Resilience
Note: I started writing this just before the Boston Marathon bombings. I quit this post the day the bombs exploded. What I had written felt cheap and I didn't really know how to end it. Well, I share it now and am struck by the fact that sometimes the answers we travel in search of were with us all along the way. I don't know if they are thoughts that satisfy all, certainly they didn't satisfy me at the time, but I humbly offer them anyway.
We live in an area of New England that is just the slightest bit tired. Our region had its hay-day at the advent of the American Industrial Revolution. In fact, the first textile mill is not that far from our home. In its day, our region drew people from rural areas looking for a more urban, lucrative living than farming. Duplexes and apartment buildings dating as far back as the 1800s pepper the landscape; rivers and canals surround us; and sprawling, tumble-down mills that once produced beautiful fabrics stand at crooked attention like heroes of a bygone era.
When I first moved to this area at a young twenty-two, one of my students looked at me one day, a puzzled look on her sweet face and said, "Miss Korber. Of all the places you could have come after you graduated from college, you picked here?"
"I guess I did," I answered.
"You're not going to stay here are you?" she asked and added, "I am getting out of here as soon as I can. You should, too."
Nothing like an adolescent "Welcome to the neighborhood"!
Every once in a while an investor comes in and adopts one of our tumble down mills or crumbling mansions and rejuvenates it. The effect is remarkable. We catch a glimpse of what these edifices once stood for--stately grandeur, new money, and the American Dream. It's a proud day when our little town gets a much needed facelift in the form of a restored landmark. Anyone can throw up a new strip mall, but restoration is a painstaking labor of love.
I was thinking about this today while trying to wash our windows; they're as old as the house, and in some cases, the wood frames are crumbling around glass scratched by years of scraping and painting. I've often thought new windows would give the place a face lift. But in addition to being expensive, I'm kind of attached to our drafty view of the world. There's nothing a soft cloth and a little water and vinegar can't improve, even if getting at the whole window results in muscling frames up and down warped tracks and making countless trips in and out of the house. A day of washing windows always leaves my hands dry, cracked, and bleeding.
Yesterday, my friend M and I took our kids to a favorite state park. We chatted in between calling to and chasing wandering feet, pulling them back into our safety net whenever they strayed too close to the canal or too far into the trees without us. K was uncontainable as he ran through new grass laughing and waving and getting as far away from us as possible without getting caught. I watched him running after his sister and her friend and marveled. "Who would have thought?" Two years ago M and I cried on the phone together when I shared the news of K's diagnosis. Not knowing what the future held for him or us, my heart bowed under the weight of what I thought we had lost. Now my vision fills with all we've been given. One year ago, M laid her sweet newborn daughter to rest and even as the pain of that is still so fierce, I turn from chasing a small boy to see her behind me rocking their third and newest little in the carriage. That little face, that shock of thick, black hair, that sweet, pouty mouth--we could drink her in all day.
And recently, my Nana celebrated her birthday (I won't say which one!). I called a couple of weeks late to wish her a belated happy. She was home when I called, which of course, sounds unremarkable unless you knew that less than a year ago she was living at a rehabilitation center recovering from a severe hip fracture. Before that birthday call, the last time we had spoken was when she was still there recovering. At first, doctors were uncertain if she would be able to make a full recovery, if she would ever walk again, if she would be able to return home. And though the trauma of the fall has made movement more challenging, she has managed to accomplish all three. She told me on the phone once that the experience had changed everything about the way she viewed life. She realized, she said, that she is so blessed and that that our greatest treasure is family. She told me that when she was most tired she looked at the picture of her great grandchildren and decided that if our little K could endure day after day of therapy to help him walk, she could do it too. She told me that she was trying to make a difference while she was there--such a sad place, she said. So many people suffering and alone. "I try to talk to the ones who never have visitors. I try to keep them company and listen to their stories."
So much resilience to appreciate. The word "resilience" dates back to the 1620s; it comes from the Latin word resilire which means "to rebound, recoil," (from re- "back" + salire "to jump, leap"). To leap back. We Americans value the power of resilience so much so that I think we sometimes miss out on the subtle ways in which suffering, tragedy, trauma, any turn of events change us forever. Our town will never look like it did in its glory days, my heart will forever be stamped by K's diagnosis and all that it means, our friends especially will never stop grieving their deep loss in this life, and my Nana will probably not regain her full strength without difficult and continued effort. So while we may rebound from setbacks, while we may rejoice again after a season of weeping, we are not the same people we were before this broken world's weight fell heavy on our shoulders. No.
Maybe that's why I like our drafty windows just the way they are. You can't just go around replacing wear and age with new. The house wouldn't be the same. Psalm 30 may remind us that "weeping lasts for a night but rejoicing comes in the morning," but I don't think that means we wake up after a season of mourning to find ourselves unchanged by the dark nights. We bounce back. We are resilient. The gift is in where we land. Not in the same places we were, but hopefully further ahead, closer to the really Real--because there are the circumstances that bind us to this dusty ground (the real) and then there is the truth of what all that means. Being here. Living in brokenness. And thriving in spite of it. The really Real. And knowing that there are no life-trial quotas, no pain deductibles, no get out of jail free cards to be had, I'll take a life lived close to the marrow over just scraping by. I'll take truth.
When Jesus rose from the grave, he returned to his disciples in full body. He was completely restored. But Thomas did touch the wounded side of God and his hands did feel the scar tissue rough and thick. He did hold God's hands to run his own over once-pierced flesh. Even God, in his suffering, is forever changed. The scars remain.
And yet we are new.
Two days ago I went out to eat with two new friends and didn't we sit at that booth for five hours straight talking and laughing and crying. Across the table LB told the story of holding her little boy in her arms and knowing-just-knowing that something wasn't right and her eyes filled with water at the pain of the memory. KT shared the things people say that still sting us deep. But mostly we laughed for the sheer joy and love our sons give us every day. And it was all so muddled and mixed and full--just full. And that's resilience. When the pain and the laughter can live side-by-side and you can turn to the new mom in the same place you were and you can promise her, promise her with everything in you that joy comes in the morning. And you can see and hear that even if she doesn't feel it, she trusts it will come to pass. Resilience hangs its hat on that kind of hope. The hope that knows we won't ever be the same. We'll be better. Stronger. Closer to the things that matter.
Thank God there is grace enough to heal our pain. There is grace is enough to make us new. Even if new means different, even if new means older, even if new means finding the strength to live with loss every day of our lives.
I used to rail at God about why and how he could let good people like you and me suffer in this world, and why some of us seem to get more than others. I still ask that question from time to time, but more often I find myself asking something a little different. This life, it's really messy. What we do here and with this one life we're given matters. There is always a choice--we can stick our feet in the mud and rail against a God we can't see and sometimes don't hear. Or we can pick our feet up, dripping and oozy with the muck of all that binds us to the pain in this world and ask this question, "How do we restore?" Not just our own broken hearts, but ALL broken hearts. What work is there for us to do in the world? This is not a question to ask if you want things to stay shiny and safe and black and white. This is a question to ask when you want to live close to the really Real, to people's hearts, to the Creator's purpose.
So while I could spend a lifetime trying to surround myself with things that are already perfect, I think I prefer to live in the really Real where pain is pain and mercy always wins.
We live in an area of New England that is just the slightest bit tired. Our region had its hay-day at the advent of the American Industrial Revolution. In fact, the first textile mill is not that far from our home. In its day, our region drew people from rural areas looking for a more urban, lucrative living than farming. Duplexes and apartment buildings dating as far back as the 1800s pepper the landscape; rivers and canals surround us; and sprawling, tumble-down mills that once produced beautiful fabrics stand at crooked attention like heroes of a bygone era.
When I first moved to this area at a young twenty-two, one of my students looked at me one day, a puzzled look on her sweet face and said, "Miss Korber. Of all the places you could have come after you graduated from college, you picked here?"
"I guess I did," I answered.
"You're not going to stay here are you?" she asked and added, "I am getting out of here as soon as I can. You should, too."
Nothing like an adolescent "Welcome to the neighborhood"!
Every once in a while an investor comes in and adopts one of our tumble down mills or crumbling mansions and rejuvenates it. The effect is remarkable. We catch a glimpse of what these edifices once stood for--stately grandeur, new money, and the American Dream. It's a proud day when our little town gets a much needed facelift in the form of a restored landmark. Anyone can throw up a new strip mall, but restoration is a painstaking labor of love.
I was thinking about this today while trying to wash our windows; they're as old as the house, and in some cases, the wood frames are crumbling around glass scratched by years of scraping and painting. I've often thought new windows would give the place a face lift. But in addition to being expensive, I'm kind of attached to our drafty view of the world. There's nothing a soft cloth and a little water and vinegar can't improve, even if getting at the whole window results in muscling frames up and down warped tracks and making countless trips in and out of the house. A day of washing windows always leaves my hands dry, cracked, and bleeding.
Yesterday, my friend M and I took our kids to a favorite state park. We chatted in between calling to and chasing wandering feet, pulling them back into our safety net whenever they strayed too close to the canal or too far into the trees without us. K was uncontainable as he ran through new grass laughing and waving and getting as far away from us as possible without getting caught. I watched him running after his sister and her friend and marveled. "Who would have thought?" Two years ago M and I cried on the phone together when I shared the news of K's diagnosis. Not knowing what the future held for him or us, my heart bowed under the weight of what I thought we had lost. Now my vision fills with all we've been given. One year ago, M laid her sweet newborn daughter to rest and even as the pain of that is still so fierce, I turn from chasing a small boy to see her behind me rocking their third and newest little in the carriage. That little face, that shock of thick, black hair, that sweet, pouty mouth--we could drink her in all day.
And recently, my Nana celebrated her birthday (I won't say which one!). I called a couple of weeks late to wish her a belated happy. She was home when I called, which of course, sounds unremarkable unless you knew that less than a year ago she was living at a rehabilitation center recovering from a severe hip fracture. Before that birthday call, the last time we had spoken was when she was still there recovering. At first, doctors were uncertain if she would be able to make a full recovery, if she would ever walk again, if she would be able to return home. And though the trauma of the fall has made movement more challenging, she has managed to accomplish all three. She told me on the phone once that the experience had changed everything about the way she viewed life. She realized, she said, that she is so blessed and that that our greatest treasure is family. She told me that when she was most tired she looked at the picture of her great grandchildren and decided that if our little K could endure day after day of therapy to help him walk, she could do it too. She told me that she was trying to make a difference while she was there--such a sad place, she said. So many people suffering and alone. "I try to talk to the ones who never have visitors. I try to keep them company and listen to their stories."
So much resilience to appreciate. The word "resilience" dates back to the 1620s; it comes from the Latin word resilire which means "to rebound, recoil," (from re- "back" + salire "to jump, leap"). To leap back. We Americans value the power of resilience so much so that I think we sometimes miss out on the subtle ways in which suffering, tragedy, trauma, any turn of events change us forever. Our town will never look like it did in its glory days, my heart will forever be stamped by K's diagnosis and all that it means, our friends especially will never stop grieving their deep loss in this life, and my Nana will probably not regain her full strength without difficult and continued effort. So while we may rebound from setbacks, while we may rejoice again after a season of weeping, we are not the same people we were before this broken world's weight fell heavy on our shoulders. No.
Maybe that's why I like our drafty windows just the way they are. You can't just go around replacing wear and age with new. The house wouldn't be the same. Psalm 30 may remind us that "weeping lasts for a night but rejoicing comes in the morning," but I don't think that means we wake up after a season of mourning to find ourselves unchanged by the dark nights. We bounce back. We are resilient. The gift is in where we land. Not in the same places we were, but hopefully further ahead, closer to the really Real--because there are the circumstances that bind us to this dusty ground (the real) and then there is the truth of what all that means. Being here. Living in brokenness. And thriving in spite of it. The really Real. And knowing that there are no life-trial quotas, no pain deductibles, no get out of jail free cards to be had, I'll take a life lived close to the marrow over just scraping by. I'll take truth.
When Jesus rose from the grave, he returned to his disciples in full body. He was completely restored. But Thomas did touch the wounded side of God and his hands did feel the scar tissue rough and thick. He did hold God's hands to run his own over once-pierced flesh. Even God, in his suffering, is forever changed. The scars remain.
And yet we are new.
Two days ago I went out to eat with two new friends and didn't we sit at that booth for five hours straight talking and laughing and crying. Across the table LB told the story of holding her little boy in her arms and knowing-just-knowing that something wasn't right and her eyes filled with water at the pain of the memory. KT shared the things people say that still sting us deep. But mostly we laughed for the sheer joy and love our sons give us every day. And it was all so muddled and mixed and full--just full. And that's resilience. When the pain and the laughter can live side-by-side and you can turn to the new mom in the same place you were and you can promise her, promise her with everything in you that joy comes in the morning. And you can see and hear that even if she doesn't feel it, she trusts it will come to pass. Resilience hangs its hat on that kind of hope. The hope that knows we won't ever be the same. We'll be better. Stronger. Closer to the things that matter.
Thank God there is grace enough to heal our pain. There is grace is enough to make us new. Even if new means different, even if new means older, even if new means finding the strength to live with loss every day of our lives.
I used to rail at God about why and how he could let good people like you and me suffer in this world, and why some of us seem to get more than others. I still ask that question from time to time, but more often I find myself asking something a little different. This life, it's really messy. What we do here and with this one life we're given matters. There is always a choice--we can stick our feet in the mud and rail against a God we can't see and sometimes don't hear. Or we can pick our feet up, dripping and oozy with the muck of all that binds us to the pain in this world and ask this question, "How do we restore?" Not just our own broken hearts, but ALL broken hearts. What work is there for us to do in the world? This is not a question to ask if you want things to stay shiny and safe and black and white. This is a question to ask when you want to live close to the really Real, to people's hearts, to the Creator's purpose.
So while I could spend a lifetime trying to surround myself with things that are already perfect, I think I prefer to live in the really Real where pain is pain and mercy always wins.