Canada Saga 2012 - July 8

"You get older and realize there are no answers, just our stories. And how we love them." (Garrison Keillor)

"Lead us to places of knowing within. Open. Let your stories be heard." (Elizabeth MacLeod)

Michael tells me he was awakened this morning by booming thunderstorms, as he packs in preparation for his return to the Pacific Northwest this week. On his way up, he'll stop to pick up our 'new' used Audi A4 Wagon in Seattle, and drive the rest of the way into Canada.  When our 16 year old nephew heard that Uncle Mike was getting a wagon, he told his Mom with a tinge of disappointment that he was surprised. He never pictured his Corvette/convertible driving fun Uncle as the wagon-type.  He has created a story about "Uncle Mike" in his mind as a fast-driving, cool car character, only one of the many facets of an Uncle who loves him dearly.

The last time his Uncle Mike had a wagon, he also had a newborn son, which exploded the man that he was into a richer, deeper, far more interesting person for the lessons he learned.  Now, in anticipation of the next phase of life, which may include a move from the Pacific Northwest summers to upstate New York grand-parenting at some point in the future, he has already chosen a car to accommodate that shift.

Outside of our patio home here, I have a small wood carving done by a woman I met a few summers ago,

who moved out of the story of her life as a Mennonite farming wife to one of an accomplished artist/phtographer/carver. Her life changed with her severe brain injury and ultimate abandonment by her husband and community. We no longer see Sharon at the markets or bump into her in the Village.  She has disappeared, as have so many others whose lives touched ours over the last nine years. Their cameos in our summers were brief chapters for them, but I see how we have created whole stories with our assumptions and expectations about who they are. Just like the deer who vanish ghost-like into the forest, they disappear into the mist of our minds, back into the details of their own daily lives, the gentle imprint on our hearts the only evidence that they were there at all. 

Knowing our stories, sharing our stories, sometimes we get stuck in our stories, believing them to be true, to be whole in and of themselves. In the kindest interpretation, sometimes we are called to be a bookmark in the story of those close to us, to hold the space until they turn the page once again, or for the first time, to their own beauty. We talk to ourselves in our stories, with admonishments and judgments about the past, and warnings and never-ending ramblings about who we could or should be, and what might happen in the future. But Rumi warns us that the concepts of past and future "veil God from our sight."  

At a lovely beach wedding on Saturday, two young people exchanged their promises within the context of the stories they believe to be true about each other.  We all witnessed their commitments to a lifetime of unconditional love. We blessed them, wished them well, and remembered the vows of our own relationships, made with equal sincerity for a future filled with stories we couldn't then imagine. Perhaps that's why tears are shed on such occasions, for the poignancy and tenderness of a love that we now know will be tempered by the realities of life itself.

But if we are especially fortunate, or especially blessed, we realize that though they seem real to us, and seem to define who we are, we are not our stories at all. "The veil of things as they seem," O'Neill writes, "is drawn back by an Unseen Hand." Then we see that we are like the waves, rushing to shore to recite their own chapters, not realizing that beyond the ultimately disappearing faintness of their individual ripple, there is only the voice of the Sea, to which they will all return.

The story of Creation unfolds in grace in the sacrament of the present moment, the Now of which Brother David says, holds both the past with all its memories, and the future with all its worries. What we do with this moment is our gift to the full story of life itself. Yes, let your stories be heard. But don't take them too seriously.

 YAY GOD