Yoooo Hooooo!

“Here I am, Jonas! Here I am, Jonas” the smiling youthful gray-haired woman called from the podium, like someone trying to catch the eye of a person they’ve come to meet in a crowded airport. She was a Sister of Mercy, and Jonas was Dr. Jonas Salk, the discoverer of Polio vaccine. She was enacting what was in her imagination, her interior knowing, of how the truth was calling out to the researcher, aching to be recognized. I remember this vividly after ten years, and I know why. Not because this she was appealing. Not because she was attractive. Not because she had one of those voices that had a certain warmth, and eyes that sparkled. This middle aged celibate woman stuck in the memory of a happily married, still-in-love-with-his-wife old man because she was playing the role of God, and playing it well.

That God could call to me like my wife called to me forty years ago, with her smiliness, the bounce of her long brown hair, the brightness of her yellow shoes.... Oh, yeah, this is all physical stuff…ohhhh, yeahhh. One of the tough things about focusing on Lent with this blog is that it can be a turn-off to heathens, pagans, the unwashed, Tea Party members, and good, compassionate humanists without whom we would all die. Forget the name we call this calling. Or just call it truth.

What’s the truth that called to you yesterday? Forget about the G word. What’s the truth that you noticed? I noticed as I was trying to yet one more time clean off my desk and empty my e-mail that I’m turning into a woodworker, that most of the stuff there related to my efforts to find a way to do good with wood, to be useful in my enjoyment of it by creating benefit and revenue for those here who work with the poor. I noticed that the same fear slows me down here that did on my job in Detroit – that I may be inadequate to the task, that I’d like to run away from it. But I notice that once I start, it sustains me and the fear goes away.  I noticed that Kathy and Amy were more like sisters than mother and daughter when they went to listen to Diane Rehm at the Traverse City Opera House last night. And I noticed that while I was alone at home, I felt free to weep out loud into a towel while I watched Freedom Writers (click for a link) , and that it really felt good. I noticed that the image that I used in Monday’s blog, that fresh green shoot cutting its way through that dry gray soil sticks with me, makes me wonder what is calling to it, so appealing, so attractive.

Forget names. Something was calling to you yesterday like the truth that called to Jonas Salk, called and called until he “discovered” it. Reflect. And today, watch and listen. Physical stuff.


 FreeLemonadeStand by John J. Daniels is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.