Open Arms

Tomorrow, it will be one week from when I walked off a plane, stepped out of French customs and into a sweet French family in Paris.

The last few days have been full full full. Imagine: three children, three adults, communicating in two languages in a two-bedroom apartment in one big city.

There’s a lot to learn, when you suddenly drop into someone else’s lifestyle.

I’m not complaining. Far from it. Nope. I’m dumbfounded. This is reeeaaal good.

We are on the northern edge of Paris’s northernmost neighborhood, Montmartre, in a sunny, 7th-floor apartment. The living room windows look out on lots of other apartments, geraniums, nudity, big screens and all. They also permit a Midwesterner to see the skyscape, which is comforting.

This “we” includes myself, the newcomer, then Jonathan, Amélie, superparents, and their three kids. E is 4 ½, I is 2, and S is just about a month old. They’re a dynamic, loving family; the kids are happy, strong, and adventurous. Maman and Papa are gentle, joyful, encouraging, and challenge their children to do accomplish things on their own whenever possible.

Jonathan and Amélie have taken such good care of me. We’ve had discussions (once over a rather large pot of Swiss fondue) about our hopes and expectations for our relationships together this year. Jonathan has helped me set up various accounts at the bank, cell phone company, and Paris public bike system, and oriented me to the various bike and bus treks I’ll need to know to get E from school a couple of times a week. Amélie has been showing me everything I need to know about the neighborhood, like parks and grocery stores. Even better, this formally-trained child psychologist is teaching me about each of the children, their phase of development, and different techniques to healthily communicate with children.

In the middle of all of this, I’m rediscovering France. It feels like being with an old friend. I know her well, it seems—not just the romantic things that charm people the world over, but also the weird, less appealing sides that frustrate. Several times a day, I find something I haven’t experienced since I was last here, and find myself smirking, confounding the inevitable passerby. Something about being here is comfortable and right.

Amazingly, I’m finding that I’m not the person I was the last time I was here (four years ago), and certainly not the one that lived in Marseille at 18. For the last few years, as I’ve waited for God to bring an opportunity for me to come back here, I’ve had dreams where I’m in France, with various classmates from my time in Marseille. Unlike my interactions then, the exchanges in my dreams are easy, free, full of laughter. Last night I was chatting with a young woman in our house-church, and I was joking with her. Suddenly I remembered the dreams, and I realized they’re at last coming true. I was free and comfortable and myself.

The Lord has indeed liberated me these last years. Now I am unencumbered, able to reach out and embrace this experience, this people, this land, with open arms.

Sweet Sorrow

I’m moving to France, right now, in transit.

Leaving Kansas City, my home. When you’ve got a philosophical bent to you, like I do, this becomes a prime opportunity to consider what home is, what it means.

What’s become tragic to me as I consider this concept right now is that there’s no direct translation from the English home into French. Wordreference.com, my online dictionary of choice, gives these all-to-many options:

I. noun
1. (dwelling) gen logement m;
(house) maison f;
to be far from ~ être loin de chez soi;
a ~ of one's own un chez-soi;
to work from ~ travailler à domicile;
to set up ~ in Madrid s'installer à Madrid;
I've made my ~ in France je suis installé or je vis en France;
it's ~ to me now je m'y sens chez moi;
2. (for residential care) maison f;
to put sb in a ~ mettre qn dans un établissement spécialisé;
3. (family base) foyer m;
broken ~ foyer désuni;
‘good ~ wanted’ ‘cherche foyer accueillant’;
to leave ~ quitter la maison;
4. (country) pays m;
to consider France (as) ~ considérer la France comme son pays;
5. (source) ~ of (country, area) pays m de (speciality).

Oh dear! So many nuances of what, for me, is one deep, wide thing of utmost importance. Home is part of my very identity, an elusive feeling always looked for.

I’ve been learning about child development in order to prepare for my new task of caring for children full-time, and it’s been completely wonderful and fascinating. I read Maria Montessori’s The Absorbent Mind, in which she elaborates many, many capacities of the child’s malleable mind, particularly in his first six years. One thing that completely baffled me was the fact that in a very short time, a little being takes in and learns to emulate an entire culture. Think what that entails: language, posture, taste in food, values, relationships, and so much more! Within a couple of years, a child has absorbed home into his being, and has been irreversibly formed by it.

This explains why, when I lived in France for the first time at the age of 18, I ached not for Chicken McNuggets, nor for the punk shows I loved to go to, but for wide-open spaces. I craved clouds, fields, bird song like I experienced frequently as a child. These are what I anticipate craving in the next months.

But, as the adage goes, “Home is where the heart is,” too. As I step forward, my heart is full, full, full of love poured out from friends and family in Kansas City. I have a lovely book busting with notes from you all, and my computer’s stuffed with music you’ve passed along to me. I’ve been lent a camera, given an iPod, helped and fed and served. And whoo boy, did we all shed tears over this parting. Such sweet sorrow. It’s a gift to have so many friendships worth tearing up over leaving, and I’m humbled and thankful.

Still, onward ho! There’s adventure to be had, and a home to be won in France as never before. If home is where the heart is, then I go ready to plant my little heart in Paris soil, in Paris family, and let it root. I’m learning through this that where the soil is Love, uprooting and rerooting are not so bad.

"You don't have to be perfect. That's not why you're here."

Now that I’m going away, I look at my world from new eyes; it’s a wonderful by-product of imminent departure. Each habit, friendship, and choice becomes shiny and dear.

Suddenly, I’m seeing the stories I haven’t told, glimpses into the glory of the people around me that I haven’t taken the trouble to paint. They have been too enmeshed with the everyday for me to bother telling them. I still have three weeks, though, and maybe I’ll find the time to do so here; perhaps it will even aid me in the interior process of closing out my last years here in Kansas City.

Today: a treat.

I have loved many things in these last years; there are rituals I’ve hardly noticed built into my life. One of them, for two years or so, has been that of Wednesday night yoga. Those of you who have committed to yoga over a long period can probably attest to its many benefits and wonders, and I will gladly join the choir and sing its praises. But it’s my yoga instructor that has made this process human.

Bernie’s class is called “Yoga is for Every Body,” and you might scoff at that title until you experience his first class. He’s not the typical yogi, being middle-aged, tall, large of build and pot-bellied; oftentimes he reaches up in a posture and we participants glimpse not a tiny swath of hairy belly. This is offset by clear, light eyes characterized by peace, and a somehow twisty grin. Clearly Bernie’s unique physique creates a certain permission, because there are people sweating it out every week of all shapes and sizes and levels of skill, many of whom I’ve never spied at the gym itself.

A more earnest, gentle yoga instructor I would be shocked to find. Every once and a while, Bernie references a physically difficult past, back problems from working full-time in retail, tinged with an unspoken-of hint of sadness and depression. Yoga changed his body, changed his mind, and changed his life. He’s a believer to the core. But also not a zealot—Bernie’s instructions toward the spiritual aspect of the practice are intentionally open so as to allow his students to “apply whatever faith” they practice. Many a time I have felt the Holy Spirit’s presence like a gentle nudge or a physical tingle, as Bernie has posed a question or directed our focus Above. Principles of balance and connectedness that could be alienating if forced have enriched my faith and beautified my life.

I love about Bernie that he’s a whole, inter-connected, balanced person himself. He nonchalantly mentions his full-time finance desk job one day. Then, every now and again he’ll reference the fact that he’s an artist, represented by Kansas City’s Blue Gallery. He can stand on his knees in lotus pose for several seconds (one of his favorite yoga masters says you should be “elated” if you can do this for 3). And the guy is a mental music library, making kick-ass mixes to set his class to. Though the mixes change, this one is always on it, and I will leave you to the chills of comfort and peace it should send through you.

Find more songs like Stronger Hand at Myspace Music

image: Within every one of us there is a heaven, painting by Bernal Koehrsen

Bright Sadness

It’s the Lenten season right now.

Growing up in a lackadaisical Protestant family, I didn’t practice Lent as a child; nor did my non-denominational awakening really encourage participation in it.

This year, I thought it was time. I can’t explain what pushed me towards it, but in the end, more than a whim and less than a Word from Heaven caused me to decide I wanted to go Vegan for the six or so weeks that comprise the Lenten season. Vegan means no meat, no dairy; I have felt it good to also eliminate refined sugars and caffeine as much as possible.

On Ash Wednesday, which kicks off the season, I went to an Anglican service with friends Jonathan and Ben. I’d never been to one before, and actually had no idea what Lent is actually about in the Christian tradition, outside of giving stuff up. That night I learned that it’s considered a time of “Bright Sadness.” It involves, first, examination of our human condition, turning away from what is unhealthy, unjust, dysfunctional, or otherwise grieves the heart of God. That’s the sadness. But then, it’s also bright, made so by the glorious hope that things of difficulty and mourning in this life can and will be made right by Jesus’ death and resurrection.

“Hm, that’s interesting” would more or less summarize my reaction to these findings, as I was then concentrating on teetering on the edge of my new diet.

Oh, but the Lord is interesting. I thought I ought to look at the story of Daniel, since a Vegan diet is pretty much what Christian fasters call a “Daniel fast”—eating only things that grow from the ground. In the first chapter of the book, Daniel and his friends are living in captivity in Babylon, but as the choicest of the young men, are being trained and pampered. Presumably, they are given the richest of foods to eat. However,

“Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way.” (1:8)

So it is that he and his buddies eat only vegetables and water, and turn out healthier than all the other strapping young men.

I began, as I carried this story in my mind, to consider how partaking of certain foods might defile us. There’s some clear evidence that we as a culture aren’t consuming the healthiest of diets; we’re heavy on the grains, fats, sugars, and processed foods, and many of our kids can’t recognize simple vegetables in their original form. We’re defiling our own bodies and stealing our own health by not eating as we should.

So that’s one thing. I can choose to take responsibility, when I eat a big ol’ cookie, for the extra weight those kinds of choices add to my body and the other ways it messes with my system. But do my choices about what to eat only defile me? Maybe Daniel and company abstained from the foods of Babylon for an even bigger reason than personal health. This is the train of thought that has turned everything upside down.

At work, I thought about what we sell.* Consider the muffins we sell, that have an ingredient list three inches long. Who made them? Where did the flour and sugar come from? Where they grew, was the soil managed well? Were chemicals used on the crops that could harm our health? Were the farmers compensated well? And what about our meat? Who raised the turkeys whose meat we put on our sandwiches? Did those birds ever see the light of day? How were they killed? Who butchered them, and are they making a fair living? Was the feces of the beef cattle allowed to leach into a town’s water supply?

There are answers to these questions, but I don’t know them for sure. In the last year, I’ve learned enough about these issues to know that, in general, these answers paint a bleak picture. As consumers, we’re enabling small farmers (those remaining, and there aren’t many) to be run out of business, soil to be sapped of its health, animals to be treated as objects, and workers to be treated as animals or pieces of a machine.

I say “we” because I’m totally included in this. My choices do this. I am responsible.

This understanding has brought repentance to a whole new level. Suddenly, as I look at how we—I—treat food, I’m looking at a giant cultural deficit that I believe is evil and has gone astray from God’s good, righteous, functional plan for us as human beings. And I’m saying, over and over, several times a day, with all my heart, “I’M SO SORRY. My choices deserve death because they have caused death. Help me change my ways, God. I want to align my life, ALL of my life, with who you are.” From that place, then, I’m crying out that God would have mercy on our culture for these ways that we ignore or deny what is true and good.

Because there’s better, right? There’s a “bright” to this sadness. We’re meant to feel good, all the time. There are good, healthy, loving, joyful, caring ways to eat, to buy food, to grow food, to run food companies. And they come from a good, healthy, loving, joyful, caring God who is seated in Heaven rooting for us, and our children and all our descendants, to have good, whole lives.

*I use this not to defame my workplace, but because it’s the closest, most regular way I come into contact with the “normal” way our culture interacts with food.

Putting Down Roots

It’s a dreary day: still, the grays and browns of winter dominate our Midwest landscape. It’s nearly time to plant cool-season vegetables, and I’m scheming at how best to make use of the bits of soil we have at our house. The goal this year is to use what we have here at the house and take really good care of it; granted last year’s experience, I don’t think that, as much as my housemates travel, it’s reasonable to expect to take really good care of two gardens.

In addition to plotting (and re-plotting, and re-plotting again) our garden, I’m amping up for the growing season by tackling another tome of Wendell Berry’s essays. This time it’s Home Economics I’m keeping tucked in my bag at all times. Again, I’m finding it uncanny how the writings of this man manage to tack down so many of the discontents that swim in my heart about our culture, and yet put them in a greater perspective than I myself can muster, being just a young pup compared to this prophetic grandpa to all of us budding conservationist agriculturists.

“Property, Patriotism, and National Defense” caught me off guard. It’s mostly a well-reasoned rant against nuclear war. Like a lot of people in our generation, I’m ignorant about this issue and don’t know its ins and outs. Berry, ever able to see through the flimsy reasoning of our society, hacks at the cause of nukes like it’s a shoddily-constructed piñata. I read with a bit of a grimace and a hint of nausea as disillusionment with our culture comes and knocks at my door.

On the other hand, he also presents his own ideal of national defense. Come to find out, Mr. Berry is strongly for certain things even more than he is against nuclear weapons. I respect that. Doesn’t this sound good?

“…Widespread, settled, thriving local communities, each having a proper degree of independence, living so far as possible from local sources, and using its local sources with a stewardly care that would sustain its life indefinitely, even through times of adversity.”

He’s constantly asking questions that make the reader think about locality: do we know the place we live in? Do we know its physical landscape, its cultural heritage? Do we care for the land, culture and community of our home? Are we staying for a lifetime, for a committed season, or are we just stopping in? Clearly he’s a man in favor of staying put, not just passively hanging out in a place, but actively working towards its maintenance, health, and betterment.

The benefits of staying put and cultivating relationship where one lives are many. Indeed, how can we relate with others without enjoying common history, common life, common space?* Without the practical ways of caring for one another that living together necessitates, can we truly love one another?

This is the time of year when people our age plan summer trips, get accepted to grad school programs, finish school and leave the city. But for workers of the land, it’s a time to put down roots. While my friends are looking at traveling or moving, I’m looking at a few months of getting to know my back yard really intimately, shepherding a flock of vegetables, and bringing people into the process. It can feel boring in this swirl of youth culture in which travel is like a status symbol. How good to be able to have a wider perspective, thanks to a man who’s been watching the long shifts of our culture for a whole, long life. I’m grateful to Mr. Berry for the reminder that living in the land and cultivating faithfulness** does indeed lay a deep foundation for peace.

*See “Men and Women in Search of Common Ground” for more on this concept.
**Psalm 37

Death Swallowed Up

A week ago, my friend Dawn died. She was a campus minister at KU, a dear friend of two of my dear friends and a role model for years. In fact, she lived with my mentor-figure-turned-friend, Naomi, at the house that first enticed me into living in community with the beauty of their relationships.

Dawn was born with Cystic Fibrosis, a disease of the lungs that tends to take people’s lives before the age of 25. All the time I knew her, she struggled with breathing, and had to spend a good hour a day strapped into this machine that would shake loose the mucus in her lungs. But this wasn’t what defined her. Dawn was a daughter of the Lord, confident in him in spite of the many, many prayers for healing that seemingly went unheard. With broken young women, she showed deep compassion; with her friends she was frankly wise and sassy. She had the deep love of her husband, Austin, and loved him well in return.

There’s not a lot you can say or do in the face of the years in and years out suffering of a young woman; there’s even less you can say about her death. Surely, all of us who sat at her memorial service yesterday afternoon, watching a slideshow of pictures from her life, were wondering on some level how it is that a good God lets good people die. It’s the same question I asked several years back when I lost my 54-year-old mom to cancer, and a version of the deep ache I felt as I lost my three remaining grandparents the last year and a half. Death, death, death, sorrow and pain. Why death? What do we do with it?

The timing of Dawn’s passing in my life is interesting. The Boiler Room as a whole is experiencing a great move of Joy, and learning what and why that is. On a personal level, I’ve been more joyful in the last few months than maybe my whole life combined. This joy isn’t simply happiness, an ignorance or an ignoring of the difficulties of life. Instead, it’s a perspective that there is something above hardships that is and will be overcoming them, transcending them.

Often, these days, as I worship God in song, I also worship him by imagining him, Jesus, at the right hand of God, in an unimaginable heaven. He’s a man who knew suffering as well as any other man—better than most, it’d be fair to wager—and died a torturous death. But he’s free of death! He’s not bent over, as I am, sobbing his guts out, hopeless and despairing. He’s joyful, because though he sees death and the package of pain and grief that comes with it, he sees equally, below him in the stretch of eternity, life that includes no death and no tears, life as he intended it from the beginning.

As I mingled with old friends after the memorial service, someone said to me, “You know, so many people here were looking at Dawn’s beautiful life, and asking why bad things happen to good people. But Dawn answered that question with her life.” In Christ, Dawn conquered Death. She was not squelched by it; it did not take life away even though she physically stopped living.

In the book of Hosea, God says this to Israel: “I will deliver this people from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction?” Though Dawn leaves in her wake a bunch of really sad people who will be in a painful process of learning to live without her, there’s a substantial hope, tangible in the midst of this. I can feel it, different from the other deaths I’ve experienced in my life. We’re so sad she’s not with us, but we know whom she’s with. Dawn is redeemed from death, and in that, so are we.

Bread and Glitter article

I will be writing now and again for the KCBR arts journal, Bread and Glitter. It's a really wonderful exploration for our little family into the intersections between art, theology, and community. My first article for them, which is a combination and extension of several of my blogs about gardening, went up this week. It's called "Rotten Good Soil." You can read it here, and give B&G some lovin'.