The season of Lent feels like a momentary pause — a time when our alleluias cease so that we may reflect on the already but not yet. It is a reminder of our impermanence and our frailty. But more significantly, Lent tells us that Christ dwells in the midst of our finite lives. And perhaps, Jesus’ steady presence among the shaky unknowns is enough for us to trust that we are not alone.

Taylor Harris, in her beautiful memoir entitled This Boy We Made, weaves together her struggle with painful anxiety and her experiences of remarkable grace. Harris’ narrative is a captivating look at what it means to be a Black mother — dealing with racism, unknown diagnoses, and faith — in the heart of Charlottesville, Virginia. Taylor Harris draws her readers in as she reflects on a particular moment with her son — what she concludes is a great reminder for this Lenten season:

The two of us would walk along the student gardens, up and down small sets of concrete stairs, and over to the green space between hills perfect for late-night collegiate sledding. He’d climb up by himself, first onto the wooden bench, then from the bench to the picnic table top. I would just watch, no matter that I was there. This wasn’t about me, though I wondered if the distance was too great, if he could break one of those skinny shins. He’d walk to one end, like a trained diver, lining up his Velcro Pumas, then bend his knees in straight-leg jeans. He’d squat there, sometimes bouncing, as he collected his nerve and considered the drop. But always, he lifted off. I have a shot of him like this, flying, his arms stretched behind his back, curls covering his head, eyelashes long and dark, cheeks full, lips puckered as he looks down. A boy flying in his hoodie. With his legs bent at forty-five degrees, he hands, for one piece of one second, far above his shadow, a slender and distorted version of himself that never leaves the ground.

Here we were, the two of us. One of us flying. The other not quite grounded, trying to make a worthy life in this liminal space of limited knowledge and unlimited unknown. He had always been my son, had always been himself. It was my job to let him be, to help him be, to strip the world apart like a papier-mache globe and build it back up again by the time his feet landed.

Who is this boy Paul and I made? At age three, he was skinny legs tucked into Velcro shoes, the owner of a dimple I could hide in, the boy whose bed I crawled toward in the middle of the night in order to press my face into the floor at his side and pray. He still makes me remember the fragility of our bodies today. And God, how he presses his face into us, unafraid of our breath, tears, and dust. If God is the one who was, and is, and is to come, then he knows all too well the betwixt and between. It does not mean he will arrive in the big boat with the doctors and save me, save Tophs, but it means he is not merely a distant icon of the past or future. 

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