Category Archives: learning to live

Sep 18 2015
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learning to live, on, reviews, what they are teaching me

carry on, warrior

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“People hurt the things they fear,” has become for me one of the most haunting lines of Glennon Doyle Melton’s not-so-new book.

And I’ve tried about ten times now to type out how Carry On Warrior has made me exhale so strongly and peacefully over the last week as I’ve been reading it. Her words have been a kind of subversive undertone to everything else I’m seeing and reading as the news unfolds.

Something in me is pushing hard against the rhetoric of hatefulness and fear, of greed and warmongering I hear predominantly from Christians as each day breaks across the globe. Something in me is pushing hard against this fear of neighbor, fear of other, fear of different. Since when did Jesus say kill for my sake, hate for my sake, marginalize for my sake? Something in me is pushing hard through the psuedo-christian noise for voices that speak to something altogether clear, and noble, and lovely, and gracious, and simple and beautiful. I don’t feel the need to kill the person who threatens to kill me; I feel the need for peace. I don’t feel the need to hurt the person who has hurt me; I feel the need to forgive. And I need to know other people feel that need too. And I need to know how to move into that need.

I don’t know how, though.

And Melton doesn’t claim to know how either, but somehow her words in Carry on Warrior actually begin to do it. Honoring a kind of David-like offense to face the giants of anxiety and fear and terrified christian culture, she manages to walk to the middle dropping one piece of heavy armor after the next knowing that it might be her end.

But also knowing that it might be her only chance in hell at an actual beginning.

I’m envious, really. But hopeful. I’m working to lean in to the call to be honest and hospitable when it means standing with those the church is screaming at and setting targets on. I’m working to lean in to the challenge to show up and do my best to return justice for injustice, generosity for stinginess, and even openness for rigidity and fear. It’s infuriating, and then again completely freeing. Something as if from another world altogether.

People harm the things they fear, she says. I’m doing my damnedest to stop being afraid.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

To follow her blog, visit momastery.com, and click here to find “Carry On, Warrior.”

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Sep 14 2015
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learning to live, social work, what they are teaching me

waiting to see

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We can’t bare it anymore.
We are waiting to see what you do
and we are waiting to see how you move forward.
Your self-definitions based on hatred and bigotry and xenophobia
don’t resonate with us anymore
or maybe they never did, but we are telling you now.
They don’t resonate with us
because the people we live with and work with
are people harmed by your xenophobia and bigotry and hatred.
And we take that personally.
You taught us to take harm personally.

So now we are working and walking
slowly in the world,
hoping to find the place and the people
who can’t bare it anymore either.
Especially not in his name.
We are looking for the people who
just like us
find themselves captivated by a story
a little bigger,
a lot bigger
than a story of againstness
a lot bigger
than a story of notness.

We are working and walking and hoping and looking
for each other.
We are the people who are leaning into a
more kingdom-minded future.
A future where the gospel grows thick
in the soil of surprising gratitude
and hospitality
and willingness
and welcomeyness.

We don’t hate our neighbors.
We aren’t afraid of them.
We love them,
and we’re following a Christ who taught us to.

So we are waiting to see what you do.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr

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Sep 13 2015
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learning to live

almost there. almost enough.

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My fingers have been afraid to push down on these keys. I’m not sure what I have to say or whether it’s worth saying. I’ve been in the world of everyone else, fighting to make sense of the day to day and hoping that every now and then something of meaning squeezes out of it. Paperwork is usually late, dinners are cut short, stories aren’t completely told. And while I feel like I almost have something to write, it seems like it’s a little short of worthwhile.

But in each of those moments, I still know something magical has happened. I’ve met a buddy for a beer or a friend for a coffee. We’ve eaten too many chips in queso or had too many mozzarella sticks. But we’ve been offering rounds of “me too” and “yes, exactly” in the meantime. We share the same anger at the same institutions, the same grieving around the same situations, and the same hopefulness toward the same possibilities.

And it only feels almost there. Almost enough to write home about. Almost enough to remember. Almost enough to be worth reminding others that something worthwhile comes along every now and then. But it always seems just short, so I’ve chosen not to write it down. In the last week, though, those moments of almost have seemed just enough to be worth it. The moments that fall a little short of important seem very important. The conversations that fall a little short of profound seem very profound.

And it leaves me wondering if it’s not worthwhile moments I’m waiting on to write about, but perhaps I have forgotten what moments are worthwhile after all.

So, fingers to the keys and eyes on the horizon. I’m doing my best to pay attention. At least, that’s what I intend to do.

djordan
Pine Tree

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May 31 2015
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learning to live, on, Series: Signs of the Kingdom, what they are teaching me

a kind of rumbling

  
It wasn’t at all that there were a few other languages loud enough to notice, but English was still the loudest. There was no prevailing language; the rhythm of the words held the group of roughly thirty together as much, I suppose, as the gathering just after seven for Eucharist held us together. I’m glad the words are now, after all these years, buried somewhere deep inside me. Otherwise the thin layer of contact-floating tears would have made it impossible to read them. Still it was nearly impossible for me to speak them.

     Your kingdom come…

With my awareness of Pentecost still keyed up, whatever it means and whatever I’ve made it mean, I heard the phrase in multiple languages said together so that it spun into a kind of rumbling made familiar by rhythm. I got the phrase uttered, and then had to stop again only to listen. The language to my right was different from that to my left. Neither was the same as mine.

     … Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven
     … Makwenziwe ukuthanda kwakho nasemhlabeni, njengokuba kusenziwa emazulwini
     … laat u wil geskied, soos in die hemel net so ook op die aarde

To lean into the rhythm, celebrate the diversity, and dare for the gritty risk of kingdom on earth outside the doors of the cathedral after final thanks and hallelujahs…we might, then, sense the same kind of rumbling being spun in the streets. 

djordan
Cape Town

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May 20 2015
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learning to live, what they are teaching me

when time sticks together

the-base-of-the-tree

He stood closely to the base of the towering tree, him at about three and a half feet tall. His father was on the phone in the front yard for some privacy, but just called him over to see. After hurling my luggage into the trunk of their car so they could deliver me to the airport, I walked over to see what had caught the attention of both boys, now studying the bark.

All three of our faces now––nearly pressing into the tree’s trunk––were studying the creatures. At first glance, it was the same old bark towering up into the leaves as I had likely stood staring at over twenty-five years ago in that same yard. My mysterious and celebrated great, great-aunts likely then inside the house speaking poetry or reading Spanish and cooking spaghetti sauce. The one gracefully and quietly grinning as the other loudly laughed, the elastic waistline of her skirt bouncing up and down even with her navel where it rested.

Leaning in closer, the bark was a layer of cicadas woven golden-brown into a pattern mimicking wood chips. I’ve heard them for days now outside, but had not registered the source until this very moment. I flashed back to my own front yard over twenty-five years ago. Standing with my brother and another neighbor on the wooden ledges that formed the flower box squaring out the trunk of a towering oak just outside my bedroom window. We were filling a gallon-sized glass jar with cicadas that morning. I don’t know if we finished or what was done with our collection, but I remember that moment all those years ago as crisply as I remember this morning in my own front yard under the shadows of my great, great-aunts’ tree.

One white cicada stood in the middle of all the other golden brown creatures climbing around the curved sides of the tree. It stood out now boldly, or was now finally noticed to be standing out boldly.

The father is now back across the yard for his phone call, the son is now being directed by his mother back into his carseat rather than the road, and I’m now scanning through a mental list of things not to be forgotten before weeks away from home.

For a moment there, though, decades worth of time stuck together and I was reminded to look and see.

djordan
London

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May 13 2015
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learning to live, what they are teaching me

an end to preludes

boyond-preludes

There is a rumble of insistence for
an end to preludes without their symphonies.

Beyond announcements and proclamations,
beyond ceremonies and unveilings,
crowds of regular people gather
who are still working and sweating
to raise their families
to help their neighbors
to reimagine their surroundings
to dream their futures
and to build into their communities
into something a little more whole.

Beyond the prelude
the people are still waiting
for the movement to begin.

Beyond the prelude
we are waiting and clamoring,
we have become restless waiting and clamoring,
for the movement to begin.

There is no longer an acceptance of only preludes;
we’ve learned the movement is supposed to follow.

We don’t expect it to be played for us;
we’ve been learning to play for quite some time now.
We expect to add our own music to the work.
We don’t expect it to ring without error;
we’ve been learning from our errors for quite some time now.
We expect to mess up, tell the truth about it, and continue to play.
We don’t expect to hear it immediately;
we’ve been learning how long it takes for good music to be born.
We expect to see it both in small pieces and suddenly in finished products.

But let us be clear;
we will no longer accept the preludes without their symphonies.
If there is intent to impose again
an acceptance of the status quo
of all prelude and no movement
of all proclamation and no production
of all appeasing and no activity
of all explanation and no substance,
hear this:
We do not accept your offer.

We’ve waited.
We’ve traveled.
We’ve worked.
We’ve trained.
We’ve sweat.

You will not scare us into silence.
You will not threaten us into acceptance.
You will not bully us into appeasement.

We know that the prelude is only the prelude;
there’s music to be heard.
And we know that while terrifying,
it is the music of the kingdom.
And we will play it together.
And we will hear it together.

And whether or not you join us,
we will move beyond the preludes.
There’s music to be heard.

djordan
Chicago, IL

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Feb 22 2015
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learning to live, on, Series: Signs of the Kingdom, what they are teaching me

kingdom comes over hot chicken

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Several weeks ago it was at a greenhouse under the South African sun. It was with two friends, one from South Africa and one from England, both in Cape Town now chasing the kingdom hard and fast. One works to transform the way housing is addressed for those living in informal settlements by way of valuing inherent wisdom, skill and reality. The other is working to address issues of gang violence, trauma, and youth development not only in Cape Town but in the hearts and plans of those around the world.

A few weeks later, it was in Nashville, Tennessee. We were talking about whether hot chicken was hot enough or too hot as we prepared for a wedding a few hours later. Friends without the pretense of worry of doing it right or doing it fancy, it was a celebration of choosing to do it and do it together. Friends willing to push through the new uncertainty of what it means to be a community surrounding those who are choosing to do life together. Friends who will argue over the heat of Nashville’s hot chicken in the morning, pretend not to cry at a lifelong commitment in the afternoon, and dance like no one knows what dancing is supposed to look like in the evening.

And this week, like last week, and like the other weeks in between was at the altar rail at a little church on the north side of town. Hands out, breath held, eyes up, it all swelled together. I’ve heard my priest and favorite friend say before that when we kneel at the rail, we share in communion with those with us in that moment, those who are gather at Christ’s table around the globe, and those who have both joined the table in centuries past as well as those who will come after us with the same assurances and the same uncertainties as we knelt at the rail today.

This morning, hands out, I joined them. I joined my brothers and sisters in Cape Town. I joined my sisters and brothers over hot chicken in Nashville. I joined my own local church community, and all those who were at their own churches both in my own city and in cities around the globe and through the ages.

I’ll work toward justice tomorrow and push against institutional power and greed.
I’ll seek beauty and laughter and silliness tomorrow with adults who hate it and children who love it.
I’ll do paperwork and billing tomorrow and wonder what I’m doing and why I care.
I’ll push a few steps forward into and few steps back from the kingdom of God.

And I’ll only be able to do anything at all tomorrow by the mystery of
the power that somehow shakes the rail every time I kneel,
whether at a nursery in Cape Town
or over hot chicken in Nashville
or the altar at my little church.

His kingdom comes.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

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Oct 26 2014
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bible, learning to live, on

on psalm 35 | what I want; what I want to ask for; what I need

psalm35a

What I want is to know you are for me,
which seems odd to ask;
that you over and in and of all things
might stand up for me and
fight for me and
stop attacks against me.

I know I need to hear from you,
though;
I need to hear that you are,
if not now then ultimately,
saving me and prepared to be saving me
from everything that fights against me
and inside me
and around me.

You see that I’ve been fighting for a while now?
You see that I’ve been asking for you for a while now?

I want to ask of you
I want a promise of you
that anyone
that any person
that any group
that any funder
that any fearer
who may be after me
who may be scared of me
anyone who gossips or finagles or whispers
in piety or privilege or petty or paranoia or peril or against me
would be put on the front page
under headlines of shame or confusion
under headlines of disaster or destruction.
I want to hope that whatever they hope happens to me
ultimately happens to them, but worse.
More public.
More noticed.
More shamed.

And I think<
were that to happen,
I might be happy, finally.
If those in other worlds of piety and paternalism,
if those in other worlds of arrogance and ambition,
might finally be put in their place,
I think I might,
then and then only,
sing a song of honest gratitude to you
giving thanks that things are well
and trusting finally that you are King
and trusting finally that I’m with those who win.
Trusting finally that I’m worth it;
that this is all worth it.
I would be such an incredible person
when they all get what they deserve.

I promise.

It feels granted, of course,
for me to wait for their demise.
Because when they struggled, I struggled.
Because when they defended, I defended.
Because when they were offended, I retreated.
Because when they were angry, I apologized.

And maybe I need to know
after all this time
that you are for me.

Because it feels like you
just watch.

Like you just do nothing.

I’m sorry for saying it, I guess,
that It feels, sometimes,
like I’m paying attention
and you just aren’t paying any attention.

How long do I have to ask for help?
How long do I have to wait for some kind of validation?

Do you refuse to help me?
Am I all wrong about all of this?
And I pushing away from what you are pushing toward?

I can’t believe it,
so if I’m all wrong,
fight me.

But if not,
will you stand up for me at least?
And if you won’t stand up for me at least,
will you let me know you’re for me?

I’ll give it back to you,
whatever that means.
whatever that costs.
I swear it.

I suppose, finally,
whether or not you decide to be for me,
I need to ask that you be for those,
no matter how big
no matter how small
no matter how wealthy
no matter how poor
no matter how crazyno matter how appropriate
no matter how irreverent
no matter how pious
no matter how marginalized
no matter how important
no matter how detested
no matter how esteemed
no matter how quiet
no matter how loud

I suppose, finally,
even though what I want to ask,
after all this nonsense and ridiculousness,
is that you be for me,
in a way that shows you are against them,

I need to ask less that you be for me
and more that you be for those
who seek
your peace
your shalom
your kingdom
your King.

And while I’m afraid to let you off the hook,
because I fear you might take advantage of it;
and while I’m losing some confidence in you,
because you aren’t doing what I’m hoping you will do

if I still tell myself the truth,
even then,
even if you don’t prove it to me,
or if I’m not convinced that you do ––
stand up for me that is ––
I have little choice
but to keep pushing forward
for your peace
for your shalom
for your kingdom
for our King.

I have seen and learned too much
to only stand with
the big
the wealthy
the appropriate
the pious
the esteemed
the loud.

I can’t stand with the men of standing.
They stand on those you are for.

So even if they win today,
kind of,
I’m working toward,
more than today:
all the days.
I’ll keep talking about
how you empower
peace, shalom, kingdom;
how you empower your King.
And for that,
no matter what I need to ask of you,
I’ll sing songs of hope and thanks about you.
And the crowds will,
finally,
sings songs of hope and thanks about you,
won’t they?

But seriously.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

image from The Ismar David Electronic Archive
Click here for Psalm 35 \ NRSV via BibleGateway

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Oct 23 2014
1 Comment
learning to live, on, what they are teaching me

the era at hand

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At about a hundred miles an hour it came crashing into my chest this morning, moving up quickly to my throat where it stole my breath and then my eyes which began to pour. In the wind, behind sunglasses and under one of my grandfather’s many straw fishing hats, I was skimming quickly to our next drop in spot with three buddies as the sun was coming up over the gulf where we’ve been staying these last few days. The boat’s captain letting us know how far in to drop and what was likely on our line before it ever came into site was scouting out our next most likely location.

The four-word refrain came to mind. I followed it just under my breath to see what song it was connected to, and then, the crashing. First chest. Then throat. Then eyes.

sad fruitful broken true
sad fruitful broken true

I didn’t realize until this morning out there on the dramamine-calmed water that this is the first trip to the beach I’ve been on since losing both grandparents who taught me to love traveling here, feeding the birds, chasing the fish, eating out, cooking in, and laughing hard. As time passed, so did their health, but the beach would still happen. Moves from porch to den to restaurant  became slower and slower, but each still an important move worth taking the time to make.

This morning, out there on the water, still burning by the sun under his straw fishing hat, I realized that it has been the years and years of family and storytelling and value-passing that makes me fight, over and beyond fighting for meaningful work and meaningful impact, for meaningful friendship and meaningful experiences. To see and to feel and to taste the holiness in clinking glasses in my own home or half a world away. To honor and to savor the time spent with and the time spent where.

And in the hurricane of memories that stormed perfectly over and into me this morning, I was at once overwhelmingly grateful and overwhelmingly heartbroken. To have the privilege of three decades filled with enough love and honor and legacy to miss so deeply all at once left me exceedingly grateful and sad. The era of those kinds of gifts has passed. Forever. It’s almost too much to take in.

There is, however, the era at hand. It is in these days, then, that reveal the ways in which I choose to remember all these good things that have in no way been withheld from me. It is in this era that I will either wake up before the sun and meet my buddies to fish deep in the ocean, or I will only mourn the loss of the days that have already passed. To truly mourn, to truly grieve and to truly honor all that is lost must, in the truest of ways, involve making deep and rich meaning of all that is ahead.

And must acknowledge the ripe and possible realities of the present moment. Crashing in and all.

+++

The words I found after chasing the refrain are from the Sara Groves’ song This House are listed below:

it took me by surprise
this old house and these old feelings
walked round and looked inside
familiar walls and halls and ceilings

where I’d dream and plan
every moment of sunshine
this was my whole world
it was all I knew
like the hull of a seed
this old house cracked wide open
as I grew

hadn’t given it much thought
hadn’t been back here for a while
everything looks so small
seen through the memories of a child

who would dream and stare
from that second story window
that was my whole world
it was all I knew
like the hull the of a seed
this old house cracked wide open
and I flew

sad fruitful broken true
sad fruitful broken true

memories for miles and miles
summers falls winters and springs
Ruby you take it in
see he’s withheld no good thing

+++

djordan
723 Whiskey Bravo
Seagrove Beach, FL

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Oct 21 2014
4 Comments
learning to live, poems, Series: Signs of the Kingdom, social work, what they are teaching me

a faint sound of something

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I could hear it
our shoes making a shoddy moon
on the fifteenth floor looking out over the city.

I can always hear the other
the sound of killing
shooting, the ringing of it
the sound of racism
silence, the subtlety of it
the sound of oppression
cash registers, the shininess of it
the sound of isolation
weeping, the breath-stealing nature of it

I can always hear the paranoia in the shadows of the other
I can always hear the anger in the panicky crisis
I can always hear the hopelessness in the news banner
flashing across the bottom of the screen

but there
moon-shaped shoes filled with
women and men now family and friend
the best and true of both
standing up and holding hands in prayer
as if holding hands kept us from blowing down
or blowing apart
or blowing away

thy kingdom come
thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven

thy kingdom come
to the ringing
to the subtlety
to the shininess
to the breath-stealing

and make things whole
we asked.

And it was in that moment
over and above and beyond and inside and all around
I could hear the faint sound of something
a symphony of some kind
a little more melodious
a little more beautiful
a little more free

I could hear a faint sound of something
–a symphony of some kind–
and it sounded like hope.

djordan
Rosemary Beach

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