Duty of Delight

She was never too serious to forget what Ruskin called the "duty of delight"… “There is desperate suffering with no prospect of relief. But we would be contributing to the misery and desperation of the world if we failed to rejoice in the sun, the moon, and the stars.” – Dorothy Day

“There has to be a reason to get yourself out of bed every morning,” Laurie explained to me amidst the swampy, mosquito-infested trails of the nearby national park. Laurie- who has worked at this children’s home for over twenty years- had decided to come hiking with me for the morning. I was picking her brain because I was fascinated that she has lasted this long and still seems to have an incredible amount of passion for her job. I asked her if she felt that after twenty years there was enough “hopeful stories” in these kids lives for her to come back to work. And she said of course. Daily she finds a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

We continued on our hike and we talked about the necessity of hope within jobs such as hers. The stories of heartbreak and failure- on either the parent’s or children’s side- could hurt you deeply if you let it. In fact, I think I have been letting those stories get to me. For the past few weeks now I’ve carried them around my shoulders like some waterlogged yoke, ready to pull me down to the floor. It’s not as if I haven’t worked in capacities like this one before, but this time I seem more sensitive to these kid’s stories. Perhaps it’s because I am for the first time really thinking through what God’s promise of healing and redemption has to do with these kid’s lives. And that isn’t easy to think through when healing doesn’t often look like it’s coming around the corner for them.

A friend of mine started to notice the pessimism in me. He said that I was so close to loving fully, yet I was holding back. I knew right away what he meant: I had allowed the burden of “that isn’t fair” get the best of me and was being held back by the sadness I felt for these kids. However, I know that Jesus once asked his disciples to take his yoke upon themselves, for it was easy. He also said that we should cast all of our cares and anxieties to God, because God cares for us. I am called to move out of discouragement and pessimism and into the hopeful promise that God is indeed caring for these children. If I can’t begin to take off my burdens and give them to God (who certainly knows what to do with them way more than I do), then I lose the joyful, lighthearted part of myself that I am quite honestly proud of.

I think Laurie would know a thing or two about the art of letting go and dwelling in hope, seeing as she’s been amidst these sad stories for decades now. As we continued walking through the swampy, eerie trails of the Congaree, I realized that my burdens had become like the mosquitos surrounding me. I couldn’t rid them unless I kept walking: out of the swamp and into the dry, clear air surrounding the tall pines across the field.

“God invites and commands us to put ourselves beside Jesus Christ, who designed himself to assume humanity. He was God, and he made himself a human being. Thus he interested himself in all these great things, and especially in all these small things, that preoccupy us.” –Karl Barth

Kindness

“What I want is… the possibility that kids might one day grow up to be neither the destroyers nor the destroyed. That’s about it. Right now I am living in that hope, running down its hallway and touching the walls on both sides.” –Barbara Kingsolver

“Why are these words important?” I asked the group of ten and eleven-year old girls, referring to the admonition in Ephesians to only use words that build one another up and dispel grace. “Because it’s the Bible. It’s God’s word.” Whew, look at that cookie-cutter answer! These girls must have been taught well in their churches back home. “Yes, that’s true, but why these words? Why only say what builds up and not let those insults out?” They all agreed that insults were “mean,” but they couldn’t say why. I knew they wanted to be loving at all times, but they have been so bruised and hurt in the past that perhaps their insults and attitudes have served for them as a defense against the painful things of this world.

One young girl, however, truly impressed me. In her response she mentioned that insults are hurtful and dangerous because “you start believing that the things people are saying about you are true.” Words on target; from an eleven-year-old. I agreed and then asked the group to raise their hands if they had believed someone’s hurtful words about themselves. Every hand went up. Then I asked them to keep their hands up if they knew deep down in their hearts that those words weren’t true and they deserved better than that. No one’s hand went down.

This is the case of not only children who live in group homes, but I think of everyone. Words are powerful and have the ability to do so much good and so much harm. All of these girls knew how much it hurt to hear negative things about themselves, but empathy seemed totally out of their reach, as if they could only know their own emotional state but not that of their peers. Maybe the lack of empathy correlates with age, or perhaps it is an effect of their environment. Regardless, they hurl insults because they believe that their peers “deserve it.” As our discussion came to a close, we finished with a compliment circle wherein you had to give the girl to your right a compliment. The last compliment that was given went like this: “Although you’re not always nice, you can be nice sometimes, Mariah.”

Maybe complimenting an annoying peer at age 12 is asking too much. Maybe I could not have been very nice at that age either. Who am I to tell them what to do? I keep wavering in between this position of frustration and passivity. Frustration because I want them to know that as members of one another in the Body of Christ, we must treat each other as if we were Jesus himself. But if the kids can’t grasp or believe in that metaphor, I don’t even have to use it. I am frustrated because I want them to understand the significance and influence of kindness. In one of my favorite novels Animal Dreams, Barbara Kingsolver writes this: “the very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for…What I want is so simple I almost can’t say it: elementary kindness. Enough to eat, enough to go around.” When I see kids here being mean to one another, or when I have heard stories of their past trauma or abuse, my whole body aches and I let out a heavy sigh that quietly says, “kindness, please.”

But I feel passive too, because haven’t these girls gone through enough in their lives to throw around a few insults? Who am I to tell them to be nice to one another when I don’t even know their stories? Maybe the kids deserve to hear the truth that they can be mean and greedy sometimes. Maybe they should just do whatever they please as long as they are safe, sheltered, fed and clothed. I realize how hard of a choice it is to be kind to others when the rest of the world has been mean to them. Who am I- a woman who was raised by two loving parents and who was too shy to say anything about anybody- to ask these children to ignore insults and practice compassion?

I keep asking that question quite often: who am I? I am utterly and completely humbled by this place. I’ve worked at group homes before but have never been in a position of ministry for kids who have experienced trauma or abuse. They have already begun to ask me really difficult questions and have come to me for guidance. It feels as if I am a representative of the Church, the Body of Christ, therefore I don’t want to let this Body down. I want to be genuine, compassionate and most importantly truthful. Being truthful does require the ability to call others out when their behavior or attitude has gone caddy-wompus, but as God’s creation I believe there is genuine good in all of us, too. What are we doing if not pointing out the goodness inside of others? I do believe that practicing kindness and compassion- although challenging at times- can change lives and foster healing from past wounds. And I believe as the Body of Christ we are called to live out this “elementary kindness,” because it does make a difference.

All Of The Light

It has been a couple of years since I’ve written here. I’ve been telling my stories, just not writing them down. However, now a week into my summer internship, I feel as though I must write this summer. As a student at Duke Divinity School, I was assigned to work at a children’s home in South Carolina as a student pastor of sorts. Aside from planning worship and youth groups, my job is to essentially spend time with the children, who range from seven to eighteen years old. I’m still getting settled but after one of my first long and quite serious conversations with a kid here, that story-telling itch came back. So here we go with the first installment for this summer...

"We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community." -Dorothy Day

My first week of work and getting acclimated was over, and my time off for the week was near. And normally, I enjoy a day or two to myself: I can do whatever I want, I’m on no one else’s schedule, and there are no expectations set for me. The past two days I have been keeping myself company. I’ve felt compelled lately by Lauren Winner’s words to listen and “see what loneliness has for me,” but on my second day off I had no interest in listening… I could hardly sit still and enjoy time alone. I was lonely and was filling my day with meaningless tasks. Instead of listening, I drove around, I ran pointless errands to Target, I called up old friends. Even my attempt at an easy distraction failed: I went to redbox and there was nothing I wanted to watch. Driving home, I realized I was intentionally isolating myself because it was easier than reaching out to someone. So I turned off my radio and prayed: “Ok God, what do you want from me?”

            

I came home wanting to cook dinner and watch TV… more distractions. But I was fed up with myself and my shocking inability to do anything constructive for my loneliness. So I went for a walk, down and around the main road of this children’s home, hoping some of the girls I knew would be out and about. I passed a cottage of 12 and 13-year-olds on my right, passing the time in their rocking chairs on the porch. They waved and yelled a “hey Miss Justine” my way, which I decided to take as an invitation to join them (whether they wanted me to or not!). Time was filled by alternating moments of small talk and silence until Erica* started opening up and telling me about her journey. She arrived no more than two weeks ago and she didn’t like it much so far. We started talking about boys and dating when all of a sudden the conversation shifted drastically- via her initiation- to the reason why she ended up at this group home. She unloaded an incredible amount about her past: her mother’s boyfriend had abused her on three separate occasions, which led her to seek solace at her aunt’s. When she was kicked out there, she eventually ended up here at the group home. Her mom’s boyfriend ended up in jail, she told me, so she gets to go home soon. While she was sharing her past traumatic tales with me, I noticed the ease at which she was talking: there were no tears and little affect, as if she was just telling it like it is. I wondered why or how she had gotten to that point: was she dissociating? Had she numbed herself of the pain?

            

As if she was reading my thoughts she started talking about it. She said, “Well I’m glad I’m a Christian because I pray every night and it helps. Every time I pray something happens.” I asked her for an example. “One night I prayed and the next morning my case worker told me that I’d be going home in a few weeks.” I asked her if she felt that God has told her things before. She told me yes, and that “God wants me to communicate with Him. He also has told me not to cry anymore. I be crying and crying for days and I feel like God is asking me not to cry anymore. So I listen. I try not to cry about it anymore.”

            

It seemed evident to me that God has been a refuge for Erica. She has zero doubt that God is her creator and sustainer. She mentioned one of her housemates, Amy*: “She doesn’t believe in God. She told me that once. I asked her who created her and she said her mom and her dad. I can’t understand that…she was formed in her mother’s womb by God! When I found out she doesn’t believe in God I cried and cried. I was so sad.” I wondered if she had read the book of Isaiah, because Erica was sounding a lot like the prophet Isaiah: she yearns for those around her to see what she sees and believe what she believes.

           

Erica had been leading the conversation this entire time, and it didn’t stop there either. She then said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about this world and why we’re here… like our purpose.” Assuming she was thinking of herself, I asked, “and what do you think your purpose is?” Soon to be astounded by her selflessness, she replied: “Mine? I don’t know yet. I’m thinking about everyone’s purpose. I think we all need to communicate with God and we need to love each other and be kind to each other.” Wow. “Do you think if we communicated with God more, we’d be more loving?,” I asked. “Yes,” she replied: “if we all communicated with God more I think we would all be better at loving one another and being kind to one another.” At that point all I could do was affirm her insight and wisdom.

At first I was blown away, but I quickly realized that I should never underestimate the mind of a child or adolescent. They are smart, experienced, and have certainly persevered many trials. Amidst a life of trauma and sadness, Erica can find meaning in this world. And all I had done that day was aimlessly fill my free time with noise and distraction. I have a lot to learn. As our conversation was drawing to a close, she asked me, “What would you do if God just showed up here?” Taken aback, I sort of laughed and replied with an: “uh… just showed up? I’d probably be scared.” She agreed and added, “I wouldn’t know what to do… all of that light. It would hurt my eyes. I heard somewhere in the Bible that someone once saw God and was blinded. I can believe that.” All of that light indeed. I then gave a stereotypical seminiarian’s reply of Moses encountering the tail end of God and how he actually radiated light for days afterward, so much so that he had to wear a veil over his face. She looked at me with a sense of wonder that I didn’t see coming nor felt like I deserved. Everyday I ask myself, “Who am I to be with among these amazing and hurt kids? Who am I to think theologically with them?” Nevertheless, there I was, sitting with Erica and talking about the light of God that surpasses our comprehension.

         

Immediately following that moment Erica was ushered inside for the evening, and I didn’t have a chance to spout off one more thought for the evening. I wanted to tell her how amazing it is that this big and brilliant God who can blind and startle people is the same God that loves us immensely and wants to keep us safe and to see us flourish. But I had a feeling that she already knew that.

*Names have been changed.