I’ll be out of my mind
and you’ll be out of ideas
–Hot Air Balloon, Owl City
“…All was well.”
-the last line in the final book of the Harry Potter series
This is the role of the artist – to find the places within where a door would go nicely, to build it, to open it, and to give themselves to the flow that rushes through, wherever it leads them.
–Jesh de Rox, photographer
Heather and I turned the corner on Calle Perserverencia in Vamos Tamaulipas last week, and we looked at the way our friend Carmen’s house has changed. “Here,” she said, pointing to a cement slab, “Ruby sang to Emily and Dayan.”
We sloshed down the muddy street with shoeboxes and kids in tow, and I started seeing things that the last few years of working in the community had given me. There was the house where Perla used to live, and her mom Norma loves my mom, who cried with her when she lost her little girl last year. Here was Hector’s house. We turned the corner at the end of the road. There was the canal our team cleaned out two summers ago (not without strep throat, heat exhaustion and a rusty nail creating need for three Mexican medical experiences). We passed stores we’d bought cokes in, women knew by face, children we knew by name.
For the last few years, our lives have been paced by trips to Mexico the way a musician uses a metronome to keep time. And next week I finish working at church, meaning that last week when we handed out those shoes in Mexico, we closed a chapter. It was strange and sad and joyful in the colonia last week. We handed out shoes and held babies and prayed for miracles and watched life happen. They know us; we know them.
Today I went into the office at church to close out the Mexico trip and attend my last staff meeting. As I worked at my desk, Bob, my boss and friend and second dad and mentor extraordinaire, leaned his head in my doorway and asked if I wanted a sandwich. “You know,” he said, “At your next job, your boss probably won’t bring you lunch when he packs one for himself.” Bob and his equally extraordinary Anna have brought me lunch for the past four years. Not every day but most days. Our office life has had a rhythm of banter and food and hugs and conversations. We rarely settle into routines at church, because church life is often defined by what is happening around us and how we respond to it. We lack routine but rely on rhythm.
Over the past year, as the rhythm became too maddening for me to keep up with (I am a slow-song kind of musician and a slow-dance kind of girl), I found myself retreating away from the good parts of Mexico and the happy parts of church on a lot of days. I ran a lot of miles trying to clarify what was happening. When the Owl City Ocean Eyes album came out in July, I downloaded it. It stayed on my i-pod shuffle I run with for months and rarely left the CD player in my car. That album is freakin’ intoxicating with happiness. The music served to keep my feet on the ground without letting my head sink. I have really struggled to find peace with my decision to move on from church work.
I read Harry Potter on repeat this past year as well. When I could not find God in the Bible or in church or in relationships, I found clear pictures of Him in the Harry Potter novels. Go figure. Within the genius of Rowling’s world of wizards and witches the unlikely heroes who emerged (and often at great cost) reminded me of endless truths, capital T Truths: People are worth the cost. Fear ought not be the plumbline of our choices. Love wins. Strength often displays itself most strongly in moments of weakness, brokenness and death. Hope emerges, time and again, in the face of very real darkness when people love sacrificially. Humility marks the best of leaders… and on and on… I found the books pushing my faith on as I considered all the changes ahead of me.
The music I heard and the books I read carried me along this year as I tried to figure everything out. A lot of days, they seemed to be the glue holding everything together, these songs written from someone else’s heart and these words that made up an unreal world. In reality, though, it was the people around me and the God who makes His home within me who showed up, time and again, in a messy office and on muddy Mexican streets who have made all the difference in the world. They were the instruments of much needed consistency and rhythm. And now I stand in front of some brand new doors to walk through.
But I get to keep the people.
I may be utterly out of my mind, but all will be well.
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