In praise of pansies and other miracles in the winter

In praise of pansies and other miracles in the winter

For Yvette

I almost missed them.  Almost.  I was trying to talk myself off a cliff again.  You know the cliffs I am talking about.  It started like this morning as I was watching Davis pack his bat bag and throw it into the backseat on this first day of March.  I was in one of my mental spirals again.  You know the kind of cliffs your mind will fall off sometimes.  My spiral went something like this:

How much longer will I have Davis and will he come back home once he leaves the nest and how do I best mother this child-man and teach him to pour out his one wild life and how do I even pour out mine and am I supposed to really go to graduate school and just how far does forgiveness go and will I live in this house for the rest of my life and what am I going to fix for dinner and I am weary from not enough sleep this week and can I really do my job and will I ever get back on a yoga mat and I really do need to loose ten pounds and I am late for rounds and what if I have gotten it all wrong and what if I mess up and Davis gets sick and all of the dreams fly away and what if my heart is broken wide open again and how do I make the one life I have work and how do I teach Davis to live his life out loud and to make the most of his one wild life and will he recover from his eventual heartbreaks and will he get back up and try again?

And then I saw them.  Sitting there on my back porch with their bright yellow and purple faces shining and smiling right at me.  I had ran past and didn’t notice in the middle of dangling off the cliff.  Then I noticed the brilliant bluebird sitting in the palm of St. Francis and eating and not caring where his next meal came from because the bluebirds know they are so important that the God of the universe feeds them.  Twenty-one days from the first day of spring and spring shows up at the end of winter on a cold, dreary day in March.  I suppose if pansies grew in Palestine, he would have loved them too. 

I think that is the greatest gift a friend gives you.  A friend will give you back your true self.  Friends are so important that the same voice that calmed the storm and raised the dead and told the lame to walk is the same voice that said – “Greater love has no one than he lay down his life for a friend.”  Friendship is one of the greatest gifts a human can receive.  It is bond that transcends common vocations, common hobbies, common interests, and common histories.  It is often a bond stronger than marriage can create. 

“Friendship is being with the other in joy and sorrow, even when we cannot increase the joy or sorrow. It is a unity of souls that gives nobility and sincerity to love.”  Henri Nouwen

I suspect it is the greatest gift we ever give another is our very own self.  It is a paradox.  When we make our own life – our joy, our pain, our hope, our wounds, our loneliness available to others, especially in moments of crisis and especially when we don’t feel as if we can.  When we say,  “I know what you are living and I am going to live it with you.  You are not alone.”  When we do that - we become Christ.   

So for today she gave me back my true self.  The self that is not meant to be anxious for anything, the self that is to have the courage to love the world all over again and again and again, the self that lives in deep gratitude for the gift of this one wild life. 

And I am grateful, ever so grateful for friends, for the souls who will welcome us home, who create space for us to heal, who transform the cold of our hearts.

May all of you, my friends, be as blessed as I am with good friends.

May you all learn to be a good friend.

May your journey with friends bring you the place in your soul where there is kindness, love and belonging and may this change you. 

Treasure your friends.  Be good to them. Be there for them.

All is grace,

Kathleen