I consume on a daily basis: my blodder. He inspires me with his wit and insight, shares a passion for social justice, and is by far my best and most prolific blog commenter (the rest of you--take note).


I am happy as a hippo to share a Two Part series on what it means to live life to the fullest. So join the safari over at Adrian's blog to check out my wrangling of the The Unwelcome Elephant and learn How I Became God's Basking Case. And feel free to follow Adrian's exemplary example and leave lots of tasty comments. AND be sure to check out all of his wonderful posts. 



For any of you that clicked over from Life Before the Bucket, welcome! Three important things you need to know:

1. My real name is not Algeisha

2. I have a (little more than a) thing for T.S. Eliot

3. I am so glad you're here 


You can get to know me in my aptly named About Me section or just meander about the site, and, if you'd like to stick around, follow me on twitter or by email or any of those newfangled RSS thingeys that people seem to like by using the buttons to the right. I would love to hear from you! Please feel free to leave a comment or email me at lewis.aly(at)gmail.com.

And thank you, Adrian, for welcoming my unwelcome elephant.


*photo credit Cameron Lewis, who happens to be my brother and also happens to make and play great music. 

A Day Without an Elephant

Lately there’s been a little too much elephant in my life. (See this post)

Too much fear and self-doubt and guilt that has invaded my life like an unwelcome elephant.

As soon as I wrote that the question, “What if I am worth hating?” no longer dominates my life because I know the reality is that I am loved, the gnawing fear began to creep back in. Suddenly I’m aware of my every failing and my every selfish thought. How I will never be good enough.

I’m acing legalism 101, but failing life. I’m coming unraveled.

Where has this unwelcome elephant come from? Who let in him the door to my heart, my mind, my relationships, and my sanity?

I’ve heard it said that sometimes persecution is a sign that God is on the move.

As much as I’d like to think these ambushes of opposition are a sign of God’s great work through me, I can’t help but wonder if it’s not also a sign of my own neuroticism.

Neuroticism—yes it’s a real word (although we still have dibs on “neurotica,” Emily)—is “the enduring tendency to experience negative emotional states…such as anxiety, anger, guilt, and depressed mood” and explains a lot about my life.

I’ve always found a way to doubt my strengths, to fear the future, and guilt away my joy. But the thing is, I had gotten better. A lot better. I was experiencing freedom and I thought the elephant was gone for good. That is, until I started writing about it getting better.

So in this recent bout of guilt and anxiety and grace stealing, I ask myself the question: why now? Is it because God is moving more powerfully, so the opposition comes on stronger, or am I simply slipping back into my naturally neurotic ways?

The only answer I can come up with is that it’s both.

I think it’s a sign that God is moving because I think that God is always moving. And I think it’s a sign of my own neuroticism because, quite frankly, I’m always neurotic.

The greater question is “what is my response?”

Like I said before, the only antidote to this fear, this self-doubt and self-hatred that can sneak in and poison our lives like unwelcome elephants, is compassion. For ourselves. A surrender to God’s grace when we really just want to be the ones controlling our need for grace.

Whether the anxiety comes from the accuser inside or out, I can choose to love myself. I can choose to accept God’s grace and relinquish my pride.

Today at church, my pastor encouraged us to ask the Holy Spirit to show us evidence of God’s love.

I echo that request. Holy Spirit, please help me to taste touch see hear feel know that I know that I know God’s love.

Love, please give me hope for a day without an elephant.

Love Letters to a Skeptic

March 25, 2010

Aly,

I love you if you work out.

I love you if you don't work out.

I love you if you sweat sweat sweat it out.

I love you if you don't eat enough.

I love you if you eat too much.

I love you if you call mom back.

I love you if you isolate yourself.

I love you have a productive day at work.

I love you if you sit on Facebook the whole time.

I love you if you're feeling hot.

I love you if you're feeling bored.

I love you if you hate your body, your self, your life.

I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you.

T.S. Tuesday: Stacking up Truths

It's difficult to describe how I came back to God. To have it make sense to anyone outside of my life. There weren't too many concrete events that make tidy little blog posts. As Donald Miller said in his book Searching For God Knows What and in his blog post yesterday, there were a million steps that led me to where I am now, and even now, the steps are changing.

It was watching the Boy in the Striped Pajamas, it was dating a guy who was so much more cynical than I was that I actually started to believe something, it was stealing a Haitian woman’s parking spot, it was watching Planet Earth at the non profit organization I was interning at, it was reading ee cummings and T.S. Eliot, it was salty runs along the cliffs, it was new journals and an obsession with the Holocaust.

It was a stacking up of hundreds of little truths. In T.S. Eliot’s poem, The Dry Salvages, the third of Four Quartets, he writes:

"There is no end, but addition: the trailing
Consequence of further days and hours,
While emotion takes to itself the emotionless
Years of living among the breakage
Of what was believed in as the most reliable--
And therefore the fittest for renunciation."

I like the idea of the addition, the stacking, the summation of experiences and truths and ideas. That there is no end; only addition. Here Eliot is talking of suffering and pain, of death, but I’ve come to see this stacking up in every area of my life. My life is a compilation of truths and connections. Of a million steps that add up to where I am now.

Stacking hundreds of little truths up together is how I feel most connected with people--and with God.

I know it doesn’t sound much like basking, like soaking in God’s love. But my basking started with a few ideas, a few truths the size of mustard seeds, and built forward.

Love

ê

God is Love

ê

Love is God

ê

God

God is
God is here
God is here with
God is here with me.

In the last two years God has pursued me like crazy. In the ways that I like to be pursued (single men take note). I feel connected to God the same way I feel connected to people--through learning and growing, questioning, poetry, books.

God allowed me to stack up truths with him. I didn't need all the answers. I could still be cynical and skeptical and angry.

Amidst my questioning and cynicism and stacking up of truths I experienced Love. For myself. For this world. And for the God who created me.

And that was the start of the basking.

What if I am worth loving?

February 2007

I circled the small space in my on-campus apartment bedroom, talking to my mom on the phone. Again my mom was asking if I had gone to church. Again the answer was no.

It was a conversation like hundreds of others we had entertained that fateful year where I spiraled in post-study-abroad-the-world-is-an-unjust-and-awful-place-depression. The conversation consisted of mostly silence, deep breaths, and occasional grunts on my part.

I thought my mom would launch into another tirade about going to church, seeking help, doing anything to get out of the pit I was in.

Instead she told me something that I've never forgotten.

She said, “I want you to feel better about yourself, not just because you should, but because it’s a reality.”

For the first time in probably my whole life, I entertained that thought for real, like really for real. What if I really am lovable? What if that is the reality? What if the guilt and shame and anger I'd placed on myself for not measuring up to whatever impossible standards I'd created was just that, something I myself had created and entrapped myself in?

What if love was the reality?

Within the next few months my depression and self-hatred hit an all-time high and I hit an all-time low, and I realized that I either needed to live like I mattered and life mattered or life would be unbearable. And my mom’s words echoed in my mind.

With the idea that love and acceptance could maybe come from something bigger than and outside of myself, I decided to live what my mom had believed about me all along. Suspending my doubts, I launched my own Love Aly campaign in which I radically rejected any thoughts of self-hatred and did my best to "fake it till you make it," choosing to live like I loved myself even if I didn't feel it.

And it was this experience of unconditional love for myself that brought me back to faith in God.

T.S. Tuesday: How Far is Too Far?

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” T.S. Eliot

This past week (and especially weekend) has been particularly rife with nuggets of words, wisdom, and fits of unwarranted compassion. Every meager attempt I've made to write down these tidbits and stirrings in any coherent, accessible way have ended in writers block. Which, by the way, is a condition I don't even believe exists. More accurately, they've ended in writers procrastination with a hefty dose of divided attention disorder. But more than that, for one of the few times in my life, I am awed speechless, or wordless.

I've been reminded of the immense gift it is to even say the words "God speaks to me." I've been sobered by the weight of that statement. Don't get me wrong, I love being loved (who doesn't?), but I've been reminded of the great responsibility that comes with being loved. The responsibility to receive and respond to that love, to reciprocate.

While I'm usually thrilled to share what I've learned or am learning on this blog, this past week I've been hesitant to commit to writing the many exhortations God has spoken to me. I'm scared to share what God has spoken in fear that I will not hold up my end of the bargain.

The past four years have been a time of basking in God's love (more on this later), and learning to love myself and receive inordinate amounts of grace.

Of course God has still been speaking that love to me, but I also have a greater sense that he's asking me to participate, to give back. Not that I haven't reciprocated or worshiped or served these past few years--I have--but the thing is, I had never felt asked to do it. Everything I have given or expressed has been completely voluntary, an organic response to these fits of unwarranted compassion.

Like the beginning of a dating relationship, I had no expectations for God and he had no expectations for me (at least that's what I told myself). I think we both surprised each other. But what happens when you get to the point where you have to make a commitment? When words like 'compromise' and 'sacrifice' begin to enter the equation?

What if God is asking me to die to this self he has just taught me to love?

Right now it feels like I'm going a little too far. A little too uncomfortable. I have an unease with language like "a first time decision for Christ." Shouldn't we be making decisions for Christ daily, hourly, minutely? My story is more of a weaving of thoughts and ideas and experiences than an Old and New Testament divide.

I have to remind myself that this command is from the same God who wants me to bask in His love. Who in the same breath of the command to die to myself also whispered, "I have good things for you."

I'm scared that as soon as I put expectations on God, he's going to let me down.

But that's not the God I know. That's not the God of Love who taught me to love myself. Who gave me friends and a church community that helped me see his face and his presence in my life and the world around me. That's not the God who loves me whether or not I serve the poor or work at non-profit, shop fair trade organic or don't whine to my mom on the phone.

He's not a God of letdowns, but a God of surprises. Is it really that hard for me to see that he has good things for me?

It's scary, but it's also a privilege. I have dreams of starting a support group for people who struggle with eating disorders. I can think of nothing more meaningful or humbling than to see people set free from the bondage of believing their worth is intrinsically linked to their body fat percentage or sex appeal.

I need to remember that the reason he is calling me to serve is that I now have something to give: Him.

So, here's my confession: I'm scared to lead. Scared to fail. Scared to go farther.

But if I'm not willing to risk going too far, how can I possibly find out how far One can go?

I say I want to know your story, but I haven't even asked

When I look into your eyes, I can see your story.

But that's as far as I get.

What is love?

What is kindness?

Where does my story stop and your story begin?

I've spent my whole life writing my own story.

I haven't had time to listen to yours.

Why am I paralyzed in fear?

Why is it so hard to look past my story for one minute?

What is it that I'm scared of?

Am I scared that your story will be different, or do I fear that it will be the same?

I say I want to know your story,

but I haven't even asked.

I can live with you for a semester and not even know you.

I can live with you for a lifetime and never even know your dreams.

I want to know you, I really do.

What story do I believe in?

That this is it, this is all?

Is there a heaven or a God?

Why haven't I learned that your story is my story?

That when I ignore you, I discount myself.

When I'm scared of you, it's really me that I'm afraid of.

If I really knew His love, would I be scared?

His love is supposed to drive out fear.

I want Your love to be my story.

This was one of my journal entries from March 31, 2006, in the middle of my religious and ontological crisis. I'm discovering more and more the importance of stories. Discovering more and more how to let His love be my story.

But these questions still linger, still hound me.

If I can barely make sense of things in my own head, how do I find the space to let others' stories in?

Looking back, I can see these questions, in fact all of my journal entries from that year, were steeped in loneliness. A loneliness and an insecurity that led to hostility toward myself and others. A loneliness that I (and I think everyone) still struggle with.

I just finished reading Henri Nowen's Reaching Out, where he speaks about the dichotomy between loneliness (a needy, grasping place) and solitude (a posture of secure identity and contentment).

He writes, "As long as we are lonely, we cannot be hospitable because as lonely people we cannot create free space. Our own need to still our inner cravings of loneliness makes us cling to others instead of creating space for them."

This journey to love myself is also a journey to love others. To create space for others. To allow their stories to become my own.

I am striving for a spiritual life that "makes [me] so alert and aware of the world around [me], that all that is and happens becomes part of [my] contemplation and meditation and invites [me] to a free and fearless response." Nouwen

God, please allow your love to be my story, so that my heart may be opened to others' stories.

Living a Better Story

I came at Christianity backwards. Well, more like God came to me. Unexpected and unannounced.

The stories I used to believe about myself were awful. Depressing, really. I can’t even look back through my old journals without feeling a complete sense of despair.

I told myself stories of how dumb I was. How ugly. How boring. How awful. I was never good enough. Even in my relationship with God I wasn’t good enough.

I used to wonder why I wasn't in love with Jesus the way other people seemed to be. I felt really guilty about it. In fact, I felt pretty guilty about everything. How I wasn't nice enough. Outgoing enough. Christian enough. Happy enough. (anyone sensing an introvert complex yet?) Instead I was too shy. Too scared. Too selfish. Too....human.

When I came back from a study abroad experience in Costa Rica, I was wrecked. After a semester of poverty tours, angry rants, and guilt trips, the conflicting stories became too much bear.

I stopped telling myself any stories. The stories reduced themselves to apathy, disengagement, disconnection.

Silence.

But out of the frightening silence of the months I spent in numbness and isolation, unable to find my worth and validation in my schoolwork, my religion, or friend’s and family’s approval, came an acceptance of self that I had never known. The emptiness of not caring, though scary and unproductive, gradually opened into space for peace and self-acceptance and even joy.

Only when the stories of self-hatred, doubt, and condemnation were silenced, could God actually speak. Although I couldn’t (or wouldn’t) identify God as the source, something began to tell me stories of love and grace. That maybe the salvation of the world didn’t hinge completely on me. That maybe there was something good and worthy inside of me after all.

Only after I began to hear this new story did I actually start to live like I was loved, like I was forgiven. And only after months of living in the kind of freedom I'd never dreamed of, did I finally begin to believe that maybe there is a loving God. That maybe it was the God of love who made me free, who was there loving me all along.

Don't worry, it sounds weird and new-agey even to me. But the beauty of God is that he knows me. He knew I didn't need another formula or piece of intellectual information to believe in. He knew I needed to experience his truth and freedom before I could ever believe it.

My relationship with God is inseparable from my journey to love myself, to believe a better story about myself and this world. The verse, "We love because he first loved us," (1 John 4:19) could not explain it any better.

And that is the new story I’m learning to live.

Telling A Better Story

"What we do comes out of who we believe we are." –Rob Bell

I’ve heard another one of my other favorite authors, Donald Miller (Christian hipster alert), talk about the importance of story in our lives and, particularly, the role of God as the author of our own stories. I’m not going to get into the recent blogosphere squabble Don started by talking about men authoring love stories for women or anything like that. I’m not going to unleash my thoughts on feminism or, heaven forbid, dating. I actually wrote the following part of this post over a year ago—before Rachel Held Evans’ response to Donald Miller’s post with “My story is more interesting than that”—for reals.

What I am going to talk about and what I agree with both of them on, is that stories matter. The stories we tell ourselves and the stories we believe we are living matter a great deal.

If we believe the story that life is meaningless, we’re going to act like nothing matters. If we believe that the problems of the world are too big and too complicated to make a difference, we’re not going to do anything to make a difference.

Maybe you believe that you are nothing more than a body to be lusted after or rejected.

There’s a better story.

Maybe you believe that you are what you produce.

There’s a better story.

Maybe you believe you’re too busy to make a difference.

Maybe you believe you don’t have any skills or talents that are useful.

Maybe you believe, deep down, that if people knew the real you they would be disgusted.

There’s a better story.

Maybe you believe your past mistakes will dictate your future.

Maybe you believe you are powerless to help.

There’s a better story.

It doesn’t exactly sound like the normal Christian activities: pray, read the Bible, go to church….practice letting God author your life story? (I guess Jesus take the wheel comes pretty close to the idea). My love story with God is really just the story of letting God write my story--how meta is that? Or at least letting God’s story about me be the main story I believe.

What story do you believe?

Check back next week to read more about the ways I’ve learned to believe and live a better story.

Meet the Matchmakers

The biggest lie I tell myself is that I’m alone. That people don’t understand me and I have to figure out everything myself.

Even as I write about my love story with God, I’m tempted to make it all about me. The revelations I had. The ways he’s working in me.

I forget the oh-so-tiny-detail that I wouldn’t be where I am today, wouldn’t be learning what I’m learning today, if it weren’t for the many, many matchmakers in my life who have pointed me to the God of love and grace.

I like to pretend that I figure things out on my own. But the truth is I have a lot of friends and mentors who help me discover not only more of who God is, but more of who God has created me to be.

My life is rife with mentors, and I am so grateful. I still keep in touch with mentors from college, past professors, my mom, even my friends’ moms.

These people have spoken such love and grace into my life. They have given me examples of what it means to question. What it means to care. They are the matchmakers in my love story with God. They are the matchmakers in a growing love story with myself.

They are the people from my church who told me to bask in God’s love long before I even believed true love existed. They are the people who model good relationships, loyalty and dedication, communication and confrontation.

These matchmakers showed me it was possible to love God and be angry with God at the same time. They showed me it’s okay to have a meltdown. It’s okay to question.

They showed me that I mattered. They modeled God’s unconditional love for me. They helped me identify ways God was moving, even when I wasn’t in a place to put what I experienced into words. They taught me to fight the barrage of self-hatred in my head and to build on the good in my own life.

And because of their care and encouragement, I began to feel like I could be friends with God. And, maybe, he wanted to be friends with me.

And like any good love story, this friendship grew into something so much deeper and mysterious. It grew into love.

Today I’d like to thank and acknowledge the many matchmakers in my life who have helped me experience God’s love, listened to me cry and question, and set me up with the God of my dreams.

Thank you.