Twenty Seconds

We go and see a movie every Christmas.  One year, it was Marley and Me.  What a horrible idea.  We spent the entire movie bawling our eyes out, the littlest of the sisters curled up in one of our laps.  Every year since, the goal has been to see something better.  We cry enough on Christmas as it is.

This year, we went and saw We Bought a Zoo.  I was mesmerized by the trailer for this movie because it tapped into something sweet inside of me.  A deep desire to do something amazing with my life.  To overcome sorrow and loss and heartbreak.  To live a good story, to show children how to be brave.

I was not disappointed.  Surrounded by my family and a dear friend who I've adopted as a my own Haitian sister, we watched as they bought a zoo.  A rich soundtrack, intertwined with scores by Sigur Ros, emanated a ethereal sentimentality and buried itself deep in my belly.

But it was one phrase, drawn through the entire movie, which caught my attention.

All it takes is twenty seconds of courage.

The first time the line was said, my head perked up.  My ears pricked with the wisdom, with the truthfulness.  

So often, we try and live our lives courageously.  We crave bravery and covet those who seem to know no fear.  Personally, I envy those who are assertive.  Those individuals who stand up for themselves, who refuse to let themselves be walked over or taken advantage of.  

Some of us don't have such courageous spirits.  I sure don't have one. 

But what if all it took was twenty seconds?  What if I could muster up just enough for not even half a minute of the kind of grit it takes to fight hard and push forward?

I've been craving a different life.  A life different than the one that's been tripping me up for the past year.        Deep, I knew what it would take.  But as I have said so many times before, I thought those decisions meant walking deliberately into loneliness.  Into isolation.  I thought I was going to have to turn around and try and fit back in what I'd been cut out of.  But I knew I'd outgrown that place.  I knew that I'd let go, turn on my heels, and try and slide my edges back, finding them swollen.  Expanded and rough and unsuitable.

So I kept fighting.  The darkness is provocative and the ways of the world are a not unlike a snare.  I find myself in the swirling mess, fog rising and obstructing my vision like something of much more substance.  

Twenty seconds of courage.

Tears on the edge of a bed.  Waking up in safety.  Sweet words of comfort and affirmation.  Intentionality.  Pursuit.

Sometimes I fool myself into thinking that things must happen in the most dramatic of ways.  That there must be a clear end and a clear beginning and that I must be aware of the process.  As far as stories go, I have been writing one of great predictability.  In the anticipation there was a heavy measure of planning and withholding.  Waiting for a magic moment.  Betraying myself as a storyteller, I left no room for surprises.  For inciting incidents and pivotal moments, which may look like nothing more than saying no.

Which is what I did.

And then it happened.  Not like Hollywood.  Not like the novels.  Not an instantaneous transformation, not an overhaul.  Not the downpour after the drought.  But like a quiet unlocking.

Like shackles falling.

The light broke through.  Stronger than the darkness, this one ray of light illuminated something once hidden by thickest shadows.  

Twenty seconds of courage was all it took.  All it took for everything to start unravelling. 

Permission to be myself.  To use words I know.  To love the way I've yearned to.  To respond the way I've desired.  To look and see.  To help people find their lives.  To find lost children.  

Because that is who I am.  Despite the labels, words, curses the world has flung on me.  Despite the standards I have been asked to meet, despite the pressures of a corrupt and searching society.  Despite my giving in, despite my failures, despite my mistakes -- I am a good woman.

I say those words with much trepidation.  For fear they may not be true.

But my soul smiles weakly, battle weary and worse for wear, because I see.  I see the connection between my prayer and His answer.  A reckless prayer for community and for truth and for sincerity.  

Twenty seconds of courage did that.

I'm feeling less brave at the moment.  Curled up in my Goodwill chair and putting off going to the shower.  I'm going to need twenty more seconds tonight.  And twenty more tomorrow.  Every day until the end of all of this, I am going to need an extra measure of character and integrity and ... gumption... to be able to make this happen.

For crying out loud, I just love people so much.  It's this love for them that helps me muster up that which I need.  It's the seeing and the knowing and the feeling and the calling that's brought me here.  For such a time as this.  So I can look again at what the world has consumed and the church has condemned and see it for what it is -- a multitude of children who desperately need grace and courage.  

I am in love.  

Broken and tired and empty and not someone to be very proud of.  A Peter.  (It is not lost on me he is the same disciple Jesus came to call the "rock".)

Sometimes we wait for the right time for the right thing to happen.

When all along, the whole idea was to surprise you anyway.

And surprises never happen like that.