Dear Inner Circle,
Recently, someone who had been through a breakdown of a very long-term relationship shared with me the importance of being kind: “Be the hero in your own story, because you’ll be the villain in someone else’s.”
Be the answer to someone’s prayers, would be my response.
When Lisa and I were expecting our first child, we had been sharing life with a young couple who were having big problems in their relationship, and it was leading to a lot of drinking and fighting. In our living community we never ran anybody down, but we often urged people to seek relationships marked by the absence of fear and violence. The young mother would often be terrified at the thought of living with two young children and having to raise them on her own. Another neighbour (we were all very close) suggested, very helpfully, “Who said anything about leaving? You kick him out, and we’ll help you raise your kids — it takes a village, and right now your self-appointed chief ain’t acting like one! Jon will help!” She smiled and looked relieved, but she filed it away at the back of her mind for the next few months.
One morning, a few months later, a heavily pregnant Lisa yelled for me to come downstairs. I grabbed our go-bag only to find her standing between the couple in the middle of another violent altercation, this one spilled out into public view. What Lisa did next seemed like a scene from a movie — with tears in her eyes, she begged him, “Stop it, please stop it, because I love you both!” In shame, he left, and for the next few years all the neighbours banded together to support her in raising her boys.
Last year I had the honour of being at the wedding of one of those now-young men. He saw me at the back and ran towards me for a huge bear hug, and we danced the night away together. His little son is being raised without the fear this gentle giant of a man endured daily.
Despite the enormous suffering surrounding this family’s story, there was also deep joy. Both joy and suffering come with being human. The violence we see is what happens when we don’t know what else to do with our suffering. There could be so much more joy, but that takes work — and some days it’s all plodding and no rest.
Not long after, I found myself in an alleyway between a wedding and a funeral, refereeing a verbal stoush between two blokes who could not agree on much except that I looked like I needed a lie down. “Go home and get some rest,” one of them said. “I don’t often say this, but today, you’ve earnt it.” It made me laugh, but it also felt like the point: sometimes being the answer to someone’s prayers looks dramatic, and sometimes it looks like standing in an alleyway, holding the line for peace, until someone sends you home to sleep.
Thank you for being part of the Inner Circle,
Jon
Rev. Jon Owen
CEO & Pastor
Wayside Chapel
