from the archives | when there’s nothing else to do

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.

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View original post from May 2, 2012

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 court, family, foster care, God, hope. adoption, Huddle, prayer, Prayer Request Pages, Religion & Spirituality, waiting, wanting

Jun 25 2012

thin of a second

it’s sometimes in the thin of second
you get a breath
a shove of breath into your gut
up into your head

it clears your mind for
only the thin of a second

and all is well
and you see the world as if through a glass clearly

then it’s gone.
but the second itself, the thin of it,
changes everything.

and your lungs take a bit deeper of a breath
and your head lightens briefly
lightens in weight and in brightness

and all will be well.

djordan
Pine Tree

Tagged Breathing, forget, lack of time, memories, moment, moments, passing of time, pausing of time, presence, remember, spirituality, thin space, time, transcend, waiting

Jun 24 2012

once upon every time

It’s as much of once upon every time as it is has ever been once upon a time.

Power and ambition kill. Others first, ourselves finally.
Humility and selflessness kill. Ourselves first, evil and injustice finally.

Having just returned from Snow White and the Huntsman, I found myself reeling throughout the whole thing, and even still.

The first words were, of course, voiced over in thick accent…

“Once upon a time…”

But it is once upon this time. And once upon a time a year ago today. And once upon every time.

The storytellers have tried to make it clear for ages upon ages and times upon times,

But we have to learn it again for ourselves once upon our times, and sometimes more than once.

All that is in us tells us to fight with might to protect our own.
But fighting with might to protect our own,

fighting with educations, investments, gates, codes, doctrines, prejudices, words, wars,
fighting with might to protect our own leads to a slow unraveling.

But fighting that actually protects is a byproduct of other pursuits.

a byproduct of seeking the good of others,
of giving up on great ambitions,
of investing for the sake of the lives of others rather that for the protection of ourselves against others, of opening gates, sharing codes, listening to the doctrines of others,
knowing before judging,
listening,
serving,
fighting with humility and selflessness, not with great ambitions of winning,
but simply because we can’t imagine not fighting for whatever things are

true
good
just
lovely
honest

And then, in the end, of course, just as the story begins with once upon a time, it finishes with…

But alas, we have never been known, in life outside the tales spun by fairies, as patient enough to wait for the ever after.

As if we’ve ever had a choice.

djordan
Pine Tree