It was another December at the end of 1987.  I had brought my in law mother back to her residence and she collapsed in bed.  She borrowed courage from everyone to get through the holidays in  Chicago.  We were in a blizzard and I ached to get home.  And unpacking I realized I could not leave her in her apartment and the weather worsened and I had noticed cars were not stopping at lights anywhere.  I would walk to get her  and somehow we would get back here.

We walked the blizzard streets and in great relief she slept upon getting into bed after a hot bath.  I wished to stretch out my hand to gain strength but an other  already reached for mine.  What do people do when there is no one to help? She asked.  The best they can Sarah, the best they can I say.

The journal entry continues  that December 30, 1987, and I scribed the following, ‘but we sit here and already your mind moves to the grandchild in the crib with not knowing that the son of your heart had already retired for the night in the room.  You watched the child in sickness and he watched his mother with her magic chants as they drew from his son the illness causing such heartbreak.  You can do it, he was saying, you can do it.

 And he was in awe as he watched this atheist profoundly calling on a benign force that would move the sickness from the body of his son.  He watched you move those  hands in air that was vibrant with the power pouring through you.  And he said that this is my mother and  this woman I don’t even know.

And he knew that in all that had transpired, in all that he watched, he would take to his writing and pour out what was observed and you think that if not observed, he would have known anyway. 

Let the power move through me and make me an instrument of thy peace, he said.  Just like her.’

In the morning a wiped out toddler recovered enough to stand and shout his demands to rattle the crib.

I have learned there is an undergirding of our Universes  of an ethical premise that supports life and demands of each of us the highest and best we can be.  It may be benign but it is a spiritual power we may call God or Allah or Jehovah  or Christ or simply Good.  It demands that we aspire to our Best.  We welcome obstacles before meeting  the greatest  of our challenges however different for each of us.

I Hear. . .

Look beyond the Light
into the face of the morning sun
to see that the Light beckons and extends. . . .

It would grant you peace
should you let it.
It will grant you life
should you welcome it.

Amen and amen.