On living and dying

Dec29

A couple of years ago my dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. I was going through a really difficult time with the community where I’d lived for seven years and was soon to leave, and I processed the news mostly as the dull toll of a deep-voiced bell, tolling softly but continuously under everything, audible mostly at night when there were no other sounds to block it out. For two years, while the bell was rolling out its note, I found myself in a strange mixture of avoidance and hyper-preparedness. I didn’t want to think about Parkinson’s, didn’t want to know even if it was fatal or just degenerative, didn’t want to talk about it with anyone, really. A woman I was seeing at the time for spiritual direction gave me an article on Parkinson’s and I tucked it away in a notebook and flinched the couple of times I happened to see it there. I scrolled quickly past Facebook posts where people were sharing about their loved ones’ struggles with cancer and other illnesses. I started two books I really wanted to read — The Summer of the Great Grandmother and Two-Part Invention, both by Madeleine L’Engle — but set them aside because they both dealt with illness and death and I couldn’t take it. At the same time, several times a week, I would suddenly think: I have to be ready! and begin to walk myself through my father’s illness and death in my imagination, trying to experience the emotions ahead of time so they wouldn’t undo me when they came for real.

Of course, as I’d learned long ago, this kind of imagining doesn’t really help. It just causes anxiety now, and I’m sure won’t make things any easier when the time really does come. I know for a fact that what makes things easier, or at least better, is to live fully in the moment and do what you can Today. I learned this lesson when my grandparents died, and somehow more deeply two years ago when the nanny job I’d been doing for six years was to end because the youngest was starting school. They told me at the end of the summer that he would start school in January, and I was devastated. I had bonded with those two boys in a way that I hadn’t with other children I’d cared for, and the time I spent with the little one was the most stabilizing, peaceful thing in my life at the time. I felt as if I’d been told my own children were being taken away from me.

But I knew enough by then to know that it was going to be okay. And so I did the only thing I could, and tried to be as present as possible for every moment I had left with them. I looked at them, listened to them, touched their hair and their hands, and told myself: “You are here right now. This is not a memory or a fantasy, the past or the future. This is all there is. Pay attention.” I noticed the sky and the trees and the birds. I looked around, 360 degrees and up and down, every time we went outside. I breathed deeply. And then, when the little one started school in January, I let go. And I could say, “I couldn’t have done more, or been there more.” I only had what I was given, and I took it with open arms.

Of course, with my parents, that was harder. They only live an hour and fifteen minutes away, but they are busy and I am busy, and my energy levels are not that high. It hasn’t been as pure an experience as it was with the boys. It’s not as easy to know which weekends to go up. And it’s not as easy to just take them outside and watch them play with wildflowers. Parents don’t do that, usually. At least, not as often as two year olds. They also don’t seem to get as genuinely happy and excited every time a helicopter goes by, even though I always point it out. In all fairness, the little boy who is four now is not a excited about them as he used to be when he was two. As for me, I don’t think I will ever take the appearance of a helicopter lightly again.

I am telling you all this now because I just came across another Facebook post by someone’s loved one who is dying. Her name is Kara Thewlies Tippetts. And I read it. For the first time in two years I didn’t look away, but I looked into her eyes (in her picture) and read her story. And, oh. I didn’t need to read that article my spiritual director gave me. I didn’t need to google Parkinson’s, or read about Madeleine L’Engle’s grandmother dying of Alzheimer’s or her husband’s illness and death. But I needed to read this. And perhaps you do, too. So here it is. The link has crashed because it is getting too much traffic, (here it is, anyway) but some kind person copied and pasted it onto Momastery’s Facebook page. You can read it below.

Look around. Look at what is in front of you and all around you. This is not a memory or fantasy. You are here right now. Pay attention.

And I have to tell you something else. I didn’t see those boys much for almost two years. I babysat for them once or twice, but their parents didn’t really need a sitter. I went to their soccer games here and there, but I wasn’t really a part of their lives. And I missed them. But it was okay. But just this fall their parents asked if I would be available to pick them up from school one day a week. And I was. So now I see them every week again.

And my dad saw a Parkinson’s specialist this month who said that it’s not actually Parkinson’s, but something else that they are still trying to figure out. It’s good news, probably, we think, but we still don’t know. Sometimes things are taken away, and sometimes they are given back. I wonder how much the taking away is part of the gift. Could it even be that the losing is the greater gift? I think this is something that will be clear only later. Except that I think Kara understands it, now, already. Here are her words:

“I woke slowly this morning. From my vantage point in bed, I was able to see the sunrise. My baby was curled in the stretch of my back and I could hear the crackle the fire my guy had built downstairs. I didn’t have the strength to travel to his side, but I loved the comfort of hearing him- knowing he was using the quiet to speak with Jesus about our now, our story, our hearts, and our children. Their is a constant pulse of an IV the doctor sent me home with Friday. The horizon outside my window was mostly gray, soft- a snow promised in the days forecast. Then for a moment, a beautiful pink filled the horizon- then it suddenly faded back to gray. It felt like a gift to watch and see this simple moment. No fanfare simple beauty- then the return of ordinary gray. As I grieved the passing beauty, I realized there is something astounding of the soft tones that aren’t showy as well.

“I am thinking a lot about the living we do lately. We live by degrees and now I’m learning how we also die by degrees, and in it all their is beauty. I have spent so much time thinking on big love and wondering how we press past our own limitations we place on ourselves and love beyond our limits. How do we move beyond our comfort and into a realm greater than our understanding. We find a comfort near to Jesus, knowing His love, and begin to overflow from the bounty he has provided in our lives. It takes courage. It causes heartache at times, but there is always a return. Loving big in new corners always grows a spirit in strength- perhaps not tangible strength, but a strength that would cause the spirit to continue to try. Continue to wonder over love, wonder over extending boundaries.

“And now, now I’m learning what it is to die by degrees. Parts of my body failing, parts of my abilities vanishing, and what then? Yesterday, I kept thinking- I drove for the last time and didn’t realize it was the last time. I don’t remember the last time in the drivers seat or the music we played. I just realized I will likely never again drive. It’s this weird event that marks the fading of a life, and I have no feeling other than wonder over the fact that it’s over. That chapter. All the driving my body can no longer do will now be captured by my community, my loves, my people. And there will be other strengths that will languish, and my people will press into love and provide us the needed strength and support to manage that new edge.

“I listened to my husband make the impossible phone call this morning. He called hospice. He told him that his young wife was dying, but they already knew. My kind-faced oncologist had called and told them. They were gentle and gave us a time they would be here to meet with us. The call you never expect when you are still getting your footing on living and loving and confidence in faith and who you are. But our hands have been pulled wide of our story, and peace enters. Jason walks into the room and said- I did one thing I needed to today. Needed to but never wanted to- he called Hospice because I am dying.

“So, there it is. My little body has grown tired of battle and treatment is no longer helping. But what I see, what I know, what I have is Jesus. He has still given me breath, and with it I pray I would live well and fade well. By degrees doing both, living and dying, as I have moments left to live. I get to draw my people close, kiss them and tenderly speak love over their lives. I get to pray into eternity my hopes and fears for the moments of my loves. I get to laugh and cry and wonder over heaven. I do not feel like I have the courage for this journey, but I have Jesus- and He will provide it. He has given me so much to be grateful for, and that gratitude, that wondering over His love will cover us all. And it will carry us- carry us in ways we cannot comprehend. It will be a new living and trusting for many in my community. Loving with a great big open hand to my story being the good story- even when it feels so broken.

“Will you trust Jesus with us? Love us today by imagining how you can press deeper into love in the place you live. Give away what was never yours to keep. Love us by extending yourself in the corners of your world in a way that shines bright the light on the strength of Jesus and His unwavering love and grace. Love us by not meeting our story in pity, but pray that Jesus would tenderly meet us as we walk these new hard steps together as a community. Will you walk in grace with us to my last breath? Will you commit us to prayer? Will you trust Jesus that He knows the moments, He holds the moments, and He will take me away to the land of no more tears at exactly the right moment- and He will also shepherd and love my people after that last breath.”

Thank you so much, Kara.

Pink and Grey on the Lake by Geoff Childs

Florida, A True Story

Dec22

On Friday night, after a long week of nannying and hanging out at the Momastery Facebook page, I went to bed and had a dream that I was Glennon’s nanny. Saturday I woke up and was thinking about the dream and considering whether I would move to Florida for the job. I’d be far from my family, I thought, but the weather would be a welcome change from Boston. I’d have to leave the deep, spiritual symbolism of the changing seasons, but I just might be up for it. Just as I was thinking this, the phone rang. I picked it up and the caller ID read simply, “Florida.”

(What do you think, readers? Was it Glennon? Did she offer me the job, and did I accept? Am I moving to Florida? Well…)

I rarely answer my phone, and even the motivation of the tropics couldn’t quite make me pick up this time. But a few moments later there was a beep to let me know I had voicemail. I pressed play and a man with a deep voice began speaking in a language I mostly did not understand. I did recognize two words, Saalam Alaikum — “Peace be with you” in Arabic. So I played the message to my housemate, Mark, who is Lebanese and grew up in Saudi Arabia. He said it didn’t sound like Arabic to him; maybe Urdu.

A dream, a thought of traveling, a follow-up phone call from the dream-land, a message from a stranger wishing me peace in a foreign tongue. I can only imagine that I am at the beginning of a great adventure. If you don’t hear from me for a while, I will probably be in Florida, or Pakistan, possibly traveling with the Meltons and a mysterious, deep-voiced, dark-skinned man. If you do see me in Boston, looking pale and tired, shivering in the cold, it may not really be me. I may have left behind a doppelgänger to hold my place until I return, if I ever do.

The Darkest Night of the Year

Dec21

My crayon sketch of Bethlehem at night, Christmas Eve 1994

Originally published in 2006 as part of the Greenhaus Community’s Advent Calendar

The Winter Solstice and Advent

On December 22^nd, in Boston, the sun will rise at 7:11 a.m. and set at 4:15 p.m. It is said that the ancient people watched the nights lengthening, and feared that the sun was dying. Even in our modern times, when we think we understand the movement of the earth and sun, we cannot help but feel oppressed by the encroaching darkness. We have even given this oppression a name: Seasonal Affective Disorder. The ancients offered sacrifices to the sun, we take anti-depressants and buy full spectrum light bulbs. But every year, the sun returns. It rises earlier and sets later each day, even as the winter weather worsens. Somehow, we are saved from the darkness.

The early Christians understood the deep truth behind this salvation. Jesus was probably not born in December – most scholars suggest April as a more likely month. But the Christians understood that there was more to the ancient myths than superstition. The darkening earth reminds us of the darkness of our souls without God. And that is why the shortest days of the year are the perfect time for the season of Advent. Advent means “coming,” – the coming of Christ – and the twenty four days before Christmas are a time of preparation for this coming. As the days shorten, our spirits tell us that without some intervention, we will be lost in the darkness. But that intervention has been given. Christ has come! “Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light/ The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” ~from O Little Town of Bethlehem

That is why, in the midst of the darkness of Apartheid, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was able to proclaim,

Goodness is stronger than evil,
love is stronger than hate,
light is stronger than darkness,
life is stronger than death,
victory is ours through him who loved us.

Laundry list

Dec1

Laundry is obnoxious because it tricks you into thinking it’s just one chore, when it’s actually more like fourteen or fifteen. Here’s what you’re really doing when you “do the laundry.”

Chore #1) Find all the dirty clothes and towels — in the closet, under the bed, *in* the bed, in the bathroom, in the kitchen (this alone takes forever).
Chore #2) Separate them (if you do that kind of thing — no judgement).
Chore #3) Put the first load in and start it.
Chore #4) Completely forget that you are doing laundry for several hours.
Chore #5) Remember and go switch the first load to the dryer and start the second.
Chore #6) Repeat step 4.
Chore #7) Take dry clothes out of the dryer and put the wet clothes in. Start to feel like you have been doing laundry ALL DAY because you basically have at this point.
Chore #8) Clean out the lint trap (if you do that sort of thing — no judgement, only your house might burn down [my mom said]).
Chore #9) Fold the first load (if you do that sort of thing — no judgement, only all your clothes will be wrinkly).
Chore #10) Repeat step 4. It may now be the next day or even later.
Chore #11) Remember again and take second load out.
Chore #12) Clean out the stupid lint trap again.
Chore #13) Fold the second load.
Chore #14) Put the clothes away (If you do that sort of thing — no judgement, and, really, no serious consequences).
Chore #15+) If you have a spouse and or kids, repeat all the things for a third, fourth, etc. load.

How not to write a good book

Nov21

An excerpt from Out of Africa.

One night as I looked up I met [Kamante’s] profound attentive eyes and after a moment he spoke. “Msabu,” he said, “do you believe yourself that you can write a book?”

I answered that I did not know.

To figure to oneself a conversation with Kamante one must imagine a long, pregnant, as if deeply responsible, pause before each phrase. All Natives are masters in the art of a pause and thereby give perspective to a discussion.

Kamante now made such a long pause, and then said, “I do not believe it.”

I had nobody else to discuss my book with; I laid down my paper and asked him why not. I now found that he had been thinking the conversation over before, and had prepared himself for it; he stood with the Odyssey itself behind his back, and here he laid it on the table.

“Look, Msabu,” he said, “This is a good book. It hangs together from one end to the other. Even if you hold it up and shake it strongly it does not come to pieces. The man who has written it is very clever. But what you write,” he went on, both with scorn and with a kind of friendly compassion, “is some here and some there. When the people forget to close the door it blows about, even down on the floor, and you are angry. It will not be a good book.”

On Bra Shopping and Evangelism

Nov17

“Why do you have a Jesus bumper sticker on your car?” I had just pulled up into the visitor’s parking of my parents’ apartment complex and was exhausted. I was just at the mall for two and a half hours, and for those who go shopping for fun this might be hard to understand but I hate it. I shop online when it’s at all possible. I know what sizes I take in a handful of brands and I just reorder those whenever my clothes wear out. But recently all the styles I know had been discontinued, and I’d been wearing the same two pairs of pants, one with a hole in them, for months, alternating days. All my socks had holes in them. I was down to one bra whose underwire was beginning to slip out. It was time. It had to be done.

I was on my way to my parents’ house in New Hampshire, so I stopped at the mall there to take advantage of the lack of sales tax. Macy’s, three stops: bras, pants, and socks. The first two took about an hour each and by the time I headed toward the socks section I was dehydrated, overheated, emotionally spent at having to make so many decisions all at once (do other INFPs have that problem? It’s the P, wanting to make sure we have all the information and time to consider before we come to a conclusion), mildly traumatized by spending more money in one sitting than I had in years, and my eyes and head hurt from the lights. Did you know migraineurs’ brains register the flickering of flourescent lights while others’ brains don’t? It’s like the other people are in a normal store but we’re trying to shop in a disco ball.

I finally paid for all the things, limped out to my car and drove the fifteen minutes to my parents’ house. I was shaking, having trouble focusing on the road, and all I could think about was getting a glass of ice water and lying down on the couch. I’m really not exagerating. I had pulled into the parking lot, opened my door, and started to gather my things, when I heard the question from two young people behind me, a man and a woman. College students, probably – the apartment complex is just down the road from Saint Anselm College.

“Why do you have a Jesus bumper sticker on your car?” Man, was I tired. I laughed to myself as I remembered the verse in 1 Peter, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” I’m sure that when he wrote “always” the first century apostle hadn’t imagined getting out of your car after an exhausting trip to Macy’s. Getting out of your boat after a night’s fishing trip, though – he knew about that. Being told to throw his net over the side of the boat one more time, even though he had been throwing it all night to no avail.

It had been a long time since anyone asked me about my faith. It used to be my job to talk about it. I used to hate that the organization I worked for encouraged me to talk about it to people who hadn’t asked. I could (and might) write a book about my thoughts on evangelism, what my school taught and my own experiences, what I used to believe and what I do now. But regardless, I still believed in Jesus, and if someone was asking me a direct question I wanted to give a direct answer, even if I was tired.

The short answer, actually, was that the car used to be my parents and my dad had put that sticker on, as well as another, and I felt somehow disloyal to him and to God for wanting to take them off. I don’t like bumper stickers that much in general, but especially religious or political ones. I don’t think they’re going to change anyone’s mind – at best, they let other Chirstians, or Democrats, or environmentalists know that you are one of them; at worst, which I think probably happens more often, they just offend people. You drive by in your sealed off car, toss some words at them, and never even look them in the eye. But, as I said, I do believe, still. So I compromised by removing one and leaving the other. I left the one with the pun — Wise men, get it?

As to the longer answer, the reason I still believe enough to keep one of the stickers on, and what it is I that I believe… Well Jesus, certainly, I believed in Him, and even if I didn’t I felt like I’d made my decision to trust in Him anyway; made that decision over and over again as a child, young adult, seminary student, and that decision somehow held me even through doubt. And I did believe, still, that He loved me, that I was the Beloved and that these two people were, too, just as much as me. God’s beloved creation, whose life had meaning and hope and importance and who might not even know that. Maybe I could tell them? Since they were asking?

So as I swung my tired legs out of the car and turned to face my questioners I tried to gather my thoughts to express all of these things, the questions and the answers, the doubt and the certainty, my dad’s faith and my own.

“Well,” I began, “The short answer is that my parents gave me this car…”

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.” said the man, as I stood up and turned around, “We thought you were one of our friends. You have the same car and you looked like her from the back.”

And the two of them walked away, laughing nervously at themselves.

Well.

So.

It’s possible I over think things.

Ten Thousand Places

Category Archives: Peripatetics