In 2015, I was cast as Annelle (the Daryl Hannah role) in “Steel Magnolias” at a small Phoenix theater. The theater was located in the corner of a strip mall, but it felt like I was on Broadway. He, my Great Uncle Wiley, was in the audience!
Wiley was a giant of a man. A hunter, fisherman, golfer, business leader, and world-class uncle. As a little girl, growing up near them in Colorado, I was far more familiar with Aunt Alberta, his wife. My mom and I regularly went to their house to help her with housework. Afterwards, we sat at her kitchen table, enjoying gingersnaps and coffee.
My dad and my brothers, on the other hand, frequently went camping and fishing with Uncle Wiley. For days. They would leave with a camper full of lures, Vienna sausages, and English muffins, and return with tales of all they had caught and shot. I was proud to know Uncle Wiley, but it was always from the distant view of a wide-eyed girl with cookie crumbs on her plate. I loved him, but did not believe I could be of much interest to him. I was, after all, a girl.
In 2013, my husband, David, an Air Force pilot, got assigned to a base—and our next home—near Phoenix. We would live 90 minutes from Wiley’s retirement house. He was 94 at the time. Knowing we had only three years before the Air Force sent us elsewhere, we made it a point to spend time with the now widowed Wiley.
After several visits, I worked up the courage to invite Wiley to one of my plays. His “yes” became one of the most humbling experiences in my acting career. This esteemed and quite elderly hero entered my world for two hours, watched a staged “chick flick,” and stood outside smiling with me for a picture afterwards.
I asked him, “Could you hear me?”
“YOU WERE THE ONLY ONE I COULD HEAR!” he bellowed in his signature hard-of-hearing voice.
I felt so seen in that moment! His presence made a statement that no round-of-applause could ever compete with. He chose to come to me, in my world of stage lights and curtains.
Part of Your World
Years later, when David and I began fostering a little boy, it quickly became clear that our job was to enter his world. The deep dive into the realm of unfamiliar trauma drove me to hours of research (and prayer). As I dug deep, a phrase jumped at me. It became a plumbline throughout the journey.
“I can’t stop the rollercoaster, but I can ride it with you.”
Someone (whom I cannot remember) expressed that promise to each child she took into her home. And I have learned that a foster parent’s job is to enter that child’s hurricane of chaos and hold his or her hand in the midst of it.
Something mysterious and majestic happens when we choose to dive into someone else’s world. That plunge of, say, marriage, parenthood, true friendship, or other relational investments invites us to become subject to the same assaults and joys our partner faces. It is not Aladdin holding his hand out over a ledge saying, “Do you trust me?” It is a sacrificial presence that enters someone else’s world and says, “Your people will be my people.”
We all long for connection, to know and be known.
Is that why the Christmas story has captivated multitudes for thousands of years? What? God Almighty makes himself vulnerable by stepping into our world? Would he really subject himself to all that “being human” involves?
If an earthly uncle sitting in a folding chair in “my world” gives me butterflies, how do I even consider the God who surrendered all comfort and splendor to be folded into my life?
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