Monthly Archives: August 2023

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Diamond Cutters

Diamonds form below the Earth’s surface in molten rock under specific amounts of extreme heat and pressure. Their resulting molecular structure makes them the hardest known mineral in the world, so a diamond can only be scratched by another diamond. In their natural state, however, diamonds are rough stones that require processing to become a sparkling, gift-worthy gem. The task of crafting that gem falls to a diamond cutter. 

Many choices go into the diamond cutter’s work: whether to cut the stone to a manageable size by cleaving it along its weakest plane, by sawing it with a rotating blade, or by utilizing a laser. Whichever method is chosen, the process is time-consuming and demands that the diamond cutter decide which part of the diamond will become the table (the flat top with the largest surface area) and which will become the girdle (the outside rim at the greatest point of diameter). The cutter then uses other diamonds to hand cut the diamond to the desired shape and to create the girdle’s rough finish. Finally, he or she uses a wheel and an abrasive diamond powder to smooth the diamond and create a finished look.

Last week marked the tenth anniversary of this blog, a platform I created to capture our infant twins’ adoption story as it unfolded, but which ultimately became a space to reflect upon and share a variety of stories over this past decade of life. In the end, not only have the experiences I captured transformed me, but the process of reflecting on and writing them has as well. My hope in sharing them is always that perhaps each one touches and, in some small way, transforms at least one of the people who take the time to read them. 

As I reflected on this milestone in my own writing journey this past week, I also had the privilege of participating in a Q&A  Session with Esau McCaulley about his forthcoming book How Far to the Promised Land: One Black Family’s Story of Hope and Survival in the American South. Listening to Esau share the decisions he made about what to include and not include in his book, I was struck by the similarities between the craft of memoir writing and the craft of diamond cutting. 

Like a diamond cutter, an author who writes of his or her personal journey begins with a vast amount of naturally-occurring raw material. Each person, event, and experience in a writer’s life is a part of his or her quarry of stones. How does a memoir writer even know where to begin? 

Diamonds are one of three forms of carbon, which is both “one of the most common elements in the world and is one of the four essentials for the existence of life.” Just as the raw material of a diamond is brought to the surface and transformed by a diamond cutter into something exquisite, so are the events of a life in the hands of an author. The choices made during that extensive process affect the value of the gem produced.

I eagerly pre-ordered Esau’s book last winter when the release date was first announced, and when the invitation was later extended to join his launch team, I quickly responded. Esau has long been one of the most respected voices to which I turn for a thoughtful, biblically-sound response to the issues of social and racial justice that pervade our nation. I knew Esau as a young seminary graduate where he served in a church our family attended immediately after our move to Virginia. His wife Mandy was our children’s primary care physician during her three-year pediatric residency at the naval hospital near our home.  

Because of my respect for Esau as a writer and theologian, the snippets of knowledge I had from social media of his family’s experiences after leaving Virginia, and my love for memoir as a literary genre, I anticipated an enjoyable and engaging read. What I experienced, however, was so much more.

I have written previously of the power of story and have made a personal vow to follow the advice that Farah Jasmine Griffin’s father gave her to “read until you understand.” In an effort to understand as much about the experience of others as I can possibly grasp, I have read memoirs by Anthony Ray Hinton, Jr., Wes Moore, Viktor Frankl, Frederick Douglass, Michelle Obama, Brandon P. Fleming, Alicia Appleman-Jurman, Harriet Jacobs, Ian Manuel, Elie Wiesel, Michelle Kuo, and many others. Each has profoundly affected me in its own way; however, Esau uniquely crafted his memoir in ways that provided me new and deeper levels of understanding and reflection.

Diamonds are judged on four factors that determine their beauty. The first factor is the cut, which is determined by the cutting process described above and the resulting facets and shape of the finished diamond. A diamond’s clarity is a measurement of its flaws or inclusions. Its weight is measured in carats, and its color ranges from yellow to icy white, which is the most transparent and most expensive. In addition, a diamond’s luster and dispersion of light, though not one of the four factors, also contribute to its beauty and worth.

As the diamond cutter of his story, Esau’s choice of cut laid the foundation for the entire book. Rather than the more common, narrow focus typical of most memoir (and powerful in its own right), Esau had a pivotal experience that helped him see the need to write about “the community and family that shaped me—the people normally written out of such stories—and how the struggle in each life to find meaning and purpose, regardless of its outcome, has a chance to teach us what it means to be human.” He wrote his story along with that of his mother, his father, his grandparents, and numerous other family and community members in what is ultimately a wider yet deeper picture of his own life and especially the interconnectedness of all lives.

In crafting his story, Esau digressed from the work of a traditional diamond cutter who would seek to minimize flaws and inclusions for the sake of clarity. A diamond may be more valuable the closer it is to perfection, but clarity in a powerful story is achieved through the transparent inclusion of the underside of life—the parts that we often hide but actually need to examine, to understand, and sometimes to act upon. Esau took the risk of sharing some incredibly difficult and flawed aspects of the people of whom he wrote, including himself, and in doing so provided a powerful opportunity for his readers to both understand and be understood. I could not list the number of connection points offered in the twelve chapters of this book, but I would dare to say that I believe its story will resonate in some way with anyone who reads it.

The weight of Esau’s story is significant. As the story of a black family in the American South, how can it be anything but heavy? As I write this, news has broken of a racially-targeted mass shooting in Jacksonville, Florida—a place that both my family and the McCaulleys have called home. We need this story and many others like it. We need a nation that encourages reading and discussing these stories. Most of all, we need the transformation and action that can come from understanding the intricacies of people, especially those who are targeted in crimes such as the one in Jacksonville—and yes, even those who commit them.

Esau observed, in the chapter on his marriage, that his own marriage and more broadly, any interracial marriage, “is not about racial reconciliation in America; that is too much weight for anyone to bear.” The same could be said about this memoir. It is a weighty story of one family over a period of specific times and places. It cannot carry the burden or promise of solving the issues it brings to light, but it can offer to take each reader a step closer on his or her journey of understanding. As someone who has been deliberately pursuing her own understanding, I received from Esau’s diamond crafting an entirely a new vantage point from which to see, not only an individual but, “the story of a people.” And as the subtitle of the book states, it is both a survival story AND a story of incredible hope. Reading it evoked a full range of emotions in me from sorrow to laughter, from outrage to respect. I laughed, I cried, I raged, I learned, and ultimately, I was transformed a degree more by the experience.

The most expensive diamond is transparent. Writing this memoir had to be costly for Esau and his family, but the result is a multifaceted, brilliant gem with immense value to the reader. Part of the power of his narrative is that while it offers redemptive hope and forgiveness, it acknowledges the cost of trauma…the message that is often avoided yet most needed in areas of any type of reconciliation, whether racial, social, or personal. His story not only moved me closer to understanding, it gave me a new vantage point from which to see and understand ALL stories, including my own. It encouraged me as a writer to continue crafting my own diamonds out of the molten rock of my own experiences and to do so with thoughtful intention to the cut, the inclusions, and the clarity with which I share.

The dispersion of light is not considered one of the four main factors on which a diamond’s beauty is judged. Dispersion occurs when white light passes through a prism and splits into its spectrum of colors—what we know as the colors of the rainbow. The very best stories are those that can be held up and examined so that the light hits them in a myriad of ways from multiple angles and perspectives. That light reveals truth about the subjects of the stories, their authors, and those who hear them. But in a truly powerful story, that light will be dispersed and the story will transform all who encounter it—the writer, the reader, and the world in which they live—perhaps even such that white light is seen for the spectrum of color it truly is. 

Write on, diamond cutters.

(Information on diamond cutting retrieved from How Stuff Works.)

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Who’s the GOAT?

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When you hear the question, “Who’s the GOAT?” What comes to mind?

Perhaps if you are a basketball fan, you think of Michael Jordan?…a concert lover, Taylor Swift?…a football buff, Tom Brady?

Arguments about the GOAT—Greatest Of All Time—span every context imaginable, from the sports field to the courtroom, from the theater to the boardroom. So how does one achieve GOAT status? Even Jesus’s disciples considered the question. In his gospel, Luke records that “[a]n argument arose among [the disciples] as to which of them was the greatest” (Luke 9:46, ESV).

The events leading up to that moment provide interesting context for their argument. The day before the argument took place, Jesus and three of his disciples had experienced the transfiguration. Peter was so enamored by the magnificence he encountered on the mountain that he suggested setting up camp there. Luke tells us that as they descended the mountain the next day, they were met by a great crowd. A man in the crowd shouted, begging for Jesus to look at his son, who was seized by a spirt that mauled him and caused him to foam at the mouth. The father told Jesus, “I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” After exclaiming his frustration with a “faithless and perverse generation,” Jesus “rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father” (v. 42). Luke tells us that “all were astounded at the greatness of God” (v. 43). In the midst of that amazement, Jesus told his disciples of his impending betrayl, but “they did not understand this” and were afraid to ask Jesus about it. Instead, this “argument arose among them concerning which one of them was greatest” (v. 46). While no direct correlations are made in Scripture, the disciples were clearly enamored by and focused on greatness while also struggling to be effective in their healing ministry and even to understand the One who had empowered them for it.

Jesus recognized their struggle, resolved their argument, AND definitively answered humankind’s ongoing argument about who is the GOAT:

“But Jesus, knowing the reasoning of their hearts, took a child and put him by his side and said to them, ‘Whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. For he who is least among you all is the one who is great’” (Luke 9:47-48, ESV).

So into the disciples’ argument, with actions and words, Christ spoke five truths:

When we seek greatness, God knows.

The least are brought closest to Christ.

Receive the least and you receive Christ.

Receive Christ and you receive the Father.

The least among us is greatest.

Luke did not describe the disciple’s reactions to Jesus’s resolution of their argument, but it was likely revolutionary to them. Like us, they had their ideas about greatness and clearly wanted to be the GOAT themselves. Fortunately, in his gospel Matthew also recorded Jesus’ insights related to GOAT status as He taught his disciples on the Mount of Olives:

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me’” (Matthew 25:31-40, ESV).

Christ’s response to our focus on or pursuit of greatness is to seek out the least among us, instruct us to receive the least, and declare that when we serve the least, we serve Him. Four times in Luke 9:48, Jesus repeats the word receives: “Whoever receives this child in my name, receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. For he who is least among you all is the one who is great.” The Greek word which translated “receives” is “déchomai,” which means “to take with the hand; not to refuse friendship; to receive into one’s family; to receive of the thing offered in speaking, teaching, instructing.”

What does this look like?

In his book The Power of the Powerless: A Brother’s Legacy of Love, author and teacher Christopher De Vinck shared the story of growing up with his brother Oliver who suffered severe brain damage caused by a gas leak that occurred during his mother’s pregnancy and left Oliver completely dependent for his entire life—unable to see, talk hold his head up, or hold anything in his hand. De Vinck described his parents’ response to the doctor’s diagnosis of Oliver’s condition:

When our children are in pain, we try to heal them. When they are hungry we feed them. When they are lonely we comfort them.

‘What can we do for our son?’ my parents wanted to know.

Dr. De Lange said that he wanted to make it very clear to both my mother and father that there was absolutely nothing that could be done for Oliver. He didn’t want my parents to grasp at false hope.

‘You could place him in an institution.’

‘But,’ my parents answered, ‘he is our son. We will take Oliver home, of course.’

The good doctor said, ‘Then take him home and love him’” (p.11).

De Vinck then shared the influence his parents’ decision had on his life:

“Oliver still remains the most hopeless human being I ever met, the weakest human being I ever met, and yet he was one of the most powerful human beings I ever met.

As a teacher, I spend many hours preparing my lessons, hoping that I can influence my students in small, significant ways. Thousands of books are printed each year with the hope that the authors can move people to action. We all labor at the task of raising our children, teaching them values, hoping something ‘gets through’ to them after all our efforts.

Oliver could do absolutely nothing except breathe, sleep, eat, and yet he was responsible for action, love, courage, insight.

For me, to have been brought up in a house where a tragedy was turned into a joy, explains to a great degree why I am the type of husband, father, writer and teacher I have become” (p. 12).

Near the end of his book, De Vinck reflected, “Looking at [Oliver], I saw the power of powerlessness. His total helplessness speaks to our deepest hearts, calls us not merely to pious emotions but to service. Through this child, I felt bound to Christ crucified—yes, and to all those who suffer in the world. While caring for Oliver, I also felt that I ministered in some mysterious way, to all my unknown brothers and sisters who were and are, grieving and in pain throughout the world. So through Oliver, I learned the deepest meaning of compassion’” (p. 87-88).

The lives of two of my friends share similarities with Oliver’s: Joy and Collin. Joy was adopted by my friends, the Jacob family, when she was four years old. Soon after, she was diagnosed with a rare disease, and her family was told she would only live about another year. Two weeks ago, Joy passed away peacefully at the age of eleven, more than double her life expectancy. No one in Joy’s life lived under those or any other expectations, however, and as Joy’s neurologist shared with the family after she passed, “She exceeded my expectations in every way and showed me that love can carry a child beyond what science tells us.”

I attended Joy’s Celebration of Life this weekend where the sanctuary was filled with images of her beautiful smile, sounds of her laughter and the songs she loved, and the people who had cared for her day-to-day needs proclaiming that what they received from Joy was far more than they gave. Her mother, my friend J.J., shared with me, “It still just blows my mind how many people were impacted by Joy–quadriplegic, non-verbal, severe intellectual challenges, in addition to all of her medical challenges. It all humbles me. God used Joy to change lives. How can I think that God can’t use me?” 

Just a few miles away from the home where Joy lived, Collin lives with his mom, dad, and sister. Collin suffered a traumatic brain injury at birth that left him completely dependent on others. He was not expected to live to be a year old. Instead, thanks to the loving care of his family, who also ignored expectations, Collin is finishing his second decade of life—a life that led my friend Dianna, his mother, to not only receive and serve her son despite his significant needs, but to learn from him that everyone has a song. Dianna has devoted her life to arts inclusion—teaching voice and musical theater to the most accomplished students at the Governor’s School as well as to individuals who are nonverbal like Collin. Dianna’s Vocal Inclusion studio is based in her home so that her son can always be surrounded by music. Through her work, students of all abilities—including my own—are given the best stages and the most notable audiences with which to share their songs. 

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