Family Matters

[barbara wolf <lupa@biddeford.com>]

My dear Bethany (But all are invited to read this part of her mail)

Part of my daily "How to get dressed" routine (and you all do know how fussy
we Seniors can be about routines) is to download the e-mail whilst drinking
the eye-opening first cup of coffee.  Sundays are a tad different--I can't
read but a few posts and there isn't time to answer anything, because I go
to the 8 o"clock at S. Mary the Virgin Ch. im Falmouth.  No time to organize
a thought, let alone polish a sentence.  But I did read yours.  I read and I
was pulled right into your grief.

So on the drive to Church, I had you with me, and I thought, "Well, I at
least can take Bethany to Church with me."  And then I thought, "Molly has
to come too, even if she's got choir at her parish.  And Dearest Deb wants
to be with us, and we need her to sing with (even for)us.  Megan would like
to sit with us, and..."  Well, by the time I got to Falmouth there was a
whole crowd with me.
There were so many in fact, that when I was getting out of the car, a line
from one of my favorite poets popped into my head: "And we are his sisters
and his cousins and his aunts..his sisters and his cousins whom he reckons
up as dozens and his aunts!"

This is turn, of course, reminded me that there are a good many
monarchs-of-the-sea who really couldn't be left out on the snowy church
lawn, plus all the crew--well, it was a very crowded row I was sitting in.
And yet I had the strong sense that there was more than enough room.

Never mind the sermon (okay, but very poorly organized).  All I could really
focus on was the fact that the story of Bethany-the-little-girl is
everybody's story.  Every last one of us has memories that hurt or shame or
haunt us.  We don't like to talk about them, perhaps because to do so calls
up not just the events, but the suffering that went with them.  Many of us
have learned how to deal with present hurt/shame/fear--we are in the midst
of these and have known God's loving power (which is mercy) as it heals us.
But memories deal with events that seem to us to be cast in concrete:
there's nothing we can do to alter those things that happened then.

All of which prompted me to remember a couple of things Martin Smith wrote
that changed my perspective on a couple of matters that I'd been dragging
along for a number of years.  One was the vivid picture he painted of Jesus'
baptism (yes, I know it's not Epiphany): Jesus didn't make of himself the
star turn; he entered the water (dirty, unhygenic, messy) with all those
other people, some of whom probably hadn't showered that morning.  He became
one with all of us. And we become one with each other--and with him--as we
discover ourselves joined in the messy, painful memories of our pasts.  I
think this is how God heals these wounds.  He allows us to discover that we
are human--powerless little children--and that he is willing to Be with us
in our powerlessness. (The capital B makes all the difference.)

The other thing Fr. Smith wrote that has stuck with me was his image of the
way the Spirit works, moving in and around our most hidden interior rooms.
Fr. Smith quotes Paul Claudel (I don't have *Season for the Spirit* at hand,
so I have to paraphrase)--the Spirit is like an uninvited lodger, moving the
furniture around, rehanging pictures, even breaking up some furniture if
it's cold and a fire is needed.  So the uncovering/remembering/reliving of
memories can perhaps be understood as evidence of the Holy Spirit working
with the materials at hand to show us how those memories might look, when
they too are subjected to God's loving power. I hate rearranging my interior
furniture, and I doubt the I'd have picked the H. S. as an interior
decorator.  But I must say that my interior rooms are looking a lot better
for the work done so far--and there's some light coming in, finally.

So, Bethany, and Molly, and Deb, and Megan, and all the sisters and the
cousins and the aunts--AND Eric who had to struggle, and--well, all of you
dear kin in Christ, take heart.  As Bethany's grief is not hers alone but
ours as well, could we not all thank God for the gift of the Holy Spirit?

Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no
secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of
your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly (whole-ly, in completion) love you,
and worthily magnify your holy Name; through Christ our Lord.  AMEN.

PS  I am pleased to report that ALL of you behaved beautifully in church,
although there was some whispering during the sermon.
Barbara Wolf

        "But we've got to be careful not to reduce people by cramming
        them in the limits of our understanding, haven't we?"

                                                Reginald Hill