An Unleashed Dog and Navigation

In January of this year I was bit by a dog. While out on a run I became the innocent victim of a very large German Shepherd who, ironically enough, used to be a rescue dog. He bit me on the left hip/butt, drew blood, and forced me to spend five hours in urgent care waiting for a tetanus shot and antibiotic prescription. All the while I had the joy of being graced by the dutiful presence of the dog's owners, an elderly couple (surely millionaires based on the house they invited me into before taking me to the hospital) who live about three blocks from me, he appropriately curious and conversational, she demonstrating the classic symptoms of full-fledged Alzheimer's.

Before being attacked by this dog, I had what I would have called a healthy appreciation for canine. For about six months prior to the incident, I had been contemplating getting a dog of my own. I know I was afraid of dogs as a little girl, but since about 5 years old I don't remember ever feeling that again.

Since the bite I have really struggled to be around dogs. Initially it was any dog, big or small. Now it's mostly just medium to large dogs that elicit a fear-laden response from me. When I have to pass or meet a large dog on the sidewalk, my entire body tenses up and I hold my breath. On a couple occasions I've even pushed a friend between me and a scary-looking dog as a complete act of reflex, selfishly not even considering my friend's well-being as I throw him/her to a creature I'm in that moment perceiving as savage.

I know many have incurred dog bites and moved on from them mostly unscathed. For whatever reason, this has not been the case for me. I could retell the specifics of this incident in vivid detail. I remember every part of it, and it was nothing short of traumatic for me. I can't forget the feeling I had as that dog was coming after me and I had no control to stop it.

I still see the dog from time to time, as he and his owners live in my neighborhood. The first time I saw him after the bite, his owners had him muzzled. When he saw me, though, he started barking and growling and pulling on the leash trying to get to me. Since then, every time I've seen demon-dog, I've darted to the other side of the street or in the opposite direction to avoid him. I'm terrified of him.

Finishing a run last Friday I was just a few blocks from home when I saw him. I immediately crossed the street so we'd be on opposite sides. At the intersection, from the opposite corner, he saw me and started barking and growling and pulling on his leash trying to get across the street in my direction. The owner, Alzheimer's woman, looked very confused and disoriented. She appeared to have no control of the dog, and it was clear to me the dog was going to have his way.

As the dog headed to my side of the street, I darted back across. Thankfully, he got distracted by a man walking two small dogs, and started barking and pawing in their direction instead of mine. Once across the street, he and the owner turned to head in the direction I was going, the direction of my house. Since we were now on opposite sides of the street, I figured I was safe and continued on my way.

Two blocks later a medium-sized wolf-dog walked around a stone wall to appear on the sidewalk right in front of me.

He was unleashed. There was no owner in sight.

This is the most literally I've ever felt paralyzed by fear.

**I would like to interject for a moment that I am well aware of the fact that in my lifetime I have passed thousands of dogs. Of all those interactions with canine, only once has it gone poorly (only once I specifically remember, anyway). Logically, I know that the statistics were in my favor that day. I probably could have run by that dog and I would have been fine. But perhaps we can allow the response I'm about to describe to instill a deeper respect inside of us for the human heart, resilient beyond belief, yet no experience leaves it the same as it was before. You can be loved well a thousand times over; it only takes one cut to wound and teach in an irreversible way that pain is real.**

As soon as I was able to move again, I turned around and started running in the opposite direction, the direction away from my home. Tears simultaneously started streaming down my face, and the distinct words came to the forefront of my mind, "It's a horrible thing to be controlled by your fear." With each step I took further and further away from my house, I knew what it was like to have fear pushing forward posing as strength.

Hebrews 10:39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.

Last Friday was a day of shrinking back.

Friday's run had been preceded by a whole string of events that had me defeated and fleeing long before I even put my running shoes on.

The dogs were a very literal catalyst which forced me to deal with myself. As I prayed through my slough of piled up emotions, I was the recipient of a grace far beyond my deserving, a grace to understand from dogs the anatomy of relationship-debilitating fears in my life. God's working through everything in our lives for our good, to teach us about what His love is. It's situations like this that strengthen my faith in that promise (Romans 8:28).

Shrinking back...that's pretty interesting to me because when I react to something by pulling back (whether it be from a hot flame or avoiding something that's about to hit me), I do so because a natural instinct tells me that by pulling back I'll be safe. But I guess Scripture says that when it comes to addressing that which I fear, shrinking back is exactly what gets me destroyed. It's moving forward, going through the fear, where belief is strengthened, and salvation delivers.

The recipient of such a grace, I have to ask myself honestly, "Kelsey, what are you avoiding?"

"What do you come up against and then turn away from, shrink back from, go to great lengths to avoid? It's not ingenuity that enables you to dodge; you're not back-tracking and zig-zagging because you're some master navigator. You're at the disposal of your fear."

Shrink back; be destroyed.

Believe; be saved.

A simple line that will always stick with me: "The best way out is through."

Shrinking back isn't all that safe; why not run home?

Words

Words.

I own a box full of words.

I keep it under my bed. It contains nearly every card, letter, note I've received over the last 5 years. Whenever I'm given meaningful words from another, I keep them. If they are spoken, I try my hardest to write them down, because for me, there's something different that happens in my ability to remember words when I see them compared to when I just hear them.

I'm an avid notetaker. It takes me far too long to finish books because I write down every quote I don't want to forget. I write striking song lyrics down in my journal. And I've asked friends on several occasions to send me copies of songs, poems, essays they have written. When words create a stirring in me, I want to have them in tangible possession so I can mull over them. So I can see them; so I can keep them; so I can remember them.

Tonight I attended a slam poetry performance in New Orleans. In two hours' time, my ears heard thousands of words strung together by incomprehensible talent. Thirty seconds in to the first performance, I could feel the ache for a copy of the work. I knew my mind wouldn't be able to process the powerful delivery quickly enough to remember the poignant lines. Appreciating the depth and power of the work, I felt deeply convicted that to forget these words would be a terrible shame. "If I could own these words," I thought to myself, "I wouldn't forget the stirring they produced in me."

But even if I could mull over a document of those poems, or copy them down into my journal, could that recreate the emotion with which a young man likened his city to a woman shamelessly raped by "fucking tourists"? Could it produce again the chilling effect of knocks on the door of a flood-ravaged home, its children returning more hopeful to see mama's face where she once lived than at her grave where her dead body lies?

I wish I could have a copy of all those words. But perhaps that would be as useless as the box under my bed, a collection of words which I selfishly hoard, not wanting to forget the stirring they produced at their first reading.

What good is stirring, if it doesn't lead to action?

I offer to myself tonight that perhaps those tangible words are a crutch which inhibits action. Because when I'm no longer able to cling to another's words, I'm forced to find my own.

Opening Remarks - Hitting the Ground with Empty Hands

I've been putting off writing this, the first blog entry. It seems like there's a lot of pressure to make it great.

I'm first compelled to explain a little bit about this blog.

I feel kind of like a d-bag even having a blog. I'm not so sure I have the right to assume any of my thoughts/words are worthy of your spending any time whatsoever reading them. But, here I am, writing anyway. One thing I've learned this past year: part of maturing is accepting responsibility. I guess this blog is an act of responsibility for me, comitting myself to putting words to tension I usually allow to go unaddressed inside and around me. This is a classroom for me; journey with me if you will. I would love the company.

Okay, let's get down to business...

Opening remarks. I've been waiting for weeks for just the perfect inspiration to hit me to start this blog off right. I've been reading a lot, hoping another's words will invoke enough passion to produce the perfect first entry. Today I realized the irony that I'm looking for someone else's thoughts to be a catalyst for my own. Tonight I'm taking responsibility to put my own thoughts to written word.

This blog is supposed to be about "glimpes of beauty" (read the About Me section). But, truth is, this week has seemed far from beautiful. My life is riddled with uncertainty right now (not meant to be cryptic...call me if you want to talk about it; I'll tell you what's going on), as are the lives of some people very dear to me. This has been a week of confusion, pain, frustration, saddness. I feel like I'm in a freefall right now. Maybe to some that sounds good, even fun. But in freefall there's nothing stable to grasp, and there's a knowledge that hitting the ground is inevitable.

In freefall, what beauty is there to see?

With nothing stable to grasp in mid-air, my hands are empty. I can't grasp any tools to try to control or change my situation, and I can't pick up any weapons in an attempt to fight against others, or God. I'm at His disposal right now, and frightenly aware of it. And more than being empty, they're open, which means God can put whatever He wants in them once I come down. I hope that once I hit the ground, open is the way they'll stay. God's pushed me off a ledge, and maybe that sounds mean, but He knew I needed it. It's beautiful the way He empties us.

I'm confident this freefall will end and I will land somewhere. On the way down I'm allowed a perspective above it before I'm in it. And that's really beautiful, too, because there's a clarity on things that get a lot more confusing once on the ground. Love. It seems so simple from up here, that showing love to people is never a bad thing to do with time and energy. In the past I've been far too picky in choosing whom I will love, usually discriminating according to who I enjoy loving the most. Moving to a new and completely foreign place this year, I've experienced a good amount of confusion as to who I'm supposed to love in this city and how I'm supposed to love them. I've missed my friends and family back home, and the familiarity of knowing how to love them well. I've longed for that sense of stability and purpose. Call me a liar, but I hear it clear as day. There's a soundtrack to this freefall, and it's definitely Stephen Stills' "Love the One You're With." I won't provide you an exegetical tonight to prove it, but the Bible's clear that we are where we are for a reason, and there are people here to love. And with all the mess - pain, fights, games, confusion, annoyance, break-ups, break-downs - that loving someone is, it's a beautiful miracle that it's possible inside us. Wherever this freefall takes me, I hope the clarity remains to love whoever else happens to be there.

Open hands and solid ground are good things. If you find you have the first, be thankful for them as you wait for the second. Thanks for reading.