Tag: community (Page 8 of 8)

Who’s Dancing with You?

February 1, 2012 /

I really admire my husband.

He’s brilliant and wise and athletic and better than me at everything.

Except maybe one thing.

When we were dating, we never danced.

And when we got married we didn’t have dancing at our reception.

And when we went to our first wedding reception as a married couple he didn’t ask me to dance and I cried and was sure he didn’t really love me.

I wrote recently that some friends and I have wrangled our husbands into taking dance lessons, and I’ve finally discovered why this has not been part of our life together up til now.  I’m not gonna sugar coat it.  I’m no Ginger Rogers, but John is truly bad.   I don’t understand it.  How can someone who’s so coordinated in so many other areas be so…not…in this area?  Sometimes we just have to stop trying because we’re laughing so hard.

It’s one thing to have humility thrust upon you.  You make a mistake and have to apologize.  Like BP and their oil spill.  Or the captain of the cruise ship in Italy that ran aground.  Or Lindsay Lohan.  You’re given a job to do and things don’t go well.  You’re humbled.

But to choose to step into a situation where you know you’re weak, vulnerable, open to ridicule?  That takes love.

Doing this together with some of our closest friends has led me to another conclusion.

We all need friends who will dance with us.  People with whom we feel safe enough to say “yes, we’ll join you” even when it makes us vulnerable, or it’s risky, or has the potential to be downright embarrassing.

These are the people who will always laugh along with you and defend you and pray for you and forgive you even when toes are getting stepped on or you’ve made a wrong turn and bumped into them.

These are the people you can call at midnight when your world seems to be falling apart, or you have exciting news.  You help them carry their lamps and wine glasses to their new home and they help fix your leaky faucet.

They’re the ones who show up with chicken soup when you’re sick and light sparklers with you on holidays and stand at the graveside with you when your dad dies.

They write notes to your kids and you take theirs sailing.  You’ve run out of gas together on vacation and you’ve prayed.  Wow, have you prayed.  Together and separately, through laughter and tears.

Waltz.  Jitter bug.  Fox trot.

They know all your weaknesses and how you miss the beat and can’t twirl, but they still love you.

These are our people and we’re theirs.

More than anything they have our back.  And we have theirs.  No matter what.

Like I said before, these humiliating dance lessons were a choice, but recently John has been in another situation that has required public apologies and explanations and some people have been really mad, and others have been really mean, but then…there are those we dance with.

Recently, after a hard experience, a friend gave John a hug, and later he found that this note had been slipped into his pocket.

If you don’t have friends who will dance with you, find them.  They’re out there.  And if you do have friends who dance with you, maybe remind them you’ve got their back (or their toes).

Who’s dancing with you?

3 Questions to Ask When Community is Hard

January 4, 2012 /
Three months ago daughters Katy and Maggie moved into an apartment in D.C.
Together.
And so far both of them are still alive.
Here’s a sign I gave them when they moved in (Can you tell we had a hard time hanging it?)

How does this affect you, you might ask?
Well if you have ever lived with a roomate,
or worked with a boss,
or married a spouse,
or served on a committee
with a person that’s the exact opposite of you,
you know that living in community can be as ugly as putting Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi in a room together.
Recently they collaborated to write up their experience.  Maybe you can relate to their story of community and share some of what you’ve learned in your experience.

Have you ever taken the Meyers Briggs test? Where you answer a bunch of questions, and at the end you’re assigned four letters that make up the basics of your personality?
4 powerful letters that tell someone all they need to know about how you’d respond…

If strangers showed up at your door inviting you to a costume party,

Or if you had to decide under pressure, which wire to cut to diffuse a bomb,

Or whether you’d say “Suck it up.” or “You poor, poor baby!” if someone told you their hamster died.

Well in our family, the 4 letters that sum up Maggie are exactly the opposite of the 4 letters that sum me (Katy) up.

In spite of being opposites, while growing up, the two of us were inseparable.  Walking to and from elementary school together, taking (voluntary) trips up to the local library to stock up on Sherlock Holmes books to read aloud to one another in the privacy of the latest edition of our ever-improving fort.  We’d rally the neighborhood kids for night games and home made video productions, snow forts and magic shows.  We were a dream team.

But then, something happened. I think professionals call it “puberty”. We turned into the worst versions of ourselves, camping out on the far edges of our opposite personalities. Things that were cute about Maggie became shallow and annoying. My attitude went from an indulgent older sister to, frankly, a superior jerk. Those halves on Meyer’s Briggs became like some sort of bizarre science class punnett square exercise gone wrong.

In our case, it took about 6 years apart and the advent of gchat to start a new season of communicating. Rather than the cutting remarks and dismissive sarcasm, we began to speak with each other as people, rather than sisters.  Each of us slowly slid towards the center of that personality chart, first recognizing our weaknesses, then working to develop into more balanced people.  It sounds quite nice and simple in that sentence, but some of this “realization” came through heated phone calls and the occasional adopting of our high school personalities.  AKA our “worst selves.”

Now, years later, here we are, co-inhabiting a 900 square foot apartment in the heart of our nation’s capital.  Had you told us 5 years ago that this would be our living situation, we would have thought you were a lunatic.  Surprisingly, it is going quite well.  There have been a few flare ups where we’ve seen those high school selves resurface, and it’s embarrassing.  But we’re truly enjoying one another’s company, the sharing of friend groups, being invited to the same parties, and attending the same church for the first time in years.  We find ourselves working to carve out “sister time” and we’ve seen this time become increasingly more meaningful.  As we earn one another’s respect, we are better able to speak into each other’s lives.

The bottom line is that when we allow the other person’s strengths to threaten us we’re our worst selves.  But when we move towards each other in humility, ready to learn from the other’s strengths, and seek help in the areas where we’re weak, we thrive.
When I can sincerely say, “Maggie, what would you do in this social situation?” where I feel unsure, and she can sincerely ask “Katy, what bus should I get from U Street to get home? or Who is Christine Legard and why do we care about her?” we both benefit.

What I’ve learned from watching Katy and Maggie grow as they live in community is to ask questions.  When I’m in situations where the emotion seems to rumble in my stomach and travel to my face and threaten to come out of my mouth in unwise words I’m trying to ask:

1.  What am I afraid of?  Really.

2.  What can I learn from this person?

3.  What questions should I ask to gain better understanding?

What collaborative, or community building situations are the most challenging to you?  When do you feel most threatened?  What is helpful?

Seeing and Being Seen

October 19, 2011 /

I was sitting in church on the aisle on a Sunday awhile ago, feeling alone and out of place.  Have you ever felt that way? (I figure if I have, I’m not the only one!).  The sanctuary was darkened for a video when I felt a strong hand squeeze my shoulder from behind.  I turned to see a dear friend who I love and hadn’t seen in a long time.  I jumped up to give him a quick hug.  I whispered, “I’ve missed you so much.” But no words were necessary.  In that small moment, that small gesture, it was like Jesus was reminding me, “I see you.  I care, and I’m glad you’re here.”

Isn’t this part of what it means to be brothers and sisters in the body of Christ?  Showing up and being the visible reminder of God’s invisible presence?  Although there are times when all of us want to be anonymous, what struck me was the power of being noticed.  How many people do I walk by each day who are feeling left out and need to be reminded that they matter?  That God sees them and cares?

A mentor of ours said once that a leader is someone who walks more slowly through a room, noticing God and others rather than hurrying to the next task. 

Have you been in a situation when a hug from someone felt like a hug from Jesus?                                                                                                                                                   

How are YOU doing?

October 10, 2011 /

“So how are you and what are you doing these days?”  A seemingly simple and innocent question from a friend I hadn’t seen in a few months.

I want to yell, “DOING???  What am I DOING??   I’m Road Runner running straight off the cliff and not realizing it!  I’m Charlie Brown constantly falling flat trying to kick the football!   I’m like the psycho squirrels in my back yard, frantically spinning around, more than a little confused about which way is up!”

Fortunately I catch myself, realizing this might not be an appropriate answer, especially since we’re in the middle of a crowded Starbucks and I’d probably start crying and that would be ugly.

Instead I smile and answer confidently, “Oh everything’s good!  I’m doing a variety of ministry stuff…Thankful for family and friends…” Which is true as far as it goes, but certainly gives a different impression than my first answer!

Have you ever felt like everyone else has their life together with a master plan complete with long and short range goals and is right on track doing meaningful work on the highway to success?

I was thinking about this as I rode through my neighborhood the other day.  I love my neighborhood.  It’s kind of a cross between Mayberry (remember the old Andy Griffith show?) and Stars Hollow (remember Gilmore Girls?).

Every morning very early, I either walk (when the snow is blowing), or ride my bike down Glenhurst, over to Huntington, right on 38th, left on Joppa to 39th to Raleigh to Starbucks where Cory starts my drink before I’m in the door.

I ride past Stanley the dog (named after the Hockey cup), who is always sitting outside keeping watch over his corner of the world,

neighbors sitting on their front porch with coffee, the house with the picket fence , the one with the window boxes that will soon be heaped with pumpkins and gourds as the season changes…

If I ride through my neighborhood in the humid summer evenings I hear dads mowing lawns, kids out playing on a slip and slide, parents on Adirondack chairs chatting over the squeals of their kids.  As dusk falls I love the smell of hamburgers on the grill, and seeing into a lighted house where a young girl practices piano in a bay window.

How much is my neighborhood like me?  Like you?

What’s going on behind the Capra-esque (It’s a Wonderful Life reference 🙂 ) façade? Is it as good as it looks or is there loneliness, and despair lurking?

Are there people just waiting for someone to ask “How are you doing, really?

Recently I had to write a profile describing who I am and what I do for a class I’m involved in.  As I read over it, it was like my neighborhood.

Everything I wrote was true (like the answer I gave my friend in Starbucks), but it gave a picture of a totally together woman with an idyllic life and that is so not true of me!  It didn’t reflect any of the brokenness, or insecurity or pain that I wrestle with.  Now here’s the thing…I was writing this for a small group of 5 who are in ministry.  This was a safe and appropriate place to share a little more deeply and authentically.  If I had, would the others have breathed a deep sigh of relief and jumped into a more meaningful life-giving dialog?

Do you ever feel like everyone else has it all together?                                                 

Are there places you appropriately and honestly share who you are or are you always in “image management” mode?

Do you have a friend that you might call today and ask, “How are you doing? Really?”

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