crosses and consolations
If I sleep late enough, and if Mother Nature’s finally, blessedly shining, my first view upon waking is a cross made by morning light—part of our door’s framing reflecting off picture glass.
Seeing it always makes the body wait a little bit before rising. I’ll think about what’s going on in my orbit, with family, with friends. All those many loves, faces, and sometimes the crosses they carry… some pocket size, some private, some so large it takes a good many hands to help shuffle it through the day. My one size fits all visual reminds me, though, that a cross is a cross is a cross—there’s no checking to see how heavy it might be, how long it’s been carried, if it’s splintering, if it’s more smooth to the touch. A cross is a cross is a cross.
When I think on some of the most burdensome crosses I’ve witnessed among people, one would never know to look at his face, to hear how she talks, to share in his space, or to feel the energy she brings to a room.
I stand back and marvel at how he shows up despite. I find myself wanting to holler from the roof tops “Amen!” her boots on the ground still going. Crosses don’t always mean death, sometimes they bring about such a purposeful, loving, showing up for the living existence that another’s load is made all the lighter by pure presence.
“We are each other’s harvest;
we are each other’s business;
we are each other’s magnitude and bond.”
Our church community has a tradition on Good Friday of those who’ve endured known hardships carrying a large cross throughout the worship space as we pray. It’s a beautiful, meditative representation of another’s walk and the support of all the many gathered. My lean in whisper reminder to my children is that every single pew is filled with people carrying burdens we know nothing about. I say this for a few reasons. I say this because I want them to remember that there’s known and there’s private—and both is an okay way to do life. I say this because I appreciate the visual that even those who are privately touring can also show up for the supporting. I say this because we are there in community and it takes all kinds, all knowings, all walks, all people to witness, to share, to bear.
“We’re all just walking each other home.”
This is why we look at more faces than phones. This is why we get to know the people who regularly ring up our goods. This is why we follow nudges to reach out when the spirit conspires for such connects.
As David Whyte to beautifully offers in his Pilgrim chapter:
“. . .it might be that faith, reliability, responsibility and being true to something unspeakable are possible even if we are travelers,
and that we are made better, more faithful companions, and indeed PILGRIMS on the astonishing, never to be repeated journey by combining the precious memory of the —then— with the astonishing, but taken for granted experience of the —now—,
and both with the unbelievable, and hardly possible
—just about to happen—. ”