no (- - - ) –a word not easily classified into one of the eight parts of speech, so the meaning of it is easier to understand than the definition itself, which is okay because meaning is what is important anyway, but what do you do when the understanding isn’t there when the word is? I just don’t know (verb; also a homophone of no) what you’d do in that case; or what you do after that case, when there aren’t any words and you just can’t find meaning for no or know or anything else.

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This is a story that’s more poetry than straight-up prose, but more truth than made-up story. And even though it’s written for one girl in particular, I think anyone who reads it could recognize it.
Maybe from their own life, maybe from the life of someone they know. Maybe because they’re in the middle of it now or maybe because they’re remembering it.

I just hope that it finds its way where it’s needed.

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Once, there was a girl. 

She grew up with grass stained knees and muddy toes and stardust eyes. With tangled hair and a breathless laugh and windblown dreams.

She grew up beautiful.

She grew up slow.

A day came, then. A day that was one of those days, the ones that we would dread with all our might, if we knew they were coming. That day, the girl grew up a lot, and quickly, and the stardust in her eyes learned the darkness of a night of a new moon.

But it was still there. The grass stained knees and muddy toes, the stardust eyes and tangled hair and breathless laugh. The windblown dreams.

And for a while, the girl grew up slow. She grew up beautiful.

But another day came. Another one of those days; of growing up too much, too fast. A nightmare too much like the first; the breaking and crying and hurting too much the same. And her breathless laugh learned the burn of tears, of heart-sounds too deep for words.

But it was still there. The grass stained knees and muddy toes, the stardust eyes and tangled hair and breathless laugh. The windblown dreams.

And for a while longer, the girl grew up slow. She grew up beautiful. And I am glad she didn’t know of the next day coming— the bad one, the worst one of those days.

But I wish I had known. I do, along with many, many others, because we love her. Some of us knew her a lot and some of us knew her only a little, but everyone saw it. Saw her beautiful. Saw the grass stains and the mud and the stardust. Saw the tangles and the laughter and the dreams. And if we had known that day was coming we would have ended the world to stop it from dawning.

We didn’t know, though. It was one of those days and so we didn’t know and neither did she and the day broke over her red and raw and terrible.

And hearts broke. Hearts broke, and hands tightened in rage, and lips bit themselves raw with helplessness. White knuckles shook with too-big sorrow, and voices choked on prayers whispered without knowing what words they said.

We want to tell her, it will be okay. We want to tell her our own stories of those days, to reassure her that the end will be a happily ever after somehow. But how can we find words? How can anyone, when the words that will automatically give that reassurance don’t exist in any language we know except time?

God. Dear God. Give her peace. Give her justice. Give her our love.

Give her Your love most of all.

And give it soon. She is the girl with the grass stained knees, the muddy toes, and the stardust eyes. She is the girl with the tangled hair and breathless laugh and windblown dreams. She is the girl full of love and loved by many. And she is so. much. more.

digest (noun)— a summation or condensation of information or of feeling or of I guess food so that we can digest (verb) or translate that accumulation into living, breathing awareness

It’s not a particularly novel idea. What you put into your body becomes your body. How many documentaries are there that talk about how our lives are shaped or altered by the food that we eat? Food, Inc., Supersize Me, You Are What You Eat… the list goes on and on. If you choose to put all sorts of unhealthy things into your body, your body will change, and your lifestyle will change as well.

Pretty much nobody disagrees on that point.

But lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how people—myself included—don’t often acknowledge that the same is true of the thoughts and ideas we put into our minds. Into our hearts. 

This isn’t a new idea either. Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable: think about such things.” And Proverbs 4: 23: “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” (For the record, Proverbs was written somewhere between the 10^th and 6^th centuries B.C., and Philippians in about 62 A.D. So yeah- not exactly a novel thought.)

The other day, I was talking to some of my coworkers about a pretty popular TV show. The new season is starting up soon, and everybody was saying how excited they were about it: with the way the previous season left some of the characters hanging, they were all dying to know what was going to happen next.

You may have heard of it. You may watch it. Game of Thrones, it’s called.

Its reputation, I am sure, precedes it. As one of my coworkers said, “You pretty much have to set aside any moral code you may have to watch it.”

I know this for a fact, because I watched the first three seasons. Well, sort of. I watched most of them. Between Wikipedia and the advice of some friends, I skipped a few scenes (what I thought would be the worst ones) and covered my eyes for others.

But I still think I watched too much. I watched plenty of thoughts and ideas—ugly ones—being played out over and over again.

I tried to justify it. The story was so intriguing! And there were so many deep, complicated characters! Yeah, it was vulgar and shocking and horrible in places… but what was going to happen next?!

So I kept watching. I kept watching, even though every episode I watched left me feeling gross, like I’d just eaten twelve burgers from Five Guys.

What you put into your body becomes your body.

 

“You pretty much have to set aside any moral code you may have to watch it.” That’s what my coworker said. And the question that unavoidably rose up in my mind following such a claim was this: why would I want to?

Yeah, Kate. Why would you want to?

Should it be that easy for us to set aside our moral codes? Our values of right and wrong, of beauty and depravity? Shouldn’t it take more than an interesting story for us to wave goodbye to a sense of good and evil?

While I was watching the first three seasons, I used to argue with myself that I wasn’t letting my moral code slide. I watched the show, yeah, but I knew when stuff I was watching was wrong. I could articulate to you which characters were evil, which were good (and which were a properly human mix of both). I could tell you what that the perversions of love and beauty and goodness were. I could, and did, get upset by them. And they stuck with me, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We should be shocked by evil, and God forbid that we forget the distortions of justice that we see and recognize, because if we forget them we won’t do anything about them.

And maybe that’s the problem. I watched, was shocked, and did nothing.

I kept watching as, episode after episode, men committed horrible acts of violence against women, always as a norm, and sometimes even in the name of “love”.  I said how horrible it was, but I didn’t join any advocacy group for violence against women, or go volunteer at a shelter for women in need.  

I kept watching as people were glorified for being heartless, for doing monstrous things, and I said it was awful. But I didn’t go to the city mission and work with young people trapped in cycles of similar violence.

I didn’t do anything. I just watched.

So what if I closed my eyes? So what if I skipped a few scenes? The ideas and the thoughts stayed with me. And because they did, I got more and more afraid of what I might become numb to if I kept watching.

I mentioned this to my coworker, during our conversation, but he just suggested (politely) that I was being too sensitive.

“It’s just the time period of the show; the setting. They’re just being realistic, and sometimes reality is hard.”

Yes. I know that. But shouldn’t that “reality” have woken me up to the brokenness in my own world? Because it didn’t.

When it comes to entertainment, there is such thing as going too far. Just because you can push a boundary doesn’t mean you should. Art of any kind (visual arts, music, film, the written word) is supposed to make you wonder; supposed to get you thinking… but it should be more than just shock value. It can and should expose darkness to get to light. When used well, the ugliness art exposes can make the beauty that much more powerful.  But it isn’t always used well… which is the case with this particular show.

There is evil in the world. But when all you do is dwell on it—dig your hands into it and mush it around and watch as it slides over your fingers—you’re missing the point.

What you put into your body becomes your body. What you put in your mind comes out in your life.

Spend a lot of time dwelling on the tick-tock way the natural world works, the science of it, and you’ll start to make all sorts of connections: you begin to see things through a particular lens. In the same way, if you study the color of human relationships, the artistry of bitter white snow on a sunset-darkened tree limb… well, you’re bound to notice things in a different way. Whatever the focus, when you talk big, beautiful ideas and mind-spinning questions with others, and read books and watch movies that challenge and grow you, well, that will show in your life. You can’t help it: the things that you pull into your brain play out in your life.

A little junk food, a little brain McDonald’s or Hershey’s, isn’t really all that bad. There are conversations to have and books to read and things to do that don’t necessarily make you a better person… but they don’t make you any worse either, and really, they’re just fun. Fluff & nonsense entertainment.

But there are things you can focus on that are, well, just plain dangerous. Thingsthat harm your brain as much as drugs harm your body.  They reorder the pathways of your mind, shaping your perceptions without you even realizing it.

Why would I put these things into my mind? Let them settle into my heart, and play out in my life and my actions… or lack thereof?

This is why I have to be done. This is why I’m abandoning all those characters—Jon Snow and Tyrian and Arya and the others—to whatever fates they have coming to them (which, let’s face it: can’t be that great anyway, since all the good characters die or turn nasty). I'll miss the characters... but I don’t want or need the rest of it in my mind.

If you’re reading this and you’re a fan of GoT, please don’t take this as me trying to convince you to stop watching the show, or telling you you’re a horrible person for watching it. I couldn’t do that without being a complete and utter hypocrite, obviously. And, if you do keep watching, I may ask you for a quick, G-rated recap of the new season (is Daenerys finally doing something with those dragons? And has “winter” come yet?) This post is just me; just my thoughts about something that’s been pressing on my mind and heart for a long while, that I’m finally doing something about. And if it makes you think?

Well, that’s great.

 Because this could become one of those big, beautiful conversations; those challenging ideas that make us grow and become a little more like the kind of people that we’re meant to be.

Thanks for reading.  ^_^