Britt & Friends

Baby girl makes me giggle. Head draped off the side of her pillow, rawhide tucked behind her ear, she sighs at my chuckle and goes back to sleep. Baby girl is a lot of work. I’ve questioned if it’s worth it. What was it like sleeping-in until whenever? It’s only been three weeks since I had that freedom and I can hardly remember.

But she’s so cute. She makes friends so easily. Tail wagging, body crouched, ready to pounce in excitement. I’ve lived in this house for six months and after just three weeks with her I’ve already met more neighbors than in those first five months. She begs shamelessly for pets and people are happy to comply.

It’s hard to meet people in a new town. Having a puppy helps, but it’s no easy fix. I spend more time on the phone talking with friends scattered across the country than talking with people that live in my zip code. It seems that proximity doesn’t ensure depth. Only time can do that, and I just haven’t had enough of it yet.

But here is Britt, my cute baby girl, wiggling and wagging. She sucks people into her world. I learn their names as I keep her from scratching and nibbling on their hands and arms. I tell them where I live and ask how long they’ve been part of the neighborhood.

Charlottesville, my new hometown, is healing from a summer of pain. Rallies and violence and death laid bare deep divisions and left us raw.

Selfishly, I want friends because I need human connection. I need deep conversations and to be known by people who are close enough to hang out at a moment’s notice. I need to be challenged and encouraged. I need to laugh. I need to eat good food and share about my day.

Selflessly, though, I want friends because I know that it is through relationships that we heal. Through knowing our neighbors, we can begin to rebuild. It won’t be easy or quick, and we might hurt each other sometimes in the process, but it’s worth the risk. It’s worth the investment in each other’s lives.

I can’t remember what it’s like to sleep past 6:30 in the morning, but my puppy dog is leading me out onto my neighborhood streets. She is sparking conversations with people across a lot of divisions. Turns out a cute puppy helps people drop their guard.

She will grow up soon. Hopefully the seeds of friendship we are planting will too.

distractions

I’ve become enamored with flowers since moving to Charlottesville. It is Spring.

One of the Sunday School classes at church gifted us with a beautiful spread of different plants and herbs. I am sitting next to some of them now on the landing of our staircase. They are soaking up the light bouncing off the clouds on this overcast day. So am I.

I look at these flowers and I am overwhelmed by their color and the perfect radial qualities that make them alike while still being so, so different. Yellow, white, pink, red, green, all mixed together and shooting out in a multitude of ways in their unique, saturated hues. 

Their beauty intimidates me. Nick and I are their caretakers. We are to keep them alive. I want to keep them alive. I want them to thrive. I want to see their beauty spring from the ground over the years to come. But I am afraid that I will kill them. I am prone to neglect. I tend to walk past things and leave them unnoticed. It is interesting the things my attention filters out – and what it fixates on. We’ve been married and living together for about one month. I was walking through the house today taking note of all of his stuff that is lying around out of place when my view widened a bit. I realized that I have left just as many of my own things strewn about the house. It is easy to see his mess and not mine. 

I walk through the house and up and down the stairs and I look for things that need to get done. I look for the unfinished, the imperfect. Having only lived here a month, there is a lot to add to my list of things to do, if I choose to. 

But these flowers are sitting here just being. Just being beautiful. And part of my role in caring for them is enjoying them, so I’ll hang here for a bit. They are a gift of love from a community that is welcoming us in. Today their colors and leaves and symmetry calmed my overwhelmed soul and let me rest for a while. They remind me to just be. To just be loved without having to do. To be loved without having to perfect. To be loved without having to plan. To just be loved.

Love lives now

I originally shared these thoughts directly on Facebook. I have reposted them here without edit in case it is more helpful to anyone in this format. Here is the link that I refer to throughout: "Day 1 in Trump's America" it is also available at the bottom of this post.

This is a long post that is the result of a lot of thoughts and tears, I'd appreciate if you would read what I wrote and click on the link if you're able. 

***
The link at the bottom of this post and the post itself are full of triggers. If you are experiencing trauma in the aftermath of “Day 1” because you have already seen too much of this or experienced some of these things yourself or have family and friends that have (or really, whatever reason you might name) please know that I think you are strong and brave for setting boundaries by not clicking this link. Know that I am praying for you and our country as we seek justice and healing together. I would love to sit with you and hear from you if you would like for me to. 

***

As a straight, white, Christian woman who works from home and has not had to face any of these realities first hand (yet) I made myself read through all of the collection linked below because, right now, in this particular moment, this is how I can stand with people. 

I share this because these tweets and reports are examples of why I woke up sobbing at 6:00am Wednesday morning when I faced the official news that Donald Trump is our President Elect. 

It is not his actual presidency and whatever he may or may not be able to accomplish that are my highest concern as I begin to process and live this new reality. What overwhelms me with sadness and anger is this: our brothers and sisters who are made in the image of God and who live in this country are facing fear and hatred as they are in their homes, as they go to work, school, the doctor, the grocery store, and fill up their cars with gas. This is not a new fear or hatred that they are facing, but it is more violent, more prevalent, and (I assume) feels more inevitable. As a woman over the past months I have felt increasingly less safe in this country. But even with that said, I know that I am privileged and only barely understand the breadth of the fear and anger and overwhelming sadness that is gripping so many in America now. So that is why I read and listened to what is included in the link below and why I will keep carving out space to do so as more reports emerge, and as my friends feel safe to share with me. Because I need to hear them. I need to cry. I need to feel, as much as I can, what my neighbors are feeling. Because without that emotional connection, that empathy, I cannot be sure that my blood will boil enough to get me past my fears so that I can face attackers by walking up and standing with the woman in the hijab at the gas pump as they mock her and assault her. Without this empathy and righteous anger building within me, I cannot speak up without wavering when I hear someone say to a Mexican that they cannot wait for a wall to be built. I am afraid that I will be silent again as I have been too many times before. 

If you are a Christian, regardless of who you did or did not vote for, this is our task. This is our call - it has always been our call - as followers of Christ we, like Jesus, stand with the marginalized and attacked and oppressed. We say that our Father’s Kingdom is different and there is enough love flowing from it to touch and include even those who do not know Him personally. We love others because He first loved us. Followers of Christ, my prayer and hope and desperate longing is that we will be the church and welcome the hurting and the broken hearted. Put our arms around them in the gas station parking lot and absorb some of the insults and abuse. Let ourselves be present to this violent reality because only then can we begin to stand up to the injustice and hatred that is so prevalent. 

As I have prayed and processed over the past few days I have been comforted by our particular hope. It is this: 

Love has won. Love was betrayed by his friends. Love was nailed to the cross. Love was dead for three days. Love rose again and lives now. Love. Lives. Now. And Love reigns into an eternity where there is no more pain and suffering. But until that time is fully realized Love doesn’t shy away from standing in the way of stones, or touching those who the religious leaders deem unclean or unworthy. Love loves neighbors. 

The faces in the link below, they are our neighbors. Hear our neighbors' cries. See our neighbors’ wounds that need to be doctored. Offer our neighbors a safe place to rest so they can heal. Do not pass by on the other side of the road. 

Love has won. Not so that we can feel good, but so that we can extend our Love to others.

Friends, if you need to process and talk through what I have said or what you have seen in this link or whatever else may be going on in your heart and mind, send me a message or give me a call. I am praying for us all to experience the reconciliation, justice, and healing that only Christ can offer. 

And friends, if I have added to your pain through moments when I was silent, or didn't say enough, or was awkward, or I avoided an injustice that you face every day, know that I am sorry and I ask for your forgiveness. If you are ever ready or want to, I would be humbled if you would allow me to sit and hear from you. I am trying to love you better. 

There are many things we will face in the coming days, let's try to honestly and lovingly face them together. 

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.

"Day 1 in Trump's America"

bridges

I will begin this post with a spoiler, a spoiler in the form of a quote from the last pages of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis. (I call it a spoiler because though The Chronicles of Narnia have been around for a LONG time I am just now reading them, and I haven’t quite finished the series yet so I’m sensitive to others who may be in the same boat.)

but anyways, here it is…the last moments Lucy and Edmund spend in Narnia.

“There is a way into my country from all the worlds,” said the Lamb; but as he spoke, his snowy white flushed into tawny gold and his size changed and he was Aslan himself, towering above them and scattering light from his mane.”

“Oh, Aslan,” said Lucy. “Will you tell us how to get into your country from our world?”

“I shall be telling you all the time,” said Aslan. “But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river. But do not fear that, for I am the great Bridge Builder. And now come; I will open the door in the sky and send you to your own land.”

“Please, Aslan,” said Lucy. “Before we go, will you tell us when we can come back to Narnia again? Please. And oh, do, do, do make it soon.”

“Dearest,” said Aslan very gently, “you and your brother will never come back to Narnia.”

“Oh, Aslan!” said Edmund and Lucy both together in despairing voices.

“You are too old, children,” said Aslan, “and you must begin to come close to your own world now.”

“It isn’t Narnia, you know,” sobbed Lucy. “It’s you. We shan’t meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?”

“But you shall meet me, dear one,” said Aslan.

“Are – are you there too, Sir?” said Edmund.

“I am,” said Aslan. “But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”

My time at Truett seminary came to a close last May. I grieved leaving its halls in Waco, Texas. I knew that when I returned it wouldn’t be the same. I wouldn’t belong like I once did. My time there is done. I can't really go back. That season is over. I cried when I read this exchange between Aslan and the Pevensie children because I can relate so deeply to their fear that they won’t see Aslan again. They think their journey with Aslan is over because they are leaving the land where they met him and where they understood themselves as truly loved and full of purpose for the first time. 

The Saturday after I graduated, after everyone who came to celebrate with me left town, I sobbed. Like Lucy I felt my story snap shut and I couldn’t see where there might be more pages.

It isn’t that I didn’t know that God would be present with me after seminary, it’s just that I didn’t understand how; I didn’t know where we would go next. In many ways I still don’t.

I never really knew for sure why I enrolled at Truett. I had some ambitions to be a missionary…and then a social worker…and then an Executive Director/founder of a non-profit…and then a lawyer…and then a pastor…and then…a writer? Each time my toes were on the edge of something new and I was ready to jump full force toward one of these professions I felt God gently (and sometimes rather abruptly) tug me back and say, “Just be present here. Here at Truett. Here at UBC. Here with these people. Here with me. Worry about the end goal later. Just trust, be present, wait, and see.”

It turns out that the only thing I know for sure about why I was at seminary in Waco is because God whispered to me something like what Aslan told Lucy and Edmund… “that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”

And now I am “there”…sort of. I feel a little stuck in an in-between place. A space back in my parent’s house where most of my days are spent flying solo and trying to keep busy when I don’t really have much to do. A space of preparation for marriage and a move across country. A space where I am dreaming about digging deep into my community that I know is waiting in Charlottesville, Virginia but that I am afraid will take a long time to find and belong to.

I understood the rhythm of life with God and people in Waco, Texas. I don’t know that rhythm yet in Austin, and I certainly don’t know it in Charlottesville. It feels like there are many rivers to cross…not just one. A lot of practice and failure. A lot of humility. A lot of loneliness. A lot of purposelessness. A lot of searching for meaning and identity in my own efforts and coming up short. A lot of anxiety and taking out frustration on people I love. A lot of grace.

So many rivers and what they leave in their wake…and that feels daunting. But I don’t build the bridges. I can simply seek to walk with the Bridge Builder. And as I walk and move across rivers on these bridges my hope is that the ways that God met me during my time at seminary will spill out and help inform the rhythm of our life together today and all the tomorrows. My hope is that this will lead me to live in ways that are genuine and raw and are an offering of love for the world around me…

“You are too old, children,” said Aslan, “and you must begin to come close to your own world now.”

I have aged out of my last season, and in many ways it was a world apart from anything I’ve ever known and anything I will know again. And here I am in my “own world” and I’ll be honest I don’t really know what to do. I’m looking around and seeing the devastation of life in so many ways.  Through racism. Through sexism. Through fear. Through distrust. Through an inability to hold respect for those who believe differently. I see this devastation within myself as well. I am not innocent of this brokenness. I don’t exactly know what is mine to do. But there is a Bridge Builder. As I get to know my world, with the good and the broken and the blurry lines between, my hope is that the bridges and their Builder become increasingly known to me. May I learn to cross these bridges with a discernment and courage that can only come from their, and my, Builder.

I haven’t blogged in a long time. But the latest thing I have felt led to pursue is writing, so I’m going to practice that here. This post just sort of flowed out and I think it gives a good foundation for unpacking the season that I am in now. I’m excited to see what else spills out on the page. Join me if you’d like.