Tag Archives: jesus

Jun 12 2016
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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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Mar 27 2016
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on, poems, Prayers, the calendar, what they are teaching me

Easter Monday

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Easter Sunday feels both impossible and a little too easy.

To claim impossible things hours upon hours across the globe as the meridian moves in single-hour increments.

Bombs. Easter egg hunts. Incense.

We celebrate ridiculous hope one time zone after another;
That’s what we do on Easter Sunday.

And then comes the Monday after Easter.
Easter Monday.
We return to our jobs
where we are in trouble for questioning the reasoning,
and caught between our ideas of Easter Sunday and bottom-line Friday.
And we make our choices.

And then comes the Monday after Easter.
Easter Monday.
We return to our churches
where we are in trouble for questioning the lessons and the allegiances,
and caught between character and piety and donor-approval.
And we make our choices.

And then comes the Monday after Easter.
Easter Monday.
We return to our neighborhoods
where we are pushed to hate and discriminate for the sake of something…
and caught between partisan and party and allegiance.
And we make our choices.

Easter Sunday is as holy
and easy
and gutless as
Christmas Sunday.

Unless we decide that somehow
ultimately
Easter changes everything.
And the Monday after Easter
is going to make us different
in all the ways
we hoped to secretly stay buried in
the tidiness
of our own racist and pious histories.

But Easter Monday means we crash into our
jobs
and our
churches
and our
neighborhoods
uncomfortably different than we left them.

And once we notice where we are,
we ask ourselves,
What about Easter Tuesday…

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

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Apr 21 2014
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on, the calendar

EASTER | we mistake him for the gardener

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It’s comforting, really.
When retelling and rehearing the stories
of those before us
misunderstanding death
misunderstanding loss
misunderstanding power and popularity
misunderstanding endings
misunderstanding, seeing a gardener instead of
the dead man we put all our hopes in
the dead man we put all our hurts in
the dead man we put all our
proverbial eggs in the basket of
and then watched it all end.

But the story is still the same today as it was then.
When we think the story is over
When we think we’ve held our breath as long as we can
When we think we waited till the last minute for something
to crash in and save the day….

It’s then that we give up.
It’s then that we give in.
It’s then that we unclench our jaws
and our guts
and our lungs
and our hopes
and surrender to what is coming true
whether we anticipated it or not.

and it’s only then,
like it’s only on Easter morning,
that the impossible becomes true.

All the rules change.
All bets are off.
Life is death.
Humility is power.
Poverty is wealth.
Kingdom comes. Unexpected. Unrehearsed.

And we mistake him for the gardener.
Because we know better than to think people come back to life.
Or do we.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

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Dec 17 2013
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it begins with a baby God

39982774.WoodenPewstheRymanAuditorium

I remember well sitting on the long and curved wooden benches that creak with every move at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville several years ago. I was frantically scribbling lyrics of a song, the chorus ringing in my ears and head and heart for weeks to come. The phrases I remembered out of order I now know, of course, were these:

It’s true, kingdoms and crowns
a God who comes down to find us
and angels sing through the night
Hallelujah.
It’s true.

I’ve later memorized the lyrics from the album which later was released by Sara Groves. But I notice every Year that the album has become a part of my Christmas rhythm.

A few days ago, on a  couple-hour drive back from training, I found myself with blurry vision singing loud and raspy with teary eyes and a heavy heart. Don’t act like you’ve never done it. A lyric from the song I didn’t scribble down that night has come to bear much weight for me and all I find myself working on and with and through toward God’s kingdom come on earth as in heaven.

Heard it told, you think it’s odd
The whole thing fraught with complication
The play begins with a baby God
And all his blessed implications

I find myself in board meetings and counseling sessions, in conference rooms and churches, in arguments and gripe sessions, at parties and dinners,  I find myself noticing over and over again in multiple contexts that in following suit with the prayers we are bold to pray, Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, we are more often than not called to play the game by wholly other, ridiculous rules.

Let’s address systemic sin, injustice, oppression, blindness and heartbrokenness with a baby God.
Let’s address self-centered, self-righteous, power-mongering and king-complexes with humility.
Let’s address loneliness, addiction, anger, despondency and bitterness with unconditional acceptance.
Let’s address greed, materialism, xenophobia, racism and ignorance with generosity, hospitality and forgiveness.

It’s makes no sense.
It feels all wrong.
It sounds as good a plan as the whole story beginning with a baby God.
And yet, when we hold our breath and close our eyes and take our steps
in wholly other and wholly odd directions with wholly other rules
kingdom comes, just like it crashed in
when the play boldly began with a baby God.

It’s true.

djordan
Pine Tree

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Nov 19 2013
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stumbling toward healing

Screen Shot 2013-11-19 at 9.42.35 PM

The promise brought in by time is hardly ever known beforehand, and even if it were we wouldn’t have the slightest idea what the promise meant. We can’t know until it’s time to know, and we can’t be healed until we’re ready, really. Healing becomes available, but time brings the promise. We can attempt to rush it if we want to, but we’re likely swinging in the dark.

Rev. Becca Stevens’ most recent book, Snake Oil: The Art of Healing and Truth-Telling captivated me earlier this year (as written about here). While reading this book, I knew that one of my very closest friends would soon be ordained in November, and I also knew that he was learning more about what it means to anoint those we love, those who are hurting, those who are dying, and those who are wandering with oil.

I love the notion that anointing with oil is a kind of prayer made physical. We put our hands and fingers in oil, smear it on the flesh of those we desperately want something better for, and then hold out hope that Jesus wasn’t killing time when he said that we would take on the kind of life-bringing and truth-telling that he had been doing. We pause for a moment as flesh and flesh separated only by a thin space of an ancient substance. And somewhere in that thin space rests the deep hope and the breath-stealing promise that God shows up when we come together and ask him to.

So we know we don’t know what we’re doing, but like most things worth doing at all, when we show up and do them even while admitting that we are fumbling our holy way through something we don’t understand, God shows up.

Of course God was already there.
Of course healing isn’t buried in the molecules of oils.
But God shows up in a way that he hadn’t already,
and we even become bold to ask him to in ways we hadn’t already.

And so I woke up early the morning of his ordination, pulled out the random collection of olive oil, essential oils and Shea butter, and headed toward the stove. Fumbling over a pan and these tiny bottles that feel like tools I don’t know how to use, I followed Stevens’ recipe for anointing oil. That is, I followed it until I decided I wanted to change amounts and add other things.

Slowly the kitchen started filling up with the scents of rose pedals, grapefruit, rosemary, olives, bergamot, and lemon. I stood over the stove, noting how time has passed and the truth is a little clearer and healing has come at its own damn speed no matter how much I was ready for it to hurry up, and watched a tear drop into the oil.

Even while making my first batch of oil, without anointing and without meaning to pray, God shows up and reminds me that all this time, through the two years waiting to know what promise was on the other side of waiting in grief, I reminded of a the words a friend prayed over me two years ago in Cape Town while pushing in on my chest: “God is holding your heart, Don. He wants you to know this. And he is shaping it. And he is thrilled at what it is becoming. And when you think he is not paying attention, I pray  you will remember that he is holding your heart in his hands. He will push and prod and squeeze, but he is perfectly gentle and perfectly stern. And it is his hands that your heart is held.”

Those words came at a moment when the ground was cracking open and I was most unsure where to stand. I see now that the sky was cracking open as well, and my heart has been in very good hands through all the cracking. And the promise is a little clearer now on the other side of waiting things out.

I gave my friend the small jar with the few ounces of oil in the parking lot after the ceremony, stumbling over words about a gift and an experience and process that has been years in the making. That bottle made it to a worship service the next morning, was used to first pray a blessing over his daughter, then to pray words over those being confirmed. Those being confirmed happened to include not only people I have grown to love, but also people who have loved me and walked with me over these last two years.

Just as the scent of the oil filled the space, the reminder that if I’m willing to stumble my way through things I don’t fully understand while asking God to show up, he is good and ready to do so. And he is holding on to our hearts. And he is breaking them over the things that break his very own. And we are, all of us, stumbling toward healing in one way or another. And we can only stumble toward it in the company of others. And we can’t be in a hurry.

Well, we can be in a hurry, but it’s a waste.

Healing always comes.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

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Nov 19 2013
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learning to live, what they are teaching me

don’t miss out

don't-miss-out

“Don’t miss out,” she said.
She was trying to get her two younger twin sisters arranged
In the laundry room before they came
dancing out to the music.

+++

I think I know exactly what is happening.
what means what
what is and isn’t important
what is and isn’t valuable
what is and isn’t worthwhile
what is and isn’t clearly meaningful when
push comes to shove
and kingdom math is done.

and so I do my best to
be involved in the things that
bring honor
and respect
and value
and power
and validity
to the pursuit of the
kingdom come on earth as in heaven.

but I find out–
more often than not–
that I had no idea what actually matters
what actually counts
what God is actually looking for
what moments are actually worth holding on to
as if we are holding on to life itself
because perhaps we actually are

+++

I heard her say,
wearing her dancing tutu as if
that’s what we always wear on a Tuesday night

“Don’t miss out!”

She yelled it in a kind of panicked voice,
as if it happens when we don’t know it is happening,
and if we don’t participate right then
the chance will vanish forever.
And she was telling the truth, of course,
as children often do.

“Don’t miss out,” she said
to her younger twin sisters, both in leotards
before they danced to whatever kind of music I could find on my iPhone.
And then they moved gracefully and childishly
from the flung open closet doors into the den
dancing to whatever music I offered for dancing.

And the room was filled with the promise
that we are all figuring this out
slowly and surely
when we don’t know what to do
and we don’t know how to do it
but we know that there is something
we can’t live life without
and it has to do with us dancing
in our leotards on a Tuesday night

because the Kingdom of Heaven is made clear
over dinner
on Tuesday nights
when we have no idea what on earth is happening
but we know, as if our lives depend on it,
that we can’t miss out.

So we have nothing left to say except
“Amen.”

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

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Sep 21 2013
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learning to live, on, Quotes

when it finally has no end

nicene creed

I was up late, and woke up late, and made it into the church service about ten minutes late. My voice was much deeper than normal, and was still deep when we made it to the words of the Nicene Creed. I think it was the unfamiliar cantor of my voice that made me hear what I said today as if it was the first time I had ever heard it.

“…and his kingdom will have no end.”

+++

There are often moments where I see it. It’s clearly present in ways that don’t make any sense, so I lean back, squint my eyes so that tears don’t fall out, and try to breathe it in. There are moments where I see what Nora Gallagher references as “thin space,” moments where the space we are in is touching the space we will be in when the kingdom comes in all of its fullness.

Sometimes, these moments of heaven meeting earth are in
the monotony of daily chores
the normalcy of singing with the windows down
the clinking of glasses and forks and plates at dinner with friends
the deep breaths after long days of good work.

Sometimes, these moments of heaven meeting earth are in
the deep grief of watching one we’ve lived loving be lowered into ground
the deep heartbreak of waiting to hear the horrible news we’re hoping isn’t true
the deep sadness of holding our hair in our hands because we know we are powerless and things are out of control.

Sometimes, these moments of heaven meeting earth are in
the brilliance of art, laughter, hard work
the sharp edges of a brilliant sonnet, sunset, silhouette
the joy of eyes meeting, hands shaking, understanding.

But every time, for now, these moments of heaven meeting earth
have ends. Endings. They are over after they begin.

They have an end.

And we are then reminded that
the things that feel true, honest, just, lovely, pure
don’t last, for now.

+++

So we stand together, deep voices on early Sunday mornings, and say the words that have come from the mouths of men and women for hundreds and hundreds of years. In the echo of their voices and the startling depth of our own early-morning voice, we hold out hope that the day is coming when it has no end. The kingdom made up of thin space, where heaven and earth meet for good and hold hands for good, will have no end. So those moments where we know and see and tell and sense the truth, and we hope that they would last forever…we wait for the day when they will.

We wait for the day when it finally has no end.

djordan
Pine Tree

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Jul 22 2013
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just because

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every now and then
not because we earned it
or even because we asked for it
but just because
God knows what we need
when we wake up on Monday mornings,
we are given people
who make our minds wider
who make our hearts broader
who make our joys richer
who make our questions braver
and for those people
we give thanks on Monday mornings
when the real threat
is not to delve into the
wide-minded
broad-hearted
rich-joyed
brave-questioned
but is to choose not to delve into these things.
good friends
near or far
make us people of another kingdom
and every now and then
not because we earned it
or even because we asked for it
but just because God knows what we need
we wake up on Monday mornings
giving thanks for these people.
Amen
djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

 

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Apr 19 2013
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Prayers

in times when…

in-times-when

In times when
we are as afraid of
ourselves as we are what
others may throw at us

In times when
we come face to face with
the disparity between who we are
and who we hope to be
In times when
we don’t know what it means
to do justice and
to love mercy and
to walk humbly
we give you thanks
for friends
who listen well
laugh often
love deeply
accept all
push greatly
and remain at all times
no matter what.
These friends are signs of kingdom come
and when we see them
and when we talk to them
and when we laugh with them
and when we weep for them
and when we pray with them
and when we party with them
we give you thanks
and pray more desperately for
thy kingdom come
and your will be done
here as it is there.
Amen.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

 

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Apr 17 2013
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learning to live, on, poems, Prayers

after a long night | on john 21

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It seems more often than not that we find ourselves
in the boat
in the middle of the same damn sea
trying our hardest to do what we’ve done a thousand times before.

We try even harder on the heels of failure
or even on the heels of victory.
And sometimes, like Peter, we try when we can’t tell
at all what we are on the heels of.

And still, all night long, we do what we know to do
and we try what has always worked
and we finally throw it all down, take off our clothes, and try to get some rest
because the work itself is almost unbearable.

It’s then, of course, that we hear Your voice:
Do it one more time.
Do it just like this.
Do it.
Do it.
Do it.

And so, after someone whispers in our ear
that they think it’s Your voice,
we do it one more time,
just like this,
we do it.

And the nets almost burst,
but they don’t.
We bring it all in.

And we don’t know why or how,
but we come to trust
that after a long night of
hard work and nothing to show for it,
you speak
and the nets nearly burst.

Give us the strength to keep listening
and to keep fishing
after long nights of nothing.

Amen.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

RELATED POSTS | On John 21 | In the Meantime: On John 11 | When it’s too late: John 11

 

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