On Monday, when I wrote about Finding Space to Turn, I mentioned that I am bent on turning. If that phrase left you scratching your head, here is the rest of the story, that I wrote way back in January of 2016. As we enter this season of Lent, may we be willing to stop and re-turn.
Why am I amazed every single time that God reveals Himself. I mean, He does it so often, you would think I would begin to expect it. Yet, I am always surprised.
Consider this: Way back in November, my Wednesday morning battalion was discussing what we would study next. Several books were suggested, so we considered each of them before we decided on Jennifer Rothschild’s Hosea: Unfailing Love Changes Everything. Well, that was November, and then Christmas happened.
Just over a month ago I wrote this post — I was noticing the impact of taking a brief intentional pause from my regularly hectic life to do a little reflecting. Little did I know that less than a month later, much of the world would make a hard stop to shelter in place. As I re-read this post, I am well aware of how much time I now have for introspection, for evaluation, and for turning.
Is your life as jam-packed as mine is? Do you find yourself rushing from task to task, commitment to commitment, often running late because you are trying to cram in one more thing?
Work, social engagements, exercise, caring for our homes, and myriad other commitments can leave us little room for contemplation, for feeling, or for processing all that happens within one of our very busy days.
Instead of pausing to do the most important work — to consider the ways that we live, the ways that we communicate, the beliefs we hold, or the opportunities we might be missing — we cycle through our days, getting up, going to work, and collapsing, day after day after day.
It can take an act of the will to get ourselves to step out of that cycle — to meet friends for dinner, to take a class, or to go on a long walk. Trapped in our crowded schedules, we find it difficult to see where we might find the space (and the energy) for such pursuits. So we continue in our patterns day after day after day. We eat the same foods, drive the same routes, and see the same people.
Sometimes, though, we do take action — we pause the cycle and get a glimpse at a better way.
Yesterday, I found myself sitting in a room with nine college-aged couples attending a workshop on relationships that my husband was leading. The day focused on three key topics: 1) the keys to healthy relationships, 2) what our personalities bring to our relationships, and 3) how to communicate more effectively about emotionally-charged topics.
I was most struck by the fact that these college students — who certainly have lives that are at least as busy as mine — willingly hit the pause button so that they could do the hard work of considering a new way. They engaged in conversations, took a personality inventory, and practiced a communication tool that showed them how to be vulnerable with one another. I watched as they turned to one another, heads leaning in, speaking their hearts and listening.
You might have guessed that my husband and I did all the activities, too. We paused to consider the marks of healthy relationships and which areas we might continue to improve in; we acknowledged how our personalities play off one another; and we practiced a communication strategy. And, you know what? We learned a few things. We may change some of our patterns because of our participation in this workshop.
Pausing for a few hours on a Saturday — breaking our usual routine — allowed us some space to take a look at our standard operating procedures and to find some areas for refinement.
Crowded lives don’t allow for much turning — when we are pressed in on every side, we don’t have much room to move, to turn. We continue our routines, finding little space within which to navigate. We feel frustrated: we grumble, we growl, we lash out. From that position, it can seem impossible to find space in which to make change.
This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the traditional start of Lent, the day where we remember our mortality — we are but dust, and to dust we shall return. Lent is a time that many Christians pause from their busy-ness, their very crowded lives, to take a long look at how they are living — what are their priorities, what practices have become unproductive, what patterns have become destructive.
Some do this by “giving something up” — chocolate or television or technology — in an effort to open up some space for reflection. Some do this by adding something in — a daily devotion, a Scripture reading plan, or additional worship services — in an attempt to refocus their thoughts, to turn toward God.
You certainly don’t need Lent in order to shift a few aspects of your life to find space, but Lent can serve as an impetus for those of us who are stuck in our routines.
When we pause, when we find a way to step aside and make some space, we have the opportunity to reflect, to consider our options, and to turn — to try a different way.
When we entered Lent this year, we had no idea how hard a pause we would be making or how much space we would suddenly have — space to see ourselves, the ways we’ve been living our lives, and the people we choose to spend them with. If in all this sudden space you find yourself reeling, anxious, grumbly, or even euphoric, you might consider turning. I don’t know the turns that might impact your life, and maybe you don’t either, but perhaps there is a first turn that might inform those that follow.
In all this time and space you suddenly have, I invite you to return to prayer — a simple turning of the eyes to the One who always provides us with space to turn.
“Return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.”
On Monday, my post exposed the fact that we are all flawed — not one of us is perfect. This re-post (from September 2019) further explores that ideaand the benefit of being in community.
We’re pretty hard on ourselves, aren’t we?
Last week, when the phone rang at work, I answered and gave the answers the caller was looking for. I stumbled a little bit, because the call had interrupted me in the middle of another task, but I heard the mother’s heart of questions, and I gave her honest answers. However, I didn’t follow protocol and provide only the prescribed answers I was supposed to give on an initial phone call. Instead, I provided a few bits that are usually reserved for a lengthier conversation so that they can be provided in context. In carelessly oversharing, I might have said too much and gotten in the way of…
On Monday, I asked if you were willing to take some risks for the sake of others (post here). I’ve asked this before. In February, after the Super Bowl, I asked if you’d be willing to enter into dialogue about what in our culture perpetuates sexual violence (post here). In March of 2018, I wondered if you’d be willing to spend time in community, to be vulnerable and open to the change that can happen there (post here). Today, I’m reposting this piece that I wrote one month — one month — before we went inside to protect ourselves from a pandemic. In this post, I explore what we have to gain from looking at the ways we have hurt one another and committing to do the hard work of healing those hurts. I was writing on a more personal/community level, but it seems that this type of work — this coming together, this commitment to vulnerability, this openness to change — is needed on a societal level right now. It’s gonna be hard, but if we are willing to take the risk, we just might experience a new kind of freedom.
Adapted in days of Covid: As we continue to distance ourselves from others, by working from home, by wearing masks, by keeping six feet away from one another, we long for the days when we could be up close and personal — when we could drop by one another’s homes, sit side by side in a movie theater, shake hands, and hug. Living in close contact with those we care about can have a positive impact on us. It lifts our spirits, it connects us to our humanity, it gives our lives meaning.
However, spending time in close proximity to others does come with risk — and not just the risk of disease. The moments we spend with others — our family, our community — are not often picture perfect; frequently they are characterized by friction, collision, and pain.
In fact, when I look back on the mental movie of my life, I can see the people I love most standing nearby as I have yelled, thrown things, and slammed doors; they’ve born witness as I’ve lain wounded, cried, and struggled to get back up. What impact must these moments have had on the bystanders? I am sure they have left marks on the people I love most. And when I sit with that truth, my body aches.
But, here’s the thing: we can’t avoid leaving marks on the people we love the most.
We. are. broken.
All of us.
And when broken people come close to one another, we hurt one another.
Hurt people hurt people.
And all of us — from time to time — are hurting.
I remember one particularly difficult morning during the soldiering years when our whole family was headed to join a gathering of friends for a meal. Everyone else was ready and waiting, but I was upset about something — probably a larger internal issue — and I couldn’t get comfortable with the way I looked. I closed the bathroom door, tore everything out of the cabinets, and began violently cleaning and rearranging as I cried. I was hurting so badly, but I didn’t know why, and I didn’t know how I could pull on a face that would not expose my pain for public viewing. My husband and my children — all in middle and high school by this time — could certainly hear me wailing and slamming as they watched the clock, knowing we were going to be late. When finally I emerged, tears wiped, make-up applied, and silent, they watched cautiously as I climbed in the car. We all rode quietly to the event, where I took a deep breath, got out of the car, and engaged appropriately (or at least more appropriately) with those who had gathered.
What impact did that make? How did I affect my children and my husband, all of whom were also hurting during this period, by processing in this way — behind closed doors — and then presenting a different face to those who were one step removed? What was I teaching them about pain? About emotion? About friendship? About community?
Of course many experience bigger hurts than my emotional melt down. When families and communities experience accidents, trauma, or disaster, all feel the blows and carry the resulting injuries. If one member of the family is injured in a car accident, everyone’s life gets bumped out of its rhythm — all those who care stop what they are doing, show up on the scene, rally to help, and adjust their schedules until further notice. When one person is the victim of a crime, all in the vicinity feel the violation — they experience fear, anger, grief, agony — sometimes for years after the fact. When someone in the family loses their house to fire or their livelihood is destroyed by hurricane, the impact can be felt by the children, the parents, and the whole community who might see the course of their lives redirected for decades in the wake of such devastation.
Not every hurt is remarkable, of course, some impacts go virtually unnoticed. Others are among the everyday bumps and bruises incurred with close contact.
The other morning, my husband of almost thirty years was driving me to work on one of the coldest mornings of the year. We were chatting matter-of-factly as he drove when something he said struck a cord and I felt defensive. I heard myself respond directly, and soon I knew my reply was sharper than I’d intended when I heard his tone change, too. Before we knew it, we were both feeling agitated and exchanging charged comments. We arrived at the office building where I work, said our goodbyes, and both tried to proceed into our days carrying the bumps and bruises from that conversation.
Now, because we’ve been married for almost thirty years and because we’ve done the heavy lifting that has taught us how to repair, he texted me within moments and I texted back. We both acknowledged our part in the conflict and agreed to table our discussion until later. We’d both felt the pain of contact, but we were willing to back up, reassess, and try a different approach that wouldn’t cause damage.
When you are willing, you can experience growth and change in your relationships with others. Over time, having experienced many collisions and close calls, you can learn how to navigate more safely, how to give each other a wide berth, how to forgive missteps and even outright hurtfulness.
In fact, if you are going to stay in relationships with people, you are going to have to learn how to consider one another, how to forgive one another, and how to give one another chance after chance after chance, because when we live in close proximity, we bump into each other, and sometimes it hurts.
It can be painful to think about the impact that our choices, patterns, and words have had on those closest to us. We want so badly to get it all right, but we never will. So, we trudge on, doing what we can.
We don’t have to — we don’t have to keep trying, keep trudging. We have options.
We could avoid this hurt altogether. We could choose to live as individuals — insulating ourselves from others so that we don’t hurt them and so that they don’t hurt us — but what would we lose in so doing?
We would lose the opportunity to love, to learn, to grow. We would lose the opportunity to forgive and be forgiven. We would lose the chance to laugh together, to share experiences, and to weep with one another.
This morning at church, right before I witnessed my friend and her husband give bread and wine to her aging father, right before I saw them, along with our pastor, envelop him in a hug and pray for him, I heard these words:
…what if our true selves are made from the materials of our communal life?
Where is there some “self” which has not been communally created? By cutting
back our attachments and commitments, the self shrinks rather than grows.”
Stanley Hauerwas
In my closest relationships I have experienced the deepest pain, and I have felt the fullest joy. Knowing I will continue to experience both the pain and the joy, I will not cut back my attachments; I will not shrink into myself. I will open my arms and embrace the brokenness that is inherent to all relationships, because our truest selves are indeed made from the materials of our communal life.
“Be kind to one another — tenderhearted, forgiving one another — even as God, for Christ’s sake has forgiven you.”
On Monday, I wrote about the ways I am witnessing change in Transformational Spaces. This post, written in March 2018 and dusted off for you here, recalls my journey into understanding the power of community.
I can spend days in solitude — reading, writing, working on puzzles, going for long walks. I love to be alone.
In my childhood, I would retreat to my room to listen to the same song over and over again on a record player, spend hours in the side yard of our house twirling my baton, read away a whole afternoon in the living room recliner, and take solo rides on my bike to the boundaries of the small town I grew up in.
As an adult, I have looked forward to whatever private moments I have been able to carve out for myself — reading, writing, walking. Don’t get me wrong, I love my…
On an average day in the middle of last summer a soon-to-be fifth grader walked into our learning center. As is common among first day students, his eyes were down, his defenses were up, and he was palpably not happy to find himself in this situation. His parent said, “See you in a little while,” and left him in our care. We did our standard welcome activities — tour of the center including our prize area where students choose what they will earn for all their hard work, presentation of gifts including a t-shirt and a personalized water cup, and introductions to staff and students. Then, we took him to his instruction area to begin, and he bolted — took off running. He was getting out of there.
We don’t know why. We don’t know what this guy had faced in school settings over the past five or more years. We don’t know what kind of comments he’d heard from instructors — you’re not trying hard enough, this is an easy one, just look at the letters — or what teasing he’d received from other students — why can’t you read, everybody can read, I just read Harry Potter for the third time — or what pressure he was under at home. We just know that his experiences up until we met him had made him leery of entering into proximity with one more group of people who would likely have opinions about him, want him to try stuff, and eventually be disappointed in him.
Not too long ago I was stuck on my couch believing that I would be grieving forever. I didn’t have the strength to venture into new spaces where I might face judgment, misunderstanding, or possibly more pain. If people invited me to do things, I often found excuses — I was busy, tired, or not feeling well. I didn’t have the wherewithal to try — to have conversations, to meet new people, to share my story. If I did happen to agree to go to an event, I often grumbled my whole way there. Why did we agree to come here? It’s going to be terrible. I’m not talking to anyone. How soon can we leave?
It’s not easy to shift from that posture.
When you are convinced that all attempts will lead to failure, you can make failure happen. When you believe that everyone will disappoint you, you can ensure that they will. And when you experience what you expect, your beliefs about how broken, how stuck, how hurt you truly are become more and more etched on the fabric of your soul.
I think that a person needs support to shift away from a posture like that.
When I was feeling that I’d lost all hope, friends showed up. They knew I was on that damn couch, and they persisted. They invited. They texted. They picked me up. They dropped me off. They prayed with me. They cried with me. They cheered every win. They carried me into situations that I was afraid of, and they didn’t leave me alone.
When my student was bent on bolting, his parent sat in our lobby — he needed a partner in his investment, a cheerleader. We were, of course, ready to cheer him every step of the way, but he didn’t yet trust us. We worked hard to build that trust — we celebrated every win, and we were patient in his silences. Eventually, he didn’t need a parent to stay, but he was still reluctant to fully commit. What if it really wouldn’t work and these people, “the experts at teaching reading,” couldn’t help him? What would that mean? If we couldn’t teach him, certainly he was without hope.
A little over two years ago, my husband suggested that we join a small group of people — members of our church — and meet with them once every other week to share journeys, study the Bible, and pray. We’ve been part of many groups like this during our marriage, so I complied. We’ve often found good friendships and community in such groups.
But a couple months later, our lives fell into chaos. If we’d known we were broken before, we suddenly found ourselves face down among all the shattered pieces, grieving uncontrollably. I no longer felt safe going to our small group. I was grumpy and resistant. I went, doing my best to hold it together, but sometimes my snarling gave me away. If our group noticed, I don’t remember them calling me out; they just kept showing up.
Things got tough for my student, too. It wasn’t easy to work our program, hour after hour, day after day. Sometimes his snarling gave him away, too. He refused to work, hurled insults, and often — feeling frustrated — gave up. My staff hung in there, encouraging him, believing for him — You’re going to get this! — when he couldn’t believe for himself.
This past week, I was working with him on his goal of adding the 1000 most common English words to his sight word base when he looked at me with exasperation. “I’m never going to finish this list,” he said.
“Are you kidding me?” I asked. “You’re so close! You’re gonna finish it, trust me!”
Two days later, he took a break from instruction to come find me, “Kristin, I have something to show you.” He handed me the sight word list so that I could see that he was finished. The whole room — students and teachers — stopped what we were doing to applaud him. His face, which for the past six months had often been fixed in a scowl, was beaming. It continued to beam as he read his fifth grade level stories while I stood watching in awe.
Later that day, he took another student aside — a student who was coincidentally experiencing his first day at our learning center — “I know it seems a little hard today,” he said, “but you’re going to do great, just like I did.”
On that same night, exhausted from my day, I came home, swallowed food, and reluctantly got in our car to go to our community group. I literally said “grumble, grumble” as we drove through the freezing February night, but guess what I found when I got there?
I found people who had been consistently showing up, grumbling or not, for over two years. I found them sharing snacks, laughing, listening, asking questions, and leaning in to hear one another’s stories.
We heard about hurts from the past, challenges of the present, and stories of answered prayer.
I saw tears, I heard joy, I found love.
Sometimes, just when we believe that all hope is lost — we’ll never learn to read, we’ll never be finished grieving — we find ourselves in a community that is committed to showing up, waiting us out, cheering us on, and believing for us that hope is not gone. When we find ourselves in these spaces, we should expect transformation because this is where it happens.
Find yourself a way to be part of these transformational spaces.
Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.
On Monday I wrote about sexual assault; today I’m revisiting a post I wrote last Easter. Although the prevalence of sexual assault in our culture angers me, I believe that God is always working to restore us, and it is within our power to partner with Him in restoration work.
Is it weird that Easter falls in the middle of Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention month?
Is it strange that during Holy Week my husband and I joined a couple dozen students to watchI am Evidence, a film about sexual assault and the disturbing backlog of unprocessed rape kits in our country?
Is it inappropriate that on our drive home from our family celebration of Easter we discussed sexual assault and the impact it has had on our society in general and our family specifically?
As I write this, the Super Bowl hasn’t yet started. By the time you read it on Monday or Tuesday, it’ll be history. However, as I write, the sex trafficking industry which sees the Super Bowl and other major sporting events as lucrative sources of revenue, has set up shop in Miami and is selling the services of males and females who it has imprisoned, brutalized, held against their will, and frightened into submission. The Miami Heraldthis week suggested that one sex trafficker could net $50,000 this weekend alone by selling the services of just a few girls.
Oh, geez, is she going to spend a whole blog post talking about sex trafficking?
I don’t have to, I could branch out to sexual assault as a whole. I could write about Harvey Weinstein who just finished his second week of trial in New York after having been accused of sexual assault over the last couple of decades by dozens of women who either felt overpowered by his status and influence over their careers or were literally physically overpowered by him. Weinstein as much as admitted that many of these assaults occurred when he paid out over $25 million in a settlement in a civil case involving over 30 women in December 2019.
He’s an old rich guy, what does that have to do with me?
Ok, let’s forget about Weinstein. Let’s talk about the fact that “every 73 seconds an American is sexually assaulted. Every 9 minutes that victim is a child, and only 5 out of 1000 perpetrators will end up in prison” (https://www.rainn.org/statistics).
Sexual crimes don’t happen just at major sporting events like the Super Bowl. Sexual assault is not only perpetrated by old rich white guys who have power and influence. Sexual assault impacts people you see every day and likely someone who is very close to you, even if you are not aware of it.
Come on, I thought this was a Christian blog. I read this for encouragement!
To be fair, I only promised that this blog would share my thoughts about life in this next chapter, but I hear you. So let’s find a way to encourage one another, shall we? Is it possible that though we live in a world where sex crimes are ubiquitous, we have an opportunity to effect change? Do we dare believe that we have opportunities to shift a culture?
Just this weekend, my husband and I were looking for a movie to watch. We clicked on a popular flick and watched for about 10 minutes before we found ourselves inside a strip club full of pole dancers. The scene ran for three to five minutes and the shots were up close and meant to serve as eye candy for this otherwise action/adventure movie. It’s not the first time such a scene has popped up in a movie that is targeted towards men — those that include crime, guns, high-speed chases, and gratuitous sex scenes.
What might happen if, when we are encountered by such scenes, we choose to interrogate them? Rather than flipping the channel or ignoring their existence, what might we shift if we actually asked some questions? What assumptions do these movies make about men? about women? How do these assumptions impact our thinking? How does that thinking impact what we do and what we say? How does our choice to pay money to watch a movie that promotes such assumptions compare to the choice of someone in Miami to pay for 30 minutes alone in a room with someone they believe to be a prostitute?
I would say there are fewer degrees of separation than we might like to tell ourselves.
I mean, come on, can’t I even watch a movie without dissecting it?
Of course you can, but what might change if you tried something different? What if we agreed to question these tropes, talk about them, reveal them for what they are? Can we ask out loud: Who among us would go to a strip club? What is alluring about it? What is dehumanizing? Who is being served? At what cost? What is being added to the movie with this scene? What purpose does it serve? How am I impacted by it?
Geez, that sounds like a real buzz-kill.
I can see how you’d feel that way. Maybe it’s too much to ask.
Maybe it would be more reasonable if we all just agreed to examine our language. How do we speak and think about men and women? Does our language promote stereotypical views of male and female? Do our words imply that men need to be strong, man-up, bite the bullet, or wear the pants? Do we unconsciously expect men to be strong, to dominate, to control their women? Do the ways we speak suggest that women be pretty, docile, sweet, and kind? Do we expect them to be agreeable, passive, nurturing, and to not bring up topics like sexual assault in their blogs?
Geez, Kristin, calm down. Why are you on this rant, anyway?
Good question. I didn’t start here. I was staring at a blank screen this morning when I started thinking about the Super Bowl, and once my fingers started flying, they just wouldn’t stop.
You know why this happens sometimes? Because it’s personal.
I know many of the “1 in 3 women” who have experienced unwanted sexual violence in the form of physical contact, and I am very close to some of the “1 in 5 women” who have experienced rape (CDC). These are not strangers without names. They are people that I love.
When I consider that right now young people are being forced to perform sexual acts with complete strangers, I feel angry. When I try to watch a movie and it — much to my surprise — depicts sexual assault, or even some kind of sexual manipulation, I feel ill. When I see a man in a position of power eyeball a subordinate from head to toe, I want to gouge his eyes out. When I hear someone comment inappropriately about someone else’s body — “We’ll, doesn’t that fit you in all the right places?” — I am instantly charged.
Sex, when enjoyed by two committed consenting partners, is one of the most beautiful unions we can enjoy. The fact that it is twisted and manipulated so that one person weaponizes it against another and sometimes a third party benefits financially, sickens me.
It’s Super Bowl Sunday and I can’t do anything about those who are being victimized as I write this post, but I can tell my small group of readers that it doesn’t have to be this way. We can do better. We can create shift toward a culture in which people are not afraid of being harmed in their bodies behind closed doors, in dirty alleys, or right in plain sight. We can ask hard questions, challenge the status quo, and refuse to be entertained by the objectification of human beings. We can work to protect the lives of those who are at risk. We can refuse to participate in activities that promote rape culture. We can hold perpetrators accountable.
We can do this. We can make these shifts. It might be uncomfortable, but the lives of those we love are at stake.
Will join me? Will you step into this space? Do you dare?
“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
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