transformation

A handful of homeless individuals have taken up residence in the park across from our apartment. There are always an odd assortment of adults and kids, and it's hard to tell who belongs to whom. But a grouping of 3 has caught my eye more than once. It consists of a girl, maybe 8 or 9, a boy of about 3 and a baby, probably 1 year old or so. The two younger ones seem to be the girl's responsibility. They are always together and often walk by our house, the baby carried on the hip and the little boy either trailing along behind or clutching the girl's baggy shirt. The adult-sized shirt fits her just as poorly as her adult-sized responsibilities do, and yet she wears both dutifully.

I have noticed them, as I said, and paused to wonder about them. They have wandered through my thoughts from time to time, but I did not realize just how much they were on my mind until I discovered them in my dreams last night.

In typical dream fashion, everything jumbled and merged together. Nothing was where it was supposed to be. I was in the US, and our organization was having a big conference in this small, quaint town where our headquarters used to be. But the venue was somehow across the street from the park here. The kids wandered by, and I invited them into the back door of the kitchen in this big conference hall. There was lots of food for the meetings, but I tried really hard to find Asian food that they would like. They left to wander around town, but later in the evening I found them again and told them they could sleep there. All the rooms were full, with conference participants sleeping on floors and in sleeping bags. But the kids were so little. We found a bed for them all to share. And that's about all there was to the dream.

We have to cross that park to throw our trash away in a dumpster on the other side. The ragged group of squatters was there as always. Tonight some almost-grown-youths were arguing, having a shouting and shoving match. I gave them a wide berth and in doing so walked within 5 feet of my little trio. She was sitting on a hammock rocking the baby, the toddler near by. All were watching the fight. I wanted to talk to them. I felt like I knew them. I felt like they were my responsibility somehow.

But I just kept walking.

This place has broken me down. It makes me feel so helpless. Hope is so hard to find here. So is beauty.

I read something in a book this morning that made me cry. Here are excerpts:

"The good news that… the transfiguration of a suffering world has already begun. That suffering nourishes grace, and pain and joy are arteries of the same heart—and mourning and dancing are but movements in His unfinished symphony of beauty."

"This the hard eucharisteo. The hard discipline to lean into the ugly and whisper thanks to transfigure it into beauty."

"All is grace only because all can transfigure."

(One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp; chapter 5)

And I finally understood. I have struggled to see beauty here because I have stopped believing in transformation. I have stopped having hope that anything could change. I tried in vain to fix the brokenness—in my time in my ways—and because my feeble attempts failed, I concluded it wasn't possible. I doubted whether even God could do it.

He gently reprimanded my short-sighted, self-centered perspective. He invited me to hope once again, and begin to see potential in people, where before I could only see waste. He urged me to believe that "all can transfigure".

And then I was crying again, regretting all the years it has taken me to finally get it. To come to this important understanding. To realize that transformation is His job, not mine.

The I believe I heard Him laughing at me. I am pretty sure He was shaking His head in amusement. Foolish child. You can't arrive immediately at your destination. You had to take the journey to get here. There was no short cut. Each step of the way was necessary for your own process of transformation.

And the journey continues.