Category Archives: Guest

Seasons Don’t Change On Time

Posted on by under Guest, Season & Place

Southern California doesn’t really submit to the whole concept of “seasons.” Southern California has 85-degree weather whenever it feels like it, which is about 11 months per year.

The 30-or-so days of cloudiness, chill, and sometimes even rain that we do receive annually are spread out in seemingly random two- or three-day sets throughout the year. There are inevitably  a couple of “unpleasant” days around Halloween, just enough to make people worry about outdoor carnivals. Then, usually a few days in March, which are generally welcomed because they bring out the bright yellow daffodils in time for my birthday. Of course, around Christmas when we would love to enjoy a hot holiday drink from Starbucks and a rainy day, we can’t find a cloud in the sky or any temperatures below 75 degrees. Find us in California struggling to enjoy iced pumpkin spice lattes. It’s just not the same.

I’ve lived in Southern California for my whole 26 (almost 27) years of life, and I continue to be caught off guard by the unpredictable, albeit lovely and temperate, weather here. I allow myself to be caught up in these idealistic concepts of what the holiday season or springtime will be like and then find myself so often disappointed when it’s too hot to take a springtime walk or there are no such things as snowflakes for 100 miles in any direction from my house. And then every once in a while, right when I think “It’s always nice in June,” I’ll plan a barbecue and it pours rain for a few hours and we have to move inside. That’s the rare case, but it just goes to show me that I can never be sure what is coming next.

ca seasons 6This Groundhog Day, February 2nd, reminded me yet again that our weather never follows anyone else’s rules. On the one hand, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, which predicted six more weeks of winter. On the other hand, California cares nothing for Pennsylvania’s predictions  about our weather, and we had our first 80+ degree temperatures of the new year. The calendar says it is supposed to be winter until March 21, but here, we already look like summer time with our shorts and hammocks.

As I joked with my coworkers about the heat wave in February, I recognized for maybe the first time that there could be something profoundly beautiful about the fickleness of the weather. Maybe I could appreciate that seasons do shift, even when it is unpredictable. Perhaps there could be rejoicing in the knowledge that unexpected disappointment may sometimes skip hand-in-hand with unexpected excitement.

In a similar way, at some point during my 20s I had determined that this season of my life was supposed to look a certain way. I used to expect this to be the springtime of life, when things are all rose gold and princess cut and little pink lines. When things didn’t fall into place for me that way, I thought, “Well, then, it must be a season of winter!” I could choose contentment in the paycheck and the late night drives with friends for no reason and having enough time to take voice lessons.

Just when I think that I’ve nailed things down exactly the way they are, it’s all changing again. All of a sudden my life is full of daisies and gleaming sunlight and exhales that turn into smiles without my permission. Perhaps I will never figure out what’s coming next, in my life, or in the Southern California skies. Maybe I’ll learn, though, to embrace  the uncertainty and pick daffodils to collect on my table while they are blooming.

*   *   *   *   *

SarahLpic“Where Seasons Don’t Change On Time” was written by Sarah Rose Lochelt. Sarah is a Southern-California native who works at a local Christian university near her home in Glendora. She studied youth ministry for her Bachelor’s degree and counseling ministry for her Master’s degree, and wishes she could get paid to read books for a living. On any given day, you can find her choosing food based on texture, laughing until she cries, and commenting about how “the book was better than the movie.” She blogs, and also writes movie reviews for Mike & Rusty’s UK site on the side.

Chicago was spring, Philadelphia Autumn

Posted on by under Guest, Season & Place

I am sitting in a guest room that was once my room at my parents’ home. I’m typing away with my feet propped up on a box and my computer on top of an antique vanity that belonged to my great-grandmother. The years have cycled back, the way they do, to the first season. The room is mine again.

The red Georgia clay and the bare winter limbs on the oaks outside are part of the season that birthed me 32 years ago. I joke with my parents that I am the poster-child for the boomerang generation. Three cross-continent moves, a graduate degree, and a couple “adult” jobs under my belt, but here I am typing away at a vanity where I can see my name that I etched into the wood as a kid.

On my first cross-country move I landed just north of Chicago, a ten-minute walk from the shore of Lake Michigan. It was a land of straight and flat roads, crossing at hard-right angles until you got to the shore where sand and rocks met vast water. I had a spot near the lake—a tree arched over the edge of the water and every season I marveled at the changes there. I once waded waist-high in snow drifts to get close to the icy lake. I watched in awe as the weather changed from week to week. For the first time in my life I knew what it was like to ache for the coming of spring, to see the green shoots of grass start growing as the slushy, dirty snow finally melted.

In Chicago, the beauty of the Lake and the beauty of the architecture fed my soul in tandem. Chicago introduced me to myself in a way that’s only possible when you flourish somewhere brand new. As a suburban girl, I barely knew my neighbors, but here I passed them on the sidewalk regularly as we all walked to the train or the coffee shop or church.

When spring came, we all went outside. The two elementary school children across the street played football with their dad in the front yard, Henry the beagle and his caretaker made frequent trips around the block; I chatted with the next door neighbor about plants as I edged my lawn right next to her driveway. There was an annual block party and an Easter-egg hunt. My introverted self means I can’t tell you the names of many of these people, but I was drawn to the community and togetherness–these seeds of community burrowed into my heart.

And when the season in Chicago was done, I landed in the hills and valleys of Eastern Pennsylvania to attend seminary. Here, I would check the weather for rain and plan my life accordingly. When it rained the basement flooded and blocked my path to the washing machine for a day. The roads flooded in such a way that my old car protested and sputtered over every puddle.

But on pretty days I’d sometimes find myself on a hill in the beautiful Valley Forge National Park, textbook and pen in hand as I did my reading for my seminary coursework. During those years the theology I studied and learned began to stitch together the pieces of my life. I was desperate to know if I was changing, or just growing. Had my years as an educator and a non-profit worker,  my experiences as a single woman and a fat woman, my understanding of God learned in a suburban Southern church and an urban Midwestern church  finally all come together to produce who I was?

That last year in Pennsylvania was a bountiful harvest. I had seen the beauty of community while watching my Chicago neighborhood, I got to live it in Pennsylvania where every Sunday night neighbors gathered together for dinner. Relationships were deep and meaningful. Ideas and hopes and dreams were always close at hand. After a lifetime of not knowing what I was passionate about, I finally had answers (to some things!). There were places where I could voice a firm “yes” or “no.”

Those passions and ideas unexpectedly led me back to Georgia, a move not for work or grad school, but a choice to be near family. There is a lot that is uncertain for me about life back in Georgia. While I found a worthwhile reason to move, one that was born out of the community I experienced with people who had been strangers,  my current situation lacks the structure to define my day’s activities. There is a freedom to find what will shape my life here. It is planting season: time to sow the seeds I reaped from a Pennsylvania harvest, first nourished in a Chicago spring.

The dark wood of this old vanity and the even-older red clay outside remind me that there are roots already here. This very specific plot has nurtured my beginnings before. A harvest will come again.  Now, counting on the hope of spring and the bounty of autumn, I sow.

* * * * *

fall“Chicago was Spring, Philadelphia Autumn” was written by Nicole Morgan. Nicole has lived near Chicago, IL; Philadelphia, PA; and in a handful of lesser known Georgian towns. She loves discovering, and falling in love with, the parts of these communities that make them unique. She currently lives in her childhood home near Atlanta, GA, writes about bodies, theology, and community at jnicolemorgan.com  and tweets away @jnicolemorgan

 

Diapers & Degrees

Posted on by under Guest, Role & Place

It was around noon, and I was in the men’s room at Target with my five-month-old daughter. The wall-mounted Koala changing table had seen better days, but I was just glad there was one in the men’s room at all. It was clear, though, that installing the changing table was an afterthought because it completely blocked access to the hand dryers. As my daughter squirmed and screamed while I changed her diaper, other men had to decide whether to reach over my shoulder to dry their hands, or to just use their pants. I struggled to maintain composure, wishing I could say that was the only time I had cried in Target that week. As I finished up I asked myself through eyes filled with tears, “How had my life come to this?”

The past year has been one of shifting roles. I quit a tour-guiding career of eight years (which is long for a 30 year old), became a father, and finished grad school. With my new roles came a shift not only in what I do, but also in who I am.

The biggest transition has been from working 40-60 hours a week to being the primary caretaker of my daughter. I have never been good at errands—even simple errands done on my own would exhaust me. So, the prospect of running most or all of the errands for our family with a baby was daunting, if not petrifying. It did not go well at first, which made me question whether I could even be a stay-at-home dad. I wanted so badly to take care of our daughter so my wife wouldn’t have to run errands and care for the home as well as work. The chalkboard-painted wall I used for my to-do list was a constant source of anxiety motivating me more to escape and watch Netflix than to be productive.

Thankfully I started to get better. I hadn’t realized how much practice errands and housekeeping would take in order to do it well. Over the past four months, since defending my thesis, I have grown tremendously in my competency as a stay-at-home dad. I can even enjoy multitasking—managing a list of things to do all while keeping a 10 month old alive and happy. That’s not to say everything is perfect. My daughter’s newest favorite pastime—pulling her bib off while I’m feeding her—is a lot for me to handle, and I get jealous seeing my wife come home and have so much energy to play with her and make her laugh while I often can only muster the energy to prevent her from melting down. I’m sure this too shall pass and I am getting better at finding joy in the present with her and cherishing every little step in her development.

When I’m not chasing after my increasingly fast and destructive daughter, I am attempting to start a career. After years of work and late night study sessions I finally finished grad school in December, and I am applying for teaching jobs. There is a sense of being in the wilderness during this transition, not knowing the path or even the destination. Early on I was feeling lost and hopeless about job prospects. This brought about financial worries and brought up deep insecurities around my fear of being rejected or passed over by prospective employers. You might even call it a mini existential crisis. After some great encouragement from a friend and my wife, and a lot of prayer, these feelings have lessened. I have come to see being in the wilderness as an important experience that allows me to develop patience and reflect on other shortcomings and insecurities. I’ve even been able to see very clearly the providence of God through a few extra jobs and medical expense reimbursements and aide.

IMG_0109Practicing patience and silence is difficult in a time where all I want to do is stress and vacillate between escapism and attempting to solve everything on my own because God is taking too long. Thankfully I have an adorable little companion to practice with and learn from. This morning I spent time in the amazing San Francisco Botanical Gardens with her. As I pushed my daughter in her stroller, along the small dirt paths through the Native California garden, I talked to her about each of the different plants that we passed and we sat and admired them together. Sometimes she would reach out to grab the plants. Taking time to feel, smell, and taste them, to experience them for the first time. At one point she grabbed a California Poppy, my favorite flower which I learned to love during my years driving a bus. This particular poppy was the only one in bloom in the entire garden. I watched her discover for the first time something I have loved and cherished for years. It was so beautiful. I’m not sure what it means, if it means anything, but I will never forget the overwhelming feelings of love for my daughter and God’s love for me in that moment in the garden.

Being a stay-at-home-dad and struggling to find work was never in my five- or ten-year plan. I may have never asked for this experience, and I did not know what it would require of me, but I am grateful for it. There will certainly be other unexpected roles that will challenge me in the future, and I will greet them with fear and trembling knowing that whatever they are, they will bring me closer to God.

*   *   *   *   *

Gluch Bio Pic“Diapers and Degrees” was written by Danny Gluch. Danny grew up in the suburbs of LA with his parents and older brother. He moved to the Bay Area in 2002 and has enjoyed calling San Francisco home ever since. Currently, he, his wife, their daughter, and their dog Madison call the Mission District of SF home. After struggling to find an enjoyable area of graduate study, he found the Philosophy program at San Francisco State University, where he recently earned his MA writing his thesis in Feminist Ethics and Moral Psychology. Any extra time is spent with his church community, or playing golf (or practicing golf, or thinking about golf). Find Danny on Twitter @danandstephinsf.

Scarves & High Heels: The Layers of Personal Geography

Posted on by under Guest, Role & Place

I was fresh out of grad school and decided that if I just wore high heels and scarves I’d be taken seriously in the classroom. Because at 5’2″ and just a few years older than my college students, I needed something to communicate big words like “authority” and “stature” and “smart” and “serious.” I walked around that campus with the air of someone who knew what she was about, who knew her subject matter and who knew how to teach.

But I felt like I was playing a giant dress-up game called life.

And then real life happened, by which I mean, life in the dailyness of washing dishes, and learning how to love, and making the bed, and grocery shopping. Life full of the glorious mundane. And then there is the life that happens when you add lives to your own, and spend your hours changing diapers, and making dinner, and trying to make meaning from the crying, the napping, and developmental milestones.

So slowly, as we moved from Los Angeles, to San Diego, to Salt Lake City, and as I moved from student to professor to mother, this “game” of life took on a bedrock finality where I had to concede I was, in fact, grown up. I didn’t need high heels or tomes on my bookshelf. I had a mortgage and a minivan full of kids to prove it.

It just took me to my mid-thirties and seven moves—one international—to begin to feel at home in myself.

Each place has whittled me down based on who I am becoming in each place. As I turn the pages of my past selves, each place holds for me a tender space with an accompanying nostalgia akin to flipping through old photo albums. Each place gives a geography to the chapters of me.

Each place we’ve lived has shown me more of who I am and more of who God is. Each has evidenced a terrible beauty. The painful beauty of becoming. Every home has shown me how wide and deep the Kingdom of God is and that there are good gifts in each spot; that there are always people who need you and whom you can connect to one another. Each place has stripped me a bit bare.

Los Angeles laid claim to my know-it-all-ness, as I put on my grad school knowledge like a scarf and found it lacking. For all the learning in the world couldn’t tell me about marriage, and sacrifice, and how to balance work with new motherhood. San Diego showed me my idol of my self-sufficiency as I floundered with two children under two. I felt helpless and at sea, having left the pats-on-the-back of academia and instead, spent my days pushing a double stroller up and down hills at the zoo.

And now, in what many consider the conservative capital of the US, I have been given bravery in Salt Lake City. It’s a city dominated by the LDS temple, the center point around which the city’s grid system is based. And yet, there are other factions which orbit that hub—factions that challenge, and augment, and move gracefully around the dominant religious culture. It’s made being a Christian here something exotic; and even with the pressures of four children, a college ministry and a dominant religious culture of which I’m not a part, Salt Lake City has birthed my voice.

Places do that. They push and pull at who we think we are and stretch us into who we are becoming.

Places, if we let them, usher us into a multi-orbed story, where in each new place we carry our past layers, have the freedom to shed some old ones, and to don new ones.

Places finally take up residence in our souls, not for their amenities and attractions, but for how they birth us into new people. And how, after awhile, we can look back at each place with a certain fondness after the terror of becoming has abated.

So as I string those dear places together—as connected dots on a world map—I’m reminded that there is no space that is too unlovable, too hard, or too unattractive. And, as we anticipate another move this summer, I’m looking forward to another dot on the map that I will weave my story around, and in whose stories I will be woven.

*   *   *   *   *

ashley

“Scarves & High Heels” was written by Ashley Hales. Ashley is passionate about helping others to tell their scary brave stories. When she’s not stealing time to write at Circling the Story, she’s chasing her four kids or helping out with her husband’s college ministry in Salt Lake City, Utah. She also holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Edinburgh. You can read more of Ashley’s work on her blog, or follow her on Twitter or Facebook.

 

Rotating Places, Rotating Faces

Posted on by under Guest, Role & Place

Sometimes I wonder if I live as if I am a prism.

I distort the light within me through my many different facets.  My many different faces.  And it is my roles and my places that determine these faces.

At work, I am confident, focused, and confronting.  I solve problems.  I complete things.  And, I am undistracted in my pursuit of success.  My face is one of determination.

At home, I battle distraction.  The typical things of a home filled with children – and internet connections – vie for my attention.  I am less sure in this space.  The tasks that I manage to complete just start over and over again – laundry, meals, school drop-offs, homework.  At home, I try to make love my ambition, not productivity.  But it is a struggle.  My face is one of striving.

prism

At my writing desk, I am neither here nor there.  I am in Kairos, that other-than state that transports me into an openness that can only be explained by God.  In Kairos, the immensity of Him and the tiny molecule of me intersect in a way that makes sense.   My face is one of receiving.

At church, I am unmasked.  I am at rest in the company of imperfection.  I am enough.  I filter, I question, I doubt.  I accept that I am incomplete.  I pursue connection.  My face is one of seeking. 

And so this is the orbit of life:

Rotating roles,

Rotating places,

Rotating faces.

But is this the revolution that God intended? 

I wonder if the revolution He desired is one that transforms me from a prism into a window.   Because, for His light to shine through me, don’t I need to be transparent and fragile, not rock solid and rotating?  

I think I want to be a window.

window

But in transparency and fragility, I am vulnerable.  It is easier and more comfortable to play my roles and change my faces.  Rotation is protection.  Vulnerability is risky; it is complicated and messy.  Vulnerability is letting others see all of my faces, even the ones I don’t want to see.

Yet it is in this vulnerability that others see not only me, but themselves.

So I think I want to be a window, still enough to have one face, transparent enough to let His light shine through, fragile enough to let others see through me to themselves.

Determined, striving, receiving, seeking. 

If I am a window, I am all of these faces, and more, at once, in every role and in every place. 

If I am a window, I am one face.  One face that stays rotated to God, letting His undistorted light shine through.

Yes.  I want to be a window.

*   *   *   *   *

H1“Rotating Places, Rotating Faces” was written by Holly Pennington. Holly has rotated faces through roles such as a physical therapist, health care executive, mother, writer, and entrepreneur.  Her rotating places include Ohio, North Carolina, Florida and Colorado.  She is pursuing a window kind of life in Washington state, despite the rain and fog.  She blogs about faithfully merging “dreadlocks” and “goldilocks” selves at www.dreadlocksandgoldilocks.com.  She can be found on Twitter (@dreadsandgoldi) and Facebook at dreadlocksandgoldilocks.

Learning from Ms. Norman

Posted on by under Guest, Role & Place

At my first school the kids called me “Freedom Writer.”

Who you got for English? Freedom Writer.

That is pretty much all you need to know. If you know they called me Freedom Writer you know that they were black and poor and I was white and young. You know that we both swallowed the lie that a young white woman can save a whole generation.

My students don’t call me Freedom Writer anymore. It isn’t just because I’m older. I now work at an upper-middle-class school and they just call me Ms. Norman.

Teaching is one of the only professions where no one uses a first name, at least at any school I’ve ever worked at. Generally, the adults in my building even refer to each other as Mr. or Ms., for continuity’s sake, which means most of the kids don’t even know our first names.

Very occasionally, a student will see me in public and call out my name. I know before I see who is shouting that they are my student. Just hearing someone shout “Hey, Ms. Norman” puts me immediately into teacher mode, even in the middle of the grocery store.

I like Ms. Norman. I like my classroom and I like who I am in it. I have carefully curated the furniture (spray painted funky colors) and the posters (MLK, Mother Theresa, Ghandi), just as I have carefully curated the persona that is Ms. Norman. In fact, sometimes I wish Abby could be a little more like her. Ms. Norman is always in charge. Abby, not so much. Ms. Norman may not always have the answers, but she knows where to find them. Abby doesn’t even know the right questions to ask half the time. Ms. Norman takes no crap, not from anyone. Ms. Norman handles her business so well that she only has to write an office referral for discipline once a year. Abby takes a lot more crap and does way more freaking-out-about than handling of the business.

I know exactly who I am in my classroom, and my students know what to expect. I will yell a little when you turn in a paper late, but I will let you turn it in. I will just give you a dirty look for saying a swear word, but I will not tolerate you saying unkind things to the other students. My classroom speaks to this. I have a giant hand-painted sign where you would expect the clock to hang that says BE KIND. My bean-bag chairs speak to my desire for kids to be comfortable in my room. My giant piles speak to my general disorganization. Even that flaw Ms. Norman is comfortable with.

After almost ten years in the classroom, I am considering trying my hand at something else. I am not sure quite yet if this is a phase, or if I really am ready to leave. As I contemplate the possibility of not being a teacher anymore I think about how there won’t be a place to hang the posters I have so carefully picked and laminated. What in the world will I do with eight bean-bag chairs?

Without a classroom, I also wonder what will happen to Ms. Norman. Will I ever need to be able to shout down 35 kids in 15 seconds or less? Will I maintain the ability to simultaneously read a passage aloud and confiscate a cell phone? Will I remember all the dirty jokes in Romeo and Juliet or be able to recite whole pieces of Of Mice and Men without looking? These are all things Ms. Norman does very well.

I have been surprised at how lost I feel even thinking about leaving the classroom, the loss that I feel, the uncertainty. Can the best parts of Ms. Norman, of myself, live on if there is no classroom for her to reside, no plaque with her name, telling the world she belongs here?

*   *   *   *   *

Abby“Learning from Ms. Norman” was written by Abby Norman. Abby lives and loves in the city of Atlanta. She swears a lot more than you would think for a public school teacher and mother of two under three. She can’t help that she loves all words. She believes in champagne for celebrating everyday life, laughing until her stomach hurts and telling the truth, even when it is hard, maybe especially then. You can find her blogging at accidentaldevotional and tweeting at @accidentaldevo. Abby loves all kinds of Girl Scout cookies and literally burning lies in her backyard fire pit.

Never a Bridesmaid

Posted on by under Guest, Role & Place

I crouched in the grass, twisting at an unnatural angle. I was trying to capture the texture of the line of bridesmaid dresses up close. I looked up for a moment, taking in the bridesmaids’ up-dos and powdered cheeks. Their eyes were on the main photographer Vanessa, who I spent three summers shooting weddings alongside. She told prospective brides that we were a good team because she saw the big picture and I focused on the details.

I’ve always loved weddings. In middle and high school, I was the pseudo little sister to several newly affianced women. I attended cake tastings, and helped pick out (and assemble) invitations.

Later, when my friends started getting married, I made sure to insert myself into the conversations early, sometimes bearing bridal magazines. Although I’d never have admitted it, I wanted to be a bridesmaid. I wanted a central role at a wedding, one where I was chosen.

Actually, I was a bridesmaid once. My mom’s birth-dad married his third wife and they chose their grandchildren for attendants. At 13, I was the oldest member of the bridal party, yet my title was Junior Bridesmaid. I was greatly disturbed by the “Junior.”

My dress was periwinkle blue with cap sleeves, and I wore ivory shoes with little pearl beads on the velcro buckles. On the day of the wedding, we all went to get our hair done. It was the first time I had been in a salon. My feet swung high above the floor in the stylist’s chair. She began to curl my hair in ringlets, as if I were getting ready for a dance recital. I wondered if the burning sensation at the top of my head was normal. The stylist was chatting with my grandmother-ish-to-be as she worked her way across my head.

At last, I couldn’t stand the pain any more. “Excuse me,” I said in a small voice. “I think I’m burning.”

“Oh no,” she said, quickly uncurling her iron. I began to feel relief, along with a dull throbbing, but I couldn’t quite relax into that chair again.

The centerpiece of that wedding was a sort-of-cousin who delighted the congregation by performing an interpretive dance during the ceremony.

Many years have passed between that little girl in the periwinkle dress and the person I am today. Still, it’s the only bridesmaid dress I’ve ever worn. It’s still the closest I’ve been to a wedding.

As I got older, I found that weddings turned from a day of gaiety and celebration, to one of pressure and stress. I began to accept invitations based on the presence of an open bar. I learned to dread the secret looks between the members of the wedding party, and between the bride and groom. It was as if I was always just on the outside of a secret intimacy, regardless of my closeness to the bride or groom in other circumstances.

243954_1367100715543_4777805_oSo I put a camera between myself and the action. With my credentials as a second photographer, I could roam the wedding at will. I was there during the tearful champagne toast just before the bride climbed into her dress. I was there the first time a proud father saw his grown up daughter as a bride. I caught the maid of honor as she squeezed the bride’s hand, and watched the groomsmen take shots of tequila before the ceremony.

No one batted an eye as I sidled up to the cake, taking in its layers and leaning in for a close-up. No one challenged me as I climbed to a high balcony to better capture the first kiss. It could have been my wedding uniform: I always wore black, on duty. But I prefer to think that I had achieved my goal at last. I no longer stuck out. I belonged.

 *   *   *   *   *

Strickland“Never a Bridesmaid” was written by Cara Strickland. Cara has lived in San Diego, California, London, England, and Upland, Indiana. Once, in college, she wrote an essay saying that she was from Narnia. She currently lives in Spokane, WA, where she is a writer, blogger, editor, and food critic. She almost always finds a way to write about food.

What to wear to the mall

Posted on by under Guest, Role & Place

Moving South is unbecoming on me. Or it is my becoming. I’m not sure. For the first time in my life, I care about what I wear to the mall. I make sure to wear matching socks. I make sure I wear make-up. I make sure I have something not too wrinkled on. Sometimes. Most of the time.

I hate the mall.

Or I hate that the people at the mall from whom I am trying to buy goods treat me like I am from the wrong side of the tracks who has no business being in their shiny, ridiculously expensive store filled with things from origins unknown and created by unknown people. What factory did that sweater originate from? Asia? Central America? Do you think it came overseas on a ship and airplane, on a semi? Hello, salesperson, don’t ignore me! Oh, there she goes. She is ignoring me, again.

I live in Durham, North Carolina. It’s quirky, retro, and trying to relive the 90’s in hipster style. Think: the more tattoos and mohawks and vintage clothing the better. Local artisans, food trucks, and community gardens are where Durham pours its resources. It’s hip, it’s entrepreneurial, it’s grungy.

And I fit in. In fact, I’ve mastered the hipster grunge look. I am a mom of two young kids, so I’ve haven’t slept in five years. You might think the “she looks like she just got out of bed” was on purpose, but no. I probably forgot to brush my hair because I had to chase my daughter around the house in order to brush hers. Except when I go to the super suburban, high end shopping mall twenty minutes south of the gritty, brick, tobacco warehouses called Downtown Durham, then I try to brush my hair, brush my teeth, and wear my Sunday best.

I grew up outside the Washington, DC area where BRAINS were what always mattered, not whether you wore Lululemon or Kate Spade or Tory Burch. Growing up, I was told, “who you are” is more important than what you look like. And so I cower, when women at the make-up counter with flawless but obviously overdone makeup say things like,”I treat anybody who comes in here the same. No matter what they look like.”

IMG_3197Are you talking to me? What are you talking to me about? What impression am I giving you as I try to keep my four year old from trying on every single lip-gloss? Do I look like a strange hobo? Is there a reason you are pointing out your graciousness? Do I look that bad? I did not try on purpose. Honest. Umm, here, please take my hard earned money, and give me some tinted moisturizer for sensitive skin. Hush. Please don’t talk anymore. You are giving me a complex, over-dressed salesperson.

The mall makes me vain. It makes me feel inferior. Perhaps that is the marketing strategy: Make people feel so unfabulous that they have to buy fabulous, unnecessary objects to make them feel better. Except, I just I feel unworthy. The mall has become a place where I feel my unworthiness. And it’s unbecoming on me. I turn into a grouch, my neuroses and angst come out, then in defense I become a snob. They judge, so I judge. It’s a terrible game.

So I am here, on the border of the conservative south, where the mall is located, and a liberal academic town, where my favorite coffee shops, farmer’s markets, and community spaces are. In one, I am secure and know myself. In the other, I am puzzled by my insecurities and apparent weakness for vanity.

And then there is God.

I hear Him and his strong sturdy voice, reminding me He is the God of every place. He speaks, almost with a chuckle, “Child, you are my child. Let those microaggressions roll off your back. The mall is not my kingdom. It does not recognize you as I recognize you. I am the source of all you need. The mall, the mall is mammon. You don’t need to worship at its throne. Durham, Durham has it flaws, too. You know that. You know that the world is filled with people in need…of Me.”

And later, on the car ride home with my bags of materialistic items from China, Mexico and Haiti, I realize that it’s okay to feel uncomfortable at the mall. I should feel different. I should feel like an outsider and befuddled and an imposter. Because that is what I am. I was not made for that world—I don’t want it to “become me.”  And I don’t want Durham to “become me,” either.

I want something else to become me.

I want grace to become me. I want God’s grace to become me. I want to wear that no matter where I am, whether I am enjoying a beer with tatted friends or buying a pair shoes with people decked out in Burberry. God is the God of Comfort and Discomfort, and the power of His grace is found in the tension between them.

*   *   *   *   *
Photo on 4-19-14 at 3.52 PM“What to Wear to the Mall” was written by Sarah Hudspeth. Sarah is a mom of two kids full of life and mischief, a wife of a grad student, and a middle school math teacher to students with learning needs. Coffee is her favorite, as are books, Twitter, and any day spent outside. Sarah lives in Durham, North Carolina, and eats extremely well due to food trucks, her garden, and the eat-everything-local movement.

Pioneer Blood

Posted on by under Guest, Home & Place

Home was dusty. Home smelled like cows. Home was New Mexico.

I grew up in one of those small towns where everybody knows your name. Several generations of my family have called this area in the middle of nowhere “home,” even back when it was just a train stop in the desert. I’ve been enthusiastically greeted by people who have known not only me, but my mom since she was in diapers. Six degrees of separation? No one needs that many to find someone you grew up with, dated or are related to. There is a tangible connection between neighbors when anything exciting happens: a new restaurant opens, someone famous wanders through or a school board meeting takes a dramatic turn. There is a sense of unity as we participate in the same traditions as our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents before us, even rituals as simple as dressing in purple to support high school sports every game day.

sunThere’s nothing quite like the community of a small town to build a runway for a dreamer to fly, however. Like my pioneer ancestors before me, I heard the call of the unknown and unexplored. Home was far too confining. I ached with it.

Home then became Baylor, a Baptist university in the middle of Texas. Home was green and gold. Home was red brick and late nights and racing to beat newspaper deadlines.

At this Christian journalism school, I learned to investigate everything. My identity. My relationships. My world. My Bible. If faith is a prism, college threw the light in a different way. I learned a group of people can become your family and then, when their season is done, leave you haunted by their impact. I learned healing can come through quick prayer, but it can also come through years of pain and doctors and hard-earned revelations. I learned a home you choose, even a temporary one, can be a sanctuary. I learned running away from home doesn’t mean your problems stay behind. I discovered belonging and calling and true freedom that isn’t tied to a place, but a Truth.

But college was a training ground, a preparation for the next season yet to come, and in the middle of all this searching for both freedom and belonging, I stumbled upon still another home. I studied abroad at Oxford and found England to feel more home-like than anything I knew. I had studied their history, their culture and the great literature of this little island. Walking down those ancient streets and experiencing Britain for myself was like falling in love – terrifying in its vast newness while welcoming me in as if I had always belonged there. A completely foreign place and culture, and yet, I fit. A puzzle piece snapping into place. It was like nowhere else in my life of traveling and exploring. The loneliness of being far away was nothing new – in fact, it was far sweeter – because I have known the loneliness of being out of place in the midst of familiarity. Out of the two, I’d take the loneliness of adventure any day.

But I wasn’t meant to stay in Britain, not just now anyway, though I’ve been back and will always keep returning, no matter how short the stay.

So now home is a busy suburb in Alabama. Home is a church in a warehouse. Home is mixing up the words “friends” and “family” because here, all are welcome.

Home is a quiet apartment, where the clock can sometimes tick loud in the dark and the battle for joy is tangibly present. But I’ve long since found home to be unrestrained to a physical location. Home is a journey, a path that meanders and crisscrosses and exists in several places at once. A hometown, a homecoming, a home-like feeling, a home address… all of these are simultaneous and equally valid, though still ultimately lacking.

I never really understood this enduring homesickness until I read it described by C.S. Lewis:

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

Though I cannot see it yet, I know the reason I’ll always be searching, a wanderlust girl with pioneer blood. I have yet to make it Home.

*   *   *   *   *   

jenna“Pioneer Blood” was written by Jenna DeWitt. Jenna is the managing editor of MORF Magazine, a resource for youth ministers, mentors and parents of teenagers. She has a bachelor’s in journalism from Baylor University, where she edited a bunch of student publications, became a fan of C.S. Lewis and drank Dr Pepper floats with Blue Bell ice cream like a true Texan. She currently lives in Birmingham, Alabama, though if you ask her where home is, she will tell you “it’s complicated.” You can find her on Twitter @jenna_dewitt and on Tumblr at jennadewitt.tumblr.com.

 

 

Home Church

Posted on by under Guest, Home & Place

The reasons we chose the church weren’t particularly flattering. It was close, under five minutes from our house if traffic was favorable. They had a pretty thin looking praise team, so if they’d have us, we would both be able to play. The pastor seemed nice and the sermons didn’t strain my liberal sensitivities too hard. And it was relatively anonymous, so we didn’t feel the scarlet A’s branding us every time we entered the sanctuary.

We were married now, but that hadn’t always been the case. We had attended church together for five years, but in the before days, we had been married to other people, and lots of people in the church community of our town knew it.

countrychurchIn my previous life, when I had changed churches, I always knew immediately when I found my new church home. In those instances, there was a simple feeling of belonging. Even if it hadn’t made sense to me why I felt that way, I could tell when a new congregation was home.

But I didn’t have that feeling here.

I told my husband I’d probably feel more at home when I started serving in the congregation. I told him that when I was giving something of myself to the church, I would get that feeling of belonging. It wouldn’t just be the church that I went to, but it would become my church.

We never wanted our past to come to the surface and catch the leadership of the church unawares, so we had lunch with the pastors, one of us gripping the leg of the other who was telling their part of the story, trying to send strength to each other through leg compressions. Grace was extended, and we were invited to join the team of musicians. We had our first rehearsal with the team. We played our first Sunday, almost a year to the day from the last time we had played together, and it was a joy-filled experience. Everything was coming together in the best possible way.

And still the feeling of “home” evaded me.

I didn’t know what was wrong with me. What was holding me back from experiencing that sense of belonging in this place where we had been shown so much grace and love? Why couldn’t I feel at home when I was being embraced by those I worshiped with each week?

I turned these questions over in my mind and realized that the only thing holding me back was me. I didn’t feel at home because I wasn’t allowing myself to feel at home.

In my mind, I heard the voices that had told me I wasn’t welcome in church any more. Heard the voices that told me that I was a distraction. Heard the voices that told me that I didn’t belong.

Instead of seeing the ways we were being accepted, I kept expecting rejection. I waited for the shame I felt to be reflected back in the words or actions of others. I listened to the voices in my head instead of the voices of those right in front of me.

I wanted to feel at home, so I made a different choice.

When the voices in my head started telling me that I didn’t belong, I started looking for the ways that my church was helping me to belong. I thought about parking lot conversations after services. I thought about late night dinners at Burger King. I thought about hugs offered when we explained why the baby dedication service was too painful for us to attend. I thought of all of the ways that the church I was attending was becoming my church.

And it finally felt like home.

 *   *   *   *   *

424033_10151308414006236_662319879_n (1)“Home Church” was written by Alise Chaffins. Alise is a wife, a mother, an eater of soup, and a lover of Oxford commas. You can generally find her sitting behind a keyboard of some kind: playing or teaching the piano, writing at her laptop, or texting her friends a random movie quote. Alise lives in West Virginia and blogs at knittingsoul.com