Thursday, December 22, 2005

things will all come around

my heart is full. giddy, off-the-wall, over-the-top full.

i just had lunch with some of my core college-age volunteers. my favorites, if you will. i don't care if you're not supposed to have favorites. i do. and as they walked in the door of the california pizza kitchen, i could feel my whole heart leap to see them.

the 13 of us chatted over pizza for 2 hours, talking about katrina, clinton, possible majors, break-ups, and how your roommates should be the ones to hook you up.

i liked their volunteerism and idealism; they liked my pigtail braids and "youthfulness."

i promise you, no matter where i am in 10, 20, or 30 years, i will stand behind these kids. i feel like they're mine. and when i took their photo outside the restaurant at the end of the lunch, well, for as cheesy as it sounds, i found my heart in the viewfinder. 12 kids whose hearts and lives were so wonderfully made.

where else do you meet a 21-year-old boy who is okay with sucking up his pride and announcing with a wide grin all over his reddened face, "katy? dumped me. day after our 1-year anniversary. i thought she was asking me to come outside to show me she'd gotten me a surprise. well, i guess it was a surprise. i went from this (stretches his hand as tall as himself) to this (hand at ground) in 5 minutes." he laughs. "she wants to get back together now, but the k-train has left the station." i very much love him.

and i love the way the kids receive him: "you're so candid, it's incredible," "you won't be single for long," "you're such an awesome guy."

i think heartbreak is healthy. and i'm sure it sounds a little evil, but i do hope for everyone i know that their hearts break at some point. i don't know how you can ever truly relate and understand someone else until your heart has ached. to have your broken heart be loved on by someone else who's ever experienced a broken heart (be it by boyfriend/girlfriend, menacing friend, angry parent, whatever)? really, the healing that comes from that kind of empathetic understanding is unlike anything; it's ... miraculous.

when we departed ways, i hailed a cab and sat in the back looking through the photos of these eager, hopeful, youthful kids and smiled.

someday, god, i want 10 children. i don't care if they're all biologically mine, or if i've adopted them, or if they're just kids in the community who want a home to belong in, lord, i just know my heart is most fully alive in moments like this.

and to top it off? my old friend brian who i've long admired and respected sent me an email which noted he'd begun a blog. so, yes, of course, yay blogs! but also, i love being in touch with brian. he was a good friend to me when it mattered and there are too few of his kind in the world. so i absolutely recommend you drop by to read a few of his thoughts.

lord, thank you for friends. thank you for community. thank you for making us with hearts so big they could burst. you bless me.

4 Comments:

At 9:33 AM, Blogger MGT Industries said...

Hey Mary, It's Eric Jensen's friend again. I admire your heart. And it's good to count your blessings that are of the "non-superficial" variety...like good friendships. It reminded me to be thankful for my friends.

 
At 10:44 PM, Blogger Laura said...

what great comments - but how about a new post Ms. B?

 
At 3:27 PM, Blogger Mary said...

your comments mean a lot to me. thanks for writing that, friends.

okay, i need to move on to a new post. it is the new year after all ...

 
At 3:01 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I miss you Mary. I wish I could distill years of life and experience into a quick little blurb here, but (fortunately) I can't. It's one of the byproducts, I guess of embodied finite experience that we cannot fully share what we have not fully experienced together. I'm smiling cause I don't even know if that makes sense! What you wrote reminded me just how vividly potent all things personal are... and reminded me how much I miss some of the people I used to know more closely. All these limitations in who you can know well and how well you can know them make me really really desperate for eternity. I just want a long time with about a hundred people to cry with and laugh with and watch movies with and, well, just be with. Perhaps I should've emailed this... But I miss you. And I think you're life is rich and beautiful. Thanks for sharing it.

 

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