Although the calendar showed that it was spring, the season had not yet gotten its footing. Most of April left us feeling tricked, day after day of cold and rain bordering more on winter's edge rather than spring's. Today was clear and cold, with a brisk wind, as I hiked through muddy woods. I was thinking about upcoming mother's day this year; I knew many people who quietly struggled through this day and today they were heavy on my heart. There was a dear friend whose son had taken his life; he was smart, vibrant, and funny. But he had become overwhelmed with the troubles of his life, the heartache. His young life had ended suddenly and tragically, and he had left his mother with a broken and grieving heart. I thought of another; a young man struggling with addiction, it had been a small part of his life, but over the years it was eating up more and more of the happiness, casting long shadows on his wit and charm. These last years had embraced as much heartache as happiness, maybe more heartache. And there was the friend whose kind and gentle mother had disappeared in later years into the confused cloud of Alzheimers. Which parts of our lives describe our lives? We all travel "rough and uneven roads", consisting of good and bad, beautiful and ugly. All of our lives are an enigma, a potpourri of virtue and vice, heartache and happiness. Yet we sometimes get only a snapshot, a moment that we use to color our perception of the portfolio in absolute black or white.

     Those who know us and love us live the stories and antidotes that are told in eulogies. Those are the stories we save, because they reveal the "best of times", but our hearts know the ache of the "worst of times" too. How do we learn to see God and the angels in the precipices? Can we listen and embrace the paradoxical stories of a troubled soul, can we see the light in the heart during the night? The places of the heart where the dragons and lions live can leave us traveling in fear, yet we recognize those dragons and lions live in some space within every heart. Our humanity encompasses so many things, and at one time or another, we each come to know the "poisonous beasts" living well in our troubled and wounded hearts, and in those we love. When we are frightened of the beasts, it is our courage to love that must rise up. "Imprisoning walls become frontiers of new possibility, difficulty becomes invitation and the heart comes into a new rhythm of trust and sureness. There are secret sources of courage inside every human heart; that need to be awakened in us." * It is the encounter with the Beautiful that can bring such awakening, the belief and the hope that we can traverse the landscape of the heart to discover the precipices of light. We can reach past our fear and embrace the place of God and the angels, life, the Kingdom, and light too. It is courage that comes alive. We can only hope, pray, and struggle that this too is revealed to those we love, a glimpse of the beautiful place in our hearts too. Yes, in each sinner is a saint, and in each saint a sinner. I blinked at the bright sunlight as I hiked out of the woods. 

    Merely a week later and I was sitting on a mountain in California with my father. My father with his cane, no longer the athletic, fierce, strong, father of my childhood. Life had etched heavy and hard lines of loss and pain on his face. He spoke in a loud voice, pontificating on his political opinions, peppering his speech with four letter adjectives. Early in the day he had killed a rattle snake with a shovel. By afternoon he had a beer in hand and  was sharing his thoughts on "how this &*! country should be run". I looked at him, looked deep down into the precipices. I wasn't really hearing his angry political commentary now, instead I could see the generosity, love, courage, and goodness spilling out of his heart. In snapshots I remembered the life lessons he had taught me as a young girl, especially how he had shown me how to persevere, to believe and along the way to see God's beauty in the world. The sun was setting and the mountain was cooling. The greens on the mountainside were infused with long purple shadows. I pulled in my coat against the cool breeze. I recalled a woman once telling me that that a wind is the Holy Spirit carrying graces. I felt the beauty and the grace of this moment, an immense love for the complicated paradoxes of my father and a gratefulness for his presence in my life.

    May each of our hearts be touched by the Holy Spirit, graced and carried to the apostles and heavenly cities. I pray Lord, for those I love and those I struggle to love in the midst of dragons. Shine the light on the treasures of grace within each of our hearts, revealing the “immense joy of being human, a member of the race in which God himself became incarnate…”* I want to see the beauty and poetry of hearts shining golden with love "within that little space". 

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