Surrounded by illness in the family – from stomach flu to cancer, discomfort to despair – I sink into wonderfully chilly sheets, warming up under a down comforter, with no headache or stomach cramps, no sore throat or aching chest, no IV’s or oxygen tanks. In this moment my life is utter bliss. And I recognize that I am blessed.
We begin life by losing the security of the womb and it’s downhill from there. Every day, every second we are losing time, losing a piece of our lifespan, losing opportunities. Every year we accumulate more and more losses: relationships, jobs, friends, spouses, children, parents.
But life is also Gain.
All is grace; all is gift. Undeserved. Unearned. With each breath life animates every cell of our bodies, providing one more opportunity to claim our joy, pursue our bliss.
After I accepted my diagnosis of diabetes (and I was in denial for a while) I became angry – at God mostly. In the past I had joked that – because of my sweet tooth – if God really wanted to mess with me God would give me diabetes. I have a suspicion that genetics and weight had more to do with it, but I blamed God anyway. Blaming God is convenient, more convenient than exercise and diet, for sure. We tend to give God the blame for every bad thing, even things human beings are obviously responsible for: pollution, drunk driving deaths, the abuse of children. But we often forget to give thanks for the good things.
To a chocoholic like myself the loss of chocolate is no small thing. I can do without white bread, I only ever ate it at parties – you know those crustless triangles of mayonnaisey goodness. I can do without white rice, and I have learned to deal with whole wheat pasta. I have always loved veggies and whole grain bread, so that’s good, and I can usually do without the cookies. But sugar-free chocolate is for the birds. Actually, no! It’s not for the birds, because if their digestive response is the same as mine I would need much larger windshield wipers!
So, diabetes. Is it a loss or a gain? Surely a loss, right? Not necessarily. I thought it was a loss for a long time and was very bitter about it. But now, every morsel of real chocolate I treat myself to is absolute and unmitigated joy, or it can be if I do it right. Like oxygen to an asthmatic, chocolate has the power to bring absolute bliss to every cell of my being. Since becoming diabetic I have learned to eat my chocolates one at a time, slowly allowing a piece to dissolve on my tongue and the sugary sweetness to suffuse my mouth. Instead of shoveling down a handful at once, I enjoy each moment of the experience. When I eat gobs at once I only taste the last one anyway so what’s the point of shoveling it in. So my gain is that I am learning to truly enjoy chocolate, to truly taste it. I am not saying that I am always able to control my shoveling compulsion, but I am getting better at it. And as a result chocolate has become more precious to me and now gives me more joy than it ever did in my pre-diabetic days.
What a paradigm for life this could be. Of course we hear it all the time: slow down and smell the roses. But if you have allergies and can’t smell, or have no garden, or have only smelled the indifferent vegetative or even moldy aroma of store-bought roses, the metaphor is lost on you. So how about a re-write: slow down and taste each piece of chocolate – or slow down and engage whichever of your senses lead you to your personal bliss.
See the stars on a cloudless night in the Berkshires, or the glorious pallete of a sunset over the water
Smell the air after a summer rain, or the skin of a baby after a bath
Hear the glorious harmonies of a symphony – of music or Nature
Touch your lover’s face, hold it in your hands
Taste the sweet silkiness of chocolate melting on your tongue – one piece at a time
Fires and drought. Over 1000 missing in Maui. Crime and conflict. It’s so hard some days not to lose hope. Perhaps these words from James Dillet Freeman will speak to you.
“Though you may not see the good, good is there, for I am there…
I am assurance. I am peace. I am oneness. I am the law that you can live by. I am the love that you can cling to. I am your assurance. I am your peace. I am one with you. I am.
Though you fail to find Me, I do not fail you. Though your faith in Me is unsure, My faith in you never wavers, because I know you, because I love you. Beloved, I am there.”
In September 2022 a new life entered the world and inherited the name of his uncle: Malcolm. My first grandson.
We don’t know yet if he has inherited anything else from his namesake. His hair is ginger, what he has of it, and uncle Malcolms hair was blond, very blond and curly. His legs are long and skinny so he certainly has his uncles length. But uncle Malcolm was a preemie and new Malcolm was late. There may be something shared even in that, though. Uncle Malcolm entered the world thanks to an emergency C-section, but if his later nature would be an indicator, he would have hung around and been late himself, if he’d had his way.
New Malcolm is my new love. I was hesitant about the name for a while after his dad shared their name selection. How would my hurt respond? But it grew on me. No, new Malcolm will never take his uncle’s place; he is definitely his own very different person already. And although I sometimes think I see his uncle looking fixedly at me through the baby’s eyes, it is only as if to say, “I’m still here, mum. Don’t feel bad for loving a new Malcolm. He can’t take away any of the love you gave me. I’m holding on to it until we meet again. I just wanted to see your eyes smiling at me one more time.” And my hurt heart is warmed.
In his baptisms Fr. Arango used “we” instead of “I” because he (I assume) understood that it is through the request and the faith of the parents that the baptism is taking place, not through his personal assumption of authority and power. He can’t baptise on his authority alone even if the church says he is in the role of Jesus. Jesus didn’t force people to accept him. So “we” not “I” is good Christian theology in my opinion.
In Catholic tradition any baptized Catholic can baptize someone in extraordinary circumstances – ex. potential death and no priest available, like a miscarriage/ live birth. As a chaplain I was called upon to perform baptisms. My mother, and many like her, baptized her premature babies before the doctor arrived. In an emergency there is no formal rite except pouring water over the child’s head and reciting the words of baptism “in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” There is no assumption of the one baptizing being “in persona Christi” as there is in Catholic theology of priesthood. So the use of “I” would be inappropriate by a mother except to identify herself as a person of faith in the absence of any other family or faith community members. In a church baptism there are parents and family present along with the priest or deacon, hence “we.”
So there are nuances already in the performance of the sacrament. It is the faith of the parents that acts as the spiritual conduit/context through which the child is welcomed into the church. The child cannot ask for baptism but the parents do on the child’s behalf and the Church accepts that request on the basis of the faith of the parents and the pledged support of the faith family and community to which they belong. So, I believe the use of “We” is not only appropriate but good theology.
As a Catholic educator I had been saddened by the continuing return to Tridentine theology and liturgy. I had been drawn to religious education by Vatican II and it’s emphasis on the shared priesthood of the people and its de-emphasis on hierarchy. Rev. Arango sounds like a good, Vatican II type of priest. And his words represent the forward thinking that Vatican II Catholics were pursuing. Sadly, that movement is no more – at least among the clergy, who now are returning to Latin and cassocks and incense more and more, despite a more forward looking pope.
Isn’t it time, given the last 50 years, that Catholics once again resolve not to give over control of their relationship with God to priests and bishops. The Catholic Church is not the Kingdom/Empire of God; the pope is not an emperor, priests and bishops are Servants of the People of God not “Christ” among us. Hardly! The faith of those present welcomes our child into the church community not a particular pronoun, not a clerical costume.
Traces of Hope 