Make Peace

I have this dinky little advent calendar as the backdrop of my desktop. It's nothing much. Inside the boxes for each day are two or three words that tell me to do something and a baby passage from the bible that I can read. I wanted to do something for advent, because there's something about the liturgical seasons and the way they beckon to you to be quiet that's just good in the kind of way that soaks through the bones and into the soul. Still, it's finals time, and I knew that if I got too ambitious, I wouldn't stick with it. So tiny boxes and sentence fragments it was. Even with a classic Spanish-anxiety-disorder night of no sleep, I'm on day 4 and haven't given up yet, which perhaps says something about the profit of smallness.

I like the little instructions I'm given. Even if they're sometimes silly sounding. I like to keep them in the back of my mind all day as I look for a way that I can do whatever it is that I'm told in way that has meaning to me.

Today's command was "make peace." It was kind of a bad day for making peace. I rolled out of bed dead tired, had a spanish oral exam this morning that I spent all day yesterday and all last night freaking out about. And there are all sorts of little voices inside of me fighting for my attention and time, and most of the past several days I have been sitting in the library shushing them or stifling them by demanding that they share space with all the academics I've been binging on. The knot that built up in me last night has been dissipating, but at roughly the speed of a fish swimming through peanut butter. Peace clearly was not dwelling in me today. So I didn't really have any good building materials at my disposal for the peace I was supposed to make.

As I was sitting in the library tonight, I remembered with a start that it was Wednesday night -- the night one of my friends was reading her poetry at a creative writing senior thesis presentation hosted by the English department. Thankfully, my sense of time is totally skewed today and I hadn't missed it, so I made my way over to the room it was being held in.

Ellie's a curious creature. I love her because there are parts of her that live in parts of me, and I can know her through that. But there are also parts of her that are unknown to me and I can be curious and look at her and love her with a sense of wonder and mystery.

She asked us not to come. Word got out about the presentation and she wanted none of her friends to be there. She does not read poetry out loud; not to people she knows, and especially not to more than one person at a time. Even talking about the possibility of coming weeks prior to the event made her visibly and blatantly uncomfortable. So when I asked her last night if I could come - unsure if she would even truthfully tell me what room the event was being held in - I was really surprised to hear her tell me that she thought she could handle it and that yes, I could come.

When I got there, half the people packed into the tiny library room were there for Ellie. I felt a small twinge of the huge terror she must have been feeling. And of course she had to wait through an hour and a half of presentations to go last. But her poetry. Her words... Maybe I sound stupidly obsessed. I think sometimes I come across that way on the rare occasion that she shares something with me and I freak out inside and gush to her about how good it is.

But I freak out inside precisely because through her pen, she is sharing a part of her soul that is so precious, so secret, and so naked and exposed as they pass through the ears of listeners. And that is terrifying, I am sure. But my insides shout with joy precisely because she is so right in taking that leap of vulnerability. This deeply effervescent creature with a loud laugh and whole secret world inside is baring pieces of her soul on paper and it is breathtakingly beautiful and something so invaluable to the world.

I catch glimpses of people in this way sometimes - like a taste of the way that God views us - and it's so good to just love them and celebrate them and know without a doubt that they have so much worth. And I want desperately for people to know that what I am feeling is true about them - and to not be afraid to feel it too, if only for a moment. To feel and know that they are such a good creation.

Anyway. Her words. They were so good for my soul. And the whole room's soul. I could just feel it. Honesty. Art. Fear and freedom painted by her mouth into our hearts. And my heart felt peace.

I know it was terrifying for her. I could see that in the fear and relief in her slightly-more-watery-than-usual eyes when we all bombarded her afterwards. But I hope that in some way it was worth it to her. It was definitely worth going for us; for me.

So maybe I didn't make peace today. But I am sitting with peace that was gifted to me by a friend. And I think what I received is more beautiful than whatever I could've tried to give today, so I am glad to be a receiver tonight.