A Lesson from Bunny School

A Lesson from Bunny School

People have spring time rituals.  Some plant bulbs, some begin to turn their soil for a vegetable garden, others lube up their bikes for riding the country roads.  As for me, I will be watching for the snow to melt so I can find my socks.  My feet, to be truly honest, have the aroma of crushed rose petals coming from them … well, just about.  So it is really quite beyond me why the young dogs have a fascination for stealing my socks and playing tug-o-war from one end of the house to the other, all the way through the garage, and out the side yard.  The socks are wrapped around the one little arborvitae tree that most likely isn’t going to make it.  It’s not that the socks will kill it.  It’s just that aside from chomping its little branches, my boy-puppy is eventually going to realize he has boy-dog-equipment and is going to start “watering” the tree.  That will be a bad day for the tree, the veritable beginning-of-the-end.  And yet I will still be looking for my socks.

Last week during mid-winter thaw, I found one of my Dunkin’ Donut socks and it was frozen to a crisp in a shape kind of like a canned potato chip.   I call it a Dunkin’ Donut sock because I originally had a pair of pink and a pair of orange.  I split the pairs and purposefully mismatched the socks, thus creating two pair of Dunkin’ Donut color socks.  This kind of creativity only comes with an under-used Master’s Degree in Ministry.  I get excited about socks and consider them my team colors:  Team Dunkin’. 

I have other loves besides my socks – flowers, for instance.  I do have a big bag of tulip bulbs that got nowhere close to being planted in the fall.  I forgot what was going on that pulled my attention in other directions – perhaps supervising the canine pregnancy and getting ready for the early November litter -the very same litter that brought me my favorite Sock Thief.  So in the spring, I will have to figure out where those bulbs are going to go.  That decision will have to be made quickly before the bulbs start to sprout – I need to beat the rabbit to finding a location for them.  And the rabbit has a vendetta against me already.

Back in the early winter, the rabbit accidentally found his way into the dog yard on the side of the house.  He was just kind of hanging around in the late evening when –bam – the door swung wide open by me and the three dogs went barreling out and discovered him.  The first time I saw him was in the spring when he was a baby bunny, probably weighing in around the size of a baseball.  Now he was a rabbit a little smaller than a house cat but he aged rapidly – like ten years in three minutes.  When the dogs charged out the door and discovered him he ran straight into the fencing at about 100 mph, flipped up in the air and blazed to the other side of the yard …. To do the exact same maneuver.  It was like watching those motorcycle guys riding inside the tube, halfway up and flipping.  I jumped into the game momentarily only to guide him to the one possible exit and, trust me, he took it.  I believe he now lives under my deck.  Or perhaps he just lingers there waiting to get even and eat the bulbs I will plant. 

Lately, I leave my side garage door open for an hour or two just to get fresh air in the garage.  I don’t know why I think that my garage might like fresh air, but we all have our hang-ups.  It will be a very exciting day when I let the dogs into the garage, and they surprise the rabbit!  He may duck in thinking that he can get a break from the wind, snow, and inclement weather.  Then the dogs will discover him and he will probably flip out completely.  He reminds me of the year I tried to go on a retreat day two or three times.  In one case, I sat on the deck at the retreat house on a lovely summer day trying to enjoy peace and quiet – and then someone brought the chain saws out in the neighborhood below where I sat.  I felt like bursting into tears. 

Most recently, I went on a one day retreat at a church.  When the nun stood before us and told us we should be “grateful to trees” for what they do for us  - as if cleaning the air and providing shade were purposeful and conscious choices on the part of trees – I better understood where the phrase “tree hugger” came from.  I closed my eyes briefly.  Perhaps it was to hold back tears of frustration.  Perhaps it was to keep me from creating a scene by “rolling my eyes” as I have seen so many teenagers do.  (But I better understood the therapeutic value of rolling eyes at this point.)  When the good Sister got to the point of telling us we should call God “Mother” as well, I wondered what Jesus’ reaction would be to the insinuation that He might’ve had no daddy?  I mean, in my religion, we are aware it was ground-breaking material to the culture of the day to be taught to pray to God as “Our Father who art in Heaven.”  Jesus so often identified Himself with God as his Father that the suggestions of the nun standing before me were more than ludicrous. 

Back in the days of my youth, I might have made an issue of the heresy that was being presented to our group.  After all, we had paid for a nice, inspirational retreat day and what we were getting was some really bizarre and aggravating stuff.  Yet the wisdom of middle-age is this:  you tough-it-out until lunch and have a good meal, then you slip out the back door and go shopping at the Mall…  which is exactly what I did.  Like the rabbit in the dog yard, it only took me two back-flips off the wall to realize I wasn’t in an ideal environment for my spiritual growth and mental health.  I just looked for the break in the fence and took off.  I think I am going to give myself permission to do that more often.  It was very liberating.

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Paving the Southbound Road....

The Road to Somewhere is Paved with Good Intentions

If it is someone's good intention to set me up on a blind date, why is it that the path that is paved to hell is the one upon which I have to walk?

There was a time in my life where I was very open to being “fixed up” with a prospective date.  Let me say that one’s enthusiasm or openness is dampened by experience.

Ø    It did not bother me that he had the physique of the Pillsbury dough boy.  What un-nerved me was his strange preoccupation with a cataclysmic end of the world as we know it.  Perhaps there are things one should not reveal on a first date?  Like obsessive ideas?

Ø    I was intrigued by the southern accent.  A cup of coffee never killed anyone, really.  I don’t think.  But when he started talking about his ex-wife and how his dog went crashing through the sliding glass doors and he blamed the ex-wife for that… I thought he might, perhaps, not be emotionally healthy ….

Ø    My friend told me about a nice man at her church that I might like to meet.  So I went to church to scope him out.  Okay, so I’m shallow.  He was about 20 years older than me, much more rotund than just “big boned,” and walked like a little old man.  So, maybe I am shallow.

Ø    I think there has to be a spark in the conversation.  It’s my fault that I don’t spark when we talk about golf.  It wasn’t the big shock of hair on the top of his head that scared me.  It was just the thought of how much glue he needed to use to keep it there…I could have even endured that if I was up on my golf.   My fault.  I’m wondering if you have to iron polyester pants?

Ø    Perhaps I was not even thirty yet when I was selling a twin bed from my apartment.  (There was not enough room for me and my dog on the twin.)  So I met this woman buying a bed for her divorced, adult son.  And she really took a shine to me.  She came right out and asked me if I was available because her son was single.   I really want to ask what kind of a man doesn’t buy his OWN bed, but sends his mother to do it?  Somehow I don’t think I am ready for that kind of responsibility in a relationship.  I wonder if it worked and we married, if she would move in with us?  Yikes.

Ø    Another non-toxic cup of coffee set up by a mother.  Was it necessary for him to argue with me on my interpretation of the religious significance of a popular children’s story?  Did he have to tell me I was “wrong” immediately on the first (and last) date?  Someone should tell dating folks that correction and criticism aren’t exactly endearing, crowd-pleasers.

Ø    I have surmised that a man who issues a kind of subtle insult is actually trying to sabotage a date.  I no longer give handicap points for direct offenses.  We were both high school teachers from two different private schools meeting at a local Irish pub.  I dreaded the walk in the door alone because to get to the seating area I had to walk full length parallel to the bar – not once, but twice - it made me feel a little uncomfortable.  Apparently he was nursing his beer with his back to the door the whole time because actually I met a mutual acquaintance who pointed the blind date out to me and walked up and did an impromptu introduction.  It was me who suggested that we not stand against the bar staring at the bottles the whole time – sitting at a table seemed more conducive to dating ambiance.  He managed to issue a patronizing critique for me not wanting an alcoholic beverage.  Then somehow the conversation steered to politics and he gave me an incredulous, sarcastic look and demeaned me for supporting my political party of preference… as if it made me the village idiot to be what I am.  I chalked it off to his poor communi-cation skills and gave him handicap points, but there was never a second date.  Years later, in hindsight, I realize that he was trying to make me walk out by subtle insults.  I have never encountered such a person before so nothing prepared me for that level of disrespect.

Ø    I did get fixed up with a nice man.  Once.  Unfortunately he did not seem to have a sense of humor.  He was polite – which was worth a lot of points.  But my friend who set us up was kind of disappointed that I didn’t fly into his arms at the first slow dance available.  I cannot imagine anything more uncomfortable than getting into the close personal space of a complete stranger.

The thing that helps me keep my perspective about being “set up” on a date is that it is done with the best of intentions.  The friend obviously thinks enough about me and this other person that they would like two single people to find happiness together.  In that spirit, there are arrangements made where there is no evident common ground.  I think you can tell in the first ten minutes or so if the thing has any potential or not.  After years of actually dating people that my heart was not totally “sold” on – I made concessions and gave handicap points – I have now come to believe that compromise is not a verb that belongs with dating.  Dating, be fussy.  Save compromising for marriage because once you’re in it, baby, you’re in it for the long haul.

I have noticed a characteristic of some people who arrange the blind date set-ups.  It has been insinuated by a few people (my grandmother was one of them) that I am “too fussy” but in the spirit of fairness, read through the above list of mystery dates and come to your own conclusions.  Remember that does not include people I actually dated for longer periods of time – people who had manipulative control issues, psychological diagnoses, and other hindrances to the development of a healthy relationship.  If I had to do it over again, a lot of those situations would have never happened.  They would have been scratched from the race after the first date.  I heard a keynote speaker once say that “dating is about learning to dump losers.”  I do not agree with that in the sense that I believe the mark of a mature adult is the ability to identify or intuit that a relationship is not a good match, and from there to walk away congenially.  No name-calling is necessary.  Just leave the situation calmly as a person of integrity.  Choosing who we spend time with is important.  And we have a right and an obligation to not string someone along unnecessarily – even by giving them good faith handicap points as we hope against hope that they will change.  As the eligible young bachelor said to Rebbe Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof,”  “Even a poor tailor is entitled to some happiness.”  I could not agree more.

I myself have set people up on dates.  And if it does not fly, I don’t feel bad about it.  There has to be that emotional “click” – at least on the friendship level.  The problem with worldly dating is that people think the “click” has to be romantic.  For the first date, I don’t think so.  I am a believer that a good friendship can actually grow a good romance.  After all, romantic love is just based on emotions, hormones, pleasant manners and good cologne.  You are laughing but sometimes isn’t that it?  So if I go out with someone for coffee and really just enjoy being in their presence isn’t that a good sign of potential longevity in a relationship?  I know that there are plenty of people out there who look for the romance first and foremost, and find only a short term fling and then leave the so called relationship with bitterness and disillusion – it is because they put the cart before the horse.

Building a relationship is kind of like building a house.  Everyone can’t wait to see the sides of the house and the colors of the shutters and beautiful bay windows – very few people get excited about the pouring of the concrete basement that comes before even one board is laid down on the ground.  But in the long run, if you have a poor basement that house just is not going to sit right on the land that shifts around it.  With no basement or concrete foundation, it will decay from the bottom up.  A good foundation is absolutely essential for the endurance of the structure.  We need to teach our young people about building good foundations for their relationships AND if we are still single, we need to re-orient ourselves about the importance of those foundations for ourselves.

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Nothing Nice to Say - Part II.

Nothing Nice to Say – Part II.

The Blaming Approach

So many of the things people have actually said to me over the years have the tone of “blaming” to it.

That is why I have all this raw data to write about below.  None of what I have written is fabrication.  It is all real-life experience … the Blaming Approach has many slogans and it almost always makes the single person feel awful.

“Well you want it too much.”  Two things could be meant here.  I’ll start with the one that slights the single’s desire for fulfilled vocation.

(1)    God Himself saw the loneliness of Adam in the garden of Eden and made a suitable partner for him.  Do not tell me that we can quote that passage at weddings for the benefit of a couple but that when talking to single people it is just a myth.  Adam was single, walking with God and surrounded by beautiful animals in paradise yet he knew something was missing.  I firmly believe God understands this human need and was not in any way slighted by Adam’s wanting one more thing … a wife.

Someone once asked me, “What if you are so special that God wants you only to Himself?  Can you accept that?”  Now, at mid-life, having worked through some guilt for not feeling complete as a solitary, I can answer with my friend Adam from Eden:  no.  I can’t accept that.  And I know God is not offended by that.  His will in most cases is the sacrament of matrimony and I don’t think anyone can be faulted for wanting any sacrament too much.

Would you dare say to a seminarian “you want ordination too much”?  or to a person dying, “You want the Anointing of the Sick (Last Rites) too much”? Or to a sinner, “You want confession too much?” I hope not.

(2)    Perhaps in some cases the “it” that is meant in the statement (“You want it too much”) refers to the proverbial It.  As in, “You want IT too much” This has been typically followed up by a crasser extrapolation:  “Marriage isn’t just about sex you know.”  This comment is incredibly degrading to sacramental sexual expression and also humiliating to the person who is being accused of, in a word, being inappropriately carnal.

The fact of the matter is single people know that married life has its own unique daily challenges and that sexual expression is a relatively small part of life together as a couple.  (But it’s a nice bonus, I have heard).

When I was teaching a class about the sacrament of marriage, I proposed to the students that even under the most ideal circumstances, sex in marriage probably occupied only 2% of your life together.  That being said, it behooves us to find out what the other 98% is.  I propose a lot of it has to do with communication and collaboration.  When you are angry with your partner for being inconsiderate or hurting your feelings, the last thing you want is to yield yourself more to the Offender.  “Don’t touch me – just go away.  You hurt my feelings and I need to get through or over it.” 

I think I may speak fairly representatively for most single women that it is not the “It” that we want (although we do want that too).  It is the “Us” – the sense of fellowship and partnership, the feeling of having a unique relationship with our significant other – something deeper than all our other friendships and relational ties.  This is perhaps what the world calls “soul mates.”  It is in the particulars of the Pina Colada song:  Everyone wants to feel connected with a kindred spirit.  What is not to want about that?

“When You Stop Looking it Will Happen.”

Have you ever played Hide-and-Go-Seek as a child?  When you were “it” leaning against the house shielding your eyes did you ever wonder if your eyes were closed tightly enough?  Or perhaps if you squinted just a little, did that count as peeking?  So just how closed do my eyes have to be to count as “not looking”?  What a frustrating suggestion.

What the person may in fact be saying to the single is this:  “I cannot help you.  I do not know the answer to your predicament but you are frustrating me now, so stop talking about it.”  Singles, when you hear that line, “when you stop looking, etc.” go buy a journal and write letters to God.  At least you can get your feelings aired out without being shut down emotionally.  Don’t let your journey become a walk of self pity because that is very unattractive.  Emote.  Work through the experience as best you can with prayer and good support of the people who love you just the way you are.  As the Army says:  “Be All That You Can Be.”

“When You Are at the End of Your Resources, now God Can Do it His Way.”

This is particularly judgmental because the assumption is that you are spinning your wheels without God. Trust me, singleness in this culture is not something that can be done gracefully without Him.  As far as I know, God and I are together on this.  We are co-authoring the book of my life.  In Proverbs 3:5 it says He will give me the desires of my heart.  (He just didn’t say when.)

“Maybe the Lord is calling you to be a Sister.  I’ve always wanted to be a nun, you know.”  I have two friends that have said this to me.  They are both married.  Sometimes I feel like this is just a shut-down technique, in lieu of saying:  “I’m married and it aint all it’s cracked up to be so don’t waste your time longing.”  It reminds me of a particularly salient comment by a women’s conference speaker:  “Marriage is like flies on a screen.  Some of them are on one side eagerly wanting to get in; the others are on the opposite side desperately wanting to get out.” 

Let’s look at this honestly, if I wanted to be a sister, would I be wasting my time writing about the longings of single women?  Would I have allowed my heart the many attempts I made at romance and subsequent break-ups?  I hope that I would have been smart enough to know and discern that call years ago and to have stopped the whining and got into a good religious order and settled into a productive ministry.  But I did not do that because I feel “called” as it were, to participate in the arena of the world in order to advance the kingdom of God. 

Frankly, that’s what it boils down to:  I want to be close to the Lord – but not in a religiously vowed lifestyle.  Even though my friends played “nun” when they were grade schoolers, I did not.  I actually played priest – Necco wafers for communion and a tv tray with a blanket over it for a confessional.  To clarify:  I don’t want to be a priest.  I routinely pretended or aspired in my childhood heart to be other professions as well.  I have only participated in those interests in a very amateurish level:  a veterinarian (I have pets), a famous Christian singer (I do play guitar), a housing architect (no clear connection to present life at all), etc.  Children have their games and dreams.  Some of those are tips to who you are to become.  Some are just what they are.  So, no, I don’t aspire to become a sister.

A Final Word

I hope my nephews see the movie filmed somewhere in Maine where the lead character refers to her two aunts as “unclaimed treasures.”  That’s how I want them to see me.  Can we learn to truly see the person in front of us for the treasure that he/she is?  Do we have to continue to fracture the world into the have’s and have-not’s, the married-with-children, the married-without-children, the single, etc.?  As my mother reminded us as children:   “If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

Tonight, the class I usually teach is suspended so that the married people in it can have “Valentine’s Dinner” together or whatever.  So, not only do I not have dinner, I don’t have a class either.  But I have three dogs that think I hung the moon, and maybe that’s enough.  Adam probably only had one dog.

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Nothing Nice to Say - Part I.

Nothing Nice to Say – Something Relevant to Address – Part I

Today is St. Valentine’s Day – arguably a holiday with which I have had a somewhat tentative relationship over the years.  I went from the sweetness of a young girl making out Snoopy Valentine’s for friends in grade school, to a college student realizing that love is more broad-reaching than solely romantic relationships, to a mid-life single that wants to kick the Hallmark Department in the shins. I don’t regret the years that I was thoughtful enough to send valentines to my grandparents, aging aunts and uncles, parents and local widows. I am, though, irritated that romance is so over-rated that we have to actually REMIND men to appreciate their women once a year when they actually have a life Together ALL the days of the year. What about those who live alone?  Who celebrates THEM?! 

So in today’s rant, I mean, “blog,” I would like to comment on how to speak sensibly to people who are not spinning circles in love and singing in the rain.  You have no idea what that life is like if you are not living it.  In the spirit that this is meant, consider me your Yoda for the moment with wise advice. Begin with this premise:

St. Valentine’s Day can be tough on non-dating single people and it could in fact be painful for them to be reminded of it.  Most years, I despise it only a little less than Halloween for entirely different reasons. Here are my thoughts on walking through their emotional minefield today:

            Your single friend(s) may have a moment of vulnerability or self-pity or outright hopelessness about               his/her state     in life.  Do not, I repeat, do not say anything cute, cliché or spiritual. We don’t want               to hear it.  And it only makes things feel worse.  Listening costs you nothing and allows the person a               moment of ventilation.  He/she has let you into a deep part of a very personal journey.  Suffering                     exists.  Sometimes there is nothing anyone can say or do to make it better.  Bite your lip.

Following are examples gleaned from the personal experiences of myself and my women friends. 

Mistaken Technique:  Disparage Marriage with poor case studies.  “You would not want a husband like so-and-so has, would you?  You are better off alone.  He can’t hold a job, he beats her and … etc.”  This approach tries to throw you off target by making you glad you are not “trapped” by marriage.  The point is, no one wants a marriage like that, not even your single friend.  But if she has a dating history, I bet she dumped guys just like that other bum… after she practically bashed her head against a wall trying to make it work.

Well-meaning suggestions:  “… All the Wrong Places”

Some will tell you that you will find nice godly men in church.  True.  Sometimes you will.  But Rome still hasn’t approved married clergy yet.

Others will say that even though you find a man in a church, he might not be a “good Christian” because just because you are standing in a garage doesn’t make you a Lexus.  True enough.  And the point was?

The Veiled Accusation:  You Limit Yourself

Yet another will say, “You have to go out more.”  My request is:  define “more.”  I work 40 hours a week; I grocery shop; I go to movies and recreational outings and conferences with friends; I go to Church; I volunteer.  My schedule is pretty full.  What part of “more” am I missing?  You tell me.

The Veiled Accusation:  You Won’t Drop to a Necessary Lower Level

“Well Suzie Q met her husband in a bar.  Neither of them went to bars much but that night their friends dragged them out and –bam – they met each other.”  Sounds more like a car accident to me.  I maintain that given the odds, a bar is still the best place to find an alcoholic with no contributing role in the larger community. 

The Attempt to Get You to Mingle

“Come out dancing with us.”  If you go with your married friends, they dance and you sit around watching all of the depressing interactions and slow dances around you.  If you go out with a group of women in the Third Millennium, men don’t look at you because they think single women out together may be “alternative lifestyle.”  In the spirit of sarcasm I say: That’s just great – they came out of the closet so I can sit home by myself.

Refuse to Define Yourself as Lacking

“Have you tried…” (insert name of singles’ event here).

The problems with singles groups are myriad.  I will generalize.  Forgive me if I step on toes or if your group is better than these.  Bless your heart.

Ø  They can tend to draw predators or the pitiful

Ø  They exist solely for identifying available people who oftentimes drop the rest of the group members once they find one person to date or marry or victimize

Ø  Sometimes they are clicky

Ø  Frequently the Catholic groups get hooked on the Happy Hour option (see my prior comments on bars)

The fact is I don’t want to join a group that bases my identity on what I lack.  It would seem more wholesome to meet someone while doing ministry or volunteer work – so that two giving, kind people going in the same direction walk together.  I believe it was Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen who said Christian marriage is not two people gazing into each other’s eyes – it is two people standing side-by-side, with God, facing the world together.

Elder Fear and Me

Elder Fear and Me

We called her “the Bone Crusher,” because we were just children.  My mother always referred to her as “Auntie from Ipswich,” which is where she lived.  I do not remember if she even spoke English – or perhaps broken English with a Polish accent.  I don’t even know what her real name was – first name, surname, or what.  All we knew then was pretty much all I know now:  she was my mother’s aunt or maybe great aunt and she had so much love all stored up inside her that she had to hug the guts right out of us kids.  If we saw her more than once every five years, we might not have lived through it. 

That being said, I think my first experiences as a child with older people were mostly positive.  Yet somewhere, at some point in time, that took a turn and I began to be uncomfortable, or perhaps fearful of older people.  Now, here I am at midlife, most likely given the natural course of events, becoming an old person.  I guess it beats the alternative.  Nonetheless, I never know what to expect with the older set.

Take my Bella*, for instance.  She was harsh on me the first, oh, few years that I knew her at my workplace.  She has volunteered there since about the same time that God was working on his original formula for dirt to make mankind.  Her kindest words to me were saved for just after one of my most dramatic romantic break-ups.  And even then I don’t remember them being truly comforting words… unless you count, “Good riddance” as comforting words. 

Just last month I was surprised when she actually showed some interest in my most precious hobby:  raising puppies.  She doesn’t really even like dogs, which is why it surprised me.  Somehow into the conversation she mentioned a dog that she used to have and said, “I even used to feed raisins to that dog,” indicating I should try it.  I went home and got on the internet because I had strange feeling in my gut.  The web vet confirmed my suspicion:  raisins are toxic to dogs and can cause liver failure, and consequently DEATH.  See, this is why I don’t trust old people:  they seem to live and thrive on trying to pull one over on me.

Then there was a nameless woman in a residential facility south of Boston that spurned my earliest attempts at charity.  I had been invited by a priest to come to the private Mass in an unbelievably dilapidated, but huge chapel for residents of this nursing home facility.  The place freaked me out. It was where Boston put the elderly that had nowhere better to go and it was a glaring indictment of The Bureaucracy’s inhumanity to the elderly.  Despite being uncomfortable in my own skin, I decided that the best attempt at charity would be to sit in the pew next to a woman who was parked in some sort of a junky barka lounger in the center aisle and keep her company. 

We were in the middle of the church.  The front row was reserved for wheelchairs and a guy named Bob who thought nothing of lighting up a cigarette during the middle of Mass.  And he did.  So there I sat next to this woman, when she raised her trunk up and forward from the barka lounger about six inches and groaned:  “I want my sock offfff….”  I was about 23 years old and completely mortified.  I patted her arm and said, “it’s okay, just leave it on, Mass will be over soon.”  She snarled at me, “Don’t touch me or I’ll HIT YOU.”  I thought she was kidding.  The Voice from the Crypt reiterated, “I want my SOCK OFF.”  I touched her arm and tried to say something comforting when *BLAM* she hit me.

My hand stung.  She was no lightweight.  She reached forward and grabbed the toe of her compression sock and pulled until it snapped off and she thudded back into her lounger.  I believe I died of shock or embarrassment at that moment.  Then, as if once was not enough, she croaked:  “I want THE OTHER ONE OFF…”  I said, “no, no, it’s okay,” and she yanked sock #2 off.  I attended the rest of that Mass in a semi-stupor.  After the final blessing, someone came and took her and her chair away back into the facility and, quite honestly, I was glad that was over.  I tried very hard to make myself invisible as I walked out the door.  Some heartless human asked me as I passed by, “Why didn’t you just take her sock off?”  I don’t know.  I guess I thought you were supposed to wear socks in church.  I went to the car and cried.

Two years later, I was working in full time youth ministry and facilitating confirmation classes.  Two of the junior-year boys needed to do service hours … at a nursing home.  I love kids so much, I couldn’t let them go in there by themselves, even though we were required to get rabies shots or something before going in there for ONE MEASELY SATURDAY AFTERNOON. 

The two boys actually found a gentleman in a wheelchair and began touring him around.  The elderly man was delighted.  When the boys would stop and talk, the man would lift his hand dramatically and point forward.  He was mostly nonverbal, but his gesture shouted:  “tally-ho!  Onward, young lads!”

I found myself in the day room witnessing the remainder of a craft project:  painting bisque statues of animals.  The paint colors available to the residents were horrible:  brown, purple, and avocado green.  The artist-part of my soul suffered at the stifling options.  So there was little for me to do but hover like a hummingbird behind two women conversing about their current state of affairs.

One of them angrily raised her fist to the air and declared:  “Just let me die!  My kids put me here … and they killed my cat.”  Her pain was real and I felt the harshness of her state like a slam in the chest.  She continued, “I have no friends.  And here I am.”  The bitterness, well-warranted, was palpable and uncomfortable to witness.  And yet…

The other woman reached and touched her arm, “Oh Louise, I am your friend.  We are here together.  Our families have their lives to live, their jobs, their responsibilities.  We have each other.”  

Somehow, I felt like I was standing in the Presence of God as she said that.  It was such a sacred moment.  It cost her nothing to give her heartfelt friendship to her companion.  Louise softened and said, “Suzie.  You are a good friend, such a good friend.”  They grasped for each other’s hands for a moment and I faded away.  I learned more from this vignette than hours spent reading books or taking classes.  This is the heart of “Incarnational Ministry,” the simple message:  I AM HERE FOR YOU.  And it makes all the difference in the world.

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