Category: Spirit

On 20 Years Of Marriage

.Reading time 10 minutes.

Yesterday Lee and I celebrated 20 years of marriage.

The day we got married, there was no

June 1999

fanfare – there was just us – Lee in his best shirt and tie and me in my $20 dress from Marshalls that I’d bought the year before because it was beautiful and I hoped I would get a chance to wear it somewhere nice.

And of course Ian was with us in nothing fancier than his cleanest T shirt and shorts.

It was perfectly imperfect in every way.

We began yesterday as we have almost every other day for the last two decades – waking up to take care of the needs of a 7year old. Ian was 8 when we were married so Lee and I have never been “just a couple”. There have always been high energy, high need little people in our lives who distract us from our “oneness”.

If you begin as you mean to go on, then we celebrated 20 years in much the same way as we began that first day – simply, with zero fuss, with no one the wiser. In a change to our routine, I brought Lee tea (on the weekends he always brings it to me). Then we did some laundry (with 4 kids still to manage, there is always laundry), went to a soccer tournament, and finally ditched the younger kids with the teenagers (another running theme in our marriage). Then we rode our bikes into town for a few hours of time to ourselves.

The story of how we began is simple and sweet. We met at Camp Cayuga in the summer of 1998. Lee was a returning staffer and I was there for the first time with a 7 year old in tow. The first time I remember seeing Lee was on the back of a banged up old work truck. Lee first saw me standing in the staff cabin next to another new staffer and naturally Lee thought we were a couple.

He quickly learned we weren’t and thus began our first summer together. We spent 4 more summers the same way except for the summer William was born, two years later.

Nyree came along three summers after that and her first summer at camp was our last, but, as the tag line for camp says, the memories will last a lifetime.

There were other adventures to be had.

Honeymooning

We moved too many times to count, welcomed two more children into our clan, and said goodbye to my sister and Lee’s grandfathers before we were ready.

This is the hard stuff of life and it is a blessing to have someone by your side through it all. Babies are adorable, yes, but they will also break you if you aren’t careful (no one ever wants to admit that, but everyone who has ever had a squalling newborn or endured a difficult childhood diagnosis or other child related crisis knows exactly what I mean).

The grief you experience from burying the people you love most in the world is somehow softer, the edges less jagged, when you can cry in the arms of someone who has no other place to be than right by your side.

My marriage to Lee is the single most defining characteristic of my life, right there with being a mother to these 5 kids. When everything else has been stripped away – and it has all, at one time or another, been painfully taken from me – I always have this as my anchor: I am mother to these children and I am Lee White’s wife.

If there was competition between these identities, motherhood has, perhaps, had the edge. Raising young kids is like that – they demand undivided attention. This is why it is important to marry someone who shares your values: Lee never resented my focus on the kids – in fact, I think he loves me all the more for it.

That focus is slowly shifting and we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Over the next few years, as the kids need us less and less, Lee and I will have more and more time to spend on us.

Sometimes we get a small taste of it and it leaves me wanting more. I think this bodes well for our future.

One of the things I’ve learned after 20 years of marriage is that nothing stays the same. Our location has changed – often, lol! Our family composition has changed almost as frequently. And we have changed as people.

I love the person Lee has become. Lee has always had a tremendous sense of responsibility – it’s why he never once shied away from becoming a husband and a step dad. It’s one of the things I love most about him.

He will move mountains to help friends in need. “Friendship” is defined very loosely in this regard. An example: he’s invited many people without homes to come stay a while with us. Some were known to us, others were panhandling the day he met them. Nor does he care about money or what others will say – he will always show up for people.

Lee also finds a way to forgive. Don’t get me wrong, he has a temper and he has a well developed sense of the way things should be and how you should treat folks. But he cannot hold a grudge.

Together, no matter the egregiousness of the offense, we always manage to offer grace and forgiveness. At the beginning, we loved each other because of our best qualities. It is so much more satisfying to know someone so intimately that you can still love them in spite of their flaws. This is the gift of 20 years of marriage – to love when there are no more illusions.

I loved the man he was 20 years ago, I love the man he is now, and I cannot wait to see who he will become over the next 20 years.

We married 20 years ago for a green card. We married so we could live on the same continent. We married without a long term plan and without any money – some things haven’t changed!

But maybe that’s why we’re still together. The vows we made on that day mattered and even though we weren’t in a church and had no thoughts beyond that summer, we stayed true to them. For better or worse. In sickness and in health, for richer for poorer.

I didn’t really understand at the time what I was promising. I do now.

I have no idea where we will be in another 20 years. Probably not where either of us expect – for us, the best laid plans are always useless.

But I’m looking forward to seeing how it all plays out, not with the best man in the world (because I don’t think he exists), but with the man who has devoted himself to me (and I am under no illusions about how much work that takes!)

We will go on just as we started – with a cup

20 years

of tea in bed in the morning or a few peaceful hours by a river or up a mountain. There won’t be any fuss and no one will be the wiser.

If we’re lucky, it will be simple and sweet and absolutely perfectly imperfect.

Just like us đź’™

Mary Magdalene

.Reading time 8 minutes.

Sometimes people ask me how I can be a degree-wielding feminist and a Christian. The answer is simple.

Christianity exists because of the faith of women. Jesus might have been a man, but he was like no other, and he knew the value of women.

It goes like this:

On the third day after his crucification, Mary Magdalene discovers his tomb is empty and she raises the alarm. The men (the Deciples), seeing only with their rational mind, look into the empty tomb, and, seeing nothing (in this case, no body), give up and go home.

They had trusted he was The One, but with his murder, hope is lost. The empty tomb means nothing. Thieves and miscreants, most likely. Jesus is dead. What does it matter?

Plus, they have their own problems. If the Romans came for Jesus, as his friends and followers, they might be next.

But Mary stays. She doesn’t give up. She cries, (I love her for her tears – probably hot and angry, like mine when the world is unfair and people steal bodies from tombs or tell someone that they are to blame for their misfortune). She is determined. She asks questions, even from unlikely people. She will not leave until she finds him.

Mary looks again into the tomb. She sees angels. Joy at such a miracle, hope, mixed in with desperation probably sweep through her body, a rush of conflicting emotions. They ask her why she’s crying. She tells them – I can’t find Jesus!

Instead of telling her to Fear Not (as they sensibly have to others) they maintain their otherworldly silence. I imagine that as the fear returns, it arrives with something else. Mary must be annoyed. These are angels for goodness sakes, surely they can explain this!! But they don’t. They just sit there, marking the spot where Jesus last lay.

So she turns, probably grinding her teeth in frustration, and sees someone else just standing there. Like a bump on a log. Doing nothing in the midst of a crisis.

So typical.

Her thoughts were probably all over the place, desperate and supremely frazzled. Why are all these people just standing/sitting around? Don’t they realize that Jesus is gone?

He, too, asks her why she’s crying. Honestly, does she need to explain? Isn’t it obvious?

Her nerves must have been absolutely frayed. And unlike angels, this man will not receive her deference. Anger is coursing through, anger and too many other emotions to name.

This guy is probably nobody, a gardner. He likely has no answers. In fact, he might have even been a party to this monstrous act, this theft of Jesus.

She is a lone woman and accusing a man of stealing a body is probably unwise, but she does it anyway. Because even if no one else will lift a finger, she will leave no stone unturned.

Did you take him? Tell me where to find him and I will take him (no one has to know, she implies).

His response is so simple.

He calls her name.

Mary.

It probably took a heartbeat. Maybe two. Because it is not possible and grief is cruel.

Anyone who has ever lost someone knows the abject finality of death. In those first days, your thoughts are like a clock ticking off each minute since your loved one was alive. This is the first hour. This is the first afternoon – this time yesterday they were still here.

You know the rest of your life will be marked by the passage of time, from minutes to hours to days and months and finally long years of separation.

She tended his body. She is painfully aware that Jesus was well and truly dead. She is under no illusions. He wasn’t in a coma, a half sleep between life and death. Mary held the body of her beloved teacher and knew the counting of the days between what was and what was lost had begun.

Now, improbably, miraculously, he called her name.

For a second she probably thought it was her mind playing tricks on her – wishful thinking common to all who grieve.

But he calls her name.

And within a heartbeat or two, she knows.

I imagine the moment she realized it was no flicker of light, no trick of the mind, no village prank, no shift in the direction of the wind.

The moment she saw and understood – for the first time really – that of all the miracles he had performed, the water to wine, casting out of demons, healing the sick – nothing would ever compare to this.

Jesus was there, standing before her. Breathing in air, calling her name, his skin no longer sallow and cold to the touch but wonderously warm and full of life.

If she leaned in, she would hear his beautiful beating heart where hours before she heard only silence.

The moment grief and fury give way to…joy is too simple a word to encompass the shedding of all doubt in the instant it takes to understand that anything is possible. Anything.

Even the coming back to life of one who was horribly, murderously gone.

Jesus tells this woman of deep faith that he is alive. To go and tell the others.

Oh, to see the look on their faces when she tells them! We know at least one of the Deciples had to see it to believe it.

Also typical.

No matter. Jesus knew they would act this way. But he does it anyway – Mary is the First Evangelist and becomes the Evangelist to the Disciples.

She teaches them:

In Jesus, death is not final. Life has no end. Hope lives.

This is why I can follow Jesus. When you look closely, you understand that he Got It. Women stay and do the hard work. We declare hope when others give up and go home.

This is entirely compatible with the belief that women are of equal importance in the world. Jesus always knew this and he broke down immense cultural barriers to prove it.

Thank you to all the amazing women preachers, pastors, and keepers of the faith who, like Mary Magdalene, share the Good News that hope lives ❤️

Winter Poem on Grief

.Reading time 2 minutes.

On Grieving

 

Winter is cold and harsh

Darkness creeps20130121_112815

A slow invasion

minute by minute

until no light

no hope

no warmth remains.

Icy winds buffet and crash

like a thousand crystal daggers

The air is heavy

A frigid burden

On desperate lungs.

Breathing becomes laboured

So vital

And yet

So painful

Against warm delicate

Flesh that seeks water and

warmth

But finds only bitter cold

And a dry brittle

longing

For something that already

In the passage of a few short weeks

Seems like a dream of

light

and sunshine

In a place that never was

And never will be again. Read More

Charlottesville

.Reading time 16 minutes.

Like a lot of folks in Charlottesville, I awoke early on Friday with a mild sense of dread. At the end of a long, hot summer, the weekend we had all been fearing was finally here.

We were like a community waiting for a hurricane – we’d brought in all the supplies we could think of, boarded up the windows, and were hoping for a Category 1.

But we all knew this was tracking at a Category 5.

This was not our first encounter with these people. They first came in May and crashed our Cultural Festival, which was also held in Emancipation Park. Then they came back on the 8th of July and had another little rally.

But these were just the warmups, the test runs to see how municipal leaders and the community would react. On those occasions, we didn’t react strongly enough.

In preparation for Saturday, local organizations and activists held various training events, everything from street medic preparation to non-violent action. For those who wanted to participate but perhaps not risk life and limb, there was a need for trained legal observers and, believe it or not, folks on standby to go to the city lockup to post bail for anyone who got arrested.

Yes, we were expecting a shit show. And it’s a good thing we did, too, because this community was ready.

Local clergy put out a “Clergy Call” and Rev. Traci Blackmon, Dr. Cornell West, and Brian McClaren (among many others) all showed up. And that’s what kept me sane on Friday – the promise of spiritual guidance from some of the best in the business.

And frankly, I thought we’d be safe at church.

God, how naive.

While sitting in a packed church across from the UVA grounds, Unite The Right were descending with tiki torches, chanting “Blood and Soil!” and “Jew will not replace us'”. ©KateyCarston

After the most inspiring of services that featured texts from the Quran and Hebrew songs, as we were slowly walking out to a rousing chorus of “We who believe in freedom can not rest”, we were told to please take our seats. The police were concerned for our safety.

It wasn’t until I got home that I would fully understand why.

When we were finally allowed to leave, we we’re asked to stay in groups for our own protection. Lee and I walked with a small group for a couple of blocks to our car. Someone saw a young woman wearing a hijab walking alone – they asked her to be careful, the Nazis we’re up to something on grounds, and invited her to walk with us. Thankfully her husband was there in a parked car, and we walked on together, discussing our respective neighborhoods and the start of school in a few weeks.

Normal human conversations on a surreal Friday night.

Saturday morning dawned and my daily prayer of “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad of it” felt stiff on my lips. I got up, put the kettle on, then began a few hours of nail biting and hand wringing.

What the hell were we supposed to do today? As a white person, this felt like a hot mess of our own creation and I had some responsibility to help clean up. Unlike events in Ferguson or Baltimore, this was not an outcry in the face of injustice. This was planned. By other white people. By other people who believe in racial superiority, fascism, and legalized rape (these Neanderthals think a woman’s only role in life is to procreate).

But didn’t I, as someone who has benefited from white privilege, have a responsibility to step up and be counted? To look this ugliness in the eye and say that enough was enough? Shouldn’t it be white people sacrificing our bodies for equality and justice? Why do we always expect the poor, people of color, and the marginalized to do all of the heavy lifting?

I have to admit, I was not originally in favour of a counter protest. Like many white people, I wanted everyone to avoid Downtown – if a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it, does it make a noise?

The other part of me wanted to be at UVA participating in the activities and workshops planned for the day, covering a range of topics from the history of Black people in Charlottesville to the rise of the Alt-right. In times of trouble, a good class discussion can really steady the nerves.

In the end, after we thought the event had been cancelled by the authorities and the Nazis sent away, Lee and I decided to head to a third park downtown (McGuffey), to be present for the art, music and non-violent resistance program of events.

We parked on South Street, two blocks from the Mall. There were few cars about and fewer people. Then, as we began walking toward the Mall, a group of counter protesters marched toward us. They seemed young, full of life, and relatively harmless and there wasn’t a Nazi in sight!

What an opportunity to stand in solidarity. To say we were there, to do the right thing without fear of getting pepper sprayed.

And we saw a lot people we know, other “normal” people. No harm in falling in line when the person in front of you is a vegetarian, right?

One block after we joined the march, a second group of counter protesters coming down a nother street intersected with ours. These were fellow counter protesters who, rumor had it, had gone to defend a low income housing community a block away. When it appeared that no Nazis were marching on Friendship Court, this second group retreated and joined ours.

For one short block, we all marched together, taking back our streets, arm in arm, almost festive in our mood – it felt celebratory. We the Citizens of Charlottesville had driven off the anti-semites and it felt good.

Not on our watch!

And then there was a noise and a surge of bodies that turned into a tidal wave as the crowd turned and fled from an unspeakable horror.

I jumped behind a concrete pillar to avoid getting trampled. Then it was over.

Within seconds the walking wounded began to emerge from the crowd. At first it was just people hyperventilating. Then it was skin abrasions. And then the first responders were there. Thank God. It felt like it was ambulance after ambulance, stretcher after stretcher. I saw ankles and other limbs swollen beyond all recognition, torn clothes, blood.

It was horrific. I didn’t know how horrific until a few hours later.

Sunday morning I went to church. Four pastors cried from the pulpit. Our local clergy had been so brilliant – right on the front lines, bearing witness and trying to hold a moral high ground while shielding counter-protestors and victims (literally, at Water Street they formed human shields to shelter the wounded).

The message on Friday night had been one of love and resistance, a call to spiritual arms. We must all become David and face down the Goliath of hate and racial superiority.

Friday has a symbolic meaning in the church. We were told to remember that after a terrible Friday, Sunday must come. Sunday, full of the promise of the Good News, that life is everlasting and that love can defeat even death.

And here we were, on Sunday, bloody and broken. And two troopers and one of our own were dead.

We did the only thing we knew we could do – we lifted our hearts to the Lord in songs of praise. Like the Who’s in Dr. Seuss’ tale of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, the folks of this Wooville also came together in song.

I don’t know if it did me any good. Honestly, I’m still angry, still saddened, and still resentful that I have to find a way to love these enemies who came to this sweet little town with the express intention to start a race war.

I’m still struggling. It’s after midnight and my nerves are still jumpy. I fear the Nazis are still around, laying low until the state troopers pack up and leave so that they can jump us when we least expect it.

This is what terrorism feels like.

I kept my kids home all weekend because a crazy white supremacist crashed his car into a crowd of people. These white supremacists all proudly carry guns. What’s to stop them coming to our local park, just 2 miles from downtown, and trying to take out more of us?

Am I crazy to think this? I’ve read their websites. Their ideology is sick and twisted. They can and will do anything to anyone who stands against them.

I know I have to get past this. But I don’t think it will be easy. And I know that practicing my faith, a faith that calls me to extend love to all, even those who would do me and mine harm, just got a little harder.

I also know that this is a mess only white people can fix. I am very conscious that one of the markers of white privilege is a sense that this is “all about me” and that this matters because for one moment, it impacted my life. I can go back to my world and recover – people of color and other targeted groups cannot.

But in this case, we are the only ones who can dig out the plank of wood that is rammed into our eyes. I grew up with people who, though not white nationalists, certainly harbored many similar views about immigrants, Muslims, and people of color. We have to call them out at every church potluck, at every PTA meeting, at every high school basketball game.

We have to watch our own and make sure they aren’t being radicalized – because make no mistake, the people who came to Charlottesville are radical white supremacists, no different in many ways to the other radical terror groups like the IRA and ISIL.

When we stand by and let our sons, daughters, brothers and friends fall into ugly talk and radical ideology, we are complicit.

The Bible tells us that we are all one in Jesus, all part of the same body of Christ. When one part hurts, so do all the others.

So this is our challenge: how do we invite those who hate us to come, sit at our table, and hear the Good News, that on a glorious Sunday love triumphed over death and redemption is ours for the asking?

I’m still trying to figure that part out.

I remember moving to Charlottesville several years ago. I didn’t know anyone but my family and often felt alone and isolated. Sensing my need to connect, many people invited me to church.

If radicalization is the result of isolation and disconnection, maybe one first step we can take is to invite our haters to come and worship with us.

This is the time to hate the sin but love the sinner, and it sure as hell ain’t gonna be easy.

The picture I included here is of the Downtown Mall we all know and love, a place of family and community and joy. It helps if you know what we’re fighting for.

Keep us in your prayers. It helps, more than you know.

And remember that we still have a lot of work to do. Until we can all look in the mirror and know without a doubt that we have removed every shred of anger, hate, and bitterness from our hearts, our work is not done.

Peace to you all.

Fearless

.Reading time 8 minutes.

​

Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day:

– I shall not fear anyone on Earth. 
– I shall fear only God. 
– I shall not bear ill will toward anyone. 
– I shall not submit to injustice from anyone. 
– I shall conquer untruth by truth. And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.

Mahatma Gandhi

This quote has rather dominated the last 5 months of my life. I have always loved it but I don’t think I ever truly understood the courage it takes to resist submitting to injustice, nor the resolve required to resist untruth and endure all suffering as a consequence of that resistance.

When you speak truth to power, there may be immediate rewards and even glory. And let’s be honest – it can feel downright liberating to let people know exactly what you think. 

Just as easily, there may be other consequences that do not feel so wonderful. There are often real, painful, and harsh penalties that do not feel as satisfying, including humiliation, rejection, and betrayal. In fact, you should probably count on it. Most folks don’t respond well when you call them out and hold them to account and they will take their pound of flesh, make no mistake.

This is why I love Gandhi’s quote so much. It reminds me that I must expect to be faced with these harsh and often unjust consequences, to anticipate them and be ready to pay the price. It is part of being a wayseeker. 

One of Gandhi’s other lessons is that suffering is part of living and those who can accept this and embrace it can find peace. It is when we resist suffering, when we rail against it, when we wring our hands and gnash our teeth, that we dispair. Suffering can be endured. Dispair, however, is soul destroying.

When we suffer for the right reasons – because we stood up for truth or beauty or to preserve human dignity – we might lose friends, get fired from our jobs, or face arrest or imprisonment. Recognize this, and accept these as the price for walking this path. 

Like Gandhi, Jesus understood what it meant to suffer for the truth. No one was better at declaring the truth and calling people out when they denied it or acted in ways that were not in alignment with the truth. And no one was more willing to suffer pain, humiliation and eventually death in defense of the truth and beauty of God’s Kingdom.

I am currently suffering for the truth. I spoke my truth and demanded that I be treated with dignity and I was cast out and humiliated for it, publicly and in a most inhumane manner imaginable. It has made me question my faith in people and certainly undermined my naive belief that honesty is a policy that is rewarded.

This is hard!

The Bible says in 2 Timothy 2:12 “If we suffer, we shall also reign with him..” This is such an important lesson. We are one with Jesus when we take up a cross and carry it, willingly, for the right reasons! When we suffer because we fear no man but God and will speak the truth, we may well suffer, but we will also be one with our teacher. 

We are never to suffer needlessly, however, because of things like guilt or shame. Good Lord, put those crosses down! Jesus died for those exact sins so that we would be free from their heavy weight and impossible burden. This is his grace and mercy to us. 

The follow-up to this verse, of course, is a reminder that if we deny Jesus, he will deny us. This sounds rather harsh, but I make sense of it in this way: we are called to walk by faith, not by sight. When we suffer, or when we see others in pain, we may be tempted to impose a timeline on things. We are willing to endure, but only for so long. Then we want it to stop, for things to get better, to be rewarded for our efforts.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. God has his own timeline and it rarely aligns with ours. In those agonizing minutes and months and years of prolonged suffering, we may move from grudging endurance to outright resentment. We knew it wouldn’t be easy but we didn’t sign up for this! And we might be tempted, in our frustration, to believe we’ve been abandoned. We lose faith. 

Remember to keep going. Remember to walk by faith alone. When the reality of your suffering becomes great, close your eyes and keep on moving. This is the path of the wayseeker. You are not lost and you have not been foresaken. You can’t see the end of the road, but God can and it will end. It always does, one way or another, and as long as you don’t lose faith, your place beside Jesus is confirmed.

That is the only thought that keeps me moving sometimes. When I feel my commitment flagging, when I think I can’t go another step, sometimes all I have left is a battered and worn out “Hallelujah”. Yes, in my low moments it even rings hollow to my own ears. But it is better to say that – and hope it rings true in time – then to abandon the Way altogether. And I’ll keep saying it until my faith feels steady once more. 

Supprisingly, even some in Hollywood understand this (and why shouldn’t we embrace Home Truths, even when they come from such an unlikely source. Truth is Truth). In one of the final scenes of the Star Wars epic Rogue One, the inimitable blind warrior Monk of Jedha, Churrit Imwe repeatedly intones:

“I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.” 

Now there is a lesson: if I say it often enough, it will guide my steps and I do not have to see where I am going in order to arrive at the right place at exactly the right time.

Truer words were never spoken.