Tonight, for absolutely no reason, I had this fragment of a memory flit through my brain. I grabbed it before it fluttered away and nurtured it, until the fragment grew into a full story. Once upon a time my father took two of my brothers and myself away from our mother. We went to live, for a while, with my mother's parents in a tiny town in Indiana. My grandparents had a house at a crossroad. Across the street from the front of the house was a corn field. On the other corner was another pretty little house and the last corner, diagonal to their house, was a church. A tiny little white country church. The area was full of trees, grass, the houses neatly kept. The main - and only one of two - paved street through town boasted only three or four businesses and a volunteer fire station. The houses were little Victorian cottages, neatly kept. I remember a lot of elderly women with dainty furniture and hand embroidered tablecloths, fragile tea cups and gossipy visits. My grandmother had a garden in her back yard, as most folks did, and she would make corn husk dolls. In the early twilight of a new autumn, the only one I spent there, we would sit on the porch steps and watch the last of the fireflies dance across the broken stalks in the harvested corn field and hear an occasional howl which chilled me far more than the wind. But what I remember most, that fleeting bit of memory that came to me today, was of the church. It was simple compared to the mega-million dollar monuments to various pastors these days. The vestibule was tiny and the pews were hard. They were of a dark, polished wood and the older women that volunteered to clean the church must have put a great deal of care into their work because that wood shined. The windows were all very gothic in shape, and stained glass. I do not remember the depictions, only that they mesmerized me. The church was open all of the time and I often snuck in to play in the pews and wonder at the patterns the sunlight created through those magical windows. I remember that the community would come together for dinners, weddings, parties - all held in the basement. Mostly, though, I remember that I often sat in the back pew. I was a curious child, easily bored unless I had a book - and the bible did not count at the time. Often, there was a gentleman in the back pew with me and, looking back, he was probably in his late 60's, at least. This would have been somewhere around 1979 and I was a very tomboyish six year old. In fact, something that still makes me burn with shame happened about this time. I was always anxious to shed my dress and shiny shoes for shorts and ragged sneakers the moment church let out. And, being in the back pew, I was out faster than anyone. I was so fast, in fact, that one Sunday I was in my play clothes and on my bike before anyone else had really moved beyond the church yard toward their cars, parked on the sides of the street. I, having been cooped up too long with nothing but the magical windows to keep me entertained, sped out on my bike like a Tasmanian devil, wind whipping through my already messy hair. I must have been feeling particularly dare devilish on that day because I found myself veering toward a car and, before I could straighten up, the side of my handlebar left a long scratch on the car. I never did 'fess up. I put my bike away and suddenly the freedom of those two wheels and the riotous wind in my hair had lost their allure. But, as I was saying, there was often a gentleman in the back pew with me. Elderly already, he would be long gone by now. But I remember that he seemed . . . melancholy. And that he always had a butterscotch in his pocket for me. I remember his hands, the skin parchment paper thin, veins standing out, knuckles knobby and his fingers twisted a bit. And I remember his sad eyes. I think now, perhaps, he must have been a widower.
So I was just going through the motions, putting medication in Bee's feeding tube, when that church, that man, just flickered into my brain. The more I thought of him, the sadder I became until I sat down and sobbed for a man I can barely remember, one I'm sure whose name I never even knew. A man I sometimes sat beside during a brief summer and autumn of my childhood with sad eyes, old hands and a butterscotch always at the ready for an unruly little girl looking for magic in stained glass windows. A man long gone in years and memories, I'm sure, and yet I sobbed for him as if he had been my own flesh and blood and had just passed on. It took a long time to stop crying. I think, at some point, I stopped crying for the perceived loneliness of that old man and began to cry for my own consuming loneliness.
And now I sit here, the occasional tear still falling, wondering about the mysterious roads my mind often takes me down these days. I think the memory came to me because - other than myself - he has become, in my mind, the picture of loneliness. Not just loneliness. but of actually being alone. Bereft of loved ones, of friends, of community, of purpose. I feel that way so much of the time. And this man came to me, this lonely memory wandered in, because in the last week my daily devotions have concentrated on the sacrifices of Jesus. And, for some reason, I've found myself so busy that the days I've been able to pray my rosary without falling asleep have been Tuesday, Friday and Sunday - and if you are Catholic you know that those days (the Sundays during Lent) are all about the sorrowful mysteries. The first mystery is the Agony In The Garden, and it described the terrible loneliness that Jesus felt as He prayed.
InTouch had a devotion titled "The Cost of Our Salvation" a few weeks ago. Did you know that Jesus was completely separated from God during this time? That He was not just feeling the weight of our sins, He was feeling he weight of the shame, the burden of punishment, and all without that lifelong connection He had always had with God. He was, utterly and completely, alone. Even His friends could not stay awake, they did not seem to understand His great loneliness and agony. How alone He must have felt. Somewhere in my brain, in the haze of anxiety and xanax, I seem to have put the old man from my childhood and the image of Jesus weeping in the garden together and the thought of that elderly gentleman brought me to thoughts of Jesus, weeping in the garden and praying for God's love that was, for an allotted time, withheld from Him.
It is both a comfort and bitter knowledge, that Jesus understands my dreadful loneliness. I know I've written about that before - loneliness is a longstanding theme in my life. But until recently, I did not know or understand the absolute depth of the loneliness He must have felt, having been separated from God entirely. I have never felt that. God has always been in my life. I tell people sometimes - and they always look at me as if I'm daft - that God is in the flowers. As a little girl, nursing bruised flesh or feelings, I would creep into our forbidden flower beds, lean against the house and feel the flower petals. Born with Anosmia, I could not smell the flowers, but I would rub the velvety petals and feel . . . comfort. I would feel God, as if He was sitting right there enjoying the beauty of the very flowers He had crafted and watching over me. And even in times when I cannot feel God's presence, I know that He is watching over me, working in my life behind the scenes, on miracles both big and small that will come into my life in time. Unlike Jesus, I have never been without God at my side. But, for a time, that was a price Jesus was willing to pay. And the more I learn about what He went through, the more I understand, the more I am both thankful and shamed.
And so, as I sit here still weeping for a man lost to time, for myself, I know that Jesus understands how I am feeling, more than I would like Him to. Before I had my little breakdown I didn't understand people with true anxiety or depression, but now I do, more than I would like. The price Jesus paid for our sins wasn't just an accounting, sins tallied and marked off a balance sheet - it was an example, yet again, even in those final hours, for us to follow: I understand your loneliness and so I can comfort you; I can be in your loneliness with you and will not abandon you.
What have you experienced that has changed the way you can be with your fellow man, that has given you a perspective that affords you a beautiful opportunity to simply be there for another person in their anguish, their loneliness, their anxiety, pain, depression . . . ? Don't pass up the opportunity, it is a gift you have been given, that we have all been given, to take a darkness we have passed through and turn it into a light for someone else. And for me, it is a comfort to believe that one day, this bitter loneliness I feel to my very core will transform into something beautiful, something meaningful, and will give solace to someone else. And I pray that elderly gentleman from so long ago knows that his life profoundly impacted mine, in such a brief season, for such a small acquaintance, his life still has value.
Romans 5:3-5 Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.
