Things I Learned This Month | April 2019

After a brief hiatus, I'm back on track with sharing a list of some of the things I learned this month. I got the idea from Emily P. Freeman a year or two ago, and it's a simple practice that I really enjoy.

1. I learned all sorts of interesting things about T.J. Maxx.

I was curious about the store's name in Europe. Over here, it's called T.K. Maxx. But it's obviously the same store - it has the exact same branding and products. Turns out, when the company extended into the UK it didn't want to be confused with T.K. Hughes, another well-established brand. So in Europe it's T.K. Maxx. Further fun fact, T.J. Maxx and Marshall's are owned by the same parent company, TJX. What I could not discover is why the store is called T.J. Maxx in the first place. The internet has no conclusive evidence, so I suppose it shall remain a mystery.

2. "Critical thinking without hope is cynicism. But hope without critical thinking is naivete."

I heard Maria Popova say this in an interview with Krista Tippett on the show On Being, and it has really stuck with me.

3. A mantra for discerning a possible next right thing: Do what you know. Finish what you started. Use what you have. 

I got this one from Myquillen Smith during a bonus episode of Emily P. Freeman's podcast The Next Right Thing. 

4. The crepe man I remember from childhood has been there for 20 years.

Mom and I went to Heidelberg for my first visit since we moved in 2012. A highlight of the day was getting a crepe from the crepe man. (Did I think to ask his name? No.) He has a little stand in an alcove in the outside of the main church in Heidelberg, and when we lived in Heidelberg we would often get his crepes for lunch and eat them on the bridge. I was pleased to discover that they are still the best crepes that I have ever had. It was fun to visit with him a little bit and discover that this is an art that he has perfected over 20 years. Apparently once a French school group bought his crepes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner because they are so delicious.

Poetry Corner | Two Easter Poems

I couldn't choose which of these to share, so here are both. 

Ikon: The Harrowing of Hell

by Denise Levertov

Down through the tomb's inward arch
He has shouldered out into Limbo
to gather them, dazed, from dreamless slumber:
the merciful dead, the prophets,
the innocents just His own age and those
unnumbered others waiting here
unaware, in an endless void He is ending
now, stooping to tug at their hands,
to pull them from their sarcophagi,
dazzled, almost unwilling. Didmas,
neighbor in death, Golgotha dust
still streaked on the dried sweat of his body
no one had washed and anointed, is here,
for sequence is not known in Limbo;
the promise, given from cross to cross
at noon, arches beyond sunset and dawn.
All these He will swiftly lead
to the Paradise road: they are safe.
That done, there must take place that struggle
no human presumes to picture:
living, dying, descending to rescue the just
from shadow, were lesser travails
than this: to break
through earth and stone of the faithless world
back to the cold sepulchre, tearstained
stifling shroud; to break from them
back into breath and heartbeat, and walk
the world again, closed into days and weeks again,
wounds of His anguish open, and Spirit
streaming through every cell of flesh
so that if mortal sight could bear
to perceive it, it would be seen
His mortal flesh was lit from within, now,
and aching for home. He must return,
first, in Divine patience, and know
hunger again, and give
to humble friends the joy
of giving Him food—fish and a honeycomb.

***

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Easter Day

by Christina Rosetti

Words cannot utter 
Christ His returning: 
Mankind, keep jubilee, 
Strip off your mourning, 
Crown you with garlands, 
Set your lamps burning. 

Speech is left speechless; 
Set you to singing, 
Fling your hearts open wide, 
Set your bells ringing: 
Christ the Chief Reaper 
Comes, His sheaf bringing. 

Earth wakes her song-birds, 
Puts on her flowers, 
Leads out her lambkins, 
Builds up her bowers: 
This is man's spousal day, 
Christ's day and ours.

we call this Friday "Good"

From T.S. Eliot's poem "East Coker"

IV

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

    Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam's curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

    The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

    The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

    The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood—
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

finding home

The soul finds its own home if it ever has a home at all. ~Marilynne Robinson, Home, 282

Dear Katie,

On Sunday after church, you asked me if I ever wondered where home is. You are bright and outgoing and wistful and twelve years old. 

The question caught me off guard, and I answered with my knee-jerk reaction: Yes. I do wonder that, often. And as I wonder, sometimes the only thing that enables me to keep moving forward is the promise that our citizenship – our ultimate home – is in heaven. It seems abstract, but it is more concrete than any other answer I can offer in the space of a brief interaction in the church foyer.

But I’ve kept thinking about it. 

I've lived in nine different cities. Not counting the three places my parents have lived since I left for college. Two continents. Three countries. Zip codes that all run together in my head so that I always have to double-check before writing my return address. 

I'm moving to my tenth city in two months. 

When do I not wonder where home is?

For both of us, home is not a particular house on a particular street in a particular city, state, and country. And there’s a certain sadness to that – a sense of loss that I hear in the way you ask the question. When you ask where home is, I wonder, What would it be like to have one home?

Home is cardboard boxes and moving crates and knowing that this place is only temporary - and I hate that. 

And yet. And yet.

Home is every place I have unpacked those boxes. Would I really want to give any of those places up for the boon of just having one home?

I have a home that is far bigger than one house in one city. I have not one home, but many. I look for hints of home wherever I go, and often I find it in unexpected places. 

I discover a piece of home every time I walk into an art gallery. Also every time I walk into a bookstore.

Home is James Taylor's album "October Road" on repeat from July through November. And my mom's collection of Christmas music. And Handel's "Messiah."

Home is a dorm room filled with more people than is entirely comfortable - a jumble of coats and books and mugs of steaming tea and rich conversation - or silence. 

Home is wherever my parents live. 

Home is Orion in the clear winter sky. 

Home is gathering friends together to cook and laugh and visit.

Home is humid days on a screened-in-porch in North Carolina, swinging in a hammock, listening to the creek.  

Airports are home. And train stations. Any place where people occupy liminal space - in transition from one place to another. 

Home is the sound of the Amsel - the German blackbird with an orange beak that has the most beautiful song in the world. It is also the sound of cicadas whirring in the North Carolina heat. 

Home is the community of believers learning what it means to be pilgrims to the city of God. Sometimes we speak German as we walk through life together. Sometimes English. The language doesn’t matter as much as we sometimes think it does. 

Home is the quilts my grandmother made.

Home is a kitchen in a church basement.

Home is whatever hotel I'm spending the night in. 

Home is the collection of postcards and posters and photos and paintings that I tape to the wall and then take down again when it's time to go. 

Home is a gift that I often find when I least expect it. 

Home the way we want it doesn't exist. There is no place in the world where all the people who are precious to us gather to do life together. And even if there were, a lot of the people we love don't speak the same language. There is no one house in the world that holds all the smells we associate with home and holds all our memories. There is no place in the world that can possibly satisfy the yearning for a place where we are fully known, fully at rest, where all is truly, deeply, profoundly, well. 

That yearning is only fulfilled when Christ's Kingdom is made manifest. And that is why I cling tight to Paul's proclamation that our citizenship is in heaven: because it gives me hope that one day the yearning for home will actually be fulfilled. Though the ache seems to last forever, it will only last a lifetime. A lifetime seems long when you're in the middle of it. Especially when you're twelve. Or even twenty-four. But then there's forever. Forever at Home. What a weight of glory. 

For now, we get to carry around that yearning as we live the live of nomads. And we carry around more than that longing - we get to carry some of the things that make a place a home. My mom puts the Mary Engelbreit "bloom where you're planted" magnet on yet another fridge. I turn on the music that holds sustaining memories. We cook food that nourishes our bodies and reminds us of other meals around other kitchen tables. We schedule FaceTime calls and send text messages and write letters. 

We refuse to be defeated by the reality of how temporary this all is. We choose to put down roots even though we know that when it's time to move on the uprooting is agonizing. Because as long as we are willing to put down roots, we have access to a foretaste of home. As long as we look for them, we will find bits of home that we can carry with us wherever we go.

  

Grace,

Kate