This biweekly blog is about seeing God, the world and ourselves with the eye of the soul. It is not about changing the world, but changing the way we see the world. Each column is a spiritual reflection on the beauty that hides behind appearances and the peace that is beyond all understanding.
We were on the 19th hole of the Paris Country Club, Morrie and me, slurping our third iced tea.
"I hate golf," my classmate said. "It's not fun."
"That's because you're not good at it," I said. "You're good at other things."
I read an essay in the spirituality journal Sacred Space by a woman who sees God's presence in the oncology ward where she works. It reminded me of the times I spent in a radiation lab after my breast cancer operation. I'll always remember the kindness of the nurses, how gently they treated me. They moved around like angels who had chosen to become human for those of us who needed them.
Paris, Kan., is one of the smallest dioceses in the U.S. You won't even find it on a map. My classmate Morrie (name changed) has been a bishop there since (can't say that either). But I can say that in the seminary Morrie was a nice guy who never hurt a soul or ever made waves or rocked the boat. While some of us survived the stormy seas of seminary life on leaky lifeboats or in subversive submarines dodging depth-charges, Morrie was like most guys, a dutiful passenger on the Ark of Peter who made it with little fanfare to the end. No one expected that one day he would be an admiral while the jet-ski guys who buzzed around with unexpected initiative and derring-do would someday be insurance agents.
Several weeks ago I made a trip to Kansas to visit a friend who has lung cancer. We had little contact with one another for a number of years and I sensed our visit would be a special one. Little did I know how special. When I arrived in Topeka I learned that Ken's wife, Bibi, had taken him to the emergency room that morning because of severe chest pains. I hurriedly drove to the hospital, hoping we could have some quality time together. Indeed, we did. I found Ken to be as I remembered: gentle, optimistic, loving and faith-filled. Fortunately he had not lost his sly sense of humor either.
Aunt Mary and I were the same height when I was 12. She was as wise as Yoda and her charity reached the stars. She helped raise me.
God looked at Aunt Mary and beheld devotion and generosity. The church looked at her and saw a divorced and remarried woman who was unworthy to receive the Eucharist.
Something unexpected is happening to me in this spring’s Senior Center yoga classes. Something over and above the shock of finding myself at 79 in the “old-old” category. There’s no denying it: I was born in 1933, the year Hitler took power, the banks closed and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
Who could have imagined that someday we’d all be living so much longer?
“Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs. And what’s wrong with that?” -- Paul McCartney
Twenty years ago my colleague Frank and I were having a smoke on the fire escape of our Crossroad offices in midtown Manhattan. Frank was challenging the arguments of churchmen who were fuming at the new phenomenon of gay couples trying to adopt children. “What’s so bad about that?” he wanted to know. “Why can’t gays have families like everybody else?”
My mother, like your mother, used to say, “Just you wait! When you’re my age you’ll think the same thing!” My mother, when she got old, used to say, “The golden years? Bulls--t!” Well, here I am, 70 years old, and, looking back, I see my mother sneaking up on me. God rest her soul, I am becoming like her.
It was barely midday, and I was already exhausted. We had set up this makeshift feeding center in Ethiopia for victims of a devastating famine, and they now blanketed the room. Women cradling emaciated children pressed against one another, as each claimed a coveted piece of that hard mud floor.
On my last trip up north, I rode the New York subways a lot. My aunt was in a Brooklyn hospital and the easiest way to get there was by taking the train from New Jersey and then walking a few blocks from Penn Station to catch the R subway to Brooklyn. All in all, it took about an hour and a half to get from New Jersey to Brooklyn.
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