Dear [slightly embarrassing nickname I won’t share
online]
For ten hours yesterday we had a steady stream of 81
different pairs of big and little feet through our house to warm it with well-wishes
and laughs and too much cheese and good bread. Under this wetted roof there was
history – the way-back kind that’s old and safe and there’s no need to finish
sentences – and there was newness – the kind that forges fresh things and the
promise of different journeys.
We took turns to get the door and make hotdogs for kids (I
lie; you made all the hotdogs) and cavort in a juvenile fashion on the jumping
castle and replenish snack platters and snatch at conversations of how-have-you-been?
You do it so well – barefoot hospitality that makes for rest and welcome – and you
help me so much to let go of cupcake smears on the walls.
When the last guests left, the house wasn’t beautiful
anymore because there were wet picnic blankets and muddy carpets and incredible
gifts and dirty dishes and the strong sweet scent of friendship and I felt pinch-myself
rich and free. You put on 702 and late-night golden oldies softened the edges
of the mess and there was the quiet peace I’ve only ever known with you. They played
the Beach Boys – ‘Well I walked up to her
and I asked her if she wanted to dance. She looked awful nice and so I hoped
she might take a chance’ – and I remembered my Mom telling me it was the
first song she and my Dad danced to – ‘When
we danced I held her tight, then I walked her home that night, and all the
stars were shining bright, and then I kissed her’ – and I thought about
generations and how so much changes in the drifts of culture and so much stays
the same in the fibre of families.
Then they played the Seekers as we stacked polystyrene
cups and found space in the fridge for leftovers and it was another slice of like-yesterday
childhood – ‘Close the doors, light the
lights. We're stayin' home tonight, far away from the bustle and the bright
city lights. Let them all fade away. Just leave us alone. And we'll live in a
world of our own.’ I thought how God always saves the best for last – how when
all is said and done and all have come and gone there is always you, and this, ‘a world of our own that no one else
can share’ – a refuge
from this crazy world.
We both get so easily overwhelmed by what seems irrevocably
messed up in society – like the world we’re leaving to our boys is drowning in
darkness. Insidious corruption and injustice. The whip of stress and so-little-time.
Hurt and the fragility of life. And yet last night I could rejoice with you that
the God who anyway owns the cattle on a thousand hills has given us authority in this patch
of Kingdom ground to be ploughed. And the promise that when our lights
shine out on this street after sunset, the Light shines in the darkness, and
the darkness has not overcome it (John 1). There’s an assurance that when friends
and family grind salt at our table it is salt of the earth and will not be trampled
underfoot but used to flavour and heal and preserve (Matthew 5). This place of
peace, where Christ is King.
Thank you for doing life and kids and friends and fun and
mess and hope, with me, forever.
All my love
xx
