Humanity

context [kon-tekst] noun

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INTE RACTIONS & LIVING

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HUMANITY INTE RACTIONS & LIVING

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SPRING 2017

Clint Kearney @hellohoosier

BAILEY SHANNON Editor

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Lauren Dahlhauser @laurendahlhauser / laurendahlhauserphotography.com

Contributors

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Kailey Sullivan @ksullivan_design / kaileysullivan.com

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Ethan Renoe, @ethanrenoe / ethanrenoe.com

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Marisa Iglesias @iglesiasmarisa / marisaleighiglesias.com

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Caitlin Tyner @caitlintynerphotography / caitlintynerphotography.com

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Margot Groner @margot.and.co / margot-co.com

Adriana Arthur Clint Kearney Ethan Renoe Aaron Peabody Bree Bonetti Chelsea Smith Matt Sharrard Jadonna Keim Andrew Harmon Brooke Foyer Jerel Domer

TABLE OF CONTENT

So, here’s to you.

ONLINE: issuu.com/humanitymag/docs/context

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Let us vow to be for people and their stories. To be quick to listen and slow to speak. To rejoice in expression. To look not just with our eyes and hear not just with our ears. Let us take an active role in an on-going narrative of the human experience.

Iss. No. 2 is dedicated to Adriana.

I hope your heart feels more permission to speak.

ISSUE NO. 2

KAILEY SULLIVAN Creative Director

As a people we are often quick to speak and slow to listen. We live teleological lives and we let few things slow us down.

Kailey Sullivan

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The Importance of Asking Why

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The Context of Risk

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Of Age

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To My Daughter

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The Honey, The Bee, & The Beekeeper

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A Millennial Hymn

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Story Time #context

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Shallot

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From Where I Stand

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Abba

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Holy Humiliation

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Little Metal Box Fire

Jerel Domer

Andrew Harmon

Adriana Arthur

Matt Sharrard

Chelsea Smith

Ethan Renoe

Aaron Peabody

Brooke Foyer

Ethan Renoe

Bree Bonetti

Adriana Artur

Clint Kearney

slow to listen quick to speak

context [kon-tekst] noun (a) the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed. / the set of circumstances or facts that surround a particular event, situation, etc. (b) the parts of a written or spoken statement that precede or follow a specific word or passage, usually influencing its meaning or effect.

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by Jerel Domer

othing happens in a vacuum. Everything has a context, a unique mixture of events and entities that surround it, a mold in which it takes shape. Like everything else, people are molded by their contexts in the same way the earth itself was formed by that which surrounded it. Sponges, we absorb our surroundings.

Mirrors, we reflect them. What goes into something in one way or another comes out of it. The universe itself is an infinitely complex dance of interlaced events, an inconceivable interplay between codependent and co-productive phenomena that dance together to form one great piece of art, one story.

People are icebergs and life is the ocean in which we float. When we walk down the street or through the grocery, when we sit in the café or in the public house, when we watch the news, we think we see other people. What we really see are only the summits of other submerged mountains.

It’s easy to look at things, particularly people, and ask what without asking the more difficult why. But we humans are formed by our contexts, our specific places in time and space, and if we understand our fellow humans’ contexts, we understand our fellow humans. This is central to seeking harmony with our brothers and sisters in the world. And it’s not an easy thing to do, as amply evidenced by history. People that are different from us are often difficult to understand, and it takes more than a figurative (or literal) glance. It takes an act of will.

We consciously or subconsciously analyze those whom we recognize, either immediately or after some time, as being fundamentally different from us in behavior, appearance, views, or background. We quickly form an impression of what a person is like and often stop there, neglecting to ask further questions: Why might this person be like this? What events and circumstances may have molded them in this way? What might they have seen and felt and heard and learned in their vast, submerged history? Although we might never know, simply asking ourselves these questions is an important step toward seeking greater understanding of and harmony with the other. Simply asking ourselves these questions changes our perspectives and our attitudes, making us more open to those who are different.

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pon encountering someone different we make judgments on what we see without regard to what we don’t see, which is often the greater portion.

There are two kinds of people: people that we understand, and people we don’t. The people we understand are usually people who are similar to us in more ways than they are different. We understand these people, our friends and families, because we have been privileged to see more of the submerged mountain When we don’t understand someone it’s because we are only seeing a small fraction of her or him. We often make decisions and judgments accordingly. But what if we, when interacting with those we didn’t understand, moved from the emotional and reactive what to the intellectual and responsive why and endeavored to discover more of what lies beneath the surface before making our decisions and our judgments?

I’m not advocating complete tolerance. I’m not advocating tolerance of people whose behavior blatantly violates the rights or freedoms or wellbeing of others (although I think that even these people can at least be understood). What I am saying is that everyone has a story.

And people, by extension their stories, are formed by their contexts.

If, for example, a person is born into a relatively comfortable middle class life with financially and emotionally stable and affectionate parents, they’re going to have a certain kind of story. If another person is born into an impoverished and crime-ridden inner city neighborhood with emotionally unstable or substance-abusing parents they are going to have a different kind of story. The extra layer of substance-abusing parents has its own context, and I can imagine the temptation to make the oversimplification that they are “bad people” who are making a “bad choice” for which their children will have to pay the price.

The reason why people stop at what instead of asking why of the other. Another tendency we have is to oversimplify things, often out of sheer intellectual and moral laziness. Taking the case of the substanceabusing parent, it’s easier to stop at the assumption that they are bad people consciously making a bad decision. It’s a nice, uncomplicated, satisfying answer. But it would be more intellectually and morally responsible to do a little more work and ask things like: why do they abuse substances? What have their lives been like? What events and circumstances led them to the needle or the bottle or the pill? Do I really believe that when they were children and people asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up, they said, “A junky”?

As the cleverest animal, we humans don’t like it when we don’t understand something (i.e. life, death, other people, tax forms, etc.).

The inability to understand people who are different from ourselves makes us at first indifferent, then exclusive, and in the end full of hatred. Understanding, which comes by the will to discover what lies beneath the surface, produces empathy, compassion and love. This is hardly a novel concept but it strikes me as being worth reiterating in these times of great ideological division. It is important when we look at people who are different from us to consider not just what we see but also what we don’t see. It is important to ask ourselves of others: why?

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b u t a l s o w h a t w e d o n ’ t s e e .

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Urban Dictionary

Humans About Humans also have very weird sense of beauty, they consider ugly things (for example: snow mountains) as “breath taking”. In most cases they can’t even use the simplest logic.

Paradoxically, everything in their life must be in a perfect order, everything must have a number, a name, every single item has its very own place in their homes, work places or wherever.

Population 7,492,596,246 Everywhere

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My story is my own.

I h a v e t o remember this. I am a person who likes to share bits of my story when it is appropriate.

I also share when it is not appropriate: when someone else is speaking, when someone is silenced by my loud voice, when I exert my charisma and demand attention too much from other people.

Reflecting on my story with friends is a great step in intimacy and support. I invite someone to get to know my history; I am laying out a foundation of understanding for empathy and support. Without the development of a deep connection, a friendship exists in a state of convenient transience. This is a style of friendship with which I am well acquainted. My introverted self in my teen years would have been confused upon meeting my current extroverted people-pleasing self. The connections I had through early high school were few, solid, deep, and memorable. The college-age-and-beyond me underwent a mysterious social blossoming as I developed many friendships, and hardly any were deep enough to keep me rooted.

But now, as I search for rootedness, for support, I must face the fear of any patriotic God-fearing individualist: that I am not writing my story, but rather always wrestling for the writing instrument. To those who do not find helpful a god with supreme power and determinism in their hand, I thank you. You have taught me how to question the world. I must take hold and write my own story, from my passionate over-thinking inner self outward. I must give credit to the many people who are writing and have written parts of my story when I was too weak or too strong or to meek or too arrogant.

I must also admit that I let my story wander sometimes.

In those times, I would fault myself rather than think it is the fault of a lazy God who doodles in the margins of the book of history. Either way, my story is always edited by my community, friends, family, by my enemies I am sure, and as the Native peoples of this U.S. region have taught me: by all 7 of the next generations after me. Yet for now, I kick around plans for my life without seeking actual investment from my closest crew and my community. I find myself supported and rooted, but my story is being written haphazardly. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe I can celebrate my close friends and community and the story will just write itself.

by Andrew Harmon CONTEXT

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THE HONEY, THE BEE, AND THE BEEKEEPER by Adriana Arthur

THE HONEY, THE BEE, AND THE BEEKEEPER.

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ho is she to be black and proud?”

They have no idea about that black girl magic.

Daughter of phenomena and beauty Wild with wonder.

Baby girl reign.

That crown on your head is the power and depth that they don’t know how to live with.

You are a political statementone that is both woman and black.

Daughter of struggle Vessel of glory Do not fall from the edges of your hair Do not refrain from watering your roots.

Daughter of resilience Take back your throne You are your keeper and your sister’s keeper Rejoice over your body Hold in your hands the scepter you’ve been given Daughter- made with intent.

Fearfully, wonderfully, and willfully made Let your honey drip.

Black Woman- be unashamed.

Be unapologetic. Be raw.

Reign.

Do not be deceived. You are your own.

You are the honey, the bee, and the beekeeper.

And they cannot keep you.

Do not let them overcome you.

You are the ruler of your kingdom.

And without you, they cannot live.

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ST O RY T I M E with Matt Sharrard

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friend of mine once went on a blind double date. The other couple were close friends of his, but he knew nothing of the girl they set him up with. At one point it was clear the date was going pretty well, as all four of them were having a lot of fun together. However, somehow the topic of conversation turned to trailer parks (as one would expect during any romantic date) and the guys started making jokes about the stereotypes of people who live there. It turns out the other couple didn’t know his date very well either because when they followed her directions taking her home at the end of the night, they found themselves dropping her off at her front door...in a trailer park. There was no second date.

#context

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ou laugh, you nod, you smile, and you hope it wasn’t a question. For some reason this is our reaction whenever we don’t quite catch what someone said. I once was on the receiving end of this in the worst possible way. I was with my friends and my girlfriend, when I received a phone call. It was my brother telling me my old friend from grade school had passed away in a car accident.

After hanging up, I told my friends the news I had just received. They didn’t know how to respond, but my girlfriend did. Or so she thought. She hadn’t heard me, so she just gave an enthusiastic “NICE!” Thankfully her horrendous mistake made me laugh hard enough to cheer me up, but I never let her forget it.

#context

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A I R P O R T

S T O R I E S

FROM WHERE I STAND

by CHELSEA SMITH

I leave the coffee shop where I’m copying over notes from the day’s sessions and take the red line to South Station to the silver line. I text my contacts in Boston in hopes of having others join me. There’s an urgency about my actions, but not anxiety. My coworker and friend D comes to join me at the silver line. We rummage through my backpack looking for blank pieces of paper. One is a standardized math test formula sheet that has an open backside; another is a brown piece of card stock that I had intended on using for notes that day. This will do. The silver line comes, so we put the paper back in my bag and find a seat. We catch up about how our days went, and I take notice of who is with us headed to the airport without any luggage.

The bus pulls up to Terminal E and the crowd is small but steadily growing. I see people squatting next to the wall making their signs before joining in. Some people are saying, “Refugees are welcome here,” others hold signs that say, “Muslims are my friends.” I wonder when these statements became so powerful and so heavy.

S E V E N I’m seven years old and full of curiosity. In a city for the first time, New York City. Catching the contagious energy of my mom, I instantly fall in love with the lights and buildings and people. We wander the streets, weaving around the flow of people on the sidewalk. Deciding to catch the subway to our next destination, we head to the escalator that will take us below the streets. That’s when I see her. She’s sitting by the top of the stairs, holding a McDonald’s cup that she’s shaking for spare change. Wearing layers of shirts and guarding a bag that sits behind her. I remember her face to this day, worn out, from age or life, or both. We make eye contact and smile to each other. She’s beautiful in a way I do not know how to articulate yet. I feel connected, deeply connected to her. I don’t want to leave her. I ask my mom for money to give to her, the very least I could do as a 7 year old. But my mom explains that we cannot give money. I don’t remember the reason. Not enough cash, in a hurry, too many homeless people around, etc. Whatever it was, I feel a pain in my chest. I am not supposed to leave her, but I don’t know why. All I know is that it is not fair. We have money to live comfortably; this woman does not.

Years later, I still see her face when I feel the same ache about different stories and different people. The feeling is explained in words about injustice and apathy, policy changes and insufficient charity. This woman and I are connected. Our stories are intertwined, and somehow her wellbeing is linked to mine.

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THE H O LY H U M I L I AT I O N

by Ethan Renoe

I have seen the gospel smash violently into a human being like the Titanic into the ice. How sweet is the song of that message: The declaration that “you are loved� has a way of plowing into those who have never before heard it.

God gave Himself for you.

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he God-man Yeshua was robbed of His skin and dangled like pulp from a tree.

Because He loves you.

This message is global and requires little context for the thrust to overtake someone. For millennia this simple yet planet shattering news has moved people to every extreme of love and sacrifice imaginable, offering themselves up to torture and death for the name of Christ.

So why do so many of us get bored with the church and drift away like a summer cloud? Why did my brother decide that he wasn’t necessarily angry at God; he was just bored of doing Christian stuff, and hasn’t returned to church since high school?

We were born to a pastor—a great one at that—so the words ‘Jesus loves you’ basically were our second, third, and fourth words after ‘mama.’ The jarring and beautiful message which is the gospel of Jesus Christ never moved us because we were born with an understanding of this love. It wasn’t foreign to us, therefore it was not monumental.

When loving parents constantly communicate the love of God, it can easily become nothing more than recited words in the mouths of our mothers. We are like babies born in velvet sheets when someone tells us the wonders of what it’s like to sleep comfortably: We already know. We have already experienced it.

Last night at youth group, I held one of my freshmen boys as he wept violently, his tears puffing out his eyelids and painting pink spiderwebs across his cheeks. I had just finished a message on dying to our old selves so that we may live again with Christ; there can be no resurrection if there is no death. Most of the youth group was in tears, but this one boy wept especially bitterly.

“I—I just can never be good enough,” he sniffled into his sleeve.

“My older brother is so much smarter than me and my mom likes him more. The only person who actually likes me is my dad’s girlfriend, but they live 45 minutes away…”

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Over the past weeks, I have been getting peripheral insight into Chris’ family layout. In addition to the weed- and alcohol-fueled parties his parents throw weekly, they seem to care very little about their children, as if the kids came into existence and started living in the same house as them like a stray cat—they’re around but they’re not paramount.

As a result of Chris’ background, I have seen the declaration of the love of Jesus wash over him. He is beginning to toe the waters of this love and slowly wade into the shallows.

I’m praying for a tsunami.

And the solution I’ve arrived at is this:

Humiliation.

It’s easy to ask for humility. All virtuous people strive to be humble. But what we don’t realize, what we are not brave enough to ask for, is humiliation. It’s the deconstruction of our individualistic contexts and it is the only sure path to humility.

If we truly want to be like Christ, we must be humiliated.

We must join Him in His kenosis, His self-emptying, to such a degree that we no longer seek to impress others. We no longer seek to impress God. We no longer try to earn our way into the kingdom because, as empty cups, we have nothing to offer. Our knowledge of facts and Bible verses earn us no credit in this paradoxical kingdom.

We have no tokens with which to pay the gatekeeper and gain passage into this high country.

Only those who acknowledge their own wretchedness, their own unloveableness and undeservedness can gain entry. Only those who empty themselves of all their hard-earned merit badges and participation trophies can enter. The only requirement is brokenness and a desire to be healed, dirtiness and a willingness to be washed.

To Chris, love is a foreign object. It’s something to be strived for rather than freely given. It’s something you earn with good behavior and better grades. The context he has known for 15 years has set him up for a concussive shift when he collides with Jesus.

So examine your context. Are you someone who expects to be ushered into the kingdom because you’re a pretty good person and you’re accustomed to being loved? Or do you realize your own filth and come to God begging to be made clean?

He is about to enter a world where love is freely granted, especially to the undeserving. It’s a paradigm where the prostitutes are praised and the holy men are reprimanded. Chris is entering the gates of a kingdom that wraps the beggars in fine linens and puts the wealthy outside its walls; those who think they deserve entrance are the very ones who are shunned.

In many ways, we should assume the mind-set of Chris the Freshman. We should be surprised that God would shower His love on worms like us and even make time for us in His busy schedule.

It should catch us off guard when he drapes His finest linens over us and calls us Son and Daughter.

So then the question arises: How does someone like me enter this kingdom? Someone who grew up so familiar with the Bible I could recite the book of Lamentations backwards, making it a Shakespearean comedy instead of a tragedy? Where is there room for the proud and comfortable in this upside down kingdom?

There isn’t.

I think this spirit of surprise and excitement is what He loves. This is the childlike context with which we enter the kingdom.

So may we too replace our pretense with curiosity and our comfort with humiliation. May we be people who examine our context, that the gospel may smash into and topple us. May we enter into the mysterious paradox which is the kingdom of God.

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I AM FREE by Jadonna Keim

i am free “You’re so beautiful. I have a friend that looks a lot like you and she’s beautiful, too.”

“Your hair. So squishy.”

“Where in Africa are you from?”

“You’re joking, right? Like, you actually tan? Like get darker?”

“Oreo.”

“Doesn’t your body naturally get muscular faster?”

“You’re so white.”

“Does your hair grow?”

“You speak so clearly.”

“Why are your palms so much lighter than the rest of your hand?”

“Whitest black girl I know...”

I AM NOT BOUND to mental constructs of contextual freedoms.

I A M A LWAY S F R E E .

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CONTEXT OF RISK

by Aaron Peabody

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or most of us, we grew up thinking “risk” was a dirty word. Something not to say, do, or touch. The reason being risk’s correlation with danger. We perceive risky choices to be outlandish, insecure, hazardous, and most of all, unsafe. Here are some questions to ponder though: What is your idea of safe? Where did that idea come from? Is safe really the polarization of risk? Or is it something else? I’m here to smash some conventional paradigms regarding risk, and present risk in an entirely new context.

Without digressing, I must say that leaving college was one of the best decisions I made in 2016. However, I could also add that no decision brought me more pain, frustration, humiliation, and degradation than that one. So if you’re reading this piece with the hopes that risky decisions always work out how you plan, and that I possess some lifehack by which you could mitigate the risk entirely, I do apologize for disappointing. You won’t find that here. Rather, I’m going to tell you why risk taking is both beautifully petrifying and absolutely necessary if you desire the good life.

By leaving school I was granted absolute freedom, which manifested itself in excessive traveling, adventures, and experiences that I have formerly deemed to be reserved for the most fortunate. I met so many unique individuals along the way, was forced far outside my comfort zone, and finally had time to spend discovering my deeper purpose and longings. Amidst all of that beauty, however, I was forced to struggle. Many looked down on me for my decision. People whom I respected deeply, lost respect for me. I was called a “quitter” and other humiliating names. I bottomed out financially on three separate occasions. And those two companies that I had bet my future on? I failed in both of them—utterly wrecking my confidence as an entrepreneur, and disposing my life to chaos.

“It lies on the end

Let’s start by defining risk. I like to think of risk as the potential for an irreversible negative outcome.

In fact, many would define it as such. Irreversible outcomes express themselves in a variety of ways, which we will get into later. Some risky decisions may include: Betting on your career as a musician, freelancing as an actor until you get that “big part”, and for myself, dropping out of college to pursue a startup.

of the branch, inches away

from your ability to turn back around safely.”

January 26, 2016 my beloved grandmother passed away unexpectedly. This circumstance ignited an “existential moment” for me, if you will. My grandma lived a full life, certainly, and despite this, the expedited way by which it came to fruition made me think about my own life and how I was choosing to live it. At the time, I was running two companies founded out of my dorm room, and I hated college with a holy unrest. Most of my energy and focus was being channeled towards my companies, and both were proving to be quite promising opportunities. So on the day that my Grandma left this world, I made my decision to leave college.

This was not as impulsive as it may sound. Truthfully, the hankering to go full-time entrepreneur had been with me for over a year. But, like so many scary decisions in life, I was pushing it off because of the freighting four letter word known as “risk”.

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It was the best thing to ever happen to me.

So where am I now? Well when I began my journey, I was living in Indianapolis. I then moved to Chicago in April, and spent the months of May through September traveling. Next, I moved to Louisville Kentucky on February 8, where I am currently employed in my dream job. Yes, I am now having more fun working than I ever had before, doing a job most people would never have the opportunity to do, employed by a company that has quickly become family to me.

And none of it would have happened without taking the risk to leave school.

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RISK The thing about risk taking is that it leaves us quite vulnerable to life’s volatility. We’re put at the mercy of higher order with very little control. I would say this is both the brilliantly exhilarating and absolutely terrifying component of taking a risk. Most individuals sacrifice their dreams on the altar of safety. In the process of doing so, they neglect the true desires of their heart.

What you desire most in life usually resides just outside your comfort zone. It lies on the end of the branch, inches away from your ability to turn back around safely. You may try to reach for it from your current position, but your effort is in vain. You recognize the desire of your heart will cost you something. This cost expresses itself in the loss of comfort, security, admiration, someone else’s respect for you, and various other things. The idea of losing these things tends to keep most people away from what they actually want. The truth of the matter though—most of these perceived “horrific consequences” have been constructed by people who have never taken a brilliant risk before. I am sitting on the other side of taking a massive risk. I failed tremendously in the process of realizing my dream. But that is the

beauty of risk taking. Although you never know what the outcome will be, with absolute certainty I can tell you that you’ll always be better for it. You’ll learn, grow, and live greater than you ever have before. Life will be vivid and saturated with veracity.

Risk is scary for the same reason that it is uncertain. However, I would submit that in life, very few things are absolutely certain.

So with that said—when standing before the mysterious abyss—I encourage you to jump. Life is full of decisions where you have the opportunity to take risks both big and small. In my experience the decisions where you choose to take a risk faithfully result in wonderful stories to tell and lessons learned. For the risk taker, life is dangerous and full of adventure. However, ships were never built to stay in the harbor, birds prefer the sky over their nests, and mankind was not meant for safe havens. Brilliant risk taking will transpire as a brilliant life well lived. So with all things said, I encourage you to go and begin taking fantastic risks.

Amor Fati.

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AVARY MAE by Brooke Foyer

AVARY Mae OUR HOME IS FILLED WITH LOVE AND LIGHT FROM OUR DAYS AND YOU SPUR ME ON IN ALL T YPES OF WAYS. I DON’T MIND MESSY, YOU LIKE THE CLEAN YOU LOVE SPARKLES, AND I DON’T MIND YOUR SHEEN. YOUR LITTLE HEART LOVES EVEN WHEN IT SHOULDN’T. YOU HAVE TAKEN MOMMA PL ACES I ALWAYS THOUGHT I COULDN’T. I’M LEARNING THROUGH EVERY DAY AND FINDING MY OWN WAY SO GL AD YOU WERE GIVEN TO ME TO STAY. NO MATTER THE DIFFERENCES WE HAVE BETWEEN US YOUR LIFE HAS BROUGHT CONTEXT TO MINE.

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29 HUMANITY photo by Abby Floyd Photography

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L I S T E N

THE CURTAIN by Jerel Domer

the Curtain I REACHED THE EAST IN TIME TO SEE THE BLOSSOMS IN THE RAIN THEY FELL UPON THE WINDED STREETS WHERE PEOPLE WALKED, ALL CARRYING THEIR BURDENS JUST THE SAME AND IN THE WIND THE PETALS BLEW AND MADE SMALL CLOUDS FOR WALKING THROUGH, AND THROUGH THE SHROUDS I THOUGHT I SAW A CURTAIN IN THE RAIN

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A MILLENNIAL HYMN by Ethan Renoe

A MILLENNIAL HYMN I have learned that the best thrift stores cannot be Google, Bing or Yelped; They’re spread by word of mouth without requesting Siri’s help.

I have learned a plastic zip tie holds my hood shut while I drive across the states in my Corolla just to feel some more alive.

I’ve learned that cops don’t let you trespass just “to get a better picture,” and that nine times out of ten, I’ll feel remorse after I’ve kissed her.

Because I’ve learned that people come and go— or maybe I’m the one who’s leaving, always packing up a bag because it’s better over there …so I’m believing.

I’ve worked a half a thousand jobs and I’ve made almost that much money, and I’ll make light of just how broke I am even though it isn’t funny.

I can’t name every president, but I’m fluent in memeology, and I’d probably be richer if I’d not studied theology.

Yet here I sit, broke af and borderline content.

I’m loving what I’m doing though it won’t make me a cent.

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nothing changes if nothing changes.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE COUNCIL FOR A MORE MEANINGFUL LIFE®

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THOUGHTS

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DAY

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GROUNDHOG

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by Bree Bonetti

This is the tied-up and pretty version of a metaphor for my quarter life crisis.

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ou’re working hard, using your roots to nurture yourself in order to become the best shallot you can be. One day you are plucked from the earth and tossed into a stew. There are various ingredients and spices that affect your flavor, but you are still a shallot.

This is the tied-up and pretty version of a metaphor for my quarter life crisis. Last March I moved from Sonoma County California to Nashville, Tennessee. My plans were to spend one month nannying for family friends and then figuring out what life would look like from there. Sounds fun right? So many possibilities! The excitement quickly faded and little ol’ shallot me was plunging headlong into the great depths of fear.

We’re not talking, “oh no, what if my future significant other is severely allergic to peanuts, that means I can’t eat peanut butter the rest of my life” kind of fear. (Although that is a legitimate concern, please do not date me if you are allergic to peanuts.) No. I’m talking, I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know what I want or if I’m wanted. I don’t know who I am. Am I capable of living beyond the expectations of others? Will my life amount to anything? That kind of fear. I had what felt like nothing and basically no one. Life was unfamiliar and I was uncomfortableat best. My new context had me questioning everything. Some days the fear slithered its way around me and bit me with anxiety that stung my body right into paralysis, and left my mind racing thought-to-thought, fear-to-fear. This looked like hours and hours of lost sleep. Do you know what happens when you continually lose sleep? Your body, mind, and mood are affected. It’s a downward spiral! But most days my fear felt like deep sadness and a sense of great loss, all telling me I was completely and utterly alone.

This looked like the grandest collection of unwanted tears. They spewed out in my car, in the shower, in the morning, other times at night. One time I found myself uncontrollably crying to my big brother at a corner table in J&J’s café off Broadway, in public! Sorry Brant.

The great move of 2016 turned into an unwelcomed spell of depression and unexpected quest for identity. This isn’t wine and cheese folks; those two do not pair together well. So I scrambled. I attempted to use my new context as a source for a hopefully good enough identity. But that felt phony and it was.

I want to be honest. There was no quick fix. From the beginning I prayed for people and places. Slowly I’ve seen God’s faithfulness and perfect provision. Doors were opened and I was accepted to graduate school. I was invited to live in a house full of great gals, complete with three beautiful porches, and nestled in the perfect location. I joined the local YMCA and met one of my closest friends when I went out on a limb attending hip-hop class. Nashville has felt smaller and more connected as I interact with regular customers and whip out hundreds of lattes at the Green Hills Starbucks. Don’t get me wrong I still fight insecurities. I still fight fear. But I’ve committed to being authentic, letting these people and places affect my flavor but not change me. I believe your context influences you, but it does not define you.

Now if you will, take a deep breath and let me guide you back to that boiling stew. What’s around you, other ingredients right? Some carrots, a piece of celery, hey look another shallot, there’s a pinch of salt, a dash of pepper. You are contributing to the flavor of the stew and letting the flavor add to you, but you are still a shallot. You are still you and that’s all the world wants from you – needs from you.

I was losing hope.

37

HUMANITY

ABBA by Adriana Artur

ABBA All this imagining cannot conjure up a tangible person, Someone I can feel and know the smell of their skin.

Or the texture of their skin, and the microscopic bumps across their face.

The size of their arms and how their hands would form across my back.

The sound of a voice that resonances like the warmth of the sun And safety of home.

I don’t know what it is like to have a father.

I have been waging a war inside myself and ignoring the reality of my longing.

That longing to know him.

That wild grin, Or maybe the mouth that doesn’t show his teeth when he smiles The voice who calls to tell me my voice is sweet For him to say “I haven’t heard from you in a while.”

But I can’t make a father up with words.

And all this thinking probably doesn’t build him up to who he actually is.

Frankly, I have no clue what my father is really like, But I want to believe in the construction of someone who would wipe my tears and walk me down an aisle.

I made up a Father in my mind, one for every seasonOne to scream in joy when I was accepted to the university of my choice, One that would rush to my side when I got in my first car accident, One that would show me the love of a father, so I could further love myself.

It’s been hard to deal with my reality I painted an idol of a father- far too sweetIt’s all just cavities in my teeth. my earthly father abandoned me and sometimes my heart believes the lie that my heavenly father with fail me.

God, I’m scared - if I were to call you papa, Letting you embody that figure Like my earthly father, would youmanipulate my soul And feed me a lie for breakfast?

Would we play peek-a-boo as you peek in and out of the years of my adolescence And then demand you have your way when it’s too late?

Would you build a case against me and tell me I’m “old enough now” to get over the fact you Kissed my mother’s face with your balled-up hands.

And old enough now to get over the fact you were supposed to be the first to speak love into my baby ears and instead you were silent.

But let me tell you- I grew out of those ears from the soil my mother planted me in.

She never neglected to water me and speak tender words over my fruits.

Do not forget that my mother was forced to uproot me from my father because he was the toxicity that tried to wither me.

*Read the full version at saltforthought.wordpress.com

CONTEXT

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“AND INSTEAD YOU WERE SILENT.”

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39

A

L I T L E

M E T A L

B O X

by Clint Kearney

O

ne Monday morning during the cold season, I emerged from the throbbing, raggedy, depths of the train station, 34th St and Herald Square, and persisted to walk to work. The sudden sun blinds us all, all who ooze out of the under-tunnels.

Sunglasses attempting to protect, coat and scarf knotted and zipped together, daybag in hand, offering a counterbalance to the weight of my walk, straining some sort of bone or muscle in my body. In my back I feel slight, sharp pains, reminding me that surely high school is behind me, university too. Soccer season is well over.

Little Metal Box Fire

I press onward through the crowd and the crude smell coming from the street drain just below me, an almost visible fume releases itself from the rusted drain covering. I glance at the food station’s choice selection for the day, smoke rising from its grill, intermingling with the passerby and up their noses, in their eyes. Tourists might say, “We made it.”

I have a camera in my hand, a bag in the other. I’ve found it’s good to be at the ready, at all times.

One way to be ready is to understand one’s environment, one’s context. If it can be understood as both sporadic and spectacular at once, then be aware and hopeful. Be ready. Be anticipating the next thing. This comes as part intuition and part practice. I look at life often through the literal lens of a lens. There are moments that take place which are extraordinary and all too quick. There’s a moment, a scene, specifically, that I’m telling you about.

As I bubbled up from the tunnel, I walked into the sun, through the crowd, the smoke, the smog, and went on my way, amazed at the maze one must run to avoid collision. On a busy Fifth Avenue street corner, I watch a man slip inside the protection of a phone booth, and light his personal cigarette. He created his own glow, in that moment. The small, singular flame reflected itself in and around the metallic box the man stepped inside. I saw him concentrate so hard, focus his eyes and his very breath on that light. It was as if his tar-inflicted insides depended on it.

I walked on in disbelief that I had missed it. It was a gesture that lasted no longer than seven seconds, for he was then back to business, bustling down the walkway. If I had only been quick enough, I could have saved that, framed it, made it eternal. That happened, though. People are generally sporadic, spectacular and extraordinary anyway. So I do it all again, hopeful for the next shot, the next little metallic box fire. It’s so good to be aware, to have one’s head up and eyes open.

ck

CONTEXT

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41

HUMANITY

HERE’S TO

THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE

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