Carrying the Ice
Chapter 14 surprised me...
I don’t know why some of us have such a strong aversion to being helped. Maybe we feel like we need to prove ourselves, because the world underestimates us. Maybe we’re afraid relying on others will lead to disappointment. Maybe we don’t want to owe anyone. Maybe we’re proud, and we don’t think anyone can do what we can do. Maybe we just like being impressive.
I never intended to include this chapter in this story, but as I wrote, it became impossible to avoid the fact that in my grief God had delivered me from my sinful independence. I know we don’t think of independence as a sin, but it is. 100%. Humans were never intended to take care of themselves. If you are, you’re doing it wrong.
And I bet you feel that. I did. I was never strong enough to carry the ice on my own.
Listen to Chapter 14: Intertwined and then keep reading for a closer look.
All the Things
Early in the episode we find Jennifer arguing with her soon-to-be boyfriend about who will carry the ice. “The ice” (and the carrying of it) is one of those little things that’s actually a very big thing. I write, “Jennifer Mays does not want to be rescued; she can take care of herself.” And that’s both the truest and falsest thing.
I continue: “Over the years the phrase ‘carrying the ice’ became code for my stubborn independence. Sometimes he liked it (that wild horse energy can be attractive). Eventually he realized it was a deep, deep problem. Eventually the girl carrying the ice realized it too.”
It’s hard to come back to moments like these—just as hard as revisiting memories like standing next to my grandmother’s coffin or driving my grandfather home while he had a heart attack. Why? Because present-me knows things that past-me didn't—I know how much pain this independence is going to cause, I know how fragile that girl feels, I know she’s pretending to be who thinks she’s supposed to be, I know how long it will take her to let someone help, and I know how much she’s going to hurt the people who love her—and all I want is to reach back and give that broken girl a hug.
And then that final line in the paragraph. I say, “Eventually the girl carrying the ice realized it too… Bobby dying helped.”
Bobby dying helped. How can you write a sentence like that? Only if it’s true.
Shall we lighten the mood with a picture of Justin and Jennifer in the flirting stage of their quickly kindling romance?
Let’s.
This is the first ever picture of Justin and Jennifer (that’s our friend Stephanie in the bottom right corner). We are not yet dating, but you’d better believe I looked at this picture twenty times a day every day until he asked me out. How about another?
Reflecting on Bobby’s visitation and my relationship with my husband, I write, “I’d come to depend on him so entirely that I’d stopped seeing him at all.” Do you have anybody like this in your life? Anyone you’re accidentally using? Anyone you’re failing to recognize and thank as they serve you and love you? If we’re not careful we can do this with everyone. I’m the main character and everyone around me exists in relationship to me. My long shadow falls on everyone close.
Let’s not do that. It requires humility to pay attention, but it’s easy enough otherwise. Ask God, “Open my eyes to see the people who help me and love me.”
In the scene where we’re all gathered at the beach, I write:
We drove to [a beach] nearby, piled out of our crammed cars and vans, and sat huddled together. A single streetlight at our backs, we faced the ocean, indiscernible from the sky, which may as well have been a black curtain.
Pre-creation–nothing yet separated, nothing yet lit.
The Spirit out there somewhere waiting to act.
That reference to pre-creation comes from two sources.
Mark Sayers, one of my very favorite thinkers and teachers, gave a talk at the 24/7 Prayer National Gathering this year, and he mentioned how so often when God creates He does so out of a dark/chaotic period of brooding/waiting/hovering. Even in Genesis 1, the creation story doesn’t begin with nothing. It begins with the Spirit hovering over the waters. His point? That God often creates in our lives out of periods of darkness and chaos.
Justin’s Holy Ghost Stories telling of the creation story. Here’s what he writes about pre-creation:
Creative energy gathers steam as the ‘What If’s become “And Then”s, and the “We could”s become “Oh let’s”.
The divine imagination wanders and wonders… He is…poised to begin. But He has not yet acted.
The Spirit of God is…hovering. Mantled over the waters—liquid depths of unformed matter, energy maybe, ideas…the writhing promise of What Shall Be. They churn and twist, these waters—insistent and indecisive. They are broth and amniotic fluid, blood and sap, plasma and pigment—a throbbing mass of disorder steadily becoming possibility under the thrumming pinions of Yahweh’s Spirit.
He waits…
Like a kestrel watching the field, wings stretched, eyes keen, waiting for a mouse to emerge. Hovering.
Like a helicopter holding position until its swimmer makes the rescue. Hovering.
Like a bumblebee examining a cluster of white clover for just the right blossom. Hovering.
Everything will be different from this moment on.
You can listen to him tell this part of the creation story here.
Stories as seance—I am so convinced that stories are the way to keep our people alive. TELL STORIES about your people! It’s medicine and miracle. Here’s what I said in the episode:
It was like these stories were some kind of seance–calling Bobby back from the dead. As long as a story hung in the air, Bobby was close. When a story ended, the image of him vanished, like a dying flame. Quickly, desperately, we threw another story on the pyre.
This, by the way, is God’s plan for helping His people remember Him. On Passover, tell the story of Yahweh delivering His people. During the communion meal, tell the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. When your kids ask, “Why do we keep all these rules God gave us?”—tell them the story of your salvation.
Did you go through a communist phase in college?! I’d love to hear about it in the comments. :) Also, we should definitely do more sharing.
As we finish up that bit about interdependence and the early church, I write, “The early church’s interdependence isn’t an act of the church, it’s an act of God. It’s not an achievement, it’s an inevitability. It’s not a song you write. It’s the music of what happens.” Two things:
First, I strongly believe that we are getting in the way of God’s efforts with our straining—we’re children banging on pots and pans so loudly we can’t hear the song God’s playing.
The church should be more beautiful than she is. It’s not God’s fault we don’t look like Him. It’s partly our un-rootedness and partly our relentless micromanaging of the logistics of our spiritual growth.
Second, this line: “the music of what happens” comes from a poem by Seamus Haney, the brilliant Northern Irish poet. It’s called, “Song,” and it goes like this…
A rowan like a lipsticked girl.
Between the by-road and the main road
Alder trees at a wet and dripping distance
Stand off among the rushes.There are the mud-flowers of dialect
And the immortelles of perfect pitch
And that moment when the bird sings very close
To the music of what happens.
Haney is himself quoting from a source—the Irish epic hero Finn McCool.
As the story goes, Finn and his warriors were discussing “the finest sound in the world.” His son Oisin extolled the ring of spear on shield in the din of battle. Another went on about the fearful cries of the stags and yet another spoke of the song of his beloved as she played the harp to soothe her hero after a day of blood and gore. The wise warriors nodded their approval.
‘And you, Fionn,’ they then asked, ‘what do you say is the finest sound in the world?’
The mighty hero paused.
‘The music of what happens,’ he said.”(story sourced from Daniel O’Leary)
We end with an exploration of this gift of interdependence I’m receiving from my little family. You guys, I adore these kids. And this husband. My life hasn’t always been easy. Even building this family wasn’t easy. Sometimes it seemed impossibly hard. But it’s the very best thing in my life right now. God is constantly finding me and delighting me and taking care of me through these three.
How about a family picture or two…
And finally, this little chorus:
There is a source, child, and it is not you.
Us is something closer.
Him is better still.
Bring your bucket to the well.
My daughters asked me who wrote it. I did. :)
I hope this chapter of The Happiest Saddest People encourages you to take a risk and put down the ice. Let your good Father carry you. It’s all He wants:
I will be the same until your old age,
and I will bear you up when you turn gray.
I have made you, and I will carry you;
I will bear and rescue you.
//Isaiah 46:4
To Be Continued,
JL