Room 325

Walking down the once familiar hallway,

I travel somewhere between then and now.

Rooms with unfamiliar names

Call forth echoes of residents past.

The corridor is smaller, or I am larger,

Or maybe it’s the other way around.

My travels make me dizzy.

Room 325 hasn’t moved,

And I knock with a respect that almost removes my shoes.

The same hand grasps the same handle,

Thirty-five years later,

And I peer to see a familiar sight:

A carpet of discarded clothes, towel strewn upon a chair,

Bedding ravaged by the call to a first period class,

And pristine books creating the image of study.

The room is mine, but the clothes are not.

For now, maybe forever, I will loan it to others,

Just as it was lent to me.

I close the door before I’m thought to be an intruder.

The Headmaster I knew is now a portrait,

Beloved faculty archived on the walls,

And the acned youth walk by unimpressed.

“In my day . . .”

It’s no use,

The bell rings, awakening us all to the passage of time

Emptying the bucket.

I carry a shiny red bucket wherever I go, the kind we all used to play with at the beach with the fancy white plastic handle. You can’t see it, of course, but it’s there, and it does what buckets do best: it holds stuff.

Some contents find their way into the bucket by chance; others are put in deliberately. At times my bucket is light, other times it is so heavy I can hardly carry it. Sometimes my bucket is filled with sweet smelling flowers, other times toxic waste. 

Talking with my daughter in the car tonight, I realized she has a bucket too. Like mine, it gets full of all kinds of stuff, and together we realized that we have a say in what stays in our buckets and what gets poured out. As we discussed our days, she told me about the kind thing this boy did and the good grade she got in a class, and as she spoke the bucket seemed full and light. She shared some bad things as well, like the girl who started a false rumor about someone else and the one teacher she just can’t stand. Her bucket became heavier.

In my own way, I tried to convince her to pour out the bad stuff so her bucket would be lighter and able to carry more of the good stuff, but I heard in my suggestion advice I needed to heed myself. My bucket was full of bad stuff, put there by some of the meanest, most deceitful people I have ever known. It’s weight caused me to stumble throughout my entire day and, just to make it heavier, I watered it down with fear and resentment.  I knew it would not help things to go pour the contents of my bucket into the buckets of those who filled mine, or at least the relief would be short-lived, so I did the only thing in my power: I poured it out of mine.

Behold, I make all things new . . . (Rev. 21:5)

There are many heart-warming stories that have come from the tragedy in Boston. The most recent is the news that wounded veterans have come to work with the victims, helping them learn how to live and function without certain limbs. As amputees, they are offering their experience, strength, and hope to those injured by the two explosions on Boylston Street.

In recovery circles, we are told that, one day, our experience will benefit others. For most, when we first hear this, it’s hard to imagine how the drinking and various messes of our pasts could ever help someone else. Then, it happens . . .  a call from a friend who knows someone who needs to stop drinking, a crumbling marriage seeks counsel from someone who’s been through it, a recently laid-off banker reaches out to the lawyer who was disbarred. Suddenly, the pain and trauma of the past is transformed, death is resurrected, and the miracle of new life is there for all to see.

Imagining the soldier walking down the hall on his prosthetic limb to the room of the young girl who no longer has a left calf or foot, is powerful to say the least. That the two sit beside one another and talk about what happened, their feelings of loss, anger, and sadness, is poignant still. But when they work to learn how to walk together, the moment becomes indescribable.

Born out of darkness, it is a moment of great light. Out of sadness, it speaks of the deepest kind of joy. It also reminds us that whatever our life experiences have been, God can use them to transform the life of another . . . and transform ours in the process as well.