Canada Saga 2011 - September 8

"All of the places of our lives are sanctuaries; some of them just happen to have steeples. And all of the people in our lives are saints; it is just that some of them have day jobs and most will never have feast days named for them."
— Robert Benson in Between the Dreaming and the Coming True

  

"Sometimes, in moments of deep gratitude, kneeling down becomes an overwhelming urge, head deeply bowed, hands before my face. (Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life)

Two days before our return trip to Canada, I walked down the hallway next to the

windows which look out on our backyard in Louisiana. It was yet another hot muggy evening, and the tall trees and shrubs, usually so comfortingly green and intimate, seemed to close in with shriveling branches and dried up leaves in the summer heat and drought.  Then I heard it: the unmistakable cry of an eaglet to a parent, the sound that pierces the air on the island here for weeks in August as the young ones learn to fly and hunt. I yelled to Michael and, heat and humidity forgotten, we both ran out in time to see the parent, followed almost immediately by the fledgling, fly to a tree in our neighbor's yard.

Michael walked to the front, and stood quietly while the eaglet swooped low over his head, talons extended, just missing the rabbit who was feeding each evening outside the kitchen window. "It's a sign of something," I tell my sister later, and she responds with a laugh, "Yeah. You don't have to go to Canada! You can get it all right here."

But we did return to Vancouver Island, to find that all the eagles here have flown North for the salmon run. The days are noticeably shorter, as the earth shifts onto its autumn axis, the sun rising over different mountain peaks now. In the quiet of the morning, their silhouettes in the pre-dawn light take the shape of temples, synagogues, churches and minarets, the gentle incoming tide chanting morning praise in its own sacred rhythms. Clouds lift like incense into the softly colored coral-streaked sky.  The air has a crispness to it, and the trees are beginning to try on their fall wardrobes of pale yellows and reds.

There's a strange melancholy to this time of year. Spring holds such expectancy; summer days stretch long and seemingly endless, although the summer itself has sped by; winter seems to bring the joy of holidays with the intimacy of early darkness and drawing together. But the fall-season evokes wistful memories and emotions, a time to remember summer plans that never happened, opportunities missed, and perhaps relive summers that ended years ago with a reluctant return to school.

Sweet memories of this summer, too, spring up. Back in June, I snuck out of the house to take a marimba lesson, music that I fell in love with when we first came to the island years ago. The music is infectious with its rhythms of pure joy. The next night, I surprised Michael at the street dance in the village when the announcer asked for those who had taken a lesson to come forward and play a song for the crowd, before the real band took the stage. Our song was mercifully short (I had to play the first 16 bars alone before the rest of the band came in), but we stayed for the concert and dance that followed.

What I remember about that night was the homeless man, drawn in by the noise and the play and the laughter. He sat on the curb at the edge of the crowd, in his unwashed clothes, his filthy dreadlocks hanging down, a slow smile spreading across his face. Before long, almost everyone was on their feet, led by toddlers without the need to contain themselves. People danced in circles, with strangers; some of the elders held on to their walkers as they moved their bodies in whatever way they could.  But what caught my eye was a well-dressed older woman, her yellow jewelry matching her crisp yellow linen outfit, who had drawn the homeless man into the circle and was dancing with him, smiling at him, speaking into his ear over the music, accepting him - just as he was, both of them nameless saints without feast days, celebrating life.

This morning, my friend Dennis and his wife Pam, were standing on the boardwalk with a stranger who was clearly confused and terrified.  They found out he had had a stroke months ago, and was now lost, couldn't remember where he lived. They comforted him, spoke softly with him until help arrived, and he had composed himself and could offer a phone number of a friend. Saints, without a feast day.

We drove around and around in the parking lot of our local food store last week, waiting for a parking place, dodging the scooters of the elders who reside here in large numbers. Finally we waited as a very elderly woman loaded her groceries in her trunk, and I jumped out to ask for her basket, and her space. But she was holding a small plastic bag with maybe 20 - 30 blueberries in it. "Oh, my," she said. "I'm going to have to go back in. They forgot to charge me for this." And despite an initial feeling of frustration that we would lose the parking spot, I admired her for her natural inclination of honesty. There was simply no question about it: she hadn't paid for it, and there was only one thing to do. Saint without a feast day.

Tina is my new hair stylist this summer. As a very young girl, her family was in the last group that entered the embassy as the gates were closed in Saigon, and they came to a new country with only the clothes on their backs. She is filled with joy and laughter and chatter, but she gets quiet as we talk.  A client has called to cancel a long-standing appointment, and Tina has found out that the woman is dying. She has called her twice to offer to come to her home to cut her hair, but the woman has not responded. Now Tina is considering contacting Hospice to offer her services to others who may need her touch. Saint without a feast day.

There are so many stories like this, for each of us, every day.

In the restroom of our public library, over the automatic hand-drier, someone has posted a small but very visible sticker in black and silver that reads simply: "You are beautiful." I laugh and think: now this a saint I would like to meet!

On the morning after we returned to the island, my friend, Aline, and I walked out over the rocks at low tide, and watched a magnificent sunrise together, arms around each other's waist. An unmistakable shadow crossed the brilliant glow to the East, and winged its way slowly towards us, flying back and forth at water's edge before soaring low over our heads.  Our spirits were raised on eagles' wings,  borne on the breath of dawn, and we felt, truly, held in the palm of His hand.

"Each moment contains  a hundred messages from God," Rumi wrote.  "To every cry of "Oh Lord," the answer comes a hundred times, 'I am here.' " Here, in the soft voices, the caring gestures, the kindnesses unmeasured, the generosity of heart that lives and dwells among us, next to us, in our neighbors, families, friends and strangers going about their daily lives. Our heads are bowed in deep gratitude, the soul on its knees, recognizing these unnamed saints, and the One Who dwells within them all.

YAY GOD