4am. They are gathering on the azaleas outside my bedroom window, greeting the coming day the best way they know how: chirping, tweeting, whistling, and with an occasional caw. They are loud enough to wake me, even with a fan running and the windows closed. Whether or not I want to greet the coming day at the first glimmer of light in the East, they serenade me into the predawn world.
Most days, I note the birds and find my way back to sleep for a couple of hours. Some days, I don’t. The avian crowd pulls me fully awake to give me a choice: greet the early beginning as a punishment or as a gift.
There’s something wonderful about looking out the window to watch the stars fade into dawn. Even better, taking a cup of tea into the back yard to be a participant in the dawning, not just an observer. I keep company with the birds, squirrels, and bunnies – the only human on the street who answered the invitation.
I’m going to lose sleep either way. Why not be amazed at what morning brings to my back yard?
Markus Zusack’s The Book Thief is a great read for many reasons – it’s a different perspective on the horrors of war as lived out in World War II Germany, it’s centered on an orphan girl, and the street she lives on is named Heaven (Himmel). The most interesting part is the narrator who tells the tale: Death.
Death notices Liesel Meminger when she steals a copy of The Gravedigger’s Handbook (after her toddler brother died). What is a young girl going to do with a book like that? Then Death notices as Liesel steals more books throughout her childhood – one from a bonfire burning books outlawed by the Nazis, and several from the library of the mayor’s wife. Death notices Liesel because of the thefts, but then because of her life. Why steal books, and why steal books that aren’t the usual fare read by young girls?
I’m not advocating book thievery, but there’s something to grabbing onto anything that speaks of ages/places/people/professions/ideas beyond what daily life and expectations bring. In dark times, when fear robs people of their basic humanity, stealing a little of that back seems a daring and justified act. Death, largely uninterested in how humans live, noticed and found something worthwhile in it, something that revealed a life truly lived.
What marks the difference between existing for a number of years and truly living those years? Philosophy and religion have pondered and expounded on this question. God, self, neighbor. Love. Hope. Faith that things can be better – and working toward that better. Perhaps stealing a book or two…
How do we know when it’s time to leave the work that has been such a meaningful part of our adult lives? How do we help others make that move?
One of the graces of my meaningful work has been the opportunity to foster the gifts of coworkers – and to seek out and encourage those who will continue whatever work I held dear. When I leave, I hope people are glad that I was there; if I’ve done my work well, they will continue on without missing a beat (as an individual I’m as irreplaceable as anyone, but many others can take my work to new and wonderful places). But leaving has always been a choice, never because I was asked to go or because I could no longer do my work.
Now I’m in my early 60’s. The next leaving may well be because staying would burden rather than bless my coworkers. Over the past few years, I’ve seen people who’ve made the transition well, leaving behind a legacy of care and a firm foundation for the next generation of workers who will build on it in their own unique ways. More often, I’ve seen people refuse to give an inch of their territory or power; instead of fostering the next generation, they create obstacles. I’ve seen people forced into the next stage, often in humiliating ways and without compassion. And I’ve seen resentment, in the person refusing to leave and in those whose own work is made more difficult because of that refusal.
It’s a difficult task, letting the work of decades die a good death; it can be hard seeing and embracing the life beyond it. It’s equally challenging to support others who need to let go of theirs.
The truth that gives me hope: every time I’ve let go of a life stage, there’s been another waiting for me, full of new gifts and challenges. I need to trust in the holiness of the whole of life – the first parts through the last. I need to trust that leaving when it’s time to go, or helping another to do so, isn’t something done alone. God’s loving presence will remain and sustain when it’s time to go.
It was a Christmas gift: a one day retreat workshop on creating icons with transfers – workshop because it was hands-on, retreat because creating icons is a profoundly theological prayer practice. The other participants all had some background in art, from college minors to art school grads to experienced iconographers. For them, picking up the brush was easy – it was the praying part that was challenging. For me, the praying part was easy – it was picking up the brush that was challenging.
Finding the Lines
Our teacher, Marek Czarnecki, told us that creating icons (writing/painting – he wasn’t fussed about the term) is a process of making our prayers something physical and beautiful through our hands. Through those brushes, a personal prayer becomes a beautiful means of prayer for others. The prayer for creating icons: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. The Jesus Prayer.
Marek said more than once that creating an icon was a matter of self-confidence and justification. We needed to trust in our ability to do the work and accept that the time and energy devoted to this prayer practice is justified (not selfish or merely a hobby).
I didn’t doubt that a spiritual practice was justified – I’ve set aside the time for decades. I very much doubted, and still do, that an icon will come from my brush. The others struggled with the exact opposite issue – no doubt about the ability to create but doubtful that taking the time to do so was justified.
At the end of the workshop, all of us had created a transfer pattern of the icon of Saint John the Baptizer as a spiritual practice. Here’s mine:
Transfer
It’s not clean enough to be the basis for an icon, and I didn’t finish half of his mustache, but it’s the first time I’ve tried to pray with a paint brush (creating Celtic knots with gel pens is as close as I’ve gotten). I haven’t figured out how to turn what I see and what I pray into ink on acetate. But I can see the underlying structure, the lines that form the basis of an icon, in a way I never did before. I got the chance to learn from someone whose prayers and talent come together to create icons – beauty that draws us into God’s embrace. I doubt there could be a better way to spend a Saturday in June…
[The workshop was on Ender’s Island, in Mystic, Connecticut – home of St. Edmund’s Retreat. www.endersisland.org. Marek Czarnecki leads many workshops here.]
[Because I Could Not Stop For Death, Emily Dickinson]
It’s a small thing, but not such a small thing – traffic yielding to let a funeral procession pass. Growing up, I saw it in every town I called home – and there were a lot of them. And it wasn’t just the cars that paused. I remember my grandmother standing still on a sidewalk, holding my hand and giving a nod to the procession. When the last car with headlights on passed, she’d give my hand a squeeze and continue with whatever activity had brought us to that piece of sidewalk in the first place.
I’m not sure if the yielding, the pausing of life’s goings-on, was out of superstition, public pressure, or something more profound – perhaps some combination of the three. But keeping still in honor of a life received, lived, and given back is a chance to catch a glimpse of something sacred and true: the mystery of life draws close when I am going about my daily tasks. This mystery is never far away. And it encourages me to remember the sanctity and brevity of the gift that is my life and the lives of those with whom I spend it.
I live in a coastal community – fresh water rivers emptying into the salty bay. The miles and miles of coastline mean lots and lots of boats – kayaks to dredgers and everything in between. With the increase in boat travel comes the increase in sirens – ambulances, fire engines, and police cars responding to accidents. Then there are the medi- flights that shuttle between here and Boston or Providence hospitals. Since I live half a mile from the hospital, EMS facility, and a quarter mile from the fire station, I am well aware of the emergency vehicles [I heard police and ambulance sirens while writing this paragraph]. When the sirens wail, I say a prayer that God holds fast whomever requires help.
View From Besse Park
There are other siren calls, ones not attached to emergency vehicles and victims: birdsong, the river rushing over rocks, chittering chipmunks, and squawking seagulls. These sing of life, of beauty, of joy. They enchant and delight.
I’m doing my best to heed both kinds of siren calls, recognizing death and loss along with life and beauty. All the life in the world won’t make up for a single death, but all the death in the world can’t negate even a single life. It’s a privilege to be aware of both…
William Orpheus Smith died a couple months short of his seventy-fifth birthday. I was with him when he left this life behind, the man who gave me and my siblings life and a place and community we called home and family. He left behind a wife, four children, five grandchildren, a great-grandchild, a couple of dogs, and all his paperwork in order.
He was the son of an alcoholic who didn’t hand on that addiction. He made home a calm and safe place. He found the world an interesting place, taking advantage of his many trips abroad (U.S. Navy) to attend an opera, admire frescoes, and volunteer at the excavation of Pompeii.
He wasn’t good at making light conversation or expressing his emotions, except when matters of life and death were involved. He rarely shared his inner thoughts and held on to many of the prejudices that came with growing up in a poor New Hampshire town.
When the treatments stopped working and the hospice nurse came to discuss upcoming needs for walkers and pain management on that Friday morning, he turned from facing life to welcoming death. Eighty-seven hours later, he stopped breathing.
The life lesson I learned: hold fast to this extraordinary life.
The death lesson I learned: let life go when it’s time, and embrace the mystery beyond it.
Thanks, Dad.
April 24, 1981, Rick Springfield (Success Hasn’t Spoiled Me Yet)
I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of me that doesn’t bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more. You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken. John 15:1-3, The Message
I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. John 15:1-3, NRSVue
The front yard is surrounded by a hedge, a living fence offering separation from the street and a home for small wildlife. Once a year, I take my pruners to it, thinning out maple saplings and other vines. The dead branches go next. But it’s the rest of it that’s so much more difficult: pruning off healthy branches to allow light to penetrate the top leaves, and to keep the sides as well as the top of the shrubs green.
Next week, I’ll be taking the pruners to the hedge for the first time in over two years. Skipping last year’s pruning didn’t make the hedge happier or healthier; it made the hedge scragglier and overgrown.
It’s a lot of work, this pruning, and not for the faint of heart or the overly sentimental. The results, at first, aren’t pretty. It’s only over time that pruning reveals itself as a necessary and good thing. New growth and healthier branches take time.
Lately, it feels to me like my life is in the process of being pruned – some things that no longer work for my age and stage are getting cut away. There doesn’t seem to be a particular logic in it, and it isn’t pretty or a lot of fun. I just have to trust that it will end up bearing some kind of fruit in due time.
[Jesus bend down and wrote with his finger in the dirt…He straightened up and said, “The sinless one among you, go first: Throw the stone.” Bending down again, he wrote some more in the dirt.] Hearing that, they walked away, one after another, beginning with the oldest. The woman was left alone. John 8:9, The Message
When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. John 8:9, NRSVue
Perhaps some wisdom comes with age, or at least a healthy dose of self-reflection. Maybe that’s why the oldest among the rock toting crowd were the first to step back from their violent intent. It’s a gift to be able to step away from harming another, from using another as a means to a questionable end. They took the gift Jesus offered and others followed suit.
I’m now in that same category – elder. Along with the creakier joints comes the freedom to turn back, to turn away from a wrong step down a questionable path. There isn’t quite as much at stake as far as my ego is concerned in admitting to an error in judgement.
There’s an added bonus: stepping back and rethinking a harmful act or wrong move is also a teaching moment for the younger ones who happen to see it.
Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger in the dirt. They kept at him, badgering him. He straightened up and said, “The sinless one among you, go first: Throw the stone.” Bending down again, he wrote some more in the dirt. John 8:6-8, The Message
Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once again, he bent down and wrote on the ground. John 8:6-8, NRSVue
We don’t know what Jesus wrote in the dirt, just that he wrote in the dirt. Some speculate that he wrote the names of the men accusing the woman of adultery, along with their sins. Others claim he wrote the Ten Commandments, giving the accusers a look at what the Law requires – and whether they are in compliance [Augustine interpreted it as Jesus forcing the accusers to look at their own sinful natures and deem whether they are worthy of judging another.]. John Calvin offered this thought: Jesus was showing his lack of interest in their accusations and questions, showing his disdain for them by scribbling in the dirt rather than engage with them.
It’s fun to imagine what Jesus might have written in the dirt, if it doesn’t distract from what that act of writing accomplished. It stopped the momentum, delaying the throwing of the first stone that would give permission for throwing all the rest.
When Jesus straightens up and speaks, his words shift the focus from the woman to the state of the accusers’ souls: Go ahead, throw the stone – if you are without sin yourself. Take a good look at yourself before you harm another. Are your motives pure? Are you without blame? Let’s see if you come forward, see if you can stand up to the scrutiny of others.
Then Jesus bends down to write in the dirt again – giving the accusers the chance to think before acting, to question their right to judge and punish the sins of another. And to think through the consequences of claiming moral perfection and throwing a stone.
It’s something I’m going to picture – Jesus writing in the dirt – when I’m sitting in judgement of another. I’ll imagine Jesus stopping the momentum, shifting the focus to my own inner life and motives, and giving me a chance to go in a different direction.
I think I’ll picture these words for now, not that it really matters all that much: are you sure you want to throw that stone?
