Lessons Learned

The post to conclude my summer has finally arrived. Apologies to all of you who kept pressing me to write it and had to wait so long (Pop). I could tell you that the reason for my delay in concluding the summer was because I’ve been extremely busy, and that is partly true. The real reason, however, is I’m not sure that I have much worthwhile to say.

The second half of the summer was vastly different from the first. We didn’t have as many over night groups stay with us. If we did, they were small. This proved to be both good and bad. It was good because the lack of pre-teen presence in my life allowed my nerves and patience to regenerate in time for graduate school. It was bad because John Carl and I found ourselves pretty bored at night. We filled the time with lots of CSI, Arrested Development, and reading a lot. I plan to post some of the books I read in a later blog.

So what exactly did I learn this summer? I’m still piecing it all together. I learned how connected we all are. As I sat at Highlands United Methodist one morning talking to Tamera, a mother of two trying to overcome an addiction to prescription drugs given to her after she had been raped, I learned more about Michael Jackson’s life and death than I could have ever imagined. Tamera also talked to me about how hard it was to get help when you have an addiction in Alabama. I was aware of the difficulty, but hearing her struggles first hand made me realize the severity of the situation. When I left Highlands that morning, I found myself being surprised that I would learn so much information from a woman struggling to stay off of the streets and keep food on the table for her two children and a number of her nieces and nephews. A few days later I realized how silly it was of me to be surprised. We are all connected and can learn from one another no matter what our individual situations are. Tamera made true Adah’s statement in The Poisonwood Bible, “We are our injuries as much as we are our successes.”

I learned a lot about love. Watching and talking to the people that work at Urban Ministry and other ministry oriented places in Birmingham, Gregory Boyd’s words from The Myth of a Christian Nation rang true in my head. “Love, not religiosity is the defining mark of the kingdom of God.” I’m thankful for the people I was surrounded by this summer and for the example of love and bringing the kingdom to earth they set. Through them, in the words of Anne Lamott, “I have learned that most of the time, all you have is the moment and the imperfect love of people.” No statement is truer for the things I experienced this summer.

Mostly, though, I learned to be thankful. Thankful for the experiences I had and people I encountered this summer. Thankful for God’s grace in the lives of his children. Thankful for the glimpses of the kingdom on earth that we are blessed to see through the simplest things. Thankful for the opportunity to add the experiences of this summer to my life’s story.

“To live is to be marked. To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story…”

-- Orleanna, The Poisonwood Bible