Upheaval.
Sometimes that word sums up everything, doesn't it?
Last Friday evening as I'm finishing up work for the week I get a phone call from Emily saying that she just checked the mail and we had a letter from Codes! You know, that department on Parks and Rec that no one likes. Codes.
Without a guess we knew who had made the call, it was one of our dear neighbors. She is an older lady who we have had a couple "spats" with before. Long story short, I've been rebuilding our deck after the old one literally fell down. Thus, I've had material neatly stacked next to the house covered in plastic... which apparently neighbor lady was secretly up in arms about because it was "touching her fence." (Which it wasn't.) Either way, I just don't think she liked having to look at it.
Ofcourse instead of talking with us about it we get reported to Big Brother.
So that Friday ended with two codes violations (having stuff out in your yard and not having a building permit!) and three confrontations with my neighbor.
Upheaval.
On the back of that, Saturday we checked our mail (which we've now decided we are no longer doing) and there is a letter informing us that the Learning Center that our kids go to during the week closes at the END OF THE MONTH!!
Really? You're shutting down our child's daycare and you're giving us less than three weeks to figure it out?
Upheaval.
Sometimes life does this to us, doesn't it?
Sometimes it all just seems ridiculously unfair, doesn't it?
It's like the people who are doing everything they can just to keep their heads above water, take care of their children, be a blessing to their community and world, and somehow pay the bills... get hit with the codes violation...
And those who have more time than they know what to do with... move the furniture around and gripe about property lines...
The challenge comes... in the midst of all the upheaval, the struggle, the complete exhaustion... to simply continue loving. To not allow the upheaval and the mess derail what you are all about and who you are.
The temptation in dealing with upheaval is to let it spiral you into depression or in vengeance find yourself wanting to cause chaos in the lives of others.
But what if... instead of doing those things, we might find ourself simply receiving it.
Embracing and moving on.
Sure when it happens... scream at the top of your lungs. Maybe go chop some wood. Go for a run!
But then, receive it.
Knowing, that our God is much larger than codes...
That the King of the World will set you in a new place.
Sometimes its that "negative capability" (as Richard Rohr might call it) that becomes the very thing that catapults us forward.
Sometimes it's the very motion of having to swing into the dark that has the capability of launching us into the light.
May our upheaval not leave us in despair or revenge, but may we rebound, trampoline, resurrect forward into an even greater grace for that neighbor... for that community.... for that world... that really is only acting out of pain anyway.
May our upheaval be the catalyst that upheaves darkness all around us.
Because after real actual death comes life. That's the pattern of the universe.
