“If I cast up a confessed, repented, and forsaken sin against another, and allow my remembrance of that sin to color my thinking and feed my suspicions, then I know nothing of Calvary love…
If my attitude be one of fear, not faith, about one who has disappointed me; if I say, ‘Just what I expected,’ if a fall occurs, then I know nothing of Calvary love.”
From If, by Amy Carmichael
Today at lunch, one of our good friends was over and he was joking with Doug about whether Doug was “Black” in his taste in suites (we will all be at a wedding tomorrow, and the two of them were discussing wardrobe choices). He also had a few amusing things to say about the ways that he and his wife consider me to be “Black.” Mercy sat next to our friend and listened intently to the conversation going on around her.
Later that afternoon, I was over at another friend’s house around the corner with the kids when our lunchtime friend rang their doorbell. We were sitting up at the table for dinner, but Mercy could see the front door and who was standing in it. All of a sudden Mercy looked at me and said: “Black. Walter’s black.” “Yes,” I responded to her, totally caught off guard, “Walter is black.”
Then she looked down at her arms and her hands, then back up to me: “I not black, Mommy.”
“No, Mercy,” I answered, stumbling over words that now sounded strange to say: “People with your color of skin are called white.”
She studied her hands a minute longer, then reached down and picked up her taco.
I always appreciate the things that William Willimon has to say, be they in his books, sermons, or now on his blog. In fact, of all the people that Doug has the opportunity to correspond with and meet in his position at Fuller, it was Willimon who I got most excited about (he is coming to teach a preaching course for the DMin program this next year). I think I might visit Doug every day that week at the office for the chance to possibly meet the guy!
This week Willimon posted on the role of the pastor in the local church. He speaks from his tradition in the United Methodist Church (the denomination where Doug’s mom serves as an ordained minister) where he serves as Bishop, and his reflection gave me a lot to think about. There are many voices arguing today for quite the opposite of what Willimon suggests in terms of how and where the pastor’s time should be spent (that pastors should spend a large portion of their time out in their community, serving those not yet in the church, etc.). As a minister, I find myself torn in how I think about these issues. I would love to hear others’ thoughts…
As I have mentioned here already, I am currently restricted from picking up my two children due to recovery from abdominal surgery. When I first received this mandate, my primary concern was logistical: how will we do meals and naps and how will we go outside to play? Those logistics remain challenging, but what has become increasingly painful are the emotional ramifications of a mommy who can’t lift up her kids. I am seeing in both children the effects of the parade of people coming in and out of the house to shuttle Aaron in and out of beds, baths and chairs; of days cooped up inside with no walks or car trips; and the hardest of them all, that gnawing sense of something being wrong when Mom refuses to do the most natural, instinctual act of scooping her children up into her arms.
I knew that all of us would feel the effects of this change, and I have been very intentional about sitting on the ground and holding the kids in my lap, and wrapping my arms around them as much as I possibly can. Or, when people are here I will ask them to lift Aaron up put him in my lap on the couch or in a chair. But it is not the same. We always joked in the early weeks and months after Mercy’s birth about the built-in infant altitude detector. We could be holding Mercy in our arms after having finally soothed her to sleep (after the hundredth or so lap of bouncing and shushing around the dining room table), and the moment a butt cheek would touch a chair or the couch, her eyes would fly open and she would look at us and cry. We would stand up again, restart the soothing process and she would go back to sleep. We marveled at her innate ability to detect any betrayal in altitude, and her fierce opposition to such a change!
I am realizing now that while I no longer have infants, even toddlers have some built in desire to be picked up and held. And as nice as an on-the-floor cuddle may be, it is just not the same.
This made me think about the different ways we welcome and receive one another. There are people who, the moment they walk in my door, cause me to feel completely encircled by acceptance, care, and love. There is no sense of reservation, of withholding with them, and that commitment to me in our relationship is palpable. There are others who, regardless of the duration of our friendship, feel in some sense a shade removed or withdrawn, like they are present to give and receive but always on their terms and within set limits of comfort and vulnerability. The first is like the mom who freely scoops her child up and holds him; the other, like the mom who controls and limits that intimacy.
At the center of my situation with my children right now is the need to self-protect. This is a good and necessary thing, and shows the most love to our family in the long run. However in thinking about other relationships, that propensity to guard and protect can easily overwhelm the desire to sacrifice and serve. While I am of course aware of the emotionally unhealthy ways that people can wholly abandon an appropriate sense of self in how they relate to others, I think that what is more often the case is that we miss out on who God is calling us to be in the lives of others because we are unable to let go of loving and protecting ourself first. And so we may find ourselves surrounded by relationships that lack intimacy and authenticity, and are filled with saying and doing “the right things”. That is the greatest complaint I hear from my suburban counterparts: an exhaustion at maintaining the facade.
I will not lift my kids right now for two reasons: fear and control. Fear of my hernia returning, and the desperate desire to control my health for the remainder of this pregnancy. I don’t think that either of those motivations are very far from why we fail to engage others authentically in relationships either, be they in our churches, our families, our schools or our workplaces: fear of what intimacy will cost us, and the desire to control our image, reputation, schedule, or whatever else defines us. Servanthood abdicates control, and faith abandons fear, yet we often live imprisoned by one or both of these things. Death to self is as brutal as it sounds, and yet it is the promise of life. I see it in my relationships, and this week my kids have reminded me that measured intimacy is never a substitute for the real thing.
It is an interesting thing I have learned about myself the last few years: the needier I feel, the stingier I become. I wrote about this in one of my earlier blog entries, and as much as I have repented of this and prayed for a new heart in this area, I still struggle. Clearly, we as a family are currently in a time of maximum neediness (There is some irony that Doug’s first Fuller class in over two years that starts tomorrow night is Job and Human Suffering). And this weekend I found myself begrudging a gift to someone. My reason? I didn’t believe they really needed it, we had already helped this person with money recently, and I judged how they would use our gift. Thankfully Doug’s heart was a fleshy contrast to my stony one, and the gift was given.
As I thought about this today, I was reminded of a deeply troubling passage I read a while back from a book called The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City (by David Simon and Edward Burns). I quoted from this book for one of my Quotation of the Week posts, but I did not use what I find to be the most difficult parts of the passage. In examining my heart today, I was drawn again to read from this book, and it is the harder words that afflict me now:
“If it was our fathers firing dope and our mothers smoking coke, we’d pull ourselves past it. We’d raise ourselves, discipline ourselves, teach ourselves the essentials of self-denial and delayed gratification that no one in our universe ever demonstrated. And if home was the rear room of some rancid, three-story shooting gallery, we’d rise above that, too. We’d shuffle up the stairs past nodding fiends and sullen dealers, shut the bedroom door, turn off the television, and do our schoolwork. Algebra amid the stench of burning rock; American history between police raids…No matter. We’d persevere, right? We’d work that job by night and go to class by day, by some miracle squeezing a quality education from the disaster that is the Baltimore school system. We’d do all the work, we’d pay whatever the price…because we pulled self-esteem out of a dark hole somewhere and damned if our every desire isn’t absolutely in check…That’s the myth of it, the required lie that allows us to render our judgments.”
Whether it is the homeless man, the pregnant thirteen-year old or the thugged out gangbanger, I believe that these authors give some of the best insight into why our compassion so often chokes.
The chapter closes with this, and reading it today makes me cry:
“Yes, if we were down there, if we were the damned of the American cities, we would not fail. We would rise above the corner. And when we tell ourselves such things, we unthinkly assume that we would be consigned to places like Fayette Street fully equipped, with all the graces and disciplines, talents and training we now possess…Amid the stench of so much defeat and despair, we would kick fate in the teeth and claim our deserved victory. We would escape to live the life we were supposed to live, the life we are living now. We would be saved, and as it always is in matters of salvation, we know this as a matter of perfect, pristine faith.”
There was deep concern these past few days for a few members of my denomination who were in the Congo during the recent eruption of violence there. It was with great relief and thanks to God that we heard yesterday that the two who were in the greatest danger had in fact boarded a plane headed to Paris after a safe night in a hotel: “Following the previous night of lying awake in the dirt, hiding behind a wall, while soldiers were firing their weapons and rockets, Peterson and Thorpe last evening were able to get a decent night’s rest…” Two other Covenanters (including a dear family friend) were likewise reported to have safely left Congo: “Both are reported out of Congo and safe in Bangui, Central African Republic, following a harrowing 12-hour trek by truck on rough dirt roads and a shaky dugout canoe ride across the river between Zongo, in Congo, and Bangui.”
As I prayed for these men, and for all of the people affected by this outbreak, I realized how easily this news could have simply passed me by. But for the presence of four people with differing degrees of connection to me, I am certain I would have heard nothing of the events of the past few days in Congo (have you seen the L.A. news before? “News” is generous, to say the least.)
As global and connected as things can feel in our world today, the truth remains that for most of us we pass through our days relatively unaware of what is happening in the rest of the world. This was reinforced for me by other friends who are serving in Mozambique with Samaritan’s Purse. They post occasional updates on their work to their blog, and the last two entries both contained significant news of massive flooding that had struck the country, and a recent flurry of bombs exploding in their city (which it turns out were set off accidentally). Again, news that never would have reached my ears except for the fact that they are living and working there.
We certainly live in an age of information overload, and with so much access it is interesting to note what things we do pay attention to and whose cries we have ears to hear. We have all heard the recent cries of Britney Spears (if you shop at a grocery store you have not been able to escape them), but how many of us have heard those of our brothers and sisters in Kinshasa or Mozambique?
Quotation of the Week (part II)
“Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go to next.”
Frederick Buechner Beyond Words, Harper SanFrancisco, 2004, p. 383. October 19th, 2006
From Dick Staub.
Robyn was kind enough to ask how I was feeling, and I thought it fitting to share a bit as so many of you have been prayer companions with us these past days.
I had a follow-up appointment with my surgeon and all is well in terms of my healing. The pain has greatly diminished the last few days, and at times I feel completely normal! Praise God for such a speedy recovery. He said that ten percent of the time, no matter how careful you are, hernias come back. We are certainly praying to be excused from that ten percent!
I am restricted from lifting anything heavy for four more weeks. This has by far proven to be the greatest challenge for our family in recovery. My kind sister has made a spreadsheet and circulated it among our family and friends to try to get help for the most crucial times of day (namely nap time). We have already seen the generosity of so many dear ones who have volunteered their time and energies to help, and we have also been creative in adjusting how we do life together (the kids think it’s great to eat lunch and dinner at their little play table!). Doug’s office has been fantastic in supporting him through this as well, and in making it possible for him to take the time off when it has been absolutely necessary.
I also had a scheduled trip to Chicago for a teaching opportunity at my alma mater in April, and we have decided that I will be able to travel and keep that commitment. This is something I am very much looking forward to doing.
Thank you seems inadequate when I consider the many people who have expressed kindness and love to us these past weeks. I continue to walk in such gratitude for the companions, near and far, that God has seen fit to give me. May I be entrusted with such a ministry of encouragement to others in the future!
P.S. To Anonymous in Spokane–if you read this, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Doug and I (and half of L.A.) wish that we could afford to purchase a home. Real estate is out of control, even in our neighborhood, and the recent price tags I have heard for homes in our neighborhood are $800,000 and $1.2 million. Our neighborhood is made up largely of these big, at one time majestic homes that are now subdivided into small rental units. What looks like a single family home often ends up being up to eight rental rooms. There are also many larger multi-plex properties like those next door and across the street from us.
I have heard some pretty fascinating statistics about housing in L.A. I don’t remember where I read it (L.A. Times, I think?), but a year ago a person had to be in the top ten percent of income earners to afford a home in Los Angeles. It will be a while (like never) before Doug and I will find ourselves in that position.
The most recent intriguing housing fact I read came from a fellow Covenanter’s blog. Don Johnson, a pastor up north in Santa Barbara, reports that because his community is facing median home prices of $1.2 million, there are plans in the works for a subsidized housing development for those earning below $177,000.
And I thought the WIC program had some generous income cutoffs.