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In which {love looks like} the room to change

September 30, 2012

You’ve been away for a week now, and I miss you so much more than I expected. I say “expected” because we both know what it’s like in this house: how busy, how loud, how full, oh, these days. I mean, I knew we would miss you but we have school and preschool, get-togethers, family, friends, church, work, life still happening. Surely I’ll be too busy for longings. Two nights in, I was standing in our closet, with my eyes closed, smelling your clothes. I did all the laundry, and I cried because I missed your gigantic jeans with the frayed hems filling up our old washing machine. I haven’t cooked a real meal all week, we’re subsisting on grilled cheese and pancakes, I guess you’re the one for whom I cook.

This week, I’ve been remembering the years of spiritual disunity between us, particularly around community and church, calling and vocations. Maybe it’s because you’re back in Texas, with our beloved friends-like-family, and the Great State was the scene of one existential crisis after another for me (or maybe I was just too hot, we all know how grouchy I can be when I’m sweaty). So I remembered how burned out and broken I was ten years ago, then, you joined me seven years ago, and we moved, then we went different directions somehow. Remember this?

I railed against institutions and organizations, wouldn’t darken the door of a “real” church, became fluent in fault-finding and cynicism, the word “orthodoxy” made my left eye twitch, while you tacked hard the other way, steering towards seminary, conservative denominations, structures, authorities, you longed for accountability.

Many saw me, and my questions, my wonderings, my wanderings, as a liability to your calling, they felt badly for you, I was holding you back. Why couldn’t I fall in line? I know this. (I felt badly for you, too.) And others on my side couldn’t understand why you were going back into the old ways, when God was moving as a fresh wind, beyond boundaries and walls.

Even though we were so far apart on so many seemingly vital things, we were so happy, weren’t we? we were still us.

People would raise eyebrows at you: What about your calling to pastor? The years were going by. They were concerned. And you would say, I’m trusting God with that one. And then you would laugh and say, Well, I’ll just send them Sarah’s blog, and if they still want us – you always said “us” not “me” – after that, I guess we’ll know it’s a good fit.

We were moving towards each other. But it took a while. You moved, and I moved, and God was moving, and we were meeting at a thousand points in the sky. Today, we stand together, all these years later, in harmony and in step, in agreement, in unity, oneness, even in the places where we disagree (still) (yes, still).

I looked back on that season of our marriage, the season when we were so different, and I remembered you telling me that this was not going to change us. We could give each other the gift of time, and space, room to change without fear.

There wasn’t an urgency of trying to convince each other, was there? I didn’t feel the need to make you believe and think in my ways. I understood why you were there. And you gave me the same grace, didn’t you? You even gave me the extra measure, the freedom to explore my struggles and ideas and weaknesses in a public place, you were not threatened by me. And when you were faced with the choice between full-time vocational ministry or a strong marriage, you chose me. Don’t think I’ll ever forget it. Don’t think I’ll ever forget how you stay here, in a small city in Canada, for me, for our tinies, even now. Don’t think I’ll forget how we each let each other be wrong, for a long time, each.

I had a friend ask me: but how? How do you disagree so strongly on something as vital as your spirituality or your expression of faith? How do you fall away from everything you believed, and yet, yet, not fall away from each other? because don’t you have to solve all your problems before the sun goes down? don’t we have to stay at it, marriage is hard work after all, until all is resolved and everyone is singing from the same sheet of music?

Maybe. But we didn’t do it that way. The sun has set on our disagreements, many times over. We’ve gotten a lot of practice at living in the in-betweens, we figure that’s where the life happens, and we figured we wanted to love well, even, especially, here.

The sun went down, we still disagreed mightily, and we kissed in our old bed anyway.

I remember you saying it to me, over and over: meant to be, Sarah Lynn. Meant to be. We were meant to be, we built it down in the foundations of our story, and so we were safe there. We knew that if we were faithful to God, faithful to each other, that we would end up where we were meant to be all along, eventually, even now.

God gave you to me, darling, and he gave me to you, for this journey, and we figured we both had a lot to learn, and so we gave each other the room to change.

You’ve given me so many gifts but I think of one often: you just aren’t afraid. You are never afraid, you walk in such trust, and expectation, in bold gentleness. Bri, this part of our story would have looked so differently if you hadn’t been so fearless. But because you weren’t afraid, I was not afraid, and we simply rested, even danced, there, in the in-between, and we talked a lot, and we waited. The Spirit moved me, and the Spirit moved you, and we moved together always, to now. We’ll move somewhere else – literally, figuratively – someday, I imagine.

You’ll be home tonight, we made you muffins. I call sleep-in tomorrow morning. Thank you for letting me change. Thank you for changing.

Read full story · brian, church, faith, fearless, love, love looks like, marriage · Comments { 43 }

In which I defend the cafeteria

September 10, 2012

I was in high school when I first heard the term cafeteria Christian. The American preacher was telling us about it at church camp, he was a passionate apologist, and I remember a lot of “them” and “those people,” a lot of derision about the idea, shaming. Because cafeteria Christians, especially those cold and liberal mainliners, just pick and choose whatever they like from the Christian faith, more concerned with political correctness than the Real True Doctrines.

Cafeteria Christians, well, those people don’t take what they’re given, the whole nutritious balanced plate, no, they make a meal at the ice cream sundae station, chase it with Lucky Charms, they skip veggies.

—

In my tired years, I was a mega-church refugee, a burned out ministry wife, a doubter, a questioner, a people-pleaser, a tired performer, a new seeker all over again, and I found my way to the Anglican Church. And they helped save me a time or two, because I was not taking communion, I was receiving the Eucharist, just another twenty-something evangelical kid on the Canterbury Trail.

One day, I was on a lunch break from my credit union gig in downtown Vancouver. I walked up Burrard, hugely pregnant with my second child, hurrying through the crowds of business suits, sidestepping buskers, pressed by the constant hum of conversation, of busy and capable people, the feeling of go-go-go-go on the young city’s sidewalks. I cut from the crowd at the corner of Georgia to climb the stone steps of the old church.

From the voices and the bustle, the modernity and money of our glass towers and dime-a-dozen sushi joints, to the narthex of an old cathedral. This silence and holiness, this quiet, was existing right at the same spot, but for the seeking. The weight of holiness and prayer, the smell of candles, old wooden pews, lanterns, musty papers. The dull light coming through hundred-year-old stained glass windows illuminated only dust swirling in the air. The church was completely empty, yet the doors were open, and even that small grace felt like a whole new thing to me.

Read the rest of this over at Prodigal Magazine…

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In which he wouldn’t do anything different (neither would I)

August 28, 2012

I can’t seem to bring myself to church more than three weeks in a row. On the fourth week, I wake up, and think, yeah, I’m so not going. I like to take Sundays off now and then from church, and I’m not sure that it’s as holy as recognising that the Lord made Sabbath for us, not the other way around, or if it’s because I’m just tired out from a full week of people-stuff, and I just want to go all pseudo-hermit, have a bit of worship that looks like soul-care. Even though I’m a proper church-goer, a provider of covered dishes, I don’t have an illusions about myself, I know I still like a bit of room, so I make that room for my own self, no one else will do that for me, I’ve learned.

I spent the morning in my kitchen with Evie while Brian took the older two to the garden and Home Depot. I turned on the soundtrack of Midnight in Paris, and I made a roast chicken and summer garden veggies for my friend – she just had the sweetest little baby girl. Sometimes the only ministry I can manage is the ministry of good food.

Then I gave my own family waffles and sausage for supper because I was tired out from all the healthy cooking. I hoped I wasn’t a big old metaphor for putting ministry first, but I was comforted by the knowledge that Joe would eat his body weight in sausage if I let him, and really, it’s just what they like, and honestly, who cares?

Evelynn sat on the floor while I cooked and danced and sang a bit off-key, she was banging pots and pans, and I kind of laughed because, you know, I always use that metaphor for calling others to freedom and wholeness, that image of myself standing in a field, calling everyone outside with kitchenware, truly appeals to me but, hey, did you know, that’s actually really noisy and obnoxious in your own kitchen? She’s a table top climber, she’s a for-the-fun-of-it shrieker, she’s a go-getter, a boundary-pusher, a look-you-in-the-eyes-right-while-you-are-saying-no-darling-and-do-it-anyway girl. I am always running with her, my mother thinks she’s a three-year-old trapped in a 16-month-olds body, and sometimes, when I see that intelligent and saucy look in her eyes, I’m inclined to agree. And then fast and pray about those pre-teen years, Lordhavemercy.

Brian spent the afternoon on a project with Joe. He has a big fold out work bench that he made for himself a month or two ago. It’s the project that I mentioned here in this [love looks like] post. (Brian is quite tall; the very first thing everyone says when they meet him is: “Wow. You’re tall.” So all the benches and counters and sinks are at least a foot too short for him.) He built this workbench that comes up to my shoulders, and it folds back into the wall like a murphy bed. Joe adores it, and so on Sunday, Brian made a little one, absolutely identical, for Joe. I couldn’t tell who was having more fun, Brian or Joe, but they were working together, making their own kind of art, Anne riding her bike, exploring, and I’ve noticed my tinies just like to be with us, it doesn’t matter what we’re doing, they just like to be there, and there is no greater longing of their hearts than to help, let me help, let me be a part of it all.

People keep asking me about my book writing. I have nothing to say other than: yeah, I better get on that, eh?

Then I made blueberry crisp. And organized the closet.

A few weeks ago, Brian lead a baby dedication in our friend’s backyard. It was so beautiful and regular, just a gathering of their friends and family, the many littles running around, swinging on the tree swings, while the adults visited and stood around. Back when Brian was a pastor, he would fold his Bible in half and stuff it in his back pocket, so that he always had it with him, and when he loped up to the stage to preach, he just reached around for his Bible and opened it up. I watched him in the backyard, with our friends, my sister was there, too, and he prayed, welcomed everyone, then he easily pulled that creased Bible out of his back pocket, an easy movement I hadn’t seen him perform in seven years, and some part of my heart didn’t fit in my chest any more, it was good – and sad – to see. He blessed that wee new girl, and her family, and it was that moment when the quiet unassuming one is revealed as their true identity in the movie, he’s still a pastor, still a teacher, even after all of the deconstruction and pulling apart and rebuilding of our faith, and our understanding of church and go-go-go-programs on the premise of compounds and build-it-they-will-come, coupled with a new understanding of vocation and ministry, even with his business acumen, and the new normal life in the secular marketplace. But I can’t deny it, who ever could? He’s meant for this work, he’s a pastor, a teacher, a spiritual director, and there was something so good about seeing him in that role, in that office, for just a few moments in the backyard. Something good, and yet it made me sad.

I mentioned this to him that night, I said, “Don’t you miss it? What do you think? Should we make it more of a priority to pursue some official kind of ministry life again?” And so, for the millionth time, we talked it through, and we yelled at each other, then: ssshhhhhh! the tinies are sleeping! and eventually, he was laying stretched out on the couch, his arm flung over his eyes, we needed to go to bed by now.

“I miss it, sure, Sarah, and I yearn for it, and I hope I do it for the rest of my life, someday, but today was today, and it was wonderful. I built a work bench with my son, and I wouldn’t do it anything different,” he said. “If all I ever do right in my life is love those kids down the hall, I’m satisfied, can’t you see?”

And what can you do then, but go to bed together, it is enough, and this is glorious, and I brushed my teeth, he opened the windows wide, we like fresh air, and I kissed him kissed him kissed him under the red Ikea duvet.

Read full story · abundant life, brian, church, church planting, community, enough, Evelynn, faith, friends, Joseph, journey, marriage, parenting, rest, work · Comments { 31 }

In which I leave Mercy, it’s bittersweet

August 22, 2012

I always imagined that I would be one of the little old ladies in the mail room. I imagined I would stay and stay with Mercy until I was only good for opening envelopes and filing and telling stories of how it all came to be.

I stood on the grounds of Mercy yesterday, I stood in that nicely paved and well-lighted parking lot and I remembered it all. I remembered being 18 years old and hearing about Mercy for the first time, how this place, this work, so completely captured my heart. And I remembered all those years later, when it was just a few of us there on the grounds, the house nothing but a foundation and a walls, we worked in a hot trailer, J brought her brand new puppy to work, it was the first time that I had worked in a place of prayer and devotions and the language of love and purpose. I remember walking the grounds in the springtime when the trees were blooming, praying and praying and praying for the home to open, heading back to my little corner of the trailer to take another whack at it all. And don’t get me started about the blue port-a-potty…

I remembered the night when we invited people to come, to see the empty and unrenovated old group home, to see the 4.3 acres, to pray and dream and pray. We filled the walls of the home with scripture, we wrote out words of life and hope and healing on the doorframes, in the bathrooms, in the bedrooms, on the floor, we went through pack after pack of Sharpies. We turned on good music, stood in the future-gathering room and in the garage we would convert to a classroom, and we raised our hands to heaven, we prayed for each girl across Canada that would come to us. Brian worked with a buddy in the summer heat for days and days, painstakingly chipping away at old 50 year old tiles so that we could lay a good floor. I remembered the day that the rest of the staff joined us there on the property, how they filled their time between training sessions and practicums with spray painting the frames of old thrift store mirrors to a glossy black for our wall of beauty (every mirror reflecting a beautiful face, you see). The day of the grand opening, we weren’t open yet, but we all gathered together, we dedicated the building and the work here to the glory of God, and it rained so hard the back-40 turned into a mud pit, it was a logistical nightmare.

And then there was the day when our first resident arrived, it was hard to tell who was more nervous, her or us. And then they all arrived, one after another, to sleep in the beds we’d carefully placed in the rooms so artfully designed, our heart to show her that she was worth it, she was worth the goodness, the beauty, the nice bedding and the glass tiled washroom. One precious woman walked in and started to cry, just at the sight of it, just because she made it here alive, and this was hope to her weary soul.

Mercy helped to give me back my childhood faith in miracles. Even beyond the personal stories of our residents (I try not to share too much of that here, they’re not my stories to tell, after all), there were days when we didn’t know how we would stay open but God always surprised us, always met our needs, and we didn’t do everything right, oh, Lord, no, but there was grace even for that.

I learned that only love brings transformation. I learned that mercy triumphs over judgement. I learned that laughter and fun can heal. I learned the wisdom of boundaries and right thinking. I learned to get in the back seat, and hold her.

Mercy also helped to restore my faith in church people. Because, in amongst all of the bluster and noise and ridiculousness of internet-and-television-faith, of spirituality co-opted by political gain and too much majoring-on-the-minors, I watched quiet and faithful people of Christ live the Gospel. I saw people who never asked for a thing but anonymously give thousands of dollars for the freedom and wholeness of girls they did not know. I have witnessed true faithfulness, the kind that just shows up, day after day after day, to do the hard, unsexy work.

There are ministries and people who every one likes to point fingers at and judge, the “easy targets” for arm-chair theologians, but those ministries are run by people, you know, and they gave and gave and prayed and prayed and cared for us without a single thing in return. When we would offer to tell people what they were doing for us, the donations, the books, the resources, the food, the kitchens, the furniture, the training, the wisdom, the help, everything they had given to us, they absolutely refused. These Christians did not do these things for gain or for attention, they did them because the Gospel compelled them to do them. I watched people – important and unknown – show up and work as volunteers without fanfare, I saw our staff do the hard, daily work of incarnational hope-bearing to the hurting. And I slowly I realised that this is the Church too, just as much as any of the other stuff, this counts, and it’s pushing back the darkness, making space for God. And at graduations, in that packed classroom-that-used-to-be-a-garage, filled with board members and family and friends and residents and graduates and staff, every time, I cried, and rejoiced, and marvelled: look at what God had done.

So yesterday, my desk was empty, my bag was packed. My tiny office already long-vacated for my competent and godly replacement. It’s been a slow good-bye for me, I cut my hours back and back. I tried so hard to hang on, to do it all. And they were so patient with me as I dug in with my toes, hung on with my teeth, refusing to let go, to fully move ahead. But at last, it’s time. I can’t do it all. I’m full-time with the tinies, and we have a babysitter (okay, more like a beloved member of our family now, but still) two mornings a week. And now, I need those two mornings to write. I have a book or two, hopefully a lifetime of books, to write. And I can’t do it on the edges of my life anymore, I’m rather tired, you know. I need to look after my health, I need a bit of margin. I need, when someone asks me “hey, how are you?” to not respond with “Busy!”

And so I’ve left Mercy, this was my last day, they had a cake for me that said “Congratulations, Sarah!” and I stuffed my mouth with strawberry shortcake to keep from sitting on the kitchen floor and weeping with my unmet longing to do it all.

I tell myself it’s just for a season. That I’ll be back. They are so kind to me, they tell me I’m still part of the family, and I comfort myself that I’m still an advocate, I will just move back into a volunteer role, it’s how I started, but it’s not the same as being on the inner circle, not the same as being there day-in-and-day-out as I used to be. I used to know the residents so well, and this group of women, they don’t know me at all, I’ve hardly been there.

This is the best thing, this is the good thing, it’s the right thing to do, I know it all in my head, I do. I’m headed into a new season of my life, and my priority is, always is, my little weird family, no regrets.

But I stood there in that parking lot, on that holy ground, and I got into my minivan. I pulled out of the gates, and I cried and cried and cried until my throat was burning, my voice hoarse, and I pulled over to the side of the road, my head on the steering wheel, and gave myself over to it the bitter part of the bittersweet for a while longer.