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 27 2012
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on, Quotes

today is the day | on Luke 4

He went to his hometown.
He went to the temple, like he always did.

He went to the place that taught him the scriptures.
He went to the place that raised him in the faith.
He took the papers they had taught him with.
He took the place they had raised him in.

And he turned everything upside down
even though it was all that had been there all along.

“The Spirit is on me
Because he has annointed me
to tell the poor the good news
to tell you all of the prisoners’ release
to tell of the blind being able to see
to tell of the wounded victims’ new freedom
to announce the year of God’s favor”

He handed them back the words they had long ago taught him
And sat back down where he had been sitting for many years.

They stared.

And he said, “Today is the day.”

And it wasn’t that it had never been said before.
And it wasn’t that it had never been read before.
But he was filled with something big and huge that has been
saying it since the beginning of time
and when he was in the right place
and when the time was right
the words said something they had never said before.

and that’s when the time comes, like it always 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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Sep 22 2012
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learning to live, poems, Uncategorized

with our necks on the line

MARCEL MOULY "La Vague d'Etrave II"2003

In all the complexities
we hold out hope
that we are thinking
and choosing
and doing well.

but we do not know, of course, if we are.

In all the dramatics
we hold out hope
that we are acting justly
being filled with mercy
and taking steps with humility.

but we fear, of course, that we are not.

Yet even in our unsureness
the tasks wait
the issues wait
the choices wait

injustice waits
cruelty waits
arrogance waits

and we cannot stall
until we feel we are sure enough to move
because work
and lives
and hope is on the line.

So we hold our breath
and step into the unknown
and act and choose and do
our best attempts at
justice and love and mercy
hoping we have chosen well
while willing either way to put our necks on the line
to have acted.

djordan
Pine Tree

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Sep 21 2012
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learning to live, Quotes

this is happening

The church calendar calls into consciousness the existence of a world uninhabited by efficiency, a world filled with the excessiveness of saints, ashes, smoke, and fie; it fills my heart with both dread and hope. It tells of journeys and mysteries, things “seen and unseen,” the world of the almost known. It dreams impossibilities: a sea divided in two, five thousand fed by a loaf and two fishes, a man raised from the dead. My daily calendar reminds me that what I experience in the wold of faith must be measured against what I see, what is happening around me. + Nora Gallagher

The last two or three weeks have found me enslaved to my calendar. The calendar, however, has been filled with meetings and classes and groups and sessions that often find me wondering afterward if there is any reward in seeking and more so doing justice. But there is a rhythm to it. This past Sunday, visiting a church that has grown fond to me for multiple reasons, I found myself partaking of the bread and the wine, and the moment froze in time, or at its fastest began moving in slow motion.

+++

I totaled my car several months ago in transit from my great grandmother’s funeral to the graveside service. I remember as the car began spinning and flipping. I took my hands away from the wheel and put them in my lap. There was no screaming, no cussing, no praying, no yelling. I remember seeing slowly, the way movies freeze the frame for scenes like these.

And I remember thinking nothing other than, “this is happening.”

+++

Last Sunday morning was much the same. I was kneeling, looking three people over at the two boys of close friends kneeling also with their parents, and I felt the thickness of tears flood to my bottom eyelids. I grinned, and time slowed down. I kneeled there, participating in a kind of holy moment that I’ve participated in for more than twenty years. I had no control, no wisdom, no input, no heavy thoughts.

And I remember thinking nothing other than, “this is happening.”

These last several weeks have found me feeling slave to my calendar and slave to my intentions. I’ve wondered if the things I hope for and the things I end up being willing to stick my neck out for are actually worth it. I’ve wondered if it’s worth seeking justice, because the strong are louder and find immediate reward. I’ve wondered if doing the right thing, while potentially unpopular, is ultimately the right thing. I’ve wondered if my personal reputation is worth the suffering of a nameless person. I’ve wondered if a paycheck that brings more stress than income is worth whatever work I hope I am doing.

But when I knelt at that rail to take the bread and wine, and join in histories of men and women across the globe doing the same thing, and wondering the same things, and especially looking three people over to see my little buddies kneeling at the same rail, I remember thinking nothing other than, “this is happening, and I give thanks. And ask for courage.”

djordan
Pine Tree

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Sep 16 2012
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art and photography, from the archives, what they are teaching me

i dusted the picture frame

I dusted the picture frame that sits on my bathroom counter. I think it has been in the same space four or five years.

I would be lying if I said I have dusted it in the last four or five months. I’m sorry, Mom.

But today I dusted that joker. I cleaned, as in scrubbed, that obnoxious tile in the space between the toilet and the wall. I swiffered the heck out of the space between the bottom of the bed in the guest bedrooom and the floor. I found books, the dog’s collars, and chargers to phones that I’ve long stuffed into the drawers that I have no idea what actually hold.

But for some reason, it was the picture frame in today’s cleaning that stood out to me.

I’ve got a buddy coming in from out of town for the week, and so I found my Sunday evening, usually wrapped up in preparing for work, also cleaning the spaces that have long ago moved off the last-minute-cleaning to-do list.

I picked up the picture frame, long abandoned as jobs and times schedules have shifted, and froze for a moment while wiping the dust off the image.

The last two weeks have been unusually weighed heavily with late-night meetings and early-morning conversations, catch-up schedules and bedtime questions about the worthwhileness of the work itself.

And tonight, in dusting off of photos that sit and are looked at daily on the bathroom counter, I remembered, all over again, of how I am changed, and privileged, by the work.

All is worth it. All is unearned. All is prized.

And all is worth a space in the middle of the daily routine, even the bathroom counter space of the daily routine, as a reminder that the world goes not well, but the kingdom comes.

Thanks to the boys in the picture, David and Kevin, for the voice of the gospel that they continue to bear, and to a friend visiting for the week who forces me to clean the tiles and dust the picture and remember.

djordan
Pine Tree

 

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Sep 15 2012
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learning to live, poems

silence drips into pure gold

 

in those moments where it takes all we are
to keep our mouths closed
to keep our eyes forward
to keep our tongues tamed

in those scenarios where we are eager to speak
eager to tell
eager to explain
eager to defend
eager to debate

in those moments where it takes all we are
because we are so eager
to trust the truth to be known with or without our insistence

our silence drips into pure gold
and we learn to be confident in the truth
rather than our defense of the truth

djordan
Pine Tree

 

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Sep 09 2012
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Uncategorized

the beginnings of life and a world of mysteries

“I like to live always at the beginnings of life, not at their end. We all lose some of our faith under the oppression of mad leaders, insane history, pathologic cruelties of daily life. I am by nature always beginning and believing and so I find your company more fruitful than that of, say, Edmund Wilson, who asserts his opinions, beliefs, and knowledge as the ultimate verity. Older people fall into rigid patterns. Curiosity, risk, exploration are forgotten by them. You have not yet discovered that you have a lot to give, and that the more you give the more riches you will find in yourself. It amazed me that you felt that each time you write a story you gave away one of your dreams and you felt the poorer for it. But then you have not thought that this dream is planted in others, others begin to live it too, it is shared, it is the beginning of friendship and love.

[…]

“You must not fear, hold back, count or be a miser with your thoughts and feelings. It is also true that creation comes from an overflow, so you have to learn to intake, to imbibe, to nourish yourself and not be afraid of fullness. The fullness is like a tidal wave which then carries you, sweeps you into experience and into writing. Permit yourself to flow and overflow, allow for the rise in temperature, all the expansions and intensifications. Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them. If it seems to you that I move in a world of certitudes, you, par contre, must benefit from the great privilege of youth, which is that you move in a world of mysteries. But both must be ruled by faith.”

+ Anais Nin

For more on Anais Nin, and the source of this particular quote, visit BrainPickings.org which will quickly become one of your favorite blogs.

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