Round The Ball: Lent – 2009

We were warned this is a busy place. It’s true, and we’re okay with it. Just in the few months we’ve lived here, we’ve already played host to a steady stream of friends, colleagues, supervisors and looki-loos.

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November has included two separate visits from folks we knew from FBC in San Francisco. Jean came bearing “globie” — a blue pillow with eyes and a global map drawn on him. Kids at the church send him off to visit mission-types all over the world, and we were some of the latest . . . including multiple pictures taken with globie and the kids. Marcos came bearing maple syrup, chocolate chips and dog treats from Trader Joes — bless him! He was in town on a multi-country vacation, and was kind enough to schlep the stuff for us through 4 other stops. We showed both guests around the neighborhood, answered questions and, in general, just enjoyed a bit of connection back to SF.

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We were thrilled to have Tim Lockie in town with us for a week of meetings as well. He stayed part of the time at our house. A dear friend, and a barrel-full of laughs, he was such a joy to have around. Tim’s the kind of friend you pick up with right where you left off. And though we’re renegotiating a friendship that used to be daily — the long distance thing is so enriched by getting to see each other on visits like this. Who cares if it’s just for meetings!

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Right after Tim left we had a couple stay with us who are looking to move to London to serve with CRM. We had the thrill of getting to know them a bit, showing them around our neck of the woods, and enticing them to the joys and perils of London life. Time investments like these are worth the fun of imagining that they might live close by and be companions in the journey.

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Things slow down for us now with the month of December . . . fewer guests, shorter days. I’ll be writing about Advent and all things Nativity in a future post.

If you come and visit us (and we hope you do!), we’ll probably ask you to bring us some chocolate chips. This isn’t because we love cookies (though I made a batch the other day — which was quickly exchanged for some yummy curry with the family upstairs!) – its because the kids and I are in a semi-religious habit of making buckwheat-chocolate-chip-pancakes every Saturday morning.

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We’ve been doing it for over a year now (maybe two?), and it’s just one of the things that is keeping the Prince family sane. Weird how pancakes can do that. I’m convinced, though, that simple family rhythms, like pizza, popcorn and a movie on Friday nights, or our Saturday morning park outings, have helped us build a bridge from the familiar to the unfamiliar.

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In picking up and moving internationally, so many things are different: the currency, the accent, the way time is recorded, what’s offered at the grocery store shelves. But we’ve been fortunate enough to throw ourselves a life-line: family rhythms, little mini-traditions, that help us feel normal here . . . little bastions of familiarity in an ocean of change.

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It would be easy to say this was all for the kids’ sake. But that would be only partially true. In reality, Pam and I are benefiting as well.

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One new rhythm, added here in London, is a team rhythm we borrowed from John and Deanna. Pam and I are alternating a “sabbath day” every other Wednesday . . . so every two weeks Pam takes the kids while I get away for a day of retreat, prayer, rest, recreation, and city exploration. It’s been a real life-saver here, to carve out a place in our weekly schedule where the emails and phone calls get ignored so that we can pursue renewal.

It’s fun to see Pam fully alive and engaged here. We have arrived in a place where her interpersonal skills (read: missional) are in full color . . . where I feel more in the back-seat to her daily cultural encounters with neighbors around us. I like it.

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Part of why we moved here was to hopefully draw Pam and the kids back into the daily life of incarnational living . . . something that started to not be so easy in San Francisco when the focus was homeless people who were several miles away. Here, life and ministry is integrated into an even tighter weave, and Pam’s circle of influence is as close as the family upstairs. Watching her in action reminds me of what I was most attracted to over 14 years ago.  Still am!

There’s been an aspect of our moving here that has brought about a thousand little redemptions. I’m talking about “stuff” here — the possessions we chose to bring along, and the amazing ways that each item has served its purpose, often more nobly than it did in San Francisco. Here are a few examples:

• I had a black waterproof coat I never wore before moving here — but we brought it just in case, and it’s now something I wear nearly every day.
• The hand-cranked coffee-grinder my dad got me for Christmas a few years back is now the ONLY way I have to grind coffee here — and is a new, and earth-friendly, part of my daily coffee ritual.
• Jesse has gotten WAY more mileage out of his little bike since we moved here. Come to think of it, the red wagon and my bike have seen their full “redemption” in the move here — getting way more use than ever in San Francisco.
• Grandma Visser’s “chicken canisters” were once a forgotten part of our kitchen decor in San Francisco — but are now an active part of our kitchen arrangement, holding sweet and savory biscuits as well as other goodies.
• The black dining table we inherited from Chris and Keoke is now my desk in the office/guest-room upstairs. It’s a comfortable place to work and I think of good friends in San Francisco as I sit at it every day.
• Our dilapidated “hutch” was abandoned on the back porch of the Well in our previous home: holding seldom-accessed things like party decorations, votive candles and green coffee beans. Now it is the centerpiece of our kitchen in London, holding all of our dish-ware and providing much needed counter space.
• The list goes on: hats and mittens we’ve kept around for years, a little Ikea wooden shelf I put together but never did much with, etc., etc.

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Probably sounds weird, I know, to be writing random thoughts about our possessions like this. But in seeing some once-neglected “extra items” in our previous house become the main attraction in a new place, somehow gives them a new lease on life. They’ve been redeemed from obscurity and meaninglessness to a life of purpose and utility.

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So I can’t help but reflect: if a dish-rack can experience redemption by being born into a second life full of meaning and purpose, why not the human soul?

Hey folks, if you think of it, say a prayer for me this weekend. I’ll be up in Glasgow, Scotland speaking at a church retreat for the weekend. Should be fun!
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Also, pray for Pam and the kids while I’m away from London too!