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Mixed media collage replica of White Angel from monastery Milesevo greeting the disciples on Easter morning with the words, 'Why are You Looking for the Living One among the Dead?' |
The little butt-naked word, the escapee from the rigorous sentinel of my Internal Editor, turns out to be a kindness of sort. The raw energy of its un-Photo-shopped truth does its magic inside our group.
It scrub-cleans our ears, dull from being accustomed to hearing only what others think we want to hear.
It acts like a mouthwash that wakes up our tongue accustomed to saying only what we think others want to hear.
She volunteers to be next. A mother to many; a faithful, dutiful wife of a respected leader. Mostly invisible accessory to a greater mission.
On the outside her bowl is beautiful and rich and full of opportunities and experiences the rest of us can only dream about. Fascinating people and exotic places. We've known each other for years and I never bothered to look, to ask what's on the inside.
Perhaps I wasn't ready then for what I may find there. I am not sure I am ready even now...
The bowl she brings to our communion table is full of emptiness, loneliness, depression, and meds that work and don't, and an ocean of unshed tears over a lifetime of losses.
She attaches a label to herself that makes my heart sag. Somewhere along the way, in the crucible of life and ministry, her vast capacity for experiencing the exquisite joy of this life as well as its gut-wrenching grief was reduced to a mental illness tag. To be numbed by alternating the assortment of religious platitudes and daily dose of Prozac.
We listen to each other and bow our hearts to the One who knows us better than we know ourselves. Worn out from carrying our own, we lift up each other's bowl to Jesus.
She wraps up our prayers by praying for me.
"Thank you, Lord, for these three daily pages of longhand vomit", she says. Then, after hesitating a bit, she adds in a barely audible whisper,
"Perhaps it's time for me to start my own..."
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