There are the Missionary Presentation Potlucks and the Business Meeting Potlucks and the Christmas Party Potluck and the Easter Breakfast Potluck. (See how we like to mix it up? I thought the breakfast potluck was a particularly brilliant stroke of creative genius, as I am quite fond of muffins and all things pastry-related.)

Most of the time, my congregants and I believe that holding church functions more than once a week is ungodly. Unless it is Potluck. I quickly learned if I want to schedule something Out-of-the-Ordinary, simply add “Potluck” to the program and we are good to go.

If I could be certain that none of my church members would ever read this post, then I might confess to you that I am not quite as crazy about Potlucks as the rest of them. I don’t mind them, but I struggle to prepare a dish for Sunday while I am also preparing a sermon, not to mention trying to keep track of a thousand other details. Awhile back, late on a Saturday night, I told my husband, “Uh-oh, Potluck is tomorrow, and we forgot. Again.”

He looked over at me, “Oops. If I were a better pastor’s wife, I would have reminded you.” We showed up Sunday morning dish-less, and I hoped to God the people would still think me worthy.

We are a different kind of church, but some things stay the same. Some essentials definitely stuck—like Jesus, the cross and the resurrection, the love and grace of God, the centrality of prayer, etc. And some non-essentials stuck too—like good ol’ fashioned Baptist potlucks. And that is okay. We never intended to reinvent the wheel; we just want to shed some unnecessary things and recover some lost things.

Just don’t tell anyone from my congregation that I called potlucks a “nonessential.” Thanks.

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Photo by Marshall Astor

These photos were taken by Hazel Thompson in partnership with Sower of Seeds International Ministries and its partner in Mumbai. These photos were previously published along with others in a book called CAGE available through Sower of Seeds. CAGE tells the stories of three girls who were trafficked into Asia’s largest red-light district in Mumbai, India, through their rescue and rehabilitation. The book is gritty, raw, and absolutely beautiful—but not an easy book to stomach.

The accompanying article by Lore Ferguson, a graphic designer for Sower of Seeds, was written for Human Trafficking Awareness Day.

We’re in a flat fronted van in rural Nepal, headed to the Himalayan foothills. Our driver only speaks Nepali and our host broken English.

“These lower caste.” He says, his arms spread wide, encompassing everything we can see from small, square windows. A shanty-town, blue tarps, brown ground, bloodshot eyes, this was the price they paid for their last name.

“So there’s no getting out of this?” I ask. “Not even if they get an education?”

“Education? No. These lower caste. No education for them.”

“So how do they get out? What hope do they have?”

He shrugs, looks forward again. I wait for an answer. “Sometime they get jobs out of here, out of Nepal. Thailand. India. You know?”

It’s a few years later and I am meeting a girl named Rehka. She shares a last name with that of my Nepali host years ago, but she’s traveled to America from India. I ask her if she is Nepali. “Yes!” She nods, her eyes lighting up. “You know Nepal?”

“I know Nepal,” I say. I remember the shanty town, the tarps, the hopelessness of faces caged in by genes and a system so unjust to my western ethnocentricity.

Rehka is beautiful, with the light, gentle look for which the Nepali are known. Her wide set eyes are bright, her skin clear, her smile brilliant. She laughs easily and is comfortable immediately among us. She sits gracefully on the floor of our office and tackles a menial task I’ve been putting off in the busyness of the week. She chatters in Hindi and English, switching easily between the two, even though neither are her native language.

She seems like royalty in joyful servitude. A humbling juxtaposition.

And yet, Rehka was sold by her older brother into a scheme more complicated than she could have ever imagined.

The caste system is as unjust as it seems to any westerner raised in an equal-opportunity culture. If “If you can dream it, you can achieve it,” is the our mantra, then “Keep your eyes down, and get what you’re given,” is the mantra of the lower castes. Illegal activity, therefore, seems to be the only way for them to get a little pocket change—which is all her brother received in the trade for her life.

Rehka was drugged repeatedly and driven to Asia’s largest Red-Light District in Mumbai, India. Passed from person to person, each one a different link in a chain that closed more tightly around her over the next week, until she was caged completely.

For the next few weeks Rehka was drugged intermittently and beaten regularly. When her resolve and will were finally perceived to be broken, she was delivered the news that she now owed an insurmountable debt to her captors which could only be paid back one way: sex.

In five years, a child goes from infancy to speaking in full sentences, writing simple ones.

In five years, a gangly middle-schooler graduates valedictorian.

In five years, a hard-worker at a blue collar job in America can make $125,000.

In five years, Rehka was raped an average of 20 times a day. About 36,500 sexual assaults. At the equivalent average of $1 an act, and yet she still could not pay the fullness of her “debt” to her captors.

When she met the director of our rescue program in Mumbai, she was broken and void.

I met her seven years later, carrying herself like humble royalty.

As I ask her about her story, she glows, recounting how excited she is to be a part of a ministry that is rescuing girls like her and rehabilitating them, loving them, counseling them, offering them something that supersedes any caste system: the gospel.

When she says this, I realize that the rescue of trafficked victims is so much more than beating a system, shutting down brothels, arresting pimps, madams, pornographers, and greedy older brothers. The rescue of trafficked victims is the reflection of the heart of the Father.

The Father says, come to me, all you who are weary, burdened, heavy laden.

All of you.

All.

The caste system seems to be the most unjust system of any religion I see around me, subjecting humans to begging, stealing, and selling humans. The sex-trade system seems to be a system of dogs, beating children into submission to horrific acts. The rescue of these girls seems impossible, 60,000 women in this one Red-light district ALONE. The finances insurmountable, a $32 billion a year industry globally.

But for the gospel.

The gospel.

The gospel breaks into these Hindi castes and levels them, setting free captives in Red-Light Districts and in shanty slums. The gospel breaks into my western ethnocentricity and levels me at my heart—these are humans, living, breathing, thinking humans, no different than me. The gospel is the only thing that can penetrate the hearts traffickers and victims alike—the only thing that can free them from the cage of greed and the brothel cage.

“Fear not, for I am with you;
I will bring your offspring from the east,
and from the west I will gather you.
I will say to the north, Give up,
and to the south, Do not withhold;
bring my sons from afar
and my daughters from the end of the earth,
everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made.” – Isaiah 43:5-7

Jamie Arpin-Ricci is the author of The Cost of Community, a book about Jesus, St. Francis and life in the Kingdom. He is also a contributor to numerous books. GENERATE recently spoke with Jamie about his book.

Thom: In a world that is so focused on the future and “new ideas,” “new tactics,” and “new ways of doing ministry,” why did you write a book about a guy who lived 800 years ago?
Jamie: St. Francis has a lot to say to us today.  While our contexts are deeply different, they do share some important similarities.  Francis was born into a world where the power of Christendom was waning, as it is in ours.  In the face of that shift, his example calls us into a new kind of faithfulness in a post-Christendom context. However, it was Francis’ embrace of Jesus that makes him the most compelling for me.  He was seemingly naive enough to believe that Jesus meant us to actually do what He taught us.  Despite the extreme actions that sometimes led to, the overall result of Francis’ teachings has been one of the most influential and deeply formation traditions in Christian history.  Francis knew that worshiping Jesus was not enough.  He needed to obey Him.  This is a timely example for Christians today.

Thom: Monastic communities like the ones in the Franciscan are not for everyone. How can churches in the suburbs or churches that struggle with community participate in aspects of monastic community without being (for lack of a better term) posers?

Jamie: Let me come at your question from a different angle.  A common misconception is that Francis and his fellow friars were monks who practiced a monastic tradition.  In truth, Franciscans are not monastics at all, but friar and mendicants.  A monk’s vocation is about withdrawal, praying the daily office—primarily contemplative—while a friar’s vocation is about living out the Gospel in the world.  Monastics, like the Benedictines, create a space into which people can come, stepping out of the world.  In contrast, Franciscans create space from which people can go out into the world.  While different, these traditions have a lot in common, one aspect being that of community. Today when people hear “monastic community,” they often think of new monastic expressions (which are generally reflective of both the monastics & mendicant/missional expressions).  People think of intentional (co-housing) communities, such as the Simple Way, a community well known for one of its core members, Shane Claiborne.  However, this is not the kind of community I (exclusively) advocated for in my book.

While I think it is important for more Christians to choose to share life in more intentional expressions of community, which include some level of co-housing or shared resources, that is not for every Christian.  However, this does not mean that those not called to these expressions are not called to community.  Let me say this as clearly as possible: Every Christian is called to live in community.  Community is one of the central products of the work of the Gospel.  We die to self and are resurrected with Christ into His Body, the Church. In other words, our relationship with one another is inseparably linked to our relationship with God.

We are in a crisis of community in the Western world.  As J.R. Daniel Kirk writes in his book Jesus I Have Loved, But Paul?: ”The good news as proclaimed and lived by both Jesus and Paul is not merely the promise of power to make us new persons. It is also the promise of a new people.”

Thom: In a world that values superficial connection over intimate connections or presence, how does St. Francis teach the church to value real, authentic community?

Jamie: Because St. Francis saw the image of God—even Christ Himself—in every person he met. This approach meant that no person he encountered was incidental—each needed to be treated with the love and respect that he held for Christ.  Francis believed that when Scripture called the community of faith the Body of Christ that it was not simply being allegorical, but instead describing the mystical reality that we experience in Jesus. Again, Francis took Jesus’ teaching very literally.  He especially felt called to live out the teachings in the Sermon on the Mount.  So much of that message speaks to how we relate to others. It is not surprise then that being in an intimate and authentic community was central to Franciscan spirituality (as it should be for all Christianity).

Thom: Is there a real, genuine desire in churches to foster community, or do you fear that community is just a buzz word and fad that could fall out of the mainstream conversation?

Jamie: I think that answer to that is both/and.  Yes, I think people are desperate for community.  The individualism experiment is failing and people are longing for connection that is authentic.  When people discover true community—whether it is in the church or elsewhere—the power of this longing is proved out by the level of loyalty people invest in those communities. That said, we all know how wired we are to avoid sacrifice and discomfort.  We want the intimacy of the community, but balk at the rights we must lay aside to make it a reality.  Not to offend any of the single readers out there, but it is not unlike the idealism some people have about marriage until they experience it first hand.  Most married couples will admit that while marriage is one of the best things they’ve ever experienced, it is also one of the hardest and most demanding.  Community is very similar.  In fact, in the Eastern Christian tradition, marriage is seen as a form of domestic monasticism.

Thom: We are intentional about exploring the stories of grassroots Christianity here at GENERATE. Can you tell us briefly about your community, some of your struggles and successes, and your vision for the future?

Jamie: Little Flowers Community was the result of an intentional attempt to connect with our inner city neighbors.  We opened a used bookstore, where we set it up to be welcoming.  Nice couches in the round, free fair trade coffee and a commitment to neutrality (that is, we didn’t “lure” people in, then evangelize them).  We were committed to nurturing genuine relationship with our neighbors. In time, relationships were formed, trust was built and we began to share time together outside of the store.  In time, a weekly meal started happening, completely informal.  However, as relationships and trust grew, we started to support each other in our mutual brokenness.  Prayer became a common feature.  One day one of the single mom’s approached me and said, “Jamie, I think we’re a church.  Will you be our pastor?.”  And so Little Flowers was born.

It isn’t easy, as we have to resist some means of organizing that would be effective and efficient, but would alienate some of the very people who are drawn to our community.  These are often people who do not fit comfortably into traditional church expressions.  We affirm that every voice carries the potential to speak for the Spirit, but that also means we risk hearing from everyone, including the untreated schizophrenic.  And yet, by taking that risk we often encounter Christ in ways we would otherwise never experience.

As we face the future, we hope to see our community multiply.  For what we do to work, it requires a limitation on the size of the community, allowing for a greater ease of trust and intimacy.  However, that means that growth must be met with multiplication, not simply getting a bigger building.  This is tricky, but exciting.

Thom: I just have to ask: are you the only Mennonite Franciscan? How do Catholics view your Mennonite ways, and vice versa?

Jamie: Actually, early Anabaptism was deeply shaped by Franciscan values and practices.  It is even plausible that Menno Simmons studied in a Franciscan school prior to leaving the Catholic Church.  Today I know several Mennonites who take deep inspiration from Francis.  His emphasis on simplicity, community and peace are core to both traditions. That said, I am also mindful of not simply appropriating Francis for our purposes.  He was deeply and wholly Catholic.  However, I have many Catholic friends who deeply appreciate that we hold Francis and his tradition in such high esteem, several of those being Franciscan friars.

Also, there is a wonderful organization called Bridge Folk, a movement of sacramentally-minded Mennonites and peace-minded Roman Catholics who come together to celebrate each other’s traditions, explore each other’s practices, and honor each other’s contribution to the mission of Christ’s Church.  So there is a lot we share in common.

Finally, I recently wrote a chapter for the excellent book Widening The Circle: Experiments in Christian Discipleship in which I explore how the Franciscan tradition and the Anabaptist tradition compliment each other, yet also call each other into deeper faithfulness.

Seeing me walking down the street, the first things you’d probably notice are that I’m 6’0’’, have a short, messy haircut, wear English-major glasses, and am only a few weeks away from having a child.

Getting to know me a little better, you’d find out that I roast my own coffee beans, make food from scratch, buy in bulk, have tomato seedlings on my windowsill, and publish poetry. And the more time you spent with me, the more stereotypical I would probably seem. I vote third-party, serve in a soup kitchen, and blog about community. I’m nearly thirty, educated, and married to a philosophy professor who uses the liturgical year as a shaving guide (ordinary time brings in the goatee, Advent the beard, Easter the bare face).

If you got to know me even better, say, if you sat next to me in the pew, you’d find out that I’m a deacon, get riled up about gender exclusive language, substitute neutral words in hymns on the fly, and don’t shy away from using the F-word (that is, feminist).

But at that point, none of this knowledge would surprise you because I’d be fitting into a handful of stereotypes you already had in place.

And, in general, you’d be right.

It would seem that my interior life (my convictions) matches my exterior life (the way I present myself to the world). Though I kind of cringe to admit it, I do fit into a particular mold of person.

To some extent, we all do.

And yet we don’t tend to like being confronted with our own lack of individuality. In fact, I got really annoyed recently when my favorite cereal line “rebranded” itself into an uber-cool, natural-foodsy brand, complete with the earth-tone color scheme, funky graphic design, and new fonts.

And I wasn’t just annoyed that the price nearly doubled.

Most of like to think of ourselves as independent thinkers of some sort, so it’s a slap in the face to realize when we’re being blatantly marketed to. Prior to this cereal box redesign, I liked the fact that I could pretend that I selected this brand because they used wind power to run their plants, that it was family owned, that they didn’t pay for advertising during children’s cartoon-watching hours. And this all made me feel good. I am such a responsible consumer, I told myself. But then this cereal had to start trying to make me cool, too.

I insist that I am not cool.

But the truth is, if you peered into my grocery cart, you’d see a lot of other “cool” things besides the trendy cereal. Among other things, you’d probably see organic produce, Greek yogurt, frou-frou eggs, and fair trade chocolate chips. And there’d be no meat.

If you followed me to the car, though, and hopped into the passenger seat beside me, you’d probably get a surprise when I turned on the radio. I’d flick off the NPR left on by my husband that morning and switch it over to the local country music station.

And I’d start singing along.

Really, really loudly.

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Photo by Crafty Goat

Last week I started reading Wendell Berry’s 2010 collection of essays entitled, Imagination in Place. In the title essay, Berry explores the interplay between imagination and place as he reflects on writing as a farmer and farming as a writer.

Having grown up moving every four or five years, I’ve found myself in recent years yearning to settle in a place, though that doesn’t seem likely anytime soon. One of the most surprising particularities about living in the Twin Cities is the local music scene. I’ve probably seen twice as many shows in the last three years as I have the rest of my life combined. Two of the communities I’ve belonged to since moving here—House of Mercy and The Dakota Jazz Club—have steeped me in the influences of the local music scene and I doubt I could say how, but I’m sure it has shaped my study of theology.

As a window in to the local music scene that has shaped my imagination living here in Saint Paul, here’s three amazing performances from three very different acts.

“God Only Knows” by Romantica

“Folded Hands” by Zoo Animal

“Well of Sorrow” by Storyhill

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Photo by Tim Geers

During election year, I feel like a ping-pong ball. Not because I keep switching sides or switching candidates, but because every ridiculous statement I read sets me flying. My inner peace has no more grounded-ness than a ping-pong ball. The polarized rhetoric, the lack of civil discourse, and the baptized hatred send my anxiety through the roof. I am tempted, at every turn, to shout back.

But I am a pastor, trying to observe Lent, and that means everywhere I turn I run smack into the Cross of Christ, and dadgumit, that man is silent before Pilate.

Good grief, Jesus, Son of God, Keeper of All Knowledge, couldn’t you have said something? You were clever. You were wise. More importantly, you were innocent. Geez.

Honestly, God has never had much of a reputation for being verbose, and as aggravating as the silence can be, perhaps it has something to teach me.

The shouting and the polarization confront me on every street corner, not only during election year, but seemingly all the time. At my church office, I throw away pounds of “Christian” propaganda junk mail on a weekly basis, and nearly all of it makes me sick. I want to put a big sign in front of the church to announce that we are decidedly not that kind of “Christian.” Sometimes I’d like to change our name altogether. I want to make it public that we are different. But I can’t. There is no efficient way to declare your position without joining the shouting match.

So I choose inefficiency.

I must take the really, really slow route of journeying (crawling?) alongside people who are inching their way to recovering an understanding of Jesus.

Year after year, week after week, day after day, I am called to one thing. No matter what the crazy state of my country or the blatant misrepresentation of Jesus plastered across this world like a tacky billboard, making my blood boil—I am called to follow that man to the end. There are so many righteous causes to dissuade me, but he is out in front of me, and if I get still enough to listen, I will hear him calling. The only way I will know whether to turn right or turn left at each fork in the road is if I’m listening for his voice. There are so many other voices—most of them loud, some of them claiming Christ’s authority—it is very hard to hear the shepherd amidst the boisterous bleating.

I desperately want to join the bleating (sure seems like it would relieve some pressure). But I can’t.

I must take the really, really slow journey that convinces only a few and may very well be mocked or ignored by the rest. I must try, little by little, to follow Jesus—which as best I can tell, means to grow more compassionate, to love my fellow humans, to be generous with grace. My husband recently said, “Jesus was rarely efficient,” and sometimes I think Jesus was maddeningly inefficient. But Jesus is the one I have chosen, and it is Jesus I must follow.

I am for Decency 2012, and that, I think, is more important in the end than my vote. But the shouting will not end after the election. It will always be there, in some form or another, stirring up my rage and seducing me to join the war with my under-informed opinions, thinking I’m some brave prophet. But I’ll just bite my tongue til it bleeds (if I can manage) because if I have the story right, Jesus bled a lot and said very little, and he was the bravest of them all.

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Photo by League of Women Voter’s of California 

Isaiah 58.6

Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?

Fasting is a spiritual discipline taken up by many during the season of Lent. Often we choose to “give up” some thing in the hope that we will become more fully attuned to what we truly need and to God’s provision.  For Jesus, an intense 40-day fast marked both his test and preparation for ministry. In the Bible, fasting is both a form of prayer and path to personal and public transformation. Gandhi—someone who knew something about achieving transformation—called fasting “the sincerest form of prayer.” Fasting is a holy practice, designed to engage us more fully with that which is most Holy: God’s forgiveness, peace and justice. At International Justice Mission, we try to ensure that we are always inviting God into our daily and yearly work…so every day the entire staff fasts for 30 minutes: from work.  The phone lines go quiet and unanswered and we gather to check in with God, ourselves, and each other by giving up the busy-busy-busy of our day. We put our work down so we can lift it up.

A couple weeks ago, hundreds partook in a shared 6-day fast – calling out for repentance, justice and freedom for those who cultivate the food we do eat.  In Lakeland, Florida, over 150 people voluntarily went without food for a week in front of the headquarters of supermarket chain Publix.  Many others joined them nationwide in support of the “Fast for Fair Food ,” a campaign of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a partner with IJM in The Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking. CIW is led by the Latino/a, Mayan Indian, and Haitian immigrants who form the backbone of farmworker labor in Immokalee, Florida and elsewhere on the East Coast. Slavery exists within the U.S. agricultural industry, but CIW has won major victories in their campaign to eradicate it. In the past decade, CIW has achieved agreements with major food retail corporations including McDonald’s, Subway, Taco Bell, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods to improve wages and enforce codes of conduct for fair conditions in their tomato supply chains, including zero tolerance for slavery. CIW has also played an active leadership role in investigating cases of human slavery, collecting evidence and presenting casework to the local public justice system with successful, unprecedented convictions for perpetrators of human slavery in the U.S. produce farm system.  With the Fast for Fair Food, CIW is specifically targeting the supermarket chain Publix, calling on them to amend their policies to reflect those of the other corporations who have already agreed that the human lives behind our tomatoes are worth “a penny more per pound.”

Here are some words from Rev. Michael Livingston, former President of the National Council of Churches, who participated in the Fast for Fair Food:

“We are all in this life together. We are all fed from the bounty of the earth. I am going to join farm workers in Lakeland, FL in a fast as part of the Fair Food Campaign. I do not regard this as a hardship on my part. By God’s grace I can offer the luxury of my time to brothers and sisters whose humanity I value as much as my own. I count it a privilege, in this season of Lent, to, as Paul asks of us in Romans 12:1: “…present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

As this Lenten season draws closer to the celebration of Christ’s resurrection, I invite you to hear also the call of those who literally hungered and thirsted for justice this month. Whether you are fasting or not, the Immokalee workers and their allies are reminding us that Lent is also a time to “give up” injustice and advocate for God’s vision for a more abundant life for all.

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Photo by sfxeric

Is this what comes of different tables around the world all these years?

She knows he is bigger than a table and a cup filled with every morning. She knows there is more than what appears to be. But eventually, knowing isn’t enough. It doesn’t even come close to being half the battle. And this isn’t about battling for his intimacy and love. One should never have to battle for a Lover’s love.

She starts to ask more questions.

What has she been doing all this time?

She might have been coming to the wrong coffee shop, sitting at the wrong table. How was she to know it is he who meets her wherever she sits? Maybe there was a message left with the barista and she never got it. And still she comes and sits and wonders.

“Please, tell me there is more,” she says to herself, hoping he hears it. “I can’t go on living like this, it takes my breath out of me, leaving me empty in my lungs.” She imagines he must hear these whimpering cries of her heartbeat. He has to, because she no longer has the strength to speak them out loud. Still, she walks in the door, orders her cup, and sits down to the table. Why does she even bother somedays? But then she sees the steam rising. She recalls the saint’s words, “If this is how you treat your friends it is no wonder you have so few.”

She concludes, then, she is in the company of saints with a handful of questions and another sip of coffee.

Running is her way of finding out.

Why not just go on into the day and leave him be? He’s not going to be missed, He shows here or there. Even then, he just seems silent. She might hear him cough or grunt. And that warmth that she so cherished from him, that glow that he has, it is almost like he has covered it up in a heavy coat. And this is her summer. There is a way to run without ever putting shoes on. All the ways she runs, sometimes it is simply a matter of shutting doors inside those deep places where he once was welcome anytime.

His letters don’t carry the same spark, once so radiant. The romance is gone from them. Oh, the words are all still true, every word he wrote her still resonates like a tuning fork through her bones as she clamps her hand over her ear and places it on her elbow. But what good are words of resonating truth if there is no relationship, no music to carry them along?

He is her breath. Her breath. Without him she could not breath. She hung on his every word, even when they seemed to stop coming. She used to delight in the intimacy of presence with him, that sharing of space without agendas, so rare and pricless. It was enough to just be with him. What happened? Now she sips her cup alone in a room full of him.

Every day she walks there, orders her cup, sits down at the table. Sometimes she has a book of letters he wrote her; sometimes it is a book of thoughts she wrote him. Other times, it is just her and the cup. Whether early before the sun rises or mid-morning, she still goes, and sits at the table. Most times she sits with her back to the door, facing the small porthole-like window with its cut glass designs. This way she can focus on him when he’s there and watch the light break through the bevels when he’s not.

Her first time they met was not at this coffee shop but one similar in her hometown, down south. The air was thicker there. “You could cut blocks of this humidity and sell it in the desert,” she would say to herself. The air caused her to wring her hands as she made her way to meet him. The humidity coating her, making her feel less beautiful. She would fidget with a straw, staring down at her fingers, making shapes in her mind, while she talked. He never took his eyes off her. Of course, who she thought she was meeting and who he came to be were the difference between reading the book and spending days with the author.

The easygoing kindness, the listening ear while she rambled about her week and who said what to whom, seems so different than now. Not that he was a disappointment. No, he was much more, not less, but she wasn’t ready to see it all on that first day. Who is?

This day, she has come to see him again but only after being away long enough to surprise even herself. She was running from him. He was asking what she thought was more of her than she could give. So she has come back to him after her fear-filled hiatus unsure of what he will say, or if he will even show.

More and more, though, she asks herself why she must come and sit at this table every day? He, lately, doesn’t seem to show up. Or to put it another way, even when he shows up he sits there in silence and does or says nothing. He simply looks at, or into her. He breaths through a smile (or Him breathing through a smile. Her talking…). She talking to quell the silence and that disconcerting unraveling stare of his. She wonders what kind of relationship this is now.