A Broken Place

This past week has been eye-opening. It is not as if I have ever thought myself immune from being exposed to the ugly side of life, in fact there have been times when I have placed myself firmly in them, but it is when you feel safest that it is so startling.

We left northern Florida nearly six years ago to make a new, independent start to our lives. I think we both felt hampered in Tallahassee. It is a great town, nice people, and a safe place, but it was a town where people trying to build a career can struggle. We both wanted more opportunity, so we set a goal for where we wanted to be and went there.

I took a job in Nashville and we settled in Franklin, TN. It's a great place. We have a great church, schools are great, access to all a major city has to offer, but the security of a small town where you know everyone. It is a place where we have community, a place where friends take care of each other, and a place where strangers will stop and help you change a tire. A place where professionals and music stars co-mingle and raise their families.

All that Franklin offers is what attracted us. It is ideal, even idealistic, particularly for us. Great schools for the kids, great community for our family, and professional opportunities. Being a professional and musician, I find that I get great connections to other young professionals and get exposed to some great pro musicians. We are truly blessed to be here.

It is all of this that makes days like this particulary tough. Sure, it isn't perfect here, but it's not a place where you find yourself exposed to a lot of the ugliness of the world. Yet, here we are, looking back at an ugly week where two people we have associations with have died. Seemingly senseless things; things that just don't happen in our ideal little world.

To bring it even closer, these weren't just people in our town, but people in our church. People in direct community with us. A person I have played bass alongside, husband of Shelly's friend; a girl who is a friend of a friend's daughter, who the kids have played with in the nursery. Not my best friends, not even people I consider friends; nonetheless difficult to deal with.

Things like this do not happen here. Things like this are not what I signed up for. Things like this are what I came to protect my kids from... or are they?

This world, no matter how much we insulate ourselves, is a place where things happen. Good things, bad things, just things. No matter what I do I can't avoid it. No matter how much I try to make it better, the reality is we'll never make it better on our own.

I guess the reality of this brings home the point... Maybe I have tried too hard to insulate myself. These are the things we have to know happen in the real world. These are the things that make us so aware of our condition. That is right, our condition. It is not something we can run from, but it is part of the human condition.

This is a wake-up call from the rest of the world. A wake-up call that says we can't insulate ourselves from the world because the world still creeps in. A wake-up call that says we can't make the world be like us because the world, even our little microcosm, is irrepairably broken. A wake-up call that says start in the community and work outward to spread Good News, through good works, through good words, through good counsel, through love for one another. It is a wake-up call that says bad things happen everywhere, wrap-up the needing and hurting with love.

It is a time to remember, even though I cannot change what was, I can be there for what is. It is a time to remember this is still the world, and I still have to show that there is a greater love than simply what this world offers, everyday.

Andy