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venussinclair3 · 3 years

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Fun While It Lasted

Disclaimer? I haven’t written in a long time so I’m a little rusty but yeah this is just something short that I kind of liked. Would really appreciate constructive feedback (please be nice I’m sensitive)! Should I continue this? Should I put it on Wattpad? Anyway, enjoy!

"You live next door yet you somehow always take forever to get here." She was laying in bed in a pink oversized shirt when he snuck through her window.

"Sorry, I was looking for my crayons." His hands were empty, "Couldn't find them. Can I use yours?" He plastered a large smile on his face because who could say no to such a cute face?

"This was your idea you know. How are you going to propose we draw each other and have no supplies whatsoever?" She said as she walked to the bookcase that stood in the back of her room. The third shelf was riddled with paintbrushes, sharpies, and crayons. She had meant to clean it last week but never found the time. Maybe she'll get to it next week.

"Because I knew my good friend Oasis would have my back." He jumped on her bed and took off his green converses before grabbing Bimbo.

Bimbo was as old as their friendship. Oasis had received the teddy bear on her fifth birthday, the same day he knocked down her birthday cake because he was running recklessly. She clung on to Bimbo as she cried herself to sleep that night and swore to hate him for as long as she lived.

There was a cake on the table when she went downstairs the next morning, "Blue's mom made it as a way of saying sorry about what happened yesterday." Her mother cut her a slice and gave it to her. It was better than she could have ever imagined. The chocolate cake covered in pink fondant danced in her mouth as the richness of the chocolate chips exploded. She hugged Bimbo tight while devouring the cake, deciding that maybe the little boy wasn't as bad as she thought.

Oasis dumped the supplies on her bed and sat across from Blue, her legs crossed, sketchbook in hand, "My drawing is going to be better than yours."

"Doubt it. I'm a genius." And he was. Straight A student since fifth grade, Blue was the smartest boy in his class. He won the science fair three times in a row and lied his way out of trouble all the time. He lied Oasis out of trouble too because she could never do it herself.

They both got to work, each with a different method: Oasis lightly drew an outline; Blue began working on her left eye. The sounds of the TV downstairs leaked into her bedroom. The Property Brothers were debating over which color they should paint the kitchen of a Nashville home they were working on. "I think the kitchen should be white" mumbled Blue, having started the right eye.

"What?" asked Oasis as she looked up from her sketch.

"Nothing. Where are your speakers? I wanna play some music." She pointed to the bookcase, second shelf.

"Don't play anything stupid."

"Why are your parents home?"

"No, I just don't want to listen to anything stupid."

He chuckled. Bringing the speaker onto the bed and connecting it to his phone, I Wanna Be Yours by Artic Monkeys enveloped them. They both began bobbing their heads.

They played this song when they snuck out for the first time. Oasis jumped out her window and was pretty sure she had broken something, but the adrenaline of defying her parents rushed through her body to numb the pain. By the time she reached the park and met up with Blue, the only thing on her mind was how much fun they were going to have at Mielle's party. And they did have fun. They danced, ate, and drank. She successfully snuck back home with Blue's help and fell asleep the second her head hit her pillow. What she had failed to consider was that the party was on a Thursday night, that her parents would never let her miss a day of school and she was a shit actress. She went to school hungover and was grounded for a month. Blue was company during her punishment.

"You have a really sharp jawline" Oasis stated. She had finally finished with the outline of his face. He looked at her and grinned, taking it as a compliment rather than an observation.

"Thank you, princess." Nothing got under her skin more than that nickname. They fell silent again, a silence she was comfortable with, but he wasn't. As he drew her nose, he begged for her to say something. Anything to convince him that she wasn't mad at him, that they were still friends, that she wasn't just tolerating him.

"Have you seen the new house yet?" Thank god. His prayers were answered when she raised the question so he spoke without thinking, "Yeah the new house is great! My room is way bigger and we even have a dishwasher, although I doubt my mom will even want to use it. She'll probably still make me wash them by hand because that woman hates me. Oh and the neighborhood is super nice and I met the girl next door. She's really cool. We've been texting and stuff.” His enthusiasm stung. Blue was moving to Chicago. He was moving 11 hours and 54 minutes away. And he was excited about it. And maybe she shouldn't take it so personally, but when her best friend was rambling about how cool his neighbor is and how he's been talking to her for a while, she couldn't help but feel as if she was about to be replaced. She faked a smile and said, "That sounds exciting. Can't wait to visit you in the summer." Oasis was a shit actress. None of what he said sounded exciting to her, "I'll miss you."

She added another hair stroke to his thick, straight eyebrows and refused to look up because she couldn't promise herself she won't cry. Blue didn't take her eyes off of her for a while. He stared at the way the corners of her round lips curved downward, making it look like she was always sad about something. "I just think it's stupid to move the summer before your senior year." He sighed, "Oasis." The tip of her ears got red as her name escaped from his lips.

The last time he had called her “Oasis” was two weeks ago. She had snuck into his room after he blew up her phone, crying that it was urgent. Each time he had told her that it was urgent, it never was. She hopped through his window to find him at his desk, two Surfer Cooler Capri Sun in front of him. "Oasis, I'm moving in two months." She stopped mid sip. Her brown eyes ran across his face, scanning it for any sign that could give away this sick joke. There was no sign. He was serious. Blue was leaving New York.

It wasn't fair to be mad at him for moving. It's not like he could say no. But she had to be mad at someone. She decided the universe was to blame. "Have you made your college list yet?" he asked in a weak attempt to change the subject. She looked at the way his red lips were slightly open as he anticipated her answer, " Not really. Community college or NYU or Howard. I don't know. You?"

"No idea either. Maybe an Ivy?" He knew he was Dartmouth material but he still sought her approval. He always had.

He went shopping with her right before the eighth-grade dance. They both didn't have dates so they decided to go together as friends. They walked into the Old Navy with "Sale" signs plastered in the front. She thought the signs were useless at this point because when were they not having a sale of some kind? He walked into the dressing room with several shirts out of his $20 budget, and once he had tried them all on, Blue marched to where she was sitting, impatiently waiting for him.

"You are not wearing that purple button up."

"Why?" He cried.

"It's going to clash with my dress and it's literally hideous." She walked back to the rack of button-ups and picked out a green dress shirt for him. "You look so much better in green." Green was his favorite color ever since. They dominated the dance floor at the event and she won a raffle for a Bosse speaker. They spent the next weeks dismantling rumors that they were dating.

"I already picture you thriving at MIT." They both chuckled. He reached for the black to start coloring in the curls of her afro; she reached for the orange to recreate his buzzcut. They fell silent again. "I'll miss you too." She offered him a small smile but that couldn't mask the sadness of her eyes. "We can still facetime and text every day," Blue offered.

"You know it won't be the same." He did know that but his hope lied in the fact that if he never said it out loud, it would be less true. "I take that back. You're more of a Cornell type." Another weak attempt at changing the subject but he went along with it, " I think NYU might be good for you. You'll get to stay close to your sister."

Moya was a prodigy. She began piano lessons at three, and seven years later she played at their aunt's wedding during the bridal entrance. "I think Moya will be fine without me. She'll get even more attention from my parents if I'm gone." The red of his lips was hard to replicate. It lay somewhere between crimson and cherry. "I'll miss that little devil. She promised she was going to compose me a song but never did."

"Pretty sure she had a crush on you." Blue burst into laughter so loud, Oasis barely realized that the album had started all over again and I Wanna Be Yours was playing. "Seriously?" He was in disbelief.

"Yeah, she would always ask when you were coming over and would try to hang out with us all the time."

He wiped the tear from the corner of his eye, "That's adorable." He added the finishing touches to her face: the scar on her chin that she got after he pushed her a little too hard and she fell, the beauty mark right above her lip, the curl at the top of her hair which she complained never behaved like the rest. "Finished." She said. She ripped the page from her sketchbook and walked to the bookcase once more. She grabbed two sheet protectors that were tucked between stacks of books and slipped the drawing inside. He did the same. She stared at the image of Blue, afraid that if she didn't memorize the details of his visage, he would walk out of her room and she would forget him. Forget the memories they created together. The secrets they shared together. She was afraid to forget how much she loved him.

He handed her his drawing and as she saw how he had captured her beauty with nothing but her color pencils, she said, "I'm coming to terms with the fact that we weren't meant to be in each other's lives forever. But it was fun while it lasted...right?"

#storytelling #fiction #writing dialogue #teenagers #love #painting #music #neighbours #ran out of tags

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cookies-hetaoni · 7 years

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This is a rant but, like, you know. It would be nice if you read, if, like. You have patience and time? idk lmao

(adm: Hey guys!! Some things are kind of getting out of control, and honestly I don’t even know where to start, but...! I’m putting this under a cut because it’s so long lmao [I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE]

First thing’s first: this blog was originally created to keep you updated on the progress of the making of my own version of HetaOni [holy cow, that’s a lot of “of”s]. It was released on December 26th, 2016. So, since then, all I’ve been doing is answering asks.

First the asks were about the game, glitches and all that. When people started to praise my art saying they liked how I drew a certain character, I drew them said character as a thank you for the compliment. And somehow, my art has become the main attention of this blog.

It makes me extremely happy that everyone enjoys my art so much, and even more happy when people remember I spent so much time working on the game [lmao], but, guys. Listen. I do not mind getting requests at all, but please understand that I am busy, I have a life and I when I have free time, I want to focus on working on HetaOni and its sequel.

People who have been following me since the beginning might remember I used to say that the reason I was rushing so much to finish and release the game was because I knew that this year I wouldn’t have nearly as enough time as I had last year. And this is exactly what’s happening. I made another post the other day talking about what I was working on regarding the game and the sequel, but now I’m going to tell you a bit of my personal life. Which is not much, to be quite honest.

I am a 21 year old student attending to a Graphic Design course in university, which is set to end in December 2018. It’s a really quick course, so I have to respond just as quickly. Every week I have a lot of work to do for it, now even more so since my class chose me as the class rep [I had absolutely no say in it tbh lmao but that’s okay]. So yes, you get the picture. Picture a Cookie running back and forth, carrying things around while helping my classmates.

Now, because I have depression and other mental health issues, I have to go to both a psychologist and a psychiatrist. I have to go to the psychologist every week, and to the psychiatrist once every month to get meds prescriptions. Imagine a Cookie, running back and forth carrying things around, helping my classmates and having to take meds and go to appointments to try to live life a little bit more normally.

Not only do I have these problems, but things have been going on in my family that have been making me feel even worse. I swear to all that’s looked upon as Holy in this world that I have NEVER been more stressed in my entire life. Never, ever. I’m currently experiencing overwhelming stress while having to deal with uni, health care and personal problems.

To top it off, the country I live in, especially the city I live in, is extremely dangerous. Just so you have an idea, last year my mom’s car and all of my sister’s and her documents/money/credit cards were stolen right in front of my house, while she was getting her car out of the garage. Last week, as I was coming home from uni, there were cops everywhere in my street and a bunch of people gathered together. We heard there was shooting while theives tried to steal someone else’s car. My neighbor’s dog has been killed recently when theives attempted to get inside their house. My neighbor was killed two years ago when he was painting his gate.

So now, imagine Cookie, running back and forth carrying things, having to help my classmates, while having to deal with uni, health care, personal problems and the risk of being killed/assaulted at any time, any day, anywhere. Not really fun, huh?

Well, let’s all be honest. All of this isn’t really a big deal. No, really, it isn’t. Literally everyone have their own problems to deal with, and just because I’m exposing my own doesn’t make it any more serious than anyone else’s problems. In all honesty, even with all of this going on I am still extremely grateful for having a house, clean water, access to education and health care, a family and being someone competent enough that people can rely on. All of us have it hard, and it’s only natural. If things were easy, we wouldn’t be able to experience emotions to its fullest, amiright?

The same way my problems aren’t more important than anyone else’s, that doesn’t make it any less heavy either. Everyone’s said this before, everyone says this constantly and in 80 years, people will continue to say: Life is hard. We are only one, yet the world demands we work as if we were one hundred. But we are not.

Why am I telling you all of this? I could’ve just summed it up and said I was busy, right? Well, I did make a post telling you I was busy before, but people still seemed not to care much. Which is totally fine, I guess. It’s not like it’s anyone’s obligation to care for other’s lives, anyway. Especially since a blog like mine is supposed to create entertaining content. If I offer you something you like to see then you’ll obviously want to see more, because entertainment is most definitely a thousand times better than having to deal with problems.

I am not writing this to complain about the asks I get, or that I want you guys to stop sending me asks or anything of the sort. I am just trying to explain that I do not have time to answer you immediately. That’s all.

I don’t delete any of the asks I get [unless it’s people sending me useless criticism - aka bitching at me for nothing], so it’s not like I forgot about you. So you don’t need to send me the same asks over and over again- this has happened multiple times, probably with different people. I get it, you want your request, I will do it but I just don’t have as much free time as I wish I had.

As I said in the beginning of this post, I created this blog to focus on HetaOni and on its sequel, so that’s what I’m trying to do. If I spend all of my time answering asks, I won’t be able to work on the game and I’ll have to deal with solving glitches for everyone and not getting any work done. And besides all of this I have to do, I also need to work on commissions.

I very much probably made it obvious that I do not have money. I have to gather every single penny I have to be able to pay for my school. If I couldn’t pay it myself, my mom would surely help me. The thing is, I don’t want her to, because I know she doesn’t have money either. All of it goes to pay for the house itself, its expenses, her car, food, bills, and my sister’s uni. She already has her hands full, so I’m trying my best to keep myself standing still. My friends know already that I love my mom unconditionally. She’s everything to me, I would give my life for her in the blink of an eye. I love her a billion more times than I could ever wish to love myself. She is trying very hard to keep everything under control. I’m not going to go much farther on this subject because it would get too personal, and it’s not really necessary for me to share this much information. All you need to know is I am trying my best to earn money so I can pay for school myself and give my mom one less problem to worry about. And earning money is NOT easy.

I don’t have a job. I couldn’t find one because of my mental health issues. Now I am a bit better than before so i started job-hunting again, but with no luck until now. All I can do is rely on commissions, the Patreon account I created just recently and on the donation button I added in the page, though I don’t really expect anyone to actually donate to be completely honest. It’s literally all I can do to earn money, besides selling some of my things.

Making art takes a lot of time. Requests usually take me at least 2-3 hours each. I enjoy drawing requests very much so, I just love drawing with all my heart and whenever I get positive feedback from you guys, I feel like everything is worth it. As much as I love this feeling and wish to hold on to just this, I can’t pay for my university with emotions. More than I love drawing, I love my mom. And if it’s to make the weight she carries even a little bit lighter, I will do whatever it takes to keep steady on my feet by myself, until someday I can earn enough to take care of all of her financial problems and give her the proper life she deserves to live.

I’m not begging you for money. You do not have the obligation to give me financial support, especially because I know a lot of my followers are underage, that art is often not appreciated enough to be seen as something worth investing on and that money is just something VERY hard to attain. Not everyone can afford commissions, being a patron or donating. It’s just natural. That’s why I like to draw requests. I myself am someone that would love to offer financial support to a lot of my favorite artists, but I can’t. Even so, I have to talk about it everytime because I just don’t have another choice.

I am also not writing all of this to make you feel sorry for me, or to create drama or whatever. I am just being completely honest with you, and the length of this post just goes to show how absolutely stressed I have been trying to keep my life in order.

The only reason I am writing all of this is asking you guys to be patient. I WILL answer your asks, but please, just be patient. I’m trying my best to always get as much done as I can whenever I have free time, but I only have two hands. Art isn’t just magically created. It takes time, effort and lots of love for me to come up with answers for you. A lot of you already told me to take my time, not to worry about it and not to stress myself, but it’s kind of impossible not to. To each ask I answer, I get 3. I can never clear my inbox. When I tried closing it, even though I made a post about it, everyone came talking to me personally saying they couldn’t send me asks. I’m not the type of person who forgets about things easily. You could’ve asked me for something 10 years ago and I would still remember about it today- because you asked something for me, and I have 100% intention of doing it. I just need time and inspiration.

So please understand if I take long to answer your requests, or if I turn down a request because it would normally be considered a commission. I’m trying my best. I keep repeating that over and over again, but it’s not something I say just out of habit- I really am trying my best.

I appreciate your asks. I appreciate your support. I appreciate you taking your time to write something for me. Recreating this game and creating this blog was honestly the best idea I could’ve ever had. Interacting with you and creating art that causes positive emotions on both of us is what gives my life meaning. I am holding onto this fandom as if it were my life, because it gives me joy and the feeling I actually matter to someone, that I do things that some people care about and that’s what’s helping me get through the hard times. I love this game, I love this fandom, I love this blog and I love you. All I want from you is patience and understanding. If you want to do something for me, just show you care. Reblogging my art and getting other people to see it is a great way to do that. I just want to get someone to smile with my art and hope to make their day a little bit better. Life sucks for everyone, but we’re all in this together.

But jesus this was a HUGE rant lmfao I am so sorry for all of this. I just needed to write all of this down. If you actually read it until the end, thank you so, so much for your time. I really appreciate it, and hope you have a great week!!!)

#update #adm: i'm sorry lol

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johnhardinsawyer · 5 years

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Only One Thing

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

3 / 24 / 19

Luke 10:38-42

“Only One Thing”

(The Holy Antidote to Going Hurrier and Getting Behinder)

For most of my life, growing up, my Grandmother Sawyer had a little sign in her kitchen that read: “The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.”[1] This little phrase was an accurate description of part of my grandmother’s personality. She knew that she had a tendency to be in a hurry, and a simultaneous feeling that she was always running behind. There was just so much to do – especially when her children and grandchildren came for a visit. The bathrooms had to be spotless, the sheets had to be ironed, all of the food needed to be prepared to perfection, and, even though Grandmother wasn’t Presbyterian, everything else needed to be done “decently and in order.” Over the years, it became clearer and clearer to me – a frequent guest in her home –that Grandmother Sawyer was often thinking and worrying about a lot of things (and not just housework!).

Today’s story from Luke’s Gospel paints a picture of a woman named Martha who was not unlike my Grandmother – and, I’m willing to guess, not unlike many of us. Scripture tells us that when Jesus comes to Martha’s house, Martha welcomes him in and that Martha’s sister, Mary, sits at Jesus’ feet, listening to what he is saying. (Luke 10:39) Martha, the hostess with the mostest, is worried about getting dinner on the table in time, among other things, so she comes to Jesus and says, “Master, don’t you care that my sister has abandoned the kitchen to me? [Dinner is going to be late! And the dishes are going to take forever!] Tell [Mary] to lend me a hand.”[2] I can see where Martha is coming from. Even though today’s scripture doesn’t specifically say that Jesus traveled with an entourage, he was known to go around the countryside with at least twelve other people. And if you ever have one houseguest, much less thirteen, show up on your doorstep, it is only natural to want to make sure that you show them some good hospitality. This was what Martha was trying to do. But Martha felt abandoned – left to do all the work on her own. This is why Martha goes right to Jesus. Jesus will set Mary straight.

One of the things that I find interesting about this story is the fact that Martha, who has a problem with her sister, Mary, does not go to speak directly with Mary about the problem. Instead, Martha goes to ask Jesus if he can get Mary to do the thing Martha wants her to do. This is a phenomenon called “triangulation.” And it usually happens when someone is anxious about something but is worried about causing a conflict, and they inadvertently make the conflict worse by not directly addressing it head-on. In times of change and stress, in families and in church families, triangulation can be very destructive, so, it’s good to be aware of such things.

Anyway, Martha is upset with Mary. And she is so frazzled that she triangulates and doesn’t go about things the right way. And, in front of everyone, including her sister, Mary, she interrupts Jesus while he is speaking so that she can complain.

There are times in the Bible when Jesus has to put someone in their place, but it is important to note in today’s story that when Jesus puts Martha in her place, he is gentle and loving. “Martha,” he says, “Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things. . .” (Luke 10:41) In the original language, Jesus tells Martha that she is “anxious and unduly [or excessively] concerned.”[3] She doesn’t need to worry so much about everything. All of her hard work and worry – even though she is working hard and worrying about serving Jesus – is demanding the attention of her mind, heart, and spirit in ways that just aren’t good.

There are so many things – both wrong things and, it could be argued, right things – that demand and hold our attention every moment of every day. From that first, early morning, check of the daily headlines or our Instagram likes, to the TV that is blaring in the waiting room at the doctor’s office or restaurant; from our desire to get into the right school, or advance in our career, or raise our children right, or scrimp and save enough to retire, to any number of other worries we might have about our health or the health of a loved-one, or some other important issue, our attention can be focused on so many different things – sometimes, all at once. But, as Jesus tells Martha. . . and, as he tells us, in the midst of all of the things about which we could be worrying, “There is need of only one thing.” (Luke 10:42)

It should be noted that Jesus never really says what that one thing is. But, he does say that Mary, who is sitting at Jesus’ feet, listening to him speak, has “chosen the better part” or “the main course,”[4]as Eugene Peterson translates it. By sitting and giving Jesus her full attention – not being distracted by the clanging of pots in the kitchen or the grumbling of a certain sister, Mary has chosen the right thing. What, exactly, is that thing? It could be listening for God, hearing and doing the words of Jesus, or taking care of one’s neighbor.[5] Or, maybe, if we can pull back just a little bit, we can see that Mary has simply chosen to pay attention.

There was a great 20thCentury thinker and writer named Simone Weil who once said, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”[6] Offering our full attention to someone or something is rare, but it is the greatest and purest example of what it means to be generous with our time, our energy, our money, our minds, our hearts, our very selves. If I give my attention to you, fully, it means that I value you, fully.

The good news of Jesus Christ is that he values us, fully, Jesus gives his full attention to humanity – especially those who are hungry and tired, the “weak and heavy-laden”[7]in need of healing and wholeness, and, ultimately, in need of God’s forgiving grace and abundant life. In other words, it is a given that Jesus gives his full attention to each and every person, whether they are a Mary, or a Martha, or anyone else.

The question is, to whom, and in what ways do we give our full attention?

Now, I know that life is busy. And, it is hard to let go of the many things and people that demand our attention every day. But the very act of giving something – or someone – our full attention in a way that is truly generous, is one way that we can practice slowing down and offering the right kind of attentiveness in the rest of our busy lives. It is so important to do this, because we never know when Jesus is going to show up – in our home, at a meal, in the grocery, on the street, in the face of someone we know and love, or in the face of a complete stranger. Oftentimes, the moments that we choose to be generous with our attention – to really listen to what someone is saying and not saying, to really see them in all their messy humanity. . . these can be the holiest moments of all, and it would be good to pay attention.

Yesterday, I was in the kitchen with our son Samuel, getting dinner ready. Amy was at work. Samuel is just starting to learn how to be helpful. And, I had this bright idea that he could help me pull some tiny leaves of thyme off of the stems and hand them to me so that I could chop them up. I would pass a stem down to him, he would pull off the leaves and reach up to put the leaves on the countertop. At a moment that I was looking away – reading the recipe or chopping up thyme leaves – Samuel tripped over my foot while he was reaching for the counter, and when he hit the floor he broke his fall with his face. It was a bad scene. I wasn’t paying attention and missed someone really trying to be helpful in the kitchen for the first time in his life. I wasn’t paying attention and someone got hurt. As I hugged my crying boy, he offered me some little leaves of thyme that he had been holding tight in his hand.

Hmmm. . . T-h-y-m-e. . . T-i-m-e. . . To what, or to whom, are we giving our full attention – our energy, our focus, our t-i-m-e?

You and I can get so focused on the next task, the next obligation, the next thing, that something holy will often pass us by. . . Here is Jesus, the very Son of the most high God, sitting in Martha’s living room and she nearly missed it because she was so worried about dinner. Sometimes, dinner can wait. Dinner should wait, because there is something holy at work.

I want to ask something of you, and it might sound simple at first, but it really isn’t. The next time someone comes to you, interrupts you, and needs your attention for one thing or another, before you get frustrated, or start to zone out and think of whatever is next on your to-do list, stop. . . Tell yourself to stop and pay attention, because there might just be something holy happening here. God might be at work, trying to tell you something about how to be more loving, more patient, more kind, and more open to the miraculous in your busy life.

You know, as I said earlier, there was a part of my Grandmother Sawyer’s personality that had a tendency to be in a hurry and feel like she was getting behind. Yes, there were times when she was like Martha, but she was also very much like Mary. No matter what was on her to-do list for the day, she would stop each morning at breakfast to pay attention – to pray, to read scripture, and find a centering thought for the day. And then, she would go about her day, with that prayer, that scripture, that thought in the forefront of her mind, being generous with her attention – especially her attention to God. Were there times when she was in a hurry and felt behind? Of course! Who doesn’t feel this way from time to time? But were there also times when she experienced Jesus in her daily life, in the face of the stranger and the sojourner, the guest in her home, the child. . . even in herself.

There is need of only one thing, my friends. After that one thing, everything else might just fade into the background, or work itself out, or fall into place, or get our proper attention when the time is right. Holding on to the one thing might just give us the perspective to see more clearly that the Holy is at work in your life and in mine.

To what, or to whom, will we give our full attention? May we do what is rare and generous and holy in this world. . .

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

--------

[1]This is a quote from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, perhaps said by the White Rabbit.

[2]Eugene Peterson, The Message – Numbered Edition(Colorado Springs: NAV Press, 2002) 1427.

[3]Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) 504.

[4]Eugene Peterson, 1428.

[5]The Parable of the Good Samaritan, Luke 10:25-37, is the passage immediately prior to the story of Martha and Mary.

[6]https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Simone_Weil.

[7]See Matthew 11:28.

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gracewithducks · 7 years

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In the Wilderness (Genesis 21:8-21)

No one told me that one of the joys of reading with my children would be the rediscovery of some of the books that I loved when I was young. Lately I’ve taken to rereading quite a few of my old favorites, partially so I can judge when Michaela might be ready for them, but also for my own pleasure. One of the books that I’ve recently reread is Lois Lowry’s classic novel The Giver. And what I’ve discovered is that, in the years since I first read The Giver, the author has written three more books, creating a loose series of stories set in overlapping and neighboring worlds.

In the first couple of books, Lowry paints pictures for us of a couple of very different worlds – first, one that seems to prosper and be at peace, where no one is hungry or afraid or in need, and then another very different world, one where the people struggle to build lives in dark, dirty stick huts surrounded by beasts… and yet we discover that both worlds have the same guilty secret, for in both, peace is sought by casting out or getting rid of anyone who doesn’t quite fit in.

But then, in the third novel, we discover a very different place – simply called “Village.” Village is a different kind of community, because Village was founded by those people who were sent away, or who ran away, from all those other places. And on a regular basis, broken people, hurting people, people who set out hoping that there must be a better life – people from all different histories, with all different hurts and heartaches – still find their way to Village. And when they arrive, they are celebrated. The people of Village throw a party with each new arrival. They listen to their new neighbor’s stories, and they honor their pain… and they clean them, and they nurse them and feed them and heal them, and they say, “Welcome home. Once we were like you, and now you are like us. You belong here.”

Village is a refuge. Village is a place where difference is celebrated, where the people know pain brings wisdom, and love doesn’t require perfection. Village is a beautiful community cobbled together by people from all walks of life, people who are united by their one common belief: that everyone is welcome, and everyone belongs.

And then the Trademaster comes. The Trademaster, too, is a stranger, and like the other strangers, the Trademaster is welcomed in. And the Trademaster teaches the people how to trade, and at first, it’s innocent enough: when I have too many apples, and you have too many carrots, we can help each other out.

Then the trades start to be very, very different. People started trading, not with each other, but with the Trademaster: they would trade for things they couldn’t get any other way, and they would pay a terrible, often hidden, cost to do so. For example, one set of parents traded for a Gaming Machine, a machine with wheels and levers, and when you pulled the lever and the wheels spun and all showed the same picture – a piece of candy came out. All the kids in town coveted that Gaming Machine… but some of them also started to notice that those parents didn’t smile or laugh or play with their children quite as much anymore.

There was Mentor, the schoolteacher, a kind and gentle widower who longed to marry again. He had his eye on a woman in the village, but she turned up her nose, because she didn’t care for Mentor’s bald head, or his pot belly, or the birthmark that covered half his face. So Mentor started to trade: and he started to stand up taller; his stomach grew flatter, and his hair grew back in, and that birthmark started to fade away.

And still the woman didn’t love him. Because as he grew more handsome, Mentor also became more cruel, less patient, less kind. He had traded those parts of himself away: he traded away his honor, and his generous heart, and he got what he wanted – he was better looking – but he lost what he wanted, because he became a different man.

The people kept trading. They traded for expensive coats, and for power, for beauty and for wealth; they traded for whatever new thing their neighbor had traded for – the people of Village learned jealousy, and they learned greed.

And slowly, Village started to change. The people didn’t laugh as freely any more. They watched the children with critical eyes, and they looked at one another with suspicion… and they started to view outsiders with fear. At each new welcome celebration, a few more voices started to murmur and complain: how many more people are we going to let in? Pretty soon, we are going to be outnumbered by them; and they don’t even know how we do things here; and if we’re not careful, pretty soon, there won’t be enough of anything to go around.

And the people of Village took a vote… and though a few passionate voices tried to remind their neighbors who they were, where they’d come from, why they’d come in the first place – the people of Village voted to close their borders; they started building a wall to keep anyone else from coming in.

There’s more to the story, of course; like so many young adult novels, this one is a clear allegory, a parable, which holds up a mirror to teach us something – though in this case, it does hit awfully close to home.

This week, in our scripture reading, we continue the story of Abraham and Sarah, and their miracle baby Isaac, which we started last Sunday. But this week, we are reminded that Abraham and Sarah are far from saints – and their story isn’t just a story about them and them alone.

You will remember, perhaps, how Abraham and Sarah were given God’s promise that God would make a great nation of them, that their descendants would outnumber the stars, and their family would be a blessing to the whole world. And Abraham and Sarah, in faith, left behind their homes and everything they had known in order to travel in search of the home and the future God had promised to them.

And you will remember how it was a long journey: and how, as years went by, Sarah and Abraham grieved with empty arms, until they were certain God must have been mistaken, because it was far too late for them to have any children at all.

And then, as we heard last week, when Sarah was nearly 90 and Abraham pushing a hundred, God said, “It’s time.” And Abraham and Sarah laughed and laughed – and God had the last laugh, because Sarah conceived, and their son was born at last.

And it’s a lovely story, a story of persistent and long-suffering faith come to fruition at last, a story of joy long-deferred finally making its way home.

But there’s more to the story.

Because Sarah wasn’t just the patient long-suffering wife, who followed her husband on this incredible journey only to finally be rewarded with joy in the end – Sarah was a woman whose life was filled with a lot more drama, and a lot more trauma, than that…

As Sarah and Abraham travelled, not just once, but twice, her husband denied her – both times because she was so beautiful that a local king took a fancy to her. And Abraham was afraid that the kings would kill him in order to take his wife, so he lied – not once, but twice – he lied, and said, “She’s not my wife; she’s my sister.” And it was only God’s direct intervention that saved Sarah along the way.

Sarah was a woman threatened by her husband’s fear, nearly sacrificed twice on the altar of his own self-preservation,

And though she knew what it was like to have your own body offered up for someone else’s sake, Sarah did the exact same thing. She was so desperate for a family, so desperate that she offered her maidservant – her foreign slave – to her husband, to be a surrogate – a forced surrogate. And in those days, surrogates got pregnant the old-fashioned way.

And as you might imagine, things got awkward around the house. Sarah’s servant, Hagar, did get pregnant, and Sarah grew jealous – who was this foreign slave, a nobody, to do what she couldn’t? (even if it was what she had commanded)… And she was so cruel that Hagar ran away – friendless, alone, and pregnant – into the wilderness. She didn’t stumble into a Village that welcomed her with open arms, but she did encounter God – God, who heard her cries, God, who cares for the tears and the son of a foreign slave-girl, God, who promised to care for her, if only she will care for her son enough to go back to the home that hated her. So she goes back, marveling, that the God who has promised a future to her masters, cares for and promises a future for her, too.

Hagar gave birth to a son, a son who was legally, in every way, considered to be Sarah’s son – in every way, except in Sarah’s own heart.

And so when, years later, Sarah laughs, when Sarah’s laughter is wrapped in flesh and swaddling blankets and laid in her arms – the cruel jealousy sets in once more.

She sees Ishmael, the older boy, literally “Isaacing” – she sees him laughing with Isaac, her own pride and joy – and she is afraid; he is afraid, because legally, Ishmael is the oldest son, and he will receive the lion’s share of his father’s inheritance and blessing… she is afraid that God’s promised future will land on Ishmael, not Isaac; she is afraid that, in her own desperation to control people, and to force God’s hand, she has in fact robbed her son of his place in God’s family.

She is afraid. She is afraid that there won’t be enough promise to go around.

Sarah has forgotten where she came from – she has forgotten that she, too, is a foreigner, a stranger living in a strange land; she has forgotten that she is a woman, a woman whose body has been used by others; she has forgotten that this mess is of her own making… and she has forgotten that there are many, many stars in the sky: isn’t there room for one more?

She’s afraid the answer is No.

So Sarah orders her husband to send Hagar and her son – Hagar’s son, Abraham’s son, and Sarah’s son – to send Hagar and Ishmael away. They head out into the wilderness with only what they can carry… and all too soon, the water runs empty, and Ishmael grows faint with thirst; Hagar lays her son in the shade of a brush tree, and then leaves him, because she cannot bear to see her beloved child die.

She weeps. And she cries out, in despair, in desperation: she rails against the God who saved her once, who sent her back from the wilderness, all those years ago – and she asks, why? What’s the point, if this is how it ends, anyway? I went back for the sake of my son; I went back, so he might live… and now he is dying in the wilderness, and it all means nothing, nothing at all.

But God hears again… God answers her, not by showing her the way through the wilderness, but by promising her a life in the wilderness. Sometimes God doesn’t deliver us from our hardships, not the way we hope or want – but sometimes, God delivers us by teaching us to make a home, right where we are, even if it’s nowhere we ever wanted to be. God makes a way for Hagar and Ishmael… and like a parent’s heart, which swells and grows and whose love multiplies with each new child – it turns out that God’s heart and God’s promise are big enough for more.

In the wilderness, Hagar is the first person – this powerless, friendless, foreign slave girl – she is the first person in the Bible to give God a name. And she calls this God “the God who sees” – because she is amazed that the mighty God of her cruel masters, the Creator of the universe, sees even her, and cares enough to provide for her and for her son, too.

God sees… God sees Hagar, in her desperation – and God sees Sarah, in her jealous fear and greed – and what amazes me is that, even though God sees us in our darkness, at our lowest, at our worst – God still loves us. Even then, God doesn’t turn away. God sees us – and God loves us. And God invites us to see ourselves, and see one another, with new eyes, too.

It’s easy for greed and jealousy and fear to steal away the best parts of ourselves. It’s easy to forget where we’ve come from. It’s easy to lose who we really are.

So we need to be reminded: We are the children of refugees and immigrants. We are still strangers in a land far from home. We are broken people, who’ve been offered strength. We are grieving people, who’ve been given hope. We are flawed people, who’ve been forgiven by grace. We are people who have been surprised by love in the wilderness, and we are the ones who have found a home.

And we are reminded that we are not the only ones. Grace is not meant to be hoarded, but to be shared. We are blessed to be a blessing; we are commanded to love as we have been loved.

We don’t always get it right – and that’s a part of our story, too. Thanks be to God, that God’s promise is big enough to make room for our mistakes, big enough to cover our flaws and our failures, big enough to give us hope and new beginning, big enough for us all.

God, we give you thanks for Sarah, for her faith, for the hope that sustained her – and for your grace, that covered her in her failures. God, we give you thanks for Hagar, for the foreign slave who found herself forced into your plan, and who discovered that your grace is not bound by national borders or family bloodlines – but in your family, there is always room for more. Forgive us, Lord, for the times when we have forgotten who we are: we are the ones whom you have welcomed in love, not because we are so worthy, but because you love to love, and to love more. Help us not to be jealous, not to be greedy, not to be afraid, but to believe that there is room enough in your heart and under your sky for us all. In Jesus’ name we pray; amen.

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