2019.12.22 Tidbits of Holy Wow

People throughout history have always asked big fat unmanageable questions like: Is there God? How did we get here? What is the meaning of life? Who IS holy? No one has good or manageable answers that satisfy all human hungers for the Holy. Holy is not about being good. It’s about being whole-hearted, letting your soul choose life.

I sometime fret about church attendance. Occasionally, I nudge my children to “go to church.” I’m gentle but I know it’s a little nag. Yet, do I really care? I have to say, not so much. Then I worry that I have detached with denial and not with love from the Holy.

 The Holy is everywhere. All you need is to Wonder and go WOW!

Suffering from impeachment fatigue, sick of life-according-to-Twitter and the temptation to stop caring, I watch for signs that help me to care anyway, to wonder and laugh. Some of what inspires Wonder in me is quirky. In the absence of any objectivity in American politics, I stop trying to find out THE truth. Instead, I find things that make me laugh and feel the uplift of joy—not happiness as if everything is suddenly perfect, but joy—a kind of heart-leaping energy that reminds me I am as alive as when I was born.

The brilliance of the Holy comes to me from inside my religious traditions as well as from outside them. It comes from inside my own mental meanderings as well as from the view outside my window, which today included two men at work on a construction site next door. They were bundled against the cold, likely freezing as they hammered and banged away at the slow-to-rise foundation of a duplex. Suddenly, they started to play—slip-sliding down the snowy slope as if sledding on boots, laughing, throwing snowballs. Childish? You bet. Holy? You bet.

Then I received an image from a friend who has collected Santas for 20 years. Everywhere she goes she finds images of Christmas in the many artistic and cultural variations of Santa Claus, giver of good gifts. She now has a mantel that will hold all her Santas. Room at the “inn” for all.

We have been watching some British television. Its wry humor feels just right. We’ve watched “Fleabag.” It’s a family sitcom, totally unorthodox and outrageous, just what we love, maybe need. At the heart of the drama is a young woman in search of a young man to do “it” with. She becomes smitten with a Roman Catholic priest. Their flirtatious interplay is mutual. In one scene she declares that she does not want to be Catholic, not that he has asked. He quickly, and with total sincerity, replies: “Oh good, I’m so happy that you have such faith in a totally meaningless universe.” This is just before she moves intrepidly into the topic of celibacy.

Just this week I noticed on my home altar a stink bug that had crawled up onto a small cross to die there. The cross is a small replica of the Cross of Nails, originally designed from the burnt nails left after the Coventry Cathedral in England was destroyed by fire. Stink bugs, by the way, are agricultural pests, but they won’t hurt you unless they’re assaulted, and, in defense, emit a hideous stink!  Astounded, I touched the insect to check for life. It was quite dead and quite securely anchored. I laughed. Every critter has soul, is Holy. Of course I projected all kinds of Jesus-y thoughts, settling on: “Into your hands, O God, I commend my spirit.” All Creation is Holy and all returns to its Creator. Here’s my stink bug corpus.

Then in my chiropractor's office I noticed a new addition to the decor. Sitting comfortably in a chair next to the waiting room was a human skeleton, all 270 bones accounted for. The pelvic area looked ample so I thought this skeleton was female. I laughed out loud. What a perfect ad for chiropractic medicine. It keeps your bones in alignment. It feels good to be all lined up inside and out. Thinking with my spiritual imagination, I thought of the word righteousness. In the Bible righteous is a very good way to be. It means being in right relationship with God, yourself and your neighbor—all lined up. The Hebrew word is tsaddiq. When the chiropractor adjusts your bones, you are aligned, righteous, each bone in line to work with the others for a whole body. Here’s my righteous bone-girl.

All these odd tidbits of Holy are not my way of being sarcastic, making fun, or being sacrilegious. They are ways to see beneath the surface of things, and most especially, ways that "life" me and make me laugh with joy—that heart-leaping energy that reminds me I am as alive as when I was born.

2017.12.17 Little Things Can Be Big

Sometimes I say to myself: Lyn, bevel your edge!

What I mean is my critical edge. I can spoil the fun when I’m too serious for my own good or anyone else’s. Ask my sister. She is always excessively joyful and it bugs the bejesus out of me— sometimes, but not always. We joke and laugh about our edges and other things too fierce to mention. We have stopped saying: What’s wrong with you, or what what’s wrong with me? We are differently abled, as they love to say in the world of political correctness, but we have made a relationship of trust and mutuality that works. Not bad for intimate sibling enemies. It only took 75 years.

Still, I am naturally wired to look deep before I make any joy-leaps—wary. Christmas is the season of annoyingly excessive joy, and this Sunday is often but not always called Gaudete Sunday—designated for Joy. Some parishes signal Gaudete with a pink candle on the Advent wreath. “Rejoice in the Lord always: again I say rejoice. . .” (Philippians 4:4)

Joy is that anxious unsettling undefinable energy of anticipation. Something new will happen and it will be good—but not yet.  It’s very hard not to push the season.  Joy isn't happiness and no whoopee; rather it is deep within, nestled in the manger of every human heart. 

Recently I was in Harvard Square walking as I frequently do to get my hair cut for too much money, just because I so admire the owner who does hair and makes me look spiffy and massages my scalp with kind firm fingers.  

Because of a construction site walkers were diverted into a one-lane walkway. That’s when I encountered this beggar in his wheelchair. He wasn’t a new sight. I often give him a little money. He suffers from some crippling condition, possibly Cerebral Palsy. But on this day he, or someone of genius, has placed him directly in the path of the rush of oncoming pedestrians—a startling presence. 

He doesn’t walk or talk; he can only move one arm a bit. He is unattractive, overweight, unkempt, unshaven or badly shaven; his eyes seem a little crossed, but it’s hard to tell because his head stays drooped. He sits slumped in his chair in the same place along the sidewalk—omnipresent. He’s right in my path and I’m annoyed, in a hurry.

I open my wallet. He waits. I have forgotten to get change and have only two $20 bills. Damn!

“Well, look at that,” I say. “I don’t have any smaller bills so this is it for today.”  I retrieve a twenty and start to put it in his pouch. He spots the bill. He looks up. He grins from ear to ear, toothless as well. And then he speaks.

"Thank you, oh thank you!”

“You’re welcome,” I say, or some such vapidity.  I want to move on. But no, he wants to talk.

“You know what I was just praying for?” I shake my head no. “I was just praying for snow” He laughs loudly. “Snow!”

To wish for snow would seem the least likely thing for an outdoor beggar to wish for, and yet the joke about wishing for snow is common. It’s a New England thing. The last thing we wants is SNOW, ever. He knows this and delights in his joke. I react with the horror that is expected. “Oh no, not snow!” 

He motions with his one good hand for me to bend towards him. I lean down. He motions me closer. I follow. He grabs onto my arm and pulls me even closer. I smell his stale breath. I recoil a little. Then he kisses my cheek. The kiss is wet, sloppy,  drooly, and wildly authentic—a tiny moment. As I leave him I tell him I say: “Stop praying for snow, Okay?”  I can still hear his chuckle.

As I walked on I wanted to wipe away the wet kiss using all the proper rationales. But I did not, could not, wipe away this kiss I neither deserved nor expected. I will never forget this little big thing.  

What I tell you happened just as I have said. I dare not say more. So: Amen.