A reluctant recepient

When I was younger I used to hate going to Luby’s Cafeteria.   I’m not sure that my family was aware of my vitriol toward the establishment, because we seemed to go there all the time.  The cafeteria was the full service kind. A place where an eight-year-old boy could grab his tray and silverware rolled up in linen napkin and push down the rail.  Along the way the attendant would serve a helping of the food for which he asked.  Across or under the sneeze guard he began to pile on the choices, Salisbury steak and mushrooms(that he’d scratch off later), mashed potatoes with gravy, salads, and of course the obligatory green vegetables.

More often than not we were denied all things we really wanted.  After multiple rejections we learned to stop asking for Jell-O and coconut or chocolate cream, apple or cherry pie.

Fortunately, I assume, I was never forced to take the liver and onions.  And although we were allowed the choice, we were often admonished for picking up corn and mashed potatoes.  I learned early that two starches in the same meal is a sin.  It was a sin I committed regularly.

Slowly pushing the tray I reach the line's end.  Water and tea were the cue for my pulse to begin quickening.  Onward I pushed grabbing ice water.  And reaching the cashier my heart was beating against the collar, pounding away with no rational explanation. 

It wasn’t because the girl at the cash register was a beauty. I was still too young to think that way. 

No, as I approached her my thoughts were thus:  Will this be the time I’m finally allowed to take my tray and carry it to the table myself?  Will I be shamed again to have the girl conscripted from the back counter to carry my tray twenty feet to our table?

She always mysteriously appeared at the end of the railing.  She was some behind the scenes contrivance, some conspiracy, some underhanded and unspoken plot to undo my independence.

A few times I had already lifted my tray off the rail only to turn and be intercepted by some young attendant.  My escape in search of a table was ended before it began.

She never said a word to me, but with one look at me, she knew why she was drafted from her duties of filling water and tea glasses.  And I know why she awkwardly stands there waiting for my tray to reach the end of the rails.

I never believed that she offered a kindness to me.  It was kindness that I did not want, that I resented, and outright rejected.

She was my humiliation and the reminder that I was different.  She was the voice that whispered, “There are things that you can’t do.  You have one leg and so you’re special.”  Except I didn’t want to be special.

 

Today I went for a walk with some friends in Andorra.  It was a mountain hike and it was beautiful.  The trail runs along a rushing mountain river no wider than a Texas creek.  Uneven rocks, dirt, mud, and the occasional cow pies (Just like Texas creeks) lead up along some steep and treacherous path.  Not technically difficult for the causal hiker.  But a beautiful mountain terrain.  It’s a terrain, for me, that more often goes unseen.

As is always the case we start in the same parking lot.  And almost as soon as the journey begins the anxiety and humiliation reappears as the gap between me and the group lengthens.  As I am looking down judging where the next footstep will fall they are now ten, fifteen, twenty feet ahead of me.  An exponential growing gap between me and the group.

When I’m moving in this environment, I only see what’s right in front of me.  Because I can’t shake the idea that the next uneven rock or unseen crater hidden under a tuft of grass will be my undoing.  A fall, a trip, or worse a prosthetic brake would quickly end the adventure and make for the most humiliating and arduous hop back to civilization.  It’s a thought, an anxiety, which I haven’t manage to shake off since I broke a crutch in the second grade.

And always there is someone who does the kindness of hanging back with me.  Under the guise of just a pleasant conversation they offer the kindness of walking with me.  And I am made mindful that I am slowing them down.

The reason I like to go alone and at my own pace is that when I’ve had enough of a long walk, rather than pressing on, I stop and count my blessing for a safe travel thus far.  I declare this is where the train stops and turns around.  It’s then that I pause and take in the glory around me.  And then I feel no burden or obligation to anyone but myself.

But today for the first time my heart is ready to accept this kindness.

How ridiculous are these emotions? How prideful and selfish of me?  How another person’s kind gesture is intended for compassion but so repugnant to the recipient.

I am a mess. I both want sympathy and understanding while at the same time despise any footnote of my disability.  My hypocrisy is stark. My emotions are irrational.  I am irrational.  Wretched mind! Who will save me from this body [this mind] of death?

Now I think I know how God feels.  How foolish we must seem to God.  Who looking down from heaven or walking along side of us sees our disability.  And we in our spiritual pride reject his goodness and kindness on us all.  He who bears our tray and lot for the sake of his great love for us?

It was humiliating to me to be given that assistance.  When I didn’t feel that I needed it.

But I did need it.  I needed someone to carry that damn tray so that I wouldn’t bear the humiliation of that one time that I would have dropped it.


Accept the kindness given to you in all of its forms; whether you think it misguided or not. It is still kindness.

The love you long for...

I miss Kate.



When we were young.

Not in a nonchalant way. Not in the way that the simple phrase, “I’ll see you later,” tries to ease loneliness.

But I miss being there with her and seeing her face. Giving her a hug.  In the morning when we go to work we have a goodbye kiss. It’s our tradition.  And we exercise that custom every morning.  Except when I’m being selfish because I’m upset about something.
Along the Camino the albergues and hostels that I’ve stayed in all have single beds.  I’m glad of that, because I know that if I were in a large bed, I would reach over to feel if she were there.  And in doing so, I would feel her absence even more. 

I can’t account for it but my mind turns toward my parishioners.  I’m thinking of the men and women who have lived faithfully for decades with the love of their lives. 

Spouses, the woman or the man that they loved and cherished and cared for in sickness and in health, and now for some there love has gone on to heaven.  And for the first time in decades they’re not just alone.  They’re alone with the reality that the most intimate human relationship they have had, here in this life, has changed.

For most of them, if not all, their faith lets them know that they would see their love again.  And they live on.

My current situation is not the same.  Because I know that, barring some catastrophic occurrence, I will see my love again in this world.

But this extended time away seems to make the days and nights longer by her absence, and it gives me the smallest glimpse at what my friends feel, just a glimpse.  It makes me love them more because of their suffering.  Not out of pity, but out of empathy.  And I have no idea how it really feels.  And it makes me love her more even though she’s just out of reach.

But there is hope given to us in our faith.  A guarantee that we will see those we love again in a perfected state.  Jesus taught that we’re not given in marriage in the next life, that marriage is an institution for this world.  But there is a love that is an extension of the love we share today.  And when we pass through the glass dimly seen that love will be better than the one that we have today.

The love we share today is only a glimpse into the Fullness of Love that will exceed our understanding in this world. 

And so we live in the hope of the reality that Love transcends death and that our relationships of love continue through the veil in a way that is better.  It may not feel better, but our faith tells us that it is better.  And perhaps with time as we cling closer to God and these assurance we will feel that to be true.

God’s desire for us is to love and trust him.  When we are separated from the things in this world that we care mostly about, then we cling to him for his assurances more than anyone else or any other thing.

This why Christian marriage is best understood as indelible.  The covenant relationship entered into (in this world) is a model for the eternal relationship between Christ and the Church his bride.  How can Christ be separated from his bride?  It’s not possible.  And so as the vows say, “…till death do us part.” I understand this has proven impossible for some, but with God, "...all things are possible."

In the end, when our relationship with God is confirmed, there is no end.  In fact if you believe in the Communion of Saints (as I do) then your relationships within the body of Christ only grow, become holier, and perfected in the agape love of God.

The impetus then is for us to begin loving that way now, not waiting for the right time or place…or death.  But to begin loving God, neighbor, spouse, children with a love that is something like Jesus’ love.