Thanksgiving

I’m filled with gratitude today. Lest I create the impression of an instagram-filtered life: let me say that it's almost weekly that I cry or think “I can’t do this anymore,” and not just the work, the enormous task of living with hope in this world. And of course, the aches and pains of my life as a chaplain and human pale in comparison to the anguish, grief, and heartbreak of my patients and their families. I hope that the meaning and beauty I find in this work does not imply insensitivity to their experiences.

In any case, today I wanted to share a little of how I got into this job that is changing me, bringing me life and depth: through luck, and listening to my gut, and quite a lot of grace.

Photo by Guy Mayer

i.

I’m grateful for the gut feeling.

My gut had been wrong about these things before. As a 20-year-old, after spending a month in Bangladesh, I boarded a plane for home, feeling deep down, "I'll be back." I haven’t been back.

So I was justifiably skeptical of my inner churnings on my last day of internship as a chaplain in the summer of 2016. And yet, the phrase kept playing in my head, "Chaplaincy isn't done with me yet."

Still, I put down that voice. I was on an emotional high, saying goodbye to colleagues and a summer of learning. Sure, I had loved and learned all summer long: I had been honored by the stories shared, been awed by the sacredness of grief, been surprised by the gratitude and hopefulness found in the hospital rooms of the sick and dying. But, I had not loved the group processing we had to do every week, rehashing our experiences and feelings ad nauseum with supervisors and peers. I had hated that moment I broke down in tears in front of the group—hated it so much I crawled under the table. I told myself it was too overanalytical, too touchy-feely. Better simply to do the work you're called to do.

ii.

I’m grateful that I drove by the hospital around 11pm, 36 hours before the application was due for Duke’s chaplain residency.

I thought about the patients sleeping, and the family members pacing in waiting rooms, and the chaplain walking down a quiet hallway, breathing slowly to mentally prepare herself for the teary family waiting for her. I felt a sinking feeling in my gut. There was something more for me here.

Maybe. I threw together an application, "just to keep the door open." Probably I wouldn't be accepted, wouldn't accept anyway.

iii.

I’m grateful they nearly made me cry during my interview.

As I sat with a table of three interviewers I already knew, I shared about a patient I’d cared for the summer before, a patient who’d received life-changing news but seemed to want to put a positive spin on it all. I told them I’d tried to meet him where he was, while also letting him know it was okay with me if he needed to cry and scream. I tried to show—as one does in an interview—what a phenomenal and qualified candidate I was for this chaplain job.

Then they asked about my background. My personality. My ability to receive feedback. Questions grew sharper, and I felt anger rumbling in me. No, I wasn’t arrogant about my family. Was I?

One of the panelists stopped me. “Let me go back to your patient. You said he wanted to put a positive spin on it all. How is that like what you’re doing right here, right now, in this interview?”

I felt my face grow hot and tears rise. Seriously? Of course I am--I want you to hire me!

And then suddenly as it clicked, a desperately beautiful freedom. Unlike every other pretense-filled interview for every other pretense-filled job, this panel didn’t want me to act like I had it all together. They didn’t want a perfect employee. They wanted someone who wasn’t afraid to be real, to openly and bravely explore the unknown not only with patients, but with herself.

Being real intstead of perfect—being brave instead of put-together—these were the things that I wanted, too.

iv.

I’m grateful they let me in.

v.

I’m grateful for that Tuesday evening.

I was sipping wine with John. I had been wrestling all week whether to accept the job. I had never wanted another 1-year transitional gig. It seemed that to do it I would have to put off big things—Getting a Real Job and Trying to Start a Family and Having a Plan.

But that evening I felt a clarity, so I took John out for a glass of wine and told it all. I told him I wanted to do this, because it felt real, because it felt like exactly what my perfectionist self needed, because it felt like a mysterious calling. I’d just had 3 grad school years focused on Achieving and Succeeding, and I live in a culture that measures worth by the Outcomes and Products and that identifies people by what they Do.

In the midst of all that, I wanted to focus on becoming. On who I am rather than what I do. On deepening instead of producing.

I am grateful that John caught the vision.

vi.

I am grateful to be here.

It’s all about Being and Becoming. I sit with people who are suffering and I have no fix to give. The only Skills I’m developing are silence and tears and an occasional willingness to look into my own darkness. I spend two hours a week pulling shards of my broken self out to put on display to my colleagues.

And it is one of the best things I have ever done.

I know it sounds crazy. So many people ask me a variety of the question, "How do you manage to spend so much time around dying people without sinking into despair?" Others, who know the intricacies of this type of program, wonder why I enjoy spending every Thursday morning in a room with six people I met only a few months ago, a processing time designed (I assume based on the evidence) to make at least one person cry every week.

But here’s the thing. These six other residents have been willing to bare their secrets and their fears to me. They have seen me at my best and my worst, taught me to see myself more clearly so that I can see—and love—others more clearly. And the patients and their families have shown me what it is to live and die, with grace, hope, and ferocity.

So no, I don’t manage it. I can’t always “enjoy” it.

But the whole thing is that I’ve learned I don’t have to. That I can be as I am, because my whole self, unmanaged and broken and even despairing at times, is constantly met and re-fashioned with grace. That the breaking and re-molding enlarges the space within me for empathy and even joy.

Don't worry: Letters to myself

Most of the advice I'd give my younger self in hindsight begins with, Don't worry. 

Photo by bekasinne

A note for a self-confident third-grader:

Don't worry. Yes, a mom down the street said fourth grade was hard. So I understand why you asked your mom if she would home school you next year if it's all too much for you.

But you are more than capable of the challenge, dear one. And you won't be alone--you'll be taking on long division with the help of all your friends. And with the help of your parents, who believe in you. You know that, don't you? They believe in you, and they will believe in you if you get a B, and they will believe in you if you decide, one day, to quit piano or soccer or even church, and that believing in you will cover over a multitude of hurt.

So you see, there's nothing to fear.

*
A note for a ninth grader learning to fail:

Don't worry. Oh dear Katie, what a year it's been--your first bitter tastes of failure, your first experiences of un-belonging. I know how badly you wanted to be in the musical. The exhilaration of being on stage in middle school--you loved it perhaps even more than anything you'd ever done. But you will get the chance to be on stage again, and you will love other things even more than this.

And it doesn't end there--I know what disappointment you feel at not making the chamber choir. The first time you heard them sing, you knew you'd been waiting all your life to get into that group. But wait another year, it's okay. The trade-off will be deep, life-long friendships and the chance to lead your own singing group and the kinds of experiences that will stay with you for life.

And yes, dear awkward soul, you are fifteen and you have braces and frizzy hair and your sense of humor hasn't blossomed, and yet you still long for their approval. It feels utterly humiliating to stand at your locker by yourself in the morning before class, pretending to be occupied, as all the groups of laughing blondes wander by. But oh, if only you knew the depth of the empathy and compassion growing up in you right now. For the rest of your life you will always notice the girl standing on the wall, you will always feel the pain of the lonely. And though you couldn't possibly imagine it now, you will always stay in touch with the close friends you will make in these halls.

*
A note for a college sophomore, amidst the collapse of all her certainties:

Don't worry. Don't worry about going to a "third-world" country or about your first relationship or about not having a five-year plan. I know, dear Katie, that these things are not really what you're scared of. The truth is you're scared that something within you is changing. You're scared that you're losing all that has been your foundation--your God, your habits, your identity.

Listen: you are not losing anything that won't be replaced one hundred fold. 

You will lose some convictions, some people, some of yourself. It will hurt. It is okay to mourn. But here's the thing: God is not going to leave you. In fact, in all of this you will find God in a different and more beautiful way than ever before, a way that opens up possibilities you never dreamed of.

*
A note for a twenty-something planner without a plan:

Don't worry. You simply don't have to have it all figured out now. Oh, how funny it is to think of you and your dear roommate staying up late trading worries. Yours is career--shouldn't a twenty-four year old have a plan by now?!--and hers is relationship--shouldn't a twenty-four year old have met the right man by now?!

The answer, of course, is no. In six years you still won't have it figured out, but you will have realized that the journey has taught you more than a plan could ever have done. When you get to graduate school, eventually, you will be so glad you didn't know yet what you wanted and studied English in college. You will be so glad you didn't know yet what you wanted and joined Americorps and encountered the gritty beautiful slow-paced DC and learned the hard way how to work on a team. You will be so glad you had those late nights trading worries with people who will be forever friends.

*
A note for today.

Don't worry. First of all, you're doing great. In fact, can you stop doing great for a moment and enjoy life a little? You may not know exactly what's coming with balancing two careers and a marriage and the hope of children and community and so much more--let tomorrow worry about itself. Aren't you having fun? You love studying languages and writing sermons and giving hugs in the handshake line at church to the women whose pain has been told you over coffee.

Sure, you are in this place of leaving behind the freedoms of young adulthood. Sure, you are re-figuring your friendships and practices and hobbies. Sure, you are grieving what it means to settle somewhere, which is also not to settle somewhere else. Sure, you are realizing that to embrace church and prison work is also not to embrace farming and piano-teaching and other dreams you once had. And you are always, always afraid of failing at the things you for which you are responsible.

But look back on it all, dearest Katie. Have you really ever had a failure you didn't learn from? Have you ever really been alone in your questions? Have your musings and wandering uncertainties ever really led you somewhere where blessing was not to be found?

In hindsight the memory is always clear, that you have been accompanied in all your paths, whether you attuned yourself or not, by the Spirit of the living God.

So read backwards. The memory is now. Just sit and watch the snow awhile.

Africa slipping away

I was twenty, swimming in questions and doubts and grieving broken friendships and a lost relationship, when I arrived in Tanzania the first time. I woke up early to climb up to the roof, to gaze at palm trees and women wearing colorful clothes and carrying bright red and yellow buckets of water on their heads, to take in this new brightness in the world and in myself. Late at night, I sat on a stool in the tiny, smoky kitchen with my friend Monika, the cook, learning Swahili and empathy through her stories of ambition and heartbreak. In between university classes I read big words in the Bible, words like “there is now no condemnation in Christ” and “there is no fear in love,” and I began to discover the openness of my heart, the vastness of God.

It was two months in before I realized I hadn’t cried in this country, which was remarkable considering that I’d cried nearly every day the year before. Here in Africa, I didn’t have to answer the questions or muddle guiltily through messy relationships or be good. I had only to see, to partake, to love.

I partook, one day, after enduring constant teasing from my friends for the fact that I’d never in my life skipped a class. We left Swahili behind, hopped on a minibus early one Thursday morning, bottled water and inaccurate map in hand, and set out to find a fishing village noted in the guidebook. Smushed into a crowded minibus, the three of us miraculously found our way and two hours later, we were walking out on a reedy beach south of the city, following a young boy to the nearest fries-and-eggs stand for the cheap, greasy local food we were craving. I stretched out my arms as wide as I could and felt the wind on my face and the last drop of tension draining from my bones and I wanted to sing for joy.

A few days before it was time to return to the US, I lay on a red couch with a lump in my throat, because in returning, I would be leaving this place of vast open spaces. I knew that in the US, I would revert back to the self that had to work and fight and say and do the right things, in order to be good enough.

I preemptively mourned the loss of this expansive self.

*

I was a little homesick my second time in Tanzania. But in the evenings, when my English students and I gathered in the cafeteria, their thirteen-year-old hearts and my twenty-two-year-old hearts melded together and we poured out our loneliness until it disappeared. They taught me their songs (“God created us skinny, God created us fat”) and I taught them mine, and we crooned together against the darkness, “We all need someone to be there and someone to be there for.”

Together we were dancing, together we were celebrating the wideness and love of God and community, together we were making it through the nights away from home. When Zawadi couldn’t get through class without crying for homesickness, I longed to make her smile. When Nambayo got healthy enough to concentrate better, I put smiley faces on her quizzes with pride. When Napoki got pregnant and had to leave, I wanted to cry. I loved those girls with as deep an affection as I have known. They were, for a while, home.

When I returned to the US this time (for good?) I wore four beaded bracelets—their gifts to me—until they fell off one by one over the next year. I grieved the loss of a love and a song across cultures, borne out of loneliness and a need to belong, bringing the kind of deep gladness that is usually a long time in coming.

*

The year I got married was 2012, the year I had promised I would go back to Tanzania to see my students graduate. The wedding conflicted. I didn’t go. I haven’t been now, for six years.

When I think of Tanzania now, I confess I don’t think of the colors or the openness of my heart or the songs. I don’t think of the plates of food I shared with friends like Communion, or of brushing my teeth under the stars, or of the gift of acceptance the people gave to me, or of the adventurous, open person I became in that place.

Instead, I think of the obligations. The need to measure up and be good enough. I think of the phone calls to friends I don’t want to make, because they will tell me my Swahili is slipping, and though it is silly banter to them, it is a reminder to me of a part of myself that is slipping. They will mean well when they ask “When are you coming back?” but I will feel guilty in my inability to answer, my shifted priorities, my complicated living out of some American (un)dream that no longer gives me the freedom to visit them.

And they won’t be objectifying or using me when they most certainly ask for money for the latest education plan for themselves and their children, because to share money means to be a part of a family; yet even though they treated me with nothing but acceptance and an open hand when I lived among them, I will feel now objectified and used for my connections and my relative wealth. My heart will sink as I realize that even were I to offend or insult them, they would stay in touch with me if only for the hope of money, and I will feel angry and resentful maybe most of all at myself for no longer loving them as people.

So I don’t call back, and the relationship rift grows, and the open-hearted Tanzanian inside me drifts further away. I grieve the loss.

The stories we tell and the secrets we keep

Photo by Nicki Varkevisser

Telling your story--I mean your real, honest-to-God, story--is never easy.

You start just because you need to say it, you need to write it, you need to get it out of your singular self and out into the world. As scary as it is to be real, it's even scarier to be alone. One day, you finally blurt it out--that thing you were ashamed of, that struggle, that thing about yourself you've always hated but are learning to accept, that marriage or that baby or job that should be a joy but has been so hard, that long journey that you're finally seeing in its glorious light of growth, of healing, that darkness that has been heavy on you, and is heavy still.

You start small, maybe, test it out on someone you have a hunch you can trust. Or you bust the wound straight open and blast it to the whole family, the whole community, the whole internet.

And then funny things start to happen.

First, you don't die. Nobody even yells at you, usually.

Second, you start to feel that it's okay to be yourself. You start to see God in the painful journey, maybe, or you find one tiny step that might be healing.

Third (and this is the bumpy part, because you will hurt people, too, and you will sometimes wish you'd said things a little differently, or thought through things more fully) your community grows. You start to correspond with a relative you'd never known very well. Your friends start to tell you that you have made them cry with understanding. You get little notes from people you hadn't talked to in years, thanking you for your words because they are not just your words now, they are words of resonance and similarity and love, and they belong to us all.

*

I share my story of faith and doubt in a church. People come up afterwards and commiserate with me about the evils of the secular world, the way college can threaten faith, when I truly meant to say the opposite. I meant to say that going down deeper into the questions has made me stronger, firmer. I meant to say that this whole messy earth, I've learned, is bathed in a kind of light and love and that God can't be kept out of any of it.

I wonder if I said it wrong, if I should have kept that sacred tale to myself, lest it be appropriated for uses I didn't mean. Lest it be turned against me. Maybe I have made myself too vulnerable, too prone to attack.

But then one person walks up to me and says simply, "I felt like you were telling my story." I jerk my head up and he is looking far past me into a memory, and he says, "Almost every single word could have been mine," and I remember again, why we share.

*

This sharing has become a big part of what I see as my calling. I have been changed by people's stories. Listening to people's stories, across lines of race and class and religion and sexuality and nationality, has changed me. It has let me walk for a few minutes in others' shoes. It has shown me how different we are, and how alike. This is reconciliation: the good news that Jesus breaks down walls between insurmountably different creatures--humans and God first, but also men and women, rich and poor, black and white and every shade of brown, gay and straight, young and old.

We are, all of us, wounded. The magic, I think, is that by simply being brave enough to tell it, we have the chance to be a part of the stories of each other's healing. And that is what I hope for, as I practice telling pieces of my story, as I practice listening to yours, as I practice creating spaces where we can all learn to tell each other the truth that is in our hearts.

Packing my bags

Photo by Natasha Mileshina

I am going to be late for my flight to Ethiopia. I am standing in the hallway, bags in hand. The others are not ready, so I follow them into their rooms, nagging. "Let's go, let's go," I say. "We're going to miss the flight if we don't leave soon."

I am not entirely sure why I am going to Ethiopia. I haven't thought beyond making the flight.

We reach the airport, make it in the terminal, but my friends are lagging behind, and I press them again. "We need to get to the gate!"

A man passing by brushes my suitcase, and it falls open. There is nothing inside. I've forgotten to pack.

I run back home at saber-speed. I begin throwing clothes in the suitcase. More shoes, and sandals. It will be hot there. I might need a sweater or two. I empty my underwear drawer into the suitcase. My passport! Where is my passport? I am pretty sure I will be too late, I have already missed the flight, but I have to try. I keep dashing around, filling my bag. I don't have time to think if there is something else I've forgotten. This haphazard job will have to do.

*

My alarm goes off. For a moment I'm disoriented, frenzied. Then I breathe out, relief.

There's no flight to catch, no journey, no empty suitcase. Only eggs to cook and teeth to brush and a moment to sit still on the front porch, welcoming the day.

*

This is something of a recurring dream for me: rushing to catch a bus or train or plane, running into some essential obstacle.

The empty suitcase stays with me all day. I am rushing to get to seminary in two months, and maybe in all the commotion, my bags have not been packed. Maybe I do not have the experience or gifts or skills necessary for this. Maybe I have concentrated so much on getting to seminary that I don't remember why I'm going. Maybe I'm trying to cobble a cohesive theology and a vision and a plan together last-minute, without time to breathe it in, think it through.

I have had so long to prepare. For two years I have been looking ahead to this, standing in the doorway, ready to move. But I have not picked a track, a denomination. If I don't get it all figured out within a few months, I may not finish on time. I may not be eligible for a job when I graduate.

This is something of a recurring fear for me: wanting to have it all figured out lest I miss the boat, miss my chance to have an impact, to live fully into my gifts.

But there is no flight to catch at all. It is more of a long walk. God's love and guidance are available always, unscheduled, no security lines or last call for boarding. Mercy is new every morning, and life's callings are found on a winding path, not through a narrow door at the end of a straight terminal. In the journey we are all on, we pack as we go.

It is true, I am not prepared. I am not supposed to be. I am only supposed to be open, moldable, listening to the spirit, and willing. It is true, this summer as I embark, I am receiving a healthy blast of humility. I have also stepped intentionally into the good, challenging work of reflection. I am reaching down to a depth in myself that I haven't explored for months. I am remembering wisdom and yearnings that have been dormant for some time. I am refining, being refined.

I know I am called to witness to the great Love I have known in Jesus Christ. I know I am called to learn in the Duke community. If I am seeking to live and grow into these paths, it is enough for now. I may not know exactly where I will be arriving in three years--but the truth is I won't be arriving at all, only continuing to walk and live and learn and listen.

So there is no way I can be late.

Aiming at perfection

I am so proud today to share with you this lovely story written by my dear friend. She has chosen to remain anonymous, but I think you will agree with me that that the telling is brave, heartbreakingly beautiful, and ultimately redemptive. She is going to be an amazing doctor, a true healer.

Photo  by Amanda Munoz

Although encouraged in every way to succeed from infancy, I somehow initially escaped the illusion that one could “have it all.” When the neighborhood boys started teasing me about being fat, the choice was easy—I would give up on my body and would instead be really smart. I was already succeeding in school. What I liked most about math and science was that I was the best student at both subjects. While the “fat girl” taunting continued daily, it ended at the school bus stop. The school was sacred ground, and I was safe and confident when I was studying. 

I set my goals and I reached them.  I was first in my class, and I got the highest scholarship to college.  I continued to study math and science and decided to be a doctor.  At that point I think it was still the challenge that drew me to medicine. If I could perfect one domain of my life, I would work on my brain—partially because I despised my own body. 

Somewhere along the quest, I lost the security of the classroom as the challenges grew. I couldn’t rely on my confidence in my brain any longer and I turned my intense self-criticism on my appearance. That’s when I developed an eating disorder.

I was 20 years old when I started running. I began weighing myself daily. Initially, I thought I would be happy with a size 10, down from a size 14. With the same intensity I have always had for perfection, I passed that goal in 3 weeks, losing 20 pounds. And I was happier; I was healthier. 

With my small successes, I started needing to be perfect, not average. Once I set my eyes on perfection, I could no longer settle for less.  It was all-consuming. I embarked on a dieting routine that I still struggle with 8 years later. While I finished college and got into medical school, suddenly the dreams I was previously passionate about became less important—becoming a doctor, saving the world, being perfect.

Without noticing it, I dropped down to 114 pounds; my nadir BMI was less than 17. At that point I would still have described myself as “pudgy,” and I still wanted my bones to be more defined.  I could no longer sleep at night—I awoke after only a few hours of sleep due to my depression and because my joints hurt with no soft tissue to cushion them. I lost hunger cues and was nauseated; I would go more than a week without a bowel movement. I went 4 years without a menstrual period. I was unaware that both my mind and my body were in so much pain. 

I struggled through the worst of the eating disorder because I had friends and family who saw the whole person in me—a whole person who continued to exist although at times broken. My dream to learn medicine continued, and they encouraged me. I redirected my efforts to studying medicine and the intricacies of the human body. I labored over books of images of the ideal human body with rippling muscles; I studied the perfect principles of physiology. 

Then I met patients—and I immediately realized that no individual comes close to the perfected images.  We are each plagued by rashes, fractures, obesity, mental health disorders, and infections. I have learned about the body, heart, and brain in medical school. The whole person is greater than the sum of its pieces; there is an element to the human that will never be found in my textbooks. My journey ultimately has made me accept that no amount of perfection in body or mind will ever make me happy. I finally realized that no matter what the number on the scale read, I would still feel blemished—because I am blemished. We all are blemished. 

Becoming a doctor is an odd choice for someone who spent the first 22 years of my life despising my body. I have spent the last 21 years studying to prepare for my graduation this May. I still think medicine is my vocation. I come alive when a patient brings me into her life and allows me to see how she ails. It still shocks me that patients allow me—as a student—to perform a physical exam. It is an honor to try to alleviate their pain and to carry their burden.

I don’t think people can fit a mold or are entitled to “have it all.”  But I do not have to choose between my mind and my body. In order to be happy and to fulfill my role as a physician, I have found that I have to love and honor both my mind and my body.

This post is a part of my Women’s History Month project, “Honoring Women’s Stories.” You can read more about the project and see other women’s stories here.

The real work

It may be that when we no longer know what to do

we have come to our real work,

and when we no longer know which way to go

we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

-Wendell Berry, Collected Poems

Visiting DC this weekend, driving through all the places that still feel like home,
and the hugs, and the stomach busting-laughter...
When you're still newish somewhere you don't get a lot of hugs or stomach-busting laughter.
Back in Cherokee I still don't know where I fit,
or which relationships are going to grow
or what I'm learning,
if I'm learning anything at all
or whether my "gifts" are being developed
or shriveling like a mind unused.
But looking back,
sometimes the blocked paths were indeed the ones that after anguish
led to song,
sometimes questioning it all, even the very foundations of my being,
opened up the space for the light to fall.

So it may be that when I question my dreams,
when even my strongest convictions are aired for review,
when nothing seems certain anymore,
even the hopes I etched in stone yesterday,
that I have come to the beginning of something new, and real.

The shadows have shifted and I am excited for the real journey ahead.

Deepening

A re-post from my shared blog in Hyattsville a year and a half ago--circumstances have changed but the sentiment rings true this time of year, I think.

A month ago, catching up with old friends, I chose "deepening" to describe my experience of the past year. Deepening, I said without thinking too much. I meant vaguely that I'd been affected in a profound way by the challenges of work, the challenges of community, the challenges of relationships, and most of all the experience of finally--for the first time in my sheltered, blessed life--tasting the sorrow of death.

Sometimes I feel silly bringing up again and again Grandma's death. It is not unique. Almost everyone age 12 and up has experienced the death of a grandparent; many a death of a friend or even parent. But Grandma's death, like her life, has affected me deeply. I still am trying to understand why, how, and how long. With grieving, what is too much and what is not enough? What is love and what is wallowing? I know that I was zapped of energy the first 3 months. I felt sad that people didn't understand that. I know that I am more scared of losing people, more aware of mortality, hold my family more precious. I'm playing the piano again sometimes. I've added two items to the queue of jobs to consider: "nursing assistant in a nursing home" and "hospital chaplain." I hope I also have a deeper understanding of loss and more compassion for those who are experiencing it. I think that's what I mean by deepening.

The plants in my garden this spring are waiting for something. The basil, peppers, and tomato plants haven't grown any taller than when I planted them. But I just learned their roots are probably very active right now. Deepening. Healthy root growth happens under two conditions--the soil has to be warm and loose enough, but also the roots grow most when the shoots aren't growing--early spring, late fall. You might plant a tree one summer and it spends a whole year seemingly dormant. It doesn't grow much until the following summer, but the roots have been deepening all along, preparing the way.

Like our lives. There are times, I am learning, where we don't grow above ground. I feel like I'm still in the same place I was 3 years ago. Still pattering around trying to make up my mind about "vocation" and "work." Still waiting for things to settle with my community, my city, to feel like I belong in a place long-term. Still making the same mistakes, the same sins, even moving backwards in some cases, or so it feels.

But surely I am deepening--learning to garden, learning to pray, learning to accept the loss of a leaf here and there, learning to mourn. Surely these roots will soon drink some living water and bring forth a mangled, misshapen, worm-eaten, delicious tomato.