Incarnation in Ordinary Time

"...And the way one can find oneself strewn

so inattentively across life, across time.

Those who touch us, those whom we touch,

we hold them or we let them go

as though it were such a small matter.

How even know in truth how much

of mind should be memory, no less

what portion of self should be others

rather than self? Across life, across time,

as though it were such a small matter."

--a portion of "Lessons" by C.K. Williams

I first read the words above while in a book shop in Palo Alto, California. It was 2009. They call to me again and again. There's some phenomenon "got at" in that poem. It's about the carelessness of physical regard, the lax way of touching and neglecting intimacy we so easily embark on as humans. I don't think it's conscious. Until it is. Even then we still do it. Why? I don't know. But it's spiritually disastrous.

There's this thing about poems: they time travel. The words from "Lessons" came back to me this morning as I recalled my father dying in 1994. (I had two fathers; he was the non-biological one) He'd slipped into a coma on a Friday night. A few days later his two biological children arrived to say their good-byes. It was like he resurrected from the dead upon their entering the room. Sat up, straight, after weeks of falling, laying flat, moaning in discomfort, being spoon-fed liquids and finger-fed ice chips--he looked like an erect embalmed mummy. Their presence lifted his dying, decaying body and he mumbled "So happy," and he wept.

There they all were: father, son and daughter, grasping each other, holding on tight, in anticipation of the end they all knew was coming. It was a reunion of the highest order. It's the physicality of that moment I can't forget. I stood by the bedside, a step daughter, witnessing the homecoming in my midst. It was homecoming of the physical. I knew in that moment that whatever relationship I had with him was not the same as the relationship they had with him. It's like my father was reconnecting to his own limbs in that moment. Like parts of his rhizomatic body came back to their primary shoot. Profound. Holy. It reminded me of a domesticated, hospice-version of the sacrament of communion. "This is my body given for you." Yep.

I wasn't his by flesh and blood. They were. Never had I realized the expansive gap between blood and choice family like I did in that moment.  Realities of blood and choice are different. We don't have to place quantitative value judgments on that difference. But failing to acknowledge that difference strikes me absurd. There is nothing like flesh reconnecting to flesh after a period of absence or in anticipation of annihilation to prove just how not separate we are when we have biological links between us. Those links matter immensely.

Why do we forget about how entangled, interconnected, inextricably bound our bodies are? Is it too much to live with/in?

My biological brother and I never laid eyes on each other, touched or met in the flesh until he was in his fifties and I was 30. But when we hugged for the first time on his doorstop in Stockton California--both as adults--there was no denying that some corporeal thread linked us together. I felt it physically when hugging him. There was "home" there. It was our (biological) father. It didn't matter that we hadn't been raised together. It didn't matter that our relationships to our father were on different planets. We were from the same physical source and when we finally found each other, that common source, still alive in our flesh, could be felt powerfully. I imagine my biological father, my ancestor who holds me from the ground up, felt his own life powerfully reconnected in that moment.

Yesterday I talked to a friend who is discerning becoming pregnant. I kept wanting to tell her about the incarnation of it. How your body becomes something else, entirely new and different, during the process of creating life. And then when birthing happens, all the illusions of planetary separations go away because the Wild Animal of Life itself takes over, you being a mere vessel of its power. Then your body moves around the world multiple from there on out. Little beings, apparently separate (but not), gaining their own life force, both from you and apart from you, making their way into some specificity that is at once recognizable and entirely mysterious.

My favorite time of day is mornings on the couch with my children. The three of us, before the rituals of day time begin, are linked by limbs. Their little bodies resting on my bigger body. The stillness of breathing in sync. The rest in reunion after a night time apart. They snuggle into my chest which protects my heart, but truly my heart bursts with the sensational convergence, albeit brief and never lasting. Just for that moment I feel like all parts of my Body are in the same place. Then they bounce away, to get dressed, to go to school and I am left wondering "those who touch us, those whom we touch, we hold them or we let them go as though it were such a small matter." And I am left "strewn so inattentively across life, across time," held together here and there by poetry, memory and brief moments of togetherness (again) in the flesh.

Married In Ordinary Time

I'm married in Ordinary Time. Okay, I'm married in every liturgical season. But there's something about being married in Ordinary Time that compels me to write about it. Yesterday my spouse and I turned a corner in our relationship that I didn't even know existed. It was magic. Granted, I wish we hadn't discovered this new territory at 2 a.m., but…toddlers.

This got me to thinking about what it means to commit to someone and stay with them—I mean, really stay. This is the first time I've really stayed. I'm still not sure about the whole institutional marriage thing. That's another post for another day. But I am committed to loving this human for as long as we are on the planet together, and hope, sincerely, that our souls go on loving each other through our descendants and beyond the Ether forever (real talk.) I must admit that I have no idea what loving him means on any given day. Some days it means leaving him alone so he can get his work done. Other days it means listening more deeply than I ever have with as little judgment as possible. Some days it means getting my gloves shovel. Most days it means picking up after myself before I go to bed. Every day it means making coffee and putting it on the dresser before he takes a shower. My favorite days are when body and spirit align so that "you and me" turns into Us.

Honestly, there are days when I look at him and think "Love you? How the hell do I do that?" Reasons for this posture/orientation: 1) I can barely love myself most days 2) You pissed me off and don't deserve it 3) Seriously clueless about a concrete movement of love in that moment 4) I'm too scared to mess up 5) I'm busy and tired, so busy and tired that even contemplating the question makes me want to take a nap.

Some of those pack more weight than others, but they're all real in the life of committed love.

I'm most interested these days, in Ordinary Time, at how often #3 reoccurs. I live with this person. We've made little humans together. We sleep next to each other, know each other’s' extended families, idiosyncrasies, voice inflections, triggers and ticklish spots. And yet with all this knowing, the unknowing still abounds. Seriously, last night, the stuff we ventured into--I had no idea. Not a clue. Felt completely in the dark. What a compelling, magically mysterious, luminous darkness. But they don't tell you that. They tell you, “Get married because it's the thing to do.”

I took some vows a few years back and asked God in and to bless. I stated my intentions, made promises and swapped symbols. Weddings—you've seen these events, I'm sure, or even participated in one—where people get all dressed up and witness some fairy tale about unconditional, eternal, faithful bliss. Hate to puncture any high floating naive balloons, but even the most mature humans are signing up for the impossible at that threshold. I don't care who you are, it isn't possible to get loving another human being right day in and day out. We humans are way, way, way, too messed up, selfish, insecure, and debased for all that.

You know what I wish? I wished we promised to be honest about getting love wrong at weddings. I wish that we promised to fail each other but to stay curious about those failings. I wish that we'd promise to draw closer to one another in those moments when we feel insecure and to be forgiving when we step on each other's vulnerability. I wish we kept it real in our culture about marriage: that you never arrive, that even if you're the best student of your partner's needs, wants and deepest desires, you're not always going to get them right in the moment nor fill them on a regular basis. How you and how they respond to that truth makes all the difference. I wish we made vows about what we do when we don't get it: don't get each other, don't get ourselves in light of the other. I wish we got married to mystery. That would feel so much less like lying.

It's been quoted before but it bears repeating: "Let's face it: we are undone by each other. And if we're not there's something missing.”—Judith Butler. Here's the point: Jerry Maguire was wrong. We don't complete each other. We are undone by each other. This means we are brought to the dust in our relationships. But in the dust we are also capable of becoming new if we keep trying to get tangled with one another from the ground up. That feels so much more worthy of our trying.

All Dogs Go to Heaven but Smart Ones Go to the Doctor

My five and a half year old Mastiff-Chow mix (who everyone, except me, mistakes for a Pit Bull) broke her finger two weeks ago.

Cue the sympathy.

After returning home from her normal Sunday morning walk in the park, Gaia began tracking blood on the floor. She probably cracked something on some ice patch somewhere. If you haven't noticed in previous posts: it's winter in Michigan. Winter disasters abound. Three weeks ago there was a pile up on I-94 that included blizzard, fire, death and massive destruction. Skiing accidents throw people's limbs out of whack. Slipping on the sidewalk is a routine affair. It's dangerous out here, y’all. Gaia's injury is just one of the many. But nonetheless, she's my dog and her pain matters to me. 

At first I thought she was just nursing a split paw which has caused her to bleed in the past. She wasn't limping, just bleeding. I figured it would stop on its own. It didn't. My spouse called my attention to a dark circle forming on the top of her injury. Hmm. That wasn't normal. Again, she didn't seem to be suffering, so I didn't do much. Then one morning I watched her lick that wound for 45 minutes straight. She didn't stop. It was a lesson in mercy if ever there was one. Relentless, committed tenderness--sometimes your dog teaches you about self-care. I admired her healing powers and went about my day. I even took her for another Sunday morning walk which she seemed to love. Then my husband's level of concern reached its peak. 

After 10 days had gone by and things didn't seem to be getting better (or, frankly, worse), we decided to call the vet. Turns out she had broken her top finger, but wasn't limping because said finger is high enough on the arm that she doesn't put pressure on it while walking/running/jumping. They diagnosed her, wrote a prescription for an anti-biotic and sent her home. I'm not sure how an anti-biotic cures a break, but I'm not asking questions. I’m just grateful to have my pup on the mend. 

Here's what I learned by loving a broken animal in Ordinary Time. Sometimes no matter how much self-care salve you apply, things are broken beyond self-repair and need professional attention. Sometimes, even though you're capable of going through the motions of your normal life, you're still in unnecessary pain completely invisible to those around you. No matter how much your loved ones feel concern and responsible for your care, sometimes they literally can't find the source of your pain and they will need help too. Sometimes healing is all about surrendering to an intelligence that is tried and true and beyond your own.

Seems so simple doesn't it?