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.

Making Peace with Proximate Justice... Revisited

Nearly two years ago I posted about a speech that Steve Garber gave at Geneva called Making Peace with Proximate Justice.  (Long title, I know, but kind of catchy at the same time.)

It was a good lecture.

And like so many of Garber's words, it's been percolating in my mind since then.  (Sidenote:  this does not apply to the speech that he gave at my graduation, which I remember practically nothing of.  Now that's what I call ironic!)  He asked a lot of good questions about culture and justice and our roles during that evening speech; here are two that struck me as core to think about.

Can you know the world and still love the world?

Does Christianity provide the answer to the complexity of these problems?

I believe that Christianity is, in fact, the only way that an answer is provided to these complex problems.  I believe that you can know the world and love it -- when that love is grounded in knowing and loving God first.

But I still find myself wrestling with the concept of making peace with proximate justice.  I don't want a proximately good world, I want a perfect world.  I want to be working in the perfect role in bringing a perfect world.

My roommate and I were talking today about problems with the prison system in America, dreaming of potential alternatives.  At the end of the conversation, I'm thinking, what good is my dreaming about these things if I'm not willing to give up other dreams to pursue solutions to these problems that I can see?

But I also think, Why am I not back in China teaching?

And, Shouldn't I stick around close to home?  What are my responsibilities as a daughter, a sister?

And, What about grad school?

And, How do I faithfully use and grow the gifts that God has given me?

And then I think -- 哎呀，我不知道，怎么办？ Oh, I don't know, what should I do?

It was easy to listen to Garber talk about making peace with proximate justice.  More difficult to figure out what that looks like in my own life.  How can I be content with something that isn't totally right?  What does that really mean -- to be content in God and fully trust Him, yet to remain conscious of how broken the world is and to strive towards something better?

(Stained glass is beautiful even when it's marred...)

So, I don't really have any new thoughts about how to really do this.  I expect that how it plays out in everyone's life is going to look different, that the guidelines in Micah 6:8 are about as specific as it can get.  Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God.  

I'm guessing that hammering out what that looks like in my own life is part of growing up.

Lately

I've been working the opening shift at Panera most weekdays.  It's a great shift... except it starts so early!  This week was much less hectic than the one before, and I am thankful.

I've been listening to Jon Foreman's Limbs and Branches (throwback to a year ago), Vienna Teng's new album Aims (which you can listen to by following this link), and various other random stuff.  As always.

I've been reading: a lot.  Here are various things I'd recommend... the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson in the fantasy category (although I was kind of disappointed by the ending), Tuf Voyaging by George R. R. Martin in the sci-fi category, David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell in the thinking about life category, and 24/6 by Matthew Sleeth in the you-should-definitely-read-this category.

Actually yes... you should read 24/6.

The end.

(Of this post, anyway.)

My sister is going to Rome!! (A post for Abbie)

Three days.

This time it's not me with the ticket for a flight to another continent; it's my younger sister.  I'm so excited for her and proud of her that I don't even have words to explain it.

She is both one of my closest friends and one of my most unlikely.  As far as I can remember, our friendship officially began one evening in my parents' bedroom when we were sprawled out across the enormity of their bed, probably not being especially helpful with putting clean laundry away, or waiting for family devos to start, or something like that.  We were pretty young.  Young enough to want a best friend and to decide that, obviously, a sister was the best choice for the best friend since you had to live with them after all.

We decided to be best friends.

Which, pretty undoubtedly, is one of the best decisions of my life.

When I think about it, sometimes I'm not sure that I could have picked a much more dissimilar best friend.

She's a dancer.  I didn't quite flunk my taiji class, but at times I would have been glad to if it meant I could escape.

She has the sense of fashion.  I'd wear a t-shirt, hoodie and jeans just about every day if I could get away with it.

When the subject of Pride and Prejudice comes up, we joke that she's Jane and I'm Lizzie.  

She's the life of the party.  Me?  I'm trying to read a book or have a conversation about philosophy.

She loathed our writing courses, even though she has a far more proficient touch with comedy than I do.

But that none of that hindered our friendship.  We begged our parents to let us share a bed when we were little so that we could stay up late whispering to each other.  We got up early to play endless rounds of rat-a-tat-cat with each other.  We made each other laugh to the point of tears, all the time and generally over the dumbest things (like a get well card for a man from our church that we messed up three times in a row.)  We filled quote books.

I went off to college, but only after she had prepped me by peppering me with endless What would you do, dear, IF... scenarios so that I would be properly equipped to deal with whatever odd circumstance came my way.  

And then, before I knew it, she was off to college herself.  During her first semester, I was on the other side of the world, studying in China.  When I came back, I found that she had established herself.  She had her own friend groups.  And I was glad.  

If I was on campus on the weekends, we usually met up and ate lunch together on Saturdays.  I'd let myself into her dorm room to say hi on random occasions.  We'd wave at each other as we walked to classes in the morning.  We had a few strategic sisterly intervention sessions when there was drama that she didn't want to deal with on her own.

She had also become friends with some of my friends, and that was where a bit of a surprise lay.

"We got to know your sister," the mom of one of my friends told me, "and she is so much like you."

I stared at her, stunned.  "Huh?"

"The two of you have the same mannerisms, use the same phrases..."  She went on listing examples.  I didn't believe her then, but I kept hearing it.  Eventually it sunk in that maybe they weren't kidding.  Which was not surprising, I guess, but I was amused.

Now she's a junior.  And in three days, she's leaving for a semester in Rome.

I'm already missing her.

So, Abbie...

For making me laugh more than anyone else ever has...

(Toasty?  TOASTY??)

For your incredibly loving spirit...

For the way you took care of my son ;) while I was gone, even writing him a rap song...

For stepping into the role of being the oldest sister with extreme grace and never making me feel displaced when I left...

For bringing joy into so many people's lives with your love for fun and for them...

For how you are always willing to be there for your friends...

For all the ways you have supported me in basically everything I've done, whether it was telling me that I was a good older sister or never questioning my decision to go to China (twice)...

For all the ways I have seen you mature and seek to be the love of God to your friends in tough times...

For your awesome baking...

For the way you look photogenic in pretty much everything, making it nearly impossible to choose a few photos...

For a bazillion other reasons that I really don't have time to list...

I love you and I am SO, SO, SO thankful for you!

<3
Hannah

PS:  When you get back, we need to take more pictures together!

(I couldn't resist this last one... because you make me smile, dear!)

Home from Indy

Why am I doing this? I wondered as I listened to my boots hitting the sidewalk.  I was cold and moderately lost, it was dark outside, and I was in Cleveland.  Maybe I should just call and say that I'm not coming after all.  So then I would have wasted $74 on bus tickets, but on the other hand, then I could spend the night in my nice warm bed instead of catching a few hours of sleep on a bus.

I backtracked and found the road that led to the Greyhound station.

I don't like traveling.

The sheer irony of that thought was almost enough to snap me out of my funk.  After all, I've traveled all over China.  I've taken buses, planes, trains, and some less-than-entirely-standard forms of transportation.  I've lived out of my backpack in Thailand.  I've had mostly good experiences and I get bored when I'm stuck in a place too long.  Yet being alone in an American city at night is enough to make me question myself.

Aha, Greyhound...

As I walked down the sidewalk towards the station, wiggling my toes to try to get some feeling back into them, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket.

"Hello?"

It was my friend Rachy, the main reason that I was going to Indy.  She's on her way to Japan for a year.  We met under seemingly random circumstances in QinHuangDao, China, when I was teaching and she was a student.  On her way from Texas to Japan, she was stopping to visit another friend, and we had figured I might as well come too.  Confused yet?  Don't worry, there's no quiz.

She was calling to let me know that her bus was going to be late getting into Indy.  I sympathized, but there was really nothing that I could do about it, so after chatting for a few minutes, I went in and waited for my first bus to show up.

Greyhound bus stations, by the way, are -- in my experience -- equal parts creepy and intriguing.  Creepy because, well, they have terrible lighting and everyone is kind of cranky, and that's at the less creepy stations.  Intriguing because there are Amish people and a couple arguing in Mandarin and a guy who's confused and mostly speaks Russian.  And I find myself wondering about all of them.

My bus was on time, more or less.  I slept.  I hung out in another station and transferred buses and slept more.  I talked to my seat mate, who was on his way to nursing school in Wyoming.  Rachy and I texted each other a lot.  (At three in the morning, it seemed like a good idea.  At least we were both semi-awake!)

Eventually I got to Indy.

There was a lot of snow.

There were a lot of people in the bus station.

Does Tim know when I'm coming? I wasn't sure.  I thought I had mentioned it to him, but I couldn't remember if he was even in the state; probably something I should have checked on earlier.  I didn't see him immediately but my phone buzzed a few minutes later while I was washing my hands.  And you are...

I went back into the main area and poked him.  "Wo zai zheli!"  I'm here!

The next 40 hours were filled with meeting people, hanging out with people I had met last time I was in Indy, eating, playing games (ever heard of Tribond?  it was fun!), practicing shifting gears, a reunion with Rachy, getting to know another former CSP-er who's going with ELIC, watching a snowman be built (sort of), staying up late talking about...everything, driving through Indiana, watching The Soong Sisters, swapping stories of China.  There was sign language, Spanish, and of course Chinese.

All too soon, it was time to get on my bus and come back to Cleveland.  Tears, hugs, goodbyes.  Things that make my heart feel stretched and worn.  I don't think that goodbyes really get easier for me with the passing of time.

But you know what?  It's worth it.

It's worth it because two days is a lot of time to make memories.

It's worth it because this was the time that I had a chance to actually see these friends.  I don't always.

It's worth it for the new friends.  For the laughter.  For the stories.  For the chances to relax and fellowship and to create new memories.

It's worth it because, hard as goodbyes are, they are a cleaner and healthier kind of hard than the regrets that come with not showing that I care.

It's worth it because God has been good and richly blessed me with brothers and sisters all over the world