Tag Archives: community

May 22 2013
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learning to live, what they are teaching me

city legs and soundtracks

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She told me that it’s obvious to her who is from the city or lives in the city, and who is a tourist trying to pass as a local. I tried hard––quite hard I might say––to be a local. My fanny pack was left at home, I wasn’t looking up for the top of each building I walked past, and I pronounced the number nine like a good midwesterner rather than a good Tennesseean.

The giveaway, though, was that I didn’t have train legs.

She was in her seventies, groceries in tow, because that’s apparently what you do if you’re a local, and she was watching my knees buckle each time the L hit a bump, wiggle or stop in downtown Chicago. It was the ride back out from a weekend trip that was supposed to be with a friend who couldn’t come at the last minute, so I was a single dude spending a weekend in the city I thought of as home for two years in college.

My ride from Midway into town found me wearing my white earbuds plugged into my second generation iPod (you’re welcome) looking out the window of the Orange Line as we (me and all these strangers) made our way into the city. I don’t remember the song, and the fact that I remember the moment without the song makes it all the more important to me. Jostling into downtown, my legs apparently giving me away more than I realized, I found myself gazing out the window noticing that times like these are things of movies and soundtracks, people and lives and entire worlds passing by as the music plays to make sure that you know that every moment of what you are seeing is important for something that’s coming in the story, or for something that has just happened that you’re still chewing on.

It wasn’t until my trip out that I was informed that my legs gave me away as an outsider.

Now, in the small, rural West Tennessee town that holds my work and family and friends, I often forget that were I to add a soundtrack there is great importance to the transit, the one mile commute to work, the people standing on the side of the road, in front of me in line, in the waiting room at the office, on the other end of the phone. And my realizing that the soundtrack is––or at least should be playing––makes me more aware that I am using my non-city legs, perhaps my small, rural West Tennessee town legs, to navigate these waters in ways that hopefully do justice and love mercy and walk humbly in the town that is and has been home for quite some time.

It’s worth a soundtrack, I think. The people must be.
And we will spot your city legs. ha.

djordan
Pine Tree

 

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Mar 17 2013
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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

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Feb 12 2013
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learning to live, what they are teaching me

to those people, and you know who you are

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to those people
and you know who you are
who offer homes and spaces
of safety and honesty and freedom

to those people
who make it okay to stumble out in the morning
with hair twisted in all the wrong ways
eyes stuck together
and thoughts jumbled up
still to say, “good morning.”

to those people
who have encouraged me when
I’ve been at my best
and put up with me when
I’ve been at my worst
and who’ve allowed me to be
both my best and worst
most of the times…

to those people
who have become the safe, honest and free places
to make it clear who I am not yet
and also who I desperately hope to be
until all is said and done
you will offer the clearest notion
of what it means to be loved well.

so to those people
and you know who you are
who offer homes and spaces of
safety and honesty and freedom,

thank you.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

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Feb 07 2013
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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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Nov 04 2012
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learning to live, the calendar

an unspeakable honor

there is an unspeakable honor
buried deep and wide
in the days
and weeks
and months
and years
of doing life together with other people

time is marked much by
the kind of laughter that makes stomach muscles hurt
the kind of tears that make the tips of our noses hurt
the kind of stress that makes the bottoms of our guts hurt
and the kind of joy that makes everything worth waiting it out

and so we give thanks
while doing life together
when the sharp and truthful moments roll around
that shine like beacons in the water
like roadsigns on the journey
like answers to questions
like human touch to grief
like peace to chaos
like silence to silence
like rightness to wrongness

and it’s in those moments
that we pause
and give thanks to God Almighty
that in the ways of the kingdom
there are things worth sticking around for
and sticking around for and with kingdom friends
is and will always be
an unspeakable honor

so we mark those sharp and truthful moments in our calendars
for those other days where we are less sure
what it is that we are sticking around for at all.

God remind us.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

 

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Oct 15 2012
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learning to live

rule-breakers and peace-makers

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

left by the normal
rule-keepers and
peace-keepers

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

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

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

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

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

and the pity lessens
and the courage strengthens

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

djordan
Pine Tree

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Oct 14 2012
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
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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 08 2012
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learning to live, poems, Prayers

give us courage.

djordan
Pine Tree

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Aug 19 2012
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from the archives

from the archives | a time for everything

 

In reflecting on the upcoming one-year anniversary of mosthopeful.com on August 23, I’m throwing some of the posts that readers have looked at the most back into the mix. Thanks for allowing me the space. It’s been a most humbling experience. This post is especially important to me, as it was a moment of honoring the pain and struggle of the year before, and then celebrating––in advance––what waited in the year ahead.

There were conversations that evening about how we would learn from the ridiculous pains and struggles of the year, and move toward the kingdom with new insight, and new scars, into the future.

A few weeks after that party (talked about below), I was sitting with in Stellenbosch with some of my favorite people in all the world, and I began talking with a friend from London, living and working in Cape Town, about how victories and happy memories are honored with parties thrown and anniversaries given, but the painful experiences and struggles are only valued once we come up with “reasons” for why they happened.

She mentioned, feet in the chilly water at a campsite in Stellenbosch, that we ought honor the painful landmarks in our history as well as the ones we naturally celebrate. The party thrown at the beginning of this year was an opportunity to celebrate and to mourn what had been, and to look with great expectation toward the future, knowing that God is working through his people in his world toward the kingdom.

So, another top-viewed post from the archives…

+++

View the original post and comments from January 8, 2012

 

a time for everything

 

It is with great joy that I enter 2012.

2011 was filled with pain, loss, struggle, sadness, anxiety, and anger.

The year overall was one of seeing the best of circumstances end up as the worst of possible outcomes.

And yet through each season and struggle, there has been tearful laughter, growing community, deeper honesty, brave introspection, and tenuous hope.

And it all feels a little closer to the truth. A little closer to telling the truth.

To others.

To myself.

To the part of all of us that tries to close our eyes to what we know the painful truth is sometimes.

There are times when everything in me wants to arrange my circumstances in ways that hope for the best; those same times, if I were being honest with myself and those around me, I would instead be anticipating the worst. Before this year, I think I’ve tried to push everything, no matter the truth, into a single season.

As if allowing ONLY a season for birth, and then trying to translate death into birth in order to make sense of it.

As if allowing ONLY a season for building, and then trying to add on to things that needed only to be torn all the way down.

As if allowing ONLY a season for embracing, and then awkwardly trying to embrace when I should have refrained from doing so.

As if allowing ONLY a season for speaking out, and then trying to explain why I couldn’t be silent if I had wanted to.

The pain of 2011 has made important room for fall and winter. There is a need and space for dying, for tearing down, for refraining from embrace, for remaining silent. A season for these things.

And in the spaces made from telling the truth about our winters, spring comes on the heels. The ground is made soft, the legs become limber, the imagination becomes ready, and things begin to take root, people begin to dance and build again.

And so here’s to the new year, filled with possibilities for both celebration and mourning. Life and death. Dancing and weeping. Building and tearing down.

And an insistence on the holiness of both––on telling the truth about both–to ourselves and others.

For everything there is season.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

 

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