The Dust of Everyday Life

Pablo Picasso said, “Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life.”

I have needed some dust washed off my soul lately.

In the wake of Jonathan's death, I have found myself reflecting on thoughts too numerous to mention all in one place, but finding at the same time a sense of desperation to get them out of my head and onto paper or onto canvas.  Because in the days after his loss, I just kept coming back to the same phrase over and over again:

There is healing in the act of creation.

There is a solace that is found in making something that is all together separate from you, but still a part of you.  Maybe it's my way of remembering.  My way of honoring.  My way of healing.  Because I don't know what else to do.  I don't know what else to do other than write.  Journal entries.  Blog entries.  Cards to people, talking about Jonathan.  I don't know what else to do other than to paint, to put a brush in my hands and figure out a way to bring life to my own soul.  That's what I know to do.

I remember after I lost my grandfather several years ago, I dredged up a story I had written about him when I was an undergrad student.  It was originally a creative writing assignment for an American Lit class I was taking.  We were to write a story with "local color," a story that conveyed a distinct region or area, including dialect and geography.  I chose my grandparents' farm and the words of my grandfather to tell the story I had bottled up in my head.  So, when he died, I did a painting based on that story, a story I dearly love because, from my perspective, it so clearly captured my grandfather and all that I esteemed him to be.  I treasure that painting and that story so.

Because that's what I have to do to wash the dust off my soul.  Because that's where I find some semblance of healing and satisfaction in the face of loss.

There is healing in the act of creation.

"God created the heavens and the earth...and he saw that it was good..." 

Joy

Joy is such a funny, funny thing.

I've thought about it a lot here lately and the conclusion I've come to is this:

It is so very selfless.

As I sat at Jon's celebration of life yesterday (and yes, it was a celebration) and watched his mom and sister sing the words to Matt Redman's song "Never Once," raising their hands in true worship, and I thought to myself, "That is what true joy looks like."  That is what it looks like fall down on your knees and worship God, even in the midst of the greatest pain and loss of your life.  That is what it looks to offer a sacrifice of praise, to praise God when you least feel like it.  That is what joy looks like, dancing alongside grief.  That is what it means to make Jesus greater.  And that's what it looks like to choose joy. 

It would be an epic failure if I tried to capture all that went through my mind and my heart yesterday as I sat listening to the words spoken about Jonathan's life.  I went in just feeling so - so sorrowful, so sad.  I missed my friend terribly and I wasn't sure how I was going to make it through the next hours.  The tears just wouldn't seem to stop.  And seeing his body lying in that casket - I kept waiting to see his chest move or to see his eyes open. (I promise I'm not trying to be creepy)  I desperately wanted my friend back. 

But as the stories began unfolding and as the worship songs brought forth praise, a small part of me was being healed.  And I was humbled.  I count it nothing less than a privilege to have spent my Thursday evenings with Jon, taking up a spot on the couch in his little corner of the world, watching episodes of Big Bang and Wipeout, rehashing scenes from Lord of the Rings.  As I was at the visiting hours on Sunday afternoon, his mom nearly did me in when she pulled me in for a hug and said, "Courtney, you saw past his chair.  You saw past his chair.  And he loved you."  And when his brother-in-law said, "You know, Jon had a lot of friends who could say a lot of nice things about him and he had a lot of friends who loved him from a distance, but very few who entered into his world like you did."  It was too much.  I wanted my friend back more than I wanted to hear those words.

But leaving - leaving that celebration behind and leaving Jon behind, I realized the value of choosing joy in this moment.  If Tim and Twyla, Jesse and Kellye could choose joy, if they could choose to lift their hands in worship, if they could choose to smile and praise God, then surely I could do the same.  Because I am not without hope.  Jon was not without hope.  Yes, he spent most of his life in a wheelchair.  Yes, he had a terrible disease that robbed him of a lot of things the rest of the world said was necessary. Yes, he didn't like what that disease had done to him.  But he was not without hope.  He saw that disease as something not to be bitter about, but something to be grateful about because it was making him more like Christ.  I love how Anne Lamott talked about it in her book Traveling Mercies - she was talking about an interview with a man who had a terminal illness.  He was learning to savor life and instead of having a life-threatening disease, he had a disease-threatening life.  Jon had a disease-threatening kind of life.

That kind of joy isn't manufactured by the world.  It's not manufactured by a religious crutch or a warm fuzzy feeling from a so-so god.  You don't pull that kind of joy out of thin air, you don't conjure it up and you don't fabricate it.  It comes only from a God who said, "I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete."  Jon's joy is complete.  And never once did he walk alone.

Grief

Grief is such a funny, funny thing.

I've thought about it a lot here lately and the conclusion I have come to is this:

It is so very selfish. 

I know, that seems a little harsh.  Maybe too abrupt. 

But the thought occurred to me yesterday while I was driving home, tears streaming down my face.

I lost my good friend Jonathan yesterday.  I knew the day would come - the phone call would come - at some point.  His heart and his lungs would some day give way and the phone call would come.  It came yesterday at 11:51 a.m.  And my heart was grieved because my friend was gone.  Just as I was getting ready to text his mom to see if now was a good time to come to the hospital to visit, my caller ID flashes the name of our pastor, and I knew.  I knew. 

As a thousand thoughts ran through my mind, about how it had to be a Thursday.  Thursday nights for the last year and a half have been spent watching Big Bang and Wipeout with Jonathan.  Of course, it would have to be a Thursday.  I thought about how Myrt and Paul are out of town and they don't know yet.  They'll miss his funeral.  I thought about Tanner, Jonathan's dog, and wondering about how confused he'll be that Jonathan hasn't come home yet.  I thought about James, Jonathan's caregiver, who has devoted ten years of his life to serving Jonathan.  And I thought about Tim and Twyla, Jonathan's parents.  I truly, truly believe that apart from God himself, they are the sole reason Jonathan lived as long as he did.  Thirty-one years is a long time to be living with Muscular Dystrophy.  He far outlived the usual life expectancy for people with this disease.  I have never met more selfless people.

And I thought about how selfish grief is.  I was grieving what I had lost instead of rejoicing in what my friend had gained.   And if there was anything Jonathan was about, he was about others and he was about selflessness.  Not once - not once - in the few short years that I knew him did I ever hear him complain or take pity on himself for being confined to a wheelchair.  I never heard him grumble, I never heard him say "woe is me."  He volunteered his time at the church doing Powerpoint (he literally only had the use of his right thumb, which was enough to let him use his computer and operate his wheelchair), he worked at another church creating and burning audio files of sermons and special events.  He always wanted to know how my family was, how my other friends were, what my boyfriend was up to.   It was always about others.

And if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.

Jonathan spent himself on behalf of others, just like Isaiah 58:10 commands us to do.  I cannot be selfish in my grief.  Not that I should disregard the sadness or squelch it or act like everything is a-okay, but that grief should never lose sight of what the ultimate truth is:

Jonathan spent his life on behalf of others because there was a Savior and a King who spent his life on behalf of Jonathan.  That is a life worth rejoicing over.