Derek

I've been reading the poetry of William Stafford over the past few weeks. I read one of his entitled "Clash" today.

The butcher knife was there
on the table my father made.
The hatchet was on the stair;
I knew where it was.

Hot wires burned in the wall;
all the nails pointed in.
At the sound of my mother's call
I knew it was the time.

When she threatened I hid in the yard.
Policemen would come for me.
It was dark; waiting was hard.
There was something I had to win.

After my mother wept
I forgot where the hatchet was:
there was a truce we kept--
we both chose real things.

If she taunted, I grew still.
If she faultered, I lowered the knife.
I did not have to kill.
Time had made me stronger.

I won before too late,
and--a man by the time she died--
I had traveled from love to hate
and partway back again.

Now all I have, my life,
strange, comes partly from this:
I thought about a knife
when I learned that great word -- "Choose."

from, The Darkness Around Us Is Deep

I attended (and participated) in a funeral on Holy Monday for Derek, the son of my friend (and amazing poet in her own right) Mari. She told us at his funeral (he was 58 years old) that she had recently learned that he had suffered a trauma when he was seven years old. She was surprised when he told her because "I thought I ran a pretty tight ship." She did. She does.

She challenged us all at that gathering to pay attention to children - to listen to them. I think about how adults are uncomfortable around the pain of children. Perhaps we don't want to intrude on the other adults (parents, etc.) in their lives. Perhaps we don't think we can talk with children -- that it is best left to experts.

But it is not just children who need a listening ear.

It reminded me of a time many years ago in South Bend when a member of our congregation was struggling with alcoholism. He needed to de-tox. He finally trusted enough to tell us out loud what we all already knew. His wife worked and needed to be on the job because she was their only source of income. So, we in the church took rotations every day, watching our friend as he went through de-tox. We joked afterwards that we should call ourselves "the de-tox church." That time was really important. We were paying attention to each other and using the muscles we had, small as they were, to strengthen one another. In those times sitting with our friend in his home we got a chance to talk about important things, I heard some dreams of his that I had never heard before, and some time later I saw some of those dreams come true, because he had spoken them out loud and found folks who either shared that dream or were willing to support him in his.

I wondered about how many stories there are like Derek's in our neighborhood and in our congregation that we miss paying attention to the signals and we don't take the opportunity to listen to someone who is searching for a place to be heard. One of my father's teachers by the name of Nell Morton wrote many years ago about "hearing people to healing."

But if I'm honest I must confess that I don't spend as much time as I could listening. And I don't think I'm alone. I have often heard our culture described as a distracting one -- television and computer screens are certainly outward and visible signs of those distractions. Years ago I heard Walter Wangerin describe the television as "the saw toothed tool of the devil." I'm not Luddite -- but in grappling with such issues I grieve our lack of attention to one another.

I wonder what it would look like to strengthen the muscles of our communities, our streets, and our congregations - to listen to one another (young and old). In our neighborhood people with the loudest voices often talk about the bad things around -- robberies, and assaults, and brokeness, and loss -- but what if in listening to those stories we pushed further and trusted that we would hear about the joy hidden - like yeast in dough? What if we didn't ignore the signs around us of people struggling with addictions and traumas and disappointments and discouragement -- but instead told stories of hearing those stories and then the stories of survival and courage and grace and hope that have come out of them? But if we never hear them in the first place, we never have that chance.

One of the great joys I had in listening to Mari talk about Derek when I stopped by her house on Tuesday morning was her talking about the amount of love that she set had been loosed by his death. She spoke quietly and with great wonder and emotion about the great amount of joy and love that has come to her and others in the wake of Derek's death. Oh, she grieves the loss of him that is sure. But that she is so able to recognize the power of love that is healing broken relationships and bringing joy into the lives of others who miss Derek is a remarkable and holy thing.

There are clashes all the time -- and I praise a poet who writes so honestly about them and reminds me, once again, of my own calling.