On the Way
This week has been filled from border to border with community. Actually, that may sum up this entire season, but this week has been especially overflowing.
We've sat around at baseball games and ballet practices, making small talk with other parents and connecting in the littlest ways. We've stood out on the sidewalks outside our homes in the evenings, talking and laughing with our neighbors.
We had a guys'/girls' weekend with my family, and spent hours shopping, hiking and catching up with them.
Thomas had his best friend over from school, and it's been a joy to watch the two of them huddled together, drawing comic books and laughing. Earlier in the day the kids played outside. As my good friend and neighbor ran one child to the doctor, we offered to watch her preschooler. He laughed and played in our backyard. Henry played with a bin full of Lego in the basement with a neighbor friend. The boys have spent weeks filming movies with neighborhood friends, jumping from house to house as they do.
Good friends of ours are in town from overseas for a few weeks. We met them over lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant. We sat, two tables full, and talked. Afterward they came back to our house and we had a wonderful afternoon of catching up while all the kids played together.
As we stood in the restaurant, I spotted a former high school teacher of mine and we talked for a long time, catching up and reminiscing about memories I hadn't thought of for almost twenty years.
Cora has spent her days surrounded by a host of friends from the neighborhood. In fact, our yard has often been full of kids from five or six families, laughing and playing and enjoying the sunshine.
Almost none of it was in our plans a week ago. But this is the reality of this season, the theme of most days. Introverted, plan-ahead April of ten or twenty years ago would not recognize the woman in the middle of it all now. And yet I couldn't love this season more. I look up often in the midst of what borders on chaos and beam at Micah. The fullness of community makes my heart overflow. None of it is planned. None of it goes to plan, even when we try. But it's beautiful, all of it.
Today I was struck by just how much of Jesus' ministry happened in those unexpected or "unplanned" moments. I did a little reading and discovered that many of his most meaningful miracles and conversations were seemingly not the result of planning at all, but rather they were encounters that happened "on the way" to something else.
The woman, desperate to find answers to a medical condition that had affected her for over a decade, reached out to touch the hem of his clothing as he was on the way through town.
A rich young man stopped Jesus on his way to ask what he should do to inherit eternal life.
Zaccheus, desperate for a glimpse of Jesus, was spotted from his perch in a tree as Jesus was on his way past.
A storm nearly overtook the disciples' ship as they were on their way across the lake, and Jesus calmed it with one word.
The crowds gathered around Jesus as he traveled on his way to Jerusalem for the final Passover, hearing his teaching and receiving his healing.
Simon, the Cyrene, on his way from the country was summoned to carry Jesus' cross as he was on his way to Calvary.
Maybe it could be argued that most of Jesus' ministry was carried out in the "on the way" moments, when community--people--were allowed to interrupt his plans.
Wow.
What does it mean to live that way? How does it look? Maybe it looks a little like having a backyard full of children. Maybe it's stopping to take time to push them on the swings. It could mean a cup of coffee with a friend who's had a challenging week. Perhaps it's offering to watch a child so his mom can pick up groceries quickly. It might mean putting the dishes and the vacuuming and the laundry aside to play a game of Spoons with the kids, or to read a book to them for a few minutes. Maybe it means helping the man who's struggling to get out of the passenger seat of his car and into a wheelchair. Sometimes it could be offering a warm smile and friendly "hello" to the cashier in the check-out lane, knowing it could mean a longer conversation.
It could look like a hundred different things, but in all of them it looks like being open to interruption. I think that's what I love most about this chapter: the steady flow of friends and family in and out of our day. The unpredictability of each moment--scary sometimes, but often exciting.
I'm considering starting my days with a new prayer in this season. I may take a page from the book of James, "If the Lord wills, we will... do this or that" (James 4:15). Maybe I'll start my day by praying, Lord, I don't know--can't know--what the day brings. I have my plans, Father, but they're only my plans. Today is yours. Bring whomever you'd choose to bring across my path. Draw me into the conversations you would choose to draw me into. Whatever the day brings, may I be wholly open to interruption. Stop me on my way, Father, as often as you need to. Stop me so that I can live in community. Use me there, and I know I will be blessed by the interruptions with which you punctuate my day.
I wonder how full the days would be, started with a prayer like that.
We've sat around at baseball games and ballet practices, making small talk with other parents and connecting in the littlest ways. We've stood out on the sidewalks outside our homes in the evenings, talking and laughing with our neighbors.
We had a guys'/girls' weekend with my family, and spent hours shopping, hiking and catching up with them.
Thomas had his best friend over from school, and it's been a joy to watch the two of them huddled together, drawing comic books and laughing. Earlier in the day the kids played outside. As my good friend and neighbor ran one child to the doctor, we offered to watch her preschooler. He laughed and played in our backyard. Henry played with a bin full of Lego in the basement with a neighbor friend. The boys have spent weeks filming movies with neighborhood friends, jumping from house to house as they do.
Good friends of ours are in town from overseas for a few weeks. We met them over lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant. We sat, two tables full, and talked. Afterward they came back to our house and we had a wonderful afternoon of catching up while all the kids played together.
As we stood in the restaurant, I spotted a former high school teacher of mine and we talked for a long time, catching up and reminiscing about memories I hadn't thought of for almost twenty years.
Cora has spent her days surrounded by a host of friends from the neighborhood. In fact, our yard has often been full of kids from five or six families, laughing and playing and enjoying the sunshine.
Almost none of it was in our plans a week ago. But this is the reality of this season, the theme of most days. Introverted, plan-ahead April of ten or twenty years ago would not recognize the woman in the middle of it all now. And yet I couldn't love this season more. I look up often in the midst of what borders on chaos and beam at Micah. The fullness of community makes my heart overflow. None of it is planned. None of it goes to plan, even when we try. But it's beautiful, all of it.
Today I was struck by just how much of Jesus' ministry happened in those unexpected or "unplanned" moments. I did a little reading and discovered that many of his most meaningful miracles and conversations were seemingly not the result of planning at all, but rather they were encounters that happened "on the way" to something else.
The woman, desperate to find answers to a medical condition that had affected her for over a decade, reached out to touch the hem of his clothing as he was on the way through town.
A rich young man stopped Jesus on his way to ask what he should do to inherit eternal life.
Zaccheus, desperate for a glimpse of Jesus, was spotted from his perch in a tree as Jesus was on his way past.
A storm nearly overtook the disciples' ship as they were on their way across the lake, and Jesus calmed it with one word.
The crowds gathered around Jesus as he traveled on his way to Jerusalem for the final Passover, hearing his teaching and receiving his healing.
Simon, the Cyrene, on his way from the country was summoned to carry Jesus' cross as he was on his way to Calvary.
Maybe it could be argued that most of Jesus' ministry was carried out in the "on the way" moments, when community--people--were allowed to interrupt his plans.
Wow.
What does it mean to live that way? How does it look? Maybe it looks a little like having a backyard full of children. Maybe it's stopping to take time to push them on the swings. It could mean a cup of coffee with a friend who's had a challenging week. Perhaps it's offering to watch a child so his mom can pick up groceries quickly. It might mean putting the dishes and the vacuuming and the laundry aside to play a game of Spoons with the kids, or to read a book to them for a few minutes. Maybe it means helping the man who's struggling to get out of the passenger seat of his car and into a wheelchair. Sometimes it could be offering a warm smile and friendly "hello" to the cashier in the check-out lane, knowing it could mean a longer conversation.
It could look like a hundred different things, but in all of them it looks like being open to interruption. I think that's what I love most about this chapter: the steady flow of friends and family in and out of our day. The unpredictability of each moment--scary sometimes, but often exciting.
I'm considering starting my days with a new prayer in this season. I may take a page from the book of James, "If the Lord wills, we will... do this or that" (James 4:15). Maybe I'll start my day by praying, Lord, I don't know--can't know--what the day brings. I have my plans, Father, but they're only my plans. Today is yours. Bring whomever you'd choose to bring across my path. Draw me into the conversations you would choose to draw me into. Whatever the day brings, may I be wholly open to interruption. Stop me on my way, Father, as often as you need to. Stop me so that I can live in community. Use me there, and I know I will be blessed by the interruptions with which you punctuate my day.
I wonder how full the days would be, started with a prayer like that.
