I have been longing for home since I first experienced what the mystics call the thin place, during my *cancer treatment and recovery (2006/7). I cannot describe this experience in words. I would need to sing it, chant it, dance it. It was life-changing. Since then I long for home from time to time—the place from which I came and to which I will return. I long for it the way a tired child longs for comfort and rest.
Two years ago I walked with my sister Florence, to her last breath. A year ago I walked, talked and sheltered my adopted daughter Bettina, to her last breath. The first and the last breaths of life are the most sacred moments of life—God given at birth and God received at death.
I was privileged to do this, yet it all leaves me feeling stranded sometimes—alone with unnameable yearnings. Since my cancer experience I have become highly aware of the transience of life on this planet, and have sought to live respectfully of the time I have remaining. Since losing Bettina, I am also becoming sensitized to the losses that pile up around us as we age. People die and leave us one person short of a full deck! As my mother aged, I remember her saying so wistfully a number of times: “Everyone is gone now…I feel so lonely.” She lived to be 91 and truly was the last survivor of her clan. We were not close. I did not understand her sadness then, but I do now.
My respect for time, which has taken the form of a desire to participate meaningfully in the life of the church, waxes and wanes as I realize how much more urgency I feel for change than does my Mennonite Church denomination. The disparity can be stultifying and sometimes quite painful, especially regarding the hot-button issue of inclusion, an intrinsic extension of our peace and justice values.
I am a catalyst by nature…one of those annoying people on the side-lines who are always urging the assembled majority toward more. I do not yet know how to carry this attribute without it becoming cataclysmic! I live and breathe in an ethnocentrically based denomination with cultural leanings toward cautious introversion. This profile contrasts dramatically with my own background and personality and I feel like an outsider for a number of reasons. I don’t really know where I would fit, or if there is a fit out there for me. Probably not, given my idealism. Certainly not in either the Armenian Apostolic or Armenian Evangelical churches. I am an anomaly.
*****
It has been a difficult couple of years for living without dying. Now, as I face into the anniversary of Bettina’s last weeks, I hold memories in one hand and the present day in the other. There are days when I could really use an extra pair of hands to stir all of this into a drinkable soup.
(Curiously…just a few minutes ago, an extra pair turned up via email. You’ve just got to love this electronic age every now and again.)
Yes, I am a cracked jar and a ringing bell. I have walked through many storms, received and lost many oars and paddles. The ancient river bed is indeed muddy. I want to dance when my denomination, with all its goodness, prefers to stand, pensively waiting. Why would I not long for home?
(*For an account of this see Dying to Live on my website.)
Called By Name 