An hour and a half left in my audiobook and I’ve succumbed to tears. It’s seven thirteen of the a.m. as my wheels hum on the highway.
I’d kept secretly rooting for this character. I couldn’t quite explain why; he didn’t seem to deserve it.
He sneers. He’s very unhelpful. Rather hateful. He belongs to the slitheringest of houses. He seems to thrive on hurting the hero of our story. He skulks and sulks. Often out of sorts. Sullen. Sallow. Sharp.
But Still.
Maybe it’s my bent to cheer for the underdog. Perhaps because empathy shows up as one of my top five Clifton Strengthfinders. It could be my love for a good story arc. Or maybe, maybe amongst my too-often cynical sourness, a hope for, a longing to see, the recognition of restorative redemption.
And maybe even more so, the gut-wrenching, soul-clenching, tear-drenching extravagance that is personified in one who is willing to look deeply, see further, call out something locked away, and believe in that simplest shred of goodness shining bright.
The stunning wisdom of one who speaks life, reflects back rationale, and offers alternatives.
The preposterousness of a person who continually keeps pointing out a path of purpose.
These are the characteristics we find in the Gandalfesque character of this particular story.
I’m quite sure this also influences my continued bent to nourish that shred of hope. If the sage in the story believes in him surely I should too.
I rush through Dillons. Grab my four items. Self checkout. Tap play in Audible as I trundle toward my printer paper pickup at Walmart. Park. Push pause. Tap I’m Here and enter Parking Spot 9.
I place a Scooters order in the app as I wait.
At 8:15 I’m rolling through the coffee line. At 8:16 I’m headed back to the farm, avidly listening, tears again.
Honestly, through the first few books I didn’t like him. I hoped he’d go away. Retire. Be gone and good riddance!
And then the storyteller, she shakes the hourglass. She shares the glimpsiest glimpse of his story, his experience, his humiliation.
A shift. What we thought we knew isn’t what we now know.
Suddenly, some of his actions make more sense. Perhaps,still not permissible or plausible, but understandable.
If life dealt me that hand, well, I might skulk too. I might hang on to hurts too. I might hammer hard on the grudgiest of grudges determined not to let it go.
I always cringe in Despicable Me when Gru’s mom shows up. She’s terrible and horrible and never says a kind word to him. It takes the “gorls” and Lucy to nudge the kindness buried miles below all those bad days.
And are there any of us who won’t end up rather slitheringly despicable if no one is willing to offer love?
I can’t help the tears. I’d given up several times on this character, mistreated, malformed like Gru.
And yet.
What would life be without ands, buts, and yets?
As we check the milo ground, gauge whether tomorrow finds it dry enough to plant, my good farmer man pops open a seedpod and shows me the tiny, tiny row of miniscule holes where the mustard now scattered in his palm, grew.
Almost dustlike.
It’d take half of forever to gather a handful.
I’d snapped photos. Focused best I could, but the camera had balked at centering on the diminutive seed.
And at 8:27 a.m. as I sniff violently, I find in my giving up, my resignation, my handing him back to his skulks and sulks, the tiniest mustard seed of hope quietly, secretly, tentatively remained, rooted right down, and rigorously burst forth.
And here’s the thing. Much as I want to see myself as wise and wonderful and witty, the greater truth is my sulkiness and self-centeredness quite often command front and center stage.
I dab the wet streaks beneath my sunglasses.
Redemption. It’s always worthy of tears.
The sacrificing of self, the living with slights, the outward appearance, other people’s opinions, well, things just aren’t always as they appear.
Love has a way of creeping in.
This character I’ve rooted for. Our hero enters a memory of his. In keeping with his rather sinister sulks, he’s complaining about all the negative he believes the hero to be. The mentor in the room listens, then responds. “You see what you expect to see.”
Maybe this insight needs to nudge us all. Hero and antihero alike.
Transitions are seldom tranquil. They catch us in-between. Transitions genuinely require waiting, wondering, asking.
This character I’ve rooted for. He’s not a role model. He does have a lot of qualities that disqualify him. But, I think, I kept hoping because it whispered that there is hope for me.
It whispered that in all I get wrong, maybe, there is a friend who will keep pointing me to a path of purpose. Maybe there’s someone who will keep fanning that light inside of me.
Perhaps one willing to pause and call out goodness and beauty in me.
Might they be willing to see me deeply, shelter my vulnerability, and show me I am known?
Maybe the voices in my head which are so likely to remind me, accuse me,
“Why, yes it’s true. Nobody really likes you anyway,” aren’t completely right after all.
There’s a brokenness in him that causes me to feel deeply. In my one palm I weigh him and find him deeply wanting. In my other palm I hold deepest compassion.
I’m so drawn in by this writing of a character whom we deeply dislike, hold in disdain, and yet once we find out a few other facts, catch a view from his eyes, discover mostly-unknown-to-almost-everyone truths, we realize the whole of someone is so very often hidden in so many ways. Most of us have learned the secret art of holding our hearts close to our chests, holding our hearts closed, keeping the cards tucked tight. To let someone see inside is to open up the opportunity to have our worst fears confirmed.
We’ve learned to love the sound of silence.
Sarah Groves writes in her song Add to the Beauty
“Redemption comes in strange places, small spaces, Calling out the best of who we are.”
I wonder if deep down most of us aren’t wishing for someone to call out the best in us, believe there is more to us than the worst in us.
Longing to pay better attention to our own lives and wordlessly wanting someone else to pay attention too. Hungering for someone safe to break the silence.
If you can believe it, life had the audacity to require me to attend to some duties, chores, and responsibilities that didn’t include audiobook listening. Rather rude, but there you go. I plugged my phone in. Turned to the tasks of life.
In the late afternoon, I put my headphones on, prepare to listen to the last 25 minutes as I launch into supper preparations for the field.
There’s a curious connection created in story. We grow to love characters. We lean in to listen, hanker for the completion of the story while we simultaneously do not want it to end. I’ve hung in these halls for a lot of hours now. The story steps closer and closer to the close.
I’m gripped with a profusion of emotions.
The tiny mustard seed has bloomed triumphant. It stands sturdy and strong. I feel it all unfurling inside me. Great joy. An underlying current of sadness for the very great cost given and endured by noble people in this story. Bubbles of laughter mixed with touches of tears at a glimpse forward into the future of these storybook-friends-of-mine. It all feels so fitting.
It’s been a journey. It’s been fraught. Exasperation and excitement. Fear and great courage. Humanness and tangible struggles juxtaposed against imagination and a fantasy world. The contrast calls clear attention to the needs, desires, questions, competition, and quests we carry.
A mixture of real-life relatability sprinkled with the imaginary. It allows us to step into the story and also step back as spectators, observers. It lets us look through a lens adjusted to a different diopter. Provides a perspective adjacent to, but different from our more familiar view.
In the severing of what once was, we open space for savoring.
Throw open space for beauty and grace. For redemption to ring loud and long, steady and strong. For empathy to appear in unexpected elements. For salvation to seep forth in the circumstances where all should have been lost.
Salvation and redemption. Aren’t they always the plot twist of any good story? Transitions pivot us to the turns. Transitions lead to transformation.
Transitions call out our truer, nobler forms.
