Soooo... the Philadelphia Orchestra played the bowl at Clark Park last weekend. Throughout the summer, local bigwig corporations sponsor these free neighborhood concerts, which never fail to bring out hordes of neighbors with old blankets, lawnchairs, and pic-a-nic baskets. My neighborhood is no different... but it is so very unique.
before the grand event, i trotted over to my friends ben, ben (yes, two different bens), and meagan's to make goodies for the picnic. we had standard sandwiches, but also veggie/feta pitas and trader joe's finest... dark chocolate covered raisins (soooooo tasty!). with an old table cloth and a worn bedsheet, we made our 10-minute way to the park. g o r g e o u s weather out... couldn't have asked for better.
we got there, set up camp on a slope (Clark Park features a large, natural bowl, perfect for outdoor performances of many sorts. i think it used to be a pond, way back when). then things got interesting....
we quickly noticed we were in a pack of smokers. not a biggie, but a l,ittle unusual in the nearly smoke-free city that philly is becoming. then we realized that the guy behind us was burning incense. and we wondered what sort of scent this might be intended to cover. hmmm...
looking around, of course, we counted not a few folks devouring harry's latest adventures while the band played on (who can blame them?? i'll be joining their ranks soon - am forcing myself through book 6 again before indulging). there was a band of punk/anarchists who started heckling the bank sponsor representative as soon as he was introduced. poor fella - i'm not a fan of big corporate America, either, but they were actually doing a good thing by sponsoring accessibility to the arts. lots and lots of dogs wandered through (when there's not an orchestra playing, that particular part of the park is the dog run - careful where you sit.) but i gotta attempt to describe more of the human demographic, though, as that was the truly interesting bit...
it was a beautiful cross-section of the folks who inhabit our neck of the woods. i've already mentioned the anarchists... they're commonly identified visually by black-based clothing, multiple (and creative) tattoos, and patch-covered bike messenger bags, often in black-and-some-other-color designs. there were the neo-hippies... girls wearing funky european shoes and loose sundresses, funky plastic-rimmed glasses and slightly-askew hairstyles, guys who wear skinny thrift-store jean cutoffs and chuck taylors with a faded plaid button-down. there are original hippies, too -- see above for incense guy. there are international families, often living in philly for a few years while one or both spouses complete doctoral degrees at the university of pennsylvania. some of these families are Muslim, and the women are covered to varying degrees with either vibrantly colored hijab and abaya or solid black versions of both. then there are young families, where one or both spouses graduated drexel engineering programs or wharton business school and just never left the area. they push hip strollers and feed their kids organic baby carrots while they drink a nice bottle of red wine with their stone-ground wheat crackers and sheep's milk manchego.
then there's the random assortment of single college graduates, most of whom have banded together in pairs or trios to occupy the rental properties that fill the area... most of us are transitioning from college student to husband/wife/father/mother - or, at least, we hope we are. we look a like a little bit of everyone above. my crowd was eating the food of the yuppies, dressing a little like the hippies, and scrapping together picnic supplies as though we had just arrived in the city. it was marvelous.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Thursday, June 14, 2007
simple pleasures
Tonight i went out for food. i was spending an evening alone and have been putting off grocery shopping (so no food to speak of in the house) and was craving a burrito... so off i went to qdoba (mmm...). parked the car (wasn't feeling well so didn't walk) and walked the half-block to get my dinner.
but!
on the way, i turned into the open, well-lit doorway of a shop stacked STACKED with books. i never even noticed it before, to my shame, but i have in my neighborhood one of those really wonderful used-book-stores that is well-organized and yet nearly-overstuffed with previously owned, reasonably priced BOOKS. this is a treasure - i had just been bemoaning the combined facts that a) i'm running out of books to read on my own shelf; b) new books are prohibitively expensive to buy on a regular basis; and c) my wallet is unfortunately thin. then, eureka! used books in every possible category for which one could hope.
and...
there's a lovely black cat with a white face-blaze and three white feet who will rub against your legs while you walk through the "true crime" section and will happily purr while you rub his chin. i'm not sure why he showed up in the 'true crime' section and i wondered, as i enjoyed his attention, what sort of odd cat-loving-conspiracy-theorist-type i might seem to be if anyone walked past to see me crouched over a big, purring cat in front of the true-and-unvarnished stories of murder-in-a-small-town-or-some-such .... but aside from that, heaven!
i'm very pleased with this new discovery. it was one of those things that is remarkably soothing on a night that, for no particular reason, was not outstandingly ... well, outstanding. thank you, God, for simple pleasures, and in my own part of the world, too!
but!
on the way, i turned into the open, well-lit doorway of a shop stacked STACKED with books. i never even noticed it before, to my shame, but i have in my neighborhood one of those really wonderful used-book-stores that is well-organized and yet nearly-overstuffed with previously owned, reasonably priced BOOKS. this is a treasure - i had just been bemoaning the combined facts that a) i'm running out of books to read on my own shelf; b) new books are prohibitively expensive to buy on a regular basis; and c) my wallet is unfortunately thin. then, eureka! used books in every possible category for which one could hope.
and...
there's a lovely black cat with a white face-blaze and three white feet who will rub against your legs while you walk through the "true crime" section and will happily purr while you rub his chin. i'm not sure why he showed up in the 'true crime' section and i wondered, as i enjoyed his attention, what sort of odd cat-loving-conspiracy-theorist-type i might seem to be if anyone walked past to see me crouched over a big, purring cat in front of the true-and-unvarnished stories of murder-in-a-small-town-or-some-such .... but aside from that, heaven!
i'm very pleased with this new discovery. it was one of those things that is remarkably soothing on a night that, for no particular reason, was not outstandingly ... well, outstanding. thank you, God, for simple pleasures, and in my own part of the world, too!
Thursday, May 24, 2007
and how
[i know i'm not a great blogger - i post when the mood strikes. in an effort, though, to post more regularly, i've been thinking about post topics... as i rode the train/trolley/bus yesterday, i was staring out the window and thinking about posts, and was distracted by everything i saw. this will be a little repetitive, i think from the themes of other posts, but this is what's on my mind, so here y'go...]
when i walk around, i keep looking around. i look around the city and i see broken systems - people who are angry - and i would be angry, too. the society in which we (me and them) live has given me more opportunity from birth than it has given them. i am white and middle-class. i see people in my neighborhood who have been born into single-parent families in a poverty-stricken, violence-ridden urban community. and their skin color, as much as i want to deny it blindly, has made it harder for them to find the same opportunities that i have found.
i have struggled, since leaving iowa, to reconcile my cultural majority status with the difficulties facing cultural minorities that i encounter here. i feel guilty about it, to be honest. it's almost like a survivor's guilt: why did i get to go to the good public school, to win the scholarship, to earn the degree, to land the fellowship, to get the job that pays me enough to support myself? that was an apparent accident of birth: God's sovereign choice that i can't understand. there are kids who ride my bus every morning who hop off at the corner for a school with more than 50% dropout rate. more than once, the police have been called to that high school this year to put out trash can fires and/or arrest disruptive students (for assault). teachers are beat up and burned out, and these kids are trapped in a system that can't help them.
out my living room window, there's a brick apartment building. most of the tenants are young men from west africa - immigrants from countries whose peace has been torn, top to bottom, like the sackcloth garments of those who mourn. why has that happened in their towns and not in mine? why have i not had to leave my home, my family?
it's springtime now, in philadelphia - evenings are warm, and the ice cream truck has started its usual circuit. is the ice cream truck in your neighborhood still circling at eleven at night? in mine, it is. you think they're still selling bomb-pops to eleven-year-olds? really? how have i been protected from things that hold so many in the vise-grip of addiction?
i am an adult white female, supporting myself through my own work, living comfortably in my own apartment, driving my own car. my family is safe and healthy; i don't worry for the lives of my friends. i am indescribably blessed! but how, how, do i reconcile these blessings in my life with the brokenness all around me?
when i walk around, i keep looking around. i look around the city and i see broken systems - people who are angry - and i would be angry, too. the society in which we (me and them) live has given me more opportunity from birth than it has given them. i am white and middle-class. i see people in my neighborhood who have been born into single-parent families in a poverty-stricken, violence-ridden urban community. and their skin color, as much as i want to deny it blindly, has made it harder for them to find the same opportunities that i have found.
i have struggled, since leaving iowa, to reconcile my cultural majority status with the difficulties facing cultural minorities that i encounter here. i feel guilty about it, to be honest. it's almost like a survivor's guilt: why did i get to go to the good public school, to win the scholarship, to earn the degree, to land the fellowship, to get the job that pays me enough to support myself? that was an apparent accident of birth: God's sovereign choice that i can't understand. there are kids who ride my bus every morning who hop off at the corner for a school with more than 50% dropout rate. more than once, the police have been called to that high school this year to put out trash can fires and/or arrest disruptive students (for assault). teachers are beat up and burned out, and these kids are trapped in a system that can't help them.
out my living room window, there's a brick apartment building. most of the tenants are young men from west africa - immigrants from countries whose peace has been torn, top to bottom, like the sackcloth garments of those who mourn. why has that happened in their towns and not in mine? why have i not had to leave my home, my family?
it's springtime now, in philadelphia - evenings are warm, and the ice cream truck has started its usual circuit. is the ice cream truck in your neighborhood still circling at eleven at night? in mine, it is. you think they're still selling bomb-pops to eleven-year-olds? really? how have i been protected from things that hold so many in the vise-grip of addiction?
i am an adult white female, supporting myself through my own work, living comfortably in my own apartment, driving my own car. my family is safe and healthy; i don't worry for the lives of my friends. i am indescribably blessed! but how, how, do i reconcile these blessings in my life with the brokenness all around me?
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
'b[urban]
i was walking home today, through my urban neighborhood of tightly-packed twins and rowhouses, and found a bona-fide garden - in a bona-fide backyard! the large house that fronted it must have been a hold-over from when my part of the city was a brand-new, upper-upper middle class streetcar suburb to center city philly - but there it was: a backyard. with flowers, even!
last weekend, my roommate and i went to a friend's house for dinner (two midwestern fellas had offered to cook us, natives of illinois and iowa, pulled-pork sandwiches with sweet corn on the side - true taste of home!). our host lives in the 'burbs, and as we got out of the car in front of the house, we both slowly turned around and tried to absorb what we were seeing - and hearing! birds were singing in trees that stood in yards that separated free-standing houses with driveways and garages which meant that there was no loud SEPTA bus declaring "welcome to [pause] route xx [pause] service to [pause] xxx" every ten minutes outside the bedroom window.
we had forgotten about the suburbs! i doubt either of us would trade our cosy little third-floor walkup tucked in the middle of philly for a roomy colonial outside the city, SEPTA bus notwithstanding, but it was like being on vacation for an evening - quite novel!
i grew up in a neighborhood like my friend's, but now is the time to live in an urban neighborhood - to see people who look very different from me on every street i cross. now is my chance to buy fruit from the back of the truck permanently parked two blocks away; to get my cheesesteak from another truck parked by the train station. when else will i get to walk to a trolleystop for my daily commute, or hop off three stops early to pick up fresh veg at the farmer's market in the neighborhood park? and how else would i get to learn about things in the city that could be better - systems that need fixing - and to think about how to help fix them? yah, this is the time for me to be in the city. the suburbs will always be open for visiting hours, but home is still here.
last weekend, my roommate and i went to a friend's house for dinner (two midwestern fellas had offered to cook us, natives of illinois and iowa, pulled-pork sandwiches with sweet corn on the side - true taste of home!). our host lives in the 'burbs, and as we got out of the car in front of the house, we both slowly turned around and tried to absorb what we were seeing - and hearing! birds were singing in trees that stood in yards that separated free-standing houses with driveways and garages which meant that there was no loud SEPTA bus declaring "welcome to [pause] route xx [pause] service to [pause] xxx" every ten minutes outside the bedroom window.
we had forgotten about the suburbs! i doubt either of us would trade our cosy little third-floor walkup tucked in the middle of philly for a roomy colonial outside the city, SEPTA bus notwithstanding, but it was like being on vacation for an evening - quite novel!
i grew up in a neighborhood like my friend's, but now is the time to live in an urban neighborhood - to see people who look very different from me on every street i cross. now is my chance to buy fruit from the back of the truck permanently parked two blocks away; to get my cheesesteak from another truck parked by the train station. when else will i get to walk to a trolleystop for my daily commute, or hop off three stops early to pick up fresh veg at the farmer's market in the neighborhood park? and how else would i get to learn about things in the city that could be better - systems that need fixing - and to think about how to help fix them? yah, this is the time for me to be in the city. the suburbs will always be open for visiting hours, but home is still here.
Monday, April 09, 2007
better stories
i am itching.. my mother calls it the "three year itch" - i've been in one city, at one job, for nearly three years. is it time to ditch the stability i so craved four and five years ago??
am i crazy?
i don't know. there are bits of me that are ready to see what's next this year, and then there are parts of me that sense that God may be planning to keep me where i am for a little while... which makes me wonder: why am itching?
is it because i'm being stirred by His Spirit to follow Him elsewhere? or is it because i'm growing discontent with the stories i can tell... am i fidgety to flit to the next thing, whatever it may be, just to gather better stories to spin at dinner parties? because that's just not a good enough reason.
i've been reading in John's gospel lately, and a recurring theme could be labeled "things that Jesus does that i just don't understand." example: judas complains when Jesus is anointed with perfume before His death, because he (judas) wanted the money for said perfume to go to the common money bag (en route to judas' own pocket). surely Jesus knew that judas had been stealing money like this - but it doesn't say that He did anything to stop the crime.
surely Christ knows about the suffering i just read about online - how appalling numbers of children in India have been abused by trusted adults (thank you BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6539027.stm). and surely He knows how horrible genocides happen. how water runs out in Yemen (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6530453.stm). how the guy in my neighborhood was pushing that girl around on the sidewalk last week. He, our omnipotent God, knows about these things... my heart cries out with the psalmist who begged God to see and to act, knowing that He is never unaware, never less than sovereign (Psalm 10)! in my limited understanding, i can't bear the juxtaposition of injustice in this world and a just God in heaven. but this last week, as His church celebrated His Son's crucifixion and resurrection (for our salvation!), i was reminded of how His glorious, beautiful plans make little sense to my finite, earth-bound eyes. surely i would have been right there with the disciples, questioning everything Jesus did, exhibiting little-to-no faith that God's plan was being carried out in His way and His time. i would've been with Peter, who tried to stop Jesus from washing his feet, only to hear Jesus say, " 'You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.'" (John 13:7). (i love that.)
seeing a piece of His plan for salvation, i gotta trust, for all things big and small, that He has plans bigger than i can see or imagine - designs that transcend my understanding - big plans for justice for the oppressed, for mercy for the suffering, and small plans for my life tomorrow, and the day after that. i chafe at the not-knowing, but by Christ's grace and intercession, i want to come to the Father and ask Him to raise my earth-bound eyes to faith for heaven's plan. He promises in James 1:5 to give wisdom to those who ask for it, and I want His wisdom -- because His stories are the best stories, and the ones i want to learn to tell.
am i crazy?
i don't know. there are bits of me that are ready to see what's next this year, and then there are parts of me that sense that God may be planning to keep me where i am for a little while... which makes me wonder: why am itching?
is it because i'm being stirred by His Spirit to follow Him elsewhere? or is it because i'm growing discontent with the stories i can tell... am i fidgety to flit to the next thing, whatever it may be, just to gather better stories to spin at dinner parties? because that's just not a good enough reason.
i've been reading in John's gospel lately, and a recurring theme could be labeled "things that Jesus does that i just don't understand." example: judas complains when Jesus is anointed with perfume before His death, because he (judas) wanted the money for said perfume to go to the common money bag (en route to judas' own pocket). surely Jesus knew that judas had been stealing money like this - but it doesn't say that He did anything to stop the crime.
surely Christ knows about the suffering i just read about online - how appalling numbers of children in India have been abused by trusted adults (thank you BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6539027.stm). and surely He knows how horrible genocides happen. how water runs out in Yemen (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6530453.stm). how the guy in my neighborhood was pushing that girl around on the sidewalk last week. He, our omnipotent God, knows about these things... my heart cries out with the psalmist who begged God to see and to act, knowing that He is never unaware, never less than sovereign (Psalm 10)! in my limited understanding, i can't bear the juxtaposition of injustice in this world and a just God in heaven. but this last week, as His church celebrated His Son's crucifixion and resurrection (for our salvation!), i was reminded of how His glorious, beautiful plans make little sense to my finite, earth-bound eyes. surely i would have been right there with the disciples, questioning everything Jesus did, exhibiting little-to-no faith that God's plan was being carried out in His way and His time. i would've been with Peter, who tried to stop Jesus from washing his feet, only to hear Jesus say, " 'You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.'" (John 13:7). (i love that.)
seeing a piece of His plan for salvation, i gotta trust, for all things big and small, that He has plans bigger than i can see or imagine - designs that transcend my understanding - big plans for justice for the oppressed, for mercy for the suffering, and small plans for my life tomorrow, and the day after that. i chafe at the not-knowing, but by Christ's grace and intercession, i want to come to the Father and ask Him to raise my earth-bound eyes to faith for heaven's plan. He promises in James 1:5 to give wisdom to those who ask for it, and I want His wisdom -- because His stories are the best stories, and the ones i want to learn to tell.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
pots
i love my friends. though i agree with benjamin franklin (favorite son of my adopted city) that beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy, i think that friends are proof that God loves us and wants us to be holy.
i treasure these people. in their presence, i am regularly and alternately encouraged and humbled. most recently, the humbled bit has come through...
tonight was the first really gorgeous bit of spring in philly, which comes out in exuberantly mild, flowered glory this time of year. i wandered over to the park with five friends, and sometime along the way i realized (i think it was halfway between the conversations about 15 inch toads and anti-malaria medicine) that i realised that i am the only one of our merry little band (there are something more than ten of us) that has never lived overseas. (i take that back - there's one other girl. but she's engaged to a guy who's lived in multiple countries and plans to live in another one with him at some point soon, so does she count? (c:) . anyway, tonight i was the only one.
i so enjoy hearing my friends' stories about life in south america, the middle east, and southeast asia. to hear them talk about the foods they've eaten, the mountains they've climbed and - most importantly - the people they've known feeds and comforts something deep in me. i get to know them in a way that is so good - hearing about the experiences, and the conversations, and - again - the people that have made my friends who they are is a treasure to me - like the stories of watching the sun rise and set over the south pacific, or of bargaining in the markets of the middle east, or of snorkeling in the indian ocean. but i have to admit, sometimes i get jealous!
i grew up in a small city in iowa. IOWA. as i often tell people, it's a lovely place to have grown up, but when you're swapping stories with friends who spent significant portions of their childhoods overseas, it's easy to wish for better stories. y'know? i had a blessed childhood of comfort, raised by parents who love God, and who live out that love in their city in that state. blessings, all. but it means that my stories are stories of suburbia. oooh.
but i, like my friends, am a pot. should i the pot say to the Potter, why have You formed me out of the black soil of the midwest? why did you not form me from the sand of the egyptian desert? or the lava of the pacific islands? or the rock of the andes? why instead am i formed from earth that grows tame, trimmed seed-grass??
[how can i assume such an arrogant posture?]
how can i tell that for which i have been formed? how do i know what i the pot have been made to hold, and for what purpose the Potter chose what materials He did? i cannot; of course i cannot. i am silenced.
i am silenced, and i am thankful: thankful for the range of pots i see on the shelves around me and eager to see the purposes for which they have been created. what will this one hold? and that one? for what purpose has He shaped my friends? how will their design bring Him glory? yes, eagerly i wait to see these questions answered, though i know heaven alone may tell. i see my friends; i rejoice with them; and i am humbled by what their stories reveal in my heart. they are my proof that God loves us and wants us to be holy. i see that He has made all with deliberation and intent, and i want to wait humbly for the revelation, piece by piece, of His intent for me His pot.
i treasure these people. in their presence, i am regularly and alternately encouraged and humbled. most recently, the humbled bit has come through...
tonight was the first really gorgeous bit of spring in philly, which comes out in exuberantly mild, flowered glory this time of year. i wandered over to the park with five friends, and sometime along the way i realized (i think it was halfway between the conversations about 15 inch toads and anti-malaria medicine) that i realised that i am the only one of our merry little band (there are something more than ten of us) that has never lived overseas. (i take that back - there's one other girl. but she's engaged to a guy who's lived in multiple countries and plans to live in another one with him at some point soon, so does she count? (c:) . anyway, tonight i was the only one.
i so enjoy hearing my friends' stories about life in south america, the middle east, and southeast asia. to hear them talk about the foods they've eaten, the mountains they've climbed and - most importantly - the people they've known feeds and comforts something deep in me. i get to know them in a way that is so good - hearing about the experiences, and the conversations, and - again - the people that have made my friends who they are is a treasure to me - like the stories of watching the sun rise and set over the south pacific, or of bargaining in the markets of the middle east, or of snorkeling in the indian ocean. but i have to admit, sometimes i get jealous!
i grew up in a small city in iowa. IOWA. as i often tell people, it's a lovely place to have grown up, but when you're swapping stories with friends who spent significant portions of their childhoods overseas, it's easy to wish for better stories. y'know? i had a blessed childhood of comfort, raised by parents who love God, and who live out that love in their city in that state. blessings, all. but it means that my stories are stories of suburbia. oooh.
but i, like my friends, am a pot. should i the pot say to the Potter, why have You formed me out of the black soil of the midwest? why did you not form me from the sand of the egyptian desert? or the lava of the pacific islands? or the rock of the andes? why instead am i formed from earth that grows tame, trimmed seed-grass??
[how can i assume such an arrogant posture?]
how can i tell that for which i have been formed? how do i know what i the pot have been made to hold, and for what purpose the Potter chose what materials He did? i cannot; of course i cannot. i am silenced.
i am silenced, and i am thankful: thankful for the range of pots i see on the shelves around me and eager to see the purposes for which they have been created. what will this one hold? and that one? for what purpose has He shaped my friends? how will their design bring Him glory? yes, eagerly i wait to see these questions answered, though i know heaven alone may tell. i see my friends; i rejoice with them; and i am humbled by what their stories reveal in my heart. they are my proof that God loves us and wants us to be holy. i see that He has made all with deliberation and intent, and i want to wait humbly for the revelation, piece by piece, of His intent for me His pot.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
semi-solo
I just spent my first Christmas alone.
and it was really really lovely.
before i sound like a total Scrooge, i should explain that my parents, my brother, and my sister-in-law-to-be all had a family Christmas celebration hard on the heels of Thanksgiving. My parents, who live in Iowa, came out to philly to be with us kids, and we had our Christmas in November. my bro. and sis-in-law spent the actual holiday at their parents, and i flew solo.
sort of.
moving out to the east coast, away from family (especially for the first two years, before my brother joined me), has deepened and expanded my ken of "family." i never realized, before, how important people are - how much more important they are than place. i moved here and thought i didn't really need to have a travelling band of friends - that i could be enough on my own, for myself. when i moved, i was ready to be rid of some people - one in particular who had broken my heart in ways i didn't understand - and flying solo sounded pretty great.
but solo is never really so.
i had no money when i came, and only a small stipend on which to survive grad school, so i boarded with a lovely woman, a widow who had worked for years at my museum, named Esther. my dad drove out with me, settled me into my little room, and flew back to Iowa. immediately, Esther invited me to her family's backyard barbeque - the first of many family gatherings in which i was unquestioningly included. of course i should come - why not? her family was used to having her students join in to grandchildren's birthday parties, soup potlucks, and card-players' gatherings. come, and welcome.
but still - no family needed, thought i. the next summer, i packed a suitcase and headed for new york, to research my thesis and work at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. i'm a girl of the world, thought i, i'll do new york on my own and i'll do it with style. but even to get up to the city, my idea of solo was kindly tempered by Jim, husband of pauline, one of my professors. i was their default house-sitter, and they were my default holiday plans. jim offered to drive me up to new york, bought me lunch along the way, and wouldn't let me give him a penny for gas. pay it forward, he insisted, but don't pay me. i chafed at this, but began to ponder...
as i lived in new york that summer on my own, i tried even to hack my faith solo -- i stopped in at a good church most Sundays, and tried to read my Bible. but i didn't try to hold on to anyone for help and encouragement -- didn't tell anyone how i was doing or ask anyone for prayer. i ended the summer in a state of spiritual exhaustion and came back to my church in glen mills that fall begging God to make it home for me - to knit me in so i would not be solo. another semester passed, and soon i was panning for jobs up and down the east coast. in a near panic, i realized that solo would no longer work - it had never really. even when i had sought life alone, God had shored me up with family in my house, my program, and my church. people who had never clapped eyes on me twenty-four months earlier were suddenly among my dearest relatives.
in the two.5 years since, my sense of solo has been challenged repeatedly: i sold my car and relied, grudgingly at first, on friends' kindness and wheels. i dated a boy and learned what it means to show someone even your ugly parts (and then watch him stay anyway). i hosted a book club and saw it morph into the tightest group of friends i've ever had. when moved, i watched them carry every stick of my furniture down from a third floor walkup, across town in a philadelphia july, and up to another third-floor walkup (three days after they trooped up the same stairs to slog paint on the walls where they now spend at least one long evening every week).
this Christmas, i got to share a meal with some of them, playing cards into the wee sma's on the night of the 23rd, attending church with them on Christmas Eve before going out for lunch and then coffee, conversing, laughing, and sharing silence by turns. on Christmas Day, i shared dinner with a couple in my new church and four other "Christmas orphans," watching my family get a little bigger still.
i came home last night to reflect in front of my wee lit tree on my first solo holiday. solo, i think, may be a fallacy in my mind. by God's grace, even the times when i have felt most alone, He has surrounded me with people, dear ones who show in their lives that He has not forgotten me. He knows me intimately and has placed these in my path to help me remember that He sent His Son, His Immanuel, to be "God with us." that has made this holiday the sweetest of all.
and it was really really lovely.
before i sound like a total Scrooge, i should explain that my parents, my brother, and my sister-in-law-to-be all had a family Christmas celebration hard on the heels of Thanksgiving. My parents, who live in Iowa, came out to philly to be with us kids, and we had our Christmas in November. my bro. and sis-in-law spent the actual holiday at their parents, and i flew solo.
sort of.
moving out to the east coast, away from family (especially for the first two years, before my brother joined me), has deepened and expanded my ken of "family." i never realized, before, how important people are - how much more important they are than place. i moved here and thought i didn't really need to have a travelling band of friends - that i could be enough on my own, for myself. when i moved, i was ready to be rid of some people - one in particular who had broken my heart in ways i didn't understand - and flying solo sounded pretty great.
but solo is never really so.
i had no money when i came, and only a small stipend on which to survive grad school, so i boarded with a lovely woman, a widow who had worked for years at my museum, named Esther. my dad drove out with me, settled me into my little room, and flew back to Iowa. immediately, Esther invited me to her family's backyard barbeque - the first of many family gatherings in which i was unquestioningly included. of course i should come - why not? her family was used to having her students join in to grandchildren's birthday parties, soup potlucks, and card-players' gatherings. come, and welcome.
but still - no family needed, thought i. the next summer, i packed a suitcase and headed for new york, to research my thesis and work at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. i'm a girl of the world, thought i, i'll do new york on my own and i'll do it with style. but even to get up to the city, my idea of solo was kindly tempered by Jim, husband of pauline, one of my professors. i was their default house-sitter, and they were my default holiday plans. jim offered to drive me up to new york, bought me lunch along the way, and wouldn't let me give him a penny for gas. pay it forward, he insisted, but don't pay me. i chafed at this, but began to ponder...
as i lived in new york that summer on my own, i tried even to hack my faith solo -- i stopped in at a good church most Sundays, and tried to read my Bible. but i didn't try to hold on to anyone for help and encouragement -- didn't tell anyone how i was doing or ask anyone for prayer. i ended the summer in a state of spiritual exhaustion and came back to my church in glen mills that fall begging God to make it home for me - to knit me in so i would not be solo. another semester passed, and soon i was panning for jobs up and down the east coast. in a near panic, i realized that solo would no longer work - it had never really. even when i had sought life alone, God had shored me up with family in my house, my program, and my church. people who had never clapped eyes on me twenty-four months earlier were suddenly among my dearest relatives.
in the two.5 years since, my sense of solo has been challenged repeatedly: i sold my car and relied, grudgingly at first, on friends' kindness and wheels. i dated a boy and learned what it means to show someone even your ugly parts (and then watch him stay anyway). i hosted a book club and saw it morph into the tightest group of friends i've ever had. when moved, i watched them carry every stick of my furniture down from a third floor walkup, across town in a philadelphia july, and up to another third-floor walkup (three days after they trooped up the same stairs to slog paint on the walls where they now spend at least one long evening every week).
this Christmas, i got to share a meal with some of them, playing cards into the wee sma's on the night of the 23rd, attending church with them on Christmas Eve before going out for lunch and then coffee, conversing, laughing, and sharing silence by turns. on Christmas Day, i shared dinner with a couple in my new church and four other "Christmas orphans," watching my family get a little bigger still.
i came home last night to reflect in front of my wee lit tree on my first solo holiday. solo, i think, may be a fallacy in my mind. by God's grace, even the times when i have felt most alone, He has surrounded me with people, dear ones who show in their lives that He has not forgotten me. He knows me intimately and has placed these in my path to help me remember that He sent His Son, His Immanuel, to be "God with us." that has made this holiday the sweetest of all.
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