About the Storm

It's an overcast morning, cold and due for storms later in the day. Perfect time for reflection in a quiet mostly Mormon neighborhood. The wind can be heard pushing against the window like an unwanted guest that I shall not let in. I’m alone for the first time in three weeks with nothing pressing to do except wait for my granddaughter’s return from school so that we can go to the hospital. It’s a daily occurrence with her new born brother confined to his room there until he begins to gain weight after heart surgery. To kill some time, I stumbled upon a show where a chaplain was visiting a man with stage 4 prostate cancer. The man’s stern stance of beating the disease leaned hard against my mind. It pulled the curtain back on my last attempt to get my brother to understand that his hope might be better placed in settling his affairs before he died rather than discussing being cured of stage 4 COPD. To no avail. His denial kept the boat rocking between us until I finally cut the anchor and let him sail away with what he needed to believe before he died. The chaplain on TV was met outside the room by an intern questioning why he gave the dying man false hope when he did not challenge his erroneous belief. The chaplain admitted to no such thing. “I met his hope where it was.” The chaplain looked at the camera pointing his finger like a parent correcting a child, “Hope is the last thing to die, let it die on its own!” If I were to call anything a sin now, it would be to rob someone of their hope.

Utah is cold in the mornings and the clouds add more pounds to the temperature making it seem heavier than it really is. Today the weather is on my mind. I think of the storms raging in the south as well as the catastrophic one hammering Australia and I find myself identifying with the landscape of our world; it gets torn into pieces and then must repair itself. We all know that feeling. It wasn’t my brother and mother’s deaths so much as watching them suffer, and, now, settling into the reality that loss will keep coming. The same with my grandson, although he is set to beat the odds; I’ve witnessed his storm with a scar running the length of his chest where his tiny frame was cut and chest opened to reach his little-big heart; a heart that would have cost him his life in only three days after birth had the ultrasound months prior not caught the defect. Thankful is not a big enough word to scale the Alps of my gratitude for today's technology.  It was only a little over two weeks after his surgery that I found myself holding his wiggly body mostly free of the wires and tubes assigned to him after surgery.

If it were left to me and my own definition, the tragedies in life would carry one singular purpose...to take those hard and sharp places in us and make them softer. The pain, loss and struggles I’ve seen in a very short span of time have loosened the rock of my resolve to be an unyielding force against my emotions. Like a landslide, everything I’ve been holding back has rushed down and over my barricades in a fast and furious attempt to teach me a deeper truth. And now I understand. The tragedies that I have walked through have softened me and with so much debris removed, have also made a generous path for the pain of others to walk. There is no need for anyone to suffer alone when ample provisions of empathy have collected in the canyons of time and experience. The rough places revealed a softer strength that has ended up being harder than any I've known before. It is from this strength that I'm being fueled to connect with those in need, if only to listen or supply them fresh waters of encouragement to drink. Nature like life, has its seasons and once you’ve been through enough of the poundings the best thing to do with some of your extra time and knowledge is to assist your brothers and your sisters. I’ve been helping others most of my life but something deeper occurred through this particular season. I can't name it but it feels much like a caterpillar hanging off a cocoon on my soul preparing to birth something new within me. Its still on the vine but quickening. 

The nimbostratus clouds are now blocking the view of the mountains much like my own clouds have been blocking my sight. It’s exhausting to deny time and again that you have a true need of others, especially when the opposite would be a healthier mental position to take. I’m reminded of the hypothetical lady on the roof in the flood when she drowns and meets God. She's furious that she prayed and was not saved from the flood. To her questioning God replies, “I sent several boats after you!” How many boats have you sent me, God?! How many did I turn away in the course of my life?! I remember them; I also remember that comfortable place where my thoughts convened to weigh out the price of appearing weak, or, better still, me deciding that someone you sent were not strong enough to assist me (perhaps I didn't want to need them). There is a point that we can reach where all of those statements of, “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine…I’M FINE!” Can actually buckle loudly under the weight of un-fine-ness and crack open to reveal the mask of denial. Once that mask is yanked from your face, it doesn’t fit properly again, especially if there is an audience to your breakdown. It isn’t weakness that one is showing when he or she speaks from the cloth of their own fabric—it is truth dressed eloquently in a coat of many colors because unlike popular belief, truth, is not black and white. If we do not share our truth, there is no way to find the colors of warmth and communion waiting to be discovered in those around us.

It’s tapping on the windows and running down the glass in streaks, rain. Not even a rumble to announce that it has decided to come early; it simply unpacked itself over Syracuse without apology. The sound plays a nice tune and relaxes me deeper into the oversized couch. It also drags the dog from across the room placing his face on my lap with that familiar question on his brow. “No, Dodge, I did not cause the disruption of your 5^th nap this morning!” You can barely hear it but the grass has begun to dance from the other side of the wall. I suppose that’s how my heart feels when I finally give myself permission to truly feel and cry, happy. Truth running down ones face seems like something that would make the heart want to dance. It's the heart that seeks to strip us naked of our pretenses so that we are fully seen but that is not a place of comfort.  All I know this rainy morning in Utah is that I’m glad my circumstances didn't drive me into a mental cave and make me bitter or choose aloneness. There is no stopping the storms. My new found softness makes me realize that I really don’t mind the rain if it means that I will become a shelter, and, too, that I can become strong enough to seek the warm shelter of soft strength in others. The Law of Reciprocity requires that I only speak from the place of my truest feelings so that God can bring into my path the provisions needed for my growth, or, I am to not speak at all. What I have learned from not speaking at all is that a foul stagnation begins to emerge where living waters of spiritual progress once flowed. Therefore, I embrace life at my truest north and will begin from there.

Mona