Confessions of the Socially Awkward

I would so love to be one of those people who can walk into a crowded room, smile, speak intelligently (or at least endearingly), and leave a generally good impression. You know them--the little bursts of light and sound that everyone loves. They can keep a conversation in the air like it's a feather, while the rest of us have bricks falling on our heads.

I tend to walk into a social gathering half-hidden behind my husband, wearing a look usually seen only on the faces of terrified animals with large eyes, and I generally find that I have absolutely nothing to say to anyone, even if they are speaking to me and waiting for me to return some form of communication. My brain is screaming, "Speak! Say something...anything. Open your mouth!" but all I can do is smile and look nervous. Hopefully this comes across as shyness and not mild mental retardation.

I can stand up and give a speech, in front of hundreds if necessary, but put me in a room full of strangers--or even worse, acquaintances, and I will shrivel up and die within five minutes.

I am undoubtedly, perhaps incurably, socially awkward. My family always thought I was aloof, maybe a little snobbish. For a while during my college years I believed I could pass myself off as mysterious, but now I must face the truth: I belong in a cabin in the woods. I am the next Emily Dickinson, only without the poetic genius.

I should begin the blueprints for my hermitage immediately.

:)

Complicity and Convenience

"You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson


I think I've always been a vegetarian at heart. Growing up, I wouldn't eat meat unless it was de-boned, fried, and virtually unrecognizable as animal flesh. One of my high school friend's parents would always tease me when I was over for dinner by assuring me that there were no bones in whatever meal we were about to consume: salad, pasta, chocolate cake. There has always been something unsettling to me about eating an animal, a being that breathes, moves, feels, and--yes--loves. It seemed to ago against my very nature, my own being.

I didn't become a vegetarian because I wanted to be healthier, though I certainly am now, but because my conscience could not bear the weight of so many innocent lives. I began to wake up in the night with dreams of animal slaughter, and finally decided to follow a truth I'd felt (often only subconsciously) for most of my life: that animals were not meant for my consumption, that they were not created to serve my appetite, that they were meant to be free beings, not slaves.

I have never been evangelistic about my vegetarianism. I have not handed out pamphlets, worn T-shirts, or preached in front of Burger King. I have not tried to convince anyone that they are going to hell for eating animals. But often when others find out that I am a vegetarian, they immediately put up their guard and begin to defend themselves, to express their opinions about animals in really obnoxious ways. I sometimes wonder if there is not a tiny speck of conscience that tells them they may be wrong, a speck of self-doubt. There must be.

If we eat meat, eggs, or dairy products, wear leather, fur, or wool, the truth is that we are complicit in a great deal of cruelty. I am guilty of much of it. (I too sport my wool jacket and love my cheesy lasagna.) Factory farming is a greedy, cruel, disgusting business that robs of animals of dignity and a natural existence. If you picture your beef coming from happy cows on a family farm, you are mistaken. Factory farm animals are brutalized, live their entire lives in spaces so small they cannot even turn around, and are often fully conscious when their feathers are boiled off, their hide is skinned, parts of their bodies are lopped off. I am a vegetarian because I cannot bear the thought of being complicit in the torture and horrible death of innocent animals.

I think it is a tragedy to never question these things because it may be inconvenient to you. You may have to start buying cage-free eggs or organic milk, or buying organic meat--God forbid. You may not be able to scarf down a Big Mac quite so blithely. We are happy to think that we are nice to animals, that we would never torture and murder them, but we are as complicit in their deaths as the slaughterhouse workers, as the greedy business owners and factory farmers.

Gandhi said that "the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." Abraham Lincoln expressed similar sentiments. If this is the case, America is probably the most depraved country in the world. We consume most of the world's resources, and it has been said that the grain we feed to our farm animals would be sufficient to end world hunger. This may be an oversimplification, but there is truth there. Is a steak really worth so much pollution and waste and suffering? I can't imagine so.

I am still considering my own complicity in the suffering of God's creatures. I regret my new wool coat; I want to give up any non-organic dairy products. I want to be more careful about the cosmetic and cleaning products I buy, know exactly what's in my vitamins...I want to care enough to do all I can to alleviate the sufferings of others, to be inconvenienced for the sake of mercy. Jesus wasn't a vegetarian, but I bet if he lived in today's horror land of factory farming he would be.

Fire Drill Thrill

It is Thursday. This has been a gray, rainy, boring week. I have sat at my desk with my little desk lamp, falling asleep into endless pages of questions like "O my love is like a red, red rose is an example of what literary device?," with only the occasional quip from my sarcastic co-workers, a siren wailing in the street, or an argument over whether nouns preceding gerunds need to be made possessive to resurrect me from hideous and unrelenting boredom. 4:30 should be a joyful acclamation of freedom, but then I have the ungodly traffic of 21st Avenue to contend with.

The most exciting thing happened today, though: we had a fire drill, which required our entire floor to empty out into the rainy cold street, huddling under umbrellas, a dentist's office awning, or just letting the rain soak through. It was delightful. Seriously, my department is so boring that this was the highlight of our month. I actually felt a little giddy.

I thought back to a few months ago, when I was a preschool teacher herding my classroom of 3 year olds outside for our first fire drill. Of course, one kid was barefoot, another was wearing rubber boots from the dramatic play center, and the classroom princess slipped and sullied her bright yellow dress. We made it to our safe place, though, and they all looked up at me with their big, worried eyes. I was very grateful that the fire wasn't real.

Today I might not have minded. The warmth might melt the ice off my windshield.

Winter in Nashville as a standardized test editor is killing my soul.

Home

I sometimes forget how much truth there is in fiction. Or how much there can be. Today I stayed home from work (sick) and finished up Marilynne Robinson's newest novel, Home. Throughout the book I kept thinking how it couldn't come close to Gilead, her Pulitzer prize winner; I love that book so much, as almost everyone who has read it does. It is gorgeously written, so full of poignant, unbelievably beautiful moments and stunning writing. It is the most delightful book I have ever read. So I was prepared to be disappointed by Home.

I wasn't at all. It was a completely different experience than Gilead, a much more painful one, but moving and wonderful in its own way. I wept through the last ten pages as if weeping for my own life--that's how real the characters were, how believable and lovable. But they were also universal, all of us, people I know. I understood my own father and brother better than I ever have before by reading this book; in 325 pages I learned more about them than I probably ever could in a face to face conversation. In a fictional story set in a fictional place I found truth about my own family, the people I love. Isn't that amazing? This is why we read fiction; this is why we return again and again to the written word, to stories, to stories real enough to break our hearts and make us weep for ourselves, for our families, for all people. This is literature at its best...making us more human.

So yes, add Gilead and Home to your reading list.

Just Another Mundane Moment

I locked my keys in my car today, and, of course, I don't have a spare. (Getting a spare made has been on the mental to-do list for about two years now.) I was at church and we had all just said our final "Thanks be to God" when I realized that I had left my keys in my purse, which was tucked safely under the seat of my car. Thanks be to God. We had to call a locksmith and stand outside in the breezy cold to wait for him and then shell out 60 bucks for the ordeal. Normally in such a scenario I would cry, panic, and have a melt down, but today I actually thought it was kind of funny. I just thought, "Hey, my first time calling a locksmith."

If only I could handle every setback in life so graciously. I seem to think that life is supposed to be very smooth and uneventful, and that things like car trouble and broken bones shouldn't happen to me. I'm always so shocked when they do, and so distraught. But I'm learning that setbacks and hard times are just part of living, part of being a human being. Usually they pass and we don't think too much about them later on, but in the moment the smallest difficulty can seem so overwhelming. Really though, as I look back at all the catastrophes of my short life I see that God was always working things out for me, helping me, making a useful lesson or at least a funny story out of all those events. Often, difficulties in my life seem to be opportunities to see goodness and mercy in others: The time my car broke down in the middle of nowhere and a family picked me up and took me to their house, where I played with their kids and talked to their cows and ate dinner with them until my family could come to my rescue. The time I couldn't raise enough money for a mission trip and someone wrote me a thousand dollar check. There have been tears that led to friendships, confessed sins that led to trust and solidarity, miscommunication that led to understanding. Life's greatest disappointments have generally formed my character, made me more compassionate, doused my pride with the cold water of reality, shaped my spirituality, and led me deeper inside myself, helping me to find my true self.

So perhaps "Thanks be to God" isn't just empty sarcasm, but a wry prayer for grace to trust that God is good and that every moment of our lives matters--even the mundane one, the irksome one, the painful one. If Christ is in us, then every circumstance is an opportunity for Christ to teach us, or at least to embrace us, to share with us, to remain with us, to love us.

Is it Spring Yet?

I have wanted very much for autumn to stay, but, alas, winter is swiftly approaching. The glorious fall colors are fading fast and the bare shivery tree limbs are taking their place. And it's getting dark at 4.30pm, which is almost unbearable to me. If I had one wish right now it would be to skip winter. I mean, just skip right over it into springtime. Glorious spring.

Then again, I didn't even really know what spring was until I had my first real winter in Oxford. I spent almost 4 months trudging several miles a day through rain, snow, and cold, so when spring showed up I really knew it was there. One day I was walking through the park on my way to the library when I suddenly noticed yellow...flowers! It was like an epiphany: "Oh, so this is spring. I see." It was so life-giving to watch the trees begin to blossom, the flowers to bloom, the heavy coats to disappear. Ah, spring. It was like that scene from The Chronicles of Narnia in which Aslan brings the winter-cursed Narnia back to life: like God's breath had melted all the snow and brought flowers straight up from the earth in a whole palette of brilliant colors. Magnificent. I certainly left England on a happy note.

So Winter. Here it comes. Cold, dark, windshield-iced winter. But after winter has its frosty stay, the earth will wake up again, the flowers will put on their tutus and prance in the sunshine, the world will be bright and beautiful and eager once more.

And so will my little Floridian heart.

Reflections on Confirmation

John and I were confirmed yesterday. We're officially Episcopalian. It's funny--even just four years ago I wouldn't have imagined myself in a denominational church, much less the Episcopal Church. But we change, life changes us, and so it is. I have certainly found a home there, a stabilizing connection. I find it hard to believe how whole I feel these days.

The confirmation ceremony was not quite as daunting as I'd imagined; I had been a bit nervous about the bishop and his hat. Even though I appreciate high church and have no problem with the ceremonial garments, that hat just gets to me. But I saw a kind and smiling face underneath the hat, which I think I've decided I like after all, if only for its amusing qualities.

John and I attended a month-long Inquirers' Course prior to being received. Throughout the whole class I thought that Father Rick was referring to all of us who were to be confirmed as "contrabands" and secretly wondered what the meaning of this strange term might be. I didn't realize until yesterday morning when I looked at the order of service that Rick had actually been saying "confirmands." I'm glad I didn't ask why I was illegal.

So I've been thinking about the process of confirmation, what it means to be received into a body of people. I think I've always thought of church in social terms, as a family, which it is; but it is also, somehow, mystically Christ's own body. Every time we celebrate Holy Eucharist we are reminded of this: that Christ is present with us in our own bodies, and in those we share communion with. We who are many are one because we all share one bread, one cup.

I don't know why, but these words of Mary Oliver come to me now:

Of course I have always known you
are present in the clouds, and the
black oak I especially adore, and the
wings of birds. But you are present
too in the body, listening to the body,
teaching it to live, instead of all
that touching, with disembodied joy.

My reception into the Episcopal Church was an event and a commitment, but more than that it is a reminder to me of my life that is hidden with Christ, where God is; of my true self; of Christ dwelling in me, loving me, teaching me, and helping me to live a life that is truly reconciled to God and aligned with the core message of the gospel.