This week's meeting, Jess and Kalyn lead us in a discussion ultimately rooted in the Psalms-- psalms of lament, cursing psalms, and psalms of joy. Somewhere between lament and cursing, we talked briefly about the idea of meeting people where they are. Layne shared with us an image that I've heard a few times before, of someone at the bottom of a pit, and two scenarios: one in which others are standing at the top of the pit, inviting the person at the bottom to get out and come join them; one in which someone joins the person at the bottom of the pit, ultimately to help them get out. This image is often used in lessons on counseling.
I was thinking a little bit about Peace Corps again today, because I met someone new who asked me how I ended up in New Orleans with YAV. So when we were talking about lamentation this evening, that is admittedly a little bit of what I was thinking about. I was thinking about how I was so far at the bottom of that pit, and I was so afraid of people standing at the top and telling me to get out that I didn't really talk about the rejection for a month (which became my most viewed blog post ever until recently-- I'll come back to that).
In that month though, I have to give a lot of credit to Mike for absolutely meeting me where I was at the bottom of the pit. We had started seeing each other less than a week before that rejection notice, and the poor guy was probably (definitely) caught between feeling sorry and sad that I was so crushed, and being a little thankful that I wasn't going to leave the country any time soon. I was not sleeping well, and I didn't have the words to talk about the whole ordeal, and it was weighing on me heavily as I attempted to keep it a secret until I did have the words. Mike would come over and just sit. Sometimes we'd watch TV, sometimes we'd just sit. No talking. Sometimes a reassuring pat on the shoulder. Mostly just sitting. (Well, he sat. I often laid because I felt like if I was meeting gravity horizontally, I couldn't fall any further.)
I had to take a deep breath just now. Just thinking about that whole time slams me with a lot of different emotions, and we all know I'm kind of a robot about feelings sometimes.
So about a month later was this:
which we could probably draw all sorts of metaphors about the crazy winding road behind us there. And now eighteen months later is this:
(Well, it will be 33 months later by then, but whatever.)
Josh Ritter, the brilliant artist he is, sang the wonderful words, "So throw away those lamentations, we both know them all too well/ if there's a book of jubilation, we'll have to write it for ourselves..."
So why am I sharing all of this? Because I was totally caught on the idea of meeting people where they are, grieving at the bottom of the pit, and building joy out of that experience. While sitting as a household, we all shared some things we were lamenting and some things we were cursing. I didn't share that I still have moments when I'm grieving about Peace Corps. I shared that I'm lamenting the wetlands here. (Typical Colleen, sharing the thoughts that just barely skim the surface of what I'm even thinking about.) It was true. It was just tangled up in all of these other thoughts, too.
I'm still sometimes sad that I'm not serving in an even more extreme way, but a lot of joy has come out of it, and I am focused on that far more often than the hurt these days. Because I didn't move to the developing world for over two years, I could build an awesome relationship with a great man. Because I didn't go with Peace Corps, I was able to explore the southwest. Because I'm not a Peace Corps Volunteer, I was able to return to camp for a last hurrah with some beloved friends and get a ton of experience with NRCS and serve as the musician for our mission trips and spend more time with my grandmothers and help some people who weathered Sandy clean out their homes and work with my middle school youth and go to a Josh Ritter concert as a guest of the band and have a beautiful picnic with some of my favorite people and a million other joyful things and be at several wonderful weddings and be a bridesmaid in several more and have my own next fall.
Because I didn't do Peace Corps, I ended up here, in southern Louisiana, attempting to jump in the pit alongside the residents of the coast as we attempt to spread the word about the wetlands.
I mentioned before that the Peace Corps news was my most-read post until recently-- that was absolutely defeated by the post when I announced I was coming to New Orleans this year. I don't think I would have made it this far without so many people being willing to jump in the pit with me, and more importantly, wait until I was ready to have company down there. I am just continually amazed at the community of people I get to call my friends. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
