CYCLES . . .

Everything goes in cycles. Cycling is biblical, even, I think. There is a time for everything, and so it says in Ecclesiastes, and in giving everything a time, the implication is that time ... comes back around again.

Right now I'm riding through several of the cycles in my life. I have come back around to a place where I am being driven by the pensive, quiet, thoughtful, heavy side of me. This doesn't mean that these parts of me don't exist or aren't alive on the other half of the cycle. It just means that these things are driving me and motivating me right now ... as well as keeping me up at nights. Sure, I still love the occasional jaunt into riffing off of "Madagascar" (dang that brilliant Sascha Baron Cohen!), and the looks-askance and "read my mind" jokes shared with Ranger Jay and JC, and the general and inevitable hilarity that ensues whenever Mabel and I are sharing the same air. But it is clear to me now that right now, in this time, for this season, however long it is or will be, I am very heavy. Not in an intellectual, I'm so much more serious and weighty than you sort of way. But in a heavy, weighed-down, burdened, determined sort of way. I am being stretched and taught and refined and renewed and restored. These things happen, in me anyway, in heaviness and a sort of filtered darkness, in a reduction of frivolity and lightness. It is not unhappiness or lack of joy. It is simply a quiet that I must pass through to reach the raucous and free laughter on the other side.

I'm also cycling through the giving and receiving of care. To be more precise, I must confess I cycle very quickly through the receiving of care; I'm not comfortable asking for it nor having it heaped upon me. Friends have admitted to me that caring for me, taking care of me, is a challenge not because they don't want to give it, but because it's hard to give it to someone like me, who refuses to get sick, who refuses to sit down, who refuses to shut up and be weak and be administerd unto. I spent all of the past couple of months caring for someone else. I did it out of utter love and with not one ounce, not one smidgen, not one ion of resentment or tiredness or a begrudging spirit. I did it because he needed it and would have suffocated and expired without it, and because he asked it of me, trusting that only I, in his current circle, could give it to him. I gave all I could and would have kept going ... except that BAM! One day, I did get tired. I sat down and couldn't get back up. Most uncharacteristically, I spent an entire morning and afternoon and early evening shattered, in bed, in a prostrate position, physically and emotionally unable to move myself. And so now, here I am, having to turn to this very same person and ask for his care and his taking care of me. It takes everything out of me again, just to ask. For as needy as I can be, isn't it horrifically ironic that I hate expressing my need? I hate infringing upon people's time and energy and heart. I hate taking people away from other things, I hate having attention lavished on me, I hate that I am weakened enough to even need the attention that would be paid. But for now, I must demand these things, and I'm the fortunate one that this too, is cyclical. That he is now strong and able and willing, needing to give me strength; and that in my weakness, I would learn anew how to receive grace and friendship joyfully, strongly given.

I'm cycling through my sense of adventure. It's been a few months since I've taken a serious risk in my life, something public that others could and would comment upon, something that I could chalk up to accomplishment. I've been taking a rest, retreating into safety and the mundane and the reliance upon others to keep doing what they were doing. But no longer. In two weeks, Mabel and I will be picking up our guitars -- oh yes, I said guitars -- and leading the NHF women during the praise sessions at our annual women's retreat. Must I say it again? MABEL AND I. TWO WEEKS. GUITARS. Are the hairs on your arms standing on end right now, as mine are? Yeah, I know how you feel. In many ways, this is not such a major risk. Guitar ain't hard to learn, at least on the rudimentary level. The women we play for will be gracious and kind, forgiving even. And Mabel and I aren't half-bad, if I do say so myself. But in many other ways, this is among the hugest things I've ever offered myself up for -- and why, oh why did I open my big fat mouth and offer myself up for this? I don't show people the things that I'm bad at. I don't take up projects I know I will fail. I don't do something if I'm not going to do it perfectly. So to show a roomful of my churchmates that I can only strum one style of strum, that I can only reach this particular chord from this particular prior position, that I prefer to only play songs with no C-sharp-minor or B-minor or F major chords required, and that sometimes, in strumming, I throw myself hopelessly off and exhibit a clear but temporary lack of rhythm and hipness ... it could be biggest risk I've taken in a long, long time. But it was about time, anyway. Life was getting a bit too safe for me, and a shake-up was looming on the horizon. At least I'll have picked up another hobby on the way to the adventure.

I'm cycling through books. I've had enough of non-fiction for now, and am craving some good fiction, although of course just when I need some, I can't find any. So if you have recommendations, throw them my way, please.

I'm cycling through food. This may sound frivolous and not at all heavy and dark, but it's significant to me. There is something me, something in my body, crying out for sustenance, something solid and hefty. I haven't eaten much in the last few months, but when I did, I rarely ate anything heavier than a slab of tofu, with full relish and appreciation. But recently ... I need meat. Red meat. I need everything it stands for: solidity and nourishment and lifeblood. I know, I know, it's just a slab of steak. But sometimes, a slab of steak can satisfy and fill more and better than a whole array of other things. Nourishment is what I crave. After I am nourished, I can go back to tofu.

I'm cycling through beginnings, too. Last year, the start of the year held nothing but promise and excitement. I woke every day with a sense of expectation and a tremulous stomach for all the butterflies that flitted about in it in anticipation of each day. This year, already, I am weary. My feet drag when I walk. It takes too much energy than normal to lift my head and look up to the heavens. My ears are muddy, and sometimes I can go through a whole Saturday practice time or Sunday service without hearing one bit of what I or anyone else around me is singing. When my eyes open in the morning, it is with a spirit of begging God to carry me through the day. My heart is a touch down and my stomach is a touch leaden, and so every good thing that happens, every kindness offered to me, every love transmitted into me, is a surprise instead of an expectation. This all sounds so horrid, doesn't it, but still, something in the deepest part of me says that it really isn't. There's nothing horrid about it at all. It drives me deeper into thought, deeper into prayer, deeper into perusing myself and making sure I am what I purport to be, deeper towards empathy for those around me, deeper into appreciation for every good and delightful thing. It's not so bad; it's just what must occur this season.