"I Will Never"

Originally published July 9, 2014: 

We resist humility.  

As Christians, we prefer to face life armed with moral certitude.  After all, we believe strongly in Good Things: marriage, Christian education, liturgy, personal and societal morals, and countless exacting points of theology which we have labored to fine-tune to precision.  And we have the authority of Scripture, Confessions, Catechisms, and Ecclesiastical Tradition on our side…not to mention intellectual acuity and eloquence!  

We like certainty.  It feels safe to be certain.  Of our beliefs.  Of our rightness.  Of our staunch resistance to the decay we see around us and our unwillingness to compromise.  Our faith is strong and secure.  Therefore…we declare.  Some of us declare silently within ourselves.  Others of us declare out loud…via conversation, sermons, social media, or even…blogs!

The problem is that all too often, those declarations have much to do with our own faithfulness and little to do with the faithfulness of Christ.  It easily translates into pride and superiority, making our voice repulsive to our hearers.

We become like Peter who, I imagine, was entirely persuaded when he declared, "Even if all of these fall away because of you, I will never fall away.  Even if I have to DIE with you, I will never deny you!"  We all know how that turned out.

Peter, like us, had the wisdom of the Proverbs at his disposal: "Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall."  

But humility is a hard-won virtue that often comes to fruition only after we have "declared" and subsequently found ourselves on our knees weeping bitterly and pleading for mercy because we, like Peter, have done the very thing about which we proclaimed, "I will never…!"

The Good News is, that though God resists the proud, he gives grace to the humble.  Christ waits for us in that place and looks on us with understanding and compassion.  Our failure…our denial…are not the final words.  The Final Word is the Word of Life who raises us from our knees, declares his constancy in spite of our inconstancy, and then sends us out as witnesses with a new and faithful declaration: the Forgiveness of Sins. 

Though we resist humility, our Lord will see it formed in us so that when we declare His Truth, it will be sweet as honey to our hearers.  We will be heard…and believed.

Put Up Your Sword

Originally published July 6, 2014:

One of his close and trusted friends betrayed him…gave him over to the violent mob standing by with intent to take his life. Peter knew the injustice of it.  The betrayal.  The wrongness. The sheer wickedness of it.  Any True Friend would have done the same!  Grab the sword and defend him!  Fend off the enemies of this Innocent Man! 

But the One who was betrayed and who knew he was being led to his death spoke, "Put up your sword, Peter.  Don't you know that all I have to do is call out to my Father and he would send more than 72,000 angels to my defense?"  

He was The Omnipotent One.  All the power of the universe was at his disposal!  But he refused to summon that power.  Not only that…he had the audacity to use that power to HEAL and RESTORE that self-righteous man who was bent on killing  him!

When we experience betrayal and injustice, how desperately we want to summon every means at our disposal to displace the betrayers…to expose and defeat the malicious intent of our enemies!  And our means are paltry means.  As likely to fall back on our own heads as to achieve our desired end.   Yet we rise up to full height and draw our swords.  

But if we listen, we will hear the unmistakable call to follow in our Master's footsteps and his command to put up our swords.  The only way we can do that is by believing what Christ himself believed in that moment.  

He TRUSTED his Father.  Not to keep him from the agony of suffering and the ensuing death…but after that death to raise him to life again, to exalt him, and to bring Life to the World through it.  When Christ went to his death and the grave, he actually died you know.  His lifeless body lost its power…lost its ability to call on his Father for legions to come and deliver him.  Christ had to submit himself to that place of darkness and powerlessness…that death…with full belief that his Father was trustworthy.  That he would keep his word.  That he would be faithful.  Christ couldn't raise himself from the dead.  He had to BE raised by the Father.  

This too must be our confidence…our hope…our trust…our firm belief.  That when we refuse to draw our sword and exact justice, when we give ourselves over to betrayal and injustice, when that leads to powerlessness and death (both figurative and literal) as it inevitably does, that our Father will be faithful to raise us to new life.  Just as Peter's sword would have been insufficient to quell the mob, our swords too are ineffective.  They may inflict damage, but they don't bring life.  

May we learn to entrust ourselves to the One who judges righteously and will raise us up in the Last Day!

The Peace of Wild Things

 The Peace of Wild Things

by: Wendell Berry 

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Fragments

Every time I retreat to the beach, that very first stroll stirs up a whirlwind in my brain.   I feel compelled to wrangle that elusive swirling into cohesive thoughts but it's made up of impressions, emotions, and loosely formed connections that are difficult for a rationalist like me to articulate.    The urge to write is driven, at least in part, by my need to "take dominion" over the chaos...to bring order to the overgrown wildflower garden in my head.  I need order.  Less, I think, from a need to control and more from an inherent desire to understand.  Or, if truth be told, it may be mostly from a desire to FEEL a bit less.   Ideas can be tamed, arranged, ordered, classified, and brought to a conclusion in a way that emotions can't.  At least not for me.     

When I try to articulate the swirl, the words seem shallow in comparison to profound feelings that accompany the thoughts.  But that doesn't stop me from trying.

My first impression is of the vibrant playfulness of the wildlife that inhabits the beaches of Florida and Southern Alabama.  The egrets, the seagulls, the pelicans, the crabs, and the sandpipers exhibit a joyful determination in their quest for nourishment, which seems their primary focus.  The soaring and diving of the pelicans exude joy.  The sandpipers flit about frantically, pecking through the freshly wet sand for insects, worms, or vulnerable crustaceans.  The herons don't seem exactly playful - they appear serious and stark and intense in their hunt, but their explosively graceful takeoffs inspire awe. Heron Chasing Sunset

My second impression is of the vastness and power of the ocean.  Duh, right?  But every single time, it overwhelms me.  The mind of God conceived and created this.  Ex nihilo.  What?!  And he holds this massive ecosystem together by the power of his word.  What is man that you take thought of and care for him?! Why gift this superfluity of grandeur, this overflow of abundance to creatures whose senses are too often dulled to its magnificence?  

My third impression mingles the realities of beauty and rest and resurrection.  The generosity of God is manifest in his sharing this expression of created beauty with his creatures.  The goodness of God shines through the predictability of the setting sun and the onset of a time of rest.  The faithfulness of God is reinforced in our knowing that the setting sun will rise again tomorrow morning...without fail...without end...without qualification...without regard to how well I lived, enjoyed, appreciated, used, or gave thanks for the day that just passed.  No. Matter. What.  The sun will rise and I receive the blessed promise of a brand new day.  A daily resurrection.  

The words remain inadequate, but the experience draws out a sense of wonder and forces me into a posture of thanksgiving for the manifold gifts of the Creator.

The Outrage of Grace

I said grace cannot prevail until law is dead, until moralizing is out of the game. The precise phrase should be, until our fatal love affair with the law is over — until, finally and for good, our lifelong certainty that someone is keeping score has run out of steam and collapsed. As long as we leave, in our dramatizations of grace, one single hope of a moral reckoning, one possible recourse to salvation by bookkeeping, our freedom-dreading hearts will clutch it to themselves. And even if we leave none at all, we will grub for ethics that are not there rather than face the liberty to which grace calls us. Give us the parable of the Prodigal Son, for example, and we will promptly lose its point by preaching ourselves sermons on Worthy and Unworthy Confession, or on The Sin of the Elder Brother. Give us the Workers in the Vineyard, and we will concoct spurious lessons on The Duty of Contentment or The Moral Aspects of Labor Relations. 

Restore to us, Preacher, the comfort of merit and demerit.  Prove for us that there is at least something we can do, that we are still, at whatever dim recess of our nature, the masters of our relationships.  Tell us, Prophet, that in spite of all our nights of losing, there will yet be one redeeming card of our very own to fill the inside straight we have so long and so earnestly tried to draw to.  But do not preach us grace.  It will not do to split the pot evenly at 4am and break out the Chivas Regal.  We insist on being reckoned with. Give us something, anything: but spare us the indignity of this indiscriminate acceptance.  --Robert Farrar Capon

Beannacht: A Poem

Beannacht

by: John O'Donahue

On the day when

The weight deadens

On your shoulders

And you stumble,

May the clay dance

To balance you.

And when your eyes

Freeze behind

The grey window

And the ghost of loss

Gets into you,

May a flock of colours,

Indigo, red, green

And azure blue,

Come to awaken in you

A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays

In the currach of thought

And a stain of ocean

Blackens beneath you,

May there come across the waters

A path of yellow moonlight

To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,

May the clarity of light be yours,

May the fluency of the ocean be yours,

May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow

Wind work these words

Of love around you,

An invisible cloak

To mind your life.

Wedding Dessert Table

September 12, 2021: Gabby Boeve & Kale Houghton at Knotting Hills in Pevely, MO

Sources:

• 6-tier Acrylic Donut Stand 
• Crates with slats - IKEA Knagglig
• Crates without slats - salvaged from a local wine shop
• Platters and cake stands - items I already had, but most came from HomeGoods over the years

Floral Arrangement 

• Greenery - Eucalyptus garland 1
• Greenery - Eucalyptus garland 2
• Flowers and other floral - an assortment from Hobby Lobby
• Glass Orbs - hung with fishing wire
• Tea Light Candles

The greenery is wrapped around a broom stick and fastened with zip ties.  The flowers and leaves are just stuck into the greenery, except for the center succulent which is quite heavy.  

This arrangement was inspired by this tutorial over at ClaCali.  

On Another's Sorrow

On Another's Sorrow

by: William Blake

Can I see another's woe

And not be in sorrow too?

Can I see another's grief

And not seek for kind relief?

Can I see a falling tear

And not feel my sorrow's share?

Can a father see his child weep

Nor be with sorrow filled?

Can a mother sit and hear

An infant groan, and infant fear?

No, no! never can it be!

Never, never can it be!

And can He who smiles on all

Hear the wren with sorrows small,

Hear the small bird's grief and care,

Hear the woes that infants bear,

And not sit beside the nest

Pouring pity in their breast;

And not sit the cradle near

Weeping tear on infant's tear;

And not sit both night and day

Wiping all our tears away?

O, no! never can it be!

Never, never can it be!

He doth give His joy to all;

He becomes an infant small;

He becomes a man of woe;

He doth feel the sorrow too.

Think not thou canst sigh a sigh

And thy Maker is not by.

Think not thou canst weep a tear

And thy Maker is not near.

O! He gives to us His joy

That our grief He may destroy;

Till our grief is fled and gone

He doth sit by us and moan.

A Litany at Atlanta

O Silent God, Thou whose voice afar in mist and mystery hath left our ears an-hungered in these fearful days--

Hear us, good Lord! 

Listen to us, Thy children: our faces dark with doubt are made a mockery of in Thy Sanctuary.  With uplifted hands we front Thy Heaven, O God, crying:

We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!

We are not better than our fellows, Lord; we are but weak and human men.  When our devils do deviltry, curse Thou the doer and the deed, --curse them as we curse them, do to them all and more than ever they have done to innocence and weakness, to womanhood and home.

Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners!

And yet, whose is the deeper guilt? Who made these devils?  Who nursed them in crime and fed them on injustice? Who ravished and debauched their mothers and their grandmothers?  Who bought and sold their crime and waxed fat and rich on public iniquity?

Thou knowest, good God!

Is this Thy Justice, O Father, that guile be easier than innocence and the innocent be crucified for the guilt of the untouched guilty?

Justice, O Judge of men!

Wherefore do we pray?  Is not the God of the Fathers dead?  Have not seers seen in Heaven’s halls Thine hearsed and lifeless form stark amidst the black and rolling smoke of sin, where all along bow bitter forms of the endless dead?

Awake, Thou that sleepest!

Thou art not dead, but flown afar, up hills of endless light, through blazing corridors of suns, where worlds do swing of good and gentle men, of women strong and free—far from cozenage, black hypocrisy, and chaste prostitution of this shameful speck of dust!

Turn again, O Lord; leave us not to perish in our sin!

A city lay in travail, God our Lord, and from her loins sprang twin Murder and Black hate.  Red was the midnight; clang, crack, and cry of death and fury filled the air and trembled underneath the starts where church spires pointed silently to Thee.  And all this was to sate the greed of greedy men who hide behind the veil of vengeance. 

Bend us Thine ear, O Lord!

In the pale, still morning we looked upon the deed.  We stopped our ears and held our leaping hands, but they – did they not wag their heads and leer and cry with bloody jaws: Cease from Crime! The word was mockery, for thus they train a hundred crimes while we do cure one.

Turn again our captivity, O Lord.

Behold this maimed and broken thing, dear God; it was an humble black man, who toiled and sweat to save a bit from the pittance paid him.  They told him: Work and Rise!  He worked.  Did this man sin?  Nay, but someone told how someone said another did –one whom he had never seen nor known.  Yet for that man’s crime this man lieth maimed and murdered, his wife naked to shame, his children to poverty and evil.

Hear us, O heavenly Father!

Doth not this justice of hell stink in Thy nostrils, O God?  How long shall the mounting flood of innocent blood roar in Thine ears and pound in our hearts for vengeance?  Pile the pale frenzy of blood-crazed brutes, who do such deeds, high on Thine Altar, Jehovah Jireh, and burn it in hell forever and forever!

Forgive us, good Lord; we know not what we say!

Bewildered we are and passion-tossed, mad with the madness of a mobbed and mocked and murdered people; straining at the armposts of Thy throne, we raise our shackled hands and charge Thee, God, by the bones of our stolen fathers, by the tears of our dead mothers, by the very blood of Thy crucified Christ: What meaneth this? Tell us the plan; give us the sign!

Keep not Thou silent, O God!

Sit not longer blind, Lord God, deaf to our prayer and dumb to our dumb suffering.  Surely Thou, too, art not white, O Lord, a pale, bloodless, heartless thing!

Ah! Christ of all the Pities!

Forgive the thought!  Forgive these wild, blasphemous words!  Thou art still the God of our black fathers and in Thy Soul’s Soul sit some soft darkenings of the evening, some shadowings of the velvet night.

But whisper –speak –call, great God, show us the way and point us the path!  Whither?  North is greed and South is blood; within, the coward, and without, the liar.  Whither?  To death?

Amen!  Welcome dark sleep!

Whither? To life? But not this life, dear God, not this.  Let the cup pass from us, tempt us not beyond our strength, for there is that clamoring and clawing within, to whose voice we would not listen, yet shudder lest we must –and it is red.  Ah! God!  It is a red and awful shape. 

Selah!

In yonder East trembles a star

Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, saith the Lord!

Thy Will, O Lord, be done!

Kyrie Eleison!

Lord, we have done these pleading, wavering words.

We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!

We bow our heads and hearken soft to the sobbing of women and little children.

We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!

Our voices sink in silence and in night.

Hear us, good Lord!

In night, O God of a godless land!

Amen!

In silence, O Silent God.

Selah!

The Hungering Dark

When I grabbed this book from the shelf and added it to my beach pile, I noticed it was bookmarked where I had stopped reading it previously, and wondered why I didn't finish as I'm usually committed to doing so.

Today when I picked it up and glanced through my underlinings in the first half, I remembered why.  It had been too much for me to take in at once.  It would have been gluttonous to keep devouring Buechner's words when I was sated and couldn't actually absorb any more.  There was nothing to be gained from continuing.  

I had the appetite to finish it today.  Buechner puts words to thoughts I have felt, but have been unable to articulate.  The way he sees, processes, evaluates, and speaks into the world resonates deeply with me.  I commend his meditative writings to you.  (I specify his meditative writings because I have not yet read his novels, but hope to do so before too long.  Per my friend Serena's recommendation, I'll likely begin with The Return of Ansel Gibbs.)  

For your enjoyment, a brief passage from The Hungering Dark: Pontifex

"'No man is an island,' wrote Dr. Donne...'for whom the bell tolls it tolls for thee.'  ...any man's death reminds us of our common destiny...our lives are linked together.  But there is another truth...that every man IS an island.  We sit in silence with one another, each of us reluctant to speak, for fear that he may sound like a fool. And beneath that  there is of course the deeper fear...that maybe the truth of it is that indeed he is a fool.  So either we do not speak, or we speak not to reveal who we are, but to CONCEAL who we are.  Instead of showing ourselves as we truly are, we show ourselves as we believe others want us to be.  We wear masks, and with practice we do it better and better, and they serve us well--except that it gets very lonely inside the mask, because inside the mask there is a person who both longs to be known and fears to be known.  In this sense every man IS an island separated from every other man by fathoms of distrust and duplicity.  

"We need each other greatly, you and I, more than much of the time we dare to imagine, more than most of the time we dare to admit.  Island calls to island across the silence and once, in trust , the real words come, a bridge is built and love is done - not sentimental, emotional love, but love that is pontifex: bridge-builder.  The islands become an archipelago, a continent, a kingdom whose name is the Kingdom of God."

The Wounded Healer

The modern generations, says Nouwen, feel themselves dislocated from history and in possession of a fragmented belief system in which nothing is "always and everywhere true and valid."  Coupled with a lack of confidence that any life exists beyond death, these generations experience a deep, intolerable loneliness and hopelessness that lead to cries for revolution.  Nouwen succinctly evaluates how this lack of rootedness affects the heart and mind, then suggests how Christians might frame the Good News in ways that it can be meaningfully heard.  

First, because these are inward generations, we have to be willing to explore the depths of our own inner life and articulate that experience as a means of establishing genuine connection...we must learn to "name the space where joy and sorrow touch each other."  Second, compassion must become the essence and core of our leadership as they are seeking to exchange dominating authority for true fatherhood.  And thirdly, in response to their inclination to revolt, we should act as contemplative critics who can stand outside of the narrative and speak critically while also infusing hope. 

This work can only be done through embodied presence marked by genuine personal concern and shared suffering, in a context of hospitality where "sufferings can be understood as wounds integral to our human condition" and as openings for healing and hope as we and they begin to understand that just as Christ's wounds were for the healing of the nations, so too our wounds are an occasion for the healing of others. 

Remembering

A very brief novel of Port William in which Andy Catlett wrestles with the loss of his hand.  

"His right hand had been the one with which he reached out to the world and attached himself to it.  When he lost his hand, he lost his hold.  It was as though his hand still clutched all that was dear to him --and was gone."

Andy is literally and figuratively alone with his inner turmoil.  One particular moment of that struggle comes while, away from his family and the farm, he roams the streets of San Francisco in the early morning hours:  

"Andy is filled with a yearning toward this place.  He imagines himself living here.  He would have a small apartment up here on the hillside looking out over the bay.  He would live alone and slowly he would come to know a peacefulness and gentleness in his own character, having nobody to quarrel with.  He would have a job he could walk to in the morning and walk home from in the evening.  It would be a job that would pay him well and give him nothing to worry about before he went to it or after he left it.  In his spare time he would visit the museums.  His apartment would be a place of refuge, quiet and orderly, full of beautiful things.  But he reminds himself of himself.  For the flaw in all that dream is himself, the little hell of himself alone." 

With his characteristic poetical poignance, Berry reveals the inner life of this very human character as no one else can do so well as he, I think.  We become Andy as he gets lost in his loss and struggles to find his way back home.

On Being Mortal

Scientific advances, says Dr. Gawande, have turned the process of aging and dying into a medical experience to be managed by healthcare professionals. 

The waning days of our lives are given over to treatments that addle our brains and sap our bodies for a sliver's chance of benefit. They are spent in institutions...where regimented, anonymous routines cut us off from all the things that matter to us in life.  

Gawande deftly lays out the path by which we arrived at our current "continuum of care" model - the route from independent living to assisted living to nursing home care to dementia care.  In theory, it's a nice enough idea but, in reality, it has created a medical environment focused on safety and survival that strips individuals of the dignity of autonomy, removing them from the known and familiar, which are so crucial for maintaining meaning and equilibrium as faculties begin to dull.  They are left floundering in a world of strange confusion in which they have little if any control over the simplest daily routines such as when and what they eat, whether they get dressed and what they wear, whether they take a walk outdoors or stay in bed for half a day, whether they accept or reject a specific treatment. 

Dr. Gawande provides a helpful service in tracing the history of and highlighting various efforts to shift our approach - and therefore our model - of eldercare, but his greatest service is in addressing the fundamental reasons why we are getting it wrong. 

The problem with medicine and the institutions it has spawned for the care of the sick and the old is not that they have had an incorrect view of what makes life significant.  The problem is that they have had almost no view at all.  Medicine's focus is narrow...concentrating on repair of health, not sustenance of the soul. Yet...they are the ones who largely define how we live in our waning days.  ...we have treated the trial of sickness, aging, and mortality as medical concerns.  It's been an experiment in social engineering putting our fates in the hands of people valued for their technical prowess...and that experiment has failed.  If safety and protection were all we sought in life, we might conclude differently.  But because we seek a life of worth and purpose, and yet are routinely denied the conditions that might make it possible, there is no other way to see what modern society has done."

We unwittingly set our loved ones on a trajectory of unstoppable momentum of medical treatment that, ultimately, controls their narrative.  We remove their agency, making decisions on their behalf and imposing treatments and solutions "for their own good" whether or not they want it.  In so doing, we wrest from them the ability to author their own stories, the freedom to shape their lives in ways consistent with their character and loyalties.  

The battle of being mortal is the battle to maintain the integrity of one's life - to avoid becoming so diminished or dissipated or subjugated that who you are becomes disconnected from who you were or who you want to be.

Our mortality is certain and for most of us, that end will be reached through a prolonged process of aging and dying.  We don't get to control the circumstances of that process, but we ought to be able to choose what we do with those circumstances.

I commend to you Being Mortal - Medicine and What Matters in the End as a worthwhile read.  Dr. Gawande not only tracks where we've come from and where we are today, but he also proposes options for where we go from here, and how - with some thought and intention - we can transform the process of aging and dying into a more wholistic and human one.  Because after all, he affirms, every life is a story and in stories, ENDINGS MATTER.  

The Bearded Man

He had 2 of his own young children to entertain and look out for, and with whom he was exploring the wonders of shore life.  But within a very brief span, he became the Universal Father to about a dozen children who appeared to be ages 5 to 11...none of whom had a father present on the beach.  They approached him at first to watch what he was doing with that net and bucket, but soon they wanted to participate.  And every single one of them was not only allowed, but welcomed into the fray by this soft-spoken gentle giant.

Though it may not seem like a big deal, the truth is, not all would have been so open-hearted and hospitable.  He had no obligation to engage with them, to answer and feed their sense of wonder, to invite them to join in the adventure, to even acknowledge them at all.  Yet each one of those children - and probably their mothers too - were enriched by the kindness of a stranger acting as a benevolent father to the fatherless.  

I was reminded how little it sometimes requires to propagate joy in the world, and how much I want to show up in the world like that Bearded Man.  

Well Done, Faithful Servant

I slip my arms into the blue paper robe, let a stranger tie it in back, strap the N95 over fresh curls, and follow my young escorts through double security doors into the sterile hall. They motion toward the first door on the right.  So she's still in her old room.  I give thanks for that...at least something is familiar to her.  

She's been in isolation for 12 days now based on a positive viral test result.  Even though a subsequent test returned a negative result, she remains alone.  The isolation seems to have stolen her will to live and she has taken "a turn for the worse" as we say.  So much so, that she was placed under hospice care yesterday.  This is the only reason I'm allowed in to see her...and I'm thankful for the unexpected blessing to be present with her one more time.  

When we chatted last week, the conversation went much as it has for the past year...long pauses where she has nothing to say and where I struggle to engage her in a way that doesn't leave her frustrated by her failing memory.  I'd reach for a name or topic until I hit one that struck a chord of recognition.  Even then, the conversation was brief because the memory would evaporate as quickly as it had come.  But that's ok...there were moments of connection and she'd always assure me that "it's so good to hear your voice" - a longtime familiar phrase of hers.  Nothing much seemed out of the ordinary other than her parting words: "I hope you have a good life, Lori.  And I hope you'll be good."  I chuckled and cringed because those sweet but unfamiliar words felt very final.  

As we enter the room, my escorts assure me Gma has refused the dinner that sits untouched at her bedside, then they close the door and leave us.  I am thankful for that too.  No admonitions to keep my distance.  No restrictions on time.  No hovering to hear our "conversation."  Just the two of us alone together.

I pull the institutional chair as close to her beside as I can.  She lies quiet and largely unresponsive, either unaware of or unable to acknowledge my presence, so I strike up a rather lengthy one-sided conversation about summers spent living in her home, of finding her every single day without fail sitting on the couch with her Bible open, of discovering her marked up copy of The Letters of John Newton.  When she passed that book on to me, I added my own markings to hers, reading it so many times it fell apart.   Our lives are bound up together in that disheveled little paperback full of amazing graces.  

We humans surmise much about what does and doesn't happen in our loved ones' final hours but, truth is, it remains - like so much in this earthbound experience - a mystery.  Are my words for her or for me?  I don't know.  But I imagine what might comfort her if she can actually hear me.  I reassure her that her 4 sons are strong and healthy and will be fine...that they love her and they love Jesus because she taught them to and showed them how.  That of her 48 grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great great grandchildren, all who are old enough to know her, love and admire her.  And of course, I remind her that her Sweet Daughter Riesa is already safe in Jesus' "big beautiful house"  and she will soon be joining her there in the presence of the Lord.  I tell her it is OK to go now...to enter into that joy...that she has done everything she has been called to do, that her work here is finished, and that Jesus will receive her with open arms and "Well done, good and faithful servant." 

I recite Psalms of comfort and hope (23, 27, 91, 121) and sing old hymns, sometimes knowing, sometimes guessing at the ones she loves.  Though she never fixes her gaze on me, there are moments I sense she is aware of my presence and hears.  I am beyond grateful for those 2 hours.  For the opportunity to hold her hands, to speak words of gratitude for her life, to kiss her forehead, and to say goodbye.  It is a great and unexpected gift.

As I doff my PPE at the exit, I'm reminded that though Grandma will soon shed her perishable earthly garment, she will be raised with an imperishable, immortal garment.  "Therefore, stand firm.  Let nothing move you.  Give yourself fully to the work of the Lord because your labor is not in vain."

Rest in Peace, Shirley Ann Waggoner.  May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

Doubt, Illusions, Pooh Bear, and Crowns

I've been questioning God more than usual the last two weeks.  (Don't worry...he can take it. He's a wee bit bigger than my doubt.) The only way I know to express my angst is by outright asking him "why?" and "how long?" and "what are you trying to accomplish?"  Recently, these questions have centered around the prolonging of my Grandma's life.  She's 97.  She's lived a beautiful painful life as a flawed saint and servant. She's tired. She's ready. 

And..she's ALONE.  

She's alone because we are afraid and illogical and silly.  And because we fear Death,  we separate those nearest it from all that is familiar and known...from the remaining fragments of their history that give meaning to their existence.    

It's true that I only visit my Grandma about 3 times a year - which always feels inadequate - but I haven't seen her for almost 7 months now, and it's too long.  

Today, I was notified that she (and several other residents) tested positive for COVID (in spite of rigid adherence to the protocols).  She's currently asymptomatic and if anyone is stubborn enough to kick this thing to the curb, it would be Shirley Waggoner.   

I am grateful for her health and long life.

I am grateful that her memory is weak, so she may not feel our absence as fully as she otherwise would.  

I give thanks for psychotropic meds that probably make her feel pretty darn happy at times.

I'm thankful that, today at least, she's Unworried.  Unaware.  And many of her basic needs are met. 

I'm thankful for wise words from Pooh Bear ;-)

But I'm also angry.  Not punch-the-wall-angry, but sad-angry.  I'm sad that, whether or not COVID takes her, THIS is how it ends for her and for us.  This madness of fear.  This illusion that we can control something we can't even see and clearly don't understand.  I suspect that the Lord who sits in the heavens chuckles much like we would at a toddler who thinks he can perform the impossible. "Awww....isn't that cute?"  But I digress...

Grandma didn't answer my call today, but had the wherewithal to listen to my voicemail and call me back.  She called me by name and even seemed to know who I was, though she didn't recognize my sons - or even her own - when I named them.  She sounded "chipper" and described her monotonous days and nursing home food as "not so bad!"  

It was a sweet, brief chat that ended with words that undid me.  "I love you, Lori.  I hope you have a good life."  It sounded like goodbye.

She has run a good race. She has kept the faith. If we can't at least share a final hug, I hope her finish line is near.  She will wear the Crown of Righteousness with the dignity befitting a daughter of The King.   

Through New Eyes: Part 1

There was a time not so long ago when I would have rolled my eyes at the current conversation around racism.  It pains me to admit that, but it's the truth.  It wasn't because I hated black people or thought their lives didn't matter, but because my view of the world, my knowledge, my framework, and my experiences were even more limited than they are today.  Should I be ashamed of that?  I don't know...my life experiences were what they were and had left me without any context for understanding.  

Those experiences are STILL limited.  The framework is still being built.  I have not arrived.  But my knowledge is growing, and I have a lens of new experiences through which I can see more clearly and listen with greater empathy.  

So, what exactly changed?  How did I move from a place of indifference and scorn to a place of interest and engagement?  There's only 1 answer to that question...and shocking as it may be, it was not through a piece of profound journalism, or an activist's speech, or some compelling political platform, or even through a social media rant.  I KNOW?!?!  What else IS there??

The change in me came through RELATIONSHIPS.  Plain and simple.  Real relationships with real people.

The first of those was a friendship that developed only 6 years ago with a gentleman I'll call W.  W was a smart, articulate, funny, insightful, and deeply caring coworker.  Because he was also full of confidence - ok for real...he's a retired Air Force pilot so I might as well call it what it was - because he was full of swagger, he wasn't put off by my strong personality and we became fast friends.   

As you may recall, 6 years ago (2014) brought us Michael Brown and soon after, Colin Kaepernick (and other very public racially-charged incidents, but these were the two we talked of most).  For the first time in my life I had a black friend who wasn't afraid of my very sheltered white perspective.  Nor did he write me off as a lost cause simply because I didn't "get it."    Because we liked, loved, and trusted each other enough to reveal our truths and to hear each other, I could ask blunt questions without fear of offending, and I could listen to him because his experiences, his life, and his actions were 100% aligned with his words.  Those words worked on me...hell...they STILL work on me today.  I'm still changing because of his words...words that I couldn't truly hear from a stranger but COULD hear from a friend. As much as I imagine my perspective pained him, W was winsome and thoughtful in challenging me.  If he had shouted angry words in my face or demeaned me in his refutations, I'd be the same person today I was then.  Relationship doesn't allow us to shout one another down...distance does.  Relationship demands that we speak with regard for the other's history and humanity...screens allow us to depersonalize the conversation.  Relationship demands patience.  My perspective didn't change overnight, but W planted seeds that with time and watering and light, have begun to grow and produce fruit.  

The next influence was a set of relationships that began in 2017 when I worked for a brief, but impactful, time at the Christian Activity Center in East St. Louis.  The 30-year veteran leader at this youth center was a dedicated man who immediately began schooling me on the history of East STL.  It became abundantly clear that if I wanted to work effectively in this atmosphere, I had to listen to, read, watch, and otherwise immerse myself in the history of this people and their place.  The desire to grow in these genuine relationships sent me on an educational pursuit to connect these beautiful, resilient people to their tortured past and painful present.  

That education peeled the scales from my eyes and collapsed walls around my heart.  It demanded that I no longer avert my eyes from the ugly truths of how this city, these neighborhoods, these former "Samuel Gompers" homes, and their inhabitants have come to be what they are today.   In this process of education, I began to see for the first time how SYSTEMS create and/or sustain prejudice.  I began to see how we build systems that inherently favor me and mine, whether unconsciously (due to limited perspective or our natural bent toward self-preservation) or consciously (with the known intent of holding back, stopping, or eliminating the progress of The Other); whether overtly (by crushing him to the ground with burdens too heavy to bear) or covertly (by ensuring he feels small and unworthy of questioning the way things are).  

I began to see how my old ways of thinking were not only naive, but misguided and passively reinforcing the brokenness.  I began to understand the power of symbols in honoring the painful narratives of the past to the hurt and detriment of my brothers and sisters...my neighbors.  I had to start letting go of long-held ideas and assumptions and BELIEFS.  My worldview had to be dismantled.  As I've addressed previously, that is always an uncomfortable place.  Certainty *feels* much safer, but living in untruth is never a safe place to be, no matter how secure it FEELS. 

Another change happened in my life leading up to the development of these relationships.  I went through an experience of deep suffering that included injustices perpetrated by a church system in which men are valued more highly than women.  (I have been largely silent on this, because until recently, I still cared how I was perceived and was afraid of the consequences...I am no longer bound by those fears.  I also know these men are adept at justifying - even moralizing - their unjust actions, and in doing so have no qualms about manipulating partial truths into convincing arguments that are easily digested by those who need to believe them.  But distance and long years of wrestling have freed me to see clearly and name actions for what they were/are.)  The point: experiencing systemic injustice which not only sustains but guards the status quo, and watching those with authority circle the wagons to protect existing power structures and control the narrative, not only opened my eyes to the REALITY of unjust systems, but also allowed me to enter the arena with a new kind of empathy I may not otherwise have known.  I suppose I owe a debt of gratitude to those men who inadvertently gave me a beautiful gift...the gift of open eyes which then led to an open heart.  Pain and rejection be damned - I wouldn't trade that for anything. (note added: for the sake of people I love, let me clarify that this did not involve Covenant Presbyterian Church!)

While that experience informed my current viewpoint, the bottom line is, it probably would not have not have translated in application to racial injustice APART FROM THE RELATIONSHIPS I mentioned above. The experience was a *gateway* that put me on a path to hearing with understanding.  

For my friends who are in the place I was a few years ago: I still have "what about" questions that remain unanswered to this day, and the more I listen to loud public voices who address these questions, the more conflicted I become ...UNTIL, I talk to real everyday people in real everyday life...UNTIL I reengage in RELATIONSHIP.  The voices that matter most are those without a larger agenda...and I mean ANY larger agenda!  I don't just mean the Marxists or the social justice warriors, I also mean the Constitutionalists and the self-reliance warriors.  These voices want us to choose a side, support a cause, click a link, bolster a movement, or dig our heels in where we've always stood and call it principled conviction. ALWAYS ask yourself what the speaker, organization, or movement stands to gain from his/her position, even when - no...ESPECIALLY when - their position matches your own.  

You see, when the conversation turns ugly and everyone is hurling hatred and anger, it's tempting to abandon the conversation, to throw our hands in the air and give up.  It's too hard or too violent or not getting us anywhere except further away from each other.  BUT...when I turn off the voices "out there" and I talk to Joe Coworker, his interest is not an ideology.  His interest isn't power or money.  His interest is his own and his children's dignity...their ability to move through the world as FULLY human...without judgement, assumptions, suspicion, scorn, or contempt.  He simply wants the privilege of being given the benefit of the doubt.  That is a conversation I cannot abandon...nor do I want to.  The voice of Joe Coworker grounds me and focuses the conversation where it ought to be.  It wrests it from the sphere of public discourse marked by incivility, to the very personal realm of loving my flesh-n-blood, looking-me-in-the-eyes neighbor.    

I firmly believe the only life-altering way forward is not education, civil discourse, politics, voting, protests, or laws - these can all be helpful pieces of the puzzle, but real change will only grow out of RELATIONSHIPS.  It's in the daily, intentional, unspectacular, ordinary, unsung sharing of ourselves with one another; the willingness to reveal ourselves; to see, hear, and embrace The Other with open hearts; and to move forward together in brotherly love.