The Heart

At the end, in those last hours, I place my hand on your heart... willing it to stop, encouraging it to ‘go home’. It was the most painful thing I ever did and still haunts me with grief.

Your heart wrapped mine,

Gesling it, protecting it,

Teaching me new layers of love

And new depths to being loved.

Now I must learn 

To keep the seed you have placed in my heart,

To allow it to die, resurrect and grow.

New shoots of life will emerge 

from my heart, nourished by yours.

One day, a blossoming will come 

and I will place the seed of love to be treasured 

into the hearts of those I leave behind.

I receive the gift from you 

and commit to passing it on.

Unfilled Gap

Today I came across a quote by Dietrich Bonhoeffer,

There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so. One must simply hold out and endure it. At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort. For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled one remains connected to the other person through it. It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness. God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled and thus helps us preserve -- even in pain -- the authentic relationship. Further more, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy. One bears what was lovely in the past not as a thorn but as a precious gift deep within, a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain.

Of course, I am sure I have read this before. I am sure I reflected on it seriously and studiously. Now I read it and the tears flow, more flood-like than ever before. Eight months and two weeks... but who is counting! I knew I would grieve, but perhaps I never knew what this flavour of grief would be. There have been other griefs, but whole chunks of my own soul departed those last breaths. As much as I hunt the cupboards, I cannot find those pieces of my soul... and the Makita drill... it has disappeared too, and there is no-one to ask where it is!

I reflected today on the emptiness and the pain of this ongoing, authentic relationship.Do I even hope for the silent joy? It is hard to imagine in the torment of memory. Yet I find myself constantly searching for memories to try to appreciate and give thanks for that life-giving moment to counter each little death. I look for the silent joy in the taste of juice or the wearing of a T-shirt. I seek a hint of what was lovely in a sip of coffee or a favoured song. I catch myself trying to appreciate what was once deemed beautiful in the echo of today.

Echoes are exactly that. The sound of the echo reminds how terribly far away the voice has gone. Presence cannot be captured in the bounce of reflected story. It is real and it is remote.

I know there is a hidden treasure. And when one finds a hidden treasure in a field you sell everything to buy the field. It is no surprise, therefore, that I would continue to search the stories to husband my treasures.

The rainbow colours grey

Being isolated somehow invites us into a strange global awareness.
We are alone.
We are not alone.

It is over 5 months now since my beloved died after a six-year journey with cancer.
I am alone.
I am not alone.

For the last 5 months, three have been spent in inglorious isolation... trying to figure out who I am. For years, he gave me positive identity: friend, companion, beloved, lover, wife, mother, grandmother, carer. While the maternal aspects remain, they are also changed, as I seek not just to be mother and grandmother, but parent and grandparent - subtle, but important.

He also reinforced for me a sense of colour. The colours did not fade with age, rather they became more pronounced, more vibrant, more exotic and blended with delightful nuance. At times, his hair was fire engine red - a tribute to Arsenal football club, as a Gooner. Mostly, his hair became vibrant blue - in support of Beyond Blue, as someone who confronted mental health stresses by insisting on living positively and proclaiming good news with every fibre of his being.

It was infectious. I continue to wear blue and pink hair. I don't just do it for his memory and I don't just do it for others. Otherwise, why would I have maintained it during three months of isolation? No. There is something about my own hyphenated identity in the mixing of colours and choosing how I present myself to myself. A Professional Superviser once asked my how I could be so many different things - why wasn't I more clearly definable? I struggled to explain I was a child of pluralism, but it was too much for him, so I had to find another Superviser.

Thus began decades of wrestling with concepts of identity. I was greatly assisted by the work of Myong-Duk Yang and Clive Pearson in naming why I could not be an identity. I am, after all, not of a single cultural identity. I am 'mixed blood'. Once upon a time, I was labelled a 'mongrel'. They would more kindly have named me as 'hyphenated'. As you can see from the title of my blog, the attitude stuck!

Today I read a heartbreaking piece by Iyabo Onipede: For white people only. It was written in the context of [yet another] race-related death in the USA. In Australia, the timing is relevant - it is the end of our 'Reconciliation Week' - a time when we recommit ourselves to learning and speaking truth about genocidal history and actively seeking to redress wrongs perpetrated on First Peoples across this country.

In my setting - the Uniting Church in Australia - we have rewritten our denominational constitution document to include a Preamble, which reminds us all of the context of being a largely migrant-led church in an Ancient Land with Ancient Peoples. God was here before the arrival of Euro-versions of the Gospel. God was already in the business of creating and blessing. The Church does not get to define God. God gets to define the Church.

When we were working on the Preamble, some migrants asked: [paraphrasing...] Shouldn't we also have some statements there about migrants and multiculturalism and the diversity of colours. It is wrong to label the issues as simply black and white!

This was, of course true, but we also recognised how easy it would be to distract or dilute the importance of what needed to be said if we hijacked the agenda. The priority at that moment in time was to name the need for truth-telling and commit to reconciliation. We therefore made the commitment, not to accept a label of third peoples, but to be counted as Second Peoples, agitating to reimagine how colour-influenced behaviours might play out. We took upon ourselves the shame of white privilege and entered into a greyness of identity, sacrificing much of our celebratory vivid. People of colour cannot choose to be black or white, but we can fade.

In reading the Onipede piece, I was reminded:
I do not carry the pain-body of Aboriginal experience.
I do carry the pain-body experience of Mixed-ethnicity Migrant Mongrels.
The experiences are different.
And they are not simply binary - they are not just black and white.

So, I do not write about lived experiences of Australian Aboriginal black-deaths-in-custody or violent vilification of African-Americans. I hear the stories and join my hot tears with others. My tears carry a reminder that as someone who is neither black nor white, I have a calling to live another story.

Grief has made so much of my life grey. As much as I colour my hair, I cannot dismiss the absence of colour. So much colour departed last December that the sky and blossoms seem almost offensive in their vibrancy. The sepia of the bushfire skies and black-grey ash on every surface seemed appropriate for weeks on end. Then came the isolation: rare sightings of family, occasional online chats with friends, a full life of meetings with no social coffees to balance the business relationships.

I tell the proud story of mongrelism. We are adaptable. We are survivors. We move between worlds and eat whatever is set in front of us. We are used to being attacked, so we have default defensive settings that allow us to continue strong when others stumble. We redefine existence, rejecting the stories presented to us and the conformity of regulated injustices. We are dangerous.

Let me be clear. I do not want to hurt you. I do not want to dismiss you or your identity - whether you identify as white or black or cisgendered or transgendered or religious or atheist. I appreciate your difference and I do not want to be you. I just don't want you to try to abuse me by trying to control the definition of me.

You see, I have experienced racism, from black and white and Chinese.
Racism simply diminishes us all. Stop it. Get over it.
You can eat hummus and noodles in the same meal.
I have experienced misogyny, both from men and ingrained in the behaviours of women.
Misogyny simply diminishes us all. Stop it. Get over it.
Stop talking over the top of women or not hearing what they say or recognising their areas of expertise.

So, today I am making a plea...
In the binary-thinking of  blackness and whiteness, don't force the rest of us to be grey.
Those in the in-between may naturally be in the middle - able to adapt and negotiate between you. We may be able to empathise with you both. We are not necessarily 'other' (unless you make us so), but we are. Do not contribute to invisibility by dismissing us. Perhaps we bring what black and white might benefit from.

Grey skies may or may not permit rainbows. We look to the sky, seeking light. Fleetingly, I long for transfiguration and ascension stories to re-image themselves as I look to the Heavens... is this why those stories have a place?
Then we look to the depths. In the grey of oceans, we are astounded by the miracle of a coral reef, and horrified by the crime of decay and destruction perpetuated even on life in the deep.

What can I do to bring more colour into the world?
In seeking colour, I planted bulbs.
I am expecting colour to emerge from the depths.
I am waiting.

Countless

Five months since you died.
Four months since your Thanksgiving Service.
Three weeks since your birthday.
A month to our anniversary.
A few minutes since I last reached for you.
An eternity since I last held you
(Or anyone else for that matter).

Give me a number.
How many hours or days or years?
How long?
I close my eyes to try to squeeze back the tears, but they simply find new corners from which to escape.
Ev’ry time I hear the phrase
When we get back to normal
My breath catches and I try not to scream
I can’t go back
None of us get to go back
We can not undo death
By wishing it were not so

I try to focus on those things that promise hope and joy...
But they are bittersweet, for their joy was to be found in the sharing,

Perhaps I will set my sights on satisfactions and signs of blessing.
They are more achievable.

Keeping Vigil

My congregation keeps a prayer vigil each Saturday for the Covid19 situation around the world.
These prayers are inspired by their love, care and commitment.

Opening

Source of Life, how do you weep?

In lonely rooms,
in crowded camps,
in anxious waiting zones,
in offices and assessment areas,
we join with the voices of those who try to find words...
What shall we say?

I ask for mercy...
Mercy for those who fear to sleep, in case there is no waking,
Mercy for those who lose hope, while life and possibility is put on hold.
Mercy for those who are turned away or left behind,
Mercy for those who long for touch or contact.

I ask for peace...
Peace for those whose hearts are hardening, as they try to cope with daily stress,
Peace for those whose anxieties have turned to anger and ugliness,
Peace for those whose terrors and tensions creep into physical outpourings of grief and horror,
Peace for those whose current trauma feels as if it will never end.

I ask for Hope...
Hope for those who are wounded - for healing, of bodies and hearts,
Hope for those who despair - for signs of light in our experiences of darkness,
Hope for those who face the loss of potential, loss of work, loss of wonder and delight,
Hope for those who long for love and connection in their isolation.



Meditation    

On this ANZAC Day, we remember those whose spirit remains.
We remember
- stories of humour
- stories of perseverance
- stories of parents, grandparents, heroic and ordinary...
- stories of far-distant places and stories from the backyard...
- stories of call-ups and enlistments, of service, of shattered lives,
Of sacrifice...

I pick up my piece or rosemary...
And remember...
I bring to mind those who are gone from us.
What would they say to us in this time of global concern?

I try to listen for their voices, whispering encouragements,
then shouting and cheering us on.
I contemplate images - faces, hands, smiles, twinkling eyes, warm breath.

For some, it is memory that must carry us through:
Memory of you,
Memory of better times,
Memory of past and memory of promise.

I wait upon you, lighting a candle that speaks of mystery...


Intercession

Tonight I pray for nurses and carers.

I pray for one who offers care by phone and online.
I pray for her patience and wisdom, for creativity and imagination.
I ask you to keep her healthy and energized.
I ask your blessing on her work and her home.

I pray for one who manages others.
Give her discernment as she nurtures her team and brings out the best in them.
Give her skills to translate and interpret as she liaises and enables and supports.
Keep her motivated and fit. Keep her safe.

I pray for one who coordinates clinic and cases, who supports specialist practice.
As she deals with professionals and amateurs, as she faces down the terrors of those around her,
Fill her will calm, compassion and the joy of knowing she is making life so much better for so many.
Watch over her family and may her home be a haven of love.

I pray for those who are training and mentoring nurses and carers and paramedics transitioning into new ways of doing things.
I pray that learning and understanding come together, woven into the best care possible and the knowledge that this is indeed vocation.
May such calling come with a deep sense of life purpose - the realization that we are interdependent - and this is a good thing!

Tonight, I pray for Emergency Workers and those who did not expect to be Emergency Worlers:
- for GPs and their staff
- for Clinicians and Pathologists
- for Ambos and Paramedics,
- for Posties and Pharmacists,
- for Triage and Testing Centre staff,
- for Parking Attendants and Security Personnel,
- for Nurses, Nursing Aides, Porters, Transport staff,
- for Phebotomists (clinical vampires!) who take blood and those who collect swabs.

I pray for those who are afraid to come to work, but come anyway.
I pray for those who are tired and anxious.
I pray for those who suffer hesitation or self-doubt.
I pray for those who are daily learning new ways.

Tonight, I pray for those who fight the battle of despair and depression.
I pray for those who mourn.


Thanksgiving

I give thanks.
Thanks for those who have served.
Thanks for those who serve now.
Thanks for the possibilities that call us all forth.
Thanks for memories that sustain and offer comfort.
Thanks for sunrise and sunset, for music and art and good food.
Thanks for laughter and tears.
Thanks for understanding.


Blessing

God bless us in the night and in the morning.
Gift us with your creative energy, as we seek your story to be written into our souls.
Gift us with your strange way of Humanity and Divinity... may we learn to follow your Way.
Draw forth your Spirit in all we are and all we do.

And so we pray, in the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, One God.
Amen


More prayers for this season

Easter Saturday

I can’t breathe...
It’s not Covid-19.
It’s grief.

Every time I try to take a breath,
my body responds with the deep sob and groan that racks my soul.

Today the absence is in every step and every glance
Or lack thereof.
He filled my world, leaving me without reference points today.
I go through the motions of daily activity - wondering why bother?
What is so important anymore?

I cannot even lay his body to final rest.
Regulations and social distancing, the quarantine of Sabbath rest,
Prevents the intimate, even the private goodbye.

People are dying and being buried without ceremony, without rites,
as if humanity is taking a holiday in our quest for isolated living.
I am not complaining - the sacrifice is shared -
But it is not easy and I will not pretend it is so.

How dare the sun shine again after the darkness of the hour of death?
Does not eternity continue to despair?
Is not the very fabric of creation torn like a curtain?
What will tomorrow bring? Who cares?
For now, I cannot breathe.

Six Faces of Easter - Holy Week - adapted for our Circle in Parramatta

Maundy Thursday Story
https://youtu.be/28Vy4dLJaZQ

Good Friday story
https://youtu.be/u-kbFqaquUo

Easter Sunday story
https://youtu.be/4-33L1iylF8