Out of the Depths

We are never more in touch with life than when life is painful, never more in touch with hope than we are then, if only the hope of another human presence to be with us and for us.

Being a good steward of your pain involves all those things, I think. It involves being alive to your life. It involves taking the risk of being open, of reaching out, of keeping in touch with the pain as well as the joy of what happens, because at no time more than at a painful time do we live out of the depths of who we are instead of out of the shallows. There is no guarantee that we will find a pearl in the depths, that our pain will have a happy end, or even any end at all, but at least we stand a chance of finding in those depths who we most deeply and humanly are and who others are. ... What is perhaps most precious about pain is that if it doesn't destroy us, it can confer on us a humanity that needs no words to tell of it and that can help others become human even as they can help us. - Frederick Buechner

(from "Adolescence and the Stewardship of Pain" in Secrets in the Dark)

Surprise Visitors

Aside from this dear lady, no one from the outside world has actually come here to the office to just see me. Which I'm not crying about or anything, I'm just saying how it is. I tend to see the same people everyday: co-workers, students I advise, the occasional involved-student passerby. So when someone comes with the intention of walking straight to my office and sitting down for five, ten, thirty minutes... I kind of get a little excited about it. In fact, it probably marks my whole day.

And Dane's visit, today, carried with it a sort of air of nostalgia and meaning that I just couldn't help but feel the second I greeted him in the lobby. He wouldn't even let our office manager tell me who it was because he wanted it to be a surprise. And of all the people he could spend his time visiting with down this hall (considering he spent years here as an Associate Dean), his sole purpose was to, again (sorry for the emphasis), see me.

It helps that he's back on campus now, teaching as an adjunct professor in the School of Religion. So he's around. But, looking at him and thinking how much has transpired in the last couple of years I just felt really honored to have a piece his time. And also, humbled to know that a good part of the reason I was even here for him to visit is because of him.

Even looking at this picture, taken nearly three and a half years ago, I think of how young I look. And then I'm reminded of how young I still am. Thankfully I've had a lot of great wisdom, counsel, and advice poured into me over the years, enough to help me sometimes feel a little older and a little smarter than my age may show. Dane has certainly been the source of a lot of that. He's someone I look to on a relatively small list of people I might call heroes and think how fortunate I am to know him - and that this is, in a way, a sort of legacy to his leadership for me to be here.