Lessons from two Caminos: Time Heals Nothing

         

It’s ironic that the reflective solitude that I enjoyed so much  last year on the Camino de Santiago would be what made me feel lonely as I hiked this year.

Maybe that’s not fair, or totally true, because I am a much different person this year. It’s now been two years since Cullen’s accident.

The old adage that “time heals all wounds” is a lie.  But at least the wound isn’t still hemorrhaging constantly. The fact is that wounds do not heal back to normal.  This is simply not true. Another axiom is that one achieves a “new normal,” which is also a lie.  There can be no normalcy when one loses a child.

From my medical perspective, an immune system attempts to repair that void or empty space where living tissue once was only by “granulating” it in with scar tissue.

So when Pontius Pilate asks, “What is truth?”  I can tell him, “The truth is, time heals nothing.”  Recovery through grief requires work.  Yes, lots of really hard work, and much of it continues to be painful.  Reading, talking, sharing, silence, and prayer. Time does create a kind of a “space” where we can put things – good things, positive things, an opportunity for suffering to be redemptive; and the “breath of life” will again come down upon us and we will find life within us.  Or we can choose to not put good things in this space, and the vacuum will suck in all of the horror, and negative, and evil, and we will dwell in this bottomless pit of sewage, where there is no life and no breath.  I witnessed this in a support group, where some members still wallowed in this lifeless sewage after 20 and 30 years.

Like Josie Vander Woude, we must allow ourselves to be pushed up out of that pit, and the “breath of life” to rush into our gasping lungs. Yes, I am much different than I was.  Perhaps last year, I simply needed some alone time.  Time to scream at God, and at Cullen, and at his stupid decision to drink that night, and at FSU for allowing him the opportunity to make such stupid choices, and at myself for not teaching him to be more effing responsible, and at God, and at my ex-wife, and at China, and at his absent guardian angel, and at God, and maybe just to scream.

One of the transitions I made last year, if you muddied through the garbled, mostly nonsensical posts of last year’s Camino, was that I found myself no longer angry.  And no longer desperately needing to tell everyone the horrible story so that they would also feel horrible, and, in turn, feel sorry for me.  And no longer even wanting anyone to feel sorry for me.  And no longer needing to tell everyone about the tragic accident; in fact I found myself actively avoiding telling the story.

I still love to talk about Cullen, and am told that I glow with pride and joy when I get to.  But now it’s the good stuff, and not so much the catastrophic loss.  Because, although it is both of these, the good stuff now allows me to rejoin life. There have been so many amazing “Gifts Left Behind” that allowing myself to dwell in that dark place would make his life here just a waste; his whole life here just a mistake.  And that’s just simply not the case.

So last year I welcomed this “time apart” from everyone that knows and loves me, and it did something to me.  Each evening, I got to see faces of other anonymous peregrinos that were becoming familiar from the previous night, or a week ago, or even from walking together for 10 minutes during that day.  We would share a glass of the local wine crop and tell each other stories of victory and loss, and that’s when I began to see the life a bit more holistically.  We all have lives, with our own losses and victories. Tired of crying, I found so much more joy in hearing others’ stories, and where they are in their lives than in telling about myself.

C.S. Lewis calls this philia (love for a brother), or even agape love, where you would give of yourself for another.  There’s a certain joy that is so much deeper about caring for someone else and ministering to them than there is in begging to be heard and ministered to yourself. And so life is a repetitive struggle between the two.  We want to be the focus, to be served, for others to make us happy.  And yet we cannot.  We can not make ourselves happy, or whole, or even healed.  Fortunately we also feel this tug towards others, and in that longing is joy.

“It is in giving that we receive.” (St. Francis of Assisi) We are called to serve, to minister to each other, to love each other.

 

Matt Maher says it well in this song that means so much to me:

(It became our theme song in Haiti, and Sarah sang it at the end of the funeral)

 

It’s waiting for you, knocking at your door

In the moment of truth when your heart hits the floor

And you’re on your knees

And love will hold us together Make us a shelter to weather the storm

And I’ll be my brother’s keeper

So the whole world would know that we’re not alone

This is the first day of the rest of your life

‘Cause even in the dark you can still see the light

It’s gonna be alright, it’s gonna be alright

 

At “the end of the day,” this becomes the manifestation of His love.  We take on a servant’s heart, and others see a change in the way we live our lives.  Everyone encountered becomes the living Christ.

She Wasn’t Being Rude

 

 

 

 

 

Klein Family Mission Trip T-Shirt Logo, Haiti 2012

“but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”  Joshua 24:15

Much Love

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Lingering Memories of Lourdes

Pretty much the last thing I expected to see in Lourdes was a parade with marching bands.  No, I guess the last thing I expected to see was a traditional native Indian band play and dance.  But yes, you guessed it, these are the things I woke to on Sunday morning.

(Ed note:  Sorry such a late post,  I’ve been trying for two weeks how to post an iPhone (.mov) video when WordPress insists it be a JPEG.  For now these photos are the best I can do)

I’d spoken to enough people, watched documentaries, and read a couple of books, so I was expecting lots of gaudy shops selling trinkets, t-shirts, and nick-knacks.  This didn’t surprise me, and I didn’t even really find it irreverent or sacrilegious.  These vendors were no where near the grotto, and besides, over a half a million visitors come to Lourdes every year, and some are simply tourists.  And I’m OK with that.  Many discover Christianity here, rekindle their faith, or grow in some aspect of their journey and want to remember it with something visible.

Also, I was told by Marlene Watkins, the founder of the American Volunteer agency there on the phone the week before I left that this would be “military weekend,” so I was actually looking forward to that.  And I very much enjoyed seeing their parading through the streets, marching and playing music.  It didn’t feel very religious, but the whole concept of military representatives of some 900 countries mingling, fraternizing and assembling together in prayer was surely a form of prayer.  I expect our Lord was smiling down on us all to see this.  Many of these countries were political adversaries, even enemies, and there was something beautiful about their kneeling down in prayer, side by side.

The grotto of Lourdes, where the Virgin Mary appeared 18 times to a young very poor Saint Bernadette some 200 years ago is difficult to describe.  Oh I could put all of the images in your mind, even show pictures, but, like the Cathedral at Santiago de Compostela, or even the view from a mountaintop, no justice is done.  The depth of beauty, the grandeur, the ethereal mysticism, even of that mountain-view is something that must be experienced.  Sometimes when we take a photo and look back later, it’s a fair picture of what was there.  But have you ever taken the picture of a rainbow, or a spectacular moon, or a spacecraft launch, or a panther, or even the inside of a cathedral?  When I later pull the image back up to share with others, I am so very disappointed.  I claim that is not at all what I saw.  To be fair, perhaps the picture does genuinely represent what these things looked like.  But not at all what I saw.  Certain things we see are part of an experience, and so we say they must be “experienced.”  Much like taking a spectacular picture from the top of a roller-coaster.  All of the other senses are missing when we later view a photograph.  That’s why when I first started posting on this blog last year on my way to Santiago, I stated that I had taken a few pictures over that month-long hike, and I posted some of them.  I said that some of the “places I went” just couldn’t be captured in a photo, and some were so special that I couldn’t even photograph for anyone else – just for my son and me to experience together.  And so it is with Lourdes.  You could buy a book, or go to a website and “see” what it “looks like.”  But being there involves so much more.

Believe it or not, there have been many, many well documented medical, physical miracles that have occurred here.  To be verified, very, very strict parameters for factual documentation must be followed, and they take years, medical panels, and significant travel expenses back and forth to testify.  But these are definite facts, miraculous cures with no other possible explanation.  What is harder to document are the millions of others, whose mental health, and harder yet, spiritual health have been restored.  When a depressed or schizophrenic is no longer, how do you prove it?  When one is “no longer” feeling suicidal, how would we know?  When faith emptiness due to death or illness is restored, only we know deep inside.

But are these any less miraculous?  And, of course, this is the stuff of Lourdes.  The long lines of pilgrims, many in wheelchairs and stretchers and hundreds of volunteers who come here year after year to push, carry, and help them.  Water is collected from spigots tapping the miraculous flowing stream, and hundreds of others are immersed in baths fed by the waters every day.

If you’ve read many of my posts, you know I’m no cynic, but my initial reaction was pity, knowing that the majority would go home without having been “cured.”  But then I walked around to see the doors exiting the baths and saw the faces.  Faces that seemed to glow with excitement and happiness.  Not some of them, but all of them.  No disappointment that he was still blind, she still was a paraplegic, and the frail couple walking together still agonized with every step.  They were giddy with enthusiasm, speaking to each other in some Slavic language.  The man carrying his small child with no hair seemed to bounce with each step, as he smiled and said something to me in German.  It was clear that these people had no false illusions.  This was not superstition surrounding magic water and a plastic figurine.  These people know Him and they had been immersed in faith itself, bathed in the cleansing of a mother’s unconditional love.  So, healing and consolation can bring joy, even in the midst of suffering and impending passing.

in this context, Lourdes reminds me of Santiago de Compostela.  Before my travel there, I asked a priest who had made the Camino, ” I don’t want to miss anything – is there anything I can do to prepare?  What can I do to get ready.”  The old Irishman told me, “Prepare? Get ready?  You don’t get it do you?  People have made the Camino for over a thousand years, Saint Francis of Assisi, several popes, hundreds of thousands of saints and sinners since medieval times. You can’t prepare. But be ready. The place is so full of Grace and Faith that you can cut it with a knife.”

And so it is.
Much love.

May 17 – Walking to Lourdes

I found myself with a case of the grade-school giggles as I left the cafe.  Not long ago, an episode like this would have affected me greatly, I would have been indignant, even angry, certainly not willing to donate another hour of precious time from today to go to the café owner’s bank.  But, as I’ve said numerous times, “It’s the Camino.”  And not only the Camino de Santiago, but when we see any journey we embark on as a “camino,” we begin to visualize every step of the trip as providence.  This event was foreseen, permitted, and if I view it in the “camino” context, one (or both) of us will grow.  Every person we encounter becomes important.  Important because they were placed in my path today for a reason, or perhaps I was placed in their path for a reason.  To become upset at events that are beyond my control, is not only unproductive, but even disrespectful.  This man clearly needed this 12E for my meal, the driver who cut me off in traffic is upset with her husband, and the client who shouts at me has a child at home who is very sick.  The man crying in the pew next to me held his mother last night as she died, the bank teller who snaps at me has a father with alzheimer’s, and my child who lashes out is struggling with their sexuality.  My neighbor who shouts at my dog for barking just got fired, and the woman inexcusably texting as she drives just found out that her biopsy was cancerous.

I laughed because I knew Gilles would give me a funny story to talk about, because his bank was still open, and from relief that no one was entering any of the stop signs that he flown through.  I laughed at my being in France walking to Lourdes, when my staff at work was screaming at being too busy, and my family was feeding the dogs and scooping the litter box.  I am so fortunate and so blessed, despite it all.  I refuse to be upset about a passport, a missed flight, a silly credit-card without a microchip, or someone who may be over-reacting.

Here for a Reason

And so “The Camino” becomes a new outlook on life, a new perspective.  Everyone is “here for a reason.”  When I screech to a stop because someone enters a crosswalk, they are no longer some random pedestrian who had inconvenienced me.  He’s a man home from Iraq, going to the beach with his son for the first time in two years.

And so I walked towards Lourdes, and became very, very fatigued.  Although the sun was still quite hot, it was almost 8 pm, and I’d left 13 hours ago.  I welcomed the shade as I traveled past Chemin de Croix and continued on “Route de la Foret,” a magnificent trail of rolling hills through the forest.  I thought about lots of stuff.  I always do.  The week was now taking its emotional toll.  I was hungry again, exhausted, wishing I wasn’t alone, and beginning to wonder why I do this to myself.

So why was I here on this day?  Why this place?  Lourdes is all about Mary.  If you don’t understand the relationship some Christians have with Mary, I’m not sure I can explain it well in a few sentences.  Perhaps it’s like our relationship with Jesus Himself.  Some people believe, and some people don’t.  Scripture affirms how incredible the entire story is, even two-thousand years ago, even to the eye witnesses who were telling the story, and leading worship.

     “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”       1 Corinthians 1:18 (NRSV)

The first “worship-leader” was Mary, who led so many to her son.  And so I have been pulled to Lourdes, where Mary appeared to poor, ignorant Bernadette so long ago, and where hundreds of thousands of faithful continue to also be pulled for the miracle that is here.  You see it’s not the soil, or the miraculous water, or even the grotto itself.  It’s the faith that they represent that can move mountains.  We come to Mary to pray that she help us. Help us to understand, to have strength, to carry on.  We know that she knows our pain.  My pain.  She lost her son also.  Her son was also killed in the prime of His life.  His blood and water flowed upon her from the cross. He looked down from that cross and told John that she was his mother now.  She was, of course, mother to all of us after that perfect sacrifice on the cross – the cross that represents love itself to His followers.  So yes, just as Christ humbled himself to us and felt the pain of our own humanity, Mary knows the sufferings of loss.

   

She is a disciple of the Lord, the first and best disciple, but one who surely struggled to understand him, just as we do.  She is a member of the “communion of saints,” helping bring us to her son, not someone who stands between us.

On a personal note, may I ask you to pray for me?  Was it okay to ask my dear mother on her deathbed to ask God to guide me when she was there with him?

And so that’s why its okay to ask Mary to pray for us.  To intercede on our behalf.  Think she does?  Think she can?  I would never have told my mother “No” to anything she asked me for.  And Jesus certainly loves His mother as much as I do mine, and likely considers her requests highly.  (Remember Cana?)

And we call all of those believers who have gone before us, praying with and for us, the “communion of saints.” They are not up there somewhere, praying for us, rather they are with us here, constantly, as part of “The Kingdom of God.”  So this “Kingdom of God” is not just somewhere we go “as a reward for being good” when we die.  No, it’s something we begin now, a choice we make everyday, here and now, as believers, to be the Kingdom of God, by choosing to live our lives the way Jesus asks.

So these were my contemplations as I stumbled through the wood.  The caffeine had long since worn off and I was struggling a bit to keep any pace at all.  This was a rare occasion where I reached for my music playlist for something to keep my morale and my pace going.  I had downloaded some songs that I hadn’t heard since grade-school at St. Francis Xavier, and had resisted the temptation to listen to them until now.  We just don’t sing them anymore, but seem pretty appropriate now:

Immaculate Mary.  Hail, Holy Queen (Oh Maria).  And of course Ave Maria.  A contemporary song by Matt Maher called Great Things, and a second, contemporary arrangement of Immaculate Mary by Josh Blakesly and sung by our own Sarah Kroger.

One last (very long) hill, and I was at last out of the forest, and onto the road.  I had placed a hiking headlight on, and must have appeared to cars passing by like Martin Sheen in The Way, dragging each foot forward at the end of his long hiking day on Camino. I was only about 2K from the shrine now, and I changed to Gregorian Chant music that I had downloaded in the 80s when it was popular, and quickly was pulled into a very mysterious place.

It was well after 10pm, I was tired and emotional, and after a few minutes of listening, I pulled out my earbuds for some silence.

Then I felt it, and heard it, and as I began to almost run towards, I began to see the flicker of the thousands of candles.  If you’ve not been to Lourdes, there are loudspeakers positioned over a kilometer from the cathedral, which is constructed over the grotto.  During the evening procession, tens of thousands from hundreds of countries, each hold a candle and walk in procession towards the shrine with “Our Lady of Lourdes Hymn” playing constantly, progressing through many languages.  Not surprisingly, as the pilgrims heard their own native tongue sing the “Ave Maria,” they would become very emotional.

     

As it turns out, in addition to the pilgrims, this weekend also would be “military weekend.”  Over 900 countries were represented here, marching in their finest, with their chaplains and military brass. Pretty moving to see hundreds of thousands of troops with their brothers and sisters from countries who may not be politically friendly towards each other, kneeling together, or holding hands in prayer. There is hope indeed.

Very tired, more tomorrow.

Much Love.