The clickety-clack of red shoes against the pavement announced her arrival long before her presence did. Each step towards her therapist’s office echoed a question thrumming in her heart: “Do I still believe?”
January 2nd; the new year kicked off, but the same relentless storm of challenges remained: job lost, debt mounting, love departed, health fading, leaving her grappling for faith.
Then, her gaze snagged on the crimson glow of her shoes. A whimsical purchase, worn for the first time today. They felt like a spark, a whispered counterpoint to the storm. Even in the depths of despair, beauty clung on, defying the shadows.
The woman arrived at the office housing a number of therapists and took a seat in the quiet waiting room. She looked around and a mosaic of faces mirrored her own uncertainties. But instead of isolation, she felt a strange sense of solace. She wasn’t alone in this dance with doubt.
Her therapist called her name, and she went into the office. She sat down in a plush chair, and the therapist asked her how she was doing.
The therapist, with a gentle smile, listened as the woman poured out her story. The loss, the anger, the fear, oh, the fear, and the gnawing void where faith once resided.
“It’s okay,” the therapist finally said, her voice a soothing balm. “Finding faith isn’t always the answer. Maybe we don’t have to overthink it because maybe faith, like air, simply exists. We breathe it in without being fully aware that that is what sustains us.”
The surprised woman blinked with wet lashes. “But God?” she whispered.
The therapist shook her head. “I don’t know. But my faith in beauty remains. Even in the storm’s eye, even in the cracks of life, something shines. If I can’t see it then I must trust in the eyes of another who can. I must feel it in the warmth of a mug; hear it in the comfort of music; smell it in the emerald symphony outside. And that, for me, is enough.”
Silence stretched for a moment, then the doubting woman’s lips curved into a hesitant smile. “What if I’m still oblivious to faith?”
The therapist’s eyes twinkled. “Dare to hope in a new tomorrow. Let the sunrise ignite your hope. Make a point to do the right actions, and share that radiance with others. A smile to a stranger, a surrendered parking space in a crowded lot. Remember always: the free-spirited audacity of red shoes dancing on marred gray sidewalks – these too are paths to beauty. Look at Kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold. The cracks, once wounds, become gilded threads, woven into the story of the piece. Like your shoes, every scar can be a flourish, a testament to resilience. Regardless of differing fortunes, we all walk paths riddled with cracks, yet they are still our steady ground.”
A wave of relief washed over the woman. She didn’t have all the answers but she had derived what she had needed: a seed of hope. She’d let up on the searching, but would continue to walk despite the brokenness, scarlet threads woven through her path, unseen but keenly felt.
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Note: I mentioned this artificial Christmas tree experience in last week’s blog post.
The attic stairs groaned under my weight as I lugged the artificial, five-foot Christmas tree down.This year, decorating it was my mission, but it turned into a stark reminder of what had been and what was no longer.Over four years had passed since I had last touched it, the weight of tragedy replacing the joy and family healing it once symbolized.
As I set it down in the living room, I remembered way back to 2009 when the economic recession hit. Despite the hardship, our four-member family had weathered the storm. As per tradition, my then husband, two children and I had brought home a freshly cut tree that year. The next day when I had stood back to marvel at the tree I had finished decorating by myself (no one else liked decorating), the entire tree had toppled over on me! It was a strange, almost foreshadowing event, a prelude to the emotional avalanche that would engulf our lives just a year later. My sudden divorce, husband’s abandonment, the financial ruin, the loss… it all came crashing down the following year in 2010 like that heavy Douglas fir.
My soon-to-be ex-husband’s breakdown also had shattered our family in that year, leaving just me and my two adolescent children to face an uncertain future together. During that sad Christmas season, in the gaudy, multi-colored artificial tree we found at Walmart, my daughter and I saw a reflection of our broken selves, along with a flicker of determination to rise again. And rise again the three us us did, against all odds. Despite its disco ball appearance, the artificial Christmas tree symbolized strength, and we had purchased it, replacing our usual fresh tree that year. When we looked at it, it filled us with faith in the future, and we enjoyed it every year until 2018.
But then came 2019, the year that shattered what remained of our world. My daughter and I spent Christmas in front of greasy cartons of Chinese take-out food, the bare house echoing with sorrow. Holiday decorations lay banished in the attic, mere ghosts of past joy. In 2020, I ordered a three-foot “pencil” tree and a few handfuls of decorations that became our new holiday tradition.
This Christmas, stroking the Walmart-bought tree, memories of 2019 washed over me, the sharp sting of grief still fresh after all this time. The idea of decorating it with its own ornaments, relics of childhood Christmases, which I had also fetched from the attic, exasperated my silent ache, a reminder of the son I’d lost too soon. The once joyous act of decorating the family tree now felt like a painful, unbearable ritual, each ornament a monument to a life that was stolen from us. I opted for the familiar comfort of the pencil tree and its decorations.
Yet, returning those old treasures to the attic felt impossible. As tears welled up, a spark of something else flickered within me. While the pain of being a survivor remained, the memories of other past Christmases reminded me that the same decorated artificial tree had weathered countless storms alongside our one-time family of three, and had become a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, even in the face of fleeting life.
And that’s when I knew what I had to do. I decided to let it go. I posted an ad online, offering the Christmas tree for free.
The first two responses led to disappointment, but then came a message that tugged at my heartstrings. A single mother, struggling to make ends meet, desperately wanted the tree for her four-year-old son. My heart softened, and I did the unthinkable. I decided to give her not only the Christmas tree, but almost all of the rest of it — the lights, the ornaments, even the memories they held.
In that moment, I knew this was more than just giving away holiday decor. It was about passing on a flicker of hope, a spark of joy that could illuminate someone else’s holiday season.
“My son would have wanted your son to have it,” I explained after informing her of my decision, her profuse thanks still ringing in my ears.
Final Letting Go …
Since I was going out that evening, I left the bundle outside my garage door for her to pick up. Before pulling out of the driveway, I took a final photo of everything. A wave of bittersweet emotions washed over me. Sadness for what I had lost, but also a sense of relief and liberation.
This Christmas, like the last four before it, my home may not be filled with the familiar sights and sounds of our pre-tragedy celebrations. But in my heart, I know that the spirit of Christmas lives on. It lives on in the kindness of strangers who lend an empathetic ear, in the joy of a child, and in the quiet strength that allows us to rise from the ashes and stand ourselves tall, like a noble fir.
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My friend Denis M., now long retired, was not just a lawyer, but a champion for justice and certainly a pillar of support in my personal life. To this day, I consider him an important mentor who imparted invaluable lessons that have guided me through life’s turbulent waters.
I will always remember his sharing about the morning when his brisk walk to the courthouse was abruptly halted by a foul odor. His eyes darted to the source, and there, amid the manicured lawn, lay an unsightly pile of human feces. His shock was quickly replaced by a surge of anger that coursed through his veins. Fists clenched tightly, he paced the grounds, his heavy footsteps echoing his fury. With each turn, his face grew flushed, his burning desire was to identify the culprit who had dared to defile his path.
After about ten minutes of scouring the courthouse grounds, he was so emotionally shaken that he sat down on a bench to try and catch his breath. As his heart rate slowed and his breathing steadied, his thoughts turned to the perpetrator of this vile act. He wondered what kind of person could commit such a senseless, disrespectful deed. The more he pondered the individual, the more empathy he felt. He envisioned a life devoid of self-respect, a soul trapped in a state of emptiness, incapable of comprehending the degrading nature of his or her actions.
Rather than condemning the individual, Denis felt a surge of compassion. He saw a lost soul, a human being in desperate need of guidance and understanding. His anger gradually gave way to a sense of melancholy, a realization that the true tragedy lay not in the act itself, but in the desolate state of mind that drove it.
As Denis finished recounting his tale, a wave of understanding washed over me. It was like a door in my mind creaked open, allowing in a flood of light that dispelled the shadows of long-held, rigid perceptions. Forgiveness, once a distant concept shrouded in judgment, suddenly felt attainable, even desirable.
This newfound clarity manifested itself in subtle yet profound ways over the years that changed my life. Take last Sunday, for instance. I found myself drawn back to the familiar pews of my childhood church, a place I usually avoid since our family tragedy in 2019, especially when I feel emotionally exposed.
As it went, I found out that one of the parishioners, a woman in her 70s, had lost her husband, about the same age as herself. After the liturgy, my sole desire was to offer my condolences. My heart ached for her, and for her son, a man I hadn’t seen in 20 years, who stood beside her in the church hall, his grief a stoic shadow. I approached them, eager to offer comfort, and not only to share the simple truth of her son being a fine young man, but knowing how it was to lose a father when I was around his same age.
But before I could utter a greeting, the woman descended upon me. Her words tumbled out like a torrent, each one a sharp stone flung at me. “Forty-four years, that’s a long time. I had my husband for a long time,” she rasped, her voice cracking like dry leaves. “That’s a long time. But a child? Losing a child…nothing compares. It’s the worst thing, the absolute worst…”
Her son, his face etched with sorrow, simply watched.
My tiny voice, unfamiliar to my ears, piped up, “All grief is justified.”
The woman ignored me as she continued, her black eyes flickering. “I don’t know how you survive. How you get out of bed each day.” Her tirade was like a broken record. “I don’t know how you go on. How you face the day.” Her gaze, raw and accusatory, pinned me like a butterfly under glass.
“Should I just self-destruct then?” I almost retorted with a bitter humor. The thought of crumbling in front of her, offering myself as a sacrifice to her anguish, felt perversely tempting.
Her son, shoulders slumped under the weight of the woman’s emotional meltdown, his own grief shoved to a backseat, simply shook his head compassionately at me. His apology, whether for his mother’s behavior or for my being plowed over by her words, hung heavy in the air.
The air crackled with her sudden curiosity. “How’s your daughter?” she asked, her voice like a spark.
“Great!” I barked.
Leaving a house of worship should be an act of renewal, a shared understanding that even in the face of darkness, there’s a flicker of light, a whisper of hope. But this woman, she seemed to believe the very walls of the church were a shield, a fortress against the inevitable.
As I settled into the familiar embrace of my son’s car, my anger simmered. In a flash, I remembered: a leopard-print shirt, skin-tight pants, spike heels, the stage lights blindingly bright. My stand-up days, a time when humor was a shield, a weapon even.
So I channeled that young, brash 20s version of myself, the one who in the 80s faced hecklers and self-doubt with a joke and a wink.
“I don’t know how I survive, lady?” I imagined myself saying in a comedy routine, a mischievous glint in my eye. “Well, let me tell you, two days ago, I brought down the Christmas tree and old decorations. Post-tragedy stuff that had been dorment in the attic for four years, mind you. And revisiting the holiday time capsules attached to so many poignant memories, I couldn’t bare the thought of surviving one more day. And with people like you around, even the luckiest among us will feel driven to ask Santa for a stash of spiked eggnog to keep the holiday spirit bright. Cheers to surviving another season of crazy crazies, uh, I mean, Christmas cheers!”
Hardy har har.
Some say the funniest people are the ones who’ve hopped through fire. Now I understand why. But it’s not funny, really. It’s a wound, a gaping hole in the soul, masked by a thin veneer of laughter.
But this time, something felt different. A newfound strength, perhaps, or maybe a flicker of Denis’s own empathy, guided me through, while the barnacles of disdain began to loosen their grip. Forgiveness, once an abstract notion, morphed into a tangible practice. It wasn’t about condoning the actions of others; it was about releasing myself from the shackles of resentment.
I wouldn’t call it an overnight transformation, but a seed had been planted, nurtured by Denis’s example, and so many others like them over these years, along with my own mental capacity and willingness to open the door to compassion and follow the examples of my past mentors.
As I arrived home, the sunlight felt a little warmer, not just on my skin, but on my soul. The woman’s words still stung, but they also sparked a different kind of fire within me – a fire of defiance, of refusal. I wouldn’t let her define me, wouldn’t let her armor-plated judgment cast a shadow over my journey toward forgiveness. I would just see her as another soul trapped in a state of emptiness; her despair spilling over and soiling the lives of those around her.
The echo of “All grief is justified” resonated within. Her son, too, carried the weight of losing his father, yet I could discern in his compassionate gaze how he held space for empathy. And maybe, just maybe, that was the key.
Maybe, just maybe, I could carve out my own space, reclaiming the ability to laugh, not at the absurdity of life, but with it, despite it, even in the face of the woman and so many like her that I’ve encountered.
So, yes, the woman may have left a mark, but it won’t be a scar, it will be a tattoo. A reminder of the day that led me to decide to rise, to laugh, to forgive, to be in Denis’ league, and a leopard in the pews, not afraid to show my spots, not afraid to offer a hand to the woman drowning in her own inconsolable darkness.
Because in the end, isn’t that what true faith is? Not the absence of hardship and tragedy, but the unwavering belief that even in the cracks, even in the shadows, even in the face of the woman with the black eyes, we have the power to choose love. And that, my friends, is a story worth writing, a story worth laughing at, a story worth living — at least for one more day, just one more day.
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While checking into the Hilton in Long Island, New York, this past weekend with my daughter to attend her former college roommate’s wedding celebration, across the lobby, we witnessed a platonic embrace between a man and a woman that stopped us in our tracks and, for a few seconds, so did our world.
Nineteen years ago, shortly after my brother Mike died suddenly from a stroke, someone gave me a wallet-sized, inspirational card with an illustration of a beaming Jesus hugging a young woman. On the card it said, “Entering the Gates of Heaven.”
Whether you are a Christian or not, the image represents the essence of universal love. In real life, if you are fortunate to experience the magnitude of this type of love, it would equate to living a thousand lifetimes onboard a peace train of which the grandest theme is acceptance and harmony so powerful, it reaches and washes out your deepest, darkest, ugliest, most shameful crevices and allows the sunshine to warm, caress and heal every wound, scar and trauma.
Watching this young couple across the way at the hotel, I saw the young man’s face in the face of Jesus pictured on the prayer card, along with the woman’s windblown hair whose silhouette also resembled the image on it.
The woman could barely catch a breath in between her tearful cries, because of the emotional exhilaration, and it felt like the hotel walls would pop open from the joy. For a moment, superimposed on the man was my now deceased son and on the woman was my daughter. Obviously, I don’t know what my daughter’s take on the sight was, but what I saw was a reunion between the living and the dead unfold on a white marble floor of a Hilton hotel.
After the dramatic embrace, it turned out that my daughter knew both of the people, and, in fact, they were all part of the bridal party. The man had just flown in from Los Angeles, California, and the woman had flown in from Richmond, Virginia. The two people, who had embraced, once shared a semester abroad, along with the bride, in Germany. The reunion between them was a telltale sign of how a connection grows through the passage of time and memories shared, painted in easy, carefree, lofty and heavy highlights.
This is how the wedding weekend began. It was a postponed wedding due to COVID-19. A wedding I dreaded attending, knowing the pain points it would touch. Fortunately, I was prepared; warned by a dear friend about the “Mother and the Groom” wedding song. My defense tool was advice from another dear friend Michelle: In essence, I was there to be happier for the bride and groom than sadder for myself. The advice worked! (Thank you, Michelle!)
The wedding began with love between friends reuniting and then moved to a couple sealing their vow of love. One of the readings at the church was from Corinthians 13, 4-7, a favorite among ceremonies and, in fact, one of the readings at my wedding over 30 years ago, a now dissolved marriage. The famous last line states, Love Never Fails.
The way I interpret the passage is that love failed in our family, because many falsehoods prevented it from forming a pure, genuine love and, ultimately, our unit failed. I’m okay with that for today, because if I do not work in truth, there is no hope for love.
Anyway, the wedding crowd was composed mostly of young, brilliant adults who are changing the world in positive ways. During the reception, I never dreamed I would dance without guilt, but I did! I saw it as long overdue exercise, and it worked. I was, however, overpowered by some flashbacks sitting at the table during the reception, remembering how at the last wedding I attended in 2018, my son kept me glued to my cellphone for a good part of the wedding, despairing about his agonizing love life. The last wedding he ever attended was when he was seven. Deep in my pained gut, I knew he would never have an opportunity as an adult to attend a wedding function, which included his own. By the end of that night, half the male bridal party was commiserating with him outside on the patio on my cell phone. I laughed at the situation, feeling we were all working in the solution mode and on that night, it was true.
At this past weekend’s wedding as the night rolled on, when the traditional wedding songs began, I darted into the restroom until they ended. I can participate in life, but also allow for human limitations by guarding myself.
Looking back, the weekend moved along smoothly, a few hiccups, but no hacking or fevers. I’m left meditating and pondering upon genuine, unconditional love and different types of love. When I first married my husband, in my heart of hearts I believed it would last forever. I believed we would retire, rent an RV and take a year to drive to Alaska, adopting as many old, unwanted shelter poodles as we could along the way. In his own words, he wanted the same ending, but midway through the book, I turned the page, and he disappeared. Though he verbalized what he thought I wanted to hear, he failed to verbalize the truth and allow me to accept it and risk my not responding with unconditional love. In this manner, love failed. Fake love always fails.
From that point, the three of us that were left behind tried to survive best as we could. I will always harbor a tremendous amount of guilt today knowing and realizing the mistakes I made as a mother. One thing I always put my faith into, though, was the greatest thing that mattered to me: seeing both my children grow up as happy, thriving adults. I had faith with fabrication. My son held back nothing from me. Incapable of meeting him on his level, because I believed that the solution that worked for me would work for him, I spoke to him as if he were my twin. It was only a matter of time, when everything backfired and my dream shattered in half, with only one-half remaining, my daughter. I never thought I could be more grateful to have her. She is brilliant and compassionate, much like my son was and also gregarious, positive and confident – in that respect, a total opposite of my son. I am over-the-top grateful these days for her existence.
Now, for damn sure there won’t be any earth-stopping reunions in this life between my daughter and her brother or me and my son. I might dance for the sake of exercise, but not for the sake of pure joy. Those days are done and useless to think about like disposed tattered socks.
Fortunately, I have the mental capacity to still love a little and feel a big happy heart for others while throwing off the pitiful feelings for myself. In this way, I did receive a surprise bonus during our wedding weekend. The groom – quiet, introverted, kind, a good listener, considerate and compassionate – reminded me so much of my son. His image comforted me to the point of giving me such a sense of fulfillment that it felt like a spiritual reunion akin to a group hug teeming with lace, glitter and a gown’s trail long enough to almost reach heaven.
“God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21:4
I met a vet. I met Frank two days ago at a business function, 18 days before Memorial Day. We were two strangers dressed in business suits. Business topics connected us until the divine spark in our hearts led us to a more personal level. I learned Frank had a 10-year army career; three combat tours. After his discharge from the military, he then entered the corporate ranks until he decided to live his true passion and work as a counselor assisting small businesses procure new contracts. In his spare time, he is founder of a non-profit that helps black-owned business enterprises grow.
Frank’s career background, including a master’s degree under his belt, is impressive but it is not what I carried home with me after day’s end. What inspired me and imprinted my heart most was a photograph he showed me. The year: 1991. Two 19-year-old army soldiers happily nested in a jeep. I couldn’t see the photo on his phone clearly, but I espied a pair of military dog tags on the white guy, Frank’s best bud in the army. In fact, they were so apparent to me, a proud sister of two army veterans, I could hear their ting in my mind.
“It’s my birthday today. That’s the day he was killed. Every year on my birthday, I send this picture of us to everybody I know,” Frank explained.
For over two decades, Frank celebrates his birthday by celebrating his friend’s memory. Not his friend’s death, mind you, but his life.
“We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.”
Season after season, Frank’s ritual has ensured that his friend is not forgotten and accents his short life with meaning
Even though I only spoke to Frank for less than a half hour on his birthday, what impressed me most was his loyalty. His courage. Most of all his faith. Despite experiencing trial and anguish in his young life, Frank’s pilgrimage is gallant and glorified. I am certain, he has felt shattered a million times over, stumbled and fell, but always managed to pick up and re-bandage the pieces of his heart if only to bring promise and hope of a new day to others.
And what of his friend? His friend is alive, always young, brimming, too, with a promise and hope that tings from heaven. He is relishing in every glorious breath Frank has taken in all the years that have passed since the early 90s; all along whispering to Frank: “Soldier on.”
Stay tuned!…until next time…walk by faith not by sight!
Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it. — Proverbs 22:6
Growing up, I crushed Parent’s Open House announcements behind hedges in the backyard. I dared never misbehave at school. I dreaded the thought of my mother pleading on my behalf for any wrongdoingon my part in front of the principal. As far as I was concerned, school was off-limits to my mom. I never had to worry about my dad because he was busy working and rarely around.
The one time I missed the bus, and my mom drove me to school, my mother drove no more than 20 miles an hour, stopping at nearly every corner and pecking her head out of her tattered babushka like a scared rooster.
Luck would have it, Jimmy, my classmate, was late that day too. Being driven to school by his parents, his family’s car snaked behind us on the trek school. After the car ride when I encountered him outside the school, his face was red, roaring from laughter.
“Could you ever go any slower?”
Then when he spotted my mother, he asked, still falling over in laughter, “Who is that?”
I shooed her away dressed in her loose-fitting, androgynous to form, clothes that made her look flat and peasant-like and exactly what she was: A cleaning woman.
.
And so it was, I spent my life shooing my mother, with her foreign tongue and history of mental illness sometimes harboring on cruelty, and erratic behavior. My full-time job in life became outrunning a litany of memories that flicked in front of me, beginning with her padding her shoes with wads of paper towels and ending with the occasions that she spit on me in the name of good luck. On the same token, she was never comfortable in her own skin either and folded herself into her house; her life spent hibernating in all seasons.
In my mid-20s, my life changed and so did my friends who viewed my mother’s idiosyncrasies as interesting, even alluring. And that is when I gradually rediscovered her and saw her as someone so entirely different from me that she became a type of novelty in my eyes. And as my behavior changed, so did hers. The time I spent with a soft, trusting mother grew much longer than the time I spent with a harsh judgmental tyrant. I looked forward to our trips running errands and grocery shopping.
As the years passed, her decline was like the moon in the sky during the day. It was not obvious, but always there. Now I know, it was a long good-bye. A few years prior to her passing, her four-time-a-day telephone calls to me turned less and less until she rarely called.
Mom’s roar, too, turned into a slight meow that out of the blue began asking for forgiveness.
“Forgive Me!”
A calm, affirmative voice, one she lacked during her younger years, still chimes in my memory over a year after her passing. The woman I spent my youth shooing away creeps up on me when I least expect it. In a quick glance at the mirror, I lose sight of me and see only her. A slight movement and I live in her body as if it was a preserved shell fitted for me. I have accepted this fate without emotion, like an envelope that I am taking to the mailbox.
In my journey as the grieving daughter, although I cannot see her, God has given me the grace to be her in a way that makes me stand proud. In a way that reaffirms my faith in life—and in dying. Sometimes it is only at the end that a serendipitous dawn breaks with the gratitude and plentitude of resurrection.
Stay tuned!…until next time…walk by faith not by sight!
But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.” Matthew 6:6
Peace, solitude, tranquility
Peace, solitude, tranquility, regardless what you call it, I believe the best way to offset any turbulence in life is to become a homing pigeon led to a space that may not necessarily be your physical home, but present an undisturbed place of respite.
Whether I am in praise, joy, anguish, exhaustion or discourse, I come here to realign my thoughts and spirit and awaken my soul.I have never witnessed a burning bush experience, magically cured an ailment or miraculously transformed in some way. But I am always removed from the stressful boom of the secular. Humbled, I feel peace at my core, and I am ready to return my higher self to the world. That is, the selfless self that can stop ruminating about ME, turning the “M” into a “W” and forming the word “WE” and actually giving completely of myself to someone else.
Though the grotto is as solitary as its brick edifice, I have never come here without being overwhelmed by the sense of union that I feel as I kneel before the candles, religious statues and personal mementos that others have left, and I discover. This is another way that I get unstuck from my own navel gazing and feel part of a larger whole.
Oddly, over these many years, why others don’t flock here like they would a rock concert, I can’t figure out. Rarely, have I seen one other person visit the grotto while I was there.The grotto is off a busy road, buzzing with motorists that accelerate a good ten miles over the set speed limit. I always think how ironic that these motorists don’t see “it.”
Upon leaving, I always want to call to them.“Eureka!” I want to shout. “Look what’s here!”
But that is like asking a stranger to take a road without surface or form.That would be like something akin to faith.
That would be like saying to the passing motorists, “Come feel how small you are and how little true control you have.”
Most of them would likely rather attend a rock concert.
Stay tuned!…until next time…walk by faith not by sight!
We are not moving in chronological order, so please join us as we continue.
Line 7, Day 7 is: *
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
During my adolescence, I discarded religion, leaped on the fast track of a sinner’s life and, finally, in my mid-twenties haphazardly tumbled into the spiritual Land of Oz. Right before the new dawn in my life, I became gravely ill, was rushed to the hospital and had a near-death experience. The slap of the nurse’s hand was a rude awakening back to residing in the bowels of the personal hell that I had built. You see, I had a positive experience clinically dying. I had entered a dimension where I had been freed and stripped of the confines of my physical and mental state; in other words, all pain, worry and necessity.
It’s been a long time since that slap back to the real world. Through the many decades of recovery, I now belong to a group of peers whose jam-packed history involves, among other things, the agony of playing hurt.
In fact, we have an ongoing joke, “Thank God we don’t have much longer.”
To an outsider, this statement may sound morbid. But to us, we’ve survived many trials, in addition to the world’s garden variety of evil; the stuff that double locking your front door forever is all about. Despite it all, we hobble forward, many times still tripping along the way. We are not victims, instead survivors. Advancing in age, we habitually pray to retire from the challenge of letting go and healing and, more so, for the ordinary life.
Whether we are a cursed bunch or a blessed flock is debatable, depending on the given day and circumstances. One thing certain, we are relieved to know that this world does not mark the finish line; meanwhile, dwelling here “reasonably happy” is the best blessing we can get. Innately we know, the spiritual Land of Oz is underrated compared to what awaits behind the gateway of our eternal home with Him.
We are not moving in chronological order, so please join us as we continue.
Line 2, Day 2 is:
“Enjoying one moment at a time.”
During a time of loss, crisis or hardship, balance is key. His love can help ease the scale when it is tipped to one side from the heavy-laden burden, cumbered with hurtful emotion.
It’s okay even for a few seconds to feel something other than pain. God’s joy abounds; always evident in the simplest form in this complex, modern world. Whether it is hearing the peepers sing outside at night at the first sign of spring or meeting the kind eyes of a stranger who stops to say “hello” amidst the day’s bustle.
“Enjoying one moment at a time” brings a few things to mind in my own personal life:
My friend who asks, “How are you?” And really means it. Someone who is willing to listen and provide a sounding board without judgment or advice.
Another friend in my life to whom I can purge my secrets to without threat, the one I would have never known had it not been for a crisis. The one I have reinvented myself with. The one I have learned to live a “new normal” with.
Colleagues who reach out to me after I lost my job because they actually like my authentic self, because a job role ended doesn’t annihilate the human roles we play.
So many decades of feeling like the invisible phantom scribe and receiving a text in the morning from a dear friend telling me how instrumental my blog post was in her life
People I know who pray for me, as I do for them even if it is in a simple one-line prayer.
Stay tuned!…until next time…walk by faith not by sight!
* Correction from the last blog post. The second half of the long version of the Serenity Prayer breaks down to 6 lines of thought, not 10.
WTF? (Where's the faith?) 
