holy ink

recently a friend of mine lost her pen, one of her two favorites, and it happened when i was with her. she got this pen when she graduated from college, from the college. it was a sentimentally unique pen and a solid writing pen with pine cones that fell from a tree. the loss made her a bit sad. i'm not sure if it was my fault, possibly was in a strange church + bag incident, but i took it upon myself to get a new one.

so, i emailed the alumni association of her college. here are a few excerpts from my initial email, where i unashamedly begged for a pen from a guy named tad (i used his name a lot in the email):
"Tad, I know that sometimes our jobs can get wrapped up in the mundane and the thankless tasks, then we can begin to wonder if we are making a difference. This is your chance to know you have blessed the life of one of your own, a fellow pirate out in the world."
&
"I cannot do this without you, Tad. I also understand that your life and job have much more important duties to undertake but this is an opportunity for something epic and heroic, if I may really stretch the meaning of those words."

i received an email back from another member of the alumni association, Kim, with good news:
"I'm going to put a pen in the mail to you today so that you can bring a smile to her face as she watches the pine cone fall over and over again!"

alright, now i was excited. the pen was on its way, thus i replied. again, a sampling:
"I had a good feeling about you good people, Kim. You've given me a new perspective on pirates. No longer are they mindless plunderers simply out for themselves. Nay, pirates are charitable lovers of life with hearts of amazing capacity."
&
"Thank you for this kindness. You Kim, if I may use a word I recently heard a rambunctious teen utter just yesterday, rock."

i waited patiently and on one rainy day in portland the sun broke through the clouds. a thick envelope, jammed quite unlovingly into my tiny mailbox by a surely disgruntled undergrad postal worker, was revealed when i opened the small mail door. with all my might, i maneuvered and navigated the envelope into my hands, opening it to find the pen i had sought and a bonus pen (though this bonus pen did not contain the novelty of its travelling companion, it was a nice addition).

proudly, i give the pen to my friend. she is happy to have it, grateful as well. way to go me. i felt a small bit of satisfaction. then the story of my life unfolds in all its comedic tragedy.

the pen does not write.

what? she gets a few sentences out of it. after that, she can only scratch her words onto the paper. no amount of spit or will-power can get this thing to release a drop of ink. oh, how i tried. it is now a useless pen, good only for watching pine cones fall from the tree into the waiting arms of a motionless man. that novelty only serves as a welcome distraction whilst taking notes. 'whilst' is under utilized.

this bothered me on a purely metaphorical level. even when i've done all i can do for something to succeed and go right and even when it feels like i have and it has, something falls apart that i have no control over. if it isn't obvious, i do feel something for this girl and she knows it (this is a subject i've intentionally never written about on this endeavor and i do so now with incredible hesitation and internal objection.). but i cannot make her write, so to speak. God knows what will happen with her, God knows i don't.

i just identified with this dry pen scene too much. i could make a thousand gestures and they could all come up dried-out: oh, so close to success but just a little closer to failure. but at some point they work their way out of my control. this isn't my fault, the pen. but, come on. why couldn't the pen work? where is the dang ink?

i hate that there are so may dry pens in life. it sucks that we can want something -this is about more than a girl here- and do everything right to get it, but we don't. life is so out of our control. our planning, our hard work, our wanting can all add up to a big pile of nothing with heavy parts disappointment. God then becomes the object of our anger, our disappointment, our empty hands. who else is there to blame after i get tired of blaming myself?

then, i see that my desires are all out of whack. i wanted a person, a purpose, a characteristic i don't possess, a status, a change, meaning, for my beard to be fuller on my cheeks and that spot between my soul patch and chin, and a ridiculous amount of things before i wanted to be with God. i thought that amassing all of those things would add up to a full life, a satisfied life. but as augustine said (in paraphrase): our hearts are restless until they find rest in God. our lives are empty until they are filled up with God, with Love itself, with holy ink.

deep down, i want God in everything in my life. but, i've got this habit of separating Him from a lot of things. this one hurts to write: God is not enough for me. obviously that is a subjective truth about my life that contradicts the objective truth that only God is truly enough. God is all i need: this is what i am working towards.

right now, i've got a dried up pen in a lot of areas of my life. i'm grateful for the places ink is not in short supply and i'm working on that God in everything process. i want to get to that place where i don't really care what i've got or where i am because i've got God and i'm in His arms.