A Time to Dance, A Time to Mourn

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ~ October 2011

On a couch in a cozy corner of a home in North Portland I sat with Bob and Maxine, both aged over 80 and together for well over half a century. I watched as they held hands and occasionally cried softly through the sermon on suffering Cork shared this past Sunday.

Cork is married to their daughter Sue and this year they celebrate 40 years of marriage. Later this year, Cork will have to bury his love. Sue is near the end of her heroic battle with cancer. Since the notification a few weeks ago, hundreds of people who love Sue and her family are making personal pilgrimages to their home. I am one of them.

After most of the other visitors left, I sat alone with Sue.  She told me how much more real Jesus’s love has felt to her recently. As she unconsciously fiddled with the collar of her night gown, her clear deep blue eyes gleamed as her feeble voice spoke with power words of truth and love. We talked about how she saw and felt Jesus’s love through the kindness of her husband. With the heart of school girl she told me how Cork insisted they celebrate their anniversary this week even though the actual date is in October. He made potato and steak soup. She ate the broth and he ate the potato and steak.

On Saturday, I attended the wedding of two of my friends. These two friends are at the beginning of their journey together in love. Along with those who love them, I danced and laughed and hugged. Hope and love were tangible. On Sunday, during a worship service in a living room with 30 of their friends and family members, I watched Cork stand up from his chair and rub Sue’s now bald head and hold her hand as we sang praise to God. Together with those who love them, I cried and sang and hugged. Faith and love were tangible.

At the beginning and at the end, there is love.  This is the Good News.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
 ~ 1 Corinthians 13:13 NIV

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
 ~ Ecclesiastes 3:1 & 4 NIV

Little Things

I am back on campus as a community advisor for a Christian group at Portland State. Some days, probably like you in your work and daily lives, I have no idea if what I’m doing makes any sense.  But I’m here, trying to figure it out. The “it” being how to care for this neighborhood and love like Jesus does. Love without condition, with patience, with hope. I wrote a memoir that is yet to be published and in one chapter I talk about bringing a team of people down to my hometown after Hurricane Ike to love it like Jesus does.

Cameron, Louisiana ~ March 2009

It’s March 2009 and if culture is defined by details, Cameron’s is abandoned. Folks are back sooner after Ike than Rita so buildings are already cleaned, gutted and being rebuilt, but spring weeds covering derelict ruins leave the impression of abandonment. Prior to our arrival I’d asked Mom to find a place where we could beautify the town. Hurricane Café, a local eatery operating out of a trailer, was located on the concrete slab where the Post Office once stood. There was a 12 foot bed there that hadn’t seen flowers in over three years. Across the driveway there was a matching bed in front of the Bookmobile that was serving as the temporary Library. Our goal is to clean out the beds and put in flowers in four days.

After two major storms these beds hold a number of surprises – pounds of broken glass, four square foot sections of broken brick walls, busted wood and more. Our team of five adults and two preteens keep at it. For a brake, we attack the weeds up and down the empty spaces on Main Street. The string brakes on our weed eater so I walk down to Marine Supply to get more.

“Are you with that group cleaning up down the street?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where y’all from?”

“Oh, I’m originally from here. I’m Paul and Cyndi Sellers’s daughter.”

“I thought you looked familiar. You look just like your mama.”

“I get that a lot. I live in Portland, Oregon now and I brought some friends down with me to help clean up.”

“Well, it looks real nice, what y’all are doing. Thank you for coming. It really means a lot. Y’all coming down here and all.”

“We’re glad to help.”

We aren’t building a building or doing some other grand act. But we are here, doing the many small somethings they haven’t the energy to do and that means a lot to people. Care is sometimes most evident in the details.

So, it’s March 2012 and I've planted myself here, in Portland, Oregon, doing the small somethings, trying to show that I care.