The Season of Miracles
“And I have put my words in your mouth, and I have covered you in the shadow of my hand, that I may plant heavens, and lay the foundations of earth, and say to Zion, You are my people” (Yeshayah 51:16)
I am grateful for a challenging, productive, complicated year. I have been pushed and pulled many different ways, and traveled many wonderful, albeit short, journeys. I’ve stretched and grown and hate what maturity has been foisted upon me, yet love my place in this world more every day.
I am reminded, during this time of joyful miracles, of my own series of personal miracles. I am grateful for them, though they have shocked me in and out of belief. Faith still there, but denial of the fantastic nature of my spirituality fought against its overwhelming pull. I was reminded of these incredible moments, the series of them, when speaking with a new friend over lunch.
When I was a baby, about a year old, I had spinal meningitis. I had a seizure in the emergency room (my brother was getting a cast for a broken arm). The doctors shaved my head, put an IV in my skull, drew a blood and spinal fluid, and basically told my mother I was not going to make it. My grandmother flew in from New York, took one look at the red hair shavings on my pillow, my dirty diaper and my general state of illness, and had a fit. A functional fit, Irish New Yorker style. She took me out of the hospital, had me baptized, and took me to a hotel room near by. My grandmother bathed me, fed me, rocked me and loved me well into the night, until a 6.6 magnitude earthquake hit the area. From the stories I remember, they were fine, and I was, in fact, fine. Well, even. A laughing, hungry baby girl again.
When I was 21, I had a crisis of faith and basically, had had enough of pain and misery – self inflicted and otherwise. Memory of this evening reminds me of that scene from Forrest Gump when Lt. Dan has it out with God in the middle of a raging storm. It is summer, 1991, the twilight is falling, I am sitting alone in a grassy meadow near my house, and contemplating the news – my mother wants me to come to New York to help care for my grandmother, who has cancer. I have dropped out of college, with a crazy plan to head to LA. I’m terribly sad, but there’s more. I’m getting really, really angry. The rage starts to boil up out of me as the night drops its dark skirt a little lower. The sky is summer blue, almost day, not quite night, cloudless and clear. I howl, I cry, I ask why. I have it out with God, I challenge, I beg for understanding, for relief, for love. The anger has shaken itself loose, burst out and up, and finally free, the things I’ve never dared say or shout, out there, damning me, releasing me. I am spent, emptied, tears falling slowly, easily.
I look up. A hand, a cloud in the shape of a hand, in an otherwise pristine blue sky. I fall back on my heels, crumble into the grace bestowed upon me, feel at once loved, wanted, valued, trusted and connected to God. And so very, very grateful – beyond words, beyond sounds, beyond the known limits of my brain. This manifestation, of my faith, powers me to get up, pack up and move to New York.
My most recent series of miracles, serendipities, and lucky strikes are production related – from work flow to opportunities that abound. I’m blessed to understand my own skills and am learning to trust that my dreams are possible.
What amazing things love can do. As we learn to embrace each other, in this time of joy and peace, we expand our abilities to feel and share compassionately. I’m gun shy, skittish at times, but I’m learning to love my place in this world, my journey, and all its incredible twists and turns.
The passage that opens this post is from the Zohar, a mystical Kabalastic text, part of the Jewish tradition. In teaching and sharing information, each new perspective or truth generated out of reading the Torah, a heaven is created. The process of learning and teaching, sharing and processing, creates beauty and truth, a multitude of heavens. I strive for this daily, and this passage speaks to my miracles and my mission. In scanning the text of the Zohar, it is believed on can absorb more than just the meaning of the written word, but truths inherent to the oral tradition it was generated from.
All I can say is more miracles ahead!
Peace,
Melissa
