We’re gonna have an art show at the Vineyard in March. I called Debbie to secure a date on the calendar (March 26) and wanted to begin on flyers, cause I like to have them available at least a month in advance. That means I need a name for the show, and I don’t come up with those. It used to be Heather’s territory (as was designing the flyers), but since she went back to Montevallo, I ask Kris to come up with names.
But this time, I thought I’d give it a shot. I mulled. The only prospect I scribbled down was “Rebirth.” On the one hand, it seemed fitting thematically. On the other hand, it seemed too obvious and would be the fourth art show we’ve had to begin with the letters RE. So I called Kris and asked for his thoughts, not sharing my own.
When he called me back, he rattled off several names. Some we discarded because they sounded more like hardcore band names (ever notice how many hardcore bands have verbs in their names?). However, when he suggested “rebirth,” I knew we had a winner. Only, it came to me that it isn’t “rebirth” as in “yay, springtime again!” It’s re:birth, as in “regarding to birth.”
After giving me his list of name ideas, he explained that he was led to these because of the dream I had. “What dream?” I asked.
“You know, the one where we were all in this safe house, and then everybody was outside cleaning up the debris from the storm?”
“Um, no. I didn’t have a dream like that. You must have dreamt it all by yourself.”
He swears that it seemed so real. That I recounted a dream I had and then told him what I thought it meant. When I had him tell me the details of the dream, it sounds a lot like something I did tell him, which probably later got incorporated into a dream he had.
Don Richards (if you’re Episcopalian, does that make you Father Don?) came to speak at the Vineyard awhile back. He spoke of traveling light. I told Kris what that brought to mind for me.
Last year was really hard. I was grieving through the first year following my mother’s death. I was trying to be there for GJ. My dad got remarried. Kris and I bought duplexes. And we shut down the Core, but I couldn’t move on to The Next Thing.
I had been in lots of ministry-type things in one way or another. A girls kinship, worship teams, Friday@Seven, even so, etc. Usually as one dies, another is already being born. As the Core wound down, The Created was winding up. At first, I was a part. Then it became obvious that I couldn’t be. It wasn’t a matter of want and it wasn’t a matter of should. I could not.
Exacerbating the matter was that Kris didn’t feel the same way. I wanted him to understand how hard it was on me. I’m not a quitter and I’m not a wilting flower. It was difficult for me to pull back from endeavors that I had supported in the past. I hated that “my stuff” affected us as a couple; I certainly didn’t pick to lose a parent.
When my family was grieving, and my friends were moving on and my husband didn’t understand (yet), I found myself in a lonely, stormy place.
As the storm began to pass, I started to wonder if I had been building a shelter within it. Somewhere to survive. We need shelter and provision when we’re weathering a storm. But we don’t need to build a home there. Because the storm is passing, and when it’s gone, we need to be free to move. Putting down roots along the way hampers us.
Don’s words gave weight to what I felt. That the place I’d found myself in was not what I was made for; it was not a forever place. I was willing to leave it. To walk outside, deal with the debris and feel the sun on my face again.
