Sacred Mundane: The Blog

Something inside said, “Take him the Jan Hagels.”

These are Dutch cookies–a cinnamon flavored shortbread my mom always made growing up.

Heidi dumped in the flour and ate half the chopped walnuts before we could sprinkle them on top. Dutch supervised and asked (repeatedly) when they’d be done.  We baked, cut, cooled, and plated the beautiful nut-covered squares. Then we headed over, up the statue-lined driveway.  There were even more than I remembered. Stone frogs and bears, several deer (including Bambi), butterflies and squirrels, a tall madonna holding the baby Jesus.

I rang the doorbell.

We waited, and waited. No answer. I knocked. No answer. I knocked again, louder. No answer. Really? Was he not even going to open his door for us? The kids were getting impatient, “Let’s just leave the cookies on the step.” I leaned in and could hear the TV on. I could just leave them …

I glanced down at the mail-box mounted by the front door. “The Gerksons.”  I reached over and touched the etched name. The metal was so cold.  I looked at the statues, all lined up like graves.

One more try: Pound, pound, pound. 

Then, a sound. A shuffling, scratching sound. A click at the door. Ever so slowly, it opened.

I don’t know what I expected, but he wasn’t it. Grumpy Guy was bent over a walker: frail, weak. Gray, several-day stubble covered his cheeks; his hands shook slightly as he gripped his walker for support. For just a moment I hated myself: Why didn’t I come over here months ago??? The inside of the house was dark behind him and he squinted, holding his hand across his forehead, as his eyes adjusted to the bright sunshine streaming in.

“Hello there. We live next door … We, um, made you some cookies.” For a second he just took it in.

Then he smiled.

“Yes.  I know Jeff. He’s come over here a few times.”

“Yes, well I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long to come over.” 

He returned to Jeff. “I always see your husband outside, playing with the kids. Those other people who lived there never had any G** d*** time for their kids. Never any time. Always workin’, always busy. Their kids died, you know that?”

I nodded.  I had heard the unthinkably tragic story.

“Well they never spent time with ’em. Shoulda been put in G** d** jail, that’s what I think.”

I shifted a little and glanced back at the kids. They were picking dandelions, oblivious. I looked back at him and he was watching the kids too. A shadow of sadness covered his face.

“I’m so sorry. I hope we can be good neighbors for you. Do you need anything?”

“Nah. I’m ok. I see you have a good garden going.”

“Yes! I’m trying. I don’t know much, but we have a few things growing. Do you garden?”

He looked out at the yard, but farther away, like he was seeing what it all used to be. 

“I had flowers. So many flowers. Fifty rose bushes. I had fuchsias all along here, and an arbor out back with clematis climbing all over it.” He paused, still lost in thought, and smiled to himself. “I had a garden too. Big garden. Tomatos and cucumbers, and parsnips. I love parsnips, I’d leave ’em out there all winter, you know, that’s what you do. And they’d get so big. I love parsnips. Can’t buy ’em really. They’re expensive.”

I made a mental note.

“Yeah, not many flowers here anymore…” his voice trailed off, looking out over his land, looking for flowers. 

“Can I plant some?”

His eyes snapped back to me. “What?!”

“Can I plant some flowers? I was noticing you have that empty flower bed right by the fence. I could reach it without even coming through your gate. The kids and I were going to plant sunflowers … could we plant some seeds there, for you?”

“Sunflowers …” He went back to his faraway world, then told a story of the sunflowers he planted once upon a time. He looked down at Dutch, “They were 104 inches tall!” Dutch’s eyes were wide.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” I smiled and patted his shoulder. “Well, I’m sorry you had such a hard time with your old neighbors. We’ll try …”

He interrupted me and looked me straight in the eye: “We’ll get along great.”

“Yes sir, I believe we will. Would you come over for dinner sometime?”

He started to fuss, “Ah, I can’t get around that well…”

“We’ll bring it over here!”

“No, no. Yeah … I’ll come over.”

Just as we were saying goodbye, he looked out and saw an enormous purple dahlia opening right beside the porch.

“Well, I’ll be. A flower.” He inched his walker slowly over the threshold, and shuffled, carefully, outside. The screen door and the darkness closed behind him.

We stood, in the sun, in silence, looking at the flower, both breathing in beauty, life, hope.

We said goodbye and he went back in the house. We piled in the car, ready to tackle our long list of errands. Grabbing my grocery list, I jotted down one last item:

Parsnips.

~

The next morning I looked out the window:

His blinds were pulled open wide. 

And that afternoon, in the bright sunshine, to my everlasting amazement, he was outside, looking at his yard, pointing and cursing and hollering at two workers as they spread barkdust around. I was so overjoyed I didn’t care a bit when the f-bomb floated our way.  He even shuffled down the long length of sidewalk and greeted us by name.

“Just sprucin’ the place up a bit,” he said.

Indeed. God is doing just that. 

{Praying you find–and share–beauty in whatever everyday situations you find yourself in today. Thanks so much for reading.}

I pulled down hard on the cord—it had been a while.  The large, heavy blinds heaved upward, disturbing the dust and clicking, one against the other, slapping together at the top.

The room filled with light. I looked down the street—our house is taller than all the others—and took in the bird’s eye view. The hospital at the very end, the incongruous dumpy duplex with a new Hummer and a Mustang out front, the 100-year-old bungalows, like ours.

The small ranch next door with statues lining the front yard.

Nothing ever moves over there. We’ve been here almost four months and I’ve never seen the owner. (That’s mostly an indictment of me.) Jeff went over straight away, discovering an 80-something-year-old man who drops F-bombs with alarming frequency. (Partly why the kids and I haven’t taken cookies.) His first words to Jeff were, “Hey! I keep getting’ all your f-in’ mail!”  Awesome; great to meet you too.

But the statues stumped me. Old grumpy guys are no anomaly, to be sure. But the statues. Why the statues? One of Snow White and several little dwarfs. A few Dutch-children and two little frogs. Their color has worn and faded, the edges chipped.

They sit at slight angles, settled in the soil like ancient tombstones.

The door on this toolshed always hangs open. The day we moved I took this as a sign that he’d be back and forth, active, at work. But the door never closed. It just hangs open, slack, still, every day. I can see tools inside. A small tractor is parked just outside. Many signs of a life once lived.

The blinds are always closed. The back of his house has large picture windows—they’re beautiful, really. But never once, in all our time here, have I ever seen the blind slits open wide, or pulled up to the top.

Blinds. Such an odd thing.

It was on Jeff’s third or fourth visit that he found out:

She had died.

Of course. The statues, the tools, the signs of once-life, all sifted into place.

And now the blinds are sealed tight, a tomb.

Debra, our housemate, had said it just that morning. “When we share our stories with each other we give the gift of a glimpse into redemption.” God is always redeeming. Always taking broken things, broken lives, and making them new. When we isolate, seeking to protect, we close the blinds and become just that—blind. We lose sight of hope. CS Lewis’ words came to mind:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket–safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

I turned from the window, resolving to open the blinds more often, and called for the kids to follow me into the kitchen. I plugged in the Kitchenaid as they pulled stools up to the counter.

“Who wants to make cookies for the neighbor?!” 

“ME!” both hands shoot up.

“Good,” I glanced out the window. “I do too.”

{Thanks for reading.}

It was a toss-up, whether the kids and I would be more hindrance or help, but the together factor trumps all these days. We’d go.

I slid steaming bowls of oatmeal across the counter. “We’re going to the Revival Building today to work!” I braced myself for protest. Saturday mornings usually involve making The List. It’s our rest-renewal day and we each choose one activity that fills us up,  then throughout the day we enjoy all four things together. Daddy often serves us by making his one item “go for a run” then promptly crosses it off with a smile because he’s already done it while we were still sleeping. This leaves extra time for other exciting list items such as “read about tarantulas,” “dig for worms,” and, Heidi’s personal favorite, “do fabric.”

But today  “Renovate The Revival Building” was the only item on the list. Our “new” church space is a 100-year-old historic brick building right in the heart of downtown Oregon City. Over the last century it’s gone from church building to office space to big-abandoned-spooky-place. We walked, ran, and prayed circles around this building for 8 months, knowing the $800,000 price-tag was out of our budget by at least $795,000. It seemed silly to pray this big–the building is enormous and we have exactly 12 families. (At this point each family could have their own room.) We are dead-set against debt, so we weren’t even sure what we were praying for. But more than once the neighboring hair salon would look out and see us standing like loons, our palms placed firmly on the brick exterior walls, praying for God to do something bigger than we deserved. Mark Batterson says in order to see God move in big ways we must have a dream beyond our resources. 

Check.

So imagine our surprise when a Dance Vision sign was hung up out front. And imagine our surprise when I took a wild leap and called and they said, “Yes, we’d love to rent out our space to you!” And imagine our surprise when we walked inside and they’d remodeled the main room beautifully, to period, with massive exposed beams and old pendant Edison bulbs hanging from forever-high vaulted ceilings. I’m not much for aesthetics, but I walk in this room and want to fall on my knees. I can feel it in the walls–this room held glory at one time, and The Revival Building is no misnomer. 

It’s history and prophecy all at once. 

But outside the central dance-studio rooms, the building remains in shambles.

Insert a little band of folks called RENEW.

The owner laughs when we tell her. Dance Vision‘s vision is to see girls renewed through devoting themselves to dance. Their vision was to renew the building. Our vision is to renew the city, and all the lives in it, by sharing the hope, love, and grace of Jesus Christ.

We shake hands.

To renew is to “make new” and the making part means work. So I fill the back-pack with oatmeal bars and vinegar-cleaner, and we set out, the kids on bikes, and trek to 7th and Jefferson. Dutch dons a tool belt–wrapped almost twice around–and goggles. Heidi chooses baseboards and vinegar-cleaner. Both take themselves very seriously. I clean the bathroom, wipe blackened window blinds, pull weeds. Dutch talks incessantly about tarantulas over the sound of the table-saw and Heidi empties an entire bottle of cleaner in ten minutes (“Babygirl, just ONE squirt, then wipe.”)

I know we are little more than obstacles for the men to step over.

But the only obstacles I’m worried about are the ones we put in front of little ones, the ways we make faith a grown-up thing, keeping them quiet and out of the way. Jesus gathered them up, held them, blessed them.Told us to be like them.

And then He said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He lets us wear the too-big toolbelt and join along. Let’s us spill stuff and talk loud and use far too much of the vinegar-cleaner. 

We are little more than obstacles for Him to step over.

But He lets us make new because He’s making us new.

Heidi leans in close to the wall, sprays the baseboard, wipes.

“Look, Mommy! I’m making it new!”

I smile and kiss the top of her head. “Yes, babygirl. That’s exactly what you’re doing.”

{May you enjoy making-new along with Jesus this week. Thanks for reading.}

• Both kids eager to work at The Revival Building (yes, that’s our new church home!). Scrubbing walls, wiping floorboards, and dust-busting the sawdust.
  

• Both kids riding bikes all the way there. Pushing them both up the hills, one hand on each seat. 
• Heidi’s outfit for the work-party: Ruffled floral bathing suit, black tights and a white t-shirt with light-up Dora tennis shoes.
• Meeting Ian. A crazy God-story unfolding.
• Mary. So proud of Mary.
• Believing God for just the right worship-song leader. Watching and waiting.
• Dutch Brothers.
• Heavy quilts.
• Quiet mornings.
• Her sleepy eyes as she stumbles in early.
• Coffee.
• Matt’s peanut-noodle-something-rather dish that’s so good I can’t even carry on a conversation while eating it.
• Walking On Water.
• Heidi’s voice and English accent.
• Watching my man thrive.
• A quiet afternoon, all of us lost in creativity.
• Lots of great advice on how to get the stink out of towels. 🙂
• A target gift card so I can just go buy new ones. 🙂
• Words of encouragement that lift, inspire.
• Sleep.
• That “many days” always pass as we wait on the Lord.
• Learning faithfulness.
• A good word: “Endurance.”
• Laughing ourselves silly.
• Uncle Jeremy & Auntie Melea.
• Acts.
• The prophet Elijah. Oh to trust and obey like that!
• Your love never fails, never gives up, never runs out on me…

Happy Sunday. Thanks for reading.