Jasmine has just cleaned her glasses
for the 11th time today. What
would she do if she didn’t have glasses?
She needs something mindless for her hands to do that also makes her
feel better, that feels rewarding and carries the resemblance of an
accomplishment. Of course, there’s no
accomplishment in the 11th cleaning once 10 have already been
accomplished the same day, but it’s the resemblance
of the accomplishment that matters. She
thinks maybe she should clean the kitchen counter, but that would mean going
through all the stuff piled all over it, and that’s real work, not mindless.
She’d clean the dishes, but she’d first have to put the other ones away,
and she’d have to scrub the pasta out of that pan. Besides, she doesn’t have any time for “real” cleaning; she just needs to
distract herself for a moment, and then go back to planning tomorrow’s lesson for
her fifth graders. No, Jasmine needs
something simple. So she keeps the
eyeglasses cleanser industry in business and is always sure to have clean
glasses. Does it give her clean vision
too? She’d like to think so.
At least she doesn’t smoke. Jasmine marvels at how much smokers spend, and
they don’t even get the resemblance
of an accomplishment. Unless slowly
turning their lungs black counts.
Jasmine recalls those Truth videos she saw in Health class in high
school that scared her pants off. But
they worked. Had she not seen them,
maybe she would have become a smoker. Of
course, cleaning her glasses calms her only when she’s cleaning them, while
smokers say they’re calmed not only while they’re smoking but also for a while
afterward. The nicotine enters their
system and physically calms their nerves.
Getting that kind of stress release sounds enticing. Jasmine gets why they do it. Holding her glasses in her hand she tells
them, “But I don’t want my lungs to go black, so you are going to get really clean.”
She’s trying anything she can to
quit overthinking her first ever USTA Tournament – both her loss and her
unexpected win. Jasmine may have played in high school tournaments, but a US Tennis
Association tournament is quite another experience. She was feeling the pressure of an actual USTA
Tournament, the pressure to please her Mixed Doubles partner Davie, the pressure from the crowd, and even
the pressure of a crowd rooting for her opponents. It’s hard enough to hear the crowd cheering
for their opponents’ winning shots or to hear silence when they make powerful,
strategic plays, but this crowd was even doing something tennis crowds don’t
do: they were clapping at opponents’ “wins” that came from her unforced errors. Maybe they didn’t know that, for her, those
errors were unforced? Maybe they thought
the opponents had great shots that she should not have been able to
return? Jasmine couldn’t shake wondering
whether they were just being rude, or whether they were insulting her by their
ignorance that her misses were unforced – shots she would normally get. And, the more she was bothered, the more
unforced errors she made. She wasn’t upset
with her opponents; they were good sports.
Nor was she even really upset with herself; she could forgive errors coming
from the pressure of a first USTA Tournament.
She was upset with the crowd. This was her first tournament. Couldn’t they wake up, learn that, and give
her a break?! Between court swaps after each
odd game, Jasmine impulsively cleaned her glasses. This time, her obsession gave her a chance to
coach herself: Get clean vision, Jazzie.
Don’t look at them. Don’t listen
to them. Just watch the ball and have
clean vision and clean shots.
To Jasmine’s wonder, Davie responded
exactly the opposite as the crowd. Any time
she made an unforced error, he approached her with encouragement, assuring her
of “No worries” and a pat on her shoulder to say, “Good going.” He even started giving her a High 5 when she
lost a point, which he could see troubled her.
“You’re doing great. This is your
first tournament. Go easy on yourself. You’re doing good.” No matter whether they won a point or lost
one, Davie was flirting with her the entire time. When
they won one, he made sure to give her a High 5, and their High 5s kept lingering
longer and longer. Toward the end of
their match, every High 5 ended with a squeeze of the hand, and those began to
linger longer too. Jasmine may have lost
the match for them; she may have lost the crowd who were clearly against them;
but she won Davie’s attention. She came
away from her first USTA tournament with an ironic thrill for her loss.
By the time of their first mixed doubles tournament,
three months have passed since Davie caught her eye. At first, it was his physique that caught her
attention, then it was this mysterious deja vu that she somehow knew
him. It turns out she did. As the youth pastor at her church, he’d spoken
a few times at their church, and she was always mesmerized and inspired by his
messages. Still, as inspiring as they
always are, his messages are still a little safe. He doesn’t push the envelop too far on what
traditional churches seem to want their parishioners to believe.
So
Jasmine really perked up at Davie’s refreshing reply to Gentry’s question at
the Alley about whether it’s okay to assassinate a terrorist, as Obama had just
announced he had done of Osama bin Laden.
While Davie didn’t have an easy answer to this question, he did have a
clear stand against capital punishment.
Jasmine found it a relief to find a pastor take what she perceived as
the “pro-life” stand against the death penalty, as she couldn’t wrap her head
around the typical support for it among those who attended churches like
hers. Jasmine returned home that day
wondering if Davie, like her, was a closet progressive.
“Closet
progressive” was Jasmine’s phrase for herself with her journal. As a “closet” progressive, she protected
herself with her journal and her silence.
Throughout her teen and college years, her family taunted her for
thinking at odds. To escape the
taunting, she buried herself in her journal and posed her questions straight to
the Spirit: Why should we favor the death penalty if we’re pro-life? And why should we support war? And why shouldn’t we protect our
environment? Spirit, am I missing
something? Jasmine didn’t stop at
these questions in her journal. She
asked more, straight from the Bible. Why
did God “harden Pharaoh’s heart” and then send atrocities to the people after
God Himself was the one to do the heart-hardening? Why not soften hearts instead? And why didn’t God try to soften hearts
before He drowned the whole world? Most
especially disturbing to Jasmine was this one: Why, God, why did You command
Joshua to commit genocide? This last
one especially enflamed Jasmine. What
kind of a God are You? Should I really
be worshipping You, the One who commanded genocide? The Spirit sometimes whispered back to
her. Trust Me, child, trust Me. In time, I will answer your questions. For now, trust My love for you.
Although
she still doesn’t have answers, at least now Jasmine sees her questions into
her journal like cleaning her glasses. They’re therapeutic and, maybe, she hopes,
they help her to have clean vision too. Since Davie entered her life, she’s also gained
encouragement that her questions are valid.
By now, she’s certain Davie is also a closet progressive. Not only that, he’s muscular, athletic, and
gorgeous. Add to that, he’s a youth
pastor with a strong spiritual life. If
that isn’t enough, he winks and smiles at Jasmine. And now, they are USTA mixed
doubles partners and he is noticeably flirting with her. Can there be anything wrong?
Oh.
Yes. He’s married. So is she.
© 2020 by karina. All rights reserved. Please use with permission or a citation that links to this blog.
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