Grace-
under the table
Most everyone I know has a space in their hearts set aside
for the suspension of personal success in order to shine a light into the deep
darkness of another’s broken dreams. With the frequently high-pressure push to
check off all of our fine accomplishments, nearly all of us experience failure,
fatigue and self-doubt. We have to catch our breath. We hold out for the
generosity of family, friends and neighbors. We find love in the most
unexpected places. We find each other. We find life.
Summer has officially begun here at Clairvaux Farm.
Shirtless, shoeless young boys run roughshod through the houses, the kitchen
and the barns. They plunge into the wading pool, creating a soup of their
moisture and rubble. Mothers emerge from their rooms and sit outside rocking
and cuddling their infants. Admirers take turns holding innocence in their arms
under the summer sun.
We are in great chaos at times. We work through the struggles
to keep ourselves together and manage glimpses of community, like diamonds in
the rough. And during these times, God presents us with friends; friends who
join us for pre-set increments of time (typically a week). They come from all over the map to help us build
and paint, stew and sew and to sing and dance and play with our children. Work groups, we call them. That’s what they
are on paper. But, truly, they are our friends.
They arrive with goals. There are physical things to be done
and their work will change our attire and make us more beautiful and more functional
at the same time. It is nice to look upon the work that is completed and see
something new and special, molded by the very hands that we break bread with
each day. It is equally marvelous to know we have loved and that we are loved.
Yesterday, I was helping a mother
find her three-year-old son. We searched and we yelled and looked everywhere we
thought he might be. I was looking out front when I decided to pass back
through the dining hall. The boy was hiding under a table not visible to anyone
not searching for him. Somehow his mother had found him and was giving him
what-for. After taking his tongue
lashing, he insisted on eating his dinner under the table. His mother was
exhausted; angry with him but clearly aware she was now in a stand-off. Just
then, a young woman from the Americorps work
group scooted under the table to dine with him and the boy’s face lit up. It
was a comfortable moment. Two people finding each other at dinner time; sharing
and caring.
There was no plan for this moment;
no way for anyone to anticipate the needs of either party. God’s grace is like
that; mysterious, unexpected, a true gift. In an instant, we go from the
position of helper to helpee and from teacher to pupil. In these brief
encounters, our plans are irrelevant. Our only exercises of preparation are the
calisthenics of love; stretching our hearts and minds to believe this love is
possible and that we are worthy of receiving, even when we are tasked with
giving.
Our friends from out of town come
and go. They leave handprints in the cement and with paint on the projects they
complete. But they take us with them and leave with us all flavors of their love
and friendship.
