My neighbor, Joe Eisenbraun, is an example of what can happen when one takes the notion of the Body of Christ seriously. What can happen, too, when one decides to stay put.
Joe’s parents, Dave and Deb, are friends and contemporaries; my wife and I knew Joe when he was—I’m sure he hates this—a baby. It’s a testament to the community of believers here in Old North, our neighborhood in St. Louis, that he has, for many years now, been our friend in his own right.
Joe, who writes songs (and records and performs them) has written a new one, called “Missouri,” which includes the lines “My heart’s full of these old red bricks / The boiler broke but my heart stayed lit.” It’s a love song, addressed to his wife Susannah, but also a tribute to the neighborhood’s nineteenth-century buildings, many of which are in terrible shape. Some of them have literally fallen, over the years, into the street. The song is a tribute to the patience of those, like his parents and himself, who restore such buildings and live in them, but also to those who have stayed in one place, come what may, and allowed themselves to be restored.
Our corner of the North Side mirrors, in significant ways, the world at large. It’s difficult, full of heartbreak, but also the ground on which we beseech God and learn his mercy. Jane and I watch Joe and Susannah bringing a garden to life in soil chock a block with brickbats and chunks of concrete, and are moved. We’re encouraged by these younger friends of ours, pray with them, mourn with them, give praise with them, acknowledge them as brother and sister in Christ.
One can’t always order one’s circumstances. Everyone’s story will be his own, her own. But staying put is not a bad idea. When we stay in one place, we make certain we’ll be known, which is sometimes nice, sometimes painfully revealing, but rich, almost always, beyond imagining.
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