voices and attitudes

This one's a doozy.
I should be working on a take-home final.
I'd rather talk about things I'm trying to think about.

//
I think you can tell a lot about someone by the way they talk to God.
My mom put this thought into my head while talking about one of her seminary classes. It's something they talked about in class.
And now I listen for it in everyone. It tells you just about everything about a person.
I'm having a good conversation with a friend, and then maybe we pray. Some people I know sound like they have no idea who God is and are praying to the most confusing thing they have ever half-believed in, asking Him for weird things. Some people talk to God like a prison master they're begging something from. Some people talk to God like a big sugar daddy they can get anything from. Some people pray to God like a distant comfort they pull off a top shelf when they can't take care of themselves. Some people pray to God like He is an old medieval king. And some people pray to God like a calendar, someone who has already mapped out their entire life and can't change their schedule or their life and can't do anything because it's already all booked, but they pray anyway, very halfheartedly. And some people pray like God is a beautiful entity that deeply desires them and each broken, messy word they say.
I'm not the judge of hearts. And words are just words. I can't hear your deep heart-prayers whispered in solitude. I don't know what you really ask God for and what you praise Him for when you're alone with Him. But I'm listening, and it's interesting, and it makes me wonder.

//
I am afraid of being alone and I am also afraid of commitment.
This is something I want to grow out of.
It begins by loving fearlessly and unselfishly.

And because I want to do that, I tried thinking back to the last time I did that for a long time. And I thought about my StreetLight summer. Have you ever walked into a warehouse of broken people, some without a home for the night? Some who smell like urine? Some who look at you like you're some upper-class white shit spending her free time at homeless summer camp and who the hell are you to ask them to only take one biscuit, please, thanks? Have you ever looked into someone's eyes and felt hopeless for words, utterly and completely stupid and tongue-tied? I can weave a pretty web of SAT vocab words and Tim Keller words into the most most beautiful sermon you ever heard. But when I look into pain, pain that has no lovely mask or wall, just bare pain, I break.

That is how I spent my summer: breaking. I drove up the Garden State Parkway every morning full of dread at looking at my own selfishness in the eyes of every person I talked to. That sinking feeling of knowing I had no words, no kindness, no comprehension, no common ground at all. The simple tasks I was so desperate for all the time, just wanting to keep my hands busy so I could feel less selfish, more helpful, so I wouldn't have to look at the pain but feel like I was fixing it. I would sit in my minivan, parked outside the Mission, breathing deeply, wishing I was tanning on a beach in Cancun or spending time with friends who laughed at my jokes, or wearing something other than my thick unflattering work shirt. And God did something I pray I will carry with me the rest of my life: He taught me how Jesus would have walked into StreetLight on food pantry day. Leaving self in the car with my bagged lunch, opening the door boldly and praying that God would allow me to love, allow me to love.
BUT
Turns out, actually, that was not what I really needed to ask for. I needed to see my own pain and brokenness. I needed real humility. I needed to stop daydreaming about social circles I did not have and a social life I did not need. I needed to stop treating everyone at StreetLight as if they were a project. I needed to sit at a table with the single mom with a baby on her hip and treat her with respect and admiration and caring. To treat her like her friendship was the gift, not mine, and like her words were the blessing, not mine. To lower myself and raise her up. To lose self completely in the important job of lifting someone up to see God.

You know, in movies, where one character has to kneel down so some another character can step on them to climb up over something or look at something in a better way? I think that's a beautiful metaphor for loving people. Getting gross and humbled and maybe getting a little hurt so that someone can experience God and get closer to Him. I want that.

//
I never wanted that humility more than walking away from AEXmas this Saturday. I tend to overthink parties sometimes because I'm a Comm major. Also I'm more aware of my own loneliness this semester, and I'm learning what it means like to live in community selflessly, so it's a lens I see things through frequently.

So I realized, I am here because I am lonely, and I am surrounded by mostly lonely people. I keep walking up to people and wanting them to tell me I am valuable, pretty, fascinating and mature. I kept inserting myself into conversations, and each time I did, I got more annoyed at myself. I keep talking to people who are on their phones or having disinterested conversations with people they do not seem to really care about. They just want someone to acknowledge their existence, to say they went to a party and someone cared about them. Well, I did.

I walked into that party the OPPOSITE way I walked into StreetLight on food pantry day. I really did! I went in looking for approval, affirmation and praise. I went in asking, "how will you make me feel? what are you going to do for me?" I would never dare look any of my friends at StreetLight in the eye and ask them those disgusting questions. I wouldn't dare, because I knew how much nothing I had to give. I would have been ashamed to ask anyone that.
So what's different at college?
I figured out the answer.
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

What would happen if I walked into the next meal, conversation, bathroom chat, party, event like I walk into StreetLight? All sensors go, leaving myself in the car and asking God to please, please, give me opportunities to sacrifice my own will for someone else's?
Please God please. I want that so bad.
That is my most recent and most fervent prayer.