A month ago when I wrote that I was a big fat whiner novice concerning pain, I decided not to waste good penance but to offer it for a particular intention and to use the time to foster gratitude and prayerfulness. A few days after writing that I found myself admitted to the hospital and scheduled for immediate surgery. I spent a week in the hospital, hooked up to IVs and eventually a wound vac. Not sure how much conventional prayer happened that week as it took an hour to make it through a Rosary because I was so doped up. Yet my life was offered as a prayer. My pain was a prayer. My sleepless nights were prayers.
I went home for a week with nurses visiting me to care for my medical needs as if I am 80 instead of not even 50. I did not improve. So I got another few days in the hospital and consults from more medical experts than I would have imagined a simply injury merited.
Now I am home and learning a very important lesson about being still. It feels like in this season Jesus has gently stripped away the things that keep me busy, distracted, and earning my keep. All the activity that can masquerade as productivity may actually just be laziness in disguise. Because interior work is the hardest work anyone will ever do.
Thomas Merton wrote, “Untie my hands and deliver my heart from sloth. Set me free from the laziness that goes about disguised as activity when activity is not required of me, and from the cowardice that does what is not demanded, in order to escape sacrifice. But give me the strength that waits upon You in silence and peace. Give me humility in which alone is rest, and deliver me from pride which is the heaviest of burdens. And possess my whole heart and soul with simplicity of love. Occupy my whole life with the one thought and the one desire of love, that I may love not for the sake of merit, not for the sake of perfection, not for the sake of virtue, not for the sake of sanctity, but for You alone. For there is only one thing that can satisfy love and reward it, and that is You alone.”
In this season I can do little besides sit here watching the candles burn on my altar. I can pray, read, write a little. But there is a lot of silence and interior excavation. My leg got a debridement. And now maybe my soul is getting one too.
I’m also adding to my scars. They are telling a story, that is more than skin deep. Should I live to see grandchildren perhaps they will ask me, one by one, “Grammie, what’s this scar from?”
And I can say, “Oh that one? That’s when God healed my heart and I knew I was loved.”
“What about this one, Grammie? What’s this one mean?”
“This one is when I truly learned that God is good.”
“And what is this big one for Grammie?”
“That is where I was hobbled in the valley of the shadow of death.”
I told my kids I was taking a spiritual adventure on my corporal passport. Sticking with the analogy, I guess the scars are the stamps.
Psalms 23
One of the first passages of Scriptures I ever memorized was Psalm 23. My grandma used to say it to the children at bedtime every night. She never really taught it to us formally, but the repetition meant that it planted itself deep in my heart. Every time I say it, I hear it in her voice. And the thing with Scriptures that you know like a familiar song, is that the layers peel back when you need them. Suddenly the words you heard one way shine in a new light and you realize that you had only grasped a shadow.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want;
he makes me lie down in green pastures.
Being made to lie down is a real exercise in humility, even though the pastures are green. Frolicking would have been more in my plans.
He leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
The water that is still enough to mirror my looking in? That can be interesting or terrifying. Am I brave enough to look in those still waters? What will be reflected back to me?
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil;
I feel like I have been slowed down in the valley. It’s as if the Lord says, “No, no, no. We are not rushing through this valley. We are walking. And if you aren’t going to slow down, I’m going to make sure you hobble.” I don’t think he’s making me hobble because he’s cruel. I think there are things he wants me to notice that I would miss if I rushed.
for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff,
they comfort me
You know what’s really comforting? Having something to lean on. A staff comes in very handy when you try to walk again after having laid in bed for nearly month.
Thou preparest a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
thou anointest my head with oil,
my cup overflows.
Again, this is a position of rest. Even in the midst of danger, he demands we sit, even recline, to eat. We are made to drink from an overflowing cup.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
for ever.
In all these minor trials and inconveniences, no one could possibly say that I am not absolutely overtaken by the goodness and mercy of God.
