Category Archives: learning to live

Oct 22 2012
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learning to live, poems, what they are teaching me

in our honest hours

in our honest hours
of anxiety
of unsureness
of exhaustion
of insecurity
of restlessness
of loneliness
of misunderstanding
of arrogance
of boredom
of transition
of self-righteousness
of worry
of confusion
of isolation
in our honest hours
where we are altogether not our best

we come face to face
even when through a dim mirror
with the promise of how things will be
and we feel our souls
lift
weightless
weightlessly
to the sky
with the promise of how all things will be
when all things are as they should be

and then, we live more musically
in our honest hours

djordan
Pine Tree

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Oct 17 2012
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learning to live, what they are teaching me

he measured time in houses

When asked how long ago something happened, he said, “three houses ago.”

We were both laying on the floor of my therapy office, playing with cardboard boxes painted to look like bricks. Recently adopted into the “last house” he was placed in, at around ten years old, he’s in trouble here and there for stealing and lying.

I’m always amazed at how conversations are hijacked by the problems, and both parent and child never notice that the problem begins to run the show and determine who the child is and who the child will be. Most of the time, the therapist is fooled as well.

Trying to see how we could stack the cardboard bricks in ways that would almost crash down, but stay standing, it was his answer that snapped me out of my haze. It was his answer to a simple question that made me realize I had been thinking about him as a child who is a sometimes thief and liar, rather than as a child who, after his parents were caught and incarcerated for drugs, has moved so many times to so many different foster homes, it has become a reliable method of time-telling.

Me: “When did you last see your mom?”
Him: “Three houses ago.”

The session ended soon after, with block stacking and rearranging happening as I was realizing how off-track I’ve been in working with him. The only other words spoken once he answered “three houses ago,” were one last exchange between the two of us before our time was up.

Me: “Do you know I think you’re a pretty strong dude?”
Him: “No.”
Me: “Well, I think you’re a pretty strong dude. Can we discover together next time what it is that makes you so strong?”
Him: “That would be cool.”
Me: “I think so too.”

 

djordan
Nashville

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Oct 16 2012
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learning to live, on, poems

sabbath tuesday mornings

the beauty of the sabbath
and the reminder of both
all we can accomplish
and all we can only hope for
in our work
is found in
the beauty of the sabbath

rest required
in small part because we need the break
in large part because we need the reminder
that we are joining in the work
not steering it
not guiding it
not forcing it
but joining it
but learning it
but trusting it

and so the sabbath
becomes the reminder
that we are invited
that we are needed
that we are a part,

and only a part
a humble
a grateful
a broken part,

of the magic of the work.
so there is always time to rest
even on sabbath Tuesday mornings.

djordan
Pine Tree

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Oct 15 2012
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learning to live

rule-breakers and peace-makers

Although we think we are all alone,
we are all overflowing
in the margins;
we are filling up the outer-spaces

left by the normal
rule-keepers and
peace-keepers

left by the normal
answer-takers and
non-troublemakers.

We find ourselves recklessly seeking
and moreso even recklessly wondering
what it means to be rule-breakers and peace-makers.

So we wonder around
thinking we are on our own
working toward kingdom come
only to find that the road toward
the kingdom is filled with
rule-breakers and
peace-makers and
law-changers and
question-askers and
justice-singers
story-tellers and
kingdom-bringers.

And it is in this work
that we bump into our counterparts
who have been feeling,
also,
that they are all alone.

But in their work
and in their grieving
and in their praying
and in their hoping
they have bumped into us
and we have bumped into them

and the pity lessens
and the courage strengthens

and we find ourselves joined by so many others
living and trying to live
in the margins
pushing toward
the kingdom come
on earth as it is in heaven.

djordan
Pine Tree

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Oct 14 2012
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grief and trauma, learning to live, poems

no longer on our own

you’ve been walking a while
mostly in the dark
trying your best to make a map
of where you’ve been
in hopes that you can make a guess
of where you’re going

but the hill has been upward
for such a long time now
you’ve almost decided
you’re not going anywhere or
you’ve been pointed in the wrong direction

but you’ve done your best
to hold out in hopefulness
that you’re almost to the break in the climb

but it’s been in the walking
mostly alone
that you’ve learned the deep value
of holding on to the lantern
with a dim and fickle light
because it’s all you’ve had
to make out where you’ve been
and maybe where you’re going

but we see you now
coming up on the break
in the hill you’ve been climbing
mostly in the dark
mostly alone

and we know what you’re feeling,
mostly we do,
because we remember that climb very well

because of what we remember
we feel our own hearts
jump in our own chests
because of what we remember well

the lost and lone ranger
we remember the fear
we remember the conversations with ourselves
we remember the almost giving up
we remember the almost freaking out
we remember the almost giving in
we remember wondering if we’ve lost our minds
we remember the choice of going back to the crowds
because it felt like the only alternative
to being lost and alone forever

all here together
we now see a glowing
just above the crest of the hill
and all here together
we know that soon
our lights will wrestle the shadows together

you see us
we see you

suddenly that walk was worth it
suddenly the lost and alone and the lesson inside them
have done their work
have done their time

and now, all together
we walk with the light
wrestling the shadows
learning the path

the hill always breaks
and there’s always a crowd ahead of us
waiting, with hearts jumping in chests

because finding each other
is as thrilling as being found

We are no longer on our own.

djordan
León, Nicaragua

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Oct 12 2012
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learning to live, poems

lost and found in the margins

you may have chosen to go there
you may have wandered there on accident
you may have been pushed there by something horrible
you may have been led there by something wonderful

first there, it is all at once terrifying and
all at once invigorating
it is all at once filled with hope and
all at once filled with hopelessness

but however you got there
and whatever it felt like
you find yourself unable to leave
so you begin to make your home there

not because it all makes sense
and not because you know what to do
and not because you’ve been here before
but because you can’t imagine being anywhere else

but here.

and once you decide that you are willing to live there
you find others who moved in long ago
because they chose to go there
because they were wandered there
because they were pushed there
because they were led there

and they too, soon learned, they could not leave

so you join with them
and with the others
and begin to learn what it really means

to live there
to live here
in the margins.

djordan
Managua, Nicaragua

 

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Oct 02 2012
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grief and trauma, learning to live, what they are teaching me

the class who shows up | on the 5th annual homicide-loss walk

After five years of standing in line watching men and women, propped up babies on hips and grandparents escorted with walkers, this year was different altogether.

It is both encouraging and discouraging to see the crowd grow year after year at the Commemorative Walk for survivors of homicide-loss. It’s been my privilege to listen to and learn from these men and women in a weekly support group, but to see them walk through candlelit paths holding photos of their murdered husbands, sons, grandsons, wives, mothers and grandmothers is altogether horrifying and holy at the same time.

And it has been every year these last five years since the very first walk. It is always holy in the way honestly telling the honest truth is always holy and almost always horrifying.

But this year, there was something new for me as I stood in the evening’s mist.

Looking into the line of men and women with faces barely glowing from the candles in their hands, I saw my students. The clock strikes nine every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and my students are faithful to be patient with me in class as I dance onto tangents, threaten with grades and bribe with food. They have listened to me grow awkwardly teary about the histories of movers and shakers from the margins of the field whom God has used to bring kingdom change across the globe. They have held on as we’ve acted out counseling sessions, as we’ve debated the reasons for poverty and welfare, and as we have pushed the questions of power dynamics and our goodwill to the limits. They always show up.

But this night, lining the sidewalks where women and men who have become dear to me walk through their glowing candles and make clear that their murdered loved ones will not be forgotten, my students showed up. As tears filled my own eyes, I lost my breath in thinking that these very students were standing physically and symbolically right on a dangerous line. They were being both witness to the hard and horrible and hopeless truths like rampant homicide in a community, and were also making a symbolic promise that as social workers who are Christians they will join in the kingdom work to make peace on earth as it is in heaven.

My prayer for those students and any of my students, is that some day in the not-so-distant future there will be professors of Social Work or Theology or Education or Business standing up in front of their own classes telling the names of my students, and talking about how they pushed in from the margins to make peace and to change the world with and for Christ and his kingdom.

And when I hear those stories told, I’ll remember the way their faces glowed this night.

djordan
Pine Tree

RELATED POSTS | what they are teaching me | what they are teaching me 2 | when others tell their stories

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Sep 30 2012
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learning to live, what they are teaching me

from the heart of my bottom


A mess is made whenever people get together.

Always.

And I’m amazed how others, but mostly myself, still pretend that any time people get together it will not be a mess, among all the other beautiful and stunning things that it always is as well, of course.

But beyond that mess, ever present and reliable, is something deeper and a little more true. Beyond the inevitable mess made when people get together is a promise that people stay together, in one way or another, in the mess of it all. And sometimes staying together means staying physically housed together. Sometimes it means continuing to work together.

And sometimes it means taking the pieces of each other that, as much as we thought or intended or assumed would do otherwise, still stick to us and move into new worlds and new places and new possibilities with those sticky pieces of where we come from and what we are made of.

It’s bound to us in the same way our family name is bound to us and the heritage of our story and trial and DNA are bound to us. Like it or leave it, this is where we have come from, and this is who we are.

This morning, I had the chance to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the church I was raised in. And while time has passed and circumstances have moved faster than passing time, I was struck by the celebration of the organist who has played at that church for the last fifty years. He was playing the organ for the church when my parents met, when they were married, when I was born, when I chose to commit to the faith, when I graduated, and when it was time for me to move on.

His service is marked by a long-time faithfulness to the ins and outs of the messiness of people and groups of people just as much as his long-time faithfulness to the celebration of all that is good and true in a congregation. And today, as he marched up the platform stairs with his cane to receive a gift of appreciation for his fifty-year service, I was caught emotionally off guard. His walk up the stairs reminded me of the value of the mess, and the occasional times of not-messiness, that happen when people get together, and what it can mean to see things through.

But moreso, it reminded me of the goodness of looking back, half a century later, and seeing that the work continues, and the call continues, and the kingdom still comes. Mess and no mess. God works through his people toward kingdom come on earth as in heaven.

So to Bobby, from the heart of my bottom as he would say, thanks for your longtime service, and for the reminder that the world goes not well, but the kingdom comes.

djordan
Pine Tree

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Sep 24 2012
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learning to live

laughter and tears | when the work is thick and the nights are long

The conversations where serious things are turned around and around, or stories long buried are finally brought to the surface, or where we hear ourselves say for the first time the things we’ve wondered about the world for a long time…those conversations are rich and true and thick. No doubt.

But when the work is thick and the nights are long and the task is still both right at hand and also waiting long in the distance, there is nothing better than the kind of sturdy laugh that makes you leave your seat to catch your breath or keep from ruining your seat altogether.

And the people I end up shaking my head in grateful disbelief about most often are those people who I have been sitting with at tables or counters or back yard fire pits and have found myself in the middle of both. There is a precious few of women and men and even children glowing by candlelight in one setting or another who have marked for me the occasions where all we are able to do is weep and also the occasions where all we are able to do is belly laugh.

And it is with these people that I have told the most truth. And have heard the most truth.

And it is with these people that I have been the most alive.

djordan
Pine Tree

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Sep 23 2012
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learning to live, poems, Prayers

from a long line of rule-breakers


History is marked by those pushing
into uncharted waters
unexamined worlds
and mostly unacceptable arenas
where people who were not to be
allowed
accepted
approved or
appreciated

were asked to
contribute
comprehend
compose and
conspire

against the ways that things are
and toward the way that things should be

in the kingdom
in the beloved community
in the new ecology
of a world and
of a community where
rich and poor
sick and well
like and unlike
loud and quiet
important and ignored

sit together
eat together
serve together
weep together
laugh together
learn together
give together
sing together and
hope together.

And while we are still so far behind
we have moved so far ahead
of where we have been

and only a few moments of remembering
will give us the wisdom and the humility
to pray to God–our only hope–that we will keep moving forward
faster and surer than the ways we are pulled to move backward

and we will remember
in our trepidation and
in our eagerness for
things to stay the same

that we are descendants of a long line
of rule-breakers
of peace-makers
of hope-holders and
of kingdom-bringers.

And now is not the time for stillness.

Amen.

djordan
Pine Tree

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