Driving by the party.

Well I'm back in bloggerland. I've been writing, writing, writing, but not here. I've been moving words around a page for hours on end, creating catalog copy for an office supply store, and marketing materials for a fleet management company. "Ugh", you say? Yes, "ugh" is right. I'd much rather write in my blog, but unfortunately, Blogger doesn't pay me. Plus, I've been in one of my funks, feeling like God likes everyone better than me. My depression and tantrum that goes with isn't condusive to interesting and creative thoughts to put on this page. Trust me, you'd rather not hear what's going on in my head these days.But I'll give you a glimpse, maybe editing out a few of the nastier ponderings.

1. God likes everyone else better than me. He proves it by giving them everything I want. Like a child. And a house. And a fun job. A published book. And skinny thighs.

Oh, I know I have a lot. I have a wonderful husband, I own a condo, I have family and friends that like me (I think). I don't have cancer or a sick child. So what am I whining about, right?

The thing is my mind has this never-ending tape that makes me feel like I'm watching life from the sidelines. I can't make it stop. Maybe it's because I'm a youngest (or second to youngest child) who watched my older sisters get to do everything first (you know -- go on dates, shave their legs, wear panty-hose). Or maybe it's my fundamentalist background. In high school we weren't allowed to go to dances, movies, or most parties (for fear there would be drinking and dancing!). When I was a sophomore, and my sister was a senior in high school, she was student body president (just so you know, I was never student body president, or on the homecoming court, like my sister). As student body president she had to help plan the Prom. But since we couldn't attend dances, this created a dilemma: the student body president couldn't go to the prom. Instead, the night of the dance, my sister suggested we "drive by" the high school gym to make sure things were running smoothly. I sat in the back seat while my dad drove us to the school gym. It was dark, the gym's double doors were open, and I caught a glimpse of the party inside -- the balloons, the sparkly lights, the mirror ball, the teenagers in their tuxes and long dresses laughing and having fun. We stopped for a momement, ducked down in our seats to make sure no one recognized us, and then drove home. Pretty much, in a nutshell, that's my life right now.

2. God doesn't like me because I made bad choices, or am not good enough. Oh, I know, in my head, that this isn't true. "Jesus loves me this I know" I sang as a child. But knowing doesn't always translate into feeling or experiencing that love. So yes, I'm a bit angry at God, but more than that, I'm blaming myself....

3. Maybe God does love me but I've gotten in the way. Could it be that I've sabatoged God's plans for me because of my stubborness, or because I'm a control freak and cling to my agenda? All the more reason to blame myself.

I really, really, want to stop the casset tape, get out of the car and go to the party. To dance, and to celebrate like the other kids. What's stopping me? Is it because I'm not invited? Or that I'm too shy to get out of the car? Or that I feel like I don't belong there?

Or maybe the party looks different than I expected, and I really am at the party and don't realize it or appreciate it. I know my life story doesn't have to look like everyone else's. It's not about things, really (like a house, although it would be nice), but feeling like I have a purpose and am living that out. Making a difference. Being the person God created me to be. To experience the joy of knowing God is working in my life, even though my life might look a whole lot different than everyone else's. I don't feel that right now. I'm just driving by the party, and looking inside at the lights and streamers from back seat of the dark car.

Highway 41 Revisited

There's a scene in the "notes, corrections, clarifications, apologies, addenda" section of Dave Eggers' book "Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" where he's driving up Highway 41 to the northern suburbs in Chicago on his way home from college to help his parents, who are dying of cancer. He writes:

"When my parents were sick, I began, during my senior year in college, to drive back and forth from school to home, usually from Thursday (I had only one, completely skippable, class on Friday) to Sunday night, when I'd head back down state. The drive between Champaign and Chicago is impossibly uneventful, completely tedious, and I was doing it, for the most part, in a 1981 Rabbit without a radio or windshield wipers. But I did it with a certian smugness, with a sense of mission, because I was leaving the frivolity of college and my many housemates and their endless games of 9-ball....I was leaving that environment for a place where, I felt, I was needed urgently, where I could lift sandbags, put my finger in the dike, whatever. We all know that there are very few times when we feel like we are proving we are using this flesh-life-thing, and those times are a) during sex; b) adventure; c) adventure in the service of duty. And coming with that certain smugness was of course a certain guilt about smugness drawn from duty. We feel glad that we have a very tangible reason to exist, that we are driving on a terrible flat highway for three hours Thursday night because at home our sister will say Finally! and our small brother will jump and monkey-hug and say Hey stupid! and our parents will greet us with their exhaustion and frail arms."

This is my favorite scene in the book. Something tragic happens, and it is so tragic, and we hate that someone hurts and we want it to go away. Yet the adrenaline starts pumping and there's something to do and maybe we can make a difference. It seems I've been driving up Highway 41 a lot during the past year as two friends died of breast cancer, another friend's father died. Now a baby lying in a hospital PICU with a severe heart defect.

I want to HELP. Help with a capital "H". It makes me feel alive and like I have purpose, a mission. But I'm wondering, too, when it becomes selfish. Do I want to help because it makes ME feel good? Or do I want to help because my friends need the help?

Or maybe we feel more alive because, as C.S. Lewis writes, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." We hear him more clearly when we suddenly see how delicate life is, how fragile and temporary. When we're reminded, once again, there must be something more -- something beyond our mundane days. During these times our differences and imagined slights and arguments against one another fall away and we just love one another. We drive up Highway 41 and bring meals and leave phone messages and post comments on their blog and sit beside them and listen and love them and hopefully our intentions are pure. We're never quite sure. But we get a little taste of loving someone like Christ loves us, and it's our salvation.

Getting in touch with my inner Swede

I'm now officially a member of the Chicago Nordic Choir --a group of about 20 gorgeous, model-like Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes. I'm part Swedish, part Danish and can carry a tune, but not-so-model like. I guess they want me anyway since they're short on second sopranos. Not that I speak a lick of Swedish or Norwegian. Last night I pretty much mumbled my way through rehearsal. I guess I have a lot of learning to do for our first gig of the year-- Waffle Day at the Swedish-American Museum in Andersonville! It's at 5211 N Clark St. on March 25 at 3p. Come if you're in the area. Hopefully I'll know a little Swedish by then... or just come for the waffles.