I wore make-up to Mass last night. Quite a contrast to the early morning Mass where I found myself crying buckets of tears...Fr. Henry did it on purpose, I think, for I heard many sniffles and watched eyes being wiped during his homily, which was very appropriate for Christmas: Christmas is the time of what I often call the Blue Meanies. It is the time when we remember all the Christmases past, people who are not there anymore, decisions we made, all of it comes into our heads...and we weep for what we miss. It is part of being human. Hope and regret, great joys and great sorrows.
I recall this year, the deaths I have entered...and I know this Christmas will be hard for so many people. I've called a few this December. They are open and wonderful to me, loving...and I nonchalantly ask, do you have a plan? Not directly, but I remind them this its going to hit them at some moment during the holiday and they need to be ready.
Just as Jesus told his disciples during The Last Supper, I think, or perhaps in the garden...You say you love me, but when the hour is here, you will leave me alone, but you must remember that I am not alone, my Father is with me. I tell you this now, because when it happens, you must remember that I told you.
It's like the mother in "Terms of Endearment" when she tells her son: I know you can't tell me that you love me now. But after I am gone, you must remember that I am telling you now that I know you love me. It's okay.
We are all caught up in so many feelings all the time. I'm just one of those people who writes about them as honestly as I can...because I know how lonely some people are inside their feelings. I know everyone is as scared as I am about what might happen next. I know how we built fortresses around our hearts to protect them from the pain of loving. And loving, while bringing great joy, also brings great pain.
A few nights ago, when I was playing the beautiful Steinway at St Monicas, I saw the crucifix lying on the altar, so for me, at the piano, Jesus was horizontal.
I was suddenly overcome with the feelings of being his mother...which is often my state...and being present as the nails were placed on his hands...and the pain she must have felt.
I remember holding my son down on a table in the doctor's office while they were stitching up his eyebrow. I remember the mother hold her daughter and looking at the port in her side that poured in drugs to fight the cancer.
And I looked over at my boy, being nailed to the cross. We are a complicated species, we humans.
Then I shuddered as I thought, of the cross being raised up...and I almost fell off the piano bench. Yes, the boy had to endure it...but Mother watching???
I just didn't know.
Yet we are all called to be witnesses to life, and witnesses to death. It is our gift. Like the loving husband who looks at his wife and sees only the thin, beautiful, 25 year old young mother...while she lies in her bed perhaps not recognizing him any more...that's what love does.
We see what is really there: The pain the suffering. The decay. But all of this is seen in through the eyes of love...and love, real love, cannot be killed.
We know (altho we sometimes deny) that real love...messy love, truly madly deeply love...involves everything that makes us human: joy, rage, hope, faith, trust, the good, the bad, the ugly...and it is all worth it.
Messy love is risk. Be clear here, I am not talking about lust, envy, pride, exploitation, using, selfishness...that's messy too...and damages so many people and souls...but love is messy.
The blood on the cross...most don't have that hanging above an altar...but without question, with our without the body of Jesus Christ, that cross was not brown but red. It said, "I love you this much."
Do not be afraid. All throughout His life, from before he was born, we hear the words "Do not be afraid."
I look at people who mean so much to me and I know I will have to let them all go someday. Either I will leave, or they will leave. But not today. I must not be afraid to love. Now. Truly. Madly. Deeply.
Because He loved me first.
Love, Cindy
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