When Paris, America, and Worlds Collide

He's standing at the window, staring out through falling snow and I can see the worry biting deep into his lip. Shoulders hunched, he leans forehead against the cold third-story glass and peers across the street and down the block. Rising blue and silver in winter twilight, the French high school gazes back at him with darkened window rooms.

Photo: Peter Gutierrez, Creative Commons, cc license

"Hey," I slip up to him and rub my brother's back. "I'm sorry. I know it's scary. It'll be okay, though."

My words trail off, because nothing can fully unwind the twisting stomach knot of walking into a new school. Four moves in four years brought its own adventures and challenges, but this last move for my shy brother had sapped him. That winter 1991, he was tired of goodbyes and heart-weary at the work of starting new friendships.

We stand silent in his corner of the three-bedroom apartment our family shared that year in a snowy mountain hamlet of France, and my stomach churns and aches for my little brother. Freckles sprinkle against an anxious face, brown hair parted center, curling wispy and boyish mischief on the sides.

"Can I pray with you?" I wonder quiet, and he nods. Our words are calm, at ease talking to the unseen God who knows our names, our hearts, our lives, and who wasn't lost in the trans-Atlantic flights. The Creator speaks French, English, African Koinyeka and Dioula languages, and every breath's spoken word.

This memory has crept in to me this week, remembering that ache and the wrenching twisted stomach and, while my brother's story no longer winds nervous at a European window, I know that you and I have others that creep easily into our minds, curling up a tummy quiet. 

You and I, we have stories of our own, and stories that belong to family and friends close to us. Stories that are not ours to share publicly, but we can still lean heads into window panes beside them, stare down into the swirling snow below and whisper, "You are not alone. I see it too, and I am here." 

You are not alone. Your loved ones are not alone, France is not alone, and we hold an awesome privilege in our hands. We can stride into the throne room of the International God, and mouth our loved ones' names. He knows. He loves them even more than us, and he is still working.

What Your Body May Be Trying to Tell You

 I find myself on edge and the grief hovers.

During dappled sunlit blackberry-forages in the woods with friends and the welcome distraction of iced tea conversations, my thoughts and feelings are put on hold. But in the silences and lulls that follow, I pull up world news footage and read with horror of child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, of burning churches and massacres in Nigeria and Egypt, and of polio epidemics raging across Somalia while the Doctors without Borders evacuate from escalating violence against them. I swipe computer screens, scrolling through story after story, my angst mounting.

Fidgeting I flip into Netflix to watch a comedian; set out supper for my youngest; absentmindedly interact with him; and wonder at the heaviness of my heart. Turning on sentimental music, I wash dishes, my limbs heavy and numb.

Peter Scazzero, in his book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, states, "The problem, however, is that we can't reflect and respond thoughtfully to our feelings if we don't know what they are. So much of our true selves are buried--sadness, rage, anger, tenderness, joy, happiness, fear, depression. Yet God designed our bodies to respond physiologically to those in the world around us.

"God speaks to us through a knot in the stomach, muscle tension, trembling and shaking, the release of adrenaline into our blood stream, headaches, and a suddenly elevated heart rate. God may be screaming at us through our physical body while we look for (and prefer) a more 'spiritual' signal. The reality is that often our bodies know what our feelings are before our minds" (Scazzero, 71).

It's grief, this sadness.

BBC correspondents recounting grim details of blood-stained mosques, grainy photos of UN convoy trucks, and curt embassy evacuation warnings bring back my own history of a civil war in Liberia, West Africa. I remember hastily-packed luggage, last-minute airplane details, and the many things we left behind. I know too the feeling of wondering if you will ever return. So these stories grab my mind, and my heart goes out to families in this situation around the world.

Grief wells up, and my limbs are heavy.

Perhaps you too have some misunderstood or misplaced grief? Grief can result from a number of factors: death or loss of someone close to you, a stressful situation, job change, loss of a dream, illnesses, family moves, and more.

"Turning towards our pain is counter-intuitive," Scazzero notes, and yet "transition into adulthood requires that we mature through our defense mechanisms [to] honestly look at what is true" (141). He lists common defense mechanisms: denial (or selective forgetting), minimizing, blaming others, blaming ourselves, rationalizing, intellectualizing, distracting, and becoming hostile.

"In our culture, addiction has become the most common way to deal with pain. We watch television incessantly. We keep busy, running from one activity to another. We work seventy hours a week, indulge... overeat, drink... -- anything to help us avoid the pain" (Scazzero, 139).

So, tonight, I'm listening. I'm stopping the activity, the fidgeting, the distractions, the running from.

Looking inside, admitting it to myself, I name it. This is grief. This is sadness and loss.

And, with God, we don't need to mince words. I'm stepping in, friend.

Photo Credit #1 to Autumn Evertide.
Photo credit #2