A caterpillar,
this deep in fall—
still not a butterfly.
~Matsuo Basho
I too,
homely bristled and crawling
thriving only on what is beneathmy feet and mouth, blindly
chewing my way
through the leaf’s edge.
Till I peer over the verge
of what will be,
of winged beauty
and freedom,
a worm graced by
transforming love
undeserved.
A sudden light transfigures a trivial thing, a weather-vane, a wind-mill, a winnowing flail, the dust in the barn door; a moment,- -and the thing has vanished, because it was pure effect; but it leaves a relish behind it, a longing that the accident may happen again.
~Walter Pater from “The Renaissance”
The accident of light does happen, again and again, but when I least expect it. I need to be ready for it; in a blink, it can be gone. Yet in that moment, everything is changed and transformed forever. The thing itself, trivial and transient becomes something other, merely because of how it is illuminated. And so am I, trivial and transient, lit from outside myself, transfigured by a love and sacrifice that I can never expect or deserve. I need to be ready for it.
The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul.
– G.K. Chesterton
We hoped for some timely snow for a white Christmas but had to be content with a brief flurry that didn’t stick. Then there was more hope yesterday on New Year’s Eve with more flurries and a few little skiffs left behind here and there, but nothing much. Instead of snow that stuck, we were stuck with the same old muddy bare ground and dead grass and weary frost-bitten plants.
It is natural to desire an easy transformation of the old and dirty to something new and beautiful: an all clean pristine white cottony sheet covering thrown over everything, making it look completely different than before. Similarly, at the tick of the clock past midnight on New Years’ Eve, we hope for just such an inner transformation as well, a fresh start, a leaving behind of the not-so-good from the past and moving ahead to the surely-it’ll-be-better in the future.
But it doesn’t stick, even if there is a flurry of good intentions and a skiff of newness plopped down here and there. Even if we find ourselves in the midst of blizzard conditions, unable to see six inches ahead and immobilized by the furious storms of life, that accumulation eventually will melt, leaving behind even more mud and raw mess.
It isn’t how flawless, how clean, or how new this year will be, but rather how to ensure our soul transformation sticks tight, unmelting from within, even when the heat is turned up and the sweat drips. This is not about a covering thrown over the old and dirty but a full blown overhaul in order to never to be the same again.
I lift my eyes to the hills where the snow stays year round: sometimes more, with a few hundred new inches over several weeks, or sometimes less, on the hottest days of summer. Our new souls this new year must be built of that same resiliency, withstanding what each day may bring, cold or hot.
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…within my soul.
And he [John] will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this?
Luke 1: 17-18
If God’s incomprehensibility does not grip us in a word, if it does not draw us into his superluminous darkness, if it does not call us out of the little house of our homely, close-hugged truths..we have misunderstood the words of Christianity.
~Karl Rahner
Zechariah asks:
How can I be sure?
How can I trust this is true even when it doesn’t make sense in my every day world?
How can I trust God to accomplish this?
These are not the questions to be asked; he was struck mute, speechless until immersed in the reality of impossibility and then he sang loudly with praise.
Instead, we are to ask, like Mary:
How can this be?
How am I worthy?
How am I to be confident within incomprehensibility and calm in the midst of mystery?
How am I to be different as a result?
It is when we are most naked, at our emptiest, that we are clothed and filled with God’s glory.
We do not need to be sure.
We just need to be.
Changed.
The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.
~Blaise Pascal
Most days I’m the ocean rocked by the most minute ripples. The building waves created by forces beyond my control feel tsunami-like though they probably started out small. I can do nothing but let them flow over, around and beneath me, riding them up and down, trying not to get submerged for long and not get sea-sick. Lately it feels like a barrage: instead of letting up, the billows roll larger and mightier, at times relentlessly powerful, changing everything in their path.
Instead of being the rippled, I hope some time to become the rippler in a way that can move oceans or mountains or most amazing of all, another soul, just once. In some tiny way, I hope I can say or do or write something that makes a positive difference in someone’s life, and that person forwards the ripple, spreading the wave a little further, a little broader, a little deeper to affect others. Traveling far beyond the original thrown pebble, it can never to be pulled back once it is let loose.
I know what it is like for a blog post to go viral, becoming an ocean in churning turmoil, not a mere pebble starting with a least movement. Instead, I hope to be the most insignificant of change agents, barely there, just moving enough of another heart and soul to start something that will grow and spread by itself, wild and wonderful.
I don’t know what it might be or how I might do it. Perhaps it is as simple as skipping rocks, choosing the best flattest pebble, rubbing the smooth sides between my fingers, and with a momentary regret at giving it up to the ocean, I’ll haul back and just let it go. It will skip once, twice, three four five even six times and then disappear below. The surface of the water will never be the same again.
Nor will I.
“That old September feeling, left over from school days, of summer passing… obligations gathering, books and football in the air … Another fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning, as if last year’s mistakes had been wiped clean by summer.”How is it the same day can be wistful and yet jubilant? More than New Year’s Day, the beginning of autumn represents so many turned over “leafs”. We are literally reminded of this whenever we look at the trees and how their leaves are turning and letting go, making joy as they make way, the slate wiped clean and ready to be scribbled on once again.
Tomorrow the school where I’ve worked for nearly a quarter century welcomes back 15,000 students to its halls and classrooms. We see or are contacted by 2% of those students every day about their health concerns and symptoms. I am struck anew every autumn when each adult comes to the university with that clean slate, hoping to start fresh, leaving behind what has not worked well for them in the past. These are patients who are open to change because they are dedicating themselves to self-transformation through knowledge and discipline.
It is a true privilege, as a college health doc, to participate in our students’ transition to become autonomous critical thinkers who strive to better the world as compassionate global citizens. Their rich colors deepen once they let go to fly wherever the wind may take them.
We who remain rooted in place celebrate each new beginning, knowing we nurture the coming transformation.
“Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don’t they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers.”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine
I admire the honey bee’s ability to become pollinator and pollen gatherer simultaneously, facilitating new fruit from the blossom as well as making sweet honey that carries the spicy essence of the flower touched.
As a physician, I wish I might be as transformative in the work I do every day. I carry with me tens of thousands of patients I’ve seen over thirty years of medical practice. There is no way I can touch another human being without keeping some small part of them with me–a memory of an open wound or the scar it left behind, a word of sorrow or gratitude, a grimace, a tear or a smile. Each is a flower visited, some still in bud, some in full bloom, some seed pods ready to burst, some spent and wilting and ready to fall away. Each carries a spicy vitality, even in their illness and dying, that is unforgettable and still clings to me. It has been my privilege to be thoroughly dusted by those I’ve loved and cared for. I want to carry that on to create something wonderful.
Each patient changes me, the doctor, readying me for the next patient by teaching me a gentler approach, a clearer explanation, a slower leave-taking. Their story becomes part of my story, adding to my skill as a healer, and never to be forgotten.
Physicians do have blessings in the work they do, you know, and if they don’t they should, for they are dusted with stories from a million patients visited.
Nothing could smell as spicy and nothing could taste as sweet.
“The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.”
Tennessee Williams in “Camino Real”
These words became his epitaph
Some beginnings in this life commence on inhospitable ground: no soil, no protection, barely enough water. Just a crack in the pavement, relentless heat and the drive to thrive.
Such delicate beauty can come from nothing but a seed packed with the potential to transform its circumstances. A gentle transcendence has the power to break through rocks and change the world.
Forever.
It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird:
it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg.
We are like eggs at present.
And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg.
We must be hatched or go bad.
C. S. Lewis
I revel in being the good egg.
Smooth on the surface,
gooey inside,
ordinary and decent,
indistinguishable from others,
blending in,
not making waves.
It’s not a bad existence staying just as I am.
Except I can no longer.
There appeared a dent or two in my outer shell
from bumps along the way,
and a crack up one side
extending.
It is time to change or rot.
Nothing can be the same again:
the fragments of shell
left behind
abandoned
as useless confinement.
Newly hatched:
home becomes
the wind beneath my wings
to soar a horizon stretching
beyond eternity.
Barnstorming 