I really did try, and sometimes my efforts paid off. One afternoon, my roommates had all scattered for the Fourth of July weekend, leaving the apartment in my capable hands, so I decided to have people over. I called three girls and asked if they’d like to bake chocolate saucepan cookies with me while we listened to one of the audio books required for class. A great idea, I thought, until I realized that listening to the tape meant that we wouldn’t be talking while we baked, which was a little awkward.
Nonetheless, everybody seemed to have a good time, especially Marian, who came with her roommate Heidi. In fact, after Heidi left, Marian asked if I wanted to walk to the mall with her so that she could drop something in the mail. I said sure.
I think Marian was a little lonely. She’d come to the States for school, and I think she felt a little out of step, maybe a little culture shocked. By hanging out that afternoon, I had done something a little like inviting a starving woman over for dinner. After strolling around the mall talking about food and her boyfriend and her native China, I had a hard time drawing the afternoon to a close, and I felt unbelievably guilty for trying.
The next week, at the end of one of our classroom discussions, Sheryl sent us out in groups of three to discuss self-esteem and write down things we liked about each other (we did that a lot) and just generally share, and I joined in with Marian and my roommate Christa.
Marian was the last to share, and when she began, she seemed desperate to talk. She talked about how lonely she felt and how she missed her best friend back in China, how she hadn’t talked to her in so long. And as she spoke, her beautiful, clear, friendly eyes filled with tears.
Christa responded appropriately; she knew enough to hug a person who was crying. But I just sat there, unsure. I didn’t know how to hug a sitting person. And Marian continued to cry, all the while looking at me, and I felt her asking me for something, something I didn’t know how to give.
I felt like a machine that I didn’t know how to operate. I didn’t know how to click this button or wiggle this joystick to make myself know what Marian needed and how to help her. So I laid my hands on the table between us in a desperate attempt to communicate thereness.
Here I sat with someone who needed something from me, and I just couldn’t find it. And I felt that I was hurting her. I felt that I had failed.
When I remember this now, I think about that deep disappointed feeling, that feeling of wishing I were better and wishing I could get the last five minutes back. But I think that when you're doing something new, or doing anything at all really, sometimes you just fail. You just come up short. And I have a little compassion for my former self, that girl who was realizing she was in over her head a little in this making-new-friends thing. It's not fun to fail, especially when you feel like you're failing other people. But being in over your head is the only way to get taller.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Okay, so I was a little different. Let’s just say that I’m the kind of person who sometimes refers to the NRA derisively, who has vegan sensibilities. One day in class, the professor—a large, funny guy with a voice that belonged in Volkswagen commercials—said something about the war in Iraq, and after we’d dismissed, I went up to him and said I’d like to talk more about it; I felt frustrated by the way a pro-war stance was often presented as the default position of faith.
I can’t remember what I said after that, but I concede that it may have been a little shrill. He said sure, we could talk more about it sometime, but not just then. Neither of us brought it up again, as it turned out. I was embarrassed by my sudden bravado and the way I could tell, by the look in his eyes, that I had made myself a thorn in his side.
I had similar conversations on three or four other occasions—minimum wage, welfare, things like that. Once, I went up to talk to the professor (a different, older, slightly gentler one) about how sweatshop labor factored in with that day’s economic lesson, and he said to me, bobbing his head down toward me slightly for emphasis and making firm eye contact, “Did you know? That most of what you read about sweatshops is not true?” I squinted at him.
And it wasn’t just politics. I also stood out in my approach to faith in that everybody else seemed to have much less trouble with the details. At one of our Friday night dinners, I sat at a TGI Friday’s table with one of my roommates and her new BFF, and one of them brought up the subject of biblical inerrancy, since we’d talked about it in class that day. I was the first to speak, and I said something like this: “See, that’s a hard one for me—it’s tough to iron out that definition. I mean, I think the Bible is something, but there are so many human fingerprints, and I just have a hard time sorting out what that might mean.”
After a pause, Katie said, “I think it’s inerrant,” and Christina breathed, “Me too!” with ecstatic relief. So I was the only doubting Thomas at the table that night—and every night, it sometimes seemed.
But the people—oh, the sweetness of the people. My small group leader had the most maternal soul. She showered us with love, and most of our group meetings consisted of going around the room saying what we liked about each person. Sheryl, who taught the Family Studies class, hugged me at least twice before she knew my name. And then there were guys like Zach, who reminded me of a puppy and could often be seen smiling and doing things for people.
Everyone was like this, really. I often felt dark and sarcastic and moody in comparison, but they were even sweet about that. I felt like they were bearing me, bearing me with patience and an innocent curiosity. I have to say, it was fun.
I can’t remember what I said after that, but I concede that it may have been a little shrill. He said sure, we could talk more about it sometime, but not just then. Neither of us brought it up again, as it turned out. I was embarrassed by my sudden bravado and the way I could tell, by the look in his eyes, that I had made myself a thorn in his side.
I had similar conversations on three or four other occasions—minimum wage, welfare, things like that. Once, I went up to talk to the professor (a different, older, slightly gentler one) about how sweatshop labor factored in with that day’s economic lesson, and he said to me, bobbing his head down toward me slightly for emphasis and making firm eye contact, “Did you know? That most of what you read about sweatshops is not true?” I squinted at him.
And it wasn’t just politics. I also stood out in my approach to faith in that everybody else seemed to have much less trouble with the details. At one of our Friday night dinners, I sat at a TGI Friday’s table with one of my roommates and her new BFF, and one of them brought up the subject of biblical inerrancy, since we’d talked about it in class that day. I was the first to speak, and I said something like this: “See, that’s a hard one for me—it’s tough to iron out that definition. I mean, I think the Bible is something, but there are so many human fingerprints, and I just have a hard time sorting out what that might mean.”
After a pause, Katie said, “I think it’s inerrant,” and Christina breathed, “Me too!” with ecstatic relief. So I was the only doubting Thomas at the table that night—and every night, it sometimes seemed.
But the people—oh, the sweetness of the people. My small group leader had the most maternal soul. She showered us with love, and most of our group meetings consisted of going around the room saying what we liked about each person. Sheryl, who taught the Family Studies class, hugged me at least twice before she knew my name. And then there were guys like Zach, who reminded me of a puppy and could often be seen smiling and doing things for people.
Everyone was like this, really. I often felt dark and sarcastic and moody in comparison, but they were even sweet about that. I felt like they were bearing me, bearing me with patience and an innocent curiosity. I have to say, it was fun.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
My Very Own Reality Show
I guess I wanted an experience. I wanted to break out of what had been my monotone existence for the last four or so years, to try something new, conquer a city. So when an editor I knew—he edited a webzine for a large Christian ministry and had published a couple of my pieces—asked if I’d be interested in attending Large Christian Ministry Institute, I gave the idea serious consideration, and then I applied. It would be kind of like going on a reality show, only (hopefully) offering greater chances of career advancement and (hopefully) not as humiliating.
The Institute accepted college juniors and seniors and recent college graduates, with the goal of transforming them into lean, mean, social-change machines—me and 87 other students, only about twenty of whom were guys. We would take classes like Worldview Studies and Family Studies and camp and hike and happily bond in the summer Colorado sun.
First of all, I barely made the cut. I actually—I'm serious—neglected part of the application, so I got wait-listed. And about a month before I had to move, I got the call letting me know I was in.
Second of all, I was a nervous wreck. I didn't really do the college thing the way normal people did, so this would be my first facsimile to the dorm experience. This meant wall-to-wall people all the time (because in my world "wall to wall" is, like, four), most of whom were girls.
It’s not that I didn’t have any female friends. My church small group contained three girls, and we’d taken to hanging out sometimes. But even though we had a reasonably established friendship, the groove wasn’t very deep.
I wanted things to be different at the Institute. I don’t know what I had in mind, exactly, but I wanted a firmer sense of connectivity. I wanted deeper grooves.
The night before I was to arrive at my new apartment with my three new roommates, I thought, I don’t know if I can handle this. I don’t know if I can do this.
The Institute accepted college juniors and seniors and recent college graduates, with the goal of transforming them into lean, mean, social-change machines—me and 87 other students, only about twenty of whom were guys. We would take classes like Worldview Studies and Family Studies and camp and hike and happily bond in the summer Colorado sun.
First of all, I barely made the cut. I actually—I'm serious—neglected part of the application, so I got wait-listed. And about a month before I had to move, I got the call letting me know I was in.
Second of all, I was a nervous wreck. I didn't really do the college thing the way normal people did, so this would be my first facsimile to the dorm experience. This meant wall-to-wall people all the time (because in my world "wall to wall" is, like, four), most of whom were girls.
It’s not that I didn’t have any female friends. My church small group contained three girls, and we’d taken to hanging out sometimes. But even though we had a reasonably established friendship, the groove wasn’t very deep.
I wanted things to be different at the Institute. I don’t know what I had in mind, exactly, but I wanted a firmer sense of connectivity. I wanted deeper grooves.
The night before I was to arrive at my new apartment with my three new roommates, I thought, I don’t know if I can handle this. I don’t know if I can do this.
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