Unexpectedly

Today, I was minding my own business, when Barb Lind from church came walking down Dellwood. Barb had previously told me that she had regularly stopped her knee-surgery-therapy walks with a mid-way break on my porch. She said that she always sits in the rocker, and had, in fact, told me that she liked my choice to paint it white just as she supported my decision to buy a new porch rug and select bright orange hanging baskets this spring. I love that this woman had been sitting on my porch for months without my knowledge or permission. I love that she had found refuge in a place that I find comfort in too.

But I had never actually seen Barb on my porch, nor had we spent time together. So today I invited her up and we shared our porch together. She told me a long story about three people, all of whom, in their own ways, had acted with profound empathy and grace. I had no idea this morning that I would end up teary eyed two hours later. Teary eyed, with a new friend.

As part of the impromptu morning, I showed Barb the rest of my house and she repeatedly commented on the fact that she did not know that I "was an artist." I told her I was not, but when I looked around, as a guest in my own home, it was hard to deny how much I love doing art. So when Barb left, I pulled out my colored pencils and black mandala paper and drew this. A mandala for Robin, who just finished seminary.

It's a mandala full of stories. Her studies, her chaplaincy work, her long drives back and forth from Cleveland to Pittsburgh, her dead son, the mother Mary, a woman by the well, and the windy labyrinth of her ordination. Things that I know because Robin told me.

And now, as the afternoon turns to evening, I am thankful for the gift of words. Those spoken, those written, even the words that are drawn. And how they reveal people, connect people, and draw us closer to knowing what we know.

Days ago, I wrote about what life might be like if we could see events outside of the context of our own stories -- how it might grant wise neutrality -- and today, I guess, I realize that we understand life only through the context of stories graciously told and tendered. Maybe one way keeps the heart open, and the other way keeps the heart full.