Oil Spill: Part I

What goes in must come out. What goes up, must come down.

What does it mean to be a person of truth? What did Jesus mean when he said, "True worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth?" (my paraphrase)

I wonder if this has something to do with approaching God and others from a place of glass-splitting honesty. (If "glass-splitting honesty" seems an odd combination of words to you, think on it a bit, and I am confident the meaning will come to most of you reading this.) That would necessitate coming to him with both the good and the bad, the light, dark, and in between that we would often rather not admit or talk about. It feels better to come to God and others with a fresh face; radiant with hope, expectancy and faith in what is and what is to come. But what of the times when that faith is just not there, or feels fragile at best?

I think God welcomes it all. Consider the following:

"But you, O God, do see trouble and grief; you consider it to take it in hand.
The victim commits himself to you;
you are the helper of the fatherless." -Psalm 10:14

And continuing a little later:
"You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted;
you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,
defending the fatherless and the oppressed,
in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more." -Psalm 10:17-18.

What strikes me in this is God's listening posture and his encouraging. Actually, it goes the other way around in the passage. He encourages, and THEN he listens. Many who are used to the "pull yourself up by your Bible bootstraps" method of recovery might expect it to be the other way around, where we cry, followed by God encouraging, saying, "That's it! Cry no more! I've encouraged you!" And while I think that is part of the equation at times, there is something equally beautiful and comforting to be gained from what we see here: Encouragement, then more crying. It's as if God is saying, "I'll encourage you. Now keep crying. Let it all out. I'll encourage you some more, for as long as it takes."

To be quite honest, I have been processing some disappointments lately that have felt like the culminating disappointment of my life. And in this, I have felt God giving me the permission to get angry about it, with him and with what feels to me like an injustice. (I know that God is just, so I am not accusing him. But it is surprising when he allows us to use him as a punching bag.) And this has been scary. But I think it would be less scary if I were to process this kind of grief more honestly and more regularly. It's like an oil reservoir, longing to be drilled, the pressure having built up for so long that upon finally being tapped, the black ooze just seems to pour and pour.

Nobody wants to see crude oil pouring out of their mouth. But an old proverb says that "Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks." So what goes in must come out. Pain in, pain out. Joy in, joy out. Perhaps the trick is knowing when and how to tap the crude oil reserves so that others aren't subject to a massive oil spill. I think that's what the cross is for...pouring it all on Jesus, while he pours blood and water on us in return...life and more life.

Tree at Last

What can you do when your place of greatest hope begins to infringe on your deepest disappointment? What is one to do when cold, hard retreat and impending satisfaction neither seem viable options?

Can one who is lame ever dare to truly walk on his own, when any attempts made previously ended in the same pitiful falling? And by the same token, can one bear to deny any future hope for a successful, stabilized attempt?

Such is the bittersweet flower we call "hope." It is at once a sweet fragrance and a putrid odor, depending on which side of a moment it stands.

Hope...deferred makes the heart sick. But a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

Some shoots may grow into beautiful trees, even out of what was once a stump perhaps. But how many times can such a stump bear to extend a fresh, green shoot, groping towards heaven, before it becomes weary of the constant chopping down which it is never quite, and somehow always, accustomed to?

As my mom, Cat Ello, wrote in one of her songs years ago,

"Jesus, Gardner of my heart,
break this fallow ground apart."

Oh to be tree....tree indeed.

Winter Morning....A New Poem for the First Big Snow of the Season

Winter Morning
by David Ello

Winter's magic, some call tragic,
caught my breath this morning.

Sugar-crested, trees stand rested
underneath their blankets white.

Speckled, golden leaves lay hanging,
candied jewels in sweet suspension.

Were my eyes to write their sight,
days like this they'd more than mention.

But what my vision can't describe,
my heart instead will self-inscribe.

Winter wondered while I slumbered...
Woke me up this morning.

Autumnal Spring in the Winter

What change a year can bring! I am convinced that life comes in seasons, just like the weather can change so drastically from one degree and color to another. A year ago this time I was struggling for full-time work and in the midst of a major desert period. I heard rumblings of rain, the words of those I trust speaking of a plentiful springtime to come. Seems the spring came a year later...but it came nonetheless in what has been one of the most beautiful falls I have ever experienced.

Winter is now approaching or may very well be upon us, but it feels like a further extension of this springtime I speak of. Whereas last year I was concerned with how to find more substantial work and how to get into the school system substitute teaching, now I am enjoying regular full-time work and preparing to enter the schools as a touring theatre artist.

Last year this time I had only the faint beginnings of a partially written kids show. Now I have completed several drafts of a full-length script for "King David: LIVE!" which I have been able to workshop and present in small increments around Chicagoland raising funds toward the full production.

Doubts abound when one lives by what is clearly visible. My doubts as to whether or not God would allow me to stay in Chicago, whether he would continue to provide for me here in pursuit of my dream, his dream, our theatrical dream together, rose and fell at different times like the temperature outside. But over the past year, he has also taught me how to work with the inner thermostat, such that the outside elements of cold, hot, wind and rain (or lack thereof, mostly), have less of a mal-effect on this tree he has planted. I'm taking root, and it's his plan. So I'm okay. And I will thrive, rain or shine, snow or no snow. But there will be snow. And this tree will blossom in it.

Come now, winter, and extend this springtime with your icy, snowy blasts! The Snowman Awaits!

Ecclesiastes 3
A Time for Everything (NIV translation)


" 1 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace."

Perfectionism and Progress

I've heard it said that "Perfection is the enemy of the good." Now, one could argue from a theological standpoint that in light of God's perfection, this is not true, since God is perfect and perfectly good. But I'm speaking of human perfection at the moment, so humor me awhile as I digress into two recent discoveries.

I'm finding that perfectionism hinders one from truly enjoying the process. A simple process of cooking delectable hamburger patties on a grill can easily shift from enjoying the aroma of the smoke coming off of the coals and melding with the meat to the incessant inner monologue saying, "Oh my gosh, these stupid, stupid flames are burning my meat! Why didn't I wait 'til the fire died down so I could cook these suckers to PERFECTION like I know I can!" First, that's missing the point. Second, it's prideful and a bit presumptuous. "Perfection like I know I can?" Wow. And if that were actually true, that I could grill the meat to perfection (or perform any such task to perfection), who's to say that I am capable of reaching perfection every time I attempt such a task? It's a big set-up for failure, and I find that one misses a lot along the way. The meat turned out quite yummy, by the way, a little greasy though some of it may have been.

What does this have to do with the Revolution of Chai and my time here in Chicago? Precisely this: There are many things that I set out to accomplish when I moved here two years ago (and as of last Friday it has been exactly two years, thank you very much and thank you God!). And many of those things haven't happened yet, or else they have but are taking place on a very miniscule, hard-to-see-by-the-naked-eye level. Some examples? Becoming a better writer and theatre artist for one. What progress have I made in that regard? Since highschool, no---middle school--I have been acting in at least one show per semester (that's a minimum of two shows per year) and kept my acting chops fresh, growing, expanding. Since moving to Chicago I have been in only 1, yes 1, show (and that was almost two years ago now). That's okay though. I didn't come here so much to act as to write and produce/direct new theatre. And in that way, I have improved. So the actor in me feels neglected but the writer/creator of new theatre in me is growing. I have written more short plays in my two years here and seen more of my original writing acted out in some form or another (workshop, table reading, informal or staged reading at Show and Tells, etc.) than I ever have in my prior 24 years of life in Houston. And as for producing? Well, I actually haven't produced very much original work on a large scale, but I have been able to gather other artists and promote the exposure of their work to some degree, particularly through the Show and Tells we've been doing over the past 6 months or so. I have also seen more theatre here than perhaps in my entire lifetime (not sure about that one, but it seems close nonetheless). And I'm a much better theatre educator than I was before moving here, having compiled more lesson plans and taught more classes than I ever had before living in this city. I have even made significant progress on a play about my namesake that may soon become my first production to be fully produced and performed professionally, impacting paying (and perhaps a few non-paying) audiences. That's HUGE!

This leaves me two choices. I can lament the fact that I have been in Chicago for two years and still haven't seen any large scale fruition of what I came here hoping to do, thus holding to a perfectionistic, performance-based ideal...OR I can take a step back from it all and admire this ever bubbling pot of Chai that God is still brewing, yes, even stewing over with great patience and delight, saying, "Mmm....Smell that ginger, look at that cardamom float on the surface, see how these spices are swimming together to make a harmonious whole that's going to make the whole earth's mouth water for more of me and my goodness." (God speaking, of course.) Process. Option 1 is Perfectionism and self-judgment. Option 2 is about Enjoying the Process and becoming free to take in an albeit non-perfect, day by day picture that's a bit different from how I thought things ought to play out. Am I going to breathe in the aroma of the Chai with Jesus or stress over the fact that it's not completely Chai yet, becoming though it may be?

I'll end with this. About two weeks ago, my friend Brian, co-collaborator of the Show and Tell parties and all-around fun guy to hang with, encouraged me with something reflecting the following: "You know, David, you should be really pleased with yourself. You've done good here, accomplished quite a bit. These Show and Tells have been helping a lot of people and have been a great success. And they've provided me and some others the platform to develop some of our work from one level to the next, such that a few of us are actually putting on a house concert and getting our stuff out there. And that was one of the original goals you set out with in the beginning, wasn't it? To promote different artists towards realizing their artistic talents in a more full expression?" Okay, so perhaps I elaborated while quoting, but this is the gist of what he said, or what I heard. And suddenly, like Lucy telling the always down and out Charlie Brown something so simple yet revealing about his positive effect in the world, I felt as if some of my dreams and goals were being realized and this revolution of Chai had indeed begun to take place. I hadn't failed. I haven't.

So thank you, Brian Stark, and thank you Lord for encouraging me with what is instead of what isn't. And thank you that what isn't may yet be, when the time is ripe and the water has boiled out of the milk (you Chai makers will understand me on this).

Perfectionism or Process? Perfection can denote a stopping point. Process implies proceeding. I'd rather proceed. And that I will.

(In the spirit of proceeding, did you know that I have edited this post about 3 or 4 times before finally just letting it be? Perfectionism once again? Or process? I suppose it has to do with my attitude in the midst of it.)

"12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." -Philippians 3:12-14

A Homecoming and Coming home again

To be perfectly honest, Houston and I haven't been on the best of terms since (and before) moving up to Chicago, primarily due to this fear that sometimes comes to taunt me into thinking I may fail in my pursuits here and have to one day move back.

But last weekend made me feel different. I realized afresh just how rich a history I have in the Bayou City, what deep and proud heritage I have in my old church family there, not to mention the special bond I'm very fortunate to have with my flesh and blood family.

It's true that one can't live in the past, and singing songs lamenting the passing of the "good 'ole days" won't ever do anyone much good in engaging the present. But I'm realizing there's an equal danger in simply discarding the past in an effort to embrace the future. Remembrance is important. It helps us to appreciate and honor what's gone before us and to be thankful for the depth of what's been sown, producing hope for new roots to develop just as deep in the new places we find ourselves. To dwell in the past wouldn't be healthy (or actually possible for that matter...not really, as time and space is ever-changing and never remains quite as it was when we left it to engage in the present), but to visit and remember for awhile is a different story altogether.

Thank the Lord for BBQ and Tex-Mex and the Houston Vineyard and Samuel Jones and Tim Simpson and all of the others who have made such a rich impact in my life. How I wish I could carry all of them with me where I am at, or that we could all carry on together somehow, though we are in different places. Thank God for a climate (as much as I criticize it at times) where carnivorous plants can thrive and kids of all ages can take a swim in a summer that's actually hot enough to do so. Praise God for the myriad of amazing restaurants in the city and in the suburbs, and praise him for the quite-complex yet efficient freeway system that transports hungry stomachs to those desired havens.

Thanks Lord for making me a Houstonian. And thanks for the Houstonian Chicagoan that I am becoming and couldn't have become otherwise without my rich history in the Bayou City. From the Windy City, I thank you.

Awakening

Whenever I go into the darkness, the light within me shines all the brighter. I can feel the burning, the embers glowing deep, a fresh flame igniting as I step into the dark.

Something within me is burning fresh. Burning doesn't always feel good. Actually most of the time, a burning causes irritation. I burn.

I've heard it said that your purpose is found where the world's greatest need and your deepest joy meet (or something of the sort). How about the intersection of deepest darkness with your deepest light?

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Death, death, death. Bring life, life, life all around. All around.

The river begs for Chai without even knowing. Time to get brewing.