I wrote that on the back of a hospital roster while driving in my car yesterday. I had a scathingly brilliant idea for a blog entry that now, even with those few words, I cannot recall their purpose. I tried carrying a tape recorder in the car back in the 80s and that didn't help either.
Why is it that all the great ideas arrive when you are doing something else?
I know I have written about peripheral vision before, but I don't know if I have written it here.
I was once married to an astronomer. Back in those days, at Texas A%M, things seemed so much simpler...and they were for awhile. I would teach undergraduate astronomy labs at night on the golf course, under the tutelage of my then boss, later husband and I sounded oh so smart to my students. Bob was an excellent teacher, one of the clearest thinkers I have known (at least in science!)so he made me look good to others.
One thing he taught me was how to properly look through a telescope. In those days, long ago, we would be out in the woods near Dr. Ron Schorn's house with maybe an 8" refractor telescope...may looking at M31...and I said, "I can't see it." and he told me to look off to the side and I would see it with my peripheral vision. I diverted my eyes to a corner in the viewer an lo! a small cloud of stars appeared in the corner of my eye! Perhaps a bit of irony here, this man, who taught me how to see, only had sight in one eye.
His lens was pierced by a pyracanths thorn when he was about ten years old. He had something like 13 eye operations on it before he was 20. A man with only one good eye decided to be an astronomer. Go figure.
But I would not have met him otherwise. My passions back then were music, theater and outer space. I wanted to live in the stars, play the piano and recite poetry on stage to a captive audience. I sang to God in the woods almost every morning before dawn. I know I bring that up often, but when I do, I can still smell the leaves and the earth...just as when I hear the morning birds offer their prayers, I go back to those moments when life was simple. Or simpler.
Pulled out Thomas a Kempis yesterday. Randomly select a CD. Put it in the car. "Chapter 5: Communion" Oh hell. I listen. Talk about Holy Communion and I get all strange inside. Body and Blood of Christ...I suppose I could write about it, but its just too much. Too personal. Can you believe that? Something I am not ready to share. Oh hell.
I pull out my Breviary. What's the topic yesterday? Communion. Argh!
Now I remember...
Thomas A Kempis tells us to think about what it might be like to only communicate (go to Holy Communion) once a year. A long time ago, that was how it was for people. Only on rare occasions did the congregation get to receive Communion. Only once in a great while were people allowed to receive the Body of Christ...and the Blood of Christ was not even an option until the 1960s. Thomas writes about that longing for God, that deep hunger for a physical encounter with the divine. And that is what happens with Holy Communion.
It's not just a memory of what happened 2000 years ago. It's a full, head-on encounter with the perfect, most loving, compassionate One who longs to be one with us even more than we long to be with Him. It is a primal hunger between the creator and the created. The separation desires to return itself to be complete again.
So that is in my mind, as I listen to Thomas' words...and I am thinking about longing and waiting...and suddenly I see in my head a scene from Lilies of the Field: I see these nuns walking down a dusty dirt road on their way to Mass on Sunday morning, several miles from their convent...to a diner on the highway where a priest celebrates Mass from the back of his truck. And all the Hispanic people gather out in the early morning heat of the Arizona desert...to receive Holy Communion.
And I think about how I get to go to Mass everyday...and how some people have to go to work...and others are too weak to drive or don't have a car...
and I think about those people who could be there, but they don't know, they don't understand...the gift that is given in these few minutes of their day
And I think, "I know" and "I can" and then I start to cry, because for some unexplained reason, God has allowed me this gift. This amazing gift. His gift of Himself.
When I look off to the side, as I am at Mass...I see all these things. And I want the world to see them, too.
I don't know if I explained this well enough, but like the note in the car...its a start.
Love,
Cindy
ilies of the Field is one of my top ten movies
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