Friday
Jan122007
Community
Friday, January 12, 2007 at 01:58AM
I've been learning a lot about community this year. I've found it in friends I work with, folks I go to church with, and neighbors who live down the street. I've found it here on this website, as well as caedmonscall.net, Myspace, and the blogs of my friends.
My friend Geof lost his sister-in-law Cindy this Wednesday. Geof has been a wonderful support to my family and my friends here in Nashville over the past four years. He's been instrumental in getting this site up and going to where it is now, as well as the Square Peg Site and caedmonscall.net. He believes in community and how it can change people. Now is a chance for us to
be that community for him and those around him.
If you have a minute and would like to send him a note of encouragement, his blog can be found here. Let's let him know that our prayers with him and his family in this time.
Bringing it closer to home (my home, anyway) I've written about my neighbor Kenny a few times before. I have a couple lines about him in my song "Early in the Morning". He's permanently in a wheelchair and is almost constantly in and out of the hospital. He was in again just before Christmas with a blood clot in his lung that, for all I know, is probably still there.
His wife Eileen is his ever-present support and helper, and Kenny's health is always such an issue that we never think about hers. Well, that changed for us this past week. On New Year's day she had to be rushed to the ER. Without too many details, she had kidney failure and a massive infection and they had to remove a lot of what's inside her. Until yesterday night she had been unconscious and is still in the Surgical Intensive Care. Critical, but Stable.
Kenny has never spent a day without Eileen until this happened. He's not able to do a whole lot for himself, though he will sure try. I've been able to take him around to run a few errands and took him to see Elaine a few nights ago.
My own household, meanwhile, is still quite a circus. The tightrope, the juggling, the spit-up and crying spells... I'm wanting to be there for Kenny, but my priorities have to be here and that's left me feeling torn and guilty.
Last night our small group met. Everybody there lives in the neighborhood. (We are still looking for a band name, though I had a great idea last night.) I told the group what was going on with Kenny, a few of the folks know him a little bit, and as soon as I was done he started calling. I went to the other room to take the call and heard the great news that Eileen became responsive for the first time in nine days. Obviously, he wanted to go see her, and he needed a ride.
Honestly, I was so wiped from staying up with the baby and a long guitar session that day that I don't think I physically could have done it. A few minutes later three of the guys from our group walked out the door to go to Kenny's house to get him. Only one of them had even met him before.
I talked to Kenny today and he was so grateful for the time he got to spend with Eileen that night, and so thankful those guys were willing and able to take him.
I was hit with two wonderful truths at that moment. First, my community of friends and believers is willing to live what we talk about. Two, Kenny and Eileen are going to need more than one person to help them through this time. I can't do it. Paul can't do it. No one can do it alone. They're going to need a community. I'm so humbled and honored to know I'll get to be a part of it.
Please keep Eileen and Kenny in your prayers, as well as Geof, his brother Doug and the rest of their family. And please also pray for the communities that surround them.
My friend Geof lost his sister-in-law Cindy this Wednesday. Geof has been a wonderful support to my family and my friends here in Nashville over the past four years. He's been instrumental in getting this site up and going to where it is now, as well as the Square Peg Site and caedmonscall.net. He believes in community and how it can change people. Now is a chance for us to
be that community for him and those around him.
If you have a minute and would like to send him a note of encouragement, his blog can be found here. Let's let him know that our prayers with him and his family in this time.
Bringing it closer to home (my home, anyway) I've written about my neighbor Kenny a few times before. I have a couple lines about him in my song "Early in the Morning". He's permanently in a wheelchair and is almost constantly in and out of the hospital. He was in again just before Christmas with a blood clot in his lung that, for all I know, is probably still there.
His wife Eileen is his ever-present support and helper, and Kenny's health is always such an issue that we never think about hers. Well, that changed for us this past week. On New Year's day she had to be rushed to the ER. Without too many details, she had kidney failure and a massive infection and they had to remove a lot of what's inside her. Until yesterday night she had been unconscious and is still in the Surgical Intensive Care. Critical, but Stable.
Kenny has never spent a day without Eileen until this happened. He's not able to do a whole lot for himself, though he will sure try. I've been able to take him around to run a few errands and took him to see Elaine a few nights ago.
My own household, meanwhile, is still quite a circus. The tightrope, the juggling, the spit-up and crying spells... I'm wanting to be there for Kenny, but my priorities have to be here and that's left me feeling torn and guilty.
Last night our small group met. Everybody there lives in the neighborhood. (We are still looking for a band name, though I had a great idea last night.) I told the group what was going on with Kenny, a few of the folks know him a little bit, and as soon as I was done he started calling. I went to the other room to take the call and heard the great news that Eileen became responsive for the first time in nine days. Obviously, he wanted to go see her, and he needed a ride.
Honestly, I was so wiped from staying up with the baby and a long guitar session that day that I don't think I physically could have done it. A few minutes later three of the guys from our group walked out the door to go to Kenny's house to get him. Only one of them had even met him before.
I talked to Kenny today and he was so grateful for the time he got to spend with Eileen that night, and so thankful those guys were willing and able to take him.
I was hit with two wonderful truths at that moment. First, my community of friends and believers is willing to live what we talk about. Two, Kenny and Eileen are going to need more than one person to help them through this time. I can't do it. Paul can't do it. No one can do it alone. They're going to need a community. I'm so humbled and honored to know I'll get to be a part of it.
Please keep Eileen and Kenny in your prayers, as well as Geof, his brother Doug and the rest of their family. And please also pray for the communities that surround them.
Reader Comments (7)
Community is an amazing thing. I have felt that blessing first hand in my community as well. Though I am no where near tennessee or alabama, I will be praying for Geof and his family as well as for Kenny and Eileen. God is big. He is sovereign. And its amazing how He shows us that in the hard times and through the blessing of community. God Bless,
tk
The older I get, the more I wonder how people outside the body of Christ are able to survive.
Thanks for the update on Kenny.
You have something special there with that community, my friend. Keep at it! And thanks for the update on Kenny and the reminder to pray for Geof.
I crave the type of community you describe here, but I think, for whatever reason, I've been too afraid to look for that type of community where I am. Perhaps the idea of being vulnerable and open is what I shy away from, and at the same time it's what I most desire.
That is a very moving story. You are blessed with your small group. My small group's thoughts and prayers will be with yours. I went through some very hard times a few years ago. Without friends and church family it would have been impossible to make it. I appreciate your post.
I love the Body of Christ. Thanks for illustrating it so well and playing your part.
Andrew: We all get by with a little help from our friends. Is it any wonder that things we cling to the closest---community, family, marriage---are the things that God clearly saw as most important? Christ formed his own community, a brotherhood of disciplies. We're called children of God, a part of His family through Christ's substitutional atonement. And marriage, well, just look at all the parallels drawn between a groom and a bride and Christ and the church.
Community has sustained me the last three days, and it'll sustain me through the next week. Knowing that y'all are all interceding and supporting us helps me get off the couch each morning when I'd really rather just shut my eyes for five more minutes in the vain hope of this all being some really long, twisted dream.
Community is hard, because people are hard to love at times. We're selfish, myopic, and broken. I loved Matthew's reaction to my news---"What a broken world." And he's so right: if we weren't horrible, selfish, needy, broken people, we would all simply rejoice at Cindy's passing on to eternal life and happiness in Christ Jesus, because she's been reunited with her father amongst the saints. But we're incapable of being satisfied in that, even as we know it to be the truth.
Thanks for the support.