My Dear Reader,
My sophomore year in college, I had a roommate who, at that time, was one of the most confounding human beings I had ever met. I'm not into naming people on this blog without their permission, so I'll call her Sarah.
Sarah confused and frustrated me, not because she was a bad person, or because she did anything wrong. She confused me because she was a punk rocker. And a Mormon. Usually those two don't mix, and if they do, it doesn't end well.
I remember being very concerned for the welfare of Sarah's soul. It kept me up at night. I heard her dark music, and the dark movies she liked, and the way her clothes were more like costumes than anything, and I was so worried that she was going down some path that was as dark and angry as her taste in, well, everything.
And yet, at the same time, she would go to church with me like it was the most natural thing in the world. And even though I expected her to be ignorant of gospel topics, she always held her own when we talked about it. Actually, sometimes her understanding just blew me away.
You see, I grew up in California, one of the most diverse places you can find these days. I met all kinds of people who lived all kinds of lifestyles. I had friends/acquaintances of every race and religion. Punk rockers? I knew a lot of those. And they had a strong tendency to sit in the halls during church and complain about how their parents forced them to go. And a lot of them were actually pretty awful to me. Not all of them, though. Just a lot of them.
Of course, at the same time, I was in the throes of my Great Battle with Clinical Depression™, and a lot of the dark music was a mirror for what was happening in my heart. I had gone through the worst of it by then, but I hadn't figured out how to manage my condition. When I moved in with Sarah, I was pretty messed up. So maybe it wasn't just Sarah I was worried about. Maybe I felt like I was climbing out of this great, deep hole, and I was worried that Sarah would pull me back into it.
And one day, I don't know how, or why, but I must have said something weird, because Sarah came right out and called me racist. RACIST! I was so shocked that I think I just blinked at her. Sure, she was Latina. I mean, that was obvious. But I grew up in California. I took Spanish in high school, where I was one of three white kids in the class. My parents were both fluent Spanish speakers, who lived in Portugal and Argentina as missionaries. I knew what a bombilla was and how to use it. I could make my own dulce de leche.
I mean, come on. How could I be more accepting of her skin color?
I knew lots of Latinos (still do), enough to know that they all came from different circumstances and had different strengths and weaknesses, just like all other human beings. The idea that Sarah's race could even effect our relationship in a negative way just boggled my mind.
So I knew that I had to tell her. I knew that I finally had to say what I had spent months trying not to say. I told her it wasn't her heritage that bothered me; it was her subculture. And I told her that it wasn't really her clothes, but her soul that I was ultimately worried about.
It's weird, sometimes, how one simple truth can change everything. Her truth, that she saw me as racist, changed my entire perspective of our relationship. Of course she saw my confused expression as a scowl. (I was deeply unhappy with my life. Most of my expressions looked like scowls.) Of course she saw me taking my distance, and saw it as disgust. Of course that was the source of the tension in our relationship.
Of course.
Only, it wasn't true. So when I shared my truth with her, how I was really feeling, she changed her perspective, too. Instead of being offended, she understood that I just didn't get it. So she explained it. She explained to me why she liked those bands and those specific songs and why Tim Burton was so great to her. She told me that she knew she didn't dress or act the way that other people did at church, but that didn't matter. As long as she followed God's commandments (and she did, that also confused me), she didn't care about conforming to the rest of it.
Sarah and I actually became really good friends. She had a lot to teach me, not just about subculture, but about mental health. She had dealt with a lot of trauma in her life, and she had turned to punk as a way to live out her emotions. She was going through her own stuff, and she had learned a lot, and she was actually really patient with her emotionally broken roommate (me). We had a lot more in common than I had ever expected.*
I honestly don't think I would have ever been able to be the person I am now if I didn't know Sarah. She helped me so much!
And Sarah isn't the only "Sarah" I've run into over the years. I've met other people who were as confusing to me as Sarah was. I still do, really. Sometimes I have to explain to them that that look on my face is not judgement as much as it's a "Huh?" Well, maybe there's a little judgement in there; I'm not perfect, yet (still working on that). It's just that I need to find a way to adapt.
But we all get used to the way we see the world. We like to surround ourselves with other people who see the world the way we do. And then someone comes along that we can't fit in a box, and it breaks that glass box we were in. You know, that glass box that you trap yourself in, without knowing it, where the people you like are on the inside and the other people are on the outside. And then it shatters, and you're not sure that you knew it was there in the first place. That glass box.
Racism can be a glass box. I wasn't racist towards Sarah, but that's because I had met so many people before Sarah, who challenged my perceptions and forced me to change the way I see things. Or the way I was conditioned to see things. Glass box: shattered!**
Sometimes, I wonder if I live in a series of glass boxes, like a Russian nesting doll situation. I shatter one glass box, and I think I'm done. All the people on the outside are now on the inside. I'm free! Until I get to the next glass box, which is bigger and more complex. I walk right into in one day without knowing it was there, and I realize that I have to shatter that box, too. And another box. And another one. Will I ever get out of these boxes?
Is this some kind of glass spaceship, and when I shatter the last one, I'll find myself in the nothingness of space and all of us will suffocate and explode?
Okay, probably not. But sometimes when you're standing in front of your glass box, and you put your hand on the panes, it can feel that way. It's really scary to give up our mindset and open ourselves up to change. But we all have to do it if we want to be better than we are. If we want to really see the world the way it is.
It's funny, now, to think of me inside my glass box while Sarah was in hers. How wrong we were! But we were smart, too, because we were willing to get ourselves out of those boxes and actually see each other.
Hopefully, I will get the chance to truly see many different people.
Regards, best wishes, and unlikely allies,
-Cecily Jane
*Sometimes, I look back on my life and wonder why, after all the pain and anguish I went through, I didn't go through a punk phase. Or a goth phase. Instead, I buried myself in musical theater and science fiction, and refused to wear any other other than blue. That's just weird.
**I'm not saying that I'm 100% un-racist. I don't know that anyone is. It's an ongoing process. I'm just, you know, trying.
Showing posts with label College Cecily. Show all posts
Showing posts with label College Cecily. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Modesty in Space
My Dear Reader,
Growing up in a very religious family, I was taught the importance of modesty at almost every turn. And I always thought that it was a great idea.
I'm weird, I know.
I have this theory. You know how most people have a favorite vice? I think everyone also has a favorite virtue. Modesty is mine. So when people start talking about modesty and how the very idea is shaming and degrading to young girls, well, that wasn't my experience. But, like I said, I'm weird.
A lot of my weirdness, I think, comes from the fact that along with God, Star Trek also had a big place in my life growing up. On Sundays, my family went to church together. On Mondays, we watched Star Trek together. And something the both church and Star Trek has in common? Both are very heavy on ideas. Ideas like universal equality and unconditional compassion. Concepts like agency, kindness, and honor. I got one kind of lesson from the pulpit, and another from the TV, but to me, it all seemed to be two different perspectives into one great, eternal truth. And both church and Star Trek encouraged me to find truth.
So, that was quite an education.
Of course, there was occasionally a disconnect in the message. And as much as I learned the importance of modesty on Sunday, Monday's lesson went somewhat in reverse. Star Trek is almost infamous for its basement-dwelling teenage fanbase, and though it's not very accurate, you wouldn't know it by the way the characters were dressed. Star Trek is as show about people in uniforms, and yet in almost every incarnation of the franchise, they manage to have at least one woman wearing a skin-tight body suit. Sometimes for no real reason. It's just for those basement-dwellers who supposedly will never have a relationship with a real girl, so this fictional one has been provided. Fantasize away, pimply fanboys!*
One of these catsuit-wearing female characters was Seven of Nine, a character from Star Trek: Voyager who was portrayed by Jeri Ryan, who described being "poured" into that suit, it was that tight. Kate Mulgrew, who played Captain Janeway (my personal hero) on the same show, said:
And though I still loved the show, I always rolled my eyes when Seven of Nine came on screen. I saw her as a pointless character. I knew she was being used and I felt used just watching her.
But a funny thing happened when a rewatched the series a few years later. I was in college then, and had a few more years of experience under my belt. I had taken courses on literature and had learned how to look at stories critically. And when I watched Voyager again, I saw Seven of Nine with brand new eyes. I saw past her apparel and into her storyline. I discovered, to my own amazement, that I had found one of the best characters I had ever seen in any show, book, or movie. Her story is one of healing from abuse and betrayal, of repentance, redemption, and love.
But no one ever talks about that.
No one ever talks about Seven of Nine, who was abducted as a child and indoctrinated into an oppressive culture where she was no longer an individual, but a cog in a great and terrible machine of destruction. No one talks about how she is rescued from this machine and offered a chance to reclaim her humanity. No one talks about the people who show her a love and devotion she has not deserved, patiently teaching her how to regain her agency even as she promises to betray them. And no one talks about Seven's eventual success, and how she casts off the shackles of oppression and pain and becomes her own person.
Well, I mean the show talks about it. A lot. It's just that people are too distracted by the catsuit to notice.
And that, I think, is what is missing from the argument for modesty. So many who oppose modesty say that a woman has a right to express herself, and that is true. They say that it is not a woman's burden to control the thoughts of others, and that is true. But what Seven of Nine taught me is that dressing in a way meant to display your sexuality does not express who you are.
It hides you.
It camouflages you.
It allows you to masquerade as an object instead of a person.
And while it doesn't change your worth, and it doesn't make it okay for people to mistreat you, it changes how people see you.
And maybe it changes how you see yourself.
Dressing without to respect for yourself is like strapping raw beef to your thighs and jumping into piranha-infested waters. I guess it's your choice, but it's not a smart choice. Human nature is human nature, choices have consequences, and you have to be careful. You have to protect yourself.
And there's another lesson I learned here: I was wrong. I was wrong to judge someone's value by what they wore. I was immature and shallow. Church and Star Trek taught me to respect people, to see beyond the surface and try to find a friend. I was taught not to look on the outward appearance, but to look on the heart. But I guess I didn't learn those lessons well enough. I guess that in a better world, it wouldn't matter what we wear, because it wouldn't distract people from who we are.
And maybe we need to start making that better world right now. Maybe the destructive parts of human nature need to be cast aside and forgotten.
Maybe we can teach children (not just girls) about modesty in a way that makes them feel empowered instead of ashamed. It is empowering to have the ability to choose how people see you. It is empowering to be able to see people as valuable, despite their appearance. We have to learn to use these powers wisely. We have to understand that people make bad choices sometimes, and you have to account for that. But we also have to be better in order to make the world better.
Because despite Jeri Ryan's success, despite her beautiful portrayal of a complicated character and the many roles she has taken since then, despite the fact that she is a genuine, caring person*, people still ask her about that darn catsuit. More than ten years later, people are still treating her like a cog in the machine of corporate sexuality. There is more than one thing wrong with that.
In the end, I'm glad that I had the opportunity to learn truth from more than one source. I'm grateful that I was given the chance to find my own lessons. Most of all, I treasure the ability I have to think for myself. To act for myself. Because that's the real goal of modesty, right? To be free from objectification? To be free to be your true self?
I think so.
Best wishes, regards, and kindness,
-Cecily Jane
P.S. This is really just one facet of modesty. Here's another post with a different perspective that I also agree with. It's pretty genius, actually.
P. P.S. I couldn't make this argument in the post because it's long enough as it is, but I tried to hint at it: this thinking is not only degrading to women. It's also degrading to the male viewer, because it not only is the female character being sold as an object, but the male viewer is being enticed to buy an object. Both parties are being manipulated and degraded. Both parties deserve better.
*I base this on her Twitter profile. She is awesome.
Growing up in a very religious family, I was taught the importance of modesty at almost every turn. And I always thought that it was a great idea.
I'm weird, I know.
I have this theory. You know how most people have a favorite vice? I think everyone also has a favorite virtue. Modesty is mine. So when people start talking about modesty and how the very idea is shaming and degrading to young girls, well, that wasn't my experience. But, like I said, I'm weird.
A lot of my weirdness, I think, comes from the fact that along with God, Star Trek also had a big place in my life growing up. On Sundays, my family went to church together. On Mondays, we watched Star Trek together. And something the both church and Star Trek has in common? Both are very heavy on ideas. Ideas like universal equality and unconditional compassion. Concepts like agency, kindness, and honor. I got one kind of lesson from the pulpit, and another from the TV, but to me, it all seemed to be two different perspectives into one great, eternal truth. And both church and Star Trek encouraged me to find truth.
So, that was quite an education.
Of course, there was occasionally a disconnect in the message. And as much as I learned the importance of modesty on Sunday, Monday's lesson went somewhat in reverse. Star Trek is almost infamous for its basement-dwelling teenage fanbase, and though it's not very accurate, you wouldn't know it by the way the characters were dressed. Star Trek is as show about people in uniforms, and yet in almost every incarnation of the franchise, they manage to have at least one woman wearing a skin-tight body suit. Sometimes for no real reason. It's just for those basement-dwellers who supposedly will never have a relationship with a real girl, so this fictional one has been provided. Fantasize away, pimply fanboys!*
One of these catsuit-wearing female characters was Seven of Nine, a character from Star Trek: Voyager who was portrayed by Jeri Ryan, who described being "poured" into that suit, it was that tight. Kate Mulgrew, who played Captain Janeway (my personal hero) on the same show, said:
I found that that was hard, Jeri notwithstanding. Certainly, I could see with my own eyes that she was a va-va-va-voom and beautiful-beautiful bombshell of a girl. Sexuality was brought into Voyager, and that’s what I resented. I chose not to use sexuality. I thought that if Paramount and UPN and Rick (Berman) were being exceptionally prescient and brave, they would give a woman a shot at commanding without sex. “Can we do this without sex?” There are always other ways. So I resented that and I was hurt by the immediate, extraordinary attention given to this character. The numbers went up. And I thought, “Ah, you can’t argue with a business decision and you can’t argue with sex.” That’s just part of life, but all of that is very difficult for a woman, particularly an actress like me. But it had nothing to do with Jeri.And yeah, it was pretty obvious that that's what they were going for. I mean, that costume was ridiculous. But it worked, because ratings went up 60%. And when this was on the air in 1997, I was a very, very annoyed teenage girl. I had always looked to Star Trek for powerful female role models, which were in short supply back then (some would argue they still are). At church, I was taught that women are divine beings, equal in the eyes of God and important instruments in His plan. Star Trek was one of the few places where I could actually see that in action. Well, kind of. Until they needed a boost in viewership. Then, they would take a woman and use her as eye candy. Then, her value didn't come from her choices or actions, but from what fans could fantasize doing with her. I guess women in the future are only equal when the ratings are good.
And though I still loved the show, I always rolled my eyes when Seven of Nine came on screen. I saw her as a pointless character. I knew she was being used and I felt used just watching her.
But a funny thing happened when a rewatched the series a few years later. I was in college then, and had a few more years of experience under my belt. I had taken courses on literature and had learned how to look at stories critically. And when I watched Voyager again, I saw Seven of Nine with brand new eyes. I saw past her apparel and into her storyline. I discovered, to my own amazement, that I had found one of the best characters I had ever seen in any show, book, or movie. Her story is one of healing from abuse and betrayal, of repentance, redemption, and love.
But no one ever talks about that.
No one ever talks about Seven of Nine, who was abducted as a child and indoctrinated into an oppressive culture where she was no longer an individual, but a cog in a great and terrible machine of destruction. No one talks about how she is rescued from this machine and offered a chance to reclaim her humanity. No one talks about the people who show her a love and devotion she has not deserved, patiently teaching her how to regain her agency even as she promises to betray them. And no one talks about Seven's eventual success, and how she casts off the shackles of oppression and pain and becomes her own person.
Well, I mean the show talks about it. A lot. It's just that people are too distracted by the catsuit to notice.
And that, I think, is what is missing from the argument for modesty. So many who oppose modesty say that a woman has a right to express herself, and that is true. They say that it is not a woman's burden to control the thoughts of others, and that is true. But what Seven of Nine taught me is that dressing in a way meant to display your sexuality does not express who you are.
It hides you.
It camouflages you.
It allows you to masquerade as an object instead of a person.
And while it doesn't change your worth, and it doesn't make it okay for people to mistreat you, it changes how people see you.
And maybe it changes how you see yourself.
Dressing without to respect for yourself is like strapping raw beef to your thighs and jumping into piranha-infested waters. I guess it's your choice, but it's not a smart choice. Human nature is human nature, choices have consequences, and you have to be careful. You have to protect yourself.
And there's another lesson I learned here: I was wrong. I was wrong to judge someone's value by what they wore. I was immature and shallow. Church and Star Trek taught me to respect people, to see beyond the surface and try to find a friend. I was taught not to look on the outward appearance, but to look on the heart. But I guess I didn't learn those lessons well enough. I guess that in a better world, it wouldn't matter what we wear, because it wouldn't distract people from who we are.
And maybe we need to start making that better world right now. Maybe the destructive parts of human nature need to be cast aside and forgotten.
Maybe we can teach children (not just girls) about modesty in a way that makes them feel empowered instead of ashamed. It is empowering to have the ability to choose how people see you. It is empowering to be able to see people as valuable, despite their appearance. We have to learn to use these powers wisely. We have to understand that people make bad choices sometimes, and you have to account for that. But we also have to be better in order to make the world better.
Because despite Jeri Ryan's success, despite her beautiful portrayal of a complicated character and the many roles she has taken since then, despite the fact that she is a genuine, caring person*, people still ask her about that darn catsuit. More than ten years later, people are still treating her like a cog in the machine of corporate sexuality. There is more than one thing wrong with that.
In the end, I'm glad that I had the opportunity to learn truth from more than one source. I'm grateful that I was given the chance to find my own lessons. Most of all, I treasure the ability I have to think for myself. To act for myself. Because that's the real goal of modesty, right? To be free from objectification? To be free to be your true self?
I think so.
Best wishes, regards, and kindness,
-Cecily Jane
P.S. This is really just one facet of modesty. Here's another post with a different perspective that I also agree with. It's pretty genius, actually.
P. P.S. I couldn't make this argument in the post because it's long enough as it is, but I tried to hint at it: this thinking is not only degrading to women. It's also degrading to the male viewer, because it not only is the female character being sold as an object, but the male viewer is being enticed to buy an object. Both parties are being manipulated and degraded. Both parties deserve better.
*I base this on her Twitter profile. She is awesome.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
God, Young Cecily, and the Art of Listening
My Dear Reader,
I often wonder how amusing my relationship with God is to my friends who don't believe in Him. It must be strange to hear me talk about God the way I talk about other people who also happen to exist. But I've known since I was very young that God is real, and that when I talk to Him, He listens. And sometimes, He answers.
And I think that something that proves God's existence above all else is how little He does what I expect Him to do.
For example, I'm pretty sure that if my sixteen-year-old self could see me now, she would ask me three questions:
1. Did you get into BYU?
2. Did you go on a mission to Australia?
3. Are you married?
And it kind of hurts to realize that at the age of twenty-six, I've only taken care of one of my three biggest life goals. I doubt that showing her a copy of my diploma would soothe her great disappointment in me.
I probably spend too much time thinking about the conversation we would have on the subject. I'm not sure how I would help her understand why I chose to serve missionaries food instead of becoming one myself, and why I didn't find a suitable Mormon mate while attending a university that had around fifteen thousand to choose from. And the more that I think about it, the more I know I would have to tell her that it's just not what God wanted me to do.
And I'd have to tell her all about the thousands of conversations that God and I have had in the past ten years, and how most of them didn't go the way I wanted them to.
Because if I'm honest, I'd have to say that most of the time I don't really want to know what God has to say as much as I just want God to pat me on the back and tell me that I'm pretty smart.
And when I do get answers, they are usually not the kind I want to hear. God, I have learned, does not bother with people-pleasing or patronizing. He just tells you the truth, even when it hurts.
I could tell my sixteen-year-old self about the way I pleaded with the Lord to let me serve Him by giving up everything and becoming a full-time missionary. I could express to her how I had such a great desire that even though I didn't get an answer right away, I started preparing for it. But eventually, I'd have to tell her that even though I took a missionary prep class, even though I had three returned missionaries as roommates, and even though I was working at the Missionary Training Center, and even after asking every night for over a year, I still didn't have an answer.
At that point in my life, I was so spiritually exhausted that I stopped caring, not about going on a mission, but about being right. Instead of telling God that I was going on a mission and asking for His stamp of approval, I actually started asking Him what He wanted me to do, and I actually started listening. I opened myself up to receive whatever it was God had to tell me.
And I got a clear and concise answer: NO.
So I didn't go. So I spent the next six months helping the missionary effort the best way I could, by keeping my job at the MTC and feeding the people who were doing what I couldn't. But then I would have to make my sixteen-year-old self understand that after a few months of full-time dishwashing, I stopped wondering why I wasn't good enough, and started to accept that there was a different way for me to go than the way I'd always planned. Then I had to convince my parents, which presented its own challenges.
Sometimes, no matter what choices you've made, it's a struggle just to not feel like a failure.
And then, when my sixteen-year-old self is satisfied with that, and asks me why I'm single, and why I stay in an environment where the eligible bachelors apparently find me repulsive, I think that answer would be a little harder to give. All I can really tell her is that whenever I tell God I'm fed up with it and all I want to do is leave, He is very clear that I'm supposed to stay put. And I really don't have any idea why, really. I try not to see this whole thing as a punishment for something that sixteen-year-old did. I try not to see my life as a giant waiting room. I try to remind myself that when I was standing at the mouth of Hell, God was the one who pulled me out. I try to remind myself that God has earned my trust a thousand times over, and that trust requires patience.
Because He usually doesn't answer my prayers right away. Not specifically. Mostly, as I pray, I feel the calm reassurance that I am loved. But when I ask Him what to do, or where to go, or if it's okay for me to just give up, it usually takes a while for me to get a straight answer from Him. Sometimes, it literally takes years. And sometimes it takes years because I've forgotten to listen, and I've forgotten that the shortest path to truth is accepting the possibility that I could be wrong.
I wonder how many times I'll have to re-learn that.
And as much as that young me would be disappointed in the person I now am, I would like to hope that I could move past that and tell her that everything in her life is going to work out. I wish I could tell her that the years she has in front of her are going to be hard, and that even though she is already well-acquainted with darkness and pain, things are about to get a whole lot worse. But then, I'd tell her, things are going to work out. Because I know that she will find a strength in herself that she never knew she had. She will fall into the bottom of a pit and manage to climb her way out again. She will find a spark of hope inside a windstorm of despair and manage to keep it burning. And she will do it using the power she will find in prayer. She will do it because she will become desperate enough to listen to God and trust Him. And together, both she and God will get through the next ten years. And she will be much, much better for the sorrow and pain. She will be better than she ever thought she could be.
And really, I would explain to her, that's worth a lot more than a name tag or a wedding ring. Those things can always come later, but her next ten years need to be focused on something else.
But I would tell her that above all, she needs to keep asking and listening. She needs to keep striving for something better and purer. She just needs to keep moving forward, and she'll come out ahead.
And then, after I've imagined this whole fictional conversation with the person I was in the past, I try to picture a conversation with the people I will be in the future. What would my thirty-six-, forty-six-, and fifty-six-year-old selves say? Would they say the same thing? Would they tell me to keep asking, listening, and fighting? Would they tell me that everything's going to be okay? Would they have found a better way to overcome the challenges I face? Are they any better at getting direction and finding purpose? Because as far as I've come, I've got a long, long way to go. There is such a distance between the person I am and the person I want to be that I honestly scares me. Sometimes I'm a little more than certain that I'm never going to make it.
But then, I know a sixteen-year-old who never thought she'd make it, and look how she turned out.
And look at all the things she's learned, and all the skills she's developed, and all of the strength she's gained. Look at the power she gets from the sure knowledge that God is real and on her side.
Maybe the future isn't so bleak after all.
So, you know, we'll see.
Regards, best wishes, and the will to ask, listen, and fight,
-Cecily Jane
I often wonder how amusing my relationship with God is to my friends who don't believe in Him. It must be strange to hear me talk about God the way I talk about other people who also happen to exist. But I've known since I was very young that God is real, and that when I talk to Him, He listens. And sometimes, He answers.
And I think that something that proves God's existence above all else is how little He does what I expect Him to do.
For example, I'm pretty sure that if my sixteen-year-old self could see me now, she would ask me three questions:
1. Did you get into BYU?
2. Did you go on a mission to Australia?
3. Are you married?
And it kind of hurts to realize that at the age of twenty-six, I've only taken care of one of my three biggest life goals. I doubt that showing her a copy of my diploma would soothe her great disappointment in me.
I probably spend too much time thinking about the conversation we would have on the subject. I'm not sure how I would help her understand why I chose to serve missionaries food instead of becoming one myself, and why I didn't find a suitable Mormon mate while attending a university that had around fifteen thousand to choose from. And the more that I think about it, the more I know I would have to tell her that it's just not what God wanted me to do.
And I'd have to tell her all about the thousands of conversations that God and I have had in the past ten years, and how most of them didn't go the way I wanted them to.
Because if I'm honest, I'd have to say that most of the time I don't really want to know what God has to say as much as I just want God to pat me on the back and tell me that I'm pretty smart.
And when I do get answers, they are usually not the kind I want to hear. God, I have learned, does not bother with people-pleasing or patronizing. He just tells you the truth, even when it hurts.
I could tell my sixteen-year-old self about the way I pleaded with the Lord to let me serve Him by giving up everything and becoming a full-time missionary. I could express to her how I had such a great desire that even though I didn't get an answer right away, I started preparing for it. But eventually, I'd have to tell her that even though I took a missionary prep class, even though I had three returned missionaries as roommates, and even though I was working at the Missionary Training Center, and even after asking every night for over a year, I still didn't have an answer.
At that point in my life, I was so spiritually exhausted that I stopped caring, not about going on a mission, but about being right. Instead of telling God that I was going on a mission and asking for His stamp of approval, I actually started asking Him what He wanted me to do, and I actually started listening. I opened myself up to receive whatever it was God had to tell me.
And I got a clear and concise answer: NO.
So I didn't go. So I spent the next six months helping the missionary effort the best way I could, by keeping my job at the MTC and feeding the people who were doing what I couldn't. But then I would have to make my sixteen-year-old self understand that after a few months of full-time dishwashing, I stopped wondering why I wasn't good enough, and started to accept that there was a different way for me to go than the way I'd always planned. Then I had to convince my parents, which presented its own challenges.
Sometimes, no matter what choices you've made, it's a struggle just to not feel like a failure.
And then, when my sixteen-year-old self is satisfied with that, and asks me why I'm single, and why I stay in an environment where the eligible bachelors apparently find me repulsive, I think that answer would be a little harder to give. All I can really tell her is that whenever I tell God I'm fed up with it and all I want to do is leave, He is very clear that I'm supposed to stay put. And I really don't have any idea why, really. I try not to see this whole thing as a punishment for something that sixteen-year-old did. I try not to see my life as a giant waiting room. I try to remind myself that when I was standing at the mouth of Hell, God was the one who pulled me out. I try to remind myself that God has earned my trust a thousand times over, and that trust requires patience.
Because He usually doesn't answer my prayers right away. Not specifically. Mostly, as I pray, I feel the calm reassurance that I am loved. But when I ask Him what to do, or where to go, or if it's okay for me to just give up, it usually takes a while for me to get a straight answer from Him. Sometimes, it literally takes years. And sometimes it takes years because I've forgotten to listen, and I've forgotten that the shortest path to truth is accepting the possibility that I could be wrong.
I wonder how many times I'll have to re-learn that.
And as much as that young me would be disappointed in the person I now am, I would like to hope that I could move past that and tell her that everything in her life is going to work out. I wish I could tell her that the years she has in front of her are going to be hard, and that even though she is already well-acquainted with darkness and pain, things are about to get a whole lot worse. But then, I'd tell her, things are going to work out. Because I know that she will find a strength in herself that she never knew she had. She will fall into the bottom of a pit and manage to climb her way out again. She will find a spark of hope inside a windstorm of despair and manage to keep it burning. And she will do it using the power she will find in prayer. She will do it because she will become desperate enough to listen to God and trust Him. And together, both she and God will get through the next ten years. And she will be much, much better for the sorrow and pain. She will be better than she ever thought she could be.
And really, I would explain to her, that's worth a lot more than a name tag or a wedding ring. Those things can always come later, but her next ten years need to be focused on something else.
But I would tell her that above all, she needs to keep asking and listening. She needs to keep striving for something better and purer. She just needs to keep moving forward, and she'll come out ahead.
And then, after I've imagined this whole fictional conversation with the person I was in the past, I try to picture a conversation with the people I will be in the future. What would my thirty-six-, forty-six-, and fifty-six-year-old selves say? Would they say the same thing? Would they tell me to keep asking, listening, and fighting? Would they tell me that everything's going to be okay? Would they have found a better way to overcome the challenges I face? Are they any better at getting direction and finding purpose? Because as far as I've come, I've got a long, long way to go. There is such a distance between the person I am and the person I want to be that I honestly scares me. Sometimes I'm a little more than certain that I'm never going to make it.
But then, I know a sixteen-year-old who never thought she'd make it, and look how she turned out.
And look at all the things she's learned, and all the skills she's developed, and all of the strength she's gained. Look at the power she gets from the sure knowledge that God is real and on her side.
Maybe the future isn't so bleak after all.
So, you know, we'll see.
Regards, best wishes, and the will to ask, listen, and fight,
-Cecily Jane
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