Memories of Midi

There are too many to number, but here are a few highlights from our friendship...

• Walking the perimeter at UCLA our freshmen year in rainstorm so strong the rain was coming at us horizontally as we shared the stories of our lives thus far


• Praying with each other until 3 am at Berkeley Presbyterian Church as God did some major things in Midi


• Sharing a room and all of our clothes not only with each other our sophomore year, but much of Sproul Hall 2North as well


• Midi having meatloaf for the first time in her life at my parents' house, me getting introduced to kimchi at her parents'


• Meeting to pray, encourage and challenge each other for 16 years


• Getting to overlap as couples when Midi and Mark started dating not long after David and I got married; we had a couple of very fun trips together as couples to Palm Springs and Monterrey.


• Helping Midi will all of the wedding stuff as she got ready to marry Mark


• Midi present and helping with Emma's birth/my getting to be at the hospital shortly after Nathan and Lucas arrived.


• Being one of the first visitors to meet Nathan and Lucas on their first day of life


• Having our kids grow up together; there was a whole season where Emma had to drink her bottle just like the twins, calling it "Nathan and Lucas" style.


• "Girls night out" where we'd hang out without our husbands or kids, but of course, spend a good portion of the time talking about those same loved ones


• Our last night out, a week before Midi died, having dinner together, talking about how excited she was about adopting a girl this next year, watching Juno together afterwards


• Our last family time, as we all stayed over at the Mikasas' on December 30th, watching the kids have a blast together, and then enjoying a lovely evening hanging out as couples

There's much more that could be said; those snapshots don't do justice to how much joy and familiarity was in our friendship. Iwas reading a book today that had a chapter in it about heaven. I wasn't particularly into it, but as I read about the author's ideas of reconnecting with loved ones, I teared up thinking of the joy it will be for me to enjoy Midi's company again. Theologically I know it will be nothing compared to God's, but I hope that it is a "joy set before me" nonetheless...

Lessons from the Lion

Inspired by the Prince Caspian movie that came out earlier this summer... which I thought was really well done and enjoyable despite not sticking strictly to the book... I decided to re-read the Chronicles of Narnia. Besides just enjoying the books themselves, I found that some of C.S. Lewis' indirect theology speaking to me pretty powerfully. Here are some of the things that stood out from the series:

• "He is not a tame lion." This gets said periodically about the lion Aslan, the God figure in the books. In other words, you can't control him or predict how he will respond to things. He can't be manipulated, persuaded or even defined the way you may want to. His ways, timing, and modes of relating don't follow any patterns that you're used to. Life with him is exciting and powerful, but also overwhelming.
• "No one is told any story but their own." In almost every book, one of the characters asks Aslan why one of their friends gets treated differently or experiences different things than they do, sometimes out of concern or genuine confusion, but often because things feel unfair or hard for themselves. The answer is always the same from Aslan, that he will only tell them their story, not anothers. And even their own story doesn't always get explained until later on. I found that really profound. I ask God "why" a lot and can easily get caught up in comparison with others. Having my focus just be on what God wants to say and do with me alone is a discipline I don't always have.
• The Last Battle. All 7 books chronicle some kind of struggle, quest or battle, often against what might be considered "forces of evil", but sometimes just against people who are broken and selfish. The characters encounter danger, sometimes that they have brought on themselves, but even more often that gets thrust upon them. Lewis mentions centuries of peace that occur in Narnia between each of the stories, but that's not what gets chronicled. It's the struggle, the difficulties and tragedies that his characters contend with. Given what the last several years have been like, not only for me and my family but for many of the people around us, life really does feel like a struggle, sometimes against the general brokenness in the world and sometimes against the particular ways people are broken and unkind with each other. Giving up or complaining doesn't make the struggle go any better, however tempting those options might seem. But there is character and some good relationships to be gained along the way, and life after the "shadowlands" to gotten later on, if we persevere in the struggle.

While I wouldn't subscribe to everything Lewis paints in his Chronicles (the way his characters handle conflict seems very British to me... "Don't mention it, my dear"... for example.), I find his perspectives on God, what it means to be a person of character and faith, what life is like now, and what the world to come may be like to be very helpful. I'm grateful for the parables he's left us.