Bathroom Stalls and Glory Beams
I saw a funny song parody on the internet this week that read: “When the moon hits your eye and it’s 5:45, that’s…daylight savings…”
I wish we could save daylight like coins. These early evenings drain us, make us rush to come home from school while the sun is setting. I find myself more attuned to light than any other time of year.
The other light that keeps popping up this time of year is that of a fire. Last week, our kids couldn’t play outside during recess because the mountains were burning over state lines. Our next door neighbors had a house fire in the same kitchen where there was an even worse fire five years ago. We gather around a bonfire, we watch cities blaze and light candles. Light and fire, fire and light— beautiful and destructive and strange.
This duo has circulated widely since 2020, maybe longer, and I wasn’t aware. You may have seen them on social media, in videos, and on merchandise. The toy store in our town sells earrings of the smiling dumpster. I sent a friend a “You’re a Dumpster Phoenix” sticker after a hard month. “Dumpster Fire” has become part of our vernacular, something we use to deflect actual helplessness and rage at political, environmental, social, institutional, and familial dysfunction. When the suffering keeps filling our newsfeeds and our eyes, we say, “what a dumpster fire…,” raise our eyebrows and shake our heads.
And then last week, I stumbled upon this in the women’s bathroom at church:
I was so struck I went out and got my phone to snap a picture. It arrested me some how, a burning bush of sorts, filled with things we’ve washed our hands of. It was a different kind of dumpster fire.
You see, this week feels like it holds a lot of garbage for some of us. For some of us, its being reminded of why we go to therapy when we are criticized by those who caused us hurt as children as we pass the gravy.
For some of us, it’s the first holiday without a particular loved one and that surges to the ceiling with pain.
For many of us, it’s wrestling with how do we celebrate abundance and gratitude when babies are being shipped across borders in tiny incubators, and at our border curses are spit on pilgrims.
It’s trying to separate genocide from Grandma’s sweet potato casserole, it’s preparing for Advent around the corner when nothing feels holy, it’s reckoning with burning forests, school systems, senators and sanctions.
This is my prayer for all of us staring at garbage this week, for all of us hoping to sense God’s presence amidst painful realities:
May we stop consuming and creating garbage out of our world so the fire wouldn’t have to blaze so brightly to be noticed. May we call to account those who lit the fires and keep them burning (even if we’re implicated). May we have courage to sift through rubble and make some sense out of it so it won’t last forever.
And also…
Instead of just dumpster fires, may we name places that burn as hellish, yes, but also holy—places where there can be beauty, where we can hear God’s voice in unexpected ways, and where hope can stir where it seems like there’s only trash.
May you be arrested this week by aching beauty, by surprising light, and by the Image of God shining forth where we least expect it.
