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Merely months before my father died from cancer, he had a visit from his sister, Mary Ann. Mary Ann is a former nun, deeply spiritual, musical. and despite the many health and financial struggles her life has handed her, joyful. Her laugh ,a mix between a cackle, a bark and a song, will make you cringe and join her laughing, at the same time. Mary Ann is younger by a decade than Dad.
These siblings talked for hours and Dad would perk up when she came into the room. You knew from their conversations that these two were bonded by many shared experiences. Dad was seventy-five, struggled to leave his chair, spent much of his time quietly sitting. He watched the clock, pointing out when four hours had passed and he could take his next pain pill. A rancher who could carry a hundred pound calf as far as was needed on his shoulders, a father and grandfather to many, reduced. A man whose gruff voice could send people scurrying, quieted. Mary Ann spoke to him like she spoke to the man of forty, or thirty, that she had known. That is the person she saw in the chair. Towards the end of the visit, Dad spread his hands out before him and looked at them. He turned them up and over and side to side. He splayed his fingers, he put his hands together in prayer. He cleared his throat, he began to speak. His words went something like this. “These used to be such strong hands. Now they’re so weak. So old, so tired. I couldn’t fix a barbed wire fence with them anymore.” Mary Ann slipped down from her chair to the floor by him. Dad looked at her, intently, eye to eye. Then back to his hands. His voice quavered. “Did I do more harm than good with these hands? I was rough and mean; I hit people. I built things. I held babies and caressed children. But in the end, did I do more good than harm? I don’t know.” Mary Ann was on her knees now, holding her brother’s hands. “Oh yes, Ed. Such wonderful hands; so much kindness, so much good. Strong father, giving children the gift of faith. Strong husband.” Her voice went low. I could not hear from across the room - only snippets. “Remember…” “You helped…” I didn’t need to hear the exact words. They were close to each other, leaning in and on each other. He was crying. She was crying. He, listening. She, consoling. It was only moments. Mary Ann’s last words were, “Good hands. Strong hands.” In that short conversation, she and he had discussed whether or not Dad had lived as good a life as he might have. It put a thought in my heart. From time to time, I look down at my hands. “More good than harm?” “Strong hands?” “Kind hands?” Jewel’s song Hands resonates with me – especially this morning. “My hands are small, I know. They mine and not your own. And I am never broken.” The bible has much to say about hands. There is the raising of hands to win battles, the raising of hands in prayer, praise and celebration. There is the laying on of hands for healing; exhortations that lazy hands make a man poor. There is the importance of the right hand – what you hold in it and who is at your right hand. There is guidance by hands. Jesus restores a shriveled hand, stretched out to him. Here are some of my favorite quotes: “I hold you in the palm of My hand.” “I will save you and you will be a blessing. Do not be afraid, but let your hands be strong.” Zechariah 8:19. “My times are in your hands.” Ps. 31:15 “Do not let your hands hang limp.” Our hands are ours – and they work good and bad in our lives. They caress or slap. They can fix or break. As Jewel points out, our hands are our own, and they do the work we would have them do – not the work of others. We have a choice, in any moment of our lives, to let our hands be strong. And kind. Or otherwise. We can let our hands hang limp and useless by our side – saying we don’t have the strength or it is not our problem or just choosing to do nothing. We can clench, open, splay, grasp, let go. How would my life and yours differ if we looked at our hands in critical moments? Once a week? Whenever? What matter of evil would we prevent? How much kindness would the day show? Would we do small acts of kindness - hold a door open for someone maybe? Type a quick text to someone we haven’t touched based with in a while? Fold them in prayer for our children? “My hands are small I know, but they’re not yours, they are my own. And I am never broken.” Updated May 2019.
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My boys and I are watching The Walking Dead together. The zombies have no emotion, no thought except that which drives them to survive. There is no chance for fulfillment of their talents or life dreams, no love for others. They are on auto-pilot, their brains taken over by the virus or disease that has hold of them. When one of the characters we follow puts a knife through a zombie's head, I usually think "thank goodness, that one's suffering is over." I think this, though the writers make pretty clear that the zombie doesn't know it is suffering or the depth of its suffering.
Yesterday, a friend sent me Elizabeth Gilbert's blog post, which quoted Tracie Cornell's essay called Getting Back to Me, and talked about how Tracie was "slowly dying in a failing marriage." It speaks of how Tracie chose life and decided to experience the strange and wonderful in the gym, with her girlfriends and her small children. Tracie likened the gym to Italy, a weekend away to a trip to Indonesia. Life tied her presence, but not her spirit, to one place. Elizabeth was moved deeply: "Whenever I see people trading in their numbness for awakening, their self-abandonment for self-care, their shame for dignity, their fears for boldness, their lies for truth, and their passivity for ferocious self-accountability, ... it just makes me want to cheer. I think it makes the whole universe want to cheer. " Much is unspoken in the post. That's because Elizabeth understood Tracie as I understand her. For me, the words "slowly dying" resonate. When we give too much of ourselves to something that is unhealthy or gives little to nothing back, we slowly die. When we "turn aside to false gods" or lies (Ps. 40:4), we slowly kill ourselves. We slip slowly, deeper and deeper over time, into "slimy pits" and "mud and mire" and we walk on ground that threatens to give way under our feet (walking on eggshells, perhaps?)(Ps. 40:2). And because so much of our time on that journey is spent trying to deny that it is happening, to paint it more brightly with hope that somehow, some way we can change the circumstances, we are like those zombies, we don't even know we are suffering. Then, something happens, our denial and hope is stripped away and we wake up one day and say "How did I end up here? I am in one deep and slimy and miry pit - way the hell down here." ( I like the word "mire". It is a "stretch of swampy and boggy ground." Or, "a situation or state of difficulty, distress, or embarrassment from which it is hard to extricate oneself." (Oxford Dictionary). I think of a miry pit as being like the tar pit in the Croods movie; sticky, black, life-sucking. Slimy is distasteful and requires a shower to be rid of. Miry? It implies struggle, and useless struggle at that. The paradox is that if you don't struggle, the mire gets you; it wins.) One of the saddest moments of my life was when I woke up and saw the depth of the pit I was in. One of the happiest moments of my life was when I realized I didn't have to stay there. I decided, again using Elizabeth's words, "to participate stubbornly and constantly and joyfully in the riotous and unique experiment that is [my] own life." I had to dig out of the pit. That was not fun. Say what you will about the Bible, and your faith may differ than mine, that book was instrumental in my digging. It helped me redefine myself as a person of tremendous value and to see that others, for centuries, had endured what I was going through and lived to thrive. Slowly, and sometimes suddenly, I was lifted out, my feet found solid ground, I stood firmly in my own skin and I sang songs of life and love and joy. (Ps. 40:2-3). Maybe you don't "sing?" We all do, I think. Those tapes in our head that run constantly? "You are worthless, you don't matter, you'd better listen to him/ her, you're so ugly - who'd ever want you?" Those are songs; they have rhythm, and a chorus, and verses. I sang those dirges. Over and over. Now, there are new songs. Songs like this: "You are loved with an everlasting love." "You are the apple of my eye." "Be strong and courageous. Be strong and very, very courageous." "You are fearfully and wonderfully made." And one of my favorite songs I sing to myself, "The Universe is glad I am here, I bring much good." Elizabeth thanks me, and you: "Thank you to anyone who has ever decided to live boldly, rather than to fold up into a small parcel and wait for life to pass them by." Here's to us, us avoiders of walking dead, us non-folders. Like the characters in the series, we make, and reaffirm, the brave, courageous choice of living bigger. Here's to you - what's your song? Psalm 40: NIV http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/eatpraylovemademedoit |
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