A Threadbare Palantir

… hockey rink.

As Bill Kinnon is wont to quote from Eugene Peterson, on keeping missional simple -

The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. And that is what He is calling us to do.

This year my lovely daughter, light of my eyes, is playing hockey on a boys team. She is sixteen and the only girl on a team of boys who are all 15 about to turn 16. When the season started, we were welcomed to the team very cordially.  But she came home from practice and announced that, “the Terror Twins are on my team!”  These are two young men she tried out with two springs ago and they were beyond annoying during tryouts.  They are indeed identical twins.  You can tell them apart by the difference in their hair length and the numbers on their jerseys and that’s about it for most of us mortals.  And her description of them has proven apt over the course of this season.  One of them has gotten himself kicked off the team for poor sportsmaship … after being on probation for the month of December.  Together, they caused division on the team, anger and strife amongst the players, the coaches and the parents.  Quite a twosome, these two spindly 15 year old boys, with their single mom clearly at the end of her rope.

Sometimes there just ain’t nuthin’ can be done.  People are too entrenched in the way they think about a person or a situation.  But you can change their response to another tangential situation and help them grow closer in another area.  That in turn allows some of the ice to thaw or crack and some other things to begin to change.  So it is with the Terror Twins.

Recently another young man on the team, a friend of the Terror Twins, became quite ill.  He was hospitalized with double pneumonia and had to miss going to a tournament we were all looking forward to.  Suddenly, I knew exactly what to do.  So I wrote an e-mail to all the parents on the team and told them that I was going to send the young man an Edible Arrangement (chocolate dipped strawberries, bananas and pineapples) and if anyone would like to chip in to help out, they could.  But there would be no repercussions if not.  It was just pass the hat.  Almost everyone did, but some did not.  I’ve lost track … no … I never kept track of who did or who did not.  But the effect on the team and the parents was so much fun to watch.  They began to smile at each other again.  They began to remember that these are boys (plus one girl) and it’s not the NHL.  Really.  They began to realize that it had been bad, but not that bad and yes, we could all go on and finish the season.  They found their hope again.

Sometimes the neighborhood looks suspiciously like a hockey rink.

Filed under: Livin' the missional life, Lovin' my neighbor by threadbaresonja

Yesterday Lighthusband and I took a mental health day together. This is somewhat more difficult for us than for other couples of our age and shoe size. I homeschool our children and he works from home. So, we have to take somewhat extraordinary measures to “take a day off.” But we did. We needed to recalibrate and get ourselves back on the same page in the book. It was lovely. We talked and planned and worked together all day long. We even went out to lunch, using some restaurant gift cards given him on his birthday back in October. Corn & crab soup and cranberry bread pudding were absolutely delicious.

Among the things we decided to do or change was that we have begun getting up early in the mornings and walking together as a way of carving out some time together each day. It’s interesting that while we spend whole days and weeks together, we hardly ever have time to talk beyond occasional sentences here and there. So despite LightBoy’s immediate interest in joining us, we’re going alone each morning.

This morning we set out into the cool February darkness together and it was good. We didn’t go very far or very long. Just enough to get our mojo running. It was a beginning of sorts. And when we go tomorrow we realized we’re going to need a nice stretch first to warm up.

As we rounded a last bend and entered the home stretch, I began to think about some of our neighbors. We live in a typical suburb where it’s difficult to get to know one another, but over time we have. Mostly because LightBoy is so friendly and helpful. He is always on the lookout for ways to help the neighbors … carrying stuff for them, digging in their dirt, and the like. He also has playmates on the streets and so we have gotten to know their parents and the children come and go. In December one of the moms had an unanticipated health emergency, so we helped the family with that.

I was musing about all of these people in their houses as we walked. I’ve long wanted to have a neighborhood gathering of some sort. But suddenly I realized … I’m a turtle. I spend all my energy on my family (who are hares), homeschooling, hockeying, and supporting them. I don’t have anything left for my neighbors but great ideas and desires and smiles and platitudes. On the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator I am an Introvert, which has only gotten stronger as the years have passed. It takes more and more time for me to recharge my batteries when out in public.

So, I’ve been sitting in my house (shell) for all these years, poking my head out occasionally to smile and wave. I always enjoy the people I see, but it exhausts me on top of my other commitments. What would it take, I thought, to be more in balance and get to know the people right here on my street? So that when the time is right I will be able to be a winsome message of Love.

It just doesn’t do to be a turtle …

Filed under: Grace, Lovin' my neighbor by threadbaresonja

Yesterday was a whirlwhind here at the LightHouse.  We were having company for dinner and the house was beyond wrecked.  It was wrecky-wrecked.  The school room (aka the dining room, but we never use it for that) had become the junkroom over the holidays and it is just off the living room, connected by an archway.  So to have it be a junkroom is very unsightly and much less than relaxing if one is sitting in the livingroom.  So we cleaned and we cooked and two friends stopped by at separate times.  One is going through a divorce, she was in between a lawyer’s visit and work.  So we fed her lunch and she talked.

We baked a cake and I made candy cane ice cream for dessert.  We had cassoulet, salad, bread and wine for dinner.  More importantly, we had a lot of great conversation and laughter.  We re-connected again.  You see, this wasn’t just any company.  This was family.  And it wasn’t just any family, it was a branch of the family with whom there was a falling out about nine years ago.  Granted, we and they were not the main participants in the falling out but we and they became collateral damage.  So we are now finding our way back to one another.

Baby and Me

My family is complex because I have cousins who are my parents age and they have children who are near to my age.  So I loosely refer to all of them as my cousins, but really some are cousins and some are cousins-once-removed.  At dinner last night we had my cousin and his wife, and the son and his wife and their baby daughter.  We told tales of long ago and talked about mutual relatives and laughed at antics of pets.  It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening seasoned with much grace and love.

Our mutual ancestor, a grandfather, was well-known for his insistence on supporting those with less than he.  Though he had very little to begin with.  The family stories, which I find are not exaggerated, abound.  The most well-known centers around his imprisonment during the 1930’s for his support of a Teamsters Union.  He was the treasurer and was framed for embezzling funds.  He spent a year in prison before he was granted a full pardon by the governor because … my grandfather just never, no never, used money that was not his.  And he kept meticulous records.

So one of the stories that was shared around the dinner table last night had to do with the adolescent misbehavior of my cousin’s son, now a grown-up with a daughter of his own.  He was, as they say, having an obstreperous youth.  This came as a surprise to me because my memories of him were that he was quite responsible and well balanced.  In any case, the phone call came one day to my cousin and his wife, “We are sorry sir, but your son is being suspended from Local Middle School.”  This phone call carried a certain sting because my cousin taught middle school in this school district, but not in that school.  Well, why was young son being suspended?  He saw an altercation at a nearby table during the lunch hour.  There was an underdog (no one he knew at all; not a friend, not an acquaintance) who was being unjustly accused and punished.  So young son rode in on his trusty white steed to save that underdog from his unjust accusation and punishment by the powers that were.  And he stood his ground long past the time that it was perhaps a good idea.  He stood his ground and stood it and stood it … right into gaining a suspension for himself.

We all laughed at the story, including now middle-aged son.  I recognized a bit of my own DNA at work in the scene and commented, “That darn stubborn streak.  It’ll get you every time.  Especially when you’re standing up for the little guy.”   We all looked at each other with that sense of epiphany and realized another sense of family connection.  A piece of heritage handed to us by our (great)grandfather.  The sense that the little guy is worth protecting and helping.  That little guy that you see here and there as you go about your day.  The cashier in the grocery store, the garbage man in the cold rain, the lady sitting outside the train station in a garish outfit with no place to go … they are the little people who deserve attention and time and protection by those who have more, even if it’s just enough to buy a cup of coffee.  Sometimes just saying hello and how are you while checking out is enough.  Or talking to the garbage guys as they do their untouchable work.  It’s worth it you know.

It’s just like bringing a cup of water to Jesus.

Filed under: Livin' the missional life, Love Mercy, Lovin' my neighbor, Seek Justice by threadbaresonja

This was originally published on my home blog, “Calacirian,” as part of a synchroblog on untouchables in June of 2007.

I don’t remember how old this ad campaign is. They all start to run together after awhile. Some of you may remember the Dr. Pepper ads … I think they ran in the late 1970’s judging from the look.

Wouldn\’t You Like To Be A Pepper Too

It’s very seductive. If you drink Dr. Pepper, you’ll have lots of friends; be part of the “in-crowd.” According to this ad, everyone wants “to be a Pepper.” Look at all the shiney, happy people being “Peppers.” I don’t like Dr. Pepper, but I want to be one after watching that ad. I’d even drink one now and again if I could have that life.

Ads like that are deceptive (of course). They strum the chords of our desire to belong. They dig around deep in the hurts that we all have and ask, “Do you have what you want?” Then they tell us, “You can belong. Just get this one thing and you’ll be part of the in-crowd.”

Why do we have this deep down desire to belong? And why does it keep us purchasing more and more stuff? I think there are a couple of reasons for that. First, I think that we’re all born with a desire to be in groups. We were made to bond with others in families and in communities (how we were made that way is not the focus of this post … so I’m not going there). Second, I think that at some level and at some time in our lives we have each been branded as “untouchable” by a group and been excluded from that group for reasons which were beyond our control. This caused a wound and a desire to overcome that exclusion … to become part of the in-crowd far beyond the wound that was created.

In the first century, Jesus is recorded as having healed many people. It is told that he healed several lepers, blind people, cured a woman with an unstoppable menses, cripples, etc. At the time these people were considered (especially the lepers) as untouchables. In the first century, people with physical and mental problems of this nature were believed to have brought it upon themselves by some sin or have had it brought upon them by sin in their family’s past. In other words, it was the choices made by them or their families that caused the problems they were now facing. It was, to be succinct, their own fault they were lepers, or blind, or deaf, or bleeding, or … etc.

Those of us who read the New Testament shrink from that understanding in dismay. We are much more enlightened now. And we know some of what Jesus knew. That those people were suffering from physical maladies over which they had no control at all.

Ah, yes. We are much more enlightened now. We no longer have leper communities. We no longer have beggars in our streets. We no longer treat our mentally ill as if they were possessed of demons and keep them locked away. Or … do we?

Every human group has a defined set of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors. Some are universal. Thou shalt not kill other humans seems to be universal (for good reason). Doing bodily harm to other humans also seems to be universal. After that it gets kind of dicey. In the institutional, fundamentalist Protestant church sexual deviance (that is anything that deviates from one man-one woman-missionary position) is considered unacceptable behavior … for life. There is no repenting or forgiveness once one has crossed that line. How about if one considers being a Democrat? The emerging church/conversation has its own set of unacceptable behaviors as well. What if one chooses to live a solitary life? Or continues to shop at Wal-Mart? Flagrantly? The secular community has unacceptable behaviors too … alcoholism, sexual offenses, being overweight.

My point is, we continue to shun people for things that they may have little or no control over. Weight, substance abuse, and sexual orientation are all issues which have deep, deep roots in people’s psyche’s. I am daily more convinced that sexual orientation something that a person is born with and is immutable. Weight and substance abuse issues have life long causes, consequences and cures. We cannot decide for others what they have a “choice” in. Because we do not live in their heads. We only live in our own heads. Here in our own heads we are all broken, each and every one of us. If every group has its own untouchables, its own lepers, then we all must be lepers of one sort of another.

Every time we create an “us” and a “they”, we have created modern day lepers, untouchables. We have created a set of people with whom we will not associate. If we are to begin to learn how to love as Jesus loved (that would be to love our neighbors as ourselves) we must begin to see others not as we want them to be (perfect), but as they are … fellow creations of God. We must begin to see them as “us.” Fellow lepers in the colony of earth. Wouldn’t ya like to be a leper too?

Filed under: Lovin' my neighbor, Seek Justice by threadbaresonja

This was originally posted at my home blog, “Calacirian,” in February 2008.

Among the many treasures I brought back from the quilt show seems to be a nasty cold virus. So I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time in my nest on the sofa. Sometimes I’m trying very hard to concentrate and read … anything. Other times I give up and watch television and stitch. I’m getting tired of listening to the mindless chatter coming from the schoolroom. The LightChildren do not talk with one another, the words just dribble out of their mouths at one another with no purpose. They are not listening to each other, nor is one responding to the other. They are each simply speaking the words which cross their brains at the moment. Ugh.

Among the few blog posts I’ve managed to read were this one by VikingFru; she called her post Us vs. Them. I think many of us have written similar posts at one time or another when we’ve become burdened by the ugliness we see in the world. I’ve spent quite a bit of my stitching time thinking about her post and meditating on how our culture has gotten to this place. I remember a song by Talking Heads and the line “How did I get here?” keeps running through my head. How did we get here? How did we get to this place where it’s sooo important to be right? So important that we’re willing to kill for it?

We are you know. We are willing to kill people to prove that we’re right. We do it every day. Each and every one of us. We imagine that we’re helping them out. We imagine that we’re helping them to “see the light.” We think we’re giving them truth, light and beauty. But really, we’re just trying to be more right than the other person. We’re trying to win.

There are some beautiful souls who are pure enough that they can say they are trying to spread light without harm. But most of us are trying to win the argument. Especially when it comes to the blog-o-sphere.

I can’t parse out the twists and turns of how we got here. But I do know for certain that it’s not the example that Jesus set for us. Here are two …

The story of the rich young ruler and the story of the woman at the well in Samaria.

They are both so well known I’m not going to reprint them here.

In the story of the rich young ruler, Jesus does not enter into a theological debate with the guy. RYR runs up and asks a question about how to enter the Kingdom. Here’s the kicker. We see from the text that Jesus LOVES him and gives him an answer. RYR can’t live by the rules. So he went away sad. So did Jesus. But it doesn’t say that Jesus stopped loving him. He doesn’t run after RYR beating him about the head with a theological debate. What is is what is. There’s no verbal abuse. No demeaning language. No entanglement. Just the facts and they stand by themselves. More than that … Jesus did not feel the need to “win.” Whether he won or lost was not the issue in that engagement. I think the main point of that story is that he loved the guy and would keep on loving him even though entrance into the kingdom is one of the most difficult things we can do. We need to rely on His love in order to for it to happen. We miss that in our attempts to make a formula out of the parable.

In the story of the woman at the well (I’ll call her Sam), Jesus begins talking a woman that no one ever talks to. Not only is her culture outcast, but she is an outcast within her culture. Hence she is drawing water in the heat of the day when she will not have to endure the blanketed silence and sideways glances of the other women in the town. Have you ever wondered about women who become prostitutes or men who become homeless? The people who are in the dregs of our culture. Do you ever wonder about them? I do. I wonder how they started out in life. I don’t think they began life as whores and junkies and pimps. Somewhere there is house with photos on the wall of an apple faced girl or boy that these people once were. They have parents, who had dreams for them that have been smashed for one reason or another. That little girl or boy … that fresh slate? That’s who Jesus sees. Yes, he also sees the mistakes and sins, and terrible things we do to each other, but He also sees and loves that young child of beauty that we each once were. That’s the Sam He saw that day at the well. He saw the five husbands and the fact that she was living with a guy, but he also saw all of her potential and the wonder that was created within her. He could see the becoming as well as the is.

Jesus’ example of how to lead people was not how to win an argument, but how to love. How to see the becoming, the potential and the wonder of His creation. When we focus on winning or losing, we actually lose focus. We begin to forget what our real aim is. Our real aim is to love our neighbors, not logic them.

Filed under: Grace, Lovin' my neighbor, Seek Justice by threadbaresonja

This was originally posted on my home blog “Calacirian” as part of the Missional Synchroblog in June 2008.

So … here it is. Today’s the day. The day of the big synchroblog. The big hitters are writing about this. Fifty of us are writing to define the word “missional.” When Rick sent out his call for this by blog and by e-mail (thank you, Rick), I thought, “Yeah … I do have something to say.” In the intervening weeks though, my scattered thoughts have not gathered themselves.

I am no theologian. I am not trained in exegesis or any of the other long scary unknowable words that people use to make themselves seem smart. I am, at the end of the day, a teacher. And a quilter (I love color) And a story-teller. So I will tell a story and teach a lesson about how I and my family are missional in the suburbs. In our house missional means lawncare … among other things.

It all began with a door to nowhere. Or more precisely, a door to our backyard with a 5 foot drop for a first step. We lived in our house for 3 years with a french door that we could not use because, well, “Watch out for the first step, it’s a lou-lou.” So we had a deck built.

Two guys built it. I think they spoke about 10 words of English between the two of them. Just enough to ask for the bathroom and water when they needed it. We’d go out and admire their workmanship occasionally; they’d smile and nod.

During this time I was caring for a friend’s four children once a week while she and her husband went to marriage counseling. It was the tradition for she and her kids to have dinner with us when the counseling was done. One evening, it happened that the deck makers were also there. We invited them to have dinner with us in the back yard. We’d have eaten in the house, but we had no way to get the grilled meat into the house because of the construction. We set up a plastic banquet table and paper plates. BlazingEwe and her FlamingLambs were here too. The kids ate all over the yard and the grown ups ate together at the table. I remembered about as much Spanish from highschool as they knew English. So we were able to communicate over sticky drumsticks and gooey potato salad. We all ate and smiled until our stomachs and faces were full. It was one of the happiest meals I remember.

We’ve carried on the tradition since then. Whenever people come to work on or around our home, we bring them water or share a meal with them depending on the circumstances. This year, we’ve finally broken down and hired a lawncare service. This has turned out to be a Hispanic man and his sons. We don’t do lawn care with any regularity and our lawn has always been the po’white trash lawn on the block … a certain disgrace to a particular neighbor of ours. It is the elder son who does the talking and negotiating with us. He must be about LightGirl’s age, but sober and sturdy. Responsible, quick and dependable. They come whenever to mow our lawn, if we’re here we pay them, otherwise, they come another time for payment. If we’re here, we take them water. One evening the father was taking a little too long with his part and the sons played joyfully on our trampoline. LightBoy joined them. And the joy was exponential. Our lawn has become beautiful in their capable hands, but more importantly we are slowly building a friendship with them. Our goal is to invite them to a meal soon. To share our hospitality with them.

You see, to me, missional is about giving hope in a world of gray. It’s about smiling at people who routinely wear frowns. I may never have the chance to speak the words of the Gospel to them in my outloud voice. But I can say to my (agnostic) friend when her sense of being gets too tied up in her website, “You are more than that. You are not your website. You are beautiful and created for much more than that.” Help her move beyond despair and into grace.

Missional is about loving my neighbor and that can be expressed in thousands of ways, but the thought that came into my head this morning and will not leave is the verse from Jeremiah that most people use in very different circumstances. Jeremiah 29:11 … “1 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Plans to give hope and a future. You see that’s so often lacking in our world today. Hope … AND a future.

So I speak hope into the lives of the people I know and the people I meet. I try to know them and find the hope that is there. Find the light that leads to the future and together we will walk towards God.

Filed under: Livin' the missional life, Lovin' my neighbor, Walk Humbly by threadbaresonja

In some ways I hate to write posts like this.  They seem sort of braggy and that’s not me at all.  On the other hand, this is perhaps the latest example I have in my own life of how to live missional.  That it’s not about buzz words or theory, but how to love others when no one is looking.

Under ordinary circumstances, LightHusband and I avoid our Costco as if it were under quarantine during the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but for some reason we ventured near on the Monday after Thanksgiving this year.  I can’t remember what lead us there, but there was something we “needed.”  We went in prepared, list in hand, mentally ready for the crowd.  We went in, got out in about an hour and considered ourselves lucky.  As we were loading the cart into the car, a tall man approached us and asked for directions to the local Social Security office.

Now this office is across town from the Costco so we assumed he was driving and gave him directions by car.  He thanked us and strolled away across the parking lot.  I watched him go into the bright but useless sunshine of December 1.  I turned to LightHusband and commented that I didn’t think he was driving and it was quite a hike to the Social Security office from where we were.

It so happened that we were driving down the very road we’d giving him directions for, so we looked out for him.  Sure enough, there he was striding along.  So we drove up and asked him if he’d like a ride.  He was grateful in the understated way of strangers.  We also gave him cab fare for the journey home.  I regret we never got his name.

Since that short trip across town on a blustery day, I’ve been thinking about the people I see walking on the roadsides.  How many of them don’t know that the bus system exists?  Or how to find the schedule?  Or how to use it?  I don’t know why that man had to go to Social Security, but I’m sure it was a short-ish visit and it was going to take him all day with that walk thrown in.  If you have a job, how do you take a whole day to go to these things?  It was one more place where I could see that being poor was quite expensive.

Filed under: Livin' the missional life, Lovin' my neighbor by threadbaresonja