Befriending Deconstruction

Friendship, tracks becoming trails, and the work of all things being made new

Sep 15, 2025

a train track in the middle of a wooded area — Photo by MChe Lee on Unsplash

On Tuesday mornings, I walk with my friend Sandy.

The little city trail we walk on was built where a railroad track used to be. It’s still fairly new, but, as witnessed on our regular jaunts, it’s become a bright staple for many in our little city. Our weekly, almost 5 mile walk, is our time to catch up, laugh, collect blisters, and rage or celebrate in-person. I put this time in my schedule and have it blocked out as unavailable most weeks. I wouldn’t have done that a few years ago. However, in the last few years, both of our schedules and lives have shifted to make this possible in ways it wasn’t before. In addition to that, I have personally shifted in ways that have motivated me to make this weekly time possible in ways I wasn’t as motivated to do before.

I now see this weekly walk with my dear friend in a new light: essential for my soul and a grounding gift to be able to receive.

Friendship, like faith journeys, are all-too-easy to take for granted. Ironically, friendship and faith journeys that last are also really hard to come by. Any lasting friendship and/or faith journey will likely endure varied seasons and cycles of deconstruction and reconstruction. Sometimes both things are even happening at the same time in different areas of our lives.

Deconstruction has become a dirty word in some Christian circles, and a defining label of pride in other Christian circles. But beyond a disgraced description to fear, or an exclusive club to arrive at, it’s a natural word that describes a necessary process. We’d all benefit so much from by being able to talk openly about it.

When Sandy and I first became friends years ago, we had tiny kids. We got together for playdates and chased our kids around while drinking coffee. We’ve gone through seasons where we shared the same faith community, and seasons when we didn’t. Our families grew and changed over time. If our friendship was founded on being moms of tiny toddlers, it would’ve only lasted that season. If our friendship was based on the church we first met at and served alongside of each other at, it would’ve died when we both left that building. If our friendship was based upon the small group we shared for a time, or other friends we had in common, or having everything in common from hobbies to opinions to how we educate our kids, it might not have lasted. It would be dishonest to say we don’t continue to share in a good number of things and both celebrate and rage over a long list of similar things… and yet, those things aren’t what have kept our friendship, and a lot of those things we’ve grown into together, over time. Our friendship has been a gift from God and one that we’ve worked to maintain through many shifts and cycles through construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction.

Friendship, like faith journeys and everything else in nature and life, are healthiest when they can flow from construction to deconstruction and reconstruction, and on and on again. As a side note, while those changes and movements can go through loud and dramatic shifts, they aren’t always that way. Sometimes we move through these transitions in subtle, gentle ways.

I see cycles of construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction all around me from watching the trees in my backyard, to the way cities are built and rebuilt, to family systems, friendships, faith communities, and the cycles of my body and spiritual journey: everything is constantly moving in this circular rhythm and I believe we are meant to move with it.

Things to consider and reflect on

Look outside. What season of deconstruction and reconstruction are your trees in right now?
Think about your own spiritual life, community, and neighborhood and the transitions they are in.
What things in and around you are being built for the first time?
What needs care, or attention, or perhaps even deconstruction or re-imagination so that it can continue to stretch and grow and thrive?
What stories of construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction are unfolding and forming in you and all around you?
What stories of deconstruction and reconstruction are you resisting out of fear and what are you afraid to lose?
What scares you or gives you hope about deconstruction?
What scares you or gives you hope about reconstruction?

While walking on the trail last week, I marveled at how full it was with people biking, walking, and running. People of all ages and demographics enjoy its presence in our city today. I remembered how upset some people were when it was announced that the railroad tracks would be removed to make way for this trail. Though I was someone who couldn’t wait for the trail, I’m also someone prone to feelings of nostalgia, so I understood why it was hard for some long-time residents to imagine the change. It makes sense that some experienced complicated feelings of resistance and fear for the forthcoming changes. And it makes sense for you and I to feel those things about our own journeys of construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction, and feel those things as we bear witness to that journey in others.

With time, consideration for what was, vision for what could be, and planning, the tracks in our city became a new trail anyway. Even more people use the space now, albeit moving in a different way than before, but still moving north and south like the train used to. The railroad was at once constructed, then deconstructed, and now it’s been reconstructed into a new path that carries the continually growing stories of a little city, and my friend Sandy and me.