Palm Sunday
A man died at our beach today.
It was low tide, the kind that comes when full moon and solstice coincide -- the kind that pulls the ocean way back to reveal gifts that lie under water. I love that low tide. Normally, I am too afraid of riptides to go in the water. But at low tide, I let myself walk out on the ocean floor and gaze back at the shore that is my home.
Lots of people were out today, enjoying the sun and the beginning of spring. I was inside, trying to catch up on home and hearth after two weeks away. I did not know it was low tide. I did not even notice the police cars and fire trucks until my friend Dave stopped by and asked what was up. We decided to wander out to the beach to see.
At the top of the dunes, we saw coastguard boats in the water and knew it was not good. A panicked woman hurried by, telling me not to let my children go near the ocean. “One minute he was there,” she screamed. “Then we turned around and he was gone!” A twenty-two year old man had been playing football with his friends near the water. No one knew exactly what had happened.
I gathered my boys close and said a prayer. For the man. For his friends. For his mother.
We watched the search for a while. But there was nothing we could do. Eventually, we went back inside and resumed our lives.
One of my sons did not. All day he stood at the beach, watching, waiting. It was not until dinner that I realized how affected he was.
“I just can’t believe it,” he said, looking out at the ocean. “Someone died out there.”
“Let’s go out and pray for him,” I responded, knowing I needed to help him find his way through.
It was almost dark when we got out to the beach. The search had been called off. The beach was empty. As evening turned to night, my son and I stood facing the water, gazing at the ocean we love in silence, listening to the questions that have no answer.
Tuesday
When I woke, the full moon was setting over the ocean. This is one of the great gifts of our lives. A few times a year, if we are lucky, we get to see the moon make its descent at dawn.
I woke the boys. "Something amazing is happening right outside your window!"
Internally, I was hoping that this gift would restore their sense of joy at the beach.
Holy Thursday
Today my sons and I decided to leave our home next to the ocean. For the past year, I have known it was time to move and have been listening for next steps. In January, I became clear that I was being called deeper into the world and deeper into wilderness. For me, that means moving my family closer to their school in Silicon Valley and finding a hermitage in a rural setting. I thought this would happen over the summer.
But yesterday I received news that the rodent situation in my home is worse than I thought. For the past several months, I have been battling a variety of pest issues that I have playfully referred to as plagues. When I heard the exterminators report, I knew it was time to go. Like Pharaoh, I had given up fighting God’s signs. 24 hours later, we had signed a lease on an apartment in Redwood City.
Shortly after signing, I headed to the monastery for my Easter retreat. Here in the silence, with the stress of needing to make a quick shift behind me, I feel the grief of saying goodbye to a place that I love.
For the past seven years, I have lived next to the ocean. How I have delighted in watching my boys jump off the dunes and experience the earth as their playground. How I have loved to sit on the sand, listening. Dolphins, pelicans, seals, ravens and a hawk have been my neighbors. The moon and stars my entertainment. The sound of the foghorn has been like the beating of the mother’s heart. Living at the ocean has been an unspeakable gift.
I came to the ocean seeking healing. I was newly divorced then. It felt as if my world had collapsed and the ground beneath me had disappeared. In the early days, I often woke before dawn to study the lights of the fishermen who floated on the water in the dark, unafraid.
Gradually, the earth returned beneath my bare feet. The ocean healed me.
After the monk washed my feet tonight, he looked up and said to me, “May you always know that you walk in God’s love.”
Good Friday
The starkness of the liturgies and chapel today is striking. The cross and icons are all covered. The afternoon liturgy began with the monks lying face down on the cold chapel floor in veneration. There is no easy Easter here. We walk a long slow journey with death.
This seems to be my year of sitting with death. Last fall, a deer lay down in the yard outside my rural office and died. Through several seasons, I have watched that beautiful animal return to the earth, understanding its graceful decay as a gift and a teaching.
Also last fall, my friend Helen died. During the four weeks between learning her illness was terminal and her passing, she chose to embrace her death as her final spiritual practice. She called in spiritual mentors and friends to help her die consciously. The weaker her body became, the stronger her spirit, until, as her husband says, “she was all spirit.”
Helen’s open-hearted release into death has also been a powerful teaching for me. I, too, want to live in a way that opens my heart and strengthens the love in me so that when I die I am ready to let go into the love that is stronger than death. What if every letting go in life were an opportunity to practice that?
That is what I am thinking about tonight as I sit with Mary Magdalene at the tomb of Jesus.
Holy Saturday
“A sword will pierce her heart.” Holy Saturday vigils.
The fast is over. I want it to be Easter. Instead, there is another day of sitting at the tomb.
I have been working on a collage all morning. At the monastery, I often paste together images from magazines, creating a pattern that flows from a part of me that understands more than my mind. Today’s collage has a heart at the center. “Empty yourself completely…” some words say. “Jesus has conquered death,” say others.
On the right side, I have images of the life that I think is coming in our new apartment in Redwood City. I am having a hard time finding images for the life we are leaving behind. I don’t want to go there. Every time I find an image of the ocean I cry.
It is so much easier to shut all that off and focus on moving forward. Conventional wisdom affirms this instinct. But the Triduum and my spiritual director are clear. Stay with the grief. It is the doorway to Easter.
Today, I am practicing feeling the grief of letting go of what I love. I am practicing opening to the love that is stronger than death.
Night
I am scared. “What if?” the voices say, offering their various terror inducing scenarios. As I lie down, I feel the anxiety that I gave up this Lent.
I try breathing. The anxiety remains.
“God, I am scared. Help.”
Outside, rain pounds on the roof of my trailer.
Easter
At 4:30 am, the monks were already gathered outside the chapel, lighting the fire. It was hard to light this morning. Rain had left everything damp.
Finally, the fire started. In silence, we lit our candles and then processed inside where we listened to the history of salvation in candlelight.
Right before the Gospel, a monk turned on all the lights. Lilies were everywhere.
There is such a beauty to the liturgies at the monastery. There are none of the distractions that come with the cultural celebrations of the Holy Days. There is only meditation on mystery.
The prayers, the chanting and the silence are deeply helpful to me. They feed a part of me that is brave, that is willing to let go and walk into the unknown, the part of me I call Lily.
Home
I am home now. This oceanfront cabin will be that for only a few days more. I feel this chapter of my life slipping away.
My days are full of packing boxes. At night I do a different kind of work with my tears.
This evening, I remembered a dream I had a couple of months ago. In the dream, I was kayaking with friends and family. We were headed to a monastery located on an island, seeking blessing.
When we got there, we took turns receiving the blessing. When it was my turn, the abbess closed her eyes. Then she called over a sign language interpreter, explaining, “This blessing needs to be given in sign.” While the interpreter moved her hands, the abbess translated. “The goddess who lives under the ocean floor where the ocean meets the shore offers you her blessing.”
It’s time to once again let the tides in my life turn. I open my hands, release the gift of this home that I have cherished, and move forward, grounded in blessing.
Joy leads the way.
