As sycamore leaves fall,
and roses start their final bloom,
we make our yearly pilgrimage
to this most human garden,
careful steps, questioning hearts.
The air is crisp, and puffs of smoke accompany the prayers we sow
like incense at the altar.
A hundred marble altars and more
beckon us draw near and fall;
petitioners we are
now on our knees the grass, dull brown,
resisting,
testing our resolve
in this harvest season.
What harvest this?
This garden gives by taking, purifying
intention and memory,
parsing what was and might have been.
Look for color, consolation, cure.
The cornucopia waits at home,
near the warm hearth and the crackling fire,
but is not here.
Leave expectation and desire at the iron gate, and wait.
The liquidambars on the hill aflame, red orange glow
like candles in a sanctuary holding back the night,
but the light
is for illumination,
not for heat.
Why are we here? What do we fear?
We walk among the rows,
processing in a clerical style and nodding
to each other reverentially
as if we know.
We read the litany of names as the angelus rings
and a nightingale sings.
Why are we here? What do we hear?
Late it is, but not too late.
This place is for the living not the dead.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
Generational Healing
This growth I’ve been writing of is not just a process of healing for our families and for us in the here-and-now. The work we do with God, the hoping, struggling, trusting, and waiting, will bless generations that will come after us. Our grandchildren will be less fearful and more free because of our efforts, anointed by God. They will build on our growth, just as we’ve benefited from those who have gone before us. As I reflect on this truth, I think of my grandfather Wesley Hugh Gates, who grew up on a poor, little farm in Oklahoma.
Early one morning when he was about five years old, hammering in his home awakened him. So, my grandfather took his little brother by the hand, and together they walked into the kitchen to find their father building a coffin. My grandfather’s fifteen year-old sister had died in the middle of the night. She had been sick with the measles, and in her weakened condition an infection slipped in and claimed her body: this was the explanation my grandfather would hear years later from her doctor. But not from his family: he heard silence from them. His parents decided that the best way to deal with the tremendous loss was to not talk about it. And they never did. The young woman was buried in an unmarked grave, and that was that.
Of course, my grandfather never stopped feeling the loss of his sister. And through his grief, he chose to live differently. In his twenties, he even returned to look for her grave, somehow found it by sorting through cemetery records, and gave her a tombstone. As a father, he taught my mother that sadness didn’t have to be buried, and talking about feelings was healthy and good. Over the years, a pattern of hiding was dismantled, and in its place healing grew. And here I am, a clinical psychologist who helps others grieve and mourn daily: just two generations removed from that little farm in Oklahoma, and that dusty graveyard where a fifteen year old girl was quietly laid to rest in an unmarked grave.
Healing across generations is moving beyond words, and I have the honor of witnessing it daily in my work: clients who are deciding to live differently, facing great pain with even greater truth and love, and blessing future generations in the process. I see “Dan”, who sought and found sobriety from alcohol and drugs, and in the process broke an addiction cycle of violence and chaos that goes back at least five generations. I see “Joan”, who courageously faced the traumas of physical and sexual abuse from her childhood, and is now practicing intimacy differently with her family members. And I see “Jack”, who can be a spiritual father to dozens of young men because he was able to come to terms with the woundedness of his own father, and forgive him.
Healing and growth in the here-and-now blesses future generations, always has and always will. Brokenness does not have to have the final say. If we cooperate with Him in truth and love, God will redeem the lost years in miraculous ways. Where do you want healing to happen in your family, and what can you do today to start that process?
Early one morning when he was about five years old, hammering in his home awakened him. So, my grandfather took his little brother by the hand, and together they walked into the kitchen to find their father building a coffin. My grandfather’s fifteen year-old sister had died in the middle of the night. She had been sick with the measles, and in her weakened condition an infection slipped in and claimed her body: this was the explanation my grandfather would hear years later from her doctor. But not from his family: he heard silence from them. His parents decided that the best way to deal with the tremendous loss was to not talk about it. And they never did. The young woman was buried in an unmarked grave, and that was that.
Of course, my grandfather never stopped feeling the loss of his sister. And through his grief, he chose to live differently. In his twenties, he even returned to look for her grave, somehow found it by sorting through cemetery records, and gave her a tombstone. As a father, he taught my mother that sadness didn’t have to be buried, and talking about feelings was healthy and good. Over the years, a pattern of hiding was dismantled, and in its place healing grew. And here I am, a clinical psychologist who helps others grieve and mourn daily: just two generations removed from that little farm in Oklahoma, and that dusty graveyard where a fifteen year old girl was quietly laid to rest in an unmarked grave.
Healing across generations is moving beyond words, and I have the honor of witnessing it daily in my work: clients who are deciding to live differently, facing great pain with even greater truth and love, and blessing future generations in the process. I see “Dan”, who sought and found sobriety from alcohol and drugs, and in the process broke an addiction cycle of violence and chaos that goes back at least five generations. I see “Joan”, who courageously faced the traumas of physical and sexual abuse from her childhood, and is now practicing intimacy differently with her family members. And I see “Jack”, who can be a spiritual father to dozens of young men because he was able to come to terms with the woundedness of his own father, and forgive him.
Healing and growth in the here-and-now blesses future generations, always has and always will. Brokenness does not have to have the final say. If we cooperate with Him in truth and love, God will redeem the lost years in miraculous ways. Where do you want healing to happen in your family, and what can you do today to start that process?
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Lessons from the Waiting Room: The Gift of Presence
Pain, whether emotional or physical in form, has an insidious way of separating us from our support systems, from the core relationships in our lives who give us hope and stability. Like a boat cut away from its moorings, we are apt to drift in our pain, away from the safe harbor of community, away from those who help us bear our burdens, away from a sense of the familiar and normal.
People in pain are not easy to be around, and so our drifting…our isolating…can often be compounded by the reality that some will not want to be around us when we are hurting. Our hurting reminds them that they too hurt, or will hurt…and that’s too much reality for some. But the core relationships in our lives are core precisely because they love us in our pain. They are not afraid of our woundedness, our weakness, our unhappiness, our humanness.
Jen and I spent a lot of days and nights in waiting rooms over the first two years of John-John’s life, waiting to hear news from a doctor or a surgical nurse about the progress or outcome of a surgery or a procedure: “Your son is being prepped right now”, “John Michael’s vitals look good”, “he did just fine”, “we were able to accomplish most of what we’d hoped to do.” The updates were usually very brief, as were the post surgery narratives. Doctors and nurses realize that parents can only take in so much information at times like this, so they keep things very simple.
But waiting for news….often, it felt like days passed before any update would trickle out to the waiting room. And it was during these times that our loved ones would prove invaluable.
During those long days and nights in West Hills/Humana and Cedars-Sinai Hospitals, how did our loved ones most effectively care for us? By being with us. Yes, they did things for us also….cooking us meals, running errands for us, returning phone calls for us, and this was all appreciated. But in the end what mattered most was how they were present to us, particularly in the waiting room.
I think of this when people tell me that they couldn’t visit a friend who was depressed, or who had just suffered a loss, or was struggling with a health issue because they didn't know what to say. Words can be overrated. Showing up, bracketing your anxiety, and being present to one in pain says everything that needs to be said.
I can remember very few words that were spoken to encourage and inspire us during John Michael’s surgeries and recoveries, although many were offered. However, I will never forget snapshots from the waiting room of people being with us: my father reading his newspaper, my sisters and mother drinking coffee, my friend Wendy reading her novel, and my friend Paul praying his rosary. Simple pictures, dozens of them, that comfort me even today. Nothing earth shattering, nothing out of the ordinary; activities that could have been done anywhere in the city, and people wouldn’t have looked twice. But that’s the point. They were doing these common activities while being with us, attuned to us, ready to serve if called upon but not feeling the need to force activity and words on us. It was enough to know they were there; we didn’t need them to do anything else. It was such a personal time, so private and filled with emotion that more would have been less.
Our loved ones were not going to let us drift in our pain. They were not going to allow us to isolate. They kept guard like sentinels, reminding us that we were protected and not alone…we had not been abandoned and forsaken in our hour of great need. They formed the face of God for Jenni and me. Looking back, I see that the waiting room had gently and mystically been transformed into a sanctuary…a safe place for the weary and frightened to rest and find God.
Having others with me in my pain and anxiety didn’t lessen the suffering, but their presence did place my suffering in the larger context of Love, and remind me again that He always provides a harbor in the midst of the storm.
Who in your life needs this gift of presence…your presence? Don’t worry about finding the right words. Your willingness to “suit up and show up” will say enough.
People in pain are not easy to be around, and so our drifting…our isolating…can often be compounded by the reality that some will not want to be around us when we are hurting. Our hurting reminds them that they too hurt, or will hurt…and that’s too much reality for some. But the core relationships in our lives are core precisely because they love us in our pain. They are not afraid of our woundedness, our weakness, our unhappiness, our humanness.
Jen and I spent a lot of days and nights in waiting rooms over the first two years of John-John’s life, waiting to hear news from a doctor or a surgical nurse about the progress or outcome of a surgery or a procedure: “Your son is being prepped right now”, “John Michael’s vitals look good”, “he did just fine”, “we were able to accomplish most of what we’d hoped to do.” The updates were usually very brief, as were the post surgery narratives. Doctors and nurses realize that parents can only take in so much information at times like this, so they keep things very simple.
But waiting for news….often, it felt like days passed before any update would trickle out to the waiting room. And it was during these times that our loved ones would prove invaluable.
During those long days and nights in West Hills/Humana and Cedars-Sinai Hospitals, how did our loved ones most effectively care for us? By being with us. Yes, they did things for us also….cooking us meals, running errands for us, returning phone calls for us, and this was all appreciated. But in the end what mattered most was how they were present to us, particularly in the waiting room.
I think of this when people tell me that they couldn’t visit a friend who was depressed, or who had just suffered a loss, or was struggling with a health issue because they didn't know what to say. Words can be overrated. Showing up, bracketing your anxiety, and being present to one in pain says everything that needs to be said.
I can remember very few words that were spoken to encourage and inspire us during John Michael’s surgeries and recoveries, although many were offered. However, I will never forget snapshots from the waiting room of people being with us: my father reading his newspaper, my sisters and mother drinking coffee, my friend Wendy reading her novel, and my friend Paul praying his rosary. Simple pictures, dozens of them, that comfort me even today. Nothing earth shattering, nothing out of the ordinary; activities that could have been done anywhere in the city, and people wouldn’t have looked twice. But that’s the point. They were doing these common activities while being with us, attuned to us, ready to serve if called upon but not feeling the need to force activity and words on us. It was enough to know they were there; we didn’t need them to do anything else. It was such a personal time, so private and filled with emotion that more would have been less.
Our loved ones were not going to let us drift in our pain. They were not going to allow us to isolate. They kept guard like sentinels, reminding us that we were protected and not alone…we had not been abandoned and forsaken in our hour of great need. They formed the face of God for Jenni and me. Looking back, I see that the waiting room had gently and mystically been transformed into a sanctuary…a safe place for the weary and frightened to rest and find God.
Having others with me in my pain and anxiety didn’t lessen the suffering, but their presence did place my suffering in the larger context of Love, and remind me again that He always provides a harbor in the midst of the storm.
Who in your life needs this gift of presence…your presence? Don’t worry about finding the right words. Your willingness to “suit up and show up” will say enough.
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