Elaina

It was the best of times

It was the worst of times

I was in my third year of college 

I was in a less-than-exciting Shakespeare class 

Enter Elaina Styblo

Somehow, the dreary readings of familiar plays took on a new light, a new life

Elaina and I met, partnered up as assignment forced us together, and began a 16-year friendship. 

She brought the laughs, the light, the wit, the Blues Brothers, the challenge to my thinking. 

We sipped coffee, shared life, watched movies, quoted lines, played Shakespearean roles for our class, laughed till sides ached when the British student teacher walked straight into an easel while trying to cooly wave our way. We talked books, marriage, Jesus, Mao, and Freddy Mercury. Dietrich Bonhoeffer took on a whole new dimension through the eyes of Elaina.  I learned more about Oscar Romero than I knew about the first martyr Stephen. I loved sharing life with Elaina, and it makes me ache when I realize she's no longer a text away. I no longer have her witty comments in an instant. I miss her perspective, her passion, her perseverance. 

I text her: "We're watching "Lincoln" tonight. Have you seen it?" She writes back: "I've not seen it, but I don't think it ends well for Lincoln."  

She said the things I wished I could say but feared to verbalize. And, she said them well. 

A Chinese friend stands at the ladies' tea to share how she's experienced love in my church; she is a stranger to Elaina. No matter. E has encouragement for anyone in her path, stranger or not. Chinese friend: "I'm so sorry. My English is not very good." We're at the neighboring table, so E says, "Right. Your English is awful. You should hear my Chinese!"

So, what sticks with me? How am I better for having known Elaina Styblo? She was the real deal. I got what everyone else got. She was no chameleon. She was true. I left her each time with the reminder that it was okay, and expected, that I embrace who I am. God, the unique Creator, takes great delight in me, in each of His designs. 

Thank You, God, for Elaina. Thank you for her life. Thank you for her giving, investing, pursuing, hoping, loving life. May I be to others what she was to me. 

living deliberately in meaninglessness

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.  I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary.  I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account in my next excursion.  For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever."   -Walden, Henry David Thoreau

He was a known pursuer of life.
Of its essence,
its scent,
its meaning,
its recourse,
its location,
its heart.

Not much unlike the wisest, Solomon, who came to the end of his study to find meaningless, vanity, in all things pursued here apart from God.  When stripped away from its blanket of finery, life reveals God Himself as the chief end of our pursuing.

"Remember your Creator
    in the days of your youth,
before the days of trouble come
    and the years approach when you will say,
    “I find no pleasure in them”—
Remember him—before the silver cord is severed,
    and the golden bowl is broken;
before the pitcher is shattered at the spring,
    and the wheel broken at the well,
 and the dust returns to the ground it came from,
    and the spirit returns to God who gave it." 
Ecclesiastes 12:1, 6-7

Remember, and keep remembering, that it is indeed God Who is our only source of true meaning, of absolute Truth itself.