Sometimes, as I watch my life go by, a theme begins to emerge. Maybe it’s just what I am open to noticing at that particular time. Lately, it seems to be a desperation, a clutching at the things we want, think we have to have, to be happy.
My interactions of late have shown me, ever so clearly, the lengths to which I and those around me will go to protect what we think we need: our particular addiction – person, place or thing. We protect, defend, deceive, retaliate, cajole. We use every weapon in our arsenal to keep us from the loss of it.
This morning, I watched a girl stand on the black edge of a stage and dance her hands through the air, speaking a language that I cannot understand; still it always brings me to tears. She interpreted beautiful words, so familiar to me, but how different a thing it is to read them on the page than to see them played out in the air before me. To see him stricken, smitten, and afflicted. To see each one of us going our own way. To see that by his wounds we are healed.
To be able to show those things is a gift I wish I possessed. To have the beauty and the knowledge of that language – what a wonderful thing. But what few people know about the beautiful girl on the edge of the stage is that she grew up with parents who are deaf. That the absence then gives her the extraordinary now.
I wonder, if only we were able to let go – to accept the absence – what wonderful gifts we might find of our own.
Yes, that was beautiful. I was fighting back tears during second service. I had stupidly turned around and watched the text on the screen during first service.