Hii! Truth be told, guys, I don’t really know where any of this is going. But I think that’s actually a very good thing. I’ll come back to that. For now, I’ll try to lay out where I’m coming from with all of this, though it’s the type of spiritual jello that’s near impossible to nail down with words. But it’s worth a shot, no? It appears that I’ve already mixed metaphors and inadvertently called this post a spiritual jello shot, so I’d say we’re off to a good start.
Here’s the scene that’s been in my head a lot lately, begging that I write it down:
There’s a room, and it’s grown a bit darker over time. In it sits a whole assortment of characters—each has been told in various ways that they are bad, inherently wrong in their existence. Perhaps they made a mistake, and now believe it’s who they are. Perhaps they have a limp, a lisp, a bald spot, a slow metabolism. A job that inspires invisibility treatment. A family who doesn’t want them anymore. A mom who never approved. A disability. A disease. An ineptitude for mathematics. An ineptitude for athletics. A long list of polite rejections. A grieving or post-trauma season that they haven’t gotten over yet, long after everyone said they should “get over it.” Age. Acne. Asthma. Cellulite. Infertility. Impractical talents. Impractical dreams. The wrong color of skin. The wrong number of toes. The wrong width of waist. The wrong length of skirt. The wrong relationship. The wrong religion. The wrong language.
A whole group of people who have been told that they are the world’s “have-nots,” and who believe it.
But then this guy walks into the room. He turns the light on, looks around, sees everyone, and sees absolutely nothing wrong.
“This is perfect. Let’s have a party.”
Which inspires some raised eyebrows. Someone speaks up, “Sir, we can’t party. We are have-nots.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Well uh, we’re just bad. We’re mistakes. We’re not as good as the haves.”
The guy shakes his head. “I’m afraid I still don’t know what you’re talking about. Because I’m throwing a haves-only party and you’re the first ones who were able to receive my invitations.”
Then he found a case of Dasani, and suddenly it was 1992 Screaming Eagle Cabarnet. One of the kids in the room had a sleeve of saltines, and suddenly it was twenty large pizzas. There was some crying. But then there was singing. There was dancing. And they celebrated exactly who they were.
The End.
Actually, it’s the beginning.
What happens when you look honestly at yourself, exactly as you are, and recognize that despite all you think is horrible and ugly and wrong, you were considered a “have” by God from the start?
My trip to the party
Once upon a time, I tried to wear the facade of a worldly “have,” mainly because I cared a lot about what people thought and was really terrified of being a have-not. And I was born into a position where this charade, the status, the power, the look, the *ideal life plan,* the “perfection” was in my reach. I could act like I had it all under my control, and people believed it.
Of course deep down I knew that I didn’t. I was desperately trying to uphold something that doesn’t exist. I was blindly following rules because I was afraid of other fearful people’s opinions and so the real stuff–good and bad– couldn’t get through. That isn’t happiness.
My story from there is a string of situations that basically exposed all the very humanity I was afraid would make me a have-not. I don’t claim this as a pretty scene. With every blow I became so exhausted and empty from trying to cover it up that eventually I was like “Alright, God! You got me! I do in fact have all the makings of a ‘have-not’ and I don’t know what I’m doing and I could really use your help!” Thus bringing me into that state I mentioned at the beginning of this sprawling post: Truth be told, I don’t really know where this is going.
That admission was terrifying for me at first, but then it became liberation. My channel was clear. Help showed up. I could find joy in all the places I thought were hopeless. Life is good when the façade of who I think you want me to be is gone, and I’m a kid who doesn’t pretend to be an expert at this life game, who gets dirty and makes mistakes and doesn’t count calories and talks to strangers and sings and gets paint in her hair. When I’m taking risks in the name of love because no outcome could be worse than living in fear. Every *ideal plan* I could ever concoct looks like total cliché poppycock compared to what happens when I hand the reigns over to the quiet moment-by-moment dictates of God, of Love, of the Universe, and don’t worry about the outcome.
From there, anything is possible.
From there, there aren’t good and bad people, haves and have-nots, “them” and “me.” We’re one. So there’s no use judging.
From there, I may not be liked by all, but I can be seen, and thus recognize that I am deeply, radically loved. And that’s where everything starts to shift.
It’s from that state where I’m finally open enough be able to receive the invitation to the party.
I owe the people in my life who are bravely dancing the dance despite those telling them they shouldn’t—the strange gorgeous genuine shameless loving types—so much. They led me into the party. (I hope you know who you are!) I owe the main guy who walked into the room and reminded us all that according to some other measure, there’s nothing wrong…Well, I owe him everything. Truly everything. (I know you know who you are! @Jesus @God)
Which brings us here.
There’s a one-way ticket to Antigua, Guatemala with tomorrow’s date and my name on it, and I’m so very excited, guys. But I’d like to get something straight. After language school, I move to Honduras and my job title at Farm of the Child will officially become “missionary” and eventually “teacher”… but I’d really really prefer to be called student. Or maybe even just an adult kid. Because when people aggrandize it as this big favor I’m swooping in and doing for the poor orphaned children, I gag a little. No no no no no. I’m not helping anyone by thinking that “I” am helping the “them,” because that’s reinforcing the whole haves/have-nots BS we need to de-bunk here, am I right? I’m still re-learning this dance after all. I’m just hanging out with my fellow humans, and probably sharing some English language. (I’m really excited to get to the part where I tell them that thorough, tough, through, thought, and though all sound completely different. I think that’ll go well)
Any position we hold can be service, just so easily as it cannot. The Finca kids and I will be most helpful to one another by reminding ourselves, and then each other, that there’s something bigger than our worldly circumstances and it’s possible to be happy, to love each other. That I’m joyful even though I’m that stuttering-white-peliroja-fish-out-of-water, who does yoga and plays the ukulele very imperfectly, even though I’m just a kid who is far from an expert at this life game. And despite their traumas, their burdens, their day-to-day struggles of just growing up, it’s a joy possible for them too. That’s where we grow and re-learn the dance again, way more than from people’s efforts to “fix” us.
I guess, if we must call me “teacher,” I think back to the many teachers in my life who pointed me toward the party and say: If I can be the eyes that see each of these kids, like really see them, and they eventually are led to see for themselves that they are not indeed “have-nots” after all, I cannot think of a higher God-given honor. I’ll do my best. We’ll see. I’ll love them either way.
Edwina Gateley wrote a really awesome reflection I read for a theology class in Notre Dame (You’ve officially found the one nerd who hoards class readings), and I think this quote rings true here: “True compassion is not about being one with one’s own social cultural group, but it is being able to see and know oneself as connected to every human person without reservation. The words of Jesus, ‘I am in you and you are in me’ became gloriously real and alive on society’s edges. That experience itself is magic on the margins.”
And while we’re quoting people who say it better than I can, here’s another one: “In the presence of love, the laws that govern the normal state of affairs are transcended.” -Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love
The Haves-Only Party is not a gated community. All are welcome. Come as you are, whatever that looks like, and eventually you’ll see in a new light. There’s nothing wrong. There are only Haves. And we’re all in the same dance.
(“Dancing Figures” by Keith Haring)