Anything Less

Another long #AnikaStory.  Ministry Edition. (Possibly worth the read if the latter resonates with your professions and callings and you or churches complain at all about “how to get more people to come to church”…)

Tonight I was invited to a community dinner.  At a church I’ve been meaning to visit (my “pulpit supply” and “life” dance cards have been quite full post move).  I’m painfully lacking in connections in the place I now call home and so I decided to accept the invitation (which the inviters went out of their way to extend.  I wanted to acknowledge their gracious effort with at least a little of my own).

Except I literally knew no one at this church – including the inviters. (#AdultPK connections) I couldn’t pick them out of a line up.  I exited the surprisingly full parking lot (this church is out of town and almost in the middle of nowhere and I was impressed by the turnout) and walked into a beautiful church building, which I had never before entered, not knowing what to expect or even the faces of those who invited me. What started as a genuine, if half-hearted, attempt at connection turned into a bit of a social experiment as this life long PK and a near professional pulpit supply (aka: I’ve been in and served in a LOT of churches) attempted to find a literal seat at the table.

To keep an extremely long story from getting excruciatingly long, here are the highlights:

•           I entered the church to a couple of ladies who looked up pleasantly but acknowledged me only by how high I jumped when the doors clanked behind me (“Looked like that surprised you!”). They returned to a conversation while I looked for directions, expectations, where to go, etc.  Their table had a note pad with names (was I supposed to sign in??) and numbered cards (were those important??) but they didn’t point me towards it. Or anything for that matter. They hadn’t actually said even “hello”. After a minute or so I located the fellowship hall down a hall.  A “thanks for coming!” followed me as I walked that way.
•           I wandered around the fellowship hall for several minutes.  I saw many church people (identifiable by their bright shirts and aprons) but there were none to greet me or give me instructions. There was no identifiable food line and I couldn’t quite figure out where/how the flow was supposed to go.  A slight bottle neck of people were by the kitchen window, but I couldn’t figure out quite what to do based on observations (Were they serving at the table? The window? What was being offered?) I saw drink pitchers on tables but no cups.  A desert table with cakes being served, but no silverware. I kept wandering.
•           There were two or three friendly nods from a distance, but no one spoke to me or approached me. (Yes, I fully realized I could have asked, but by this point I really wanted to see how the numerous church people would respond to me, a random community person, at a free community dinner, who looked lost – because I was.)
•           I found the coffee as I circled back to the entrance – with mugs – finally something I could do on my own.  Tables were set up family style (10-12 could fit comfortably around).  Several were completely full. The rest were empty.; there were no half-filled tables. So, I sat down at a completely empty table, by myself, with my mug of coffee, and people watched.  I sat alone for more than 20 minutes. NOT ONE of the two dozen people in bright church shirts did more than polite nod in my direction as they passed. 
•           I was getting ready to leave when my inviter paused to say hello, asked my name, and then, realizing who I was, introduced herself and engaged in conversation. What struck me was her excitement over how invested this church is in missions with a list of the things they do.  All I could think was “you’ve mastered the ‘to’ part; you’ve failed at the ‘with’.”

There were things the church did well. Pieces I could celebrate. But as someone who walked into a church where I wasn’t the guest preacher or the pastor’s (or the DS’s *gasp*) daughter for once, I wondered immediately what they are like on a Sunday morning.  I want a church that cares that I exist, not just that I’m there (though I’m not sure the latter was true either). I want a church that wants to do life with me. That wants me to do life with them.   

And the reality is, I’ve been in some of your churches on a Sunday morning (as the guest preacher or the pastor’s daughter and just someone looking for a church home, honestly) and have too often gotten versions of the same I experienced tonight.  Some of you (or your churches, or just that one grumpy old lady in the back row.  Please let me take a moment to note during this Pastors Appreciation month how many of my connections are pastors and how hard your job is and that the call to feed and shepherd your sheep comes along with the adage about bringing horses to water... I realize most of you are the choir.) are complaining about how to get more people in church pews on Sunday when you don’t care when they are literally in your own building on Thursday! And they are the ones who got as far as the building!

I’ve been to churches where I was yelled at for looking the for the bathroom when there was no one to ask, let alone put me in the right direction.  I’ve been “huh-humph!”-ed out of more than one pew that apparently is occupied by a season ticket holder. I have filled pulpit at churches where I was asked if was a first time visitor - despite having worshipped with that same congregation more than a dozen times. There are the churches whose welcoming committee needs a less people-y ministry if they are going to greet first time visitors by bad mouthing other church members. And, honestly, I’ve visited SO many churches where I have sat alone in a pew, worshipping alone, may or may not have been given a cursory handshake by the pastor at the end of service, and left without a single person saying so much as “good morning”.  If you don’t even care about me on Sunday when you can include me in the numbers, I guarantee you don’t care about me on Thursday.

I’ve been to conferences and had conversations about how to reach the next generation.  I’ve heard well meaning speakers talk about Boomer churches valuing tradition over connection.  I’ve heard pastors talk about what it means to reach younger people. And I gotta tell you, I agree with the premise, but I disagree with most solutions.  I’m a millennial who loves a meaningful worship team but was raised on organ and piano and absolutely think your drums ruin “Great is the Thy Faithfulness”.  And as a millennial I will tell you my generation (and those below I’ve chatted with though I in no way speak for all or even most), don’t actually care about whether or not you have a guitar player or an organist (though there is a desire for quality in whatever you’ve chosen). We don’t care about the size of your screens or even if you’ve finally updated to Canva instead of PowerPoint.  We are looking for signs of life.  For signs of intention. For honest connection. For relationship.

The thing is the good news of Jesus Christ has been changing lives for over 2000 years.  And it’s been done with Gregorian Chants and pipe organs and electric drums.  With incense and candles and smoke machines. With big churches and small churches and home churches and AA meetings where the smoke is more therapeutic than atmospheric.  It’s been done with NIV and The Message and the KJV.  Perhaps most confusingly, it’s been done with Latin.  And church history is RIDDLED with problems and apologies and things that haven’t been done even a little bit well…but the hope of Christ has carried on despite it all.  Which tells me that we need to care a lot more about the message than the mechanism.  And a relational message needs to be communicated in relationship. Emmanuel literally means God WITH us…  what makes us think that we can communicate such love and hope with anything less?

On Tulips and Waiting

I’ll be the first to admit…I don’t hold an overly favorable opinion of Valentine’s Day.  A day so completely divorced from its roots the irony of the day is almost laughable.  That being said, however, over the years I’ve tried to create quiet traditions of doing something special for myself; using Valentines Day as an excuse.  Typically, this involves a bottle of slightly-better-than-average wine and a planted tulip.  I always choose small planted tulip arrangements. They tend to last longer and when the blossoms inevitably die, I carefully harvest and dry the bulbs, storing them to plant in the fall.

This year, with the sum total of the rest of my plants in foster care at my parents’ house as my own home is covered in paint and drywall dust, I didn’t pick up any tulips.  But then I did.  They were 50% off and I justified that I could always bring them to the office to enjoy.

It was quick to see these tulips were woefully neglected and 50% off because they were likely also about 50% dead.  The dirt was far too dry.  The stalks stilted.  My love for tulips drove me.  I convinced myself they just needed a little TLC.  I watered the thirsty bulbs and made sure they had access to adequate sun.  And watched as my tulips not only refused to bloom, but the top of the leaves began to wilt and crumble, despite my fervent care.

It didn’t matter how I watered.  It didn’t matter whether it was sunny or the perfect ambient temperature. My tulip came too close to death and now it won’t bloom.  In fact, if anything, the nourishing water and sun is hastening the inevitable end…

A sad look at my dying tulips and I found myself thinking about, well, me. About my soul. I thought about how fervent my spiritual life once was. How desperately I surrendered my heart and life to the Jesus I love and who I know loves me and how far I feel away from that love.  I thought of the roads I’ve walked and of the lives I’ve lived. I considered how many times I’ve felt abandoned by people who claimed to care, or worse – the ones I thought actually did.  I thought of how utterly bruised and beaten I’ve been by the Church and by churches over the past decade or more. The big “C” Church with its endless fighting and bickering and outright hatred and the way it looks so little like Jesus that, for the first time in my life, I find myself embarrassed to admit I’m a Christian – not because of who I am and know myself and my Jesus to be, but because “guilty by association” is real and I’m embarrassed by who YOU think I must be.  The little “c” churches with the muchness of investment and pouring of myself into places that couldn’t or wouldn’t reciprocate. Churches I attended for years and the many churches I served for months upon months, without ever being “one of them”; how many lives I truly tried to invest in during my time…though few if any knew anything about me, including how to spell my name – though printed in the bulletin week after week. I wondered if that was what Jesus meant when he said “foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”  That the cost of following Jesus often means you won’t belong in the places others find so natural, so much like home.

I thought of how, if I were a tulip, I would be embarrassed about the honesty of my 50% off tag. The one that says no one has wanted me to point and that maybe what I have left to give – no matter how much it feels of who I am – is less than 50% worthwhile.  But how maybe now the pressure is off to constantly succeed, to constantly strive, let alone thrive. I thought about how dried out, worn out, and absolutely exhausted I am.  By what life is and what life has been. 

I thought about how church hasn’t been a healthy place for me lately. How even my favorite faith-based music is often annoying and my heady theological books, the prize of this nerd – books I finally have time to read – have left me feeling cynical. This attempt at watering is too much, too late. Instead of healing me, strengthening me, empowering me…I too feel like I’ve come too close to death and won’t bloom.  Not in this season anyway.

But maybe not for always.

That’s the beauty of tulips.  Maybe the beauty of me.

You see, after tulips bloom, if you let the foliage die rather than trying to resurrect them or force another bloom…then everything that looks like and is death nourishes the bulbs in the dirt below. Those same bulbs which seem to have nothing left to offer simply need a place away from everything it would otherwise need…no sun, no heat, no water.  And then, and only then, you plant them again. And you wait. Because tulips need to almost die and struggle through frozen ground to bloom again.

Maybe I do too.  

 

 

Boat Tours

Boat Tours

AJK 2024

 

I’m wearing a life jacket

To cross the River Styx

A fight to stay alive,

While the Reaper’s clock ticks.

Darkness envelops.

Despair is a friend.

But I’m taking this boat tour

Just to see where it ends.

 

I’m throwing a finger

To the tide that pulls me under.

I’m screaming curses

At the despondency that tries these weary bones to sunder.

“It’s not over til it’s over” is a promise

Not a phrase,

You either fight to the death

Or death fights you for your days.

 

So I’m wearing a life jacket

To cross the River Styx.

A fight to stay alive,

Even while the Reaper’s clock ticks.

Darkness may envelop;

Despair still a friend;

But I’m taking this boat tour

Just to see where it ends.

 

I am gasping for air,

But the clutch is mine to grasp.

I’m holding out hope,

That the heaviness

Won’t last.

My brain spins out of control;

My heart races into over-drive;

And yet each haggard breath

Tells me I’m alive.

 

Put on your life jacket

To cross the River Styx.

It is a fight to stay alive,

Though the Reaper’s clock still ticks.

Hope is a small rebellion,

When “fine” is a four-letter word.

Light breaking though the Hell;

A glimpse the darkness blurred.

Though the battle rages,

And against the dawn the night tries to win…

I am taking this bout tour

Just to see where it ends.

The Leaning Tree

The Leaning Tree

AJK 2020

  

“A little lower, a little lower!”  Mom shouted from the corner.

I was flung partially over Dad’s shoulder and he was wrestling me through the living room door. My top had already banged against the front doorway, the hallway, and the kitchen floor!  That’s just what happens when you happen to be me, a tall a mighty Christmas tree!

Still, Mom shouted to avoid more of my pine needles hitting the floor. “A little lower! That’s it! A little more!”

“I can’t wait to decorate!” Little Katie clapped her hands and jumped up and down.

“Can I put the star on the top?” Benjamin asked excitedly.

“We’ll see!” Dad laughed as he tipped me upright and pulled me around. 

I wanted to laugh too; I was so filled with glee. All of this joy was about ME! We trees at the farm had talked about what it would mean…to be chosen for Christmas (the noblest of professions for an evergreen!) We talked of the lights and the smiles we would bring. We talked of how EVERYONE would stare with wonder and awe and join around us to sing. But nothing we talked of compared to this, the real thing!

Dad wiggled my trunk into the stand, my Christmas throne. I held my breath and clung to my cones! Soon I would stand, a true Christmas beauty; tall and straight – like a soldier on duty! Soon Katie and Benjamin would stare with eager eyes and Mom would hold Dad’s hand and everyone would agree…that I was the greatest, the finest, and the very best tree!

Finally, as I felt myself hoisted to my throne, I stood proud, I stood tall!  I looked at my family. They looked confused, their bright eyes a bit downfall.

“It…leans.” Mom said, angling her head to the side.

“Yeah!” said Benjamin “it tilts like it’s a bit, well, cockeyed…”

I frowned and my branches sagged.

“Well, I think it’s a GREAT tree! Let’s put the lights on!” Katie nagged.     

Mom smiled at Dad. “Katie is right. Maybe all it needs is some bulbs and some lights!”

Benjamin smirked. “Plus, even though it’s a little tippy…it’s really tall! I still want to put on the star when we’re finished with it all!”

And my branches swelled again with pride. All Christmas long they would be staring at me, looking at me all twinkly eyed! Benjamin and Katie laughed while covering my branches with twinkling lights and handmade ornaments while Christmas music played. I assumed it was the excitement that made me want to sway!

When they were finished, and Benjamin had put my star on top, they all stood together staring at me. My lights caught the twinkle in Benjamin’s eye and Katie’s smile.

“You know, it really is a pretty tree it seems...” Dad said, pulling Mom to his side. “Even if it leans…”

Inside, I was beaming as much as the lights I was wearing. I tried to stand a little taller. And a little straighter…

~-~-~-~-~

Yet, a tree can only stand as straight as a tree seems. I could not make myself any straighter. So, still, I leaned.

On the second day I felt my right side getting heavier and heavier. My trunk shook in its stand. I tried to scream for help but the next sound I heard was the sound of my branches against piano keys land. They did NOT a familiar carol play as on the chord book I continued to lay.

Mom ran into the living room, covered in baking flour from Christmas cookies and gasped, and Katie followed with a quiver to her lip.

“Dadddd!” Katie bellowed. “Help! The tree! It’s slipped!”

“It looks like I didn’t secure it quite right in the stand. The trunk was in straight, but the weight wasn’t balanced as I planned…” Dad said as Benjamin rushed to the scene. “…it is because, well, the tree, it leans…”  

Dad resecured my base and tipped me upright. Katie and Benjamin gingerly picked up my fallen ornaments while mom dusted my lost needles off the piano so the keys were no longer green but black and white. 

“It’s still a good tree.” Benjamin said as he and Katie looked at me with eyes which still glistened and gleaned. “It’s still a good tree, even though it leans…”

I tried to stand a little taller. And a little bit straighter. 

~-~-~-~-~

Yet, a tree can only stand as straight as a tree seems. I could not make myself any straighter. So, still, I leaned.

On the fourth day of my monumental Christmas display, Katie and Benjamin came rushing in from their outside play. I heard their giggles and felt a rush of cold air as they come running in, still in their winter-wear. In their merriment I shook just a little in my stand as I saw that Benjamin was wielding a giant snowball in his hand.

“Don’t Benny!” Katie giggled as the icy ball flew and she ducked. The snowy ball went through the air and it was my needles it struck. It must be Benjamin has a really good arm because the snowball ended up delivering a forceful blow. I swayed and teetered and into Dad’s chair I did go.

“Mom’s going to ground us for life!” Benjamin said with eyes wide.

Katie’s eyes, however, began to glisten. “Dadddd! Help! The tree! It’s on its side!”

Dad ran into the room and calmy tipped me back up while, with the Christmas Cards she had been addressing still in hand, mom ran through the door. And Benjamin and Katie picked up my lost ornaments and fixed my garland while Mom mopped up the snowy puddles from off of the floor.

“It’s still a good tree.” Mom said with a now damp rag in her hand and the floor now clean. “It’s a good tree, even if it leans…”

I tried to stand a little taller.  And a little bit straighter. 

~-~-~-~-~

Yet, a tree can only stand as straight as a tree seems. I could not make myself any straighter. So, still, I leaned. My lean became my downfall and, indeed, I fell down a couple more times…because I leaned.

The cat, as enamored as the rest of the world with my glorious decor, batted my round ornament balls. And so, without much tottering, into the corner lamp both I and the cat did fall.   

One day the door was slammed and I was caught quite by surprise. That day I quickly startled from my highs. Into the rocking chair I fell with a “whack!” and then I continued to teeter…forth and back, forth and back.

Or the time water was added to my stand and splashed a little more to the left than the right… I ended up on the couch tangled in a blanket. Now that was a sight!

Each time, Mom came running – still covered in her Christmas preparing. Each time, Dad was called and he picked me up with so much caring. Each time, Benjamin and Katie picked up my dropped canes and misplaced lights and green. And each time, it was decided that despite all it seemed, I was still a good tree – even if I happened to lean.

Each time I tried to stand a little bit taller.  And a little bit straighter. 

~-~-~-~-~

Yet, a tree can only stand as straight as a tree seems. I could not make myself any straighter. So, still, I leaned.

So even though I tried as much as I was able, it wasn’t long before I leaned right onto a festive looking table. If trees could sigh, I would have but Dad did for me instead. A deep, saddened, frustrated sigh as he shook his head.

“No more!” He said. “I can’t keep picking up this tree! I never should have kept a tree that leans!”

Mom unplugged my lights and Benjamin brought the storage bins. It wasn’t even Christmas day and already I was going to be turned in.

“Stop!” Katie yelled. Big tears sliding down her cheeks as her eyes leaked. “We can’t just have Christmas without a tree! What if we just let it lean?”

Dad took another big sigh and gathered Katie in his arms. “I suppose,” he replied, “if it leans against this table for a couple weeks, it won’t do any harm.”  

So that is what they did. With my head on a table and my branches on a chair…for the next two weeks I stayed right there.

My view wasn’t quite as elegant as it had been standing up tall. I couldn’t see to the kitchen or out the hall. Most of the time no one looked at me with the same wonder and awe. I was left to be, leaning and all.

~-~-~-~-~

I was afraid I’d be lonely, having failed at my mission to be the reason for Christmas cheer. But, to my surprise, every night, the whole family gathered near!

Dad was telling a story – or so it seemed. He had a big book and Mom had these figurines. Each night Dad would read just a little bit more. And mom would pull another figurine from her secret store.

First Dad read of a girl named Mary and Joseph, her fiancé. He talked about how Mary was going to have a baby – even though that wasn’t the way. He talked about God’s love for everyone, for Mary and Joe; and about how through this baby, the whole world would know!  Matthew 1:18, John 3:16

Dad read that when an angel came and told Mary she had questions and said “how can this be? Joseph will never believe that I’m having God’s baby!” But the angel told her not to be afraid and everything he was saying was true. Mary said “I’m God’s servant and what you have said, God will do!” Luke 1:26-28

“What about Joseph?” Benjamin asked the next night. “When he found out about the baby, did they have a big fight?” So, Mom took out Joseph and Dad read about him too, about how the angel stopped by Joseph and told him what to do! “Take Mary as your wife, without any fuss! That baby she carries is Emmanuel – that means ‘God with us!’” Matthew 1:19-24

The figurines of Mary and Joseph started alone on the table. They were really far away from where my top draped over a stable. Mom took out a donkey explained this was because they had to travel really far! They had to walk since in those days there were no cars. The Caesar had decided everyone should pay him a certain amount and so he sent them to their hometowns for this tax and a count. Luke 2:1-5

When Mary and Joseph got to Bethlehem there was nowhere to stay! “We’re all full! We have no rooms! We’re tired, go away!” Mary was very pregnant, and they were tired too! Joseph asked the inn keeper what they were to do. Mom placed the innkeeper to the side and placed down a trough as Dad read from his book that there were no guest rooms but a barn out back, “take a look!”  Luke 2:6-7

Dad read that if the baby were to come it would be in the manger he would lay. I looked at the cold little trough without any hay! This was no place for a baby and Katie agreed! “Mom, a barn? What if Mary has her baby?” Mom told her to wait, the story wasn’t done. Still, when no one was looking I shook some soft tinsel and needles down to soften the crib should Mary have her son.

The following day Mom pulled a couple shepherds from her box. Dad explained shepherds protected sheep from danger like cliffs, wolfs, and fox. That same night the shepherds were not far away in the field. They were just watching their sheep, acting as their shield. This would have been their job, like every other night. Yet this time something happened, which gave them quite a fright! Luke 2:8-11

“What happened??” Katie and Benjamin asked with a whine.

Dad looked at Mom and nodded and she said “One more part. Just this time…”

Mom pulled out an angel with large wings and a flowing gown. She was beautiful and if I were Mom, I’d never want to put her down. Benjamin and Katie stared, engrossed! And mom explained she represented just one of the heavenly host! Dad opened his book again, and read of how the angel spoke to the frightened men. “Don’t be afraid; I bring news of great joy! It’s meant for every man, woman, girl, and boy! A Savior has been born and in a manger he lays!” Then the host of angels broke into songs of praise!  “Glory to God and peace on earth where his favor rests!” The shepherds ran off, to find this savior was their quest! Luke 2:9-14

Benjamin and Katie stood with eyes aglow. That seemed the way they looked at ME not so long ago. I wanted their attention, their giggles, their laugh. But it was then that I noticed a shepherd without his tall staff. “He must have dropped it as he ran to see” and I wondered if I could help with something from my tree. So, when my family turned for the day, I dropped a candy cane for the shepherd to use on his way.

The next nights to the stable Mom added sheep and a goat and a cow. She said, “we don’t know what animals were there, but let’s add these for now…” Dad read about how the shepherds found Mary and Joseph and baby just like the angels said. He read about how the babe was laid in a box from which those same animals were fed. Luke 2:15-16

“It’s cool that the shepherds came since they were so far from their friends! But did they get any presents?” asked a curious Ben.

“WE get presents at Christmas and birthdays both!” echoed excited Katie. “Were there any presents for the new little baby?”

What a good question, I thought. If I wasn’t leaning, I would be protecting all of those beautiful packages that had been bought!

To answer their question mom pulled out three figurines more. She said “the best gift for the baby couldn’t have been bought at a store! The angels and shepherds, they brought worship and praise. These aren’t things you find in window displays.”

Then Dad grabbed his book and said with a grin “Worship and praise are the first place to begin! Still, if we go to our story’s end, we will find other gifts brought by some special guests who attend. They came from a great distance, a land very far. They said they had seen and followed a star. They were important, the likes of scholars or kings we are told. They came to worship and brought with them gifts of myrrh, frankincense, and gold.” Matthew 2:1-2, 9-12

Benjamin protested: “I would have brought diapers! Or a bottle! That just seems commonsense! Who gives a baby gold or frankincense?”

Katie nodded in agreement and then thoughtfully considered what she would bring. “Except, maybe,” she said “their gifts weren’t meant for a baby – but a king!”

Mom and Dad smiled and then Mom explained: “to be a King the world had never known was the reason this baby came!”

I didn’t quite understand what Mom said was supposed to mean…but even I understood the honor meant for a king. So while the magi stood stately with their gifts, I allowed my favorite ornament from my branches to slip. Something special for the king who was a baby, the one who came or was still coming, maybe.

Finally, it was Christmas Eve and Katie turned and looked at me! “I know our tree tips, I know that it leans, but since it’s almost Christmas can’t we turn its lights on…please?”

Dad smiled and nodded and soon I was aglow. A leaning tree that shone from head to toe.

“Look!” Benjamin shouted and I froze in place. He was pointing at me with joy and excitement on his face. My old pride awakened and thought “now’s the time! I may lean but it’s finally my time to shine!” 

I soon realized he wasn’t as concerned with my branches as he was with how my lean touched the table. And his gaze rested not me but the stable.

“I didn’t realize until now, with the tree lit, how, because the tree leans…well, just looks where the star sits!”

I couldn’t see the star on my top, but I could see the table and the stable and I had a good idea of where I stopped. Even I was taken a bit by surprise. My star rested over the table where the stable lies.

“It’s like the star that helped the wise men to know…that there was a king born and where to go!” Katie was excited and she pointed this out. She was beaming and shouting, dancing about!

“What’s this excitement?” Mom asked, grabbing one last figure as she entered.

Dad grinned and gestured “It appears it’s over our manger that the tree’s star has centered.” Grabbing his book he gathered Benjamin and Katie around. “I think that means it’s time for where our true Christmas excitement is found!”

Dad recounted the kings, the shepherd, and the sheep. How there was no room in the inn for Mary and Joseph to sleep. He reminded them the angels had promised joy for the earth – all on account of a special birth. Mom placed a baby in a manger to lay – right there with my tinsel, some needles, and hay. Dad read “The baby came, her firstborn, a son, while Mary and Joseph were there. Mary placed him in the manger after wrapping him in some cloths to wear.”  Luke 2:6-7

“This is baby Jesus?” Katie pondered.

Benjamin asked “Was it really a baby that filled both shepherds and kinds with worship and wonder?”

“Except Jesus was no ordinary baby,” Mom replied with a nod. “You see Jesus was the Son of Mary but first the Son of God.”

“To us a child is born, a Son is given…” Dad read before saying “it’s because of Jesus our sins are forgiven. He is called ‘Wonderful Counselor’ and ‘Mighty God’… because for us to understand God’s love, He had to come where people trod. So God became like you and like me, so we would know hope, joy, and peace.” (Isaiah 9:6)

Mom added: “For God so loved the world, so loved you, so loved me…He came nothing more than a simple baby. He humbled Himself, though He was God and King, even though he was the One of whom the angels did sing! God knew that if we were to ever understand His forgiveness and love, He would have to come down from heaven above. He came in a way we could understand. In the form of a baby would grow into a man.” John 3:16, Philippians 2:5

Dad continued, “One day that man, Jesus, would show God’s love for us in this – He would die for us while we were still caught in our sins. But he would defeat death forever, so time separated from God would be never!”  

“Don’t you see, there is no doubt!” Mom added, “Jesus is what Christmas is about! The baby that the angels did sing, is the Lord of lords and King of Kings...”

Something stirred deep in my trunk I couldn’t quite explain. I stared intently where the baby Jesus was lain. It was as if everything made sense now…I leaned even further and made my lean, a bow.

I know now however, what I wish I had known when I was smaller…it’s not about standing straighter; it’s not about standing taller. Christmas isn’t about the presents, the carols or the tree. It was never, actually, all about me.

I don’t know how long a Christmas tree stays. How long before I’ll be ushered out of the house, the next holiday to make way. But I know that no matter what it seems, I am proud to be a tree that at the manger, bows. A tree, that leans…

Anika J. Kasper, 2020 - all rights to this work are my own

Freedom Swings

I have been desperate for a swing.

A literal swing.

You know, the ones at a good community playground with the long black rubber seat and attached to chains that hang from 15-foot-high steel frames and creak like they were bought from an Azkaban rummage sale? 

I love a good swing and, these days, they have been surprisingly hard to find...

In especially small towns (where I’ve found myself for the last 13+ months) you’ll be lucky to locate a park with an available swing set (and, if you’re lucky enough to find one – it’s likely at the elementary school and already in use and you can’t just sit around like a creeper, staring at the swings, waiting your turn. I might call somebody come talk to me…).

And in Michigan, the land of potentially perpetual winter, if you’ve managed to locate a park with swings, they are likely not going to be put back up until the last 10 day forecast, and the next 10 day forecast, all promise higher than 32 degrees and less than six inches of snow…

And this spring? This spring the parks were all shut down (some still are) as to avoid them becoming a public meeting place and therefore a COViD transmission potential. There were twice I found beautiful swings, completely available for use, on days when I would have loved to swing – but I couldn’t.

When I helped my best friend move out of her apartment, she reminded me the camp had gotten a swing set after I left and, though the swings were child sized and the set placed precariously in between trees, I did I get to swing for a few minutes then. It was good for my soul. Though not quite the same…

Because I love a good swing and have for years, perhaps even decades now.  I have distinct, clear, crisp memories of being a tween and teen and finding swings at a park after a walk or church picnic or some other type excursion. I remember pumping my legs long and hard, going as high as I could – so high gravity would jolt me a bit at the top, and so hard I would pendulum back and forth… There was something about a swing that made me feel weightless, burdenless, unhindered, free. I love the way a good swing makes me feel free…

In college I would seek them out.  I discovered an otherwise relatively pathetic park just down the road from the dorms with an excellent set of swings. When life got too crazy. When my head got too busy. When I needed to escape. When I needed to feel free... I’d go for a short walk, swing until my legs gave out, and walk back…somehow better able to take on life, and better able to untangle the thoughts in my head and the stirrings in my heart – for better or worse.

And all week I’ve been desperate to find a swing.

I pass a park on my way to work. Not far from where I’m staying. I know they have swings. Twice I stopped. 

The first time there was a ball game going on and there was a gaggle of children on the play equipment.  I would have to wait my turn, which would make me some kind of creeper…

The second time there were less people. I could have swung with the three or four kids on the monkey bars but I glanced at the swings as they were – without kids on them. They were swings. On play equipment. At a park. Meant for children. They were small. And short. And the frame not high enough for someone taller than 4 feet to pump and win… I drove back to the house and made dinner before dark (an especially admirable feat in my life!) instead.

Tonight, I wasn’t exactly restless. But nor was I settled. I picked up the book I had been reading, making it through a few pages with a disinterested distraction. I put it aside and picked up my phone; browsing, I found myself doing much of the same. I glanced at my watch. I declared, with the air of someone who is clearly no longer a young adult, that it was getting to be too late for adventures. Still, I countered: “What I need to do is find some swings…”

I ventured into the town in the opposite direction (seeing as the obvious park in the town on the other side had already let me down) and Google searched parks, typing the address into my maps. Several miles later and the “destination on my right” was DEFINITELY someone’s house. As were the properties on all sides. (One of them did appear to have a swing set – like the kind we had in the 90’s but you can still get at Wal-Mart for like $198.99, all metal with a plastic slide on the side and when you pumped too hard the legs would come up? – but it felt weird to ask to borrow it).  I tried typing in the name of the park. I backtracked two miles. I came upon something of a park – but people were totally setting up tents! Already dusk, I didn’t have time to walk the trails to see if they did indeed have swings… somewhere. Dejected, I drove into town and started driving around the block… when I came across the school playground and a family just leaving. In the dusk I saw three swings.

I walked over, chose the swing in the middle and sat down.

For a while I just swayed softly. The familiar sense of being able to exist without strings attached (sans the two chains holding me up, of course) playing in the recesses of my mind. I heard the ever so slight creak of the chains and I smiled, my head leaning gently on the links. 

I turned forward from the sideways lean I had been at and began to pump. Slowly and lightly at first, and then faster and harder as I picked up steam; my legs matching the momentum of my body as it continued in its arc-shaped flight, a pendulum back and forth and back and forth.

And that’s where this long (aka: Anika-length) story finds its climax…

Because this is where the story should end or begin to conclude with some note of my blissful sense of freedom just as maximum height and gravity met in a war for my body and my soul. Because swings help me to feel free… Because something about swings sets the world to right. 

But that’s not what happened.

I didn’t end up in some blissful zen-like flight pattern. I had no sooner made it back and forth a fifth or sixth time when my brain did the opposite of what my brain normally does and went into hyperdrive. I was processing the lackluster sunset and the sirens in the distance and why the lights were on in the school and whether I needed to stop for gas and how grateful I was to find a swing but how this couldn’t be my park because I didn’t want to share my sacred space with everyone and it was quite a bit out of my way and plus I wasn’t going to be living where I was forever which reminded me, I really needed to start apartment hunting again…

I wanted to say that it was my spiraling thoughts which caused my raging nausea, but I don’t think that was the case at all. If anything, the motion sickness started at the same time and I was trying to push past it – confident that the swinging would do what it does best and take care of the things in my heart and my head…

But it didn’t.

Less than 10 minutes after I found my swing, I found myself I shakily dismounting it.

In college I could have kept going for a half an hour or more. Stopping only when I had I had pumped all my inner angst loose. This time, had I not stopped, the only thing pumped loose would have been the lunch I consumed some several hours prior. 

The drive back was quiet. You would think most lonely drives are but mine only are when I’m thinking.  Otherwise I’m listening to music. Or more often than not, an audiobook. Or talking to myself. 

The drive was quiet.

I was thinking. And seething. And trying a little not to cry. It’s not like one night of motion sickness could ruin my love for swings, but it was a bit like being disappointed by an old friend. A close friend. Knowing she’d be there for you. That he wouldn’t let you down. Being so excited to spend time, to share your life, to be yourself. And then getting everything but. Leaving feeling like your friend wasn’t who you remembered and that though you loved them, you weren’t sure if they loved you. And that hurts!

It hurts to be suddenly trapped by something which is supposed to help you feel free…

It’s where I’ve been with words.

Another silly thing to say. To write. Especially, to write. I’ve only written a handful of times in the last five years. Since before grad school… Oh I wrote papers, endless papers. And I wrote camp curriculum which filled thick binders. And I wrote sermons. For the last year I wrote a sermon week after week after week.  All of it writing and all of it so far away from the way my fingers used to fly across a keyboard, flooding a screen to keep up with my heart and mind. All of it felt so confining. So trapping. So imprisoning.  I was working on a sermon at my parents’ house once last fall and my sister asked what I was working on. When I replied “my sermon”, she sighed. “I figured. But I keep hoping you’ll say you’re writing. And then I’ll know. I’ll know you’re back…”

Even the words now feel like burning, feel like clawing, painfully and slowly out of place I don’t know if I should yet return.

It hurts to have been trapped by something which once always helped me to feel free…

And maybe there are profound and divine words here. Words about where my true freedom should lay and Who they should lay with. Maybe I should be spending time with John and recalling that “if the Son has set you free, you are free indeed!” (Jn 8:36). Maybe I should be imparting something true right now… Because those words are true. 

But right now, all I know is that I’m stuck some where between the dark and the light. Somewhere between the fact I know while I crave to be free, that freedom in my soul, the freedom writing and swings and a bad run on a long road helped me tap into, isn’t something I’ve known in quite some time.

An Ode to Teachers

At the beginning of October, I began a long-term sub placement.  It was at the school where I served as an “Academic-Behavioral Interventionist” part time for a school year and where I’ve frequently served as substitute teacher amidst my other jobs since.  This fall, with my extensive summer job search and application process proving completely unsuccessful, I found myself in need of a job…and Hillside found itself in need of a sub willing to carry out the day-to-day and teaching for one of their beloved 5^th grade teachers who would be out for a back surgery.  I agreed, thankful for the community I knew was at Hillside and for God’s provision for my needs. 

The fact remains…I’m not a teacher.  I am a decent instructor.  And a notable substitute as I come with enough experience and a bag of tricks to make the day survivable for both me and my class.  But there are MANY reasons I didn’t go to school for elementary education.  It turns out I like lesson planning (I love lists and am a great planner and there is a strategy to lesson plans) but the day in and out of classroom management for talkative pre-pubescent 10 and 11-year-olds proved beyond my key “niche”.  I often felt like an overwhelmed island. I had no idea what I didn’t know or what help to ask for…but I had 29 crashing waves reminding me constantly of what was being asked of me. To say it was a learning curve would be, at least, accurate. 

I found I learned other things as well as time went on.  Mostly about the teachers whom I’ve always appreciated but haven’t been awarded sainthood.  At one point a teacher friend commented something along the lines of “no one will be a bigger supporter of teachers than you after this!”  I responded that I was applying to be president of their fan clubs.  I learned much about what it is like to be a teacher and what is required of them in the classroom.  Below is my (incomplete) list of some of those things.  And, if you are anyway anticipating a third snow/cold day with children whom you love but are wondering, with wide eyes and decreasing patience, how you all are going to make it out alive…thank the teachers you know.  I promise you they don’t hear it enough...

I was in a FULLY STOCKED classroom for less than a week when I felt the compulsion to buy things for my students and room.  I can only imagine what a teacher goes through at the beginning of a school year, pre-anticipating the real needs of students.

Every post about drinking cold coffee is true.  No matter how soon I get to school.  No matter how soon I start the coffee pot and no matter how soon I start drinking the coffee… 

I enjoy an occasional adult beverage.  Sometimes I even enjoy one to wind down.  I VERY rarely drink copiously and never as an escape.  That being said…I find it an absolute miracle that more teachers aren’t raging alcoholics.  If they were, it would make sense to me…

Every time you read something about staying awake, unable to sleep, because of a student, believe it.  It isn’t an over generalized sentiment.  It is impossible to spend 8 hours a day with individuals and not care deeply about who they are as individuals. (I anxiety slept about my class and students almost every night.)

Everyday I looked at students and said “You are NOT stupid! We are still learning this skill!” and “you are going to do something incredible with your life!” and “everyone judges success differently.  I judge it most by people who keep working even when it’s hard!” and “you need to give yourself more credit!  Just because you don’t have it yet, doesn’t mean you won’t. You are half way there!”  I didn’t say these things as platitudes.  I truly believed in my students.  I repeated often to the class “You need to believe in your selves half as much as I do, and you’ll change the world!” Did they believe me?  Maybe not.  But someday I hope they know they are capable and think back not back to me, their long-term sub, but the dozens of teachers who have been saying the same thing for YEARS!

5^th graders, (or many other -graders for that matter), are not necessarily inherently nice kids. I lost count of the times I was called “stupid”, “ugly”, “fat”, and any number of things.  I have been sworn at, kicked, punched, the target of jokes and drawings and gossip that would have made me leave school crying as a 10-year-old.  Teachers would like to say they are immune to these kinds of comments and jabs. (I mean, after all, it most often came on behalf of whatever student whose behavior I most recently corrected. We would have a conversation about the need for me to feel something I didn’t like because they were feeling something they didn’t like. Kids are still working on how to respond in appropriate ways.  Most teachers get this.) But…teachers are human too.  They have like 30 students they give up time and sleep and energy for.  Students they invest into academically and personally.  Students who might thank them for help on a problem, but it may take years – if they ever get there at all – to be thankful for the investment.  Teachers aren’t immune. I’ve seen calloused teachers; I haven’t seen immune teachers.  Stuff builds up.  Stuff hurts. 

Teachers try to prove themselves to each other.  I witnessed some incredible teaching “teams”.  Pockets of teachers in the same grade level who were all committed to working together and sharing ideas and the best worksheets and STEM projects and “crazy red squirrel on crack” student stories.  And yet…there is this subtle recognition that all teachers want to show each other they are doing enough.  Good enough.  I spent pretty much my whole time trying to prove myself.  Sometimes I cut myself enough slack to recognize I wasn’t and am not an elementary teacher.  I was just the long-term sub. That no one was expecting me to understand grade level standards and learning targets or how to take the new reading curriculum that the students DESPISE and make it usable.  But part of me expected it from me.  And most of me tried really hard to convince myself that I wasn’t being thought less of because of my failure to measure up.  And every so often I saw that same flinch in even seasoned teachers who were capable of feeling the same things…

Teachers spend a lot of their non-teaching time doing things that involve their teaching time.  Conferences.  Online trainings. Reading dozens of articles about other teaching strategies, projects and ideas that are working, ways to better care for the whole person of their students, and studies on education.  They are browsing Pinterest for projects, fresh ideas, and encouragement.  They are paying for subscriptions to sites with more tools and helps and premade worksheets.  And yes, based on the conversations I heard and calendars I saw, they are doing this on their summer “breaks” (the ones everyone is always so jealous of…)

Since I mentioned curriculum…I only got my feet wet in the world of “grade level standards”.  I have only a cursory knowledge about what all goes into creating those standards at a state level and barely more about implementing them.  But based on what I saw, experienced, and know about the classroom…to meet all of the grade level standards in all subjects would require 10-hour school days, 6 days a week, for at least 11 months a year.  A classroom without any behavioral issues, perfectly attentive students, and another teacher wouldn’t hurt either.  I have NO IDEA how teachers get through it all!

Group projects.  If you let them choose their partners, they goof off the entire time.  If you choose their partners for them, they fight the whole time.  I’m pretty sure, based on the chaos which ensues by assigning a group project, I know how wars are actually started.  The struggle between “this would be a fun project/this is a good skill/they don’t do enough hands-on things/they need to learn how to work together” and “is this worth curling up in a corner and crying about for three days?” is REAL. 

Speaking of wars…seating charts take the strategy of seasoned Army generals, the patience of UN diplomats, the daring sense of adventure of Indiana Jones, and the problem-solving genius of a published mathematician.  “Billy can’t sit next to Danny, Brad, or Shelly.  He does sit well next to Sally and Robby, but Robby can’t sit next to Sally.  Robby also can’t sit next to Brad or Shelly but works surprisingly well with Danny…” And then the earth-shattering sass when they discover who their new neighbors are…

Teachers say things that just don’t make sense.  It’s like (I imagine) parenting but with 30 super different children with very specific personalities and needs.  At least once a week I said something like “new rule: you can’t make art out of an apple and leave it on your desk.  It needs to go home at the end of the day!” and “I don’t know why I need to remind you of this, but we don’t lick our friends!” and “For the love of recess! Why are your cradling him? Put him down!”

If you have a child whose teacher is out sick, pray for them.  If they are gone for more than a couple of days, consider meals and community gatherings of support; they might be dying.  This wasn’t a case of the sniffles, they are really not okay! The only basis I have for this knowledge is the sheer terror of lesson plans.  Granted, as a non-teacher lesson plans may have been more challenging for me than a gifted teacher who can do such things with flourish and speed.  But, shoot!  I was gone for the equivalent of six school days when I went to Israel and I put an embarrassing amount of time into lesson plans.  What content was reasonable for a sub to cover? Was I leaving enough work? Not enough?  What would I have to reteach when I got back? How did I leave notes on students that didn’t automatically make the sub form negative opinion of students but gave them the information they needed to give my special students the care they needed?  And the headache of having to go through it all and figure it all out again when you come back?  Yeah, teachers don’t take sick days lightly. 

Teacher’s aren’t thanked. Not really.  I can say this because I’m not and wasn’t a real teacher.  I say it as someone who was meaningfully thanked EVERY time I saw the teacher whose classroom I was covering.  I know many phenomenal teachers and they are phenomenal because they didn’t go into teaching for the thanks but because they truly love what they do and, more importantly those they do it for.  But it’s still not taking place. Not in so many words.  If they teach in elementary, there is probably a collection of art from their students or occasionally there is a hug.  Small pieces of a student expressing their love and thanks in ways they know how.  There is the satisfaction of watching a student grow in and own skills in life and academics.  There is the inner knowledge that what they do makes a difference.  But not many people turn around and say, “thank you”.  Not many professions have so many expectations…from law makers, administration, parents, teachers, and childless strangers…with so few actual resources…that are accomplished with joy and creativity and ingenuity and personal sacrifice…and are done with nare a word of acknowledgment or thanks. 

I was asked routinely if I would do it again…I often admit reluctantly I probably wouldn’t.  Reluctant because it makes it sound like a bad experience when mostly it was just a lot.  I was working a 50+ hour week, for the same pay I would make for a sub job that included giving out worksheets and reading homework while the kids were at PE.  I made less than minimum wage, still had to put hours in at my other job, and was still doing homework for my last class.  I wasn’t eating, not sleeping well, and constantly worried about my kids.  I learned I’m capable of many things but that teaching 5^th graders is not likely my life’s calling.  I am thankful for those for whom it is.  I am incredibly grateful for the teachers I’ve had throughout my life who taught, encouraged, inspired, and helped shape me into the person I’ve become.  It is likely you haven’t heard it recently, so thank you. 

Crashing for Turtles

I was driving to Annual Conference the first weekend in June…in Traverse City…after class…in Fort Wayne.  It was a five-hour drive after a four-hour class after an hour-and-a-half drive.  I wasn't exactly looking forward to it. I plugged in an audio book novelette (that I was bound and determined to finish before I arrived…I did) and began the northward journey. 

I was a little more than half way through and driving past Grand Rapids on 131.  Traffic was pretty busy, and, eager to be done with my drive, I weaved in and out of the lanes at 77 mph with the cars merging in and off the expressway.  Until, all of the sudden, the right lane was at a near standstill, hazard lights creating a parade. 

Cars flew by, passing the parade at an otherwise normal speed.  Already in the left lane, I was one of them.  I slowed and looked curiously towards the beginning of the line.  And then I saw the reason for the cautious traffic.  Looking to have made it across the merging lane and into right lane was a huge box turtle.

It took giant steps, racing across the traffic.  I was proud of its persistence but as it made it ever closer to the left lane of northbound traffic, I thought for sure it was toast.  I flew past but looked back several times in my review mirror.  A giant red semi barreled ahead.   I wanted to close my eyes but realizing I was looking in my review mirror, I simply focused on the road ahead, cheering on the turtle I was positive was about to reach its certain doom. 

I glanced back one last time as I merged to the right and saw it.  The semi saw the turtle, now just a dark speck in the dead middle of the lane.  The driver pulled so far to the left, the truck tilted in the ditch.  It’s tail and nose were in the lane, creating a semi-circle hedge of protection as the turtle continued in its unstopped mission to the grass and the truck made its way slowly back onto the road. 

I cheered!  Like literally clapped a couple of times.

And I texted a friend (through voice-to-text, calm yourselves) and told him, in very short version, about the miraculous turtle save and the semi who swerved off the road for it.  He responded shortly after with a message that read “good for the turtle! But be safe! Don’t go crashing for turtles!”

I decided, first, that “Crashing for Turtles” would be an EXCELLENT band name (if you are looking for a band name and use it, please give me at least a nod of credit or let me play kazoo in one song or something because you know it’s a sweet name!).  And then I was struck by the profundity of the phrase.

The idea of what it meant to crash for turtles and whether it was a good thing or bad thing, metaphorically, consumed me all through conference. And then for days.  Even weeks.  I declared it one of the most beautiful images of self-sacrifice I could possibly muster, and I dreamed of writing about it.  The latter might not seem like much but for someone who hasn’t wrote anything of greater worth than a research paper in months, the desire to write fanned the tiniest little spark inside of me. A spark that said maybe all of the pieces of me I thought I once knew weren’t gone…

Then life got in the way.  First it was school: Heady reading and several papers.  Then the end of my job where I was working way too many hours.  Then camp.  Then the start of another class.  Then just about the time I felt compelled to maybe, just maybe, finish my thoughts and what it meant to crash for a turtle in my twisted brain of metaphors and pictures and images…more life got in the way. When I opened the file on my computer marked “crashing for turtles” today – it was dated as “last edited by user on July 17”.  Significant because that was a day before the boy who, technically, coined the phrase (though my brain did all of the running away with it, so it was never really his or had anything to do with him), suddenly but quietly exited my life.  At almost the exact same time, I found out a dear friend was killed in a fatal car accident.  I lost all desire to talk about crashing for anything.  Let alone turtles. 

But more than two months later and the image hasn’t left.  If anything, it’s become richer and more meaningful and poignant.  And harder and more painful and more real… Because, you see, ultimately, the idea of crashing for turtles is about putting yourself on the line for something inferior. It either displays the ultimate heart of service or the reality of being made a slave and the distance between the two is striking. 

There is something incredible, for me, in the concept of the turtle as a person or mission or reality.  Someone not inferior in value or worth but in some other way. (*Insert the first disenfranchised, discriminated, unrecognized, or “forgotten” person or people group that comes to your mind here, for example*).  I love to the point of chills and tears what it means for the biggest and most powerful (of which all off us are in different places and spaces) to throw a piece of themselves off the proverbial road to protect the innocent, the vulnerable, the ones without the means to protect themselves (and yes this can be as simple as greeting the visitors sitting in the fifth row on the right at church even if you’re not really the outgoing type).  Creating that semi-circle of protection.  It's something I witnessed my friend Nick do often...and there were many previous "turtles" who attended his funeral to tell the tales...

And, though the semi put itself at risk, made the choice to protect, it was only part. Because what actually happened, as happened with the right lane of cars previous, is that it forced the cars behind it to stop and take notice. The turtle survived that day because if it was important enough for a big ol’ semi to throw itself off the road, then surely it was important enough for the sedan behind it to at least look towards what it was swerving around.  I was awed by the thought that I passed a mile of cars in the right lane (and merging lane) going nare 10mph with hazard lights on and those in the back would have NO IDEA the reason for the first and yet they too had trusted that the reduced speed and caution was important and necessary. 

I think this kind of crashing for turtles in underused and important and Biblical.  It seems like it is very much like the task of the Good Samaritan, the call of the Rich Young Ruler, and the drive of the early church (among many other things).  In our me-centric world of selfish gain and a gospel that fits my needs and wants and ministry in my comfort zones and is convenient for my schedule and matches my political leanings and my picture of the way the world should go…there is something unfortunately revolutionary and uncommonly heroic about the one who choose to lay aside her [comfortable, convenient, satisfying, desired, etc] life for her friends.  Let alone a vulnerable stranger.

And yet I’m torn. Not with that particular reality but because “crashing for turtles” is a metaphor with a double-edged sword. I’m torn because I realize that if something had happened with that giant red semi, if the itty-bitty little sedan behind it didn’t slow or stop or see, if traffic felt the need to dangerously merge at the wrong time, real people in real time could have been really hurt.  If that had happened, the headlines on the paper wouldn’t read “huge box turtle courageously saved by sacrificial truck driver”, it would have read something terrible like “Alcohol not in play in Thursday’s deadly accident”.  And no one would have easily forgiven the report of “Driver notes turtle cause of Thursday’s crash causing two deaths and seven injuries…”  Because the very real actual turtle was important and worthwhile. But not as valuable or worthwhile as that of a human life. 

And we all crash for these kinds of non-literal turtles.  We all have things in our lives that get valued above and beyond what is right and reasonable.  We have “turtles” which are given worth and importance and investment…turtles that, in seeking to save, we destroy parts of ourselves, parts of lives. I think about the long-toted idols of work and money and busyness and sex and drugs and stuff and gluttony. And the seventeen other deadly sins and whatever else it is that seems like something we are willing to stake our lives on, willing to crash for, things which seem like they are worth something and maybe some are in the short term but aren’t worth anything near a human life.  I think about the nights I didn’t sleep to finish the homework I was unwilling to settle for a “B” on.  I think about the jobs I went above and beyond simply to prove to someone else, somewhere else, that I had what it took.  I think about my sometimes consuming anxiety or my crippling thought obsessions. I think about the relationship with a boy who first caused me, quite unknowingly, to spiral from the phrase “crashing for turtles” at all.  The relationship being something I was willing to crash for but in the end being something which, when it crashed, how it crashed, deeply affected how I knew and understood “me” and what I had in value and worth.  I think about all of the friendships I’ve had which ended in one way or another.  Those too being something I would crash for and did crash for and yet caused the same and even worse crash of identity when it came to trying to decide why some people stay and some people go. 

I think about the ways that “self-care” is becoming a needed and important piece of mental health education…not because of the selfishness created in a me-centric reality but because in knowing and doing and moving and being (often out of an unhealthy core and unhealthy identity) people crash and burn in a way that seems to destroy them and takes others down with them and leaves them no good to themselves or anyone else.  And sometimes those are the same people who thought they were saving some turtle, when in fact nothing was saved and much was lost.

I’m stuck with these competing narratives, the ones warring against each other that demand an answer.  Any answer.  And the answer is important because it seems like the turtles I am willing to crash for or the ones I already do and have say a great deal about who I am and whose I am.  So I’m desperate to know and see and understand. I want the answer telling me how to move forward.  How to know which turtles to crash for and which to entrust.  Answers that say something like “this is how you know what turtles are worth it!” or “here is a definitive way to know whether or not this crash is Christlike or chaos inducing” or “when you encounter a turtle that you are unsure of, proceed with the following seven steps…”  But life isn’t like that, is it?  Life is full of questions and incomprehinsibles and unknowables and things most unfair. 

And so, despite the fact words have finally made it to page, I’m still caught in the tension.  I wish I weren’t.  I like when things wrap up in neat packages.  When there are conclusions and steps to purpose.  When I finish writing something and can tie some sort of bow and say “This. These. Here are the words which have been burning deep and needing to be found.”  But I’m only newly back into the writing world.  And these words themselves are coming out of place of tension – of both insecurity and hope. So, turtles or not, perhaps, the tension must remain.  And maybe little by little it can be less about me and more about the God I wish to serve.  And maybe that will be enough…