Toward the end of his life, Bruce had an advanced case of Parkinson's. One of the symptoms is particularly disconcerting. Sometimes when Bruce sees a line on the floor (perhaps because his eyes are cast down, watching his feet, fearing a loss of balance?), he stops, immobilized, because he "sees" that line as a wall. He literally, does not (or cannot) move.
A friend tells the story of a ride in an elevator with Bruce and Bruce's wife. The doors open. My friend and the wife exit the elevator. Bruce walks (with his walker) toward the open doors, but sees only the line, or space, that separates the elevator from the building floor. He stops. He sees only "a wall"--an impediment.
His wife speaks, "Bruce. Look at me. Bruce. Look up at me. Look at my eyes. Now take one step."
Bruce looks up, trusts who he sees, and steps slowly out of the elevator.
I cannot imagine Parkinson's, or the courage it takes to face and to battle such a debilitating and often humiliating disease. But all of us know what it is like to feel stuck, or stymied, or (for reasons we don't even understand) stopped. There are times when we are just plain afraid to take another step. Our "limitation" or fear is greater than our ability to move forward. Even with the best of intentions or faith, we see only a wall.
When this happens to me, as it did this week, I am reluctant to tell anyone. Because, after all, "Big boys don't show any weakness." I've got a dozens reasons why I give into my limitations, and none of them have to do with me. Like the old parable, "The girl who can't dance says the band can't play."
"The older I get, the clearer it becomes to me that no one is cheated in this world, unless its by himself, but some of us are so wounded that we must return to the scene of the crime, must play with the fire that burned us, must live the scene out as many times as necessary until it comes out differently. We are not prisoners, no traps or snares are set about us, but many of us imprison ourselves or at least are helplessly stalled." Merle Shain
I do know that if I run from my brokenness, it only exacerbates the problem. Like it or not, we all carry with us fault-lines, and brokenness, and vulnerability.
In my early days, I assumed that "salvation" fixed all of that. You know, eliminated the broken stuff (like seeing walls when there were only lines). I figured that's what the Bible meant by being a new creation. But I believe differently now. Salvation is about wholeness, at-one-ness with our Creator, which ironically is about living with our brokenness, instead of running from it. It is about literally, being at home with the self, this self, this extraordinarily loved and often messy self.
My Sabbath is a reminder to hear the voice of Grace, "Look at me. Terry. Now take one step."
This same voice invited Peter (full of fear) out of the boat, onto a stormy sea, "Be not afraid. Look at me. Now take one step." Jesus didn't ask Peter to wait until he was "unafraid," or had it all figured out. He invited him to risk, and embrace this life, even with the imperfections and limitations, even knowing sooner or later, he'd sink.
Did you know that Franz Schubert wrote some of his best music (including Piano Sonata D. 959, released posthumously), music that never earned him a cent, that he never saw published or publicly recognized, when his symptoms of syphilis had advanced? Yet in the gloom, music rang out, what music from the depths, what sublime creativity, what ecstatic moments, usually as he entertained himself or dazzled a handful of guest and friends at private musical soirées. (From Andy Merrifield)
This goes beyond just the power of positive thinking. In the movie Kingdom of Heaven, about the battle for Jerusalem in the Middle Ages, Balian of Ibelin began knighting ordinary men, making them to understand that inside of them was a knight, something far greater than the limitations of their birth or fears or status.
The Bishop, Patriarch of Jerusalem [almost crying]: "Who do you think you are? Will you alter the world? Does making a man a knight make him a better fighter?"
Balian of Ibelin: "Yes"
"Look up at me," Balian of Ibelin was saying to each man. "See in my eyes something more and far greater than you see and know in your limitations."
The rain has not relented today, and will be with us through the week. Even so, home for only a few days, I needed some time in my garden. It is where my soul re-calibrates. So I cleaned beds, dead-headed, tussled with blackberry vines, filled bird feeders and scrubbed the front patio. With our sky cinched down at the corners, whatever "light" we have is from the cheerfulness in the new daffodil blooms, and today it is enough. It has been a good day, sore from a physical labor I could not do a few months ago. There is no checklist. I work until I'm tired, the right kind of fuel for a smile that won't go away for awhile.
So here's the deal: Let us choose to eliminate the question, "What did you accomplish today?" It makes my head spin, as I'm never sure if I get the answer right. Instead, I hope that somewhere we hear the voice, "Look at me. You are valued. You are held. And you are loved."
And I hope that, like Bruce, it will be enough to say, "Today, I took one step."
Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning.
You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness.
Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could. Louise Erdrich
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