Lead, Kindly Light

See the original here.

This last weekend was simply lovely – a beautiful, blonde and blue-eyed bride and a dark, tall, and handsome groom were joined in marriage, and filled with every joy and happiness that some of us still just dream about.

It was a grand opportunity to reconnect with family and usher in new extended relatives into our circle. Yet as I found myself immersed in a small-ish city in the Bible Belt South, making new friends and in general experiencing life in an entirely different culture, some nagging thoughts began to tug at my consciousness. When the all-too-brief weekend was over, and I quickly emerged from the thick clouds of cotton candy moments, the nagging thoughts had ripened (or rottened) into a strange little funk on Sunday evening. Back here in Cambridge, I found it difficult to study for the bar exam again because I was feeling quite disturbed.

I began to feel uncomfortable with my current station in life. More specifically, I started to question some of the choices I’ve made until now — and I wondered whether it was possible to climb too far up a ladder, and essentially get “stuck” because the lower-most rungs have been removed somehow, thus making it impossible to ever climb back down. In other words, how reversible are my decisions, after all? That is, if I decided to give it all up one day — forget about viable — would it even be feasible?

The more I wrestled with these questions, the more I realized that the inquiry boiled down further to a more pointed issue: Am I humble enough to accept any calling, or have I adopted the world’s definition of my worth, which measures based on factors such as prestige-brand degrees and colorful curricula vitae?

In the end, I was comforted by my eventual good-faith conclusion that I have been prayerful and obedient in my calling, which has led me to my current degree, employment, and general career trajectory. The comfort was almost immediately laced with a thin strand of bitterness, however — as I began to count the possible costs of this obedience. Most times, I look into the future, and I am excited by what I find. I think God has led me to this place and I (mostly) trust that He has a plan to use me to further the Kingdom through doing good legal work and, purposefully and by His power, loving the people with whom I interact and the constituencies that I serve.

But if I think about it too heavily, I can begin to surmise what the costs might be — and some seem prohibitively high. When I look at those potential costs looming ever higher in my imagination, I get scared and wonder if it’s worth it. And deep down, of course I know it is, but I also wonder if my walk of faith in this life will be merely one of staid obedience, or whether God might grant that it would be a celebration of obedience mixed with real joy.

I’ve been reading through I Samuel, and last night in chapter eight, I read about how Israel basically whined to Samuel and asked him to appoint a king to lead Israel — basically saying, “All the other nations have a king; we want one too.” The thing is, Israel HAD a king; they had the best, most wise, most powerful, most loving, most wealthy king! They had the Lord Almighty at their side, walking with them, providing for them, and fighting for them. But they didn’t see that; they just…whined. And God said to Samuel, “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.” (v7)

God then went on to tell Samuel to pass on word to Israel. God announced that He would provide Israel the king that it wanted — BUT Israel would soon see that such a king would not serve with the strength, compassion, or wisdom that it thought the king would bring. Instead, Israel would reap — and learn to regret — the fruits of its sinful desire to forsake God, the best King they would ever know.
The passage was convicting to me, and helped lift me from my funk considerably. I was reminded that God does know best. I’m foolish to think that I could choose my own way and come up with something better than what He has designed. Who am I to have such a lofty view of myself compared to the Lord of the universe? Let me not make the mistake that Israel made (or at least try not to), but instead walk boldly in the direction in which God has called, bowing the knee in my heart to call Him Lord and King, and trusting Him to provide at every step, to lead in every path, and to write this story as He sees fit.

Once a week, every week. Porter Exchange, after a morning of bar classes and an afternoon in the library.

There are only five tables total, and we always sit at the same one.
I invariably order the “Healthy tofu bowl” (with delicious soft carrots, green beans, other vegetables and six pieces of fried tofu in brown sauce over delicious rice) at Porter Exchange. DCSK dodges around the menu a bit, but mostly ends up with some sort of curry thing.

We sit, we chat, we argue from time to time. The same thing happens every single week.

It’s good to have SK around. Sure makes the bar season fly by faster.

I’ve sat in front of this computer for quite some time now, tapping out the beginning of a poem, the start of a paragraph, the introductory sentences of an essay. Then… the pattern has been: delete, delete, delete.

There’s a lot on my mind and something inside that I want to say, but even I’m not exactly sure what it is — let alone how to say it. So — perhaps today would be a good time to post absolutely nothing.

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I shouldn’t be talking or expressing all the time anyway. Today I’m forcing myself to listen, by saying nothing — and letting God fill in the words.

… the ten-year-old child in Dorchester who said that when he and his siblings hear shots on the street outside their house at night, they get out of bed and lie close to the ground, away from the window — because they don’t want to be identified as eyewitnesses. Because then they’d be next.

… the Queens convenience store owner who testified at trial, over and over, “If I should live to 100 years, I will still remember these events. They cannot be erased. I escaped from death.”

… the year I came to realize for the first time that criminals aren’t all monsters in human form. And that each one is some mother’s child. And… God loves them as much as He loves me. And because God loves them, I should too.

… Ronnie, who drank his beloved white tea at Peet’s in the Square when we celebrated his 21st birthday. He let me into the world of the young and the homeless. I hope he knows I still look for him every time I pass the pit.

… wearing a ribbon on my sweater for Beri when I was seven. She was eleven years my senior, and her body was recovered in a ditch a month after she disappeared. That was the first time I ever questioned God’s goodness, and I wondered aloud why her parents bothered to attend our church anymore. It was years before I understood my mom’s answer — that there was nothing left to do; at the end of our ropes, God is all we have.

… growing up afraid.

… understanding that my client who lived under a bridge always checked and re-checked to make sure I’d keep my appointment with him, because no one had ever stuck with him before — and realizing that the social worker and I (his attorney) were the only friends he had.

… spending a week living in the inner city. Walking the same streets, taking the same bus, living the same type of life, hanging out on the front stoop. Holding, playing with, and loving the still-innocent children and wondering which of them would be behind bars in just ten years’ time. And pleading with God to spare them all.

… visiting witnesses in their homes, just three miles away from mine — but an entirely different world.

… I Corinthians 13, and the fact that it applies to federal prosecutors too.

… that Winston Churchill was right – we make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.