The Growing Up Blues

Pardon the language, but this is exactly how I'm feeling lately.


It seems like such a huge part of being an adult is surrender, and sacrifice, and disappointment really. I've begun to realize that things are just not going to be how I expected them. This is shocking news to me. Someone seriously should have warned me. It will take a long time to recover from this revelation.

Who knew that I wasn't going to end up marrying my first [uh, only] boyfriend? What's that about?

And what's UP with the fact that breaking up usually has nothing to do with hating each other, but actually loving each other? That makes me want to puke. I thought that love was supposed to be fun. And I thought that sacrificing for love meant letting him have the last Oreo.

I thought that if you knew what you wanted your career to be in 8th grade [a talk show host], or 10th grade [a cultural critic], or 12th grade [a history teacher], that is exactly what you would become. All of them.

I want my money back.

Now adults are starting to reveal their secrets to me. Like the fact that marriage "IS A LOT OF WORK." What? See, shocking. And even worse: you probably won't get your dream career. And you might not even ever find out what your dream career is. You might not even want your dream career anymore after doing it for a day, or years. Have you heard about this too? This phenomenon of adulthood? Kind of hard to stomach, right?

You might think I am being whiny. Okay, I will admit I am being whiny. But I am also being very serious.

Let me tell you two things about Julian of Norwich:
1. She lived during the Black Plague and some pretty intense peasant revolts.
2. She wrote one of the most famous lines in Catholic history: All's well. And all shall be well. And all manner of things shall be well.

The poor woman was literally surrounded by pain. There were all sorts of explanations for the horrors of the Plague, and a lot of nutjobs of the day (excuse me, but they sort of were) claimed that the sick had brought this upon themselves. Unlike her peers, J of N did not believe that any of this was inflicted by God Himself, and furthermore it was not any sort of punishment for the sins of the suffering. She believed that all people were dearly loved and should be saved, which was completely radical. She was actually quite the wild woman and I am completely inspired by her.

Although apparently not inspired enough to stop whining about adulthood.

Which is probably slightly less miserable than the Plague.

I guess.

The thing is, we live in a pretty upsetting world. Remember when Dietrich Bonhoeffer was part of the plan to assassinate Hitler? He said there were "no good options." Which is pretty much always true. I mean, unless you are deciding between Kuhl Riesling and any other wine on the wine list. Then Kuhl Riesling is always the good option.

But when it comes to general life, a lot of time you are deciding between a lot of work and sacrifice, or "settling" and being disappointed. Or, you know, killing Hitler or letting his evil prevail. There are obviously exceptions, and there are those rare moments of clarity when everything seems to be falling into place. But you inevitably will come upon a realization or challenge that will rock your world and cause you to feel alone, failed, or betrayed, or just bummed out.

I'm serious, you will.

I used to think that God had this infallible master plan for my life, and that if I just kept poking along that everything would be spread out for me like a holy smorgasboard of life experiences: a killer career, a husband who looked like Joe Jonas, a set of twins perhaps and definitely a Golden Retriever. I didn't really give much thought to the fact that there are billions of people in the world equally loved by God, whose "life plans" apparently involve civil war, displacement, and starvation.

The truth is, we are a new people and our world is outdated. The truth is, we may never ever see God's mysterious plan for His kingdom on earth. We may see much more suffering than joy, and many more evidences of pain than grace.

Andy shared this Oscar Romero prayer with me the other day, and I found it immediately comforting in both its reality and optimism:

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

That's the thing: we KNOW what's going to happen in the future. Christians have the tremendous blessing, and also heavy responsibility, of knowing that our world is headed toward ultimate peace--the end of war, the end of poverty, the end of pride and greed. We have the blessing of knowing that God has already conquered the plagues of the world...we also have the responsibility to live with a conviction of hope.

Which is hard to do, when you are 22 and your job involves people hating your guts because you ran out of Dark Roast.

But it was probably a degree or two harder for Julian of Norwich.

My favorite book of the Bible ever ever ever is Ecclesiastes. Well, scratch that. My favorite book is Song of Solomon, because it's beautiful and lovely and it makes me feel like a queen while reading it. But really, I just love Ecclesiastes. I love its down-to-earth philosophy of life, the way it so aptly demonstrates that the Bible is for everyone and not just the blindly optimistic...that it is also a book for those who doubt, who fret, who feel sad and even hopeless while examining their lives.

You may know Ecclesiastes from the chronic Byrds song, "Turn, Turn, Turn." Or you may not. The point is, it's a very universal message:

Life is unfair. Very good people might suffer unspeakable pain; very bad people might live forever in the lap of luxury. You might work your booty off at school only to spend the rest of your life in food service; your buddy might have cheated his way through school and land your dream job. This stuff happens all the time. And the author of Ecclesiastes was definitely onto that.

So, his advice is to eat, drink, and be merry. To acknowledge that life is difficult, desperate, incredible, absurd, and there is nothing you can do about it one way or another. There are often no good options, and God does not pick favorites. The only choice you can make is to enjoy the little things along the way--the surprises and wonders of this life on earth that God so freely lavishes upon us.

And there are very, very many.

The floor of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, for example.

Afternoon light.

Morning light.

Itty-bitties.

The magic and mystery of romance, which, even in its worse moments, is spectacular.

Sunny days.

Good sleep.

A berry-colored room.

I'm starting to believe, quite firmly in fact, that grace really is just all the little things along the way. And that the very big things in life might consistently be challenging, even somewhat disappointing. But the special moments during these times make up for all of it. Really and truly.

I'm fully convinced that there will be a time in my life when things won't all feel so big. I fully expect to not be let down by some of the major life experiences I've yet to experience, and indeed to be enchanted by more than I could have ever dreamt for myself. But I hope to never lose sight of the fact that I really have no sight. And that even at the end of my life, I might have no idea what God's idea was for me and why He created me and what my purpose was, besides schlepping lattes for the upper crust. Which seems like a really lame life-purpose to me, but hey, I'm not the one in charge here.

And I hope to realize that that doesn't really matter, this knowing business. That it might never really make perfect sense to me, but to understand my place as a worker and not a master builder. Though I covet the master builder's job. Highly.

To consistently understand both the grand possibility, and very important responsibility, in understanding the statement: All's well. And all shall be well. And all manner of things shall be well.