In the documentary "Last Letters Home," Paula Zasadny, mother of 19-year-old Specialist Holly McGeogh (killed by a bomb in Kirkuk), talks about a visit from marines in dress uniform.

"It was the lightest tap on my door that I've ever heard in my life," says Zasadny.  "I opened the door and I see the men in the dress greens and I knew.  I immediately knew.  But I thought that if, as long as I didn't let him in, he couldn't tell me.  Then it--none of that would've happened.  So he kept saying, "'Ma'am; I need to come in.' And I kept telling him, 'I'm sorry, but you can't come in.'"

I cannot relate to Paula Zasadny's loss.

But I can relate to "light taps at the door," whether real or imagined. 

So can you.

We all have parts of our life that unravel or splinter or deaden or reduce us thunderstruck.  While we never know what the trigger (whether immense or trivial) may be...

While we never know whether it will be wrapped in tragedy or hurt or misunderstanding or simply accumulated aggravation...

We do know that it will be, somehow, woven into the fabric or our days.

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse.  (The beloved rocking horse in The Velveteen Rabbit) "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

It's easy to say.

And easy to read.

And it is most certainly true.

But saying and doing are two different things.

I know this: Some days I do "mind" being hurt.  And I want to run away.  Or I want someone to fix it.  Or I want to tell whoever or whatever is tapping at my door, "You can't come in."

The movie Crimes of the Heart (based on the Pulitzer Prize winning play written by Beth Henley) is the story about three sisters surviving crisis after crisis in a small Mississippi town.  The youngest, Rebecca or 'Babe,' finds a sort of solace in an almost comical practice, contorting her body in order to stick her head into the oven.  One day, older sister Meg asks exasperated, "Why'd you do it, Babe ? Why'd you put your head in the oven?"
Babe, "I don't know... I'm having a bad day."

Meg, "Well... we've got to find a way to get you through these bad days."

If we're honest, we know that there are days when we feel certain that we just can't get through.   

Earlier this week, a friend texted me the news about Robin Williams. I didn't expect it to hit me, so viscerally. But it did. "That can't be," I kept saying out loud, to no one in particular. It's not easy because we see people who make us laugh and bring us joy, and hope that humor is a safeguard, or at the least makes us less susceptible; even to the illness of depression. Reading the opinion pieces about suicide, I realized that the news is visceral because we all know there are tipping points; we just don't always know when or where or why. And for whatever reason, we don't believe that mercy is our benediction.   

My favorite scene in the movie Forrest Gump, is one where Jenny (Forrest's girlfriend for life) stands in front of a dilapidated house. The house represents years of abuse and disappointment from her childhood. As she faces the demons of her past, she begins to pick up rocks and hurl them--with every scrap of her being--towards the house.  She is, possibly for the first time, acknowledging years of anger, pain, hatred and fear. She eventually collapses to the ground and Forrest Gump's simple commentary is this: "Sometimes there just aren't enough rocks."

On the ferry this week, I am eavesdropping.  And I honor one cardinal rule: eavesdropping on a good conversation always trumps whatever else is on my list.

Two women are commiserating about life's vicissitudes.  They tell stories filled with culprits and villains.  I'll give you the abridged version.  There are parents not talking with grown children.  There are life-threatening medical conditions.  There are relationships gone awry.  There are friends who turn out to be not real friends.  There are betrayals and secrets.  And, there are men who are idiots. (I could have guessed that last one.)

We all have our sad places.  No matter how we "clean up," we all have our cracks in the façade.  

As if that's not bad enough, we live in a world that expects us to apologize for any weakness or sorrow.  "I'm sorry," the young woman told me, wiping away her tears.  "I shouldn't feel this way."

Excuse me?  Sorry for being which... normal? Or sad? Or real?

(Just a reminder: anytime the word should--or shouldn't--is added to a sentence, things turn sour in a hurry.)   

Life is difficult, Scott Peck wrote in The Road Less Traveled.

Yes.  And sometimes it feels like it takes us to the breaking point.

So, if sticking our head in the oven is not the answer, what can we do?

I found inspiration in the story about the tragic bombing in the town of Omagh, Northern Ireland (in 1998 twenty-nine people died as a result of the attack and approximately 220 people were injured; the attack was described by the BBC as "Northern Ireland's worst single terrorist atrocity" and by the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, as an "appalling act of savagery and evil"). After the attack, Daryl Simpson created a choir of Catholic and Protestant teenagers, to use music as a way to begin the healing. ("Love Rescue Me" is a U2 song sung by The Omagh Community Youth Choir.)

Here's the deal: Yes, sorrow is a part of my life.  But it is not the whole of my life.   

These young people from Ireland understand that.   

Their source of healing? 

Not advice.

Or shoulds. 

Or sermons. 

They let the pain come in, and then they surrounded it with song.

Some time back I was invited to lecture on intimacy (which is brave, considering I haven't a clue).  When I was writing it, I asked my son Zach what to say.  He said, "Tell them that hugs and kisses wouldn't hurt."

End of lecture.

Today, my music--my sanctuary--is the garden. I've been home almost one month. A gift. It's my first non-travel month in many years. I sit on the patio every night at dusk, listening to the sound of water cascading into the pond. The English roses nearby have begun their second pageant, not as outrageous as the first, but with a soft beauty that melts the heart. And the music of Keb' Mo' fills the airs. It reminds me that sanctuary is a dose of grace. Because its gifts (stillness, calm, mystery) are bestowed. Which means we can't orchestrate them. But we can make space. And in that space, blessedly receive.