Socked In

We went on our annual pilgrimage to North Carolina. We rent a small condo that overlooks the beach. The ocean provides our background. We sit just beyond the tide’s reach, Chris working on a needlepoint of hydrangeas that only progresses on the beach, and I reading books, smoking Ashton cigars, and body surfing. It’s a safe haven from our normality that tends to wear us down. It’s a port in the storm. This year we couldn’t take our morning walks or sit under our umbrella. Thunderstorms pounded the Crystal Coast for five out of seven of our vacation days. Now and then we trundled down to the beach and got some sun between showers, but the storms ruled the week. You’d think we’d be disappointed or upset. But the truth be told, we were fine. The hours were peaceful, filled with silly conversations, cooking, reading, watching lightening hit the ocean, and mostly being together. The time of life was sweet, sitting on the beach or not. I do not understand why we insist on supporting a soul-eroding pace that offers us little time to listen to the birds, appreciate the flowers, and discuss how Motzart’s sense of humor is evident in his music. I’ve heard that the only difference between a rut and the grave is depth. I think our normality is a destructive rut. I can’t please everybody, or do everything that needs to get done, especially when my agenda doesn’t include taking care of my marriage, my sense of humor, or my soul. I guess that means I’m not going to get ahead. Oh, well. I never did figure out who I was trying to get ahead of anyway.

Birth

The power of birth is not in the one that is born, vulnerable, squalling,
Having no hope or despair, just discomfort, and primitive fear.
They are refugees, torn from their homes and given freedom to…
When before they had freedom from… A terrifying trade.

It is in the moment of birth that power blooms. That modulation that drags all
To a new cord, a theme, an improvisation invited by this shift in freedom.
Each experience in our living mimics the original, offering choices from the womb
Of what was, into the world of what can be. A terrifying shift.

But all our births lead finally to mystery, shrouded in the dark of death. We know little
Of this transition. We fear it and deny anything beyond the womb of what is
Limited and confusing as it is, we know it. To consider anything but what we know
Is foolishness. It is to lose what little reason and sense we have here. A terrifying prospect.

But the empty tomb invites us to another birth. Invites us to see beyond the blindness
Of here and now’s limitation. Invites us to hear more than muffled cacophony. Invites Us to live into a new freedom, beyond survival’s threats. He is risen! But we are the Ones born! He knows us and calls us by name. He calls us home. Be not afraid!

The Lord is risen indeed! Hallujah!

I’ll Be the One In Black

Isaiah 61: 10-11



George O. Wilson said that ‘People need the sacred narrative…, they will find a way to keep the ancestral spirits alive.’ This time of year we do a lot of things to reiterate our sacred narrative. Manger scenes, carols, decking the halls, mementoes from the past all reach with tentative wonder toward the story that makes us who we are. It’s a great story. Why shouldn’t we use it?

But even more than the quality of the tale, deeper than its cast of characters and situations that draw us on, there is here a resonance with our identity. This story is not about them, it’s about us and our view of the way the universe works around us. It allows us to claim again a larger perspective as we look at our lives, including the train wrecks. Young unwed mother who converses with angels and speaks with authority that is not based on any degree or social status, compassionate husband, ready to be caring of this girl, redirected by a dream, pushed as a family beyond their comfort zones by politics to a place of ancient prophecy, bearing a child in the company of animals and wild eyed shepherds drunk on angels’ anthems all do more than leave us a bit breathless and teary eyed. They affirm that in spite of evidence to the contrary, our small and lumpy lives are part of a narrative that transcends the sad and tragic. These characters are amazingly like us.

Each of us has a sacred story. A story of redemption and glory woven of the common thread of our days. So the prophet reminds us of weddings. There is much glory and wonder there, at least there is for me. I remember the miracle of that day. I was marinated in expectation, basted in hope, stuffed with more joy than any holiday bird. I sent my son to bring a single rose to my bride where she was being decked out as brides are. The note I enclosed said simply, ‘I’ll be the one in black. I love you.’ She reminded me later that I wasn’t the only one in black at the front of the church, but that she had no trouble recognizing me. That day is filled with light, though plans and agendas skidded and broke down as we went. But the disasters all became part of the narrative, the story that reminds us every time we tell it of who we are and where we stand in this confusing and difficult universe. It is our sacred narrative.

Christmas is nothing less. It reminds us that we are important because the One cares. And so it is as I light the Christ candle in the dark of Christmas Eve, the universe is filled with light. And we are all clothed in glory.

God bless us everyone.

Omen

High up, within the circle atop the steeple is a masted ship. Unusual symbol to define a church. Crosses, Celtic or plain, orbs, roosters all are common. Each says something about the sanctuary beneath. Each is chosen by a leader or a committee to shout to the world some message, perhaps shrouded in tradition. ‘We always did it that way,’ is a powerful push for choosing symbols. It precludes searching for new meanings or directions.

But there is this single masted ship, a square rigger; its spar forming a cross; its prow cutting through waves. Perhaps a sailor on the committee came up with the design, or the leader wanted to stress an ecumenical push, perhaps a missionary church? Who knows? The symbolism is lost, leaving the ship, sailing on.

The November dawn touched it, leaving us in shadow below. A figure had been added since I looked last. A passenger, or more likely a crew member stood next to the mast, looking into the morning sun. Perhaps he trimmed the sails. Perhaps he considered new horizons stretching out, beyond. I stopped, considering how this changed the whole thing, personalized it, deepened it. I wondered why I’d never noticed before. And then it flew off, into the east.

But now, when I look up there, I see him, up against the mast, searching the horizon for the coming dawn.

Waiting Rooms

I have spent considerable time in waiting rooms with people. In the prep rooms where patients get to wear the lovely hats whose elastic squeezes across their foreheads. Doctors come and go as nurses ask about latex allergies and make sure bracelets match 17 other types of documents. And the ones wearing the hats rest with a mixture of anxiety and bravery. Prayer is part of what we do. Sometimes it halts the surgical machine that is taking one of us where the rest of us can’t go. Just for a moment we hold hands and reach beyond our anxiety toward something else. It seems so childish. Knives and needles and lights and drugs seem so powerful, weapons against something we fear. How can holding hands and praying have any practical value here on this sterile battlefield? Somehow it does. I’ve watched fear evolve to hope. I’ve sensed power there that dwarfs all the mechanical and medical wonders. I’ve always respected doctors. But I rely on prayer.

Just recently, I held a patient’s hand as she waited, hat and all. I listened to the explanations and the doctors’ reassurances. We waited together. And I was terrified. My love was going with them, where I couldn’t go. The silence that I’ve maneuvered through with families was now a lump caught somewhere in my chest. I felt a child, powerless and desperate.

And so I prayed, for my love and for acceptance. Honestly, I cannot believe everything will fit into my categories of approval. I’ve seen and known too much to believe that the ground of all being will use my template for bending moments. I believe in miracles. But I don’t believe they are mine to determine. I have little understanding of such things. So I prayed to be helpful for her. She needed that. It was all I could do.

Time centered down into moments that rushed away from me like a per-Tsunami tide. Too soon they came, worriers to take her. I stood, and with all I knew and had, stopped the rush long enough to pray with her. I don’t remember what I said. I reached with every bit of honesty and strength I had. I kissed her and she was gone.

Today, two weeks since the surgery my love thanked me for praying with her there in that place of terror and hope. And I smiled. We are children, terrified of the dark. I am no less a child, but I am less afraid, not because of results. They are past. But I learned something in that waiting room. We are not alone.

Response to another writer

Dear Deb,
There is so much about what you say that is true about the creative process. There is nothing untrue about good fiction, or even some not so good fiction. What happens when someone accesses the places from which fiction arises is as much a mystery as any art. It is a conversation between the medium and the one with the keyboard or the chisel and that suble vision the ancients called Muse. Michangelo said that it was his job to take away the excess marble so that the statue within could emerge.
Now let's talk about truth and fact. Truth itself has little to do with fact. Fact itself is a bit of mythology that has risen from our worship of the measurable and touchable. Such a small slice of reality to deservie so much attention, such a dusty corner to invite our consistent attention!
You are not ill. You are a story teller. People such as you were celebrated in less technological cultures. Bards they were called. They roamed between the clans taking the mundane activities of each day and spinning tales that were grounded in each village and their happenings, but were not limited to these small events. So, when the people heard the Bards' songs they saw themselves as part of something more than scrabbling in the dirt of survival.
Fiction? Are we not more than sad and scruffy creatures who scrabble for survival, however sophisticated our tools? Are we not able to love, to feel passion, to sing, to reach toward that which is untouchable? Do we not sense that just beyond our sight there are kingdoms of light and glory? Do we not dream? These are not the imaginings of fools. They are the food that nourishes those who refuse to live within boxes whose bounds are determined by practicality and utility.
There is a craft to what we do. It is the craft that is learned to unleash and channel the art that surges up within us. Tricks? No, Technique. Our ability to bring ideas and dreams into light, language itself is a technique, a mysterious and wondrous craft learned by every child who moves from babble to 'Ma' and 'No.'
You need not attend any meeting or convention to be what you are. You might learn, but you might be bored. Choose and be at peace.
The cautionary part of this tale is to never forget who you are and what you have been given. Surely it is theraputic. Most therapy has to do with expression. Surely it is addictive. It changes your perspective and your perception. But you are not alone in your world or in your craft or in your calling.
The world needs us. Whether it believes it or not, whether it buys it or not has little to do with this truth.
Keep on truckin'.
Blessings.
David.

What Do We See?

I was standing on the chancel, up in front of the church, half way through a funeral. A granddaughter was speaking about her ‘Pop-pop.’ I was behind her, backing her up in case she fell apart. Above her head, all the way on the other side of the sanctuary, colors, deep stained glass colors shining out of the louvers that control the volume of the pipe organ. The colors came through the organ, all the pipes, bellows, air boxes in the dark back there behind the balcony. I stood there, amazed.
Later, I looked up and the lovers were in a different position, revealing only shadows. I real ized I’d never look up there again without searching for the stained glass shining through.

What do we see when we look at something or someone? How much of our expectations have to do with a moment, a glimpse that becomes the template for what we see? How many of our prejudices, our fears, our guilts, barriers that separate us from each other and from hope and acceptance have to do with simple perspective? How many walls in our world are nothing special until we see through them to the colors shining through the darkness?

I think I’ll alter my expectations about blank walls and shadows. You never know what might come shining through.