These days, I’ve lapsed on most of the things that identified me as an English major. When people ask me for book recommendations, I give an answer that was likely in vogue two years ago. I feel a bit like a fraud when I list writing among my hobbies. When someone wandered into the gaming discord server I frequent and asked eloquently, “heyg uys [sic] how do i analyse a poem,” I panicked. I was literally trained for this, and I spouted something about imagery. I was ashamed of myself.
One thing that has stuck with me, so deeply rooted that I didn’t realize it until I mentioned it off-handedly to a friend, is the poem “The Star Market” by Marie Howe. Most of you have probably read it before, but listen to Tracy K. Smith read it aloud again.
Going to the grocery store at times feels like the closest I get to seeing people bare. It somehow breaks down all the pretenses: we trade quarters; we bleed; we pick up dropped pacifiers for strangers’ children. Most of the time as I glance past other shoppers, the opening line from Howe echoes in my head: “The people Jesus loved were shopping at The Star Market yesterday.”
It feels like a prayer, a reminder that these people too are loved by the God I profess to believe in. These people are the ones who live in my city, who are stocking up on staples, sneaking an extra bag of chips, buying frozen patties for the kids, getting a cheap bottle of wine for a girl’s night. These are the people I too am trying to love.
Jesus must have been a saint, I said to myself.
I think there are times, some Sunday mornings, when my church gets this vibe. We drop the pretense, declare the “day off for the able-bodied.” Our whole thing is being a hospitable neighborhood church, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot as I worked on revising our mission statement, as I have fixed up our website, as I’ve been working on getting our community house off the ground again.
I’ve been trying to live it out, that neighborhood hospitality thing. I spent Halloween on the stoop of my next-door neighbor, who had set up a fire pit and speakers and was handing out cans of soda to the kids as they went by. He told me about Halloweens growing up where people set up a whole rig—barbeque grills, drinks, games—and he wanted to do something for his neighborhood like that, tonight. He had posted an ad on Facebook in the local group, and it worked. In previous years, I hadn’t given out any candy; this year, I was almost out of my seventy-five piece bag.
This neighbor had helped out earlier in the year when my church had some Calvin freshmen for Streetfest—he brought out his yard clippers and weed-whacked between our two houses. We said polite hellos and exchanged numbers. On Halloween, I learned he had a record collection and an adorable Boston terrier and enough church trauma to steer clear of organized religion.
I want so deeply to love the people around me. I am trying hard, alongside my church, to love my literal neighbors. Sometimes it is joyous and it clicks, like that night on the stoop, and other times it feels like what the speaker of the poem feels: “as if The Star Market / had declared a day off for the able-bodied, and I had wandered in / with the rest of them: sour milk, bad meat.” I feel like how I do in the grocery store: the want to step away from the heaviness, to turn into myself, retreat back to my life where I have it all together.
This poem has ingrained itself so deeply in me, though, because I understand all its roiling emotions: the feeling of being better than others around you, the urge to step back when life is too close in your face, the dawning realization that you, too, are the downtrodden, broken by people looking down on you.
If I touch only the hem of his garment, one woman thought, I will be healed.
Could I bear the look on his face when he wheels around?
I have always been the upright, goody-two shoes, Christian perfect girl. But more and more, I am finding myself at the end. I am one of the people in the grocery store, laid bare in my yoga pants and sweatshirt, worrying over how much this run will cost me. I am a neighbor, letting my leaves blow to the other side of the street. I am a church member, uncertain what the future of my church looks like between the dwindling savings funds and the hard line of the CRC denomination, telling us to either repent of what we are not sorry for or to get out. I am vulnerable. I am one of the people Jesus loves. Can I bear being one of the feeble, the lame, the decaying? Do I have enough to keep trying to love us?
Alex Johnson (‘19) is a virtual computer science teacher and a proud resident of Grand Rapids. When she’s not brainstorming the newest project to inflict on her students, she’s cooking semi-vegetarian food, reading too many romance books, and playing rhythm games.
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This hit me hard today. Much needed perspective check. Thank you.