Sometimes exactly what you need shows up rather miraculously
In a video a friend shared with me, NPR’s Rachel Martin asks author, Jason Reynolds, if there is anything in his life that feels like prayer. In response, Reynolds describes the hard work of taking care of his aging mother’s physical needs. He closes with a deep breath and says, “Come on. What else could prayer be? Prayer can’t just be asking.”
My friend, admittedly prone to the very best kind of tears (those that come from feelings of deep love), cried as he described it. He cried a little more when he said that his daughter had shared a video with him, but that when he opened it, the Jason Reynold’s video somehow opened on his phone instead. He said it felt like Love Itself had shown up by knowing that he needed to see that video right at that moment.
For five years the most important work in my life has been care-giving, so I needed to see it too. I think I’ve rewatched it a dozen times. I had already sorted out that what I’ve been devoted to in these years is love in action. But the thought that that action could also be prayer? It still gives me goosebumps.
A lovely perspective on caregiving
I will admit that there have been plenty of times in these five years that I have been so overwhelmed by all that needs to be done that caregiving felt like it was overtaking the space in my life that I try to maintain to connect with God. There have been times when I have forgotten that, while I can do a lot to offer comfort and help with the logistics of illness or aging or grieving, the real work is not mine to do at all. It is God’s.
After listening to Reynolds’s response on repeat, I find a lovely glowing feeling in my heart. What if, instead of once again trying to wrest the steering wheel of life from God (my need to control is a habit that continues to die hard), my efforts to make everything OK for someone I love is actually a different way to connect with God? What if, on days when I thought I hadn’t had time to pray, I’d been praying all along?
When life gets really real, God is right there
What if, when we show up for people in moments of need and vulnerability, we are showing up right where God is? In the hospital room? In the career crisis? In the endless waiting time between symptoms and diagnosis? In the long slog of treatment? In the messy, tear-soaked aftermath of a broken heart? In the flooded home? In the funeral home?
What if these “places” are spaces where all of the “baloney” (I’m trying really hard not to type “bulls***”) of life has been cleared away? They sure feel different than regularly scheduled life, don’t they? In an interview with Kate Bowler, educator, author, and long-time chairman of Special Olympics, Tim Shriver says that in moments like this we realize, “Oh wait a minute now. This is real. This is life and death. This is love. … This is Real.”
My teacher, Richard Rohr, is famous for his wise and deep one-liners. And one of his most famous one-liners of all is “There are only two major paths by which the human soul comes to God: the path of great love and the path of great suffering.” For years, this one rankled me. Am I the only one who would prefer a path to God that didn’t involve great suffering? But after experiencing some suffering, I can attest that Rohr is right. Suffering is a little like an express train to God if you’re willing to get onboard.
But the last five years have been about more than suffering for me. They have been about prioritizing love and allowing that love to give me the courage to show up where suffering (mine and others’) is. Which I think is what Shriver is getting at. When we show up in those moments, we are showing up at the realest bit of Reality that there is.
This is where the miracle happens
Even though you and I may show up to love people when they most need to be loved simply because we want desperately to do something (anything!) to help them, something surprising (dare I say miraculous?) happens to us. No, we don’t get our angel wings. And, no, it’s not about finally figuring out how to be “gooder” people than we usually are. It’s about Love. In the act of loving someone, Love splashes all over us, too. We find ourselves literally soaked in it.
Which, to return to where we started, is what I think Jason Reynolds was saying when he described caring for his mother as “kneeling at the altar of the only creator [he] has ever actually physically known.” When he says that, he’s not being sacrilegious. He is not comparing his mom to God. He’s simply saying that caring for her feels reverential – and that doing so connects him to Love, which is God.
My Christmas wish for each of you and for me, too
What if we, too, could imagine ourselves kneeling at the altar of Love (perhaps you can imagine kneeling in the dust and straw around a manger) when we take care of the ones we love in ways big and small? What if we could remember that each of our acts of love is a prayer to Love itself?
That is my Christmas wish for each of us. Merry Christmas.
A broader practice of yoga often involves seva or selfless service. The idea is that when we blend our spiritual practice with compassionate action to benefit others the tenacious hold that our ego has on us softens. When we step out of the limelight of our own lives to turn a loving spotlight on others, we rediscover the love and joy that can only come from recognizing that we are integrally connected to the people and world around us.