Fleeting Perspectives

“When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.” – Corrie ten Boom

I’m often frustrated by my lack of vision. When I cannot see what is ahead. Regardless of how much I try to control what is ahead, I am unable.

***

I have recently discovered Amtrak trains are an introvert’s dream. A time to sit, exhale, and process with ample leg room. As I am riding on a train through the mountains of Virginia, I am surrounded by beautiful landscape. I keep trying to take a picture to capture the beauty of the blue mountains and green hills up against the dark stormy sky. It is a perfect picture but before I snap the photo, I miss it. The train keeps moving. The mountain view is gone.

I lean my cheek against the window to see when there will be an opening in the line of trees. As hard as I try, I cannot see what is to come. The train keeps moving and we pass a landfill followed by a quarry. At this point I’m frustrated and I put my phone away thinking I have missed the picturesque moment. A few seconds later I look up to see a farm filled with cows on rolling green hills. Just when I thought I missed it.

***

What a metaphor of life. We have a window seat on a train in the mountains of Virginia during a thunderstorm. We want to see the mountains for the whole ride but we only get glimpses of them. Most of our trip is views of backyards and trees.

Yet the mountains come. We don’t know when we will see them. Sometimes we just get a quick view, sigh a quick moment of relief, and go back to the lines of trees. Other times we get a prolonged view, an extended exhale as we see the mountains. I’m learning what I see—mountains or tree line—is out of my power. However, it is within my power how I choose to take in the mountains and hills along with the trees and valleys.

***

I recently went through a breakup. I felt like I was on a train going through a tunnel. I couldn’t see clearly. I couldn’t think clearly. There were no mountains or trees, just a steady presence of hurt and confusion.

This tunnel was longer than others I have been through. I wanted to be in control and speed up the train so I could get out of the pitch black and see a glimpse of light. I was like a hamster on a wheel, spinning, pining and exerting energy only to go nowhere.

In time, I accepted my lack of control and the need to let others in. I wasn’t immediately out of the darkness, but light appeared around me in the form of friends who didn’t want me to walk alone and shared unique encouragement and perspective. They were there the whole time, with me on the train through darkness; I just had to let them in.

***

I’m not to the point where I am thankful for the tunnel. I don’t look on that recent phase of hurt with joy and think, “Wow that was so much fun. Let’s do it again!” But I know there is purpose to the darkness. Do I know what the purpose is? No clue. I’m not sure I ever will fully know. I’m learning “knowing” isn’t the point, and sometimes not knowing is.

***

May we have faith to know the mountains will come, even when all we see is trees and dirt. May we have faith to know light is coming, even when we are in the middle of a tunnel and we don’t know when it will end. May we gracefully accept that we are merely a passengers, not the conductor.

sale

Windrose Magazine Issue 2

$5.00 $18.00

BUY 1, GET… AS MANY AS YOU WANT!

Windrose Magazine is your guide to navigating life in your twenties through a collection of essays, interviews, and advice that will inspire you to chart your own life course, free of comparison.

PLEASE NOTE: We can only ship within the United States. We still love our international friends, promise!

Magazine ships from our HQ within 7-10 business days of order. All sales final.

INVENTORY SALE: Buy 1 copy, get … as many as you want! Yes, really. We will contact you after purchase through the email you submit during the checkout process to confirm how many copies you would like.

Please note that orders of 10+ copies will incur additional shipping fees. Order limits are subject to remaining inventory count.

Quantity:

Add To Cart

Featured

The End of An Era: Saying Goodbye to Windrose

Hi friends,

Announcement (sounds so formal, doesn’t it?):

It's the end of an era.

I’ve decided that, after nearly 8 years of telling stories of navigating life, this season of Windrose is drawing to a close.

Even Here: Words for When You're Wandering

When I was 22 years old, I visited the desert for the first time.

A metaphorical desert, if we’re getting technical.

I was fresh out of college, starry-eyed and eager to begin my post-grad life. I had big ‘ole me-centered dreams: a shiny, brag-worthy PR job in the music industry! An apartment with an exposed brick wall that (somehow) would fit an upright piano! A committed relationship with a kind, goofy man!

I got exactly none of those things.

To summarize an entire year’s worth of emotion: I was devastated.

When Life Feels Small

I hit a car in a parking garage once.

Nothing bad, really, just a ding in the door from a turn cut just a little too tight.

Truthfully, my car suffered the brunt of the bunt. But the other car was a nice one. I don’t remember the make or model—I’m not really a car person—but I do remember it was a convertible. Someone dropped a lotta dollars on this depreciating piece of metal, and I had just chipped paint off the gleaming door. Big yikes.

All because I was in a rush to get to my doctor’s appointment.

Practicing (and Failing at) Grace on the Road

Last week, I got stuck in a traffic jam on the interstate.

I was in a line of cars needing to merge into the bedlam of backed-up vehicles. We had an organized system in place, me and the cars in front of me: a car merged, then the car behind that car merged, and so on. I made my way into a gap between two 18-wheelers, neatly following the rules like the good girl I am.

But then—l'horreur!—what did the cars behind me do? Speed down the on-ramp in an effort to get ahead by usurping the follow-the-leader system of merging we had all tacitly agreed upon.

Teacher, they’re cutting!

I was… not happy.

Anne Lamott writes, “Sometimes the movement of grace looks like letting other people go first.”

That’s nice.

Here’s what I did instead.

Developing Community: Moving Towards a Space of Vulnerability, Intentionality, and Diversity

My parents moved me in and helped me explore this new city for a few days, but eventually this new place had to become my own. I tried out the coffeeshops (which didn’t compare to the ones back home) and became acquainted with people at my seminary. I found interest in what I was learning and “plugged in” wherever I could.

Quickly, however, I began to realize a need in myself for deeper community. I longed to be around people with similar mindsets. Mindsets that didn’t just recognize but acted on vulnerability, intentionality, and diversity. These types of mindsets had been prevalent in the community I was around at my undergrad, so I was puzzled as to why I was overlooking them here.

No Man Is An Island: An Ode to Our Neediness

The last few years of my life—so basically my Full Grown Adult Years—have been a reinforced lesson in this one simple yet slightly-jarring fact: we need each other. I mean, need-NEED each other.

“No man is an island,” says Thomas Merton, and my bae C.S. Lewis backs this up further by writing, “We need others physically, emotionally, intellectually; we need them if we are to know anything, even ourselves.”

We’re meant to be needy, but why is it so hard to acknowledge and accept this?

Say What You Need

Now maybe it wasn’t your family or your upbringing that made you neglect voicing your needs. Maybe it was a toxic relationship or a difficult work environment. Maybe it was someone who told you that your needs were selfish or that the desires of your heart didn’t matter.

Whatever it was, I urge you to identify those people or experiences or situations and start using that knowledge to change.

New Things, Better Things (A Reprise): Words for When You're Stuck in the Past

But while I’ve tried to convince myself that I am looking forward, staring straight at the wide open interstate ahead, I spent so many months still sneaking peeks into the rearview mirror every few seconds, not quite accepting that the road behind me is, in fact, behind me.

But this story isn’t the whole of my story, only a minor plotline amongst the greater. Even so, ignoring it won’t erase it like the stroke of the delete key. It may be a minor plotline, but it is a plotline woven tight around the greater story of my life for several years now.

I can’t ignore it.

A Beginner's Guide to the Enneagram

Maybe you, like me, have become curious about the Enneagram because it is popping up everywhere in conversations and on your social media timeline. Maybe you know everything there is to know and have become quite fluent in Ennea-lingo (you even know that there are sub-types!).

Maybe this is the first time you’re ever hearing about this weird test and you’ve spent the last four paragraphs trying to figure out how to even pronounce the word “Enneagram” (In-ee-a-gram, for the record).

No matter where you’re at, we can all use some guidelines when it comes to personality tests, because none of us are immune to over-identifying, self-shaming, and becoming a walking personality-test-fulfilling prophesy. So, without further ado, here are my dos and don’ts of Enneagram-ing.

The Battle to Overcome Your Rejection

Rejection is an issue I’ve had to wrestle hard with over the last three years. Every time Rejection and I had to face off in the boxing arena, I would always end up slammed and pinned down. In boxing, you have ten seconds to get yourself up before the game is over. For me, it took months before I could even peel my head off the floor.

How to Respond to Someone Else's Grief

But this post isn't about my own grief. It's not about the tears I've cried, or the questions I've asked. It’s not about my own days where getting out of bed felt too hard.

It's about a different side of the fight. It's about your mom's grief when she loses her college roommate. And your best friend after she has a miscarriage. It’s about all the people you encounter, telling you about their grief.

So Lonely I Could Die: What I Have Learned About Loneliness

The night it happens I’m alone. Afternoon slides into darkness, a day gone without notice. I put on a rom-com. I paint my nails. I wait.

I’m jonesing for junk food, so I walk up over the hill and get fries and a shake at the Park Street McDonald’s. On my way home through the Common, it starts to pour. My sandals take on water like a sponge. I squelch up to the third floor and towel off. The fries are cold and the milkshake is cloyingly sweet. I regret ever wanting them. I am still alone.

Relationships, LifeClaire TaylorJune 24, 2018FeaturedComment

Fleeting Perspectives

BUY 1, GET… AS MANY AS YOU WANT!

magazine Blog

Contact SUBMIT