Beautiful Change

Recently I enjoyed the pleasure of re-reading the first two books of C. S. Lewis' space trilogy (some of my favorite writing ever, hands down). A passage early on in the first book, Out of the Silent Planet, stands out to me each time I read the book, probably because anything related to change strikes a chord with me - I've always struggled with changes. They just don't come easily to me.

Maybe you are a thinker and worrier, like me. You can understand the intricate thought-circles that go on in the mind whenever a change, no matter how small, is anticipated. You question possible outcomes. You wonder if you will feel overwhelmed emotionally or be too weary to handle everything. You don't want the way things are now to end.

Lewis' main character, Elwin Ransom, encounters a mind-bogglingly big change in the first part of Out of the Silent Planet: He travels unexpectedly and against his own will to a new planet. When he realizes where he is headed, he is understandably afraid (he's also led to believe there are malicious beings on the planet). However, when he finally views the planet for the first time, his mindset radically shifts: "Before anything else he learn[s] that Malacandra is beautiful."

Ransom had expected a harsh, alien landscape, and when he is surprised by the beauty of the planet, he analyzes his own surprise: "he even reflect[s] how odd it was that this possibility had never entered into his speculations about it." Ransom questions his own thinking and cannot come up with a reason why he should have thought the planet would be ugly or frightening instead of beautiful.

The expectation that a new experience will necessarily be negative or scary comes mostly from apprehension of the unknown. I know what my current circumstances are like, and so I feel a certain sense of order and control over them. When all I can see in front of me is a blank, I don't know what will happen, and so I expect the worst. Why should I think like this? Why shouldn't a change bring positive and good things into my life just as easily as challenges or hardships? Indeed, why wouldn't challenges in themselves become good things if I handle them through trust in a God who loves me?

A new situation in my life, such as bringing a new baby into the family or moving to a new city, may turn out to look beautiful or it may turn out to look like "rocky desolation" (Lewis), but either way, my anticipation of it need not be fear-filled. I might as equally well expect joy as depression, pleasure as sorrow, and smoothness as roughness. In reality, I've experienced that most changes bring a mixture of all types of emotions, challenges, and fun. In any case, when the sovereign God of the universe is the one bringing me through it, I can pass with an inner peace from the "now" into the "then" - He's going to make each chapter of this life beautiful in the end, anyway.

Homemade Mistakes

The other day I was able to finish sewing my toddler a new dress. I've made a dress using the same pattern before, so the process was not completely new to me, but I'm still no expert seamstress. While I was able to sew comfortably without making as many mistakes as the first attempt (during which I had to rip out many seams and start over many times, as well as contact customer service for the pattern I bought to ask a question about how to do one of the steps), I still could not execute the project as cleanly as I would have liked.

When sewing the slightly puffed sleeves onto the dress bodice (one of the most finicky parts of the dress, along with the dreaded placket), I could not get through without puckering parts of the bodice on the front of the dress. I had to cut out one part and start over, but then the same thing happened again anyway, and then again with the second sleeve. Frustrated, I held up the dress to my face to examine my error and sighed. Should I cut the threads and start again, probably with the same result?

pucker one

pucker two

before hemming

In a moment, I decided to leave the mistakes as they were and abandon my impulse to make the dress look "perfect." The dress is homemade, after all, I told myself. It has more character with a bit of mess-up in it. And who's going to notice these small puckers once the entire dress is complete and my goofy, friendly, sweet daughter is inside it?

Homemade life, by which I mean real life (not magazine or Instagram or Facebook life) has flaws. As much as I want to be in control, organized, and on top of things at all times, I'm human. This lesson seems to return to me over and over: I will make mistakes, it's fine to make mistakes, and mistakes can even be good as they teach me important things. Making mistakes shows me and the people around me that I'm a person just like everyone else; mistakes invite openness and trust. Can people be comfortable with someone whose life is essentially a Real Simple photograph?

Furthermore, as my mom always told me (and as experience has shown to be true), people aren't looking that closely at me; they are too busy worrying about themselves! If someone is getting close enough to see a tiny pucker in my life, I am probably returning the favor and we are having a constructive chat about our problems. If that person is secretly judging me in private, then it's not my problem at all.

However, if someone does look at my life, flaws and all, I hope the sweetness of the heart of Jesus can overpower any impression of my personal faults. I'm not perfect, nor can I be in this lifetime, but Jesus told His disciples to "be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). The perfection of God's intentions, desires, mindset, and plans should be visible through my own motives, mindset, and actions, even though I mess up. The puckers and ripped seams are mine; the finished beautiful garment, which will in the end be perfected (Romans 8:22-30), is God's.

The Former Student

Recognition swept across both of their faces as Callie stepped out of the elevator at the floor of her office and almost walked into the person standing there. Both simultaneously said, "Hey, how are you?" Then the older woman waiting to get on the elevator asked, "Did you teach this summer?"

"No, I didn't; it was a nice break," Callie answered with nods of emphasis.

"I know - I came to see you, but you weren't there - I figured you weren't teaching. Hey, what did you think of my 'Goodman Brown' paper?" Jane, confident, without fishing for a compliment, asked in her pleasantly loud voice.

"I thought it was good, really insightful, in-depth," Callie answered truthfully, though caught off-guard by the question, and having had a solid three months of break, having moved to a new city, and having planned for a new semester all since reading that final research paper.

"Oh, thank you! I just knew it was good. Thank you, Ms. Trindle!" Jane poured out the words with genuine delight, though her countenance displayed a sense of self-assurance and a knowledge that she was fine with our without this bit of affirmation. "Your class was my favorite class of all time, so far in my school," she added.

"Well, good; I'm glad you enjoyed it," Callie said, still taken a little aback.

"You're an awesome teacher," Jane continued, but with an air of ending the brief encounter so both ladies could move on with their schedules.

Callie, laughing, not sure how to respond, but wanting to do so graciously, said, "Thanks - you were an awesome student!" She really meant it, too, although that language, borrowed from Jane's remark, would not have been her own choice, she being such a deliberate and subdued teacher. Relating to students on a personal level had always both excited and puzzled her: how casual could she be? Could she let her guard down, or didn't she have to maintain that invisible boundary, for authority's sake? She was so young, after all, for a college teacher (in her mind, anyway): twenty-six, and just recently married, with no kids to add any of that almost intangible "mom-gravity" to her person, that gravitas that some teachers seemed to have, maybe since they were used to taking no nonsense from their own little 'students' at home. Callie did not reflect on all of these thoughts often, but her general picture of herself was definitely tinged with the drab colors of small, pervasive doubts and cautions.

The carpet and walls looked sharper as she walked back to her office after this conversation with her former student. Half-closed blinds and some buildings outside obstructed the view through the window at the end of the hallway, so that as she walked towards it, Callie could only see a small patch of what happened to be a bright blue sky.