Aspect

He always asks for a room with a view. As we travel we’re learning that the definition of “view” can vary greatly from one proprietor to the next.  This time we’re in Midtown Manhattan.  “Good things will happen on the 16^th floor,” she predicts.  We smile like we know.

 

This room doesn’t disappoint. Facing Madison Avenue, across the street sits St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  We’re overlooking what is the final months of the 3-1/2 year $177M restoration of this national landmark, the most comprehensive ever undertaken in its 136 years. The scaffolding is pretty much confined to the spires above the radiating chapels.  This is our view.

When we take our first look, I fail to notice the statue of the Virgin Mary perched atop the Lady Chapel. It will be a day or two before she appears to me. She’s lost amid the construction, further obscured by the grey skies on this unseasonably chilly October day.

 

Some may gawk at the opulence, the amount of money invested in this house.  To ignore it means deterioration beyond repair.  A quick fix doesn’t do it justice.  Over time, all homes need not only repair, but to be returned to their original luster, whatever that is.

   

I’ve spent the last year and a half attending to the restoration of my own home.  That the physical structure needs this work is obvious, and has been for some time:  The white carpet proving unequivocally it was never a match for growing boys and their free spirit mother, broken ceiling fans with exposed bare bulbs, rods sagging under the weight of faded drapes, and outdated paint colors marred with layers of dirty fingerprints and the desperate cries of the misunderstood inked indelibly in places their authors thought they’d never be seen.  That I personally need this work to happen isn’t so obvious, at least to me any way.

It’s palpable to him though, it always has been.

For years I fear my home is in decline, falling into disrepair.   Helplessly, I watch it crumble; the projects become bigger and reasons for my procrastination harder to hide.  I’m troubled by my inability to take the first step forward, to invite someone into my mess.  The thought of this undertaking crushes me like Atlas, the weight of the world on my shoulders. I discover it takes more than money.  I’ve got the means, why can’t I find the way?

Maybe I know asking someone to work on my home means inviting that person into my life.  So much more than rotted window trim and cracks in the drywall is on display:  Our happiness, our heartache, our history, our homesickness; the splinters we’re trying to surface on our own, the wounds we decide can heal without stiches. This person I invite in sees more than I can bear to look at myself, but he also sees the beauty and goodness I’ve lost sight of.

It’s hard not to feel judged, to stand up and proclaim to be a capable, self-sufficient person yet admit to being incapable of getting this particular job done without help.  In our guilt and shame, we want to make it as quick and painless as possible, just fix it; any Band-Aid will do.  But what we really need is a loving restoration, someone with the patience to work slowly, to make the investment, to choose the materials that reflect the family within, to show us this home can sing again, to heal it from the inside out.

Mass goes on at St Patrick’s every day, 365 days a year during this renovation.  On this brisk, sunny Sunday morning we worship among the scaffolding. I think about how we all move through our lives, perpetually under construction. We’re born with our purpose and everything we need to execute it, yet we let circumstances and encounters pull us away from our true north.

 

A few days later and twenty degrees warmer, I snap another photo of the cathedral from the 16^th floor.  There’s Mary, shining brilliantly in the sun above the Lady Chapel.  I don’t know how I missed her.

To move forward, maybe we need another to show us a different view, someone to remind us our foundation has always been solid, to help us not only dig out the gem lying beneath the tattered layers of life, but to free us so we can shed those layers permanently. There is someone out there with the patience and love to help restore us to our true selves. All we need to do is be open to the gift.

Acquittal

He asks if I’ll reconsider.  Caught up in the frenzy that is cookie baking and holiday card making, I initially decline his invitation.  “But it’s at the Wentz Center”, he says, “I’ve never been there and the acoustics are supposed to be amazing.”  This is important to him.  I find the time.

   

So often we go to concerts wanting the artist to play the songs we know by heart.  If they string together too many “new” songs in a row we tune out.  We want to sing along, if not out loud, in our heads.  And so when I hear “Reckless Forgiver” for the first time ever I’m surprised by how the entire performance moves me.  It’s not just the song itself, it’s the brilliant acoustics (everything they are rumored to be), in this intimate theater and the joy bursting from the band members as they play. I find myself singing along.

The lyrics have stuck with me, turning in my head, becoming part of my mantra for 2015.  When I first proclaim I want to be a reckless forgiver I think I’m talking about granting grace to others.  It seems like a noble cause, and I know I am holding on to a grudge or two I should probably shed.

 

As months fly off the calendar, I find forgiving others really doesn’t require recklessness, in fact, it requires very little effort. I hardly notice I’m doing it.  Things like being late or forgetting to close the garage door are minor offenses in my book, forgiveness is almost automatic. And so I start to think about the situations I have trouble forgiving; a common theme surfaces in no time:  I can forgive imperfections in others, but I can’t seem to forgive them in myself.

Wait a minute . . . I replay the song again.  Could it be this songwriter is seeking to be his own reckless forgiver? 

Of course, it makes complete sense now. And, wow, forgiveness is a whole other animal when we look in the mirror.  The artist sings of wanting “peace like a river, a long life of sanity and love that won’t leave too soon”. When I think about what gets in the way of peace and joy and love, it’s our inability to forgive ourselves for being human and the ebbing of self-worth in this wake.

So much is against us when it comes to forgiving ourselves. The world tells us we need to be perfect.  We’re assaulted daily, hourly, minute-by-minute with carefully edited highlight reels hosted on social media. The only brokenness we see is in ourselves, which pales in comparison to these airbrushed lives.  We pick apart every word misspoken, selfish reaction, lapse in attention, every kindness we leave unsaid.  We kick ourselves for a lack of clairvoyance, the inability to be in two places at one time.  We chastise ourselves for sleeping in, taking a break, for not being able to get it all done.  With no one else do we need to forgive so frequently, so feverishly, so relentlessly.  No wonder it’s called reckless forgiving.

   

What would happen if we threw caution to the wind, stopped worrying about the possible consequences of letting ourselves off the hook and allowed for our own absolution?   Wouldn’t that make us, well, just like everyone else?

The real crime here is not our imperfections, but how we let them rob us of “peace like a river, a long life of sanity and love that won’t leave too soon”.  These are ours for the taking. 

It's not a song we know by heart, but one we can teach ourselves to play.  Hey, reckless forgiver, I leave it all for you.

Nostalgia

It happens on my birthday, two years ago. I find myself at the dinner table with three of my four siblings; by some odd circumstance spouses are absent.  We lapse into our childhood, howling with laughter, recounting and redacting story after story, giving each other a hard time about past transgressions committed amid the omniscience and ignorance of youth.  We call my dad, of course he belongs here; he’s one of us. We wish we could call my mom.

It’s hard to describe, how we are transported to a sublime haven; it takes only the magic of speaking in the native tongue of memories made within the confines of our exclusive tribe to evoke these latent feelings.  We are home in every nuanced sense of the word.

Home is defined as a place of safety and security. We know what to expect here, how each member will react, respond and rejoice in us. Everything about home is unique to our clan. Our home has a scent, a look, a language, a culture, a sense of humor.  Here we have nicknames no one else calls us. Macaroni and cheese with scrambled eggs and sliced hotdogs is a meal combination.  On winter Sunday afternoons popcorn cooked over the stove in a blackened saucepan is dinner devoured in front of “Family Classics”. The slam of the screen door is familiar; we know how the remote control works. We know the certain way to turn the bathroom door handle to open it on a hot, sticky day, and can tell the stories of the ornaments we hang on the tree each Christmas.

And so when she suggests my boys are homesick I’m paying rapt attention.  She speaks of children of divorce, aching for the home they can never return to.  While the three of us may be surrounded by the same four walls, our interactions are forever altered; we become a different version of ourselves, to ourselves and to each other.

How do we miss this, what seems so obvious once it’s pointed out?  Why do we assume it’s possible to fully recover, and we’ll all just get over it with time?  Maybe it’s because we do, or we appear to anyway.  We adjust to our new normal.  Over time we fill the gaps as best we can; we begin to think less about what it used be and more about what it is.  And just when we think we might be feeling okay again, someone new enters the picture.

I don’t care how old we are, five or fifty-five, we all pause when we stumble upon the realization that mom or dad’s someone special isn’t leaving. It’s kind of like turning on a soap opera back in the day to hear a voice announcing the role of a beloved character is now being played by someone else.  Staring down evidence we can’t deny; the homesickness lying dormant within us makes a raging re-entrance we can’t articulate. There’s nothing wrong with this new person, in fact he’s probably pretty great, full of life, joy and possibility. He can be all kinds of wonderful things to us if only we let him. But first we need to address within ourselves that the one thing he can never be is the person who came before him. And while he may assume a similar role, we’ll never be able to recreate the same, exact version of home.

Is there a cure for homesickness?  I don’t know. I question whether we want one. Resisting change is inherent in our make-up. Homesickness is chronic, part of the human condition.  But what’s really wonderful is our resilience, and capacity to create new versions of home as loved ones move in and out of our lives.  This doesn’t happen overnight; it can’t be forced or willed. But its secret is simple:  When we remain true to ourselves, loving and honoring the one we’re with, the home can’t help but open up the doors and let us in.  What we want more than anything is for the members of our home to be loved and cared for. Someone who can do this belongs here.  This, after all, is what home is.