How My Shirt Changed the Day

For the second time in a month, I had a conversation in the grocery checkout line that left me reeling. This time it began while unloading my produce and grinning at the two big-eyed, energetic young boys behind me. Their mom caught my eye and and she looked friendly as she inquired, "What is that?" The red cabbage in my hand? I thought. "I'm sorry, my produce?" She clarified, "I've seen those shirts on people around town, what is it?" 

"Oh, it's from an organisation that helps women get ultrasounds and see their babies...to help them stay healthy. They sort of hang out around planned parenthood facilities and help women want to keep their baby. You know, save a stork, since people say babies are delivered by storks." I smiled as I made air quotation marks around the word storks.

It wasn't the most eloquent or elegant thing I've ever said, but it was the grocery line, and it was moving pretty quickly. She looked engaged, so I was startled when she said, "Oh, so you're against abortion, I get it." I quickly replied that I was pro-life and she said,  "I thought it was going to be something cute." I said the first thing that popped into my head, "Well, your little guys are awfully cute." Her response stunned me, "Yeah, well, we planned each one of them. I donate to planned parenthood every year because I believe in science. I take them to the library so they can read more than one book." As it was my turn to check out, I responded that her comment made me sad and that I, too, read more than One Book. 

I wished them a good evening when I was finished, then walked to my car. Tears welled up in my eyes as a response whispered its way out of my mouth, "But planned parenthood cuts babies into pieces. How could anyone support that?" 

More tears made driving blurry as I thought of all the things I could have said to that kind-looking woman in just ten seconds: "I believe in science, too. A baby has DNA from the time the egg and sperm meet, and its heart begins to beat at fourteen days. When someone ends an innocent human heartbeat, we call it murder, don't we?"

The words of the song I was listening to pierced my heart:
"I try so hard..to turn away and not become
Another nail to pierce
The skin of One who loves
More deeply than the ocean
More abundant than the tears
Of a world embracing every heartache"*

A world embracing every heartache, I thought. Embracing pain under the name and guise of science, knowledge. And yet it is lack of Knowledge that blinds them, and they swallow the pill, not to kill the pain but to kill the child...to increase the heartache. 

Then came the angry tears—for the second time in recent weeks, I had failed to share truth with someone in an adequate way. I was so unprepared in the moment to give that ten second reply, because I simply hadn't thought to prepare any words to say if someone asked me. I hadn't planned to have to explain my shirt when I debated about what to wear in the morning. I had gone back and forth and finally landed on my Save the Storks shirt because it's one of my favourites. I briefly thought that it was a bummer so few people ever asked me about the shirt. So, I didn't prepare. I walked into a store minding my own business, and my shirt changed the tenor of the evening. One simple choice this morning opened up a conversation... A conversation that I wanted to have, but where I failed to say anything beyond, "That makes me sad," when I had much more I could say. Much more I wish I had said.

How can I give someone food for thought if I'm not prepared with my own questions to counter theirs? I want to be kind, but I also want to make people think. I want to ask something for their own mind to to close around, rather than simply making insipid replies to their questions. 

Last time I was in that same grocery, I was totally unprepared for the conversation that sprang up in the checkout line. There was no way I could have known a question as simple as, "Where do you go to church?" from the cashier would lead to them telling me that they were in the midst of a gender transition. This time I could have been prepared for the questions, but I wasn't. 

Slow as I am, I'm realising that I should pray for the Lord to direct my mind and conversations before I step into that grocery—or any other grocery. And not only the grocery, but also restaurants and the sidewalks of my town; before I drive my car and as I prepare for each day. Perhaps, like the scores of other times I've walked into the grocery or worn this shirt other places, nothing will happen. But what about the one time in the midst of those scores when someone asks the question, when someone blurts out their hurt or their heart? To be ready in that moment means to pray before all of the moments that might be. 

*— Worlds Apart by Jars of Clay

** If you would like to learn more about Save the Storks, this video shows what they do to help women, born and unborn, around the country.

Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence

“Empty space tends to create fear. As long as our minds, hearts, and hands are occupied we can avoid confronting the painful questions, to which we never gave much attention and which we do not want to surface. 'Being busy' has become a status symbol, and most people keep encouraging each other to keep their body and mind in constant motion. From a distance, it appears that we try to keep each other filled with words and actions, without tolerance for a moment of silence.” 1

—Henri J. M. Nouwen

On a breezy, rainy evening a few weeks ago, I sat on my porch, thinking. It was too dark to read or write, too Beautiful to do anything but sit still in the ferocious gloaming. It was an evening empty of plans—a dangerous thing for one's thoughts. On such occasions, I tend to corner my thoughts and make them own up to what is lurking behind various façades. This particular evening, I had a sore head, having hit a soft spot on a metal beam at work that day. Without warning, my thoughts strayed to the fear of my own mortality.

I have vaguely considered that 'one day' I will die, and I am not afraid of what lies beyond this life. . .But this was different. I came nose-to-nose with the reality that I am mortal, terminal. Fear bristled in my head, blossomed in my heart. Why, I could easily fall on the uneven stairs leading to my cabin and hit my head. I could be incapacitated for life—or even die. All it takes is a moment—a wrong step, not looking twice in my car mirrors—suddenly all of my vitality is shown its frailty.

Fear spread its talons in my thoughts, surging on to think of my parents, now in their sixties. My parents are not immortal. Tears pricked my eyes. I will not borrow trouble! I told myself. I began to tell God my fears, not to give them a rigid reality, but to name the fears so they could be defeated. Yes, I am temporal, I could die on my stairs or in my bathtub or whilst driving—but the possibility of death is not going to stop me from living. You may breathe a sigh of relief, I still plan to shower. . . And to walk to work, drive my car, and hike as I please.

Rather than allowing fear to paralyse me, I choose to let it galvanise me—to dare to live life. In the face of fear I have fresh appreciation for hearing my parents' voices, in giving thanks for my beating heart. I will not live in fear's shadow, I will not allow it to dog my steps. I will enjoy this evening's sunset, this summer's wildflowers, this hour of thinking and writing. Daily I take it for granted that I will awake in the morning; that my heart will keep beating—even if I forget that it does so and don't remind it to keep on. In this instant I am thankful for this organ that circulates my blood, that allows oxygen to flow to my brain so I can think of the right words to pen.

The fears and questions I often push down with daily tasks, with reading copious amounts of Harry Potter, with unceasing strains of music—these questions and fears surface in empty moments. I am the one who chooses the still evening on the porch, to sit under a tree on my walk and marvel at the burnished clouds. But I am not the one who brings to mind the thoughts, the fears. Those come unbidden. The fears of being alone or not being enough. The questions about why I chase freedom or attention from various individuals. Questions I cannot answer—like why I still crave sin when I know it doesn't satisfy. I would rather avoid “confronting the painful questions”, the craven fears—but if silence is part of my life, I cannot stop them coming.

It is here, in the stillness, that I disagree with one word in Nouwen's quotation: create. Empty space does not create fear, it only gives it the time and place to bob up in the stream of our thoughts. I can distract myself at work, around others, with my reading and correspondence—but not in the silence. Our culture is one that fears silence first, because from it, deeper fears arise. Yet how can any of us meet our fears head on with truth, with life, with hope if we suppress those petrifying questions? We must allow silence in our lives in order to know the fears and questions that motivate or manipulate our actions. Only then can we confront fear with truth and life. I find, indeed, that the antidote to fear truly is the perfect love of God giving me courage to live, to do, and to make room for stillness.

____________________

1. Nouwen, Henri J. M., Reaching Out (New York, Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group) 73

Cross posted at Conciliar Post and Humane Pursuits

Why?

Oh, the questions we ask You, Begetter of the universe. 

You, Who spun waves and particles into golden light, we question if Your hands are big enough to hold us. You, Who breathed life into our spirits and our dusty frames, we pause to ask if You care about us. You, Whose finger carved words into the dirt, we ask if You care enough to write our stories, to show us what You want from us and for us.

You, Who entered time, slipped into skin, felt rejection and loneliness—we presume You have left us when our blind eyes cannot see You, and Your presence is not palpable. You, Who are called the Light of the world, we ask where You have gone when we wander in darkness. You, Who carefully marked the trenches of the world, poured its foundation, and sent the Cornerstone, why do we think You are incapable of answering our question marks?

Why does our friend have to walk through that valley? Our family member suffer that pain? Why do our own hearts, crushed, drip red in the darkness and in the blaze of day?

We ask when You will show up, why You allowed tragic loss, why there is emptiness sucking at our hearts like a black hole. Why does the darkness feel overwhelming, when the Light has rendered darkness outmoded, dead, and chased away?

There was a time when You stepped into our world. When eternity became now. You bought us back from hopeless death. And still we question. Still we scream. Still we shake our fists and walk away. You, Who never promised life would be easy, we expect to right everything, now. You, Who never explained Yourself to Job, we expect to spell out every answer to our every why? We expect You to operate like we do, to think in our human boxes, in our narrow line of sight. You, Creator, Sustainer, Holy One, Alpha, Omega... You, immortal, immutable, invisible, we ask to explain Yourself to our finite minds, to contain Yourself in a kernel of knowing that will fit inside of us. But You cannot be contained in our minds, in our paltry understanding, or in our broken hearts.

You are bigger than that—vast, eternal. You fill us, overfull, and splash out onto those we touch. Your love only multiplies. The ringing of Your Truth reverberates throughout the galaxies, resounding through the entire universe. How can we think it is all contained in one book, in one heart, in one mind, in one planet? 

It is not that we do not need to know why—sometimes we cannot know an answer so immense. We are too close to see the whole, to see clearly. We cannot explain away pain, abandoned hearts, our death valleys, or all the other dark shadows that cross over our lives. Neither can we explain why the storm clouds come to us, or why the Light doesn't break through and scare all our monsters away. Maybe we aren't strong enough to endure the illuminating rays that would break those clouds, eliminate that darkness. Perhaps we are being made ready to bear the weight of light—something weightless in our world—that, coming from the heavenly realm, is so dense that it would crush us. 

In a moment of unknowing I whisper, But why, God? Then, I choose to hang my question on these spoken pegs of Hope, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us. I do not always know what that Mercy looks like in this moment, in this day, in this shadow world. What form will Mercy take? Sometimes His Mercy is severe. Once, it took the form of flesh, nailed to a cross—suffering with us.

God is not "out there" but right here, with us—even when I cannot feel Him or see Him, and the clouds do not part. He is not against me—or you. He does not say why He does what He does, or why He allows various things. He withholds His mighty hand at times, and I don't know why. I only know He will not leave us all alone.

Lord have mercy.

Christ have mercy.

Lord have mercy.

Grant us Your peace.