Safe and Holy Spaces

At eleven in the morning we created a holy space, a safe place for their grief to take the next step. They came together to cry, to laugh, to memorialize, to sing, to remember, to pray, to ask for God's strength, and to begin letting him go - letting him go after 80 years on this earth. We set the candles, made the music, helped the family into the grief-filled space they never wanted to enter. We served a lavish feast to celebrate his life and to give his children hope ~ the hope they'll need to get up tomorrow and every morning thereafter. We did the best we could to assist them through this most dreaded hour. The very same hour we'll all face one day or another.

At four in the afternoon I made my usual Saturday phone call. The morning's service in my heart and fatigue pounding in my body the typical greeting sounded, "Hi Mom, how are you?" and it went up and down from there. "Did you make that appointment and meet with that person?" "I did and he said everything is just fine." "Oh, you didn't make the changes we talked about the last two weeks?" "What changes?" My heart sank as my head exploded. She didn't remember. She didn't know what I was talking about. Her notes had failed her. All my efforts and certainty had been for not. I had to start over. I didn't have the energy. I could barely recount the situation.

In the morning I helped to create a safe and holy space for another family. In the afternoon I could barely stay within the fragmented, age-tormented space of my own family. All energy was depleted with no reserves save tears, my own tears. It was all I could do - cry out the uncertainty, my sadness, and my huge efforts to shape her life into something better between now and when I'll be the one in the front row of the church grieving my last parent. We've come to this moment in our little family after a million previous moments. All that we've said and done are the building blocks of what we have, or don't have, to work her thickening fog of dementia. Try as I might, I can't seem to pull the safe and holy spaces together for us. Even as I type these words I know how foolish it is to think that I can affect great change in the course of her life or anyone else's for that matter. It isn't up to me.

At seven in the evening the best I could do was to dig a small hole with my hands to get the tall stake in deeper. The dirt felt good. The young, red bark Aspen in the back yard was leaning. Branches were swooping towards the grass to hold conversations never intended. Pulled back straighter and taller with stake and string, the branches returned to their graceful splendor blessing the wind and heat passing through its leaves.

This day began with taking care of others and ended with stabilizing a tree. As for the middle of the day, my exhausted and only choice is to leave it in God's hands which hold my little family. Maybe God is pulling me back and straight, like the swooping tree, from conversations never intended. Only God's hands, not mine, can create the safe and holy spaces my family needs to make this long and difficult journey.

Those Work Shoes

When I worked in downtown San Francisco for the law firm I wore dresses, nylons and those prim and proper pumps. When I worked in Dalton, Nebraska for the educational service unit I wore the basic school teacher uniform of comfortable pants, shirt and rubber-soled shoes. When I worked for the social service agency in Tacoma in the old convent I wore - whatever. When I worked for the hospice in Puyallup I wore good clothes, good shoes, and generally tried to look my best. Well, when I moved to Utah and started working for an early intervention program that provides services to developmentally delayed and disabled children birth to three years old, my shoes became quite important. In this work I make home visits to see children and their parents. My shoe wardrobe now has three seasons: sandals or flip-flops in the heat, slip-ons in the mild weather, and snow boots in the winter. All three seasons have one very important common characteristic: Whatever is on my foot must come off quickly and easily and return to my foot in the same way. Why? Going into people's homes involves, well, going into their home. This means I knock, they open the door, I enter and gaze upon their floor. More often than not it's a beautifully, just vacuumed, immaculate carpet (adhering to the high cleanliness standards of the LDS faith) but, once in a while it's a not so clean, sort of scary floor. In any case, I learned early in this job that removing my shoes was the ultimate sign of respect to the home and it helps me sit more easily on the floor with the little one I came to see. (Plus, walking through someones house in the winter with de-icing chemicals stuck to your boots is sort of rude.) Now, based on my previous work history it's been a weird transition to doing my job in my socks or bare feet. My sock drawer has had to stay in tip-top shape as well as my bare feet. Doing work in this way kind of makes you one of the family - one of many families around here. And it has its humorous moments, too. Like the day little Tab carried one of my sandals to me while I was talking to his mother at the kitchen table. He said "Go?" Then there was little Hannah who decided to wear my flip-flops around the living room. It's all pretty entertaining. And, you'll be happy to know, not once have I left a home visit without my shoes - at least not yet.

Our Geography

Living here is all about the geography of this land. Today was one of those hot, huge blue sky, open western front sort of days. Driving north this morning to Tremonton for home visits I was completely absorbed in the Wasatch - the mountain range - with its 9000' peaks. The road was good, my Jeep was flying, and I felt like a wild west woman. My return to Brigham this afternoon had the same feel of wide open spaces and places. After work the evening unfolded into the mundane and yet the unusual. The dogs needed a bigger water bowl in the backyard and I decided to check out the selection at the one and only hardware store in town. At least three very nice people asked me if I needed help. One of them took me to the pet supply area and explained, "This large bucket is just right for my dogs." "Oh, I have a black lab and a blue heeler." "Why, me too. They both love this bucket right here." "Hum, I wonder if Shasta would put her head into a bucket that deep." "Oh, sure she would. My dog does." Well, that was all the endorsement I needed, having this brief conversation with a complete stranger about our beloved dogs. I settled on the slightly smaller bucket, paid my little bill, and left the one and only hardware store in Brigham City. I carefully maneuvered around the enormous truck offloading hay bales in the parking lot. Next, I needed to make one of my weekly visits to the closest fresh fruit stand along the 'fruit mile' from Brigham to Willard. This area has been known for cherries, peaches, nectarines, etc., for decades. When we first moved here I didn't understand all of this, but now I've got it down. Just last week the good peaches started coming into the stands. Oh, and the corn arrives by the forklift load every morning, too. We've eaten tons of corn this month, but I'm not cut out of the same cloth as my good pioneer neighbors. I don't buy and buy and buy in order to can and can and can. No, I shop like the urbanite that I am and only buy what we'll eat within the next few days. Tonight's purchase was corn, peaches, green beans, and one cantaloupe. I got back into my Jeep and headed north back towards town in the 93 degree 6:30 pm heat with the sun still blazing across the desert floor. I made the all-to-familiar turn towards the angst of my world - walmart. No, I won't even capitalize it because I don't like going there, but in our small town with only one store for this and no store for that, we don't have much choice. I went to get essentials like milk and some other things. My head goes wild with questions every time I go into this store. How did that poor old man end up in that scooter at the door checking receipts? Why do so many of these people look so unhappy? Why are so many of them unhealthy, morbidly obese, and battling to just get through the store? What happened in their lives to end up like this? Why does that mom have six kids with another one on the way? How are these people supposed to feed their huge families and raise healthy children? How little are they getting paid and why am I shopping here anyway? Back out into the still hot evening and on my way home I reconnect with the essential geography of this place. Contrasting the small hardware store, the friendly fruit stand and the big box store experience was easy. Understanding it was something else. In the geography of my life I zoom from here to there in my big wild west way and in my travels I see some of us are doing better than others. Some of us have the time and spare money to buy dog buckets at the hardware store. Some of us have time, transportation and money to spend on fresh fruit picked just this morning. Some of us can barely get from one point to the next without grand effort and little fanfare. Some of us study the school supply list and wonder how we'll buy everything every child will need. Some of us buy whatever we want, whenever we want without a thought about anyone else. All of us live here, there and everywhere. Over the years I've wandered the geography of many places. Each unique and beautiful. Each full of all the people I met and saw this evening. As we are morally and ethically bound to one another when one struggles, so do we all. When one soars, so do we all. When one beseeches God for mercy, so should we all. When one revels in the beauty, grace and hope of place, so should we all. So should we all.

Balancing Saturday

After posting "Violent Speech" yesterday I had to quickly get ready to attend a wedding. My friend Barbara picked me up at 2:00 and we headed for a St. James Catholic Church in North Ogden. The eldest daughter of our church music director was getting married at 3:00. I have to admit I wasn't really in the mood, but I'd made the commitment to be there so off I went.

The visual and auditory feast of this wedding renewed my faith in humanity and trust that God is holding all of us very close. The church was beautiful. The red-washed cement floors drew me threw the large glass doors framed in bold wooden beams. Seeing the baptismal pool in the floor immediately soothed and softened the sharp edges I'd brought with me. We sat in silence waiting for it all to begin. And then, the young groom and his best man came down the aisle to the front - in Scottish kilts! Amazing. Next, the handbell choir from our church started ringing the processional. The young women were beautiful; but the bride, the young and beautiful bride in her stunning white gown and long train on the arm of her father (in a kilt!) was extraordinary. A full Catholic wedding mass was celebrated and the striking poses of the lovely bride and her handsome groom kneeling for the Eucharist and kneeling in prayer were breathtaking. As they were announced to the congregation for the first time as Mr. and Mrs. two bagpipes peeled forth with the recessional. It was fabulous. Simply beautiful, exquisite, and fabulous.

Everyone (i.e., Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, etc.) cooperated, everyone was joyful, everyone was reverential, everyone did as the Priest requested, and everyone rejoiced in the beautiful promise of this newly married couple. Balance was restored once more as the truth of grace, the promise of love, and the hope we all carry in our hearts for a better world won this particular Saturday in August. Thank God.

Violent Speech

Many years ago a man in our church called our home late in the evening. As he talked with Rod about his depression and despair there was an unusual sound in the background. The more Rod listened the more he realized what he was hearing. The man was dropping bullets on his kitchen table as he spoke. Eventually he talked about loading the gun and going outside with it. When he dropped the phone we ran like hell to another phone to call the police. Gratefully, the police pulled up just as he was raising the gun to the side of his head.

This morning Rod was in the local McDonald's in our very small town when he witnessed the following: A middle-aged couple asked for the manager and demanded that he change the "Communist News Network" (CNN) currently showing on the TV. They demanded it be changed to Fox News. They demanded it be changed or else they would leave. The manager explained he couldn't change it as it was part of the McDonald's satellite package. After their loud demands were witnessed by children and families, they walked out.

This afternoon Rod was in a local sporting goods store in another very small town and this is what he witnessed: Two men looking at ammunition and speaking loud enough for people to hear, "That coon is ruining our country." And they went on from there. When they tried to buy the ammo, the owner of the store threw them out. He told they were recorded on security cameras and they should never come back.

Two startling incidents of violent speech echoing the national media conversation about race, politics and power occurred in very small places today. How far will this go? How unruly, unkind, and inhumane will we become as we sort through our dilemmas? How close is that gun and where are those bullets? Is anyone, at any level, running like hell to stop this violent conversation that so many apparently feel justified to engage in? And who will take responsibility if/when this violent conversation ends in a burst of rage?