At Home at the Crossroads

This is a repost. I think it is worthy. We are now in our 7th year in Abu Dhabi, still profoundly surprised and amazed.

Abu Dhabi--Crossroads of the World
When in 2004 Curt accepted a transfer to Abu Dhabi, I wasn’t sure whether I would smuggle my Bible in a brown paper bag, figure out how to plug myself into a circumscribed expat[1] lifestyle, find a job to fill my days, or immerse myself in local culture and learn enough Arabic to befriend a few nationals[2] and get involved with Islam. Turned out to be “none of the above,” but something richer, more challenging and more satisfying than my wildest imagination.[3]

After 26 years in Alaska, Abu Dhabi sounded like the edge of the world. Turns out to be anything but: glitzy island city, architectural dream, and capital of United Arab Emirates (UAE)—that wealthy, booming Islamic state on the Persian Gulf. Not an edge, but a crossroads, a transitional center of the world. A million people live and work here. Some 85% of them are from someplace else—expatriate to their home countries. Every “tribe and nation[4]” is gathered to build and maintain this oil-producing giant.

Crossroads of Life
People come to Abu Dhabi for a few months, or a year, or five. Some stay 30 years and raise children who barely know their home country. Expats work in every job from street sweeper to corporate manager, even in high government posts. Some, like Curt and me, come for the adventure. Most come for the money. Some bring families; many more must leave family behind to take the jobs no one wants. These sacrificial souls subsist in overcrowded housing without privacy, community or personal time, all to send home every dirham they can in hopes of a better life, a future for parents, siblings and children.

Abu Dhabi is a place to feel displaced, or even misplaced. Transient. We live at a stop on the way to someplace else—a stop chosen with the hope that staying awhile here will mean better choices on the way out. A demographic crossroad of the world peopled by those at a crossroad of life, a between-place of opportunity, risk and impermanence where new people come and good friends leave, and nobody knows or understands your roots. All that is familiar is far away, and everyone is “alien and stranger,[5]” even the nationals, I think, who find themselves a tiny minority in their own country.

At a crossroad, people ask questions. The obvious: “which road will I take from here? But other biggies like “why am I here?” and “what am I doing with my life?” and “what is important to me?” and “Am I important to Anybody Else?” The pervasive publicness of Islamic worship puts people in the way of God. “Is there a God?” “What is He like?” “Does He know or care about me?” “Would God hear me if I pray?” At this crossroads of the world a searchlight turns on the eternal Crossroad, [6] that “between” place of heart-certainty that we are not just random chemicals and energy, and that this world we can see is but a junction on the way to someplace else.

At Home at the Crossroads
Abu Dhabi surprised us with its variety and opportunity and freedom and suffering; with its piercing questions that leave people open and vulnerable. A crossroads compels people running headlong through life to pause and ponder. Whether they are bemused, or weary, or terrified, pauses and spaces of safety, refreshment, listening encouragement, and direction bless them. Far from home, homey welcome can be life-giving.

Four years have passed. We’ve made a home at the crossroads, and delight to invite “the multitude”[7] and welcome whoever God brings to our door from whatever nation, language, or station in life. And they have come--from every continent and social background, sometimes 15 nations present at one meal, or six living in our household. Cleaners, diplomats, mechanics, teachers, executives and clerks. A miracle of God’s grace that feels to us like a foretaste of heaven[8] even as we puzzle and experiment with mixing cultures in the between-space of this fallen world.

Nothing big, no clear program, definitely no titles—just “people who have time” to make place and give ear and prayer. We’ve learned and stretched and been pushed on. Maybe we’ve cracked open a little more. Our sense is that this lifestyle of giving space and welcome to the world is a call: that Jesus would have us continue to welcome whoever He brings and offer refreshment, play, quiet, listening and prayerful loving, with a measure of teaching and nurture thrown in.

Welcome to the Crossroads. Let’s talk. I’m glad to find you here.


[1] “Expat,” short for “expatriate,” here used as a noun to describe one who lives temporarily in a nation other than one’s own, generally for reasons of employment.
[2] “National” –noun. A citizen or subject of a particular nation who is entitled to its protection.
[3] Ephesians 3:20
[4] Revelation 14:6
[5] Hebrews 11:13-16
[6] Jeremiah 6:16
[7] Joel 3:14; Revelation 7:9; 19:6
[8] Ephesians 2:19; Revelation 7:9

On the third day... (John 2:1-11)

“On the third day a wedding took place….”

Jesus was an invited guest.

Ordinary pots stood by. Like in every house. Necessary to day-in-day-out cleansing, the repetitive, never-finished work. Mundane ritual.


Jesus. Invited guest. Pots filled with household water.

Jesus present. Old pots. Everyday obedience. In the secret place where the hosts face their lack and a woman prays while the party rolls on.

Jesus invited into the secret place. Instructions heeded even without comprehension.

And the ordinary pots spill out the choicest of wine. A marriage blessed and inhabited by His grace, guests treated with the best heaven and earth joined can offer.

“He thus revealed his glory, and the disciples put their faith in him.”

Fairy Tale

Once upon a time a young princess of noble heritage confided in me a dream. Often in the night, she said, she would find herself in some terrible danger. Always in the dream she would whistle for Shadowfax, who would come galloping across the hilltop to bear her away. If the noble steed’s speed was not enough she would cry for Aragorn, ever strong to save her.

As I listened the dream unfolded as a vision, if you will, a God-bestowed image of her own dignity, her worthiness of an Aragorn’s love.

Over time many princes crossed into her realm, and each was measured against her strong dream. Aragorn, the hero, the ever-wise and strong warrior whose very presence turns whole peoples to life-giving hope, would come and stand beside the suitor. The image was powerful to protect her from frivolous, empty young princes of lesser character, lesser capacity for courageous, tenacious love.

But as years passed this larger-than-life hero became a block. Never a mis-step. No weakness, frailty or uncertainty. The princess could see no other man who fit the measure, not even her own noble daddy.

For the princess regarded Aragorn through Eowyn’s eyes. Lovely, brave, vulnerable Eowyn, for whom Aragorn was knight, completely other, one to adore.

Until finally, one day, the princess noticed that Eowyn was not the one Aragorn could love. His heart belonged to Arwin, the elf-maiden whose gifts, strength and wisdom equaled and sometimes surpassed his own. Arwin, who knew his past and his fears, knew he sometimes longed to flee duty and destiny, and who supported and challenged him so that he became more than he thought he could be. Arwin, who regarded a real human man in strength and in frailty and loved him with her life.

Eowyn, for her part, got over her hero worship of Aragorn and found a better, truer love in the noble Faromir, an equally brave prince of gentler, quieter character. He, too, stood among his people as leader and hero. But Faromir was a man her strength, experience and noble lineage inspired--so that they, too, could love entirely as equals, partners who would enable one another to reach beyond themselves to something higher, to serve well, and to love long and strong.

A wiser princess still watches for her Aragorn, that man of vision for life beyond himself, committed, sacrificially brave and true. She knows herself worthy of such a prince. But she no longer looks for a hero to worship, preferring instead a real man inspired by her dignity and beauty, and who will grow through her as much as she through him.

Hammam

I lie naked, enfolded in water-sound and mist. The polished stone is warm beneath me, and I am surprised to notice how my aging body rests without pain on its hard flatness. The room is small, secluded and secure.

Firm hands scrub hard every inch of me, then anoint tender skin with oil. Scents born on steam permeate the intimate space and minister calm to my deep inside. Warm water sprays away detritus of dirt and death. Strong fingers entangle long hair to massage my scalp, and more water is poured, again and again, until the suds of cleansing swirl down the drain and all residue is gone.

I think of You, Jesus. You are always here, but today I am conscious of Your presence.

I am awash in the stories of Your naked body removed gently from the cross, of the ministry of loving hands to enfold Your death in oily spices and herbs of preparation. Doing unto You as Your Father looked on.

I wonder how the extravagant anointing of that sinful woman, and later of Your dear friend Mary, felt to you. The fragrance, their tears that understood some small part of all that Your love could mean to them. You experienced their touch, and I wonder today if it was balm to Your soul? You, Lord of All, in frail human body. Incarnate. Physical. Sensual. Did you, too, love the flow of fragrance and salt tears, the warm spread of cleansing water and nourishing oil?

And how about that day when you bent to wash their feet? To scrub with water and the towel. Perhaps to massage away the tight aches of long walking, the bruises of hard ground and stone? The sure touch of quiet ministry to body in a way that penetrated their frightened, weary souls.

I recall the stories. I muse whether the hammam, this ancient Roman bathing tradition, was a way of life for You. But there is more. You are today present here, indwelling my frail tent. As I receive this ministry with gratitude, You also receive. As I dwell in the grace of this moment, we share the pleasure.

You are Lord of the Universe. I am frail child in aging body lying on warm, smooth stone. Somehow invested with Your glory. Full of praise, deeply grateful, a tad mystified.

Blessed be Your Name. Amen.

Bride

I opened the door. There she stood, a touch of whimsy in the frill on her t-top, jeans, hair long and loose and unashamedly gray. Her smile dappled through to her eyes and we moved to embrace. Kathleen--come to visit me in my empty new house.

“Would you like coffee? Or can I take you to lunch?” I wanted to care for my guest, to treat her, to honor her travel to my place. “No! Please. Can we just sit right here and talk? I want to be with you! No, no, I don’t want to wait while you make coffee--I don’t want to waste a minute!”

And so, over my protests of desire to feed my guest, to carry her off somewhere with furniture and china and a marina full of boats and blue sparkle, we sat in junk-store chairs turned to the window in the empty room. And we talked.

Kathleen hails from my long-ago. Thirty years have passed since my friend Susan and her friend Kathleen house-sat. Memory is oh-so-vague. A young woman in prairie dress with long hair done up in a bun. No make-up, no jewelry, as mandated by the sect to which they belonged. Fun, happy-spirited, easy-going.

We reconnected last year. Susan put Kathleen onto Cracked Old Pots, and she engaged me. She told me how in ’95 she left the sect and put her hand in that of Jesus. How in some mysterious way we had played a part through impressions and memories. Joyous surprise.

Since then we’ve read each other’s work and conversed a bit. Kathleen exudes energy and encouragement with books to recommend, articles and music to explore, creative groups to join with--introducing me to a far-away creative world of which I know nothing. I, in overwhelmed weariness, have been more passive. So touched by the extravagance of her love for a quiet near-stranger in a faraway place.

So when I headed to Sequim a few weeks ago to take possession of our newly-purchased bolt-hole in the US I floated a suggestion. “Would you come and spend a day with me?”

Oh, the blessed conversation! We shared our families, our love for our husbands, our passion for hospitality and mutual appreciation of the work that it is. We talked about the church and genuine community. She spoke wonderful, expressive phrases: “workbook Christianity,” and “community happens in circles, not in rows.” She confessed to trepidation as she stood outside my door. Who would greet her? Her memory retains a sleek, sophisticated Jeri. (I laugh.) She rejoiced over the worn, old-comfy-clothes, no-makeup-wet-hair-braided-back version. Her only inarticulate moment of the day was in response to my “what if” a tan and classy woman had greeted her in my voice.

But then she rose to speak of true beauty, of the beauty of one who knows herself beloved. Passion pervaded her voice once more. “What is the best gift I can give my husband? To let him love me! To receive his love with joy and gratitude! To affirm it and desire it and celebrate it!” She continues. “The Bible tells us that to Christ WE are BRIDE! That what He most desires is that we enjoy and celebrate His love!”

The Hallelujah chorus swelled in my mind. In her utterance the sweep, the trembling desire of Song of Songs reverberated and echoed. She spoke my journey better than I had verbalized it even to myself--so that today I hold, I rest in, that crystal vantage point.

Kathleen, the beloved bride, alive and free enough to know it in a way that radiated from her whole being. Thank you, sister of my heart.