December 8, 2024: "American Airlines #371," Crazy Day, Advent Service

It has been a crazy day.  Let me give you a brief rundown:

• Played two church services this morning--one at 9 a.m., the second at 10:45 a.m.
• Livestreamed a TubaChristmas concert at the local regional history center.  (Yes, that is EXACTLY what it sounds like--31 tubas and euphoniums playing Christmas carols for an hour.)
• Went grocery shopping.
• Took my puppy for a long walk.
• Read Christmas essays and poems for an Advent celebration at one of the Lutheran churches for which I play keyboard.

The good thing about staying so busy is that I had no time to feel overwhelmed or sad.  I simply moved from event to event, taking it one step at a time.  Of course, I'm kind of exhausted now.

Billy Collins finds things for which to be thankful . . .

American Airlines #371

by: Billy Collins

Pardon my benevolence,
but given the illusion that my fellow passengers and I
are now on our way to glory,
rising over this kingdom of clouds
(airy citadels! unnamable goings-on within!)
and at well over 500 miles per hour,
which would get you to work in under one second,

I wish to forgive the man next to me
who so annoyed me before the wine started arriving
by turning each page of his newspaper
with a kind of crisp, military snap,
and the same goes for that howling infant,
and for the child in the row begin me
who persisted in hitting that F above high C
that all of her kind know perfectly how to hit
while rhythmically kicking the back of my seat.

Yes, I have softened and been rendered
even grateful by the ministrations of Eva,
uniformed wine bearer in the sky,
and if we are not exactly being conveyed to Paradise,
at least we are vectoring across the continent
to Los Angeles–orange tree in the backyard,
girl on a motorcycle roaring down Venice Boulevard.

And eventually we will begin our final descent
(final descent! I want to shout to Eva)
into the city of a million angels,
where the world might terminate or begin afresh again,
which is how I tend to feel almost every day–

life’s end just around another corner or two,
yet out of the morning window
the thrust of a new blossom from that bush

whose colorful name I can never remember.

Now that the flight of this day has landed for me, and I have a few moments to reflect before I go to sleep, I want to focus on gratitude for a moment.  

You see, despite my current state of sadness, I know that I'm an incredibly blessed person.  Blessed with family and friends.  It's easy, when I'm struggling with darkness, to lose sight of how much I am loved.  These last few weeks, I've had so many people reach out with words and embraces and kindnesses.  I have been saturated with compassion, empathy, and goodness.

Tonight, after the Advent program, we celebrated with Christmas cookies and treats.  I sat at a table with some of my closest friends and companions from the church.  As I was about to dig into my plate of goodies, I was handed a gift bag.

Inside was a card inscribed with personal messages from so many of the people I care about and who care about me.  I almost started crying.  Then I removed the colorful tissue paper from the bag, and I pulled about some Bigfoot swag--a keychain/multi-purpose tool and a towel.  It was another amazing reminder that, even though I feel as hugely unlovable as Bigfoot at the moment, my life if full of graces.  

If you are part of my family at Faith Lutheran, I thank you for accepting me with so much generosity of heart and spirit.  

You've made this broken saint a little more whole.

October 3: "The Kitten," Croagh Patrick, Bigfoot

Mary Oliver performs a sacred act . . . 

The Kitten

by:  Mary Oliver

More amazed than anything

I took the perfectly black

stillborn kitten

with the one large eye

in the center of its small forehead

from the house cat's bed

and buried it in a field

behind the house.

I suppose I could have given it

to a museum,

I could have called the local

newspaper.

But instead I took it out into the field

and opened the earth

and put it back

saying, it was real,

saying, life is infinitely inventive,

saying, what other amazements

lie in the dark seed of the earth, yes,

I think I did right to go out alone

and give it back peacefully, and cover the place

with the reckless blossoms of weeds.

I find the tender grace of this poem incredibly moving--Mary Oliver taking the stillborn kitten into the field and giving it back to the earth, acknowledging the kitten's fragile reality, its infinite wonder.  The universe is full of amazements like this, and our job is to do the right thing:  treat these amazements with respect and honor.

I am sitting in my home office, typing this blog post.  On the righthand corner of my desk sits an amazement.  My friend, Helen, on a trip to Ireland, climbed Croagh Patrick.  Croagh Patrick is the holiest mountain in Ireland.  According to legend, Saint Patrick fasted for 40 days on its summit, and since that time, it remains a popular pilgrimage site for devout travelers.

Helen went to Ireland with one of her closest friends.  As I've said in previous posts, Helen was a force of nature.  She had the kind of stamina and strength that defied explanation, walking for miles and miles each day in her sandals.  So, the fact that she decided to climb the 2,507-foot mountain on her vacation is really not a surprise.  What she brought back for me from that mountaintop was a surprise.

At Christmastime that year, Helen presented me with a gift bag.  Now Helen's presents were works of art in and of themselves.  This bag was uniquely beautiful, and inside was a gorgeous card filled with an elegant, handwritten message from Helen.  Besides the card, the bag contained a collection of Seamus Heaney poems that she purchased at the Seamus Heaney Homeplace in County Derry.  (Heaney's former residence has been converted into a museum for the late poet.)   And underneath the card and book, wrapped in delicate tissue paper, was a rock.

But it wasn't just any rock.  It was a rock from the top of Croagh Patrick, and on the rock was a rusty brown mineral image of Bigfoot.  When Helen found the rock, she immediately thought of me.  She carried it down from the mountain, put it in her suitcase, and brought it home.

Since Helen gave me that rock, it has been one of my most treasured possessions.  Because she found it on Croagh Patrick and because of the miracle of Bigfoot imprinted on it.  However, right around the time that Helen died last year, the rock simply disappeared.  I searched and searched for it, but never found it.  Like Bigfoot, it seemed to have slid into another dimension.

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that someone who didn't know the rock's significance had taken it outside and given it peacefully back to the earth.  I accepted that explanation, because rocks simply don't stand up and walk away, even rocks from Bigfoot.

Two days ago, I was cleaning my house, getting ready for the monthly visit from my book club.  As I moved some books (which, I would like to point out, I have done MANY times before), there sat my sacred rock like a forgotten prayer.

As I held that stone on Sunday afternoon, I almost felt like Helen had given it to me a second time.  In the past few weeks (perhaps due to the change in seasons and shorter days), I've been struggling a little bit with sadness.  So, there was something very powerful in having that piece of Ireland and Saint Patrick and Bigfoot and Helen in my fingers.  I could almost hear Helen's voice in my head:  "You are frickin' awesome!"

So, yes, Virginia, amazements still do exist in the world.  

Saint Marty is staring at one right now on the corner of his desk.