Category: community

The Cluttered Table

by Teresa Blythe

Would you look at that? An old 50’s style Formica kitchen table with matching chairs squeezed into a one-car garage–set aside, deemed useless, reduced to nothing more than a plant stand.

That table has a story. It used to be someone’s dinette set. I can see it sitting in any number of kitchens waiting for the family to gather around it and have a meal. I can see a little boy with his schoolbooks spread out on it, doing homework until late at night. Mom probably used it at times to hold her sewing machine so she could make a costume for Halloween. I see cats and dogs begging from underneath it and friends drinking coffee and sharing stories around it.

The kitchen table is an American icon representing our belief in familial love and fellowship. It is so iconic it has been preserved in Norman Rockwell paintings, honored in films like Soul Food and Babette’s Feast, and regularly serves as a set for family based situation comedies on television (think of black-ish, Modern Family, or The Middle). For Christians, the ultimate family table is the site of the Eucharistic banquet — the divine fellowship of God’s children.

Oh, the blessed table. And here this one sits, jammed up and set aside like so much of yesterday’s news. Just taking up precious space.

Why does this image grab me so as I take my daily walk? It must remind me of something in myself that is jammed up, junked up and set out to rust and gather dust.

Maybe it’s a symbol of my own complicity in a culture that collects so much stuff that we become victims of our own affluence. We start to feel like that garage. Or, rather, our lives start to feel like that table and the world like that garage. We are squeezed into jobs that don’t necessarily fit but they pay the bills so we can buy more stuff. We are packed so tightly because we’ve been sold this update and that upgrade and now we don’t have room for it all.

That garage is also how my mind feels after binge-watching television. Story after story after story. Then I fall asleep and dream these cluttered dream-stories based on stories I collected all day long. Where is my story in the midst of all this? My story. Did I inadvertently put it out to the garage to gather dust?

Now is a good time to free that symbolic table. Perhaps loosen up the space between the table and chairs, letting the table breathe in the confines of the garage or move it somewhere less crowded. Give it away to someone whose family needs a table. We can remember the sacramental nature of the table. Gather friends around to laugh and enjoy one another. Tell our stories.

Since finishing seminary 15 years ago, my vocation has been that of a spiritual director–helping people recapture and appreciate their stories and then spotting God’s handiwork in them. Some of these stories are of their life. Some are stories they have heard from popular culture and find illustrative of their life. Some are dreams and visions. But they all say something real about spirituality—that is, our faith lived out in everyday life.

I may never know the facts about that cluttered table I noticed in someone’s garage. But what it evokes in me is eternally true. I need to make space so that my own story will emerge. Unclutter to see how God is living out God’s story in the world.

image credit: Christine Jackowski

Wanna Trade?

by Davin Franklin-Hicks

Some very wise people in my life have said, “If everyone were to throw their problems in the middle of the room and you were able to take any of the problems and leave yours, you would pick yours back up rather than take on someone else’s.” Sorta like the White Elephant gift exchange gone depressingly wrong.

I think there is a tremendous amount of truth in the thought that we would rather have our own stuff instead of someone else’s when we can clearly see the extent of what others carry, ours doesn’t look half bad.

What this exercise would do, if it could really be done, is increase a sense of empathy and understanding for those we walk amongst daily. The crushing weight of worry and anxiety, heartache and loss is ubiquitous. No one gets out of this world without some of that. It is our connection and response to these painful moments and seasons that determine the extent of what we will carry and for how long. We could cliché this reality very easily with such platitudes as: “The only way out is through” or something of that nature. While there is truth to that, I rarely have found that helpful when I am sitting in darkness and hurting. The next step toward freedom seems impossible to take.

I am an isolator. I know I’m not alone there. It’s as though I go into power down mode when difficult feelings or situations rise. I know I’m not alone there, either. And isn’t that ironic? I know I am not alone in feeling utterly alone at times. If that isn’t an awful merry-go-round I don’t know what would be. The isolation that I often retreat into removes connection to people in my life. Every. Single. Time. And then I wonder, where the heck are you people, not realizing that it is me who has gone away. Experiencing painful moments doesn’t have to be so hard. It will likely still be very difficult when encountering these times, but it does not have to be so incredibly lonely and painful when others are around to help us shoulder the burden.

A missionary friend told me a story from her time in S. Africa that often occurs to me, especially when I need it most. She described a man who was carrying a pack that must have weighed over 100 pounds as he walked and walked and walked. He was an older gentleman, with a weathered, tired face. The weight that he was carrying had him hunched over, his torso parallel to the road he was trudging. This friend pulled over and invited to give him a ride. He accepted and got into the bed of the truck. She drove a bit and then saw in her review mirror that he was hunched over still, kneeling in the back of the truck with the weight still tied to his back. She pulled to the side of the road and told him he could take the pack off while they drove. His reply was, “It’s too heavy for your truck. It will break it.”

So we say, without words, but entirely in action: “The weight, it’s too heavy for you, it will break you. I will shoulder the burden alone. I will carry the pain myself. I may accept your kindness of company, but I will keep this weight on my back while I do.” I am not alone here, though I sit feeling alone. When this is reality, there is no sanctuary. When this is the truth we believe, there is often little hope that it could ever change. There is nothing more lonely than being lonely when surrounded by people.

I recently climbed a huge hill, called Tumamoc. I went from a very sedentary existence from the last few years to taking this on. I was accompanied by a dear friend and his two of his sons, who are elementary school age. We consider this friend’s kids to be our nephews and niece. Time with them is always pretty fantastic. We started up the hill and it became quickly apparent that I was going to struggle. Each of them were all geared up and ready, could walk likely twice my pace, but they stayed and accompanied me.

We chatted as we walked. I stopped nearly every chance I got to catch my breath. We were .6 miles away from the top of the hill when I was seriously thinking of throwing in the towel. My friend and his sons walked ahead of me, stopping at the next rest point while I gathered myself 500 ft away. I knew I was so close, but everything hurt. Everything. My breathing was forced and painful. I just wanted to be done. I turned to wave my friend and his kids to come back, but when I turned around I saw something that emboldened my resolve. My nephews were walking back toward me. They each stood on either side of me and the youngest one, only eight years old said, “We’re coming to help you Uncle Davin.” In that moment, there was no way I was not going to finish that hike. No way at all.

The accompaniment of relationship during hard times and hard emotions can seem impossible. There are many messages we receive in our culture that there is little time for grief, there is little time for emotion, there is little time for expressing need. I often buy into that myth. The truth, though, is we are a people who have capacity to love incredibly deeply which means we have the capacity to grieve very deeply. There is room for the love and there is room for the grief, there is room for all of it.

I do not know what problems occurred to you when you read the first paragraph. I do know what problems occurred to me as I wrote it. I also know that the longer we retreat, the longer we hide, the longer we will suffer. Have you ever attempted to take a splinter or cactus out of a child’s finger? They writhe, they yell, they cry even before you get started on this major surgery. And it goes on and on and on, until they settle enough to get it removed. Then it is done in a heartbeat. The more we struggle against what is and the more we refuse to allow others to see what exists below the surface, the more injurious it will be.

I may not want to trade my problems for yours and you likely don’t want to trade yours for mine. I do want us, thought, to unload it on the floor, spread it out, and rest for awhile together. I have a feeling we may even shed some weight of our packs in this process before trekking to our next rest stop.