a surrender - 68

(Continuing "a surrender", chapter nine, "God doesn't need our help") 

That seemed like the best decision, from a practical point of view, but it didn’t look good for Heather and Ian and me. The campground was well established and very professional. If we wanted to stay on, we would have to be hired by them. And it didn’t seem at all likely that the camp’s organizational structure would accommodate our unusual lifestyle. It seemed almost certain that we would have to go.

But I had no idea where we could go. In the weeks that followed, while we waited for the final agreement with the campground, many ideas tumbled around in my head. But none of them inspired much hope. Our time was running out.

Then, two days before the paperwork was supposed to be signed, there was an unexpected announcement. The governing board of the campground had voted unanimously to not accept the farm property. Apparently the camp did not have the personnel or resources to take on the new property. It seemed that the camp director, who had made the proposal, had been acting on his own, without the support of the board. So the campground would not be taking over after all.

That set off a two-day scramble in the community. They thought the decision had been made, but now there was no one to take the land. There were frantic discussions. Then another announcement. Now the property would be given to a local church group, who wanted to start an educational farm.

We were stunned. That changed everything for us. Some of the local church leaders were friends of ours. And this wasn’t an established organization, so they might be flexible enough for us to fit in. As a church group, they might even be open to us continuing our retreats on the farm. It took several weeks before we would know for sure, and I sweated quite a bit during those days because we felt so helpless. We were grateful that one of the church leaders, our friend Dennis, often offered us words of support and reassurance. Then finally it was settled. We could stay. It turned out that we were the only family that did stay. The new owners were happy to have our experience with the farm, and all the skills that we had learned in our years working here. And we could keep doing our retreats, as well as helping them develop new retreat ideas. We would be “resident volunteers.” This was basically what we had been previously. We could choose the projects that we worked on and didn’t have to pay for our housing. Later I learned that this arrangement had been chosen, in those early days of planning, primarily for its ease and simplicity. But for us, it was a perfect fit.

Continued...

I recall, as he
calmly teaches the teachers,
his cradle of straw

(previous years' Christmas haikus begin here)

a surrender - 67

(Continuing "a surrender", chapter nine)

 

God doesn't need our help

 

When our son was born, there were several other families with children on the farm. We didn’t think we would have any more children ourselves, but he would have playmates. Then, four years later, they were all gone.

The farm community had been having troubles for several years. Financial troubles and troubles agreeing about important decisions. They were also having a hard time getting younger people to join them. Then, over a period of a few months, several older members died, including a man who had been a trusted and beloved leader in the community for many years. All this seemed to convince most of the people that, after more than forty years, the end had come. A few families that had been pillars in the community announced that they were leaving. And then those who remained decided to disband and, as they had always planned, give their houses and land away to a charitable organization.

This came as a shock to Heather and me. We weren’t involved in the meetings or the decision-making, since we weren’t official members. So we didn’t see how dire the situation was, until the decision was announced. There didn’t seem to be any clear options for us. We didn’t have any stable income or property or family nearby. And we had a three-year-old child. The life that had seemed so stable felt now like it was collapsing under us. And we didn’t have any idea what would come next. 

An important meeting was scheduled, to decide who would receive the farm. Several small charitable groups would be presenting their proposals to the remaining community members. I also frantically put together a proposal. It was to provide low cost housing to the immigrant workers who came every season to help with the picking of the berries, and train them to eventually take over management of the farm. That would allow any of us who wanted to stay on the farm to stay, and would also support poor immigrants, who were having an especially hard time in our country at the time. I made a passionate presentation. But I think it was obvious to everyone but me that the idea didn’t have the support of the remaining community or the necessary connections in the immigrant community. After the presentations, I prayed hard and hoped desperately as they deliberated. But my proposal had no chance. The decision was made to give the farm to a Christian campground a few miles away.

Continued...

a surrender - 66

(Continuing "a surrender", chapter eight, "where is God?") 

No.

No! I was wrong then? Then what was he? Tell me that, what was he? Was he a liar? Him? He was truth itself and no one knows it as I do. Was he a fool? Proud, hopeful, overreaching—weak? Is that what demons of hell screamed and ran from? No. He was the one, he was everything, he was the very son of God and they killed him. And now the world is dark and empty but I’ll tell you one thing—I don’t care if he’s dead, I’m his—they can kill me too if they want but I’m his.

And I will always be.

That’s the sun. I can go now. I can go to him.

I did wonder during that time of confusion and grieving if we were wrong about God’s help. It took us a while before we felt ready to try again, and then when we did, it didn’t work. The first time, she had gotten pregnant so quickly. But now, month after month after month the blood came, dashing our hopes. I could make no sense of it. Never give up, that’s what they say. And we didn’t give up, we kept trying. And kept trying. But each time Heather gave me the sad news, I grew more unsteady. I was feeling less and less sure about this. Did we want to start our family this way, pushing and pushing, like it was something we were going to achieve by relentless, unyielding determination? That’s not how we had made it this far. We had made it this far by the power of God, taking each step as it was set before us, a beautiful, generous gift. So when Heather finally suggested that maybe we should stop trying, it sounded right.

“Never give up” might be good practical advice in life, but it’s not faith. Faith is a surrender. It’s the farthest thing from relentless, unyielding determination. It’s a prayer you say when you’re on your knees. Like Jesus was, that dark, lonely night before he was arrested. “Not my will, but yours be done.”

In the days after the miscarriage, I wrote the words of a song in my journal. It was sung by Lacey Sturm, powerfully, loudly, and I remember crying as I heard her shout:

Here you are 
down on your knees again
Trying to find air to breathe again 
Only surrender will help you now

See
and believe

I think it was important for me then to give up, to stop pushing. It was important for me to stop trying to decide what should or shouldn’t be happening. That wasn’t for me to decide. And it was important for me to stop trying to make sense of the loss and the pain. Because I couldn’t make sense of it, no matter how hard I tried. 

But I could ask. I could ask the only one who had the answer.

God, oh God—
why? 

Where are you?

Mary was overwhelmed with the answer when she arrived at Jesus’ tomb, and he wasn’t in it. And we were overwhelmed the following Easter with the news that Heather was pregnant again. The baby would be born right after the farm season ended. Good timing.

He would be named Ian. It means “God is gracious.”

Continued...

a surrender - 65

(Continuing "a surrender", chapter eight, "where is God?") 

In the days that followed I was miserable and confused. I remember sadly telling our friends that we wouldn’t be having a baby after all. I thought and prayed, but couldn’t make any sense of it in my mind. And it scared me. We had finally felt secure enough to bring a child into our precarious life, because it felt like God was helping us. But now that feeling was shaken. I didn’t understand it. We had had so many surprising experiences of what seemed like God’s care and support, so we had felt that it was safe enough for a child. Then it seemed that a child was given to us, and we had been so happy and hopeful. And grateful. Now that child was dead.

The miscarriage happened just after Easter. A few years earlier, we had led the Easter church service for the community on the farm. Heather had written a dramatic reading based on the Easter story. It was set in the days after Jesus’ execution, when his followers were in hiding, terrified and confused. It began with the thoughts of Mary of Magdala, as she prepared to visit Jesus’ tomb:

My eye is pressed to the crack in the shutters, looking for light. The doors and the windows are locked and barred.

The sky is growing gray in the east, I think it is, I know it is; soon it will be light enough to go. Shabbat is over now, that terrible Shabbat. Sitting in the dark, not moving, not speaking; the shuffle of someone’s foot in the darkness, then silence again. Nothing we could bear to say. I sat with the other women around the spices and the smell of the myrrh made me dizzy, and the shadows would shift and float, and I would come to myself again and again. Almost before I had time to think it’s not real—it’s a nightmare, I was jolted by the knowledge that it’s not. It’s true. It happened. I was there.

He’s dead.

He’s dead and the world is not what I thought it was. He’s dead, and it wasn’t true. Oh, oh I know nightmares if anybody does, they walked beside me in the living day, in the time of my demons…. I saw water turn to blood under my hands, I believed my touch would kill children; I ran from them. There were voices, they were with me when I lay down and when I got up—whispering God hates you… until he came.

He told me they were lies. He said to trust him. He asked me if I wanted them gone. They were flailing and screaming but I shouted over their voices, I shouted yes with all my strength—and he whipped them. Oh, if those men could have seen him then, those soldiers, those priests, if they could have seen the power in his hand, the light. His eyes were like the sun—terrible as an army with banners… And they really thought they could kill—Him?

And they did. They did.

There is no doubt. I watched him die. I watched his body broken on the tree. His breaths grew shorter; farther apart; desperate, fast, inhuman gasps, with silence in between. One last one, and then—no more. There is no doubt.

He’s dead. And the world is empty now. And everything he said—

I’m like them now—I never thought I’d be like them. Like my uncle Matthew and the others, when Judas the Galilean was killed and his army scattered, and they came home exhausted and with bitter eyes. They thought Judas was the Messiah. And they were wrong. You believe in a man, you put all your faith in him, the very life in your body is his—who’s to say he didn’t shine in their eyes, as my Lord shone when he drove my demons away, who’s to say he didn’t pull them out of the depths and back into life? You believe in a man, you believe. And then they kill him. And you have to face the truth.

You were wrong.

Continued...