God | most hopeful

May 18 2012

the magic of a place | Pine Tree

I’ve just returned from a four-hour party that is still making its way into the evening. It was a welcoming party for a new neighbor on my street, Pine Tree Dr.

I live in the home of my great, great aunts. They were the sisters of my great-grandfather whom I never met. They were born in the first decade of the twentieth century, and lived as graduates of Vanderbilt, single women who taught students from high school to University in the town I now live and teach in. I live in their home much changed since they were here; there is new paint, a new floor plan, newly-purposed rooms, but still their home nonetheless.

As I walked home tonight from my neighbors’ house around the corner, the magic of this place struck me again. I remember several years ago when I thought I was moving; I would turn out the lights in this Pine Tree house room by room, struck with a certain kind of grief and loss at every flick. It’s the building, yes, but not completely.

I love the home, no doubt. I love the old wooden, creaking floors and chandeliers. I love the plaster walls and sturdy fireplaces. I love the interesting nooks and odd architecture.

But what I love more is what tonight made perfectly clear. I sat around a swimming pool with friends and neighbors I went to middle school with, and friends and neighbors that my grandparents went to middle school with. I’m proud to say that I’m Donald Laycook’s grandson, the Etheridge’s great, great-nephew. I like that my neighbors know parts of my own history better than I myself do.

There’s an interesting honor and value in knowing that as our motley crew sat around the swimming pool eating and laughing this evening––the party lingers on with my neighbors who are older than I even now as I write this––is joined together less by job, income, or history, and more by a shared value of a place. we sit in places that those who came before us sat and enjoyed evenings by candlelight. A value of this particular Pine Tree Drive that is home to childhoods, early adulthood, retirement, loss, grief, joy, childbirth, dating, graduation, and the future of God knows what.

So I walked back home this evening grateful that I know my neighbors’ names, grateful that my neighbors can tell me about my grandparents, grateful that we recognize each other in coffee shops and business meetings, and grateful that we share a legacy as old as my lost grandfather and as young as my middle school classmates.

There’s a magic to this place, a place that is clearly home. A street that is clearly home.

djordan
Pine Tree

Tagged community, family, God, Grandparent, history, legacy, neighborhood, neighbors, party, Pine, pine tree, swimming pool party, Tree

May 02 2012

5 Comments

learning to live, what they are teaching me

when there’s nothing else to do

We were standing in a huddle, sixty people maybe, I can’t do numbers. The room is a room I spent many evenings in as a teenager, the church building of friends. We have misbehaved in that room, giggled, sung, prayed, pretended to pray, cried, married, listened, pretended to listen.

Tonight, no longer teenagers but many with children of our own, our parents not as young as they used to be, other new and old faces, tonight we huddled together in that room.

Prayer was being offered about one issue for one family tonight, but from the little I know of others’ lives in the room, I know that the room itself was heavy with issues that seem impossible to figure out or fix. And there we were, heavy, huddled.

Our hands feel best when we are fixing something, and our minds feel most productive when we are figuring something out, but there are many times––in fact it would probably be most times if we told the truth to ourselves––that our hands don’t know how to fix it and our minds can’t figure anything out.

We know too, however, that our hearts are telling us things are heavy and unsure and something must be done to help us move closer to the kind of shalom our brittle little hearts were made for in the first place. We don’t know what to do, but we know that something is not right.

And so we huddle together and do the only thing we know to do to give purpose to our hands and minds.

We pray.

We own up to the fact that we can’t figure out how to fix it, and we don’t know what to even think about it. We own up to the fact that our hearts can’t lie even if they wanted to when they are breaking open.

And prayer, in a huddle of people who have been there with us and seen us at our best and worst, becomes the only thing we can do.

So we pray. And we confess that we have joined the long defeat regardless of any promise of the outcome. We confess that our goal is obedience of seeking what is best for our own and our community and our children, but the goal seems out of reach, too massive, too complicated.

But something in us, perhaps the glimmer of the kingdom in us that shines when everything feels dark, something says that when nothing can be done and nothing can be said the only thing, by God, to do and say is to huddle together and pray that the kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven.

And we resign to the fact that the huddle and the prayer and the messy people who are forming both are who and what we have been given as we hurt and hope and long together for the shalom our brittle little hearts were made for in the first place.

djordan
Pine Tree

Tagged Adolescence, adoption, Christianity, church, family, foster care, God, hope, hoping, jesus, Lord, prayer, Religion and Spirituality, skyline, struggle

Apr 30 2012

5 Comments

learning to live, what they are teaching me

the risk of narrowing the voices

asking questions, freedom, safety, church, power

Choosing a paint color is one thing; seeking the truth is another.

One of my favorite lines of Madeleine L’Engle’s is, not in quotations because I can’t remember where it was, that God does not need our protection, and welcomes as many questions as we can dream up.

And I’ve noticed in the meantime that we are at risk not only of taking other people’s answers for truth, but also of taking other people’s advice on what the questions are to be asking in the first place. When our questions are guided, we are of course lead to certain answers from certain narrowed voices.

When we narrow the voices, we weaken our ability to discern at all. In thinking throughout history of all the situations and all those power and all those in the church, even, who have been led in obedience because they trust that someone else is doing the discerning, it is horrifying. We mistake proclaimed expertise for due diligence, and we are left unthinkingly joining in protection of the status quo.

Stifled questions means stifled dialogue, and it is in dialogue that progress is born and we get a little closer to the truth we are all of us after. Dialogue requires broad voices rather than a single voice, and there is perhaps no doubt in the promise that where two or more are gathered, there is something more true and holy present and happening.

I’ve been reading, this time by choice, the book that we long ago read in high school by mandate: Fahrenheit 451. I remembered thinking at the time that how ridiculous the notion was that people would be told what to read and what not to read, and that reading and thinking off of an approved list could result in death.

Book burning followed driven by those in charge, under the guise of protecting humanity from dangerous thought. Children then came up into families never knowing the art of book reading, thinking, questioning, debating, creating and imagining.

I thought it foolish then, but it doesn’t seem so foolish now. In fear of discerning many voices, we seek to narrow them down to the ones we know, or the ones we have been told to agree with: the approved book list. To read past the first page of another voice becomes treacherous and intimidating, because we wont know what to do with another line of thought. And so, as encouraged, we don’t think anymore. We ask the questions we’ve been told to ask and take the answers we’ve been given.

If we idolize those speaking or writing, or simply take their words, we aren’t able to listen to multiple voices because we have challenged the ability for the spirit to work in community, and given authority to some single voice.

With broad voices, however, we learn the art of listening and asking, hearing and being heard. With broad voices we learn how experience shapes understanding, and how injustice and power breed certain lines of thought. We learn where we are blind, and where we are gifted. With broad voices, we think enough to welcome for dinner a Boo Radley or a Hester Prynne. With broad voices, the combination of these truly human acts yields compassion and humility.

I’ve been in meetings where a million voices made it impossible to choose a paint color, and it has indeed been a nightmare.

I’ve also been in meetings where power is used to beg discussion, criticism, thoughtfulness, ideas, questions, dreams and disagreement…none of which should be mistaken for disunity…and it has been a beautiful and community-affirming endeavor.

There’s a difference between choosing a paint color and seeking the truth.

And what have we to fear if it’s the truth we’re after together.

djordan
Pine Tree

OTHER RELATED POSTS | BECAUSE YOU DID NOT ASK, FEAR OF THE WEAK AMONG US

Tagged answers to know, ask, asking, boo radley, Christianity, church, Engle, Fahrenheit 451, fear, God, hester prynne, Madeleine L, Madeleine L'Engle, Philosophy, ponder, power, power dynamics, questions, questions to ask, reading, seeking, status quo, Thought, truth-seeking, wrinkle in time

Apr 23 2012

ten years | a guest post by ashley gill

Ten years after the suicide of her sister, these words speak to the experiences of grief, healing and community by a sister over the ten years since her loss. You can read more of Ashley’s work by following her blog “There is no later, this is later.” Thanks, Ashley, for sharing your words.

***

In the early morning of this day ten years ago, I slept in blissful ignorance. When my dad woke me up, I opened my eyes to see his, red, but dry. My blissful ignorance vanished as he spoke.

I can count on my two hands the days that have passed in the past ten years without thinking about my sister. When she sneezed, it sounded like she was yelling. When she walked, her right foot stuck out ever so slightly at the wrong angle. She hated board games, and changing plans. She drove a hideous car, the horn screaming from the red frame like a dying animal. She was great at being a sister. She was a good listener. She quickly admitted when she was wrong, and forgave even faster. She taught me how to love without even realizing it. She never owned a cell phone, never had a Facebook account; she is forever nineteen years old.

I’m not sixteen anymore. I feel like a completely different person. It still hurts to remember her, to think about her for too long. I am not writing this to dwell on the past or to make a shrine to someone I’ve lost. The reason for this post is to thank all the people that have been in my life for these past 10 years. I wish I could list you all by name, but it would take ages and I would of course probably forget more than one.

So I put you in groups.

My family. We talk. We talk about Meghan and we laugh about all the silly things she did. I have never once felt afraid or guilty about bringing up her name. When my parents lost their daughter, they did not forget about their other children. They loved us well. My brother stopped yelling at me. He let me sleep on a mattress in his room for the first week. My extended family never counted the cost. They traveled for miles, just to sit with us. They helped me get ready for my prom. They took pictures at my high school graduation. They sent me birthday cards. Years later, they acknowledge that it still hurts.

Meghan’s friends became a part of my family. They talked for hours on the phone. They listened to me recount all the memories, trying not to forget. I got to sing with them while we all cried. They love Mom and Dad like they are their own parents. They love my brother and me like we are their siblings.

In high school, I had two best friends. They never made me feel dumb for being sad at the wrong time. They threw me a surprise birthday party when I thought my birthday had forever been ruined. They tried to make me laugh, even when I felt guilty for smiling at anything. Through trips to Lubbock, a certain Italian food place, and countless other tiny things; they made what could have been the worst days of my life into some of the best. They continue to be my best friends.

Over the past years, I have made so many good friends who never met my sister. They have remembered her birthday, listened to my stories, asked questions about her, and asked to see her picture. They acknowledge and validate a part of my life they likely don’t understand.

My brother hasn’t always been known for having the best judgment. But he married this girl that is fantastic. It’s been a joy to have a sister again. Like a breath of fresh air, Klaire, my niece, was born in March, three years ago.

You have all been the bandages God has used to patch up a wound I never thought would heal. He has used your hugs, letters, phone calls, laughter, time, money and flowers to show me that He is good. He can create beauty from ashes. And He does. Every day.

Some of you don’t believe in Him the same way I do, but He’s used you just the same. This restoration of my heart is what He’s done for us all. He’s taken our shame and guilt and replaced it with Goodness. He is the Great Physician. Even though I’ve doubted Him, I’m reminded, today more than ever, that He is good and He heals.

Grief is the most difficult thing I have ever experienced. I miss my sister very much. I wish things could have happened differently. But I think she was healed too. Judging from the sixteen years that I knew her, I think Meghan would probably want to thank you for taking such good care of me.

You smell like a banana!

***

For more work on grief, loss, resilience and faith, click HERE.

For Rayna Bomar’s guest post “A little help from his friends” click HERE