42
This was written a bit ago so the time references might seem off…
Do you have a chosen number of hyperbole? You know, when you’re exaggerating or trying to lighten the mood, and you throw out a ridiculous random number… yet always default to the same one?
For about as long as I can remember doing this, I’ve just spouted off “42” or “42 billion”. Never “thousand”, never “million”, never “41”, “43” or any other number really. Just plain “42” or “42 billion”. I have no idea why.
Just this week I found myself saying “42” something… and felt the familiarity of the number, not just as meaningless hyperbole, but as my reality. I connected the fact that I am 42 years old. I mean, I’ve known since January of this year that I’m 42. But never connected it in light of my chosen number.
I need to say this again just for myself… I felt the familiarity of the number not just as meaningless hyperbole but as my reality.
hy· per· bo· le extravagant exaggeration
Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. In rhetoric, it is also sometimes known as auxesis. In poetry and oratory, it emphasizes, evokes strong feelings, and creates strong impressions.
But it gets deeper… If you, like me, didn’t know what auxesis is, here you go:
Auxesis is a rhetorical term for a gradual increase in the intensity of meaning with words arranged in ascending order of force or importance. Etymologically the term auxesis is a Greek word that means growth, increase or amplification.
This year, this 42, has been hard. Things have been intensifying for me. Growing, increasing. I’ve had strong feelings, types of feelings I haven’t allowed myself for decades honestly. And I still don’t know what in the world I’m doing, but I can’t go back to stuffing, pretending. When I find myself shutting down rather than enjoying or rather than being angry or whatever I legitimately need to do to be healthy and whole and alive, it makes me sad. But I am getting better.
And even as the year has gone on, this has all intensified. The last few months, I have been the recipient of extravagance that has felt so exaggerated and surreal, but it hasn’t been meaningless hyperbole. It has been my reality. And it has grown and ascended, and helped me to grow, and ascend.
Things the Lord has spoken over me at every major moment in my life as an adult and then themes for the last few years, culminating in repetition (from those who have no way to know what these Scriptures and themes are!) in these last few months.
Completely otherworldly beauty in nature surrounding me, literally in a cocoon of pulling me back into time and space and my own body and yet being so far beyond myself. Disorientation actually reorienting me. Questioning reality and feeling more rooted in reality all at the same time. New snow, stark mountains, sunshine t-shirt warm days way too gloriously late in the season, wind burn and sunburn, the ocean singing me to sleep at night, glory beauty sunrises and sunsets over opposite terrain within days, the Milky Way from horizon to horizon with shooting stars spinning off, so much good food, my favorite coffee and muffin three days in a row, serendipitous circumstances piling up to the point that I cannot dismiss them, being prayed for so very specifically and powerfully it left me literally doubled over, a surprise guest suite for a weekend, brave souls entrusting their stories to me, an elder praying for me with tears glistening in compassion, and. so. much. more.
The lavish kindness of strangers, those I feel I barely know, and those I know incredibly well… all actually spoiling me. It’s gotten to be so much, that I’m afraid I’ve become a little fragile when I’m not cocooned. I find myself more startled and surprised more often because I’m not braced and numb or in a vicious power struggle for control. I literally burst into tears when one accidental technology glitch left me feeling uncared for. I’m telling you, this has not been me… ha! I’m the rock. I’m the resilient one. And yet… I think what I’m finding is that my “strength” before had an inherent weakness. Self-reliant and shrunk inside myself, I need to grow, to increase. Shut down and silenced, I need to amplify.
And honestly, maybe not to my credit, but definitely to the credit of the Lord’s kindness, He has exaggerated and emphasized things so much in my life lately, so that I cannot dismiss the reality of what He is doing within me and for me.
And so, I bring you my 42. Not mere hyperbole, but my present reality. I am growing, increasing and amplifying.
And maybe, just maybe, could I invite you into the same in whatever form it takes in your own life?