most hopeful

Mar 19 2013

learning to live, on, the calendar, what they are teaching me

up for anything

Today is my grandmother’s birthday. She turns 82.

When I asked her if it was her 83rd, she replied “No” with an exclamation point and said that she apologized for being blonde, but it would take her another whole year to get to 83. She said, “But I’m up for anything…”

This conversation happened on facebook messaging.

I see TuTu more now (TuTu is what I call her of course) because she volunteers for us at least one day a week at Area Relief Ministries. We joked at the office just today about her requesting to close up shop one day after the office had closed, letting everyone know that she would close up shop because she hadn’t finished what she wanted to finish yet. We didn’t allow it, of course.

Some of my stubbornness comes from TuTu.

So does some of my shortness, my red checks, and my fast sweating. Those all come from TuTu as well.

And hopefully, my willingness at 82 years of age to be a part of what God is doing with the homeless, the at-risk, the materially poor, the families in crisis…hopefully being wiling to take part in the work of the kingdom at 82 years of age…not 83 yet…is some trait of TuTu’s that I will inherit beyond my 5’8″ stature and red, sweaty cheeks. If my height, cheeks, and temperature are inherited from TuTu, I’m proud of them too.

Even more so if I will redefine the 80s and 90s as times to pour into what God is doing in the world to make all things new, it will be a proud legacy. As my boss at ARM used to sing, “Age ain’t nothin’ but a number”.

I teach class at Union University a few days a week, and it brings me great joy to hear from students and acquaintances, “You are TuTu’s grandson, aren’t you. She has talked about you.” To work to keep up with my grandmother’s social calendar might bring me shame, but instead, it brings me great pride. To try to keep up with the textbooks she is reading on New Testament theology and Christian history might make me feel dumb, but instead it makes me ambitious.

To TuTu on her 82nd birthday, you make the passing of time seem like a great reward. Thanks for the legacy, and for my red, sweaty cheeks. All my love.

djordan
Pine Tree

Tagged age, aging, Birthday, Christianity, grandmothers, grandson, learning, older, Perspiration, Religion and Spirituality, union university

Mar 17 2013

1 Comment

learning to live, what they are teaching me

the ground remains

the-ground-remains

The weather has finally permitted for my backyard in the evening to transform once again into a glowing outdoor room. A friend of mine and I sat around the rickety wooden table under balls of chicken wire and lights puffing our pipes for nearly three hours this evening.

In my day to day schedule, I like to pretend that I am too important, so I don’t have time for moments like these. There’s no space for propping my feet up, bringing the music outside, lighting up a cigar and laughing, talking about ideas, and wrestling with what we are learning as it is shaken and stirred with who we are becoming.

But tonight, even though as it approached I felt as though I didn’t really have time to indulge this gathering with a friend a needed to catch up with, it was in fact exactly what my mind and soul needed to find each other again.

The work is good. The meetings and projects and plans and research and people are all good, and there is progress toward good things no matter how tenuous or temporary it may be. The calendar pages are flying off the wall faster than the second hand on the clock is ticking, but I am keeping up as best I can nevertheless.

There is something quite magical, and humbling, and ultimately holy and important about stopping long enough with another on the same journey to realize that when I prop my feet up, the ground remains. I am not holding things together, but merely participating in their newness. The meetings and projects and plans and research and people are all good, and for me to be a valuable asset in the mixology, I must make the intentional effort to take time to prop my feet up with thoughtful and entertaining and humble friends. I must hear their questions and see what they are thinking. I must join them in wrestling with their own demons and delights so that I can, in the morning, put my feet back on the ground and start again.

The ground, however, remains. The tasks are still there. My momentary pause from standing on my feet to push ahead is a reminder that I am not the one holding anything together. Propping my feet up every once and a while makes the work a little more honest, a little more true, a little more humble, and a little more holy.

So cheers to the rickety wooden table in the backyard on a brisk evening under the chicken wire lights and stars with good people on the same road.

djordan
Pine Tree

Tagged backyard, break, center, Coffee, community, conversation, dialogue, evening, friends, hoping, learning, lights, remembering, rest, stars, talking, thinking, Thought

Mar 16 2013

what are we doing?

In the middle of multiple meetings lately, either starting with coffee because it is far too early or in the morning, or starting with coffee because it is far too late in the evening, I find myself in the middle of multiple meetings.

There are papers and computers and skyped-in video faces and clicking pens and reshuffled papers and dogs under the table because that’s the way it works when we are meeting whenever and wherever we can.

And I find myself often in these meetings wondering what in the world I have gotten myself into. I will either have a dining room filled with two bodies and one skyped-in face arguing and agreeing and praying our way through to a more hopeful and sustainable work in another country with real people with real skills and dreams and aspirations, or I will find myself in a dining room looking across a kitchen, a living room and a den filled with students and adults who are learning what it means to follow Christ into their own city. We talk about what truama-informed care looks like, what it means to view others through a lens of strengths instead of through a lens of shortcomings, and what we are actually doing when we are serving in low-income, high-crime neighborhoods a few miles from my home.

And I look at both of these groups, all people I am falling deeply in love with and flying highly in respect with, and wonder what in the world we are doing. Who let us be responsible for these tasks, and who knows we are learning as we go? I often feel as though I snuck into a grown up world, and the bouncers didn’t catch me, the Deans didn’t notice, and the bosses didn’t pay attention before putting me in these positions.

So knowing that I am leaning into the work at the same time as I am learning it, I find myself most amazed at what God insists on doing through my own ignorance, unpreparedness, and incompetence. We take seriously the discipline of learning and asking and pushing and working, but the generosity of God is the only thing which actually moves us from point A to point B.

And so we keep moving. From dining room table to living room floor, we lean into whatever it means to live out the kingdom of God in León or in Jackson or in wherever in God’s name we end up living something out. We pray we do it well knowing all the while that we are quite a mess.

I went to the grocery store last week in my pajamas and saw three people I know, but not well enough to make a joke about being in my pajamas. I went to a service with church two weeks ago and in a rush had only trimmed half of my beard.

I am what I am, and we are what we are, and while we don’t know exactly what we’re doing, we are doing what we know to do and working to do it better, more effectively, more educatedly, more honestly, more humanly day by day. We are reading and studying and listening and praying our tails off, but we have to move now. It’s worth filling up dining room tables and living room floors for, I would say. It is in breaking bread and coming together that God let’s us know what is next.

We don’t know what we are doing, but he does. And as long as we are diligently working to learn and seek and know more about what we’re doing, he makes the kingdom come. We merely jump in.

djordan
Pine Tree

Donald is privileged to work with a ridiculously awesome staff at Area Relief Ministries, a local non-profit in Jackson, Tennessee working to alleviate suffering, promote dignity and foster hope in a multitude of ways. He also serves on the Board of Directors with three other very talented and influential individuals for El Ayudante, Nicaragua who seeks to work with the Nicaraguan people to transform the nation. These meeting often end up happening in Donald’s living room and dining room, which make living at Pine Tree worthwhile in and of themselves. Check out Area Relief Ministries and El Ayudante | Nicaragua online.

Tagged area relief ministries, Christ, church, counseling, Dining room, el ayudante, helping, hope, hoping, insecure, listening, Living room, nervous, nonprofit, pathways, social work, unknown, waiting, work

Mar 13 2013

2 Comments

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

in the dark

If you say you’ve never had to make an emergency bathroom break, I think you’re probably lying.

Tonight, leaving a service at church and on my way to dinner, I called my mom and asked if I could swing by and use the restroom before running right back out the door. She agreed.

I found myself making way to the guest bathroom, late enough in the evening even in our new savings of daylight time for it to be dark outside. Down the steps into the library and around the corner into the guest bedroom, I remembered while walking that there are no lights on the ceiling, so there were no switches to turn on to light the path.

As much as has changed in the last ten years that I have not lived in that home, I found myself walking surely while completely in the dark. The house has changed, my parents have changed, and I no doubt have changed. But in a moment of emergency, I walked and maneuvered out of habit and memory. I made my way down steps and around furniture and corners completely in dark, hands not even out feeling for what I already knew was there.

When turning into the bathroom, I reached my hand around the corner and onto the wall, thoughtlessly, immediately touching the dimmer switch as I have hundreds of times before. The light came on. Emergency over. On my way to dinner.

Driving to dinner it occurred to me that in those moments where we face emergencies and uncertainties, we know exactly what to do. We do it surely even though we often find ourselves completely in the dark. We take the steps we remember taking when we could see what we were doing, and somehow, by the ridiculous grace of God, those same steps work when we can’t see at all what we are doing. We walk and maneuver out of habit and memory, without even stretching out our hands to see if we know where we are going.

And we make it, finally, to the dinner table after all is said and done with. And were it not for the habits from easier times, times when we could see clearly and weren’t in a rush, the habits which have been buried deep inside of us somewhere, we would have been stranded in the dark.

djordan
Pine Tree

Tagged dark, darkness, emergency, in the dark, light, memory, remember, remembering, tough, trouble

Mar 11 2013

a ridiculous question

My students on Monday, Wednesday and Friday often have to suffer through whatever kind of mood I am in. They pretend to do so gladly, and fortunate for their sakes, most days this semester have been great. They have a lot to do with that as they have been an incredibly fun group thus far.

Last week, I found myself exhausted from work. I noticed that all the work involved good things with good people pushing for good progress. We had been looking for and living into signs of the kingdom, and it had all been good. But one evening, the evening before this particular class, I found myself wondering what I was doing, and if it is all worth it anyway.

My mind went back to a conversation I once had with someone questioning the pursuit of the kingdom. “Does it ever get better? Does it ever actually make a difference?” The questions, not ridiculous, come to my mind often if I tell myself the truth. The next question was, “And if it doesn’t ever really get better, why work toward it? All we can do is wait for it. Otherwise, we will get terribly depressed and disappointed, right?”

Back in the present, I found in myself after a great long day of different work in the community wondering what in the world I was doing. The notion that maybe things aren’t getting better seemed to push in harder, and with a particular situation in mind, and I wondered what the point was.

Just before arriving to my classroom the next day to talk to students about the history of faith and efforts toward justice, I ran across this video (below). I knew immediately that I was asking a bad question because I had, as I usually do, turned the situation back to myself. Gravity always pulls me inward, and in its doing, had made me wonder about the worthwhileness of it all. But this piece of work reminded me of the names and faces of people who are changing my world as I walk hand in hand with them toward the kingdom. They are my clients and the families I serve and the communities I work in. They can’t afford to wait, and therefore neither can I. We are the same.

The next time I find myself asking that ridiculous question, I hope I can remember. I showed the video to my students that day in hopes that they will remember also…and that they will hold me accountable to remember as well.

djordan
Pine Tree

Tagged hope, hoping, hurt, is it worth it, justice, kingdom come, mercy, one step back, pushing, Religion and Spirituality, serving, two steps forward, waiting, wishing, world relief, worth

Mar 10 2013

1 Comment

guest post, learning to live, Quotes, what they are teaching me

good men and the practice of resistance [part 2]

It’s easy to sit in our offices or living rooms, around kitchen tables or restaurant tables, and talk about what we would do if we were in someone else’s shoes. We see others as those in positions of power, and yet we look at ourselves as either the victims or the martyrs. We see ourselves as those who have been taken down by good men gone wrong, or by the bad men gone wrong. Either way, we imagine ourselves as standing for something and going down because of it.

I do, at least. It occurs to me in writing this that not everyone feels that way. We are all of us trying to figure out what we are doing while pretending like we know what is going on. We have all been told by someone above us that we aren’t supposed to let them see us sweat, so we push forward as if we have any idea what forward should to look like.

And all the while, we see others in the positions of power, and ourselves as merely players in the game. We see others as those we are willing to follow, or as those we desire to complain about.

And yet we are, of course, charting the course of the future.

And I think about what it means to either participate in or push back against the regime. I think about what it means to either participate in or push back against the resistance.

I have found myself sitting on concrete slabs in the middle of downtown parks considering whether to blindly trust those in power, or to ask questions and push harder toward what it might mean to be the church in the world, even when I have no idea what that means. I have found myself sitting around tables, weighted with silence, because the powers of blindness are at work in the world and my paycheck has depended on them, but I’m not sure what the next step needs to mean for me. I have found myself in meetings around conference room tables where the truth of the kingdom is harder to demand than the appeasement of the rich Christians who are demanding solace and the protection of status quo, and I’m not sure which I’m willing to push for or lean into. I have found myself in tears with my sisters and brothers on living room floors asking what it will cost to seek first the kingdom before the education of my children, the safety of my family, the reputation of my career, and the pursuit of my own American dream.

And the answers are never easy.

I have found myself, in all of these situations, pretending as though I am all alone so I can have great pity for myself that I am asking these difficult questions and doing the best I can, at least. My pity makes me think it’s honorable. Until, I realize how arrogant I can so quickly become.

I have never been alone.

Not only have I never been alone because God himself has been there, however cheesy and ious that may sound. But I have never been alone also because I have been sitting on those concrete slabs with others. I have been sitting around tables, sitting in conference rooms, sitting in tears on living room floors with others who are pushing through the very same things. We don’t always end up in the same places, but we told the truth together.

It is these same people that I have clinked glasses with in celebration and in hope, because we know we are on the edge of something better and truer and a little more hopeful than the places in which we find ourselves or once found ourselves. And it is in doing life with these women and men who have been known for breaking rules and asking questions that I am pushing against the regime into the resistance, knowing that while the world goes not well…the kingdom comes.

I have no choice, really. Forward it is.

djordan
Pine Tree

This post, written by Donald Jordan, is part 2 of a two-part post. Part 1 is a guest post by Wes Gristy which can be found by clicking HERE.

Tagged alone, challenge, church, God, hope, humility, leadership, Living room, loneliness, power, questions, Religion and Spirituality, resistance, together, togetherness

Mar 07 2013

3 Comments

guest post, learning to live, Quotes, what they are teaching me

good men and the practice of resistance [PART 1]: a guest post by Wes Gristy

the-resistance.-part-1

There’s a line in a song called The Resistance by Josh Garrels that haunts me. It comes at the end of the first verse. After poetically describing the power structures of this world that abuse the masses, Garrels asks, how do good men become a part of the regime? The question assumes these systems of captivity to be the handiwork of good people, good Christians even. Ethical businessmen. Rule followers. It’s an assumption that runs contrary to our own. Unlike Garrels, most of us think that the waves of oppression, domination, and injustice arise solely from the drug lords, crooked politicians, and criminals—in other words, from the bad men. They are the ones responsible for the regime. Yet while bad men certainly play their part, I think Garrels has a point.

The truth is that good men contribute much to the structures of this world. Think about it. Good men are prone to protect, and so they work for stability. Good men like to keep the boat steady, and so they don’t allow for radical course corrections. Good men want to give assurances and make promises, and so they create lots of policies and procedures to keep us safe. Good men like to show the prettier side of things, and so questions that poke holes in their presentations are often labeled as negative or even disloyal. Good men can be conservative in the worst sense of the word, stiff-arming innovation with rolls of red tape, declaring with confidence, “The system works well enough. We’re doing the best we can. Our intentions are noble.” And so the status quo holds fast due to the diligent efforts of good men.

How does this happen? How do good men become a part of the regime? Garrels offers an answer: They don’t believe in resistance. They fail to critically analyze the ideologies of this world, and so they are unprepared to resist them. Too many good men fail to heed the words of the Apostle Paul, “Don’t let yourself be squeezed into the shape dictated by the present age” (Rom 12:2). Obedience here requires active resistance; the regime flourishes by subtle means when we let down our defenses. Without resistance, we’re assimilated, and we don’t even know it.

Without resistance, good men with good intentions will inevitably slip into the patterns of this evil age.

It’s not that sooner or later good men are unwittingly going to turn around and start shooting people, but rather that popular notions, incompatible with the ethic of Jesus, will begin to sound reasonable to embody—certain notions of success, of courageous leadership, of religious conviction, and of personal ambition. These notions slowly become the subject of our conversations, the content of our imaginations, the stories we tell our children, and ultimately the fuel of the very regime we say we despise.

I had a professor who once offered his students this proverb: “I used to think that bad people did bad things for bad reasons. Now I believe that good people do bad things for seemingly good reasons.”

That’s my fear.

That’s why this lyric returns to my mind again and again. And so I pray, Heavenly Father, save me from becoming a good man who quietly and unknowingly becomes a part of the regime. Teach me to practice resistance.

Wes Gristy is an associate pastor at All Saints Anglican Church in Jackson. He’s been married to his kick-butt wife Abbie for eleven years, and they have a brilliant four-year-old daughter and hilarious one-and-a-half-year-old son. Wes is one of my very best friends who has taught me much about the costs of resistance, and about what it actually looks like to push hard into the questions and compassion and work of the kingdom. I’m grateful to him for guest posting, among many other things.

This post is Part 1 of a 2 Part series. For Part 2, CLICK HERE.

djordan

Tagged ambitions, Apostle Paul, arrogance, Christian, church, Evil, good, good intentions, humility, intentions, jesus, josh garrels, justice, kingdoms, leadership, Men, people, resist, the resistance, wes gristy, Wesley Gristy, world, wrestle

Feb 23 2013

2 Comments

learning to live, on, what they are teaching me

worth more than a lazy saturday

I won’t lie. To all my friends with children, jobs that carry them into the weekend, life that carries them over the edge…I wont lie. I usually sleep in on Saturdays. If I’m in town, which is becoming less and less, I don’t think twice about the thrill of sleeping in till nine or ten on Saturday mornings, waking up then only because the dogs begin to insist on it. And I wont lie that most Saturday mornings it’s the perfect thing for me to do.

Be jealous, if you wish.

Today, however, is worth more jealousy than sleeping-in-Saturdays.

This morning at eight I’m ringing the doorbell to meet for a few hours and discuss the art of counseling, to be given encouragement in y wise steps and wisdom in my ignorant steps. And coffee. To be given coffee at eight in the morning since I usually sleep in on Saturday mornings. For two and a half hours beginning at eight in the morning there is discussion over what it means to listen well, to practice well, to watch well and to craft well. Counseling is, as I’m learning, more the art of listening for what the person speaking has known all along but can’t hear himself say, can’t hear herself know. until someone shines it back on them, both sides becoming changed. This morning at eight in the morning, cup of coffee soon to be in hand, I’m ringing the doorbell ready to discuss the art and privilege of therapy.

This morning at ten-thirty, or a few minutes late because the first conversation went long…but we knew that it would…I find myself walking through another door to another meeting. I find myself, new cup of coffee in hand sitting around a huge kitchen table with people I know and people I don’t know. I find myself sitting with people who share, above all, a heart not for names or labels or agendas but a heart for the kingdom and all it involves. I find myself sitting, a little late for a ten-thirty meeting, around a table with people who have won my respect and people who quickly earned it talking big and thinking hard and dreaming wide about what it means for business and food and health and poverty and community to get smushed together in one hopeful spot. Passing the brownies, the hope of a community sitting around tables together having a party as we were this morning. This morning a few minutes after ten-thirty I find myself in the middle of a moment I wont soon forget because a little piece of kingdom come happened around that table this morning while brownies were being passed.

And at twelve forty-five I find myself sitting across the booth from a good friend for late lunch. Laughter and hats and glasses and jeans because it’s Saturday morning after all. The questions thrown out over salads and salmon about what it might mean to follow Jesus beyond harmful clichés or ceramic crosses and into the streets and the cubicles and the living rooms where vengeance is king and jealousy rages and a feeling like maybe we’re a little behind pushes fast and furious into our hearts. Passing the crackers and stacking the napkins, questions thrown out about where we went wrong or where we went right and how we might learn to tell the difference between the two, how we might assume there’s a difference at all. Back to our cars and back to our homes for errands and work and a little time for play, because it’s Saturday afternoon of course.

And then in the evening, a last minute text. Dinner around the table, prepared as we chat. Children run wildly with giggles and stories and hopeful surprises of what it mean to see their eyes and takes on the world. Sitting down in those familiar seats we find ourselves between laughter and tears because so much is known and so much has been seen. Together. There’s no catching up so only the present is told: where we are, what we wonder and what we all hope. Sweats and pullovers, secrets unhidden, because after all it’s a lazy Saturday evening dinner.

And so most Saturdays I don’t think twice, when I can, to sleep late and give thanks that I have the weekend. But today, in the hustle and the few minutes late, I give thanks that I’m surrounded by people pushing well and pushing hard and pushing often into the thin space where we’ve been taught to pray and taught what it means for his kingdom to come and his will to be done on this dusty earth now as it is in his heaven.

djordan
Pine Tree

Tagged awake, Coffee, conversations, development, friendship, Health, justice, kingdom, meals, meetings, saturday, saturday morning, sleep, the lord's prayer, the table, value, work

Feb 22 2013

all the implications

This video has been on my brain since I first saw in when it came out a few days ago on February 19.

Yes, it’s about bullying, but it’s about a great deal more.

It’s about the impact of little things.
It’s about our own assumptions under which we bury others.
It’s about how art is redemptive and makes beauty of tragedy.
It’s about shared stories that crash into shared reality after being hidden for so long.
It’s about all the implications of all the things we find ourselves doing, thinking, saying, being,
both horrendously good and remarkably evil.
It’s about the bothness in all of us.
Our Cain and our Abel.
It’s about telling the truth.

This is good. You wont regret the time.