Listening

Mt. Hood, Oregon

I don't know exactly what a prayer is. 
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down 
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, 
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, 
which is what I have been doing all day. 
Tell me, what else should I have done? 
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? 
Tell me, what is it you plan to do 
with your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver, "The Summer Day"

This month, we've been on the move. First, we hauled our belongings to a one-bedroom place on the other side of the river in Ypsilanti. The landlord is still working on the flooring so he's allowing us to store our goods until mid-September. On the day we moved (July 31), Lindsay flew to Southern California for a week of being with family and friends and Tom drove the silver Corolla (188,000 miles and counting) across the frontier towards Oregon territory. He visited dear friends in Kansas and Colorado and, along the way, stopped at St. David, Illinois, the birthplace of his maternal grandmother Elizabeth Griffith. We met back up on August 7 in Bend, Oregon, at the home of Greg and Casey (Lindsay's brother and sister-in-law). We get to stay with them until September 11!

Highlands Ranch, Colorado

We have been ramping up our vintage Skype couples check-in. We've currently got regularly scheduled, one-hour sessions with six different couples (either every other week or once a month). The great thing is that we can do these anywhere we find a wifi connection! They provide a rare space for us to check-in with another couple, specifically around pains and patterns that trigger conflict, as well as in celebration of and gratitude for one another, and our respective journeys of transformation and work in recovery. We are using basically the same format we started experimenting with eight years ago, in a grassroots couples recovery group that came to be called Open Hearts. Really, we were following the lead of Kristen and Sam and Courtney and Kyle who invited us to join in their own process of sharing honestly from their experience, hope, strength, pain and joy.

Whidbey Island, Washington

Last weekend, we got to visit Kyle and Courtney in Seattle, where they now live with their four children. We lounged at Lake Sammamish, met some of their neighbors at a cul-de-sac barbeque and attended Eastlake, a church in the process of re-examining just about everything about spirituality (a few years back, they had 5,000 members--that was before they made the decision to be fully affirming to queer and questioning folk--now they have 500 regular attendees). It was heartening to be amongst such sincere post-Evangelical sojourners, leading with humble honesty and courage as they seek out more life-giving paths forward. After the service, we attended a memorial service on Whidbey Island for Marel Fabian, the mother of our friend Gavin. She was 60 when she passed. Whidbey is also home to Marcia and Clancy Dunigan (right), who we met on our "radical road trip" back in 2013. We stayed with the Dunigans and swapped stories of our participation in the Poor Peoples Campaign, the post-Evangelical pilgrimage and plenty more.

Kirkland, Washington

Over the past four years, much of our ministry of accompaniment has been geared towards working with a church and neighborhood in Detroit and getting our feet wet and hands dirty with those organizing for clean and affordable water in a city shutting off water to tens of thousands of poor, majority Black residents. This work, and the people who lead it, has been deeply transformative. It has left its irreversible mark and claim on the shape of our lives and vocations. Over the past year, however, our focus has begun to shift and clarify a bit. We will continue to join in social justice efforts in Detroit, a persistently vital stream of nurture, prodding and call in our lives. But more and more, we feel our hearts connecting more broadly to people all over North America who are asking serious questions about spirituality, coupleship, work, and what it means to participate in the struggle for a better world.

Eudora, Kansas

This time on the road is the start of an official, active, intentional listening tour. Spirit has been consistently seconding the motions. In our world today, the dictates of Market Forces (what we would name clearly Principalities & Powers) have worked to shape us into a peculiar people: increasingly busy and exponentially lonely. Many are tired of the same old answers and offerings from church. Financial strains abound--housing, health care, education and more and more and more. Relationships at work, in the neighborhood and with family are burdensome and challenging--most of these mired in all variety of unrecovering addiction and codependency. All of this in a political climate (local, state and national) that is not accountable nor responsive to the needs of everyday people.

Lawrence, Kansas

But the friends and family that we've connected with intimately over the past month possess a deep hunger for what is compelling, beautiful, and Real. We are all in this together--even though social forces are doing their best to separate us into silos (geographically, culturally, politically). In these intensely challenging times, we are jolted and inspired by the life and teachings of Jesus, always parabling promise through the paradox! The smallest mustard seed grows into the largest tree. A little bit of yeast makes the flatbread rise. What is truly divine is perfected through our imperfections. Our persecutions and crucifixions lead to liberations and resurrections. The wisdom is in the wounds.

Seattle, Washington

We continue to live in the tension of accepting our powerlessness over the trials and tribulations of the world and, at the same time, summoning the courage to change the things we can. Because of the deeply addictive systems that have malnourished and led us astray, some of our most pressing and ongoing work lies in a continual discerning between the two--thank God for a multiplicity of trusted spaces of support, prodding and wisdom, alongside consistent practices of inner work and Recovery to support this vital work of co-laboring for a more just, peaceable and vibrant world. It's good to be back on the road. There's plenty to learn along the Way.