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..