Fullness

I thought of whining about the cold on our hike yesterday, but then I decided to give thanks I don't collect snowballs on my butt hair. Watching the poor dog try to deal with the collection of snowballs on her backside was slightly painful, especially when she tried to lick them.

So, I'm thankful my fingers and face were chilled and snowballs did not accumulate anywhere on my body.

I'm also thankful for Billy Collins this morning who spoke words of grace much louder than the prophet Isaiah. 

Love by Billy Collins

The boy at the far end of the train car
kept looking behind him
as if her were afraid or expecting someone

and then she appeared in the glass door
of the forward car and he rose
and opened the door and let her in

and she entered the car carrying
a large black case
in the unmistakable shape of a cello.

She looked like an angel with a high forehead
and somber eyes and her hair
was tied up behind her neck with a black bow.

And because of all that,
he seemed a little awkward
in his happiness to see her,

whereas she was simply there,
perfectly existing as a creature
with a soft face who played the cello.

And the reason I am writing this
on the back of a manila envelope
now that they have left the train together

is to tell you that when she turned
to lift the large, delicate cello
onto the overhead rack,

I saw him looking up at her
and what she was doing
the way the eyes of saints are painted

when they are looking up at God
when he is doing something remarkable,
something that identifies him as God.

I was struck yesterday climbing through the meadows with my husband, realizing it was too cold for hanky panky in the snow, that I love being alive. It is enough to bask in the beauty and fullness of life. I caught myself looking at him, the sparkling meadow, the goofy dog with total adoration. 

One of the gifts of my faith, my life, is that I get to live out of a place of abundance. It doesn't mean there aren't dark and desperate places. Sometimes I move into unhealthy busyness and neediness, but for the most part I get to live out of a place where the love of others and the beauty around me fills me up and pours into the people and places I encounter. 

I used to weep every time I read the Giving Tree. I actually hate that book about the tree who cuts herself down to the stump giving to the selfish boy. It is enabling at its worse. Many years later, Silverstein wrote The Missing Piece Meets the Big O. I don't know if he or someone he loved went through rehab during that time, but this book is about finding relationships not as a means to complete oneself or obliterate oneself, but as companionship for the journey. 

Delighting in another seems essential to love, but we so often distort our relationships as a means to fix ourselves or others. When we look to another for what we lack in ourselves or try to fill an other's needs, we often end up as a stump.

This last part of Collins' poem is what I catch myself doing at my best moments of ministry and living:

I saw him looking up at her
and what she was doing
the way the eyes of saints are painted

when they are looking up at God
when he is doing something remarkable,
something that identifies him as God.

I am closest to faithfulness when I watch with those eyes filled with adoration.

• Lying on the floor with the kids at church while they play with the Little People manger giggling hysterically when we put the cow where the angel belongs.
• Watching the boy who drives me a little zany play piano while the woman who can't remember why I'm here dances around the room.
• The acolytes bowing way too many times just to make sure they get it right
• The song of the congregation continuing without accompaniment while the pianist participates in communion
• The sun shining through the crystallized snow
• My daughters wrapping their arms tightly around me during the sharing of the peace
• Writing Christmas cards with an electric blanket and glass of wine seeing all those faces of loved ones who've been delightful companions.

Sometimes I think the church and each of us would be better off if we stopped talking so much and we just looked. If we allowed the delight and wonder of the remarkable break into our lives and we basked in the fullness of the love and beauty around us.