once you were not a people, but now you are God's people

Prologue

Welcome to my 100th blog post! Wow! This is exciting for a number of reasons: 1) it means that writing is happening; all is not lost, 2) it's a commemoration of some really awesome people, several of whom were ones who helped and inspired me to start, develop, and (finally) share this blog. I used to be afraid of writing, but I knew it was something I loved and had to do; I never imagined being blessed with boldness enough to share it with all of you.

1 Peter 2.9-10

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Tonight, I am so thankful for family. Family at Community—sharing what God has led us to in our lives and that we are all here, in Seattle, as a part of God’s plan, even through all of the storms in our lives. Family at our apartment—Pickle and me running into all of our friends in our building and talking out our weeks. Family from a distance—the people who have influenced me and guided me and loved me, blood-related or not.

Particularly though, Waynesburg is on my heart tonight. Not the Waynesburg where I went to school, but the Waynesburg where I learned to live afresh—the Waynesburg after graduation. These are the things I am thankful for and that I miss.

Was it really just last summer that I was there? That we were all there.

I remember “move-in” day, walking through the gate with my carry-on suitcase and unpacking in Merry’s room, sweet Merry who slept in her sister’s room so that I could have a bed upstairs with the family, as one of the family. We’d get up in the morning, and Kim and I would go around shutting the windows and turning off the fans to keep in the morning’s cool.

Walking down the creaky stairs (the best feature in any house, if you ask me), we’d meet in the kitchen for morning tea. I think you really know someone when you know how they like their tea. (Even more so when you know their favorite mug in your cupboard!) I loved that all throughout the day, we would put on the kettle and make tea for each other—morning to start the day, afternoon (if not wine), evening after the girls were in bed, as we unwound with laundry and Frasier.

It’s these simple routines that I hold dear, even though they weren’t even my own. And as my lovely friend Kim would call them, these rituals compose our lives. She wrote, “Ritual is different than routine. Routines are ways of doing things you fall into without thinking too much about them; they become rote, and often even tyrannical things that eventually disgust you. But to nurture Ritual requires careful forethought, an attention to space and time, and a tender attitude of love," and that has stuck with me. I love it. I go back to those words when I start falling into routine. (So pretend I said ritual to begin with, like Christopher McCandless quoting an author with which I am unfamiliar, “To call each thing by its right name.”)

So that summer, I adopted their rituals as they adopted me—they being all of Waynesburg that is sweet and kind and lives with that tender attitude of love.

I would walk to my wretched Chemistry class, late almost every day (as I was for my 8am class the previous fall: so worth it to have tea around the table to start the day), but with tea in-hand: armed. (Martin & Kim drink tea fresh off the kettle like it’s already cooled—something I still haven’t mastered; they’d be pouring seconds as I was still sipping the rim of a full cup—a sign that I have a lot of tea to drink to catch up!) So I’d take my cup to-go.

After class, I’d sometimes walk up to the library and visit with whoever was there, most often Noah or Jill or Pam—people whom (with the exception of Jill) I didn’t really know well until that summer. We’d talk about Noah’s book or Jill’s daughters or Pam’s peacocks—conversations that weaved warm summer days into a flipbook of tiny celebrations after (yet during) a period of trial and transition.

My first day after class (and many after), I came home to Martin & Kim in the garden. We did so much therapeutic weeding that I think I’m still gleaning peace out of the process of just ripping out weeds and laying down newspapers, building up sections of stone and brick. (You can piece together the symbolism for yourself.)

I miss meeting with Joonna for lunch, catching up on the what’s nexts and the uncertainty of the coming months and leaning on the support over the previous weeks.

Ahh and baking and cooking with Kim! We made a vegan chocolate cake for tea time with Joonna; we made pasta with fresh basil and oven-toasted bread for some dinners—herbs picked from right down the back patio.

My mother would tell you that I do not cook; I do not wash dishes, but I learned to love these things that summer, and I’ve realized that it’s something I missed out on growing up—I always saw it as a chore, something to be done, rather than an experience of friendship (wasn’t it just something my sister and I were supposed to fight over?).

One day, I got to drive with Sally & Kim to Mother Earth Farm at the top of the hill for the first time. We walked through the greenhouse, pointing out our favorites, selecting some for planting, some for porch décor. This place quickly went from unknown to sweet—I’d drop by on my way in or out of town to visit Rose.

Then there were evenings sitting in the yard with Ian and Julia, watching the fireflies over the hill sparkling in the dark like sun flickering on deep water. We’d talk about poetry and future schools and summer.

I’m not clearly articulating any of this, and as each instance pours in, it brings friends because that’s what this Waynesburg was—a nest of friendship.

Ice cream on the porch—Noah & Michelle’s, Sally & Kevin’s, Martin & Kim’s. Wine at the dinner table. Tea in the playroom/writing room/sun room. Tequila & egg-in-a-hole at the kitchen table. Cake & stories on the back patio. Walks everywhere with everyone. Family visits. The Trees of the Field will Clap their Hands. Prayers & piano-playing. Lunch at the arboretum. Visiting Jay & his family. The Mennonite church. Walks with Elesha’s dog. Dancing with the girls in the living room or catching lightning bugs (and Elspeth wanted to keep one and asked Papa what they eat so that she could take care of it) or pushing Bea on the swing or reading Strega Nona while we waited for noodle water to boil or going to the park to “play school” (we found a snake on the sidewalk) or walking to the honeysuckle bush to suck the nectar out of every bloom.

Was I really only there for two or three months?

So all of these things are flowing in and out of my mind as I rest 3,000 miles away, content on my mattress on the floor with my puppy sleeping beside me, a cool breeze through the window relieving this summer’s heat and StoryHill playing on-repeat, which is actually what brought all of this to mind in the first place.

I was listening to them and thought of that last Open Mic where Noah & Martin sang and played together and covered a StoryHill song, and the band stuck (though I can’t remember that particular song). I think that was the beginning of the Waynesburg I’ll remember, the Waynesburg I’ve shared just a slice of here.

It led me to think of the idea of breaking bread, the way that it ties us all together, sometimes with literal bread. Like sharing Chemistry-class raisin bread with Noah in the Writing Center, which led to a conversation that ended with a friend, my sister, and me staying at his brother’s house in New Jersey for a weekend. Like sharing loaves of banana bread for dessert, for breakfast, for afternoon snack in a red house with a family of five plus one. Like learning to eat and sleep and breathe again after the trying months of the initial storm and the aftershocks and the continued challenges and fears.

God brings us to these places, and we don’t know why or for what, but when we fully enjoy the people there, we learn to stop asking the questions we can’t answer (loving them [this may always be my favorite] like locked rooms, as Rilke writes), and we learn to live in the simplicity of rituals, of intentionality, of love.

Our church in downtown Seattle constantly reminds us that the church is a people and not a place. I am so grateful for the people of Waynesburg who lived this without saying it, so while I keep saying “Waynesburg” like it is a place, I really mean “the people whom I love who just happened to live/work/be in community there”.