(Photo from TonkaToys.com)
Oh, to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be;
Let that grace now like a fetter
Bind my wandering heart to Thee:
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it;
Prone to leave the God I love.
Here’s my heart, oh, take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
--from the hymn "Come Thou, Fount of Ev'ry Blessing"
Sometimes I look back and think about how my second grade teacher might have been the greatest act of grace that ever occurred in my life, and she came in a very, VERY unlikely form, that school year of 1967-68.
You have to know a little about the circumstances that caused Mrs. Ella Smith to intersect with my life that year.
Although my hometown high school integrated in 1955, right after Brown vs. Board of Education, and was actually written up in the African-American newspaper, the Kansas City Call, as a "model" of integration, the elementary school wasn't integrated for a few years after that, in the mid-1960's. But when the old Dumas Elementary School closed and everyone was brought to the "main" campus, an African-American husband and wife teaching pair, R.C. and Ella Smith, were also part of the package. He ended up teaching junior high science and she ended up teaching the 2nd grade (later moved to teaching the 5th grade.)
There was more than one 2nd grade classroom, and generally, students were more or less assigned by lot. But I knew something was up that 2nd grade year, because all the mothers seemed more interested in "which class their child ended up attending." Well...more like "finagling a way their child didn't end up with Mrs. Smith." Mostly very polite, you know. At its most polite, it was "their child was not used to a colored teacher." It was also an era when the n-bomb was used without a second thought, and in the less polite of these interchanges it was, "My kid's gonna have a nigger teacher over my dead body."
But it seemed suddenly many seven year old children in my hometown were "shy" or "nervous," or "had ulcers." At least that is what their mothers claimed and there was one doctor in town who seemed pretty willing to dole out "medical excuses" of why being in Mrs. Smith's class was a bad idea.
As it turned out, I was to be in Mrs. Smith's class.
I remember some of the mothers encouraging my mom to "go talk to the school." Now, my mom usually was pretty responsive to peer pressure, but to her credit, she did a very bold thing. She told them, "You know, people all over the country are having to get used to this. She might as well get used to this now. She is the one who is going to have to grow up with the changes." But my mom was actually a junior in high school the year our high school was integrated, and I guess she figured that had worked out okay. Ultimately, I think that is what kept her from knuckling under to her peers.
Now, I'll be honest. Mrs. Smith and I did not always get along. Sometimes not at all. But that probably had more to do with "me being me" than it did what color her skin was. I vividly remember a time she had wearied of me wiggling in my seat. She had me drag my desk to the front of the room and told me to start wiggling, and not to stop wiggling until she told me to stop.
At first this was great fun. I kind of enjoyed being the class comedian. She had given me a ready made audience. So I wiggled and made faces, and the other kids laughed. But after about 2 minutes of wiggling, I think my wiggler started to fade. I broke out into a sweat. The kids were bored with my wiggling, and had started reading their reading primers. Wiggling suddenly began to be hard work. I looked over at Mrs. Smith, and she sort of waved her hand dismissively and said, "You just keep on wiggling."
My wiggling got slower and slower and sllloooowwwwer. I was now wiggling at the speed of the slow motion in a Sam Peckinpah movie. My face had to be beet red. Finally, she asked, "You finished wiggling now?" I meekly nodded.
"All right, then, you put your desk back...and don't be wiggling any more."
But in between our go-rounds about my over-activity, my occasional temper outbursts, and "idle hands being the devil's workshop" (I often finished my lessons quickly, and easily became bored waiting on the other kids to complete theirs,) there was something about Mrs. Smith that I started to like. I realized I was learning a lot, and she quietly challenged me with more advanced lessons to alleviate my boredom, and she seemed to know to praise me quietly, not in front of everyone. I never liked being openly praised. It was too much attention outside of the attention I could control, like when I was being the class comedian.
I learned pretty quickly, though, not to say much in front of grownups around town that I liked Mrs. Smith. Grownups seemed overly interested to ask me how I liked her, or IF I liked her. Sometimes it wasn't even by name, it was "How are you getting along with that nigger teacher?" I remember always answering, "I like Mrs. Smith fine." I could tell that was not the answer those grownups wanted to hear. But they usually didn't ask me any more after that, and I was glad they left me alone. But I remember for some reason I would always answer them by saying her name. I didn't really understand everything this was all about, but I do remember feeling like it was important to me to answer back by saying her name.
But it was a fateful and embarrassing Show and Tell when I realized that sometimes I didn't always like her for calling me out about my spontaneity and temper, but I did love her in a very real way.
She had told us for the next Show and Tell, to bring our "most favorite toy in all the world, that we could bring on the school bus." Well, the photo above is a Tonka farm set that was very much like one I had at home--a nice selection of trailers and trucks. I loved playing with that farm set. I would make barns and fences out of Tinkertoys and Lincoln Logs, and place all sorts of plastic farm animals in the "pastures," and haul them around from one place to another with my Tonka Farm Set. One of the advantages of being an only child was that I didn't have little siblings to tear my farm designs up, and I could play with "my farm" for hours. (The sad memory about that was that unfortunately, on occasion, my dad would tear up my farms when he drank too much, and by the time I was seven, I had already figured out I should lie to my mom and my grandparents when they saw my farm in disarray. I would tell them I was playing that a tornado hit it, and was rebuilding it. Well, you know, that wasn't exactly a lie.)
I decided the whole farm set was a little cumbersome to bring, so I would bring the panel truck and the horse trailer, and a couple of plastic horses for good measure--a brown one and a white one. My grandparents thought that was a fine choice for Show and Tell.
But when I got on the bus, I started to feel a little nervous.
I looked around, and every other little girl on the bus had a doll. Every one.
When I got to my class, I very quickly put the truck and horse trailer in the back corner of the coat closet, and covered it up with a box. As I watched the other kids bring their favorite toys, my heart sunk. ALL the girls had brought dolls.
As we went through Show and Tell, it seemed that each girl's story about her doll got louder and louder, and I felt more and more ashamed. Eventually we got to my turn. I simply looked at Mrs. Smith and said, "I forgot to bring a toy. I'm sorry." She said nothing and went on to the next child. I knew she knew I had lied to her. I knew it. The other kids looked at me dumbfounded.
You see, I was "the kid most likely to bring an odd thing to Show and Tell that would make the other kids giggle and shriek." I was the kid who brought a real chicken foot and showed how you could make the foot "work" by pulling on the tendons. I was the kid who brought a Kotex when the assignment was "bring something in the house your mom uses a lot." I was the kid who brought my tonsils in a jar of formalin. I guess I was already displaying signs that I was destined to be a pathologist, even back then. I was no stranger to bringing something "different" to Show and Tell. But somehow, I knew this "different" felt like a "bad kind of different." Taking a zero on Show and Tell seemed way preferable to showing that truck and horse trailer.
At the end of the day, I wasn't sure how I was going to escape on the bus unnoticed with my truck and horse trailer. I took the "second bus"--the kids who lived in the country always had to wait for the "late" bus and the town kids took the "early" bus--so there would be fewer people watching--but I was already scheming how I could take it home, a piece at a time over three days, smuggled in my book bag.
But when it was getting close to the time of the bus, I was busted.
Mrs. Smith came up to me and said, "Don't forget to take home the toy you forgot to bring."
I didn't know anything to do but cry. She whisked me out in the hall. I was so afraid I was in trouble for lying. But a miraculous thing happened. She said, "If I put your toy in a box and bring it out in the hall, would you Show and Tell it with me? I can give you credit if you do, instead of a zero."
I agreed, and she brought out a box with my toys. I don't remember a lot, but I remember showing how the trailer hooked on to the truck and how the horses fit inside. I remember just saying off the cuff, "I have a lot of plastic horses. Here's a brown one and a white one and they fit right in here and they ride around together just fine."
That's when I looked up and saw her crying. "Oh, child," she exclaimed. "You don't even know what you just said...and I pray to God there is a day that all the brown horses and the white horses can someday all ride around just fine." I remember she stroked my hair as I put the toys back in the box. I could tell that somehow I made her feel good, even though she was crying, and I really hadn't even tried to do that.
But when I look back, and I think about all the things that were going on in our country in 1967 and 1968, it was a moment of shared grace. She made me feel valuable when I had previously felt ashamed, and she had seen hope at a time there certainly must not have felt like there was a lot of it.
I'm ashamed to tell you I never really kept up with her life as I grew up. I was just another of many 2nd graders she turned loose to the 3rd grade, and, eventually, the world. She passed away several years back and I really don't know how much she kept up with my life, other than seeing my late grandmother at the grocery store at times. I often wish I had made room to tell her how years later, I figured out how important it was that our lives had crossed paths. But I never did. Never even considered it until it was much too late.
But I believe with all my heart she is part of the great cloud of witnesses I will meet in Heaven, and I like to think she'll greet me with a brown plastic horse and a white plastic horse.
I was a little surprised and, I admit, a little sad to hear New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson's retirement announcement. So to cheer myself up a little, I re-watched his appearance on the Daily Show--I still totally crack up at the chess references early in the vid.
You can read the full text of his retirement announcement on Mark Harris' blog--here is the link.
But I am not ashamed to tell you "I really really admire this guy." What's funny is that my admiration for him really doesn't have anything to do with "teh ghey" except that it is just who he is. It's that I have always sensed when I look at him that we share a common link--the link of the "silent sufferer." It's a link where clergy and physicians intersect in very deep ways. My admiration for him comes from watching the parallels in his journey and mine to become less of a silent sufferer and to learn to offer our troubles to God.
Bishop Gene is the bishop of a small rural diocese in a small church denomination.
I am a part owner of a small rural practice in the second smallest medical specialty. (Only nuclear medicine is smaller than pathology.)
I suspect he knows the parishioners in his diocese by name and face better than bishops in larger dioceses. I imagine he knows their life struggles in a way slightly more intimately than most bishops.
I can tell you, when you read out surgical path specimens in a town of 17,000 vs. one of 170,000, a lot of names cross your desk that you know. I put my signature to the bottom of a lot of surgical path reports that change the lives of people I personally know in a hard way.
I imagine a small diocese like New Hampshire has money woes of a different nature than larger ones.
Believe me, small medical practices have the same problem.
I read his autobiography, and there has been a fair amount of pain in his life that other people might not totally understand.
Me too--just for different reasons.
He was elected Bishop at about the same time I was walking through a tremendous life difficulty--one that had the threat of totally changing my life in the practice of medicine. It was also a time in my life I had not yet re-discovered church, and had not yet joined the fold of the Episcopal church, and the life of Trinity-Kirksville.
Bishop Gene doesn't know it, but he is part of what brought me to the Episcopal church.
Something told me, "Pay attention to this guy. He has something to teach you."
My inner skeptic said, "What? This guy has nothing in common with you."
But as I heard him speak, as I read what he said, as I simply followed him from a distance, I saw he had a relationship with a God I could stand to be around. For much of my life, God was a guy who, when I looked at his face, all I could see was how short I fell in comparison. Bishop Gene talked about a God who loved us no matter what. He talked about a Jesus who was on the fringes of life and brought a radical new way of living to the world. A place where being a little of the radical edge of being in my own world was okay.
Meanwhile, I had two people in my office who constantly pestered me to come to Trinity. Ultimately, they were the two direct forces that caused me to give in and darken a church door on a regular basis for the first time in over 20 years. But a big part of that was I really wanted to see if that God that Bishop Gene talked about could even possibly exist in Kirksville, MO.
I discovered he did. In spades.
I have continued to listen and watch Bishop Gene. I have watched how he has met many challenges in his life and somehow is always still smiling, still appearing to be in the presence of a God I continue to get to know. I am sure he has really hard, hard days in his life. I can see where the burden of "him just bein' him" might feel intolerable at times. I can see how it could affect everyone in his circle of influence. I am absolutely sure he has glaring imperfections that those close to him would like to knock him over the head with a 2x4 at times. I am sure he, on occasion, irks those people, hurts their feelings, drives them nuts. Don't we all.
But I think about the sets of "expectations" other people make for him that he has to constantly choose whether to meet them out of fear, guilt, or shame, or whether to hear the voice of God in his heart and let the "expectations" fend for themselves.
I sit half a continent away, and simply watch and hear how I think he does that, and continue to work on these things in my own way, in my own world. I find myself grateful for "him just bein' him, in the presence of God," because it makes me feel that I can continue to find islands of peace in a violent, hurtful world, by "me just bein' me, in the presence of God." I don't think he's Superman--but I do think he's one of the finest Clark Kents I have ever seen.
I've never met the man. I imagine if I ever did, I'd just sit and say nothing b/c I would be too embarrassed to say one-tenth of what I just blogged. But I thank God for his life just the same.
(Quilt by Suzanne Thompson)
Genesis 15: 1-6:
After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.” But the word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.” He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.
I have had some fantastic star-gazing nights in my yard the last few nights as the moon waned, sitting outside in my backyard by my chiminea in "the most holy spot in the yard." One of the true blessings of my life in the country is living far enough away from town the light pollution doesn't mess with me too much. There have been plenty nights lately where I can see the Milky Way. Never mind it's been chilly. The fire is warm and the view is beautiful in its simplicity.
One of the things I tend to episodically struggle with is it is pretty much a done deal at this point that I will have no biological heirs. Honestly, it is one of those things I didn't plan on, but it just sorta happened that way. When I was young, I always figured "there'd be time later." But that thing called "career" took up my time, and that thing called "intimate relationships" sort of moved to the back of the bus, and the next thing I knew, the perimenopausal fairy showed up and there were no prospects in sight.
But honestly, I'm not sure that was all bad. I don't think my DNA is all that special. Really, I'm only a few dozen DNA base pairs different than everyone else in the world. I don't really feel any great ownership over my family's DNA. But on occasion, I do feel sad that I made conscious choices that sends 250 years of one family line of DNA to a screeching halt.
It's the definition of "mixed emotions."
My family did not corner the market on "normal family relations." I suppose there was always a piece of me that, deep down inside, felt like a monster. Over three decades, I've vacillated whether I would be a great parent or a horrible one. Oh, my guess is I probably would have been no better or no worse than anyone else. But truthfully, I have spent a lot of my adult life, controlled by the fear of the monster. The grand disconnect is that my friends tell me that I have a "way" with kids. I have a different demeanor with kids--an easygoing, loving one for the most part. I probably did let the monster win there, and cut myself short. But I also never really had the time--or so I felt--to make room for the relationships that would create a family.
Oh, it's not that someone couldn't come along and change all that--I would probably be a great grandparent at this point--but I more or less became content in my solitude. I still am. I truly love certain aspects of my hermity, solo life. But it doesn't change the fact I am heir-less, and probably will remain so.
Yet there is a part of me that says that God always gives us "heirs." But maybe they are not connected by those few dozen base pairs of DNA.
I recently spent an evening out by my fire, with a friend who brought a young friend. My friend is what you might call a "non-traditional student." Non-traditional as in, she's old enough to be her classmates' mother. What I was picking up on was that this young 20something guy was listening intently at these two elders, simply talking about life and past choices, good and bad, and that the choices he now is working on making all work to some place that is not yet defined, but are probably eventually an "okay place." He was settling into a place of "okay-ness" with the company, the fire, and my dogs.
It was in that moment I got a glimpse of what my "heirs" are all about. It's something not everyone with traditional "heirs" is going to "get," but I believe some will get it, some won't. But here it is:
It has to do with the old hymn, "There's a wideness to God's mercy."
"There is grace enough for thousands Of new worlds as great as this; There is room for fresh creations In that upper home of bliss."
Because I did not go down the traditional path of "building a family," what I lacked in depth of involvement, God made up for in "wideness." It really wasn't anything I "did" or cultivated. It just happened. I find myself humbled and touched at least once a week over my interactions with this interesting variety of people and the kindnesses I've been shown. I enjoy the unpredictability of how they float in and out of my life. I enjoy the surprises they bring. I find the little bursts of love they bring in these interactions very satisfying. I am awed by the "fresh creations" that emerge from this odd little life of mine and the varying people in it.
The flip side is something I continue to gain serenity over. I have come to realize certain kinds of interactions, because of some of the scars I carry, are simply toxic to me. They shut down that awe and wonder and ability for me to love back. There is a certain combination of "psychological intimacy with a certain set of baggage" that I have to learn not to hook me. All of us are broken people in one way or another. This one, frankly, is the brokenness that showed up in my yard, and it is mine to tend. There's a sadness to that, b/c much of it is hooked to how most folks live a life that most people take for granted as "normal," and anything outside of it as "abnormal," and to say "I am probably not equipped to live that kind of life," might, to the average ear, seem like saying, "I'm a loser. I have something wrong with me." I have known for many years I probably can't live that life safely and in health. I am just now getting around to truly accepting it. But in my acceptance is not defeat; it's anticipation and adventure--and I have always loved adventure.
The other thing I'm learning is that whoever we are, "God picks up the slack, if we only listen to him." This continues to be the most exciting discovery in my life. God can take "broken" and make it not only just "not matter so much" but transform our own individual brokenness into extraordinary lives. Extraordinary lives that create a ripple effect far beyond what we can comprehend. Extraordinary lives that give us tiny glimpses into the kingdom of Heaven. Extraordinary lives that prepare us for being part of that "cloud of witnesses" in the life everlasting, and part of a "cloud of witnesses" here on earth that can make each of us we interact with feel loved, cared for, and mattered about.
Behind that cloud is a sea of stars. Stars too numerous to count. Our heirs. Millions of heirs that a few dozen base pairs of DNA don't matter a bit.
“About every ten years, you have a chance to look back on your life and, when you do, you can see the ways the Spirit has touched you, moved you, maybe even shoved you in certain directions. And the Spirit of God is there in the least likely of places, in the least likely of people, in everyone you’ve known and loved. And the Spirit has touched you through all of them. You’ll be able to say, ‘There’s the Spirit,’ and ‘Oh, look, there’s the Spirit again!’ What you know in the present is that you have to make decisions, you have to answer the questions your life and ministry bring you. Later, as you begin to reflect, you’ll begin to understand that if the Spirit was there with you in the past, the Spirit is with you now, and will be with you as you move into the future. If you want to know how the Spirit is working in your life, just look in the rearview mirror every once in a while.”
--Tom Talley
One of the problems with moving forward is that there are times that require looking back--and not with nostalgia.
I was recently visiting with a friend who is a Vietnam veteran, describing "then" and "now."
He described it like this: "When I came home, I sort of put all that stuff in a package. You know, when I was in country, we always said "When I get back to the world, I'm gonna...etc. etc." It was sort of like Vietnam was "another world." I knew it was a temporary world. What I learned to survive there wasn't much use to the world I live in now. But it was VERY useful to the world I was in at the time--it helped me survive. But sometimes I am surprised at how that package opens itself when I am not expecting it."
I think when any of us think back to what we would consider "traumatic life experiences," the "other worldliness" is very evident. They are places we don't care to look because they are laced with adrenalin and obscured in a cloud of fear. There is a heaviness to them. There are feelings of loss of control that people describe as being "trapped" or "paralyzed" or "feeling reeled in, unable to get any traction to resist."
I know for me, those things feel like I am trolling with a fishing rod in calm water, and suddenly hooked Leviathan. I can no longer control the direction in which the boat is going. I can't turn the crank on my reel and get any purchase on it. My feet strain against the hull of the boat, simply to remain in the boat. I am afraid that any minute, Leviathan will decide to dive, and capsize my boat. I don't dare let go of the rod for fear the line will get snarled around my feet or body and drag me out of the boat and drown me. The only thing I can do is consider getting my pocketknife out and cutting the line, and even that is hard to do because it involves taking one hand off the rod...or pray the line breaks on its own.
But even then, when it's calm again, I am faced with a new reality. My boat is in a place I did not want or expect. I'm still going to have to navigate back to shore. I'm going to have to re-orient, get my bearings, find a landmark. I may have to rely on the next random boat that comes along for directions--and the person in that boat may or may not be trustworthy. I am going to have to weigh that advice before choosing. But ultimately, to get back to shore I have to make a series of choices about the new environment in which I've suddenly been thrust. I have at times found myself angry and resentful of those choices. I find myself feeling powerless when "that package opened itself" and I am left to deal with the residue that leaked out of it. Maybe the residue is toxic; maybe it is benign. But I find myself feeling like it's ALL toxic, even when it isn't, and simply angry that it must be cleaned up.
But recently, I thought about this in a new way after reading the essay where I got the above quote. I suddenly realized that somehow, I'm still always in the boat. Somehow, I remained in the boat.
That boat, I believe, is the Holy Spirit. It was always there, even when the only conscious memory I have of it is straining against it, just as my feet strained against the boat to hold on.
The other thing I realized is no matter how bad the ride has been, in those times I revisited a place I did not want to go at a time I did not want to visit it--the times I suddenly feel the rod and reel jump in my hand as the hook sinks into Leviathan--when the episode is over, there is a joy--a calm--about just being in the boat, in the same way seeing a rainbow after a bad storm is calming. It's just good to be alive, and it's good to be in the boat.
The other thing I realized is none of this ever dented my courage enough to stop fishing. There are other fish out there I want to catch--good fish--fish that are nutritious and healthy. Yes, the chance always exists I might hook Leviathan--but the good fish are so good, and so tasty, I always feel it's worth the risk, and I continue to be more experienced at fishing as a result of it.
...And, you see, I also know I have a good boat. I doubt my boat is the most attractive boat on the water. I am almost positive it isn't the neatest and tidiest boat. (Anyone who's ever ridden in my truck and seen me move three pounds of clutter from the passenger seat knows THAT.) But that boat is sturdy and reliable.
So, I have come to believe, is the Holy Spirit in each of our lives. Always there, even when we don't perceive it. Even when our only perception is we are straining against it. That's ok, too--she can withstand our straining, and sometimes straining against it is the only way we can remain where we are and not be swept overboard and drowned.
But ultimately, we need not fear Leviathan if we only can be brave enough to trust the boat.
Many of you all know I love GraphJam.com, and occasionally submit to them. They once again accepted one of my submissions! I'm grateful they like my humor, and I will now step back and enjoy my 15 minutes of fame. (Don't worry--I don't let my head swell from it--I usually am already thinking ahead to "what's next!")
I normally don't do "pass alongs" on my blog, preferring to do mostly my original work, but for those of us in the Episco-blogosphere, this one is too important NOT to pass along.
One of the main reasons I became Episcopalian is b/c Richard Hooker's "three legged stool" of "Scripture, tradition, and reason" makes perfectly good sense to me. It is how I have grown by leaps and bounds in my personal discipleship as a follower of Christ.
Read their web page here, and be sure and read Elizabeth Kaeton's erudite explanation of why this is important here.
I know enough to shut up and let these people do the talking, so I will. I do, however, invite you to pass this message along to your blogs!
(Throne of Heaven, from a gradual by Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci, 1370.)
What is a saint?
What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago. I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory. He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is a caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape. His house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world. He can love the shapes of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love.
-Leonard Cohen, "Beautiful Losers" (1966)
I have to admit I have had a life-long voyeuristic love affair with the saints--Not just all the ones we recognize in the Episcopal Church, but all the Roman Catholic ones, too. It probably has more to do with growing up with childhood "best friends" that were Roman Catholic.
My childhood best friends came from a Roman Catholic family of six rather ill-spaced children. They all attended the local parochial grade school in my home town. Part of what they had to learn in, as we say around here, "Cat-lick school" included the lives of the saints. I learned about the saints by osmosis, as I often helped them with flash cards for their lessons. Now truthfully, we were most interested in their gruesome deaths back then--the "gross" factor ran high in this learning activity. But the secret fun for me was, growing up LCMS, I was dabbling in what I was told was "wrong"--Lutherans don't care much for saints and the ones they acknowledge barely get a passing nod. Oh, they have a calendar with saints but growing up, they seemed to be treated more like the mentally ill relative living in the basement.
So I have to admit, my love affair with the saints was heavily based on the "forbidden fruit" aspect of it.
I have somewhat mixed emotions about the Episcopalian treatment of the process. We kind of have this weird "two track" system. We don't canonize any new saints that are after the establishment of the church. But we have feast days tacked on for men and women subsequent to that, and these folks are considered holy people. Yet, they don't get to be called saints. That always seems a little unfair to me, because I think they, in fact, ARE saints in their own regard.
Even though I personally think the Roman Catholic process of canonization is slow, tedious, and horribly political, I actually do like the idea that we mere mortals can aspire to be saints. Fr. James Martin had a recent really nice piece on the saints that made, of all things, HuffPo.
Now, aspiring to be a saint, at first glance, doesn't sound like a huge amount of fun. It sounds all full of piety and sacrifice and fasting and whipping oneself with a cat-o-nine-tails or something. But I submit to you that saints walk all over the earth today. We just don't recognize them with feast days, and I submit to you the saints themselves don't even know they are saints three-quarters of the time. I submit to you that each of us has had life experiences that put each and every one of us in glancing view of sainthood.
I think back to a time someone called me "a saint." It had to do with taking care of my friend M. as he was early in his dementia. They had been watching me deal with him on a particularly trying day, and told me I was a saint. I was immediately embarrassed and ashamed, although I didn't admit it.
I thought to myself, "They don't see me on the days I'm not very good at this. They didn't see me frustrated that I was late for work again b/c he won't put on pants. They don't know about the times I am already crying b/c I miss my best friend and pathologist confidant. I am not a saint. I'm a big fraud."
But here's the kicker--it's not our holiness, it's not our piety that puts us in view of the company of saints...it's our humanity. As Martin points out, the saints had lives that were...well...kinda weird. They had abusive parents, strange opposers, moments of huge weakness, and failure left and right. They had weird spiritual practices. For some of them, mental illness of certain types in their era was actually a plus. Nowadays, hearing voices from God gets you branded "crazy as a loon"--not holy.
The saints were very--VERY--human. They were more like us than we care to admit. So often we run from our humanity, but what made the saints different is they somehow were able to embrace their own flawed human nature as a child of God. But I bet they thought of themselves as frauds once in a while, too.
The other way to look at this is that as humans, we are hard wired to love. Saints are merely people who heard God telling them ways to love "outside the box." M. was an iconic figure in his career at the University of Missouri. I realize now part of my love for him was to preserve the icon as long as I could--I'll be the first to admit I probably let it go too long--but what I will say in defense of that was when the dementia finally overtook him, I think he got to bring most of his dignity along for the ride. I know I always didn't do everything "right." I know I was not "holy" for most of it. Some days, I'm pretty sure I did nothing "right." But when I look back, I have no resentment and no regrets--it's how I now know it was the right thing.
I was called to love way outside the box and I did it, and when it was time to let him go, b/c I felt like I had done what I was called to do. I could let go. I think some people might have been a little surprised how quickly I let go. Again, I didn't always do that right, either. Because it hurt to let go, I was pretty short with some folks about it. It probably came off as "uncaring" sometimes.
But today, is the day we celebrate not just the "holy" in the Holy Men and Women, but the "human." Especially the human. The standard old prayer goes, "All you holy men and women, pray for us." I believe the saints have a special power of intercession, simply because they know enough to pray for the most human parts of us. My prayer today goes like this:
Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.
God the Father of Heaven,
Have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world,
Have mercy on us.
God the Holy Spirit,
Have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, One God,
Have mercy on us.
All you holy men and women, pray for us.
All you holy men and women, pray for our humanity.
All you holy men and women, pray for our uncertainty in doing God's will.
All you holy men and women, pray for our stumbling through life and somehow occasionally doing the right thing.
All you holy men and women, pray for our anger, our snarkiness, and our sarcasm.
All you holy men and women, pray that we are unafraid to love.
All you holy men and women, pray that we see the good in ourselves.
All you holy men and women, pray we let our divine lights shine and not put them under baskets.
All you holy men and women, pray that we laugh and sing in the presence of God.
All you holy men and women, pray that we feel the touch of each other's hands when we are uncertain, squeeze them, and feel them squeeze back.
Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world,
Spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world,
Graciously hear us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world,
Have mercy on us. Amen.
