Stepping over the mess

Last week, it snowed in Nashville, paralyzing the city.  Schools were cancelled, even before the first flakes arrived, and remained closed for two days.  No more than three inches of snow lay on the ground.

Nashville takes a holistic, organic and totally natural approach to snow removal.  They just wait for it to melt.  Sure enough, within two days of the storm, only traces were left.  And within four days, we had a full weekend of 65 degree weather.

We moved here from Chicago, where the deep winter months were appropriately labeled.   In the winter, our driveway was often bordered by a snow-lined canyon back to the garage.

In the town where we lived, overnight snowfall -- no matter how much -- was mandated to be removed from your portion of sidewalk by 8 a.m., so that the children could walk to school -- which they did, no matter how frigid the temperature. Early in the morning, before leaving for work, neighbor helped neighbor, armed with shovels and snowblowers.   

Please know that in that part of the country, boots are not worn as a fashion statement.  They are a necessity.

To make things even more complicated, it takes an Olympic athlete to navigate the huge residual pile of snow left behind by the plow, both at the end of the driveway and at intersections.  If you wanted  so much as to walk down the sidewalk in January and February, you had to step over often knee-deep burial mounds of snow where sidewalk meets street to proceed on your way. How in the world do I get to the other side of that?

Choose to let a little snow limit you.  Or choose to step over it.  That's just the way of life there.  Unlike Nashville, it is not going to melt any time soon.

I thought about those icy, dirty, messy road blocks when I read this piece, written many years ago by Henri Nouwen.

We can choose to be stuck.  Or not.

"Sometimes we have to "step over" our anger, our jealousy, or our feelings of rejection and move on. The temptation is to get stuck in our negative emotions, poking around in them as if we belong there. Then we become the "offended one," "the forgotten one," or the "discarded one." Yes, we can get attached to these negative identities and even take morbid pleasure in them. It might be good to have a look at these dark feelings and explore where they come from, but there comes a moment to step over them, leave them behind and travel on."

Nouwen knew getting over to the other side is not a matter of ignoring reality, but grasping the reality of forgiveness.  Not plow through and leave a wake of destruction, but step over with intentional healing.

A tough situation from years ago rose to the surface of my thoughts quite suddenly the other day.  I could almost see a tribe of fears, complete with oversized baggage, lining up at my front door.  I had no intention of going back through that situation, no need to dwell in that dark place.

Already forgiven, I reminded myself out loud. Let it rest.


The circumstances so many years ago did not change.  But my heart had.  

Forgiveness is one of the few places in the Bible
where God instructs us to "go first."

Forgiveness is how imperfect people
love each other,
   not in a Hallmark card kind of way,
but in the real blizzard conditions of life.
Not just the natural disasters,
the "not my fault" debacles,
      but even the messes I myself create.

Ask to be forgiven,
forgive others,
accept that God has forgiven you,
step over the situation,
                     and travel on.

The truth is:  You are not stuck.
You are not enslaved by it,
       nor buried alive.
You are forgiven.

That is the way to the other side.