Lame No More

No, I have not healed the lame - yet. This is about my son, who in Kindergarten, when I first read Here You Are to him, through himself backwards onto his bed, laughing. I took that as a clear sign that Here You Are had magic. I have read many children's books to my children for over twenty-eight years and this had never happened. The following week, when I read it to his Kindergarten class, one of the boys quietly got up, came over to me and gave me a long, silent hug. It felt like a Thank You hug. He was the only African American boy in an all white classroom, which has to be a bit of a drag at times.

Well, as my little Kindergartener learned how to read more and more, chapter books no less, Here You Are was not a book we read. It just became the "thing" that kept Mom so busy, spending hours on the computer and in the art studio. The day came, two years after Kindergarten, when I faxed the printing contract to China with half of my saved money. With the fax machine still humming, my son announced: "Mom, to tell you the truth, Here You Are is not a real story. Maybe OK for Kindergarteners, but I really don't think you should publish it. It's kinda lame. Sorry to tell you the truth, Mom."

Too late - I figured God just was trying to keep me humble. I laughed out loud, but my heart sank with visions of beautiful shiny copies rotting in storage.

Yesterday he was really, really sad. He had gotten sick on his last day of second grade and had missed field-day, the First graders singing "Fare Well", the graduation ceremony, his teacher reading Here You Are to his class, and exchanging Good Bye-s with his teacher and friends. He had to get picked up mid-day because of a stomach-ache. It was the sadness we feel when there is something that can never be re-enacted, something missed forever. His little face broke my heart.

"Can you read Here You Are to me, Mom? It will make me feel better and calm me down." I couldn't believe my ears. We ended up playing "well actually". "Here you are, standing on the ground...well actually, lying in your bed! Here you are, under the big, blue sky...well actually, under the big, wooden ceiling! Here you are, amongst the trees, the flowers and the butterflies...well actually, amongst the pillows and the sheets." He creatively added anything funny he could think of until the final pages where it all got calm, and then the little pay-off in the end. "How come Here You Are always makes you happy in the end, Mom?"

Waiting

I was recently invited to read "Here You Are" at the Seattle Children's Hospital. A four-year-old little girl sat down with me on a red couch, excited about such a shiny, colorful book she knew I was going to give to her as a present. I started reading and when we read the "Why am I here" page she told me she was here for waiting. As we moved on to the Wondering pages, she said she was wondering whether her Dad would ever come home. That he keeps leaving and coming back, but that he hadn't come back in a long time. We just wondered together about it in silence for a while. I was wondering about the circumstances her family might be in. Was it a divorce, a soldier Dad away on duty, or something else? We were strangely OK without answers, both of us, while looking out of the window next to us, with the leaves on a tree blowing in the wind outside. After a nice moment of silence and waiting we read the rest of the book that she seemed very satisfied with. She proudly held her new shiny book with her right arm that barely fit around it, while holding on to her rolling lillie-pad IV stand with her left as she left the playroom.

It reminded me of Osho, an Indian Mystic, who once said:"For those who can wait infinitely, things happen instantaneously." One of my favorite statements about enlightenment.

Forgiveness

"What does forgiveness mean to you?" Oprah Winfrey asked her guest, a young British woman who had lost her legs in the London subway bombings. "It just means peace to me" she answered. What a beautiful answer. The one who was forgiving, and the one who needed to be forgiven, had disappeared. There was no-one there. Only when there is no-one there - no "I" and no "You" - can there be peace among us, and God's presence becomes known to us.

The suicide bomber is dead of course, not playing golf somewhere enjoying himself on two healthy legs. Sometimes peace is a lot harder to come by. But it is always possible. No matter the size of the waves of the ocean, deep down it is peaceful.