I am a new kid on the block of Blogdome and Twitterverse. This new kid has a couple of extraordinary, pint-sized cheerleaders. Being rather scholarly in nature, with a serious bent toward geography, my ten-year-old son is fascinated by my digital world stats, particularly the geo traffic map. Hits from places like the Falkland Islands and Sakha, Russia launch him straight into a happy dance, atlas in hand. Spiking numbers on blog hits make his heart pitter-pat. This has been a fun journey to share with him, but every journey has its bumps. He bounded up over my shoulder recently to see my Twitter followers had dropped. Bump. There it was. What?! How could that be? His mama was rejected!?! "Why?" he asked. Because I had blogged and tweeted about my faith. As one person put it, I was "only as good as (my) last tweet" and my last tweet involved faith, faith in God.
Little man's eyes welled up. His mouth tightened. He was hurt that someone would reject his Mama. (I do think that he, like most young boys, reserves a red cape and a letter S for me in his closet.) But the very breath was robbed from his lungs at the thought that these numbers represented a rejection of God. It was more than personal... we were beyond issues of us... and onto bigger stuff.
Rejection. There it was in a number. Wanting to catch the tears before they could even spill I assured him. "It's ok. I expected this. I thought about this. I chose this." His eyebrows furrowed. Did his mama just say she chose to be rejected?! I did. And I will continue to make that choice daily, hourly. I drew him to my knee and watched him bite his lip. I was embarrassed to admit just how much thought I had even given to this choice. Son, if I write thoughts exclusively about worldly things, my chances of being more widely popular are indeed greater because I will be identifying with a greater number of people. Ok, he was following the math. But so much of who I am is my faith. It's not a hat I can take off and put on according to the atmosphere of my surroundings. It is woven into the very fiber of my being. It guides each step I make and the path I make them on. How could I communicate about my life without including God?
So, yes, I knew rejection would come. I chose it. I chose the window over the cloak. In order to keep my faith out of my daily communication, I could don a dark, heavy cloak... hiding what is my essence. I could stay in darkness in order to keep people around me who would otherwise run from light. Hearts rooted in the world crave its dark corners, digging ever deeper for the meaning and fulfillment always slipping from their grasp. In the darkness there is no growth, no sustenance, nothing to see.
When we choose to live veiled lives, wrapped in cloaks, no one rejects our true selves... no one will accept our true selves either. No one is given the opportunity to know or love us. We have robbed ourselves and those we encounter.
I choose rejection. I choose to shed the cloak of false acceptance. I lay it down. I cast off the blinds and open the window. Living a transparent life fuels a desire to tend my garden, to pluck out the weeds and to nurture my soul, that the view might be lovely, the fruit might be plenty and a rainbow of promise can be cast through the cleansing rain and nurturing sun. I desire to be nothing more than a clear frame to a beautiful work of a master. True sustenance. Acceptance.
The cloak lies at my feet, cast in a heap beneath the window... showing far more wear than I want to acknowledge. Beside it lies a much smaller one, unworn, unchosen, rejected. I look into young eyes and see an open window to a beautiful new garden. And I smile.
Susan
We are getting real about rejection today with the Faith Barista! Join in!
