Portrait of a Hunchback . . . and a Lady

Sometimes you just have to say, "the heck with it," stay in your pajamas all day, and wait for the restlessness to set in. After celebrating a housewarming/ Thanksgiving at our new place, and staying up till 4am to say hello to family back home (hurray for skype!), I decided to sleep in and call it a day off (which it was). But by the time 5pm rolled around and I was shamelessly scuffling around the house in my pj's, the sheer enjoyment of my laziness was beginning to wear off. Two hours later, I finally forced myself out the door. Nothing like a little cold air to shake off the inertia. . .

I had declared to my roommates, who had already settled in for the night after being out and about, that I was going for a walk! To which my roommate replied, "Where you goin?"

"I don't know," I shrugged.

"How long will you be out?"

"Don't know."

"Sorry for being nosy."

"You're not being nosy."

"Be safe. Take your phone."

"I will. I won't hear you if you call; I'll have my music on. But, in case of emergency, I've got it, k?"

"K . . . hey, you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Not any worse than I've been."

"You're not pulling my leg?"

"Nope."

"Well, I guess 'not any worse' isn't too bad." At which point I cracked a smile. My roommate seemed genuinely concerned (not nosy). Perhaps my posture said it all. I was stiffly staring into my computer screen slumped over like a tired old hunchback. Really though, it was nothing a quick walk couldn't remedy; no need for concern.

A blast of icy air hit my face as I walked out the door. I was awake and numb. Not three blocks out, a strange sort of inspiration caught up to me: the empty streets, the sad faces, and the overall grey-scale palette that permeated the whole scene took me by surprise. These were things that I had seen everyday no doubt, but tonight, a damp heaviness took over everything in my path. Maybe I was the one carrying around the heaviness? You ever felt a weight in your lungs, like an indescribable burden that just hunkers down in your chest and soaks itself into your heart, your lungs, the air you inhale? Yeah, like that. That's what I was feeling.

As I was walking at a fast and steady pace, all engrossed in a song called "Little Shadow," my rhythm was disrupted by, well, a little shadow--a clumsy image on the periphery of a cracking sidewalk. It was an elderly woman just stepping onto the crosswalk, hobbling across the street. Her gait was awkward and unbalanced and hampered by the load she was carrying on her severely hunched back. Yet for all this, there was a determination to her. For a split-second, I stopped walking to stare in sad admiration. It seemed that nothing would take her down, not her old age, not her stiffening wrinkles, not her thin, fading hair. Shoot, not even that unwieldy sack taking over the whole of her tiny frame was going to slow her down. She was a sight in complicated layers of dingy grey. Her bony, gloveless hands were vulnerable, dark, and strong, as they strained behind her and clutched the hulking bag of who-knows-what on her back. It could have been anything, but if you ask me, whatever it was, it all added up to a bitter load of life's disappointments and sorrows. This appendage loomed over her spine like rotting fruit on a brittle branch. I wanted to pause just a little longer to see her to her destination. How much farther could she possibly carry this thing? It wasn't just curiosity on my part, it was resonation (poetic license, here). She was my metaphor, my muse.

I walked on passed the sulking garbage on the streets, passed the cold cars, passed the empty shops, passed the rusty metal siding, and passed that beautiful moldy wall that I keep meaning to take a picture of. I walked passed a young shivering schoolgirl who should have already been home by now. I walked passed a welder and the sparks that flew and disappeared without me. Then, I walked back home (2 hours later) and I wrote this sonnet:

We went down like ghosts, tripping lonely wires

into fists of light, punching up the dark.

Rags around our necks, cloaks for cold liars,

and gloves for numb nails, scratching up a spark.

The welder, his white metal, its quick light

twitching at the night like seizing fireflies.

Lights off! Let us walk passed your hooded sight!

Your visored eye, your cigarette-blown lies

disappear while our hands swing idly by.

And my tongue idle too, keeps warm and bruised

in a mouth full of silence, while you lie

like a dead man parsing time for his muse.

Wake up! she waits for you like a portrait

in grey, a shadowed hunchback, barely lit.

Take a Long, "Heart" Look

*Suggestion: If you survive this long entry, please click on the link at the end--it's a video of my students! It might make more sense after reading.*

". . . God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7).

I was having major anxiety issues right around my second week in Korea. Part of my responsibility as a middle and high school teacher includes speaking at chapel every third Friday. You could say it's like having a church service only it's on a school day and the attendees are wiggly teens between the ages of 13 and 18. This is nerve-wracking. Teaching To Kill a Mockingbird is one thing, teaching the Bible is another. My stress levels go through the roof when I'm explaining God's word. Heavy stuff.

You have to understand, I had never given a "sermon" before . . . at least not on purpose. I was freaking out at the thought of what topic I should even speak about when my turn would come around. So there I was, asking for some serious prayer, and asking God for some serious inspiration.

One night, as I was reading in bed (this has become quite the habit lately), I opened up my bible to the 1st book of Samuel. I love this book. It tells the story of David, an "ordinary" shepherd with a courageous and poetic heart who (unbeknownst to even those closest to him) would one day become King. He was overlooked by his father and brothers. He was seemingly a run-of-the-mill shepherd. He was the youngest in the family. He did not lead a glamorous life (unless you consider hanging out with sheep all day glam). To add to this, the "height of his stature" was not all that impressive. He was the last person who would ever be thought of as king. . . who knew? Now Samuel (a prophet sent by God to choose this new king) was not looking for the same qualities that God was looking for. Samuel wasn't looking at the heart. But how could he? How does one do that? It's a tough thing to do, especially when we don't even know the person. Lucky for Samuel, God helped him out in the "heart-looking" department.

Cut to King Saul. Saul who had been chosen by the people, mind you, was miserably failing as King. He was by no means living a life worthy of what God had called him to--but hey, he "looked" the part, right? Sure, but it takes more than appearance or the people's vote to be a good king (I can think of endless examples in modern-day politics where this is true). Now the part where God shows the prophet Samuel that David will be anointed as King while Saul's reign is deteriorating, is the BEST part. Why? Because God's choice was unpredictable--it threw everyone for a loop! He chose David for his HEART, not his appearance.

The minute I read 1 Samuel 16:7, I knew what I HAD to talk about this at chapel. I thought to myself, "Being a teenager can really suck, especially when you're trying to figure out who you are. You become ultra aware of how others perceive you (usually not an accurate perception), and often lose sight of your true self or your true-self's potential. I know I did, and it's so hard to ever get a solid grip on caring more about who we are to God than who we are in the eyes of everyone else.

I'll never tire of reading the book of Samuel and how the story of David unfolds. It's inspirational and scary all at once. It makes me wonder how many times I've been drawn to someone or something on the basis of appearance or style rather than substance. I am reminded of God's character and the spiritual laws that are so difficult to abide by in my own weak skin. David's story is a beautiful foreshadowing of Jesus the Messiah, the King of Kings. God illustrates that His ways are utterly different than our ways. David would never have fit the people's idea of what a king looked like--good thing he was chosen by God, not by man.

In the same way, Jesus (the Messiah) did not meet up to the so-called kingly image that people were looking for as they waited and waited for the Messiah to show up. Again, many people of His day refused to believe that He was the Son of God who would take away the sins of the world. Today, people still don't see Him as King. Here's an interesting description of Jesus from the 53rd chapter of Isaiah:

"He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem."

Even though Jesus did things like turn water into wine, heal the blind, and walk on water, He was still spit at, mocked, ignored, violently beaten and executed. Thank God (literally!) Jesus' death was only temporary. He is alive today. He is the King of kings. And yet, He knows what it's like to be forgotten and despised. So He calls us to see things differently. To see people as He does. He calls us to love others to the extent that we would be willing to die for them. A good place to start would be to "look" at those who are easily ignored, misjudged, alienated, and mistreated not for how they appear, but for who they are in the eyes of TRUTH.

At the end of that particular chapel message, I asked my students to do the same: "Take a long, hard look at yourselves and those around you. Ask God to show you the truth," then I showed them a video (of themselves!) . . .

The week before I spoke at chapel, I asked them to write down one word that would describe how others perceive them. Then I asked them to turn the paper over and write one word that describes how God perceives them. I didn't tell them what to write, nor did I tell them what this was related to. I did, however, ask them for permission to video-tape them. In a facebook/youtube generation, they didn't mind (at ALL). Some of their people-vs-God perspectives were not congruent, but honesty was all I asked for. You will see that one girl left hers blank on the "God" side because she truly couldn't answer how God sees her--that's pretty honest.

Here's a link to the video of my students (and 3 fellow teachers). I love them. I will continue to ask God to help me see them as He sees them.

Now, take a look: ACA Heart-Look