the futility of hope

I do not think anyone who really knows me would ever mistake me for a glass-half-full type of girl.

But every so often I reserve that little bit of hope for something good; a fairy tale ending even though I have told myself a million times not to trust in such foolishness. In spite of what my logical mind tells me, I really do want to click together the heels of some imaginary ruby slippers and be transported to a happier place, knowing all the while I may very well remain in the clutches of wickedness.

I am not a stranger to the duality of God. The idea that Jesus had to die so that I may live forever is not lost on me. Losing one's life to save it. Giving in order to receive. It sometimes leaves me gasping for air as I try to figure out how to live without ever completely falling apart. How I am to have hope knowing that around the next bend absolute tragedy is not only waiting for me, but allowed to happen, becomes an unanswered question I carry around with me. A well-meaning person will then tell me that it all works together for my good. And that I am supposed to be grateful for the valuable lessons this hardship is going out of its way to teach me. With a forced smile, I will pretend to agree, all the while knowing that life is unfair. Everyone knows this.

Sometimes having hope at all seems to be a wasted effort.

It always begins the same way--these situations I find myself in that require me to have hope. I wonder if I am headed in the right direction or am pursuing a worthwhile goal. I make attempts to progress toward this new something and even though I should know better, I try to ignore the potential pitfalls. Maybe THIS time, I tell myself.

Maybe this time the next person whom I call friend will not abandon me. Maybe this next group of people are the ones we will grow old with. Maybe we will learn to trust each other within a faith community, working alongside each other to accomplish something worthwhile. Maybe an apology will be forthcoming and hearts that were once cold and hard will soften enough to make room for reconciliation. Maybe my own heart will not be completely shattered this time.

But I never know what will happen. I am not the one writing the script for an ever-changing cast of characters. I have to choose whether to engage in the life before me or to withdraw from it.

There was a time several years ago when I wondered why I should continue to go to church when I could worship God just fine on my own while walking through the woods or sitting in quiet reflection alone. I could, in fact, often worship better this way. I risked losing a sense of peace every time I walked into a house of worship and was met at the door with an endless list of needs existing in the hearts of all those in the seats. Expectations to participate would overwhelm me as I tried to navigate my way to the altar where I longed to be the kind of person who would sit at the feet of Jesus and learn of him without having all of the busyness cloud my vision.

I did not think I could go through it again: becoming a member of some new family of believers and trying to figure out what role I would play this time; deciding which parts of my story I was willing to tell. Maybe this time . . . .

A sermon about why one needs to go to church is inevitable and as I braced myself for the not-forsaking-the-fellowship part, I received a different message. Instead of something that sounded like a required directive, what I heard felt more like an invitation to a party; a celebration of life. I wasn't being handed a list of do's and don'ts, but was walking through an open door into a more spacious place in which I could find refuge and put down my guard for a few minutes. I could get back in touch with my early spiritual development and find healing. I would look at the stained glass depiction of the life of Jesus with new eyes. And light a candle for those in need, including myself.

Once a need is established, there is an opportunity for hope. If I say I have no need, I lie. But to admit to having a need is to risk not ever having that need met. I had been told that by focusing on the needs of others, my own needs would be satisfied. I wish it worked that way. I would, however, have to do the hard work that is required in seeking healing--not so I could then lead an isolated life, but so I would have something more to offer this community in which I had found myself. Little by little I would be offered new doors to walk through and more hands to hold. Restoration is a beautiful thing.

This time it will be different, I tell myself. This time. But people are still people; unrepentant and unyielding. Promises get broken along with fellowship that once seemed so long-lasting. Some of those previously open doors start to close while others are slammed shut. I see the smugness on the faces of those in my direct line of vision while sitting in a choir loft, another place I never thought I would be. I look to the pews where people I thought I knew used to sit. I consider how to go on from here.

Life happens. We move on for different reasons, but we all have to keep moving. There is no real stillness, at least not in the way I long for it. I am told that comes later, in the eternity that awaits us after this life of failed hope has ended. We will then join hands around an unimaginably large table and prepare to partake of the feast that will be offered to us. Once it begins, there will be no lack of sustenance and all will be fed. And no one will have to rush off to anything else or ever say good-bye. We will all be together. We will no longer need to hope for love, for Love will have found us.

art versus craft

Art: the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.

Craft: an activity involving skill in making things by hand.

Even the definition could persuade one to believe that art is superior to craft. Art is perhaps for those who have developed a taste for the finer things in life. Art is for the sophisticated. Art requires great training to produce it and to interpret its nuanced meanings. It is not common or meant to be accessible to all.

Craft, on the other hand, is for everyone apparently and can be produced by everyone as well. It is usually a three-dimensional object possibly having a useful quality that far outweighs its beauty. It is not one of a kind. It is not special. It is not of great value or worth. And lately I have felt very much a part of this lesser category.

Flash back to a summer day in the year 2006 where I am out walking and having one of my conversations with God. I had just quit my job, having spent the previous five years teaching 5-year-olds at a preschool, wondering what in the world I was doing teaching preschool. Or teaching anything. I was supposed to be a writer. What in the world had happened to me?

So as I'm nearing the street to my house this overwhelming thought forces its way into my mind: make garlands. This was worse than trying to be a teacher because as much as I struggled trying to figure out how to be a teacher, or more specifically, how to be around teachers and work with them, I had no idea what it meant for me to make garlands. And how was making anything going to help me be a writer?  

But then I remembered the story I had written about an old woman making stars with hearts in the middle of them and I decided to follow the instructions of my own writing and made a star just like I had written it into that woman's life. I then made the stars smaller and made hearts with stars in the middle of them and after figuring out the details, produced a garland. I then made another with tiny trees, and cut up an old blanket to make angels. After my application was accepted at the local farmers' market, I set up shop and sold garlands.

I sold boxes and boxes of garlands! I attached the story I had written and soon it had become a gift for many to give and a way for people who were looking for something unique to decorate their homes with handmade art. Or was it a craft? I had not used someone else's idea or pattern but had created my own. I had not copied anyone's design. I was the author of the story that described the ornaments from which these garlands were made. I was the sole creator, the artist.

For years I would be referred to as a crafter and because of the farmer, baker, or crafter designation at the market; I was fine with that. I never compared myself with those who had studied fine arts or had degrees in art. I had been sewing since I was ten years old and learned from my mother. She also taught me to do embroidery and we spent many cold Michigan winters doing crafts inside our warm home. But crafts were usually kits in which we followed instructions and made something like the picture on the box, sort of a paint-by-number type of activity.

But that never satisfied me. I wanted to turn shoe boxes into doll house rooms furnished with empty spools from thread for chairs, cardboard tables, matchbox beds with tiny cloth blankets, and curtains for the windows. I would take scraps of paper and cloth to make whatever I wanted. I would also design clothing for the paper dolls since I would get immediately bored with the small selection available with their perforated edges. I would draw more, make more, create something new and different. I would then write stories so that these paper dolls could do more than just stand around on their tiny cardboard stands. They could live their lives according to my scripts!

Somehow I reasoned that journalism was the course of study I should take since majoring in English meant I would have to be a teacher and that was the one career I never wanted to have. Settling to tell someone else's story seemed to be a good plan though it never really materialized in the way I thought it should. And I was left with the dream of writing stories, while collecting meager paychecks from dead-end jobs.

Still, I did not call myself a writer or an artist for a very long time. When one says she is a writer, the very first question one is asked is: what do you write? When there is no good answer, it is best not to say it. At least by calling myself an artist I could leave it up to the person looking at what I made to decide whether or not it could be called art.  

And so it has gone, for the past eight years.

Recently I found out about an arts and crafts cooperative calling itself a gallery and looking for guest artists to rent shelf space. When my application was accepted I felt like I had become successful as an artist. Being in a gallery would give what I made more value and worth than it would otherwise have. I could tell my friends that my ART was in a GALLERY. No more would I have to say that I was a crafter.

But business has been slow and whether I am an artist or a crafter, I will not likely break even for the first time since I started selling my wares. Life at the farmers' market is not much better. Neither place has gone out of their way to photograph or advertise my work and there remains that nagging voice inside my head repeating the same thing it has said to me ever since I was a child: you are a writer. Write.

I do write. I am writing now. I write prayers for my church. I think about self-publishing quite often. I wonder how I could incorporate my art with my writing. And how I can accomplish all of this in the midst of my part-time job back at the preschool where I now feel that each day spent with a baby is more like an immeasurable gift from God, than a waste of my life.  

I have reached that certain age when I no longer need to prove myself, even though I still sometimes fall into that ditch of approval-seeking behavior. Whether or not I have been slighted by those around me in reference to my work need not worry me. I know who I am.

I am a writer.