free wandering life

unexpected

A few years ago Ruben and I attended the morning mass at a local Catholic church.  I think its only the second time I've been to a mass except for a recent Catholic funeral I attended. We were between church homes and looking for places to connect with God and for some reason, Ruben had told me the night before that he wanted to attend a nearby Catholic church, maybe because it was reminiscent of his childhood days in church, I don't know.

I know that over time all of us can and do succumb to apathy and boredom with certain rituals and habits, and I think it is often most evident in our religious practices, and I also come from a church background that doesn't have much of an appreciation for the Catholic church.  But what is old hat to one person and an over-familiar ritual can be the newest and freshest of experiences to another. 

For me, the service with its rituals and ceremonial rites conveyed a sense of reverance and awe that I have missed in the churches I have attended all my life.  It was a service rich in symbols--holy water, a golden crucifix held high and leading the silent parade of the priest and attendants as they entered, the ritual prayers, kneeling in unison, prayers recited together, moments set aside for silence, a message spoken with gentleness and firmness about attending to others with love, and the most reverant of all--the holy eucharist taken together in solemn procession and silence except for the priest's blessing spoken over each of us as the wafer was laid on our lips and as we drank from the chalice. This was holy ground.

And one last unexpected gesture has lingered with me...after an hour and a half of reverant and solemn assembly and ceremony beneath a stained glass window the height of two stories, with the priest in his stately robes and with candles and altar attendants surrounding him, he stood at the doors as we left the service, greeting his parishoners, and when he saw Ruben in front of me, he broke into a broad smile and gave him a warm and affectionate swat on the shoulder as though they were old friends and at the same time reached for my hand and said with a broad and hearty smile, "Good to see you this morning!" and it sounded like he meant it.

I left feeling like I had really gone to church.  Somehow it made the rest of the day more meaningful and satisfying and remembering that unexpected and warm gesture even now fills an empty place inside of me.  

I can think of a few friends and family members who would be surprised and skeptical of any attempt to find God in a Catholic church mass, but there He was in rich and meaningful and delightfully loving expressions.

The gate may be narrow, but the meadow on the other side is expansive and rich and full of life and there is room for many.  Makes me feel like there is room for me too.

off ramp

Every workday morning, I take the same highway to downtown, and I exit the highway on the same off ramp on my way to work.  Every workday morning.

On Wednesday morning of this week, I sat on that off ramp and while waiting for the light to change and looking out my driver's side car window, I saw--really saw--for the first time, the grandest of oak trees.  How could I have missed it so many times before?  But there it was in its silent grandeur, it's reaching branches and its trunk miles around in circumference, standing silently as it had for maybe 80 years, certainly longer than the highway had been there.  And the world rushes by every morning in all its pressing busyness...so busy, such important business to take care of, so much pressing in on every side...and the oak stands and lets it all go rushing by...doing what it has been doing for years...growing, reaching, living, sending roots down deep, silently and slowly sucking up life into leaves and branches and leaflets, silently and slowly...very slowly...so not in a hurry...becoming what it was meant to be.  

Let the world rush by in its perceived self-importance and rush, let it all rush by in such pretentious self-absorption...the oak is not distracted or misguided or caught off guard...it just does, everyday, what it was meant to do--grow--slowly--steadily--silently--into its grandeur.

observations of a child

We have clearly lost something when we are no longer free just to be, when we must always be active, doing some things and refraining from doing others.  Something is missing when we have to force our pauses, carve out our spaces, and then feel we have to justify them.  As a result, recreation often means engaging in more pleasurable work, not freedom from having to work at all.

                                                                                                    --Gerald May, The Awakened Heart

Of all the people I know, my grandchildren are the most free to just be.  And when they are with me, they give me opportunity to be the same.  In fact, they have a way of slowing life down--way down--and, unless I miss it by insisting that they hurry up and be efficient, they create space for me to just be as well.  

It has been said that for us to truly experience heaven on earth, we must become like little children. I've wondered what it is about children that we must become like, and since I became a grandparent, I've come to believe that one of the qualities is the ability to be really present in the present moment.  Something we find as adults that we have lost. 

It is the simple things that make me happiest now.  You have dreams as a young person, you long for this or that experience, and then as you get older you find that one of the greatest pleasures in life is sitting on the back patio with a child and letting the present moment with all its fullness unfold--in conversation, in the sights and sounds, and in listening to the thoughts and observations of a child.

music

Sometimes you have to watch someone love something before you can love it yourself.  It is as if they are showing you the way.

                                                                                       --Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz

My husband loves music.  He hears music everywhere and if no music is actually playing, he hears music in his head.  He hears the different instruments, he hears the difference between this arrangement and that arrangement, he hears the beat and the rhythm and the melody and the bass line and the background harmonies.  He has been hearing music in his head ever since he was very young and in those moments when you can tell that he has drifted away into his own thoughts, it is often into the depths of music that he has drifted.

 

Watching Ruben love music has taught me how to love music.  Since he plays the bass guitar and I've listened to him play with various bands, I've learned to hear more clearly the bass line in music.  Seeing what goes into a band setting up and listening to the difference each instrument makes, listening closely to the lyrics, learning the background and meaning to songs, learning to hear the different chords and the changes in rhythm and the melodies layered on top have all helped me to hear so much more.  Now sometimes I turn the music up very loud when I'm alone and I listen intentionally to hear each of the pieces that is making the whole and I can disappear into that dimension of sound, that place where Ruben goes in his head that I've only just begun to be able to really see. I'm learning to really savor some of what I've been oblivious to because he has helped show me the way.  And on top of all of that, is the mystery of music which even Ruben cannot explain of how certain sounds can move our emotions or flood us with memory or bring us to tears.

So now that Ruben has been showing me the way, I can love and appreciate music and sound far more than I could before and I can drift away into the beautiful depths as well.  And while he has been pointing out the sounds around us, I've been showing him that dark afternoon shadows are really purple and that the white light on the tops of the trees in the morning is actually pink.