Once in a while, many of us with Internet access and e-mail accounts receive a letter together with assorted graphics that asks us to “light a candle” and to forward the request onward. The note says, “A candle loses nothing if it’s used to light another one.”
I’m not big on chain letters. I never was. (Yes, we did have them before the World Wide Web came on the scene.) And so, for the most part, while the good intent and inspiration might move me to momentary reflection, I don’t often forward these on. I think it’s because the part of me who doesn’t like being told what to do is still alive and well.
Yesterday, though, I received an e-mail from a friend. Her letter and its accompanying image were both simple and breathtaking. Her words and the photo told of the custom of ringing a bell when a patient who’s being treated for cancer completes his or her rounds of chemo-therapy. I agree wholeheartedly with a relative’s replying comment: The photo and my friend are amazing. I went to sleep last night and awoke this morning with this report from the front lines of life still on my mind.
How could I not? The photo – and even the thought to share a piece of her journey with us – reveal an essence that many of us live and die without ever glimpsing. The picture and her words said, “Here I am.” They shone with simplicity and pureness. They spoke an invitation to join her and to embrace whatever the day brings with purpose and clarity and gratefulness. And out of an experience – that for many would be held with fear and anger – arises unexpected light, paid forward.
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I’ve known this person for close to thirty years. And nearly thirty years ago I, too, was in hospital, although I was there to give birth to my firstborn child. For us, this was a scheduled procedure: a “C-section” for a baby who had not turned in womb and a woman whose hips were too narrow for normal birthing. In the words of our doctor, had it been one hundred years ago, we both likely would have died. I’m smiling now to remember this, since it hadn’t been much before my daughter’s birth that I had realized with some shock that there was no turning back, that this baby had to come out, one way or another. Perhaps each woman going forward with a pregnancy can relate. All I know is that I was stunned around seven months into the deal.
In a world where a terrible, tragic statistic shows that many women and their children still die during childbirth, we who have clear and easy access to doctors and surgeons, specialists and good hospital care are so fortunate. Sadly, many of us take these services (either paid for by the state or through insurance plans) for granted. May the fortunate among us reflect in gratitude, even just for a moment.
As for me, I worked through to Friday end-of-day and arrived on a Monday for the scheduled surgery. Despite a wee delay, all went fairly well, and after recovery I was taken to my room on the maternity ward. My room was right next to the nursery. Full of morphine and still quite unseated, I remember coming to with the sound of a lone baby crying. I listened in amazement. It was a moment that seemed to stand alone and last forever for me, but soon another little voice joined in and then another and another, and quickly the whole nursery of newborns was in full song. I remember the words floating in atop the sound, written by that finger I’ve come to know as Divine, always written in caps: CHORUS OF ANGELS it said to me. CHORUS OF ANGELS.
I’d like to say that I stayed in that wonderment, that the gift lifted me to the level of philia love and enlightened being. It didn’t. I think I may have complained bitterly at some point that I couldn’t sleep because of the ruckus. Eventually I was moved – unceremoniously wheeled out in my bed – to another room, far down the ward to a quiet, lonely room. So be it. I needed to be there to deal with what by then was an emerging concern with my daughter’s health.
But the gifts we are given never leave us, despite what we may think to the contrary.
I wrote on my website this morning that “We are given a daily reprieve…” These are words – a type of ‘God-flashlight’ – given to many of us in recovery from alcoholism and other drug addiction. The complete sentence is, “We are given a daily reprieve based on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.” For me, this principle has come to mean many things. This morning, more than ever, though, it means that all the gifts and all the love and all the light are always with us. We – I – just need to remember they’re there, to clear away the clutter around them so they can shine. To drink deeply of their wellsprings and to always share.
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Across the river from where I live, one of the year-round homes has a set of wind chimes. As wind chimes go, I think these must be the alto-saxophone variety. They’re gorgeous, long, husky, tubular things, giving off a deep, rich resonance when they sound.
I’ve learned that these chimes delight in the dusky night light and the early breaking dawn … that’s when their lover, the gentle winds of the day-start and day’s end, comes. They play then; caress then … and more and more frequently, that’s when the dog and I quietly go outside into that wondrous space, that’s when we wait and listen for all the gifts that reside there … all the chimes and bells and other choruses of angels.
They are there … they never leave.
May we each hear them today, in this moment, take them in and then send them out.
In love & light,
Always namaste,
Les
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Tags: a candle loses nothing if it's used to light another, bell ringing, chemo therapy, chorus of angels, Leslie Holt
January 19, 2012 at 7:36 PM |
thank you, Les.