Yet there is still another way.

Very few other cultures think as little about death as we do. We grieve well in the moment, sending flowers and baking casseroles, but  as Lauren Winner notes, “We lack a ritual for the long and tiring process that is sorrow and loss.” So it should be expected that rich examples of mourning well would also be found outside of my own experience. And for this, Lauren Winner again comes to my aid.

In her book, Mudhouse Sabbath, she tells of the Jewish conception of mourning. Through their rituals, they acknowledge the complicated emotions and experiences that are wrapped up in grief. In the space between death and burial, the rabbis teach that no comfort can be offered because, felt in a very real sense, the death is still happening. Then, for a whole week after the burial, friends and loved ones come and “sit shiva” with the family, offering comfort of their presence. When silence is called for, or weeping, or speaking life into memories of the dead, the community is there, no more or less real than God himself.

The part of this process of mourning that most comforts my soul is the full year of mourning that is marked by the community. Grief so often rises during unexpected times, and acknowledging this as a community seems to be a proper manifestation of the call in 2 Corinthians 1 to “comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” Yet surprisingly, this year of mourning is not marked by weeping or open grief, but instead, by praise. The mourner is called, in community, to recite the Kaddish twice a day for a full year. The prayer begins:

Magnified and sanctified may God’s great name be. Blessed, praised, glorified, exalted, extolled, mighty, upraised and lauded be the name of the Holy One, Blessed is He beyond any blessing or song.”

Lauren Winner explains that “even in the pit, even in depression and loss and nonsense, still we respond to God with praise…You do not have to feel praise in these intense moments of mourning, but the praise is still true, and insisting upon it over and over, twice a day, every day, ensures that eventually, you will come to remember the truth of those praises.” Its an odd picture of grief – vocalizing praise as we move through anger, numbness, bitterness, callousness, and emptiness, but Lauren writes what God insists – that “Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised.” As each new day dawns, the mourner is called to not to ignore their grief, but to acknowledge a greater truth.

And so, as we stand and recite these words in community, within the arms of the body of believers, we are to be reminded that we are not alone; that God has not abandoned us, and that these praises are true.

Jason Gray reminded me of these truths while I was listening to his album, “Acoustic Storytime.” In his introduction to his song, “You Are Mercy,” he says:

Jesus chooses to make himself present to us through each other. We are the body of Christ. We are his hands, his feet, his heart. And what that means, when two or more are gathered, that means that when you are going through a difficult time, when you are hurting, that means that I can bring Christ in me to you, and bring you his love, his mercy, his comfort. You can experience Christ’s love when I bring it to you in Jesus’ name. And that is humbling, isn’t it? But it’s also terrifying because we know that it means there’s a responsibility there.”

We do not yet do this well. But I pray that as these families that I love continue to grieve, that they would fall back into the arms of the body of Christ and not find them lacking.

And let it begin with me.

During Advent, Christians around the world spend the four Sundays before Christmas (and all the days in between) anticipating the birth of Christ. I think its easy for me, for people who grew up knowing about Christmas, to unintentionally minimize the wonder of Christmas. Israelites waited generations, centuries for the coming Messiah. Prophets throughout the Old Testament would be blessed with glimpses and promises of what this Savior would be like: he would crush the serpent’s head, he would reign on David’s throne, the government would be on his shoulders, he could proclaim liberty to the captives and be called Prince of Peace. And yet still, even with these increasing revelations, God’s people waited.

Hebrews 11 talks about just some of the faithful men and women who died, in hope, waiting for this promised Savior. We acknowledge these truths in our carols: “Come, thou long expected Jesus,” “O come, o come, Emmanuel,” “long lay the world, in sin and error, pining till He appeared.”

And so Advent is the season where we wait. We join with the saints of the Old Testament and we remember that this Messiah was not just sent for me, but for all who would believe, even those who are far off. We recite what we already know to be true: “Rejoice, rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee o Israel.”

But even as we sing these words, we know that Israel’s story is also our story. Christ has come! He has lived the life that we could not live, and died and rose again so that, as promised, he would crush the serpent’s head, reign on David’s throne, and proclaim liberty to the captive. But we will await his return – the final fulfillment of all the prophesies that were begun on that first Christmas day. We too, experience “a thrill of hope [as] the weary world rejoices” and long for the pain and heartache of this world to pass away.

And so during Advent, we join with the church, as one body, lighting our Advent candles and visibly being reminded that Christ is the light of the world, and that that light grows brighter as the day of his coming draws nearer. And we can sing, all the louder:

Come thou long expected Jesus.”

This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
There’d have been no room for the child.

Madeleine L’Engle

But when those moments come, stop for a moment, and pay attention. It may be that the stories are but a dim reflection of the Truth that is actually around us, inside of us, longing to be realized.

As Game 7 of the World Series came to a close, I knew it was one of those moments.

I think there is something inside of each of us that roots for the underdog. We may be staunch supporters of the other team, but our hearts are still moved by the come-from-behind victory, the regular joes upsetting the titans. We see ourselves in the victor and remember that sometimes David does beat Goliath; that the odds cannot be stacked against us forever; that we have already won the battle.

Sure, I can sit back and scowl and wonder why the Cleveland Indians weren’t the team to tip the balance in the back half of the 90s (instead, we got to be the first team in major league baseball to lose the World Series after carrying the lead into the bottom of the ninth inning of the seventh game – who doesn’t want that distinction?) But in my heart, the Cardinals victory eases the sting a bit. Their unforeseen championship means that there is hope, even for Cleveland.

Thomas Boswell, writing in the Washington Post this morning, captured the mystery that so often hovers over stadiums and arenas, just out of reach, but somehow tangible in spite of that:

What moves us so much about a two-month trek like the ones the Cards just finished is not that it is literally “impossible”. Of course it’s not. What grabs us is that it borders on the unbelievable, it presses against the walls of wish fulfillment, in a way that we recognize from our own lives.

What the Cardinals have done in their athletic world is akin to the best possible outcome we could imagine for ourselves, or those we love, in some area of our lives if maximum effort and maximum good fortune conspired.

Those here, clad in red and waving white towels, as well as all of us who have joined this ride along the way, don’t cheer the Cardinals, root for them and identify with them because they are complete heroes but because, as a club that merely tied for the eighth-best regular season record in ’11, they are slightly flawed athletes, banding together to surpass themselves.”

And this is so often the case, is it not? That when we band together, we surpass ourselves and tear back another corner of this darkness and maybe, if just for a minute, catch a glimpse of heaven.

May we all have eyes to see.

This is frustrating to me because as their small group leader, I like to at least pretend that I am a little more spiritually mature, or at least socially adept than they are. Yet I have no ground to stand on here.

You see, much of my own time is occupied by comparisons. I compare my unruly curls to other girls’ straight locks. I compare my performance at work to my coworkers’ efforts. I compare my house, my possessions, my job, my talents, my passions, and my personality to any and all who are different from me.  And to add to that list, I realize that I also compare my faith to those around me, and along with it, my giftings, passions, and service.

I look around and find that others are serving more in the background; that some are entering the mission field or moving across the country in obedience to God’s call. And here I am sitting in rush hour traffic day after day and trying to keep my mind engaged in the midst of piles of paper work and data analysis.

But C.S. Lewis reminds me that I have no business being so wrapped up in the lives of others. In the third of Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, The Horse and His Boy, Lewis unfolds a beautiful story of Aslan’s work in the life of a young boy named Shasta.

“Who are you?” he said, scarcely above a whisper.
“One who has waited long for you to speak,” said the Thing. Its voice was not loud, but very large and deep…Once more he felt the warm breath of the Thing on his hand and face. “There,” it said, “that is not the breath of a ghost. Tell me your sorrows.”
Shasta was a little reassured by the breath: so he told how he had never known his real father or mother and had been brought up sternly by the fisherman. And then he told the story of his escape and how they were chased by lions and forced to swim for their lives; and of all their dangers in Tashbaan and about his night among the tombs and how the beasts howled at him out of the desert. And he told about the heat and thirst of their desert journey and how they were almost at their goal when another lion chased them and wounded Aravis. And also, how very long it was since he had had anything to eat.
“I do not call you unfortunate,” said the Large Voice.
“Don’t you think it was bad luck to meet so many lions?” said Shasta.
“There was only one lion,” said the Voice.
“What on earth do you mean? I’ve just told you there were at least two the first night, and-”
“There was only one: but he was swift of foot.”
“How do you know?”
“I was the lion.” And as Shasta gaped with open mouth and said nothing, the Voice continued. “I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the Horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you.”
“Then it was you who wounded Aravis?”
“It was I”
“But what for?”
“Child,” said the Voice, “I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own.”

I don’t know what is driving Shasta’s question – curiosity perhaps, or confusion. But the answer rings true for me as well – I am only meant to know my own story.

And yet when I stop looking around and actually stop and see where God has placed me, the Truth begins to shine through. I use my bumper-to-bumper commute to maintain relationships with friends all across the country. My data analysis is revealing the true story of the incredibly broken world we live in. And my job affords me shocking levels of flexibility to love on high school students and act as a small counter balance to the world they have been raised in where schedules rule their lives.

It is often said that comparison is the thief of joy, and in this season of life, I too often allow that to be the greater truth. But I hope to re-enter the fight and reclaim joy from the clutches of the thief that has held it so tightly. As Christ explained to Peter, so may it be true for me:

If it is my will that [John] should remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me.”

- John 21: 22

As a child, my home had no shortage of stories. Some of my earliest memories involve me and my sister lounging by the one air conditioning unit in our childhood home, listening to dad read us stories. He read Nancy Drew mysteries and James Harriot books. Mom would read Winnie-the-Pooh and the Velveteen Rabbit, and even now when I read The Polar Express I can hear only her voice.  And then there were the stories demanded by us that were formed on the spot: My dad would tell tales about “Steggy” and “Bronty” (adventures of some stuffed dinosaurs that lived in my sister’s room) and my mom would create a world inhabited by the dust bunnies that lived under our beds.

We lived in a world of stories and devoured nearly every book that came our way. I remember reading Roald Dahl’s Matilda when I was in grade school and not having a category in which to place a household with no books. Stranger still were books that I encountered in high school and later life – Fahrenheit 451, 1984, and The Book Thief – that spoke of a sanctioned revisionist history and books that were viewed as dangerous and subversive.  But these books opened my eyes to the true things that were happening around me. There are those who do view books as dangerous and people who mount protests to have certain literature banned from libraries and school coursework. I understand the merits of wisdom and age-appropriate boundaries; that drawing any line is a slippery slope. But I trust that you will rightly interpret my frustrations.

As Hutchmoot was ending, I was feasting on the many words offered that upheld my beloved books. In a session on children’s literature, Sam reminded us that “books help train our thoughts and deepen our comprehension of truth”.  And so it is still hard for me to understand those who would seek to limit that which broadens us.  Yet all week, people across the country are talking about banned books; that’s because it’s Banned Books Week. It’s a time to raise awareness about all the good books that sit on shelves or never make it onto the shelf because a small group of people objected to the content. I think that I am primarily opposed to censoring good books because it suggests to me that people can’t think; that we will absorb all that we read without challenging it, or noticing all the ways that it is telling a true story, even if it’s a sad or dark one. But it all this censorship of literature becomes a Catch-22 (which you wouldn’t know about if you’re from an area that’s objected to this Joseph Heller book) and weakens our ability to challenge that with which we disagree:

The more limited the literature we give to our children, the more limited their capacity to respond, and therefore, in their turn, to create. The more our vocabulary is controlled, the less we will be able to think for ourselves. We do think in words, and the fewer words we know, the more restricted our thoughts.”

- Madeleine L’Engle, A Circle of Quiet

Good stories open our minds to possibilities and worlds that we didn’t even know we could imagine. They take us just far enough outside ourselves that we can see with fresh eyes the lessons they have to teach us. Walker Percy once wrote that “bad books always lie; they lie most of all about the human condition.” Literature that tells the truth, even if it’s dark truth, or snapshots of truth that are not seeking to describe the whole picture have merit – they “deepen our comprehension of truth”, allowing us to see more clearly the fallen world, yearning for redemption, that we are living in.

This week in the Washington Post, Michael Gerson published an editorial giving one of the best arguments for literature I’ve read in a long time. He lauds To Kill A Mockingbird, a book that has been challenged for many decades across the country.

But unlike Golding [author of Lord of the Flies], Harper Lee gives the adult world a moral voice. Atticus Finch teaches his children, Jem and Scout, that the proper response to injustice is courage — a virtue that appears in unexpected places and shines brighter as hope fades. “It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin,” Atticus explains, “but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.” It is present in Mrs. Dubose, choosing death without the comforts of morphine, and in Atticus himself, pressing his hopeless case against bigotry. Rather than a decisive battle, courage is a little voice at the end of the day saying, “I’ll try again tomorrow.”

This is what children need to be learning. This is what all of us need to be learning. How different would our world be if more students learned to fight injustice with courage? If, through stories, we stepped back and regained a clear view of reality, both as it is and as it could be; just imagine the world that we could create.

Gerson closes his editorial with a strong hope for those who get drawn in to a story that’s bigger than themselves:

This is the hope: …That a 13-year-old, like many who came before, might glimpse real courage in imaginary lives. That the end of innocence might be the start of sympathy. That even junior high can include a little grace.”

And this is my hope for all of us – may we all glimpse real courage in imaginary lives and in so doing, boldly transform our own corners or the universe.

And this year, she invited me into this world. I arrived a bit like Peter and Susan: I had heard of this land – a world within a world – but couldn’t quite believe it was true. So she took my hand and led me through the wardrobe alongside her, excited to introduce me to the world within.

I already cherished this community for welcoming and valuing my sister so much, and somehow anticipated entering Hutchmoot as an observer, trying to see this world through her eyes and learn what had so captivated her heart. But I didn’t expect to be inextricably pulled toward this community myself. In the process of keeping my eyes open to find what my sister so loved, I found my own heart breathing more deeply and exhaling into the peace of a weekend of Shalom. Like Peter and Susan, I was stunned and delighted to find that not only was I welcomed into this new world, but that for me too, this was where I belonged. These “dear little rabbits” drew me into their lives through unguarded visions of their own passions, thoughtful questions, and bold laughter sprinkled with tears.

This blossoming community reminded me of the beauty of bold authenticity, even after self-doubt or disappointment or weariness would seek to push me back inside myself.  I think some of the Rabbit Room writers captured this best through their music:

Building a wall so no one could bother me / living my life in isolation / Opening up to only those close to me /Nobody’s close to me, what have I done?

See I really want to be known / but I’m not quite as strong as the fear / that you won’t understand the fool that I am

and that’s how I ended up here.”

- Jason Gray, How I Ended Up Here

As I cast out all these lines / so afraid that I will find / I am alone, all alone.

But could it be that the  many roads I took to get here / were just for me to hear that story / and for you to sing that song / and my many hopes / and my many fears / were meant to bring you here all along.”

- Andrew Peterson, Many Roads

There is a refreshment, a lightening that comes from stepping out into community and finding that you aren’t alone. What a gift to go into a world where everyone showed up, grasped hands, took a deep breath, and moved forward together!  As a new friend of mine, Sam, put it,

We’re waiting for you and cannot be what we ought to be without you.”

And even as it was just beginning, Hutchmoot came to a close. The many roads we took to get here would lead us back to the worlds we came from. We climbed out of the wardrobe, returning with full hearts to embrace the beauty found in the midst of our own little postage stamps; be it the plains of the midwest, the heat of the south, or the hurry of the city.

And so, we left, carrying our strand of the doxology firmly in our hearts, and longing for heaven where the rich harmony will again be made sweet and complete.

I read it in your word, learn it from the story

of those gestures with which your hands

cupped themselves around each fledgling thing -

warm, encompassing, wise.

You pronounced live strongly and die softly

and ceaselessly repeated: Be.

But before the first death murder came.

With that a rent tore through your perfect circles

and a scream broke in

and scattered all those voices

that had just then come together

to sing you,

to carry you about,

their bridge over all abysses -

And what they have been stammering since

are fragments

of your ancient name.

- Rainer Rilke

Thanks to my friend Ginny for introducing me to this beautiful poem.  http://fledglingthings.blogspot.com/

[I should at this point add that although, technically, there are only four people living in this house, in actuality, this house has five roommates. I shall call them M, J, E, L, and me, your host, KP.]

Just before 7 o’clock, we began to hear thunder. As the party is set to begin at 7 and we have been asked to bring food, J and I wander upstairs to see if M and L are very nearly ready (E is going to a different party and has made the-world’s-best-cupcakes to take with her). As 7 o’clock hits, it begins to rain. By 7:02, it is clear that this is going to be more than a light shower. At 7:05, it has started to hail. Undeterred, J and I proceed with trying to leave quickly so as not to arrive “fashionably” late. I throw on a rain coat and dash out to my car to get more umbrellas. As I come inside, I’m delighted to find that my other roommates had made it downstairs, with M proclaiming that this is simply just a drizzle and what in the world was all the fuss about. L announces that she is returning upstairs and will wait another 15 minutes for the rain to subside. I decide to run down to my bedroom to see if I can find the large golf umbrella that I just can’t seem to put my hands on.

As I turn the corner to my downstairs bedroom, I blink twice. There is water pouring into my bedroom through the window. I scream. I yell for anyone to come downstairs. I grab my bath towel and fling it on the window sill, shouting at whichever poor soul came downstairs first to get more towels. E and M are downstairs with me, trying to stop up the water, move my bookshelf, and get everything off my floor when we hear J scream from upstairs (note: J is likely the most calm of all of us. Her screaming meant that there was A Problem.)

We dash upstairs. J, in a moment of brilliance, has determined that the water must be resulting from something blocking the drain in the window well. She has run outside in the torrential downpour, stuck her hand down the 2 1/2 foot deep window well that is rapidly filling with water, and felt “something slimy”. Hence, the scream. M determines it must be a snake and wants nothing to do with it.

Meanwhile, water continues pouring into my bedroom.

In all crises, there seems to be a deciding point. Where people rise to the occasion. Where calamity actually does set in. Where heroes are made and people’s true colors come out. All of these things did happen, but more so than all of these, this was the moment when we moved past calamity and into absurdity.

Please remember that this is a rented house full of 20-something women whose prior most pressing concern about our house was getting curtains hung up. Also keep in mind that we have lived here for less than a month.

At this point, J and I run outside and do the only thing that seems sensible. Start hauling water out of the window well. I yell into the house for someone to hand me a pot from the stove, J grabs a watering can that had floated off the front steps, and we set to bailing out the well. You may also be interested to know that I am wearing a floor-length jersey skirt and a formerly-billowy-now-soaking-wet green shirt. Within 10 seconds, I am totally, utterly, soaked-to-the-bone drenched. J and I are on our hands and knees, recklessly throwing water behind us. As we are doing this, J hits me full on the face with a bucket of water, and all I can do is laugh. The water is freezing cold, I can’t see 2 feet in front of me because my glasses are covered in water, and all I can do is laugh.

M and L run back downstairs to continue with the towel situation and E stands in the kitchen, frantically trying to get anyone useful on the phone (this includes, but was in no way limited to our contractor, our realtor, any homeowners we knew, men who lived near us, people who were generally regarded as “helpful”). As it is 7:30 on a Friday night, no one answers. E is undeterred and continues calling.

Outside, J and I seem to be barely able to empty out the window well as the rain is falling so hard. As we are continuing in our desperation, one of our neighbors (whom we have not met) appears, in the pouring rain, to ask if he can help. Mercy. He jumps right in the window well, seems to determine that nothing is blocking the drain, and disappears again. J and I continue bailing out the window well with limited success.

But J, again with more brilliance, has decided that the best course of action would be to find a tarp, get some sandbags, and line the well with them to stop the water from pouring in (as that is what they seem to do in real floods). J continues scooping out the water, and I dash down the street, behind the row of townhouses, to their old house, where there should be a tarp in the backyard. The alley behind our house has become a river. My glasses are still covered in water and I try several fence doors before coming to the right one, but it is locked. Turning back up the river, I grab a trashcan that is stuck in the current and take it back to our house, nearly tripping over my skirt in the process.

Back at the ranch, L has managed to get one of those “helpful” people on the phone and has rather stressfully explained our predicament. Well, she explained it twice, as the first time the story didn’t really sink in to our dear friend who probably assumed we were calling to ask directions to the party, not for lifesaving efforts. He dashed off to Home Depot to buy some sandbags and come save us.

As I come back to the house with the trash can that I hope will somehow be helpful, it becomes clear that we do not have a vision for what to do next. We have no tarp, no sandbags, and no real way to keep water out of the basement. At this moment, our mysterious neighbor returns with an old door to put over the well and fully cover it. M has run down the street to her old next-door-neighbor’s house to see if they have a tarp, which they do not. Also at the moment, our next-door neighbor sticks her head out the door and asks if she can doing anything to help. Miraculously, she has both a tarp and a bag of sand, left over from her children’s sandbox. Her husband runs them out to us.

J and I manage to tie up the tarp over the well (the door has neglectfully been cast to the side) and we put one sand bag at the base to try and hold it down. M has remembered the ginormous bag of salt we have in the basement and hauls that upstairs to help with the tarp.

Our Home-Depot-dashing-friend has gotten stuck in traffic, which of course popped right up since there was rain and we live in Northern Virginia, so M and L decide to hop in their car and get some sand bags, only to discover that the end of our street has flooded and we can’t get out.

With the tarp at least partially in place, we turn our attentions to the basement. M and L have managed to move my bookshelf away from the window and throw anything that was on my floor up onto my bed. They also have the presence of mind to unplug simply everything and also put that on the bed. The carpet is now completely soaked as well as the multi-colored towels that are attempting to keep it dry. J and I are dripping wet and throw on some dry clothes to help with the work inside. Our next-door neighbor appears at our door with a crate full of towels and rags for us to use in the basement, so we take the first line of towels out, throw them in the dryer and set up the newest line of defense.

E has left messages for our contractor and talked to our realtor whose only real advice was to call a plumber. Somehow, I don’t think she grasped the scope of the situation.

As the rain was subsiding, our friend made it onto our street with several sandbags in tow. We added those to our impressive collection on the front lawn (now including an unused door, a trash can, eight sand bags, a bag of salt, the handle of a broom, a tarp, some twine, a watering can, and several pots and pans) as the rain began to die down.

A few more neighbors stopped by to see what they could do to help, and we turned our full attention to the inside. At this point, my capacity to make decisions has vanished. When someone suggests that we rip up the carpet, remove the padding under the carpet, and attempt to dry the carpet, I find myself agreeing, then watching as my newly moved-in furniture is carted out of my bedroom and down the hall into the other half of the basement. My roommates as well as two neighbors (whom I had not met until 5 minutes prior) are lifting out drawers, disassembling my bed and moving my file cabinet with such speed that you would think this was a regular occurrence. At several points, my roommates nearly dissolve into laughter because what.else.are.you.going.to.do.

M somehow knows that we have neighbors who have a shop vac, and within minutes, there are two sitting in my basement. The neighbors leave once the carpet is up, E decides she can still make it to her party, and J returns to her house, leaving M, L, our helpful friend, and me with one emptied bedroom, two shop vacs and a kitchen full of hummus, brownies, and half of the worlds-best-cupcakes. Its 9:35pm, which seems like as good a time as any to eat dinner.

In the following 24 hours, we borrowed several fans and a dehumidifier, finally got a hold of our contractor who ultimately decided to throw the carpeting away in spite of our best efforts, and talked to our landlord (who lives in Greece) who was marvelously grateful and responsible for the whole thing. We will have new drywall put in this week after the gutters are fixed, the drain is inspected and a sump-pump is installed. I have set up a make-shift bedroom in the second half of our basement and done 4 loads of laundry consisting mainly of towels. Five thank-you notes have been written to kind and generous neighbors and 8 dozen cookies have been baked to show, in the smallest way, how grateful we are for this community.

I have spent the day laughing with my roommates about the comedy of last night’s events (we have 8 sandbags in our front yard! really!) and listing the numerous ways in which God’s grace was evident to us throughout yesterday’s flood. For example: I had just gotten back from a week-long vacation. If this had happened while I was gone, no one would have noticed and my possessions would likely all be ruined. Or: If punctuality had won the day, or if I had remembered that the golf umbrella was in the trunk of my car, I would not have run downstairs to discover the water until after we returned from the party. Or: If our neighbors were not so generous and attentive, I would have quickly been overwhelmed, totally unable to make decisions.

We are so, so grateful for all who helped, offered to help, have since offered to help, and have been willing to love us well in the midst of what is, in the grand view of things, really rather small. You are all so dear to us.

During the moving process, I’ve had lots of thoughts about community, the role of the “family of faith”, maintaining connections in our increasingly fragmented world, the value we do and should place on our global economy, God’s calling on our lives, and dance.

Owing to lots of back-logged real work, boxes that remain unpacked, and a compulsive need to travel that hits me every summer, most of these thoughts will have to remain in storage, to be slowly expounded on throughout the coming days and weeks. In the meantime, I leave you with my thoughts on dance.

I have only taken a few ill-fated formal dance classes. I think my mother categorizes my dancing experience as one of those “it seemed like a good idea at the time” seasons of life. But alas, forcing my legs into dance tights was not something that I was excited about as a child, and I let my mother know this. So we quit dance.

But in high school, for reasons that are still not entirely clear to me, I joined our high school dance team and began to rekindle a love of movement, of dance. Although I am by no means an accomplished dancer, I take pleasure in watching those who are express themselves in a way that transcends the feeble words that bind the rest of us.

In the process of moving, I’ve watched a lot of TV on Hulu to help pass the time in the monotony of yet again stuffing all my earthly possessions into small brown boxes. It would so happen that So You Think You Can Dance was on Hulu this summer. And I got taken in.

I’m normally opposed to these talent-game-show-reality-tv endeavors, but the contestants this year are so passionate and so genuine that it was hard not to get taken in. I offer you two performances by my stand-out favorite, Melanie. The finale is on tonight. I hope you tune in and lose yourself, if only for a moment.