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| Praying at the Healing Service in Lourdes, France |
I didn't say goodbye to her in the end, but I did get to give her a big hug, and she's known for her hugs, at a chance meeting at church in November. I didn't feel moved to say anything to her. I thought afterwards that perhaps I should have. But it didn't seem needed or even appropriate at the time. Apparently she didn't either. We hugged and just felt each other's warmth and love. In retrospect, that hug was sacramental. It was a blessing to me, it was my blessing to her, and we acknowledged the divine during that hug.
Zelda touched many of us with her effusive love and joy. She oozed with the Holy Spirit and felt your heart better than most. And she organized pastoral ministries at All Saints Pasadena so that we could be caring, inclusive, and compassionate, with the parish and also with each other. When she faced the end of her time on earth, it was obvious to all that the grieving would be intense.
And it was. There were daily vigils of prayer and story telling from the moment her move to hospice was announced. And after she moved on through that divine veil, we held a nightly novena, a ritualized way to offer prayers both personally and communally. Her North Carolina family and friends said goodbye last week and this past weekend, we in Southern California did. The memorial was profoundly emotional, sad at times and downright joyful at others. With Zelda dancing down the aisles with us, we sang out "This Little Light of Mine".
I've been examining my heart during the past few weeks. The tears flowed freely at first. Sobbing burst from my lungs since July but were just as powerful after Christmas. And I wasn't a confidante. I was just someone who was touched by her, who worked closely with her for several years as the Pastoral Care liaison from the vestry, and as a Labyrinth ministry leader. She opened my eyes to recognize and accept rather than evade and reject gifts of love.
It might not be obvious from this blog, but before I started it, before Zelda touched me during our regular meetings, I resisted opening up, letting people into my heart, revealing my inner self. I was lousy at hiding my inner feelings, but I wouldn't admit them easily until the wounds grew to unbearable sizes. My first long term relationship suffered from this behavior. But things started to change and my journey took a new turn.
And my journey continues to this day.
So what happened during those weeks between Christmas and the memorial on January 13? I pray daily, so that wasn't different. I pray weekly in Taize worship, and that has in the past made big impacts on me. But I was praying communally, like in Taize, daily during this time. Somehow, in some way, I felt that community prayer working on me.
How is that possible? What was it about repetitious, chanting prayer that comfort many people like me? I don't know the answer but I do know that it's a salve. I get to share my open wound with others as they share theirs with me.
But we don't dwell on the wounds. We repeat our prayers. We acknowledge the pain, and focus on prayer. Together. And it brings life. Like the Lord stitching a baby together in her mother's womb, like the scab stitching together the edges of cut skin, the prayers bind us together into living tissue, living cells that come together and become living membranes, living tissue, living beings.
We become alive when we are stitched together in prayer.
Perhaps that's why I ask for your prayers often. Or why many ask me for mine. We pray so that the light shines on us. On all of us. On all parts of us.
Including the wounds. Because as the mystic Rumi once said, it's in the wounds where the light enters our being.
Let that little light shine. Let it shine on us all. On all parts of us. And like Zelda, be the little light that shines on others.
