From the places you've been torn. . .

"There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so. One must simply hold out and endure it. At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort. For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled one remains connected to the other person through it. It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness. God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled and thus helps us preserve—even in pain—the authentic relationship. 

Furthermore, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy. One bears what was lovely in the past not as a thorn but as a precious gift deep within, a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain.”

—Dietrich Bonhoeffer

______

Emptiness. I have felt its greed in my heart and in my body. There is a permanent hole in my heart while I walk on this side of the Kingdom coming, and God Himself does not fill that emptiness. He is leaving that slow-bleeding hollow right where it is. It is that absence that somehow makes me feel your presence more sharply, Aaron. 

For years there was an Aaron-shaped empty-space where you should have been in my life. You didn't just drift away, as so many friends do when life carries us along. You were sharply cut away from me one winter's day in Alaska. You became a stranger to me over the course of time, and in a particular instant you saw me as a stranger to you from then on. No one understood the ache I carried inside of me from that encounter. I didn't even understand it really. I didn't know how deep the wound went until that parting shaft was ripped out one September day, the barb leaving a gaping hole in its reverse exit. 

No words could fill that hole. No friendship on earth could patch up that wound. But when I read Bonhoeffer's above quotation, it resonated all the way down the path of that still-bleeding laceration. "It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness." He leaves the torn up place to allow us in that empty, painful ache to connect with the one we've lost: "For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled, one remains connected to the other person through it."

How strange. In those five years where even my closest Semester friendships began to wane, I felt a deep connection with you—the friend who had abandoned me. When you ended your precious life, the pain was unbearable precisely because you had already left an empty place, unfilled all those years, where my connection to you was strong. It remains strong. That emptiness makes me curl up in a ball and ache sometimes, because absolutely nothing can fill it except you. And nothing I can do will get me to you. Only God can do that, and this isn't the right time yet. 

"Furthermore, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation." I have forgotten so many details, moments, jokes, and sayings of our time together at Semester... Certainly I have forgotten more than the ones I can and do remember. But I treasure what I remember. I treasure your letters. You taught me things while we corresponded, but you have taught me much more through those same words years and years later. And the more I understand what you were saying, the more deeply I value your mind and heart, your self. Thus, the more difficult the separation. The assuaging answer isn't to forget or to stop reading your letters. Though there is intense pain in the separation, there is profound healing in remembering, especially in remembering together with your family or our friends.

For years I have felt that all I had to offer God was emptiness. Empty hands. An empty heart. Empty desires. Empty relationships. Empty arms. An empty shell. The times I've been the wisest (though they felt the most foolish) were the ones where all I had was emptiness to offer on the altar to God. Now I begin to learn that the very empty places are the ones where I find connection to the person or dream or thing that is missing. It's not the connection I would choose. The ache can be debilitating sometimes. I would give much to reach out and wrap you in a hug once again, my arms full rather than empty.

Until the Kingdom comes in its fullness and we run to the Supper of the Lamb together, I will try to remember that God isn't filling the hole, He isn't fixing the ache, and He isn't covering over the emptiness...so that I am still able to feel connected to you. Not in an idealised or idolised way, but in a  way that beckons me "Further up and further in! "

Love always,
Johanna

_____

Title: 

This is the hole

Where most of your soul

Comes ripping out

From the places you've been torn

(From"Always" by Switchfoot)

The Longest Lent

Lent began six months ago today.

Six months ago I was in a cool, dark sanctuary, listening to my vicar say "You are going to die." I didn't know how accurate that statement would be for this year. We rose, row by row. Ashes were traced across my forehead, I returned to my seat. We rose, row by row, again going forward—this time to receive the bread, the wine. In darkness we stepped into February chill. Ash Wednesday was the only evening Lenten service I got to attend in person this year. Not a single evening of Holy week was spent in that dark church sanctuary with fellow believers. We weren't present together in the darkness of Easter morning that bursts into light and noise and exuberant alleluias.

Oh, yes, I "attended" Holy Week services and Easter morning on-line. But that isn't the same—not even close. I haven't worshipped, truly worshipped, physically together with other believers for six months. It feels like the longest Lent in the history of the church calendar. It feels like Easter was an anticlimax or like it didn't even happen... Like it was swallowed up in the darkness, buried in the ashes of burned hopes, dreams, plans, businesses, cities, and people.

This weekend we will gather to remember our friend Mike Adams, who took his life in this season of darkness. He is a standout to me, because he is someone I know. . . But he is one among many. The number of suicides this year are, in some demographics, outpacing the number of virus deaths. Don't tell me this virus is killing people—I know it is—but the power plays surrounding the virus are killing more people in other ways, whether physically through suicide or because of division that makes one citizen stab another for not wearing a mask; or internally, spiritually, emotionally isolating us from one another. . . Keeping us apart at home, six feet away, cancelling events, or putting masks between our faces, stifling our expressions of vulnerability, kindness, concern, and even anger or fear. If no one can see our expressions of pain, how can they reach out to us? And are they afraid to hug us? If I can't see the look of loss on someone's face, how will I know "You too? I thought I alone knew that grief. . ." and be able to wrap them in love?

How do we invite others into our pain, into our sorrow, into our deep joys, into a place of hope, if we cannot be close, see the human expressions of these things across each other's faces? To be isolated while six feet away from someone—to be denied physical affection and warm greetings—is worse than being alone at home. It is the extreme loneliness of being alone in a crowded room. It is like the searing pain of being close to your lover, but being just unable to reach them, to touch them.

This season feels like birth pangs gone wrong, come too late. It feels like something is terribly wrong with the baby, it isn't moving. . . The thing we've been looking toward, the hope at the end of the morning sickness, the joy at the end of labour, the person to join our family has been snatched away, and we are left to bury our dead in isolated grief—with no hugs and no real place for grief or anger to go.

It feels like the longest Lent. But in the normal Lenten season we are together in our lament. We gather together to acknowledge that something isn't right. We encourage one another to take heart that the King is coming. We hope for one another, when someone can't hope for themselves. But this is isolation—not the solitude or quiet reflection of Lent—and it is the work of the enemy of our souls. Dividing, separating in every possible way.

Where is the hope? Where is the empty tomb of this season that has killed us in more than body? Where is the Easter morning coming out of this mourning? Where is the light in this darkness? Where is the King?

Maybe this horrible, longest Lent is in some way our taste of what the disciples felt when Jesus died. See, we know the end of that story, but they didn't. We know on Good Friday that Easter is coming. They didn't. And maybe this interminable Lent is our true unknown Good Friday and Holy Saturday. It is our season where we can't see what is happening in the spiritual realm. We can't see the Easter about to come.

Maybe we will die before we understand what it was all about, but we must know that Jesus will never be held down by death. Jesus will never be defeated by the enemy of our souls. Death and satan will one day be undone. The Kingdom will come in its fullness. And that won't be an anticlimactic Easter in the time of covid. It will be the greatest celebration of life and love and sacred community. . . It will be seeing face-to-face and still living.

Easter is coming. . .

August is the Cruelest Month...

...to paraphrase T. S. Eliot. 

I rather hate the month of August. I'm physically, emotionally, and soulishly drained by this hot and crazy month. It is the hardest month at work. It is freakishly hot (making sleep difficult). And I'm out of people energy. Every summer. Then there's the added sorrow of September 3, already looming. 

But God.  God is kind to surround me with His love. With generous friends and family. 

Did you know that kindness makes hard days and weeks brighter? 

It does. 

So. Much!

A box of sunshine (sweet words, creative-cute cards, and lemon-flavoured everything) from my creative, thoughtful sister... Sent after being rather heart-disappointed.

Flowers, chocolate, and cheese from a good friend after the same hard week.

I love the colours of these flowers! Plus, they lasted two weeks. 

Surprisingly, the cheese and chocolate have lasted longer.

A thank you gift from my sweet co-worker for assisting her in shipping a lot of packages this summer. 

Here is a close-up of the necklace. . .

This was part of the theme of the summer. Have grit. Determination, yes. But also, the grit that feels like its rhyming counterpart. . . The irritation produces the substance that covers the grit with beauty. Without the irritation, the disruption, the foreign object, no pearl can be formed. But from that little grain comes something beautiful. How much more beauty might be born from this gritty season in which we are living?

August is in many ways the cruelest month. But it has many pockets of kindness and love and beauty.

Thanks be to God!

What If. . . ?

What if I weep for you?
You, who can weep no longer,
your eyes fixed on the Author
and Finisher of our faith,
not upon the mounded grave. . .

What if I ache for you?
The ache of separation you don't feel,
you, who are with the Father,
who are here no longer,
yet who dwell in thin places. . .

What if I rejoice for you?
You, who have stepped off
this mortal coil into the Kingdom
coming, to meet in the Kingdom
to come, under Spirit, Father, and Son. . .

What if I reach for you?
Reach out my hand, to empty air
for you, whom I can't touch
until the Kingdom comes, fully
and wholly, Heaven and Earth, together. . .

What if I miss you?
You, who have my heart, still,
though I didn't know it until
too late, when you passed the gate
between here and where I can't be yet. . .

What if I say your name?
Will you come back again,
my dear poet-friend, whom I miss so
fiercely? Will you teach me to see,
show me the ways of the Kingdom coming. . .

What if I love you?
You, bell-ringer, song-singer,
hope-bringer, who quietly gave
all of yourself away—all of your mind
away—all of your life away,
                                             what if. . . ?



I do. . .
              and I will.

Kindness Makes Me Cry

What a month it has been. . . In the last 30 days I have flown on 2 airplanes, been in 1 wedding, attended a second wedding, eaten Chipotle during 2 wedding weekends, danced for at least 2 hours, hand-written 25+ pages (double-sided), talked on the phone for 33 hours, worked more hours that I want to count, welcomed 1 new baby into our community, and lost 1 friend to death.

Two weeks ago I experienced one of the hardest weeks of the year. In the span of seven days I was asked to resign as an editor over a difference of opinions, had to kill a suffering mouse with a rock, offered a listening ear to an upset friend, found out a different friend ended their life, and had to have a hard personal conversation with yet another friend. I called it the week from Hell, because so much of that week was shot through with death in one form or another, and that is the work of Hell.

But this past week was balm to my soul. I didn't work overtime. My sweet neighbour came over for dinner and a walk. My Scripture circle met under a double rainbow, sharing some things I've been chewing on this week—or more accurately, things that have been chewing on me. I wrote my heart out. I got to spend three precious hours with one of my best friends. A couple of friends and my family were so kind to pray for me and check in on me often. My sister sent me a box of sunshine. The friend who needed a listener sent me cheese, chocolate, and flowers in the form of a totally unexpected gift-card. The CEO of our company wrote me a kind note and gave me a gift-card for my ten year anniversary at work. And today, my boss got married. 

Just like the Hell-week had redemptive moments and hours, this balm-week had its dark moments and its bitter tears. But there were so many good conversations in both weeks. So many walks and cups of tea and scudding clouds across the moon. There were invitations into sorrow and invitations into deep joy. There were things that scared me, but I did them. There were things that wounded me and others, but we are walking with one another into healing.

This evening, in the midst of deep joy and fun on the dance floor, without warning, familiar notes washed over the room. I've never seen so many people scatter for exits so quickly when there was no emergency. . . The DJ couldn't have known that playing "Don't Stop Believin" would be incredibly painful for nearly a dozen people. He couldn't have known that a few days ago we found out our friend, Mike, was dead. "Don't Stop Believin" was Mike's theme song. If I heard it blasted from the classroom once a summer, I heard it half a dozen times a summer. I like that song, but tonight it made me sad. Yet, in a way, it was like Mike was there in spirit. Like maybe he was dancing, too. 

This week so many beautiful, good, kind, and joy-filled things happened. It doesn't fill the maw of Hell-week. No. In some ways, it stuffs goodness down the throat of the aching blackness and still overflows everywhere. And in some ways, that gaping emptiness of Hell-week carves a pit in the many of us it touched. The wound of death does not heal here, not fully. I will always bleed a little of my heart out for the friend I lost nearly two years ago. Our world will always bleed a little for the loss of Mike. Goodness doesn't fix the not good. 

Sorrow and grief over many things still clench my heart and make me cry. But the kindness of family and friends also makes me cry. The deep gift of love, the deep joy of watching my friends get married makes me cry. I cried hearing my friends exchange their wedding vows and hearing their people toast them. And I cried tears of loss watching the father-daughter dance, because I want to get that experience and I don't know that I ever will. And simultaneously, I cried tears of anger and hurt that a person who might have given me that chance declined to even try. And I cried the achingly sweet tears that come when you hear grown men say "My life is what it is partly because of you, and I love you" to another man in front of a whole crowd of people. 

Hell-week wasn't all bad. And balm-week wasn't all good. Even something so beautiful and deeply good as a wedding brought all kinds of mixed emotions—joy, pain, sweetness, grief, and hope... Hope of these friends birthing light in the darkness our world is falling into. And lest it all sounds like this hope or joy or kindness springs from my friends, it doesn't. Its source is God the Father, showering His deep affection on us (often through other people) where we are—whether that is a place of pain or gladness, or a mix of sorrow, joy, sadness, loss, hurt, and hope all co-mingled. And let's be honest, we're often an amalgamation of emotions, not feeling one at once, but many (even conflicting) emotions at once. That is the agony and the beauty of being human.

Grief makes me weep. Sorrow makes my heart bleed. But alongside these, kindness makes me cry.

Give Thanks with a Grateful Heart

Things I'm thankful for today. . .

• Little birds twittering in the trees above my porch
  
  
• Gentle warmth and cloud cover and sunlight dancing through leaves
  
  
• Delectable tea... I blended Black Cask Bourbon, New England Breakfast, and Tippy Yunan for this morning's brew.
  
  
• Colours! Gentle yellow-white light filtered through verdant leaves; pale green avocado, bright red strawberries, creamy orange apricots, and Polish pottery cerulean; magenta geraniums peeking out of the flowerbox next to a cheery yellow watering can... Colour, colour everywhere!
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Music. I adore music. Good music, that is. Today that is Joy Williams. Recently it has been The Petersens, Hollow Coves, Peter Bradley Adams, and The Western Den.
  
  
• Friends. I am oh-so-thankful for friends! Whether it is friends I have known a hundred years (give or take a zero) sitting across the way journalling in quiet, or friends I haven't seen in years who text me "Less than a week!" when I am finally going to see them soon, or friends I've only known a year or two... I'm thankful for their presence; their heart-sharing; their life-sharing; their love; their wisdom; their differences of opinion (even when I don't like it); their grace; their truth-telling; their e-mails with links to books, poems, sermons, music, and more; their sharing the face of Jesus with me in different facets.
  
  
• Kindness from almost-friends. What to call these people whom I pray for and care for, but I'm not really "friends" with exactly? Almost-friends, that's what. They are the people who remember that you would like them to deliver this big box to an address not on the box (please-and-thank-you), the ones who stand at your door and chat about random things for a few minutes in their busy day, who deliver the mail, who make your day just a little brighter by being them and by being kind.
  
  
• The dobro (resonator guitar). Seriously, this is a cool instrument. [My favourite line in this song is "tea leaves steep"—of course.]
  
  
• Words—luscious, rich, bright, deep, painful, heart-splitting, heart-healing words.
  
  
• Prayer. Specifically the prayers of Every Moment Holy. There is a liturgy for all kinds of things: sunsets and birthdays, first snows and the the lament of finishing a good book... All kinds of prayers to make us stop and attend to this life we are living.
  
  
• There are a hundred other things I'm thankful for, but one of them is work, which I need to do right now...   

Shalom

Sunlight eagerly pours through white windowpanes, spilling its warmth and hope across my soft chairs, onto my knee, pooling on the floor. A little bird is hailing the day star and Arvo Pärt's Nunc dimittis gently adds its soft refrain.

A friend gifted me a set of four, Polish pottery luncheon plates, one of which is now full with a burst of raspberries, lustrous orange slices, and butter-seared banana bread. My globe-like green Polish mug is nestled on my lap, counter-balancing the morning breeze, keeping me just right.

Something about Spring mornings feels enlivening and hopeful, it feels like home. Something about Spring pushes me to dust dressers, window ledges, and chair legs. It reorders my time and my newly-polished spaces. I often choose to have fresh flowers in my home, but today I have a mason jar full of dried lavender for the sun to warm. There is also a cheery bunch of tiny purple waxflowers and their still-smaller buds, overflowing from a simple glass vase.

There is an excitement in Spring that I cannot overlook in my deep love for Winter. Everywhere I turn is life, light, and freshness. At least, in the natural world, that is what I see. I see the rhythms that have always been continuing. And that is where I want to rest this morning—not to forget the pall that has fallen over our world—but for now, to be present to the renewed order, teeming life, and refreshing breeze all speaking "Peace, be still" to my soul.

Think of the disciples in the storm-tossed boat. They could only see, experience, and think about the raging squall around them. Jesus was sleeping, not unconcerned, but in full trust. As that joyful little bird trills his heart out, I want to join him. As the sun warms the earth, I want to bask in it. As the Father whispers, Peace. Be still, I want to sink into this place of rest, trust, and hope.

Noli Timere

The Peace of Wild Things

by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water,
and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

A Psalm of David

The Lord is my Shepherd [to feed, guide, and shield me], I shall [experience nothing as lacking]. He makes me lie down in [fresh, tender] green pastures; He leads me beside the still and restful waters. He refreshes and restores my life (my self); He leads me in the paths of righteousness [uprightness and right standing with Him—not for my earning it, but] for His name’s sake.

Yes, though I walk through the [deep, sunless] valley of the shadow of death, I will fear or dread no evil, for You are with me; Your rod [to protect] and Your staff [to guide], they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with [a]oil; my [brimming] cup runs over. Only goodness, mercy, and unfailing love shall follow me all the days of my life, and through the length of my days the house of the Lord [and His presence] shall be my dwelling place.

Juxtaposed

Starry stubs of light
pool time in waxen white
flowing from this shadowed season
when sadness should be bright

In darkness tinged with light
we wait the coming time
when God sneaks in like treason
and all will be made right

But this time it's different
The subtle shades of Lent
look more like darkened joy,
like the negative of a print

Everything is going in reverse
all the bright is coming first,
and then darkness rushes in
swallowing the light of the universe

Is there Easter at the end,
or a deeper darkness to wend
through before day rises,
edged in shade as I am unmade?

In this bright hour...even the mountains know you're gone

Dear Aaron,

Gloaming has always been my favourite time of day, even since I was a small child. The words gloaming and twilight have a romantic, magical air to them. Dusk brings with it certain smells, a slowing down, a stillness, a place for pondering and reflecting.


I never knew the dusk could seem so sad,
an empty aching in my soul.
In this bright hour I speak your name in the wind,
the shining world outlasts us all.

Unlike the author of this song, I know about dusk: it can wring my heart of many tears. Dusk is when I slow down enough to listen to my thoughts, my heart, and the Holy Spirit. . .Especially in the Spring through the Autumn, when I can sit on my porch as the light fades. In this bright hour, fading from colour to grey, the ache permeates my soul. Not a throb, not a piercing pain. . .a continual ache. Like arthritis, steady and dull, but very present.

How many evenings have I whispered into this gloaming that I miss you? And how many hours in years past did I sit at my desk or on the porch, grasping for the last light of day to see by as I wrote to you? The smell of Spring and fresh turned earth makes me think of evenings spent reading poems until I couldn't see the words on the page. Poems we discussed, and at least one that you memorised, reciting it on my voicemail. How heartbroken I am not to have that voicemail still.


Even the mountains seem to know you're gone,
the foothills shimmer where they stand.
The sky is still and much too beautiful,
and I am missing you again.

In the quiet, as the mountain turns from rose to periwinkle-grey, I feel a profound sense of loss and loneliness. I miss you so much it hurts. There are times when I get alternately sad and angry that you never came back to Colorado. Never saw my home. Never drank tea with me on my porch. That we never climbed a mountain together after Semester. Why? Why do I miss you so much? After all these years, why is the pain still there, strong and sharp?


I think of songs I might have sung to you,
the love I wanted you to hear.
Every time the blazing sun goes down,
another promise disappears.

I never knew the dusk could break my heart,
so much longing folding in,
I'd give years away to have you here,
to know I can't lose you again.

Maybe the answer lies in the longing. . . We were friends, good friends, for years. Then it all began to crumble. Your letters grew shorter and fewer. Sure, things change, life gets busy wherever you are—I understand. But it wasn't that. That has happened to me before. This was different. You changed. And when I saw you for the final time, you left me when I wasn't the person you wanted me to be. I wasn't someone else, I was me. . .and that wasn't enough. I wasn't enough. I can't pretend that I didn't cry, that it didn't hurt to have you reject me and abandon me. But for years I'm not sure that even I understood why it hurt so much.

Some part of me loved you in a way that I didn't expect. Yes, I loved you at first as that quirky kid from Rhode Island, and then as my dear friend. But is it possible that the severing of our friendship hurt and continues to hurt because some other love mixed itself into my heart? We often fall in love with someone wholly unobtainable, even spurning those within our reach. Is that it? But no, I think it was and is more than that, but I learned it too late and I regret it bitterly.

So much longing folds in, I'd give years away to have you here, to know I can't lose you again. To give up years to be with someone you love sounds worth it. But how many other people that we love would we miss time with if we could barter that way? I can't go back and reach out more than I already did once upon a time. I can't undo mental illness. I can't undo my life choices, and I certainly can't undo yours. I can't have another shot at being friends, at being anything more than that. And I wish to God that I could. But we can't live in the past, and we can't undo it. Even though I know that's true, it doesn't stop the pain, even as I try to live here and now, knowing what I know. We can't buy more time with our lost loved ones, but we can invest in those we love now.


Help me remember the San [Juans], the foothills burning in the light.
Let my heart rise up to where you are, I long to be with you tonight.

Of course I do. I long to be with you tonight in the Kingdom. I long for all of us to be free from death and its severing, searing pain. I am both angry and envious that you are there without me. That you don't have to watch person after person you love die. But I am not angry at you, and that makes a great deal of difference. 

I miss who you were. I miss who I was. Sometimes I wish I could somehow go back to who I was when we first met, yet also know all that I know now. I know myself better now, and though I have a deeper experiential knowing of God and Life, I miss the person I was. . .The girl who loved poetry and saw light and all those little birds. The person who had time upon time to write, to walk, to listen. I miss loving every little thing about life, delighting in every Beauty, no matter how small or grand. And somehow, I feel like that part of me began to die when I lost your friendship. It was like a light went out; like all of the connections my heart and mind could make between Beauty and reality got scattered and broken.

Sometimes, when I whisper into the blue-grey of the evening, "I miss you, friend" I am also missing me. Do I think that if I could find you I could find myself? No. But I think that if I could find you, you might awaken something asleep in me, maybe even resurrect something long dead. You had a gift, my friend. And you left some of that gift infused in this world and inside of my soul—but so much of it went with you when you left. Does the world know what it's missing? How could we know what we don't have? And yet. . .I often long for what I never had. I often grieve what never was. I know that you are gone. . .Even the mountains seem to know that. In this bright hour I speak your name into the wind, and remember that the shining world outlasts us all.

Angel Fire by Fernando Ortega and Elaine Rubenstein