“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.”
~ Mother Teresa

At church yesterday, I shared an experience I had had over the weekend. It was one of those blip of a moments that fill our days. This one, however, caused me angst and much contemplation about the ways in which, as humans, we have the power to hurt or heal with a single word.

On Saturday I headed to Target for four items I had written on my list. It had been a full few days. A retreat at Koinonia Retreat Center. A wedding rehearsal and the anticipation of an evening wedding.The fullness of the yet-to-be Sunday morning and Mother’s Day. I was trying to make short work of my needed errands. Getting out of my car I headed toward the entrance of Target, the two, large, bull’s eyed automatic doors greeting me as I approached.

Usually I veer to the right, the ‘In’ door in our culture. But instead I walked to the left and headed into the doors which opened as I entered. Coming out the doors to the left, a man with a minimally loaded cart passed by me and said, clearly and with some force:”Exit.” His words carried disdain, even anger, though I was not in his way and I did not cause him to even miss a beat in his gait. But his one word seared through me.

My crumpled list in my hand, I walked on into the store. But now, all of a sudden, I was filled with shame and hurt and the sense of having done something very, very wrong. I carried on an internal dialogue, trying to convince myself that in the big picture of things I really had done nothing wrong. For heaven’s sake, if this were Great Britain I would have been going in the correct door! I thought about what was going on in this man’s life that he could have felt the need to be reprimanding in such a way.

By the time I had placed my four items in my cart and headed to the express checkout lane(Less than 10 items please!), I had worked it out. Having paid for my merchandise, I headed out the Exit door. Coming toward me, a woman pushing a full cart as if she had perhaps forgotten something, was headed back into the store. “I am so sorry.”, she said. I simply smiled at her and said, “Not a problem.” It somehow felt like the tables had been righted.

Throughout the rest of the day and even yesterday, I thought of how that one word,”Exit” spoken in the way it had been, had had the power to undo me. I began to do a mental rewind of the words I may have at some time spoken that might be as hurtful. When have I found myself frustrated, angry over such a simple thing as entering the exit door? Have I spoken words or shot a glance that had the power to alter another’s day? I pray not but I know I have probably, at some point, done equal damage.

Now two days after this experience I am beginning to see it as the gift it was: a wake up call for civility, for compassion and for remembering to be kind with my words. All my words.

Even those with only two syllables. Like “Ex-it.”

When I open my eyes,
my God, on all that you have created
I have heaven already in my hands.

Serenely I gather in my lap
roses and lilies and all green things
while I praise your words.

My own works I ascribe entirely to you.
Gladness springs forth from sorrow,
And joy brings happiness.”
~ Hildegard of Bingen

Early yesterday evening I drove west of the Cities to our church’s retreat center for a gathering of three different groups from the community. Koinonia, as the center is named, is nestled in the woods on Lake Sylvia. I had been busy all day preparing for the retreat and had thrown my belongings and all I needed in the car, and in what has become my rushed pattern these days, headed west in freeway traffic. I inched along through St. Paul and over the Mississippi River into Minneapolis and finally made my way to the western suburbs. It felt somewhat a triumph.

As the freeway turned to a four lane highway, I began to relax and see the unfolding landscape around me. I had made this same trip in January past snow filled fields and frozen lakes dotted with ice fishing houses. The view was much different now. The soil of farm fields was turned and the rich, black dirt seemed to be itching to grow something, anything. The trees and bushes that lined the roads now sported the tiniest bits of yellow-green buds, that green that only happens in spring. Do you know it? The lakes now glistened with the evening sun, their waters free to move once again after months of being frozen in time, literally. Cows and horses moved lazily in the fields, periodically shaking their bodies against the ever warming air. Birds of one kind or another flew overhead and near the horizon, making their way to a new nest or a familiar home, stopping for a rest on this lake or that. It was like watching life be born before my very eyes! As I drove I felt all the tension and worries roll off my body. I relaxed into my driver’s seat and took in the show.

When I arrived at Koinonia I saw the birders were already out with binoculars. I later saw the amazingly long list of birds they had already spotted within only a few hours. As I unloaded my belongings into the room where I would sleep last night, I could hear the spring peepers singing wildly from the backwaters of the lake. I heard the far off cry of the loon, haunting and melancholy and yet a sure sign of life renewed, of spring’s true arrival. I walked to the lake to see the crystal, clear sheen that reflected the now setting sun. Overhead geese called to one another. More tension sloughed off my pinched skin.

When I went to bed last night, I opened a window so I could hear the peepers and the loons sing their nighttime lullaby. I drifted off to sleep held in the sounds of springtime bliss and slept like a baby. I was awakened by the same recurring melody with an additional descant added by other birds whose songs I do not recognize. It made no difference. Beauty need not always have a name.

Healing comes to us in many forms. This morning as I walked in the early morning dew of the woods, I knew that something had changed within me. All the stress I had been carrying, all my worries for the world, all I am powerless to change, had melted away. My breath was deeper, fuller. My heart was beating slower and, no doubt, my blood pressure was lower.

I had been healed by the Earth and its unfolding. I had been rocked to sleep by a reminder of the goodness of the world. I had been filled with a hope that is ours to grasp each time we reconnect with the rhythms and patterns of Creation. And like my Creator, I too can say, it is very, very good.

Have a blessed weekend……..

This morning I was awakened by the sound of a single voice calling to me from outside my window. With these warmer spring days, we had cracked the window open a wee bit so the sounds of the outside are now more noticeable. My brain had not quite focused on being open to the newness of the day when I heard the single, loud and clear honk of a Canadian goose making its way in the flight pattern that exists over our house. I shook the sleep from my brain and immediately heard the words of Mary Oliver swimming before me:

“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”

I love these words so. They are such affirmation to me. Their clarity and beauty connects me with the world in such a deep way. And to have heard that call while still lying in my bed seemed pure gift. I felt as if my place in the family of things was being announced to me: Get up! Walk into this day with a kind heart and a sense of purpose. Open yourself to the possibilities that are yet to be imagined, yet to be teased out of the minutiae that can become the weave and warp of the every day. This is your life. Embrace it!

All that from one honk. From that one pure sound I was enlivened by knowing that I am in league with Creation in ways that surprise and inspire. I do not have to be good or shout to the world all the wrongs I have committed. I have the task of loving what I love and it is blessed work. I have the job of telling my despair and listening well to the despair of others. As humans it has always been and always will be. The sun comes up and goes down, the moon rises and shines. And here I am. Here you are. At home in a world that holds it all and invites us to wear our humanity like a fragile, silk cloak.

Tomorrow morning may bring the regular, old boring sound of the alarm clock. Or, if I am blessed, the same sound I heard today may be my wake up call.

Hooooonnnnkkkk!

On Saturday night, I had the privilege of hearing our church’s handbell choir in concert. As always they did a lovely job and we were surrounded by the music of bells of all sizes and tones. I think I sat closer to them than I ever have and I recognized once again this crazy, nagging feeling I have each time I hear them play. You see, I came to realize some time ago that this particular form of music pulls on all the control issues I possess. For those who don’t know much about handbell choirs, each person is responsible for only a few notes. As they read the music they are responsible for only those notes and no others. As I watch them I think of all those other notes flying by for which other people…..people other than me…..are responsible for playing. It creates great anxiety in me! To rely on so many others to be ready, to be paying attention, to be listening, to actually play the notes they are supposed to play!

Now of course this says so much about me and not the art form. And yet I am reminded that it does mirror so beautifully the work we do every day. We get up and walk out into the world hoping beyond hope that others are paying attention to the ways in which they drive their cars. We order lunch and trust that the hands that made our sandwich were washed thoroughly. We pick up our phones and dial a number not really knowing how they work, how signals are sent, the many hands and indeed lives that are tied to our ability to call our children or coworker. We pick up a newspaper or read news online praying that the words are true and unbiased, that they are dedicated to providing facts that will help us make sense of our world. Each of these acts and so many more make up the single notes that are played by people we know and will never meet. The notes that make up the music that plays through our days and underscores our lives. Each represents an act of trust that people will pick up the bell for which they are responsible and that they will play.

Taken in this light, I feel my shoulders relax and my stomach unknot. There are bell ringers around me all the time, doing their work, work that I cannot do and for which I am not responsible. These are people whose skills and talents outshine my own by spades and I can trust that they will help make the daily music beautiful. I can also trust that even when they miss a beat or play a note out of rhythm, something or someone will make it right.

And that someone is not me. I have my own notes to play as do each of us. Notes that were planted in us from our birth by One who understands the whole musical score in ways that are mystery to us. Today, with shoulder relaxed and stomach calm,I will pick up the few notes for which I am responsible and will do my level best to play at the right moment, in rhythm and with great feeling. I will listen well to my fellow players and hopefully, with grace and beauty, we will all make music together.

And tomorrow, if we are blessed to do so, we will get up and do the same thing all over again.