I pass a woman on the beach.
We both wear graying hair,
feel sand between our toes,
hear surf, and see blue sky.
I came with a smile.
She came to get one.
No. I'm wrong.
She sits on a boulder
by a cairn of stacked rocks.
Hands over her heart,
she stares out to sea.
Today's my turn to hold the joy,
hers the sorrow.
The poet is Jeanie Greensfelder, an artist I know nothing about, who hails from San Luis Obispo, of which I know precious little, too. Apparently SLO lies about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. I have lived in both of those cities - and visited many of the mission towns in-between. SLO is one of the oldest California communities to be inhabited by Europeans but historians say that the Chumash people have been on the land since about 7000 BCE. Our daughters are "California girls. One was born in LA and the other in SF; one while working with Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Union, the other while I was a student at SF State University. I rarely think of them as Californians, however, as they both carry a Midwestern countenance from our days in Saginaw, MI and Cleveland, OH.
My heart was awakened (again) after spending a little time with "Taking Turns." It so neatly summarizes what it means to be a sacred clown: smiles and stillness, careful listening and sharing reality without ceremony. The clue comes in the line: by a cairn of stacked rocks. One is grieving and is respected while she silently rests in her sorrow. The other holds the mourner in her heart without interrupting or imposing: beyond sound, a sacred sacramental moment is shared.
Later in the day, during lunch, our mail arrived bringing us two packages. In one there were new masks to wear while engaging the world during the contagion. In the other, the annual calendar one of our daughters shares with the wider family linking her photographs to the march of days including birthdays and anniversaries. For so many reasons, the month of May spoke to me of the Spirit praying for us all with sighs too deep for human words.
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
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