Author: Natalie Hart

and yet…

~ Natalie Hart ~ 2 Comments

Yet. Such a tiny word that can do such heavy lifting.

The power of “yet” to change our minds — to literally change our brains as well as our attitudes and, thereby, our chances for success — is part of this TEDx talk by Eduardo Briceno on The Power of Belief — Mindset and Success. He posits that the key to achieving our goals is not our level of effort or focus or resilience, it’s the mindset that fuels those things.

Fixed Mindset

Those operating under a fixed mindset believe that their intelligence and their abilities are fixed. They are naturally good at some things and not at others, and that will not change. For these people, having to work hard at something is a sign that they do not have the ability to master it. Working hard is itself a sign of failure.

Let me say that again. Failure itself isn’t even required to make them give up. Working hard is itself a sign of failure.

  1. This is really hard.
  2. I’m just not good at those kinds of things.
  3. If I keep going, everyone will see how bad I am at it.
  4. I should move on to something I’m good at.
Such people are most focused on how they’re being judged. Do they measure up to the standard (whatever that is)?

Growth Mindset

People operating under a growth mindset believe that they can change their abilities and their intelligence through their effort. For them, failure is part of growth, so when things get difficult, instead of losing confidence and giving up, they push ahead and figure their way through whatever made them struggle. These people are most focused on learning, on how to improve.

Brain Evidence

Briceno goes on to argue that brain imaging tells us that the growth mindset is the scientifically correct one, that we can develop our abilities and change our brains in the process. We can even change from the self-defeating fixed mindset to the more hopeful growth mindset, in which effort is not a sign of failure but an energizing force.

I am certainly energized by his talk. I definitely had a fixed mindset about a lot of things for a long time. But even before I heard Briceno’s talk, I’d been noticing a shift: my publishing journey was changing my mindset. I had to learn all the time, not only figuring out how to write/rewrite/rewrite a good story, but also how to go out into the world with that story, not to mention how to deal with near 100% rejection. And to still keep going. Work on the story some more. Keep trying. Keep failing. Keep trying.

My social abilities have also changed in the last 10 years. I’m still an introvert, still shy, but I can talk to people more easily now. I have some strategies and go-to questions, some things I remind myself — like that social situations that have terrified me in the past have either been okay or sometimes even wonderful, and in any case, I survived.

The biggest change is that I no longer see fear as a good enough reason to hold myself back. You won’t see me on a roller coaster any time soon (fear still isn’t fun for me), but more and more, my vision trumps my fear. Also, since I’m a religious lady, I step out in trust that God will be with me. I’m getting a lot better at that as I get older, and as I step out in trust more and more. Publishing is a crazy world with so much change, so much to learn, so many new skills to master, some of which I’m naturally good at and some of which take a lot of work — including working at the conviction that early and even repeated failure doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not meant to be. I’m developing more of a growth mindset. Letting my curiosity drive. Giving my imagination the helm. Redefining what success might mean.

But I’m not all the way there. Yet.

Which brings me back to Briceno. To help us move from a fixed to a growth mindset, one of the things he suggests is to include one little word in our sentences to ourselves about our abilities. When we say, “I can’t do that,” add one word.

Yet.

“I can’t do that … yet.”

Yet. Such a tiny word. But I can feel the hope in it, even if it’s just a kernel.

A good friend who lived with “mets” (aka metastatic cancer) for many years, used to say, “I have cancer, but I am not dying today, so what shall I do instead?” And go on to some fun activity, spreading life because she was not yet on her deathbed.

Although it wasn’t at all a part of the TEDx talk, I also see yet such a profoundly Christian word.

This week I’m reading Lamentations, and I came across this (2:11, 3:21-23):

“I have cried until the tears no longer come. My heart is broken, my spirit poured out … Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The unfailing love of the Lord never ends! … Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each day.”

I have been there. In some areas of life, I’m there right now. Exhausted from despair, but because of God’s love and faithfulness and promises, there is a kernel of hope. I might say the yet with gritted teeth, not seeing how on earth things will change. But I will hang on to it. Because that yet means that I’m looking for and open to God’s leading. Because that yet implies that it is possible — possible for me to be published, for my marriage to get stronger, for my quickness to despair and anger to get slower.

Is there something that seems impossibly hard to you? Try adding “yet” to the negative self-talk you give yourself. It’s just one little word.

 

Beautiful Isn’t Doing Us Any Favors

~ Natalie Hart ~ 1 Comment

There was a post this week on Brain Pickings about how looking at beautiful women can make both men and women judge the attractiveness of non-gorgeous women more harshly. About how focusing on beautiful women, in essence, makes us all unhappier. (Beautiful men did not have that effect.)

Which made me wonder, in general, whether the focus on beauty in general does us no favors. Yes, beautiful things / people / landscapes / moments draw our attention. And, yes, they are a wonder.

But they are the peaks of existence. The freaks of nature. The fleeting moments of perfection.

Which throws everything else into contrast. Most of life is not a peak. It’s not remotely perfect.

So part of my wondering about “beautiful” is how always looking around for and exclaiming about the peaks / freaks / fleeting perfections makes it difficult to settle into all those other 99% of moments of life.

“Beautiful” also irritates me: it holds an exterior standard of attractiveness above all other valuations (like interesting, deep, healed, useful, touching, strong, tender). And the dominant culture is the one that gets to determine what’s beautiful, which is so limiting. And it’s addictive, as in, focusing on beauty over time requires even more intensely beautiful things / people / landscapes / moments to even register as beautiful.

Beautiful seems like it goes deeper than pretty, but is it merely “more intense prettiness”?

I love the beauty in a sunset, a smile, a child’s profile, a piece of furniture. But I’m left with a suspicion about beautiful — it’s nice, but I don’t think it helps us flourish, or helps us invest in the things that should be invested in, or helps us love people any better. So, for me, beautiful gets a shrug. It’s very nice. But so what?

* This is my participation in Lisa-Jo Baker’s Five Minute Fridays.

** I know I’m not supposed to add anything after the 5 minutes, but I’ve been reading a bunch of other FMF posts, and that crystallized what I’m talking about here. I don’t want to redeem “beautiful” from the world, I don’t want to expand the definition to include imperfections. I mistrust it as an adjective. I want to use better words for how a thing/person/landscape/moment makes me feel.

What Is And Is Not A Tool

~ Natalie Hart ~ 3 Comments

Does this happen to you? You’re going along, just living your life, and then, BLAM, a cluster of seemingly unrelated things come to your attention that each address something you really need to hear. I call that God, others might call it the universe, or synchronicity, or coincidence. Whatever you call it, it just happened to me in less than 24 hours.

1. The Artist’s Way by Julia Campbell: Week 6, Recovering a Sense of Abundance

“All too often, we become blocked and blame it on our lack of money. This is never an authentic block. The actual block is our feeling of constriction, our sense of powerlessness. Art requires us to empower ourselves with choice.”

2. Seth Godin’s blog: Thinking About Money

“If money is an emotional issue for you, you’ve just put your finger on a big part of the problem. No one who is good at building houses has an emotional problem with hammers. Place your emotional problems where they belong, and focus on seeing money as a tool.”

3. Brain Pickings: How to Worry Less About Money, about a book by John Armstrong:

“The crucial developmental step in the economic lives of individuals and societies is their ability to cross from the pursuit of middle-order goods to higher-order goods. Sometimes we need to lessen our attachment to the middle needs like status and glamor in order to concentrate on higher things. This doesn’t take more money; it takes more independence of mind.”

4. Brain Pickings again, an article about Milton Glaser (graphic artist):

“Do you perceive you live your life through love or fear? They are very different manifestations. My favorite quote is by the English novelist Iris Murdoch. She said, ‘Love is the very difficult understanding that something other than yourself is real.’ I like the idea that all that love is, is acknowledging another’s reality.

Acknowledging that the world exists, and that you are not the only participant in it, is a profound step. The impulse towards narcissism or self-interest is so profound, particularly when you have a worry of injury or fear. It’s very hard to move beyond the idea that there is not enough to go around, to move beyond that sense of “I better get mine before anybody else takes it away from me.”

5. Writer Unboxed post by Jeanne Kisacky: What Not to Think About When You’re Writing, in particular the advice not to “indulge in endless fantasies” about how a piece of writing is going to change your way of life:

“A good story is like a dream brought into momentary focus. It is ephemeral, fleeting, perhaps even surreal, but whole and perfect unto itself. During its crystallization (the process of writing) prosaic thoughts that take the writer outside of that coherent whole turn the writing from a story into a tool. This makes the work simply a step towards something mundane (a better life for the author) not an otherworldly destination of its own (a shining jewel of believable characters, delightful interactions, and gripping tensions).”

6. Sermon on how we often come to God with a list of things we’d like him to make happen for us, and, in return, we will praise him, thereby making God a tool for making our dreams come true.

Some themes I pull out of these quotes:

  • making the wrong things into tools
  • making tools into things to get emotionally twisted about
  • living out of fear rather than love

The idea from the sermon that stuck with me was, “A tool is at its best when it’s being used for what it was designed for”;  God is not the tool, I am the tool, designed for love and worship and service. A story is not a tool to make my fabulous life happen; I am the tool for bringing a transportive story into the world.

Money is not a tool for happiness, but it is a tool for food, clothes, housing, transportation, entertainment, doing good (aka, giving), but also for facilitating creative expression, even mine; I need to stop feeling guilty when I spend money on my creative expression and stop finding excuses not to spend on my creative expression.

Twitter and blogs are tools for exploration and connection. Are they also marketing/networking tools that will be important to my writing career? Yes. But I need to stop getting myself emotionally twisted up and discouraged because they are netting me limited marketing/networking opportunities (not to mention the puniness of my numbers) now. I need to stop projecting the scarcity of now into the future, because that makes me anxious and doesn’t help me use Twitter and my blog for their proper uses. I have enough Twitter followers and blog readers for now, and there are enough in the world that there will be more in the future (aka the time in which I will actually have something to trumpet via marketing and networking). In fact, using Twitter and my blog as tools for exploration and connection will be the thing that will get my numbers higher and make future networking/marketing possible.

But the thing all of those articles above spoke to me most about wasn’t writing, storytelling, publishing, money, or God. It was dance.

I want to dance on stage again, in a group, doing choreography that is not my own. I want to be in class again. Which costs money, and means that I will have a schedule that other family members will have to work around. I’ve been making every excuse for why it wouldn’t work for years. But I can’t do that much longer. I’ve still got a reasonable amount of flexibility and strength, so I think now might be the time. This might be the year it will not denied. That I will not deny myself.

We Are All Always In Between

~ Natalie Hart ~ 6 Comments

The in between.

The already but not yet.

The constantly but not quite.

That’s where I am. I’m there about my writing. I already call myself a writer, which was hard-won and already feels like a victory of sorts — at least a victory over myself. But I’m not yet published in book form. I’ve got a blog that I’m proud of, that I know has started some conversations, that has moved some of the people who’ve read it and even spurred them to action of one kind or another, yet I don’t have the audience I want (and need if I’m to publish). I’m querying agents and submitting to the lone publisher in my genre who takes unsolicited manuscripts, but I haven’t gotten that “yes.” I’m in a constant state of sudden death overtime in hockey: I’m working, working, working, dreaming, praying, learning, striving, striving, striving, but I haven’t scored. Yet.

At the same time, once I get that initial “yes,” the benchmark will change. I will be published in book form (or possibly in app form), but then there’s the platform/networking, there’s the next book, there’s the…. There will always be something else.

I have friends who are in even deeper in the in between / already but not yet / constantly but not quite. Friends who know something physically is wrong, and know how bad it could be, but they don’t yet know for sure, so they’re thinking about it constantly, or they’re coming close to thinking about it constantly, but they can’t stand to go there all the way in their minds so they make glancing passes at thinking and praying about it — a thousand times a day.

My kids are always in an in between / already but not yet / constantly but not quite state. I’ve got one tween and one young teen and they’re always aware of the tension between what they can do and what they can’t yet do. We’re giving them both freedoms and responsibilities they haven’t had before, yet there’s always more freedom to strive for (they’re very average kids in that they’re not exactly striving for additional responsibilities).

We’re all, in some way, in between / already but not yet / constantly but not quite. Always. Sometimes it’ll be dramatic, like waiting for news from the doctor, waiting for chemo to start, waiting for chemo to be done. Sometimes it’ll be chronic, like in the stage of recovery from surgery when you look fine but can’t lift more than 20 pounds, like growing up, like trying to get published, like being a more patient parent, a more faithful servant of God, like running farther than you ever have before but not being ready for that marathon, like striving for change in any part of your life.

In between. Already but not yet. Constantly but not quite.

This is tension.

The characters I write should always hold this tension in themselves, because each of them is in the middle of something that is already but not yet — all the time.

I have no wise words for how to hold this tension in ourselves other than to expect it, to look for it in others so it can become a connecting node, to confess it and not wallow in it in private, to figure out how to be grateful, to praise God even in the middle of it, because we’re all always in between / already but not yet / constantly but not quite.

*This is another of my participations in Five Minute Fridays (even though it’s Saturday).

When Fear and Avoidance Mean You’re On the Right Track

~ Natalie Hart ~ 4 Comments
sometimes your fear tells you that you’re crazy; sometimes it tells you when you’re on the right track. this was an example of the former. read on for discussion of the latter.

So a few months ago I got the impression that I needed to pray for compassion for my husband. I don’t remember exactly how. But I knew it was right because I stopped reading the Bible and writing my prayers for two weeks.

I’d prayed for tons of other specifics for my husband and for our marriage, but never for me to have compassion for him. Because compassion goes beyond understanding, or sympathy, or kindness, or patience, or tenderness, but is all of those wrapped up together with a big dose of “this isn’t about you.” Maybe I’m particularly skilled, but I’m able to pray for and practice all those other things while somehow keeping myself as the center of the emotional landscape.

* Look how understanding I’m being. Aren’t I doing a good job of not adding to his stress although I’m really angry?
* I’m gritting my teeth and acting sympathetic although I’m losing sleep and my general friendliness is suffering.
*  “God, you’re going to have to give me some of your patience and kindness, because I’m all out.”

Compassion is different, which is why I was so afraid. Compassion busts through the self-righteousness that can give this gal a great big Martyr Complex. So after two weeks, I couldn’t avoid my devotional time anymore. Couldn’t avoid the call to compassion. And I wrote/prayed this:

I pray for the thing that has made me avoid coming to this forum: please, Lord, give me compassion to [my husband] — not lack of anger, not sympathy, but compassion. I have no idea what that will look or feel like, but you led me to pray that and I’ve been avoiding it, but no more. Please give me compassion for [him].

The difference it made was startling. And not at all what I expected.

I talked more about the situation that was plaguing us. Yes, more. Before that, I’d been biting my tongue so I wouldn’t make an already stressful situation even worse by constantly bitching about it (although I sure was in the privacy of my own mind).

And why did I talk about it more? Because I wasn’t complaining about my difficulties, I was outraged for him, on his behalf. I won’t go into details, but I will say it involves a work situation, so it’s nothing I have any control over, and my husband doesn’t always feel he has control over, either. But compassion for him gave me the courage to apply my analytical mind to the situation. The topic was no longer ostentatiously ignored, so it no longer kept us captive in its shadow. Compassion for him gave me the courage to shine light on the situation regularly, which helped him talk through some of the issues, which may have helped him take action.

I told him about this recently, although that first prayer for compassion took place 3 months ago. I told him because I’d used the prayer for compassion again. It was 3 a.m., and I was fuming about something (Big Nagging Issue showing its ugly face again), my mind self-righteously whirling, when I asked myself this question: “What would the compassionate view be?” No surprise, it was very different from what I’d been thinking. And led to an utterly different conversation about it in the morning.

He pointed out something later that afternoon: compassion is related to passion, and while passion can be great, unchecked, it can blind us to the other. As a prefix, com means “together; with; jointly.” I so quickly get all heated up and passionate about my point of view, throwing my arguments at him. Compassion forces me to look away from my agenda and look at him. After all, we are in this together, jointly. I’m with him in this struggle. It isn’t me vs. him. It’s us.

Are there any prayers you’re afraid of? Any prayers you’re avoiding? Pray them anyway.

I Got and I Don’t Got Rhythm

~ Natalie Hart ~ 3 Comments

As a dancer married to a drummer, I notice rhythm everywhere, like when my windshield wipers beat in time to the song on the radio. I pride myself on being able to pick up difficult and diverse rhythms — Latin, African, waltz, jitterbug, Creole. I clap on the two and the four (the key is to take a step to the side on one, clap when you bring your feet together on two). One of my sweetest delusions when pregnant with my first child was that I thought for awhile that he was moving rhythmically in relation to my heartbeat; he was hicupping.

My household is run on rhythms: certain days the kids empty and fill the dishwasher, certain days are laundry days (with each part portioned out to different people), others grocery shopping days. Some days have a slow and gentle waltz rhythm, others are like frenetic tap dancing. I try to embrace each one.

So why do I resist establishing rhythms just for myself? I obsess about the family rhythms, constantly tweaking them to find what is working best at this stage in life, adjusting myself to changes in rhythm as the kids get older and my husband busier at work.

But a regular writing time? A regular devotional time? A disciplined approach to media consumption? Just for me.

Nope.

Why is my rhythm the least steady? The first one to be broken into and taken over? I wouldn’t stand for that as a choreographer. Why am I standing for it in my life?

It isn’t just the family; it’s me; it’s my old friend Resistance; it’s my fear and overthinking.

But it’s just rhythm. A step on one before I clap on two that will ground me.

So maybe I stop thinking in terms of habit — a much more punitive word, and one I have a very mixed track record of success with. And starting thinking in terms of rhythm, something I can groove with, settle into the pocket of, something I can even choose to dance double-time or half-time if need be. I can mark it or dance full out, as necessary. Rhythm. Step on one.

[this post is my first participation in Lisa-Jo Baker’s Five Minute Fridays.]

We Are A Mixed Bag, All of Us

~ Natalie Hart ~ 3 Comments

I recently returned from a family reunion that left me with a lot to think about. Yes, we caught up with the present of our lives, we watched the kids form their own little societies, we cooed over the babies, and sang songs late into the night around the campfire. But we also received a tremendous gift.

Two of my cousins had conducted interviews with the generation above us — the six boys and one girl who were children of our Oma and Opa. Just in time for this reunion, they distilled 21 hours of footage into a one-hour story that led us through their parents’ early lives in the Netherlands to their own years shortly after emigrating to Canada. They built on (and used photos from) the year-long project of another of our cousins to scan all the old family photos and documents and organize them into a CD that she then distributed to us ten or so years ago.

The film even began with a video none of us had seen before (and many didn’t even know existed) of the oldest uncle (now 78) as an 18-month old, toddling beside a canal in his short pants, babbling and crying until his Opa takes him for a boat ride. Like I said, a deep and tremendous gift.

One that spawned a great deal of storytelling and conversation afterwards.

The thing is, very few of those stories (some familiar, some new to me) and very little of the conversation was flattering to my grandparents, as parents.

My aunt and uncles grew up in what was probably a fairly typical upperclass home. Father’s study was the Holy of Holies, where you dared not enter unless you’d been granted permission, and woe unto you if you were sent there, and left to twist in agonizing anticipation while he made you wait to confess. Displays of emotion were unseemly, even positive ones, even within the privacy of the home. They were minister’s children, so their public behavior reflected back on their father, and violations were often dealt with harshly. There are stories that would break your heart and make you angry, but I won’t tell them here. They’re not mine to tell.

What’s mine to wonder is how I see this man who raised my father’s generation. One of his children worried about that and wanted some of the stories never to make it to light, so my generation wouldn’t think too badly of him. Which led me to wonder. How did I think of him?

My Opa died when I was 9, and I’d lived an ocean away for the last few years of his life, so I have just one memory of him, with his head back, shaking with silent laughter at a family party. What I have are his children, each one a prime product of intermittent reward.

Think of a squirrel at a birdfeeder that’s hard to reach, either ten feet down a rope or with a pressure-sensitive feeder bar. Watch it make its way to the food, only to be tossed or to fall off. Time after time after time. But it can smell and see the food; it knows it’s there. And every now and then, it manages to snag one seed. It knows food is possible, so it keeps working harder and harder to merit that one occasional seed. In squirrels, it makes for an entertaining show. In people, it makes for highly accomplished, hard charging, hard working risk takers and experts in whatever their chosen field; in other words (whether in academia, politics, business, church, or the nurture of people), my aunt and uncles.

I want to know the man who made them possible so I can better understand them. I admit it, I’m greedy: I want to know it all. The worry that he will seem like the villain of the story is a real one. But if I see him in the whole of his life, I think he’s more of an anti-hero. There is much that he did that was out-and-out heroic.

If an injustice was involved, he sprang into action. When his children were victims, he would march down to the school and demand justice. When his children were perpetrators, he could take calm and imaginative action, such as taking them to the police chief to confess and receive a lecture, and then negotiating restorative justice for the neighbor wronged. During World War II he worked in the Resistance, at considerable risk to himself and his family (including an awesome story of German soldiers coming to the house to search for him; he was home; so one of the aunts popped him in a nightgown and frilly cap and plunked a baby in his lap to successfully fool the soldiers and keep him safe). After the war, he moved his family of 9 to Canada in part so his sons would have more opportunities. He had studied literature before theology, so always wrote well (articles and sermons as well as poetry), and even did literary deconstruction on biblical texts (or so I’m told). He was proud to have played a role in the forward-thinking decision for the denomination to purchase land to increase the size and scope of Calvin College. And although I’m sure Oma frustrated him in other ways, he admired her more childlike and less anguished faith.

But.

And here’s where the stories I won’t tell would go. Trust me when I say they are not heroic.

So how do I see him? Hero or jerk? As with many either/or questions, I answer, “yes.”

Think of King David. God called him a man after His own heart. David was the king all other Israelite kings were measured against. He took tremendous risks and showed astonishing courage because he trusted God. Yet he was an adulterer and murderer. God wouldn’t let him build the Temple because there was too much blood on his hands. Yet he could recognize when he was wrong, when he’d sinned. He was concerned about justice for the vulnerable in his society. He wrote poetry whose truth and beauty have endured for thousands of years. Yet he let his kids run amok to rape their siblings and kill each other and foment rebellion against their father. He is one heck of a mixed bag.

But if I can look at King David, if I can delve into his story and still wind up admiring him, if I can see him as simultaneously a good example and a cautionary tale, I can do the same for my Opa. After all, I do the same for myself all the time. We are, each of us, a pretty mixed bag.

I hope my aunt and uncles aren’t afraid to tell us more. I think we can take it — not so much to understand him as to understand and appreciate them more.

How is truth handled in your family? Buried or blabbed? Fought about or trumpeted?

 

The Court of Heaven vs Me

~ Natalie Hart ~ 4 Comments

It was a typical morning in heaven. An angel choir sang at dawn. It being heaven, that was lovely, and everyone woke up totally refreshed. The prophets had taken over several booths in their favorite diner, one-upping each other with stories from the old days. It being heaven, nobody minded that they were hearing the same stories for the (approximately) 10,000th time.

Jeremiah told about the time the Lord told him to walk around with a yoke across his shoulders, warning everyone to put their necks under the yoke of King Nebuchadnezzar or be destroyed. He rubbed the back of his neck as if he’d only just removed it.

Elijah reenacted the scene with the prophets of Baal. He was the spoon, and they were the toothpicks, limping around their danish plate altar, cutting themselves and crying uselessly to their god to send fire. He got the usual big laugh at his taunt, “Maybe Baal is daydreaming, or off taking a piss.”

Hosea spun his gloomy tale of being told to marry a prostitute, let her return to her profession, and then purchase her back and live with her as his wife again, but Samuel lightened the mood with his spit-take that described how he wanted to react when the Lord led him to anoint the young David over his older and, frankly, more impressive-looking brothers.

But Isaiah sighed. His spoon clinked against the sides of the mug (in heaven, all food was perfect for your tastes the moment you requested it, but Isaiah found the stirring meditative). “I miss pleading the people’s case before the Lord.”

That got everyone quiet and nodding.

It was all joy all the time these days, but they weren’t needed like they were when they were on earth. They weren’t tired of heaven — the complete security in being loved, the no longer needing to strive to please, and the out-of-this-world food, company, and entertainment — but they were nostalgic for the days when they had a purpose.

“Maybe Jesus would let you take a turn as advocate in the Court of Heaven,” Samuel said.

Isaiah swiped the air in front of his face, dismissing that suggestion.

“If any of us could do it, it’d be you,” Hosea said. “After all, you made the most prophecies about Jesus.”

“Yeah,” Elijah said. “He likes you.”

This was one of their favorite jokes, because Jesus liked everyone. They all chucked, except Isaiah.

“Where’s the harm?” Jeremiah asked. “The worst he could say is, ‘no,’ and you had way worse said and done to you on earth.”

Isaiah snorted. “That’s for sure.”

They sat in silence with each other, listening to musicians from Bach to Jimi Hendrix trade licks in the bandshell, until Isaiah put his palms flat on the table. “I’ll do it.”

And then he was outside the double doors at the entrance to the Court of Heaven (because that’s how travel works there). His stomach was fluttery with nerves, which it hadn’t been in three thousand years. Jesus and two Court of Heaven angels hung out by the doors, on break. Their mood was so buoyant, they stood a foot above the floor.

Isaiah frowned. He expected the atmosphere to be more serious, and was reconsidering his request when Jesus called him over. There was no turning back. “My Lord, I love to worship. I live to worship. But I’d like to serve the people in front of our Father again.”

Jesus was silent.

“I mean, if I’m not overreaching, I hope you won’t be offended–”

“You can just say it.” Although Jesus interrupted Isaiah, his tone wasn’t impatient.

“May I plead for the people’s cases this afternoon?”

Jesus gave Isaiah a long, searching stare. Isaiah was sure he’d be found wanting. After all, who was he compared to Jesus? But then He said, “Give it a shot.”

The double doors opened and Jesus ushered Elijah into a tiny, plain room with a filing cabinet, a desk, and a straight-backed wooden chair. This was not at all the grand space Isaiah had imagined. God the Father was there — Isaiah felt His presence — but not in visible form.

“Father,” Jesus said. “Isaiah will take the next case.”

The top drawer of the filing cabinet opened. Jesus hefted the first file and flopped it on the desk. It was huge and unwieldy, with half the papers spilling out. Isaiah sat and opened it, preparing himself for horrible tales of perversion that must warrant such a file. He frowned. Outside of a little high school and college stupidity, for which she’d confessed and asked forgiveness, there wasn’t–

“Court of Heaven versus Natalie Hart,” the angel bailiff announced. “Prophet Isaiah for the defense.”

Isaiah cleared his throat and stood. This’d be simple. “My Lord, I am grateful for the opportunity to come before you today and–”

“Isaiah.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“Here are today’s cases.”

There was a rumble to Isaiah’s right and he looked to see the filing cabinet zoom higher than he could see. He gulped. “Uh, yes. Since the world began, no ear has heard, and no eye has seen a God like you, who works for those who wait for him. You welcome those who cheerfully do good, who follow godly ways. That describes my client, who goes to church, uses her gifts for your glory, and studies your Word, not every day, to be sure, but pretty close, most of the time, recently. Who tithes. Who frequently comes to you in prayer. Please don’t remember her sins forever. Because of your mercy and your compassion, forgive her.” Maybe it was a little vain to use some of his old words, but Isaiah thought it was a stirring speech.

“Have you looked all the way through her file?”

Either God was truly not pleased or this was a test. It was always hard to tell at first. Isaiah stammered and frantically flipped pages.

God didn’t let him struggle for long. “What about her recurring problems with anger, bitterness, discouragement, lack of trust, unkind thoughts, pride, excessive daydreaming about personal glory, lack of discipline and perseverance, lack of follow-through?”

Isaiah blinked. “But she does everything she’s supposed to do–”

“Pah,” God said. “You left out some of your own words: ‘When we proudly display our righteous deeds, we find they are but filthy rags.’ Classic trying to work out her own salvation, to find her worth in what she does.”

“Even you must admit, God, that her heart is generally in the right place.” Isaiah’s own heart pounded. “She’s a good, moral person, who is genuinely trying to do better. You would’ve saved Sodom and Gomorrah for one such as her. Have mercy on her.”

“My mercy grows thin with repeated rebellion. I will be repaid in full for the debt of her sins.”

This was how it had been back then, too. The Lord vowed to punish his people; sometimes he could be convinced not to, and sometimes He couldn’t. Isaiah hung his head in acceptance, and then jumped when he felt a sudden hand on his shoulder.

“May I?” Jesus whispered.

“Please.” Isaiah sat and patted the sweat from his forehead.

“If it please the judge,” Jesus said. “In the matter of the Court of Heaven versus Natalie Hart, please note that her debt has been cleared. I have paid it.”

Isaiah stared at Jesus. That was so…straightforward.

Jesus continued, “Strike the record of Natalie’s sins and replace it with my record of righteousness.”

“So be it,” God said. And there was the sound of a gavel banging.

That file disappeared and another immediately took its place.

After the bailiff announced it, Jesus said, “His debt has been cleared. I have paid it. Strike the record of his sins and replace it with my record of righteousness.”

Another one. “Her debt has been cleared. I have paid it. Strike the record of her sins and replace it with my record of righteousness.”

Twenty more times, the same thing. And then twenty more. Tears streamed down Isaiah’s cheeks, soaking his beard.

Just as a very slim file made its way to the table, there was a pop in the room, and there stood one of the Evil One’s dark angels. “Witness for the prosecution.” His voice was as oily as his hair.

Isaiah’s stomach clenched. He’d never seen a dark angel in heaven before. But, calm as could be, Jesus gestured for him to go ahead.

“You can’t let this one get off easy,” the dark angel said. “Deathbed confessions are so hard to take seriously.”

“I told stories about this on earth.” Jesus shrugged. “All that’s required for the debt being clear is the person’s acceptance of it. Doesn’t matter when. I already paid it.”

“But these sins were huge. Huge!” The dark angel narrowed his eyes as if he were playing his trump card. “How can you have mercy on someone who never had mercy on a single person in his whole life?”

“It isn’t mercy.” The deep growl of God’s voice vibrated through Isaiah’s bones. “It’s justice.”

The dark angel scoffed.

“It is justice,” Jesus said. “I paid his debt. He accepted the payment when he accepted me. You can’t make someone pay the same debt twice. My record of righteousness now stands in for his record of sins, as a gift. He couldn’t have worked out his own salvation, even if he’d been ‘a good person.’ I’ve already–”

“Heard you the first time.” The dark angel glared at Isaiah. “I thought you prophets were supposed to be all into pronouncing judgment. How can you be a part of this?”

Isaiah bared his teeth, but it wasn’t really a smile. “I was only ever the mouthpiece of my Lord.”

The dark angel rolled his eyes and disappeared with a pop.

“So….” Jesus turned to Isaiah.

“So mercy can grow thin, but justice–” Isaiah’s voice cracked.

“Justice has unavoidable logic,” Jesus said. “Sin creates a debt. A debt that must be paid. I’ve paid it. Nobody can pay twice for the same debt.” He glanced at the filing cabinet. “I wish they’d stop trying.”

 

 

I Will Not Should On Myself

~ Natalie Hart ~ Leave a comment

It’s 45 minutes before my alarm. I’m awake. There’s no hope of my falling back asleep. Some of you lucky good-sleep people would be able to, but not me. Instead, I get this:

I should do my devotions.

I should get out of bed and do a Twenty Minute Win of writing before I need to get everyone else up.

I should do some yoga. A few sun salutations would work this crick out of my neck and ease the stiffness in my lower back. And it would counteract the complete lack of exercise from the weekend.

I should get to the gym or hop on my bike more in the next two weeks. I’ve got that family reunion coming up and I’m going to have to be in a bathing suit in front of young cousins who look adorable in their bikinis.

I should make a grocery list so I can go straight to the store after taking my son to the orthodontist and then school.

I should get up so I can get lunches ready before I have to get the kids up (yes, my kids still have school).

I should get up and do my Morning Pages. I’m supposed to do them first thing in the morning, before I’ve had time to filter myself. That time is now.

I should bag all this stuff so I can make the kids eggs for breakfast and start their day out right.

What did I actually do?

I lay in bed thinking about all these shoulds until there was only time to make the kids’ lunches and make myself a cup of tea before going upstairs to announce, “Cold reality is back — wake up!” The kids had Frosted Flakes for breakfast. I never did my Morning Pages, nor did I do a 20 Minute Win. I did take a kid to the orthodontist, finish the laundry, do the grocery shopping, drove 40 minutes either way to attend my Artist’s Way group (having not done the Morning Pages nor all my reading), browsed Facebook and Twitter, attended the school sports banquet, called my parents, played a little online Boggle, finally did my devotions (at 10:45 p.m.), and started this blog post.

Other shoulds that floated through my head over the course of the day.

I really should eat the crust of my second 1/2 piece of toast. Then again, there are oh so many people who say I shouldn’t eat toast because the carbs are making me unhealthy, but I think I should be okay because it’s whole grain toast and I really like vegetables and fruits and quinoa and I eat them, too. (Not to mention that the last time I went totally gluten-free I lost 12 pounds in two weeks, but I was constipated for 3 months, which made it officially Not Worth It.)

I should figure out when I can get to the gym this week, because I keep missing my regular classes for other business. I miss cutting loose in Zumba; going on the treadmill is really not the same.

I should get a Zumba DVD so I can do it at home when I want.

I should sign the kids up for their final two camps that I have already promised them they are attending.

I should read and comment on my friends’ blogs. I did read, but I didn’t comment — commenting more was one of the goals I set for myself after the writer’s retreat two weekends ago. So I should get back on the wagon and comment.

I should stop playing online Boggle.

I should tackle my home in-box.

I should work on my synopsis and revamped query letter for It Is You. And go back to my agent research. And do more agent research.

I should stop using those packaged face wash cloths and just wash my face with cleanser and water again.

I should watch my son brush his teeth so he does a better job and the orthodontist doesn’t get on our case anymore.

I should vacuum. This floor is getting crunchy.

I should give the printed manuscript to my friend who has a friend who is a reader for a publisher.

A Should Vacation

And then a friend sent me the image at the top of the post.

I thought of all my shoulds. Some of them are actionable items. Many of them, actually. Others come from outside, societal pressures and not from a personal commitment. Still others are based on daydreams about the kind of life I could live. To take a vacation from telling myself what I should be doing sounded lovely and freeing.

But then … what would a should vacation actually be like? I love that image of the woman caught mid-leap. It’s inspiring and makes me smile. I love to leap. But would I want to live a life free of shoulds? Even for a day?

The more I think about it, the more I connect it to John Lennon’s “Imagine” and the idea being that we wouldn’t have strife with each other, if only we didn’t have countries, religion, and possessions to mess us up.

It turns out that I’m too much of a Calvinist to buy that. I think we’d find different reasons to hate each other and kill each other.

Besides, each of those concepts is a mixed bag of benefit and detriment. Yes, countries invade other countries, and teach their citizens that they’re the best kind of people on earth (and all other kinds of people are clearly not the best kind), and discriminate against those in their own country who are not “the right kind.” But countries also learn how to negotiate, how to take others’ needs into account. They can hurt more, but they can also help more. They provide a framework to meet people’s needs and respond to emergencies (as large as a tornado and as small as a house fire). They can inspire people to greater acts of generosity and deeper feelings of unity.

Religion has and does inspire hatred, an us vs. them mindset; it provides fuel for bullies and inspires war. But it also teaches us about love and sacrifice and fuels compassion and challenges us to act outside our comfort zones. It insists on justice for the oppressed, hospitality towards everyone, generosity to those on the margins. It gives us a reason to be one.

Possessions is a harder sell. It’s easy to see the problems of greed, of idolizing stuff. The only deeper benefits of stuff I can think of have to do with attitude: when we have an attitude of abundance (even if we don’t have very much actual stuff or not as nice stuff as those people over there), we will be generous, we will share.

My shoulds are a mixed bag, too. Some I really do need to make happen, either because they are important to the smooth running of my family, or because they tie into my deep dreams and visions for what I want to do with my life. They spur my discipline and move me beyond doing merely the good-for-now, the whatever’s-in-front-of-me. I don’t want to drop my awareness of these things, not even for a day.

So instead of not should-ing on myself today*, I will practice self-compassion. When a “should” comes, I will weigh it. Some things will be allowed to stay. But for other shoulds, I’ll talk to myself like I would to a friend who’s being too tough on herself, “Oh honey, give yourself a break on that one.”

It should be noted that I still have not vacuumed.

What shoulds will you drop today? Which will you keep?

 

* Is anyone else hearing echos of those KMart ads, “ship my pants,” and “big gas sale”?

 

 

Practice, Practice, Practice

~ Natalie Hart ~ 12 Comments

I’m going to say this straight out, rather than ease you and me into it, and possibly lose some of you in the process: I believe that God communicated with me with words.

It was last fall, just as I was realizing that all the work I’d put into the David and Saul story was coming to nothing. There were a couple of rejections yet to arrive, but most of them had come in with no requests for more material. My queries were dead on arrival. Even the two publishing contacts I’d made in person came to nothing, as well. Not “no’s,” but nothing; no communication at all. I’d been so hopeful. This was the project that could really go somewhere. It felt so different from any of the other work I’d done, better, right-er. It was the idea I’d been praying for, the idea that brought together so many of my passions. And then zilch.

So I went outside to do some raking and complaining to God. And then this message filled me (I say that because I didn’t hear an audible voice, just a strong impression of these specific words):

“Just because my hand is on you, doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy.”

On the one hand, this is confirmation: God’s hand is on me.

On the other hand, it’s going to be hard.

God is rarely this clear with me. When he’s communicated something specific before, it’s subject to interpretation. It’s more usual for God to communicate with me by what I call piling on: the same word or idea coming at me from everywhere. Recently it’s been the word “practice” — prayer practice, writing practice, Pilates practice, spiritual practice, practice, practice, practice. A good friend who is a spiritual director and a poet is the one who started it: “That’s why we call it a practice, because we’re not very good at it yet.”

Because I’m not very good at it. Yet.

Indeed, the book project I’d been so dejected about: there was a big hole in it. I needed my winter of whine to make me realize it. So I put in the work this spring. Writing practice.

I recently added something to my prayer practice. Most days, I write my prayers, freeform, but after my friend the spiritual director/poet recited the following prayer at book club and I cried my way through the whole thing, I knew I had to add it. It speaks hard to me as a writer, impatient for success, for publication. For (dare I say it) validation.

The author is fascinating, as well, and I plan to look into his life in more detail: he was a Jesuit paleontologist during the first half of the 20th century. He studied evolution and explored the spiritual implications of that scientific work. Look for something about him in the future here at won*der.

For now, here is Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s prayer:

Above all, trust the slow work of God.
We are, quite naturally,
impatient in everything to reach the end
without delay.
We should like to skip
the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on
the way to something unknown,
something new,
and yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability —
and it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually —
let them grow,
let them shape themselves,
without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today
what time (that is to say, grace and
circumstances acting
on your own good will)
will make them tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of
feeling yourself in suspense
and incomplete.

There are so many moments in this prayer that pierce me. “the slow work of God.” “And so I think it is with you.” “his land is leading you.” “accept the anxiety.” “in suspense and incomplete.”

This is hard.

But I’m practicing. This past weekend I stepped out big time to attend a writer’s retreat, the Renew and Refine Retreat for Writers. It was small. Fewer than 20 people. There would be no hiding. I was anxious. Okay, I was terrified. I would have to put myself out there as a writer, with other writers. But I accepted the anxiety and went and met wonderful people. We laughed and cried and prayed and worked together in the kitchen and ate very, very well. I was so deeply encouraged by my time with them, both specifically (after I read my work) and generally, as kindred spirits driven/called to work out our faith and our lives in words that we are driven/called to share. I hope I was able to encourage even one person there as much as I was.

So I’m moving ahead with a little more courage than I was before. Revising my materials. Getting ready to send out It Is You again.

Practicing my trust of the slow work of God. His hand is on me. But it isn’t going to be easy.

What are you practicing? What might accepting the anxiety give you the courage to do?