On Boundaries and the Necessary Magic of the Word, 'No!'

no

is a necessary magic

no

draws a circle around you

with chalk

and says

i have given enough

- boundaries

(anonymous)

//

I was walking down to the garden the other morning, when a line from Maurice Sendak’s, Where the Wild Things Are ran through my mind. A friend had texted, asking if I might bring flowers in to work. I had paused before replying – I didn’t know if we had flowers left in the garden or not.  More importantly, though, I didn’t know if I had it in me to bring flowers or not.

I texted back, “Lemme see . . .”

After the boys got on the bus, I did a quick internal scan. Did I have it in me to bring in flowers? Yes, I did. Plus, the act of walking through the early morning dew, scanning stems for suitable blossoms, and arranging them in a vase would be good for me.

//

I am someone who grows and cuts flowers to bring into the office. I am someone who spreads poetry in the world, who writes, who tells jokes, and listens, and gives, and gives, and gives.

Most of the time, people like this about me. “We appreciate you,” they say. “You bring something we need.”

Most of the time, I like being liked.

Maybe you do too?

//

Liking being liked can be a problem.

Needing to be liked can be a more serious problem still.

It can lead to a giving that depletes so completely that the giver is left with an empty shell of self.

//

“. . . we’ll eat you up – we love you so!”

This the line I recalled from Sendak’s book. It’s what the wild things say to Max when he’s feeling lonely and longing for “someone who loves him best of all.”

I thought of that line and recognized something in it about the way church work can be; about the way parenting or teaching or any other form of service that involves deep self-giving and sacrifice can be. Caring for young children, tending a sick loved one, feeding a hungry church – all of these have the potential to eat us up, especially if we're looking to them to replace "someone who loves us best of all."

//

I went back and re-read Where the Wild Things Are a few days later.  I read how it’s Max’s realization of his loneliness and need for love that causes him to give up his position as “king” of where the wild things are. Aware of his own needs, Max prepares to leave. This is when the wild things cry, “Oh please don’t go – we’ll eat you up – we love you so!”

Then, a wonderful, magical thing happens in the story: Max says, ‘No!’

Of course, the wild things don’t like this one bit. In response, they “roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws.

But Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye . . .”

//

I hope you know the power of the word ‘no.’

I hope you see how every ‘no’ is also a ‘yes’ and that choosing self care is sometimes the best gift you can give to the wild things who love you so.

I hope you don’t give in to the “terrible roars” and “gnashing teeth” and “terrible claws;” I hope you have the wisdom to see they love you so and they're just afraid you won’t return.

Go ahead, step into your boat and sail away, “in and out of weeks and through a day” and find yourself home, again, in “your own room” where Someone who loves you best can care for you for a while.

Don’t worry. We know you’ll be back. We know you’ll bring flowers and, probably, a poem or two. We know. Because that’s who you are. 

But that's only part of why we love you so. We love you also for your ability to say, and to help us to learn to say, that magic word, 'no.' 

On Feeling Afraid and Finding the Edge

"Come to the edge," life said.

"We can't, we're afraid!" they replied.

"Come to the edge," life said.

"We can't, we'll fall!" they replied.

"Come to the edge," life said.

So they came,

and life pushed them,

and they flew.

- Guillaume Apollinaire

***

"Do you ever realize how often you feel afraid?"

//

This is what I asked my husband the other day as I swept up spilled cat food in our bedroom and he sat on the bed, watching. We'd gone upstairs to talk about knocking out a wall.

I’d gotten the urge that morning. Stepping out of the shower, I'd thought, Let's just knock out that wall.

The wall in question - which divides our bedroom into a small room main room and a pointless hallway - has been slated for demolition for some time now. But it's taken a back seat again and again to more pressing projects, like making a standing shower and putting in a dishwasher.

Recently, adding a shower to our make-shift downstairs bathroom has been at the top of the to-do list, but progress has been stalled by indecision and the awkward limits of several poorly placed windows and cast-iron radiators in the room to be remodeled. Neither of us can think of a layout that makes good use of the space and doesn't leave us feeling unsettled. In short, we're afraid to move ahead.

Which, looking back, is probably why I jumped to the more immediate option of knocking out that dang wall. Knocking out a wall feels so clear, so simple, so satisfying.

Of course, knocking out that wall will force us to deal with the fact that the ceiling in one part of our bedroom is lower than the other, as is the floor. And there’ll be radiators and some wiring to work around. No project in a 100+ year old house is ever simple.

But when you're feeling afraid, I've found, sometimes you need to just find the nearest edge and jump.

//

"Do you ever realize how often you feel afraid?" I asked.

"Sometimes," I continued, "it's like I'm afraid almost all the time."

//

Our conversation moved on to other territory, but here I am, still thinking about fear and its subtle sway.

I'm not talking about heart-pounding, fight-or-flight fear. But rather the dull constraint of corners cut out of safety's concern. The fear of failure, even on the smallest scale. The fear of even naming the fear that drives us for fear that this too will be seen as weakness unendurable. A fear so subtle it's easy to rationalize, easy to miss.

When I notice this fear in myself, I try to balance it by asking, "What would love say?" Love and fear have patently different voices, markedly different concerns. Sometimes, this question alone, is enough to shake the dark cobwebs and return me to the life-giving freedom bought by Christ.

Other times, forward motion helps. Knocking down the closest wall, diving off the nearest edge, and finding, in the falling, the momentum needed to soar.

Back to School Shopping (A Mother's Gaze)

She stands, arms outstretched, 
under fluorescent lights.
She holds up empty shorts,
t-shirts, and tanks.

Her mother-eyes focus
on what is not there,
gauging the cloth's
ability to hold, to hug,
the ones she loves.

Her gaze is fixed just past 
the things she holds, imagining 
the shape of belly, thigh,
chest, and shoulders,
practicing the maternal art
of reconstruction.

We cannot see
the child she sees,
we do not know his dimensions.
All we can see is her love-struck gaze
that brings someone into being
out of nothing. 

To Be A Pastor

To be a pastor

is to return, every

week, to face the hungry

crowds. To offer, in outstretched

and shaking hands, two loaves

and five fishes, knowing full well

it will never be enough.

You are not the one

who multiplies. You

are Elijah’s widow,

scraping handfuls of meal

from a nearly empty jar,

praying as the oil slips out

in slow and shining droplets.

To be a pastor,

you must brave the humility

of not enough, bringing what

has been given – no more,

no less – and waiting, weekly,

for the miracle of God’s

blessing, breaking,

presence.

- K. Chripczuk

* I wrote this poem several weeks ago and have been pondering it ever since.  In one sense, I believe it's true - accurate - and, in another sense, it's not.  There are times when there's more than enough.  I think my main intention was to get at my belief that ministry (in particular preaching) is less about me and what I bring, and more about obedience to God, especially when that obedience means intentional restraint and the discipline of always pointing beyond my self to something/someone more. This phrase, "You are not the one who multiples," is essential.

Reading through again, I see also how this poem might apply to parenting - the acceptance that what we have will never be enough, not completely, combine with the faithfulness of offering it anyway day-in and day-out. Perhaps the poem was written with pastoring (preaching) in mind, but it articulates a faith posture that's more widespread. 

What do you think?  Pastor or not, I'd love to hear your impression. 

Shedding

Coco is shedding her winter coat in great, black clumps that glob onto the living room carpet and blow like tumbleweeds under the kitchen’s ceiling fan.  Twice a day now, we are vacuuming our rugs, emptying the canister between runs, watching matted dog hair and dirt drift into the kitchen trash.

In the evenings, after work, I change into old clothes and call her out onto the front porch.  We both sit on the wooden floorboards and I pull our dollar store pet brush slowly through her wooly black curls.  

It’s satisfying and soothing all at once, the way I imagine brushing a horse must be.  When the brush is full, I pull the clumps off, gathering a growing pile to mark my progress, my accumulated success.  

Tonight, I cornered our tomcat, Blackie in the green grass and gave him a good brushing too.  He took it with equal parts purring and complaint. 

A friend admitted awhile back, after her elderly dog died, that she was elated to be freed from the extra mess – she would not be getting another dog.  I know, for a lot of people, pet hair is reason enough to refrain from ownership.  My own mother battled dog hair with a broom and dust pan, like she was battling the devil itself.

It does bother me – the hair, the dirt, not to mention the litter box’s stinking mess.  But, still, I know those few minutes each evening are some of the best of my day – some of the purest, the simplest - stroking and gathering, shedding what no longer serves. 

The Road is Wide, the Rain is Falling

The words, "deeply grieved" hardly begin to convey the depth of fear, anger, and concern I feel over the treatment of asylum seekers at our southern borders.  Men, held in standing room only conditions.  Children, separated from mothers, from fathers.  Children younger than my own boys who beg for dessert after every meal and snuggle into my sides while reading on the couch. There is something deeply wrong with all of us who can endure these reports and still believe it has nothing to do with who we are.  

Yesterday, I thought again of Naomi Shihab Nye's poem, "Shoulders" - only this time it is a man crossing a river with his daughter in his arms, the hum of his daughter's dream - his daughter's future - deep inside him.  Only now, that dream is dead. 

This fourth of July, I'm sharing Nye's poem along with a post I wrote in 2017.  At that time, I could not name the force that kept us apart. Now, two years later, I believe that force is this: the belief that the differences that separate us are stronger than the forces that unite us.  

The road is wide, friends.  The rain is falling.  I fear, if we don't reach out, don't learn to hold hands, to see beyond what divides, we will all be swept away.

//
  
Shoulders

A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south,
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.

No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.

This man carries the world's most sensitive cargo
but he's not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.

His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy's dream
deep inside him.

We're not going to be able
to live in this world
if we're not willing to do what he's doing
with one another.

The road will only be wide.
The rain will never stop falling. 

//

Cold rain turned his thin, white t-shirt translucent as he bent his body, like an umbrella, over the double stroller.  The newborn baby cried and he cradled it against his chest with one hand while rooting in a diaper bag with the other.  The girl, a big sister at three or four years old, sat quietly in the stroller - her brown eyes wide, her dark hair and pierced ears glinting in the early morning light.  

//

Hundreds of strangers had lined up throughout the morning, eager to bargain hunt at the annual thrift sale benefiting United Way.  A friend of mine, a veteran shopper of the sale, arrived at the door by six thirty.  Among the first in line, she staked out a coveted position as the best deals went very, very quickly. 

I rolled in a few minutes after seven, with a mug of coffee in hand, and took my place thirty to forty people behind my friend.  I waited behind a young Hispanic man with two children in a stroller and in front of an old-timer who'd brought a plastic crate to sit on.  The line stretched out, single-file, across the parking lot, growing steadily as we waited for the doors to open at eight.  

Time passed slowly.  The old-timer held my spot for me while I went to find a toilet.  The newborn in the stroller woke and cried and was jiggled back to sleep again.  Pleasantries were exchanged in that guarded but polite Central Pennsylvania way.  

The old-timer behind me carried on a long conversation with a woman two people ahead of me, bemoaning his no-good sons-in-law who couldn't keep a job, couldn't even change a tire.  The woman, in exchange, revealed she'd recently been laid off after twenty years on a job.  "Ain't nobody wants to hire you when you're my age," she said.  "Believe me, I know."  The general consensus between them seemed to be that young people weren't worth much these days.  The Hispanic man and I, both younger by far, exchanged uncomfortable glances.

By 7:30, the sky was growing darker, not lighter, and the forecast of possible rain turned certain.  I ran back to the truck and grabbed my rain coat when the first drops started and my friend, still stationed at the front of the line, brought me her extra umbrella.  

Scattered drops turned steady and an icy wind picked up.  About fifteen feet away, the building we were waiting to enter offered a small triangular overhang.  The old-timer was the first to take cover, leaving his plastic crate to hold his place in line.  The father followed soon after as the wind forced rain past the double stroller's shabby shades and the baby woke again, crying and hungry.  

He pushed the stroller the ten steps to the overhang and sidled it as close as he could against the wall.  The old-timer scooted over to make room in the tiny triangle of shelter.  The rest of us in line, some with rain coats and umbrellas, watched this father without a coat, trying to protect his children while also mixing a bottle of formula.  We were rooted in place, rubberneckers, observing one small family's drama unfold. 

//

I can't name the force that held us in line, keeping us from offering help or heading, en masse, to wait under a large catering tent nearby.  Whatever it was - fear, longing, desire - the feeling was palpable, like a force-field keeping us all apart, causing us each to suffer the storm in isolation, single-file in the passing cold and rain.  This force, I believe, though I can't put my finger on its exact shape or name, is one of, if not the signature evil of our times.  Under its sway, as Naomi Shihab Nye predicts in her poem, Shoulders, "the road will only be wide, the rain will never stop falling."

Somehow, we must kindle the courage, the imagination, necessary to enact an alternative to our chosen isolation.  What will it take for us to break out, to break through, to one another?

//

It was the way he curved his body over the stroller, the rounded defenselessness of his back as he leaned, rooting in the diaper bag; it was the way he sheltered them that caused my feet to move, that broke me out of line.  My feet moved, of their own accord, and then I was there, behind him, my body blocking him from the wind, my friend's umbrella held high at an angle over the two children and their dad.  

He turned, slightly, at my approach, acknowledged me with a nod, and carried on preparing the bottle, then feeding his infant son.  We stood close, awkwardly close in the small space, and didn't speak a word.  I smiled at the solemnly shy little girl with her deep brown eyes that drank in the world.

The rain passed, the sun peaked out, and we moved back into line.  The old-timer caught my eye.  "That was a nice thing you did," he said, "real nice."

//

Somehow, we must kindle the courage, the imagination, necessary to enact an alternative to our chosen isolation.  What will it take for us to break out, to break through, to one another?