Thanksgiving Crumbs

"A desire to kneel down sometimes pulses through my body, or rather it is as if my body had been meant and made for the act of kneeling.  Sometimes in moments of deep gratitude, kneeling down becomes an overwhelming urge, head deeply bowed, hand before my face."  

~Etty Hillesum

Do you ever feel like that?  So overcome with gratitude and joy that you could drop to your knees?  The closest I feel to that sort of gratitude is when I am taking a quiet walk by myself, my eyes drinking in the beauty of trees, skies, flowers, sun and my ears absorbing bird songs and dancing breezes among the leaves.  Except rather than bowing low, my head, heart, and sometimes arms reach high up wanting to gather the beauty and goodness of God into my soul.  

And yet days and weeks can go by to the hum-drum of daily life or to the sad tune of heartache without my knees bending or my arms stretching wide in gratefulness.  I'm learning that these long stretches need not be.  I'm learning that the hum-drum days and even heartache days contain their beautiful, even glorious moments, if only I have eyes to see them.  Macrina Wiederkehr calls these moments "crumbs" for the soul, and I love that analogy. A warm, thick slice of bread is most delicious to the soul, such as the moments I am walking amid the beauty of an autumn day, but crumbs can be savored, too.  Indeed, when I take the time to savor them, rather than gulp them down without a thought, my soul is that much more satisfied.

"Crumbs are those small things that the world would toss aside, seeing little value in them.... Everything in life can be nourishing.  Everything can bless us, but we've got to be there for the blessing to occur." (A Tree Full of Angels, Introduction, xiii).

"Being there" or being grateful is a spiritual discipline, a practice that nourishes the soul.  Sometimes I practice this at the end of the day when I am lying in bed.  I think back upon my day and ask myself what "crumbs" I gathered.  Usually, they are the simplest of moments: a snuggle with my daughter in the morning, the sight of the red maple in our backyard, the conversation with a friend which left us each a little lighter, the smell of muffins baking in the oven, the laughter from my children and their father as they wrestled and tickled on the living room floor.  I think back on these crumbs, savoring them, rolling them around on my tongue.  My heart beats stronger with thankfulness, and I go to sleep at peace.  

Thanksgiving may be over, but there are crumbs on the table of daily life, if only we stop to look, to savor, to nourish our souls.  What crumbs have you gathered from today?  

An Everyday Hero

I'm a substitute teacher.  I fill in for kindergarten teachers all the way up to AP Calculus teachers.  I love the little ones, but I find it weird being around teenagers.  I used to think I loved teens and wanted to spend the rest of my life working with at-risk youth.  Maybe I'm too far attached from them now that I'm in my thirties, because my tolerance has certainly waned.  I now find most teenagers selfish, disrespectful, and annoying.  Forgive me, all you brilliant, self-assured, and kind teenagers, who actually look me in the eye, smile, and are friendly to others.  You are in the blessed minority.

The other week I met one of these minority teens who greeted me with a smile and "hello" in the early morning of a first period English class.  Beyond that, this young man actually came up to me at the end of the class to shake my hand (shake my hand?!), ask my name, and thank me for coming in.  And believe me when I tell you this gesture was in total sincerity.

I have since seen Mike (not his real name) three other times when I was back at his high school to sub.  I saw him again today.  The class I was subbing in had a guest speaker, and I watched Mike greet our guest with the same sincerity and friendliness he had also afforded me.  This maturity is just so rare!

I've got to be honest.  Mike is not the kind of kid I would expect to have such poise and confidence.  He has a hearing impairment that has caused his speech to be difficult to understand.  He isn't built like an athlete, and he has a noticeable scar on his body.  He's actually the kind of kid you would expect to be withdrawn, severely self-conscious, and made-fun-of.

We had a few minutes to talk at the end of art class. Truth be told, Mike has been made-fun-of.  I discovered that he is new to the district as of this year.  He moved in with his grandparents so he could transfer districts.  The district he attended for most of his life was no longer safe for him.  He said he had been bullied, and he had taken enough.  And then in an honest and humble voice, Mike said, "You see, I'm not like most boys.  I don't like girls; I like guys."

I'm not sure where Mike's inner-strength has come from, but today Mike made my hero's list.  A bullied gay young man with a physical disability and a strong lisp has learned to walk with his head held high, his smile broad, and his handshake warm.  Yeah, he's an everyday hero.

Where are the Red Tents?

So I came across this book at the library, New York Times Bestseller The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. Actually, it's a little embarrassing.  I came across the book around this time last year but somehow or other it got placed on a bookshelf in our guest room where I totally forgot about it.  When the library notices began coming, I really thought they had mistaken me with this lost book.  I finally had to pay the cost of the book (that's one way to support our local libraries), and here I find the library's copy on my book shelf a year later.  Anyway...

Books about ancient biblical characters don't usually catch my attention, but this one has totally sucked me in.  It's a novel based around the lives of the wives and daughter of Jacob.  This daughter Dinah is mentioned as a mere afterthought in the Old Testament narrative, yet the novel is written in her voice.  I am captivated by the lives of these ancient female characters.  Though there is much I could do without from ancient life (i.e. sharing my husband with other wives, exposure to all of the dangers of the wild, no anasthesia, and very few rights or privileges for women--to name just a few), I find myself drawn to the women's "red tent"- the place they go while menstruating and "hang out" with the other women in their camp.

To clarify, I do not wish for this in literal terms... how awkward and humiliating would that be!  It's what happens within the walls of the red tent that attracts me.  It's the way Dinah, her mother, her aunts, and the bondswomen share their lives together.  The red tent is where they weave together, cook together, braid one another's hair, birth one another's babies, nurse one another's babies, talk about their husbands and sex.  It's where they cry and laugh, sing and dance.  In a word, it's where the women come Alive.  And I believe our modern world would do well to learn the secrets of the "red tents."

What I mean is I believe that there is a comradry between women that is difficult to find even in a married relationship.  I have always believed that women need women.  We need our mothers, our sisters, our cousins, and of course our girl friends.  I am generalizing here, but women are the listeners, the supporters, the caretakers and nurturers of society.  They cook meals when a friend has a baby.  They call and send cards when a sister miscarries her child.  They cry with their mother when she is diagnosed with cancer.  But their tears are no sign of weakness.  No, women have the inner strength of oxen.  Often while carrying their own heartaches, they also help in juggling the burdens of their children, their spouses, their aging relatives, and their friends.

I have been blessed to be a part of many "red tents" in my lifetime.  My mother invited me into her "red tent" when I was still young.  She nurtured me through songs and kisses.  She taught me lessons about life and was my school teacher for six years!  She shared her heart with me--her struggles, her joys, her love.  She shared my aunts and her friends with me, and their examples helped usher me into maturity.  I've shared a "red tent" with a very special group of girls I've known since I was little.  We've shared secret crushes, laughed ourselves to tears, shared wardrobes, braided one another's hair, fluffed each other's wedding gowns, held each other's newborn babies, listened to one another's pain.  And I've had the privilege of joining other "red tents" throughout my lifetime, finding support and encouragement from women in every stage of my life.

But I fear that "red tents" are fading away.  Our culture does not have many structures in place for them.  Indeed our lives have become fragmented.  We now raise children without the help of other female relatives, and what a difficult task that can be! We have almost completely lost certain arts which used to bring us together--quilting, canning, baking.  Not that I am trying to imply that being female means being a domestic housewife, or that those arts only belong to women.  I am only trying to demonstrate how difficult it is to create "red tents" since we live on a fast-track, nuclear-family-focused, individualized society.

I have a friend who could really use a "red tent" right now.  Her husband has left her and her two children.  She is trying to pay the bills, help the kids with homework, do the grocery shopping, work night shift, explain to her children why Daddy doesn't want to live with them anymore... all while nursing a broken heart.  I wonder how many other women are trying to survive life alone, who have not been as fortunate as I to have been invited into "red tents."  If you are a woman, do you have a "red tent"?  If you have a "red tent," who might you open your door to?