Yesterday in the radiology lab waiting room, there was man tapping his foot and bouncing his knee. I could see he was afraid, probably afraid of getting his x-ray and what he would find out about illness. I was waiting for my turn and reading some things I put in my calendar – Walt Whitman, Shakespeare, Jesus. I was reading the Sermon on the Mount when I began to surround the bouncy knee man with compassion for his fear. I read the line, “blessed are they who know their spiritual poverty” and thought about my spiritual poverty, my impatience, my intolerance, my ignorance, all of which distance me from the Divine in myself and others and from the Divine herself, plenty of poverty. Holding the bouncy knee man tenderly was something I learned to do in this waiting room the last time I was here, that was 7 years ago for a mammogram. That test scared me, but I had a deep feeling that my breasts were not ill and to set my fear aside, I cared for the others in the waiting room by going into my calm and laying that calm alongside their fear as a gift. They were more afraid than I and I could do my fear later if I needed to when I had more information.
When they called my name yesterday, the nurse had me lie on a bed and look at the screen while she moved the ultra-sound gun along the side of my low torso. As I watched the screen, she told me what we were looking at. I could feel my fear tighten each time she asked me to hold my breath and take a picture of what was surrounding my kidney. I was not taking care of anyone’s fear now but my own and I was not doing well at that. Slowly it became clear that what I had feared most– illness, surgery, chemo, radiation, was not on my menu. I was clear of pathology there. We could see it.
As we leave the time of political conventions and come down to the ugly show of mud slinging and dirty tricks, I want to remind Queer Friends of 2 things.
– Fend off despair, enjoy the fight, and don’t be distracted by the noise of popular culture (ie TV) as we seek a safer, cleaner, more justice US & world. Let us be happy at all the hard work there is to do.
– We lose gay teenagers each year. With the discussion of gay marriage coming up as a controversy and its being used by the radical right to change people’s votes, I want to ask you, please, as you discuss this in your homes, in your meetings, be tender and protective. Gay teens are seven times more likely to commit suicide simply from the inhospitality of the world. None of us here want to hurt our children. Let’s join this national conversation in ways that help to lessen the wounds of our gay teens.
Thursday morning – I awake with a dream of helping the neighbor over a bridge. This neighbor will have a complete mastectomy early this morning. I light several candles in the middle of our little home. Marshall and I gather in reverence and I am in prayer all morning. Driving Marshall to work, I wonder how her surgery will feel tomorrow when I will visit to do energy work. I’m asked to write a magazine article on the spiritual consequences of torture. Reading that new piece of writing this morning, I am filled with a very caffeinated energy, a result of being in touch with all I know on this topic. E-mail brings a friends article also on torture. Her stories are more experiential than mine and I shutter to read of her life and am so proud of her clarity, bravery, and healing. I bring tomatoes from the garden to make spaghetti sauce before the neighbor’s son comes for energy work, my gift of touch to help him cope with his mother’s cancer. A phone call comes from a massage therapist I taught last year. Her son was blown up in Iraq on Easter. He’s just now out of Walter Reed hospital and home. She is having more feelings than she knows what to do with. After I finish the tomato sauce, I add some to my article about the spiritual call to oppose torture and the difficulties there in. So much happens between 8 and noon. So many women pushed to do the impossible each day. Holding in the Light is the main work of the day.