What I've learned from Elisabeth Elliot

Elisabeth Elliot's quotes ring truer to me than nearly anything written save Scripture. There's something about her personal experience that has led her to proclaim each of these wise sayings that strikes a chord in my heart. Future self, when the world is falling in about your ears and you are tired of waiting; when the road seems too twisty and turn-y and you can't decide which fork is the right one; when God closes doors and denies you what you thought was good, read these and take heart.

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“God never witholds from His child that which His love and wisdom call good. God's refusals are always merciful -- "severe mercies" at times but mercies all the same. God never denies us our hearts desire except to give us something better."

“Waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the heart to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one's thoughts.”

“I realized that the deepest spiritual lessons are not learned by His letting us have our way in the end, but by His making us wait, bearing with us in love and patience until we are able to honestly to pray what He taught His disciples to pray: Thy will be done.”

“Does it make sense to pray for guidance about the future if we are not obeying in the thing that lies before us today? How many momentous events in Scripture depended on one person's seemingly small act of obedience! Rest assured: Do what God tells you to do now, and, depend upon it, you will be shown what to do next.”

“Of one thing I am perfectly sure: God's story never ends with 'ashes.'”

wallflower in the ballroom of life

You move through the days like a machine--wake up, read your Bible, have a cup of coffee, classes, work, interact with people--but somewhere deep inside you is something troubling: a thought, a ponder, that maybe you don't fit in because you're not as real as everyone else (or maybe you're realer, and that might be worse).

You've stood at the edges of rooms and watched the grand dance take place around you. People talking. Laughing. Flirting. But wallflowers and shadows cling to the edges, like ghosts at the fringe of a living, breathing world, uncertain of how and where and when to join the dance. And once you finally step in and bat words back and forth with another human being, your smile feels stiff and false and your laugh a little forced and your eyes as hard and cold as diamonds (but maybe they're just cut glass). You wonder why the 'you' in a room full of people is a thousand miles away from the one who stands shimmering under starlight, like a tragic fairy tale or myth (your true form is only clear under the moonlight or in the dusk of evening, or when you're caught up in the mystery and beauty of a well written line of poetry) and you wonder if that's normal and everyone feels it or if you're just different that way.

You're pretty insecure about this life thing. Especially friends and goodness-let's-not-even-talk-about-boys because somehow, deep down, you feel like an observer on the sidelines, a reader of some epic tale in which you've accepted the role of a minor character. You don't deserve someone to love you, someone to sit with you in the dusk and listen to you spin your tapestries of fancy or woe. You're okay with being the sidekick--nodding and listening and "Oh, that's lovely!" or "I'm so sorry. I wish I could help," but some days you want to roar and don a crown and blast the hero to shreds with your diamond eyes (sharper than cut glass) because you are a person (and you matter too).

But mostly you just spend a lot of time listening and helping and hoping and loving and trying to believe that they actually like you because they like you and not just because they're being nice. Sometimes you catch yourself trying to earn their love and it makes you angry because that's not how it's supposed to work.

And then there's the future. A current tugs you along, persistent and patient as you struggle through the dregs of the river of indecision, but sometimes you just want to scream and smash something because you don't believe in destiny and why is it your fate to be human and limited to one lifetime, one century (or less--cut glass must shatter someday) on this spinning ball of mud and blood and angst and tears. You have had visions of yourself at fifty, at seventy, and you know that you cannot be contained by four walls and society's expectations

because

you are like ice and an autumn breeze, like
raindrops making ripples on the glassy surface of the lake
trembling with aliveness; quiet; and then still.

You can be anything. You can move mountains and write novels or be a pirate in the south pacific. You can open the best bookstore-library this side of Alexandria or lead little children on adventures that will shake their worlds to the core.

But some days you forget about the mountains (and the diamonds in your eyes) and it isn't until the moment when you realize that you are you that the sky opens up and you realize that you've been a character in this story all along.

(and no one, not even side characters, deserve less than a worthy ending)

Why I Don't Blog

Welp, it looks as though I've only posted twice since 2011 (not that anyone's counting) but lately I've had a lot of thoughts and a little time and felt the need to give this blogging thing another try.

So. New name. "Laughter like a lion" is a line from G.K. Chesterton's poem "The Wise Men." Read the full last stanza for some context:

"Hark! Laughter like a lion wakes
     To roar to the resounding plan.
And the whole heaven shouts and shakes
     For God Himself is born again,
And we are little children walking
     Through the snow and rain."

I really like this poem. I don't understand it by a long shot, but there's something about the lines (and that one line in particular) that stirs something inside me. Call it joy, the Flash, inspiration--it's pretty amazing, whatever it is.

So, me not blogging. The first blog I was ever exposed to was "Insanity Comes Naturally" by Anna, a person whose writing I very much admired. Really. Her writing is stunning. I still get swept away when I go through her archives and look at her poetry or musings on life and God. I wanted more than anything to write like that--to be able to express my thoughts in a coherent way, and online is awesome because it won't burn or accidentally get deleted.

Great, so I'd decided I was going to start a blog. But what kind of blog? Awesomely deep and writerly, like Anna's, with prose and poetry and musings? A place to spew all the crazy, funny stories of farm life/college life/life life? An actual, serious blog about writing or Christianity or something non-fictiony? Therein lay my problem--I WANTED TO DO ALL THE THINGS.

Actually, that's still my problem. I don't want to be just deep or just funny or just intellectual...I want to be ALL of them. So I deeply apologize if this blog ends up being a weird conglomeration of random things. Including stories about scorpions in the shower and how my characters talk to me sometimes. But I've been looking for a creative vent for months and I've finally given in and decided to give this one more try.

So, I decided I could blog about all the things. But then there was the trouble of the TITLE (Odyssean Journeyish Quest Thing just wasn't cutting it) and that's where Chesterton saved the day because "Laughter like a Lion" sounds both funny (laughter) and serious (lions are serious) and deep (why is the lion laughing?).

I don't anticipate readers. I really don't, because I've written papers about how the "Blogosphere" (y'all, that's the technical term for this imaginary internet world) is just too many people with too much to say to too few readers. But I do anticipate growth, and writing practice, and hopefully an artifact for me to find someday, carefully preserved in the dusty virtual archives of the internet.

(yes I know the internet isn't dusty, stop looking at me like that)

The Author and Perfecter

As a writer, sometimes I think it might be fun to meet my characters one day.

But most the time I have my senses about me and realize that they would probably kill me as soon as they figured out who I was rather than having any sort of gratitude toward me in the least.

Which absolutely makes sense. Allow me to explain.

One of my favorite quotes on writing sounds something like, "Figure out the worst possible thing that could happen to your main character--and then make it happen to them." Which for some authors has to do with physical torment, but for me means emotional torture that seems as though it is beyond all enduring--and indeed, it may be. I make young Prince Leo have to choose which of his brothers will be killed first. I force Theo into marrying (SPOILER ALERT) the bloodthirsty princess who merely wants the throne. I take two lovebirds like Livi and Agravaine and set them at odds so that they spend more time than not in anguish over the fact that they are always fighting.

But why? Is it merely because I am a masochistic mastermind who is taking out my frustration with the world and my life on these characters? Because I like seeing people suffer, even if they're only imaginary?

No. (Well, for some writers, perhaps, but not for me.) I make these things happen because in the beginning, the characters are not complete. Leo is spoiled and haughty. Theo is corrupt and sneaky. Livi is prim and quick to anger. But through their traumatic and sometimes horrible experiences, a change comes over them. None of them, coming out on the other side, would look back and say, "I'd rather none of that had happened."

(Except for maybe Theo, but he's an exceptional case.)

Still, sometimes I wonder what it would be like to meet one of them. To stand face to face with Leo and have him look me in the eye and ask, through gritted teeth, "Why? Why would you do that to me? Make me choose? Send me nightmares? Put me in the hands of evil men?"

He would ask it, of course, at the moment when things looked their darkest. Because he cannot see the future. He does not know how the story will end.

But I do. I have planned everything out from the beginning--knew the end before he was even taking baby steps, so to speak. And my time-frame is different than his. I can jump about, from the beginning to the end to the middle and back to each again, in ways that he never could. And because I know the end, I would be able to put my hand on his shoulder and look back into those tortured blue eyes and say, "It's okay. It's okay. They aren't going to die. You'll be alright. You even get a girlfriend out of it. Just be patient and trust me. I know what I'm doing."

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How much more so is God the author of our lives? When things are the most turbulent and I can't possibly understand what's going on, sometimes I cry, "Lord, WHY?"

I can only imagine him shaking his head and smiling sadly and saying, "I'm so sorry, Dearheart, but you must persevere. And don't worry, my love--the ending is beyond your wildest dreams."

Even though I don't know what he's doing right now, I must simply choose to trust that his plan is best, that he has trials ahead for the purpose of developing my character (and the character of others), that he loves me more than I even love Theo, and that he knows the end and it is good.

Because God, unlike certain literary authors I could mention, has already decided on a happy ending.

On Change

The world changes. It is one of the facts of life. As the natural processes continue, ages come and go. People are born, and people die. Life begins and ends, but the world is not the same at the end as it was at the beginning.

In an age long ago, there was honesty and honor. Chivalry and courage were respected and revered among men, and justice was praised above all else.

But then the world changed.

Sometimes change is sudden, like a clap of thunder or flash of lightning. The ground shifts under our very feet, and things are abruptly not as they were. It is the gradual change, however, that is most common. The dull, yearly foot that after five-thousand, two-hundred and eighty years becomes a mile. It is not sudden. It is not obvious.

And often, we do not notice the change until it is too late.

With each passing moment there is change. This second in this day will never come again—nor will this night, or morn, or month, or year. Sixteen years becomes seventeen. There is courtship and marriage, children and empty-nesters, and then there is death. It is only in rare, somber moments that we see the change taking place during the years—in which we see that things will not always be the same. Some miss those moments altogether. Some find them daily.

Children grow old—as does romance. Is it not strange how one can spend one’s life wishing the days away ‘until’, and then wish the very opposite? At the end, when gray hair has replaced youthful color, and the Golden Age has set like a dying sun, there are only the memories of the way things were before the change.

For when change occurs, there is naught on earth that can undo it.

Many fear change, for no one understands it. Everyone wonders why the seasons shift from spring to summer, summer to fall, yet no explanation can be found. Change is a fearful thing—yet it also brings great joy. The chilling bliss of a moonlight night would never sweep across young lovers if the sun should never set. The amber rays of dawn would never stretch across the sky if the cool night never ended.

And if this life went ever on, would we really be the gladder? If things went unchanged—if age after age went by with not a difference in culture or inhabitants of this earth—would it make us happy?

Without change, there is no risk; without risk, no thrill, without thrill, nothing worth living for. If dull gray monotony rose over the horizon each dawn, what would be the point of rising from one’s bed? Change, therefore, is not always to be feared. If there was only gray unfeelingness, truly, there would be no sorrow, yet there would be no joy either.

Change comes and change goes. Life goes on, but things will never be the same as they were before. Therein is the victory and despair of the world. If joy was not worth risking sorrows for, we would not try it. But given the choice between an unchanging forever, or one that is different day by day, which would you chose?

As for our earth, our world, it changes more with every heartbeat. And that is the only thing that will ever remain the same.

The Mountains Are Calling

RMNP Mountain Lake

So. My family just got back from a very long, very exciting vacation. I won't go into details, but at one point we went on a very treacherous mountain pass which dropped off on both sides (think Shasta in Horse and His Boy). The views on both sides were fantastic. Scrumptious. Incredible.

There was a visitor center at the top (probably so you could rest a while and uncurl your fingers from their tight grip around the steering wheel or, in the passenger's case, from the sides of one's seat. One of the popular shirts at said visitor center read, "The Mountains are calling and I must go." It was by some naturalist...one I could probably find quickly were I not too lazy to google it right now.

On the way back, I snapped this picture with my phone out the window (hence the lousy light and terrible resolution). It's a mountain lake I'd noticed on the way in-a small body of water half hidden by the craggy mountainside and the forest and snow around it. As soon as I caught sight of it, the story ideas began. What would it be like to hike up to that lake? What if there was a hidden city on the side of the mountain I couldn't see, beside the lake? How many people had traveled through that forest-what if knights had made the journey, being more technologically advanced than we believed them to be. Were there lakes like this in the UK-in Ireland and Scotland and all those other lovely places I've always wanted to visit? Did knights wander through there, eventually passing similar remote mountain lakes on their quests or adventures?

And then it hit me-the longing. I suddenly wanted more than anything to go see this lake, to go stand on the edge of that mountain and feel content because I'd reached this secret, mysterious place.

The mountains are calling and I must go.

In the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis uses the illustration of "the old Narnia" to remind us of how we feel about our own world. Once the old Narnia is destroyed, the survivors, Peter and Lucy and Edmund and so on, are heartbroken. Then they realize that the new place in which they find themselves is almost exactly same as the old Narnia, only different-deeper, more wonderful, more like the real thing. Jewel the Unicorn says, "The reason we have loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this."

Every longing we feel in this world is a blind grasping for something else, something we'll never find in this world no matter how hard we look. Y'know the hope you get when you squinch your eyes shut and dive into a wardrobe, desperately longing to plunge, not into the wooden back of the thing that ends up giving you some nasty splinters, but into a field of lamp-post lit snow? That longing isn't for Narnia. It's for somewhere else, really. Somewhere we belong.

Again, from Jewel: "I have come home at last. This is my real country. I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, but I never knew it till now."

Personally, I can't wait until that longing is fulfilled. And it will be. For the Kingdom is calling, and eventually, I must go.

The Arena: A Sutcliffian Short Story

 This is a short story I wrote about a gladiator. I was currently obsessed with Rosemary Sutcliff at the time, especially her book "Mark of the Horse Lord" (go read it. Or anything by her. Her stories are LEGENDARY!), which explains the stolen name "Phaedrus" (which just feels like it rolls off the tongue). The story is called "The Arena".

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The sand of the arena was soaked with sweat and blood and riddled with wounds made from the sharp hooves of horses and the scars left by previous battles. Phaedrus stopped to stare at the desert of death for only a second, then letting himself be shoved forward until he and the others stood together in a tight band before the Emperor’s seat. His hands were shaking harder than they’d ever shook before—harder than when he’d faced the band of invading brigands who had plundered his family and stolen him from his homeland—harder than when the slavers had knifed his brother for trying to escape. Ander was next to him, fair hair rumpled and that familiar, eager grin twisting his face into an almost-grimace. Ander was excited about today—their first fight in the Ring. Phaedrus just felt sick.

“Ave, Imperator, morituri te salutant.” It was a roar, rising up from around him. Hail Emperor, we who are about to die salute you. Phaedrus only barely remembered to lift his spear in salute to the man who sat in the Emperor’s seat. It was the custom, Ander had told him before, eyes shining but face stern in an attempt to look seasoned and at ease. The custom. The games were a custom too, which was part of the reason Phaedrus felt as if his insides had turned to snakes.

The audience roared back in response to the gladiators’ salute. A flower floated down into the arena and landed on the sand at Phaedrus feet. When he looked up, his eyes found another pair: dark, cool, thoughtful; he could see them clearly despite the distance between them. The girl watched him calmly, and then smiled as he inclined his head slightly toward her.

“So, sa,” shouted Ander at his side (one had to shout to be heard in the arena). “You have an admirer!”

His friend swept the flower from the ground and shoved it into Phaedrus’ hand—his sweaty, shaking hand that also held a round buckler.

“Keep it close to your heart. She may look for you after the games.”

After the games. If he survived. Phaedrus glanced up at the girl again and saw that she was still watching him. After the games, he thought, and decided that if he could remember her eyes and hold onto her flower, he might just make it to the end of this day.

The doors opened at the end of the arena, and a mass of brightly colored Somethings leapt through. Phaedrus recognized Demos, the new magnificent horned bull that Ander swore he could best. And there was Serpas, the beardless lion, striding forward with the grace of an enslaved monarch. Of the rest he could name only Junas and Tamar, the two leopards from the wilds to the south, but the others that followed were just as deadly as the creatures that had names. There was an elephant—not full grown, although his tusks were still sharp and deadly; two more bulls were released, and also some wild dogs that might have once been called wolves. The animals entered the ring lazily, as if they did not want to fight today. Someone jabbed Phaedrus in the side with a pole and shouted, “Stir ‘em up, boy! The Emperor’s in a foul temper today.”          

Ander was already halfway across the ring, running (of course) toward Demos. The striped bull held his head as if the long horns that hung from it were heavy, but he was already beginning to pound the earth with his bone-crushing hooves.

Phaedrus jogged toward the creatures as quickly as he could while holding a buckler and spear. He’d entertained hopes of being given a sword, but knew the idea was outlandish and silly. The trainer had given him a try with one the day before yesterday, and then decided that javelin and spear were better for a former hunter who’d never touched a sword—much less fought with one—in his life.

One of the three tigers turned its head to look at him as he ran towards it, and his stomach churned in anticipation. His feet kicked up claret sand as he stumbled; his buckler flew from his grasp, though he did not let the flower fall. Cursing, Phaedrus dove for the shield. It would not do to be caught without it—he’d seen the mangled bodies of strong warriors being dragged inside the gates after an animal fight. The tiger had veered away from the others and was moving toward him now. With a shudder, Phaedrus grabbed the buckler and hoisted it back onto his arm. He could feel the flower wilting in his sweaty clasp, its white petals no whiter than his bloodless face. He turned to face the tiger just as it sprang forward.

Time slowed. Phaedrus lifted his buckler and shoved his spear forward with a bellow of fear and bloodlust—a war cry. The spearhead sliced a ragged gash in the tiger’s leg and shoulder, and it screamed with pain and rolled away—but not before two searing claws raked across its opponent’s scalp. Phaedrus felt nothing until the first shock passed. The warm, sticky blood felt almost like sweat on his forehead, but it stung his eyes and made it hard to see. He swiped at it carefully, ignoring the throbbing as best he could, and then turned to look at his foe.

They circled each other now; the tiger's eyes were yellow like gold. As Phaedrus met its gaze, anger poured over him; hatred. Fear. The beast was afraid, and so was he.

Perhaps it was this, the strange understanding between him and his enemy, that created a strange kinship between them in that moment. The hatred did not fade from the tiger’s eyes, yet somehow Phaedrus knew that it was a shared hatred—a hatred of the men-like beasts that had taken them both from their homes and thrust them in this bloody arena to kill for the entertainment of others.

We are not so different, my enemy, he thought, and it seemed to him that the tiger agreed.

It turned and loped away slowly, limping from the cut he had given it. Phaedrus was not so foolish enough to think that the understanding they had found had anything to do with its retreat; the creature was tired and did not want to fight. He watched it run and took in the hollow sides and protruding ribs, the matted fur and stumbling limp, and knew that captivity had done more than give hatred to this beast. He watched it for a moment more, and then felt feeling return to his limbs. The sweaty flower was still clamped in his fingers. Perhaps the stem had been squeezed in two—he dared not look to see. There was a roar from behind him, and Phaedrus turned just in time to dodge the attack of one of the leopards. His spear moved before his mind could, and the leopard fell in a heap at his feet, snarling and clawing at him as he wondered about the easiest way to remove a spear from a carcass.

There was a sword on the ground a few yards away. That was the best bet, for a spear once lodged in beast’s body—especially a beast that was not yet dead—was a hard thing to get back. The sword was lying next to its previous owner, a man with a thick beard and no left arm. It surprised Phaedrus that the missing arm did not make his stomach swell with sickness again, but his blood was up; his battle-lust renewed as it had not been since the day he fought for his freedom.

Only on that day, he had not won.

The next moments were a blur to him. The sword was clumsy in his fist, and it was better to run and evade the elephant, using its bad eyesight as an asset, than to try to fight it himself. He led it to three men who had spears, and they killed it for him—although one was speared himself on the giant creature’s tusk before at last its great head rested on the sand.

It was now out of pity that he slew half-wounded cheetahs and bulls. They were often still fighting, but too slow to do him any damage, so that it was a little thing to dodge forward and cut their throats with the sharp blade that was now quite slick. His hands were sticky with the red stuff—what was it called?—and the metallic taste and smell were in his mouth and at the back of his nose. His ears were filled with the roar that rose up around him and swallowed everything else—swallowed his anguish and fear and left him with nothing but the systematic slashing and stabbing that was all he had left.               

Phaedrus had just put a wounded wolf out of its misery when someone shouted, “The tiger! The tiger!”

Everything else in the ring was dead, it seemed; what was not would be soon, and the only survivors were being led away out the gate. Phaedrus recognized the sturdy form of Ander, which meant his friend had made it out alive. A rush of exhilaration almost overwhelmed him: he had survived. It was over.

Unfortunately, it was not. Someone jabbed him from behind—the butt end of a spear, Phaedrus saw, as he stumbled forward and rubbed his ribs with his spare arm (he’d lost his buckler to the bull). The Arena Guard ignored his glare and jerked his head toward a group of three other men who were prodding along the tiger he’d faced before.

“The crowds want blood. Finish it off.”               

Phaedrus felt the blood-lust ebb as he gave the man an incredulous stare.

“The tiger? But it’s wounded—not a fair fight.”

“The crowd doesn’t care. They want it dead—and make a show of it, boy. This is your moment.”

Phaedrus’ head ached, as did his shoulder, where the wolf had bitten him, and his lower leg where he’d strained some sort of muscle running from the elephant. His breathing was beginning to slow as the battle-rage died down, and he shook his head stubbornly. Memories of his family—his stolen sisters, his slaughtered brother—give him strength through anger, and he wonders if he could take the guard if he tried.

“Just do it, boy!” the guard growled, and then turned his spear so the point was facing Phaedrus. “Or we’ll treat you like one of them!”

“Haven’t you already?” Phaedrus muttered, but turned obediently to face the tawny beast as his anger died down. What point would there be to attacking the guard? He would not escape the Arena—not now, or ever. His brother and sisters would be avenged, though—someday. Somehow he would find a way, if it took him a lifetime of weariness and hatred to do it.

The tiger was limping still, and there was a weary, defeated look in its eyes. Still, they hardened when they met his gaze, and the hatred returned in full force. He wondered it was fighting with family in mind as well.

Slowly, calmly, he raised his sword and saluted the beast. It pulled back its lips into a snarl, and then gathered itself for one more spring. His sword leapt forward of its own free will and cut its legs out from under it. The tiger screamed, as it had before, and its foreclaws raked his arm and side. The smell of blood was in his nostrils, pain hung on his lips as the world stood still. The tiger landed and rolled heavily on the sand. It did not get up.

“Go on, boy,” shouted one of the guards, one of the three who had been corralling the tiger forward. “Kill it.”

Phaedrus watched as the golden gaze closed, as the great tawny body gave a shuddering sigh, and turned away with blurry eyes. He let the sweaty flower fall from his trembling fingers and dropped to his knees in the hot, bloody sand of the Arena.

“I did.”

finis