The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. How many times have we heard those words intoned, seen them written on coffee mugs, wall decorations, maybe even Facebook statuses? So many times, perhaps, that the meaning has been leached from them, that the words have become empty, pretty things, nice to look at or hear but not really meaningful.
Lately I've done a lot of thinking about shepherds. I've thought about the help and comfort they provide, the solace that can be found in a familiar routine and friendly face.
I must admit, I have felt shepherdless many times in my life. We all have. Moving when I was thirteen and being thrust into a new, different place, wandering through high school, facing college decisions and being on my own in a new place again--if those things can't make you feel shepherdless, I don't know what can.
Each time, though, I have found another shepherd to help me through. In high school, I found steady friends to hold em up. In Franklin, the town once so scary to me, I've found the beauty of the rolling hills and the friendliness of their inhabitants. And, most importantly, I found St. Paul's. Here I found my true home, a place to guide me to the greatest shepherd of all, the one who endures despite all else. Here I found a gateway to the full life Jesus promised. I found it on a hilltop on Iona, in a cathedral in Glasgow, a ruined abbey in Dryborough, even in downtown Nashville. Not only did I find life's fullest moments, but I learned how to keep finding them, how to continue finding God moments and places I could feel my true shepherd guiding me forward. Gateways, we called them. Doors. Thin places. They are everywhere if you slow down enough to find them. Everywhere.
In January, things changed for the youth of our church. And I will not deny that I was left feeling unhinged, like one of my gateways had been shut. But I was wrong. We are all members of the same flock. We are all led by the same shepherd. Ministers may come and go, but the shepherd remains the same. And they're only moving through the flock, anyway. We can all find our own gateways into the full life promised by Jesus, if only we pause long enough to find them.
And so, as I get ready to move north to Boston, I'm preparing to meet new members of the flock and I continue looking for gates in the most unlikely of places. I invite all of you to look with me. You might be surprised at what you find.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Where the heart is.
This pipe dream. This impossibility.
Five years--half a decade--five years ago in August. I closed the car door on my past, watched numbly as every passing road sign declared how far away I was going, let the miles dull me to a half-sleep, a waking dream.
I told myself I'd never like the heat, the drawls, the conservatives and their sometimes stifling religiosity. I told myself I wouldn't be southern, I would always be a northerner at heart.
I still don't like those things. Still don't like country music or whiskey or big trucks or hunting. But I like the friendliness. I like my seemingly small town. I like the spring and fall here, even if the winter isn't good enough. I like the mountains and the city I'm near.
And the people. My friends. I love them.
I don't know what I am--north or south. I don't know if it matters.
And now, a choice. Old and new, past and present, a dream and an old promise.
When I went back, it wasn't right. My house had changed--the walls, the floor, my beloved trees gone, the familiar blue clapboard turned an ugly shade of periwinkle. And my friends--they had changed. I had changed. I didn't fit. I had grown.
Unexpectedly, suddenly, I missed Franklin. I missed home. I said it to myself, said home, and then I awoke. Gone were the empty disconcerting rooms of my youth, gone were my old haunts and distorted memories. I awoke, and I was here, in Tennessee, calling it home.
The choice--old and new.
The pipe dream.
Was that all it ever was? Five years of dreaming blown into smoke by a single dream?
Where do I belong after all?
____________
Five years--half a decade--five years ago in August. I closed the car door on my past, watched numbly as every passing road sign declared how far away I was going, let the miles dull me to a half-sleep, a waking dream.
I told myself I'd never like the heat, the drawls, the conservatives and their sometimes stifling religiosity. I told myself I wouldn't be southern, I would always be a northerner at heart.
I still don't like those things. Still don't like country music or whiskey or big trucks or hunting. But I like the friendliness. I like my seemingly small town. I like the spring and fall here, even if the winter isn't good enough. I like the mountains and the city I'm near.
And the people. My friends. I love them.
I don't know what I am--north or south. I don't know if it matters.
And now, a choice. Old and new, past and present, a dream and an old promise.
When I went back, it wasn't right. My house had changed--the walls, the floor, my beloved trees gone, the familiar blue clapboard turned an ugly shade of periwinkle. And my friends--they had changed. I had changed. I didn't fit. I had grown.
Unexpectedly, suddenly, I missed Franklin. I missed home. I said it to myself, said home, and then I awoke. Gone were the empty disconcerting rooms of my youth, gone were my old haunts and distorted memories. I awoke, and I was here, in Tennessee, calling it home.
The choice--old and new.
The pipe dream.
Was that all it ever was? Five years of dreaming blown into smoke by a single dream?
Where do I belong after all?
____________
Monday, February 21, 2011
Sometimes
I can stand in the doorway sighing, watching the trees whisper and rush, counting the stars on one hand. I can shove my hands as deep as possible into the faux-silk lining of this worn coat and frown into the night, like I'm trying to recall something once important. I can relish the dark, covet the quiet, mute my phone and let the solitude settle around me, because sometimes
sometimes I don't want to exist
sometimes I feel so much older than I am
sometimes I am tired but sleep won't help
sometimes I like to be alone.
I don't have to try, in the dark, in the quiet. I don't have to be me. I have to breathe. I have to let my heart go on beating. But I can be anywhere, in the dark, in the silence. I can be in the places I have been with the people I used to know. I can be in places I haven't seen yet but I imagine I know. I can relive the days both good and bad and choose what I might change. I can be anyone, anywhere, any time, when I sit alone in the black blanketed silence and breathe and think and feel.
But when the lights come back on, I am me again, and I am not quite alone again, and my worries, my fears, the tick tick ticking of my time here on earth--they creep back in like familiar leering friends, tapping and pulling and nudging me softly in the bright.
sometimes I don't want to exist
sometimes I feel so much older than I am
sometimes I am tired but sleep won't help
sometimes I like to be alone.
I don't have to try, in the dark, in the quiet. I don't have to be me. I have to breathe. I have to let my heart go on beating. But I can be anywhere, in the dark, in the silence. I can be in the places I have been with the people I used to know. I can be in places I haven't seen yet but I imagine I know. I can relive the days both good and bad and choose what I might change. I can be anyone, anywhere, any time, when I sit alone in the black blanketed silence and breathe and think and feel.
But when the lights come back on, I am me again, and I am not quite alone again, and my worries, my fears, the tick tick ticking of my time here on earth--they creep back in like familiar leering friends, tapping and pulling and nudging me softly in the bright.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Decade
Ten years gone. It was my first winter in the north. I’d never seen so much snow. My hair was a bob, my teeth were a mess, I talked too much and read often.
Today, the sky is the same crumpled faded grey it was there, the snow unsullied beneath it, dusting trees, piled on bushes, covering the dead grass like a shawl, soft and white. It’s a rather unusual sight in Tennessee, even in winter. We drove over wet highways and the signs flicked past: Shoney’s, Grand Ole Opry, Tennessee and Alabama Fireworks. I didn’t see those, though. In my mind they were Foxwoods, Mohegan, Mystic Aquarium.
The snow along the roads made it like we were somewhere else. New York, Massachusetts, anywhere I-95 North snaked, gritty with dirt and salt and sand in the winter months. Years ago, I would have been there. Now I am here, trying to forget why we drove east to begin with, because I hate goodbyes.
The trees skimmed past. The distant, snow-topped hills looked better, their scrawny trees made picturesque by the smattering of white. The grey all around, the sky and ground blending together in the distance, the grime coating the car and windows—it was all familiar, all a reminder. I wondered where I’d be this time next year. If it would look the same as this, covered in snow.
I like the cold. The wind knifed through me. The snow stuck on my eyelashes and in my hair and sprinkled my coat like powdered sugar. I danced around mush puddles and got my jeans wet anyway. My feet were numb. But the winter suits me. My eyes burned, nothing to do with the weather. I leaned into the wind and squinted my eyes. I feel sharper in the cold, like I’m more awake despite the numbness in my toes, fingers, nose. But I miss my boots. My feet felt leaden.
We turned pink from the cold, shivered and walked quicker to get away from it.
We held hands a final time in those too-warm halls, the stifling radiator heat I remember, and the smiles were meant to be reassuring but I knew mine was still sad and stiff anyway. I didn’t want to speak. My throat was tight.
The hugs were tight. Your gaze lingered on mine through the glass door, through the car window. I nodded once. I always do: Go on, it’s okay.
On the way home, the snow darkened as the sky turned blue, but it glowed even in the darkness. I watched out the window and wondered where I wished I was.
Today, the sky is the same crumpled faded grey it was there, the snow unsullied beneath it, dusting trees, piled on bushes, covering the dead grass like a shawl, soft and white. It’s a rather unusual sight in Tennessee, even in winter. We drove over wet highways and the signs flicked past: Shoney’s, Grand Ole Opry, Tennessee and Alabama Fireworks. I didn’t see those, though. In my mind they were Foxwoods, Mohegan, Mystic Aquarium.
The snow along the roads made it like we were somewhere else. New York, Massachusetts, anywhere I-95 North snaked, gritty with dirt and salt and sand in the winter months. Years ago, I would have been there. Now I am here, trying to forget why we drove east to begin with, because I hate goodbyes.
The trees skimmed past. The distant, snow-topped hills looked better, their scrawny trees made picturesque by the smattering of white. The grey all around, the sky and ground blending together in the distance, the grime coating the car and windows—it was all familiar, all a reminder. I wondered where I’d be this time next year. If it would look the same as this, covered in snow.
I like the cold. The wind knifed through me. The snow stuck on my eyelashes and in my hair and sprinkled my coat like powdered sugar. I danced around mush puddles and got my jeans wet anyway. My feet were numb. But the winter suits me. My eyes burned, nothing to do with the weather. I leaned into the wind and squinted my eyes. I feel sharper in the cold, like I’m more awake despite the numbness in my toes, fingers, nose. But I miss my boots. My feet felt leaden.
We turned pink from the cold, shivered and walked quicker to get away from it.
We held hands a final time in those too-warm halls, the stifling radiator heat I remember, and the smiles were meant to be reassuring but I knew mine was still sad and stiff anyway. I didn’t want to speak. My throat was tight.
The hugs were tight. Your gaze lingered on mine through the glass door, through the car window. I nodded once. I always do: Go on, it’s okay.
On the way home, the snow darkened as the sky turned blue, but it glowed even in the darkness. I watched out the window and wondered where I wished I was.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Of the Season
In winter, there was a sacredness to everything, whether it was the bold red cardinal flaring against the fine white of a Sunday morning, the pine needles falling all over the red carpet next to the fireplace with a cracked flue, my father’s red hunting hat with the ear flaps hanging next to the door, or the garish nylon snowpants drying in the garage next to carelessly unlaced and kicked away boots. The nights came on quickly and stealthily, and I got off the bus in twilight some days, when the sun hid behind the thick rumpled clouds signaling an oncoming flurry. My brother and I rolled together countless, half-finished forts and scrabbled over the mountain of snow formed by the plow at the end of our driveway, playing king of the hill with shrieks and laughs.
Every evening, my family would flock to the cloth advent calendar, shaped like a tree with golden ornament beads all over it, and hang another small, stuffed ornament on it: a blond girl with a giant yellow 14 on her blue smock dress, a candy cane with a green 3 emblazoned on its center. Every year, we traipsed out, the five of us bundled up tight, to one of the many local tree farms and picked our favorite tree, often lopsided or misshapen because my mom loved the “special” trees. My dad worked the snarling chainsaw himself some years, while I stood back in awe with my hands stubbornly by my sides. We all dressed the tree together every year, marveling at forgotten ornaments, this one from Paris, that one from the glassblower in Mystic. Benton and I always claimed our favorite ones to hang ourselves: A surfer bear with his name on its board, a Santa that jumped when you pulled a string at the bottom, a plaster cast of my hand as a 2 year old. My parents hid the pickle ornament last on the new tree while Benton and I turned our backs, whispering to each other, and then whipped around to scrutinize it, not sure what we were competing for, just that we were competing.
We had a fire every night, had to have one in that house, eternally freezing, and on special nights, if I wheedled for long enough, my dad would sprinkle the magic powder over the fire that made it turn emerald green, vibrant blue, shimmering purple, palest pink, while Benton and I gasped and smiled before it and Dad stood proudly by. And at night, the creaks and groans of an aging house in a harsh season seemed like a lullaby to me, comforting rather than foreboding, like the house was muttering to itself, telling its own stories. There were no ghosts there.
I look back on what seemed so mundane at the time, and it’s only now—now, when I have a plastic tree, snowless Christmas after snowless Christmas, subdivisions everywhere instead of tree farms and white-topped forests, two homes, two deflated Christmas Days, the advent calendar missing all its pieces, the pickle vanished, my favorite ornaments broken or gone, a gas fireplace, the magic and friendliness gone out of my houses—it is only now that I appreciate what I had. Only now do I realize that truly, I was blessed.
And at night, when I lay awake in the glare of the streetlights instead of the light of the white moon, I remember those winter days, the gleaming white country laying out before me, the wonder in the eyes of a girl as she watched the snow fall and felt the warmth of a fire at her back, and I promise that I will be back, one day I will be back, and I can forget the suburbs ever existed.
Every evening, my family would flock to the cloth advent calendar, shaped like a tree with golden ornament beads all over it, and hang another small, stuffed ornament on it: a blond girl with a giant yellow 14 on her blue smock dress, a candy cane with a green 3 emblazoned on its center. Every year, we traipsed out, the five of us bundled up tight, to one of the many local tree farms and picked our favorite tree, often lopsided or misshapen because my mom loved the “special” trees. My dad worked the snarling chainsaw himself some years, while I stood back in awe with my hands stubbornly by my sides. We all dressed the tree together every year, marveling at forgotten ornaments, this one from Paris, that one from the glassblower in Mystic. Benton and I always claimed our favorite ones to hang ourselves: A surfer bear with his name on its board, a Santa that jumped when you pulled a string at the bottom, a plaster cast of my hand as a 2 year old. My parents hid the pickle ornament last on the new tree while Benton and I turned our backs, whispering to each other, and then whipped around to scrutinize it, not sure what we were competing for, just that we were competing.
We had a fire every night, had to have one in that house, eternally freezing, and on special nights, if I wheedled for long enough, my dad would sprinkle the magic powder over the fire that made it turn emerald green, vibrant blue, shimmering purple, palest pink, while Benton and I gasped and smiled before it and Dad stood proudly by. And at night, the creaks and groans of an aging house in a harsh season seemed like a lullaby to me, comforting rather than foreboding, like the house was muttering to itself, telling its own stories. There were no ghosts there.
I look back on what seemed so mundane at the time, and it’s only now—now, when I have a plastic tree, snowless Christmas after snowless Christmas, subdivisions everywhere instead of tree farms and white-topped forests, two homes, two deflated Christmas Days, the advent calendar missing all its pieces, the pickle vanished, my favorite ornaments broken or gone, a gas fireplace, the magic and friendliness gone out of my houses—it is only now that I appreciate what I had. Only now do I realize that truly, I was blessed.
And at night, when I lay awake in the glare of the streetlights instead of the light of the white moon, I remember those winter days, the gleaming white country laying out before me, the wonder in the eyes of a girl as she watched the snow fall and felt the warmth of a fire at her back, and I promise that I will be back, one day I will be back, and I can forget the suburbs ever existed.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
The Strangest Things
Another day was much the same, except for the headlights that greeted her with a smile and the tail lights that left her with a tear.
The house was heavy, felt sad, was well-worn but not well-loved, carried a stain on it from years of sorrow, contention, unease. It sighed, it ached. It fell apart while still so young. It festered.
The silence was sacred, the darkness was sacred. She could create it with the push of a switch to lay softly sighing below the lid of the house, listening to its remorse, feeling its ebb and flow.
She thought,
Maybe I will lose my mind,
and she smiled. She felt its wandering paths and strange trailings off, wondering at the breadth and scope, something wholly hers yet possessing more than she was aware of.
And the ghosts, the ghosts whispered, and the weights lay on her eyes, and the breath slowed as it escaped her lips, and she slept, she slept alone, she slept alive in that cave, that crypt, the World Apart beckoning her away while the ghosts murmured and shuffled their feet.
They laid their hands on her and touched her dreams, tinging them grey, black, brown, damp and rotting green. They watched her play on the land of her youth and made it dissolve, twisted it, let her thirst for more so that she could know their pangs for A Life Greater.
And as the morning swallows chased the ghosts back into the walls, she thought,
Maybe I have already lost it,
and she smiled.
The house was heavy, felt sad, was well-worn but not well-loved, carried a stain on it from years of sorrow, contention, unease. It sighed, it ached. It fell apart while still so young. It festered.
The silence was sacred, the darkness was sacred. She could create it with the push of a switch to lay softly sighing below the lid of the house, listening to its remorse, feeling its ebb and flow.
She thought,
Maybe I will lose my mind,
and she smiled. She felt its wandering paths and strange trailings off, wondering at the breadth and scope, something wholly hers yet possessing more than she was aware of.
And the ghosts, the ghosts whispered, and the weights lay on her eyes, and the breath slowed as it escaped her lips, and she slept, she slept alone, she slept alive in that cave, that crypt, the World Apart beckoning her away while the ghosts murmured and shuffled their feet.
They laid their hands on her and touched her dreams, tinging them grey, black, brown, damp and rotting green. They watched her play on the land of her youth and made it dissolve, twisted it, let her thirst for more so that she could know their pangs for A Life Greater.
And as the morning swallows chased the ghosts back into the walls, she thought,
Maybe I have already lost it,
and she smiled.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
The Only Moment We Were Alone
The sound of thunder woke us, great rolls and booms shaking the room. Outside, the sky was falling. You could reach out and touch the roiling steel thunderheads that coiled and uncoiled up above. The sky was cataclysmic, a panorama of smudged oranges, reds, and bruised purples hidden in places by the grimacing charcoal of the clouds. Ash drifted lazily through the air, hell’s snow flurries staining everything grey, making outlines hazy and indistinct.
We rose in silence to stand silhouetted against the open rectangle of the door, rubbing our eyes in disbelief. Nothing was the same; the violent shades of the sky seemed the leech all color out of the normal greens and browns of trees and grass. Houses that had been familiar for so long took on new, darker facades, some seeming to shrink back in fright, others appearing to loom menacingly against the wild sky. Windows became gaping eyes and doors grim mouths in the warm, dying light.
A few other families and individuals had also turned out for the spectacle, as we had. Mothers clutched small boys and tiny girls close, husbands placed reassuring hands on the shoulders of their beloved while looking apprehensively skyward. All bore various expressions of shock, confusion, fright. A few were crying, children whimpering quietly, adults standing in silence, tears streaking down their faces. One man was face down on the pavement, prayer beads grasped tightly in both hands, his lips moving franticly in a soundless prayer. As we watched, another woman joined him, prostrating herself with Bible in hand. The two of us just stood there, framed in the doorway, watching it all unfold.
A low moaning could be heard, a collected sound of worry, fear, and shock. It came from everywhere and nowhere, rising and falling, mingling with the distant rumble and crash of thunder. An odd hush had fallen elsewhere, the normal sounds—of traffic, birdsong, dog barks, and children playing innocently—were all but gone, replaced only by the ethereal groan of a million terrified souls and the disgruntled growl of thunder.
A sudden ear-splitting scream made us all jump; planes streaked overhead, hundreds of them flying to God knew where. Many turned their faces to the sky, mouths agape, as if they’d been struck dumb by such a sight. I turned to the horizon instead, in the direction the planes now soared. Huge twin columns of thick black smoke reared up to meet the matching storm clouds above, feeding them urgently. The columns looked to be hundreds of yards across, each within about 30 miles of the other. A city and its suburb had once stood there, but now there was only smoke. Ash swirled about, floating on a sulfurous and heat-tinged breeze.
The planes continued to blast on overhead, all disappearing into the thick belt of clouds to reappear in the orange-red-peach-vermilion-plum-sulfur-black patches of the sky.
“The city,” one man murmured. He was heavyset, with thick glasses, a bald pate, and the moustache of a walrus. “Someone’s burning the city.” A perfect copy of the apocalyptic sky and ravaged horizon could be seen on his glasses, making him seem eyeless. He licked his thin lips and swallowed nervously. “What’s happened?”
At his words, the first audibly spoken in too long a time, others looked stricken and panicked. “They can’t do this,” one woman said faintly, but nobody even knew who “they” were. Terrorists? Rebels? Did it even matter?
As more people began to talk and fret and rage together, I slipped my hand into yours and watched the smoldering city in silence. The other voices, the thunder, the drone of the planes still fanning out overhead, the cries, the prayers, they all faded away. It was just that glorious bloody sunset and your hand in mine, the only moment we were alone.
And so we watched as the world fell to pieces and the normal order of things ceased to exist.
We rose in silence to stand silhouetted against the open rectangle of the door, rubbing our eyes in disbelief. Nothing was the same; the violent shades of the sky seemed the leech all color out of the normal greens and browns of trees and grass. Houses that had been familiar for so long took on new, darker facades, some seeming to shrink back in fright, others appearing to loom menacingly against the wild sky. Windows became gaping eyes and doors grim mouths in the warm, dying light.
A few other families and individuals had also turned out for the spectacle, as we had. Mothers clutched small boys and tiny girls close, husbands placed reassuring hands on the shoulders of their beloved while looking apprehensively skyward. All bore various expressions of shock, confusion, fright. A few were crying, children whimpering quietly, adults standing in silence, tears streaking down their faces. One man was face down on the pavement, prayer beads grasped tightly in both hands, his lips moving franticly in a soundless prayer. As we watched, another woman joined him, prostrating herself with Bible in hand. The two of us just stood there, framed in the doorway, watching it all unfold.
A low moaning could be heard, a collected sound of worry, fear, and shock. It came from everywhere and nowhere, rising and falling, mingling with the distant rumble and crash of thunder. An odd hush had fallen elsewhere, the normal sounds—of traffic, birdsong, dog barks, and children playing innocently—were all but gone, replaced only by the ethereal groan of a million terrified souls and the disgruntled growl of thunder.
A sudden ear-splitting scream made us all jump; planes streaked overhead, hundreds of them flying to God knew where. Many turned their faces to the sky, mouths agape, as if they’d been struck dumb by such a sight. I turned to the horizon instead, in the direction the planes now soared. Huge twin columns of thick black smoke reared up to meet the matching storm clouds above, feeding them urgently. The columns looked to be hundreds of yards across, each within about 30 miles of the other. A city and its suburb had once stood there, but now there was only smoke. Ash swirled about, floating on a sulfurous and heat-tinged breeze.
The planes continued to blast on overhead, all disappearing into the thick belt of clouds to reappear in the orange-red-peach-vermilion-plum-sulfur-black patches of the sky.
“The city,” one man murmured. He was heavyset, with thick glasses, a bald pate, and the moustache of a walrus. “Someone’s burning the city.” A perfect copy of the apocalyptic sky and ravaged horizon could be seen on his glasses, making him seem eyeless. He licked his thin lips and swallowed nervously. “What’s happened?”
At his words, the first audibly spoken in too long a time, others looked stricken and panicked. “They can’t do this,” one woman said faintly, but nobody even knew who “they” were. Terrorists? Rebels? Did it even matter?
As more people began to talk and fret and rage together, I slipped my hand into yours and watched the smoldering city in silence. The other voices, the thunder, the drone of the planes still fanning out overhead, the cries, the prayers, they all faded away. It was just that glorious bloody sunset and your hand in mine, the only moment we were alone.
And so we watched as the world fell to pieces and the normal order of things ceased to exist.
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