Partially meeting expectations

It’s that time of year when performance review conversations happen at my company. I left the meeting with my manager one afternoon feeling rather deflated and angry. Afterwards, I sat on the floor in front of the freezer in our kitchen, my feet unsteady. I’d avoided looking directly at her as she spoke in vague terms about my performance, gesturing as if weaving together invisible cobwebs with her fingers. In essence, while my work is “high quality,” I just didn’t have the “conduct and cultural impact” needed to merit a high rating. That’s corporate speak for: If you’re to make any progress in this place, alongside churning out excellent design work, you have to actually be visible and charming and way chattier than you currently are.

This is not the first time I’ve been told this, and while I try to do my part, chiming into small talk with my two cents about the weather and showing up to most of the team bonding activities, it often feels like I’m stuck in a cycle of having to play a character I can’t master on a stage unfamiliar to me, reading a script written in another tongue.

In the days since receiving that review, I’ve been more sullen than I’d care to admit. I’ve swallowed back a few tears and allowed myself to indulge in a petulant sort of self-righteousness– taking longer to reply to Slack messages and opting out of facilitation duties in a kind of silent protest. I’ve been stewing in a fog of shame for the past week and I’m honestly surprised by that. I’m surprised because I like to make much ado about how unlike some people, I’m not defined by my work. 

One of the prayers I’ve said many times in the 3.5 years since I started working at this company is Psalm 17:14: Deliver me from the men of this world, whose portion is in this life, the people so defined by what they can achieve, including in the workplace, that they use others as scaffolding to climb to greater heights. Those who drown out others’ voices in meetings and take credit for others’ work and talk about others behind their backs as a way to build rapport. I’ve prayed for protection against such people because– well, because I don’t identify as one of those people. 

I’ve believed myself instead to be one of those brimming with a longing for a more enduring promise. Those steadfast in their pursuit of God-honoring excellence, and unyielding under the ever-mounting pressures of deadlines and unwieldy coworkers and all-consuming workplace politics. Those who are somehow able to maintain a sense of identity that’s fully grounded in God and are not shaken by the not-so-great things that happen at work. But surely such people wouldn’t care too much about a mere performance rating, or would they?

If I’m being honest, there’s a certain restlessness at the core of the way I’ve been approaching my work. Between working late nights and rehearsing for presentations until my mouth dries out, I’ve been striving for excellence– which can be a God-honoring thing. But often, the all-permeating disappointment felt in the wake of a clunky presentation or unfavorable feedback from a respected mentor shows me that while I’ve been pursuing excellence in my work as a way to please God, I’ve also been doing it as a way to derive meaning. 

I led a workshop recently with a bunch of engineers about a project whose details were so technical and ungraspable to my non-engineer brain that I mostly sputtered through it– and afterwards, wondered if my brain was actually broken. Then I wondered if I could ever walk into the office again and try to hold a normal conversation with the same coworkers who’d seen me fumble so badly, with any kind of dignity. Then I had an actual meltdown that had me questioning how I even got a job that requires me to facilitate workshops. And then I wondered how someone who has any real understanding of the unconditional love of God could be so shaken by something so small and insignificant.

I’ve been behaving like one whose portion is in this life, who has no enduring promise beyond what I can achieve here, much like the people I’ve been praying for protection from. And that has meant being beholden to the things a good career can bring, like the praise I receive for a job well done, the admiration that lingers across the faces of acquaintances when I tell them where I work, being able to hold all the poses in my impossibly difficult Pilates class because I walked in with my company’s sweatshirt on (it’s a thing!). It’s also meant being beholden to the torrent of emotions felt in the aftermath of, and sometimes in dread of things not going well– the anxiety and shame and ever present fear of saying the wrong thing or being found out.

The verse I referenced earlier– Psalm 17:14, when you read a bit further to the next verse, the psalmist says – as for me I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake I shall be satisfied with your likeness. I’ve been praying for that kind of satisfaction, the kind that comes from truly beholding the likeness of God. Partially while on this earth and in this body, and then fully when I finally see Him face to face. I want to be so captured by the anticipation of one day looking like Him, that I can live unencumbered by the weight of toiling for significance from my work. That I’ll be free to work with zeal and fervor, and free to cry when things don’t go according to plan but not so much that I forget who I am altogether. Free to love colleagues in spite of my every natural inclination to sometimes tend to my own desires at their expense. And I know as I write this that I cannot do any of this on my own, so I ask that He would work through me for His good pleasure.

But the Clock is Ticking

I woke up earlier than usual today. And when I did, it was to check my WhatsApp messages to see if an acquaintance I’d met at another acquaintance’s birthday party had finally responded to my message asking if he’d enjoyed a concert he’d attended recently. No, he’d not responded, and frankly I don’t think he ever will. 

On the heels of a courtship that had ended because “I just didn’t feel any attraction” to my suitor, I’d allowed myself to become swept up in a possibility of a real attraction with a man I barely knew. I mean, there was an exchange of glances across the room– like how they do in the movies. And then there was what felt like a fortuitous train ride Uptown on the 2, where we talked about how we like to spend time in the city. He laughed when I told him that in my 14 years of living in the city, I hadn’t known the MET was free until I got a corporate benefit that allowed me to go for free some 3 years ago. There was him asking for my contact info when we got to 72nd, and then the thing about how my name suits me perfectly, which was the last thing I remember him saying before he got off at 96th. After an agonizing and heady weekend where I pretended I wasn’t hoping for him to text me, he did.

We talked, and then we stopped. The last thing I sent him was a link to an exhibit at the MET I’d missed.

There’s something childishly embarrassing about being ignored, and then there’s something deeply chastising about repeating the same mistakes and getting the same unfulfilling outcomes. I have 2 weeks until I turn 30. I started this blog when I was 23, and I remember one of the first stories I wrote being very similar to this one. I talked about deferred hope and disappointment and walked away with a very clear lesson that I told myself I would never repeat. So I ask myself, why do I find myself in the same position some 7 years later?

As I get older, I realize that the battles that were once internally fought are now also being waged without. Guarding my heart is no longer just about protecting my own thoughts, it’s also about being careful to keep other people’s expectations and fears from becoming my own.  All the guardrails that I carefully constructed in order to protect myself from heartache have, over time, crumbled under the burdens of age, and fear, and the endless inquiries of well intentioned elders. I’m experiencing what it feels like to be given permission by society to “let my guard down”. I’m having conversations about “positioning yourself strategically to be seen” and “putting yourself out there” with people I never thought I’d have that conversation with. But all this “putting myself out there” has left me in a vulnerable state and rendered me susceptible to pain that I thought I was too wise to experience again at the age of 30.

Being older doesn’t necessarily mean that things will hurt less, that’s something I’ve been reminding myself. Being older, and hopefully wiser,  just means that Satan gets craftier and wilier and uses the things and people you least expect, to lead you astray. 

I’m trying to be more intentional about what I let into my heart, what advice I take, and whose concerns I entertain. What does that look like? It looks like when my pastor corners me after church and tells me “We’ve been praying for you”, pity shrouding his features as if my singleness is a disease, or when I’m tempted to linger too long on a thought about how my name will sound rearranged with someone else’s last name when all they did was give an unconvincing compliment, I’ll deal with it with the wisdom of the Holy Spirit and not submerge myself head first before figuring out if they’re the right person for me. 

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I wrote this one Saturday morning about five months ago and never got around to publishing it. In the months since, I’ve found myself facing the same problem with different people—each time convinced that this was finally the right person for me, only to realize I was wrong. I’ve gotten really good at picking apart what some of these young men say, finding all the holes, and sometimes even reveling in the satisfaction of having caught them in a lie.

After one young man told me that Adam’s first wife’s name was Lilith, I promptly wrapped up the phone call, cackled like a lunatic in the kitchen by myself, and thanked God for making it easy on me. At 30, this is the cross I bear, and it’s heavy. I pray daily for the grace to submit my desires to Him and take on His yoke instead.

Feeling untethered

I felt unusually untethered this past weekend. Over the last couple of years I’ve cultivated a routine that whilst exhausting, grounds me and makes me feel somewhat present in my life. This past weekend though, I was over-caffeinated and tittering with thoughts of a future I usually try not to think about. While my mind was somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, I found myself thinking about my wedding day. what kind of wedding dress I would want – something with a halter neck, do they even make dresses like that anymore? I thought about the kind of venue I would want – somewhere bucolic and green and lush – even if it’s not the NY botanical garden. I thought about the song I would waltz to for my first dance– the classic “I can’t help falling in love”?. I don’t often entertain thoughts like this and I must say dreams of this sort usually coincide with a burgeoning crush. 

Whether or not I have a reason to be excited, I’m praying for a steadiness in my soul. I want to find excitement in my daily life as well. I don’t want fruitless thoughts like this, as fun as they can be, as delightful as they can be to talk about with girlfriends, I don’t want them to have power over me. I pray for God to spare me from the sickness of deferred hope and unfulfilled dreams.

Toiling for rest - stream of consciousness

I spend more time feeling like I should be writing, than I actually do writing. Life feels richer when I’m able to be more introspective and think more deeply, but lately I’m becoming increasingly aware of how finite my energy is. 

Lately life feels like endless toil. I wake up, try to read 4 chapters of scripture, rush through a prayer for myself and my family, get out the door and go for a run around the park, knead the knots out of my body afterwards, quickly chow down a bowl of oatmeal with some fruit, cycle through back-to-back meetings with colleagues, work on designs, try to squeeze in a quick lunch, if I manage to get to the end of the day in one piece, I run to catch a bus to the upper east side for a pilates class, run back home to try to make it for one last thing– writing or painting or reading before bed, and then try to get in bed by 11. I’m exhausted just writing this. 

I think that hidden somewhere in this list is a promise for a more enriching life where I’m better able to feign competence at work and undo the weight gain brought on by the birth control that’s supposed to keep my period from ruining my life. Hidden in there is a promise that one day, if I keep this up long enough, I won’t have to catch a bus to the upper east side because I'll be living there, having somehow climbed the corporate ladder to the top or having sold a painting for a million dollars or having written a novel that’s won one of those fancy awards or having started and sold a business that’s made me wealthy beyond my wildest dreams.

There’s something weighty about it all. About the youth that deludes us into thinking that all of this is possible. There’s something heavy about living a life where you feel like you can save yourself and change your destiny by working hard.There’s something backbreaking about arm wrestling God into handing you a future that you think you deserve. 

Tonight it dawned on me that it’s possible that I won’t achieve any of the things I’ve been chasing after. It was that sharp pain I felt in my knees as I ran up the subway stairs to catch a train to the pilates class. It was the inability to hold a plank in said pilates class without feeling the burn of my mortality riding up my chest. It was the inability to taste the jollof rice I was eating when my mom mentioned that she hadn’t heard from my brother in over 24 hours. None of us had heard from him in over 24 hours. I have no control you see. Not over the things that really matter– the lives of my loved ones, the beat of my heart, the crease in my joints– there’s not much I can do to control any of these things. When reminded of the fragility of my life and everything I hold dear, I realize that much of all this running around is an illusion to feel a sense of control over things that I ultimately have no control over.

Tonight I’m praying for the restfulness that comes from knowing that I’ve been justified. Fully and utterly. There’s nothing more that I can do to change how God perceives me. Even if I wrote all the books and started billion dollar businesses and became a design thought leader person that everyone wanted to have on their podcast, it wouldn’t change how God sees me.There’s a freedom in that reality that I’ve yet to lay claim to. I think understanding that deeply will set me free from this yoke that I’ve put on myself to work to prove my worth. 

28 Feels So 8 Years Ago

I ran in the cold for less than 5 minutes today, even though I’d originally planned for 20 minutes. I was sure that I could shake off the cold and propel myself forward against the wind chill. It chafed against my cheeks, I shook my hands free from its grip, that was to be expected. 3 minutes in, I struggled to breath. So I stopped running. Then I walked, and started running again, back home. I stopped my running app, accepting defeat. 

“The weather decided to be cold here today”, I said at some point at the start of one of my meetings today, contributing to the weather discussion taking place amongst my colleagues. Suddenly aware of the jitters in my stomach, I contemplated adding, “I also decided to not overthink this meeting, and yet here we are”. That had been one of my resolutions for the new year, becoming fearless and more confident in myself, unafraid to speak up in meetings.

I spent the last days of December dreaming up who I would become in 2022. Thinking about the steps I would have to take to become her – paint more, write more, speak up at work more. I wrote everything down in a Google doc, believing earnestly all along, that all it would take for me to achieve them would be sheer determination and willpower. Grit, if you will. This morning as the wind licked my face, it became clear that I would need more than self determination and will power.

It’s a fact that became clear to me as I settled more into 27 and is even clearer now as I begin my 28th year. As laugh lines deepen and 2 miles around the block feels more taxing than ever, I look at some of the decisions I made when I was 23 about who I would be at 27, 28. I thought that at 28 I would have the kind of rich inner life – hard earned through willpower and determination – that would render me sufficiently stoic in the face of the kinds of hardships “normal” 28 year olds face. The kind of inner resilience that would allow me to respectfully, but self-assuredly say back to the elders in my community who insist that 28 is the year to get married that they don’t know what they’re talking about. The kind of inner life that would allow me to fight the constant humiliation that work often feels like.

My willpower is brittle and weak and it’s failed me more times than it’s been faithful. There’s a lot that I resolved to have and do when I was 23 that I haven’t achieved yet. And there’s a lot I wanted to do by the end of the year that I most certainly will not be able to achieve. It makes me want to stay up all night in my khaki overalls and paint without stopping. It makes me want to feverishly churn out 3 blog posts by the end of the month and wake up at 5:30 to run 5 miles in the cold and read all the great books about what it means to be an amazing UX designer all by tomorrow morning so that I can be a magnetic force at work. It’s hard to imagine another route to the kind of life I want to have.

Every now and again I force myself to picture my life many years from now. The one where I’m kinda gray and haven’t achieved any of the dreams I have. No books. No entrepreneurial pursuits. No children. No husband. Still peeved to tears at the sight of a hairstyle that didn’t live to see its full potential. Sentences still peppered with “I don’t know”, and I wonder if this version of myself feels like a failure. Is she resentful? Is she envious of the people living the life she once dreamt of having? Maybe she’s a hard cynic who hates her life. But what if she’s not? What if she’s living a true life of freedom, unencumbered by this desire to constantly achieve. What if she really understands what it means to be loved and fully accepted without condition? Will she stop striving and working so hard to “become somebody”? I want to believe she will.

When the “Suffer Well” theology becomes a cover-up for lack of faith

It’s Sunday evening and my roommates and I have decided to huddle together in the living room to pray. At this point our prayers are still peppered with things that you might say are not too urgent — we’re still asking for clarity about our next steps, romantic prospects, Covid-19 — all these prayed for with the same fervor and acquiesced to with much head-bobbing and “amens”. Yes, the new virus is ravaging families around the world, but it’s not too close yet. There are some 300 cases in Massachusetts and maybe a thousand in New York but the idea that it might affect one of our loved ones is still somewhat distant. We’re reading Psalm 91, and at the sound of “A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you”, I feel a familiar clench inside my stomach. I have a doubt that this means what we want it to mean. I doubt it means that Christians are not going to die from the virus, or that the families of some who’ve lost their lives didn’t pray fervently for their healing. 

It’s no secret that Christians suffer. We suffer because we live in a fallen world and this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. I believe this wholeheartedly and yet, I find that during this difficult difficult difficult time, I’m becoming increasingly disappointed with the fact that the message that many of my “spiritual crushes” are preaching is just this and nothing else. From all angles people are being exhorted to suffer well, to not be surprised when they get sick or lose loved ones, to rest in the knowledge that God is at work in this. This is good, encouraging even, but I’m not altogether satisfied with it because I also want to hear them talking about healing. Crazy miraculous healing, the kind that happen in Acts and Matthew and John and in the whole Bible.

I know that my flesh likes to feign Holiness at times to justify my earthly/fleshly inclinations — apathy disguised as a love for the “higher things”, unfounded disdain for people explained away as a “discernment issue”, fear mistaken for humility. So I’m rightly afraid that this might be another one of those instances where my flesh is reacting and I’m just not seeing clearly. Maybe I just want to believe in the God who heals and not the one who subjected his perfect son to a shameful death on the cross, good though he is.

In college, my friends and I prayed for a man who asked us for money at the corner of the road. We surrounded him and laid hands on him and I said to him at the end “The Spirit that rose Jesus Christ from the grave now lives in you.” I guess I expected his eyes to light up and maybe invisible shivers did travel down his spine, but he didn’t look moved by this. Four years have passed and I’m realizing that this thought is not just difficult for new believers to wrap their minds around, it’s difficult for everyone. It’s never easy to suffer well, but it might be harder for some of us to believe that God is still working miracles through his children today.

I’m reading Acts right now and Peter is healing people — he prayed and asked Tabitha to come back to life and she did, he’s asked a couple of people to get up and walk and they have. Peter was an Apostle, yes, he dipped his morsel of bread in the same wine Jesus did, he’s a witness of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus — but the power that worked in him is the same power that lives in all of us who believe. So at the risk of sounding like a “Charismaniac”, why are we not praying crazy prayers and believing God to work wonders through the church at this time? 

I posed this question a week earlier when I was writing this. In the span of a week, I’ve realized that I am in fact surrounded by people who are praying crazy prayers. People who are praying a lot more than I am, and in asking myself why I’m not praying as hard as they are, I’m realizing that I’m scared. I’m scared that I don’t have the stamina to pray the kind of prayers that I imagine actually heals people — passionate and frantic and wordy prayers, throat parching, tear-filled, hungry prayers. I’ve believed a lie that I think many people are believing at a time when we’re supposed to be praying harder than ever, and it’s sad.

I’ve prayed many sloppy prayers in my lifetime, all of which God has endured. Terribly repetitive and boring ones. And I’ve seen Him answer my sloppy prayers in delightful and marvelous ways. So I guess my exhortation to you as you’re reading this — maybe still in the fog of this pandemic, or maybe in the next couple of days or years when it’s all declared over, is to pray. Pray in whatever language you can, pray zealous and unzealous prayers, pray, pray, pray and ask for the Holy Spirit to help you. Ask him to heal those who are sick and to allow you to mourn fully with those who are mourning. Ask him to help your unbelief. 

For When You Lose Your Train of Thought

The other day, I sat across from my supervisor, who’d arranged for us to have a full day excursion in her hometown. A quaint little thing with ghostly brick buildings and dank alleys and too many craft beer bars. We sat there talking about many things I don’t recall in any particular detail now, and I ate buttered toast and nodded aggressively, eager to show how interested I was in the conversation. One minute I was nodding up a storm and the next, I was ready to call an ambulance because I felt like my head was spinning. I remember feeling woozy, leaning my head in my palm for support and then reluctantly swallowing an Advil pill an hour later when I realized it wasn’t going to get better on its own.

The rest of the day went by in a haze, moving along in the kind of slow, feet-dragging way that uneventful but frightening days usually do. Uneventful, because as dramatic as that morning had been, I still trotted half the small town and giggled with a young coworker about how its best days were behind it. I took stock of my surroundings at the same pace, the corners of the streets smelled like urine— like most street corners, the beer my coworker offered me tasted as pungent as it usually does, my skin stung gently from being under the sun for so long— again, not unusual. What was unusual and frightening is how unlike myself I felt while doing all this, like my head was filled with cotton and hay and unfinished sentences that would never see completion. I felt like I was cutting through a thick cloud of fog.

It was an unnecessarily dramatic day but it also got me thinking; what if my life was an unending, super drawn-out brain fart? Like, what if I forgot things all the time and couldn’t finish my sentences and make logical arguments again? The things I take pride in— being able to remember random details, stringing together sentences that make me feel giddy, coming up with witty clapbacks— what if I couldn’t do those things anymore?

So much of this Christian life is in the mind, we believe with our minds, we control cosmic powers with the battles we fight in our minds, we’re commanded to love God with all of our minds. So the thought of this mind failing me, of the possibility of one day being unable to grasp the truth as I’ve come to know it, sours my stomach.

One of my favorite movies is Still Alice, it’s about a Columbia linguistics professor getting diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's and her life basically falling apart after that. I enjoy watching the movie because I think she’s a badass and she’s the kind of woman I want to be when I’m 50. She runs every morning, “thrives on work,” eats froyos in the most guiltless way, and even though her children don’t really get along they still listen to In Dulci Jubilo at Christmas gatherings and eat fancy desserts. At the end of the movie, though, she can’t even recognize her daughter and in one scene, after scrambling to find where the restroom is in her own home, she urinates on herself. Her family contemplates ending her life and I wonder, is life not worth more than our minds?  

It’s easy to feel invincible when you’re in full control of your faculties. You almost start to believe that the world begins and ends with what you can perceive— in the people sitting across from you, the conversations you’re having, the books you’re reading. But how flimsy would this life be if that was true and the truth begun only when we were able to fully grasp it, when we were able to connect the dots?

My roommate who’s not a Christian told me that if he actually bought into any of this “Jesus stuff” and prayed, his only prayer would be “let your will be done” and I looked at him and said “well that wouldn’t be wrong,” because it wouldn’t be. No one I know or listen to from afar really understands how prayer works alongside God’s sovereignty (If things that are going to happen are going to happen anyway, why do we need to pray?) but they still pray anyway. That’s the case with a lot of other things, not just prayer. Even though our minds fail us sometimes when we try to balance seemingly contradicting realities, we still submit because we know that there’s a reality that exists outside of what we can understand.

The other day I read about Jesus resurrecting the little girl from death. Talitha cumi, and tears welled-up in my eyes because I realized as if for the first time that unlike what I’m prone to believing, he’s the resurrection and life, not a beating heart and a well-functioning mind. I realized as if for the first time that his deity transcends my ability to reason and find answers to hard questions. Jesus, who’s the essence of all creation and thought, who speaks into being the things that aren’t, that Jesus is the same one who holds the world together by the word of his power. The world will go on if I misspell a word and lose my train of thought.

Grappling with Truth in a Post-Truth Era

I often find myself getting mentally defensive when someone presents certain lines of thinking to me, especially lines of thinking that have to do with politics, explanations for suffering, identity, right vs. wrong, etc. Perhaps it is the person’s visible presumption of my position that rubs me the wrong way. Or perhaps since I am used to being a minority in many different ways I find myself in a state of perpetual resistance. Or maybe simply this tendency is from a desire to always be right and subsequently be the one who sees what others cannot see.

I do know that I don’t want to fit inside the box that people are constructing for me. Because if I do, then directly and indirectly I am hurting myself. If I step in that box, then I begin a gamble on my deepest beliefs – a gamble that has too far-reaching of implications for me. If I step in that box, then I am denouncing someone else – someone else that may represent a core part of me. The plethora of identities that reside in me fight to be represented and defended.

It is from this mindset that I had the following thoughts. I don’t know if this type of mindset would discount the ensuing perspective, but, nevertheless, I think it represents a thought worth some consideration.  

Over two months ago, a thought hit me— if we are living in a post-truth generation (basically where one’s experience is reality and people are expected to take one’s experience at face value), wouldn’t we then expect this acceptance of reality from all angles? Fake news, alternative facts and so forth have been able to thrive under this type of phenomena of post-truth acceptance. I mean, based on how one phrases and interprets an occurrence, could those event retellings that we call fake news also be true? What truly is truth? What is reality?

However, the interesting thing is that we (we as in society, or at least in western/American society) want the individuals sharing these types of alternative facts to be held accountable. We seek out someone to denounce it, someone to give us objective norms. Yet, at the same time we turn around and pursue our own personal post-truth acceptance and then pressure others to accept our experiences as truth.

I found this double-standard to be fascinating.

It became apparent to me that there is still a desire within people for an objective right versus wrong; we want there to be an objective truth of what is good and bad. The catch is that this desire arises mainly when it is convenient for us; when the truth is advantageous, that is when we seek its presence and that is when we demand societal obedience to it.

When I shared this train of thought with my friend, she poignantly put it this way: “People still have a longing for truth because we have the law of God written on our hearts. So no matter how far from truth we get and how much our hearts harden to the truth, our consciences somehow still bears witness to the truth.”

I guess the world and the way we live our lives are full of double standards, so perhaps the perspective I have shared is not necessarily a special point. I guess since I have been feeling like the times we live in are times of life or death that I noticed this particular pattern. I guess it is because I have been feeling that I must feel a certain way or see a certain way in order to validate my humanity that I presented these thoughts. Either way, beyond my own uncertainties and anxieties, I believe the desire for truth and for others to know it and be held accountable demonstrate our true nature and identities. Even though we may lie and fool ourselves, the truth cannot be hidden. It must make itself known.

Wearing Richter This Fall: Art-Inspired Fashion

I went to Washington D.C for the first time this past May. I had less than forty-eight hours to see everything, and boy did I try to see everything. I lugged my backpack around and went to more than three museums, trespassed a posh hotel for a cool drink, let the sun graze my skin a little too aggressively than I would’ve liked, and most importantly, saw a Gerhard Richter painting! It was so yellow and creamy and I just wanted to eat it. As I looked at it, streaked with pinks and deep crimsons, hovering just a couple of inches off the ground, I wondered what it would look like against my skin. What would it look like as a dress?

All hail Abstract Painting # 780-1

When I was a student, when Art was becoming more of a certainty than an afterthought, a professor suggested I look at Gerhard Richter’s paintings. I liked the rich and buttery surfaces of his paintings, they seemed to sustain miniature civilizations within them. I enjoyed watching videos of his process, the pressing and rolling and peeling, he barely used brushes and I didn’t like using brushes and I fantasized that perhaps if I too, rolled and pressed and peeled, I could produce those textures. I liked the fact that he doesn’t speak English and so his videos are not laden with explanations of “hidden meanings” that are not even there.

So back to the yellow-ish painting I wanted to eat. Its left corner had steely blues that were interjected with stripes of yellow, to make for a less abrupt transition to the other warmer-toned corner, I guess. But the yellow stripes, laid thinly on top of the darker background, brought to mind cotton and yarn spread delicately across a loom, ready to be spun. So naturally, I thought of clothing— the kind that’s woven and oftentimes become indelible marks of a culture, a testament to its durability. I thought of the Kente and the Batakari and the Bogolan and all the fabrics that are imbued with stories of peoples whose stories are sometimes forgotten.

There’s something formidable and lasting about thick and woven surfaces. I think that’s the reason I’m not too anxious about the growing popularity of the Kente cloth; maybe even when it’s borrowed and worn without much understanding or thought, its dignity will not erode because it’s thick. Go figure!

So in attempt to incorporate a more fashion-forward side to this blog, I’ve curated a “mini collection” based on the Gerhard Richter painting I saw that day. I want this post to be an homage to thick pieces, patterns that remind me of home, and colors that look edible! Especially since Fall is underway and heavy clothing is becoming more of a necessity than a vibe.

This smock from Madewell is not exactly thick or woven but the pattern reminds me of the batakari.

How lovely is this jumpsuit? It’s from William Okpo, a contemporary womenswear line owned by Nigerian-American sisters, Darlene and Lizzy Okpo. It’s cute but only check the price at your own risk.

This sweater from Free People looks so cozy! The powder-blue is what gets me.

I’ve been watching these Madewell pants from afar, but now that they’re on sale I might actually get them.

This dress from Topshop looks like it could be a year-round closet staple. Love the tailoring.

How adorable is this whole outfit? The pink looks edible and I’m here for it!

These 70s inspired bell bottoms from Free People will make you look artsy if nothing.

Unproductive Saturdays Remind Us

This Saturday morning is like any other. The alarm is silent but I wake up at 9, that’s unusually early for a Saturday. I run the list of things I should do in my head, clean the bathroom, wash my hair, maybe cook for the week – but not before I read my bible. I’m in the middle of pouring cold water on a bowl of garri when I remember that I’m supposed to be fasting. I lift the spoon I’m holding to my mouth anyway because it makes no difference now – that fast was supposed to have been from Tuesday to Saturday.

I finally make it back to my bed and splay the bible open on my lap. I’m reading through Titus this week, actually I’ve been reading Titus since last week and I’ve been on chapter 1 for just as long. It looks like I won’t be going any further today because my confusion has lunged me headlong into a 30 minute long monologue about Paul’s political incorrectness. How could he possibly make the generalization that all the Cretans are liars and lazy gluttons? How’s that okay? So that ends the bible reading for today. I make it over to Instagram to make an unimaginative birthday post for a friend. The biggest chunk of my day is spent hoping between Instagram and Facebook, stalking people I’ll probably never meet in real life. I look at the time and it’s 2:30 pm. I feel guilty and wonder how differently my day would’ve been had I spent time in prayer, trying to understand what Paul is actually saying.

Most of my days are like this. A list of shoulds that never materialize into actual dos. Roiling in guilt and then deciding that every bad thing that happens to me is because I didn’t do what I was supposed to have done. I stub my toe or feel a pimple raising its head and it’s because I didn’t spend enough time reading my bible. My ‘quiet time’ has become a barometer for deciding whether or not God is pleased with me, for gauging whether or not he’ll answer my prayers. So on days when I don’t get a full hour in the word, when my prayers sit in my mouth like chalk, unconvincing and bland to my own ears, I can imagine God sitting up on his throne looking at me with a sneer on his face, shaking his head as he looks through the list of misfortunes that are going to befall me because I didn’t pray hard enough to earn his protection from them.

I’ve made quite a stir about hating the “prosperity gospel.” I’ll march up and down and try to speak “sense” into people who think they’ll live long healthy and prosperous lives because of their faith, because they pray long prayers and speak in tongues. To them I say “Come on! Look at Jesus, look at Paul.” But I’m slowly realizing that a part of me still buys into the idea that I can bargain with God – that in exchange for cowries of good behavior, I’ll get to carry home bucketfuls of the kind of Christian life I want to live. The kind of life that’s not boring, that brims over with mountain top experiences and makes you immune to pain and the beckonings of earthly desire.

Dull days still stretch on endlessly though, and life trails in the kind of zigzag way that can’t be mapped neatly onto moralizing blog posts. Not everything makes sense, and even though I’m trying really hard to get to the place where I don’t desire things (because we all know the trick is to be so satisfied in him so that you don’t want them anymore– and then he’ll give them to you), I still have longings, petty and ever-evolving, weighty and at times all-consuming.

In a life at once full and unfulfilled, I’m learning that good behavior doesn’t warrant good reward. And I’ve heard a lot of pastors try really hard to drive home that point. But too many times I’ve heard well meaning teachers say, in an attempt to smother the legalistic tendencies that some of us have, that our righteous deeds don’t matter. That they mean nothing because we’re totally justified. And I disagree. I disagree because even though we’re saved through his mercy and not through any righteousness of our own (Titus 3:5) we’re called to live and walk in a manner worthy of our holy calling (Ephesians 4:1, Colossians 1:10), not because we can ever be deserving of our salvation but because we know him who’s called us. So while it goes without saying that keeping sacraments and checking off boxes doesn’t make us deserving of our salvation, there’s a place for striving to live a life that’s pleasing to God.

Anyway, flesh and blood business is complicated, and sometimes it can be glamorous to recline languidly in the ironic ever-wandering, never coming to any conclusion about what God wants kind of way. But I pray that the Holy Spirit will awaken us to the beauty of resting in God, knowing that nothing we do can earn us his grace, while making us a people who’re not passive about living in a way that’s pleasing to him.