My heart sank when I walked into the dentist's office. Angel would be cleaning my teeth. While Angel was skilled as a dental hygienist, she often chattered on and on about activities in her life, expecting me to respond even with a mouthful of cleaning implements. She would pause, in fact, after she relayed an interesting bit of information, waiting for a reply. But I was only capable of making indistinguishable sounds. Angel didn't seem to mind, however, when I made my garbled utterances. Angel accepted the babble as if we were having a normal conversation. I sat down in the dental chair, resigned to once again hear Angel's loquacious patter. This day, though, she didn't have anything to say. She sang.
Angel slipped on her mask and gloves and began singing as she bent close to my face ready to scrape and polish. Even through the mask her voice sounded lovely. I closed my eyes and felt relieved there was no pressure to respond. I simply listened, comforted by someone singing over me.
I didn't think too much more about my dentist appointment, but later on in the week, I received an email that my book, On A Clear Blue Day, placed as a bronze medalist in the "Enduring Light" devotional category of the 2017 Illumination Book Awards. I couldn't quite believe it, and did a double take. My book was actually on the list. I thought back to writing the manuscript. I thought of burning it at one point. I didn't believe the material was good enough--that writing the book didn't really matter anyway. As I sat at my kitchen table that day, head in my hands, I heard a bird singing so melodically, I stopped my lament and just listened to its sweetness. And then somewhere inside my spirit, I sensed God saying to me, "Your words are like sweet birdsong. I will use your words to sing over others. You must keep writing. Your words make a difference. Do not stop writing."
Angel's soothing voice reminded me of that moment when God used a bird's lyrical warbling to move me forward. I am humbled that my words might offer others consolation, like birdsong, like God singing over their hearts.
I look down at my feet. A piece of tin foil glitters through the scattered leaves on the road. The foil is shaped like a heart. I pick up the debris and place it on my gloved palm. The edges are ragged, one side torn. The heart seems to symbolize my own. I've just come from a trip out west to say goodbye to my older sister whose heart is failing. She'd said, "If you want to see me, you'd better come now. I don't have long." My other two sisters and I find flights out the next day and travel across country to see her one last time.
When I walk into her house, medical equipment and beeping machines intermingle with the items she loves--shelves filled with books, oil paintings and family photographs. Hand-sewn quilts, master works she's created for decades, are draped over chairs and sofas. And there she sits in a chair, attached to a line that pumps medication into her body, keeping her alive. If she turns off the machine, she will die within forty-eight hours. "I'm not going back to the hospital," she says. "I'll know when to turn the machine off." Her body is frail, yet her eyes glisten with determination. She exudes a spiritual strength that is palpable in the house turned hospice. She is, paradoxically, consoling us in her acceptance of traveling death's shadowy pathway.
And so my other two sisters and I sit with her remembering our history, our narrative. At times we are not sad. I'm a generation younger than my three sisters, and remember my oldest sister from a child's perspective. I was fascinated with her as an eight-year-old. She worked as a children's librarian and got me reading early, introducing me to Christopher Robin and the beauty of A Wrinkle In Time. She was slim with auburn hair and deep brown eyes. Freckles dusted the bridge of her nose. She listened to Bob Dylan on a stereo that hung from a wall. She let me spend the night with her at times. I'd climb the wrought iron stairs to her second-floor apartment, my overnight bag in hand, just dying to get into the oval pool I could see through her apartment window. I'd don my swimsuit, and grab my inner tube and goggles. My sister would take me by the hand and we'd traipse off to the pool. She let me stay for hours on those hot Texas days while she sat under an umbrella protecting her porcelain skin. I swam and begged her to watch me as I performed diving tricks. She'd look up from her book and shout, "That's really good. Do it again." After swimming, she'd say, "How about we go over to Kip's and get a Big Boy hamburger?" Then we'd sit in the red vinyl booths, eating our burgers and fries, and I'd think, "This is the best day ever."
When I grew up and had children of my own, my sister gave my daughters books every year for their birthdays. My girls still have those books, inscribed with my sister's flowing, distinct script. One summer my sister and her husband asked the girls out to spend some time in the southwest. My children will never forget that visit. They still talk about their travels--how they listened to Prairie Home Companion as they wound their way up a mountain for a picinic.
And now I'm standing on the banks of the tidal creek at the end of my street. I see a woman paddling a yellow canoe rounding the bend on her way down the smooth creek waters. Her paddle makes light splashing noises with each stroke as she glides away. I have an inclination to wave and raise my arm as she passes by, but she doesn't see me. It's almost as if I'm waving goodbye to my sister. I am sobbing. "Oh, God, it's so hard to let her go, to say goodbye. I sense God's voice, "I know. I know. Remember, though, that her first day in heaven will be better than her most wonderful day on earth. I am her good Father. She will be filled with the wonder and joy of a child as she walks by my side and discovers all I have prepared for her."
I open my hand and see the battered, silver heart. I place it in my pocket. "And I hold your heart, too, and the hearts of all who love your sister with my comfort, for this is not the end. This is not the end."
The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed; there is no winter and no night; all tragedies, all ennuis, vanish--all duties even. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
I received feedback from another artist about a writing project that left me wallowing in self pity. How could the reader be confused? How could there be no positive feedback? Was the writing really that bad? I recognized my pathetic response right away. I was hungering for acceptance, but instead was told the project needed to be abandoned. Start over. And I'd paid money to get this feedback.
For several weeks I laid on my self-pity mat, flat on my back and gulped in fear and doubt. Paralyzed. I'd responded this way to negative feedback in the past. Yet this blow felt more painful. The reader was someone I highly respect and admire. I thought perhaps I was somehow in his "league"--that I might write almost as well as he did. Yet after the feedback, I sensed I was in a much lower caste than I'd realized. I concluded it would probably be best to abandon the book project as he suggested. Start over, devise a detailed outline of every chapter. Yet even in my disparagement regarding the project, some of the negative response did not ring entirely true for me. Certainly, I was not paying the reader to praise every word of the material, but to come to a conclusion of dismembering the book seemed overly harsh. I continued to wail, moan and cry. "How could I be so misunderstood?"
I became restless, there on the bed of self-pity, and eventually other thoughts began to increase in volume. Questions surfaced. "How do you usually work best?" "What are your strengths as a writer?" "What are your formulas for creating?" "And what about your affections in life?" "You've been so long in the bed and 'bedlam' of self-pity that you've abandoned your own affections." The realization that I'd let go of my affections pierced through the misery. My primary affections include being in nature, movement, solitude, the page (both reading and writing), music and pursuing spiritual mysteries. And I'd learned over the years that these affections are the very landscapes where I meet God to receive His wisdom and bask in the light of His laughter and unconditional acceptance. Where I discover my most creative self.
I rose from my bed, donned earphones tuned into Beegie Adair on Pandora, went outside into the mild, winter day, the sun slanting through orange leaves that still clung to dark tree branches. My mind cleared, and I began to formulate some action steps. I could buy a new ink cartridge and print out the 30,000 words I'd written. I could take several hours and "take some pity" on this project instead of myself. I thought of that fairy tale where the ugly duckling believes he is unworthy compared with his peers until he gazes at his reflection and sees that he is a white, elegant swan.
Returning to my collage of affections led me quickly out of self-pity and into gazing at my own reflection instead of focusing on other writers and what they might think of my projects. Today I printed out my manuscript and read with compassion the words on the page. I made gentle changes (no red ink) and "cut the fat." I sensed God saying, "Ah, you're back. I've been waiting for you. Let's do this. You sit down at the keyboard. I'll guide you."
What makes up your collage of affections? Don't abandon them, kind reader. Indulge them. God waits there for you. Go now.
I don't do joy well. I'm more proficient at expecting the worst. I began to pray, "God how do I do joy better? Show me what that means." He was quick to answer. Bill Johnson, pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, California says, "God does not hide things from us; he hides things for us." Johnson states that this concept is like God hiding Easter eggs. He hides them according to our age and maturity. In other words, a two-year-old will need eggs to be in plain sight, as opposed to an eight-year-old who may derive more delight and challenge in finding Easter eggs hidden deep in folds of grass. Regarding the theory of joy, I'm more like the two-year-old. Here's what I found this week. Joy manifested in the creative places God chose to hide His directives.
In the mornings before work, I have a detailed routine that helps me to prepare for the day. One of the my last tasks is applying make up. I grow easily bored with eye make up in particular, so decided to break open a new box I'd just purchased. The palette contained four shades named: Be Grateful, Sure Thing, Brilliant and Citrus Twist. As I brushed the earth tones over my lids, I had to smile, God reminding me that his love is brilliant--a sure thing. Being grateful for my life is a good start on the road to joy, adding refreshment to my life, just like a twist of citrus adds a burst of flavor to water.
Sometimes after work, as a way to decompress, I like to watch a movie. I keep a stack of titles by the television. I slipped Fathers And Daughters into the DVD player. By the end of the movie, tears leaked down my cheeks. The protaganist had suffered during her life, yet learned that life worked best when she fully focused on "the now." She made a decision to step into the present and shrug off dwelling on the past. I smiled through my tears and thought, "God, I forgot that you so often speak to me through movies. Yes, joy is best discovered by living in the present. Help me, please, to make this choice more consistently. I'm not so good at that either." "You're getting better," he said.
Books. Oh, books. I love the scent of them, the feel of pages. I prefer the feel of paper, but will settle for a screen--just don't prevent me from reading. It is not surprising that God would lead me to the page to discover more about pursuing joy. I was finishing up my study of Julia Cameron's book, Walking In This World--The Practical Art of Creativity. In the last chapter Ms. Cameron speaks of two practices that help to pull the curtains back on cultivating joy. Cameron writes, "When our work is made only in the service of our hope for fame or recognition, it is hampered by our self-consciousness as we wonder, How am I doing? When we are able to work without such self-consciousness, we are able to work more freely and more fully. Our ego steps aside and is no longer a constrictive valve narrowing our creative flows and focus. We think less about 'us' and more about 'it,' the work itself." I've realized this truth of late. I've had a hyper-focus of wanting to be published, then languishing in disappointment with myriad rejections. I sensed God saying, "You'll find increased joy when you seek to encourage other artists and writers--that's what you love. That's what I love to do through you." Yes, yes, yes. This made sense. There is joy in service.
The last sentence in Ms. Cameron's book states, "Allow yourself to marvel." The exhortation reminded me to widen my recognition and appreciation in things I delight--good coffee, sitting in the sun on an unseasonably warm January day, my husband's embrace, a full moon, feeling comforted under the quilt sewn by my artisan sister.
By week's end, I was the two-year-old who'd gathered a collection of foil-wrapped chocolates in her skirt, found joy.