It seems clear, having arrived at the point I find myself in this life, that I linger in essence as much as in presence—the kind that is verifiable by hugs and in mirrors, and especially apparent in the feeling of being hungry. Each stomach grumble proclaims the good news, whether physical or essential: “I am still here.”
I linger in this life, the one which has unspooled like a fifty-seven year-long strand of yarn knotted at significant junctures where circumstances and my broken heart clipped it, stronger for the intentional joining and the loving touch which tied the knots. Friendships have been the fingers which tied me back together, as well as my time away at school, that trip to France I took with my mom, and the later one I took with my husband. I returned home from each with more length to discover, “I am still here.” This life. What does it mean? It means my yarn was carded and spun before I was born in colors suited for me. These God-given colors have woven themselves into garments for every stage of my life. Thank God, I still look good in myself. Or, thank God, I finally realize I do. There have been enough shabby, moth-eaten years to make me doubt my worth, years of anxiety over not belonging, not being enough, of being too much. Lord! Why did you give me a skein florescent with greens and corals, violets and too many shades of turquoise? Sometimes, I can barely look at myself and choose to stay indoors. But, however I feel about what I am made of, “I am still here.” Which is undoubtedly a good thing. After all, I’d rather be woven rich and textured with trials—the ones we all share, the ones which make here, here—than be bleached and limp like a hotel towel with no personality at all. Protecting myself, putting my yarn on a shelf out of reach, doesn’t serve me or anyone else. We weave ourselves together—my yarn for your life and your yarn for mine. In fact, my tapestry only gains interest with colors beyond those I alone provide. What about all those shades of brown? Or black and white? Or taupe, or grey? When we show up for life in the colors God gave us, is still giving us, we augment each other by weaving ourselves together, blending in without ever disappearing. If we drop a thread as we inevitably will, torn by grief or doubt, the fingers of friendship tie knots which restore us. No longer need we rally ourselves alone. Our friends announce it: “You are still here!” More than our presence, they affirm our essence, too. Friends are our hugs and mirrors, telling us God’s honest truth, the long-term, loving, eternal truth: “You are still you.” Iris Reid
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"I want God more than all the old stories."
Not the old, old, stories, the ones we hear about when we read scripture, but the old stories we tell ourselves about life, about who we've been and think we still are. The friend who said, "I want God more than these," had come to a place I've come to many times before. And, although she was on her knees in church, plunked down into her desire like a cat caught by the scruff of its neck into a carrier, I have more often than not crawled there through the muddy yard of disappointment, doubt and debilitating exhaustion--which means I was collapsed in bed. Fortunately, God the Great Reviser can take whatever our stories are or have been and rework them according to his own aesthetic. Think, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." A month from now, I'll be celebrating (if you can call it that) my father's 46th death anniversary. I can't say "observing his anniversary" because I'm already observing it--both consciously and unconsciously, interiorly and on the outside--even though the day is well in the distance, still a long way off. Every year, this vigil month of March erupts with surprising somatic symptoms: a spate of headaches, a back sprain, a manic swell which leads inevitably to embarrassment. It takes perhaps a week of trouble before I recognize where I am. I'm back in the thorny landscape of grief, wandering the same forty years or so which kept the Israelites busy starving and straying, returning to God with rejoicing and then going off the rails again. God promised them a land of release if they would only set their priorities straight, if they would just choose him and stop seeking security from knowing who they had been. Their old life was slavery, yet there had been food to eat and flesh pots to eat from. The confines of imprisonment defined them. . . and they knew who they were. The people of God? Who's that? Surely, not us. When I think of being liberated from my perplexing show of annual grief, I find I can't. I can't imagine it, can't imagine being myself without the subconscious fits of mourning which counter the more readily apparent and healthier ones. Being beset by crippling grief is my old story. I've been defined by that narrative so long, I figure I can't live without it. Which is true. Which is where God comes in. Once I've chosen to follow God the Deliverer through the waters of rebirth, I can't survive--the "me" that's a slave to a time long gone, even if the grief will never entirely go away. Just because God can and does bring me safely to a better land, a better identity fattened with fresh milk and honey, doesn't mean I lose my memory. No, my Mother doesn't prevent me from remembering the wilderness, my doubt and pain, the stress of my journey. These keep me grateful, faithful, willing to learn a new story of myself as one of God's people, firmly rooted and ready to thrive in rich soil. God wants me to remember so that, when difficult memories arise as they certainly will, my desire for her will flare and keep me crawling in the right direction. When I make it to her lap, whether it's on my knees or lying flat, I will discover my life has a new meaning born of Promise. From then on, more than anything, I'll be defined as hers. Iris Reid |
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