Sent.

A little something that I wrote a couple of months ago.

I have just been spending some time thinking about what that word
means, "Sent".

Rolling down the interstate tonight, there were the Counting Crows in
my weak and old speakers. Someone once told me that my car stereo was
like hearing a radio doing a bad impression of another radio.

I heard those sad songs that Adam Duritz wrote 10, 15, even 20 years
ago.

I woke up in mid-afternoon because that's when it all hurts the
most.... I dream I never know anyone at the party and I'm always the
host.....

I countlessly hear people say that they are just ready to get out of
where they are. Someone will passingly say that they cannot wait to
be out of school, or be finished with their internship, or in the real
world, or back in school. We all want to move to Africa or Mumbai or
Europe. Somewhere in ourselves we want to believe that if we can get
out of the current context then we will finally be set free.

Just about everyday I ride by the airport here in Atlanta. Just about
everyday I turn my head to the east and marvel at that place that I
grew up in. Until I was six years old, we lived right by that
airport. I had family that worked for several of the airlines, so
cousins were always pouring in and out of gates, calling to say that
they didn't make their flights. My grandmother, whom I affectionately
call a feminist before it was cool, was always on call at Delta. She
would stagger out of bed in the middle of the night to crunch numbers
for the FAA, or for a new route, or whatever else you could dream up
when you work with the sky.

I drive by that old airport and I marvel because it is the busiest
airport in the world. There are more people coming in and out of that
little plot of land than there are anywhere else on this green place.
I always look up and see the planes guiding expertly to their giant
driveways, I see them pick themselves right off the ground and head
out into who knows where. I wonder where it is all of these people
are going.

And then I dream of traveling. I dream of the trains with the seats
that face each other. I long for the fasten seat belt sign and the
air that blows down through that tiny vent. I hope for 1st class and
I act like an aristocrat when they bring me my little hot towel. I
act as if I always need a hot towel to be refreshed just before
sailing across an ocean.

And I'm just so ready to go.

While I don't have many days anymore where I wake up in mid-afternoon,
I bet there are almost as many days where I feel the lyrics of that
song up above as there are days when I could just jump straight out of
my soul and have the joy of Jesus shining through me.

And I think I'm ready to go somewhere.... hah.

I don't know what it means to be sent and I don't know what it means
to be ready to go there when I am.

My grandfather was 55 years old when I sprung into life in his home.
He had little time to prepare for me, and he had lived a full 55 years
on this earth without me. I can't cram being 55 into my head. If I
doubled my 27 years, I would still be just a little shy of that mark.
That amazes me. He had lived so long without me, yet when I was
there, all of a sudden, he loved me and treated me like a son. I
showed up, but he was sent to me.

I think about the people that I love in my life. There are some that
I actually ache for when I think of them. Folks that I've only known
for a few years, folks that I barely see, folks where it just is not,
at the moment, what it once was. And yet I ache for them all. These
are the people that were sent to me, at varying times and places, to
rouse me out of my sleep in some way, to soothe over old wounds at
times when it all hurts the most.

People who love me despite my nervous rambling.. despite my stupid
mouth... despite my dark wanderings....

Sent to me to love me, just because they can. Just because....

My grandfather died when I was ten. It was as traumatic as it would
be for any 10 year old to lose their dad. A few years later I had
this dream where we were driving down a stretch of road that was
bordered by a deep wood. We stopped and I got out of the car and I
walked to the very edge where the short grass met the tall pines. My
grandfather, with his glasses and his blue jeans and his plaid shirt
came walking out, walking out with that same gait that he always had.
He said "Hello" and I asked where he had been. "Why did you leave?
Where did you go?"

He told me not to worry, and with a little bit of regret in his voice,
but matter of factly, he told me, "I just had to go.. I just had to."
He smiled and he hugged me and then he turned around, disappearing
back into the woods.

I showed up, and maybe I was, in some way, sent to him on that day I
was born, but he was sent to me everyday that I had him, and sent to
me again on that night in my dream.

I wish I could put it down on paper, in a bullet point, or a catchy
slogan what it means to be sent.

It just means that we have to go and it means that we are not ready.
It means that we are broken and hurting and yet, at the same time,
we're very much alive and whole.

It means that you probably have this aching inside of your chest
sometimes. You know the times where you feel like there is something
that is just beating inside of you and you can't figure out how to get
it out? The feeling where you have a wall between you and whatever it
is that you are supposed to be?

Yeah, me too.

Being sent doesn't take away that feeling. Leaving won't wash it
away. It's still going to claw at the inside of your heart.

But then- there is this other thing going on.

There is this other part of you- a part of you that is more real than
train doors closing, more tangible than the runway, more stinging than
the death of the one you loved. It is the warm truth of a resurrected
Jesus that lives inside of you.

A persistent hope that there is a big part of you that is already
dancing in the kingdom of heaven. That you are no longer dead at all,
that part of you could walk right through those woods and into colors
that you have never dreamt of before.

To be sent anywhere, whether it is to Boston or to England or to the
crib of a grandchild could simply mean that you are to remind everyone
around you that this kingdom inside of us is real, more real, and it
is coming. As a matter of fact, it is already here, we just haven't
seen it in its full and beautiful birth yet.

But there will be this day when we will see it. And we will find what
we have lost, and we will be in perfect relationship with each other,
and no more hurting to corrupt it anymore. No more death or loss to
interrupt the dance. In fact, we'll dance with feet that won't get
tired.

I had an appointment with someone tonight. She called to cancel just
before we were to meet. She was weeping into the phone, saying that
she couldn't make it because her life was a wreck. I wanted to reach
through the phone and wrap her up in my arms. I wanted to be there, I
wanted to make it better, but I hardly know her. I pleaded with her
that if she needed anything to call me. As I drove on, I prayed for
God to send his Spirit to her. I asked him to comfort her and counsel
her.

I hope that, in some way, she did feel God's Spirit then. In the
midst of all of her grief I wonder if she could hear God singing some
Ben Harper to her.. Would you believe me if told you that my heart is
with you now?

That's what it felt like to have that dream some 13 years ago. That is
what it feels like to remember my grandfather loving me. That is what
it feels like when I remember back to those times that I had with
people that I loved, the coffee and the laughter, the questions and
the searching together through the mist of life. They were sent to
me. They were apostles. They still are.

Can I be the same to someone?

By God's grace....