It All Began

DANCE while you can...."I will not stand to the side and allow the MUSIC in
my HEART to fadeaway and die.
I will DANCE to my own LIFE SONG."

Sunday, August 7, 2011

"Change"




Something new I am learning; major change can come in minor steps.
In other words: You don't have to "throw out the baby with the bath water". Just throw out the unwanted water one cup at a time.



It's Sunday morning and I am testing the waters for a major change today. 
I am visiting the faith of my childhood. 


I left the Catholic church years ago to follow the faith of my salvation, then changed to the faith of my  husband. Years later out of desperation and despair over the losing battle of addiction, I announced one day that I had no choice but to make another move or die. 


To this day I have no clue how God did it. BUT my husband went with me to a faith that was way out of his comfort zone and he went with an open heart. We stayed in that faith of my salvation, which is where I finally found the deliverance I was looking for, for 23 years.
Then life changed, my boat sunk and I thought I'd come to the end of all faith. I have been fighting the weekly battle of guilt -vs- peace for nearly 2 years.  At first I would go to church with my family and weep. Then I learned to empty my heart and sit blankly in awful numbness, (but I was there).

Somewhere, deep, deep inside is a longing for the peace that I had as a child sitting between my grandparents at mass. My life was difficult and chaotic as a child. I have few vivid recollections, instead I have drifting memories that come and go like a fog.

But I do remember the road that led to a tiny chapel deep in Louisiana. There were large trees that lined both sides of the road. Over the years they had grown together above my head in a canopy of brown and green security. Like the green blanket I sleep with every night, they brought comfort.
Father Dion was the priest. A small elderly man with white hair, a beautiful smile, soft words and kind eyes. I think of him as elderly because it seemed he was always bent over. But looking back I now see that he was bent over in order to see me, to look into my eyes. It seemed as if he knew that my tiny body and my few years held immense suffering. I don't know if I ever looked directly into his eyes (that is a skill I had to learn by practice), but he reached me and we connected.
I would sit between my grandparents. I was safe. I always wanted to go and never wanted to leave. 



I don't know if I will find that same peace this morning but I do know that at Catholic funerals I always feel at home. I find comfort in the same rituals of my childhood. It is a place that has changed little. Still the same prayers. The same words from the priest still bring the same responses from the mouth of a little girl. "The Lord be with you", "and also with you".  


  

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