A very simple thing happened the other day. Someone bought me the 20 cent stamp I needed to mail my father’s birthday card. But it wowed me. You see, I had included in the same envelope a card from my spouse and myself and one I had made from my two-month-old daughter to her grandfather. I was feeling proud of myself for being almost a week ahead of time this year. I had even managed to find a stamp!
With hope that this would be the year that I could get cards to Dad in time for his birthday, I hurried between feedings to our local drug store where they have a postal counter, trying to make it before the mailman arrive to pick up the days mail. About half-way there, I realized I didn’t have any cash on me, not even a quarter. If my letter was overweight, I wasn’t sure when I would get free again to run what would have been such a simple errand pre-baby, but in my new-mom state, was still a feat!
The mailman’s truck was in front of the drug store and the mailman was inside patiently waiting for an elderly woman to complete her transaction at the counter so he could take her package. He graciously accepted the other letters I had to mail (baby announcements, stamped and ready to go). And then waited (still patiently) for the clerk to weigh my Dad’s cards. The verdict: “You need $.20.” Normally, this would not be a big deal. Normally, I would simply mail the cards priority mail the next day, but this time, I felt majorly defeated.
I realize now that mailing the birthday cards had become a marker of what I can accomplish as a new mother. I had just accepted a part-time job beginning in February, and I was (and am) nervous about being able to do – not “it all,” but just some – enough to keep my head above water, to serve the congregation who has hired me well, care for my baby, and not miss too much of her magic along the way. If I could get those cards in the mail to Dad on time, I would be a successful person, even with baby!
But I couldn’t. “I can’t do it then,” I said to the clerk and the mailman. “I don’t have any cash, not even a quarter.” I turned to walk away.
Then in a fluid motion, before I could even see what was happening, the mailman reached into his pocket, pulled out a quarter and gave it to the clerk who, equally fast, put the extra stamp on the letter, gave it to the mailman, collected the quarter and put it in his drawer.
I was left standing there, an unconscious “wow” escaping my lips, only mildly embarrassed, grateful, and awed by what may well have been more an act of efficiency rather than kindness, but a simple act nonetheless that reminded me to accept the grace that is offered, the help that is extended, and to do so humbly, with gratitude and, yes, awe.
As winter draws close around us here in the northern hemisphere, I find myself drawn ever more to the flame of candles. A couple of years ago, I spent the month of January in Oslo, Norway. Though the climate in Oslo is similar to my home in northern New York, the days are significantly shorter. I noticed when I first arrived that when night fell, houses across the landscape extravagantly twinkled with lights in every window. The ski Jump at Holmenkollen, spectacular in the daytime, was brightly lit at night, shining across the valley to my lodgings on the opposite hills. At a friend’s house for dinner, I noticed that she lit many candles throughout the house, and particularly at the dinner table. She welcomed me into her home with the light of candles, despite the darkness of the night.
I have thought about this from time to time since returning to my home. I recalled that when our son was deployed to Iraq in 2003-4, we kept a candle lamp lit in the window the whole time he was gone. We wanted him to know we were waiting to welcome him home … and home he did come. Could it have been our candle that drew him through that dark experience?
As Unitarian-Universalists we light a flame to begin our meeting times together. At the close of the service, we pledge to carry that flame into our lives. The flame of a candle welcomes us in, and then sends us forth with the warmth of community, fire of commitment.
But what about the candle? I recently read a poem called “The Careless Candle” by John E. Wood which closed with the following words:
A candle must give itself away. In the giving, the spending,
the spreading, the sending, it finds itself.
A candle is but a symbol. It gives us light and warmth for a time, but eventually it is extinguished. It then becomes our task to be the candle for others in our lives.
How have I been a candle today?? How have I given light and warmth to others? Who has been a candle to me?
Once I crossed the Sierra Madres
with a bus driver named Arturo
who had one arm
and a stick-shift bus.
Sometimes between the
the shift and wheel Arturo’s
good right arm would
pause to make the sign
of the cross toward a portrait
of the Virgin that banged
the windshield from a string.
The lesson here is that
never is a miracle more than
beating the percentages.
Perhaps Arturo still is
waving down the
twisted camino
at each shrine
along the way.
“What’s your hurry?”
always he will ask—
“Do you think you
don’t have time to
find your grave?”
OK, we’re now a week into the new year, which is about the time that people’s New Year’s resolutions generally start biting the dust. I have a theory about why this is the case, why all our good intentions dissolve so quickly. It’s my conviction that the problem with most resolutions is that we resolve to do stuff that we don’t actually want to do. Nobody wants to go on a diet. If you liked exercising you’d probably be doing it already. You’re addicted to TV or video games or Facebook because you enjoy them. If you wanted to give them up you would have already done so.
Most resolutions, it seems to me, come out of some Calvinistic, judgy part of ourselves that knows that we are inadequate, broken, and need to be fixed—in this case not by the grace of God, but rather by that fiction know as Will Power. (Wouldn’t “Will Power” be a great name for a super hero?) We are determined to finally make ourselves right, good, admirable, slim. We are broken, but we’re going to get fixed.
And then we fail to fix ourselves, leaving us all the more convinced that we are broken to begin with. But what if our resolutions started with the conviction that we are blessed, gifted, wonderful—but still learning? Then we might resolve not to tidy up our many flaws, but instead to enjoy our growing edges. I still remember with admiration a seminary classmate who, when invited in a class to consider her health and eating habits, and to come up with a change she would make for a month, returned to class the next week having done her homework. “I thought about my eating habits,” she said, “and decided that I like them just fine. So I decided to have dessert every day for the month.” I still have the recipe for Chocolate Decadence that she handed out more than 20 years ago.
OK, so my friend’s solution might be a growing edge in more than one sense of the word for some of us, but something in her resolution struck a chord. She recognized the health she already had, and decided to revel in it a bit.
I’ve made and dropped the usual variety of noble resolutions over the years. One year, however, I made a resolution that stuck. More than that, it changed my life. My resolution, from several years back, was simply this: More dancing! (Always with the exclamation point.) I realized that New Year’s that I liked dancing on those occasions when my spouse and I got around to it, but it wasn’t very often. What I wanted was not to fix something that was broken, but rather to give a way for something that was already whole and healthy to grow. So, with the enthusiastic support of my wife, we started dancing. A lot. More and more. For weekends, or even weeks at a time. We got good at it, but we also found a community, a new connection to each other and a whole lot of joy.
Of course, dancing is very likely not what you want to grow in your life. But there might just be something, some seed of a resolution, some inkling of a revolution of joy that you want to feed. You might want to resolve to get out more in nature, Skype your grandkids, sing in a choir, take up belly dancing, teach your dog to do tricks, grow a garden, travel to Spain. You might want to search your life for what feels most precious, most joyful, most connected, most creative, and make a space for that thing to grow. You might want to vow to have dessert every night for a year. If so, let me know. I have a terrific recipe for Chocolate Decadence.
Over winter solstice, I watched my father tending to KG, his first grandchild, with unconditional love. We had just celebrated her one year birthday and she was beginning to cruise around with increased confidence. As she found herself standing in front of my mother’s highly breakable ceramic nativity scene, KG began to methodically hand each figure to my father. He gratefully received them from her and moved them to another shelf.
My sister, the mother of the much adored child said, “No, KG. No touch.” My dad just stayed there, receiving each figurine from the determined Katie Grace. “I’ll catch them,” he said. “I don’t really tell her no.”
Now I confess, my sister and I both nearly fell off the sofa in that moment. Who was this man gently hovering over his grandchild with a blissful air of yes, the same man who was forever telling us no as children?
“ No! Kristy quit! No, no! Deanna don’t!”
I mean sometimes we thought those were our names: Deanna Don’t and Kristy Quit.
Did someone body snatch our father?
Upon further reflection, I think it is maybe a little less complicated than alien body snatching. I think my father has had an epiphany about unconditional love.
The way that child lights up every time her Pop Pop walks into the room. How she reaches for him no matter who is holding her.
It is powerful to be loved that way. It breaks open our hearts. It tells us we are enough and calls us to love others with broken open hearts. Radically inclusive, unjudging hearts.
Beloveds, may you all know that you are loved the way KG loves her Pop Pop. Unquestioned, unjudged. Loved. Beloved. Yearned toward. Reached for. Held.
May this knowledge continually break open our hearts so that we can experience the divine love of the universe and shine the light of this love onto each other.
May this season of Epiphany bring you not only the sweetness of King Cake – may it also bring you the sweetness of receiving the unconditional love of the universe.
It’s supposed to be extremely cold this week, across the country. Many people we know are either reeling from it, talking about it, or bracing for it. Today is my partner’s day off, so we decided to go to Hawaii.
By which I mean, we went to the “Hawaii” exhibit at the U.S. Botanic Garden in D.C., right by the Capitol Building. As we walked towards the Botanic Garden building, our Little Bean was pointing and pointing at the Capitol dome; I suppose it seemed like the most noticeable thing around in the midst of a gray and blustery morning. She was all bundled up in her hat and coat, and so were we. Before long we were shedding layers and pointing instead at orchids and waterfalls, fountains and gigantic palm trees. It was lovely (and the Botanic Garden is free!), and saturating all our senses with fresh growing green felt like exactly what we needed.
I deeply wish it was so easy for everyone to step out of the cold for a time. The other night I was running to the store, late, trying to get there before it closed, and was stopped at a red light. I saw a man across the street sitting on the snow on the block of public ground there. It was dark, and I just glanced at him for an instant, but…he just didn’t seem “right,” and I quickly tried to think of what I could do to help him. The light turned green and I drove on, thinking that maybe if there was a police car parked outside the store, as there often is, I would direct them to this man just a few blocks away. There wasn’t, and I’ve been thinking about that man ever since. It’s one of the harsh ironies of living in a densely populated city that I could see someone seemingly stranded like that man and have no way of following up to find out what happened; if he didn’t survive the night, it wouldn’t make the papers. So today when a woman was outside the same store asking for money, I gave her a dollar and wished her well. We had a brief exchange; she seemed resilient, like she was going to be okay. I don’t know what, if any, positive difference my interaction may make except that at least I wasn’t just passing her by. I suppose what that’s really about for me is cultivating some warmth in myself, not letting myself just freeze over and ignore the people I see struggling right around me.
Human beings, individually and in community, surviving the extremes: these are not new issues. For thousands of years, humans have observed, experienced, and responded to the cycles of the seasons. I enjoy noticing our deeply imbedded tendencies at these extreme times of year, our longings in the winter time for warm food and cheese as if we want to literally put layers on our physical bodies. Is it just me, or was it unusually crowded this afternoon in the soup aisle at the store? I’m about to try out another veggie jambalaya recipe. I have a mysterious hankering for a spicy stew and some simmering sauce on the stove.
We’ve generating warmth in whatever ways we can, around here. May you also be warm. May you look around you and find someone in your lives, neighborhood, or community who needs some extra warmth this week. May we all make our way, together, towards certain, eventual, spring.
Early in ministry, there are skills to be learned. Preaching, counseling, the coffee-hour nod that says, “Yes, I’m listening,” even if it’s not true. Oh, and another one. Boredom. Overcoming it? No. Letting it pull you down below where you can breathe, and then holding you there. For hours. It’s important to know how to be there, in boredom. But for me, it was something that didn’t come easy. Some skills will take practice.
Apprentice clergy go through a form of ritual hazing known as Clinical Pastoral Education. Here’s how it works. For a few months, full-time, you’re a hospital chaplain. Your mission? To offer support when situations get bleak. To help people face pivotal, primal questions just at the moment something vital is being torn from their lives. And also? Despite the plastic badge that says “Chaplain,” you have not the foggiest how a person would do this. Like when someone lifts her tear-stained face, and says, “Why would God let this happen?” And, in response, you decide now is the time to fetch everyone coffee.
Later, with other glassy-eyed lambs of the chaplaincy, you gather in a conference room with a senior chaplain, to think about what you have done. You do this through something they call a “Verbatim.” It’s just like it sounds—a blow-by-blow you write up of some fumbling interaction you’ve just had with a patient. The purpose is to reveal how very far your attempts are from whatever it is Jesus might have done, had he himself served a turn as a summertime chaplain. With a Verbatim, the lambs become wolves, tearing each word apart. Why, for instance, when the conversation turned to cancer, did you launch into a long story about the time your aunt thought she had leprosy, but it only turned out to be a bad rash on her neck?
Still, basic incompetence has never stopped me, and it would not this time. I got myself assigned to the edgiest units. Ones with names like “Critical” and “Emergency.” No hang-nails for me. No mere broken limbs. Give me “touch-and-go.” Give me “hours to live.” Throw in the surprise arrival of an estranged sister, and I’d be all a-tingle. I strolled the halls, seeking crisis. Buttered up the tough nurses, so they’d let me know when anything truly awful went down. The family room outside surgery was a good place to find trouble. The family room is where the dutiful adult children endure their hopeless grown siblings as loved ones off somewhere undergo God knows what. The dutiful ones keep information in a folder, and they keep track of the time. The hopeless ones are tear-stained wrecks, sprawled on a sofa that’s strewn with wet Kleenex. With luck, they’ve been drinking. Here’s how a chaplain can stir up some business. Walk into a family room, perch on a chair and murmur, “So, tell me, how is everyone?” Like fish in a barrel, friends. Fish in a barrel.
As we breathlessly parsed the Verbatims, the chaplain supervisor rarely ever spoke. He hailed from the great state of New Hampshire, and was a motionless model of the state’s famed reserve. One got the sense that you could have taken a bucket of ice water filled with dead mackerel and dumped it over his head, and the most he would do would be to glance out the window, and emit a slight sigh. It was clear, however, from the way he would occasionally purse his lips in the midst of my Verbatims, that he was of the opinion that a person could stand to tone it down just a hair. Of course, those dry lips that pursed and un-pursed could have meant anything. In the absence of a bucket of ice water, and the way the hospital air-conditioning sucked all the moisture right out of the air, it could have been simply that the poor man was just parched.
In any case, my ministry was one of inserting myself where I wasn’t strictly required. For example, a sober conversation with the heartbroken family of an eighteen-year-old about whether the time had come, finally, to turn off the machines that had kept their boy alive. Already, the small room held the hospital’s medical ethicist, a representative from the organ donation company, and another chaplain named Frank. Did they benefit, as well, from my luminous presence, the guttural tones of my active listening? Because the answer to that question was not yet clear to me, I made sure to be there. Up in critical care, I appeared in the room of a man who was dying alone. He was beyond speech by now. Conversation was out. Companionable silence is something I can do for two minutes, three tops. At last, I hit upon an idea. What the old fellow probably needed was for me to hum hymns. So, that’s what I did. “Old Rugged Cross.” “Amazing Grace.” And, even though it was the middle of summer, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” In my defense, I did hum it slow so it came out a dirge.
Later, in the Verbatim, someone gently mentioned the effect that even a brief outburst of humming can have on the nerves on a typical day, let alone in the hours one is attempting to peaceably die. A otherwise kindly soul said that, in fact, my humming might have helped to hasten the poor man’s demise. Another wondered whether the nurses who had popped in and out all afternoon might have been not actually smiling approvingly at the humming young chaplain, as I had reported, but instead only smirking.
An old friend says I went into ministry for the second-hand thrills. The chance for a front-row seat to life’s wreckage. As if I were a ghoul. Which, years later, still seems off-base. I went into ministry for a regular paycheck. God knows I was not ever going to be any good for much else. You know how all the want ads say the employer is seeking a “detail person?” Well, me, that is not. I once spent ten minutes looking for my glasses only to realize that I was wearing them. My only talents are whistling and catching peanuts tossed into the air in my mouth. Besides, since I was a kid, people have sought me out to tell me their problems, and—God forgive me—through it all, I have been fascinated. Fascinated by how people can manage to get themselves into such an intractable mess. And fascinated by how they can get themselves out. Or else learn to live with it. Or how sometimes they learn to live with it, but then are transported out of trouble through no effort at all of their own, in a way that some will call grace, and others call luck. If there were bleachers on the sidelines of human society, I would enjoy sitting there, watching. Well, watching and cheering. Taking honest delight. Perhaps with buttered popcorn. Yes, I had advice, but I offered it like anyone sitting up in the bleachers who calls out advice—with the full confidence that it will be ignored. By the end of my twenties, it had dawned on me that, to get by in this world, I would probably need to get paid doing something. And ministry seemed easier than teaching kindergarten. So, I was in. And, ok, maybe it promised a front-row seat. Not to the wreckage. But to what stirs within it.
There came the day, late in the summer, when nothing was happening in Critical Care. Nothing in Emergency. I was bored, restless. So, I wandered up to other units, outside my assignment. In one room, a woman lay dying, her family gathered around. But the nice-enough priest sitting there didn’t seem to grasp that this was his moment to shine. I forget how I convinced him, but soon, I’d replaced him, intent on marching the whole family through all the stages of grief, perhaps twice, before the old woman had even taken her last dying breath. Was I badgering these poor souls? Who can say. But, whatever the case, I was summoned for a chat with the chaplain supervisor.
He said that if I went into parish ministry without learning how to be bored, there would come a Tuesday afternoon when things would be slow, and I would stir trouble up out of my own need for action. For the rest of the shift, he said, I was to walk the halls, but to visit with no one. To practice being bored. For me, that afternoon, ghosting the halls without purpose, was more difficult than responding to people who’d been hurt in a wreck. It took some time before I was able to breathe. Walking by rooms where people seemed upset, especially, was like walking by the donuts at a Weight Watchers meeting. Just one? But I couldn’t. And, I will tell you that, as I walked, I realized that, even without an eager chaplain on hand, people would continue to suffer and also to find ways to lessen their suffering. They would die, and the ones they left behind would figure out how to live. Sometimes, these things would happen more easily if I were not there. Sometimes, my absence helped more than my presence. The Taoists have a word called “wu-wei,” the power of inaction. It is there when one is in harmony with the Tao. With the way of all things. Another person might say, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” As if there were a power beyond the merely human.
For over ten years, I have served the same congregation in the same little town. Have I stirred up trouble? Oh, yes. Ask my people. They’ll tell you. But, here’s the thing: without ongoing study in the practice of boredom, without learning wu-wei, a ministry composed purely of action could have made things dramatically worse.
“We build too many walls and not enough bridges.”
Isaac Newton
About five years ago, I sat in church one cold and dreary Sunday morning while our pastor, Jennifer, talked about bridges. I came into church that morning a little lost, a little frustrated, and utterly exhausted. I didn’t really want to be there and I had been feeling so beaten down by life that I seriously doubted whether words of spiritual advice would make any difference whatsoever.
Nonetheless, I sat in that small church, distracted, and I listened to her talk about shoveling sidewalks and neighborhood parties and wide nets. She talked about the sacred act of building and strengthening bridges, about maintaining and honoring those bridges, and she then issued a challenge to us to become bridge-builders ourselves.
At the time, her words fell on a weary soul and an exhausted body. With a two year old at home and mountains of stress, I wasn’t looking to build bridges; I was just hoping to survive the day and maybe take a nap. Yet, somehow her words rang true and they stuck with me ever since.
On some intrinsic level, I think that we are all called – whether by God, some higher power, or the human condition – to be bridge-builders. We are naturally driven, I suspect, in some deep primal way, to want to connect, to build bridges – in our families, social circles, communities, and workplaces; with the natural world and the spiritual world; with others and even within ourselves.
But, what does it mean to be bridge-builders?
While we are called – compelled even – to be bridge-builders, it is not always an easy task. In fact, I think that it just might be one of the hardest things that we, as imperfect and ego-driven humans, are asked to do. Bridge-building is awkward and daunting and painful; it is clumsy and uncertain and utterly exhausting. Bridge-building means uncomfortable conversations and bruised egos and being the first one to say “I’m sorry” or “I love you” or “I was wrong.” And bridge-building requires a healthy dose of faith, copious amounts of forgiveness, and an infinite amount of grace.
I would be lying if I didn’t say that my ego and heart haven’t ached just a little bit when, after introducing some friends, they prefer each other’s company to my own. I would be lying if I didn’t say that doesn’t take frequent reminders to check-in with extended family and friends during those times when life’s obligations leave little room for anything beyond carpools and homework, conference calls and emails, paying bills and folding laundry. I would be lying if I didn’t say that I have to constantly fight the urge to wear my Facebook mask, to present a Pinterest-worthy picture of my life to the world, to pretend that I’m not constantly second-guessing myself. And I would be lying if I didn’t say that there have been times when the time and energy spent building bridges hasn’t left me feeling scared, inadequate, and completely drained.
There is a natural tendency, I suppose, to preserve, protect, defend, and maintain the status quo. We get busy and beaten down with the day-to-day stresses and the curveballs that life throws at us, and sometimes bridge-building just seems like too much work and a colossal waste of time.
But bridges aren’t built when we stand our ground and stay in our comfort zone; they aren’t built when we focus on relationship maintenance, rather than relationship sustenance. Bridges aren’t built in the masks or by pretending that we aren’t scared and confused. Bridges aren’t built when we snicker at the expense of another, when we think in terms of “us-them” and “the other,” or when we focus all they ways we are different.
No, bridges are not built this way.
Bridges are built when we cast a wide net, when we make the effort, when we are radically inclusive. Bridges are built when we ask questions and take the time to listen to the answers. Bridges are built when we lay ourselves bare and stumble through the muck; when we make an intentional and difficult decision to forgive; when we focus on our shared and common human condition. Bridges are built when we step into the heart and mind of someone else; they are built with a single phone call or email, with a tender touch, with an open mind and a generous heart.
Bridge-building is hard, hard work. But bridge-building is good work, beautiful work, essential work. Bridge-building is holy human work.
There are bridge-builders all around us, and we can be bridge-builders ourselves, whether we know it or not. With her prophetic words about neighborhood parties and shoveling sidewalks and taking the first step, Pastor Jen built more bridges for me than she could possibly know. And for that I am eternally grateful and continually inspired. We have both since moved away from that church community in Chicago, me to the suburbs and she to California and then Virginia. But I have no doubt that she has been continuing to build bridges along the way. Because once a bridge-builder, always a bridge-builder.
Who are the bridge-builders in your life?
There was a time I thought I was in hell. It was Texas. I had dropped out of school and worked stocking bulk at a grocery store. As part of the job, before dawn once a month, they made us show up to get our morale boosted, which was seen as directly related to sales. Praise for good attitude. Hand-clapping. Prizes. It was noted when we hurt ourselves less on the job. Something like that—it was so long ago, it was always so early. On those days, we likely stole more than we did other days. But who’s to say it was stealing? Let’s just say you’d write off damaged goods. No matter how they got damaged.
Two mornings a week, they had me down for receiving. That meant being ready for the five o’clock truck. I don’t know what you call it, but picture a ladder–not with rungs, but with rollers. That’s what I set up, at the angle between where the truck would pull in and down where I would stand. Then silence. It was, after all, before five in the morning. Like a horse tied to a post, I might have drifted to sleep on my feet. Then, all at once, here was the truck, and now here was the driver, shot out of the cab. The white rabbit? In Alice in Wonderland? Always so worried he’s going to be late? Turn the worry to anger. Give the rabbit cocaine. Get him hounded by fathomless demons. That was this driver. The truck would hardly have jerked into place before there he was in the back, flinging frozen product down the rollers at me.
They say that, these days, when you get in a wreck, an air-bag will save you. But I’ve heard it’s like asking a heavyweight to lace on his gloves and deliver a punch. You don’t die, so there’s that. But you can’t escape bruises. And you’re staggered a bit. So, I can’t say the frozen product flung at me by the furious man in the truck could have, in any way, taken my life. But the body is tender, and what happened to me was not unlike how you get saved in a wreck. Then positioning yourself to let it happen again.
In those years, the physique that I boasted was like a balloon filled with duck-fat, and held up by string. Muscles were what people in magazines had. So, every time, as the truck screeched away, my back was in ruins. There was a faraway throbbing sensation. My forearms were pink, and my whole torso tender. I fantasized what a lottery ticket would do for my life.
On these mornings, Johnny Frozen was always around. He bounced, when he walked, on the balls of his feet. He took life on a lark. One of those people who doesn’t add up. He managed the freezer. Off the clock, martial arts and a Spartan existence. I wanted him to want more. Did he dream of travel? Of wealth? Of anything outside the walls of the walk-in? Couldn’t he see that we were in hell—the driver, me, and him, all ensnared? The misery he was missing! I could have just howled. But it never sunk in. In fact, he had something he thought I should know.
Judo is a word that can mean “gentle way.” (With “Ju” as the gentle and “do” as the way.) See that unconquerable force coming at you? You want to clench up. But don’t. Only see it. Accept it. Employ it, in fact. Channel it to new ends. And that, in a bungled nutshell, is judo. Which Johnny Frozen showed me how to use on the boxes. A person didn’t have to just plant himself there, at the end of the rollers, as the product shot down. Instead, you could eyeball what was oncoming, and step away just in time, allowing your arms to carry through with the force, using one sweeping motion to end the box up on the top of a stack. As if it weighed nothing. Before, I spent the shift cringing, trying to minimize harm. Now, of all things, you would have thought I was dancing.
I was staggered by so very much in those days. Life out ahead seemed the dim prospect of hunkering down. Of learning to take it. Writing off what got damaged. That it could be otherwise was a revelation that haunts me down to this day with a whisper of hope.
Sometimes it takes a lie
to keep a religion. “It’s
merely a game,” they
told the priests–“how
we fast for days, then
cut a tall pole to climb.
How we costume and
dance. It means nothing,
how we chant in circles
and bleed chickens.
How we climb and fly
round and around in air.
Come, watch–it’s only
a game that gives us joy.”
(And, they didn’t say,
aloud, keeps the earth
going well, returned
to its right turning again.)
“Merely a game we play,
round and around in
thirteen and thirteen turns.
It’s a game–come watch,
priests. Be amazed” (how
sometimes it takes a lie
to keep your religion.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danza_de_los_Voladores
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