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A tribute to the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington I stand, humbled, as I watch a woman, steadfast behind her walker taking each step from the bus to the stone memorial with the same determination as she did … Continue reading
It was mid-afternoon one late summer Sunday. I moved idly around my little house outside Buffalo, picking up the clutter and talking to my cat, Shadow. I was feeling angst-filled, which was pretty typical at that time of my life. The semester was about to begin at the college where I taught as an adjunct, and the next day would bring another series of sessions with those I saw in my grief counseling practice. I really liked my work, my clients, my co-workers, my students. It wasn’t anything in that realm that filled me with Sunday afternoon blasé. I was in the midst of a relationship coming to a close and dealing with the material ramifications of divorce, and that certainly contributed to my general malaise. But there was something else gnawing at me, making me feel like there was a slice of life that could be mine, but that I didn’t have access to at the moment. What was keeping me from really jumping in and experiencing the fullness of life?
As I sorted papers and vestiges of my hurried daily life into piles, I ran across a fairly recent copy of Art Voice, the local source for all things happening in the WNY music/theatre/art scene. It also had, hands down, the best classified and personal ads section I have ever read. Reading the longings of the artistic love-seeking was always good for a chuckle, so I flipped it open and started to read about who was searching for whom to participate in what interesting combinations of romantic activities. Not far from the entertaining “personals” section was a little ad from a local artist starting up a beginner figure drawing class that fit perfectly with my schedule (something which rarely happened). On a whim, I thought, “hey, maybe I should take an art class!” and this thought settled me for a moment. I went to my phone, called the number, left a message regarding my interest and went on with my day.
When I returned home from work the next day, I had a blinking light on my answering machine and a message from the art teacher, Betty, who sadly reported that in the weeks since she had placed that ad there had been insufficient interest in the class. She encouraged me to call her, though, to see if I had interest in setting up private art lessons. I scoffed at that…I could barely afford the quality of life I had already, and I did not see art lessons fitting into my budget. But, I called her anyway because I don’t like to leave people hanging and frankly, I had nothing better to do. When she answered, she explained the situation a bit more and I conveyed that I was a total beginner who just wanted to find a possible creative outlet. She quoted me a price for a weekly lesson that was considerably less than going to therapy, so I decided to give it a try.
I first met Betty in an art studio that had been improvised in the upper garage above a mechanics shop where she worked as the receptionist for her day job. It wasn’t much of a space…two easels, paints, drawing supplies, two chairs, a few makeshift tables, and a fan by the window. That first class, we chatted a little and she took an apple out of her brown paper bag lunch and set it on a table comprised of a turned over cleaning bucket she had covered with a scarf. Then she began to teach me about form, and line, and light. The apple began to take shape on my page…a bit lop-sided at first, but then we started another, and then another…each taking better shape as I listened to her advice and applied it first in pencil, then in my pastels, to my paper. I loved every second of that class and scheduled another. Something natural was present in her teaching that I could not put my finger on…but as someone who taught college, I wondered why she would choose to apply her teaching skills in such meager surroundings, with such a random student, charging so little. But, I was grateful.
Over the weeks and months, we met every week and worked through a project (or two) learning to apply each major area of media: pencils, oil pastels, chalk, watercolor, acrylics, oils. Somewhere in the midst of the oil pastels, her employment situation changed and we moved from the garage art studio to her living room. While I learned to access my inner artist, she revealed snippets about her life. I learned about her family, her spouse who had died after a long and difficult battle with Alzheimer’s in which Betty was the primary caregiver, and I heard about her becoming-adult children and their struggles to find life and identity. I learned that art was new in her life, too….taken up as a respite during her caregiving. She hadn’t formally taught before, even though she was a natural. My own stories began to spill out as well and we would just talk, and listen, and create art with each other. Sometimes almost all we did was talk, and she would decline any payment. As the months stretched out, sometimes we would just meet to sketch in a park, in silence, and let the art speak freely. We became friends, and remain friends even to this day in spite of our geographic distance from each other.
Through our art lessons, we were achieving more than just technical skills. We were slowly healing each other’s pain, and moving toward healing ourselves. This implicit desire wasn’t written in the class advertisement she put out, nor did I voice it in my request to become a student. But, we each brought our pain and our strengths and our courage and our humanness to the art sessions and we were transformed through our honest sharing. In each other we saw a yearning for life, for freedom from pain, for making a difference, for finding beauty in the world. During that time, Betty wrote a book to help other spousal caregivers, and I found my courage to move into the next chapter of my life in a new city, as a newly emerging scholar, capable of making new relationships. We were both reaching for healing. And healing was granted, far more than either of us could have asked or imagined.
Healing is all around us if we have the courage to reach out and seek it. And healing happens through us, when we are open to that which is greater than ourselves.
[This story is written in response to this week’s Who is My Neighbor blog series at St. Thomas Episcopal Church. I highly encourage you to check out this week’s media links on that page, especially Candy Chang’s TED Talk which I find deeply inspirational.]
Batty
By Shel SilversteinThe baby bat
Screamed out in fright,
“Turn on the dark,
I’m afraid of the light.”
It’s been my habit for quite some time now to start my day in meditation or contemplative prayer. One of the things I love to do most is sit in my breakfast room with the windows and screen doors open just after dawn, feeling the cool morning breeze brush against my face while my mind is being still.
I interrupt this tranquil image to reveal that on this particular morning, actual wings brushed through my hair and broke my meditative silence.
Bat wings.
This particular bat was extremely active, circling my downstairs with a much larger wing span than I was expecting to see. When it landed…regrettably on the edge of a cupboard door I had left slightly ajar which I now worried would become a bat house…its body was about the same size as a large mouse. Actually, what went through my mind was, “it’s as big as the hedgehog!” (the African Pygmy hedgehog, Clover, is the nocturnal animal who shares our house with us, intentionally). Apparently, there’s some good bat eating in our neighborhood and this creature had been enjoying the buffet. After a moment to get my bearings, I managed to slowly move in its direction and close the cupboard door (sending the bat circling again). I walked under its circling bat path several times, acknowledging its presence, watching it closely and showing it my front door. It seemed decidedly uninterested.
I recalled at this moment that bats seek darkness rather than light, and it was this bat’s bedtime. So, I turned on every light in the house, in hopes that this would give an appeal to the not-yet-fully-light outdoors. The bat circled for several more minutes and finally swept by me one more time as if to give its regards before heading out the front door. I sighed in relief and closed my house back up again, now fully awake and aware of every nuance of darkness and light lurking in the corners of my house. And grateful to once again find myself in solitude.
I am struck by how aware we become when something out of the ordinary catches us by surprise. Darkness and light are simply the patterns of the day until they become integral to the visitation of a nocturnal creature. Then, we are thrust into awareness not only of what may lurk in dark corners, but also how to dispel unwanted guests by showing them a different path. I suppose I could have freaked out, or screamed, or called for help, or swung at it with a broom. But, that resolves nothing. There would still be a bat when I was done causing my ruckus. And then, we’d both be hyper-vigilant of danger and likely become more impulsive in our actions toward each other. Really, it reminds me more than anything that knowing the nature of something helps us control it.
True of bats. But, also true of the dark corners of our own inner lives. Acknowledge what is there, and be aware of the dark places in which it could take up residence. Be willing to see patterns of darkness and light as essential to the path. And be grateful when, after the circling is done and your awareness is heightened, the uninvited visitor departs in peace…
Rising on the wings of this morning, I will take that awareness with me.
Social workers often get accused of being bleeding-heart liberals who hug trees and sing “kum-ba-yah.” Like most stereotypes, there is a reason why this image emerged. Maybe it comes from our genetic predisposition, or a lived experience that environmentally propels us to be the kind of change we want to see in the world. Maybe it has to do with the way a lot of us dress, or how we tend to vote, or the fact that camping vacations are more suited to our budget than all encompassing resort destinations. The social workers I know and respect may wear their Birkenstocks with pride, but they also know how to speak truth to power. They understand that without an embrace of conflicts, a break-down in dualistic thinking, or a true and active empathy for the “other,” there is no amount of real change that is going to take place.
The truth is, as we start up this particular academic year, most social work faculty are about to break that stereotype for the students who file on to campus, ready to change the world. We are about to inflict upon them conflicting points of view, data that doesn’t support their assertions, and clients who have no interest in following the carefully constructed treatment plans written for class assignments. We are going to break down their sense of safety and force multiple points of view to emerge in the classroom, and ask them to be empathetically present with people they would rather avoid talking to at all. We are going to attempt to model social justice, critical thinking, and an embrace of diversity as ideals. And at the core of all this, there is conflict.
I am writing about embracing conflict and division this week, spurred on by my weekly Who is My Neighbor blog for my faith community. This week, a challenging bit of the weekly Gospel reading suggests that Jesus came not to bring peace, but to bring division. Now, it is as easy to talk about Jesus as a “peace on earth” guru, just like its easy to tag my professional peers as bleeding hearts. So, it occurred to me this week as I sat with this lesson that there is something in common between the stories of this historical person called Jesus and the stories I tell my students about what led to the major changes that have happened in society: civil rights, policy reform, organizing for change. Someone (or some group) must speak truth to power. Conflict must emerge. An unsettling and uneasy period of division must be navigated. In that context, fertile ground emerges on which change can begin to emerge, and grow. Theory, practice, and experience tell us that human beings don’t change without some prompting or activation…whether genetic or motivational or familial or environmental or cultural. Or all of the above. Change is difficult. Division is inevitable. Conflict cannot be avoided.
Not exactly kum-ba-yah. Or maybe it is.
When I consider even my own little journey in this vast world, my most transformative experiences have been the most painful. I needed to be written up by a supervisor to transform my career path. I needed to be made painfully aware of my ignorance and privilege so that I could really understand the experience of the other. I still need to take the risk and authentically speak truth to power whether in my workplace, or my community, or even in cyber space. But that doesn’t mean I disadvantage or knock down the people on the other side of the divide. Speaking in terms of my faith tradition, I am keenly aware that the same Jesus that came to bring division also says that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. It seems like a conundrum, but actually there is an important truth inside the paradox. Conflict is a system issue necessary to propel change. Love is an individual act of radical grace, a choice to see the person inside the conflict.
And it isn’t just Jesus saying this: many of our leaders across faith traditions and spiritual movements speak this same message. It is necessary…but not sufficient…to speak truth to power. We also have to create genuine empathy and be willing to approach the other with divine love. That, my friends, is where it gets really difficult. And potentially, really powerful. For me, it is where I have to look to something larger than I am right now to guide me, instead of relying on the current limits of my humanness. I am appreciative of this week’s On Being interview with Kwame Anthony Appiah which speaks so well to the embrace of the “mess” which forms in our divisions, allowing us to connect as humans even in the midst of our greatest divides. Take a listen, post your thoughts.
Here in my little corner of the world, I have seen the power of this approach this very week, in our faculty retreat of all places. I seem to be finding the divine illustrated in the most unlikely places lately…like my workplace…but that is for another day. I literally watched a conflicted bunch of academics (myself included) rise to the occasion this week and begin to mutually create change out of what has felt like a division pulling us apart at the seams. This is division with a small “d” but workplace policy still affects our lives, and our students. We are far from done with all the dialogues we need to have, but there is growth emerging amid divisions, and because we were finally willing to embrace them. We have started to give voice to our divisions, instead of avoiding them either due to a sense of protection, or apathy, or hopelessness. We have proposed some “getting to know you” activities to move us from our silos. We are embracing intentionality and attempting to do some things differently. I personally left a full day retreat with a different spirit than when I entered it. We didn’t link arms and sing, but maybe that is for the best. We can learn from division, and grow within it.
Speak truth to power. Love your neighbor. Embrace the mess.
I was at Shrine Mont this weekend having some personal retreat time when this poem found me. I journeyed the labyrinth there carrying the phrase “Mirroring your Immensity” which seemed to resonate with me deeply. This phrase…and the images of this poem…have remained with me as I transition back from vacation and reflection time to daily work and life.
This week I have to admit that living and working amid many stressors and obligations feels immense. But tonight, as I prepare to climb inside a space of contemplative prayer, I am reminded of something larger than I am, the immensity of divine grace, presence, persistence, and love which transcends the changes and chances of this daily life. I am finding great peace in these images tonight. Mirroring your Immensity. Rilke speaks the prayer of my heart this night:
I’m too alone in the world, yet not alone enough
to make each hour holy.
I’m too small in the world, yet not small enough
to be simply in your presence, like a thing—
just as it is.I want to know my own will
and to move with it.
And I want, in the hushed moments
when the nameless draws near,
to be among the wise ones—
or alone.I want to mirror your immensity.
I want never to be too weak or too old
to bear the heavy, lurching image of you.I want to unfold.
Let no place in me hold itself closed,
for where I am closed, I am false.
I want to stay clear in your sight.I would describe myself
like a landscape I’ve studied
at length, in detail;
like a word I’m coming to understand;
like a pitcher I pour from at mealtime;
like my mother’s face;
like a ship that carried me
when the waters raged.—
from Rainer Maria Rilke’s Book of Hours
translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
I have been working around my house today while trying to think of some pithy or poignant story about waiting in response to this week’s “Who is My Neighbor” theme. But, the cold and hard truth is that I do not like to wait. I do not like to wait in line, or in traffic. I do not like waiting for my daughter to finish getting ready so we can get out the door in the morning. I do not like waiting for a phone call, nor for an email to be returned, and I absolutely cannot stand to wait when there is conversation that I want to have with someone, or some issue that in my mind needs to be resolved. Yesterday.
Alas, the flip side of my “jump right in with two feet” attitude toward life is that waiting makes me crazy, anxious, and admittedly, bored. Those are not the attributes of “Happy Sarah” and so, my waiting self is generally my cranky self. Or, perhaps, my waiting self can more appropriately be described as multi-tasking self now that my smartphone and iPad are pretty much 24/7 accessible to me. I tend to go right for them when a wait of any kind emerges. My devices never ask me to wait…well, unless its a weak signal and nothing wants to load, then back comes my cranky self yet again.
So, why am I writing this anti-waiting confessional on this week when the theme I am blogging about for my faith community is “Waiting with Anticipation”? Well, maybe that is because I am actively working on this very frustrating issue of navigating the “waiting game” right now. And, what I am learning is that the waiting game is really the ultimate act of being present.
On a small scale, I am waiting for my daughter to come home from camp. Professionally, I am waiting for the new semester…and all my students…to arrive in just a few more days. Regrettably, I am waiting to see if the pain in my tooth goes away with Sensodyne or if I need to have more dental work done. Hopefully, I am waiting to see more energy returning to my Mom’s health after a successful pacemaker placement. And, on a more grand scale, I am waiting and discerning about the next chapter in my professional vocation. That’s a lot of waiting for my impatient self to navigate.
And so, I find myself having to face up to waiting, and see within the waiting game an opportunity to be more present on a daily basis. While awaiting my daughter’s return from camp (especially today, on her birthday!) I have been redecorating her room and going through our old pictures and memories. I have been writing letters and sending care packages, imagining her opening them. This has given me a chance to feel connected in ways that are emotionally more present than I probably am during the daily rant of getting up on time and picking up her clutter. I appreciate her awesomeness, and her challenges, and I have become really, really grateful for the gift of being her Mom.
As for my students and my semester start up…I have been wrapping my head around what my priorities are and I realized today (with a bit of shock) that I am really excited about getting back into the swing of things. This is a “so much to do, so little time” kind of waiting, but the real point is that time will move on and these start up events will occur. I am planning out what I most want to grab ahold of and thinking about when I need to ride the wave of busy and when I need to be prepared to seize the moment. Allowing myself to anticipate those golden moments that will unexpectedly occur is keeping some of the overwhelming details at bay, and thus I am sleeping at night instead of obsessing about them. This is progress.
I keep praying for and sending encouraging thoughts to my Mom, and I have been given a gift of seeing her community of support wrap around her and my community of support wrap around me while she waits to feel healthier. I am grateful that this seems to be happening more and more each day. She also told me a story that after waiting for her surgery, the tuna sandwich they gave her in the recovery room was the best tasting tuna sandwich she had had. Ever. This made me laugh, but then I realized the truth in it. Life is sweeter when we have been reunited with something….food, people, health, even tuna salad it would seem. Maybe without the waiting game, those things of daily life would go by unnoticed and unappreciated. We might need waiting to more fully know the sweet life.
I have nothing to add about the tooth, since I just bit into a cold slice of tomato and almost hit the ceiling. Darn it. Going to pick up some more Sensodyne and get back to you on that one.
Last but not least, there is my grand waiting challenge during this period of reflection and discernment in my life, which some people reading this may not even know is happening. Well, it is. This particular wait is about coming to know all that I have been and am doing vocationally over the years, as well as waiting and praying and talking and discerning about what comes next in my vocational response to the world in which I live. This grand wait could be anxiety provoking, and definitely tests my patience and requires me to slow down and be present. In fact, the real gift in the waiting game at this moment may be to recognize what is happening in my day to day and being open and present to Spirit whenever opportunities emerge. These opportunities may be in the form of a blog inspiration, an unexpected conversation that sheds light on the path of another, an opportunity to dress up in old robes and a head scarf and tell the story of Ezekiel and the dry bones to a room full of kids at VBS, or to receive the wisdom offered to me from those who guide me spiritually and befriend me on the journey. If I cannot live in this waiting game, I cannot seize these moments. And those moments are indeed a brush with the divine, and a deeper knowledge of God.
And so, like so many others, I learn to wait. I practice being present and in hopeful anticipation, keeping my cranky self at bay. I tuck away the smartphone and take in what..and who…is around me. I respond the best I can to what I encounter in each moment and seize the golden ones with gratitude. And in waiting with anticipation…by living in the present moment…I move forward on the journey.
This week I have been going through countless piles of old books (and toys, and clothes….) in my daughter’s room while she is away at camp. She is hitting double digits and adolescence is rapidly approaching, so its out with the “baby books” and in with young adult fiction. This has been a slow process because I find myself flipping through so many awesome books, with great memories of sharing them with her. I wish I had enough space to build a library for all of them, but at least some of these precious books must be parted with and shared with others who will hopefully also enjoy them as much, or even more, than we have. The circle of life for those of us who love books.
[As an aside here, I highly recommend taking a vacation from work during a time you can be truly unstructured and not responsible for anyone else’s care and keeping…it is truly good for the soul. This is going to be a yearly routine for me!]
Back to the point of today’s blog post, though. I opened one of the many story books we have which feature the moon, and found in it not only a lovely story but also a folded sheet of paper on which was written the blessing for my daughter’s baptism/christening/welcome to the Universe. Let me share the story as context, and then share the found blessing within it.
The moon is not only a personal favorite symbol for me, but has held mystery and magic for my daughter as well. While this is a part of who she is as a nature loving little creature, I believe it is also because of her christening. When she was born, my spouse and I knew we wanted to have some “welcoming to the Universe” event, but it wasn’t going to be a church baptism. First of all, we didn’t attend a church, so a baptism in some other person’s (or family member’s) church just seemed inauthentic. Her Dad is a lapsed Roman Catholic, and at the time, I was devoutly in the “spiritual but not religious” segment of my faith journey. A close friend of ours, Peg, a retired teacher and continual seeker of knowledge, enlightenment, and spiritual non-traditionality was our choice for a life-time spiritual mentor to our already free-spirited baby daughter. When we approached her about our intention, she instantly agreed to become our daughter’s “Moon Mother” which she thought was more fitting than “Godmother” and we knew without a doubt we had made the best decision. And that has truly been the case, reinforced over and over again.
We picked the night of the summer solstice moon, and as I have written about before, constructed a labyrinth in the field outside Peg’s woodsy cabin home by daylight so that we could walk the labyrinth journey together by the light of the rising moon. Peg had recently been to Ireland, and brought holy water home with her (hidden heaven only knows where) which we would use to splash the blessings of the Universe on each other. We ate strawberries grown of the earth as we sat outside around a fire, the air filled with stars and the light of the moon. We walked the labyrinth oldest to youngest, my daughter strapped to my back and laughing as we moved through the interlaced journey of life we traced beneath our feet, sending forth our prayers and wishes for the journey of life and spirit that lay before her.
Peg read the book, “The Moon Singer” which is the one I found this week while cleaning, now 10 years later as my daughter grows more fully each day into her own personhood, finding and claiming her path in the world. And, Moon Mom Peg read a blessing prayer to close our celebration, our “welcome to the Universe” christening. This is the found blessing tucked inside that book, re-emerging as a small point of light on my current journey as it unfolds:
May each day’s golden sunrise breathe life into your quest for knowledge…and mid-day’s red fire strengthen your courage and teach you trust. May the healing of cool sunset waters bathe you with caring plans for the future…and may you be wrapped in a midnight blanket of gratitude and wisdom. May you dance to the rhythms of Grandfather Sun and Grandmother Moon…and feel abundance and stability from the warm comfort of Mother Earth. May you soar to reach lofty goals with the graceful flight of the Winged Ones…and know instinctively like the Creature Beings when to work and laugh, sleep and play. May your talents and abilities blossom like the beautiful plants of the Standing Tribe…and your voice discern whether to speak or keep silent from the record-keeping Stone People. May you humbly learn the magnitude of the Universe at the feet of the twinkling Star Nation…and take joy in the luminous tapestry woven of people of all colors, languages, and beliefs. May your innocence forever help you to see the world of Little People and other folk…and the truth radiate from within and around you to guide you on your Path. May the medicine and miracles of these gifts brighten and nourish your Spirit…and may Love embrace you all of your days, and forever after.”
My daughter is growing into a little person of spirit. She loves the church I attend, now that spirituality and religious practice have reunited in my life. She often goes with me by her own choosing, this year deciding to serve as an acolyte. She also loves the freedom of spirit in which we question and search and seek, both in that faith community and within our family and its embrace of multiple spiritual perspectives as well. I happily just hung her two favorite symbols up by her bed…a cross she selected from a Palestinian Christian visiting our church and selling carved items made from olive wood, which hangs beside a sculpture of a moon in which is carved the image of mother and child. Peace signs, yoga mats, and nature are her favorite items of decor. She took a Bible, a Book of Common Prayer, and her favorite volume of Irish Myth and Folklore with her to camp. Moon Mom should be proud! And so am I…
As I opened this book and read the found blessing within it, I was reminded that our path never ends, and our destiny is not written but does emerge as we travel our journey with authenticity. Sometimes, we find our voice not in the public spotlight, but because we allow our spirit to shine through us. Others will find their way to us, because they are touched by the authenticity of our song. It’s a lovely little children’s book…read it if you can. The found blessing, tucked inside, is what lingers with me, though. It was then, and is now, everything I could wish for my daughter and everything I cherish in my own journey as well. It blesses the new chapter of my life which is taking shape through discernment, as I continue to learn from all the experiences I have had so far. Passing this found blessing to all those who read this for your own journeys as well…
I dropped my daughter off at camp yesterday, which brought back a rush of memories for me of my own camp experiences. Most memorable for me were the two years during high school where I spent my summers as a camp counselor. The camp I worked at was a small camp still under construction; a lovely piece of property had been donated to the camp foundation, with a house large enough for kitchen and dining hall for around 50, situated on a country lake in rural upstate New York. Volunteers from the churches supporting the camp had built huge platform tents and constructed 2 bath-houses around the lake on the boys and girls sides. It was beautiful, but very rustic (more so than my daughter’s comparably posh-yet-woodsy accommodations) without any electricity outside the main house.
I probably came across several hundred children over my two years of multiple camp sessions, and I honestly don’t remember many individual names. I was “Chief Sarah” and I worked in tandem with “Chief Pam” in our little village of around 12-15 girls. Admittedly, I have a few names I recall just because I had to say them over, and over, and over again trying to keep order. But there is one young person who does stick out in my mind. Her name was Elizabeth.
Elizabeth had never been to the country, let alone the woods. She arrived with long, tangled blonde hair and her clothing…two outfits…in a brown paper shopping bag. The pastor of her church had personally brought her and managed to find money to pay her registration. I learned in the brief interaction at registration that she lived with her grandmother, who was having surgery that week. She had no where else to stay and no one to care for her.
This story occurred long before I was a social worker who might have had really important questions to ask about these arrangements. As it was, I was 16 and I had no idea what to say about this information to those who gave it to me. But one look at Elizabeth told me it was going to be an interesting week for her, and for me. I put her in my tent group.
Elizabeth was sweet, but socially awkward. She had asthma which she’d learned to keep mostly managed and the nurse kept her inhaler in the main house refrigerator. Perhaps not surprisingly, Elizabeth woke each night needing her inhaler. And so, we would walk together in the dark around the lake in the beam of light supplied by my flashlight to get to her medication. All six nights, our shadows could be seen…my arm around her, slowly walking as moonlight gleamed on the lake as she would tell me about her house, her grandmother, her neighborhood, her school, her parents and what had happened to them. They were her stories…and by and large, they were not happy ones.
By day, Elizabeth developed friends, and worked through the tangles in her hair, and mixed and matched her clothes so she appeared to have more outfits than she did. She learned to swim and fish, and became a superior fire builder which earned her a position of honor on our wilderness camp out. Every night, she would profess to be OK before bed, but every night she would wake in need of her inhaler and ask me to walk with her to the main house to get it. Or maybe, as I learned one night when we arrived and she forgot why we had set off on this walk in the first place, she needed the moonlit walk along the still lake beside a listening ear.
I couldn’t fix Elizabeth’s life situations, but I couldn’t shake her story either. I didn’t come from a family with lots of money or possessions. But, we had health and stability. I became aware during our lake walks of what comparable comfort I had in my own life. College was a reality I was heading toward, and I never had a lack of clothing or food or caregivers. Even amid the teenage angst I had about a lot of other things, I became aware of and grateful for what I had in my life. It seemed unfair to me that others didn’t have access to the same opportunities, or hadn’t been told how to access opportunities that may actually be available to them. Later, I would go to college and give up a more lucrative path in science to study social work. I would learn about the concepts of “privilege” and “empathy” and consider these through the lens of my midnight walks with a young girl who had so very, very little but gave me so very, very much to think about. Wealth is not only measured in dollars and cents.
I knew with certainty, somewhere that during that week of lake water and moonlight, that I would be OK and so would Elizabeth. As the week went on, her own stories became less about the ways she saw herself as different and more about the people who loved and cared for her, about those she missed and looked forward to seeing again. She would go back to her daily life knowing she had mastered some survival skills….learned to care for herself, built a fire, learned to fish, learned to swim. And I had learned how to walk beside and listen. How not to fix, because I couldn’t. But instead, how to be present and build strengths and question how to change the systems that led to these challenging life situations. Our walks together revealed that I had faith in her, and she had trust in me. That is a powerful combination.
It has remained true across my life and career that wealth and money don’t go hand in hand. There is a richness in the human spirit, and a call to something larger than we are that binds us together in the human condition, and as people of God. It is not OK for me to be comfortable while others lack. But I can’t fix all the poverty, all the injustice, or all the oppressive systems either. I have learned that I can walk beside others as dignified equals, and use the positions I have to build strengths, and raise questions, and bring awareness to injustice and privilege. I have refined my professional knowledge over the years so I can do that more effectively. I am grateful for the positions of leadership I have…and will continue to have…that allow me to affect change.
But, at some level, I am still walking with my arm around a young person, sharing a beam of light as we walk together around a lake. And for that, I am grateful.
(This post was inspired by Week 4, What Owns Us, in the “Who is My Neighbor” series at St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church.)
My daughter once remarked, while lunching with a group of my colleagues, that she was a “cheeseatarian.” She fits the description…sneaking cheese at any opportunity while I am cooking, and willingly passing up any and all other sources of protein for her favorite dairy delicacy if she can get away with it. I, on the other hand, could easily achieve “breadatarian” status since there is no loaf of bread I dislike, no grain I do not adore, no yeasty and crusty loaf of goodness I do not crave. Bread is equally fond of my waist, it would seem, but the love affair between us continues nevertheless and is sure to last a lifetime.
Since I have also been blogging for my faith community today on the theme of “Our Daily Bread” I have been giving my beloved favorite food group quite a bit of thought. Tonight, I am recalling three treasured bread stories that not only filled my stomach but also touched my heart and radiated small points of light along my path. Let us break bread together…
Course One: Holy Pita, Breadman
These days, the pita is considered a fairly normal staple of the bread aisle. While I may visit the Lebanese bakery for some favorite high quality loaves, in a pinch I can easily snag some pocket bread at the Kroger on the corner. But, in the 1970’s in my little corner of upstate New York, the pita was a strangely unfamiliar, ethnic curiosity.
One summer when I was young, my family was in the midst of some challenging financial times. I was too young to know why…and smart enough to know it was not my place to ask. But, it was clear that we were pinching pennies more than usual, and relying heavily on what we could grow, glean, or get our hands on cheaply for our meals. Bread was an expense we were doing without, particularly store bought bread. Occasional jiffy mix biscuits or corn bread would emerge. There was always enough food, just not necessarily enough of what I would have liked.
One day, my Dad’s friend Bernie showed up at the door. Like my Dad, Bernie sold auto parts and helped fix cars part time. They focused on different car parts…Dad on driveshafts, Bernie on mufflers…so they were colleagues and friends rather than competitors. Times were tough all over, so Bernie had taken on a bread delivery route for some extra money. He stopped by one summer evening…an evening where I have since learned we were getting to a precarious place in the family food supply…to bring a box filled with day old bread set for destruction so that we could freeze it up and make use of it. It was an enormous box filled with pita bread. I remember Bernie having a smile and a gleam on his face. He said we were helping him by taking bread he couldn’t sell off his hands. But, I knew that this gift of pita was like manna in the wilderness, a gift of daily bread from a daily friend.
What I remember most about the summer of pita was how versatile we became in our pita preparation, although it was completely unknown to us at the time. Pita was our breakfast toast spread with the strawberry jam we had made that spring, our lunch sandwich stuffed with lettuce, tomato, and cucumber from the garden, our dinner time wrap for hunks of grilled bologna and mustard that had been secured at surplus pricing. I grew weary of the bologna, but not the pita. It is still a staple of my life. When I see stacks of pita in the store, I sometimes think of Bernie the Breadman, our family friend, and the huge box of pita he bestowed on us exactly when we needed it most. Sometimes, even now, when I kneel at the alter and receive the Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven I am reminded anew that I am taking in the divine gifts of pita and grace, intertwined. Truly, we are breaking Holy Bread.
Course Two: Stuffing
It was usually mid-October when she started the preparation. My Gramma would lay the dining room table with cookie sheets, cooling racks placed on top of each. From each loaf of bread she made or bought, the crusts and a few extra slices would be removed and cut into squares. The squares would be placed in single layers on the racks for several days until they were dry as bones, then added by handfuls to the re-purposed bread bags that hung in the back pantry, awaiting their destiny as a part of our family Thanksgiving feast.
Given my love of bread, it should come as no surprise that stuffing was…and is…my favorite Thanksgiving side dish. Looking back, I am convinced that Gramma’s stuffing was flavored not only with her seasonings, sausage, and sage…but also anticipation. No stuffing has ever come close to compare with her recipe, though every year I try. Those October bread cubes were the beginning of her planning, her preparation, her own anticipation of the family feast that spanned multiple tables, multiple generations, and multiple rooms of her farm house. The anticipation of Thanksgiving and the bread that we would share together, that we still share together in family stories and memories that transcend time and miles.
Course Three: The Loaf
I never require my students to attend class the Wednesday before Thanksgiving break. This is because of the great Hand Turkey Rebellion of 2000, of which I was a primary instigator along with my two friends Melinda and Toni. We normally had our PhD seminar in data analysis on Wednesday afternoons and, not wanting the Thanksgiving holiday to interfere with doctoral preparation, the course was moved to the morning rather than cancelled. This nearly caused me to miss the last flight home to see my family and partake in my Gramma’s favorite family holiday which would have been entirely unacceptable. Given that social workers are a self-advocating lot, we tried to plead our case but we were unsuccessful. So, instead, we planned a feast.
Let it be known that three 30-something social work professionals who chose to leave the productive professional workforce to go back to graduate school should never be underestimated, in spite of a lack of cash flow. We were determined to help the international members of our cohort understand the true meaning and rich history (good, bad, and ceremonial) of American Thanksgiving. We critically analyzed what we loved about the occasion and determined that shared abundance and distributive justice were at the root of the holiday. And so, we made a morning feast of coffee and cider and pumpkin muffins and my contribution…a giant loaf of cranberry nut bread baked in the expanding loaf pan I was given by Franziska, the Swiss exchange student who had spent a year with our family. We set this up, along with stations for constructing Hand Turkeys complete with construction paper feathers, in the room where data analysis should have been taking place.
A lot of learning took place that day, none of which had to do with probability theory. We still laugh and joke, we still get eye rolls from our former faculty at the mention of “hand turkey” and each year, some form of text message, email, or photo exchange will evoke the memory of the enormous loaf. We broke bread…an enormous cranberry loaf…with our neighbors that late Autumn day. Bread shared freely, liberally spread with laughter, makes life taste sweeter.
small points of light 