Everything? Is it true that I have to consider everything as leading to you, God? Even tragic events? Yes, I can see how once I get over my shock or anger and begin to let awareness of sadness and grief seep in I begin to turn to you and either cry out for justice or just cry in your arms.
Even illness? Yes, I can see how when I feel alone in dealing with my own or another dear one’s diagnosis there is no where else to turn but to your listening ear. Even losses?
Earlier this week I was reading through the pages of a journal I had poured my heart into some 15 years ago. I had just moved from Reading to Memphis Tennessee to take a job as a chaplain and therapist at St. Mary’s Episcopal School. The new priest at the church where I had been a part-time associate for several years and which paid my benefits asked me to resign so he could choose new staff. With both my husband and I having preexisting conditions, we had no way to private pay the steep insurance fees that group insurance coverage had made more affordable. My private counseling practice was booming but ironically insurance reimbursements were decreasing for all mental health providers. I had less money to pay for escalating insurance costs. So I looked for salaried work with benefits — first in Reading where I lived, then looking wider in all of Pennsylvania, then anywhere in the states and Canada where there was work for which I could qualify.
I had forgotten until I read my journal how exactly work in Memphis had come about. All I remembered was the pain of my applications at age 58 being ignored, and the panic that was my constant companion. Then a journal entry jumped off the page. It retold what I had forgotten — how moving to Memphis, Tennessee, from Reading, Pennsylvania had happened. It was a convoluted tale of resumes and application letters lost in the mail and a reference not responding when they promised me. I had almost given up finding something, my energy flagging and fear waking me in the middle of the night with bad dreams. A person sitting next to me in a continuing education counseling workshop — someone I had never met before — heard I was looking for priest or counseling positions and asked if I had applied at St. Mary’s Episcopal School in Memphis. It was a progressive school she said and they needed a full time chaplain.
I had, indeed, seen the ad somewhere but it wasn’t of interest — too far away from family and my only daughter whom I felt needed me closer than Memphis, TN. But I took the comment as a sign and applied — they were almost done with their search but were intrigued by my application and the rest is history. We moved to Memphis in July 2010 just before the term began. Bill and I enjoyed Memphis and I enjoyed everything there and at SMES.
Everything?? Yes, in my life I have learned from repeated lessons that what is tragic, painful, and initially causes grief and loss may hold within it a hidden gift. Never, no never, would I ever have chosen the pain, trauma or grief in any of the multiple events of my life that wounded me. But now I know to trust that if I let the pain and sadness and struggle into my awareness I will be changed but there is something more. I will not shrink from feeling my feelings. I trust that somewhere on the other side of it there will be new growth — an opening to the Light . . . some small gift in the pain that will lead me toward new life even as my wound forms its scab of protection. If I wait with expectation and look for it, the Light comes — eventually — and comes with a gift every time.
Pilgrimages and Paths 