Post Script: September 26, 2022
The Assembly of the Saints
I caught sight of myself in the mirror of the airport bathroom. A smear of mascara and purpled circles beneath my eyes evidenced that my phone’s alarm had sounded at an ungodly hour. I may be a regular early riser, but even I know this common-sense wisdom:
Human beings must generally avoid waking to a number that begins with 4.
I had traveled to Wichita, Kansas, several days earlier for the Apprentice Gathering, a conference hosted on the campus of Friends University by James Bryan Smith and the good people at the Apprentice Institute. As the Gathering approached, my sense of inner dread grew. It certainly wasn’t because I dreaded seeing old friends, hearing the fantastic speaker line-up, even giving my own plenary talk and workshops. It was more the dread of travel: the logistics, the leaving. I am a creature of habit. I like waking up in my own house, and I am steadied by my daily routines.
The dark circles reflected in the mirror of the airport bathroom yesterday morning reminded me that there is indeed a price to be paid when you go to bed late and catch a 6am flight. But what I couldn’t see in my reflection—and want to name here—is the joy I found in the company of God’s people over the course of the last several days. I came home tired—and also buoyed by hope.
I didn’t arrive in Wichita expecting to receive as much as I did. I came with a downcast spirit. In my Friday mainstage talk, I spoke to the sufferer (and included myself in their company), reminding all of us that even when we don’t feel the moods of faith, we can keep at its habits. What happened afterwards was something unexpected and beautiful, something that can only happen in the assembly of saints.
In my sadness, I was comforted. I was comforted by the many people who approached me after my talk to share their own journeys of walking with a parent through the dark days of dementia. People put folded notes in my hands, suggested books to read, asked for permission to hug me. In the talk that followed mine, I was comforted to hear Curt Thompson remind us that the brain can persevere in doing hard things, as long as it has help. There is beauty in the vulnerability we admit in community, he reminded us. I was comforted to share that evening with a small group of writing friends whose work and lives I admire. (I couldn’t be happier to have met Rich Villodas, heard him preach, and bought a copy of his book, The Deeply Formed Life. I even made him sign it.)
But perhaps most of all, I was comforted to attend the Gathering with one of my best friends in the world, the first person I called on the day of my mother’s diagnosis. I was reminded of the great gift of friendship, especially in seasons of hardship. Our friends care for us, pray for us, bear witness that we’re holding fast in hard times, even when we don’t think so.
The greatest suffering isn’t suffering. The real tragedy of life is suffering alone.
In my own life, habits of friendship are something I have to work hard at, something I routinely fail to cultivate well. I’m a person driven by the ethics of productivity. I like to get things done. I like to achieve efficiencies in my day. I also find it especially hard in mid-life to pursue friendship: because some of the natural connections we might make with others when our children are young aren’t necessarily as obvious; because so many of us are hemmed in by responsibilities to our children and aging parents and work responsibilities.
Who has time to be a friend, make a friend?
But these last days in Wichita have reminded me that friendship must be an essential priority of my life, something to be included in any rule of life I attempt. Friendship, I know, never happens apart from intentionality, even risk. Sometimes you’ll reach toward someone—and they won’t reach back.
But sometimes you’ll reach out and more hands than you can hold will reach back. And you’ll remember that in this unfriendly world, you’re not alone. You’ll start to think you just might be able to keep on in a hard season. Sadness won’t be your only teacher: friendship will, too. And you’ll have an answer to the question Rich Mullins posed in one of his songs, whether to paint the stars or the saints.
The saints, you’ll say. The glorious beauty of the saints.
Yours for another week,
Jen