A Story Of A Tree

In the middle of a dense forest there was a clearing. In the center of that meadow, truly the center weather stepped off or measured by laser, stood a tree. To the untrained eye it wasn’t especially unique other than it stood by itself, separate from the other trees. It’s leaves were a brilliant green, much like the other trees leaves were in spring. And as the wind blew leaves flew around that tree just as the other trees did during a breezy day. If one were to visit that meadow more than once in a year, one would notice that this trees leaves never changed. As the leaves in the forest turned red or yellow and finally a brown that is nearly black this tree’s leaves remained a radiant green. The leaves in the forest would gradually lose energy, separate from their branches and fall gracefully to the earth from which they sprang, molt and die. After many visits one might begin to notice that the brilliant green leaves of the tree in the middle of the meadow never quite fell to the ground, rather circling the tree in a delicate dance. In fact one might notice that as the tree grew leaves didn’t spring from its branches, rather the leaves circling the tree would, one by one, reattach themselves to the tree. Suddenly this tree would seem not only unique, but remarkable. And if one made one’s life a pilgrimage to that tree, one might begin to notice that they themselves are a leaf, circling that tree. And in this awareness one might begin to gradually stop studying the tree and start to enjoy the feeling of fluttering in the wind, the worries of the world that one brought to this meadow in a dense forest would fade away. If one looked around as one fluttered, one would feel lost as the forest through which they tromped is no longer there. And in that moment they might begin to feel very small, yet more important than ever. Even vital. If they leaned into the fluttering and made it their sole purpose, they might begin to notice that they aren’t fluttering at all, but ascending toward that newest branch. And they might even notice the other leaves fluttering beside them, also ascending. They would begin to notice the size and scope of the tree, seeming to have no beginning or end. The tree would feel both surprising and familiar in the same breath. Your fluttering would become your purpose, worrying not at all about the ascent or descent as you would know from where you came and where you are going. And in this knowledge, you would know who you are. You would know that you are not important, your life away from the tree is limited and your destination is simply back from where you were separated. This is the story of tree. The story of you. And the story of me.

The Cold Gray Dark Of Dawn

In the cold gray light of the pre-dawn hour, I awoke from a dream.  Griffin was a toddler in body but a man in spirit.  I was holding him by his arms and he was moving his legs to convince the doctor that he could walk if only he could will his unwilling limbs.  He was pleading that his will was strong enough and with the doctor’s trust in his will it would be so.

I waited in bed, half asleep, recalling a dream as it unfolded.  I tried to will myself back to that place where I held my child by his hands as he walked as a man while still a boy.  Back to a place that was real, but never existed.  A place where I was giving him that which he never received.  But it was gone.  So my eyes finally opened and I was back to my reality.  I wept quietly, somewhat embarrassed.  That cold gray light, where colors are absorbed into nothing, and everything, is where I awoke.  And where I live.

There are moments like a dream, where the world unfolds in all its shades and shapes and I am fully alive.  And so is he.  I grasp at those moments like Jacob grasped at God in the tent, trying to wrestle that glimpse of paradise into submission so it won’t ever go away.  But it does, as it always will until the day we are truly named.  

And there is no blessing from God like Jacob received, simply the blessing of knowing that wrestling with God is the journey and the path to receiving our true name.  And also the blessing of knowing that what we see as light and color and fulness today, the now and the present is only the cold gray light of the pre-dawn hour before heaven and earth become one.  There our dreams open our eyes and we see what is and was always real.  That our fulness comes not from our conquests and our triumphs, but rather from our wounds.  Wounds that are, to paraphrase Leonard Cohen, the cracks that let's the light in.;

The Space Between

There is a space between 

the taking and the letting 

of each breath drawn cross our lips.
Our chest filled with air,
we don’t hold the breath
as much as pause
and ponder that
each life begins
with an inhale.
An each life ends
with an exhale.
And between the two
Is a space
just large enough for God to fill,
whether over the whole of life
or just one single breath.

Breath

Life begins for each of us with an inhale.  And it ends, for all of us, with an exhale.  They are, biologically speaking, involuntary responses from the autonomic nervous system.  In between those two breaths we have choice: we can allow our autonomic nervous system to control our every breath, or we can, from time to time, take control of our breath and become aware of the miracle of breathing.  

We can feel the coolness of the air passing into our nostrils and the warmth of our body as it passes back out.  We can feel our belly rise and fall.  We can sit in wonder as we picture that life giving breath filling every capillary in our lungs, providing oxygen to our blood.

Most of all we can simply pay attention to our breath, slowing the pace of our racing thoughts to a crawl and then a standstill.  And in the silence of our own being we can for once, be.  And we can experience the wonder of a breath taken.  The miracle of a breath released.  And if we pause in between for just a moment between inhale and exhale, hold that involuntary response to release, we might just find a space as large as eternity and as small as that moment.  A space that is just large enough for God to reveal himself and small enough for us to understand his love.

Breath.

The Great Before

This is a photo from the great before.  We four were at a Braves game on Family Night, the guests of an incredibly proud Griffin.  My work affords me front row seats right behind home plate, in front of the Braves batting circle with a gourmet buffet.  But as we waited out a rain delay and took our hot dogs and beers to sit as far from home plate as you can get in Truist Park, we were sitting in the best seats in the house. Griffin’s gift to us.

That’s the thing about great befores. They’re nostalgia.  Nostalgia is a Greek word formed from two words: nostos, meaning homecoming, and algos, meaning pain or ache.  The word was coined by a 17th century physician to describe the homesickness Swiss mercenaries felt when they were hundreds of miles away from home.  In the wake of the great before, nostalgia is the pain of a wound that won’t heal because somebody you love isn’t coming home.  And the only healing of that pain is when finally you’ve come home to them.

It's hard to believe that we are more than two years past my son’s death.  And the pain, if anything, is more intense than it was in the days and weeks after his passing.  The difference is only my ability to stow away those feelings just long enough each week that life can move forward.  And then there is the moment the photo appears on a screen saver and I look past the four people in the photo and remember the fifth in our family who isn’t in the photo, or in our lives except in our memories.

This was the great before.  And now we live with the pain of loss with only the hope, the belief in the great hereafter.

For The Heartbroken...

I woke up this morning and scrolled through Facebook and the second post I saw was a friend from high school mourning the loss of her mother.  I turned 58 years old this year and it seems there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t see a post like that one.  And it caused me to think about the nature of mourning.  Times of loss like a divorce, the loss of a parent or a good friend are heartbreaking experiences.  And we’re programmed to avoid pain; it’s in our DNA.  And these kinds of experiences are incredibly painful.  So it’s not a surprise that the first stage in the grieving process tends to be denial.  

Denial gets a bad rap in our society.  Denial in the early stages of grieving is simply nature’s way of telling you that you’re not ready to handle what’s in front of you.  But all to often we stall there and find ways to numb the pain.  We typically think of numbing as being substances and it often is.  But just as often we numb ourselves with distractions: we busy our schedule with chores or extra responsibilities.  I find myself binge watching television as an avoidance mechanism.

There comes a moment, though, when denial has run its useful course and it is time to deal with the painful emotions we’re feeling.  Time to uncork and unpack what life has left at our doorstep.  And that process requires courage. 

It’s a courage that is in short supply.  Because when it comes to our emotional and spiritual health we spend scant minutes a day if anything at all looking inward, sitting silently and listening more through ourselves than to ourselves.  Listening through is a listening that transcends us and becomes an all way conversation with God about what is rather than what I want it to be.

I must admit that I’m new to this kind of listening.  I must also admit that it was great tragedy that led me to trying this kind of listening through myself.  (I won’t bore you with the details other than to say this: a life threatening health scare and a global pandemic nearly broke me; the loss of my son Griffin most surely broke my heart.)  More often than not, as Fr. Rohr has written on dozens of occasions, it is these kinds of tragedies that instill in us a need for something transcendent.  We can either choose to remain heartbroken and allow the heart to  harden into bitterness, envy and contempt.  Or we can allow our heart to be broken open where it can be renewed and refilled by a union of with the One.  It’s not so much that He fills it as our hearts are mended together in these moments.  And I find the courage to face my loss and look beyond myself and see the needs of the others in my life and hopefully have something of value to offer having had the chance to listen through myself and find More.