Washed clean

My brother made a mistake.

It’s interesting, because he made a mistake the way most of us make mistakes: early and oft-repeated. He was working on a math sheet, and in the very first question, he made a multiplication mistake due to an error in carrying the decimal place. All of the questions that followed were similar, and so, because he was so confident he had completed the first question correctly, he carried that same mistake through the rest of the worksheet.

At first, he didn’t understand the error I was pointing out to him. I took a separate sheet of paper and did the question while he watched, and I saw the realization slowly dawn on him.

“Does that make sense?” I asked him.

“Okay, but I’m still confused,” he said.

“What are you confused about?” I asked.

“Well, that means I have to do the whole thing again.”

“Ah,” I said, understanding dawning in my own mind. “So you aren’t confused, but rather frustrated.”

Yes, he was sincerely frustrated.

I told him to take a break — to take ten minutes of not doing homework before he came and tackled it again — and in these ten minutes, I’ve been sitting here trying to determine how to make this a positive learning experience. I am so unbelievably struck by the strong analogy that this situation is for how God deals with our mistakes, but it is an analogy that I don’t think he will be able to see at this point.

As much as he was frustrated that he had to re-do the worksheet, I think sometimes the hardest part about correcting a mistake is taking apart the work that’s already been done. His worksheet was entirely covered in pencil. Granted, pencil can be erased, and often, quite cleanly. But a pencil-covered sheet of paper represents work. And erasing it represents destruction, even if it is of work that is poorly or incorrectly done. He had begun erasing it, but it was in anger and frustration. The paper has a crinkle or two that is evidence of this. So I suggested that he take a break and remove himself from the situation.

From my perspective, mistakes in a math sheet are not earth-shattering. I do remember what it was like to be in his shoes. Having to do a math worksheet in the first place was an arduous and lengthy process, not to mention re-doing it. But years have passed and I have grown a little wiser. My state of mind was significantly calmer and so, while he was gone, I erased the page.

And it was during this erasing that I was struck with the analogy. Our sins of scarlet will be made white as snow, I thought, as I watched clean, white paper emerge from underneath the pencil markings. For this is what God does.

“Everything in your life that you learn,” I told the young one, “you will learn in one of two ways: either because someone tells you how to do it and you listen or because you make mistakes and then learn how to fix them. This is that second way. You’ve made a mistake and now you’re learning how to fix it.”

I didn’t do his homework for him. In fact, I didn’t even help him correct it. In fact, aside from the above, I haven’t said much more than encouragement since he’s come back out to try again. All that I did was I gave him a clean slate from which to start.

The interesting thing about that slate is that he did do two of the questions correctly. I looked at his work and debated for a moment before I erased the sheet completely.

And that is the part that frustrates us about God.

“This part was fine,” we say. “We did it correctly. The answer was right. This was fine. Why did you erase it?”

Because the truth is, even though his method and answers were correct for those few questions, his knowledge and understanding of why they were correct was incomplete. I wanted his new understanding to affect every part of the worksheet.

The situation this evening does not make for a perfect analogy, because I am not perfect and the young one is not perfect. But for just a moment, imagine that I was simply an observer, and that the stakes were higher than merely a math sheet, and instead of me helping my little brother correct his homework, we have God Incarnate cleansing the world of all the mistaken pencil lines, smudges, and blackened sheets.

I’ve written before (though maybe not here) about this world being an echo of the eternal. Our longings are for things that last, for that is how we have been designed. And tonight, the shadows of our interaction painted for me images of incredible colour and vibrancy. While I cleaned penciled errors from a sheet of paper, Jesus Christ cleans the indelible mark of sin from our lives.

Why I am blessed: Reason #384

A rather snippy post from a few months ago, when I was working in an elementary school. I do not know the man in this story. I only saw him the once. I was only in that classroom once.

I am grateful for those things in my life that remind me of what I have to be grateful for.

For example, I am grateful for the man who entered my (“my”) class this afternoon who reminded me how blessed I am that my male friends are all gentlemen.

This afternoon, while visiting one of his children in the classroom that I was monitoring, this sans wedding-ringed man, though seeming to play with the children, was actually attempting to flirt with me over their heads. Alas, it comes down to the problem of his assuming that my friendly, ‘welcome to the classroom’ smile actually meant, ‘I am so attracted to you right now’. And so, though not terribly grateful for his misinterpretation and the resulting attention that he paid me, it reminded me that I am so blessed for the gentlemen friends I do have, the ones who treat me with respect.

Goose chase (“Can you hear me?”)

Well, this is about the most frustrating thing ever. </exaggeration>

This is the right song that was playing here, but the wrong version. I’ve only been able to find two versions of it, one by Lee Dorsey and one by Willie & the Poorboys, both artists I’ve never heard of before (and neither one the correct version). And then a whole bunch of sappy songs and/or Enrique Iglesias. Foiled by Enrique! The first two or three pages on YouTube are all just different clips of his song “Can you hear me?” (which is, just so we’re all following, not the right song, even though it is the right title).

If anyone has any better luck, please let me know. But I suppose it would be better for your sakes to warn you off the search. I clicked through the iTunes and YouTube search results, as well as searching for “can you hear me” + “cover” and “lyrics” in an attempt to find other artists, but agh, Enrique! Foiled me again…

It is a frustrating search…

Update: Apparently there is another version by The Artwoods. Version from the clip still not found. Recommend cease and desist to all search parties to prevent ensuing insanity.

Grooved pavement

The problem with being an English student and a writer is that you cannot help but see metaphors for your life in everyday experiences. Everything means something. Everything matters. Or maybe that has nothing to do with that and everything to do with my idealistic tendencies. Either way.

I was driving home from a friend’s birthday party last night (Happy Birthday, Sarah!). I tend to develop habits pretty quickly, and the one I’m talking about right now is how I drive to and from my University town. I used to always only drive country roads there and back. This summer, because I’ve been finding myself leaving my University town late at night (say 10 or 10:30), I tend to drive there using country roads, but back on the highway. Should something happen to my car, I guess, I’d prefer to be stranded on the side of a well-traveled highway, rather than on some back road somewhere that few cars travel.

So anyway, a couple of months ago, I was in town for an old roommate’s wedding (which was delightful, by the way). It was very late by the time I left, so naturally, I chose the highway to head home. After being on the highway for probably an hour and a bit, I noticed a sign on the side of the road: “Grooved Pavement”. I didn’t really know what it meant, and in fact, didn’t pay it too much mind until I was suddenly traveling over this grooved pavement. I guess they were in process of fixing up the road. The tires rubbing over this grooved surface made a load loud whir, and the whole car vibrated as it passed over each section of grooved pavement. It was a frustrating experience. I was tired, and this I found to be consternating. And it didn’t stop. I would travel over a section of pavement and once I was back on the old surface, I would breathe a sigh of relief and settle in again, only to be jarred when the car hit another patch. The journey was like this for probably 20 minutes, but it felt much longer.

Since that wedding, I’ve been back in my University town several times for different events, and coming home has always been the same: entering the highway, forgetting about the grooved pavement until the sign and then feeling frustration for that part of the journey.

Finally, this last trip, I think I had gotten used to it. I was heading home and I saw the sign still up, and I mentally sighed. Oh well, I thought. I was used to it by now. I’d just have to go through that frustration for a little bit and then forget about it for the rest of the journey.

I cannot even describe the shock it was when I drove over the dark, blissfully smooth new pavement that had been placed over the grooves in the highway since the last time I drove it. I didn’t believe it at first. I thought maybe that segment of new pavement had always been there. But as the journey continued, and the road switched back and forth from old pavement to new, I was convinced. They had finally re-paved the grooved segments of the highway. And not only that, the old pavement that used to be a relief when there was grooving, was now noticeably bumpy and uncomfortable compared to the new pavement. It was incredible.

The hardships in our life feel like that most of the time. When they first hit us, they are surprising and frustrating and anxiety-inducing. We can’t understand why they’re there. Perhaps at first, we can believe that they are there to fix what was wrong in the first place. But as the days, weeks, months go by, we find relief in what has been left alone. This area of my life is fraught with difficulty, but that area is ever as it always was—ah, relief.

And every time we encounter those difficulties, it hurts and baffles us. Why? we ask. Was it not fine the way it was? And eventually we drift into complacency. Not a happy complacency, but a dull one. Yes, this is hard, we acknowledge, but I am so tired. We learn how to survive, how to get through the hardships while remaining intact emotionally, even if the only way to do so is to dull ourselves to the pain.

And we believe that the pain will always be there. That part of my life is always going to be this way, always grooved and difficult, ruined.

But that isn’t God’s plan for our lives.

I don’t know the purpose for the grooving of the highway, but I understand that it is part of the process of repaving. It is necessary, even though it is inconvenient, frustrating, etc. And even though the grooving seems to be there indefinitely, eventually new pavement is laid. The plan is never to leave the grooving there, but the grooving is an essential part of making the road anew.

That’s the way it is for the pain in our life. The plan is never to leave the pain there, but it is an essential part of refining us. God must tear down the parts of our life that He wants to remake in order to rebuild us the way He wants for us to be. I think we look at those areas, just after He has started working on them, as having been just fine. “You could have left them alone, you know?” we cry bitterly. “They were fine just the way they were.” But at the end of it all, the difference is incredible. The new is better than the broken, obviously, but it is also even better than the old. But to get from old to new, we must go through the process of brokenness. But the result is incredible. It is better than we could have imagined.

Keep traveling, I say. He will make all things new, in His time.

Aargh, targeted advertising…

[from several weeks ago]

I just signed onto a website that has my birthdate and my relationship status listed (yes, okay, it was Facebook). For the past several weeks, whenever I signed on, there were advertisements on the site with titles like, “Still single? Click here for…” you know, life, love, eternal happiness, all that jazz. So, naively, I wondered why there was constant advertising in the sidebar for singles websites. It wasn’t until just now that I realized why. The title of the ad today was, “22 and still single?” Jeepers, creepers, come on! They were using information listed on my profile to tailor their advertisements. Lame.

*sigh*

And so I am now going to go and change my relationship status on Facebook.

[present]

But now I am seeing all sorts of weight loss ads in the side bar (you know, because being female automatically means that I’m desperate to lose weight </sarcasm>). Does this mean I need to remove my gender from Facebook? One ad even said “Overweight female at 22?”. Yea, thanks guys. Sheesh. Do I need to even remove my birthdate to be free from targeted advertising?

I don’t mind some targeted ads. Gmail’s ads I find interesting, amusing, and more important, unobtrusive. These obnoxious Facebook ads are annoying me. I wonder if sellers realize that abrasiveness is not the most effective method? Usually what works is identifying what the general population desires but is missing, and then offering it at a good (but not too good) price. Well, the FB ads have half of that right. But the other half is just lame and makes me want to delete them and/or click away.

It’s sort of interesting. The internet is really the only place where advertisements are forced on us. In every other medium, we can find some way to turn them off. In the paper or a magazine, we can flip by them or tear them out. On TV we can mute them or change channels. Even going to the theatre, we can arrive several minutes after the show starts to avoid the previews. But on the internet there are banner ads and sidebar ads and pop-up ads that force themselves upon us. We can’t help but be exposed to them, barraged by them. I wish there was a way to tear out what advertising I found annoying from the sites I read.

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Fiction and other worlds

For the first time in my life, I am crafting as I write fiction, and I am finding it to be a frustrating experience.

When I say “crafting”, I mean that the words are not flowing naturally, and that every sentence takes effort as I struggle to find just the right word for what I am trying to say.

This does not mean that in the past, I have always written brilliant, flowing prose. What it means is that, in the past, I have subscribed quite heavily to the “write first, edit later” mantra that most writers do (or should). That is how I write with my blog. The important thing is to get the thoughts down. Once they’re down, you get a better idea of the direction you are attempting to go in, and you actually have something to work with as you try to tease the words to carry the idea even more closely to what it was when it was undefined and unwritten in your head. So in the past, I have just written whatever darned word came into my head, clichés and all. When it was finished, I reasoned, then I could go back and write better prose.

Not working so well for me, because of what I am trying to create. In my fiction, I’m not just trying to communicate ideas, and get across plots. I’m trying to create magic (in the literary and completely fictional sense of the word). I’m trying to get across the feel of the stories that have so captured me in the past. The truth is, there have really only been two that have completely captured me in writing. The rest have all been films, or commercials for films. There is something about them that draws me in. I don’t think my mind works like that naturally, thus why I am struggling with this particular kind of fiction. I don’t just want to tell a story, I want to create a world. I don’t want people to read something I’ve written and go, “huh, that’s nice” or “my, how interesting”. I want people to get lost in what I write, and when they finish a story or take a break, to have that unreal sensation that comes at the end of a really good book or movie, where, even though the story is done, you don’t want to leave the world that was created.

Part of it is having an audience willing to enter into your world (“willing suspension of disbelief”), but part of it is having the ability as an author to create that world and draw your reader in.

I am impatient because I am out of practice, and it is a kind of writing that I’ve only been able to achieve a handful of times, usually only in short stories, so I am finding it frustrating. But, as they say, practice makes perfect. We’ll see what happens.

related links:

• Tolkein’s essay On Faerie [PDF]
• Narnia
• Lord of the Rings
  
• Big Fish
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button trailer

You’re doing it wrong

“You’re doing it wrong.”

Probably the single most destructive phrase in a dance relationship.

I must include my qualifiers and disclaimers before I go on. If it is a dance relationship in which both parties know, respect and are comfortable with each other, saying, “you’re doing it wrong” usually comes across quite differently than when it is said in the middle of a 3-4 minute song where you have only just managed to commit your partner’s name to memory.

In the course of a dance, especially when the lead is in the beginning stage of learning, it is very easy for mixed signals to occur, and so the follower sometimes does something other than what the lead intended. As a follower, there are two moves that, if not led strongly enough, are easy to confuse: the circle and the swing-out (in this video, the first three moves, when the couple goes from open position to closed position are: the swing-out, the sushi roll and the circle. Notice in the first move, the swing-out, that the lady leaves the gentleman’s arms. In the sushi roll, the second move, she spins as she leaves his arms, and then in the third move, the circle, she remains in his arms). If the lead hasn’t quite figured out how to lead those moves, the follow (ie, me) is tempted to leave his arms for a swing-out, when he was intending a circle, or to stay in his arms for a circle, when he was intending a swing-out.

I experienced this confusion once with a partner who was eager to learn and to figure out why the moves weren’t working properly. And so I explained to him that his lead for the circle and the swing-out felt the same for me. He thought about that, and when we tried it again, his lead was much stronger. Not overbearing, but when he was intending a circle, he kept his arm strong enough so that I knew he wasn’t about to let me go into a swing-out.

I have experienced it in other scenarios where the lead was convinced that I was the problem. And in a sense, that is true: I was the one misinterpreting his intentions, but by the same token, he is the one leading the dance, and if I do something wrong, it isn’t altogether my problem alone, it is a matter of miscommunication. In a lead-follow dance relationship, any problem that arises is a result of both members of the couple. She didn’t follow his lead well, but he did not communicate it in a way that she could understand. He did not lead a move properly, but she wasn’t paying enough attention to follow it as he intended. When it comes down to it, no matter what the problem is, or where it is arising from, it is a problem for both people and both need to work on improving communication.

I was clicking through a dance club website once, and read through their page on dance etiquette, and they suggest ways for fixing miscommunication problems. They suggested a helpful phrase. When there is a break down in communication, there should not be blame (ie, “You’re doing it wrong!”), there should be a desire to understand and improve, both self and other. They suggested this phrase: “I don’t think that move worked out correctly, what do you think we can do to make it better?” This leaves your partner ample room to suggest the problem they are facing in the dance, without criticizing their dancing or placing blame.

Shall we philosophize by making this a metaphor? Oh, I think we shall.

We can broaden this and look at any relationship between people. Most fall-outs are a result of miscommunication, followed by determined blame-placing, fault-finding and criticism. Perhaps, rather than seeking to place blame, we should seek to understand where the breakdown in communication is happening. I have to believe that relationships would go a lot smoother if we made the effort to determine why the other did things the way they did. That isn’t to say that all pain would dissipate, or that there wouldn’t be any more fights, but it is to say that at least then, the lines of communication would be open. Even if there is still pain crossing the wires, at least then they could talk to each other about it and work towards some kind of resolution.

What do you think?