Sacred Money, Part V

Four days ago, Denver police killed a 16-year-old girl.

So, what's new?  It seems that every day I read of police officers killing someone.

The teen was not perfect - neither was I when I was sixteen.  When we are sixteen, we are still learning how to be in this world.  We are young owls, sitting on a branch right outside the nest, taking little test flights, trying out our wings.  We screw up.

Grown-ups screw up, too.  They are not perfect, either.  But it is their job to protect, to learn from, to teach, and to empower the young people of this world.  In an ideal world, grown-ups would lead by example, doing their best, while taking ownership of their mistakes.

I wasn't there when the killing happened.  There are different points of view coming out, and I don't know if the police are telling the real story, or if the truth is being told by those who were in the car when the teen died.  

I do know that it is a rare event in our country for a police officer to take responsibility for killing someone he shouldn't have.  So rare that I don't have any hope of an officer being charged in this case or in any other police killings.  This is not only unfair to the victims and their families, it's unfair to you and me, and it's unfair to the police officers who kill.  When a person doesn't admit wrongdoing, he can't ask forgiveness, he can't heal.  How would you like to live with the blood of another on your hands and in your heart?  It takes a lot of armor to silence the heart of someone who has killed a girl not much different than one's own daughter or sister or niece.

This killing has sickened me for days.  Like Jessica's mom, I, too, raised teenagers.  When I put myself in Jessica's mama's place, my legs nearly buckle out from under me.  And when I think of the girl's friends who witnessed her killing, I wonder how they can possibly grow up respecting the people who are charged with serving and protecting.

So today, I sent some of the Sacred Money to Jessica's family in order to help with her burial and other expenses.  What a small drop in the large ocean of grief...

I broke my rules by doing this.  I had intended to form a relationship with the receivers of the money, but I have not met Jessica's family.  I probably won't know how the money is spent, and I won't know the journey of Jessica's mama's grief. 

The only "better" I feel, now that I have given the money to Jessica's family comes from getting rid of the itch that kept bugging me to donate.  Jessica is still dead, and police - and others - will still kill.  Hopefully, the family feels a little comfort in knowing that there are people who care.

May we all be kind to one another.



Sacred Money, Part IV
Sacred Money, Part III
Sacred Money, Part II
Sacred Money

There is only $50 left in the Sacred Money fund.  Some ideas for where that money will go are brewing in my head.  This has not been the journey that I expected it to be.  I will write about it soon.

If You Cannot Make It Different

Ever: if you cannot make it different or better, make it holy.

- Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Today CE wrote the line above in her piece about the loss of a child (for those of you who do Facebook, you can read the whole beautiful piece here).

Estes' piece touched me deeply, because my baby lies under winter's brown grass in a cemetery two miles from my home.  My baby's tiny body has been there for thirty-three years now.  His presence has been in my heart even longer.

If I can't make different or better what happened to my baby, I can make the loss holy, sacred.  Even in the most tremendous loss, there is beauty and grace.  I know it.

If I cannot rid Michael's body of cancer, I can make living with cancer in my house holy, honoring the teachings, the life changes, and the love that have come from it.

If I cannot give a warm home to the man in the sleeping bag beside the South Platte River, I can see my sadness, his face, and his predicament as holy.  That changes our relationship, doesn't it?

How can murder, war, living with PTSD or poverty or incredible pain be made holy?  We really can't "make" any of them anything.  But we can change the direction from which we look at them.  We can honor the pain and suffering, not being afraid to look the person or the issue in the eye, to touch them with our hearts and gentle hands.  To say,

"I see you.  You are not alone.  I am here with you.  I am not afraid of being with your suffering.  I see your pain, and I see your wholeness."

~~~

This morning I went to the cemetery to take the photo of my baby's grave marker.  While there, I thought I wanted to photograph the sky above his head - this is what Brian would see if he were able to look up.  (I know, I'm weird.)  So, I stretched out on my back next to Brian, and shot this view of the sky above my angel's head.

When I sat up and then kneeled to take a couple more shots, I noticed goose poop next to me.  Oh, yeah, I forgot about the geese...  I checked the knees of my pants, and I patted down my back.  All good.

I left the cemetery in time to drive to my therapy appointment.  After sitting in the waiting room a few minutes, Karen called me into her office where I sat on her black leather couch.  You know where this is going, don't you?  I sat down, and Karen looked next to me, and said, "What's this?"  I immediately knew what it was.  A green piece of holy shit!

Yeah.  I bet that was a first for Karen.  "Hey Honey, you'll never believe what one of my clients did today!"

Cindy

They finally cut down the dead tree.  Next to the huge stump that they left, there rests an RV and a big, ol' beat-up American car of some sort, green, looking lonely, forgotten.  The single driveway on the other side of the yard is taken up with two white cars - a VW bug, maybe 1970, and an old Camaro that could use some lovin'.  

Black plastic covers the windows of the red-bricked ranch-styled house, and in all these years of walking our dogs past this place - the "eyesore of the neighborhood" - we have never seen a sign of life.  The only evidence that humans might inhabit this place is the recent accumulation of the RV and green clunker next to the stump. 

Until today.  

Today when I left our house with Dharma, there was an opening in the clouds where sun rays poured down.  You know, the kind of image that makes us think of God.  I wondered if I tend to attribute such things to God because of books I saw when I was a kid, or if it's just a human thing to do - to think of higher things whenever the sky seems to open up and say, "Here I am, in all my stunning glory."

Dharma and I walked a couple of miles, and as we walked, I noticed the snow and ice that still linger on the north sides of houses and streets.  Everywhere else, it's browns and grays, but particularly in places that have to do with northness, ice makes walking just a bit of a challenge - especially when being pulled by a dog named Dharma.  Contemplating the significance of the north, I flashed back to the teachings I've received in the desert while on quest.  In many traditions, each of the four directions signifies something.  There are some that say the North is the color white. It is winter. It's a maturing, learning to work together, being in community.  I take it to mean that we slow down, care for one another, after coming from the West where we are more adolescent, impulsive.  In this ice and snow that wants to stay on the north side of things, we must slow down a bit, be a little more careful, and work together, Dharma and me.  I asked her not to pull as I took each careful step.

As we neared that house, the eyesore, a woman was standing outside of it!  Now a black car sat in the street, surrounded by a bunch of stuff, including a metal teapot.  In the street!  The woman called to Dharma - but she didn't know Dharma's name - she called her "Here doggy!", and Dharma and I walked up to her to visit.  Cindy.  Cindy has only one tooth on the bottom - at least that's all I could see - and there aren't too many on the top.  Cindy has skin as black as the plastic on her windows, and it must be a wig that she wears - long and sexy.  This house used to be Cindy's mama's, but Cindy's mama died a year ago.  She was all that Cindy had.  The VW was Cindy's first car.  My first car was a VW, too, but yellow.

Cindy loved on Dharma, and Dharma was good - didn't act like the crazy girl she can be sometimes.  I can tell that Cindy loves.  I felt love.  From her and from me.  I wonder if I will ever see her again.  After all, this is the first time in all these years that I have seen a human outside that house.

I just knew that was God who had come out to shine on our walk.  

Walking the Pier

I just found this bit of writing that I penned in 2013, a year and a half after Michael's diagnosis with Mantle Cell Lymphoma:

I have a game that I practice some nights when fears have been almost as real as the imagined man who lived under my bed when I was four.  I call it "Walking the Pier."   When thoughts go to "what will happen to me if (insert world's worst worry)," I look to see what the answer is.  What WILL happen if the world's worst worry occurs?  After answering that question, I wait to see what could happen after that.  On and on until, at the end of the pier, all that is ever left is huge, open stillness and potential - a peaceful body of water waiting to embrace me.  It feels very loving.

What will happen if Michael dies from this?  Well, I will be here, breathing and eating, and I will still have friends and family.  The grass will still grow, the news headlines will still spew atrocities and dramas, spring will bring tulips, and winter will blanket the trees.  

What if I end up with no money?  I will get a job.  I may rent out a room in this house or move in with a friend - I've had friends say that I could live with them if I have nowhere to live.  

What will happen if I still don't have money for food or other things I need?  People will help me. 

What if there is no one to help me?  I will be hungry.  I may die.  I am going to die at some point, anyway, so I may die of hunger, surrounded by growing grass, crazy headlines, and the spring tulips.  

And what if I die?  There is no problem there, now is there?


A year and a half later, and I haven't had those haunting fears for a long time.  Also, as of this moment, none of those worst worries have happened.  Michael is beside me.  The grass is still growing (though it might be taking a rest in this cold), the news headlines are still spewing atrocities and dramas, spring will most likely bring tulips - but ya never know - and winter has blanketed the trees.  

And the water off the edge of this pier is a big, calm blanket holding it all.

Sacred Money, Part IV

This is the fourth of a series of posts about some money that came to me unexpectedly.  I call it sacred money. I am giving away every dollar I was given, and I am carefully choosing the recipients - if possible, telling their story.  You can read my previous posts here:

Sacred Money
Sacred Money, Part II
Sacred Money, Part III


Sunday night, my silent walking buddy, Arnie, led me to an old two story home that looked to be at one time part of a block of row houses.  Now it's only one of two connected houses that are bordered on one side by new and nondescript apartments and on the other by a huge, deep, gaping hole that will soon be a seven story condo/apartment building.  The home that I visited was so close to the hole, I worry that one little earthy tremor could slide it down into that man-made canyon.  But then, I'm not construction-savvy - I hope those guys know what they're doing.

Arnie and I sat in the living room of this home, warmed by a fire in the wood stove, and I listened to Anna, a wonderful woman with short gray hair and a calm, present demeanor - a nun, actually - tell about the Catholic Worker Movement.  I learned quite a few things, and I may share them all sometime, but for now, I will say that it was refreshing to realize that Anna and those in the Catholic Worker Movement live the good stuff of Christianity - the example shown by Jesus' life.

From the Catholic Worker website:

The Catholic Worker Movement is grounded in a firm belief in the God-given dignity of every human person.

Today 227 Catholic Worker communities remain committed to nonviolence, voluntary poverty, prayer, and hospitality for the homeless, exiled, hungry, and foresaken [sic]. Catholic Workers continue to protest injustice, war, racism, and violence of all forms.

At the end of my visit, after learning that this house is home to nine or ten guests who would otherwise have no warm place to sleep and no consistent source of food, I shared with Anna the story about how this money came to be in my hands, and I gave her more than half of what I had been given.  There is no doubt in my mind that the money will be used in a way that will help those who need it.  For thirty-seven years, Anna has lived in this home, housing unimaginable numbers of guests as they find their way to more permanent housing, for many years running a soup kitchen, and always negotiating for those who have the least.

I have been pondering, trying to figure out what exactly has been stirring in me since my visit.  It is something beyond the information about what the Catholic Worker Movement, or even Anna, does.  I am moved by the peacefulness and quiet acceptance that I felt while Anna spoke, Arnie and I listened, others came and went, and Beer, the dog, hunkered down in my lap.  I am used to that in my home where only two people live, but to experience it in a house filled with a dozen people who have no familial connection - other than shared humanity - was sweet.  And I am also left wondering:  How much do I need?  When someone lives with a vow of poverty, not having much to call her own, but still living with the wealth of having all she needs - even enough to help those who have less - it challenges me to look at my life and what I think I want and need.








 

Always Right Here

Joe Fraley singing to his mom who has Alzheimer's

 
When you don't know where you are,

and you don't know where you're going,

be calm.

You are right here,

right now.

Always.

My dad had dementia for years before he died.

Dementia shows us

that the mind cannot always be trusted

(in fact, dementia or not,

it's always good

to seek a second opinion - but

not from another mind -

because these things

can lead us down wayward paths).

That the mind cannot always be trusted

can be a scary thing,

or it can be liberating.

Usually, our hearts

are more reliable.

It's okay.

"You're right here,

right now.

It's pretty here.

I love you,

and you have a nice face

and a pretty smile,

and you're a nice person.

I love you."

Right here,

right now.