Finding the fruit, tending the vine

“Your wife will be like a fruitful vine…
your children like olive shoots
around your table…”
--Psalm 128:3

I was at the hospital yesterday visiting a friend and in the short time that I was with her she was visited by three chaplains. By the time the third came, we were laughing.  It was like the beginning of strange joke; three chaplains walked into a hospital room: the first was a Jew, the next was a Christian, and the third was a Muslim... Now, I just need to figure out the punch-line. 

And I am wondering if the punch-line has something to do with misunderstanding. Because I’ve been thinking about misunderstanding a bit lately.  And it all started when I read Psalm 128 about a week ago. As I came to the line about the “fruitful vine” I was elated; I realized this psalm was read at our wedding! 

Back in 1988, when we were choosing readings, I remember being struck by how apt these words felt. I was marrying someone who loved gardening and I loved olives! How much more perfect can you get?  What I understood the psalm to be promising was something like this:

Marital joy and pleasure, will be yours! A companion! Children! And spaghetti sandwiches whenever you want! (And that is not a euphemism.)  I understood them to be about opulence, comfort and security –sustenance and pleasure! I half expected a Nobel Prize, and invitations to speak at Cambridge and Harvard to spring up along with all those olive shoots.  But—in hindsight—I think that might have been a slightly immature understanding of God’s promise, even of God’s fruit…

You see, what I have come to understand after 30 years of life with a beautiful wife, loving daughters, and periodic struggles with depression and insecurity, as well as a file cabinet full of rejection letters is this:  the fruits God gives us are not always the fruits we imagine we want, but they are always the fruits we need (to paraphrase Mr. Jagger & Mr. Richards). 

Here is an example of what I mean:  Last Thursday I volunteered to print and bind several copies of an anthology for a children's writing workshop I was helping with.  The booklets needed to be ready to hand out to the students when they arrived at 9am the next morning. Not a problem, I thought.  I have access to copiers, and a little binding machine.  I figured it would take a couple of hours at most.  I started working on it around 4:30pm.  Of course, everything took longer than I imagined and by 9:30 I was calling home to warn my wife that I might not be home before midnight, and in my heart I was beginning to suspect that it could take all-night.  And I was beginning to suspect that it was my own incompetence that was making everything take so long; my disorganized ways, and my hunt and peck typing skills and my lack of focus and…

I guess my wife could hear the anxiety and frustration in my voice, because the next thing I knew she was volunteering to come help me. When she offered, my initial reaction was: No. Please, don’t come. You don’t need to do this.  It’s my mess. I’ll take care of it.  But, finally she convinced me that she wanted to help and by 10:15 she (and 2 daughters) arrived with dinner in tow. They told me to take a break, and went to work.  As I ate, I could hear their laughter, their joy, bits of silly conversation ringing out as they worked and chatted.  By 11:30 they were finished. and though we were all tired, and eager to get home, our spirits were high and laughter was still ringing out.  In fact, I felt positively renewed.  I had been overwhelmed and frustrated, frightened at my own incompetence; I felt broken and useless when I called her, but now I felt almost giddy and full of life.  As we headed out the door I kept thanking them and hugging them. I couldn’t help myself.   

What kind of fruitful vine does God promise us? When I was 30, I thought it would be all strawberries and cream, olive oil and mozzarella, but now I see: sometimes it comes in the form of a wife who won’t take no for an answer.  And sometimes it might even come in the form of a husband who needs more help than he can ever imagine.  What if the real fruit has nothing to do with comfort or pleasure or spaghetti sandwiches, but is found in the opportunity to help each other, to put the needs of another before your own; the chance to be a little bit more like Christ?  What if we started looking at each other's brokenness and saw not insufficiency or something to be rejected, but a gift from God, a fruitful vine, an opportunity to grow in love (and joy and laughter)? Wouldn’t that be something? 

Now, if only I could figure out how to apply that to a hospital patient and an abundance of chaplains.

Recognizing who we are

“...the God of Jacob,
who turns the rock into a pool of water

and the flint into a flowing spring…” 
--Psalm 114:8

How often do we feel misunderstood? Or worse, unnoticed.  Unseen.  People look at us and see not a refreshing pool of water or a life-giving stream, but a jagged rock, a flinty piece of stone.  They see not us (at least not who we imagine we are), but someone else… Perhaps it is just who they think we are.

Sometimes this isn’t necessarily unpleasant.  At least a few times I have been standing in the frozen food aisle at HEB and had someone ask me where the eggs are?  Or, wandering through Barnes and Noble, I am occasionally stopped by someone looking for a particular book.  Both cases might be explained by the fact that I was wearing a tie and looked like I could be an employee.  But, explain this one: I was waiting at the light at Gessner and I-10 when someone pulled up next to me and rolled down his window. I thought he was going to ask directions, so I rolled mine down ready to help. But, instead he said, Hey! Are you a preacher? You look like a preacher.  (I wonder what he would have thought if he had seen that I was wearing my red pants!)

People have their ideas, their opinions; I still remember overhearing a salesman tell my mom that I had wide hips like a girl.  I was 8 years old.  That was 1967. I was in the dressing room at the Craig’s store at Memorial City.  All, I wanted were some hip-huggers and a Nehru shirt! But what I remember is that comment.  It has stuck with me. In my imagination I was a lean, athletic build. A cross between Peter Noone and Jimmy Wynn! Was it true? Did I have wide hips?  I don’t know. Do I still? Does it matter? I guess the answer is obvious; to an 8 year old boy it did.

No matter how hard we try to be a fountain, too often the world looks at us and sees only a pile of rocks (in mom-jeans). 

Anyway, perhaps because of my life-long concern over my hips, I try to exercise every day. I get up and go for morning walks.  It is something I’ve written about before-- my morning walks to the park; and over the years a part of my morning routine has become picking up the trash at the park.  I try to make the place look a little better for the people who come after me.  I’m not alone in my efforts. There are a few of us.  We have a kind of community.  No special handshakes or anything, but we know each other’s faces and we thank each other for our efforts. And when the messes get really bad, we offer sympathy and a helping hand.

But during the school week I am often out extra early—before dawn, so I don't see my trash buddies, and when it is that dark I can’t always see the trash --or what’s in it.  One morning I had the awful experience of picking up a pizza box only to have a swarm of ants come streaming out complaining that they hadn’t finished breakfast.   So, on this particular morning I was just walking, praying my rosary and enjoying the stars. The sky was beautiful and clear and the trees were thick dark shadows against it. At that hour the park is pretty empty, but occasionally someone would pass and--not wanting to disturb the quiet-- we would mutter a quiet good morning to each other.  Near the end of my walk as I was coming around the far end of the park to the street side I caught a glimpse of something in the headlights of a passing car.  It was a Burger King bag standing on the curb. I thought about just leaving it. Someone else will get it.  But, instead I walked out the gate. Picking up the bag, of course I found more: a cup and fry envelope close by and burger wrapper a few feet away with some wadded up napkins and a couple of ketchup packets.  Anyway, there I was bent over by the curb carefully trying to pick up a straw and cup lid without letting go of everything else, when I heard a voice call:  Hey. I haven’t seen you for a while. How are you doing?   

Looking up, there was the silhouette of a woman paused on the track.   After a few niceties, she thanked me for picking up the trash and waved and disappeared into the dark. Only after she was gone did I realize it was Sara. The freckle-faced woman in the hijab that I talked about in another of these essays.  I couldn’t see her face, but I knew it was her by two things: first, her speed. She’s a pretty serious runner. And second, and most certainly, as she passed under the dim glow of a street lamp I caught a glimpse of her head covering.

After putting the trash into a can, I headed home feeling slightly giddy. I kept hearing those words in my head: she hadn’t seen me for a while.  She had stood out to me, because I don't see many women dressed like that. Full body jogging suit and a hijab. But me, I'm just a goofy old guy who walks at the park. We're a dime a dozen! No one even sees me...  And yet...

It feels good to be noticed. Makes us feel –what? Seen. As if someone has recognized that we matter. We have value.

But how? Why had she recognized me? We don't really know each other. We just see each other at the park --and not that often.  I was out in the street, a good 15 or 20 yards away from her. And it was dark. And the nearest street lamp was half a block away. And my back was to her; I was bent over the curb picking up trash and… oh.  That!  She recognized me not by my face, not by my clothes, or even my name, but by what I was doing. She knew me by my action. 

And in that moment I felt truly recognized. Like I had been truly seen. And it felt wonderful. Almoast home, I paused at the corner.  My shadow stretching out over the damp grass, across a driveway and into the street ahead, majestic and tall --a reflection of how I felt at that very moment.  I looked up into the sky in wonder at the feathery edges of the tall pine trees against the fading night. And I remembered those beautifull lines from Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem, “As Kingfishers Catch Fire.”

“Each mortal thing does one thing and the same…

…what I do is me: for that I came.”

And I thought –yes. This is who I am. This is why I came.  I am more than the mistakes I make. The annoying habits I can’t seem to quit.  More than the foolish things I say in public.  I admit that sometimes I may be a rock, a real stumbling block.  But sometimes, gosh darn it! I can also be a pool of cool and refreshing water. And standing there I had the wonderful feeling that this person, this near stranger, had recognized that. Had recognized me.

Of course, there is more to me than what I do at the park.  For instance, in the 5^th grade a girl told me I was a good kisser.  You can probably tell, I am still very proud of that.  And of course, there is more to Sara than her head covering, her speed and her great posture.  But for the moment, I felt seen, truly seen and it felt very good.  Realizing that I still had to get home and shower before work, I started walking again. And noticed again my shadow stretching out before me.  Looking at it now, I realized how comical and elongated it actually looked. And I noticed something else; the shape of it bounding ahead of me shrinking slightly as I came to the next street lamp. Watching it, I realized there was something about the middle… the shape… in fact, the pockets of my walking shorts seemed oddly prominent. I touched them.  In one was my phone; the other had a packet of Kleenex and my rosary; but there was something else about the shape of it --of me... something about the hips…  Oh well… At least I was recognized. That’s what really counts.  Right?

The grace of gift and giving

“What return can I make to the Lord

for His generosity to me?

I shall take up the cup of salvation

and call on the name of the Lord.”

--Psalm 116:12-13

I keep hesitating to write, waiting for something profound to say or some beautiful epiphany to happen. Waiting until I have something to share.  But this morning during my prayer I was contemplating these 2 verses from psalm 116 and it occurred to me:  I never have anything to share… except that which is given to me by God.  And so, here is what God has given me and I (like the psalmist) take it up and offer it back to God.

What do we have to give to the Lord save that which the Lord has already given to us?   Even if we would make an offering in thanksgiving we would only be giving back to God what God has already bestowed on us.  We have nothing of our own to offer.  Consider the example in the psalm: The cup of salvation –the literal cup—comes from materials God provided, and is shaped by hands God created, through talents God bestowed. As well the spiritual cup “of salvation,” it too is a gift, a grace God offers us through the gift of Jesus Christ.  And all we can do is take up that gift and offer it back to God in praise and thanksgiving.  In a sense, all we can do is “re-gift” the gift we have been given.

And as I pondered that, I began to think: isn’t that a kind of reflection of the Holy Trinity.  The gift of grace and love radiating back and forth between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in a kind of eternal communion of re-gifting. God’s love is not only a gift that keeps giving, but a gift that calls out to be given—as if it were never completely accepted until it is given away!

We receive the gift and the gift itself calls us to give it away, to give it back to God, and by doing so we take part (in however small and humble a way) in the beautiful relationship of love that is the Trinity, a relationship of generosity, of abundance, of sharing, of love.    

What has God given you today?  Offer it back to Him.  A quiet rainy day? A moment of laughter? The tears of a friend?  A prayer? A cucumber sandwich? Or the cup of salvation? Don’t hesitate. Share it; in fact, re-gift it! And remember, whatever you have been given, its not really yours until you give it away.