The Right Way to Change (in Literature and in Life)

Pots – Water Pots (Photo credit: NisargPhotography)

As a writer, I struggle to create the pieces of a story that can’t be revealed through dialogue and plot. Part of the reason I struggle with this in writing is because I struggle with it in life. In everyday interactions, I rely almost entirely on what people tell me and what happens. Partly, I’m this way because as a teenager, I decided that it’s incredibly unfair to hypothesize or make assumptions about another person, and thus made it my mission to maintain a perception that matched up as completely as possible to the observable, real-world person in front of me as I could. However well-intentioned I may have been in trying to avoid unfair judgment of another person, though, I inadvertently led myself away from looking beneath the surface, which is quite the tragedy, because most of who we are is beneath the surface. For example, a character or person’s shifts of identity and heart might slowly manifest themselves in his or her behavior and speech, but the change occurs long before it becomes observable.

But how do I write that?

Also, how do people actually change?

Several years ago, there was someone who started attending my church, and almost immediately set out to change some of our stances on issues and certain doctrines we held to. When Dave (Pastor) and I were talking about the situation, I was overwhelmingly sympathetic to the new person. I expressed my beliefs that she wasn’t ill-intentioned and that she needed grace, as well as my broken-heartedness for her; I viewed the church’s response to her as a little mean.

Then Dave said something. He said that God is the one who changes us; she doesn’t get to direct that change.

As a writer, I’m ridiculously well-planned. I don’t like starting without an outline for each and every chapter, along with any number of other “plotter” tactics in place. I write character sketches; I create soundtracks for each scene; I draw maps, and I even create Sims characters or draw really bad sketches to ensure that nothing is left to chance… I have to know everything about every aspect of the story before I write. Then, I force my characters to do what I want them to do, and get frustrated when the plan has to change. And, instead of changing the plan, I just throw all of my work out and start all over at the beginning.

But what if there’s something to just sitting down and writing. I don’t subscribe to all the hippie, “pantser” mumbo-jumbo about letting the characters show me the story, but I also probably shouldn’t outline myself into a corner, eh?

In life, I’ve been trying pretty hard for the past couple of years to just see what happens. I usually stick myself into certain, highly-arbitrary routines, and force myself to keep them, but it seemed like God was ruining all of my routines for awhile there, so I thought that might have been His way of telling me to knock it off.

So I stopped.

I stopped planning every moment of every day; I stopped keeping routines that I didn’t feel like keeping; I stopped attending events that I didn’t have a good reason for attending… I just stopped.

And it’s really difficult to just exist and wait, but that’s what I’ve been doing. I know it probably doesn’t seem like that from the outside, because what others see is that I bought a house, signed up to go to Asia next year, shifted my teaching focus from ELLs to gen. ed., etc…. But, believe it or not, I haven’t been trying to do anything at all. I’ve just let things come my way. or not. and I’ve been patient.

Because changes happen mysteriously and invisibly, and it’s not for me to direct them.

Going off of what’s observable, it seems as if I’m changing in a few specific ways… but those changes are imaginary. Instead, God is changing me how He wills, in ways that haven’t yet manifested  themselves in words or actions.

Still, in the two years that I’ve been trying to be patient and malleable, a few people have said and done things that seem an awful lot like creating a Sim character of me and then trying to make me into that character.

And each time, I’ve felt myself struggling that same internal conflict that came with the new girl who wanted to change a church’s doctrines: Am I being mean by ignoring other people’s aims for me? Sometimes it feels mean, because I know what it feels like to look at another and think I know what he should do and be. I know what it feels like to believe I see his primary flaw and the one change that he should make in his life because it would fix everything.

And that’s why I’m still writing Weston’s story – because I’ve fixed him rather than letting him change slowly, invisibly, in a way that I can’t contrive.

So, while I know (all-too-well) the urge to just fix the problem, I’m trying to do a better job of reserving myself for the changes God has in mind for me (and for Weston too). It’s entirely possible that the flaws people see in me and the ones I see in Weston are terrible and need fixing… but those flaws aren’t for human hands to reshape, because only God’s hands are strong enough to change earthen vessels.

 

Attributes of an Outstanding Friend

 

The attributes of a good friend as evidenced by the outstanding characteristics my current friends exhibit:

 

Steve – In all situations, I’m convinced that Steve will not only know what to do, but execute it well and explain why his solution makes sense. He knows pretty much everything and is good at pretty much everything, and I’m often jealous of how much he understands. He also manages this without coming across as a know-it-all, because he’s also rather humble.

 

 

Lori –The primary reason I believe Lori and I have managed to remain friends is her calm and steady nature. In spite of several years when I was almost completely unavailable to Lori, we’re back to hanging out on a weekly basis. Most friends would have been like, “Screw Katie! She clearly doesn’t care about me!” However, Lori has never once made me feel terrible for my “Drops of Jupiter” trek out into the land of Salsa dancing and angsty stupidity.

 

 

Dave – My favorite attribute of Dave’s is the grace with which He corrects me. He’s observed quite a few of my darkest moments and managed to simultaneously rebuke, edify, and comfort me.

 

 

Lisa – Lisa is the best listener I know. God gave us two ears and one mouth because we’re meant to talk half as much as we listen, right? Lisa not only listens and asks questions, but she makes her words count. She doesn’t speak frivolously or carelessly; she uses her words to build up.

 

 

Matt – Of all my friends, the one I most often hope will be at group events is Matt. He lightens the mood, makes people laugh, teases, and plays. It doesn’t matter which combination of people show up to an event; if Matt is there, I feel confident I’ll have a good time.

 

 

Ashly – I think I have more in common with Ashly than I have with anyone else in my life. She loves literature, understands Comicon and other geeky fun, and just generally enjoys the things I also enjoy. She’s also a high school English teacher, which gives us hours of material to discuss.

 

 

Amy the Dentist – I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone who is quite as humble as Amy is.

 

 

I think I’ve been in a phase of bad friendship. I’ve struggled to listen or even care about the people in my life. I haven’t prayed well for them or thought about what I can do to help them out, and I’ve been disappointed to discover incompetence, flakiness, condemnation, selfishness, rain-on-the-parade, and arrogance in my heart.

 

 

Unhelpful Plants

Hello, Dear Readers!!!!

I’ve been uncharacteristically effective with gardening lately, and thought I’d post a few pictures for you. These flowers are not in any way helpful in real life, but they’re pretty.

I’ll include some pictures of helpful plants soon.

 

God’s Will???

Andy Pelander on a decision that faced him in the past:

“I mean, what was He doing giving me two viable options? … How was I supposed to choose? What was the right decision? I mean, was He testing me? Was He just messing with my mind?”

A friend told him:

“God has presented you with two different adventures, okay. He has given you two adventures. So… don’t make a decision based on fear….”

Andy’s thoughts later:

“This was a good friend because she helped me realize something about God’s will: that He is far less concerned with what we do than with who we are becoming.”

 

So Poorly Made…

“John, I counted myself so plain, so poorly made, no honest love could come to me! Suspicion kissed you when I did; I never knew how I should say my love. It were a cold house I kept!” *

These are the words of Elizabeth Proctor, a character from Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, which is one of my favorite plays in the whole history of the world for its portrayal of those hard moments in life when a person must choose something more difficult, more noble, and more self-sacrificing than he’s ever imagined himself capable of…

“It is a far better thing I do than I’ve ever done before” … I’m evidently feeling very literary.**

For being a primarily secular play that depicts the evils religion can and has wrought on this world, The Crucible is surprisingly sensitive and insightful when it comes to the individual’s battle for his own goodness and soul.

In the play, Elizabeth Proctor struggles to forgive her straying husband – not because she can’t allow for his imperfection, but because she never believed herself loved by him to begin with and never allowed her marriage to become a true and real romance. She didn’t trust John Proctor even before he cheated because she didn’t believe herself lovable. Although Elizabeth isn’t our protagonist, I’ve come to admire her story, because it’s so much closer to my own than John Proctor’s is. He knew himself to be a fraud from the very beginning because his sin was against the letter of the law, and obvious. Elizabeth lived self-righteously next to him because her vice was hidden – even from her; it was against the heart behind the law, and therefore, more difficult to identify; her sin was a crooked pride in self-loathing.

How often is this our story with Christ?

When I was a baby Christian, I was certain of my own value. I was a star athlete, honors-college kind of girl, and I believed that God wanted me. As I grew up a bit in my faith, I began to realize that I’m actually a wicked, selfish sort of girl, and I couldn’t believe anyone would ever want me.

And all of the theology in the world can’t mend that wound.

Because believing that God loves sinners is so much more difficult than the pamphlets portray. Believing Brennan Manning’s words of: “Ignorant, weak, sinful person that I am, with easy rationalizations for my sinful behavior, I am being told anew in the unmistakable language of love, I am with you. I am for you. I am in you. I expect more failure from you than you expect from yourself.”*** How could God possibly expect my failures and still love me. How can He not be holding it over my head. I write those questions without question mark because they are statements. They’re rhetorical, with the cynical answers embedded within them.

No Father continues loving after all the things I have (and we) have wrought in this world.

The forces of evil in this world are too great. Just last week, I discovered the news story of those boys in Ohio who raped a sixteen year-old-girl again, and again, and again. They peed on her, dragged her from party to party, videoed their drunken giggles about the situation, then dumped her on her parents’ lawn. And I can’t, no matter how hard I try, keep from seeing those boys’ faces in the faces of my students. I hear their sickening laughter in the quiet moments between thoughts.

And I can’t think of them as human… as anything but the embodiment of depravity. They are sinful little boys, who I don’t know, who didn’t do anything to me, but I want them to be punished. I want them to be taught empathy in an unrelenting manner.

How on earth could God love them? And if that’s my reaction to the sin of some kiddos I have never, and will never come into contact with, how much angrier must the King of all kings be! How much greater His right to unforgiveness and unmerciful justice.

Why, of course! Theology to the rescue! The substitutionary atonement of a spotless lamb makes it possible! In Him, there is an astonishing paradox of justice and grace! For God is so much higher than I am that His thoughts are not my thoughts and His ways are not my ways. For He is God.

But I write that with such “obnoxious familiarity” and “studied professionalism” that guilt fills the space between me and the walls until the air I breathe is thick, like butter.

And the only hope I have is a fearful prayer, not of “forgive me” because my theology tells me that I’ve been forgiven, but of, “Remove my guilt from me as far as the East is from the West, because I can’t escape it; it haunts me.” And while I treasure the hint of humility in that prayer, I also know myself too well. I have an unfortunately good mind that has yet to be tamed. It hates myself for not knowing what I know, because as I simultaneously see the simple solution to Elizabeth Proctor’s troubles, and yet, remain a sad replica of her.

*THE CRUCIBLE was written by Arthur Miller and the quote is from Act 4… line 200 ish.

**You should already know this one, but I’ll give it to you regardless. It’s from the end of A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens. I’m relatively certain the quote comes when one character sacrifices himself for another (possibly a man who was previously an enemy, but remember that I haven’t read it).

***These last three quotes come from Brennan Manning’s The Ragamuffin Gospel. You can find the first quote on page 174. The phrases “obnoxious familiarity” and “studied professionalism” are from 166.