Pass It On

At some early point in my grandparents' marriage, my grandfather bought my grandmother a fur coat. This has always been a fact that fascinated me. Having never known them when they were young and in love, it seemed to me an act so out of character, so at odds with what I knew of them. They were the ultimate practical midwesterners, a farm family whose values of thrift, hard work, and utility saw them through the Great Depression and eked out a living from their land for their family's future. The coat was beautiful. I don't know what kind of fur it was--nothing exotic, I'm sure, most likely rabbit. It had a burgundy lining that was a satiny material, and the one time I put it on, it slipped on so effortlessly and felt so light. And I always imagined that my frugal grandmother, with her warm, sentimental heart, when she wore it, must have felt completely wrapped in such extravagant love.

My grandparents' move from their enormous farmhouse to the tiny apartment where they spent their final years necessitated a major downsizing of their possessions, and the coat was one thing that had to go. As it turned out, there was an acquaintance of the family who had a special skill--she was able to take fur coats and turn them into teddy bears. So my grandmother's coat became several very warm, very soft brown teddy bears. The satiny ribbons around their necks were made from the coat's burgundy lining. Most went to family members--Grandma and Grandpa kept one.

I don't know for sure what Grandma did with it, I only know it was on her bed as long as I can remember. That doesn't mean she slept with it, but I like to think she did. I hate to think of her sleeping alone. I have always hated sleeping alone, even when I was a child. I'm raising at least one child who hates to sleep alone too. After the divorce, when his father had been out of the house for only weeks, it was a first line of attack. "Mom, I've been thinking. Your bed is made for two people, and I really wouldn't want you to be lonely." No. You are not moving into my room. "But Mom, wouldn't it be great if we could just use my room as a playroom? It could be so neat and organized!"  Good try, but still no. I suppose some day he will eventually get too old, but in the meantime, while I feign obligatory mild annoyance at being occasionally woken in the middle of the night for a storm, or a nightmare, or some other reason, I am still just as satisfied that there is space for him to lie down in my room until morning.

There is something telling to me about that moment at the end of the day, when all that's outside retreats and we are left with only our nearest and dearest, pulled close in the place of both our greatest vulnerability and greatest safety. I like to think that on those long nights after my grandfather was gone, it was the bear that kept Grandma company, with the same warm love as the coat he bought her always had. When Grandma died, her bear came to me, and it sits on my bed too. She may not have slept with it, I guess, but I often do. I think about how it must have been for her, sleeping without her friend and partner of 73 years, and how I hope the bear was like having a hug from him again. I think about how, for me, it is like having a hug from her. I wonder, what are the tokens of extravagant love my boys will have from me, the talismans that will keep them company in the night when I am gone? And maybe Grandma and I are both too old to sleep with a teddy bear, but I know she wouldn't have minded about a thing like that, and these things I also know--there is love in the world, and we are not alone. And we must keep passing it on.

Who's Your Daddy

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets

and stones those who are sent to her! How often

I wanted to gather your children together, the way

a hen gathers her chicks under her wings,

and you were unwilling."    ~Matthew 23:37

The recent days in America have been difficult ones. Last Tuesday's election results plunged a good portion of the nation into a fog of disbelief, fright, and mourning that is proving difficult for the other half of the country to understand and, failing understanding, to sympathize with or even tolerate. On social media and in other forums around the country, phrases like "crybaby", "whining", "sore loser", and "suck it up" have begun to loom large in the national conversation.

For Christians, this has looked slightly different. (Although, unfortunately, not as different as one might rightfully expect.) A bit less name-calling has happened, but instead there have been repeated admonitions to remember that God is on the throne. For the most part, I've heard these delivered with what I believe to be the best of intentions--reassuring those who fear, and comforting those who mourn. But there is an underlying assumption here, and it concerns me. The implication is that to be angry, afraid, or sad in this situation demonstrates a spiritual weakness; that if Christians really believed that God is in control, if they were truly placing their trust in him, there would be no place for their grief.

To be honest, my household has been struggling with the election results, and for me, the outcome has been cause for immense disappointment and sorrow. I don't believe, however, that a lack of trust in God can be blamed. It seems to me that for Christ-followers, a devout faith may actually be the basis for those feelings.

Many people and groups who have been historically (and are still) at risk in this country have found in our President-elect someone who causes them to fear for their safety, their welfare, their families, and even their lives. In this last week, they have not been consumed with political disagreement, but with the questions, "Am I safe? Are my children safe?"  The call of the church is to be the hands and feet of Christ to just these people--the forgotten, the marginalized, the disenfranchised, the stranger. Christ has charged us with the task of being his ministers of reconciliation, and he tells us that it is our love, more than any other characteristic, that will be our testimony of him to the world. The church has embraced Donald Trump, for many and varied reasons, and some even reluctantly; however, the fact of that embrace means that all of those reasons have been judged more important than his demeaning, threatening, and endangering those that we are supposed to love, defend, and advocate for, and this failure to put love for others ahead of our own concerns has undone me. Here are some of the reasons I grieve.

For people who call themselves followers of Christ to have so failed to love according to his example has done perhaps irreparable damage to our credibility as a church and our testimony for Christ. My sadness is great that, far from carrying out the ministry with which we've been charged, we have most likely driven many away from the church, and even away from Christ.

My heart breaks for those who have been embittered, disillusioned, shocked, and angered by the actions of a church they believed was there to love and support them. Even for those outside the church, I think this expectation existed, but for those within the church, the betrayal has been particularly sharp. Someone has attacked their personhood, placed them in imminent danger, and we, their brothers and sisters, have not risen to their defense--have not even considered it a dealbreaker for doing business.

Most of all, I have mourned for a church who seems, in some respects, to have lost her way--to have traded her spiritual birthright of eternal purpose for the earthly trinkets of power, comfort, and privilege. We have become inextricably tangled in the web of our own desires, priorities, and self-interest; we have ignored the call to stand apart and be witnesses to a separate truth. Honestly, I did not realize we had come here.

The reactions that were sparked in about half of you on reading that last paragraph are yet another reason for my grief. This election has shown that we are not only a country, but a church sharply divided. (And white Christians, we must be honest here--when 90% of our black brothers and sisters have voted against someone that 80% of us have voted for, we cannot continue to talk blithely of racial reconciliation and being one body in Christ, and pretend that this division is not a gaping chasm along racial lines.)  The kingdom of God in which every tribe and nation worships together in harmony is a promise of the future, but those of us who have opened the door and accepted the invitation to walk through should understand that it is meant to begin among us right now. We are intended to be living in that kingdom, but we are so far away.

 

And I believe this, all of it, grieves the heart of God as well--our pain and struggle, our failure, our fallenness, our foolishness, our contentious disunity. I do not doubt for a second that he is in control, as always. But he is generous with grace, adamant about free will, and we have chosen our own path, one that brings harm to ourselves and others, all of whom he loves. And like all of humanity, all the fallen creation, I long in earnest for a better world. My heart suffers together with every other in the agony of childbirth, as we look with expectation to a day when what is broken will be made whole again, and we lament with inconsolable grief for the time and distance we see still to cross.

So yes, make no mistake--my Jesus is King. But he is a king whose fatherly heart has been broken by the grief, fear, oppression, and self-destructive faithlessness of his people since time before time. Don't make the mistake of shaming those whose hearts, however briefly, follow his example.

Step

"Change has to come for life to struggle forward."

  ~Helen Hollick, The Kingmaking

I wrote, some months ago, about the new reality that can be created in our lives by "hit-and-run" experiences.  In that post, I talked about how the survivors of these experiences must work to get to our feet and walk away, to live in the new "after". The thing that is necessary to do so, I said, is constant forward motion. 

Sometimes that forward motion comes in sudden, drastic jerks and leaps--sometimes in small, subtle increments--but either way, as we put one foot in front of the other, we move farther and farther away from the conditions, relationships, and surroundings of the past, and into a new and changing landscape.

In the wake of life-altering moments, many changes tend to come in rapid succession, and often they are unwelcome, unwanted, and even unpleasant. When this happens, we tend to look for refuge in stability. We neither want, nor make, any unnecessary changes—we have all we can do just to adapt to the ones that have been thrust upon us. And for a time, this resistance provides a good and necessary protection.

The refuge of stability has been my watchword for the last four years. I have kept my house, raised my boys, done my job. I’ve devoted myself to the making of a home, the welfare of my family, and the things that are mine to sustain and care for. I have minded my business. But the present becomes the past with surprising speed, and almost before it seems possible, we survivors can find ourselves living in what we once--seemingly such a short time ago--considered the unknowable future. And in the future, where we are now residents, change must come.

Many of you have asked me, over the last couple of years, about seeing someone new. You have known that I’m not out looking. I’ve told some of you—probably all of you—“I’m too old to date.” You’ve argued with me. (And I love you too, kind people.) But I meant it. To be clear, what I have meant by this is that I am no longer in a season of life where it is appropriate, desirable, or in any way appealing to seek out a stranger, whose character, history, and integrity are unknown to me, for the purpose of starting a relationship. I am not a young woman with my life ahead of me and nothing to lose. Too many of my years have already passed, and the ones that remain are too precious to gamble away in that manner--or maybe I simply understand their value better than I did when I was young. Besides, I am no longer traveling alone. I have my boys, and not only do I no longer have the time or the interest to spend in discovery, but any risk to my traveling companions is an unacceptable one. Any possible new relationship for me has meant someone who would be a known quantity--in character, in faith, in integrity, and as a friend and advocate for both me and my children. But I have believed, in the past four years of living and parenting alone, that in the future there would somehow be room for a new relationship in my life. In some ways, I suppose the future is where I expected it to remain. However, the future, almost without my knowing it, has crept up on me.

Stepping out, however slowly, into change, is a good development. Moving forward is what accomplishes the work of healing. But the work of healing, for all of us, is messy, and even when it brings long-term rewards, they are not without accompanying risks. Confusion, fear, grief, and pain are the companions of the joy, gratitude, and healing that are within reach if we can embrace the change in front of us.

It’s easy to understand, I think, how intimidating the future can sometimes seem. Navigating the unknown is always uncertain, often confusing, and sometimes downright scary. For example, the practical considerations in learning to approach an existing friendship in a new way are puzzling. A lot of odd conversations happen, especially around events of common interest, or with mutual friends, that we are now going to together, but both would have attended separately in any case. (My favorite? “How Will We Know We Are At This Thing Together”. Notice who we are concerned about making it clear to. We just do not know how to do this.) But change creates complexities for everyone, and this means that in addition to the confusion and uncertainty of finding a new path forward for myself, there can be anxiety and even fear when it comes to involving others. There is something intimidating about initiating a change in the way others understand my situation; and I’m discovering it can be even more complicated for friends and family to absorb the shift in an existing relationship than it might be to simply accept the presence of a whole new person in my life. Other people’s reactions to change in our lives can be a scary-seeming unknown that rivals, or even exceeds, our own.

In the face of all this, staying safely in the status quo can seem appealing. But not only would that mean missing out on what the future might have to offer, it’s only in moving forward that we discover the hidden things that have been holding us back. The older I get, the more I learn that approximately 73% of conquering fear is just figuring out what you are afraid of. In my case, I have been both surprised and alarmed to discover how much I have believed that moving into the future would somehow demonstrate proof of a lack of commitment to the past. I remind myself forcibly of someone who has suffered the death of a person close to them, and who fears that letting go of their grief will say to the world—and to themselves—that they never really cared for the one they have lost. I have had to realize, as I find myself waiting with fear for that judgement to come, that it exists only in my own heart. It has been difficult work to learn that, unless I can free myself of its expectation, staying safely sheltered in the sameness of the present is simply a way of making my life a shrine to the past.

And the past—oh, the past. Braving the uncertainty of the future and rejecting the false security of the present can be nothing to facing the pain of the past. Healing from old hurts is difficult enough when they are the only things in view, but they can bring pain in a whole new way when they are thrown into sharp contrast with new experiences. That first confirmation of a reality that has never been yours is like nothing else I know of; little compares to the surprise, the disbelief, and yes, I might even say the wonder--but few things can cause you to realize more deeply the extent of your loss. As a result, every moment of joy that comes with a step forward into the new and good can bring with it deep accompanying sadness over wounds inflicted and time lost; tears of gratitude are often equally mixed with those of grief. And yet, as always, there is no way out of our past but through. Full healing can never come until we have discovered the full extent of our wounds. And often, it's our very woundedness that refines us for the life that follows, deepening our wisdom, and heightening our appreciation.

Long after we have picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off, and walked away from the wreckage, the promise of what might be requires us to keep moving, forward through struggle, uncertainty, and fear, feeling our way into the unknown, and ready to meet whatever obstacles we find there. If that's to be possible, this is what we have to know--our past doesn't need to define our present, but we can use what it teaches us to work toward our future. And thankfully, we don't have to have it all figured out to take a step.

On Politics And Promises

I have a favor to ask. But before you get nervous, don't worry, what I have to say may not apply to you. For the moment, I want to speak only to my own faith community, to those who consider themselves Christians of any denomination, and are therefore my spiritual family. Brothers and sisters, this is for us.

I try, so hard, not to talk about politics. But this year, things are different. They have escalated to the point of being unavoidable, and there is something I really need to ask. It's about the way we are talking during this election season.

You may be voting, or not voting, for any political candidate for any of the following reasons:

• National security 
• Globalism or nationalism 
• Constitutional interpretation 
• Tax policy 
• Education 
• Military spending or deployment 
• Fiscal conservativism 
• More/less expansive role of government 
• Second amendment issues 
• Border security 
• Healthcare 
• Supreme Court concerns

I'd like to ask you to remember, as you speak publicly about your choice, that all of the above are political issues, not spiritual ones.  There is no Scripture anywhere that dictates a stance on these matters; they are subjects of liberty, not of doctrine. They are important issues, to be sure, and your opinion on them is important also, but it is just that--your opinion. Be intentional about making the distinction.

Also, when you talk about opponents of your candidate, or you disagree with others who support a different candidate, please do so with a respect that is becoming of you, whether or not you think it is deserved by the person you're speaking of or with. Choose substance and compassion over insults and mockery. Avoid name-calling. Don't openly revel in things that cause harm or pain, even to those with whom you disagree. Be intentional about using language that shows your allegiance to your King, not your candidate.

You may be wondering why I think I can ask you this. And as a sister in our shared faith, I would have ample grounds to implore you not to jeopardize the reputation and integrity of the church, by binding her to such concerns, or doing so with loose and unbecoming talk. But the reason I am asking is actually much more personal.

You see, you are helping me raise my children. You are the community of faith with whom I have surrounded them, the models I have given them for growing up to be faithful men of God in a broken and hurting world. We are a team, you and I. This business of raising them is hard work, and I can't possibly do it on my own; it really does take a village, and you are the village we live in. And what I want for them is to be strong and healthy, to be independent and mature. I want to raise men who think deeply and carefully about the important things, and consider all points of view. I want them to know that there is sometimes more than one right opinion to have about things, and there is always more than one worth understanding. I want them to learn from you, not what to think, but how. I want them to use the language of love and respect, not the language of hate and fear.  I want them to cling, tenaciously, to the essential truth of the Gospel--which means knowing that the way of Christ is grace over law, compassion over dogma--and when what they're hearing isn't Gospel, I want them to know the difference.

They will learn these things, not just by looking to me, but by looking to you. When you conflate political opinion with spiritual wisdom, you confuse and mislead them. When you talk to and about others in ways that we would correct and discipline in the classroom or the schoolyard, you invite them to do the same. These are the ways we break their trust, let them down, lead them astray. We cannot continue.

I understand it is a lot to ask, for both of us, but this is our responsibility to each other. This is what you promised me, what we promised each other, when we accepted each other into this family, this body of Christ. When I stood there before you as a new mother, hopeful and terrified, with my babies in my arms, I asked for help for a task that was beyond me, asked for a host of mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, to nurture and teach and raise my sons in the faith, and the preacher asked for the ones who would watch over this child, and all of you answered with one voice, "We will." You pledged yourselves to me, and I trusted you with my little ones, who are little no more. Please, church. Keep your promise.