The Slow Way: What We Do For Love
Loving others well is hardly easy, and maybe that's why love is born from gratitude.
Can I let you in on a secret? One of the things I love most about the strangeness of life spent following the way of Jesus is that I am invited to do things that don’t make any sense to those looking from the outside. And I get to know and hold deeply to the reality that I do those things for love.
Like, for instance, leaving Ace with his babysitter at 3:30, and jumping with my older boys into the minivan, my bag packed with bananas, nuts, and apple slices, to begin a journey to NYC that Google Maps says will be an hour and five minutes, but that I know in my belly will grow in size the closer we get to the Holland Tunnel. I do this drive twice a week. But, reader, I didn’t sign up to do it on Friday nights.
We did, however, sign up to drive forty-five minutes to church on Sunday mornings, when the roads are clear and parking is easy. That’s what we decided to do when we found ourselves in love with a church that was in Manhattan, where we don’t live, after we had tried and failed to connect with churches closer to our home. And, then, of course, I signed up to help run the youth ministry. Because I wanted to. Because I love it. Because I was made for that sort of thing. Not because it makes any kind of logical sense.
But, of course, there is the part where we don’t live there. The part where one of our sixth-grade friends got the lead role in the middle school musical, and has been practicing and working toward her performance since January. The performance was at 6 pm on a Friday night. I don’t always live this value, but I hope that when my boys look back at their childhoods they will remember that we taught them to show up for people they love. When we have the opportunity and the option to love someone in action, we do it. Even if it means braving the Holland Tunnel on a Friday night, dealing with two hours of Jersey traffic heading toward New York, driving my eight year old minivan through Manhattan all the way to the East side, letting whoever must honk at me, honk. Parallel parking on 3rd Avenue at 5:45 pm. And no, not for a Broadway show. For a middle school play.
I imagine that’s the kind of Friday night commute Jesus would have made too. Jesus would have cheered with delight for the drama kids, some of their voices cracking their way through songs, their costumes falling off their bodies, their families hollering in the audience, their teachers so openly adoring them.
We got home by 9 pm, a much easier drive than the one getting there. And, after a very late dinner, I found myself in the bathroom, toothbrush in mouth, body exhausted, thinking about joy, and how grateful I am that a beautiful collective of adults in my growing-up years taught me the gift of giving my time and energy away. And told me that’s what love looks like. That’s what makes my life so full, I thought. I could have been at home last night, watching a show in my pjs, and that would have been nice. And I do it often. But this night was one that our friend will remember and so will we.
With that thought, I had a sudden flashback to a memory I’d forgotten from my own sixth grade year. My Sunday school teacher that year was a beautiful, petite brunette whose name I can no longer remember. Back in 1991, she and her husband who must have been newlyweds in their twenties didn’t yet have kids, but had a house. And they invited all the girls in her sixth grade Sunday school to a sleepover, took us toilet papering some of the boys’ houses from church. And then, as we ate candy at 10 pm, they turned on country music and taught us to two-step.
Now, this may not seem like a big deal to you, but for a girl growing up in the nineties in Amarillo, Texas, knowing how to two-step was a prerequisite for every dance I would go to from middle school through college. It’s the dance I am best at, the one I have taught my sons. I two-stepped with every boy I ever liked, reader. I two-stepped at every party I attended in college. I have two-stepped across dance floors at fraternity houses and weddings and stages. I have two-stepped into spins and twirls on my side on the floor, reader, popped back to my feet by (long ago) dance partners. And I learned it from this couple, whose names I can’t remember, who taught me in their living room.
I only remembered that last night, while I brushed my teeth. An hour and a half before that, after we dropped off a couple of kids at their apartments before driving into the tunnel back to Jersey, I asked my boys, “Was it worth it? The traffic and the time and missing dinner, all to show up for a friend?”
“Yeah,” said the one most likely to be agreeable. “Definitely.”
Before launching into the speech I wanted to give about how “love shows up for people” and “if you love someone you show them they are worthy of your time,” my less inclined-to-agree-with-me child said, “It was great.”
And, later, rinsing the toothpaste out of my mouth, thinking of the nameless couple who gave up their Friday night in 1991 to hang with my lanky, wide mouth, sixth grade self, feed me pepperoni pizza and Dr. Pepper, and teach me to dance, I tapped my toothbrush and prayed two prayers. One of gratitude for their love. And one a prayer for my current sixth-grade friend, who might remember, thirty years from now, the ones who showed up to this performance, our names a blur, perhaps. But our love clear as it was in 2023, when she knew she mattered.
And isn’t that a gift we all can give each other? Love as time offered generously.
A Slow Practice
In our culture of constant fretting and over-scheduling, taking the time to show up for the people we love, or perhaps, the people it feels difficult to love, can seem impossible. Today I want us to spend time imagining two different people in our lives: One, someone who showed up for you at some point when you needed it. Maybe, like me, you remember an adult who cared for you when you were young, whether they were significant during a vital life moment, or were simply a brief presence of kindness. Then, I want you to spend time imagining a person in your life you want to love with your presence. Someone you care about, but have struggled to make time for, or aren’t sure how to love well. I’ll guide you through it.
Let’s begin by inviting the Spirit to be here with us in our practice:
Holy One, Presence of Love, guide us to see how we have been loved, and how we can love the ones we’ve been given.
Take some time to focus on your breaths, and when you’re ready, sit in silence waiting to be reminded of someone who cared for you when you most needed it. You might ask God to bring that person to mind, or imagine your heart already knowing who you need to remember. If you can, let a face rise to your mind. If you can’t remember anyone, you can practice recalling memories of your childhood like watching a video, backwards. When you find a memory that feels significant, stop. This doesn’t need to be the most important memory of your life! Just a memory where someone loved you well. When you find that person. Sit for a bit, holding their face in your heart for several breaths. When you’re ready, tell God thank you for that person. If you want, pull out a journal and write down what you remember of what they did for you. Or if you’d like, just list their actions in your mind in prayers of gratitude.
Now move back into slow breathing. And when you’re centered, you can pray again for a face to be brought to mind. This time, you’re asking to be reminded of someone in your life who you are invited to show up for, who you have the opportunity to love well. What does this person need right now? How can you be tender toward them? If you were living their experience, what would you most desire from someone in your life? What is your invitation to love this person well?
Take some time to reflect or write down a commitment to yourself on behalf of this person.
Close with this prayer:
May I live this day remembering how others have shown me the good and gentle love of God, and may I, in gratitude, offer that love back to my neighbor. Amen.
Beautifully written, and such a sweet story. I love how you connected back to your own memory. Thanks for this reminder: To give "Love as time offered generously."