Bearing with one another

"Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep."--Romans 12:15

"Bear one another's burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ."--Galatians 6:2

"What is an unspeakable gift of God for the lonely individual is easily disregarded and trodden under by those who have the gift every day....Therefore, let him who until now has had the privilege of living a common Christian life with other Christians praise God's grace from the bottom of his heart. Let him thank God on his knees and declare: It is grace, nothing but grace, that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brethren."--Dietrich Bonhoeffer

A tremendous outpouring of love and friendship last night and this morning, first at the party at Glenn & Shanti's, and then at church during and after the service--moments of personal contact, gifts that overwhelmed us in their thoughtfulness and generosity, fun times and meaningful times with people who, inadvertently, over the course of the last three years, have become our friends.

What lifts me up most is how utterly unpretension and unintimidated our church family is in the face of the news that I shared with them only two weeks ago. If I were to try to explain how to treat someone facing a terminal disease, I would point to this group of people. They make no effort to come up with the right thing to say, or to steel themselves against what could be a painful or awkward encounter. They just treat me like the person I've always been, sharing in both the sorrow and the joy that is a part of every day that I walk this path, and taking whatever risks are involved in being a friend to another person and expecting that person to continue being a friend in return.

Let me offer two examples. After the party last night, I spoke for a while with Glenn Molina, our worship director, about the future of my involvement in the worship band. A week ago, unable to get out of bed, I had to bow out at the last minute from playing guitar for the service, and I can't promise that the same thing won't happen again in the future. As we spoke, it was clear that this was a sad thing to have to discuss at all, but also that was surmountable. Most of all, it was clear that Glenn felt no need to tiptoe around frank and practical discussion of my health and future, no fear that our conversation would go off a cliff if everything weren't worded with utmost delicacy. This to me is a mark of friendship.

Then after church today, Robert DeVaugn came over to ask how I was, and we wound up visiting for about half an hour. As always, Robert emitted the kind of innocent goodness of a man with no need to change reality into something other than what it is. He asked a couple of questions related to how all the news of the last month has sat with me, how Karla & I are working through things, what kinds of mental and emotional processes I'm going through--questions that most people would be afraid to ask, and whose answers they might not take the time to hear. Again, a mark of friendship.

What most of the people around me have not done--and for this I am grateful--is evade the truth. They have not tried to stuff my story into precut picture of a world in which everything works together and makes sense. They haven't offered cheesy suggestions as to how to turn this into a good situation. They haven't avoided me for fear of saying the wrong thing. If you start crying in front of me, if you try to say something encouraging and it comes out wrong, if you ask me a question that is personal enough that I'd rather not answer it, I will still know that this is an expression of friendship. But evasion is just wrong.

My friends, I'm finding, are those whose hearts and imaginations are large enough to make room for tremendous sorrow and tremendous joy both at the same time. The coexistence of these two has very much become a part of my own experience. They are so closely interwoven that if you try to exclude the one you exclude the other. Friendship, therefore, entails a willingness to bear sorrow with another, not despairingly, but in the confidence that in so doing you tap into the joy that is still very much a part of this person's life. For me, this is grounded in the knowledge that the Prince of Peace and the Man of Sorrows are one and the same.