Jesus' List

I spend my days surrounded by literal and virtual stacks of regulations, rules designed to protect and ensure public funding goes to those defined as the least of these in our communities.  There are both clear and opaque moments in making those funding determinations, overseeing projects and progress attempting to correct economic and social disparities embedded in the very fabric of the historic building I work in, packed into the earth under the dilapidated buildings that housed and fed and were the center of the African-American community until the forward movement of the City cut them off from the white establishment’s move back to further segregation - couched in language of urban renewal.  Sins for which we will continue to bear the consequences for generations to come.

In some ways, it’s work that attempts to decide who’s been left out the most – who has paid the most for an economic system that has rewarded some and penalized others for generations.  Work that seeks out partners who can fix it, or can at least try to, and do so with some measurable result.  As in, good ideas are awesome but if they do not result in someone or some part of the community gaining a foothold that has been inaccessible then it is just a good idea and doesn’t mean much of anything.  All kinds of folks come to the funding table, from those who have led pioneering efforts for 30 years to those so desperate for practical evidence of hope in their neighborhoods they are willing to take on the ridiculous burden of public funding compliance for a handful of dollars to get a fledging idea off the ground.

But then I go to church.  And one of my pastors talks about Jesus’ guest list.  And that guest list is not limited to the people that I want to limit my people to.  That guest list – the one Jesus says matters most – includes more than the least of these and those who want to give their lives to lessen the gap between the least and the most.  Jesus’ guest list has everyone on it.  So Jesus pisses everyone off.  The entitled have to make room for the poor, and the poor have to make room for the rich.  And those in the middle have to stretch both ways.

Not unlike the birthday party we had for the just-turned-6-year-old in our household this past weekend.  She bears the burden of her parents casting a wide net of inviting everyone so no one feels left out, so it was an amalgamation of school classmates and family folks and church friends.  One kid attempted, every time, to open all the presents.  Another took all the bows and pitched a fit when our kid grabbed one back.  Several were simply happy to be there.  The 6.5-year-old who also shares our household made sure I remembered she was still older every minute she could while also delighting in the celebration of her half-sister, and the foster baby charmed everyone in sight.  The uncle and grandmother on hand support our whole family, and celebrate with us on all occasions.  The aunts present did their best to enter our diverse world - while squirming in their seats - but also providing food to show what their words struggle to say.

And so I sit surrounded by well-meaning (mostly) regulations and Jesus’ guest list and find myself exactly where I am supposed to be. Walking in the tension of the well-meaning, giving it all I can to attempt to change course on long-standing wrongs, and constantly reminded of the Table that is, truly, open to us all.  Messy.  Beautiful.  Hard.  Ridiculously time-consuming.  Potentially inching toward the Place where all are one.   All I can say is thank you.

The Disguise of Our Lives: A Letter to My Parents

 
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Dear Mom and Dad,

What a day Sunday was.  I got to sit in the church sanctuary that has been a second home for you for more than 20 years today and be completely surrounded by the love that has embraced y’all all those years.  It was a packed room that celebrated Mom’s steadfast and remarkable gift of music to so many.  There were a lot of tears.  Mine included.  A whole lot of joy.  Including mine, my wife’s, our kids as they ran around making sure they could keep Nana and Papa in their sights and be as close as possible to you at all times – even when the bell choir was playing and we had to keep them in their seats so Mom could direct without little hands and arms reaching up for some Nana love and attention.

Mom and Dad with Abby nearly 6 (!) years ago)

These last several weeks the girls ask us, nearly daily now, when you are going to be here so that you can see them more and not have to drive “all the way from the other house.”  To say that we are looking forward to you living nearby all the time is an understatement at best.  And I have also known, at least on a common-sense level, that leaving a home of 22 years must be a very big deal. (If I ever manage to live in one place for 22 years, I will understand better.  Since you didn’t land there until you are older than I am now, I have faith I might land somewhere, someday, too.  Perhaps I already have, here in these mountains our family returned to year after year.)  Sunday, we also felt the grief of those who have loved you in the place you are leaving.  You did, truly, land there.  Put down roots in all the real ways – in the good and the bad and the everything-in-between seasons.

And in those 22 years, we – me, and the two of you – have had our share of tears.  More angst than any of us would have preferred, more misunderstanding than any of us deserved.  I know that, now.  That it was angst, or more likely sorrow, at the chasms that opened between us as I tried to find my way, as I desperately sought a place to feel at home and safe and known.  You wanted to understand.  To help.  I know that, now.

Dad's birthday August 2014, with all 3 granddaughters: Abby, Zoe and Marley

It is your steadfastness, your relentless commitment to your faith, your unwavering “yes” to church on Sunday and music rehearsals on Monday and leadership meetings and Sunday School lessons and grace before every meal, your literal sharing of time, talent and treasure…your love for your children, even when we wandered in ways beyond what you understood: your witness to the compassion and grace of God that makes every community you land in better because you were there and made it home.

My kids know it.  Feel it.  Delight in it, running to you with dancing eyes and wide-open arms for the Nana and Papa they cannot wait to have here, near them and not “just visiting.”  My wife knows it.  Soaks it in, reaches for it with a gratitude born from too many years of more than enough judgment for anyone’s lifetime. 

Fr. Richard Rohr says something like this, “God, in the end, comes disguised as our lives.”  Witnessing the love of your 22-year-community made me realize how many thank-you’s I have not said, how many moments I have been aware that I know what I know because you are my mom and dad -- and neglected to tell you how much of a difference that has made in all that I do.   God does, in the end, and in every beginning and in-between come to me, to us, in all the mess and all the beauty we’ve managed to create together.  And I know, now, that in all the places I have found a home that I always have – and always will – be at home wherever you are.

I love you, Mom and Dad.  More than words could ever say.  Thanks for loving me back.

                                                                        Your grateful oldest,

                                                                                    Heather

Vision held open in the dark

We planted a garden in May, not long before we trekked across the country with our beautiful and precocious 5-year-olds to get married, to laugh and play in the gratitude and wonderment of discovering a life together.   It was lots of hard work in our back yard, literally spending hours pulling up deep-rooted weeds that would choke out any new growth.   We mapped out our hopes for that garden, went to the local nursery to buy seeds and good soil, till-ed up that ground and helped it become something new.  

 And then we left for the Pacific Coast.   The rocky cliffs and crashing waves embraced us all as we promised to face the future together, as we enjoyed the beauty of its beaches, ancient trees, sea animals frolicking around us we kayaked along its shores.  It was a week packed full of joy, tears (joy and the occasional 5-year-old angst) and laughter.  We came home to a sweet celebration put on by friends that shared in our joy, a garden that needed weeding, and a depth of contentment neither of us have known before.

Very soon after, the summer turned into a season that put every one of those promises to the test.  It became a time of deep and wrenching loss that re-ordered the hopes that went into the soil with those tiny seeds in May.  Nothing went as we had thought or wanted or dreamed it would.

        Whatever is foreseen in joy

            Must be lived out from day to day.

            Vision held open in the dark

            By our ten thousand days of work.

            Harvest will fill the barn; for that

            The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

            And yet no leaf or grain is filled

            By work of ours; the field is tilled

            And left to grace. That we may reap,

            Great work is done while we’re asleep.

            When we work well, a Sabbath mood

            Rests on our day, and finds it good.    –Wendell Berry

In these very beginning days of August, we are exhausted.  Worn out from the ten thousand hours of vigil and grief.  It is the certainty of the promises we made on that rocky cliff that have held us up, accompanied by the unending prayers of those who love us.  And today, walking out to the garden, making my way through the overgrowth of the garden to see what might have preserved, we find this bounty of harvest.  It’s a good morning.  We are held by all that has been left to Grace.   

Caged Birds and Clouds of Witnesses

 

I do not know why the caged bird sings.  Not in any way to the extent that Maya Angelou did, to have been caged in by extreme brokenness and abuse and trauma and political will beyond my control – and then to live as witness to a relentless hope birthed by scars formed out of too many unyielding flames.  I am a white, privileged woman born to highly educated parents who has been afforded every opportunity and more to be anything and everything I want to be.  Yes, it is true that I face discrimination in my family configuration.  And my experiences are a fleck of dust in the context of slavery, the Jim Crow laws of the South that still inform perception and reality in my home state and the ludicrous over-representation of people of color in prison, below-cost-of-living jobs, limited access to education and substandard housing.

Maya Angelou was – and is – one of the Sages who began to penetrate my naïve consciousness while I grew up on college campuses in the South.  Her words were beautiful, devastating, encouraging, challenging and empowering.  The formidable and gracious space her presence created, even on a stage several rows from me, simply made me want to be more.  I wanted to be more attentive, in tune with the pulse of humanity's breadth and spurred to action and hope by the messy intersection and co-existence of brokenness and hope.

I do not know if I have achieved any of them, those budding aspirations she began all those years ago when her words and presence began their work in me.  But I am working toward it, still.  The news of her death reached me – quite literally through an NPR broadcast – as I drove through her hometown of Winston-Salem today following a day of discussion and debate about what we need to end homelessness in North Carolina.

My faith, and its ancient texts, talks about the clouds of witnesses that surround us.  Witnesses to encourage.  To empower.  To tell the truth even when that truth is crushing.  To push us to change everything.  And hold out the promise and power of relentless hope.

Deep sadness at the loss of Maya Angelou’s witness on this side of God’s great embrace. Overwhelming gratitude for the undying legacy and truth she leaves us.  "Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear, I rise, " she says.  And so she did. And is.

Never Waste an Uphill

 

I try to run every now and then.  Or, really, to jog.  I don’t have much interest in a flat-out run.  Even when I played competitive sports, I was the last to the line in every sprint.  When I first started attempting to put jogging into my life on a regular basis as an adult, a friend told me to never waste a downhill – to always run a downhill to get a breather.  Here in the southern Appalachians, there are a whole lot of hills.  There is one really great flat run in town by the French Broad River, and I always feel like such a better runner when I get the chance to follow that path.  But the more accessible run – the one that is just outside my front door through the streets of West Asheville – that one has hills.  Today was a day I got a couple of hours to myself, and so I went out my front door in my running shoes and began to do my meandering jog.  It felt great. As I reached my turn around point, I realized why – I had pretty much been running downhill for 25 minutes.

Like thousands of other people, today is a complicated day for me.  Full of angst and grief at not being the mom I had always wanted to be for my Abigail, feeling her absence more keenly as parades of moms and daughters walk past me at church, and stand in line for brunch at the neighborhood eateries and the long stretch of hours until Tuesday afternoon and I see her again.  She taught me, and still does, that I can be a mom despite – and maybe because of – my multiple levels of baggage and failure.  And at the same time, as I sat with tears streaming in church today, there are acres of gratitude for my Marley, an unplanned for and completely unexpected gift of a child who I get to love and parent and learn from in a hundred ways each day.  She, too, reminds me that it is not my failures that define me, but instead the expansive grace and love that forms me in my very real and messy and chaotic humanness.

I think there are probably not many downhills for very many folks that do their best to show up, in all of their humanness, for life.   Certainly there are not for me.  It’s when I am going uphill, I realized today, that I pay a whole lot more attention to what is around me – ‘cause I need every bit of it to make it to the top.  A spot of shade, a more gentle span of road, an encouraging smile from the guy mowing his grass.   A second chance, even, at love and marriage and parenthood in the climb out of the ashes of other dreams.  

And the 25 minutes uphill to get back home today?  Well, I walked the last 15.  And was grateful for every step.

Choosing Church

 I joined a church today.  And not because I was the Pastor, or married to the Pastor.  But because I chose to.  It is the first time in my life that I have done so as an adult (or as a child attached to parents who made the choice) that was not attached to a vocation calling for either me or my spouse.  And, yet, it is entirely that as well – our vocation as a family – that led us to the place we have inhabited on Sunday mornings since September.  Each week, each email, each call or conversation I have thought to myself, “this could be home.”  Simultaneously, we have as a family said, “these are our people.” 

 

And we are not there each Sunday.  We are the family I was often frustrated with when I was the Pastor – absent sometimes for 3 weeks in a row when Sunday School needed extra helpers and we as parents needed support and worship was sparse and we were part of the reason why.  Our life as a family, with two more than full-time working parents and children who get sick at inconvenient times, and sometimes with so much else going on that a few hours of quiet removed from the world on Sunday morning is what we need more than air to breathe…that is my life.  My reality, my joy, my angst, my waking dream – all in the same moment.

Still, though, it is Church that sustains and creates and moves and changes and molds me.  It has been so since before I was in the world, I suspect, and certainly since that long ago moment in a Southern Baptist church in South Carolina that welcomed and blessed me into God’s family to enter the journey Jesus offers us, and walks beside us every step of the way.  For Michelle and I both, taking this step today to say Yes in a very public way is a not-small thing that signifies a years-in-the-making-opening to so much that neither of us thought would ever come into being again.

I joined a church today.  We joined a church today: a non-traditional (whatever that means) family with all kinds of scars and hopes and loves and sorrows and joys for the present and future that God is creating with us all the time.  A church that reminds us, and lives, that Jesus joins us right here in the middle of the story and that Jesus allows our Alleluias to rest with him when necessary to remind us of the promise of Easter – as my two pastors spoke of so wisely today.

A blessed life it is, with Easter ever on the horizon.  And resurrection happening sometimes even when the ashes are still lingering on our foreheads.

Showing Up

 

Sunsets in the southern Appalachians are one of my favorite times of day.  The sun slips away quietly here, earlier than in the flatlands, sliding behind the soft edges of these old mountaintops.  Color lingers in the sky a little longer, shades of pinks and oranges.  Today in the early days of Spring, bare tree branches are outlined against the fading colors.

And so here I sit, watching the colors change, a glass of decent wine beside me.  It’s quiet, peaceful and I have music on in the background to keep me company.  So much to be grateful for, and I am thankful beyond words for all of it.  And yet I struggle mightily to keep the sadness at bay because it’s one of those weekends – the really long ones that stretch from Thursday night to Tuesday afternoon without a glimpse of the little blond-haired, blue-eyed girl that calls me Mama.  These are the hardest days of the month.  While I am certain the same is true for her other parent when my daughter is with me, I am learning to not try and tell a story that is not mine to tell. 

Letting go of what I had known with certainty would be my life – what I knew deep down in the blood and guts that make up who I am – letting go of that life is a daily practice, and I suspect will be so for a long time.  Because it doesn’t get easier to not have those running feet of my girl running around me everyday.  It doesn’t get easier to wake up thinking I’ve heard her cry out and then realizing it was just a dream because her bed is filled only with her stuffed animals and princess pillow.  It doesn’t get easier to stumble over the school bus she’s left near the door, causing me to smile at her remarkable imagination while tears run into an empty room so full of her presence.  It is harder now than ever.

I went to church early on Easter Sunday, a tradition my parents began long ago with Easter sunrise service when I was growing up.  Grieving because there was no small hand holding mine, no pulpit waiting for me -- but showing up because I knew that I needed to.  Grateful for the inner push that got me into the pew, and for my girlfriend sitting beside me who weathers all my lows and highs and everything in between.   The priest said that believing is sometimes as basic as showing up, time after time.  Maybe as simple as choosing to get out of bed when you can’t find a reason why getting up matters.  And I wondered, as I was weeping silently and holding out my hand for the Eucharist, if faith and believing and hope could be as messy and as earthy as the blessed bread and wine becoming part of my sore and bruised and wanting body.

Maybe this is why I cherish the sunset so much.  Because it shows up, one of the most primal of acts that keeps our world turning and surviving – reminding me that showing up for my life is just as primal an act.  It’s not the life I was certain I would inhabit.  Much of it is far richer than I could have ever dreamed possible; much of it more difficult than I thought I could survive.  I am learning to show up for a life that is chaotic and predictable, painful and exquisitely joyful, heart-breaking and soul-mending – often all in the same moment.

The sun has set for today on this part of the southern Appalachians that is becoming my home.  A few more tentative roots have gone into the ground from my heart and soul, watered by my modern-day tears into the soil made up of my ancestors’ toil and heartache and joy.  It’s enough for now.

On Election Eve

 

Bombarded is not too strong of a word.  Radio spots. E-mails.  Phone calls.  Television commercials.  Facebook ads. Signs stuck in the ground every couple of inches.  Billboards.  All of them demanding we take sides, and each side listing dozens of reasons that the other side is evil, un-American, and against you personally. 

For the record, I am a registered Independent.  I have never voted a straight-party ticket, though I do tend to vote more for one side than the other.  And yes, I have voted in this current election, and did not vote straight-party this time either.  I know my friends and co-workers may find that appalling, but it’s true.

I could tell you hundreds of reasons why I voted for President Obama a second time.  I am passionate about them all.  What I am more passionate about, though, is what happens next – what happens when we wake up on Wednesday, after the votes have been counted and the victors and losers alike have stumbled home after a very long night of celebrating or not.  Because regardless of who wins what, we’ll still all be here.  Neighbors.  In-laws.  Co-workers.  Sisters.  Parents.  Citizens of a country built on a myriad of hopes and mistakes.  Human beings who continue to build lives full of all kinds of hopes and countless mistakes.

Mary Oliver said once that the world doesn’t have to be beautiful to work, yet it is anyway.  It’s easy to forget that in an election season, when too many seem intent on dividing neighbors rather than uniting us all for the common good of a world that is, indeed, in need of a change.  A world that is, without question, in need of a people that want to move forward into a future that includes less of taking sides and more of sitting at the same table.

Angels and Demons

 

It’s one of those Good Fridays that lends itself to solemnity. Fog. Rain. Damp chill that follows you, even indoors.  I should be getting in my car to go to Good Friday service, to follow that ancient liturgy, remember the story with others who seek to make sense of all this marked day means year after year.  But I’m not.  I am sitting here, unable to shake the words, the face, the anguish of J.P.  A man tormented, relentlessly, by demons he’s been unable to shake. A lifetime of pain that expresses itself in ugly words, aggressive and violent behavior, addiction, literally uncontrollable rage.  He prays all the time.  Carries a rosary, pleads with Jesus to save him.  Pounds walls, waves knives, talks about getting a gun to kill those he thinks are against him and what he thinks is the right way to be in the world.  Recounts his numerous sins, wonders aloud if God will forgive him, bows his head in shame.

            There’s a clinical diagnosis for him, I am sure.  Likely several.  Over the years I’ve known him, he has resisted any kind of medical treatment, certain God will save him, that Jesus is all he needs.  “Medication is its own kind of demon,” he said to me once, “and I don’t need any more demons.”  He talks about angels, too, angels living in the human bodies of those who’ve tried to love him, to be his friends, those who keep opening the door for him time and time again to help him work toward some semblance of stability and safety.

            Some versions of the story we remember today say the earth stood still the moment Jesus of Nazareth breathed his last.  An attentiveness of the highest order to hold vigil with One who would choose death to show that there is no place Love will not go.  And so the earth stood still, centered on that hill of skulls, keeping watch over the broken, battered body of Jesus.

             Angels keeping watch, standing between the demons and the lives they seek to devour.  I encounter both, every day.  It’s ugly. Messy. Heart-breaking.  We scrabble for any small sign of life, of hope, of a step forward.  It comes, often, in ways we cannot predict or anticipate.  All those years ago on a cross studded with nails, soaked in blood.  This morning, in J.P. pulling out his calendar and writing down an appointment to see a therapist.

            “…let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made…”  --Good Friday liturgy, The Book of Common Prayer

Marked

I went to church at noon today.  Left email unread and a list of things to do mostly still to do.  I was feeling pretty out of sorts, to be honest.  Tired, in the bone-deep way that only emotional and spiritual exhaustion bring.  I have a good life.  An amazing life, even.  And – and, I have so much baggage that keeps following me around.  Some of it can’t be classified as baggage, really, more just the real-life messiness of a divorce involving a shared child.  But some of it is simply baggage.  Stuff that needs to be ground into dust, let go of, forgiven.

So I went to church, in the middle of the day.  To be embraced by the liturgy, to acknowledge with others the depth of our need for repentance, to be reminded of our mortality, to be assured of our forgiveness for all that has been done and left undone that turned away from Life.  I listened to ancient, prophetic words.  I heard the good news.  I took the torn bread and poured out cup into my own human brokenness.  And I got marked.  Marked with the sign of the cross - smeared in black, oily ashes on my forehead.  Somewhere, in the midst of the liturgy, the spoken word, the sung prayers, smeared crosses and broken bread, I became a little more whole.  Let go of a bit more baggage.

The cross on my forehead has nearly faded away now, 8 hours later.  Sweat, distracted scratching, time…the ashes are barely noticeable.  It reminds me some of what is happening with a tattoo on my back, a mark made 15 years ago now.  That mark, over time, is also fading.  It was – and is – a mark I’ve cherished, both at its most vibrant and now as it fades more and more into my body.  The ashes and that tattoo: both are symbols of the very core of who I am.  Identities that matter, yes.  And identities that simply are solid and whole and me: claiming me from the inside out as one who loves, one who is forgiven, one who is marked for Life.

“ Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?” –Isaiah 58:6-7

This season, these weeks of Lent, may I remember the core of why it is I choose to seek this fast.

The Other Side

 

         I think Rev. King was right, that the arc of history does bend toward justice.  It seems like a long time coming when we’re in the midst of it, but it does happen.  There’s been all kinds of evidence of it just in my lifetime, these short 36 years I’ve been around.  Just this week, even, significant strides towards marriage equality on the West Coast have happened in both California and Washington.  There will be wonderful celebrations of love as a result, wedding bells will ring for same-gender couples, toasts made to relationships that have been committed for decades and to brand-new ones as marriage licenses are issued with equal regard for citizens of those places.  It is no small thing to have the weight of the law’s protection for your health care, your property, your children.

            The other side of those celebrations of love is the painful reality of what happens when life doesn’t turn out the way you had hoped and dreamed it would.  I do not know anyone who gets married that plans to also get divorced.  Maybe there are couples who go into it knowing there’s always an “out.”  But I haven’t met any of those folks, nor officiated at any wedding where there was less than a lifetime commitment made with every intention of going ‘til death do us part.

            The most painful experience of my life was the realization that the promises I had made with another were not going to be lived out.  That all the therapy and hard work in the world was not going to make it possible for the two of us to continue to keep those promises.  There are no words for the depth of heartbreak incurred in that process.  The family I had helped create, the configuration that had shaped my daily life and every future I could envision, fell apart - crumbling into pieces around us all.  It is a loss greater than any I have known.  It is also no small thing to NOT have the weight of the law’s protection for health care, property, children. 

            I live in a state that does not recognize legal marriage for same-gender couples.  North Carolina completely disregards the marriage license that exists with my name on it.  I was not allowed to have my name on the birth certificate for my daughter, nor even permitted to adopt this child I have loved and cared for since before she came into the world.  No family court in our state recognizes that I am now, and have always been, her other parent.  I am fortunate that my daughter’s legal parent does see me as important, and that I do have regular contact with and care for my child.  There are many other parents and children in similar situations to mine that do not have that option.  Everyone loses – parents lose children, and children lose parents.  It is true that everyone loses in a divorce, regardless of legal rights or not.  There are also some preventable losses, protections afforded to heterosexual, legal marriages in North Carolina that were not granted to mine.

            Much more can be said about marriage, and certainly there’s more to the story of my marriage and divorce than will fit into a blog post.  What I want every U.S. citizen to understand is that legal marriage matters.  It is about justice and equality in our country, for all of us.  Do not feel sorry for me.  God’s imagination, thankfully, is far bigger than mine.  I have a blessed life, with an incredible daughter, and days full of all kinds of love and joy.  Feel sad, as I do, that divorce became the only decision to make for me.  And then get angry.  Angry at the injustice.  Angry enough to tell your co-workers to vote against the amendment in May that would write inequality into our state’s constitution.  Angry enough to rally even a handful of people to call legislators, write letters, protest at your town square.  Care enough about children losing loving and caring parents to make sure we as a state move toward equality for all families. 

Epiphany

Three years ago I parked my car in a gravel lot on a cold winter morning, walked a short downtown block, and knocked loudly on a battered door.  The door opened onto a narrow hallway lined with dilapidated chairs filled with men and women dressed in layers, backpacks at their feet, Styrofoam cups of steaming coffee in their hands.   Dozens of others were coming in and out of bathrooms, carrying worn towels, small pieces of soap, tiny packets of shampoo, a clean and dry pair of socks.  The phone was ringing, voices shouting out names for mail to be picked up, a ring of people at the front desk waiting to ask a question, find an answer, hands out for vitamins, cough drops, ibuprofen. 

It was not lost on me then, nor is it today, that it was Epiphany.  The day of appearing, of revealing on the church calendar that over the years has also become my internal calendar: wise people traveling in search of one they believed could change things in their world, so long ago.  For me, that day, that cold winter day in the very first days of 2009, I began a job I did not understand and was not even sure I wanted.  It would be a “good experience,” I was sure.  I believed wholly in the vision and mission of the agency, and knew it would serve me well as a stopping place, a transition place while I waited for the next pulpit to appear.

 If you could see
the journey whole
you might never
undertake it;
might never dare
the first step
that propels you
from the place
you have known
toward the place
you know not.

Call it
one of the mercies
of the road:
that we see it
only by stages
as it opens
before us,
as it comes into
our keeping
step by
single step… --Jan Richardson, from For Those Who Have Far to Travel: An Epiphany Blessing

Much has appeared in the last three years, even more has been revealed.  I have seen Jesus, again and again, revealed in the lost and the least, appearing in the unending compassion of my co-workers day after day.  It’s messy and hard and stunning and beautiful.  That steady pulpit has not appeared, my robes and stoles and boxes of commentaries are packed away.   Not one thing in my life looks the way I had believed and trusted it would when I first walked that downtown block and opened that battered door.  If I could have seen the breadth of the journey of these last three years, I might have run the other way.  Step by step, though, I have lived these three years in the only ways I knew how.  Some days I get it right, at work and beyond.  Other days I don’t.   I’m not waiting for that steady pulpit anymore.  I have found the sanctuary where I am supposed to be.

I am overwhelmingly grateful.  Grateful that I walked through that door three years ago, grateful that I still get to walk through that door each day, grateful for the Jesus who keeps appearing, again and again and again to me.  In that building, through so many people, in a thousand ways.

It’s Epiphany.  Light comes.

Playing for Keeps

Running through my neighborhood is a study in contrasts.  It’s where you’ll find some of the priciest homes in Asheville.  Half a mile from my small 2-room apartment is a public housing complex.  Across the street from the house I live in – a house that is now 4 small apartments – are two bed and breakfasts, one on each corner.  (makes it easy to find my house, direction-wise)  One of them has rooms that go for up to $700/night.  Not kidding.  There are houses beautifully restored and/or renovated to show their former glory.  Sagging porches and peeling window frames exist a mere block away from the star of the parade of homes. 

“…as you get older, you begin to find things that are worth holding onto, forever.  All of sudden you’re playing for keeps, as children say, and it changes the very fabric of you.” (T. French, from The Likeness)

As I navigated brick sidewalks, parents pushing strollers and tackled the hills of the cemetery in the neighborhood yesterday afternoon, I found myself thinking about just what it is that is worth holding onto forever.  For this diverse neighborhood I live in.  For my tiny life that exists in such a vast universe of beauty and need.  There are some obvious things for me, of course.  I’ll keep holding onto the firm belief that the gaps that are evident in this wonderful place I get to live can be closed, bit by bit – that it’s possible for our community to take better care of one another.  I’ll continue to work toward that reality I know can happen.  In some ways, that’s the easy part for me, professionally anyway.  I’m lucky enough to get to work toward that through my job everyday.

But as the insanity of the cultural “holiday” season ramps up, and the first world scrambles to buy itself happiness, I realize that we really are playing for keeps on a soul level.  For the soul of our communities, our neighborhoods, our families.  My daughter has piles and piles and piles of toys.  Most of them are what I would term “good” ones – creative, learning-focused, etc.  And she doesn’t need 80% of what she has.  I have piles and piles of stuff, too.  It’s probably not too far off the mark to say that I don’t need 80% of what I have either.  Time for me to tread more lightly.  To give more, and get less.

For the soul of my community.  For the soul of my neighborhood.  For my daughter’s soul.  For mine.  We’re playing for keeps.  Nothing we can buy is going to get us there, to that world where bridges are built and crossed, differences honored and celebrated.  It’s that world I want for Abigail, it’s that world I want her to help create.  No Black Friday deal will make it happen. 

But what we share just might.

Beyond the Gate

"Why must the gate be narrow? / Because you cannot pass beyond it burdened. / To come in among these trees you must leave behind / the six days' world, all of it, all of its plans and hopes. / You must come without weapon or tool, alone, / expecting nothing, remembering nothing, / into the ease of sight, the brotherhood of eye and leaf." --Wendell Berry, from A Timbered Choir

Berry is talking about Sabbath – true Sabbath.  A concept I don’t know that I’ve ever managed to wholly understand or experience.  There have been moments, days, that I’ve had glimpses.  Overall, though, I resist it.  Struggle to stay still even for the length of a movie because I think I should be ‘doing’ something.  I haven’t done much research about Sabbath, though many of my clergy friends have.  Seems to me that it’s about balance, the ever-elusive carrot I have been sprinting after for most of my life.  There have been brief periods of time where I have come closer than others to some balance, some measure of rest, play and work that was healthy and good.  But those periods are the exception. 

I know I am doing the work I was made to do, the work I am continually being created to do with increased insight and skill as I stumble my way through it.  I also know that I am meant to be Abigail’s Mama, even if it must be in a far more limited capacity than I had hoped and dreamed it would be.  I am a loyal and loving friend to some of the most remarkable people I could imagine knowing (though I could do with at least a couple of my many-years-friends being in ‘let’s have dinner range’ – the consequence of pursuing the next best thing for my entire adult life, never staying anywhere longer than 4 years).  And now I’m an aunt to beautiful little Zoe.  It’s an incredible life, wonder-filled beyond anything I could have ever scripted in all the years I spent wanting to be someone, anyone else.  In the last couple of years it’s been a gift to discover that I no longer want to be anyone else, that I haven’t for a long time, and that I actually like me, just the way I am. 

Which is not to say that I no longer have any issues.  Quite the opposite.  The difference may be that I’m aware of most them.  Aware enough to know, anyway, that there are probably more.  I want to learn how to get beyond the gate.  To let go of whatever burdens I may be carrying so I can become even more myself.  I suspect if I can learn to do that, even a little at a time, that I will see more fully than I do now.  The world will be even more remarkable, more painful, more beautiful.  I know the world can be different than it is, that this little corner of the world I live in can be different – more whole and holy for every person who lives here, housed or not, sober or not, mentally well or not.  But it also means the non-profit world, the advocacy world must also shift.  Shift to a place where we do not run ourselves into the ground before we can finish the job.  We’re really good at what we do, we’re smart, we’re compassionate.  And we’re human, we need space to play, to rest and to work.

 So, I think I might stay put for awhile.  Put down my own roots in these mountains, mingling with the old and tenacious blood of my ancestors.  Search – and find – a new and healthier way to do advocacy work.   Have some fun. Try and change the world a little.  Find the path that passes through the narrow gate.

Nickels, Dimes and Social Change

I spent part of my evening last night sitting in the overflow room used for Asheville City Council meetings when the chambers fill up.  The meeting is projected onto a screen, just like watching live TV.  Truth be told, I mostly wanted to be elsewhere.  I was tired.  Kind of hungry.  Bored with the minutiae of how leaf collection happens in the city.  I also know how important it is to show up when something’s at stake, and enjoy the ‘showing up’ part of my job.  So I sat there, learning about the budget, equipment and personnel it takes to collect leaves every fall.  I was glad I had a smart phone (though wishing for the 100^th time I had downloaded a game onto it – Facebook doesn’t generally entertain me for every long) and waited for a seat to open up in the Council chambers so I could be on hand to speak to the agenda item I showed up for.  Item: “What to do with Occupy Asheville.” (okay, that’s my language, not the official agenda line item)

Like many communities, we have folks connected to the Occupy movement.  I’ve been interested in reading and watching how this has played out all over the country, heartened by diverse groups of people talking to each other and speaking out against systems that divide and oppress and take away from those who have little or nothing already.  I have to also admit that I’ve been cynical.  Thought and intention behind action is vital for me.  Memorable moments in my life are those that include conversation with loved ones and strangers about justice, philosophy, politics, theology – I was a preacher, after all, so I can talk all day and into the wee morning hours without hesitation.    At the same time, when it comes to needed social change, I want to get to the solution, and get it done.  The Occupy movement is a struggle for me, as I have not found enough direction to satisfy my need for focus and a plan of action.

Once we finally made it to the long-awaited agenda item, there were lots of comments from those who identified with the Occupy Asheville movement.   It seemed to me that every one of those speeches and statements was based in a “my way or the highway” mentality.  Either you allow us to camp somewhere 24/7 or you don’t support us.  There were a few comments from individual members of the community and a group representing some independent businesses calling the whole movement irresponsible and ridiculous.  Again, “my way or the highway.”  A chasm that neither side was willing to bridge.

Our radical individualism is killing us.  Our radical liberalism, conservatism – it’s all killing us.  Separating us, dividing us into right camps and left camps, leaving no room for the mess and beauty of what humanity actually is.  Diversity is not at all about everyone agreeing with one another.  Living in true community means diversity is accepted and respected, that disagreement is okay.  Even when it pisses you off.  Maybe especially then.

I will work for the social change I believe in for the rest of my days.  I need lots of nickels and dimes for it to happen - from government and from those of us responsible for electing that government.   What I need just as much is to find the common ground with those who live here with me, however far their belief and action may be from mine.  Does everyone sitting on City Council agree with me that housing is a right and not a reward?  Probably not.  Do we all want people off the street?  Absolutely.  And that’s where we started.  Asheville-Buncombe’s 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness got off the ground in 2005.  From that beginning – with the leadership, help and partnership of countless individuals, groups and agencies -- chronic homelessness has decreased by 75% in our community.  It’s messy, hard work.  I want everyone around the table to believe housing is a right.  They don’t.  But we’re working together in all the mess. 

That number – a 75% reduction in chronic homelessness – represents a move away from radical individualism and a move toward community. Hundreds of faces crowd into that number.  It’s a number that means lasting social change is possible.  And happening, right here in Asheville and Buncombe County.

The Beauty of all the Mess

View from Mt. Pisgah

It’s fall, my favorite time of the year.  Temperature, the shift to crispness in the air, leaves doing their magical color-changing that leads to an explosion of color in the mountains I get to look at everyday.  Perfect weather for weekend hiking, playing outside with my 3-year-old, satisfying jogs through the neighborhood.   Early morning walks to work give me the first glimpses of a pink-orange sky becoming visible just above the Blue Ridge.  I am beyond fortunate to wake up, every morning, into the stunning beauty of this place.

       I walk into work, embraced by the sunrise, and enter a world that does not notice the sunrise for the same reasons I do.  As I weave my way through the men and women huddled together for warmth on the porch, I realize they wait for the sunrise not because of its beauty, but for its signal of the temperature rising.   The cool, brisk evenings that bring me such joy mean a need for more blankets and sleeping bags in the campsites many of these folks sleep in at night.  Holding together beauty and brokenness, in the same place, in one moment makes it difficult to open the door.

A HOPE Day Center front steps

            There’s a lot going on.  In my life.  At work.  Around the world.  My patience with systems that create and then perpetuate the brokenness I walk through everyday is gone, if I ever had any to begin with.  I watch my daughter get showered with gifts for her 3^rd birthday, am happy she is loved and adored by so many.  And I watch her pile of stuff grow, things she doesn’t need and would not miss if they were not there.  An abundance of toys and clothes for one small child.  My toys look a little different, but I have an abundance of them all the same.  Clothes, too.

            I get up every morning, to give what I can to the task of moving this little corner of the world to a different place, most of the time hopeful that it’s possible.  And, most days, making more mistakes than not.  I’ve got a lot to learn about integrating my own life in a way that moves me closer to the folks I see everyday, and not farther away.  It’s all messier than I could have imagined as I drove across the country to land in Asheville in the summer of 2008.  Nothing in my life looks like I expected it to.  Brokenness and healing.  Despair and beauty.  All in one moment. 

            Above and through it all, so much gratitude for the life I get to experience everyday.

             

Death and Resurrection

I'm often far enough removed from the chaos of operations in the day shelter where I spend lots of hours each week that I am largely protected from the brokenness that walks through the door each day.  I face it at a distance most of the time, with only a couple of days  a week consumed with the daily details.  The incredible staff I work with, however, stand face to face with that brokenness for 40 hours, each one of them, every week.  Some days are better than others. 
Today, on my way to yet another meeting, I called my assistant director to check-in, to see how the morning was going.  I could tell she was stressed, and had had better days.  And part of the reason, I discovered, was grief.  Raw and painful sorrow, laced with frustration.  Word had come that a woman we'd all known well, for quite some time, had died the day before.  She'd been in and out of the shelter system, lived outside, camped in places not meant for human habitation, struggled with physical and mental disabilities, addictions.  It seemed to many of us that her most destructive addiction was to her husband, in a vicious and demeaning cycle of long-term domestic violence.  With all of that, we'd also managed to help her (with her husband) finally get off the street and into an apartment.  And then, today, word comes that just a year later - only a year after decades of no permanent housing - she's gone.  Rumors abound, of course, about how she died.  Reality is, it doesn't matter.  Death is death.

This afternoon, wading through emails and phone messages, trying to catch up or at least hold my head above water in the midst of pages of to-do lists, I hear a car pull up in the driveway that's just below my window.  I pause to take a look, more out of wanting to stall or procrastinate that to-do list than out of any real curiosity.  But the tall, white man with a little bit of extra weight on him looks familiar.  I look again.  No, he's too heavy to be J.  J. is tall and white, but thin due to too many years of drug abuse.  And he doesn't have a car.  A few minutes later, there's a knock on the staff entrance door.  I look up from my computer screen.  It is J.  And he's grinning from ear to ear.  He looks healthy and well.  He looks happy.  He looks free.  I tell him how great he looks, he gives me a big hug. I ask him what he's up to.  He's come to volunteer his time, to help our director of community engagement with a big mailing she's doing.  "Time for me to give to you," J. says.

One day.  A few short hours. From death to resurrection. 

Holy Saturday

It is this day that is the hardest
    in a week called Holy.
Not the intimacy of baring feet
    or breaking bread
    Nor even the stunning violence of the
    hill of skulls, the bloody ground beneath too many crosses.

This is the hardest, this in-between day.
    Feet are clean
    Bread has been shared and eaten
    The cries of battered, broken bodies are
    stilled.

This Vigil.  This Holy Waiting --
    this is hardest, if we remember.
If we remember that we do not know what
    resurrection will bring.
The One we wait for will not be what we expect.
Not then.
Not now.

Waiting for resurrection is harder
    than remembering death.