for building
He builds conversations out of her gratitude. Right now, while I write. I stop typing to listen, to respond, to touch him on the cheek.
He stands just a few inches shorter than me, all bright blue eyes and sun-drenched skin, so golden brown he looks warm to the touch. When he speaks with intention, his voice sounds deep. He carries Riley’s gratitude journals in his hands, hands still small enough to be delicate, hands still the hands of a boy despite the way his bones lengthen and broaden and change almost while I look at him. The pages of the books turn up at the edges, so well-worn that they feel soft, like old, tattered letters. He has searched them so many times the covers have fallen off, and yet, she still writes in the one, still intends to fill every blank space with her rainbow pens, writing down the things for which we give thanks. She calls them her thank-you’s, these careful, numbered lists she builds. She doesn’t even know she’s writing keys to open locks, that she’s writing bridges over which her brother speaks and connects and lives.
No one will find this in any communication how-to book. It’s not a therapy or a tried-and-true technique, but it’s the way Adam has chosen. Like the rest of us, Adam is industrious and resourceful. His time isn’t wasted or frivilous or always silly. During the day while the girls are at school, he works on things, trying to improve. He makes up his own projects. Whenever I’m not pulling him through learning some functional household duty, he practices relationship.
“Mommy, may I have some carrots please?” He asks, running a calloused finger along the soft page, tracing the cuves of Riley’s handwriting.
If I don’t immediately answer, if some thought or occupation has captured my attention, he will repeat himself until I respond.
“Mommy. May I have some carrots please?” He tilts his head, capturing my gaze with the light in his eyes.
Riley has written carrots. She’s thankful for carrots.
I turn to him, evaluating his commitment, measuring his expression. He never requests vegetables, but he’ll eat them.
“Mommy. May I have some carrots please?”
“Sure, Adam. You can have some carrots. Do you like big carrots or little carrots?” We have both.
“Big carr—no,no,no—little carrots,” he says, the tiniest smile curling the corners of his mouth.
“I like the little ones too. Do you think they’re sweet? Or not?”
“Carrots are sweet.”
“Yes, sometimes.”
“Mommy, may I have some carrots please?”
“Yes. You may have some carrots.” Clearly he wants a simple answer to the question.
So he turns on his heel and walks away, still carrying the worn book in one hand, protectively laying the other flat against the pages. I shift my attention back to the computer screen, sliding into a carved out space for writing. And in a moment, he returns, cradling a pile of carrots on a paper towel, with his PDM hanging from his wrist.
“How many carbs do I have,” he asks, balancing the PDM on his knee, one finger poised over the buttons.
“Zero. You don’t have to bolus for carrots,” I tell him, watching as he zips up the case.
He sits next to me, spreading out his thanksgiving feast on my desk. Earlier this morning, he cored and ate an apple. He followed that with a banana, all because she had written them, had offered them as thanks. I have to stop and smile at the way he sits with one long, brown leg drawn up in a chair he has pulled out from the table and carried here beside me. He crunches the carrots and his lips twist as though the experience is a bit of a surprise to him.
“Do you like the carrots?”
“Yes,” he says, although his face expresses something less than pleasant.
He finishes these carrots while I write, considering the shape of each one before he bites into it. I can see that he tests the texture, weighs the mass, watches the way his fingers must be arranged to hold each piece. Sometimes he experiments with the placement of his thumb. It occurs to me that he actually builds more than conversations around her thankfulness. He builds experience out of her lists.
He stands and makes a circuit around the room, twirling backward every few steps with the book held aloft in his hand. Then he stops next to me, running his finger down.
“Mommy, can I have some strawberries?” Ahh, we’ve moved on to fruits.
This one makes me chuckle. Adam finds most fruits, including strawberries, repulsive for their texture—the bumpy skin, the soft flesh, the excessive amount of juice. He doesn’t like a lot of wetness in his food, so much so that the first time I served him soup he tried to dry it with a paper towel.
“Sure, Adam. You can have some strawberries.” It surprises me when he returns with two strawberries from the refrigerator. I take him to the kitchen, show him how to wash them, how to pull off the green leaves. He takes tentative bites, tiny bits, but he eats the berries. And so we move through the afternoon. He tastes foods he would normally never eat. I teach him how to make himself a cup of chocolate milk. We discuss when it will be Memorial Day, Christmas, and Thanksgiving. He presses his finger over New York, Spain, and Equador on the globe. We talk about trips and vacations. He reaches into glass jars and touches sea glass and sea shells. These treasures rattle as he handles them, as he lets them fall through his fingers. And all this testing and tasting and learning and speaking he builds out of Riley’s gratitude, out of her lists of thank you’s, out of her daily, intentional, empty space-filling eucharisteo. He lives and breathes her thankfulness, smiling in the middle, practicing and tasting the words on his tongue. And so Riley’s gratitude builds a beautiful place in which her brother can connect and participate and learn, and it touches me deeply.
I can’t help but think that maybe this is why God has made our practiced testimony of thanks an admonishment and a command, instead of merely a suggestion. Maybe this is why He has offered us such clear instruction about what to say, because our testimony has the power to build, to create, to offer life: Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen (Ephesians 4:29); give thanks in all circumstances (1 Thessalonians 5:18); Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done (1 Chronicles 16:8). God has even drawn lines around the paths of our thoughts: whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things (Phil. 4:8), because the mouth speaks what the heart is full of (Luke 6:45). And the testimony of our lives can shape into or rip up.
It brings tears, the way my son’s life has been built up by my daughter’s endless thanksgiving, the way her gratitude offers him words, taste, and relationship. And I see, I feel, the way our eucharisteo throws clear and radiant Light on the presence of God’s blood-bought Kingdom, on the evidence of his redeeming power and grace right here and now, on enduring joy and hope which are neither pithy nor frivilous because they are, in fact, the solid, intentional sacrifice of self. Our practiced, intentional, daily thanksgiving reveals the presence of Christ. God shapes our grateful testimony into safe spaces for building and healing, into the carved out holy spaces that meet needs and offer grace. And so, our intentional testimony is an aggressive action, a choice, a fight. Eucharisteo doesn’t blindly ignore suffering and hardship, but rather actively chooses to proclaim God’s presence in the midst of these realities. It is the choice to build.
All this He presses into me, writing it into my soul through the day, as I watch my son move through a world made of thank you’s. The Spirit inspires me to wonder what would become of our living if we committed together to building Kingdom walls out of gratitude; if our offered testimony constructed paths out of praise; if we chose to construct whole lives out of witnessing and proclaiming Glory out loud, on paper, on our computer screens; if His accomplishments were the words written on our hearts and on the doorframes of our houses (Deuteronomy 6:8,9)? It’s a challenge I’m willing to take, a transformation over which I am willing to be yielded—to actively choose the testimony that builds—because I have witnessed it first hand, how the expressed gratitude of one soul can build a safe and stunning place in which another soul can heal and grow.
