Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns
If you think Jesus would have come into your home that day and not issued a strong rebuke to the head of household, you are mistaken. These words of condemnation have been haunting me for days now. They aren’t all that different than the soundtrack I play in my head on an almost-daily basis. It’s…
I am nesting. On Saturday I emptied the refrigerator. Last summer’s homemade pickles in their jars. The bread ends that seem to multiply on every shelf. The eggs. The milk. The fruit and veggies. All of it sat on the floor or the counter as I carefully removed the shelves and wiped them down with…
I’ve heard that life is like a highway. And it definitely seems like that sometimes. The pace of life swirls around me at dizzying speeds. We’re all so busy. In such a hurry. Always somewhere to be, something else to do. I’m a get-to-the-point, get-there-quick kind of girl. I don’t like to waste time on…
Driving home from work one day, I passed two vehicles from our local fire company. While I was stopped at the stop sign, I waved to the driver of the fire truck, a man we attend church with, and I was struck with this sense of feeling like I belonged. There we were, two people of thousands in the community, and our paths crossed and we acknowledged each other.
Two days earlier, our family made a spontaneous decision to go out to eat after church because it was Veterans Day and some local restaurants were offering free meals to veterans. I had just finished a weeks-long eating experiment so we hadn’t been out much, and we like to treat my husband to freebies like this for his service in Iraq a lifetime ago. My family slid into the booth and I went to the bathroom and on the way back, I recognized one of the servers.
“What are you doing here?” she asked at the same time I said, “Are you serving my family?” She had just walked away from our booth. We both were left shaking our heads because although we see each other often during the week as co-workers (she’s a student teacher), obviously we didn’t expect to bump into each other outside of the school where we spend so much time.
The day before that, I saw a friend at an event our sons were both participating in. We mostly interact online and only see each other occasionally in person. Our kids attend different school districts, so this, too, felt like belonging.
I used to think things like this were no big deal. In fact, I expected to run into people wherever I went. (Maybe you are wondering why I am making such a big deal out of this.) But that was when I lived in the town where I grew up. The town where my parents grew up and my grandparents had lived for almost the entirety of their married life. In my hometown, it is unusual to not see someone you know when you’re out at a restaurant or running errands. The town is smaller than the one in which I currently live, which may be a factor, but I’m not ruling out the family connections as important in this equation.
Photo by Slava Bowman on Unsplash
This all got me thinking about how little work I had to do to be accepted in the town where I was born. I belonged to a family and just by knowing my last name, people who were practically strangers could determine where and to whom I belonged. When you can trace multiple generations back, you get a free pass for belonging.
How different it is when you move to a new place. We have lived in Pennsylvania for 10 years now, working on our 6th year in our current community. This is how long the work of belonging sometimes takes, and I will be the first to admit that we are bad at it.
When you weren’t born in a place and you don’t have generations to trace back and no one can correctly pronounce your last name, you begin to build barriers around your heart almost without trying. (At least I did. Maybe you are different.) Every cultural reference you don’t understand, every butchering of your name, every way you look and sound different–they all become the bricks you use to wall yourself off from the ones who belong. And you ask yourself a lot of questions about how to belong.
And “will I ever belong?”
Sometimes you even convince yourself you’ll never belong so you stop trying. Instead, you do everything you can to convince people you’re so different and weird that you could never belong anyway, with the secret hope they’ll agree and reject you. (Spoiler alert: the “you” in this story is “me.”)
But your kids will make friends and you will know all the teachers at the school and you’ll find jobs that you love with good people and some of your best friends will live a short drive away. And you’ll start to see people you know when you’re out in public and not just at major events like the Christmas tree lighting or school or church events where almost all of the people you know get together. You’ll find out your kids go to school with the daughter of one of the librarians at the main branch downtown. And when you attend a prayer vigil, you will see a friend you haven’t seen in a long time.
Your world will suddenly feel smaller and bigger all at the same time. You will start to feel something like belonging.
You will know the backroads, the best pizza places, the names of your neighbors, and the first place to call when you need a good deal on an appliance. You will start to care about things like local government and building projects in your neighborhood.
When at first you felt like a seedling vulnerable to uprooting at the slightest wind, you now feel like a tree with a sturdy trunk and deeper roots, one that could survive a gale.
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There’s something else about belonging, though. Something I can’t quite put words to or hold in my hand. While I feel more belonging to this place and the people around me, I can’t explain my current obsession with this song which complicates my sense of belonging.
There are still times that I feel like I belong nowhere. Or maybe what I mean is that I belong everywhere. And to everyone. My allegiances and loyalties cannot be neatly packed into one box, and maybe we’re never supposed to fit neatly into a box anyway. As much as I feel a part of things, there are still parts of me I hold back in certain circles, for fear of rejection. (I am a complicated human, sometimes wishing for rejection, sometimes fearing it.)
If you came here looking for the perfect answer about how to belong, then I’ve disappointed you because I don’t have it. I barely have imperfect answers.
All I can say is that sometimes belonging seems like it takes no work but that’s probably because others have done the hard work before you. When I think about my hometown, I think about the work of building relationships my grandparents did before I was a twinkle in anyone’s eyes. I think about the work my parents did in staying in their hometown. Staying is its own kind of hard work.
And if belonging seems an impossible dream, give it time and know that it takes work, but even those are no guarantee. Some circles will never be cracked open to new people. That doesn’t mean there aren’t other circles waiting to welcome you.
So, let me ask: where do you belong?
The morning after the election, I’m tired for a lot of reasons, although while watching the results roll in on Election Night, I could honestly say I was less anxious than at the same time two years prior. So many of the 2018 election results gave me hope.
But I’m sitting with some serious disappointment about our local race for the U.S. House seat. Fear-based politics won again and I had such hope that the vision presented by the challenger would be enough to draw people out of their political strongholds. I can’t say for sure that people vote out of fear but I know that fear drives more decisions than it should and sometimes how a person votes is one of those decisions.
Photo by Parker Johnson via Unsplash
The day after an election, no matter the outcome but particularly when it doesn’t go the way I hoped, leaves me asking the question, “Now what?” I have come to understand, especially in the last two years, that whatever happens at the government level does not absolve me from responsibility in my own life and community. No matter who is in office, I still have obligations.
I confess that I have not been as engaged publicly in justice and advocacy in the last year as I was right after the 2016 election. I feel like my part-time day job has elements of both justice and advocacy and is a good use of my time. Still, I cannot leave everything completely to others.
What now?
Maybe you’re asking yourself the same question. And if you aren’t, that’s okay, too. Maybe you can’t think about it right now. Maybe you don’t see any need to concern yourself further with politics. I’m not here to tell you what to do.
But I will invite you to participate in what I feel is the best way forward. At least, it is for me.
Now that the election is over, here is what I plan to do:
1. Reinstate spiritual practices into my life. I have a complicated relationship with church and Christians sometimes, but I could never give up on Jesus. For me, if I am to do the work I feel is required of me as a human, I need to be connected to a Source that is unlimited and beyond me. That Source for me is Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The first thing I thought of when I was considering this question of “what now?” was the phrase “against such things there is no law.” I looked it up to be sure I knew where it was found in the Bible, and it follows the listing of the fruit of the Spirit found in Galatians.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
The fruit of the Spirit cannot be cherry-picked or forced. It is a result of deep connection and being tended by the Gardener. There is no law against love, joy, peace, kindness, etc., and if I want those to be words that describe my life, attributes that flow out of me naturally, then I need to start with the Spirit.
2. Regularly contact my elected officials. I was in the habit of doing this after the 2016 election. For the first time in my life, I made phone calls to my representatives and sent emails and tweeted at them (to them?) a lot. Then I sort of stopped. I think in part I was discouraged. I’m not good at repetition without result, and I’m deeply averse to conflict so calling to make my dissenting voice heard felt like constant conflict.
But that’s no excuse. There are email options. And I can call from time to time. I need to use my voice to defend the values I’m passionate about. On the morning of the election, I read in the Book of Common Prayer, a prayer for an election, and it begins with “Almighty God, to whom we must account for all our powers and privileges …”
In the last two years, I have become more aware of the powers and privileges I have as a white woman living in the United States. I must give an account to God for what I did with that power and privilege and it is my desire to use it on behalf of those who have none or less. In Proverbs 31, before the wife of noble character is introduced, are these words: “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.”
I need to speak up more.
3. Listen and learn. When I’m not speaking up, I need to be listening and learning from those who have different life experiences, different heritages, different points of view than I have. This includes reading, of course, which is not hard to do but also in-person listening and learning whenever possible.
Photo by Sandrachile via Unsplash
4. Scatter kindness. Related to no. 1, when I am rooted in the practices of my faith tradition, kindness and love toward others overflow. I’m not a naturally optimistic or bubbly person but I find that I can’t keep these things–kindness and love–to myself when I am full in my spirit. I hold doors open and smile and talk to strangers. I give compliments away like candy at a parade, and I’m more free with charitable giving. (I love that Lancaster’s Extra Give is only 10 days after the election. Giving money to organizations I support and watching the amount given overall in one day is healing work when I think the world is hopeless.) I write letters and thank you notes and check in on friends. These may be small acts but they are just as necessary as the big ones. Maybe more so.
Photo by Nathan Lemon on Unsplash
5. Pay attention. Some of us (myself included) are glued to our screens for news and analysis and entertainment. There is a place for all of this, but we can’t forget that there is an IRL (in-real-life) world around us. Every day there are people passing through our sphere. Every day there are needs and chances to do good. Yesterday, I missed a chance to help a woman whose first language wasn’t English fill out a medical form at the dentist. I didn’t want to offend her, even though she looked like she needed help. I didn’t want to make a scene in the waiting room. (I always have excuses.) Seeing the needs and chances to help are just one part of the equation. Acting on them is another.
What would you add to this list? How do you move forward when you are disappointed and frustrated with election results? What is next for you?
And if you aren’t disappointed and frustrated with election results, what does the work ahead look like for you?