canticle of gratitudes in shadowed times
by bam
I’ve always noticed the light shines through more perceptibly, more piercingly, when the skies are grizzled gray, and there’s a fissure, a peep hole, in the clouds.
And so, in this shadowed episode in which I find myself –– awaiting word on my first lung scan since before surgery, trying to navigate my mama through the roiling seas of rehab and the stark knowing she won’t go home –– I wend my way through the days on watch for grace notes which tumble onto me like snowy flakes before the melt: each one unlike any before or aft, each one magnificent in its own faceted incandescence.
And, in the spirit of blessed Francis of Assisi, I am stringing them into a canticle, a praise song typically referencing Gospel text. I’m not so literate in those Scriptural ways, so I am stringing mine in the vernacular of the everyday:
Praise be the blessed, blessed nurse named Vishruti whose charcoal eyes are ever sparkling, and whose attendance to my mama’s every woe is pure blessing before my most grateful eyes.
Praise be the harvest moon pinned high in the night sky one especially hollow night, and the acolyte Jupiter who clung to Moon’s southwestern rim, as if to catch any drippings once the melt began again.
Praise be my blessed “baby” brother who seems the answer to my every prayer before I’ve even prayed it: the one who keeps every necessary form on file (to ensure nary a hiccup in our mama’s journey), attends to every detail with fastidious care, and who is so blessedly tender with our mama’s every ache and pain and worry that in watching him tears spring to my eyes nearly every time. Praise be that brother who has always fit me like my other half. I’m 1/3/57 and he just happens to be 2/4/68. Mathematically sequenced, and aptly paired, we are.
Um, addendum to brotherly praise (did Francis addend his canticles? hmmm): As I was typing that very verse above, said saintly brother was ambling through a lumber yard, intent on rebuilding our mama’s four-poster bed to make it six inches closer to the ground, thus subtracting risk by six not-insignificant inches. And he’s not even the carpenter brother! Be still my brothered heart….
Praise be the ones who fill my stoop with dahlias, and chicken ala yummy, and farmer’s market bounty. And whose prayers and hand squeezes hold me up, even when I wobble.
Praise be my sweet Fred who holds my hand in the dark of night, even when I don’t let on that I am thinking hard about the day ahead, or the one just left behind…
Praise be Pope Francis who, in his latest encyclical, Laudate Deum, squarely implored us to face these crucial questions:
“What is the meaning of my life? What is the meaning of my time on this earth? And what is the ultimate meaning of all my work and effort?”
Praise be Alice Walker who gave us these lines in The Color Purple:
Listen, God love everything you love — and a mess of stuff you don’t. But more than anything else, God love admiration.
Alice Walker, “The Color Purple”
You saying God vain? I ast.
Naw, she say. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.
What it do when it pissed off? I ast.
Oh, it make something else. People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.
Yeah? I say.
Yeah, she say. It always making little surprises and springing them on us when us least expect.
You mean it want to be loved, just like the bible say.
Yes, Celie, she say. Everything want to be loved. Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk?
Praise be that God who aims to please us, even with the color purple. Praise be the God who’s “always making little surprises.”
And praise be the simple, simple miracle of a smile spread across any human face. I don’t know why God thought to give us the capacity to upturn our lips in tenderness or joy, but oh, there is little so life-saving as that simple twitch of those few muscles.
In gratitude, in joy, in infinite blessing, and with deepest smile, for all the little surprises that steady us through and through…
what blessings steadied you this week?
pull up a chair 
Yowzer, I decided to write with caps (capital letters) this morning, and it just doesn’t feel right! Even though I do realize it makes for easier reading….
I wonder if there’s a punctuational therapist out there, because I clearly need one. My conundrum with upper/lower case…
Wow, I didn’t notice until you mentioned it, but I think your weekly blessings to us are easier to read all lower case. In my past life as an editor, I called myself the decapitator because I was constantly knocking down improperly capitalized generic nouns. (“But they make the word more important,” they insisted; “Check the dictionary,” I more than suggested.) If I could have disabled every shift key in the building, I would have. There’s your therapy session: Continue in lower case. No charge.
And a constant stream of love and blessings to mama, you, your brother and the guardian angel Vishruti.
ha! thanks, punctuational therapist. (do caps fit under punctuation? i guess so….broadly, anyway). i could go back and change all the caps, but next week….
Praise for small surprises often overflows the heart. 💜(to match the field of lavender in the photo) Warms my heart that you are taking care of yourself and other angels are taking care you and your sweet mother.
Love your 💜.
Bless it whatever color it comes in…..