Alone

Just finished looking at a little video display of pictures from a friend's baby shower. Yesterday, I looked at a large display in the church's narthex of the life of a good man...who died last weekend. After looking at ths photos in the church, I decided to not stay for the funeral Mass. 
There are parts of being alive that are just too hard for me to face. I confess I am weak, wounded, and perhaps a bit unforgiving. I understand it, though...it comes from having to face all of life's "milemarkers" alone.
As a child, I had to deal with violence and betrayal and births and deaths alone. I could tell such stories to make you weep, but I do not like causing anyone unnecessary pain. My stories come out when I know you have been abandoned, or betrayed, or left behind. Only when I am sure it serves a purpose do I open those wounds again. And they come from and in the oddest ways: like showers and funerals.
I pretty much think everyone likes to feel special...cherished..appreciated...loved.  There is a part of being human that needs those things, just as much a person needs food and water and shelter.  I've heard of studies of babies that don't get held enough; they call it "failure to thrive." 

I remember a story, a book, actually, called "The Halfbreed."  I would check it out from the bookmobile, which showed up in our neighborhood every Tuesday afternoon.  It was just over a mile from my house, and, walking or biking, it was air-conditioned...and that cold blast of air as you would walk into the trailer, with its shag carpet, metal shelves and faux wood paneled walls...everything about my little pilgrammage seemed to spell relief...an afternoon without yelling, and without cigarette smoke...was wonderful. 

The book, "The Halfbreed" was on the third shelf from the bottom on the very back wall. Sometimes it was checked out, but when it was there, I would take it home to read it again...

The half-breed was the story of a cat, born both wild and tame. The owner did not want the cat, so he put it in a burlap sack with a few rocks, tied it up, and threw it into the river. The author of the story took us into the cat's mind, as it struggled to escape the sack, what it felt like to feel being drowned...and to suddenly be rescued from the water by a curious child, who brought the cat back to health...and loved the cat, even though it was quite "ugly."

I loved to read that story. Over and over. I did not understand then that I loved the story, because the story was MY story. Knowing what it is like to be thrown away, almost drowned...and then rescued by the love of a child. 

I didn't know the story mattered so much until, on a retreat, as I preached the gospel of God's saving love and "prevenient grace," when I talked about a drowning kitten...and years later having a woman remember that story...and telling it to me over again...that I understood how I was carrying that burden of "not good enough" and "Half-breed" and "unwanted" with me into everything I did. 

Can such upbringing be healed?  It must be...or I would not still be here. 

I struggle with the choices I've made in the past, again and again learning how to forgive myself for things I did not do well. I struggle with great prayers asking those I've wronged to forgive me, even when I don't understand what I've done wrong. I know I've had some success, but others, I know I just have to let go. I believe this movement is documented in AA meetings...but such reconciling actions are needed for things beyond addictions. It's just easier to see them, I suppose, when we use drugs to numb the pain...or food...or sex...or whatever you choose to obsess about so that you don't have to look at your own pain, or your own sin.  Forgiveness for self and others never ceases. 
Perhaps I should qualify that a bit more, forgiveness (to forgive and to be forgiven) is always hard for me. God decided to rattle my cage this morning, when He brought me that question from one of my 'regular' visits...and I do not think I convinced the person because he responded with "Well, if that is true, then we need to rewrite the Act of Contrition."  (His argument was that if someone does not ask for forgiveness, then we do not have to forgive them, that they must be contrite in heart...otherwise...we just leave them alone.) I'm not sure I helped, but as always, I ask the Ignatian question, "What does God want me to learn from this encounter?" 

And I think about the funeral I skipped...and the baby shower...and all the photographs of people who have documented proof that "they mattered" in this world. And that I, with all my mistakes, have no proof that I mattered at all...and to my great horror...that I have somehow passed along that sadness and grief to my most precious child.
God had me lector at Mass yesterday: the martyrdom of Stephen. After receiving Communion, I walked not to my pew, but out of the church, and I sat on the ground...feeling a great sadness. Why am I sad, God? I asked. I do not know.
But today, when the man questioned me about forgiveness, the pieces began to fall into place. Yesterday, during the Eucharistic prayer, I seemed to be fixated on the baptismal candle, looking at the five pins, representing the five wounds of Christ.  I remembered teaching them on Divine Mercy Sunday, explaining to my Protestant crowd about what they meant. But Tuesday, I thought about Easter, when the pins are heated by the fire, so that they can be placed into the candle as it is blessed: we are put into fire to make us ready for baptism, to be a part of the solution for suffering...and as we cool, we are cemented into that divine grace.  I thought about Isaiah:  "we look upon Him whom we have pierced" from the suffering servant songs.  That's all about forgiveness. Some part of our healing requires that we really look at our sins. I suppose I never quite understood that before, that when the priest holds up the "Eucharist," the sacrifice...while it is a joy for Catholics, I suddenly realized it is that we are holding up the suffering in ourselves...placing it on our sweet Jesus...and offering it to God. We wound Him, and He receives it in silence...He says, "Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" and we are somehow connected to the continually offering up our own brokenness in the act of the Mass.

For me, that means, I must offer up the pain and fear I felt being placed into a burlap sack and thrown into the river...true or not...it is what I understood back then...and I must offered up the child that dared to rescue me...and I must offer up all the scratches I unleashed on people who got to close, or tried to show me love. 
Because all I understood was "alone." Because a child can't figure out more than that: You are either alone or not alone. The "not-alones" understand community, can have funerals and showers and celebrations of life because they understand that life is best when it is shared.  The "alones" feel awkward when others insist on connections.  They must unlearn that the world is dangerous and unforgiving.  They must learn how to love...and generally, in my opinion, that is dangerous and scary and it hurts.

I have left certain subjects that would necessarily flow from this argument alone. For now. I must break this into pieces, and chew on them...for as long as it takes. We must "chew" on the Body of Christ, and let it transform us into full human beings. Such it is.

That's enough for now.
Poetry later...
Love, Cindy