I went to my parents place this weekend. Loaded all four kids into my tiny Honda so that we could attempt a few relaxing hours of family and outdoor time. It was cold and rainy and brilliant. Farmer's Market early on the grey Saturday, playdate that ended with kids in a creek all muddy and mucky (a hallmark of childhood fun) and a nice, leisurely meal with friends as they loved on me, loved on my kids. It was all wonderful until the topic of church on Sunday morning came up.
Part of me still feels obliged, mandated, compelled, ingrained to go to church by 10am on a Sunday. In the same way that you don't think about whether or not you need to urinate upon rousing in the morning, you simply go to the bathroom, first thing; I feel a deeply set-in habited part of me that formatively needs to be at a church at that designated day and time. Every Sunday seems to be a tug of war between feeling like I must go to appease some undisclosed judicial system, and the other part wants to not attend until I sort some things out.
Generally, I don't follow American politics. I read up on issues, I vote, I complete my civic duties, but I don't go to rallies, I don't donate money. Fundamentally, I think the system is flawed and all that jazz we Millennials are known to haphazardly gripe about. But this particular presidential cycle, with all the crazy shenanigans and myriad of candidates, including the most controversial one, Donal Trump, has me perking up my ears. Not so much to the dialogue from the standard news-types, but more to the NPR or independent types. One such gal interviewed here a conservative radio host out of South Carolina, Tony. This man is deep in his religious beliefs and those beliefs are deeply connected to the stances of the Republican Party. In more than one interview, he talked about how if Trump was the voice of the Republican Party, than he had to separate. To him, he could get behind people who were slightly less conservative, slightly more pro-whatever, but he could not get behind Trump and what he stands for. Which leaves Tony, a conservative political radio host, literally, a man without a party. In the interview, it's clear Tony feels betrayed, angered, with a feeling of, "when did 'we' (Republicans) turn into 'that' (people who agree with the viewpoints of Trump) and how did I miss the signs?"
I feel for Tony. The parallel between a man who foundationally feels there is a moral high ground in politics and the only place to stand is on it, and myself, a girl who felt foundationally there was a spiritual high ground and the only place to stand was on it... to me at least, it's the same story. Different details, but the same story no less.
Blindsided.
Baffled.
Unable to understand because understanding would look a particular way according to my deeply held convictions and the current reality is not inline.
You going to Sunday School or just church?
Um, neither.
I choose the option not given, I choose not to go. I choose to stand back, lick my wounds, let them heal, and figure out what the hell happened and how I missed it. Tony will do the same. He'll wonder which debate, which bigoted rant, which racial/ethnic/religious shooting-off-of-the-mouth everyone else missed by Trump that he, Tony, clearly saw. Meanwhile, I'll wonder which meeting, which encounter, which reprimand I clearly saw as out-of-line that apparently was clear only to me.
There is a line in the sand, a breaking even point. Everything between where you are and that line is acceptable. Sure John McCain wasn't as conservative as Tony hoped, but he was generally in the same vicinity as Tony. Sure I didn't agree with every decision the evangelical organization made but they were generally making sense, in my same logical vicinity. But once that small line is crossed, there is no way to go back. What's worse, the bewilderment and astonishment are often so great, you have no words to describe how the twelve steps leading up to that line were more or less acceptable, but that one tiny step over, that one wasn't. The straw that broke the camel's back-- what does that even mean?!?
But for those of us who have been there, either politically, ethically, morally, religiously, or sexually, once that line is crossed, the planet shifts on it's axes and never goes back.
The question was well meaning. The intentions were more or less, "This used to be a thing I did with you and I miss having you there," but the fact that the question is being asked at all says the asker still doesn't get it. There will never be a "getting over" this. You will never "get over" the death of a child, witnessing a horrible crime, having your foundation cracked open beneath you. These things you don't "get over" you only can get through... and anyone who asks if you've gotten over it, they don't get it. They can't. It's beyond them, at least, until they cross their own lines.
Sunday, May 8, 2016
Thursday, May 5, 2016
Nothing Is Next
Becoming a mom is a different journey for different people. I love the African proverb that says a child is born the moment the mother conceives of that child in her heart. I have friends who have families through surrogacy, through adoption, through intense pregnancies and through some compilation of all of the above. Getting the label "mother" can sometimes feel like graduating from university. You have the logical and very rigorous steps to becoming a parent behind you. Now you have the kid. Diploma in hand. Then comes that moment when you meet an old friend or worse, a friend of your parents', at the local grocery store after graduation. Because the inevitable question happens: What's next?
I used to think that everything was BC (Before Children) and AC (After Children). More often than not, these days, I'm beginning to come around to this idea that parenthood, and in my case specifically motherhood, is much more grey than one side of the other. I had friends who were pregnant, had a baby, but have never fully lived into motherhood. Yes, they are mothers in the strict definition. But the idea that parenting, motherhood is a craft to be fine-tuned, with skills that require maintenance and training... I think that's a concept that might never have been, or at the least, is slowing dying away.
Daily, I craft the skills of knowledge and bonding with my child so that in the moments when she is going to break, the world as she sees it has fallen short of her every expectation, I have the words and the touch that can resonate with her soul when her brain is just overloaded. Some days are better than others, but I don't go without. There's no 'walking away' for a break.
Chef David Chan was doing a series on how a chef thinks and he went into a factory that processes fish in Japan. He watched a man, a line worker, break down a tuna: "Here's a guy who has done this a million times. For me, whenever I watch someone that butchers anything and it's so clean and so fast, it's like... it's watching art, it's watching somebody that has mastered their craft."
As my third gets ready to don the preverbal backpack for kindergarten, as I struggle with the full mother's intuition that she's not ready for OUR particular, American, highly-driven elementary school setting, I keep running into people asking the question, like when I left university: What's next?
I haven't been biding my time between a career that I was passionate about but set aside for diapers and midnight feeds. I haven't made all the financial and personal sacrifices to hygiene and individual toilet time for designated amount of time. I set aside a particular set of knowledge and craft, (teaching) so that I could develop, hone, and creatively embrace another craft, motherhood. I want to mother the way that line worker was able to break down that huge fish- effortlessly. I don't think my skills are so strong that I can walk away for a week, a month, a few years, and pick right back up. I'm not sure my kids need me any less now that they sleep through the night, are toilet trained, or can put their own pants on. Not as a chauffeur, but as a mediator, between the world and their hearts, giving them lessons and language on life and love and beauty and tragedy. All the things that make up their world are still just as new and scary but full of wonderful potential, in the same way that my first learning to walk faced a world of obstacles and dangers, but it was a wonderful, beautiful world full of discoveries to be made.
In Judaism, the home is called a mikdash ma'at, a little sanctuary and the goal is to try and emphasize not what each family member does but who they are. The house then, is a sacred space for being and practicing who you are at your deepest levels.
Being a mother of four, which is generally considered a lot of kids in the States, I realize that my skill in navigating grocery stores, banks, airports and playdates with all my children in tow has made me acutely away of a sort of "mommy-math" I didn't know existed a few years back. There are values placed on personalities, daily dispositions, time of day dispositions, and the amount of energy expenditure to do a particular activity, and factoring in the physical need of the proposed activity. So going to the grocery store first thing in the morning for the week's food, right after breakfast, even with all four kids, is simple. Kids are good, not grumpy, no naps needed, fed, and we need food. More value on need, less value taken from capacity. But that exact same scenario, at 12:30pm when naps and lunch and grump have set in, and the math doesn't add up, the capacity to accomplish the shopping versus the need is too great. Thus, we get pizza for dinner and call it done.
I know the math, because I practice it. Every. Single. Day. It's good math, sturdy math. Math that lets me know when I've pushed too hard, demanded too much.
For me, that kind of knowledge comes from intimacy, proximity, daily flexing muscles to practice all the aspects of that equation. I LOVE my job. I love trying my best to make my house a sanctuary, both in body and soul. I get frustrated with my kids, like everyone else, because just when I think I have my times tables memorized, they change the figures, but I love the discovery of the new (usually from hindsight in fairness though). I'm not ready to say my craft is as good as it's going to get. Many folks, male and female, are better parents when they are focused, through constraints like time and physical space. I'm not one of them. I feel like my heart and my brain work more slowly, like a long cure or a slow marinade. I'm honing my craft, and just as in cooking and liquor and wood working, this craft takes effort, space, so I'll put in the time to master my beautiful craft. The craft of Emme Capri, and Monkey; Cooper Nash and Snugaboo... because they are as much a part of me as any master's prized piece. The symphony of their lives sings back the rhythm and rhyme of mine.
So nothing. Nothing new is next. Just them, just this, just me.
I used to think that everything was BC (Before Children) and AC (After Children). More often than not, these days, I'm beginning to come around to this idea that parenthood, and in my case specifically motherhood, is much more grey than one side of the other. I had friends who were pregnant, had a baby, but have never fully lived into motherhood. Yes, they are mothers in the strict definition. But the idea that parenting, motherhood is a craft to be fine-tuned, with skills that require maintenance and training... I think that's a concept that might never have been, or at the least, is slowing dying away.
Daily, I craft the skills of knowledge and bonding with my child so that in the moments when she is going to break, the world as she sees it has fallen short of her every expectation, I have the words and the touch that can resonate with her soul when her brain is just overloaded. Some days are better than others, but I don't go without. There's no 'walking away' for a break.
Chef David Chan was doing a series on how a chef thinks and he went into a factory that processes fish in Japan. He watched a man, a line worker, break down a tuna: "Here's a guy who has done this a million times. For me, whenever I watch someone that butchers anything and it's so clean and so fast, it's like... it's watching art, it's watching somebody that has mastered their craft."
As my third gets ready to don the preverbal backpack for kindergarten, as I struggle with the full mother's intuition that she's not ready for OUR particular, American, highly-driven elementary school setting, I keep running into people asking the question, like when I left university: What's next?
I haven't been biding my time between a career that I was passionate about but set aside for diapers and midnight feeds. I haven't made all the financial and personal sacrifices to hygiene and individual toilet time for designated amount of time. I set aside a particular set of knowledge and craft, (teaching) so that I could develop, hone, and creatively embrace another craft, motherhood. I want to mother the way that line worker was able to break down that huge fish- effortlessly. I don't think my skills are so strong that I can walk away for a week, a month, a few years, and pick right back up. I'm not sure my kids need me any less now that they sleep through the night, are toilet trained, or can put their own pants on. Not as a chauffeur, but as a mediator, between the world and their hearts, giving them lessons and language on life and love and beauty and tragedy. All the things that make up their world are still just as new and scary but full of wonderful potential, in the same way that my first learning to walk faced a world of obstacles and dangers, but it was a wonderful, beautiful world full of discoveries to be made.
In Judaism, the home is called a mikdash ma'at, a little sanctuary and the goal is to try and emphasize not what each family member does but who they are. The house then, is a sacred space for being and practicing who you are at your deepest levels.
Being a mother of four, which is generally considered a lot of kids in the States, I realize that my skill in navigating grocery stores, banks, airports and playdates with all my children in tow has made me acutely away of a sort of "mommy-math" I didn't know existed a few years back. There are values placed on personalities, daily dispositions, time of day dispositions, and the amount of energy expenditure to do a particular activity, and factoring in the physical need of the proposed activity. So going to the grocery store first thing in the morning for the week's food, right after breakfast, even with all four kids, is simple. Kids are good, not grumpy, no naps needed, fed, and we need food. More value on need, less value taken from capacity. But that exact same scenario, at 12:30pm when naps and lunch and grump have set in, and the math doesn't add up, the capacity to accomplish the shopping versus the need is too great. Thus, we get pizza for dinner and call it done.
I know the math, because I practice it. Every. Single. Day. It's good math, sturdy math. Math that lets me know when I've pushed too hard, demanded too much.
For me, that kind of knowledge comes from intimacy, proximity, daily flexing muscles to practice all the aspects of that equation. I LOVE my job. I love trying my best to make my house a sanctuary, both in body and soul. I get frustrated with my kids, like everyone else, because just when I think I have my times tables memorized, they change the figures, but I love the discovery of the new (usually from hindsight in fairness though). I'm not ready to say my craft is as good as it's going to get. Many folks, male and female, are better parents when they are focused, through constraints like time and physical space. I'm not one of them. I feel like my heart and my brain work more slowly, like a long cure or a slow marinade. I'm honing my craft, and just as in cooking and liquor and wood working, this craft takes effort, space, so I'll put in the time to master my beautiful craft. The craft of Emme Capri, and Monkey; Cooper Nash and Snugaboo... because they are as much a part of me as any master's prized piece. The symphony of their lives sings back the rhythm and rhyme of mine.
So nothing. Nothing new is next. Just them, just this, just me.
Monday, April 25, 2016
Reclaiming Sabbath
I've been chastised, a lot if I'm brutally honest, on how we could go from a family of so-called "professional Christians," people who were lay leaders in the church, earned a living doing "the work" of the church, and now we're, well, not. We're not leaders, we're not working in a Christian institution, we're not even attending a church regularly let alone members. And the first question anyone asks (and there are very few bold enough to really ask) is how that happened. I've been fighting within myself to figure out the answer to that question and I can sit and share about all the decisions, the dominoes that led to us leaving Africa, leaving our home, our life, but I think the really big question that people are asking isn't about me at all, it's about them. I overheard a word spoken out loud, a truth that was put out into the vast, wide universe meekly asking to be returned.
Random Person: They were THE Christians, and now look at them. If all that can happen to them, what chance do I have of making it?
And therein, is the bigger question, the bigger fear.
How can bad things happen to good people... and how do I make sure it doesn't happen to me?
I don't have an answer. Truthfully, I'm not capable right now, not strong enough right this moment, to even attempt to ask that. The sheer weight of that question is just too big. Yet the circumstances that have led to "bad things" happening to me and my not-so-small tribe influence every single aspect of life as we know it now. So, on some level, I have to deal with it. I have to figure out how to take bite-sized pieces and digest them, lest I choke on the whole.
The thing I found most startling about this entire exodus is how brutal the fight for each hand hold has been. Picture this: A person, on the ledge of what is always called something like "God's Window". One of those really tall mountain tops out in the middle of nowhere so the views are stunning, sunsets and sunrises life changing and the peace around just soul satisfying. Then, for whatever reason (be a push from behind or a leap out) that person who was taking in the vista is plunging to the earth. Verses memorized in childhood and adulthood alike, verses about plans to prosper me and angels not letting even one hair on my head be damaged race through the mind because there's nothing to do in the midst of the fall. Flailing and screaming accomplish nothing because the volume and magnitude of the fall, the sheer gravitational energy being exerted is more than any scream can fix. For me, I knew that, so I fell without a fight. It didn't matter how I came to the ledge from which this monumental plunge happened, it didn't matter whose hands were at my back or who was beside me. I was doing down. Period. And down I went, mostly quietly, trying to remember landmarks on the way down so the path back up would be marked familiar. As generally happens, I landed with an unceremonious thudding, a crater forming in the planet that hadn't been there before, yet was more or less completely unknown to the realms. One of my favorite movies is Stardust and in the movie, a star falls into the magical land of Stormhold. When she falls, her leg pains her, there are bumps and bruises and a burnt streak in the landscape. That pretty much sums the feeling up. Moving, walking, trying to figure out where to go and how to get there is nearly impossible, certainly unplanable.
Somehow, somewhere along the way, some part of your soul knows you're in danger if you just sit in a crater of fallen-ness. That's where so many things come into play that a very good many evangelical Christians haven't understood about my person path. I've been called to judgement and rebuked, "prayed for" that we would "rejoin the fold" and so very many other things that really just hurt. Because when you're in the midst of a crater from a world-changing fall, you have to climb out. Someone shouting you should pray more, doesn't help the climb. Someone asking how to spell your name to add to their weekly prayer request, doesn't help the climb. Someone telling you that you should be singing joyous songs of the very people who had a hand in or witnessed you being up on that ledge in the first place, doesn't help the climb. Sometimes, in fact, those very acts feel like stones being thrown down on your head.
On this climb out, the first I've done with an entire family in tow, I've realized a few things. The whole American "pick yourself up by your bootstraps" and "rugged independence" mentality are just horse shit. Plain and simple. Just like poverty is more complicated than good financial planning and eradicating malaria isn't answered in a simple mosquito netting. Climbing out of betrayal and depression, wounds and seriously deep questions about life and faith and God's purposes aren't answered in my own strength. In the same breath that I realized I wasn't big enough, I also realized my community had very little practice with being the community that pulls me up all broken and bloody. Many in my community were the very ones wounding me farther with their 'helpful' comments to right myself and others were on that ledge looking down. That's where my journey to right-ness began, from my deep and sincere need to get out of my pit but a realization that I needed help.
The conservative, evangelical christian background that I come from didn't help me one little bit here. I had no prayer book for when I had no words to pray. I had no professional counseling outlets because, largely, the church doesn't "do" professional mental health workers. Worst of all (for me) was that there was no space to be a doubter. Not necessarily in God, but that might have been nice. Remember, I was trying to bite off small pieces of this really big thing, a really big question, HOW. Small pieces aren't easy to eek out of that, and it's hard work, sweaty, smelly work, and I found there was a lack of grace for the wrestling match that is Doubt. Doubt in myself. Doubt in my choices. Doubt in my organized church and doubt in where to go from here. Compared to some, my doubts were small. I never doubted the sovereignty of my Lord, Ha Shem. I never doubted that my path of faithfulness was anything but beautiful. Those doubts would need even more room, more grace, and I can see why people have left the fellowship of believers in those times. It felt like (my personal perspective here, my personal truth as I live it) I was trying to climb a sheer marble cliff, with no handholds, no cracks or crevasses... and no one throwing down a helpful rope.
So I turned to foundational things.
Things I hoped and prayed could give me some kind of traction, some kind of Sabbath,a peace of wholeness, completeness. I went into to look at beautiful rocks in nature on a Sunday instead of the places where I knew rocks had been thrown from in the past. I self-protected and avoided certain places and people, all the while seeking God in such a way so that I could start to re-assimilate His Holy into the fabric of my heart without all the mess I simply could not deal with. I found reading my standard Bible was too hard, held too many un-dealt-with-packages of grief and loss and mourning but my soul needed to hear Truth. So I found a people who spoke of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, MY God, in a way that wasn't steeped in evangelical inch-deep-mile-wide mentality. I took my kids to a Jewish place of worship, now our cornerstone of community and mental health. Believe me, the irony here isn't lost on me. But, I'm allowed to ask questions there. For the first time in my life, I'm not an insider, expected to speak insider speak and do insider things. The space to wrestle down my demons of Doubt and Fear and Baggage is built in, partly because biblically, I'm surrounded by people who have historically fought the demons of Fear and Doubt and inherited Baggage, just like me (individually) but also generationally. Also, though, because I have zero expectation other than just to be present. Learning the spiritual practice of connecting to the One who is described as "Was," "Is," and "Is To Come"... the One whose very name is defined by BEING, it's new to me, and I'm loving it. I'm finding it's okay to recognize boundaries within my own soul and it's okay if I have a bad week, need a hike, reconnect with my own breath or find God's stillness on a mountain. I'm unlearning some broken truths planted deep within me, and replacing them with good, full, whole Truths.
My family now practices Shabbot dinners on a Friday night. I'm not sure what it actually is supposed to look like since I've (so far) turned down every invitation to join an actual Shabbot meal. For me though, it's in the idea that I set aside a time, a space, for my family to get the best from me, the best from each other, and the best atmosphere to experience the Lord in and through one another. So the house is cleaned on a Friday, or at least, we attempt it. I don't like being a task master or getting frustrated and then shouting because of socks everywhere or papers all over the floor. I intentionally start cleaning days early so that by Friday night, I can take a mental break from dishes and vacuuming and whatever else comes up. We have candles and good plates, because I want my kids to know they are special enough for the "good stuff" even when it's not a holiday. I don't want them to get this warped idea that the house is only ever clean for guests, or that they aren't special enough for our good plates. And then, because the house is clean and the meal is sorted (even if that's just ordering pizza), we light candles so that everyone wants to linger around the table, enjoy the beauty of tribe. If we can, we invite others to share in this space with us, because who better to share the enjoyment of your family than with others who like them as well?
Falling is hard. Climbing out of the crater after the fall is damn near suicidal. Somewhere early on, I remembered truth that dear friends at Grace Point Methodist Church in South Africa had said, "If you don't know where you're going you will have a hard time finding it when you get there."
Foundations.
Fundamentals.
I want my kids to love the Lord God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. I want my family to be close, connected, and feel like no matter what is going on in the world, they can come into the sanctuary of our home and find some rest. I've found that as I work toward and cling to the goals, standards really, that I've set forth for my family, I'm finding more hand holds myself. Having space in the home for love and acceptance and apologies has helped me carve out space in my own heart for the love and acceptance of where I'm at, and how I got here, but also how far I've come. Each time I make a physical move toward wholeness for my family, it feels as if there is a move towards wholeness in my own heart. And each time I find myself more whole, I realize that my own personal HOW gets smaller, easier to chew. Maybe someday I'll be able to re-enter certain places, certain institutions. Maybe not. My goal is not to be a denominational person. My goal is to be a whole person, worshiping God, and I'm getting there, in my own way, on my own time.
The Shema
Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. Blessed be the name of the glory of His kingdom forever and ever. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you today shall be upon your heart. You shall teach them thoroughly to your children, and you shall speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road, when you lie down and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for a reminder between your eyes. And you shall write them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates.... I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God; I, the Lord, am your God. True.
Random Person: They were THE Christians, and now look at them. If all that can happen to them, what chance do I have of making it?
And therein, is the bigger question, the bigger fear.
How can bad things happen to good people... and how do I make sure it doesn't happen to me?
I don't have an answer. Truthfully, I'm not capable right now, not strong enough right this moment, to even attempt to ask that. The sheer weight of that question is just too big. Yet the circumstances that have led to "bad things" happening to me and my not-so-small tribe influence every single aspect of life as we know it now. So, on some level, I have to deal with it. I have to figure out how to take bite-sized pieces and digest them, lest I choke on the whole.
The thing I found most startling about this entire exodus is how brutal the fight for each hand hold has been. Picture this: A person, on the ledge of what is always called something like "God's Window". One of those really tall mountain tops out in the middle of nowhere so the views are stunning, sunsets and sunrises life changing and the peace around just soul satisfying. Then, for whatever reason (be a push from behind or a leap out) that person who was taking in the vista is plunging to the earth. Verses memorized in childhood and adulthood alike, verses about plans to prosper me and angels not letting even one hair on my head be damaged race through the mind because there's nothing to do in the midst of the fall. Flailing and screaming accomplish nothing because the volume and magnitude of the fall, the sheer gravitational energy being exerted is more than any scream can fix. For me, I knew that, so I fell without a fight. It didn't matter how I came to the ledge from which this monumental plunge happened, it didn't matter whose hands were at my back or who was beside me. I was doing down. Period. And down I went, mostly quietly, trying to remember landmarks on the way down so the path back up would be marked familiar. As generally happens, I landed with an unceremonious thudding, a crater forming in the planet that hadn't been there before, yet was more or less completely unknown to the realms. One of my favorite movies is Stardust and in the movie, a star falls into the magical land of Stormhold. When she falls, her leg pains her, there are bumps and bruises and a burnt streak in the landscape. That pretty much sums the feeling up. Moving, walking, trying to figure out where to go and how to get there is nearly impossible, certainly unplanable.
Somehow, somewhere along the way, some part of your soul knows you're in danger if you just sit in a crater of fallen-ness. That's where so many things come into play that a very good many evangelical Christians haven't understood about my person path. I've been called to judgement and rebuked, "prayed for" that we would "rejoin the fold" and so very many other things that really just hurt. Because when you're in the midst of a crater from a world-changing fall, you have to climb out. Someone shouting you should pray more, doesn't help the climb. Someone asking how to spell your name to add to their weekly prayer request, doesn't help the climb. Someone telling you that you should be singing joyous songs of the very people who had a hand in or witnessed you being up on that ledge in the first place, doesn't help the climb. Sometimes, in fact, those very acts feel like stones being thrown down on your head.
On this climb out, the first I've done with an entire family in tow, I've realized a few things. The whole American "pick yourself up by your bootstraps" and "rugged independence" mentality are just horse shit. Plain and simple. Just like poverty is more complicated than good financial planning and eradicating malaria isn't answered in a simple mosquito netting. Climbing out of betrayal and depression, wounds and seriously deep questions about life and faith and God's purposes aren't answered in my own strength. In the same breath that I realized I wasn't big enough, I also realized my community had very little practice with being the community that pulls me up all broken and bloody. Many in my community were the very ones wounding me farther with their 'helpful' comments to right myself and others were on that ledge looking down. That's where my journey to right-ness began, from my deep and sincere need to get out of my pit but a realization that I needed help.
The conservative, evangelical christian background that I come from didn't help me one little bit here. I had no prayer book for when I had no words to pray. I had no professional counseling outlets because, largely, the church doesn't "do" professional mental health workers. Worst of all (for me) was that there was no space to be a doubter. Not necessarily in God, but that might have been nice. Remember, I was trying to bite off small pieces of this really big thing, a really big question, HOW. Small pieces aren't easy to eek out of that, and it's hard work, sweaty, smelly work, and I found there was a lack of grace for the wrestling match that is Doubt. Doubt in myself. Doubt in my choices. Doubt in my organized church and doubt in where to go from here. Compared to some, my doubts were small. I never doubted the sovereignty of my Lord, Ha Shem. I never doubted that my path of faithfulness was anything but beautiful. Those doubts would need even more room, more grace, and I can see why people have left the fellowship of believers in those times. It felt like (my personal perspective here, my personal truth as I live it) I was trying to climb a sheer marble cliff, with no handholds, no cracks or crevasses... and no one throwing down a helpful rope.
So I turned to foundational things.
Things I hoped and prayed could give me some kind of traction, some kind of Sabbath,a peace of wholeness, completeness. I went into to look at beautiful rocks in nature on a Sunday instead of the places where I knew rocks had been thrown from in the past. I self-protected and avoided certain places and people, all the while seeking God in such a way so that I could start to re-assimilate His Holy into the fabric of my heart without all the mess I simply could not deal with. I found reading my standard Bible was too hard, held too many un-dealt-with-packages of grief and loss and mourning but my soul needed to hear Truth. So I found a people who spoke of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, MY God, in a way that wasn't steeped in evangelical inch-deep-mile-wide mentality. I took my kids to a Jewish place of worship, now our cornerstone of community and mental health. Believe me, the irony here isn't lost on me. But, I'm allowed to ask questions there. For the first time in my life, I'm not an insider, expected to speak insider speak and do insider things. The space to wrestle down my demons of Doubt and Fear and Baggage is built in, partly because biblically, I'm surrounded by people who have historically fought the demons of Fear and Doubt and inherited Baggage, just like me (individually) but also generationally. Also, though, because I have zero expectation other than just to be present. Learning the spiritual practice of connecting to the One who is described as "Was," "Is," and "Is To Come"... the One whose very name is defined by BEING, it's new to me, and I'm loving it. I'm finding it's okay to recognize boundaries within my own soul and it's okay if I have a bad week, need a hike, reconnect with my own breath or find God's stillness on a mountain. I'm unlearning some broken truths planted deep within me, and replacing them with good, full, whole Truths.
My family now practices Shabbot dinners on a Friday night. I'm not sure what it actually is supposed to look like since I've (so far) turned down every invitation to join an actual Shabbot meal. For me though, it's in the idea that I set aside a time, a space, for my family to get the best from me, the best from each other, and the best atmosphere to experience the Lord in and through one another. So the house is cleaned on a Friday, or at least, we attempt it. I don't like being a task master or getting frustrated and then shouting because of socks everywhere or papers all over the floor. I intentionally start cleaning days early so that by Friday night, I can take a mental break from dishes and vacuuming and whatever else comes up. We have candles and good plates, because I want my kids to know they are special enough for the "good stuff" even when it's not a holiday. I don't want them to get this warped idea that the house is only ever clean for guests, or that they aren't special enough for our good plates. And then, because the house is clean and the meal is sorted (even if that's just ordering pizza), we light candles so that everyone wants to linger around the table, enjoy the beauty of tribe. If we can, we invite others to share in this space with us, because who better to share the enjoyment of your family than with others who like them as well?
Falling is hard. Climbing out of the crater after the fall is damn near suicidal. Somewhere early on, I remembered truth that dear friends at Grace Point Methodist Church in South Africa had said, "If you don't know where you're going you will have a hard time finding it when you get there."
Foundations.
Fundamentals.
I want my kids to love the Lord God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. I want my family to be close, connected, and feel like no matter what is going on in the world, they can come into the sanctuary of our home and find some rest. I've found that as I work toward and cling to the goals, standards really, that I've set forth for my family, I'm finding more hand holds myself. Having space in the home for love and acceptance and apologies has helped me carve out space in my own heart for the love and acceptance of where I'm at, and how I got here, but also how far I've come. Each time I make a physical move toward wholeness for my family, it feels as if there is a move towards wholeness in my own heart. And each time I find myself more whole, I realize that my own personal HOW gets smaller, easier to chew. Maybe someday I'll be able to re-enter certain places, certain institutions. Maybe not. My goal is not to be a denominational person. My goal is to be a whole person, worshiping God, and I'm getting there, in my own way, on my own time.
The Shema
Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. Blessed be the name of the glory of His kingdom forever and ever. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you today shall be upon your heart. You shall teach them thoroughly to your children, and you shall speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road, when you lie down and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for a reminder between your eyes. And you shall write them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates.... I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God; I, the Lord, am your God. True.
Even Here
Even here
is hallowed ground
For this wretched plot
is resting place for my weary body
I own my footprints
my trail
my plight.
The Word promises that wherever I go
He, too, shall be
Ezer
Hemming in
Ahead
Behind
With
Therefore even in this misery
With shadows of monsters lurking
in corners
in my head
Even here
is hallowed ground
Thanks be to God.
Amen
selah
Amen
is hallowed ground
For this wretched plot
is resting place for my weary body
I own my footprints
my trail
my plight.
The Word promises that wherever I go
He, too, shall be
Ezer
Hemming in
Ahead
Behind
With
Therefore even in this misery
With shadows of monsters lurking
in corners
in my head
Even here
is hallowed ground
Thanks be to God.
Amen
selah
Amen
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Old No. 33
Unbeknownst to me as a young person, there's this thing in North America called a "Golden Birthday". It's the day when your age matches the physical day of the month you were born. I was born on the 15th of January, which made my 15th birthday my Golden Birthday. In some places, a Golden Birthday is a big deal. I suppose I can claim mine as a 'big deal' but not in a particularly positive light.
I still remember going to bed the night of my 15th birthday so hurt and angry at my family. I fell asleep thinking, "They MISSED it! Completely. Entirely. They missed my birthday."
I specifically remember the grocery store check out, the vantage of my mother writing out a check to give to the store clerk to pay for groceries when she wrote "Jan. 19" and paused. She looked at me and asked what we did for my birthday. Yep, she realized she'd missed it, but tried to play cool and asked what "we" had done.
That was the first of many birthdays to be forgotten and by the time I was turning 21, the legal age of drinking and "adulthood" in the States, I just wanted to crawl under a rock and let my birthday pass unnoticed. The whole idea of something that's supposed to be important, but ends up not being important, to me, was the most depressing thing. I didn't tell people, didn't get excited, everything was all about managing my expectations and the inevitable let-down. I spent YEARS with the idea that if I just cared LESS, then eventually, not being remembered and celebrated would be acceptable.
Three years ago, just before my 30th birthday, a life marker I'd been looking forward to since my first child was born, I told my husband my 30s would be "epic." I completely forgot that "epic" doesn't always mean great and adventurous. Homer would not describe his 'epic' journey with the same excitement and gusto as someone who had just gone on an 'epic' hot air balloon ride over the Serengeti. I planned for the latter, I'm getting the former. But even so, I'm claiming my 30s as something to be marked, not something to be plowed through, forgotten, wasted time between college and the rest of life.
My 33rd birthday was Friday. I was so tempted to fall back into familiar territory, skip over it and let everyone else off the hook for forgetting it as well. Instead, though, I took a leap. I decided to throw myself a party of sorts. The kind of party that might, just might, make my soul a little happier.
To the outside observer, my life here and now is unbelievably amazing. I currently live in a first-rate house, overlooking the beautiful San Francisco skyline. I've lived on three continents, have traveled all over the world, I have an amazing (and hot!) husband of more than a decade who has managed to make THREE successful careers for himself in different organizations all before his 40th birthday. I've had personal and professional success myself, all while making and raising up four of the most beautiful babies I know. They are each kind and loving and engaging, a joy to be around... unless they're trying to put a sibling in his/her place. But even so, standing back, my life is hands-down amazing. Problem is, it's not the life I wanted. Climbing Everest, surfing the Big Waves of Hawaii, trekking the Appalachian Trail, these are all epic endeavors, worthy of throwing energy and effort into. But if it's not your dream to stand on top of Everest, when you get there, it'll still be amazing and "worthy" but it won't be something that fills your marrow with soul-satisfying accomplishment.
In I Samuel the people of Israel argue with God that they want "A king" and God keeps coming back to them that he is "THE king." English-teacher nerd me, that difference is massive.
A- one of many, indifferent to which, any old one will do
THE- specific, only one in particular will do
I'm fighting to reframe my perceptions, to reorganize and recalibrate myself so that this amazing, wonderful life I'm living won't be "A life."
Friday. The party. My party. The party I've been waiting to lay claim to for a long, long time. My house was clean, garage and all. (This mama was thrilled by that!) My food was good. I made things I love, Greek salad and cottage pie, a chocolate stout cake topped with candied oranges. There's nothing about any of it that Martha Stewart would say had a 'theme' but it was mine and I loved the cooking, I loved the taste and I loved feeding my friends, all moms who, like me, needed a break, needed a clean house and a satisfying meal. We chatted, we laughed, and I promise you, I could feel my soul filling with love and joy and contentment. I often see people reaching for something, anything to fill them. Food. Shopping. Kids' activities, whatever. I wanted to reach for something concerted, intentional, deliberate... something that mattered to who I am as a person. It may sound crazy, but the planning, the cleaning, the cooking and the baking that came before the party, the conversation, the laughing, the messy kitchen that came after the party-- these things made me deeply content. I felt useful. Needed. Wanted. Enjoyed. Fundamentally seen as a memorable human being.
When my mom forgot my birthday, after years and years of my father forgetting it, I felt like I wasn't important. If not to them, then who? Celebrating Old No. 33, with new friends, good friends, deep and meaningful friends, it helped me reclaim my own sense of value. It also helped, in many small and one very big way, for me to move from seeing my life here on the West Coast as not just a consolation life, "A Life", but as the Next Chapter in THE LIFE that is mine.
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
A Call to "We"
I'm not giften in many areas. But the places of gifting, I know and own. It has taken me so very long to not chase after what I've seen others do before me, to go with 'known' areas of ministry, of service, of worship. I was a children's pastor all through college. Todd and I ran the Littlest Hearts program for 2-5 year olds in South Africa through two pregnancies and three babies. I have been on leadership for children's camps, youth ministry, VBS, mission trips and more. I'm more than capable of putting together a seriously great program, Biblically based and with grit for the kids to remember for years to come. I can do those things, but it's not my gifting, it's not the thing that I do because I find a worship melody within the work. Someone once said they do the work they do because it "makes my heart sing."
My heart sings, worships, when I'm calling people into sanctuary. Ever since I came across the concept in the Jewish faith that each individual home is a temple, a sacred space set apart (after the fall of the actual sanctuary in the Temple), I fell in love. That's what I want do. I want to make my home, my space, my sphere of influence into a holy space, a vulnerable and sanctified space where sins are sacrificed to make room for the beauty of the Creator.
I have a friend, and for the life of me, I cannot remember a time in our friendship that wasn't messy. We were among the few in a small, private Christian college in the heart of the midwest who came from "less than perfect" backgrounds. There was a bond before a friendship, an understanding that we, we know how to muck through it. When I look back on our tenure as friends, I see how we have come from hardship to hardship over the years, and one of the reasons why she is such a dear friend is because she has very quietly let me be in my muck. Not fix it, not start throwing things at me in order to "help" get me out, she's let me be right where I am. As she put it last week, "this is a holy friendship."
I often wonder why so few other relationships are that connected, that special, that holy. There are certainly people I see more often, connect with far more frequently. And then I realize the sheer amount of vulnerability and exposed fears we've shared. Being real is always beautiful work, but it's never easy work. I was listening to a sermon by my favorite pastor. My absolute favorite preacher. (Side note: When I die, Todd knows to have a bonfire, good food, bagpipe music and at least snippets if not full sermons of Pastor Scott.) In the sermon, Pastor Scott called out the times when we use the term "we" but really the meaning is for someone else to be the "we". The example he used was the moment when his wife would say, "we should put away the fall decorations" when really she meant for Pastor Scott and their son to pack the boxes up to the attic.
I feel the "we" in my marrow, the real WE, not the one that calls on others. I yearn for there to be a call from my life to the world that says, COME BE PART OF THIS WE! Because community is ingrained on my soul, etched into my very bones. I want to remind people that WE are a people called to love, WE are called to remember that Christ came as a baby not as a weapon of mass destruction (both actual options by the way... think about it). I have lost countless hours of sleep because of the state of this world, but more specifically, the state of so many who sit in pews in churches all over this country and mull over gun control and presidential candidates and how glad they'll be when our borders will finally be "closed". Every fiber of my being cries and weeps because WE are called to be a people who are vulnerable, willing to give not just our coat but our shirt as well to those in need. WE are called to be a people who fully know and recognize that it is within each and every one of us to turn from the Truth WE know. That WE all need to daily, if not hourly, remember to "Let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee." Because fear is powerful, and the more fearful we are, the more individually we forget who WE really are. And I want so deeply to remind people who WE are...
Because it's been years since I have felt real and honest community.
Because it's been so very long since my heart could gather around and say, "You are my people. This is my WE."
And I was made to be in a WE. I was built, as a living stone (James), to participate in the loving action of building the holy temple into this world, not just storing up and protecting here on Earth where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal (Matthew).
The Greek word for wander, as in stray or walk away, is the same word that gave the planets their name, because when the heavenly bodies were being named, they seemed to wander, with no real connect to each other, totally detached. I want to propose to the forces big and small from this little hidden dark alley of the world wide web that no matter how much we each think we are our own people, our own unique individuals, that none of us are not detached, independent, unconnected. Each action we individually have has a reaction on what WE ARE.
My bones call out for community. My blood demands to be reconnected to the bloodlines from which I came. I am an adopted daughter, heir to the Kingdom, seeking where I come from. Would someone, please for the love of God, come and tell me about my people? Would someone, please for the love of Mercy, share with and in me about our family? Would someone, please for the love of Peace, come and listen to the stories of the One who called each and every single person, who bears the image of Yahweh, Beloved???
My heart sings, worships, when I'm calling people into sanctuary. Ever since I came across the concept in the Jewish faith that each individual home is a temple, a sacred space set apart (after the fall of the actual sanctuary in the Temple), I fell in love. That's what I want do. I want to make my home, my space, my sphere of influence into a holy space, a vulnerable and sanctified space where sins are sacrificed to make room for the beauty of the Creator.
I have a friend, and for the life of me, I cannot remember a time in our friendship that wasn't messy. We were among the few in a small, private Christian college in the heart of the midwest who came from "less than perfect" backgrounds. There was a bond before a friendship, an understanding that we, we know how to muck through it. When I look back on our tenure as friends, I see how we have come from hardship to hardship over the years, and one of the reasons why she is such a dear friend is because she has very quietly let me be in my muck. Not fix it, not start throwing things at me in order to "help" get me out, she's let me be right where I am. As she put it last week, "this is a holy friendship."
I often wonder why so few other relationships are that connected, that special, that holy. There are certainly people I see more often, connect with far more frequently. And then I realize the sheer amount of vulnerability and exposed fears we've shared. Being real is always beautiful work, but it's never easy work. I was listening to a sermon by my favorite pastor. My absolute favorite preacher. (Side note: When I die, Todd knows to have a bonfire, good food, bagpipe music and at least snippets if not full sermons of Pastor Scott.) In the sermon, Pastor Scott called out the times when we use the term "we" but really the meaning is for someone else to be the "we". The example he used was the moment when his wife would say, "we should put away the fall decorations" when really she meant for Pastor Scott and their son to pack the boxes up to the attic.
I feel the "we" in my marrow, the real WE, not the one that calls on others. I yearn for there to be a call from my life to the world that says, COME BE PART OF THIS WE! Because community is ingrained on my soul, etched into my very bones. I want to remind people that WE are a people called to love, WE are called to remember that Christ came as a baby not as a weapon of mass destruction (both actual options by the way... think about it). I have lost countless hours of sleep because of the state of this world, but more specifically, the state of so many who sit in pews in churches all over this country and mull over gun control and presidential candidates and how glad they'll be when our borders will finally be "closed". Every fiber of my being cries and weeps because WE are called to be a people who are vulnerable, willing to give not just our coat but our shirt as well to those in need. WE are called to be a people who fully know and recognize that it is within each and every one of us to turn from the Truth WE know. That WE all need to daily, if not hourly, remember to "Let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee." Because fear is powerful, and the more fearful we are, the more individually we forget who WE really are. And I want so deeply to remind people who WE are...
Because it's been years since I have felt real and honest community.
Because it's been so very long since my heart could gather around and say, "You are my people. This is my WE."
And I was made to be in a WE. I was built, as a living stone (James), to participate in the loving action of building the holy temple into this world, not just storing up and protecting here on Earth where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal (Matthew).
The Greek word for wander, as in stray or walk away, is the same word that gave the planets their name, because when the heavenly bodies were being named, they seemed to wander, with no real connect to each other, totally detached. I want to propose to the forces big and small from this little hidden dark alley of the world wide web that no matter how much we each think we are our own people, our own unique individuals, that none of us are not detached, independent, unconnected. Each action we individually have has a reaction on what WE ARE.
My bones call out for community. My blood demands to be reconnected to the bloodlines from which I came. I am an adopted daughter, heir to the Kingdom, seeking where I come from. Would someone, please for the love of God, come and tell me about my people? Would someone, please for the love of Mercy, share with and in me about our family? Would someone, please for the love of Peace, come and listen to the stories of the One who called each and every single person, who bears the image of Yahweh, Beloved???
Thursday, December 3, 2015
The Day Between That Life and This
It wasn't yet five in the morning, but it was sweltering hot on the tarmac. Even as the plane was taxing to our parking space, I could see the heat waves rising from the unnaturally black hue of the pavement and for the tenth time in 48 hours, I wanted to vomit, but that action would require more energy than I had to spare. So I sat, and bundled all the emotions in my soul up, shoving them in some spiritual closet. I couldn't deal with them, not then, not there. There was work to do.
The intercom had politely informed me that the plane was more than an hour late because of the miserable storms we'd passed over central Africa. The storms that had kept my four babies awake, the storms that had tested my nerves, the storms that seemed to go completely unnoticed by my zombie husband. Mentally calculating the amount of time we had and the obstacles we needed to traverse to make our connection was sapping precious energy.
Original layover was exactly 107 minutes. 107 minus 62 left us with 45 minutes. Curses and bad words. Focus, Britt, you gotta do this or this hell will just last even longer. 45 minutes to wait our turn patiently and deplane, get four babies plus all our carry-ons down the stairs, run through the building, passports stamped, personal screenings, security check, down the stairs, out to the bus, back up the stairs and onto the plane sitting two spaces over, the plane I can SEE from my window. Two. Spaces. Over! If you stress or panic, they stress and panic. Pull. It. Together.
Terribly politely, belying the few snatches of unrestful sleep I'd gotten, while waiting in line to deplane, I spoke to a very understanding Muslim flight attendant who recruited two more attendants and like a mass of crows haphazardly circling a blue sky, we stumbled and tumbled like a gelatinous blob trying to stay quick but in keeping with the steps of a grouchy two year old, the sleepy three year old, and the wide-eyed four year old. I tried to ignore the loud whimperings for comfort and attention coming from the bundle on my back. We simply had to make this connection.
Standing in the endless sea of people waiting for all the appropriate stamps, scans, and questions, just like us, I thought again of how this punishment, this forced Exodus, this damned flight path didn't fit. I could not believe then (and I still cannot believe now) that anyone, any sane person with love and compassion in their heart would send a family of six, after packing up their lives in 4 weeks time, would willfully choose the flight path we were given. We were given it and then told to be grateful. It felt like being violated, and then told to be grateful for not being beaten to a bloody mess. Only, I felt very bruised, very bloody. None of it made sense.
I cannot believe its been two-year since I was on that tarmac, in that plane, trying to make the connection in Qatar, in the blistering morning heat of that December morning. I strained so hard because I knew not making the connection would just add time to our already 42 hour journey. Miriam Webster defines epic this way: extending beyond the usual or ordinary, especially in size or scope.
Epic.
I used to think that was always a good thing, always in regards to an adventure, a voyage, something spectacular that you tell your kids and grandkids about. Right here, on this blog that no one reads, this is the first time I've told even part of the story of that journey. It is still so very painful, so very, very raw. Because it was decided to be "best" for me. "Best" for my family. "Best" for the church. And we just had to take it.
Johannesburg to Qatar. Southern to Northern Hemisphere
*Epic layover marathon. No food, no water, no toilets. Too many check points. Too many babes still in pajamas.
Qatar to Chicago. Eastern to Western.
*Epic layover in the middle of the night in miserable and drafty O'Hare airport. No food. No place to lay down. Night two of no bed, no shower. Too many check points.
Chicago to Philadelphia. Three and a half hours. We'd flown three and a half hours too far west, so we had to backtrack three and a half hours more back East. It would have seemed more cruel had I had any ability to care.
I know who made those plane reservations. I know him personally. I know the rational he gave. I know because I heard it all from his lips... over dinner... that I cooked... at my old house... in my old life... the life where he was a near, and dearly loved friend.
I miss my old life, I miss my old house and my gardens and my dog and the crazy way that ANYONE on the street could see directly into the lives of my family. I miss my fire-pit and my clothesline. But more than that, I miss the naiveté I had back then about friendships, about right and wrong, about love and compassion. I know things now, valuable, helpful, wise things. Things that make me a better person, give a finer age to my fermentation. But today, on the day that marks the Day Between That Life and This, in the space where I was living into the reality that sometimes, just because you call it compassion, doesn't mean it is... just because you call it Christian charity, doesn't mean it is... just because you call it love, doesn't mean it is; in THAT space, I sit.
I sit and I mourn.
I sit and I mourn what was, what might have been... who I was, who I might have been.
I mourn for the person who is living her Day Between That Life and This right now.
I mourn for the person who cannot see that words and actions must match up, because if they don't you're living a lie.
"Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?" James 2:15-16
I mourn because the world we are living in, the world most of us are settling for, isn't right. I mourn because there are words for these wrongs: lies. Lies of mediocrity, lies of substandard living, lies of complacence and lies of bureaucracy. And some days, when I see very clearly how wrong certain 'compassions', certain 'charities', certain 'loves' are, on those days, like today, I'm sad. Because it wasn't meant to be like this. It was never meant to be like this. But God's promises remain, His love is never a lie, and there is always, always promise yet for a new dawn, a new life, a new world.
The intercom had politely informed me that the plane was more than an hour late because of the miserable storms we'd passed over central Africa. The storms that had kept my four babies awake, the storms that had tested my nerves, the storms that seemed to go completely unnoticed by my zombie husband. Mentally calculating the amount of time we had and the obstacles we needed to traverse to make our connection was sapping precious energy.
Original layover was exactly 107 minutes. 107 minus 62 left us with 45 minutes. Curses and bad words. Focus, Britt, you gotta do this or this hell will just last even longer. 45 minutes to wait our turn patiently and deplane, get four babies plus all our carry-ons down the stairs, run through the building, passports stamped, personal screenings, security check, down the stairs, out to the bus, back up the stairs and onto the plane sitting two spaces over, the plane I can SEE from my window. Two. Spaces. Over! If you stress or panic, they stress and panic. Pull. It. Together.
Terribly politely, belying the few snatches of unrestful sleep I'd gotten, while waiting in line to deplane, I spoke to a very understanding Muslim flight attendant who recruited two more attendants and like a mass of crows haphazardly circling a blue sky, we stumbled and tumbled like a gelatinous blob trying to stay quick but in keeping with the steps of a grouchy two year old, the sleepy three year old, and the wide-eyed four year old. I tried to ignore the loud whimperings for comfort and attention coming from the bundle on my back. We simply had to make this connection.
Standing in the endless sea of people waiting for all the appropriate stamps, scans, and questions, just like us, I thought again of how this punishment, this forced Exodus, this damned flight path didn't fit. I could not believe then (and I still cannot believe now) that anyone, any sane person with love and compassion in their heart would send a family of six, after packing up their lives in 4 weeks time, would willfully choose the flight path we were given. We were given it and then told to be grateful. It felt like being violated, and then told to be grateful for not being beaten to a bloody mess. Only, I felt very bruised, very bloody. None of it made sense.
I cannot believe its been two-year since I was on that tarmac, in that plane, trying to make the connection in Qatar, in the blistering morning heat of that December morning. I strained so hard because I knew not making the connection would just add time to our already 42 hour journey. Miriam Webster defines epic this way: extending beyond the usual or ordinary, especially in size or scope.
Epic.
I used to think that was always a good thing, always in regards to an adventure, a voyage, something spectacular that you tell your kids and grandkids about. Right here, on this blog that no one reads, this is the first time I've told even part of the story of that journey. It is still so very painful, so very, very raw. Because it was decided to be "best" for me. "Best" for my family. "Best" for the church. And we just had to take it.
Johannesburg to Qatar. Southern to Northern Hemisphere
*Epic layover marathon. No food, no water, no toilets. Too many check points. Too many babes still in pajamas.
Qatar to Chicago. Eastern to Western.
*Epic layover in the middle of the night in miserable and drafty O'Hare airport. No food. No place to lay down. Night two of no bed, no shower. Too many check points.
Chicago to Philadelphia. Three and a half hours. We'd flown three and a half hours too far west, so we had to backtrack three and a half hours more back East. It would have seemed more cruel had I had any ability to care.
I know who made those plane reservations. I know him personally. I know the rational he gave. I know because I heard it all from his lips... over dinner... that I cooked... at my old house... in my old life... the life where he was a near, and dearly loved friend.
I miss my old life, I miss my old house and my gardens and my dog and the crazy way that ANYONE on the street could see directly into the lives of my family. I miss my fire-pit and my clothesline. But more than that, I miss the naiveté I had back then about friendships, about right and wrong, about love and compassion. I know things now, valuable, helpful, wise things. Things that make me a better person, give a finer age to my fermentation. But today, on the day that marks the Day Between That Life and This, in the space where I was living into the reality that sometimes, just because you call it compassion, doesn't mean it is... just because you call it Christian charity, doesn't mean it is... just because you call it love, doesn't mean it is; in THAT space, I sit.
I sit and I mourn.
I sit and I mourn what was, what might have been... who I was, who I might have been.
I mourn for the person who is living her Day Between That Life and This right now.
I mourn for the person who cannot see that words and actions must match up, because if they don't you're living a lie.
"Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?" James 2:15-16
I mourn because the world we are living in, the world most of us are settling for, isn't right. I mourn because there are words for these wrongs: lies. Lies of mediocrity, lies of substandard living, lies of complacence and lies of bureaucracy. And some days, when I see very clearly how wrong certain 'compassions', certain 'charities', certain 'loves' are, on those days, like today, I'm sad. Because it wasn't meant to be like this. It was never meant to be like this. But God's promises remain, His love is never a lie, and there is always, always promise yet for a new dawn, a new life, a new world.
"I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness."
Jeremiah 31:3b (NIV)
"I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength"
Philippians 4:12-13 (NIV)
"We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God"
Hebrews 6:19 (EST and The Message)
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