What I'm learning

God knows me well enough to know how hard headed I can be.  And I think that is why sometimes he has to draw me out and completely shake my world for me to run back to him.  I know more than ever now that I need God and solely dependent upon him.

Most of my life in college has been spent feeling like a fish out of water.  In high school, confidence came quite easily, especially because I could beat a lot of fantastic debate teams if you gave me sassy high heals and a loud enough microphone.  In high school I hung out with all the nerdy guys, and spent hours upon hours talking about foreign policy, economics, art, philosophy, and subjects most girls wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.  My public speaking ventures gave me a lot of confidence.  That is why I declared finance to be my major in college; it was a nerdy world that made me feel safe and talented.  I remember sitting in a job interview for an insurance company and basically being hired on the spot despite I had recently graduated from high school and had no experience in selling insurance.  Although I turned the job down, I remember my interviewer said, "There is something I like about you; you've got spunk."

That was me.  Or at least, that was how I portrayed myself to the world.  But the truth is, a lot of my confidence through college has largely been an act.  Sometimes I still think on the inside I am that little insecure girl that was never brave enough to walk on the balance beam in gym class.

After I got off work on Monday, I decided to travel up to my sister's place at a Christian university up north.  I thought a little college life might do me some good and provide a break in my normal routine.  Spending quality time with my sister is always a plus for me.  Many of you know how much I hate showering in disguising dorm showers, so you must know how much I enjoy quality time with my sister that I will overcome such annoyances.   

The moment my suitcase hit the campus, I know I didn't belong, especially after I was informed that I violated the strict dress code.  The thing about a lot of Christian campuses is that it's full of people who have to act happy.  I don't deal very well with fake people, especially if those people are women trying to get attention.  Long story short, living on a Christian campus for a few days made me feel awkward, especially as I began to see how different I am from most of the other girls.

When God created Ashley Renee, I think he laughed.  Because I'm the opposite of everything everyone expected me to be.  The doctors said I may never walk, and I proved them wrong at eleven years old.  Questioning assumptions, searching for the truth and living with passion is what I have always been about.  But I look around in the world, and on Christian college campuses, and I see a lot of girls who appear to have it all together.  I see girls who are beautiful, girls who are nice, girls who obey all the rules.

And just like any girl does, when we look around at other girls we end up looking at ourselves and comparing.    

I had a skeletal deformity.  When I'm tired, I walk with a limp.  I'm short.  I'm romantic and nerdy.  It doesn't matter if I can fit in a size two skinny jean, there are days I feel fat. No matter how many songs I play or pictures I paint, I still feel like I have no talent.  I looked in the mirror of my sister's dorm room and thought, "I'm ugly."  And I realized one thing.  I will never be one of "those" girls.  I will never belong.  


I only cry during moments that matter, and last week I seemed to have a lot of moments that mattered.  There is only so much a person can take.  Finally, I decided I needed a break and drove my car just to find somewhere safe to go.  I ended up parallel parking in front of an old mom and pop coffee house that looked almost deserted.  I figured if no one was there, no one could see me hiding my tears.  As I excited my car, I noticed the most beautiful stream of water I had ever seen, and stood there for several minutes listening to the sound of the river and I was stunned.  Why couldn't I be beautiful like that river?  Why couldn't people look at me and see who I am, instead of seeing the nerdy short girl who can't walk straight?  Why can't people stop asking what's wrong with me?

I held my tea cup in my hands and walked up to the upstairs loft, glad the coffee house was empty and happy to finally be alone and away from the world.  I sat on an antique chair and looked out the old window and started to cry.  Finally, I heard a really sweet female voice come up behind me and say, "are you okay?"

I was stunned.  I could have swore up and down I was the only person in the deserted coffee house in a small town in the middle of nowhere.

The girl was tall, and fair and had long red hair.  She sat beside me and asked me what was wrong, and I confided in her because you can't loose a thing by confiding in a stranger. And as it often is, when one person shares the truth the people around them have the license to do the same.  She admitted she had been crying earlier the same day because she struggled with anxiety.  For over an hour, this beautiful stranger and I talked about nothing besides God, our struggle for acceptance, feeling awkward around other people and a boat load of issues.  Finally I had found a friend bold enough to be truly honest.  What a gift.

Just when I wanted to find somewhere to run, I learned God doesn't let his girls get away that easily.

I realized one thing: I don't fit in here.  I'm not one of "those" girls.  And I'm glad.  Because that is not what I am created to be.  My worth will never be defined by what other people see.

I refuse to believe because I am worth so little I should settle for anything.

I refuse to be defined by my shell.

I refuse to believe I have nothing to be confident in.

I refuse to live my life just wanting to be like everyone else.

I refuse to let my pride of comparing myself to others ruin potential for true humility.  

This is what I have learned: that preaching the truth to yourself can be a lot of work.  And here is the sermon God has given me to preach to myself: I'm worth it.  


I also spent the weekend getting in contact with an old friend of mine who happens to be gay.  We talked for a long time.  Although I am straight and he is gay, I felt like this was a person who could understand what it felt like not to fit in.  No matter what stance you believe on homosexuality, you have to admire people who graciously stand up for what they believe and give others permission to do the same.  And I often find, that the least of these, the people who "will never be like everyone else" are often the people I learn from the most.

To all the imperfect, struggling, and honest people in my life: thank you.  I love you all.

When everything seems to be going in circles.

5 a.m. hit earlier than normal this morning.  My weekends would look like purgatory to a lot of people.  I seldomly attend weekend parties, Friday night usually means late night study hall (none of my friends have taken me up on a Friday night math study party!).  Saturday doesn't mean sleep in, it means get up at four or five in the morning and study more, work for ten hours, then come home and study more if I'm not dead yet.  Sunday?  Same sort of routine, although church gets thrown in the mix.

That is what weekends have looked like for...a long time.  In other words, having a weekend is about as far out  of my grasp at this point as a vacation to Hawaii.  If I had a weekend, I probably would not even know what to do with it.

Early today, while marveling at the morning with a freshly made cup of coffee and a cracked open textbook, I wonder what I do all this for.  What's the point?  Why am I here?  Why do I do this week after week?

It sometimes seems like people often spend their lives just to get to the next level.  The next school.  The next degree.  The next job.  The next promotion.  The next relationship.  The next house.  The next child.

We don't think about why we do what we do. We just do.

This may loose me brownie points, but the idea of one day making a lot of money really has no appeal to me at all.  I once heard my small cousin say, "I think I'm going to graduate from college just so I can get me a nice car one day."  I have never really understood that mindset, partly because I've never cared what car I drive, but also because I'm afraid.  I'm afraid of my life becoming nothing.  I'm afraid of being nothing.

I just can't imagine laying on my death bed wondering what I did with my life and saying, "oh, well, I don't know what I did with my life, but at least I have a title to a nice car."  I couldn't imagine laying on my deathbed saying I got a college degree, got married or had kids just because that was everyone else's standard of a "good life".  Can't we ever do anything simply because it's the right thing to do?

I have a friend who tries to get in on the lottery every week, and one day I asked her what she would do if she won all the money.  "Easy," she said, "I'd make a trip to the car lot and get a nice fat title to a new car."  Strangely, I would hate winning the lottery.  If I ever become wealthy, I would like to achieve my wealth through making the world a better place and because I earned it through my own labor, not because I randomly picked up a lucky ticket.  Sounds like a pathetic life to me.

The same theory applies to relationships.  A Christian girl I once knew told me, "I really want to pray that the Lord's kingdom would come, but I don't want him to come before I'm married!"  That is the point of some girls lives; just to play nice, get married, and have a baby.  I couldn't imagine living only for that.

Relationships have never been the ultimate point for me.  Because I know when I stand before God about how I used my gifts, "I never found my other half" will not be an adequate excuse.  We're called to live for today, to make decisions on what we have in our hands, and to milk life for all its worth even if no one ever comes along beside us.

But somewhere in our cosmic grasp to find something more - something higher - we find a constant emptiness.  New cars depreciate.  The stock market crashes.  Power crumbles.  Jobs end.  Marriages fail.  People die.  Physical appearance fades. Everything we chase after seems to lead us to dead ends.

Our problem isn't that we have nice lives.  Our problem is that our "nice life" has now become the "ultimate life".  Good things are no longer simply good things, they are ultimate things, they are the only things.  Tragedy strikes when the good things become the ultimate things.

Apparently I wasn't the only person at work thinking along these lines today.  My dear co-worker was talking about how she bought an iPhone for her thirteen year old son.  Later in the day she went up into his room and found her teenage son bawling over his iPhone.

"What is wrong?"  She asked.

"Mom!  I hate this new phone, it sucks, and the sound quality is horrible.  This is the worst thing ever."

Rightly so, my co-worker was pissed.  She told her son that children were starving in Africa, and he should be thankful he actually had parents willing to buy him a new iPhone.  She looked at me, almost crying, and said, "I realized that by trying to give my son everything he ever wanted, I completely ruined him.  I'm an awful mom."

She realized something important.  No matter how much you work and bend over backwards to give your children everything, it will all be for nothing unless you build their character.

If you are not actively building your character, your life is a waste.

Don't waste your life because you were too busy being entertained. 


Don't waste your life because you didn't dare to see too far past today.


Don't waste your life because you kept going in circles and never stopped to ask why.


I don't want to just exist.  I want to live.  And maybe Socrates was right: maybe only the examined life is the one worth living.

Sexuality and grace

Three years ago, I woke up on an early morning to check my email.  Sifting through the usual spam mail and advertisements, I found one of those emails that seemed to have a more personal intent.  Just the sight of the email made my heart drop down to my stomach.

It was from my gay friend.  We had talked about homosexuality for a long time.  What would he want to say to me now?

Hey Ashley, he began in his normal casual tone.  I imagined him sitting at a Starbucks with his mac sheepishly typing the email out.  I just wanted to say that while we disagree, I appreciate that you take the time to research the issues and are a voice of reason when I find myself getting hot headed.  


Stunned, I clicked the send/receive button again just to make sure that I wasn't hallucinating.  I remember the feeling of surprise that sprung up within me when my friend confessed to me that he was gay.  Instead of the outrage that he received from his parents, my response was to pour myself into research.  The gay community wasn't something I was concerned about until my friend confessed he was a part of it.  I can remember pouring of hours of research on homosexual studies, and getting into some pretty honest conversations with him about it.  I was not out to prove my side; I was out for the truth.  All my life I was taught things from the Church about the gay community, but my friend seemed so unlike everyone the Church grouped into that narrow category.  I wanted to know the truth.  I wanted to know what this was all about.  At that time, my opinions on homosexuality actually mattered.

His email humbled me.  I never knew I had that much impact on one person.  Yet it also saddened me, because I was one of the very few people in his life who cared enough to do the research.

Here is my confession: I love gay people.  Really, I do.  I have had several gay friends over the years, and I believe they are one of the most kindest and most thoughtful people I have ever met.  Some of them have a sexually abusive past, others do not.  They are all different; just like their straight counterparts.

The reason I am writing this post is because someone asked me this weekend how I could love people who were sexual confused.  How could I not?

During my younger years, I got the feeling the gay community was kind of like the KKK or something.  I mean, as many of my Christian friends put it, they are taking over America!  I remember being in Sunday School and being taught that gay people were against Christians, and it took me awhile for my six year old brain to figure that the "gay community" was actually not a rival religious group.  The gays were the people who God judges with STD's.  Or so I was told.

As in any social discussion, the key word always seems to be "choice".  It's hard, because the whole "choosing to be gay" thing makes me sort of mad.  I think of my own friend, who was sexually abused all through childhood and in young adulthood told his parents he was gay.  Honestly.  Do you think he woke up one morning and thought, "I think today I've decided that I am going to choose to be gay!"

Uh.  No.  It does not exactly work that way.  Please show gay people more respect than to think they just randomly pulled their sexuality out of a hat.  

At the end of the day, the whole debate about homosexuality being a choice or a biological trait is a loosing game for Evangelicals.  I don't even know why we participate in that debate anymore.  Biological or not, homosexuality has an enormous stronghold on people's lives.  Why should Christians care to prove there is no gay gene- it's still real and it still has consequences that matter!

Several months ago, my friend's mother complained that Home Depot was in the gay pride parade holding up signs.  "I will never shop at Home Depot again; I can't believe they support such an abomination."

My blood almost boiled.  "Yeah, I would be right beside you," I said, "but then I'd have to stop going to Baptist churches too because they were the ones holding up the 'God hates fags' signs."

Me and my big mouth.

Matt Chandler is a guy who can put things a lot better than I can.

 

What are we doing? 


We have told people...their sexuality is beyond grace.
                               ....that their sexual mistakes banishes them to hell.
                               ....that no one else would want them.
                               ....that they will never be whole again.

Our biggest enemy is our propensity to bully anyone who we see as lesser than ourselves.  Gays may have an agenda, but apparently so do we.

A person's sexual history does not make them less valuable, less human, or less able to be redeemed than you are.  So if you as a Christian have nothing respectful to say to your gay neighbors, shut up.  Everyone around you is hurting, so for once in your life, maybe you could try being part of the solution instead of part of the problem.

No one's sexuality is trash.  


God isn't like the garbage man that just takes out your sexual trash and destroys it, leaving you empty.  He is more like a gardener who restores and grows and nourishes.


No one's sexuality is beyond grace.  


God didn't just die for you life only to leave your sexuality in shambles.  I wish we lived in churches were gays, lesbians, trans-genders, bi-sexuals and the abused were not just welcomed, but wanted.  Broken people need love, but not a love that is apathetic or all-accepting, but a love that seeks to nurture.

Grace will never exist for people who think they are too holy to need it.  If you're sexual pure, very good job, you are one of the few who still are.  But you have a choice to make: either you hold up the world's rose and cynically declare it is beyond repair, or you can give the solution and answer the world's deepest question.  It's your choice.

70 rules on daily life I try to live by

On Fashion

1. Rate each article of clothing in your closet on a scale of 1 to 10.  10 makes you feel fabulous.  If an item isn't above an 8.5, throw it out and replace it with an article with a higher rating.  
2. Casual does not mean sloppy. 
3. Shoes are your signature.
4. Life is too short for a bad handbag.      
5. Never wear an accessory that has lost its purpose.  
6. Never go binge shopping.  You will likely buy things you don't need, and then you can't afford things your wardrobe could actually use.  Shop sober!
7. Only wear items that fit.    
8. Always be age appropriate.  And decade appropriate.
9. Never wear something just because everybody else is.  
10. Never be too obsessed with fashion.  

On Relationships

1. Never date anyone you would not want to be friends with.
2. Know who your friends are.  
3. Never friend people on facebook you do not want to be friends with in "real life". 
4. Say what you mean and mean what you say. 
5. Refusing to forgive is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die.
6. Everyone needs space.  
7. Stop making excuse for him.
8. Never date a man who has no expectations for his life.
9. Never date a man who does not live for something greater than himself.  
10. Always have a friend you can do things spontaneously with.

On Being a Lady

1.  You are complex.  Accept your own complexity.
2.  Don't be cheap.  
3.  Earn respect.  
4.  Don't complain when guys open the door for you.  Get over yourself.  
5.  Every once in awhile, you should dress up just because you feel like it.  
6. Always stick up for yourself.  
7. Playing hard to get may not be such a bad idea sometimes.  
8. Wear something that makes you feel girly everyday.  
9. Never blame your mistakes on Mother Nature.
10. Aim to bring a little more grace into the world today than there was yesterday.

On Education

1. Find at least one subject to study for its own sake and stop worrying about whether or not it will get you a decent paying job.   
2. Try your best to have a basic understanding of history and art.    
3. Strive to understand material more than just pass a test. 
4. Going to college does not make you educated.  
5. Most learning starts after graduation.  
6. Searching Youtube does not qualify as "research".
7. Learn the basic rules of chess.
8. The dictionary is your friend. 
9. Have a basic understanding of other cultures and religions. 
10. Never think you are educated enough. 

On Work

1. Aim to eventually find a job that fits into your calling.
2. Volunteer at least once in your life.  
3. No matter how bad you're feeling, always greet your co-workers with a smile and ask how they are doing.
4. Try to understand angry clients and customers.  You've been one before too.
5. Be teachable when you make work-related mistakes.
6. Never accept a dead-end job.
7. Find purpose in what you do.
8. Try to avoid office politics.  
9. Respect the people who hired you.  

On Money

1. A budget is your best friend. 
2. Don't beat yourself up over money mistakes too long.  
3. You're never going to have enough.  Get used to it.
4. If you don't master money, it's going to master you.  Remember who's in charge.  
5. Spend a fair amount of time thinking of where you want to be financially in ten years. 
6. Never go into debt because you think you deserve it.  You don't.
7. Understand the difference between luxury and necessity. 
8. Understand the difference between asset and liability. 
9. Find a source for money advice you can trust.    
10. Never hold money too tightly or too loosely.  

On Time

1. Make sure there is time in your schedule to escape. 
2. Get off facebook and read a book.
3. Find a morning ritual and fight to keep it.
4. Before you watch a video on Youtube, ask, "why am I watching this?"  
5. Make time in your schedule to be spontaneous.  
6. Always find time to tend to your health.  
7. People are always the top priority.  
8. Stop multitasking and focus.  Not only do you save time, but you enjoy time more.  
9. Never dwell too long on time lost.  Because that is time lost.  
10. Never use the lack of time as an excuse not to do the right thing.

What I wish my faith to be

If there is any fairy tale character I feel like the most, it would have to be the boy who told the Emperor he was wearing no clothes.  It’s the way I’ve always been.  Sometimes I can be so socially awkward that I just plain out say what I think, and it’s often usually the opposite of what everyone else is thinking.  And once I open my mouth, I usually just go all the way.  Just give me a soap box so people can see me. 

This is a natural tendency of mine, and I don’t think the conservative environment I grew up in as a child looked very highly on this trait.  I can remember being in ninth grade and people in my high school government class and people were questioning whether or not girls could wear skinny jeans or if they would cause their “brothers in Christ to stumble.”  I can remember perking up and saying that jeans normally don’t trip people, and if somehow boys were going to stumble because of them, they could get back up on their own.  You could take away my grade in government class, but no one was taking away my skinny jeans. 


Yes, I look back on my skinny jean victory and chuckle.  I really can be like that sometimes.

That may be why I am sometimes uncomfortable in the Church.  Oftentimes a midst the loud music, I often wonder if this whole Christianity thing is true or we're just being dumb.  I just always want to ask “why and how do you know?” and those are the two questions that religious people seem to avoid.  As soon as you ask, “how do we know this is true?” religious people usually get mad.  After awhile, you just stop asking. 

When you’re a kid, you’re just taught by religious people that bad people who don’t love Jesus go to hell.  Of course we believe them – no good child wants to go to hell! And I think the fear of hell is like a cloud that just hangs over us our whole lives.   But as we get older, the message “follow Jesus or you’ll go to hell” turns into, “believe like we do or else you’ll go to hell.”  Those two messages are completely different, but somehow I think we may have gotten them mixed up.  We can’t follow the “dark side” (and of course there are distinct sides, because everything in the world is clearly black and white). 

No wonder so many Christians are so stupid.  We’re afraid if we think too much we might end up going to hell.  We say things like, “I asked Jesus in my heart” but whenever I ask what that actually means, no one can ever answer my question.  It’s just like – hurry and ask Jesus in your heart, but never question what that means!

I had this mindset for a long time, then I finally realized that no one goes to hell because they used the muscle that God put between their ears; people spend an eternity without God because of their self-righteousness.  And while we’re still here on earth, I want my faith to be as honest and sincere and un-inhibited as possible. 

 

If Christianity is real, we need to be very vocal people.  If you honestly believe the world is going to end because Jesus will one day come down through the clouds, the rest of the culture is going to look at you like you’re a nut job and you might want to have a reason to persuade them on this very serious issue (I mean, the last time I checked, the end of the world was a serious issue).  So, if you claim to have an inside scoop on the end the world, you might want to start telling people. 

Yes, the right doctrines are probably significant issues too, but I think there is so much more to faith than that.  That is one thing that I give my generation the thumbs up on – I think we’ve finally realized that traditionalism is more focused on checking the box than genuine faith.  Yes, the traditionalist may be right in keep repeating that we are saved by faith, not works.  But I think we’ve forgotten that while faith saves, fruitless faith never does. 

And I don’t think winning political victories qualifies as fruit.  So, if you want to see fruit in your life, stop pointing to the political victories you helped score and counting that as some kind of fruit.  Point to the people you have helped nurture people.  Point to the times you had compassion on the “least of these”.   

I did not become a Christian when I said the sinner’s prayer.  I became a Christian when I finally decided that my faith meant a life of compassion.  I became a Christian when I finally decided believing right may not be as important as doing right.

And in that sense, I think I have to be born again everyday. 

I have always said that you can tell a lot about a person by what makes them mad.  The thing that makes me burning mad is injustice on the weak.  Sometimes I can forgive, but I have a restless rage when I see religious do-gooders turn a blind eye.

Several months ago, I was reading an article about refugee women in Kosovo.  It is a place where refugee women are raped on a regular basis.  Often, women are gang raped on the side of the road.  To provide aid for this problem, several organizations sought to provide women with reproductive-health kits that contained equipment to deliver babies and give blood transfusions, among other things.  However, the kit also contained birth control and a piece of equipment that could be used to either perform an early abortion or help evacuate the uterus from a woman who had miscarried. 

The pro-life groups protested by calling these kits “ethnic cleansing.”

So what did we do?  Absolutely nothing.  Well, nothing besides protest.

Sadly, the pro-life movement may not have the intellectual honesty to distinguish between Adolf Hitler and a woman trying to defend herself.  I keep this article in my room, just to remind me what I really believe about the sanctity of life.  Every time I see it, I almost get sick.   

I am sorry that our pro-life organizations are not concerned about all life as much as they are scoring a political victory.  I am sorry that we pride ourselves in giving the unborn a voice, when far too often, we squelch the cries of the victimized that have already been born.

Whenever I see people standing in front of the court house with “LIFE” stickers taped over their mouths, I think of the woman who was gang raped in the street.  Where was her life?  Why aren't we standing up for her life - or does that not fit well in a conservative Christian ideology?  If you are a “pro-lifer” who really wants to stand up for injustice, then get the tape off your mouth and start doing it.  And go all the way.

It's the same thing with racism.  You can hardly say anything about racism in some conservative Churches these days without being called "liberal".  I finally just said if standing up for people who are victims of social injustice makes me liberal, fine.  Just call me Christian first.  

The question used to be “What Would Jesus Do?”  Yet I think the question now be, “What Would the Liberals Do?”  And whatever the “liberals” do, just do the opposite.  I just wish we could put down our political ideologies and do the right thing just because it's the right thing.  Maybe we should start thinking before we do, instead of thinking our good intentions gives us some holy faith.

I’m passionate about my views of on life and faith.  They are very intimate cousins.  My deepest prayer is that my faith would be real, and that my defense of life would be a sincere outpouring from it.  If these two things are not real, my life has been one big cosmic joke.

A dream within a dream.

Music and art is my catharsis.  As much as I love work and school (yes, I do enjoy those things) I often feel the need to sneak away and create something just for myself.  I have selfish reasons for why I paint, and write and make music.  There are somethings we do because it is what we do.  Then there are things that we do because it is what we are.  When I sit down with my drawing pencils or a Mozart Sonata, I find out who I really am by loosing myself.  When I focus my mind so intently on my paint brushes or a crisp page of music, all of my fears and worries and stress just fades away.  And I feel more real, more alive and like I have finally gotten off the treadmill and started walking in a beautiful field of grass.  This catharsis has allowed me to become introduced with myself again. 

The past few weeks I have enjoyed playing Schumann's collection of children's songs late at night.  Nothing has made me happier than Schumann and strongly brewed loose leaf tea.  But somewhere in the music, and in my concentration and frustration, it's easy for my mind to go in another place and I start to weep.  I began to ask myself why.  Why do these songs make me weep?  

Do you know that feeling when you wake up from a moving dream but you cannot remember what it was?  And you get that pang in the bottom of your stomach and you long to remember?  That is what I felt when I played Schumann.

Last night I sat down with Schumann and I realized I had heard these songs before.  My grandmother used to play them to me when I was a small child, and I remember being very close to her while she played them to me.  Maybe that is why the music made me feel like I was grasping for love that was out of reach.  Maybe that is why those songs felt like a dream, because that time of my life was a very good dream.  And even though I have woken up into adulthood, those songs are still a part of my dream.  Sometimes I want to fall asleep again.

I had the same mystery several months ago when I came back to an empty hotel room and flipped on the television to see Pride and Prejudice on one of the channels.  I suppose because I had nothing better to do, I sat on the bed and watched it intently.  Would Elizabeth finally find love?  Will Mr. Darcy get a second chance?  And in the end, when Mr. Darcy confesses his bewitched mind and undying love and kisses her in the sunlight, I wept.  I always weep during that part, and there are days even now when I watch that ending scene again and again.  Usually on the fourth re-run, I ask myself, Where have I seen this before?  When I watch Mr. Darcy walk across the meadow I have the same spark inside me when I sit down with Schumann: I feel like I live in a dream and these are the only things that are real.  When I watch Lizzy graciously forgive, and Mr. Darcy eloquently describe his love, and I see a redemption, I think, this story is like one I have heard before.  

In the movie A Beautiful Mind, I often feel like the brilliant mathematician, John Nash, who has lost his mind in the fog of Schizophrenia.  Finally when his hallucinations bring him to the point of desperation, he cries, "what is real?"  And his wife holds his face in his hands and whispers, "this is real."  I want to hear that again and again and again.  I want to behold something so beautiful and know that it is real and that I will be free from gimmicks and fog.

When I play music, I look for a song I recognize but have never heard.

When I seek love, I look for arms that I know but have never felt.

When I seek beauty, I look for a masterpiece that gives reality a different perspective.  I look for a masterpiece that I can gaze at and say, "there you are; I've been looking for you all this time."

I never knew the things I have no knowledge of could be so familiar. It feels like a dream within a dream.  And I can't wake up.

C.S. Lewis put the yearning best when he wrote:

"Most people, if they have really looked into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world.  There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise.  The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, our longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy...There was something we have grasped at, in the first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality.  I think everyone knows what I mean...Something has evaded us."

Why have I spent my entire life grasping for something I cannot reach?

I remember in my first philosophy class, the professor lectured about Plato's theory of forms.  It always really intrigued me because I did not believe it was true, but I wanted it to be.  Plato's Theory of Forms expressed his belief that non-material and abstract forms (ideas) possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality.  Thus, Plato reasoned, the material "forms" we see with our senses only mimic the real Forms.  Plato believed that before our birth, our souls existed in a world with these Forms, and and after we are born, our souls distantly recall things from that other world.  For example, lets say that Plato was sitting in your kitchen and you picked up an apple.  And after you picked up the apple, you marveled on how good the apple was.  Yet how do you know what a good apple is?  What do you have to compare it to?  Plato would say that we compare every material object to it's higher Form that our souls once knew.  

I know, it's a confusing concept.  But I like thinking about it.  And although I don't think it's true, I have always wanted it to be.  

At times my spirit feels like it came from another world.  Like it was made for a place where love was mysterious, beauty was vibrant and music was perfect.  People were made for the good.  People are not made for what is, but for what can be, for what will be.  I often agree with C.S. Lewis that sometimes the whole Christianity thing seems highly unlikely.  But this longing in my soul - this familiarity with the good outside of my reach - is often the only thing that still keeps my wandering soul within the faith.  

  

Even since childhood, I've been a philosopher.  I can remember being as young as six and questioning my existence.  I can remember wondering, "what if one day I wake up and I learn everything in my life has been a dream?"  And the older I get, the more I realize that one day I will wake up in another world, but unlike now, the dream of reality will seem more real than it ever has before.  And I can imagine waking up and saying, "oh, so this is what I have searched for all this time."

Letter 2: What I would say to Skeletal Dysplasia

Dear Skeletal Dysplasia:

I've written a lot of letters in my life.  I've written letters to people that I love and never mailed them.  I've written letters to politians, editors, friends, neighbors and organizations.

I never thought I would write a letter to a disease.  Until today.

You can't hear me, you can't understand.  No one expects you to; you just exist as a disease.  I can't feel you or hear you or talk to you, but you have been one of the biggest constants in my life.  If you were a person I bumped into on the street, I wonder what you would look like.  Would you be the scary old man who humped over on a cane?  Would you be a mysterious woman?  Would you look deep into my eyes; so deep that I could see your soul?  Would you even have a soul?

Yet then there is a more important question - what would I do if I met you?  I think I would spit on your face and scream "I hate you!" just to get the anger off my chest for possessing me all this time. Then I would run away.  I would not run out of fear; I would run to have the simple thrill of the last word.  I will win.


I'm glad I would never get to meet you in person, because if you were a person, I'd have to forgive you.  And I just can't.  Do you know what it is like to have people watch you suffer?  No.  Do you understand what it feels like to be teased as a child for a mysterious disease you did not sign up for?  No.  Do you know what it's like to spend your life in pain?  No.  Do you cringe getting the "what's wrong with you?" question?  No.

The reason you don't understand this pain is because you've caused it in me and managed to escape free.  You will never understand what you did.  And I am glad you are only a disease; because if you were a person you could never look at yourself in the mirror.

But I will not say that you've ruined my life.  First, because I have lived an incredible life, and secondly, because I don't want to give you that much credit.  You don't have all power over me.  You can't ruin me that easily.

You torture me with questions.  I wonder who I would have been without you.  The doctors tell me I would have been tall and athletic.  Whenever I see a tall, athletic girl on the cover of a magazine, I think "that's me in another life."  Perhaps one of the worst griefs of all is contemplating who we might have been if things are different.  I try not to think about it anymore.  Being four feet and eleven inches tall isn't so bad, and through many years, I've grown more content being myself with you along.

It has been a great accomplishment to look in the mirror and see myself instead of seeing you.

I have a distinct memory with you from high school biology class.  In fact, I think I read something about you in my textbook once.  My teacher said that it's impossible to walk without cartilage between your bones.  When I raised my hand and told her about you - and that you've caused me to walk that way my whole life - she didn't believe me.  Most "experts" don't.

You were also there while I was going through message therapy, and the therapist asked me about the scars you gave me.  She gasped when she asked, "did you have surgery here?"  Those scars have been there since I was twelve years old, and they are probably permanent.  I remember after the surgery was over, the surgeon admitted the surgery was a mistake, and I once was angry over a pointless surgery and permanent scars for awhile.  And even though I have finally let that go, it hurts when people point it out.  I looked at my therapist and told her they were not scars, they were beauty marks.  She never asked about my marks again.

You have changed everything.  You've changed my childhood, my family, my relationships, my fears, my dreams, my self-image, my career, my personality.  My spirituality.

The truth is, I cannot completely hate you.  You are part of who I am.  But even though I can be at peace with you, I will not accept your lies.  I refuse to believe that I am unworthy of love, that I'm un-beautiful and that I will never be healed.  

It's funny how much your pain has transformed my faith.  Pain is like being poor - it tells you what you're really made out of.  Because lets be honest, it's easy to say you love God when you have a lot of money.  It's easy to love God when you're always feeling well.  It's those times when I feel terrible, when I don't know how I will move forward that is the litmus test of my faith.  If someone wants to know if their faith is real, try getting a painful and incurable disease and you'll know if you are genuine soon enough.

You have taught me that everyday is a gift, and yet I should still wait for an even greater gift.  My spirit is in God's image - and it's far too resilient to be taken down by you.  One day I will fly away to a place where you cannot reach.

SD - where is your victory?  Where is your sting?

Pain divides people into two camps.  People who are beautiful despite their pain, and people who are beautiful because of it.  I hope that one day I can say I am the latter.

SD, I don't know who you are.  I cannot feel you, taste you, see you, speak to you, or know you.  But I just want to you to know that you will not win.  I'm already spoken for by Someone who went through the ultimate pain so that one day I would be free.  He has the last word.

Sincerely,

Ashley Renee