Translate

Sunday, May 29, 2016

The Perfect Wedding


My goddaughter Shannon got married May 22nd, in a beautiful and sweet ceremony in Lafayette, Indiana. She was gorgeous, he was handsome. Neither seemed nervous or overwhelmed with what was happening. They seemed ready to enjoy the day, but also understood that while this was fun and special and sacred, it was just a step towards the reality of a successful marriage.

Shannon's grandfather Swenson officiated and was the perfect blend of warm humor, words of wisdom, and sweet encouragement. He delivered the homily and prayed for them. They spoke the vows they each wrote especially for the day.

Their siblings Susan and Jonathan, were their only attendants. Both made wonderful speeches that I think captured the most important point of the day - their families were being expanded and a new family made. And they, and all of the others in attendance (and some who were there in spirit) were going to support and encourage them.

I had attended the wedding of Shannon's parents, Barb and Steve, in Lafayette over 25 years ago. A caravan of our friends traveled through the night from Greensboro to get there, and we were warmly welcomed when we finally arrived by family and friends of the Swensons. They put us up in their homes and fed us, much appreciated by our crowd of perpetually broke 20-somethings.

That same sense of hospitality reigned this time, not just with Barb's family but also with Spencer's. I stayed in the hotel with many of Spencer's family, and didn't seem to scare the mother-of-the-groom Sherri when I saw her in the hall and said "Aren't you Spencer's mom?" (I'm a Facebook stalker. I know everyone. Almost.) His dad, aunt, and grandmothers were all as equally friendly as I met them. Because of listening to Shannon over the years, I felt like I knew them.

There are few families I adore as much as the Swensons. Barb has three sisters and one brother, and incredible parents. Having been friends with Barb and Steve for so long, I have gotten to know many of them. They are funny and kind and accept me as if I were a member of the family every time I am around. This trip I not only got introduced to the next two generations, but also got to meet three of Barb's uncles and their wives. I got to hear stories, full of affection and laughter. Dinner conversation was lively and enjoyable and easy.

I got to meet Steve's cousin Tony and his wife and girls, who I have heard about for years but had never met before, I got to spend time with Major Jim Capers, who has become family to the Bradys (and they to him) and is known affectionately as Grandpa C. He is an interesting person, represents the best of career military folk, and as someone who has lost his wife and son, chooses his own family....which includes the Bradys.

I share all this because I think that a great predictor of the success of Shannon and Soencer's marriage is the love that has surrounded both of them all of their lives. They have seen real love, not just party manners or relationships based on only feelings. They have seen people who respect each other and honor each other and are loyal to each other. They have seen people of genuine faith, who live it well. They have seen people who are truly kind, not just to each other but to strangers. They have seen friendships that become family, and relationships that span many years. They have seen strong relationships of all kinds....imperfect people who love perfectly. OK....not all of the time, perhaps...but in a way that exudes grace and graciousness.

Shannon and Spencer will have an unusual first year of marriage. He graduated from college and was commissioned into the Army the weekend before the wedding, and will soon be leaving for the first of quite a few training schools. Shannon will head for Zimbabwe, for a summer program sponsored by their college (William Jewell.)  She will come back to finish her senior year there, where she will student teach and graduate before she joins Spencer at their first duty station in Kentucky.

I remember walking around the neighborhood with Shannon when they were stationed in Kansas for a year when she was a young teenager. We started talking about dating and marriage. I was never the usual godmother, so when she told me of plans to not date in high school (a vow she made with her group of girlfriends) I questioned her about it, as her parents had. Not that we wanted to force her into serious relationships young, but we thought dating at an appropriate age should not be taboo. We felt like making it forbidden fruit may have the opposite effect on the goal and she would not learn the fun of casual dating.

Shannon met Spencer during that time in Kansas (I believe she had already met him at the time of that conversation) and the interest piqued towards the end of their stay. Through the rest of her high school years they maintained a long distance relationship,me still in Kansas and she in North Carolina. When it was time for college, she made the decision to attend William Jewell with him. It wouldn't normally be what I would advise a young girl, but for them it made sense. (Even if she would never be a Carolina alumnus like me and her dad.) They needed to live in the same city to see if the relationship could work....and not tie up many years of their young lives if it was just a romantic notion.

Obviously it worked, and though young they have already endured both togetherness and separations. They have thought about what it would take to build a life together and changed their paths so they would better converge. They have shown more maturity than many adults, but they also retain the youthful spirit of possibilities.

A fairy tale wedding deserves a happily ever after. We know that often it doesn't happen. Like most marriages they will go through the better and the worse. How they maneuver those times together will determine their success. 

The perfect wedding does not guarantee the perfect marriage. But it also doesn't mean you can't make yourself a fairy tale life.

God's best blessings, Shannon and Spencer. You're not in this alone. Grow good.


Saturday, May 14, 2016

On Loving "Them" - The Gross, the Unloving, and the Socially Unacceptable

I had someone question me recently about someone in my life. Someone I love. This person had issues with some things that the person had done in their life. Things about that person's character they thought were wrong. They evidently thought if I heard enough "evidence" I would completely wipe that person out of my life, ostracize them, and make them dead to me. I heard them out...until it made me tired....but it made little difference. I knew some of what they said to be true, didn't believe other things, but overall was just floored by their hate. They, of course, denied hate....but it oozed out of every word. Their words didn't change my mind, except to show me I didn't have the energy for a relationship with this "reporter" right now. But I still love the imperfect person they were reporting on.

It's not the first time this has happened. I seem to get these questions all the time. I hope that unless there is a major shift in our world's thinking, I always do. I hope I love differently. Because I look around at what others call love and it seems like a pale imitation of what I believe the word to be. Not that I always do it perfectly.....in fact, I would call myself quite inadequate....but nevertheless I keep trying.

Look at me and I hope you see me loving a lot of imperfect people. "Sinful" people. People who don't always get it right. Sometimes people who don't even try to get it right. Some who try and try, but always seem to fall short. People with lots and lots of flaws. People who hurt other people, either intentionally or unintentionally. People who don't believe as I do and don't live as I think they should. People who screw up again and again and again. Gross people. Distasteful people. People who are rusty on the outside but shiny on the inside. People who are shiny on the outside but are rusty on the inside. People like you. People like me.

find that we usually weigh the grossness of what others do as worse than anything that we would ever do. Using our own moral compass, which may or may not be in good working order. We look at others and it seems to show us they are dead south, while we are headed north to heaven. We don't consider that maybe we're using faulty equipment or are confused about our destination. That we're looking from the eyes of our own experience, our own goals, our own beliefs, our own strengths. That we're thinking people are all they are ever going to be. That God is done with them. That his priorities for change in their lives match ours. We are arrogant....and using others to avoid looking in the mirror. 

The behavior of others is not my responsibility. I shouldn't even be trying to locate it with my compass. unless it is to help me find my way. Their behavior is not highly contagious unless I choose to engage in risky behavior that makes me vulnerable to "catching the germs". I know people want us to be sinners by association, but I just don't ascribe to that theory. Yes, I do agree you have to be careful of the company you keep, so you don't adopt their negative patterns, ...but I'll work on figuring out when and where I am vulnerable. I don't care if you judge me for how it looks on the outside. My responsibility is to keep a close and open connection with God. He shows me when people are throwing me off course, draining me and where to go for refreshment. It's not always where people think. Sometimes it means I avoid certain folks who call themselves Christian. Sometimes it's time to find a well and drink.

We are people of free will. Our behavior is our behavior, their behavior is theirs. You can blame others, you can describe their grossness in detail, but you never make yourself more pristine when you do that. Oh, you may look better to the throngs of unthinking people around you, who agree with everything you say because it is the most expedient choice, because they also are off base, because they don't live mindfully, or because they are just not paying attention to you and agreeing with everything by rote. But you're just deluding yourself when you listen to them. God knows the truth. Deep down, you do, too. You, and you only, are responsible for your behavior. For your choices. For your sin. I never am. Well, unless I do encourage and entice you to it....but once again that is my issue and has nothing to do with your choice.

If I spend a lot of time focusing on the things that people are doing wrong, I often fail to encourage the things they are doing right. I am not encouraging positive change. And I believe people can change. I also believe there are reasons for what we do, all the time. Sometimes people just don't know any better. Sometimes they aren't self aware. Sometimes they have adopted bad patterns and habits. Sometimes they are overwhelmed to the point of being out of their minds and do stupid things.

Love is not a feeling. Love is a commitment. A vow, of sorts. A word of ongoing action. My definition always goes back to I Corinthians 13. I use it as a checklist to make sure I am really loving people and not just describing how people make me feel. I don't think I am very good at it, but yet I make it a goal.

If I am loving someone, I am patient with them, kind to them, not envious of them, and not boastful about how much better I am than them. I am not too proud to be real with them, not doing things that dishonor them, not thinking just of me (and my wants and needs). I am not getting angry at them easily and I am not keeping lists of their wrongs and bringing them up over and over and over again. I don't get excited when I see them do evil but get really excited when I see them doing good. If I love them I always, always, always protect them, trust them, hope for them, and hang in there for them, even (especially) when it's far easier to give up on them.

I don't usually stay in relationships without purpose or when people don't treat me well. This is not a rule for me, but a guideline....for example, they may actively disrespect me, but I willingly stay for a season to see if I can help them learn something about respecting others. Overall, though, I don't enable bad behavior. Sometimes you have to acknowledge it's bad behavior and you are not the best person to help them "get it". Sometimes there are the folks I must choose to walk away from and love from afar. Sometimes that means I have to put extra energy in praying for that person and waiting and watching for God to change them. But still sometimes I am meant to stand alongside them. Regardless of what others think.

My goal is that when I leave this world I will have learned to love well. I hope I please God with my progress. I hope I don't have much regard for what others think of me (because too often I find that I do). 

Love is not a warm and fuzzy feeling. In fact, if you only love those for whom you have warm and fuzzy feelings, there is not much power in it. If the people in your life only love the perfect sunshine-y you, and you only love them when you are around the perfect sunshine-y them, see it as it is. That's called conditional love. It's a weak love. 

I am after agape love. The kind that loves people "even though". The love that is there even when we are gross, making bad decisions, falling short of the mark, and getting the gossips talking. Loving when they don't necessarily love us back the same way. I hope I continually am learning to actively love others through it all. And loving myself that way. Because that's how God loves....and the kind of love he wants us to demonstrate when he tells us to love him first, and then to love others as ourselves. Let's work on increasing that in our lives. It's a beautiful thing. Even when the blind folk tell us it's not.


Friday, May 6, 2016

One Week

It's been one week. One week since my dear great nephew left this earth. I still feel like I am in a fog. I can function, and have accomplished what I needed to do, but things happen that show me I am not quite myself. My mind, if not kept in check, goes to worry.....and to images of his last minutes, the last seconds. I was not there, yet the images still fill my brain. God does take them away when I ask. I suspect it is me who brings them back.

My niece Sara, his mom, talked about the desire to be invisible when she goes out in public and it really resonated with me. I have felt the same thing. People are both a comfort and a challenge. I want to talk about it, but then I don't want to talk about it. I want normal, but it's not normal. Even a few simple words from certain people will tear my heart out or make me cry. Other times I can remain composed.

Sometimes I just want to scream "Shut up" to some and "Don't you understand what has happened?" to others. But I understand that people are processing it all in their own way. Even those who didn't know him. They want to understand. That they want to help. They are doing the best they can. And as difficult as it is to believe, it has not touched the lives of everyone.

The memorial service was horrible and beautiful. I spent most of it praying for our broken hearts and for the faces I watched around the room. I was with my mom, his great grandmother, and the images that will remain strongest for me are the grieving embrace between her and his paternal grandmother and then watching my mom hugging and holding hands with my brother-in-law's mother, his other great grandmother, as they grieved together. They loved him so much. As my mom drove me to the service she said "I was just talking to Kaelan on my way to pick you up and telling him he was supposed to attend my service, not me his." I think we all have had that particular conversation.

I'll remember the sight of Sara reaching out for her mom, my sister Dana, when she got into her vicinity at the graveside. She saw nothing else at that moment, needed nothing more than her mom's comfort and to give her mom comfort. More beauty.


Sara continues to amaze me. I watch her dogged desire to make sure Kaelan is remembered for what made him unique. I watch her looking out for her daughters and making sure they are OK. I see her writing down what she is thinking, believing that talking about it openly will help people.... hoping that in sharing her thoughts it will help others understand. Knowing that writing about it helps her as it helps me. Our therapy. Even better for us than talking it out, because our brains are so cluttered with thoughts they need the editing of thinking them through to make sense out of them.

I am watching Sara's strength and her brokenness. Her faith and her compassion. Her despair and her humor. Her love for those that he loved....and for those that loved him, even those didn't always love him perfectly. Her lack of blame. Her acceptance of what is. Her pain.

His sisters Sela and Karys. So strong, in this thing that is so hard to process even for adults. Their beauty and their compassion. The way they try to look after their family and each other and all those around them, remaining kind at a time where their emotions must be searing. His stepfather Brian, wanting to make things better for all but heartbroken there is not a lot he can fix this time. My other young nieces and all of his other family members (there are a ton), broken-hearted. His father Keith, walking pain. 

Oh, and all the kids.....his friends. They tore the fabric of my heart. I wanted to hug them all, to touch them all. I am sure I confused a few as I touched them as I walked by. I wanted to connect. They probably think of me as some crazy lady. It won't be the first time someone has thought that....or the last. I wanted to say something to them that would put it all in perspective, but I still haven't found those words yet. I don't think there are words.

The two pastors so very different in outlook and approach, but common in the love they exuded. The music, traditional and untraditional. Beautiful and poignant, all.

Suits and t-shirts, formal and casual. Many people coming together from where they are to pay tribute in their own way. Tears from the weakest of weak to the toughest of tough. Smiles and laughter through the tears as we remember his quirky self.

Crazy weather....storms to sunshine to torrential downpours to rainbows. Almost as if all of heaven was joining us in full force on this day that was an exclamation mark in so many lives. Getting our attention to let us know that a big and powerful God was there for us....in case we be hard-headed. Letting us know that heaven had a new resident that would still shake up the world.
I want to forget, but also remember every detail. One friend urged me to make sure I don't bypass the pain. To make myself go through it. Important advice. Good advice. Terrifying advice. I still want to avoid it. To peal off one layer at a time. I think that's OK. As long as I eventually walk through it.

A week later I am grateful for the thousands, and I know there are thousands, who have prayed for my family. I wish the energy of those prayers could go back in time and change things. But it can't, and as much as I pray I can't stop the pain for those I love most in the world. But one thing I have seen in this week. God is with us, as he was with Kaelan during those last moments of fear and pain, and as he passed over from life to death to life. And we, for 17 years as he was on this earth, and before and beyond, love him. In the midst of the worse pain, joy lives.