Middles
At GreenTree’s first community gathering in our new building, there was a ditch several feet deep beside the piano, a hard concrete floor, and a drafty front door that blew in shivery air every time somebody opened it.
It was our Thanksgiving meal, on a November night in 2008. There was no bold and stylish “GreenTree” lettering on the face of the building. There were no bright daffodils and purple pansies fringing the front in color, no fireplace nestled in the corner, no café tables. No, on that first community meal, there were gray walls smudged with old shop dirt, and a few brown termite tracks climbing halfway up the cinder-block like little vines.
We’d bought the building earlier that fall; and now, on a chilly Sunday night, clusters of us treaded through the grass with steaming casseroles or pies toward the old Yates Aluminum building, like merry Pilgrims about to place a milestone. When we walked in, the entrance was an office section littered with scraps of paper, piles of screws, and drill bits. Replacement windows leaned in piles against the walls; siding samples in different colors shadowed the place; and the big shop-room, where all the tables, food, and chairs waited, was a gray, cool, basement-like place with muddy old pads of insulation at one end and cinder-block on the other sides.
You could say that we were at the end of something—the end of the geographical journey. We felt like the children of Israel, having wandered to an unfamiliar realm; and here we were, talking and laughing and marching up to the door of our haven. We were at the beginning of something too: our relocation and re-naming, the fresh, clean slate of a new era, the era of GreenTree.
When you’re at the end of something and the beginning of something else, you could say that you’re really in the middle. And life has many middles in it.
It’s like a story. Our English teachers always told us that a story was supposed to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. The middle usually involves the war, the problem, the waiting, that uncertainty that gives any good narrative depth and drama. When we’re reading a good tale, we enjoy that dark, murky middle. When we’re living our own story, it’s not so much fun.
Why not? The difference amounts to a simple but powerful little word.
Hope.
Hope is when we’re settled in our soft seats at the movie theater, with a fizzy Pepsi and some buttery popcorn. Hope watches the characters on screen, in their dangerous middle. They’re worried; they’re sad, they’re climbing Mount Doom. But not us, the viewers. We know it’s just a middle. We don’t know what’s going to happen exactly, but we know it’s all going to resolve somehow. And with a buttery crunch and a sparkly sip, we whisper in the dark (with a tiny smile), “Wonder how it’s going to turn out?”
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could treat real life like this? Step outside of it all, look at the losses and betrayals and aggravation and bad news and pain and cock our heads quizzically and ask (with a tiny smile), “Wonder how it’s going to turn out?”
The apostle Paul tells us that we can. That we absolutely can.
“We . . . glory in tribulations,” he says. “Knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.”
Hope says, “Bring the popcorn and the Coke, and sit awhile. This is only the middle.”
Those of us on that chilly night, in the old Yates Aluminum building we’d bought, could drape the tables with snow-white covers and place on them hot, steamy food surrounded by the iron-cool shop-room air, and be merry about it, because we had hope. In fact, the whole unfinished face of the big dingy room, the echo and the dull grime against the bright chatter of old and new friends, made the whole thing seem only like anticipation.
The GreenTree building did get renovated, into an inviting place with huggy warm-green walls, cozy corners, crisp lights and smooth edges. And we’re in some kind of middle again. GreenTree is; I am; you are; there is always a middle somewhere. Dare we ask, with a timid trust in the Writer of our stories, “I wonder how it’s going to turn out? I wonder what He’s about to teach me? I wonder what surprising magic will sail in by the very waters of this sinister thing that is flooding our world?
If we dare ask, the Wisdom of the Ages may teach GreenTree, and you, and me, to settle for a bit, make lemonade out of the proverbial lemons, get out our paper and pens, write down the lessons, watch the story. Watch and pray.
And I wonder how it will turn out.
Always, always for good, He whispers, with a grin. The most complete, wonderful, delicious meaning of the word good. That’s the Story Maker Whose name is also Love.
“Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” (Romans 5:5 NKJ)
~Anne Gross
Discipleship According to Winnie the Pooh: Part Two
When we think of that fancy word Discipleship, let’s not picture learned men in crisp suits, or bored hours spent bowed over a table with a checklist. Let’s think of Pooh and his friends. Do you remember the story of Pooh eating too much and getting jammed in Rabbit’s front hole? It’s the one with that quaint picture of a grassy hill and the top half of a yellow bear, who joins paws with a blond-haired boy who’s pulled elastic-tight by a long line of rabbits, squirrels, and mice.
Wait. That’s the way things are?
That picture doesn’t seem to match up with the time I lent someone an ear and got gossiped about a week later. I’ve taken on jobs I didn’t really have time to keep up with, I’ve acted stupidly, nursed bitter memories; I’ve been misunderstood, used; and frankly, I don’t know if I have the energy, nerve, or desire to try again. I see no lovely forest and cute animal friends.
But upon closer inspection, we’ll find something else in the tender Pooh stories. If we look, we can see ourselves in their Forest, and perhaps we’ll discover here what’s holding us back from the freedom and joy of giving Love.
If we walk with Pooh through the forest, the first thing we’ll see is a large hole in a grassy bank. Pooh bends over and calls, “Is anybody home?”
Do you hear the “sudden scuffling noise?” Then all is quiet. Sudden scuffling plus quiet equals—inconvenienced.
Then for good measure, Rabbit calls out, “No!” and tries to disguise his voice. Pooh prods, Rabbit pretends. Pooh prods, Rabbit hems and haws. Finally, Rabbit has to invite Pooh in, or else he’ll look rude. Pooh stays until he’s emptied Rabbit’s honey and milk. And Rabbit is polite. Rabbit is very polite. Rabbit is so polite that we can almost feel the pressure of his breath while he’s holding it in. But Rabbit tries his best.
Sometimes I do try my best. Or at least I try to try my best. Sort of. Then my daughter spills paint all over her favorite book and yells, “MOMMY!” Or my husband’s car breaks down and I have to go and get him. Just like Pooh gets himself jammed in Rabbit’s hole on his way out. And there’s a funny little picture in the book that shows Pooh’s round backside bulbing out of the hole from the inside, while Rabbit is still holding up his empty can of condensed milk with a very round-eyed and disbelieving look on his face.
Then we have the stuck-scene. Pooh fumes that it’s because Rabbit’s door isn’t big enough. My daughter laments that I should have reminded her to put the cap on the paint jar. A person I’m befriending asks why, why can’t I pick her up in ten minutes?
Then Rabbit hops away to get help. That wonderful word that feels like a sigh and a yell at the same time. Help.
We often slap that label onto our foreheads: We think we are the Help. The Savior. Is it any wonder that we expect so much of ourselves?
But Rabbit hops away and gets Christopher Robin, who makes everyone feel better, who croons to Pooh that he’ll slim up soon, who reads to Pooh from a Sustaining Book. And Rabbit? Rabbit is inside, hanging his laundry on Pooh’s dangling legs. He is making use of the situation. Is Rabbit really being a friend?
That question can be answered with another question: What about the guy in Jesus’ Story of the Talents, the one the master only gave one talent to? The others got more stock to invest than he did. He only had one unit of currency. And that was okay. But then he crept away from the others who had more to give, because he was scared to death of his master’s expectations, and he didn’t do anything with it at all.
And Rabbit? Rabbit was given the one small talent of Creativity. He doesn’t hide: he trades it in and gains Patience and Energy. His heart relaxes from his satisfied need to be industrious in his housework. And thus we see a bunny grow from a hesitant friend to a cheerful helper who calls his “friends and relations” to join Christopher Robin, in that well-remembered picture of the tug-of-war rescue effort which swells to a high and glorious POP! and a very happy, freed bear.
Maybe we only have one unit of currency. Maybe we don’t have much maturity yet. Maybe we have a selfish streak. Maybe we don’t have much time or energy. Maybe more than a half hour of picking through a Bible study booklet with an argumentative new friend would send us to the bathroom cabinet for a sedative. Maybe taking that younger guy for a ride every time he wants one would make us lose our already short tempers.
Grace and Truth says it is better to listen to a person for ten minutes than to not listen for three hours.
Jesus delights in reading to our Pooh, untiring, while we hang our laundry on those fur legs and accomplish little more than keeping our mouths closed. And that’s okay. Like Rabbit. Rabbit won. Rabbit passed the test. Rabbit, as well as our other dear friends in the Wood, got the blessing of participating in the most important gift in the world: Love. Without it we have nothing. With it, we have everything.
You can do it. Your Teacher is delighted with your ten minutes, your three-inch temper. Leap into the air, Rabbit. Your Christ will make you fly, and your friends will be many.
GreenTree 