Wish List

I posted this to Facebook on August 30:

I have a wish list; it‘s not very long:

~I want ALL my friends to be able to marry the person they love and NONE of them to fear losing their job or home because they happen to be a member of a sexual minority.

~If one of my daughters or granddaughters is ever raped and gets pregnant I want her to have easy access to a safe and legal abortion without anyone, politician or otherwise, standing between her and her doctor.

~I want people of faith to respect and honor their differences and realize there is much to be learned from those of other faiths.

~I want the minimum wage to be a living wage.

~I want intelligence, not willful ignorance, to be a virtue.

~I want science taught in science class and mythology taught in literature class.

Mary's Announcement

A friend of ours died a while back. The night before the saying of the Burial Office, friends and family gathered at the funeral home to comfort one another, to reminisce, to cry together and, yes, occasionally to laugh together.

Across the hall from the viewing parlor was a snack bar with vending machines, tables, a microwave oven, etc. Our friend’s daughter had “set up shop” there for her daughters providing them with books, games, and toys with which to amuse themselves and pass the time. This was no attempt to isolate the children as they were free to move back and forth between this room and the parlor where their grandfather’s body lay in the open casket and where mourners gathered.

Our friend’s granddaughter, I’ll call her Mary, was four at the time and is very fond of our granddaughters, Andrea and Ellie. At some point during the evening Mary crossed the hall into the viewing parlor and someone told her that Andrea and Ellie would be there soon. Upon hearing this, Mary raced back to the snack bar and announced to everyone there, “Grandpa is still dead, but Andrea and Ellie are coming!”

It is tempting to think “She’s only four and obviously doesn’t understand death.” True no doubt, but perhaps there is more to it,

The story challenges me to admit I don’t understand death any better than a four year old. It is an Advent, story of eagerly awaiting the arrival of one whose presence is longed for. It is Christmas story to be kept and pondered in the heart the way Mary, the mother of Jesus, kept and pondered the words of the shepherds. It is an Easter story of hope and joy laughing in the face of death and sorrow.  The story helps me understand why Jesus had the adults step aside and let the children come up front. It is the children who can accept without reservation Jesus’ announcement that the realm of God is at hand, that “Grandpa is still dead, but Andrea and Ellie are coming!”

It Happened on The Feast of St. Laurence

On August 11, I wrote to a friend and described what I called an I-can't-not-do-this experience:
"Yesterday was the Feast of St. Laurence. I had intended to honor 'my' saint by doing some particular act of service, but failed to make plans; the day crept up on me. So I spent part of the day wondering what I might or could have done. Yesterday evening I was leaving the public library when an older (at least he looked older) and obviously needy man engaged me in conversation. We actually had a nice chat, then he asked the inevitable(?) question: would I happen to have some change to spare so he could buy some food? I gave him the $5.00 I had in my wallet, and said to him, 'You've answered a question I have been asking myself all day today.' Not surprisingly this went right past him, but he did thank me and offered me his hand. We shook hands, and I could not help but notice his firm grip. As we shook hands I looked him in the eye and said, 'Please take good care of yourself, ok?' I stood there and watched as he headed toward the library entrance. As he approached the door a young woman came out, a stack of books in one hand and a baby carrier/carseat in the other. She put the carrier down, and was fumbling as best she could with one hand to drape a cover across the carrier, I suppose to shade the baby from the sun. The man stopped, helped her with it, then went into the library. As I stood there I had a vision of him in the library, finding a book and sitting down to read it. Frankly I don't yet understand the vision. It was certainly not one of expectation and to say it was one of hope seems somehow to oversimplify it. Or maybe that's just my ego getting in the way, wanting to make things more complicated than they really are."

Earlier I had written about an experience of coming very near to hearing a voice when there was no one there, so I concluded my message with, "...thank you for being the type of friend with whom I can be perfectly at ease talking about 'voices' and 'visions' knowing you will understand."

My friend replied:
"Your description of that day was so interesting to me and I think voices and visions are your awareness become more acute. I think the voices and visions are always there, but you were at that moment tuned in. I think the vision was you sending the man compassion and peace-- that it rose spontaneously from the God-in-you-ness of your spirit, surprising even your own worldly self. I think it was your ego getting OUT of the way...[A]ttentiveness and transformation--we can miss so much if we don't pay attention and we have been trained to fill our minds with thoughts to avoid paying attention."

Thomas Merton wrote, "Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business, and, in fact, it is nobody's business. What we are asked to do is love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy if anything can."

I can't think of a more difficult challenge or one more worthy. The task of loving, of getting our egos out of the way so we are free to love without regard to "worthiness", is the work of a lifetime. But I find that at those times when I do so, I encounter those I-can't-not-do-this moments, and the paradox of not really having a choice of how to respond frees me from my ego's need to control, frees me to live in the moment. The "voices" say to me, "you matter," and the "visions" as well as my actions may just be a way of passing that message on.

Role Models

Role Models

Recently, I've been thinking about role models.  We seem to be intent on looking for them in the wrong places.  Whenever we look to those who are rich, powerful, popular, or any combination of the three we are making a fundamental error.  If you are an inhabitant of the mundane world in which the overwhelming majority of us are born, die and struggle to do the best we can in between, I suggest you may want to look elsewhere.  Whether it be an athlete, politician, wealthy business person, actor, rock star or any other celebrity for that matter we best be careful when we elevate them to the level of role model because chances are that ultimately they will fail us, and then what do we do with them?

I do have a few suggestions as to the type of people we might look to as role models for the lives we are living.

There's the man who works two jobs every day just to make ends meet and support his family. But when his brother-in-law takes off leaving behind our man's sister and his nephew he always manages to have time to be a father to that nephew so the child will grow up knowing he was loved.

There's the clergyman who in the 1960's had the courage to stand before conservative, southern congregations and suggest to them that maybe African-Americans should have the same rights and privileges in this country as do their white neighbors, and today he makes the same case for LGBT persons, immigrants and the other disinherited ones among us.

And there's the man who gets out of bed at first light, puts on his work clothes, fetches his chainsaw from the barn and heads next door to remove the tree that last night's tornado deposited across the home of his elderly neighbors.

There's the priest who shows up at the hospital at 7:00 a.m. because one of her parishioners is having surgery this morning. She offers prayers, touch and perhaps most important of all a comforting presence, an incarnation of God's presence there in that hospital room.

There's the woman who comes home worn out from working all night but rather than go to the bed she so desperately longs for she makes breakfast for her children and sees to it they are dressed and off to school.

There is the woman who takes time to sit with her neighbor who yesterday had to have a beloved cat whom she had adopted many years ago put to sleep and now must experience the grief accompanying such a loss.

There is the small group of people who gather outside the gates of Central Prison at 2:00 a.m. on a cold, rainy February morning. They are there to protest and hold vigil as the State of North Carolina executes a condemned man.

There is the couple in their late 60's who every year return, at their own expense, to Malawi where they met many years ago while working as Peace Corps volunteers.  They go there to work with the Malawi Childrens' Village, a group of people who are doing their best to take care of hundreds of orphans most of whom have lost their  parents to  AIDS.

And there is the woman who, when she learns of the death of the cancer patient she was hired to care for during the day while the patient's family was away at work, calls and says she will be over this morning to clean house for the family and, no, she will not under any circumstances let the family pay her for the work.

These are a few examples from the world in which I live. Be careful how you choose your role models; they inform the way you order your life. And your children and grandchildren are watching!