Tag: gift

Everything??

If God said, ‘Rumi, pay homage to everything that has helped you enter my arms,’ there would not be one experience of my life, not one thought, not one feeling, nor any act, I would not bow to. ― Rumi

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.

When Life Goes Wrong . . . or Right?

I’m awed by the bounty, how life goes wrong/a thousand ways. (Robert Lowes)

I wonder — when Lowes remarks that he is awed by how many ways “life goes wrong” . . . what does he mean by “wrong”?

I have often been stunned by life’s sudden departure from what I expected. Recently I got a call from the retirement center where my Dad lives independently. He had been rushed to the hospital in extreme pain of unknown origin. At 95 years old, Dad needs an advocate when he requires medical care and one of his children tries to go with him to doctor’s appointments etc. I was more available that day than my sibs so I drove the 1 3/4 hours to get to him. “Available” means that, fortunately, in retirement I can rearrange most things and be present when needed.

Dad will need to be in rehab and there are questions about what level of care he can return to in the future. So life has “gone wrong” in its departure from what all of us expected for that day when the retirement center called . . . and for the days that will follow.

I suspect many of us are experiencing lives that are not what we expected prior to March 2020. COVID and the shutdown, then the premature openings that caused infections to rise and overwhelm our ICU’s and hospitals. . . Who could have predicted such disruption? And, although many seem unable or unwilling to accept facts, we won’t be returning to the previous “normal” any more than my Dad (and my sibs and I) will be returning to his “normal” independent living status.

When such “life gone wrong” events happen, we can chafe at change. Rearranging one’s life to meet new challenges or to accept new behaviors or to take steps into the unknown, unplanned-for future is a great and exhausting challenge to most of us. And yet . . . it also has a flip side of opening us to possibilities and opportunities and awarenesses we couldn’t have imagined in our lives before it went off the rails.

Yes, grief and letting go are a necessary part of the process of “life gone wrong” for we have likely become attached to what we had or thought our future would be. But if we can name and accept our anxiety at no longer being certain of our path, we can begin to see that a path (or many paths) stretches out ahead of us even if we cannot see an end point. And we can work on shaping the path as best we can and choosing what to pursue and what to let go of with grace.

We can see “life gone wrong” as a gift we wouldn’t have chosen but that opens up new interests, possibilities, and/or challenges. Even if “life gone wrong” has imposed limitations to what we can accomplish — or limits on the time we have left — knowing those limits can make today immensely precious. Whoever penned Psalm 90 (“teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom“) most certainly had experienced “life gone wrong” and learned the agonizing yet priceless truth that the present moment is precious when lived with gratitude and awareness that there is no promise of a tomorrow.

I would never have chosen to live through this era of COVID, or seeing our politics take fascist turns, or being isolated from family, or seeing (and experiencing) individual and family struggles that ache and wound and kill. But I would never have known how much my country, my spirituality, my values, and my relationships mean to me without it — because “life gone wrong” has shown me the ugly possibility that we can lose those things we expected would be there forever.