The Death, Burial and Resurrection of Hearts
It's spring here in the mountains. The older I get the more I love this season. Appalachia does not disappoint. This is our first spring in the Tennessee and in this old home. The former owner loved gardening and spent over 70 years planting and tending this one and half acres like it was her personal arboretum. Just about every other week, since the first of February, a new variety of flora pushes up through the soft acidic soil and buds seem ready to burst open on any given bush or tree. Their beauty leaving us amazed. Amazed at the life that comes after the death of winter.
Not only is it spring on the calendar it feels like spring in our souls too. Grateful seems a little banal in the explanation, but grateful also feels like the closest word that can explain our hearts. Some nights still find the thermometer dipping down into freezing in my back yard garden, killing things planted too early; we see new life sprouting up in our hearts and sometimes not surviving the freeze. We know that some of the things we've planted in our being will not last into the next season, but we no longer fret over that - we've learned to practice compassion with ourselves, learn from our mistakes for next year and keep planting. When planted, compassion grows in all seasons of the soul.
Sitting under the shade of these big trees on a warm southern night finds us talking about people who have impacted our lives and have remained present. The remaining piece is more valuable than we ever imagined and has made the biggest impact. It's rare that a week goes by that we do not verbalize our thank's for people like the Lawman's boss. The fact that he supported Chris to work remotely in Mongolia for a summer while we tried our hand at missions, coming back and then communicating his desire to attend a counseling college and start a farm in Tennessee ~ it leaves us amazed every time at the kindness of the man who hired him over nine years ago. He is my husband's boss, but he is an elder in our life no matter his title.
Having lost children too, if I had been my mother's friend when she buried my brother, I would have known that there was not a thing I could say to lessen the pain. I would have brought her comfort food and just been - present. Being present is a gift I did not know the full value of until now. And it's the very thing I've learned during life's lessons of death, burial and resurrections...in those times words are of little comfort, but being with someone who has walked through the loss you are experiencing and watching their lungs fill with air and sometimes a smile crosses their face ~ well, it's Hope in human form.
What I find myself absent of out here on this side of the stone that's been rolled away is this - fear. I'm not afraid anymore. Not afraid to speak up, to set boundaries if needed, to be invisible, to have a voice...not afraid that I'm missing God's will for my life, not afraid to be wrong, to stand up for others if it means losing position or friends, not afraid to embrace my brokenness, not afraid to love, to know that I am a human who can only be WITH a handful of people, to be lonely, to be happy, to be misunderstood, to choose my man and my kids above everyone else, not afraid to live and I'm sure as hell not afraid of dying anymore. This is a lot for me, a lot for a woman who used to lie in bed at night as a small girl, so afraid of everything her whole body would shake until she threw up. I'm not afraid. Except when my kids don't text back - that scares me. ;)
This Easter week if you find that you're afraid of the tomb and all that means I completely understand. Completely. Not a whole lot of living going on in there, but I promise you this - the living you'll live when you walk out will be more beautiful, more vivid and you'll realize you can slow life down to practice the Eucharist everywhere you find yourself. You can see Him and His death and dying and now living in everything and every place.
We'll be celebrating His resurrection with other church refugees this Easter, sharing a meal in a home with former pastors and missionaries and laity ~ all gathering around a table, much like the ones who were waiting to see if He really would walk out of the tomb. Others will gather in churches around the world and that is beautiful and holy too. What I love is that we will all be coming to gather together to rejoice that graves are not permanent places - they are cocoons of incarnation and transformation. They are the place where we meet Him and see that we are not alone, He is with us in the death, the burial and the resurrection. He is risen...and so will you.
If Easter passes you by and you're still in the tomb, know that we're out here waiting. Waiting and knowing that living things come walking out of dead places. Like the song says, "Whatever you do, don't stop...If I haven't told ya, I'm lucky to know ya..." If you're reading this we are lucky to know ya, and we'll be cooking a meal and waiting to celebrate your new life out here. So don't stop. Keep trusting Him. He's with you. We're not in a hurry and we've got time, so take your time. It's going to be worth it...promise. It will be so worth it. ;)
Not only is it spring on the calendar it feels like spring in our souls too. Grateful seems a little banal in the explanation, but grateful also feels like the closest word that can explain our hearts. Some nights still find the thermometer dipping down into freezing in my back yard garden, killing things planted too early; we see new life sprouting up in our hearts and sometimes not surviving the freeze. We know that some of the things we've planted in our being will not last into the next season, but we no longer fret over that - we've learned to practice compassion with ourselves, learn from our mistakes for next year and keep planting. When planted, compassion grows in all seasons of the soul.
Twilight is my favorite time of day and I often see the Lawman through the window out back grilling while I grab sides in the kitchen. One recent evening the kids were playing soccer in the fluorescent green spring grass. The others were settled in camp chairs talking to their dad while the birds sang about their new babies tucked warm and safe in the bird houses standing in a ring of blooming flowers twenty feet away. We're missing two from our own nest and that always feels hollow; but like a lot of life now it is what it is. We've learned that it's at the meeting of joy and sadness that the human heart experiences the most profound gratitude. We no longer resist sadness, but welcome the value and depth of color it brings to our souls.
Sitting under the shade of these big trees on a warm southern night finds us talking about people who have impacted our lives and have remained present. The remaining piece is more valuable than we ever imagined and has made the biggest impact. It's rare that a week goes by that we do not verbalize our thank's for people like the Lawman's boss. The fact that he supported Chris to work remotely in Mongolia for a summer while we tried our hand at missions, coming back and then communicating his desire to attend a counseling college and start a farm in Tennessee ~ it leaves us amazed every time at the kindness of the man who hired him over nine years ago. He is my husband's boss, but he is an elder in our life no matter his title.
I can smell the charcoal as he sticks his head in the back door and says "The meat's almost done." I see her text come through and I smile. Hundreds of miles of terrain have been added between our homes, but they haven't stopped relationship and I'm grateful, again. I stand at the stove stirring baked beans realizing that we talk almost daily. I know it's a small thing, but it's these small things that are the beautiful parts of life we didn't know we were missing back when we were pinning our value on our contributions. The gift of healthy relationship is what He brought us and it's what we have for each other - that is where the value of living grows. I feel so happy standing there in my kitchen, so full of life and hope...hard fought for hope.
Turning the heat up on the stove, I scroll down through the text and read, "I'm listening to this and thinking of yall..." She's sent us a song and I pull it up and play it through the speaker out back. I raise my voice over the notes so the Lawman can hear me through the window, "[Our friend] sent this song for us..." He nods as he drinks a cold beer, leaning back in the chair next to the fire pit to listen. The words begin to float through the 75 year old window screen back into the kitchen and it's not long before tears find their way to down my face. The song is a song of encouragement, but I know the reasons for the need of encouragement for both them and us...and there it is, sadness finding it's way to my heart along with the words to the song finding their way to my ears.
He comes inside toward the end of the song and sighs, emotion in both of our eyes, "That song is more about them than it is us." he says. He's right. Watching them walk through the hell that comes from the cocktail of losing their job/friends/church/nephew in one fell swoop of a few months was quiet honestly the hardest thing we've ever been present for in someone's spiritual life. The song ends by saying "Whatever you do, don't stop...If I haven't told ya, I'm lucky to know ya..." The meat is off the grill now, everything else is ready too; but I'm a mess.
Grief does not send a nice announcement, letting you know when she will be arriving. She opens the door and lets herself in, waiting for you to turn around and embrace her or run to the other room. But she is compassionate and kind and she'll wait until you're ready to let her do her work. These days I look at her and run toward her embrace, she's here to hear my heart and walk me through her process of healing. She's not moved by my anger at injustice, my questions, my fears and she's there to help me dream of the day I'll open the door to let her go on to help someone else. She is a dear friend, but like any dear friend will do, she will take her time.
Walking out our own story and walking with other people we've found that He's in the lamenting and in the hurting and in the loneliness just as much as He's in the joy and the victories. While it seems easier to label ourselves or others in a effort to see who's advanced in their faith, if we sit with empathy (not there to fix, but only to be present) in our own story or someone else's we won't see unforgiveness, bitterness or brokenness...we'll see metamorphosis...in all of us. We'll see a tomb full of incarnation and later transformation. What comes walking out of the tomb will most likely surprise everyone. Quite literally we did not know ourselves after walking out of this latest grave. But He knows and He knows our friends too.
My parents buried my brother in this city years before I was born and it is not lost on me that his small body is resting less than a mile from my home. Sometimes I'll go and sit by his tiny grave and it brings me peace. Even in his death he is the big brother teaching me about death, burial and resurrection. Where I used to resist the dying and the being buried, I find myself these days grateful, grateful for the whole process and what it means. Grateful for the way the ones who have gone before me bring me peace and beauty in my living.
Having lost children too, if I had been my mother's friend when she buried my brother, I would have known that there was not a thing I could say to lessen the pain. I would have brought her comfort food and just been - present. Being present is a gift I did not know the full value of until now. And it's the very thing I've learned during life's lessons of death, burial and resurrections...in those times words are of little comfort, but being with someone who has walked through the loss you are experiencing and watching their lungs fill with air and sometimes a smile crosses their face ~ well, it's Hope in human form.
What I find myself absent of out here on this side of the stone that's been rolled away is this - fear. I'm not afraid anymore. Not afraid to speak up, to set boundaries if needed, to be invisible, to have a voice...not afraid that I'm missing God's will for my life, not afraid to be wrong, to stand up for others if it means losing position or friends, not afraid to embrace my brokenness, not afraid to love, to know that I am a human who can only be WITH a handful of people, to be lonely, to be happy, to be misunderstood, to choose my man and my kids above everyone else, not afraid to live and I'm sure as hell not afraid of dying anymore. This is a lot for me, a lot for a woman who used to lie in bed at night as a small girl, so afraid of everything her whole body would shake until she threw up. I'm not afraid. Except when my kids don't text back - that scares me. ;)
This Easter week if you find that you're afraid of the tomb and all that means I completely understand. Completely. Not a whole lot of living going on in there, but I promise you this - the living you'll live when you walk out will be more beautiful, more vivid and you'll realize you can slow life down to practice the Eucharist everywhere you find yourself. You can see Him and His death and dying and now living in everything and every place.
We'll be celebrating His resurrection with other church refugees this Easter, sharing a meal in a home with former pastors and missionaries and laity ~ all gathering around a table, much like the ones who were waiting to see if He really would walk out of the tomb. Others will gather in churches around the world and that is beautiful and holy too. What I love is that we will all be coming to gather together to rejoice that graves are not permanent places - they are cocoons of incarnation and transformation. They are the place where we meet Him and see that we are not alone, He is with us in the death, the burial and the resurrection. He is risen...and so will you.
If Easter passes you by and you're still in the tomb, know that we're out here waiting. Waiting and knowing that living things come walking out of dead places. Like the song says, "Whatever you do, don't stop...If I haven't told ya, I'm lucky to know ya..." If you're reading this we are lucky to know ya, and we'll be cooking a meal and waiting to celebrate your new life out here. So don't stop. Keep trusting Him. He's with you. We're not in a hurry and we've got time, so take your time. It's going to be worth it...promise. It will be so worth it. ;)
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