The View From Here

Tearing Down and Building Up

I have no illusions that the photo is going to take home any awards—even an amateur photographer like myself knows I can do better than this. Heck, a four year old with an iPhone could do better. But it’s the photo I took, and while the truth is that I’m tempted to drive around the corner and redeem myself with a Pulitzer-worthy shot, there’s actually something about the photo’s completely uninteresting composition that captures the heart of what compelled me to pull over in the misty rain on my way home from the gym this afternoon. I first heard about the plans for this property a few years ago when a rumour started swirling that the long-standing church located on a corner lot at a busy intersection in our neighbourhood would be torn down and replaced by stacked townhouses. The plan was for a new church/community centre to be constructed on the opposite end of the property. It’s no secret that Canadian churches are struggling to stay open—that story has been told time and time again—

Graduation

Tonight, our youngest child will walk across a stage and receive his high school diploma, entering a new season of life for himself while simultaneously bringing to an end yet another season of life for his apparently aging parents. Neither of these is officially true, as despite having checked off the requirements for graduation, Jude will be returning to high school, like his sister before him, for a “victory lap” next fall. But the fact that his exit from this stage of life may not be official doesn’t take away from the significance of tonight’s ceremony for either our son or his parents. I’ve been thinking about the word ‘commencement,’ which, according to the tickets tucked in an envelope by our front door, is what this ceremony is called. The word means a start, or a beginning, and I suppose that makes sense as the graduates are being symbolically launched into a new stage of their lives. But then again, I’m not sure you can ever pinpoint a beginning with that kind of accuracy.

There are two ways I could tell this story. The first would be to wait a little while longer until I have some more clarity around how this narrative will actually unfold. This is my preferred way of sharing anything personal: wait until things have worked themselves out, and only then drill down into my experiences for whatever I think might be helpful (or at least mildly entertaining) to others. Lessons learned, victories won, tales to be told. I’m not alone in this. Most of us prefer to tell our stories from the end backwards. In the middle, things are too messy and too uncertain and, well, too raw. I had a conversation once with a friend who was in the midst of an unspeakably challenging season, and we wondered together what it would be like for him to tell his story right there in the middle of it—right there where he wasn’t even sure he would make it out alive. And so the second way I could tell this story of mine is to do just that, to tell it from the middle, which is where I

A Good Honest Shuffle

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