I Don't Understand

I don't understand

Why people are prejudiced
Why adults fight
Why people must die
Why we do things we'll soon regret

What I do understand is
Writing is knowledge
Reading is influence
My brain is smart


-written by "Allie" (nickname), age 14

* * * *

This girl's strength, wisdom, and self-respect... after knowing abuse, neglect, and homelessness... amazes and inspires me. She gave me her notebook to read, and I asked her permission to share this one.

A World Cleared

These days are warm and golden and mostly idyllic. And then I got to work and Monica asked, "Did you hear about Jesse?"

"Jesse Anderson?" Oh, did he land another big art show? Or the children's book he wrote get noticed by a publisher for the genius that it is?

"Yeah. Um. He's dead."

And she went home and I sat at work, just mostly staring at nothing. Nothing. Nothing really prepares you for the suicide of a friend. I've made peace with deaths and broken relationships and even forgave the guy who raped my close friend. I thought I had a good handle on how to reconcile with suffering and the crazy, vulnerable God who gifts us with Choice... to heal or crush, love and serve or usurp and plunder.

No one to forgive, no one with any answers. Only his absence from a world I can't see beyond.

It's one thing to write about suffering that disturbs you when it's halfway around the world or in the house next door. It's quite another when grief has crashed into your own heart and you need to talk but can't stop crying long enough to make any sense. And what is there to say?

Thank God for a dad who doesn't need you to make sense, that just blurting facts and sobbing helps because now he KNOWS and he's going to carry it with you. Thank God for Carla, who sits on my porch steps with me and prays what I can't formulate: "God, have mercy on your world. Have mercy on us. Have mercy on Jesse." Thank God for friends who call to tell me I'm loved and text late at night when I'm back at work and keep thinking I see Jesse stomping in with his greatcoat flapping behind him, red hair wild, and I keep trying to force my mind around the fact that he's gone. For fun cousins who drive all day to spend a few hours of laughter, sun, water, sand, and the simple treasure of presence. And for friends who listen to Jesse stories and tell me to listen to music that speaks my language and reminds me that hope is not a stranger to lament, but her friend who points to the misty dawn and to flowers rooting in asphalt fissures.

The loss of a good friend and the care of so many others. Because of you all, I see things differently. Better. Like a world cleared and brought into focus with a new pair of glasses when you hadn't realized it had gone a little blurry.

Each person you know is irreplaceable. Each one God's magnum opus. See them for what they are: masterpieces. Marvel at the magnificence of their hands, their laughing eyes, their little kindnesses and all the infuriating and comical idiosyncrasies that comprise their whole.

Cherish and enjoy your people. Tell them. Show them.

Then maybe you won't have years to wonder if the text you thought of sending... then didn't... would have made a difference two days later.

What Preceeded the Coffee Break

All I wanted was a coffee break, and this is how the phone was answered:

"Hey, crazy."

I should have anticipated this. Mark is the bizarre, friendly clown in our shift's daily circus.
But I hadn't anticipated. So I wasn't armed with any sort of witticism, and all I could hurl back was a "WHO is the crazy one?"

(In monotone): "You are."

"No, Mark. That's called 'projection'."

"No, Becca. I'm not projecting." Still the patient monotone.

"So you're subconsciously projecting?"

Long pause.
"You know, Hitler was a VERY BAD MAN."

"Yay! Godwin'd. Now may I have a coffee break?"

Strange humor we have around these parts. This is a mild sample, but it's a rather monumental sample. For once... alright, for the FIRST time... Mark's was the long silence. Not mine. So I documented it, in the likely event that it won't happen again.

Celebrate your life and your people this week. Cram in lots of laughter.

(Even if you're more often the one laughing at wittier people's jokes.)

My Resignation

At the risk of inciting controversy, I just want to say this aloud:

I'm resigning from culture wars.

I want to put more focus on how well I love than how right I am.

I'm sorry to the point of tears that Christianity too often looks at a person and sees a race, a political affiliation, a sexual orientation, a socioeconomic status, an addiction, a psychological profile, or a convict rather than a person.

I'm sorry that we scorn.

I'm sorry that we feel cleaner and more justified in comparison.

I'm sorry we don't see a person like ourselves: a person with a story. A person who has hurt and been hurt. A person who laughs and cries and bleeds the same color as the rest of us.

I say this, not to be more politically correct or to be more approachable or just a nicer person, but because the minute I take up a picket sign or suddenly loudly support fast food to try to score one in the culture war... I place myself in opposition to people I am called to love. In that position, I appear as though I care more about being right and trying to make everyone else act right than I do about actual people. I'm pretty uncomfortable with that.

Because I have no stones to throw.

When Jesus stands in the center of our circle of opposition and yelling and says that lust makes me just as culpable as immorality and hatred equal to a murderer, all he leaves me is the sound of stones plopping in clouds of dust from my hands to the dirt and a confession:

"Me too."

*****

"So, then, the gist of the Gospel is this:

No man is so high or may rise so high
that he need not fear becoming the lowliest.

Conversely, no one has fallen, or may fall,
so deeply as to preclude all hope of becoming the highest.

By saying: 'The first shall be last'
Christ takes all presumption away from you and forbids you
to exalt yourself above any prostitute,
even though you were Abraham, David, Peter, or Paul.

By saying: 'The last shall be first' He guards you
against all despair and forbids you to cast yourself
under the feet of any saint, even though
you were Pilate, Herod, Sodom and Gomorrah."

-Martin Luther

Dirty Hands

The news this morning was a fist in the gut. I stared aghast at the screen, my mind doing those little spasms of unreality. The amount of suffering contained in just one of many news reports just blew right past my level of comprehension.

The families of the victims, and all who knew them. The survivors. The family of the shooter. So much trauma that will take a lifetime of years to heal. The shooter himself. What broke him to this point of insane hopelessness? No healthy person wakes up one morning and decides to plot a massacre.

I wonder if God ever regrets His vulnerable, loving choice to entrust us with free will? Most of the time, I understand His wanting friends and co-collaborators instead of puppets. But when human will goes rabid and we hate and destroy each other, I can't help but wonder if I'd rather live under a dictator than a Father.

I confess, sometimes I am angry at Him. As if this messy, hurting world is His doing instead of ours. But it is our doing, Lord have mercy.

And even the space of one day is crammed with breath-taking proof of this consoling truth:

God has not abandoned us in the mess we've made. His presence is still here. With us. On this planet. Walking the streets and fields of our neighborhoods. His hands are still at work.

While I was still wondering why God lets us choose to hurt each other, I was telling one of my teens how proud I was of her. Her determination to inflict as much pain as she has received is gone. She stands proudly, bright face and clear eyes. Her pride in her new determination to make choices that respect both herself and the people around her is vibrant and evident. 

During a training session on mental health diagnoses, one of my favorite co-workers told his story of grief, loss, and teen years in lock-up. He's overcome behavior disorders, dyslexia, and lack of parental support to become one of the kindest, safest people I know. 

A phone call from a friend left me in awe and worship. Prayers for change and wholeness in the lives of people I love are years in the answering, but here they are. 

Maybe I can't understand why God doesn't intercept human will when it wreaks swathes of horror, but I know this: He is still at work, calling us into relationship with Himself and with each other. Relationships that shape our wills into our greatest empowerment for wholeness. 

There aren't quick fixes and easy answers for suffering. There simply are not. But there is a God of patience, dirty hands, re-shaped lives, and a sort of wholeness that is a beautiful offering to others. 

God is still at work. And we get to choose to help Him. 

Bloom

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. 

Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. 

If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, 

not even to an animal. 

Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; 

lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. 

But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. 

It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

-C.S. Lewis

The Bigger Truth

It's true. 

Earth groans with the weight

Of horrifying twistedness.

But, already, 

The untwisting redemption

Has sprouted and grown. 

Even the darkest dark

Burnishes the brilliance

Of all else:

The good, the wholesome,

The honest, peaceful,

Safe, and loving.