Hello my fellow Pilgrims,
I must start again this week by simply saying, we remain healthy and safe here in Santa Barbara. Daily, my family prays for the health and safety of you and your loved ones. I thank you for your good thoughts and prayers, I feel them and appreciate all the thoughtfulness. On my daily walks, I carry each of you with me, wondering how you are doing and what challenges you are facing…
Which makes me ask: How are you… really?
Ian came into the kitchen yesterday and said,
“I miss hugging my friends!” I told him, “Me too, I miss hugging everyone!”
On the whole, parenting is about our lived experience. On the good days you are guiding, teaching, loving and accompanying your child on their path. Other times, you parent in the desperate hope your child won’t repeat your own personal foolishness. Which can be anything from sun-in and bangs to even more serious life consequences. You parent in the hopes that you can prevent bad things from occurring. You also must parent through your own fears, the thoughts that wake you in the middle of the night. But through all of it, you have a series of experiences to fall back on… a history.
The challenging reality is in this moment, we have no experience. We don’t know how to do this. We can’t research, can’t phone a friend, and we can’t turn to our parents or grandparents to ask for guidance. We don’t have family and friends who are experts on pandemics. In our entire life we have never worried that sitting in church, getting your roots done, or having lunch with friends could cause you to contract a deadly highly transmittable virus. Even more upsetting is that during our normal lives we could be asymptomatic and passing this deadly virus to both strangers and loved ones alike.
It’s flipping stressful!!! Each of us are feeling some of the highest levels of anxiety we have every faced.
In times of great stress, we long for interactions, those simple daily contacts within the normal rhythms of life. You may miss the person in your exercise class, the barista who knows exactly how you like your coffee, or the random good morning to a parent at school—we are all missing normal familiar faces. Also, in times of great suffering, people also turn to faith, longing for community in their religious practices. Today marks the beginning of Holy Week and it will be spent in especially painful isolation. Today, I acutely miss the faces of my fellow 7:30 am mass attendees.
Quick Side Note: I’m about to mentioned Norah’s hospitalization, it’s hard to believe May marks three years since the anorexia diagnosis. We marvel at Norah’s tenacity, love and grit— she is doing great, promise.
When Norah was hospitalized, I would sleep on a futon in her hospital room. Every morning she would meet with her team and I would go get coffee. The woman who ran the coffee cart was lovely. Every day she would ask about Norah and say, “I hope today is a better day.” Her coffee was the balm for the wound on my soul. That coffee was both kindness and love. To this day, she remains the face of the Divine in that uncertain time. These simple, familiar human interactions put a smile on our faces and are the human connection we need. Which is another reason why this time is so difficult. We can’t offer a hug, hold our loved one’s hands or literally be their shoulder to cry on.
And that my friends is painful…
Our family dinners are most often silly, inappropriate and filled with laughter to the point of tears. But, my favorite dinners are the ones filled with the more serious questions we pose to one another. Ian recently asked the question, “What is your most cherished belonging?” We all went around the table identifying a thing or things that were treasures. Norah answered without skipping a beat. “That’s easy.” She said, “it’s my ring.”
The ring she wears, is my grandmother Ellen’s wedding band. Grandma only wore the ring for a short time. My grandfather was killed in WWII when my mother was still a toddler. My grandmother remarried, gave birth to my uncles, and the wedding ring went into her jewelry box. I can’t recall how it came to be that I started wearing the ring. Both my Mother and Grandma were happy that I could wear it. The ring was tiny, I mean teeny tiny, my grandmothers’ hands were small. The platinum and gold ring has a thin filigree band across the top. I loved it because it was special to both my grandmother and my mom. Grandma wore that ring through the most joy filled and darkest moments in her life. And for my mom, it was one of the few things her father had selected just for her mother. I loved that someone I never knew, loved these two women as much as I did. I wore the ring in high school and until Jeff proposed, and then it went into my jewelry box.
When Norah became ill, we went from doctor to doctor to try to figure out what was wrong. I watched helplessly as her health deteriorated. I sensed she was losing her fight and it terrified me. As a fierce Mama Bear, I would have none of it. I wanted Norah to have something tangible to marshal her fight. My prayers were answered, when one day the ring came into my mind. I dug through my jewelry box, knowing that her hands were perfect for the tiny ring. I pulled it out, and while she was curled up in her bed, I climbed in holding her close. I slid the ring on her cold tiny hands; “Norah,” I said, “This ring has been passed down from your great grandmother. This ring is now yours. It holds the love, grit and tenacity of all of us who have worn it. Today marks your place in our line, the women in your family are warriors. You are a warrior. When you struggle and are tired, you rub your finger across this ring and know in your soul you are never alone. We are with you always.”
The ring… is now Norah’s legacy. It is powerful. She knows her power and connection to her tribe. She walks with that knowledge, of who she is at her core. Who we are at our core is critical in these times. What we believe to be true matters. Who and how we love matters. My connection to my faith is even more present in this darkness than ever before. It’s why we have been lighting candles, we need to be reminded of the light.
My maiden name is Flynn, and I have always been drawn to Celtic Mysticism. The concept of the “Thin Space” has its origin in Celtic Mysticism. In its simplicity, the Thin Space refers to the space between heaven and earth. That there are times and places where the veil that separates God from us is so thin—that if we look closely we can capture a glimpse of heaven. I think of it as something akin to fog, something that is moving, where at moments you can capture a clear glimpse, then just as fleeting, the view vanishes. I know I have been in that place, when in my bones I know something is true. We have all been there. That moment when the weight of your soul is too heavy. You have wrestled with something for too long. You go for that long walk; you are silent and then suddenly you feel that deep sense of peace. That space, that complete peacefulness is what, spiritual teachers call the “Oneness” of God. That is the heart of the thin space.
So the question becomes, in these times of uncertainty how are you finding your thin space? How are you finding the “Oneness of God”? Many of us can, like the Celts, find the Divine in nature. Others are attending mass and prayer services via Zoom and Facebook live. While others still struggle to find peace.
When I look at my children, I see that Ian is at his heart a Celtic Mystic. He can access the thin space quicker than Norah. He has a spiritual intuitiveness, he gets it. We read the daily scripture readings and I get irritated that Ian has drifted. Then I ask him a specific question, and his concept of God is so far beyond mine. I’m left speechless. You want to feel better in the pandemic, you need a reality check on where God is in the darkness?… You should talk to Ian.
My scientist Norah however, loves the structure and the ritual of mass. It’s Sunday, we go to church. Norah’s faith is deeply structured, the thin space isn’t her wheelhouse. Which is why the ring for here is so special. The ring is a tool for her to understand the unknowable. When I watch her rub her ring, often unconsciously—she is accessing the thin space, the space that has no beginning nor end, it is the legacy of love…. both visible and invisible and she is part of that connection.
Many of you are doing that too. Are you baking your Dad’s favorite chocolate chip cookies in your kitchen? Are the cookies a connection to the love of your childhood? Are you making masks for first responders because your grandmother taught you to sew? Your quiet pursuits may be your thin space.
I will leave you with the words of Jesus
“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
Matthew 18:20
In my heart, the two or three gathered may be in my living room, they may be me praying on the phone with my friends… Even more important, they may be my daughter rubbing her ring thinking of the grandmother she never met. Each is woven into my life, my tribe and my community, and because of that knowledge I know in my heart, that the Divine is always in my midst.
The Divine in me bows and honors the Divine in you.
xo, Kathryn