Delivered at the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara
December, 29, 2013
If you prefer to listen, click on the link below for an audio recording
"It's not a cry you can hear at night
It’s not somebody who has seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah"
~ Leonard Cohen
I've been a Warming Center volunteer for the past couple of years, cooking and serving casseroles on cold, wet nights under the eaves of Jefferson Hall with friends and my kids. Never have I encountered such gracious dinner guests as I do in the people who arrive, cold, tired and hungry for a meal on those nights. Never have I BEEN such a gracious guest. Some of the guests don't say anything, but many of them express heartfelt gratitude for the simple meal we have provided. It makes me wish I had done more, made homemade cookies instead of store bought. Something to be deserving of such gratitude. I get the sense that when your life is missing so much, you develop a visceral appreciation for things most of us have the luxury of taking for granted: dry socks, hot food, warm blankets, shelter.
It is hard to put into words the impact the warming center has had on me. I have both nothing and everything in common with these hungry, cold people seeking a meal and a bed. My life seems embarrassingly rich, my problems so trivial compared to what fate has dealt these brothers and sisters of mine. I can give them a meal, but I am not equipped to repair the myriad problems that accompany them to that shelter on a rainy night: Homelessness, unemployment, addiction, mental illness, a safety net of family and friends that is damaged or missing entirely.
A couple of years ago I met a man who had ridden his bike from Oregon pulling his dog in a baby trailer. He was not a young man and he clearly grappled with some mental health issues. He was making his way the best he could. He eagerly showed me some of the repairs he had managed on his bike, outdoing MacGyver with his resourcefulness. It was really incredible. And he told me he thanked God everyday for what he had. He thanked me for the simple meal I had prepared as if it were a feast for a king. His gratitude was genuine and immense. And when he talked about his life, he did not dwell on the brokenness of it. Rather, he held up all that was good and true to him (his dog, his handiwork with his bike, his faith in God). He wanted to share that with me, he just wanted me to listen. And though his was surely a broken hallelujah, it was beautiful and humbling.
But then, don't we all sing a broken hallelujah? Life is tragic and beautiful, sometimes in the same moment. Troubles are NOT distributed evenly among us by a long shot. And not everyone accepts their lot like the man on the bike, nor should they. But even the most desperate among us see at least glimpses of grace from time to time, maybe enough to repair a flat tire, or find a hotmeal and a bed for the night. To be human is to be broken. And it is that beautiful, broken humanity that I share with the guests of the warming center and everyone else.
In her book, Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair, writer Anne Lamott says, "We live stitch by stitch, when we're lucky. If you fixate on the big picture, the whole shebang, the overview, you miss the stitching. And maybe the stitching is crude, or it is unraveling but if it were precise, we'd pretend that life was just fine and running like a Swiss watch. This is not helpful if on the inside our understanding is that life is more often a cuckoo clock with rusty gears."
Sometimes in our effort to repair, we get the thread all tangled up. And that's ok. It happens in spite of our best intentions. A friend of mine has a young adult son who is depressed. He dropped out of college and seems to be at loose ends. Like any loving father, my friend wants to help his son fix things. He gave him all kinds of "useful" advice, but his son just made excuses or, worse, blamed him for the state his life is in. Frustrated, my friend told me, you know what? I give up. I'm just going to listen when he needs to talk and let him know I love him. As you've probably guessed, he's untangling the knot his "helpfulness" created and together they are making small, messy stitches toward repair.
Where do I begin to repair what needs mending? Sometimes, just getting through the day takes all my energy. Can I learn to pick up a needle and thread, pull together the frayed pieces of fabric as best I can, and make one small stitch? And can I appreciate the beauty inherent in my imperfect needlework? Can I let go of my need to control enough to let other people help when I've tangled the thread or don't see a place in the fabric to insert the needle?
I can prepare a casserole for the guests at the Warming Center on a cold night. I can take a moment to remember what being 16 feels like and offer my daughter empathy instead of criticism. I can apologize to my ex when we've had a misunderstanding. I can put my arm around my son and let him rest his head on my shoulder when junior high school overwhelms him. I can bring my 99 year old grandma a cupcake and see her smile as she devours it. I can have a glass of wine with my aunt and just let her talk, knowing that her days are spent taking care of small children and my grandmother and she is exhausted. I can give myself permission to be good enough instead of perfect. -- Of course I can roll up my sleeves and join forces with other people to tackle the bigger repairs too, homelessness, climate change. But day to day, I can practice doing small things with great love, as Mother Theresa reminds us. I can be an instrument of grace. We all can. And THAT is amazing when you think about it!
Anne Lamott talks about the lost art of darning. Darning, she says, " is to send parallel threads through the damage in socks and sweaters, in and out, in and out, back and forth over and under, and somehow you have a piece of fabric again - such as the heal of a sock, that's good enough again, against all odds. This is sort of a miracle - good enough again." You just have to find a spot in the fabric to start from.
Some time ago I was walking with a young woman I work with. She has pretty severe autism. She is not very verbal, though she does like to sing, mostly Disney songs. She likes it when I sing too. She was agitated on this day as she sometimes is, screeching and periodically hitting herself on the head. I can only imagine how overwhelming the world must seem to her at times. Like all of us, she just wants to shut it out sometimes, scream at the world to stop spinning for a second so she can grab hold again. -- As we were walking, she sang the word hallelujah a couple of times. I didn't recognize her melody so I started singing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" to her, (sing chorus) She looked at me and her whole body quieted down. Mine did too! I touched her arm and sang it again. And together we walked back to the car.
I am beginning to think that, paradoxically, it is our brokenness that makes us whole. Repair happens along the frayed seam, the rough edge. That's where we grow and become stronger. As Leonard Cohen says, the cracks are where the light comes in. And I think it is in the daily mending of this beautiful crazy quilt called life, the appreciation of its mismatched fabrics, in the knots and loose stitches, that we find meaning, hope and grace, amazing grace.
"Amazing Grace how sweet the sound
that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I'm found.
Was blind, but now I see."
