God's Arms

As I sat in my favorite chair by the window trying to come up with a clever meditation for my weekly blog, I heard them coming. After several days of rain, the sound of children was balm to my cloudy spirit. I stopped typing and looked out the window to see a large family riding bikes on a Sunday morning. Three capable riders surrounded their parents, while the fourth, the youngest, was riding a bike that was attached to his father’s with a strange bungie-chord contraption. I suppose it was there to help when they climbed hills, but right in front of my window the child fell. Tears followed, and within seconds his mother was reaching down to pick him up and comfort him.

More than anything I was writing before, the moment spoke to me at a very deep and personal level, particularly as I prepare for the season of Lent, which begins on Wednesday. 

Several years ago, I made a decision to head down a specific path. It was a path that had been calling me most of my life and I felt as much relief as I did apprehension when I chose to go to seminary. In many ways, I was attaching my bike to my father’s, if you will, and I looked forward to a life with such connection, particularly when I came upon steep hills. There were times when I felt I no longer needed the chord to pull or guide me, and, without fail, those were the times my bike wobbled and I fell on the road once again.

Watching the mother arrive swiftly to cradle her son made me jealous. I feel like I was always left to pick myself up, to brush away the gravel and dirt on my own and get on the bike again. Only in retrospect, can I see that was not the case.

Lent is so often billed as a time to give things up, to get one’s spiritual act together, but I wonder if it isn’t also a time to admit that we’ve fallen and let God come and cradle us for a while. Instead of doing spiritual aerobics, or peddling our bikes even faster, maybe it’s time to rest in the arms of God – daily, often, without ceasing. 

I have no doubt that such time will make it easier to get back on the bike again when Easter comes around.

Old Paintings

I came across an old painting of mine and it caused me to cringe. The colors were obvious, perspective screwy, and composition all over the place. I paint better than that, I said to myself. I must have been proud of my work, why else would I have gone to the effort and expense to frame it? It once hung proudly on a wall but now leans against other paintings in a closet of my studio.

Over the next few days, I thought about that old painting. Rather than critique its shortcomings, I reminded myself it was as good as I could do at the time. Even though it was one of my first “really good pieces,” I was just a beginner. Now, I paint better. A more recent painting hangs where the other once did, and while I wish I was a better painter than I am, now, I know I’m growing - one brushstroke at a time. 

I need to apply this forgiving attitude to other aspects of my life. Whether its financial management, physical fitness, or diet, I need to see where I once was, not just where I need to go. More important, when I look at the spouse I am, the father, the friend, I could slide down a spiral of despair. Instead, I need to find “an old painting,” one that reveals the way I used to be. Then, I can see the progress I’ve made and continue on my way with hope. 

There’s a prayer used in 12-step recovery circles which captures what I’m so desperate to remember:

“I’m not who I want to be,

I’m not who I’m going to be,

but, thanks be to God, I’m not who I used to be.”

The Call

I got the call on a Tuesday night, some time before 6 o’clock. I was a seventeen-year-old boy in khakis and blue shirt with a necktie partially tied around my neck getting ready for vespers, the evening assembly at my boarding school before dinner. 

“Bristol,” a classmate said leaning into our dorm room, “there’s a call for you.” 

I thought little of it, but it ended up being a call that has echoed in my soul for forty-four years. My mother was at the other end of the line. She said my name but couldn’t say anything else at first. There were other words sputtered: Willie . . . hit . . . died . . .  are the three I can still hear. She called to tell me that my dog, Willie, had been hit by the newspaper delivery truck and was dead. The moment froze in time. I can still remember the smell of the cleaner used on the linoleum hallway, the sound of the other students’ loafers and their adolescent banter echoing off the plaster walls, and the feel of the payphone receiver.

This was my first call, but there have been others since. I’ve heard friends tell me about their calls, and while the details are unique, the import and life-changing nature of such calls are always the same. 

Each person remembers where they were, who called, and one or two of the words that floated through the phone line like ash. Are you sitting down . . . there’s been an accident . . . I have bad news . . . your test results have come in. The list is as varied as it is endless.   

Each time someone shares about their call, it brings me back to mine. My wife says hers made her see the world and those in it as fragile. Mine made me see the world as unsafe. Either way, such calls change the way we see the world, forever. A wound is caused that never fully heals. 

My call made me want to hide and never let the world’s fickle pain ever reach me again, but it did. I tried to coil my arms around me, like a hug, to keep me warm, but life’s bitter breeze continued to blow.

My call made me wonder about life after death in a way I never had before. It made me appreciate, maybe even cherish, those people, places, and things I’d taken for granted. Their value was found in loss. 

In some twisted way, maybe the calls themselves are gifts, but I’m not there yet.