letters from barabbas

It’s been a long time since my last incident of “stage fright.” It happens to every man from time to time, but I thought I had grown out of it. My first Over the Rhine concert at a bar in Atlanta was certainly not the ideal time to have to deal with it again.
After the opening act finished playing, I was second in line for the bathroom, and, well...there was only one urinal, out in the open right by the sink, and the line of guys went out the open door impatiently, all of them in a hurry to get to the bar for another beer before the music started, and I just couldn’t get it to flow. So I zipped up and left, ashamed.

I knew I couldn’t hold it through the whole show, so I waited for the line to die down before giving it another go. Linford was standing with his arm across the door, and he told me with a twinkle in his eye that the bathroom was occupied. I stood there several minutes, pretending like I didn’t know it was him instead of telling him what I wanted to: Thank you for coming. Ohio saved my relationship, and possibly my life.
Side by side, all nonchalant, we looked up at the ceiling and down at the floor, whistling and tapping our fingers on the wall. Just as I had summoned the courage to show some sign of recognition, Karin bounded out of the men’s bathroom with some clever one-liner, and they were gone. I groaned at my own asinine excitement as I peed in the same toilet as Karin Bergquist!!!

It hadn’t been twenty four hours since she who knows me best had assaulted my desperately habitual deference. When you have to work so hard to establish a connection with someone, the relationship loses most of its sincerity. You go to such an extreme trying to make sure everyone likes you, accommodating everyone, and it doesn’t seem very authentic.
She's got a point. Why am I so afraid to be myself, to say what I mean, to take a piss?

I made it back to my seat right as they were climbing on stage. They looked out at us as they played like it was the most natural thing in the world. Confident of the worth of their music and the validity of their existence, they didn’t seem to waste any time contemplating our possible reactions to their presence. From where I was sitting I could see Linford as he smiled at Karin, which he did often, with a look of pride and adoration. They seemed to be playing for one another, songs born in their relationships with one another and with God, songs of desperation and love. The first song they played that I knew was Born. We scooted close and dreamt of the day.....

I was born to laugh
I learned to laugh through my tears
I was born to love
I’m gonna learn to love without fear

It hurts when the same spot’s hit over and over.
Perfect love casts out fear.

I told Brandon I was an expert at moving because I've done it so many times, and that I would be glad to help him pack up his stuff. But there's so much I'd never realized....
I didn't help very much. I sat on his bed until three in the morning, hoping he wouldn't be finished, because once someone leaves he can only come visit--and he'll never again bear that feeling of home.
Watching him pack up his stuff was like watching him unpack himself. The way you find things you'd forgotten you'd lost behind dressers and in dusty closets. Going through notebooks and sorting out trash, staring long into pictures and telling their stories, he unloaded his bookshelf into a box. He was meticulous with every piece of junk and every heirloom, as if it were a treasure chest for losing at sea, and not just a rubber tub from Walmart.

I've always held onto everything, silly things, in box upon stupid cigar box, afraid I'd forget what already was blurred from too many transportations. But maybe that feeling of home will always hover around Brandon--and all who I've let feel like home. Maybe I don't need a box full of tickets to nurture a sense of history.
Maybe it's time to unpack.

Dr. Bradley said in Cell Biology this semester, "Every time there is an oxidation reaction, somewhere in the universe there must be a reduction reaction. Usually they are coupled tightly."

Reminded me of He must increase, but I must decrease.

My aunt Kay has a cat who will be turning 17 this summer. Pepper has been a fixture at their house for as long as I can remember, neutered and lazy and shy, a plump blue beauty with a garbled meow. I hadn't seen him for several years, but when I walked through their garage this weekend he was sleeping on the hood of the Taurus, and I stopped to say hello. He stood up and purred as I scratched his back. I was shocked how skinny and weak he seemed. His hair was matted and dirty, his purr sort of dim and arrhythmic. I stayed there for a long time, singing as much of "Old Deuteronomy" as I could remember and giving him a thorough rubdown.
Our communion brought back memories of my cousin Justin, with whom I spent most of my summers and whose image holds some of my deepest concepts of my self. Since I moved every three or four years, and all my friends did the same, I never kept a friend longer than a year or two, so he was my only consistent peer. More of my formative memories are tied to him than to anyone outside my nuclear family.
Pepper brought back lots of these memories. Rubbing his fur reminded me where I came from, and suggested where to go next. I was thankful for the wisdom in his eyes, thankful for the fact that he knew me and seemed to understand me. Stupid cat that he is. I don't think he'll live through next winter. I was glad to get to talk to him one last time.

My dad's parents died about eight years ago, and being the youngest, he inherited the house. Most of their stuff was divided up amongst him and his five siblings and the house stands mostly empty, but it's furnished enough for us to spend summers and weekends there. Yesterday after my parents left for Prattville, I stayed behind to read on the front porch a while before heading back to Auburn. I felt the strangest urge to spend ten minutes sitting in every chair, take a nap in the back bedroom, use the bathroom and wash some dishes. Let the house feel lived in.
Houses this old decay rapidly when vacant, and before anyone realizes it they're leaning over the side of the road with the posture of the unimposing grandparents who withered away inside. That ever-constant living room was a piece of my history, and has been divvied up equally between six families to leave only a skeletal outline of a significant portion of my past. The remaining furniture waits patiently, slowly slipping from the imprint that was left in my memory by Smith and Iva Boozer. The house welcomes me, invites me to relax in its embrace and remember where I came from, stare out over the pasture into the sunset and listen to my history in the mockingbirds' songs.
Yesterday I wanted to tend to the easy chair my Mama spent her last three years in, assume my Papa's horizontal stature on the red-flowered sofa. And the house wanted to tend to me, remind me who has loved me, who provided the way for my existence, who pointed me to God.

It was my spirit communing with eternal things via physical objects.
Just like I've been asking for!





at the sight of that placid and bland physiognomy
when he sits in the sun on the vicarage wall,
the oldest inhabitant croaks:

Well, of all things, can it be really?
No, yes, ho hi, oh my eye!
My legs may be tottery, I must go slow
and be careful of Old Deuteronomy

--TS Elliot, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
(...first known to me as the musical Cats)

Looking into faces that have drifted from my inner circle made me sad this week. It's funny how transient relationships can be in college. But, transient as they may be, they're charged with a strange immediacy, an eternal connection that assures me I'll always smile fondly at the mention of a name, of those days when nothing mattered but to know and to be known, to explore what life has to offer in the recesses of others' hearts.
I can trace the arc of my social life plainly. Freshman year John and Kara and I stuck together tighter than siblings. We held each other up. Sophomore year Chi Alpha exploded into my life and suddenly I had a dozen best friends and a hundred buddies. This year I had to tone it down and be selective about where I poured my emotions. Some relationships were deliberate, some serendipitous; some I had to fight to keep and some I couldn't hold onto for trying.
I can't regret how things have changed, though at times I'd like to. I don't wish the arc to come full circle to a senior year of three incredibly close friendships. This will be a year of pouring out everything I have received thus far, to as many as He'll allow me.

*
Something good I read this week on one of my favorite blogs:

No two friends are the same. Each has his or her own gift for us. When we expect one friend to have all we need, we will always be hypercritical, never completely happy with what he or she does have.
One friend may offer us affection, another may stimulate our minds, another may strengthen our souls. The more able we are to receive the different gifts our friends have to give us, the more able we will be to offer our own unique but limited gifts. Thus, friendships create a beautiful tapestry of love.
---Henri Nouwen

*
Two things Josh calls crucibles: leadership and relationships.
Calla Maria has opened up my heart in ways I would've wished she hadn't seven months ago. You never know how ugly (and how beautiful) you are until someone is brave enough to show you.

*
Waterdeep was my only source of music sophomore year, but for some reason Lori's solo album took an extra year and some serious expansion to really sink in. It's a terrifying piece of art: about birth and life and pain and forgiveness and surrendering and being who you were made to be. Beginning and then ending to begin again. 1Beginning, she named it.
Maybe that's why I shrugged it off at first: I wasn't ready to begin.

you will always hurt
you will always sting
because you won't let go of everything
until you're quiet one dark night
and you give up the fight you've fought so long
and find that trust is not a game
that naïve stupid people play in youth
and you let it rain
you let it flood
you let it drive out all the pain
of love

*
This moment came one late October evening:

But it took me six months to get across the table. I was terrified. We're in the same booth now, finally facing forward rather than head-to-head. It's hard to find the balance between overlooking one another's faults and spurning one another towards growth. Some weekends we swing to an extremity, but He's teaching us to lay our lives down--a maladroit approximation of His gorgeous demonstration.

*
It's been good. Does life keep getting better and better? I barely understand those people who long so much to die. I yearn to be with Him, too, at ease in Zion, but that will come in good time--and when it comes, without time. So we must learn to do more than wait resignedly. This isn't purgatory, this is life! It isn't the end, it's the beginning!

fat tires and cigarettes
romeos and juliets
stinging losses deep regrets
that everybody hides
in coffee shops and magazines
choir lofts and college flings
did everybody lose their dreams out on the playground?

you can sing
you can believe
you can be anything you want
all the time
day or night
you can be anything you want

The fam:

Calla Maria and I blew off some of the finals steam by going to the movies.
We got more than we bargained for. :)
It took a good night's rest for it to really sink in, but we've learned several things:

Movies made in a different culture can't be understood through one's native eyes. Though astounded by the careful attention to beauty in the details, we both had a hard time staying interested during the two and a half hours of quiet observations. But we understood that if they had been speaking English, and if we had an understanding of the silent assumptions about filmmaking they carry on that island and how they differ from our own, we would have been enthralled.

We remembered there was a bridge over this culture gap in an American film shot in Japan a few years ago. We've decided that Lost In Translation was Sofia Coppola's generous attempt to bring the beauty of Japanese culture into a form graspable to Western viewers. (If you have highspeed, go watch this clip to get an idea of why you should see this film as well, and maybe after finals I'll rent it and lots of us can watch it together.) Like the Japanese Nobody Knows, it's full of long, wordless shots and ethereal music, and there is never any real conflict--no antagonist/protagonist showdown or huge moral dilemmas. Two people meet, become friends, respect one another, and learn something. We stare in amazement at the foreign landscape, beautiful and incomprehensible. We laugh at our inability to connect with it. We befriend the characters, respect them, and learn something ourselves.

It's based on a true story--one that made big headlines in Japan in the 80's. The director says, "This headline brought up various questions to my mind. The life of these children couldn't have been only negative. There must have been a richness other than material, based on those moments of understanding, joy, sadness and hope. So I didn't want to show the 'hell' as seen from the outside, but the 'richness' of their life as seen from the inside."

This type of filmmaking is something we need more of in the west. Sit back. Open your eyes. Look for the beauty in everything. This isn't a very pleasant film, though. (How many true stories are?) Four children are abandoned in Tokyo with 10,000 yen to get them through. Their mother sends them letters and some cash once or twice.... They don't fare so well.

The ending is incredible, a testimony to the kind of dirty all our faces get as we're growing up. As the credits rolled, we didn't know what to think. Somewhat saddened, a bit bemused, but strangely encouraged overall.
Then it says, The Mother played by: YOU

We both jumped. Drove away contemplating that final kicker.
Is it hopeful or damning?

These children have no mother, so you--all of you--must care for them now.

...OR...

It's you who is responsible for this sort of suffering. You go through life pleasing yourself, sending your smug little 19 cents a day as if that made any difference. You should know better.


Turns out, the name of the actress who played the mother really is YOU.
In retrospect, such a bold statement seems very out of place in such a carefully NON emotionally manipulative film.
But it was quite a message. :)

The trailer is gorgeous, worth your minute.

Watch it here.

Look at stills here.