June 7, 2003
Hard Blessings


Oh, it's been quite a week.

Life has been handing us some hard stuff lately. I know I'm not the only one lately who is finding life to be more cold and uncaring and difficult than I ever had suspected.

It is hard sometimes to not get caught up in all the things around you that are going wrong. It is hard to not be obsessed by the things you don't have — and of course I'm not talking about, you know, a new VW Bug Convertible (although one of those would be really nice). I'm talking about really important things that you don't have — or things that were once right that are now terribly wrong. Broken relationships and shattered hopes and one disappointment on top of another, after you had just started to think that maybe you were starting to recover from the last one.

In the midst of so much loss, it's hard to think about what we do have that makes life so good. Even in the midst of so many broken things.

Last weekend, Tom and I spent Friday night babysitting two little girls. They are the daughters of a wonderful couple we know. And I don't know the girls half as well as I'd like to, but I adore them, so I was happy when the opportunity came up to babysit them.

At the beginning of the night, after we saw the parents off to their party, we all enjoyed a nice, simple dinner. Well, this nice simple dinner consisted of cold cereal and yogurt, because it's what we had on hand and it's what the girls wanted.

Katie, the older daughter, was very well-behaved, and put on a good show for us. Madeline, the younger daughter, ate to her fill, and then grew restless. So I cleared the table and started tidying up the kitchen and loading the dishwasher.

After a few minutes, Madeline came into the kitchen and said, "I'm HUNGRY." I thought that instead of more Cheerios, she should probably have something sort of healthy, something with some protein, like chicken. I said, "I have some cut-up chicken that I would be glad to warm up for you."

She shook her head with a very mournful expression. She said nothing. But then after a moment she looked up at me again and said, "I'm HUNGRY."

She made off toward the pantry and opened it and started reaching lovingly for the Cheerios. I stopped her because I didn't want her killing herself in one night with a toxic overdose of Cheerios.

I said again, "I have some chicken that I can give you, and it's really yummy. But that's the best I can do. That's the only food I can offer you."

This scenario repeated itself about 15 times. Madeline, so mournfully telling me she was HUNGRY. Me, offering her something healthy, again and again. Her, shaking her head sadly. Then, telling me she was HUNGRY again.

She wasn't really interested in my solution.

---

So on Monday night Tom and I met with a priest in the Orthodox church.

We were there to talk about our sad, mopey, post-modern problems with the Orthodox church. We were there to grieve and wonder why God didn't love us anymore. We were there to try to get un-stuck from the very stuck place where we've been for the past several months. We were there — or at least I was there — sort of to feel sorry for myself and wonder why I was such spiritual screw-up.

So I told the priest the saga of our joining the church last year, and of loving it at first, but then starting to drift, starting to question our decision. He listened very carefully and nodded. I finally reached the end of my long emotional story and dabbed at my wet eyes with a tissue.

He waited a long moment and then said, "Well, I understand what you're going through. It's very, very hard to join the Orthodox church. What you're trying to do is incredibly difficult."

And we waited. Personally, I was waiting for him to fire the little silver bullet that would help us clear up all our spiritual problems. The wafer on the tongue that would dissolve this vague spiritual pneumonia that had afflicted us for these past months. I leaned forward so that I could hear him better. I was expecting him to say, "You know, Saint Seraphim the Recluse once said...." or, perhaps, "Here's a book by Saint Mary of Egypt. I think you'll find her words incredibly helpful...."

But we kept waiting. He was offering no silver bullet. Suddenly it became kind of awkward.

He just said, "I know this is very difficult for you. Is there anything I can do to help?"

I said, "Well, I was hoping you could just give us some pointers on how to get back on the right path... perhaps a book or a few words of advice... Just something that we can hang on to..."

And he said, "No, no. There's nothing I can do for you. I'm sorry. This is your path to walk. You have to go through this alone."

At that point I started dabbing my eyes just a teensy bit more. I mean, we hadn't come all this way just to be told by a PRIEST that there was nothing he could do for us spiritually. He was very kind, and very sympathetic, and he told us stories of his own life and the twists and turns his spiritual journey had taken. But he kept saying, "There's absolutely nothing I can do for you. You have to do this on your own."

He said some other helpful things about the Ladder of Divine Ascent, and and about how that terrible internal struggle is sometimes a good way of knowing that you are moving forward on the path.

But he kept returning to the one fact that he couldn't help at all.

This went on for a while until finally I shrugged my shoulders and thanked him and gave him a very weak, half-hearted hug and then made for the door with Tom. We stepped outside the church and I burst into tears again. I couldn't believe that this priest had offered me nothing. Nothing!

The ride home was long and very quiet. Finally we got home. Tom parked the car, looked over at me, and said, "I feel kind of upset with you right now. It seems like you have all kinds of blessings and God has given you so much, but you just keep whining about it and asking why, and you won't just accept all that God's given you. It's like nothing is good enough for you. You just want to feel sorry for yourself all the time, and you don't even put enough effort into your faith to know if it's working or not."

Well, he said it in a much gentler manner than that. But that was his message. And I sat there and I thought, "He's right. I have all these wonderful friends, whose helpful guidance I do not seek. I am surrounded by chances to give my money and to serve the poor, and I happily pass them by. I have these Scriptures, which I read only very infrequently and with the least care. I have so many opportunities to pray, most of which I throw away with both hands, so I can do something more important, such as watch a made-for-TV movie."

And then instantly I thought of Madeline, dear Madeline, whom I love, following me around from room to room, saying, "I'm HUNGRY." And how the food I offered her, which was really healthy, just wasn't good enough for her. And how she just wanted to have the kind of food she wanted, which was of no real use to her body and in fact may have been harmful to her body in the quantities she was seeking, and I thought of how much I loved that stubborn, sweet girl.

I guess a light switched on in my head.

And I think my tears ceased at that moment. When I remembered Madeline, I felt like things maybe would start to turn around, like maybe things are going to be okay now. Because if I love Madeline even half as much as God loves me, that's a lot of love. I think the work for me to do now is to accept the so-called "hard blessings" that God has given me, and let go of this endless craving for the easy path, the path of least resistance, spiritual Cheerios.

I'm not saying that everything in my life is going to be fine now, just a cup of tea, but it did feel like a very large, basic, important truth snapped into place when Tom said that. I feel like I know now how to move forward. And that's a good feeling.

It's amazing and wonderful and humbling when you find that a pint-sized four-year-old with a craving for Cheerios has been instrumental in your salvation. With friends like that, who needs a Volkswagen?