Tag Archives: communitas

Jun 12 2016
1 Comment
grief and trauma, learning to live, on, social work, to my students, what students are teaching me, what they are teaching me

an open letter to my students

i-also-remember-this

An Open Letter to My Students on the Eve of the Orlando Shooting.

June 12, 2016

Dear Students,

You likely woke up today as I did: late. You may or may not have turned on the news as is my morning wake-up custom, coffee in hand and multiple snoozes later. Within moments it became clear that there was yet another mass shooting while we were sleeping. This morning’s shooting at a gay night club in Orlando. Over 100 dead and injured.

I remember thinking ‘My soon-to-be godson is to be baptized today. My responsibilities seem yet-again larger now.’

I’m late to the service by a few minutes this morning; I know you’re not surprised. I stood too long at the television in my bedroom, clenching the wooden ledge on top of the dresser left in the room by my great, great-aunts who were the unusual of their era; they were highly educated, remarkably fashionable, and unusually independent women from a time where that was not allowed. No doubt they were recipients of both celebration and judgment. The dresser left in the bedroom of this house they used which I now sleep in has new fingernail marks as of this morning, left accidentally as I should have been dressing for a baptismal service but was instead being washed again in the blood of others.

“I also remember this, and wish I did not,” as Didion once said. I remember that I was not surprised.

Yet another killing, this time the largest mass shooting in our states’ history and the largest terrorist attack on US soil since my freshmen year of college when I sat in a lecture hall of Blanchard at Wheaton and watched the towers fall before my eyes.

I remember this morning thinking that I was surprised that morning as an 18-year-old hopeful, but that I am not surprised now as a 32-year-old hopeful. And it is the hopefulness of my better wiring which has been wanting to talk to all of you all day long today, even though you’ve managed to sneak away from me for the summer. I’ve managed to talk to you in one of our random, side conversations all day long in my head regardless. Then I decided that I hope you might hear it.

Many of you value your faith deeply; I do as well. Because of this, those who believe differently from you are owed your love and honor. The faith you claim has told you so; the faith leaders you are bothered by have challenged this. Follow your faith.

Many of you think
public policy,
issues of social policy and social welfare,
wealth and poverty,
emails to your governors and senators and representatives
(unanswered as most of them go…which you will remember),
childhood development and influence,
family structure and complexity,
group norms and roles,
mob mentalities and social capacities,
and research formulas and findings
aren’t connected in any real way
to your deep desire to help those who are in need.

The crimes of today should remind you that these things are all connected.

The language and now law signed in by Governor Bill Haslam in Tennessee that allow therapists to legally hate and discriminate by refusing counseling to those of the LGBTQ community affected by today’s mass shooting is an issue of policy, welfare, wealth and poverty, legislators who listen and those who ignore (and are paid to do so, which you will remember), legislation and its [silent] funders, biological development and its influences, structure, complexity, norms, roles, mob mentalities and social capacities, research and its findings…

This language and this legislation and these legislators and these voices are the authors of the men and women who will come into your offices and onto your caseloads wounded, orphans of those killed by this morning’s violence, orphans of those who had parents who lived lives of silence or submission to a norm, or stood silently in the back of your sanctuaries on mornings like these as you went to church and thought it was a regular Sunday morning.

I felt the need all day long today, now pushing the clock to make it honest, to let you know that I expect the world of you.

I am pretty sure I have told you this. You will be the best.

I expect a whole other kind of world from you. I expect you to wake up on days like today with the news of the moment and the heart of a saint that is both willing to break the rules and willing to break the norms to dig your fingernails into the wooden ledge on top of the dresser and be late for something planned and appropriate because you decided you had to stand up and speak out for something possibly inappropriate because it puts all of our humanity at risk.

So in class, when I hound you and harass you and rap at you and sing at you and yell at you and take points from you and even when I feed you in an effort to buy you, please know this: I do all these things so that some day, some Sunday morning when someone is waking up and committing to go to church and pledge gratefully to be a godfather for a young man or young woman who has not yet learned to distrust the world…

I do all these things so that you will remember that it will never be okay for us to not be surprised at this kind of hateful news that greeted us this morning.

I’m counting on you.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

 

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Aug 16 2013
1 Comment
learning to live, Prayers, what they are teaching me

prayer for a friend

Screen Shot 2013-08-16 at 8.36.47 AM
So I give thanks
for something there’s no way I could have earned
for something there’s no way I could deserve
but something I realize I cannot do without
people who listen well
people who challenge well
people who feed well
and toast well
and laugh well
and cry well
and even make the space
to witness well
as we learn the truth about ourselves
in the comfort of their presence.
And in reflection,
we know we cannot make it without them.
And so we pray for them that they experience
sometimes from us and often from many others
the same kind of listening, challenging,
feeding, toasting, laughing and crying,
and even that they may find others who will be witness
to their learning the truth about themselves.
We know the great peace and security they bring to us
that is surely a kind of kingdom peace and security that is from you,
and so we wish all of that
and ten fold
for them.
Amen.
djordan
Pine Tree
a grateful prayer for a certain friend

 

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Feb 07 2013
1 Comment
learning to live, poems, Quotes, what they are teaching me

small circles

small-circles

I sincerely hope for good results,
but I have become a good deal disillusioned
over ‘big’ conferences and large gatherings.
I pin my hopes to quiet processes and small circles,
in which vital and transforming events take place.
+ Rufus Jones

Over the last few weeks, I’ve found myself in small circles,
I’ve been sitting around high-top tables and around piles of plastic bottles and stickers.
I’ve been sitting around conference room tables and around coworkers’ offices.
I’ve been kneeled around communion rails and sitting around workshop training rooms.

There has been good intention in planing and good work in presenting
There has been insight and growth

But the magic happens after
in the conversations we find ourselves stuck in
the new acquaintances who will become our partners in the work
the faces paired with names who will become our collaborators
the other small circles on whom our small circles will become dependent.

And in this magic
there’s the promise of
the upside-down kingdom
lights out
curtain closed
microphones off
ties undone
shirts untucked
shoes kicked off
clinking of glasses and
laughter that steals our breath

And in this magic
there’s the promise of
the upside-down kingdom
and what has
always been done like only God does
when the small circles take on
the principalities and powers
the systems and the injustices
the sicknesses and the ignorances
in ourselves and in others
and we see
a little bit clearer
the reflection in the mirror of who we’ve been made to be.

In the small circles and quiet processes
we pin our hopes.
This is what we’ve always done.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

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Oct 14 2012
2 Comments
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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Sep 24 2012
1 Comment
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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Jul 03 2012
1 Comment
learning to live, poems, the calendar

at a high top table under low light

corny jokes to the server
hospitable laughs in return
at a high top table under low light
clinking glasses and eating crumbs
conversation about
faith
fury
family
funnies
fortitude
fears
watches watched, but only barely
because it’s only a monday evening
realization that what we
beg for
clamor for
whine for
fight for
pay for
sing for
hope for
long for
is waiting for us on Monday evenings
at a high top table under low light
clinking glasses and eating crumbs.

And is waiting on Tuesday mornings.

djordan
Pine Tree

RELATED POSTS
+ monday mornings are the clearest view
+ no time to grab a camera
+ catch us up into reality
+ in one place 

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Apr 26 2012
2 Comments
learning to live, what they are teaching me

calling out in the darkness

I sat this morning watching a video (below) that highlights the last five years of a homeless ministry that houses and feeds the homeless in churches every night of the winter months. My mind went back to one evening about six years ago spent with Jonathan Stewart and Wes Gristy; we had been making and serving sandwich dinners on Friday evenings in a parking lot downtown, and our question had become “are there homeless in our community?”

In following that question and other rumors that accompanied it, we met at the church late one evening, made a pot of decaf coffee, and headed to the amphitheater where we had heard those who were homeless stayed.

I remember conversations about exit plans, what we would talk about, how we would find them. We parked facing the main road, flashlights in hand, and started walking through the damp ground toward the amphitheater calling out in the darkness.

“Are you there?”
“We won’t hurt you.”
“We aren’t the cops.”
“We have coffee.”

There was, of course, no one there.

Six years later, with churches across the community working together to host those who are homeless in their buildings night after night, what seems most certain now is that we were, indeed, calling out in the darkness.

We are, those of us fortunate enough to have grown up in church, blessed with a great deal of treasured heritage, and at the same time plagued by a deep spiritual paternalism that we can’t see until we are staring our ignorance straight in the face.

Were I to ask “Are the homeless christians?” the answer would no doubt be, “not necessarily.”
Were I to ask “Are the homeless not christians?” the answer would no doubt be, “not necessarily.”

But were I to have asked “Why do we serve the homeless?” the answer might have likely been “to show them Jesus.”

We are still often calling out in the darkness.

Six years later, I can say that I have learned more about who Jesus is and what he has done from the Christian men who are homeless in our community. Their homelessness is not a result of their not-Christian-ness. And they were not necessarily waiting around for me to show them Jesus.

They are often showing Christ to me, as even Jesus made clear that when we interacted with them we were interacting with him.

But we say we serve to show them Jesus, so we do little looking to see him in them.

But that is changing with those who are willing to open their eyes and see that when we have experienced relationship with those in need, we have experienced relationship with Christ.

Here’s to a future of continuing to open our eyes more and more, and continuing to call out in the darkness less and less.

Theirs is the kingdom, of course.

djordan
South Church St.

 

 

OTHER RELATED POSTS | the fear of the weak among us | we can assume | crack our great ambitions

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Apr 04 2012
4 Comments
learning to live

in one place

I wish all the people I loved the most
Could gather in one place
And know each other and love each other well

…I wish we could all lay beneath the stars
with nothing to do and stories to tell.

+ Sara Groves, Every Minute 

We’ve met over dinner or over skype, caught up over email or over lunch, and talked over drinks or over text. What has glared at me through the rest of the details this week are some of the people I love the most. They are the people who have seen me ugly cry, and the people who have seen me laugh until I start crying. They are the people who have called me out in ways that bring me more into who I have been made to be, and the people who have reminded me that I am worth something when that very notion has been challenged.

I do love the notion that at some point it will be possible for those people, from all of the different circles and communities and countries and eras to gather in one place and get to know each other. I think about how I have been shaped by those I want to imitate, and those I want to be nothing like. It would be a dream come true for those I hope to imitate to be able to meet each other and share dinner with each other.

Perhaps the possibility of the incredible folks over the years who have challenged me to challenge the status quo and seek first the kingdom, perhaps if those people could know each other and love each other well.

I think that very meeting would be, in itself, a glimpse of what is promised as a part of life in the kingdom.

Cheers to that.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

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Apr 03 2012
4 Comments
learning to live, what they are teaching me

not drumming alone

“Never give up. Never give up. Never give up.” she said into the camera on her computer.

We were finishing class today, and I had just asked my friend Caroline––skyping in from a patio in the shadow of the great Table Mountain in Cape Town––what advice she would give to my classroom full of students going into the world with the issues of poverty and the church on their minds and hearts.

I was sitting in the front of the classroom which I suddenly regretted as these words came out of her mouth.

“Never give up. Never give up. Never give up.”

She went on to elaborate, and my mind floated back to my days in Cape Town last spring almost a year ago. I was in the middle of major transitions where the issues of poverty and the church were becoming issues that meant a world of difference when it came to my job, my income, my church, and my future. I remember sitting, clinging to the future as we now refer to it, scared of what the future held, but knowing there was nowhere to go but into the issues of what it means for the church and its people to worry less about success and more about obedience.

Caroline went on to say to the students, with me sitting in the front of the classroom, “Never give up. You will follow Christ in pursuit of the kingdom, and you will struggle. And you will feel like you are the only one. And you will feel as though you have been beating a drum for a very long time all by yourself and no one is listening, and no one else is beating that kingdom drum…”

Sitting in the front of the classroom, where the students can see me but Caroline cannot, I feel my eyes beginning to well with tears.

“…but you are not the only one beating that drum. And there are others, too, following Christ not into success but into obedience, into the kingdom, who feel as though they are the only ones being champions of justice, and they need to find you as well. Never give up. Never give up. Never give up.”

My intentions had been for our class to pray for Caroline before we ended the Skype call, but we were not able to.

I caught myself trying to say, “Caroline is a dear friend who has taught me much. And she and other very dear friends have reminded me in times that felt quite lonely that it is worth speaking out for justice and working toward the kingdom…” But that is where the thank you had to end, because my eyes were getting thick with tears at the wrong time.

Another friend spoke today at the community-wide Holy Week noon service. “The time is now,” he said, “to worry less about seeking our own success, and more about seeking the kingdom.”

He also reminds me that I am not drumming alone.

I had a conversation tonight with an elderly gentleman about our small house church joining their older congregation in serving the homeless this summer. He reminded me that I am not drumming alone.

A dear friend once grabbed my shoulder at a time when I needed it more than anything else, he looked me in the eyes, and he said, “You are not alone. There are many of us, and we are seeking the kingdom together.” He reminds me constantly that we are not drumming alone.

Thanks, Caroline, for making me choke up in front of my class.

And thanks for reminding me, and them, that we seek first the kingdom together, and that we are not drumming alone.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

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Feb 13 2012
7 Comments
from the archives, learning to live, Prayers, Quotes

catch us up into reality

View from a restaurant, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town, South Africa

I was cleaning up around the house and found journal pages from Cape Town this past summer. Here is an entry from June 10, 2011, written while sitting in a restaurant at the V&A Waterfront. The picture is from the same restaurant, different trip. Thanks again to the friends who welcome me at the table.

***

Catch us up this day into the reality
of your good purpose, that by the time we leave
each other we will know – yet again – that your
mercy and justice and love outrun all the needs of the world …

… keep us simple and on task, and we will
praise you by our glad obedience.

+ Brueggeman, from “Prayer of the Church”

We fear that we’ve lost our minds, and perhaps we have.

Perhaps we’ve lost our minds and our life.

Life with.
Life by community.
Life plural.

Broken by the reality of our own struggle against status, power, privilege.

Broken by the reality of our own struggle against dulling.

Broken by the reality of what we see for only a moment when we dare open our eyes
Those things we see in others and then become terrified to see in ourselves

Greed. Pride. Injustice. Dishonesty. Piety. Blindness. Insecurity.
Relentless protection of the status quo under the guise of protecting the church, the faith.
Our arrogance.

And with
by community
plural
in the harsh reality of the present, you call us to join one another

At the table.

And slowly, as our broken pieces sit together
around warm food made by broken hands
around dim candlelight that already threatens darkness
around the giggles of children, around their questions

we begin to become whole.
Only in the context of others.

Truthfully
Honestly
Humbly

Broken hands. Threatening Darkness. Giggles and Questions.

Together.

At the table.
And for the first time in a long time
Something tells the truth, and we are made new.

djordan
V&A Waterfront
Cape Town, SA

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