5 Articles for When You Don’t Have a Valentine

Valentine’s Day is just another day on the calendar, it’s true. But with all the cultural hype surrounding it, I find it easy to let my thoughts spiral into doom and gloom about checking the “single” box yet another year. It’s at times like these when I need to be especially intentional about seeking truth and speaking truth. If I let my mind run it’s default route and allow my voice to follow, my Valentine’s Day will consist of sobbing to A Walk to Remember while eating globs of Nutella and writing sappy rhymed poetry. Since that scene is something I want to avoid :), I’ve gone through articles I’ve read and written and chosen the 5 that I feel best put singleness and relationships into their proper perspective. If you need some fresh perspective too, I hope these articles challenge and encourage you! Continue reading “5 Articles for When You Don’t Have a Valentine” →

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Waiting, Meaning, Kingdom

“I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.

Scorched to the root

My red filaments burn and stand, a hand of wires.”-Sylvia Plath, “Elm”

It haunts acutely when she travels alone. A girl, eyes fixated out and beyond, knifed by meaning and meaninglessness. The rhythmic lull of a Soviet era train hums her to thought as she looks through the window-frame to emptiness and beauty. Snowy fields tinted in orange and pink by the sunset, forest that stretches out in monotony, sights gulped by a wait-er, suffering the contraction of time and eternity. A guttural whisper is the only expression of this bursting, bursting, bursting.  2014-02-05 17.03.05

There is more, there is more, there is more.

There is more, you know. It is your life to breathe the truth that there is more. There is meaning in the orange and pink tinted fields, in the rhythmic lull of the train, in the expanse that knifes you. There is more, so why, then, the tears? Why then, the grasping at a mirage of the flawed finite when the infinite is what is more…you know that it is your life to breathe the infinite and make Him known. Yet in the Russian train, in the long car rides, in long walks crunching through fallen leaves, you curse the waiting.

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You curse the waiting because all of this meaning is meaningless without that unknown someone you’ve dreamed of, storied, objectified and distorted into something like a god. Because the waiting is a curse, and unfair, and you are wilting and frantic. Because you have done all the things right and all the right things, all the years added up should be enough, and so your eyes rove in the waiting, pitying the self because she is not adored by someone whom she would make her god.

It is in the now, the waiting, that your life must be stale. It is in the now, in the waiting He is cursing you with, that you wonder why it haunts more and more in the mundane. The thing is, you thought there was a time limit, because the waiting is worthless, and you have an expiration date. And Plath again gives you words: “I am inhabited by a cry.   Nightly it flaps out Looking, with its hooks, for something to love. I am terrified by this dark thing/That sleeps in me; All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.” The girl is greedy, and if she continues, she will suck the life out of another or spill her blood on the altar of self, spinning the story to sustain herself while she waits, unfaithfully.

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But somehow, she is shaken from the ravenousness by simple truth. The truth comes in the soft, yet sudden way that it came to Alyosha, the novice shaken out of his idealization through a suffering that led to hopeful reality: “Some sort of idea, as it were, was coming to reign in his mind- now for the whole of his life and unto ages of ages. He fell to the earth a weak youth and rose up a fighter, steadfast for the rest of his life, and he knew it and felt it suddenly, in the moment of his ecstasy. Never, never in all his life would Alyosha forget that moment. ‘Someone visited my soul in that hour,’ he would say afterwards, with firm belief in his words…Three days later he left the monastery, which was also in accordance with the words of his late elder, who had bidden him to ‘sojourn the world.’” -Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

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The monastery was, for Alyosha, a comfortable place, a place of safety, a place to view the world the way it had always made sense to view it. And through trial and disillusionment, when the mystical didn’t translate into everyday life, when Zosima was un-deified by the stench of death and humanity, only then could he truly understand the meaning of hope. And only then could he leave the place of comfortable ignorance filled with fantasies and embark on his true mission, which lay outside the monastery walls. The monastery was filled with truth, but its stagnancy also reinforced the lies that blinded Alyosha. The truth for the waiting girl: The waiting isn’t worthless. The waiting has meaning. The waiting points to the greater story, the greatest story.

Ann Voskamp’s words bathe the mind that has become soiled with cynicism: “Every tulip only blossoms after cold months of winter wait. Every human ever unfurled into existence through nine long months of the womb waiting. And the only kingdom that will last for eternity still waits, this millennia-long, unwavering-hope for return of its King. Instead of chafing, we accept that waiting is a strand in the DNA of the Body of Christ. That this waiting on God is the very real work of the people of God.”

Every act of waiting can point to the most important waiting we will ever do, waiting for Christ’s return. And if marriage is a picture of Christ and the church, then the waiting for the fulfillment of good desires is a picture of our hope and expectation for the King to return and restore and herald in a joyful eternity. When I long, my natural inclination is to find a quick fix to douse the ache. To write my own story, to live in my imagination while cursing the reality that I’m living. What if I leaned into the longing and looked to Christ in hope, remembering that the hunger is indicative of the eternity I am waiting for? The longing can’t be filled by a person; it is a hunger pang for Christ that can only be fulfilled in him. This longing will not be fulfilled completely in this life. So may these pangs direct the waiting girl to the hope of the Truth. To be unsatisfied, to wait, to long, is not a curse, but a blessing, because in her little story, the girl can let her longings point to the greater story He has swept her into. A story that may be filled with suffering, but ends in joy. A story that on the hard days, doubt may tarnish, but ends, indisputably, in confident faith.

Hebrews 11:13. All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.  

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For Whom the Bell Doesn’t Toll

This piece was published in the spring 2013 issue of the Vox Populi, a publication of Gordon College.

     A brassy peal emanates from the corner of campus, spreading its eerie power in a shockwave throughout Gordon’s domain. For just a second, the campus stops. Chemistry majors look up from their lab work, soccer players on the quad turn their heads, studiers in Jenks lose their place in Our Father Abraham.  Some sigh, some crack a cynical joke, and some shrug their shoulders. Despite our individual reactions, for just a moment, we are united. Gordon is rich with legend, and few Scots haven’t claimed the tales of the car at the bottom of Gull pond or of Teddy Roosevelt’s horse buried under the quad as part of their heritage. The mysterious lore surrounding Gordon’s history certainly plays a role in shaping our identity as students here, but nothing seems to compare to the metal monument that lounges proudly in its gazebo throne, observing passersby under its sway. The cultural icon that has the power to bring us together for better or for worse is that wonderful, terrible old bell*.
Bell
 
      We see its power in conversations, humming at a constant din throughout the four years, first starting off wistfully, hopefully, then morphing gradually into a senior cynicism or a lifeless joke. The bell makes regular cameos at Gordon Globes, providing a source of comic catharsis for those who find themselves bemoaning the infamous Gordon ratio or the rabid desperation of Gordon girls. The bell is occasionally rung by the reckless non-respecter of its sacred power, but the rest of us know that only under one circumstance may you ring it and leave unscathed.
 
      The bell’s renown reflects the fact that Christian colleges, and Christian culture in general, is infamous for framing marriage as the cardinal goal of life. Our generation is known for pushing back against the pressure to marry young, but still, the cultural constructs of American Christianity loom over Gordon culture, encouraging unhealthy interaction between the sexes. Many people I have talked to are familiar with the awkward apprehensiveness of male-female interactions at Gordon. The vicious cycle goes like this: Christian girls have a reputation for singling guys out as possible husband material; thus, guys fear that too much friendliness on their part could be mistaken as a marriage proposal. Assuming that Gordon men hold this view of them, many women also mete out their friendliness and smiles in controlled doses for fear that they will project a message of desperation. I have seen and experienced the frustrating awkwardness of this cycle again and again, and I have also seen a striking contrast in my two times studying abroad, where I was able to seamlessly befriend members of the opposite sex without fearing that they would think my attentions were a desperate plea for a ring.
 
      Not only is the emphasis on marrying young damaging to relationships now, but it sets us up for disappointment when we actually marry. With the best of intentions, Christian culture spreads the propaganda that marriage is the answer to our problems and the beginning of our lives. As such, marriage is one of the prime idols of single Christians everywhere, an antidote to loneliness and a license for guilt-free sex. And like all idols, it doesn’t deliver what it promises.  The National Center for Health Statistics reports that 60% of couples who marry between the ages of 20 and 25 decide to divorce, 10% more than the national average. This is not to say that there should be a ban on young marriage, but it does illustrate that at least 60% of young people tying the knot discover that marriage is not the cure-all that they had envisioned.
 
      But to be fair, perhaps the lore of the bell is casting a shadow of untruth on the nature of Gordon students. Although perceptions about the opposite sex’s intentions do seem to inhibit cross-gender friendships, the quest for a ring does not define the majority of the students I know. I do not see girls paralyzed by fear that they won’t find “the one” at Gordon. I do not see lazy young men, too indifferent to commit. No, I see men and women pursuing their God-given callings with direction and confidence. I see students investing in lives in the city of Lynn, I see RAs committed to loving their floors, I see blossoming mentorships between faculty and students. In short, I see people invested in deep relationships whether or not they lead to the altar.  
      I admit that when I first heard the legend of the bell, I hoped that one day I would join the ranks of ringers. But now that four years have gone by without anything resembling that type of relationship, I can say with confidence that I have no regrets. Statistics say that for most of us, marriage will eventually come. But regardless of that fact, there is no use in spending four years chasing a fantasy when the opportunity for deep relationships is at its peak. So love the legend of the bell. Laugh, roll your eyes and pass on its magic to the classes to come. Just don’t let it take a toll on your perspective.
 
*The bell on Gordon College’s campus is only to be rung by couples who have just gotten engaged. Lore has it that if you ring it under any other circumstances, you will have 7 years of bad luck, or worse, 7 more years of singleness…

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