Cocooning

I never know what I want for Christmas. People often ask what I'd like to find under the tree, and I hedge and haw. Nothing ever rises in my soul as a "must have" gift. But this year, the book Starlight, by John Shea, shines brightly and insistently as a must-read. On the first Sunday of Advent, my pastor shared a bit of Shea's attention-grabbing verse.

How is it that, until now, I've never heard of this soul-brother? He's a storyteller, theologian, poet, author that speaks my language!

The Man Who Was a Lamp is literally 7 book pages long. I wish I could re-type the whole thing for you, but instead I've included the opening of the poem, and a few stanzas from the middle that speak to me:


Legend says,
the cave of Christmas
where the child of light
burns in the darkness
is hidden
in the center of the earth.

Access is not easy.
You cannot just amble to the mantle,
note the craft of the crib child,
and return to the party for more eggnog.
You may see a figurine in this way,
but you will not find the child of light.
The center of the earth is not the surface.
You must journey
and, wayfarer,
you need a guide.

Even the Wise Men had to risk
the treacherous courts of Herod
to consult the map of Scripture.
They knew that a star, no matter how bright,
could not take them all the way.
It is true
that sometimes angels hover in the sky
and sing directions,
but they cannot be counted on
to appear.
Besides, you are not one
to keep watch over a flock by night.

There is another pointer of the way,
a map of a man,
who when you try to read him,
reads you.
Unexpected angels are pussycats
next to this lion,
a roar that once overrrode Judea.
You may not heed
but you will hear
his insistent,
intruding
unsoothing voice.
Some say this thunder is because his father
stumbled mute from the Holy of Holies,
tongue tied by an angel who was peeved
by the old man's stubborn allegiance to biological laws.
The priest was silenced in the temple
because he thought flesh could stop God.
The son of the priest shouted in the wilderness
because he feared God would stop flesh.
His open mouth was an open warning.

His name is John,
a man who was a lamp,
at least that is what Jesus said,
"a burning and shining lamp."

. . . . . . . . .

So do not go fearfully
into John's wilderness,
beaten from civilization by others
or driven by your own self-loathing.
Go simply because it is the abode
of wild beasts and demons
and, given all you are,
you will most certainly feel at home.
Wrestle with the rages of the soul,
talk to the twistedness.
Try no tricks on him.
Parade no pedigree.
Who you know will not help you.
If the children of Abraham and stones
have equal standing in his eyes,
you will not impress him
with anything you pull from your wallet.

Also do not ready your brain for debate.
He is not much for talk.
He has washed his mind with sand.
Injunctions are his game.
If you have two coats or two loaves of bread,
share them.
Do not bully,
do not exploit.
do not falsely accuse.
Do not object that these actions are economically naive,
culturally inappropriate,
insufficiently religious.
Just do them.
Afterwards,
you will be unencumbered,
yet lacking nothing
freer to move, to bend.
The entrance to the cave is low.

As Shea describes it, may we all journey to the
"dungeon of light,"
where we will find John dancing,
"his feet moving to the long-ago memory of womb kicks"
and where we'll find
"darkness pushed back by radiance."

This Christmas may we notice and behold JESUS--the beloved child--with JOHN as our guardian guide.

(To take John's hand this Advent-season, read Matthew 3 and Mark 1. For a little history on John, read Luke 1)

I've been thinking more about grief, and how each one of us in life has sorrows to carry. Grief comes in all different shapes and sizes, and the reality of it sneaks up on us in different ways.

For some it is like a jack-in-the-box--unexpectedly jumping as we wind and wind and wind through the ordinariness of our days. It surprises, and we stuff it back down where we'd rather it stay--latching the lid tight.

For others, grief is like a thief in the night. Stealing in to our private places and robbing us of familiar pleasures and joys.


"He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. . . "

What a sad image: "Like one from whom men hide their faces." And what a gift: "He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows." It makes me wonder, perhaps people despised their Savior and turned away because He wore grief like skin.


A Blessing for the New Baby
by Lucy Shaw

Lightly as a falling star, immense, may you
drop into the body of the pure young girl like a seed
into its furrow, entering your narrow home under the shadow
of Gabriel’s feathers. May your flesh shape itself within her,
swelling her with shame and glory. May her belly grow
round as a small planet, a bowl of golden fruit.

When you suck in your first breath, and your loud cries
echo through the cave (Blessing on you, little howler!)
may Mary adorn you with tears and caresses like ribbons,
her face glowing, a moon among stars. At her breasts
may you drink the milk of mortality that transforms you,
even more, into one of your own creatures.

And now, as the night of this world folds you in
its brutal frost (the barnyard smells of sin),
and as Joseph, weary with unwelcome and relief, his hands
bloody from your birth, spreads his thin cloak
around you both, we doubly bless you, Baby,
as you are acquainted, for the first time, with our grief.

Yesterday, snow fell from the sky, blanketing our Minnesota earth in eight inches of beautiful white. I shoveled the driveway (several times) while the kids played with sleds, made lopsided snowangels, and tried to form snowballs out of fluff. Their laughter and play--along with the steadfast flakes that silently laced everything in wedding white--filled me with a rare peace.

It was much needed, because on this second day of Advent, I'm mourning an approaching death. The dear husband of a cherished, life long friend is dying. I keep thinking, He's too young. She's too young. Their kids are too little. I cannot fathom the road that lies ahead--how they can possibly find the gracious words and loving actions to say goodbye.

As I pray for them, and prepare my heart for these two--seemingly polar--opposites, I sense that I am at the precipice of an impossible divide. How do I ready myself for Christ's birth and at the same time, John's death? The two realities seems to whisper, We are closer than you think.

Birth and death are treacherous journeys, both. Neither are "easy." I am led to throw out commercial and sentimentalized images of Christ's birth--welcoming instead his heaven-to-earth crossing as dangerous, grievous, lonely, painful, but ever-hopeful. Looking at the divide in this way nudges me to ask:

Do I enter Advent and wait with the same depth of pondering, wondering, asking, searching, humility and prayer I have given to death, specifically John's?

In this season, and through many more deaths and births, I pray for the wisdom to journey well. I want to walk with companions of Love, Hope, Patience, Peace, Gentleness, Self-Control. May Christ be my All-Knowing guide.

Good Grief
"I am sad, sad as a circus-lioness, sad as an eagle without wings, sad as a violin with only one string and one that is broken, sad as a woman who is growing old."
Jean Rhys

It’s Monday, another sacred morning with Sophie. Together, we are writing a eulogy for our mutual friend, Beth. She died of a Lupus-related heart attack on Sunday at the age of 44. When Sophie received news of Beth’s fatal accident, she immediately got into her car and came over. Once again, she is on my couch. And I’m in my blue chair. But, I am trembling with anxiety. She is filled with grief.

Struggling to calm my nerves, I blurt, "Anxiety is my signal. I must be avoiding how awful I truly feel about this." Beth was a caring, generous woman from my Friday women’s group. I had cried when I first got the call about losing her, but not since.

"I know it sounds irreverent," starts Sophie with a giggle. "But Beth would have found it hilarious that she died in the church bathroom." My friend, who is a Sandra Bullock look-alike, begins bubbling with a mixture of laughter and tears. She sits Indian-style in the center of my couch, slapping her knee with her right hand and wiping tears with the back of the hand that holds her Cinnamint tea. "Can’t you just hear her making a joke about it? She had such an amazing sense of humor."

I can’t even muster a chuckle. My Mindy Smith C.D. is sending soulful wails around the living room in a way that now feels intrusive. I get up from my chair, cross the room, and turn her off.

"It’ll feel weird going to group on Friday without Beth there. I can’t imagine moving on without her. I wish we didn’t have to continue this stupid study on Grace."

Sophie sets her tea on my kid-battered coffee table, and folds her hands into her lap, reflectively. With such a calm pose, it looks like she’s praying. Then, she tilts her chin at me, nudging my perspective. "I know how you feel. But I think grace is exactly what we need right now."

As usual, Sophie is wise, sensitive, and right as rain. But instead of responding, I hand her a pen and paper so she can record memories of our dear friend for the funeral. Then, I collapse back into my comfy blue chair like a nervous overweight ragdoll, and remind myself, Breathe Cheri. Just breathe.

Paralyzed with Pain

Anxiety often masks tears. It can be a symptom of unprocessed grief. It creeps in when we don’t feel permitted to cry, wail, weep, wallow, suffer or grieve. Or, if we succumb to sadness, it attacks when we place unrealistic parameters on our pain: We sniffle a little, but dare not let grief disrupt our composure, contort our face, or knock us to our knees; We cry, but only in culturally-defined permissable settings, at a funeral, for example, but never in our professional lives or in line at the grocery store. We reflect on our losses, but only for a short season before feeling the need to pull ourselves together and ‘move on.’ Then, anxiety bubbles up like a warning.

Anxiety can signal that we’re too accustomed to strong emotional kicks in the butt: We engage in vigorous mental aerobics to shake unwanted feelings free. We scramble to find diversions. We race away from ourselves on relentless treadmills, wanting to forget how deeply we mourn. But then suddenly, we can’t even do a spiritual sit up. We lose our ability to feel.

Worried that we’ll never again enjoy the taste of anything but tears, we ask ourselves where the upbeat, passionate, determined sides of our personalities have gone. When attitude-muscles have always worked for us, it’s terrifying to feel useless, paralyzed, broken.

And yet, cultural messages crop up everywhere: T.V. commercials chant "Just Do It" while the image of a well-toned woman running down a tree-lined street, glows with sweat and pride at the ability to make life happen according to her own terms; Sermons from the church pulpit suggest–when things go wrong, pray harder, aim higher; Spiritual self-help books offer challenges–focus less on yourself and more on other people’s problems. And so we struggle to pull ourselves together, patch up our pain.

Every last ounce of energy is spent trying to avoid depression. Perhaps, inadvertently, we are walking right into depression's cause.

In so many ways, culture ties heavy stones around our necks, cautioning us to stay in shallow emotional waters lest we drown. But if we never learn to swim, what happens when tides rush in, and we’re swamped with unexpected deep?

Nobody tells us that if we muffle our tears, we risk silencing our souls.

This is Part III in a series about listening to depression. To read the first two posts, check out Tears Talk, Part I and Tears Talk, Part II.