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Daily adherence to my routine of self-care, basically unchanged since last March, convinces me that countless prayer supports this uncharted journey in which I’m largely content. My gratitude soars, my new learning challenges and enriches, my diminishments, especially my silvery-white wavy hair, a surprise. And with these changes, I’ve scraped free the outer Liz that no longer works, reminding me of the transparent skin of a garden snake I discovered in my front garden, years ago; its owner, freshly gone.
But there are interludes of transient pain, clothes that no longer fit, phone calls from solicitors, tiring conversation from visitors. At times, meals lose their taste, fatigue chokes my spirit, and my dry eyes burn, even with Refresh. At other times, noisy motorcycles roar past my bungalow, delivery trucks inch past parked cars, and lawn mowers manicure yards already trimmed.
And occasional exposure to the global news confounds me even deeper and jettisons me into prayer, especially for growing families. And even August colors sigh with inevitable change—the marigolds in my flower beds straggle with blackened leaves.
When yanked away from what I want, I resort to Jesus’s teaching in Luke 12:19:
I’ve come to cast fire upon the earth and I wish it were blazing already.
This same gentle fire informs both Gospel and Twelve Step living and restores my acceptance of “Life on life’s terms” until the next downer. This is how the gentle fire works. It always does.
“Get ready! Get set! Go!” yelled our high school coach, its fierceness goaded my heavy legs to run the perimeter of the hockey field with my gym class. Instead, a swish of dark tunics whizzed by me like wild ducks fleeing from hunters-on-the-kill. Alone, my lungs heaving, I gazed at the stillness of the surrounding fields, their wild grasses shriveled by the summer’s sun, with crows cawing and clowning around. But I was ready, I said to myself as I collapsed on the dusty ground and prepared to receive the coach’s caustic comments. I always got them.
It was always about readiness, a discipline of mind-body in the present moment. But I preferred fantasy to the rough edges of the real world: rather than play field hockey, I fancied the sun-sky above me, its thready clouds tossed by humorous winds.
Only much later, in the work world, did readiness’s importance flare into practice. I had no choice, but I still pocketed fantasy in other areas of my life—when no one was around.
And then I learned of the bible’s use of the word ready—Over five hundred times, in both testaments. That fact cast a different light upon those ancient people and their responses to the revelations of the living God. Fully conscious, they were persons of action. For many, their physical survival depended upon it.
And centuries later, Jesus came out of this tradition of readiness. He taught in the gospel of Luke, “You too must stand ready, because the Son of man is coming at an hour when you do not expect.” Never has my readiness been more critical than in my present circumstances. This attitude also finds expression in Step Six’s AA: “Became entirely ready to have God remove these defects of character.”
I’m deeply gratefully to have learned about being ready this late in life. I still have significant helpers.
I still remember the massive bells tolling from the towers of the St. Louis Cathedral as the remains of my paternal grandparents were rolled through massive doors into the sanctuary for the Requiem Mass. Oatmeal skies, hundreds of mourners in black, long lines of police escort, soggy handkerchiefs—incised their dread upon my psyche. It was my first funeral.
Yesterday’s wake at Donnelly’s was another first, with Mother at my side commenting in hushed tones. It was 1947. It felt more like a cocktail party, similar to ones hosted by our parents in the living room.
Over the years, the culture of death and burial seeped into my experience: family, extended family members, friends, teachers, classmates, co-workers, my former husband, my AA buddies, neighbors, other dignitaries. I learned both Gregorian chant and English for the liturgies and appropriate behavior around the grieving.
But these “time-outs” from the ordinary were for others. Never, until now, did I consider my mortality—always imagined my transition would be quick like several members of our family. This is not the case.
With my denial decomposing like a minstrel’s tasseled-red jacket in an abandoned wardrobe, I’m slowly learning to befriend the death of my body; only then will it bring surcease to the pesky symptoms hampering my breathing and wasting my body.
I had believed that completing my final arrangements and studying the theology, psychology, and physiology of dying and death would give me a leg up when my time came around, but this is not the case. Expert materials abound on these subjects, but none describe the experience of death itself.
So, prayer for deeper surrender to Creator God twits the terror from death’s edges. This is working out … and the St. Louis Cathedral still stands, though now a Basilica.
Heart Whisperings 