She Was There.
It was the high school blood drive. We seniors were getting in line, sleeves rolled up, brave faces on, preparing to fill the vials. Why am I saying “us” seniors? I can’t lie. I was terrified of needles. There was no way I was giving blood. Getting in line? How about not getting in line. That is what I was doing. But I did offer my friend Ty hands on moral support. I told him I’d stand by his side and encourage him through it. I didn’t make it twenty seconds. He faked like it hurt and the next thing I knew I was on the ground. Thirty seconds later there were smelling salts in front of my nose and he was laughing at me while he lay on the table filling up his third vial of blood. A lot of moral support I was!
Years later I was standing in a church singing a hymn. The words were “on Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand”. I remember the words because I also remember berating myself for not feeling solid enough about Christ the rock. I was having an entire dialogue in my head about how faithless I was to be emotionally sinking in sand rather than standing faithfully on the rock. I was standing between two of my new friends. Both were leaders in a ministry and I was feeling unworthy. I did not belong. “All other ground is sinking sand” we sang and Plop. Down I went. Again. Passed out. Smelling salts in front of my nose. Mortified that these two guys were staring down at me wondering what in the world was wrong with me. Um. Nothing? Apparently I pass out from feeling unworthy? In addition, I was filled with even more shame realizing one of them was going to have to drive my car home which meant he would hear how loud I was playing Pearl Jam on the way to church that morning.
I was driving my daughter to school at 3:30 in the morning for her UIL theater competition. I had been down that road one thousand times. So when my body suddenly started panicking down highway 46, I was like, Calm Down, Beth. You know where you are. I talked myself down, calmed my breathing and kept driving. Again with the panic. Then I started wondering. Wait a minute. Where am I? Suddenly I was disoriented and confused. No wonder I was panicking. I was not where I was supposed to be. Then a sign for New Braunfels appeared and I realized I was five minutes past the turn to the high school. I had missed it because things look different in the middle of the night. My body knew though. I just ignored her.
I was so drawn to Catholicism. The mystics, the saints, the disciplines, the practices … it all felt so hearty and rich. I first fell for Catholicism because I was watching a documentary on a saint whose body was said to be incorrupt. She had died, but her body had remained preserved. Without preservatives. BECAUSE of her purity. What? This is a thing? If this was what was possible in this faith, I had to join. I needed to get on board. Maybe this was what I was missing. I was so painfully aware of my “sin nature”, I desperately wanted a way to be cleansed. Good old fashioned conservative Christianity had not done it for me. And I tried. Lord knows I tried. Campus Crusade, Seminary, Bible study, praying, fasting, I even stopped drinking and claimed celibacy. I was walking this walk. But deep inside I knew I was not good. The Bible told me so.
I read the Magnificat every morning like my life depended on it. I clung to that monthly magazine like it contained all I needed for my day. I do believe that little magazine was laden with my deepest intentions for love. One day my girls and I went to sit with Ms. Carol for several hours while her husband got out of the house to run errands. Ms. Carol had Alzheimer’s and could not be left alone. We spent the afternoon with her so her dear husband, her caretaker, could have a break. I brought my Magnificat in case there was a moment to read with her. We all made ourselves busy taking turns talking and singing and sharing with Ms. Carol. I pulled out my little magazine and as soon as Ms Carol saw it she started grunting and pointing, pointing and grunting. She simply had to have that magazine. She barely said anything that day, but what she did make clear was that the Magnificat would be hers. She grabbed it from me and held it tight to her chest. When it was time to go, I asked her if I could take it with me and she grunted NO, pressing it to her! Ms. Carol knew what was what.
I found in Catholicism a way to mortify my body. If Christ could go through the beatings and the torture of the cross for me, surely I could deny my body, gaining self-control over my physical needs and desires. Even Pope John Paul was heard flagellating himself with a trouser belt he used as a whip to emulate Christ’s sufferings and to seek perfection. I remember being so very sad when I read this. If Pope John Paul had to flagellate himself, what hope had I? None as it turned out. At least not in this place.
Merrill was so very patient and kind with me during this quest of mine. “Um, is there something you want to tell me?”, he asked one day when he got home and there was a stack of Catholic books beside me. At the time, I was flooded with the hope that more spiritual disciplines could create more depth and breadth in my faith. As a mom with two little babies, I had trouble staying engaged. The rosary gave me something to say, something to do, something to focus on so I could stay awake and aware. Plus I was so drawn to Mary. And the rosary seemed like a mini portal into her heart.
I was seven months pregnant for the fifth time and had just finished reading The Shack. Books sometimes mark time and send messages. This book plus that pregnancy stirred some very clear realizations. I knew she was a girl. The season before, my sister in law had given birth to a little girl and in an act of faith and love, I gave her most of my girls’ baby clothes. We had just lost a baby. She had joyfully announced her healthy pregnancy the day we returned from our loss. It seemed like a tangible way to choose love. I remember standing in one of our girls’ closets pulling down boxes of baby clothes for her and somehow sensing there would be another girl in our family. One year later, The Shack, time in the mountains and some very vivid dreams brought realizations that she was in fact a girl. I also was realizing that I did not feel safe having her in a hospital. It didn’t make sense but it was a gnawing knowing in my gut. In the last trimester with a history of having delivered four babies in the hospital, I could not figure out what was different now? But the discomfort did not go away. I called a midwife who delivered babies at home and we made the switch. We dug into our savings because insurance would not pay for such a thing and Sandra became our guide. As it turned out, this little chicken was going to be born during a hurricane. None of us could have known that we would not be able to make it to the hospital. But somehow there was a wisdom leading us to stay home. Thank goodness we listened.
Standing at the altar, the six of us bowed our heads, palms outstretched, ready to receive communion, expecting to hear the soft words from the priest “the body of Christ”. Instead, we were shocked to hear a booming voice abruptly ask “Have these girls been confirmed?” When we shook our heads no, too shocked to speak, the priest walked right past all four girls to Merrill and me. I still regret not saying Merrill and I were also not confirmed. My body gasped. No communion for them. Years later, sitting in yet another pew for my daughter’s confirmation service next to three of her sweet friends, all nine of us got to listen to the priest make jokes where we women were the punch line. My anger burned. At still another church, we were determined to figure this out. Week after week, they made it overtly clear that there were requirements needed in order to participate in communion. We just didn’t know what they were. Week after week people would climb over the six of us on their way to the altar. Finally, we asked the pastor how our family could receive communion. He invited Merrill and me to lunch. We specifically asked him several times during that lunch what our family needed to do in order to take communion. My blood pressure was rising. He was avoiding the question. This man was not going to answer. I couldn’t believe it. My body broke. Done. I was shocked someone would work that hard to keep six hungry people from a ritual meant for the world. What in the holy communion. I still drive by that church and get a pang of anger.
I do not understand the science behind chemicals spiking, blood pressures rising and falling, visions appearing or how a body chooses love. But what I do know now is that a body is tapped into a wisdom I need for this life. She no longer needs to pass out, lose consciousness or black out when there is danger. Back then I didn’t know what to do with the messages she was sending. Now, I am better at considering my feelings and trusting my inner voice. I am sad I ignored her nudgings, her whispers, her signs and clues for so many years. But I hear her now. I am listening. She has shown me she is tapped into a knowing that does not need an altar, a steeple or priest. She knew the babies by heart, she was with me when the hurricane came, she smelled the danger and she saw the cruelty. Those experiences were not lost on her. They were recorded on her bones, inside her nerves and on top of her skin. And I am learning to trust what lives inside these five decades of flesh and bones. I found a strength that allows me to fill vials of blood and love and there is a rock inside that keeps on giving. And she keeps leading me home, back home to my sweet self.
