Love the Cat

This blog is probably not the place to vent my grievances concerning small felines, but I may just do it anyway. Really just one small feline. Really not venting. Really just realizing that I don't want a cat of my own. Any time soon. I would much rather have a kid (I mean, eventually, and several.) At least you can clean them and they don't (usually) flaunt their hind ends in your face.

But cats. Especially this cat. Her name is Love, which is ironic, because although hate is much too strong a word, love isn't exactly the word I would use to describe my thoughts toward her, except in more tried moments in the context of quoting 1 Corinthians 13.

Love bears the sorrow of being separated from her adopted mother, Kaylee, with a tenacious loyalty I would, under more favorable circumstances, admire...but not at 5 in the morning.

Love believes with the faith of a saint that I will share my spaghetti with her, even when I've warned her countless times to the contrary.

Love hopes desperately that I will tolerate her noisy, nosy presence all night in the bedroom (she's dead wrong).

Love endures the unfortunate, reoccurring difficulty of getting stuck behind the door flap of her litterbox, and makes wise use of her detainment by leaving fragrant offerings for us.

LOVE NEVER FAILS.

Prophecy will be done away, tongues will be done away, even knowledge will cease, but I'm afraid Love will always be with us. Even after she gets another worm shot I'm not sure I will be all open arms.

However, I try not to insult Love to her face. Kaylee loves her like a mother loves her suckling babe, and who am I to douse that kind of loyal affection with the icy deluge of my misgivings? In fact, Kaylee's adoration of the four footed gray and white creature reminds me so much of my love and dependence on my own gray and white kitty at one time, that I am forced into a reluctant understanding.

When I was eleven, Emily was my baby, doll, companion, entertainer, and possibly mentor, and I'm not sure I would have survived the next few years of my turbulent inner life without her furry companionship.

So, where Love the Cat is concerned, I practice a policy of tolerance. While I am babysitting, Love roams the living room with the exception of meal times, when she is contained in the bedroom. During Bible time, she follows her exploratory nocturnal impulses at will until 10:00, when lights go out and Love goes out- to the living room/bathroom.

Kaylee shows her plenty of affection. All the love Love needs from me is letting Kaylee love her. After all, we don't always have to like the people we love, right? Or cats, I might add?

I Never Thought I'd Say This, But...

"Well, it's happening," I announced to the general populace this morning. The populace was my family members. They were eating breakfast, while I was elbow-deep in algebra homework. As usual, my folders, pens, pencils both blunted and sharpened, calculator, various napkins and a yogurt encrusted bowl occupied about half the table. I was plotting the points of an exponential function. "I'm officially becoming a math nerd."

My Dad gave a chuckle. "Now that's one thing you'll never be, Cass." "What if I told you I graphed an exponential function in my journal last night to illustrate my feelings about life?" I asked. "Ok, well that's...ok. Maybe you are." I grinned. I'll never be a math whiz, but suddenly I see meaning in math I've never seen before.

Here we are at the end of the semester. Only one test stands between me and the final. And I don't really feel like I'm going to war anymore. It's more like coming admire the enemy.

Here's something I never thought I'd hear myself say: When we've exhausted words, we still have numbers. I can't say I've entirely exhausted words, because here I am still blogging, but I must say I was shocked to find a new medium in which to express myself. A new language, if you will. Another code that represents a picture of what is in my mind. Because really, that's all that letters and words are too.

Eliza (Whom I Met in the Library)

Brown and chubby baby feet stretch before her on the

Seat; raven hair slips gracefully around the archway of her face

Fully focused on me. Now she’s firmly pointing, with her deep swamp eyes

Anointing me like I am set apart for her

And her alone

She babbles and she gabbles

On and on and on

Flipping pages as she gages

Our reading marathon.

She turns around and runs for another book and

Comes; my smile has made her bolder, and I feel her smooth brown rounded

Shoulder touching mine. Saucy and demanding, she is forcefully

Commanding me to read her book and put my own

Good book away

2007

The Wheel Keeps Turning!

I am a baffled child learning heaven's cycle of Hope, Waiting, Surrender, and then Hope again.

I was on the way to the mailbox three days ago, talking with God along the surrender and direction thread. "I know I never have to worry, but help me..." I told Him. The flowers bursting from everywhere with no want for beauty and provision remind me of this every day, that golden evening being no exception.

I opened the box with a faint throb of curiosity, and pulled out an envelope with the circular blue logo I'd been hoping to see for weeks now. Tearing it open like a long-awaited Christmas present, I scanned the top line, which read:

"Congratulations! It is my pleasure to inform you that you have been selected for admission to Berea College for Fall 2010..."

I went home trembling with good news. I told my family. I called my grandparents. A renewed sense of God's customized love for me and gentleness flooded my heart. Yes, it felt warm and fuzzy!

It's not that all my hopes have been set on going to Berea. In fact, college is a goal I've been learning how to deal with in the surrender department. It seems that just when you excavate your heart deep enough to find the treasure of desire, you're called to go and sell it.

I'll try to make this long story short.

Last year I figured out I really wanted to go to college, not just because everyone else is, but because I love to learn.

Last year I also started attending community college here when I returned from Ukraine. It wasn't Harvard, but it was a start!

I began searching for a 4-year school to transfer to, but the cost of tuition, room, and board was frightening. In conviction, faith, and a considerable amount of naivety, I determined that I didn't want to wade into a slough of debt in order to go to college. Especially when I didn't have a desire to make money in the first place.

I wanted to purpose to be as financially free as possible so I'd be free to go where ever God might take me. I might not have a penny to my name, but I wouldn't have to spend years saving pennies for Sallie Mae, either. I prayed that God would make a way for me, all the while wondering if this was stupidity, pride, or just part of Cassie-dream-land!

In the fall, while searching online, I discovered Berea College, in Berea, Kentucky. The school is a private college that provides free tuition (worth $25,000 per year) to their students!

I trembled and choked my way through the website as I saw the character and personality of the college. Too good to be true! Study abroad opportunities, a small school with huge diversity, Christian foundations from a man of intense faith and love for Jesus and people (John G. Fee), emphasis on art, the tranquility of a small Appalachian town...what more could I ask?

So I started applying, and after a snow-graced visit to Berea in January, I was even more hungry for the chance to go. I was also a little daunted by the news that Berea only accepts 30 of every 300 transfer students that apply. The heart of the school is to provide quality education for those who don't have the money, and I certainly qualified in that department, but that still didn't guarantee anything in a crowd of 300.

What to do next? My only other option seemed to be attending a state college in great state of Texas, though that idea really didn't quicken my pulse. I was a little lethargic about looking into other colleges, hoping so hard for Berea.

At first, the challenge was, "Will you hope for it?" But when I had practiced that assignment for a while, God gave me another. "Will you surrender it?"

The days and weeks passed, and the mailbox remained forlorn and empty. As my roots deepened here, I wondered, is it right for me to go away? Does God have different plans for me to deepen in prayer at my church, where good seeds seem to be coming up? Am I betraying His gospel when time is so short, when lost souls are right outside the door?

The letter kept delaying and delaying, and well-meaning friends and relatives were always asking about it. But there was no way they could see the earth-moving equipment rumbling around in my heart as God created a landscape where my desires to go to college were open and bare before Him.

And now, the letter has come. And I take this as confirmation from the Lord that I'm to go to this beautiful place where I can learn and grow and expand. I hold it very loosely. With Mary, I'm saying, "Let it be to me as you have said!"

I've been skimming though John Eldredge's book lately, thanks to Brett and Pam (when two friends encourage you from the same book, it's time to pick it up), and found a quote that describes this loosened grasp:

"Desire is still present, felt, welcomed even. But the will to secure is made subject to the divine will in an act of abandoned trust." pg. 193

And this sums up my story. As the my "will to secure" goes down to the dust, the wheel of God's will is turning to lift my hopes up toward the sun. And who can tell the joy that awaits when this cart gets Where It's Going?

in a thousand years

a thousand years in Thy sight
are like yesterday
when it passes
so is it really
too much to hope
that the small,
shriveled seed
i planted yesterday
might break open
tomorrow morning?

Symmetry and Sleeplessness

"Tiger, Tiger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?"

The sidewalk of Kilgore campus between math and history classes at 9:57 a.m. is, perhaps, a strange place for William Blake's words to be running through my mind, but then, I have had stranger thoughts coming out of math class.

This image at least didn't feature my instructor with a lasso. Instead, I was still dwelling on that beautiful little graph on the board that nearly moved me to tears. It was an inverse reciprocal function, just two gently curving pieces opposite each other and a few points away, an identical set. And a straight slant ran through them, slicing them cleanly in half diagonally.

When I saw it sitting there, complete, a little bit of peace diffused into my brain. It was a gentle whisper, a quiet reminder that in one small corner of one small classroom in one small town in the not-as-big-as-they-think-it-is-state of Texas, "all is right with the world." Ahh.

As for tears, perhaps they are a bit much. They didn't actually fall out of my eyes. I was still in shock over making a 99 on that math test, which is, as you may already realize, a miracle worth crying about. And, more than anything, I was tired.

Although I never planned it this way, the sun had arrived just in time that morning to rouse me from a two hour nap-- not a normal occurrence! There were a lot of factors to my sleeplessness. Possibly a certain feline who shall remain nameless, or a certain sore hip, or a certain delectable cup of coffee. But in the end, it worked out for the best.

It's a mysterious truth, but one that is becoming more and more evident to me, that God sometimes goes to unreasonable lengths to keep us up at night because he likes to be with exhausted, slightly cranky people who are helpless to change their vulnerable state.

And as for me, I find that the more wide awake hours I spend, the more wide eyed I become to God, and the more thankful I am for the small beauties and privileges in life; asymptotes, for instance. Or naps.

Garden

My wakeful heart
Is a Garden of Desires
Budding, bursting, blooming
I crave Your tender hands
The taming and the tending
The binding of bending tendrils
To the trellis of Your love
I hunger for Your quick keen blade
To prune the places found unfruitful
And for Your jealous watching
To wait and win the fruit.

Oh for Hours to Dream With...

I want to get back to art again. To habitual writing and a rhythm of creating. I'm out of practice. I don't know if you've noticed, but it takes time to do anything creative. I don't just mean that you have to have time to physically sit down and write or learn to paint or whatever. I find that I need hours at a time to wander around in a dream before I'm good for much of anything creative.

College life, for all its glory, isn't conducive to that at all. American life isn't either, for that matter. But maybe the season will come again for wandering. Right now, my brain wants a rest. I think it has shoved the luxury portion of my vocabulary and my ability to think of stimulating sentence openers to the back closet to make room for efficient lists pinned to the fridge with pictures of my friends.

During this season, I'm hoping to train myself to create along the way with the words, thoughts, resources in front of me. Maybe something good will come.

I Win the Math Battle and Stuart Gets a Bath

Math test: I've decimated it! Decimation! Annihilation! Extermination! I can't believe it! Today's conquest contradicted all my worries and fears. I'm confident of an A, and yesterday, I was worried I'd fail the test altogether. I still don't understand how it happened. It's a wonderful thing, being a pessimist. One is constantly being pleasantly surprised.

I know it wasn't my own powers, because I managed to be alert and energetic even with the very meager ration of sleep I got last night. Connor, Mattie, and I went to Thursday Night Prayer as usual at 9, and it was a very sweet time of about ten of us sitting at the Lord's feet and really just being washed and renewed. I love this time. I think it's the highlight of my week.

And afterward we laugh. Last night we really laughed,about not much of anything, and about everything. Laughter with good friends is delicious, and when I considered it afterward, I thought, this will be what heaven is like. A riot of joyous laughter with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and all the washed, freed saints!

Speaking of washing, Connor and I finally gave Stuart a much-needed bath today in the sunny drive way. Stuart is Connor's dear little Toyota Corolla with a rather battered coat of champagne-colored paint. Only lately he's been sickly green with pollen. He faithfully carts us to school and back three times a week and takes Connor lots of other places, so it was time he got a little TLC.

So we rinsed him, and scrubbed him, and rubbed his scabby hood. He was growing a whole bushel of potatoes behind the hubcaps! Connor polished up the inside with armor-all, and I beat out and vacuumed the floor mats. And before we knew it, the sun had warmed and dried Stuart's grateful back. Come Monday, we'll have the satisfaction of riding to school in a clean, happy Stuart.

The End

In Which I Prepare for War and Draw up Battle Lines Against a Bosom Enemy

Math. It wants to annihilate me. But here I stand, relatively unscathed at the end of the day, gazing across the battlefield at my crippled enemy. Tomorrow will be the true test-- exam 3, 9:00 sharp.

I was so giddy over getting an A on my last math test that I got a little overconfident. Thus I was quite unsuspecting of the sneaky ambush the enemy had planned this week...rational inequalities swooping out of nowhere to pluck out my eyeballs. Violent, I know.

Today, in distress, I called for reinforcements, hoping in the dusty but sometimes helpful skills of my brother. But alas, he could offer little aid. Seeing no other way to gain the upper hand in the conflict, I embarked on a reconnaissance mission to study the ways of the enemy. I met with Commander Abdulziz, a friendly tutor at Student Support building on Kilgore campus, a lengthy trek from home territory. A costly journey, too, in precious fuel, and since I was already exhausted from previous skirmishes and the wearing ways of war, I nearly fell asleep at numerous stops (that is, stop lights) along the way.

But under Abdulziz's patient tutelage I was able to gather valuable secrets and develop a plan. And now, I gather heart and hope, and take courage in both hands as I prepare for a blazing victory on the morrow.

Miracle

(written yesterday)

Spring! I think I've got it in my blood. I'm sure you can tell, because of the way I mention the weather in every blog entry I write, even if the blog entry ends up having nothing at all to do with spring. However, I'm coming to believe that pretty much everything has to do with spring, because spring is about new life, and life is central to...well, this is profound...life. I'm just so philosophical, aren't I?

I think my sheep-like (i.e., rather foolish and gullible) nature) will always keep me from waxing stuffy. I will always be wondering things like, "Huh, isn't it funny how the border of Texas runs right along the Rio Grande?"

Spring. New life. Watch the news or pick up the papers and you'll see no end of tragedy and strife, but talk a walk outside today and you'll find yourself realizing that apart from anything horrible that goes on, it's a brilliant miracle that life exists at all. My friend Lauren lives on a farm and she wrote about this after observing the animals and their personalities. Unfortunately I can't find the link to that blog so you can read it...me and technology. What a joke.

Sometimes I think about it in airports. The miracle of life existing, that is. It's a perfect opportunity to stare at people, being so tired you can't think and you're licensed to stare blankly at people (within reason). Features and complexions differ nearly as much as clothing and luggage styles. The travelers come from a city on the other side of the world or right down the road from you, and they might be headed to a grand city or to a remote desert.

The miracle is that two people ever found each other in this chaotic world and conceived them and they somehow survived the trauma of being an infant. (Can you imagine the culture shock of living outside the womb for the first time?) And then they traversed they intensely awkward and perilous years of young adulthood, braving all the questions of existence, finding a way through the murky waters of life to some sort of job or family or community life.

And all these people, whether strong or weak, happy or unhappy, confused or content, good or bad, all of them are milling about the terminal or taking off their tennis shoes right in front of you in line, and it's stunning, if you think about it, that they made it here at all. Life.

I was so chipper and happy this morning that I went out on a walk twice just to look at everything, to feel the sun, to tell God how happy I was, to just thank him for all the good things He's put in my life. I used to complain so much, and I still fall into that, but I find that when I practice the discipline (and it truly is a discipline,) of thanking Him for every little thing, even the things I don't like, I end up falling into a state of intense happiness and peace. Which is a very good state to be in. And I'm still here, only now I'm blogging about it.

The sky is like an exquisitely blue eye with a burning yellow pupil, which became a disturbing image when I dwell on it too long, but is effective anyway, and the whole landscape looks drunk with vibrant green. The wind is happy, the little birds and bugs and small animals can't get enough of it. Cars on the distant highway even drone with a happy drone. Sometimes they just sound lonely, but today, they're different. Flowers have come up that weren't there just days ago, proudly sporting their purple and yellow, glowing with radiance. Even my hair feels happy and curlier than usual, reaching out to touch the sun.

We forget to worship the Lover of Our Souls, because we're human and we're busy, but creation doesn't forget. Creation exists to worship. And I don't think the trees get bored of it, all winter standing in reverence with their branches lifted to a quiet sky. I don't think a single square inch of ground is grudging when it's time and it's able to bring a blade of grass or a violet into the world as an offering to the Master. It's spring, and even the torn and weary creation is beside itself to celebrate the new life that is to come in Jesus.

Yes! Yes! Yes! Come Lord Jesus!

Sword and a Flame

Here I am, sipping the sweet, gritty goodness of coffee from Connor's French press. A hint of cool breeze is coming in through the open windows, bringing a fresh dusting green fairy dust with it, I'm sure. Not the kind that makes you fly. Sneeze, yes. Fly, no. If it could, we'd be fluttering all over the countryside this season.

But it's night now, and after a very green day, I can't see the pollen anymore. I just hear the crickets, which remind me that it's spring and it's humid again and that in the morning the whole world will glow green again.

I'm full of questions for the future. For right now. I'm glad God knows me so well. I'm glad He's not surprised by the revelations popping up in my heart. They're news to me. Not to Him.

What have you called me to do, God?
What really matters in life?
Why does the world seem to center around making money?
What place does it have in the Kingdom?
What if I'm dreaming too small?
Have I just been playing around till now?
Did I really think having "good" dreams meant that God wouldn't need to do anything drastic to shake me up?

God has questions for me, too. They cut straight to the heart. They hurt.

"Do you love me more than these?
These things?
These dreams?
These people?"
"Will you obey Me?"
"Do you really think I won't provide for you?"
"Will you really care about what I care about?"
"Who will go for me?"

I thought being called was a call to somewhere. I guess I thought it was going to fit in with my dreams. I always thought since my dreams are good dreams, God would just use them for His purposes. But I suppose I've used those to justify avoiding the messy business of surrender.

I've offered a general offering of my life with a somewhat conditional "yes". Yes, if I can finish school. Yes, if I can get married. Yes, if I get to have kids and a home of sorts. Yes, if I can teach or write or live here or there or minister to these kinds of people.

Did I think God would be satisfied with my "Yes, if?" I wasn't even aware I was Yes-Iffing, but this week God's been slicing me open with what seems to be a double edged sword of love and fire. Burn me God, I prayed...He's kindled a flame, but it hasn't completely done its work.

Where the world wants a job description, God looks for obedience. Where the world seeks degrees and positions, God's eyes rove the earth looking for someone who passes the test of faith. When the world asks for future plans, God looks right in the eye and asks, "Are you doing my will this minute?"

Do the wheres and hows of the future matter as much as obeying one step at a time? Does anything really matter but to work honestly with our brains and hands, find people to love, pray, and walk with in community, and learn to constantly speak out the truth of Jesus to those who don't know yet?

I told God I was sorry for taking some sort of smug security in this spiritual sounding calling I had in mind. Not that He hasn't been leading me to do certain things, particularly this summer, which I will share more about later...but my pride has been a bit slapped around this weekend and I realize that God, well, God should get what He deserves from me. An unconditional yes, every minute. Ready response to His spirit in an ever-changing world. If my plans for next year change tomorrow, I need to be okay with that.

God whisked Philip right up and took him to the Ethiopian's chariot because that's where He wanted him that day, and I somehow doubt that was in Philip's five-year plan.

One of the crazy prophet dudes had to lay on his side for three years eating only bread baked over dung. I'm sure that felt weird for him. It was probably not the fulfillment of one of his cherished dreams. What counts is that he did it.

Was Jesus in love with the idea of being crucified naked? I doubt it. I do know that He was in love with the whole human race, and that His intense love carried Him through that horrendous experience in perfect obedience.

The more I pray, the more real I become. I need to go pray some more, though. I am asking Him to burn me with His fire. The more I stand before Him, inviting His gaze, the more of my playacting He strips off, the more cute scrapbooks in my mind he rips up.

"Do you love me?" He wants to know. And I do so love Him. It's quite an experience loving Someone who loves me so deeply and yet has no qualms revealing my deepest flaws. If His love is going to plunge into the depths, it's going to cleanse the depths so He can dwell with me.

So may the questions continue, may the fire not go out until my life here is through. And in the end, I hope to be found faithful.

Cry for the Unborn

On the day I was born
They said
Welcome to a world of injustice
But I was well acquainted already
From the safety and the terror
Of my mother’s womb
No one knew me there
And I did not have a face
Injustice, I knew,
As with a pounding
Not of a fist, but with my human heart
I beat upon the darkened wall
Who will stand and defend me?
For the voiceless, a voice
For the weak, a witness
For those in darkness, light.

Aug. 2009