Five White Ballerinas

Last week, Amelia came home with a proposition for an art contest: draw a picture of what "community" means to you. As a first grader, she needed a little more clarity on the concept. So, over an afternoon snack of apples and Life cereal, we had a chat. I explained to her that a community is a bunch of people who spend time together because they have something in common. We talked about the differences and similarities that can exist within a community and how these differences make our communities stronger. And we talked about the different communities in her life: school, dance class, Sunday school, church, our neighborhood, and our families. And we talked about Jesus and how Jesus showed us how to live in community with each other. We talked and talked and talked. It was a great teachable moment, and it really made an impact on her. Yep, it sure did.

She rushed to her room to begin her art project. She got it. I was so proud. In my mind's eye I pictured the masterpiece she would undoubtedly create, thanks to my brilliant and politically correct interpretation of community: several people, each a different ethnicity, holding hands and encircling a globe (drawn to scale, with perfect perspective). And also Jesus, maybe holding it all in his hands or something. Like, the accurate middle-eastern, first century Jesus, not the blue-eyed, perfectly-manicured-beard and white robe Jesus. This experience, igniting a deeper understanding of the world around her, would inspire a career as an international diplomat, and undoubtedly a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize (at least). 

Ten minutes later, Amelia returned with her art project: five caucasian ballerinas (though I will concede, all with different color hair) in tutus at ballet class. A community of ballerinas. Little, white ballerinas. At dance class. We did talk about that, after all. It's just not really what I had in mind. And then, finished with her study in Crayola on the concept of community, she asked if she could go draw with sidewalk chalk at her friend's house down the street. I nodded my head, got out my Crockpot, and started dinner. Because what else can you do when your hopes for your child's future in international diplomacy has been dashed against the cliff of homogeny? You make Crockpot lasagna and go on with your life.

Flash forward to this evening. A Wednesday, we had rushed from swim lessons to our weekly church dinner and Bible study. We began this mid-week fellowship shortly after the tornado, and invited the volunteers who were staying in our building that particular week to share a meal with our church family. We had groups from all over the country with us every week up through late October, but since the then, and through the winter, Wednesday nights have been mostly the same handful of faithful church members. Well, tonight, the girls, Sam, and I straggled in fifteen minutes late and were met by an awesome sight. The fellowship hall was filled to capacity with a combination of our church family, volunteers from Pennsylvania and Indiana, and a bunch of college kids who traded in their Spring Break for a hammer and a pair of gloves. Every single table was filled and there was a line to the door. Amazing.

We don't sit with our church friends on the nights when our volunteers show up. We share a meal with our guests, and we get to hear about where they have been working, and what they have been doing in our community. We hear about their hometowns and their children, and their grandchildren, and they want to know about our lives here in Joplin. And it feels good to share these things. Over a meal. With people who have come to help because they love Jesus. And who, because they love Jesus, love us, a bunch of people they don't know. We may have nothing else in common except for this, and this is enough. Community.

Tonight, as we marveled at all the people in the dinner line, Amelia turned to me and said, "Mommy, church dinners are my favorite community." She gets it. And not because I talked, talked, talked about it (which I like to do, especially when it comes to my children), but because she has experienced the richness of true community at work.

And shouldn't that always be the way? I think so. Less talking. More loving, more experiencing, more being. The latter are the things that build bridges: from isolation to community, from grief to comfort, from cynicism to faith, from death to life. Talking can help, too. But not without the other things first. I'm convinced of that.

But I forget sometimes.

And tonight it took a seven year old, some white ballerinas, and a roomful of volunteers to remind to talk less, and be more. For that, I am thankful because my heart is full.

Oh, and Amelia, church dinners are my favorite community, too.

As it Was and Ever Shall Be...

"For how can one know color in perpetual green, and what good is warmth without cold to give it sweetness?" 

-John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley

 To me, snow is a kind of miracle. It comes stealthily while we sleep, covering this entire broken city in a blanket of glistening white. There is a deep peacefulness that accompanies each snowfall, and something miraculous about the way it changes a landscape. The barren lifelessness of winter, the grimy streets and uneven sidewalks, the withered flowers and mangled trees, are redeemed in the beauty of a clean blanket of snow. As quickly as it appears, it is gone. We are left once again with the cold lifelessness of winter; we are left yearning for redemption.

And our yearning is always fulfilled through the miracle of spring. The daffodils, dormant since the previous year, push their way through the once frozen soil, and announce the promise of better days. We can put away our winter coats, take a walk in the fresh air, and enjoy the sweetness of green grass and budding trees. Sweet, because we have yearned for it through the long, difficult winter. Sweeter still, because it is temporary; the warmth will fade, the leaves will fall, the beauty of spring and the fullness of summer will inevitably retreat to the emptiness of late autumn.

And so it is again and again.

And again.

Life.

Death.

Rebirth.

Each season brings with it a yearning for the next.

Each season has its own redemption.

Again and again.

And again.