Loving to the Point of Heartbreak

This time of year I find myself frantic even though I make a conscious effort to remain mindful of what the Christmas season is all about.  "And what is that?" you ask.

I'm inclined to say the season is about what is in our hearts.  Each one of us understands the meaning of Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, in their own cultural way.  I am Christian, so I understand the season as remembering the birth of Jesus.  I also remember it is the season of solstice and the "coming of the Light."  So these two thoughts are with me, as well as the time of Hanukkah and the miracle of the eight nights of lamps burning.

It is during this season I am often subject to moments that stirs the heart.  Such is the one I had today.

I was returning from a trip to the grocery store to buy bread and butter for a Christmas lunch.  When I drove out of the parking lot on the corner was a small old man, scruffy beard, torn wool cap holding a piece of cardboard out at arm's length with the words, PLEASE I NEED SOME HELP.  

As I waited for the light to turn green, I felt him looking at me and I avoided his stare.  I didn't have change and I was in the far left lane.  So I drove around the corner and got a coffee and bagel because I didn't yet have breakfast.  When I came back out to the street he was still there, so I turned into the parking lot, rolled down the passenger window, and gave him one dollar.  He reached into the car to take it, and he said to me, "Thank you, dear.  Merry Christmas."  And in that moment, my heart began to break.  Here's why . . .

On the seat that he reached over was a bag with a toasted bagel and a cup of hot coffee.  In my pocket was the left over change and a $5 bill.  In my wallet was a $20 bill.  I gave him $1.  As I drove away I repeated to myself the words he spoke, and they caught hard in my chest. I could have easily given him so much more.  I didn't need the food.  I didn't need the $5 and probably would have not suffered much if I gave him the $20.

I have so much and he seemed to have so little and what I gave him was so little.  If my kinder self spoke to my stingy self, I might say, "Well… you took the time to give him something, even if it was just a little."  And I could think of many excuses as to why not to give money to those who might use it toward an addiction.  It's all about judgment.  Who has the right to have more than someone else on this planet?

The lessons we learn this time of year are not for those we give to, but for ourselves.  Perhaps it's not in the quantity of our gift but in the love that comes with the exchange.  And I found myself loving this man, even to the point of heartbreak.

You Can't Be Lost If You Still Hear Traffic

We can’t be lost if we still hear traffic!

That’s what I was told by my beloved as we carelessly strolled off the beaten path of a hike we took while on retreat.  The morning was warm, and moving toward humid.  We decided to revisit a path we had walked a few years back that ran along a creek and eventually emptied into the Great Lake Erie. 

We crossed the highway leaving our hermitage and the monastery behind.  We walked side by side down an asphalt driveway and then turned onto a marked path that took us deeper into the woods, and eventually a long side a stream of flowing water.  We were able to walk along the low flats and see how tree roots , the sediment rock, and years of geological changes had woven intricately into one another.  “Skeeters” scooted across the surface of the creek and tiny minnows kissed out water bubbles, darting in and out of river rocks.

As we walked and observed, we talked the way we do with each other, about life and what we were reading during our retreat stay.  We pointed to a cluster of sediment and remarked how the browns and grays would bleed marvelously together with watercolor paints.  “Look at the sky between the open tree tops!  If God painted something like that would God think it was good or is that extra brush stroke an error?”

As we continued to walk and talk and observe, we moved away from the stream and followed a path labeled “Boy Scout Troop Project,” carved out on a wooden marker that was old and crusted with mold. I wondered as we began to step over broken logs and limbs if the path really still existed.  I was assured by my beloved that as long as we still heard traffic, we were moving in the right direction.  The path narrowed into a foot trail that could have been made by a forest animal, a deer, or woodchuck.

The hike became a struggle and I picked out a good old walking stick that kept me steady as I went.  At one point I began to quote Robert Frost’s, “The Road Not Taken” …two roads diverged in a yellow wood…  it bent down in the undergrowth…  Oh yes, there was undergrowth, and overgrowth, and all kinds of three leafed foliage.  “What does poison ivy look like?”  I asked.  No reply.  We came to a small ravine and agreed upon crossing back over, as that was the direction the traffic was heard.  My walking stick was a blessing as it steadied me over the slick muck and into denser thickets.  I questioned the sound of the traffic.  “Are you sure you hear traffic?”   We stopped and listened.  Yes.  We heard traffic.  It was in the direction of the bramble bushes. 

As we pushed our way through a bramble bush, a branch swung back and caught my arm.  I flinched.  “Ow!”  That hurt!  I was reminded of Meryl Streep in “Out of Africa,” when the lion attacked her oxen and she went after it swinging a bull whip, straight into the brambles and thorn bushes.  How brave she was!  I am not brave, and I do not like these brambles. “Are you sure we are going in the right direction?”  I asked again as mosquitoes buzzed my ear.  

And then I heard a voice in my head say to me, “Do you not trust your Beloved?”  There’s a saying that we are never lost because God knows exactly where we are at all times. 

As we pulled ourselves out of the dense forest and closer to the sound of the traffic, we realized we were indeed just a few feet from the road.  We had to hoist ourselves up a steep ditch, but there we were, out under the open sky, much to our chagrin, only about 100 feet from the monastery on the other side of the road.

We made our way back to the hermitage, kicking off our hiking shoes, chuckling as we sat down on the wooden deck, relieved to be safely back where we started. 

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

--------------------------------------------------

And this is poison ivy:

The God Box

The God Box

In my office I have an oval table on which I have a small altar with the following items: a daily meditation booklet, a covered candle, a ceramic angel figure from my childhood, a postcard of an Orthodox drawing of Mary and Jesus, and a “God box.”  There’s also a tea pot and two small cups made in Hawaii along with my very first “congratulations on retiring” card, but it’s the God box I want to tell you about.

In Anne Lamott’s book “Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers,” she writes:  One modest tool for letting go in prayer that I’ve used for twenty-five years is a God box…  On a note, I write down the name of the person about whom I am so distressed or angry, or describe the situation that is killing me, with which I am so toxically, crazily obsessed, and I fold the note up, stick it in the box and close it.  You might have a brief moment of prayer…”

After many months of distress over a situation of which I had no control over, and of which I lamented endlessly, even lamenting over my lamenting, I came across the chapter in Lamott’s book that told about the God box.  Each morning I enter my office and read a daily meditation and light a candle for people and situations I want to thoughtfully remember throughout the day.  This one situation kept coming up, and unlike the other concerns, I felt I must “fix it” on my own.  There must be something I did that I could undo.  That was the trap.

I decided making a God box was a way of putting the torment aside and giving to God the task of lamentation or whatever the “fix it” might be.  The solution that might manifest could very well be something I didn’t expect or want in a resolution.  I had to trust the Universe, trust God. 

So I found this empty little tea canister, created a label that read “God box,” penned my concern on a small piece of paper, folded it in fours, no… sixes, I’m sure… put it into the box and closed the lid.  There… it is done.  It sits on the altar and each morning I come in and light the candle and read the meditation and think about people and things that are coming in and out of my life.  The God box is like some heavy covenant between me and God in which I assume there will be a successful miracle of sorts sometime before I die.

I must say that I am less sad these days, and don’t lament anymore.  Occasionally a little catch comes to the throat and the eyes get moist but it doesn’t belong to me anymore.  Like the fluff that comes off the Cottonwood trees this time of year, I am amazed at how gently they pass by and disappear into the sky.

About the Light

Here in the northeast I see the light returning from winter’s hibernation.  It has been a long and dark winter for many of us.  It has been extremely cold.  I think back to when I was a kid and loved this kind of weather.  In fact, weather in general, never seemed to pose a problem.  One just lived around it and through it.  But the light… that was another thing.  The light or absence of the light was always profound in one way or another.

Light

To be light

To see light

To feel light

To light up

To be lit

God created light.

There are lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth. 

Moses saw God as a blinding light.

Like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless day, like the light after rain that brings grass from the earth.

There are three kinds of light, according to Tomus Hagioriticus, (circa 1340) (1)

Sensible light

Intellectual light

Uncreated light

St. John of the Cross speaks of the uncreated light – of a spiritual light which overflows on the senses causing sometimes great joy and sometimes great pain.  The uncreated energies are of light and love. (2)

Augustine, John, Hildegaard, Teresa, all spoke of the uncreated light, not just of God, but within others—people in their life.  This light is in all that surrounds us if we have eyes to see, hearts to feel, and the mind to comprehend a reason for the light.  Even in the mystery of it, there is reason for light, regardless of whether we do or do not understand it.  

I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Yes, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  The spring equinox is just days away and the sun now rises at my bedroom window, behind the white bark of the sycamore trees.  Even when I close my eyes I can still see the light.

And in this light I will once more be transformed.

1) Mystical Theology, The Science of  Love:  William Johnston pg. 60

2) ibid pg 61

Photo digitized and created by M. Gibson

The Journey of Epiphany

Some of our journeys are planned and others just creep up on us.  Sometimes we don’t recognize that we are on a journey.  In some cases we are traveling with others of our choosing on a planned journey.  Then again, sometimes we are just walking the path along side of someone we don’t remember.

In my last blog I mentioned a homeless man that reminded me of one of the kings in my Christmas crèche.  He was tall and dark skinned and his long ragged coat blew about in the cold wintery wind as I watched him disappear from my view.  The snow could have been sand on a desert.  Then a day or two later another tall long-coated man approached me at a gas station who wanted to pump my gas for a dollar.  I said thanks but no thanks and just gave him a dollar. Was this another king on a journey?

So it stands to reason there must be a third king coming my way as I walk the journey of Epiphany. And sure enough, I received a call in the office from someone I didn’t remember.  This king was a Mexican immigrant who had contacted me earlier in the year after he left a detention camp where he waited for immigration papers.  He was a diabetic and needed medication.  I sent him to a neighborhood health center and they took care of him.  Now, months later, he was calling me into his journey again. 

The first thing I remember when I answered the phone was this king remembered me.  He told me that since our last call he received his green card and was on Medicaid.  He was working part time as a handyman.  But he had another healthcare emergency.  When he was in the detention camp they gave him shoes that did not fit properly.  As a diabetic he developed neuropathy.  He needed special shoes and his insurance would not pay for them.  It was so painful to stand that it jeopardized his ability to work for any length of time.  He said the shoes would cost over $400 and he needed a down payment of $200 to just order them.  He asked me to help him.

I got the name of his doctor, and told him I would call him back.  The scenario was all legitimate but I had no idea where to go for the money to pay for the shoes.  I was sitting at my desk talking to God about this when the church priest walked by my office.  I called to him and told him the story.  In about an hour I received $200 from his discretionary fund.  I called the podiatrist and said I was going to help pay for the shoes.  I still have to find the balance needed, but I am very hopeful.

So was this the third king encounter… this Mexican who has been on a journey far longer than I can imagine, and probably far more intense than any journey I may have traveled in my lifetime?  And why are these kings coming to me for help?  Weren’t the original three kings wealthy dignitaries who left the safety of their homes and traveled miles following a star just to find yet another king and lay their gifts at his feet?

Sometimes my imagination runs wild.  Still, the journey of Epiphany as I encountered it this year was intriguing.  We are all walking these journeys with one another.  It’s just that we don’t stop to think and ponder about where we are or who we are standing with at any one time until it becomes really an obnoxious or weird kind of scenario.  What’s your journey going to be like today?  Who will you encounter?  Will you trust yourself in the next step?

(The Three Wise Men -- Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1925)