Thoughts on Transition

It took me by surprise
This old house and these old feelings
Walked round and looked inside
Familiar walls and halls and ceilings...

Hadn't given it much thought
Hadn't been back here in a while
Everything looks so small
Seen through the memories of a child

Who would dream and stare
From that second story window
That was my whole world
It was all I knew
Like the hull of a seed
This old house cracked wide open
And I flew

Memories for miles and miles
Summers, falls, winters and springs...
See, He's withheld no good thing

(From This Old House by Sara Groves)

It did take me by surprise.

I didn't know that merely standing in the sanctuary of my home church, going through the familiar liturgy, would be enough to trigger ocean rushes of memories.  My sister and I talked about it some; I didn't realize, when I was a kid (because how I have the perspective to be able to do so?) how much I took for granted.  I didn't think about that some day there will be rifts that I wouldn't really understand, wedges driven deep between the people who I love most dearly.

I didn't know that when I was back in my church during worship, my body would subconsciously recall all of the habits that I taught it as a child, my fingers spelling out the words of the doxology, and I kept half-expecting to see a pair of cowboy boots on the floor behind me.

I didn't know I'd learn the art of how to keep my voice politely saying everything, responding, without much mental engagement.

How could I have guessed that someday, my eyes would fill with tears and my throat threaten to choke when my younger sister chose God Be With You Till We Meet Again during hymn selection time?  All my life growing up, usually that meant next week, but suddenly I am grown up and I know it won't be next week and really, none of us know when it will be.  Because I heard about cancer and hospice mixed in with news of new grandbabies and new members.  Because the sister who stood next to me is not so little anymore, instead she's taller than I am and she's the one who drove and she was coming back to say goodbye to church family before going to Rome.

I didn't imagine that someday my eyes would play tricks as I looked at the people I'd known all of my life, trying to reconcile their familiarity with the feeling that we were becoming strangers.

I didn't guess that someday I'd give hugs like I was trying to cover up two years of hurt and heartache and a future that none of us could foresee.

~~~

The transitions of life are hard.  Occasionally they've gone incredibly smoothly for me and I can walk away from a situation with an overall sense of closure and peace.  But more usually the good ones end in a mixture of stomachache inducing laughter and messy sobbing.

"I don't want new friends," I told people when we were contemplating the end of college.

I knew the plans God had for me would be good.  That it was time to move on.  But the group that I had -- hey, they were a fabulous bunch of people, in groups and individually.  They challenged me, encouraged me, and were a joy to live, serve, study, eat, fight, and grow with.  After the graduation ceremony, when I had finished helping clean up the apartment and packed all of my stuff and said goodbyes and given hugs, I sat against a wall, writing while I waited for my dad to come.

The end of so many stories.
And I know, the beginning of more...
But it is hard to see the future through all the tears that are blurring my eyes, like they are enough to fill up the cavernous hole in my heart.
Leaving China was bad enough, to leave the people who I had lived with for three and a half months.  To leave the sisters of four years... that's harder.  By a lot.  So I cry as I hug Melissa, knowing that it marks the end for me of C1.
We'll continue to know each other, but... how do you remain a group when you are scattered?  You know each other individually but the group ceases to exit.
And so I cried.

Leaving China after teaching there for a year was also heart wrenching.  But I'm sure you can imagine. You've said goodbyes.  And it's hard even when you know that it is time.  Even when the reasons for leaving are good.  We listened to one sermon where the preacher said, "We want to keep our groups.  But the pattern in Acts is God bringing people together for a time and then leading them out to do kingdom work.  There is still this ebb and flow.  We must hold each other with an open hand, not a closed fist... Godly people who are passionate about the gospel say goodbye often."

It's hard in a different way when the breaks are less clean, when friendships fade out and you don't really know why, when you simply grow apart and miss what used to be.

Transition's hard.

Currently my life feels like I've been on a transition rollercoaster for a couple of years and am probably going to be on it for a couple more.  (My guess is it's that way to different extents for the rest of life, but I'm not ready to think about that yet!)

And I find myself to be very contradictory.

I haven't been on a plane since July.  What is all of this not-traveling that I'm doing?  

My books (and other possessions, but the books bother me the most) are distributed between two states.  When am I going to live in a place that I can expect to call home for the foreseeable future?

I want to see new places.  I want stability.  I want adventure.  I want to invest in a community.  I want to make new friends and grow and explore what God has for me.  I don't want to watch old friendships slip away and I don't want to get rejection letters.

Transition?  Not my cup of tea.

Yet the truth is that He has withheld no good thing.

He won't ever withhold any good thing, unless it's for something better.

At the end of The Return of the King, Frodo tells Sam, "Do not be too sad, Sam.  You cannot be always torn in two.  You will have to be one and whole, for many years.  You have so much to enjoy and to be, and to do."

When I was a kid I thought that was brilliant.  I figured that when I grew up, I'd understand more of the reasons why goodbyes and transitions came and that they would happen more gracefully.  Now... now I wonder about that.  Right now, at least, I find myself more in agreement with the following line from Marcelo in the Real World (which I mistakenly attributed before to Miracle in the Real World... thanks autocorrect.)

Every time you decide, there is loss, no matter how you decide.
It's always a question of what you cannot afford to lose.

And amidst all the surprise, all of the pain and confusion and shock and hard things that come with transitions, here are two things that I take refuge in knowing.

Transitions are orchestrated by God for my good.  (2 Corinthians 3, Romans 8:28)

God is always good.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
His mercies never come to an end;
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness!
"The Lord is my portion," says my soul,
"Therefore I will hope in Him."
(Lamentations 3:22-24)

Taking the Bus

There are disadvantages to not driving and not having a car.  These are fairly obvious, but I'll list a few: public transportation in America doesn't have great infrastructure, waiting for a bus can be nerve wracking when you need to get somewhere on time, and it can just be inconvenient.  There are more serious disadvantages, like being dependent on some else's schedule especially if an emergency situation comes up.  (I thought about this the other week when there was an accident involving a mandolin.  What would I have done if it had been more serious?  Probably called one of my coworkers or someone from church.)

However, there are also a lot of advantages, which I've been thinking about these past few months.  (Mostly to the not having a car part.)

Here are a few.

• Cars are expensive.  Gas is expensive.  Insurance is expensive.
• When it's cold, I don't have to try to get the car to start.  (Granted, if the buses are not running, that's another issue...)
• I get more exercise than I would otherwise.  I walk an extra half mile-mile most days.  
• I have to be organized and disciplined because I do have to work on someone else's schedule.  If I miss the bus that comes once an hour, I'll be late for work.  The end.
• I get a lot more time to read than I would otherwise (and will have even more when the weather is nicer and my hands don't freeze when they're out of my pockets!)  Since I get to work early and am usually there a little late waiting for the bus, I have all that time in Panera, plus another 20 minutes or so on the bus... quality reading time!
• Friends.  More chances to laugh.  Because a lot of people ride the same buses all the time...

So here's the story from today.

I got out of work just a bit too late to catch the 135 that was going up the road, so I waited.

I walked a bit to the sheltered bus stop and waited some more.

A man who I didn't recognize came in, and I stood up to watch for the bus.  And we waited.  He complained about how the area around the shelter wasn't cleared out well at all.  And then another man, this one who I do know, showed up.  My old Italian buddy, an engineer.  He and I ride the bus together all the time.  He has cataracts, which is why he doesn't drive.  He talks to me about languages and jobs and politics, and since the bus makes so much noise, I don't actually know much about what his views on these topics are, just that he has a lot of opinions.  Sometimes we talk about cooking, because we both enjoy that.  Another woman joined us in the shelter; I didn't recognize her and no wonder, she says that she doesn't usually ride the bus.

We waited.

I stood with a foot on top of the mound of snow and ice blocking the doorway of the shelter, popping my head out now and again to see if the bus was coming.

"Hey," someone said, "there it is!"

"Are you sure?" I asked.  "That doesn't have the lights on it."

"They have some Greyhound type buses," said the guy who I didn't know.  "Just for the 135.  No lights on the front.  You'll have to wave at them to get them to stop.  They can't really see us, the shelter is so dirty."

More complaints about the status of the shelter.

The bus-with-no-lights came closer and I swung out of the shelter, holding onto part of the doorframe.

And...

"That's not a bus!"

"It's a UPS truck!"

"Thanks a lot, guys!" I scolded them.  "I see how it is, you just want to throw me on a truck..."

"I bet he wondered why you were waving at him!"

"You were just that happy to see the package truck!"

A few minutes later...

"I think I see the bus now."

"Are you sure it's not another truck?" I grumbled.  "I think you're just trying to get rid of me."

My Italian friend leaned over to me with a wink.  "The next one may be a garbage truck!"

If I had my own car, I'd miss out on those moments.  So I'd love the convenience of having my own vehicle... but I love the community of taking the bus.

Constructive Criticism and a Chinese Proverb

What about good criticism?

The question caused a bit of a ripple in the women's Bible study.  After all, we were talking about things like bashing someone versus building them up, criticism versus encouragement... so good criticism?  What what?

I get that.  I totally do.  Because I strongly dislike hate being criticized.  The book we're using says it takes eight positive things to counteract one negative statement and I recently ran across the graphic below -- not exactly the same ratios, but you get the impression -- humans apparently are much more susceptible to criticism than to praise.  (Unless your hubris is the issue at stake, but that's sort of a different topic entirely.)

I know that when I'm criticized or rebuked it feels to me like that's all I can see at the moment.  Even if I know you care about me.  And I cry.  (Ask anyone from my mom to my team leader.  Anyone who has really directly rebuked me from, oh, when I was a year old on up to the present day...)

I don't think I'm unique in this.  After all, the author of Hebrews wrote, 

Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

True that.  Chastening/discipline doesn't seem "joyful" (understatement!) but I've felt the peace and growth that can come after it.

Anyway.  Back to what was going on in Bible study.  When the topic of beneficial criticism came up, I started trying to think of examples, and my mind moved on to my students last year in China.

The first semester I wanted to encourage them.  I wanted them to see that if they put in effort, they could communicate in English.  That I cared about them as classes and as individuals.  

That wasn't a bad goal.

But I was a blend of naive and ignorant.  Some of that came from not having taught before.  Some of it came from being in another culture.  The result is that some of what seemed to me like I was being encouraging seemed to my students like I didn't care.  Especially, I think, to the guys.

To hit is to love.

打是爱。

I have no idea how many of my students said that to me.  And I don't think they're necessarily more masochistic than Americans, but it's a shortened version of a Chinese proverb, a perspective on life that is drilled into them.  I'm asking my former students if they actually agree with this, so hopefully I'll have more concrete answers from them on that soon.  

It can be misapplied.  You could try using the phrase to justify abuse, and obviously I don't think that's right.  But I think there is some truth in it... that discipline is a sign of love.

My students, it would seem, agreed.

At the end of the first semester, when I had given around 300 finals over a couple of weeks, I was drained.  And thus probably a little more unfiltered with my students than I had been before.  A few of the guys finished their group final.  I think it was David, Tommy, and Grant.  The three of them had sat in a row towards the back of their class, spoken only if I gave them no alternative, and generally looked like they would have preferred a slow death to having to answer a question.  Their grades were less than stellar.

My theory up to that point was that their English wasn't very good.  

Their final exam shattered that delusion.  They all did fine.  They took their random topic from things we had done in class and managed to craft a dialogue about it that was both creative and comic.  

Who are these guys? I thought.  Either they had magically acquired new abilities, were suddenly host bodies for an English-speaking parasite, or simply hadn't been giving anything like their best throughout the semester.  It's amazing what the threat of grades can do.

"I'm disappointed," I said.  

They looked at me.  While not being great students, they are an extremely respectful and sensitive group of guys.  Maybe they gawked at me would be more accurate.

"You were terrible students," I continued.  "I thought you were going to fail this semester."

Three sets of eyes continued staring at me.  It wasn't anything they didn't already know, but they were all losing face pretty fast.

"But I see from your final exams that you can do much better.  All of you did well.  You worked hard and I can tell.  You need to do that next semester."

The true test of their English comprehension skills?  How quickly the expression in their eyes turned from shame to... something else.  Something warmer.

"Thank you teacher, thank you..."

For a while I felt like I had been unjustifiably harsh.  Maybe there was a gentler way to say that to them.  But as the second semester progressed, mostly I thought that I should have done something of the sort earlier and to more of my students.

Because those guys?  They worked.  Yeah, I had "hit" them.  But by my stinging criticism, I told them a few things indirectly.  I noticed them as individuals.  I knew that they were capable of more.  And I cared about them enough to expect it from them.

Which, I think, helps to explain why David and Grant loved me in ways so radical that it threw me off throughout the semester (in more ways than one.)  David gave me a Communist Youth League pin.  (Um, thanks?)  Grant and his group of friends treated me to one of the most hilarious dinners I had with any of my students -- and at that dinner, we talked about how I had reprimanded him.  I had half forgotten it, but it had clearly made an impression on him.  The last day of our classes, David and Grant stuck around after most of my other students had wandered off.  I got hugged (which DOES NOT HAPPEN).  I almost got tears.  

It was disconcerting.

But it makes sense too.  As far as I can tell, they loved me because they knew that I loved them.  Because I disciplined them.

And while grades in an oral English class aren't precisely the type of discipline that I see leading to righteousness, it was a picture for me of how that should work in my own life.  How I should accept discipline from those in authority over me, and particularly from the hand of a perfect and loving heavenly Father, as just that: love.

And that... that's encouraging.

A bunch of the guys from that class; David's in black, Tommy has the funky pocket on the shirt, and Grant was just out of the frame of the shot.