God’s Good Creation

***

Shall I compare thee to a summers day?  
Thou art more lovely and more temperate  
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May 
And Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.    -  Shakespeare 

Rough winds.  In the month of May.  

When I was 19 my brother who was 21 at the time, died of heart failure.  May, 1980.

A decade later I got a substitute brother, a brother-in-law.  Great guy.  In May of 2006 he was diagnosed with a rare form of liver cancer.  He lived four more years.  

During those four years, my dad was diagnosed with terminal Cancer in May 2008.  A year later my mother, terminal Cancer, in the month of May.

And now finally, my sweet Susie.  

It was May 1st when we got the news of how bad this could possibly be.  Naturally, her first thoughts turned to her girls.  “They need me,” she said.  “Yes, sweetie, they do.  Perhaps more than they know.”

Then she thought of her mother.  Susan adored her mother.  There was a lot to adore.  “This is going to kill her,” she said to me.  “Yep.”  

One of the reasons she was so distraught over her girls was because she couldn’t imagine living most of her adult life without having Mom around. To receive advice from, to get support, or just to hear her voice. She couldn’t imagine that, and she hated that for her girls. I hate it for them too.

Then she thought of her sisters. What a special relationship they had. In all the years I knew Susan, I think she talked with one or both of her sisters at least once every other day. Talked, not texted.

[Nancy came down with only a few days left.  When she got to Susan’s bed, she sat on the edge and reached out to hug her little sister.  Susan was very weak.  But she managed to reach up and wrap her arms around her big sister’s neck.  It was so precious.  I’ll never forget that moment.]

Then, (back to May 1st,) she thought of the rest of her family.  

Finally, she looked at me. “Mr. Johnny Come Lately.” (We met just a few years before this ‘May Day.’) The first thing she said to me that day, knowing about my rough winds, was, “Oh, Honey! I don’t want you to go through another one of those.”

That was my sweet Susie.  

On a day that most people would consider one of the worst days possible.  A day when Cancer enters the room.  Up close and personal.  My sweet Susie was thinking of others.  She was thinking of me.

Six and a half years later on another difficult day, Susan was falling fast, and she thought of me again.  I was taking her back from the bathroom to the bed for almost the final time.  I had my arm around her, and in what became our last conversation, she looked up at me and said, “I’m sorry.”

“Sweetie, what do you have to be sorry for?”  

“That I didn’t write you a letter to tell you how much I love you and how much you mean to me,” she said.  

“Oh Susan, you wrote that letter every day.  I read that letter every day.” 

She was the most beautiful, most unselfish, sweetest human being I’ve ever known.  And she was my wife.  God’s gift to me.

*****

Sign Three. (Sign One & Sign Two)

It was May 23rd, 2012. Thirty-two years and a day after my brother’s death. Two weeks after Susan’s surgery. And two weeks before our marriage. I needed to clear my head, so I took off for a while. Driving my truck to a spot just over the Wake-Granville county line, I parked in a large field off the beaten path. I had visited this secluded spot in Granville County before, and today seemed like a good time to revisit and reflect.

One apparent problem, though. On May 23, 2012, northern Wake County was the unhappy recipient of a strong wind and hail storm. But having been “off the grid” for a few weeks, both literally and figuratively, I was oblivious to mundane matters like the weather. So, ignorantly, I headed out to clear my head on an increasingly unclear day.

I don’t know if you’ve ever sat in front of a fast-moving wind and hail storm, but it is captivating. (Before the rain and hail arrive!)

The darkening sky raced toward me as I sat there in reflection mode. My truck was turned perfectly to watch the approaching weather, and it was mesmerizing. I can’t explain in weather-ese what I was seeing, but it looked like someone had grabbed a giant paintbrush and stroked charcoal gray semi-circles across the sky. Row after row after row. Like Roman legions marching across a battlefield.

The rain had not arrived yet, but the 20-mile-per-hour wind had, bringing the gray legionnaires above. The wild fescue swayed to and fro, wave-like across the meadow. Trees danced in the distance on grassy hills crowned with oak and beech. I sat watching, awed by it all, taking it in.

Then, about 100 yards in front of me, slightly downhill, a flash of light appeared just above the grass line. And it was rising. A few moments later, against the dancing leaves as a backdrop, I made out what it was. It was one of those metallic-looking helium balloons you see at the checkout line in the grocery store, the ones with long ribbons attached, that you or I would ignore but any four-year-old would not.

And there it was, flashing brilliantly and heading straight for me. A grieving husband-to-be, out here in the middle of a hilly pasture, on a dusty road, as the gray sky angered to black. A hurt with a long history surged up inside me. And that’s when I knew. This inexplicable “ball of light” rising in front of me—I could hardly think it—was my darling bud, my sweet Susie, shaken loose by the May storm.

I knew. And I began to weep like a four-year-old in a grocery store parking lot who had just lost his grasp. “No, no,” I cried. “Stay. Don’t leave me.”

***

Helplessly I watched as she made her way toward me.

Gaining speed.  Climbing higher.  50 yards out.  25.  More brilliant than ever against the maddening sky. 

Soon she would be right above me. So I lowered the window and quickly stretched through, fearful of losing sight. The air was cooler now. I felt the winds of time against my face and breathed desperately the smells of this all-too-short season as I watched my sweetie pass by.

Turning to keep her in view, I saw the reason for her brilliance, her captivating presence, the striking vividness of this entire scene. Behind me but in front of her, bright and beckoning: Clear, Blue, Sky.

She was headed for blue sky, my darling bud, as fast as she could go, higher and higher. And now, well out in front of the storm.

I began to weep again.  But this time…as a man.  

“Yes.” (Was I saying it?)

“Yes” (I could hardly believe I was saying it.)

“You go girl.  

You go.”

Frozen in the moment, I watched until she was shielded from my sight.

***

Still no rain or hail yet. The hail never did reach me. I saw drifts of hail on the side of the road as I made my way back home, but thankfully, my truck escaped a beating.

I didn’t.

But before leaving the scene of battle, one more thing—a significant thing.

In mentioning this, I’m asking you to trust that I wouldn’t trade on the death of my wife to make up a fantastical story for the purpose of eliciting sympathy or impressing you with my spiritual connectedness. Nor to leave the equally false impression that I’m especially favored by God. Something so baldly untruthful would dishonor her memory. I couldn’t do that. Plus, I know, God is watching as I relate to you the following scene, a scene straight out of a Spielberg movie.

***

Still hanging out the driver’s side window, I felt a warming presence above me. So I looked up. A small hole in the darkness had opened. The merciless marauders were gone. The dark sky had an altogether different aspect now. The rigid, war-like brush strokes had smoothed. What I was witnessing now was more like the pupil of an eye slowly dilating, letting in a widening circle of light for the viewer and projecting a widening circle of warmth and illumination on the broken object below. Beyond that opening: clear, blue sky.

In all directions, the entire, I repeat, the entire visible sky was dark gray except for this one incomprehensibly beautiful blue hole directly above me. Directed at me. Warming me up. Taking me in. It opened like the aperture of a camera in slow motion, gauged the needed illumination, and captured an unforgettable moment in time. Then it closed.

The encounter lasted about one minute, but the experience was longer. Much longer. For time had shifted, slowed, expanded. It was as if Barber’s 8-minute “Agnus Dei” had been compressed into a single minute without altering the composer’s intent—one dramatic phrase, one exquisite line. A time-stretching, heart-lifting, mind-blowing, world-shaping, space-altering minute. On wind-swept, cloudy days, if I take the time and am sufficiently attentive, time folds back in on itself, and I see it still. A stationary bright blue eye hole in a dark moving sky.

Rational explanation? I’m going with the God Hypothesis. I’m hanging my hat on a memory peg given by a Master Communicator, a character-forming Anchoring Presence, a Loving Lord who gathers up the faithful and comforts the broken-hearted.

The data supports it.

Sure, I know. It’s unrepeatable, unfalsifiable, and therefore unverifiable. But I’m a living and, hopefully for you, a trustworthy witness that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our scientific methodology.

This is the first and most dramatic in the sequence of three signs I’ve shared with you in the last month. Signs that give witness to a compassionate God, the Source of our everlasting Hope, who looked down one stormy May Day and said,

“I see you. I am near. Protecting you and Susan. Now, wherever you go, see me.”

***

***

I rushed home to tell Susan the whole breathtaking, uplifting story.  Balloon Day, we tagged it.  From time to time in remembrance of that day we would break into the old Irving Berlin song:

“Blue skies, smiling at me.  
Nothing but blue skies do I see.”

And mostly laugh.  But sometimes cry.  I would kiss her on the cheek or neck and whisper into her ear, “God’s gonna take care of us, honey, I know it.”  “Me too,” she would echo.  “Me too.”

Blessed with the eyes of Faith we could sing these words.

“Never saw the sun shining so bright. 
Never saw things going so right. 
Noticing the days hurrying by. 
When you're in love, my how they fly. 
Blue days, all of them gone. 
Nothing but blue skies from now on.”

In singing this happy tune, ironically set in a minor key, we were not whistling past graveyards, or through deadly storms.  We were not denying their reality, just their staying power.

Balloon Day, May 23rd, 2012 became a sustaining story for the months and years to come.  Food for our journey.  A sign of God’s good keeping.  God’s watchful presence.  For those who leave.  And those who stay.

May the Faithful departed,  
Through the Mercy of God,  
Rest In Peace,
And rise in Glory.

My Sweet Susie  
Gone for a Season  
October 6  
In the Year of Our Lord, 2018

***

***

If you haven’t already added your email to my list, do so and I’ll let you know when the blog is updated. And send you passwords to access my Private Collection.

Email: blog@blueridgemountain.life

I recently signed up to participate in the Gail Parkins Memorial Ovarian Cancer Walk & 5K Run.  Also, I created a Team called:

Susan’s Soldiers (This is War!)
http://dccc.convio.net/goto/susansoldiers

Contribute if you can to this worthy cause.

The term “angel” itself (Hebrew: mal’ak; Greek: angelos) is functional, denoting a messenger, whether human or spiritual. — Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible

Inside close relationships there exists a mode of knowing that transcends words. Intimacies which don’t need to be spoken to be understood. Husbands and wives experience this all the time. Without words you know what your lover thinks and feels. Message received.

***

Like leaving St. Catherine’s a few weeks earlier, leaving our home would be emotional too.

Most of the big and small graces of marriage happened there. We laughed. We cried. We wined and dined. We taught each other. Touched each other. Prayed. And finally, we said goodbye there. “See you soon, my love. Time for you to see Jesus.” Then I kissed her mouth. And she smiled. There were no words now. But that was enough.

It would be hard to leave.

***

God blessed Susan and me with so many material things. But I couldn’t use all of them. I was downsizing. And with deadlines approaching I decided to give most of it to those in need.

One thing though. I was conflicted about the formal dining set. Table, chairs, hutch, “china” cabinet. Susan brought those things into the marriage and paid quite a lot for them decades ago. What would she want me to do? No one in the family could use the furniture. And I didn’t want to give it to someone who would only resell it and pocket the money.

So I decided to call the local Habitat for Humanity store in Wake Forest and scheduled a pickup of all the items they could use, which turned out to be quite a lot. But was it the right call?

Four days before closing a large truck and two oversized young men arrived. And, get this, the driver’s name was Angel. And he wasn’t Hispanic. So the pronunciation was what you think it is. Angel, as in Gabriel.

I did a small double-take on that one. How many non-Hispanic guys have you met named Angel? And a large one to boot. About 6 ft 2 in. 230 lbs. No chubby cherub!

Well, they went about their work and more than once commented on how “this is the pick of the week!” I was happy to know these items would not be collecting dust, and the money would be used to help the needy.

Later in the garage I teased Angel with a question. “Do you ever find it difficult to live up to your name?” He gave me an oversized grin. And then launched into effusive praise of his mother. Finishing with, “she was amazing. She helped guide me and make me what I am.” There wasn’t a touch of arrogance in his tone. From the back of the truck his partner overheard the conversation and chimed in: “He really is a nice guy.”

Well alright. Three cheers for big, strong, nice guys!

A little later his coworker asked me why I was moving. I mentioned Susan’s death and that I was moving to our mountain home. Then after a few more details, I said it was a place that reminded my wife of where she was born in up state NY.

After offering their condolences Angel asked, “where in NY?”

“Utica,” I said.

“I was born in Utica. How about that.”

Now my double-take began a slow turn into quadruple-take territory.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No. My mom moved us to NY city not long after I was born. But I was born in Utica, NY.”

“Ha! Just like my wife. An Angel from Utica!”

Everyone laughed. Small world, we joked.

I went back inside but after a few minutes it started to sink in. And that’s when I knew. A tender mercy had broken through. And it was headed my way. Would I side step it by using the left side of my brain only? Or would I let it wash over me? Like I did two weeks ago sitting at our spot in St Catherine’s? I decided to get wet.

***

Sure, given my background, my emotional state, I was attuned to serendipitous possibilities. But what do you think? Serendipity? Sheer Coincidence? What are the odds? Done the math?

I have. Sign Two. Message received. I made the right call. And a comforting God was near.

***

If you haven’t already added your email to my list, do so and I’ll let you know when the blog is updated. And send you passwords to access my Private Collection.

Email: blog@blueridgemountain.life

***

I recently signed up to participate in the Gail Parkins Memorial Ovarian Cancer Walk & 5K Run.  Also, I created a Team called:

Susan’s Soldiers (This is War!)
http://dccc.convio.net/goto/susansoldiers

Contribute if you can to this worthy cause.

Cancer has a way of focusing the mind. Some focus on the fight. Some focus on the perceived unfairness of it all. The pain. Along the way, if you’re wise, you focus on the preparation.

From the Christian viewpoint (my own) all of mortal life prepares us for the life to come. The life after death. And, then, the life after life after death (more about that in later posts).

Life threatening illness brings new urgency to the preparation. Time limits will do that. Questions from the depths bubble up. How have I lived my life? How should I live it now? And given our Faith commitments, other questions. Have I pleased my loving God? How may I do so now?

Briefly, for Susan and I, questions of why. They were mostly analytical.

Doesn’t make sense, we said. Doesn’t fit the profile for this type of cancer. Ovarian.

Our oncologist confidently asserted: “we really don’t know.”

But through it all our Faith sustained us. Susan and I lived this way. Since her passing, I’ve continued to live that way. Imperfectly. But God met us where we were, and continues graciously to lead me along the way. If I continue to discipline myself and take the time to turn to the source of life.

And see the Big Picture.

***

Sometimes we need to be down on our knees squinting at tiny things. To find the tiny thing that discloses the Big Picture. Do we see it? Are we on our knees? Of course, at other times no squinting required. The vision comes rushing in like Niagara. Like when you stand gobsmacked on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. You’d have to be dead, inanimate, not to notice.

Here’s a vision that trumps the Grand Canyon. Both tiny and with Big Picture written all over it.

Have you ever seen a more joy-filled grateful grandmother. I haven’t. Statistical analysis (Susan was a data analyst) suggested only 18 months at diagnosis. Two years too soon for Gramma Sue to hold this package of bundle light. But the deadlines were breached, and Susan held her grand-baby close. And then for two more years she nurtured a love that will never end.

***

Before getting to the sign I promised you in my last post, first the backstory. A story about a mother.

Both of Susan’s parents passed during the 6 1/2 years between diagnosis and death. Walt and June were in their 90’s. Their baby girl was particularly troubled over the thought of putting her mother through the agony of seeing her youngest die. “This is going to kill her,” she said.

But Mom went first.

I knew I would be reading scripture at the mass, but I wanted to do more to help my family, my wife, in their grief.

So what did I do? I rearranged the Liturgy of the funeral Mass. Slightly. Mr. Non-Catholic.

Growing up a Protestant of the low-church variety I could always claim ignorance. Right? But that wouldn’t have been true. I knew. I had experienced the thoughtful rituals of the Mass and learned to love them. The readings. The silence. The ancient rhythms. Confession. Creed. Prayer. The shapes. The colors. The gestures. The standing and kneeling. I attended a Catholic Church for seven years with Susan.

I was something of a congregational curiosity, I suspect. Always kneeling before the altar with crossed arms at my chest, receiving a blessing. But unlike my wife, no Body or Blood.

Our priests respected my commitments. I respected the reason for the exclusion. And submitted to it. I viewed it as a spiritual discipline. A part of the fasting that goes with a future feasting, when one day it will be natural and right for all those who name the name of Jesus to share the fruits of the Lord’s Table together. United. One day.

So no, I couldn’t claim ignorance. I knew the patterns, the history.

***

A year earlier, I did get clearance from the Polish Priest in Utica to embellish my reading at the funeral mass of Susan’s father with an a cappella rendition of the first verse and chorus of “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” After which I read the prescribed text. Following the Mass, the Priest thanked me and then sweetly tried to recruit me for the Church choir. But I assured him my commute from Raleigh NC to Utica NY would be prohibitive. A friendly word of advice to Parish Priests: Be careful when giving a low-church Protestant liturgical legroom. He might lap the sanctuary on his next go round. 🙂

A year later when Susan’s mother passed, and it came my time to read, what did I do?

I lapped the sanctuary.

Figuratively. I made an aural loop around the congregation in hopes of gathering them in. Like a dear mother bringing comfort, and a sense of the protective care of God. Like June had done for so many years. Like the Big Picture of Gramma Sue and Reagan above.

True. Close attention to the established Liturgy did as much. But I felt led to add a personal touch, and so took my low-church liberties, humbly invoking the Holy Ghost to brood with warm breast over our broken family. I altered the established pattern with pastoral counsel in word and song before my prescribed reading. Here is some of it.

“One Day.
All who believe.
Those who are members of the Family.
Will be changed.
No more disease.
No more dying.
No more brokenness.
(We’re all broke you know,
even this adorable lady.)

But on that Day,
Wholeness of Life.
Body
Soul
Mind
Fullness of Heart.
Freedom
True Freedom
Home at last.

How?  Why?
Because we will see Him,
The King of Glory.
The world’s True Lord
Face to face.
The Beauty and Purity of that Vision
Will change you 
Forever.

Don’t you want to see it?
With mom?  Grandma Junee?
Don’t you want to be changed?

I do!”

Then I sang, without musical accompaniment, for my family. For my wife.

Followed by a reading from the first letter of Saint John:

Beloved. See what love the Father has bestowed upon us that we might be called the children of God. Yet so we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like Him, for we will see Him as He is.

The word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

***

The response I got, especially from my wife, who was deeply moved, confirmed my aim was true. Happily, the Priest was gracious too. I was so glad to help my family during our time of grief. Most especially my sweet Susie.

For she had preparations to make.

Now to my sign.

***

I knew the day would be emotional for me.  Not as emotional as the Christmas Eve service. (First time without Susan) Or All Saints Sunday when for Protestants the liturgy is clustered around the theme of the dearly departed and God’s loving care of them. Some of their names are read out loud. This year All Saints came only three short weeks after Susan’s passing. I made a weekend visit to Church of The Good Shepherd (Episcopal/Lutheran) my new Church home in the mountains. Susan’s name was read. And I was unprepared for the seven car pileup I became.

But now ten months later, and back in Raleigh, things would go more smoothly. Fewer ragged edges. July 21 would be the last Sunday of my regular attendance at St Catherine’s, our Church home the past seven years. Called away by the mountains and retirement. Still, leaving this sacred space, the place that had meant so much to us, a place where husband and wife had bonded and fought the good fight of faith, would be emotional.

Sign One

For only the second time in all our years at St. Catherine’s the hymn “Be Thou My Vision” was chosen, on this day, July 21, as the offertory hymn. Why was that choice significant?

“Vision” was the song I was asked to sing at the wedding of a good friend in Nashville many years ago. A song not normally sung at weddings but it worked. And I fell in love with it. It became a theme song for me.

Be Thou my vision, oh Lord of my heart.
Nought be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best thought, by day or by night.
Waking or sleeping Thy Presence my light.

“Vision” was also the same song I sang at my mother-in-law’s funeral mass (mentioned above). Dovetailing nicely with the reading from Saint John’s first letter. The beautiful Irish melody and the moment moved my wife and family to tears.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise 
Thou mine inheritance, now and always
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart
High King of Heaven, my treasure Thou art.

And lastly, “Vision” was the same and only song I sang to my dying wife in her final hour as she slipped away….

High King of Heaven, my victory won.
May I reach Heaven’s joy, O’ bright Heaven’s sun.
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall.
Still be my vision, O’ Ruler of all.

Singing that hymn at her mother’s funeral moved my wife so deeply that I was certain it would bring her comfort now. In these final moments. A comforting point of contact with her dear mother who awaited the arrival of her baby girl on the other side. The comfort of coming together. Reuniting two lovers who should never have been torn apart.

But mostly I knew, as surely as I am known, that at this dark hour, that song would echo the gathering of my Susie’s soul into the light filled, loving embrace of her incomparable Lord.

***

Now I ask you. My friends. How it could be that a song so meaningful to me, that had played such a vital role in the life of our family, the last song my wife would hear before leaving, would be the song, rarely sung, yet chosen, on this my final Sabbath as a regular member of St. Catherines?

I suppose if you believed that everything from quarks to atoms, and proteins to amoebas up to penguins and polar bears, and upwards still to every human accomplishment, every human delight, delights that scale the heights and plumb the depths of Beauty and Love, if you believed that all that developed by chance over the misty eons of time you could, I suppose, confidently chock this moment up to sheer coincidence.

I don’t.

***

I can’t tell you how moving it was to feel God reaching out to me. Like a loving parent. Gathering me in. I think I spilled over into the offering plate as it passed by and I dropped in the preprinted envelope that for several months now said only “Mr. Daniel..” and not what I longed to see “Mr. & Mrs. Daniel..” The comfort was palpable. The message was clear to this child in transition; “I see you, my son. I am near. Protecting Susan and you. Now, wherever you go, see Me.”

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

***

Upcoming post: Sign Two, An Angel

If you haven’t already added your email to my list, do so and I’ll let you know when the blog is updated. And send you passwords to access my Private Collection.

Email: blog@blueridgemountain.life

***

I recently signed up to participate in the Gail Parkins Memorial Ovarian Cancer Walk & 5K Run.  Also, I created a Team called:

Susan’s Soldiers (This is War!)
http://dccc.convio.net/goto/susansoldiers

Contribute if you can to this worthy cause.