Season 2, episode 1: Cyclops in Vegas // Wednesday, October 7, 2020

This is Shelter in Place, a podcast about coming together in a world that pulls us apart. From Oakland, California to Hamilton, Massachusetts, I’m Laura Joyce Davis.

“Do you cherish your children?”

“Yeah, of course I do.”

“If you cherish your children, you wouldn’t have left them by themselves. Children are a gift from God. There are bad people in the world, pedophiles and murderers. Something could’ve happened to them, and if you cherish your children you wouldn't have left them alone.”

“Do you have kids?”

“Yes, I do. They’re grown up now.”

“And you never left them alone?”

“No. I would have never left them alone. If you don’t cherish your children, you should reconsider being a father.” 

History and literature are full of accounts of parents getting up in arms about their kids. Odysseus faced the wrath of Poseidon after he blinded the Cyclops who was Poseidon’s son. Jacob was father to the twelve tribes of Israel--and his favoritism in parenting prompted his sons to sell their brother into slavery. In our family, not even 24 hours into the pandemic Odyssey that would take us from one coast to another, we faced the Cyclops of Las Vegas.

Okay, maybe cyclops is a bit harsh. But in the scene you just heard, the woman we faced had an eye trained only to our parenting failures, who was blind to our true feelings about our kids. I’ll get back to that story in a minute. 

In the meantime, if you’re just joining us, I suggest going back to the beginning of this season to hear the prologue of this pandemic Odyssey. I hope you’ll also check out season one, which will give you some context for our journey.

Our story, of how and why we set out on this adventure and left the only place that feels like home, is one that I’ll continue to share with you in the coming episodes. But for now suffice it to say that the combined challenges of pandemic living with three small kids, wildfire season, distance learning, and the financial stress of startup living had reached a fever pitch the month before we left.

In less than two weeks we’d gone from swearing we would never leave Oakland to packing up what we could of our lives and cramming it into our Odyssey--that is, our minivan. 

Tired is not a sufficient word for what I was feeling. I hadn’t slept well in weeks. There was too much to do. In those final hours, I’d alternated between feeling completely numb to bursting into tears at unexpected moments: while I was boxing up forgotten toys, cleaning out the fridge, or tossing last year’s Christmas cards into the recycling. There was something about physically removing these traces of ourselves from our home that made this departure feel bigger than the temporary trip we were planning.

Even though we were sad to go, we hoped that leaving would bring some relief. The smoke in the skies overhead was a constant reminder not only of why we were going, but that there was no going back. But as we drove east, our kids Zooming into school from hot spots on our phones, mostly what we felt was regret. There were scores of people we loved who we hadn’t even gotten to tell we were going. We had little imagination for the life that lay ahead. We hadn’t even had time to plan the route we were going to take. One day into our journey, all we knew was that we needed to make it to a campsite near Zion National Park by sunset. We were both too sad and afraid to name the thing we’d both been wondering, if this departure from our home of sixteen years was the beginning of the end. 

But as I slogged through the Vegas parking lot where we’d stopped for lunch, I wasn’t thinking about any of that. I was looking at my husband Nate, who was standing there red-faced and sweating, his shoulders hunched and his head down. 

The original plan had been for me to return a defective item to REI while he got lunch for the kids so we could get back on the road as fast as possible. But I’d lost my receipt, and was one day outside the return window, so the transaction took a while. When Nate rushed inside, spotted me still standing there at the register, and asked for the car keys, I didn’t ask questions.

Only afterward did I wonder about our kids. And then when I saw a woman standing there, pointing an accusing finger at Nate, I didn’t wonder anymore. 

“These children were left alone,” I could hear the woman saying even though she had her back to me. Her voice was shrill and angry. “Your babies could have walked off. If you don’t cherish your children, then you should reconsider being a father.”

Nate was silent, but I could see in his posture the twitchy defensiveness of an animal ready to fight or flee. I was close enough now to see the woman: short gray-white hair, breezy, loose clothing built for comfort, and a gold cross around her neck. As I stepped onto the curb, she spun around and pointed her finger at me.

“And you. If you’re the mother, you should be ashamed of yourself.”

I want to stop here and say that I don’t disagree with this angry stranger. My kids are 8, 6, and 3--not babies, but still too young to be left alone in public--even for the short time it took Nate to find me at REI, unlock the car parked by the entrance, and make it back to the table where the kids were sitting. I’d like to think that under different circumstances, I would have received this woman’s accusations graciously. That maybe I would have deflected her anger with kindness. Maybe I would think about what would make her lash out--not just concern for my children, but perhaps some trauma in her own life--a kidnapped child? A memory of being abandoned herself long ago? Maybe I would have even seen the cross around her neck and found some common ground. 

But that’s not what happened. 

Author Robert McKee said that “true character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure - the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character's essential nature.”

If he’s right, then my true character leaves something to be desired. Because when Nate threw his hands up and retreated inside Panera, abandoning me to this well-meaning grandma who was all too eager to let into me, all I saw was an angry Cyclops ready to gobble us up. 

“Who do you think you are to talk to us like this?” I cried angrily. “You saw one moment. You have no idea what kind of parents we are, what our lives are like or what we’ve been through. Your judgement and criticism are not helpful,” I said to her. “I need you to walk away and leave us.”

She refused and repeated her accusations, though it was unclear what she was hoping for by staying. An apology? An admission of our failure as parents?

“If you need help, I’m happy to help you,” she said, suddenly taking the high road. I wanted to say to her that if she really wanted to help us, she’d give us the benefit of the doubt. She’d resist the urge to assume that we don’t love our children and instead see us for what we were: a family exhausted by life, who made a poor decision that she happened to witness. I wanted her to see that “cherish” was not a strong enough word for what we felt for our kids. We were leaving a place we loved and moving across the country for them.

But instead I started to cry. I again asked her to leave. Perhaps my tears startled her, or maybe she just had nothing left to stay. Either way, she left in a huff, as if she were shaking the dust off her feet and leaving us to suffer the consequences of who we were. My whole body was shaking. I turned to my kids, who were sitting there with wide eyes and still hands, no longer hungry for their mac and cheese. A few seconds later, Nate returned. 

“You left me,” I cried. “I stood up to her and defended you and you just left me.”

Our kids were uncharacteristically silent. 

“Why was that lady so angry?” our daughter Grace finally said. 

“She wasn’t right to yell at us,” I said, wiping my eyes, “but I agree with her that Daddy shouldn’t have left you--even for a minute.”

“I was getting milk from the car,” Nate said, his voice laced with irritation.

“Why couldn’t you wait for me to get here first?” 

My 8-year-old son, who is normally stingy with affection, came around the table to where I was sitting and put his arms around me while I cried. “It’s okay, Mommy,” he said. “We’re fine.”

I had sudden visions of my children in therapy, talking about the time their father walked off and left them and their mother lost her temper with a stranger and the children had to be the grownups in the situation. I felt deep shame wash over me. My character had been tested, and found lacking.

Nate sighed heavily and put his hands on my knotted shoulders. His voice softened. “I’m sorry I walked away. I went inside because I knew if I stayed out here, I’d lose it. I was worried I’d punch a 70-year-old woman in the face and go to jail.”

I hadn’t realized how angry he was, but I understood, because I’d felt the same way. It felt outrageous to have our devotion as parents questioned even as we were uprooting our life so we could give our kids a better one closer to family. We hadn’t wanted to leave Oakland. If not for our kids, we never would have. 

Nate later told me that for days afterward he thought about all of the potential comebacks he could have fired back at the woman. Chief among them was that this woman is why people think Christians are a bunch of judgmental jerks. But that same criticism could have been made of me. 

“Well, good for you for not losing it, but I lost it instead,” I said, managing a weak smile. 

Our 3-year-old Mattea, who never misses a chance to make a joke, said, “The lady goed ‘EEEGH!’ like a monster. And you goed, ‘EEEGH!’” 

We all laughed. The kids visibly relaxed at the sound. 

“I shouldn’t have yelled at her,” I told my kids. They nodded uncertainly, but not in agreement. 

“But she was mean to you guys,” Grace said in our defense. 

I turned back to Nate, calmer now. “Why did you leave them?”

“When we were sitting inside, Mattea was yelling and touching everything,” he said, his voice weary. “I brought them out here so they could at least run around a little. But then they were all freaking out and complaining that they were thirsty. I thought about going back inside to buy them drinks, but there was a long line and we already had our food, and the drinks were expensive. And then I remembered we had that whole gallon of milk in the car. I thought I could run to the car and be back here faster than it would take me to go back inside and stand in line all over again. I could see them from the car. I thought it would be fine.” He shook his head. 

“She must have come right after you left,” I said. 

“It couldn’t have been more than two or three minutes.”

We agreed that even two or three minutes was too long. That the lady was right even if her approach was wrong. And also that I could have shown her grace instead of fury. Just as she didn’t know our story, we didn’t know hers.

Our cyclops in Vegas has been in the rearview mirror for weeks, but I keep thinking about it. I still feel embarrassed about how I acted, but what discourages me most is that from political debates to the daily news, that ugly scene in Vegas looks a lot like our world right now. We live in a world that continually primes us to be the worst version of ourselves. We devour social media that paints our enemies in a negative light, and consume news that supports the beliefs we already have. As much as I’d like to believe that I would’ve acted more graciously with that woman if my life hadn’t felt so difficult, I’m afraid that Robert McKee is right about my character. We don’t get to choose our circumstances. Somehow we have to learn to let the hard times make us better. 

Odysseus made a lot of mistakes on his long voyage to Ithaca, but he also had guides and gods who helped him along the way. So this past week, I reached out to someone who could help me on my journey, who I knew would understand.

Quinn: My name's Quinn Vaughn, and I'm currently residing in Monroe, Washington, which is the town I grew up in, but I have not been here for 20 years. I most recently was in Oakland, California with Laura, and was a pastor at Christ Church East Bay, and I wish we were still there in a lot of ways.  We really enjoyed pastoring there, but our family's been through quite a bit this last year. 

Laura: You might remember Quinn and her husband Patrick from season one, episode 43: Help, when Patrick shared what life was life with a traumatic brain injury. The Vaughns are some of our closest friends, and they’re a big part of why Oakland has felt like home. But that’s not the only reason I wanted to talk to Quinn. The week we left Oakland, they left, too. 

Quinn: A year ago, September 23rd, Patrick and I were both pastoring at Oakland Christ Church East Bay, alongside Bart Garrett. Our two kiddos were in the Oakland school district and enjoying the dual immersion Spanish program there. And we were really living into a sense of call in a way that we loved. I was able to really focus in on being a worship pastor, and Patrick was working on discipleship. We were involved in the community. It was just beautiful. 

And then Patrick did not show up from a  kind of last minute bike ride that he took up in the hills of Oakland. And about three hours later my friends Steven and Emily found him in the Highland hospital, just down from our house. He came in as a Bravo eight, which means he had crashed so hard that he didn't remember who he was, and he was super erratic. And so they had sedated him so they could check out his body, his mind, and everything. And he actually checked out really healthy for the most part, other than a broken face bone. And they were thinking that he just had a concussion and they would send him home the next day, but it ended up being a traumatic brain injury that 70% of people actually either die from or continue on in a vegetative state. So that has drastically changed our lives. 

Laura: For several months while Patrick recovered, Quinn stepped back from her job as a pastor to care for Patrick and their children. The month after they returned to work, Bart Garrett, our church’s lead pastor, announced that he was accepting a call to another church. Our church blessed the move, but with Bart out of the picture and Patrick still not able to work full-time, it fell mostly to Quinn to care for the church and for her family. Then a month later, COVID-19 hit California, and church went online. 

Quinn: His recovery has been phenomenal. But it has really created a much different cognitive strain for him. It has caused him to not really be able to function online super well. The worst injury he's had is actually to his cranial nerve, which makes seeing really difficult. So with COVID hitting, which put our whole life online, and with our lead pastor Bart leaving Christ Church, it really just put a large strain on our ministry and on our life. 

When you have a lot of different things hit at the same time--for us, at least, it became a moment where we really needed drastic help, like a white flag needed to be put up. 

Laura: Long before Patrick’s accident, the Vaughns were scheduled to take a 3-month sabbatical starting in May. They were awarded a prestigious grant that would allow their family to travel for that time, and while COVID-19 changed the specifics of that travel, ultimately they were able to go. It seemed like the white flag they needed to rest and recover. 

Those three months proved to be pivotal ones for their family and for Patrick in particular as he realized that there was no returning to the life they had before his injury. 

Quinn: Getting away on sabbatical really allowed us to become clear in seeing through the fog. We were able to survive, but we realized we were not thriving. And there's something about claiming who we are rather than who we wish we were or who we were in the past . . . in claiming that, there was an ability to be gentle with himself and gentle with our family, and learn what we all really needed together, and what he needed to recover and discover who he is.

Laura: While Patrick was coming to terms with who he was with a brain injury, Quinn was adjusting to a new way of being, too. She’s a pastor, so when she talks about her journey, she talks a lot about God and the Bible. But whether or not you identify with a faith tradition, I think there’s something in her words for all of us. Quinn is one of the most intentional people I know. She understands better than most of us the need for physical symbols and daily rituals to connect the physical to the spiritual--especially when life is hard. 

Quinn: I think as Protestant Christians, we don't really mourn very well. I think Catholics do that a lot better, and I think Jews do it a lot better. They have literal seasons and saints and physical ways of enacting and holding and carrying people through sadness.

Walking around all the crunchy branches and dead leaves that were once on the tree and no longer on the tree. I think that helped me to see how much I had lost, and how much old stuff that used to be living and alive and vibrant was now gone and cut off. And that, that was okay. I came apart. I kind of realized how fragile I had become, and how rigid I'd become. And realizing just how much our family system had been jostled--like just shaken up in a jar and jostled. And I had been working so hard to be a foundation. 

Getting away from all that helped me to hear the new invitation I think that God was really issuing, which was, “you can put all of that down now. You don't need to perform in any way. And in fact, you might be a little addicted to performing.” I was able to hear God inviting me to let all of that go and to let it die.

Knowing that the trees go through seasons, knowing that even Jesus was pruned, knowing that dead things are not a loss, they're just  a sign of the seasonality of existence, helped me. And it helped me to  touch them and hold them and even put some labels on them of my own life to really mourn.

Laura: I’ve learned a lot from Quinn about the power of physical objects and rituals to help us navigate life’s disappointments. As a worship pastor at our church, Quinn set up stations where we could light candles, or press our fingertips to ink and leave our collective prints on a poster, or write our griefs and prayers on paper that dissolved in water. Those actions don’t change our circumstances, but they give us permission to grieve and a physical representation of our pain.   

After a few weeks grieving among those dead leaves and trees in California, the Vaughns spent the second part of their sabbatical in Monroe, Washington, where they both grew up and where they’re living now.

Quinn: We weren't at all thinking we would be here, but just to be near family and be loved and accepted, and to be within touchable distance and celebrate and laugh and let go. I think I laughed--like boisterously laughed--for the first time around a campfire at one point. And it just felt so good.

And then we were afforded the great gift of being able to go to Hawaii for six weeks. We won a Lilly grant, and so it freed us to have enough money to quarantine well on a farm. And it was probably the safest I've felt in a really long time. It was on the Hilo side of the big Island, and it was jungley, and the sounds just, like, drowned out any of my worries, and I rested and slept well. 

There's these crazy, huge trees that root down into the springs. The rain washes down these big lava shoots, and so it really depends on getting down into those springs. And then there's the scriptures that talk about, “I'm a tree planted by streams of living water, that  bears fruit and due season. And all of that again is like a new season of a tree. I was still super tired and exhausted, but I felt like I could not worry about that. 

And then Patrick and I could reconnect. I think we had to kind of do our own individual work, to be able to then be together with the Lord. And it was some of the first times we talked more deeply about, how are you really feeling? And what's really going on? And where he discerned his need to step away from pastoral work--which was super hard for me to even really consider.

I went through the trauma from a caregiver's perspective, which meant that I was the one that needed to step up and work more and be sure we had our insurance, make sure we were paying the bills. And so I really still felt a deep responsibility towards that. I also was so deeply committed to Oakland's thriving. It still to this day is pretty hard for me that I wouldn't be the one walking with them was hard to even be willing to consider. I was doing something I love, like I loved working alongside Patrick, and alongside Bart, and doing worship pastor, where I got to invite people into space and time, and I got to disciple these small groups, and I just was really doing the kind of ministry I would really want to do. 

Laura: During that last part of their sabbatical, when Patrick realized he couldn't go back to ministry, Quinn thought a lot about the story of Jacob in the book of Genesis. Jacob is one of the most famous parents in history. He’s the father of twelve sons who became the twelve tribes of Israel. You can trace both Judaism and Christianity back to him. But his character wasn’t exactly admirable. He spent a lot of his life cheating others and his name means “deceiver.” 

Even so, there’s this pivotal moment in Jacob’s life that changes everything. He’s about to meet his brother Esau, who might want to kill Jacob since he stole his birthright and blessing. But the night before he’s going to meet Esau, an angel of God appears to Jacob and wrestles with him.

Quinn: And before he let that angel leave, he said, “you have to bless me. I can't continue on without your blessing.” And I felt like I was really saying the same thing to God. Like, “I can't return without your blessing. I don't have strength. And I don't have a clear mind without you.” And I also said, “I need you to name me like you renamed Jacob Israel.” And what came back was just “empty one.” 

Laura: Empty one. It didn’t feel like much of a blessing. But it was exactly how Quinn felt. Little by little Quinn began to understand that she couldn’t go back to pastoring in Oakland without Patrick. It was clear that they needed help. They couldn't go back to the way things were before, but the thought of leaving was devastating.

Quinn: I was losing a vocation and a home and friends and just, it was a place of famine that I had to leave from.  It was super painful coming back to Oakland and facing that and even making the final moves and plans. But I think it was right. I needed support to just do the next thing.  

Laura: Shortly after they returned to Oakland in August, the Vaughns announced their plans to resign from pastoring our church and move to Washington. A few days later, we made our own decision to go. The Vaughns hit the road a few days after we left. 

It hasn’t been an easy move to make, but Quinn says it’s been good to be back near family. She’s embracing the name “empty one” not as a judgment, but as a gift. This is a season of allowing others to care for them, and waiting to see what God will do next. 

Quinn: I do not have it figured out. I want to know the big picture. I think that if I know the big picture of where everything's going, then I will be okay. But I don't have the right to know the big picture. I don't have the vision or the power to see the big picture.

We just get to see our own little part--if we slow down enough to listen and obey--really obey that voice of God that we hear when we stop talking. I try to listen for what's the next best thing that he would have me do, and to lean into the help I need to do that. And, you know, looping in all the way back to the beginning, like that's in many ways why we're here in Monroe and taking a time to recover. We're in a really deep place of need right now, and we're fragile. And I think we're all really experiencing that. Whether you've gone through a brain injury or massive career change or not, like COVID is just really changing things and tearing things down. 

I have a spot that I go to right now where I have cried a lot. I've cried and I've screamed. I've been like, “I'm not going back in that house right now. I can't go back in. If I go back in, I will die.” But then I've also walked by that tree and smiled and been okay.

I've largely been led to trust the word of God over my own words that are going through my head. Like, “I can't make it through this day” is quickly countered by “this is the day the Lord has made. Rejoice and be glad in it.”

We don't get to see the big picture. But we are given enough for the day.

Laura: As I’ve tried to process the massive transitions this pandemic has brought to our family, I’ve often felt caught in despair. In the moments when my character is tested--moments like in that Vegas parking lot--I don’t always pass the test. I knew Quinn would understand this, and I wanted to know how she was facing those days of discouragement. 

Quinn: You've shared this in your first season, but Patrick went through some great neurotherapy. They talked about how in the morning, we want to set our intentional mind to inform our attentional mind. And our attentional mind is the one that jumps around and tries to problem solve the day, or it gets distracted by the urgent moment. But the intentional mind is the one that can set itself in a direction. And one practice for doing that is writing down answers to some questions that help you to lean into what you're thankful for, what your strengths are. And I don't think that's like pie in the sky, or just trying to ignore your problems. We can kind of get melancholy focusing on what's broken and miss the truth of the positive. And although we love beauty, it can kind of get stuck in the ashes. I find it really important to name those really wonderful things that are happening. Like I need to take a deep breath and I need to listen to the truth.

And if I can't say it to myself, I often do turn to other people. I either just open up the Bible and try to see what it is going to say to me for the day, or talk to Patrick, or call a friend. Like, in a game show, it's like, “call a friend, call for help.” That's probably better to be used in life than a game show. 

This stuff is straining on relationships and on marriages. I think it's easy in a family dynamic. I can become a six year old little girl pretty quickly, and have my own little pouts and tantrums, or hold it together for the day, but then when Patrick and I are together, not consider what energy he needs and what energy I need from him and that it's worth pouring in to each other.

I've really been thankful when he has, let me be on my journey. And although that's scary, to kind of be like, well, I trust you with God. And you don't need to check in with me all the time about how you're feeling, or he doesn't have to take personally, you know, some of the tears that I shed. Our relationship's really important, and this kind of stuff can break it apart. In some ways, our move here has been for the sake of this marriage.  

Laura: When I think about why our family is on this journey, I’ve mostly thought about our kids. The chief reason we’re spending this season away from Oakland is so we can be closer to Nate’s parents--his mom in particular, who is willing to homeschool the kids so we can work on the podcast and get back on our feet financially. But it’s also a move for our marriage. In Oakland, without family close by to help us with our kids, we almost never had time alone without them. We were hanging in there, but as Quinn said, we weren’t thriving. This is a season to redefine what life looks like not just for our family, but for our marriage. We’re discovering not the people we were before, or the people we’d like to be, but the people we actually are right now. We’re trying to figure out how to be together in this new life--even if we don’t know exactly where we’re going.

Quinn told me that when she and Patrick were in seminary, they read Eugene Peterson’s book Working the Angles, where Peterson talked about the importance of taking a Sabbath and establishing rhythms to make that day special. He and his wife would pack sack lunches, read a scripture together, and then set out on a hike where they wouldn’t talk until they reached their destination. Once they got there they’d share anything that came to them on their hike, but they’d also just enjoy being together, resting or laughing or being quiet--whatever the day called for.   

Quinn: Patrick and I thought that is--that is good and right. We need to hold Sabbath more faithfully. And it was actually super hard for the first few years. They were our worst days of the week. I think we got more crabby and we wanted it to be the best, and then it wasn't. But as we practiced it, it just got better and better. And, so I, I think that rhythm just, it got me hooked. 

I'd say rhythms and rituals that we have in our house that felt really important, kind of came as we  thought about and had kids we were away from family. So we could kind of be creative and break tradition. Like, for instance, we want our kids to have a magical understanding of Christmas and what's going on with Jesus, and we don't want it to be centered around Santa, and we don't want to be curmudgeons. And so we just thought, well, Advent is a kind of forgotten season in a lot of ways, and so let's really hit Advent hard and make everything purple in the house. Because that's liturgical color and we're not going to have a Christmas tree all season. We're going to have an Advent tree. And let's make it purple, let's do a lot of buildup and let's detach the stockings from Christmas Eve and put it actually on Saint Nicholas Day on the sixth and teach about like, well, there is Santa, he's a distant relative of the real Saint Nick. And let's stuff it with fun stuff, but let's also go serve other people. Because that's actually the heart of Saint Nicholas. So Christmas morning could be detached from Santa, and our kids love gifts so they got one Christmas present a day for 12 days starting on Christmas. And they woke up to the Christmas tree being whole different colors and filled with all of our old decorations. And we do similar things at Easter. So I think kids helped me get to the heart of why we do things and I want them to be fun for me, too. 

Laura: I asked Quinn about the rhythms getting her and her family through this current season, that looks so different than what they’d planned.

Quinn: Our rhythms have been a bit messed up because of sabbatical and moving. For instance, like we would sit in our breakfast nook every morning and really have a very planned time over breakfast where we would be in the scriptures and probably drawing pictures that came to mind for the kids to help them kind of engage it. We would have our family values pretty front and center, so that we could have those in mind as we make decisions. All those are packed away right now. I have no idea where they are.

But the great thing is,when Patrick was hurt, the kids actually ran with it. I did not have the energy to decorate our house purple. And they were like, ah, where are the purple lights mom? And I was like, Oh, well you better go get him where, you know, where's this where's that where's the sale st. Nick's story. And I was like, well, you better tell me the same next story. And they just totally went for it. And so they've already adopted this ritual that now isn't run by me, you know, and they can kind of add their flavor. That for me is the power of ritual and how it keeps helping us along. Even when we're limping. Especially when we're limping, I should say.

When we were on sabbatical I kind of veered away from contemporary Christian music for a while. It just wasn't helping me. But the kids are like, singing along in the car, and they're the ones that are wanting to sing, and I think they're missing worship. I think it's because they miss Sunday morning worship, which is so rich with . . . I will have to say I just, I miss Sunday worship. Like, I mean, it is like a part of me is dead. I miss it. Oh, man. I just can't even . . . like I miss taking communion with everyone. I miss seeing each other's faces. There's something that happens when you will show up together in a sanctuary. It's not . . . I don't know. It's not magic, and it is not like a silver bullet, but it is definitely God's presence. 

Laura: Quinn named something I’ve been feeling for a while, but haven’t known how to put to words. Most Sundays we’ve been attending our Oakland church online. I’ve enjoyed watching from my couch in my pajamas, and it’s been nice to not have to go anywhere on a Sunday. But as the months have gone by, I’ve missed the rituals of church: taking the bread and the wine, greeting friends with hugs, hearing the voices all around me when I sing. I think Quinn is right. There’s something that happens when we gather with a shared purpose, when we’re opening ourselves to each other and to God. It’s a glimpse of what humanity is capable of. Yes, we can be awful to each other. We can be cruel, and make snap judgments about each other’s character. But we’re also capable of showing our wounds, and figuring out together how to heal them.

Quinn and I spoke just a couple of weeks after the one-year anniversary of Patrick’s accident. It was a hard anniversary. That one event changed everything.

Quinn:  I didn't know how to celebrate that day very well. I was actually kind of at a loss. I'm usually one who knows how to set rituals and make meaningful moments that kind of capture the grief and capture the celebration. I just could not come up with something. I believe he was spared. His life was definitely spared. And I realized that I didn't know if it was a day to celebrate or a day to mourn, because we just lost so much--and yet he's alive.

And so one of my brothers-in-law said, “this is the day that Patrick lived.”

And that really shifted my mindset, that it can be a day where we can mark how God has brought us thus far. And that is where I found my Christian faith does have a ritual that I can practice, that is as old as the beginning of the Old Testament, where they would build up those Ebenezers, they would grab rocks and mark by building a tower. Ebenezer means God has brought us thus far. And another friend of mine actually built one for us up at the location of Patrick's crash since we're not there anymore, and that helped me to realize I need to build one here. I now have my places of remembrance.

Laura: Of all of the things Quinn and I talked about, this one helped me the most, this idea of building places of remembrance--even when what we’re remembering is painful and complicated. “Ebenezer” is a bit of a mouthful, but if you’ve ever been on a hike and seen a cairn made from a pile of rocks by passing hikers, then you can imagine what Quinn is talking about. The cairn doesn’t tell you where you are on the trail--it’s not a GPS, or even a map. But it lets you know that you’re not lost. Someone’s been there before. It doesn’t tell you exactly where to go--but it tells you that you’re not alone. 

So today, as I look back on the first day of our journey, I’m building my place of remembrance.

That face off with the woman in Vegas was a day of great loss and shame--but it was also the day that our family lived, the day we decided to shake things up and set out on this journey instead of white-knuckling a life that wasn’t sustainable. 

I’ll conclude each episode of this season with an invitation--and also some outtakes to make you laugh if you listen all the way to the end. Today, my invitation is to build an Ebenezer--or if you like, a cairn. 

Maybe that means creating a new ritual that will remind you of the things that are most important to you. Maybe it’s reaching out to someone who’s feeling lost--some way of showing fellow travelers that they’re not alone. Maybe it means reframing a bad moment, like my incident in the Las Vegas parking lot, and seeing it as a chance to extend grace to the people around you instead of assuming the worst.

Whatever it is, I want to invite you to not just come up with an idea, but to attach that idea to a physical object--a stone you can carry in your pocket, or a ribbon you can tie on your key chain. Every time you see or feel or touch that object, call to mind your cairn, this place of remembrance that reminds you you’re still on the path. It might be just the thing you need to get you through the day.

Before I close, I want to thank a couple of our wonderful supporters.

Amy and Ed Uzynski, thank you for your lifelong work of mentoring athletes and introducing them to spiritual rhythms to live by, many of which I still carry with me today. Amy, from Wooddale to Athletes in Action to Shelter in Place, you’ve appeared in my life at key moments and encouraged me. Ed, your courage in leadership has inspired and challenged our family in this season, and your support and belief in this work have kept us going.

Becky and Tony Lai, you’ve shaped the character of our church for as long as you’ve been a part of it. From Becky’s standup comedy Sunday announcements to seminars on learning to be anti-racist, you are a huge part of why our love for Oakland runs so deep. Thank you for the work you’re doing to challenge and lead us and our community. Also, congrats on being the family that has never taken a bad photo. 

If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, I hope you’ll subscribe and share it with a friend. In our conversations with potential sponsors, the first thing they ask about is the number of downloads we get, so when you share this with others and ask them to subscribe, you move us a little closer to making this work sustainable. Rating and leaving a quick review about what you like about Shelter in Place helps others to find us. You can also follow us on Instagram and Facebook at shelterinplacepodcast, and on Twitter at laurajoycedavis. 

If you’re thinking, “hey, I’d like to get occasional emails from Laura,” you can sign up for our newsletter, find show notes and information about incredible sponsors Brick & Mortar and Delta Wines and Imagine Mindfulness, as well as ways to support the show at shelterinplacepodcast.info. We’d love to hear from you. 

In the next episode, we go back to the beginning, to the perfect storm that prompted us to set out on this journey. Make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss it!

The Shelter in Place music was created by Chase Horsman at Reaktor Productions. Nate Davis is our creative director, and Sarah Edgell is our design director.

Until next week, this is Shelter in Place. I’m Laura Joyce Davis.