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A Few Words from Pastor Bryan
...and Jefferson Gineau
So my contribution Wednesday to Tcheki's birth experience was to have 20 month old Jefferson with me for the day after dropping Tcheki and Jeffrey off at Meriter hospital at 9 a.m. where Joan Jacobsen met them and helped them find their way at the hospital.
To be honest, I was a bit nervous about how Jefferson would do for a day without his mom and dad, and especially his mom. For a number of reasons (some of which are just the fact that he's a 20 month year old who is VERY attached to his mama!), Jefferson really does not like being away from Tcheki. Tuesday afternoon I did my best to take care of Jefferson at the hospital while Tcheki and Joan met with the OB doctor, and to put it mildly, Jefferson wasn't having it. It didn't help that I had to wear a mask. Maybe he didn't know who I was. But he screamed non-stop the whole time and would not be consoled. So I was wondering if that's how Wednesday would go.
But instead, Wednesday went so beautifully that I just had to share two parts of it with you that I think I will probably always remember.
First. As you may recall, Jefferson and his mom and dad lived with me for the month of September while they were waiting for their apartment to be renovated in prep for them moving in. When Jefferson walked into my house on Wednesday morning, he got into my living room and then stopped suddenly and started pointing at things and getting all animated. Then he all of a sudden turned and looked at me. I can't quite describe the look on his face, but it was clear that he suddenly recognized me. He looked at me, and at the house that he'd known as a home a few months ago, and his expression just relaxed. And then a huge smile broke out on his face, and he reached out his arms to me and wanted me to pick him up. When I did, he wrapped his arms around my neck, snuggled in tight for a hug, and then planted a big kiss on my cheek. It was kind of like he was saying, "Oh--you're that guy--the one I was at home with before. I know you. This is okay." The whole feeling was as though he just knew he was safe and secure, and that everything was going to be fine. And of course it was.
That feeling of recognition--"re-cognition"--knowing again--that Jefferson exuded at my house with me hit me on a metaphorical level. It's that sense of knowing where we are and who we are. Maybe even more importantly, of knowing whose we are. To me, that's what being in close relationship with God feels like. When I'm feeling somehow lost or disconnected or detached from my True Self, when the reconnection with God and my True Self happens, my heart feels exactly like Jefferson's smile. It's kind of like finding Home again.
But then the second thing that happened was just as moving to me. We went downstairs to my basement where I have a fire place. I had to burn the palm leaves from last year's Palm Sunday in order to create the ashes for that night's Ash Wednesday service (Jefferson tried to blow out the flames to no avail). But in my basement, I have a full length mirror. Jefferson walked in front of the mirror, turned and saw himself, and it was obvious that he was stunned. I could tell that he wasn't quite sure who the boy in the mirror was at first. He stared in silence. Then he looked at me. I said, "It's you Jefferson. That's Jefferson in the mirror." Then, without saying a word, he walked slowly up to the mirror and started kissing himself in the mirror. He must have done it 15 times. I have the lip marks on my mirror to prove it!
As you can see above, I had to take a picture of it. But to be honest, I was fighting back the tears as I did. It felt like a holy moment, and I thought to myself, yes, Jefferson. Keep loving yourself like that. Don't ever stop cherishing and delighting in the person you see in the mirror. You are a perfect, beloved child of God and you are valuable and worthy of being treated with dignity and compassion. Don't ever forget that. Because this world can be harsh as you already know, and it can be hard to remember who you truly are.
I thought about Jefferson being an immigrant without U.S. citizenship. Tcheki and Jeffrey and I filled out the birth certificate information at the hospital this morning for Tyrell. It was not lost on us that he's the only one in the family who is a U.S. citizen. If that bill everyone is arguing about in congress these days IS passed, it will be next to impossible for Tcheki and Jeffrey to win their asylum case, and the process for deportation will be more swift and less compassionate than ever. This whole family could be rapidly deported back to Haiti.
Tcheki and Jeffery are not unaware of the tone of the conversation about immigration in our country at the moment. What a heartache it must be to hear the way people talk about immigrants, as if they are all drug runners or dangerous threats to our society, or freeloaders who want to sit around and drain our public resources without giving anything back in return. What nonsense.
So, Jefferson, as far as I'm concerned, you've always got a home with me. And with our little church filled with people who see you and who will love you and your family and honor your humanity and your identity as a child of God. As we sing on the first Sunday of every month when we celebrate birthdays at church, "No matter what this world says, says or thinks about you, you are a child, you are a child of God..."
And I don't think I'll ever wash your kisses off my basement mirror.
Thanks for blessing us with your holy presence Jefferson... and I hope you enjoy your little brother.
See you in church soon I hope everyone,
Pastor Bryan
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