Wisteria. It's a big gnarly vine that strangles other plants and bears too heavy for rooftops but for a fleeting moment at the height of spring, its color and essence are the most redemptive thing.
Wisteriate should be a verb.
Wisteriate (v) - To cause much burden by heft and upkeep but to offer just enough of a glimmer of brilliance that all else is redeemed.
I imagine the original Edenic wisteria, fluttering incessantly, the fragrance of paradise was the only global warming.
I think about a clever Creator that knew how wisteria would wisteriate in the gardens that would know darkness and frost.
How patient He is with us all, in our wisteriatings through every season.
I've seen my students punctuate tweets and statuses with a phrase, often in hashtag form, over and over: "Sorry not sorry." It's an anthem of their generation. The unrepentant declaration always bristled me. I'm not sorry. Ergo, I'm not apologizing. But I also get it--they're staking their claim for feeling the way they feel, even in the face of elders who've raised them to be more mannerly, puppeteering their sorries when they really were not very sorry at all.
What about when we really are sorry? What is required of us when we truly are sorry?
As a teacher, apologies are one of the currencies I am supposed to accept in the barter system of assignments and grades.
"I'm sorry I couldn't complete this assignment in time. Technology conspired against me."
"I'm sorry for being late for class today. My roommate turned off my alarm by accident."
"I'm sorry I was not able to come to class today--I was feeling under the weather."
I know there is a sincere sorrow in {some of} the sorries I receive. I know it does not benefit me to judge the sincerity of {any of} them. What is sorrow for something done in error if there is no repentance, though? What worth does an apology have that simply observes a custom of niceties?
Our tenant gives us a Christmas card. He apologizes that there's no envelope. He apologizes in the card for all the noise. But he's a musician. How can he not generate noise and how can he truly be sorry for the noise? He does not want to repent of noise--it's his job, his identity. He still feels sorrow for the ways in which the noise affects us and the hours, decibals that it reaches us.
In this instance, I realize it is possible to hold two truths, one in each hand, and for neither to eclipse the other.
In one hand, he holds sorrow for causing us irritation.
In the other hand, he holds an unrepentant love of making his music.
***
This last school year, the personal theme that has emerged for me is BOUNDARIES. How I don't have them, how I need them, how I'm afraid of instituting them, how ultimately I'm so mad at everyone because of my failure to embrace them. How I'm going to die if I don't learn how to nail them.
Ahem. So yeah. That's been my area of interest.
Like most hard-wired people pleasers, I have been learning to let the smallest biggest word to emerge from my mouth (it's spelled N-O) while my neck cranks back and forth in synchronicity. I've got a long history of saying YES while on the inside the feelings were rioting and the heart was launching an OCCUPY NO movement and my hands got clammy and my sleep vanished as I lived in dread of the things to which I said yes, sure thing, you got it, you bet, you can count on me, YES - party of one.
I just felt so much guilt in the saying no, initially. So I said, Sure, Friend, you can sift through my closet. Then I got mad when she took all my clothes. I said, Okay, Teens from the youth group--y'all can sleep over in my dorm room. Then I got mad because I was sick for the rest of the weekend and got nothing done. I said, Hey, why don't you come over to my house and cry at my kitchen table when you're sad. Then I got mad when she wanted me to be her therapist.
It was all so virtuous, the reasons I said yes, initially. Jesus shouldered the weight of the world, surely I could sign up for one meal train. Even though my kids never see me cooking during the school year. Even though I sit down to a bowl of cereal most nights. I can ferry over a casserole to the church member who just had a new baby.
If you really examine Christ's behavior in the height of His ministry, though, the Savior of the world had boundaries. He retreated. He made specific requests of other people. He delegated jobs to a bunch of knuckleheads even though He knew they lacked faith to even see them through to completion. He didn't get mad that He said Yes to living in a broken world, even though He knew how it would all end.
I started to awaken to this once I saw that Brene Brown video that should be required for all people-pleasers and those in recovery from people-pleasing. She says she learned about boundaries only after she turned 35. Oh look. I'm 35. Maybe that's why they don't let you run for President until now in the hopes that you've learned about boundaries. Dr. Brown says that once she learned about setting boundaries, she became less nice and more loving. I absolutely want that to be my legacy. Not to be remembered for being nice. Niceness is the sugar in lemonade that hides the sour, niceness is a smile that fades. Love is enduring and infinite and we have more of it to pour out into the people who need it and who matter when we identify and stand firm on the boundaries in the rest of our life where we can only offer cups of sugar for their sour pitchers of lemonade.
I am learning ever so clumsily to hold the two truths at once, out in front to a world that wants me to choose only one. I'm learning the art of being sorry I can't say yes, but also not sorry that I'm saying no. I've learned to say, "I'm sorry--I wish I could." I've learned to say, "But I can't."
You can hashtag that "Sorry now, not sorry later."
Because I interface with millennial students on the daily, I use phrases like "on the daily" and think I can hang. When really my students just humor me enough to answer my questions about the snapchat platform. In fact, that sentence I just wrote? Embarrassed them. They would never permit themselves to say that, The Snapchat Platform, which is why I'm apt to say it all the more.
It's also the reason why I love me some DJ Khaled on snapchat because he posts on the daily and teaches me all sorts of meme-worthy expressions so that I can better hang. So I can win more. So I can show my fan luv.
If you are not acquainted with DJ Khaled and his place in the snapchatosphere, allow me to introduce you. Or if you are acquainted, tell me whether we the best.
How DJ Khaled's Snapchat is an Everyman Story
1. When you're the hero, you're DJ Khaled.
DJ K's positude is irrepressible. He never goes negative. Every other snap is dedicated to a positive lifestyle (weekly mani-pedis, thinktime in the hammock) or a pep talk in which he appears to be coaching both his fans and himself on the keys to success. When you're the champion of your own narrative, when you're so convinced of your own comeuppance, you are DJ Khaled.
2. When you're the enemy, you're the They.
DJ K knows They are always lurking. They don't want you to enjoy your balanced breakfast (and of course, water). They think you're fat. DJ K never thinks about that evil force, he says. His positive energy is so persuasive that you can almost forgive him for saying things like "Stay away from They," (and printing a line of clothes with this motto to boot). We all know it should be "Stay away from them." If you gravitate too close to the They, though, or you gaze too far into the eyes of They, then the abyss may become you. Stay away from They.
3. When you're the accomplice in the story, you're Chef Dee.
The script for DJ K's personal chef, Chef Dee, does not shift too much. Her lines are fairly easy to memorize. Responding to the question, "Chef Dee, What's good?" She simply recites the menu du'jour which always looks amazing and mostly healthy indeed. But you can tell this woman does not mess. She has no time for play. Her affect is pretty flat because she is the all-important hero sidekick. Hustling. Helping our hero win more.
4. When you are the backdrop, you are Lion.
The garden statue, Lion, is iconic to the DJ Khaled snapchat featurette. Whenever DJ K needs to issue a lion order--which,...whatever--he visits upon this great cat of the garden. Everyman's story needs a Lion. It needs a setting. A backdrop. A place where you can look over your dominion and consider how it is so verdant.
5. When you reach the Everyman's destination, you've blessed up.
Once again, I would otherwise be opposed to superfluous prepositions but DJ K just snatches me aboard on his proverbial jet ski (or literal jet ski would be fine, too) on the journey to success. He knows that our ultimate goal is to give glory to God, and to bless up. Even if that's inviting all of your fans to cash mob a restaurant you own--which,...whatever--is part of blessing up.
Show up.
Show fan luv.
Stay away from They.
Bless up.
Win more.
And of course, water.
Photos from Fusion Snapchat takeover by DJ Khaled, Chef Dee's Twitter
