For All the Saints, Especially Juanita and Patricia in 1960 and 1961

Their names are typed on old documents by old typewriters. Carefully completed and solemnly signed in 1960 and 1961 at St. Joseph's Hospital in Orange, California, by hospital officials, county clerks, and my young parents. Documents folded in half and kept in safety deposit boxes, moved from place to place for decades, and tucked amongst well log reports and pension information in my mother's last portable safe. A strong box, fireproof, holding papers proving all of us were born and some of us have died. This box came to live with me when she could no longer live alone. It holds history. It holds eternity. 

May 14, 1960 - Nurse Juanita Anderson bore witness to the two hour and twenty-nine minute life of my brother, Baby Boy Rowland. And during those precious two hours and twenty-nine minutes she baptized him in the name of the Roman Catholic Church. His birth certificate, his death certificate, and his baptism certificate all live in the strong box.

June 6, 1961 - RN Aide Patricia Brady bore witness to the five hour and twenty minute life of my brother, Scott George Rowland. And during those precious five hours and twenty minutes she baptized him in the name of the Roman Catholic Church. His birth certificate, his death certificate, and his baptism certificate all live in the strong box.

A simple, small, white linen cloth also lives in the strong box. It must have been used for one of their baptisms. It's the only thing I can touch that once touched them. Just like the white cloth folded in the Tomb, it bears witness to eternal life, to resurrection.

This past Tuesday was All Saint's Day and we went to Mass that evening. This morning I went to the Presbyterian church where All Saint's is celebrated the first Sunday of November. I wrote the most precious names of our spouses, Rod and Cheryl, on a note applied to a large wooden cross. Their names hung with about one hundred others from the congregation.

And then we entered into the mystery of the Body and Blood of Christ where we believe the Communion of Saints are present - those who have been canonized by the Church and those who lived their lives for God in very quiet and giving ways. This is how I think about Juanita and Patricia. They simply showed up for their shifts on those days and didn't know Mrs. Rowland would be there to deliver her very premature babies. They were ready with open hearts and lovingly fulfilled their responsibility to baptize my brothers. 

Grief was ever present in my childhood home and I've always wondered how in the world my parents survived the deaths of three infants (my stillborn sister died in 1959) between my birth and my only surviving sibling, Mark in 1962. How did their marriage survive such losses? I can't say they were extremely happy or dealt with their grief in healthy ways, but I can say that something held them together. Something beyond them and beyond us. 

Perhaps it was the comfort they may have taken from knowing their babies were with God. Perhaps it was the assurance they trusted as they continued as faithful Lutherans for many years. Perhaps it was the strength they drew from knowing they would see their babies again. 

This had to have been the case. They rarely spoke about the babies, but I know they were always present to them. And I know they carried the grief of their unfulfilled lives until the day both of them died and were reunited with their little ones.

Juanita and Patricia each gave my family the most sought and the most undeserved gift this life holds -- assurance of God's love. They gave my parents peace of mind that otherwise would have been impossible. They gave my family stability and strength through their loving acts of gently holding those little one pound bodies while saying, "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen." 

All of us, every single one of us, are shaped in profound ways before we turn five. Our personalities are set and our nervous systems are wired for whatever comes as we grow up. We now know that toddlers feel their parent's grief and they know when something is very wrong in their home. They understand that mommies go to the hospital to have babies and the babies are supposed to come home with the mommies. When this doesn't happen, over and over, the toddler can become insecure and begin to think they did something wrong to cause all the trouble. They have no capacity to understand what really happened, but only to respond to the environmental cues that something has gone very, very wrong. There were very good reasons why my Mom laid in her dark room for days and days, but I didn't understand. I just knew she wasn't with me. She was unavailable and I must have been a bad girl. This is very normal toddler thinking and understanding. I thought I could do something to make the next baby, or the next baby, or the next one come home with Mommy. I worked hard at it, and the truth is, I've been working hard at it all of my life. 

But, the time spent this week with the old documents and the baptism cloth have helped me deeply understand what Juanita and Patricia did for my family. It's been very healing. I can stop trying to save the babies. They are just fine now and together again with their parents, my parents. My parents are just fine now and together again with their children, my siblings. I can take a deep breath and relax. I don't need to fix anything or be a certain way in order to help them anymore. There was nothing I could have done when they were born and when they died. Nothing. This speaks to the truth that so many things happen in life that we have absolutely no control over. As I age, this is something that becomes more and more real.

However, I do want to continue in amazement and gratitude for the simple act of two nurses doing their religious duty within the rules of a Catholic hospital which provided a healing stronghold for my family to survive.

"I baptize you in the name of,,," "Take, eat, this is the Body of Christ..."

These are not hollow religious phrases. These are the keys to the Communion of Saints. These are the mysterious containers we move within and have our beings. 

May all of us continue within the Communion of Saints. It is our history. It is our eternity.

Amen, Let it be so.

Sounds of the Masses

Kneelers come down in unison

Kneelers go up in unison

In between people of all shapes, ages, sizes, genders, ethnicities move as one

All across the very large space.

It's the sound that caught me this week -

Such rhythmic movements in silence punctuated only by mechanical notes

Down Up Down Up Down Up

Where have I been since last week when I did this?

Who have I encountered?

How have I tried to bring healing?

What's held my focus and interest?

There is a healing rhythm in such things

There is a stability in this sea of humanity kneeling together

Confessing together

Receiving together

On our knees

On our feet

It's in the movement, it's in the sound of up and down, it's in the rhythm 

Where grace is sought and grace is received.

This is Grace

(Please read the May 24 entry before starting this one. Thank you.) 

The woman was so shocked that she could actually stand up straight and walk normally, but she was no longer the center of attention. No, now the crowd had taken over with wild approval and excitement. But, the leader of the synagogue was beyond irritated. He was angry.

"If you want to be healed, come on the six other days of the week when we do such work. Don't come on the Sabbath because we're resting...And as for you, the Rabbi, who did this the same thing applies: We work six days a week and we rest on the Sabbath."

Translated: "I really don't care that this woman was in distress. She's been here for years. Really, who cares? There are hundreds more like her. Why should our sacred rules be broken for one disabled, old woman? And for you, a rather upstart young Rabbi, who are you kidding? What makes you think you have the authority to break our Mosaic law? You have a long way to go if you plan a career working in the synagogue."

And then, with eviscerating authority the Rabbi countered with charges like "You hypocrites" and "You feed and water your cattle on the Sabbath so why can't this daughter of Israel be healed on the Sabbath?" This Rabbi had no interest in return teaching engagements in this synagogue. No, his career amongst the Jewish elite was swiftly coming to an end.

The crowd was completely hushed listening to this extraordinary dress-down of the authorities in charge of their sacred worship. What did this mean? Was he really saying the old, broken woman was worth more than their cattle? Was he really suggesting that caring of those in need was more important than the Mosaic law?

His argument sounded so risky to the crowd, but there was no comeback from the authorities. They went away in silent shame. 

They disappeared, the woman walked straight, and the crowd cheered.

Those cheers lingered for a few weeks at best. And then they turned on the Rabbi. 

In the meantime, he carried on his teachings amongst the people and healed again on the Sabbath.  Once again he was met with reproach from the authorities and once again he shredded their arguments. Once again he made the point that people are more important than religious rules.

As for the this woman, she isn't heard from again. We never learn her name and no other writer tells her story. But, her story was important enough to include in one of the earliest Gospel texts. And the writer of this text was Luke the Physician who cared for people just like her. 

This woman spent her life doing what she thought was right in fulfilling her religious obligation to attend the synagogue. It had never done anything for her, but she kept going. Then, one day out of the blue someone calls her forward to heal her body and her life is changed forever. And the calling her forward on that particular day broke all the rules. 

This is Grace --- it breaks all the rules.

                                                                                                                                                                            (Luke 13:10-17)

 

The Broken Woman and The Compassionate Rabbi

It was such a chore.

Just getting up that morning and dressing for church. For almost two decades it had been painful to bathe and took her so long to dress. Even though it was a difficult task she faithfully engaged in it sabbath after sabbath. For generations her mothers had been faithful. Even though they weren't allowed into the inner workings of the synagogue, they still attended. On this particular morning the woman's daughter and granddaughter were ready long before she was and they waited. They waited as they had for the past eighteen years. They knew it took her very long to prepare and they knew that one day they, too, would be in her shoes.

And those shoes....how would they ever fill them and how would the woman manage to get them on her twisted feet for another Sabbath? She didn't know. They didn't know. But, as was always the case, after a couple of hours she was ready to go. And then it began.

The long, twisted trek through the dusty streets to the largest building: the Synagogue. Husbands, brothers, fathers, and sons had left hours earlier to attend the male-only meetings. The women, though, were only allowed to come later when the Rabbi of the day came to the outer portico to speak. They were only allowed to listen on the outside, never on the inside.

The daughter and granddaughter gently moved the crowd aside so their mother and grandmother could safely make it close to the front. They had to provide a corridor of safety because she couldn't see. She couldn't lift her head enough to look straight ahead because her back was twisted and bent so far forward that she almost toppled over while walking. As was the case each week, she and they made it to the front row and waited. Waited on the teacher to come.

It was such a chore.

Sometimes they wondered, even aloud, why they went through all of this every week only to hear some Rabbi speak for a few minutes. But, there was something inherently mysterious and enticing about the possibility of a different kind of message in the midst of all the regular bland teachings from the same worn out regular bland Rabbis. Just the possibility for something new, something exciting, something revelatory made the weekly chore tolerable.

The crowd of women jostled and rambled around a bit when it sounded like today's Rabbi was coming out of the synagogue. Something akin to an electric current passed through the crowd and almost toppled the woman over, but her daughter and granddaughter sustained her. 

Then she heard his voice. She heard this voice and it surely wasn't that of a worn out regular bland Rabbi. No, this voice had some kind of authority. Some kind of charisma that completely demanded her attention. High voltage passed through the crowd. 

And then he called.

He called her out of the crowd. He called her out of the crowd. He called her out of the crowd.

She walked as best she could while looking at the ground and when she got to him she stopped as gracefully as her bent and twisted body could allow. Her mother taught her to walk proudly and she was determined to present herself as a graceful daughter of Zion in her very broken condition.

"Woman, you are set free from your infirmity" and with these words he placed his hands on her and she immediately stood up.

You are set free.... He placed his hands on her.... She stood up.

What?

She had not asked to be healed nor he did not ask if she wanted to be healed.

She was not part of his family and yet he placed his hands on her in public.

She stood and her body straightened for the first time in 18 years.

She was outside the religious structure and he came out to find her.

What had been such a chore for so very long became her vehicle of grace.

So many rules were disregarded and rewritten in this unsought and brief encounter between the broken woman and the compassionate Rabbi -

And this is only part of the story.......

Good and Enough

And when the ones who helped write the story

Are no longer here

And the ones who should pass the story on

Never came

How does the last one standing keep the story alive?

A strange and lonely spot, to be sure

To be the last one standing.

Someone should know, someones should see, someone should once again proclaim,

Everything that was done was good 

And

Everything that was done was enough

Good and Enough

Perhaps it's the living after the dying

That continues the story of redemption that he preached.

Perhaps it's the living after the dying

That continues the story of tenacity that she wove.

Perhaps it's the living after the dying

That continues the story of courage that he built.

Good and Enough

Living after the dying

Is always the story of redemption, tenacity, and courage

It's always the story of the last one standing.

 

Place

Place. Location. Belonging.

Continually circling and rising to the top are the questions, the needs, the desires for placement and belonging.

The surviving spouse group on Wednesday night talked about coming home to empty homes. How do people do this?

The woman yesterday talked about planting a tree and placing a plaque with her deceased husband's name so those walking the path would know he'd lived.

The friend struggles with where to work, where to live, where to be because those who'd made this place so good and sweet have abandoned her.

War refugees don't know where to go.

Place. Location. Belonging.

Feeling guilty because the place we created nine years ago is not looking so good right now because my time and enthusiasm for maintaining it are lessening.

Feeling anxious because the future might be right here and it might be somewhere else.

Ambiguity doesn't sit well with the need for security.

And yet, this is where most of us are asked to live, to find our home, to make our place in this world.

On challenging days pieces of our external and internal worlds become shaky as we pine, we yearn for what and whom gave us a place, a location, a belonging in the past.

Bombs explode on the outside destroying places where families have lived forever.

Bombs explode on the inside scattering our plans, our securities, our beliefs.

This is the story of being human.

We write our stories in specific places with certain people and expect the first story will never change, and yet, this is rarely how it goes.

The story, the place, the location, the belonging can change all the time.

And yet, we strive to keep it the same because this is how we're wired, this is how we're built.

Place. Location. Belonging.

As surely as it can be taken from us, we can participate in making it anew.

We can echo the promise of Jesus when he said I go to prepare a place for you.

We can claim the remnants of what was and shape them into what will be.

May each of us create something new today and offer it to someone writing and rewriting their story as surely as we continue to write and rewrite our own.

This is what humans have always done and will continue to do.

Let it be so.

Making Space

In my work, we make space.

We make empty spaces for others to safely place their grief. It sounds like we're magicians with secret formulas to bend physics and create like God creates. And, in a way this is true, although God does a far better job and God is much more patient.

Space is created and held during phone calls and bereavement counseling visits with very distressed human beings. In the physical space of the support group meeting the leader's speaking and silence indicate when the space is open to all and when it's being held for just one.

Although the space we create is empty, it collides with everything cluttering our worlds and demanding our attention. Grief is like our worst relative who rings the doorbell with all their luggage in tow demanding the entire house be theirs to use however and whenever they want. There is no longer space.

This is how I feel about my work and this is what I try to extend to everyone who crosses my path; however, within the actual physical walls of my working space this has become much harder. There is simply not enough desk space or conference room space for all the staff it takes to serve such a large census of hospice patients and families. If everyone were to come in at the same time, there'd be three staff to every desk. 

So, making space for our collective grief as hospice workers continues to be a challenge. Staff want and need a place to remember the dead, to place their pain; but that physical space hasn't existed for a very long time. However, a few days ago we claimed a wall and the corner of a conference room for this purpose.

The wall now holds a large, empty grapevine wreath and the corner has a small table with items for remembering, such as ribbons, slips of papers, and stones.

In order to set up this room we had to ask a nurse to relocate her "office" so we could clean and move tables. When I checked on the new arrangement late yesterday, she was back in there working with the door closed so she could take her mask off.

It was the perfect picture of how we keep going, keep doing our work, keep serving the living while our need to grieve and remember the dead is kept in the corner of a room where the door is literally closed.

Her choice is very understandable because it's quite uncomfortable to work in the office with a mask on, but it's required when others are around. Finding an empty space where the mask can be removed and a worker can be in silence is the ultimate. 

It'll be interesting to see how this goes -- if the various staff using this room as a private office will make space for their colleagues who need to engage in the grief ritual and vise versa.

This is another iteration of the ongoing struggle to make space for grief in a world that has to move so fast to meet so many heart wrenching demands. This has become the exhausting reality of healthcare workers since the pandemic began.

May each of us extend the little reservoir of space inside us to the next person we meet in need of compassionate sheltering:  Whether they be serving the living or remembering the dead.

This we can do.

This we can do.

Manage and Choose

When I sign into my blog the word Manage pops up and I suppose it wants me to check my settings, etc., but as soon as I see Manage another box pops up saying my account is unknown and I need to Choose a different one. Every time I have to Choose a very old email address in order to make this blog come to life which then gives me the option to Manage.

This seems like a lot of silly steps just to put words on a page. 

Lots of work here when all I'm trying to do is share the thoughts of my heart because, as I'm learning, when I do this on a regular basis the words of my mouth and the things I try to do for others go so much better than when I don't.

Manage. Choose.

Sounds like lots of autonomy and freedom and control. Sounds like a world that really doesn't exist.

I'm not being negative here, just stating a fact that we can do all the right things to manage what we believe to be our life and then something completely unexpected occurs. 

A dear friend had a massive stroke last month and now she's bed bound in an adult family home.  People in Ukraine thought they'd celebrate Easter last Sunday, like they always have, and instead they were hiding in bomb shelters.

Manage. Choose.

We try to do this within our beliefs, our faith, our history 

AND

We must do this inside the heart of compassion. 

Stories of human atrocities and pain, big and small, are endless and always will be. Absolutely endless.

These things I cannot stop or particularly influence

But

I can Choose to Manage my own life, my own existence 

In such a way that when I leave the house this morning I go inside the heart of compassion, of peace, of patience ready to receive and bless whatever and whomever graces my path.

Lots of work here..

Matching Easter Dresses

It was 1965 when my Mom made us matching Easter dresses. The photographic proof is in a big box in my garage, but the picture is in my memory.

One Mom-size and one Little Girl-size sleeveless A-line shifts to the knee made of a light fabric with dark blue polka dots. Each dress had a matching short blue jacket, too. 

We were super cute together. I was 7 and she'd just turned 30 the month before that Easter in Modesto, CA. 

When my Mom sewed she took over the formal dining room with her sewing machine, ironing board, and fabric.  I can't begin to count how many hours of my childhood were spent in fabric stores. She was an excellent seamstress and made beautiful clothes when I was a child and even a stunning long blue gown for a college dance. I think she was her happiest in her "sewing room" which could be the dining room, an extra room, any room in the various homes we lived in during my growing up years.

In particular I remember the one in Danville, CA, just off the family room. It was 100% her room and no one else's. She sewed, she painted, she did needlepoint. She did a lot in that room.

And then, when I was in high school, she went back to work and eventually started her own business. Now she had a room to herself in the house and her own office. I didn't think much about it at the time, but I do now. It seems a bit crazy that I live in a three bedroom house, but I do and one room is my studio, my study. It invites me to reflection, to writing, to art. 

My Mom was a spitfire who made her own way as much as her background and time in history would allow. At the end of her 83 years she didn't remember that she'd sewn beautiful clothes and made art, but I know those impulses were still deep in her heart. She didn't remember that she had her own room in our homes and her own office. But, I remember as I now have my special spaces.

Clearly, I can still see the scene of the messy dining room at 2705 Sunrise Avenue in Modesto in the Spring of 1965 that turned out matching Easter dresses for a beautiful Mom and a cute girl.

The photograph is buried in a box, but the picture lives in my heart.

The Weight of My Heart

My beating heart. It only weighs 8 ounces. In two days it will have been beating outside of my mother's womb for sixty-four and a half years. I am very grateful.

My glass heart. It only weighs 8 ounces. It fits perfectly within the clasped palms of my hands and its red, blue, green, clear and glittery glass is made of ash. The ash of Mount St. Helen's that erupted 6 months before I got married in 1980. 

It calms me and soothes me and grounds me when held in my hands. When held against my anxious, beating heart.

Each heart weighs 8 ounces. Each is extremely durable and each is extremely breakable.

The one inside of me carries so much, as do all human hearts. In my work I caution people to be mindful of their physical hearts in grief because they can very truly hurt. Sometimes we need to seek medical care for such pain. The heart carries all that it means to be human.

AND.

A very full heart can explode with joy and wonder. Such is the case when an absolute picture of Triumph is set before us. Such was the case last night when I got to see and speak with and listen to an extended member of my family. A younger member who has endured so many challenges in her life and, yet, there she was on the screen telling me about her very good life now. A Triumph in itself. A Triumph of her heart and all of those who love her.

When the heart inside my body is going too fast, is carrying too much, is truly too tired for its years, the heart on the outside of my body, when held close and tightly helps regulate me. It grounds me. It reminds me of the solidness of earth, even when it explodes, and it reminds me I am here, I am needed, I am loved.

Eight ounces. Half a pound. That's all. 

That's all it takes to keep us going.

Triumph.

 

About Eight Feet Away

Over the past six days I've spent 33 hours in an online conference about grief, death, and dying. I had to do this to retain my certification in Thanatology for my position with Hospice AND I had to do it to regain stamina for the work itself. Providing a compassionate presence for people in all sorts of grief distress from death in all sorts of ways is a daunting task. 

Now I'm on my backyard deck for the first time this season because yard therapy was the order after such a long and intense week. Today my yard encounter began with greasing the bird feeder pole with olive oil to keep the very hungry and pesky squirrels off the feeder. This was met with minimal success as they began to catapult themselves from the deck onto the feeder. Plan 2: Move another pole, pound it into the ground in a different location and move the feeder.

The next part of my yard therapy included crawling around on the ground itself to take out weeds and make space for other things. This ended with sitting down. Sitting down on my deck to listen to the chimes and watch the many birds.

I don't know all their names, like George and Blanche do, but I can surely tell when one bunch has the relocated feeder figured out and another one doesn't.

For the past hour I've been watching some poor little guys hanging out on the old, now empty pole, jumping all around, up and down, looking for the feeder. During this apparently frustrating and fruitless exercise I've silently pointed to the new location about eight feet away to no avail. It's super big and a nice breeze must be spreading the seed smell everywhere, but these poor little guys can't figure it out. A few of their group even sat in the tree that's near the new location and they just can't get the job done.

About eight feet away - that's a pretty short distance for birds, I'd say.

I don't understand their inability to get what they need, but I do understand what I'm witnessing.

I get it because I do it all the time. All the time.

The things I need to keep a compassionate view of the world, the things that ground me in the here and now and keep me from drifting to what used to be, the things that speak life and love and hope to me are always within reach.

However, I'm just like these poor little birds, sometimes, as I sit on one pole to no avail because it used to feed me, it used to have sustenance to keep me going. And I sit, flit about, peck the ground, check out the empty vessels that held flowers last year, and wonder what's going on. I can't manage to look about eight feet away to see it's all right here.

Everything I need to replenish my heart and soul, everything I need to keep my body strong and healthy, everything I need to keep doing the work of my heart is right here.

I need only remember to look.

Resilience was a big topic in the conference I just attended. Resilience is a precious commodity in a world such as this one. It's something we can cultivate. It picks us up and keeps us going. Also, and this is important, being resilient doesn't mean we don't miss and long for everyone who has died.

No, it means we feel all those things AND keep going.

AND. 

The most important word for people in grief (which is everyone).

We are sad AND we keep going.

We are broken AND we keep loving. 

We can't find our sustenance AND we keep looking.

It's only about eight feet away.

Redemption Waits On Us

The rituals of Passover

Took priority over the Rising.

The people, the congregation, the community

Had to complete their appointed tasks

To recall, recapture, relive their ancient exodus and salvation in the desert.

And Redemption patiently waited in the dark tomb.

Specific foods were prepared

Prescribed liturgies were sung, read, and prayed

Ancient Jewish traditions carefully re-enacted in compliance with the scriptures

And Redemption patiently waited in the dark tomb.

Then, and only then,

After Passover was complete and the people slept

Only then did

Redemption Rise from the dark tomb.

Redemption didn't Rise until the people proclaimed their faith

Shalom waited until the people were ready.

Redemption waited on them

And now

Redemption waits on us.

Waits on us to share Shalom with others 

And

Fulfill the call of our faith practices knowing

They are just this - 

Only practices that bring the Ineffable close enough to intuit

Close enough to pass within a whisper of Jesus' cloak, to reach, to touch

To be healed.

Redemption waits on us.