Occupational Therapy

Where is your great sadness?

It was a question indirectly asked by author Paul Young in The Shack. For some, it is lying beside the grave of a loved one. For others, it is found in the shards of a shattered marriage. Still others, find it when recalling a lost job, estranged relationship, or maybe lost physical health. Such sadness penetrates so deeply that we find it hard to breath.  No wonder the majority of us wander everywhere but near such sadness. We can’t get away with denying it, but we spend a lifetime walking the long way around it.

For me, it is found in a beautiful chapel built ten years ago. No matter how hard I try to distract myself by looking at the vibrant stained glass windows, lush woodwork, or shiny slate floor, that sadness won’t leave me alone. The fact that everywhere I look there are pieces of me, only makes it easier for the sadness to have it's way.

I have given up the childish dream of rewriting the past and am determined to make peace with the sadness. With lips quivering as I try to sing, I fight to get air inside. I remember my dear friend Holly, an occupational therapist at a local hospital who works with patients to help them heal. She not only redresses bandages and moves wounded limbs in every direction, but sometimes opens wounds to clean them out so they will heal and not become infected.

That’s what I did today. I opened the wound so it can heal, so I can heal . . . one day. On the altar beside me, I placed my great sadness. I did so with only a gasp of a prayer: “God, please . . .”  

If I can do it, so can you.

Confirmation

The fifteen year-olds stood before the congregation to confirm the baptismal vows made by others long ago. With blazers drooped on their emerging frames, dresses neat and tidy, and shoes, like the faith they were professing, designed for older souls, parents smiled as the tradition continued. Like their fathers and mothers before, and the children yet to come, this rite of passage provides the comfort of tradition and hope that life is more meaningful than it often appears.

All that I remember of my confirmation is breathing helium and entertaining the others in my class with my munchkin-like rendition of the Apostles’ Creed. There were relatives and presents assembled, but only the slighted hint of faith. How could it have been otherwise? God was only a rumor, a hopeful wish draped in beard and sitting on a cloud. It wasn’t for some years later that I wished to stand before others and profess my faith. Waves had crashed upon the shore, winds had howled, and I had witnessed enough sunsets and heard enough birds to believe in something more.

Rather than judge those quaking before me church, rather than long for a different path, I celebrate those who have faith and the courage to stand and profess it.

Collars

The minister reached up and unattached his clerical collar as he walked down the hall to the noon AA meeting. No matter how hard I tried to concentrate during the meeting, I could think of nothing else. There was something profound waiting for me between his removing the collar and attending the meeting. Little did I know, such an exploration would make me sick to my stomach.

Like many, I always notice someone in a clerical collar. Whether sitting at the gate before a flight, walking down the street, or sitting at a restaurant, the collar (and black shirt) makes people take notice. It sets the person apart and causes others to select their words carefully, or break into an unsolicited recounting of his or her church affiliation and recent attendance. Pedestals await those with such collars, to lift them to rarified air and rousing renditions of “Nearer, my God, to thee.”

Down the hall, however, many wear shirts with no collars. They, too, feel set apart, not because of holiness, but the lack of it. They assemble to share their brokenness as well as their need for one another and a power greater than they. Any pedestals to be found, of which there are few, are shattered, cracked, or rusted.

But in that room, in that circle of very ordinary people, there is a sacredness. It comes not from on high, but from some place low, where only the bravest people dare go. It is there the air is particularly luscious and rich, but you need to remove your collar to taste it.