My Person and The Constants...

Today's title sounds more like a bad idea for a band name than a blog post!  I don't really watch television all that much anymore.  Nevertheless, I still find myself influenced by a good story regardless of the art form.  

I need that one person, my person, who knows me best...the person who has my back...who cares about the daily details of my life...a "best friend". You know...the Grey's Anatomy Meredith and Christina idea of my person: Your Person as told by Grey's Anatomy.  I'm incredibly blessed to have such a person in my daily life right now. However, in response to my post I Lost My Best Friend, I received a message from the person who has been my friend the longest (27 years to be precise):  Cindy Bartley. She shared something that resonated so perfectly in my heart. It is another dimension of the need I experience for relationship and community. While I do experience a deep need to have a person, I also thrive within a community of people who are a consistent, long-term, ongoing part of my life. In many ways, it is they who define me, anchor me, and to whom I continually circle back.

Cindy shared that she and her family have found resonance in an idea from a cult television show. Lost aired on NBC from 2004 - 2010. The concept of a constant was introduced as that person who grounds us when the world is spinning (more literally in the show than in our actual lives). Cindy shared that, for her, "it doesn't mean day to day life but those that know where you've been and where you need to go."

People do come and go, but most of us can point to some constants in our life. For many, family comprise the earliest and longest term constants. However, for others that may not be the case. I am currently reading  A Music I No Longer Heard: The Early Death of a Parent by Leslie Simon and Jan Johnson Drantell.  The authors state that "[a]ccording to census statistics from 1930 on, roughly 5 percent of the population falls into the orphaned category, which means having lost one or both parents to death before age eighteen" (17).  My dad died when I was 16 and that experience radically changed the way I see the world, family, relationships, God, and loss as well as it impacts those with whom I'm closest. It left me a functional orphan and changed my family irrevocably. I lost my sense of security and permanence and I think I have been looking for that ever since. Of course, there are ways in which my family does still ground me. My brother stands as the representative of all that family is to me. Nevertheless, I find that I am still like that 16 year old kid set adrift in a vast world without her constant.

This idea of constants in our lives refers to more than simply relationships from the past. I love history. I collect things that connect me to my past.  Those friends with whom I have such deep and lengthy context are vital to my survival, but only if they are still connected to my present in some tangible way. I have spent the two weeks since receiving Cindy's message dwelling on this idea of constants in my life. I find these are the people who are a consistently positive part of my life even if that isn't on a daily basis or even face to face.  They do ground me in a world that is relentlessly spinning.

I am amazingly blessed by my constants.  They are my great cloud of witnesses here on earth (the order is merely chronological based on when I met them):

1. Cindy Bartley and The Todd / Bartley family (1986) 
2. LeAnna Davenport (1986)
3. Debbie Blue (1986)
4. The Meltons (1993)
5. Erica Glassburn (1995) 
6. The Cappos (1995) 
7. Kendra Campbell (1996) 
8. Carrie Myles and the Myles / Crane family (1997)
9. Karen Youmans and her family (1999)
10. The Walkers (2000) 

As an interesting side note, most of my constants actually know one another. Of course, that could have occurred because they have simply met one another through shared connection with me.  However, it is actually due to the fact that I have worked for my alma mater for a quarter of a century!  All but one are former OBU classmates, colleagues, or students!

What makes someone a constant?  It doesn't seem that there was ever a moment when it was decided.  One of my constants officiated the wedding of another this weekend. Father TimSean Youmans, in using Frederick Buechner's idea of covenant in marriage, said that such commitments begin with a series of small "yesses" that become weightier over time.  I think our constants may be formed in a similar fashion.

• Knowing someone for a long time. I decided to look at people who have been a grounding presence in my life for over 10 years. This resonates with something I referenced in a previous post about the friends that you have for seven years being lifetime friends. However, there are people in my life who I have known as long who aren't necessarily constants in my life.  Ten years doesn't mean someone automatically holds a place of deep permanence and trust.
• The connection continues even if daily life isn't shared. A love and affection has been nurtured over time and doesn't diminish despite life's circumstances.
• You feel like a part of their family. Perhaps you have spent holidays with them as I have with most of my constants. Typically, you are close with more than just an individual. Maybe it started with one person, but their family (parents, spouses, children, siblings) often become an equally significant part of your life.  The Walkers are one such case for me.  My relationship and connection with them really stems from the friendship I developed with Ashley while she was still in high school.  However, I have been so fully drawn into their family that I can't necessarily separate one from the whole.  In fact, I think it can be hard to explain your relationship with your constants to other people.  I definitely found that to be the case at Ashley's wedding this weekend.
• You will do all you can to honor life's BIG moments together (weddings, funerals, births, graduations, ordinations, etc.) 
• These are all people / families with whom I've been in the trenches. We have weathered life's storms together and have experienced times of strain, conflict, or even emotional distance in our relationships with one another. Nevertheless we seem to return to each other time and again. 
• In the end, there is a contentment, sense of security, and a vulnerability that exists with their more permanent presence in your life. 

Who are your constants?

                I really want to know!

                             Tell me your stories!

Anticipation...

...is keeping me waiting.

Carly Simon penned those words in 1971 about an upcoming date with Cat Stevens and ultimately Heinz Ketchup co-opted them for a famous commercial featuring the thickness of their product that ran throughout the decade.  While I deeply despise ketchup, Carly Simon's music has been a guilty pleasure of mine.  Regardless, the point is I anticipate... well, everything.  Thus, Simon's ditty is an appropriate theme song for my life.  I wait for things to go wrong; I expect to be disappointed; for relationships to end; for loss to occur; and for confrontation to be painful.  Heck, I even dread meetings!  My mind naturally creates worst case scenarios.  Repeatedly, life turns out so much more pleasant and beautiful than my expectations for it.  And, when it doesn't, I recover quickly.  Yet, I continue to anticipate the worst.

I thrive on routine.  I like it's predictability.  Habits are a comfort to me.  I rise before 5am to get in a run or go on a ride; consume a smoothie and a French Press of LaColombe Coffee; poke around on the interwebs; and head to the office for a day filled with my beautiful, brilliant, and sometimes broken students.  Lunch with my best friends and colleagues in the cafeteria provides laughter and a much needed respite in my day.  I head to bed early in order to do it all again.  

I LOVE calendars!  I've kept a detailed daily planner since I transferred to OBU as a junior in college who was overwhelmed by the new academic demands combined with flipping burgers at Sonic and pledging Atheneans.  On a visit home from my first job in Chicago, my then teenage brother stole my DayTimer.  He didn't do this to send me into crisis, but rather to make fun of me.  He selected a random day and entered everything that I need to do.  Wake up.  Brush teeth.  Go to the bathroom.  Eat breakfast.  He found my obsessive planning to be ridiculous and worthy of his mocking!  He likely still does as he has yet to maintain a calendar or planner himself.

In December, my routine begins to break down due to my fatigue and the innumerable activities that accompany the convergence of the end of a semester with the arrival of the holiday season.  The break beckons and I eagerly anticipate it while dreading it all the same.  My family life has been complicated by my father's death in 1982 and the resulting impact of that defining event over time.  My friends are busy with their own travels and family plans.  I look forward to the break in routine; the opportunity to truly Sabbath; the much needed solitude; and a few special moments with those I love most. However, I dread the awkwardness of being single during this season and the loneliness that occurs with the disruption of the very routine from which I need a respite.

It strikes me that Advent is an anticipation of sorts.  We plan for and anticipate the arrival of the Christ child.  Or rather, the celebration of that arrival.  At least that is what I understood the focus to be.  I was raised in a non-liturgical Protestant tradition.  As a result, the Church calendar, sacraments, and many of the rituals of religion aren't second nature to me as they are to some.  That, in celebrating his first coming, we anticipate the Messiah's second arrival on the world stage was rather lost on me.  It appears easy and relatively pleasant to look forward to the arrival of the baby Jesus in the manger.  We light candles or add characters to the nativity.  Some families post decorative calendars and remove dates as the 25th draws closer.  I recently learned about the French tradition of santons or "little saints". I love this practice of placing these beautifully crafted everyday people in and around the crèche as a way to celebrate Advent.  Yet, in all of the tradition and ritual, what are we actually anticipating?  Are we counting down the days until we receive all of our gifts or are we truly expectant for the Christ child's arrival? Add to all of this a need to be eager for his second coming?  Suddenly, I find Advent quite complex and confusing.  In such mental distress, all I can do is cling to the knowledge that he will make all things right and hope in his eventual return.

As I continue to think seriously about this Advent season, I am dwelling upon Ecclesiastes 9.11-12 and Psalm 42.  May the Word of the Lord be unto us both a hope and a challenge even as we anticipate together.

Ecclesiastes 9.11-12 (NRSV): Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favour to the skillful; but time and chance happen to them all. For no one can anticipate the time of disaster. Like fish taken in a cruel net, and like birds caught in a snare, so mortals are snared at a time of calamity, when it suddenly falls upon them.


Psalm 42 (NRSV):
Longing for God and His Help in Distress

To the leader. A Maskil of the Korahites.

As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soul longs for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and behold
the face of God?
My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me continually,
‘Where is your God?’

These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I went with the throng,
and led them in procession to the house of God,
with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,
a multitude keeping festival.
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God.

My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep
at the thunder of your cataracts;
all your waves and your billows
have gone over me.
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.

I say to God, my rock,
‘Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I walk about mournfully
because the enemy oppresses me?’
As with a deadly wound in my body,
my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me continually,
‘Where is your God?’

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God.

I lost my best friend...

You look like you've lost your best friend.

Cliches become such for a reason and the above is no exception.  Losing "your person" for any reason is painful and the emotions involved are difficult to hide.  I lost my best friend and few experiences have been more challenging for me to navigate than that. Relationships end.  This is simply a truth with which I must learn to live.  While I might like to blame myself for each broken relationship in my life, I must seek out the lessons and welcome the blessings that each loss brings.

I HATE when people leave.  Early in my professional career, I realized that I had made a vocational choice that was going to result in considerable pain for me.  Academic communities are transitory by nature.  I am required to say "goodbye" constantly.  It is the thorn in my flesh...and my heart.

I rarely cry at real life.  Literature, film, music, and theatre can reduce me to tears without warning.  If a piece of art tells the story of a lost relationship or departure, it will undo me. Such separation can be for any reason from death to a mere misunderstanding. Nevertheless, the emotional release is therapeutic for me.  I allow myself to experience the deeply suppressed emotions I feel regarding loss.

The holidays are not so holly and jolly for everyone.  The days and weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year can be ones of painful remembrances, loneliness, and confusion for many.  These feelings can be exacerbated by winter weather.  I'm a firm believer in Seasonal Affective Disorder and definitely fall victim to it myself.  Combine that with the losses I have experienced in my life, living alone, and my overly active brain.  The results can be devastating if I allow them to be.  I eagerly anticipate "the break" and yet, once it arrives, I can dwell on the pain of past losses and the loneliness that accompanies the disruption in the routine upon which I often rely for stability.

In recent weeks, I've been pondering a question.  What if losing my best friend was the best thing that ever happened to me?  As I have to repeatedly learn, I don't always need that for which I desperately pray.  As I wrote in this year's Advent Devotional, mountains can be moved, but they can also be our protection.  God's wisdom is infinitely greater than mine and he knows me more intimately than any other.  Two and a half years ago I lost my best friend for reasons that are complicated and there is ample blame to share.  I thought I desired nothing more than the restoration of that relationship and prayed in earnest for such healing.  In reality, what I desired and what I needed were two vastly different things.  The loss of relationship and brokenness which accompanied it created an opening in my life into which another could step.  And, it is that other through whom God has loved me so well.

Relationships are complicated.  Living in the bonds of friendship with another human isn't easy.  In order to be genuine, intimate, and vulnerable, friendship demands intentionality, personal self-sacrifice, and great discernment.  That's not to say that it doesn't also bring great joy, peace, and comfort.  It's easy to take those who are merely "friends" for granted.  We can misuse, abuse, or neglect our relationships and do damage to ourselves and one another in the process.  I am striving to be the best friend that I can be in order to be a blessing to my friend and in order to prevent the loss that I find so difficult to manage.  And, I am trusting God to know my heart.

Anticipate Brokeness

Continuing to tap the archives for previous Advent posts.  Today's post is from Christmas 2010.  I wrote this just months after experiencing a traumatic bike accident.  However, I was feeling more than just physical brokenness.  I was also struggling emotionally and relationally.  Reflection on the past can limit us, but today it causes my heart to rejoice.  I didn't know it was coming, but I experienced just the healing of which I speak through the end of some relationships and the advent of new ones.

The arrival of the Messiah on planet earth reminds us that through something abrupt, unexpected, and traumatic, something beautiful, restorative, and awe inspiring can occur.

The Messiah entered a cold, dark, and unwelcoming world through the vulnerable, brutal, and harrowing experience of physical birth. Was that what the prophets foretold? Was he the answer to their prayers? Weren’t they anticipating a triumphant and charismatic leader; a revolutionary who would vindicate and free them in a dramatically powerful fashion? Did his arrival cause them to question Yahweh? Did they have grave doubts whether this was the Messiah for whom they had long awaited?

What are we awaiting with equally great eagerness? For what do we hope and long? What are our expectations and desires? Love… healing… joy… comfort… peace… money… pleasure… ease. And yet, we are equally disconcerted when our most primal needs are met through trauma; pain; abrupt change; the unexpected. God frequently delivers that which heals, restores, provides life, and transforms through pain and brokenness rather than through more pleasurable experiences. Does this cause us to question His goodness; doubt His love; struggle with His version of justice? Perhaps. But such experiences also enable us to intimately know that it is in dying that we are truly restored to life…and that it is in being broken that we are healed.

The Messiah laid down his life both in the manner of his coming to earth and in leaving it. He so desired relationship with us that he placed himself in the most vulnerable of positions in order to seek us and find us and restore us to right relationship with the Father. He modeled the self-giving, sacrificial love that He expects us to bring to the world. Just as many anticipated His arrival…let us love in a way that causes the brokenhearted to know He is coming again.

Fear Transformed

I guess you can call this my Throw Back Advent Series! I decided to open the archives and share my Advent devotionals from some previous seasons. I wrote this for Christmas 2011. I can see where it reveals my heart at this time two years ago. I was feeling a bit lost, damaged, injured, and alone. Thanks be to God for giving me hope in my need and for providing so richly for me, especially in the past year. More on that to come...

Psalm 27.1-4
The Lord is my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the stronghold of my life - of whom shall I be afraid?  When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, when my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall.  Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then will I be confident.  One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.

We live in a world with much to fear. People are unpredictable. They can careen into us damaging our bodies and our hearts. The earth is chaotic. It can shake us to the core and produce heat, wind, ice, and rain that threatens our very lives as well as those possessions which we have stored in its temporary shelter. Economic turmoil challenges us at every turn while acts of terrorism and war rip at the fiber of our societies.

We live and breathe and have our being by the very grace of the One who created both this terrestrial ball and those of us who call it home. We may seem bent on our own destruction and that of the planet; however that One, that Creator, is a God who loves not only the natural world that He spoke into being, but also the violent, foolish, broken, and flawed humans into whom He placed His very image. His love is so powerful, transformative, and other-worldly that He inexplicably chose to enter human history in the form of a helpless infant.

And, it is through that infant that all fear can cease and and in whom all confidence can be placed. An infant delivered light into the vast darkness of our hearts and salvation to all that exists. That moment in history transformed all future moments into beauty, peace, and hope.

Thanks be to the One for whom all things have been created and in whom all things hold together.